Dennis Rainey is a Big Fat Liar

And here he is.

So we reach the time of year where radio charlatans and their so called "ministries" pull out all the stops to get their sheeple to donate to their "work". Often of course, with the brilliantly unbiblical coercion of the "matching donation". Both Jim Daly of "Focus On The Family" and James Dobson of "Family Talk" love to use this ruse to get donations. But as I have to point out again and again, a cheerful giver isn't a guilty giver. Which most assuredly is what these organizations are making of their followers by using the terrible manipulation of the matching donation.

But today, on the last day of 2012, Dennis Rainey of the "Family Life Today" radio show wrapped up the usual end-of-year plea strong arm tactics in a story that was evidently such a monstrous lie that even he corrected himself - well, just a little bit.

Mr Rainey told a story from 2012 of children opening their piggy bank and scotch taping $400 to the walls of their bedroom ( "well, that must have been a big piggy bank" ) along with a note that these CHILDREN wanted their parents to use the money to go to a "Family Life Today" Marriage Conference. Which naturally they did, making their pathetic marriage better and Mr Rainey's pockets just a little bit fuller.

Does anyone with a brain think this actually happened? Children would have $400 dollars in singles in their piggy bank? That they would even know about what a "Marriage Conference" is? That they would know you got to go to such a huckstery event by coughing up your money to a charlatan like Mr Rainey? That children are in anyway interested in the very abstract notion of "marriage" as it applies to their moms and dads? Really? They might want their parents to be happy, but they surely don't know anything about any kind of "conference" events that supposedly can make that goal happen.

No. I'm afraid this story doesn't pass any test for authenticity or for truth. It stinks of falsehood. As I said, even Mr Rainey caught himself questioning the size of the piggy bank.

So really telling such a story of blatant lies simply does make Mr Rainey a Big Fat Liar.

And of course, let's not forget, he runs a "ministry". An organization where "bearing false witness" isn't frowned upon, it is encouraged - especially when it gets the gullible to part with their money.

Shame on Mr Rainey. Shame on him.

Guardian.co.uk - William Faulkner estate sues Sony over Midnight in Paris line

Guardian.co.uk - William Faulkner estate sues Sony over Midnight in Paris line

Sometimes you hear the truth

This morning on "Eric and Audrey in the Morning" on WRMB radio, they were interviewing Janet Parshall about her new book - the one with optional crayons. And as all right wing Christian stations are doing right now, the piece eventually had to degenerate into a plea for people to vote.

Then, in order to show they weren't actually pushing the GOP line ( duh! ), Janet went off on a riff about sharing a Bible study with people you disagree with politically in the hope of some sort of Jesus-inspired meeting of the minds. You know the kind of thing I'm talking about, "Political parties are not important, but don't forget, Jesus was a Republican. And vote your VALUES. Like Jesus would, as a supporter of smaller government."

You know...arrant unbibilical fucking nonsense.

But what Janet ended up saying was that after reading the Good Book together......

"You might change your mind".....OR..........

"I MIGHT CHANGE YOUR MIND."

Priceless! The GOP position, NEVER wrong. Janet, NEVER wrong, never persuadable. But the Baby Jesus could sway you from your Liberal, Socialist Democrat ways!

I guess sometimes the Truth just simply Cannot be Hid.

Hey! How about this though? Maybe Jesus made Janet say what she did to expose her for what she is, a GOP shill of the worst kind. After all, by their stripes you shall know them.

And we all know where Janet stands.

WAFG has returned!

Fuck! After nearly a month of WAFG being off the air, it is back up with canned programming from BBN, the Bible Broadcasting Network. Shit! Now I’ve got to check tonight if “Truth In Action” ministries from Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church has made it back to the Monday night airwaves. I so hope it has not. GOP shills to a man that they be.

Stay tuned for future updates.

WAFG bites the dust!

Another South Florida "Christian" radio station has gone to dead air! Hooray!

For over two weeks 90.3 WAFG "Grace FM" has been off the air. The station has been sold, but alas to an organization called the Bible Broadcasting Network - so the damn thing may well rise from the dead in the coming weeks.

