The Right Wing Media (Discussion)

On June 4, 2015 I posted my commentary entitled "The Right Wing Media."

Almost imediately I received three commnets on the post. My reponse to the one from Albert Nekinken ended up being rather long and so I will save that for my next post.

The other two, however, are set forth below:

From Mike Cerrato, Esq. of Westville, New Jersey, came this generous compliment:

As usual, very educational. I fear, however, that many of the people who SHOULD be comparing and contrasting the "reported facts" to the actual article will be few and far between. Thanks for the ammunition, though, I will certainly use it appropriately.

To which I was forced to reply:

As you will see from one of my future posts, I made a mistake, and while one should always " be comparing and contrasting the "reported facts" to the actual article will be few and far between” I ended up quoting the wrong article from  Cynthia Tucker. Mea culpa.

Robert Malchman of Brooklyn, NY wrote:

This is why I *don't* read "conservative" (i.e., reactionary) news sites or watch their television.  I know I should, if for no better reason than "know your enemy."  The combination of hypocrisy and imbecility enrages me, which adds nothing to my day.  I'd much rather watch MSNBC and John Stewart skewer these evil trolls, even if it doesn't have much affect.  Luckily the Foxpublican Party is going to die out, as ignorant white men become a smaller and smaller percentage of the electorate.  The Koch Brothers can spend a billion dollars per election cycle and try to suppress minority voting, but their base (and I do mean BASE) electorate is slowly but surely going six feet under.

To which my response was:

Thanks for your comment.

I can understand your reluctance to read Right Wing commentary. It can be infuriating. But as you say one should read it, "if for no better reason than "know your enemy.”

 But actually, I think there is an even better reason. How can one be sure ones views are sound unless they are constantly tested against different views. If one choses to live in an echo chamber, and unfortunately, recent surveys have shown that this is exactly what most people are doing, how can one ever be sure that ones views are sound. I feel I have to expose myself to a variety of views to get stimulation for my own, though I have to admit that this is easier for one who is retired, then for one who has to earn ones daily bread.

My post “Facts, Facts, Facts! They are pesky things," is an example of the extent to which the Right Wing media will go, telling outright lies about the Clintons. Yet we have to recognize that the smears of the Clinton’s are definitely having an effect, as the polls on Hillary’s popularity have shown. In November of 2012 her favorability rating was 58.6% favorable v. 33.1% unfavorable. As of June 1 it was  favorable 46% v. 48.4% unfavorable, and in a discussion with a very liberal friend (supporter of Bernie Sanders) today, she expressed concern about Clinton's ethics on the basis of foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation.

 In the hubbub over foreign contributions to the foundation, what is overlooked is that it is a charitable foundation, from which the Clintons do not profit. One might even argue that turning down donations, which benefit people in need throughout the world, is something no one has the right to do, since the money refused is money that is not available for the recipients of the foundations work. But the media has always enjoyed lots of good copy by playing up accusations that eventually, more often than not, have turned out to have no basis in fact. Whitewater never proved to be Clinton corruption despite the best efforts of Keneth Starr, and in the end all they could get on Bill or Hillary was that he lied about an extra-marital affair, as just about anyone would lie about something like that, and as e.g. Martin Luther King (of sainted memory) did.

 But the so-called liberal media is a myth concocted by the media echo chamber, and the New York Times, despite its liberal editorial page, has spread more than its share of Right Wing lies. 

And then added:

After I sent the below set forth message I started thinking about the things that do bother me. For instance I think it was wrong to indict former speaker Hastert for paying blackmail. But I am much more bothered by the amount of money he reportedly made as a lobbyist after leaving Congress. Influence peddling is a big deal in Washington and the Clintons never indulged in this form of payola.

 On the other hand they have made huge amounts in speaking fees, which I find abhorrent. But this is so ingrained in our culture that it is difficult to fault them. See ABC News for an article about how much Sarah Palin has been making. But that article has an even more important item. I quote from the article. "President Reagan once got $2 million from a Japanese manufacturing company for two 20-minute speeches… And George W. Bush told reporters he expected to make a "ridiculous" amount of money on the speaker's circuit when he left office.”

 Our system also effectively makes it impossible for anyone to run for public office unless they have one or more rich angels, and that includes Sanders. 

 We cannot hold people to a standard that is completely out of line from that which is ingrained. More important is whether they want to change the system.

 In the end we will always have to choose between realistic, and I emphasize realistic, choices, unless we want to simply opt out of the process and leave it to the very worst elements.

 Sorry! I do get carried away.

Which only prompted a further repsonse from Malchman as follows:

Well, a couple of things. One, if Hillary is elected and one or more of the SCOTUS Republicans leave the bench, Citizens United will get overturned.  My fantasy is that the Court say corporations are not people for purposes of constitutional protection.  Corporations are creature of state (and sometimes federal) law, and could be banned outright (caveat: I haven't thought about the implication of the Contracts Clause here), and therefore could be regulated to restrict speech.  The Constitution protects people, not legal fictions or business constructs.  But I'm not holding my breath waiting for that ruling.

