CBS Reports on 27% Dow Jones Increase; Continues To Draw TPI Ire

 And an apology for finding the news on CBS News!  The CBS market report will follow our CBS tirade. We seriously feel the need to address why we ran across the story.  

The Pardu’s CBS tirade…..

As is standard practice, we at the TPI will develop a year end market and economy piece.  It is a bit early for final tallies, but we know housing is up, the Schiller Index is up to the positive, markets are up and unemployment is decreasing (although there are glitches in reporting on the unemployment rate).

After watching a rather dull bowl game, we failed to turn away from the CBS Evening News broadcast.  We offer a bit of background here. The 60 Minutes Benghazi story and revelation that CBS executive management hired a former Fox News executive (for its news division) in 2011, we refuse to tune-into CBS News. Why bother if we will be exposed to Fox News-CBS? A few words about David Rhodes and CBS before we move to the heart of this piece: the US stock market.

After following the Banghazi story for a few days, I ran across a piece about David Rhodes.  Apparently, Rhodes started his News career at the relatively new and fledgling Fox News. Basically, Rhodes eventually was responsible for following Roger Ailes and his boss Ruppert Murdoch in turning Fox News into an unabashed propaganda division for the GOP. Early on, we think it safe to assume he developed into a personal right-wing propaganda machine that eventually manifest at Fox in 2010. There is something very revealing about the backgrounds of people and how background shapes the individual and the person’s paradigm. You and I also know Fox is exceedingly successful in spreading Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS) like no other media. The network outpaces the racist and sexist (party ideology leaning) tirades of Rush Limbaugh due to our affinity for securing news related information via television.  Isn’t it safe to assume the CBS hiring strategy was such that it could not help, but eventually end with a Benghazi story?

Rhodes was reported to have joined Fox News in 1996 after graduating from college.  He must have performed well in the Fox News model to acquire a senior level position over a 12 year period. Now, we get to the heart of the matter. 

CBS executive management and Board of Directors must have embarked on a concerted effort to hire the former Fox News executive. The only reason for such a strategy would be to clone or to leverage Fox success in reaching audiences. Problem is CBS abandoned credible and competent investigative reporting (with the fake Benghazi story)  while cloning Fox’s prurient news model. We even recall reports Fox New had refused the story in the recent past.

As you approach the photo spread below recall Gretchen Carlson spoke on a radio show that women at Fox News were not allowed to wear pants.  Why?  The “why” is rhetorical; we know the answer. 

CBS can, and should, maintain standards above the following and the Benghazi story.  Join me after the spread for a short video report on the US stock market over the course of 2013. 

Benghazi broadcast evening!

www.extratv.com

Apology evening and very non-verbally pensive.

CBS Evening News reports.

Year  ends with Dow up 27 percent; stocks recover from recession

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/.…

Happy New Year!

Craig Cobb: White Supremacist Gets His Comeuppance.

Ignorance has no quarter. 

When coupled with terrorism, ignorance ends in prison. 

And, to think most of us go through life without ever having our deep psychic paradigms disrupted or turned upside down. Craig Cobb eventuality stepped on his on psyche. He new suffers scorn for his 14% Sub-Saharan DNA and he is shackled for terrorizing a black family. 

http://youtu.be/Gm9LZiKuOLI

_____________________________________
The Raw Story

North Dakota white supremacist Craig Cobb’s bail on terrorizing charges set at $1 million (via Raw Story )

The North Dakota white supremacist currently facing terrorizing charges has had his bail set at $1 million. The judge in the case said that it was wrong to deny Cobb bond, as had happened earlier this week, but set his bail prohibitively high because…

Plutocracy Versus Democracy

  

“Some even believe we (the Rockefeller family) are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the USA characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” – David Rockefeller

 

________________________________________________

Bill Moyers Dot Com

The Great American Class War: Plutocracy Versus Democracy (via Moyers & Company)

This is an edited version of a speech Bill Moyers recently delivered at the Brennan Center for Justice. It was first published at TomDispatch. I met Supreme Court Justice William Brennan in 1987 when I was creating a series for public television called…

Home Depot And Pope Francis: The Victim Rich!

Home Depot founder worries Pope Francis neither loves nor understands rich Americans (via Raw Story )

In an interview on CNBC on Monday, Home Depot founder and devout Catholic Ken Langone said that the Pope’s statements about capitalism have left many potential “capitalist benefactors” wary of donating to the Church or its fundraising projects…

Media Serves As A Platform For The Right

Just after the 2010 mid-term elections, Ari Melber published a prophetic piece related to the extent to which reporters leveraged the 2010 “shellacking” into “the language of the midterms.” Melber’s focus was omission of the tea party from those reporting the landslide midterms vs the greater GOP, The GOP tea party infestation had not been sworn-in to the House and Senate, and reporters, within days of the election, set the stage for what has metastasized into a virtual GOP Sunday Morning news show monopoly. And, we sit and wonder why we hear and read reports of the prospect of the GOP gaining seats in the US Senate in 2014.  

