Mainstream media – Page 4

In print no. 9

Been awhile since I did one of these, the last was in November of 2007. I’ve been in print since but I didn’t feel the need to reprise a letter to the Daily Times. Maybe I should have, but anyway…

Yesterday I was quoted in a front-page New York Times story about Bill Wilson, head of Americans for Limited Government. My comment was in reference to ALG’s outreach to the blogosphere, which includes the Daily Grind and NetRightNation e-mail updates. It was the 23rd paragraph of the 28-paragraph story.

“They’ve done quite a bit to reach out to the blogger community,” said Michael Swartz, a writer and out-of-work architect in Salisbury, Md., who runs the conservative Monoblogue.us site. “Sometimes I use their stuff straight up. Sometimes I use it for my own writing.”

After reading the quote I decided to do a little bit of research into my site and found that I had used an ALG press release as a basis for about 20 posts and something from NetRightNation in a dozen more (although some overlap.) So I wouldn’t say I was a frequent user of their stuff but I am regularly inspired by their items as I am by many other sources for commentary.

In general what I do with their stuff (and other similar sources) is take their press release, reprint it, and then add my commentary on the intentions. That way the organization gets its message out but I reserve the right to put my own imprint on it – obviously I’m either in agreement or disagreement with their item and since they’re getting the plug on MY website I’m going to have my say.

But it was interesting that I spoke to Scott Shane, the reporter who wrote the story, on the phone for about 12 minutes last Thursday and he distilled the conversation into that short paragraph. I was told by sources at ALG that the Times may be contacting me regarding the story but was frankly surprised to be the only blogger quoted. (Given the left-leaning readership of the NYT it’s not all that surprising my numbers over the weekend didn’t jump a whole lot over a normal weekend.)

It was nice of them to think of me, though, and it’s not every day an average citizen makes the front page of the “newspaper of record.” Just thought I’d share, so check it out!

Radio days volume 15

This is my first “radio days” post since June 2008 so it’s been a long dry spell.

But I just got off the phone with Melody Scalley, who as some of you know is running for the House of Delegates representing the Eastern Shore of Virginia (District 100).

More importantly, she also hosts an internet radio show and invited me to be a guest on her show this evening – the time slot will be either 8:00 or 8:30 and I won’t know myself until later on. So just listen for the full hour, or jump right in at 7 when she starts!

Her 2-hour show, “Politics on the Edge”, airs from 7 to 9 p.m. every Monday on RFC Radio. I’ll let you know what I thought of my performance in an update afterward.

**********

I had fun chatting with Melody. I did find it odd how she chopped up our conversation at the break. In actuality we recorded this earlier today and it was one long 25 minute (or so) conversation so I was a bit surprised to hear my part coming on about 8:20. Perhaps it could have been done better if the producer had put Mark Morano of Climate Depot in the slot after Francis Rice (the lady from NBRA) and just let me roll through uninterrupted.

There were a couple points I think I could have made a little better but on the whole I think I did all right. I do talk a little bit slowly when I’m trying to formulate thoughts and arguments which explains why I much prefer this blogging medium to the broadcasting one. And quite honestly not having done this for awhile I was out of practice.

Who knows, though – this could be a regular guest appearance sort of thing and perhaps it brings a larger national readership my way. I have no idea how many people listen to RFC Radio but even if it’s just 1,000 listeners having all of them read my site daily would vastly grow my audience and give it a more national scale.

I ponder one thing as I think about the future, though. Having heard Melody and how she does her show, I wonder if things get different once she wins and gets inside the belly of the beast. Those special interests aren’t going to go down easily and they’re certainly not going to fight fairly.

I noted in the interview that I’ve become quite a bit more jaded over the time I’ve done my site. Perhaps it’s because I see a lot of good people harmed and ruined by the political process and lust for power, much as it occurs from those lusting for more wealth and/or fame. Like Melody, I used to think practically all politicians were good people and that’s still fairly true on a local level. But the higher up you go the less likely you are to find a humble public servant and the the more probable it is you find the ones who expect to be served by us.

That’s what needs to change in this country. The arrogance shown by our politicians could serve as yet another of many tipping points we see as America enters a new age. In the end, the question becomes whether that age sees morning in America rise once again as it did 25 years ago or if our sun is setting.

Random thoughts on the passing local blogging scene

(With apologies to Thomas Sowell.)

Many local residents, particularly those with children under his care (this group includes my significant other) were shocked and horrified to hear about the auto accident last Wednesday involving local pediatrician Dr. Jose Alvarado; sadly, late last night he succumbed to his injuries.

I don’t believe I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Alvarado but by all accounts his shoes will be difficult to fill and he will be missed by a wide circle of family, friends, a host of hospital associates and staff, and most particularly patients – some of whom eventually brought their children to the kind doctor they grew up seeing.

But his passing brought up a lot of thoughts and questions I have about the local blogging scene.

First, let’s go back to the day it happened. One local blogger (I’ll call him Blogger A) jumped the gun and said Dr. Alvarado had died. Obviously that created confusion for family and friends and when the truth came out Alvarado was still alive but in grave condition Blogger A had a LOT of egg on his face to wipe off (plus a retraction to make). In days of old spreading that sort of misinformation could get you run out of town on a rail.

His archnemesis, who I’ll call Blogger G, correctly pointed out that Blogger A had jumped to a conclusion before hearing the full story, gleefully bashing Blogger A. But aside from that, what contribution to the public knowledge was made?

