Democrats in disarray, disagreeing, with fundraising a mess
There is much dissension within the Democratic Party in this summer of 2017. The surest proof of that is the huge drop-off in contributions, leaving the Democratic National Committee “broke” in June, according to multiple reports. That should surprise no one in the least, as the latest leader of that organization, Tom Perez, has proved to be more of a scatology-spouting disorganizer than a uniter of dissenting factions. Potty-mouth Perez may think it gives him street cred to sprinkle his speeches with oratorical ordure, but apparently the more genteel among the party contributors find Perez’s profane pleas for party unity off-putting, leaving them sitting on their checkbooks.
Running out of other people’s money has Perez down in the dumps – literally. From the Observer:
DNC Chair Tom Perez recently sent out a fundraising email to supporters claiming, “I know garbage when I see it,” citing that he once worked on a dump truck. It’s ironic that he referred to the GOP health care bill as a “flaming dumpster fire” because he has been presiding over the disaster that is the Democratic National Committee. The organization reported that May 2017 was its worst fundraising month since the Iraq War in 2003, and April 2017 was its worst fundraising month since 2009. In May, the DNC also reported that it has $1.9 million in debt. Despite the fact that former Secretary of Labor Tom Perez was recruited by Barack Obama to appease the party’s donors, lobbyists and PACs, even they have refused to prop up the failing brand.
The Observer goes on to report that party fat cats, unhappy with the message the party establishment is putting out, are either tucking their bucks into their own organizations or spreading it among local political entities. Wherever those dollars are going, it’s not into DNC coffers, and the reason is clear: they don’t like the direction Perez is taking the party. These divergences within the party of diversity are numerous, with the rift created by the hard-left, full-on socialist “Bernie” faction being the biggest problem. Impending financial crises in many Democrat-ruled domains, Illinois being the most immediate threat, are also creating tensions that may explode into a party-rending financial crisis. Moreover, it doesn’t help with fundraising that the summer’s most visible faces of the party are Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, with the two female leaders providing a constant cornucopia of cuckoo quotes and Chuckie a steady stream of Trump porn.
But, and oh what a but this is, there is one issue where you find near solid agreement (with the rare exception) across all party lines and that is the issue of voter ID and registration reform. The Democrats are united in their unyielding opposition to this single issue. While Democrat-ruled bureaucracies across the nation have no qualms requiring photo ID-supported government regulation of every imaginable human activity, they have carved out this singular glaring exception, with only the weak excuse that voting is a sacred (this from the party of atheism) constitutional right. And if you point out to them the inconvenient truth that there are all these other requirements for photo ID, they will haul out the old racisss!!! blunderbuss and blast you with that.
Crossposted at American Thinker
Category: Politics
Excuse me, but ‘oratorical ordure’???
Oh, Poe! I think I’m having a vocabularygasm… and this early in the morning, too.
PT is quite the vocabularian with an impressively gross verbosity.
I am always in awe.
Are you communicating on a guilt trip, Dave Hardin?
The gig is up, yesterday the truth came out. I am a prepubescent troll who uses comments posted here in my daily attempts at self arousal.
Being devoid of conscience, guilt is unfamiliar to me.
Try appealing to my more basic instincts…Sex, Food, and Beer.
Oh, dear. I thought I had done such a fine job, but you never gave me your professional opinion of my presentation.
I am sad.
Ex, I am so glad to have been of service; just let me know when…
As for Dave, it sounds like I had the same effect which is kind of icky. I suppose it easier to arouse someone verbally who surfs in the nude and pays for live Internet sex consisting of fat girls rolling themselves in flour then letting Dave look at the wet spot.
As for this morning, let’s hope he can get all that stuff off his keyboard. Or are you going to brag, Dave, and claim the it all went over the top of your monitor?
Poe, you sure talk (write) purdy….;-)
I wish I had read this much earlier. I needed a good laugh.
Food? Beer? aren’t you being redundant?:)
You can’t really chew beer, can you?
Now, beer-marinated brats can be chewed, but beer alone – not.
Hmm…I see your point.
It’s been said that a Guinness is a meal in itself…
Well, Guinness Dark has historically been referred to as ‘a blonde in a dark skirt’… so you do kind of get the whole deal with it.
and ironically is a low-carb beer. More taster per carb than any beer on earth. Sliante!
I always have a fork handy when I’m enjoying a Guinness, that way I can get the chunks in the bottom of my mug!
Porkchop in every bottle
“Potty-mouth Perez may think it gives him street cred to sprinkle his speeches with oratorical ordure,”
Far better to talk over my head than behind my back.