But until that unhappy event actually happens, I'm celebrating the demise of yet another lying Christian station here in the Sunshine state. First WLVJ and now WAFG! A pattern? I hope so.

So for a while, there will be no more "Truth In Action" Ministies from Coral Ridge spewing GOP politics in the name of Jesus every Monday night from the truly unchristian Dr. Jerry Newcombe.

Always beware of people with advanced degrees who insist on describing themselves as "Doctor". This is an indication that even they know they stand on the most shaky of intellectual ground. Remember "Doctor" Kennedy used to list EVERY honorary degree he had at the end of his former comedy hour TV show?


"Jerry Newcombe, D. Min., serves as host of Truth That Transforms with Dr. D. James Kennedy (formerly The Coral Ridge Hour and is Senior Producer for Truth in Action Ministries television. He has produced or co-produced more than fifty documentaries. The host of two weekly radio shows, he has also been a guest on numerous television and radio talk shows. Dr. Newcombe is the author or co-author of 21 books, including with Dr. Kennedy, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?, How Would Jesus Vote?, The Presence of a Hidden God, and The Book That Made America."

Enough said.

Pastor Donald Cole

Radio Pastor Donald Cole died on August 4th and Moody Radio has been gushing praise out of every orifice for him this week. Nauseatingly gushing it like a Religious Ebola outbreak.

He was of course a complete and utter fraud. As all people are who push their Imaginary Friends on the rest of us.

Just before his retirement from Moody Radio, on a phone-in show where he answered questions about the Bible, I once heard him COMPLETELY FLUMMOXED by a question from a seven year old girl.

The call went something like this :-

Girl: Hello Pastor Cole My name is Daisy. I have a question about Heaven.
Pastor Cole: How old are you?
Girl; Seven
Pastor Cole: Oh my! Seven? You know I was seven once? A long time ago....

(He always got gushingly folksy, especially with little girls)

Girl: Is it true everyone will be happy in Heaven?
Pastor Cole: Oh yes. Everyone is happy there. There is no sadness.
Girl: So I will be happy there too?
Pastor Cole: Most certainly Daisy. You will be happy there forever.
Girl: So if I'm in Heaven, what happens if I look around and all my friends aren't there? Won't that make me sad?
Pastor Cole: Harrumph, harrumph, harrumph. Er..well... Actually....

After he floundered around for what seemed like forever, his answer was the following. I am not making this up.

Pastor Cole: Well Daisy, you won't be unhappy because YOU WILL NOT REMEMBER ANYONE WHO IS NOT THERE. God doesn't want you to be unhappy, so you will not remember anyone who God has not allowed in Heaven because of their sins.

Now where is that doozie in YOUR Bible? It certainly ain't in mine.

I can only hope Daisy wasn't taken in by such a silly and obvious lie.

The Manhattan Declaration - Still An Utter Failure

So it has been more than three months since Chuck "The Felon" Colson popped his clogs so I think it is time to again look at the Manhattan Declaration - Chuck's "enduring legacy" in the very tiny minds of people who do not understand what the word "enduring" means.

OK. The calculation will be as before. I'm assuming the US has a population of 320 million and only adults might be signing this "Christian Manifesto" - which I take to be 50% of the population.

OK. Today on August 4th 2012, a total of 531,508 people have signed the Manhattan Declaration.

Based on 160 million potential signatories, that number represents a mere 0.332% of the people in these United States.

By ANY discernible criteria we might use, this tells us that The Manhattan Declaration has been and continues to be, an Utter and Abject Failure.

Focus On The Family Radio Theater

Just listened to episode five of "The Hiding Place" on Focus On The Family Radio Theater featuring the story of Corrie Ten Boom and her resistance to the Nazis in WW2. Please insert your ironic exclamations here.

Now the production values were very good, surprisingly so from an outfit that brings you the truly execrable "Adventures in Odyssey" series, but at the end I think they let the cat out of the proverbial programming bag.

