Current News and Media Videos

One of Hillary Clinton’s top advisers, Howard Wolfson, is being hired by Fox News to be a Democratic Analyst. Of course, Fox News has one of the biggest TV audiences in the world today. Accused of being conservative and a front for the Republican Party, it could be a surprise to many that a Democrat is heading over to Fox News to become a member of the team. But Fox News already has a few Democrats on its team. Both Alan Colmes, who co-hosts a show with Sean Hannity that highlights both of their names, and Juan Williams are members of the Fox News team.

Alan Colmes, though, isn’t the best spokesman for the Democratic cause. He is frequently outdebated by Sean Hannity despite the fact that the latter is a hack journalist with little skill himself. Colmes appears weak next to Hannity and Fox News undoubtedly has him on staff to make Hannity look good. Williams typically appears opposite conservative analysts as a guest and is strong in some areas, but isn’t exactly the most aggressive of liberal analysts on TV himself.

But what about Wolfson? Well, Hillary lost. Does that say something?

Fox News claims to be unbiased in its news and uses the tagline “Fair and Balanced”, though it is neither. Wolfson claims that he wants to be a spokesman for the progressive cause on Fox News because many of its viewers are independent and someone needs to appeal to that audience for the upcoming election. Yeah, right.

I’ve found a rather interesting blog, one that is used to discuss politics, art, and philosophy. The author is Filip Spagnoli, a Belgian who interests range from democracy and human rights to poetry and photograph and even includes statistical analysis. His is one of the most interesting blogs I’ve seen in a long time.

This brings up the question, What is the relationship between politics, art, and philosophy? Is there one?

To be sure, I believe there is a profound relationship between the three and not merely on the surface of one man’s blog. There is an intertwining among them that, I believe, cannot be separated. All politics is an extension of a philosophy. Values, not ideas, are what drive men to latch on and to take hold of a political ideology. The ideas are merely the outflow of the values that drive human action.

Art too is an extension of a personal philosophy. You could say that philosophy is the bedrock of all intellectual or thought process, and that includes art. Pinpoint a man’s values and I believe you can determine the type of art he will like and the political ideas to which he will subscribe. Kudos to Filip Spagnoli for marrying these three disciplines into one media source.

Viacom is at it again. And this time they have the court’s backing. Google has been ordered to hand over YouTube users’ private data. TechCrunch says Viacom wants to use the information to find ordinary Joe’s to sue. I don’t think so.

I think Viacom will see it more as a marketing opportunity. Once the cold blows off and dissipates from the sinister news they will likely want to use the information for marketing purposes, which would be far worse than trying to sue YouTube users. If the court does get away with forcing Google to sell out its users to Viacom there should be a stipulation that Viacom cannot use the information for anything other than determining that there were in fact users who watched their copyrighted videos. But the more pressing issue is the privacy of users altogether.

There is no reason to make YouTube user privacy information available to Viacom or the public. The court should instead allow the information to be used in discovery and with the stipulation that none of the information can be used beyond the purview of use within this lawsuit and that none of it will be made public. But to be totally honest, I hope Viacom loses its pants off.

It seems that many new media personalities are springing up online. The advent of blogging and social media have made this possible. There’s podcasting, video blogging, social networking, and a host of other online tools that are virtually free. Anyone can use them and all you have to do is learn how. So, what does everyone do? They learn how.

You can actually run a media company right from your own home. Day time, night time, any time. I guess Howard Stern isn’t the king of all media any more. When is the last time you heard a Howard Stern podcast?

OK, maybe he’s there too. But I suspect the new media entrepreneur is a little bit less old school media savvy. Young studs these days don’t much care about radio. That’s the past. These days it’s podcasting, RSS feeds, and blogger tools. And anyone can do it. Even you. All you have to do is get an idea, learn the tools of the trade, and set yourself to working the biz. Are you hip?

