Category Archives: Elite Media

2012 Primary, Academic Misconduct, Civility, Communications Theory, Culture War, Editorial, Education, Elite Media, Foreign Policy, Global Security, History, Mitt Romney, National Security, Niall Ferguson, Obama, Reagan, School Indoctrination, True Talking Points, Unhinged

False Narratives, Group Think, & Ideological Boxes.

1 Comment

Editorial by Political Arena Editor Chuck Norton

People like to believe in the veracity of their own perceptions; literally they want to believe what they believe is in fact true. That has always been a fact of life, and this writer isn’t going to change it. However, what has changed is that our culture and society no longer reinforces practices, ideas and daily rituals that helped to keep that particular problem in check, making Americans better critical thinkers, and gave Americans a special collective wisdom.

Years ago Professor Christopher Lasch penned an article in Harpers titled “The Lost Art of Argument” where he lamented the so called “objective journalism” (which is anything but) model (from Walter Lippmann) as a tool for elites to set agendas and control the conversation on main street. The power of the elite media narrative is difficult to overstate, as it is much like group think. Everyone wants to be included and accepted, and if you stand out against such group narratives some will resent it. Most people do not realize just how easily they are persuaded by manufactured group narratives.  Allow me to demonstrate with a few examples of popular group think narratives that many people still believe.

“Gravitas”. For those who are politically aware, and were so before the 2000 election, the word gravitas conjures up an image of former Vice-President Dick Cheney. Why? Dr. Thomas Sowell explained it well:

RUSH LIMBAUGH has been having some fun lately, playing back recordings of politicians and media people, who have been repeating the word “gravitas” like parrots, day after day. Before Dick Cheney was announced as Governor George W. Bush’s choice for vice presidential candidate, practically nobody used the word. Now everybody and his brother seems to be using it.

The political spin is that Governor Bush lacks “gravitas” — weight — and that Dick Cheney was picked in an effort to supply what the governor lacks.

In other words, the fact that Bush picked somebody solid for his running mate has been turned into something negative by the spinmeisters. The fact that media liberals echo the very same word, again and again, shows their partisan loyalties — and their lack of originality.

How many people believe that “former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is ignorant”?

Perhaps some of you who are reading this very piece continue to buy into this false narrative. Just so you realize how much you have been effected I will pose the following: did you know that in her infamous interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson ABC had edited out portions of her substantive answers to make her look ignorant? Did you know that ABC did this again in her interview with Barbara Walters. Remember when Charlie Gibson asked her a question about the Bush Doctrine that “Palin got all wrong”? Well, depending on what political historian you talk to there are five or six Bush Doctrines of which Governor Palin and Charlie Gibson each described one accurately. Atlantic Monthly, a left-wing political magazine, went back and did an exhausting review of her time as governor and concluded that she did a great job and pointed out how she was an innovative and competent executive. Odds are that people who buy into the false narrative that Palin is ignorant don’t know any of this.

“Republicans want to gut Social Security.”

The truth is that Reagan (Republican) saved the program with key reforms without decreasing benefits. It was President Clinton (Democrat) who increased the tax on Social Security benefits on the middle class which amounted to a benefit cut. It was George W. Bush (Republican) who tried to get at least a part of Social Security put into individual growth accounts so that Congress couldn’t spend your money (Democrats in Congress stopped him), and it was President Obama (Democrat) who has kept up a Social Security payroll contribution cut that is blowing an even bigger whole in the program. Odds are that people who bought into this narrative didn’t know any of that.

“Republicans want to get rid of Medicare.”

I regularly encounter uninformed voters who buy into this particular false narrative. It was Democrats, with Obamacare, who gutted $716 billion (over 10 years) from an already in trouble Medicare program without a single Republican vote. It was Republicans who added the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit (Part-D) which is not only popular, but gives seniors a choice of plans. This was accomplished at 40% under budget because the program was designed so well. One current Republican idea is to redesign the other parts of Medicare to work in a way that is similar to Medicare Part-D, so that it too can be more efficient and save money to help rescue the program. Democrats say no. Odds are that people who bought into this narrative didn’t know any of that (gee I am getting repetitive).

“Democrats want to tax the rich.”

This is perhaps the biggest false narrative of all. The Democratic Party leadership has never been interested in taxing the very rich. They have been “taxing the rich” for 50 years. Is it just a coincidence that they just happened to keep missing the target? President Obama gave the speech at Google, which paid 2.4% federal tax on 3.1 billion in income. In that speech he trashed the Chamber of Commerce for fighting against raising the tax on most small businesses which actually employ people from 35.5% to 39.9% . In the 2008 elections President Obama railed against Wall Street, but not only did he take more money from Wall Street and “the big banks” and such, but as if to add insult, their executives became the who’s who of those running his administration (LINK – LINK). Keep in mind that CNN once said Obama attacks private equity at 6am and is fundraising with private equity at 6pm. Wall Street and the big banks made more under three years of Obama than they did under eight years of Bush. His Treasury Secretary says that taxes on small businesses must rise so that government doesn’t shrink, and Obama’s new health care taxes target you, not just the rich. All of the stimulus and spending and so forth all in the name of the poor sounded nice, but look who got rich.  Odds are that people who buy into this narrative know none of this (really there is a point to this).

