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

Saturday, November 27, 2010

FireDogLake Nutcase Accuses FBI of "State-Sponsored Terrorism" in Investigating and Thwarting Genuine Terrorism

There's a leftist crackpot writing at the execrable FireDogLake named Teddy Partridge. Partridge's latest Pulitzer Prize-winning submission comes in reaction to a thwarted Jihadist attack in Portland, Oregon.

Partridge's secretion accuses the FBI of "state-sponsored terror" because it's -- wait for it -- enticing innocent Jihadists into violent attacks against innocent civilians.

Tonight in Portland, we had a small dose of the FBI’s almost-operational terror sprees, as agents spent more than a year goading a young jihadi wannabe into almost killing thousands of Portlandians in our city’s living room as we gathered for the lighting of the holiday tree...

...Wow, what kind of complex network would it take for a Somalia-born US citizen to envision, develop, and then carry out such a huge and complex attack in a large public place with so many innocents gathered? Why, of course, one enabled by the FBI...

Thank goodness for the heroic FBI that allowed one silly young man trying to impress older, more senior “terrorists” with an operational plan. And thank goodness they saved us from this attack, moments before it didn’t occur.

How long are we going to let the cowboys shoot up our country with their false terror plots and operations that would go nowhere without their instigation, planning, and coercion? How long will we allow our own federal constabulary to justify its own recklessly inflated budget by permitting actions like this to develop, fester, and grow operational in our midst?

This is terror, pure and simple. State-sponsored terror. Big-splash terror designed to make people compliant and fearful...

I wonder what the children, parents, brothers and sisters of those slaughtered last year by Nidal Malik Hasan would say to Partridge?

• Or those injured, some severely, by the driver of an SUV at the University of North Carolina who intentionally slammed into a crowd of pedestrians in "retribution for the treatment of Muslims around the world"?

• Or the loved ones of those murdered and wounded inside the Seattle Jewish Federation by self-proclaimed "Soldier of Islam" Naveed Haq?

• Or the families of those killed and wounded by Asan Akbar?

• Or those attacked by San Francisco jihadist Omeed Aziz Popal, who killed one, left seven in critical condition and injured at least seven others by driving his car into innocent passers-by in a series of attacks a firefighter called "like Death Race 2000"?

If you happen to spot the corpulent Partridge on the street one day, I'd discourage you from coming up behind him and screaming Allahu Akbar at the top of your lungs.

And under no circumstances should you walk into a Starbucks -- when Partridge is reading Perez Hilton on his iPad and sipping a Mochachino -- while wearing a long trench-coat, then stop just inside the entrance and reach inside your coat and shriek Death to America! as loud as you can.

Because while Partridge might stain his undergarments, he'll also think you're an FBI agent.


Update: Patterico shreds Partridge into tiny little pieces using every kitchen implement except for a cheese straightener.

Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Oliver Willis shrieks the news from the highest bell-tower: "Sarah Palin made a boo-boo!! Sarah Palin made a boo-boo!!"

How much does the Marxist left fear Sarah Palin?

Well, as the Korean peninsula trembles, as the United States nears bankruptcy and as the world grapples with the collapse of the dollar, the denizens of the left are eager to deflect attention from their destructive policies by embracing a brief misstatement by Sarah Palin. The result? Breathless headlines and mock terror.

Genius. Absolute genius. When Glenn Beck is correcting you on foreign policy, well... genius.

The transcript of what really transpired?

CO-HOST: How would you handle a situation like the one that just developed in North Korea? [...]

PALIN: But obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies. We’re bound to by treaty –

CO-HOST: South Korean.

PALIN: Eh, Yeah. And we’re also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes.

During the interview, Palin explicitly stated that North Korea represented a national security threat.

She didn't say that the United States had 57 states.

Or that "we gotta stand with our corpse-men" (twice).

She didn't say that "the Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries."

Or agree with an interviewer during the 2008 campaign that "you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith."

Or mention that 10,000 people died during a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people.

No, she didn't say any of those things.

Barack Obama did. But that's not news. Because he's historic. Or something.


Hat tip: Memeorandum. Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Monday, November 15, 2010

What do the Ukraine and Pakistan have in common?

Their debt is rated the same as Ireland's.

Mary Ellen Synon, writing in The Daily Mail, offers an exceptional summary of Ireland's debt crisis which, you may have heard, is at a boiling point.

First the potato, now the euro: how Ireland has been destroyed again


...Today [once] swaggering Ireland has gone bust. Spectacularly, dramatically, perhaps irretrievably bankrupt, suffering the deepest recession in the world.

...So what went wrong? No one in Brussels will ever admit it, but it's the euro that ruined Ireland.

Ireland joined the single currency in 1999. At the time it was enjoying healthy growth, fuelled by investment from high-tech multinationals such as Dell, Intel and Pfizer, attracted by Ireland’s low 12.5 percent rate of corporation tax.

