Showing posts with label Michael Barone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Barone. Show all posts

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Tweets of Note: Recent Political, Public Policy & Pop Culture tweets you may've missed -October 1 thru October 12, 2013 -From Amnesty to Angie Harmon, Jack Bauer to Jack Wilshere, Fraser Nelson to Mickey Kaus and illegal immigration

Congressman boasts immig amnesty will win because "there is no money on the other side" http://t.co/BlXaS9EyeO #wheresCommonCausewhenUneedit
















































































"Jack Wilshere should stick to his guns over Englishness of Manchester United teenager Adnan Januzaj
Jack Wilshere is wrong to make U-turn over Manchester United prospect Adnan Januzaj's eligibility for England – not least because he has a point."



























































I wrote about Chaz's blog post on Monday in my blog post titled, "Chaz Stevens' latest blog post is a reality gut-check for the State of Florida re their lax enforcement of rules and laws re municipal CRAs, including where he lives in the Grand Duchy of Deerfield Beach, where bureaucratic self-enrichment is a tradition, not a rumor
"
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/chaz-stevens-latest-blog-post-is.html





















James Romenesko @romenesko: Chaz Ebert: "Dear Roger, It has been six months since you left us, but...



































Friday, January 27, 2012

Jeffrey Lord dissects a Romney hit-job on Gingrich: Elliot Abrams' revisionist hit-job at NRO is debunked by simple facts the MSM didn't care about




POLITICO video: Jim Vandehei on the anti-Newt attacks. January 27, 2012
http://bcove.me/nx4mo74a
Jeffrey Lord dissects a Romney hit-job on Gingrich: Elliot Abrams' revisionist hit-job in NRO is debunked by simple facts the MSM didn't care about
Glad to see that at least someone in this country is doing their homework and fact-checking the "facts." Especially the "inconvenient" facts that the MSM is too busy to look at before throwing them out into the ether. 

But first, here's the predicate:

National Review Online
Gingrich and Reagan 
In the 1980s, the candidate repeatedly insulted the president.
By Elliott Abrams
Posted online January 25, 2012 4:00 a.m.

Which led to my post of yesterday re Newt Gingrich and specifically, Rush Limbaugh's observations, and this from today, from which the video at the top of this post appeared:

POLITICO

Drudge, conservative media criticize Newt Gingrich
It’s as if the conservative media over the past 24 hours decided Gingrich is for real.
By Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen
1/26/12 8:00 AM EST 
Updated: 1/27/12 7:48 AM EST

Now, here's the fact-filled retort that lays bare the lies.

The American Spectator
The Spectacle blog
Elliott Abrams Caught Misleading on Newt
By Jeffrey Lord
Posted online January 27, 2012 11:28 a.m.
As Ronald Reagan used to say: Well.
Yesterday we took note of former Reagan State Department official Elliott Abrams' piece over at NRO that went after Newt Gingrich on his relationship with Reagan. While voting regularly with Reagan as a young congressman from Georgia, Gingrich, claimed Abrams, "often spewed insulting rhetoric at Reagan, his top aides and his policies to defeat Communism." Abrams then goes on to cite " a famous floor statement Gingrich made on March 21, 1986."
Or sort of cites it. 
Read the rest of this spot-on post at:
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/01/27/elliott-abrams-caught-misleadi




Newt Gingrich campaign video: Ed Rollins: Gingrich was one of "most important players and most loyal to Ronald Reagan." January 27, 2012

http://youtu.be/SjOMMweAJ_s


Yes, The American Spectator that was started in Bloomington and which later moved to Arlington County, VA, just like me. In fact, for years, it was right near the Metro train station I used everyday, the Clarendon Metro, home of all those delicious Vietnamese restaurants I dearly miss, like Queen Beehttp://spectator.org/


When I lived and worked in the Evanston/Chicago area in the pre-Internet mid-1980's, I always purchased a copy of TAS (and The Washington Monthly) every month at the  Chicago-Main newsstand to see stories and columns about heretofore unknown issues, long-simmering grudges and policy flights-of-fancy in Washington and the country that I didn't see elsewhere.


Not that I always agreed with everything, but just like manhattan, inc. and SPY, my two favorite magazines, which I was also a charter subscriber to, their contributors writing was so spirited and fun that, sometimes, not always, it was easier to just believe rather than to fight it. 


