[Madison, Wisc…] At least 30 Wisconsin municipalities failed to send absentee ballots to military voters before the 45 day deadline, according to former U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Anthony Principi, and he’s demanding the Government Accountability Board address the problem immediately.
As reported by the website WisPolitics.com, Principi sent a letter to the GAB on Monday pointing out the failure to meet the 45 day deadline is in violation of Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voter Act.
“This violation is particularly unsettling in light of the fact that, only six months ago, a federal court entered a consent decree against Wisconsin and the Government Accountability Board for similar violations of military voting rights,” wrote Principi.
Principi cited a study by the Military Postal Service Agency, which found less than 45 days is not enough time to ensure service members can receive, complete and return in time.
“Your office’s violations therefore may deprive service members of their fundamental right to vote,” he wrote.
This comes on top of a report by the MacIver News Service that the Federal Voter Assistance Program was providing Wisconsin service members the incorrect deadline for when their ballots must be received by for the general election.
Dearborn Overseas Primary Ballots Coming in Despite Late Sendout: Dearborn is one of 70 municipalities included in a federal lawsuit for sending absentee ballots out past the June 23 deadline – LINK.
California counties miss deadline to send ballots to overseas, military voters – LINK.
Election clerks once again miss federal absentee ballot deadline: More than three dozen local election clerks appear to have missed a federally mandated deadline for sending out absentee ballots to military voters – LINK.
Obama Administration Sues To Stop Military From Voting (video) – LINK
Editor’s Note – This very writer has written on this subject several times both here and on my former college blog (LINK – LINK). During 2008-09 I was one of the very few who was not surprised in the least to see Obama appoint several arch antisemites such as Samantha Power and Robert Malley. Why was this writer not surprised? Because Obama came from radicalized leftist academia and antisemitism among university leftists is fashion at most large universities. Obama hung out with Frank Marshall Davis, Bill Ayers, and Obama’s own mother was an academic who specialized in “critical theory” which is Marxism on steroids. Obama even says in his own book that Marxist academics are who he sought out to associate with.
A new, 18-minute mini-documentary follows the journey of Irina, a 23-year-old liberal, Jewish New Yorker who voted for Obama in 2008. Yet as her connection to Israel has grown, and she has learned more about the President’s policies across the Middle East and towards Israel in particular, Irina has come to realize that “when the chips are down,” the President may not “have Israel’s back” as he says.
The short film features:
Exclusive interviews with leading journalists and politicians in Israel
(Bloomberg, London Times, Jerusalem Post, etc.)
Clips from longtime Democratic supporters including: Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY)
Florida Republican Rep. Allen West defended his skepticism surrounding the September non-farm payrolls report in an interview on CNBC early this afternoon. The so called “objective reporter” from NBC’s cable channel, Tyler Mathisen, got rather testy with Allen West and tried to interrupt him so he could not explain his point of view. West would have none of Mathisen’s nonsense. Mathisen is on the verge of becoming unhinged during much of the interview skin to a Chris Mathews meltdown.
Here is the exchange:
MATHISEN: “You are alleging specifically that the president is engaging in a cover-up of the data. You are saying that the administration is actively manipulating that data. Correct?”
WEST: “Well, absolutely. Look at what happened with our GDP numbers. Fourth-quarter GDP numbers last year were 3 percent…”
MATHISEN: “Do you have any basis on which you say that? Do you have any basis on which you say that? Any source? Anyone that has come to you and said, ‘This is the case?’ I mean, do you realize how difficult it would be for someone to pull off that kind of conspiracy, given the number of people in the labor department, given the number of surveyors out there, one of whom would probably say, ‘Wait a minute! That’s not the right number!'”
WEST: “Well, if you would stop yelling in my ear and allow me to answer your questions, maybe we could get to the bottom of this. When you look at the GDP numbers — which have gone from 4.1 percent, then it went to 1.9 percent, then it was at 1.7 percent. It got revised down just about a month ago to 1.3 percent. We’ve got numbers that are all over the place. And we don’t understand the direction this economy is going. … I don’t see these numbers that people are talking about, and I don’t see how they can come back later in this month and say they’re revising the numbers from July and August. So I’m very questionable with what we do see out of this administration, because the numbers don’t add up.
