Fox Hunting Season

Barack Obama’s administration is handling their power and influence like a Chicago bully rather than like a United States President. And the White House’s bullying of Fox News is getting way out of hand. No surprise that Obama and his Chicago crew are not enamored with Fox News but they have crossed a line into very scary territory.

The White House war on Fox News seemed to take a new turn after Fox was the first, and for a while only, news media to show the public the disgraceful films of ACORN employees. Fox then had the audacity to run negative reports on Van Jones, a White House environmental adviser, one of many advisers who were never vetted. Therefore it came as a surprise to the WH to see that Fox discovered Jones had signed a statement indicating the government was involved in the 9-11 collapse of the Twin Towers. With Van Jones's quiet resignation, Fox is continuing to investigate other Czars and unvetted advisers. To add insult to injury, the MSM (mainstream media) are now paying more attention to the stories that Fox News breaks and quicker to go after the stories themselves.

To make matters worse Chris Wallace, the Fox Sunday New’s host, actually had the gall to have someone fact-check what the assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs said. Chris Wallace explained “She criticized 'Fox News Sunday' last week for fact-checking -- fact-checking -- an administration official," Wallace said Sunday. "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check." Wow. What kind of people is Obama hiring? Isn’t shutting down the media that disagrees with you the first thing a dictator does?

Shortly after the fact-checking debacle, Obama, acting more like a spoilsport, then a President, announced that on a single Sunday morning he would be on every major network, including the Spanish network, but not on Wallace's Fox Sunday News show.

In the latest attack on Fox News, the White House senior advisor David Axelrod and White House Communications Director each separately reiterated the new Obama lie that Fox New is “not really a news station”. On Sunday, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanual provided a telling insight into what the core group running Obama’s presidency is thinking “It’s not so much a conflict with Fox News," Emanuel told CNN’s John King. "I suppose the way to look at it and the way … the president looks at it, we look at it is: It’s not a news organization so much as it has a perspective. And that’s a different take. And more importantly, is not have the CNNs and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox, as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization …”

Wow. They are afraid that the MSM networks, which basically glorify Obama’s presidency with no questions asked, might be influenced by Fox and who knows, the MSM then might even do a negative story. But the frightening part is that as in typical Chicago style politics, the chief of staff is warning the MSM that if they ever act like Fox News, which I guess means to stop deifying Obama, then the White House will go after them, too. As a further signal of how the White House treats their enemies; the number of interviews the President has granted to each network stands as: NBC-12, CBS-11, ABC-9, CNN-7 and Fox News just 2.

But the blatantly unfair treatment of Fox News by the White House has not gone unnoticed. First, ABC’s Jack Tapper asked the following of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs “It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one.” Gibbs couldn't explain it. And even the venerable Helen Thomas, who is as liberal as they come, has chastised Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, for trying to control and manipulate the media.

This week, however, the White House went too far. According to an article by the NY Times; The Obama administration on Thursday tried to make "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg available for interviews to every member of the White House pool except Fox News. But to their suprise ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN all stood up to the White House’s and in a united front said either all of us, including Fox interviews Feinburg or else none of us will.

Perhaps the MSM finally remembered the Freedom of the Press and how the media is supposed to react to being manipulated even if the person manipulating them is ordered by Obama, himself. And how did Obama’s administration react to this surprising stand? By punishing all of the networks! They said that by not including the Fox network each journalist would only have two minutes for their interview instead of the five minutes as promised when they were excluding Fox. How childish can you get? And doesn't the President have more important issues to worry about, like two wars, increasing unemployment, etc. etc.

I am proud of the MSM for finally standing up to the White House’s strong arm tactics but saddened to discover that I couldn’t find a single MSM article about what happened except for the NY Times. Even if the MSM are afraid to admit they came to Fox’s aid, at least the big networks took a stance and did the right thing. And that’s a good start.

Senate for Sale

I feel sorry for New Yorkers. It seems as if they are destined to be represented by very famous people who are completely ignorant about their state, their needs, their problems. Hillary Clinton never lived in that state nor had she had any experience governing or politicking for herself until she decided she wanted to be the NY Senator. Was she a good Senator? I have no idea. Maybe she did use her name and power in her party to get some perks for her state. But no matter how much she traveled when she ran for the Senate she is still not a real New Yorker and doesn’t understand or love that state as would someone who actually lived there.

Now Carolyn Kennedy has decided she wants to take Hillary’s seat when junior Senator Clinton becomes Madame Secretary of State. Carolyn’s uncle was once the Senator of NY but he was never a real New Yorker either. It makes you wonder about New Yorkers (ok I have always wondered about anyone who chooses to live there). Anyway, I wonder why they keep voting for somebody who moved to their state last week and declared they want to be the next Senator from New York.

