Meet the Press 4/29/2012 -- the magician's tricks are showing

David Gregory interviewed Ed Gillespie and the previous WH spokesperson, Robert Gibbs. Gillespie said Obama's silly bragging about killing bin Laden and the commercial with Clinton questioning whether Romney would have made the call, are un-presidential. Gregory said that Bush called Kerry weak on foreign policy, but Gillespie said that was based on Kerry's record, not a guess about what he would do as president. The ex-WH spoksperson took up for the administration -- it was a total surprise.

The panel talked about the Republican War on Women which really isn't a War on Women, but they talked about it anyway. The Republicans on the panel said that the administration is avoiding talking about the economy by creating diversions. The Democrats on the panel created diversions to avoid talking about the diversions they've created so they don't have to talk about the economy. It was totally mesmerizing.

Meet the Press and Up with Chris Hayes -- 4/22/2012

Americans have to make some tough choices this year and the years to come until we find the right path to economic growth. The idea that America is super wealthy and that wealth flows to the 1% while the 99% suffer stagnation, decline or the steady pain of poverty is a powerful idea that is reinforced by media and the political class on a daily basis. We're told by those who promote social democracy that since the 80s America has practiced greed, concerned with wealth creation to the detriment of the commonwealth. The market-driven desire for wealth, according to the narrative, drove Wall Street hustlers to take risks which backfired and brought the world to the brink of financial collapse as large banks teetered on ruin.

Social democrats now push for the 1% to pay their fair share, but this is not enough. As anyone understands who's considered the Buffett Rule and the President's campaign to tax the rich, there's not enough wealth available to truly ameliorate the problem of middle class unemployment, underemployment and wage stagnation or reduction. So many home-owners in the middle class are under water on their mortgages, and many went into foreclosures or are headed toward foreclosure -- it's become a serious problem protested by both the Tea Party and Occupy Wallstreet in their own ways with their own concerns.

On the Left there are those like Van Jones and George Soros who call for the Right to sit down and shut up -- they believe it's their turn to address government and help persuade representatives to redistribute wealth in ways that seriously address social justice issues.

America is in dire need of an educated public, but, unfortunately, at this point in time, Americans, for the most part, are ill suited to understand the political issues which face us. I don't say this as a slam. People are free to follow their own interests, and just because a person prefers to learn those things which are outside the realm of politics, economics and philosophy doesn't mean they are in need of correction. Most Americans think of government as something that's taken care of by others who are interested in such matters. People pay their taxes, and they pay into SS and Medicare, and they retire one day and draw their benfefits -- they just assume that others are running the show in federal, state and local governments. They might interact with a government employee from time to time, but it doesn't mean anything more to them than dealing with an employee at the utility company. The only problem with this lack of knowledge regarding politics and our political system is that, like what's happened recently, suddenly the people are forced by a severe economic downturn to pay attention, and then it can be too late. Many Americans had no idea that the debt is as bad as it is, and most people had no idea how Fannie and Freddie worked, and most people weren't aware of the many interventions by government into our economy and the crony relationships developed between politicans and Big Corporations through the years, or how these interventions and cronyistic relationships were leading us to economic trouble.

Ignorance of government dealings is not a problem unless government grabs power when the people aren't looking, and one day you wake up and see a system you didn't know existed. It's a little too late to ask how it happened -- it's a consequence of allowing a small part of the public to deal with political matters. Because the State can grab power, citizens have to pay attention or risk losing freedom. Freedom must be diligently guarded or it will be lost. But that's part of the original freedom -- the freedom to give it up through ignoring the political realm -- it would be little silly to say that people should have been forced to protect their freedom.

Perhaps Americans are shaken and, through the tools of the Information Age, are beginning to learn once again what freedom means and are considering what role we want our government to play in our economy and in our lives. I'm betting on this. I have faith in Americans, that somewhere deep down we all still possess that desire for liberty and dynamism.

