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  • Fox News, Oh My!! (updated 23jul2010)

    George Rebane

    ShirleySharrod The Shirley Sherrod saga has reached the silly season.  On RR, and probably many other blogs, the howls of how Fox News “snookered” the country and its government into an unjustified termination of the woman from her Dept of Ag job has reached hysteric heights.  The comment threads stand as a permanent witness.

    The timeline of events turns out to tell another story, a timeline that by regulation the FCC requires broadcasters to maintain of content that they air.  Let’s take a look.

    – On 27 March 2010 Ms Sherrod makes her famous NAACP speech and video.  NAACP has the full video of the speech.
    – Early April internet commentator Breitbart gets a copy of the video, and sits on it.
    – Week of 12 July 2010 the NAACP announces its draft resolution that alleges the Tea Party movement as containing racist elements and proceeding toward a racist organization.
    – 19 July 2010 at 0818EDT Breitbart posts the now infamous video segment of Sherrod’s speech.  The WH finds out about it, briefs Obama who, as a minimum, does nothing to halt the intended firing of Sherrod because she will be “on Glenn Beck tonight.”
    – By mid-afternoon on 19 July the Dept of Ag places three separate cell calls to Sherrod, in her car, demanding her resignation, and finally gets her to pull over and transmit her resignation on her Blackberry.  She has been fired.
    – 19 July 2010 5-6pm the Glenn Beck show airs on Fox with no mention of Sherrod or the incident.
    – 19 July 2010 in the evening after Glenn Beck’s show, commentators O’Reilly, Hannity, van Sustern all cover the firing (announced on an Atlanta station, CNN?) and the Breitbart segment.
    – 19 July 2010 about 2100, Fox News interrupts Hannity to confirm the firing of Shirley Sherrod.
    – 19 July 2010 2355 (almost midnight) the NAACP “cheers” the WH firing of Sherrod and fully backs the decision.

    Quite a day.  And, of course, the leftwing media and blogs started screaming for the heads of Breitbart and Fox News way before the sun set that night.  The comment threads from the left across the country have ranged from the thoughtful to the vile, but have uniformly condemned both Breitbart and Fox News for journalistic malfeasance.

    There apparently is much confusion in the liberal ranks about the difference between commentary and objective news reporting.  Commentators of all political hues picked up on the Breitbart posting during the afternoon of 19 July.  The WH, which doesn’t consider Fox News to be a real news source and has given its imprimatur to the ‘Faux News’ label that is used today by most collectivist outlets, apparently gave the highest credence to every blogger it encountered that afternoon and hip drew the decision to get Sherrod out before the evening news cycle.

    The above timeline is a matter of record that can be reconstructed at will from the FCC archive.  What should be especially interesting is to review the original Breitbart video post, and then make a straight-faced case that that segment was sufficient for any kind of precipitous action, let alone a very public dismissal, by national institutions supposedly run under adult supervision.

    [23jul2010 update] In a discussion with KVMR News Director Paul Emery today, he told me there was evidence that Fox News wrongly attacked Ms Sherrod on the air before she was fired.  The evidence he emailed me is on this MSNBC program.  The indictement starts with a Fox News clip which begins with the newscaster saying, “Breaking news tonight … “, indicating clearly that it was broadcast after the afternoon firing of Ms Sherrod.  The rest of the MSNBC program presents numerous other Fox News clips with anchor Rachel Maddow tying it all together in a sequence that somehow omits the needed timeline to nail Fox News.  In fact, all the clips shown seem to be of the post-firing evening programs.  In trying to get to the bottom of who did what when, does someone have any time related material of what Fox News broadcast before the afternoon firing?  If Fox News screwed up and then covered up, I want to post it.

    But true to form, Ms Maddow, a handsome looking woman with a mouth like a razor, comes across convincing her viewers that Fox News fired Ms Sherrod.  Maddow is good, I almost believed her myself until it suddenly occurred to me that there was something in the middle called the United States Government and the Obama Administration that may also have had a hand in it.  Instead, Maddow makes out that the government was a sock puppet in which Fox News had its hand.

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  • What a day! (updated 22jul2010)

    George Rebane

    It’s hard to put all this together.  Dept of Ag staffer Ms Sherrod got unjustly condemned by the NAACP, and then fired by the White House after President Obama was briefed on the matter.  Now after looking at NAACP’s full video, everyone rushed to back pedal, apologize, and then Obama ordered her to be rehired.  Ag Secretary Vilsack spent some considerable time in front of reporters falling on his sword.