Such false narratives are not merely myths that people fall into, they become emotionally invested in them, to the point where some people will say anything to support them:

MORE – Watch people lie about the political debate they never saw – VIDEO

False narratives rely on three crutches:

1 – The first is the selective promotion of key facts, combined with the suppression and/or omission of key fundamental truths. The use of a key fact that is partially true, when inserted into the false narrative, creates clear disconnects from the fundamental truths of the situation or event.

Politicians are masters of this. The second Obama/Romney debate is a classic example. In the debate section on the brutal slaughter of Americans at our consulate in Libya, the administration knowingly put out a false narrative that our people were killed by a flash mob upset by a video on YouTube. The White House created this deception because it was caught in a “Mission Accomplished” moment from having created a false narrative which stated that because Usama bin Laden was out of the picture, Al-Qaeda was beaten (The truth is that Al-Qaeda’s umbrella organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, has been actively helped by this Administration) . When caught, the White House tried to rewrite history, and focused on a key assertion–that Obama used the word terror in one speech describing the attack, as if that somehow dismantles two weeks of willing deception.

2 – Delivery of the few selected facts delivered with an attitude (an emotional trigger) that creates the false narrative.

A good example of this comes from a piece I read in the Washington Post some years ago. The article stated there had been documented misuses of the Patriot Act in order to wrongly access the private information of innocent citizens, and the Attorney General refused to state whether he would press criminal charges. This sounds quite ominous doesn’t it? Thirteen paragraphs later we learn that the error rate had been about 1.5%, comprised of honest mistakes, and all were caught by the internal Justice Department Inspector General whose job it is to find and correct errors. Consider the entirety of the pertinent facts, remove the emotionally charged delivery, and the message is quite different from the headline, would you not agree? Most newspaper editors know that the majority of readers never get passed the fifth paragraph in a newspaper piece. This type of deception is known as attitude change propaganda. Attitude change propaganda is not produced by accident.  [Note – today reported abuses of the Patriot Act are higher. We are aware of this, so please do not blow up our inbox – Editor]

3 – Repetition. Joseph Goebbels said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie”.

This is why truth itself can become an enemy to some, and why those telling the truth are often disregarded, maligned and ridiculed. Once again we can look to the Washington Post for an example. Remember the Valerie Plame story? Remember when the White House outed a CIA Agent because her husband, Joe Wilson, had written a letter saying that President Bush made false claims in a speech? Well there was one problem; this entire story was based on a small stack of lies, and virtually none of the narrative that was repeated over and over in the Washington Post and the elite media was true, and the Post well knew it. This very writer wrote a 40 page article on the Washington Posts’ coverage of this story. Day after day, on page one, the Post repeated Joe Wilson’s lies and perpetuated the false narrative, while at times even on the very same day on the editorial page or buried in the paper, they would tell the truth about what was going on and explain how the evidence clearly showed that Wilson lied about nearly every aspect of his story.

I have been pretty tough on the left in this article because deception and propaganda is fully endorsed by many leftist/progressive thinkers such as Mao, Walter Lippmann, Joseph Goebbels, nearly all writers from the Frankfurt School, and Saul Alinsky. The progressive leadership in this country uses lies as a tool for calculated aggression.

This is not to say that the American right is free of the problems of false narratives, group think, and ideological boxes either.

There are/were many in the State Department, elite media and some in the Republican Party who have totally bought into the propaganda from the Muslim Brotherhood–that they want peace, free elections, and so forth–when anyone who studies their history going back to WWII knows very well what their agenda is. Bill Kristol from the Weekly Standard, as well as some on the famed internet Republican Security Council, fell for the “Arab Spring” false narrative. How quickly we forget history. The Mullah’s in Iran spoke to the Carter Administration about freedom, democracy and social justice; look at what they did as soon as they got into power. The same goes for what happened in Lebanon, and then Gaza when they had elections. Now look at the disaster that is Egypt and Libya, and yet some Republicans continue to say we should help Syrian rebels with arms, which would essentially be handing Syria as well to the Muslim Brotherhood/Al-Qaeda.

Republicans would love to see a genuine democratic, pro-western revolution in the Muslim world as we had in Eastern Europe, but today many forget that it took years of cooperation between Reagan, Thatcher, and the Vatican to cultivate pro-western forces and influences in secret right under the communist’s nose. We were ready to come in with monetary, logistical and other support when those forces made a major push. We knew very well who it was we were supporting, and we had an overall strategic concept in mind. Many Republicans jumped on the Arab Spring bandwagon because they bought the pie in the sky narrative from the State Department and they really wanted to believe it. Why? Because the false narrative targeted the freedom loving sensitivities of most Republicans perfectly. In short, they selected tidbits of truth, omitted others, and made a false reality that fit ever so perfectly into an ideological box.

