Tag Archives: politics

President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s first (SONA) State of the Nation Address

Ang Unang SONA ni Pangulong Aquino, Watch Video First SONA of President Aquino. You can watch video of first SONA of President Aquino. You may watch President Aquino Sona video… First SONA of President Aquino Video, SONA of President Aquino Video, Watch Video SONA of President Aquino. To watch video of SONA, just simple access this link . The delivery by the President of the Philippines of the State of the Nation Address (abbreviated as SONA) is a yearly tradition wherein the President reports on the status of the nation. In it, he may also propose to Congress, before which the address is delivered, certain proposals for legislation that he believes is necessary. Article VII, Section 23 of the 1987 Constitution mandates that “the President shall address the Congress at the opening of its regular session.” The SONA as an annual practice began during the Commonwealth of the Philippines. The 1935 Constitution, as amended, states in Article VII, Section 5 that “thehe President shall from time to time give to the Congress information on the state of the Nation, and recommend to its consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s first (SONA) State of the Nation Address is a post from: Daily World Buzz Continue reading

In Light of NAACP Condemnation, Media Brings Back Tea Party Fraud

Memo to media members wishing to invite the Tea Party Founder on your show, or use him as a source for your biased reports:  He isn’t exactly who you think he is. Since the NAACP voted to condemn extremist elements in the Tea Party, news networks, sites, and liberal blogs have rushed to include ‘Tea Party Founder’, Dale Robertson, in their reports.  Problem being, Dale Robertson as Tea Party anything has frequently and thoroughly been, um … ‘refudiated’.    Despite this, the media has a history of holding Robertson up as a shining example of Tea Party racism.  Why?  Robertson once demonstrated a level of ignorance that boggles the mind by holding a sign reading “Congress = Slaveowner, Taxpayer = (N-Word)”, at a Houston Tea Party Society (TPS) event. The reality however, is that Robertson has predominantly self-described, if any, links to the Tea Party movement, while legitimate factions of the movement have had to repeatedly distance themselves from the man.  Robertson was expelled from the event at which he was holding the aforementioned sign on the very same day.  He was formally denounced in a statement released by the Houston TPS.  He was called ‘no friend’ of the Tea Party at Pajamas Media, and mocked at RedState.  He was shown to be for his infamous sign , before he was against it. So logically, the media has decided to help further the cause of the NAACP by bringing Robertson back out of the shadows.  Since word of the the NAACP resolution got out, Robertson’s name has appeared at… The Huffington Post CBS’ Face the Nation ABC News Beyond Chron , San Francisco’s alternative newspaper The Kansas City Star The Daily Kos A blog called The Stir , which also offers a handy list of ‘phrases to drop’ to counter the Tea Party defense. An Op-Ed at the Daily Caller And Mediaite It should be noted that Mediate refers to the fact that the Houston TPS still has the offending image of Robertson on their web site, in an apparent attempt to demonstrate their tolerance for his bigotry.  But it fails to include the context that yes, while the image is on their site, it is there as a reference to explain just who this guy is, and why they have had to deal with him.  They actually link to the image with the following statement: “Yes, at our very first tea party event in February of 2009, this piece of work strolled in with his awful sign, attracting the lone media camera and sentencing us to an eternity of disassociation.  We dealt with him on that day, expelling him from the event.” Then of course, there’s the NAACP themselves.  They have Robertson’s photo featured on their page announcing the condemnation of extremist elements in the Tea Party.  They were also kind enough to include photos which show the kind of fringe group that could only be protesting a President because he’s black, and because they’re racist.  For instance, a racist picture of the President being portrayed as Hitler.  No not this one …

MSNBC Cherry Picks, Edits FNC Clips to Claim FNC Incited Sherrod Resignation & Ignored Her Side of Story

