IPOD
RADIO
The Palin Media-Sexism Debate: A Preview
Posted by James Poniewozik
Posted by James Poniewozik
You must be wondering by now what I think about the question: has the media coverage of Sarah Palin been sexist? Well, for starters, I_
What's that you say? You didn't ask? Because no one's asking? Because it's not actually a controversy yet?
Maybe not. But as night follows day, it will be.
Here is how it will happen.
Sarah Palin got glowing coverage right after John McCain announced her as his running mate. Why wouldn't she? She's got a great personal story; she's charismatic; she's like a character from a movie.
But. She's from Alaska, which most Americans know for moose, Northern Exposure and Deadliest Catch. She was a beauty-pageant queen. Two years ago, she was mayor of Wasilla, AK, which sounds like it should be a location for David Letterman's Home Office. She has Tina Fey's glasses and Marge Gunderson's voice. Oh, yeah_and it turns out her teenage daughter is about the make her a grandma.
So. There will be jokes. This is not meant as an attack; it is a fact. Jay Leno's writing staff has probably sent John McCain a fruit basket.
Some of the jokes will be innocuous, and some will be egregious. Some will reference her appearance (see "beauty queen," above). Salon's Rebecca Traister has noted that there are already references to Palin as a GILF (see MILF, substitute "Governor"). Stephen Colbert was not the first, and will not be the last, to call her a "sexy librarian." (To which, as the husband of an M.L.S., I reply: Is there any other kind?)
These jokes will be on late-night shows, in standup routines, in YouTube videos, posted anonymously in blog comments and passed around by email. Which means they are only part of "the media" in the broadest sense. But they'll be replayed and referenced on cable news and eventually_as with Hillary_folded in with the news-media coverage as Part of a Pattern.
Media talking heads, meanwhile, will run their mouths and say stupid things, because they are paid to. Many of them will be male. I mean, you may as well put a ticking clock on Chris Matthews' forehead.
Reporters and straight-news anchors will say things too. They already have, like the CNN anchor who asked whether it was responsible for Palin to run for VP when she has a baby with Down Syndrome. No way in hell this question would be asked of a man. Of course, this kind of question actually should be asked of men, but that's more nuance than the media are interested in handling.
(Question: is it still a sexist question when women are the ones asking it? Extra credit: given that Todd Palin is on leave from work, isn't it also sexist against stay at home dads?)
The media will go into overkill mode on personal issues, right about... now.
As with Hillary, some negative comments about Palin will be directly gender-related and many will not. Some will be sexist and many will not. Some will be personal and some will be substantive. But as with Hillary, the existence of the former will allow McCain surrogates to cite the latter as also... Part of a Pattern.
There will be features about Palin, framing her in terms of her gender. Her clothing will be analyzed. Someone, somewhere, mark my words, will do a story on how men find women with guns hot.
That some of these features_like Robin Givhan's notorious one about Hillary's cleavage_will likely be written by women and even attempt to make serious points about how women are perceived in the culture will not matter. They will also be Part of the Pattern.
Eventually, at the right time, an outrage machine will emerge, and McCain-Palin surrogates will denounce this Pattern in the media.
The fact that some of the comments about Palin will be from friendly quarters will not matter. (For instance: Pat Buchanan has already referred to Palin as a "great girl" on-air, and the right-leaning New York Post had a headline referring to "ALASKAN LASS" Palin. A male McCain adviser has said she will learn "at the foot of the master," a remark that, had it come from a male Obama adviser, would have brought immediate demands for his resignation.)
Then the media coverage of the media coverage will begin.
The media_still stinging from being accused of being sexist or overlooking sexism in the primary_will be primed to do this story. Regardless, someone will accuse them of going easier on anti-Palin sexism because of liberal bias.
Having cited overtly sexist remarks about Palin, the outrage machine will argue that other tough coverage of Palin is also motivated by hidden sexism. (They will be aided by the fact that [1] sexism is sometimes hidden and [2] many people will have every motive to see it, whether it's there or not.)
The strain of real or perceived sexism will be different from Hillary's. Sexism comes in many flavors. With Hillary, it was the older, accomplished woman's experience of being passed over for younger men and dismissed as a bitch for being assertive. With Palin_so the narrative will go, at least_it will be the experience of being underestimated, written off as a pretty face, asked to choose between being a mother and a professional.
Whether the outrages in the campaign are legitimate or not, the fact that they parallel the real-world experience of ordinary women will generate another round of stories.
Some comments about Palin will be flat-out offensive, some will be debatable, some will be legitimate criticisms that could have been made of a man as well. But once the outrage machine lumps them all together, the coverage-about-the-coverage stories will too.
There will be ugly, beyond-the-pale sexism, and innocuous comments opportunistically blown up into sexism. Various people will cite one of the two groups to minimize the other, as if it's not possible that both can be true at the same time.
Palin herself_who criticized the Clintons' "whining" in the primary_will likely not herself accuse anyone of sexism. From her past statements, she seems inclined to brush this kind of thing off.
The outrage machine, however, will not care what Palin thinks, and will continue to take offense on her behalf.
It will focus especially on MSNBC, which has already been attacked as sexist against Hillary and biased in favor of the Democrats. The term "liberal sexists" will be employed.
The media will feel obligated to take the accusation very seriously, because to minimize it is just the sort of thing that liberal sexists would do.
Katie Couric will be expected to comment on the issue.
The outrage machine will feel moral justification from things such as the hair-trigger Obama supporters and pundits who went bonkers over the New Yorker cover and saw McCain's "Celebrity" ad (juxtaposing Obama with Britney and Paris) as an attempt to subliminally make him a Mandingo-style racial-sexual threat. They will cite this if accused of being an outrage machine.
The outrage machine will demand that Obama denounce the incidents, whatever they are. If he does not_in a big, public way_it will be proof he tacitly approves them. If he does denounce (and reject), they will ask, why didn't he do that when Hillary was running against him?
Then they will ask again, to make sure former Hillary voters heard it.
The attack ad writes itself: Why does Barack Obama have a problem with women?
This will all be amplified after the vice presidential debate, in which Joe Biden, if he is aggressive with Palin, will be seen as demeaning; and if he is not aggressive, will be seen as patronizing. (Biden, who is derisive of his political opponents for a living_just ask Rudy Giuliani_will have teeth marks on his tongue for weeks after.)
Repeat as necessary until the election.
Statement: "Something Big is Happening"
9 July 2008
Rep. Ron Paul, M.D.
Madam Speaker, I have, for the past 35 years, expressed my grave concern for the future of America . The course we have taken over the past century has threatened our liberties, security and prosperity. In spite of these long-held concerns, I have days--growing more frequent all the time--when I'm convinced the time is now upon us that some Big Events are about to occur. These fast-approaching events will not go unnoticed. They will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed.
Though the world has long suffered from the senselessness of wars that should have been avoided, my greatest fear is that the course on which we find ourselves will bring even greater conflict and economic suffering to the innocent people of the world--unless we quickly change our ways.
America , with her traditions of free markets and property rights, led the way toward great wealth and progress throughout the world as well as at home. Since we have lost our confidence in the principles of liberty, self reliance, hard work and frugality, and instead took on empire building, financed through inflation and debt, all this has changed. This is indeed frightening and an historic event.
The problem we face is not new in history. Authoritarianism has been around a long time. For centuries, inflation and debt have been used by tyrants to hold power, promote aggression, and provide "bread and circuses" for the people. The notion that a country can afford "guns and butter" with no significant penalty existed even before the 1960s when it became a popular slogan. It was then, though, we were told the Vietnam War and the massive expansion of the welfare state were not problems. The seventies proved that assumption wrong.
Today things are different from even ancient times or the 1970s. There is something to the argument that we are now a global economy. The world has more people and is more integrated due to modern technology, communications, and travel. If modern technology had been used to promote the ideas of liberty, free markets, sound money and trade, it would have ushered in a new golden age--a globalism we could accept.