The sun rises in the East, water is wet, and the Democrats are in disarray. That’s just the natural state of things.
I’m reminded of Will Rogers’s quote, “I’m not a member of any organized party – I am a Democrat.”
Apparently you didn’t read past the first couple of paragraphs, LC, or you’d know the piece is about the Dems and voting reform/ID. It was the editors at American Thinker who unwisely retitled the piece. It is recommended to read something in its entirety before offering an opinion which shows you didn’t.
Mark Twain didn’t say that–but he should have.
I read it, I simply posted a comment about the general state of the Democrats. That’s it. Does everything need to have a full-throated rebuttal?
I do also disagree about their ‘near-united’ front on voter ID regulations. Yes, there’s a near-united front against the notion of requiring an ID that costs money or time to get, and for which statistics show tend to impact minorities more adversely (and thus, Democratic turnout). But if you actually talked to Democrats you’d see plenty of opinions about how better to ensure everyone can vote (and yes, only once) – like making election days holidays, longer voting hours, ensuring free ID, etc.
Free and fair elections are a good thing, aren’t they?
The money or time argument is pure BS and you know it. The unity is against any change that could imperil their massive organized voter fraud without which they begin to lose in areas that have long been their strongholds. As a commenter at American Thinker noted, it might bring an end to the bus caravans from Chicago to Milwaukee on election day.
As for, “If you actually talked to Democrats”–well if you actually talked to Republicans, they all want Obamacare repealed too, and look where we are on that. So, there’s that argument out the door.
Every citizen should have a vote and government should take the steps necessary to see that done but also have precautions in place to see that it only happens one time.
My own view is that things might be a bit more nuanced and vary by locale. For example, the Sacramento Bee ran a story yesterday that two years after passage of Cal AB-60, the number of illegal immigrants in the state who have been granted valid driver’s licenses is now approaching one million.
It so happens that a Democratic super majority has also managed to pass a motor voter law which means that the default for driver’s license renewal is to automatically register the driver to vote. The state is also now considering a bill to declare the entire state an illegal immigrant sanctuary. Connect the dots.
Fact checkers such as Snopes say there is no cause-and-effect relationship, but tend to ignore the actual day-to-day workings of elections offices at a county level.
The conspiracy to win 90% of the votes in California while losing every other state is coming along nicely.
It’s not BS. I’ve known people working two jobs and supporting kids for whom getting off work and going to vote could cost them their job, and thus imperil their family. Is it a lot of people? I certainly don’t know, but I literally know people for whom that’s a difficulty that your or I may not face.
And I disagree with you on massive, organized voter fraud. Show me a reliable source that indicates that’s a real, significant effect – I’ll happily change my mind.
I with you on secure elections, I just want to ensure we don’t disenfranchise valid voters too.
LC< in the 1990's Milwaukee D-rats were caught shuttling homeless from precinct to precinct to vote D-rat in return for things like "40's" and packs of cigarettes and the MI 2016 vote recount was suddenly halted when workers found discrepancies to the point where entire precincts could not be verified as well as numerous instances of people caught voting multiple times among other things, those are just two instances out of many, are you saying you believe that dead people don't vote D-rat in Chicago?
Got any links for that? I’d honestly like to read about it. I do think -well, I know– voter fraud happens… there were a few instances of it in the past election, though I seem to recall those few instances were R’s voting twice. I just haven’t seen any compelling evidence of a significant (massive, organized) voter fraud effort that gives one party a measurable advantage.
If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but all the studies I’ve seen say that’s not the case. I’m not an ideological purist on this, I’m a realist – show me data that indicates a significant problem and I’ll change my tune.
You don’t know me, but I have personally observed voter fraud in multiple counties and states around this great country. I have even talked with election officials who estimate that in their counties Reps need at least 15-20% overvote to even think about winning an election.
Yes, I have personally seen transients conveyed to vote. Funniest time was seeing them disembark from small boats in a river. Saddest thing was a group too large and too drunk/high to manage themselves so their handler assisted them getting into the building. The popo was called on that one – you could hear the handler repeating the voting instructions in a loud voice to the transients from across the street, all the way through the door.
Things are likely more subtle now, but a few years ago, groups of transients were given campaign T-shirts to wear as they voted. Guess if they forgot who they were supposed to vote for, all they had to do was look at each other? I dunno. Maybe they got the shirt the first time they voted and were thus wearing it at the precincts following?
