Showing posts with label Marco Rubio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marco Rubio. Show all posts

Sunday, June 16, 2013

More bad news about Team Rubio: Contempt for Floridians 24/7! Not that you'll hear about this from Miami's sleepwalking press corps but... Rich Lowry tweets what Ryan Lizza's new New Yorker piece re immigration reform reveals about Marco Rubio's staff, and Politico adds fuel to the fire: "Marco Rubio's office shows their contempt for American workers" (More interested in legalizing illegal aliens than plight of average Floridians.) And then some!;






















More of the inherent weaknesses of Team Marco are being revealed every day.
That is, IF you are paying attention. (Like me.)

 Sounds to me like the anonymous Rubio staffer quoted here,
http://www.politico.com/playbook/0613/playbook10932.html?hp=l6
is talking about Overtown, Liberty City, Opa-Locka and Carol City and Miami Gardens and large swaths of Fort Lauderdale to me.
Do Reps. Frederica Wilson and Alcee Hastings agree with this assessment of their constituents?

 Too bad for this country and this state that so many Florida-based reporters and columnists are in-the-bag for Rubio, even those who disagree with him philosophically or politically. 
They continually pull their punches and don't challenge him enough -just like they pull their punches for almost everyone else, too.
That used to be called gutless, but now called "new normal" in American journalism.

 As many of you regular readers of the blog may recall, while I lived and worked in Washington for 15 years, I always thought that Tim Russert was very over-rated and very fortunate to be a top dog in an era where there were so many no-talent journalists in the Washington Beltway who were more publicist than journalist, people who carried water for policies, not honestly examine them.

 Still, despite my feelings about him, I'm 100% certain that the late host of NBC News 'Meet the Press" would've absolutely humbled Marco Rubio and brought him down a few pegs the past few weeks as the immigration debate has once again become one of the main issues in D.C. now that the Beltway media have decided amongst themselves that the the Benghazi and IRS scandals don't really matter since they would require lots of legwork during the hot D.C. summer.  

 I think Russert would've positively undressed Rubio like a storefront mannequin by running one of those incisive video sequences he was so noted for that would show Rubio's recent penchant for flip-flopping in ways that would be hard to get out of your head.
He'd then come back from the videos with a LIVE interview and ask, "When will you be changing your mind again? And will you be just as certain then as you were this week and last month that you were right, right before you changed your mind?"

 It's the bell that isn't ringing, that punch that nobody in DC seems interested or willing to deliver to Rubio's glass jaw, which is absolutely frustrating the hell out of me, especially given Rubio's very pious comments about his role and his comments about how necessary it is that all of the 11 million illegals get to stay.
Where's the proof that they should ALL stay, especially the ones that aren't interested in becoming citizens? 
Shouldn't we able to make some distinctions? 

 Like the ones that Mickey Kaus talked about?
Serial drunk drivers!


http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/13/the-secret-dui-factor/

So why is Rubio so mum about other supporters of S.744 saying they think requiring people to be able to speak and understand basic English before becoming a U.S. citizen, as he would require, is a bridge too far?
Nobody even asks him!
What kind of people think THAT common sense requirement is unreasonable?

 Since you asked, the very people and groups who are constantly emailing the Miami Herald, Tampa Bay Times and the Orlando Sentinel and being quoted there, which are then picked-up and run on TV station websites.

 Still, say what you will about how contemptuous Rubio's staff may be, they can't be worse than the many unprofessional female staffers Connie Mack III had for years while he was Florida's junior senator, who would order beauty and health supplies for themselves over the main telephone in the front reception room while you waited to see someone.
Retin A anyone?
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Friday, June 14, 2013

re immigration reform: Is Marco Rubio becoming a dissembling, thin-skinned, over-exposed loser? Byron York observes the metamorphosis of Marco Rubio on immigration from border security stalwart to a flip-flopper who now wants amnesty first border security later, and who objects to being called a flip-flopper or #sellout. York puts it perfectly: Rubio: "We need to legalize immigrants so they can pay for border security"