But after the Irish turned over their currency and their interest rates to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, things began to change.

The ECB insisted upon low interest rates for the eurozone to help the sluggish German economy. But what suited Germany was all wrong for Ireland, turning healthy growth into a debt-fuelled property mania.

First the Euro-enthusiasts across the EU fostered the idea that, since all the members of eurozone shared a single currency and had promised to adhere to strict limits on debt and inflation, they were all equal in risk... This fiction led investors to imagine lending to Greece or Ireland was no more risky than lending to Germany or the Netherlands.

So Irish banks were free to suck in billions from Asia and Europe... These billions - many of which came from the City of London - were what fuelled Ireland’s asset bubble. ECB policy made sure the money was lent on to Irish property speculators at real interest rates that were actually negative... [and] eager to cash in on ever-soaring property prices, the Irish began a credit binge that drove up levels of personal debt to the highest in Europe.

Meanwhile the Irish Government enjoyed a tax revenue bonanza - and responded by letting public sector pay and spending rip so that today Ireland has the highest paid public sector in Europe... In short, joining the euro has meant almost everything that could go wrong in one country has gone wrong in Ireland.

Then in 2007, the inevitable happened and the property bubble burst. Tracts of land bought for hundreds of millions of euros for commercial development became worthless overnight. House prices crashed to half their value and are still falling...

...Irish banks have been destroyed by their bad loans and are insolvent. The bond markets will not lend money to the Dublin government, which is itself insolvent, driven to the edge of bankruptcy by trying to save the banks.

One economist pointed out last week the markets now put Irish sovereign debt in the same risk group as Ukraine and Pakistan.

And all this could have serious repercussions for Britain... Worse, Irish bankruptcy could lead to a contagion of default on debt among the other weak members of the eurozone. Such a contagion could put the banking system here under serious threat, especially if the Spanish were forced into default.

...While Britain’s national deficit – the amount by which Government spending exceeds annual revenue -- is about 10 percent of national output (called GDP), Ireland’s is 32 percent, possibly the highest in the world outside Zimbabwe.

Here, like California, is the idiocy of Paul Krugman's policy prescriptions writ large. Everything Krugman advocates, limitless Keynesian spending and untold amounts of debt, has already occurred in California, Illinois and Ireland.

And they're all about to topple in a vertigo-inducing onslaught of defaults and debasements. Which is why Krugman won't ever talk about them.


Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Sarah Palin Gives Props to Mark Burnett

I don't care what you think about Sarah Palin's viability as a presidential candidate, one thing is for certain:

Gotta hand it 2 Mark Burnett &TLC



She has a much better, much more refined and self-deprecating sense of humor than certain other folks currently serving in office.


Monday, November 08, 2010

Wealthy, Coddled, Marxist Cartoonist Calls for Violent Workers' Revolution (While Hawking His New Book)

Does anyone else find this hilarious?

The economically illiterate cartoonist known as Ted Rall appeared on (where else?) MSNBC to hawk his latest book, which preaches a socialist revolution of sorts. He says the system's broken and the only solution may be a violent overthrow of the government by the workers. Because they need jobs.

Yes, those would be the same jobs that the private sector could create, if it weren't being suffocated by the federal leviathan, that is.

No word on whether Rall is redistributing all of his book's proceeds to "the workers".

Rall says that firing government workers would damage the economy. Of course, the real economy -- the private sector -- is on life support while subsidizing all of the endless federal bureaucracies with workers who make double their private counterparts.

But that whole "private sector" concept was always too complex for the likes of Rall to understand.

Just don't miss any of his royalty payments, Mr. Publisher, or he'll get really, really pissed. Like, violent-overthrow-pissed!


Hat tip: Breitbart.

Are Ben Bernanke and Paul Krugman Running California, Too?

Ben Bernanke and Paul Krugman must love California's economy.

Like Bernanke's game-plan of monetizing the debt by printing money, California is stamping out IOU's to make its payments. As for adhering to Krugman's Utopian vision of unchecked deficit spending, well, California appears to have set the record.

But don't have either of them try to explain any of these fun facts from the world's largest Democrat-controlled nuthouse:

• One of every eight workers in California is jobless.

• The state is borrowing $40 million a day from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits, but won't change any of the formulas used to calculate and fund those benefits.

• Cali's debt on unemployment benefits alone is projected to hit $10.3 billion this year and $16 billion by 2012. Last year, the state paid out $11.3 billion while collecting only $4.2 billion.

• The interest on that debt alone will require a $362 million payment to DC in little more than nine months.

• Fixing the imbalance requires doing one of two things: paying out less benefits or raising employer contributions. California's Democrat legislators have resisted doing either despite massive increases in benefits paid.

Of course, the delightful voters of California decided to reelect the very same nincompoops who got them into this mess, so relief is unlikely to come anytime soon.

