Category Archives: Media

On Health Care & ‘Homo Economicus,’ And The Spoils Of Entrapment & Political Predation

Economy, Government, Healthcare, Media, Politics, Propaganda, Regulation, Terrorism

Health Care & ‘Homo Economicus. Even the pro-Obama socialist youth of America act as “Homo Economicus”: they know they are young and healthy and unlikely to fall ill. Why should they partake in a scheme that financially punishes them for this natural advantage? Millennials want us to pay for them, not the reverse.

“Federal Health Care Enrollees: Older Outnumber Younger”:

.. more than 2 million people who have signed up for private [it’s not private: “A healthcare cauldron of Obama’s creation, government-run exchanges constitute a planned economy, not a market economy”] health insurance through the exchanges set up by the federal government. … Of those who signed up in the first three months, 55 percent are age 45 to 64, officials said. Only 24 percent of those choosing a health insurance plan are 18 to 34, a group that is usually healthier and needs fewer costly medical services. People 55 to 64 – just below the age at which people qualify for Medicare — represented the largest group, at 33 percent.”

Speaking of the Dah Factor, or of the news newsmen were not anticipating (but you were):

“Review Of Terrorism Cases Finds NSA Spying Helped Very Little”:

Surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency helped very little when it came to cases brought against individuals the United States says were linked to al-Qaida. …

A great deal of efforts of our spymaster “protectors” go into entrapment; concocting elaborate traps to ensnare potential “evil doers”; “setting swarthy simpletons up and then nabbing them in a so-called terrorism sting.”

More non-news:

“Majority In Congress Are Millionaires”: Of course, the reporter doesn’t tell us how the predatory political class has acquired wealth, for he doesn’t think that it’s important, nevertheless:

For the first time in history, more than half the members of Congress are millionaires, according to a new analysis of financial disclosure reports conducted by the non-partisan .
Of the 534 current members of the House and Senate, 268 had an average net worth of $1 million or more in 2012 – up from 257 members in 2011. The median net worth for members of the House and Senate was $1,008,767.

Rep. Darrell Issa notwithstanding—he made his fortune, if I am not mistaken, in business, before joining the parasites in Congress—“The political class and its sycophants utilize the political means to earn their keep. As libertarian economist Murray Rothbard reminded, these ‘are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth”—the economic means is honest and productive, the political means is dishonest and predatory…but oh so very effective.'”

‘Fat And Furious’ And Other ‘Complicated’ Folderol

Gender, Intelligence, Media, Politics, Republicans

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was christened “fat and furious” at GlenBeck.com, following what appears to be the governor’s feigned outrage over his administration’s intentional closing of the George Washington Bridge as political retribution.

I got a kick out of the reaction of those “great minds” of Crossfire.

“Great minds don’t always agree” goes the once-illustrious show’s new motto. Nothing they can say or write will even make Cupp, Cutter and the other two co-hosts worthy of the great-mind moniker. At best one can call Neut Gingrich a mercurial mind.

Rasped S.E. Cupp the cretin:

“[I]f you’re in not New Jersey or not D.C., you look at this story, which is actually pretty complicated, … and you think, he did what, to who, when, where, what?”

Replied co-host Stephanie Cutter, who is indisputably less of a fool than Cupp:

“I think it’s not hard to follow the story, regardless of where you live.”

… somebody is seeking political retribution and … somebody is bullying somebody on the other side of the aisle

Pretty much politics as usual.

MMA Hero Vs. CNN Cowards

GUNS, Media, Private Property, Propaganda

Mixed martial arts fighter (MMA) Joe Torrez is the hero in this story, the men who invaded his home and attacked him deserved death all, their sympathizers at CNN are worthy of ignominy.

The broadcasters that have extended their mandate to annually anointing the nation’s politically acceptable heroes know just how to shape debate. A Latino “reporter” oozed his sympathies to bimbo anchor Brook Baldwin—sympathies to the “victims” of a homeowner who defended home and hearth with all the MMA might he could muster.

