Heard about this today and read the letter and it made a serious impression on me. As I hope it does with anyone who reads it.

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articl ... 198/26742/

GLENN: I got a letter from a woman in Arizona. She writes an open letter to our nation's leadership: I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?

Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.

Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.

Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.

Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.

Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!

Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.

Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why ‑‑ what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band‑Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try ‑‑ please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.

Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.

We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when hewill rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

Talk.

Big talk, but talk.

Until the American people actually get the balls to vote for someone not republican or democrat, it's all just talk to them.

Until the American people actually get the balls to vote for someone not republican or democrat, you're just a null-factor to them when you throw a tantrum and say you won't vote.

tl;dr.

_________________
Hope is the new black.

There are some ridiculously ignorant points in that stupid letter.

_________________

Even Tarot says 'Goddamn that's long'.

_________________

Having read most of it (I'll get there eventually!) I find it hard to believe this person was a registered Democrat for most of her life :p.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck its a republican. If this person was ever a registered democrat they were an awfully confused one.

Kit and Fribur said what I was just about to. This person says nothing about why she was a Democrat for most of her life. I'm not at all surprised to hear this came from Beck.

To me, he's worse than Limbaugh. He works under the guise of presenting actual news. At least everyone knows Limbaugh's just a blowhard -- even he says he's just an entertainer.

Straight talk, indeed.

Seriously. Way worse. Mostly because populism makes me cringe and it's so obviously false with him.

Here's Colbert mocking it.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colber ... 31-project

_________________

So instead of debating the content of the letter. You attack the conveyor of the message. She makes some very valid points about Czars and the amount of taxation and spending being done. Both parties are to blame and neither of them have answered directly to their constituents in a very long if at all. Instead they court the big campaign donors or receive kickbacks a la Dodd and Countrywide Financial.
And now the latest is the firing of an Inspector General for doing his job in reporting problems with AmericCorps. All because the individual in question is a close friend of President Obama. And the findings plus subsequent suspension of Kevin Johnson would block any stimulus money from being given to AmericCorps in Sacramento. We are back to watching Chicago style politics in play. All from an administration that promised they would be different and would not engage in politics as usual.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124511811033017539.html

Why debate the content of the letter?

Like I said, until the American public as a whole finally gets the balls to throw off the current establishment, it's all just talk. Why should the Dems/Repubs change anything? They know that they can walk all over your face and you'll still be at the booth next voting cycle putting a check mark next to one or both of their parties.

They can take your money, stomp on your rights, defile the constitution, kick your dog, and guess what? They know you'll be back for more next election because by and large we're all too afraid to do anything about it when we're in the booth.

News at 11: Man who doesn't hold the guy he voted for accountable... posts cynical whine about people not holding politicians accountable!

I think you're looking for Fribur, sir.

Well. While you're at anger.. I think Fribur is still stuck on denial. I can't wait for depression! I have a huge stockpile of popcorn.

Yes, I'm in denial. Obama is the messiah! Five times a day I face the city of Chicago and pray to the Obamagods.

I'm not angry or depressed. Just stating the facts of the situation.

Every now and then you see some "manifesto" from some "independent" people and its always a joke because they'll probably be check R or D next election left and right.

I hope Glenn Beck dies soon.

The best part about the kind of people who write letters like that is just how novel, cutting, or common-sensical they think they're being, as if they don't realize they're churning the very same bilge they're complaining about.

_________________
Knowledge without reason is useless.

http://boxrockssocks.blogspot.com/

Why would this be? You know just because somebody is a registered Democrat does not mean they are way over on the socialist left.


Yes, we would not want a different option in the media... oh FFS anyway


This made me LOL 'cause I know it true.


Would you expect anything else?



This is so very true, the reason this will never happen is there are too many people that vote that don't have a clue.

_________________
Devil

Build a man a fire, and he's warm for the night.
Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.

Thanks for compiling the same right wing issues that have been bandied about for the last six months into an easy-to-skim post. Come up with a new idea and I might take enough interest.

