The Populist candidate and his small donor myth

Not even scratching the surface regarding the donor fraud suspicions, an independent organization has determined that Barack Obama received exactly 1 percent more in small donor donations than George "failed policies of the past" Bush did in 2004. The popular media meme was that Obama - the people's candidate - received over half his money from small donors. More lies folks, from our horrificly in-the-bag for the democrats Main Stream media. As all this information comes in after the election you wonder if the duped Obama voters get it. Ah what's the difference, their main source for news, the MSM, certainly won't being sharing it. And HuffPo and MoveOn ain't bringin' the noise about it either.

Not in the NYT, WaPo, LAT or BosGlobe

Here's a story that is very telling about how things are going in Iraq and you won't find it in the typical Democrat/Obama talking points press.

Apparently eighteen females in northern Iraq associated with Al-Qaeda in Iraq suicide bombing cells turned themselves into Coalition forces on Nov. 26.

Americans think we have a free press. We have a press that declares it presents "all the news that's fit to print".

I don't think my fellow Democrat and liberal friends are stupid, but they sure are gullible.

No mercy for Chuck Turner

The FBI photographed Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner allegedly taking a $1000 bribe. The man is in some serious trouble with the Feds. He'll probably go down. You begin to wonder if these FBI stings are entrapment and whether the guy should be cut some slack. But then I remembered this story that absolutely made my blood boil at the time.

Turner called a press conference to unveil some photos he had discovered that proved US military men were raping Iraqi women. Pretty far reaching stuff for a city councilor but Chuck's always been a grandstander. The Boston Globe, eager to put the Bush administration and American military men in as bad a light as possible, jumped on the story and even allowed the photos to be held up by Turner in their photo of the press conference. Of course, the Globe never vetted the facts in the case and guess what? - all the photos were fake and were taken from a pornographic website.

I hope Chuck loses his job for the $1000 bribe, but he should have lost it long ago for this vile trick he played on the men and women who have served honorably in Iraq.

Change. Or is that just the jingling in your pocket Part 4

President-elect Barack Obama may consider delaying a campaign promise - to roll back tax cuts on high-income Americans - as part of his economic recovery strategy, two aides said on Sunday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081123/pl_nm/us_usa_obama_taxes

If I had voted for Obama based on the promises he made I'd begin to think I was duped by a classic chicken-in-every-pot politician. I'd begin to wonder if he got his name "The One" based on the number of campaign promises he will actually keep.

Change. Or is that just the jingling in your pocket Part 3

I think it was Dionne Warwick who sang..."Promises, promises this is where those promises promises end.." First it was Obama supporters helping take down Prop 8 and now this. I'm not sure that Obama is going to win the gay vote in the next election.

A Republican who gets it

Doug Bennett is running a (hold your hat there GOPers) "grassroots" campaign for a City Council seat in the city of Boston. Of course a Republican winning a political office in Massachusetts these days is as likely as your 401K allowing you to retire before you hit 80. Undaunted however, he's knocked on 26,000 doors since May and the election isn't until next November. He calls, sends letters and has face to face meetings with potential voters.

Repubs have the reputation of staying at arms length from the hoi poloi - preferring brie and Chardonnay to Cheez Whiz and a beer, but it appears giving the recent drubbing at the polls, a new approach may be needed. Doug here may be on to something. If you feel that the media is likely to pull a Palin on you, get out there and meet the peeps. Could work.

It's a year away, but we're going to keep an eye on this guy.

My voters are more stupid than yours

Isn't that what the trailing candidate is hoping for when asking for a recount? After all, the only votes that can be caught at this point are for the voter who didn't fill out their ballot correctly. An errant pencil mark that might show a stupid (can't think of a kinder word) voter didn't fill in the correct bubble. And then it becomes a fight over what was the voter's intent (holy crap are we a nanny state or what?) . Anyway, surprise, surprise early recounting shows that - ding - yup Al Franken's voters are more stupid than Norm Coleman's.

Coleman fans (I'm one) don't despair just yet. Turns out most of the typical Republican counties come late in the count - December 1st - 3rd.

A Divorce of Convenience

You read it here first. My whacked out theory surrounding the vetting of Hillary for Secretary of State goes like this.

