Cheney shoots down the "gas tax holiday"

Now here’s a politically curious move. John McCain has really been championing this idea of a “gas tax holiday” for a while now, and the current Vice President is shooting it down. Odd that the sitting veep would so publicly go against the candidate from his own party.

“I think it’s a false notion, in the sense that you’re not going to have much of an impact, given the size of the gasoline tax on the total cost of the gallon of gas,” Cheney said when asked about the matter during a luncheon appearance. “You might buy a little bit of relief there, but it’s minimal.”

Now, unlike most, I’m not one of those “wait, if Cheney likes it, maybe it’s BAD” kind of liberal bloggers. Dick Cheney, like any politician, is entirely capable of saying something that is both reasonable and accurate. In this case, I wholeheartedly agree with him. The average gas tax, combining state and federal, is just over $0.40 a gallon. In my area, it’s about $3.95 at the pump and the tax is 50.7 cents, meaning I’d be paying a low low $3.44 per gallon. Hardly anything to jump about. Remembering that about 60% of fuel tax revenue goes to infrastructure, this seems like a poor idea.

What really intrigues me is how Cheney would do this to McCain. It seems like a bizarre decision to me. Combined with Murdoch’s nigh-endorsement of Obama, it’s almost like the right is trying to get Obama elected.

Cheney shoots down the “gas tax holiday”

Now here’s a politically curious move. John McCain has really been championing this idea of a “gas tax holiday” for a while now, and the current Vice President is shooting it down. Odd that the sitting veep would so publicly go against the candidate from his own party.

“I think it’s a false notion, in the sense that you’re not going to have much of an impact, given the size of the gasoline tax on the total cost of the gallon of gas,” Cheney said when asked about the matter during a luncheon appearance. “You might buy a little bit of relief there, but it’s minimal.”

Now, unlike most, I’m not one of those “wait, if Cheney likes it, maybe it’s BAD” kind of liberal bloggers. Dick Cheney, like any politician, is entirely capable of saying something that is both reasonable and accurate. In this case, I wholeheartedly agree with him. The average gas tax, combining state and federal, is just over $0.40 a gallon. In my area, it’s about $3.95 at the pump and the tax is 50.7 cents, meaning I’d be paying a low low $3.44 per gallon. Hardly anything to jump about. Remembering that about 60% of fuel tax revenue goes to infrastructure, this seems like a poor idea.

What really intrigues me is how Cheney would do this to McCain. It seems like a bizarre decision to me. Combined with Murdoch’s nigh-endorsement of Obama, it’s almost like the right is trying to get Obama elected.

I've got to hand it to FOX, they've got a brilliant scheme

So Bill O’Reilly had Scott McClellan on tonight and I almost had a nosebleed watching. It was classic O’Reilly acorss the boards: the shouting, shutting down everything the guest says as “just your opinion”, cutting the guest off as “wrong” repeatedly, bringing up George Soros and the far-left media, and claiming to know more about the situation than the man who was in the center of it.

To quote Will, Bill O’Reilly could be interviewing Jesus Christ and say “I read the Bible, I know what it says, and you’re WRONG.”

Now, I’ve gotten into discussions with many conservatives and for all my polemic statements on here, I’m generally very civil with those I disagree with. I don’t antagonize and unless someone throws something flaming and belligerent at me (“liberals want to have sex with Al Qaeda”), I don’t toss any grenades out there.

One spot I have a problem with is the right-wing media, specifically the television and radio aspects of it, even more specifically the trinity of Hannity, O’Reilly, and Rush. I’ve noticed I have a very, very hard time convincing conservatives that my beef with them is not that they’re conservatives, but that they’re drooling idiots. It took me a while to figure out why this is so difficult, but I’ve finally discovered it.

FOX’s “talent” was specifically chosen to make liberals unable to criticize them.

Pick anyone on FOX. Anyone from the heavyweights like O’Reilly, middleweights like Cavuto, or lightweights like Doocey, and you’ll notice that down the boards, each of the high-profile pundits are loudmouth wackjobs that spin like crazy, shoot down everything that contradicts them and otherwise takes a crap on what is generally considered “journalistic integrity”.

This isn’t by accident. FOX’s viewers are not intellectually curious people. They aren’t watching the news in order to learn things about the world around them. They aren’t trying to gather information in order to make a well-researched opinion. Rather, they come into the day with a set of opinions and want their “news” to remind them that they’re right about everything. That’s why you’ll rarely find a FOX viewer that loves one show but dislikes another (not counting everyone hating Colmes).

Bill O’Reilly’s popularity is a result of his ability to shout down guests, and muddy the debate by insisting that everything the guest says is “opinion”. A viewer never comes out of one of O’Reilly’s interviews having learned anything new. He gets a liberal on, shouts at them for a while, and the viewers ends up happy because Bill “stuck it to” the left-wing loony.

