Brian Williams Math

I’m sure by now you’ve heard about or seen the latest Brian Williams faux pas. Of course, the former NBC News anchor, now relegated to what, MSNBC? is discussing the failed campaign of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. And basically, Williams and a New York Times reporter are discussing a Tweet that someone sent. It basically says that there are 325 million Americans, and that Bloomberg spent $500 million in advertising during his failed campaign and that had Bloomberg just opened up his checkbook, he would have been able to give ALL Americans $1 million each!

Well, if you do the math, they’re off a little bit. Basically, he could have given all Americans $1.53, not a million with “lunch money left over” as Williams pointed out.

And here is the problem I have with this. Journalists, and yes, Brian Williams IS a journalist, are supposed to do their homework. They are supposed to have gone to J-School. In case you’re wondering, Williams didn’t. In fact, he never graduated from college. He attended Catholic University, and George Washington University, but never graduated. He has an associates degree from a community college. Apparently, they never taught math, or didn’t put much stock in telling the truth there.

The whole point of this is that what we are shown on television newscasts, and granted, this was only MSNBC, which isn’t watched by a ton of people anyway, but what we are shown is not very well vetted. In fact, the producers of Brian Williams’ show probably should be fired for allowing that on the air in the first place. Isn’t that the job of a producer? Don’t they fact check what the host is saying? Apparently not in this case.

The old saying, “when you assume something, you make an ass out of you and me” couldn’t be more spot on. And it is just an example of the level that journalism in this country has sunk. Think back, and I know I use these guys a lot in analogies, but do you think that Murrow, or Cronkite, or Huntley, or Brinkley would have ever let something like that go on the air? Of course not! Those guys were consummate professionals. Yes, they were all liberals, but they took their jobs seriously, and were so much better trained than the peons that come out of today’s colleges and universities.

Brian Williams has been on the outs for a long time, ever since he was canned at NBC for lying about his involvement in the stories he covered. And his banishment to MSNBC has proven that you can’t really trust much that comes out of that network anymore. And yes, the same can be said about all networks these days. Finding the truth in a newscast is like an enigma. You need to peel it back and do your own homework in order to find the truth. And when you think about it, if you have to do that much work to fact check today’s journalists, why do we even need them in the first place?

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Bernie IS Right On One Thing

I think Bernie Sanders is totally, 100% right on one thing, and I think it’s probably the only thing I would agree with him on.

The Democrat party is out to take him out again.

Let’s look at what happened in detail, shall we? Going into the South Carolina Primary, you have Joe Biden’s campaign on life support at best. Most said he was dead…me included. Then he gets an endorsement from House Majority Whip, Jim Clyiburn. Clyburn happens to be probably the most influential politician in the state of South Carolina…at least with Democrats. And when he comes out and endorses Joe Biden the day before the primary, it carries a lot of weight. And it worked.

Biden wins South Carolina by huge numbers. All of a sudden, with three days until Super Tuesday, Sleepy Joe receives CPR. And then Mayor Pete Buttigieg drops out of the race and throws his support to Biden. This was a guy that technically won the Iowa Caucus! And then you’ve got Amy Klobuchar change her mind on a dime, and say she’s dropping out of the race, and guess who she’s endorsing? Yup…Uncle Joe! That leaves Bernie, Joe, Bloomberg, Elizabeth Warren, and Tulsi Gabbard still in the running. What in the world is going on?

Well, the establishment of the Democrat party knows what’s coming up. If Bernie Sanders does well on Super Tuesday, he could vault himself into the position of not only being a front-runner, but uncatchable. So, you can bet that all weekend long, the phone lines were buzzing between Tom Perez, the DNC chair, and Buttigieg’s and Klobuchar’s campaigns. I’m sure it was explained to them that Sanders couldn’t beat Trump anywhere, and that Dems would lose big time if he gets the nod. So, they wanted those two to coalesce around Joe. And that’s what happened.

Was the fix in?

