What a Difference...

...a week makes.  Last Mon, it was well below zero.  Today, a week later, it is 41 degrees.

I wonder, now, at the intense media coverage of the Chris Christie bridge scandal.  Is it my imagination or have the LameStream Media focused far more on the Christie mess than the IRS scandal?  I'm not sure nationally, but the Detroit newspapers surely seem that way.  I don't know if anyone believes Christie when he claims to have been ignorant of any political shenanigans involving the bridge.  But, it was a local matter and, after all, hasn't this kind of stuff--penalizing political opponents--been going on for a long, long time?  Oh, I think it's relevant for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that some people (certainly not I!) project Christie as a Republican candidate for President.  But the IRS using its power against political opponents of the President is a far heftier matter.  This is esp so when evidence points to full knowledge in the White House, if not orders themselves coming from there.  I can think of only one reason why the local matter has swamped us while the national one has largely been forgotten in the media.  Is there anyone around who still believes the LameStreams are unbiased?

I'm finishing this book on the Presidents.  I wrote about it the other day.  Presidents are depicted, not chronologically, but in categories such as "Undisputed Champions," "Heavyweights," "Club Fighters," and so on.  I like the format.  But the author falls into the same old rankings that have been in textbooks for years.  These rankings, like the textbooks, are written by and large by liberal/Democrat authors.  What do the polls show, that 90% or more of college history professors identify themselves as "liberals/Democrats?"  That's fine, what they are, but their views show up in their text books, for instance in ranking Presidents, in calling industrialists "Robber Barons" (as if that isn't a loaded term!), etc.  Such reliance on the conventional, if trite and not necessarily accurate, wisdom is compounded by using before-and after-Presidency accomplishments to rank.  Two glaring differences with me are the ratings of Calvin Coolidge--I rank him higher--and Jimmy Carter--I rank him lower.

I had to laugh at a Det Free Press column yesterday.  It involved a possible gerrymandering plan of the Republicans to help Republicans at the expense of Democrats.  The writer seemed shocked, completely put out, by this.  Now, I'm not a big fan of this columnist and wonder how he got the job and how he keeps it.  His ideas are shallow and often bear no semblance to balance or fairness.  Yet, he is now shocked that Reps would do something to help themselves at the expense of Dems?  Take a look at the word gerrymander, its etymology.  One party looking after its own has been going on since the early days of this country.

And state Democrats are worried about cooperation between the White House and Michigan governor in trying to help Detroit.  Apparently they are miffed that credit will go to Gov Snyder at the expense of Dems seeking office, namely Mark Schauer running for governor and Gary Peters running for US Senator.  (I've already written why I think nobody should vote for Peters.)  So the resurgence of Detroit, or its possible resurgence, should take a back seat to politics, namely the election of 2014?  "Detroit be damned!  If fixing it doesn't help our party, don't fix it!"  Don't you just love politics?