Is Marco Rubio becoming a dissembling, thin-skinned, over-exposed loser? Byron York observes the metamorphosis of Marco Rubio on immigration from border security stalwart to a flip-flopper who now wants amnesty first border security later, and who objects to being called a flip-flopper or #sellout. York puts it perfectly: Rubio: "We need to legalize immigrants so they can pay for border security"
Hmm-m... interesting. 
Out of curiosity I checked @marcorubio and he hasn't tweeted ANYTHING about immigration in well over a month. No tell-tale sign of his flip-flopping!
The Washington Examiner
Immigration fight revolves around security question
By Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent
June 13, 2013  8:00 pm
There's a fundamental conflict at the heart of the Senate debate over the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill. Most Republicans believe a policy to integrate 11 million currently illegal immigrants into American society must be conditioned on stronger border security and internal enforcement. Most Democrats don't. At bottom, that's what the fight is about.
Most Republicans believe security must come before integration, in one of two ways. Some believe enhanced security must be in place -- not a plan, but a reality -- before the 11 million can be granted temporary legal status. 



The Washington Examiner
Rubio: We need to legalize immigrants so they can pay for border security
By Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent
June 13, 2013  10:00 pm 
Why is it necessary to legalize the roughly 11 million currently-illegal immigrants in the U.S. before newly enhanced border security and internal enforcement measures are in place? Sen. Marco Rubio, the leading Republican on the Senate’s Gang of Eight, says part of the reason is that the federal government can’t afford to secure the border on its own and needs financial help from the immigrants themselves, in the form of fines paid when they are legalized.
Rubio made the statement during a radio interview after he voted against an amendment from Republican Sen. Charles Grassley that would have put off legalization until after the border is secure — a position supported by majorities of voters across the political spectrum.





Byron York @ByronYork  https://twitter.com/ByronYork 
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Wednesday, June 12, 2013

When Rush Limbaugh admits he's disappointed in Marco Rubio's flip-flop on immigration, it's only going to get worse for Rubio. Only positive of S.744, the Schumer-Rubio “comprehensive” immigration amnesty bill, i.e the #setup4sellout, IF it passes, is that Rubio gets properly 'schooled' and roughed-up a bit to wear off his new car smell and conservatives see his true faults for what they are -he's still too gullible. Consider that Mission (already) Accomplished; Mickey Kaus is masterfully connecting-the-dots on why defeating this is more important to U.S. long-term than getting more info re Benghazi, IRS, NSA snooping scandals


The Daily Caller video: Rush Limbaugh "disappointed" in Sen. Marco Rubio for changing his "set-in-stone" position on immigration and border security and now telling Spanish-language media (Univision) something different from what he'd been saying before.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/11/rush-limbaugh-disappointed-in-rubio-audio/

 Senator Rubio now says he favors amnesty first and border security second, which in my opinion is not a good policy for this country's future because we know from past experience that the federal government will NOT fairly enforce new rules any more than they are enforcing the current ones. 
Especially under President Obama












On Tuesday, a big day for S.744, in the so-called gateway to Latin America, it was 16 minutes into the CBS4/Miami 11 p.m. newscast before immigration was even brought up -and that was less than 45 secs!

Not that it came as any surprise to your faithful observer of the passing political scene here at the blog, but on Tuesday, a big day on Capitol Hill for S.744, the Schumer-Rubio “comprehensive” immigration amnesty bill, here in what is constantly called The Gateway to Latin America, it was 16 minutes into the CBS4/Miami 11 p.m. newscast (while Miami Heat's blowout loss to the Spurs was still going on over at ABC) before immigration was even brought up -and was less than 45 secs!

Is that a result of the fact that the corporate management types at South Florida news media outlets, to say nothing of their sycophantic advertising people, are SO biased in favor of AMNESTY at all costs, that it never even occurs to them that it might not get the 60 votes?

 Is that a result of them being in complete lockstep over this issue and NEVER allowing their own people or others to write, report or comment intelligently on why so many Americans are genuinely opposed to the bad and unsound provisions of this bill?

 Never allow any public discussion about why so many smug Democrats nationally and in Florida just shrug their shoulders over security and border control on our own borders, but when it comes to Israel's, well, that's another story.

