Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Fat, bald white guys pleased with Supreme Court pick


Fred "LeRoy" Paisley's nomination to the U.S. Supreme court is a historical milestone for balding Caucasians, but it resonates well beyond the simple bald-guy pride. It is perhaps the most potent symbol yet of a rapprochement between the U.S.'s two largest "silent majorities": Bald-Americans and Obese-Americans. In the past, both groups could be as violently distrustful of each other as Tom and Jerry.

And after Obese-Americans helped push Barack Obama into office by giving him a remarkable 52% of their vote, Obama seemed to return the favor by selecting Paisley the first morbidly obese Supreme Court justice, decades of friction between the two groups seem to be melting away like ice cream on a frying pan at Steak & Shake™.

"The symbolism of an obese and bald Justice can't be overstated," says former actor Shel Silverman, who played "Mr. Klean" in numerous television commercials. Mr. Klean, the sixties icon, was a jolly, balding custodian who burst into toilet stalls occupied with groaning, constipated consumers, offering them "Preparation K" ("It'll Klean You Out!") to help them achieve regularity.

"The fact that LeRoy is both obese and bald is huge. Frickin' immense. Imagine a fat, balding guy standing with an African-American President -- what a f*****g country!"

And it's bad news for an already beleaguered Republican Party. Just five years ago, the GOP thought it had begun a conquest of the Obese-American vote, but it saw its share of that electorate plunge more than 2 points in last year's presidential election.

Hat tip: Time Magazine, for the most ridiculous "news" reporting of the week. Linked by: Ed Driscoll. Thanks!

Monday, May 25, 2009

An Open Letter to Colin Powell

Dear General Powell,

I read with great interest your recent statement that the Republican Party must be "more inclusive" and that it must expand its "very, very narrow base".

While all Americans respect and honor your service to this country, when it comes to political theory, economics, law and history, you are thoroughly, utterly confused.

On October 19th of last year, you endorsed Barack Obama for President on Meet the Press.

But America had a "moderate" Republican candidate for president at that time. John McCain was an "inclusive" candidate and certainly didn't pander to a "narrow base". Yet you abandoned him, Mr. Powell, and -- in fact -- helped sabotage his campaign by publicly endorsing the most ideologically pure, leftist candidate this country has ever seen.

How is it then, that so-called "moderate Republicans" continue to lose elections? How is it that the most pure conservative in recent history -- Ronald Reagan -- crushed Democrats in two successive landslides? Ronald Reagan -- the very man who plucked you out of obscurity! Republicans have nominated many so-called moderates in the form of George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush and John McCain; yet they either scraped to win elections or lost them outright.

So why would you endorse Obama? Because you've been attacked by the left; and though McCain is exactly the kind of candidate the "moderate" Republicans have been demanding... and you stab him in the back!

According to Time Magazine, the endorsement of Obama was in the works for months. And it was arranged with Meet the Press, where you delivered your endorsement, to levy maximum damage upon McCain's campaign.

Your endorsement and subsequent statements weren't about salvaging the GOP -- they're about marketing the Colin Powell brand! After all, it's the free market system that pays you $100,000 to $150,000 a speech and lets you fly around in private jets.

And who are the racists here? Colin Powell backed Barack Obama because they share the same skin color, period. No other explanation holds water. Because all the other reasons do not make sense. None of them. And that's a disgrace. And the Left claims they're the enlightened thinkers. That the Right must become more inclusive. Yet they're the ones obsessed with race!

And you, Powell, are obsessed with not being called any more names by the Left. Consider your explanation, your rationale for endorsing Obama:

"...because of his ability to inspire... the inclusiveness of his campaign... because he is reaching out all across America... because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities... as well as his substance, he has both style and substance, he has met the standard of being a successful president. Being an exceptional president. He is a transformational figure... for that reason I'll be voting for Barack Obama."

What? What did that mean? Was there a single, substantive fact? His "rhetorical abilities"? His "substance"? He meets the standard of "being an exceptional president"?

How do you meet the standard of "being an exceptional president" prior to you serving as president?