Yes Ms. Kennedy has a name with star power but she has even less experience than Hillary had when she ran for that seat. I heard that Carolyn said that because she recently turned 50 and had worked with her uncle Teddy on Obama’s election she has now decided that wants to go into politics herself. So she just moved to NY and declared that she wants to be the next Senator in NY. Wow. I can’t help but feel sorry for all the hard working NY politicians who thought that they have earned the right to be named and now their dreams have been shattered in one day.

In both NY and Illinois the Governor has complete freedom to fill their respective empty Senate seats. The Illinois Governor is facing all kinds of criminal charges for trying to sell his empty seat to the highest bidder. The NY Governor is now faced with having a living icon, Carolyn Kennedy, stating that she wants him to name her as the next NY Senator even though she has never lived there nor has any experience. (Ironically I can’t help but wonder what the Illinois Governor would have done if faced with this decision.)

It is bad enough for an outsider to move to NY just so they can be in the Senate. But in Hillary’s case she earned that seat as the people of New York decided they wanted this foreigner with name power to be their next Senator and voted her to be their Senator. But in this current situation Kennedy would be named by the Governor and not elected by the citizens of the state. That just doesn’t seem right even if she has a mega watt name. As somebody quipped, Brittany Spears has a famous name, too, but you wouldn’t want her in Congress.

When a Senate seat becomes open in the middle of the term, we need to come up with a better way of filling it instead of letting the Governor pick whomever he wants. Neither pay to play nor having your Daddy’s name should be the criteria for selection but I am not sure what the alternative is. In Illinois, the Republicans are clamoring for a special election but this will cost a great deal of money. Perhaps the seat should be given to the person the leaving Senator beat in their party’s primary. Or maybe the State Senate should vote on a replacement as they are supposed to represent their district’s best interest. I am not sure of the solution but anything has to be better than the current situations in Illinois and New York.

Financial Crisis Rant: Part I - Video’s, Code Words and Barney Franks

This whole financial crisis is really angering me. The left continues to promise to take care of “the homeowners who are losing their homes” and blaming the big bad bankers and investment firms. As I tried to explain to a liberal, let’s say bankers are greedy, it then wouldn’t make sense for the bankers to make bad loans if it would hurt profits unless they were forced to do so by the liberal Congress via the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). I wrote about the CRA in my earlier posting on Carter, Clinton and the Liberal Congress.

I am returning to this topic partly because of two emails I recently received. One of the emails was from a liberal who was sending me a power point slide show. This slide show was quite juvenile considering the topic; the financial crisis. I was more than a little disconcerted to find that it featured stick figure cartoons who frequently say f*** this and f*** that while explaining the financial problem as the fault of bankers and investment houses. And you know that businessmen and investment bankers are liberal code words for Republicans, of course!

On the other hand, I had earlier received an email with a video showing the conservative point of view on this subject. But this presentation was done as a YouTube slide show filled with facts, charts, and tables that clearly illustrates cause and effect between the CRA legislation, liberal Congress and our current financial and housing crisis. The only swear words were the ones by the viewer after seeing this documented and verified information. Comparing the two presentations, obscene stick figures vs. charts and graphs made me wonder why the liberals are supposed to be the intellectuals!

Speaking of intelligent, in a recent conversation with a liberal I was told that Barney Franks, the liberal congressman from Mass., and Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, was extremely intelligent and had an excellent handle on the financial mess. I recalled that I had seen something about Franks on the YouTube video so I watched it again.

Sure enough there was a slide in regards to a 2003 proposal by Pres. Bush to create a new department to oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as he was worried they were going broke. The following quote is from the NY Times on September 11, 2003:

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

And there we are; affordable housing. To use that word liberals like, that is “code” for minority housing. Back in 2003 we could have averted this whole mess were it not for the liberal’s “concern” over the low income population. Sure there may be some true liberals who really do want to help out the poor. But I bet it is more about votes to help the politician then it is about helping the poor.

Take Barack Obama, please… Sorry old joke. Actually, right now after thinking about the liberals, Barney Franks, insulting and vulgar videos, affordable housing etc., I think I’ve had my fill of the left. I’ll get back to Barack and ACORN in part II of this article. But before I forget, here is the link to the YouTube video. If the link doesn’t work, please let me know. The author had to change the link once before after it was illegally taken down. This just goes to show that the liberals can’t handle the truth and don’t want you to see it either. So please, inform yourself and watch the following: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4%20