Next year's budget deficit has been estimated at $12 billion on the low side and $19 billion on the high side... [observers question] if he will be willing to make state employees work longer to earn their full pensions, especially since they spent $30 million to get him elected.

Brown has promised to make the "budget process transparent..." [but nothing] about this first two days has been transparent. Will he stand up to unions, restore cuts made to schools and universities and where will he find the money to invest in green jobs?

Maybe he'll conjure some unicorns out of thin air... and the unicorns will poop diamonds and green jobs and food stamps and windmills and fairy dust! I mean, this is Cali-freaking-fornia!

Oh, I forgot. Brown also has to deal with a $500 billion unfunded pension liability which has some calling California "America's Greece".

I think they're being far too kind. Greece is Europe's California.

Democrats: if they weren't in power, they'd be good only as comic relief.


Keith Olbermann suspended indefinitely, or until Tuesday, whichever comes first

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann -- the unhinged smear-merchant with no ratings (which is the description he prefers, I hear) -- was suspended indefinitely by his network for political donations last week.

That suspension lasted all of 48 hours.

...this morning we find out that Keith Olbermann will be back from his suspension without pay tomorrow. It’s interesting that conservatives are probably responsible for him coming back, given how many of them rose to defend Olbermann. I mean, if it was just liberals rising to his defense, would he be coming back at all? Hard to say. But conservative defenders give the outcry a distinctive whiff of bipartisanship.

You have to give Olbermann credit, however. He has established a broadcasting record of sorts.

He's the only news broadcaster in history so terrified of conservatives that he's never screwed up enough courage to interview one.


Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Saturday, November 06, 2010

Post Dempocalypse, handful of 'centrist' Democrats admit the truth--while lefty bloggers remain trapped in Reality Distortion Field

Just how far out of touch is the leftist blogosphere? Let's put it this way: even Democrat politicians are pillorying Obama's Marxist policies.

Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink pointed an accusatory finger Friday at what she called a “tone-deaf” Obama White House to explain why she narrowly lost her campaign.

In an interview with POLITICO, Sink said the administration mishandled the response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, doesn’t appreciate the political damage done by healthcare reform and argued that her GOP opponent’s strategy of tying her to the president did grave damage to her candidacy in the state’s conservative Panhandle...

Of course, the usual cranks in the lefty blogosphere still haven't figured out what happened on Tuesday.

See, if Barack Obama and the Democrats had been even more extreme, they would have blocked the teabaggers with a huge economic rebound!

...if Barack Obama had pushed for the original stimulus plan using reconciliation, instead of stupidly seeking bipartisanship with Republicans determined to wreck America for political gain or blowing all of his and the Congressional Democrats’ political capital on an industry-written “health care reform bill” in exchange for a soon-to-be-broken promise not to aid Republicans, the recent loss of the House wouldn’t have happened. But we have the teabaggers to thank for softening the blow. Case in point: Minnesota.

The GOP electoral wave that was predicted for the entire country landed in the North Star State, just as it had everywhere else — and had been predicted for nearly a year, thanks to Washington Democrats’ refusal to push for a stimulus big enough to truly do the job and their insistence on putting more effort into passing a health care bill written by the the health care industry and which only the industry likes. As did over a dozen other states, we lost control of our legislature to the GOP (after only having had both houses for four years), and one of our best US congressmembers, Jim Oberstar.

Oh, my.

That's some world-class stupid, folks. I mean, even more moronic than the idiocy the leftist blogs routinely excrete.

It's like reading a real-life Flowers for Algernon.


Hat tips: Washington Monthly (graphs) and The Scott Rants. Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Thursday, November 04, 2010

Secret Steganographic Message for @RalstonFlash Regarding Harry Reid, Harrah's and a Mysterious Spreadsheet of Casino Employees' Voting Status

The unofficial publicist of the Nevada Democrat Party is a Las Vegas Sun columnist-slash-spokes-hack named Jon Ralston. During the heat of the 2010 campaign, Ralston ran a series of advertisements for Harry Reid, all of which were cleverly disguised as op-eds. His marketing efforts culminated a couple of days ago, with a prediction that Reid would win despite long odds against him at the omniscient InTrade prediction market.

Earlier today, Ralston tweeted the following.

I couldn't help myself: wondering whether this crack newspaperman would delve into credible reports that Harrah's and MGM Mirage bused thousands of workers to the polls and urged them to vote for Reid, I tweeted Ralston:

Ralston's direct message cut me to the quick.

At which point I humbly recanted.


Having been utterly humiliated by the rapier-like wit of the RalstonFlash, I've determined I should conduct the rest of this conversation with Ralston privately.

For that reason, I've decided to employ steganography.

In short, steganography describes various methods for hiding secret messages within other, visible messages.

