Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites

China buying up Seattle ...

EU faces new Greek debt crisis ...

Republicans push carbon tax in White House meeting ...

Border wall will not be built all at once ...

Amazon, Google may face antitrust scrutiny ...

Oprah snags $150 million in [Klimt] art sale ...

Boy Scouts welcome first trans member ...

FBI working to ID rioters ...

Under Armor CEO praises Trump's 'bold' business vision

Students brew beer using 5,000-year-old recipe from  China

White House preparing draft Executive Order to fill up Guantanamo Bay with ISIS, al-Qaeda fighters

Trump blasts Nordstroms for dropping Ivanka's clothing line

Media Nazis

The Soup Nazi

I realize that the use of the term “Nazi” is a sure loser … unless of course you are Jerry Seinfeld. But I do believe that it is quite appropriate in this case. The Obama administration's FCC now wants to monitor news outlets (I assume this includes the Internet) to insure that they are following what Big Brother considers important media stories ,,, its term for these priorities is  Critical Information Needs (CINs) … see: PJ Media Story. Our Gestapo in Washington wants to make sure that its eight topics are getting adequate on-air coverage. 

So far these CIN topics are somewhat nebulous but one can assume that they will include: climate change, income inequality, women’s reproductive rights, voter suppression, homophobia, and food deserts … and won’t include the Benghazi killings, NSA’s snooping, IRS targeting of the Tea Party, true unemployment rates, Fast and Furious, the al-Qaeda resurgence, and excessive Presidential golfing.  Here are the questions that will be asked during these proposed First Amendment violations:

Station Owners, Managers or HR
• What is the news philosophy of the station?
• Who is your target audience?
• How do you define critical information that the community needs?
• How do you ensure the community gets this critical information?
• How much does community input influence news coverage decisions?
• What are the demographics of the news management staff (HR)?
• What are the demographics of the on air staff (HR)?
• What are the demographics of the news production staff (HR)?

Corporate, General Managers, News Directors, Editors, etc
• What is the news philosophy of the station?
• Who else in your market provides news?
• Who are your main competitors?
• How much news does your station (stations) air every day?
• Is the news produced in-house or is it provided by an outside source?
• Do you employ news people?
• How many reporters and editors do you employ?
• Do you have any reporters or editors assigned to topic “beats”? If so how many and what are the beats?
• Who decides which stories are covered?
• How much influence do reporters and anchors have in deciding which stories to cover?
• How much does community input influence news coverage decisions?
• How do you define critical information that the community needs?
• How do you ensure the community gets this critical information? 

On-Air Staff (Reporters, Anchors)
• What is the news philosophy of the station?
• How much news does your station air every day?
• Who decides which stories are covered?
• How much influence do you have in deciding which stories to cover?
• Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers (viewers, listeners, readers) that was rejected by management?
o If so, can you give an example?
o What was the reason given for the decision?
o Why do you disagree?

So far my upstairs spare bedroom (where I write these blogs) has not been invaded by these jack-boots … but I do have an upturned wastepaper basket upon which they can sit and watch me compose my pap … if they are willing to show up at 3 AM ... and are not offended by flatus.

Afterward: Adweek Magazine reports that the FCC may be backing off this intrusion into our First Amendment rights ... see: Adweek Story.  Was this just a canard to piss us off and get our attention off of Obamacare, the Ukraine, etc.

After Afterward: The Wall Street Journal, through a FCC commissioner, has some interesting points to make about this cause celebre ... see: WSJ Story.

Hair on Fire

I know that I have gotten cynical in my dotage ... possibly too cynical ... but there is something manically weird about the United States's closing of 19 embassies in the Middle East and Africa ... see: CBS Story. Apparently our government has received credible and specific threats that there are massive Islamist attacks planned against one or more of our diplomatic facilities throughout the Muslim world.  And so all these embassies will be shuttered until at least the end of this week.  Numerous congress-persons have asserted that this terrorist chatter is even higher than it was before 9/11/2001 ... this time centered in Yemen.

The reasons I am somewhat cynical center around the following thoughts:

- This over-the-top drama certainly takes the media spotlight off of the many scandals that are plaguing the Obama administration. The embarrassing admission that al-Qaeda is capable of such a large-scale effort clearly refutes Obama's campaign assertion that al-Qaeda is on the run.  Therefore, the downside of this policy reversal must, to them, be smaller than the risks emanating out of these numerous scandals.