 As for Hastert, he was not indicted for paying blackmail, he was indicted for structuring cash bank withdrawals to avoid federal reporting requirements and then lying to the FBI about it.  Those are real crimes.  At a moral level, I have no doubt he's serial a child molester, and anything bad that happens to him is karmicly (if that's a word) deserved.

Ending that exhange with my concluding reply quoted below:

I am afraid that this is indeed a fantasy. The more likely scenario, even if Clinton is elected, which is not a given, is that Ginsburg will retire and her replacement will face a filibuster leaving eight on the court and we get 5-3 Right Wing decisions. Eventually one of the Right wing judges retires and we get a deal of one on the right and one on the left, continuing the 5-4 split of today. Maybe in a Clinton second term we get control of the court, but that is a long way off.

 Sorry, I wish I could buy into your fantasy.

And then concluded with:

As for Hastert, I know they got him on a law that might stick, but that is just the handle. I don’t believe in prosecuting people on a legal fiction, on the theory that you, or they think, but can’t prove, that he's a serial child molester.

 The sale of influence is of much greater concern to me.

Next time I will share with my readers my exhange with Nekimken, where I confessed a serious error in having set forth in my original post the wrong article from Cynthia Tucker. But that will have to wait for my next post.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

The Right Wing Media

Most people read only the articles and the media that they expect will reflect their own political predilections. I think that is a mistake that I try to avoid making. We can learn as much, if not more, from reading the media that does not reflect our philosophical bent.

I regularly read such Right Wing publications as the National Review and Newsmax which frequently link me to articles in the Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post.

Thus in the article that I posted on my blog on April 30, entitled: “Facts, Facts, Facts! They are pesky things,” I set forth an article that first appeared in the NY Post, and then was reprised by the National Review, which contained, not just distortions, but out and out lies about the Clintons and their foundations. I urge the reader to reread that post.

I refer back to that because I have now come across another article that appeared in Newsmax that distorts and is racist to boot. The article under the heading: “Blacks Attack Carson for Being Conservative” and is reproduced below:

Blacks Attack Carson for Being Conservative

By Clarence V. McKee

 Pulitzer Prize-winning black columnist Cynthia Tucker is one of the first black liberals to attempt to politically lynch Dr. Ben Carson because his political views are out of tune with the black liberal Democratic chorus.

 In a recent column, forced to admit the truth about Carson’s “brilliant” career as a pediatric neurosurgeon and his “awe-inspiring tale of a poor black boy in Detroit who overcame daunting obstacles,” she proceeded to mercilessly plunge the dagger of political correctness into his back. 

 “But the good doctor's foray into Republican presidential politics threatens to become his epitaph, to overshadow — perhaps even to overwhelm — his academic and surgical accomplishments. He will likely be remembered as the GOP's latest black mascot, a court jester, a minstrel show.”

Black “mascot,” “court jester,” “minstrel show”? What a disgusting, despicable, hateful choice of words as she figuratively hoisted Carson up the tree of political correctness with a rope of intolerance. His crime — daring to stray from the Democratic liberal plantation, think for himself and not mimic the liberal Democratic script as blacks are supposed to do. 

 Tucker is like other “overseers” — black and white — of that plantation. They drive the nails and tighten the rope to crucify and lynch any black conservative who dares challenge the orthodoxy of liberal establishment policies. They judge blacks like Carson not by the content of their character, accomplishments, and deeds but rather by their racist perspective of how they think blacks should think.

 As Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., has said, “one of the most threatening places to be in politics is a black conservative.” 

 Overseers like Tucker don't dare denigrate Jewish or Hispanic conservative politicians with such language — that's reserved for blacks like Carson — so he had better get ready for more.

 Talk-show host and author Tavis Smiley told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that Carson was "a black bull in a Republican china shop," and that “if he's not careful, he is going to do himself irreparable damage."

 He went on to say that if he were close to Carson he would “call for intervention to stop him, what he is doing to himself and his reputation."

 How patronizing.

 Unlike other ethnic groups, blacks like Tucker enjoy the “political blood sport” of tearing down other blacks just because they have different political philosophies and solutions to our country’s social and urban problems. 

Other groups — at least in public — respect their own. For example, Hispanic journalists and Democrats, to the best of my knowledge, haven’t demeaned Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., or Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, just because they seek the GOP nomination and have a conservative message. 

 They understand the wisdom of not putting all of their Hispanic political eggs into one Democratic Party basket.

 Unfortunately, most of the black liberal democratic establishment appear to have kinder words and empathy for blacks who burned down black and minority-owned businesses in Ferguson and Baltimore than they do for blacks who dare express different political viewpoints and solutions to the very problems creating frustration in places like Baltimore and other cities.

