Category: media and media people

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Accountability ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

This is Yellow Journalism

Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Washington Post, Bias, video, Common Sense, illustration

Weeks ago, I took Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to task for behaving like rude, dishonest children — she, fibbing about Trump being used in an ISIS recruitment video; he, using a vulgar term to describe her 2008 defeat by President Obama.

The mainstream media is joining the bad behavior, copacetic with “Clinton avoiding the same kind of treatment as Trump,” Callum Borchers informs in his piece headlined: “Does the media have a double standard on Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s embellishments?”

Short answer: Yes.

When Mrs. Clinton made her false accusation, ISIS was actually using her husband, former Pres. Bill Clinton, in a recruitment video. Even with this man-​bites-​dog angle — astoundingly underreported — Borcher predicts that Hillary will “emerge from this media brush fire unsinged” in no small part because there are “enough … supportive media outlets.”

Now the Post reports that a new 51-​minute “propaganda video released by the Somali-​based al-​Qaeda affiliate al-​Shabab includes a clip of Trump calling on the United States to bar Muslims from entering the country …”

The story’s lede smears Mr. Trump with guilt by association:

Last month, The Washington Post reported that white nationalists have begun using Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a recruitment tool. Now, the polarizing Republican presidential front-​runner has become the recruitment fodder for another group of marginalized extremists.

The Post’s previous article found white supremacists trying to somehow glom on to, but clearly being rebuffed by, Trump. Repeatedly associating the two is gutter journalism. Should we hold our breaths for stories about members of the Revolutionary Communist Party favoring Clinton or Bernie Sanders?

Spare us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies term limits

Cool Car and Hot Coffee for President Cool

Obama, Seinfeld, coffee, cool, Common Sense

The President of the United States claims to be very popular with “the zero to eight demographic.” The kids like his name, which they say in an unbroken string of syllables: Barackobama.

Politics is a lot like football.

Teddy Roosevelt was the coolest president … until Barackobama.

All this, and more, we learn from the latest episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld’s online interview show, in which Jerry drives a comedian to a coffee shop for a video-​recorded chat.

In the recent Barack Obama episode, the comedian and the Commander in Chief drive inside the confines of the White House fences in a nice silver blue 1963 Corvette Stingray … and then go for a coffee inside the White House. Seinfeld’s excuse for this special episode is that the Prez has gotten off just enough funny lines to qualify.

Some of us wonder whether Mr. Obama could be planning an entertainment career after being ejected from office by the normal workings of presidential term limits. As this and other one-​on-​one interviews have shown, he gives great repartee.

But back to term limits. Aside from the football comment, Seinfeld’s chat did indeed yield a few substantive ideas. Such as:

JS: How many world leaders are completely out of their minds?

BO: A pretty sizable percentage.

And Obama knows why: “The longer they stay in office, the more likely [going bonkers] is to happen.”

“At a certain point,” Obama explains, “your feet hurt, your have trouble peein’, you have absolute power.…”

Good thing we have term limits!

Here’s to a future episode of Former Presidents in Limos Getting Lattes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Historic Paris Pact?

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The climate change pact just completed at the United Nations conference in Paris is, the Washington Post informs us, “historic.”

The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and just about every other paper uses that very word in their headlines, too.

“The 12th of December, 2015, will remain a great date for the planet,” declared French President Francois Hollande, dubbing it “the most beautiful and the most peaceful revolution that has just been accomplished.”

“History will remember this day,” U.N. Secretary-​General Ban Ki-​moon predicted. President Obama called it a “turning point for the world.”

Chris Mooney, in a deeper analysis for the Washington Post, agreed that all the hoopla was “more than warranted.”

But Mooney also acknowledged that, “this document, by its very nature, depends on … Countries, companies and individuals all across the planet [doing] the right things — and very hard things, at that.”

How hard?

Essentially ending any emission of greenhouse gases in the next half-century.

“Achieving such a reduction in emissions would involve a complete transformation of how people get energy,” the New York Times reported, “and many activists worry that despite the pledges, countries are not ready to make such profound, costly changes.”

As the negotiator for the Federated States of Micronesia put it: “We’ve agreed to what we ought to be doing, but no one yet has agreed to go do it. It’s a whole lot of pomp, given the circumstances.”

“What’s more,” adds Mooney, “even if everyone plays by the rules, the standards and goals set out by the Paris agreement may not be enough to prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change.”

Historic? History will determine that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture media and media people nannyism national politics & policies Second Amendment rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Anti-​Gun Barrage

guns, anti-gun, second amendment, Common Sense, illustration

America’s would-​be gun-​grabbers, chiefly in the media and “on the left,” don’t know much about guns.