Wesley Clark, a Democrat and retired military officer, told CNN host John Roberts that he honors John McCain’s service as a hero and political of war but that McCain hasn’t held any level of executive responsibility that required making tough decisions like when to attack and when not to attack enemies in combat. Is what Clark said true? Sure. But that doesn’t stop the media from mischaracterizing his comments.

Media Matters, a media watchdog organization, lists these mischaracterizations by top media personalities on its website:

Examples of media echoing this false claim include the following:

* In a July 1 article, Washington Post staff writers Jonathan Weisman and Michael D. Shear quoted comments Clark made about McCain during his Face the Nation interview after asserting that McCain “pushed back hard against criticism of his own record as a Navy flier and a prisoner of war.”

* On the June 30 edition of The Situation Room, guest host John Roberts said that “Clark took a weekend hit at McCain, targeting his history as a war hero and his possible future as president.” Roberts made the assertion despite the fact that immediately afterward, Roberts aired video of Clark saying during his Face the Nation appearance, “I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands of millions of others in the Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility.”

* In a July 1 washingtonpost.com column, Post media critic Howard Kurtz asserted that “Clark used an appearance on ‘Face the Nation’ Sunday to strafe John McCain over his Vietnam War record.” Kurtz later stated: “No one’s saying that being a POW entitles you to the Oval Office or places you above criticism. But Barack Obama frequently prefaces his criticism of McCain with a nod to his honorable service. Which raises the question: What was Wes thinking?” But Clark’s statement, “I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president” — quoted by Kurtz in the column and highlighted (and mischaracterized) by several media outlets and figures as controversial — is itself an argument that McCain’s military service does not “entitle[]” him “to the Oval Office.”

Considering that journalists are supposed to be objective and report the facts, don’t you think that they should watch the video of John Roberts asking the question and Wesley Clark answering it. That would clear up any confusion, wouldn’t it?

See and hear it for yourself. Here’s the video:

It’s easy to see why Time Magazine likes high gas prices. They spell it out pretty clearly in an article about it. The top 10 reasons to like $4 gas, according to Time Magazine:

• Jobs once outsourced overseas come back to the States
• Urban sprawl slows down
• Four day work weeks (give me a break!)
• Less pollution leading to more lives saved
• People are more frugal
• Fewer traffic deaths as motorists drive slower
• Driving less leads to cheaper insurance
• Less traffic and more public transportation usage
• Police officers drive less and walk their beats more, making neighborhoods safer
• People are getting slimmer due to less driving and more walking and biking

I’ve been seeing more and more SUVs parked with For Sale signs on them. That’s good. And when gas hits $5 per gallon the world will be a better place.

This is a tale of two presidents. One past, one future. In the words of others.

First, George W. Bush. I say he’s history though he is the current chief. Some have called him a lame-duck president. That’s too kind. It doesn’t do justice to the English language and it’s an insult to other lame-duck presidents of the past. Imagine how Jimmy Carter must feel being equated to G.W.B. What a real slap in the face!

In actuality, George W. Bush is a dead-duck president. His entire administration has been rocked with scandal, stupidity, bad judgments, and just plain ridiculous thought processes filled with non sequiturs, leaps of logic, and synaptic misfires. His war may have been based on bad intelligence, but his legacy of one of no intelligence and it won’t be hard for the next president to look good.

Hear what Kos has to say:

The Congress is about to severely expand the already too-extensive authority of the president in surveilling the citizens of this nation. In doing so, it is ignoring the fact that the government has become a law breaker and made the telcos accessories to the crimes.

OK, so he’s talking about Congress. But he’s inadvertently talking about President Bush, the chief lawbreaker in the land. But he isn’t the first. FISA itself was passed as a result of abuses perpetrated by Richard Nixon. It essentially replaces the Fourth Amendment with a new law of the land with a stamp of approval by the legislative body and the courts.

It’s hard to believe that Congress could actually be less curious and more secretive than than the Bush/Cheney administration in trying to keep this information from ever seeing the light of day.

