AT LAST: Important Merger Formalized

I guess this makes it official.

Martha Raddatz could not be reached for comment at press time.

What can and must be done about the media

An important post at Ace of Spades deserves our focused attention. Its title -- "We Must Do Something About The Media" -- hints at some trademark snark, but its theme is deadly serious.

I've mentioned this before, but I'm truly alarmed about it: What we are witnessing is the full and seamless fusion of media power with government power.

...The media no longer hides it in their actions. They are fully fused with the Obama Administration and DNC. The only way in which they do hide it is by simply lying when confronted about it: They'll issue a snide denial, then go about doing precisely what it is they were accused of doing.

...it is dangerous and ultimately fatal for democracy for media power to fuse with government power, that the adversarial press is vital.

...The media considers its adversarial function to consist of serving as adversaries to critics of Obama and the Democrats; thus Terry Moran shaming himself by rushing out to ask what right a Senator has to question the Secretary of State on matters of foreign policy.

...This is dark, and dangerous, and will lead to horrors. It always has [led] to horrors before.

...Consider: The government locked up a filmmaker because the filmmaker expressed his free speech rights in a way the president found politically problematic. Not only has the press shown no fears about this, they've actively campaigned for the man's jailing.

That's frightening. Even if you come down on the side that the guy did what he's accused of and all that... to have absolutely no trepidation about the government jailing people primarily for their Speech Crimes? That's something.

...I don't think I'm being alarmist. At every point in history when media power has fused with government power -- whether involuntarily or, for one of the first times in history, now voluntarily -- it has resulted in disaster and misery.

So do we just sit there and take it? I'm no genius, but here are a few ideas for actions that each of us can take:

• If you have a subscription to any newspaper that advances the Statist agenda -- The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe foremost among them -- cancel that subscription. Enthusiastically encourage subscribers you know to cancel as well, even if they have no particular ideological bent. Tell them they can save money by reading the news on their iPad.

• For television, ignore all news programs save those on the Fox News Channel. Your cable box is likely sending your viewing information back to corporate headquarters. So don't give any ratings whatsoever to any of the alphabet channels' news program, or their insipid Sunday Talk Shows, or any of their propaganda efforts. Don't watch any of the Statist media's news shows. Ratings matter -- and each one of us can make a difference.

• Subscribe to Investors Business Daily, American Spectator, and other conservative outlets.

• Support new media outlets like PJTV by signing up or offering financial assistance.

• Don't take your favorite blogs and news sites for granted: many sites offer a voluntary "subscription" donation via PayPal. Even very small donations can help (and, no, that's not a personal bleg).

If you agree, tell your family members, friends and like-minded colleagues about the plan. It's time to stick it to the government's media complex. Each of us can make a difference.

YEP, I REMEMBER ALL OF THESE FAWNING, SYCOPHANTIC ARTICLES WHEN REAGAN AND BUSH WERE INAUGURATED, TOO

Rejected headline for this post: A cacophony of butt-smooching:

Fortunately, the market for hard left advocacy "journalists" is just as sustainable as the federal government's finances; thus, in most cases, we'll be offered the opportunity to wish many of these crackpots a fond adieu.

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT TELL THOMAS FRIEDMAN: "Air Pollution From Cars Is Killing Everyone In Beijing"

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has, on numerous occasions, praised the governmental structure and leadership of the People's Republic of China. To do so, he studiously must ignore Red China's "re-education" camps, its slave laborers, its systematic persecution of religious practitioners, and its controlled economy. The latter requires government approval and intervention for virtually every business in the country and has spurred the growth of a corrupt and dangerous form of crony capitalism.

And then there's the PRC's destruction of the environment:

No one would ever go to Beijing for its crisp air and clear skies, but smog problem in China's capital has, evidently, gotten way out of control.

NPR reported Saturday that the smog in the second-most populous Chinese city was thick and causing people's eyes to burn, with residents being urged to stay indoors...

...It's so severe that the level of pollution was, according to NPR, "literally off the charts," because the U.S. Embassy's smog index stops at 500 and the projected index in Beijing was closer to 800. Things in the 300 or higher range are usually pretty bad to begin with.