I never thought you were that bright, Powell -- but that statement is proof. You prepared that endorsement for months and that's the best you can do?

A lot of people are charismatic: some are dangerous leaders; some are great leaders. But being charismatic proves nothing about leadership! It proves nothing!

And where's the guy's substance? How is he ready to be President?

And, for a guy who says he wants the Republicans to be more inclusive, you ripped McCain on a national stage as well.

"...And I've also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about. This Bill Ayers situation that's been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign... ...trying to suggest that, because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted. What they're trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that's inappropriate."

Really? So if a Republican had the same sort of relationship with a Klansman or a Neo-Nazi, you'd be okay with that?

Seven years is just a "limited relationship"? That's spinning like a liberal. And if you don't think Ayers is relevant, why don't you talk to some of the families victimized by the Weather Underground? Maybe you should talk to the families of the three cops that they killed and the security guard that they murdered?

This is an outrageous statement by you -- a domestic terrorist, according to our own FBI, who got off on a technicality and called himself "guilty as hell".

What a disgrace! No wonder Cheney couldn't stand you. No wonder Rumsfeld couldn't stand you. The future of this country was at stake in the 2008 election and the fact that you were plotting for months to come on Meet the Press and make the biggest splash you possibly could, and you spewed this garbage?

And did you complain about the Obama campaign's treatment of Sarah Palin? You said nothing about the attacks on John McCain for his inability to use a keyboard due to his injuries as a POW! Not a word!

"...And I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin. She's a very distinguished woman, and she's to be admired; but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made..."

This was an attack on conservatives... on outside-the-beltway politicians. Doesn't this sound like David Gergen or Chris Matthews? You simply parrot the Obama talking points!

So Palin's not qualified to be VP, but Joe Biden is. Right. Palin is smart -- she can learn what she needs to learn. Biden's stupid -- he can't learn to be smart.

General Powell, in one breath you claimed Rush Limbaugh "inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without," but you seem to conveniently ignore the vitriol and outrageous attacks directed at Palin by Obama and his minions in the media.

Recently you stated that "Americans do want to pay taxes for services... Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."

Really? Did you see how California just voted? California -- the bluest of blue states? They don't seem to want to pay more taxes, Mr. Powell. They don't want to be inclusive any more -- it's bankrupted them!

So which Americans want to pay more taxes? You mean the top 50 percent of workers who currently pay 97 percent of all federal income taxes? And, under Obama's cap-and-trade, health care and other monster-government plans, would pay more and more?

Americans do not want higher taxes and more government. They want liberty. The freedom to pursue their interests and live in the civil society without government dictating what kind of cars they must drive, what kind of toilets they must use, and which kinds of light bulbs are "legal".

The American free market and the concept of private property -- articulated by the Constitution -- these things make up the ultimate big tent. That is why the simple conservative principles represented by Ronald Reagan were so successful. The free market knows no racism; the truck driver does not know the skin color of the person who manufactured the boxes he carries; the airline pilot does not know the religion of those who manufactured his engine; nor does the entrepreneur know the gender of the person who shipped him raw goods.

The American free market is the most inclusive of all systems and this is what you, Powell, and your Democrat minions can't seem to comprehend.

You ask us to lose the traditions that made America the greatest country ever seen on the face of the Earth? You ask us to lose the principles and tenets of the Constitution?

This we will not do.

General, you are all about the Colin Powell brand. You don't care a whit about the Republican Party. You care only about the Learjet circles, the book tour circles, the cocktail circles in which you gladhand the elites.

You are a petty bureaucrat, who sat on critical information while Lewis Libby's name was dragged through the mud, knowing that your number two man -- Armitage -- was the source of the ridiculous Plame leak.

It's a synergistic relationship that you have with the mainstream media. The media uses Powell; and you use the media.

Your blueprint for inclusiveness is a sham. As are you. You're no more a Republican than Joe Biden or Chris Matthews.

So, good day, sir -- and don't let the door hit your backside on the way out.