We will never really know. My hunch is, yes…the fix was in. How do you go from life support to the front-runner in three days with no organization, no money, and a bumbling candidate that thinks the Super Tuesday vote is going to take place on Thursday? You have to realize that neither Buttigieg, nor Klobuchar have a ghost of a chance to win, and that all they are doing is taking votes from a guy that has been around a LONG time, and probably deserves to be the candidate. I want you to think of Bob Dole, John McCain, or Mitt Romney on the Republican side. Same thing.

The big difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that four years ago, it was the same thing going on in the GOP. They let it ride. Trump became the nominee, and won. The GOP let it play out. The Democrats want to put the fix in so that Bernie Sanders, who isn’t viewed as a Democrat doesn’t get the nod, and yes, they were scared he would.

Then come Wednesday, Michael Bloomberg…the guy that threw upwards of $800 million by the time you counted his paid staff, and ads, and everything else…just to get 50 delegates (a cost of $16,000,000 per delegate). He says on Tuesday night he’s “in it to win it”. On Wednesday, he drops out. AND he endorses Joe Biden. No funny business going on there, huh Mr. Mayor?

Bernie Sanders is right. Unless and until the Socialist Party of the United States gets to be a major party, Sanders will never be the nominee for president. As far as the Democrat establishment is concerned, he’s an after-thought and won’t be counted on to win anything.

So, it will be Donald Trump against Joe Biden this fall. What do you think the outcome of that will be? Who do you think comes across better? Who has the more energy? Who draws crowds (Biden’s “victory” crowd Tuesday night was estimated to be about 250)? Meanwhile, Trump was drawing 30,000. And who do you think is going to be the better debater? I think you know the answer to that one!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

“Bloombergcare”?

It’s started to leak out already that Michael Bloomberg has plans to reduce healthcare costs. Now, saying that, you may think that’s a great thing. We all think it’s too expensive when we go to the doctor, or God forbid, have to spend a night in the hospital, or worse…intensive care, where the bill can easily skyrocket to six figures a day.

Well, wait just a doggone minute.

It’s not going to be that easy…especially if you are over, say 50 years of age (which includes most voters for president in this country!) So, what’s Mike Bloomberg’s cure for, let’s say, cancer? He wants to judge how you get treated by how old you are. Not on your ability to pay. Not on the fact that life itself is sacred. Not on the fact medicine needs to be advance so we can beat cancer pretty much every time out. He wants to do what Obama tried to do with his “death panels”. He wants to limit the healthcare you get by how old you are. And I have one question about that.

Who is going to determine what “too old” to cure is?

It’s back to the death panel days of Obamacare! Except Bloomberg is coming right out and saying it. If you head over to my video on YouTube, you’re going to see exactly what I’m talking about. Or should I say exactly what HE is talking about as he does the talking.

I understand that when you get older, you’re going to spend more money on healthcare than when you’re younger. You will end up spending something like 80% of all of your healthcare expenses in the last five years of your life. That’s a fact, and I get that. I also understand that we are all going to die at some point. But are you telling me that it’s humane to say to an elderly person that it’s too late in your life for us to fix your problem, because you’re not going to live long enough to be a good investment for the expense? That’s what Bloomberg is essentially saying, and I have a problem with that.

Let me go into my religious mode here for a second. I’m a firm believer that life itself is a gift from God. You’re given that gift every day you wake up. And what you decide to do with that gift is up to you. Likewise, when your life ends isn’t necessarily up to you. It’s up to God. Oh, you can certainly shorten your life by doing things that are unhealthy for you. But when it comes right down to it, God determines when you are born, how long you’re going to live, and how and when you’re going to die. It’s not up to you…and it’s not up to Michael Bloomberg or any other politician.

If you follow Bloomberg’s logic here, someone like a Rush Limbaugh, who is suffering from advanced lung cancer, and has enough money to pay for any treatment out there, is going to be denied treatment, not because he can’t afford it. It’s because Rush Limbaugh is like, 65 years old and the chances are the hundreds of thousands of dollars that it would cost to cure him, though he could certainly afford it, wouldn’t be “a good investment” for the medical community.