 How dare Tucker stoop so low and defame this great man of accomplishment and vision who has given so much back to society including his Carson Scholarship Fund, which has awarded nearly 7,000 scholarships to youth for academic excellence? She should be ashamed.

 If she cares so much about blacks, especially youth, she has a heck of a way of showing it by using her pen to politically deride such a great role model. They will notice how he is being treated by Tucker and most likely her cohorts in the black media and liberal democratic establishments and they'll think, “If they do that to him after all he has done, why should I not finish school and take the easy way out — sell drugs, make quick money, and produce babies?"

 Tucker’s message to them is: “No matter how much you accomplish, just don’t think for yourself and stray from the Democratic plantation or we will get you.” 

 Don’t hold your breath waiting for the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, or the National Urban League, or most black and white liberal journalists and pundits to condemn such racist and vicious attacks. So the question is, Who will?

 After all, it’s easier to attack Carson that admit to the fact that in Baltimore city schools 84 percent of eighth graders score below grade level in reading and 87 percent below grade level in math. That’s not Carson’s fault!

 © 2015 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

But even among those who might read such attacks, how many will actually read the article that is the subject of the venom, which was written by Cynthia Tucker who used to be the “editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper for 17 years, and more recently, …was that newspaper’s Washington-based political columnist. She maintains a syndicated column, which is published in dozens of newspapers around the country.” See here.

So here it is. It appears under the heading "Ben Carson,admirable man with a mistaken philosophy":

Ben Carson, admirable man with a mistaken philosophyBy Cynthia Tucker, Special to CNN

 Updated 8:44 AM ET, Tue March 26, 2013

 Like giddy teenagers, Republican activists have fallen for another charming, personable and accomplished black conservative. Dr. Ben Carson is the newest object of their crush, which was born of a desperate need to attract more black men and women as high-profile standard-bearers.

 You can't blame Republican loyalists for swooning over the doc, a renowned surgeon who rose from poverty to head pediatric neurosurgery at Baltimore's famed Johns Hopkins Hospital. If wooing voters of color were simply a matter of finding an attractive black face with an inspiring personal story and an impressive resume, Carson would be hard to beat.

 But black voters tend to be more discerning than that. They have shown an unerring instinct for rejecting condescension and dismissing tokenism. There are many black Americans who admire Carson for his professional accomplishments (I'm one of them), but that admiration is unlikely to translate into votes.

 One of the reasons is that Carson doesn't seem to know black Americans' political values very well. In his most recent book -- a political tract called "America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great" -- he writes: "Many African-Americans voted for Obama simply because he was a black man and not because they resonated philosophically with his policies." In fact, black voters have been increasingly allied with the Democratic Party since the 1960s when Lyndon Johnson pushed through significant civil rights legislation. Al Gore received about 95% of the black vote in 2000, John Kerry about 93% in 2004.

 Moreover, Carson seems to have adopted the view, popular among so many ultra-conservatives, that the Democratic Party appeals to voters who shun the work ethic.

Talking to The New York Times recently about his conservative views, Carson described himself as a "flaming liberal" in college who later became disaffected with the Democratic Party. "One thing I always believed strongly in was personal responsibility and hard work," he said. "I found the Democrat Party leaving me behind on that particular issue."

 That notion -- fallacious though it is -- is at least as popular among black conservatives as among white ones. I've been hearing it from black Republicans for at least two decades. Several years ago, I interviewed a black conservative running a doomed campaign for a suburban Atlanta congressional district. She had no prior political experience, no policies to advance, no program to sell. Her platform consisted of her belief in hard work, which she contrasted, at least implicitly, with black Democrats' supposed preference for sloth.

 That view is as puzzling as it is infuriating. It may charm those white conservatives who hold stereotypical views of black Americans, but it bears little resemblance to the realities that inform their choices at the ballot box.

 In his memoir, "Gifted Hands," and in his motivational speeches, Carson talks about his impoverished childhood and his remarkable semiliterate mother. Married at 13 only to later divorce her philandering husband, she enforced high academic standards for Carson and his brother while working two or three jobs as a maid or nanny -- and battling debilitating depression.

 Carson eventually got into Yale and became, at 33, the youngest person to head a department at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is famous for separating conjoined twins.

 That's a compelling and powerful tale. But it differs from those of other hardworking black people I know only in the degree of success that Carson attained as a result, not in the measures of ambition, industriousness, discipline and self-respect his mother instilled in her children.

 Yet black Americans know better than to believe those traits are enough to guarantee success. History taught us better. Just look back over the last decade and a half. In 2000, according to the U.S. census, less than a quarter of black Americans -- 22.5% -- lived in poverty. By 2010, that number had risen to 27.4%. Was there a sudden outbreak of indolence among black folk over that period? Or were there outside forces that conspired to knock them back down the economic ladder?