Melber wrote for The Nation:

Elections have a way of setting agendas.

While the candidates elected last week will not actually wield power until January, the political world is already adopting the language of the midterms. 

That’s especially true for political reporters, who frame the questions thrown at the White House’s freshly shellacked podium. 

To get a snapshot of the new language, The Nation counted up the most frequent words that reporters used in their questions during three major post-election sessions. 

We used the day-after press conference with President Obama, a similar outing with press secretary Robert Gibbs, and a trio of Sunday talk shows—Meet The Press, State of the Unionand Fox News Sunday.

Below is a snapshot of the New Change created through the website Wordle.

Read more 

Melbers work in now way related to what’s to come in this piece, but retain the details of this cloud for a bit. 

It would be totally fascinating to see a cloud related to political appearances on the Sunday Morning news shows.   Steven Benen, MSNBC, has studied the predominance of the GOP on Sunday Mornings. The data reflects the essence of Melbers Wordle cloud a full three years later. Benen’s data also reflects the very reason I have stopped watching the Sunday shows since well before President Obama’s first election to the presidency.

Benen’s review reflects the 2013 Sunday Morning winners. 

 

As indicated 10 of the top 13 Sunday Morning fixtures are Republican.

Read Benen’s analysis and comment, here. 

It appears electronic media leverages public sentiments in developing news stories, booking guests and slanting stories. While MSNBC, sets on the Left of a political ideology spectrum, we find CNN and Fox News on the opposite point, “the proliferation of Sunday Ideology sharing.” Of course, MSNBC doesn’t present a Sunday Morning show comparable to those in the Benen reviews; NBC is a stand-in. The network serves as a stand-in for MSNBC with one major problem: David Gregory as Meet The Press host. Gregory is as conservative as any major news host and his broadcast also serves as a GOP ideology platform.

You recognize the danger, of course. Both Gallup and Pew Research published studies in 2013 showing people get their news from television.  Linked

If people get the preponderance of their Sunday morning news from television, and the major networks (via Meet The Press, Face The Nation and Sunday Morning, State of the Union, Ans Fox News Sunday) is their any wonder 47 % of the 60% of eligible US voters flocked to the voting booths and cast votes for Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan? How about the prospect of so Americans many finding fault with the Affordable Care Act on general principles well beyond website problems? If you think our absence of inertia on slowing climate change is due the fact no one really cares, think again. When was the last time you saw or heard a report on climate change from either of the networks delineated above? 

 

What do you think of the millions who actually believe the nation has a voter fraud issue? We fall for such because the networks occupy on-camera seats with people who are there to spread an agenda and to spread ideology. Heck, the only cases of fraud that made the media in 2012 from the right and which perpetrator was a white person.

If I may give another much more poignant example.  Let’s visit the bayou bigots, Duck Dynasty, for a few minutes. The Arts and Entertainment Network (AKA A&E LIVS Network) [ LIVS Low Information Voters network], suspended Phil Robertson for bigoted anti-gay and insensitive (and inaccurately/indifferent) comments about the African American experience in the deep south.  

Robertson’s GQ interview set the media ablaze and awakened the nation’s Right comparable to the ACA and Benghazi.

First, Robertson is in his mid to latter 60s. I have read he grew to adulthood in the American South. How could he miss life as depicted to the right?

Robertson has also been reported via the Interent (NOT NEYTWORK NEWS) in the following manner.

Duck Dynasty star: Girls should carry a Bible, cook and marry ‘when they are 15′  (Video embed via this link and scroll down)

Crooks and Liars reports that Robertson is no hypocrite as he was 18 years of age when he started  dating his current wife at age 14. 

As you know A&E (LIVS Network; Low Information Voters) network has reversed the Robertson suspension; he will be full-fledged head of the klan (excuse the pun) starting next week.  

We have commented on Robertson based on the absence of reporting character issues.  If I am not mistaken there are men in prison as you read this convicted of sex with under-aged girls. while there may be no scriptures related to sex with under-aged girls, we find it acutely disturbing Robertson platformed his comments with a version of the Bible in tow. Some, the networks have failed to report the ‘full’ Robertson story, we suspect many people who will ‘thump’ to church this weekend have no idea of his positing on guys getting them at age 15.  

