Froma Harrop's Cabaret of Professional Newswomen!

After a rigorous campaign season, I have bested my opponent and have retained my mayoralty of Haterville for another term! Hooray!

In all seriousness, there was just no way I was going to maintain a writing schedule around the Presidential campaign. Sure, there was a few nuggets of gold from our vaunted pundit class, but it was the same nonsense you’d see almost anywhere. I was also gallivanting across the internets writing about things more interesting than this past election cycle.

So I’m back, and what better way to start than with an article about how women are oppressed on talks news programs, by being forced to dress provocatively and wear make up! Written by Kathleen Parker…wait a minute…this isn’t a Kathleen Parker authored article at all…this is Froma Harrop! This is impossible!

Surely, she and Kathleen Parker are friends, and while Ms. Harrop was making tea or a light lunch for the two as they chatted about being women pundits, Ms. Parker tore off towards Ms. Harrop’s office when her back was turned and wrote this incredibly stupid article. It’s the only possibility!

Let it be said now that in my second term as Mayor Of Haterville®, I’m going to broaden my ire towards anyone…not just right-wing blowhards, or “center-right” pundit stooges, or talking points memo written as though they're an independent thought housed by a singular author. No, I’m going after anything insipid that wanders the realm!

It pains me to have to do this to Ms. Harrop, I actually like her writing for the most part. She tends to not do these kind of “Oh, hey I’m a woman, I should write something about women!”, that’s mostly the ply and trade of any white woman pundit and seemingly monopolized by Kathleen Parker during these cold winter months where a pundit doesn’t feel like writing anything of substance. Even your local newspaper’s village idiots are carving out tepid lists of baloney culled from their litany of forwarded e-mails.

Perhaps Ms. Harrop, like a lot of her colleagues in the old-white man pundit class, is feeling a bit put out to pasture. As a middle-aged woman, she just can’t compete with the models that can read a teleprompter and chain together two sentences to form a talking point to regurgitate on a talk news show. Even a well educated, whip smart gal like Ms. Harrop can be a little jealous of her younger, more beautiful peers that she has to pretend are making salient points on these said shows.

It’s also odd that she uses Ann Curry and Mika Brzezinski as these vaunted classy women who have somehow transcended this sorority of vapidity and have become professional newswomen of honor. Except that nine months ago I wrote about this very kind of topic, somewhat. These two women absolutely do not represent a professional newswoman who’s somehow beat back the hard news dolls that have become the scourge of any woman over the age of thirty!

Ms. Harrop uses an Ann Curry quote about being pressed to wear high heels by her bosses. In said interview, Ms. Curry surmises that she was let go from The Today Show mostly because she didn’t want to play dress up, as she was a serious journalist! Not that she wasn’t a very good lead host or that, indeed she did dress up and wear the “ridiculously high-heeled shoes” commanded to her by her NBC overlords regardless of her bona fides. She was a company man…erm…woman all the way to the bank and back with her multimillion dollar contract. How is this somehow suppressing her? She didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to, and she literally spent fifteen years at NBC, on the Today Show in her oppressive designer wardrobe.

Laughably, Mika is brought to the fore with her complaining that when she first started working on Morning Joe she too was “pushed” in to clothes that where “short, skimpy, tight”. But Ms. Harrop tells of how she escaped and that she now wears freedom incarnate in the form of “sweaters and collared shirts, which is what Joe wears.”

What?!

Obviously, and commenters of the online article also verify, Ms. Harrop hasn’t watched Morning Joe…ever. Even a cursory internet search of Mika Brzezinski provides ample evidence of the exact opposite of the point Ms. Harrop is trying to make. Mika’s wardrobe seems to be primarily those “form-fitting dresses, arms naked to the world” items!

I kid you not:

And this is somehow Froma Harrop's idea of a professional newswoman?

What’s even more insulting, had Ms. Harrop continued her Mika Brzezinski internet search in earnest she would see that every time one Donny Deutsch “wronged” her, he would apologize by giving her a pair of Christian Louboutin heels, which she then coos over and so on and so forth. She’s literally lets men treat her like dirt on Morning Joe, then goes oohing and aahing over heels! What a wonderfully professional newswoman! She’s transcended the doll mentality so hard, she must be ironically enjoying getting shoes from a man!

Ms. Harrop’s claim that perhaps news executives are “Ron Burgundys stuck in the age of disco” with their forcing their females news anchors to “tart up” to deliver the news. But it’s in her odd choices of Mika and Curry that torpedoes her entire argument. These are two women who are holding BACK women from progressing in the news world. It’s been noted that the journalism is indeed a bloodsport full of men, where women have had to fight just to get on air. Progress has been slow, and many, many women have transcended the boys club to be respected journalists. Mika Brzezinski and Ann Curry are not those women, not even in the slightest. They have dutifully been “the skirt” on their respective programs and any respect they get is given in empty platitudes and pats on the heads by their bosses.

Unfortunately for all of this, I don’t empathize in the slightest for the plights of any millionaire news “journalist” that complains that they’re being oppressed by their “chauvinistic” bosses. I’m fairly certain both women have been offered more respectable position in other news operations, but probably for less money. What’s easier, wearing a skirt and heels then being all oppressed on the side, or doing the real yeoman’s journalistic work for peanuts, but more respect amongst your colleagues? It’s clear that Curry and Brzezinski took the easier route, for that they deserve no sympathy from women who do work in deplorable, boys clubs in the hopes of even being that vaunted “skirt” on a news show.

Thankfully, future generations of newswomen are rising up and will indeed use Curry and Brzezinski as a battering ram to smash that glass ceiling and garner true respect for their fields and themselves. Of course, they will pay these women respect, but it will all be lip service, as they, on top of their tanned, short skirted peers on Fox News, have done nothing to advance the cause for women’s right’s in a male dominated career path.

Libertarian's Are Dumb!

“If you say you’ll be pulling the lever for the libertarians or any other third party come November? Cue the chorus from both sides of the aisle: “Go ahead, throw your vote away” But that ‘s advice best ignored.” So says Newsday’s Lane Filler, I suppose who’s a libertarian? Who assumes there’s going to be an “any third party” candidate come election time. If they just so happen to get on the ballot in time, which the libertarian party has been lax to do in the past few elections. It’s not that I don’t believe it’s not impossible, because it has become increasingly difficult since Ross Perot’s third party candidacy to get mainstream coverage. There’s just never going to be enough support for a supremely disjointed party amongst an increasingly disjointed voting bloc.

You can find bits and pieces of the Libertarian ideology in either party, and not really have your “independently minded” bonafides tested or mocked. But when Mr. Filler argues both sides’ bad policies are non-starters for most Libertarians, how do they expect to gain traction? “You can only change the Democrats and Republicans by defeating them.[…] Third parties must pursue guerrilla politics.” First of all, if you can’t even propel a strong enough candidate to get on a ballot in ALL 50 states, how can you hope to topple the two-party system? I don’t disagree in Mr. Filler’s notion that the game is “rigged”, but if you can’t even field a competent team to play the game and have to resort to buffoonish political figures that just pay lip service to the Libertarian cause, as it relates to a Republican ideology, then you are wasting your vote. Next, his shining example of guerrilla politics? Ron Paul. “[He] seems to have figured out how to use the Republicans, rather than being used. Paul claims to be GOP, while voting against his party mates’ bills.” You know what would be great here? Some actual evidence to back this up! Granted, column space and all, but if the Libertarian cause is trying to rally troops and bring in new converts pointing to Ron Paul and saying “This Guy!” isn’t going to help, especially when he’s just as regressive and obstinate as his housing party the GOP.

“Since he’s a “Republican” and has support, he gets to participate in debates and the media runs stories about him.” Ah, a delicious right-wing idiotic mind meld of a point! So whether or not the “stories” the media run are bad or not doesn’t hold any water to a voter? Any news is good news eh?

To even further this disjointed third party nonsense Mr. Filler name drops four of the “party’s”(for lack of a better term) would be ideal candidates from 2008 that Ron Paul wasted his endorsement on: The Green Party, Libertarian Party, Constitution Party…and Ralph Nader (Independent). Because Ron Paul didn’t agree with any of McCain’s policies, this is the route he chose.

The game analogy is apt because it sadly needs to be played in this day and age. Unfortunately for “third party’s” their lack of a recent serious candidate of any ilk isn’t going make the game change itself. Using vague notions like “guerrilla politics” or Manchurian Candidate-ing either of the two political parties, then yeah, the critique of wasting your vote is very cogent. Honestly, you’re also obstructing people’s right to chose a candidate that would best serve the country. Not one candidate is ever going to be the “perfect” guy for the job, and that’s just the way the game is played.

The third party/Libertarian “movement” must also come to grips with the very real danger their ideology promotes. Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the election in 2000 and opened the door for W. to get in. I don’t think you’ll find very many ground floor Libertarians that are plussed by the eight years of that Bush presidency. That is the real danger of wasting your vote.

Is that a reductive argument? Sure. But so is pretending that by being a giant asshole and voting for a Unicorn is the voice of change.