Some so called “neo-cons” (by their critics) of the GOP may like to shape reality into something neat and tidy, but they aren’t the only ones. Many Ron Paul supporters are just as guilty of this. They argue that the U.S. should adopt some form of neo-isolationism. While it is clear that for the sake of finances we need to have a foreign policy that is less flamboyant, trade still needs to be protected with a serious Navy; the diplomatic credibility of the United States must still be backed up with military capability. If you want to see an economic collapse like the world has never witnessed, park the US Navy at home and it won’t take long. Many Ron Paul supporters say that “neo-cons” are “chicken-hawks” who have never served in the armed forces, and who would never send their sons to die “in some Middle East hell hole” (their words not mine). While it is true that some who may be labled as neo-cons have never served, the truth is that many who agree with at least some of that policy have served and have family who are serving.

Another example of taking reality and manipulating it is the often heard claim from Ron Paul supporters that militant Islamists attack us because of our foreign policy, and the argument that if it wasn’t for “neo-cons” we would not get attacked. When I run into people who say this I ask them, “Militant Islamists attack and kill Hindus in India. What is it about Hindu foreign policy that makes Islamists do this? How about the Buddhists who lived in Afghanistan? In Afghanistan the Islamists ran the Buddhists out and blew up their monasteries and artifacts. What about the Islamists in Southern Thailand who like to kill school teachers who dare to educate little girls? When the Muslim Brotherhood took over Egypt with the aid of the Obama Administration, what is it that Coptic Christians did to cause the Muslim Brotherhood to attack them with armored vehicles? This is usually about that time where I start getting called all sorts of colorful names. The most experienced Middle-Eastern war correspondent says that those who believe the “its because of our policy” argument are fooling themselves.

We are experiencing a wholesale breakdown of critical thinking in this country and most of the learned academics I know have confided this to me directly. I have noticed this myself in my studies. How did this happen? Professor Lasch was rather fond of the old fashioned “partisan press” that we used to have before the “Lippmann Objective Model”. In those days each town had two or more newspapers, each with its own partisan or philosophical viewpoint. Each day citizens would read them all and discuss the arguments of the day at the local barber shop, soda shop, or even at work. There is no better exercise for creating an informed, thinking electorate. Today we live in an electronic society where people can just push a button and anything that puts them out of their comfort zone vanishes instantly.

We have an elite media that too often behaves as state-run apparatchiks, and we have a public university system that states openly that “A debate is something we are highly disinterested in. This is not something our university would want on our campus”. As a result we have educated people, and even professors, who strive for ideological conformity. We have a major university whose administrators reportedly “forged an agreement to conceal sexual attacks” against children, and we have a Climategate scandal in which professors from multiple universities were caught in their own emails actively conspiring to pervert the peer review process and smear anyone who would challenge the global warming alarmist orthodoxy.

American society has become a place where people get beyond offended when told that they are wrong. We have teachers who too often cannot understand the difference between being presented an inconvenient truth that scuttles their narrative and a personal attack. We have people who refuse to take the argument of another seriously, so any truths another may have will not be accepted or even considered. Truth has become the new hate speech.

This must stop.

The sting in any rebuke is the truth – Ben Franklin.

 

[Editor’s Note – For a short video followup on this story click HERE – you won’t regret it.]

2012 Primary, Elite Media, Mitt Romney, True Talking Points

Romney Pays 57.9% in Charity Contributions & Taxes

Leave a comment

Almost 60% of his income goes to charity and government. Democrats went on for weeks that they wanted to see the returns with some of them accusing him of being a tax cheat and a felon…. well there you go.

Washington Examiner:

With President Obama expected to use his second-chance debate this week to portray Mitt Romney as an uncaring rich guy, a new analysis of the GOP candidate’s wealth shows that the millionaire was so generous that he kept just 42 percent of his income.

Obama’s team has mocked the 14.1 percent tax rate that Romney is in as shirking his responsibility. But Charlottesville, Va.-based Marotta Wealth Management, which pens a widely-followed research blog, found that when Romney’s tax burden and charitable gifts are included, he paid out 57.9 percent of his income.

“Giving $2.3 million to charity certainly should not be the basis of any criticism,” said David Marotta. “It is money the Romney’s did not keep for themselves, so I am counting it with the money lost to taxes.”

His basic math for Romney’s 2011 return: $18.6 million in income minus $10.8 million in taxes and charity results in a net of $7.8 million, 42.1 percent of gross. Ditto for 2010, said Marotta.

2012 Primary, Communications Theory, Dirty Tricks, Elite Media, Obama, True Talking Points

Federal News Service Edits Debate Trascript to Help Biden….and Gets Caught…

Leave a comment

…by Breitbart News:

Yes, Virginia, there is something fishy about media coverage of the debates, but it’s deeper than you think. As was reported here on Friday, the New York Times elided Paul Ryan’s terrific line “And we will not blame others for the next four years” in their “complete” transcript of the vice-presidential debate.

Guess who else cut the line out of their transcript? National Public Radio (NPR).  And here’s where it gets truly nefarious; the New York Times, NPR, the Chicago Sun Times and other news outlets used the same news source for the transcript: the Federal News Service (FNS). How many media outlets did the FNS use to mislead readers around the nation?

The Federal News Service was bought in 2010 by the Dolan Company, which published business journals, court and commercial newspapers and other publications, and then bought FNS, which, among other things, publishes transcripts of events like the debates.

Would a supposedly reputable company like FNS try to twist the truth in order to help one political party? You decide.

The CEO of the Dolan Company is James P. Dolan. Here is a list of his political contributions for 2009- 2010.

