NewsReal

New on NewsReal – The Real Story Behind Kathy Griffin’s War on the Palins: The Media Laps it Up

Calvin Freiburger Hollywood, media, NewsReal, Sarah Palin, Willow Palin

My latest NewsRealBlog post.

There are few personalities which more perfectly embody Hollywood’s decency deficit than alleged comedienne Kathy Griffin. Known more for attacks on Sarah Palin’s family than for anything resembling a career, Griffin’s latest bid for the spotlight is her New Year’s resolution that “it’s [sixteen-year-old] Willow’s turn to go down. In 2011, I want to offend a new Palin.”

Incredibly, Griffin is trying to pass her attacks on a politician’s teenage daughter off as a moral crusade:

Griffin’s publicist told ABCNews.com, “When any public person puts ‘your such a f****’ on their Facebook wall, they are guaranteed to make it into Kathy’s act.”

The backstory: on Jan. 1, Griffin told The Hollywood Reporter that Alaska’s former first family is on her radar. “I’ve already gone for Sarah, Todd and Bristol obviously,” she said. “But I think it’s Willow’s year to go down. In 2011, I want to offend a new Palin.”

Griffin’s reasoning: Willow Palin reportedly posted homophobic slurs on Facebook in November, and “You don’t throw around the f-word without hearing from me about it.”
The Palins did not immediately respond to ABCNews.com’s requests for comment.

Griffin has been vocal about stopping gay bullying since the apparent suicides of several gay teens in 2010. She donated her income from a Dec. 16 show to The Trevor Project, an organization aimed at helping teens deal with depression and thoughts of suicide.

Willow Palin is the daughter of a “public person”; to most people with a basic sense of decency and restraint, that does not make her a “public person,” too. And while this certainly makes for a cautionary tale about thinking before you post anything anywhere on the Internet, the Facebook pages of minors are not public forums.

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – In Mocking John Boehner, David Letterman Derails a Valuable Conversation About Statesmanship

Calvin Freiburger Boehner, crying, GOP, leadership, Letterman, media, NewsReal, politics, TV

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

For all of the ways in which contemporary society claims to have broken free of stereotypes, there’s still one sure-fire way for men to raise eyebrows: cry in public. John Boehner, the new Speaker of the House, is learning that the hard way. On 60 Minutes, the GOP leader tearfully confessed that he can’t bear to go to schools and see bright-eyed children running about, because the thought of those youngsters not finding the American Dream is too much to handle.

On Monday night, Late Show host David Letterman had a field day with Boehner’s emotions:

“I started sobbing and I thought, why am I crying in a double cheese…It was the Valium, so it leads me to believe…I’m not suggesting he’s using drugs,” Letterman said. “I’m suggesting, what I’m suggesting, is there has been, there has been trauma in this man’s life that he has struggled with, and that’s why he’s always sobbing.”

Seeming to justify the concept of men crying, Williams referenced the sadness he felt when Tim Russert died and the World Trade Center

was attacked.
“I’m not suggesting that he’s anything less than masculine, I’m suggesting he needs some sort of counseling,” Letterman said. “This guy can’t get in an elevator, he starts to sob.”

Letterman is one of the nastiest left-wingers around—remember his “jokes” about Sarah Palin looking like a “slutty flight attendant,” laughing about “crazy-looking foreigners entering the U.N.,” and “finally” meeting “one of those Jewish people Mel Gibson’s always talking about”; or about her daughter Willow having sex with Alex Rodriguez? So it’s to be expected that he’d use the waterworks to suggest that Boehner might suffer everything from a substance abuse problem to psychological trauma. It’s good to know that this is the level of class and responsibility CBS’s execs and audiences alike are comfortable with.

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Looking for Hate in All the Wrong Places: Is Hollywood Homophobic?

Calvin Freiburger bigotry, Hollywood, homosexuality, Left, liberalism, NewsReal, political correctness, stupidity

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

By now it goes without saying that middle America is hopelessly homophobic, at least according to leftist dogma, the average American’s opposition to “marriage equality” sufficiently proving their ignorant prejudice. But the scourge of homophobia is apparently even more far-reaching than any of us could have guessed—according to Ramin Setoodeh at the Daily Beast, even Hollywood is caught in its grasp, as demonstrated by Tinseltown’s refusal to let gay actors play gay roles. Or something:

With the film industry swept up in the congratulatory swirl of awards season, not a single openly gay actor is up for an Oscar nomination. Of course, that’s probably because no openly gay actors even starred in any big films of 2010. The lovable lesbian wives in The Kids Are All Right were played by the heterosexual actresses Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. The quirky couple in I Love You Phillip Morris were portrayed by straight men Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor.