 THAT requires them to actually fly to Israel to -yes- "stand with Israel" after their taxpayer-financed spokesperson fires off some self-serving press releases to the lapdog legacy media
so that Jewish voters hereabouts know they've jumped thru the hoop again.

How many times over the years have we read about national, state and South Florida pols who are happy "to stand with Israel" but who don't give a crap about their fellow American on the Arizona border who lives on a farm or a ranch miles and miles from any police protection.

 Yes, when strong borders have to do with Israel, a firm stance predicated on safety and security is always to be admired and never undermined.
Do they think we do not see the hypocrisy of this, the condescending and patronizing tone and the self-evident showboating?

 Is that what we should expect from people in the media who never want to publicly discuss this hypocrisy and  border protection at all, or even gets into the particulars of what is being discussed?
Yes, yes and yes.
Laura Ingraham: Marco Rubio has betrayed conservatives

 Washington Post
The Plum Line 
Marco Rubio’s careful immigration dance
By Greg Sargent, Updated: June 10, 2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/06/10/marco-rubios-careful-immigration-dance/

 Washington Examiner
Marco Rubio: In immigration reform, legalization comes first — ‘It is not conditional’, 
By Byron York
June 10, 2013 | 12:36 pm | Modified: June 10, 2013 at 2:00 pm
http://washingtonexaminer.com/marco-rubio-in-immigration-reform-legalization-comes-first-it-is-not-conditional/article/2531504

 Much of this genuine concern about the reliability of Marco Rubio and his willingness to actually adopt or formulate a position and keep it, recalls my blog post of April 27, 2013, which also featured a video of Rush Limbaugh talking about immigration.
Except that it was a conversation with Rubio on the air, with him in Washington, trying to defend his ever-changing position, and yet, seemingly, only making things worse for himself as far as reassuring his own past supporters, which has been a quite noticeable development over the past nine months.

 Some people I talk to regularly in South Florida and in Washington who like Rubio but who are far from fanboys, wonder if that is because, quite frankly, the GOP has forced Rubio to be the face of the party nationally on far too many issues, while other Republican senators seem top be doing nothing at all. (Or less than nothing-at all, given how rarely you hear their names.)
In short, Rubio's over-exposure is now starting to rub people the wrong way.

That post was titled, BUSTED! Breitbart's Matthew Boyle reports that Sen. Marco Rubio was "outed" by a constituent over Rubio's lack of personal effort to meet with LEOs BEFORE the Gang of Eight released their very-flawed immigration bill; Daily Caller's Byron York on the deluge of angry anti-immigration bill email into Sen. Rubio's office; The shiny, new toy that is Rubio is now not-so shiny; audio of Rubio's interviews with Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin

 Meanwhile, blogger Mickey Kaus, long one of my favorite pundits going back to my days in Washington D.C. because of his great enthusiasm, mordant wit and willingness to actually READ everything on a subject instead of commenting on things he's never read -like South Florida's reps in Congress, who are a pretty dim crew collectively- has been doing everything he can to let people know that the defeat of this intellectually LITE immigration bill, NOT learning more details on Benghazi or the IRS or NSA scandals, is actually THE most important and far-reaching issue on the public docket now.
He's right, of course.  
Put trigger before legalization.

 Below, Mickey makes the case against it.

The Daily Caller
Kaus Files blog
Handy U-Print-It Pocket Guide: Why S.744′s a Fraud
By Mickey Kaus
5:34 PM 06/06/2013
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/06/handy-u-print-it-pocket-guide-why-s-744s-a-fraud/

 http://dailycaller.com/author/mickeykaus/
https://twitter.com/kausmickey
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Saturday, April 27, 2013

BUSTED! Breitbart's Matthew Boyle reports that Sen. Marco Rubio was "outed" by a constituent over Rubio's lack of personal effort to meet with LEOs BEFORE the Gang of Eight released their very-flawed immigration bill; Daily Caller's Byron York on the deluge of angry anti-immigration bill email into Sen. Rubio's office; The shiny, new toy that is Rubio is now not-so shiny; audio of Rubio's interviews with Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin


Right Scoop YouTube Channel video: FULL INTERVIEW: Nationally-syndicated radio show host Rush Limbaugh, the most-listened-to personality on American radio, discusses the Gang of Eight's immigration bill and its possible consequences with Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Uploaded April 18, 2013. http://youtu.be/dJjDbj6M16M 
BUSTED! Breitbart's Matthew Boyle reports that Sen. Marco Rubio was "outed" by a constituent over Rubio's lack of personal effort to meet with LEOs BEFORE the Gang of Eight released their very-flawed immigration bill; Daily Caller's Byron York on the deluge of angry anti-immigration bill email into Sen.  Rubio's office; The shiny, new toy that is Rubio is now not- so shiny; audio of Rubio's interviews with Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin
BUSTED! Late Friday night we learned via Breitbart's Matthew Boyle that Sen. Marco Rubio was outed by a constituent over Rubio's lack of personal effort to meet with law enforcement officers, especially ICE agents, BEFORE the Gang of Eight released their very-flawed immigration bill. 

 The bill was made public the day after Sen. Rubio met with the union head of ICE agents -for ONE HOUR!- and after Rubio and the others had secretly been meeting with pro-amnesty & GOP business establishment groups in Washington and elsewhere for MANY, MANY WEEKS. 

 Personally, as a Rubio supporter, someone who was for him in 2009 when the Florida news media had already pretty-well handed the 2010 GOP U.S. Senate nomination to Florida Governor Charlie Crist, I think this public miscue is one that WILL haunt Rubio for a long time, since it is both symbolic and TRUE.

 I think it directly undercuts his claim to both "authenticity" and being an honest broker on this issue, one that many Republicans had perhaps too willingly given him lots of latitude on, assuming that he would be someone who could take a public role larger than his two years in the Senate warranted, and meet with groups that had something tangible to add to the mix on border security before the bill was finalized.

 And important because it reveals Rubio's blind spot, which is that he sometimes believes what he says about himself too much -not enough hubris!

I also think that much more than any of the Florida-based reporters or columnists or "experts" know or will acknowledge, this effort of Rubio to finesse something very important, will likely prove to some within the GOP's national rank-and-file that just like other American pols, though perhaps less frequently than most, there's what Rubio says, and then there's what he actually does when nobody is looking. 

 For people who want border security first, and are not willing to compromise on that, for good reason, people like me, the upshot is that this mis-step proves to some of them that he is NOT yet someone to be implicitly trusted.

 Especially in light of how little he has actually accomplished in Washington his first two years, outside of drawing attention to himself and the Syria issue, where he has been miles and miles ahead of both President Obama, Hillary Clinton and the U.S. Mainstream Media, as I've noted frequently on these pages.




Rubio's inability or unwillingness to meet with people weeks ago whom he SHOULD HAVE, people with a real tangible insight into the immigration issue from a first-hand perspective, makes him appear to be what he is on this issue -NOT as tough or fair-minded as he advertises himself.

 I honestly believe that because this issue is so important to many rank-and-file Republicans in parts of the country where they don't have a news media that is SO easily cowed by the professional amnesty and immigration rights groups the way they are routinely here in Florida
-esp. here in Miami and South Florida as I've documented dozens of times over the years here on the blog- where the groups practically hand reporters a script and the reporters dutifully read their lines as written.
On this issue, it's NOT journalism, it's public relations.

 No place in the country is more skittish and less-honest in reporting truthfully on the negative effect of runaway illegal immigration, or unwilling to ask tough questions, than South Florida's news media, especially the Miami Herald.

 (Even new young reporters to this market, like a certain new female reporter at WFOR-TV I could name, seem to absorb by osmosis the general understanding that seldom is heard a discouraging word on immigration, and thus they routinely do segments that are completely one-sided, and don't even think to ask questions that should be asked, but which here in Miami are never, ever asked for fear of what, being fired? 
Those of you who don't live here can't fully appreciate it, but reporting honestly on immigration is the Third Rail of South Florida, talked about in the abstract, perhaps, mostly here on this blog, but never ever actually seen on-the-air or in-print.)