It has been recently revealed that the EPA has far surpassed the dark humor of blowing up kids and people on film that global warming scare-mongers promoted a few years back. In real life, the EPA has been conducting human experiments on people by piping diesel fumes from a running truck mixed with air into their lungs at a North Carolina university. The agency has ginned up yet another green crusade — the lethal dangers of diesel fumes. They even had a gas chamber set up to accommodate the environmental research project that shockingly recalls the death camps in Poland.
Not surprisingly, the EPA is now in the process of being sued for conducting dangerous experiments on human guinea pigs. The courts will decide whether or not serious laws and practices were violated, including the international Nuremberg Code that was set up after sixteen Nazi doctors were executed for medical terrorism. After the barbaric fallout of Nazi Germany, where many people were treated like experimental animals, the Nuremberg Code was designed to be an international governing set of principles to regulate the practice of human experimentation. The whiff of the Jewish holocaust is therefore unmistakable.
When the Nazis found out how difficult it was in practice to shoot so many Jews on the Eastern Front at the outset of the war, they switched to gassing them en masse at death camps with engine fumes. Such gassing methods became notorious at Treblinka, where almost one million Jews were killed.
In the early part of the war, the infamous commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, visited Treblinka. Hoess testified at Nuremberg that the Treblinka motor room used tank and truck engines to pipe diesel fumes into the gas chambers. According to Hoess, it usually took about half an hour before the gas chambers fell silent. Another half-hour passed before the doors were opened.
Hoess commented that the engine fumes at Treblinka were not always entirely effective in killing the Jews. While all the victims fell unconscious, many of them were still alive and had to be shot afterwards. Adolf Eichmann told Hoess that they were experiencing the same problems in other death camps at the time. Auschwitz used Zyklon B, which was far more effective.
The Nazis killed so many people that they were forced to industrialize the process by making crematoriums that turned countless cadavers into ashes. All of the ghastly work connected to this assembly line of death was performed by Jewish victims, called Special Detachment Jews, whom the Nazis specifically kept alive for this very purpose. When the war effort started to go badly for Germany, the Special Detachment Jews were required to unearth old bodies that had been buried and burn them up, too.
When Hoess was forced to oversee such a grisly operation at Auschwitz, he would recover from such horrifying scenes by finding solace in nature: “If I was deeply affected by some incident, I found it impossible to go back to my home and my family. I would mount my horse and ride, until I had chased the terrible picture away. Often at night, I would walk through the stables and seek relief among my beloved animals.”
Hoess’s nature-loving tendencies are far more revealing than most scholars would care to admit. While Jews were treated like experimental animals and were burned up in sacrificial smoke, Hoess said his family lived a free and untrammeled life: “My wife’s garden was a paradise of flowers.” Hoess was far more concerned about untreated stormwater discharging directly from the camp into the nearby Sola River than he was about the incredible slaughterhouse plans that the Nazi leaders were foisting upon him. The cunning of nature was indeed an escape route from moral responsibility.
When Rudolf Hoess stood trial at Nuremberg, he concluded his testimony by saying he was not a sadistic man and that he had never sanctioned the extermination of the Jews. He was even proud of how much more humane the gassing process was at Auschwitz compared to Treblinka.
Rudolf Hoess was SS. The SS was the greenest faction of the Nazi Party. It was run by Heinrich Himmler, who was an animal lover, vegetarian, and organic farming enthusiast. Himmler detested hunting. In an instructional letter sent to Dachau Concentration Camp and Ester-wegen, Himmler stated, “I wish the SS and the police also will be exemplary in the love of nature. Within the course of a few years the property of the SS and the police must become paradises for animals and Nature.” In many ways, the SS was Hitler’s “green” praetorian guard.
Both Hoess and Himmler belonged to a proto-Nazi wandervogel youth group called the Artamanens. The wandervogels of the early 20th century in Germany were nature-loving youth groups that promoted many green ideas and practices. Artaman basically means “country man,” with certain racial-indigenous connotations.