Apparently none, because the next day the Alvarado family released a statement saying “members of our local media and local blog owners please respect their privacy”. (Emphasis mine.)

Blogger A blamed Blogger G for creating the negative perception by pointing out the mistake Blogger A had retracted, while Blogger G continued to blame Blogger A for making the erroneous statement in the first place. Again, what was learned?

The same person who told Blogger A last night that Dr. Alvarado died simultaneously (I presume based on his post time) sent me a text message regarding that fact. However, I didn’t notice this until later because I was otherwise engaged watching a Shorebirds game with Kim (my s.o.) last night. I’m not saying this as an excuse for why I didn’t post it, I’m saying this because this ongoing war of words between Blogger A and Blogger G escalated further during the accident aftermath with the family of Dr. Jose Alvarado being not just innocent victims of a tragic accident snuffing out the life of a dedicated and caring physician but also becoming collateral damage in a juvenile war that’s gone too far for too long.

In the interest of full disclosure, on at least three different occasions I have been asked by Blogger A or Blogger G to affiliate with their websites and crosspost, and on all those occasions I declined. While there would be an obvious readership increase because my writing would be placed on a different (and perhaps larger) stage I’ve politely refused because I thought the remainder of the subject matter therein wasn’t a particularly good platform for my work. I have chosen instead to crosspost with four other blogs: two are almost strictly political (one Maryland-based and the other of national scope), one is mainly political but delves into other life issues (it’s based in Delaware so many of my Delaware-based items crosspost there), and the fourth agreement mainly exists as payback to Blogger A for slighting a friend of mine – but I haven’t contributed there in over a year.

Personally I think Salisbury is growing weary of the childish games being played by both supposedly grown men. If you believe Blogger G and those who support him, the sole reason Blogger A gets readers is the same reason some watch NASCAR and root for the 14-car pileup. But if you believe Blogger A and his followers, Blogger G (and those others in this area who aren’t currently affiliated with Blogger A) has too puny of a readership to matter anyway.

I’ve also found it irksome that on numerous occasions both men have vowed to turn over a new leaf then days later returned to form. Each seems to need some bogeyman on whom to blame the issues we all face as Salisbury-area residents and they conveniently turn to assailing one or more when things go wrong. (Admittedly, the list of Blogger A targets is much, much longer.)

That’s not to say either Blogger A or Blogger G aren’t doing some good for the community, particularly in plugging local charitable events and causes. But the additional readership comes at a cost because followers on one blog may see the other’s involvement as a reason not to support the event. Is that petty? Certainly. But it’s real and detrimental to the improvement of the community they claim to love.

Another victim of this blowback could be all the great new blogs (those are a few examples) which have surfaced locally in the last several months. These two are sucking all of the oxygen out of the room with their petty battles.

It reminds me again of an incident from 2006. Three years after the fact I’m still incensed that a candidate – from my side, no less – called local blogs a “cancer” on the community because one brought up his past work on the zoo commission. That was essentially the work of one blogger but the statement tarred all of us with a broad brush. At the time, many weren’t familiar with the local blogging scene and it gave us a reputation which we are still trying to clean off that goo today. (Others seem to wallow in it – cases in point, Blogger A and Blogger G.)

I’m not naive enough to deny that most blogs have an agenda of some sort; even those which claim to be “news” will slant the stories at least a little to suit them as they see fit. (It’s why I say “news and views”.)

But readers need to consider the track record and, more importantly, the motivation of those who put out the “news” as well, particularly in this important time. Who are they trying to make look good, and how are they making the opponents look bad?

I honestly hope that the latest incident forces readers to reevaluate their local news reading habits. I’m not saying all this to toot my own horn – you don’t have to come here for breaking news because that’s not my strength. (If you want a more in-depth analysis of local political items though feel free to stop back.)

I know that sooner or later either Blogger A or Blogger G is going to win their little war. With all the other issues we have, though, the fewer people who involve themselves in that fight, the better off we will all be.

Conference call with members of the Media Fairness Caucus

On Thursday I had the pleasure and opportunity to speak with two members of Congress regarding a fairly new group that’s about a dozen strong currently, the Media Fairness Caucus.

MFC Co-Chairs Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas and Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia hosted the call, which featured their statements and a question-and-answer period. Unfortunately, because they’re fairly new to the world of blogger conference calls there was no transcript kept so I’m summarizing from memory and from notes. A transcript was something I suggested in a follow-up e-mail to Rep. Smith’s staff.

In his opening remarks, Smith opined that the “greatest threat to our democracy is a biased media” and noted the 3-to-1 bias on positive to negative stories about Barack Obama and the 20-to-1 disparity of contributions by reporters to Democrats vs. the GOP.

Kingston then chimed in by citing a Business and Media Institute study I previously noted in my latest Sunday evening reading. Additionally, he told those of us on the call that Obama’s poll numbers are falling in part “because of bloggers like you guys.”

Jack is a veteran blogger himself who was one of the first Congressmen to have a blogsite (even predating this site by a couple months) and wistfully recounted that President Bush “could have put blogs on the map” as a news source but didn’t do much in that arena.

Lamar then pointed out, returning to Obama’s polling numbers, that despite the glowing media reports on the Messiah (my term, not his) he’s on the “bottom rung of popularity”, ranking either 10th or 11th among Presidents six months into their terms depending on the pollster. And as an example of an item glossed over by the mainstream media, Smith cited the Heritage Foundation study of cap-and-trade’s impact on the Gross Domestic Product that the Congressional Budget Office’s study of the financial impact of Waxman-Markey buried in a footnote because they didn’t figure it into their overall numbers – an impact Heritage calculated could cost an average family up to $1600.

