Income Inequality Has Drastically Lessened

There are 40% fewer millionaires now than there were 5 years ago.  Millionaires are reporting income that is half of what it was 5 years ago.  The percentage of wealth owned by the 1% peaked at 22.8% and is now less than 15%.  Tax prof explains it all.

Income inequality is still an issue, but the facts have drastically changed thanks to the recession.  The media and OWS should use the newer, more accurate numbers.

Sorry Al, the Real Inconvenient Truths are Piling Up

The global warming/climate change (what are we calling it this month?) folks have to be feeling a little embarrassed.  This 85 billion dollar industry (it can be called nothing else) has thoroughly infused itself into a public awareness in a way that only old wives' tales and urban legends have.  With smoke and mirrors. Yet the truth is that we are entering a very natural, cyclical and historically supported period that will be known as the 21st century ice age.

More polar bears, less hurricanes and tornadoes - not more; more antarctic ice and a 15 year period occurring right now when temperatures have not risen, are but a few of the very obvious bits of fact that are pulling the curtain back on a disgusting, expensive propagandic trick.

The second recent batch of Climategate emails proves the scam, hiding behind the proclamation that "it's settled science!", pseudo scientists are giving real scientists a bad name.

Populist Elizabeth Warren is worth 14.5 Million.

And claims she is "not wealthy".  As a person who claims to have created the intellectual framework for the 99%ers of the OWS movement I'd say she may be a little deluded.

hard to see how Warren wouldn't be, by most standards, wealthy, according to the Personal Financial Disclosure form she filed to run for Senate shows that she's worth as much as $14.5 million. She earned more than $429,000 from Harvard last year alone for a total of about $700,000, and lives in a house worth $5 million.

Okay Political "Fact Checkers" Time to Check the Obama SOTU Speech

The political fact checker has become the new phony name for agenda driven parsing of Republican commentary.  The fact checkers have worked overtime with their "pants on fire", "4 pinnochios" cleverness.  Each of the leading Republicans have been ridiculed for lies, fabrications and stretching the truth. No democrats have been under such scrutiny. It's open season on Repubs and the Democratic National Committee is laughing up its collective sleeves.

Well the Prez is giving his SOTU speech right now and is spewing economic data that purports that we are basically living in an economic Nirvana.  The numbers he's offering up are simply not true.

The political fact checkers, if they are indeed fair fact checkers, will have mountains of information for us tomorrow correcting President Obama.

I shall not hold my breath waiting.

UPDATE:

Surprise, surprise the New York Times fact checking site finds the speech to be pretty darn accurate.  Take a look at ANY sentence that actually references comparative numbers "most domestic oil production in 16 years" and on and on and you'll see that they simply don't investigate one single quantitative claim.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/24/us/politics/state-of-the-union-2012-video-transcript.html?hp

Obama's Pipeline Denial Helps Warren Buffet

One of Warrren Buffet's largest holdings in Berkshire Hathaway is Burlington Northern railroad.  Suspiciously Buffett (Obama's close pal) will be rewarded with millions of dollars because Obama won't allow the XL pipeline to be built allowing the railroad to carry the crude and a much higher cost. Was Obama's decision influenced by his relationship with Buffet? Don't expect the mainstream media to bring it up.

The rail option, though costlier, would lessen the environmental impact, such as a loss of wetlands and agricultural productivity, compared to the pipeline, according to the State Department analysis. Greenhouse gas emmissions, however, would be worse.

The devil is always in the details. And a media that's so in the tank for Obama and the Democrats will never dig deep to the one thin layer that let's the sunshine of truth in.

 

The Gnawing Guilt of Jake Tapper

I've always liked Jake Tapper of ABC news.  He is a member of what most Republicans and some Independents call the Main Stream Media or Legacy Media or some other ungracious moniker. He is the White House correspondent and has had the courage to go nose-to-nose with Republican and Democrat communications lackeys. I wish he would be more contentious than he is, I wish that he would point out the naked emperor with more gusto, but the truth is he can't. Not with what I'm sure is a very short leash from his ABC overlords.

But he clearly feels guilty about how journalism has become so agenda driven and that his agenda is to support Democrats and the Obama administration. ABC is no longer even trying to disguise this fact. The embarrassing performance by George Stephanopoulos at the Republican debate in New Hampshire this past Saturday is the most recent example. Hounding the candidates, primarily Romney, about a contraception issue that doesn't even exist, in lieu of discussing the economy, foreign policy tells you all you need to know about what "the agenda" is.   The absolute absence of critique of Obama during the ABC evening news while making sure that at least one or two Republicans are made to look foolish also confirms the bias.

But Jake tries every so often. It's clear that if there is at least one broadcast journalist that has trouble sleeping at night it's Jake Tapper. That may be why on this past weekend's ABC Sunday talk show he said, in referring to the 2008 presidential election, "you had the media, perhaps, tilting on the scales a little bit." (one of the factors "going for Obama").  The collective inhalation of air in the room probably wiggled the huge sound drapes surrounding the set.

I once thought that maybe Jake is a closet conservative who might do well taking his talents to Fox News.  But I'm sure he's not. He would feel just as upset at the extreme bias that goes on over there. I actually think he may be what the media really needs - an honest guy who is dying to be the kind of journalist that he must have been inspired to become - neutral, but probing.

One has to wonder how many other Jake Tappers there are out there who could improve their sleep with an occasional honest utterance about media bias?  Come home honest journalists, it is you more than politicians, who can bring a divided country together.