With apologies to: Mark Levin, for many of the concepts herein. Linked by: STACLU. Thanks!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Sacramento Bee publishes vicious screed bashing taxpayers, gets caught, then scrubs with milquetoast replacement


Early this morning, the failing Sacramento Bee published a "vicious screed" that pilloried taxpayers for refusing to feed California's insatiable state government.

After a firestorm of criticism over the tone of the op-ed, it was replaced with a mild-mannered critique aimed primarily at state legislators.

While all complete copies of the original piece appear to have been removed (and the Google Cache was intentionally disabled at the paper), I have reconstructed it using posts at Free Republic and Lexis-Nexis (via Sign On San Diego), the latter rightly terming it a "vicious screed".

But judge for yourself.

The Associated Press State & Local Wire / May 20, 2009 Wednesday 6:32 PM GMT

BYLINE: By The Associated Press

SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL ....

Sacramento Bee: "You did it! Uh, so what now?"

Good morning, California voters. Do you feel better, now that you've gotten that out of your system?

You wanted to show the state's politicians just how mad you are at them. And you did. Boy, did you ever.

Proposition 1A with its taxes and its spending limit? Too much of one and not enough of the other, you said (or was it the other way around), and voted it down. Never mind that the taxes go into effect anyway. You showed 'em.

Proposition 1B? That was a tougher call.

Proposition 1C? No way. You like the lottery just like it is. And all they were going to do with that extra $5 billion was spend it.

Propositions 1D and 1E? Forget it. You had already voted to put money into preschool and mental health programs. You're not taking it out now.

And 1F? Heck, yeah! Let's not pay our legislators if they can't pass a budget on time. So what if it likely won't have any effect, or that this year they actually passed a budget months earlier than they needed to? That's not the point.

The point is that you're sick and tired of all this political mumbo-jumbo. So you showed those politicians who's in charge. You. You're now officially in charge of a state that will be something like $25 billion in the hole for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

So, now that you've put those irksome politicians in their place, maybe it's time to think about this: Since you're in charge, exactly what do you intend to do about that pesky $25 billion hole in the budget?

Lay off some state workers? Which ones? And how many? Remember, the entire state payroll is about $25 billion. You could lay off every last one of them every Highway Patrol officer, every prison guard, every state firefighter, every health inspector, every professor in the UC and CSU systems, every DMV employee and every nameless, faceless paper-shuffling bureaucrat and the state would only be barely in the black. But if you want to do that, go ahead. You're in charge, remember.

Wait, how about taking money back from the counties? Great idea. Not that it will be easy. Most of them are already in the red and getting ready to lay off cops, prosecutors, probation officers and clinic staff.

Let's see. What about laying off more teachers? Shortening the school year? Releasing prisoners? Selling some of the state's real estate holdings? Borrow billions to tide the state over until the economy improves

What's that? Few of these ideas sound like what you want to do? Well, that's OK. You really don't have to do these things yourself. You just have to figure out what you want done and tell the Legislature to do it.

They'll surely hop right on it, now that you're in charge. Just keep in mind that your suggestions have to keep the state solvent and able to meet all its legal obligations. And you know how complicated things get when the lawyers get involved.
You say it'll take you awhile to figure this stuff out, that you'll need a little time to get up to speed on the details? No problem. You've got until June 30 to get it all straight.

That sounds a lot like work, you say? Sorry, no whining allowed. You asked for this job. Now you've got it, so get on it. Oh, and remember. The entire nation is watching to see how you do now that you're in charge.

No pressure or anything. Just thought you'd want to know.

The comments from readers rightly expressed disgust and dismay at a newspaper that eviscerated taxpayers who dared to turn down an out-of-control government bureaucracy run amok. Here's the replacement op-ed.

Editorial: Time for reform - not for blame

NOW VOTERS HAVE JUDGED LEADERS; HOW WILL LEADERS TAKE THE REBUKE?

Good morning, members of the California Legislature. Good morning, Governor.

Feeling bruised and abused this morning? Well, you can't say you didn't see it coming. The polls have been saying for weeks that voters were going to do just what they did on Tuesday: Conclusively reject your slate on the ballot, Propositions 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E.

Today, on the morning after voters kicked around your best effort at fixing the state budget as if it were a deflated soccer ball, you face a decision.

