Patterico's Pontifications

2/23/2014

Piers Morgan Gets the Axe

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:54 pm



Politico is reporting:

CNN President Jeff Zucker has decided to bring an end to Piers Morgan’s low-rated primetime show, network sources told POLITICO on Sunday. “Piers Morgan Live” could end as early as next month, though Morgan may stay with the network in another role.

Morgan, a former British tabloid editor, replaced Larry King in the 9 p.m. hour three years ago, prior to Zucker’s tenure as president. His show earned consistently low ratings, registering as few as 50,000 viewers in the 25-to-54 year-old demographic earlier this week.

Where will I go to get my fix of insufferable smugness with a British accent?

Video of Ted Cruz Making Insane Statement: We Should Actually Do What We Tell Voters We Will Do

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 11:10 am



This crazy guy actually thinks elected representatives should do what they told their constituents they were going to do:

I think last week actually is a perfect illustration of everything that’s wrong with Washington. What Republican leadership said is: “We want this to pass.” But if every Republican senator affirmatively consents to doing it on 51 votes, then we can all cast a vote “no” and we can go home to our constituents and say: “We opposed it.” And, listen, that sort of show vote, that sort of trickery to the constituents is why Congress has a 13 percent approval rating. In my view, we need to be honest with our constituents, and last week, what it was all about was truth and transparency. I think all 45 Republicans should have stood together and said: “Of course not!”

. . . .

What I said at the outset was: I am not going to affirmatively consent to giving Harry Reid the authority to do this, because it’s irresponsible. It is selling our nation’s future down the road. And, you know, you go back to those Senate lunches. I won’t identify anything, but I’ll tell you, several people raised a question just like you did there. “Why are you trying to throw five Republicans under the bus and make them vote for raising the debt ceiling?” And I’ll tell you my response. My response is: “I don’t want to throw any Republicans under the bus.” I would like to see all 45 Republicans stand together and actually do what we tell our constituents. I mean, the funny thing is, what I told the voters of Texas, I guarantee you all 45 of those Republican senators tell the voters of their states the same thing, which is: they’re going to lead the fight to stop the spending, to stop the debt. And if 45 Republicans had stood together, nobody gets thrown under the bus. We actually just stand together and say: “What we say at home when we campaign, we actually mean.” The result would have been Harry Reid would have been stopped from raising the debt ceiling and we would have used it as leverage, as we’ve done over and over and over again, to force meaningful spending reform.

Excuse me for a few moments while I give this a standing ovation.

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

Beautiful. Brutal honesty. It’s not an attack on Republicans; it’s an attack on dishonesty and trickery. If Republicans happen to come within the line of fire, well, they have the ability to step out of it. Put simply: if Republicans don’t want to be derided as charlatans, perhaps they should stop acting like charlatans.

People keep asking me (and are asking Cruz, more importantly): what’s the plan? Well, guess what? There is no plan that will save us from financial disaster. The writing is on the wall. This crash is going to happen. It’s going to happen regardless of any “plan” that Republicans come up with. We’re past the point of no return. The economy is going to come crashing down and in my judgment there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop it. And even if there were, any such solution would be politically impossible.

The only possible optimism these days lies not in plans to avoid the crash, but in planning for the aftermath. I have started to read Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse. This book was written by super-duper libertarian Tom Woods, who argues that the crash we are facing is a good thing. This is probably worth a separate post, so I will just give you the thumbnail in this paragraph. Woods agrees that the economy is certain to crash, and that nobody who takes a sober look at the numbers can deny it. His argument is that when the federal government crashes and burns, it can be replaced with a smaller government more in line with what the Founders intended. There will be pain in the interim, but the outcome will be good in the long run. I am skeptical, but I am going to read the book because I would like to be optimistic. I’ll let you know more after I’m done.

But a plan to avoid all this? No such plan exists.

So, if the crash is inevitable, let’s try telling the truth, in the most straightforward fashion possible. Let’s take a stand, regardless of the risks. Will it work out politically? Almost certainly not! The American public has been told they can have low taxes, endless government handouts, and ever-increasing debt — and if you try to tell them anything different, they will run you out of town on a rail. So what are we supposed to do, then? Meekly accept the political realities? Tinker gently with the newly created apparatus of federal oppression? Fashion positions that are two degrees to the right of anything Obama and Harry Reid tell the country is an acceptable way of thinking?

I say no. Tell the truth. That’s what Ted Cruz is doing. It’s remarkable that Washington D.C. actually has a Republican willing to tell these truths, and able to do it so well. As long as Cruz keeps doing this, he has my unwavering support.

Susan Rice: I Have No Regrets Over Benghazi Statements

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:19 am



Of course not:

National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Sunday that she has no regrets about comments she made in 2012 about the Benghazi attacks that killed two U.S. diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens.

Rice, who was then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said during numerous talk-show interviews after the incidents that an inflammatory anti-Muslim video appeared to have sparked the violence.

Speaking on “Meet the Press,” Rice acknowledged her statements turned out “not to be 100 percent correct,” but she said the mistake was not intentional and that the Obama administration did not try to mislead the American people.

She said that her Benghazi comments had not been a planned attempt to mislead, but a “spontaneous reaction” to a video of Mitt Romney criticizing the president. She closed by saying that if you like your doctor, you really can keep him — as people will soon see, now that Obama is ending the “era of austerity” that has dogged his presidency. (This entire paragraph is made up, but it could be real and nobody would blink.)

Everybody knows that she lied, and is lying about whether she lied. I think everyone knows the proof, but if you have forgotten, I laid it out at this link.

If you want to see video of David Gregory laying into Rice and dismantling her denial with a point-by-point rebuttal, crushing her arguments with a simple recitation of undeniable facts, you may view that video here.


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