Using Biff Spackle's new steganographic algorithm (he calls it SpackleBoy 3000 -- humor him), I've crafted a secret message for Jon Ralston which is cleverly disguised within this photograph.

As an aside, is there a U.S. District Attorney anywhere in the western half of the United States to investigate this maddening criminality?


Hat tip: Uncle Ben.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

ABC Notifies Breitbart They're Canceling His Town-hall Gig Due to Scheduling Conflict and Crazed Nutroots, But Mostly Crazed Nutroots

Cub Reporter Biff Spackle, whose annual review is on December 1st, said he snatched the following letter from ABC's fax machine just after it was sent to Andrew Breitbart. You may recall that, after inviting Breitbart to participate in a town hall telecast, ABC was hit with a firestorm of controversy by liberal progressive bloggers who oppose free speech.

Dear Mr. Breitbart,

We are writing to confirm the decor of your dressing room... oh. Excuse me. Hold on. I have to take this call.

Yes, Mr. Boehlert. Uh, okay. Yes sir. I pinky-promise.

Uhm, Mr. Breitbart, I regret to inform you that the Soros leftists who control the Democrat Party several scheduling conflicts prevent us from airing your valued opinions during the election broadcast.

It has come to our attention that an employee in our bookings department sent you an unauthorized offer letter to appear on election night. We were forced to fire him, at which point he blamed you. While he is a steroid-engorged bodybuilder who owns more than two dozen hunting rifles, please don't be alarmed.

Would you consider taking another analyst position for less pay than we originally discussed, even though we would never offer you such a position?

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Andrew Morse


Sunday, October 31, 2010

Vegas Media Hack-Slash-Laughingstock Jon Ralston Runs a Last-Ditch Endorsement for Harry Reid

Jon Ralston is nothing if not consistent. Amid shrill claims of non-partisanship, the Las Vegas Sun columnist has run a homogeneous series of commercials for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, all of which were thinly disguised as op-eds.

Now his final Hail Mary pass for the Reid campaign consists of an election forecast as predictable as a Joe Biden gaffe. Cue the headline: "Atmospherics are terrible for Reid, but he will hold on."

It just feels as if Reid is going to lose.

Forget the enthusiasm gap — that word is too mild. There is a passion gap in this race that is palpable. You don’t find many people shivering with excitement to vote for Reid. But the feverish animation of voters hot to oust Reid is unlike anything I have experienced in nearly 25 years of covering politics. And it seems to have been building since January, evidenced by Reid’s inability to move his highly elevated disapproval rating.

It just feels as if he is going to lose.

But I don’t think he will... The result: Reid, 47 percent; Angle, 45 percent; rest, 4 percent; none of the above, 4 percent.

No mention of the Democrats' core constituencies: illegal aliens, felons and the dead. But it won't matter on Tuesday.

Ralston should read the weather report in Nevada. Meteorologists are looking for a category 6 hurricane named "Constitution".


Cognitive Dissonance Comment o' the Day [Rally to Restore Sharia]

Reacting to the post entitled "15 Most Bizarre Photos From Jon Stewart's Rally You'll Never See in Legacy Media"...

...the ubiquitous and courageous commenter named "Anonymous" contributed this gem to the thread:

Looks like some one skipped the day that sarcasm was taught in school.

[***Forehead slap***] I'm so glad the liberals progressives cleared this up.

Death threats and Hitler regalia are signs of sarcasm, not hatred. So this sort of thing is A-okay.


It's sarcasm, rubes.


Update: Dan from New York calls yesterday's hate sarcasm fest the Rally to Restore Sharia:

Did you notice who Stewart and Colbert chose for their show's grand finale? Yusuf Islam, the Artist Previously Known as Cat Stevens. Quite a few good commentators noticed too, starting with Ed Driscoll who has video and links to the others.  In case you forgot, the American convert to Islam endorsed the Ayatollah's fatwah against Salman Rushdie and has been barred from Israel for "transferring donations and funds to Islamic elements which are hostile to Israel," according to Israeli authorities.  All in good fun though - unless you're one of those dumb rightwing racists who can't take a joke.

Update II: The brave, still anonymous commenter offers another clarification.

Since it was my comment that spawned your latest screed ... I'll play a little longer... I posted my comment as "Anonymous" because a few years back, I wrote an OP-ED regarding the Bush administration's unnecessary war in Iraq.

It received lots of angry right wing comment. But, it also led to a right wing nut calling my home and threatening me and my family.

I can tell you are too dense to get it, but many of the people at the rally the other day were MOCKING you ... mocking folks who think that Communism, Fascism, and Socialism are all the same thing.

They were mocking people who babble incoherently that Mao, Stalin, and Hitler were the same as Obama... They were mocking people who bring guns to political rallies to suggest that if they don;t get the political outcomes they want, they may react with "2nd amendment remedies"... They were mocking those who would think that a large man stomping on the head of a small women was justified [Ed: you can see stop-action photos of what really occurred here]

In the end, they were mocking YOU, and you aren't bright enough to recognize it.