On Tuesday’s Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, as host Maddow complained that a video clip of former USDA official Shirley Sherrod had been edited to make it appear she had talked about discriminating against white farmers in the present – a clip that led to her firing by the Obama administration – the MSNBC host not only incorrectly claimed that FNC coverage of the clip had helped incite her firing, but she also suggested that FNC would never show her side of the story even though, by that time Tuesday night, several FNC shows had already informed viewers of some of the details in Sherrod’s favor. And, in fact, Sherrod had already been forced to resign before The O’Reilly Factor became the first FNC show to report the story of her comments on Monday night, although host Bill O’Reilly at the time did not realize she had already been fired. Maddow’s show even chose to only present to her viewers clips from FNC that ran Monday and Tuesday morning which portrayed Sherrod’s comments as racist, without airing any of the clips from shows later Tuesday which showed FNC personalities conveying more of her side of the story. As Maddow filled in her viewers on some of the details in Sherrod’s favor, the MSNBC host used such phrases as “you would never know this if you got all your information from Fox News,” and, after explaining that Sherrod helped the white farmers in question: “That`s what happened – unless, of course, you watch Fox News.” FNC had already reported most of those same details hours earlier, and O’Reilly even informed his viewers Tuesday that Sherrod had declined an invitation to appear as a guest on his show, so liberal FNC analyst Alan Colmes appeared in her place. As for using clips to make it appear FNC reporting on Sherrod’s comments had come before her firing, Maddow used one clip of FNC’s O’Reilly on Monday calling for Sherrod’s resignation at a time when he had not yet received word that she had already resigned, and the MSNBC show also showed an edited clip of FNC’s Dana Perino substitute hosting for On the Record with Greta Van Susteren in which Perino had reported the story Monday night, omitting the fact that the FNC host had informed viewers moments later in the same segment that Sherrod had already resigned. Maddow used these first two clips, followed by a third of FNC’s Sean Hannity reporting that the resignation had happened – so that the MSNBC host could then drive home her claim that FNC had been “efficient” in getting rid of Sherrod. Maddow: “How`s that for efficient? How`s that for action? Fox News and conservative Web site uncover what they say is an admitted racist in the Obama administration and she is forced to resign immediately.” Maddow had also set up the three clips: “Within hours of that clip being posted online and billed as evidence of a racist within the Obama administration, Fox News, understanding their role in this delicate, well practiced dance, jumped all over it.” Below are transcripts of relevant portions of Tuesday’s Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, followed by clips from FNC shows from Tuesday that refute Maddow’s claims that FNC would not report Sherrod’s side of the story: #From the Tuesday, July 20, Rachel Maddow Show: RACHEL MADDOW: There`s a lot to get to this hour. But we begin tonight with something that frankly we knew was coming, something we knew was inevitable after right-wing activists and Fox News destroyed the community organizing group ACORN last year with supposedly incriminating videotapes that really weren`t all that incriminating at all, that really weren`t incriminating at all. MADDOW, FROM A PREVIOUS SHOW, CLIP #1: This is not meant to excuse what ACORN has done wrong in the past, but the huge tide of negative publicity that followed these videotapes and the coverage they got on Fox wall-to-wall for months was bullpuckey. It was a dishonest, political stunt that bears no resemblance to journalism and no resemblance to the actual facts of what happened in those offices. But it worked. MADDOW, FROM A PREVIOUS SHOW, CLIP #2: This organization has been shut down. Means be damned, in the end, it worked. Who do you think is next on their list? MADDOW: Today, we got an answer to that question, which I hoped at the time was just a rhetorical one. The same attack that helped take down ACORN last fall with supposedly incriminating videotapes has now claimed a new victim. Next on their list, it turns out, is this woman, an Obama administration employee named Shirley Sherrod. Up until yesterday, Shirley Sherrod was an official with the United States Department of Agriculture, with the USDA. She served as the USDA`s world development director for the great state of Georgia. Ms. Sherrod resigned from that post yesterday, she claims under intense pressure from the Obama administration, pressure that was apparently brought to bear after this. The same conservative Web site that posted the supposedly incriminating but, in the end, just massively misleadingly edited ACORN tapes now has posted what it claims to be cold, hard evidence of racism, racism shown by an employee at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The evidence was a video clip of Shirley Sherrod speaking at an NAACP event this March. And at that event she recounts this story: SHIRLEY SHERROD, FORMER USDA OFFICIAL: The first time I was faced with having to help a white farmer save his farm, he took a long time talking, but he was trying to show me he was superior to me, I know what he was doing. … What he didn’t know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me, was, I was trying to decide just how much help that I was going to give him. I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So I didn`t give him the full force of what I could do.

