As I looked at some reviews of this documentary on the web, I was shocked by the amount of detractors who suggested that Ziegler was your typical, aggravated conservative who was frustrated with his party’s candidate and is now lashing out. Well, that’s a ton of a bullshit if there ever was some! Ziegler is a committed libertarian and has only ever donated money to democratic politicians. Sounds like a regular Rush Limbaugh, right?

Thought not.

From my view, the documentary really dives into two major issues in the 2008 campaign. First, it looks at how the media deliberately paid no serious attention to the various three alarm fires associated with Senator Obama. For example, the audiotape that came out a few days before the election where Obama specifically cited that previous supposedly-liberal Supreme Courts had not gone far enough into redistributing wealth and addressing issues of economic justice. Second, the documentary looks at how the media absolutely destroyed Alaska Governor and former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. When you watch the various attacks played in succession, it’s enough to turn your stomach.

People like Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric twisted and bent Palin’s previous statements and then asked her to respond. And when Palin questioned their phrasing of the questions, they lashed out at her like she was a dummy! The thing that always got me about Palin is that she’s just a regular Mom who rose up the political ranks. When she suggested that she was your typical “hockey Mom,” I can see that being true! And it shows you the vast disconnect between the media and regular Americans that they didn’t “get it.”

Understanding Palin boils down to one of the major issues that Bill O’Reilly has been going on about for years now – class warfare; the “elites” versus regular citizens. I put “elite” in quotations because most of the people who fall into this category may not even realize it. For example, I have friends (conservative, liberal, and independent) who have no idea that think in terms of class warfare and their “class” being better than those “below” them. It’s frustrating and a topic for another entry at another time.

There were some portions of Ziegler’s that will stick with me. Maybe the most glaring is how completely biased Katie Couric was in her interview with Palin. And, specifically, how Katie took Senator John McCain’s two major regulatory battles in the realm of the housing meltdown (his relentless pursuit of tighter oversight over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) off of the table when she asked Palin to explain what McCain had done to help stave off the mortgage meltdown. That’s the equivalent of asking someone, “Other than red, white, and blue, what other colors are there on the flag of the United States of America?”

What?

And the documentary also does a good job of talking about how certain issues were blown up to mean much more than they actually did (i.e. race). If you look at the exit polls, race meant nothing to the voters. By and large, the voters went for Obama because they found what the media suggested that he stood for as a good thing (the nebulous concept of “change”). I have no issues with the voters voting anyway they choose, but to constantly use race as a battering ram against anyone who would even think to mention it (such as former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro) is absurd. Sure, if a pundit tried to use it as a negative, then they should have been criticized, but over and again that was not the case.

Watching Media Malpractice gives you a plethora of such aggravating and disgusting examples of the media’s bias. But, as has been reported on this blog by both my entries and my readers via their comments – the American mass media is a complete joke. It is an empire that has forgotten what unbiased reporting is supposed to be about and is, instead, dominated by profits and ratings. Just like now is the perfect time for a third party to rise at the national level, now is the perfect time for us as a nation to turn our backs on the biased media and support independent sources of news and citizen-led media.

In any event, if you have an interest in this stuff, then I suggest that you check out Media Malpractice. You’ll be as disgusted with the mainstream media as I am.

“If the Republicans can’t break out of being the right wing party of big government, then I think you would see a third party movement in 2012,” Gingrich said Wednesday during a speech at the College of the Ozarks in Missouri, the local television station KY3 reported.

That’s no joke, folks. If it’s coming from Speaker Gingrich then you know this discussion is taking place at the highest levels of the conservative base. Conservative voters in America want something to vote for and everyone knows that what they want does not look like Senator John McCain (for better of for worse).

Speaker Gingrich makes an excellent point here and it follows something that I’ve been thinking for a while, namely that the two major political parties in America are too big and trying to serve too many masters. Americans like options. Right now, we don’t have any substantial options between our big political parties.

By the way, some third parties are already chomping at the bit to become the new political party of choice for conservative Americans. Some of you may remember after the election when I spent some time analyzing the voting results in my hometown. I mentioned at that time that the Constitution Party did relatively well (one or two votes, can’t remember) in one of the smaller districts that I was reviewing. Anyway, I received an e-mail from the Constitution Party talking about how they want to be that third party. They cite how they are the fastest growing political party in the country and after reading what Gingrich had to say and watching the flow of American politics on my own, I can’t say that I’m surprised.

