Category: media and media people

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ideological culture media and media people

Camp, Kitsch, Goofy Pitch

The pitches aired in service of Obamacare have descended from the twee and lightly vulgar to worse than disastrously kitschy and outrageously camp.

The latest example is not the pajama boy icon for Obamacare, a young man wearing a onesie and demonstrating all the manliness of Peter Pan. Of that, Nick Gillespie agrees, it’s egregious: “For many — arguably most — Americans, this guy is hipster douchitude on a cracker.” But, Gillespie reminds me, I’m not the campaign’s audience. Young single women are.

Hmmm?

No, the nadir of fawning, in-groupy appeal went much further in a video advertisement concocted, we are told, for the LGBT community. You have to see it to believe it — or better yet, just take my word for it. The first minute is jaw-droppingly silly; the second goes beyond tasteless.

Its propaganda value? Dubious. I would not be surprised to discover that this was made as a parody, for comic purposes alone.

But I think I know enough about camp — the theory of which I’ll leave to Camille Paglia — to not be surprised that someone, somewhere, might actually think it a good way to reach the LGBT community.

Folks often complain about advertising. Well, the pandering, lip-smacking vulgarity of “capitalist realism” has now come to the welfare state — even if at the hands of folks not directly connected to government. But to those in the know, let me confess: what gets my goat the most is its frank promotion of “assistance to help you pay.”

With the singer making the most vulgar gesture of all, a show-me-the-money shot.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture media and media people

For the People?

Politicians always talk about how hard they work for us.

Of course, not even the most recent tumblers off the proverbial turnip truck believe them. Politicians don’t work so hard, first of all, and certainly not with the idea of putting what “We, the People” want ahead of what “They, the Politicians” want.

This is true across party lines. Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is under fire and two high-level appointees have resigned over allegations that they closed two highway access lanes from Fort Lee, New Jersey, over the George Washington Bridge into New York City, causing a massive traffic jam just to punish the town’s mayor for not endorsing Christie in the election.

Working hard for the people or turning the screws of government for one’s own benefit?

Meanwhile, a new report by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), an independent federal agency, finds that the Obama White House “systematically delayed enacting a series of rules on the environment, worker safety and health care to prevent them from becoming points of contention before the 2012 election.”

ACUS also determined that delays in issuing regulations “under Obama went well beyond those of his predecessors” and were caused by “concerns about the agencies issuing costly or controversial rules prior to the November 2012 election.”

Notice that the Obama Administration wasn’t willing to permanently shelve any rules as too burdensome. The only concern? Delaying the pain they intended to inflict on folks until after the election, when voters would have less effective means for expressing their disapproval.

Hardly working for the people; working hard for themselves.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ballot access links media and media people

NOT on Townhall: In Defense of “Spoilers”

The place of minor parties — challenger parties — in American politics needs to be rethought.

Last weekend I wrote one of my regular columns for Townhall.com. I considered what the Libertarian Party challenge means to limited-government folks in the Republican Party. Unfortunately, while I was told they would be publishing that column, it has still not been. 

That’s a first. I’ve been writing a regular column, finalizing it every Saturday (minus one or two vacations) since late 2003. And even when I’ve criticized conservatives, the good folks at Townhall have been kind enough published my words. This time, well, maybe it’s a horrible column. You tell me. Click on over to the column at my archive on this Common Sense site, and then come back here and give me your opinion.

Now, I understand that this is a somewhat controversial issue.

Voting, after all, is a tricky business, with one’s choices very limited. Voting for the lesser of evils might (a) prevent an awful lot of extra evil, or (b) endorse, as a self-fulfilling prophecy, an outcome that guarantees (at least some degree of) malevolence.

Since I believe most of us when we cast our ballot are making the best choices we can to protect ourselves from an oppressive government, I’m not quick to find fault — either with those voting against the worst evil or those opting for the candidate best representing their principles, regardless of the chance to win.

But I do find fault in the attitude that says folks are foolish if they don’t vote for a candidate with whom they have major disagreements, your preferred candidate, instead of a candidate they enthusiastically endorse, because they should despise the other guy even more. If Republicans want Libertarian, or small-l libertarian votes, they’ll have to actually earn them.

“I get that libertarianism is not Republicanism,” writes Carrie Sheffield at Forbes. “But in a two-party, winner-take-all system (for better or worse, that’s just the reality), it begs the question why someone committed to a small-government philosophy would knowingly generate a big-government winner.”

But aren’t those who nominate a Republican candidate unable to win the libertarian votes needed to prevail in the election just as culpable in generating “a big-government winner” as the libertarians who decline to vote for that GOP candidate?

And certainly my suggestion, late in my column, shows a way around the problem. The problem, as it is right now, is that “the best” (the Libertarian Party? — yes, for some of us) serves as the enemy of the “good” (or at least “better than the Democrat”). By altering the manner in which we cast and count ballots — whether IRV or proportional representation, or something similar — the best will not work against the “good enough.”

