Hallandale Beach Blog

Jeffrey Lord dissects a Romney hit-job on Gingrich: Elliot Abrams' revisionist hit-job at NRO is debunked by simple facts the MSM didn't care about

2012-01-27T14:08:00.000-05:00

POLITICO video: Jim Vandehei on the anti-Newt attacks. January 27, 2012
http://bcove.me/nx4mo74a

Jeffrey Lord dissects a Romney hit-job on Gingrich: Elliot Abrams' revisionist hit-job in NRO is debunked by simple facts the MSM didn't care about

Glad to see that at least someone in this country is doing their homework and fact-checking the "facts." Especially the "inconvenient" facts that the MSM is too busy to look at before throwing them out into the ether.

But first, here's the predicate:

National Review Online

Gingrich and Reagan

In the 1980s, the candidate repeatedly insulted the president.

By Elliott Abrams

Posted online January 25, 2012 4:00 a.m.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/289159/gingrich-and-reagan-elliott-abrams

Which led to my post of yesterday re Newt Gingrich and specifically, Rush Limbaugh's observations, and this from today, from which the video at the top of this post appeared:

POLITICO

Drudge, conservative media criticize Newt Gingrich

It’s as if the conservative media over the past 24 hours decided Gingrich is for real.

By Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen

1/26/12 8:00 AM EST

Updated: 1/27/12 7:48 AM EST

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72000.html

Now, here's the fact-filled retort that lays bare the lies.

The American Spectator
The Spectacle blog
Elliott Abrams Caught Misleading on Newt
By Jeffrey Lord
Posted online January 27, 2012 11:28 a.m.

As Ronald Reagan used to say: Well.

Yesterday we took note of former Reagan State Department official Elliott Abrams' piece over at NRO that went after Newt Gingrich on his relationship with Reagan. While voting regularly with Reagan as a young congressman from Georgia, Gingrich, claimed Abrams, "often spewed insulting rhetoric at Reagan, his top aides and his policies to defeat Communism." Abrams then goes on to cite " a famous floor statement Gingrich made on March 21, 1986."

Or sort of cites it.

Read the rest of this spot-on post at:
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/01/27/elliott-abrams-caught-misleadi

Newt Gingrich campaign video: Ed Rollins: Gingrich was one of "most important players and most loyal to Ronald Reagan." January 27, 2012

http://youtu.be/SjOMMweAJ_s

Yes, The American Spectator that was started in Bloomington and which later moved to Arlington County, VA, just like me. In fact, for years, it was right near the Metro train station I used everyday, the Clarendon Metro, home of all those delicious Vietnamese restaurants I dearly miss, like Queen Bee. http://spectator.org/

When I lived and worked in the Evanston/Chicago area in the pre-Internet mid-1980's, I always purchased a copy of TAS (and The Washington Monthly) every month at the Chicago-Main newsstand to see stories and columns about heretofore unknown issues, long-simmering grudges and policy flights-of-fancy in Washington and the country that I didn't see elsewhere.

Not that I always agreed with everything, but just like manhattan, inc. and SPY, my two favorite magazines, which I was also a charter subscriber to, their contributors writing was so spirited and fun that, sometimes, not always, it was easier to just believe rather than to fight it.

That was where I first got large doses of Michael Barone's prescient insight, which he now dishes from The Washington Examiner.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/author/michael-barone
and Real Clear Politics
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/michael_barone/
and TownHall
http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/
and National Review Online, where he has this piece today:

Gearing Up to Govern
The GOP candidates are more serious about governing than is the incumbent.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/289283/gearing-govern-michael-barone

Below, the new-and-improved version via Google Maps of the newsstand, long the best on The North Shore, that re-opened in 2001, after apparently vanishing for 8 years because of the CTA and city of Evanston being unable to get their acts together for the benefit of the area's residents. Eight years!
http://www.citynewsstand.com/progressupdate.htm

View Larger Map

Bob Dole, remember him? Worst GOP Presidential nominee in memory, his White House chances laughed at openly by the Mainstream Media weeks BEFORE the election, now criticizes Newt Gingrich. Another GOP Establishment lobbyist for Romney to add to his collection!

2012-01-26T22:58:00.000-05:00

CBS News video: CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. Dean Reynolds reports on "Gingrich feeling heat from GOP Establishment." January 26, 2012.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7396509n

Bob Dole, remember him?
Worst GOP Presidential nominee in memory, his chances laughed at openly by the Mainstream Media weeks BEFORE the election, now criticizes Newt Gingrich.
Yes, Bob Dole, the most over-rated member of Congress of the past thirty years, not that it ever stopped his pals in the Beltway news media from the logrolling after he became a lobbyist.

Try this simple amateur detective assignment yourself.
Each day ask five people who don't follow politics as deeply as you do, "Who ran against Bill Clinton in 1996?"

Give them ten seconds to answer, with no clues.

Do this for a month.

The gaping silence you hear, there's your evidence!

Yes, the same person who talked openly about "Democratic wars" in the 1976 Vice-Presidential debate.

Bob Dole.

And yet he ran for president only 16 years ago...

Just saying...

If you saw the CBS Evening News segment tonight that dealt with the Beltway's GOP Establishment falling-in behind Mitt Romney and attacking Newt Gingrich - especially the once-familiar Republican names who for years have been making lots of money from leveraging their connections!- it's not for nothing that their interview was with one of the the poster boys for the old GOP Establishment who resented Newt's tight personal connection with younger members and who have fought the Tea Party tooth-and-nail the past two years: Bob Dole.

And did you notice that nowhere in the piece did the reporter mention how what Bob Dole did after he left office?

Lobbying.
Surprise!

I listened to Rush Limbaugh for about two hours today, including when he said this...

Coordinated Avalanche Against Newt Doesn't Match My Memory of Reagan Years
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/01/26/coordinated_avalanche_against_newt_doesn_t_match_my_memory_of_reagan_years

Dole assails Gingrich in plea to conservatives
Posted by CNN's Kevin Liptak
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/26/dole-assails-gingrich-in-plea-to-conservatives/

And did you notice that nowhere in the piece did reporter Dean Reynolds mention how what Bob Dole did after he left office?

Lobbying.

Seriously, look at who these former GOP congressmen supporting Romney are... Vin Weber, Susan Molinari...
A largely-forgettable Minnesota Republican and a not-too-bright-but-cute daughter of a longtime Staten Island GOP congressman, who played her feisty thirty-something Mom Congresswoman shtick to the hilt? And then some!
(She later turned being cute-and-precious with a smile into a ticket to host a network TV news program -another CBS News debacle.)

NOT exactly the people who were doing the heavy lifting to make the GOP Revolution of 1994 possible.
In fact, Weber retired in 1992 to... well, lobby.
And after Molinari left CBS and had another kid... well, since 2001, she's been a lobbyist.
What a coincidence!

Seriously, would anyone outside of New York in those pre-Internet days have ever talked about Molinari if Newt hadn't personally led the GOP takeover in 1994, when she'd been in Congress for all of two terms?
In a word, no.

I was there.
I knew people who knew them, some who liked them and those who didn't, all who had some degree of insight into them and their ilk.
Which is why i ask you simply, quick, name one accomplishment of significance for either Weber or Molinari before 1994 that anyone has ever heard of?
Exactly.
Just saying...

And if you're one of those few people out there in the blogosphere who think you've heard it all and seen it all before, but didn't know about this story, which I first heard about when I lived and worked in the Washington area, you might want to consider this as a mitigating factor in Molinari's feelings about Newt Gingrich.

The bitter backstory between Newt Gingrich and Romney backer, Susan Molinari
Posted by Marc Caputo on January 18, 2012
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/01/the-bitter-backstory-between-newt-gingrich-and-romney-backer-susan-molinari.html

Hmm-m... Vin Weber -lobbyist. Susan Molinari -lobbyist. Bob Dole -lobbyist.
Sort of makes you wonder why they don't form a PAC called GOP Silver Spoon Lobbyists for Romney.
They don't, of course, because they don't need to as long as Mitt's Super PAC is around buying up all the air time it can swallow

Dole's comments were almost as laughable as Bob Schieffer's tonight.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57367151/schieffer-modern-american-politics-is-vulgar/?tag=cbsnewsTwoColUpperPromoArea

Do you recall what Schieffer said after Barack Obama's infamous comments in 2008 while in San Francisco about residents of Pennsylvania became public, an incident that I referenced the other day?

http://youtu.be/xNoJ0q6HrK8

Bob Schieffer said nothing about those vulgar and condescending remarks.

Say sayonara, Bob.

Just saying...
-----
I found this after writing the above but it still made me laugh nonetheless...

A question we’ve never posed and likely no one outside of CBS News has ever considered: “We wondered what Bob Schieffer thinks of all of this?”