    Meanwhile the leftwingers in chorus and perfect key blamed the whole thing on Fox News.  If Reagan was identified as the ‘teflon President’, then I don’t think Dupont has yet invented the frictionless cover that can match what Obama has pulled over his administration.

    Another revelation today was that Obama’s stimulus monies go to fund only projects that pay the workers union scale whether they belong to a union or not.  This adds an automatic 20% to the taxpayers’ bill, and removes the competitive advantage of union-free companies.  Somehow no one on the left is dunning their media for not reporting this.  It was the White House's discredited Fox News who had to break this story.  Remember Fox News, the outfit that other real news organizations were told to shun, and, apparently the news organization that the White House most listens to if they want to find out what’s really happening out there.

    Piling on were the dirt bag members of ‘Journolist’ – the now-shuttered leftwing outfit of ‘opinion based journalists’ who conspired successfully through emails to divert the nation’s attention from  Obama’s relationship with the Rev Wright by publishing arbitrary and scurrilous charges of racism against various Republicans.  Tonight we also heard NPR’s Mara Liasson distinguish that group’s membership to also have ‘objective journalists’.  But they leave it to us to puzzle out who is on first.  Like with Climategate, someone ought to write a book.

    All of this makes commentators like me on the internet remind everyone again that we are not journalists.  Journalism has been a self-preening and unexamined fraternity for too long.  The only 'profession' in still lower esteem in the public eye are politicians and the lawyers, cadres of whom are now stumbling over each other rushing to represent Ms Sherrod.  Journalism’s few members who can still stand to look in the mirror should find a new word to describe what they do – calling yourself a journalist will no longer serve.

    [22jul2010 update]  Fred Barnes, of JournoList’s cited targets of opportunity, wrote a piece in the 22jul10 WSJ.  His words bear on my recent posts on journalists and support assessments on what the profession has become.  In a telling paragraph Barnes also covers racism, another recent topic on RR.

    What was particularly pathetic about the scheme to smear Mr. Obama's critics was labeling them as racists. The accusation has been made so frequently in recent years, without evidence to back it up, that it has little effect. It's now the last refuge of liberal scoundrels.

    He concludes that “it was sad to see what journalism, or at least a segment of it, had come to.”

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  • Fred and Margie’s Odyssey

    George Rebane

    Fred and Margie Buhler are established pillars of our community.  They volunteer and serve on boards, commissions, and organizations to the benefit of all who live here.  Recently they took a leave (here) from the Nevada County Friends of the Military, an organization they helped found, packed up their magnificent fifth-wheel, and headed overland to Alaska.

    BuhlerHumpback 

    Their great northern odyssey began with some fits, starts, and detours, but soon their noses were pointed north and off they went to the land of the midnight sun.  Both Fred and Margie are excellent photogs and have the equipment to match their talents.  They immediately started a trip blog and began posting their adventures accompanied by lavish picture galleries of the places, scenery, and wildlife (see photo above) they encountered.

    Jo Ann and I are fortunate to count them as friends, and have been in regular email contact with the intrepid travelers.  As their route took them deeper into Canada, their travel blog’s posts became a veritable National Geographic account of the country they were passing through.  The photography was especially something to look forward to as they took time every few days to publish another chapter of their odyssey.  To me it seemed that Fred and Margie’s audience was too narrow – in a sense they and their adventures belong to all of us.

    I asked Fred if he and Margie would mind sharing the Buhler illustrated trip diary with RR readers and the rest of the community.   They graciously consented, and so here is the link to an excellent dose of vicarious adventure.  Put it in your favorites and enjoy!

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  • CNN continues as a forum to the ousted …

    George Rebane

    CNN Everyone who follows what’s happening in the country knows that Mark Williams and the Republican-owned Tea Party Express was ousted from the Tea Party Federation of which the Tea Party Patriots movement is the largest member.  Mark Williams was accused of racist remarks he wrote in response to the recent NAACP resolution about the Tea Party movement.  (more here and here)

    What is now a concern to the TPP is why CNN continues to give Williams air time to argue his case.  The answer is fairly obvious; as a liberal voice CNN knows it can damage the TP movement by continuing to broadcast interviews with Williams.  The audience not in the know about the structure and make-up of the TP movement can therefore be convinced that its accusers of racism are on the mark, and therefore they can chalk the whole TP ball of wax up on the Ku Klux Klan side of the ledger.  Yellow journalism comes in many hues.