There were three participants who asked questions. First up was Pamela Geller, who writes the blog Atlas Shrugs. She wanted to see about putting together a sort of alternate system of getting information out, comprised of “higher-level people.”

This is where I wish I had a transcript because basically the Congressmen thought the idea was a good one and noted that several bloggers were already doing these sorts of things in a loosely organized way. Unfortunately, by this point I was already trying to figure out how to phrase my question so I didn’t catch the second lady and her specific question since it was sort of a follow-up to Pamela’s.

For I had two points I wanted to make when it was my turn to speak.

First, it’s not widely reported for obvious reasons that not only do reporters have a personal stake in political outcomes but many times their corporate bosses do too – take NBC as an example. General Electric has great potential business in alternative energy so it’s obviously in their interest to push that sort of legislation and report the news in a way favorable to their interests as opposed to true journalism. It’s a conflict of interest that I wanted to point out and a place to focus future blogger reporting on. (I figured with someone as widely read as Pamela Geller listening it wouldn’t be a bad suggestion!)

The second point I made was stating that as a Republican Party their interest should be in shrinking the size of government and not just changing one set of masters for another. There’s less incentive for people to stick their fingers in the pie if the pie is smaller, I remarked.

By and large the Congressmen agreed with my remarks, which I was pleased to hear. Truly it wasn’t a soliliquy because I took maybe 5 minutes of the call with my question and their answer, which turned out to be near the end of the conversation. Geller followed up by having the Congressmen pledge to make these conference calls on a regular basis.

I’d be happy to participate and aside from the lack of a transcript (which I’m sure will be corrected next time) I look forward to chatting with the pair as my availability dictates.

Troop care package redux

Last year I brought up an effort to put together care packages for our troops abroad put together by the group Move America Forward. It was this time in 2008 they did an 8-hour internet telethon to raise money and awareness, and tonight they do it again with a cavalcade of stars:

An All-Star lineup of celebrities will team up this Thursday, June 25, 2009 for a historic effort to send the largest shipment of care packages to U.S. troops serving overseas.

The celebrities, military figures, and leading politicians will participate in the “Honor Their Service” TroopAThon – an 8-hour Jerry Lewis style telethon that will be broadcast online at www.TroopAThon.org.

The TroopAThon will broadcast from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library from 1:00pm – 9:00pm Pacific // 4:00pm – Midnight Eastern.

Celebrities participating in the event include: President George H.W. Bush, President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer, John Ratzenberger, Ann Coulter, Gary Sinise, John Ondrasik, Dennis Miller, Jackie Mason, Kevin Farley, Gavin McLeod, Melanie Morgan, Andrew Breitbart, Michelle Malkin, Debbie Lee, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larson, Greg Gutfeld, Andrea Shea King, Curtis Sliwa, Hughes Sullivan, Mark Williams, Martha Zoller, Jake Rademacher, Jed Babbin, Chuck Holton, Rich Lowry, Michael Graham, John O’Hurlsey, Tammy Bruce, Robrert Davi, Matt Sanchez, Megan Ortagus, Connie Stevens, Deroy Murdock, Ed Morrissey, Kylie Wiliams, Matt Lewis, Monica Crowley, Noel Sheppard, Pete Hegseth, Robert Spencer, Roger L. Simon, Roger Hedgecock, Ron Winter, Walid Phares, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Buzz Aldrin, Rick Allen, Gerald McRaney, Jerry Haleva, Pat Sajak, Dale Dye, David Zucker, Pat Boone, and Charlie Daniels.

It seems like a lot of people to fill an 8-hour slot, but that’s actually less than 10 minutes apiece. Most of these people are drawn from the circles of conservative media so it should be a pretty entertaining evening. It will also be interesting to see if they beat last year’s $1.055 million haul or fall short because the media’s awareness of our troops has fallen off with the change in the Oval Office.

As I noted in the wrapup piece I did last year, there was a fairly constant viewership of 2,000 to 3,000 for the 2008 troop-a-thon. Let’s see if America can beat that, despite the competition from weighty issues such as the upcoming Waxman-Markey vote and situation in Iran.

And what about the blogs?

While there are some in the local blogging world who would welcome the demise of our local paper and gleefully post any scrap of bad news about its performance, the truth is that a majority of those polled in a recent Pew Institute survey would miss having a daily newspaper in their community and feel losing the paper would hurt civic life.

On the other hand, newspapers are losing their market share in the news dissemination industry, a trend that’s accelerating among younger people asked in the study.

Aside from a handful of letters to the editor I’m not one who has contributed to the local newspaper, but I do toil on occasion in the blogging business. Unfortunately I think part of the problem with the newspaper industry stems from content rather than convenience.

There’s no question that once an edition is put to bed that it’s static and obsolete. As an example, today’s edition of the Daily Times came to most homes early this morning so if you read it upon your return home from work the news is probably at least 18 hours old if not over 24 hours past. Compare this with the instantaneous nature of television, radio, or the internet and there’s no contest.

However, where newspapers can have their place is in delivering news and commentary which isn’t necessarily time-sensitive but brings key points or analysis of a particular story to the table. For example, a newspaper can go relatively in-depth with what City Council does and why they may be acting as they are on a particular issue. Where most fall short is attempting to serve the twin masters of content which is as fresh as possible (but cannot compete with other media) and laying out every possible fact and angle to a particular story. (This area is where blogs tend to shine.)

