I'm dubious, CBS

60 Minutes obfuscates to hide their own manipulation of their Kamala Harris interview.  It sure took them a long time to craft a response. And it sure was carefully worded. So it sure doesn't make them look any less deceptive.

This is crazy

CBS to it's reporters: Don't ask questions. But I guess that's par for the course, leftists don't want leaders to run the country properly. They also apparently don't want journalists/reporters to do their job properly either.

Oops - CBS finds out Trump tax cuts are, er, cuts

This is kinda schadenfreude-y but a good watch because it's good news for president Trump and the Republicans in congress.  I don't think CBS was expecting the result they got. The relatively disinterested or low information public are bound to follow suit.

2018 is going to be a good year for Republicans.

CNN admits Trump tax cuts will make a difference. They're not alone.

Some green shoots of media honesty are starting to appear.  No, the mainstream media has not done an about-face on president Trump.  And don't expect this to take hold more broadly.  But there are some admissions in mainstream media outlets that this tax bill is not so bad.

Via CNN, of all places, this;

Wells Fargo (WFC) and Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) said they plan to hike their company-wide minimum wages to $15 an hour. Other firms including Comcast (CCZ) and AT&T promised $1,000 bonuses.

And this one liner on Boeing via the presidential nemesis network;

The aerospace giant said it will spend $300 million on workers.

CNN is not alone though. Via CBS, this commentary;

...But not all party-line votes are created equal. Obamacare was a fundamental shift in how our government treated health care. It wasn't a debate over how high to set premiums. It was a clash between the fundamental values of the two parties: Collective action v. individual responsibility; government power v. personal choice. It's hard to compromise on core principles.

This tax bill? It's, well, just a tax bill. Yes, it cuts corporate tax rates to 21 percent, but you know who else proposed corporate tax cuts? President Obama. He wanted to cut them to 28 percent. Is that 7-percent gap between the Obama plan and the GOP really "a monstrosity and a danger to the country," as Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer claims? Then again, Mitch McConnell rejected Obama's tax plan, just the way Schumer rejected President Trump's. He said Obama's plan lacked "meaningful bipartisan input."

Like the Obamacare compromise, the GOP's tax bill does quite a few things Democrats usually support. It nearly doubles the standard deduction (from $6,350 to $12,000 for single filers and from $12,700 to $24,000 for joint filers)—which is what most low-income families use, rather than itemizing.

Yes this is coming from a conservative columnist, but the fact that it's even there is interesting. Reality could be starting to creep in and the mainstream media have realized that their rush to oppose anything Trump has possibly led them off a cliff.  Hot Air points out the Washington Post's uh-oh moment.

The realization will not fully set in until it's too late for them to recognize it's an issue for Democrats in 2018, and that's a good thing.

CBS caught editing news (again)

Via TMZ, Bill Clinton may have accidentally slipped up in an interview with Charlie Rose.  But CBS doesn't want you to know that.  They've edited Bill Clinton's response to clear up his accidental truth-telling.

Here's what CBS is showing on the interview;

And here's what he originally said;

Here's what TMZ had to say about it;

The "frequently" part was edited out of Monday's evening news. What's interesting is ... it was left in when a longer version aired Tuesday on "CBS This Morning."

It's only 3 seconds ... so, seems odd it would have been removed for time purposes.

We've got a call into CBS, but no word back yet.

This is the same network that ran a false, fabricated story about George W. Bush when Dan Rather was at the helm.

CBS News compares Iranian Mullahs to...the Tea Party

Bias-free, neutral CBS News? When was that? This blows that notion out of the water.

Those radical Muslim hard-liners lusting for a nuclear bomb to wipe the stain of Israel off the map of the Middle East are just like the American tea party.

That’s according to CBS News London correspondent Elizabeth Palmer, who commented Monday on the results of Friday’s sham Iran election, which was won by a delusionally described “moderate,” one of eight candidates approved to be on the ballot for the Islamic Republic’s voters to “choose” from...

How could anyone compare the American tea party to a slate of candidates that had to get the supreme leader’s approval to run for president of Iran?

In Palmer’s words, Rowhani is “extremely close to the centers of power in Iran,” which doesn’t quite sound like the tea party at this point.

Disgusting.  That's all I will say about that. 

Hey CBS, Bush Still Won't Be On The Ballot

Change you have to see to believe.

CBS and Vanity Fair have either let the cat out of the bag, or wasted 90 seconds of a bunch of people's lives.  They've concocted a poll that shows that in a head-to-head match up, President Obama would beat President Bush 40/31 in an election.