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2012/01/26/appalled-schieffer-blasts-vulgar-and-rude-brewer-we-re-better-people

Hallandale Beach P&Z Board unanimously REJECT The Related Groups' Beachwalk project on Intracoastal; vote is also a rejection of Bill Julian's support for it

2012-01-26T04:16:00.000-05:00

By turns surprising and forceful, and much to the delight of the clear majority of the dozens of Hallandale Beach citizens who came to City Hall on Wednesday afternoon to oppose it, the Hallandale Beach Planning & Zoning Advisory Board unanimously REJECTED The Related Groups' Beachwalk project on the Intracoastal by a vote of 4-0.

It's also noteworthy that former HB Comm. William "Bill" Julian, a 2012 candidate for the City Commission and a longtime object of scorn and enmity on this blog for reasons that are well-known to regular readers, typically, showed the sort of VERY BAD judgment that marked his ten years on the city commission, by choosing the wrong time and the wrong place to come out in support of a 30-story-plus development project on an already gridlocked road -a block from a drawbridge no less!- that was completely out-of-scale for the area.

And this came after he prefaced his remarks by verbally patting himself on the back and engaged in revisionist history by implying that he had a been an eagle-eyed watchdog for the community, when the reality is that he was one of the most disconnected and oblivious of all of Joy Cooper's Rubber Stamp Crew while he sat up on the dais.

Julian WASN'T a watchdog by any stretch of the imagination, rather he was the proverbial Wooden Indian that just sat there and consistently said and did the wrong thing while the city continued its sad decline into incompetency and irrelevancy, even while its budget nearly doubled in six years.
(And where's the tangible proof now of any of that spending?)

Many of the people in the room who pay close attention to what goes on in this community and who are, thus, all-too-familiar with Julian's troubling history on the commission and well-known knack for making bad things worse, made a point of speaking to me in-person immediately after the public meeting or thru emails later, all asking a variation of the same thing: "What the hell was Julian thinking?"

But then one need only ask when WASN'T that the question in everyone's mind after watching him in action, even when he wasn't in action but rather in repose?
Julian is nothing if not consistent in his ability to make HB's citizen taxpayers cringe and flinch, and even occasionally recoil in horror or dismay.
And he showed why again on Wednesday.

Among the well-informed Hallandale Beach residents from all over the city who made it a point to see for themselves what the P&Z Board would do, Julian's botched effort and the Board's rejection of his points was almost as much of a reason to smile as the decision itself, which will now go the full commission for further action.

More particulars on the Beachwalk vote and how it came to be rejected, complete with photos and videos, should be up on the blog on Saturday.

The Related Group's 31-story Beachwalk project in Hallandale Beach -on the Intracoastal- goes to HB Planning & Zoning Board Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.

2012-01-25T03:02:00.001-05:00

Above, looking east from the south sidewalk of the Intracoastal Bridge/State Road 858 over the Atlantic Intracoastal waterway, looking towards State Road A1A and the city's iconic beachball-colored water tower and the adjoining three condo towers of The Beach Club. If the Beachwalk project is approved by the Hallandale Beach City Commission in a few weeks, it would be located just south of this bridge and this particular view will never be the same. September 8, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

The Related Group's proposed 31-story Beachwalk mixed-use development project in Hallandale Beach, to be located at 2600 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd., on the south side of the Intracoastal Bridge/State Road 858, where the old Manero’s restaurant was formerly located, and across the street from Walmart, goes before the Hallandale Beach Planning & Zoning Advisory Board Wednesday at HB City Hall at 1:30 p.m.

The official name for the group behind this proposal is PRH-2600 Hallandale Beach LLC

Above, an admittedly not-so-great photo I snapped of one of the artist's depictions of the project during a Power Point presentation by attorney Debbie Orshefsky at the developer's October 11, 2011 Community Forum at the HB Cultural Center. This depiction is looking southwest from the beach/State Road A1A. The Beachwalk is on the extreme right, on the south side of the bridge.

One of my last posts on this project -full of useful information I encourage you to read before the meeting if you never saw it the first time- was on October 3rd, 2011 titled, October 13 Community Meeting re Beachwalk - 31-story mixed-use project at old 'Manero's' restaurant site; new gridlock-inducing plan for HB?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/october-13-community-meeting-re.html

Wednesday's agenda is here:
http://www.cohb.org/files/PLANNING%20AND%20ZONING%20BOARD%20AGENDAS/2012-01-25-Planning%20and%20Zoning/Agenda%20Outline%20for%202012-01-25%2013-30.htm

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South Florida Business Journal
Related Group buys waterfront site for 60% off
by Brian Bandell
Thursday, May 5, 2011, 3:42pm EDT -
Last Modified: Thursday, May 5, 2011, 4:20pm EDT

After handing over several of its condo projects to lenders, this time Jorge M. Perez and his Related Group are buying a property from a bank.

PRH-2600 Hallandale Beach LLC, an entity ultimately managed by the Miami-based developer, bought a Hallandale Beach site along the Intracoastal Waterway from TD Bank for $2.92 million.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2011/05/05/related-group-buys-waterfront-site.html

------

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/

http://therealdeal.com/miami/

One week from Florida GOP primary, Mainstream Media & Florida's own MSM continue to coddle Ron Paul, and NOT force him to answer self-evident questions re Florida; Ron Paul is missing-in-action

2012-01-24T17:43:00.001-05:00

Flag image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Florida

Both the national Mainstream Media & Florida's own MSM continue to coddle Ron Paul and NOT force him to answer self-evident questions, and thus be held accountable.

Paul has not won any of the first three contests and is NOT running a serious campaign in Florida, the fourth-largest state in the country.

As I've written here a few times previously, I was not only born in Texas, I'm a direct descendant of a pioneer Texas Hill Country family that has lived there continuously for well over over 155 years.

And just as the entire country is NOT a small-scale replica of everyday life in Manhattan or Santa Monica, despite what Hollywood and Madison Avenue marketers and network TV execs may attempt to persuade us in films and in television programs and commercials, the entire country is also NOT the south suburban Houston area that is Ron Paul's own congressional district, TX-14.
Map: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=TX&district=14

Voters in Florida next Tuesday, like voters in Iowa and New Hampshire the past few weeks and the upcoming state primaries, quite reasonably believe that they're entitled to be represented by a person as president who at least ATTEMPTS to understand their unique concerns and issues, and who takes those into account when setting national policies and making important decisions.

Given that, how does Ron Paul's failure to even mount a serious effort in Florida to garner their votes, failure to even pretend to try to understand THEIR unique concerns instead of merely repeating his own, now make him a person Floridians should take seriously, now or in the future?

And isn't Paul's behavior towards Florida voters more accurately described as patronizing?

To answer my own question, yes.

So how come nobody in the traveling national press corps or Florida-based news media, print or electronic, will ask them that simple question on camera?
Sometimes, as we've learned, the absence of evidence is evidence of a sort, too, isn't it?

But you don't have to take my word for Paul's patronizing attitude toward Florida voters.
Let me directly quote the Tampa Bay Times' Alex Leary in their Buzz politics blog today under the headline, Florida presidential primary tracker for Tuesday
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/florida-presidential-primary-tracker-tuesday

Ron Paul: No events scheduled.

Ron Paul is missing-in-action.
Res ipsa loquitur.

And when, exactly, does Ron Paul actually WIN a state primary election?

WHEN?

Name that state?

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012

That's a question that mouthy and opinionated Paul supporters can't or won't answer, for obvious reasons, so when you run into them in-person on see them on TV news segments on the cablenets or C-SPAN sounding loftier than they have any right to sound based on what's actually happened, ask them that simple question.

And tell them that after Paul has ACTUALLY WON SOMETHING, to get get back in-touch, but otherwise, stop annoying everyone with their nonsensical conspiracies about how someone who can't even win a single state presidential primary can be elected president in the year 2012.
Sorry, it's not the 19th Century anymore.

It's preposterous.

The truth of the matter is that Paul won't even be able to win the Texas GOP primary on April 3rd.

Since we don't have a parliamentary system, an American president, whatever else they need to be or do, MUST be seen by both Americans and people overseas as the president of the entire country, not just the small parts of it that happen to agree with him.
And if it's not too much trouble, NOT appear to be overly-contemptuous and dismissive of other Americans.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton responds to Barack Obama's recorded comments at a San Francisco fundraiser about residents of small towns in Pennsylvania being "bitter." "Small towns cling to guns or religion" April 2008. http://youtu.be/xNoJ0q6HrK8
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Obama_on_smalltown_PA_Clinging_religion_guns_xenophobia.html

In my view, that's one of President Obama's chief (and unsolvable) problems -he doesn't.

Repeating that same mistake with someone else is NOT a reasonable solution to our current problems.

Pied Piper Ron Paul, go sell crazy somewhere else.
We've already got more than enough of that here in Florida.