Over the credits they said, "Starring Wendy Craig and Alec McCowen". Now these are two great actors from the UK and I got to wondering, "Is this really a production from Focus on the Family, or are they rebranding BBC dramas through some sort of deal with Auntie Beeb?'

Because if they are, I'm sure a lot of the Luvvies of the British Theater would be up in arms if they realized their work was being sold to and repackaged by such an intolerant and bigoted right wing organization as Focus On The Family.

I wonder how I confirm that the productions on the radio here in the US are really from the BBC?

And if they are, how can we get them stopped?

And let's not start on the sheer irony of a right wing organization like Focus airing a piece like this. I've got to wonder would they have carried the drama if Corrie Ten Boom had been rescuing gays and gypsies from the Nazis?

And the answer to my own question is: Of course they would not.

So let's get this straight

This is GOP "logic" ( and I use the term in its most ironic sense ), "We have to get rid of Obamacare by getting rid of President Obama.".

This statement comes from a party whose nominee for the Presidency introduced almost an identical system in his state when he was Governor. In fact his plan also has a penalty for not purchasing health insurance. But now he is against Obamacare and he hates the individual mandate? His own policy? His own law?

How can he say these things with a straight face?

And "We must repeal Obamacare and replace it with sensible healthcare reform". Who in their right mind thinks that is going to happen? If the GOP wanted healthcare reform they would have proposed legistlation a long time ago. But of course they don't ( and will not now ) because they are only interetsed in preserving the status quo. Just look how many GOP types can't even agree with the President when he says that a family should not be one illness away for bankruptcy.

These guys wouldn't agree with him if the President said "Ice is cold and fire is hot."

And you want to replace a man who is at least doing something with a suit who will do absolutely nothing about healtcare reform? Really that's your answer? Scrap everything and then have a commission to investigate healthcare reform and then after two or three years eventually do nothing?

Can anyone say "Simpson-Bowles all over again. And again. And again to the end of time"?

Mark my words that will be the "Romney Healthcare Initiative".

And talking about getting things done.....

If the GOP was serious about jobs being the number one issue to address, they wouldn't be having fucking meaningless contempt of Congress hearings for the Attorney General and then wasting legistlative time with pointless votes to repeal healthcare reform simply to pander to the loons in the Tea Party.

Pandering gets you re-elected, but it never saves a country from ruin. Sometimes you have to do the unpopular thing. These guys should ask the President why it is always better to do the right thing than to bend to the whims of a vocal minority within your party's base.

Saving the country should always take precedence over saving your own job in Washington.

But the GOP don't want to get anything done. What they want to do from now until November is stick it to the President and to hell with jobs, healthcare, education or the environment. Or really to hell with anything right now.

This is going to be five months of shitting on the country for political gain.

What a joke.

And if Romney picks Eric Cantor for VP it will only get 1000% more ugly and partisan than it is now.

The Time Has Come

I really think the time has come to lay some leather on the loons at CitizenLink, Focus on the Family's propaganda wing. I've been listening to their daily "Family News in Focus" broadcast for a while now and you may recall a previous piece when I analyzed how much of the aired comments in their "stories" were either from their own mouthpieces or Focus on The Family's or just from people on their side of  the argument. That number came out as a whopping 97%. Almost a ready made statistical definition of propaganda. My piece certainly showed that what Citizenlink ( via Family News in Focus ) was not providing was anything that could objectively be called news reporting.

Anyways, after writing that blog, I started to watch their weekly ( and sometimes twice weekly ) CitizenLink Report video segment. This has introduced me to a whole new set of liars and prevaricators who show up pretty darned regularly there. So I thought I'd do a piece of the unsavory cast of characters who appear most often on those broadcasts.

I'm doing this as a service to rational thinking human beings so that as Leonato says in "Much Ado About Nothing" if you see such a one, you may avoid him. ( or in some cases, her ).

There is also another occasional video piece CitizenLink puts out called "Stoplight" where they attempt to be humorous with some topic dear to their little hard hearts - more of that later. But suffice it to say their attempts at humor are about as funny as cancer.