Instead, the wealth and freedom we now enjoy are shrinking and rest upon a fragile philosophic infrastructure. It is not unlike the levies and bridges in our own country that our system of war and welfare has caused us to ignore.
I'm fearful that my concerns have been legitimate and may even be worse than I first thought. They are now at our doorstep. Time is short for making a course correction before this grand experiment in liberty goes into deep hibernation.
There are reasons to believe this coming crisis is different and bigger than the world has ever experienced. Instead of using globalism in a positive fashion, it's been used to globalize all of the mistakes of the politicians, bureaucrats and central bankers.
Being an unchallenged sole superpower was never accepted by us with a sense of humility and respect. Our arrogance and aggressiveness have been used to promote a world empire backed by the most powerful army of history. This type of globalist intervention creates problems for all citizens of the world and fails to contribute to the well-being of the world's populations. Just think how our personal liberties have been trashed here at home in the last decade.
The financial crisis, still in its early stages, is apparent to everyone: gasoline prices over $4 a gallon; skyrocketing education and medical-care costs; the collapse of the housing bubble; the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble; stock markets plunging; unemployment rising; massive underemployment; excessive government debt; and unmanageable personal debt. Little doubt exists as to whether we'll get stagflation. The question that will soon be asked is: When will the stagflation become an inflationary depression?
There are various reasons that the world economy has been globalized and the problems we face are worldwide. We cannot understand what we're facing without understanding fiat money and the long-developing dollar bubble.
There were several stages. From the inception of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to 1933, the Central Bank established itself as the official dollar manager. By 1933, Americans could no longer own gold, thus removing restraint on the Federal Reserve to inflate for war and welfare.
By 1945, further restraints were removed by creating the Bretton-Woods Monetary System making the dollar the reserve currency of the world. This system lasted up until 1971. During the period between 1945 and 1971, some restraints on the Fed remained in place. Foreigners, but not Americans, could convert dollars to gold at $35 an ounce. Due to the excessive dollars being created, that system came to an end in 1971.
It's the post Bretton-Woods system that was responsible for globalizing inflation and markets and for generating a gigantic worldwide dollar bubble. That bubble is now bursting, and we're seeing what it's like to suffer the consequences of the many previous economic errors.
Ironically in these past 35 years, we have benefited from this very flawed system. Because the world accepted dollars as if they were gold, we only had to counterfeit more dollars, spend them overseas (indirectly encouraging our jobs to go overseas as well) and enjoy unearned prosperity. Those who took our dollars and gave us goods and services were only too anxious to loan those dollars back to us. This allowed us to export our inflation and delay the consequences we now are starting to see.
But it was never destined to last, and now we have to pay the piper. Our huge foreign debt must be paid or liquidated. Our entitlements are coming due just as the world has become more reluctant to hold dollars. The consequence of that decision is price inflation in this country--and that's what we are witnessing today. Already price inflation overseas is even higher than here at home as a consequence of foreign central banks' willingness to monetize our debt.
Printing dollars over long periods of time may not immediately push prices up--yet in time it always does. Now we're seeing catch-up for past inflating of the monetary supply. As bad as it is today with $4 a gallon gasoline, this is just the beginning. It's a gross distraction to hound away at "drill, drill, drill" as a solution to the dollar crisis and high gasoline prices. Its okay to let the market increase supplies and drill, but that issue is a gross distraction from the sins of deficits and Federal Reserve monetary shenanigans.
This bubble is different and bigger for another reason. The central banks of the world secretly collude to centrally plan the world economy. I'm convinced that agreements among central banks to "monetize" U.S. debt these past 15 years have existed, although secretly and out of the reach of any oversight of anyone--especially the U.S. Congress that doesn't care, or just flat doesn't understand. As this "gift" to us comes to an end, our problems worsen. The central banks and the various governments are very powerful, but eventually the markets overwhelm when the people who get stuck holding the bag (of bad dollars) catch on and spend the dollars into the economy with emotional zeal, thus igniting inflationary fever.
This time--since there are so many dollars and so many countries involved--the Fed has been able to "paper" over every approaching crisis for the past 15 years, especially with Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, which has allowed the bubble to become history's greatest.
The mistakes made with excessive credit at artificially low rates are huge, and the market is demanding a correction. This involves excessive debt, misdirected investments, over-investments, and all the other problems caused by the government when spending the money they should never have had. Foreign militarism, welfare handouts and $80 trillion entitlement promises are all coming to an end. We don't have the money or the wealth-creating capacity to catch up and care for all the needs that now exist because we rejected the market economy, sound money, self reliance and the principles of liberty.
Since the correction of all this misallocation of resources is necessary and must come, one can look for some good that may come as this "Big Event" unfolds.
There are two choices that people can make. The one choice that is unavailable to us is to limp along with the status quo and prop up the system with more debt, inflation and lies. That won't happen.
One of the two choices, and the one chosen so often by government in the past is that of rejecting the principles of liberty and resorting to even bigger and more authoritarian government. Some argue that giving dictatorial powers to the President, just as we have allowed him to run the American empire, is what we should do. That's the great danger, and in this post-911 atmosphere, too many Americans are seeking safety over freedom. We have already lost too many of our personal liberties already. Real fear of economic collapse could prompt central planners to act to such a degree that the New Deal of the 30's might look like Jefferson 's Declaration of Independence.
The more the government is allowed to do in taking over and running the economy, the deeper the depression gets and the longer it lasts. That was the story of the 30s and the early 40s, and the same mistakes are likely to be made again if we do not wake up.
But the good news is that it need not be so bad if we do the right thing. I saw "Something Big" happening in the past 18 months on the campaign trail. I was encouraged that we are capable of waking up and doing the right thing. I have literally met thousands of high school and college kids who are quite willing to accept the challenge and responsibility of a free society and reject the cradle-to-grave welfare that is promised them by so many do-good politicians.
If more hear the message of liberty, more will join in this effort. The failure of our foreign policy, welfare system, and monetary policies and virtually all government solutions are so readily apparent, it doesn't take that much convincing. But the positive message of how freedom works and why it's possible is what is urgently needed.
One of the best parts of accepting self reliance in a free society is that true personal satisfaction with one's own life can be achieved. This doesn't happen when the government assumes the role of guardian, parent or provider, because it eliminates a sense of pride. But the real problem is the government can't provide the safety and economic security that it claims. The so called good that government claims it can deliver is always achieved at the expense of someone else's freedom. It's a failed system and the young people know it.
Restoring a free society doesn't eliminate the need to get our house in order and to pay for the extravagant spending. But the pain would not be long-lasting if we did the right things, and best of all the empire would have to end for financial reasons. Our wars would stop, the attack on civil liberties would cease, and prosperity would return. The choices are clear: it shouldn't be difficult, but the big event now unfolding gives us a great opportunity to reverse the tide and resume the truly great American Revolution started in 1776. Opportunity knocks in spite of the urgency and the dangers we face.
Let's make "Something Big Is Happening" be the discovery that freedom works and is popular and the big economic and political event we're witnessing is a blessing in disguise.
9 July 2008
Rep. Ron Paul, M.D.
Madam Speaker, I have, for the past 35 years, expressed my grave concern for the future of America . The course we have taken over the past century has threatened our liberties, security and prosperity. In spite of these long-held concerns, I have days--growing more frequent all the time--when I'm convinced the time is now upon us that some Big Events are about to occur. These fast-approaching events will not go unnoticed. They will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed.
Though the world has long suffered from the senselessness of wars that should have been avoided, my greatest fear is that the course on which we find ourselves will bring even greater conflict and economic suffering to the innocent people of the world--unless we quickly change our ways.
America , with her traditions of free markets and property rights, led the way toward great wealth and progress throughout the world as well as at home. Since we have lost our confidence in the principles of liberty, self reliance, hard work and frugality, and instead took on empire building, financed through inflation and debt, all this has changed. This is indeed frightening and an historic event.