The contributing factors to heavy smog? Cars, of course, which have exploded in popularity in the last decade in China, and in Beijing in particular. There have been measures to slow the car congestion, but things like limiting the amount of new vehicle registrations have just made people stand in long lines. And talk offering rebates on electric vehicles sounds like a great idea, until you remember that it's coal producing most of the city's electricity.

Perhaps we should require Thomas Friedman to run the Beijing Marathon before publishing future advertisements for Communism.


Hat tip: BadBlue Car News.

Note Alleging Slave Labor and Torture Found in Toy Made in China

A handwritten note discovered tucked inside a Made in China Halloween kit offers some troubling -- and entirely believable -- allegations.

The note was found by Julie Keith. The emotional letter had been sitting inside the package of a K-Mart 17 ’Totally Ghoul Piece Graveyard Kit” that Ms. Keith purchased a year ago to decorate her home. She did not use it last year. However, this past Halloween, Julie decided to open the box. That’s when she discovered the folded, handwritten note wedged between styrofoam skulls and bones.

Sir: If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.

The letter continues, adding allegations of the horrible conditions under which the laborers are working;

• 15 hour workdays

• seven days a week (no holidays)

• low wages of 10 yuan per month (that works out to about $1.60 per month in U.S. dollars)

• For the record, China Daily reports that the average monthly salary for workers in that country ranges from 2742 to 4672 / yuan per month (or $440 to $750 per month). A salary of 10 yuan per month would be less than 5% of what the poorest regions are paying workers.

The author claims that many of the laborers are there for 1-3 years as punishment, although they were not afforded a trial. And poor work (in the eyes of the supervisors) often triggers torture and rude remarks.

There is also a charge in the unsigned letter that workers are forced to be there in retaliation for being Falun Gong members (something that is not approved by the CCPG – Central China Power Group).

While unverified, the note jibes with many other reports.

The People's Republic of China is a totalitarian slave state.

And yet it is routinely praised by the Left, from Barack Obama to The New York Times' Thomas Friedman. Which provides a perfect insight into their worldview.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

10 DIABOLICAL FISCAL FACTS: What the Talking Heads Refuse to Discuss

I simply cannot comprehend the malfeasance of the media in discussing America's fiscal situation.

This includes the entire spectrum of commentary, from the usual suspects on MSNBC to Fox News Sunday.

10. The President's desired tax hikes -- raising taxes on "the rich", those with an income over $200,000 ($250,000 for married couples) -- would pay for just 8 days of the federal government's operation.

9. The President's one-time, emergency Stimulus package of around $900 billion, passed in 2009, became part of the baseline federal budget and has been spent every year since.

8. According to The Wharton School, "The federal government ran annual deficits well above $1 trillion in 2009, 2010 and 2011... the largest deficits since World War II" as a percentage of GDP.

7. The federal government is spending so much more than it takes in that it is now forced to borrow 42 cents of every dollar it spends. This is an unsustainable rate -- and higher taxes do nothing to limit spending.

6. The Federal Reserve is now buying nearly all (90 percent-plus) of the United States' newly issued debt in order to keep interest rates artificially low. In other words, the federal government is essentially loaning itself money by printing what it needs.

5. Again, according to Wharton, "Rising rates would cause severe problems for the U.S. government. The bulk of Treasury bonds in circulation have maturities of less than five years, which will require existing debt to be refinanced with new debt at higher interest rates. That will increase the government's debt-service costs."

4. Even under a best case scenario -- one in which interest rates gently rise to historically normative levels -- the U.S. will be forced to pay $5 trillion in interest payments alone over the next decade. Under other scenarios, the federal government would simply have to default on its obligations.

3. A recent conference of experts explored the ramifications of a federal default. In short:

Trillions of dollars of losses would roar through the world economy like a tsunami, damaging Treasury investors, including governments, corporations, pension and insurance funds, individual investors and people who own mutual funds. Panic would undoubtedly harm other types of investments as well, including stocks and real estate. And if the government wanted to borrow in the future, as it most likely would at some point, it would have to pay much higher yields to attract investors. As higher rates worked through the markets, state and local governments, corporations, homebuyers and other consumers would face higher rates as well.