_________________

The point is, because of the conveyor's bias, the message can't be trusted as legitimate. If the message is debated as a legitimate one when it isn't, all we're doing is serving as tools for the conveyor.

I don't wish harm on the guy, but I do wish he'd STFU or start being a real journalist.

are there ANY REAL journalists anymore?

The tower of bureaucracy has gotten far too high to support its own weight. Some kind of collapse is inevitable.

Since old newspapers show that "journalists" then were just as crazy sometimes as journalists today, I'm not positive what you mean.

I can assume, however, that by "real" you mean "objective." If that is the case, I think that most journalists at NPR's Morning Edition or All Things Considered, or most of the BBC all fit the bill of a "real" journalist.

ah... hit post too soon... I know someone is going to say, "well no one is objective, it's impossible!" and so I'll go ahead and qualify my statement right now as meaning that these journalists work hard to try to be as objective as they can be under the circumstances they are reporting.

You mean like that great Heart reporting of the Spanish-American War?

_________________
Hope is the new black.

Not many. And considering the White House is planting questions in coordination with major media, it's not getting any better.

Stay Tuned for More of 'The Obama Show'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03262.html

speaking of there being no real journalists anymore.

_________________

lol, indeed. "Stagecraft". No bias there whatsoever.

I mean I don't agree with planting questions generally, but I don't see anything egregiously wrong with that situation. There was a question that the President felt needed to be asked, so instead of asking it himself, he let the secondary source of the question ask it.

But yeah, not exactly the article you want to put up in an Obama kool-aid thread.

_________________

He'd have looked much better had he just stated he saw an interesting question and would like to address it.

The way it came off is that the question and the questioner were pre-arranged. Even if it was a question that was first brought to his attention by the reporter, the presentation was poorly handled.

I'm not so sure it's an issue of free press. More so that the President gets plenty of time to address the public, and the press conferences are the opportunity for the 'public' to address him. It's protocol that they're not used to bring up issues that aren't prompted by the reporters.

I agree that it's not an issue of free press, especially since he was transparent about how it was arranged.

I think, and it's just a guess, that it was done that way because they wanted to address this question from an Iranian...and if Obama walks out and says 'Hey I want to address this guy's question' ...THAT looks like much more of a set up to the world, versus someone else saying 'Here's the question'. Especially given that the Iranian situation is very touchy, with Obama and the US CLEARLY wanting to support the people fighting to have their vote counted...and the fact that the more we do, the more we might actually hurt their cause given the whole 'western devils' bullshit, plus the reality of our recent history in the region.

(Huge props again to Anonymous and The Pirate Bay. I even got involved in a 'can we use games as a communications tool' discussion over there heh).

I don't really have an issue with it, just as I wouldn't have an issue if Bush had done something similar...provided it wasn't commonplace, and provided they were transparent about it. Now had Bush done something similar with, say an Iraqi (different situation, I know) I certainly might have been critical about cherry picking, and wondering if it were a good representation. But it's not like other media sources don't have the ability to do the same, or even come up with their own Iranian questions. /shrug

If there's a bigger WTF about it, then the Post has done a piss poor job explaining why I should be outraged.

_________________

Ariana Huffington responds to Millbank's hit piece:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-h ... 19863.html

_________________
Hope is the new black.

Another case of 'it's bad when Bush did it but not Obama".

People were up in arms over the bias of Fox News and the Rove/Bush/Cheney cabal with them, but not upset over the literal collusion of the white house with a left-leaning news organization, in the case cited above, or a major news network, ABC, airing an administration prime time special with no opposing views.

QTFT !!!!!!!!

_________________
Devil

Build a man a fire, and he's warm for the night.
Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.

I think you have a small point there, but it's not nearly so bad as you make it sound. ABC is an entertainment network that also does news on occasion. FOX is a 24 hour news network that insists it is "Fair and Balanced" 24 hours a day.

ABC is not obligated to provide equal time to both sides of the health care issue. FOX News, by it's own proclamation, is.