The SS promoted an ideology called “blood and soil,” where evolutionary biological racism, peasant agrarianism, and environmentalism were all fused together into a fascist whole. Many leading SS men actually believed that German racial biology was being destroyed by the cosmopolitan life of the cities, that Germans were being uprooted from their homeland and enslaved to the artificial materialistic values of what they considered to be international Jewish capitalism and communism. The Jews were vilified for their city ways. They were also considered unnatural and outside the evolutionary laws of biological racism. Many Nazis believed that such a violation of the “scientific” laws of Nature had to be remedied.
This flammable cocktail between German biology and environmentalism was at the heart of the holocaust at death camps like Treblinka. When Jews were crammed into cattle cars on the way to Treblinka, the SS broke strict animal transport laws the Nazis themselves established. While the SS side of Treblinka was a virtual garden camp, the Jewish side was a hell on earth. While the SS were all involved in rehabilitating fox populations on their side of the camp, Jews were being exterminated on such a massive scale that the gravestones that still stand today at the Treblinka monument do not have individual names on them, only entire cities. While the SS had beautiful picnic grounds that showcased a little zoo, the last sight that the Jews were given before they entered the gas chambers was the most exquisite flower garden in the entire camp. After Treblinka was closed down, the Nazis planted lupine on top of what was left of the Jewish graves. Lupines are wolf flowers. Hitler used to call the SS his pack of wolves.
While no one died in the EPA’s gas chambers, the agency is increasingly acting like proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. Under the guise of acting on behalf of everyone’s health, the EPA has crossed a pathological line where people have been potentially treated like experimental animals under questionable methods that conjure up the horrors of the holocaust. More telling is the EPA subjected human beings to a concoction of diesel fumes that it already said was lethal. If the EPA were truly concerned about human health, they would not have performed such experiments on more than forty people in the first place.
Ten percent of our power just like that and some states are already suffering from black outs and brown outs. Is this the change you voted for in 2008? Institute for Energy Research:
More than 34 gigawatts (GW) of electrical generating capacity are now set to retire because of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Mercury and Air Toxics Rule (colloquially called Utility MACT)[1] and the Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR)[2] regulations. Most of these retirements will come from coal-fired power plants, shuttering over 10 percent of the U.S.’s coal-fired generating capacity.
This report is an update of a report we issued in October 2011.[3] Last October the original report, we calculated that 28.3 GW of generating capacity would close as a result of EPA’s regulations. At the time, we warned that “this number will grow as plant operators continue to release their EPA compliance plans.” Unfortunately, this statement has proven to be true. This update, a mere eight months later, shows that 34.7 GW of electrical generating capacity will close—a 6.4 GW increase.
According to EPA, their modeling of Utility MACT and CSAPR indicates that these regulations will only shutter 9.5 GW of electricity generation capacity. But events in the real world already show that EPA’s modeling is a gross underestimate.
To calculate the impact of EPA’s rules, we first assumed that EPA’s modeling of the regulation correctly predicted which power plants would close as a result of the regulations. Then, we looked at statements, filings, and announcements from electrical generators where the generators were closing power plants and in which they cited EPA’s regulations as the precipitating cause of the plant closures. We then compared EPA’s modeling outputs with the announcements and created a master list of plant closures as the result of EPA regulations (the master list is below).
Combining actual announcements with EPA’s modeling shows that EPA’s modeling grossly underestimates the actual number of closures. As noted above, EPA calculated that only 9.5 GW of electrical generating capacity would close as a result of its rules. But the reality is that over 35 GW of power generating capacity will likely close—over three times the amount predicted by EPA modeling. Worse, as utilities continue to assess how to comply with EPA’s finalized Utility MACT rule and CSAPR, there will likely be further plant closure announcements in the coming weeks and months.
Obama 2002 speech: “Rich people are all for non-violence”, unless they are perpetrating it.
We often talk about how President Obama has the mindset of a radicalized leftist university academic’ this video is one more example of many. Where was the media to vet him in 2008?
This will make your stomach turn. Your bailout money goes to sponsor Chinese propaganda films sponsored by GM. You can watch a GM CEO Dan Ackerson brag that since the bailout 70% of GM’s manufacturing is outside of the USA. They also announced that much of GM’s R&D will move to China in part so as to give advanced technology to the Chinese Government.