• Senator Barack Obama received 52.92% of the popular vote while Senator John McCain received 45.67% of the popular vote. This compares to 2004 when President George Bush received 50.74% of the popular vote while Senator John Kerry received 48.27% of the popular vote.
• In terms of the total vote count, Obama received 69,456,884 votes while McCain received 59,934,813 votes. This is remarkable because Obama won this election by about 9 and a half million votes. For comparison’s sake, Bush received 62,040,610 votes in 2004 while Kerry received 59,028,444 votes.
• In total, there were 131,237,589 votes cast in 2008 versus 122,267,553 votes cast in 2004. This represents an increase of 8,970,036 votes in 2008 than in 2004.
• The total voter turnout as a percentage of eligible voters was approximately 63%. This percentage is the highest voter turnout since 1960, when 64.8% of eligible voters turned out.
• The increased “youth” vote only represented one additional percentage point in the overall voter turnout. In other words, the youth vote increased by only 1,312,376 votes – certainly not the huge bump that everyone expected

So there is an updated look at the 2008 voter turnout in comparison to the 2004 voter turnout. The 2008 was still an historic election and there was a giant leap in voter turnout, but it is worth mentioning that the youth turnout was not as big as was expected – further proving that just because far-left, anti-war, anti-Bush college students received increased coverage during this election season by a liberal national media, their groundswell of activism does not adequately represent the feelings of their peers. That might be the most interesting piece of information coming out of the 2008 election…

This country is being confronted with a severe crisis and we are losing the battle, miserably. No, it’s not the economy and no, it’s not our place in international affairs. Americans are losing a battle in their own homes!

We are losing the battle for food.

New York Times op-ed columnist Nick Kristof wrote an interesting piece the other day on the topic of the next Secretary of Agriculture. In the op-ed, he cites Michael Pollan – author of In Defense of Food –:

“We’re subsidizing the least healthy calories in the supermarket — high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soy oil, and we’re doing very little for farmers trying to grow real food,” notes Michael Pollan, author of such books as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food.”

The Agriculture Department — and the agriculture committees in Congress — have traditionally been handed over to industrial farming interests by Democrats and Republicans alike. The farm lobby uses that perch to inflict unhealthy food on American children in school-lunch programs, exacerbating our national crisis with diabetes and obesity.

But let’s be clear. The problem isn’t farmers. It’s the farm lobby — hijacked by industrial operators — and a bipartisan tradition of kowtowing to it.

Kristof suggests that Obama rename the Secretary of Agriculture to the Secretary of Food, since it encompasses more Americans. Further, he suggests that we take a second look at what is really being accomplished for the agribusinesses that are bringing in these government subsidies.

I’ve read Pollan’s book and it’s eye-opening. I knew that there was a strong food lobby in Washington, but I had no idea of the extent of their successes. Did you know that at one point, the food companies could not name individually wrapped pieces of cheese “individually wrapped pieces of cheese?” Instead, they had to call them an imitation. There used to be a law against putting out imitation products and calling them anything other than imitations.

It’s shocking to think about how many things are no longer pure food and if this really is a time of change in American government, then why not change America from the bottom up – literally? Head over to FoodDemocracyNow.org to sign an online petition urging President-Elect Obama to choose the next Secretary of Agriculture wisely!

Republican Borough Councilman Bill Doran easily won re-election to the council Tuesday, and first-time Republican Dr. Stephen Sadow will also be joining the council in January.

Both Republicans bested Democrats Robert Silkes and David Karpman in Tuesday’s election.

Doran received 1,052 votes, while Sadow garnered 1,068 votes. Silkes received 920 votes while Karpman received 834 votes.

According to Borough Clerk Linda DeSantis, there were also a total of 513 write-in votes, which were not tabulated Tuesday night because they did not add up to enough to denote a winner. Republicans Steve Lardiere and Christopher Kelley both waged unsuccessful write-in campaigns, posting signs around the borough urging their election to the council.

Sadow will replace Republican KerriAnn Mulligan on the borough’s governing body. Mulligan did not seek re-election to the council.

In the race for U.S. President, Sen. Barack Obama received 1,034 votes while Sen. John McCain received 1,449 votes.

Of about 3,600 registered voters, a total of 2,483 cast votes Tuesday. That’s a voter turnout of about 69 percent.

Nice to see a voter turnout of 69 percent – that’s not bad in America, though I expected it to be higher given that this is a Presidential election year and given the historic race where both a woman and a black man were on opposing tickets. As is usual, Mount Arlington voted decidedly Republican in this year’s elections. I find it interesting that write-in candidates for Borough Council received 513 votes. That’s nothing to scoff at and since the write-in candidates were both Republicans, they certainly helped to close the gap between the Republicans and Democrats in this race. In fact, the Democrats only lost one of the elections by 149 votes – a very impressive vote tally for the Democrats in Mount Arlington.

