FOXNEWS and the alternate reality.
I feel extremely compelled to speak about recent statements Charles Krauthammer made during a speech while accepting the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism.
What Fox did is not just create a venue for alternative opinion. It created an alternate reality.
This is the heartwood of the empire of FNC. The entirety of the channel, with its playful, combative nature, the unabashed, loud conservatism of Hannity and O’Reilly, the continual flashy graphics and bottom line scroll, is successful because of the hole they fill in so many intellectual lives. As a child, I watched the evening news with my parents on a nightly basis. I heard Brokaw, Jennings, and Rather tell me the news as it “happened”. I remember my grandfather commenting very little while watching the news, but making very quiet rebukes to certain historical references after the conclusion of the programs.
I watched the same news that almost everyone I knew did, but I had an example to make me question the news. I grew up looking for cracks in the reasoning, and political statements hidden within. I could find very few, of course. Through high school, I still didn’t detect much bias in the news, although I was identifying as a Republican at full volume. FNC started just before I was in HS, and my grandparents were watching it a ton, but I didn’t exactly notice.
Then came college, and everything changed radically. I kept watching sports, one of my true passions, instead of the news. I had to get my news from the internet, and I slowly drifted toward the drudgereport, and then to national review. These stories tore the façade of the network news right off. I could watch Dan Rather give a story in his version, then read a completely different account online. Over and over I sided with the web. Eventually, I couldn’t even watch the news on network channels. Everything was a small trickle of events shrouded in a lefty torrent. Today, the network news is a comedy show, and a drinking game amongst my own conservative cabal. The rules are too complex to explain here.
The Fox News Channel isn’t popular for its own content as it is for its continuing mission to let people (read: right-leaning citizens) hear the news the way they see the world. America has spoken loudly on the FNC. Their ratings smash, and I mean smash, the other channels, and their critics howl to the moon every night. The left continually tries to smear them badly, but FNC is teflon because to those consuming the product, the voices that sound shrill are the ones they left behind.
America is altered forever now. There is no one way to write a story, which used to be the lefty-Cronkite model. I never noticed when liberalism crept into a story until I was shown the other side. Now its forces are evident all around me, and I battle them on this blog, amongst friends, and sometimes in public when I’m feeling nasty. There are two sides to every story now, and a very public means of seeing what half the country sees, heretofore hidden.
Another huge way in which America is changed by FNC is that this altered approach to news has irreparably harmed the reputation of the classic news channels/programs. The bias that pervades those networks is readily displayed on a nightly basis, and its so obvious that mainstream America sees it too. As ratings for the network news slide further, drudge is the fourth most searched term on google, and drudge report is seventh last I checked. People are going to other sources for news, and the platform is much more even ideologically.
So, a toast to FNC. What Ailes and Murdoch have taken so many arrows for, they deserve medals for. You were too late to help me personally, but here’s to decades of diffusing the liberal monopoly over the news.
Ginsburg jumps the shark, Obama Admin releases some banks from TARP
After days of incredibly juicy policy gossip and the faint promise of someone, somewhere standing up to the executive branch for the first time in a long time, Archmagus Ginsburg has withdrawn. I don’t understand enough of the lawfare craft to make any intelligent comment on the minutiae, but I’m disappointed.
The losers are the private lenders who now rake a good deal less cash than they would have in a normal proceeding, and all those with insurance and injury claims against Chrysler. One widow, part of a complaint from Indiana, is suing because her compensation for the asbestos-related death of her husband (brakes installer). Her claim is abolished, as others will be too, under the sale to Fiat.
The winners are Fiat, and Obama. The taxpayers have some assurances, but there are no guarantees that Chrysler will ever make money. They lose $100M a day under current conditions.
In other news, the Treasury is letting ten banks out from under federal control, sort of.
Nice of the US to let banks be free, but they don’t leave undamaged in the freedom department. There are new compensation laws! I suppose this is the price of getting a bailout during the reign of a class warrior President. It used to be you were worth what people would pay you, rather than what the government says you’re worth. Such archaic notions of the free market value must be expunged so that, um, luxury industries will never rebound as we reduce the number of fabulously rich people. Or something.
