Friday, August 28, 2009

Is this the Beginning of the End for Conservative Media

I must admit I am really growing weary of seeing the opinions of twentysomething journalists being presented on Fox News as if those opinions are authoritative. The reason they are there
has nothing to do with their command of the facts.

It is an unfortunate fact that most media, liberal and conservative, are trying to cut costs - especially newspapers. The content of much of what you hear and read today is produced either by high priced folks like Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly or by those who make their living by means other than writing i.e. scholars, former politicians etc. Some are authorities and write cogent and poignant pieces - all write for free.

Most of the rest is produced by callow sciolists who work for little money. You see many of them on Fox News and Townhall.com.

Very little news, presently, is reported by experienced, competent, talented writers and journalists. People who may not be experts about the topic, yet, have life experiences that can relate to it. These people have been replaced by the 20-somethings.

For example, Amanda Carpenter, who writes for the Washington Times and contributes to Fox News, I am sure is a good journalist. The problem is she is only about 25 years old.

Why would I want to hear or read her opinion about anything let alone complicated issues such as health reform? I seriously doubt she knows what its like to have to pay medical bills. I doubt if she knows how to navigate through the miasma of insurance terms such as co-pays, deductibles. comprehensive, preventative, pre-existing, routine, well baby, major medical, preferred provider etc.

So why place her on a panel like she does?

Isn't this what led to the demise of the liberal mainstream media? Several decades ago, the major newspapers hired inexperienced college kids to report about things to which they couldn't possibly relate?

About 30 years ago I read a column about the newspaper business written by an old pro. He was lamenting that when he started working for a newspaper, 30 years earlier, most of the reporters knew something about life. Many of them had served in the military during World War II and were married with responsibilites.

But as he reached the end of his career, the newspapers, he complained, were hiring college kids with no real world experience to report about things such as crime, racism, politics, war etc. They didn't know what they were writing about. They just wrote from the perspective they acquired from their professors who were liberal.

This led to the liberal mainstream media we know today.

Unfortunately, this now seems to be the trend in the conservative media.

The days of a guy like Limbaugh are over. Although not an expert in anything, he at least possesses some experience along with a quick wit and is very intelligent.

Besides he paid his dues.

Now we are getting recent college graduates who are given book contracts to write about major and complex political issues at the age of 22. These people are authoritative? We're supposed to buy this?

These people have not only not paid their dues - they haven't even joined the club yet.

Maybe there is a method to this madness. If you can figure it out let me know.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

What We Need is a New Zorro

Out of the night, when the full moon is bright
Comes the horseman known as Zorro
This bold renegade, carves a Z with his blade
The horesman known as Zorro*

I watched the Antonio Banderas' film "Mark of Zorro" recently. Being the Zorro aficionado that I am, after the show I got out my video of the Tyrone Power classic “The Mark of Zorro” and watched it as well.


While watching the movie, I felt as if there were something familiar about this story. Something other than the the dialogue, which I know almost verbatim.



One scene particularly evoked parallels to the present state of America. It is the segment in which young de la Vega, recently returned to California after attending school in Spain, learns that his father, a wealthy landowner and nobleman, had been deposed as the Alcalde of Los Angeles.


For those unfamiliar with the movie, after deposing the elder de la Vega, the new Alcalde raised the taxes of the peons in order to make them " more industrious." There was something familiar about this concept of raising taxes to create wealth and help the economy.



However, the Alcalde was actually enriching himself instead of the taxpayers. This was illustrated in a subsequent scene in which the Alcalde is admiring a bantam owned by a peon. The Alcalde asks the price of the bird. When the peon tells him it is not for sale, the Alcalde threatens to review his tax obligations. The terrified peon then makes " a gift " of the rooster to the Alcalde.

There was an analogy here, although I still was not quite sure what it was.



Young de la Vega is outraged by these injustices. He resolves to restore his father as Alcalde and help the peons. He takes the secret identity of Zorro and proceeds to rob the tax money collected from the peons by the governmentand return it to them.


This too was a familiar concept. I have heard people say they wanted to return taxes to the people.