2. A Treasury default would be so devastating that the entire financial sector could well be obliterated.

1. In the words of investor Kyle Bass, "The developed world faces a day of reckoning. It is time to act."

Where are the adults?

We face a real fiscal cliff; not the one you hear about from the talking heads, but a collapse that will devastate seniors, the poor and urban centers most of all.

And there doesn't appear to be a single pundit or politician capable of explaining this impending disaster.


Infographic: Addogram.

Get Yer Steaming Hot Larwyn's Linx Blog Widgets!

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BRUISED AND BATTERED: Gee, I wonder why we never saw this photo of George Zimmerman before?

Uhm... it's quite, eh, curious that this photograph was never released before.

A color photograph of George Zimmerman with a bloody, swollen nose taken on the night he shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin last February was posted on the Internet on Monday by Zimmerman's legal defense team.

...On February 26, Zimmerman, who was a neighborhood watch volunteer, shot and killed 17-year-old Martin who was walking to the home in Sanford where he was staying with his father.

Zimmerman's murder trial is set for June 2013.

Zimmerman claims he shot Martin in self defense during a struggle.

"Does it really show what happened that night to George? Yes," O'Mara said... O'Mara told Reuters that prosecutors in May had given him a grainy black-and-white photocopy of the image which was taken in the back seat of a Sanford police cruiser. O'Mara said he received the digital image from prosecutors after repeated demands by his office and he posted it Monday on Zimmerman's defense website.

Al Sharpton and Touréyonce hardest hit.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

IT EXPLAINS ALOT: The Confidence Fairy

Zero Hedge commenter TruthInSunshine has a perspective worth sharing. He explains why no one in a position of power will speak the truth about the financial wall -- not cliff -- that the economy is headed for:

No government agency or business association spokesperson is ever going to speak of the truth of how bad things are in the present, unless they have no choice because incontrovertible proof has already been released to the masses that would otherwise and obviously demonstrate their insincerity.

As long as "official datum" as published by the various governmental and quasi-governmental agencies/bodies allow governmental and business association spokespeople to understate the severity of our real economic crisis, they will, whether Democrats, Republicans or the chief economist for The National Association of Realtors.

No governmental employee (and especially no politician) will voluntarily relay how dire things may be (again, given a backdrop of "official" statistical datum that is inaccurate and relatively misleading they can fall back on) because they wouldn't want to upset the apple cart, cause further distress or even panic amongst the populace or within the "markets," and no business association spokesperson, whose very jobs entail, at least in significant part, a public confidence-building role, will do anything to further dampen the confidence that ... hope remains amongst potential consumers of their products (e.g. would a spokesperson for the NAR really come out and say that existing homes are selling quickly because inventory is being artificially constrained by GSEs and federal reserve policy and also due to federal reserve monetary policy that has a huge % of listed homes being purchased by investors for cash in an attempt to produce yields in a yield-starved economy - BECAUSE of federal reserve monetary policy? What impact would that have on the confidence of conventional, prospective existing home purchasers, who might then realize there is no true present price discovery and that another leg down is more than possible?).

In other words, they lie because our economy is dependent, in quite a large degree, on an illusion that is often referred to as the "confidence fairy."

If those people who still have the means to purchase a particular service or good feel confident about the security of their own jobs and the current & likely future state of the economy, they're more apt to go ahead and dig themselves into more debt or pay cash to purchase that service or good, regardless of the accuracy (and realism) of their "confidence level."

Conversely, if they don't feel confident about the security of their own employment situation and/or the current and likely future state of the economy, they're more apt to refrain from purchasing that good or service, and save instead, in preparation for what may lay ahead.

And this is why, without exception, throughout history, the masses do not understand there is a crisis until well after it has already begun, and they've already committed to many purchases, indebtedness and other forms of dis-saving, that they wouldn't have committed to had they known accurate information sooner.