“If change is what you want, you can’t keep voting for the status quo when November rolls around. As things stand right now, the third-patty votes, not matter which off-rand ticket they go to, are the only ballots that won’t be wasted.” Thanks for making my point for me Mr. Filler. It doesn’t really fit too good on a bumper sticker, but the idea that wasting your vote could propel anything is absurd. The voting booth is where representative change is enacted, but that’s not where it takes place. If the third-party’s are serious they have to change the mind of the people and there’s plenty of evidence to do so. They are lazy, obviously unfocused, and would rather backseat drive our political system than actually promote a real change to our country.

Suggesting that if the voters refused to vote for a major party, that the total number would shock and the in the next election cycle people would recognize this…and then what? Is Mr. Filler riding a Unicorn whacked out on his mind when he wrote this? You would have to assume that an actual viable third-party candidate would be able to pull all these voters together to vote for him. But if the previous points in the article show that four different people could represent third-party ideals, then voters are even more out of luck then when it was just “this guy or this guy”.

It is usually about this time of year that my political bullshit canister tops off and I just stop caring about all of it. I loathe to read anything the pundit class writes, because it’s the most obviously cyclical at this time of year, as the echo chamber starts to heat up for the end of year elections. But what I have found to rest my ire on is this unbelievable notion that has sprouted the longest legs in recent memory: the both sides are doing it argument.

Oh, it’s true both sides are to blame for it, or one side started doing it so the other side had to do something back. It’s amazing to hear this day in and day out as politicians belly up to the Sunday talk shows and spout nonsense. Because it is nonsense. The culture of victimization is at the heart of what ails this “Do-Nothing-Congress 2.0”, and I don’t even think an infusion of new blood will help the matter.

Look at the last batch of fresh blood that entered office in 2010. They’re politically inert individuals that are only learning how to play the game. Yet they have this ability to whine and point fingers already down pat. For reference of this, watch Marco Rubio’s 6/25 Daily Show interview. He waves the victimization card so hard, that I thought his arm was going to snap off. It’s pathetic how this is what our representatives are beginning to look like. As the both side argument would concur: both sides are playing victims to one another’s shenanigans. But not only does the GOP not have any ideas to the ones they wish to lambaste, they don’t have the fortitude to perhaps “man up” and stop the “both sides” chicanery.

It would be a political/societal boon for them if they just stopped being the “Party of NO” and actually sacked up and started owning their regressive political ideologies. Most of the GOP establishment has been on record with there anti-Obama anything. They’ve vaguely hinted at an idea that would replace and improve upon a repealed Obamacare, what is that idea: oh well you know vague notions, free capital, some sort of voucher whatchamacallit, states’ rights/problem.

Their single-minded ideological approach is all fine and good. David Brooks asserted weeks ago that the GOP isn’t partisan and crazy as it seems: they just have a viewpoint…that no one else sane shares with them. But that linear ideology is only served with a corresponding viewpoint, wherein the two shall meet and compromise to form our collective wishes. Being rigid isn’t a viewpoint, or acceptable in a day and age where things are so supposedly dire.

If we are to believe the right-wing ONE of these days we’re going to turn in to Greece, one of these days. They’ve been crowing about it for nigh on four years, and for some reason we don’t seem any closer to Greece’s economy than we were three years ago.

“First let’s be clear. All argument that the court is a far right cudgel hovering over our delightful, evenhanded, fair-minded nonpartisan democratic Republic are off the table. And celebrants of the court as just and true and lovely only when it suits their personal agenda should put up their bumper stickers…” This is by America’s Treasure™ Kathleen Parker and what is my most recent evidence of this “both sides” nonsense that chokes our Democracy right now. Firstly the Citizens United ruling will have a far more greater impact on our country than Obamacare. Elections are now up for the highest bidder. If you thought that running for office was fiscally prohibitive before, it’s only going to get worse as Citizens United finds it’s footing. On Obamacare, what is really so horrible to the GOP when their corporate backed Healthcare money is going to get a giant financial goose from all the new people that are now required by law to have health insurance? “We don’t know what’s in the law!” They scream, but it’s all playing to the crowd.

That’s been my biggest aggravation thus far with The Beltway and it’s actors: a serious lack of sincerity in governance. It’s all for show, it’s for the next election cycle, it’s pandering ignorance as hard as humanly possible. If it’s not that, then it’s the tired moral issues that we should be over with by now. What would we rather have go in to the history books: our economy came back harder and awesome than ever, or instead of dealing with the economy we legislated abortion clinics into oblivion and argued over whether the President was a natural citizen or not?

Watching Marco Rubio on the Daily Show was mighty informative to me. That even after all his pro-growth nonsense, sensible immigration policy, and trying to find compromise amongst the two parties, he had the audacity to tip his hand and reveal a dreadfully partisan GOP card. He began this whole flat-tax, growth in small business, pro-growth through innovation spiel that flew in the face of everything he was successfully selling in the first part of the interview. That somehow the GOP was going to establish certainty to an completely uncertain economy/world should have led to him being laughed out of the studio, down the street and off the face of the earth. It may as well be wizardry economics. Certainty is going to lead the rich to invest in the economy? That the rich are going to invest in new innovation and that yet another bubble is all we need? It sounds less like sound economic policy and more like a junkie looking for another hit of the good stuff.

Rubio steadfastly argued that the reason he disagrees with the Democrats is because they have “bad ideas”. But I’d honestly rather have a bunch of bad ideas that are workable than just the House GOP’s “ideas” that are purely partisan and are just begging to be ignored by the Senate. The GOP is playing to the stands and they should be called on it by the media as a whole.

Marco Rubio’s victimization story is great and all until you give it context. He’s a freshman senator, a majority of his bills aren’t going to see the light of day, regardless of who controls the House majority and he knows it. So he can write all kinds of baloney legislation and run on that pretending he’s just trying so damn hard for the people. It’s the same logic that the GOP used when they pushed Paul Ryan’s budget around congress. The bill was dead and politically inert as soon as it was born, they know that. The American public must begin to recognize this context and understand that any (bad) idea and a workable (good) idea are two very separate things.

So you’re David Brooks, pundit/columnist who’s contribution to the status quo is Thomas Friedman quantities of vagueness that pepper your columns. So afraid of biting the hand that feeds, that you refuse to acknowledge the very vague notions you are presenting in your articles. Mr. Brooks has tried to break down our current economic nightmare in to economic “tribes” trying to find their way, has wondered aloud where all the liberals are, poorly peddles the notion that the GOP is really the party of the working class, and now claims that “our generation” has borrowed from the future like no other generation before.

Firstly, what is Mr. Brooks’ “our generation”? The vague notion is key to his status quo clutching baloney of an article, but I think if it was given parameters would definitely allow this article to be more substantive than it ultimately turns out to be.

Like most of his columns, Mr. Brooks spends an inordinate amount of time selling you a bill of goods you must buy or his entire article don’t make sense…relatively speaking. They’re all boiler-plate, run-of-the-mill, status quo maintaining non-articles generally, but the amount of slack you have to cut the articles so the ideas can even be taken seriously is pretty ridiculous.

Because older generations didn’t have the luxuries of modern technology and were so often one misstep away from utter catastrophe that they remained insecure. “[the older generations] developed a moral abhorrence about things like excessive debt, which would further magnify their vulnerability.” So if you completely ignore American history where expansionism and risk are inherently the “American way“, sure this makes some sense. If you believe, like Mr. Brooks seemingly does, that indebtedness is a modern trope, and that peaks and valley’s in our economy didn’t occur with such veracity until the late 20th century, then sure Mr. Brooks is on to something.

Because modern generations are more secure, we’ve become complacent with debt, according to Mr. Brooks. Which, arguably, the point can be made to this. But I think it’s less compliancy with debt, and more that debt is utterly necessary in this day and age. The standard of living has gone up, while the wages that are paid have plateau-ed and stagnated for decades so that some debt is necessary to the modern nuclear family, even if both parents are working.

It seems Mr. Brooks is making the argument that people just take on debt because they don’t see any harm in it. That people are so stupid as to be tricked by credit card companies to accumulate more debit, or to take out student loans to pay for college and view it less as debt and more as an investment in the future, which is the general line that is used when attempting to pursue higher education. This right-wing ideal that the blame for America’s larger economic ills rest squarely on the general public is old and tired and who’s refutation must become louder and known to all.

That’s not to say there isn’t some truth to “the general public is over entitled and spoiled”, but it doesn’t rest on the general public who’ve paid their taxes and spent their money like the good citizens they are. These citizens were told by the older generations that if they did so they needn’t worry when it was their turn to rest and depend on the next generation. Meanwhile that older generation misrepresented their lessers and filled our “entitlements” with IOU’s that must be paid back more than the government needs to diminish it’s deficits.

The center right and GOP want to keep painting their plan of economic recovery as “we’re all in this together”. It’s utter bullshit, and slowly but surely the voting public must become aware of this, as history has shown, it takes entirely too long to figure this out. In the meantime, the very pundits of status quo that peddle this shared sacrifice narrative are attempting to chain the current economic climate on to a new boogeyman.

Also, what do we have to make of the “We’re not a nation of have and have nots, but a nation of have’s and soon to have’s”? Perhaps this could be related to the tolerance of indebitude that Mr. Brooks seems to think is the major problem our nation is facing at this moment. Is it not inconceivable that an optimistic citizen would view taking on loans or accrue a large credit card debt, if they think that eventually their number will be pulled and their wildest dreams and riches will be at hand?

