Every couple of years there is a new anti-piracy bill and a new bill to protect “kids from porn” proposed. These bills are deliberately made to be over reaching and over broad.
This is done so certain members can say “see I voted to protect your kids from X” or they can say to wealthy and powerful companies that have intellectual property “See I voted for a law to protect your interests, intellectual property and your money” – In the case of the later it usually happens at times such as now when politicians are fund raising for the elections coming this November.
The bills are so broad and over reaching that they are not intended to become law and on the off chance that they do they are written in such a way that the courts will strike them down, thus setting the stage to use the issue again to shill for votes and fund raising dollars.
Popehat law blog has composed a list of the most outrageous cases of censorship and attempts of censorship from 2011. The list is revoltingly quite impressive. Readers are encouraged to vote and comment.
The Sean Hannity Interview with Donald Trump and it is worth viewing as they have a good policy discussion, especially in the second half of the interview:
One of my worthy academic friends sent me the following note:
Chuck, Trump is a complete buffoon.And his comments in this interview are garbage even compared to his usual bleats…why promote this? Cheers!
I can understand why someone might think this way. Trump is a showman, he knows all about television timing and hype and to some people the hype can certainly be viewed as buffoonery.
But as someone who is trained in communications, which includes journalism, classic rhetoric, manipulation, politics and propaganda, I have learned to separate hype and emotionalism from the substance of any message and I encourage all readers of Political Arena to learn to do the same.
So I respond:
Professor, the thing is, even though he is a showman who is over the top (I mean look at the HAIR), he is an over the top showman who has a policy point of view that connects with voters.
I, as a student of propaganda, tend to strip away the hype and examine the message, and right now Trump is the only one saying what he is saying, and that is why it is news.
Don’t prejudge, just listen. Laura Ingraham with Donald Trump on the derisive comments of pundits like Charles Krauthammer.
Learned Professor:
OK. I listened. Where’s the beef? I hear15 minutes of him dumping on Rove and Krauthammer. Rove is someone I would pay some attention to on strategies and tactics for winning elections, not political philosophy. Krauthammer usually has interesting things to say on politics and culture, but sometimes gets things wrong. I hear repeated boasting that he is a business success, saying that he understands economics…what is the audio supposed to convince me of?
Editor (me):
One of the points being that the pundit class thinks they can pick our nominee.
Think of it this way, yo do real research in physics as well as teach. If you put out crappy research being whoppingly wrong, it would affect you. You have a stake in what you do.
But what if you just taught high school physics and nothing else? You could be glaringly wrong and wrong often and there would be no consequences (just as we see with public school teachers and the textbooks they use).
These pundits who talk and talk (Krauthammer opposed Reagan) are wrong about plenty of things (George Will even once called the Second Amendment an embarrassment) and yet where are the consequences? Yet they act as though they are entitled to dictate to us who our nominee is and anyone else who “butts in” can “butt out” as far as they are concerned.
For someone like Donald Trump, when he is wrong it affects him very directly, the credibility he has for his TV show, not to mention his credibility as a deal maker and a business man.
When Donald Trump makes a mistake it tarnishes his entire brand, his children who are a part of that brand, each move he makes has the potential to cost many millions of dollars of his personal wealth and those who invest in him, and the many thousands of jobs that he provides.
All of this is on the line with every move Trump makes. When Karl Rove or Charles Krauthammer say something stupid does it endanger the entire Fox brand? Of course not, in fact people will likely forget it two weeks later.
So who is more qualified to offer on opinion? Who has more at stake in America and in Americans? The answer is obvious, and that is why if anyone has MORE of a place to speak out as a pundit as the chattering class, it is Donald Trump, and ever other business owner who risked everything to have a chance at success. And that is the point which Laura understands and demonstrates to some degree on her show.
Where is the plan to fix America from Charles Krauthammer? Trump just wrote a book on how to do it. In fact, Charles Krauthammer’s entire life’s work is not as influential or as substantive as Donald Trump’s iconic book “The Art of the Deal”.
This brings me back to my previous point about separating the hype and emotion from the raw substance. We are so used to hype without substance from the elite media, that we start to believe that when we see hype that it automatically means there is no substance.
P.S.
Did you see Mika Brzezinski tell Boon Pickens that he doesn’t pay enough in taxes? Boon is 83, he goes to work every day and he has paid $665 million in taxes since he turned age 70, and Mika went after him for not paying enough. Yet look at who holds up Mika as someone who actually matters.
Learned Professor:
Regardless of what you think about Rove or Krauthammer, the question is: “Is Trump a useful person for the Republican candidates to elevate by attending his debate?” I say ‘no’ (Not R. or K., *I* say this.). I say that Trump is not a serious man. He is a successful real-estate mogul. He is also a vain braggart with too many stupid and non-conservative ideas for me to want him to be a ‘blessed’ voice for American conservatism. I don’t think the roof will fall in if this happens, but I think that the candidates will muddy themselves by association.
Editor:
There is much truth to what you just said, but in fairness, Trump never claimed to be a a “‘blessed’ voice for American conservatism” like Rush Limbaugh or as implied by Krauthammer. Trump speaks as a businessman who sees a government that is stupid with money, corrupt in it’s regulations, killing jobs, and is foolish in managing our resources. Almost every business owner in the country can identify with Donald Trump at some level. Besides, how many reporters moderating a primary debate are anything but a mouthpiece for the extremist wing of the Democratic Party?
Trump will ask questions no one in the media would think to ask, he will address issues they will not bring up, and it will give us an opportunity to see how the candidates react in a very different environment.
[Editor’s Note – It is not that I do not respect Krauthammer, Will, or Rove, it is the entire idea of “butt out” that I really take exception to.]
Communist propaganda combined with scapegoating. It is so typical and exactly the same tactics used by every tyrant in world history, but perfected by Nazi Germany [Note: Usually it is wise to avoid Nazi comparisons, but in this case it is warranted as the historical parallels are almost exact].
Scapegoating is used by tyrants who blame a group of people they see as expendable for the problems often created by the failures of those very leaders.
(Reuters) – Russia’s youths admire Soviet dictator Josef Stalin — who presided over the deaths of millions of people — and want to kick immigrants out of Russia, according to a poll released on Wednesday.
