Tag Archives: The Commercial Appeal

The Gospel According to PolitiFact

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Ah, PolitiFact. What would a day reading the Commercial Appeal be without its bashing a Republican?

Today’s target is Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn. Because she is effective and well spoken she is disliked by most of the media. The headline reads: “Blckburn gets it wrong on medical device job losses” followed by a subhead “Exaggerates number employed in her district.” Right then you know there is no purpose in reading the article. It won’t be fair.

If today’s journalists examined Jesus’ words in PolitiFact manner, even he would get trounced. That struck me listening to today’s gospel reading from Mark. “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God…It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade,” Jesus said.

First, reporters would have questioned whether there is a kingdom of God. Wasn’t Jesus being politically incorrect? How did he know? What about people who don’t believe in God? He’s being insensitive to exclude them. That would be the first premise they would sow doubt about.

Then they’d ask if a mustard seed really is the smallest of seeds. What about a poppy seed? What about fungal spores? Jesus would rate a “mostly false” on that one. Similarly, the mustard doesn’t become the largest of plants. I’m sure there are bigger trees. Perhaps he should have said in his area. There’s an ugly anti diversity element in this analogy .

Large branches? Maybe. I’m sure they’d find some scientists to dispute that. What birds of the sky would dwell in its shade? Jesus may be going to the pants on fire on this one. All birds don’t like the shade (think penguin) do they?

No, Jesus would not have scored well on PolitiFact. Obviously even the best of politicians is not like Jesus. But I don’t think today’s journalists would be fair to him either.

Sadly, the people who write this stuff probably think they are being fair. The liberal media has its disciples. Best not to follow them.

Little Sir Echo

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The New York Times headline on the Walker victory was “Gov. Walker Survives Bid to Remove Him.” The WaPo used survive, too, as did The Commercial Appeal. I guess the note went out to the liberal media that Walker didn’t win or have victory; he survived. Makes it seem that he barely held on and not that he won by 7 points.

Journalism’s Pretzels

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The Business section of the Commercial Appeal today has a heading “More homes for sale.” It reads: “Good news for home shoppers who want more houses to choose from: The inventory of homes on the Memphis market has risen six consecutive months to 7,370 in April. That’s 542 more homes for sale than in December, according to the Memphis Area Association of Realtors.”

Well isn’t that good news? From the breathless prose it would seem so. But isn’t more homes for sale on the market an indication that fewer homes are selling? That realtors can’t move existing homes because people don’t have the money to buy one?

What kind of twisted logic do you have to have to make this good news? Obviously they are pumping up the economy to show that Obama’s policies are really working, when your own eyes show they aren’t.

Look down a street at the number of homes for sale. I do and I see the same ones on the market month after month. We’re stagnant, not growing.

The newspaper continues, saying “Existing home sales fell 9.5 percent in April to 1,229.” Again, that hardly seems worth celebrating.

The same page has a story that says “Permits up, but local starts aren’t.” It continues “new home starts are down by 3 percent so far this year. Construction started on 195 homes through April compared to 201 houses for the same four months last year.”

That’s Obamanomics for you. Facts get shaped into pretzels for the public. We’re not buying. Literally.

Governor in Town

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Yesterday Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam paid a visit to the Commercial Appeal.

Was he there to high five for the veto of Senate Bill 3597 that would have prohibited the state’s public universities from discriminating against religious student groups? (Remember the Vanderbilt case where the university permits people not in a group – in this case a Catholic group – to become an officer in the group.)

Or perhaps he was there to institute a Politifact truth-o-meter for newspapers as they do towards Republican office holders or candidates. If so, might I suggest a range of lies going from Paper Fire to Burning Rag to Ash Heap.

I hope it was the latter.

Yes, CA, There Are Republicans in Midtown

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It was surprising to find the Midtown Republican Club mentioned in an article in yesterday’s Commercial Appeal. Twice. Albeit it was in one of the stories they call “PolitiFact Tennessee” that purports to find the truth in politicians’ statements.

“Flinn not the ‘chicken’ Bergmann claims him to be” was the headline. Incidentally, has their Politifact “truth-o-meter” ever found a Republican in the state to be truthful? If there was one, I missed it, as they tend to be hit pieces parading as journalism.

This one concerned whether Charlotte Bergmann was correct that Dr. George Flinn dodges debates with her. We were mentioned because of our March 27 candidates forum where neither candidate showed. Both sent substitutes. What the Commercial Appeal failed to report was that another candidate, Wilson Stooksberry, did show up. He did address our group and won over supporters.

