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Chuck Todd to Take Over Helm at Meet the Press?

HELM
At the end of June, I penned a piece about Chuck Todd with the opening salvo, “You can’t have anyone that stupid be in charge at NBC.” Now I hear that Chuck Todd is planning on taking over David Gregory’s spot on Meet the Press. That is an utter trainwreck.

Chuck Todd is often uninformed on the topics he is tasked with discussing. Otherwise, he must be disingenously preying on low-information viewers to not know information in the first place.

David Gregory was not that great in his role of Meet the Press moderator. But to hire NBC’s political director, chief White House correspondent, and MSNBC host as the replacement, is ridiculous. Meet the Press will continue to decline as a formidable weekend talk show force.

EJ Dionne Likes To Make Up Facts

EJ dionne

Last week’s Meet the Press roundtable featured, among others, E.J. Dionne — a columnist with the Washington Post. Mr. Dionne’s discussion on Obama and Obamacare was so incredibly inaccurate, it is quite obvious that he is a person who just likes to make up facts as he goes along. And with moderators like David Gregory, who do little to nothing to question the commentary coming from his guests, viewers are left with severely wrong or misinterpreted information.

Some highlights from the show:

>>“Look, I think there is something crazy when people say where government can’t deliver health care. Ever heard of Medicare? Ever heard of Medicaid?”

The fact is that Medicare is actuarially and actually bankrupt, and Medicaid is virtually bankrupting large numbers of states as we speak. Why do people have a positive view of Medicare – simply because they are getting $3 of medical care for each $1 they spend (and hiding from them the fact that the $2 difference will be paid by their children and grandchildren). An SEC investigation would have everyone associated with such a program behind bars. I suppose technically the government does “deliver healthcare” via Medicare and Medicaid but they are so egregiously flawed and mismanaged that it can hardly be considered successful.

> >”President Obama chose to go for a model that is a market-oriented model that Republicans favor, of helping people buy private health insurance”.

A blatant lie. Republicans do favor a market oriented model, but ObamaCare is certainly not anything like one. Can anyone list all the names of the House Republicans who supported and voted for Obamacare in Congress? None? That’s right. In addition, Obamacare is no more a market-oriented model when it renders obsolete millions of plans already freely chosen by Americans and replaces them with fewer and more expensive options — while bullying insurance companies to alter dates and plans according to the whim of any number of government agencies.

>>But what you’re seeing already is there is an enormous appetite among all the Americans who don’t have health insurance to buy it. And that’s what’s going to save Obamacare. This is filling a real need in the society”.

The actual enrollment figures for Obamacare are way off and lower-than-expected. It is so dismal that the White House is counting among the totals for the media the number of people who have “put a plan in their shopping cart” but haven’t paid for it yet in order to bolster totals. Likewise, a lack of “appetite” for Obamacare has resulted in the Obama Administration panicking and paying hundreds of millions of taxpayer money to run commercials and partner with organizations, groups, and non-profits in order to push citizens to sign up before the deadlines (that keep shifting).

>>Every rich democracy in the world uses government to deliver healthcare. You had Christine Lagarde on. France spends less per capita in government spending to cover everybody than we spend for just Medicare and Medicaid. So this thing can work. It needs fixes. And I think the next move by the president is to tell Republicans, do you want to fix this or do you just want to get rid of it?

First of all, the United States is a Republic, not a democracy. Second, the emphasis on the word “rich” is telling because it reeks of the same class warfare-equality policies that have been quintessential to Obama’s presidency. Obamacare is exactly that. It is a wealth transfer that forces the healthy and/or wealthy to subsidize the plans of the uninsured, sicker, or poorer through government fiat — an “individual mandate”. And while Mr. Dionne wishes to hold up France as the pinnacle of Western governing, the French just passed a 75% tax on the wealthy in order to pay for the Socialist policies of Francois Hollande.

E.J.Dionne is representative of the typical progressive pundit who has no framework of reality, and frankly, doesn’t seem to care. He repeats whatever talking points are suitable for the day and the Obama Administration, and its a damn shame that the actual moderators of Meet the Press lack the knowledge or fortitude to call into question their information.

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Meet the Press and Media Collaboration?


