On the Media and Covering Election 2016 Results

Donald Trump Impugns A.G. Loretta Lynch on Clinton Emails

Presumptive Republican Presidential nominee's reaction to FBI Director Comey's decision not to recommend prosecution on the Clinton Email case was to spread the net of condemnation to include Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Trump parlays Presumptive Democrat Presidential nominee First Lady/Senator/ Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's  (D-NY) trial balloon on keeping Lynch on as America's chief law enforcer as a bribe not to prosecute Hillary for the national security violations of sensitive data in the Clinton emails from the State Department.

This specious claim certainly underlines the meme of Crooked Hillary, but note Trump's tactic of paralepsis, in which he claims not to cast aspersions on the Attorney General but does just that, instead of hammering the proven Hillary falsehoods by FBI Director Comey.

But Trump was not simply content on muddying the message on Clinton Emails by impugning Attorney General Lynch by inference.  In the same speech, Trump later praised the efficiency of Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein on killing terrorists.

So on a day in which Trump could have driven home the point on a corrupt District of Calamity (sic), Trump opened the door for the Lamestream Media to focus on another off-message gaffe.  How's that for exploiting the egregious actions of "Crooked Hillary"?

Ronald Reagan on Media

NYT Political Reporter Refuses to Condemn Hillary Clinton

On MSNBC's Morning Joe, New York Times Politics Reporter Jeremy Peters refuses to comment on a federal judge's declaration that leading Democrat Presidential candidate former First Lady, Senator, Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had not followed government policy while at the State Department. 

It is understandable that a reporter may not want to reveal his or her political bias and condemn a figure to which access can be limited. But the converse is not true for progressive politicians and the Lamestream Media.

What is remarkable, however, was the persistence that Joe Scarborough displayed in trying to get Peters to badmouth Hillary.  It is also notable that Washington Post columnist Gene Robinson, only gave the facts regarding Hillary's e-mails and refused to comment.  Moreover, it looks like Robinson enjoyed watching Peters squirm.

h/t: Media Research Center

Sharyl Attkisson Shames the American Press

Sharyl Attkisson, an award winning investigative reporter for CBS News for over 20 years, has acute insight on the timidity of today's American journalists.  She was Stonewalled (2014) by the Obama White House for asking uncomfortable questions to the Executive Branch.  Attkisson had to leave the Tiffany Network for her own venue to continue to report with integrity.


It is much easier for "jo-whore-nalists" to ask  non-probing questions and rely upon press releases to ensure easy access to those in power. And this does not even consider how reporters,who lean 90 percent liberal, shade inconvenient truths and toss softball questions to help politicians with whom they are ideologically aligned.

No wonder the so called "White House stenographers with press credentials"  gave Hillary Clinton a standing ovation at a Journalistic excellence ceremony without taking questions, despite the former Secretary of State being embroiled in the ClintonEmail scandal. 

“Nothing says ‘Let’s go kill some Muslims’ like country music, fresh from Lynchburg, Virginia."

 As Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) was the first major politician to throw his hat in the ring for a White House run, pundits scrutinized many aspects of the candidate's narrative.  Senator Cruz revealed that he started listening to country music after the terrorist attacks on 09/11/2001 presumably because of the patriot messages in the music.

While adding color commentary on MSNBC, Ebony Digital's Senior editor Jamilah Lemieux painted with a broad brush a caricature of ignorant and intolerance tea  party types.


    

 Within two segments, MSNBC apologized for the outrageous opining, but it revealed the true colors of a network which prides itself that it "Leans Forward".

Soft Spoken Presidential Hopeful Dr. Ben Carson Comes Out Swinging for the Campaign

Dr. Ben Carson, the retired chief of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, has experienced a meteoric rise in conservative political circles since he upstaged President Barack Obama with a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013.  Carson’s mild mannered delivery of critiques of the Obama-nation coming from a faith filled physician with a compelling personal story stole the show.