Torrez refused to curl up in the fetal position upon being savagely attacked in his inner sanctum. Most importantly, the MMA lightweight did not risk sure death, which would have been his lot had he extended an invitation to the local Polizei to break down his door and “help” him. (Or shoot him, or his kid, or his lady friend, or his best friend The Dog.)

Joseph Torrez, 27, repelled a home invasion, killing one man, injuring another so badly he left in an ambulance and persuading two others to run in fear, authorities said.
Torrez and the men clashed on New Year’s Day at his home outside of Las Cruces, reportedly part of an ongoing feud. One of the attackers, 22-year-old Leonard Calvillo, called ahead to threaten Torrez, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported, citing court documents.
Mixed Martial Arts fighter Joseph Torrez fought off four men who broke into his house, killing one and putting one in the hospital, authorities say.
“I’ll kill you and your family … I’ll go to your house,” Calvillo reportedly said.
Calvillo arrived shortly after with 20-year-old Nathan Avalos and brothers Sal and Raymond Garces and pounded on Torrez’s door, authorities said.
Torrez’s fiancee, son and the fiancee’s sister were all home at the time, authorities said.
The fiancee leaned against the door of the mobile home, trying to keep them out, but they busted through, authorities said.
There they met Torrez, a 155-pound lightweight with a record of one win and five losses, according to the fight website SherDog.com.
The four men are all gang members, a Dona Ana County Sheriff’s spokeswoman said.
C.J. McElhinney, an attorney for Torrez, told the Sun-News witness said the attackers brought a crude shank and one picked up a knife once they forced their way inside.
Sal Garces, 25, was stabbed to death during the fight. Avalos suffered “severe” facial injuries and was taken to a New Mexico hospital, authorities said.
Torrez endured [the NYD writer meant to say “sustained,” surely] only minor injuries, his lawyer said.
Calvillo and Raymond Garces were both arrested on charges of conspiracy and property damage after they ran from the house.

MORE @ The New York Daily News.

Decentralized ‘Al Qaeda’ Represents Ordinary Invaded Muslims

Foreign Policy, Media, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Terrorism

“Us against Al Qaeda” is the narrowly conceived narrative among neoconservatives. As the politically provincial neoconservative foreign-policy paradigm has it, those were the forces that allegedly played out in Benghazi.

Understandably, Fox News is fuming over “A Deadly Mix in Benghazi,” David D. Kirkpatrick’s expose in the New York Times. For these Republicans hold that:

Mr. Stevens died in a carefully planned assault by Al Qaeda to mark the anniversary of its strike on the United States 11 years before. Republicans have accused the Obama administration of covering up evidence of Al Qaeda’s role to avoid undermining the president’s claim that the group has been decimated, in part because of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The investigation by The Times, however, shows:

…that the reality in Benghazi was different, and murkier, than either of those story lines suggests. Benghazi was not infiltrated by Al Qaeda, but nonetheless contained grave local threats to American interests. The attack does not appear to have been meticulously planned, but neither was it spontaneous or without warning signs.

In particular are neoconservatives fulminating over the NYT findings that “turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault.” “The attack,” it was revealed, “was led, instead, by fighters who had benefited directly from NATO’s extensive air power and logistics support during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi.”

I have no doubt, simply based on the history and policies of the US in the Middle-East, that to the extent the “American-made video denigrating Islam” is a symbolic proxy for the hatred harbored by the invaded Muslims for the invading Americans-–to that extent it is probably correct to say that the video, more so than the mythical Al Qaeda, was a catalyst for the attack on our embassy in Benghazi.

However, the NYT is hardly unsparingly honest; it is, in fact, as dishonest and politically provincial as the neocons of Fox News.

Predictably ignored in the Kirkpatrick article is that Al Qaeda has morphed into many decentralized operations that mirror the aspirations of the invaded Muslims to be free of invading Westerners—unless of course they can get us to bankroll their Baksheesh economy.

There is cross-pollination between these double-crossing entities. So wrong was the Gray Eminence on Iraq that the NYT reporter who piped lies straight form Bush’s White House to her Times readers was recruited to Fox News: She is Judith Chalabi Miller.