With absolutely no offense to you meant, I have to be skeptical of things which the data doesn’t back up. For example, anecdotal stories from election officials about R’s needing at least 15-20% overvote to compete is hard to square away with other election officials saying there is no problem whatsoever – who is right? I mean, I’d guess if you’re conservative, you know conservative election officials, and they’d be inclined to think that way. If I talked to liberal election officials, I’m willing to bet I’d find quite a few saying similar things about how they need more votes to compete in R districts. Me personally, I’m a data guy – I don’t think voter fraud is virtually inconsequential because of my politics, I think it’s virtually inconsequential because of data. I also don’t know whether we can -and perhaps regrettably?- say that busing transients in to vote is voter fraud. If they vote more than once, sure, if they vote only once, and they’re citizens, that’s fair, isn’t it? And continuing that line of thought, if they’re given money to get out and vote, that’s bad (but I actually don’t know the legality of it if it isn’t done by election officials), but if they’re just told some scare story, like, “Either come with us and vote, or the Republicans will feed you to alligators!”, I don’t know if that’s qualitatively different than Fox News telling people, “Get out and vote or the Democrats will take your guns and outlaw Christianity!”. There’s a whole lot of gray area in all of these things. I’ve seen things like this, too, of course – people from a local mental health facility who aren’t really of sound mind being told to vote, else they can’t get their free stuff. But is that illegal if they’re citizens? I don’t have any answers to these hard questions, so I simply stand on principle – we need to have secure elections where we minimize fraud, yet also ensure every American -yes, even the mentally handicapped or stupid- has a vote that counts. I just… Read more »
Perhaps the reason you don’t hear more about voting fraud is due to the unwillingness of the liberal media to cover the subject as they so often ignore stories harmful to Democrats, the current Debbie Wasserman Schultz scandal for example.
But then of course, I’m sure in your own state of perfectly balanced moral equivalence, you believe the media is completely unbiased.
I’ve seen the Debbie Wasserman Schultz story in the media; it’s not been hidden. And I think she’s one of the worst people in the DNC, which is saying something because there’s stiff competition!
And it’s not moral equivalence; I think the media is unbalanced, just not to a huge degree. You can look at the numbers for that, or even argue free-market economics – if there was such a glut of conservative news, yet plenty of conservative news consumers, wouldn’t more media pop up to push that narrative? I mean, c’mon, I don’t have newspaper numbers, but looking at broadcast TV, it’s something like 55% / 45% (liberal/conservative) in terms of total viewers. Which, ironically enough, is probably right about where the country is. At the very least, it’s where the audience is for television.
If you’ve got different numbers, let’s hear them. I’m all ears.
I haven’t checked today but as of yesterday the Nets were ignoring the story except for a minor mention by CNN. That’s not my observation but media watchdogs. Ditto major press.
Don’t try to piss down our legs here LC. We’ve dealt with equivocating modern liberals for a long time here.
What you’re doing is confirming what I said: That you do in fact believe the media is fair, when our own eyes and ears tell us that is complete and total bullshit.
Perhaps the reason LC doesn’t think there’s vote fraud is that he either thinks Chicago-style voting is a myth, even though it’s documented, or he doesn’t think stuffing ballot boxes ever happens.
No, in a free society where everyone has a secret ballot and a right to vote for multiple candidates, it’s impossible for anyone to be as dishonest as Dan Madigan, who redraws Cook County, IL< voting districts to suit himself and keep his frenzied grip on the Illinois state legislature.
Couldn't possibly happen, right? Right?
Yeah, sure.
Show me numbers. I remember reading about numbers from the last election where some small-but-noteworthy subset of districts showed more than an 8 vote differential in their counts. It was, from memory, something like 13% of them.
Yet, when you look at all the data, something like 80% (I’m pulling these numbers out of my ass, but it was high – I’ll need to look up the report later) had discrepancies of +/- 1 vote. I mean, clearly, we don’t get it right, and that’s pretty messed up.
… But the interesting thing is that tallies showed extra votes going R in some places, and D in others, and on the whole, it made very little statistical difference. And zero on the overall electoral math.
Can we do better? Absolutely. Gerrymandering is a big fucking problem, having untraceable vote counts is a big fucking problem, and not even being able to guarantee we get the right count in small counties with a few hundred voters is pretty damn embarrassing. But I’ve not yet seen any analysis that shows this having any effect whatsoever on elections. “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” People fucked up. Some people tried to cheat, maybe. It has no real effect at the scale on which it happens. If you say otherwise, show me a study – I’m all ears, as I said above. Otherwise this is just like the fear crazy liberals have about how every soldier who comes back from war is suffering PTSD and ready to snap and shoot up a place, and thus guns are a huge problem. Yes, it happens, but rarely, and isn’t statistically significant.