Remember that according to far left university academic theory U.S. wealth is essentially “capitalist ill-gotten gains” and that our wealth needs to be transferred to the rest of the world.
Wow, so much BS in this debate there is not enough time to hope to respond to it all in a timely manner.
Obama’s tax cuts for small businesses aren’t tax cuts at all, they are tax credits meaning that if you jump through government hoop A & B – and then meet stipulation circumstance A, B, C and D – you get a tax credit. Well that doesn’t work because people aren’t doing when is best for their business or the economy, they are doing what government wants. These “tax cuts” are so targeted only a few get them. This is no different from government picking winners and losers. Economic growth happens when people have money AND freedom.
Actually Mitt lowering the rates and cleaning up the deductions has been done before, Reagan did it and it worked. Remember Kemp/Roth in 1981 followed up with TEFRA in 1986? Romney needed to hit the mortgage collapse out of the park and he just didn’t. He needs me on his communications team to show him how. This is not difficult.
Romney – I will eliminate any program I have to borrow money from China to keep going that are not working and important. I hope and wish.
Obama talked about going after some wasteful over duplicated education programs – he went after education programs alright, like the working and very successful DC voucher program…. all to make the teachers union happy (and screwed the kids).
I liked Romney’s “I have five boys” comment – nicest way to call out a lie I have ever heard 😉
Well the stock in those who make small planes will now drop due to that comment Obama. That will cost jobs just in the coming weeks. Mark me.
Obama says Social Security is structurally sound. Like heck it is. Social Security does not even try to grow a pot of money to prefund people’s retirement.
Romney’s point on Medicare is right on. OK Romney now boot that voucher talking point out of the park – you had better….and he didn’t. It is Medicare part D expanded because Part D came in 40% under budget, gives more choice and works. It is not just a voucher system.
Romney hits Obama on his unelected board making decisions about your care in Obamacare – FINALLY! Survey’s of Small Businesses show that ObamaCare is scrapping hiring plans – WHAM – Go MITT!
Romney – government as well as private studies show that millions of people will lose their employer based insurance as a result of ObamaCare – that is true. Obama is pretending like that problem doesn’t exist.
Obama is a broken record “Romney just wants to help the rich”…
Veteran Communications Strategist Lisa Marie Cashman – They are both trying to be too civil.
ME – They are both trying to remember their talking points and get them out, it is better to use such minutia for rebuttals and comebacks. Dear Mitt, please go watch Reagan’s debate with Carter. Thanks.
Cashman – They are both reaching to meet the middle. The independent and enrolled votes are equally important; however Obamacare restricts growth. I wish Romney would hit the tack on the medical devices tax and the real estate tax.
Obama – The IPAB (ObamaCare panel) by law cannot tell doctors what to do – But the ObamaCare board can do is say what they will pay for. And they can say that doctors have to jump through every hoop they wish or they will not get paid on any of their patients…and if they are not paid for the care will not be given. Nice try Barack.
Romney – $90 billion for failed green jobs programs would have hired 2 million teachers – ZAP!!
Mitt – Education funds should follow the child. (Obama – they should follow the teachers’s UNIONS).
The problems with “federal support” in education Obama is that such support comes with thousands of strings attached that pick winners and losers and that make for political agendas and make everything more expensive overall. Race to the Top has been a bureaucratic nightmare.
Mitt, meeting with Democrat leaders in Congress will not be like meeting legislators in your state. The likes of Pelosi and Reid are far more partisan and radical than anyone you face in state government. So either the current Dem Leadership will have to be swept away or you will have to defeat them.
Our friend CSteven Tucker of the Insurance Tips & Advice Blog says – NOT ONE REPUBLICAN VOTED FOR OBAMACARE & The Senate has BLOCKED more than 30 GOP proposals. He wouldn’t know working together if it slapped him…
So true Steven. The Republicans were locked out of the room and we didn’t get many of the details of what was in ObamaCare until after it was passed.
Final thoughts – Well “hope and change” vs Romney won’t work. It sold when he faced a non existent Bush domestic policy in his second term vs McCain. But now Obama has a record to defend. Obama has used one office to run for the next and/or used tricks to get his serious opponents tossed off the ballot in Illinois. So he is not used to having to have a record to defend and tonight it showed.