Anyway, with all of the posts and discussion about the Presidential election I just wanted to comment on the local election, too!

Not only is that not an increased voter turnout, but it’s lower than the last election! Sure, there may be some absentee ballots that need to be counted and after a recount here and there the total number of voters in 2008 might go up a few thousand, but even if the total number of votes cast should rise some astronomical number to 125 million, that’s still NOT the bigger turnout that all of the pundits (and the politicians) expected for this election cycle.

This tells us a few things. First, there was NOT some large groundswell of voter motivation to go out and vote in the most historic election of our time. Second, if the electorate remained essentially the same, then the inherent voter apathy in America was not changed in this election (which is a damn shame). Third, those who voted in 2004 and then voted again in 2008 must have been more likely to be open to the idea of voting for a different party. Remember, McCain only lost by about 7 points (or about 8 million votes).

While that is a significant number of voters, let’s hope that history remembers this election in a realistic view. Yes, 2008 was an historic election for any number of reasons – but not for bringing out more voters to the polls or energizing the electorate.

Senator John McCain gave one of the noblest, most honorable concession speeches that I’ve ever heard and congratulations go to him for running a tough campaign. The awesome nature of Obama’s win will overshadow the rest of the 2008 results, but it is worth mentioning that while Obama/Biden dominated in the Electoral College, McCain/Palin received approximately 48% of the vote. That’s no small potatoes. In previous years, liberal extremists would have been picketing all over the country calling for recounts. I guess we’ll see if conservative extremists push the same buttons, though I doubt it.

I’m glad that the Presidential contest is now over and I’m glad that the candidates both addressed the nation tonight was in nonpartisan tones. President-Elect Obama has a huge job ahead of him (as all Presidents-Elect do) and I agree with Senator McCain when he says that all Americans should be ready to help.

The election is in the hands on the media now, so we’ll likely see a build-up in Obama’s numbers heading into November. The media has anointed Senator Obama as the next President and that’s fine so long as America understands that we have a biased media and unless there are drastic changes (like the increasingly influence of an independent media through online channels), then we’re doomed. A news channel that would simply report factual news or even both sides of the same issues would be a huge success in this country. Oh wait, we already have FOX News and the brainwashed extremists think that it’s biased in favor of Republicans.

Isn’t weird how some Americans will ask for something, get it, and then condemn it?

Thank God I have an independent mind of my own to make up my own decisions! The amount of bias in the media these days is scary.

Anyway, if you really want to declare a winner last night it might have to be Tom Brokaw. Talk about a guy who managed to annoy almost everyone watching by being the only one who was doing his job correctly! That’s got to be a tough position for someone to be in – the straight man between two candidates for Presidents. And was it just me or did Brokaw look extremely white, pale, and aged?

All in all the debate was more bore than anything else. Neither of these candidates is going to put themselves out there and make a major statement during the debates, though McCain almost did with his statement regarding the Treasury buying up all of the bad mortgage debt out there. I am not a fan of this at all – nor am I a fan of this ridiculous bailout (which has so far led to the market falling further).

The real shame of our times is that neither McCain nor Obama have what it takes to fix the economy, yet these are the two choices that we are given. Third party anyone?

Anyway, check out Jersey City Locksmith for the best locksmith service in the Garden State!

Does that make any sense?

Yet another reason why you can’t trust a damn thing you read or hear from the media these days. I had a different view of the debate altogether.

First, I think that each candidate won, but in different areas. For example, Palin was much more likable while Biden was much more of a diplomat. Palin was more down to earth while Biden was more or less the typical Washington insider. Yet Biden appeared to know more on the issues while Palin appeared to only look at the big picture stance on them. What the biased media cannot understand is how each of these stances is a win for the respective candidates.

Palin needed to appear informed on the issues in order to rally the Republican base. She did that. Biden needed to stay away from him common gaffes to energize the Obama campaign. Mission accomplished. That’s not to say that everything Senator Biden put out there was fact, because it certainly wasn’t, but he did manage to stay away from sticking his foot in his mouth.

All in all, I thought the debate was oddly reserved and yet pleasantly collegial. There were no severe barbs thrown between the two candidates as each was carefully treading historic ground. A bit too bland for my liking. Hey, did you know that nearly 70 million people watched the debate the other night? Amazing. Now the stage is set for McCain vs. Obama 2 on Tuesday night. McCain won the first debate and he needs to hit a homerun in order to move the polls in his direction.

Yet at this point with Obama up in all of the polls one has to wonder whether or not it even matters how well Senator McCain performs in the final two debates. He can knock it out of the park both nights and the media will still crown Obama the winner and the popular support will still go in his direction. Is this race still a winnable one for McCain?