No, it does NOT happen rarely. Not at all. It has been going on in Cook County for decades. The most recent example is here:
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/10/27/2-investigators-chicago-voters-cast-ballots-from-beyond-the-grave/
And I don’t give a flying fart in space whether you believe it or not, LC, because this isn’t YOUR perfect little dreamworld where everything is just fine and nobody cheats to get elected.
I don’t know what you’re smoking, but it must be pretty good if you can’t accept the reality that in Chicago and in Cook County entire, this kind of thing has gone on for so long, it’s legendary.
When I said that Dan Madigan redraws voting districts to keep himself in the state legislature, it isn’t a rumor, it is a fact. Gerrymandering isn’t something new or unusual, and it didn’t die out with the end of Boss Tweed’s grip on New York City’s City Hall.
I don’t understand what it is that fosters your disbelief in political corruption like this, but it is a fact and it is embedded in Chicago and Illinois politics and won’t be gone until Dan Madigan and his ilk drop dead in their tracks.
Where did I say nobody cheats? I said voter fraud (which I’ll keep separate from gerrymandering) is statistically insignificant. Less significant than the delta achieved by Voter ID laws, hence my opposition to them. We should have perfect tallies but we don’t. Unless the fraud + errors is significant enough to change results, it’s like pointing out that “Bananas have radiation!” It’s true. But unless you’re eating a few million at a time, you’re not going to be impacted by it. Would radiation-free bananas be better? Sure, but this is a non-issue for nearly everyone.
And no, I believe in plenty of political corruption, and gerrymandering is one of the worst examples of this. I’d love to see us do away with it entirely. There should be bi-partisan support for that!
And you are intentionally missing the point, as usual, which IS that your completely incorrect view of voter corruption has no real influence on any elections.
I’d certainly like to see solid data on that net loss of valid votes, and how it compares to the loss of invalid votes. Pardon me if don’t hold my breath for either bit of data because it is simply impossible to gather. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.
Meanwhile, voting rolls can be urged of some invalid voters, such as dead people, but voter fraud in some form will continue to occur. Requiring ID to vote is simply one tool to reduce the incidence of some of it.
How can someone justify that persons who are mentally ineligible to own firearms should be allowed to vote? That just makes no sense at all. If you are incapable of deciding how to appropriately use a firearm, how can you make a reasonable decision about who should hold a public office, any public office?
Just as I hope that firearms owners are educated in their use, I hope that voters are educated in the ramifications of their votes. There is no such actual requirement in the founding documents.
Apparently I don’t watch enough Fox News to have seen of them declaring that Dems would steal guns or revoke Christianity cards from anyone. When did that happen?
I’d like to see numbers, too, but the best we get is statistical studies – and from the ones I’ve seen, Voter ID laws disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters or more, whereas voter fraud is generally found to be orders of magnitude smaller. Fraud, as in people casting votes illegally, simply doesn’t happen on equal scales to vote ‘suppression’ (with no intended connotation there) via Voter ID laws. Why might this be the case? Well, for one, if you’re caught voting illegally you’re screwed – most people, even if they had so little faith in democracy, aren’t going to risk jail to support one political asshole over another.
Again, if we can get a free Voter ID, and maybe make election days a national holiday, and ensure minority districts don’t have lines 10x longer than those in R-leaning areas, I’m all for it. I want everyone who can vote to have their opportunity, without negatively impacting their livelihood.
As for the firearm comparison, sure, there are valid points to be made about how the mentally incompetent maybe shouldn’t get to vote… but that’s pretty much a fundamental right for citizens, so I don’t know how one goes about restricting that right. And I think trying would do more harm than good. Some here feel I’m mentally incompetent since I don’t think Obama was the devil incarnate, should I have my right to vote revoked?
And if you really want some links from Fox about how Dems are going to take all your guns or outlaw Christianity, I’ll find some for you. It does happen. Just as MSNBC has its brain farts, too.
LC,
Why do Liberals then want to apply far more onerous rules on having and carrying guns, thus having disparate impact on minorities being able to defend themselves versus predation? Doubly so since many are subject to higher levels of predation, thus often far more in need of self defense.
Oh. I forgot. That is a feature for the left, not a bug. You dont actually think of them as equals.
I’m not a liberal, nor a Democrat. I am totally fine with gun ownership and want elections to be both secure and yet available to every citizen. One needn’t -shouldn’t, even- have to choose sides on things like that.