You can blame the voters for reacting with uninformed and misplaced anger.

Or you can look in the mirror and admit you had it coming. And you know you did.

Over the last couple of decades you and your predecessors in both parties created an environment of cynicism that poisoned Californians' faith in democracy. You have insulated yourselves from the electorate. You have rigged elections by drawing noncompetitive districts. You have discouraged turnout with negative campaigning. You have catered to special interests across the political spectrum.

As the state's fiscal situation grew more and more dire, you responded with years of gimmicks and stalling followed, finally, by secret negotiations to produce what turned out to be (at least in our estimation) an acceptable compromise.

But by then, the problem was too big to be solved so easily. And it was too late to make your case to the voters, who were tuned out and disengaged, which is exactly how most of you wanted them.

There is no simple recovery from this disastrous state of affairs. First, there is that huge budget deficit - $20 billion? $23 billion? $25 billion? - to deal with, and quickly, before the state runs up on the rocks of insolvency.

But after that, a much harder task awaits: Restoring citizens' faith - not just in government, but in the possibility that they can trust their elected representatives to act responsibly and honorably to solve common problems.

There is only one way to do that: Work to reform California politics. Not just simple reforms, such as requiring only a majority vote to pass a budget, but larger ones, too: more transparency in the Legislature and the Governor's Office; less ballot-box budgeting; more accountable schools, cities, counties and special districts; modernized and more efficient government, including pay and benefits for the reality of life in the 21st century. In other words, make Californians feel they are getting their money's worth from the governments they pay for.

If that sounds difficult, well, it will be. You're starting from a deep hole, one that you've dug yourselves.

The first step is to stop digging. Don't blame voters, no matter how much you may want to. Accept their verdict with good grace. Acknowledge that even if they don't have a mastery of all the details of the state budget, their judgment about your performance is not subject to your approval.

And at bottom, that was what this election was about: Not the fine points of governing, but the judgment of the public on your performance. You have been judged and have been found wanting.

For the sake of California's future, here's hoping you respond with a commitment to regain the voters' trust and restore their faith in representative democracy. If you can't do that, this state has a problem too big to be measured in mere billions.

If ever an editorial board could execute a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree midair turn, that was it.

The original op-ed was up from early morning (12:30AM PST?) to around 10:00AM, at which time the response convinced editors to (*ahem*) edit the content. The stated rationale?

Note to our readers: Many of the comments below refer to an article that was posted in error. That article was a draft prepared for internal discussion among members of The Bee's editorial board. Such discussions are a routine part of our work, and frequently lead to editorials that are considerably different from writers' first drafts.

That's what happened in this case. After discussion, we decided that our initial editorial about the special election should take a different tack. The result was the editorial that now appears on this page. This editorial is the only editorial about the special election that appeared in Wednesday's editions of The Bee.

David Holwerk, Editorial Page Editor, The Sacramento Bee

Once again proving that the only way to separate the mainstream media from big government Democrats is with a crowbar.


Postscript and possibly unrelated coincidence: The Sacramento Bee has a job opening for an Editorial Page Editor. Tell 'em you saw it at Doug Ross @ Journal when you apply.


Update: Michelle Malkin points us to Radio Patriot and Dave Logan who were on the story from the get-go.

Hat tip: Mark Steyn. Linked by: Ace, Common Sense, Ed Driscoll, Hot Air, La Shawn Barber, Michelle Malkin, McClatchy Watch, Memeorandum, NewsBusters, Patterico, Sister Toldjah, Six Meat Buffet and SondraK. Thanks!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Reason #4,206 that the mainstream media is dead


Through Twitter, a retweet alerted me to a real-time broadcast on uStream. The uStream service allows anyone to broadcast live video using their mobile device. Here's a screen-cap of what I was watching for a few minutes.

This is the view from Robert Luketic's iPhone. Luketic was on the set of Five Killers, a movie starring Ashton Kutcher. You know, Demi Moore's hubbie.


In this scene, filmed in a grocery store, Kutcher storms down one of the aisles with an angry expression. Which is the same as his surprised expression. And his happy expression.

