More Media Nonsense about Republican "Frontrunners"
Why do media pretend to believe that the BLACK man Ben Carson could be the nominee of today's Radical-Right Republican Party? Nobody on Earth actually believes for so much as 1/10th of a second that the Republicans are going to nominate a black man. That is the same party that publicly announced shortly after Barack Obama was elected President that they would work hard to make him a one-term President — not because of any political stance he had taken but ONLY because he was black. Actually, of course, Obama is LESS black than Ben Carson. So we are to believe that the Republicans who hated Obama for being (half-) black are going to love a fully-black man, Ben Carson. What nonsense. When will the media tell the truth about Republican bigotry?
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Moreover, Carson has made some insane statements, such as that a Jew, Joseph, ordered that the pyramids of Egypt be built to store grain, even tho there is almost no interior space to store anything in the pyramids. Carson has also said he wouldn't be comfortable with a Moslem as President, but he is not held to account for that religious bigotry. Ben Carson is NUTS. If he were white, however, he might still have a chance to be the nominee of the Republican Party, because today's Republican Party is nuts.
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As regards Donald Trump, no one actually believes that he will be the Republican nominee either. He is too much the buffoon. His bigotry does not bar him, as regards the core of today's Republican Party. But when he says contemptible things like his father gave him a "small loan of a million dollars", he makes it impossible for anyone to take him seriously. He is also a New Yorker, and not just a resident of the State of New York but also of the City of New York. The typical Republican HATES New York City, with nearly psychotic rage.
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Carly Fiorina could not possibly be the nominee of the Republican Party either, first because she is a woman. We could actually stop there: she won't be nominated because she is a woman, and today's Republican Party is staunchly hostile to Radical Feminism. But Fiorina was also FIRED by Hewlett Packard after laying off 30,000 — let me repeat that in words; THIRTY THOUSAND — American workers. Now Republicans are to believe that she has the key to bringing jobs to American workers? Ridiculous.
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Donald Trump also hasn't a chance to prevail on bringing jobs back to 'America'. His enterprises have filed FOUR BANKRUPTCIES. That compares with THREE ADDITIONAL BANKRUPTCIES of entities that bore Trump's name, under license from "The Donald". How on EARTH is he going to fool voters into thinking he knows how to create jobs, when history shows that he has COST hundreds and hundreds of Americans their jobs?
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Marco Rubio is Hispanic, and thus anathema to the bulk of the Republicans' core constituency. Ditto Ted Cruz. Cruz has the further disability that he is not just Hispanic but also CANADIAN, and the Republican Party of today HATES ultra-Liberal Canada almost as much as it hates Hispanics. One cannot expect too much consistency from Republicans, however. They attacked Barack Obama for not being born in the United States, even tho he was, but completely overlooked that his opponent first time out, John McCain, was definitely born outside the United States, in Panama, just as Ted Cruz was born in Canada. Republicans have very selective memories.
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Rand Paul is too Libertarian even for most Republicans, who know that they are enormously dependent upon the Government, much too dependent to shrink the Federal Government into ineffectuality.
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There are only three candidates in the Republican field who seem to have any chance of winning the Republican nomination and going on to any significant success against the Democratic nominee, whoever that might be: Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and Chris Christie. All three have been governmental executives, Governors of populous states, as should have prepared them for the responsibilities of presiding over the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. But Bush and Kasich are soft on illegal immigration, and want to give millions of illegals AMNESTY, which has ALWAYS led to even MORE illegal immigration, which Americans are sick of. Kasich says we can't deport 11 million illegals. OF COURSE WE CAN. If the members of their families who are entitled, by birth, naturalization, or legal immigration, to be here, wish to stay here, they can, but every single person who violated our laws to come here can and should be deported.
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Kasich says that these 11 million barbarian invaders are "law-abiding" people! NO THEY ARE NOT. They violated our IMMIGRATION LAWS, so they are ALL criminals, and should ALL be deported. This has been a very generous country as regards admitting foreigners into OUR territory and OUR economy. We have NOTHING to apologize for in regard to our immigration policies. NOTHING. But these law-breaking line-jumpers who didn't want to wait their turn and enter this country legally have NO CLAIM on us. DEPORT THEM ALL. If they don't like their own country, that's tuf. Let them CHANGE their own country, not invade ours.
