The Young Turks: Ana Kasparian & Cenk Uygur: 'Liberal Bias? CNN Anchor Soledad O'Brien Accused by Right-Wing'

Source:The Young Turks- Soledad O'Brien & John Sununu.

“CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien struck back at critics who objected to her reading from a document printed from what they called a liberal website — yet not citing her source — while interviewing an operative for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on the topic of Medicare. O’Brien was substitute-hosting on Anderson Cooper 360 on Monday when she was seen flipping through a story from the website Talking Points Memo during a segment with Romney campaign adviser Barbara Comstock. Conservative media, most notably Rush Limbaugh, mocked the news anchor for what they perceived to be a journalistic transgression…

From The Young Turks

If you’ve followed the career of CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien who’s also worked at NBC News and I’m sure other places and you don’t look at it from left, or right, but you judge her career instead, especially if you look at her documentaries and panel discussions, its, pretty clear she comes at her job from a political viewpoint.

The whole series Black and Brown in America is a good example of that. I’m not saying she’s not qualified, or doesn’t do a good job, but she approaches issues from the left and would probably be better suited for being on MSNBC than CNN.

Soledad, could be the Bill O’Reilly of NBC News, who takes on people in power from both sides, but also has an ideological viewpoint. That she’s not afraid to make public, but goes after people on both sides.

To give you an example of Bill O’Reilly: back in the summer of 2003, when it was discovered that there wasn’t any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we went to war there, based on bogus evidence (to put it nicely) O’Reilly announced he was done with President Bush. O’Reilly announced he was done with President Bush and was no longer going to carry his water for him. He goes after people on both sides, but is definitely a right-winger himself, but not a puppet.

Well, Soledad O’Brien could be that watchdog for the left and even take on leftists. When she feels she should, which I’m sure he has in the past. She could be Mike Wallace, or Ted Koppel of CNN. Someone who goes after people in power. Not to bring people down, but to hold them accountable and make them back up their argument and policies, or pay a price for it.

As far as Soledad O’Brien’s interview with John Sununu Sr..: )President H.W. Bush’s Chief of Staff, as well as former Governor of New Hampshire) I think she did a good job. Politicians don’t like to be asked anything that could put them on the defensive and get them off of their talking points. When they do interviews like this, they see their role as speaking up for the candidates they support and speaking out against the candidates they oppose. And anything that’s a tough question which is what anchors get paid to do if they are news anchors which is what Soledad is.

Good anchors put politicians on the defensive when they feel they need to, so what they do instead of answering the questions, is to respond by taking it out on the anchor. For example: “how can you ask me that question, when we should be talking about Joe Jones horrible foreign policy and my candidate’s great record at creating jobs and balancing budgets?” Or whatever.’ Soledad was quoting off of Mitt Romney’s website and wanted a response from Governor Sununu about it.

Is there a leftist bias in the media whether it’s liberal or leftist, of course there is. Just like there’s a rightist bias in the media as well coming from the Tea Party, which is why people who are interested in the news, shouldn’t put all of their eggs in one basket (so to speak) when it comes to gathering their news. And if you are a regular viewer of MSNBC or FNC, I suggest you checkout other news networks, so you can get all the truth, instead of part of it.

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The Young Turks: Ana Kasparian & Cenk Uygur: Freakin Ridiculous Fine For Swearing

Source:The Young Turks- TYT Baby Girl, Ana Kasparian: freakin ticked off about the Middleborough fine for swearing. LOL

"If you swear in public in Middleborough Massachusetts you can expect to be fined. Is cussing protected under free speech? Should the ACLU get involved? Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss this bullshit on The Young Turks."

From The Young Turks

Warning! To all of you sensitive viewers who are offended by cussing, you may want to close your eyes as you attempt to read this post. Because it may have language inappropriate for your sensitive eyes and brain.

