- Media enacts DNC talking points on blaming tea party for congressional gridlock.

- Jay Gray, the reporter who got sauced with Sandusky’s equally creepy attorney as a way to win an exclusive interview (and was later arrested on DUI charges) may have been axed from the beat. The New York Post reports:

NBC’s Jay Gray may soon be taken off the Jerry Sandusky story, after he was arrested for DUI earlier this month …

… we’re told he “was kicked off the story” and left Pennsylvania this week. Another insider said Gray was on a family vacation, and the network “hasn’t made a decision” if he’ll continue to cover Sandusky.

- NatGeo writer says God is intolerant. Take it up with Him.

- New footage shows Ron Paul may not have stormed out of CNN interview after all.

- Congress calls on Twitter to block the Taliban.

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There was an interesting exchange between Jake Tapper and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney earlier this week. Just a short while after Carney proclaimed that the President would “not rest until everyone in America who wants a job has a job,” the White House announced that the President will be taking a nine-day August rest in Cape Cod.  This means that Obama plans to have unemployment fixed within the next two weeks or his “not to rest” promise dropped very quickly even for this President.

Tapper decided to ask Carney about the contradiction.

Jake Tapper from ABC News asked Carney if the vacation was appropriate.

Jake Tapper, ABC News: “You said the President will not rest until the joblessness and the economy are worked out, but the President is obviously going on vacation…. Is there any concern about the impression that the President going to Martha’s Vineyard for 9 or 10 days might leave on the American people? And also, if this is such an important issue for Speaker Boehner, for Harry Reid, for President Obama, why the R&R?”

Jay Carney, WH press secretary:... I don’t think Americans out there would begrudge that notion that the President would spend some time with his family. It is also, as I think anyone who has covered in the past, either in this administration or others, there is no such thing as a presidential vacation. The Presidency travels with you. He will be in constant communication and get regular briefings from his national security team as well as his economic team. And he will of course be fully capable, if necessary, of traveling back if that were required. It is not very far.”

I don’t begrudge the President from taking a vacation either, except the timing does seem to be a bit inappropriate. Also the man who defended the President’s vacation, Jay Carney, bashed President Bush for taking one ten years ago. (more…)

In the wake of the passage of Boehner 3.0, ABC’s Jake Tapper has shifted into some hardcore revisionism that would make the guys at the Ministry of Truth proud.  He reports that the addition of the balanced budget amendment language that secured the bill’s skin-of-its-teeth passage ruined the chances for the failed version 2.0’s passage through the Senate:

Democrats close to the negotiating process say that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has made his deficit reduction legislation a non-starter in the Senate by adding the Balanced Budget Amendment.

A case could be made that the previous incarnation of the Boehner bill might have become law. Let’s say come Monday no compromise legislation was close to being successfully negotiated, and the previous Boehner bill had passed and the Stock Market was tanking. Despite 53 Democratic Senators signing the letter saying they would oppose the bill, despite the president’s advisers having formally recommended that he veto it, there still seemed a chance it could become law. A last chance, but a chance.

Yeah, a case could be made for that notion – a really crappy case.   The outlines of the newly coagulating conventional wisdom – that Boehner 2.0 would have passed the Democratic Senate and gotten President Obama’s signature, but that 3.0 never will and thus the Republicans are to blame – are becoming clear.  However, to buy this nonsense requires dropping the last few days’ worth of Democratic leaders’ unequivocal statements rejecting 2.0 down the memory hole.  For example, as Tapper’s own ABC News reported by quoting the Senate majority leader: (more…)

This is utterly revolting:

U.S. lawmakers said Sunday they would consider a request by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to formally condemn a Florida pastor’s decision to burn the Koran, after the act triggered deadly riots in Afghanistan.