Carson’s remarks before the National Prayer Breakfast, as well as CPAC and the Faith and Freedom Coalition spawned a “Draft Ben Carson” campaign, which raised nearly $12 million in over a year.  The “Run Ben Run” movement played upon peoples’ enthusiasm for a thoughtful prospective politician’s candidacy, but the unaffiliated Super PAC had dubious spending patterns, rolling most of the garnered donations back into the fundraising operation.

In early March 2015, Dr. Carson announced that he was forming an Exploratory Presidential Campaign Committee, which was all but a pro-forma announcement of a White House run.  Since then, Dr. Carson has made numerous media appearances which has inspired increased scrutiny.

Just after the Exploratory Committee announcement, Dr. Carson was drawn into a debate on CNN’s “New Day” with Chris Cuomo on whether homosexuality is a choice.  Carson commented that convicts  "go into prison straight -- and when they come out, they're gay. So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question," This view syncs with Dr. Carson’s Seventh Day Adventist background and traditional marriage premises but did little to advance his candidacy.

Shortly afterwards, Carson backtracked on the statement saying "I realized that my choice of language does not reflect fully my heart on gay issues." Later, Carson declared that he would no longer speak about gay issues. But the damage had already been done.  Glenn Beck called this quote “the dumbest thing I’ve every heard”, which led Beck to declare that Carson’s candidacy was over just as it begun. That may have been hyperbole, but it was unwise for Dr. Carson to touch today’s third rail of politics in a wonton way. Carson squandered his wider introduction to the public by allowing himself to be painted a bigot for a peripheral point.

As part of the media barnstorming effort, Dr. Carson engaged in a thoughtful radio interview with Hugh Hewitt, a politically center right Salem Radio host who prides himself on not conducting ambush interviews.  Since the 2016 Presidential Campaign cycle may well pivot on foreign policy issues, Hewitt asked about Russian provocations and Western response.  When asked how NATO should respond if Putin made a move on the Baltic States would we go to war, Dr. Carson responded:  “Well, if we have them involved in NATO. We need to convince them to get involved in NATO and strengthen NATO”.

Hewitt later followed up on an inference that Carson did not seem aware that the Baltic States were part of NATO.  Dr. Carson rejoined: “Well, when you were saying Baltic state, I thought you were continuing our conversation about the former components of the Soviet Union. Obviously, there’s only three Baltic states.”  Unfortunately that clarification was as clear as mud as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were former components of the Soviet Union and have some ethnic Russian speaking communities still residing there (which was the pretext for Russia effectively seizing Crimea and try to take the  Donbass).  Hewitt is known for in-depth interviews and going into the proverbial weeds to explore military issues.  Carson’s ignorant answers on defending our Baltic State NATO partners exposes a serious chink in his campaign armor and exhibited a lack a preparation.

Dr. Carson granted a long form interview with GQ magazine which was conducted at Armstrong Williams abode. The resulting piece from Jason Zengerle : “What if Sarah Palin were a brain surgeon?” frames Dr. Carson as the Tea Party’s great White House hope, while sliming him with the Alinsky inspired animus associated Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK).  The pull quote from Carson’s GQ interview involved Armstrong Williams egging on Ben Carson to opine on Obama’s optics.  The soft spoken Dr. Carson pronounced: “Like most psychopaths--that’s why they’re successful. That’s the way they look. They all look great...he's trying to sell what he thinks is not true. He’s sitting there saying, ‘These Americans are so stupid, I can tell them anything.’”

Dr. Carson is a renowned neurosurgeon, not a psychiatrist, so taking a swipe at President Obama as a psychopath is off the mark.  Such a distant diagnosis from Charles Krauthammer (who was trained as a psychiatrist) seems reasonable, but from Dr. Carson it seems like a harsh characterization.  Part of Carson’s political charm is his mild mannered air of authority.  Being bombastic by characterizing the Obama obsession with optics and fooling “idiotic” Americans sacrifices this strength.  Moreover, this pugilistic “psychopath” trope was nothing new and unlikely to garner much new support.