If fining people for what they say in public (and I’m talking about what people say to each other, we obviously don’t have a constitutional right to threaten people, but that’s not what this is about) that’s not threatening especially when they are angry and have a right to be or are inpatient, if fining people for blowing off steam (to put it mildly) is not a violation of the First Amendment, the constitutional right to free speech, then the First Amendment is useless. And should be thrown out and we no longer live in a liberal democracy, but a police state.

A police state seems to be what some Americans (Left & Right) would like us to be so we can become what we say we are against and get on other countries for being. Fines for foul language, perhaps they make sense on TV, especially for kids who don’t understand that language yet. And we don’t want them cussing out their parents and teachers and that sort of thing and hopefully vice-versa, all right, I can go along with that. But fining people for what they say on the streets, even when they aren’t cussing at anyone in particular, is fucking bullshit. (And I already put out the warning so don’t get on me for that now)

For someone in my age range and generation, I don’t cuss very often. People now judge other people for how much they cuss. You’ll have a hard time finding a comedian under fifty today who doesn’t fucking cuss their ass off when performing and in general. They do it to sound cool and to be funny. For a lot of people cussing is a way of communication, that’s how they talk, you won’t find a hit fictional show on cable (and not just HBO) that doesn’t have a tone of cussing. A shit load even, (if you prefer) because they want their shows to sound cool.

Cussing is how you communicate to young people today. For me cussing is a form of expression, I cuss to express anger, or amazement. Like: “holy shit that building is huge!” Or: "Holy shit! That guy is fat!" (to use as examples) But I’m not one whose blown away by things like that very often and a pretty even-tempered guy and will say what the hell, or get the hell out of here, that sort of thing, instead of what the fuck. So when I do drop F or S Bombs, you know I meant it and not just trying to sound cool.

But just because I don’t fucking cuss my ass off on a regular basis, doesn’t mean I believe others should be fined when they do. Because that’s just plain, God Damn, fucking stupid! (Hopefully that's as repetitive as I can get) 

Is your life so fucking boring that you have to regulate what comes out of other people’s mouths, when they aren’t threatening, or libeling people, or yelling fire in a crowded place? 

Is your thumb so far of your fucking ass, you don’t have anything better to do with your time? 

That pretty much sums up how I feel about this Massachusetts so-called public decency law. 

 

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CNN: Senator Edward Kennedy- 'The Dream Shall Never Die (1980)'

Source:CNN- U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy: Democrat, Massachusetts (1962-2009)

"On the day it was announced that Sen. Edward Kennedy died at age 77, CNN replays a portion of a speech from Kennedy at the 1980 Democratic National Convention announcing he was ending his Presidential campaign against Jimmy Carter."

From CNN

Just on a personal note first: Kiran Chetry who was a CNN anchor for a while during the late 2000s and perhaps after that, working with John Roberts to anchor this Ted Kennedy coverage.

Had Democrats seen more of this during the primaries, maybe Ted Kennedy beats President Carter in 1980. You don't wait till the last speech of your presidential campaign to give your best speech. Especially after it's already been decided that you aren't going to win. Especially when you never figured out while you were running in the first place. This was the whole nothing to lose speech, so you might as well make it your best. Not his 1981 inauguration, after beating President Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Ted Kennedy, didn't want to be president. Not sure his family did either, but his supporters especially what I at least could call the Socialist Left in the Democratic Party, wanted him to run for president. That is why, plus the facts that President Jimmy Carter, was so unpopular politically and there was  a bad economy, a Democratic Congress, that Senator Ted Kennedy was obviously part of. Democrats were in serious trouble in 1980.

Looking back at it now, not sure if the Ted Kennedy presidential run hurt or helped President Carter. In a way it actually helped him, because the Democratic contest really got his reelection campaign going. And he just didn't beat Senator Kennedy in most of the primaries, but he trounced him. Teddy, didn't wain a major primary until March of 1980.

But it hurt the President in the sense that now the party was divided between their Socialist Left and even George McGovern New-Left and their Center-Left. Their New Democratic Coalition that Jimmy Carter represented, going up in the fall against a very united Republican Party that was all behind Ronald Reagan. And anxious to get back into power and win The White House back.