Hence, the "confidence fairy," which governmental employees, politicians and business spokespeople all actively perpetuate in their own methods and by various tactices, is a serial and mass killer of efficient markets and rational economic behavior (as it severely distorts essential economic information that is relied upon by economic and market participants)

As Monty Pelerin so succinctly puts it, "21st Century politics sees no need for truth."

EXPOSED: The Real Tea Party Platform

Yes, the fabric of our society has unraveled to the point where the following principles are reviled as "extreme" and "right wing" by antique media and the punditry class:

Thousands of years of civilization have taught us the paramount importance and wisdom of individual sovereignty, private property, self-reliance and limited government. These are the precious gifts our country's founders bequeathed to us.

Now, in Washington, we have corrupt and craven politicians who stress the sovereignty of government, collectivism, reliance on handouts and the need for an unconstrained government.

But we Constitutional Conservatives are the extreme ones, right?


Hat tip: MOTUS.

HYPOTHETICAL FRONT PAGE: If the New York Times had bothered to report the news in 1943

Hat tips: Ace o' Spades and American Digest.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST D VS. R CAMPAIGN ISSUES: Sad.

Radio host Joe Pags compares the messages of the two campaigns and just shakes his head:

Let’s face facts. Democrats gained in the House of Representatives, the Senate and the chief Democrat in charge was re-elected after one of the worst four year periods in American history, economically and constitutionally. How does that happen? Republicans/Conservatives (which are not necessarily interchangeable terms — but, we’ll lump them together for the sake of this column) gave voters credit for being smart while Democrats assumed they’re not. Let’s break down what Obama, Pelosi, Reid, the Obama SuperPACs, et all were saying for a year and a half:

• Republicans are prosecuting a war on women
• Romney only cares about his rich friends and Wall Street
• Romney is responsible for the death of a woman by somehow giving her cancer
• Romney specialized in closing down businesses, laying people off and outsourcing jobs — especially to China
• Romney is a liar. All he does is lie. And, after he lies, he lies about the lies he told.

• Republicans are trying to outlaw contraception
• Republicans are trying to close down Planned Parenthood to stop women from getting cancer screenings
• Republicans want to put all Latinos on buses and send them back to Mexico
• Republicans think rape is okay — and women should just stop talking about it
• Republicans all own stock in oil companies and are forcing gas prices up
• Republicans want to give rich people a tax break and make the poor and Middle Class to make up the difference
• Romney hates half the country (47%)
• Romney will end Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

Only problem with that list is, not one bit of it is true. Republicans/conservatives assumed everyone hearing this list of Democrat/liberal talking points would know it was completely false. They gave the American people credit for being smart enough to know better. Millions are and do — but, unfortunately, more millions aren't and don't. Here’s a list filled with the absolute truth about the last four years:

• Gas prices doubled
• Obama said no to the Keystone XL Pipeline
• Obama sent billions to Brazil to drill there
• Food prices have soared
• Unemployment is higher than the day he took office
• Obama apologized around the world for the United States of America
• His DOJ refused to prosecute voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party
• Obama promised to cut the debt in half in his first four years — has doubled it
• Obama will now cut military spending
• Obama refuses to answer questions on what happened the night four Americans died in Benghazi
• Obama has used Executive Privilege to continue stonewalling on Fast and Furious
• Obama has bragged about bypassing Congress repeatedly
• Obama has sued states for passing immigration laws
• Obama has sued states for passing Voter ID laws
• Obama and the Dems forced through Obamacare by lying about abortion and raising taxes
• Obama ran on a platform to raise taxes in his second term
• Obama blew billions on failed energy companies
• Obama has grown government to its biggest size in history
• Obama told Russia he can do more after the election
• Obama told NASA to include Muslims more
• Obama flip-flopped on gay marriage
• Obama is forcing religions to offer contraception even if it goes against their beliefs
• Obama is the most vehement supporter of abortion we've ever had in the White House

These are all facts. That's just a short list of what this wannabe dictator has done in four years and Republicans/conservatives know how outrageous this administration has been and made a bad assumption that the American people were smart and would know how horrible these things are and this administration has been. Bad assumptions.