 So begins the first serious patch of political mis-steps, bad headlines and obvious displays of tone-deafness by Sen. Rubio, as his lofty abstract ideas about public policy get held up to their proper scrutiny and he is found wanting. 
It'll be interesting to see how he responds to this.
Will he adapt, evolve or double-down on what he's been doing and think he can ride it out.
While he'll probably be able to do the latter here in Florida, in the rest of the country, I wouldn't be so sanguine.

I believe that his personal reputation is about to get roughed-up but good by sincere and caring people outside of Florida who don't have to just grin-and-bear it like they do here in Florida.

 I further believe that 2013 will prove to be the year where Rubio's sometimes patronizing myopia and faulty antennae will lead to him making some SERIOUS political enemies among fellow national Republicans and their supporters at the state and county levels.

 And based on conversations with people and reading certain things I have, some of that antipathy and disregard he earns will last the rest of his political career, and cost him in ways that he can't even imagine now, because those people who are upset are mostly below the media's radar right now.
But by 2016, they'll be County party chairs in Iowa... and they'll be quoted in 2015 by the New York Times and by Politico and The National Journal...

 People who never pass on an opportunity to make Rubio and his staffers suffer in small ways, or make him work much-harder than he needs to simply because they don't like the way that he's handled an issue that they care passionately about, and see Rubio as someone who didn't fight hard enough and long enough.

 In short, someone who was too willing to work with Democrats to give them what they wanted, which is not enough attention to border security. 
Really.

 You'll see.

 The South Florida news media is, of course, completely under-reporting this issue, just as they do so many other issues that ought to be getting attention but don't.

 They'll wait for someone else in another city to do that particular story, and then act like they were always working on it themselves, which is the usual excuse given when you talk to local reporters in-person and ask why real political news is NOT appearing in-print or on-air immediately like it would in other parts of the country, but instead, put in a freezer whjere they can report it when it's no longer relevant.

And it'll all be his own fault, too, since he's now starting to be viewed more realistically -as someone who perhaps prefers the spotlight a little TOO MUCH, prefers to go-along to actually standing strong against the GOP's Beltway/Chamber of Commerce Establishment that was, for decades, more-than-willing to take advantage of illegal immigrants, esp. in the agricultural sector.. 

 Marco Rubio's charmed existence in the U.S. Senate so far is about to get some much-overdue and, it would seem to me, much-deserved turbulence.
But it will have little to do with anything any FL-based reporters or columnists say or write or uncover, but rather everything to do with his own bad choices and myopia, especially on the issue of immigration and its consequences.

 The shiny, new toy is now not so shiny.
And will be less so by the end of the year.

 RUBIO TOUTS TALK WITH ICE OFFICIAL WHICH SPURRED NO CHANGES TO IMMIGRATION BILL
by Matthew Boyle
27 Apr 2013, 12:58 AM PDT
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/26/Rubio-struggles-to-explain-to-constituents-why-ICE-agents-had-no-real-prior-input-into-immigration-bill


Right Scoop YouTube Channel video: Nationally-syndicated radio show host Mark Levine discusses the immigration bill and its possible consequences with Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Uploaded April 17, 2013. http://youtu.be/USG2SLWbKew
------
http://www.therightscoop.com
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Friday, February 15, 2013

re Marco Rubio: Oh dear! Another predictable Beth Reinhard paint-by-numbers piece on Rubio in The National Journal, full of the usual resume/personality recitals. I'll bet I can guess what Reinhard will say about him before reading it. Yes, and so can you! That's the whole problem -Reinhard writes about Rubio by rote; Where's the plan for positive changes at McClatchy's Miami Herald -still missing!