Ultimately, the networks are failing the nation. We realize business is business and some networks are vying for viewership, we suspect others are like Fox News adopting and postulating political positions. The Benen data above illustrates the extent of right-wing monopoly of the Sunday News shows and networks like Fox and CNN are shaping our political paradigms. Their work on behalf of conservative America is as dangerous as it comes. 

When we consider the social mores and economic catastrophe of Republicanism, we have the right to feel media should take on a role of investigation and revelation. What we have today is promulgation of Right-wing punditry and demagoguery with network revenue commensurate with viewer ratings.  As we move farther and father to the Right!

Conservative Whites Contribute Greatly To Racial Divides!

A relic of the past conservatives want to rekindle!

Finally, clear validation the nation’s racial divides are rooted in conservative America. Of course, you are thinking, “tell us something we did not know.”  Validation and confirmation is often a  greater facet of the communication process than revelation.

Specifically, white conservatives have polled as the leading opponent of a diverse social paradigm in America.  Again, you think, “Tell us something we did not know.”  Well,  we may have to stretch it a bit to capture and share “something you do not know” regarding issue of diversity. Let’s face it people who come here are well versed in diversity, even if you do not embrace intolerance for others (and that includes tolerance of white Americans) you know diversity and inclusivity are inevitable in a fair society. Instead of seeking a ‘stretch’ let’s review graph data from a CAP (Center For American Progress) and PolicyLink  detailed study.

While not a stretch the study reveals growing acceptance of diversity across all demographic spectrum, Yet, we continue to find serious lagging from certain conservative demographic groups. And it is unfortunate, seniors join white conservatives regarding degrees of intolerance. What does that say about the Jurassic Era as metaphor?

       

One has to wonder if these people are indicative of the study findings. Two points. First, congress is not exempt for the ACA; maybe they are Fox News is their only source of information. Second, how does the ACA affect these protesters? Maybe, just maybe they enjoy the Pharma ‘donut hole’ the ACA closes. 

Our interest is not to be disrespectful; we are simply thinking via the keyboard. Maybe, the imaged folks have issues with the nations first non-white president. 

We digress, let’s move to the CAP/PolicyLink study.

A few key study findings:

• Americans vastly overestimate current and future levels of diversity.  

• Americans overall are not pressing the panic button about rising diversity in society.  

• Despite the general acceptance of demographic change, there is considerable variation by race and ethnicity in terms of openness to rising diversity. 

• The younger generation and those with higher levels of education exhibit much more openness to rising diversity. 

•  The greatest opportunities from rising diversity are associated with the potential for more economic growth and greater innovation and competitiveness for businesses. 
• The greatest concerns about rising diversity are related to its impact on government services and the availability of jobs.  

• Americans strongly support a new equity agenda designed to reduce racial and ethnic inequality and create the conditions for everyone to participate in the economy.  

• Ideological attitudes about individual and collective action explain many of the differences in the support for an equity agenda.  

• Lower education levels for blacks and Latinos and poverty-level wages are viewed as the most serious problems associated with inequality in America.

 CAP and Policy Link provided details equivalent to the extent of the study.  (graphs linked) (full report Scribd)

The white conservative as a one-off Jurassic universe of regressivism.

Some people are simply never going to awaken to diversity; see the following chart. The lower portion of the chart illustrates our point. It is important to note wide differences among whites regarding issues of race. Notice the the “More openness to diversity” (Y Axis). You may also want to review the lower portions of the axis. 

High information people and voters know US demographics will eventually relegate the Jurassics to oblivion as surely as Brontosaurus  passed into Earth’s history.  While many on the conservative Right have no affinity for evolution, let’s hope it doesn’t take a catastrophic event to mitigate the impact of conservatism on our still developing society.

We came class to a catastrophic economic event with Bush and the effects of trickle-down economics over time: the 2008 Great Recession.  

If we are not careful we run the risk of following the nation’s conservatives into an abyss from which the nation will never return. We think it ironic we came across this report via Think Progress reporting on the very day some progressive pundits are speaking of the GOP gaining seats in the US Senate.

Could the American public truly live at such low levels of political awareness? Is it possible conservative America will allow their aversion to diversity to deliver the nation to the greedy grips of uber wealthy plutocrats who salivate at our political ignorance and well honed paradigms? Is the American voter going to remain guilty of failing for a GOP southern strategy born of Nixon and taken to fully operational by Ronald Reagan?

It is a strategy that has provided feed for the data reveal in the CAP/PolicyLink study and it is as dangerous to the nation as trickle-down/supply side economics and as dangerous as the current Boehner/Cantor 113th Congress.

