Obama and the Jay Leno Firing: Will Comcast Comment?

From: Mitchell Langbert

Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 12:02 PM

To: katherine_finn@comcast.com ; katherine_finn@comcast.com

Cc: Michael Marnell ; ThePresident@Whitehouse.gov

Subject: Jay Leno Firing

Dear Comcast Media Department:

I write for a newspaper in Kingston, NY, The Lincoln Eagle, and the publisher is interested in a story about the link between Comcast’s contribution to the Obama campaign and the firm’s decision to fire Jay Leno following his Obama jokes.  I would be interested in a comment from Comcast. There has been coverage of this claim in several blogs ( http://politicaloutcast.com/2014/02/jay-leno-dumped-political-reasons-kind-regime-live/  , http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2014/02/17/tonight-show-writer-hosts-obama , and http://www.infowars.com/was-jay-leno-canned-by-nbc-for-criticizing-obama/ ). 

My day job is that of a college professor, but I am a libertarian.  I haven’t watched television news  or commercial television outside of the premium channels on demand since 2008. I have  been intending to terminate my cable service, but my wife has deterred me until now.  However, her brother, a physics professor, has terminated his.   In my case my motivation for wanting to terminate cable service is a combination of cost and politics.  I watch on demand because I can screen out the Progressive programming and the propaganda-cum-news. I consider American news to have the same content value that Pravda and Izvestia had in the Soviet Union. I haven’t watched television news, including NBC, since 2008. 

Amazon.com and Netflix have sizable on-demand portfolios, yet there is little reason for me to catch the latest episodes of the premium stations’ videos, so your business model and my $350-per-month bill to Time Warner are likely ephemeral.  I would rather watch Hitler’s Nuremburg rally than NBC news, and I don’t see a distinction between Obama and Hitler or between the Soviet news service and NBC.

I would appreciate your comments on the stories about the Jay Leno firing and any other points that may address my concerns about persistent bias and the laughable responsiveness of NBC to  Washington's totalitarians.

Thanks,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

Key Files Motion to Stay in April Jones Case

Mitchell,

Just a reminder that the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on April's case on Friday. This is just an application to stay the competency hearing and get her case back on course to getting resolved. The Supreme Court doesn't grant these very often, so although her case is strong, I am going to have to remain pessimistic about the ruling. 

Here is the link to the docket: http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docketfiles/13a654.htm

(I uploaded this via Scribd.--ML)

About a week ago, I filed a supplement to that application. It is attached. 

I'm also concurrently dealing with a nursing home director who is removing the people who have assisted April the most. So she is now isolated even further. Of course this is a violation of federal law, but fighting a nursing home where someone is confined by a hostile guardian is about the most difficult situation imaginable. It is beyond words.

Thanks always for listening,

Earl

 2-20 Motion to Supplement Supreme Court Application for Stay by langbert

Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Technological Elite

 David Rothkopf makes an interesting point in his 2008 book Superclass.  In Dwight Eisenhower's famous military-industrial-complex speech, he comments not only on the rise of the military-industrial complex but also on the rise of universities as centers of power.  This is what Eisenhower said in January 1961, 53 years ago:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist...

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades...

 Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. 

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

While, as Rothkopf points out in his 2008 book, the influence of the arms industry and the absolute size of the military have waned since the Cold War, the threat of terrorism poses a new complex that mingle military with civil power.  Also, both the 1960s complex and the 2010s complex have relied on finance, which as an institutionalized power center was old in Eisenhower's day but since 1971 has exponentially expanded in influence.

Universities are crucial to the new power complex, just as they were to the military-industrial complex,  not because universities' research is of crucial importance to technological progress--most important technological innovation comes from for-profit sources--but because university professors, who benefit from university endowments that special interests fund, lend an illusive patina of legitimacy and impartiality to federal policy.