The poll, carried out by the Yuri Levada Centre, was presented by two U.S. academics who called it “The Putin Generation: the political views of Russia’s youth”.
When asked if Stalin was a wise leader, half of the 1,802 respondents, aged from 16 to 19, agreed he was.
“Fifty-four percent agreed that Stalin did more good than bad,” said Theodore Gerber, a sociologist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Forty-six percent disagreed with the statement that Stalin was a cruel tyrant.”
Stalin, who took over from Vladimir Lenin, built a system of terror and repression in which tens millions of people died or were killed. He died in 1953.
“What we find troubling is that there is a substantial proportion of young people in Russia today who hold positive or ambivalent views on Stalin and his legacy,” Gerber said.
“We think it would probably be more appropriate if there was more condemnation of the Stalin era.”
The poll showed 17 percent of the young people disagreed that Stalin was responsible for the imprisonment, torture and execution of millions of innocent people, while 40 percent thought his role in the repression had been exaggerated.
The majority of respondents thought the collapse of the Soviet Union was a tragedy and two thirds thought that America was a rival and enemy. Only a fifth viewed Iran as a potential rival or enemy.
Most young people also wanted immigrants kicked out of Russia: 62 percent said they agreed with the statement that the Russian government should evict most immigrants.
But 64 percent agreed with the idea that immigrants should be allowed to have Russian citizenship if they abided with Russian laws and customs.
The poll showed the biggest concern for the youth was the problem of drugs, followed by unemployment, poverty, corruption, education, crime, HIV/AIDS and ecology.
[Note, this story is stickied to the top of the page as it is our feature of the week. Please scroll down to see new posts and updates!]
by PoliticalArena.org Editor Chuck Norton
Sometimes beltway wisdom can reflect certain truths not apparent to many nice folks in “fly over country”, but often the beltway wisdom caters to government largess and the message can be sold to large donors and bundlers.
Inside the beltway, insiders from both parties treat small government conservatives as “extreme” because all of them make their money from government largess either directly or indirectly. There are also factors that swing the public that those inside the beltway never get exposed to. The greatest example of this was in 1976 and in 1980 when “insiders” believed that Ronald Reagan was a joke, a stupid B-movie actor whose eloquent speeches about the dangers of communism, socialism and collectivism should have went out with the 1950’s. Now those same pundits claim to be the very fathers of his success. While some of the names of the insiders and pundits have changed, the beltway mentality has not.
Please examine these comments from the insiders poll at National Journal and enjoy my comments which will appear in red.
The Gingrich Moment has yet to catch on with National Journal‘s Political Insiders. Despite former House Speaker Newt Gingrich‘s surge in the Republican presidential nomination contest, overwhelming majorities of both Democratic and Republican Insiders still say former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has the better shot at beating President Obama in 2012.
[This is what the left and the elite media say. They said the same thing about McCain and Dole. The elite media is essentially the Democrat media complex, so if Mitt Romney is so much of a threat why are they avoiding piling on and trashing Romney like they have the other candidates? In each case where the most “moderate” candidate was considered the most electable the Democrat campaigned to the right of the GOP nominee and won. When there is a bold difference between the two candidates the conservative Republican wins.
Some insiders know this and are simply rooting for the two candidates who are most likely to guarantee continued government largess. Other insiders start out with the best of intentions, but end up adopting the very mentality that they came to DC to change in the first place. Having been to DC events I can tell you that the temptation to meld in to that mentality is highly seductive. Make no mistake, the media and the White House want to run against Romney and several White House staffers have let that leak out. They believe that the same strategy the GOP used against John Kerry in 2004 can be used against Mitt Romney. They also believe that Obama can fool voters by campaigning to the right of Romney’s record. They will say that Romney talks like Reagan, but governed like Dukakis. Obama will also run against what he will describe as a namby-pamby do nothing Congress that talks about grandiose reforms but ends up with a schizophrenic big government record like Romney’s. ]
For some of the Insiders, Romney’s well-oiled campaign and potential for moderate appeal gave him the edge.
[The well oiled campaign with huge state machines is not as overwhelmingly effective as it used to be for two reasons.
The first reason is that with the power of the internet and multiple 24 hours news channels voters have more unfiltered access to information and the candidates. Herman Cain had almost no ground machine to speak of, and the truth is that if it weren’t for his repeated stumbling when it comes to basic foreign policy questions and messaging, he would still be the front-runner. The allegations of sexual harassment by women, all of whom have direct ties to David Axelrod and the Chicago Democrat machine were so transparent, that most people were not swayed by them. The fact that the Cain allegations didn’t stick in spite of a massive elite media campaign to try to make them otherwise is yet another indicator of just how powerful new media really is (note, remember when Cain was asked if he would take a lie detector test about the allegations and he said yes? Only local media shared the results). A wealthy massive machine is no longer necessary to get a message out.]
“He [Romney] almost beat a liberal icon in a blue state and went on to win the governor’s race,” said one Democratic Insider. “He is a very strong general-election candidate.”
[And Newt nationalized a mid-term election, brought in a GOP majority in the House for the first time in 40 years, cut taxes, balanced the federal budget, created a surplus, and passed welfare reform with a Democrat President, yet our Democratic insider knows that. Also, since when has Massachusetts ever been a political gauge for the rest of the country? ]
“Mitt Romney is better positioned to speak to independent voters,” said another Democrat, “including key voting blocs like swing unmarried women.” A Republican strategist agreed. “Romney is more acceptable to moderate voters, especially female voters.”
[Nonsense. And this brings us to the second reason why massive state machines on the ground are not as effective as they used to be. Those machines were needed to get the attention of ordinarily more apathetic independent voters (and conservatives could not be more motivated already). Independent voters have been anything but apathetic since 2009. Independents are engaged and informed in a way I thought I would never see again in my lifetime. They are also far from what beltway insiders would consider moderate.
In questionnaires about civics and current events independents score almost as high as Republican voters, before 2009 they scored below Democrat voters.
In the 2009 state and local elections voters swung towards GOP/TEA candidates by 18 points in the key swing states of Florida and Pennsylvania. The independent voters in those key swing states were not energized by a “moderate message”. They were energized by the bold TEA Party message of Rick Santelli and Sarah Palin. In New Jersey the firebrand fiscal hawk Chris Christie was elected governor.