As well, the newspaper tends to be the permanent record of that which goes on in a particular community moreso than radio, television, or internet archives which are relatively sketchy for the most part.

The biggest problem newspapers have though is steadily declining revenues. As circulation falls, the amount they can charge advertisers also ratchets downward – meanwhile, the demand for print advertising drops off as well because fewer eyes are reading the newspaper and cost-effectiveness is lost. I can see where newspapers have had to cut back and several notable ones have locked the doors for good (most notably on a local basis the Baltimore Examiner.)

But in the not-so-distant future I see a day where the actual paper in a newspaper will be rarely seen. Those who put together newspapers now will become news gathering organizations slugging it out over the internet for market share, and bloggers will be among those in the fight. It certainly will further democratize (with a small “d” and not in a partisan sense) the news industry because there’s not the overhead required of raw material, distribution, and warehousing required from a newspaper (or for that matter a radio or television studio.)

Content will still have to be king, though. That’s something I don’t see changing, but I’m hoping that journalism returns to its roots of retelling the events of the day which happened instead of becoming the news itself (as I’m guilty of by citing this poll.) Sometimes you have to work to the dark side to make an argument though, and in this case I went for the greater point by using the polling data at hand.

Could Joe be right (for once?)

Readers in my locality know that there’s a particular blogger who I am more often than not at odds with; the “Joe” in question is one who delights in attempting to hasten the demise of our local newspaper. This story is for him.

It came to me over the last few days from the folks at Pew Research. According to this report, the internet has overtaken the newspaper as a main source for national and international news. More striking are the figures for the Millennial Generation (ages 18-29) where the internet and television are dead even as a news source – 59% of young people cited one or both as a main news source.

A graph showing the percentage of Americans who receive their news from various sources, from the Pew Research Center.

After skimming through the report, I had two immediate conclusions.

One is that the claim of media bias in the news may pale in comparison to the chasm in conservatism vs. liberalism on the internet.

The second is that, with the lack of journalistic standards practiced in some quarters, people (particularly the youth) may be more ill-informed than ever.

In this age of wireless technology and video streaming, certainly it’s possible to witness events in real time and make up one’s mind about what goes on within the range of the camera taking the video. However, the vast bulk of news isn’t from eyewitness accounts, but from someone reporting the news. In olden days, we counted on newspapers to relate the story but often the information was at least second-hand if not more remote. This improved to some extent with the advent of radio and television; the former allowed newsmakers to speak directly with the people while the latter could be present where news was being made.

Now we have the technology that allows people to be their own reporters in real time. Certainly, the age of videotape allowed news gathering by non-professionals (one example was the Rodney King beating, caught on videotape by a person playing around with a camcorder) but that still needed the prism of someone at the evening news deciding it was a story worth relating. With the advent of Youtube and other video streaming repositories, that filter is eliminated to a much greater extent.

On the other hand, as a society we still must by necessity gather our news via a second-hand source who relates events to the reader, listener, or viewer through their eyes. Obviously my post is one example – I’m taking an event which happened (a survey of adults concerning their preferences for learning about the national and international news affecting them) and shaping it in a second way, the first being what Pew Research chose to report on. In this instance, I’m adding my opinions to the mix about what I feel was newsworthy and why it was so. Unless we happen to be witness to a momentous event in person, practically everything we gather as information will by necessity come as at least second-hand knowledge, regardless of whether we read it in the newspaper, hear it on the radio, or see it on television or the internet.

And here is where a nonbiased view and accuracy come in; that is, journalism in the truest sense of the word. Sadly, that seems to be lacking more and more in the 24/7 news cycle we now live in. What good is all the incredible amount of information we can gather if it’s presented in a slanted manner which highlights only one side of the story? Even worse, if people act in a particular manner on information which is later found incorrect, the future direction of society can be altered negatively.

In 2008, America had a Presidential election where even the most hardened observers noted the coverage of candidates was slanted negatively toward one and positively toward the other. (Pew did some research of election news and how the candidates were perceived within that coverage.) While there were opportunities to hear what the candidates had to say directly in joint appearances – to the extent that a moderator shaped debate questions he or she felt were appropriate for the electorate to hear – there was still spin afterward as spokesmen and network coverage talking heads let everyone know what they needed to think about what they just saw.

While I’m fairly pleased that the medium I dabble in most is beginning to penetrate a greater audience, the truth remains that those who look for news generally just go to the website of whatever news source they trust instead of flipping to their channel or buying that particular paper at the newsstand. It’s unfortunate that Pew apparently didn’t ask further whether the internet sources used by respondents were connected in that manner; however, much of my sourcing to do monoblogue comes from sites affiliated with either newspapers or television networks, and for the near-term future bloggers will rely heavily on those same sources to put their own spin on things.

If we denizens of the internet really want to be informative and take advantage of the growing audience, we need to put an emphasis on accuracy and hold ourselves to the journalistic standards which seem to be missing from more and more news outlets who’ve become cheerleaders for one side or another. It’s a goal I strive for when I report on events and if more sites would take that into account when they place what they do for all of us to see, we could turn America into a more well-informed nation.

Odds and ends no. 15

It’s time once again for another compilation of items that aren’t necessarily worth a full post but sparked my interest nonetheless, a post I call ‘odds and ends.’