Sadly, and this is the truly tragic development since Eisenhower's speech, the American public has shown itself to be incapable of the alertness to the global elite's acquisition of power that Eisenhower thought would be essential to maintain freedom.  The reasons include apathy and an unwillingness to, as Benjamin Franklin put it, question authority.   Another reason is the eagerness of Americans to conform to the norms that the mass media presents to them, and part of the reason is their indoctrination in elementary school, high school, and college.  Americans are increasingly unwilling to take risks and to think for themselves; the unwillingness is both a cause and effect of the increasing power of the nation's technological elite.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Advocates the Sacrifce of Liberty for Security

James Rieker has forwarded an email about Kirsten Gillibrand's proposal for a law that would violently compel employers to give paid leave for family reasons.   The ones who  would pay were this proposal to pass would be the high school and college grads whose employment prospects will be diminished by higher costs and loss of flexibility. Monitoring of cheaters and conflict will raise costs; employees who otherwise would have avoided employment will seek jobs in order to file parental claims. That is not new; bank tellers have long sought employment right before or after pregnancy.  The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 has  prevented employers from discriminating against pregnant job seekers: They have to treat pregnancy like any other disability.  Gillibrand's proposed leave law takes the incentive to cheat employers one step further. A natural response for employers will be to hire the elderly, who cannot afford to retire because of America's mismanaged social security-and-pension system, and exclude younger job seekers. Discrimination in favor of those over 40 is legal under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. 

 

In any case, the chief people hurt by compulsory family leave are young job seekers.  Since they are Obama’s chief supporters, they will pay for their ideological choices.  Frequently, my students insist that access to public housing and welfare is more important to them than freedom.  As Franklin put it, “Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.”

 

Rieker writes:

 

Proposed on Jan 23, 2014 at a News Conference at a YMCA on long Island 3 months paid leave to all workers, The Kingston Freeman also carried it on page 5 Jan 24, 2014- Friday. The Conference was by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand stating that the Senator and other progressive democrats have a plan to expand Family Leave to All American Workers.

 

Currently the law offers 3 months unpaid leave to about half of all American Workers in a Family Emergency. Senator Gillibrand and other Social Democrats want 3 MONTHS PAID LEAVE FOR ALL UNITED STATES WORKERS. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand suggest that  the Average cost would amount to one cup of coffee a week!!

 

Once you offer paid leave it will cost more than a cup of Coffee a week as Gillibrand suggests.  I suppose they based it on the current usage of Unpaid  Family Leave,  But that usage will soon snowball when it becomes Paid Leave. I bet even Gillibrand will use it!! Everyone Will Abuse It!! and the plan is not written for just medical emergencies, but as a Family crisis, that takes a lot under its family abuse wing!

 

Senator why don't you have every worker contribute 2 cups of coffee money a week into a family leave emergency policy run by Social Security,  that pays interest on the money, and the worker can Get All His Money Back when he has an emergency, after all   Everyone is entitled to it and everyone should receive it.  I think up to half the workers will abuse the Senators Plan and will do it year in and year out!!  It will cause a new government freeloader class for three months out of every year.  The Cost will be staggering to the Nation in more ways than one.

 

We heard Kristen's Sob Story that all other industrial ( socialists) Nations have Paid Family Leave and alluded that we should too. It reminds me of a kid saying Andrew gets a $100 a week allowance and I should too.  NO Kristen you have to do chores around the house, then you can get an allowance!!

 

Here are the fun examples of what can and probably will happen!

Mom is getting old and doesn't feel confortable driving since dad passed away. I plan to comfort her and drive her to her appointments.  {So Family Leave consists of  a Daughter helping in a Family Crisis.} The Crisis would be driving to the  Doctor and Dental appointments and going to the hair dresser and shopping with her mom this winter in Miami Beach. Mom always goes to Miami Beach every winter. As her daughter it is my duty to help her every year for the few remaining years my 62 year old mom has left. 

 

My mother is going through a Divorce and she is moving to Myrtle beach. I must offer my help, after my Family Leave expires please continue  my 5 weeks vacation time, as I plan on taking my vacation after this and the Bahamas are so close, so my mother and I will take a needed vacation, and do some dating!

 

My brother has extremely high blood pressure and uneven heart beat, he is taking pills for anxiety and I must spend time with him, to help him through this dangerous time. we will be meeting in Las Vegas. 

 

You will see Supervisors and Union officials disappear every year for three months on your dime. perhaps one third of the work force will disappear in the busy season on Paid Family Leave. employees are paid for family leave by the other two thirds who are still working,  I bet they will work much harder with a smaller work force during the busy time with happy faces!!  Oh yes!!

 

The government may have to hire new workers to replace those on Family Crisis leave, some Real businesses  will close, unable to operate on these uncertain terms, as some businesses  have trouble with just vacation and sick time now!

 

These Hair Brained Progressive Democratic Schemes always give to those who don't earn it .  When our Country borrows $40 for every $100 it spends .  Spending more money is Ludicrous. that is why we have T axed    E nough   A lready     party.