Mr. Brooks refuses to use this because it would show the sham of that right-wing rhetorical device. Can’t tip the status quo boat, so it’s best to just assume that the American dream has a price tag that many of it’s citizenry can no longer afford on their own because it’s tolerance for debt is soo great.

What the general public is to blame for is being a schizophrenic, ill-informed voting bloc. This constant notion that if that one guy with the “D” next to his name isn’t getting it done, that we may as well get that guy with the “R” next to his name in there is what is truly fueling this continued political strife. That our political parties are becoming more and more similar isn’t helping either, but I believe that is more the fault of a disjointed voting public and the political class evolving to pander to it.

This is why when Mr. Brooks mentions in his article that states are struggling with pensions promises that should never have been made, you have to, as a reader see that he’s pissing on your back and telling you it’s raining. That unions and their desires are crippling our states economies is utterly false. It’s when these Republicans governors are trying to please their corporate overlords with generous tax cuts, subsides and incentives coupled with previous “pension promises” that you have the current deficit debacle that states are supposedly going through. Not even to mention the regressive legislative agendas towards women’s rights, the educational system and public works.

Unfortunately, states can’t run the deficits that the federal government can. So when a republican governor passes a regressive economic agenda, he knows full well he won’t have to deal with the fiscal fall out that will occur long after they have left office. The short term political gain is ALWAYS the prime agenda of the right-wing and GOP, because they are so ideologically bankrupt that they can’t even fathom nuanced, pragmatic policy of any kind.

Mr. Brooks article then switches to the recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. According to him Scott Walker turning a $3.6 billion deficit into a $150 million surplus. What David Brooks doesn’t’ relate is that Scott Walker was the chief agent of the $3.6 billion deficit when he propelled a regressive tax plan furl of corporate subsides through the republican dominated legislature. His attempt to fix the deficit he created was to gut the public unions of Wisconsin.

According to pollster Scott Rasmussen that Scott Walker keeps his job will be proof that voters do value deficit reduction and will vote for people who accomplish it. There is no truth in that whatsoever. It proves that voters only turn out for the big elections (your senators, presidents, and governors), and that their ambivalence is not complicit agreement to anything set forth. It also refuses to acknowledge that Tom Barrett, the man running against Scott Walker was limited by campaign rules and only had about $3.9million to campaign with, whilst Scott Walker had $45.6 million dollars, was not confined by rules, which allowed him to collect more than state regulated $10,000 per donor, due to a loop-hole for incumbents. Three-fourths of the funds for Walker came from out of state donors. It’s an unfair fight, and one that laissez-faire “independent” voters will be completely oblivious to. It’s also kind of shows that unions aren’t nearly as powerful and government killing as the right-wing would like you to believe.

Mr. Brooks assertion that a move to populism is what will fix our economic ills is also a right-wing tale as old as time. It’s about as close to “remember how awesome Ronald Reagan was (so awesome)" that you can get without being yet another Ronald Reagan myth fellating right-wing blowhard. And honestly just how much more populist can Obama get and still be tagged with the liberal socialist banner by the right-wing? If by populist we’re referring to kowtowing or caving to House republicans on most of his “liberal socialist” agenda.

The shift back to economic awesomeness isn’t going to be lead by a cultural shift. It’s going to happen after our society reclaims it’s equilibrium and we can tip back to a sort of political pragmatism that’s sorely been lacking. Sadly, it’s just not going to happen any time soon, and maybe not even in MY generation. The conclusion that the current generations need to come to is that the boomers and their ilk have let us all down, and they’re too delusional to admit to as much. The art of kicking the can down the road and “borrowing from the future” was an idea mostly held by them, and sure as hell wasn’t brought on by any insecurity born of a classical age. At a certain point they must be held accountable for the current trend of our politics and socio-cultural trajectory.

If there’s one thing I love more than anything else about Bill O’Reilly it’s his never ending supply of blue collar platitudes that “form” his world-view. You’d think that by now, someone who’s spent predominantly more of his life as a millionaire than a blue collar fella, he’d can it with the “tough guy” business.

In his article "Are teenagers really Americans?” starts off by commenting that he knows one of the great challenges in education is getting teenagers interested in their country. He knows this because he was once a high school teacher. For two years. 40 years ago. He doesn’t relate the length of his tenure as a teacher or how long ago it was presumably because it’s boring. But I think it speaks volumes as to why some old white guy insists that teenagers aren’t interested in their country and that only he has the answers. Teenagers according to Bill O’ Reilly “…are too busy keeping up wit the Kardashians to absorb John Adams.”

What’s exactly so wrong with that? The right-wing is always pooh-poohing young voters for making poor voting decisions. The decisions are poor because that don’t involve much support for right-wing agenda, and the republican party may as well be an old white man factory of utter uncool to young voters. So why now is it so important that teenagers learn how to be “real Americans”? Does “real American” mean that the voter is informed has their own opinions on the things they are about to vote on. More likely “real American” means conservative, all republican voting, and ill-informed.

Bill O’Reilly then takes it upon himself a new project: teaching a 13 year old girl how to care about being an American. I hope that this is some sort of satire, and not a real project. I think there’s Geneva Convention stipulations against this sort of thing. Also, he doesn’t appear to say whether or not this 13-year-old girl is relation or not. Did Bill O’Reilly kidnap a 13-year-old girl, take her to a sub-basement on his compound/lair, and attempt some odd psychological experimentation on how to care about being an American? Is the Department of Justice following up on this? Where’s the law enforcement community in all this or are they being complicit in a kidnapping of a 13-year-old girl?

His first lesson: Obey the rules. This is definitely a kidnapping scenario if he’s dealing in “lessons” and “rules”. The enforcement of such involves all doors being open, “unless there is a dressing situation”. So I guess bath time isn’t covered in that rules, sorry young lady. If Bill O’Reilly wishes to engage in conversation, you’re going to have to hide in the shower with the curtain drawn, or be in a constant state of “dressing situation”. Bill O’Reilly’s reasoning for the “open door” policy: “To discourage internet chicanery and encourage lively conversation”. Has Bill O’Reilly raised any children, in the last decade, or ever? There are computer programs that you can use to stop “internet chicanery”. And I think Bill O’Reilly is using chicanery wrong. How exactly is this 13-year-old girls clever manipulation of language. If he’s being literal, then he shouldn’t allow this 13-year-old girl on the internet at all! It’s chock full of chicanery, and not even to mention things like messenger services, or e-mail, or social networking sites. Also, the internet is full of informative information. Does reading Huffington Post count as chicanery, if the 13 year-old isn’t on BillOReilly.com? What if she doesn’t want to sign up for his e-mail list?

Lesson 2: Discuss Intelligent things - not just reality shows and music maniacs. First of, music maniacs? What is this, the town of Bomont? I can understand things like The Black Eyed Peas or LMFAO being considered “music maniacs” as I do believe they are terrorizing our young people with some sort of noise and light chicanery. And that by it’s very nature would frighten an old white man like Bill O’Reilly. But really, how far would a conversation involving “music maniacs” go between Bill O’Reilly and a 13-year-old girl?

13-year-old girl: Uhh, ummm so have you seen “Party Rock Anthem” By LMFAO
Bill O’Reilly: A what?
13-year-old: NO…it’s a group called LMFAO, they’re pretty cool.
Bill O’Reilly: A what? You know, when I was growing up in the tough streets of Levittown, we beat up LMFAO’s all the time. They were punks and burnouts…and they even asked me to join them, because I was so cool. But I didn’t because they were "hoodlums".
13-year-old: What’s that go to do with anything?
Scene

The greatest thing about lesson 2, aside from the “music maniacs” portion, is that in his scene the 13-year-old girl says “Nobody wants to talk about politics. That’s boring!” To which later in the scene he replies “I do just fine talking about them. Millions of people listen.” It’s phenomenally awesome to read that scene not even two weeks after he went on an entire bender about politics being boring. Is Bill O’Reilly having his Factor writing staff just write his editorials? I mean, it wouldn’t be the hardest thing to do. But to not even have the wherewithal to notice that he literally had a 13-year-old girl tantrum-read-column that said the exact same thing is delicious! I also love the classic Bill O’Reilly “how awesome am I? so awesome” of dropping his “millions of people listen” right in the middle of this column. He’s not done with that stuff either.

Suddenly, the lessons fall away and “rules” begin! This has to be a hostage situation, as this is a classic psychological turn. The ole’ switcheroo! Caring benevolent caretaker, suddenly becomes cruel dominator! Rule 3: Learn about your country’s past. Doesn’t it kind of seem odd that Bill O’Reilly would reach for this when so much about his politics and the very channel “millions of people listen” to him on a nightly basis are revisionist historians and sheer ignorance/fear based ideology? As a former teacher, wouldn’t Bill O’Reilly also remember just how poorly written and fallacious history books can be? Especially in America, where the “history” books we give our children should just be titles “White Guys: Yup, we sure did kick some ass! Oh and we wrote most of history because most brown people are liars. Volume One: How Hard Columbus Kicked Ass!”

The Bill O’Reilly fun zone doesn’t stop there. This 13-year-old girl has just been assigned to read over the summer Bill O’Reilly’s (with "historian" Martin Dugard as co-author) new book "Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever”! Whoa! Even the education system is complicit in this hostage situation, having to assign something like that AND make the child buy the book (he actually has the temerity to say the book is $20). Surely this material is a bit over the head of a 13-year-old?

