Setting the record straight as #NeverTrump Rick Wilson engages in some selective historical revisionism right before our eyes to continue his anti-Trump machinations. #Rejected!

Setting the record straight as #NeverTrump Rick Wilson engages in some selective historical revisionism right before our eyes to continue his anti-Trump machinations. #Rejected!

These three tweets of mine are in reverse-chron order:

The Downfall of a Pragmatic Republican, great story about the late Bob Bennett: https://t.co/JWCikRhkcP @stephanieakin & @nielslesniewski

— Roll Call (@rollcall) May 10, 2016

@rollcall @stephanieakin @nielslesniewski NOT surprising #NeverTrump Rick Wilson engages in historical revisionism of condescending Bennett.

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) May 10, 2016

@IngrahamAngle @AnnCoulter @kausmickey @instapundit When anti #Trump forces can't win, they try to rewrite history: https://t.co/GSC145ZLuT

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) May 10, 2016

What follows is what I hope will prove to be some useful context to better help you understand my tweets of this afternoon about voluble #NeverTrump's Rick Wilson attempts to engage the news media in some selective historical revisionism.

Roll Call 
The Downfall of a Pragmatic Republican 
How the late Bob Bennett's ouster from the Senate foreshadowed Trump 
Posted at May 10, 2016 5:00 AM
By Niels Lesniewski

The death of the much-admired former Utah Sen. Robert F. Bennett just hours after Donald Trump effectively secured his party's presidential nomination reminded official Washington of the first visible stirrings of the unrest that Trump has now ridden to the top of his party.  

Before there was Trump’s "beautiful wall," or oath to make America great again, there was this: Bennett, a party stalwart with a reputation for pragmatism and deftness at the pork-barrel politics that made compromise possible, brought to tears at a 2010 nominating convention as he realized that his own party was ousting him after 18 years in the Senate. 

See the rest of the story at:
http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/downfall-pragmatic-republican


The Roll Call article concerns arrogant, condescending & patronizing longtime Utah Senator Bob Bennett, who, by almost any reasonable objective, was easily one of the least-liked people in D.C. for years in large part because of how badly he treated people, whether they were Congressional staffers, members of the news media, Capitol Police, other Senators or the general public.
Unlike what the article would have you believe, Bob Bennett was NOT a prince of a fellow, he was a prick of a fellow.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that Sen. Bob Bennett was perhaps more genuinely loathed by more people on Capitol Hill than anyone I ever met between the 15 years I lived and worked in the D.C. area between 1988 and 2003. And trust me, there are many more legitimate contenders to that crown than you dear readers can possibly know, many of them people who, while no longer on the Hill, per se, are still part of the Washington firmament, either as lobbyists, Think Tank 'thinkers" or at supposed non-profits.

And that's regardless of party or ideology, since many Republican members and staffers I knew pretty well literally got a cold chill down their spine whenever they spotted Bennett coming towards them.
And did you forget that I knew who Julian Epstein was years before he became a regular face on MSNBC in the '90's after the Lewinsky scandal broke?
Now there was a guy who was loathed in a non-partisan way by a lot of people on Capitol Hill! 
And with good reason!!

Eventually, after 18 years in the Senate, enough average Utah GOP voters had had quite enough of Bob Bennett and his grating personality, sanctimonious ways and know-it-all persona to say "No thanks, we'll take it from here." 

Unlike the Beltway media, I was not at all surprised when news came that he had come in third place in the 2010 Utah GOP Convention, and was thus denied renomination to the Senate he had come to think was his birthright. 




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Bennett_%28politician%29

So, given that, dig this bit of selective historical revisionism from Wilson we get from Roll Call:

But it was six years ago that he became the first victim of the first strike of what has lately become a full-blown “civil war inside of the Republican Party,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican political strategist and media consultant.

“That was the rumblings, the preview of the beginning of the first act,” Wilson said. “Now we’re in the second, and it’s getting much louder, much uglier, deciding whether we’re going to be a conservative party or a nationalist, populist party in the image of Donald Trump. And it’s a very hairy moment for conservative Republicans.”

But it was six years ago that he became the first victim of the first strike of what has lately become a full-blown “civil war inside of the Republican Party,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican political strategist and media consultant.
“That was the rumblings, the preview of the beginning of the first act,” Wilson said. “Now we’re in the second, and it’s getting much louder, much uglier, deciding whether we’re going to be a conservative party or a nationalist, populist party in the image of Donald Trump. And it’s a very hairy moment for conservative Republicans.”
- See more at: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/downfall-pragmatic-republican#sthash.kVe84Dpi.dpuf

Here's the reality: Bob Bennett was very rich, tall, enjoyed using that size differential of his to intimidate people, loved using political power to get what he wanted, and had a grand sense of entitlement that was completely out of proportion to anything he had ever actually accomplished while in office in 18 years.

To top it off, Bob Bennett was pushy and nasty to people whom he thought simply had to sit back and take it, take whatever he chose to dish out.

