NoView News

By:  Kevin Trainor/Managing Editor Journalist Rita Cosby is of positive opinion regarding the state of journalism today.  She should know.  A veteran of the cable networks she has had stops at both Fox News Channel, and MSNBC.  These networks representing, to many, both sides of the American political spectrum.  Ms. Cosby also hosts “The Rita Cosby Show,” on 77/WABC, and does frequent hosting and reporting for both CNN, and HLN.  She also is a special correspondent for the syndicated news magazine “Inside Edition.” Catching up with her at the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill, NoViewNews briefly asked Ms. Cosby on her take of opinion media today.  She noted that it is reflective of the state of time we are in now.  It mirrors the tenor of the American public today, and does not drive opinion.  People are savvy, and they know where it’s coming from.  Her point is that consumers of media today do not lose sight of the nu...

By: Kevin Trainor/Managing Editor Howard P. “Buck” McKeon stood on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and felt a buzz in the room.  The Republicans were going to win one.  A vote, that is.  The freshman California Republican was standing with multi-term fellow Californian, Elton Gallegly.  Gallegly had never been on a winning side before that day in 1993.  At issue: a Democrat-controlled House power grab.  In roughly seventy years, save for two in the Eisenhower era, Democrats had run the floor.  Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, and others in the leadership, had devised a plan to create four new congressional task forces.  Four new chairman, with purse power, and another four million plus in spending.   The task force committees would deal with general issues like addiction, allied relations, etc.  Before the vote the Republicans had offered Leader Gephardt a compromise to limit the committees to one year of existen...

By: Kevin Trainor/Managing Editor.    Twelve-term former Congressman Jim Moran pulls no punches.  The son of an early NFL player, James Moran, Sr, of the then Boston Redskins, the future Virginia Democrat grew up in a rock-ribbed “New Deal” household.  “Congress today is leadership centric.  They won’t permit working across the aisle. It’s discouraged.”  He goes on to say that a handful of leaders, and their staffs, dictate the process.  The old horses are gone.  The give and take, the nuts and bolts to achieve compromise, and the skills to do it are a lost art.  The 1986 Tax Bill, landmark legislation, was hammered out at The Irish Times with members, some staff, from both parties working out the agreement in cramped booths over Guinness and Harp.  Then there’s the Alpine Room.  “It’s in Arlington, on Lee Highway, it just closed down.”  Partly because it no longer served the purpose as a venue for bi-partisan meeting up sa...