The problem we face is not new in history. Authoritarianism has been around a long time. For centuries, inflation and debt have been used by tyrants to hold power, promote aggression, and provide "bread and circuses" for the people. The notion that a country can afford "guns and butter" with no significant penalty existed even before the 1960s when it became a popular slogan. It was then, though, we were told the Vietnam War and the massive expansion of the welfare state were not problems. The seventies proved that assumption wrong.
Today things are different from even ancient times or the 1970s. There is something to the argument that we are now a global economy. The world has more people and is more integrated due to modern technology, communications, and travel. If modern technology had been used to promote the ideas of liberty, free markets, sound money and trade, it would have ushered in a new golden age--a globalism we could accept.
Instead, the wealth and freedom we now enjoy are shrinking and rest upon a fragile philosophic infrastructure. It is not unlike the levies and bridges in our own country that our system of war and welfare has caused us to ignore.
I'm fearful that my concerns have been legitimate and may even be worse than I first thought. They are now at our doorstep. Time is short for making a course correction before this grand experiment in liberty goes into deep hibernation.
There are reasons to believe this coming crisis is different and bigger than the world has ever experienced. Instead of using globalism in a positive fashion, it's been used to globalize all of the mistakes of the politicians, bureaucrats and central bankers.
Being an unchallenged sole superpower was never accepted by us with a sense of humility and respect. Our arrogance and aggressiveness have been used to promote a world empire backed by the most powerful army of history. This type of globalist intervention creates problems for all citizens of the world and fails to contribute to the well-being of the world's populations. Just think how our personal liberties have been trashed here at home in the last decade.
The financial crisis, still in its early stages, is apparent to everyone: gasoline prices over $4 a gallon; skyrocketing education and medical-care costs; the collapse of the housing bubble; the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble; stock markets plunging; unemployment rising; massive underemployment; excessive government debt; and unmanageable personal debt. Little doubt exists as to whether we'll get stagflation. The question that will soon be asked is: When will the stagflation become an inflationary depression?
There are various reasons that the world economy has been globalized and the problems we face are worldwide. We cannot understand what we're facing without understanding fiat money and the long-developing dollar bubble.
There were several stages. From the inception of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to 1933, the Central Bank established itself as the official dollar manager. By 1933, Americans could no longer own gold, thus removing restraint on the Federal Reserve to inflate for war and welfare.
By 1945, further restraints were removed by creating the Bretton-Woods Monetary System making the dollar the reserve currency of the world. This system lasted up until 1971. During the period between 1945 and 1971, some restraints on the Fed remained in place. Foreigners, but not Americans, could convert dollars to gold at $35 an ounce. Due to the excessive dollars being created, that system came to an end in 1971.
It's the post Bretton-Woods system that was responsible for globalizing inflation and markets and for generating a gigantic worldwide dollar bubble. That bubble is now bursting, and we're seeing what it's like to suffer the consequences of the many previous economic errors.
Ironically in these past 35 years, we have benefited from this very flawed system. Because the world accepted dollars as if they were gold, we only had to counterfeit more dollars, spend them overseas (indirectly encouraging our jobs to go overseas as well) and enjoy unearned prosperity. Those who took our dollars and gave us goods and services were only too anxious to loan those dollars back to us. This allowed us to export our inflation and delay the consequences we now are starting to see.
But it was never destined to last, and now we have to pay the piper. Our huge foreign debt must be paid or liquidated. Our entitlements are coming due just as the world has become more reluctant to hold dollars. The consequence of that decision is price inflation in this country--and that's what we are witnessing today. Already price inflation overseas is even higher than here at home as a consequence of foreign central banks' willingness to monetize our debt.
Printing dollars over long periods of time may not immediately push prices up--yet in time it always does. Now we're seeing catch-up for past inflating of the monetary supply. As bad as it is today with $4 a gallon gasoline, this is just the beginning. It's a gross distraction to hound away at "drill, drill, drill" as a solution to the dollar crisis and high gasoline prices. Its okay to let the market increase supplies and drill, but that issue is a gross distraction from the sins of deficits and Federal Reserve monetary shenanigans.
This bubble is different and bigger for another reason. The central banks of the world secretly collude to centrally plan the world economy. I'm convinced that agreements among central banks to "monetize" U.S. debt these past 15 years have existed, although secretly and out of the reach of any oversight of anyone--especially the U.S. Congress that doesn't care, or just flat doesn't understand. As this "gift" to us comes to an end, our problems worsen. The central banks and the various governments are very powerful, but eventually the markets overwhelm when the people who get stuck holding the bag (of bad dollars) catch on and spend the dollars into the economy with emotional zeal, thus igniting inflationary fever.
This time--since there are so many dollars and so many countries involved--the Fed has been able to "paper" over every approaching crisis for the past 15 years, especially with Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, which has allowed the bubble to become history's greatest.
The mistakes made with excessive credit at artificially low rates are huge, and the market is demanding a correction. This involves excessive debt, misdirected investments, over-investments, and all the other problems caused by the government when spending the money they should never have had. Foreign militarism, welfare handouts and $80 trillion entitlement promises are all coming to an end. We don't have the money or the wealth-creating capacity to catch up and care for all the needs that now exist because we rejected the market economy, sound money, self reliance and the principles of liberty.
Since the correction of all this misallocation of resources is necessary and must come, one can look for some good that may come as this "Big Event" unfolds.
There are two choices that people can make. The one choice that is unavailable to us is to limp along with the status quo and prop up the system with more debt, inflation and lies. That won't happen.
One of the two choices, and the one chosen so often by government in the past is that of rejecting the principles of liberty and resorting to even bigger and more authoritarian government. Some argue that giving dictatorial powers to the President, just as we have allowed him to run the American empire, is what we should do. That's the great danger, and in this post-911 atmosphere, too many Americans are seeking safety over freedom. We have already lost too many of our personal liberties already. Real fear of economic collapse could prompt central planners to act to such a degree that the New Deal of the 30's might look like Jefferson 's Declaration of Independence.
The more the government is allowed to do in taking over and running the economy, the deeper the depression gets and the longer it lasts. That was the story of the 30s and the early 40s, and the same mistakes are likely to be made again if we do not wake up.
But the good news is that it need not be so bad if we do the right thing. I saw "Something Big" happening in the past 18 months on the campaign trail. I was encouraged that we are capable of waking up and doing the right thing. I have literally met thousands of high school and college kids who are quite willing to accept the challenge and responsibility of a free society and reject the cradle-to-grave welfare that is promised them by so many do-good politicians.
If more hear the message of liberty, more will join in this effort. The failure of our foreign policy, welfare system, and monetary policies and virtually all government solutions are so readily apparent, it doesn't take that much convincing. But the positive message of how freedom works and why it's possible is what is urgently needed.
One of the best parts of accepting self reliance in a free society is that true personal satisfaction with one's own life can be achieved. This doesn't happen when the government assumes the role of guardian, parent or provider, because it eliminates a sense of pride. But the real problem is the government can't provide the safety and economic security that it claims. The so called good that government claims it can deliver is always achieved at the expense of someone else's freedom. It's a failed system and the young people know it.
Restoring a free society doesn't eliminate the need to get our house in order and to pay for the extravagant spending. But the pain would not be long-lasting if we did the right things, and best of all the empire would have to end for financial reasons. Our wars would stop, the attack on civil liberties would cease, and prosperity would return. The choices are clear: it shouldn't be difficult, but the big event now unfolding gives us a great opportunity to reverse the tide and resume the truly great American Revolution started in 1776. Opportunity knocks in spite of the urgency and the dangers we face.
Let's make "Something Big Is Happening" be the discovery that freedom works and is popular and the big economic and political event we're witnessing is a blessing in disguise.
