Obamaville March 2, are you kidding me? The Ides of March run amuck!

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Once upon a time, actually in the time of William Shakespeare, his words, "Beware the ides of March," served as a warning, a dramatic foreshadowing, for Julius Caesar who was killed off on that date according to Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar.

Since the event happened in 44 BC, and Shakespeare wrote the play in 1599, we Americans, not into Old English and Shakespeare anymore, changed the meaning to be a forewarning of potential severe weather, as in beware the ides of March, in like a lion, and out like a lamb.

Well the bad weather seems to have come in February this year, perhaps we need to change the meaning of Shakespeare's warning once again.  I do not know about you, but just two days into March and the world seems to be engulfed in a dangerous malaise of bizarre news, events, and chaos.

For example, the Iraq army is attacking ISIS, the same Iraq troops who cut and ran the last time they met.

The charismatic leader of the Russian opposition to President Putin, Boris Nemtsov, was murdered just outside the walls of the Kremlin in Moscow the day before the biggest opposition protests against Putin in recent years.

The Dow Jones, S&P 500, and NASDAQ stock markets all set record highs this week and it is only Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington to address congress tomorrow.

Obama and his senior advisors refuse to meet with Netanyahu even though they are in the final stages of a deal with Iran, who is committed to the annihilation of Israel.

Terrorism continues to dominate headlines so congress and the president fail to agree on how to fund our only defense against the terrorists, the Department of Homeland Security.

Speaking of terrorists, the latest act of brutality by ISIS was the release of 19 Christian prisoners, which no one can figure out.

Putin continues to grab land from the Ukraine while the USA plays footsy with a bunch of bad guys around the Middle East.

In yet another act of terrorism, ISIS might have declared war on Twitter who is trying to stop the 90,000 Tweets a day from ISIS alone.

North Korea and their leader with the new haircut threaten to destroy the Stars and Stripes, namely America, probably because he cannot buy the movies he wants.

As America closes in on energy independence, congress approves the Keystone Pipeline but Obama vetoes the dastardly project.

Speaking of Obama, his buddy, the Reverend Al Sharpton, still has unlimited access to the White House even as he has failed to pay millions of dollars in taxes he owes the USA.

Then there is MSNBC, who finally realized their claims that Morning Joe was the top rated news show on cable are not only misleading, they are false.

MSNBC also has the Reverend Al Sharpton show, which has consistently lost ratings, and might just be the lowest rated news show on cable.  In the background, someone is investigating the Reverend to see if major corporate sponsors of his foundation are protected from racial protests because of their payments.

In sports NASCAR made a rules change that has enraged all the top drivers by disqualifying their cars.  This comes after completion of their first season under major new rules changes concerning the NASCAR driving championship.  Every major driver and the most winners on the NASCAR Sprint circuit failed to make the finals.

Disgraced NBC News anchor Brian Williams, thrown off the air because he thought he was a famous entertainer as well as news anchor, has opened the door to charges other news people on television have enhanced, stretched, or just plain lied about their experiences.  Really, we do not have a biased media do we?

To top off the 2nd day of March, the artist who painted an official portrait of President Clinton fessed up today and said he put the shadow of Monica Lewinsky in the portrait to show his disgust for Clinton's affairs.

More bizarre Clinton news, Hillary people say she will make her presidential announcement on April 1 so does that make it an April's fools joke?

The truth is, even though the Ides of March officially take place March 15, we have a great jump on it with the bizarre incidents listed.

Normalcy is non-existent.

Mediocrity is a distant dream.

News reporters are not supposed to be the news.

Our president claims to represent the two thirds of the public who refuse to vote.

No one cares.

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MSNBC Deceptive Advertising Campaign

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Fans of the Morning Joe show have seen and heard a new MSNBC self-promotion ad that says the Morning Joe program is the cable news leader because they beat out CNN in ratings for the past five years.

As the liberal network and more liberal program struggle to gain viewers deception does not seem like a good component for their playbook.  Following are the actual rating numbers for yesterday, November 20, and while they did beat out CNN, they forgot to mention that Fox News had over three times as many viewers as MSNBC.

Fox and Friends have clobbered Morning Joe with three times as many viewers for a lot more than five years.  Note to MSNBC, leave the deception to politicians.

    

Live + Same Day Cable News Daily Ratings for Thursday, November 20, 2014

Net	Morning programs (6-9 AM)	P2+  (000s)	25-54  (000s)	35-64 (000s)
FOXN	FOX AND FRIENDS	1,264	284	662
CNN	NEW DAY	325	100	192
MSNBC	Morning Joe	382	96	172
CNBC	Total Program Combo	112	31	47
HLN	Morning Express W/ MEADE	197	70	85

Nielsen

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American Media Madness - Cable & Network News Ratings

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Cable News

Fox News was rocked by an 8.0 mega quake the first week of June when the newest prime time host, Megyn Kelly, knocked the brash, cheeky and ever impertinent Bill O'Rielly off his prime time perch when she beat him in the key news demo, adults 25-54 for the week.  While O'Rielly remained #1 in total viewers with over 2.5 million Kelly was barely behind with over 2.4 million.