You could say that’s why it’s called “acting.” But that’s little comfort to gay actors, who are routinely shut out of the studio system, even though Hollywood is supposedly one of the most “gay-friendly” towns. Movies need to attract the broadest possible audience, and filmmakers worry that if they cast a gay person as a romantic lead, audiences will be too grossed out. Instead, straight actors get the roles, and everybody talks about how brave they are. Stanley Tucci has played gay so many times (The Devil Wears Prada, Burlesque) it’s like he’s switched teams. Eric Dane and Bradley Cooper were lovers in Valentine’s Day, and they follow a long tradition of straight actors who play gay and collect accolades: Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain), Sean Penn (Milk), Greg Kinnear (As Good As It Gets), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry), Charlize Theron (Monster), Tom Hanks (Philadelphia) and Robin Williams (The Birdcage). The blog AfterElton.com could only name nine working gay TV actors, and they all hold minor or supporting roles. The new gay guy on 90210 is played by heterosexual hunk Trevor Donovan.


Somebody needs to explain to me why a moviegoer who would be grossed out by a gay romantic lead would be seeing a movie about gay characters to begin with. If anything, that there’s a “long tradition of straight actors who play gay” to begin with seems to undermine the theory that Hollywood’s consciously trying to avoid more traditional sensibilities. Indeed, Setoodeh’s list suggests that a lot of Hollywood’s heaviest hitters relish the thought of bringing positive and nuanced (though not always accurate) depictions of homosexuals to theaters.

You could argue that no one gay is on the A-list, so Hollywood has to hire straight people to fill those roles. But it also has to do with something else. Society still shows a prejudice against gay people, especially those who fit the stereotype: feminine men and masculine women.


Setoodeh too quickly dismisses the simplest explanation, that the number of gays in Hollywood is small to begin with, simply because the number of gays in the general population is so small.

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

Republicans Move to Repeal ObamaCare

Calvin Freiburger Congress, Democrats, GOP, health care, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, NewsReal, strategy

My NRB colleague Joseph Klein has a good look at the potential and pitfalls of the strategy. He notes that, since the Democrats still control the Senate and White House, ObamaCare won’t actually be repealed before 2012, but House Republicans have another way they can get policy results in the short term:

The Republican-controlled House also has the power of the purse, which its leaders say they intend to exercise by denying funding for implementing and enforcing key portions of Obamacare. But in order to make this stick, the Obama administration must be prohibited from moving discretionary monies around to make up for any shortfall in direct Obamacare funding. That means making it a criminal act for any Executive branch employee to use any monies appropriated by Congress to implement or enforce any portion of Obamacare unless there is an express Congressional appropriation specified for that purpose.

The time to impose such spending limitations with criminal sanctions is during the lead-up to the vote on raising the debt ceiling that will be occurring in a few weeks.  This is the opportunity for the Republicans who are serious about cutting discretionary spending across the board, and stopping any spending on Obamare, to exercise maximum leverage.

President Obama will either have to blink or face the consequences of a government shutdown due to his intransigence on Obamacare and other wasteful spending. That’s a battle the Republicans should win hands-down if they stick to their guns.

Indeed. Republicans squishy on the repeal because it won’t pass need to understand something: without the presidency or a veto-proof Congress, the GOP shouldn’t expect to pass much of its own legislation into law at all. The objective for the time being isn’t to pass good laws, but to block bad ones where possible and to keep forcing the Democrats to explain their position on things like health care to the American people, in particular their insistence on keeping something the country doesn’t want.

Without losing sight of other important business, Republicans should periodically reintroduce ObamaCare repeal bills until Election Day 2012, to keep the bill’s failings – and its supporters’ folly and hubris – fresh in the public’s mind.

New on NewsReal – Katie Couric: A Muslim "Cosby Show" Could Help Cure America’s Bigotry

Calvin Freiburger bigotry, culture, elitism, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islam, Katie Couric, Left, liberalism, media, NewsReal, race, racism, TV

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Sometimes outside-the-box thinking proves invaluable in solving the controversies that plague us, but sometimes it turns out to be a minefield of useless self-embarrassment. CBS anchor Katie Couric’s novel approach to combating alleged Islamophobia falls firmly in the latter camp. During a panel review of 2010’s biggest stories, Couric lamented the American people’s clueless intolerance:

“The bigotry expressed against Muslims in this country has been one of the most disturbing stories to surface,” Couris said. “Of course, a lot of noise was made about the Islamic Center, mosque, down near the World Trade Center, but I think there wasn’t enough sort of careful analysis and evaluation of where this bigotry toward 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, and how this seething hatred many people feel for all Muslims, which I think is so misdirected, and so wrong — and so disappointing.”

One wonders how Couric is measuring this “seething hatred.” By what Americans say? Doubtful—Newsweek’s latest poll on the subject found that 67% of Americans believe that “only some” or “very few” American Muslims “support the goals of Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalists,” and 62% believe “most” or “many” are “peaceable and do not condone violence.”

