The Fourth Estate's degrading hero worship trivializes an election.
The weird ecstasy of the media-political complex at the convention in Charlotte last month was the first sign that its attachment to President Obama, always fawning, had become morbid.
In spite of the anemic economy and a real unemployment rate above 11 percent, the high priests of pontificating liberalism were giddy with euphoria. The Democrats "put on a nearly flawless convention," Paul Begala opined, and it was soon all but incontrovertibly established that, come November, the president -- beautiful, magical, and lovable as he was -- would vanquish his boring opponent.
The media savants sympathized with the delirium of Charlotte because they worship at the same altar and feed at the same trough. Two and a half centuries ago Edmund Burke said the reporters' gallery in Parliament was an estate "more important far than" the other three put together. Today America's Fourth Estate is not merely predisposed, as it has been for generations, to favor a particular political party: It is deeply engaged in the hero worship of a particular political leader.
The closeness of mainstream journalists to President Obama has debauched their integrity. Some of them give the White House veto authority over their stories. Others look to be rewarded with plum jobs or stimulus-funded ads. This abasement before power presages a return to a time when political writers, among them Swift and Defoe, were the professed protégés of statesmen and relied on Whig or Tory patronage for their bread; it also leaves the country vulnerable to the distortions of ostensibly neutral journalists who are too fervently committed to the leader to tell the truth about him. Alot more at the link
Posted by: Au Auric ||
09/17/2012 13:48 ||
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#1
When half of the nation is taking from the other half and taught that not only is that their right, but it is good.... things won't last long before the half being taken from walk away.
#3
Besoeker, yes, I believe he has that old time ability to con people. People are taken all the time. He is the best living example that I can point to. They even made movies of this activity.
That Baker fellow could do the same. Poor dying people in bed would send him what they could. I saw that happen. One old man dying in bed with the air conditioner blowing on him, a fan on high blowing on him and his granddaughter fanning him. He was on oxygen. The family was ten feet away huddled around the TV in rapture sending what money they could. That is Obama. He will keep coming back to the well. Its the only thing he knows how to do well.
Last fall, President Obama decided to cancel a hugely expensive new EPA rule designed to cut smog levels across the country. Obama said he did so out of concern about the rule's impact on jobs.
It was just one of many costly regulations the Obama administration has put on hold or delayed in the run-up to the election, as the president tried to dispel the impression that he's anti-business.
"I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty," Obama said when he put the brakes the smog standard, "particularly as our economy continues to recover."
But if Obama wins re-election, all these postponed rules, along with a host of other costly regulations, will likely hit the economic shores.
Using official government sources, the National Federation of Independent Business calculates that there are more than 4,000 federal rules in the pipeline, and that just the 13 biggest ones would, if imposed in an Obama second term, cost businesses a total of more than $515 billion over four years.
That tally doesn't include the more than 100 still-to-be-written regulations needed to enforce the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, or the mountain of regulations required by ObamaCare. The health law has already resulted in thousands of pages of rules, including 18 pages simply to define what a "full-time employee" is.
Among the most expensive new rules now waiting in the wings:
Smog rules. Although Obama canceled those extremely tight new standards -- which would put most of the country out of compliance and cost $90 billion a year to meet -- he promises to revisit the issue in 2013 and could easily reverse course.
Food safety rules. The Food and Drug Administration finished up vast new food safety rules by the end of last year, but they've been held up by the White House. The cost isn't clear, although the administration admits that the price tag for the rules dealing with imported food "will be significant."
Auto mandates. The Department of Transportation wants to require all new cars to include a rear-view video camera that turns on when cars are backing up. The cost? $10.8 billion over four years.
Greenhouse gas rules. The EPA had planned to release new rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries by this November, but now says it won't issue the rules until next year at the earliest. The oil industry says that, depending how the EPA writes the rule, it could be "very expensive."
Gasoline rules. The EPA's so-called tier 3 rule, which would cut the sulfur content of gasoline, is also in the works. The oil industry figures it will cost refiners $9.8 billion up front and more than $2 billion a year, boosting gas prices as much as 9 cents a gallon.
Fracking rules. The Interior Department says it will issue rules regulating hydraulic fracturing on public lands by the end of this year. The industry expects the rule will cost $1.5 billion a year.
Clean water rules. Last year, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers drafted a guidance document that could give it vast new authority under the Clean Water Act. The proposal is currently awaiting the White House's approval. A House bill to block this effort has attracted more than a dozen Democratic co-sponsors.
Other regulations in the works include those covering coal ash, toxic pollutants, cooling water intakes at power plans, sunscreens, fine particles, new efficiency standards, and various workplace rules.
Despite the recent administration pause in issuing new rules, and the regulatory review Obama ordered in January 2011, the president has, by every measure, been an aggressive regulator.