Politico’s VandeHei Takes NAACP to Task for Labeling Tea Party Racist

Appearing on Wednesday’s Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC to discuss the Shirley Sherrod controversy, Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei pointed out the NAACP’s role in fueling racial accusations: “If you think about this, where this thing started, the NAACP comes out and makes this charge against the tea party movement.” VandeHei rejected the NAACP’s claim of racism in the political movement: “It’s a very, very diffuse group. You cannot say that they are racist anymore then you can say the Republican Party’s racist or the Democratic Party is racist, so it creates this culture and it’s a dangerous topic, it’s a dangerous fire to light, and then when it happens this is the outcome.” Explaining how the NAACP charge led to the accusations against Sherrod, VandeHei observed: “I’m not defending Breitbart. But conservatives are outraged, they feel like ‘listen, you’re – because I’m part of the tea party movement you say, therefore, I’m racist.’ And so what Breitbart’s arguing is ‘I want to push back.'” Opposite VandeHei was Washington Post writer Jonathan Capehart, who tried to excuse the civil rights organization: “The NAACP went to great lengths to say they were talking about racist elements within the tea party movement….Very nuanced thing here. He’s not broad-brushing the movement.” VandeHei countered: “…very nuanced but very explosive. They knew exactly once you make that statement, whether you’re trying to add nuance to the statement or not, you know exactly what’s going to happen when you make that charge.” Here is a transcript of the July 21 exchange: 4:18PM JIM VANDEHEI: Can I talk about the NAACP for one second. DYLAN RATIGAN: Go for it. VANDEHEI: Because I do think they’re getting off the hook a little bit. RATIGAN: I agree with you. VANDEHEI: If you think about this, where this thing started, the NAACP comes out and makes this charge against the tea party movement. RATIGAN: Yeah. VANDEHEI: We’ve probably written more stories about the tea party movement than any other organization. We’ve really tried to study this group. It’s a very, very diffuse group. You cannot say that they are racist anymore then you can say the Republican Party’s racist or the Democratic Party is racist, so it creates this culture and it’s a dangerous topic, it’s a dangerous fire to light, and then when it happens this is the outcome. So conservatives- JONATHAN CAPEHART: But Jim- VANDEHEI: I’m not defending Breitbart. But conservatives are outraged, they feel like ‘listen, you’re – because I’m part of the tea party movement you say, therefore, I’m racist.’ And so what Breitbart’s arguing is ‘I want to push back.’ Now I’m not saying what Breitbart did was right because clearly it wasn’t right and the outcome was awful for this woman, but both sides, I think, come off looking very, very bad and that’s why Joe Biden and – and Steny Hoyer both said they didn’t agree with the NAACP’s charge. RATIGAN: Go ahead, Jonathan. CAPEHART: Jim, but here’s the thing. The NAACP went to great lengths to say they were talking about racist elements within the tea party movement and even Ben Jealous said point blank that he did not say – think that the entire tea party movement was racist. He wanted leaders of the tea party movement to disavow those racist elements. Very nuanced thing here. He’s not broad-brushing the movement. VANDEHEI: Very nuanced, but Jonathan – but very nuanced but very explosive. They knew exactly once you make that statement, whether you’re trying to add nuance to the statement or not, you know exactly what’s going to happen when you make that charge, whether it’s elements or how nuanced they’re trying to be. CAPEHART: So then- VANDEHEI: Especially – this is a terrible issue to be talking about. CAPEHART: But then we can- VANDEHEI: And it’s the reason that Barack Obama does not want to talk about it. Barack Obama has tried very- CAPEHART: But then we can never have a conversation about race if – I mean, you have – it’s all about nuance. VANDEHEI: I feel like we’ve been having a conversation p about race for a long, long time in this country- CAPEHART: We always will.