Is she judging by what Americans do? Equally dubious—according to the FBI’s most recent statistics, Muslims were the victims of 7.7% of all religiously-motivated “hate crimes in 2008,” as opposed to Jews, who were the victims of 65.7%.

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

Around the Web

Calvin Freiburger blogosphere, GOP, health care, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Julian Assange, Kirsten Powers, Left, Michael Steele, movies, NewsReal, patriotism, Star Wars, War on Terror

Happy New Year, everyone!

Kirsten Powers gets thrown off balance by a nasty run-in with the truth.

“I admire those who join armies, whether America’s or the Taliban’s.” Just don’t question their patriotism.

RedState has a troubling rundown of the problems with Michael Steele’s would-be RNC successors.

Some pinhead named Tad Lumpkin shills for Julian Assange on Big Government. Andrew Breitbart, call your office; this guy’s gotta go.

Another day, another debate about social issues on NewsReal. Do you think there’s a “true” definition of conservatism?

The internet is abuzz with acclaim for Red Letter Media’s third and final takedown of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. These reviews have been amusing (if extremely off-color), and made some fair points, but they’re drastically overrated, and seem to mostly coast on people’s raw, blind hatred of the prequels. (More here.)

New on NewsReal – Television Turned Against Women’s Rights in Afghanistan. Where’s Cultural Imperialism When You Need It?

Calvin Freiburger Afghanistan, foreign affairs, Islam, Left, NewsReal, political correctness, War on Terror

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Television can be a force for liberty in totalitarian and theocratic societies, but it can be used to thwart liberty, as well. Case in point: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon’s Daily Beast report on disturbing events in Afghanistan:

In the past several weeks, controversial television presenter Nasto Naderi has stepped up a campaign he began this year accusing women’s shelters of supporting prostitution and other behavior considered immoral. In December, Naderi showed footage of a family guidance center run by the organization Women for Afghan Women, followed by pictures of family guidance and women’s shelter staff entering their offices. According to Naderi, women’s shelters encourage behavior that violates Islam, though he has yet to offer any evidence to support his allegations.
The unwanted attention has sent a chill through women’s rights supporters in Kabul and created an environment of both fear and defiance among shelter workers. In a conservative country with little history of providing safe havens for domestic-violence victims, the concern is that Naderi’s charges could do great harm—and put shelter workers at risk.

“By these kinds of programs, people’s minds may be swayed, and they may think negatively about these kinds of safe houses,” said Selay Ghaffar of the organization HAWCA, which offers legal aid and temporary shelter to Afghan women seeking to escape domestic abuse.

Naderi makes no bones about what’s really driving his propaganda campaign, boasting that his people “have fought 30 years to put the word ‘Islam’ in front of Afghanistan […] But some NGOs come and want to make another way for our country.” It certainly isn’t concern for the shelters’ quality—“Mr. Nadiri says he hasn’t visited any of the 17 shelters officially registered with the government.”

Women’s defenders fear the legitimization of the Taliban could mean the end of the shelters:

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Hawaii Governor Revives Birth Certificate Wars Because He Wants to End the Controversy. Yeah, Right

Calvin Freiburger Birthers, Democrats, dishonesty, extremism, Hawaii, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, NewsReal, Obama birth certificate, scandal, stupidity

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Thankfully, TV and the blogosphere haven’t suffered any major Birther eruptions in a while, but Hawaii’s new Democratic governor, Neil Abercrombie, is poised to reignite the dumbest of Barack Obama’s scandals…in the name of putting a long-overdue stop to it. Abercrombie intends to settle the question of Obama’s citizenship status once and for all by releasing more previously-undisclosed birth records:

[T]he governor made clear in the CNN interview that he will push forward on this matter regardless of whether the White House is privately worried that it may bring more attention to the so-called “birthers” who continue to deny that Obama was born in America – despite evidence showing that he was.

“We haven’t had any of those discussions,” Abercrombie said of the White House. “It’s a matter of principle with me. I knew his mom and dad. I was here when he was born. Anybody who wants to ask a question honestly could have had their answer already.”

Asked if one option is to ask Obama to waive his privacy rights so that a copy of his actual birth certificate can be released publicly, Abercrombie cut off a reporter’s question.

“No, no, no – it’s not up to the president,” he said.  “It has nothing to do with the president.  It has to do with the people of Hawaii who love him, people who love his mom and dad. It has to do with respect the office of the president is entitled to. And it has to do with respect that every single person’s mother and father are entitled to.”