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All Histories: 'New Deal- 1930's Government Promotional'

Source:All Histories- Film about The New Deal.

“A promotional video produced by the US government to highlight the projects and programs of the Roosevelt’s New Deal during the Great Depression.”

Source:All Histories

As bad as authoritarian regimes and states are, they don’t have a monopoly when it comes to government propaganda or government propaganda films. They do those things, of course, and so does the developing, democratic world that has a history of corruption and authoritarianism in their past. But so does the democratic, developed world, including in the West and even in the United States. Which is what you see from the New Deal propaganda film from President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration in the 1930s.

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PBS: The American Experience- President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society

The Great Society President?

This piece was originally posted at FRS FreeStates

I give credit to President Lyndon Johnson for taking on poverty in America as serious as he did. And understanding how poverty affects not only these people, but how it affects the rest of the country. Because it limits people in poverty ability to purchase products that are made by Americans and made in America. Which reduces our consumer spending, which lowers our economic growth. Meaning less jobs are created than would be created had more people had money to spend and we have less people living in the middle class. The lover our poverty rate is, the more consumer spenders we have in America, the higher our economic and job growth is, the less people we have actually living on public assistance in America. Reducing poverty in America is good for everybody, especially employers, because they have a larger crop of people to select from in who to higher. More people graduating from high school and actually getting a good education and moving on an getting a degree at a good school. It's also good for employers, because they would have more customers who can actually by their products, including more people who work for them and produce those products.

So lower poverty and a stronger larger middle class is good for the whole country, especially for the people who were once living in poverty. Because now they have the skills and a good job to take care of themselves, but it's also good for everyone else who had to pay the taxes to be able to take care of these people. While they weren't ready to take care of themselves, this is something that President Johnson understood. That was his vision anyway. What I don't think he quite figured out that President Nixon of all people figured out and then President Clinton put into law in the 1990s, was the best way to get people out of poverty, is through education, job training and then job placement into a good job. So they have the resources to take care of themselves. The Great Society has a lot of programs in it that were deigned to financially support people while they are in poverty, but doesn't do much to help them out of poverty.

We had a 13% poverty level in America by the time President Bill Clinton left office in 2001. That didn't happen by accident and people on the right especially have made the argument, that this was a result of the economic boom of that decade. And that was part of it, but if you are a low-skilled worker or a low-skilled person seeking work, you are not going to get a good job with those skills. No matter how good the economy is. But if you empower these people by putting them back in school and into job training, they'll benefit from the economic boom as well. The only people in America that are eligible for public assistance, are retired workers and seniors and people who don't earn enough money to financially support themselves. Or who aren't retired, but aren't earning any money on their own. They're on Welfare or Unemployment Insurance. So to move people out of poverty, people in poverty need the skills to get themselves a good job and not be eligible for public assistance at all. Because they're earning enough money on their own.

FORA-TV: Tom Friedman Interviewing Gary E. Knell- ‘A Leftist Bias? NPR Seeks Truth Not Balance’

Source:FORA-TV- Gary Knell is the head of National Public Radio.

“Gary E. Knell, President and CEO of NPR, acknowledges that the station has a certain perspective, but declares that the news coverage is driven by truth rather than strict balance.”

From FORA-TV

First of all, I’m not a fan of NPR National Public Radio, because their reporting does look somewhat slanted to me. Their reporters and anchors sound like a combination of both reporters and analysts and that’s not the job of reporters.

The job of reporters is report on what they cover and report the facts that come up. Not make an assumption of what’s going on and report the facts that back up their case, but to actually report on what’s going on. Which is also different from not knowing anything about what you are covering, but to understand the issues you cover and report the facts that come up.