First of all, this is from a group I’ve supported before, the pro-troop group Move America Forward. I’ll allow spokesperson Kristen Schremp to pick things up from here:

Move America Forward, the nation’s largest pro-troop grassroots organization, is conducting a nationwide tour to support sending care packages to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“With Americans focused on the economic problems facing our country, we have to ensure that our troops in harm’s way are not forgotten during the Christmas and Hanukkah holiday season,” said Melanie Morgan, Chairman of Move America Forward.

Traveling on the tour will be Gold Star Mom Debbie Lee, – whose son Marc Alan Lee was the first Navy S.E.A.L. killed in Iraq. Lee said, “I remember his feelings of pride for serving our country, but also the loneliness troops endure during the holiday season. Instead of celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah with their families, many military men and women will be spending the holidays this year protecting our freedom in far off lands.”

To show the nation’s gratitude and support, Move America Forward’s Debbie Lee and singer/songwriter Diana Nagy (who will perform her hit song “Where Freedom Flies” at each stop) will be on the road encouraging people to send care packages from December 13 – December 19.

In their case, the tour itinerary runs through the southern part of the country, but readers can still donate regardless of where they live by going here.

The next little item is a method to rate bills before Congress from a fairly new group to me called the Sunlight Foundation, a group whose goal is to make Congress more accessible. Blogger Ellen Miller explains:

OpenCongress has just launched Battle Royale, their new feature that collects all the data about Congress generated by users of “My OpenCongress” since January 2008. David Moore, OpenCongress’ director, describes it as a “Billboard Chart” for legislation or a “Digg” for Congress. Battle Royale lets you see what bills people are loving or hating. It will gauge their user community’s views on legislation by stacking up all the bills, issues, and members of Congress. “This new tool is a key part of our work to harness the social wisdom created on OpenCongress and make it accessible and useful across the Web,” David wrote in an email. One purpose of Battle Royale is to give a bird’s eye view for researching the public’s opinion of Congress. Check it out and you’ll find a list of the top ten most supported and most opposed bills of the past 30 days on OpenCongress.

Perhaps the only thing I don’t care for about Battle Royale is having to log in to express your views; it’s probably holding participation back to some extent. We’ll have to see where the concept goes in the 111th Congress that begins come January.

At this time of the year, there’s a whole lotta listing going on. Yesterday, even with 20 days left in 2008 to come up with a real doozy like the auto bailout, The Business & Media Institute (which is an arm of the Media Research Center, for those of you keeping track of the myriad organizations lobbying inside the Beltway) came up with the Media’s Top 10 Worst Economic Myths of 2008. What surprised me was the amount of depth and linkage placed in most of the categories (all but one had three or more outside links to either their own blog posts or “mainstream” media outlets.) I may have flip-flopped #1 and #2 for starters since the #2 myth affected the election more, but on the whole I can’t quibble a lot with their picks.

Now I’ll shift from the biggest issue of the recent election to one which was predicted to be a much bigger issue a year or so back, and one that could have sank John McCain’s bid had the debate occurred a little later: immigration. This item is a couple weeks old, but the information the Center for Immigration Studies put out is still valid unless and until the laws regarding this change:

Each year, tens of thousands of United States citizens and Legal (LPR), at both home and abroad, meet and marry foreign nationals. Spouses of American citizens have priority over most other immigration categories, making marriage the quickest way to receive a green card. As the new Obama administration prepares to take office, the long dormant debate over levels of legal immigration is sure to resurface, but that debate is unlikely to include discussion of fraud amongst the most common path to American residency. The prevalence of such fraud contributes to illegal immigration, poses potential national security vulnerability, and clogs the system for legitimate applicants.

The Center for Immigration Studies, a non-profit research organization, has released a new Backgrounder detailing the ways the marriage-based green card categories are exploited and offers recommendations to protect the system from fraud. “Hello, I Love You, Won’t You Tell Me Your Name: Inside the Green Card Marriage Phenomenon,” was written by David Seminara, a former Consular Officer with the U.S. State Department who has adjudicated thousands of marriage-based green card applications in several countries. (Emphasis in original.)

Being a single man, I’ve actually had experience with women finding my Yahoo profile and sending me instant messages wanting to get to America. But as Seminara (whose work I’ve discussed before on this website) notes, while there are thousands of cases where love was found across oceans or continents, in too many cases the marriages are a scam designed to bring someone to America for whatever reason.

On another side of immigration, a group who I regularly get e-mail from but generally don’t use sent me this piece regarding a pair of Border Patrol agents who are a cause celebre amongst immigration hawks and pro-law enforcement citizens, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Antonio Compean:

Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) already has filed not one, but two friend of the court briefs (here and here) for Ignacio Ramos and Jose Antonio Compean. In those briefs, GOF has pointed out to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that the 10-year conviction of the two agents is for a crime which doesn’t exist.

(snip)

The two agents were convicted of the “Discharge of a Firearm in Relation to a Crime of Violence” — something which is not an offense, rather it is a sentencing enhancement after the government has established illegal gun possession, use or carrying.

Of course, if the Feds had gone for that kind of charge, they would have run into the problem that the agents were required to possess, use and carry guns on them while on duty. That is why the US Attorney, Johnny Sutton, went for, and succeeded, in making up an offense that would not force him to explain away that the agents are required to be armed.

One of the reasons the Border Patrol requires agents to be armed is so they can use their guns against armed drug smugglers such as Osvaldo Aldrete.

Even if the Supreme Court reverses this injustice done to Ramos and Compean, they could expect to sit in jail for upwards of another two years — for a crime that was impossible for them to commit.