So let's start by looking at who's who.

First, there is the principal mouthpiece of the whole rotten organization and that would be "The Weatherman" aka Stuart Shepard. Here is is looking as wild eyed and unbalanced as he does every week.

"The Weatherman"

Stuart is described at CitizenLink as their "Senior Director of Media", whatever THAT means. He's a good talking head. But not because he brings insight, clarity or balance to anything he does, but simply because before joining Focus on the Family in 1999, Stewie was the chief meteorologist at WLEX-TV in Lexington Kentucky. So what he brings to the table is some media savvy and presentation skills. What he has no idea about is what he pontificates on every week as he snipes at Democrats or snidely calls the President a liar. And this is most assuredly his weekly MO - sly and cruel.

And then we have "The Harpy", This is Carrie Gordon Earll.

"The Harpy"

Carrie's job at CitizenLink is as "Senior Director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy". Which is just Focus on the Familyspeak for screeching "Republican Shill". There is No GOP talking point she won't push, no anti-abortion position she won't condemn as too extreme. She is simply horrible as an analyst and has no business being associated with any organization that remotely claims to be providing news and information to ill informed people. He middle name may actually be "Agenda" not "Gordon". And why the fuck is it "Gordon" by the way? Doesn't that strike anyone as odd for a girl's name?

Now lest I forget, we have to talk about the Weatherman's right hand man, his go to dude with the 'tude and no clue - this is someone I choose to call "The Old Fool" and he would would be little Tommy Minnery former cub reporter extraordinaire and 100% "pro-family" dumbass.

"The Old Fool"

Without a doubt, my favorite CitizenLink pieces are those produced in the weeks where not much anti-family legislation has come down from the President, because then the Old Fool will do a piece on "Where I went for my Summer Hols" and tell us all about what he doesn't know about Europe and America's relationship to it in the 21st Century. Tom's a 1945 kind of guy. A VE Day and Liberation of Europe from Socialist tyranny kind of guy. He knows about how the French felt towards Americans then, but alas, he has not a freaking clue about how they feel now. These pieces are priceless, with Tom drivelling on about "Freedom" and "Values" and all those nonsensical codewords that other leaders of the rightwing loon movement use to culminate with "Taking Back Our Nation". To when? Probably around 1950 when blacks had no vote - some time around then.

Tom's position at CitizenLink is "Senior Vice President for Government and Public Policy". He desparately needs to retire and let someone do the job who is not living in the past.

Then we have "The Bimbo". This would be the blonde intellectual powerhouse who goes by the name of Ashley Horne.

"The Bimbo"

Poor Ashley, she talks like a Valley Girl and comes across as having the mental acuity of a clay pigeon. Ashley is CitizenLink's "Federal Issues Analyst". Again, as with all CitizenLink's spokesmen, there is no analysis, just talking points. No reasoned argument, no intellectual rigor, and with that godawful singsong voice of the truly dim. As an illuminator of issues, this woman's filament broke a long time ago. Truly she's one of CitizenLink's worst on air perfomers.

And next in the list of hucksters and agenda pushers we have "The Blob". This is the CitizenLink "Education Analyst" Candi Cushman. Candi's photo on the "About Us" section of the CitizenLink website looks so unlike what poor Candi as ballooned up to become. Here is what she looks like now.

"The Blob"

Candi looks like she's actually eaten some of the other correspondents at CitizenLink. I think it can be no coincidence that we no longer hear from Neema Reza and Kim Trobee while Candi continues to grow like some monstrous apparition from Moby Dick. Anyways, Candi likes to push "The Day of Dialogue" program at students in our schools. Something that is clearly not legal as such activities have to be student initiated. But CitizenLink and its analysts are clearly the driving force for this event. CitizenLink trots out the Blob whenever there is the hint of a free donut. No! That's wrong. I meant, "whenever there's an education initiative that might actually help some kids". That's what I meant to say. When that happens, Candi is always there to shout it down. So of course, she's also the anti-hate crimes gal at CitizenLink - the person who believes gays deserve no "special protections" in law. And by "special protections" I mean of course, "any protection".

