Biased media hits cultural "tipping point" with Sen. Switchback expose

This insta-ad was produced by HotAir.com (Michelle Malkin). What is important to note, aside from the ad and its content, is how the old drive-by media, the dinosaur press, the mainstream media is being left in the dust heap of history. The new manner and techniques used by the American public simply by-passed the old relics of news dissemination.

The hard-fought immigration issue could be noted in the eyes of future historians as the "tipping point" when it became obvious that these electronic information transfers surrounding this bill is indeed the symbolic moment when the people who are willfully self-governed by the republic threw away the news filter of the self-anointed elites.

(Note: I did not use the term democracy for good reason. "And to the democracy for which it stands?")

With this in mind, please take a click at this wonderful insta-ad:



We see Sen. Sam Brownback switching his vote. Other bloggers and the like have posted Brownback's news release crowing that he voted against the failed immigration bill. Brownback is mocked.

This ad is prima facia evidence that the political gamesmanship practiced by too many politicians is a big reason why Congress suffers from a 14% approval rating.

Politicians are not stupid people when it comes to getting and remaining elected.

This culture shift will be duly noted. The best news is that they are now held accountable to an extent they never were before, and the drive-by media is in large part to blame for covering up this gamesmanship with their biased reporting.

Make way you biased-old, creaky, phony journalists for the blessings of liberty now create confusion in your wretched ranks. You risk being smited by drowning in your own ink.

Thou shalt not steal, even by majority vote.

An excellent article by Gary North on the Duke University scandal and its cultural importance.

North's article is titled: What I learned from Duke University

Quick excerpt:

The elite bourgeoisie and the professors are allied together in a struggle to overcome historic Christianity and the free market. To put this as a slogan, they stand together against Moses and Mises – against Moses, because they refuse to answer to God; against Mises, because they refuse to answer to consumers.

David Ripley: Idaho's justices have denied us our constitutional rights

Big Rattler obtained an orginal copy of this complete article.

Be advised that pro-homosexual PrideDepot.com reports that Idaho Statesman political hachet man, Dan Popkey, sits in Washington D.C. gay bars flashing a photo asking if they know of anyone who "did it" with this guy.    Why would anyone take Popkey's opinions seriously?

 

This is a copy of the guest editorial that ran in the Idaho Statesman 6-22-07:

Dan Popkey is mistaken when he claims that Justice Linda Copple Trout's imperious revision of the Idaho Constitution is somehow an improvement — or, more insultingly, "a favor" to voters.

In the June 13 column, Popkey seeks to defend the decision by two sitting justices to resign early in order to manipulate the selection of their successors. This is not a legitimate exercise of their public trust. In fact, I believe their bold challenge is a violation of their oath of office to defend our state constitution.

Popkey echoes the elitism of Trout when he writes that we would all be better off to leave the hard and complicated work of justice selection to some unelected committee. These special folks will somehow provide us all with a better crop of justices.

I submit Popkey is simply wrong on both a philosophical and practical level.

Idaho voters have done very well without the help of liberal elites. There can be no serious indictment of the quality of Justices Wayne Kidwell, Jim Jones and Daniel Eismann. These people were selected by the people and have served with great distinction. Not even Popkey has leveled a charge that these populists have lacked integrity or proper judicial temperament.

So the problem Popkey seeks to fix must be something else. It seems likely that Popkey is simply frustrated that Idaho voters are considerably more conservative than he. Like many elites, he wants a more liberal judiciary, unaccountable to the people, because that is about the only way his agenda could ever be accomplished.

But the Founding Fathers crafted the Constitution to protect our freedom from just such plots.

Popkey seeks to legitimize his arguments with the claim that he would allow a limited role for the people. Well, I appreciate this consideration — but his bread crumbs don't amount to much. Under his plan, Idaho voters will have a chance to vote for justices in just the same way that the old Soviet Politburo allowed Russians a chance to ratify their decisions. It is, after all, highly unlikely that any qualified lawyer would risk a challenge of a newly appointed justice — particularly when their judicial record would be so slim by the time of candidate filing next spring.

It is only through the rigors of a contested election or a long judicial record that Idahoans will get a solid understanding of the justice's philosophy and values. But by the time we find out that a social engineer has captured a post of such power — it may well be too late.

The dangers of a runaway judiciary are all about us. The list of damages created by the 9th Circuit alone is enough to serve as a clarion call that we must rise to defend our rights under the Idaho Constitution.

David Ripley is executive director of Idaho Chooses Life , a pro-life political action committee.

Victims of Communism Memorial Dedicated in DC

From the Washington Times (6-13-07):

President Bush yesterday told hundreds of people whose countries had emerged from the grip of communism that their sacrifices would not be forgotten as he dedicated the Victims of Communism Memorial to the millions oppressed and
killed by totalitarian regimes.