No, it’s really not hard to believe. Look at their track record.

President Bush has done nothing but subvert the law and replace it with his. Of course, he could not have done that had Congress not fallen asleep. Do I expect changes? No. Not in this lifetime.

And, now, on the future President Obama:

Obama has long been comfortable talking about his moderate to liberal Christianity, and has long been very much at ease with the social Gospel and mixing religion with politics.

Brilliant observation. And the result?

If that happens (and I can’t see how it will because of Obama’s abortion record), we’re talking about a historic landslide. But if only a fifth of them move over to the Democrat, we have a serious realignment - and possibly real movement in a few Southern states.

Yes, if Obama is elected it will be because evangelical Christians have decided that’s who they want to be the next president. But what kind of record does the Church have on picking presidents? Well, let’s see:

• Richard Nixon (criminal)
• Jimmy Carter (ineffectual)
• Ronald Reagan (Iran-Contra)
• George H.W. Bush (liar)
• Bill Clinton (scumbag)
• George W. Bush (warmonger)

Is there any reason to be optimistic?

If you guess Iraq then you’d be right. Iraq is No. 5 on Foreign Policy’s Failed State Index. But Afghanistan is No. 7. Right at No. 1 is Somalia. Remember that country?

Interestingly, all three of these countries rank the highest (a 10) for the category of External Intervention. Can you guess who that external intervention power is? Yep. The U.S. of A.

Somalia was a huge disaster for the U.S. in the early 1990s. After pulling out of Somalia due to the disaster that led the international embarrassment of the United States as the one superpower in the world, the U.S. decided to put its monetary power into the Ethiopian army. The results haven’t been any better.

And of course, we know what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, two more U.S. failures.

America was founded on the principle of peace and befriending every nation on earth. Now we are the most despised nation due to our overbearing policies that bully weaker states into submission and our so-called “humanitarian” efforts to save them from themselves. This is not the America that Thomas Jefferson, et. al. would be proud to. Can’t we get back to doing what it is we do best, namely, protecting our citizens’ freedoms?

Here’s an interesting read on religion in politics. Daily Kos says we’re more diverse than Pat Robertson puts on (my words, not his).

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has an interesting demographic chart that compares the various religions, their adherents, and their attitudes toward politics and social issues. Interestingly, these are the majority attitudes among Catholics for specific questions asked by Pew in a poll:

• 33% Democratic, 23% Republican
• 38% Moderate, 36% Conservative
• 51% want bigger government and more services
• 32% believe abortion should be legal in most cases
• 58% believe society should be more accepting of homosexuality
• 49% believe government is too involved in morality
• 60% want more environmental regulation
• 55% believe we should not be too involved in world affairs and focus on issues at home

In contrast, here are the same results for evangelicals:

• 38% Republican, 24% Democrat
• 52% Conservative, 30% Moderate
• 48% want smaller government and less services
• 36% say abortion should be illegal in most cases, 25% say illegal in all cases, and 24% say legal in most cases
• 64% say homosexuality should be discouraged
• 50% want the government to do more to protect morality
• 54% want stricter environmental laws
• 54% want less role worldwide and focus on issues at home

Now, how about black churches?

• 66% Democratic (big surprise!), 12% lean Democratic, 7% Republican
• 36% Moderate, 35% Conservative (as in “not liberal” - very interesting)
• 72% want a bigger government with more services
• 29% believe abortion should be legal in most cases, 23% split between illegal in most cases and legal in all cases
• 46% believe homosexuality should be discouraged
• 48% believe government should do more to protect morality
• 52% want stricter laws on environmental regulation
• 68% say we should focus on issues at home

Very interesting statistics. There are a lot more. When I read these, I draw one conclusion: The Bush Administration is severely out of step with the majority of religious people in the country.

I like Andrew Sullivan, but “any time soon?”

How about never.