Ben Carson has proudly declared: “I'm not a politician and that I never intend to become a politician. Even if I'm elected to office, I'm not going to be a politician because they tend to do things that are politically expedient. And I'm not trying to do things that are politically correct.”  In this day and age, not being considered a Beltway Establishment politician is an advantage to base voters who tire of political lies and political correctness.

However Dr. Carson is making plenty of rookie mistakes in on the political field. Allowing a Draft movement to exploit donations which never really make it to the actual campaign may dismay donors. Opining on hot button issues like homosexuality without successfully connecting it to preserving traditional marriage, which should really be an ancillary campaign issue in the first place.  Taking partisan pot shots like labeling the incumbent a psychopath which mars his soft spoken demeanor and popular appeal. Giving extensive access to media outlets like CNN and GQ on the proto campaign roll out which would play gotcha journalism.  Then there is the sin of going on friendly media like Hugh Hewitt unprepared, exposing a key weakness of the candidacy, namely foreign policy chops.

Dr. Carson was no stranger to making controversial statements, such as his interview with conservative radio firebrand Mark Levin in which an animated Dr. Carson called white liberals the worst type of racists for putting blacks in a box.


That perspective may be provocative and perspicacious as a pundit, but it sounds like another thing altogether on the campaign trail, especially with spin coming from other campaigns' opposition research laundered through the compliant press.

 As Dr. Carson continues to move closer to declaring his candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination, he has come out swinging for the fences.  Unfortunately, he seems to be off balance for some of the pitches and creating lots of wind.  To mix sports analogies, the off balance stance on the campaign hustings makes him prone for sucker punches from the Lamestream Media.

Dr. Carson could make great contributions to shaping the campaign conversation in the 2016 Cycle.  His tremendous personal story shatters the liberal labeling of Republicans as the party for old white men.  Dr. Carson’s faith history underscores a potential appeal to evangelical voters, which would be key to victory in the Iowa Caucuses.  As a physician, he would be given great credence for critiquing Obamacare.   So Dr. Carson should eschew some of his ardor against being a politician and get good advice which best represents his brand as a thoughtful outsider who will not abandon promises because it is politically expedient.

Governor Moonbeam and the Green Global Leadership Test

As Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) was barnstorming the mainstream media before the presumed Republican presidential candidate makes his intentions official, he spoke about Climate Change on Late Night with Seth Myers.




The Lamestream Media would love to paint Senator Cruz as one who sets the world on fire, not just from misunderstood political metaphors but also due to partisan politics on the environment.

Ardent environmentalist Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) used his appearance on Meet the Press as a forum to besmirch Senator Cruz as being unfit for office due to a green global leadership test.

Although this is Jerry Brown's fourth term as Governor of California, long time political observers can recall how Governor Moonbeam hesitated in taking prevailing scientific wisdom in eradicating the Mediterranean fruit fly in 1981, which compounded problems.   Lest anyone believe that Jerry Brown was virtuously standing up for green health concerns, when he ran for governor in 2010, Brown quipped: "If I see a Medfly, I'm going to spray that sucker. I'm not waiting this time."

Notwithstanding Governor Moonbeam's scientific shilly shallying on the Medfly, Brown backs his bluster against a Tea Party bete noir with the 90% scientific consensus statistic.  Well, at least Brown did not use the Al Gore settled science canard.  Wonder if how much of this consensus was based on the falsified East Anglia hockey stick model.  Then there is the temptation for climate scientists can  to claim "the sky is falling" for more money to study the issue.

Senator Cruz noted that satellite data over the last 17 years has not shown any increase in temperatures.

What have leading climate scientists had to say about this mercurial anomaly?

Governor Moonbeam's Green Global test seems little more than a progressive popularity contest and paint your political opponents as ignorant knuckle draggers.  As Governor Brown admitted on Meet the Press, he would have run for President (again) if he were only 10 years younger. But he probably would have run as a watermelon candidate-- green on the outside and red on the inside. 

Was Hillary Clinton Just Technologically Challenged?