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Politico’s VandeHei Takes NAACP to Task for Labeling Tea Party Racist

Is Denver Post Columnist Littwin Completely Ignorant of Charles Bolden Controversy?

In this morning’s Denver Post, Mike Littwin manages to display simultaneously the insularity and smugness of the One Party media , as well as one of the last tools left in the left’s rather empty playbook. Apparently, during a Senate debate at Channel 12, Jane Norton said, “We need a NASA budget that doesn’t cater to making Muslims feel good but that is strong on science …” This scandalized Littwin, who assumed it was a cheap shot at Muslims. Evidently, he hadn’t seen the video of NASA head Charles Bolden that’s been making the rounds on the conservative and libertarian blogosphere: Remarkably, instead of conceding that we’re paying all those scientists, engineers, and bureaucrats to actually achieve, or at least facilitate achievement, in space, Littwin uses his and the rest of the MSM reporters’ ignorance of the interview as evidence that the argument was out of place, and then goes straight for the race card: When I read the stories, I remembered hearing something about it. But when I showed Norton’s quote to several people up on the news — but not necessarily up on Fox News — they each registered a blank. That suggests something we already knew: that we get our news these days from different places. What it doesn’t tell us, though, is why Norton thought the story was worth mentioning at all. Presumably Norton meant to say “Muslim countries” rather than all “Muslims,” including those who might live, say, next door. I guess that’s still up for debate. For the record, I’m as proud as anyone of Ilan Ramon, but his presence on the shuttle should have been incidental to its mission, not actually its mission.  Also for the record, I’m with Bill Whittle when he lauds NASA’s retreat to make room for a more sustainable private space program. A few years ago, at an LPR session, Littwin told me that reporters were well aware of the blogosphere, that they spent tons of time reading blogs in an effort to understand this new media.  Seems they manage to miss HotAir, Powerline, Pajamas Media, Instapundit. The line of argument, to the extent that there is one, is that since Littwin hadn’t seen the video, Norton may be a bigot.  In a year when the left’s traditional arguments appear to have run out of steam, there’s one they think they can reliably return to, time and again.  The JournoList extracts over at Daily Caller indicate the power that the accusation of racism once had, and that the left still thinks it has.  But with the country having elected a black president, answering a cry of “read the Constitution” with “you must be racist” is increasing falling on deaf ears. Those who thought that Obama’s presidency might herald a post-racial era may yet be right.  Just not exactly how they thought.

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Is Denver Post Columnist Littwin Completely Ignorant of Charles Bolden Controversy?