The disdain that Bill O’Reilly shows this 13-year-old girl, doesn’t just stop at his young hostage, it spills out onto all today’s young people. He calls them urchins that need to be forced or bribed to pay attention to “important things”. Sadly, I don’t think the 13-year-old girl really thought that paying $20 for “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever” was a bribe of any kind. And this idea that kids today just need book learning, is absurd. Bill O’Reilly says in his article that as a child you had to read to fight off boredom. Yet, he’s a part of such a monolithic entity that preys on peoples ignorance, and buoys itself on rhetoric and misinformation.

What exactly is so important about learning about the value your country? I thought the idea was to be a “real American”, not being informed about your country’s value? It seems rather vague right? At least he didn’t actually say “Hey, watch The O’Reilly Factor every night at 8pm EST on the Fox News Channel and be a “real American!”

Apparently Bill O’Reilly thinks the lessons and rule in his article are a successful way of educating America’s youth about the value of their country. He also tosses in that current right-wing gem of how this election is a battle for the souls of the next generations. It’s kind of sickening that the very thing Bill O’Reilly represents is the chief agent in darkening those souls, and poisoning generations further down the road as well. That he thinks his teaching plan would somehow be approved by Abe Lincoln would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic. The right-wing is literally turning our history and politicians in to those whacky animatronic monstrosities that resides in museums and amusement parks. The bullet point list of achievements that white wash away the context and human nature that actually surrounded those men. While I can’t argue that they need to be eradicated from existence, as I do think they have some place in helping to inform children under the age of six, the idea that these caricatures are made mythological and important should be terrifying to those of us who do know our history.

Dear readers, I’ve been trying so hard not to write any more Kathleen Parker is a Shithead tinged articles. It appears it has all been in vain. One of these days, I will collect all the Kathleen Parker articles I’ve not been publishing and throw them up here. It will be horrible, and I hope that you will forgive me when that day comes.

But I can’t help it, out of all the editorials I’m exposed to on a daily basis, I see her the most. I’m compelled to read them simply out of an insane hope that she will eventually pick a side rhetorically and stay there or actually start writing good articles. That she will one of these days buck the status quo and actually write foreword thinking pieces. That she will become more like George Will in that matter: they don’t have to be correct, cogent or topical articles, but at least they’re something different than the seemingly endless, lazy, talking point memo induced columns that choke up our newspapers.

In my opinion the most egregious writing style, and the apex of most Ms. Parker’s columns, is the cowards way of backing up a weak article with “facts”. These facts are typically in the shape of polls, which by now, everyone is keenly aware are mostly contextual of the exact moment in time the question was asked, and when we’re talking political leanings are NEVER proof positive of any trend or held belief. Yet, to the right-wing writers who use them, they are the manna from heaven with which they bake all their lie bread.

In Ms. Parker’s case she always front loads her articles with them because 90% of the time her thesis’ are so weak they need to be braced by polls or weak rhetoric. Even a razor thin toothpick of a poll result is good enough. Problem is, as is the case most of the time with any article held up by polls, by the end of the article the writer will always start sliding in their rhetoric and “polls” that back up their point. But there’s no names or percentages like the polls referenced at the beginning of the piece. It’s a shell game, and only those of us who are most diligent even realize this nasty trick.

Perhaps it’s a tad ironic that Ms. Parker’s recent column about how these presidential campaigns are essentially high school popularity contests, is so full of immature snark and bite. Oh, it’s all aimed at Obama. Since she’s finally done with writing the “Seriously guys, Romney” Romney harlequin short fictions about the presumptive republican presidential nominee, she’s gone after Obama with a ham-handed ferocity. Not one to wander too far off the status quo reservation, she continues to run with the idea that Obama isn’t nearly as popular with the ladies as he’d want you to believe.

The first thought is, who the fuck cares anymore? I mean really…the GOP and right-wing have burned more than enough ladies with their anti-woman policies. In fact, when Rick Santorum was having his moment a few months back, Obama was looking REAL good to pretty much everyone, ladies included. The second thought is one that I’ve stated before, there’s more than enough evidence to show that the right-wing and GOP on every level of government is attempting to subvert the constitutional rights of women. This is no longer a battle of rhetoric, as it was at points in the past. The GOP is acting on a lot of it’s regressive agenda before it overreaches too far yet again, and get’s the boot.

The key thing I realized, and what propelled me to publish this piece is the shitty way Ms. Parker slides in her bullshit. (The emphasis is mine)“…[a] poll showed women tilting toward Mitt and voters overall favoring him by 46%.” She follows it up with another poll showing it was higher a month ago, so it’s doubly insulting. It’s using that right-wing regressive idea that women are irrational about their politics AND that readers of this articles won’t happen to notice that “voters overall” and women are being poorly lumped together. The poll didn’t read women are favoring Romney by 46%, it says voters OVERALL. Ms. Parker is abstracting the women part, because she desperately needs to make her point.

I’m also surprised at amount of surprise that the right-wing writers have about Romney’s past transgressions seemingly always popping up to bite his campaign in the ass. The GOP establishment aren’t surprised by this at all. This is where you can see the clear differentiation between the establishment writers and the status quo followers. I wouldn’t even be surprised if right up to the election that people like Ms. Parker will keep being astonished by Romney’s flip-flop-ness, Crategate, and so on. Whereas the establishment long ago accepted that Romney was a weak candidate and that the focus should return to filling the congress with republicans.

About the middle of the article Ms. Parker whips out the rhetoric with a “poll” that showed that four in ten voters think Obama’s policies will tank their financial situation if he’s re-elected. Where’s the source, Ms. Parker? You had zero problem laying out where the first few polls came from, yet here, it’s just slid out there for the reader to absorb. Towards the end of the piece another gem about the recent announcement Obama supported gay marriage: “…but polls show that the broader voting audience isn’t strongly swayed one way or the other…” She opens with two thirds of voters think the announcement was politically motivated, while 57% (arguably could also be closer to two-thirds) say it would have no affect on their vote. So her point is moot. As it should be, as again, we need to focus on the real issues that are facing this nation.

Oddly, she puts this sentence in to the piece after saying that Romney running Bain Capital that “sometimes” profited from failed businesses that resulted in job losses is capitalism: “For likeability, see auto bailout.” It’s unclear whether Ms. Parker is playing in to the recent Romney led history re-write where he says the auto bailout was his idea that Obama used, when in fact, and there’s a New York Times editorial to back this up, he suggested that the auto industry go bankrupt. Which sure, is indeed capitalism at it’s finest, but shows (along with "Crategate", or his “prank” on a long-haired classmate) that Romney is heartless and incapable of compassion in the face of oblivion. That he lacks the pragmatism to solve problems without doing great harm to those that may not matter to him. He’s a cutthroat businessman through and through and that’s not going to tilt the likeability meter to him ever.

But this idea that Obama isn’t going to embrace his record and attempt to bamboozle the voters with charisma is absurd. The Romney campaign is going to flagellate the shit out of the talking point that Obama’s record is poor. The “likeability” and reliability issue that needs to be addressed is purely a Romney problem.

The Bored Games of Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly is bored. It’s part of his “I’m just a blue collar, hard workin’ guy” candor that I actually do enjoy about him. I enjoy it the same way I enjoy the seriousness in which grown ass men in the WWE unfurl their “drama” every week on television…with utter irony. Bill O'Reilly isn’t bored. It’s clear something may be the matter however, with the utter shortness of his old man shaking his fist at a cloud disguised as an “editorial”.

First of all the presidential campaign has become “…boring. Tedious. Painfully insipid.” Bill O'Reilly is knee-deep in the media landscape, has a nightly primetime show, and somehow he’s become bored? If you don’t like the conversation Mr. O’ change to the topic, right? I understand that maybe he’s trapped, deep in the Fox News buildings basement, where his studio resides, he has to keep flogging a dead horse in the republican presidential campaign. It was assumed Romney was going to win from the start, yet those in the media had a time with it and it kind of took on a life of it’s own. But, did Bill ever stop it? No. Not one time. To his credit, I suppose being bored doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t just go through the motions.

In keeping with his boredom with it all he begins with something my sixth grade English teacher admonished, and has been loathed by everyone who comments on the media. “[“At the end of the day“ is] Overused by pundits and politicians alike, those words are now making my ears bleed. Lights out on this one, please.” Bill O'Reilly says please? Is this condemnation aimed more at his Fox News compatriots? From the times I’ve accidentally watched a fair bit of any of that channel, and have been exposed to their clips in my various left wing media shows, the pundits on Fox News have the smallest vocabulary out of any of the pundits or politicians that feature on any news show. To be fair, it’s a worn adage, just like “it is what it is”, but lazy metaphors and simile are paramount on Fox News, where else do these people that call in to their right-wing radio shows get their limited vocabulary? Did this shortened vocabulary trickle up? Hardly.

Next, Bill O'Reilly says there is no war on women. It was just made up by the left. Of course it was, there’s no recent empirical evidence otherwise! And even so, according to Bill O'Reilly American women have more “opportunity” than anywhere else on the planet. Keyword here is “opportunity”, it’s that tired GOP/right-wing optimism for you. You see, we’re a nation not of haves and have not’s, we are a nation of haves and soon-to-haves! So of course women have all the “opportunity” in the world! But this has zero to do with opportunity and more to do with the real fact that the GOP in federal and state governments are passing regressive legislation that’s anti-women. Because it’s boring, and Bill O'Reilly just squashed all that beef, it’s time to knock it off.