Not only will that race never happen, it never did.  What an absolute waste of time!  Of course maybe that's not the case.  Maybe Obama 2012, in an effort to sound fresh, will run against Bush instead of the eventual Republican nominee.  Maybe CBS in its leftist agenda, has let the cat out of the bag.  After all, Obama spent the first 2+ years of his presidency blaming Bush for everything.  Now, seeking to deflect any blame directed at him, perhaps he'll resort to his winning formula of 2008 - class warfare, blame Bush for everything, and promise vague hope and change and hope nobody calls you on the details you are throwing out there.  Rely on a complicit media like CBS to whitewash your own flaws and mistakes, while tearing apart the opposition for you, and voila, you're all set for another term.

This is why I'm leaning more and more towards Gingrich as the nominee.  He'll mop the floor with Obama in debates and no manner of whitewashing will be able to hide that.  I'm not seeing that potential from other nominees whom I would rather see beat Obama than Newt.  But massive defeat in head-to-head debates is the one thing the press can't sugar coat enough.

CBS uses odd source for estimates of Beck Rally attendance

What kind of attendance numbers have you heard about with regards to Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally? 1 million? 500,000? 300,000? 100,000? In an insulting race to the bottom CBS is claiming there were 87,000 in attendance.  Proof positive that you shouldn't believe the messenger. Or sometimes any messenger.

87,000 people. I'm sure if they could have somehow claimed 6 people attended they would have done so.  The CBS number is insulting and inaccurate.  Flash back to the 9-12 rally last year.  The numbers were misrepresented back then too.

Interestingly, CBS uses estimates by AirPhotosLive.com as it's source for the crowd size estimate.  I went through their website trying to find someplace, any place, where they tout might their expertise in crowd size estimation. Not a thing.  While the company may have given an estimate to CBS, they surely must have qualified it as not being their area of expertise.  

They've got some great reviews and clearly have an experienced team, well suited to disaster scene surveillance, overviews of oil spills, forest fires, crash sites, crowds or disaster sites (day or night), 3D visualizations of proposed buildings, stealth surveillance, as well as time lapse views of ports, dams reservoirs, nuclear power plants and public events.  But that doesn't necessarily give them expertise in estimation of crowd sizes. Nor do they mention it.   

This isn't really about Air Photos live. I'm not saying they may not have some expertise in the area of crowd sizing.  But their credentials would certainly have to come under scrutiny when it comes to putting out stories about attendance at a sizable rally where the numbers could be in dispute. Surely CBS would have asked some questions about the number, and why it was so different from other estimates.  Surely CBS isn't known to put unsubstantiated information into the media as news, are they?

Nonsensible Shoes has emailed a couple of the listed contacts with Air Photos Live to ask about what photographs they might have of the Beck event and how they arrived at their crowd size estimate.  No reply has yet been received.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: No reply to my inquiries on crowd counts from the firm supposedly responsible for the number CBS used. Okay, that's not important or the least bit surprising.  But I thought you might like to know.  Apparently there's an Alinsky tactic we've never heard about - when you're caught with your pants down, HIDE.

2ND UPDATE (Sep. 5):  I did finally receive confirmation that Air Photos Live did take aerial photographs of the rally.  No comment on the number of attendees estimate.  It appears that they did indeed provide CBS with photographs of the rally, but so far that's it.

MSM seeds of discontent

Politico is reporting that it looks like the President co-ordinated a question with the Huffington Post's Nico Pitney at a press conference. Even calling on the Huffington Post for a question breaks from tradition, but having knowledge of an upcoming question has the smell of state-controlled media all over it. [NOTE - the update in Politico confirms that there was at least co-ordination on some level - Pitney knew that he might be called on].

But the real 'a-ha' moment with this situation shows up further down in the Politico column by Michael Calderone:

CBS Radio's Mark Knoller, a veteran White House correspondent, said over Twitter it was "very unusual that Obama called on Huffington Post second, appearing to know the issue the reporter would ask about."

So here's the juicy part - the CBS correspondent sounds a little irked. After the Mainstream Media carrying Obama's water through the primaries, the general election through post-inauguration, he's asking questions now from those even further left than the mainstream media. Despite being their darling, the President has perhaps started the process of jilting them.

Ouch. There was a lot of speculation on the right that the media was backing Obama because he was their guy. It was a means of re-establishing their clout. But if he's going to start asking questions of HuffPo 'reporters' then what's next Kos? The press at NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, New York Times et al. might start to see their clout in doubt and threatened by the new media on the left. This in addition to the new media on the right - Fox, Rush, right wing bloggers etc. Combine that threat with their already sinking ratings and in some cases, bleeding of cash - you have the beginnings of a potential rift.