Bloomberg is starting to step in it. And it’s going to turn a lot of voters off that were looking to him to be the one Democrat candidate that isn’t a total whack job. As it turns out, he is proving them wrong already!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Can We Get Honest Here?

Think back over the past four years or so. Remember when Donald Trump was running for president, and everyone jumped on his case because he said he wasn’t going to release his tax returns? He said he was under an audit (which, frankly I don’t believe…how many tax audits go four years?) The same thing is happening today in the Democrat race…only not with taxes.

Bernie Sanders isn’t going to release any more medical information on his health.

And that begs the question…would you rather have a president who kept his finances private prior to getting elected, or someone that kept his health private? The only reason I ask this is remember…Bernie Sanders had a heart attack last fall. It kept him off the campaign trail for a couple of weeks. And it would seem to me that at 78 years old, the state of a candidate’s health would be a rather important issue.

So, can Sanders really jump all over Trump, who by the way HAS released his medical reports and his physicals (as every president does every year anyway) because of his refusal to release his taxes prior to running? I don’t think so.

Bernie appears to be a hypocrite on this one, and I’m calling him on it. Sanders, if you really ARE presidential material, why don’t you go ahead and release whatever your medical records show, because as best as I can tell, the only reason you wouldn’t do that is because you’re hiding something that you don’t want the electorate to know about.

And therein lies the biggest problem Democrats have this year. We have a slate of candidates that are totally un-electable. Oh, they thought Mini Mike Bloomberg was going to be the guy to run to the debate stage and save them…but as we saw Wednesday night, he was called every name in the book by the other candidates, and a lot of names that weren’t in the book. And as people start to take a closer look at him and vet him more and more, they are seeing a lot of glaring problems.

Sanders won’t release his medical records, which is highly suspicious. Warren is just bat-crazy and proves it almost every time out, which is why she’s fallen. Joe Biden hasn’t been awake long enough this campaign to tell anyone anything except they are a dog-faced liar and pony soldier or whatever he was saying. Amy Klobuchar seems nice enough, and certainly not uber-leftist socialist, but she reminds me more of my third grade teacher than she does someone who can lead the country. Pete Buttigieg has a problem with minorities, and the gay community isn’t supporting him either, which is interesting since he’s gay. Who does that leave?

Democrats are fearing that they are going to have this “brokered convention”, where no one is going to have the 1,991 needed delegates to win the nomination. Every one of the delegates needs to vote how they were elected on the first ballot. If no one gets to 1,991 there, it turns into a free for all. And, frankly, you or I could be nominated at that point. While that’s fun to watch and makes for great television, it’s not the sort of thing Democrats want to show the country. They’d much rather show a unified Democrat party that is solidly behind one candidate.

And frankly, it isn’t going to happen. This dog and pony show is going all the way to Wisconsin!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Here We Go Again?

House Democrats, fresh off a rather rude awakening that saw them shellacked in the impeachment trial, are now discussing whether or not they should attempt to open new investigations into Donald Trump’s tweet that said the Department of Justice should reduce the sentence of former Trump confidant, Roger Stone.

The party is basically split over the issue. Hardheads, like Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, and Maxine Waters are all for the investigations, anything that could damage Trump in their world. However, there are large numbers of the Democrat caucus that don’t believe it would lead to anything but further embarrassment for the party and possibly a larger loss come this November.

Nancy Pelosi seems to take a “middle ground”, suggesting that hey, we could do the investigations now, and if they find something out, we could talk about it, saying that Trump’s tweets showed more “abuse of power”. She doesn’t have the votes to continue that logic at this point.

It seems to me that Democrats are in a world of hurt right now. I’m not just talking about the ones in the House of Representatives either. They all seem to be suffering from TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) to the point that anything they can do that they feel damages the president, even if it really hurts them in the end, like impeachment did, is OK, and should be explored. Look at the people on the campaign trail right now. You’ve got about a dozen candidates left heading into this weekend’s caucus in Nevada, and most of them are screaming that Donald Trump is the worst human that ever lived.