In 2010 GOP/TEA Party candidates swept the elections in nine of the top ten swing states. For the first time since 1984 when Ronald Reagan won 49 states, traditionally independent and slightly left leaning voters such as women and Catholics voted Republican by big numbers. There is no way that anyone could say that they were energized by Mitt Romney or anyone like him. Florida, which Obama won, tossed out their own Republican Governor Charlie Crist who was a wishy-washy Mitt Romney like moderate, and replaced him with reaganesque Marco Rubio. Governor Crist tried to take the independent vote away from Rubio by running as an independent and guarantee the Democrats a win, but independent voters such as women and Catholics voted for Rubio by significant margins.]
Other Republican Insiders named Romney as the stronger candidate, but couldn’t muster much enthusiasm about the prospect.
“Romney’s shape-shifting might not be appealing for conservatives in the primary, but he’s far more disciplined than Gingrich and is the only candidate that can win in November,” said one Republican.
[Romney is more disciplined, but not as disciplined as one might think, already since the debates started Romney has changed his messaging and positions. What is the bold Romney vision for America other than “I’m not Barack Obama and don’t I look sweet on TV? Also Newt has come back from the early missteps in his campaign with a new discipline and has avoided his previous academics ways of getting himself off message with excessive nuance.]
“Mitt Romney will be hard to hate in the general for the same reason he is hard to love in a primary,” said another Republican. “There isn’t much ‘there’ there, so the spotlight will gravitate to Obama. Romney makes it a referendum on Obama; Gingrich makes it a choice.”
[Indeed, 1980 could have been a referendum about Carter, but Ronald Reagan went out of his way to make it a choice. Gingrich gives you something to vote for.]
Concerns about Romney’s charisma led a small number of Insiders on both sides of the spectrum made the case for Gingrich as the stronger Obama opponent. “Romney seems like he is the most formidable on paper and in debates,” said one Democrat, “but the American people will struggle to take to him, just as the Republicans are struggling to take to him.” “The president’s money will dwarf ours,” warned a Republican strategist. “So our candidate must frame his message more clearly and forcefully. That’s Newt’s strength and that’s Romney’s weakness.”
[Hey someone in DC is thinking! Obama and his team led by David Axelrod will try to mottle everything, change history, and make the facts into a soup until people don’t know what to think. Newt has the boldness and razor like clarity in his presentation that can cut through the nonsense.]
Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham are for Mitt Romney. Why?
Ann & Laura are singularly focused on Romney’s ability to speak and have been quite up front about this when discussing it.
I understand their point of view, but I do not totally agree with it. During the Bush administration while I was getting my latest degree at IU, I had to constantly defend what the administration was doing right because the administration made almost no attempt to articulate it themselves (with the exception of hiring Tony Snow).
This became very tiresome and was a reason why the GOP got pasted in 2006 and 2008. Since communication is the life of Ann and Laura (and it is my life too) I see how their point of view can be so unbalanced.
When George W. Bush was debating John Kerry can anyone honestly say that Bush dominated Kerry in any of those debates? Yet Bush still won convincingly.
The want to have Romney for the reasons stated is defensive in nature. Just as the Democrats picking Dukakis was defensive, picking Mondale was defensive, and picking Kerry was defensive. They were all picked because the Democrats “settled” on who they thought was “electable”. The GOP did this with Dole and McCain and today many “insiders” want to follow that line of thinking for 2012. Don’t be fooled.
Ann and Laura had a conversation on The Laura Ingraham Show and agreed that Mitt Romney will never be as conservative after the primary as he is now, and he will not be as conservative in the White House as he would be in the General Election. They both laughed and said how it will work out great for them because they will have yet another [liberal] Republican that they can make fun of for four years.
The state of the country is so dire that we no longer can afford the luxury of having a president talk radio can make fun of.
This video from The Onion shows you just how elite media over-hype works and how they get you to care about news that really isn’t news at all. You will see the techniques that are designed to generate an emotional response and suggest the editorial point of view into your mind with very little facts at all. This is perhaps the most important video The Onion has ever done.
From time to time we all run into someone with the “union” mentality; meaning that someone believes the conspiracy theories put out by the neo-Marxist union leadership in their news letters. Rarely do I run into someone, even a union member, who truly believes those conspiracy theories and takes them to heart with near total abandon.
Recently I ran into such a person who went on an emotional tirade almost yelling that “All Republicans oppose Obama because they are racist and I don’t care what anybody has to say or show me I have seen it too many times” (obviously from all of the other times in our history when we had Saul Alinsky inspired black presidents) . I was a bit astonished by this because rarely will someone just up and declare that he has a “don’t confuse me with the facts” attitude and be proud of it. At that point I realized that any rational discussion with this person was futile and I let them complete their rant, said “take care now” and left.
Aside from getting such a person to agree to a strictly formal Lincoln-Douglass structured conversation any attempt at rationality with said person is hopeless.
I could have said a few things such as:
Oh I see the Republicans (not to mention almost all independents) opposed ObamaCare for the same reason they opposed HillaryCare, because Hillary is black.
Or:
If only Joe Biden would have been the one proposing “BidenCare”, cap & trade energy taxes, tanking our domestic oil and coal production to drive up energy prices, an EPA that is out of control, abuses of power with ‘Chicago Style’ financing and kick backs with Obama’s other chosen energy buddies (like Solyndra) every Republican and Independent would have supported it overwhelmingly…. or not.
Or:
All of those who voted for Obama in 2008 and have turned against his policies now and or voted for the GOP in 2010 are somehow ‘racists after the fact’. And all of those Jewish Americans who voted for Obama in 2008 only to vote against his candidate in the recent New York special House election, as a protest vote against Obama, weren’t racist then, but they are today.
Or:
For a racist my family which includes Jews, Blacks, and Asians, finds me to be as warm and accepting as anyone (so do my homosexual friends. I supported GoProud at CPAC).
Of course such inconvenient facts would have just enraged the man even further beyond his current hostility. There will always be people who are totally demoralized by conspiracy theories, envy, class warfare emotionalism, etc. Any rational discussion with such a person is futile. It is best to just let them rant because most normal people are easily smart enough to see it for what it is.
