Eh, MSNBC chiefly exists to provide easy content to right-wing bloggers and Tommy Christopher.

Politico's Dylan Byers charts MSNBC's fall.

There are only so many ways to say MSNBC sucks. Let's try it in graph form.

Pictured (L to R): A black line, a red line, and a yellow line;
and another black line, another red line, and another yellow line

MSNBC suffered harder loses in 2013 -- in terms of both viewership and revenue -- than either of its competitors at Fox News and CNN, according to Nielsen data featured in a new Pew Research report. Primetime viewership declined by a staggering 24 percent (nearly twice the loss sustained by CNN and four-times that sustained by Fox News). Daytime viewership fell by 15 percent, even as it rose at both of the other networks.

On the revenue side, MSNBC was projected to decline by 2 percent, while both CNN and Fox News were projected to experience growth of 2 percent and 5 percent, respectively. MSNBC was expected to bring in $475 million in revenue: less than half what CNN will make and roughly one-quarter of what Fox News will make.

Politico's article is mostly taken from a Pew report on the State of the Media.

In bad news, network newscasts actually gained viewers, but at least NBC lost them:

In the evening, an average of 22.6 million viewers tuned into one of the three commercial broadcast news programs on ABC, CBS or NBC, a 2.3% increase over the average viewership for 2012, according to Pew Research analysis of Nielsen Media Research data. The ABC World News increased 2.2% to 7.7 million viewers on average and CBS Evening News increased 6.5% to 6.5 million viewers. NBC Nightly News, the ratings leader, was the only evening news program to decrease, dipping 0.7% to 8.4 million viewers on average.

Byers' blames MSNBC's woes on the relative decline of the only story the network cares about: Bush Bad, Obama Good (or perhaps, Obama God).

With Bush now out of office for over five years, and Obama's presidency looking like, at best, a "slog" (the media's term), and at worst, an unmitigated disaster (everyone else's term), they're trying to get by on Outrage Porn alone.

And Ronan Farrow. Who was a Rhodes Scholar, you know.

Posted by: Ace at 08:56 AM | Comments (427)
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This story is a year old, but I missed it last time. I don't know how I came across it now.

The bad news: As you can tell from the video below, this isn't even a prototype yet. All the pictures are mock-ups, and the video is CGI. The actual plane, the Terrafugia TF-X (the X stands for "Awesome"), is ten years away.

The good news: The company has made flyin' cars before, or, actually, "roadable aircraft," which are just planes that can drive on a highway. I don't really count these as a flyin' car, because, well, they look like planes even when they're on the ground. But the company is at least putting out product.

They've also got a contract from DARPA to make a "flying Humvee" so they can't be total morons.

Better news: the proposed vehicle, in the video below, is also a roadable aircraft, but it looks a bit more like a car to me, so I'm going to count it as an odd-looking and early-model genuine flyin' car.

Even better news: It's a VTOL so you can skip the trip to the airport. The ability to take off from anywhere -- not just an airstrip -- is really a must-have for me, as far as my own flyin' car checklist. If you have to drive to an airport (or have some other convenient airstrip to take off from and land on), then what's the point of having a roadable aircraft? You can just as easily park a car at the airport and then fly your plane.

It doesn't really seem to give the driver that freedom that a real flyin' car does -- the ability to literally just pull off the road and take off into the sky on a whim. Or to land wherever he likes (within reason) by his destination and drive the rest of the way there.

The TF-X, if it is ever made, will cost probably a half a million dollars, if not more.

A Bonus Is This Something? under the fold. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:00 PM | Comments (245)
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I made up "Step 1," sort of. Though it's obvious that Obama prefers light engagements when it comes to war, drones and planes and missiles, rather than heavy ones with tanks and ships and soldiers and seamen.

Which makes it absolutely baffling that he's cutting Tomahawk purchases to 100 in 2015, and then canceling production entirely in 2016.

This will leave us with enough Tomahawks to get us through 2018... maybe. Assuming we don't have to use more of them than we were expecting.