During Hillary Clinton's brief media appearance at the United Nations, President Obama's first Secretary of State claimed that the kerfluffle concerning Hillary's emails stemmed from the fact that she did not want to carry two smartphones to have two separate email accounts. 

Syncophants in the Lamestream Media, like MSNBC's Ed Schultz, sought to sympathize with Hillary's alibi by suggesting that older people are overwhelmed by technology.

The problem is that but a fortnight ago, Hillary Clinton admitted that she now  carries both an iPhone as well as a Blackberry.  So Special Ed's technologically challenged excuse both rings false as well as suggesting that the 67 year old Mrs, Clinton is not quite with it.

Hillary's assertion about not being able to have two email accounts on a smartphone seems silly to most Americans.  Of course, the matter is not the technological capability but control.  Personal emails on a work issued handset becomes the employer's property.  This is why many people dual fist cell phones. For federal functionaries, the standard was a secure phone provided by the government and an unsecure phone for personal emails. That is an inconvenient truth for Madam Secretary Clinton.

But how can Hillary plausibly posit being technologically challenged when the domain Clintonemail.com was established the day Mrs. Clinton's confirmation hearings for Secretary of State began in the Senate in 2009.  That sounds kind of suspicious for an official who is uncomfortable with technology.

As Mrs. Clinton questionably claimed that she had adhered to all controlling legal authority on preserving federal records, Hillary refused to surrender the server to an independent authority to vet the scrubbed email account as it contained emails from her and President Clinton.

While this press availability was meant to tamp down a scandal which was obscuring positive earned media for the Hillary 2016 proto-campaign. But the event may have multiplied the questions among ordinary Americans and intensified the political and legal pressures associated with Hillary emails.

h/t: Kevin Siers

Barack Obama on DHS Funding

  

 During the lame duck session of the 112th Congress, House Republicans fully funded FY 2015 budget, with the exception of Department of Homeland Security, in which a short term continuing resolution was applied to allow for a rider which would not Congressionally fund President Obama's Executive Action on illegal immigration.

 In the new 113th Congress, Senate Democrats refused to allow cloture to debate the DHS bill, lest the funding bill pass on majority terms.  The Obama White House and lackeys in the Lamestream Media and Senate Democrats are striving to frame Republicans for being obstructionists for not rubber stamping Mr. Obama's extra-constitutional effective amnesty. 

 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has suggested bifurcating the Executive Amnesty issue from DHS funding.  But this legislative legerdemain was acceptable to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) only if House Speaker John Boehner acceded to Obama's will.  So far, Speaker Boehner holds the attitude that Senate Democrats ought to "get off their asses" and vote on the House bill. 

The GOP opponents seek to claim that Republicans will endanger the nation due to not funding DHS's $38 Billion budget. Alas, 80% of DHS's 240,000 employees are essential workers, who are required to report to work without a guaranteed pay check (even though all workers have routinely been paid after a budget standoff).  So security should not be an issue, even though the Obama Administration has been hyping the Boko Haram and al Shabob threat on the Mall of America and other Jewish owned shopping centers (but this has nothing to do with certain religions). 

So now the Obama Administration's tact has shifted to hardball politics.  During a townhall meeting telecast on MSNBC and Telemundo, President Obama dared the Republicans to pass the House bill, which would merit another Obama veto.   

  

 May the majorities in Congress stick to their principles and not quickly fold to a passive aggressive bully chief executive.  No matter what, the Lamestream Media is ready to repudiate Republicans. But the shutdown is so targeted that the public won't shed tears over the World War II monument being shut down as during the Flying Flip shutdown of October 2013.

h/t: Bruce Plante

Joe Biden on Emancipation

Vice President Joe Biden is known for his egregious gaffes, his colorful metaphors as well as his uncouth social graces while in the spotlight. Last year, Biden channeled "White Men Can't Jump" for his Black History Month event.  This year, Mr. Biden hosted a Black History Month dinner at the Naval Observatory (the Vice President's official residence) in which he fused class envy with racial politics.

