Steve's Blog Spot

Harvard isn't exactly a bastion of political conservatism, yet a new report from Harvard's Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy confirms the extreme bias of the mainstream press. That's something many conservatives, and Donald Trump, have known all along. I don't mind the press going after Trump. That's their job, provided it is researched accurately and honestly. But with so much bias, you can't tell where the real truth lies, and it gets drowned out by all the noise. Bottom line: if you get your information from the mainstream media, how do you know your opinions are correct? Here are some interesting graphics, and Fox News does indeed appear to be fair and balanced!

Ah, Susan Rice is back in the news again. When the poo is flying, she seems to pop up. I agree with Eli Lake  that there are two stories here: - Was Susan Rice justified in unmasking? (She's already admitted to the crime.) - Did the Russians actually interfere with the election? I don't believe for minute Susan Rice was justified. As Security Adviser, it was not her job to perform investigations on her own. It smells political, but we need more facts. Assuming the Russians did indeed perform all sorts of interfering, why would they want Hillary Clinton to lose? She was a known quantity, especially compared to Trump. And speaking of Hillary - how is it that her basement server was never hacked, but the Russians were able to hack the 2016 election? And how do we really know it was those evil Russians? WikiLeaks has reported that the CIA can launch cyber attacks and make them look like anybody did it. And if the Trump administration was in such cahoots with the Rus...

...but maybe this is a good time to start back. Again. We've survived a contentious, bloody presidential election where the winner was marginally better than the loser. But he IS the winner, so let's give him some time to get it together. I said the same thing about Mr. Obama 8 years ago ( God Bless Our New President ), and I wish the same for Mr. Trump. I just wish the sore losers would stop their whining and tantrums and hair-pulling. They are being childish and closed-minded. Give Mr. Trump a chance. Try to overlook his obnoxiousness and inane tweets, and take a look at what he actually accomplishes. And take a few deep breaths please! He's making some newbie, outsider, non-politician errors, but I believe that, way down inside, his heart is in the right place. He truly wants a better America, and if he can accomplish that, he'll feed his ego and look better too. I don't care about that. Just give me results. The next four years will quickly pass...

It's frightening how the Executive Order has replaced the Rule of the People. Laws enacted by the 535 people's representatives in Congress are virtually irrelevant. The President - charged with enforcing the laws - now either ignores them or makes his own. Pandora's box has been opened. And there's nothing we can do about it. The checks and balances on the Executive branch have been compromised. Permanently, I'm afraid. Those checks have historically included impeachment, funding, and and nominations. Impeachment is out of the question - it's too political, especially with a biased media. House leaders have gone on record they will not use funding as leverage. And disrupting nominations are countered with a Presidential fiat, as in, if you block so-and-so for this post, then I'll an EO ban on bullets (as in AR-15). This is scary. There is no control on the Presidency. I think our current President actually does love our country. It's just that he is...

May He guide Mr. Obama and give him wisdom in all choices and strength for the difficult ones. And thank you, Mr. Bush, for all you have done under a difficult set of circumstances. Mr. Reid and Ms Pelosi can go suck a rock...

No, that's not a typo. Kinda fits, though. I like the word...

From The Onion : Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job November 5, 2008 Issue 44•45 WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."

I'm really tired of it all. The ads, the sound bites on the news, the debates - all of it over, at least for a little while, until everyone and their neighbor starts posturing for the 2012 election! In sizing up all 4 candidates, after all the dust has settled, after all the blah-blah, after the ridiculous amount of money spent on each side, I see only 4 politicians. Two of them are lawyers. Two of them aren't. Two of them are polished and eloquent. Two of them aren't so polished and eloquent. Two of them talk about a lot of things. Two of them make things happen. I don't think the choice is difficult. Be sure to vote...

is not much different from any I have voted, except maybe for the sheer amount of information available, due to today's technology - internet, 24 hour news channels, etc. Bottom line: we seem to always try to pick the lesser of two evils, the candidate who will hurt us least. I always lean a certain way, but I have a quick exercise I use as a sanity check against my own biases: I mentally reverse the party alliance for each candidate. That is, Obama becomes an R, McCain becomes a D, etc. This way, if I am leaning toward voting R, Obama becomes my favorite guy; I am biased for him. Now examine the candidate from a positive point of view, rather than negative. For example, if you are Republican, pretend Sarah Palin is a Democrat running against a Republican Joe Biden. Do you still like/dislike both's qualifications, ideas, track record, etc. equally? From a Republican perspective, what things make Biden the better candidate? I find this exercise forces me to vote the person ra...

they are politicians . And frankly, I do not understand how they think (a word used loosely in this context). Victor Davis Hanson has the right idea of a sure-win platform: I don't quite understand why one party or the other doesn't campaign on delivering more energy to the American people to lower costs, keep the world price down, and money out of the hands of terrorists, and to address U.S. debt and the falling dollar. There seems no contradiction between wanting nuclear power, clean coal, tar and shale, more drilling off our coasts and Alaska — and more conservation, more money for hydrogen, biofuels, more solar, wind, etc. Providing both short- and long-term energy policies would be most beneficial to our country's well-being, and we would stop sending billions and billions of our dollars to countries who do not wish us all the best. Come on, politicians, stand up for America for a change and use some common sense! That's the "change" we really need. VDH ...

John McCain is a very lucky man, and I'm sure he knows it. I had wondered about his wife Cindy, as she prefers to stay in the background, and there's not much in the press about her. Maggie's Farm has a great summary about Cindy McCain , based on the Wall Street Journal bio article. You can judge a person by their spouses, friends, and associations, and Senator McCain's wife of 28 years is a gem.

Congress does have a plan for solving the high gas prices after all! At least, Maxine Waters does . What an idiot!

Did you know that the US oil companies are really fairly small? At least when compared to oil companies around the world, the majority of which are state-owned. Check out this article . Our largest - Exxon Mobil - is only 14th largest world-wide! Note the size of the Chinese and Indian oil companies - very small, and the emerging economies of those two countries are booming. Our own US Congress could greatly help alleviate high cost of fuel if they wanted to. So why don't they? (Of course, all they can think of is to sue OPEC !) One more thing to remember at election time...

Oh, I thought Obama was talking to Bill Clinton ! HAHA!

And which one is the 8th grader ? I have a lot of admiration for this group of kids, especially the one at the end, questioning the supposedly adult and more mature politician. This is funny, to boot!