Both sides had a lot of emotional investment in this debate and now that investment is being vented. All in all this debate was not a game changer. Both sides got facts wrong, but Obama was in the larger truth deficit. In the area of “non-verbals” Romney was the clear winner. He was more energized and assertive and as a result he looked more presidential because he came into the debate with a better posture.
Jimmy Stewart, a hero in every sense of the word, presents a poem he wrote about his dog. This clip is from his appearance on the Johnny Carson Show in 1981.
Jimmy Stewart appeared in 80 films and won every award possible in the film industry. Stewart was also a career Air Force officer who started out as a private and worked through the ranks to Brigadier General. He was promoted to Major General by President Reagan while in the retired reserves. General Stewart commanded and flew multiple bombing missions over enemy territory during WWII, including bombing runs over Berlin, Bremen, Brunswick, and Frankfurt.
Stewart’s stepson First Lieut. Ronald W. McLean was killed in battle in 1969.
Harry S. Truman said of Stewart, ”If Bess and I had a son, we’d want him to be just like Jimmy Stewart.”
Brigadier General Jimmy Stewart
When asked how he wanted to be remembered he said, “As someone who believed in hard work and love of country, love of family and love of community.”
General Stewart’s service honors include:
Distinguished Service Medal
Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf cluster
Air Medal with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters
Army Commendation Medal
American Defense Service Medal
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with 3 Service Stars
World War II Victory Medal
Armed Forces Reserve Medal
French Croix de Guerre with Palm
Presidential Medal of Freedom
When a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) panel associated with the ObamaCare Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) [ Also at times referred to as the death panel – Editor] targeted breast cancer screenings for women over age 40 talk radio and the alternative media was able to make such a stink that even some of the Obama favoring elite media couldn’t help but report on it. As a result it was reversed.
Why is it that women’s and minority health are the first to be targeted for cuts as ObamaCare takes over? It is because those groups vote Democrat in such large numbers, that the Democrat leadership can do whatever it wants and likely keep that group secured as a voting block. With the elite media covering for them most of the time they can get away with it. Do you ever wonder why inner city minorities get the worst teachers, worst schools, worst city services and worst police protection in cities and areas ran by Democrats? It is for the same reason. No matter what the Democrats do they believe they will always get 85% or better of the black vote, so they put resources in swing districts to win swing voters.
Nov. 20, 2009 (Bloomberg) — A medical debate over breast-cancer screening that has turned political may set the tone for a battle over President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul that will resonate for years.
The furor over a federal panel’s recommendation against mammograms for most women in their 40’s shows the obstacles the U.S. may face trimming costs in a $2.5 trillion health system, even when research suggests the cuts may be appropriate, said Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton University economist.
With a health-care overhaul nearing a Senate vote, Republicans said the recommendations by the panel, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, for fewer mammograms proved Obama’s agenda will lead to rationed care. Democrats, fearful of antagonizing a key voting group in women, said the U.S. won’t change federal reimbursements to support guidelines that most women shouldn’t get regular mammograms until age 50.
The panel’s suggestions provided “the perfect place to throw a bomb into the health-care debate,” said Representative Lynn Woolsey, a Democrat of California and co-leader of the 82- member Congressional Progressive Caucus, in an interview. “We’re not going to ration anything. We’re going to give people choices based on science.”
‘Worst-Case Scenario’
The new guidelines would reduce annual mammograms by more than half under a “worst-case scenario,” said Junaid Husain, a Boston-based analyst at Soleil Securities, in a note to investors Nov. 17. Senator Sam Brownback, a Republican of Kansas, said the task force’s recommendations represent the start of an Obama administration plan to ration health care to pay for its overhaul.
“There are other ways to reduce costs,” Brownback said in an interview.Data show that 17 percent of breast-cancer deaths occur in women from ages 40 to 50, he said. Those statistics mean the panel “is effectively saying 17 percent wasn’t high enough to warrant spending the money to save lives.”