President Barack Obama is seeking to abolish two highly successful missile programs that experts say have helped the U.S. Navy maintain military superiority for the past several decades.

The Tomahawk missile program—known as “the world’s most advanced cruise missile”—is set to be cut by $128 million under Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal and completely eliminated by fiscal year 2016, according to budget documents released by the Navy.

...

The Navy will also be forced to cancel its acquisition of the well-regarded and highly effective Hellfire missiles in 2015, according to ObamaÂ’s proposal.

...

Nearly 100 of these missiles are used each year on average, meaning that the sharp cuts will cause the Tomahawk stock to be completely depleted by around 2018. This is particularly concerning to defense experts because the Pentagon does not have a replacement missile ready to take the TomahawkÂ’s place.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Seth Cropsey, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower. “This really moves the U.S. away from a position of influence and military dominance.”

Cropsey said that if someone were trying to “reduce the U.S. ability to shape events” in the world, “they couldn’t find a better way than depriving the U.S. fleet of Tomahawks. It’s breathtaking.”

They're claiming they'll just put these funds into the development of the next-gen missile, the Long Range Anti-Ship Cruise Missile, but that is in development hell and isn't even planned to be ready for deployment until 2024. (And you know how schedules usually work out.)

This makes such little sense that I can only think -- or hope -- that Obama and possibly the Navy is playing a variation of Shutdown Theater here, canceling the thing that will grab your attention the most in order to alert you to all the cuts to the DoD's budget you might not notice.

As DrewM. has pointed out repeatedly, these sequester cuts are serious, and they will require genuine cuts, not merely "trims" or the like. Hard decisions will have to be made. (Like retiring an entire carrier fleet, and that's just for starters.)

But canceling the very weapons that President Dronestrike relies upon to carry the weight of warfighting as he cuts the rest of the military budget?

It seems so preposterous I can't believe it's all on the level.

Posted by: Ace at 07:35 AM | Comments (441)
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This is a major gaffe.

Sometimes things get hyped and blown out of proportion.

Well I don't think I'm overstating on this one. The headline really isn't juiced. The Democrats' candidate for Iowa Senate really says that he's one of You -- and he says this to a room full of trial lawyers, noting he's been "literally" fighting tort reform for 30 years.

He then disparages Chuck Grassley -- who would be the Senate Judiciary Chairman, were Republicans to take the Senate -- for having two fatal flaws:

1, "he never went to law school."

2, he's some "farmer from Iowa."

Note he's not content to just say Grassley is a farmer. (Though it's strange enough that he would disparage that occupation in Iowa, a state with a lot of farmers.)

He calls him a "farmer from Iowa," as if that last little fillip makes it all the worse.

Did I mention he's campaigning to be the Senator from Iowa?

Why this little dig at Iowa? Well, he was speaking to would-be donors from out of state. Specifically, Texas. So when he meets the trial lawyers from Texas, he has all sorts of dire warnings about "farmers from Iowa."

Not sophisticated, you know. They don't have the same "background," "experience," and "voice" that Braley and all his swell Texas Trial Lawyers do.

But now that his statement has been publicized, he wants you to know, he has the utmost respect for those corncob-smokin', cousin-pokin', chicken-chokin' inbred moronic Iowa farm-tards.

“I apologize to Senator Grassley and anyone I may have offended," he said. "I respect Senator Grassley and enjoy our working relationship, even though we disagree on some issues.

....

“My parents both grew up on Iowa farms during the Great Depression," Braley said. "It deeply influenced who they are and who I am, and gave me a profound appreciation for what farmers do for the world. One of my grandfathers was a charter member of the Iowa Farm Bureau. I grew up in rural Iowa, doing farm jobs and working a grain elevator.

"I have tremendous respect for Iowa farmers and appreciate how important they are to our state, and IÂ’m grateful to have the support of hundreds of farmers across Iowa," he continued.