When it comes to elections, I’m all for an ID… provided it can be given without cost and that voting happens on holidays, adequate machines are in place to ensure long lines don’t deter people (D or R), etc. Sure, on this issue the D’s want to make sure minorities vote because they tend to vote D,… and R’s want to ensure they don’t for the very same reason.
LC, stop the “I’m not a liberal,” pose. We both KNOW that you are. You are being dishonest with folks here and it needs to stop.
I’m really not. I’m socially liberal, and financially conservative, and a bit across the board when it comes to defense. Look, people here call McCain a Democrat even though he votes with the GOP 88% of the time – so by people here, sure, I’m a pinko-commie latte-drinking snowflake. Hell, even my ‘social liberalism’ only extends to equal rights – I’m against political correctness, affirmative action, safe spaces, etc.
I’m not as conservative as you, but I’m an independent, not a liberal.
Then why the liberalcivvy?
In part because when I first started commenting on milblogs (Blackfive), it was pretty clear I was much more liberal than most of the others, even if I didn’t feel particularly liberal myself. And civvy, obviously, because I’m a civilian. It seemed a short and simple enough moniker to use.
And, in part because classic liberalism is about personal liberty .. which hopefully is something we can all agree is a good thing? You equate liberals with the people ranting about safe spaces, trigger warnings, white privilege, etc., because that’s seen as a ‘progressive’ view to them, and thus fits with liberals, but it ain’t the classical definition. A lot like how being conservative doesn’t equate to being racist or sexist, yet the people who are that way typically align with conservatives because it’s seen as preserving a status quo.
If you can find any comment here at TAH where I’ve advocated for trigger warnings or some other stupid shit, I’ll eat my hat. My fake name was chosen somewhat tongue in cheek. I belong to neither party and vote for whoever I think is better, not the letter next to their name.
ANYONE who believes the American media is balanced and fair has to be watching it and reading it through a liberal prism. By that single assertion you position yourself on the left.
BTW, my California brother also professes to be a “classic liberal” yet, by his own admission, he votes consistently left, Obama twice, Jerry Brown, Boxer, Feinstein, etc., so puhleeze excuuuse me if I fail to be impressed with your claim to be a classic liberal.
Give me numbers, Poe. We can debate numbers, we can’t debate your ‘feeling’ that the media is biased.
And, again, it seems it is biased, just not largely so, and not in a way that deviates much from the country’s political divisions. Media isn’t publicly funded, it’s market-based, so that kind of makes sense. Add to that the fact that big cities -which tend to be very liberal- are bigger markets. Suddenly you’ve got a free-market reason for a slight bias, too.
But again, give me numbers. I’ve posted the broadcast media before, and Fox is bigger than any of the individual liberal-leaning networks, but smaller by a few percent of the sum of them. You got different numbers, I’m all ears.. you’ve got ‘beliefs’, well, hell, plenty of people believe in angels, leprechauns, unicorns and lizard people. I like facts.
As for your brother, I could equally say “Man, conservatives are racist, and even if you say you’re not racist, I’ve got a brother who says that and then spouts off racist shit, so pardon me for not believing you.”
I’ve already listed countless things I disagree with liberals on, and had Huntsman been in the running, I’d have picked him over Clinton or Trump in a heartbeat. It’s always a choice between ideals, not party.
‘Feeling’ that media is biased?
Then explain why CNN releases statements that are complete lies and shortly thereafter, when brought to bear on it, has to retract it.
They’ve done this repeatedly. There have been links posted here on TAH.
MSNBC and other left-leaning news outlets were so biased during the November elections, that they ALL online/cable/broadcast news outlets, etc., went into complete meltdown when the announcement came that Trump won and Clinton did not.
Are you living in such a protected, cocooned environment that you never saw that?
What planet ARE you living on, LC? Your connection to reality seems tenuous at best and disconnected at its worst.
@Ex-PH2
Once again, I didn’t say the media isn’t biased, I said there’s pretty even biases which result in only a small net bias towards liberals.
I mean, do you not remember when Fox News went after Obama because he used Dijon mustard as opposed to normal mustard? Or when an anchor on Fox went hysterical because President Obama gave his wife a fist-bump and she said, “A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab?” I mean, seriously, it’s a fucking fist bump but the dude is Black, and lots of people thought (and still think) he’s a Muslim, so maybe it’s a secret signal. There’s plenty more too – the media thrives on hysterics. It’s stupid. It’s as stupid as focusing on the Kardashians over, you know, actual stuff.