It finally came to me when Zorro, fleeing the Alcalde's soldiers, is hiding in the mission. He is disguised as a monk.



There the innocent, beautiful young niece of the evil Alcalde is praying to escape the depressing environs of the Pueblo De Los Angeles. She was sent there to live with her uncle, sort of like an intern. However, there were no young men her age with whom to associate.



Thinking Zorro is a priest; she confides in him that she has been thinking of entering a convent. Zorro tells her that a beautiful young woman should be married and have children.


That is when I realized what was familiar about this plot.



Zorro is a Republican - and a conservative one. Had he been a liberal Democrat, Zorro would have seduced the young woman and, if she became pregnant, counseled her to get an abortion.


It all made sense now.



The evil Alcalde subjugates the caballeros - upper middle class. He oppressively taxes all of the people - ostensibly for their own good, but in reality to empower himself. Then comes Zorro, who wants the taxes returned to the people - just like Republicans.


My theory was reinforced in subsequent scenes. When the parish priest is arrested for refusing to pay the mission taxes it reminded me of the liberal mantra of separation of church and state.

When Zorro finally leads the caballeros in a revolt against the Alcalde, I recalled the 1994 elections when the Democrats lost control of Congress for the first time in a generation.


Now, I am sure that my opinion will come as a shock to the Hollywood producers of the most recent Zorro movie. However, the evidence is irrefutable.



Zorro championed the cause of the people, rich and poor, against liberals bent on profiting from excessive taxation. Zorro lead the revolt against an expansive government.


Unfortunately, unlike Zorro, the Republican revolution in Washington waned. Maybe they should see the old Zorro movie. Maybe they can draw some inspiration from it. Maybe they can use some of Zorro’s ideas.


I can just see Sarah Palin, with mask and cape, riding a white horse up the steps of the White House - carving an “S” on the door of Alcalde Obama’s office.


* Disney’s Zorro TV theme

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Woodstock: 3 Days of Fraud, Deceit and Hypocrisy

Woodstock – The Ultimate Lett Wing Hypocrisy
by Michael P. Tremoglie

Who could forget the sitar-like harmonies of Crosby, Stills and Nash, the "better living through chemistry" pulsations of Sly and the Family Stone, the chanting of Country Joe and the Fish, and the wonderfully wacky, Wavy Gravy? Woodstock--a place where half a million people gathered for peace, love, and music. The event represented a generation of youth.

Well not quite.

The boys (and girls) of Woodstock were not such an inclusive group. One of the myths about Woodstock is that it was some altruistic event.
Woodstock was all about money. John Roberts, the Ivy League heir to the Polident fortune, financed it. He and his partners were in it for profit. They never stated otherwise. Max Yasgur, whose farm was the site of the event and whose name was immortalized in song, was anything but a simple dairy farmer. He was an NYU graduate and one of the wealthiest farmers in the area. He also walked away with $75,000 or about $300,000 in current dollars. Not bad for the three-day rental of 600 idle acres.

The Who was paid the then-unheard-of sum of $12,000. Three groups refused to go on until they got cash first. The promoters had to get an advance from a local banker on a Saturday night in order to prevent a riot.

Woodstock was not for the poor.

A ticket was approximately 18 bucks. In an era when the minimum wage was a $1.60, a ticket was two days pay. That does not count lost wages for taking off from work, travel expenses, and of course, the drugs. Total it all up and it was at least a week's pay.

"I remember building a fire one morning for breakfast. All we had was hot dogs and spaghetti," a
Woodstock alumnus waxed nostalgically in a magazine article.

A few hundred miles away from the concert lived people who would have loved to have had hot dogs and spaghetti for breakfast. They would have loved to have had breakfast.

Over $2 million was spent staging Woodstock ($10 million in current dollars.) $10 million buys many a breakfast in Appalachia.

If there is any significance about Woodstock it is the symbolic irony of it. The Woodstock audience was composed of enlightened and compassionate liberals--at least that is what they thought of themselves. These were people who wanted to feed the poor and help the helpless.