Here’s where FOX’s genius comes in. I, as a liberal, am unable to point at anyone else on the network as an example of a calm, level-headed conservative host. They don’t have anyone on that quietly discusses a disagreement with their guest, defers to them in realms the host is unfamiliar with, or concedes a point when proven wrong.

That puts me in an awkward position when trying to explain my beef with any one of them. I can’t say something along the lines of “Look, it’s not because X is a conservative, it’s because he’s an idiot. Look at Y, he’s another host on FOX and he’s perfectly reasonable.” And reasonable conservatives exist. NPR has lots of them, Jack Cafferty has a lot of great moments as do Dobbs and Buchanan.

Thanks to that, I the liberal can’t agree that a single FOX host is an example of a good journalist, meaning that, to the conservative, I come across as a rabid liberal moonbat who hates all conservative pundits. And since FOX has a few milktoast liberals on board that don’t rock the boat too much, they can claim less-ideological status by pointing them out and saying “I don’t have a problem with THEM.”

Rupert Murdoch’s empire is built around comforting conservatives and confounding liberals. It’s a great business model. In fact it’s a brilliant business model. By being so unflaggingly partisan and unashamedly subjective, their viewer base loves them and even feels validated when the left attacks the network.

After all, it’d be one thing if Media Matters supported a few of FOX’s hosts or at least respected them but went after others. By constructing it so MM will go after the network as a unit, the claim that liberals are this crazy fringe is well-supported, at least according to those in the FOX bubble.

Brilliant business, bad journalism. It’d be great if it wasn’t having such a terrible effect on our political system.

I’ve got to hand it to FOX, they’ve got a brilliant scheme

So Bill O’Reilly had Scott McClellan on tonight and I almost had a nosebleed watching. It was classic O’Reilly acorss the boards: the shouting, shutting down everything the guest says as “just your opinion”, cutting the guest off as “wrong” repeatedly, bringing up George Soros and the far-left media, and claiming to know more about the situation than the man who was in the center of it.

To quote Will, Bill O’Reilly could be interviewing Jesus Christ and say “I read the Bible, I know what it says, and you’re WRONG.”

Now, I’ve gotten into discussions with many conservatives and for all my polemic statements on here, I’m generally very civil with those I disagree with. I don’t antagonize and unless someone throws something flaming and belligerent at me (“liberals want to have sex with Al Qaeda”), I don’t toss any grenades out there.

One spot I have a problem with is the right-wing media, specifically the television and radio aspects of it, even more specifically the trinity of Hannity, O’Reilly, and Rush. I’ve noticed I have a very, very hard time convincing conservatives that my beef with them is not that they’re conservatives, but that they’re drooling idiots. It took me a while to figure out why this is so difficult, but I’ve finally discovered it.

FOX’s “talent” was specifically chosen to make liberals unable to criticize them.

Pick anyone on FOX. Anyone from the heavyweights like O’Reilly, middleweights like Cavuto, or lightweights like Doocey, and you’ll notice that down the boards, each of the high-profile pundits are loudmouth wackjobs that spin like crazy, shoot down everything that contradicts them and otherwise takes a crap on what is generally considered “journalistic integrity”.

This isn’t by accident. FOX’s viewers are not intellectually curious people. They aren’t watching the news in order to learn things about the world around them. They aren’t trying to gather information in order to make a well-researched opinion. Rather, they come into the day with a set of opinions and want their “news” to remind them that they’re right about everything. That’s why you’ll rarely find a FOX viewer that loves one show but dislikes another (not counting everyone hating Colmes).

Bill O’Reilly’s popularity is a result of his ability to shout down guests, and muddy the debate by insisting that everything the guest says is “opinion”. A viewer never comes out of one of O’Reilly’s interviews having learned anything new. He gets a liberal on, shouts at them for a while, and the viewers ends up happy because Bill “stuck it to” the left-wing loony.

Here’s where FOX’s genius comes in. I, as a liberal, am unable to point at anyone else on the network as an example of a calm, level-headed conservative host. They don’t have anyone on that quietly discusses a disagreement with their guest, defers to them in realms the host is unfamiliar with, or concedes a point when proven wrong.

That puts me in an awkward position when trying to explain my beef with any one of them. I can’t say something along the lines of “Look, it’s not because X is a conservative, it’s because he’s an idiot. Look at Y, he’s another host on FOX and he’s perfectly reasonable.” And reasonable conservatives exist. NPR has lots of them, Jack Cafferty has a lot of great moments as do Dobbs and Buchanan.