 It is unclear if the man who is one heartbeat away from the Oval Office is trying to outflank Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on progressive economic appeals in a fledgling bid for the Democrat presidential nomination, or if Biden is just tone deaf by once again invoking the "chains y'all" rhetoric famously used during the 2012 re-election bid.

 A fortnight ago, the media worked itself into a tizzy when it discovered the old news that Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) dropped out of Marquette University during his senior year and never graduated.  Biden makes an inflammatory and insensitive appeal and the Lamestream Media will not cover it since it's just "Joe being Joe".

It is not the conscience of the American public that needs emancipation as much as the news needs emancipation from a progressive lamestream media which will not report things which do not fit into their favored narrative.

Boehner: Senate Democrats Must "Get off Their Asses"

Over the last four years, Republicans have been painted as obstructionists as House bills have been passed and died in the Democrat controlled Senate because Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) as Senate Majority Leader did not want votes which would embarrass the President and force a veto.  In the six years of the Obama Administration, the Senate only passed a budget from regular orders once, the rest being Continuing Resolutions.

 In the 113th Congress, the House passed a budget early in the cycle, but which contained a rider which prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from expending funds from the Obama Administration's extra legal Executive Amnesty program.  Senate Democrats refuse to allow debate on the budget, much less block a final vote, as they hope to pressure the Republican Majority to cave in order to avoid an entire shutdown of DHS at the end of February .  Of course, most of DHS are essential workers so a hypothetical shutdown would just involve 33,000 administrative workers.

 Judging from the tough talk from Speaker Boehner, the House majority won't back down. But the Lamestream Media will still find a way to frame Republicans as being dangerous obstructionists. 

   

So Much for Being Guardians of the First Amendment

The Mainstream Media loves to trumpet the trope that they are Guardians of First Amendment rights for Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press.  However, the timorous self-censoring displayed by major media outlets in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terror attack in Paris exposes this ideal as an intellectual chimera.

CNN Senior Editorial Director Richard Griffin issued an internal memo which dictated that the media outlet not show images that could be considered offensive to Muslims.  The Politico released Griffin's email:

Although we are not at this time showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet considered offensive by many Muslims, platforms are encouraged to verbally describe the cartoons in detail. This is key to understanding the nature of the attack on the magazine and the tension between free expression and respect for religion. 

Video or stills of street protests showing Parisians holding up copies of the offensive cartoons, if shot wide, are also OK. Avoid close-ups of the cartoons that make them clearly legible.

It's also OK to show most of the protest cartoons making the rounds online, though care should be taken to avoid examples that include within them detailed depictions of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

NBC News mimicked this tact by guiding their outlets to neither show headlines nor cartoons which could be deemed insensitive or offensive.

In the print medium, the Associated Press applied an internal policy of "not moving deliberately provocative images" so it removed Charlie Hebdo images from their database. However, it only took the Associate Press 27 years and an embarrassing exposure by the Washington Examiner for the same standard to be applied to Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" (1987).   Was this because a crucifix dipped in urine and displayed as art is not deliberately provocative? Do elitist editors think that anti-Christian imagery is not provocative but that they dare not offend adherents to the Prophet Mohammad?  Or does publishing some provocative pictures might put their lives on the line by radical terrorists?

The New York Daily News covered the source material which provoked these three Islamic terrorists to assassinate twelve French citizens by pixillating the Prophet Mohammad's image.

Stephane Charbonnier posing with satirical cover pixillated in NY Daily News {photo FRED DUFOUR/AFP}

As Mark Steyn remarked, the New York Daily News put Mohammad in the witness protection program with their editorial sensitivity, yet the editors did not obscure the hook nose caricature of a Jew which shared the frame. So much for sensitivity or avoiding provocative pictures.

It is galling that the media outlets are proud as a peacock as being protectors of Free Speech while acting in a duplicitous and cowardly manner.  While these Charlie Hedbo pictures are provocative, they are no longer a polemic point of view but now are a news story. None the less, the major media acts in a Milquetoast manner towards the prophet Mohammad.  No wonder why they can derisively known as the "Lamestream Media".