If you think only liberals do that shit, what planet are you living on? The fact that you can find stupid stuff on one side or the other, or both, doesn’t negate the overall numbers on broadcast viewers and the respective biases they hold.
He sure as hell didn’t vote with us on the Obamacare repeal today did he?
He is a damned traitor to his party!
He’s a traitor to his country.
McCain has sold his soul for himself and his interests too many times – and how many times has he thrown the military and vets under the bus when it comes to funding?
McCain’s next primary challenge is with the Grim Reaper… and he won’t be winning that one.
Ex-PH2 is correct–you are delusional, LC. The media isn’t even attempting to hide its bias anymore after outing itself with its election night meltdown and you see “Nozzing” here?
You’re a waste of time.
Yeah, the liberal half of the media lost its shit when President Trump won. And the conservative media lost its shit when President Obama won. If you can’t see that, you’re pretty blind. Birth certificates? Secret Muslim? All that stuff? Do you not remember it?
As I said above, the fact that news people on a given side lose their shit when the other side gets a win is immaterial to the question of net bias.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the meta circles of journalism where the discussion is journalists talking about journalism. Most who are familiar with that would probably agree that the news media is weighted much more liberal now than in the past. One big reason is because of failing business models.
When I was a young news hound just out of the Army and learning the newspaper trade, it was common for a grumpy old news editor to tell you that he didn’t give a rusty rat about your opinion in news stories. That was for the editorial page, and way above your pay grade. The thinking at the time, call it institutional wisdom, was that learning to be fair, accurate, and thorough was a lot of work, and you needed to pay those dues before you were qualified to waste the paper’s ink with your opinion.
Very little of that is true any more. Early buyouts got rid of the grumpy old news editors along with the copy desk.
I guess we have to quantify what you mean by weighted much more liberal – I have agreed, countless times with Poe and Ex-PH2, that there is a liberal media bias. I just think, at least in terms of broadcast media (which is admittedly just a subset of a larger whole), it’s ‘only’ about 55/45, not, say, 80/20. And I’m not going to claim other people are saying it’s 80/20, it’s just when it’s painted as being so severely liberal, that conjures up, to me, a pretty high difference like that. And the numbers don’t lie – going by viewership, it’s more like 55/45. (Note: I don’t remember the exact numbers, but something in that range.)
It’s a bit like arguing whether we need to worry about home-grown terrorists. Is it a problem? Sure. But when you look at the numbers, they paint a different picture than what you might feel day to day. Nobody is petrified of driving to work, but that’s a cause of more deaths than terrorism by a longshot. (Not comparing magnitude here, just the notion that what we feel isn’t necessarily what’s true.)
Regardless, I wish we had fair, accurate reporting like you talk about. That would be fantastic. I’m certainly not arguing that MSNBC or CNN don’t push a liberal point of view at times, I’m just saying that that’s the new normal, and when you look at the viewer counts on all the networks, and add them up by political alignment, the consumed news is at about a 55/45 split. The interesting thing about this is there are far more liberal channels, and reporters/journalists,… but Fox has been the Big Kahuna of broadcast media and the number of journalists of one spectrum or another matters less than the people who get their news from the respective side.
Put differently, twenty guppies vs. one shark doesn’t mean the odds are 20:1 in favor of the guppies just because they’ve got the numbers.
I’m not sure we’re on the same page, LC. The real problem isn’t what the percentage of perceived bias is, whether liberal or conservative, it’s whether there’s a perceived bias at all. Bias, at least it seems to me, tends to cause increased polemics which makes it less likely for factions to find a middle ground. The current news media wants such a conflict because it increases viewers, readers, page views, or whatever.
But it’s ultimately a quick-hit fool’s game, because eventually the little boy cries wolf too many times, and people stop believing him.
Some years ago, I remember reading the novel Gorky Park by the writer Martin Cruz Smith. In it the main protagonist, Arkady Renko, is investigating a multiple homicide, and is asked, “Why do you want to be a policeman? People are just going to hate you and lie to you all the time. What’s the point?”
And Renko’s response was that anytime the crime of murder happens, there is a brief window of time when society allowed him to see how things work. I’m not sure journalists now, caught up as they are in personal brand building, have a similar view towards the craft they’ve been entrusted with. Unlike a few years ago.
Another change from the past is that the craft of journalism seemed more like playing pinball. If you did a good job on an interesting story, they would give you another cool story to work on as a reward. Something that tended to be different from the goal of trying to acquire as many twitter followers as possible.