Rush Limbaugh Responds to JournoLister Wishing His Death

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh has responded to reports that an NPR producer wrote gleefully about his death in an e-mail message to the now infamous JournoList. As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, the Daily Caller’s Jonathan Strong published some more of the liberal group’s e-mail messages which included Sarah Spitz claiming that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment. With this in mind, both the Washington Examiner’s Byron York and myself asked Limbaugh for a response to this nonsense.  First, here’s what Limbaugh told York: I can only surmise. I think most people on the left live in a world where merit is irrelevant. Theirs is a world in which connections, networking, kissing ass and obedient sameness are rewarded. I am the antithesis of all that. I am a legitimate, achieved and accomplished Number One and I’ve made it on my own and without them and without having followed their proscriptions. I think they are also jealous that I just sold my NY condo for a 125 percent profit while their homes are worthlessly underwater. Funny thing….a number of my friends sent me the Daily Caller piece and the most shocking thing to them in the story was the advocacy of having government shut down Fox News. That the left wants me dead was not a big deal to them because it was nothing new to them. I think that’s hilarious. And about that: how about the LAW professor who thinks the FCC can pull Fox’s license? Fox does not have a license. The FCC does not grant Fox its right to exist. And this guy teaches law. Moments after York’s piece was published, I asked Limbaugh via e-mail if there was anything he wanted to add. This was his response: And it is not just that they hate how I became who I am. They literally hate ME. They hate me because I am the most prominent, effective and unrelenting voice of conservatism and they have not been able to stop me. These people and their tactics are not new, we’ve seen them before in other countries and other times. They want to destroy contrary and opposition voices and views. They will climb over the law and the people to achieve their aims. Earlier in this administration, the president and his hacks targeted me, his party targeted me and their groups targeted me. They are all the same. They are leftists, disguised as lawyers, judges, scholars, professors, teachers, reporters, anchors, senators, representatives, legislative aids, congressional staff, federal bureaucrats, etc. There is NO Media. We know that now. There is just an incestuous relationship among all these various groups and a revolving door connecting them all. Indeed. NewsBusters has been  reporting  for years politicians transferring to news outlets and vice versa, which clearly facilitates the – ahem – incest. This supports Limbaugh’s view that there isn’t an independent mainstream press anymore for they all seem connected to the Democrat Party in one way or another. Scary thought, isn’t it?  

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Rush Limbaugh Responds to JournoLister Wishing His Death

Liberals on JournoList Would Watch Limbaugh Die, Press DNC, Obama to Refuse to Recognize Fox News

Jonathan Strong of the Daily Caller has more shocking e-mails from liberal journalists today. He starts with an NPR producer who admits flaming hatred for Rush Limbaugh: If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would. But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio, that isn’t what you’d do at all. In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment. In boasting that she would gleefully watch a man die in front of her eyes, Spitz seemed to shock even herself. “I never knew I had this much hate in me,” she wrote. “But he deserves it.” So much for the idea that NPR is an oasis of civil discourse in a desert of vituperation. Spitz is a producer for trendy-hot NPR station KCRW and its nationally distributed talk show Left Right & Center (which could be called Three Leftists and Tony Blankley ). But Spitz has also  done stories for NPR’s evening newscast All Things Considered. Strong found that JournoList liberals also discussed how Fox News isn’t a news organization and should be denied access to White House briefings and denied a skybox at the Democratic National Convention. Strong summarized it this way: The very existence of Fox News, meanwhile, sends Journolisters into paroxysms of rage. When Howell Raines charged that the network had a conservative bias, the members of Journolist discussed whether the federal government should shut the channel down. “I am genuinely scared” of Fox, wrote Guardian columnist Daniel Davies, because it “shows you that a genuinely shameless and unethical media organisation *cannot* be controlled by any form of peer pressure or self-regulation, and nor can it be successfully cold-shouldered or ostracised. In order to have even a semblance of control, you need a tough legal framework. ” Davies, a Brit, frequently argued the United States needed stricter libel laws. “I agree,” said Michael Scherer of Time Magazine. Roger “ Ailes understands that his job is to build a tribal identity, not a news organization. You can’t hurt Fox by saying it gets it wrong, if Ailes just uses the criticism to deepen the tribal identity.” Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA, suggested that the federal government simply yank Fox off the air. “ Do you really want the political parties/white house picking which media operations are news operations and which are a less respectable hybrid of news and political advocacy? ” But Zasloff stuck to his position. “ I think that they are doing that anyway; they leak to whom they want to for political purposes ,” he wrote. “If this means that some White House reporters don’t get a press pass for the press secretary’s daily briefing and that this means that they actually have to, you know, do some reporting and analysis instead of repeating press releases, then I’ll take that risk.” Scherer seemed alarmed. “So we would have press briefings in which only media organizations that are deemed by the briefer to be acceptable are invited to attend?” John Judis, a senior editor at the New Republic, came down on Zasloff’s side, the side of censorship. “Pre-Fox,” he wrote, “I’d say Scherer’s questions made sense as a question of principle. Now it is only tactical. ” It’s a little bizarre to see liberal journalists saying Fox offers too much opinion to be recognized at the Obama White House, when the Obama White House puts Ed Schultz in the front row of press conferences and calls on The Huffington Post — as if it were a news outlet that didn’t offer opinions.