-----
Central Florida Political Pulse politics blog of the Orlando Sentinel:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/

The Buzz politics blog of the Tampa Bay Times
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/

http://www.c-span.org/Campaign2012/

http://watchdog.net/us/tx-14

http://www.texasgop.org/

http://www.texashillcountry.com/

A thought on Fred Thompson's endorsement of Newt Gingrich; Newt will be in Coral Springs on Wednesday morning

2012-01-24T05:55:00.000-05:00

Fred Thompson Endorses Newt Gingrich on Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity Show, January 23, 2012. http://youtu.be/_XYzaHkpEQg

Speaking of making the case for American Exceptionalism, how great would it be to have Fred Thompson as the U.S. Secretary of State representing our interests abroad, and to know that no matter what country he visits, he is instantly recognized by both the general population on the street and the elites in power, as someone that can forcefully and articulately make the case for this country in ways that few other Americans can?

If Fred Thompson gives a foreign minister, a prime minister or some ruling general a message on behalf of the president and people of the United States instructing them that they have until a certain time to make a decision, the right decision, you DON'T have to worry about whether or not they fully understand that it's a real deadline with genuine consequences.
They know.

Fred Dalton Thompson's Best Movie Moments
http://youtu.be/tjXgS5lqqRQ

Arthur Branch's Final Scene -Law & Order, Season 17, Episode 22, aired May 18, 2007. http://youtu.be/RyCedhLgUYk

Melanie Phillips fillets out-of-touch female reporters in the Beltway, like Gloria Borger, who WON'T let facts get in the way of their asinine predictions about Newt Gingrich & women voters. She shoots and she scores!

2012-01-23T03:05:00.000-05:00

In her Daily Mail blog post of Sunday titled, Well, what a surprise (not), Melanie Phillips quite properly fillets out-of-touch female reporters in the Beltway who WOULDN'T and WON'T let self-evident facts get in the way of their asinine predictions about Newt Gingrich & women voters, per the Marianne Gingrich contretemps of last week.

Predictably, longtime Washington Week in Review panelist Gloria Borger of CNN was among the most egregious of these disconnected talking heads for her asinine "women won't vote for Newt" comments of Thursday immediately following the debate in Charleston on CNN and then on Friday night on PBS.

Phillips , author of one of my favorite books of the past 20 years, 2006's Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within, wrote, in part:

All those who said the onslaught upon Gingrich by his ex-wife Marianne would leave him dead in the water, particularly among women, have been shown to be spectacularly out of touch. Gingrich actually won more women’s votes than his opponents.

She goes on to conclude that in the battle of Newt vs. Mitt,

The gladiator in question may be flawed and far from ideal in a number of respects, but if he’s the only one who can fell his opponents rather than be felled by them, he wins.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://phillipsblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/01/well-what-a-surprise-not.html

-----

C-SPAN video: Melanie Phillips - Londonistan. Heritage Foundation. May 10, 2006. http://youtu.be/DvgypX2-f4k
To watch a higher-quality video of this, see: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/192456-1

http://phillipsblog.dailymail.co.uk/

http://www.melaniephillips.com/

http://twitter.com/MelanieLatest

Tourists, "amateur detectives" and the curious descend on Giglio to see Costa Concordia shipwreck for themselves and opine on its future

2012-01-22T17:34:00.002-05:00

Euronews video: Tourists, "amateur detectives" and the curious continue to descend on Giglio to see the Costa Concordia shipwreck for themselves, and opine on its future. Death toll now stands at thirteen. http://youtu.be/2ISKK6XDqTM

On Thursday I got the chance to watch Aftonbladet TV's LIVE streaming of the disaster site for about a half-hour or so, and was quite amazed at how LITTLE was actually happening in the early afternoon, their time.
It was very odd and no doubt a bit distressing for family members to observe. I emailed the URL out to some of you and would include it here but it's no longer operating.

Aftonbladet TV video: Video of the Costa Concordia and computer graphics depicting various options that may be employed to salvage and tow the ship
away to safety. January 2012.
http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/olyckor/article14233903.ab

Euronews video: Decision on Costa Concordia salvage operation imminent. January 22, 2012. http://youtu.be/HoeoO4jR8ms

See more videos of, on and near the ship at:
http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/olyckor/

For a discussion of how society's norms have changed since the Titanic disaster 100 years ago, see

PJTV video: Costa Concordia disaster: Women and Children First?
http://www.pjtv.com/s/G43TMNA

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http://www.aftonbladet.se/

Newt Gingrich's delicious win in South Carolina will soon flood Florida with Beltway reporters who will ask hard questions about state's Romney-loving GOP Establishment -unlike FL's own MSM

2012-01-22T04:53:00.000-05:00

Winning Our Future video: Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins: Mitt Romney Wasn't Conservative Until He Ran For President. January 21, 2012.
http://youtu.be/qvM64Wl5yNo

Being a Newt Gingrich supporter who expected last night's result- and who predicted as much to many of you weeks ago in emails- and feeling and thinking as I do, I can hardly wait until we start seeing something that's been strangely missing from campaign coverage in Florida.

What's been MIA are fact-filled articles and columns in Florida newspapers, segments on evening network TV newscasts, and pithy posts on knowing nationally-read blogs, on what Florida's GOP Establishment of elected officials and pooh-bahs who endorsed John Huntsman and Rick Perry for president -or desperately wished for Jeb Bush!- are going to be doing over the next ten days to try to rehabilitate their greatly-damaged reputation and image within the state, given how badly that has worked out for some of them.

Especially some of the unctuous ones I, well, personally dislike, many of whom have that whole Silver Spoon thing going on that makes them seem even more phony and detached from reality than you-know-who.

Will they now suck-up to and salute the GOP Beltway/Northeast Establishment and now support Mitt Romney?
Well, what do you think?!!!

And speaking of Silver Spoons, or more factually, Sons of Silver Spoons, when are we going to start seeing some in-depth newspaper articles and columns in the Miami Herald, Tampa Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, Tallahassee Democrat, Orlando Sentinel -i.e. the Florida Mainstream Media that creates the state's Conventional Wisdom out of froth that's so often wrong- on what Mitt Romney supporters like Lighter-than-Lite Connie Mack the Quatro are going to ACTUALLY DO to turn around Romney's slumping prospects here?

No, not what his father, the former Florida Senator with the same name will strongly suggest, what will the young U.S. Senate wannabe Quatro himself DO?

You know, something concrete and tangible to prove that they are not all just well-known drones in the state's not-too-bright and all-too self-serving political hype machine that is also Home Sweet Home along the I-4 Corridor?
Something besides just recommending that he spend more money on ads?
Hmm-m...

(I mean, if Mack's really that formidable a candidate, and those polls numbers we've seen for weeks aren't just name ID numbers, as I've always argued they were, we ought to start seeing something from him right away, right?
And not just in the usual places?!
Me, well, as you know from my past posts, I think Mack has a glass jaw and I will NOT vote for him. I greatly prefer Adam Hasner hands down.)

Some of us will be watching very, very carefully.

The state's journos better figure it out damn quick, because with a few exceptions I can name, it's crystal clear that the vast majority of Florida-based TV and print reporters WONT suddenly develop a spine and become responsible.

WON'T be forthright enough to question the previously-swallowed Conventional Wisdom of the Romney "Inevitability" argument," or write articles that dare to ask in their headlines "Can Connie Mack IV actually help deliver Florida for Romney, or will he fail?," there is a veritable army of print and TV reporters based in the Beltway and the Northeast U.S. that are about to start invading the Sunshine State on Monday morning to do just that, and ask questions the state's journos have largely refused to ask, despite the fact that it's low-hanging fruit indeed.

And if you think the Beltway/Northeast MSM won't take advantage of the chance to get away from cold weather for a week, forget it...

Excerpt from the iconic early 1980's Florida Dept. of Tourism TV ad - "When You Need It Bad We've Got It Good"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxB0kjqO6SI

Old-style tourism ad rules!!

This was by far the most-successful tourism campaign for the state ever.
When I was attending IU, there wasn't anyone I knew there who didn't know this ad and who couldn't sing or hum the jingle.

Which, naturally enough, leads to this classic that was marketing genius...
every week.

CBS-TV's The Jackie Gleason Show -open (color, late 1960's)
http://youtu.be/E4b_-iwJwic
Yes, back when South Florida seemed magical and sophisticated to 7-year old me living in Memphis!

A must-read! As Romney forces & GOP Establishment fear Gingrich's breakthrough in South Carolina, Wash. Post examines S.C. voters' daily media consumption for its electoral & social portent

2012-01-21T04:48:00.002-05:00

The Washington Post
By Evelio Contreras, Marc Fisher, Kat Downs and Jon Cohen
January 20, 2012
-----
Below, the everyday media world of three South Carolina voters who are avid news consumers...
Prepare to see this effort copied by newspapers and TV stations across the country!

The Washington Post
Polarized news market has altered the political process in South Carolina primary

By Marc Fisher
January 20, 2012

LAURENS, S.C. — Once upon a time — oh, about two presidential elections ago — Dianne Belsom would get up in the morning and read the paper, taking in news stories about candidates and campaigns. Some stuff she agreed with, some she didn’t.

This morning, Belsom wakes in her splendidly restored pink Victorian on Main Street in this rural South Carolina town, makes coffee and settles in at her desktop to fire up Facebook. There on her news feed are more than 100 stories that some of her 460 friends have posted since Belsom went to bed eight hours ago.