You would think that they might report on all candidates. Seems like what we get today is selective journalism.

Still, liberals could not have been too happy to find out that there actually are Republicans in Midtown, living amongst them. Midtown is supposed to be a liberal bastion that stops the contagion of East Memphis conservatism from spreading too far.

I hope more conservative Midtowners realize that they are not alone and that they have a great asset in our club. Anyone interested in joining should know that we welcome all. Our focus is to help voters meet the candidates, get informed on their platforms so that they can vote knowledgeably and let their neighbors know, too. Nowhere else can you get to meet a gubernatorial candidate, congressional and even Senate candidate and ask him or her questions personally.

And, get to meet neighbors who think like you do.

It’s also a great resource to promote your favorite to whatever degree you like – making phone calls, donating to campaigns or just spreading the word.

The next time you see an Obama sign pop up in a neighbor’s yard, don’t get mad. Look into the Midtown Republican Club and find a great outlet for change.

Interview with Marsha Blackburn

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Marsha Blackburn, left, with Georgeann King

U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, left, with Georgeann King.

Although she will lose parts of Shelby County in the redistricting, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn stopped by Memphis today and was nice enough to sit down and talk to me this morning over coffee.

Mrs. Blackburn, one of our Republican stars in Congress, has earned my admiration since the days she was in the Tennessee legislature and sneaked out to call talk radio and sound the alarm on an attempt by the Democrats to pass a state income tax. It failed – thankfully – and Mrs. Blackburn went on to win the 7th district Congressional seat in Tennessee. Since there she has been a champion of personal liberty, standing up against Obamacare, tax hikes and the light bulb ban.

We touched on all those topics this morning.

The first business Congress will be taking up is the budget. Mrs. Blackburn says this year’s will be similar to Rep. Paul Ryan’s attempt last year. She wants to see across the board cuts every year in discretionary spending and has introduced a bill to freeze discretionary spending. The budget will require departments to work their way down, because she believes “bureaucracies can spare a dollar.”

Blackburn expects the Supreme Court will strike down Obamacare, which is good news. She would like to see a “Travelocity concept for health care so that an individual could see what’s available across state lines and choose whatever he or she wants.” Her Health Care Choice Act lets seniors age 65-70 who are still working stay with their own insurance and get premium support to offset costs.

As for the ban on incandescent bulbs, Blackburn was instrumental in getting it lifted for another year. “You can still buy them,” she said, offering that “you can get them by the case at Home Depot.” Friends have told her that they, too, are stocking up.

A grandmother who has two grandchildren ages 2 and 3, says she cooks lunch for her family every Sunday. She travels from Washington to Nashville and says she hopes she will find time to stop by a Midtown Republican Club meeting before Memphis is completely out of her district.

I asked her about the Commercial Appeal’s recent “Truth-O-Meter” article that targeted her. It questioned that she “is battling for freedom of choice for energy inefficient light bulbs” and found her statement “mostly false.” PolitiFact denied “that it strips away our freedom of choice and selection in the light bulbs we have in our homes.” Blackburn laughed that they had to admit later that she was correct.

She offered her site, www.blackburn.house.gov. as an alternate – and correct – source of information on what she’s doing for voters. Also, she is on facebook and twitter, which give her another opportunity to communicate with her constituency and those of us who wish we were.

Blackburn is optimistic that Republicans will keep the House in this year’s elections. “My biggest fear, though, is complacency,” she said, referring also to the presidential election.

As yet she has no Democrat opponent, and we’ll hope it stays that way because Tennessee needs Mrs. Blackburn in Congress working for us and for all freedom loving Americans.

Hypocrisy on the Editorial Page

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Isn’t it funny that when Republicans are in charge of something, the media decides that partisanship is suddenly a bad thing?

We see this all the time in big media, but today we get a glimpse of it at home via The Commercial Appeal.

The editorial page pompously headlines: “Staying neutral on election day.” Hmm. Has it taken decades for them to reach this conclusion or is it just in the past year when Republicans now hold so many local offices, including the election commission?

CA, were you asking for neutrality before? I’ll answer my own question. No. And the editors admit it. “People tend to take whatever system is in place for granted, just as many of us did (!) when Democrats held a majority in the Tennessee General Assembly and thus also held the reins in local election commissions.”

Somehow, that didn’t merit investigation. But now, trustee race loser Regina Newman’s comment sounds like a good idea to them. She said “I think all election commissions would be better off with a manager, a professional manager who’s not beholden to any party.”

