Category Archives: Shout Bits Entry

The Old Time Media Is Not Always Biased

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Today Reuters reported on the EU’s attempt to create a “permanent bailout fund.” The US’s Dodd Frank law includes a $50 bln permanent bailout fund, but the Old Time Media’ facile coverage credulously quoted Pres. Obama’s State of The Union speech saying “No more bailouts.” Why does the OTM cover for Obama’s lies, but has no problem with straight reporting concerning Europe?

The €500 bln bailout fund would be available to prop up future Greek tragedies, so the effort clearly implies the EU expects more sovereign failures. Therefore, It is entirely accurate and succinct to call it a permanent bailout fund. Fiscal conservatives may oppose such a fund, but at least in Europe there is a straight debate. In the US, the OTM refuses to admit that Obama has simply accelerated Pres. Bush’s bailout policies. Obama’s bailouts for auto unions, teacher unions, police unions, big banks, Fannie Mae, insurance companies, and major donors eclipse his fitfully attempts to help average homeowners. Obama has perfected the permanent insider bailout culture, but the OTM accepts this corruption. Why?

The OTM’s European coverage is not afraid of the ‘socialism’ tag. Greek politicians proudly declare their socialist allegiances, and the press accurately reports it. By contrast, Vermont’s Sen. Sanders is a self-identifying socialist, yet the OTM refuses to say so. Obama is, beyond any reasonable doubt, a socialist from the European mold, but, when asked, even the Wall Street Journal editorial board demurred on the inflammatory characterization. At worst, the OTM calls Obama’s redistributionist speeches ‘populist.’ Why?

In Athens, Madrid, Marseille, and London, the OTM has no problem reporting the anti-austerity protests as violent riots. The pictures of US Occupy and G-8 protests are very similar, but the OTM refuses to characterize the clashes that have resulted in hundreds of violence related arrests as riots. These are the same people using the same tactics, yet the OTM goes out of its way to say the US riots ‘began peacefully.’ Why?

The OTM accurately describes Greece’s troubles as the result of lavish government pensions and tenure rules. The Greeks are lazy and retire too young; they are over-entitled. In the US, people similarly thought they could live beyond their means, and the government threw cheap money at them ending in disaster. Here, the OTM’s narrative is that big bad banks are to blame for forcing loans onto helpless people who could not possibly understand that loans must be paid back. The US’s entitlement policies are close enough to Greece to ensure the same fate, yet the OTM characterizes the matter entirely differently. Why?

The answers are all the same and quite obvious. The OTM is biased toward transforming the US into a socialist-light nation. The debate long ago shifted from whether the OTM was biased to whether it was intentionally biased. Scandals such as JournoList clearly support the notion that the OTM is working for the progressive cause, but the OTM’s European coverage shows that the effort is selective and therefore intentional. So, when the OTM provides straight news on Europe but sugar coats socialisms similar failures in the US, smart readers know when to be skeptical.

The RNC Should Give Paul What He Wants

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Rep. Ron Paul is running stronger than any other libertarian GOP candidate ever, including his own several bids. Still, everyone, even he, knows that Paul will not become President. Paul’s various stump and post-election speeches never allude to his governance, only the message he and his liberty minded supporters are sending to the Washington establishment. Campaigning is hard work for a 76-year-old, so why does Paul do it? Paul wants a seat at the RNC table, maybe a prime time slot for his son, and if they know what is good for them, they should oblige.

If Paul continues to fight and win about 11-15% of the popular vote, Shout Bits estimates that he will win a maximum of 100 delegates from a system rigged to favor the front-runner. Even if Gingrich and Romney split their delegates, Paul would be an unlikely king maker due to the 165 unbound RNC delegates. The RNC fat-cats would use their muscle to overcome any Paul action it finds impolitic (which essentially means Gingrich or Santorum must beat Romney by several hundred delegates to actually win the nomination). So, Paul can’t use his clout to buy a cabinet seat veto, let alone an appointment for himself or his son.

Paul knows he will never wield any heavy power in Washington. He knows that the RNC barely tolerates his daily attacks on their big-government-equals-big-donations money machine. The GOP establishment is openly hostile to his no-interventionist foreign policy and personal-liberty-trumps-all drug policy. Still, polls show that for every Paul vote, another voter supports him but tactically chooses to support a more electable candidate. Indeed, one poll shows that in a two man general matchup, Paul is within a few points of Pres. Obama, despite the huge recognition gap.