In the first 3 1/2 years, his administration issued 37% more "economically significant" regulations -- those costing $100 million or more -- than had the Bush administration in his first 3 1/2 years, according to data from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
A broader analysis by the Heritage Foundation that includes independent agencies found Obama had imposed nearly four times as many new regulations as Bush in his first three years, with a combined price tag of $46 billion a year.
And Obama has added more than 11,000 pages (or 7%) to the Federal Register -- the guidebook containing all the federal rules.
Businesses, meanwhile, have been complaining loudly about the growing intrusiveness of federal regulations. An August study by Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation found that the cost of major regulations has climbed an average 7.8% a year since 1998, while industry output has climbed a mere 0.4%.
A Gallup survey earlier this year found that almost half of small businesses cite worries about new government regulations as a reason they're not hiring.
The results prompted Gallup's chief economist, Dennis Jacobe, to suggest that lawmakers "place a moratorium on new regulations for some period of time," which he said would help "get the economy growing at a pace the average American can recognize as an economic recovery."
For his part, Romney has promised to overturn Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare, "tear down the vast edifice of regulations the Obama administration has imposed" and require congressional approval of new "major" regulations.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
09/17/2012 13:38 ||
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#1
If you thought the regulations and sputtering economy were bad this last 3 years, you ain't seen nothin' yet if this joker is put back in office.
Images of Muslim extremists storming an American embassy recall the Iranian revolution and force the US president to focus on foreign policy.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- His eye fixed firmly on securing a second term, President Barack Obama had hoped that the rest of the world would wait until after the election if it had to grow restless and demand his attention. It doesn't appear the rest of the world has decided to wait.
The eruptions in the streets of the Arab world, inflamed by an anti-Muslim video made in the US, mean Obama can put it off no longer. The protests are testing the president's foreign policy skills and giving voters a pre-election view of how he handles a crisis. Er, er, er I vote Present.
The turmoil also offers an opportunity -- a risky one -- for Obama to appear presidential in the midst of the election campaign, to contrast himself with a challenger less experienced in foreign policy and to illustrate that being president is not just about being a steward of the economy. Empty chair symbolism comes to mind.
Even with a rebellion in Syria and tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions, no international image can be more searing and demand more public attention than that of a US embassy under attack and American civilians in peril. This week's angry demonstrators, flag burnings and imperiled civilians already were drawing comparisons to 1979, when Iranian revolutionaries stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and took 60 hostages and held them for 444 days, helping erode President Jimmy Carter's public support. The barbarians are at the gates.
For Obama, the timing of the violent demonstrations less than two months before the election creates further complications. Well, there's the golf and my meetings with Pimp with the Limp, Beyonce, and Morsi.
His rival, Mitt Romney, jumped on the administration for what he claimed was a feckless response to the breach of the US Embassy in Cairo. A favored and popular US diplomat, the ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, was killed along with three other Americans in an attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. And protesters in the capital of Yemen stormed the US Embassy compound there and burned the US flag. Let me remind you, "I am the President" but I'll have more flexibility to attend to pesky issues after the election. Fast and Furious didn't work. We'll figure out some other way to go after that pesky, annoying 2nd Amdendment. Osama is dead and Govmint Motors is alive.
"I know that it's difficult sometimes seeing these disturbing images on television because our world is filled with serious challenges," Obama told supporters Thursday in Golden, Colo. "It is a tumultuous time that we're in. But we can and we will meet those challenges if we stay true to who we are, and if we would remind ourselves that we're different from other nations." "Yes, it is a tumultuous time that we're in." I didn't have anything to do with that. I inherited all my problems from someone else.
[LA Times] House Minority Speaker Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of politicians. Formerly Speaker of the House, but it's not her fault they lost. Really. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace... laughed off the chances of a Willard Mitt Romney ...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals. More to the point, he isn't President B.O... presidency, while trumpeting the possibility that Democrats will retake the House of Representatives, during an interview aired Sunday on CNN.
Pelosi, speaking with host Candy Crowley on "State of the Union," pointed to one issue in particular that she thinks will deliver the House to Democrats: Medicare.
"We have been saying there are three important issues in this campaign. And in alphabetical order, they are Medicare, Medicare, Medicare," she said.
"On August 11, when Gov. Romney chose [Rep. Paul D.] Ryan, that was a pivotal day. That is the day things really changed," she added, attributing the Wisconsin congressmen's own controversial Medicare proposals with bringing the program back to the forefront of the election-year debate, and in her opinion, putting the ball back into the Democrats' court.
"We were on a path. I would have said to you then we were dead even. Well, the momentum is very much with us, the Medicare issue in this campaign. We have the message, we have the messengers, we have the money, we have the mobilization. We have a very excellent chance to take back the House," Pelosi said.
As for the likelihood that Pelosi and congressional Democrats would work together with a Romney administration, regardless of a return to a majority in the House, Pelosi refuted the possibility.