Watching Meet the Press this past Sunday was a remarkable experience. Among the roundtable contributors were Peggy Noonan, Al Sharpton, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn. The show was fairly enjoyable throughout most of the program – including a very civil discussion about women.

Then right before the close of the program, moderator David Gregory asks Al Sharpton about his recreation of the old Selma to Montgomery march (1965). Sharpton launches into a tirade about how we need to do this march again because our government is trying to disenfranchise millions of people.

REV. SHARPTON:  The message is that with the new voter ID laws being proposed in over 30 states, the Brennan Institute says it will disenfranchise five million people.  There has been no established reason to change the laws. There’s no widespread fraud that has been in any way documented.  And we do, do not believe that we should have these millions of peoples disenfranchised. This is–has a disproportionate impact on young people, seniors and minorities.  And immigration laws in Alabama are horrendous and we think they violate the civil rights of people.  And we sought to dramatize, not just to commemorate 47 years ago, but to continue today to fight those issues.

Incredibly, this ludicrous and partisan comment goes unanswered. David Gregory just nods along and doesn’t even respond, and neither does Peggy Noonan. Gregory switches topics and wraps up the program with a quick analysis of the upcoming primary on Tuesday, March 13.

Watching this unfold made the whole program seem like a set-up. Everything was quite civil earlier on, so when Sharpton made his outrageous remark, no one batted an eye or refuted the absurdity. It allowed the program to pretty much end with Sharpton’s statement out there to the audience.

Therefore, I was jaded enough to not even be surprised when, the following morning (Monday), the Department of Justice announced the following:

The Justice Department’s civil rights division on Monday objected to a new photo ID requirement for voters in Texas because many Hispanic voters lack state-issued identification.

Texas follows South Carolina as the second state in recent months to become embroiled in a court battle with the Justice Department over new photo ID requirements for voters.

Should I even be surprised? Sharpton’s Meet the Press commentary seemed to coincide with the announcement of government decisions effecting voters in an election year. There is absolutely no reason why we should not have fair and free elections by requiring identification at the polls. We already require IDs for so many other things that to somehow cry discrimination when it comes to IDs for our sacred electoral process is nothing more than sheer political poppycock.

UPDATE: The United Nations is now investigating American laws, as the NAACP is presenting their case to the Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva. Really, should we even be surprised?

Dick Durbin On Social Security

In another example of reckless rhetoric, Senator Dick Durbin recently stated on Meet the Press  that Social Security does not add one penny to the deficit. Of course, this idea is only technically true in the sense that the payments to fund Social Security are being stolen from present day workers who have every right to believe and expect that the money taken out is set aside for retirement pensions. Only someone who has no contact with economics, accounting or the actuality of funding an organization could be as boldly ignorant as Mr. Durbin has been.

Even worse, Durbin went on to claim that untouched, Social Security will make every promised payment for more than 25 years. What an outrageously incorrect statement. There is no money available from any actuarily sound fund of money from which these payments can be made. Social Security is bankrupt and Mr. Durbin knows it. It is despicable that a Senator can boldly lie to the public without rebuke on such an important topic as Social Security.

Meet the Bias


With all the pressing issues of the day, it is outrageous that the moderator of Meet the Press, Mr. David Gregory, spent so much time last week badgering House Speaker John Boehner about President Obama’s religious beliefs and citizenship status. Even though Boehner continuously stated he believed the President was a Christian and a citizen, Mr. Gregory was clearly disturbed with the fact that Boehner had not used his position as Speaker of the House to issue or enforce some sort of official statement. When Boehner replied that it was not his job to tell Americans what to think or believe, Gregory question his leadership capabilities.

Contrast Mr. Gregory’s attitude toward Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid during an interview a few weeks ago and the bias is quite apparent. Harry Reid actually proclaimed on Meet the Press that we are not in a crisis in Social Security, that the Social Security system is “arithmetically sound” and that the problem of Social Security was merely fiction — perpetuated by people who do not like government! Yet, on an issue of such monumental factual error, Mr. Gregory left the Senate Majority Leader’s gross distortion of facts completely unchallenged.

The bias and misinformation continuing to be disseminated by weekend political talk shows is deeply infuriating.