Americans love great actors, entertainers, people who smile and come off as sincere. They also react positively to pandering — as long as it’s well-disguised. Romney should have, at every opportunity, called Obama out on that list. He didn’t. Every time Obama called him a liar, Romney should have hit him back with, "are you out of your mind? You..." and list the failures and dictator-like moves of the last four years.

What Ds/Ls have perfected is the art of the con job. Obama and his minions are confidence men and women. They con the American public with what most want to hear. They win the election, then do the exact opposite in the hopes of expanding the scope, power and dominance of government over all of us. Time for the other side to do the same thing.

Sad, isn't it?


Hat tip: MOTUS.

Creaky, Partisan, Antique Media Finally Wakes Up: "President Obama has a problem with independents"

And the owners of The New York Times and The Washington Post wonder why their papers are bleeding out?

President Obama has a problem with independents. And it’s not a small problem.

In the last three releases of the tracking poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News, Obama has trailed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney among independent voters by between 16 and 20 percentage points.

That’s a striking reversal from 2008, when Obama won independent voters, who made up 29 percent of the electorate, by eight points over Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

For months, independents have been breaking for Romney by double-digits, yet only within the last couple of days has vintage media seen fit to report this inconvenient truth.

Now even if Democrats match GOP turnout -- which is unlikely -- the margin of independents breaking for the GOP are going to make Nate Silver look like Nostradumbass. Just like 2010.

But that's why they're called "vintage media".

SMELLS LIKE DESPERATION: Krugman, Reich resort to name-calling, denial when confronted with reality

As if binders, Big Bird, bayonets and dunce caps haven't sufficiently embarrassed Democrats, the half-pint nitwit named Robert Reich, a former Clinton crony and full-time Leftist crank adds to the classy repartee:

Not all Republicans are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, or xenophobic. Only 73% of them are.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) October 27, 2012

Here's another mature take, this one from the loathsome troll Paul Krugman.

Gee. That's convincing.

Meanwhile, back in the little land we like to call "reality", the anger of the American people is becoming palpable.

Yesterday's seven-day Gallup tracker showed Romney increasing his lead overnight by two points -- 47-50% to 46-51%. The last time Romney was below fifty in this poll was almost two weeks ago, on October 14. Since the move to likely voters, Obama has yet to reach 50% in Gallup and hasn't even been able to reach 48% since October 1.

...Today's three-day Rasmussen tracker shows Romney leading 50-46%. That's a one-point increase over yesterday's 50-47%. Romney also increased his lead by two points in the Rasmussen tracking poll of the eleven combined swing states. Today the former Massachusetts governor sits at 51%, while the former community organizer languished at 45%. Those six-points represent Romney's best lead yet. Quite incredibly, Obama led this poll by three points ten days ago. That's a nine-point swing towards Romney.

Oh, "Doctors" Reich and Krugman, I'm sure the unraveling Benghazi scandal will dramatically improve turnout for Democrats.

Write it down: 2010 is going to look like a warm-up compared to what's going to happen on November 6th. That's why I've been using the hashtag #Beatdown2012, and I encourage you to use it too.

By Wednesday morning, Messrs. Krugman and Reich will have badly soiled their Depends.

SPOT THE TREND: Nate Silver Edition

Jay Cost asks, "What inferences would you draw from this picture?"

I draw three, myself:

• According to Nate Silver, the odds of Obama winning every state just rose to 96.345%
• According to Taegan Goddard, the President is on a huge roll
• And according to Paul Krugman, QE3 is already a tremendous success

The Quote is Fake But the Schedule is Real

Spotted at the invaluable White House Dossier:

Say, wasn't Wisconsin supposed to be a Blue State and locked up for Obama? *

At HillBuzz, Kevin DuJan's assessment yesterday aligns with the increasingly defensive nature of the Obama campaign:

As I write this, Democrats are moving the firewalls back into uncharted territory. The Obama campaign has already abandoned North Carolina…and Virginia and Florida are next. Mitt Romney is going to win all three of these states. Surprisingly, as of today, Obama’s also given up completely on Colorado too. I think the Frank Luntz focus groups in Las Vegas after the second debate are a good indication that Nevada is lost to Obama as well. The political maps are still giving New Mexico to Democrats but I have a hard time buying that... I think Governor Susana Martinez will deliver her state to Romney in the end.