It’s gotten so bad on the trail that Democrats are starting to actually believe that someone like a Michael Bloomberg, who kinda, sorta SEEMS normal until he brings up how he could teach anyone to be a farmer (never having done so himself), and then saying he’d consider Hillary Clinton as a running mate, is one of the crazier options. That’s saying a lot when you’ve got socialist clambakes like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren still out there! What’s worse is what’s going on in the House of Representatives.

I would have thought after being totally embarrassed by the impeachment debacle that Nancy Pelosi would have laid low for a while, and just tried to put all of that behind her. Yet, that’s not what apparently is happening. Pelosi is rattling the saber against Trump yet again with the same diatribe that ended in disaster for her the last time out.

Democrats need to take a deep breath, hope to at least get through this election period without any further bluster, and move on to 2024 and beyond. That’s really their only hope of surviving as any semblance of the party we’ve known for decades.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Bloomberg’s Problems

I told you this past weekend about the problems with Bernie Sanders becoming the nominee for president on the Democrats’ side of things. But as Michael Bloomberg is gaining momentum, he seems to be stepping in it quite a bit! Let’s look at that.

First of all, you’ve got the old “Pay To Play” problem. Democrats are not happy with the fact that Mini Mike is throwing, at this point, upwards of $300 million at his campaign, and said he wouldn’t mind throwing over a billion at it! That has a lot of folks talking about him “buying the election”, which doesn’t sit well with most Americans. And while I think Bloomberg is going to do OK in some of the Super Tuesday states, and I can tell you he’s buying airtime left and right out here in the desert, where our primary isn’t until March 17th (a month from today). I’m already hearing from Democrats and Republicans alike that they don’t like the fact he could buy the White House.

Secondly, he’s got a race problem. Rudy Giuliani came out with “Stop and Frisk” back when he was Mayor of New York. Bloomberg came after Giuliani, and kept the practice going. You’ve read by now some of the stuff Bloomberg said about it…how most of the crime was in the minority neighborhoods, so that’s where the police should be…and that the MO (Modus Operandi) of those that murder and get murdered are pretty much non-whites between the ages of 16 and 28 or something like that. How do you think that’s going to sit with the minority voters in California? Or New York? Or here in the desert southwest?

Now, Bloomberg comes at a third problem. At a time when most Democrats are tired of the Clintons, and sick and tired of hearing Hillary complain about how she “beat Trump, and yet he’s in the White House”, Mike decides that she could just be a great running mate for him. That in and of itself, would upset a lot of Democrats, though I’m sure the Republicans would love to see Hillary lose yet another election! There is one small fly in the ointment of that. Under the 12th Amendment, the President and Vice President cannot be from the same state. Remember back in 2000? George W. Bush had been the Governor of Texas, so there was no question he lived there. His running mate was Dick Cheney, who in 1995 moved to Dallas to become head of Halliburton. It was challenged in court, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case because Cheney was from Wyoming and had maintained a residence there (and represented Wyoming in Congress).

Either way, when you add up the baggage that Bloomberg brings to the table, and the fact he really hasn’t been vetted by voters yet since he hasn’t participated in any debates, it’s going to be interesting to watch him burn through a billion dollars of his own money only to slink back to the Big Apple with his tail between his legs!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Eating Their Young

You knew it had to happen sooner or later. Democrats are out after each other as we get closer and closer to the Iowa Caucuses. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are going after each other because of what someone in the Sanders campaign said about Warren. Warren was upset about it, and thought Sanders needed to “turn his campaign around” and take it in a different direction. The fact of the matter is, there isn’t enough air in the room for both uber-liberals Sanders and Warren. One of them needs to get out of the race sooner rather than later, and as I said not too long ago, it would appear that Warren would be the one that seems to be on the outs.

Now, let’s add to that the demise of Cory Booker, who got out of the race on Monday. Apparently, it wasn’t enough for him to have “a Spartacus moment”. Instead of being a candidate of all of the Democrats, Booker was more interested in being a candidate that was all about diversity. Sorry, Cory, but even Bobo Obama knew better than to go that route. He was a black candidate for ALL Democrats, you were a black candidate concerned with protecting the diversity of the race.