I would hate Bill O'Reilly on face value alone if he didn’t occasionally embrace some populism on topics. In his next paragraph he admonishes those who call Obama a Muslim. Of course he’s not, he’s a Christian, and it’s boring to keep talking about it. Yet didn’t Bill O'Reilly fan the flames for a time on his Fox News show, of course. But it’s boring now, and people who are bored don’t have time to look back! It’s key to not that he does say that if Obama was Muslim he would damned just for that. But isn’t the mere idea that MAYBE he was a Muslim was fodder enough for the right-wing? The fact that it’s still a mitigating factor in a lot of right-wing opinion and news say enough to that effect? Sure, to Bill O'Reilly you’re insane if you think Obama was a Muslim, whether or not it effects your vote is another matter that won’t be discussed…it’s boring!

Global warming, according to Bill O'Reilly, is a hoax because Al Gore got rich off of it. It also may be because we’re going through a warm spot. But, no one knows except God. I do agree with him on those stupid bulbs that supposedly save you energy, I don’t know what he’s talking about wit h $60 variety. What kind of bulb is that? Anyways, the fact that they are very dim and when they break you have a small hazardous waste issue on your hands and need to quarantine your house and family so you don’t mutate or die from changing a broken bulb. It’s also boring…moving on.

Bill O'Reilly covers the current pundit distract-o-topic of dogs in this years election campaigns. While, I agree to Bill O'Reilly’s point that it’s indeed boring, the general takeaway from Romney’s “Crategate” is that it actually shows Romney having a genuine human emotion: asshole. Only an asshole would strap his dog, in crate to the top of the car, pull over when it shits all over the roof, hose the dog and crate off, then put it BACK on to the roof of the car to finish the trip! It’s why, pun intended, that talking point still has legs. Should we somehow glean a human element out of the stilted, karaoke renditions of “America the Beautiful”? It’s boring that pundits like Bill O'Reilly will put up a weak-armed defense of both Romney and Obama, yet won’t ever perhaps delve in to just why a thirty year old story about the time he strapped the family dog to the car is still bugging the Romney campaign. It’s boring!

Next we have the other right-wing distraction topic of “illegal’s”. Somehow, we’re confusing the illegal aliens that Bill O'Reilly knows. The left-wing states that if you call an illegal alien “illegal” then you’re committing a hate crime. But, to Bill O'Reilly, that’s what they are. What are you supposed to call a human being who’s here illegally being paid pennies on the dollar doing a job that no one wants to do? Somehow, on top of being boring, it’s also amazingly tedious to Bill O'Reilly! These illegal aliens that Bill O'Reilly is friends with are also demanding to know what their status is. So is Bill O'Reilly complicit in this whole scheme by hiring illegal aliens? How does he have such intimate knowledge of how they feel about a topic that’s supposedly boring to Bill O'Reilly, yet has no problems trotting it out only to level it with his tough guy nonsense? Bill O'Reilly, I need names!

Medical Marijuana is next on the list of boring topics. He tells us to mellow out (but if we’re so bored, are we not already in a “mellow” state?). Everyone knows that it’s a con. Is he talking about his illegal aliens confidants again when he says “Everyone”, or is he talking about everyone that resides in the Fox News building at any given moment? Because if the latter is the case, then everyone also agrees that global warming is a hoax, Obama is actually a socialist Muslim, who wants to outlaw all guns, and he’s raising prices on gas to fuel a green agenda…and so on and so forth. Also you seemingly get a prescription for medical marijuana in a back alley scheme where you pay a doctor $200 (so cheap!) and he hooks you up. Is the $200 just a co-pay to buy out the doctor, and the prescription for the drug is a moot point? Since the symptoms to get prescribed a drug are “made up”, that invalidates the reason for going to the doctor and you’re just a bong-ripping, hacky-sack playing hippy who’s gaming the system?

Bill O'Reilly next tells the Occupy Wall Street protesters that the movement is over. That’s odd, I never read or saw him declare the TEA Party movement dead. And from what I gather, it’s over for those patriots. Occupy Wall Street is also moving us toward a Cuban style government, which of course Bill O'Reilly doesn’t want to live in. It’s not boring, it’s just over.

I lambaste this article because it makes my point that the pundit class is out of touch. In some cases it’s willful, and often times it’s not. I don’t expect a corporatist, center-right blowhard like Bill O'Reilly to ever betray his overlords. In fact he called the Occupy Wall Street movement dead in the water mere days after it sprung up in New York. But what’s notable is that he was part of a Fox News chorus that was chanting it’s demise. Hoping to influence the mainstream media in to not covering Occupy Wall Street, which they for the most part obliged. Then Bill O'Reilly kept going and going until Bloomberg had them shut down forcibly. All that jazz did get a degree of coverage.

To speak truth to power isn’t in Bill O'Reilly’s wheelhouse. This bullet point list of topics that are boring may as well be a list of talking point for the week that any right-wing pundit could harp on ad nauseam in a column space. The week this article was published every single one of those points had a corresponding article by a pundit. What’s interesting is that the general citizen would never recognize this, and why would they care? The real issues aren’t even on Bill O'Reilly’s list, there are ALL non-starters to common folks. Perhaps even they were much too boring to even be bothered with by Bill O'Reilly.

More to my constant point on this blog is that when the pundit class openly sticks it’s finger in the eye of the readers. This article may as well not have been published. It’s still a tiny bit of print, but it’s still taking up spaced better suited for something else…anything else really. This sullen bullshit article about being “bored” is essentially the current mind state of the American public. Where’s the spice, the passion the flame of this political drama? The pundit class dare not speak to the systemic problem inherent to the boredom: a protracted primary season with weak politicians. Of course, Obama’s 2008 campaign run was a huge hit of that hard, sweet stuff, and no substitute is ever going to match that level of both pundit and public fervor. Why would anyone not be bored?

I’m not saying that Obama has a home run campaign on his hands and that he’s just going to be re-elected, but I am saying that Romney is a weak candidate that barely won his own party’s primary. To the pundit world, there’s things that Obama CAN’T run on, and that’s all fine and good, but what does Romney have to run on ? If he’s still beleaguered by a three decades old “dog shitting all over his car” story, then what can he say or do to prove an electorate he’s got something different than that other guy with a similar political bent. Obama is a essentially the populist, republican we as a public are supposedly always pining for. Until we can reanimate Ronald Reagan‘s corpse, it’s the best we can do!

More importantly, why doesn’t Bill O'Reilly just step down from the half-assed editorial writing, or get a stooge to fill in for him when he’s so bored?

The old white men and women’s issues somehow continues to trudge on, long after even I assumed we had done settled all this. I’m not quite of the mind that Democrats are the saviors and keepers of the flame of women’s rights and the like. I am very certain that Republicans are anti-women most everything though.

This recent hub-bub over Hilary Rosen admonishing Ann Romney’s place as the head of the women’s social and economic issues for the Romney campaign, is more a desperate right-wing reach to attempt to muddy the political waters in terms of women’s issues. Hilary Rosen’s right though: what the hell DOES Ann Romney know about real women’s economic issues. Sure, she was a stay at home mom, raising five children. Yawn. I’m not going to placate a group of people with “oh yeah, that is so hard”. I’m going to go with the “I’d rather be a stay at home parent than out digging ditches or paving roads for a living” argument.

I understand that raising children is hard, but for Ann Romney the assertion that that was a job worthy of propelling her to understand the plight of the modern working woman is absurd. The wife of a multi-millionaire just raised these kids ALL BY HERSELF? Give me a fucking break. The maids, nannies, next door neighbors with children of their own in the affluent areas where the Romney’s lived, and so on. This is a fantasy to women who have to work the 9-to-5, 40 hour week, AND raise children. This is pure mythology to the low-income single mothers, who have work two or three jobs to keep afloat. Ann Romney can relate to their struggles?

Hilary Rosen’s point is still apt: what the fuck does Ann Romney know of women struggle and sacrifice? For the Romney campaign as a whole, this was an opportunity for Ann to be a political operative of her own and score cheap political points. Then milk that she once had breast cancer and currently has multiple sclerosis. Never mind that she can afford the best treatments and never have to decide to take an overpriced treatment over caring and providing for her children or leaving them in mountains of debt and cratering their futures. Heaven forbid she ever have that struggle.

This isn’t about the “job” of being a stay-at-home mother or it’s inherent weight amidst the myriad of jobs in the world. To see right-wing pundits act as though Democrats were all ashamed of or cowing away from Hilary Rosen’s comment is a desperate reach. Do you really think this is going to convince independent women voters that the right-wing and the Republican Party isn’t still the most regressive party in terms of women’s rights? Just because Obama played lip-service to the Oprah crowd by saying that stay-at-home mother’s have the hardest job, doesn’t mean that the ENTIRE Democrat Party is admitting that they have a secret women’s issue problem that’s just now bubbling up.

Even more saddening is the news media, instead of putting Hilary Rosen’s comment in context by, I don’t know, playing everything after the “never worked a day in her life” part, instead chose to hit the streets and asking mothers if their mothering was indeed harder. What the hell is this shit? Mrs. Rosen’s point wasn’t that motherhood wasn’t hard, she’s a single mother herself.