Note that once again it is being said that one act – the burning of paper – “triggered” the deadly riots. Not the ideology nor the people who committed the acts, of course. Reid flat-out says that Terry Jones caused the murders — murders committed at the hands of other people. People apparently so simple-minded that they cannot think for themselves and cannot possibly know the difference between right and wrong. Headlines in newspapers conveniently omit the actual murderers.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid repudiated pastor Terry Jones for touching off the chaos with what he called a “publicity stunt.” Jones had earlier threatened to burn the Koran, but then shelved the plan until last month. The burning attracted little U.S. attention at the time but was used as a rallying cry in Afghanistan.

"Freedom of speech is a great thing, but we're in the middle of a war."

“This was an effort to get some publicity for him. He got it. But in the process, 10-20 people have been killed,” Reid said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Asked whether Congress could pass a resolution condemning it, he said, “We’ll take a look at this.”

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Oh, it’s the beginning of the holiday season so I am full of positive feelings and nice thoughts so it’s time to give credit where credit is due. Maybe I’m just full of turkey, but either way optimism is in the air.

Spending 30 years in local TV news has made me pretty cynical about the reporting. Much of what I have seen over the years has been documented here on BigJournalism and I have barely started getting into the silliness I have witnessed. The stories designed to scare women 18-54 into watching the next newscast and the foolish “investigations” into who might be stealing your recyclables from your curb before the refuse men get to it. Yes, the November ratings period just ended and local TV lost its mind once again. Not to fear, the February “book” is right around the corner.

Occasionally local TV news does a story that deserves recognition and when those moments happen they should be acknowledged. Jonathan Humbert of KLAS TV in Las Vegas uncovered  a “clean energy” bust in Nevada that cost taxpayers 8 million dollars. Stimulus dollars were used on the project and there were high hopes that wood chips would provide green energy, rehabilitate prisoners and – I’m guessing somewhere in there somebody professed that this project would help Save The Planet.

Of course, it did none of these things and this fraud could’ve/should’ve been spotted from the start.

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These days, the biased leftist slant of the media is more apparent than it has ever been. They are spinning madly, increasingly frantic with fear of those super scary Tea Partiers and oh-so-terrifying conservatives. And when you add Sarah Palin and race-based identity politics into the mix, it becomes a perfect storm of unabashed — and unbalanced — leftist water carrying.

The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen is the latest to exhibit just how unglued the Left and the media, being concentric circles on a Venn diagram, natch, have become. Newsbusters points out that in the article titled “Attack on Michelle Obama shows Palin’s ignorance of history,” Cohen comes to the inane, and typically leftist, conclusion that Sarah Palin “could not be the president of black America nor of Hispanic America.”  Um. Sure, I’m no swanky-pants Washington Post columnist, nor do I even have the vast experience of a community organizer from which to draw, but I’m fairly certain that the presidency isn’t segregated.

Can’t let pesky facts stand in the way of a hit piece, though, can he? How does Cohen form his brilliant – and sure-fire entre into a good cocktail party this weekend – hypothesis?

Because Sarah Palin dares to mention the following in her new book:

In her new book, she reportedly takes Michelle Obama to task for her supposedly infamous remark from the 2008 campaign: “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.” [...]

Huh. Again, I’m no expert, but it seems to me that Michelle Obama actually did say that.

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[klaxon sounds]

NANCY PELOSI:  Red Alert!  Damn!  Get to your stations, people.  Moving to DEFCON 1—imminent loss of the House.  Steny—what’s happening?

HOYER:  [points to computer screen] Look here, Commander:  concession rumors, rising in the blogosphere.  We’re shooting them down as fast as we can, but some are getting through.

PELOSI:  Stay on it.   Commence firing at their launchers.  Anything else?

HOYER: A Fox News recon team continues probing our perimeter.

PELOSI: Probably O’Reilly’s unit. Keep him off me. Tim?

KAINE: Skelton [MO], Spratt [SC], and Dingell [MI] report taking direct hits from precision-targeted spots, sir.  They’re requesting additional air support.  Uh, Commander, we don’t have the resources to . . . .