2009:

$10,000 for the Follow the North Star Fund, a Minnesota Democratic PAC

$2400 for Tim Walz for Congress. Walz is a Democrat.

2010:

$10,000 Follow the North Star Fund

$5000 Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party

$2400 Friends for Harry Reid

$1400 Tim Walz for Congress

$1000 Klobachar for Minnesota. Klobachar is a Democrat.

$1000 Giffords for Congress. Giffords is a Democrat.

When Dolan bought FNS in 2010, he uttered these deathless words:

“Fed News plays an important role in public affairs, reporting exactly what was said, rather than official transcripts that often show only what was supposed to have been said.”

Why is it hard to believe him now?

UPDATE: The Federal news Service has corrected itself, but few of the outlets have, including the New York Times. The damage has been done.

2012 Primary, Dirty Tricks, Elite Media, Gangsta Govt, Lies, Obama, Thugs, Treason, True Talking Points, Unhinged

Emails Reveal Justice Department Enlists Media Matters to Attack Reporters Reporting Obama Admin Scandals

Leave a comment

Friends, this is absolutely Stalisnist and that is not a term we use lightly. This administration has threatened and targeted reporters again and again and is now using underhanded tactics like this to keep the elite media, who is already mostly in the tank for them, in line.

The Daily Caller:

Internal Department of Justice emails obtained by The Daily Caller show Attorney General Eric Holder’s communications staff has collaborated with the left-wing advocacy group Media Matters for America in an attempt to quell news stories about scandals plaguing Holder and America’s top law enforcement agency.

Dozens of pages of emails between DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler and Media Matters staffers show Schmaler, Holder’s top press defender, working with Media Matters to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals. TheDC obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request. (RELATED: TheDC’s complete coverage of Media Matters)

Emails sent in September and November 2010 show Schmaler working with Media Matters staffer Jeremy Holden on attacking news coverage of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation scandal.

Holden attacked former DOJ Civil Rights Division attorneys J. Christian Adams and Hans von Spakovsky on Sept. 20, 2010 for what he called an attempt “to reignite the phony New Black Panther Party scandal.”

Before Holden posted his article at 7:52 p.m., Schmaler sent him several emails with information helping him attack both former DOJ oficials.

“Here’s one Wolf letter,” read the subject of one email Schmaler sent Holden that contained no text. The email was likely a reference to Virginia Republican Rep. Frank Wolf, a member of Congress who led the Republican charge on the New Black Panther Party scandal involving alleged voter intimidation at a November 2008 polling place in Philadelphia.

In response, Holden told Schmaler that “The response to interog 38 is particularly helpful. Thanks!”

Interrogatory 38 was a reference to a question from Congress that the Justice Department answered, concerning the role of several senior officials in discussing litigation related to that voter intimidation case.

A follow-up email shows Schmaler sending Holden more information.

“[H]ere’s another one to Smith,” Schmaler wrote. “[I]t’s about perrelli contact with w. WH. helpful in that it makes clear perrelli didn’t have discussions w/ WH on the case (obviously confirming he knew of it) … but also illustrates [REDACTED] they’ve tried to throw up that won’t stick[.]”

Holden responded at 8:34 p.m. — three hours after Schmaler sent her first email at 5:34 — to say, “Post is live, FWIW [for what it’s worth]. Thanks again.”

Nearly two months later, on Nov. 18, 2010, Holden wrote a new blog post he described as an “EXCLUSIVE,” titled “Right-wing commission to vote on flawed New Black Panthers report.”

“The conservative-dominated U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will vote Friday on an interim report that omits critical evidence disproving allegations that the Obama administration refuses to enforce voting-rights laws against racial minorities, according to Media Matters’ analysis of a copy of the report we obtained,” Holden wrote in the Nov. 18 article.

Holden attacked Adams again, and Christopher Coates — another now-former DOJ attorney.

After Holden published that piece, Schmaler sent him an email titled “Great piece…” and continuing in the body of the message, “On USCCR investigation.’” One minute later, Holden responded, writing, “Thanks!”

Continue reading HERE.

2012 Primary, Elite Media, Jihad, Lies, Obama, True Talking Points, War

Must See: War Correspondent Lara Logan Slams Obama Admin For Pushing “Major Lie” That Taliban/Al-Qaeda Are Washed Up (video)

Leave a comment

This is very educational and important, a must see.

Logan: Our way of life is under attack. I chose this subject because, one, I can’t stand that there is a major lie being propagated,” Logan said about the administration touting the weakening of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

2012 Primary, Egypt, Elite Media, Libya, Lies, Obama, Stuck on Stupid, True Talking Points

Rep Gowdy Goes Ballistic on Ambassador Rice and Obama Administration over Lies About Benghazi Murders (videos)

Leave a comment

Not only were our guys murdered, they were raped and sodomized. The Obama Administration doesn’t like American mercenary companies so some of the bodyguards hired were Libyans. It was those body guards who gave up the locations of our peoples secret safe house. Be sure to see our previous post : Everything you need to know about how Obama lied about the embassy attacks in two minutes (video) – LINK

Representative Trey Gowdy (SC):

Congressman Jason Chaffetz – Politics is being used to make security decisions and not security:

Jake Tapper to White House: Wasn’t it Obama who shot from the hip and not Romney?