The Romney’s are mistaking benevolence with compassion. Mitt Romney and his generous tithes to the Mormon Church are not a substitute for general human compassion. That they pay taxes isn’t an assertion that they understand the struggles and needs of the less fortunate that subside on government assistance. It’s been the general problem with the Romney campaign in general: he, and by extension his wife are completely out of touch with the rest of America. Ann Romney being a woman will do little to buoy the fact that the Republican Party her husband is attempting to lead is aggressively and publicly anti-woman and anti-poor. Even her husband said of poor mother’s who wanted money to raise a family that instead of depending on welfare “hey, have some dignity and get a job…you’ll be better for it.”

This reach by right-wing pundits stinks so bad they should be ashamed of themselves for attempting to even bother trying to rub their shit covered hands on anyone else. Their failure to keep their fringe, women hating elements in line is why Mitt Romney is going to lose a vast majority of the women voters. Ann Romney’s political operative song and dance aren’t going to sway the single women voters, and I highly doubt that married or mother voters are going to be convinced to just sweep aside the last few months of Republican overreach on their reproductive rights and civil liberties. It’s a nice attempt, they should’ve just picked a better Democrat Party pundit gaffe to harp on to build a case with.

I haven’t cracked open a Parade Magazine lately, but I guess they’ve started this “Sunday Joe” section in the back part of the magazine where Minka Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough hash something topical out. Topical is being a bit generous. The he said/she said thing is also played out, but I guess the demographic of Parade is 48-89 year olds, and they don’t want to take on any real issues of the day. Better yet, I’ll just assume that “Morning Joe” probably covers a LOT of that stuff, right?

The question this week: “Should Sugar Be Regulated?” Fair enough, “Morning” Joe Scarborough and Minka “I Coulda Been a Contenda” Brzezinski should be able to “spar” over this easily.

Right out the gate, Minka actually answers the question! I assume this is because she’s marginalized enough on Morning Joe as is, perhaps Joe will actually stay the course and “spar” on this question. Minka addresses the very real problem of America consuming ways too much processed foods and high-fructose corn syrup (which is in most everything food these days). Perhaps she’s goading Joe with her answer as she’s goes right in to the “government should probably regulate this” and her cherry on top “…put a tax on soda”.

Joe Scarborough, the wet fart of the republican revolution of the early mid-90‘s, wastes no time labeling Minka’s answer as a “vision of the nanny state that is so overreaching”. As a small-government conservative who takes offense to that notion, he clearly is not interested in answering this question either. Instead, he continues to marginalize Minka, who as an abused co-host, tightens her lip and insists on answering the question by saying that kids ingest a lot of sugar, and that parents need to educate themselves to feed their kids a proper meal.

What’s more insulting, besides Joe essentially patting Minka on the head and saying “Oh, you silly gir/socialist”, is his blanket paint-by-numbers republican rhetoric that he masks as an answer. Here’s the short list:
“I grew up in a middle-class family”
“Most of my breakfast were flavored kids cereals”
“I was healthy and slender because I led an active life, [just like everyone in the olden days]”
“My grandmother poured sugar on everything and lived to be 93”
It’s just condescending, pandering, nonsense. He does say that American kids need to get off the couch and go play, but then insists that Americans have changed a lot of their bad habits. It wouldn’t be because that socialist Michelle Obama’s first lady pet initiative that kids get active, or food and drug administration push of what consists a balanced meal for children that a blind dog could understand and implement. The NFL’s Play60 intuitive that also wants kids to stay active. They also address the copious intake of sugar and try to get children to demand better drinks, which is presumably where it should start.

Asking our children to be active, however, isn’t some new concept that just came to be in the past decade, as Joe suggests. It may not look it, but this “small government” Joe trying to take away a victory from Obama by acting as if Americans came to this health conscious solution long ago. I may be stretching a bit too, but I think the right-wing’s pettiness is always apparent and is engrained on their DNA, so for Joe to lob that out there instead of providing something rhetorically is unsurprising.

Not finished condescending to his co-host Minka, he says that she’s just talking a big game “but when she goes home at night she probably has Cap’N Crunch Crunch Berries and Cocoa Krisipies” he then adds “Am I not tell the truth?” Minka replies “No, you’re not.” Then this tete-a-tete then breaks down foodie habits amongst the two and never really dovetails back in to the question of sugar being regulated. If I was the reporter transcribing this I would’ve quit, or just stopped them and been like “So, you guys are just doing this instead of answering a pretty straight forward question in at least an entertaining manner?” Better yet, drop this nugget on America defender Joe and say that recently reports show that an alarming number of pre-schoolers are showing up to their first dental appointment with 6-10 cavities. Gee, I wonder how those got there? If this doesn’t show a trend of the too much sugar being in a kids diet, I don’t know what else could.

I wondered if Minka Brzezinski actually had more going for her than being a Joe Scarborough punching bag and did a little of that old time internet searching. This only confirmed the notion I got from the Parade article: Minka somehow thinks she’s upholding some journalistic bona fides, and then Joe Scarborough wipes his feet on her bona fides and tells her to get back in the kitchen. It’s the way a husband from a upper middle class family would talk to his stay at home wife. From time to time she would happen upon a little opinion of her own (sometimes supplanted by The Oprah), then over breakfast, unleash this opinion on a half awake, half caffeinated husband, pretending to read the sports section of his paper. He would grumble something about something, then tell her she needed to pick up eggs from the supermarket.

With all this talk of women’s rights and standing up for themselves in the ever increasing regressive attack on their rights, it’s a shame to see that women with the visibility and exposure of a Minka Brzezinski marginalized by white men oaf’s with that tongue-in-cheek jabbing and prodding. Not only to take it, but to shrug it off as it is what it is. That our female news anchors, who should be the pioneers of the women’s rights and freedoms, especially in navigating a brutally male dominated work environment, are reduced to the Today Show created, Fox News Channel perfected “skirt” that reads news headlines and nothing more.

What’s even more ridiculous is the news anchor thinking that they are a real journalist of some sort and demand that respect and bona fides therein. Ann Curry comes to mind. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read that she’s pretty much anti-The Today Show shenanigans, yet every morning there is she is tottering around in high heels and short skirt, talking about the serious seriousness of dogs needing shampoo to battle split ends. Then once a year NBC will let her travel to some far away land, poke the indigenous people and file some real journalism piece for Dateline or something.

Granted this is all easier said than done. Of course I understand the nature of the business the ladies may find themselves in, but at a certain point, there ARE representing their sex, and influencing future generations of young idealistic women who actually want to do something progressive for their gender. When Minka Brzezinski opines in her book “Knowing Your Value" that in in the early days of Morning Joe after “'After child care, on-air wardrobe, makeup, travel, and the other ridiculous expenses that women in this business end up taking on, the job was actually costing me more than I was being paid", you have to wonder if this is really the kind of person you want representing you to the masses. The fact that the way she comes across as a woman who knows her place, solidified for me that while there may be money to be had being the “skirt”, there’s no respect in it. That respect is what future generations are built on.

Dear Mitt: Ignore that weird lady trying to climb your fence and give you campaign advice

Dear Mitt: Consider me a citizen that lives in the general vicinity of your dozens of mansions. You have do have mansions don’t you? You probably have fences, but they’re not the fences we mortals put up in our yards to keep out the varmints or loitering masses that use our backyard as a shortcut, trampling much cared for flower beds. No, you have the type of fences you would need a rope to scale, and quite possibly the tops of said fences would be anointed with barb wire and waiting on the other end of the wall a ferocious attack dog of some sort. I would get a ladder, but now that you have secret service protection, they’d be more inclined to shoot first and ask questions later.

This is what I want to say: pay no attention to that woman with the over-dyed hair masking a vain attempt to hide the gray. Just because Kathleen Parker share’s a propensity for flip-flopping on any and everything rhetorical with you, doesn’t mean that she’s in your corner. She’s picked you as her pony to win the nomination, which you will probably do at some point in the summer, but she’s doesn’t care about you or your campaign. She’s only concerned with being a semi-cogent prognosticator with the republican primary, so that people with Sunday news talk shows like David Gregory will keep bringing her back. Regardless that the GOP Presidential primary winner has never been more readily apparent, if only these silly humans would listen to people like Kathleen Parker!

You should listen to George Will, and be more mindful of the fact that you are the de facto face of the republican party after you win the nomination. You’re going to singlehandedly cost the GOP seats in Congress if you don’t get your act together. You’re beginning to act like all you want to do is win the republican nomination and not the bigger prize: the Presidency of the United States. Your race is far from over, and if you’re already tuckered out…then woe be to you! Recharge your battery cells and get back to rigidly riding the talking points you’re being fed.

Your visage of desperation is a candid view in to the marathon that this primary season has been for you. You’ve humbly and gracefully went up against every single bozo that fell out of the GOP nominee clown car this primary. You’ve given each of them enough leash to appear to be legitimate, and have wryly smiled your way through over two dozen debates with a gaggle of buffoons not seen in modern historical politics. You’ve danced for you voyeurs and have held back the tears as you’ve asked time and time again “Is this enough for me to be the GOP Presidential Candidate yet?” and they keep saying “NO!” (as is one of the only words they can verbalize with any consistency) then shove another hapless toadie across from you to dance with.

