The Choate-Weinberg Report

Cheney By Two Touchdowns

Last week, in what the media billed as a smackdown of sorts, former Vice President Dick Cheney explained to the American people why it is a bad idea to undo the Bush administration’s anti-terror policies after President Obama reiterated his intention to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In horse racing parlance, Dick Cheney looked like Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes by 23 lengths..

That’s not subjective thinking on my part.

Harry Reid’s United States Senate voted 90-6 to withhold funding to shut down the prison camp because even liberal Democrats can count when it comes to getting voted out of office.

Frankly, it’s what happens when a 47-year-old President whose sole previous experience is not even a whole term in the Senate takes on a person who has been White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense in the first Gulf War, Congressman from Wyoming, the CEO of one of our largest companies AND served two war-time terms as Vice President. Especially on the subject of keeping us safe which Cheney has done and Obama has talked about.

Put as simply as we know how to put this, most Americans—certainly those of us who live in what is known by the folks who inhabit New York, LA and Washington as “flyover” country—really don’t care what we do to extract information from non-uniformed battlefield detainees or how long we wish to deprive them of “rights” which those same Americans mostly don’t believe they have.

Miranda warnings are really for United States citizens.

If you come from the middle east, are willing to strap on a bomb or help someone else do it for the sole purpose of killing Americans, than you are really going to have a tough time convincing a majority of Americans that you should be able to waltz into the Atlanta Federal Courthouse with the ACLU attorney of your choice by your side and depose the CIA to mount your defense.

And make no mistake, that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about the “detainees” at Guantanamo.

Further, the average American doesn’t think that pouring water on someone’s face repeatedly with a doctor standing by is torture by any definition.  After all, when college fraternities do it, they usually skip the physician’s presence.

Maybe it’s time to ask why the hard left thinks that these interrogation techniques are wrong and why they want to close Guantanamo.

Perhaps it is because they really want to see us lose.

Perhaps they so dislike the United States we all love that they would like to see—just like much of radical Islam—our way of life destroyed.

I have maintained for years that the average voter is one hell of a lot smarter than the average politician of any party.

That when things get too far out of hand, the voters step in and set things right.

One of the problems with both parties is that when they get into the position of controlling everything, they can’t restrain themselves.

In the case of the Democrats, there is a group of folks who have been out of power for so long that they want much more than the average American ever dreamed of giving them.

They want to blame the United States for everything which has gone wrong in the world and some things which have yet to be proven and may never be proven as facts (global warming which they now call “climate change”).

Then, they’d like to raise taxes to confiscatory levels to fund programs which governments have proven historically they cannot run, however nice they may sound.

The voters aren’t going to buy that crap.  Not for very long, anyway.

If you believe they will, sit in the airports and eat in the coffee shops that I do and talk with as many people in a month as I do and your faith in America will be restored.

Barack Obama doesn’t have any bigger “mandate” than did Richard Nixon.

                             FRED WEINBERG

By FRED WEINBERG
Editor and Publisher

Air Force One costs about $68,000 an hour to operate—mostly for fuel.
Las Vegas’ McCarran Field is—even these days—about the ninth busiest airport in the United States.

Just down the road from McCarran is Nellis Air Force Base, the proud home of the Air Warfare Center and a perfectly secure potential landing spot for Air Force One.

So why did President Barack Obama choose to interrupt McCarran’s operations last Tuesday when he came into town to raise money for his politically crippled friend, Harry Reid?

Worse, then he had them fly Air Force One from McCarran to Nellis (about $30,000) so he could leave on Wednesday from Nellis.
In essence, the President spent somewhere around three quarters of a million dollars of your money to raise somewhere around $2-million for Harry’s re-election campaign.

For a man supposedly so in touch with the public he sure has a tin ear when it comes to pissing away your money.

This is shades of Bill Clinton’s hair-cut on the tarmac of LAX while the airport was shot down, waiting for him to leave.

Why didn’t the President land at Nellis?

Well, it would have been much harder to have an adoring crowd on the flight line at a highly secure air force base.

Of course, it would not have interrupted the operations of one of the busiest airports in the nation, most of whose passengers really don’t care about Harry Reid’s re-election, one way or the other.

Unfortunately, the way Obama handled the Reid event last Tuesday is very similar to the way he is handling the rest of his problems.
What the hell, it’s not his money.

He, of course, gives lip service to the fact that it’s tax money.
“You can’t go to Las Vegas on the taxpayer’s dime,” he said.
Unless, of course, you are him.

In which case money is literally no object.
Worse, Obama has no financial background.

He’s never run anything except a Senate office and he has NO management skills.

Yet, he’s signing off on plans to re-organize Chrysler and GM, his budget involves twice the debt which all of his predecessor have incurred and he wants to ”reform” our health care system.

Is nobody else prepared to at least hum the old Jefferson’s theme song, “movin on up”?

Because to see Barack Obama at Caesar’s Palace on Tuesday night, it is obvious that he’s finally got HIS piece of the pie.