If Herman Cain becomes president (who I would be thrilled to vote for over Obama) perhaps my default response to anyone who has even the slightest critique about President Cain will be a reactionary charge of racism. Herman Cain (who by the way is a Black American with “slave blood” as they say) just won the Southern CPAC Straw Poll in Florida which is the second largest conservative event in the country.
More truth than the demoralized can handle – LINK.
UPDATES (See Bottom of post for details) – Glenn Beck: Romney lied in the debate
New York Post: Romney not authentic, pandering
Fox News: Polling dictates Romney answers…
In the debate Romney trashed Rick Perry and takes the position that you cannot be too against illegal immigration, but he was talking amnesty with Tim Russert:
Live Blog by PoliticalArena.org editor Chuck Norton:
Perry opens up with setting an environment to help get small business hiring – points 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Perry: Texas was the number one state for relocation for five years in a row.
Mitt Romney opens up by attacking Obama on his job crushing policies – very smart. “Regulators have to be allies to business not foes”…
Romney is trying to walk the fence of the class warfare game. – We need to bring wealth home and dodging Brett’s question about that does not inspire confidence.
[Note – Romney had an opportunity to take on Obama’s recent push on class warfare he and he totally waffled. Romney’s answer fell somewhere between the non-committal committal and the non-denial denial. This is really indicative of a man who is making political calculations and is not standing on principle. This really bothered me.]
Bachmann goes after Obama on the “Out of every dollar I earn how much do I deserve to keep” question.
Federal Right to Work Law Question – Santorum goes after over reaching government unions – but the feds already took such bargaining away from the federal govt unions under Carter.
Newt: Unemployment should be tied to a business training program.
Huntsman targeted by Chris Wallace on his idea to subsidize natural gas…..and my internet freezes… so I did not hear the rest of his answer. OK – He favors it to ‘get the ball rolling’, so long as there is a quick phase out so it isn’t a long term thing…
Herman Cain on his 9 9 9 plan. Throw out the tax code totally. Romney wont toss out the tax code and start over and that dog wont hunt says Cain. Cain is absolutely right. The tax code is such a mess and so hard to comply with right now that modifying the edges of it will not help really fix the real problem which is the tax code itself.
How to get teeth in the 10th Amendment – Ron Paul says that he would veto every bill that violates the 10th amendment – It sounds great in theory, but that radical of a change so fast would be a huge shock to the economy. It would have to be phased in over time. There are just better answers to this question.
Gary Johnson gets his first answer. I promise, I promise list of goodies. Gary is a nice guy and pretty smart. I have had the pleasure of talking with him personally. He wants the Fair Tax. He needs to work on his charismatic approach IMO but a nice answer.
Megyn Kelly quoting Newt: Sure of course he is (a socialist) LOL I love it. Romney – I have news for Obama, European socialism isnt working for Europeans so stop trying to use it here.
Huntsman – this is the worst time to be raising any taxes and everybody knows that. We have structural problems with our tax code. Now huntsman is pretty much quoting the Obama deficit commission plan, which is actually a pretty good plan, which is why Obama ignored it.
Our friend Lee Doren in the debate with a question!! What department would YOU eliminate?? Herman Cain – we need to start all over on these departments like the EPA- he is right. More Cain – we need to use the Chilean model on Social Security – “The solution is FIX IT” – Herman Cain is GREAT at ‘make sure you are addressing the RIGHT problem’.
Newt – once again he refuses to accept the premise of the media figures question. Newt announces a NEW Contract with America – Far Deeper, far bolder, far more profound. Newt: Obama’s socialist policies..,. SMACK home run.
Newt just wowed the debate again.
Education Question: Gary Johnson – the department of education actually costs us more money than it spends. Santorum agrees saying “The federal education system doesn’t serve the customer” Great answer Rick. Newt Gingrich wants Pel Grants for K-12 – he obviously believes that the public schools have failed. Ron Paul – if you love your children get the govt out of public education, people need a right to opt out of the public school system when it is failing.
Rick Perry – comes out for school choice praises everyone on stage and slaps Romney for praising the “Race to the Top” program which is a regulatory disaster. Notice Romney does not deny what Perry said. Romney is dodging…. Romney just praised Arne Duncan /facepalm [Arne Duncan and ‘Race to the Top’ are both a disaster, if you do not know why I will be happy to explain in comments below – Editor]
[UPDATE – More on the education issue and Romney added in the update section below.]
Huntsman – I signed the second voucher bill in the United States. I have actually done something about this. Localize, Localize, Localize.
Bachmann asked the illegal immigration question – Should each state enforce the immigration laws because the feds will not. Wallace said that laws like Arizona’s are at odds with the Constitution – that is NOT so. The courts have said that the states can enforce federal law as long as the state law mimics it and the AZ law does.
Newt: E-Verify is a mess with massive fraud. Visa and Mastercard could run E- Verify better. Newt is right that E-Verify as it is now is useless. The federal govt keeps that program a mess.
Romney goes after Perry on in state tuition in Texas. Perry – only 4 dissenting votes in legislature on his tuition law – Perry is Right about this guys.
The accusation: Perry wants to hand ‘in state’ tuition to illegals who just waltz over the border…This particular “in state tuition for illegals” accusation is an easy one to bust when ALL of the facts are considered. WHY?????
The bill did not give in state tuition for all “illegals”, it gave it to the children of illegals who graduated in good standing from Texas high schools. The difference is a huge moral gulf. I am fine with punishing illegals who had illegal intent when crossing the border in the middle of the night.
What I am NOT willing to do is punish their children who could not control who their parents are or what they did. The very idea of punishing someone for the acts of their parents, or of continuing punishment via bloodline is morally repugnant to many good people, including myself. Would you want your kids to suffer for what YOU did, as a politician would you want to take the position that the children of those who do wrong should “pay”?
The very idea of “criminal intent” goes to the very fabric of our rule of law and of our legal procedure back to the earliest days of the common law. No case can be made that the kids of those illegals had criminal intent.
This policy is way better than having them go on state and federal welfare rolls. By the way, said students who get in state tuition have to had come out from the shadows and be on a path to citizenship
Foreign policy question – time to watch Ron Paul blow himself to bits … IF he gets asked the Iran question. He doesn’t get asked.