As long as conservative media and mulitmillionaire demagogues reach into the psyches of the gullible, we are doomed to against visit economic catastrophe. And, then maybe the US electorate well send the GOP to its deserved extinction.

We hope that you noticed, as did we, education is a major intervention against what is virtually white nationalism. And we wonder why Fox News is so successful and why so many on the ‘Right’ hate the 44th President of the United States of America.

Wonder how the “black conservatives” feel about the CAP/PolicyLink study. 

ABC’s Jonathan Karl Confronts Ted "Government Shut-down" Cruz

As we read about Ted “Government Shut-down” Cruz (R-TX) initiating efforts to renounce his Canadian citizenship, our feed delivered a piece from Samuel Warde‘s Liberals Unite.   Apparently, the inimitable Cruz left the safe zones of Fox News on GOP news day (each Sunday morning) and sat with ABC News’s Jonathan Karl.  Cruz probably suffered a serious butt-pucker as Karl took to quirky ego maniacal Cruz to an alternate universe of a hardball (vs. softball) question. 

Liberals Unite….

Ted Cruz Called Out By ABC: ‘Come on!’ The shutdown was your fault!

December 30, 2013 | Filed under: Economics,Politics,The Tea unday ,Videos | Posted by: Samuel Warde

Author: Liberals Unite or Samuel Wynn Warde

URL:  http://samuel-warde.com or www.samuel-warde.com

 
Tea Party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) met with ABC’s Jonathan Karl continuing to deny any involvement in the 2013 government shutdown.

Karl told cruise his claim was unbelievable during their interview for Sunday’s “This Week.”

Cruz began by telling Karl:

“This is a city where it’s all politics all the time, and I’m trying to do my best not to pay attention to the politics, to focus on fixing the problems.”

Karl went on to question Cruz about the shutdown:

KARL: “You have had a couple of months to think about this whole government shutdown strategy. Now that it’s over in hindsight, are you prepared to say that it was a mistake, it wasn’t the right tactic?”

CRUZ: “I think it was absolutely a mistake for President Obama and Harry Reid to force a government shutdown.”

KARL: “No, I mean, but come on. I mean we’re a couple months away from this, the only reason why this happened is because you insisted, Republicans insisted that Obamacare be de-funded as a condition of funding the government. If you didn’t — if you took away that insistence, there would be no shutdown. I mean, really.”

CRUZ: “You’ve got conservatives who stood strong and said let’s stop the train wreck that is Obamacare, and you’ve got Democrats in the middle of the shutdown, President Obama called every Senate Republican to the White House, sat us in a room and said, ‘I called you to tell you, we’re not going to negotiate, we’re not going to compromise on anything.’ Repeatedly Republicans were compromising, trying to find a middle ground. And repeatedly Democrats said, no compromise, shut it down.”

You can watch the exchange below followed by the full segment from “This Week.”

“This Week” Game Changer: Sen. Ted Cruz

When Bigots Rule; A Nation Regresses!

Tracy Knauss

BLINDED BY THE SIGHT — Duck Dynasty’s patriarch denies having seen racism in the south when he was growing up. Anyone living in the south at the time knows this is selective perception on his part, because recognition of a problem necessitates action to rectify the problem or silent compliance with the social & economic evil. Phil Robertson chose the latter. So he feels no guilt because to him, the problem never existed.

______________________

The Pardu and and embed from The Raw Story.

I am ashamed to admit I know people who feel this bayou bigot was completely within the realm of acceptable behavior when he commented about gay people and African-Americans. A&E has trampled on all respectability by re-instating his show to full bigotry. And, the nation moves farther to the Right. What a disgusting path we are taking, directly into the clutches of plutocrats and the demented?

Duck Dynasty star: Girls should carry a Bible, cook and marry ‘when they are 15′ (via Raw Story )

Recently uncovered video indicates that Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson may have fringe views — other than those on homosexuality and civil rights — that most Americans would find far outside the mainstream. In a controversial interview with GQ…

Money In Politics: Elections To The Highest Bidder; Governance With Less Regard For The People

The Center for Responsive Politics continues to work to educate a populace about money in politics. Unfortunate, we are preoccupied with manipulation and subterfuge from political operatives and we are simply not paying attention. Thus, we relegate ourselves to the uninformed low information voters (LIVS) that provide substantial revenues for cable networks like CNN and Fox News.  

While organizations like the American Legislative Exchange(ALEC) and major plutocrats like the Kochs are well known for huge infusions of cash to politicians, there are other sources. Fortunately, President Obama and the Democrats reaped moderately more contributions than Romney/Ryan and the cabal of US regression (AKA the GOP). 