Here are the highlights of the House Oversight Committee today:

ISSA OPENING STATEMENT – “The Security Failures of Benghazi”

Lt. Col. Wood: “On the Ground Truth” about Security in Libya Before 9/11 Attack

Benghazi Libya Attack: State Department’s Charlene R. Lamb Opening Statement

Benghazi Attack: Ambassador Patrick Kennedy Opening Statement

LIBYA HEARING: Nordstrom Refuses Oversight Staff, Given Guidelines by Own Agency

Chaffetz: US Security Experts Actually IN Libya Didn’t Get Resources They Needed & Asked For…

Rep. Burton During the Oversight Committee Hearing On Diplomatic Security in Libya (Part 1) where a State Department Official Refuses to Admit that the Attack was done by Terrorists:

2012 Primary, Culture War, Elite Media, History, Obama, School Indoctrination, True Talking Points

Obama 2002 speech: “Rich people are all for non-violence”, unless they are perpetrating it (video)

Leave a comment

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?

2012 Primary, Dirty Tricks, Editorial, Elite Media, Health Law, Lies, Obama

ObamaCare Panel Targeting Women’s Health Screenings…Again

1 Comment

 

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.

If you doubt it just keep reading…..

Remember this from 2009?

Breast Exam Guidelines Test Obama Cost-Cutting

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?

And so here we go again…

Our friend Steven Tucker who runs the Health Insurance Tips and Advice Blog put up on his Facebook page:

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:

Pap smear every five years? Panel says it’s safe.

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

2012 Primary, Elite Media, Mitt Romney, Obama, Paul Ryan, True Talking Points

Romney Campaign Prepped to Deal With Elite Media Bias

Leave a comment

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.

Emily Miller:

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.”

2012 Primary, Elite Media, Lies, National Security, Obama, True Talking Points

Clinton’s and Carter’s Pollsters: The Elite Media is Lying to You to Help Obama (video)

1 Comment

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.

Trend since 1997: In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media -- such as newspapers, TV, and radio -- when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly -- a great deal, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all?

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.

Independents are sharply more negative compared with 2008, suggesting the group that is most closely divided between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney is quite dissatisfied with its ability to get fair and accurate news coverage of this election.

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.

Trend: Trust in Mass Media, by Party

2012 Primary, Elite Media, Lies, True Talking Points

CNN Reporter Blows Whistle: CNN Telling Reporters Not to Report on Massacres By Governments Paying for “Sponsored Content” (video)

Leave a comment

Lyon also talks about how the Obama Administration abuses the Justice Department to frighten reporters.

Amber Lyon
Amber Lyon

And now CNN is threatening award winning reporter Amber Lyon for blowing the whistle.

Those who know journalism know that CNN International is a joke. It is biased and milk-toast government/corporate sponsored news. We have been aware of this for a number of years, but even so, you can imagine our surprise to see one of the biggest names at CNN go public saying just that. She also talks about how the Obama Administration is abusing the “Espionage Act” to go after reporters who report things they don’t like.

Of course government/corporate sponsored news is nothing new in the elite media:

ABC did a one hour news special in support of ObamaCare and allowed no GOP response or any critique at all from the other side.

ABC edited the film “The Path to 9/11”  at the insistence of the Clinton’s and the Democratic Leadership and refuses to release the film on DVD (LINK – LINK  – VIDEO)

NBC shut down the show “The Playboy Club” (which was more about Chicago politics than bunnies) under pressure from the White House and is not releasing shows to pay services,

CNN admitted it was doing puff pieces for Saddam Hussein and white washing government atrocities in order to keep access.

Several countries in the Middle-East pay huge sums to Associated Press for (big scare quotes here) “news content” for their airwaves.

The NY Times has admitted that they and others are submitting quotes and content to the White House for editing before it is published.

White House officials leaned on Ford Motor Company to yank a popular TV and Internet ad critical of competitors who took federal bailout money.

Andrea Seabrook left NPR after 14 years “in order to actually do some real journalism” because they had her just reporting spin from certain politicians.

The White House launched a profanity laced tirade against CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson for her very responsible coverage of the Justice Department Gun Running Scandal (VIDEO). CBS has now backed off of the story and prevented Atkinson from doing radio interviews for some time after her interview on Laura Ingraham.

The Guardian:

Why didn’t CNN’s international arm air its own documentary on Bahrain’s Arab Spring repression?

A former CNN correspondent defies threats from her former employer to speak out about self-censorship at the network.

In late March 2011, as the Arab Spring was spreading, CNN sent a four-person crew to Bahrain to produce a one-hour documentary on the use of internet technologies and social media by democracy activists in the region. Featuring on-air investigative correspondent Amber Lyon, the CNN team had a very eventful eight-day stay in that small, US-backed kingdom.

By the time the CNN crew arrived, many of the sources who had agreed to speak to them were either in hiding or had disappeared. Regime opponents whom they interviewed suffered recriminations, as did ordinary citizens who worked with them as fixers. Leading human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was charged with crimes shortly after speaking to the CNN team. A doctor who gave the crew a tour of his village and arranged meetings with government opponents, Saeed Ayyad, had his house burned to the ground shortly after. Their local fixer was fired ten days after working with them.