GOF was a friend of the court in a similar case before the Supreme Court. Our position was upheld nine-to-nothing. It involved a drug dealer who took a gun in payment for a bag of dope. The Feds gave him many extra years because he supposedly had “used” a gun in a crime. The Supreme Court agreed that such a view was ridiculous and clearly not the intent of the law. The Fifth Circuit has simply overlooked these fatal flaws in the government’s case.

George Bush is thinking about his legacy. We have a chance to convince him that his legacy is on the verge of staining his reputation with the miscarriage of justice perpetrated by the federal prosecutor, Johnny Sutton. Keep in mind that Sutton lied to the trial court and to the appeals court about Aldrete’s connections with the drug trade. He also concealed from the jury that he was paying Aldrete for his testimony against the agents.

Hopefully, President Bush does not want to be known as one who stood by while innocent men — and the wives and children — suffered because of a blatant injustice.

All gun owners should be alarmed at what the government has done to these two agents. If they will do this to police officers, we cannot assume they will treat the rest of the population any better.

While I do happen to think, along with the GOA, that this pair should be pardoned for a so-called crime committed in the course of doing their assigned tasks, the question I have is open to other bloggers who may be on the mailing list of the entity called Special Guests, or to the company itself.

In looking at their site and their “about us” section, it appears the focus of their operation is placing clients on radio and television as “special guests” – hence the name. Fair enough. SG’s clients pay a fee to get their word out, such as a book to promote. In the case of this e-mail, the client is GOA Executive Director Larry Pratt, who is promoting a new book he’s written.

As readers have probably figured out, one thing I enjoy doing is a short-form interview (Ten Questions.) What I wonder is whether Special Guests is pondering doing the same in the blogosphere, or if I’m just the lucky one who gets their e-mails? Obviously they wouldn’t need to charge a client as much to secure an interview with a website like mine (which is small, but seeks to grow in readership and stature) as they would for a larger, more read website.

There’s times where I get e-mails from people who want to get their word out soliciting interviews with bloggers – this is how I got the last two I’ve done, I just responded to their offer nicely. The good thing for me is that these provide a basis for securing more and better interviews, because I’d like to make Ten Questions at least a monthly feature. You need to start someplace!

It’s a question I thought I’d ask and a good way to wrap up this method I use to clean out my “blog ideas” mailbox.

A shift in tactics but not philosophy

The recent events in India that concluded with a hotel in ruins and over 200 killed, including most of the hostage takers, reminds us that the world still isn’t a safe place. At least six Americans lost their lives in the incident, which in some respects may be thought of as India’s answer to 9/11. The world’s second most populated nation (and largest democracy) has seen its share of international news lately as an Indian Navy ship sank a suspected “mother ship” of Somali pirates who have threatened shipping in that region of the globe.

While it’s doubtful these two incidents are related and the more recent crisis is thought to be Pakistani-based, it brings out the idea that it doesn’t take a large army to create chaos. It was a small network embodied in nineteen hijackers that engineered the chaos of 9/11; similarly less than a dozen gunmen attacked ten sites in Mumbai. But unlike the 9/11 terrorists the gunmen apparently were determined to survive their assault and had an escape plan that didn’t come to pass.

Obviously the question then becomes whether a similar incident would be possible here in America. While there’s generally no need to make our nation into a police state, there are probably some high-impact, high-visibility targets out there such as the Super Bowl or President-elect Obama’s upcoming inauguration where security is going to have to be airtight. Certainly those who partake in the events will grumble about this but it’s a consequence of depending on others for security.

If you look at the deeper meaning of the Mumbai incident, however, it’s also a reminder that tensions between groups which have gone back centuries aren’t easily solved with words. I guess these gunmen weren’t exactly enamored with the sentiment expressed below.

In the famous “Coexist” sticker, we have representations of Islam (the crescent and star), Wicca (pentagram), science (theory of relativity), Judaism (Star of David), Buddhism (the karma wheel dotting the “i”), the symbol for Taoism as the “s”, and Christianity (the cross). It’s obviously a nice concept; unfortunately we’re always going to have people who fail to live with the differences we have with one another.

To play devil’s advocate though, what would the world be like with one religion, one race, and one belief system? Probably the closest we have to that situation is a nation like North Korea, which is a totalitarian’s idea of paradise but not so great for those unfortunate enough to be born there. While the Marxist ideal is for a society made equal (the phrase “from each according to their means, to each according to their needs” describes the Marxist philosophy well) Orwell was correct when he observed in Animal Farm that some are more equal than others.

One thing many portions of the globe have in common is the lack of equality in opportunity coupled with equality of outcome for most, with that outcome generally being people living a hardscrabble, hand-to-mouth existence. While this also occurs here in America, most times it’s the fault of those who didn’t take advantage of the opportunities presented to them – still we’re also generous enough to continue making an effort to improve their lives through various means. It’s one reason that those Americans killed in Mumbai were in India to begin with.

Perhaps we in America more than anyone do coexist, but there’s always going to be those who see that as a weakness to be exploited. When weakness is evident the strong attempt to take advantage, and we as humans aren’t always exempt from the law of the jungle – the recent Mumbai tragedy tells us some would rather follow those rules than the rules of a just society.

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Maybe this doesn’t quite relate, but I think it’s worth bringing up as an afterword. Apparently my guess was correct that my lofty status on BlogNetNews indeed didn’t make another blogger’s day. On the other hand, it’s good to have friends too.

I’ll just choose to coexist for now since I have better things to write about.

Odds and ends no. 14

Subtitled, the Election 2008 edition.