Our point cannot be better illustrated than the following from Demonocracy Dot Info. If you follow the link to the website, you will come away with validation the Democrats out-paced the GOP in 2012 and you will also find major contributions from small donors carried the elections. Donors giving under $2500 ran roughshod around mega donors from the Right.

US Presidential Elections – For sale to highest bidder

In America, winning the Presidency has proven to be a question of how much money you’re willing to spend. The trend constantly shows that, he who spends the most money on elections usually wins. 

A new law in 2010 allowed SuperPACs, through which people can indirectly (often secretly) donate unlimited amounts of money to a candidate. Since the candidate who raises most money, usually wins… the election is up for the highest bidder. Data collection date: 2012-08-14

2012 Presidential Elections – Who gets the most money usually wins

Our candidates have managed to organize serious sums of cash. Donations are mostly limited to $2500 per person, per candidate, but the Campaign finance laws are confusing and full of loop-holes.  Read more about campaign finance @ Wikipedia  Source: Federal Election Commission

Super PACs:  Where the donations are spent

SuperPACs spend their money on advertising that attacks or defends a presidential candidate. They usually use the their raised money for negative ads, destroying the candidates that oppose their agenda.  Obama is getting ‘attacked’ the most by negative SuperPAC ads.  Mitt Romney got $14.6 million of positive ads from SuperPACs.  Super PACs spent $4.86 million on positive ads for Ron Paul, and only $134,000 on negative ads.  Source: OpenSecrets

The Demonocracy site offers many additional comparisons and each points to the fact that money rules all in US politics. Of particular interest is the section of the page that delineates top donors.

After the Demoncracy data, think about taking a break and coming back to data from Open Secrets. The monitoring authority has published a 10 Things You Need To Know About Money In Politics. 

We are going to post one chart from the first five of the “10 Things” pages. 

Millionaire candidates

Millionaire candidates present one of the more credible threats to an incumbent, but they don’t have a very good track record. During the 2010 election cycle, only 11 of 58 millionaire candidates who challenged House and Senate incumbents using their own money to finance their campaigns actually won.

The rising price of admission

Does the rising cost of elections discourage those without monied connections, or money themselves, from running for elected office? Consider this: The average winner of a U.S. House race in 2010 spent about $1.4 million. The Senate? Nearly seven times more. Hiring staff, running ads and otherwise operating a robust campaign is ever more expensive. And each midterm election or presidential election cycle costs more than the previous one — by a lot. According to research by OpenSecrets.org, the 2010 midterm election cost $3.6 billion — about 28% more than the 2006 midterm election. The 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has unleashed tens of millions in spending by special interest groups attempting to advance their agendas.

Large donors took  the nation to the House of Oz in 2010.  We need say no more about a congress that has the lowest approval ratings in US History. 

Every politician loves to talk about all the “small” donations they’ve received, But the money that really pays for elections comes from big donors, not little ones.

If you’ve never given money to a politician in your life, join the club. Polls have shown that less than 10% of Americans have ever given a contribution to candidates for any office, at any level. And if you look at contributions big enough to be reported to the Federal Election Commission — those exceeding $200 — the number of Americans contributing in a typical election year is infinitesimal. Even in the presidential election year of 2008, which saw more people giving than ever before, barely more than one-half of one percent gave more than $200 to a federal candidate, political action committee or party.

The remaining “Five Things” illustrate exactly what is meant by “Dark Money.” 

The messages here: The sad state of money in politics, the power of the small donors in the general elections, and the fact we have to compete as we move in to 2014. 

The Poor As A Group Will Not Go Extinct; Despite Indifference From The Right

poor

po͝or,pôr/

adjective

1. 1.

   lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society.

   “people who were too poor to afford a telephone”

   synonyms:

   poverty-stricken, penniless, moneyless, impoverished, low-income,necessitous, impecunious, indigent, needy, destitute, pauperized,unable to make ends meet, without a sou; More
2. 2.

   worse than is usual, expected, or desirable; of a low or inferior standard or quality.

   “her work was poor”

   synonyms:

   substandard, below par, bad, deficient, defective, faulty, imperfect,inferior; More And the poor who actually work, but still exist as “the poor.”

   

Of course, we are turning our backs on the poor. The more we move to the Right the more we forsake a basic foundation of capitalism. The economic systems exists with an underclass that provides fodder for the more affluent. Fodder regarding workers, consumers and a critical foundation that facilitates differentiation among economic classes.

Are we helping the poor? (via The Economist)

OPPONENTS of America’s welfare state tend to make two kinds of arguments. The first, that of philosophical libertarians, regards food stamps, housing supports and unemployment payments as unjust transfers from some citizens to others. The second,…