FAIRLY UNBALANCED
The only real winner in the endless Democratic primary? Those smart-ass policy wonks at MSNBC. Tom Carson straps himself to a barcalounger for days of infuriating coverage from the hottest political team on TV
By Tom Carson
If msnbc ever gives Hardball host Chris Matthews the heave-ho, the Smithsonian could always turn him into a traveling exhibition: The Boy Who Wanted the 2008 Election to Go On Forever. Behind soundproof glass, he'd still be gabbing blissfully about Hillary and Obama. No children under 6 admitted, obviously_they might recognize him as one of their own and opt for the same career.
We can make fun of Matthews all we like, but Charles Dickens would've loved him. During campaign seasons, his show might as well be called Hardball with Oliver Twist. No other TV face lights up like his does when the political world's response to "Please, sir, I want some more" is a resounding "Yes!" He's the Beltway equivalent of a sports nut, living for chances to blather about JFK or Nixon the way baseball fans go on about Roger Maris or Pete Rose.
What's funny is that Countdown's Keith Olbermann, Chris's MSNBC partner on vote-counting nights, is the one who started out as a sportscaster. But now that he's turned into Keith Olbermann, defender of the Constitution and scourge of presidents, he can barely hide his disgust at Matthews's adoration of the game for its own sake. You get one guess which of them your Critic has unexpectedly grown fonder of during 2008's run for the poses.
to politics junkies_pretty much all of us between now and November, right?_the out?t both men work for is where this year's action is. Once Obama versus the Clintons emerged as the election's killer story line, liberal-leaning but Hillary-dubious MSNBC copped the destination rep CNN enjoyed during the ?rst Gulf War and Fox relished when Bush was riding high. By now, Dubya's long good-bye has demoted Rupert Murdoch's infernal machine to the News Channel Time Forgot; aren't you astounded when you tune in and discover that Bill O'Reilly is still fulminating away? Its founding brainiac, Roger Ailes, must go around mumbling, "Live by the sword, die by the sword." Olbermann could use the same advice.
Here's an inconvenient truth, Keith: You should be rooting for John McCain. Across the spectrum, openly partisan news coverage does the most good and has the most pizzazz when it's at odds with power. Back when newborn Fox was chewing Bill Clinton's jugular for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, everyone except Bill's ball and chain could see that vast right-wing conspiracies have their upside. It's never bad to have a prominent media outlet hell-bent on not letting the Oval Office's occupant get away with much.
We spent most of Bush's presidency lacking any such thing. His inaugural converted Fox overnight into propaganda for America's rulers, following Karl Rove's playbook by politicizing September 11 to the GOP's bene?t and calling opposition to the Iraq war treason. But after Katrina, MSNBC shrewdly repositioned itself as the anti-Fox and Olbermann as the anti-O'Reilly. That's the blueprint the network has lately pushed too far by growing the vast left-wing conspiracy's answer to Sean Hannity in a mushroom vat somewhere: Dan Abrams, the maggot-eyed host of Countdown's current follow-up, Verdict.
Luckily, Abrams is excluded until the wee hours from the network's election-coverage roundtables, which feature the most entertaining batch of usual suspects on the tube_above all, Air America's Rachel Maddow contending with Pat Buchanan. Since Maddow is an out lesbian and Buchanan is Pitchfork Pat, you know they're each other's Antichrist, but the kick is that it turns both of them on. Their odd-couple chemistry is so kinky that you keep hoping they'll make America proud by saying to hell with decorum and going for the Fuck of the Century. If MSNBC just has the wit to give them their own morning hour once this election's dust settles, they could put Regis and Kelly in the shade no matter who's in the White House.
As of now, though_and just as O'Reilly and not Brit Hume became the face of Fox_it's Keith who personi?es the network, reducing Matthews to the status of court jester even when they're sharing the big desk. That's partly because Matthews is unmistakably life-size even at his most bombastic, but Olbermann has grasped the O'Reilly formula for adversarial cable news: It lets court jesters act like kings. Chris opposed Iraq from the start, but lefties went right on thinking of him as a D.C. yahoo. By contrast, when Olbermann started coming on as Bush's alternately chortling and sulfuric nemesis, liberals were thrilled. For brainy ?air and dieting skills, he sure beat Michael Moore, and what he was saying needed to be said, and then some. But Countdown's host is one Democratic victory away from turning as insufferable_and compromised_as his right-wing counterparts.
For my money, he's halfway there already. Righteous wrath and smugness are not an ideal combo, and Olbermann's delight in being Keith Olbermann has long since transformed anything genuine in his indignation into performance art. I prefer his politics to O'Reilly's, and unlike Bill he's genuinely droll. But when it comes to vanity getting its rocks off by posturing as moral outrage, I don't see much daylight between them. That one is a bully and the other a scold is just a stylistic distinction that suits their constituencies.
Anytime he's accused of pomposity, however, Olbermann can take refuge in irony, which isn't in O'Reilly's trick bag. When he's working his shtick at full blast, his eyes two Fabergé eggs of radiant self-love as his enraged schnoz spears the camera, you often can't tell whether you're watching a goofball pretend he's a preacher or the reverse. A right-wing version of The Colbert Report could make mincemeat out of this act, and by now I've got days when I wouldn't mind seeing one.
He's already too prone to liberalism's worst cultural tics: hoity-toity disdain and self-satis?ed cleverness. Unlike O'Reilly, who thrives on badgering opponents face-to-face_yelling is his calling_Keith prefers to bellow at his targets in absentia while surrounding himself (once a sportscaster, always a sportscaster) with chummy kindred spirits. I'm a fairly supercilious, privileged sort of dude myself, but watching Olbermann play do-si-do with his favorite foil, WashPostie Dana Milbank, can ?ll me with dull peasant rage. Though Milbank is bright and amusing, his night job as the enabler to Keith's plummy vanities doesn't do much for his integrity_or virility.
You can't say Olbermann's hubris aims low. He styles himself as the reincarnation of Edward R. Murrow, even swiping Murrow's "Good night and good luck" as his sign-off. Quite aside from whether he earns the comparison (he doesn't, but I don't get too worked up about it: I never had much patience for the -Murrow mystique to begin with), what's most revealing isn't the self-?attery involved but how anachronistic and even reactionary the aspiration is. Liberals who think of Murrow as a dragon slayer tend to forget he pretty much invented the patronizing gravitas that Roger Ailes had the genius decades later to convince Fox News viewers was the essence of TV's liberal bias.
So smart-ass Keith? He's only pretending to be po-mo. Not so deep down, what he really pines for are the days when condescending dorks with high opinions of themselves were media heroes.
matthews is a throwback, too, but in a more honest_hell, helpless_way.
Like many another media big-foot-in-mouth, he'd gotten less euphoric about Obama by midspring. We no longer got to hear Chris crow about "the thrill going up my leg," maybe because it had ?nally reached his shorts and failed to ?nd a home there. But his initial enthusiasm for Obama was the best proof that Hillary's candidacy was the more radical break with the past.
Obama's run will rightly look groundbreaking to historians. But from the start, it was easier to view through the nostalgic prism that pushes Matthews's buttons_as a rerun of the Kennedy era's promise. Never forget that Hardball's blowhard was a Peace Corps volunteer. His dislike of Hillary is likely grounded in the maddening fact that he can't think of anyone from 1962 to compare her to. She obviously ain't Jackie, and that pretty much uses up his list of broads he'd be happy saluting.
All the same, Matthews's thirst for fanhood is his most engaging quality. He's the only cable-news heavyweight who's de?ned by what he loves instead of what he hates. SNL, which should have bigger ?sh to fry_namely, Tim Russert, a far more egregious Beltway clown_never tires of spoo?ng his egomania, but that's misleading. Ego is purposeful. What Chris has is the spontaneous narcissism of a child. His bids for attention have no dignity, no real agenda, and no understanding that other modes of behavior exist. They're also too gleeful to even seem self-serving, which is paradoxical but attractive.
