“The national media, which lens a little to the left I could argue …”

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(Read Project Mayhem, Part I here)

When he’s not busy encouraging Massachusetts voters to commit voter fraud to “keep these bastards out,” or condemning “tea party rhetoric” for not “rising to the president’s challenge on tone” while calling Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut,” MSNBC’s Ed Schultz indulges his hobby of swooping into states like Wisconsin and Ohio, becoming an overnight expert on legislation he is only familiar with from having skimmed through SEIU-furnished Cliffs Notes, calling the legislation “racist” while cheerleading union rallies with applause-cuing platitudes, waving his arms in solidarity and then peacing out.

Schultz made a recent visit to Columbus, Ohio in which he had Congressman Tim Ryan (whom I had interviewed hours prior about Senate Bill 5’s alleged confiscation of safety equipment) and Senator Sherrod Brown on the show against a backdrop of union firefighters to whom, during commercial breaks, Schultz yelled that SB 5 “makes me believe Jimmy Hoffa even more that they are sons of bitches!” Throughout the broadcast Schultz and his guests parroted the manufactured mantra that the bill takes away safety equipment, perhaps almost enough times to make it true.

Admittedly breaking the SEIU’s first rule of Project Mayhem, I subsequently interviewed Schultz on camera and asked him to respond to the fact that the bill gives bargaining rights on safety equipment — which the Democrats’ earlier bill didn’t, citing the exact section number — to which he offered a Pulitzer Prize-warranting response: “That’s not what the firefighters are telling me.”

Well Ed, that may not be what the firefighters are telling you the bill says, but it is what the bill is telling me the bill says. When I later asked the author of SB 5, State Senator Shannon Jones, to respond to Schultz’s talking points, she clarified the provision in depth, noting to Schultz that “reading is fundamental.”

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Simon Rosenberg, of the Progressive “think tank”, NDN, went on Fox to parrot Democrat talking points regarding the budget and plans to reform Medicare. Unfortunately for Simon, the other guest on the show, radio host Ben Ferguson, wasn’t having any of it. Watch the money clip.

It seems Rosenberg is more comfortable at places like MSNBC where the host would attack the conservative, in this case Ferguson, instead of trying to calmly moderate the debate like the Fox host did.

Rosenberg was fearmongering. He was also lying. The only budget proposal the President has presented to Congress completely ignored the Simpson / Bowles Commission Rosenberg referenced in the video. That budget proposal was also soundly rejected by a vote of 0-97 in the Senate. Ferguson was right to point out that Democrats have decided to forgo offering any solution to the looming debt and deficit crisis and have opted to just attack – with fearmongering and lies – the Republicans who are offering realistic solutions.

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Progressive website Alternet yesterday published a piece which called presidential contender Herman Cain a “black garbage pail kid,” “monkey,” and other slurs:

As you know, I find black garbage pail kids black conservatives fascinating not because of what they believe, but rather because of how they entertain and perform for their White Conservative masters.

[...]

We always need a monkey in the window, for he/she reminds us of our humanity while simultaneously reinforcing a sense of our own superiority. Sadly, there are always folks who are willing to play that role because it pays so well.

[...]

Herman Cain–an ironic name if ever, and one more suited to a tragic figure in a Harlem Renaissance era novella–is not “blackening twice” as some race minstrels chose to do.

[...]

Herman Cain’s shtick is a version of race minstrelsy where he performs “authentic negritude” as wish fulfillment for White Conservative fantasies.

Alternet describes its mission as such:

AlterNet’s aim is to inspire action and advocacy on the environment, human rights and civil liberties, social justice, media, health care issues, and more.

[...]

We emphasize workable solutions to persistent social problems.

Is the story excerpted below part of Alternet’s “human rights” advocacy? Racial slurs? Is this what passes as “original journalism” from the “award-winning” Alternet?

So because the author, who isn’t brave enough to drop the pseudonym, disagrees with Cain politically, that gives him the right to call Cain a “black garbage pail kid” and a “monkey?”

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The blogosphere is all abuzz over yesterday’s comments from Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, in which he opined about the annoyance of today’s cable news television programming.  Apparently cable news gets in the way of his desire for American citizens to do nothing but worship our government, rather than challenge it.

We need new catalysts for quality news and entertainment programming.  I hunger for quality news.  I’m tired of the right and the left.  There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to FOX and to MSNBC: Out. Off. End. Goodbye. It would be a big favor to political discourse; our ability to do our work here in Congress, and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and more importantly, in their future.

Many are making this solely about the issue of the Fairness Doctrine or of Net Neutrality.  And to some extent, this is true.  But there really is a much larger picture at play here – a transition period to government-run media.

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For the last few weeks, I’ve been finalizing some intensive research and was in the process of writing up a multi-part post that was to be published after the mid-term elections.  One of the installments in the series will focus on the left’s push for a public takeover of the media – touching upon everything from the historical aspect of traditional media’s financial collapse, to the left’s “Media Reform” project and “New Public Media” plan, to the complete portfolio of George Soros’ media investments.

However, in light of the most recent onslaught of attacks against Andrew Breitbart and the Big sites, I thought it might be prudent to extract a few different elements from this future series and publish an early post today.  Because given the concerted efforts to use a variety of media and advocacy outlets to manufacture falsehoods in an attempt to intimidate and silence the voice of conservatives, I thought it important for others to see how –and why – some of these media outlets are connected.  Because it extends well beyond Media Matters, NPR, and Huffington Post.