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Liberals on JournoList Would Watch Limbaugh Die, Press DNC, Obama to Refuse to Recognize Fox News

Bozell Column: The NAACP Cries Racism

Almost from the moment Barack Obama declared he would run for president in 2007, our enraptured media elite has been accusing anyone who would stand in Obama’s way with racism. The question was never whether Obama was ready to govern the country, but whether the country was ready for the historic awesomeness of Obama. Pity the NAACP. We now have a black president, and they must convince (racist) America that there still exists the need for a national association to advance “colored people” in our society. How to do it? Identify and condemn as “racists” anyone or any group opposed to Barack Obama. Apparently you cannot sincerely oppose a crushing tax burden, a useless “stimulus” bill, ObamaCare, or any other element of his socialist agenda without being tagged as a bigot. In case there was any doubt that the NAACP was carrying water for the White House political machine, Michelle Obama appeared before the NAACP convention and insisted there was still persistent racism in America, and the group’s founders would “urge us to increase our intensity” – to fight for President Obama. The merger is so obvious they could now be called the NAA-DNC. Now the NAACP has found its mojo. It is slandering the Tea Party as “racist.” In an article on CNN.com headlined “The Tea Party Must Police Itself,” NAACP chief Benjamin Jealous smeared the entire movement: “The avowed racist David Duke notes that thousands of Tea Party activists have urged him to run for president. When the Tea Party marches by, Duke thinks it’s his fiesta.” Since when did the NAACP – or anyone else, for that matter– give a hoot what David Duke thinks of anything? On its own website, the NAACP continues to rehash all those unproven allegations that “respected members of the Congressional Black Caucus reported that racial epithets were hurled at them as they passed by aWashington, DC health care protest.” But let’s stop calling them “unproven allegations.” Let’s call them what they are: lies. There is no video evidence that this ever occurred, but the NAACP doesn’t care about the evidence in its kangaroo court. They even repeated that “Representative Emanuel Cleaver was spat upon during the incident.” In the real world, Cleaver quickly walked away from his own story when video footage proved it wasn’t true. The NAACP’s video recounting the “racism” of the Tea Party had plenty of objectionable signs suggesting Obama was a fascist and “It’s 1939 Germany all over again.” Someone needs to research the meaning of the word “racism.” It gets better. The NAACP-endorsed video of purportedly racist signs even includes two shots of Confederate flags and “hateful” messages like “We Need a Christian President” and the sitcom catch phrase “What You Talking About, Willis?” A poster imposing Obama’s face with a Mr. T Mohawk hairdo next to the words “Gimme Yo Change” may be odd, but it’s not racist. It sure sounds like there weren’t many racist signs at Tea Party rallies if that’s all they could muster. But “Bush Lied, Thousands Died” – that’s okay. The bigger problem for the NAACP is that it has its very own racists. Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website revealed video of a NAACP banquet where U.S. Department of Agriculture appointee Shirley Sherrod talked about how she didn’t want to help a white farmer because he should be helped by “his own kind.” The contempt in her voice, in her face, and in the audience’s laughter is unmistakable. So where are all those news outlets which dutifully covered the NAACP’s attacks on the Tea Party now? The network evening news and morning news shows avoided this racist video entirely on the first day. Nevertheless, the cable news networks picked it up, and within hours, Shirley Sherrod had resigned from the Agriculture Department. Sherrod was clearly furious that her racist remarks were exposed. CNN analyst Roland Martin asserted that Sherrod had to go, because with a political appointment, remarks like this ruin the perception that Sherrod would be fair in distributing government help. Sherrod screamed right back at him that he was “clearly from a different world” than the deeply racist world she lived in. The bottom line is not only that Sherrod needed to go – but that the TV elite must stop ignoring this, and stop pretending that black racism and discriminatory attitudes do not exist. If Obama’s election was supposed to heal our race relations, then the media should put this controversy back on his desk and press him to address it.