It seems like an idea whose time has come.

This is especially droll since the mathematician who first spotted the problem, French philosopher Condorcet, did so before the drawing up of the Constitution of the United States. Perhaps its time for a revolution in our heads, or a new rethink of democracy. You know, to make it more, not less democratic; more, not less, republican.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

And these links provide some additional food for thought:

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media and media people

The Independents Streak

I learned something the other night, on the new Fox Business show The Independents: Mr. John Stossel’s eponymous show is the highest-rated show on that same network.

It’s no shock. It’s my favorite show, there, too. And I know folks who have even upped their cable or satellite packages solely to view Stossel every week.

Call it a comfort, call it a relief, call it whatever, but it’s nice to know that one’s own political and rhetorical tastes are shared by a growing number of others.

One thing to like about Stossel is also a reason to like The Independents. The hostess, saucy Kennedy (of MTV fame), and her cadre of commentators, Matt Welch and Kmele Foster, aim to keep the debate civil. They said as much. And followed through. No yelling; a minimum of over-talk. Apparently the format of the show is to invite two guest commentators every episode (one from “the left” and one from “the right”), and on the debut episode we watched Fox contributors Basil Smikle and Jedediah Bila . . . the latter ostensibly a conservative, but who sounded just as libertarian as the show’s core committee.

Fox’s increasing independent-minded viewership — and, like the show’s creators, I’m using “independent” partly as a code word for “libertarian” — is being rewarded with more fare to their tastes.

Modern society needs an independent streak. We gain; Fox gains.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture media and media people too much government

Got Ads?

First the hush-hush secrecy; then the lies. Now something even . . . worse?

President Barack Obama doesn’t think the American people can handle the truth. Neither do several progressive non-profit groups in Colorado that have produced a plethora of cringe-worthy ads promoting Obamacare.

One print ad, “Let’s Get Physical,” pictures a young women giving a thumbs up sign and showing off her birth control pills standing next to a scruffy-faced man-boy, with the text: “OMG, he’s hot! Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers.* I got insurance.”

No worries, eh? The asterisk informs readers that, “The pill doesn’t protect you from STDs.”

Another advertisement, “Brosurance,” reaches out to young . . . drunkards. “Keg stands are crazy,” we’re informed. “Not having health insurance is crazier.” It continues: “Don’t tap into your beer money to cover those medical bills. We got it covered.”

Gee, thanks. In fact, both print ads end with the “thanks obamacare!” slogan.

So, can floundering Obamacare be saved by harnessing the awesome power of sex appeal and inebriation and huge dollops of kitsch and irony? Only if young people are as vacuous as these ads insinuate.

“Younger Americans may indeed be reckless enough to do keg stands and have unprotected sex on a regular basis,” Nick Gillespie wrote in Time, “but they’re not so dumb as the ‘Got Insurance?’ ads — or the architects of Obamacare — seem to think.”

Because, as Gillespie and others point out, Obamacare overcharges young people to supposedly lower costs for others. Let’s get real, bro.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people

Too Much Truth

Both what to report and when to report it can be legitimately debated in an editorial room. But not whether to accept demands to conceal “unflattering” truth for the sake of being allowed to report at all.

That’s the “dilemma” some news organizations face when they wish to report from within a country whose government will deny access unless they toe the line.

The reportage by longtime Reuters journalist Paul Mooney, who specializes in China, has apparently been too candid. The Chinese government has denied him a visa. His career there may be over. What should Reuters do?

Not what Bloomberg News did when its reporting incurred the displeasure of Chinese officials. Bloomberg spiked an investigative report about the financial ties between billionaire businessmen and Politiburo officials, for fear of being ejected from the country. Bloomberg insists that it has merely delayed the story. But the motive is clearly a desire to appease the Chinese government, which has already blocked the Bloomberg News website inside China and refused new visas to Bloomberg journalists.

Instead of killing or deferring disapproved journalism, any news outfit threatened with expulsion by an authoritarian government should publish its honest reports and let the chips fall where they may. If kicked out, it should seek other ways to report on the country. Covert communiqués from careful Chinese citizens. Secondary sources if necessary. That’s better than actively cooperating with wrongdoers to hide their sins.

It’s really not too different from crime reporting. Crime bosses don’t like a nosy press, either.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people national politics & policies too much government

The End—er, ACA—Is Near

First, NBC’s Nightly News anchor Brian Williams reported that the “website for the president’s new health care law is back up tonight after yet another technical problem over the weekend that prevented people from signing up for health insurance . . . yet again.” Then he went on, bemoaning, “For many middle-class Americans who buy their own health insurance, there could be another frustration and that is ‘sticker shock’ — after some learned they must buy new policies that cover more, but cost more as well.”

Couldn’t be. In pushing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), President Barack Obama had promised, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”

And presumably “afford” your plan, too. (Well, there are good old-fashioned government subsidies!)