Having said that, the problem of ignorance is not limited to a public ill-informed regarding the political realm. Up with Chris Hayes and Meet the Press are two major examples of how the political realm is mostly ignorant regarding economics, business and the private realm. On Up with Chris Hayes, Hayes' guests, Peter Beinart, Rula Jebreal, Sonali Kolhatkar and Eli Lake, for the first hour, discussed the Afghanistan War. The panel talked all around the fundamental problem, and they all appeared to hold on to the illusion that a smarter government can handle situations like 9/11 and the Aghanistan more wisely and efficiently. Hayes touched on the realization when he asked if any such intervention can be successful. They can't. We could perfectly respect the culture of Afghanistan and do everything within our power to win hearts and minds, and the intervention would still fail. It's not within government's power to successfully transform nations like Afghanistan to conform to our desired outcomes. Each guest showed how we've failed in different ways, yet none of them called for a policy of non-intervention and limitations placed on government power so that these types of occupations never happen again.

The Up with Chris Hayes panel is so entrenched in the political idea that statist actions can be guided to successful outcomes if we only plan better, they can't fathom the possibility of a limited government that is prevented from intervening in the economy in ways that can raise enough tax payer money to fund foreign entanglements like Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, we needed to respond to the 9/11 attack, but with our military technology there are ways we can protect our country without occupying a country like Afghanistan for a decade -- it's totally absurd and surreal that a decade has gone by and we're still discussing Afghanistan and the full circle of the Taliban gaining control after we leave with nothing changed except the region has a lot of our money, military training and our weapons. Incredible.

On Meet the Press Gregory had David Axelrod on and the entire show became a discussion of politics with no real understanding of the economic realities that face our nation. Not one person suggested that government power should be limited and that free market principles are needed to recover. Not everyone has to agree with these ideas, but how can media pretend they're discussing our most pressing problems if they don't understand economics and don't consider the possibility that government interventions have caused many of our problems? If all we hear are statist solutions, how can we ever expect anything but State control and more of the same planning that we've seen for more than 80 years? 80 years seems like a long time to some people, but it's a second in history. Statism has been fought at different times, but, contrary to Axelrod's talking points, we haven't been practicing free marketism for the last decade -- we've been under the thumb of Right and Left statism for decades, and now it's time to decide what we have to change. Mainstream Media are not helping.

Meet the Press 3/18/2012 -- Non-interventionism

I understand that no one wants to admit that libertarians have been right on foreign policy, but at least the conversation is taking place about leaving Afghanistan.

David Gregory interviewed John McCain this morning on Meet the Press, and it was striking how out of place McCain appeared with his interventionist position. McCain would have the US keep a presence in Afghanistan permamnently through a military base. McCain would have the US leading an effort against the Assad government in Syria, leading to more pressure on Iran, which McCain would bomb if Iran didn't surrender and fall before the US pressure.

The American people knew what they were doing when they rejected McCain -- if only they had rejected Obama, too. Staying in Afghanistan, leading an attack on Syria and escalating the tensions with Iran all make up the absolute wrong direction for our country. Not only should we stop intervening because the mideast countries should handle their own affairs, but, also, because we're broke -- we can't afford to be the Guiding Light of the Universe. The more we intervene in the mideast, the more the countries of that region will work against us and deceive us and use us and eventually break us.

The round table with Wes Moore, Bob Woodward, and a few others held basically the same conversation, except they concentrated only on the symptomatic problem in Afghanistan. The fundamental problem is a doctrine of interventionism -- this has to change. The roundtable members weren't clear, but they all appeared to accept the futility of continuing what we're doing. At one point there was implications made that a draft would make long term war more fair by investing more people in the wars. A draft would be a great leap from soft tyranny to hard tyranny, and it would only give the State more fodder to conduct wars. The idea is that the rich and powerful would be less eager to go to war, but the result would be that some people receive favors, while many are ordered like slaves to sacrifice their lives for the State.