While I’m not a “highly influential member of the media” like Rush Limbaugh, I do get quite a bit of e-mail from a number of sources. I’ll always at least glance through them, and if something really interests me enough to do a post I’ll sit down and do one that evening. Obviously a lot of Andy Harris-related material makes that cut because of the impending election. Still others I mark as unread and place in a folder I call “Blog ideas”. Right now that folder is really full and I know that some of these are time-sensitive because they have to do with the campaign. I really could spend my weekend just cranking out posts if I had that kind of time.

By what may be a stroke of good fortune, I have to clear two time slots before Tuesday for possible breaking stuff which I may have confirmed tomorrow; items I feel would be quite attractive for readers. Thus I decided a little bit of closet cleaning was in order, and it was a chance to resurrect a category of sorts I hadn’t utilized since April. This is the stuff I’d love to write about further but there’s only so many hours in the day.

To begin, an article by Doug Bandow at the OpenMarket.org blog touches on something I discussed yesterday, and questions whether the “specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures” which Franklin Roosevelt instituted did anything but extend the Great Depression by another seven years. And I also came across a post on that same website from Hans Bader (who I’ve cited before) that neatly explains Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth” theories.

Speaking of Obama policies, I have Adam Bitely at NetRightNation to hat tip for finding a not-really-all-that-surprising Townhall article by Amanda Carpenter. Did you know that not only is ACORN a group of scofflaws when it comes to registering voters, but a batch of deadbeats when it comes to paying their taxes?

Adam also gets the credit for sending me a link to this from Fred Thompson:

Hey, Fred, where was this during the campaign? I guess he’s a better pitchman for others than for himself.

I hadn’t heard from the folks at Freedom’s Watch in awhile, but this is an excellent video about DSCC Chairman Chuck Schumer and his drive for a filibuster-proof 60 seat majority in the Senate:

It’s worth reminding folks that Schumer’s group was the brains behind the “Bought By Big Oil” website that I compared to being bought by Big Labor a few weeks back.

Why not another video while I’m at it? We all know that Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania has been a critic of the Long War. This week the group Vets For Freedom began buying airtime for an ad that essentially calls him a liar.

His GOP opponent is Lt. Col. (ret.) Bill Russell, a 28 year veteran who most recently served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Naturally the VFF PAC is supporting him, as are many others in the conservative media world.

Vets For Freedom also released their own voting scorecard earlier this month – the topic being war-related Senate votes in 2007. Not surprisingly, John McCain’s 93.5% rating garnered him an “A” for the year while Barack Obama flunked with a score of 0.5. Joe Biden was among three Senators (Ted Kennedy and Bernie Sanders of Vermont were the others) with a big fat zero. The best of a bad local lot (all F’s) was Delaware’s Tom Carper with a 33 rating, while Barbara Mikulski won the Maryland race against Ben Cardin 29 to 14.

It’s a nice idea, but the VFF report’s one glaring weakness is not covering House votes. We only elect 34 Senators this year but all 435 House members are up and it may have been more helpful to figure their votes out too.

To wrap this up, perhaps an Obama win wouldn’t be all that bad for the GOP. At least that’s what Newt Gingrich says. I know Newt is a history buff and his reasoning is sound, but there’s a big difference in eras I don’t think he’s accounting for. This came from Jeff Quinton at the Inside Charm City site, as Newt appeared two weeks ago on Bob and Kendel Ehrlich’s weekly radio show.

Well folks, I hope you enjoyed this political potpourri. It took my file down from 36 items to 14 (some of these were discarded), with most of those not being time-sensitive. In truth, most of them are environmental items that can wait – hey, I’ll need something to write about after November 4th.

Just so you know in advance, I’m probably going to slow down my pace just a touch between the election results coming out and the holidays. Normally I shoot for 11 posts a week (2 per day Monday thru Thursday and 1 on Friday through Sunday) but with the slow news cycle I may trim it back to 8 or 9 a week. It gives me a bit of a break, but I also have some heavy research posts planned in there as well. So don’t worry – regardless of result Tuesday I’m not going anywhere!

A second Bill of Rights?

My ears perked up when I heard the name Marcy Kaptur – talk about a blast from the past! I had the profound displeasure of being “represented” by her for 20 years, until the state of Ohio finally redistricted most of Wood County (the southern suburbs of Toledo) out of her district and I could afford to move there.

What she made the news for was a quote from the last line in a Toledo Blade article from way back on the 14th of October:

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D. Toledo) whipped the crowd up before Mr. Obama took the stage yesterday telling them that America needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education, and a fair playing field for business and farmers.

What’s more interesting about this particular article is the letter from Blade publisher John Robinson Block just prior to that campaign stop asking the question of Barack Obama:

Does every American who wants to work have the right to a job where they live?

Block also asks the One:

President Roosevelt called for a “Second Bill of Rights” guaranteeing the right to a job, the right to a decent home, the right to adequate medical care, and the right to a good education. Do you agree?

Roosevelt proposed this in early 1944, just as another re-election campaign was getting cranked up. America had been through the Great Depression, and FDR may have believed Americans would credit his early-term policies for bringing America back; however, we were in the midst of fighting World War II (months later the D-Day invasion would take America’s fight to Europe) and much of the economic activity created was to fuel that war effort – as just one example, domestic new car production all but ceased after the 1941 model year. In any case, the proposals were good rhetoric but deposing the twin empires of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan were job one, with domestic policy taking a back seat. Roosevelt indeed won the 1944 election but died in office a few months later; his successor Harry Truman wasn’t as radically leftist as FDR and these ideas weren’t resurrected again until Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” of the mid-1960’s.