Williams then turned to correspondent Peter Alexander, who announced that the absolute catastrophe of the healthcare.gov website “is masking what is the real issue here, how much these plans will actually cost.”

At Forbes weeks ago, the headline to Avik Roy’s column suggested a connection: “Obamacare’s Website Is Crashing Because It Doesn’t Want You To Know How Costly Its Plans Are.”

A website that crashes to hide the cost of insurance the law demands you purchase seems far-fetched. Next they’ll claim the Administration somehow knew so many folks would lose their insurance policies.

Er, well, “That millions will lose or have to change their individual policies is not a surprise to the administration” noted Alexander.

Say, what?

NBC News found “buried in the 2010 Obamacare regulations language predicting that ‘A reasonable range for the percentage of individual policies that would terminate . . . is 40 percent to 67 percent.’”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people national politics & policies

Wacky Ways to MSNBC the World

Alex Wagner of MSNBC’s “Now with Alex Wagner” fame decided her fellow network hosts had fecklessly failed to exhaust the world’s reservoir of inane 30-second political pronouncements. So, her vignette informs us:

Minimum wage was mentioned in the State of the Union earlier this year and then it wasn’t brought back up again. This should be something we think about and talk about every single week. This is one of those building-block issues that should supersede almost anything else we have. Economic security is foundational to American success.

Where to start?

Perhaps, by wondering if any serious person really thinks the minimum wage is an issue so paramount in the economy that it “should supersede almost anything else we have.”

Er, “we have”? Who’s editing scripts over there?

But let’s cut to the chase: Ms. Wagner is arguing that “economic security” not only comes before “American success,” but is “foundational” to that success.

Hmmmm?

According to the great Wikipedia in cyberspace, “economic security” is “the condition of having stable income or other resources to support a standard of living now and in the foreseeable future.” So, does Wagner really mean to suggest that before Americans were able to achieve success, wealth, we already had guaranteed to us plenty of steady income to finance a fine and dandy standard of living for as far off into the future as we could foresee?

Americans worked hard for this wealth; it wasn’t legislated.

Economic “success” creates economic security, not the other way around.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people too much government

Detroit Ironies

Detroit, Michigan, is a failed city. In recognition of this, its government went to court yesterday to beg for bankruptcy status, and the protection that implies — mainly, the legal ability to force the re-prioritization of its $18 billion debt:

In his opening statement, attorney Bruce Bennett said he “could stand here for hours” to describe the “mountain of evidence” that shows Detroit is insolvent. Without relief, he added, 65 cents of every dollar . . . residents pay in taxes could be needed to address the problem, leaving little for everyday services for 700,000 residents.

There’s hardly anything hopeful about this story.

Recently, libertarians have noted that the people of the city have begun to band together, solving voluntarily and through community and market activity the deficit in services coming from city government. Fine, fine, but enough for a solution?

Still, for real drollery, consider the witless comment by MSNBC’s most witless socialist, Melissa Harris-Perry, that Detroit’s troubles are the result of what happens when government becomes “small enough to drown in a bathtub” (a witticism of my friend Grover Norquist). Hilarious, in that Detroit’s corrupt and spendthrift pols are anything but libertarian, and Detroit government anything but small.

The fact that Detroit can no longer competently enforce some of its own laws only shows the ultimate result of the policy of over-governance.

Despite what socialists and (perhaps) some libertarians may say, liberty is not “no government.” It’s the right amount of good government, defending rights and property from vandals, con men, thieves.

In Detroit, the vandals have been the government.

And a bankruptcy ruling would simply confirm that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people national politics & policies porkbarrel politics

Broken Fix

Washington Government is broken. Everyone — even those limited to a single firing brain synapse — knows as much. But, what to do about it?

Washington scribe Ezra Klein offers “The 13 reasons Washington is failing,” on The Washington Post’s “Wonkblog.”

First on Klein’s list? Earmarks. Really. Yes, the little pork-barrel items stuffed into bills without any debate or serious consideration to boost an incumbent politician by a million or a billion dollars here or there. Klein blames the GOP House for banning earmarks.

“It used to be that Boehner could ask a member to take a tough vote and, in return, help him or her get a bridge built back home,” explains Ezra. “That bargaining chip is gone.”

Our political system desperately needs it back, so we can put the genie back in the Klein bottle. Congressional leaders simply must be able to keep your representative on the take.

But that’s not all. Government is also too transparent, or, as Ezra puts it, “Too much sunshine can burn.”

Sure, effective political bridge-trading needs to be done behind closed doors. Away from the prying eyes of pesky voters.

Klein goes on to lament that, “Big business has lost a lot of its power over the Republican Party.” That’s a problem. Really. Progressives are nonplussed.

And Klein argues “The Republican Party has become particularly extreme” and “Ted Cruz (and others like him) has gained a lot of power over the Republican Party,” before informing readers: “There is no ‘Republican Party.’”

All of which — obviously and unquestionably — explains why Big Government cannot give us nice things. Or so says one insiders’ outsider.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.