Democrats active in supporting the health-care overhaul legislation sought to distance themselves from the panel’s advice. Woolsey said resources will have to be used more efficiently, “but we’re not going to start with women.”
Medical economists said the U.S. will have to prepare itself for these kinds of decisions if it wants to cut health- care costs. Health-care legislation calls for comparative effectiveness research, as a way to determine whether treatments and procedures aren’t being overused.
Oh they are basing those decisions on science alright – political science; and politics is exactly why they reversed it. After all if it was based on “real science” and decisions are based on that basis only then why reverse it? Almost one if five breast cancer deaths are women aged 40-50. So to Obama’s appointees one in five breast cancer deaths is a safe gamble to ensure that services aren’t overused. They are not going to start with women? Oh really?
My wife had her routine physical today and she was asked to sign the new “voluntary” HHS data mining form for the BarryCare IPAB rationing panel. She said I’m not comfortable signing this. And, they told her, well we can’t bill Blue Cross if you don’t sign it. Oh, so it’s not really voluntary then? THEN her doctor informed her of the new “guidelines” on pap smears. Kathleen Supercillious has decided that pap smears are only needed every 5 years now. Folks, Ameritopia is already upon us. ” Forward” …. to Cervical cancer.
So I started doing some digging and look at this, not only are these “voluntary” ObamaCare becoming mandated over time, but the IPAB is targeting women’s pap tests for cuts [the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is a part of HHS/IPAB]. What happened to not letting the government get between you and your doctor? Here is the positive spin from NBC News:
Most women can go as long as five years between cervical cancer screenings as long as they make sure to get both a Pap smear and an HPV test when they do get examined, a government panel said Wednesday.
The interval between cervical cancer screenings can safely be extended for women between the ages of 30 and 65, according to the new recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
Women ages 21 to 30 should still get a Pap smear every three years, the interval currently recommended. But those younger than 21 and older than 65 can skip the screen altogether, the experts concluded.
The panel is urging a extended intervals in screenings in an attempt to cut back on the number of women who end up being treated for lesions that might resolve on their own.
The downside could be a very small potential increase in the number of women who might die of cervical cancer, experts said.
“It’s a trade-off,” said Dr. Michael LeFevre, co-vice chair of the task force and a professor of family and community medicine at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
Some expert who is also a far left professor that helped come up with this guideline says it’s safe so it must be so right NBC? Let is by clear, like the 17% of breast cancer deaths above, this isn’t science, it is gambling. It is gambling with women’s lives and if they get away with this minorities will be next. These recommendations will be phased into being mandatory over time.
There is a reason why insurance companies have set their guidelines for pap screenings to every three years, they did it because it was better for customers, saved lives, and it increased profits as fighting cancer is the early stages is much cheaper than fighting it at a late stage…BUT that is not the case when you factor in these same patients when they retire and go on Medicare. Fending off and fighting cancer in those over 65 with a history of it is very expensive, so the IPAB is content with letting such citizens die off, but all that death panel talk was just fear mongering…
Related:
Obama’s Own Cousin Dr. Milton Wolf – ObamaCare does harm, rations care – LINK
British National Health Service: late cancer diagnosis kills 10,000 a year – LINK
…because this is the critical issue of our time? What kind of radicalized whack job sues to do something like this? What kind of radicalized whack job attorney actually takes a lawsuit to do this? I will tell you; it is the kind of person who is radicalized by our public schools and universities.
A school district in Rhode Island has ended the traditional father-daughter dance because the longtime tradition violated the state’s gender discrimination law.
Judith Lundsten, an assistant school superintendent in Cranston, tells Fox News the move came in response to a complaint from a single mother after her daughter wasn’t allowed to attend a father-daughter dance.
“The parent felt it was not appropriate and filed a complaint with the ACLU,” she said.
The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the district demanding that all father-daughter and mother-son events be cancelled.
Lundsten said school attorneys found while federal gender discrimination laws exempt such events, Rhode Island’s does not.