- Will these supposed locked-and-loaded terrorists conclude that, since these embassies have be briefly closed, they will pack up and slink back to their hideouts ... foregoing any planned attacks?  I sincerely doubt that timing is of the essence in any such planned assaults.

- If these supposed threats are "specific," why would we close all these embassies pell mell?  Would we not have some reasonable idea about exactly where and when these attacks might take place?

- Since, thanks to Fast-Eddie Snowden, the terrorists know a lot more about the process that the United States uses in tracking terrorist communications, perhaps al-Qaeda is pulling our chain with this recent staged chatter ... and using it to verify what they have learned.

- The Obama administration seldom does anything that is not driven by political considerations.  Why should this hair-on-fire stage performance be any different.

But, then again, I don't want to be proven wrong as a result of more spilled American blood.

Afterward: For some comments along this same line of thought see: The Powerline Blog.

The Gong Show

A number of years back there was a TV production called The Gong Show. On it, a number of no-talent contestants strut or sung their “stuff” until one of the judges couldn’t stand it any longer and stood up and rang a big gong … which caused this pitiful performance to be hooked. (This genre was recently repeated on American Idol where Simon Cowell’s acerbic tongue took the place of the gong.)

Now, we have a repeat of The Gong Show on the national stage insofar as our response(s) to the current crisis in Egypt. Viz:
- Yesterday the United States’ Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is “largely secular … has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam." This is the same group which assassinated Anwar Sadat and was where Ayman Al-Zawahiri (the #2 man in Al-Qaeda) and Mohamed Atta (the leader of the 9/11 attacks) learned their trade.
- Also yesterday, Leon Panetta, the Director of our CIA for heaven’s sake, said that there was a “strong likelihood” that Murbarak would step down by the end of the day. When this didn’t happen, Panetta said that he got this information from the national press. Does he not have a multi-billion dollar intelligence network behind him?
- President Obama has held more all-too-public postures relative to this Egyptian crisis than Carter’s proverbial Little Liver Pills. First, Mubarak must go, then he must cause an orderly transition to Democracy, and then the Muslim Brotherhood needs to be part of the next Egyptian government. He even met with this radical group right after his inauguration (see: Muslim Brotherhood Meeting.)
- In late January, Vice President Joe Biden said that Hosni Murbarak was no dictator and he shouldn’t step down. He has been sequestered in the Naval Observatory ever since.
- Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has said “the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people" (see Hillary Speaks.) Not too much later she appealed for an orderly transition to democracy in Egypt.

Is there any position that the United States has not taken relative to this extremely serious situation in Egypt? Back to The Gong Show … Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing!

Signal Flags

How is it that the Bush/Chaney administration carried this country through seven years terrorist-attack free while the Obama/Biden duo has had three serious events in its first eleven months? Personally, I don't believe that our operational intelligence apparatus has appreciably changed. However, what has changed is the signals that this administration is sending to Al-Qaeda, viz: the planned closing of Gitmo, no more waterboarding, turning terrorist acts into criminal offenses, renaming the "war on terrorism" into "overseas contingency operations", the non-existence of our "High Value Detainee Interrogation Group" (HIG) ten months after Obama announced its creation, making a Girl Scout leader the head of Homeland Security, closing down military tribunals, moving the KSM trial to New York City, the president's slow, low-key responses to each terrorist act, sending Chinese Islamic terrorists to Bermuda, refocusing our government on global-warming/health-care/fire-hose domestic spending, and finally blaming everything that goes wrong on Bush.

One other point that needs to be reiterated: during the Bush years the war in Iraq was a magnet that drew disenchanted Muslims from around the globe to sacrifice themselves there in the name of Allah. Now, that Iraq is being deemphasized, many more venues have become attractive to would-be martyrs ... including unfortunately the U.S.A. This last reason clearly is not of Obama's doing alone, but our haste to leave Iraq may turn out to be a gigantic mistake ... witness the dramatic increase in terrorists bombings there recently.

So, it may be that style is just as important as substance in combating the terrorist threat we suffer. And, if Obama does not do a convincing 180-degree turn in his rhetoric, we may be in for three more years of "isolated incidents".