In that respect, Bob Bennett was completely UNLIKE former Florida Senator and Governor Lawton Chiles, a man I respected since I was a teenager precisely because of how well he treated all people, regardless of who they were, and how very hard he worked to do his job to the best of his ability. #diligent

(I've detailed this before on the blog but for some of you newcomers to the blog, here's a quick history lesson connecting me and former U.S. Senator and Florida governor Lawton Chiles. 

I first met and campaigned with Sen. Chiles in 1976, when he ran for re-election the first time. 

In fact, he and I were even filmed together one Saturday morning for about thirty minutes by the-then WCKT-TV, Channel 7 -the then-NBC-TV affiliate for Miami- as he and I walked door-to-door campaigning in a  middle-class North Miami Beach neighborhood just a few blocks away from the Dade County Carter-Mondale HQ, which was located in a strip mall behind the much-beloved and iconic Krispy Kreme donut shop on N.E. 167th Street and N.E. 6th Avenue. 
I picked up some donuts afterwards and ate them when the news segment with me came on! :-)

Many years later, in Washington, before he finally made the decision to run for governor, I had the good fortune to get to know Sen. Chiles and his wife Rhea a lot better, and to come to genuinely appreciate their many remarkable and sterling qualities. 
Many of those conversations with him came on the sidewalks between his Senate office and The Florida House embassy that the two of them had founded for Floridians visiting Washington.
Located right across the street from the U.S. Supreme Court, on East Capitol Street, it's a much-beloved institution among many Floridians who travel a lot to and from Washington, and is a place I personally have spent what seems like hundreds of hours at over the years. 
If not more... Plus, it's where I first had my photograph taken with then-Senator Bob Graham and THE Mickey Mouse. Really.)

Two years after Bennett's ouster, with Republican leaders in Washington still refusing to do what American voters wanted, most especially Tea Party voters, though Sen. Richard Lugar's personality and style were much more refined and professorial than Bennett's, he too was eventually rejected by generations of Indiana voters after serving 36 years in the Senate. Why?
Because he'd increasingly come to be perceived by voters as someone who was permanently disconnected from the pressing concerns of average Indiana citizens and Small Business owners.

As someone who actually lived in Indiana for over four years while Lugar was representing the state in Washington, I can tell you that Lugar eventually LOST the benefit of the doubt he had enjoyed with Hoosier voters for well over four decades, after becoming perceived -rightly I believe- as part of the permanent Washington establishment, not part of the group of hard-working citizen lawmakers assembled in D.C. trying to actually reform government and make it more accountable to American voters.

I believe that's why Lugar lost in a landslide, as I detailed in my last blog post about Richard Lugar, on May16, 2012: "Richard Mourdock: Precursor or anomaly? Greg Garrison and Charlie Cook adroitly pinpoint where Sen. Richard Lugar eventually lost his way, started losing the trust of Hoosier voters, then lost in a landslide due to the dis-connect. Points largely lost on a predictably apoplectic Beltway MSM"
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/richard-mourdock-precursor-or-anomaly.html

That a leading #NeverTrump leader like Rick Wilson -who is NOT identified as such in the Roll Call story by the way- tries to imagine that Bob Bennett's defeat presaged Donald Trump's rise this year, is so self-serving and transparent that it is simultaneously funny AND quite telling. 
But probably not in a way I'm sure that Wilson would appreciate.

Some of us who were living and working in DC then and who were pretty observant about how certain powerful people treated other people who weren't powerful or influential -just regular people- haven't forgotten what a complete boor and jerk Senator Bob Bennett was for many years.

Though Bob Bennett and his irksome personality were not on my to-do list when I woke up this morning, I'm happy to take some time here now to set the record straight and remind you of what the #truth is.

Dave 

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth

https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

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

Reading post-election tea leaves - Was the Libertarian Party's successful pick-up of some dissatisfied GOP voters in non-presidential races a worrying sign for GOP, or just a reaction to some GOP candidates underperforming and voters not wanting to vote Democrat?

Among the things to me that are noteworthy in this piece from last week's Washington Post The Fix blog, about whether the Libertarian Party is cannibalizing the GOP, is that in also making the point that non-presidential Libertarian candidates did well in some places -which is news to me and other South Florida news consumers since the local media down here have yet to report this fact- is their noting that their U.S. Senate candidate in Indiana won 6% -actually 5.8% according to http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Elections/2012/Senate/Indiana/1/

But in the Post's own story the following day, below, they NEVER mentioned this important fact, nor did they even mention the name of that Libertarian candidate, Andrew  Horning, whose numbers clearly rose as a direct result of Richard Mourdock's campaign numbers coming back to earth after his landslide upset victory of longtime incumbent Richard Lugar in the spring GOP primary, and Mourdock's self-inflicted wounds, which he never recovered from in his battle against Joe Donnelly, which Kim Gieger of the LA Times was all over: 
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-donnelly-mourdock-poll-20121102,0,7739135.story
Yes, this omission in The Post was very Miami Herald-like.