U.S. Senate longshot candidate Marco Rubio in Hallandale Beach, FL at Southeast Broward Republican Club. June 23, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

The National Journal
POLITICS
Can Marco Rubio Live Up to the Hype?
He's the GOP's Barack Obama, a fresh-faced politician with an immigrant name, a playlist full of rap, and a collection of fawning press clips. The challenge: He's selling the same old party message.
By Beth Reinhard
Updated: February 14, 2013 | 8:50 p.m. 
February 14, 2013 | 8:20 p.m.
The freshman senator from Florida had joined four veteran colleagues to unveil a proposal for the first major overhaul of immigration law in a quarter-century. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced “my friend, Senator [Marco] Rubio, who obviously is a new but incredibly important voice in this whole issue of immigration reform.”
Two weeks earlier, Rubio had laid out a similar set of principles in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal under the headline, “Marco Rubio: Riding to the Immigration Rescue.” The article came as a surprise to McCain and other members of the bipartisan group of senators who had been sketching out an immigration plan with and without Rubio for weeks. The blueprint was inspired by legislation that McCain first spearheaded in 2005.
The dig was subtle, but Rubio didn’t let it go.

Oh dear! Another predictable Beth Reinhard paint-by-numbers piece on Marco Rubio in The National Journal, full of the usual resume/personality recitals.
Bet I can guess what Beth Reinhard will say about Marco Rubio. 
Yes, and so can you! 

That's the problem -Reinhard writes about Rubio by rote.
Just like her last piece on him.

Even the new anecdotes she drops throughout the column sound just like the old ones she used, since they are almost always cobbled together to create the same old product: Marco the Magnificent.

It would be far better if she spoke to veteran analysts like Charlie Cook, also of the National Journal and someone whose every word I read religiously for meaning and portent, as mentioned many times here in the past, which is why I've linked to so many of his columns here over the years.

Specifically, speak to Cook about the dangers of over-exposure, which he is getting closer to everyday, and the graveyard of presidential candidates that peaked early and never made it to Election Day because they prematurely annoyed or bored America silly, or flat out didn't have the sort of practical experience needed or the ability to articulate a cogent, distinct message that resonated with the public and which could grow even larger with hard work.
Bill Bradley for instance.

Even though I was an early and very confident Senate supporter of Rubio's in 2009, when the entire Florida GOP and business establishment, along with Florida's sycophantic Mainstream Media, plus the East Coast drive-by MSM, practically handed the 2010 Republican Senate nomination to then-Governor Charlie Crist, in my opinion, Rubio needs to actually accomplish a lot more of substance sooner -and be seen LESS in a pop-culture prism- otherwise, everyone in America may be bored silly by the sight of him within two years as the new car smell wears off, just as he's campaigning for House and Senate candidates throughout the country, and actually getting most of the questions, not the candidates he's with.

Yes, just like a once interesting new TV commercial that you have now grown to cringe at within a milli-second of seeing on TV and reach for the remote.

And if and when that happens, the only thing that will be written about him will be the hit pieces by the usual suspects, especially among liberal reporters and columnists in the West, who have no secret of the fact that they resent the collective power of Cubans in the political process compared to Mexicans, who vastly outnumber them.

And Univision, of course, in their creepy stalker-like relationship with Rubio, where they are always looking to see if he's spending too much time with someone else.
Y
es, Univision, the Spanish-language channel that the Miami Herald is always kissing the butt of and overplaying the significance of, but who will, not so curiously, not mention in print that they didn't air President Obama's State of the the Union address, which is why they won Tuesday night in the TV ratings.

Nope, no mention, as you can see for yourself. 

I thought they were the new "It"?
Qué pasa, Herald?

Yes, Univision, the politically-biased TV network that makes it very clear in their so-called news coverage that the only reasonable side of the immigration debate is pro-amnesty, otherwise, you are a racist. 

 Oh yeah -and the supposed news network whose employees loves to take public whacks at 
Rubio.

That is, if they, too, aren't already bored silly by Rubio and tired of pointing-out the same deficiencies they saw/see in him, over-and-over.

On the other hand, it's good to remember that Rubio eventually got so bored/irritated with Reinhard asking him the same ol' leading questions over-and-over during his long Senate campaign, that as I wrote here at the time, towards the end, he eventually started freezing her out because he simply couldn't take the routine anymore

You might recall that was back when the Herald's then-Ombudsman took Beth Reinhard (and the Herald) to task in his once-in-a-while Sunday column for having one person perform both reporter and columnist duties, saying that it was a conflict of interest.