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The majority of the illegals at issue are from Mexico, a terrible, unfair country. But we didn't make Mexico unfair, and it is not our obligation to suffer mass invasion by Mexicans just because their country is awful. Why are WE to be punished for the crimes of Mexico's upper classes?
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Many of the people who fled Mexico for the United States are the best, hardest-working, and most ambitious people, intent on social and economic justice for themselves and their families. Let them fite it out with the enemies of decency in Mexico, and win a revolution that truly changes everything that is wrong with Mexico. Having lived in the United States, they know how to organize Mexico's post-revolutionary society. We had a Revolution that established a new order of freedom here. Let Mexicans win their own revolution for a new order of freedom there. Mexico's revolution of the early 20th Century was a miserable failure. That doesn't mean that a good revolution cannot succeed.
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The U.S. is helping Mexico economically, thru free access to our market thru NAFTA and hosts of maquiladoras at the border that employ a million Mexicans who would otherwise not have a job. But beyond that, the responsibility for reforming Mexico's economy and social organization, is MEXICANS'. U.S. unions and social-justice organizations can help Mexicans to create the revolutionary change they need. In like fashion, Central Americans deported from the United States can also serve as the core of revolutions in each and every one of those hellish societies. Indeed, we should see the deportees from the U.S. as the shock troops of needed revolution and the central cadres of social reform. In essence, we would be doing all those countries a FAVOR by inserting into their societies the very people who might actually effect meaningful and long-lasting change.
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In August, Christie said that immigrants who enter the United States on tourist visas (or student, or other temporary visas) can be tracked like FedEx packages, and told to go home when their time is up (a stance taken by other Republicans but, curiously, apparently not by prominent Democrats). Immigration must serve OUR purposes. If it does not, SHUT IT OFF. When we have high, unyielding unemployment, esp. among vulnerable minorities, it is time to impose a MORATORIUM on immigration until all Americans can find good jobs at good pay and with good benefits. Vast immigration, legal and illegal, subverts employment levels for citizens, pay rates, and benefits for American workers. Americans must always come first in the regard of the U.S. Government.
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So who is really likely to get the Republican nomination? That is of course hard to predict except to say that it will almost certainly NOT be Carson, Trump, or Fiorina. It might be any of the Governors, tho New Jersey (my state) is too Liberal for today's Republicans, so they would hold against Christie that he comes from such a Liberal state, even tho he won office twice against a Liberal tide. Kasich stands a better chance, despite his advocating amnesty for MILLIONS of illegal aliens. But Bush would seem to stand the best chance of winning the Republican nomination, esp. if he tones down his stance on immigration as to make it appear that he wants to enforce our borders, and not extend amnesty to millions of illegals., which would create yet another tidal wave of illegals pouring over our borders.
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If the Democrats cannot come up with anybody better than Hillary Clinton, and she should become the nominee, it would appear that our next President will be our third Bush President.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 7:29 AM

 
Tedious Nation
When was the United States seized by monomania? Why are we endlessly assailed by double showings of television programs, even triple showings, quadruple showings, and more? When did marathons and "binge" programming take over television? This Thanksgiving, Antenna TV is going to show 54 episodes of the ancient, half-hour family sitcom Leave It to Beaver! That's right, not just 24 hours, but 27 hours of ONE show! 27 hours! When did this country's television programmers lose their minds?
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As I write, Grit TV is showing 8 episodes of Zane Grey Theater, four full hours of a mediocre WESTERN series. This is not 1950. Modern Americans HATE Westerns, but they are all over the tube, because there is an enormous stock of them from the 1950s, presumably available extremely cheaply to fill air time.
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TVGuide.com actually put up an article titled "Here Are 51 Marathons You Can Watch Over July Fourth Weekend"! 51! That is insane and abusive, and reveals a country in very deep trouble. Every couple of weeks, there is another marathon, or binge showing: the 50th anniversary of the date when the sitcom about witches, Bewitched, started to air. A comparable marathon to celebrate the (crappy and annoying) genie-themed sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. Each weekend, the new network Decades shows two full days of one program in what it forthritely calls a "Binge". Why?