The Washington Post

The Fix blog

The GOP’s growing Libertarian problem

By Aaron Blake and Sean Sullivan

Updated: November 20, 2012

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/11/20/the-gops-growing-libertarian-problem/

Indiana Election Results 2012: Donnelly beats Mourdock in Senate race; Pence wins governors race
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/indiana-election-results-2012-pence-wins-race-for-governor-donnelly-beats-mourdock-in-senate-race-romney-wins-hoosier-state/2012/11/07/0a430bda-23a2-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html 

See also:
DID LIBERTARIAN PARTY COST GOP 9 RACES?
http://www.humanevents.com/2012/11/26/did-libertarian-party-cost-gop-9-races/

Widespread power outages in Beltway cause Fred Barnes to reflect on the power vacuum in Washington that lies at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

View Larger Map
-----
The Weekly Standard
Washington Loses Power
And not just from a storm.
By Fred Barnes
July 16, 2012, Vol. 17, No. 41

For Washington, this is definitely not the best of times. The town is suffering from a power outage.

The evidence is hard to miss, from Washington’s weeklong struggle to cope with storm damage that knocked out electricity across the region to President Obama’s inability to awaken the economy, as reflected once again in June’s pathetic jobs report.

To make matters worse, Washing-ton is out of sync with the country, at least with the noncoastal parts. The usual response is to unleash the president so he can rally America to Washington’s purposes. But the bully pulpit hasn’t been effective since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. And Obama has failed to revive it.

Read the rest of the post at
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/washington-loses-power_648233.html

Factual Implosion at 1150 15th Street, N.W.: Ben Shapiro & Dana Loesch adroitly zero-in on the 47-year old Mitt Romney anecdote The Washington Post felt was too good to let the facts get in the way of printing. Oh, those inconvenient facts!

View Larger Map

Above, the entrance to The Washington Post, at left, 1150 15th Street, N.W., looking south towards L Street, K Street and McPherson Square in the distance. Google Maps

Factual Implosion at 1150 N.W. 15th Street, NW: Ben Shapiro & Dana Loesch adroitly zero-in on the 47-year old Mitt Romney anecdote The Washington Post felt was too good to let the facts get in the way of printing. Oh, those inconvenient facts!


Breitbart.com

WASHINGTON POST ROMNEY HIT PIECE IMPLODES

by Ben Shapiro

May 11, 2012

Today’s unconscionable Washington Post story, which implied without evidence that Mitt Romney was a homophobic bully to one John Lauber back in his high school days five decades ago, has totally imploded.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/05/10/Washington-Post-Hit-Piece-Implodes


Breitbart.com

WASHINGTON POST CHANGES STORY, DOESN'T ADMIT ERROR

by Dana Loesch

May 11, 2012

On Thursday, Breitbart's Retracto, the Correction Alpaca asked the Washington Post to correct its anti-Mitt Romney hit piece wherein it included an inaccurate and misleading statement about his past. The error was exposed when Stu White contradicted WaPo's reporting in an interview with ABC. 

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/05/10/WaPo-Changes-Story-No-Correction



journalsentinel video: A Few Minutes with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Bill Glauber. Guest: Conservative blogger Dana Loesch. April 14, 2012. 
http://youtu.be/gMoBETTiIhc


http://www.breitbart.com/


http://thedanashow.wordpress.com/

Contrary to MSM's contention, while I'm neither an Undecided, Early, Hispanic or I-4 voter, it looks like I "may hold key" to 2012 Florida GOP Presidential Primary

Wall Street Journal video: Florida Tea Party to Vote Against Mitt Romney. January 31, 2012. http://youtu.be/6V1muYp0bGU

Contrary to MSM's contention, while I'm neither an Undecided, Early, Hispanic or I-4 voter, it looks like I "may hold key" to the 2012 Florida GOP Presidential Primary. I am definitely NOT undecided.

Before I leave to go cast my ballot in today's Florida primary, can I please make two quick points about ALL the very bad reporting that I've seen the past year, nationally and in Florida, along the lines of "What's new with the Tea Party?"

First, in a large grass-roots movement that is intentionally decentralized, in large part because so many of its supporters have regular lives, jobs and family responsibilities, and do NOT have a taxpayer-paid PR flack like members of Congress to arrange sit-downs with reporters, the news media's insistence that any story about the Tea Party, esp. one that is filmed, involve a conversation with a purported "leader" is especially problematic.

Problematic since 99.9% of the people within that particular state who support the movement in a general way, likely have never heard of this person interviewed.

And frankly, in many cases, it makes them wonder why if this bottom-up point is so well understood by them, and is actually part of its appeal to them and many others, i.e. effort over ego, why does this person in the news video -any video- seem so unaware of the central tenet of the movement and unwilling to say so during the interview.

Is it simply the way the piece is edited they wonder?

And so it is today in this Wall Street Journal video at the top of the post.

Why does the MSM persist in expending so much time and energy looking for someone that is simply not there? 

There's no Tea Party Oz behind the curtain.