The CNN crew itself was violently detained by regime agents in front of Rajab’s house. As they described it after returning to the US, “20 heavily-armed men”, whose faces were “covered with black ski masks”, “jumped from military vehicles”, and then “pointed machine guns at” the journalists, forcing them to the ground. The regime’s security forces seized their cameras and deleted their photos and video footage, and then detained and interrogated them for the next six hours.

So CNN spent $100,000 making this documentary and then refused to air it in spite of Lyon’s work earning awards. Then look at the lengths CNN went to to keep the story quiet – continue reading HERE.

The Guardian:

CNN and the business of state-sponsored TV news

The network is seriously compromising its journalism in the Gulf states by blurring the line between advertising and editorial.

Even so, the network’s relationships with governments must bear closer examination. CNNi has aggressively pursued a business strategy of extensive, multifaceted financial arrangements between the network and several of the most repressive regimes around the world which the network purports to cover. Its financial dealings with Bahrain are deep and longstanding.

CNNi’s pursuit of sponsorship revenue from the world’s regimes

CNNi’s pursuit of and reliance on revenue from Middle East regimes increased significantly after the 2008 financial crisis, which caused the network to suffer significant losses in corporate sponsorships. It thus pursued all-new, journalistically dubious ways to earn revenue from governments around the world. Bahrain has been one of the most aggressive government exploiters of the opportunities presented by CNNi.

These arrangements extend far beyond standard sponsorship agreements for advertising of the type most major media outlets feature. CNNi produces those programs in an arrangement it describes as “in association with” the government of a country, and offers regimes the ability to pay for specific programs about their country. These programs are then featured as part of CNNi’s so-called “Eye on” series (“Eye on Georgia“, “Eye on the Phillipines“, “Eye on Poland“), or “Marketplace Middle East“, all of which is designed to tout the positive economic, social and political features of that country.

The disclosure for such arrangements is often barely visible. This year, for instance, CNNi produced an “Eye on Lebanon” series, which that nation’s tourist minister boasted was intended “to market Lebanon as a tourism destination”. He said “his ministry was planning a large promotional campaign dubbed ‘Eye on Lebanon’ to feature on CNN network.”

Below is a video interview Alex Jones did with Amber Lyon. Now let us be clear –  Alex Jones is NOT a reliable source of solid information as half of what he says is exaggerated or worse – with that said, listen to Amber in her own words explain what she witnessed: 

[Editor’s Note – heaps of respect for Amber Lyon, and even though her eyes are opening she is still naive about a few things. Most of these “pro-democracy” protesters she talks about in the video are not pro-democracy at all, they are Muslim Brotherhood. In 1979 when Carter helped the current regime come to power they were all about Democracy….all about it until they took power and to think us they stormed our embassy and we had the Iranian hostage crisis.

The Muslim Brotherhood learned from this, they were all about “democracy” in Egypt until they got it and when the Muslim Brotherhood took power the “pro-democracy” people vanished. The same tactic was used to take over Lebanon and was also used in Libya. Once the brotherhood takes power, much like after the election in Gaza, after the election is over there is never another one; political opposition is dealt with most harshly.]

2012 Primary, Elite Media, Lies, True Talking Points

Democrat Pollster Pat Caddell: The elite media has become an offshoot of the Obama White House (video)

Leave a comment

UPDATE – Bill Clinton’s pollster agrees with Caddell, the elite media has become a threat to Democracy by not informing the American people – LINK.

Pat Caddell is a familiar name in American politics. He has worked for Democrats in the White House since the 1970’s. He is an old fashioned Democrat and has a record of speaking out against government corruption, so it is no surprise that the current White House (Obama) has him essentially blacklisted.

Pat speaks about how corrupt and bias the Washington Press Corps and the elite media establishment has become. We have been cataloging just a fraction of this bias and corruption, and only a fraction of it is all we can report as the problem is every day and there is no way that we could report it all. As Pat points out that major media figures have been caught more than once coordinating defense of Obama and attacks on Republicans. This is also evidenced by that fact that the only tough interview President Obama had in recent memory was from Univision.

Puppet Media
Puppet Media

Pat also speaks of something that is often said by political insiders, he refers to the Democrats as “The Corrupt Party” and the Republicans as “The Stupid Party” (a reference to how they are often politicking and media stupid).

2012 Primary, Elite Media, Obama, Sarah, True Talking Points

Kirsten Powers on the Media Double Standard on VP Biden Gaffes (video) – UPDATED!

Leave a comment

Biden makes more gaffes than all politicians combined, but since he is a Democrat it is OK. Democrat Strategist Kirsten Powers takes the honest road and tells about the glaring double standard the media has with Biden compared to any Republican politician.

Flashback: Liberal Media Attacks on Republican VP Nominees

Civility, Elite Media, Stuck on Stupid, True Talking Points, Unhinged

Atlantic Magazine Editor: Kill Boy Scouts Like Rabid Dogs….