Then we have perhaps the most dangerous of the CitizenLink experts and that is "The Schnoz" aka the Judicial Analyst, Bruce Hausknecht.

"The Schnoz"

The reason I call Bruce the most dangerous is because he is the most seemingly rational human being amongst the cadre of CitizenLink talking heads. But that is really why you have to watch out for him the most. He's a shill for the Roberts' court for sure and his pieces on Supreme Court cases seemed measured and deliberative, but they aren't really. As with all of these talking heads, whether they are as crass as the Weatherman, as ditzy as the Bimbo or as calm as the Schnoz, they are pushing an agenda, attempting to bend public will to their insidious positions by NOT TELLING THE WHOLE TRUTH on ANY issue they opine on. Bruce is no different. He just sounds like he almost might not be doing that. But in the end, he smarmingly is. So this is what makes him the one to fear.

And now my favorite, "The ex-gay" aka poor little Jeff  "My Wife and Three Beautiful Children" Johnston.

"The ex-gay"



I sometimes feel so sorry for poor Jeff. CitizenLink drags him out to talk "Prop 8" nonsense or have him testify before the Colorado legislature when any Civil Union or Same Sex Marriage proposal is being raised. Jeff himself can never wait to tell you he's a straight arrow now dammit! Whenever he speaks it's two sentences in and he's talking about his "coming out of the homosexual lifestyle" and his "lovely wife and even more wonderful children". And then you actually listen to him speak and you just say to yourself..."Really? You're out of it?"

And you just know as sure a God made little green apples, that when Jeff's area of expertise is not in demand that the Old Fool and the Weatherman push Jeff so bar back into a Focus on the Family closet that he has to give his address as "Under The Lamp Post, Narnia".

So these are the chief actors you might see if you tune into the CitizenLink Report every week as I do. There are a couple of other guys who appear a lot more rarely so they have not blipped sufficiently on my CL-BS radar to merit an expanded piece on them here. I'm talking specifically about Chad Hills the "Gambling Analyst and Abstinence Education Analyst" and Dawn McBane the CitizenLink "Bioethics Analyst".

Not sure how the two beats assigned to Chad actually connect. I guess if you get into too much debt while gambling, it might distract you from having sex? I'm really clutching at straws with that one.

So for me, the people I list above are the principal culprits you might hear ( and see ) on the CitizenLink Report video pieces. Every week you will usually see the Weatherman and and at least one of the other miscreants analyzing away, shilling for the GOP and presenting the worst form of biased argumentation you will hear anywhere on these Interwebs.

Beware them all.

And one last thing - The video pieces called "Stoplight" that I mentioned earlier.

If the CitizenLink Report is inaccurate, misleading and downright weaselly, Stoplight is simply inane babble that once again will prove every time you see one of the pieces, that right wingers have the humor gene removed at birth along with the one for caring about your fellow human beings.

For Stoplight, the Weatherman usually uses either the Bimbo or the Schnoz to make what he thinks are humorous and telling points on some item in the news ( They aren't typically either ). Then to show you it was meant to be so yuck-yuck funny and what a jolly jape it all was, they show the piece's outtakes which the Weatherman thinks are just side-splittingly hilarious but which in reality are as laughter-inducing as pus on an infected lip.

The Weatherman also often resorts to using a prop in the Stoplight pieces. It looks like a Webster's Dictionary, but wait, it's the "Wide Eyed Mainstram Media Dictionary" which he will consult to show the evil powers of  Real Reporters and their dastardly usupation of language to the Liberal Agenda. "Aw shucks Pa! He called a spade a shovel. And that just ain't right".

Fuck me, it wasn't funny the first time the Weatherman pulled it out of his ass to make some point that was profoundly stupid, and it has been equally unfunny on the many subsequent times he has forced it into a Stoplight piece.

The Weatherman just doesn't know how to quit when he's behind the humor 8-ball.