Certainly many liberals want to believe that there is, despite all the evidence to the contrary,  because this fits into their mindset that,

a.) people who think differently than they do are clearly sheep being led around by someone else that the sheep are too stupid to see for themselves,

b.) they'll have a face in particular to hate and a person to write snarky comments about in newspaper and blog reader comments at 2 a.m., when they can't get their venom out of their system and fall asleep.

You see this more and more frequently all over the blogosphere and on YouTube, when you see the time stamp next to their remarks, that is to say, when they aren't posting meet-up times and locales for their local Occupy Wall Street protests, on news stories that have nothing to do with it.

Second, Tea Party supporters are the main reason that the GOP took over the U.S. House of Representatives in the election of November 2010, NOT some grass roots movement that desperately wanted to see much more of uninspiring, charisma-challenged, Cincinnati tear-jerker John Boehner appearing on Sunday morning TV chat shows.

In the process, they defeated many of the few remaining moderate House Democratic incumbents -some of whom I'd met- and elected many conservative Republicans in districts that weren't necessarily leaning GOP, but had gotten past the goal line because of a larger-than-expected Tea Party turnout.

This, of course, also had the practical effect of making the Democratic Party in Washington MUCH more liberal and less able to keep itself tethered to reality, given that the most liberal Democratic members of Congress also have long had the advantage of being able to run from gerrymandered districts.

Unlike most of the Dems who lost, who'd previously won elections in either Neutral or Leans GOP districts, but had somehow found a way to win, either personality, experience or campaign fundraising.

But that momentous election was just 15 months ago, not 15 years ago, yet judging by many of the news stories I've seen and read, there's literally an army of reporters and columnists who have been waiting to declare the Tea Party moment dead or dying, because...

Well, they can't point to anything specifically, but they keep telling us that they 'feel' it.

They were especially keen on mentioning this during the Fifteen Minutes of Occupy Wall Street a few months ago.

The problem is that there is not a national election for Tea Party supporters to weigh-in on for another nine months, and it's as predictable as hurricane warnings in late August down here that lots of well-known liberal columnists and Beltway pundits will be talking about the Tea Party being dead without any tangible evidence, other than them simply wanting it so.

But don't you actually need elections first before you do post-election analysis?

No, for them, their intuition is enough.

My prescience is priceless: Americans will soon show their disdain for 'Occupy' by leaving home before 12 a.m. to buy corporate must-haves at Le Mall

Above, the Tom the Turkey balloon in the flower section of the Publix grocery store on Hallandale Beach Boulevard & S.E. 14th Avenue, Hallandale Beach, FL. November 24, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

My prescience is priceless: In days, Americans will show their overwhelming disdain for Occupy Wall Street by leaving their families at home to get to stores by Midnight to buy Corporate America's must-haves.

Or, put another way, welcome to "A Very Vegan Thanksgiving in Ft. Lauderdale" -with French faux-Turkey recipes collected by Ron Gunzburger, noted Francophile and Vive-le-Jet-Set member! http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=34136590@N02&q=France

How the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel , the business/legal newspapers and all the local Miami-area TV stations have managed to hold off on doing articles, columns or news broadcast about his seeming hypocrisy on this issue, on the one hand, comporting himself every bit the Broward establishment figure from his position as a government attorney for the Broward County Appraiser's office, while at the same time, having been the very picture of the savvy PR flack for the Blame America First branch of the Democratic Party in Broward, that's so universally laudatory about the Occupy Wall Street protesters, is really quite something.

That "something" is called being asleep-at-the-wheel.

Seriously, is there anyone around in South Florida political life who more consistently imbues the average American's (outside of South Florida) mental image of the prototypical liberal, wine-sipping, self-loathing American Bohemian who must escape to France en vacances once in a while to get in touch with himself than Ron Gunzburger?

Mon dieu, non!

(Of course, once he's over there, he can see all over again what real pretentious hipsters are like first-hand by simply looking around, and trying not to be drawn into un-necessary internecine French political arguments over party purity or the merits of a fusion ticket.)

That Ron Gunzburger is well-known, gay and in a position to actually either compliment or scold well-known reporters, columnists and media personalities thru his popular political website, is, of course, only the liberal gravy if you will, speaking of upcoming Thanksgiving.

http://www.politics1.com/

And yet because of one thing or another, even the thing I don't mention here, the local Miami and Ft. Lauderdale news media haven't even bothered to lift their fingers in an attempt to put him on the spot for a bit and have him try to explain himself, chiefly his seeming bi-polarity of both having his cake and eating it, too.

The local media haven't made any serious attempt to give South Florida residents an idea of why someone who is in many ways the very picture of a govt. bureaucrat -and image-conscious to boot- hasn't seen even a single negative news vibe since the whole Occupy PR machinery went into high gear? Not one.

Really.

Want proof, see for yourself:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/search/dispatcher.front?Query=%22Ron+Gunzburger%22&target=adv_article

http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=%22Ron+Gunzburger%22

The next time you see a professional reporter or columnist or editor hereabouts skulking about at some news event or public meeting take a moment to walk up to him or her and ask them about that supreme and jaw-dropping lack of effort.

And if they actually respond civily, take the opportunity to ask who else is on that Untouchable list of theirs, write it down and let me know.