"We'll never know the names of all who perished, but at this sacred place, communism's unknown victims will be consecrated to history and remembered forever," he said to more than 500 people just blocks from the Capitol. "We dedicate this memorial because we have an obligation to those who died, to acknowledge their lives and honor their memory."

The memorial is the only such monument in the world, according to its founders, who estimate that communist governments have killed more than 100 million people.

Mr. Bush compared the Cold War to the fight against terrorism, saying that the "evil and hatred" that inspired totalitarian regimes to kill millions is shared by terrorists today.

The bronze, 10-foot "Goddess of Democracy" statue was meant not only to memorialize the victims, but also to combat the ignorance of communism's global effects, said conservative historian Lee Edwards, chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

[Statue modeled after the figure Chinese students placed in Tiananmen Square in 1989, which was subsequently destroyed by Chinese tanks]

"This is to send a very clear message that one-fifth of the world's population still live under communism and not by their choice," he said.

The ceremony came exactly 20 years after President Reagan visited the Berlin Wall and called on Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear it down. [More...]

T. Blair on the news media

Exiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair delivered a speech on how the media has blurred the lines between news and commentary.

 

Unfortunately, Blair, who has a record of favoring the "big-government" philosophy, concludes that reviewing government imposed news standards may likely be streamlined and put under one authority instead of the various public overseers present in the U.K. today.

 

It appears that he places little faith with the punishment that the marketplace can deliver to sub-standard reporting even if the marketplace moves slowly but surely over time.  If there is a demand for delivering hard-news in an unbiased fashion, the marketplace will reward those who fulfill that what has become a rather niche market, in light of the hard news being who is up or down in the latest offering of American Idol.

 

Here is an excerpt of Blair's speech:

 

Fourth, rather than just report news, even if sensational or controversial, the new technique is commentary on the news being as, if not more important than the news itself. So - for example - there will often be as much interpretation of what a politician is saying as there is coverage of them actually saying it. In the interpretation, what matters is not what they mean; but what they could be taken to mean. This leads to the incredibly frustrating pastime of expending a large amount of energy rebutting claims about the significance of things said, that bears little or no relation to what was intended.

In turn, this leads to a fifth point which is the confusion of news and commentary. Comment is a perfectly respectable part of journalism. But it is supposed to be separate. Opinion and fact should be clearly divisible. The truth is a large part of the media today not merely elides the two but does so now as a matter of course. In other words, this is not exceptional. It is routine.

Black eye to KBCI (C.BS)

From NewsBusters Media Research Center:

Boise TV: Snide Remarks During Soldier's Upbeat Report
Posted by Warner Todd Huston on June 12, 2007 - 03:07.

What is it about some news outlets that they can't report a story without trying to flavor it with their own biases? That they can't give "just the facts m'am" but have to throw in their snide asides and negative phraseology? And, it's bad enough when they do it in their normal attempts at "reporting" the news, but when they do it in between an upbeat report by one of our soldiers who's opinion is that the surge is working and our presence in Iraq is a good thing, it's all the more grating. But, then, they just can't leave their hatred for American foreign policy aside long enough to report this soldier's enthusiasm, now can they?

In this case, Boise, Idaho TV 2 News, in a story by Scott Logan, just can't leave the snide comments out of their story of Army First Sergeant Noah Edney's enthusiastic point of view on our efforts in Iraq. Even the title seems to take a swipe at policy: Boise Infantryman In Baghdad Shares Views On "Surge" -- notice the quotation marks around the word surge? Even as surge is a commonly acceptable term and not one to be questioning with quotations they cast doubt onto it by using the grammatical device. [More...]

Price of Stamps vs. Gasoline

This is quite interesting. Hat tip to Ben Cunningham of TN.

Inside Story about how the Senate Immigration Bill was killed

From the Right Wing News:

A GOP Aide, who's one of my sources in the Senate, gave me the rundown on what happened to the Senate bill today.

After the 2nd cloture vote failure at noon on Thursday, Harry Reid could not get unanimous consent to call up amendments to the bill because Jim DeMint refused to give his consent. This was extremely problematic for Reid because he wanted to get in votes on 6 more amendments before the last try at a cloture vote.

At that point, all the senators who were participants in the "Grand Compromise" AKA the "Masters of the Universe" by the opponents of the bill, leaned on DeMint to try to get him to give consent for the bill to move forward.

Unfortunately for them, DeMint wouldn't budge. This essentially killed the entire afternoon that the pro-amnesty side hoped to use to shore up support for the bill.

While DeMint was gumming up the works, the opponents of the bill, including most prominently Jim DeMint, Jeff Sessions, and Tom Coburn, huddled and came up with a list of conservative amendments they wanted considered ... [more]

Where's the Fence

Immigration is not that complicated if you break it into pieces and do things one-by-one.

Granted, the fedgov is very incompetent, so it makes sense to simply complete one project at a time, then move on to the next project.

Build the already authorized and funded fence -- First.

A Blast from the Past -- Just say NO to Surrender Monkeys