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  • Rent-a-Government

    George Rebane

    SEIU Hey, it’s the new wave sweeping the country.  More and more cities and counties are hiring out their core services to neighboring jurisdictions and private enterprises.  Most of these measures are driven by runaway public sector compensation packages that the local electeds just let get out of hand, some like Maywood, CA (see here) came to grief through just plain malfeasance, and others saved the day exercising fiscal prophylactics.

    Tamara Audi writes in ‘Cities Rent Police, Janitors to Save Cash’ –

    After years of whittling staff and cutting back on services, towns and cities are now outsourcing some of the most basic functions of local government, from policing to trash collection. Services that cities can no longer afford to provide are being contracted to private vendors, counties or even neighboring towns. … The move saves cities budget-crushing costs of employee benefits like health insurance and retirement. Critics say contracting means giving up local control and personalized services. … Cities say they have little choice. Municipalities across the U.S. will face a projected shortfall of $56 to $86 billion between 2010 and 2012, according to a report from the National League of Cities.

    Our own Nevada County Supervisors just passed a resolution to have Recology, a waste management contractor, increase its services at the local county dump or, more accurately, our ‘transfer station’ since the stuff eventually gets hauled away to a distant landfill.  They figure this will save the county about $75K a year, and these days every penny counts.  I guess we can file this little item under fiscal prophylactics, which file, I’m happy to say, has been well added to over the last several years.

    Unfortunately, looking at the wider horizons, these cost saving measures are coming a day late and more than a dollar short for most places.  I’m sure each of the affected jurisdictions had their own bell ringers who brought the pilfering of the public purse by the public service unions to the attention of local voters.  As were my colleagues and I (e.g. see my columns in the online Union) here in the foothills, they also were shouted down by their local know-nothings, and charged with falsely accusing the selfless public service employees of bankrupting the hands that fed them.

    The important thing to keep in mind is that these same progressives have learned nothing from such developments, and continue their opposition to fiscal responsibility at every turn and at all levels of government – tax, borrow, print, and spend.   Those who oppose such social philandering are accused of polarizing the country.  The alternative is to walk off the cliff with them arm in arm.

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  • Who is a Racist?

    George Rebane

    We recently took a look at an operational definition of Socialist; this is an attempt to serve up the same treatment for ‘Racist’.   The notions of racism and racists have been bandied about in the public forum with ever increasing frequency since the Civil Rights Act of 1957.  Had we been playing racist paintball instead, I suspect that almost all of us would have a splatter or two that hit us from more directions than we can count.  Calling someone a racist has become a national pastime to the point that the label is now almost irrelevant for understanding.

    People 

    The respected American Heritage (unabridged) Dictionary defines ‘race’ as –

    1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
    2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution.
    3. A genealogical line; a lineage.

    And ‘racism’ is defined as –

    1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
    2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

    ‘Racist’ is not explicitly defined, but it is pretty clear that a racist is a person who believes in or practices racism as defined above.

    (more…)

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  • Rage, Concern, and Opinions for Hire

    George Rebane

    HiredStriker You’ve heard of the old custom of hiring mourners to walk behind the hearse loudly wailing their ‘sorrow’ about the dear departed.  Well, the unions have now adopted that approach for putting pickets in front of establishments they don’t like or agree with.  They advertize and hire unemployed non-union people to carry signs, holler, shout, and generally act as if they were the genuine article instead of an impersonation of the aggrieved union member (more here).

    The unions’ argument is that if the picketed company can hire non-union workers, then the union can hire non-union picketers.  Interesting little piece of logic that.  The hired non-union workers are on the job for the dual purpose of making money for themselves, and for producing goods or services for the hiring company.  Both parties to the deal are principals of their own interests.

    Not so with the union’s new hirelings.  Its represented members are nowhere in sight.  Their surrogate disappointment (rage?) is present and visible/audible in the form of mercenaries expressing faux agitation who actually “don’t care” for the issues at hand, and are there because “it’s something to do while you find something better.”  They are not principals, and they usually get paid minimum wage plus a bit.  (Maybe they should also strike for union scale wages instead.)