I'll say it slowly; do try to follow along. Hitler himself wrote that Nazism was an effort to improve Marxism. Put simply, the philosophies of Marxism, Socialism, Communism and Fascism share many qualities, most importantly their assignation of unlimited power of the state over the individual, ending finally in totalitarianism.

Modern conservatism aligns itself with limiting power granted to the state, which is the framework established by the Constitution. It is the only known antidote to the decline of corrupted governments into tyrannies.

But don't believe me--Hitler himself wrote of Nazism:

"I have learned a great deal from Marxism, as I do not hesitate to admit. The difference between them and myself is that I have really put into practice what these peddlers and penpushers have timidly begun...I had only to develop logically what Social Democracy repeatedly failed in because of its attempt to realize its evolution within the framework of democracy. National Socialism is what Marxism might have been if it could have broken its absurd and artificial ties with the democratic order." -- Hitler to Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction, pg. 186
.
The Nazi Party, is of course, The National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei abbreviated NSDAP). Now, your course of reading for today is Whom Despots Fear, helpfully illustrated for imbecilic tools who require remedial, comic-book-level education on history, philosophy, law and economics.


Confirming What We Already Knew: Legacy Media Openly Collaborating With Democrat Statists to Sabotage Republican Candidates

Dan Riehl has the goods on yet another media-Democrat conspiracy. The only real surprise is that they were caught red-handed this time.

Last night news broke that Anchorage's CBS affiliate KTVA News 11 reporters were caught on tape discussing ways in which they could potentially embarass the Senate campaign of Republican Joe Miller... ("Anchorage CBS Affiliate Caught on Voicemail Conspiring Against Alaska’s GOP Senate Candidate")

...Now, note the irony captured below in KTVA's local coverage of yesterday's so called Restoring Sanity rally. Above they are exposed for conspiring to generate yet another negative headline grabbing story in an effort to damage Miller's Senate campaign. Now, in their rally coverage, they quote an activist criticizing both Sarah Palin and Joe Miller for allegedly generating so much of that very kind of news...

...In essence, CBS' KTVA is exposed above for generating negative coverage, and now we see them doubling back to highlight an activist's negative reaction to such news - in this case, presumably to also damage Miller's campaign. At this point, CBS affiliate KTVA appears to be engaged in political activism, not journalism...

Hot Air has a copy of the damning transcript.

FEMALE REPORTER: That’s up to you because you’re the expert, but that’s what I would do…I’d wait until you see who showed up because that indicates we already know something… [Laughter]
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE REPORTER: Child molesters…
MALE REPORTER: Oh yeah… can you repeat Joe Miller’s…uh… list of people, campaign
workers, which one’s the molester?
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE VOICE: We know that out of all the people that will show up tonight, at least one of them will be a registered sex offender. [Laughter]
MALE REPORTER: You have to find that one person…
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE REPORTER: And the one thing we can do is ….we won’t know….we won’t know but
if there is any sort of chaos whatsoever we can put out a twitter/facebook alert: saying what the… ‘Hey Joe Miller punched at rally.’
FEMALE REPORTER: Kinda like Rand Paul…I like that. [Laughter]
FEMALE REPORTER: That’s a good one.

There was a time when the media would have been embarrassed about this sort of thing.

Of course, that roughly corresponds to the era when the media wasn't a laughingstock.


Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

After word breaks that Andrew Breitbart will appear on an ABC News panel, exec forced to apologize to moonbats who despise free speech

As signs of a possible conservative tsunami appear on the horizon, liberals progressives are panicking, screeching in rage at even the hint of diverse opinions sullying their previously pristine echo chambers. Which leads to preemptive apologies on the part of folks like ABC News for the high crime of including Andrew Breitbart on an election panel.

Andrew Morse, executive producer at ABC News Digital, issued the following statement after the leftist outcry.

Since conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart announced on his website that he was going to be a participant in ABC’s Town Hall meeting at Arizona State University, there has been considerable consternation and misinformation regarding my decision to ask him to participate in an election night Town Hall event for ABC News Digital. I want to explain what Mr. Breitbart's role has always been as one of our guests at our digital town hall event:

Mr. Breitbart is not an ABC News analyst.

He is not an ABC News consultant.

He is not, in any way, affiliated with ABC News.

He is not being paid by ABC News.

He has not been asked to analyze the results of the election for ABC News.

Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage, anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. For the broadcast coverage, David Muir and Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg will contribute reaction and response gathered from the students and faculty of Arizona State University at an ABC News/Facebook town hall.

He has been invited as one of several guests, from a variety of different political persuasions, to engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate to be moderated by David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg on ABCNews.com and Facebook. We will have other guests, as well as a live studio audience and a large audience on ABCNews.com and Facebook, who can question the guests and the audience’s opinions.

