| Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page |
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October 20, 2009 |
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Story #1: Liberals Aim to Make the News Industry Non-Profit
RUSH: Our country is being dismantled right before our very eyes. People on our side want to play like this is just politics as usual. Yeah, Democrats won the election, yeah, they had the right implement their policies. Have you looked at what the policies are? Have you looked at what the ultimate objective of the policies is? I don't see any opposition to this in the Republican Party. I look at this and I just feel powerless to stop any of this. I'm just a guy on the radio, powerless to stop any of this. I'm sure that you do, too, then I come across stories like this and I just laugh myself silly except this is going to happen, too. The Associated Press reporting: "Journalism is at risk, and American society must act to preserve it." That's a key message in a new report coauthored by Len Downie, the former executive editor of the Washington Post. "In a paper commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School, the ex-Post editor, Len Downie, and Michael Schudson, a Columbia professor, argue the government, universities and nonprofit foundations should step in as newspapers suffer financially. The authors recommend that the Internal Revenue Service or Congress ensure the tax code allows local news outlets to operate as nonprofits."
Change the tax code to let the news business become nonprofit. They "urge philanthropic organizations to support local reporting. They suggest the Federal Communications Commission establish a fund using fees from telecommunications companies or Internet providers for grants to innovative local news groups." This is all about a panic that has settled in, the news business cannot sustain itself anymore, "We don't want bailouts, we don't want bailouts, no, no. We just want universities and philanthropic organizations, rich foundations to endow journalism and make it a nonprofit concern," for the express purpose of having it controlled all the way down to the local news level. Don't be fooled by all this talk about how it's necessary to preserve local news reporting. This is about controlling the media on every level, especially on the national level, and this is how they intend to do it.
Story #2: New York Times Announces New Round of Layoffs
RUSH: The New York Times is reeling today, the newsroom, because they've had to offer another hundred people bailouts or else you get canned. Eight percent of the New York Times newsroom is going to be laid off, and it's going to happen in December, and these people, "Oh, God, oh, no, Christmas without a job! Waaa!" Well, join the eight million other people who you seem to have to no sympathy for, who have lost their jobs. So journalism in deep trouble, ad rates, circulation, pages, everything down the tubes, and now they want us to bail 'em out, make 'em nonprofits, federal bailout money, tax exemptions and contributions from philanthropic organizations.
Story #3: Partisan Hack Stephanopoulos to Host ABC News
RUSH: I informed you of this new report from the Columbia school of journalism written by Len Downie, the former managing grand pooh-bah of the Washington Post, that journalism needs to be saved and the only way it can be saved is by taking it out of the private sector realm where profit is necessary and making local news organizations, national news organizations 501(c)(3)'s, basically able to receive campaign donations, tax exempt, nonprofit, if you will, let philanthropists donate to them, let universities endow them and so forth. "This is just too important, the news is just too important, from the local level to the national level news is just too important, the news business is in trouble and we're losing readers, we're losing subscribers, we're losing viewers." The New York Times is laying off a hundred more newsroom types just in time for Santa Claus to give a bunch of coal down the chimney this December. And so we've gotta save journalism.
 Meanwhile, my friends, Fox News prospers. Meanwhile, talk radio, conservative talk radio prospers. And about this Fox News business, you know, the White House is attacking Fox News and Roger Ailes and the various elements there at Fox News that they're not real journalists over there, just a point of view but they don't do real news at Fox News. They're just like talk radio, they have an agenda but they don't do real news. You know what I just read? Diane Sawyer is going to be the new anchor for the ABC World News tonight, and you know who her regularly scheduled substitute is going to be? George Stephanopoulos, a political hack, a member of the Clinton administration, George Stephanopoulos, the regular fill-in substitute anchor on World News Tonight, and they want to preach to us about who is a journalist and who isn't.