Read the rest of the article at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-south-carolina-a-window-on-an-ideologically-polarized-news-market/2012/01/11/gIQA2ygPDQ_story.html

This article accompanies a quiz on the Washington Post's website to measure the reader's daily media consumption.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics

N.Y. Times reporter Jeff Zeleny's nonsensical comment re size of Newt Gingrich's GA-6 district is early leader for dopiest political comment of 2012; but it's only January and this is Florida, so...

2012-01-21T01:23:00.000-05:00

Above, Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times on PBS' Washington Week in Review. January 20, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier

So, did you see "it" tonight, in my case, as I was doing some cleaning around the house?
The "it" I refer to was Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times putting his foot firmly into his mouth via a nonsensical comment on tonight's episode of PBS' Washington Week in Review, about, of all things, the size of Newt Gingrich's Georgia congressional district in the 1990's.

Zeleny stated, among other things, in a condescending tone, that it was a "small district."
WTF?
Now I realize that when you're a guest on TV, even PBS, there's great pressure to sound both articulate and clever, and NOT be the anchor that drags the whole show down but...

Congrats to Zeleny, as his comment, three weeks into a new year, is already the leading candidate for the dopiest political comment of the year.
Not that there won't be lots of candidates here in Florida and coast-to-coast nationally who will battle him for the title, which went unrewarded last year due to an oversight of mine -a mistakenly deleted email.

Gingrich's suburban Atlanta CD of the 1990's was the same constituent size as everyone else's in the GA delegation, per the law and per the Georgia legislature redistricting.
But it was NOT the district he'd first been elected to, and he did NOT even benefit from being the House Speaker, since the district he'd formerly represented was carved-out by the Georgia legislature almost two years BEFORE the House Republicans retook the House after more than forty years in the political wilderness, when Gingrich was rewarded for his efforts by being voted Speaker after having previously been the House Minority Whip.

Or, to quote Wikipedia as it currently exists, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich

As a result of the 1990 United States Census, Georgia picked up an additional seat for the 1992 U.S. House elections. However, the Democratic-controlled Georgia General Assembly eliminated the district that Gingrich represented, splitting its territory among three neighboring districts. Much of the southern portion of Gingrich's district, including his home in Carrollton, was drawn into the Columbus-based 3rd District, represented by five-term Democrat Richard Ray. At the same time, the Assembly created a new, heavily Republican 6th District in Fulton and Cobb counties in the wealthy northern suburbs of Atlanta—an area that Gingrich had never represented. However, Gingrich sold his home in Carrollton and moved to Marietta in the new 6th...

(Of course, I already knew this before I double-checked my facts since I knew someone
very sharp from Richard Ray's staff, a Legislative Assistant named Lee Culpepper, who, like me, was very involved with Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) activities on the Hill when Oklahoma congressman Dave McCurdy was running things.
Last I heard, Lee was a lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association, and one of the top lobbyists in Washington. Congressman Ray's staff and office, friendly and whip-smart, was also one of those popular Capitol Hill offices that featured a variation of the usual state marketing device, one that never got old -free food.
Ray's office was never lacking for courtesy packs of peanuts, courtesy of Georgia peanut farmers and the Georgia Peanut Commission, and as a frequent peanut eater, I can tell you without exception, they were damn good peanuts, too!
Johnny Isakson, currently Georgia's junior U.S. Senator, was elected in a special election to succeed Newt as GA-6's rep after he'd resigned from Congress in 1999.)

That Zeleny would somehow imagine that the physical size of a congressional district is a measure of or has a direct correlation to... well, what exactly?
He didn't make any sense before or after his comment, so was that just a brain freeze on his
part, and his mouth kept going, or did he have some genius comment he'd been sitting on all week to drop on us?

If Zeleny is right about whatever this idea of his is that he never quite articulated, than by his own logic, the Congressional representatives of large urban cities that scrunch and compact Minorities together -for the sole purpose of making it next-to-impossible for anyone else to win an election, short of the incumbents's death or their imprisonment- is what exactly, suspect?

Manhattan, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami...
I do so much hope that Zeleny will enlighten us as to his great idea, once he can spit it out intelligently.

Yes, the Democrats running the House of Representatives did try to pour millions into the district in order to defeat Gingrich, after all, he more than any other single individual is directly responsible for ethically-challenged Jim Wright going from Speaker of the House of Representatives to a former member of the House to, ultimately, someone charged with a crime. http://todlindberg.net/?p=20
Gingrich did have a close election or two, but he never lost once he got elected.
Fact.

In case you'd forgotten whom I was talking about...

,
Bernard Goldberg: NYT Reporter's 'Enchanted' Question of Obama 'Fits Our Metrosexual Times'
http://youtu.be/HpN8dmRUNT8

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/29/nyt-reporter-to-obama-what-is-it-about-the-office-thats-enchanted-you/

Meanwhile, it's great that as ethical misconduct and crony capitalism among Congress continues to be a troubling issue for voters of either party, Zeleny and his colleagues on the WWR panel completely ignored the spectacle of President Obama and wannabe-felon Charles Rangel together at a NYC fundraiser Thursday night.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obama-fundraises-once-censured-rangel/325656

Yes, the same powerful person who helped craft the tax laws of this country is the same person who forgot for years that he owned multiple homes, forgot to pay taxes, and who forgot...
But you know what Rangell never forgot to play?
The race card.

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http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/

http://hotair.com/

Do common sense & logic ever intersect in transportation planning? I ask because of the "Radical change proposed for Dulles Rail Project" and well, experience in South Florida

2012-01-20T03:00:00.002-05:00

Just some policy considerations to think about in the new year as plans, great and small, are proposed as solutions to real-world problems here in Hallandale Beach, Broward County, South Florida and the United States... and where you readers out there in the blogosphere live, from Stockholm to Santa Monica, Notting Hill to Sydney.

First, since some of you newer readers don't already know, I worked in Washington, D.C, and lived there and in Arlington County from 1988-2003, where I probably rode the Washington Metro (WMATA) about 12 times a week. This, after a few years of constantly riding the CTA's El into downtown Chicago when I lived in Evanston and Wilmette.

At one point, I lived just a few blocks from the end of the El line at Linden Avenue.

Great in the morning, not so much when coming home in evening rush hour!

http://www.transitchicago.com/assets/1/purpleline_schedules/Linden.pdf

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=112+Linden+ave+Wilmette+IL&hl=en&t=h&hnear=112+Linden+Ave,+Wilmette,+Illinois+60091&z=16&vpsrc=0

I lived right near Lake Michigan at the first house off of Sheridan Road, DIRECTLY across the street from this beautiful site, officially called The Baha'i House of Worship for North America, but which everyone just called The Baha'i Temple.

This is what I looked at from my bedroom window on the south side of the street, and especially at night, it was an amazing sight I never tired of: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/bahaihouseofworship/

http://www.bahai.us/bahai-temple/

View Larger Map

So, all that said, kudos are very much in order for unsuck dc metro blog, who on Tuesday wrote a spot-on Beltway version http://unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com/2012/01/we-can-put-man-on-moon-but.html of a typical South Florida transit snail's-pace story that South Florida resident Matthew Gissen first made public in 2007 in the Miami Herald.
That was a story of epic Miami-Dade County govt. failure that I followed closely and looked at for myself every time I had some free time while in downtown Miami.
I finally mentioned it on my blog almost three years ago:

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/bullet-proof-newspapers-good-copbad.html

Similarly, Thursday, over at the GreaterGreaterWashington blog, consistently one of the best public policy blogs in the country, has a great post by Dan Malouff that bears careful reading, as well as the reader comments, since it has a very learned audience.

Dulles Metro must go to Dulles Airport

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/13404/dulles-metro-must-go-to-dulles-airport/

Malouff's post on the preposterous plan -suggested by a supposed responsible party who actually has a vote on the matter- re the Washington Metrorail's overdue line to Dulles Airport actually NOT going to the airport, is a direct response to this bit of news, which I first heard about here: http://wtop.com/?nid=120&sid=2711431

I was dumbstruck.

This sort of "planning" is something that we know about in South Florida, given the often, to be kind, counter-intuitive way things are done here.

Now in most parts of the country, creating a sensible rail option from scratch, a route from the downtown business or legal community to the nearby airport is usually a no-brainer, unless there are physical or geographical barriers that make costs prohibitive at the beginning.

Frankly, it's often part of the price to be paid for enlisting the help of the business community in getting legislation or a referendum for the system actually passed.

(Then again, they and their employees actually use it)

But as I written here and mentioned in some of the conferences and forums on transit that I've attended down here over the past eight years, in 1970's greater Miami, a rail connection to the airport, for whatever reason, wasn't deemed important enough a priority to make it actually happen, despite how ridiculous that sounds to read all these years alter.

And it has a direct correlation to why certain things are STILL the way they are in greater Miami, and from my perspective, someone who knew where almost everything was in Miami because I'd been there, most of them are for the worse.