"Mitt Romney isn't going to be President of the United States," she said with a laugh. "Everyone knows that."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Keep up your fantasies lady. Oh, and tell the people of the US that no one likes guns, religion or marriage anymore. It is true, teh 0ne has transformed our nation. /sarc
As published in Forbes and originally published in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science, Botox takes away or dampens the emotional feelings in a particular situation. That may be due to less interaction between facial muscle movement and brain. According to David Neal, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, if muscular signals from the face to the brain are dampened, youre less able to read emotions.[64]
One way botox might affect emotional feelings is by dampening the relay of signals from the face to the amygdala and brainstem centers for autonomic arousal.[65]
The mental effects of botox may extend beyond emotional feelings to the ability to understand language about emotions. An experimental study suggests that cosmetic use of botulinum toxin for treatment of glabellar lines affects human cognition. As reported in the L.A. Times,[66] Havas and colleagues (Havas, Glenberg, Gutowski, Lucarelli, & Davidson, 2010 [67]) asked subjects to read emotional (angry, sad, happy) sentences before and two weeks after botox injections in the corrugator supercilii muscle used in frowning. Reading times for angry and sad sentences were longer after botox injection than before injection, while reading times for happy sentences were unchanged. This finding suggests that facial muscle paralysis has a selective effect in human cognition, and shows that botox hinders the ability to understand language. According to the lead researcher in this study, "botox causes a kind of mild, temporary, cognitive blindness to information in the world, social information about the emotions of other people."
#4
It is not medicare so much as terrifying seniors with tall tales of what Republicans will do to Medicare. She is counting on tbe media to help her spread the big lies. I hope Americans are at the point that theyno longer trust the media but i am not so sure.
#7
But they are, JohnQC, they are. Whether for stock price support, mortgage bailouts, farm subsidies, SSDI/Medicare, food stamps, mortgage deductions - whatever. Virtually everyone is now 'dependent' on the government in some way, to some degree, and that is most assuredly NOT an accident.
#8
Some people, like Pelosi, think they can talk to old people as if they were children. But I think there are a lot of old people with enough teeth left in their heads to be insulted by it. They know where the money comes from and they have a pretty good idea about how it gets wasted and squandered by the likes of Madam Pelosi.
[Al Ahram] President Barack Obama The Cambridge police acted stupidly... has been "incredibly calm, incredibly steady, and incredibly measured" in his handling of the anti-US protests in the Mohammedan world, a top official said Sunday.
The robust defense of the president from US ambassador to the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... Susan Rice follows criticism from Republican opponents that Obama's leadership is weak and has encouraged beturbanned goons to exploit the Arab Spring.
"What we've seen is that the president has been incredibly calm, incredibly steady, and incredibly measured in his approach to this set of developments," Rice told ABC's "This Week" program.
"His interventions, his leadership, has ensured that in Egypt, in Yemen, in Tunisia, in Libya, and many other parts of the world, that leaders have come out and made very plain that there's no excuse for this violence."
Republican presidential nominee Willard Mitt Romney ...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals. More to the point, he isn't President B.O... urged a tough line Saturday on Egypt amid deadly anti-US violence in the region, as his election running mate Paul Ryan ...U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, serving since 1999. He is a member of the Republican Party. He proposed an alternative to President B.O.'s 2011 budget and made himself the target of both Democrat and Republican verbal pies... called for greater "moral clarity" in Obama's foreign policy.
Romney toned down his rhetoric Thursday after several negative headlines and complaints from within his own party that he had made an ill-timed mischaracterization of Obama's handling of rapidly escalating events.
But on Friday Romney's pick for vice president, Ryan, led a withering attack on Obama's foreign policy, accusing it of diminishing America's global standing and of emboldening bully boys.
"Peace, freedom, and civilized values have enemies in this world, as we have been reminded by events in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen," Ryan told the conservative Values Voter Summit in Washington.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
her bald-faced lies should've been pushed back in her face. Despicable
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/17/2012 8:11 Comments ||
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IF you can smile in the face of adversity, you probably don't know what the hell is going on.
So "measured" my Aunt Harriet's ass, the empty suit has gone back under his desk in the Oval Office and we are waiting for the BO version of ground hog day. If he comes out from under his desk and sees a crisis does that mean four more years of him? or does it mean he goes back under his desk and we get a change?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
09/17/2012 19:12 Comments ||
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Hey BC I like that. Ground hog day yep! or is that yup!.
(To be found 'wanting' you have to be at least present. He isn't even that!)
And Amb. Rice should think very, very, carefully about how Obumbles threw his Ambassador to Libya to the rabid wolves (literally). I hope she isn't stupid enough to think he wouldn't treat her any better. (OTOH perhaps she is....).
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The Fourth Estate's degrading hero worship trivializes an election.
Last fall, President Obama decided to cancel a hugely expensive new EPA rule designed to cut smog levels across the country. Obama said he did so out of concern about the rule's impact on jobs.
Nancy 
[Al Ahram] President 