That was where I first got large doses of Michael Barone's prescient insight, which he now dishes from The Washington Examiner.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/author/michael-barone
and Real Clear Politics
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/michael_barone/
and TownHall
http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/
and National Review Online, where he has this piece today:

Gearing Up to Govern 
The GOP candidates are more serious about governing than is the incumbent.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/289283/gearing-govern-michael-barone

Below, the new-and-improved version via Google Maps of the newsstand, long the best on The North Shore, that re-opened in 2001, after apparently vanishing for 8 years because of the CTA and city of Evanston being unable to get their acts together for the benefit of the area's residents. Eight years!
http://www.citynewsstand.com/progressupdate.htm



View Larger Map


Friday, April 8, 2011

Michael Barone on Paul Ryan's AEI speech taking on his budget critics: "Ryan Steals March on Obama as Fiscal Crisis Looms"



AEI video: U.S. House Budget Comm. Chair Paul Ryan answers questions at the AEI HQ in Washington, D.C. and directly challenges critics of his reform plan.
April 6, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYCb-UyHc90
"This is the most predictable economic crisis we've ever had in this country..."


Rasmussen Reports

Ryan Steals March on Obama as Fiscal Crisis Looms
A Commentary By Michael Barone Thursday, April 07, 2011

"My worst experience was the financial crisis of September 2008," responded House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan yesterday to a reporter's question about Democrats' attacks on the budget he unveiled earlier in the day.

"What if the president and your representative saw it coming and could have prevented it from happening?" Ryan said. "What would you think of them if they didn't?" A hush came over the audience at the American Enterprise Institute, where I am a resident fellow.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_michael_barone/ryan_steals_march_on_obama_as_fiscal_crisis_looms

See also:
http://budget.house.gov/

http://www.youtube.com/user/HouseBudgetCommittee

http://prosperityproject.org/

Thursday, August 13, 2009

That's why he's Michael Barone and you're not: When Liberal Leaders Confront a Centrist Nation

I've been reading and following columnist and pundit
Michael Barone since even before I moved to D.C.
in 1988, or even before he was a regular on the original
McLaughlin
Group, when that was the only
syndicated political chat show, and everyone I knew
watched it religiously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Barone_%28pundit%29

It's still a LOT more popular in the Beltway area
than in the uninformed burbs of South Florida, plus,
now that I think about it, I rarely see a promo for it
on WPBT-Channel 2 -why is that anyhow?-
where it runs on Fridays at 8:30 p.m.
http://mclaughlin.com

(At various times while I lived in the greater D.C. area,
especially the Clinton years of the go-go Nineties,
I used to bank at the Riggs Bank, specifically, the
branch on 17th Street, N.W. & Eye St., three blocks
north of The White House and the OEOB.

This was the sort of place where on payday, Fridays,
you'd regularly see very well-heeled K Street D.C.
defense lawyer or lobbyists doing their weekly
transactions, like transferring money into their college
daughter's checking account so she can continue
living the McLean or Potomac lifestyle while they
were away from the financial Mother Ship.
No doubt while their daughter's roommate has to do
a 'Work Study' job like I did at IU.

Almost like it was a game, one of the persons who
always seemed to just beat me into the bank was
a highly-visible someone who always seemed to be
just 2-3 customers ahead of me in line: McLaughlin
Group regular Eleanor Clift of Newsweek magazine.)

In D.C, McLaughlin aired on the NBC affiliate,
WRC, and was part of my regular routine on
Saturday night before heading out for the night.

This essay was part of my daily email this from
Rasmussen Reports this morning.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com

The big news this morning there was that American
voters now give the GOP first-time lead on health
care.
That comes as no surprise to me given what we've
all seen the past few weeks, with so many uninformed
members of Congress unable to explain what
Obamacare would and would not entail, to voters
who have actually read the bill, or, explain away the
logic of so much secretiveness surrounding 1/6th
of the American economy.

For all the MSM talk in January and February of
David Axelrod's folks being so oh-so smart and
Chicago street-savvy, it's as if they never learned
the fundamental lessons of President Bush's
failed
(irresponsible) immigration amnesty plan of two years
ago, which also featured no congressional hearings
that voters (and members of Congress and the
media
) could watch or follow to become better
acquainted with the actual facts and provisions.

But when you insist on NOT having congressional
hearings where representatives of The White House
have to make their case publicly, and then have groups
opposed speaking against those policy ideas but for
others, you're asking for trouble.

But then you compound that fatal flaw by also insisting
on doing everything behind-the-scenes, even to the
point of refusing to publicly release the names of health
care leaders meeting with West Wing types, just as
was the case with Hillarycare in 1993, or groups
like La Raza working on the Kennedy bill at the
Bush White House, it's perfectly logical that people
would be very suspicious, especially middle-class
people who are usually apathetic -and proud of it-
about most aspects of American public policy.

