"I Like to Fire People" -- A non-controversy by the MSM

As is usually the case, if the media can take a comment, cut it out of it's context and then regurgitate it as pablum to the masses who lean the same direction as the media outlet, they can definitely make it run.

The BostonHerald.com today reported the following. I will provide the text verbatim so that you can see what they claim the former Masschussetts governer said at a Nashua, Hew Hampshire meet and greet.

“GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney – who has based his campaign on his sometimes controversial record as a corporate czar – sparked a furor today with the remark that he likes 'being able to fire people.'

The former Bay State governor was discussing health insurance when he said that insurers give fairer prices if they know they will be held accountable.

'It also means that if you don't like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me, ' Romney said.”

There was more in that article, about 600 words more... but nothing else from Mitt Romney's actual statement. With only that chunk of the statement, it would be pretty easy and quite reasonable to think that Mitt Romney is a ruthless man who enjoys firing people for no real reason other than he can.

Fortunately, we have YouTube.com and you can find the entire clip of what he actually said.

“It also means that if you don't like what they do you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. If, if, you know, if someone doesn't give me the good service I need, I want to say 'you know, that if... I'm gonna go get somebody else to provide that service to me.' And so that's one thing I'd change.”

See the difference? In the entire context, what Mitt Romney said is; if you can find somebody that provides a service and does a better job at it than your current provider, you should have the right to terminate the relationship with your current provider. Further, he says that you should be unapologetic about it.

In my opinion this is a contrived controversy. There is nothing radical or controversial about a successful businessman stating that in the course of his business dealings he would have no hesitation to fire a service provider if he can find somebody else to provide the same service for less cost, more service for the same cost, or more service for less cost.

What we really should be looking at in a free-market economy is at what point do we as consumers insist that providers continue to cut costs to the point that the labor to provide the service or good cannot live on the wages. But this isn't Mitt's problem, this is America's problem.

Factoid of the day.

I typed "miserable president" into Google search engine today (May 17th @ 10:11 AM MST), and here's what I got:

Well, for once I agree.

The Unbelievable Media Bias

NewsBusters reports that when prompted by Katie Couric during an interview, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg speculated that the person responsible for the failed car bomb in Times Square was "somebody with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.” Yup, Mayor Michael thinks it might be one of those "tea party" people, you know, an angry WHITE guy. I can only imagine how disappointed President Obama was to find out that in fact, the guy is actually a naturalized American citizen of Pakistani decent. Sorry Mister President, you won't be able to blame this one on those angry gun-toting white males.

Of course, Arizona's new illegal immigration enforcement laws are whipping up angst all over the United States. The day of the bill's signing, pro-illegal-immigration supporters were throwing water bottles and other objects at Phoenix police. Looters have damaged stores in several cities during these protest marches during the May day weekend. Yet the press is characterizing them as "unfairly repressed", yet when tens of thousands of tea party people march on Washington DC and other U.S. cities, even though no crimes were reported, they are characterized as full of "hateful, racist and bigoted" people.

Speaking of Arizona's new law, I've read it in it's entirely and there is absolutely no provision for a police officer to lawfully stop somebody and ask them for their papers. Period. These new laws may only be acted upon in a situation where a person has already been legally detained for other reasons (traffic stop). The only possible cause for concern is that it makes the hiring of day laborers from the road side illegal, which in my opinion is good law.

Speaking of peaceful assemblies, several thousand American citizens had a rally in Arlington, Virginia where each and every one of them was wearing or carrying a firearm. I can't speak as to whether any of them actually had any bullets in them, although even an unloaded firearm can really smart when you use it to butt-stroke some idiot. But while the press was lamenting the implied threat of these citizens who were, in fact, doing nothing more than exercise their 2nd Amendment right, I note that nobody was shot or killed or even just injured by some kind of firearm discharge. What?! How can that be? Guns KILL people right? I guess this shows what the NRA people have been talking about for a long time. People kill people, and these people decided to be lawful citizens on that particular day.

So, just so I can call it right out where people can either praise or pillory me for it.

Large group of white people assemble to protest Obamacare, or lack of illegal-immigration law enforcement, or to lawfully assemble with their firearms, is a bunch of racist, bigoted, bible clinging members of hate groups just brimming with hate and ready to explode into seditious violence.

But large groups of non-white people who clearly support illegal-immigration, who break store windows and throw objects at the police, who threaten reporters, slap them and then tell the police that THEY have been assaulted (look it up on the net, it actually happened just this weekend), they're just "unfairly repressed" people.

And the main-stream media talking heads actually have the temerity to look me in the face and wonder why Fox News is kicking the living crap out of all the other news sources?

MSNBC Ed Schult "I'd Cheat to Keep Brown From Winning".

MSNBC's political talkers continue to prove that they are an entirely owned subsidiary of the Democratic National Committee.

As reported on January 16th by the Washington Times and then highlighted on the much vaunted (or reviled) DrudgeReport, MSNBC's Ed Schultz made the following statement:

"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts I'd try to vote 10 times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I'd try to. Yeah, that's right. I'd cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."



Ed's comments were made in context of the surprisingly competitive Massachusetts Senatorial seat election between Democrat Martha Coakley and Rebuplican Scott Brown. And expectedly, he's supporting Coakley over Brown.

I'd not be surprised if you were to say "Ed who?". Ed Schultz is a MSNBC primetime opinion talker (6pm to 7pm Eastern). This puts him up against Brett Baier on Fox News, who is crushing him in the ratings.

Ed appears to be a little unclear on the whole "democracy" concept that is supposedly the basis for our government. You know, that part that says that each person gets a single vote, and when you tally up those votes, the candidate with the most of them win? (OK, the US Presidential Election doesn't quite work like that because of the Electoral College thingy that actually helps low-population states a little, which makes it possible to win the popular vote by a slim margin and still lose the electoral college vote by a fairly large margin.)

What Ed, a national (in theory) cable commentator is doing is encouraging voter fraud in the State of Massachusetts for the benefit of the Democratic Candidate.

Now say what you like about the right-wing talkers like Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, and O'Reilley but you have not heard them encourage illegal voter behavior or insinuate that they'd do it themselves.

And what do you think the "main-stream" media pundits, talkers and bloggers would be doing right now had Hannity or Beck said the same thing in support of Scott Brown? So I'm completed fascinated by the defeaning silence from them concerning Ed's angry outburst. I attribute it to one of two possibilities: One) Nobody watches "The Ed Show" on MSNBC except for other political hacks, so they're the only ones noticing, or Two) most of media in this country is friendly to left of center commentators and are willing to give him a pass on his indiscreet commentary and thereby doing a huge disservice to the voting public by failing to equally illuminate outrageous commentary from either the left or right.

As I have said to my friends many times, you must consider the source from which the comment came and then discount it accordingly.