“At this point, the law states that we cannot have these gender-specific type activities,” Lundsten told Fox News. “
[Editor’s Note – Bila is one of the best in the business, so naturally her advice is about as solid as any can be, but even so we would like to add a little to it:
The press likes to steer the debate format to 30 or 60 second answers. This favors Democrats because one can spew several lies in such a time, and one cannot respond to such lies with specifics in the same time frame, and since almost every major progressive thinker has written that deception is a valid political tactic it is a problem. Republicans should resist or insist on rules that do not have time limits that are too short. The elite media also likes such short times because it helps create sound bites, gaffes and promotes emotionally charged drama that helps media ratings but is bad for the country.
Debate moderators, such as Gwen Ifel and George Stephanopoulos are entrenched Democratic Party hired guns, who get hired by networks because, well because of just that reason; they will ask questions that will steer the debate about non-issues (like birth control), and will steer the debate away from Obama’s record, don’t let them get away with it. It is appropriate and necessary to take a reporter to task for not doing an ethical job so if that means calling them out and humiliating then Newt style, than by all means do so.]
Tonight, voters across the country will tune in to the first 2012 presidential debate. President Obama and Governor Romney will take the stage at the University of Denver to debate domestic policy from 9:00-10:30 p.m. ET. This is an incredibly important night for Romney, a chance for him to define himself to voters still on the fence and an opportunity to draw a clear, bold contrast between his vision and that of our President.
To be blunt, Romney must have a successful night. In order to make that happen, there are a few things I think he needs to do.
Communications Strategist Jedediah Bila
Governor Romney, here’s my advice:
1) Clearly articulate the discrepancy between Obama’s 2008 campaign promises and what he delivered as President. What did Obama say the unemployment rate would be if his stimulus was passed? Remember when Obama said that adding $4 trillion in debt was unpatriotic? Where was his leadership on tax reform and responsible budgeting? Was entertaining lobbyists part of his plan to change business as usual in Washington? The list goes on and on. People need to be reminded that what they voted for in 2008 is not what they received.
2) Dismantle Obama’s supposed allegiance to the middle class. What about Obamacare’s tax hikes on the middle class? Heritage reminds us: “Obamacare imposes a penalty—or tax increase—on Americans who do not purchase health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that most of those paying these taxes are middle-class individuals and families making less than 500 percent of the federal poverty level: $59,000 for an individual and $120,000 for a family of four. Three million lower-income and middle-class Americans will pay an estimated $2 billion in these ‘mandate taxes.’”
What about middle-class coal workers suffering at the hands of Obama’s overregulation? Perhaps some Americans weren’t paying attention when Senator Obama talked about bankrupting the coal industry in 2008. Remind them in light of coal plant closures in 2012.
Keep in mind that Obama will present his allegiance to the middle class within the larger context of his class-warfare strategy of imposing tax hikes on small business owners and other hard-working Americans he broadly labels “millionaires and billionaires.” Never–ever–be afraid to tackle class warfare. Let President Obama pit Americans against each other; be the leader who unites us under policies that benefit all.
3) Be bold in drawing a distinction between your vision and that of Obama (as reflected through his policies these last four years). If this is going to be a choice election, the choice needs to be abundantly clear. Part of outlining that distinction is a willingness to get specific. Voters have little patience for ambiguity at this point, particularly those disheartened Independents who fell for ‘hope’ and ‘change’ in 2008. When asked a specific question, give very specific answers–numbers, facts, figures, policy outlines, cost, and benefits. Details inspire voter confidence in you and your vision.
4) Delivery matters. Leave talking points, affected tones, rigidity, and timidity behind. Instead, bring to the stage realness, empathy for the plight of struggling Americans, fearlessness with respect to tackling Obama’s failed policies and this country’s challenges, and confidence about both your policy and your ability to execute it.
You have been painted by the opposition as out of touch, detached, and unable to connect with voters. The only person who can prove that caricature wrong is you. Remember that Ronald Reagan didn’t just get elected because people believed he was the guy who could fix things; he also got elected because underneath all of that political talk, voters saw a real person who connected with them. In the 2008 vice-presidential debate, Sarah Palin reminded voters of that element by focusing her attention not on Biden or the moderators, but right through the camera’s lens on the American people. Remember to talk directly tovoters, and it will make all the difference.