OK, well who might that be? The problem is that people who aren’t interested in politics and don’t belong to a party don’t know much about politics and have little interest in becoming involved in them. So where is the work pool for this insubstantial group? How can they be professionals?

The newspaper recognizes this dilemma. “Of course, somebody has to appoint them to the job. They don’t just materialize out of nonpartisan air. But they do tend to have more credibility.” Credibility among whom?

Credibility comes from the voters. If voters do not feel a party is doing a credible job, they vote that party out and the other one gets a chance. That’s democracy. Appointing someone takes that right away from the voter.

If you’re not buying that argument, the editors try another at the end of the piece. “Replacing key members of an experienced office staff just because one party or another has gained prominence in Nashville is irrational, inefficient and wasteful of public resources.” Two things. First, this argument didn’t pop up when Democrats were in charge, did it? Secondly, since when did liberals ever care about being prudent with the taxpayers’ dime? Umm, never.

“Republican and Democrat majorities come and go, but credibility should be constant,” they declare. If that’s so, then we’ve had the wrong system in place for the last two hundred plus years. Every two years the House has the possibility of changing hands and when it does, an “irrational, inefficient and wasteful…(use) of public resources” takes place. This is a good thing, according to our Constitution.

It strikes me, too, that you could substitute journalism for government in these opinions. Why just pick on the election commission? I would like to see non partisan covering of the news on TV, newspapers and radio. I would like to see non partisan professionals report events without the bias of liberal Democrats. I would like the newspaper to remain neutral whenever it’s covering a political race. I agree that all newspapers “would be better off with a manager, a professional manager who’s not beholden to any party,” to echo Ms. Newman’s sentiments.

As the editors say, I would like to see “efforts under way here and there to install reporters (my substitution for their ‘election officials’) who not only put forth an honest effort to be professional and objective but are also not active party members.”

Do I think it will happen? No. At least in government the electorate can vote a party out of office, but in the media we have little chance to do that.

Voters Shrug

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Yesterday I was working at Shelby GOP headquarters when two people from Fox 13 News came. They wanted to do a story about the election, highlighting that despite the low turnout for early voting, there was still political activity.

Reporter Les Smith talked to us while the camera man shot pictures of us attaching labels and stuffing envelopes. He said he was puzzled why there is so much voter apathy. A small number of early voters had made the effort, but the overall turnout among eligible voters would probably be only 12%. Why?

We all agreed that politics is something that affects every citizen. It affects our schools, our families, our property, our safety, our businesses, our health. Yet people can’t seem to get interested. If they do, it’s often after the fact; after taxes or fees have been hiked, workers fired or schools changed. Then they get mad.

Funny, too, that people don’t vote when it is so easy. Most of us can walk to our precinct. When we get there, the lines are usually short, the workers efficient. Having worked several elections, I have seen workers bend over backwards to help the voter. If a person is at the wrong precinct, maps are printed out for them with the correct one. If there is a doubt about a voter, the officer of elections will check on it in every way possible. Any dubious ballot gets put aside, so that they can later count it if proved authentic. There are helpers for blind and deaf people. There are even organizations that will help give a voter a ride to the precinct. We don’t have to brave bombings or attacks as they did in Iraq.

Still, apathy reigns. Why?

We bandied around explanations. One person thought the media did not cover elections well enough. However, the Commercial Appeal printed the ballot twice for this election. The voter should at least make some effort to find out about the issues, and it isn’t hard when you can turn on the TV, too.

Maybe it’s because we are so bombarded with information today. You sit at your computer and there is so much on whatever topic you’re interested in that it’s overwhelming. People are concerned about their jobs and often take it home with them. Others follow music or entertainment and that’s a world of its own.

Smith talked about the incivility today. He said in all the years he covered City Hall he has never seen it so contentious and rude. For some, that alone is a turnoff. It shouldn’t be.

Whatever the excuse, it’s a local and national tragedy. We don’t appreciate what our forefathers earned for us, through blood, sweat and tears. I guess you don’t until it’s gone.

Conservatives Out in Force

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This morning’s traffic on Union toward the Commercial Appeal was backed up. From downtown to Shelby State Community College, all two lanes heading west were full and at a stop. Turns out it was Memphians flocking to hear the special business talk at the Fed Ex Forum including Laura Bush, Steve Forbes, Rudy Giuliani and others. Tell me there aren’t plenty of Republicans out there!