In a nutshell, anyone can be a johnny-on-the-spot pro journalist and broadcaster. I feel a tingle going up my leg anticipating the end of several pathetic broadcasting careers.


Monday, May 18, 2009

New York Ti-ku


Without the requisite Treacher quality.

Suffering from a
major case of writer's block
Maureen cuts and pastes


A crazy preacher,
And a terrorist mentor,
Nothing to see here.


Cindy McCain's drugs,
And her husband's sly affair,
No Obama dirt.


Hoyt investigates
his own paper's malfeasance
But finds nothing wrong.


Op-eds for all views,
opinions, creeds and colors,
except John McCain's



Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Unhealthy Imagination


In 2003, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the federal government awarded Halliburton Corporation contracts worth $100 billion over ten years.

The awards -- for rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan -- were "no-bid" contracts, meaning Halliburton had no competition for the work.

The resulting media outcry culminated in a firestorm of criticism. Over a period of 24 months, special prosecutors, lawsuits, investigations and impeachments terminated the relationship between the federal government and Halliburton.

My mistake. It wasn't Halliburton and it wasn't 2003. It's right now.

GE Capital -- a unit of General Electric -- received approximately $140 billion in taxpayer funds last year as part of the initial financial bailout.

Yet six billion in GE funds (or are they taxpayer funds?) are headed to a new firm called Healthymagination.


Healthymagination's advisers include Tom Daschle, Barack Obama's initial nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services.


Daschle's plans for nationalizing health care are spelled out in his book Critical.


The book outlines Daschle's plans to establish a "Federal Health Board" that would control every aspect of medical care in America. Its stated goal: destroy the private health care system and replace it with a top-down, authoritarian Politburo with life and death decision-making power.

At a recent conference, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt claimed that America's economic crisis was not simply an economic crisis. It was instead a "reset", where companies that intersect with government will "prosper... and people who don't understand that will get left behind."

Immelt, a member of Mr. Obama's economic recovery advisory board, went on to say that, "The intersection of government and business will be changed, maybe for a generation." Put simply, Marxism is on the way and GE is positioning itself to profit.

The business case behind Healthymagination hinges on nationalization of the health care industry. Computerization of health care records is not only a vaunted component of the Obama stimulus package, it is also a $75 to $100 billion business over the next ten years.

Fortunately, Healthymagination just happens to be building a health care record management system.


And with Obama's buddy Tom Daschle in tow, Healthymagination is certain to get some nice fat contracts out of the deal.

Oh, and did I mention NBC? It's involved, too. Health Imaging reports that the GE-owned media conglomerate -- something out of the movie Rollerball -- will do its part.

• NBC Universal and NBC News will air more than 5,000 televised reports annually on health and wellness.

• MSNBC will launch a new, daily program dedicated solely to health information... in addition to medical issues it will also examine health policy.

Put simply, the media will broadcast the propaganda; government will enact policy "by popular demand"; and the chosen corporation will profit at taxpayer expense.

As Andrew Wilkow observes, "Healthymagination states its target dates for the completion of its various initiatives as 2015, well into a second Obama term. This means GE will have a deep financial interest in Mr. Obama's re-election; a fact that will no doubt be reflected in its media divisions. It will certainly be interesting to see if the left-wing watchdogs howl, or if they will conclude this is an acceptable level of collusion between the White House and a multinational conglomerate."

Not to mention the mainstream media. Prepare to be absorbed.



Linked by: Instapundit. Thanks!

The media's new rulebook for reporting on civilian deaths


Last week a U.S. airstrike aimed at Taliban extremists killed as many as 130 civilians. If the figure is confirmed, it would be the most devastating attack on civilians since 2001.

But you didn't read it in your newspaper. And you didn't hear it on the news.

Why is the media silent?

There are two distinct reasons that The New York Times, NBC, The Associated Press and the rest of the Democrat Party's public relations arm have chosen to ignore the story.

• Barack Obama is President

• The Israelis didn't kill anyone.

In either case, civilian deaths are boo-ring.

Don't you get it, peons?