While the debate continues to rage over the prospect of defunding National Public Radio (NPR) of its federal taxpayer dollars in the wake of Juan Williams’ firing, the left is busy tending to its strategy.  They’ve once again taken to opining about their Utopian notion of a national public media system, hoisting it as the antidote to partisan viewpoint peddling.  And by partisan viewpoints, they mean those that aren’t *their* viewpoints.

The left’s fantasies were further spotlighted by several recent developments in the media industry, only weeks and days apart from one another.

• On October 2, NPR announces $1 million grant from the Knight Foundation
• On October 7, Center for Public Integrity, an often cited source for liberal journalists, announces a $1.7 million grant from the Knight Foundation.  CPI has also received millions in funding from George Soros’ Open Society Institute, including another recent grant of $100,000.
• On October 17, NPR announces a $1.8 million grant from George Soros’ Open Society Institute
• On October 18, the Huffington Post announces the merger of its non-profit journalism arm into the Center For Public Integrity, with an additional $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation for the merger.
• On October 20, Media Matters announces a $1 million grant from George Soros’ Open Society Institute
• On October 26, Google announces a $2 million grant to the Knight Foundation for media innovation

In the midst of this funding blitz, the left quickly summoned its boycotts and attempts at silencing voices against the right: (more…)

If you want to know what “progressive” policies will do to America in the long run, look no farther than the president’s home state. According to the MSM narrative, the economic disaster in Illinois is Rod Blagojevich’s fault. That’s true to some extent, but there’s much more to the story than the incompetence of one man. Despite the recession, there is no good reason that Illinois should be bleeding jobs and that its state budget should be on life support.

The Prairie State – my state – sits atop the transportation crossroads of America, has a rich, diversified economic base and a multi-talented workforce. Less than a decade ago, the state had money in the bank, unemployment was low and the outlook was bright. Illinois even managed to shrug off the mini-recession that followed 9-11 with barely a pause. Then, in 2003, Democrats took over complete control of state government, brimming with progressive policies that – cross their hearts and hope to die – wouldn’t hurt the state’s budget or damage its economy one little bit. Happy days, the bedazzled citizens of Illinois were told, were here again.

Seven years later, the Illinois’ economy is lies in smoldering ruins thanks to the progressive policies foisted upon its citizens by a cabal of Democrats that included then-state senator Barack H. Obama. Illinois ranks forty eighth in the nation in job loss, with over 200,000 jobs lost in 2009 alone and unemployment over eleven per cent. Our leading exports used to be corn and soybeans. Today, our number one export is college graduates, because young adults can’t find jobs in the state that gave them their education. In 2000, Illinois debt basically matched revenues. Now, the state’s total debt totals over $100 billion, almost four times annual revenue. (more…)

“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, not your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”                –Samuel Adams, 1776

Part 1: A Primer, Part 2: Foundation, Part 3: Execution

You would think that everyone wants to be free. You would think no one wants to be ruled by tyrants of any kind. Yet many people in the so-called free world are not only selling themselves out, they are selling out the rest of us, and our descendants. And so many of them don’t even know they’re doing it. They’ve been lied to. Tricked, fooled, played. And the agents of statism intend to keep it that way.

For 100 years the Big Government (BG) loving statists have been trying to convert the bottom-up United States into top-down society. They have managed to bring it very far along this course. There are still some matters they have to resolve, but they are closer than they ever have been. They never sought to win through insurrection because war is too costly and the results of any conflict are unpredictable. They used an approach the Nazis did to great effect in Germany. They gamed the system.

Like our progressive statists, the Nazis came to power legally. They got elected and then, once in positions of authority, corrupted the system and turned it into what they wanted. The old fascists did this in a short amount of time because Germany did not have a LG constitution like the US. Our system makes it very hard to turn the state into an autocratic dictatorship. Those progressives of the ’30s, who were at first enamored of the Fascists in Europe, wanted to take over the US in the same fashion. They had been doing it since Teddy Roosevelt was elected. Roosevelt began a war on corporations, including a bizarre crusade against Coca-Cola. It would echo later crusades by politicians against American industries, demonizing them and making them out to be evil incarnate. (more…)

Two years ago today, William F. Buckley moved on to the great Firing Line in the Sky where he is, no doubt, still debating the wisdom of turning over the Panama Canal with the Gipper. Buckley’s legacy lives on, not only in the remarkable generation of writers that he spawned after he first dared to stand athwart history and yell stop but, in an odd sort of way, in the manner in which some of the liberals he defied over the course of five decades seem to pine for the great man’s genteel ways.

On a personal note, Buckley was one of the two great influences in the creative life of this particular – not particularly humble – correspondent. The other was that irascible Chicago newspaperman/Everyman: Mike Royko. It’s difficult to imagine an odder couple, but Buckley and Royko shared at least a couple of common characteristics. One took them on at one’s peril (and very few ever successfully did so) and neither could be neatly constrained within an ideological box. Royko was classically liberal, but he openly scorned the liberal elite. Buckley became the symbol of the conservative movement, but he refused to let the movement define him, cutting his own path through the ideological jungle when necessary, most famously when he argued for the legalization of many illegal drugs. Agree or disagree, both Royko and Buckley were thinkers, and honest thinkers to boot, who had a knack for expressing their thoughts with the kind of panache that left their readers breathless in awe. (more…)

Howard Zinn, the progressive Marxist historian, has died at the age of 87.  Some choice quotes:

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.

We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.

In war, good guys always become bad guys.

Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals the fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such as world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.

Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.

Your thoughts?