These people are now part of the governmental social-welfare complex and are now college professors who preach social justice to their students.

Yet, the Woodstock audience could not feed themselves let alone the poor. The Woodstock crowd needed to rely on the very people they spurned--the establishment--to feed them. Specifically, they needed those warmongering, baby-killing, murdering monsters of the military establishment who dropped food from helicopters to feed them.

They depended on the National Guard for food!

The same National Guard that was derided by liberal Democrats during the 2004 election as being 'Chickenhawks.' It is absolutely hilarious that some critics of President George W. Bush's National Guard service were probably those who were saved from starvation by his fellow servicemen in the Guards.

Not only was the audience of Woodstock incapable of feeding themselves the leaders of this event were just as incompetent.

The very same people who are now liberal Democrats, Naderites, and Communists, the very same people who want to plan every aspect of the economy and society could not even plan a rock concert.

The myth is that Woodstock became a free concert by the beneficent act of the producers of the concert.

Although it was good PR, it was not true. No, the promoters had to make it a free concert. The Woodstock generation wants what they want--and they want it free – just like their health insurance. They wanted to go to the concert so they crashed the gate.

Good intentions did not make Woodstock a free concert, poor business planning did.
Woodstock exposed the hypocrisy of the left. A half million people either spent money that could have been donated to charity or took food. They usurped resources from the government that could have gone to the poor.


Why? So they could have a good time.

Moreover, the performers weren't a collection of Mother Theresa’s either. They earned substantial sums for their appearances. The only money donated was to Abbie Hoffman's fanatics and only because he extorted it by stating he would disrupt the concert.

They did all of this while inveighing against the capitalist system.

The boys (and girls) from the Wood' proclaim themselves "veterans." In their characteristic hubris, they want to erect a monument to Woodstock. What is there to venerate? Woodstock was nothing more than kids with no responsibilities acting irresponsibly.

In Washington, D.C., there is a wall there with some 50,000 names on it. The Vietnam Memorial lists the names of real veterans--of kids who did their duty. They were the real altruists. Their concerts were in places like Bien Hoa and Ia Drang. They were the ones who should define the generation.

Country Joe's lyrical lamentation asked why we were in Vietnam. His answer was found during the '70s--in the re-education programs of Communist Vietnam; in the "boat people" who fled Vietnam on anything that could float; in the killing fields of Cambodia.

The kids whose names are on the wall tried to prevent that from occurring.

Remember this during the next national election: The Woodstock veterans are the "veterans" advocating socialism – the same kind that failed there.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Protesters “Allies” Turn Against Them

Call Them “Rabble”

By Michael P. Tremoglie
Tea Time Blog

There are those who have taken command of the situation by actively protesting the health system reform proposals of President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. They appear at townhall meetings with their legislators and vocally denounce what is being proffered.

Some in the liberal mainstream media have called these concerned citizens many unsavory names. Democrats have called them un-American and Nazis.

This is to be expected. What is not so anticipated is the willingness by their alleged allies to condemn them. They do so faster than they condemn Obama and the Democrats.

Somehow they are embarrassed by the verbal denunciations of those with whom they concur. They urge them to be calm and to act with what they claim is integrity and decorum.

In other words, don’t say anything until you’re asked (which they won’t be since most of these meetings are orchestrated by the legislator – especially the Democrats).

It seems to me that the only reason these meetings are receiving the notoriety they are, is because of those who comment with intensity – instead of "integrity." It is certainly the only reason the politicians take notice.

Those who speak out with passion have energized others who were heretofore reluctant to say anything. They also validate the beliefs of those who have not spoken out. They now know that others think as they do.

Urging "integrity and decorum" seems a rationalization for being timorous.

Advising the protesters to speak meekly is the same advice many of the Republican Party’s paid political consultants gave Sarah Palin. These "strategists" were on television ad nauseum. Their opinion was that Sarah Palin should keep quiet instead continuing her feud with David Letterman. Palin. They said she was only making herself look bad.

Well, Palin didn't stop talking and Letterman did the mea culpa. The Republican's paid political consultants looked ridiculous.