All the evidence we have overwhelmingly indicates that Obama was indeed born in Hawaii and is constitutionally eligible for the presidency. The facts are on Abercrombie’s side, as far as the question of Obama’s eligibility goes, but his dramatic talk of standing up to “a political agenda not worthy of any good American” reeks of partisan posturing.

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Yet Another Reason ObamaCare Is Even Worse Than You Think

Calvin Freiburger Barack Obama, big government, bureaucracy, Democrats, health care, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Left, liberalism, NewsReal, politics

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

I don’t think this is quite what outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted the American people thinking about when she said we needed to pass ObamaCare to “find out what’s in it,” but a new Daily Beast column by Shikha Dalmia of the Reason Foundation is a perfect example of why that statement rightfully scared people half to death. Dalmia takes a look at aspects of the “reform” that haven’t gotten much attention thus far, but threaten to transform American healthcare into “one big entrapment scheme”:

[I]n an effort to offset [the “doc fix’s”] $20 billion price tag, it has included a little twist to squeeze working families called “exchange recapture subsidy.” Under this provision, the government will go after low-wage families to return any excess subsidies they get under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

When the government hands out subsidies, it will use a household’s income in the previous year as the basis for guessing what the household is qualified to get in the current year. But if the household’s income grows midyear, the subsidy recapture provision will require it to repay anywhere from $600 to $3,500, compared to the $450 that the law originally called for.

This will make it very hazardous for poor working families to get ahead. In the original law, the loss of subsidy with rising income already meant absurdly high effective marginal tax rates—the implicit tax on every additional dollar of income earned. How high? The Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon puts them at 229 percent for families of four who increase their earnings by an amount equal to 5 percent of the federal poverty level or $1,100. In other words, a family that added this amount to an income of $44,700 would actually see its total income fall by $1,419 due to the loss of subsidies.

The subsidy recapture provision—essentially a tax collection scheme—means that low-wage, cash-strapped families will have no escape from these perverse tax rates. Many of them will find themselves owing the government thousands of dollars in back taxes. Since it is unlikely that they will have this kind of money sitting around, they will face a massive incentive to either fudge their returns or work for cash to avoid reporting additional income. Either way, Uncle Sam will come after them, just as it does with recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the negative income tax scheme that is the inspiration behind Obamacare’s subsidies. In 2004, EITC recipients were 1.76 times more likely to be audited than others, no doubt because it is easier for the government to recover unpaid taxes from poor people than “lawyered up” rich people.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Shepard Smith Goes Nuclear on GOP "Grinches" Over 9/11 Health Bill

Calvin Freiburger 9/11, Anthony Weiner, Congress, Democrats, dishonesty, GOP, Hannity, health care, Left, NewsReal, Shepard Smith

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Many outlets, including the Huffington Post, Mediaite, and the Examiner, are increasingly taking notice of Fox News anchor (and longtime left-wing drama queen) Shepard Smith for his alleged courage and principle in distancing himself from the rest of the channel’s right-wing propagandizing. He’s currently being lauded for having taken up the cause of a controversial bill to provide medical care for 9/11 first responders, angrily unloading on Republican Grinches who would dare steal Christmas from American heroes:

We’re able to put a 52 story building so far down there at Ground Zero, we’re able to pay for tax cuts for billionaires who don’t need them and it’s not going to stimulate the economy. But we can’t give health care to Ground Zero first responders who ran right into the fire? Went down there to save people? Do people know what this city was like that day? People were walking over bridges, they were covered in ash, they were running for their lives, they were crying, their family members were dead. And these people ran to Ground Zero to save people’s lives. And we’re not going to even give them medicine for the illnesses they got down there? It’s disgusting, it’s a national disgrace, it’s a shame and everybody who voted against should have to stand up and account for himself or herself.

The Examiner’s Elliot Levin compares Smith to several of his Fox News colleagues, including Sean Hannity, who has endorsed the bill’s purpose but expressed reservations about the particulars, such as concern for potential abuse by illegal immigrants, suspicion about the Democrats’ refusal to pass it via simple majority in the House when they had the chance, and scorn for Rep. Anthony Weiner’s unwillingness to allow that reading a bill might be an important prerequisite for supporting it. Levin says:

While Fox’s primtime lineup of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and to a lesser degree, Greta Van Susstren, are all card-carrying Republicans and openly use their shows to press a conservative agenda, Smith, who anchors the 3pm and 7pm shows, is well-known and liked throughout the TV news world for his passionate and apolitical perspectives.

He has also broken away from the typical conservative line in the past on issues such as torture.
Smith is at his best when it comes to hard news stories, such as car chases, wars, and natural disasters, but when he steps into politics he epitomizes the Fox News slogan of ‘fair and balanced,’ speaking his mind regardless of what his fellow anchors may be saying or believing.

Smith’s caterwauling certainly makes good on the “balance” part of the Fox promise, but “fair” is questionable.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.