PELOSI:   I know.  Triage Grayson [FL], Driehaus [OH], and Perriello [VA].

BILL CLINTON: Ah’d think twice about Grayson, Nan.  Feisty sucker, that one.  Give him a little more time.

PELOSI: [aside to Kaine] Who let Clinton in here?

HOYER:  Eliot Spitzer from CNN’s Parker Spitzer is on hold, sir.  Might be worth a few minutes of your time. (more…)

Looks like Democrats got the memo.

Last week I worked for Liberty.com and covered a protest at Sharron Angle’s office in Las Vegas where a dozen MoveOn.org protesters showed up to go after the Chamber of Commerce for taking foreign money and buying TV ads during this election campaign. Of course, there is no proof of the foreign money, but the accusation is there and that’s the main thing that matters.

So far, the activist old media, to its credit, is not buying the Democrats claim. Certainly, they could be a little more forceful in refuting it, and mocking it. I’m suggesting Saturday Night Live do a skit where the Democrats go after Girl Scout Cookies because of a possible infiltration of foreign money. They sell 200 million boxes of cookies a year, there has to be some foreign money in there somewhere. Possibly, maybe, could be, might be.

Democrats have reached a new low in going after Republicans because it really is all they’ve got. They don’t want to talk about the economy, jobs, a failed “stimulus,” and a very unpopular “healthcare” bill. The media says they love to see candidates “stick to the issues” and ignore the foolishness, well, this is a great opportunity for the next three weeks for the media to “put up.” Make the Democrats stick to the issues of this election and focus on what the voters want. (more…)

The Bush Tax Cuts are a great tool that the left uses to set up the “us vs. them” platform, with “them” invariably being the super wealthy. There are a lot of misconceptions regarding the Bush tax cuts, all of them deliberately propagated by none other than Obama and pals. Dana and her fantastic crew over here at BigJournalism can tell you all about them. The biggest lie of them all is that these tax cuts will only affect the wealthiest two percent. To hear Harry Reid’s spin on it, only the folks with monocles and meerschaum pipes need fear this administration. In my quest to debunk said myth, I headed down to Leland International in Grand Rapids, Michigan as part of my multi-part video series on the Bush Tax Cuts. I chose Leland Int. because it’s a truly small business, the owner is passionate about his work and above all else, he has two daughters… and I’m desperate.

Behold, the face of the heinous two percent. Surprising? Well, it shouldn’t be. If you’ve been following the administration’s crawl towards redistributive change, you know that the effects of repealing these tax cuts won’t be isolated to the super wealthy. Instead, they’ll be coming to your towns, businesses and eventually your very own homes. Remember that when you vote.

So according to Maureen Dowd, we’re seeing a rising tide of vicious bullying this political season – the kind you might see in high school, when “teenage tormentors” would “spread rumors that you were pregnant.”

Oh how I hated that.

For Dowd, these new “Republican Mean Girls,” are angry, aggressive women who are angry and aggressive. And mean.

Why not just call them bitches?

Anyway, to the irony. Here Mo laments the evils of smearing women – right before doing essentially the same thing. In a way, she becomes that cliched head cheerleader who always supports the loutish jock. “You better leave him alone, or I’ll say you banged the gym teacher under the grandstands!”

Funny thing is – I did. I always did.

But Dowd’s biggest blind spot? She writes this column only a week after Meg Whitman was called a whore – and – after the California NOW chief said “whore” was an apt description. (more…)

The left-driven media in these final days before the election is making every last ditch effort they can to discredit one of the largest political movements in American history, the Tea Party. Meredith Vieira on the Today Show did her very best to throw Michele Bachmann off of the “you’re a social conservative bigot by association” cliff.  Vieira first tries to get Bachmann to denounce the Tea Party as “losing their way” because they supposedly took a stance on some social issues. Bachmann corrects Vieira so Vieira tries to play the “guilt by association” game with Bachmann. It’s interesting how conservatives are constantly forced to answer for all comments that all conservatives make but no one held Harry Reid accountable for Howard Dean’s view on the mosque. When the liberals disagreed over the Ground Zero Mosque nationally, where were the interviews asking them to denounce the each other’s positions?