On Israel: Romney – you do not have an inch of space between you and your allies. Romney pounding Obama on his trashing of Israel and sucking up to Hamas. Well done Mitt. “It is unacceptable for Iran to be a nuclear state”.
Herman Cain – I like peace through strength so my policy would be “Peace Through Strength & Clarity”. Very good answer.
Perry on the Pakistan nuke question “Where do you start”? Perry answers that you begin with Pakistan’s neighbors who are our allies. – Good answer. Santorum says stabilize Iraq and then goes after Ron Paul. He obviously does not want to see RP as the nominee.
Newt: If the country is not your ally why are you giving them money? Newt says that the world could become dramatically more dangerous in a short time.
Gary Johnson – the biggest threat to our national security is that we are bankrupt – he was wise to ignore the stupid Cuba question at first. Cuba doesn’t matter right now.
Santorum: Just because our economy is sick doesn’t mean that our values are sick – /smacks Huntsman hard and lectures him on Obama’s stupid rules of engagement. [It is true that the rules of engagement that our soldiers are operating under are ridiculous and made by a pack of lawyers. They cost lives – Editor]
Bachmann is right on the separation question. Separation means that the US Govt should not be run as a Church of the United States, not the idiocy that the courts are engaged in now. Her constitutional interpretation is spot on.
Santorum on the gays in the military question – His answer is spot on. Folks, anyone who leads with or defines himself with his sexuality is making a mistake. Sex should not be an issue so soldiers, liberals, activists should not make it one.
Ron Paul on the day after pill – the rape question – we have too many laws already and the “day after pill” is just too hard to enforce a ban upon.
Perry: the fed govt has no business telling the states how to educate our children.
Cain on ObamaCare – I suspect that he is about to whack it out of the park….. he does. Herman Cain – I had stage four colon and liver cancer. ObamaCare would have resulted in delays in tests and treatments. The only reason I survived is because I got treated on MY timeline and not the federal governments. Great answer.
YouTube question from Ian McDonald – “I have a heart condition” – asks about the new provision for kids to stay on parents policies till they are 26 [Note – this was a GOP idea a long time ago and that was included in ObamaCare in an attempt to call it “bipartisan”]. Huntsman: lets have the states engage in experiments. In Utah we have a state backed catastrophic policy that can be a supplement to private insurance [This is also a long time GOP idea by the way].
Chris Wallace goes after Bachmann on the HPV causes retardation question. – Bachmann is spinning because the day after the last debate she doubled down on this issue . Bachmann is going after Perry on the Merck donations issue – the issue is a total red herring. Bachmann gets donations from Merck’s competition and those donations are more than what Perry got. Perry reminded us on the opt out and gave a touching story. Perry is trying a rise above strategy – it may be working.
Perry on Romney’s flip flopping. Sorry Mitt, but Perry is right about that. Romney has a cute line about experience to get this country going again, but he is shying away from substance and trying to go charismatic. It is already starting to get a tad old [Note – I am trained in political communications, including deception and propaganda, so I am more sensitive to the game Romney is playing. I am not sure regular folks wont fall for this tactic. I hope not].
Via Doug Scheon and Pat Caddell: Perry is winning the polling on Fox News on immigration – toldja 🙂
Question: How to jump start the turn around once elected:
Huntsman – good specifics on energy.
Herman Cain – the problem is a severe lack of confidence in leadership – great point and one that should not be underestimated. – Reagan, shining city on a hill – Cain is doing very well tonight.
Bachmann – first thing to do is repeal ObamaCare – its a good point because domestic business is scared to death of it, while the internationals love the idea so it can eliminate their domestic competition.
Romney – restore trust in the Oval Office
Perry – energy independent, repeal ObamaCare, reform the tax code,
Ron Paul – fix the Federal Reserve problem in creating market bubbles – Good point.
Newt Quoting Reagan – “When Jimmy Carter is unemployed it is a recovery”. Awesome.
Santorum – We need to remember who are are as Americans and we have a president who does not understand what America is all about. Obama is the new King George III who believes that things need to be dictated to on high. WOW
Gary Johnson – My neighbors two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than this current administration. More – Balance the budget now, not 20 years form now. Do it NOW. Toss out the tax system and start over.
The Running-mate question:
Johnson picks Ron Paul.
Santorum – I would pick Newt.
Newt – I do not know yet but would be capable. Newts audio flaked out so I missed part of his answer.
Ron Paul – I defer
Rick Perry – I want to merge Herman Cain and Newt and make him VP 🙂
Romney – there are a couple images I am going to have a hard time getting out of my mind. Any one up here would be a great president or VP.
Bachmann – a solid conservative she says. Then she has a good moment saying, (paraphrasing) “Every 4 years we are told that we have to settle. I do not think that is true. We need a candidate who represents constitutional conservatives especially since Obama’s numbers will be even more in the tank come election time.”
Cain Hints using a non verbals that he is open to be asked for the VP spot and says – If Romney throws out his bad jobs plan and adopted 9 – 9 – 9 I could go for him, but am thinking Newt Gingrich.
Huntsmnan – I would pick Herman Cain.
END OF DEBATE –
Commentary
Romney had his first decent night, but once again everyone had their moments. Romney and Herman Cain stood out as far as showmanship is concerned.
Doug Scheon said that the people are still ahead of the candidates. That is a very astute observation, but I think Doug missed Mitt walking the fence on the class warfare card because Scheon is a Democrat who does not understand GOP sensitivities on that issue.
Mitt’s fence walking on this critical issue has actually managed to lower my confidence in him, but he did raise my estimates of him communications ability. I think more voters caught onto that than the Fox News team realizes.
If I was on Perry’s communications team. I would have this theme and pound it:
Voters have had enough of candidates who talk a great game and then lack follow through when elected. You guys TALK about plans and job creation, but I do it every day and I do something none of you have done, and that is have the best job growth under the totally irresponsible job killing policies of this president. Talk all you want, I walk the walk when the chips are down.