The media-slash-government decides what's newsworthy -- and why. So just keep your mouth shut and go about your business, if you know what's good for you.


Friday, May 01, 2009

Pinch Sulzberger: between a rock and bankruptcy


The Post (the real Post, that is) has up-to-the-minute data on The New Bankrupt Times. Its owner:

Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger faces the uncomfortable task of having to shut down the Boston Globe today if holdout employees refuse to fork over $20 million in savings to his family...

If the Sulzberger family carries out its threatened shutdown by today's deadline, it would be an admission that they wasted $1.1 billion in buying the paper in the first place.

But if they back down, it would show a weakness of will that Wall Street investors who hold big stakes -- particularly hard-nosed billionaire Carlos Slim -- might turn against the family to wrest away its control of the enterprise.

...The Globe was on track to lose $85 million this year unless changes are made, The Times said. That follows losses of $50 million last year.

The Times itself is struggling against a $1.1 billion debt load, which coincidentally is what the Times paid for the Globe's assets in 1993, then a record price. The Globe was profitable for more than a decade before it hit bottom last year.

And how did Sulzberger get his black eye? Your guess is as good as mine, but I personally suspect a shareholder.


Resilience by Elizabeth Edwards vs. a Bestseller


A new book by Elizabeth Edwards -- wife of disgraced putz John Edwards -- currently has 488 mentions in the media, according to Google News.

While a new book by Mark Levin, which has sold over a million copies in five weeks -- and has dominated the New York Times bestseller list with successive #1 rankings -- can't get the attention of a single major media outlet.

There's a reason for the disparity.

Levin's book lays out the history of the Republic, from men who inspired the Framers -- like Cicero and John Locke -- to the turmoil of the founding itself. His argument advocates defending the Constitution against Statism; that is, the central planners who relentlessly press forward with visions of an unattainable Utopia.

Buy it now. Along with about ten copies for any drones you know.


AP's chief whining about Google instead of innovating


AP CEO Tom Curley doesn't grok the web. That much is apparent from his threat to stop feeding Google its news articles. Curley's threat was plain: should both parties not arrive at a deal soon, "They [Google] will not get our copy going forward."

The AP is a cooperative news-gathering and reporting organization, founded 163 years ago by a consortium of publishers. The Internet has obviously compressed its traditional business lines and it only grudgingly has accepted Google's role as the chief navigator of the web.

And rather than transforming his organization through innovative ideas, it seems to me that Curley seeks to stop time or, perhaps, even reverse it. Off the top of my head, I can think of a dozen projects that the AP could explore to adapt to the era of social media:

• Crowd-sourcing articles, photos and video clips to improve quantity

• Crowd-editing articles and videos to improve quality

• Marshaling top bloggers as paid contributors (reporters, op-ed authors, etc.) at a fraction of the cost of the Dowds and Cohens -- with higher quality to boot

• Leveraging real-time news feeds like Twitter to report on noteworthy trends, news, places and people of interest

Curley: Improvise, adapt, overcome. Quit whining about Google and create your own platform that complements it or competes with it. Anything less consigns your troubled company to the dustbin of history.


Friday, April 17, 2009

Dr. Janeane Mengele: conservative brains malformed


Don't you get it, cracker? Dissent is racist.

That's what Janeane Garofalo insists. Here's a transcript of her interview with Keith Obamann on PMSNBC.

"...let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats. I'ts not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was, they don't know about, they don't know history at all, this is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism, straight up!

That is nothing... but a bunch... of... tea-bagging... rednecks!

And th... th... th... there is no way around that. And, you know, you can tell these types of rightwingers. Anything they'll believe except the truth. You tell 'em the truth and they become, it's like showing Frankenstein's monster fire, they, they become confused, and angry, and highly volatile.

That guy [Obama] causing them feelings they don't know... [hands waving]... limbic brain... we've talked about this before.

The limbic brain inside a rightwinger, a Republican, or conservative, or your average "white power" activist...

The limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person and it's pushing against their frontal lobe. So their synapses are misfiring.

Is Bernie Goldberg listening?

Because Bernie might not have heard this the first time I said this. Because, Bernie, this is for you. It is a neurological problem that we're dealing with.

