Just Sayin’ . . .

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

Hillary Clinton, after winning the SC Democrat primary proclaimed: “Despite what you hear, we don’t need to make America great again. America has never stopped being great. But we do need to make America whole again. Instead of building walls, we need to be tearing down barriers.”

If Hillary thinks we need to make America whole again, why does she continue to divide Americans into “victim groups” by skin color, by achievement and income level, by religion, and by sex or sexual orientation and pitting us against each other? Hillary promises to continue Obama’s direction when she is president. Are people going to grow more divided and suspicious of each other every year during her presidency, too? Just sayin’ . . .

The Reverend Al Sharpton (along with Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell) has announced that if Donald Trump is elected president, he will leave the country.

Um, can we make sure the good Reverend has paid his $4.5 million in back taxes before we let him out? And by the way, would somebody please find out what church the Rev is preaching at every Sunday? Just sayin’ . . .

Washington insider and GOP consultant Juleanna Glover said, “If Cruz doesn’t beat Trump in Texas, there’s going to be full-scale panic.”

Seems to me if the Washington insiders are scared to death of Trump moving into their neighborhood, that might be exactly why people are voting for him. Just sayin’ . . .

Environmental activist / actor Leonardo DiCaprio told Vanity Fair he was terrified when global warming caused the weather in Calgary to rapidly change on his recent visit. “There would be eight feet of snow and then all of a sudden a warm gust of wind would come,” DeCaprio cried.

Anybody who has spent a winter on the east slopes of the Rockies will tell you it happens all the time, Leo. It’s called Chinook winds, and it’s been going on since long before those evil white men first set foot in Montana or Alberta. Just sayin’ . . .

On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace badgered Ted Cruz, repeating the juvenile and baseless insults thrown at him by his opponents in the recent presidential debate. When an exasperated Cruz charged that Wallace was using Trump’s opposition bullet points, Wallace flew into a rage. Wallace did not ask Cruz a single policy-related question during the interview.

Isn’t this the same Chris Wallace whose eyes well with tears each week as he lists the political figures who won’t answer his requests for an interview? Just sayin’ . . .

Bernie Sanders says a college education should be provided to all students free of charge.

You get what you pay for, Bernie. You get what you pay for. Just sayin’ . . .

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Tell me what I say,
Tell me what I say right now
Tell me what I say
Tell me what I say!

What I Say – Ray Charles

The Newseum Tilts to the Left

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard 2

newseum I was in Washington, DC yesterday and after I finished my business there I had a few hours of free time before my flight home. I had been wanting to visit the Newseum, and here was my chance.

At this point I should come clean. I must admit that I have an addiction. My name is Tom Balek, and I am a newsaholic.

There, I said it. Ever since high school journalism class I have had a fascination with news – the process of investigation and reporting, the incredible importance and power of freedom of the press, the technology, the ethics, the relentless pace, the pathos of a great story well written. I spent many hours working on my high school paper, and after college I taught journalism for a couple of years in small-town Montana.

Back then journalism students learned that impartial honesty and accuracy were sacrosanct to a reporter or editor. A journalist was duty-bound to report the facts and nothing else. Facts must be verified and double-verified. Opinion was not allowed outside the confines of the editorial section. That was that.

It was the “Edward R. Murrow” school of journalism. Murrow has been credited with creating radio and television news as we know it. Or, I should say, knew it. Modern news reporting came of age during World War II, and pioneers like Murrow set the bar high.

Then, as we all know, journalism changed. Some years ago I had an animated discussion with a top news producer for ABC about what I felt was a growing liberal bias in news reporting. He very candidly told me that as far as he knew, at least in his own news division, there was (at that time) no left vs. right bias. The mission of his department was to produce news stories that would increase ratings and thereby maximize ad revenue. Period.

That caused me to ponder whether the news is a reflection of real life, or real life is a product of the news. I concluded that the question is really not that deep: the news media merely pander to the latest whims of pop culture in search of ratings.

This was just before the first Obama election, and we all know what happened to the news media since then. Chris Mathews’ “thrill up my leg.” The defense of blatant lies by the State Department about the Benghazi embassy attack. The blind eye to the attorney general’s Fast and Furious scandal. The refusal to report the IRS targeting of opponents of the administration. While talk radio and Fox News built a thriving industry on the popularity of conservative opinion and news analysis, the liberal media bias in hard news reporting became almost universal. Ratings were no longer the primary objective. Networks like MSNBC and CNN persisted in their liberal propaganda campaigns despite plummeting viewership.

Nowhere is this liberal bias more evident than at the shrine of the news industry, the Newseum. It would be naive to expect anything else. Study after study has determined that modern journalists are predominantly liberals and any pretense of adherence to the Edward R. Murrow rules of journalistic propriety is routinely sacrificed to the mission, as defined by Peter Jennings: “Those of us who went into journalism in the ’50s or ’60s, it was sort of a liberal thing to do: Save the world.”

While the Newseum does point out some ‘errors in fact’ produced by the news media over the years (Dewey Defeats Truman), it has no criticism of MSNBC’s Al Sharpton, who remains immune from a history of outrageous lies, including his totally fabricated story of the rape of Tawana Brawley by a group of Boston police officers and an attorney. Only fleeting mention is made of the pioneers of conservative media, such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Andrew Breitbart, who had a profound effect on national politics and culture. And that fleeting mention is pointedly disparaging.