No matter how often his mouth gets him in trouble, he's still better at off-the-cuff zingers than Olbermann, who needs scripted diatribes to make his orotund -delivery effective. By contrast, Chris is most eloquent when his buzzing, unre?ective mind ?icks out something that's both perceptive and so tactless a second's forethought would have muted it. One classic I'm surprised didn't become notorious occurred when the Jeremiah Wright ruckus was at its height: Out of nowhere, Matthews blurted that Americans saw Obama and his pastor as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Not unreasonably, his interlocutor tried to protest that Jekyll and Hyde were the same man_but that was the whole point, and you can't deny Chris knows white Americans. Nor could much top his wondrous rundown of the ?aws in Obama's persona the night of the Pennsylvania primary: "It is too debonair, it's too Fred Astaire, it's too 'Kumbaya.' "
His zest for politics for its own sake is what Olbermann is allergic to. Despite his affected ebullience, he can't understand just loving the roller coaster, even though Matthews is giving him an encyclopedia's worth of lessons in how political creatures digest reality. That's why the tension when they co-anchor MSNBC is snooty on Keith's side but plaintive on Chris's. Matthews is never more of a Dickens urchin than when Olbermann, the outsider but the bigger star, pulls rank and reproves him.
All the same, between Countdown's host and Hardball's, I know who I'm rooting for to end up as the tortoise to the other one's hare. While Keith is out to rescue a nation in peril, Chris just wants the game to go on and on. Yet Olbermann's act is likely to turn fatuous or worse once the nation is either no longer in peril or in peril at the hands of someone he applauds, and make no mistake: The guy who just wants the game to go on and on truly loves democracy. So what if he loves it because democracy's got big boobs_him included? Matthews passes the Dan Rather test: No matter how we mock him and how often he deserves it, we'll miss him when he's gone.
Tom Carson is a GQ correspondent.
The only real winner in the endless Democratic primary? Those smart-ass policy wonks at MSNBC. Tom Carson straps himself to a barcalounger for days of infuriating coverage from the hottest political team on TV
By Tom Carson
If msnbc ever gives Hardball host Chris Matthews the heave-ho, the Smithsonian could always turn him into a traveling exhibition: The Boy Who Wanted the 2008 Election to Go On Forever. Behind soundproof glass, he'd still be gabbing blissfully about Hillary and Obama. No children under 6 admitted, obviously_they might recognize him as one of their own and opt for the same career.
We can make fun of Matthews all we like, but Charles Dickens would've loved him. During campaign seasons, his show might as well be called Hardball with Oliver Twist. No other TV face lights up like his does when the political world's response to "Please, sir, I want some more" is a resounding "Yes!" He's the Beltway equivalent of a sports nut, living for chances to blather about JFK or Nixon the way baseball fans go on about Roger Maris or Pete Rose.
What's funny is that Countdown's Keith Olbermann, Chris's MSNBC partner on vote-counting nights, is the one who started out as a sportscaster. But now that he's turned into Keith Olbermann, defender of the Constitution and scourge of presidents, he can barely hide his disgust at Matthews's adoration of the game for its own sake. You get one guess which of them your Critic has unexpectedly grown fonder of during 2008's run for the poses.
to politics junkies_pretty much all of us between now and November, right?_the out?t both men work for is where this year's action is. Once Obama versus the Clintons emerged as the election's killer story line, liberal-leaning but Hillary-dubious MSNBC copped the destination rep CNN enjoyed during the ?rst Gulf War and Fox relished when Bush was riding high. By now, Dubya's long good-bye has demoted Rupert Murdoch's infernal machine to the News Channel Time Forgot; aren't you astounded when you tune in and discover that Bill O'Reilly is still fulminating away? Its founding brainiac, Roger Ailes, must go around mumbling, "Live by the sword, die by the sword." Olbermann could use the same advice.
Here's an inconvenient truth, Keith: You should be rooting for John McCain. Across the spectrum, openly partisan news coverage does the most good and has the most pizzazz when it's at odds with power. Back when newborn Fox was chewing Bill Clinton's jugular for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, everyone except Bill's ball and chain could see that vast right-wing conspiracies have their upside. It's never bad to have a prominent media outlet hell-bent on not letting the Oval Office's occupant get away with much.
We spent most of Bush's presidency lacking any such thing. His inaugural converted Fox overnight into propaganda for America's rulers, following Karl Rove's playbook by politicizing September 11 to the GOP's bene?t and calling opposition to the Iraq war treason. But after Katrina, MSNBC shrewdly repositioned itself as the anti-Fox and Olbermann as the anti-O'Reilly. That's the blueprint the network has lately pushed too far by growing the vast left-wing conspiracy's answer to Sean Hannity in a mushroom vat somewhere: Dan Abrams, the maggot-eyed host of Countdown's current follow-up, Verdict.
Luckily, Abrams is excluded until the wee hours from the network's election-coverage roundtables, which feature the most entertaining batch of usual suspects on the tube_above all, Air America's Rachel Maddow contending with Pat Buchanan. Since Maddow is an out lesbian and Buchanan is Pitchfork Pat, you know they're each other's Antichrist, but the kick is that it turns both of them on. Their odd-couple chemistry is so kinky that you keep hoping they'll make America proud by saying to hell with decorum and going for the Fuck of the Century. If MSNBC just has the wit to give them their own morning hour once this election's dust settles, they could put Regis and Kelly in the shade no matter who's in the White House.
As of now, though_and just as O'Reilly and not Brit Hume became the face of Fox_it's Keith who personi?es the network, reducing Matthews to the status of court jester even when they're sharing the big desk. That's partly because Matthews is unmistakably life-size even at his most bombastic, but Olbermann has grasped the O'Reilly formula for adversarial cable news: It lets court jesters act like kings. Chris opposed Iraq from the start, but lefties went right on thinking of him as a D.C. yahoo. By contrast, when Olbermann started coming on as Bush's alternately chortling and sulfuric nemesis, liberals were thrilled. For brainy ?air and dieting skills, he sure beat Michael Moore, and what he was saying needed to be said, and then some. But Countdown's host is one Democratic victory away from turning as insufferable_and compromised_as his right-wing counterparts.
For my money, he's halfway there already. Righteous wrath and smugness are not an ideal combo, and Olbermann's delight in being Keith Olbermann has long since transformed anything genuine in his indignation into performance art. I prefer his politics to O'Reilly's, and unlike Bill he's genuinely droll. But when it comes to vanity getting its rocks off by posturing as moral outrage, I don't see much daylight between them. That one is a bully and the other a scold is just a stylistic distinction that suits their constituencies.
Anytime he's accused of pomposity, however, Olbermann can take refuge in irony, which isn't in O'Reilly's trick bag. When he's working his shtick at full blast, his eyes two Fabergé eggs of radiant self-love as his enraged schnoz spears the camera, you often can't tell whether you're watching a goofball pretend he's a preacher or the reverse. A right-wing version of The Colbert Report could make mincemeat out of this act, and by now I've got days when I wouldn't mind seeing one.
He's already too prone to liberalism's worst cultural tics: hoity-toity disdain and self-satis?ed cleverness. Unlike O'Reilly, who thrives on badgering opponents face-to-face_yelling is his calling_Keith prefers to bellow at his targets in absentia while surrounding himself (once a sportscaster, always a sportscaster) with chummy kindred spirits. I'm a fairly supercilious, privileged sort of dude myself, but watching Olbermann play do-si-do with his favorite foil, WashPostie Dana Milbank, can ?ll me with dull peasant rage. Though Milbank is bright and amusing, his night job as the enabler to Keith's plummy vanities doesn't do much for his integrity_or virility.
You can't say Olbermann's hubris aims low. He styles himself as the reincarnation of Edward R. Murrow, even swiping Murrow's "Good night and good luck" as his sign-off. Quite aside from whether he earns the comparison (he doesn't, but I don't get too worked up about it: I never had much patience for the -Murrow mystique to begin with), what's most revealing isn't the self-?attery involved but how anachronistic and even reactionary the aspiration is. Liberals who think of Murrow as a dragon slayer tend to forget he pretty much invented the patronizing gravitas that Roger Ailes had the genius decades later to convince Fox News viewers was the essence of TV's liberal bias.