Like building sports arenas and stadiums in areas far from population centers that make it easy for fans throughout South Florida to get to and from them easily via rail or train.

That's why getting from Flagler Street, Brickell Avenue or Biscayne Blvd. to Miami International Airport (MIA), then and now, is NOT as simple as paying for a ticket, hopping onto a train and sitting down and reading the newspaper or listening to your iPad for a few minutes, or simply look out the window, like I could in Washington, Chicago and Baltimore on my way to Reagan National, O'Hare and BWI.

That, plus the power of the South Florida taxi cab industry, which showered Dade County commissioners with campaign contributions, and was NOT interested in having customers cut out the middle-man -them!

Here in Broward County, at some point during the 15 years I was working in the Washington, D.C. area and living in Arlington County -near the Ballston Metro station- the Tri-Rail system constructed an "Airport" train station that's NOT actually at Hollywood/Ft. Lauderdale International Airport, but rather in nearby Dania, where you have to wait and catch a bus to actually get to the airport.

But then consider where I live -South Florida.

Here, taxpayers are forever hearing stories from their elected state legislators about their travel hardships, and, I guess, we are supposed to just shrug our collective shoulders and look the other way as these legislators myriad and continual ethical shortcomings and flights of fancy are done after taxpayers have routinely pay $800 for them to take round-trip, non-refundable flights between this area and no, not Los Angeles or Seattle, but to Tallahassee.

And as some of you out there in the blogosphere know independently and some from my having shared articles about it with you over the years via email, some of these state legislators actually have the audacity to publicly complain and bitch to not only local news media about their travails, but also to the FAA, whether about the paucity of airline flights or the size of those planes.

It's not the fault of South Florida taxpayers that the state capital is NOT centrally located, but rather in what is, essentially, southwestern Georgia.

This sort of bitching is so embarrassing, and only makes the Banana Republic rubric applied to Florida harder to shake.

In his post, Malouff reiterates certain basic fundamentals that I believe hold true for concerned taxpayers and chastened activists, no matter where they live, to have any degree of faith and confidence in govt. planning, and transportation planning in particular.

Two sentences in particular resonate for anyone like me who has gone to lots of public meetings in South Florida, esp. about transportation policy & process, and emerged hours later shaking their head.

Cutting so many corners that you don't achieve your goal is not cost savings, it's failure.

The absolute minimum requirement for a Metro line to Dulles Airport must be that it actually reaches Dulles Airport. Period.

He's 100% right.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

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http://www.governing.com/

http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/topic/travel/transportation/public-transportation/T51001001.topic

http://www.transitmiami.com/

Transit Miami is one of the most widely-read blogs in South Florida, especially among people interested in public policy, or, who are, themselves, policy makers. Lots and lots of very educated people who know their way around a City/County Hall and who ALWAYS vote.

Like me.

Newt Gingrich plays hardball, tells truth, electrifies South Carolina GOP debate re education policy, govt. benefits, war on terrorism, Pakistan; the post-debate spin on Sean Hannity Show

2012-01-17T14:39:00.000-05:00

Newt Gingrich campaign video: Newt on Education: Return Power to Parents. January 17, 2012. http://youtu.be/6Gc-x-tZ2bQ

Newt Gingrich campaign video: Newt: "99 Weeks is an Associate Degree". January 17, 2012. http://youtu.be/2Xr72U1jdtE

Newt Gingrich campaign video: Newt Gingrich to Juan Williams: Americans Want Paychecks, Not Government Food Stamps. January 17, 2012.
http://youtu.be/4c1-22w2G7M

Newt Gingrich campaign video: Newt Plan for America's Enemies: Kill Them. January 17, 2011. http://youtu.be/50WYM-1SjQQ

Newt Gingrich campaign video: Newt Gingrich's appearance on Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity Show after the debate. January 17, 2012.
http://youtu.be/NTDP5-7OTj4

All videos are from the January 16, 2012 Republican Presidential debate held at North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina sponsored by Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and the South Carolina Republican Party.

National Journal: Newt Gingrich on Mitt Romney: Why Nominate a Loser?, January 16, 2012. http://bcove.me/afa4zld8

National Journal
CAMPAIGN 2012
Gingrich on Romney: Why Nominate a Loser?
Former speaker says past defeats show Romney, Santorum are unelectable
By Sarah Huisenga
Updated: January 17, 2012 | 1:03 p.m.
January 16, 2012 | 5:32 p.m.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/gingrich-on-romney-why-nominate-a-loser--20120116

The Florida GOP Presidential primary is two weeks from today and I will be voting for Newt Gingrich.
I received my new voter's registration card in the mail on Saturday, exactly eleven days after visiting the Broward Supervisor of Elections HQ in Ft. Lauderdale to do the paperwork to change my party registration.

-----
More information on Newt Gingrich at:

http://www.newt.org/

http://www.youtube.com/user/ngingrich

http://twitter.com/newtgingrich

Please stick to your guns on stronger ethics and do everything in your power to prevent Mayor Resnick & Co. from beginning the race to the bottom of the ethics barrel in Broward

2012-01-15T14:57:00.000-05:00

Above, looking NW at the Broward County Government HQ at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. January 3, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Below is a copy of an email that I sent Friday morning to Broward County Commissioners Suzanne Gunzburger, Barbara Sharief and Chip LaMarca, along with Broward's Inspector General John W. Scott, with a cc to Robert Wechsler, one of the national voices for ethics and transparency in local and state government in the U.S. at cityethics.org, where he blogs on what's going on -or isn't- at http://www.cityethics.org/Blog-RobWechsler

I later sent a copy of it to selected people I know in Broward, South Florida and Tallahassee who have a strong interest in the issue of stronger ethics at the local level in Florida, where most of the corruption currently exists for the most obvious of reasons -opportunity, lack of oversight, morally-compromised and beholden city attorneys, and lack of adequate press coverage.

The same group whom I sent a copy of my previous posts last Sunday about Wilton Manors mayor Gary Resnick and Cooper City mayor Debby Eisinger, whom in my opinion, thru their own words and actions, have come to personify the anti-ethics reform crowd in this county.
Apparently, nothing can be allowed to stand that threatens their perceived power in their respective fiefdoms.

Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols like Gary Resnick & Debby Eisinger, whom we need like more bad restaurants, more ruined-views of the beach... -NOT at all! http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/broward-cities-need-tougher-ethics-laws.html

My coda to "Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols"; Debby Eisinger's curious fact pattern

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-coda-to-broward-cities-need-tougher.html

From my perspective, to put it bluntly, this issue will go a long way towards deciding, before this year's elections, whether or not Broward County's civic activists and organizations are actually prepared to 'walk-the-walk' and get actively engaged, or whether it will be yet another completely uninspiring example of them collectively taking-a-powder, and shying-away from the issue and opportunity to both say and do the right thing for the larger Broward community.

In other words, being a real 'player' in the community who has earned their reputation from actually doing something more than sending out press releases, holding press conferences or taking the side of the real estate/development and business establishment in every fight.

And do I even have to mention here how laughably preposterous objective and well-informed people here view individuals and groups who continually and blindly take the side of the local Broward Democratic Party's top honchos, and the way the party does business?

Especially given what a laughingstock so many of them have made of themselves over the past ten years, given how dependent so many of them are on lobbying local, county and School Board officials?
They are walking-and-talking conflicts-of-interest, unable to separate the personal from the professional and hoping to deal with others with a similar personality.

In my opinion, there are a lot of civic, professional, ethnic community and business groups in South Florida, and Broward County in particular, that want to be taken seriously by the public at large and the press corps, but who seem to have gotten a little too comfortable over the past few years sitting on the sidelines, when it would've been better for everyone involved to have had them actively engaged on community issues that were outside their usual or parochial bailiwick.

I've mentioned the name of some of them to those of you whom I communicate with fairly regularly, and as you more regular readers to the blog know, I was personally less-than- thrilled at the apathy shown in Broward by some of these same groups when the official Florida Senate congressional and legislative redistricting meeting finally hit town.

Nobody had the foresight to actually host a pre-meeting get-together so that open-minded citizens could get an overview of what they would later see presented, and what other options were reasonable that were in compliance with the FairDistricts requirements that Florida voters overwhelming approved.
Instead of seizing the opportunity that was just sitting there, these Broward groups, individually and collectively, did NOTHING.

Simply put, it's time for them to get off the sidelines and cowboy up, or risk becoming superfluous to what takes place in the future.
I'm not the only one who's paying close attention to see who does what.
Just saying...

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Per Brittany Wallman's to-the-point Broward Politics blog post of Thursday,
Wilton Manors' Resnick seeks to undo parts of new ethics code, on Jan. 31 ballot
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2012/01/wilton_manors_resnick_seeks_to.html
I merely reiterate to you all what I wrote Sunday -
Broward cities need tougher ethics laws...
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/broward-cities-need-tougher-ethics-laws.html

Having read her story that included this newest grab-bag of excuses offered up by Mayor Resnick, I will make arrangements next week to try to speak to you all for just a few minutes to let you know why I believe that standing silent in the face of this frontal assault on the new ethics rules is a losing proposition for everyone in Broward County who wants this area to not obly have a higher Quality-of-Life, but a higher quality of civic life, too.