US takes a bite out of internet poker
Why? What harm is this doing? People make and lose money and none of it really leaves the nation, illegal-immigrant-style. Who loses here?
Oh wait, its the casino lobbyists. I used to only blame this on the GOP senators (Bill Frist, screw you) who added the provision on the end of a farm bill, if I’m not mistaken, but now our Democrat friends are in power, and they are eligible for swaying, as well. Politicians come off as just plain shady people more often than not, don’t they?
Banking Queen Barney Frank grabbed the liberal reins and read page 1 of the playbook on what to do with online gambling: legalize and tax, of course. That would have been a step in the right direction. Kudos to Barney for being predictable, yet helpful.
Casinos are more like newspapers than we realize these days. They are losing patrons, as it is about 90% cheaper to stay home in a $10,000 freeroll with a WSOP main event berth than fly/drive to AC or LV and drop a grand for the weekend. Its essentially an industry that has to downsize because the internet is taking a share. The train flies off the tracks when legislators agree to ban heretofore legal (and still legal) activities because the casinos don’t like waves in their pond. Its akin to banning internet news so the NYT can go on as the paper of record. Doesn’t that sound a bit big-business protectionist? Blech.
I mentioned that the activities are legal, as well. Gambling is legal in Nevada and in several other areas of the country. It is soon to be legal in Illinois, because dollars speak louder than morals in a recession, apparently. Where in the heck is the federal government getting the legal authority to disallow internet gaming, but allow casino gaming? What if I play a FullTilt tourney in Las Vegas? Gambling is legal there. If you choose to argue about a license, then just sell a damn license to the online companies. Where are the states on this one? Their jurisdiction is getting a piece bitten right out of it. The feds are telling them a legal activity is now illegal because they said so, but only in one certain case.
I’d ask how they get the right to seize funds from companies that belong to real people, and are complicitly held by non-banking entities outside of US holdings, but we’ve cleared all that up with a few hundred forced bank seizures and whatnot. Our mommy state is apparently willing and ready to take whatever they can get their hands on.
$100K blackjack hands behind closed doors in Vegas? Great. $5 dollar buy-in quickie tourneys in your basement? Over our (read: your) dead bodies.
Gallup has some uneasy trends for Mr. Obama, Palin scores a few points
Everyone likes the guy, but his policies are slipping a bit. Ratings are slipping in the economy department over time, and he’s trending downward on foreign affairs, and the budget deficit is in the red. Ruh roh.
I’m hopeful that his performance on these issues will become his barometer in the near future. Looks like its happening slowly.
In other news, Sarah Palin is firing a few mortars herself, and this is extremely important for her if she wants to be relevant again. Although the MSM and the Dems (no difference) tear down every potential challenger before they get off the ground, they do the GOP a huge favor in so doing. Only the strong survive the media/liberal culling of the flock, and it usually results in us having resilient candidates for office. If Palin rebuilds her energetic base after this inoculation from the filth of the opposition, she’ll be a powerful challenger very soon for President, most likely. Its clear she recognizes this is a weak moment for Obama, on the heels of greater job losses and decreasing faith in Obama’s policies so far.
Jindal has a similar road to travel if he wants the glory in 2012. I think he’ll build his street cred in LA for a while longer, though. At one point, his policies had the state as the only in the union with job growth. He’s lifted over 10k jobs from WI, as I hear the news lament over and over here in Milwaukee.
Europe rejects socialism?
Recent election results certainly paint the picture.
I’m happy that the socialists have been beaten back in the EU to some measure, but two things tarnish this great striking down:
1) Some of the replacements are openly racist candidates, which isn’t good.
2) As the world awakes from their slumber, the US is marching headlong into a death spiral with the corrupting and foolish socialist policies that Europe will try to shake off a bit in the next few years.
What a depressing time to be an American. We’re going to kick his butt in 2012, or at least wrest power from the loonies.
Ginsburg blocks Chrysler sale.
What a new twist this is!
