The Political Right and New Media Innovation

H/T to And so it goes in Shreveport

The traditional media is dying and I think few would argue with that. With the advent of the internet dawned an era of nearly countless possibilities for new media innovation. I’m excited to see how new media innovations are being used on the right in recent days. After the left was handedly credited as the self proclaimed internet technology innovators in the 2008 elections, it appears that the right has been rapidly responding.

CNN has already conceded twitter as a conservative medium. However, it looks as though several congress members are taking advantage of opencongress.org via amplify.com. Through this medium, Republican congress members are able to comment and post on specific portions of Pelosi’s gigantic 1,900 page bill. The result is likely to cause needed scrutiny on specific section hidden within a behemoth bill.

For example:

SECTION 223: BUREAUCRATS IN CHARGE OF DECISIONS THAT SHOULD BE MADE BY PATIENTS
John Boehner says:

Despite what congressional Democrats claim, H.R. 3962 would put government bureaucrats in charge of decisions that should be made by patients, their families, and their doctors.

Pages 111-116; Section 223 – The bill establishes a Health Benefits Advisory Committee to make determinations about health care services that will be available to Americans...

Traditional media has largely ignored and marginalized the Republican message in favor of projecting the Obama sponsored “Party of No” template. Whether you are on the left or right, this is a great political innovation, because it allows for the open discourse of ideas without the third party ideological spin that comes with traditional media. It is politicians taking their case directly to the people.

BO, Obama's lap dog said...that's "B" "O" as in Bill Owens

I was going to do up a long and detailed piece on Bill Owens today, but then I saw a recent statement and realized I could sum him up in one pithy argument. In the absence of having any substantive arguments for why voters in NY’s 23rd should vote for his candidacy as opposed to leading candidate Doug Hoffman, Owens decided to make today’s race about Rush Limbaugh. Today, Bill Owens made a statement regarding Limbaugh’s Scozzafava’s remarks yesterday. Limbaugh is quoted as saying of Scozzafava:

“Guilty of widespread bestiality — she has screwed every RINO in the country”

Owen’s responded by saying, “Doug Hoffman and his supporters have sunk to a new low today. There is no excuse for this kind of shameful rhetoric and Doug Hoffman ought to denounce Limbaugh immediately.”

If I were Hoffman, I’d be asking Owens why he is not stumping to have Obama apologize and denounce half of his Czars and associates for the same reasons. For example, we never did get an apology from the President for Van Jones. Do I need go into his comments? How about Pelosi, Reed and other congress members? When is the left going to start apologizing for the left?

Great New Blog!

H/T to Left Coast Rebel

If you like political cartoons, you are going to love this. Check out the first cartoon of ProRegressive.

Saturday Stands for Links – Halloween 2009 Edition

Being that it is Halloween, I thought I’d dedicate this post to all the bloggers who have some scary posts out on the web. Without further ado, here is what I’ve been reading this week!

1. Left Coast Rebel so graciously plugged my Eric Massa post and I am only too happy to share the wealth. There are few things scarier than Democratic staffer stalkers.

2. Right Klik has a great post on what a Doug Hoffman in NY’s 23rd Congressional District means to the elitist Washington establishment. Scary! For the Washington elites that is.

3. Hack Wilson has an interesting video of a school teacher and Obama supporter laying down a verbal beat down of a McCain supporting student. No information on whether the video is authentic, but the implications are…well…um…scary?

4. Lonely Conservative has Pataki’s endorsement of Doug Hoffman. Great news for Hoffman, but seeing Pataki again, it was a little scary. Back into the shadows Pataki…back into the shadows.

5. William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has the story on the CBO scoring of Pelosi’s bill. Socialized health care, giant deficits and government regulation. I may have just stepped in a big pile of scary.

6. Posting graphs probably won’t make your blog popular, but it will get noticed by me. The Humble Libertarian has a funny, true and scary graph.

7. KOOK's Manifesto has a great piece on the age old fight for freedom of the individual. Losing this fight would not only be a tragedy, it’s downright scary.

8. Broken back? You may be a good candidate for police abuse. Generally, I’m a huge supporter of the boys in blue, but The Right Stuff has a post and it's well…you guessed it…it’s scary.

I also want to plug a few blogs that I’ve started to follow recently. My goal is to find 3 or 4 new blogs each week.

1. The Libertarian Advocate has the scoop on Pelosi’s snide effort to hamper tort reform. Texas, get ready to see health care costs go back up.

2. Consent of the governed has a nice little rant on the CBO scoring of Pelosi’s bill.

3. Generation Patriot has a great breakdown of the GDP report. I’m a sucker for economics. Just one suggestion though. Could you add a graph? I love graphs.

Did MSNBC just burst my optimistic outlook on the economy?

If you read my earlier piece today on positive GDP growth and you regularly follow this blog, you may have found my post a little optimistic in comparison to my normal economic outlooks. I’m now writing to allay your fears. Thanks to our good friends at MSNBC, I’m more pessimistic then ever.

They quoted a Goldman-Sachs analyst:

“The risk of renewed home price declines remains significant,” he wrote in a research note last week. "And our working assumption is a further 5-10 percent decline by mid-2010.”

Now I expected and have predicted a double dip for a while, but 5 -10 percent by mid-2010? That’s quite a contraction that they are predicting in three quarters. Especially since the last two quarters has held around a 1% decline.