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Even the ordinary daily schedule of multiple channels shows two, three, even four episodes in a row, of Murder, She Wrote (one at 3:00pm, a second at 4:00pm, and on either or both of Monday and Friday evenings, two or three more, from 8:00pm to 11:00pm. Likewise, the same channel, Cozi TV, shows two episodes in a row of Miami Vice, but some days there are FOUR in a row. Almost the entire schedule of Laff TV, except for movies, comprises two episodes of every show. And on and on, channel after channel. Why?
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In NYC, Everbody Loves Raymond airs twice a nite, at 1:00 and 1:30am on local station WPIX. Almost the entire schedule of Antenna TV comprises double half-hour episodes. Starting at 6:00am, these double-episode shows are The Jack Benny Program (6-7am); Mr. Ed (7-8am); Father Knows Best (8-9am); Hazel (9-10am); Dennis the Menace (10-11am); Leave It to Beaver (11am-12noon); Bewitched, 12-1pm); I Dream of Jeannie (1-2pm); Green Acres, 2-3pm; Three's Company, 3-4pm; Mr. Belvedere, 4-5pm — you get the picture. The ENTIRE schedule is double episodes of old shows.
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Similarly, the entire schedule of Ion Life is doubles, at least five days a week. Worse, its companion network, Ion Television, shows 16 HOURS A DAY of the same show, or related shows, such as the "Law & Order" franchise of several related shows devoted to CRIME as entertainment, alternating with other hideous, immoral crime-oriented melodramas, such as NUMB3RS, Criminal Minds, Blue Bloods, and the Canadian wannabe-American crime drama Flashpoint. Ion Television's motto could be "All Crime, All the Time". Grotesque.
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Morality aside, my main point is that all this appalling, unrelenting repetition of TV shows means that within a very short time, even the most useful of programs, such as Neat (which offers ideas for household reorganization), will be so infuriatingly repetitive that no one will consent to sit thru them.
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How can today's programmers be so STUPID as to use up ALL the episodes of a given series not just twice as fast as they were intended to be shown but TEN TIMES as often as they were intended to be shown? The typical season of programs produced in the last 20 years or so has been 22 episodes. At ten a WEEK, even if they are not shown on the weekend, an ENTIRE SEASON is used up in 2½ weeks. Then regular viewers will be inundated by reruns they remember all too well, so they TURN OFF and look for something they haven't seen. Worse, the standard season is being REDUCED to as few as 13 or 14 episodes. Thus everything is shown more often, and fewer and fewer episodes are created. So regular viewers will soon be disgusted at endless repetitions.
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When did TV programmers lose their minds? TV became a national habit due to regularity of scheduling and the offer of new entertainment every week. Summer reruns cost the networks viewers, so broadcasters had to discontinue airings of reruns during the summer and create entirely new schedules during the period when schools are out.
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Are programmers so absurdly retarded that they think that viewers (a) do not remember something they saw a month ago or (b) are so lazy that they won't so much as PUSH A BUTTON on their remote control to change channels to end the abuse they would suffer if they left their sets on the channel they had been watching? How many people forget a TV episode within a month? How many people are content to sit and watch a program every detail of which they remember, rather than change channels in disgust? It may be possible for a small fraction of an audience to watch a few programs more than three times without becoming disgusted (say, I Love Lucy or Everybody Loves Raymond), but that is not the case with most programs. If they can remember the plot and even significant parts of the dialog, by far most people will look for something else to entertain them. How can today's programmers not know that?
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Apparently, programmers today believe that Americans are uniformly feebleminded. But who is really feebleminded, the general American television audience, or the programmers who hold them in contempt? It is never wise to hold in contempt the people you want to do business with, because most will sense that contempt, and walk away.
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Plainly, today's programmers think that the American television audience is retarded monomaniacs, who can be abused endlessly without rebelling. I hope they're wrong. But many people have TV on in the background while they are doing other things than watching attentively, such as doing housework; cooking; checking email, social media posts, entertaining short videos, and other distractions, so do not remember what they have just seen. If so, those Americans can quite properly be called "scatterbrained": "incapable of serious, connected thought" (Dictionary.com). Sooner or later, however, even the most distracted viewer is going to wake up to the fact that they have seen all those programs they have had on in the background, and feel insulted that programmers think they are too stupid to realize that every program shown today has been shown 10 times, and will be shown another 10 times in short order!
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 10:11 AM