Many of those who meekly and quietly oppose the reform effort call their more vocal brethren rabble.

As far as being rabble is concerned - well let's just say that this is a term one uses to disparage those with whom they disagree and who speak with enthusiasm. Any vocal crowd can be dismissed as rabble. However, it will only be true if:


  • There is no truth to what they are saying.
  • They're bigoted and ignorant.
  • They become destructive without provocation.

This certainly doesn't describe the protesters. They are well informed, telling the truth and not provoking anyone.

It is risible for those who oppose Obama to also oppose the protesters by saying they lack integrity. Intensity and "integrity" are not mutually exclusive.

Michael P. Tremoglie can be contacted at elfegobaca@comcast.net

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Democrats Carnival of Corruption and Conspiracy Theories

Reporting all the facts the mainstream media does not has been the province of certain bloggers, talk radio, a cable news channel and the “off-Broadway” (so to speak) media. These include conspiracy theories and political corruption that touch the Democratic Party.

Such stories definitely will not be found on MSNBC. They will rarely be on CNN. Only occasionally will they be on NBC, CBS and ABC.

As far as the New York Times is concerned, well, recall that on March 30, while working for The Bulletin, I broke the news that they spiked information in their possession about collusion between the Obama campaign and ACORN.

Lately, Democrats and their media allies are using the “Obama Birth Certificate” conspiracy theory craze to try to discredit Republicans and conservatives. What goes unmentioned in the reportage are the leftwing’s own bizarre conspiracy theories. Indeed, even the “Birther” conspiracy is one of them - since, according to Ann Coulter, a Clinton campaign operative originated it.

Also minimally reported by the liberal mainstream media is the rampant corruption that exists within the Democratic Party. It is difficult to find a Democrat in power who has not violated an election campaign law, paid his or her taxes or taken a bribe.

Yesterday, Reuters reported on one of the Democrats more entertaining corruption cases. This involved former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson. He was caught with $90,000 in cash in the refrigerator of his DC apartment.

He was convicted on Wednesday on multiple charges of bribery and money laundering. “Dollar” Bill was accused in 2007 of soliciting millions of dollars in bribes from companies while using his office to broker business deals in Africa. He was convicted of 11 of 16 counts of bribery, racketeering and money laundering.

Other Democratic Party corruption, which was minimized by the mainstream media and defended by Joy Behar, include:

Charles Rangel - the NY congressman and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee which establishes tax law. He wants to increase everyone else income taxes yet cannot seem to pay his own. He owed several years taxes on a vacation rental he owns – not in Harlem by the way.

Timothy Geithner – the Treasury Secretary, the boss of the IRS, also didn’t pay his taxes until he was nominated and was caught.

Tom Daschle – another Obama cabinet nominee and former Democratic Party Senate Leader also did not pay his taxes.

As I reported last May, while working for the Bulletin, the Obama Justice Department dropped a case they already won against the New Black Panther Party of Philadelphia. This group, which I reminded a McCain campaign worker on Election Day was listed as a hate group by the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, stationed two people outside a polling place in North Philadelphia who intimidated voters according to affidavits filed with the Justice Department.

In 2003, Democratic presidential candidate and future Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said that President Bush may have been warned in advance about the 9/11 attacks. He promised he would investigate.Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said during the 2004 election campaign that President Bush already captured Osama bin Laden and planned to tell the public just before the election for political advantage.Sen. Barbara Boxer officially objected to the certification of Ohio's votes in the 2004 election -- on the Senate floor -- and demanded an investigation into the "Diebold stole Kerry votes" conspiracy theory.Rosie O'Donnell, an entertainment industry Democrat, said while hosting the Barbara Walters TV show “The View” that there is a conspiracy involving 9/11. She believes the World Trade Center was blown up with explosives, not taken down by terrorists in airplanes.

This list is by no means complete. However, there is certainly a lot of material here for investigative reporting and cutting edge commentary about political corruption and conspiracy theories.

Where’s Chris Matthews when you need him?

Mike can be contacted at elfegobaca@comcast.net