The Ombudsman was right, of course, and Reinhard proved why that was true by being whiny publicly in her columns about being frozen out by Rubio, which not only made her less attractive to Rubio as a person to speak with, but for voters and newspaper readers, made her 'articles' about him not at all reliable, since you already knew that she was mad at him enough to say so publicly.
But I guess I'm the only one who remembers that, huh?

Alas, the Herald's then-Ombudsman left in April of 2011 and has never been replaced, with rather predictable results from my perspective: more bias than ever in articles as well as more missing facts and context.

 As many of you regular readers know, I've directly asked the Herald's top management why there's been no replacement and no mention made in the paper of what their plan is, if any, for an eventual replacement.
And, what their plan for improvement in print and online was to keep the faith of readers.
That's been met with stony silence. 
Followed by more silence.

A smart and fair-minded person representing the interests of Herald readers and ethics is not in the cards there.

Folks, it's time to face the fact that publisher David Landsberg has no actual plan for the Herald's future that positive for news consumers, because if he did, he'd have already made them public months before they went to a pay wall, and only added the pay wall AFTER getting rid of the problem step-children, adding new and curious columnists and reporters who don't take things for granted -one of the worst daily offenses there!-  and completely re-do the website from top-to-bottom, so the same stories don't appear in three separate places there, as happens now, which is acutely embarrassing for everyone, most of all, them.

That's why in my opinion, with the same people in charge, the Herald's problems are only going to get worse over time.

 But if someone with some smarts and money bought the Sun-Sentinel, fired all the dead wood and made it more like some of the Swedish newspapers that I've become increasingly  used to, and read daily while I was in Stockholm last month, newspapers which are very popular, well then, you could well see will see a very interesting dynamic take place here
in South Florida.
But not right now.

Now, each newspaper and its management seem locked in a battle of lethargy to do the least amount of original enterprise reporting possible.
  
------
TheWrap
Ratings: Univision Wins Night By Skipping State of the Union
By Tim Kenneally
Published: February 13, 2013 @ 10:03 am

November 1, 2010
Hallandale Beach Blog endorses Beth Reinhard & Charlie Crist's departure - asks they get escort to airport so they don't miss their flights out of FL

September 3, 2010

Addition by subtraction: Beth Reinhard leaving Miami Herald, heading to D.C. and The National Journal. Herald readers finally win one!


-----
Univision staffer attacks Sen. Marco Rubio on Facebook

No doubt after the Castro Brothers finally go adios for good, many of the Univision employees will try to move to Cuba and try to suddenly reinvent themselves as real journalists, after years of being celebrity hand-holdres, political suck-ups and amateur political science professors based in LA, NYC and Miami, forever intent on lecturing us on how important Latin America is, despite the fact that we mostly don't care about it for perfectly valid reasons, no matter how much they insist it's important.



But it's not, even with changing demographics and population changes, Americans aren't going to suddenly care about Honduras or Uruguay or Brazil if they never did before, and they can't let on that the whole thing has been a journalistic con for years to fleece advertising dollars.

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Friday, October 19, 2012

Vacillating Obama: Washington Post's Jackson Diehl zeroes-in on fundamental weakness of Obama's dithering Mid-East policy and multilateralism: Obama’s greatest failure - "His miscalculations on Syria have led to a wider war" that threatens to bring in more dangerous players and more unpredictability, NOT more stability and democracy; @JacksonDiehl, #syria


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 I've been wanting to post this excellent analysis by The Washington Post's veteran foreign policy hand Jackson Diehl since reading it online early, early Sunday morning, while listening to some hard news online via the BBC.
Soon thereafter, I sent it out to a couple dozen well-informed friends and acquaintances across the country and around the world, who follow U.S. foreign policy as closely as I do, and who also like me, shake their head at what President Obama is doing. 

 Though we all disagreed on lots of matters whenever we were together, we're all in agreement about this Diehl column -it's spot-on analysis from the get-go about Barack Obama's unwillingness to stop digging the foreign policy hole he has put the United States in.
He just keeps digging, utterly convinced that he's right and that everyone else is wrong.