It’s not surprising to me that Marcy Kaptur would be an advocate of the idea too; indeed, she’s among those liberals in Congress who expend little effort in keeping their seat, racking up 70 to 75 percent of the vote every two years over a game but underfunded GOP opponent. With a district now stretching along the southern shore of Lake Erie from Toledo to Lorain, she has a huge base of union voters and volunteers to keep her in office.

Now that you have an idea about the players, I’m going to answer the question for them. No, we don’t need a Second Bill of Rights, particularly when many of the the items in the one we already have are being so blithely ignored by Obama, Kaptur, Robinson, and their ilk in politics and the press. They’re assaulting in particular the First, Second, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments therein.

There is a great difference in attitude and philosophy between having equality of opportunity as we strive for now (remember, the Constitution was enacted to form a “more perfect Union”; the Founding Fathers knew better than to expect perfection on this Earth) and having equality of outcome as those abovementioned and their allies among the Democrats and mainstream media (but I repeat myself) would like to see. Their version of utopia has everyone’s slice of the pie being equal but does little to increase the size of the pie. Conversely, with few exceptions, the lifestyle of average Americans has been more prosperous than that of their forebears under the system we have in place. Even the dirt-poor and homeless of our generation have access to luxuries that were undreamed of even two decades ago. My fear is that progress will cease under a more “progressive” government because the incentives to work hard and better one’s self would eventually disappear.

We on the conservative side joke about the Obama redistribution scheme when it comes to Halloween candy, like in this cartoon by William Warren:

But there is a larger point in asking what right those inside the Beltway who have never met Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public and family can claim to have in taking the wealth they’ve worked hard for and handing it over to someone else who stands there with their hand out waiting for the check to arrive. Generally the situation afflicting the latter arises from poor choices made in life and not because the system held them down. (It’s sort of ironic then that those on the conservative side favor as much choice as possible in education while leftists believe that all school ills can be solved if only more money were shoveled into the public schools. Many times it’s leaving school that places kids on the wrong path in life.)

In about 20 years of living with Miss Kaptur being my representative in Congress, I can’t point to a single thing that she did which impacted my life in a positive way every day. Perhaps she voted on some pork project or bill which helped one aspect of my life, but on a day-to-day basis my family and I basically worked, scrimped, saved, and once in a great while invested in our own future. Did we make poor decisions along the way? You betcha. But we learned and for the most part recovered because we found out which choices were best for us. Moreover, I think my wife and I raised our daughter a lot better than the government ever could; among those values was a work ethic.

What good is a work ethic though if you’ll be penalized for any success you make through a punitive tax system? We already heard Barack Obama’s answer to a similar question posed by Joe Wurzelbacher, but perhaps he, Marcy Kaptur, and John Robinson Block need to answer my corollary one themselves. Just because all of them have managed to do well in life through various means (Obama and Kaptur as public officials, Block as heir to a communications company) doesn’t mean they can slam the door on the rest of us who would like to build up our fortunes. It’s what will likely happen though if they get their way.

Three against ‘that one’

I said I’d occasionally update the progress of my recent interviewee Deborah Johns and her bid to keep Barack Obama out of the White House, and so I shall. They’ve gone through half their tour as of today and roughly half the country as they approach a large number of dates in Michigan, a state both John McCain and Barack Obama have abandoned, choosing to pull their resources elsewhere.

Their ad campaign today drew the attention of the National Journal website, which paints Michigan as safely in the Obama column, but the last poll done was back on October 14th before the last debate – that poll had Obama +11. It’ll be interesting to see what this drive does for polling there.

Deborah and fellow “Stop Obama Tour” speaker, singer-songwriter Lloyd Marcus, also made an appearance on “Fox and Friends” this morning from a stop in Wisconsin. It appears the video was shot of a TV set, but sometimes you have to take what you get:

The third person on the pro-McCain tour is internet radio talk show host Mark Williams, who has been blogging about the tour on his own website.

I’m sure a lot of people figure this to be somewhat of a lost cause, at least in Michigan. (Ohio, with five stops planned, and Pennsylvania, with three, may be a different story.) And others may denigrate the negativity of the campaign. But, damn it, talking about the record of someone who’s not fit for command isn’t negative campaigning, it’s bringing up the facts.

Obama’s weak on foreign policy, otherwise he wouldn’t have picked Joe Biden for his vice-presidential choice. (Joe’s weaknesses seem to be focused in counting letters and in overall common sense and powers of observation – “Stand up Chuck!”)

Obama’s voting record is farther left than anyone else in the United States Senate. I thought what America was crying out for was a “moderate”; certainly they have one in John McCain.

And if one is judged by the company he keeps (that seems to be all the rage locally), then you have to wonder about those folks Barack Obama hangs out with and hires as advisors.

The two (unprompted) words I heard most over last weekend at the Autumn Wine Festival when discussing the election were “scared” and “worried.” Maybe the Democrats down the way were hearing the same about what they think could be a third term of George W. Bush if John McCain’s elected, but those discussing politics at my table were astonished at the thought of having a President who combines the ineptitude of Jimmy Carter with the corruption of Bill Clinton, rolled up into a Huey Long-like figure who wants to “spread the wealth” his way, by taxing the producers and rewarding the less apt. Does the phrase “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” ring a bell?

So as the “Stop Obama Tour” continues, hopefully they’ll start seeing the results they’re looking for in both the polls and in actual votes. Our country truly does deserve better.