Friday, December 18, 2015

Updated on Monday, December 21: The Sad Ploy of Fox News; Part 2 of the Real Christmas Story, With Sports

BALTIMORE, Maryland December 20, 2015 - The last thing a devoted fan of Fox News wants to do is criticize Fox News, not for poor reporting or sloppy journalism, which it is guilty of far less than its hapless and often devious mainstream media competitors, but for hiding the true motives of its political coverage in this most critical Presidential Election Cycle.  But that is exactly what I am compelled to do.  Worse still, my favorite TV Commentator, the man I most respect and admire, Britt Hume, is apparently right in the middle of it.  I have no beef with Hume or any other commentator for speaking his mind about the GOP and Democratic candidates.  We have a First Amendment, defended with the lives of tens of thousands of America's greatest Patriots, that gurantees that right.  My precise objection is that many of the Fox on-air folk have thrown in with the campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio without being honest enough to admit it.  If Mr. Hume and others are for Rubio, say so.  But don't lay into the candidacies of the two front-runners, sometimes with criticisms laced with untruth, and then point out that Rubio isn't doing what it is charged that Senator Crews and Mr. Trump are doing, without admitting that you are for Mr. Rubio.  Come on, lads, people have swarmed to Fox to get away from that kind of nonsense on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC (in case you didn't know, MSNBC is still broadcasting.  I was surprised.)

About one week ago on Fox I happened upon a brief commentary by Britt Hume.  The subject of the commentary was Senator Ted Crews of Texas, and his increasingly effective run for the GOP Presidential Nomination.  Some pundits believe that the real favorite at Fox was former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.  But Fox has moved past Jeb Bush because his campaign to date has garnered virtually no support.  He has remained in the low single digits, with most recent polls putting his support nationwide at around 5%.  Compared to the leaders - Donald Trump, Senator Crews, Dr. Ben Carson and Sen. Rubio - Bush's numbers are all but hopeless.  Fox has apparently dealt with that reality by moving on to Rubio, but even that hasn't gone well, and the realization among voters that Rubio is the new poster child for the back room folk in Washington will not do him well with the mighty interested conservative base of the party.  That base is, quite honestly, ready to bolt the party and who can blame them?  A whole slew of elected Republican Senators and Congressmen have literally sold their souls to the rich and powerful.  No one is a better example of that then Senate President Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.  McConnell pinned his extremely tough re-election campaign on his promise to voters to do everything in his power to repeal Obamacare; i.e., the Affordable Care Act; i.e., in the words of Credible and Incisive, ObamaShame.  Well, literally one or two days after McConnell won re-election, he gave interviews in which he said it was impossible to repeal Obamashame over Obama's veto; repeal just wasn't going to happen.  What?  People around the country could not believe what they were hearing.  The GOP had just won a majority in the Senate after grabbing the House back from the Democrats in 2010.  The GOP now controlled the legislative branch of government.  And McConnell and his House counterpart, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, held in their hands the purse strings of the government budget.  Obama would not be able to fund his awful Obamashame unless McConnell and Boehner laid down their authority and let him do it.  


You know what?  That is exactly what the two of them did.  That is why one of my favorite pundits, Tom Marr of Radio Station WCBM in Baltimore, calls the two of them the Caboose Brothers.  After promising voters to do everything in their power to repeal Obamashame, McConnell and Boehner decided not to do anything in their power.  Instead, the Caboose Brothers acted in concert with the uber leftist Obama to allow Obamashame to be fully implemented.  They apparently never intended to keep their promise to lead a fight against Obamashame.  Boehner is now gone, having quit to avoid a floor fight for his long-held office of Speaker of the House.  Many wonder how, with the voters' foul and angry mood slathered all over everything, the GOP keeps McConnell in his position as Senate President.  Now, news of a secret meeting in Washington featuring all of the rich and powerful movers and shakers, intended to short-circuit the surging Presidential candidacies of Trump, Crews and Carson, has further infuriated the GOP base, who see such meetings as proof that Washington elites will not allow their hold on minority power to slip away, no matter the cost to the party.