 As long as the Republican Party refuses to acknowledge that, it will have little to offer workers of color -- and declining appeal to younger whites. They, too, understand the limits of self-reliance.

 To be helpful to the GOP, Carson would have to remind them of the caprice of capitalism and the generational reach of racism's barriers. Instead, he sounds like the standard-issue Ayn Rand acolyte, no different from Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. He opposes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and supports a flat tax. For good measure, he's also a religious conservative who disputes evolution.

 It's no wonder that conservatives have started to trumpet him as their Great Black Hope. Psychologists believe that romantic interest increases when people mirror each other's gestures. Carson perfectly reflects the beliefs of his suitors.

 Still, this romance is unlikely to blossom into a long-lasting love affair. There are too many misunderstandings, too many unspoken expectations, too many half-baked assumptions. And some of those half-based assumptions are Carson's.

I share this with my readers without comment and hope that they will supply it. But in any case I will have some comment in my next post.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – Discussion

This is the fourth in this series. I recommend that you read or re-read Part I here, Part II here, and Part III here.

I have received two comments on the first two posts and I want to share those with you, together with my responses:

Michael Cerratto Esq. of Westville, New Jersey, wrote:

Good, something I don't feel so intimidated commenting on!

 The closing incident reminds me of a comment I once heard about the "cops vs. bad guys dynamic" being nothing more than our young delinquents vs. THEIR young delinquents. In any event, there are just too many dead bodies littering the streets lately, and the fact that we are only just now beginning to ask the questions which will, I pray, lead to some explanation of what is going on does not speak well of us. But then, again, I wonder if we really want the answers? Time will tell.

To which I replied:

You ask: "But then, again, I wonder if we really want the answers?"

According to CNN we do not.

I quote from my blog: "Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture - I”:

How many people are shot by police every year? Nobody seems to know the exact number (something that is itself disturbing -- no official government agency tracks the full data for the entire country)

… nobody wanted to fund it and the (police) departments didn't want it. They were concerned with their image and liability. They don't want to bother with it.''

If you have any observation on my later post, I welcome it.

And Bob Russo of Montclair, and its former mayor, chimed in with:

I loved your 20 year old letter to the Editor... and the reference to the Ham sandwich being indicted...the more things change, the more they STAY the same, I think is the correct version. Anyway, I think you are absolutely right on all counts. I just have a hard time as former Mayor and Deputy Mayor demonstrating against my police department as I have been asked to do by protestors of police brutality, which I believe really does exist, but should probably be referred to as overzealous excessive use of force. I just don't know what the solution to mistrust of police based on legitimate fears and negative past experiences is...while we still need the security provided by adequate community policing and foot patrols. I think we should be putting more police on the streets and devoting more resources to public safety and security at this time of increased violence and potential terrorism.....but the nation does not seem to care.....We should devote energy to securing our communities,  especially urban areas and cities,  rather than spending billions on foreign adventures that seem to only fan the flames of more hatred toward us....and we should fix our bridges and infrastructure which are crumbling due to neglect.   We really need another TR and FDR with a public works agenda to make things right again......sorry to write so late......I was just catching up and that is my commentary on yours tonight! 

Which prompted this response from me:

Sorry about not getting the idiom correct. I usually check things on the web, rather than relying on my memory, but in this case, apparently, I felt so comfortable with the form I used, (incorrectly) that I never thought of checking it.

On the substance, neither a TR nor an FDR, nor an LBJ, would make any difference. They all had collaborative Congresses, and overwhelming majorities in those Congresses. Congress does make a difference. And it used to be that politics ended at the water’s edge. All that is gone. 

The Supreme Court is no longer a judicial body, but a purely political one, with power greater then that of either the President or that of Congress. The Congress can be vetoed by the President, and the President can be overridden by 2/3rd in both houses, but SCOTUS can only be overridden but 2/3 of both houses and 3/4th of the legislatures of the states. That is awesome power, and when it is abused, e.g. Bush v. Gore, or the United case, which effectively legalized bribery and extortion, it does harm far beyond what people realize. Had Gore been allowed his victory, as was in fact the intent of the voters, the Supreme Court would have a totally different composition, would be handing down entirely different decisions, and even elections might be run differently, if a different court where to strike down the outrageous suppression of voters and the gerrymandering.

I have become convinced that SCOTUS must be weakened. I think 5-4 decisions should be treated as a tie and of no force and effect. I am aware that this might means that the upcoming 5-4 decision on gay marriage would be of no effect, but that would still leave most of the US with legal gay marriage. I assume that in any case giving effect to the Constitution’s, Full Faith and Credit clause (Article VI -Section 1) so that each state has to recognize a legal marriage in another state, is unavoidable even for the Right wing nuts on the Court. The language in the Constitution is too plain.