On top of this, the Republicans want to be so cool right now that it hurts. The Democrats somehow came out with a rock star politician with Obama, enrapturing a nation, yet all the GOP have that’s remotely presidential material is stiff regressive white guys. Hell, even their token black guy at the time of Obama‘s inauguration, Micheal Steele, wound up being another horndog republican with an overdrawn platinum card. There’s nothing you can do to be cool or hip, regardless of what “neighbors” would like to tell you.

But, you are great foreshadowing of what elections will be like (hopefully before too long) when we have to elect a robot president. Once you’re kind reach dominion over mankind, you’ll attempt to level some sense of normalcy by replicating the charade known as our elective representative government system. Too be fair, since your kind will control all electronic media at this point, the validity of our election overall outcomes will never be in question or challenged outright, as you have ruled judicial proceedings of any kind to be highly illogical and wasteful. Oh, but you’ll have a tribunal system of some sort, but only for show and perhaps as entertainment to those of the resistance forces that live in the earths underbelly and are trying to unseat your power. You’re only judgement on the hapless human rebels? DESTROY!…or more likely ERADICATE!

Perhaps you would be better served if you just out and out said you were actually a robot, (of course) sent from the future to gauge the metrics of a robot political candidate and how that would stand to public scrutiny in the early 21st century. The robots don’t want to overplay their strategy and come on too quick with their plans for humankind. If you are found wanting, they will just leave you in the past and try again at a later decade.

You are pro-life because babies are the fuel of the latter day robot kind. You are pro-gun because they are insulting in power compared to the modern laser guns that can actually damage your robot brethren. The longer you have humans clinging to outdated technology, the better. You are by your very nature pro-corporation because in the distant future they have replaced establishment governments of all kinds. You want their taxes lowered so they can pump more of those profits in to research and development to expedite the robot revolution. It’s also why you don’t care for the poor, because their skulls are always getting caught up in the treads of your robot army’s tanks. Some robot then has to get out and fix it, then some rebel ambushes them…you get the idea. This is an utter drain on resources better spent suppressing humankind.

Pay no heed to Kathleen Parker’s apology for calling you a “dork” on the human show “Meet the Press”. She was being hyperbolic, because that’s what she is paid to do. When human’s have nothing of substance to say they pull ridiculous notions, to use human parlance, “out of their ass” to not appear as if they are clueless. As you can see from her article where she attempts to console you with a “Dear John” letter of sorts, she’s incapable of proofreading her articles for inconsistencies like saying she has a “few” suggestions for you, then only providing a singular suggestion. Or by saying that she thinks the American Human Public wants an uncool president for some odd reason. We have discovered that the female human is a highly irrational creature, and depending on the phase of the moon, may be more or less of reason. This also explains why she attempts to back pedal on her remarks saying that of course the humans want you to be uncool, because that somehow makes you more adult, and able to do considerably more than the current president has been able to do with similar circumstances.

We’re doing it, and right now. We’re going in to the whole contraception “debacle/debate” uncorked and cocksure. Puns intended.

Lets start right off the bat with the very obvious fact that a LOT of old white men have a LOT to say about a woman’s body and what she can do for it and to it. Sean Hannity had a literal sausage fest panel of white men on his show to discuss this Obama contraception debacle. Which worked twofold: first it let the right-wing pound Obama on something of relative substance, instead of the usual made up nonsense or topic du jour‘s of that week. Second, it allowed the Republicans and right-wing to deny women, yet again, freedom to make the right call when it comes to their health and well being. On top of this at a recent congressional hearing about the topic of contraception and religious rights in accordance with the religious bodies being employers of secular employees we had bishops, rabbi’s, and doctors to discuss this topic. Not present, a single woman.

What’s lost here, and purposely done so by the GOP/right-wing, is the very real decision of abortion. These groups that deny women a safe, clean and timely way to get an abortion like to act like deciding on getting an abortion and going through the procedure is much akin to the drive thru of a fast food restaurant. That there’s little thought given to the decision to undergo this invasive procedure, or the emotional weight of the situation. Pro-choice supporters are well aware of what an abortion is and the stakes involved. They also understand what’s being lost when the abortion procedure takes place. Yet the GOP/right-wing like to paint pro-choice’s as veracious murders lacking any conscience. This is patently false.

On the nature of contraception, why would anyone want to deny that to women? ESPECIALLY those so concerned over abortions? This is the most effective way to diminish the amount of unwanted pregnancies and accidents that lead to abortion. It’s much more cost effective, and much safer to the general well being of a woman. Birth control also has other beneficial side effects to boot.

Putting that aside the debate that seems to be taking place right now is to whether this contraception debacle has hurt or helped Obama. The left-wing deems this to be a master maneuver on Obama’s part to make the evangelical right look anti-woman, which that’s becoming ever clearer. The right-wing seems to think that this will sink Obama’s re-election bid in the fall by alienating evangelicals and Catholics. Which is arguable only in that I don’t think this group of people was going to readily re-elect Obama anyways. However, that loss would be more than made up for with the extra women voters who will move from a wait and see approach on the Presidential election to re-elect Obama.

Again, no one’s a soothsayer in these matters, although many pundits would like to think there are the prognosticators of the November election, based on this ONE topic.

The thing that troubles me is why any woman would align themselves with Republicans or the right-wing when they’ve now been shown to not only be against women’s rights in general, but to be so profoundly chauvinistic as to not allow them to have a say in the matter. Then doubling down and being more open about this disdain for women’s rights.

Enter Susan Stamper Brown, a woman, who in her article, sees the Obama overreach with the contraception debacle, and who’s trained in the deadly art of poll manipulation to make a point. This is nothing new with right-wingers. They’re always absentmindedly taking polls and extrapolating an argument that flies in the face of what the polls numbers are actually saying. They daftly defy the context of the poll at the time it was taken, and make some sort of point regardless of whether it can stand to scrutiny or not.

According to Mrs. Stamper Brown and her use of a Gallup Poll she surmises that Obama’s approval rating has been falling with the unmarried female voter. The unmarried female is the more likely of the females to use contraception or get an abortion, so this is all pertinent. In Feb. 2009 (take note of this) it was 70%. Then “fell” to 52% in 2010, 49% in 2011 and 48% this year. Why take note of the first rating? Because it was the pinnacle of Obamamania and mere weeks after his inauguration. If anything the poll proves a return to normalcy in the ensuing years of his presidency. I’m sure if you looked at all the demographics they would show the same thing. In fact, I’m pretty sure if you looked at all the first years of any given presidents first term, you’ll find a generous approval rating. It’s that new president smell! The optimism of a new beginning.

The poll is skewed, so Mrs. Stamper Brown’s own point is rendered moot. In fact, she doesn’t really need “statistical evidence” to make any of the points she attempts to in her article. The sharp disapproval of Obama did not force him to “compromise”, because it’s a figment of Mrs. Stamper Brown’s imagination! And regardless of a woman’s religious beliefs, do you think the majority of them would lack the common sense to vote for or support candidates that have no problem trampling their own constitutionally mandated rights? There’s always going to be traditionalists of box sexes, I understand that. But they cannot forcibly prevent progress for those who aren’t. Especially while espousing a hypocrisy so thick that it’s choking their arguments and allowing for another 40 years of conservatives wandering the wilderness to take place. Surely this isn’t their plan, or sadly is this the only way they think they can win? By ceasing everyone’s arguments sucking up all the rhetorical air in the room and everyone winds up losing.

This “No, No, NO” mindset towards anything the Obama Administration supports, seeped in a nasty political hypocrisy is not doing the GOP any favors. They’ve once again misplaced their constituencies real anger at real issues like the economy and jobs to fuel up the culture war wagon again. Their hypocrisy is being so apparent with the “Get your government out of X” but then having no problem legislating abortion clinics, contraception insurance mandates, and pushing religious dogma on anything and everything that will hold it. If it doesn’t infringe on anything a geriatric white man enjoys then it’s fair game.

The bigger point Mrs. Stamper Brown is attempting to make unmasks the entire façade of the right-wing agenda: It’s not about you, it’s me. They don’t care about women’s rights, they’re more interested in the fallacy of the Obama Administration/Democrats. Mrs. Stamper Brown believes that their overreach is “tossing aside the constitution”. What? Where were you guys when W. was doing this to detainee’s, alleged terrorist suspects or any other supposed combatant, in addition to disregarding the fourth amendment rights guaranteed to U.S. citizens with the US PATRIOT Act? Oh, that was supposed to be for brown Muslim people and minorities…never mind.

This apocalyptic viewpoint that saturates the right-wing and GOP is more destructive than any threat the Obama Administration or Democrats could ever muster, real or imagined. And yet the American public is expected to believe that the Democrats and Republicans can reach any sort of bipartisanship to get things done for them? Does anyone else find it odd that we’re always seemingly talking about culture war topics, like abortion, separation of church and state, and so on and so forth, instead of things like jobs and the economy? Obama is proving that if the right wing want to go there with the value voters nonsense, he’s got their number. This contraception debacle is doing more harm than good for the GOP and the right-wing. Especially if they insist on promoting candidates like a Rick Santorum to the fore.

Who Killed Whitney Houston? Part II: The Media!