I am becoming more convinced that Romney is not going to replace the tax code, he is not going to tackle the bureaucracy and regulatory reform except superficially. His vision lacks boldness. Every time Romney was asked to state a BOLD plan or vision for reform he gave platitudes and/or his weak-sauce “59 points job plan” answer. Even Herman Cain made it clear that Romney”s 59 points plan is almost a joke.
I discussed tonights performance with two communications professionals. One who is from out West and another who is a DC insider with many years of political experience.
Out West:
I’m not liking Romney. Class warfare, the scare tactics and his flip flopping. I smell a John McCain all over. Conservative in the primaries and a moderate in the general & presidency. Perry needs to be specific and articulate more. My top three candidates so far are Perry, Gingrich & Cain. Santorum & Bachmann come off as bitter Perry haters, although I loved Rick Santorum’s smack-down on Ron Paul/Huntsman on foreign policy.
If Bachmann is so anti Obamacare, why is she not pounding Romney on Romneycare? If she’s truly principled, she’d hammer Romney instead of trying to pry back the Evangelical vote from Perry?[Answer: Bachmann wants Romney v Bachmann two man race, that is why.]
DC Insider:
Thanks, Chuck…good honest assessment of candidates’ positions. Right on…exactly about the Fox News team of Caddell, Scheon, and Parino missing the point on Romney’s fence walking. Romney’s communications person (Eric Fehrnstrom) and his strategist are crippling him [in the long run as they may have done OK in this battle but will lose the war with the charismatics and the fence walking].
UPDATE – Glenn Beck comparing Romney’s book from 2 and a half years ago to the recently released paperback version (ironically called ‘No Apologies’).
Romney then: The stimulus will help some but could be better. RomneyCare could be a national model.
Romney now: Stimulus is a war against free enterprise. National health care of any kind is unconstitutional.
Glenn Beck just read verbatim from the two versions of Romney’s book. When Perry hit Romney for making these changes he said “I have changed no such thing” – Romney lied.
I am going over clips from the debate. When Romney praised Obama’s radicalized and failed Education Secretary Arne Duncan in the debate, Romney was saying that we need to have a teacher accountability program like Duncan has proposed (and will never see the light of day).
How many “teacher accountability” programs have we had? Tinkering around the fringes of our failed education system will not fix the problem. Herman Cain lectured Romney last night for taking that same approach to his economic recovery and jobs program. Cain always says, “Make sure that you are working on the RIGHT problem”. The problems are institutional in education as well as our regulatory structure. Much like the tax code, they are structurally flawed and tinkering with them will not solve the problem.
UPDATE II – New York Post: Romney an unauthentic panderer
Today’s New York Post after going through Romney’s statements found out that he was not being honest in much the same way we did.
And yet maybe Perry’s debate wasn’t all awful. Far from it. The thing is, debates aren’t only about performance; they are also about the way the interchanges reveal the character of the candidates — their political character.
Do they stand up for what they believe? Do they believe in anything, or are they just willing to say whatever their audiences want to hear?
And in that regard, Romney did not perform well at all.
In the opening of the debate, Romney went after Perry for statements in his book, “Fed Up,” about Social Security and the problems with the direct election of senators. And Perry lowered the boom on him. Romney, he noted, changed his line on his own health-care plan in the text of the paperback version of his book “No Apology.”
Words poured from Romney’s mouth like smoke from a wildfire. He zoomed through sentences impossible to follow as he tried to deny that he had done what he had in fact done, which was scrub his own book as his own position changed.
The speed with which he spoke recalled the flim-flam salesman Harold Hill, clouding the minds of innocent Iowans as he raced through the song “Trouble in River City” in “The Music Man.”
Even more telling, Perry hit Romney for speaking well of President Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative, as implemented by Education Secretary Arne Duncan–which Romney absolutely did in Miami on Wednesday. “I think Secretary Duncan has done some good things,” he said, as reported by Politico. “I hope that’s not heresy in this room.”
Romney denied it–a huge blunder, because this contradiction can be thrown back at him daily until the campaign is over. And because it speaks to precisely the reason Romney has been unable to make the sale with Republicans despite his incredible persistence in wooing them over the course of five years. He comes across as false, somehow.
Is unprepared and graceless worse than smooth and false in the eyes of voters desperate for authenticity? I don’t think so.
UPDATE III – Dan Henniger at Fox News
A reader sent us the following note:
Chuck, Dan Henninger just referenced your sentiments on Journal Editorial Report on Fox. He said that Romney’s answers scream “Polling, polling, polling”. The sentiment from the panel is that Romney is a well polished panderer.
This does not surprise me, they did not want Perry to be first and Romney second. So they decided to put their votes behind someone with very little support in the general public to help diminish Perry. As was shown in the last debate, to the Romney camp everything is a political calculation and that is very revealing.
This is the same Marxist group that made “The Story of Stuff“. A slick propaganda video that targets kids with a series of cliche’s the communists use against American freedom and market system –LINK.
Lee Doren takes their latest propaganda film apart.
Folks, this is Hitler Youtharian. That is not a term I use lightly as I oppose frivolous comparisons to WWII.
After you watch the Van Jones video, compare that with the message from “Der Morgige Tag Ist Mein” (Tomorrow Belongs to Me) – English version LINK.
Creeped out yet?
What Jones is doing goes beyond what far left groups were pushing in schools shortly after Obama was elected such as this:
It starts out with a Cuban indoctrination song but then something happens….
and this….
There has also been concern about school teachers doing things like taking songs about Jesus and replacing Jesus with Obama and teaching the kids to sing them in public schools and other outrageous acts of propaganda as has been done HERE, HERE,HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. [Note: YouTube has pulled most of the video’s down].
This is a lesson that everyone should learn. You cannot placate or satisfy the radical left. If you give in to them just a little, they will move the goal post continually and as long as demonizing you yields results they will continue to do so.
The radical leftist group objects because Target gave a pro-business lobby a small donation, that lobby gives some money to Republicans, some of which oppose gay marriage. The homosexual angle is just that, an angle. These people are anti-capitalist and will keep up their harassment until forced to stop, Target closes, or they realize it is not in their interests to stay.
Target first started giving in by making new “pro-gay” policies etc etc. Look at what it has gotten them. This isn’t about gay policy, this is about money and anti-capitalism. So now Target has crossed its “Amy Grant” customer base that it had courted for many years and still the gay leftist group trashes them.