As for the police, I don’t think that we have inadequate forces. That may have been true once - I don’t think it is true any longer. But the police must be held accountable. If they are not, we are in deep trouble. But it goes way beyond the police. It is our whole criminal justice system, as I will elaborate in future posts.

As for "securing our communities, especially urban areas and cities” the best way to secure them in the long run is to deal with their economic and social problems. The outrageous under-financing of their schools, which should not be financed by local property taxes, which by their very nature finance poor neighborhood schools poorly, and wealthy ones extremely generously.  But, schools are not enough, unless we attack the underlying poverty and the social and cultural problems that have arisen from years, indeed generations of persecution, under-employment, and neglect.

As for "foreign adventures” I believe we must guard against isolationism (that has never served us well), while guarding against foolish involvement. Examples of sound involvement were the actions taken by Clinton in Bosnia and by George H.W. Bush in stopping the invasion of Kuwait, while Iraq, and of course, Vietnam were major errors. I think we are doing the right thing in punishing an expansionist Russia, but as I have indicated, we are wrong to allow an expansionist Israel.

Well, that’s a lot of area to cover in a nutshell, but on the criminal justice system, stay tuned.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office. 

Guns, The Cliff, The Right, & The Left

It’s madness all around!!

In my last post "The Fiscal Cliff" I quoted The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence as reporting that more than 30,000 people are killed by guns in this nation each year. This is mostly in our cities and in our poor African-American communities, but it has not, and continues not to raise the conscience of the media or the Nation. But 20 children and six adults killed in a suburb in Connecticut get two weeks of coverage and a Nation outraged. Something is wrong with our values.

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive Vice President, speaks and says that the answer to gun violence is more guns, every cable news channel covers his speech. The following Sunday all the Sunday morning news programs have a representative of the NRA on their show. Why? Why?

Who in Hell is the NRA? They have been represented by the media as the representative of gun owners, of hunters, of sportsmen. Are they? According to their own website they have four million members. The adult population of the United States is 250 million adults over the age of 18.  

Four million is a tiny percentage. The NRA speaks only for the gun manufacturing industry. The media has allowed the myth that they speak for anyone else. Annual membership in the NRA costs only $25.-  so they clearly don't get their money from their members. They get it from gun manufacturers. The NRA speaks only for the gun manufacturing industry. The media has allowed the myth that they speak for anyone else.

It is time to unmask this charade!!!

As for the Cliff, the Right claims they are worried about the deficit, but reducing it by increasing tax revenues from the income tax, or the estate tax, or the capital gains tax, or on dividends is opposed fanatically. Do they really care about the deficit? Or is that just a ruse for their true desire to, in the words of their hero, Grover Glenn Norquist, “just want to shrink it (government) down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

The Left e.g. Paul Krugman, insist that the best think for the economy is an increased deficit, at least in the short run. But they are adamant that taxes on the rich must be raised, which lowers the deficit and going over the cliff would have decreased the deficit by a hell of a lot.

They tell us that the most important thing that our government can do is increase jobs, but they seem to almost relish the idea of going over the cliff, which would cost untold jobs. They described any deal as a bad deal that reduces entitlement benefits by one iota, but this deal gave not one inch on entitlements, and they call it a bad deal.

I must admit that I find myself disappointed by the deal in that it did not raise enough revenue. But for me that makes sense, since I believe that debt does matter. But if you argue that it doesn’t, why is this important? But as I read the reports I come away with the feeling that the early estimates of how much revenue was raised are just that, early estimates. I have a feeling that these early estimates do not take into account the reductions in exemptions or other aspects. The “deal” may yet show much more revenue estimates than are now being recognized.

In the words of our self-described Socialist Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders:

This agreement preserves incentives for the development of clean energy by encouraging companies that are creating jobs in America and helping reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. That is a win-win for our economy and our environment. In Vermont and across the country, hundreds of wind manufacturing plants already are producing wind turbines, and the industry is providing jobs for 75,000 American workers. The fact that we have doubled wind generation since 2008 is an American success story. Extending the Production Tax Credit means we can continue the tremendous growth in wind and other safe, clean, renewable sources energy that must be developed if we are to reverse global warming. 

This agreement also is a major victory for Social Security recipients and for disabled veterans. Despite an eleventh-hour bid by Senate Republicans, the final bill does not include their proposed change in how cost-of-living adjustments are calculated. As the founder of the Defending Social Security Caucus and the incoming chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, I am proud that organizations representing seniors and veterans worked together to block the switch to a so-called chained CPI as a way to cut future benefits for more than 55 million Americans.

But regardless of anything else, the President is our quarterback and unlike others, I refuse to indulge in the “Monday morning quarterback” syndrome.