In 2013, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) sought to limit who can be a journalist. Feinstein argued that a federal shield law should only apply to "real reporters".  But what if these paid journalists refuse to report the news?

These pusillanimous journalists should review what dhimmitude means.  This second class citizenship of non-Muslims acknowledges the dominance of sharia law and does not allow anything to offend those within the Dar-Islam.   Self-censorship so as not to give offense to Muslims is a major step in accepting those social shackles.

In Paris, many protesters to the Charlie Hebdo atrocity carried pencils to symbolize that the pencil is mightier than the sword and that they are not afraid. The cartoon of the Twin Tower of Pencils links terrorism from America's 9/11 attack to the Parisian terrorism.  Sadly this cartoon has another connection.  American news networks stopped showing the terrorist planes hitting the World Trade Center except briefly during the 9/11 anniversary to supposedly not to show provocative images. Of course, such horrific footage might remind people about the consequences of unchecked terrorism.  

Andrew Breitbart on Democracy

Sarah Palin on the Lamestream Media

Former Governor Sarah Palin relating the scorn from elites for living one's beliefs with attendees at the 2014 Value Voters Summit held by the Family Research Council.  

h/t: David Horsey

How the Clintons' Treat Presstitutes

The First Amendment of the US Constitution is in part intended to ensure Americans of a the Freedom of the Press.  But that fundamental freedom does not ensure access when progressive politicians want to manage the message by rounding up reporters and controlling access.

New York Times reporter Amy Chozick revealed how the Clinton Global Initiative separates reporters from an event which they are supposed to cover.  Of course, the special treatment is attributed to "security".  

This monitoring went to the extend of a 20 something year old aide following Ms. Chozick into the bathroom.  Kind of sounds like North Korea, but with electricity.

Perhaps the New York Times reporter earned some extra special treatment considering the critical pieces which the "Old Grey Lady" published in 2013 about the disarray with the Clinton Foundation:

“For all of its successes, the Clinton Foundation had become a sprawling concern, supervised by a rotating board of old Clinton hands, vulnerable to distraction and threatened by conflicts of interest. It ran multimillion-dollar deficits for several years, despite vast amounts of money flowing in.”

Control access and effectively manage the message.  So much for "All the news that's fit to print".

The Obama Administration brags that it is "absolutely" the most transparent Administration ever.  But just because White House Spokesman Josh Earnest uttered the phrase, it ain't necessarily so. In July 2014, 38 press organizations and transparency groups sent a letter to the White House calling for  the Obama administration to end “politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies".    The plea from the press noted:

“Over the past two decades, public agencies have increasingly prohibited staff from communicating with journalists unless they go through public affairs offices or through political appointees. This trend has been especially pronounced in the federal government. We consider these restrictions a form of censorship—an attempt to control what the public is allowed to see and hear.”

Confining journalists is not just a Clinton trick. Reporters have recently been sequestered in a bedroom during an Obama fundraiser.

One unlucky journalist was made to wait in a maintenance  shed while the Golfer in Chief hit the links at the tony Robert Trent Jones Golf Course in Gainesville, Virginia.  While Houston Chronicle reporter Kevin Diaz could not see any of the drives on the golf course, he could report a motorist on I-66 give the Presidential motorcade a "lone eagle salute" to the motorcade.  And in 2011, Vice President Joe Biden's aides locked a reporter in storage closet during a fundraiser.

While these shoddy treatments of the press can be chronicled through jocund journalistic jibes on social media or short comedic reports on television morning news, this is because the perpetrators were liberals with whom the reporters generally agree.  If a Republican treated the press in such a high handed manner, no doubt the Fourth Estate would be clamoring for impeachment.

Controlling access and projecting positive optics as an easy story for prospective presstitutes.  Former Senator Hillary Rodman Clinton has been touted as one of the smartest and most accomplished women in America thus she should become President.  When I queried a die hard Hillary! supporter, I asked her to cite one concrete accomplishment from her four year tenure in the Obama Administration's Secretary of State.   This Hillary fan did not not even try to claim that Hillary's extensive travels counted as an accomplishment. When pressed, the Hillary supporter resorted to retorting that Hillary earned it by standing by her man through thick and thin.