We'd all like to know, though some are givens, like all the Dem congresspeople from South Florida, who hardly need press secretaries given the job the local media does of playing stenographer.

Broward Clean Sweep video: How Broward reporters cover Broward politicians

http://youtu.be/cUDV_E4hO3s

For the record, I don't personally dislike Ron Gunzburger, I'm just genuinely mystified how and why in the year 2011, given what is known about him -his political sympathies, his various efforts locally, et al, plus, the ease of technology that makes it easier for the news media to do their job than ever before- that the South Florida news media is SO completely frozen in place that they are unable to see a NEWS STORY when it is staring right in front of their face waving a red cape like a matador.

Frankly, I don't doubt that he has wondered the same thing.

It's media myopia plus dollops of disconnectedness, a very bad combination for newspaper readers and TV news viewers if ever there were any, and that won't be helped any by Tryptophan Thursday, as next weekend's newspaper stories and columns are almost guaranteed to be the worst of the year, as happens every year like clockwork.

In fact, even as we speak, someone's column for next weekend is either being written or edited right now, so that column will on some large 'theme' instead of a particular news story.

Unfortunately, many of those columns will be written by the very same Mainstream Media folks like E.J. Dionne, Leonard Pitts, Jr. or Kathleen Parker -who can't help herself from mentioning Sarah Palin, even when nobody else is- all of whom, so consistently mis-fire and continually draw the wrong conclusions about what is actually happening in our country, good or bad, regardless of what the subject is, and, consequently always seem to prescribe a cure that may well hasten the demise of the system we enjoy, however imperfect and galling at times.

Speaking of income equality, Mickey Kaus is spot-on here: http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/11/ows-to-msm-dynamics-of-closed-loop-systems/

Yes, in the very same newspapers all over the country that have, does have and will have front page stories all week about the confounding trend of holiday consumerism intruding on family time together, and instead heading for Ye Olde Galleria or Target or Best Buy at Midnight, après le third NFL football game du jour is finit, to indulge in some consumer theory first-hand, are the very same people will say that the Occupy forces have really taught us all a valuable lesson.

Aand that their message will linger longer than anything the Tea Party does.

In my opinion, that conclusion, common in the blogosphere among self-styled 'progressives' is not only untrue, but unprovable, but that hardly seems to matter now, despite the fact that these same folks say the intentionally loose amalgam of people supporting the Tea Party's economic and limited government principles are the power within the GOP.

(How can it be both the power and a negligible force that will soon be eclipsed, they never quite explain.)

It's like saying if Don Shula had finally traded for an elite NFL running back, the Dolphins of the 1990's would've won a Super Bowl with Dan Marino at quarterback.

BOBBY KNIGHT OF INDIANA

A Profile by Frank Deford, January 28, 1981

Like if you gave former IU coach Bobby Knight control of North Carolina's perpetual mother-lode of crazy incoming talent that Dean Smith had all those years, and ask how many MORE NCAA basketball titles he would have won before Coach Smith finally won his first -years after Coach Knight had already won two titles at IU, including my sophomore year in Bloomington?

THE CHAMPS!

Hoosier Hero Isiah Thomas, April 4, 1981

That's speculation of the worst sort because in the end, you only end up chasing your tail.

But I've heard those very questions posed before.

Sometimes, all in the same long drive to South Florida from Bloomington at the holidays or Spring Break.

Imponderables.

Like what if political candidates said out-loud in a prologue before debates, forums and speeches, what particular reporters & columnists they sincerely believed were stupid, biased, incompetent or unethical -and had to give examples; would that be a positive to society to get it all out in the open and have some genuine transparency?

I say yes, but how can that be proven true unless everyone does it?

Aye. there's the rub!

-----

Santa's assault on Thanksgiving

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/santas-assault-on-thanksgiving/2011/11/19/gIQA0bKQcN_video.html

The Washington Post

A defense for Thanksgiving

By Ylan Q. Mui, Published: November 19

Thanksgiving is under assault.

Stores that once closed their doors in deference to the holiday are now touting Turkey Day deals starting as early as 9 p.m. Workers who should be on vacation are answering office e-mails on their smartphones. And those who plan on celebrating with a traditional dinner are finding that the cost of a bird is near its 30-year high, according to government data.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/a-defense-for-thanksgiving/2011/11/17/gIQAM33tcN_story.html

Biggest journalistic scandal re Rep. Andre Carson's comments in Miami is So. FL reporters snoozing while news 'breaks' right in front of them!; Rep. Frederica Wilson, outlier at her own meeting, lets jobs meeting degenerate

WISH-TV News, Indianapolis video: Andre Carson's remarks create tea party stir

http://youtu.be/JEq9jRkl29s

Since I know that nobody else will mention it to you, the biggest journalism scandal involving Rep. Andre Carson's ridiculous comments about Tea Party supporters at a Congressional Black Caucus Job Fair/Town Hall meeting last week in Miami, is that there was not a single representative of a South Florida news organization that was there who reported on it the day it happened.

Or the next day.

Or the day after that.