So there you have it, the motley cast of characters from the asinine CitizenLink Report broadcasts and the even more stupid Stoplight videos.

Enjoy them both at your intellect's peril.

2012 - Films to avoid. List # 1

Following on from 2011, possibly the worst ever year for original ideas in
movies, I offer this list of films to AVOID in 2012 courtesy of Empire
magazine.

Remember the criteria are simple :-

1. No sequels
2. No comic books
3. No TV show adaptations of shows from my childhood
4. No Jason Bourne
5. No Mel Gibson
6. No remakes

Plus, we have to start being careful - the studios are dropping the dreaded
number in movie titles, but they still are giving us a sequels.

Sucks! Ya! Boo! to THAT.

So here's my first 2012 list from the Turkey Farm :-

The Amazing Spider-Man
The Avengers
Wrath Of The Titans
Streetdance 2
American Pie: Reunion
Battleship
MIB III
G.I. Joe 2
Ice Age: Continental Drift
The Bourne Legacy
Total Recall
The Sweeney
The Expendables 2
Taken 2 ( Oh fuck no! )

2012 - The Year The News Media Deserved A Shellacking

Hang on to your hats people, this is going to get rough.

2012, a presidential election year, surely this is a time when the "news media" can come into their own, earn their collective crusts and actually perform some nominal service to the public, to aid them if you will, through the traps and unseen undercurrents of the American Political System right?

Well, actually no, not at all.

2012 is destined to go into the history books as the year corporate controlled news media failed American Democracy.

Where do we begin? Of course with the Citizens United case and the creation of the whole Super PAC phenomenon. Where were the media when explaining this to the American people was possibly the most important thing they could have been doing? They were AWOL - probably because their corporate overlords saw the Citizens United case as just fine and dandy. And it was just that for the News Corps and GEs of the world, but the American Political Process has been royally fucked up by it.

All the news media ( left, right, undecided ) singularly failed in their mandate to inform the people about the consequences of this truly egregious case. It probably wasn't until the Iowa campaign, when Romney's Super PAC effectively carpet bombed Gingrich out of that race, that they came late to the table and tried to remedy their huge mistake. Too little. Too freaking late. Why didn't they get on Super PACs earlier? Corporate interference not to? Could have been, but I choose to think it was a combination of sheer laziness and a perceived notion that the story was not interesting enough, or it would be too boring, or too obscure or too damn unsexy to snag the interest of people. You know, the "people"? Those human beings who tune in to "news outlets" to heaven forbid, learn something about what's going on so they can make informed choices? THOSE people. Oh yes, they'd certainly go straight to the remote on hearing a story about the usurpation of their country's political system. Wouldn't they?

So it was left to Jon Stewert and Stephen Colbert to guide those who wanted to know through the labyrinthine ways of Super PACs, their function, their controls and the ludicrous notion of "not coordinating" with a particular campaign. Riiiight. I cannot believe that the nine bozos on the Supreme Court couldn't have taken a few minutes to sit down before rendering the Citizens United verdict just to say, like in a game of chess, "If we rule in favor of 'X', what will be the immediate consequences to say 'Y'? " Where 'Y' just happens to be the integrity of the entire US electoral process. Couldn't they have foreseen that ultimate "coordination that was non-coordination" fiasco last week when Gingrich addressed the crowd and said "I'm talking to you ( the audience ) because I can't coordinate with the Super PAC, but the Super PAC should correct errors and remove ads if they have false allegations in them"? Couldn't they have foreseen that a "smart guy" like Gingrich would make a mockery of the Super PAC rules almost before the ink was dry on them? I heard Chief Justice Roberts was a clever man when he was nominated to the Supreme Court. He seemed to be so in his confirmation hearings. But on the evidence of the Citizens United ruling, I think we have been hugely misled on the cleverness issue in his case.

What else? Oh yes, laziness, still reporting the horse race, not reporting the subtlety of changes to delegate allocation, too damn eager to say "After such-and-such a race, it looks like it is going to be all wrapped up for Mr Front Runner".