So smart-ass Keith? He's only pretending to be po-mo. Not so deep down, what he really pines for are the days when condescending dorks with high opinions of themselves were media heroes.
matthews is a throwback, too, but in a more honest_hell, helpless_way.
Like many another media big-foot-in-mouth, he'd gotten less euphoric about Obama by midspring. We no longer got to hear Chris crow about "the thrill going up my leg," maybe because it had ?nally reached his shorts and failed to ?nd a home there. But his initial enthusiasm for Obama was the best proof that Hillary's candidacy was the more radical break with the past.
Obama's run will rightly look groundbreaking to historians. But from the start, it was easier to view through the nostalgic prism that pushes Matthews's buttons_as a rerun of the Kennedy era's promise. Never forget that Hardball's blowhard was a Peace Corps volunteer. His dislike of Hillary is likely grounded in the maddening fact that he can't think of anyone from 1962 to compare her to. She obviously ain't Jackie, and that pretty much uses up his list of broads he'd be happy saluting.
All the same, Matthews's thirst for fanhood is his most engaging quality. He's the only cable-news heavyweight who's de?ned by what he loves instead of what he hates. SNL, which should have bigger ?sh to fry_namely, Tim Russert, a far more egregious Beltway clown_never tires of spoo?ng his egomania, but that's misleading. Ego is purposeful. What Chris has is the spontaneous narcissism of a child. His bids for attention have no dignity, no real agenda, and no understanding that other modes of behavior exist. They're also too gleeful to even seem self-serving, which is paradoxical but attractive.
No matter how often his mouth gets him in trouble, he's still better at off-the-cuff zingers than Olbermann, who needs scripted diatribes to make his orotund -delivery effective. By contrast, Chris is most eloquent when his buzzing, unre?ective mind ?icks out something that's both perceptive and so tactless a second's forethought would have muted it. One classic I'm surprised didn't become notorious occurred when the Jeremiah Wright ruckus was at its height: Out of nowhere, Matthews blurted that Americans saw Obama and his pastor as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Not unreasonably, his interlocutor tried to protest that Jekyll and Hyde were the same man_but that was the whole point, and you can't deny Chris knows white Americans. Nor could much top his wondrous rundown of the ?aws in Obama's persona the night of the Pennsylvania primary: "It is too debonair, it's too Fred Astaire, it's too 'Kumbaya.' "
His zest for politics for its own sake is what Olbermann is allergic to. Despite his affected ebullience, he can't understand just loving the roller coaster, even though Matthews is giving him an encyclopedia's worth of lessons in how political creatures digest reality. That's why the tension when they co-anchor MSNBC is snooty on Keith's side but plaintive on Chris's. Matthews is never more of a Dickens urchin than when Olbermann, the outsider but the bigger star, pulls rank and reproves him.
All the same, between Countdown's host and Hardball's, I know who I'm rooting for to end up as the tortoise to the other one's hare. While Keith is out to rescue a nation in peril, Chris just wants the game to go on and on. Yet Olbermann's act is likely to turn fatuous or worse once the nation is either no longer in peril or in peril at the hands of someone he applauds, and make no mistake: The guy who just wants the game to go on and on truly loves democracy. So what if he loves it because democracy's got big boobs_him included? Matthews passes the Dan Rather test: No matter how we mock him and how often he deserves it, we'll miss him when he's gone.
Tom Carson is a GQ correspondent.
Commentary: Slavery alive and well in U.S.
By Glenn Beck
CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) -- "Jobs Americans just won't do."
I can't stand that line, but more importantly, I don't even understand it.
Americans spend months at a time at sea fishing for crab or drilling for oil; two of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Americans clean bathrooms, subway stations and crime scenes. Americans man toll booths, pave roads, embalm bodies and inspect sewers. Yet people really expect us to believe that they won't pick strawberries or oranges?
It just doesn't add up.
Earlier this week The Wall Street Journal published a story about a shortage of H-2B visas, which are issued twice a year to nonagricultural seasonal employees. Because our government can't get out of its own way, they recently let an important "returning workers" provision expire resulting in thousands of foreign workers being shut out of the country this summer.
That's inexcusable. I know this will come as a huge shock to those who only like to hurl insults, but I think we should be issuing more work visas, more student visas, and more green cards. And I think we should cut the red tape and bureaucracy that's constantly blocking the front door.
But until that happens people are left looking for loopholes and excuses, and "jobs Americans won't do" is the gold standard.
The Journal article offered an example of a couple that sells food at fairs around California each summer. They say that because of the H-2B visa shortage most of their seasonal employees aren't able to enter the country.
So why don't they just hire Americans instead? Good question. Her answer? "This is a hard job."
I find it pretty hard to believe that there aren't a few college students who wouldn't want to drive around California and work outdoors all summer, but let's assume that's true. Let's even assume that none of the other 1.1 million Californians who were unemployed as of April are interested in the job either. Isn't anyone wondering why?
Well I'm not a labor consultant, but I am a thinker. Maybe the problem isn't that the job they're offering is "too hard," maybe it's that the wages they're offering are "too low."
No one paints the undersides of bridges for fun, they do it for the money. That's how capitalism works.
How capitalism does NOT work is when we collectively look the other way as companies exploit illegal labor for their own benefit.
The unspoken truth is that these businesses don't hire illegal aliens because they can't find American workers, they hire illegal aliens because they don't want American workers. And it has nothing to do with wages.
Illegal aliens mean no workers' comp claims, no age, race or sex discrimination lawsuits, no healthcare premiums, no unions, and no demands for raises, vacations or bigger offices. In fact, illegal immigrants are the perfect employees because they're not employees at all; they're corporate slaves.
Economist Dr. Thomas Sowell once said, "Blacks were not enslaved because they were black, but because they were available." Can't the exact same thing be said for illegal aliens? They're available and we're allowing them to be exploited in the name of cheap groceries.
Is the price of fruit really the standard we want to live up to as a country? Is that really who we've become?
Many Americans believe that cracking down on the businesses that hire illegal aliens (the current maximum federal fine was recently raised to a laughable $16,000) would hurt these hardworking people too much. A bad job is better than no job, we tell ourselves. But that's catalogue compassion. If you want to understand the real impact of these decisions you've got to get off the couch and go see it for yourself.
Back in 2005, Newsday did an investigation of the living conditions of immigrants in the New York area. In the city of Westbury (median income: $83,000/year) officials found twelve immigrants living in a basement flooded with sewage.
In Southampton (median income: $64,000/year) officials found immigrants living in sheds with no plumbing or heat.
In New Cassel (median income: $62,000/year) officials estimated there were dozens of "shift-bed houses" where immigrants literally rent mattresses for a few hours a day to catch some sleep.
Is compassion looking the other way while immigrants who come here for the dream end up living a nightmare smack dab in the middle of some of our wealthiest communities?
Is compassion ignoring stories that reveal the truth, like the recent raid of a squalid "drop house" in Los Angeles where 57 illegal aliens were being held against their will?
Is compassion not wanting to hear that a woman was raped in that drop house, or that many more would have been if not for the screams of their children disrupting the attackers?
If that's compassion, then I guess I'm happy to be accused of having none.
The problem with the debate over illegal immigration right now is that special interests have been successful in making us think with our hearts instead of our brains. We've been persuaded to believe that real compassion can only be achieved by following their agenda. But look where that's gotten us. And more importantly, look where that's gotten the people they're supposedly trying to help.
If you really want to be compassionate, then help immigrants get jobs here the right way. Help put crippling fines on the employers who knowingly hire illegal workers, help expand and simplify the visa process, and, most importantly, help get people to start thinking with their brains again.
After all, compassion without common sense may feel good but it doesn't achieve anything. If you need proof then go out and give $1,000 to every homeless person who asks you for change. I bet your heart would be full, but your wallet would soon be empty. And all those people would probably still be homeless.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
By Glenn Beck
CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) -- "Jobs Americans just won't do."