People who find it easy to tune out discussions o
f the
legal ramifications of McCain-Feingold
or redistricting
-see www.FairDistrictsFlorida.org- while they eagerly
wax philosophic, blog and Tweet about the particular
merits of one singer over another on a TV show I never
watch like American Idol.


(I used to see the last two minutes when they bleed
over to
HOUSE's time-slot.)

Given that predicate, what's really surprising is that
The White House, DNC and Beltway press are so
surprised at the reaction of the American people.

It was entirely predictable.


Here's what I wrote on the Herald's webpage last
Thursday to the dreadful -what else is new?- Beth
Reinhard
column about the town meetings on health
care.

Tempers flare in South Florida over healthcare overhaul

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/1173602.html

To me, this town hall/Obamacare issue has really
pinpointed the Herald's central identity problem,
in that they are now so short-staffed and so very
poorly edited -but still more smug and arrogant
than reality ought to allow
- that they now cover
local South Florida stories like they're parachuted
out-of-town reporters who arrive with their misplaced
preconceptions, false stereotypes and condescending
know-it-all persona, who want to treat everything
down here in South Florida as either precious,
eccentric or unique, even if it isn't.
It's the Iowa Caucus Syndrome.

Like our crime and corruption isn't really crime and
corruption, with an emotional and physical toll
on
victims, like other cities and regions, but rather
just
a local lifestyle choice.


That's the same attitude and response I run into when

I try to explain just some of the many unethical and
shady things are going on at Hallandale Beach City Hall,
and they turn to me and say,
"That's just Hallandale Beach."

In the
Herald's case, that has been made all the worse by
their increasingly wasting half their
column space by writing
about how other reporters
elsewhere have characterized
similar events,
contaminating the local perspective, rather
than
accurately reporting and illuminating what happened
right in front
of them -HERE!

This is both insulting
AND infuriating, besides being bad
journalism that doesn't serve local
readers, that no matter
how much I want to give
Herald Executive Editor
Anders Gyllenhaal the benefit of the doubt, at some point,
you can't help but wonder when is the bad dream going
to end?


When is the Herald finally going to shape-up?
Would it be better for the long-term if the Miami Herald
went kaput and something else emerged
from the ashes
that was
actually interested and able to cover local
stories properly?
Or, to use a particularly apt sports
metaphor, addition-by-subtraction?


Just recruit some smart, savvy and enthusiastic grads
from Medill and Ernie Pyle and elsewhere and let 'em
loose on all the unsuspecting pols and crooks
hereabouts.
People with smarts and skills who don't care who
lobbyists
Ron Book is or who he knows or whom he
and his daughter
bankroll with campaign contributions,
or even who
rides home to South Florida on his plane
from
Tallahassee.

I used to think no, but as I stated a few months ago
here
on the blog, and even said in an email to Gyllenhaal
last year, that he responded to, the question of the
Herald's future is increasingly not a rooting matter for me,
but more an
academic or sporting proposition.
When does it all fall apart for good?

HallandaleBeachBlog wrote on 08/07/2009 04:54:25 AM:

What do these Obamacare stories and the tea-bag stories have in common? The Herald being VERY late to the party in covering them, and reporting on something in their own area like they were tourists, sporting cliches we've all heard on TV for days already.

Not surprising given that the Herald NEVER wrote a single thing about the 4,000-plus turnout at the Orlando "tea party" on March 21st. No articles, no photos, no nothing.

That's really surprising since any time you get that many people in an apathetic FL city to do anything at one time, it's newsworthy.

Just NOT to the editors of the Miami Herald, apparently, a paper that never used the phrase until March 21st, weeks AFTER the topic had gained national currency.

What do the candidates seeking to succeed Meek think about Obamacare or 'cap and trade'?

Can't say, the Herald's reporters and the rest of SoFL media won't ask them.

Maybe I should just call them and put their answers on my blog, so people in SoFL will know their views, huh?

And now, the feature presentation...
-------

When Liberal Leaders Confront a Centrist Nation
A Commentary
By Michael Barone
Augusts 13, 2009,

There are more conservatives than Republicans and more Democrats than liberals. That's one of the asymmetries between the parties that helps to explain the particular political spot we're in. The numbers are fairly clear. In the 2008 exit poll, 34 percent of voters described themselves as conservatives and 32 percent as Republicans; 39 percent described themselves as Democrats but only 22 percent as liberals.

Read the rest of the essay at:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_michael_barone/when_liberal_leaders_confront_a_centrist_nation

Michael Barone archives are at:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_michael_barone