Leave a comment

Here is yet another example of civility form the left wing media elite…

Breitbart News:

Remember how the far left in America has said since the rise of the Tea Party that the right is awash in “violent rhetoric”? What about the proposition to kill the Boy Scouts like one would kill a rabid dog? That is what a columnist for The Atlantic has implied.

James Hamblin, the magazine’s health editor, proclaimed his desire to kill Boy Scouts based on his distaste for their recently re-affirmed policy of refusing to admit openly gay members. Hamblin feels justified in using violent, even hateful rhetoric to attack the Boy Scouts merely because he disagrees with them.

Boy Scouts is an organization that was and is so close to being great. Remember when they had to put Old Yeller down because he got rabies? It’s not like he was a bad dog, but he got a brain infection and he tried to eat Travis

Apparently the First Amendment only applies if you agree with gays?

It should be noted that Hamblin posted his desire to kill Boy Scouts the day after another gay activist tried to do just that, kill people with whom he disagrees. Hamblin posted his hate-mongering screed the day after a gay activist entered the Washington DC headquarters of the Family Research Council intent on mass murder.

Hamblin next went on a hyperbolic trip of accusations that the Scout’s policy will “cause.”

Perpetuating a culture where gay teenagers — who are already commonly battling notions of inferiority and self-hatred — can be openly and decidedly told they aren’t welcome among a preeminent organization that purports to represent and define a standard of behavioral ideals, is dangerous. It’s a decided step back in rejecting the culture of gay bullying. We will see more depression, and more suicide. We’ll see more discrimination of every sort, and more hatred.

But notice the absurdity in Hamblin’s statement. He says that the Scouts “define a standard of behavioral ideals.” But how can one have standards and ideals if one simply pushes them aside for every disgruntled group that comes knocking at your door claiming discrimination? The Boy Scouts aren’t breaking any laws and aren’t illegally discriminating and since the Scouts base their ideals on Christian principles, they have steadfast principles quite regardless of whether Hamblin likes them or not.

Read more HERE.

2012 Primary, Editorial, Elite Media, Health Law, Lies, Obama, Paul Ryan, True Talking Points

Fact Check: Obama running against outdated version of Ryan Medicare plan

Leave a comment

This is one of the big problems I have with the progressive secular left; if you read their heroes from Lenin, Walter Lippmann, almost anyone from the Frankfurt School, Antonio Gramsci, Max Weber, Saul Alinsky etc, they all advocate deception as a legitimate political tactic.

Leftism assumes that people cannot govern themselves and that freedom leaves too much to chance, and therefore the rabble must have rationality imposed upon them from above, preferably by incrementalism,  but eventually by force if need be. All forms of leftism, from liberalism, progressivism, socialism, communism, marxism, critical theory, grievance studies are all favor movement towards a leviathan state ran by an oligarchy, some of the flavors wish to maintain the illusion of limited government and a genuine democratic process, some don’t.

Fox News:

The Obama campaign would like voters to believe that Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan would “end Medicare as we know it” — privatizing the whole system and costing seniors more than $6,000 extra a year.

But the campaign, even before Ryan was selected as Mitt Romney’s running mate, has effectively been running against the wrong Ryan plan.

The president’s accusations largely refer to Ryan’s 2011 plan, ignoring the fact that the House Budget Committee chairman rolled out a different version in 2012 — taking into account Democratic critiques. Though the 2012 plan is more moderate, Obama and his surrogates have all but ignored the newer version as they amp up their accusations against the Romney-Ryan ticket.

Most glaringly, the campaign has omitted a key point.

While Ryan’s 2011 plan proposes to give seniors a government payment to buy private insurance, his 2012 plan offers seniors a choice.

Under the blueprint, seniors could use the payment to buy private insurance or stay in traditional Medicare.

2012 Primary, Budget, Econ, Elite Media, Jobs, Obama, Taxes, True Talking Points

CBO: Obama Wrong About Wealthy Paying Less

Leave a comment

Since the Bush tax cuts “the rich” have been paying a larger share of the federal tax pie, but that pie has been shrinking as more wealth flees the country, more of the wealthy expatriate, more jobs leave the country, and more people drop out of the workforce.

[Editor’s Note – The raw CBO report can be found HERE]

Wall Street Journal:

President Barack Obama says someone has to pay more taxes if the U.S. is to tame its budget deficit and provide the government he thinks the nation needs. He proposes that the best-off Americans pay more. It’s only fair, he says.

“There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me because they want to give something back,” he said in a speech in Roanoke, Va., that set off dueling campaign ads. “Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.”

His Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, counters that the deficit can be reduced without raising taxes if Washington is tough on spending. He thinks raising taxes on the best-off would be unwise and unfair. “President Obama attacks success, and therefore under President Obama we have less success,” he said.

The contrasting comments underscore philosophical differences over the roles of the individual and society. But the most tangible disagreement is on taxing the rich.

“Who’s right: Obama or Romney? Both. Or neither,” says Joseph Thorndike, a tax historian. “When it comes to taxing the rich, there is no single, objectively correct answer. You can talk all you want about asking rich people to pay ‘their fair’ share,’ but don’t kid yourself. You’re just trying to turn private opinions into public policy.”

“I’m struck” he adds, “how the facts can be used selectively by either side.”

