Tag: China

The Story of Obama and the “Newsroom Monitors”. [The Scorpion and the Frog Revisited]

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

obamabillofrightsThe Scene:  A Television Newsroom, where, out of the range of the cameras, sits an official Government Monitor, assigned the job of controlling which stories will be given air time that evening,and “the news” which will be seen by the country’s citizens.

Are we looking inside a Newsroom in China? Russia? North Korea? a Modern Version of Hitler’s Third Reich, as was portrayed in one of the episodes of the original “Star Trek”?

Ummm…no.

The newsroom is in America…in the not too distant future…if the Obama Administration has their way.

Fox News reports that

In a controversial move, the Obama administration is looking to send the FCC in to investigate how the media chooses stories. Shannon Bream reported this morning on the plan, which is quickly drawing criticism as a possible infringement on the freedom of the press.

The Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs (CINs) initiative was proposed last May. The FCC explained that it wanted information from television and radio broadcasters “to ascertain the process by which stories are selected, station priorities (for content production quality, and populations served), perceived station bias, perceived percent of news dedicated to each of the eight CIN’s and perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”

The FCC has identified eight CINs, or key topics that the government believes should be covered.

The study was supposed to start this week in Columbia, South Carolina, but stations there say no FCC representatives have shown up yet.

Republican lawmakers have urged the FCC to abandon the project. Others are voicing concerns that the government could try to influence what stations cover, pointing out that the FCC grants licenses to stations.

This comes on the heels of Reporters Without Borders ranking the United States 46th in its World Press Freedom Index.

Rush Limbaugh had an interesting take on this situation on his program yesterday:

There’s an outline of the FCC’s questionnaire that the monitors would ask of local station management. Here are some questions for station owners and managers or human resources executives: “What is the news philosophy of your station? Who is your target audience? How do you define critical information that the community needs? How do you ensure that community gets this critical information?”

Now, you put a monitor inside a local TV or radio station or a network newsroom asking these questions, and this is almost identical to what used to be called public ascertainment in local stations: Interview the local community librarian, sewage director, you name it. You just have to go through the motions of ascertaining what leaders in the community thought was important ’cause they’re public airwaves. “How does community input influence news-coverage decisions?

“What are the demographics of the news management staff? What are the demographics of the on-air staff? What are the demographics of the news-production staff?” These are the questions that the Regime’s monitor is going to be coming and asking of station owners and managers. Here are the questions for corporate general managers, news directors, and editors: “What is the news philosophy of your station? Who else in your market provides news? Who are your main competitors?

“How much does your station air every day? Is the news produced in house, or is it provided by an outside source, as in a syndicated radio show? Do you employ news people? How many reporters and editors do you employee? Do you have any reporters or editors assigned to topic beats? If so, how many, and what are the beats?” This is none of the government’s business. There’s a First Amendment clause devoted to freedom of the press. They’ve got no business asking this.

But this is exactly what local stations used to have to answer every three to five years. Now they want to put monitors in there. I am telling you that you’re not going to hear any objection from the journalists. (interruption) No, they won’t. No. (interruption) No. No. (interruption) You’re missing the point entirely. (interruption) F. Chuck Todd will not stand up in opposition to this. David Gregory will not stand up in opposition to this.

Brian Williams will not stand up. Take your pick, they will not stand up to it. This is the Obama administration. If the Republicans would do this, then they would stand up, oppose it, destroy the administration, call up the Constitution. That’s my point: Since it’s Obama doing it, these people are groupies. These people are only interested in Obama succeeding. These people want access to Obama. They want to play golf with Obama.

They want to be on the inside. They want to be in the inner circle. They want to be in the clique. If you’re gonna have a monitor from the Regime in your newsroom who is gonna be reporting back to the Regime, and you are a current journalist in the current administration, you’re gonna do your best to even suck up to the monitor so the news gets back to the Regime about what a great team player you are.

Once Obama got elected, he and his handlers decided that his personal charisma and masterful use of the teleprompter could overcome any political foes or issues that his presidency might face. What ol’ Scooter did not count on was the tenacity of Roger Ailes and his Fox News Staff in maintaining their “Fair and Balanced” promise.

And, now that Obama has failed at every single thing he has done as president, and is currently ruling by diktat, doing an end run around our Constitutional System of Checks and Balances, he has become even more petty and petulant than he has been in the previous years of his Administration, acting rather like the Bad Witch in The remake of “The Wzard of Oz, “The Wiz”.

Can’t you just picture him singing,

Don’t nobody bring me no bad news!?

The sycophantic servitude of the Main Stream Media is about to come back and bite them in the hindquarters, if Obama and the FCC get their way.

And, it serves the propagandists masquerading as “Broadcast Journalists”, right.

That being said, allow me to take a moment to tell an allegorical tale.