On first reading, this seems to be a huge win for what used to be secured debtholders during bankruptcy proceedings. Its no secret that both the GM and Chrysler restructuring plans gave a pretty cold shoulder to lenders protected under the law, according to The Economist.
I’m a bit surprised this sentiment has come from Ginsburg, of all justices, but its the right move. Running roughshod over secured creditors is a great way to discourage future secure creditors, and corporate lending in general. Needless to say, its bad practice. (Its also bad practice to excoriate private citizens who happen to be bank execs, but I digress…)
This is also a potential blow to Obama, who clearly just wants this bad dream to go away. I don’t really blame him, although I personally feel he handled it about as poorly as he could have (I have little evidence my way could save the companies, but it would have saved taxpayers money, as in no bailouts at all, and certainly no nationalization). Now his car nightmare is going get a lot messier for an administration that orchestrated the deals for speed over legality. Sen. Dodd has said he wants to look into it, although he also says he did nothing wrong in the Countrywide Ins. scandal, so take it with a grain of NaCl.
Not only could it completely rupture the fragile sale to Fiat, but it may spill into Congress actually doing their jobs. When a President gets called out for something like this where public opinion is less than stellar about an issue, opportunistic politicians rise up and lead the charge to investigate. We shall see if that occurs, as such a movement would have to have backing on the Dem side to gain serious momentum.
I do fear that any disruption of the Fiat deal will lead to us nationalizing Chrysler, as well. I guess that’s the way Obama is gonna play ball, and I can’t stop him for the moment. I can only hope he’s judged on his results and not how historic his election was.
For now, I cautiously cheer Justice Ginsburg and her defense of our laws.
Nader on GM mess
I’m not going to endorse the entirety of his claims and issues, but there are a couple salient points within his statement.
The bankruptcy and the GM restructuring plan are the product of a secretive, unaccountable, Wall Street-minded government task force that assumed power because of a Congressional abdication of historic magnitude. By all rights, the restructuring plan should have been submitted to Congress for deliberative review and decision.
As is par for the course in the Obama Fearministration, this decision is being carried out with little oversight, no input or hearings on the Hill, and zero public discourse of any kind. In short, Obama is doing what he thinks is best for us, but rushing it so we can’t determine if we think its what is best for us. Also, our newly powerless legislature has made no attempt to, you know, protect our interests. Are they so afraid of the President’s personal popularity that they would lay down and stay out of the way, even when Obama’s auto efforts have already gone so awry?
America’s manufacturing base will be further eroded, as GM pursues its Grand China Strategy — increasing manufacturing outside of the United States, and increasingly from China, for import back into the United States. Unanswered questions persist about how GM’s valuable operations in China, and unrepatriated profits, will be treated in bankruptcy, or excluded from bankruptcy.
This is another way to say that GM will run to China anyway because Obama has strayed from fixing the major cost destroying profitability in US operations, which is the union costs via pensions and healthcare benefits that are unsustainable. By giving the UAW both all the breathing room they need, and a stake in the firm, Obama will scare more business and jobs from the country than any other course of action. This will hurt the employees in the short and long run, but help the union leaders for now. Interesting how the union is the only continual beneficiary of his policies aside from the executive branch of our government, isn’t it?
This is out of order, but this is the big one:
For GM’s voiceless owners — the common shareholders — it is a wipeout.
Regular people are getting shafted here. The unsecured loans given to Chrysler and GM are both higher priority than the union, according to bankruptcy law, but they are being pushed to the back of the line by Obama and his team. These are retirement plans, stock portfolios, college funds, and mutual funds of many kinds. Its easy to demean these lenders, represented as they are, as greedy rich guys vying for an unfair shake, but they represent the little guys, and the dangerous practice of toying with people’s investments can and will shake confidence in the fidelty and honesty of our government with regard to the market. This path has hazardous ramifications, and Obama should be very careful to preserve good faith in our markets.
Bailout Scorecard
Ford Motor Company: 1
Chrysler: 0
GM: 0
Just sayin’. You get in with the government instead of making the hard decisions, and you get completely hosed.