All of this brings us back to Fox News.  Among the top four in all of the Presidential Polls, the only one ever slightly palatable to the Washington elite of the GOP is Rubio.  Rubio made one huge political mistake a few years back when he joined with a small group of senators on both sides of the aisle to try and pass immigration legislation that included amnesty for all illegal immigrants already in the United States, save for law breakers and a few other exceptions.  The base was outraged.  Rubio has since backed off that position, but he never let on that he was willing to take such a step before he did it, and that has led to distrust on the part of more than a few.  That distrust has acted like a braking system on his Presidential Campaign.  It has impuned an otherwise enviable Conservative Record.  Now that he is a darling of the Washington Elite, more eyebrows in the base are flexing.  But then again, so is Rubio's campaign pocketbook, as it is flooded with the contributions organized by the backroomers.  At the GOP debate last Tuesday Rubio attacked Crews, and his attacks contained more than a few untruths, something that has not been reported on at Fox.

In the aforementioned commentary by Hume, he admitted that Crews had forced his way into or near the lead in many of the polls.  He also conceded that Crews actually is in the lead in Iowa, where the first real votes of the campaign will be taken in just over one month in the Iowa Caucuses.  Then he finished his commentary with this shocking statement, which I concede isn't reported here word-for-word, but is pretty close:  "Ted Crews is the most hated man in the Senate.  Now the rest of America will find out why."

That is outrageous, and especially for Hume, who, in my mind, has been a giant of independent political thought even as other so-called big name journalists sell their soul for the despicable Clinton Cabash.  Crews is loathed in the Senate, mostly by his own party, because, unlike most of his colleagues, he actually does what he promises to do.  That is why he is popular with voters.  He is also Harvard-educated, a great public speaker, extremely honest and cannot be intimidated.  Even Donald Trump has been reluctant to lay into Crews, and, to his credit, Crews is not quick to lay into Trump.  Crews openly called Mitch McConnell a liar, because McConnell is a liar.  When you tell the people who voted for you that you will do everything in your power to repeal Obamashame and then, within 48 hours of winning the election, announce publicly that you will not do anything to repeal the ugly and Anti-American law, then you are quite the bald-faced liar.  Maybe McConnell has been around Obama and the Shameless and Awful Harry "Dingy" Reid for too long.  Or maybe he was born a liar and we just never noticed.  The GOP Congressional representatives have been afraid to combat Obama, to their ultimate disgrace.  They have lied to their constituents repeatedly.  Crews publicly calls them on it.  He goes against their spineless tactics.  If they hate him, it means that Crews is a man to be respected, and, quite possibly, elected.  What do Crews and Trump have in common?  The liars and spineless fools in the media hate both of them.  Sounds good to me.


There is nothing ultimately wrong with supporting Sen. Rubio.  He would be a fine President, especially compared to the uber Leftist Obama and the Clinton Cabash and all of their low-brow characteristics.  I'm not sure he would be better than Trump or Crews in this, America's most desperate hour.  Obama still has a year left to continue his wholesale destruction of all things American.  The man or woman who takes over when he is done will have a task of monumental proportions when they take office.  Whoever that person is must act only to save These United States.  Being beholden to the backroom elite will not be conducive to that huge job.  Rubio needs to speak out now, and clearly, on what he has promised the backroomers in return for their support.  They didn't jump on his bandwagon for free.  And the lads at Fox need to be on top of that story instead of hiding from it.  We have enough of that already.

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In a post dated December 14, 2015 Credible and Incisive printed Part 1 of the Real Christmas Story.  Today we post Part 2:
From the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Chapter 2, beginning with Verse 1: Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying: Verse 2: "Where is he who  has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.  Verse 3: When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; Verse 4: and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people; he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. Verse 5: They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: Verse 6: And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judea, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel. (See in the Old Testament, the Book of Micah, Chapter 5, Verse 2).'"