In the bazaar of ideas, the modern Democrat is the suicide bomber. For, rather than entertain lively debate and diversity of opinion, he would rather destroy the world.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Denial Isn't a River in Egypt, It's the New York Times

JP writes:


Attached is a screen print of the front page of the online version of yesterday's New York Times, four days before one of the most important midterm elections in modern times. It features...

Halliburton and Pee Wee Herman.

And they wonder why they're bleeding subscribers faster than a stuck pig.*


* I hope I didn't offend a militant Quaker with that statement.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Gee, how come Kenny Gladney didn't get all of this attention?

When Kenny Gladney -- a black conservative -- was beaten, kicked and called racist names by members of the SEIU (also known as the Democrat brownshirts, which I'm told is the term they prefer), the progressive blogs and the legacy media raised nary a peep.

That seems to run a bit counter to what we're seeing when some paid moonbat activist lunged at Rand Paul and was then tossed to the ground and held for police. But some campaign worker ground his foot on her shoulder and, briefly, on her head. Which was idiotic, to be sure. But certainly nothing like the beating administered to Gladney.

So I was kinda surprised -- not -- to see the difference in coverage of the two incidents.

The double standard is obvious.

That's why the legacy media is melting away before our eyes, kinda like that Nazi boss in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Yeah, I threw in another Nazi allusion. 'Cuz Rob Reiner said it's okay.


I've Got Mail!

A delightful individual using the moniker "Further than you" offers his well wishes for the coming election.

This kind of trivial focus on a similar video style when there are HUGE issues not being addressed by the RIGHT, is exactly why the entire country (and world) are laughing at the conservative (bowel) movement. All you "patriots", listen up:

We have an insane amount of "patriots" in this country talking about "watering the tree of liberty with blood" and carrying guns to rallies, exuding hate, intimidation, and calling their opponents traitors, socialists, communists, nazis, whatever damning title they can think of, all while dancing perfectly as their puppet masters planned, in order to distract us all from their constant game of bubble inflation and fraudulent profiteering that left our country in shambles. A few crooks deregulating markets to buy a few islands to retire on is simply criminal. But a systematic raping of our nation's wealth, a calculated funneling of money from the poorest to the richest, from Americans to foreign entities, resulting in class wars and violent division? That's called TREASON. And those that defend said treason, through blind ignorance or willful greed, are enemies of the state, in my book.

THIS MEANS YOU, ignorant teabagger, protesting Dems who want to tax companies for sending our jobs overseas. YOU ARE A TRAITOR.

THIS MEANS YOU, conservative sycophant, crying about Obama's wasteful spending (which keeps teachers in the classroom trying to teach your smug offspring something besides the bible) whilst on YOUR watch, spending reached UNPARALLELED HEIGHTS in order for your puppet masters to rake in oil profits and war contracts and tax cuts for the richest. YOU ARE A TRAITOR.

THIS MEANS YOU, forgetful republican: YOU whine about freedom while constantly treading on others'. YOU rave about your founding fathers, who started this country to have religious freedom for all, then fail to uphold that same freedom for others based on your own bigotry and fear. YOU support wars to "spread democracy" with a boot heel on one neck and a bullet in the other, exponentially increasing the very terror you claim to be fighting against. YOU preach Christian Family Values while engaging in a never-ending parade of scandals, affairs, molestations and sex acts that you rail against. YOU clap as your elected frauds block every single move to improve the damage they did during BUSH, not because they truly believe it's the right thing to do, but because crippling America into a panic-turned-hate-fest is the ONLY way to make enough of our country forget how HORRIBLE 2000-2008 was for your team to win back seats. And that's their only chance of winning. And you lick every bit of that s--- right off their boots, like starving retards at all-you-can-eat s--- buffet.

YOU ARE ALL TRAITORS.

YOU are endangering OUR country's global standing and future, our health care needs, our financial safety , and the rights of our women. And OUR PERSONAL LIBERTIES, which you SCREAM ABOUT, are most at risk when YOU are in charge.

We are a family in America. And you are the senile grandpa who's storming about the house with a loaded rifle, threatening the children. Too stupid to see the damage you cause, too blind to glimpse your own role in the travesty that enrages you . We no longer care if it's because you were raised that way or you're just brainwashed by Faux Noose or whatever. If you don't pass away from natural causes soon, we may have to put you down for the safety of everyone.

So when it comes time for blood to water that tree of liberty, WHO'S BLOOD DO THINK WILL BE SPILLING? Because all fingers (and sights) point at YOU, TRAITOR.

Breathtaking!

I know I shouldn't bother, but let's clear a few things up -- not for the rocket scientist author -- but for the (thankfully) few Democrats remaining that have a willingness to learn.