So to reach low information voters predisposed to support a leading female candidate, it may be enough to feed presstitutes with positive stories and manage messages by controlling unfiltered access.

This might explain why the Lamestream Media ate up the Clintons' photo op at the 39th annual Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) Steak Fry but criticized President George W. Bush for posing with a fake turkey when visiting troops in Afghanistan for Thanksgiving.

[L] Ex-Sen.  Hillary Clinton (D-NY) [C] Ex- President Bill Clinton [R] Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) at Steak Fry 

Whereas, National Review's Jim Geraghty, who certainly would not get a press credential on a Hillary! campaign, presented more piquant coverage of the Iowa photo op.

“How perfectly Clintonian: ‘While a crowd of several thousand Democrats waited on a sloping, grassy field below, Mrs Clinton, her husband and Senator Harkin staged a mini-grilling of steaks for the press at a single barbecue grill in a fenced-off enclosure, framed by a handsome tree and a picnic table filled with some patient Iowans. Mrs Clinton gamely posed, pretending to grill a steak that had been pre-cooked for her"

A Big F'ing Deal or Joe Being Joe?

When speaking before the Legal Services Corporation, Vice President Joe Biden referred to "Shylock" lawyers who pressed foreclosures while soldiers were serving overseas. 

From a political perspective, this was a prudent position for a prospective Democrat nominee for President in 2016. "Lunch Bucket Joe" bolstered his middle class credentials while taking a class warfare tact and aligning himself with patriots serving in the military.  Unfortunately Biden's ham-handed execution of this campaign "strategerie" was insulting to a key Democrat minority, showed an insensitivity and underlined a tendency to be gaffe prone.

Mr. Biden referred to some lawyers as "Shylocks".  This colorful language was offensive to Jewish voters, who are key Democrat voting bloc and reliable campaign contributors. 

As Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman noted: “Shylock represents the medieval stereotype about Jews and remains an offensive characterization to this day. The Vice President should have been more careful."  Surely, if a Republican or a Conservative would have uttered such an epithet, such a politico would not receive such a mild chiding and the news of the gaffe would lead the headlines in the Lamestream Media. 

Conventional wisdom holds that former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (R-NY) is the putative  Democrat nominee for the 2016 Presidential election.  But Ms. Clinton's support may be a mile wide and an inch deep. But if bad news sticks on Hillary, such as the accusation that former Secretary of State Clinton's staff was complicit in scrubbing Foggy Bottom documents on Benghazi "to protect the seventh floor", suddenly opt to spend more time with her grandchild. That would make Vice President Joe Biden the default front runner. 

 Political junkies are well acquainted with Biden's tendency to bloviate and be gaffe prone, as when he told "Barack" at the announcement of Obamacare that: "This is a big f**king deal".  Being Vice President may not make you a lock to win the Oval Office, but it certainly gives advantages to gaining a party nomination.  However, other Democrat candidates would likely to use Biden's verbal gaffes as the chink in the armor to take down the leader of the pack.  If Vice President Biden has not locked down the informal media caucus, gaffes may be reported in the future more as a "Big f'ing deal" rather than "Joe being Joe."

h/t: HotAir

      Jeff Koterba

     Steve Breen

Dr. Ben Carson's Prescription for the GOP

Mainstream Media Distorts Money and Politics

Not even progressives are buying the "Poor Off" between former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Vice President Joe Biden, two leading liberals for the 2016 Democrat presidential nomination. 




However, once the heir apparent to the White House is apparent, the Lamestream Media will be back to demonizing the Republican rich.

Rand Paul on Christianity

The remarks in full of Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) at the 2013 Value Voters Summit sponsored by the Family Research Council.  

The metal barricades seen in front of the dais reflected the Government Shutdown Theater, when the Obama Administration went to the trouble to "barry-cade" (sic) public monuments on the National Mall during the Government Shutdown in October 2013.