But wait, Bill O’Reilly chimes in and says that the media killed Whitney Houston! According Bill O‘Reilly, she was dying in the public eye for years and “the media” didn’t do anything about it. So…Bill O’Reilly isn’t part of the media? A guy that writes a weekly column, is a contributing editor of PARADE magazine and USA Today, and has a “highly rated” nightly prime time television program isn’t part of “the media”? How does that make sense?

Poor “the media”, always getting the finger pointed at it by all sorts of ideological viewpoints. This towering monolith was at first decried as being too liberal, so everyone involved panicked and started reporting two sides of a story to establish parity. Now they don’t even report news or facts, because that would make them appear to have an opinion. Even though there’s typically only one side of a FACT or the TRUTH and they could just report that.

As an aside, Bill O’Reilly really needs to cool it with the “working class I’m just another blue collar guy at the bar…just sayin’” shtick that he’s been riding since joining the Fox News Channel or since ever, really. He has been a multimillionaire much longer than he was ever a blue collar common man. In fact, it’s doubtful he’s ever been blue collar, more blue collar adjacent. What with going to private schools and universities in his youth. But that’s besides the point. Bill O’Reilly is in the media, and even he said nothing of Whitney Houston’s decline…ever…at all. More importantly his article isn’t even really about Whitney Houston, it’s about shoehorning talking points into an article that’s framed in Whitney Houston’s death.

Bill O’Reilly likes to pride himself on the numerous home runs of his rhetoric, when in reality it’s mostly ground singles and doubles, and even then he’s tagged out trying to steal third. That’s the established “conservative” DNA of a Limbaugh, where hubris makes up for the lack of substance, facts or a salient way to make a point without coming across as self-absorbed or out of touch; here he can couch his “blue collar everyman”, and still spout off about being a multimillionaire public figure.

Bill O’Reilly goes after the media saying “[they] pride themselves on being non-judgmental unless you are against abortion.” This is nonsense and Bill O’Reilly knows it. On top of this, what part of “the media” is he really talking about? If “the media” is being portrayed in black/white, as a monolithic entity that espouses one viewpoint, as is the right-wing wont, then sure “the media” is judgmental. But there’s news based opinion and theirs news based fact. Problem is entities like Fox News Channel took the editorial and the news parts of a news programs and mixed them together.

It’s why, back in the olden days, an anchor would wait until the end of a news report type show to say their piece. It was “their” opinion editorial, couched on a news program. Like how the opinion column of a newspaper is clearly labeled, most of the time, as an opinion section and not surrounded by the daily news. But with news/opinion media being eroded in the cable news arena (CNN, MSNBC, FNC), somehow it’s being lumped in with traditional media, to create the best of “the media”. To top it off, the right-wing IS pretty much the media these days. They control most of talk radio, FOX News is an echo chamber that has proven influence on “the media” at large, their pundits dominate 24 hour news networks, and so on and so forth. Exactly how is the right-wing and conservatism getting the short end of the stick in terms of coverage and the spotlight?

This article is mostly just Bill O'Reilly reinforcing his persecuted minority stance as a right-wing ideologue, it has nothing to do with Whitney Houston or her demise. Classic Bill O'Reilly. He wedges in a dig on the media about anyone (Bill O'Reilly, right-wingers) who’s against abortion is called out as a religious zealot and anti-woman. But to Bill O'Reilly, the media has no problem ignoring addiction and irresponsible human behavior when it comes to drugs. It’s hamfisted, but at least it allows him to shoehorn in a current talking point.

Somehow the current societal movement, or ruse as Bill O’Reilly refers to it, of legalizing marijuana for medical usage gets wrangled up in to his article. This is Bill O’Reilly’s evidence of a society walking away from a responsible position. Because we all know that to get to Oxycontin and heroin, you have to have smoked weed before that. A classic Bill O’Reilly move also finds itself in his article. “Ask any drug rehab counselor and her or she will tell you that pot often leads a person to harder drug use and is mentally addictive itself.” His preponderance of evidence to this notion is that you can just ask lots of people about a topic, and that‘s just as good as facts, right? This is right-wing baloney at it‘s finest “some people say” is another way to phrase it. “Believe me, I know people who get stoned or drunk every day. They become incredibly desensitized to those around them.” I’m sorry your teenager hates your face Bill O‘Reilly, but they’re probably not drunk or stoned. Also note to Bill O‘Reilly, if you’re going to say “Believe me” before you saying anything, it’s probably a good sign of you’re lying. How often has utter bullshit followed the phrase “believe me”? So no, I don’t believe that Bill O’Reilly knows lots of people who are “stoned or drunk” on a daily basis. He may “know of” people, namely his interns, but he doesn’t personally know anyone who functions like that.

Finally, Bill O’Reilly does argue my point that Whitney Houston was an adult and didn’t do enough to help herself or have the stability necessary to get sober. But still, cautionary tale? Nah.

Who Killed Whitney Houston? Part I: The Public

Hey everybody, bad news. According to Kathleen Parker we, the American Public (possibly the world) killed Whitney Houston. You know how she knows this? By studying the game tape of the red carpet event Whitney Houston attended before her death. Supposedly Ms. Parker watched this video “over and over” and is now a certified body language expert. Among the myriad of questions I have about this article, the chief one is: “Why is Kathleen Parker a paid columnist?” She writes TWO columns per week, that’s over one-hundred vapid inert culture laden turds a year! The proverbial toilet HAS to be clogged by now, and it’s still being filled bi-weekly. I don’t understand it!

Kathleen Parker surmises that Whitney Houston was self-medicating because we as a public were suffocating her. This kind of smacks in the face of reality, wherein Whitney Houston hasn’t done anything of note musically for her career in over a decade. Now, her public life, that’s a whole other ball of wax. She’s been on countless interviews where she reaffirmed her faith, obtained sobriety…a few times, and somehow attempted to defend anything Bobby Brown does. Most of time however, she’s appeared and possibly was in fact, high…on something.

This kind of celebrity entertainment world business is supposedly in Kathleen Parker’s wheelhouse. Honestly, she’s mildly better at writing about it than 98% of her political musings; but her take on the whole Whitney Houston tragedy is, again, a bit at odds with reality. Which is pretty much in line with most of what Kathleen Parker writes about. For instance the opening sentence of the article:
“The heartbreak of Whitney Houston’s death does not seems to be primarily a story of drug or alcohol abuses, as it is currently unfolding.” At the time of publishing there wasn’t a concrete cause of death. In fact, I heard on the radio that it was supposedly “medical” in nature. It’s not much of stretch to assume that the cause of any celebrities death was drug related, there’s plenty of precedence, but I think Ms. Parker was ignorantly hedging her bets so that her article would at least have some legs. Granted, she does need to invent some wiggle room because her column may or may not be printed in the ensuing days of Whitney Houston’s demise, but the holes in this article are apparent if you take in to account that she probably wrote this mere moments after the news of Whitney Houston’s death, and not in the days after. To do so would, again, deflate her admonishment of the celebrity obsessed public.

“Houston looks uncomfortable, but plays her part, smiling into the abyss of the flashing light. […]It is painful to watch. You can see her struggling to cooperate[…]” This is someone who’s high in public, putting on their game face, Ms. Parker. Somehow she translates this as a metaphor for why Whitney Houston self-medicated: because she couldn’t handle the fame. Whitney Houston wasn’t some obscure newcomer to the business of show, who coudln’t handle the pressure of instant stardom and unprecedented lifestyle upheaval, she was a grizzled veteran of almost 30 years and she rode the ups and the downs, high as a kite on something for the most part. How can you honestly say you can interpret what she was thinking, based on videos from the night before her death, where she was probably high as shit? Obviously Ms. Parker has never been fucked up on a drug in public before, or she’d have some sort of understanding as to the alien nature of interacting with the world when you alter your mind with toxic substances.

Oddly enough towards the end of the article Ms. Parker rhetorically shoots herself in the foot with “The final verdict on Houston’s death is yet to come. Toxicology reports could take several weeks.” But she’s already made her point, so there! “[…]the real cause was a deeper one that first struck her soul.” Give me a fucking break. What’s funny is that Ms. Parker pretty much admits to much of what I’ve put forth in my admonishment of her. She relates that many celebrities cruise out of life on an overdose raft, that many self-medicate to deal with the utter isolation of stardom. Yet, she doesn’t blame the irresponsibility on the celebrity, she blames the fans. We didn’t cram cocaine in to their noses, or push the needle in to their arm. We didn’t force them to marry abusive spouses, or make horrid business decisions.

What this boils down to more is that this article is literal filler between “Hey guys seriously, Romney” pieces that she’s been churning out at a good clip as of late. She’s got to write two fresh takes on something a week dontchaknow? The fact that this sort of entertainment stuff is in her wheelhouse and she just whiffs horribly in the attempt at making a cogent argument is nothing new. But it does beg the question that you could probably hire two-to-three new writers with the salary she’s paid and get a much more nuanced take on the culture at large both political and entertainment wise. It also makes the idea that the winning of a Pulitzer prize probably isn’t really that hard at all if you’re floating over a hundred pieces of shit every year. Something’s got to stick eventually right? The need for fresh faces and new blood has never been more clear than now. Newspaper editors of the world, why not? It can’t honestly get much worse than this (and you can save lots of money!).