Joy Behar later references the Vieira interview and shows total ignorance when it comes to Bachmann. Again, Behar tries to hold Vieira to the same standard that Vieira held Bachmann and it still didn’t take with Behar’s guests. Behar then goes off on Bachmann’s opposition to Obamacare and completely loses all form of sanity. She maniacally proclaims over and over again that Bachmann is against children. Behar really tries to argue that Bachmann, the woman who has had at least 23 foster children as well as children of her own, is anti-children. Behar not only insults her viewers by her lack of research on criticizing a candidate but she also insults and diminishes the children that Bachmann has cared for. I suppose it’s too much to expect a reasonable interview from Behar when on The View Behar shows she isn’t even familiar with one of the most cited CNN polls concerning the Ground Zero Mosque. Not to mention the fact that she stormed off stage in pseudo disgust on national television. (more…)

It’s been 50 years since the famous Nixon/Kennedy debates first hit the airways, and Democrat Harry Reid hasn’t seemed to learn much about being on TV.

Two nights ago, Reid, with his 24 years of experience in the US Senate, squared off against his Republican challenger Sharron Angle. Reid looked dazed and confused at times, Angle, a relative political novice and grandmother looked confident and poised. Reid would never look at Angle–except for at their introduction, not once that I saw did he look over to even give a glance to his opponent. She addressed Reid, looked at him often and told him exactly what she thought and what the people of Nevada thought. Like the debate of 50 years ago, if you watched it on TV I’m sure you got one impression, for the few who may have listened here on radio in Nevada you may have gotten another impression. Either way, Sharron was impressive.

Reid was also seen often fumbling with his papers and taking notes. Angle spoke from her heart. There were nerves, but did I mention this was a Reno grandmother taking on the most powerful person in the Senate?

As for the substance, the two could not be more clearly divided. Angle made it clear that this is a battle between larger, more intrusive government and smaller government dedicated to liberty for the people. At times she got specific and direct.  “Man up Harry Reid, we have a problem with Social Security,” quipped Angle at one point. Reid played the typically evasive lifelong politician who could not defend his foolish comments of the past, like, “this war is lost,” when talking about a pre-surge Iraq while soldiers were still fighting and dying in the battlefield. (more…)

While Harry Reid and Sharron Angle have been going toe to toe (they are tied in the polls) there is a “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate, Scott Ashjian, who wants his 15 minutes of fame. The problem for Angle is that Ashjian’s 15 minutes of fame could cost her the race.

Scott Ashjian

There was no “Tea Party of Nevada” until Ashjian created it and the media relished the novelty. He has never been to a Tea Party event and has not been endorsed by any Tea Party out there so the left loves that he could help give Reid six more years in the U.S. Senate by people mistakenly voting for the “Tea Party” candidate. Speculation has it that Reid is behind Ashjian’s candidacy, but that has not been proven. All Ashjian can do in this race is save Harry Reid. Certainly nobody with any real Tea Party affiliation would ever want that to happen.

Now there are the audio tapes.

The Chairman of the “Tea Party of Nevada,” Syd James (it is basically a party of two), arranged a meeting with the Angle camp under the premise that Ashjian would drop out and endorse Angle (Ashjian’s name would still be on the ballot). Ashjian has claimed that it was Angle who arranged the meeting, but James assures me that it he arranged it and he’s sorry he did.