Lower standards might be why some businesses choose to relocate to some foreign countries, but lower standards and the perception that some municipal elected officials in Broward have an upside-down understanding of what public service is, should never allow that to become SELF-SERVICE.

But that seems to be exactly what Mayor Resnick desires for himself.
Me, I don't think the people of his city or this county actually owe him a certain economic position in life, nor do I believe that a city should be allowed to simply opt-out so that that their mayor and his pals can ignore laws he finds personally constricting economically.

I know what side of this ethics fight that I'm on, and having attended those early morning Broward Ethics Comm. meetings, I'm equally happy if not more so to let everyone I know learn what sorts of characters are behind this effort, and the sorts of damnable, self-serving excuses that are being trotted-out to try to justify this insulting end-run around a standard that actually means something.

Mr. Scott, IF you need a Broward citizen to make a formal complaint to you in order to get your office officially involved in this matter, I'm only too happy to volunteer.
Frankly, given what I've seen and heard first-hand from attending those Ethics Comm. meetings, often dumbstruck at the transparent early attempts by some members to water-down anything that had any teeth to speak of, it'll be my pleasure.

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Since I wrote this on Friday and Monday is a holiday, I'll post any received email comments, official or otherwise, later in the week to give people some time to formulate their own thoughts. But you're welcome to respond here on the blog, too, of course.

Finally at the weekend when the NFL really means NOT FOR LONG; 1970's NFL intros for ABC, CBC and NBC broadcasts

2012-01-13T22:34:00.000-05:00

1973 NBC Sports NFL broadcast theme

http://youtu.be/nv-datkQYUU

Yes, those were the days...

In those dark teen years of the early-to-mid Seventies, many years before consumer VCRs existed and became commonplace -and were soon taken for granted in no time by kids who grew-up thinking that you'd always been able to see something from television a second time, on your own schedule- I can recall that the Monday after the first NFL weekend of the year, my friends and I at J.F.K. Junior High in North Miami Beach spent time trying to properly identify the order of the identifiable NFL players during this quick-cutting video montage of NBC's.

And frankly, wonder whether or not ABC would be updating their intro -yet again- that night for Monday Night Football, which, in retrospect, they actually changed less than they did the 'third man' in the booth after popular Don Meredith left to pursue entertainment options in Hollywood.

1984 ad for Safeway's Super Store -They've got a sale on VCRs, only $369; I guess the savings gets passed on to you! -LOL!
http://youtu.be/T6mD2bZc9w8

The VCR format fight: VHS vs. Beta TV commercial for NEC, 1984
http://youtu.be/FnaL50cwh-Q

The three American TV network's football themes gripped my friends and I from the start, and quickly became embedded in our young brains, which perhaps best explains why when you see them again on YouTube, you're struck by the fact that not just for my friends and I, but for millions of other sports fans alive then who watched them, they still remain preferable to anything on the air now, esp on ESPN or Fox-TV.
And they say as much in the YouTube comments, too.

When my friends and I at JFK got together at lunch, P.E. or after school, and it turned out that someone hadn't been paying close attention to the fact that the first establishing shot of the NBC intro was one from the the defending NFL champion Dolphins locker room... well, you suddenly weren't such an NFL expert after all.

Yes, we did not grade our friends' NFL prowess on a Bell Curve.
It was always sink-or-swim.

How many players in the three videos I've posted can you name?
(And how many of what would now be considered illegal hits?)

To name but a few: Danny Abramowicz -fades from his gold-colored Saints pants to the gold of the NBC text- Larry Little, Larry Csonka, Joe Namath, Essex Johnson, Ken Stabler, Cliff Branch, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Tommy Casanova, Walter Payton, Craig Morton, Willie Brown...

And the player who is seen the longest in the NBC intro at the top is Dolphins All-Pro guard Bob Kuechenberg, who hits his own helmet at the end to show that he's strapped up and ready to play.

CBS Sports "NFL Today" intro from the 1970's
http://youtu.be/tUUMMlGPeMA

1971 ABC Monday Night Football intro for Baltimore Colts at Minnesota Vikings, with a Johnny Unitas pre-game interview with Howard Cosell.

http://youtu.be/Kr_fa-hR3zY

For those of you too young to know or remember, the Baltimore Colts were the defending NFL champs in 1971, having won Super Bowl V nine months before in Miami, beating the Dallas Cowboys 16-13 on the last play of the game. The very talented Minnesota Vikings had lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the previous Super Bowl, which is why Howard Cosell is so clearly animated about the match-up in what was then the second year of ABC's Monday Night Football.

This is one of the best quality videos of 1970's NFL football that I've seen in years, and includes TV commercials.

"The Obamas": You've heard the anecdotes, now meet the author Saturday & Sunday on C-SPAN2's Book TV: NY Times reporter Jodi Kantor

2012-01-13T20:35:00.000-05:00

Jodi Kantor, The Obamas
Saturday at 11 p.m.; Sunday at 9:45 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Eastern

Jodi Kantor, Washington correspondent for the New York Times, examines the relationship between President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. The author reports on the changes to the couple's relationship as they entered the White House and their efforts to raise their children and balance their personal life against the requirements of their public life. Jodi Kantor discusses her book with David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC.

It's interesting to imagine whether or not someone in the audience will say something about the criticism of Kantor -from a pro-Michelle Obama p.o.v.- like how can she possibly know what was in Mrs. Obama's mind or what she may've said to Carla Bruni about the fish-bowl existence in The White House, when everyone knows, most especially David Brooks, her colleague, that Times columnist Maureen Dowd -a subject of past blog posts here- has made a speciality over the years of putting dozens and dozens of well-known Washington pols or power brokers on the psychiatrist couch in her columns, and tried to explain their actions without ever speaking to them, which many greatly resent.

She especially milked it in trying to draw distinctions or explain away the policy and emotional differences between Bush 41 and Bush 43, as well as the differences between their respective supporters and friends, like Brent Scowcroft's constant criticism of Bush 43's foreign policy.
Just saying... BOLO!

30 years to the day of heartbreaking Washington National-Ft. Lauderdale Flight 90 - Washington Post video: Air Florida crash: Reflections on a tragic day in D.C.

2012-01-13T08:23:00.000-05:00

Washington Post video: Air Florida #90 crash: Reflections on a tragic day in D.C. Washington Post reporters Jura Koncius and Peter Perl, who covered the crash for the paper 30 years ago, reflect on the events that day. January 13, 2012.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/air-florida-crash-reflections-on-a-tragic-day-in-dc/2012/01/12/gIQAANhytP_video.html?hpid=z5

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-buzz/post/air-florida-crash-washington-post-coverage-from-jan-14-1982/2012/01/12/gIQAVta5tP_blog.html

Later today in this space I will share some memories of that day, one of the days in my four years at IU that are still crystal clear to me because of all the many other South Florida-based Hoosiers on campus that I spoke to that day, all of whom, like me and our friends at FSU and in Gainesville, used Air Florida frequently, and were desperate to get details on passenger names.

I first got the news of the crash from Dan Rather via a CBS-News Special Report, as people on my floor started yelling for everyone to immediately turn on their TVs.

CBS News Special Report Intros, 1968-present
http://youtu.be/OK29Mnkxi3Y

Above, the 14th Street Bridge, scene of the disaster 30 years ago, is framed at the top of this morning's Washington Post, with a photo showing an airline preparing to make that banking turn that all planes landing and taking-off at present-day Washington Reagan National Airport must do to avoid flying over the District's restricted space, something I came to take for granted when I lived there and watched the planes from Gravelly Point.
"Long ago, the scene of disaster," The Washington Post, January 13, 2012

If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, it will probably not come as any great surprise to you that the Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel do NOT have a single story today about the 30th anniversary of the tragic Air Florida crash in their newspapers, despite the fact that Ft. Lauderdale was its final destination.
I'm not telling you anything new when I say that's as good an indication as any of how truly bad and lazy journalism has gotten in South Florida.

National Geographic Channel - Seconds from Disaster: Air Florida Flight 90. Originally aired September 27, 2006. http://youtu.be/9yANjWmRS-U

Cold Reality of the Sunshine State: Romney has won 2 small states whose total # of votes cast were less than # of absentee ballots requested in Florida -for an election in 3 weeks!; Romney's glass jaw

2012-01-11T22:52:00.001-05:00

Newt Gingrich 2012 campaign video: On Bain Capital: It's a Question of Character, Not Capitalism. January 11, 2012. http://youtu.be/yV6qUI5-ij4

Above, audio of Newt Gingrich's appearance this afternoon on Sean Hannity's nationally-syndicated radio show, where he discussed Mitt Romney's track record with Bain Capital. He's rightly frustrated and at pains to explain the subtle yet important distinction of his having asked hard questions and demanded answers about what Romney actually did for the company, not Gingrich's questioning of the free enterprise system.