So, where are we in this mess? Well, as you’ve seen with the Iowa debates (was anybody watching?), you can’t score points against Democrat opponents unless you attack them. And frankly, Joe Biden is so far out in front right now that it appears no one can catch him. That’s not saying it’s going to be a clean sweep for the former vice president. However, he does appear to be the only candidate still in the race that will be able to at least attempt to go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump. Personally, I think he will be chomped on just like Hillary Clinton was four years ago, but at least he’s not going to be pushing socialism. That will win him some votes, though it may keep some of the Sanders and Warren backers on the sidelines again.

In the end, this has been Biden’s race to lose. And even though he’s tried all of the various ways to screw up his candidacy, when you’re the most moderate candidate in the race, and you have the backing of the upper echelon of the Democrat party, you are going to find yourself, at least at this point, giving him the break.

I would be very surprised if there weren’t going to be some more of the dozen or so candidates dropping out between now and New Hampshire. And I will confidently guarantee one thing… neither Michael Bloomberg nor Tom Steyer, the two billionaires vying for the Democrats’ nod, will be getting out of the race. A brokered convention? Nah…it’s going to be Biden in the end. What will be the most interesting is who he picks as a running mate.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Buying The Presidency

Do you remember back in the day, there used to be this saying that “any boy (never a girl) could grow up to be President of the United States”? I think it’s safe to say that saying is totally outdated.

First of all, we’ve got more women vying for that title now than ever before. Do you remember the first female candidate that was actually thought of as having a chance to win the presidency? This may surprise you. It was in 1964. Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican, became the first female to actively seek her party’s nomination for President. She failed, and that year Barry Goldwater ended up being the nominee. It wouldn’t be until 1972 that the Democrats, the party that views themselves as the most welcoming of women, would have their first major party female candidate in Shirley Chisholm. She also failed to get the nominee, that honor going to George McGovern, who rapidly became an after thought.

In this day and age, gender isn’t the only issue when it comes to running for the top job in this country. It’s money. Donald Trump, a billionaire, showed that you don’t have to raise a ton of cash in 2016, as Hillary Clinton outraised him big time. Part of the reason was Trump got an awful lot of free publicity in newscasts. Every time you turned around, he was bashing Clinton, and building himself up, and the media, thinking they were exposing a buffoon, covered every word.

Could this year be the year of the billionaire candidates?

It very well could. Tom Steyer, a billionaire in his own right has shot to second place in South Carolina, upending Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren. How’d he do it? By spending $70 million of his own money, and concentrating not in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, but in places like Nevada and South Carolina. Want to know another billionaire who’s following a similar tract? Look at former New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. He’s spent a whopping $110 million in TV ads in places like South Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona. He also isn’t going in for the early states, and has about 7% in the polls nationally.

As far as the polls are concerned, Joe Biden still leads by a wide margin, but what’s interesting is that in South Carolina, Steyer has jumped 11% to 15% since the last poll was taken there. That’s 1% ahead of Bernie Sanders, and 5% better than Warren. Biden has gone from 41% back in October to 36% now.

Now, I’m not saying that Steyer, or Bloomberg are going to win South Carolina, become the nominee, or do anything other than make headlines because of this poll. I’m saying I think the days of “any boy or girl growing up to become president” in this country are long past. If you have billions to spend, and don’t mind throwing a billion or two at the campaign, you certainly can make a case for yourself. If you are a normal Joe, you have a much greater chance of being more like Beto O’Rourke than Michael Bloomberg!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

In Case You Missed It…

My hunch is that most people aren’t really concerned about presidential politics in January, unless of course, you’re living in either Iowa or New Hampshire and you have a primary coming up in less than a month. That said, there are a lot of things going on that I found to be rather interesting. Maybe not to everybody, granted, but to some…so in case you took the weekend off this past weekend…I was catching up on emails from being gone for a week… but I found these to be interesting.