You know, you’re absolutely correct – I was only approaching bias from the perspective of how many people are influenced by one side or the other, not the bigger problem of what this means for society through the perceived bias.
This is a miserably sobering perspective on a Saturday morning. From my point of view, the two sides being almost in balance had almost negated the problem because the bad influences on each side were both nearly proportional. But yeah, I think this does contribute to tearing the country apart on political seams.
I’d love to hear if you have any ideas on how to fix this given your experiences.
Well I’ll be damned!
Mr. Gaskill will you please continue with the political education of LC? It seems he listens to you, respecting both your experience and your reasoning, as do I.
Well done, Sir!
BTW, I’ve read all of Martin Cruz Smith’s books except his latest but it’s on my wishlist.
I had forgotten Arkady’s insight.
He made a good point. I have no problem acknowledging good points. That point wasn’t necessarily that the media is biased overly in one direction or the other, but that media bias -on both sides!- polarizes society. You could have a net zero bias -eg, equal amounts of media being very conservative and very liberal- and that point still holds.
If he were to argue that the vast majority of people still get liberal-slanted news from broadcast media, I’d argue against him, too. It’s a majority, yes, but nothing like the perceived difference many seem to think exist. Something like 55/45, if memory serves.
Ex-PH2 I’ll respond here since there’s no more response option above. Look, this guy wouldn’t see media bias if you buried him in data proving the obvious. The reason he asks for data is because he knows it’s damned near impossible to obtain because the data reporting entities are all just as liberal as the media.
LC is what I call a “yeah but,” type whose response is always summed up in those two words no matter how far into a corner you back him. My brother, who also fashions himself a “Classical Liberal,” as does our liberal troll here. Perhaps it represents a way for them to think they are seizing the philosophical high ground so that they can preach their moral equivalence with greater moral authority. Isn’t this what pundits call virtue-signalling?
In any event, LC is welcome to comment on my writings but I will keep my responses limited because they appear to be a waste of my time. His refusal to recognize a reality like leftist media bias is full evidence of that.
Sloppy writing. Should have finished the sentence about my brother with, “As does our troll here, is a master of the ‘Yeah but,’ response and will stay on the phone for hours with that rhetorical device.”
Poetrooper, it’s one thing to argue a valid point that may or may not be wrong.
It’s another thing to continually needle your opposition into using pejoratives to describe you and your behavior, which is what LC tried to do again, above, when he used the ‘yeah, but’ in regard to the 2016 election, especially since there was no such meltdown on the conservative side of the media fence in 2008. Disappointment, yes, but meltdown – absolutely not. The Republicans exited the stage politely and with proper courtesy. I know, because I was watching the whole thing.
LC’s only purpose, as he shows in the end of his response here:
“If you think only liberals do that shit, what planet are you living on? The fact that you can find stupid stuff on one side or the other, or both, doesn’t negate the overall numbers on broadcast viewers and the respective biases they hold.”
Everything with him is meant to trigger an angry, heated response from his opponent, just as it is with Lars ‘the Commie’ Taylor. The fact that he rattles on ad infinitum is immaterial: it’s a ploy for attention, just as it was with that idiot who called himself Insipid. Remember him? The translator of Hungarian porn?
I just wondered how far LC was going to take it before he splattered, which he did this time, because he quoted me back to me, which is extremely thin, weak sauce. “Yeah, but” is not a response. It’s another ‘oh, crap’ pull-back, regroup, and try to strike again, and it doesn’t work for very long.
On top of that, he’s a considerable boor. You may meet people like that at a Mensna/Mesna party.
Look, everybody! I went hunting and got a boor, and I did it without firing a shot!
It couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch, now we need to weed the RINOs out of the GOP!
The Phoenix effect in politics is strong. It was a mere eight years ago the GOP was left for dead, having suffered enormous electoral defeats up and down the ballot in two straight elections.
But they never worked out their internal issues either, and now having returned to power, are having sever intra-party issues in governing.
It is to laugh. Keep doing what your doing you traitorous assholes. Keep telling us, via your punk ass supporters, how stupid/bigoted/racist blah, blah, blah, we are. The 2020 election is going to be hoot.
They need to keep muslim integration and gun control central talking points as well. Both of those seem to be working well in their favor.
I agree with E-6 type, 1 ea. The more of these issues they rattle on about, the more likely it is that they will annoy the living daylights out of potential voters and drive them to the other side of the political fence.