Unfortunately, among others, the Mainstream Media's punditocracy of the Left and the Right seem perfectly willing to ignore the clear distinction.

Even worse for well-informed voters who want someone who will really take the fight to President Obama and make him the focal point of the campaign, that large group ignoring the distinction also includes the sycophantic Republican Party 'Establishment' based in the Beltway and in the state capitols, who favor political coronations, not hard-fought floor fights on public policy issues.

(To figure out who these particular GOP characters are, just picture John Sununu and his small-minded ilk taking up space in the Bush 41 White House, James Baker's State Dept., and carious agencies. Then, think of their many, many younger Gray Flannel suit-wearing underlings, who since then have either made it to Congress or became prominent in D.C. not by solving problems creatively, but rather by promising to finesse people they already know in exchange for money. Yes, lots and lots of smart but philosophically weak and outside-the-box averse guys. As it happens, to be honest, often the type of guys my then-girlfriends had broken-up with in order to be with me.
The sort of well-educated but oblivious people who in the early Nineties often seemed more afraid of the fact that their whole worldview had been tossed upside-down by the fall of the Berlin Wall, and who DIDN'T want to recognize the bravery of the people in Eastern Europe and reward it by recognizing their independence, but who preferred instead that it stay in the Soviet sphere because that way they didn't have to think about it.
Brent Scowcroft-types.
These are THE people whom I most loathed of any I dealt with in the 15 years I lived and worked in Washington. And there are still lots of them who haven't learned a single lesson in twenty years.)

It's the same reason that the GOP establishment was so deathly afraid of the armies of retired accountants, military vets, college students and Libertarian-oriented school teachers interested in financial solvency in Washington who were the vanguard of the Tea Party movement -there was nothing they could offer to appease them.
They didn't want something in return, they wanted concrete results in Congress.

Romney's hyper-sensitive and completely calculated "How dare you criticize free enterprise..." response to Gingrich's probing questions, when that's NOT what's at issue, is also mentioned as part of the larger problem with Romney.

Not just that he is thin-skinned regarding constructive criticism of his own record, per se, but as many surmise, Romney's chiseled jaw is, in fact, a glass jaw.
One that Obama's minions will start jabbing and punching at long before the GOP convention if Romney wins.
Think Chuck Wepner in the 1975 Ali fight.

In short, Romney is being criticized on the specifics of what HE did in specific situations when he was in charge.
Period.

His ability -or inability- to make principled decisions and stick by them is exactly what's being criticized, and his own track record, post-Salt Lake City Olympics, is why that is such a mother lode.

Newt Gingrich 2012 campaign video: For the dogs. January 11, 2012.
http://youtu.be/x-4bm5NxqPY

Cold Reality of the Sunshine State: Mitt Romney has won two small states whose total # of votes cast were less than the # of absentee ballots already requested by voters in Florida... for an election three weeks from last night.

I had actually heard speculation about the way these numbers would probably sort themselves out last week -ironically, while I was on my way to the Supervisor of Elections office in Broward County HQ's in Ft. Lauderdale- but nothing has changed to make them inaccurate.

If anything, the contrast in numbers will only get exponentially larger, something that national reporters, columnists and anchors will find themselves unable to resist mentioning -over and over again- when Romney supporters crow about what sort of "mandate" they have.
Just saying...

Orlando Sentinel
Central Florida Political Pulse blog
RPOF: Florida absentee ballot requests now more than Iowa, NH vote totals
2012 Florida presidential primary, 2012 presidential election — posted by scottpowers on January, 10 2012 11:17 AM

Absentee ballot requests in Florida now are double the total sought for the 2008 presidential primary and are more than all the votes cast in

Iowa and expected today in New Hampshire.
That’s the word from the Republican Party of Florida, which argues there is no voter enthusiasm gap this year.

Read the rest of the post at: http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2012/01/rpof-florida-absentee-ballot-requests-now-more-than-iowa-nh-vote-totals.html

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http://www.newt.org/

http://www.youtube.com/user/ngingrich

Doug Hewett named new Hollywood City Manager; Hardly Breaking News: New year of 2012 already showing that the old bad habits of Miami's local TV news operations won't die -apathy!

2012-01-11T14:38:00.000-05:00

Looking west at Hollywood City Hall following the Hollywood City Commission meeting that led to the selection of Doug Hewett as the new City Manager.

January 6, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Continuing their policy of the new economic realism, wherein stories about celebrities, diets and/or plastic surgery for women, toys for affluent people and their over-indulged kids, and crime stories involving women in danger or peril -especially mothers!- are deemed more important than what happens in local government that actually affects everyone -in part because they have lots of South Florida advertisers who want the not-so-educated female demographic for whom that is 'must-see TV'- Miami's local TV news operations threw a collective wet blanket on the big news coming out of Hollywood City Hall late last Friday afternoon.

Hollywood, Florida's 12th-largest city, selected 40-year old Fayetteville, N.C. Assistant City Manager Doug Hewett to be their new City Manager on a 5-2 vote, following hours of presentations by the six final candidates on what their strategy/ideas might be in their first few weeks in the position if they were selected to get the city moving forward.

The hiring of a young, personable, savvy and very well-regarded public administrator, who over a few shorts days seemed to pick-up on the small nuances of what makes Hollywood and its neighborhoods and its civic activist community unique and very hands-on, after touring the city and talking with many of the city's most well-known involved residents and civic activists, is a move that represents the final piece of a puzzle that many Hollywood taxpayers and observers firmly hope will stabilize what had become a very rocky ship of state of late in 2011 after the dismissal of former City Manager Cameron Benson, with bitter cleavages emerging all over the city between political/neighborhood activists and Fire/Police union members and their enthusiastic/exasperating supporters.

As I've stated in this space previously, many of the latter are still visibly outraged over the results of the September public referendum that forced much-tougher financial terms on their members -roughly a 12% pay cut to prevent actual dismissals of Fire/ Rescue and Police- and as of this writing, there are at least two city commission candidates backed by the unions who've already filed their paperwork to put that lingering animus to work for them as they challenge incumbent commissioners Heidi O'Sheehan from District 3 and Richard Blattner of District 4.

Owing to election changes necessitated by the successful passage of a charter issue by Hollywood voters, rather than having staggered elections this year, ALL six city commissioners and Mayor Peter Bober are up for re-election this November, with only Comm. Fran Russo publicly announcing that she will be not be seeking re-election in District 5, which consists of most of Hollywood west of the Florida Turnpike.

http://www.hollywoodfl.org/city_commission/hlwd_com.htm

http://www.hollywoodfl.org/EthicsCommittee/DisclosureSearchPage.aspx

http://www.hollywoodfl.org/election/2012/CampaignTreasurersReport.htm

For a few observers in the Hollywood Commission chambers who were really paying attention to the larger public policy picture last Friday -like your humble blogger, for instance- the real news of the day lay more in who was completely missing from the Commission chambers rather than the selection of the certain someone who might soon be calling it home.

That is to say, noticeable by their collective absence.

Indeed, as Sherlock Holmes is forever reminding us, the absence of evidence is, in fact, evidence of a sort.

Showing that the old bad habits of last year that we have remarked upon so many times here on the blog -and in animated conversations and emails with so many of you readers- that have left so many tens of thousands of concerned South Florida residents quite literally appalled at what passes for news coverage at Miami's English and Spanish-speaking TV stations, were, in fact, NOT left behind in the dust-bin of history after all, even while more traditional subjects are shunted aside, Miami's CBS4, NBC6, WSVN-TV 7 & Local 10 News were all no-shows at Hollywood City Hall.

As were their Spanish-speaking colleagues at local TV news outlets at Channels 23, 41 and 51, despite the fact that there are lots of Spanish-speaking residents in Hollywood.

But yours truly videotaped the entire proceedings, as well as Thursday night's public get-together of the six final candidates at Hollywood's Arts & Culture Center on Harrison Street.

I plan on posting the comments that I videotaped last Thursday night by CM-designate Doug Hewett and his presentation of Friday afternoon on my blog and YouTube Channel within the next few days.

I'll need to do some editing first and break up his presentation into 3 or 4 segments, since his presentation was the longest, albeit, also the most interesting one to listen to.

Former McKinney, TX City Manager Frank Ragan received the second-most votes last Friday afternoon and was a very compelling candidate, with lots of tangible qualities and talents that surely would've helped Hollywood, based on his impressive resume and facility for talking about his accomplishments without any un-necessary boasting.

He particularly grabbed the full attention of Hollywood Commissioners Linda Sherwood and Richard Blattner, who voted for him on the first ballot.

Yes, I wish he were already the City Manager in Hallandale Beach, where Mark Antonio will be leaving in June.

