Actually, Mr. Greenwald paints a picture brighter than it actually is. The news has become something akin to entertainment without the genius of creativity that fiction claims. The news is now the venue of a few individuals and corporations, who fold, spindle and mutilate at their own pleasure and for profit. As we stand aside and watch a lot of the print media disappear we condone the *fair and balanced* reporting of an electronic media that is nothing more than a propaganda organ using the nation’s airwaves and cable outlets to advance an agenda.

It is way past time to demand the Congress write a new bill for this century that is an updated version of the Fairness Doctrine that Ronald Reagan so deftly axed. It used to be that citizens could comment to the FCC about unfair coverage and licenses to broadcast on the airwaves could be terminated for abuse. There were restrictions on ownership. Alas, television and radio are free now to lard the lies and half-truths with just enough facts to hold it all together and send it out to the gaping millions. We have celebrity high-jinks covered lavishly while the economy unravels in a dark closet on Wall Street, for example.

There will always be customers for supermarket tabloids. So be it. But if a cable outfit makes it up as they go along we can at least demand disclaimers telling us what they’re up to. For example: “Portions of the following newscast are lies.” Would it make a difference? I don’t know. Listeners know the shock-jocks are entertainers, and still they tune in. It would, however, be worth considering some alternatives to what we have today.

I’m delighted that mother and baby are fine. After saying that, I have to hope that mom and dad get at least a high school diploma before they have a couple more. It might be nice if the paternal grandmother doesn’t have to spend more than ten or twelve years in the slammer because she’s a drug dealer. The child might like to have this whole family value crowd around to nourish the tot.

My next question is are the people of Alaska going to keep this crew in office as the state’s first family, and is Neiman Marcus opening a store in Fairbanks?

Jeeze, Swifty, I know of Ph.Ds in English Lit who sometimes blow it in those little boxes we are supposed to write in on the site. Besides, we’re reading this crap aloud, drinking champagne and wishing you were here to keep us all straight. Happy New Year!

Greed will do it every time.

If I was Sarah Palin I wouldn’t bring up Caroline Kennedy except in my dreams. Why would this so-called soccer mom who has about the most damaged family values I’ve ever heard about, an ignorant woman with grand ambition, want to remind us that Ms. Kennedy is an educated and articulate person from a very distinguished family. I hope the people of Alaska show this critter the door at the next election, but on second thought maybe letting her run again will just about wreck the wretched GOP. That would be worth waiting for. No, but seriously folks, can’t we just put her in the Brittany and Paris museum of bimbos?

If I was Sarah Palin I wouldn’t bring up Caroline Kennedy except in my dreams. Why would this so-called soccer mom who has about the most damaged family values I’ve ever heard about, an ignorant woman with grand ambition, want to remind us that Ms. Kennedy is an educated and articulate person from a very distinguished family, and that she buys her own clothes? Ms. Palin didn’t seem to have any problem fitting right in with the Republican habit of lying and then repeating it every chance she had to smear President-elect Obama.

I hope the people of Alaska show this critter the door at the next election, but on second thought maybe letting her run again will just about wreck the wretched GOP. That would be worth waiting for. No, but seriously folks, can’t we just put her in the Hollywood museum of bimbos?

The generation of Republicans now in the congress has never been told NO! Perhaps John McCain can recall the tail end of the Great Depression, but as a child he was living the privileged life of an admiral’s son. Still he is the one who said something about the economy being fundamentally sound and also that he wanted to do for healthcare what the Republicans had done for banking. So much for Senator McCain. We expect him to be an obstructionist on principle because he lost the election.

On the other hand we have John Boehner of Ohio who is even more of an obstructionist, who somehow must believe that standing up to the Democrats no matter what the issue will somehow advance his career. Perhaps he has a fantasy that he can run for a national office. I hope he is wiser than that.

The only thing the citizens can reasonably do at this time is to make it known in no uncertain terms that we won’t stand for Republicans putting their vain ambitions ahead of the nation, and then throw out a whole bunch more of them at the midterm elections. President Obama has a mandate and it’s time for the howler monkeys to shut up and cooperate.