Nancy Pelosi: The Speaker of the House is about to turn over to the Senate her articles of impeachment that she has held on to for the past three weeks. It’s got her allies stumped because she’s not going to gain any concessions out of Senate Republicans as far as what is or is not going to be allowed during the trial phase. And, it’s yet another chink in the armor.

Donald Trump: IF the Senate DOES allow some witnesses, it appears that one of them won’t be John Bolton. The former White House aide is going to be on the sidelines as Trump told Laura Ingraham that he will use his Executive Privilege to keep Bolton from testifying.

Michael Bloomberg: The former NYC Mayor and billionaire has moved ahead of Pete Buttigieg as far as the Real Clear Politics average is concerned when it comes to the odds of being the Dems’ nominee. Oh, Biden still leads, followed by Bernie, and Warren, but Bloomberg has shot to fourth place. Buttigieg slipped to fifth. Is it time to head back to South Bend?

Marianne Williamson: Speaking of heading back home, Marianne Williamson called it quits on her campaign to become president Saturday. Not that anyone really cared or noticed. She had been in single digits in the polls, and hadn’t been doing well in fund raising. Just one more of the many body bags on the side of the road.

Iowa: Yeah, the first in the nation voting will be taking place in less than a month, at least on the Democrats side. Most don’t expect Joe Biden to win in Iowa. But, Iowans are having a problem. They are very concerned about voting for the wrong person for president in their caucuses. They like people like Elizabeth Warren, or Pete Buttigieg, but they don’t know as if they can beat Donald Trump in the fall. They’re probably right to be a little afraid.

Elizabeth Warren: Has she gone off the deep end? Warren, is now using, “The survival of our planet depends on the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election!” as a campaign issue. That’s frankly a little bit overboard. And, it doesn’t mesh with her giving dating advice, like she did during a town hall meeting this past week. Too much baggage, too little time to correct it.

And those were just the big stories!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Bloomberg Candidacy Raises Questions

As many of you know, I came from the world of media. Well, I came from the world of media when media was actually accountable and credible. Nowadays, media is more of a circus, as we’ve discussed here. But with billionaire Michael Bloomberg officially entering the Democrats’ sprint to a nomination, it raises some interesting ethical questions…especially for Bloomberg’s news organization.

So, can we trust a news organization that is supposed to be unbiased, fair, balanced, and forthright, when their owner is one of the candidates for President? Hell, my question is, can we trust a liberal-biased news corporation that doesn’t have a candidate as it’s boss? So far my answer is no. And are you telling me that if we can’t get straight news stories out of a regular liberal news corp…we’re going to be able to trust anything coming out of Bloomberg’s group?

The media was established for really one purpose. It wasn’t propaganda. It was truth. They were set up to keep an eye on the government, to expose vile people and deeds, and to make sure that we were able to keep our elected officials OUR elected officials. That has failed in the last decade, as journalism professors have thrown out all ethics and responsibilities. Now, journalists are out “to change the world”, not report on what’s happening. They give you more spin than fact. And when the boss of an organization is actually one of the candidates, do you have any idea that they are going to be fair and balanced toward him, or the rest of the field? My hunch is no.

Now, I’m not saying that Bloomberg shouldn’t be allowed to run. He hits all the qualifications of a president (over 35, a naturalized US Citizen, living in this country for 14 years). So, there is nothing that should disqualify him from running. But maybe there should be something that would force his news organization to run disclaimers before and after every political story as long as he’s in the race?

Of course, he’s going to argue that they have First Amendment rights under Freedom of the Press, which is true. But do they abuse that privilege when they spin stories or even make them up? Of course they do. They should lose that privilege like you or I would by yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater.

When it comes to Bloomberg News, they have become a mouthpiece for their boss and his wildly stab-in-the-dark election bid. He can spend his billions, and we thank him for contributing to our country’s economy. But beyond that, his news organization should realize that the ethical thing to do is not cover a damn thing about the presidential race.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!