Above and below, Frank Ragan addresses the Hollywood City Commission and makes his formal presentation. On the dais, left-to-right, Commissioners Patricia Asseff, Beam Furr, Heidi O'Sheehan, Mayor Peter Bober, Commissioners Richard Blattner, Fran Russo and Linda Sherwood. January 6, 2012 photos by South Beach Hoosier.

Personally, I wish that Ragan was already in a responsible upper-management position in either Broward County or up in Tallahassee so he could positively effectuate economic development, trade and investment policies, since the record is clear that he has the ability to see opportunities that other smart people in those positions DON'T.

I can't recall the last time I heard someone who worked for Broward or in Tallahassee say something about those subjects that really impressed me in quite the ways that Ragan, a one-time Hoosier, did in his presentation Friday, a fact that seemed to be shared by Comm. O'Sheehan.

Follow-up to the Mainstream Media's scrum re Univision's attempted blackmail of Sen. Marco Rubio -man bites dog, journalism watchdog bites newspaper, NOT offending Mexican-based TV network that provoked ethical contretemps

2012-01-10T02:02:00.000-05:00

Sen. Marco Rubio video: "We Are a Nation of Haves and Soon-to-Haves." Sen. Rubio offers his perspectives on his first year in office and the challenges that remain unsolved going into 2012. December 16, 2011. http://youtu.be/WiKrCUiP-fg

Follow-up to the Mainstream Media's scrum re Univision's attempted blackmail of Sen. Marco Rubio -man bites dog, journalism watchdog bites newspaper, NOT offending Mexican-based TV network that provoked ethical contretemps

What follows is part of an email that I sent out last Thursday as the logical if not-always well-understood follow-up to the Mainstream Media's scrum re Univision's attempted blackmail of Sen. Marco Rubio.

I originally wrote about this subject three months ago in an October 3rd post titled,
Marco Rubio vs. Univision - An attempted political smear FINALLY awakens the Miami Herald to Univision's thread-bare claim to journalism. Finalmente!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/marco-rubio-vs-univision-attempted.html

What makes this particular media case unusual is that it's a true case of 'man-bites-dog,' in that a New York-based journalism group that once upon a time enjoyed a largely esteemed reputation across the country for journalism probity and a watchdog-like concern for ethical shortcuts and laxness within the industry, has instead consciously chosen to attack a newspaper and not aim its barbs at the Mexican-based TV network that once again has revealed its true colors as a redoubt for faux-journalism that would be unacceptable in most American newsrooms, no matter how small, no matter how politically parochial.

Two days before veteran Florida reporter and institutional memory Marc Caputo's pointed rebuttal piece ran in the Miami Herald's political blog last Thursday, the following was reported in The Huffington Post, which in my experience is not always the most reliable of news sources, given its unctuous quotient.

(I had already read the original cites before coming across this.)

The Huffington Post

Marco Rubio And Univision Feud Sparks Disagreement Between New Yorker And Miami Herald

First Posted: 1/4/12 01:52 PM ET

Updated: 1/4/12 06:36 PM ET

A feud between America's most prominent Hispanic Republican, Marco Rubio, and America's most popular Hispanic network, Univision, is now a debate between the Miami Herald and the New Yorker.

Last summer, Univision aired a story about the 1987 drug-trafficking bust of Rubio's brother-in-law. In October, the Miami Herald ran a front page story that Univision executives tried to blackmail Rubio with the information in exchange for his appearance on their "Meet the Press"-type show.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/marco-rubio-univision-new-yorker-herald_n_1183936.html

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Miami Herald
Naked Politics blog

Of darts and hypocrisy: CJR's falsehoods and omissions in Marco Rubio-Univision-Herald flap
Marc Caputo on January 6, 2012

After a high-profile politician repeatedly stiff-arms a TV network over an interview, the media company then dredges up a 24 year-old drug-bust story about his brother-in-law. It runs in prime time. Even its viewers bash the story.

A newspaper later reports a behind-the-scenes tussle over the story: The network's news chief allegedly offered a deal to soften or kill the drug-bust story if the politician gave the long-sought interview. The news chief denies the allegation.

To the Columbia Journalism Review's Erika Fry, it was clear who deserved the most-jaundiced look: The newspaper, The Miami Herald & El Nuevo Herald.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/01/after-a-high-profile-politician-repeatedly-stiff-arms-a-tv-network-over-an-interview-the-media-company-then-dredges-up-a-24.html

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The New Yorker

WAR OF CHOICE

Marco Rubio and the G.O.P. play a dangerous game on immigration.

by Ken Auletta

JANUARY 9, 2012

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/09/120109fa_fact_auletta

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http://twitter.com/marcacaputo

Pow! Former Dem. congressman Artur Davis of Alabama slices-and-dices, marinates and sautés the N.Y. Times' Andy Rosenthal in the National Review Online. Delicious!

2012-01-09T18:24:00.001-05:00

Pow! Former Dem. congressman Artur Davis of Alabama slices-and-dices, marinates and sautés the N.Y. Times' Andy Rosenthal in the National Review Online. Delicious!

But first, the necessary predicate, which I sent some of you the day it appeared in The Post:

The Washington Post
The Fix blog
Former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis talks party-switching
Posted by Aaron Blake at 03:18 PM ET, 12/30/2011

Former Democratic congressman Artur Davis, who has been a thorn in the side of Democrats in the aftermath of his loss in the 2010 Alabama gubernatorial primary, is a man without a political party.

In an interview with The Fix, Davis openly speculated about running for office as an independent or even a Republican. In both cases, he suggested his decision not to make the switch has as much to do with the difficulties involved as any desire he has to remain a Democrat.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/former-democratic-rep-artur-davis-talks-party-switching/2011/12/30/gIQAmOKyQP_blog.html

Reader comments at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/former-democratic-rep-artur-davis-talks-party-switching/2011/12/30/gIQAmOKyQP_blog.html

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
Rosenthal’s Amnesia
The Times columnist forgets how protesters treated LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Bush, . . .
By Artur Davis
January 9, 2012 4:00 A.M.

Lyndon Johnson was loathed enough that, in his final year in office, he dared not make a public appearance other than at a military base; it was commonplace for chanting crowds to gather and spray verbal obscenities at LBJ’s White House. Jimmy Carter’s presidency was a routine subject of cultural derision, some of it viciously aimed at his pre-teen daughter and his brother. Bill Clinton spawned so much hate that at least some of his adversaries spread strange rumors that he was connected to murder; then there was this thing called impeachment. George W. Bush inflamed some of his enemies enough that they carried signs crudely depicting him as a war criminal or a Hitler clone.

I mention all these instances of ugliness directed at presidents because they are apparently unknown to Andrew Rosenthal, a New York Times columnist, who caused a stir last week by implying that strident opposition to Barack Obama is racially motivated, and that it’s all part of a racist tide building in advance of the November elections.

Read the rest of the essay at:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/287536/rosenthal-s-amnesia-artur-davis

In case you forgot who ran that race-based ad campaign against Bobby Jindal in 2003 that's mentioned in the article above, it was Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.

POLITICO
Artur Davis: From Dem star to exile
By: Alex Isenstadt
December 1, 2011 11:37 PM EST

The future once seemed limitless for Artur Davis.

Not so long ago, he was viewed as one of the Democratic Party’s rising stars, routinely evoking comparisons to Barack Obama. A smart, ambitious Harvard Law School graduate like Obama, Davis appeared to be on a trajectory to make history as Alabama’s first black governor. Some saw the youthful congressman as a future attorney general.

Today, all that is gone.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/69578.html

Reader comments at:
http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=1&subcatid=1&threadid=6210856

Anyone who's well-read, with a lick of common sense and possessed of an open mind, and who has spent any serious amount of time living and working in the Washington, D.C. area, knows almost from osmosis that nobody-but-nobody is EVER more popular with the ranks of the Beltway's permanent Democratic-leaning Mainstream Media than a Republican former insider or power-broker who says positive things about the Democratic Party's policies, or, who attacks another prominent Republican, the better-known the better.

This explains the recent phenomena the past three months of appearances on U.S. network TV and the cablenets by former GOP House members, staffers and party officials from the 1990's, many of whom had completely fallen off the MSM's radar, so long as they have something negative to say about Newt Gingrich, even if they owe their own rise from complete obscurity to prominence to Newt.
(That is, if you believe that nobody from Romney's PAC was involved in any way with coordinating this shopping of these anti-Newt/pro-Republican establishment types to make it easier for the MSM to find them.)

Conversely, nobody is ever treated more like a leper by the MSM than a Democrat who decides -whether out of an overabundance of backbone, bluster, spite or some other reason- to pop-open the hood of the post-Clinton Democratic Party and take a hard look at the role of their pals in the race-identity politics movement and SEIU by performing a LIVE autopsy.
Nobody wants to see under the hood and see the meat being made.

Fox News video: Daily Caller reporter Michelle Fields discusses proposed voter ID laws and former AL congressman Artur Davis says via videotape that he believes voter fraud is more present in the absentee ballot process than it is at the actual voting booth, and relates the experience in Alabama.

http://youtu.be/etSdS1gbQaA