Or...

And neither did any other reporter or columnist or editor who wasn't actually there, but heard about it later.

Until Wednesday, nine days later, it was like it NEVER happened.

The Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Channel 4 (WFOR-TV) - a CBS O&O, Channel 6 (WTVJ-TV) -an NBC O&O, Channel 7 (WSVN-TV) -Fox affiliate, and Channel 10 (WPLG-TV) -ABC affiliate (Post-Newsweek) ALL ignored it or never knew about it.

Which is worse?

As I write this:

Channel 4 still has ZERO.

Channel 6 still has ZERO.

Channel 7 posted an AP story out of Indy at 10:45 p.m. Thursday

http://www.wsvn.com/news/

articles/politics/21005253405445/

Channel 10 posted a story by Deirdre Walsh of CNN on Wednesday morning.

http://www.local10.com/news/

29038364/detail.html

Later on Wednesday they posted a wire service video of Herman Cain responding to Carson's remarks

http://www.local10.com/video/

29039774/index.html

On Wednesday morning they also posted another CNN video of Rick Perry, updated Thursday

morning -that doesn't work.

http://www.local10.com/

politics/29044236/detail.html

That's it for Channel 10.

The Miami Herald's first mention of the controversy -at events they had one of their own reporters at!- was Wednesday around Noon when they posted an AP story out of Indy.

http://www.miamiherald.com/

2011/08/31/2383788/fla-lawmaker-carson-comments-reprehensible.html

Six hours later they ran an eight-sentence AP story out of Indy.

http://www.miamiherald.com/

2011/08/31/2384346/ind-lawmakers-lynching-reference.html

That's it for the Miami Herald.

The Sun-Sentinel's first mention of the controversy was in a Broward Politics blog post Wednesday morning that focused on Rep. Allen West, who represents part of Broward.

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.

com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/08/congressman_allen_west_may_quit_congressional_black_caucus.html

Later Wednesday, they posted a 7:52 p.m. AP story.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/

news/nationworld/sns-ap-us-congressman-lynching-comment,0,497192.story

That's it for the Sun-Sentinel.

It's not for nothing that I have joked here in the past that if Fidel Castro dies overnight, esp. a Friday night/Saturday morning, the Miami Herald will be completely scooped and be the last media organization in South Florida to report it.

Like they were on the Japanese tsunmai...

And the 2010 Polish air disaster in Belarus...

And the Moscow Metro bombings...

And...

Rather incredibly, nobody down here among South Florida's largely sleep-walking professional press corps seems the least bit chagrined that they got totally scooped on what has turned out to be a a national news story, nor do they seem to be the least bit interested in asking any questions of Rep. Frederica Wilson, whose FL-17 CD this all happened in, and who hosted the events last week that have echoed across the country this week, no thanks to the local press corps.

Apparently, there's no extant videotape or audio of Wilson's demeanor or comments during or after Carson's heated uncivil rhetoric.

Pity!

But then again, consider the lack of an appropriate follow-up story about Wilson's recent trip to Israel -along with dozens of her colleagues- that was paid for by AIPAC, as I mentioned here on the blog recently when it happened, a congressional gravy train which was first reported by the Washington Post, whom I cited.

Yet not a single South Florida-based news organization, of the less-than-a handfu who even mentioned the trip, felt the need to mention that salient fact, in their mentions of the trip tells you plenty about how dreadful serious news coverage in South Florida in the year 2011 is.

(Oh, in case you forgot, I live in FL-17.)

Weeks later, that fact is, in fact, still missing: no postscripts.

Down here, they just don't believe in them.

Context may be king elsewhere, but not in South Florida.

Answer: It's about Donald Trump. Question: Why is a month-old story still on Miami Herald's Broward homepage under 'Breaking News'? Blame Jay Ducassi

As of 1:20 a.m. Monday May 16th, in the opinion of the editors of the Miami Herald, this April 13th Herald story about Donald Trump not only deserved

to STILL be on the Herald's Broward County homepage under Breaking News, but desercving of being ranked fourth.

THAT'S why it's the Miami Herald.

May 16, 2011 photo by South BeachHoosier

Answer: It's about Donald Trump.Question: Why is a month-old story about Donald Trump -from April 13th- still on the Miami Herald's Broward homepage under 'Breaking News'?

(Due to computer problems, I was not able to post this on Saturday.)

That April 13th story has been there for WEEKS, and as of 5:30 p.m. Friday, the 13th of May, is placed as the #4 story under Breaking News.

Hmm-m... you think that nobody at the Miami Herald HQ on Biscayne Bay is paying attention?

Oh dear friends, it's SO very much worse there than simply NOT paying attention and giving readers in South Florida the solid first-rate reporting and analysis they want.

So very much worse!!!

I almost have to laugh at the idea of it being something that simple, since if it was only chronic inattention to detail, you could always change that with some personnel moves, including some long overdue firing.