All the news media were so quick to say "Romney's won two" and "First time since 19xx" and "If he makes a clean sweep in South Carolina, it's most likely all over".

In their lazy and simplistic coverage of the first GOP nominating contests, they ( the news media ) falsely colored people's perceptions of how the race was going when they said that Mr Romney had won the first two contests. This was especially stupid given the 8 vote margin initially given to Mr Romney AND given that the officially announced winner had not been certified by the Iowa Republican Party. So eager were the media to be first, to pick the winner, give him a garland and move on, that they allowed their perceptions, their prejudices to put Mr Romney in that top spot even though THE VERY NEXT DAY one caucus worker said Romney had been give 22 votes in a caucus count when in fact he should have received only 2. But on the night of the vote, a declared margin of victory of only eight should have presented more than enough uncertainty from a process may I remind you that involves COUNTING, for the media to say "Too close to call". But oh no, they wanted that result, they needed that result to validate their election coverage and their process and their glitzy swishy moving walls o'data.

"Mitt's the winner. Nothing else to see here people. On the bus to New Hampshire we go! Single Malts all round! Job well done boys and girls. Here's your bonus, Now let's make sure to wow them in New Hampshire just the same and we can all take a break in Florida, because after that one, we will most certainly be done. And we will have earned our time in the sun. Oh yes indeed we will have".

Also, this desire to be first, announce the winner, move on and so be able to declare someone has "sewn it all up" also leads to a profound and exceptionally unhelpful phenomenon - namely the received wisdom of "the media have decided its over, so it's over".

What should have happened in any of these contests, is that the media should not have concentrated on the winner nor even his margin of victory. This they should have strived to avoid in every minute of every hour of their coverage. What they should first and foremost have said was "Mr 'X' has won and will receive 'Y' delegates for the GOP Convention in Tampa which will happen a long long way down the road in this process of choosing the GOP presidential nominee. Mr 'X' now has a total of 25 delegates, he needs 1214 delegates to secure the GOP nomination".

The emphasis at any time in this process has to be on how many delegates the candidates have and how many they need, not reporting the horse race results after each caucus or primary and then having the talking heads come on and say "This is almost over" and "One more result like tonight and Mr 'X' has the nomination virtually sewn up". What? After TWO contests? And one of those a caucus where but a few thousand people get involved? Really? All over so soon? No. Of course it isn't. The media want you to think it is by telling you they want it to be so.

Heck even the less than unbiased information source called Conservapedia says of the 2012 GOP nominating process that "It is virtually impossible for a candidate to win a majority of delegates before June 2012". ( direct quote )

Why did the news media not report the contests this way? It almost seems they are conspiring with the big money donors, the GOP and the people on the inside to tell us, the saps in this entire process, that "It's all over now. Nothing to see after Florida". Which is of course palpably untrue and does a tremendous disservice to the political process in this country.

And it simply adds insult to the proverbial knee-in-the-groin injury, when you come to find out that this year, the delegates in contests before April 2012 will be allocated proportionately to their vote totals in any particular caucus or primary. This fact alone makes it even more important then ever for the news media to restrain from picking and anointing "The Big Winner" and to just report the three simple facts of, how many votes did each candidate get, how many delegates does that number translate into and how many delegates short of 1214 is each person who is still running.

I am truly appalled by all news organizations' efforts in covering the GOP nominating process to date.

And the sad thing is I don't see them getting any better as we move on to the Florida primary. They clearly will not accept any culpability in their distortion of a process designed not to be over until June at the earliest.

Phew! Rant over.

And I didn't even get to what piss poor candidates they are. How can Newt Gingrich, an insider if ever such a beast existed, get the GOP nomination for President when Congress ( his domain ) has an approval rating of 8%? Which. as was pointed out last week on the TV, is a lower number than the approval rate for Socialism.

And Romney, a man who has changed every thought he ever had in his head?

And Santorum, a theocratic loon with a strange and unhealthy obsession with same-sex relationships?

WTF America? WTF.