What is obvious is that the President is first and foremost concerned with the economy and jobs. He is not willing to let the economy tank and the progress we have made in creating jobs to be stymied. The deal caused a huge jump in the markets throughout the world, and as for jobs, quoting Reuters: “(t)he ADP National Employment Report showed the private sector added 215,000 jobs in December, comfortably above economists' expectation of a 133,000 gain.” That is something to be celebrated.

I have great difficulty understanding my friends on the Left.

When Bill Clinton “triangulated” and signed into law a devastating revision in our “Aid to Families with Dependant Children," put into place the outrageous “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in our military, signed DOMA into law, acquiesced in the repeal of Glass-Steagal, and allowed an outrageous new bankruptcy law that denied bankruptcy to people with excessive credit card debt, (See here for my comments on May 5th, 2009) and famously said “The era of big government is over” the Left for the most part was quiet. Now that we have a President who fights for our values, it is never good enough, and we act like “Monday morning quarterbacks” at every turn.

I know! I heard it over and over again! “We are only trying to get him to do the right thing.” But what is “the right thing” in an age of intransient sabotage, of hostage taking of our economy, or in the words of the former Treasury Secretary in the Republican Administration of G.W. Bush, PaulO’Neill, “Those Who Won’t Raise Debt Ceiling Are Terrorists”.

When terrorists take hostages and demand a ransom, those who care about the hostage must always ask themselves, “Do we let them kill the hostage?” or do we pay ransom. How much? Do we pay a little to keep the hostage alive, or do we pay a lot to have the hostage released. These are always agonizing questions. The quarterback must call the plays. The second guessers and the “Monday Morning Quarterbacks” must stand down.

E.J. Dionne, writing in the Wahington Post said:

To be deemed a serious analyst at the moment seems to require a lot of hand-wringing and sneering over how awful Congress looked the past few days as it rushed a “fiscal cliff” deal into law.  

So permit me to burn my membership card in the League of Commentators and Pundits.

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

Bill Clinton tells us what the media should have!

I listened to Bill Clinton last night. Parts of the speech were partisan but most of it was the most effective presentation that could have been made: The truth!!!

I always thought that this was the responsibility of the media, but they have abdicated that responsibility. Their fear of being called partisan is such that if the facts favor one party over another, or are made controversial by the denial of the truth by one, the media retreats into obfuscation and declines to report the facts.

Clinton hit the nail on the head because he laid out the truth and it certainly needed telling.

Below is the video of Clinton’s speech for those who missed it or those who may want to hear it again:

Below that is the transcript for those who would rather read the speech:

We're here to nominate a president, and I've got one in mind.

I want to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of adversity and uncertainty. A man who ran for president to change the course of an already weak economy and then just six weeks before the election, saw it suffer the biggest collapse since the Great Depression. A man who stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter how many jobs were created and saved, there were still millions more waiting, trying to feed their children and keep their hopes alive.

I want to nominate a man cool on the outside but burning for America on the inside. A man who believes we can build a new American Dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, education and cooperation. A man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama.

I want Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States and I proudly nominate him as the standard bearer of the Democratic Party.

In Tampa, we heard a lot of talk about how the president and the Democrats don't believe in free enterprise and individual initiative, how we want everyone to be dependent on the government, how bad we are for the economy.

The Republican narrative is that all of us who amount to anything are completely self-made. One of our greatest Democratic chairmen, Bob Strauss, used to say that every politician wants you to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself, but it ain't so.

We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own."

Who's right? Well, since 1961, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our economy produced 66 million private sector jobs. What's the jobs score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42 million.

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate President Obama and the Democrats. After all, President Eisenhower sent federal troops to my home state to integrate Little Rock Central High and built the interstate highway system. And as governor, I worked with President Reagan on welfare reform and with President George H.W. Bush on national education goals. I am grateful to President George W. Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries and to both Presidents Bush for the work we've done together after the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake.

Through my foundation, in America and around the world, I work with Democrats, Republicans and Independents who are focused on solving problems and seizing opportunities, not fighting each other.

When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world, cooperation works better. After all, nobody's right all the time, and a broken clock is right twice a day. All of us are destined to live our lives between those two extremes. Unfortunately, the faction that now dominates the Republican Party doesn't see it that way. They think government is the enemy, and compromise is weakness.

One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation. He appointed Republican secretaries of defense, the army and transportation. He appointed a vice president who ran against him in 2008, and trusted him to oversee the successful end of the war in Iraq and the implementation of the recovery act. And Joe Biden did a great job with both. He appointed Cabinet members who supported Hillary in the primaries. Heck, he even appointed Hillary. I'm so proud of her and grateful to our entire national security team for all they've done to make us safer and stronger and to build a world with more partners and fewer enemies. I'm also grateful to the young men and women who serve our country in the military and to Michelle Obama and Jill Biden for supporting military families when their loved ones are overseas and for helping our veterans, when they come home bearing the wounds of war, or needing help with education, housing, and jobs.