[Editor’s Note – Valuable Lesson: Once you are targeted in the culture war, or you participate in it as Target did with their Amy Grant ads, you had better stake out your territory, stick to it and not waffle or you WILL lose support with all sides. If Target had made it clear that this pressure group would receive no quarter they could appeal to its cultural advertising base for support and would have gotten it. Now Target has put off both sides. Target’s old cultural ad base now believes Target’s traditional cultural appeal was just an insincere gimmick.]
The best way to deal with groups like this is to make them talk to the hand, and if they use union thug tactics you have to go on the offense.
When Jesse Jackson, CAIR and other leftist shakedown artists targeted radio stations to try and silence talk radio, talk host Jim Quinn had a very effective strategy. No meetings, keep them off your property and don’t respond to them. Pretend that they do not exist other than occasionally saying on the air that you know what these groups are all about. Several groups and companies have used this tactic and it works. It works because Jesse Jackson, CAIR and other pressure groups do not want it known that they are ineffective. So in cases when they are ineffective they go away quietly after a time.
Target is getting no quarter because they showed signs of giving in and actually communicated with these people in an attempt to placate them. These pressure groups on the left are predatory. Once they get blood they will keep coming back for more.
I suggest that every PR director or information officer read the book SHAKEDOWN by Ken Timmerman (a man who I have had the pleasure of meeting).
Speaking of Jesse Jackson, Benton Harbor, Michigan had riot trouble a few years ago and Jackson was able to calm the situation down. Do you know why he calmed it instead of fanning the flames for the press? Jesse Jackson went to Whirlpool Corp and made it very clear that he would use those crowds and march against Whirlpool if they did not present his group “Rainbow Push” a nice fat six figure check. Jackson was aware that Whirlpool was outsourcing and flying in foreign workers to replace local Americans in a town that had the highest unemployment in Michigan. It would not have gone over well for Whirlpool if they had resisted. I know this because I worked at Whirlpool at the time and had regular access to many of the top people there (and for the record I thought their employment practices were offensive too).
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Target Corp. is suing a San Diego pro-gay marriage group to get it to stop canvassing outside its San Diego County stores, alleging its activists are driving away customers.
Rights advocates say the trial between Target and Canvass For A Cause that begins Friday could further strain relations with the gay and lesbian community after controversy over its $150,000 donation to a business group backing a Minnesota Republican candidate opposed to gay marriage.
Minnesota-based Target insists it remains committed to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and its lawsuit has nothing to do with the political agenda of the organization.
“Our legal action was in no way related to the cause of the organization and was done so to be consistent with our long-standing policy of providing a by not permitting solicitors at our stores,” the company said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.
Target says it has taken similar action against a number of organizations representing a variety of causes. It alleges in the lawsuit that the San Diego group‘s activists harass customers by cornering them near its stores’ front entrances and debating with them about their views on gay marriage.
The group says it canvasses at shopping malls, college campus and stores like Target to collect signatures and donations in support of gay marriage.
The corporation says at least eight Target stores in the area have reported receiving more than a dozen complaints daily since canvassers started working outside their stores in October 2010. Target says the activists have refused to leave when asked politely and shown the company’s policy prohibiting “expressive activity” on its property.
You hear about reporters who are killed, tortured, or just vanish in Russia by Putin’s goons. RT will never have that problem. RT is perhaps the best and most effective anti-western propaganda on the net.
My research specialty in college was attitude change propaganda and no one does it better than Russia Today.
RT often isn’t news, it is entertainment propaganda. It looks great, the women are hot, it has a slick presentation with top notch production value. Notice how the screen changes every few seconds (MTV style) to keep young peoples eyes peeled. The content is designed to deliver an attitude with only a few facts that create a propaganda narrative. The piece not so subtlety pushes the entire “Jewish Conspiracy” angle pushed by supremacists, skinheads, and militant Islamists.
Cynthia McKinney is shown as a credible legislator and presidential candidate. The very young and those around the world have no idea that she is a full blown anti-Semite who is considered too nutty to be taken seriously even by her own party. The events form the last few days about Palestinians dancing in the streets over a young family being murdered by terrorists, rockets being fired from Gaza at Israeli civilians, a bombing in Israel and yet none of that is in this report. The report makes it seem that Israel is the big mean aggressor and those “wascally wepublicans” are in league with them.
This video is a great teaching aid for journalism students.
The South Bend Tribune once snapped a picture of a strip joint just to have a file picture. In the picture were two people walking on the sidewalk innocently. The picture implied, not with intent, but with carelessness, that the two ladies were going to the strip club. The ladies got upset and the Tribune, to their credit, made it right with them.
In this case, Fox News did a similar thing. Watch the video and before you read below see if you can spot what their producer who put this clip together did wrong.
At the 45 second mark Fox shows several clips of people on YouTube asking people to donate. Notice the word “scam” is under the clips. One of the clips belonged to the man below. His full clip can be seen HERE. His link went to the United Nations World Food Program at http://www.wfp.org/ which is legit.
One can honestly say that Fox News painted him in the light of a scam artist, a criminal. It is doubtful that they had intent and the language they used in talking about it does mitigate any claim of intent. What likely happened here is that a producer or an intern just did a search on YouTube for “donate Haiti” and pasted in the first three clips he could find.
As a result this man was made to suffer. Needless to say he was very upset and he is right to be upset.
Now before the campus crazies go all nuts trashing Fox News it is important to remember that unintentional smears like this are not uncommon. In fact every news organization who has been in business for a while can likely point to such a gaffe they have made. This is why journalism text books usually point this kind of mistake out. If you do make this kind of mistake apologize and run a visible retraction ASAP.
As a journalist, you are going to screw up sometimes. When you do just apologize and make it right. No one expects you to be a saint, they just expect you to make a best effort to be fair.
Too many journalists like to smear. An example is this story that came out accusing Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh of secretly hiring actors to call in. FM “Morning Zoo” shows often use a service to have an actor call in with a crazy story everyone can laugh at. Anyone who has worked in radio knows this. So a reporter decided to take this known service and accuse them of calling political news/talk shows with no evidence whatsoever. Said reporter never even called the company who has the service for comment, nor did the reporter call Limbaugh or Hannity to even ask the question. Instead the reporter just made the allegation.