Positive GDP growth despite Obama’s failing stimulus

Today is a good day for the economy, at least as far as the economic numbers stand. The BEA just announced that the country experienced the first growth in GDP since the recession began as the projections show 3.5% growth. It is also a good day for the Obama administration. They will get to walk out to the podium and declare victory over the recession. Unlike, the previous 5 declarations, they finally have a solid number to support their repetitious claims that the economy is on the road to recovery. The administration will also get the added benefit that few will actually read the GDP report. Here are a few critical points that the media will fail to write about while they are busy lauding the stimulus.

“Cash for Clunkers” stimulated the economy by how much?

Christina Roemer came out and in true liberal fashion and declared:

"Obviously fiscal stimulus is playing a crucial role…"

The lie of omission was, which fiscal stimulus are you referring to?

According to the report:

“Motor vehicle output added 1.66 percentage points to the third-quarter change in real GDP after adding 0.19 percentage point to the second-quarter change…The third-quarter increase largely reflected motor vehicle purchases under the Consumer
Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009 (popularly called, “Cash for Clunkers” Program).”

In normal person speak, this means that “Cash for Clunkers” was the big boost for GDP in the 3rd quarter. I doubt anyone will be asking the Obama administration why a $3 billion “Cash for Clunker” program was more effective in GDP growth than $768 billion in stimulus. I would love to laugh at the explanation. While it is nice to see GDP growth as a result of “Cash for Clunkers,” it has now created a nice little GDP growth hurdle for the fourth quarter when we will have to weather the massive drop in car sales as a result of the end of “Cash for Clunkers.”

Did anyone else notice that companies are still reducing inventories…by a lot?

“Private businesses decreased inventories $130.8 billion in the third quarter, following decreases of $160.2 billion in the second quarter and $113.9 billion in the first.”

This is good news and added almost a 1% growth in the GDP number. However, inventory reduction is still looking poor. It is a sign that the economy growth is very fragile and that jobs aren’t coming back soon.

Hey, look how good those ideological rightwing tax credits are doing!

“Real residential fixed investment increased 23.4 percent, in contrast to a decrease of 23.3 percent.”

Personally, I think the first-time homebuyer tax credit is going to cause a “Cash for Clunker” home sales abyss once the program ends in December. So my comments here are a little hypocritical. However, I do find it interesting that the largest growth from the stimulus is through tax credits, which are essentially tax cuts. Does anyone else find it ironic that the left is lauding the government spending side of the stimulus, while housing tax credits are having a larger impact?

I applaud the positive economic growth. I hope that it continues. However, the truth regarding the Obama stimulus was best summed up by Republican Kevin Brady:

"While some may promote the stimulus as the savior of the economy, it is a claim only the Balloon Boy's dad would make. The critics were right: the stimulus is too slow, too wasteful and too unfocused on jobs."

Massa doubles down on Obama’s joke of a stimulus bill and it’s not funny

The Steuben County Young Republicans over at Pachyderm Points contacted me regarding footage they had of Eric Massa’s recent announcement to run for reelection for NY’s 29th Congressional District. I’ve posted the video footage below. Just a reminder for everyone, Eric Massa is the leftwing ideologue who promised to vote against the interests of his district for Canadian style single payer health care. Given Massa’s recent statements regarding his support for the stimulus package at his announcement for candidacy, it would seem that nothing has changed in recent months.



FACT CHECK for Massa: Hundreds of millions to your district? How about $60 million to the entire state.

When someone asked Massa whether he would support legislation to end the stimulus package, Massa’s response was, “Hell no! I'm not giving it back!” While his statement sounds like a populous promise to show his constituents the money, in reality, the stimulus has been a raw deal for the voters in the 29th.

A recent AP article estimates that the stimulus had created a massive 3.5 jobs in the Elmira, Ithica, Binghamton region. Even recovery.gov’s rosy jobs saved and created formula shows 50 jobs allotted to Massa and none of those jobs located in Elmira, Schuyler, or Steuben counties. The job creation numbers are a pretty poor showing for a district of over 650,000 people and roughly 58,500 of them unemployed.

Just how deflated is Massa’s stimulus rhetoric? I suggest we evaluate what our $768 billion investment in the stimulus bill is doing for district 29. Since I’m a numbers kind of person, I have the breakdown below.

Cost of the stimulus - $768,000,000,000
Cost of the stimulus per American (307,000,000 people) - $2,500/person
Total cost for the residents of the 29th District (650,000 people) - $1.6 billion
Amount of money paid to the entire NYS as of 10/09? - $60 million

The number only gets worse when I recalculate based on taxpayers instead of population so I gave you the optimistic version. Even Massa's embellished hundreds of millions doesn't break even! Look it up in the dictionary and you will find the definition of a bad decision; spend billions of your district's money to get millions back and "create or save" a handfull of jobs.

At the same time Massa is way behind in stimulating his district's economy, White House Economist Christina Roemer is saying that the biggest effects of the stimulus have already taken effect. Recent news also shows that 49 out of 50 states are showing job losses, not gains since the stimulus was enacted.

If Massa was looking out for the interests of his district, his response should have been “Hell Yeah! Our $1.6 billion is not worth the pittance apportioned to us.” Instead, we watch the video and hear an Eric Massa who is resolved to follow his broken ideology to the bitter, tumultuous end. If I had advice for the 29th district it would be this; do yourselves a favor in 2010 and fire the Massa. Fire him because his ideology trumps you at every turn and your interests are more important than Massa’s Ahab’s errand to test his leftist ideology on your community.

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The Lonely Conservative
The Libertarian Republican
Monroe Rising

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The Left Coast Rebel