One in five Republicans identify with a liberty first message. Just as important, Paul has a passionate youth base that the GOP must maintain to avoid slipping into irrelevancy. Paul’s message also resonates with independents who see Washington and its twin parties as corrupt. If the RNC ignores Paul’s delegates, they will shout his name at the convention to stop the show on live TV.

If the RNC wants to satisfy a substantial part of its base, attract independents, and get some of the youth vote, it must deal with Paul by giving him a prime-time slot at the RNC. Still, Paul is a lightning rod, and the Old Time Media will have a field day with his newsletters from 35 years ago. Paul would be wise to give his son Sen. Rand Paul the microphone. Sen. Paul carries almost no baggage, yet he has the respect of his father’s followers. If the liberty movement is to gain mainstream power within the GOP, Sen. Paul is the best bet.

Look for Ron Paul to fight for delegates through Super Tuesday. He was in office during Gingrich’s collapse, so he knows the Speaker’s personal failings well. Look for Paul to barter a Romney endorsement for an off-hour speech for himself and a prime-time slot for his son. Anything less by the RNC is dismissing a large and highly motivated segment of the GOP base. If the GOP is to avoid the fate of the Whigs, it needs the liberty movement and the Pauls.

Obama’s Commerce Combine

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Last week Pres. Obama asked Congress to combine six federal agencies into a single cabinet level agency to oversee Commerce. His nominal reason is to bolster the economy by making it easier to do business in the US and making the Federal Government better able to promote business. Given Obama’s outright hate for business and free markets, a skeptic might wonder why. The answer is that Obama is using the time honored playbook of defending bureaucratic failure – when government fails, put a new coat of paint on the old jalopy.

Pres. Carter inherited and oversaw an energy policy failure in the 1970′s. The US’s gasoline supply was disrupted by OPEC and also government mandates as to the delivery of product across state lines. Some states had plenty of gas, while others rationed it. Carter demanded that people ‘drive 55′ to save fuel and wear sweaters inside. It was a colossal failure, largely at the hands of bureaucrats who thought regulation was the answer. Carter’s response in 1977 was to create the Department of Energy, an umbrella of existing agencies. By lumping the failed Federal Energy Administration with the more successful Atomic Energy Commission, Carter saved his bureaucrats from embarrassment. Fast forward to 2009, and the DOE remained alive and well, doling out billions in grants and loan guarantees to Obama supporters.

In the early months of Pres. Bush’s presidency, Saudi terrorists attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, killing 2,977 innocents. Despite pouring nearly $30 bln each year into the NSA, the intelligence community failed to notice 20 young Arabs who had radical ties, some of whom had trained to fly but not land a plane, and all of whom had bought plane tickets for the same day. 9/11 was a colossal failure of the Federal Government’s obligation to keep citizens safe from foreign attack. Bush’s response was to create the Department of Homeland Security by combining such notable failures as the INS, the ATF, and of course the airport security that allowed 19 young foreign Arab men armed with box cutters onto the airplanes. Fast forward ten years, and TSA employees are being tested for radiation exposure from the same machines they force children to walk through.

Recessions come and go, but 2008 was particularly bad. Government policy had inflated the access to cheap capital for a decade, and the housing bubble burst, bringing down every industry dependent on debt. While it was always ridiculous to presume that the DOC and FTC could somehow guide the US economy toward making the right decisions, the ‘great recession’ proved that these agencies were at best worthless. As with his big government predecessors, Obama is seeking damage control by combining several worthless agencies into one agency too big to eliminate.

Neither Carter nor Bush’s uber-agency strategy saved money, cut government payrolls, or made government more effective. Why would Obama assume otherwise for his adventure? Perhaps he doesn’t care about performance so much as the appearance of action. Agencies like the DOC and the SBA do more harm than good to the US, so the right move would be to eliminate them, but Obama is on the side of government, not commerce. He just wants to rearrange the deck chairs, add a layer of management, and credulously claim that bigger is better when it comes to government bureaucracies.