At least half the displays in the Newseum were dedicated to the civil rights movement, featuring compelling stories, photos, and video of Ku Klux Klan rallies and violent abuse of southern blacks. But there was not a single mention of the ties between the Democrat party and the Klan, or the Republican leadership against segregation.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.” Unfortunately, the average citizen today is not very discerning – only 36% of adults know the three branches of government – and the news industry does not hesitate to take advantage of our ignorance.

The Newseum aspires to be a “champion of the first amendment” and promotes the value of freedom of the press. It admits, in one display, that bias can exist in news reporting, and then points to Fox News as an example. If only it could see this failing within its own left-tilting walls.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I make my living off the Evening News
Just give me somethin’, somethin’ I can use
People love it when you lose, they love dirty laundry

Dirty Laundry – the Eagles

Even idiot rock stars can’t resist taking a shot at Fox News:

The Biggest Democrat Lie EVER!

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 1

For years now Democrat leaders have fought efforts to beef up voter ID laws tooth and nail. Last week President Obama stepped up to the podium and with a straight face declared:

“The stark, simple truth is this: The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago,” Obama told a meeting of the National Action Network, a group founded by civil rights leader and MSNBC television anchor Reverend Al Sharpton.

“Across the country, Republicans have led efforts to pass laws making it harder, not easier, for people to vote,” he said.

Translation: “If you think voters should be expected to identify themselves at the polling place, you are a RACIST.”

That’s not the “stark, simple truth.” It’s the biggest lie ever. A naked, ugly, partisan lie. Requiring voters to prove they are who they say they are has nothing whatsoever to do with racism. It is merely a simple and effective tool used all over the world to ensure the integrity of elections.

Democrat leaders continue to play that tired, old race card against Republicans – the only strategy they have left in the face of 78% public approval for voter ID laws. And the Lame Stream Media shamelessly continues to support the big lie.

It’s such an obvious lie that it frightens me to think that the Democrats even dare to say it. Minorities (legal American citizens of color) are no less capable of showing their identification than anyone else. And they should be furious at the President, the Democrat leadership, and the media for calling them that stupid and helpless.

Everybody knows there can only be one reason for anybody to disapprove of validating each voter: the desire to cheat.

There is no evidence that anybody would be prevented from legitimately voting because they do not have identification. I challenge the media and the Democrats to come up with 100 eligible voters – legal citizens of the United States – who have no form of identification or no means to get one. Show them! Put them in front of the TV cameras! I challenge you!

They do not exist. If there actually were Americans who are so disengaged from ordinary daily life that they have no identification, the Democrats would be falling all over themselves to get them enrolled in social programs. For which they would need identification, of course.

So there is the lie. And now here is the truth. Only one person could be opposed to a common-sense law: the person who wants to break that law. Banks have security systems to prevent theft. Only bank robbers would be in favor of eliminating that security.

The Democrat leaders have perfected many methods of voter fraud in recent years. Last week DEMOCRAT spokesperson Al Sharpton, at a rally for “voters rights”, hugged DEMOCRAT Melowese Richardson, a poll worker who admitted – and was convicted for – voting for DEMOCRAT Barack Obama five times in the 2012 election. It is but one small example of a huge and accelerating problem.

Thank God only 22% of Americans are that crooked. That would indicate at least half of all Democrats support voter ID. The other Democrats persist with the biggest lie EVER.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Lie to me
It doesn’t matter anymore
It could never be
The way it was before

Lie to Me – Jonny Lang

Blacks Need This Kind of Leadership

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Tom Balek Standard 1

Black unemployment is nearly double that of the national average. Black Americans are disproportionately represented in the lower-earning strata of workers because so many have education and technical skills that lag significantly behind the norm.

Why, then, do so many black leaders support more immigration, both legal and illegal? Why do they fight education reforms, such as school vouchers, which would allow black families access to better schools? And why do they continue to advocate government dependency programs instead of directing time, effort, and money to financial and workplace literacy and competency?

Bernard Anderson, economist from the University of Pennsylvania criticizes our current government policy, but for the wrong reason. “One thing the president can do is accelerate, deepen, and strengthen the enforcement of anti-discrimination policies, Anderson said. “That’s one thing the president can do and from all evidence, the Obama administration has been asleep at the switch.”

Wrong. If discrimination is part of the problem, it is a minor part. From 1900 to 1960 the black participation rate in the labor force was equal to or higher than whites. Was there less discrimination then? Did we not just elect a black president? Twice?

Our labor market is flooded with immigrants, many here illegally, which has the double-whammy effect of stealing entry-level and baseline jobs from Americans while pushing down pay rates – simple supply and demand. When combined with well-meaning government benefits programs, and an education system that does no favors to poor families, it sets up the perfect storm for a perpetually unemployed class of citizens, a disproportionate number of whom are black.

Maybe this is no accident. A person dependent on government benefits for his free food will probably vote for the person who, cynically, promises more free food (whether or not he delivers).

Today the Black American Leadership Alliance hosted a march and rally in Washington, DC. Calling it the “March for Jobs”, the organization called on Congress, the Gang of Eight, and the Congressional Black Caucus to oppose the headlong rush toward amnesty for illegal immigrants and increased legal immigration.

This is the kind of leadership needed, not more of the same old failed liberal policies: increased immigration with less border enforcement, government and union control over education, and accelerating dependence on benefit and food programs.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Where you lead, I will follow
Anywhere that you tell me to
If you need, you need me to be with you
I will follow where you lead

Where You Lead, I Will Follow – Carole King