Yes, he's happy these degenerate cornfolk, these dirty drooling Cob People, have found themselves a gainful trade that doesn't tax their limited capacity for higher thinking.

"IÂ’m grateful to have the support of hundreds of farmers across Iowa..."

Yup, hundreds sounds about right. Though that number may fall.

lolwut?

more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:41 AM | Comments (389)
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Happy Wednesday.

BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner reviews the Hobby Lobby argument at SCOTUS. The transcript for that is here, btw (PDF). And Sen. Mike Lee makes predictions on the Hugh Hewitt show, which is being guest hosted by Townhall's Guy Benson this week.

Internet millionaire and pirate Kim Dotcom bought a rare autographed version of Mein Kampf, says it's because he loves the Call of Duty games.

Here's the confession from Boston Bomber pal Ibragim Todashev. Well, at least the portion he got to before allegedly attacking an FBI agent who then shot him dead.

[RSS]

[On iTunes]

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:13 AM | Comments (229)
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I warned you that you'd get nothing but did you believe me...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:31 PM | Comments (823)
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• VDH: Loud+Weak=War
  
• Obama Moving The Goalposts On Obamacare Enrollment Again
  
• Dem Senate Candidate In Iowa Imploding
  
• What Rand Paul And Bill Clinton Have In Common
  
• The Right Not To Be Implicated
  
• IRS Says Bitcoin Should Be Considered Property
  
• MSNBC's Worst Chyron Fail Ever
  
• Should Unborn Babies Be Used To Heat Hospitals?
  
• In Defense Of Nazi Analogies
  
• Funny Dog Video
  
• The Government And The Branch Davidians
  
• Sowell: How Republicans Can Win Black Votes Back
  
• Every 25 Year Old Should See This Chart
  
• The Liberal Mindset As It Relates To Guns
  
• Harry Reid Has An FEC Problem
  
• Obamacare Raised Taxes For Some Children
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:00 AM | Comments (303)
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How about some content?

It's almost that time of year again -- Tax Day! So it's probably a good time to ask yourself which states are the best and worst on taxpayers' wallets? Courtesy of Wallet Hub, here's a ranking of all 50 (or 57) states, plus the District of Columbia. The results probably won't surprise anyone here.

Top (best) five: Wyoming, Alaska, Nevada, Florida, and South Dakota.

Five worst: New York, California, Nebraska, Connecticut, and Illinois.

Make sure to follow the link as they actually do a number of different break outs in terms of types of taxes as well as adjustments relative to cost-of-living.

How did your state fare?

(Hat tip @gahome1 on Twitter.)

Posted by: Open Blogger at 03:05 PM | Comments (349)
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Since Hot Air's traffic shouldn't suffer just because Ace isn't around to link to them I'll just leave this and this for you.

Posted by: DrewM at 02:32 PM | Comments (125)
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I blame the Koch brothers.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday dropped their demands that International Monetary Fund reforms be included in a Ukraine aid package.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced the change, saying he wanted to ensure that Congress could pass the package quickly.

...

“As much as I think a majority of the Senate would like to have gotten that done with IMF in it, it was headed to nowhere in the House,” Reid said.

Reid acknowledged the White House was not happy with the decision.

“Of course, they’re disappointed. We have to get IMF reformed but we can’t hold up the other [parts of the legislation],” he said.

In case you missed it earlier, I blogged about why the IMF language was a deal breaker for Senate conservatives (well, most of them anyway) and House Republicans.

The highlights:

-The Obama administration negotiated changes to the IMF management rules would have weakened US control, while empowering developing countries.

-Potentially exposed the US to greater exposure when new bailouts are needed.

-Taken money from the US Army and Navy budgets to pay for new IMF spending.

Now, all of these things may still happen but the House GOP is trying to get something in return, a delay in Obama's anti-free speech IRS regulations.

I hope the Republicans who vote with Reid yesterday are feeling proud today.

Posted by: DrewM at 12:24 PM | Comments (315)
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