• Yes, I blame those gun-carrying teabaggers, too. Carrying all of their guns at rallies (shhh, humor him), exuding hate and intimidation by begging their representatives not to pass thousand and thousands of pages of massive new entitlements sight unseen... quite unseemly, that. As for calling people Nazis, you're right. Unlike the tolerant left, conservatives are awful, nasty extremists.

• Yes, I blame deregulation, too. That is, if George W. Bush had actually created Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA, OFHEO and every other job shop for well-connected Democrats that completely destroyed the housing market by manufacturing a trillion-dollar market for subprime loans.

• Say, and about that spending that "keeps teachers in the classrooms"... how are those Blue State Utopias of California, Illinois and New York doing? Oh. You say they're bankrupt? And the federal government's bankrupt? Well, gee-zel-pete, who's gonna pay the tab? You say we should let our grandchildren pick it up? Oh. Okay.

• And you're right -- that "never-ending parade of scandals, affairs, molestations and sex acts" by those hypocritical Republicans are awful. Can't think of any recent ones, but you're right nonetheless. I like it that liberals don't have any family values or moral principles. That way they can't be considered hypocritical when they, say, get fellated in the Oval Office, then perjure themselves and end up disbarred! Or when they run a male prostitution ring out of their condo. Or when they abuse a series of male Congressional pages. And they don't suffer any reputational damage! Genius!

And speaking of "trivial focus", why concentrate on a wide stance when we can discuss illegal immigrants canvassing for votes, ACORN, Project Vote, the New Black Panthers, Black Liberation Theology, crushing charter schools, increasing the power of public sector unions at the expense of the taxpayer, paying off trial lawyers and increasing the Democrat core constituencies of felons, illegals, and the dead?

• And you're so right. President Obama has greatly improved our "global standing and future, our health care needs, our financial safety, and the rights of our women." It's our allies' fault that they think our relationships are at new lows. And who cares if Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are at least $50 trillion dollars underwater -- we've got wealth to redistribute in the form of socialized medicine -- the better to control the populace with. And it's Bush's fault that even though Nancy Pelosi vowed "no new deficit spending" in January of 2007, she's added $5 trillion to the national debt. As for the "rights of our women" -- yes, that abortion clause in the Constitution is a real page-turner.

As for the idiotic threats? Well, given that you're a doughy Internet troll who lives in Mommy's basement, it's kind of touching, really. But I'll offer nonetheless: three rounds in the ring or the octagon. Your call.


Monday, October 25, 2010

Headline o' the Day

Doug Powers, writing at Michelle Malkin's site, wins today's prize of three cans of old paint from my garage for his "Turnout for Bill Clinton’s Detroit Rally: It Depends on What Your Definition of 'Anemic' Is."

It’s certainly not a good sign, at least for 20-point-down governor wannabe Virg Bernero here in Michigan, when you have a rally in a high school gym featuring a former president in a city that allegedly loves him — a week before a major election — and the turnout is horrendous... "While the crowd hoisted signs that stated Virg Surge,' the turnout at the rally was anemic. More than 500 people came to the rally, but the gym at Renaissance High School was only about one-third full, even though Clinton used to command full houses wherever he went, especially in Detroit.

Fortunately, Cub Reporter Biff Spackle was able to smuggle a shot out of the huge rally:

The full measure of Clinton's legacy is best described as an oral history.


Is the Negative Campaign Ad Useful or Destructive? [Amalaur]

Guest Post by Correspondent Amalaur:

The issues surrounding political campaign advertisements are numerous and often verge on the complex and convoluted. From Citizens United v. the FEC to the DISCLOSE Act, campaign funding and the ads it produces are the subject of intense scrutiny inside and outside of the Beltway. But within this controversial realm comes the most divisive issue of all: negative and personal attacks – and the question of their effectiveness . Seen in every level of every political race, especially in desperate times as a desperate measure, negative ads and personal attacks possess the very backbone of what defines politics: drama, questionable truth and evasive tactics. But are negative ads and personal attacks necessary in order to win a race? When used, do they guarantee a jump in polls or a win?

To answer this question, the history of political advertising in America and its statistical effectiveness must be analyzed. The United States is well known for its intricate campaign finance laws, and many have been changed or drastically amended throughout the years. In 1971, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), which limited the impact that wealthy individuals and corporations could have on election outcomes via monetary donations, regulated campaign spending, and made mandatory the disclosure of funding. In 1974, an amendment to FECA created the Federal Election Commission (FEC), a powerful agency that regulates and enforces campaign and election law. Additional amendments to FECA were also made in 1976 and 1979.

It was in this era that the campaign finance laws that we are familiar with were established. However, as political advertising became more popular, so did negative and personal ads. According to Advertising and Societies: Global Issues by Katherine Toland Frith and Barbara Mueller, campaign ads can be classified into one of three categories: attack, advocacy or contrast. Attack ads focus on negative aspects of the opposing candidate’s history or personal flaws. Advocacy ads emphasize the candidate’s positive positions and viewpoints, while contrast ads are essentially a combination of both.