President Obama's record on national security is a tribute to his strength, and judgment, and to his preference for inclusion and partnership over partisanship.

He also tried to work with congressional Republicans on health care, debt reduction, and jobs, but that didn't work out so well. Probably because, as the Senate Republican leader, in a remarkable moment of candor, said two years before the election, their No. 1 priority was not to put America back to work, but to put President Obama out of work.

Senator, I hate to break it to you, but we're going to keep President Obama on the job.

In Tampa, the Republican argument against the president's re-election was pretty simple: we left him a total mess, he hasn't cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.

In order to look like an acceptable alternative to President Obama, they couldn't say much about the ideas they have offered over the last two years. You see they want to go back to the same old policies that got us into trouble in the first place: to cut taxes for high income Americans even more than President Bush did; to get rid of those pesky financial regulations designed to prevent another crash and prohibit future bailouts; to increase defense spending $2 trillion more than the Pentagon has requested without saying what they'll spend the money on; to make enormous cuts in the rest of the budget, especially programs that help the middle class and poor kids. As another president once said— there they go again.

I like the argument for President Obama's re-election a lot better. He inherited a deeply damaged economy, put a floor under the crash, began the long hard road to recovery, and laid the foundation for a modern, more well-balanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses, and lots of new wealth for the innovators.

Are we where we want to be? No. Is the president satisfied? No. Are we better off than we were when he took office, with an economy in free fall, losing 750,000 jobs a month. The answer is yes.

I understand the challenge we face. I know many Americans are still angry and frustrated with the economy. Though employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend and even housing prices are picking up a bit, too many people don't feel it.

I experienced the same thing in 1994 and early 1995. Our policies were working and the economy was growing but most people didn't feel it yet. By 1996, the economy was roaring, halfway through the longest peacetime expansion in American history.

President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. No president— not me or any of my predecessors could have repaired all the damage in just four years. But conditions are improving and if you'll renew the President's contract you will feel it.

I believe that with all my heart.

President Obama's approach embodies the values, the ideas, and the direction America must take to build a 21st century version of the American Dream in a nation of shared opportunities, shared prosperity and shared responsibilities.

So back to the story. In 2010, as the president's recovery program kicked in, the job losses stopped and things began to turn around.

The Recovery Act saved and created millions of jobs and cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people. In the last 29 months the economy has produced about 4.5 million private sector jobs. But last year, the Republicans blocked the president's jobs plan costing the economy more than a million new jobs. So here's another jobs score: President Obama plus 4.5 million, congressional Republicans zero.

Over that same period, more than more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs have been created under President Obama— the first time manufacturing jobs have increased since the 1990s.

The auto industry restructuring worked. It saved more than a million jobs, not just at GM, Chrysler and their dealerships, but in auto parts manufacturing all over the country. That's why even auto-makers that weren't part of the deal supported it. They needed to save the suppliers too. Like I said, we're all in this together.

Now there are 250,000 more people working in the auto industry than the day the companies were restructured. Gov. Romney opposed the plan to save GM and Chrysler. So here's another jobs score: Obama 250,000, Romney, zero.

The agreement the administration made with management, labor and environmental groups to double car mileage over the next few years is another good deal: it will cut your gas bill in half, make us more energy independent, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and add another 500,000 good jobs.

President Obama's "all of the above" energy plan is helping too— the boom in oil and gas production combined with greater energy efficiency has driven oil imports to a near 20 year low and natural gas production to an all-time high. Renewable energy production has also doubled.

We do need more new jobs, lots of them, but there are already more than three million jobs open and unfilled in America today, mostly because the applicants don't have the required skills. We have to prepare more Americans for the new jobs that are being created in a world fueled by new technology. That's why investments in our people are more important than ever. The president has supported community colleges and employers in working together to train people for open jobs in their communities. And, after a decade in which exploding college costs have increased the drop-out rate so much that we've fallen to 16th in the world in the percentage of our young adults with college degrees, his student loan reform lowers the cost of federal student loans and even more important, gives students the right to repay the loans as a fixed percentage of their incomes for up to 20 years. That means no one will have to drop-out of college for fear they can't repay their debt, and no one will have to turn down a job, as a teacher, a police officer or a small town doctor because it doesn't pay enough to make the debt payments. This will change the future for young Americans.

I know we're better off because President Obama made these decisions.

That brings me to health care.

The Republicans call it Obamacare and say it's a government takeover of health care that they'll repeal. Are they right? Let's look at what's happened so far. Individuals and businesses have secured more than a billion dollars in refunds from their insurance premiums because the new law requires 80 percent to 85 pecent of your premiums to be spent on health care, not profits or promotion. Other insurance companies have lowered their rates to meet the requirement. More than 3 million young people between 19 and 25 are insured for the first time because their parents can now carry them on family policies. Millions of seniors are receiving preventive care including breast cancer screenings and tests for heart problems. Soon the insurance companies, not the government, will have millions of new customers many of them middle class people with pre-existing conditions. And for the last two years, health care spending has grown under 4 pecent, for the first time in 50 years.