Have you ever heard the old story of The Scorpion and the Frog? A Scorpion and a Frog were standing at the bank of a river. The Scorpion said to the Frog, “If you’ll give me a ride across the river, I promise not to sting you.” The Frog said, “ How do I know I can trust you? If you sting me while you are on my back, we will surely drown.” The Scorpion said, “I know that. I won’t sting you. I promise.” So, they start across the river, the Scorpion riding on the Frog’s back. They are in sight of the opposite bank and, all of the sudden, the Scorpion stings the Frog. The Frog says, “You fool!. You stung me. Now we are both going to drown!” The Scorpion said, “I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. It’s just my nature.”

No American, including the slavish Main Stream Media, should be surprised that Obama wants to take away our Freedom of the Press…

It’s just his nature.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama to Cut National Defense to 1950 Level

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

When he assumed office, President Ronald Reagan faced the daunting task of rebuilding our National Defense, decimated by his ineffectual predecessor, Jimmy Carter.

Ronald Reagan, as he always did, went directly to the American people, in a televised speech given on the night of March 23, 1983.

Presidentialrhetoric.com provides the transcript:

…The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter and defend against aggression – to preserve freedom and peace.

Since the dawn of the atomic age, we’ve sought to reduce the risk of war by maintaining a strong deterrent and by seeking genuine arms control. “Deterrence” means simply this: making sure any adversary who thinks about attacking the United States, or our allies, or our vital interests, concludes that the risks to him outweigh any potential gains. Once he understands that, he won’t attack. We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression. This strategy of deterrence has not changed. It still works. But what it takes to maintain deterrence has changed. It took one kind of military force to deter an attack when we had far more nuclear weapons than any other power; it takes another kind now that the Soviets, for example, have enough accurate and powerful nuclear weapons to destroy virtually all of our missiles on the ground. Now, this is not to say that the Soviet Union is planning to make war on us. Nor do I believe a war is inevitable – quite the contrary. But what must be recognized is that our security is based on being prepared to meet all threats.

There was a time when we depended on coastal forts and artillery batteries, because, with the weaponry of that day, any attack would have had to come by sea. Well, this is a different world, and our defenses must be based on recognition and awareness of the weaponry possessed by other nations in the nuclear age. We can’t afford to believe that we will never be threatened. There have been two world wars in my lifetime. We didn’t start them and, indeed, did everything we could to avoid being drawn into them. But we were ill-prepared for both. Had we been better prepared, peace might have been preserved.

For 20 years the Soviet Union has been accumulating enormous military might. They didn’t stop when their forces exceeded all requirements of a legitimate defensive capability. And they haven’t stopped now. During the past decade and a half, the Soviets have built up a massive arsenal of new strategic nuclear weapons- weapons that can strike directly at the United States.

…This is why I’m speaking to you tonight – to urge you to tell your Senators and Congressmen that you know we must continue to restore our military strength. If we stop in midstream, we will send a signal of decline, of lessened will, to friends and adversaries alike. Free people must voluntarily, through open debate and democratic means, meet the challenge that totalitarians pose by compulsion. It’s up to us, in our time, to choose and choose wisely between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.

President Reagan coined a very famous, but simple, phrase describing his Foreign Policy:  

Trust, but Verify.

Evidently,  our 44th president and his Administrative Staff only believe in the first half of that phrase.

LATimes.com reports:

President Obama greeted the Chinese heir apparent in the Oval Office on Tuesday morning, a venue where the U.S. president usually receives only the nation’s closest friends.

But even as the two countries eye one another warily, the Obama administration wants to keep its options open with Vice President Xi Jinping as he prepares to take his place as president next year.

In a joint appearance before their meeting, Obama told reporters that the U.S. relationship with China is based on “mutual interest and mutual respect,” and that such a relationship is in the interests of the rest of the world, too.

The United States welcomes China’s “peaceful rise,” Obama said, which he said has the power to “help to bring stability and prosperity to the world.”

As Al Jolson once said:

Wait a minute…wait a minute…you ain’t seen nothing yet!

According to the Associated Press :

The Obama administration is weighing options for sharp new cuts to the U.S. nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons, The Associated Press has learned.

Even the most modest option now under consideration would be an historic and politically bold disarmament step in a presidential election year, although the plan is in line with President Barack Obama’s 2009 pledge to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons.

No final decision has been made, but the administration is considering at least three options for lower total numbers of deployed strategic nuclear weapons cutting to: 1,000 to 1,100; 700 to 800, and 300 to 400, according to a former government official and a congressional staffer. Both spoke on condition of anonymity in order to reveal internal administration deliberations.

The potential cuts would be from a current treaty limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads.

A level of 300 deployed strategic nuclear weapons would take the U.S. back to levels not seen since 1950 when the nation was ramping up production in an arms race with the Soviet Union. The U.S. numbers peaked at above 12,000 in the late 1980s and first dropped below 5,000 in 2003.

Obama has often cited his desire to seek lower levels of nuclear weapons, but specific options for a further round of cuts had been kept under wraps until the AP learned of the three options now on the table.

A spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, Tommy Vietor, said Tuesday that the options developed by the Pentagon have not yet been presented to Obama.

All you Americans in your 50s, like me, and older…remember the old “Duck and Cover” films we watched in school?

Well, those things we learned from those films, won’t help now.

I suggest prayer.