But they know what they hate.

After the horrific terrorist shooting spree in San Bernardino, MSNBC and CNN went on a shooting-​their-​mouths-​off spree, relentlessly pushing the need for stricter gun control. President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats echoed the theme.

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks went full accelerando, unleashing a foul rant about how “we” are the terrorists and “we” are letting “us” get away with mass murder “every week,” ignoring the statistics that murder rates have gone down, are still going down, and that the rest of the world is being hit with mass shootings too, mainly from Muslim radicals.

When the news came out that the perps were, indeed, Muslim, the barrage of anti-​gun talk didn’t stop, though their intellectual ammunition had fizzled.

The president went further off his rocker, calling the guns he wanted to ban “powerful” — though they are of lower caliber than many handguns — while Hillary Clinton talked about the need to ban “assault rifles.”

As has been noted by others, “assault rifle” only means what anti-​gun folks say it means, and what they designate as assault weapons are not (contrary to their constant implications) the equivalent of machine guns (which have been illegal for citizen ownership for a long, long time).

Being scared of scary-​looking guns is no excuse not to be able to define them. While it would be good to reduce incentives for folks to “go postal” or to commit terroristic acts, we aren’t going to prevent mass shootings by a simple prohibitionary or mere regulatory regime.

That’s for scare-​mongers to push. And us to resist.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights general freedom media and media people

The Ultimate SuperPAC

SuerPac, Marco Rubio, Biased Media, Republican Debate, First Amendment, collage, photomontage, illustration, Common Sense, Jim Gill, Paul Jacob

Sen. Marco Rubio’s charge in last week’s presidential debate, that the mainstream media functions as a SuperPAC for Democrats, was not only accurate, I wrote at Townhall, it has deeper implications.

Consider the relentless media drumbeat for restrictive campaign finance regulations.

If the Federal Elections Commission mutes, at Congress’s instruction, voices of the political parties and silences issue-​oriented advocacy groups — or such groups are prevented by the IRS from even forming in the first place — and if Democrats get their way and ban SuperPACs (other than the media), who would hold the loudest megaphone?

You guessed it.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, NBC News, etc. — corporate behemoths all — warn of the dangers of big, bad corporations and wealthy individuals, hoping to spur regulation that hamstrings the communications of others.

The regulations somehow never involve abridging the speech of those same powerful media outlets.

Last year, every single Democrat in the Senate voted to repeal the essential constitutional guarantee of free speech, voting for Senate Joint Resolution 19, introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (D‑N.M.).

Had it become part of our Constitution, the First Amendment’s words “Congress shall pass no law” would have been replaced with an open-​ended invitation for politicians in Congress to “regulate” campaign spending — therefore speech — to their hearts’ content.

The amendment was so sweeping the authors felt the need to add: “Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress or the States the power to abridge the freedom of the press.”

Big Media is a major force promoting Big Government, always willing to attack advocates of a constitutionally limited government.

Except when it comes to constitutional protections for Big Media.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Capitol Hill Chaos

Washington Post, Dana Milbank, Washington, collage, photomontage, JGill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

Washington Post scribe Dana Milbank is panicked about the “chaos on Capitol Hill.”

He hyperventilated, in a recent column, concerning the difficulty Republicans are having in choosing a new Speaker of the House, after the announced resignation of current Speaker John Boehner (R‑Ohio), then the sudden withdrawal from the race by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R‑Calif.), and now the reluctance of Rep. Paul Ryan (R‑Wisc.) to seek the post.

We’re informed of the speaker’s importance — “second in line to the presidency” and “key to national security and domestic tranquility” — as if Milbank, alone, has access to a Constitution.

Yet, is it really “chaos” or continued gridlock that’s bothering our company-​town columnist?

If it were, Milbank wouldn’t focus his attacks solely on conservative Republicans for their unwillingness to “compromise” (read: surrender). Both Democrats and so-​called establishment Republicans seem equally adamantine.

According to Milbank, these conservative “hardliners” and “zealots” constitute “a rough crowd” who employ “thuggish tactics.” Why, they have “hijacked the chamber”!

How so?

They had the audacity to not always vote lockstep with Speaker Boehner; they balked at supporting the Speakership for Rep. McCarthy; and (heavens!), they even dared communicate their viewpoint to voters in McCarthy’s home district.

Could free political speech still be allowed by law?

Milbank reviles the “efforts by conservative groups to depose [McCarthy] before he ever took the throne.”

Depose? Throne?

Milbank even laments that Eric Cantor “would have been speaker today” had only voters in his district not voted for somebody else. Pesky voters!

Methinks Mr. Milbank has been lounging around the halls of power a tad too long.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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