The story gets worse, the story is from Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), allegedly from the finest teaching journalism professors in the country; journalism teachers who cannot follow the basic ethics rules found in any j-school textbook. CJR is partially funded by George Soros.
While this may make your editor’s day in a highly ideological news room, as most are, be careful. If a reporter ever pulled a stunt like that on one of my clients I would have that reporters face on 100 blogs, make them the butt of jokes and make their dishonesty a viral blog story. Many publicists and press secretaries make a list of what reporters are honest and who is not. If you aren’t you will find that people will stop talking to you.
Politico.com is finding this out the hard way. Lately the quality of the journalism there has been going down and it has become more tabloid/smear like Slate. People on the inside have told us that Politico is aware of this problem. Now it seems that Politico’s planned first presidential debate on May 2, 2011 is not going to happen as Palin and Bachmann have both made it clear that they have no interest in helping Politico’s business model or in helping them regain their credibility. Now that Hotair.com seems to be taking a similar editorial view it appears that the debate is not going to happen, or will have so few candidates there that it will be irrelevant. You brought it on yourselves guys.
UPDATE – MSNBC lefty talker admits he used hired actors coached by Congressional Democrats as callers.
His excuse is lame. When my radio show started we had nothing and I built it up with hard work and talent to beat the competition. I never used staged ringers as callers. A good host should be ready to go an entire show filled with great content and never have to take a call. The most obvious reason why is that at times technical difficulties will prevent you from taking calls. People do not listen to a show to hear callers, so callers are not that important. That is why I never took very many calls on my show.
The second video below makes some very good points that are undeniable. The rhetoric used by the Communist Party and the Democratic leadership is indistinguishable. In the name of class envy and helping people both seek to use crisis to expand their power and subjugate the citizen. In the process most people do not get the help they need and things get worse, but the politicians do gain the power [Examples of crisis that leads to bureaucrats taking power 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
This video explains the point brilliantly – Financial Crisis 101 in three and a half minutes:
To those who have not done their homework, or spent some years on most any college campus, this may seem crazy or shocking. The following video challenges you to go to the Communist Party web site and look for yourself at CPUSA.org
!
“The mere fact that over 100 million people have been murdered in the name of communism does not matter. The fact that a bank exec makes some money on my home mortgage and an oil executive gets rich because I drive my car is the REAL atrocity. Come to think of it I hate doctors and engineers and anybody who makes my life better.”
The following is part one of a 1985 interview with Ex-KGB officer Yuri Bezmenov. In this interview, Bezmenov outlines the four step systematic demoralization and indoctrination techniques utilized for decades against America.
The interview is prophetic, describing effects we can see all around us today.
The goal of demoralization according to the KGB: To change the perception of reality of every American so that they are unable to come to sensible conclusions for their own good and defense in spite of abundant information. To get the targets in such a mindset so that no amount of evidence will ever convince them that leftism is wrong. Pump the targets’ heads with the ideology of their enemy which the KGB has successfully done (in their point of view) to at least three generations of students with next to nothing opposing it. The demoralized either knowingly or unknowingly work towards the goals of the KGB until the real Marxists come to power.
According to the KGB, those journalists, professors, activists, union leaders, film directors and other idealistically minded Marxists who believe in the “beauty of collectivism” think that they will be coming to power; when these “useful idiots” don’t they will be the first to become disillusioned and become the revolution’s worst enemy. According to the KGB they will have to be executed because revolutionaries know how to wage a counter-revolution. They have to go because they know too much. Other useful idiots who still believe even after the revolution become disillusioned when they or their communities have to feel the boot (hence the old saying a conservative is a liberal who got mugged).
[Editor’s Note – This is why when such revolutions are complete the new Marxists who are put in charge kill the old Marxists. In almost every case of such a revolution history shows this to be true. Even Hitler had his “Night of the Long Knives” in which he killed his “brown shirts” and other revolutionaries who used violence to help him come to power. After all if they would use violence to betray their own country they would be a deadly enemy if they later turned against Hitler. As history has demonstrated, the first rule of every successful revolution is “kill the revolutionaries” This is a lesson that the KGB taught its agents. They practiced it when Stalin purged the Trotskyites.]
During the demoralization process those in influential circles who will not accept “the beauty of collectivism” will be subject to character assassination.
Bill Whiddle, who is as solid and bright as any communications strategist I have ever seen, in the video below gives us a great refresher in advertising techniques, branding, political messaging, and what he calls “iconography”. The best modern text on this very subject comes from author David Kupellian in his book The Marketing of Evil.
Let me give you an example of what is meant by iconography.
The Nazi Brand:
We all know what the Nazi Swastika is. Today it represents the kind of leviathan state evil that resulted in the murder of millions. It is important to keep in mind that the perception of the Swastika icon or brand was not always so negative. In the 1930’s Hitler was the darling of a large portion of American leftist academia, the media and many leftist political groups. For several years until Hitler took the rest of the Czechoslovakia after being handed the Czech Sudetenlands his brand was largely respected by large groups of people. For years Hitler and Mussolini were treated as brilliant visionaries who had discovered a “third way” as it were.
A brand can have its meaning changed, but the iconography stays virtually forever. Just like…
The GM Brand:
Here is another icon whose brand has changed and is in the process of changing at this moment.
The brand the GM symbol represents also used to be highly respected and in many ways revered. A true American icon. In short the GM brand used to mean this:
Now the GM brand is in the process of becoming a joke. Government Motors it is called. They make cars that are too expensive, do not hold up well, and that people do not want to drive. Ironically those are the qualities of the current status of government today.
Like all iconography, as we will see more of in the video below, the icon can be used against the brand.
The Obama Brand:
One will find that much of the same manipulation of iconography is used by the Obama brand and against it.
[Note: Disclaimer for leftists and idiots – We are NOT saying that Obama is the same thing as Hitler and neither is Bill Whiddle in the video below, so don’t even go there. This is about the iconography ONLY!]
“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
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Target Corp. is suing a San Diego pro-gay marriage group to get it to stop canvassing outside its San Diego County stores, alleging its activists are driving away customers.
Political Arena 