From the Gospel of Saint Luke, Chapter 1, beginning with Verse 18: (Part 1 included Chapter 1, verses 5 to17.  In those verses we are introduced to Zeccariah and his wife, Elizabeth.  The Lord and Saint Luke told us that both were righteous in the eyes of the Lord.  Zeccariah was a jewish Priest.  Both he and Elizabeth were advanced in years but were childless because, we are told, Elizabeth was barren. On the day that events began to unfold, Zeccariah was selected randomly to enter the Holy Temple in Jerusalem to say prayers and burn incense.  A multitude of worshipers were gathered outside.  As Zeccariah began his prayers he was suddenly aware that the Arch-Angel, Gabriel, was inside the Temple with him, and was, in fact, standing just to the right of the altar.  The Angel has informed Zeccariah that he and Elizabeth will have a child and that the child, beginning with his time in the womb, will be the Lord's active and very special servent, earning praise and adoration as he prepares the world for the coming of Jesus Christ. Now, with Part 2, a stunned Zeccariah responds to the tidings brought to him by the Arch-Angel.) And Zeccariah said to the angel, "How shall I know this?  For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years."  Verse 19: And the angel answered him, "I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God; and I was sent to speak to you, and to bring you this good news.  Verse 20: And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time."  Verse 21: And the people were waiting for Zeccariah, and they wondered at his delay in the temple.  Verse 22: And when he came out, he could not speak to them, and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, and he made signs to them and remained dumb.  Verse 23:  And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

Verse 24: After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she hid herself, saying, Verse 25: Thus the Lord has done to me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men."

Verse 26: In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, Verse 27: to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.  Verse 28: And he came to her and said, "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!"  Verse 29: But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be.  Verse 30: And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  Verse 31: And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus."

Verse 32: He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, Verse 33: and he will reign over the House of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.

Verse 34: And Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I have no husband?" Verse 35: And the Angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.  Verse 36: And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.  Verse 37: For with God nothing will be impossible."  Verse 38: And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."  Verse 39: And the angel departed from her.


Part 3 of the Real Christmas Story will be included in the next post of Credible and Incisive.

Sports in Brief: Maryland Trounces Princeton; Arfield Scores Twice as Burnley Breaks Out in 4-0 Win Over Charlton Athletic
At the Royal Farm Arena in Baltimore, Jake Layman broke out of a shooting slump by pouring in 19 points, and Maryland broke away from a close score at halftime to rout Princeton, 82-61.  Playing in front of a sell-out crowd of over 11,000, the 6th-ranked Terps improved to 10-1.  Princeton (6-3) was within 35-31 at the half but could not contend with the fired-up Maryland team that returned to the floor after the break.  Layman's output led a parade of five Maryland players in double figures.  Besides Layman, freshman Jaylen Brantley scored 14 points on 6-7 shooting from the field.  Also, Robert Carter scored 12 points and Diamond Stone and Rasheed Sulaimon had 11 points each. Brantley and Sulaimon were a combined 5 of 7 from beyond the three-point arc.  They helped Maryland overcome a sub-average night for All-American Melo Trimble, who finished with just 7 points on 2 of 6 shooting from the field.  Trimble, however, did dish out 10 assists.  Layman also led the Terps with 8 rebounds, and he had tons of help.  Sulaimon and Stone each had 6 boards.

Princeton was led by Henry Caruso's 17 points, but he was the only Tiger in double figures.

At Turf Moor in Lancashire, England, Burnley broke a streak of six games without a victory (2 losses, 4 draws) with a 4-0 rout of Charlton Athletic.  According to the BBC, the Claret got two scores from midfielder Scott Arfield and single goals from Sam Vokes and George Boyd in the easy win.  Some 15,697 fans took in the match, which is the last for Burnley until the day after Christmas.  The Claret improved to 10 wins, 9 draws and 4 losses, with a goal differential of 10.  Burnley is in 5th place in the English Championship.  Middlesbrough (14-4-4) leads the league with 46 points, followed by Derby with 44 points, Brighton with 43 points and Hull City with 41 points.


If Burnley is back on track - and there is every reason to believe they are - another promotion to the Premier is there for the taking.  Remember, in the English Championship League, the teams that finish first and second get automatic promotions to the elite Premier League.  Teams finishing third through sixth enter a tournament with each other, with only the winner also earning promotion.  In that tournament, the third place team plays the sixth place team and the fourth place finisher is matched with the fifth place finisher.  These first round matchups are 'home-and--home' affairs, with the team scoring the most total goals in the two matches moving on to the title game.  The title game, however, is a single game played at historic Wembley Stadium in London.  That game at Wembley features teams that finished no better than third in the second-best league in England, yet the stakes are so high that it generates tremendous interest around the country.


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