Most importantly, recall that Obama has a tendency to get defensive and arrogant when challenged. Be his opposite. Welcome the challenges and refute the President’s claims with a down-to-earth, fact-filled rebuttal. Always remember that arrogance does not equal confidence. Confidence inspires voters; arrogance conveys that you think you’re smarter than the rest of us. Confidence is appealing; arrogance is not.
5) Finally, own the Bain Capital argument, the tax return argument, and any other petty distraction put forth by Obama to draw the curtain over the unemployment numbers, ballooning debt and deficit, overregulation, and the rest of his policy disasters.
Mitt, you have a choice: Either own the narrative or President Obama will. It’s up to you.
It is good to see Republicans talking about elite media bias and actively taking strategy to counter it. It is important to make examples of elite media reporters by name when they decide to behave like state run media.
It’s hard to compete with someone who gets Nobel Prizes and Grammy Awards just for showing up at the office. In running against someone as highly praised as Barack Obama, Mitt Romney has his work cut out for him. As his supporters point out, Wednesday night’s presidential debate offers the Republican candidate a chance to present his plan for prosperity directly to the country. He needs to take it.
On Sunday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie explained the importance of the debate to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “Let’s face it, George, there’s been a lot of filtering going on,” the Republican chief executive said to the former Democratic aide. “This is the first moment when the American people are going to be able to see these two guys side by side laying out their vision unfiltered. And I think that’s going to be a powerful moment for Mitt Romney.”
The Media Research Center (MRC) on Tuesday documented the purported impartiality of Mr. Stephanopoulos‘ debate analysis since he joined ABC in 1997. According to MRC, the anchor of “This Week” and “Good Morning America” declared the Democratic candidate the winner in eight of the nine general election presidential debates.
Over on “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace mentioned two stories this week that struck him about media bias. He held up the Washington Post from Wednesday and pointed to the lead story, “Ohio, Florida Give Obama an Edge,” and the sidebar, “For Obama, the Buckeye State May be a Bull’s-eye.” The Fox News anchor noted that his wife had said to him, “I guess the race is over according to The Washington Post.”
He then showed the cover of Time magazine this week, which has Mr. Romney in a church stained-glass window, and noted that with just five weeks before the election, the magazine was focused on the candidate’s religion instead of his economic or foreign policies.
Mr. Wallace also asked his guest, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, whether he thinks “the mainstream media is carrying water for Barack Obama.” The Wisconsin Republican replied, “I think it kind of goes without saying that there’s definitely a media bias. … I’m a conservative person, I’m used to media bias. We expected media bias going into this.”
Doug Schoen was Bill Clinton’s pollster in the White House and Pat Caddell had the same position for Jimmy Carter. These are not “right wing” bloggers and pundits. These two men have been as in the center of Democratic Party politics as it gets for the last 35 years.
We have written about the incredible amounts of media bias that has been at a whole new level since 2008, and while that bias has been there since the 1960’s, it has never been as outrageous as it is today.
Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen with Megyn Kelly:
To see the entire video where Pat Caddell makes his case go HERE.
Here is the Gallup Poll that is referred to in the conversation:
September 21, 2012
U.S. Distrust in Media Hits New High
Fewer Americans closely following political news now than in previous election years
by Lymari Morales
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004.
The record distrust in the media, based on a survey conducted Sept. 6-9, 2012, also means that negativity toward the media is at an all-time high for a presidential election year. This reflects the continuation of a pattern in which negativity increases every election year compared with the year prior. The current gap between negative and positive views — 20 percentage points — is by far the highest Gallup has recorded since it began regularly asking the question in the 1990s. Trust in the media was much higher, and more positive than negative, in the years prior to 2004 — as high as 72% when Gallup asked this question three times in the 1970s.
This year’s decline in media trust is driven by independents and Republicans. The 31% and 26%, respectively, who express a great deal or fair amount of trust are record lows and are down significantly from last year. Republicans’ level of trust this year is similar to what they expressed in the fall of 2008, implying that they are especially critical of election coverage.
More broadly, Republicans continue to express the least trust in the media, while Democrats express the most. Independents’ trust fell below the majority level in 2004 and has continued to steadily decline.
Wow, so busted. TSA wants to screen you, but they can’t even screen themselves.
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 