    In former times one was taught to believe that the protesting people with signs were there voicing their own opinions and concerns, and they were doing it at a cost to themselves.  They themselves were the ones denied work, or working conditions, or wages, or whatnot.  And they expressed that by being there to personally communicate those desires and frustrations.  Should these stand-ins be required to wear some kind of identifiable marker so that the intended onlookers are not fooled?

    In this new age of entitlement mentality, it seems that even during recessions there are classes of American workers who will not do certain kinds of work.  These union members know their rights to have better jobs and higher wages, and they are quite satisfied with more desperate Americans and even illegal entrants doing all that unacceptable work.  Now it seems that the unions have given rise to yet another line of such employment to attract people from south of the border.  Is this not a land of opportunity or what?

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  • Reconquista Preview

    George Rebane

    Maywood, California – please start with this report from the LA Times.

    MexOverOldGlory Now read this more fully detailed report below by syndicated radio commentator Roger Hedgecock.  The Hispanic promoters of Reconquista (here and here) still believe that America and Mexico are separated by an easily crossed chain link fence instead of a cultural chasm that has developed over centuries.  (H/T to RR reader for this.)

    ==========

    Boasting a population that is 97% Hispanic, more than half foreign born, and 40% illegal, the Los Angeles County, Calif., incorporated city of Maywood has achieved the Reconquista goal. It is now as lawless and chaotic as any place in Mexico . Maywood is a warning to every city and town in America .
     
    The Maywood City Council announced this week that after years of radical policies, corruption and scandal, the city was broke and all city employees would be laid off and essential city services contracted out to neighboring cities or to L.A. County government.
     
    How did this happen? Until recently, Maywood was the model for “brown power” politics. 

    (more…)

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  • Washington Parasitics

    George Rebane

    The progressives in Congress keep rolling over the country like a cloud of locusts.  Next week President Obama will sign his ‘finance reform’ bill that just passed Congress.  The legislation will do nothing to secure us against the kind of financial calamity we went through, but will create another very expensive and large government department, and make us uncompetitive in the world’s financial markets.

    CelebratingDisaster 

    Fannie and Freddie are untouched and continue to make and guarantee disastrous loans.  The legislative goads to irresponsible consumer borrowing remain in place.  The causes of the current recession remain politicized and unstudied.  Remember that the ballyhooed financial commission empanelled to figure all this out and then recommend new legislation will not even issue its report until after the election.  When the Dems figured out they may lose the key to their congressional steamroller, they exposed their hand and said ‘Hell, let’s get done what we were going to do anyway, commission report or no commission report.’

    This 2,000 plus page monstrosity is an iceberg, the part we see is already bad and the parts that will come to light in coming months (years?) are guaranteed to be worse.  Our financial industry was supposed to be the great hope to fill in for American manufacturing that has and continues to go overseas.   Now that possibility will go by the board.

    (more…)

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  • The Alinsky Administration

    George Rebane

    ObamaChange2 If free men and women are allowed to write history in the coming years, this administration will be recorded as the most destructive to American sovereignty and the quality of life of its citizens since independence was declared.

    At this time over 55% of Americans judge President Barack Hussein Obama to be a socialist.  They join their assessment with that of world leaders ranging from the recent Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd through Hugo Chavez to most of the EU heads of state.  I do not agree with them, and believe that evidence is mounting that will show his true colors to fly with those of his political mentors, primarily those of the communist revolutionary Saul Alinsky (1909 – 1972). 

    But actions speak louder than words, and his success in fundamentally transforming us from a market-driven capitalist country to an opposite, which only our now-proscribed Judeo-Christian God knows, are telling the tale.

    The recent recess appointment of the post-socialist (see ‘Who is a Socialist?’) Dr Donald Berwick to become the commissar of almost one fifth of our economy – yes, it will be bigger than Obamacare – confirms the intent and direction of this president’s hopeful change for the United States.  The below appended direct quotes that underline Berwick’s overall political philosophy and his intended structure of the nation’s command healthcare system are taken from the 15jul10 WSJ column by Daniel Henninger.

    Please read them carefully and make sure that the focus stays on Obama and not Berwick.  Obama can replace Berwick with any number of likeminded commissars that match the ones with whom he has already lined the halls of the White House.  Saul Alinsky lives.

    (more…)

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31 comments on Fox News, Oh My!! (updated 23jul2010)