 I suspect that in about a dozen years or so, people who voted for Obama in 2008 will actually shake their head in wonder that they ever allowed themselves to willfully ignore his inexperience and weaknesses and elect someone as president who was foolish enough to convince himself -and them- that his carefully-constructed personal/media narrative would somehow allow him to solve longstanding problems.
It hasn't and it doesn't and it won't.

 Despite all the accumulated evidence on U.S. foreign policy that shows he has made already bad situations worse, sometimes, much worse, Obama still remains utterly convinced that the sheer star power of his personality will lead to positive results.
It's the ultimate act of -and sign of- his amazing hubris.


The Washington Post
How Obama bungled the Syrian revolution
By Jackson Diehl
October 14, 2012
Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans are doing their best to portray the assault on the U.S. mission in Libya and its aftermath as a signal foreign policy disaster for Barack Obama. But my bet is that when historians look back on Obama’s mistakes in the last four years, they will focus on something entirely different: his catastrophic mishandling of the revolution in Syria.
The deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi were a calamity — but those losses were mainly the result of poor security decisions by mid-level State Department officials, not policy choices by Obama. The president’s handling of Syria, on the other hand, exemplifies every weakness in his foreign policy — from his excessive faith in “engaging” troublesome foreign leaders to his insistence on multilateralism as an end in itself to his self-defeating caution in asserting American power.
Read the rest of the column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-how-obama-bungled-the-syrian-revolution/2012/10/14/13c492d2-13b2-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_story.html
Read previous Diehl columns at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/jackson-diehl/2011/02/24/ABccMXN_page.html
I subscribe to his RSS feed and get his columns as sson as they go online.
http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/rss/linksets/opinions/jackson-diehl

 Also see his Twitter page: https://twitter.com/JacksonDiehl

 The National Journal
Obama’s Quagmire: Syria and the Islamist Arc, Hammered on leadership, the president struggles for a Middle East policy.
By Michael Hirsh
Updated: September 21, 2012  1:55 p.m., 
September 21, 2012  1:07 p.m.
U.S. and Western diplomats are concerned that the longer Bashar al-Assad hangs on to his failing regime in Damascus, the more likely it is that the aftermath of the Syrian rebellion will be dominated by Islamist elements, completing an arc of newly empowered radical groups along the southern half of the Mediterranean from Libya to Syria. 
Read the rest of the column at: http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/obama-s-quagmire-syria-and-the-islamist-arc-20120921?mrefid=site_search

 As I've noted here several times over the past two years with videos of him speaking forthrightly about Syria, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been much more realistic than Hillary Clinton's dog-chasing-its-tail State Dept. on the reality of what has been going on the Middle East and what is likely to happen if President Obama's dithering foreign policy is given four more years to make things worse.

 And seriously, how does U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice still even have a job? 
Is there no penalty for her abject failure, serial lying to the American public and Congress and her calculated and willful ignorance?
Rice's performance the past month has validated all the criticism of her as nothing more than a political hack with foreign policy pretensions, not a serious foreign policy professional, no matter what her actual experience is.
Susan Rice is the female version of Rahm Emanuel -a fixer.
And a Grade B fixer at that.

 How can we reasonably expect representatives of other countries to trust her and take her seriously if average Americans have learned from watching her for themselves, after paying attention to her own words and actions, NOT to trust her?


SenatorMarcoRubio video: U.S. Senator Marco Rubio on Foreign Aid to Libya, Egypt and Pakistan and what America and American taxpayers have a right to expect from these countries in exchange for U.S. dollars. Uploaded September 20, 2012. http://youtu.be/SFOBW7xkz7g Reminder, this video is a month old.

 Articles and columns on Syria in The Washington Post, in chron order:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/search.html

By the way, if anyone reading this post knows anyone at Foreign Policy magazine, tell them that their YouTube Channel is the very picture of irrelevant.
One original video in the past nine months during a presidential election year?
That's embarrassing!
http://www.youtube.com/user/ForeignPolicyTV
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