Small Minded Fascists, Weak-Kneed Officials

During the 12 years I owned KRLV in Las Vegas, one of the highlights of my life was the experience of doing business with the late Ralph Engelstadt.

Ralph was the owner of the Imperial Palace, the founder and majority owner of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and he was definitely NOT what his mainstream media-created public image said he was.  Specifically, he was NOT an anti-Semite, a bigot, or any of the other things he was accused of during his career.

He was, however, a working man’s conservative who believed in hard work and common sense because those attributes always served him well.

His idea of fun was to take a new limousine to the drive through at McDonald’s for dinner.

His name comes up in this space because, once again, the small-minded politically correct fascists at the NCAA have strong-armed a bunch of weak-kneed public officials into changing the nickname of an athletic team at a public university.

In this case, it happens to be the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux, and the reason Engelstadt is involved from his grave is that he built a $100-million hockey arena for the University’s use which is owned by his family foundation.

It is most Ralph-like that the arena has about 1,800 Fighting Sioux logo.  They are etched in glass, carved in granite floors, attached to each row of seats.

You see, Ralph played hockey—he was a pretty fair goalie—at UND and he was rightfully very proud of his school, its traditions and in no way, shape or form did he believe that the name Fighting Sioux was racist or, in fact, anything other than descriptive of the way his alma-mater played hockey.

It happens that 67% of a local Indian tribe, the Spirit Lake, when polled, support the use of the name.

That, however, makes no difference to the North Dakota Board of Higher Education, which sees this as a financial problem to be solved by telling a family which built a $100-million arena for the school that its wishes don’t count because, what the hell, Ralph is dead and can’t do anything about it now.

It seems they don’t want to tell the NCAA to get bent and they want badly to join a new athletic conference which has arrogantly ruled that until the issue is resolved, they can’t.  Athletic conferences used to worry about the quality of competition.  Now, they worry about whether an Indian based nickname is “offensive” to someone.

As an alumni—actually I grew up on the campus of—Bradley University, members of the Missouri Valley Conference, I would hope that the Bradley Braves are not in danger.

The problem here is, essentially, the same problem that we have today in Washington.

Too many people worried about the wrong thing.

University presidents, members of their boards and faculties are supposed to be worried about mundane things like education.

Apparently, even in a declining economy, merely providing an education along with an athletic program and other staples of University life is no longer a challenge. 

Enough so that they have time to engage in such pointless debates such as does a name which their athletic teams have taken into battle for almost 80 years offend a small group of people who only might have started complaining about it in the past few years for the same reason a dog licks its private parts—because it can.

If I were the taxpayers of North Dakota, I’d start firing some of my employees.

I’d do so not because I disagreed with their actions in this case but because they seem to be doing this to the exclusion of what their actual jobs are.

Educators are supposed to educate.  The only education they are providing in this case is that weak knees and round heels have replaced the common American values we all grew up with.

FRED WEINBERG

Is Nancy Pelosi Worthy Of My Respect?

It’s no secret that in addition to the Penny Press online (pennypressnv.com) we own and operate radio stations in small Western markets.

And, I occasionally write something for the trade press.

Last week, I wrote an inside baseball piece for a broadcasting newsletter.  The content was mostly a reaction to the resignation of our trade association’s president and shouldn’t make much difference to folks who are not in the industry.  (If you really want to read it, here’s the URL: http://www.rbr.com/features/viewpoints/14453.html )

In that piece, I referred to both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid as “half-wits” and, for that, I was admonished by the guy who owns the Air America affiliate in Reno that I needed to be more respectful of these fine public servants.

Excuse me.

I am very respectful of the office of Speaker of the House.  If the Speaker were to call me up and tell me that it was my patriotic duty to help her accomplish something which is important to our future, I’d probably be obligated to be of service.  Same thing for the Senate Majority Leader.

Those offices have specific responsibilities which do not change with the politics of the occupant—just like the President.

But the woman who now occupies the Speaker’s office has a bad habit of lying for political gain.

That makes her a half-wit.

Leon Panetta used to be a Democratic member of the House.  He has also been Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff and is now the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  He actually served in the House with the current Speaker and is anything but a right wing conservative.

He was asked to supply a list of briefings which Pelosi had attended on interrogations after Pelosi said she, like Sergeant Schultz, knew nothing.

The briefing summaries given to the two intelligence panels and other lawmakers last week make note of a September 2002 meeting that included Pelosi, then the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, about what the Bush administration called “enhanced interrogation techniques” that it employed on a terror suspect.

The document lists the subject of the meeting as “Briefing on EITs [enhanced interrogation techniques] including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed.”

Now the Pelosi defenders can parse that any way they want but there are really only two possibilities.

Either she slept through the briefing or she lied.

Now sleeping through a briefing like this one, only a year after 9-11, would tell you a whole lot about the Speaker and we suspect it did not happen.

But lying about it is even worse.   We’re not talking about a sexual liaison with an intern which got Clinton disbarred but not thrown out of office.

We’re talking about someone who is screeching about “torture” as a political tactic who is third in line to the Presidency looking at the American public and lying about something a hell of a lot more important than her sex life.