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Bozell Column: The NAACP Cries Racism

Dylan Ratigan Shouts Down Conservative Guest for Objecting to Liberal Dogma

On his July 20 afternoon program, Dylan Ratigan shouted down the Washington Examiner’s J.P. Freire for challenging the MSNBC host’s liberal orthodoxy and accusing him of giving more air time to the liberal panelist appearing opposite him. Eschewing any sense of balanced reporting, Ratigan thundered: “I said I’m in charge of the show. I decide who I’ll talk to. I might spend the entire time talking to Jonathan Capehart and not talk to you at all. And then you can choose never to come on my show again.” “I’m sorry, Jonathan was taking up a lot of my time earlier in the segment,” explained Freire. “Look at the amount of time he’s been talking and the amount of time I was talking.” Discussing institutionalized racism in America, Freire attempted to argue that a “government monopoly on education” hinders the ability of ethnic minorities to succeed, but the liberal agitator was only interested in Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart’s liberal spin on the issue and instructed Freire to “please be quiet” before berating him. “Who’s hosts the show, J.P.?” asked Ratigan. “Just because you’re on my show doesn’t mean you get as much time as you decide you want. Do you understand that?” Freire fired back: “What I’ll do is I’ll interrupt if I have something to say.”              “Right and I’ll tell you to be quiet if someone else is speaking,” sputtered Ratigan, who seemed all to eager to assert his authority with a conservative guest while defending the right of the liberal guest to speak freely. A transcript of the relevant portion of the segment can be found below: MSNBC Dylan Ratigan July 20, 2010 4:19 P.M. E.S.T. DYLAN RATIGAN: I’m not saying there’s some grand racist in the sky who is doing that. J.P. FREIRE, Washington Examiner associate editor: But it’s somehow systematic? RATIGAN: It’s systematic in that the way our education resources are distributed, the way our law enforcement practice is distributed, the way our populations are distributed, these things yield themselves out. That is not good for America, period. So how do you deal with that? FREIRE: Well look, I think that maybe the expectation is that a conservative is going to go on the air and say everything is hunky-dory. RATIGAN: Hold on, J.P. I like you, I like you, I like you, I’m not jumping to any conclusions about you, I’m taking your words at face value. I expect you’ll do the same with me. I want you to pretend you’re not on MSNBC; I want you to pretend you’re talking to your friends Dylan and Jonathan. Okay, can you do that? FREIRE: Yeah sure, absolutely. Yo Dylan and John, I was thinking today that the idea that there are so many systems in place that do make it so difficult for people that are underprivileged to succeed in this country is because we constantly put in place more and more systems and that more people are saying “hey, if we fiddle with these systems, maybe it will give us the right output.” The best way to allow people to rise up is by getting out of the way. It’s not that we’ve made it easier for white people to get along – RATIGAN: So how are we getting out of the way if we have 19,000 different school districts, some of which are incredibly well capitalized and can yield the finest education in the history of the world, and the vast majority of which have no money – FREIRE: Easy, a government monopoly on education. RATIGAN: Hold on a second. Say that again. FREIRE: A government monopoly on education is precisely how we make it more difficult for blacks and Latinos and many other ethnic groups and the poor to be able to rise up. I mean, that is how we get in the way. If we really want to – RATIGAN: So you’re saying the fact that rich people can take all of their kids out of the schools in the cities – FREIRE: Oh, heavens… RATIGAN: and leave ghetto schools uptown here in New York. No, not “oh heavens” J.P., I’ve lived in New York for almost twenty years, I have many friends who have children here, I have many friends who have grown up here and I can tell you the rich ones went to private schools and the poor ones didn’t and the more, anyway. You get the last word here, Jonathan. How do you view the systematic aspect of this? JONATHAN CAPEHART, Washington Post: Look, the systematic aspects, you laid them out, your graphics show the wide disparities there. My big concern is we spend a lot of time hurling accusations of racism and things like that and we allow that to get in way of having a really meaningful, deep conversation – FREIRE: A very difficult conversation. RATIGAN: J.P. please be quiet. FREIRE: I’m sorry, Jonathan was taking up a lot of my time earlier in the segment. RATIGAN: J.P., you know what? I want you to be part of this, I really really do. FREIRE: No, Jonathan has blockaded my entire part. RATIGAN: J.P., you’re not behaving in a way that’s constructive and I don’t know why that is but I do appreciate. FREIRE: Look at the amount of time he’s been talking and the amount of time I was talking. RATIGAN: Who’s hosts the show, J.P.? FREIRE: I’m just saying. RATIGAN: Who’s hosts the show, J.P.? FREIRE: If you’re saying it’s equal time, it should be equal time. RATIGAN: Did I say that? I said I’m in charge of the show. I decide who I’ll talk to. I might spend the entire time talking to Jonathan Capehart and not talk to you at all. And then you can choose never to come on my show again. FREIRE: I would never do that, I love being on your show. RATIGAN: Just because you’re on my show doesn’t mean you get as much time as you decide you want. Do you understand that? FREIRE: What I’ll do is I’ll interrupt if I have something to say. RATIGAN: Right and I’ll tell you to be quiet if someone else is speaking. FREIRE: Okay. RATIGAN: Coming up, I was concerned that might happen. –Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.