I can't stand that line, but more importantly, I don't even understand it.
Americans spend months at a time at sea fishing for crab or drilling for oil; two of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Americans clean bathrooms, subway stations and crime scenes. Americans man toll booths, pave roads, embalm bodies and inspect sewers. Yet people really expect us to believe that they won't pick strawberries or oranges?
It just doesn't add up.
Earlier this week The Wall Street Journal published a story about a shortage of H-2B visas, which are issued twice a year to nonagricultural seasonal employees. Because our government can't get out of its own way, they recently let an important "returning workers" provision expire resulting in thousands of foreign workers being shut out of the country this summer.
That's inexcusable. I know this will come as a huge shock to those who only like to hurl insults, but I think we should be issuing more work visas, more student visas, and more green cards. And I think we should cut the red tape and bureaucracy that's constantly blocking the front door.
But until that happens people are left looking for loopholes and excuses, and "jobs Americans won't do" is the gold standard.
The Journal article offered an example of a couple that sells food at fairs around California each summer. They say that because of the H-2B visa shortage most of their seasonal employees aren't able to enter the country.
So why don't they just hire Americans instead? Good question. Her answer? "This is a hard job."
I find it pretty hard to believe that there aren't a few college students who wouldn't want to drive around California and work outdoors all summer, but let's assume that's true. Let's even assume that none of the other 1.1 million Californians who were unemployed as of April are interested in the job either. Isn't anyone wondering why?
Well I'm not a labor consultant, but I am a thinker. Maybe the problem isn't that the job they're offering is "too hard," maybe it's that the wages they're offering are "too low."
No one paints the undersides of bridges for fun, they do it for the money. That's how capitalism works.
How capitalism does NOT work is when we collectively look the other way as companies exploit illegal labor for their own benefit.
The unspoken truth is that these businesses don't hire illegal aliens because they can't find American workers, they hire illegal aliens because they don't want American workers. And it has nothing to do with wages.
Illegal aliens mean no workers' comp claims, no age, race or sex discrimination lawsuits, no healthcare premiums, no unions, and no demands for raises, vacations or bigger offices. In fact, illegal immigrants are the perfect employees because they're not employees at all; they're corporate slaves.
Economist Dr. Thomas Sowell once said, "Blacks were not enslaved because they were black, but because they were available." Can't the exact same thing be said for illegal aliens? They're available and we're allowing them to be exploited in the name of cheap groceries.
Is the price of fruit really the standard we want to live up to as a country? Is that really who we've become?
Many Americans believe that cracking down on the businesses that hire illegal aliens (the current maximum federal fine was recently raised to a laughable $16,000) would hurt these hardworking people too much. A bad job is better than no job, we tell ourselves. But that's catalogue compassion. If you want to understand the real impact of these decisions you've got to get off the couch and go see it for yourself.
Back in 2005, Newsday did an investigation of the living conditions of immigrants in the New York area. In the city of Westbury (median income: $83,000/year) officials found twelve immigrants living in a basement flooded with sewage.
In Southampton (median income: $64,000/year) officials found immigrants living in sheds with no plumbing or heat.
In New Cassel (median income: $62,000/year) officials estimated there were dozens of "shift-bed houses" where immigrants literally rent mattresses for a few hours a day to catch some sleep.
Is compassion looking the other way while immigrants who come here for the dream end up living a nightmare smack dab in the middle of some of our wealthiest communities?
Is compassion ignoring stories that reveal the truth, like the recent raid of a squalid "drop house" in Los Angeles where 57 illegal aliens were being held against their will?
Is compassion not wanting to hear that a woman was raped in that drop house, or that many more would have been if not for the screams of their children disrupting the attackers?
If that's compassion, then I guess I'm happy to be accused of having none.
The problem with the debate over illegal immigration right now is that special interests have been successful in making us think with our hearts instead of our brains. We've been persuaded to believe that real compassion can only be achieved by following their agenda. But look where that's gotten us. And more importantly, look where that's gotten the people they're supposedly trying to help.
If you really want to be compassionate, then help immigrants get jobs here the right way. Help put crippling fines on the employers who knowingly hire illegal workers, help expand and simplify the visa process, and, most importantly, help get people to start thinking with their brains again.
After all, compassion without common sense may feel good but it doesn't achieve anything. If you need proof then go out and give $1,000 to every homeless person who asks you for change. I bet your heart would be full, but your wallet would soon be empty. And all those people would probably still be homeless.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
Up date time
Let's see two weeks ago my great grandma got really sick and on the 15th I think was her 99th birthday then on the 10th she passed away.
I have finished school and I think I am going to get 2 A's and 1 C or a B.
And lastly I need to find a summer job... god my updates are boring.
Let's see two weeks ago my great grandma got really sick and on the 15th I think was her 99th birthday then on the 10th she passed away.
I have finished school and I think I am going to get 2 A's and 1 C or a B.
And lastly I need to find a summer job... god my updates are boring.
Commentary: Tax-free hypocrisy from higher education
By Glenn Beck
CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) -- There is an industry in this country that is making billions in profit while average Americans are struggling to fill up their gas tanks.
It's an industry that made an average profit of nearly 17 percent in 2007 while most Americans could barely keep up with inflation.
It's an industry whose members paid a grand total of zero dollars in tax on their endowments last year.
Are you outraged? Are you ready to call on Congress to investigate or demand that a "windfall" tax be placed on these egregious profits?
Well put down the phone because the industry I'm talking about is Higher Education. And make no mistake, it is an industry.
The top five college and university endowments reported a combined value of over $100 billion at the end of 2007. That's five funds, a hundred billion in cash. Not a nickel in tax. Not an ounce of outrage.
Harvard University, which has the largest endowment in the country, has a total of $34.6 billion. To put into perspective just how much money that is, consider that the largest charitable foundation in the world, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has a total endowment of $37.3 billion.
But while their financial statements may look similar, their missions aren't. The Gates Foundation is working to cure malaria, develop new tuberculosis vaccines, and stop the spread of AIDS. Most of our colleges and universities are only working to spread the radical political views of some of their professors.
Let me be clear: I have absolutely no problem with Harvard or any other school having billions in cash. In fact, good for them!
I have no problem with Harvard posting an unbelievable 23 percent rate of return on their money last year. The truth is, I'm jealous of it.
I have no problem with the fact that if you project Harvard's endowment out using their historical rate of return they would have over half a TRILLION dollars in 20 years.
I don't even have a problem with Harvard not paying one dime of tax on any of that money.
What I do have a problem with -- and it's a big one -- is how Harvard spends that money. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say how Harvard, doesn't spend that money.
Schools with large endowments (at least $500 million) reported spending an average of 4.4 percent of their stockpiles in 2007. Meanwhile, those same schools made an average of over 19 percent on their money.
But I also have another problem, and that is how these sanctimonious institutions who are so good at complaining about the injustices of our government are nothing but really highly educated hypocrites.
For what's been estimated to be about $300 million a year (less than 1 percent of their endowment's value) Harvard could completely waive tuition, room and board for every single one of their students. Instead, they announced an increase in those fees of about 3.5 percent for next year. Being a student at Harvard will now cost a staggering $47,215 a year.
Doesn't Harvard know how many millions of Americans are struggling to afford college? Don't they want to pay their fair share and help those who are less fortunate?
Some politicians in Massachusetts who can't stand to see so many billions dangling just out of their reach, have proposed a new tax on large university endowments. They don't have a cute name for it yet, so let's call it an "endowment windfall tax."
Under their proposal, all endowments over a billion dollars would be taxed at 2.5 percent, a rate any wealthy individual or corporation would salivate over. The tax would net the state over $1.4 billion a year, which is a lot of money considering that Boston currently receives about $1.8 million a year from the school.
So how did Harvard, which is basically the Exxon-Mobil of higher education (minus the accusations of price-gouging), react to that proposal? In a word, conservatively.