Meet the Press 11/20/2011 -- More on Republicans

The first segment of Meet the Press had David Gregory interviewing Jon Kyl and then John Kerry regarding the Super Committee and the stalemate between raising revenues and cutting spending and dealing with entitlements. It's impossible to know the truth because neither of these two politicians are concerned with objectivity, so it was really a waste of time as one side blamed the other for the stalemate. Jon Kyl missed an opportunity to elevate the discussion by not rejecting the premise that revenues must be raised. What a Republican should say, if that Republican is not a statist, and this might be the problem with Kyl, is that government doesn't need more money, it needs limitations, and what government has already done should be rolled back. But, Kyl finds it necessary to accept the status quo premise and defend Republicans by saying they want to raise revenues, just in a different way. Kerry did what all Democrats do -- blame Republicans for everything and then say they're ready to reform taxes, too, but not now, maybe later. A waste of time. The ironic item which was not discussed, only mentioned, is the Democrat resistance, led by Leon Panetta, to cut defense spending.

The panel was made up of two Republican moderates who act as political advisors, Ed Gillespie and Mike Murphy, along with Eugene Robinson and Dee Dee Myers. This was also a waste of time as they went over Newt Gingrich's flaws and discussed the Republican primary ups and downs. Do the decision makers on Meet the Press really believe it's important to rehash what every other news program has already covered over and over and over? The only conclusion I can come to is that this focus on Republicans running for president is a way to divert attention from the serious problems facing the Obama administration which is steeped in Solyndra and Fast and Furious, stubbornly high unemployment and a stalled economy. It's not working -- we still know the problems.

Meet the Press 8/21/2011 -- Stimulus, and more stimulus

Savannah Guthrie substituted for David Gregory this morning on Meet the Press, and she started out interviewing Robert Gibbs and Mitch Daniels. Guthrie did a fairly good job interviewing Gibbs, but the question is why have on a low-value guest like Gibbs, especially during a time when viewers are looking for objective, smart political analysis. Gibbs is a political hack and Obama flunky, and his opinions and spin are useless to the national political debate. Gibbs answered every criticism of Obama by denying what was brought up is a problem and saying that Obama outlines ideas every day of his presidency, Obama concentrates on jobs everyday of his presidency and Obama has offered a plan, it's just those damn obstructionist Republicans and headwinds that put a crink in the recovery Obama started from an economic point which was the worst in our history. I say Gibbs is a low-value guest because he offers nothing but regurgitated Obama-excuses and propaganda. The producers of Meet the Press have to know that Gibbs is going to cheerlead for Obama and that Guthrie is not going to respond in the only way appropriate -- Bullshit!

The Mitch Daniels interview was better in that Daniels is somewhat more objective than Gibbs, but we learned nothing new -- Daniels did analyze the current economic situation in smart fashion by alluding to the systemic changes needed in government -- tax and regulatory reform.

The roundtable was pretty predictable, also, with Peggy Noonan, Harold Ford, E.J. Dionne and Maria Bartiroma discussing the Republican field and Obama's performance so far. But to take a President-centric approach to our problems is poor analysis. Presidents can only do so much in this statist system which is set on automatic spending on an out of control welfare state, plus, no one talked about our mideast entanglements. Dionne, of course, wants the President to stimulate, stimulate and then stimulate some more -- he, like most liberals and progressives, believe that demand is our problem, and if you just give people enough money to spend, things will get better. As Bartiroma and Noonan, and even Harold Ford, pointed out, businesses are uncertain of the tax and regulatory future.

Businesses are not going to expand on short term tweaks to the economy, and new businesses will not arise on short-term stimulus and temporary demand. Someone considering a business start-up is not going to pull the trigger because Obama has stimulated demand through 2012 -- existing businesses are not going to expand and hire on temporary demand that fades when the stimulus stops.

Businesses will take a risk if they know their costs and are reasonably confident that government will not tax and regulate them out of business in a few years.

Of course, there was the obligatory denigration of current Republican candidates, but it's way too early for the 2012 elections to take up a full program when America faces a debt problem, a global economic crisis, entanglements in the mideast, high unemployment, a failing public education system and growing dissatisfaction with government in general, not just the present and temporary president.