My own home state of Ohio is not a tossup. I’ve written before that the thing you need to know about Ohio is that is has correctly voted with the winner of the presidential race in every election since 1960. Ohioans vote with the zeitgeist…and that energy is all going towards Mitt Romney. Ohio, the heart of it all, the Buckeye State, will be in Romney’s column just under three weeks from now.

That means Democrats’ new firewall of defense against a complete and total blowout are pushed back to Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Hey, could one of you guys do me a favor and check up on Nate Silver and make sure he's okay?

HMMMMMMMMM: 47 Percent.

Spotted on Teri's Twitter feed (@SoCalGirl):

CBS has the latest Gallup poll data, but suffice it to say that Nate Silver's latest models show a more troubling trend for Romney:

Adding this "spillover" effect into the mix, Obama leads comfortably in Michigan, 165% to Romney's -65%. Similar trends appear in IA.

Silver's models also predicted with a high degree of accuracy that I will be eating at Arby's tomorrow.

KRUGPRESSION: Single Graphic Obliterates the Obama-Axelrod-Cutter Economic Talking Points

As Investors Business Daily puts it, President Obama's case for reelection rests on five economic claims, every single one of which is false. Every. Single. One.

Paul Krugman, Taegan Goddard, and Cher hardest hit.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

FORWARD: New York Times reports a 'pitched battle' just occurred between U.S. and Afghan troops

What in hell are we doing in Afghanistan under this administration? That's a rhetorical question, because no one knows, least of all the man in the White House who has fundamentally transformed the Middle East:

Shahidullah Shahid, the spokesman for the governor in Wardak Province where the fighting occurred, said the deaths came “after a clash ensued between two sides following a misunderstanding.” An Afghan official, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to release details, said that a mortar shell had landed amid the American unit, killing a soldier and a civilian contractor and wounding several others. The Americans thought it came from a nearby Afghan National Army checkpoint on a hill overhead and attacked it with small arms and rockets, killing three and wounding three of the seven soldiers there, the official said.

The Middle East is a disaster zone -- and with Iran moving unchecked to complete its nuclear weapons -- the reelection of Barack Obama would be a catastrophic mistake.


Update: Obama Administration Blames “Friendly Fire” Attacks in Afghanistan on US Troops.

Full disclosure: I added the picture of Hillary Clinton to the screen-cap.

YOO-HOO, ANTIQUE MEDIA: You figured out yet that everything the White House told you about Benghazi was a lie?

Stephen Hayes does the rundown, which can be summarized as follows:

• Ambassador Susan Rice lied on five Sunday talk shows last week, saying that the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens was not "premeditated or preplanned".

• Ambassador Susan Rice also lied about Stevens' security, stating that " two of the four Americans who were killed were there providing security."

• White House Press Secretary Jay Carney lied that the attacks had nothing to do with the anniversary of 9/11.

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lied as well, indicating that an anti-Islamic film was the cause of the non-existent protests in Benghazi

• Hillary's State Department lied; first downplaying the possibility of 9/11 terror attacks and then scrubbing its website to remove its horrific mistake

• Clinton also lied to Senate Republicans, claiming they did not have details of the terror attacks when they were instead revealing those details to The New York Times

• President Barack Obama also lied, echoing the same falsehoods for days on end

The facts: There was no protest in Benghazi. There was only a planned, premeditated terror attack on the U.S. consulate. The attack was initiated on the anniversary of 9/11. And two heroic ex-Navy SEALs -- who were not part of Ambassador Stevens' security team -- jumped into the fray and died protecting him.

This is a scandal. And even Sixties media is going to have to cover it.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.