National
Think Occupy Wall St. could become a campaign liability for Progressives?
The problem they're going to have here is that 70% of Americans are way right of this type of expression. Not that Wall St. doesn't have it's problems, but the answer to them is not to blow up the entire capitalist system and replace it with some Marxist Utopia that won't be...a utopia at all. The main problem the left in America has right now is that there's no such thing as moderation to them. Taking it too far is not far enough to their ardent supporters (bloggers).
Speaking of pushing it too far: The GOP isn't with these two bills but they also have a proclivity to get out of hand.
Getting rid of the EPA would be good move (you could have better regulation and policy without them), but it's not in-line with what the majority of the electorate is willing to go along with. There's a fine-line between being pro-economy and anti-consumer. IMO the government should always have heavier regulation over things people NEED (food, water, electricity, gas etc.) and only health and safety regulation over things people WANT. That's a pretty striking difference from what a few on the far right are proposing.
On a serious note: Nothing to see here, move along.
To suggest that regulators and those that they regulate not have any human feelings is absurd. There's nothing here that suggests the State department is being swayed by these friendships, only that both sides are acting human. The Socialist/Environmentalist movement wouldn't be happy unless the regulators called the TransCanada employees a bunch of capitalist pigs.
It makes you wonder what Obama's internal polling numbers are showing if they're going to these lengths to shut out the public on his jobs plan addresses
I'd be willing to bet the polling results aren't good, despite an administration and media coordinated press to
win support.
In a word: Heh.
You gotta think the Occupy Wall St. peeps (and the Prog bloggers that support them) would just as soon sell their first born for medical research than admit the Tea Party was on to something. Far better to misrepresent and call them vulgarities.
Local
A man called Cactus
The urbanists and transplants are going to have a seizure over this one. Surely County Commission called "Cactus Jack" isn't world class right?
In which the Houston Chronicle admits the media didn't do it's job.
Had reporters done what reporters typically do - dig for facts - they might have gradually uncovered a raft of details that put Jones' claims in a different light. They could have learned that the combined recollection of virtually every KBR employee who dealt with Jones that day described a different version of events. That company records seemed at odds with Jones' memory on many points. That medical evidence did not support her descriptions of her injuries or her claim of being drugged. That previous diagnoses by her own doctors in Houston said she suffered from a psychosomatic illness that included faking some symptoms.
There have been far too many stories of late where the media, after the fact, has admitted that "whoops, we kind of dropped the ball on that one, sorry, we'll do better NEXT time." The problem is that the "next time" comes and the media does what it has done for years, slant the news. The Houston Chronicle, under it's current leadership, is among the worst of the MSM outlets for slanted (towards the Houston establishment usually) reporting. You expect this type of behavior from The Texas Tribune, the Texas Observer or other newsish outlets, whose funding is typically from party activists and/or interest groups. Sadly, you have to expect it from the mainstream as well. Far better if all of them would just own up to their bias and let us all digest the news with full disclosure.
To be fair, the National news media is worse than the Houston Chronicle.
KBR was a tailor-made villain. Too bad it doesn't appear they've turned out to be. Damned facts.
No matter how many times you put lipstick on a pig it's still the same 'ol pig.
The Chron could have a hundred apps, and it's still not going to change the fact that their local news reporting is sub-par, quite often getting scooped on stories of local interest by National or out-of-town publications. The iPad was hailed as the saviour of newspapers, my prediction is that it won't move the needle AT ALL. What newspapers need to do is get back to some old fashioned watchdog reporting. For the pro-establishment Houston Chronicle, this would mean a 100% re-vamp of the product. I don't believe that Jeff Cohen is the visionary that is necessary to pull off a feat of this magnitude.
So much to talk about. I'll leave the Perry Presidential stuff for
The Texas Iconoclast