Thanks to that, I the liberal can’t agree that a single FOX host is an example of a good journalist, meaning that, to the conservative, I come across as a rabid liberal moonbat who hates all conservative pundits. And since FOX has a few milktoast liberals on board that don’t rock the boat too much, they can claim less-ideological status by pointing them out and saying “I don’t have a problem with THEM.”

Rupert Murdoch’s empire is built around comforting conservatives and confounding liberals. It’s a great business model. In fact it’s a brilliant business model. By being so unflaggingly partisan and unashamedly subjective, their viewer base loves them and even feels validated when the left attacks the network.

After all, it’d be one thing if Media Matters supported a few of FOX’s hosts or at least respected them but went after others. By constructing it so MM will go after the network as a unit, the claim that liberals are this crazy fringe is well-supported, at least according to those in the FOX bubble.

Brilliant business, bad journalism. It’d be great if it wasn’t having such a terrible effect on our political system.

NASA subject to "inappropriate political interference" over global warming

Things like this don’t surprise me, I just sometimes enjoy reaffirming my belief that the Bush Administration probably knows global warming exists, they just want to keep it under wraps. In today’s episode, NASA found itself censored by political appointees whenever global warming was on the table.

The report found credence in allegations that National Public Radio was denied access to top global warming scientist James Hansen. It also found evidence that NASA headquarters press officials canceled a press conference on a mission monitoring ozone pollution and global warming because it was too close to the 2004 presidential election.

In addition, the report detailed more than a dozen other actions in which it said the NASA public affairs office unilaterally edited or downgraded press releases having to do with global warming or denied access to scientists.

NASA public affairs officials criticized by the report called it wrong, saying they were always open and truthful.

Not so, according to the report. The report did not directly accuse them of lying, but used more nuanced terms such as “mendacity” and “dissembling.” The space agency complained those terms were unjust.

Ouch.

See, when one is attempting to silence opposition, it means they know their own platform is shaky at best. One truly confident in their beliefs has no problem with all sides getting aired because they know they can refute it.

So they keep these reports quiet, hoping to just pass the buck along.

NASA subject to “inappropriate political interference” over global warming

Things like this don’t surprise me, I just sometimes enjoy reaffirming my belief that the Bush Administration probably knows global warming exists, they just want to keep it under wraps. In today’s episode, NASA found itself censored by political appointees whenever global warming was on the table.

The report found credence in allegations that National Public Radio was denied access to top global warming scientist James Hansen. It also found evidence that NASA headquarters press officials canceled a press conference on a mission monitoring ozone pollution and global warming because it was too close to the 2004 presidential election.

In addition, the report detailed more than a dozen other actions in which it said the NASA public affairs office unilaterally edited or downgraded press releases having to do with global warming or denied access to scientists.

NASA public affairs officials criticized by the report called it wrong, saying they were always open and truthful.

Not so, according to the report. The report did not directly accuse them of lying, but used more nuanced terms such as “mendacity” and “dissembling.” The space agency complained those terms were unjust.

Ouch.

See, when one is attempting to silence opposition, it means they know their own platform is shaky at best. One truly confident in their beliefs has no problem with all sides getting aired because they know they can refute it.

So they keep these reports quiet, hoping to just pass the buck along.

Ahmadinejad on Israel again, plus bonus Irony

I was naive enough to think that Mahmoud’s famous “wipe Israel from the map” thing had died down, but here it comes again. The Iranian president has rolled out again in order to repeat his famous statement, albeit with slightly different verbiage.

“I must announce that the Zionist regime (Israel), with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene,” Ahmadinejad said.

“Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started.”

Now once again, that statement does not say that Israel will be blown off the earth, the parenths indicate a “clarification” added by the writer of the article. He’s repeating his claim that the “Zionist regime” will vanish, not the Israeli people. That said, he’s a nutbar and all his yammering about “satanic powers” only hammers that point in further.

So Ahmadinejad’s got a case of the crazies. Big whoop. He’s basically trying to make Iran a heavyweight on the global scene by keeping himself in the news, and the aim for nuclear technology is just another facet of that. We’ve been there before.

That brings us to the irony. Dana Perino, White House mouthpiece, tossed this one off in response to the man’s statements:

“Unfortunately (Iranians are) being led by a leader who has total disregard for their thoughts, their feelings, their desires, their freedom, their justice, their democracy,” Perino said.

Okay readers, it’s time for you to be me for a moment. Come up with a proper witty retort to that one and I’ll put it up here. To get things started, I’ll put up two of Bush’s quotes:

“If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” – 12/18/00

“‘I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.” – statement to GOP leaders in 2005

Do me proud!

UPDATE: So far Dormilona has my favorite:

RADDATZ: So? You don’t care what the American people think?

CHENEY: No.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/03/19/cheney/