In order for Hillary to be offered the job - Bill's past and more importantly to my theory, his plans for the future are undergoing some incredible scrutiny. His contacts internationally, his charitable causes internationally and of course his sordid past may raise eyebrows as to Hillary's neutrality as Secretary of State. Apparently for her to be offered the job Bill will have to disengage from all his international activities including very lucrative international speaking engagements. Tens of millions of dollars and lots of fun for Bill are at stake. So....I predict that they will have a divorce of convenience to allow Bill to "continue with the important international charitible efforts and to provide the transparency necessary for Hillary to bring her talents as Secretary of State to the people of the United States" My quotes. Sounds crazy I know, but in this crazy new world can you deny the possibility?

Okay, I'm stepping away from the keyboard......

So you don't think the media had a powerful effect on this election

The video found at this web site and the accompanying Zogby poll data of over 500 Obama supporters is jaw dropping. I'm actually depressed over this.

Considering the power that the media has in this country we should all be concerned. Very concerned.

Change. Or is that just the jingling in your pocket, Part 2

A hat tip to National Review Online


Here’s some change that supporters of President-elect Obama may not want to see: all of the policy commitments on specific issues have been removed from his transition Web site.
On Nov. 7, global health advocates noticed that some of the details of Obama’s “fight global poverty” statement had been removed. Specifically, the site no longer promised to fully fund debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries or provide the full U.S. contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Activists already were concerned, since boosting foreign aid was the one thing Obama mentioned during the campaign when asked what proposals he’d have to scale back due to the faltering economy...
By this morning, all of the issue-specific pages on the transition site had been removed from the agenda section. In its place, a statement that mentioned details but provided none at all: “The Obama Administration has a comprehensive and detailed agenda to carry out its policies.”

A discovery that Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews et al will conveniently forget to mention.

Hate Bush all you want, but no one ever had to cleanse his websites or campaign papers of promises that he had made to get votes.

Apparently we weren't imagining things

Howard Kurtz of WaPo taking a stab at regaining some personal credibility with this article. Sorry, Howie, talking about it after the fact doesn't exonerate you or your pals.

Maybe it'll help you sleep better, though.

Franken win or Franken lose - I can't decide

Not because he has any redeeming qualties. He has none. But I wonder if Franken winning under what already appear to be very questionable pre recount tactics wouldn't be a good thing. The ACORN sympathetic Secretary of State has allowed for 5 different after election night "adjustments" to occur to Franken's total - all of which increase his total thereby reducing the 700 vote lead to 200 for incumbent Republican Norm Coleman.

If this is indicative as to how the Secretary of State is going to adjudicate any voter intent issues in the recount you can bet Norm Coleman is toast. This loss linked with the Stevens apparent loss in Alaska and we have the 60 vote filibuster proof Senate margin. This may be a good thing. I think the drunk with power Pres, HR and Senate will take us extremely far left. The pain won't last long, this wacked out government will guarantee a move back to the center and a big pick up for the Repubs in 2010.

Plus funnyman Franken will serve up some real moronic statements for us all to laugh at. That is if Barney Frank's latest act gets stale.

At least the WashPo is talking about it

The topic of this blog - journalistic integrity, is under siege and has been for awhile. You simply can no longer trust that you will get a balanced look at anything anymore in the Main Stream Media. For the second time now in the last two weeks the Washington Post has allowed their ombudsmen/women to take a retrospective look at the WaPo's coverage.

It isn't pretty. The annoying concept buried not so subtley in this article is that you just can't find quality conservative writers to balance out the overwhelming number of liberal writers. Journalism after all, it contends, draws people (liberals) who want to change the world. Presumably Republicans are drawn to money grubbing occupations and weekend security guard jobs at Gitmo.

The body of the article at least lists a number of incidences that have come into question. It is by no means a complete list and as expected, it is a list of the least offensive of blue journalism's biased missteps. The final comment by Deborah Howell suggests there is hope.

"One more factor will kick in soon. After Obama is inaugurated, he will be the authority the news media challenge. It happens in every administration."

I'm not holding my breath on that one.