It's even worse -it's the culture of second-rate, after-the-fact reporting where some story or issue you never heard of before, that's actually been going on for weeks or months, suddenly appears in the Herald's periscope and appears out-of-nowhere, lacking lots of important context, facts and even-handed reporting,

I was already seeing troubling signs of that myself when I came down here from D.C. in 2003, where important stories lacked any photos or graphs, and where once solid news reporters suddenly seemed to be appearing less-and-less in print, and having their column inches filled by people whose understanding of the particular issue consistently seemed less than mine or that of my friends.

That's one of the reasons I kick myself for not having started this blog then instead of in 2007 when the die wasn't just cast but was painting entire parts of South Florida as no-go zones for Herald reporters -municipal city halls.

As to this curious case involving Donald Trump -whose NBC-TV show I have intentionally never watched- it's much more old-fashioned: greed.

The powers-that-be at the Herald want eyeballs coming to their awful, clunky, embarrassment of a news website, even if many if not most of those eyeballs are from readers who don't live in the Sunshine State and couldn't care less what you or I think about anything, much less, about what we think of Donald Trump's aspirations.

That's how shameless the Miami Herald has become.

Otherwise, that Trump story would have gone straight into the Herald's Paid Archives, wouldn't it, like most other articles a week-old?

The awful Herald Archives that's an industry joke, and which doesn't include photos or graphs and often has spelling and syntax problems, unlike not only better newspapers, but even newspapers with lower circulation.

But that article hasn't gone into the archives, has it?

There's absolutely nothing accidental about that 'oversight.'

Below is a snapshot of the Broward County homepage at the Herald 16 days after the Trump story first appeared.

As you can see for yourself, the link for it -in the left column- is, according to the editors of the Miami Herald, the number-one Broward County Breaking News story.

Really? Sixteen days later.

Why?

As to the larger issue of the Herald's perfectly dreadful -NOT just dreadful, perfectly dreadful!- coverage of Broward County person, places or issues, plain and simple, rather than have current news about Broward there of relevance to people living or working there -like me- as I have been commenting here for years, instead they run non-Broward stories there so often that most of the time, most stories appearing there have nothing to do with Broward County and its residents and business owners.

That's how bad it is, and trust me, I have dozens and dozens of screenshots I have taken over the past few years that prove that point, regardless of what time of the day it is.

In fact, you're just as likely to find stories on the Broward homepage about flooded Miami Beach streets or something going on in Pinecrest or Doral or Kendall as you are about Fort lLuderdale or Hollywood or Pembroke Pines.

Or, need I even say it here, Hallandale Beach.

In fact, I mentioned that Miami Beach street flooding story last year in this space.

Why do you suppose that I have written here from time-to-time that the Herald's terrible local news coverage, esp. of local government, is something that incompetent people like HB mayor Joy Cooper is thankful for?

She's laughing at how much she can get away with with without anyone outside of the city ever hearing about it, esp. the people who voted her head of the Florida League of Cities.

Yes, laughing her ass off!

Who should you blame for this situation?

The correct person to apportion the largest share of the blame to is Jay Ducassi, the former Herald reporter and current editor of the Herald's State & Local section.

Under his direction, the newspaper's quality and quantity of coverage of local and state issues has steadily plummeted into sheer ludicrousness, and now it finds itself a joke within the newspaper industry.

At least, among people paying attention, which may or may NOT include you.

I hold Jay Ducassi personally responsible for the 1,001 reasons that former Miami Herald readers and subscribers have jumped overboard in droves to save their heads from exploding with anger at the sheet stupidity and witlessness of most of what appears there most days.

It's so much worse than embarrassing folks that you would be surprised at how many emails I receive from people I now know -and didn't before- who send emails about what is going on there, often sending me examples of one article or another that had the current Herald's trademark -lack of context, lack of facts and one-sided bias.

What we here at the blog refer to as the Patricia Mazzei-ification of the Miami Herald, since chances are good that almost any story that carries her name on it, esp. her's alone, lacks important context and facts the reader should know about and is full of spin and bias.

Unless something unexpected happens, the posts I promised you about her and Alfonso Chardy, her male counterpart in terrible journalism, are likely going to be here before the end of the month.

That context, facts and fair-mindedness are always missing in their stories about illegal immigration is particularly noticeable, which is why so many of the articles that I'll post here by them have that in common.

You will almost never see anything approaching a level playing-field in their stories, as they are always on the side of the illegal alines with a hard luck story that has been fed to them by their go-to source, Cheryl Little, the greatest media manipulator in South Florida.

Even when Little's name is not specifically mentioned -though that's almost every time the subject of immifration is broached in the paper- you can clearly see her fingerprints on the stories, which read like press releases from her group, rather than honest straightforward journalism. No dissenting voices are permitted to sound off and make sense.

Ironically, on the one-month anniversary of the Trump story still being Breaking News for the Herald, Little was given some space in Friday's newspaper, opposite their editorials, on a page they call, with a straight face, "Other Views."

Of course, by 'Other Views,' contrary to what is the normal practice at newspapers with a more old-fashioned view of journalism, where at least the appearance of dissent is sought, the Herald doesn't mean contrasting points-of-views, they mean voices NOT named the Miami Herald editorial board, saying things that AGREE with their particular editorial p.o.v.