At least that's how I see it, I guess.

They aren't, but in that case the side presenting is supposed to pay for the air time.

Was there never a Bush prime time special? Did it have a Democratic rebuttal alongside? My memory might be hazy, but I'm pretty sure there was and there wasn't. "Barbara Walters sits in with the Bush family, and then let's check in on John Kerry and see what he's doing." I know for certain that didn't happen.

_________________

This just proves that there are some people who probably wrote Letters to the Editor complaining about FDR's Fireside Chats.

_________________
Hope is the new black.

I think in any other situation I'd probably agree.

But we're talking about the "green revolution" in Iran. The one thing every bit of traditional media missed for days on end, while newer non-traditional internet based news sites covered it from the start. I actually see that invite and call out as a nod to the fact that these people covered the twitter'ed revolution while CNN aired a story about what a useless joke twitter was at the same time the Iran thing was going on.

So I see what they are trying to say about this particular event. But I also watched the Iran thing from the start...and I see this a bit differently, I guess.

_________________

But aren't personal profiles on politicians different from policy proposals? Politics are incredibly partisan. Politicians spin things. To give one side a huge podium in prime time is an endorsement of that policy, especially if you don't offer the "other side" an opportunity to respond.

I see your point, fribur, but I disagree. The special was hosted by their ABC News journalists - Gibson and Sawyer. It was a news function, not an entertainment function. It had ABC News branding throughout.

WOW, that was great, thanks Joxur.

_________________
Devil

Build a man a fire, and he's warm for the night.
Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.

Sheesh, you'd think the White House Press Secretary would be able to handle situations like that a little better. I don't know if he pretended to not understand their concerns or if he's genuinely that obtuse, but he'd have done a lot better with "I understand your concerns about the format, I'll pass those along to the President/whomever and we'll see what we can do to address them." Instead he looks like a complete buffoon.

_________________

Two words--Jeff Gannon

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jeff_Gannon

_________________
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis

In light of recent reactions from some, I don't doubt it.


I can't disagree with this assessment. I'm not familiar with the format of the Q&A session being discussed so the clip left me a little confused.
This makes me want to read huffingtonpost.

I just watched the clip of the "staged" question and the answer to it. I didn't see anything new in Obama's stance on the issue. It may have helped clarify the presidents position though. Many on the right have been critical of this position as I recall. Was this supposed to have endeared the president to anyone? Millbank's piece leaves me as confused as the clip with Chip Reid and Helen Thomas questioning Gibb's. I think especially after watching the clip of Obama answering the question. This is about principals of Q&A session format? That's all I'm getting and I don't understand the hubbub over it.

I half expect people to start criticizing Obama for being left handed next.

I guess it depends on your perspective. As a guy who worked in newspapers for 12 years, I happen to believe journalism and our news agencies should be completely separate from government. That's how it's always been, at least officially. As the lines blur with Fox News and MSNBC, so will the lines of our democracy, if we don't have a press that challenges the government.

Here's another example of something I consider to be awful.

Washington Post sells access, $25,000+
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html

You folks going to keep skipping over Mr. Gannon?

Sure, unless 'they did it too' is now an ok argument to use. Didn't the contrubution validate the premise that it quoted? Let's not go changing the rules now.

But Obama (so far) hasn't done anything like that. So it's not a "they did it too" defense since Obama didn't.

But yeah, I still get your point :p

Uh... Is that to me? Wasn't my implication pretty clear that it wasn't ok when Bush did it? I thought that was sorta the whole premise behind my earlier post.

Huh. Interesting

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/ ... ll-of.html

Since this has become a discussion on the media, I thought I'd share an article from Mother Jones that was sent to me but their site is down due to a fire at a massive server center. Its title is Black and White and Dead All Over and it deals with the the decline in newspaper readership and how newspapers help keep elected officials honest etc. Something else I found interesting in the article is that regular viewers of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report tied readers of newspaper sites as the most knowledgeable.