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Dylan Ratigan Shouts Down Conservative Guest for Objecting to Liberal Dogma

Book of Poetry, Cartoons Helps Explain Conservative Values

Craig Wieland never set out to write a book of poetry. “I’m a contractor,” he said with a chuckle. But what began as family dinner-table conversations to help his daughters understand social issues in America have culminated in a book of poems and cartoons about conservative ideas. Wieland, the owner of a nationwide construction contracting company, proved you don’t need a writer’s background or even a college degree to communicate your beliefs. Wieland said he catered to his daughters’ love for Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein by putting stories poetic form. “If you put it in a rhyme and use poetry, all of a sudden it becomes unique,” Wieland said in a telephone interview with the Culture and Media Institute about his new book, “Pointed Poems: Tools for Teaching Conservative Thinking.” In the book, Wieland combines poetry and cartoon-like illustrations to convey the differences between conservative and liberal viewpoints on both economic and social issues in America . The book’s 280 pages touch on everything from industry to patriotism to taxes and incorporate over 400 graphic illustrations by Dennis Preston to “give the poetry a little more punch.” “Pointed Poems,” which Wieland described as “unique,” and “fairly provocative,” discusses social issues, such as compassion, the role that personal responsibility plays in government and the problem of social programs that “help” parents raise their children. Wieland said his main message is only hinted at subtly in the book. Wieland hopes his poems show readers “the hypocritical stance that people have of criticizing the very things that they’re using.” For instance, in the poem, “Just Give Us the Outlet… and Nothing More,” protesters of electric generation prevent the construction of a new power plant but soon show their dissatisfaction in the following lines:             “So that’s what happened to our little city.              The planned power plant was not built… what a pity.              But people got mad when their outlets grew quiet.              And when it got hot, they started to riot.” By exposing this hypocrisy, Wieland further hopes to knock liberals off their assumed “moral high ground” on issues like green energy and limited government—topics which liberals use to push their agenda as the “correct” viewpoint. To help conservatives understand the differences between the conservative and liberal viewpoints on a variety of issues, each chapter begins with a brief explanation of the poem and issue, followed by the poem itself and illustrations. Wieland also highlights the “Teaching Tool” for each chapter, a single summary statement of the issue. Following the “Teaching Tool,” each poem starts with a cartoon of a father and son carrying a conversation about politics and American values. The father responds to the son’s questions by giving simple answers that reflect conservative thinking. This father-son exchange further strengthens its use as a tool for teaching conservative values to middle-of-the-road adults as well as the next generation of Americans—children and grandchildren.

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Book of Poetry, Cartoons Helps Explain Conservative Values