The job of analysts is to analyze what these facts mean and how they’ll effect whatever the issue is. For example a reporter would report let’s say 120K jobs were created last month and then the analyst, hopefully an economist or someone with a background in economics or business, will analyze what the jobs report means. Whether it’s a good sign for the economy or not or somewhere in between. What you get with NPR are reporters that have an ideological slant. People with leftist leanings who cover stories and report the facts that back up what they think about the story.

I’m not saying the NPR is the Fox News of the left, because with NPR you do get a lot of factually based info. You just don’t get most or all the info many times and you get the info that backs up how left-wingers feel about these issues. Where except for a few exceptions with Fox News, you get the right-wing slant and a lot of right-wing commentary.

The closest thing to Fox News from the left, would be MSNBC, but their audience is not nearly as big and they do have real reporters and anchors. Whereas Fox News except for Shep Smith and Chris Wallace, you have right-wing commentators playing the role of anchors and reporters.

Fox News has essentially become the official mouthpiece of the Republican Party and right-wingers in America. But the difference being that Fox News is a private organization funded through advertising and the private sector. Whereas NPR is funded through tax revenue.

If NPR wants to be a left-wing mouthpiece when it comes to politics and current affairs and other issues they see as important, then they should be allowed to do that, but they should have to fund their own operations and business. Instead of taxpayers being forced to subsidize their left-wing voice. And then we’ll truly see how much support there is out there for this type of media coverage. 

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FORA-TV: 'Political Satirist Will Durst- Takes on Mitt Romney'

Source:FORA-TV- Will Durst doing his Ben Carson impersonation: I mean he’s talking about Mitt Romney in 2012. LOL

“Comedian Will Durst talks presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, and satirizes the candidate’s “out of touch” election persona.”

From FORA-TV

The best way to describe Mitt Romney the politician is to use his own gaffes, I mean words his own thoughts. He said he’s not a politician, which might be technically true in the sense that he currently doesn’t hold public office. But why is that, because he has a very hard time getting elected to anything, except in 2002 when he was elected Governor of Massachusetts.

But that’s not the whole story, because Mitt ran for President in 2007-08 in wide-open GOP field and finished third. Despite having the best resources and perhaps organization. And loses a Senate election to a vulnerable Ted Kennedy in 1994.

Mitt, decides not to run for Senate against John Kerry in 1996, against another vulnerable Senator in John Kerry and decides to take a few years off from politics instead . But the man has been thinking about running for public office at least since 1992. He just hasn’t found a way to get elected except for 2002 as Governor of Massachusetts.

The reason why Mitt is not a career politician, is because he keeps losing or can’t find an election he can win. Not because he’s only interested in being a successful businessman. He’s been thinking about being President of the United States since 2004 and started running in 2006. It's taken him six years just to win he Republican nomination.

It’s not just Mitt Romney’s gaffe that he’s not a career politician. That takes up a whole paragraph. Then there’s the one where he says he doesn’t care about the poor. Well, pardon the expression: no shit, Sherlock! Also in he news fire can burn human flesh and people can drown underwater. And concrete is hard, etc, no real news made here.

Here’s a good one: Mitt is unemployed, actually he gets paid to run for president with all he money he raised running for President. He was fired from that back in 2008 when the GOP decided not to hire him to be their presidential nominee. He did managed to get another job running for president in 2009-10, in about three months, he’ll probably be fired again.

And then of course there all the flip-flops, like not being in favor of his own healthcare law that he singed into law in Massachusetts. He figured out that’s not going to fly and has decided he’s now in favor of Romney/ObamaCare.

The best way to describe Mitt Romney without using his own words, imagine a slick used car salesmen, who has the attitude: “I need to tell my customers what they need to hear for them to buy a car from me and where I’m wrong, I’ll try to fix this in the future.” Like saying a car that’s supposed to have four doors, but it only has three which will keep you warm in the winter in Wisconsin with only three doors. Thats sums up Mitt’s flip-flops. “What do I have to say to this crowd to get their support and how do I change that around to get the support of the next crowd that I’m speaking to.”

Mitt is a slick used car salesmen which unfortunately is a great way to describe a lot of American politicians.  

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