"You'd be taxing success here," Kevin Casey, Harvard's associate vice president for government, community and public affairs complained in a quote that will soon be framed and hung in my office. "Over time, this would put us at a real competitive disadvantage, which would drastically hurt the Commonwealth."
No Kevin, you're looking at it the wrong way. These politicians aren't trying to hurt you, they're just trying to level the playing field. Greater Shrewsbury Liberal Arts Community Technical College for Women down the road is struggling and here you are making billions. If they could just redistribute some of your profits to GSLACTCFW then everybody would be happy.
Does anyone else find it ironic that universities overflowing with liberal professors (a 2005 study revealed that 72 percent of professors view themselves that way) embrace conservative values only when it suits them?
As a conservative, I don't believe in taxing anyone just because they have a lot of money or are an easy target. That applies to individuals, businesses and universities. I believe that taxing success discourages success, and that's not what America stands for.
But I also believe in something else: consistency and accountability. And that's where most of our colleges and universities fail miserably.
Besides, Harvard, you're in the wealthiest 1 percent. Isn't it time to help those who are less fortunate?
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
By Glenn Beck
CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) -- There is an industry in this country that is making billions in profit while average Americans are struggling to fill up their gas tanks.
It's an industry that made an average profit of nearly 17 percent in 2007 while most Americans could barely keep up with inflation.
It's an industry whose members paid a grand total of zero dollars in tax on their endowments last year.
Are you outraged? Are you ready to call on Congress to investigate or demand that a "windfall" tax be placed on these egregious profits?
Well put down the phone because the industry I'm talking about is Higher Education. And make no mistake, it is an industry.
The top five college and university endowments reported a combined value of over $100 billion at the end of 2007. That's five funds, a hundred billion in cash. Not a nickel in tax. Not an ounce of outrage.
Harvard University, which has the largest endowment in the country, has a total of $34.6 billion. To put into perspective just how much money that is, consider that the largest charitable foundation in the world, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has a total endowment of $37.3 billion.
But while their financial statements may look similar, their missions aren't. The Gates Foundation is working to cure malaria, develop new tuberculosis vaccines, and stop the spread of AIDS. Most of our colleges and universities are only working to spread the radical political views of some of their professors.
Let me be clear: I have absolutely no problem with Harvard or any other school having billions in cash. In fact, good for them!
I have no problem with Harvard posting an unbelievable 23 percent rate of return on their money last year. The truth is, I'm jealous of it.
I have no problem with the fact that if you project Harvard's endowment out using their historical rate of return they would have over half a TRILLION dollars in 20 years.
I don't even have a problem with Harvard not paying one dime of tax on any of that money.
What I do have a problem with -- and it's a big one -- is how Harvard spends that money. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say how Harvard, doesn't spend that money.
Schools with large endowments (at least $500 million) reported spending an average of 4.4 percent of their stockpiles in 2007. Meanwhile, those same schools made an average of over 19 percent on their money.
But I also have another problem, and that is how these sanctimonious institutions who are so good at complaining about the injustices of our government are nothing but really highly educated hypocrites.
For what's been estimated to be about $300 million a year (less than 1 percent of their endowment's value) Harvard could completely waive tuition, room and board for every single one of their students. Instead, they announced an increase in those fees of about 3.5 percent for next year. Being a student at Harvard will now cost a staggering $47,215 a year.
Doesn't Harvard know how many millions of Americans are struggling to afford college? Don't they want to pay their fair share and help those who are less fortunate?
Some politicians in Massachusetts who can't stand to see so many billions dangling just out of their reach, have proposed a new tax on large university endowments. They don't have a cute name for it yet, so let's call it an "endowment windfall tax."
Under their proposal, all endowments over a billion dollars would be taxed at 2.5 percent, a rate any wealthy individual or corporation would salivate over. The tax would net the state over $1.4 billion a year, which is a lot of money considering that Boston currently receives about $1.8 million a year from the school.
So how did Harvard, which is basically the Exxon-Mobil of higher education (minus the accusations of price-gouging), react to that proposal? In a word, conservatively.
"You'd be taxing success here," Kevin Casey, Harvard's associate vice president for government, community and public affairs complained in a quote that will soon be framed and hung in my office. "Over time, this would put us at a real competitive disadvantage, which would drastically hurt the Commonwealth."
No Kevin, you're looking at it the wrong way. These politicians aren't trying to hurt you, they're just trying to level the playing field. Greater Shrewsbury Liberal Arts Community Technical College for Women down the road is struggling and here you are making billions. If they could just redistribute some of your profits to GSLACTCFW then everybody would be happy.
Does anyone else find it ironic that universities overflowing with liberal professors (a 2005 study revealed that 72 percent of professors view themselves that way) embrace conservative values only when it suits them?
As a conservative, I don't believe in taxing anyone just because they have a lot of money or are an easy target. That applies to individuals, businesses and universities. I believe that taxing success discourages success, and that's not what America stands for.
But I also believe in something else: consistency and accountability. And that's where most of our colleges and universities fail miserably.
Besides, Harvard, you're in the wealthiest 1 percent. Isn't it time to help those who are less fortunate?
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
So for about a week now I have been elder sitting my great grandma. Its been fine and I will make some money but the main problem is that she talks in her sleep non-stop and then when she wakes up she turns the TV on loud so its been making havoc on my sleep schedule. But I only have to last till Sunday and then hopefully get good nights sleep again.
My index fingers must hate me after this weekend.
On sat. I cut my right hand index finger grading cheese.
Then this morning taking out pop tarts my left hand index finger hit melting frosting or some thing and now I have second degree burn with a blister.
On sat. I cut my right hand index finger grading cheese.
Then this morning taking out pop tarts my left hand index finger hit melting frosting or some thing and now I have second degree burn with a blister.
a little update:
So i kind of got tired of debating in the current event section on the forums. No i was not a troll out to cause trouble for trouble sake. I did mean most of what i said and some times i do like to try to take on the other side so that both sides are represented so that then people can make a honest choice in what they belive. I might bot have had the best delevery of those statements (damn you deslexia) but it was fun and i will still coment from time to time.
In other news i am having fun doing some traditional art and stepping out of my comfort zone of digital media. I also re-fell in love again with my fav. artist Patrick Nagel. Some will say his work is steryotypical of the 80's but I don't think many people copyed his style and got big so he was abel to creat a style of his own that no one else was able to reach. Here are my two most fav. piecies from him. First is Madame X:
and this one is Leather Cap:
I am also still looking for a job. Going to apply to Pita Pit and a gas station soon tho.
I also am boing more social in school and not being such a wall flower. I am making more school friends that will hopefully branch out to being out of school friends but Californians are strange in the central coast and it takes a while usualy to make that leap. I am also going to try to date more and get back into the social scene.
That does it for this little update and i will leave you with a little video that you all will injoy
So i kind of got tired of debating in the current event section on the forums. No i was not a troll out to cause trouble for trouble sake. I did mean most of what i said and some times i do like to try to take on the other side so that both sides are represented so that then people can make a honest choice in what they belive. I might bot have had the best delevery of those statements (damn you deslexia) but it was fun and i will still coment from time to time.
In other news i am having fun doing some traditional art and stepping out of my comfort zone of digital media. I also re-fell in love again with my fav. artist Patrick Nagel. Some will say his work is steryotypical of the 80's but I don't think many people copyed his style and got big so he was abel to creat a style of his own that no one else was able to reach. Here are my two most fav. piecies from him. First is Madame X:
and this one is Leather Cap:
I am also still looking for a job. Going to apply to Pita Pit and a gas station soon tho.
I also am boing more social in school and not being such a wall flower. I am making more school friends that will hopefully branch out to being out of school friends but Californians are strange in the central coast and it takes a while usualy to make that leap. I am also going to try to date more and get back into the social scene.
That does it for this little update and i will leave you with a little video that you all will injoy
SEPTEMBER 2008
AUGUST 2008
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
JULY 2008
JUNE 2008