Only a half wit treats the American public like that.

Nonetheless, if the Speaker of the House of Representatives—whoever it might be—were to call me and ask me to serve my country, my respect for the office would probably obligate me to do so.

And that is the difference between the way most Americans look at the office and the occupant.

Too bad that many of the people who occupy those offices don’t understand the distinction.

                               FRED WEINBERG            

Broadcasters Would Do Well To Stop Kissing Congressional Butt

Editor's note:  In addition to being the publisher of the Penny Press, Fred Weinberg is the CEO of a group of radio stations located in small Western markets. This editorial was published in Radio Business Report.

The news of David Rehr’s resignation as Eddie Fritts’ replacement at the NAB was not nearly as surprising as the instant analysis from people in the media who are not actually in the business of owning and operating broadcast outlets.

They seem to think that Rehr’s sins involved the lack of success in stopping XM and Sirius from merging and his refusal to negotiate a performance royalty.

Although I was a critic of Rehr, it wasn’t those two items which upset me.

It was the fact that we as broadcasters are picking the wrong fights and fighting the wrong way.

And much of that is rooted in the shift of owners from being real media people to bean counters.

Frank Stanton and Bill Paley were not risk averse butt kissers.  Neither were Dan Burke and Tom Murphy.  Or General David Sarnoff.  Or guys like Lowry Mays and John Barger.

I’m fortunate to have been part of the next generation…you know, the group which came along just before bean counters and Wall Street punks all of a sudden found broadcasting fashionable and then not so much—which is why we are where we are today.

Hiring a guy who was a beer industry lobbyist—however skillful he was—would have been unthinkable back when broadcasting was an industry where the players had some respect for themselves and a healthy skepticism of elected officials from both parties.

David Rehr wasn’t the problem.  He did what he was told to do and he’s not a bad guy.

But if we want to start winning battles again, we need to start picking them wisely and be a whole lot less reverent of the political class in Washington.

The XM-Sirius battle was a complete waste of time and resources.

The royalty battle needs to be fought by suggesting to all of these clowns trying to pick our pockets that they better be careful what they wish for because the worst thing which might happen is that they just might get it.

Maybe they’d like to cover our negative cash flow.

Mostly, however, we need to stop being scared of our own shadows.

If I were the leadership of the NAB, I’d first take my hat in my hand and on bended knee ask Mr. Fritts to help find a replacement.  And I’d also ask Steve Largent of CTIA and Frank Keating of the American Council of Life Insurers for their advice.

But the best pick the NAB could make would be useless unless we change our own attitude towards Washington.

Don’t send our new representative to talk with half-wits like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi with his or her hands tied behind his or her back.

If I’ve said this once, I’ve said it a thousand times.  They need us a whole lot more than we need them.  We should start acting like it.

Fred Weinberg

For Chrysler's Future, Look At Post Office

The news release came to us by email, appropriately understated in view of its contents.

In the middle of the worst economic downturn in recent history, the United States Postal Service says that costs are actually higher and the price of a stamp is going up by two cents to 44¢ for the first ounce of a first class letter.

That’s right.

Barack Obama’s Federal Government, which has pissed away billions trying to save Chrysler and General Motors, not to mention AIG and the Bank of America, can’t run the post office on a break even basis with a monopoly on first class mail and is raising rates for the same reason a dog licks its private parts—because they can.

No wonder when you search the usps.com web site for “rate increase” you find very little.

This is, of course, the same USPS which wants to cut delivery on Saturdays.

This is the same USPS which takes stamp machines out of the lobbies of post offices and then acts surprised when people complain.

This is the same USPS which once had a clerk tell one of my managers to get off the phone while he was standing in line as she was having a long conversation with one of her friends who was ahead of my manager in the line.

This is the same USPS which actually hires companies like Fedex and UPS to do jobs they can’t do but retains the monopoly in first class mail.

And, while they would have you believe otherwise, this is the same USPS which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Federal Government, complete with a union which has contracts similar to those of the United Auto Workers.
Would you like to know what Chrysler is going to look like in five years?

Look at the United States Postal Service.

President Obama is signing off on a deal which – should it make its way through the bankruptcy court – will place the United Auto Workers in control of a company where the Government is calling the shots.

It won’t matter if the mere customers want to buy RAM pickups with great big Cummins Diesel engines.

President Obama wants “fuel efficient” econo-boxes and that’s what the customers will get—whether or not they are willing to buy them.

And, perhaps, if not enough people buy the econo-boxes and a whole lot of people choose to buy Ford F-series pickups instead, we’ll just pass a law requiring Ford to stop making F-series pickups.  You know, just like the law giving the USPS a monopoly on first class mail.

They keep talking about how Obama is covering new ground with the auto company bail-out.

No he’s not.

The template is already in existence.  It’s called the Post Office.

Unions call the shots.  Even in a huge economic downturn costs always go up and never down, and they have a monopoly.

Do you really think that Chrysler is going to be different?

The only way this stops is to wipe out the Democratic Congress which is making this possible.

                            FRED WEINBERG