Presidential honeymoons always end. For President Obama it ended early on for the right because of his blizzard of spending. But for the left, he may be causing his own early ending of the honeymoon by revealing his truest friends are further left. Either the mainstream media is going to be angry because they feel they are just as left as HuffPo and will feel used or else they are going to feel used and deceived because of his shift towards friendlier questioning. Either way, the MSM is going to feel a bit of antipathy over this. And if that's the case, the questions are bound to get just a little harder for President Obama.

All I can say is "about time".

The real reason Democrats win

Some might eye this as a bit cynical, but the representative republic that is the United States of America has a corruption problem with it's voting system. It's not ACORN, though they represent a problem with the system. The real reason Democrats win, is because of the money.

From the Washington Post:

On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.

This from the Yahoo/AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Taxpayers are increasingly exposed to losses and the government is more vulnerable to fraud under Obama administration initiatives that have created a federal bank bailout program of "unprecedented scope," a government report finds.

In a 250-page quarterly report to Congress, the rescue program's special inspector general concludes that a private-public partnership designed to rid financial institutions of their "toxic assets" is tilted in favor of private investors and creates "potential unfairness to the taxpayer."

And this from CQ Politics:

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most
powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would "waddle into" the AIPAC case "if you think it'll make a difference," according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

...

In exchange for Harman's help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

And from CBS:

Spring in Washington is "earmark season" - a busy time for Congressman John Murtha.

"That's my business," Murtha said. "I've been in it for 35 years."

As head of a powerful Defense committee, Murtha controls hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, reports CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. And he's not shy about directing money to those who give generously to his election campaigns.

CBS News has learned that this month, Murtha is steering new earmarks toward 10 companies that recently donated to his campaign. Murtha wants $8 million for Argon ST, a defense contractor whose CEO gave Murtha the maximum allowed by law - $2,400 by an individual. He's directing a $5 million earmark toward Advanced Acoustic Concepts, which also gave the max - $5,000 for a political action committee - to his campaign. In all, 10 recent Murtha donors are slated to receive $31 million in Murtha earmarks for 2010.

Taxpayer watchdogs may not like how it looks, but it's not against the law unless donations were required in order to receive the earmarks. Looking for evidence of wrongdoing, the FBI has recently raided offices of two other companies linked to Murtha.

...

Murtha wouldn't comment for our report. He did recently tell a home state newspaper that he's only trying to bring home the bacon.

[Hat tip for all links: Drudge]

So while ACORN is a problem, the real issue here is that Democrats know how to game the system. They get the big donors. They obviously play the behind the scenes game a little too well. It's corrupt, but it wins.

The problem for Republicans is that they still have the stench of complacent corruption on them. But in the current climate, absent a real grassroots change, it seems to be the way to stack the deck in favor of your side and it's stacked against the GOP. The choice for the GOP is to play the game to get the money to get the message out and win, while succumbing to corruption OR cleaning house and trying to win on principle from the ground up.

The path of least resistance is to join in on the cheat. That's the path politicians are prone to take. But if the Tea Parties continue to build momentum they may become the path of least resistance because it's cheaper to win on popularity than on back room deals.

The real reason Democrats win, is not the way that is good for the country. Maybe it's the Chicago way, but it's not the American Way. This may be the year of crossroads for the GOP. Let us hope they choose wisely.

Is Gallup the Outlier Poll?

Scanning through the polling on Obama job approval, there's some interesting results;

• Rasmussen - March 24 - 56% Approval, 43% Disapproval
• Zogby - according to the Boston Herald, Zogby will release a poll today showing results at or near 50/50 for approval/disapproval
• Quinnipiac
• American Research Group - March 20 - 56% Approval 37% Disapproval (on economy it's 49/44)
• CNN and CBS both have Obama's approval in the low 60's but the results are 8-10 days old

And what does Gallup currently show? Obama's approval at 65% and his disapproval 26%. Gallup's results, unlike CBS or CNN's are within the last 2 days. And unlike CNN or CBS, you'd expect Gallup to be impartial. But they've consistently shown better results for President Obama than Rasmussen, ARG and other polls. Why the discrepancy?

The difference with Rasmussen is likely explainable by the target of the polls. Rasmussen polls likely voters and Gallup is polling adults. The latter is less accurate come election time, but arguably a better indicator of the mood of the nation. Still, it appears the Gallup numbers are skewed in favor of President Obama.

There is in recent polls a definite slide in support and an even more definite growth in disapproval of the President. This has come predominantly, as you'd expect from Republicans and disaffected independents. While Gallup has shown a slide from nearly 70% approval to the mid-60's, the polling has remained flat since early February. This is at odds with other major polls.

Is Gallup polling incorrectly, are they biased, are their results just an outlier versus other polls? No one can be certain as to which, but the fact is that their results are indeed different from others. As a result of that, their polling should be taken with a grain or two of salt.