The two Fox powerhouses with Hannity at #3 and Greta Van Sustern helped Fox take 9 of the top 10 cable news shows for the week.  No hosted news show by MSNBC, CNBC or CNN made the top ten, just a special by CNBC, Shark Tank, and CNN's 1960s documentary.

CNN news continued it's troubles with the lowest key market ratings in 14 years. Second place MSNBC continued to be clobbered by Fox even as cable viewership continues to decline.  In virtually every time slot from Morning Joe to Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow in prime time Fox leads with 3 to 5 times the MSNBC audience.    

Network News

At the network level NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams remained first with 8.1 million viewers while ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer averaged 7.3 million and CBS's Evening News with Scott Pelley pulled 6.0 million viewers.

Morning shows continued to be dominated by ABC's Good Morning America with 5.5 million viewers followed by NBC's Today at 4.77 million and CBS's This Morning at 2.9 million.

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Is GE censuring MSNBC News Shows against competing Interests? Today T. Boone Pickens got cut off.

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Perhaps it is a good thing GE has sold NBC to Comcast because it will finally get GE out of the habit of cutting off news show guests on MSNBC who take positions opposed to the GE/NBC party line. For the second time in the past few weeks a guest on MSNBC Morning Joe Show was cut off mid-sentence while making a powerful point that was contrary to GE financial interests.

This time it was energy advocate T. Boone Pickens who has devoted millions of his own dollars and two and a half years to trying to get Congress to wake up to using natural gas to lead the nation on a responsible path to energy independence. GE is the powerful lobby for alternative energy because they want to own the infrastructure for electric autos.

The minute Pickens said natural gas could replace our 18 wheeler fleet of 8 million trucks in just 7 years, and eliminate 50% of the OPEC oil dependence of the US, he was opposing the GE electric view of the future. Pickens gave a very sound argument for the conversion pointing out that in terms of comparable cost for fuel, just $4 of natural gas equaled $22 of oil. At the same time gas was 40% cleaner and there was no refining of natural gas like there is oil.

All of these arguments show that electric cars are still not going to compete on a large scale until well into the future when GE has bet on lobbying congress for huge short term electric infrastructure money. So as Pickens was rattling off a list of short term benefits of natural gas over electric he suddenly was cut off at 7:55 am and when the broadcast returned there was Senator Kerry replacing Pickens and arguing for the carbon tax, investment in infrastructure for electric, and saying the American public must stop looking at huge energy tax increases as tax increases? What in the world is he saying other than spend and tax more and buy GE stock?

Just last November 4 we wrote a story titled "Was Queen Noor Al-Hussein of Jordan Censured by NBC over Middle East Views during MSNBC Morning Joe Appearance?" In her case she was just explaining how the Israelis were undermining the peace process in the Middle East and was cut off by NBC.

Since GE and NBC operate the television networks over publicly licensed airways it would seem NBC and GE might very well be using unfair business practices to censor guests who do not pitch the company party line. When private corporations involved in business heavily dependent on government regulation and control attempt to influence public opinion by cutting off opposition views in mid-sentence, there is a serious problem in our system.

It seems the FCC or FTC should look into these cases of potential censorship to see if the public airways are being unfairly used to promote the special interests of the owners. As for the Morning Joe Show, they should be a lot more courteous to the guests that oppose the GE and NBC party line rather than being used by the corporate interests as a de facto lobbying arm.
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MSNBC Morning Joe in Alabama - Political Correctness Run Amok

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Last Friday Morning Joe broadcast live from Tuscaloosa, Alabama as Joe Scarborough was receiving an award from the University.  The broadcast was from the Rama Bama Cafe and for the most liberal network on TV it is a little odd and hypocritical that as you watched the show I could find no Blacks in the crowd of Cafe patrons but mostly Blacks in the kitchen preparing food.

How can that be politically correct for MSNBC?  Just another example of the dual standards for the liberal media versus the Tea Party, Sarah Palin or anyone else on their hit list.  They would have been condemned for not showing Black patrons.  Let Mika show you the crowd for the record in the video until MSNBC jams the broadcast.
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White House Takes MSNBC to Woodshed - NBC Now Sings a Different Tune

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Yesterday, after days of withering criticism from the liberal media led by the Morning Joe Show on MSNBC, the White House had the NBC gang over for a talk. Today MSNBC with NBC anchor Brian Williams as a guest on Morning Joe were singing the praises of Obama and his handling of all the major crises facing him.



Gone were the MSNBC reports on how the Obama Administration was responsible for issuing permits to BP for drilling and for approving all the change requests from BP. Yesterday this lack of oversight by a federal agency under an official appointed by Obama was a major story and the head of the agency had been forced out by Obama.