F. Chuck Todd, I don't think has any professional journalism training, his wife is a Democrat operative. I would say this. If George Stephanopoulos works real hard, and he really gets good at what he does maybe in ten years or so he might join Brit Hume's league. If David Gregory does the same for 15 years, maybe 20 years, David Gregory, the host of Meet the Press, if Gregory works really hard for the next 15 or 20 years, he might approach the journalistic skills of Chris Wallace. I remember when Brit Hume was at ABC and Chris Wallace was at NBC, they were both celebrated journalists, they were real journalists, world class journalists. They were respected as members of the club, but now that Brit Hume and Chris Wallace offer their skills and talents to Fox News, it makes them unworthy, somehow they have cashed in their chips, they are no longer journalists, period.
Wait until journalists everywhere, real journalists, professional journalists report Obama's enemies list, feature it, detail it. Unlike they did with Nixon's enemies list, which they despised and hated. They will be happy to report Obama's enemies list, and they will be happy to not be on it, and they will join the Obama administration in going after those who are on Obama's enemies list. Where are you now, 60 Minutes? Where are you now, Nightline? Where are you now, 20/20? Where are you now, Jim Lehrer? Just amazing. These two guys, Brit Hume and Chris Wallace, celebrated journalists when they were at NBC and ABC respectively, but now look at them, they're just chumps.
Story #4: Hope & Change: Another Housing Bailout on Way
RUSH: Try this from CNNmoney.com: "Yet Another Housing Bailout on the Way -- Obama administration unveils plan to prop up state and local agencies that provide mortgages to first-time and lower-income homebuyers." I'm in the Twilight Zone. We just have story after story after story about Obama's "save" of the mortgage market bombed royally. "Just as federal officials seek to wind down many bailout programs..." Who says seeking to wind down bailout programs? "[T]he Obama administration announced Monday yet another initiative to prop up the housing market. Administration officials unveiled a plan to aid state and local housing finance agencies, which provide mortgages to first-time and lower-income homebuyers..." So, folks, remember the subprime mortgage program?
This was a program in which it was determined that "affordable housing" meant making loans to people who couldn't qualify for them and wouldn't pay them back, but get them in houses anyway. Use ACORN to pressure the banks, and Bill Clinton and Barney Frank to pressure the banks to make these loans. The banks had to do it because everybody is scared to death of the federal government, then they had to create a bunch of new kinds of securities that they sold as insurance for what they knew was worthless paper. The securities were worthless because the whole thing at the beginning was worthless. Ergo, we have a large percentage of our financial crisis today rooted in the subprime mortgage program and now we read the Obama administration is going to do another one! They're going to come up with a new plan to provide mortgages to "first-time and lower income homebuyers."
While the foreclosure rate is skyrocketing, we're gonna add to it in six months down the road -- and we haven't even talked about what's yet to happen in commercial real estate. That's the next thing ready to blow up, folks, because there's all kinds of unoccupied office space and so forth. Loans are going to come due on those buildings that cannot be repaid because there's no rent being paid by tenants. So on top of the second stimulus that cannot be identified as a stimulus, and after the subprime mortgage crisis led us largely to where do, we're going to do it all again. "[T]he administration says," by the way, that "the program comes at no cost to taxpayers, the Treasury Department is ultimately responsible if an agency defaults on its debt payments."
Sigh… It takes a lot to render me speechless. What? No, I don't believe 'em at all, Snerdley! "[T]he program comes at no cost to taxpayers"? There's a $1.4 trillion deficit this year. We're going to do another subprime program. We're going to do a second stimulus. "[T]he Treasury department's ultimately responsible if an agency defaults on its debt payments." Where does the Treasury department get its money? Where? Other than printing it, where does it get it? "Obama's stash," that's right! It's Obama's stash! He has some reserve funds. It's Obama's stash.