Academic tomes have been written about revamping the tax code so it finances the government while doing less damage to economic growth. But, countless congressional hearings later, the U.S. is no closer to a consensus on “fair share” than when the income tax was born 100 years ago.

The top marginal income-tax rate, the most visible metric, has gone from 7% in 1913 to 92% in the 1950s to 28% with the Tax Reform Act of 1986 to 39.6% in the Clinton years to today’s 35%. Mr. Obama wants to raise that; Mr. Romney wants to cut it while eliminating loopholes and deductions to make up the lost revenue.

Over the past three decades, Americans—including most of the rich—have paid less of their incomes to Washington. Top earners have received more of the income and paid more of the taxes; a growing number at the bottom have paid less or, in some cases, nothing.

Whether that is fair is a question of politics and values. Facts can inform the debate. Here are a few salient ones:

The top 5%, top 1% and top 0.1% of Americans have been getting a bigger slice of all the income and paying a growing share of federal taxes.

To measure the tax burden over time, Congressional Budget Office economists look beyond income-tax returns. They add federal income, payroll, excise and corporate taxes and calculate them as a percentage of income, broadly defined to include wages plus the value of government- and employer-provided benefits.

From Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, the tax code has been tweaked and the economy has had its ups and downs, and the share of federal taxes paid by the top 5% and the top 1% has risen faster than their share of income:

In the 1980s, the top 5% averaged 22.6% of income and paid 28.5% of taxes.

In the 1990s, the top 5% averaged 25.3% of income and paid 34.3% of taxes

In the 2000s, the top 5% averaged 28.4% of the income and paid 40.3% of the taxes.

That doesn’t mean that the best-off are living on less. The top 1% averaged income of $1,530,773 this year (up $174,083 from 2004, when the data series begins) and paid federal taxes of all sorts of $422,915 (up $20,704 from 2004), according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center, a number-crunching joint venture of the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute.

Average tax rates have come down for everyone. On average, the tax bite on the rich is bigger—except for those whose income mainly comes from capital gains and dividends.

Across the earnings spectrum, Americans’ share of income that went to taxes fell in the 1980s, rose in the 1990s and fell again in the 2000s. This year, taxes and other receipts will cover only two-thirds of federal spending; the government will borrow the rest.

For those in the top 1%, whose incomes are more volatile than others, the average tax bite in 2007 was 28.9%, below the 1995 Clinton-era peak (35.3%) but higher than the 1986 Reagan-era trough (24.6%.)

Most Americans, though, have seen the share of their income that goes to taxes fall steadily. For earners in the middle, the tax bite eased from 18.9% in 1979 to 16.6% in 1999 to 14% in 2007 even before the recession and recession-fighting tax cuts.

The rich do, on average, pay more of their income in taxes than the middle class. So do the super-rich—on average.

The annual Internal Revenue Service scorecard of the top 400 taxpayers—who reported average incomes of $200 million—showed they paid 19.9% of their adjusted gross income in federal income taxes in 2009, well above the rate paid by the middle class. Those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000, for instance, paid about 12%. (The IRS tally for the top 400 counts only income reported on tax returns, and only income taxes. Neither the IRS nor CBO calculates figures for the 1% using the broader definitions of income and taxes.)

The fortunate 400, though, paid a lower rate than the not-quite-so-rich, those with incomes over $1.5 million. The main reason: More than 60% of the top 400’s income was from dividends or capital gains in 2009, and those are taxed at a top rate of 15%, lower than many pay on wages.

The share of taxes paid by the bottom 40% of the population has been shrinking along with their share of income.

In 2007, the bottom 40% received 14.9% of the income (including the value of government benefits) and paid 5.9% of all federal taxes. In 1979, they had a bigger share (17.4%) of the income and paid more (9.5%) of the taxes.

2012 Primary, Elite Media, Lies, Paul Ryan, True Talking Points

Liberal polling shows that Ryan polls well among seniors

Leave a comment

Breitbart News:

In an ABC News/Washington Post poll, 28 percent of seniors viewed Ryan favorably while 28 percent viewed him unfavorably before Romney selected him to be his running mate.  After his selection, 46% of those seniors now view him favorably while 28 percent still view him unfavorably. In just one weekend, Ryan has increased his favorability numbers among seniors by 14 percentage points, even as Democrats spent the weekend trying to demonize Ryan and his budget.

Public Policy Polling (PPP), the left-leaning outfit that does polling for the liberal website, Daily Kos, polled voters in Ohio over the weekend, tweeted that Ryan’s numbers in Ohio are actually best among seniors, with 38 percent of seniors viewing Ryan favorability as opposed to 29 percent who see him unfavorably. The full PPP poll will be released on Tuesday, but the tweet can be seen below.

PublicPolicyPolling @ppppolls Ryan’s favorability numbers in Ohio are actually *best* with seniors at 38/29

This should not be a surprise to the mainstream media. In 2011, a Gallup poll found that seniors preferred Ryan’s budget over Obama’s, despite what the mainstream media tried to lead Americans to believe. This is probably why CBS edited out the portion of its interview with Ryan and Romney on Sunday’s “60 Minutes” in which Ryan talked about how his mother was a Florida resident who was on Medicare. That portion of the interview was only available on CBS’s website and was cut from the national television broadcast.