(Often that is the perfectly awful Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star.)

You won't be surprised to discover that the title assigned to the essay written by the woman who is the number-one South Florida proponent of amnesty for anyone who gets to the United States, regardless of how that came to be, was "Still waiting for Congress to act" -as in immigration.

Wow, what a coincidence, last week President Obama was in El Paso pitching his ridiculous and unpopular amnesty program while once again ignoring Arizona, a position the Herald agrees with.

And now they run an essay by someone who agrees with them on a page named "Other Views."

That's why it's the Miami Herald, no?

That Mazzei has been making a mess of the news up in Tallahassee, continuing to make the same mistakes in a different area code, only tells me that this woman is clearly destined for big things at the Herald.

That's of course very bad news indeed for its rapidly diminishing number of readers.

The sheer witlessness and obliviousness of the news coverage in the paper some days makes it seem but a step above a Junior College newspaper.

A bad Junior College newspaper.

I become that many of you will be believers in what I say in the near-future when you see what kind of old-fashioned evidence is in plain sight: photos of the Miami Herald itself, and the lack of Broward stories.

It speaks for itself.

Oh, and the kicker is that the Trump story wasn't even written by a Herald reporter!

-----

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/13/2165204/donald-trump-to-push-gop-2012.html

Donald Trump to push GOP 2012 presidential candidacy at Fla. Tea Party rally

GEORGE BENNETT

Palm Beach Post

Posted on April 13, 2011

Politicians often claim they don't pay much attention to polls, especially ones taken several months before the first voters head to caucuses and primaries.

Then there's Donald Trump.

Less than two hours after CNN released a poll Tuesday showing Trump tied for the lead among potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, the billionaire developer and reality TV star wanted to make sure a reporter interviewing him had seen it.

Trump also directed an employee to e-mail the reporter fresh ratings numbers showing that the latest episode of his Celebrity Apprentice show on NBC had clobbered CSI: NY on Sunday night.

And Trump reminded his interviewer that a recent Wall Street Journal poll showed him as the top presidential pick among tea party voters.

"I wasn't that surprised," Trump said of the tea party poll. "Because my values are very similar. They're hard-working people. They're people that don't like to be taken advantage of by other countries."

Part-time Palm Beacher Trump will make his tea party debut Saturday in Boca Raton when he speaks at an outdoor rally organized by the South Florida Tea Party.

It's the latest indication that Trump is serious about exploring a presidential run.

Trump also considered a run in 2000 as a Reform Party candidate who favored abortion rights, universal health care and a one-time 14.25 percent tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth greater than $10 million.

As recently as 2009, he was giving campaign contributions to Democratic senators and Republican archenemies Harry Reid and Charles Schumer.

But as he looks to 2012, Trump is courting the GOP's base of socially and economically conservative primary voters.

"I'm pro-life," Trump told a Christian Broadcasting Network interviewer last week, explaining he'd changed his views on abortion years ago.

At February's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Trump declared: "I will fight to end Obamacare and replace it, replace it with something that makes sense for people in business and not bankrupt the country.

"If I decide to run I will not be raising taxes. We'll be taking in hundreds of billions of dollars from other countries that are screwing us."

Trump spent much of his CPAC speech pledging to stand up to China and OPEC and other nations he says no longer respect the U.S.

Since then, Trump has made bigger waves by questioning whether President Obama was born in the U.S. and meets the constitutional requirement that the president be a "natural born citizen."

Obama has produced an official certificate from the Hawaii Department of Health attesting that he was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961. The week after he was born, two newspapers in Honolulu included Obama in birth notices using information from state health department records.

The Hawaii document is accepted by courts and the U.S. State Department -- and by the conservative National Review and many Obama critics -- as conclusive evidence the president is a U.S. citizen. But Trump has joined those in the "birther" movement who demand that Obama produce a 1961-vintage "long-form" birth certificate as proof.

Roger Stone, the legendary Republican political consultant who is a friend of Trump but not an adviser to his latest presidential exploration, says Trump's raising of the birth certificate issue has "served him extremely well It has helped him galvanize a base. I don't think you could run on that issue alone."

Stone points to surveys by Democrat-oriented Public Policy Polling that show Trump was viewed favorably by 31 percent of Republicans and unfavorably by 53 percent of GOP voters in mid-February. At the end of March, after weeks of fanning the birther controversy, a poll showed Trump with a 40/33 favorable/unfavorable score among Republicans -- a gain of 29 points in Trump's net approval rating.

Asked about the birth certificate issue in Tuesday's brief interview, Trump said, "I think there are a lot of people that have questions and I certainly do."

But Trump said he believes voters are responding more to "my stance on China, my stance on OPEC, my stance on foreign countries" who Trump says have been "taking advantage of us."

Trump said he accepted the invitation to Saturday's tea party event in Boca Raton because "Florida is very close to my heart."

Organizers are expecting a large crowd.

So is the poll- and ratings-conscious Trump, who says, "I hear it's going to be like a monster."