So are we all better off because President Obama fought for it and passed it? You bet we are.

There were two other attacks on the president in Tampa that deserve an answer. Both Gov. Romney and congressman Ryan attacked the president for allegedly robbing Medicare of $716 billion. Here's what really happened. There were no cuts to benefits. None. What the president did was save money by cutting unwarranted subsidies to providers and insurance companies that weren't making people any healthier. He used the saving to close the donut hole in the Medicare drug program, and to add eight years to the life of the Medicare Trust Fund. It's now solvent until 2024. So President Obama and the Democrats didn't weaken Medicare, they strengthened it.

When congressman Ryan looked into the TV camera and attacked President Obama's "biggest coldest power play" in raiding Medicare, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. You see, that $716 billion is exactly the same amount of Medicare savings congressman Ryan had in his own budget.

At least on this one, Gov. Romney's been consistent. He wants to repeal the savings and give the money back to the insurance companies, re-open the donut hole and force seniors to pay more for drugs, and reduce the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by eight years. So now if he's elected and does what he promised Medicare will go broke by 2016. If that happens, you won't have to wait until their voucher program to begins in 2023 to see the end Medicare as we know it.

But it gets worse. They also want to block grant Medicaid and cut it by a third over the coming decade. Of course, that will hurt poor kids, but that's not all. Almost two-thirds of Medicaid is spent on nursing home care for seniors and on people with disabilities, including kids from middle class families, with special needs like, Down syndrome or autism. I don't know how those families are going to deal with it. We can't let it happen

Now let's look at the Republican charge that President Obama wants to weaken the work requirements in the welfare reform bill I signed that moved millions of people from welfare to work.

Here's what happened. When some Republican governors asked to try new ways to put people on welfare back to work, the Obama administration said they would only do it if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20 percent. You hear that? More work. So the claim that President Obama weakened welfare reform's work requirement is just not true. But they keep running ads on it. As their campaign pollster said "we're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers." Now that is true. I couldn't have said it better myself— I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad.

Let's talk about the debt. We have to deal with it or it will deal with us. President Obama has offered a plan with $4 trillion in debt reduction over a decade, with $2 of spending reductions for every $1 of revenue increases, and tight controls on future spending. It's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.

I think the president's plan is better than the Romney plan, because the Romney plan fails the first test of fiscal responsibility: The numbers don't add up.

It's supposed to be a debt reduction plan but it begins with $5 trillion in tax cuts over a 10-year period. That makes the debt hole bigger before they even start to dig out. They say they'll make it up by eliminating loopholes in the tax code. When you ask "which loopholes and how much?" they say, "See me after the election on that."

People ask me all the time how we delivered four surplus budgets. What new ideas did we bring? I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic. If they stay with a $5 trillion tax cut in a debt reduction plan— the— arithmetic tells us that one of three things will happen:

1) they'll have to eliminate so many deductions like the ones for home mortgages and charitable giving that middle class families will see their tax bill go up $2,000 year while people making over $3 million a year get will still get a 250,000 dollar tax cut; or

2) they'll have to cut so much spending that they'll obliterate the budget for our national parks, for ensuring clean air, clean water, safe food, safe air travel; or they'll cut way back on Pell Grants, college loans, early childhood education and other programs that help middle class families and poor children, not to mention cutting investments in roads, bridges, science, technology and medical research; or

3) they'll do what they've been doing for thirty plus years now— cut taxes more than they cut spending, explode the debt, and weaken the economy. Remember, Republican economic policies quadrupled the debt before I took office and doubled it after I left. We simply can't afford to double-down on trickle-down.

President Obama's plan cuts the debt, honors our values, and brightens the future for our children, our families and our nation.

My fellow Americans, you have to decide what kind of country you want to live in. If you want a you're on your own, winner take all society you should support the Republican ticket. If you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibilities— a "we're all in it together" society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. If you want every American to vote and you think it's wrong to change voting procedures just to reduce the turnout of younger, poorer, minority and disabled voters, you should support Barack Obama. If you think the president was right to open the doors of American opportunity to young immigrants brought here as children who want to go to college or serve in the military, you should vote for Barack Obama. If you want a future of shared prosperity, where the middle class is growing and poverty is declining, where the American Dream is alive and well, and where the United States remains the leading force for peace and prosperity in a highly competitive world, you should vote for Barack Obama.

I love our country— and I know we're coming back. For more than 200 years, through every crisis, we've always come out stronger than we went in. And we will again as long as we do it together. We champion the cause for which our founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor— to form a more perfect union.

If that's what you believe, if that's what you want, we have to re-elect President Barack Obama.

God bless you — God bless America.