OH, on the mid-day news, Her Royal Clappermouth has a new book out that she herself probably didn’t write, and she’s explaining what went wrong and all the Russian interference stuff in last fall’s election. Is there a prize for Sore Losers in literature?
Can we make sure she runs in 2020? I want four more years of Trump, preferrably with ~65 republican senators.
I don’t think so. She’s already said she won’t run again, and if there is a female candidate, it should really come from the right side of the political fence, not the left.
Condoleezza Rice.
I keep hoping…
Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll put Marie Hoff in as their candidate.
Now wouldn’t that Breck shampoo girl be just peachy?
So now that they have lost all power they are no longer able to shake-down banks because they
Forced them to take TARP money ???
Or any number of other illegal activities the last 8 years
Who would have thought
Just a reminder all yesterday McCain called talk radio listeners a bunch of crazies
And it seemed like he was giving the thumbs up to CNN and MSNBC
They had is speech on one of our local news radio stations
His and not is
Good write up.
And very true.
By all means I heartily encourage D-rats and the left to continue going full throttle campaigning for more Gun Control as well as higher taxes and bigger Government reach into people’s lives, that will cement a 2020 reelection of President Trump!
If they do not have any money then I won’t get any money.
That sucks.
You want a cookie, GT?
A whole bunch of folks donate money to whomever is in power, to better grease the skids of our colossal political influence system.
The Dems are currently “out” so the influence seekers focus the money on the Republicans, who are currently “in”. Were the situation reversed, much more loot would fill the slop-troughs of the Dems.
There occasionally is a charismatic player, or popular cause, that temporarily floods loot one way or the other. Currently, Trump is generating extra cash-flow for the Republicans, and anti-Trumpers are also swelling the purses of Republican efforts that are seen as non-Trump.
Given the adroit Trump-tweet-trolling of the left, and the shadenboner glee of the Right, 2018 could well be an unpleasant event for the Dems. And -that- would feed nicely into Trump’s second term. The odds are very high for 1-3 SCOTUS picks over a two-term Trump presidency.
And that means… Ahem … “All your base are belong to us!”
At the moment, the Senate GOP is voting on an 8 page repeal of a few parts of Obamacare that has been public for two hours and will be passed around midnight.
I think those things may way heavier on voters minds that Tom Perez’s potty mouth.
The DNC number 1 donors are the radical/militant homosexuals who think they have extra/special rights.
The same thing was said about Republicans, how they were wandering lost in the forest after President Obama’s victory. We now see that wasn’t correct. Smugness leads to lazy inattention and then POW! The problem with the democrats is they can’t field a candidate people will vote for. The guy in the Montana congressional race was a loon and the national leadership needs to be checked for a pulse. Their big draw is a communist that owns a $600,000 vacation lake house. That’s their “A” team. Will it always be like that? Probably not but for the foreseeable future it is. See, W2 makey nice on ol’ Poe’s article.
This is Poe’s wife, He’s passed out on the floor in front of the keyboard, W2. He yelled, “Holy shit!” then fell out of his chair clutching his heart. Do you have anything I could say to him that might bring him around or do I need to call EMS?
Sincerely,
Mrs Poe
Yes m’aam, I do have something but it ain’t anything I say in front of a lady.
Have you tried mentioning Bourbon? That always works for me.
Hope he pulls out of it.
Next on the D-rat list is Fauxcahontas herself who has been officially disowned by the Tribe she claimed ancestry with while she charged $400k a year to teach a single class at a college. Obviously not even George Soros is donating to the DNC but I’m sure he’s trying to prop up something even farther left.
Yeah, D-rats and the lefties were SO smugly looking down their noses and telling us all about how Conservatism was dead, we needed to get to the back of the bus, etcetera after the 2008 election thus my increased schadenfreude every time I see more of the left disintegrating! OH, and I DO hope they keep the likes of Nanny Lugosi, Chuckie Schoomah, Maxine Waters and the like at their party’s helm as well, TRUMP/PENCE 2020!!!
The last 6 months kind of guarantees that 2020 thing may not work out. At least for 1/2 of that ticket. Trolling the left and sending them into hissy fits isn’t the same as actually governing to country. So many things are going wrong that the agenda is looking harder and harder to enact. I swear, if he appoints one more smart ass, mouthy New York Wall Street assh*ole that’ll push me right out of his camp. I thought we were supposed to be getting rid of these left and right coast elitists. The goobermint is being run by the same Goldman Sachs assh*les and Wall Street jerks as before, the only thing that changed is the ring leader, or so it appears.
Sorry ol’Poe. Hope you’re still with us.