More global warming coverup

This is becoming a weekly occurence. First, it was "let's call it climate change" since the globe has been cooling for nine years. Then, the nonsense about polar bears when in fact their numbers have doubled since the beginning of the 20th century. With each passing day more and more prominent scientists are coming forward to cast doubt on the concept of anthropogenic global warming. Now, with literally hundreds of millions of research dollars doled out to various pseudo academic "research" organizations the need for findings to be pro global warming is getting greater. The pressure to find the next global warming scare meme is almost too much for these stressed out science warriors. Thus, the need to cheat the numbers would become inevitable. Turns out the "hottest October on record" is just another big lie. And the Arctic ice melting. More BS.

Stay out of my yard

Joe Wurzleberger aka Joe the Plumber will probably say this the next time a presidential candidate tries to engage him in a conversation in his own yard. Turns out if you "speak truth to power" as Joe did in asking Obama why his tax increases would be so punitive to small businessmen you become an anti-democrat villain who needs to be excoriated by the press as a n'er do well. Ohio, Joe's home state, apparently is filled with state officials sympathetic to Barack Obama and tried hard to do their part to embarass JTP by digging into his private life by illegally accessing his records - through six different state agencies! Never have so many (Ohio agencies, MSM, ACORN, illegal foreign donors) done so much, for one presidential candidate, illegally.

I hope he's worth it.

Obama will get my vote on this

Clinton for Secretary of State? Right on! I think she would be great. She's very knowledgeable, a high profile person (to show we take this stuff seriously) and can definitely play the hard ass when necessary. I'm all for it. This reminds me, however, of how very unfair the press was to Condi Rice - who is at least as bright as Clinton and was forceful when necessary. It is very difficult to carry yourself with respect and confidence (and be taken seriously) when your own press corps is sniping about you all the time. That was just one of the shameful injustices that the 4th Estate perpetrated on the Bush administration.

What one party government looks (and smells) like

Massachusetts, occasionally called Taxachusetts, also home of the Big Dig - a highway project that cost American taxpayers 16 Billion dollars .. leaks hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a month and its inferior construction caused a roof collapse that killed a commuter.. is all Democrat. Democrat Governor, both US senators Democrat, 10 of 10 US House Reps Democrat 154 of 160 state reps, 36 of 40 state senators. That puts it in the 95% Democrat category.

And it is rife with scandal. A state senator under investigation as a sexual predator, another state senator accused of stuffing bribe money into her uh, clothing. Speaker of the House suspected of illegal dealings with a software company. This list could go on and on. And believe me, it's only the tip of the iceberg. When one party controls the entire governmental workings of a state can you imagine what goes on behind closed doors? Unbridled greed and mismanagement of the citizens taxes is my guess. No checks and balances. It's no surprise that the governor is in panic mode trying to cut costs as a skyrocketing budget (increases 4 times the inflation rate the last two years) threatens to collapse the state economy.

Stay tuned. What happens here in Massachusetts will certainly start happening on a grand scale in a few months.

$75 Billion more to make bad cars

Just heard this morning on the radio - will try for a link somewhere - that the average United Auto Worker earns $81 an hour (including salary and benefits) compared to non-union workers at some foreign manufacturers located here in the US of $31 an hour. Calculating an annual salary of $168,480 for the average union worker at the Big 3 auto makers and $64,480 for the non union worker. So Ford, Chrysler, and GM cars are about 3 times better than the foreign (built here) cars then, right? Well no, the inverse is true. I know let's give out $75 billion to the US auto makers for their inferior work and exhorbitantly overpaid workers. Without major union give backs this deal should not be done. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way.

You'd think Chris Matthews was writing for AP

As Chris Matthews is already in line as a journalist whose job is "to make this presidency work" maybe he can get a job with the AP on the side greasing the skids for more campaign promises that ain't gonna happen. We'll all feel better not getting a tax break if we know in advance that we really don't care about tax breaks. I believe it's called lowering expectations in the political biz. If expectations for this presidency get lowered any more we'll barely be able to see them (or remember them). Thanks Associated Press. Glad to see things haven't changed over there.