Ashjian wore a wire into the meeting and covertly taped the conversation with Angle. James said he had no idea that the meeting was taped and would’ve never done it had he known Ashjian was going to tape it. If you listen to the tapes, understand their surreptitious nature and understand the context was that Angle thought Ashjian had come bearing gifts of an endorsement. If Angle made a mistake it was trusting Ashjian, but since James arranged the meeting, the Angle camp was trusting James, who is a highly respected doctor in Las Vegas.

As a result, James feels used by Ashjian and has told me he will resign from his position with the “Tea Party of Nevada” and endorse Angle. When’s the last time you heard of the head of one political party (if you want to call the “Tea Party of Nevada” a party) resigning to endorse another party’s candidate less than a month before the election? (more…)

An audiotape has just emerged on the website of the Las Vegas Sun, capturing Sharron Angle, the Tea Party/Republican candidate, in private conversation with a third-party spoiler candidate, Scott Ashjian:

You can listen to the audio here.

Some choice quotes:

The Republicans have lost their standards, they’ve lost their principles…..Really that’s why the machine in the Republican Party is fighting against me…..They have never really gone along with lower taxes and less government…

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Say goodnight, Barry, Nancy, Harry, Barney et al.:

Base Jumping:

Californians are left with a deeply unsatisfying choice for the U.S. Senate this year. The incumbent, Democrat Barbara Boxer, has failed to distinguish herself during her 18 years in office. There is no reason to believe that another six-year term would bring anything but more of the same uninspired representation.

Naturally, the San Francisco Chronicle doesn’t like Carly Fiorina either. That, however, can be filed under “Reaction, Knee Jerk.” This is the newspaper that’s long been considered by Democrats as nothing more than a satellite campaign office. The import of its declining to endorse Boxer, especially in this election, cannot be understated. The editorial says as much.

It is extremely rare that this editorial page would offer no recommendation on any race, particularly one of this importance. This is one necessary exception.

Rarely, if ever, has so much been at stake for progressives in America. They got the president they wanted. They got a powerful Speaker of the House from one of the most progressive districts in the country. And they got what they thought was going to be a decades-long mandate. Twenty months later, it’s all disintegrating. (more…)

I like Harry Reid personally. I’ve known him and his family for almost 30 years and I actually like them. I’d never vote for him in a million years, but personally, I have no problem with him or his family (A side note, Harry’s son, Rory is running for governor and won’t use his last name—he’s Rory2010.)

Which leads me to why we vote for the Congressfolk that we vote for. I’m going to vote for the person who will most vote like me. It’s as simple as that.

The activist old media works hard to make elections about minutia, the little “he said, she said” garbage that make the media what it is. They love that stuff for a few reasons, it gets ratings, it usually fits their agenda and it makes them cash, lots of cash. If campaigns are about petty little things like what a candidate did in high school or what they said in grade school or who their Junior High gym teacher was, then it costs lots of money to counter that garbage with TV ads. Ding, ding, ding—follow the money. (more…)

Democratic National Committee

Minutes, Oval Office Meeting

Sept 1, 2010

MEMBERS PRESENT

Tim Kaine, Chairman

Howard Dean, Chairman Emeritus Idiotis

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, DNC mascot

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker pro tempore

Harry Reid, Majority Leader

Senator Charles Schumer

Katie Couric, Network Liaison

Eric Boehlert, Media Matters

Keith Olbermann, DNC Cable Guy

ALSO PRESENT

Rahm Emanuel, WH Chief of Staff

Michael Moore, fabulist

George Soros, DNC Sugar Daddy

President Obama

John Zogby, pollster

James Clyburn, CBC observer

Unidentified Hamas Observer

Proceedings:

Chairman Kaine called the meeting to order at 7:00 p. m. in the Oval Office after aides fetched a booster seat for Mr. Kucinich and removed American flags from the room per request Mr. Moore and Mr. Soros.

President Obama left, pleading a golf date. (more…)

Remember when we had leaders who spoke from the heart and from conviction, instead of reading words off a TelePrompter and dancing to the tune of Congressional leaders?

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