Keith Olberman: Heh heh heh heh heh.

...It's almost pathological, this is a philosophy or lifestyle. And again, this... is... about racism! It could be any issue, any port in the storm. They just hate that a black guy is in the White House.

...They immigrant-bash, taxes and teabags, and... most of them could tell you thing one [sic] about taxation without representation, the Boston Tea Party, imperialism, whatever the history lesson has to be.

But these people... all white, unless there's some people with Stockholm Syndrome.

Put simply, anyone who opposes any policy promoted by President Barack Obama is a racist.

Inhale deeply from the unicorn farts. Resistance is futile.

And I wonder: does Janeane realize how much she sounds like Dr. Mengele? She's identifying "physical characteristics" of dissenters. That won't end well.


Hat tip: Flopping Aces.

James Wolcott, Chick Magnet


Women want to be with him. Men want to be like him.

Sean Connery in his hey-day, that is. And not this startling creature.

Apologies, my friends, for the shock. This is James Wolcott, chieftan of C-list lib pundits, appearing (appropriately) on C-Span yesterday. His mission: to position Tea Parties as ineffectual gatherings of millionaires bent on hamstringing President Obama's populist destiny.

American Digest's Vanderleun, obviously driving by a can't-look-away, horrifying rollover television accident, observes:

Mark well the face itself, emerging as Al Gore's once did and will again, from a sheet of flab animated only, like a clone of Clutch Cargo, by a sybarites' lips from which comes two, count'em, two voices. It's a shocking effect -- as if a frog and an alley cat were trapped in his lungs and struggling for supremacy.

The two voices give it all away and make one shudder. One seems a studied and controlled baritone quaver. A voice possibly formed and mellowed by many meetings with a media trainer. It soothes you and takes down your guard until your ear is shredded by the eruption of his authentic neuter's squeak at random intervals. It is as if Wolcott is doing all he can to keep sounding vaguely manly, but just can't quite keep his inner sissy in check. Little wonder since he obviously spends so much time riding his inner hobby horse everywhere except down the King's highway.

Michelle Malkin slices Wolcott to the core with commentary as elegant as it is accurate; she plunges a rhetorical steak-knife into the throbbing chest of the mainstream media.

Keep this in your memory banks. The face of the Tea Party-bashing movement:


That, dear readers, is a face made for blogging.



Cross-posted at: Hot Air's Greenroom.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Tea Parties, Code Pink and the sickness of the MSM

Nearly 200,000 Americans showed up to protest high taxes in hundreds of cities around the country today.

The New York Times and The Boston Globe ignored "Tea Parties" altogether. ABC and CBS reporters were nowhere to be found. NBC, on the other hand, simply made obscene references -- using a tea-related colloquialism -- to express its corporate disgust with America's founding principles.

And a CNN journalist, rather than reporting on one event, decided to debate the crowd! Here's the transcript:

CNN: "Let's see... drop taxes... drop socialism. Okay, let's see. You're here with your two-year old daughter and you're already in debt. Why are you here today, sir?"

Man with child: "Because I hear a President say that he believed in what Lincoln stood for. Lincoln's primary thing was, he believed that people had the right to liberty and the r --"

CNN: "What does this have to do with taxes?"

Man: "Are you going to let me speak?"

CNN: "What does this have to do with taxes? Do you realize that you're elibible for a $400..."

Man: "Let me finish my point! Lincoln believed that people had the right to share in the fruits of their own labor and that government should not take it. And we have clearly gotten to that p--"

CNN: "Right, right, right -- did you know that the state of Lincoln gets fifty billion dollars out of these stimulus -- that's fifty billion dollars for this state, sir!"

Man: "Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, I'm... can you stop this, sir?"

CNN: "Alright, we'll move on... (to audience) I think you get the general tenor of this, uh, it's anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the rightwing conservative network Fox and... since I can't really hear much more, I think this... is not really family viewing, toss it back to you, Kera."

CNN says Fox is a "rightwing conservative network?"

How "rightwing" could Fox be if it gets more viewers than CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and Headline News -- combined?