Please don't misunderstand

It may appear to the uninitiated that my goal is to undermine Barack Obama's presidency. That is absolutely untrue. I own stocks , I own a house, I have children and a grandchild that I want to be safe. Obama failing would not be healthy to me personally and certainly to our country as a whole. I want him to get it right.

My concern is with the media and its unfettered bias towards all things Obama and Democrat. The fact that many of my posts reference Obama now and probably for awhile is because this period will likely bring about an avalanche of information that was withheld during the campaign or as the below entry suggests Obama promises that were never questioned and have now become lies.

I kept saying to myself who's going to pay attention to this bias after Obama wins? Who's going to hold the media's collective feet to the fire for their dereliction of duty? Certainly the media won't police itself and the new one party government will have no interest in doing so (check the entry below titled You can't make this stuff up).

And Chris Matthews has boldly and to his credit, frankly, admitted that he will not be soiling his hands uncovering any Obamuck during his slo-pitch SoftBall show. So campaign bias easily dovetails into post-election bias. Tra f'ing La La.

Change. Or is that just the jingling in your pocket Part 1

One of the loudest cheers that were always guaranteed as one of Obama's "rejecting the failed policies of the past" segments of his robo-speeches was "lobbyists will not find jobs in my white house". Oops.

You can't make this stuff up

Let's see Obama is investigated in 14 states for ACORN voter registration fraud and somehow it goes away and he is also accused of misusing the election campaign system by not forcing his donors to identify themselves possibly accepting nearly 180 million illegally (much from foreign sources!) but....because he lied to Hillary and McCain about sticking to the campaign limitations he gets off Scot free. Only in Obamerica.

I worry for these people

My wife, my two daughters, all of my co-workers are staunch Obama supporters, and low and behold, their guy got in. He's my president too (or will be after President Bush gets belittled off the stage by the MSM). So I hope BO does well but I hope he can get a daily media gig somewhere before January 2oth so his peeps can hang on.

I will now stop pulling my hair out

Obama's not a bad guy. Cute kids, his wife seems nice enough - maybe she doesn't really have a chip on her shoulder. His lack of experience is my main problem with him and the fact that he's never had any kind of executive experience. Never had to balance a budget, fight with the firefighter's union, work with Democrats and Republicans on anything. McCain did not hold executive office either mind you, but he did work across the aisle - alot. Lots of legislation, no pork. Obama's got all the answers but only to the questions he wants asked. Or get off my plane, now. And there in lies the rub.

The reason this blog is entitled jourtegrity (my own made up name - if you believe the google search engine)is because Obama was never vetted by the Main Stream Media. We know who they are - CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, the major newspapers; New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and the weeklies; Time, Newsweek et al. Most egregious of them all is the Associated Press, a once neutral pipeline of journalistic daily boilerplate feeding hundreds of newspapers nationwide - but now a clear and shameful extension of the Democratic National Committee. I didn't forget Fox, they are members of the Main Stream Media also, and very powerful I might add, but they're simply too far in the tank the other way to take seriously.

So what has happened? I would call it a total collapse of journalistic integrity. The sellout began when Bush eeked out Gore for the 2000 election. The ink stained wretches and teeth whiteners were so incensed that they began bashing Bush and his administration incessantly for the last 8 years with a short break to feign support for a short period after 9-11. This set up the "3rd Bush Term" narrative for Obama to run against McCain. How could he win? We have been told daily that Bush is the Worst. President. Ever. Frankly, for McCain/Palin to come within 5% is an accomplishment of epic proportions

So, if you happened to be among the 47% of Americans who voted for McCain/Palin and you paid attention at all to the way this election was covered, you had to be pulling your hair out like I was. Truth is I was actually starting to drink more because of it (no, really!). And I've found that I've been a little depressed. I have degrees in Broadcast Journalism and Political Science and was sure that what I was seeing was temporary, and held my faith that the tenets of fairness and neutrality, the holy grails of journalism, would win out. How could this many people be willing to collectively destroy a once proud profession? Still unbelievable to me but I'm hoping the parade of real journalists who can no longer stay quiet has begun.

The NYT had an article the other day that suggested that "so maybe we were a little biased, sorry". And as I predicted the positive stories about Iraq are rolling in - somehow just missing the election cycle.