Story #5: Anger is Everywhere: SUV Strikes Tree, Kills NYC Man
RUSH: Meanwhile, the SUVs are not happy what's happening. Have you heard about what happened on Staten Island with an SUV? Now, get this: "A 47-year-old Staten Island man was killed in Great Kills early this morning [October 18th] in what was described as a freak accident in which he was ejected from his SUV and then hit by the vehicle as it struck a tree. The accident happened early Sunday in an area outside the Island Grill restaurant. ... Police responded to a call about a pedestrian struck and found Oleg Kantarovich unconscious with severe trauma to his torso. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Kantarovich ... apparently was trying to back away from a parking spot when his 2007 Audi sport utility vehicle accelerated, striking a tree. Police said the man was ejected and struck by the SUV as it collided with the tree. The investigation is ongoing." Can you picture this? You're backing out of a parking space; the SUV doesn't want to back out. The SUV is probably ticked off that you are using regular unleaded instead of premium! The SUV is in a bad mood. Its engine is knocking. You're using cheap gasoline in it and you're trying to back out when the SUV doesn't want to back out. So you back out anyway. The thing throws you out and then after you're out it puts itself in drive somehow and bammo! rams a tree with you right in the way. Everybody's ticked off in our country these days! Everybody!
Story #6: Richard Cohen: Perfection is Obama's Big Problem
RUSH: Richard Cohen today: "Obama's Identity Crisis." He went out and watched an HBO documentary on the election of Barack Obama. He talks about what a great thing it is, it's so wonderful, Obama's portrayed as Mr. Perfect. "He does not lose his temper. He does not curse. He does not follow a pretty woman with his eyes or sneak a smoke. He does not dress sloppily. He is always calm and always good-natured and gets emotional only once," when his grandmother, the typical white woman, died. "And I cried," writes Cohen, "at the very end of the documentary when African Americans at one of the final campaign events cried at the imminence or the reality of his victory."
And then Cohen writes this. "What's striking about this inside look at Obama is how being inside gets you nowhere. It is virtually the same as being outside. What's also striking about this movie is its lack of arc. Obama is always golden, always going to win and always does. His issue, if it can be called that, is himself. He is something new, something young, something biracial and something black, but he is not something from a political or ideological constituency. He is adored by his fans, not for something he's done, but rather for something he is. So far, that has been a weakness in Obama's presidency." Richard Cohen is basically admitting that he and everybody else painted what he wanted to see on Obama's blank canvas. Obama was all these wonderful, great things, postpartisan, postracial, postdivisive, America was going to be loved once again, and now Richard Cohen, "Maybe I was duped," because he still sees a blank canvas. He sees nothing. But it doesn't mean anything. He'll be excoriated for this, get his mind right. Next column he'll correct himself and we'll be back to where we were.
Story #7: We Love Stereotypical Humor: Two Marriage Jokes
RUSH: So a guy is sitting on the sofa, his wife comes in and sits down next him. He turns on the TV. She says, "What's on the TV? He says, "Dust." Then the fight started. Hee-hee. I love that. I love that stereotypically humor. Heh-heh. I got another one. A man and wife go to bed. Guy says, "You know, honey, it's been a long time. How about we make love?" "I don't feel like it." He says, "You mind if I call some friends?" Then the fight started.
Story #8: Heritage List: New Tax Hikes Coming Down the Pike
RUSH: In addition to all this other rotgut going on out there today, I'm looking at a list of new taxes -- that the Obama administration and Congress are well on their way to passing, by the way -- and keep in mind that all of this is from a president who said he would not raise taxes on anybody making less than $250,000 a year. Here's a simple one: "Increase in taxes on packs of cigarettes from 39¢ to a dollar." And then you factor in the energy tax being discussed in the form of cap and trade, where fossil fuels are used. And then there's the increase -- Did you know about this? -- in the death tax to 45% on family farms and businesses. That's in Obama's budget. You didn't know about that? And then there is the inevitable 6% tax in the much discussed-government-run health care in our future.
But that's not the complete list. This is just a partial list, comes from AskHeritage.org, the Heritage Foundation. They have analysts, economists keeping a running total of these mounting increases, so their members can see it. It's just one of many reasons to become a Heritage Foundation member and get this information and analysis. And it really is the best that you can find of its kind. It starts when you go online to AskHeritage.org. I, my friends, am a proud member in good standing. They could've comped me. You know, I'm a powerful, influential member of the media. They could've comped my membership, but I don't accept comps. I paid for my membership like I pay, sometimes dearly, for everything. So join me. Join hundreds of thousands of members of the Heritage Foundation today. Just go to AskHeritage.org.
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