Based on those numbers, who are the centrists and who are the extremists?

Compare and contrast that mainstream media coverage with that afforded Cindy Sheehan and her cohorts at the radical antiwar group Code Pink. Cindy Sheehan's protests near President Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch drew but a few dozen protesters.

These tiny gatherings garnered more than a hundred mentions in The New York Times and "reporting" that could have been mistaken for a Code Pink infomercial.

How one 48-year-old woman from Vacaville, Calif., invigorated the antiwar movement, altered the landscape of the president's vacation town and drew a Hollywood celebrity out into the Texas heat may be as much the result of external factors as Ms. Sheehan's compelling tale.

More compelling than spontaneous anti-tax protests that marshaled hundreds of thousands? Apparently.

The media sickness is epidemic. Fortunately, it also appears to be terminal.



Cross-posted at: Hot Air's Greenroom. Linked by: InstaPundit, Ed Driscoll, American Thinker, The Anchoress, Wizbang, Fausta, Melissa Clouthier, Memeorandum, The Astute Bloggers, Stronger than death, American Power, Netword, Moot and 'mocked' by Blogoland, who forgets to mention the Code Pink part of the post. Thanks!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

What's that pounding I hear in the distance?


Senior management for cable news network MSNBC has no shortage of issues with which it's confronted. It covers stories hatched primarily in the "progressive" echo chamber, employs imbecilic ideologues like Keith Olbermann and is now presiding over a catastrophic ratings slide.

It appears their technology platforms are suffering as well. Consider today's top video, which features a man holding a tea bag.

What's the story say? I'll spare you the suspense. It doesn't work.


Given MSNBC's unrelenting partisan spin, the content of the video can easily be left to your imagination.

What's that pounding you hear in the distance? Just another nail in the coffin for the walking wounded of cable news.



Friday, April 10, 2009

The Silence of the Crap Factories


Today's Washington Post features a detailed review of Mark Rudd's UNDERGROUND: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen.

The James Rosen review is glowing; it describes Rudd's work as a "gem... [we should be] grateful for Rudd's work of history... [it] is honest and funny, passionate and contrite, meticulously researched and deeply philosophical: an essential document on the '60s."

One thing is certain. Rosen's book is not -- and will never be -- a bestseller. It may in fact be an important history of the sixties.

But it is also the work of an American terrorist, a leader of a group that killed three cops and offered logistical support to other radicals that killed nine additional police officers.

On the other hand, a book entitled Liberty & Tyranny, a Conservative Manifesto is a bestseller. With a bullet. It is number one in sales on every bookseller's list: from The New York Times to Amazon.com. In only two weeks, it has sold more than a quarter million copies with 300,000 additional volumes reportedly ordered.

In fact, it is destined to sell more copies than every Bush-bashing tome featured on CBS' 60 Minutes combined.

Consider just a few of the immortal works featured on 60 Minutes in the last few years:

David Kuo: bashing Bush for faith-based initiatives

Scott McClellan: bashing Bush because it was, reportedly, the only way to get his book published

Richard Clarke: bashing Bush to deflect attention from his counterterror role prior to 9/11

Bob Woodward: bashing Bush because "The Surge" was (at the time) certain to fail

Alan Greenspan: blaming Bush for the financial crisis

Anthony Zinni: bashing Bush over his complicity in "dereliction, negligence... irresponsibility... lying, incompetence and corruption" in Iraq

Paul O'Neill: bashing Bush over (what else) Iraq

Alexandra Robbins: bashing Bush over his membership in a secretive Yale fraternity

Ben Barnes: bashing Bush over avoiding Vietnam by flying F-102s for the Texas Air National Guard

Valerie Plame: bashing Bush to cover her own lies -- and her husband's lies --regarding Saddam Hussein's confirmed pursuit of uranium ore

So where is the 60 Minutes review of Levin's book?

How about the Washington Post's review of Liberty & Tyranny?

And how does the The New York Times assess Levin's historical examination of the Republic and its relevance to today's "Statism"?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Put simply, well-deserved bankruptcies await these amazingly partisan crap factories.