Now if the Interior Department failed to enforce the regulations or approved changes requested by BP that led to the environmental disaster then who is at fault, the oil company following the regulations or the regulators approving the permits and changes? Certainly both could be at fault.



However, the woodshed treatment by the White House has the entire NBC network singing a different song and telling a different story. Is this censoring the news? What exactly did the White House tell NBC that got them to change the story.

Ironically it was not just the oil mess that got the new kid gloves treatment by NBC. I mean why in the world did the news anchor of NBC News have to go on the Morning Joe show and demonstrate how easily the news media can be manipulated by the Obama gang?



Apparently the Obama boys could not put up with criticism from the left like MSNBC. Additional stories on the Morning Joe program about the Joe Sestak campaign promise of a job, the trouble in Israel, and the leadership, or lack thereof, by the president, all took a different slant after the scolding in the woodshed.



Anchors of two MSNBC opinion shows were also brought in to sing the praises of the president although Chris Matthews did not collapse and kiss the White House ring like Ed Schultz did. Of course hosts Mika Brezeinski and Joe Scarborough did a 180 degree turn and made all kinds of excuses for Obama when it came to his leadership.



Once upon a time Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania called MSNBC the Obama Television Network. He wasn't kidding. But as the country moved to the center the network seemed to have realized a far left liberal position was destroying their ratings and they moved to the center. Now, after the whupping in the woodshed, they seem to have returned to the president's back pocket.



Such a dramatic reversal by one of the major networks shows little backbone on the part of the network, and a bold and outrageous act by the White House to control the media. It also proves that there is really no fair and balanced coverage by the news media.

As for the new story line at MSNBC, BP is the criminal, they already tried and judged them. As for the Sestak story, MSNBC now says the Admiral is nuts in saying the White House made him an offer. As for the lack of Obama leadership, MSNBC now says he is misunderstood, that he has really been a tiger behind closed doors and that the public doesn't understand him.



It only took one trip to the woodshed to get NBC singing a different tune. Even so called conservative Joe Scarborough has been left exposed as just another presidential mouthpiece. Poor Joe has to work so hard to prove to his liberal colleagues that the Republicans hate him just as much as the Democrats that he has clearly lost his ideological compass.

MSNBC remains firmly planted in last place on the cable news shows and actions like today demonstrate why? The future stock value of GE who owns NBC for the moment and who benefits greatly from the actions of Obama and the Democrats in Congress must be more valuable to MSNBC than the truth.

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MSNBC Just Can't Stop Unethical Efforts to Slam Fox

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It seems that the lower they slip in the Nielsen ratings the more radical MSNBC has to become to try and distort the record of Fox News. Every time MSNBC starts to do something right their seemingly overwhelming jealousy of the Fox News network led by Roger Ailes who consistently over-powers MSNBC in the ratings causes the liberal leftists to do something stupid.



Yesterday Fox landed a prized one-on-one interview with President Obama. Since Fox is regularly on the White House hit list it was a little surprising unless you know politics in which case you would know Obama was smart in risking the interview to reach millions of conservative and independent Americans he normally cannot reach.



The interview with Bret Baier was not without it's lively exchanges and of course the President and Baier both had a job to do. In the end Obama wins points just for entering the lion's den with Fox. He might even win over some support for his health care bill.



But leave it to MSNBC to take a news event and edit the tapes to make it look like Bret was badgering the President with constant interruptions. Obama does not need false news reports by MSNBC to protect him. His own ratings far exceed the MSNBC leftist ratings and by now he knows what to expect with Fox and does quite well.



The edited tape was used on all the MSNBC shows today and of course the wailing liberals are screaming that Fox embarrassed the President. Nonsense. The Pres did quite alright. It was the network that embarrassed itself. Morning Joe, the MSNBC program claiming to give balanced reporting though it can never quite give up their hope to destroy conservatives and Republicans, started using it with Joe mentioning that the tape had been manipulated. But by the second and third hours of news when the tape was shown not a word was mentioned about manipulating it.



In recent months Morning Joe had started to be interesting and informative to even us non-comrades as they seemed to back off on the unfair tactics and actually do a little reporting even if the guest list is dominated by liberals. When they fall back into smear reporting and crass tactics they ruin everything they have done to improve their image. Fox News and Sarah Palin are not the enemy of MSNBC, they only dominate their competitor burying them with almost five times the number of viewers.



Dirty tricks like editing tapes to make it look bad are yellow journalism tricks of the past, I thought. I have launched a campaign to save Savannah Guthrie from NBC and MSNBC for the very reason that MSNBC reporters cannot simply report but must toe the party line, even if it means using dirty tricks. It is actions like today on MSNBC that will forever keep them buried by Fox in the ratings because though the producers may think it is cute, the people know it is stupid.



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