Throughout the mainstream media and the blogosphere, writers and pundits are all too happy to voice their viewpoints on the issue. Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal says, “Negative advertising tears everything down. It contributes to the cynicism of the populace, especially the young." On the other hand, Mark Penn of Politico notes that “clever negative advertising works. That is reality." Regardless of professional opinion, negative ads and personal attacks do happen, and show no signs of stopping soon. According to ThisNation.com, “voters seem to be increasingly turned off by negative campaign ads and mudslinging, but that hasn't deterred political candidates from using these tactics.” Using a bipartisan study conducted in 2000 by the Project on Campaign Conduct, ThisNation attempted to analyze voter sentiment towards negative campaign advertisements. The data points to long-standing voter dissatisfaction with the political establishment and questioning of the techniques that politicians use to draw voters to the ballots.

• 59% believe that all or most candidates deliberately twist the truth.
• 39% believe that all or most candidates deliberately lie to voters.
• 43% believe that most or all candidates deliberately make unfair attacks on their opponents. Another 45% believe that some candidates do.
• 67% say they can trust the government in Washington only some of the time or never.
• 87% are concerned about the level of personal attacks in today's political campaigns.
(from the Project on Campaign Conduct - 2000)

More recently, several studies were done analyzing the psychological and physiological affects that negative advertising has on viewers. In 2007, researchers Bradley, Angelini and Lee determined that viewers watching attack ads experienced eye movements that mimicked fight-or-flight symptoms seen in primal fear reactions. Although the unconscious action associated with this reaction is to move away, the ads were not perceived as life threatening, thus allowing the viewers time to absorb the information and remember them more clearly.

In regard to effectiveness, negative advertisements seem to leave a memorable mark on the viewer. In a study done by Garramone (1984), viewers were able to remember details of a negative advertisement 60 percent of the time. The results of similar research done in 1989 show that most respondents were able to remember and recall at least one negative political ad. Overall, multiple studies point to the fact that attack advertisements are more easily recalled than the more positive advocacy advertisements.

This data seems eerily familiar, especially in the political climate of the 2010 midterm elections. With Democrats distancing themselves from a controversial agenda and facing losses in Congress, negative political advertisements are packing a particularly brutal punch this year. Races are close and last-ditch tactics are being drawn out on both sides in an effort to gain crucial independent votes. In her op-ed, Noonan notes that desperate or downtrodden political parties tend to resort to negative ads in the final stretch before the elections. This strategy is especially timely for 2010. “At this point in history, with America teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, negative advertising is even more destructive, more actually wicked, than it was in the past,” writes Noonan.

Adrienne Washington of the Washington Times in 2008 also presented a unique viewpoint regarding the negative ads in that crucial election year. “Still, the larger question is how this mudslinging with expensive negative campaign advertisements will affect the election outcome and at what cost, not only to the candidates but also to the electorate they aim to sway?” she says. “Replaceable dollars? Irreplaceable values?” The effectiveness of these ads is constantly analyzed by liberal and conservative punditry alike, and each year the parties have something different to show for it. The reliability of negative advertisements and personal attacks in regard to winning an election is clearly not static, as evidenced by constant turnover of parties in the White House and within Congress.

With the advent of the Tea Party and more candidates running in the primaries than ever before, sheer diversity across party lines was grounds for easy attacks in 2010. In the race between Republican Senate candidates in Delaware, incumbent Congressman Mike Castle used negative campaign advertisements against his conservative Tea Party foe Christine O’Donnell. He lost with 47% of the vote compared to O’Donnell’s 53%. Although many do not believe that O’Donnell can beat her Democratic challenger in November 2010, the fact that she won the primary race seemingly contradicts the data regarding the power of negative advertising.

Immediately following O’Donnell’s bid for office, Mike Castle’s campaign released the website RealChristine.com. The site highlighted O’Donnell’s past financial troubles regarding her campaign and evidenced her “reckless and hypocritical behavior”. Castle supporters were even encouraged to tweet about O’Donnell, specifically the sentence that “Christine O’Donnell has been hopelessly irresponsible with her own finances, not to be trusted w/ ours."

Additionally, Castle ran a TV ad depicting O’Donnell as a mixed-up puzzle, claiming that she owed $11,744 in back taxes and penalties, was sued by Fairleigh Dickinson University for unpaid expenses, defaulted on her mortgage, ran up huge campaign staff and left vendors and staff unpaid, and used campaign donations to pay her rent.

These personal attacks are creative marketing techniques used to put doubt in the minds of Republican voters that might have considered O’Donnell. In the end, though, we know that they were not as effective as Castle hoped for them to be. Although these claims are not direct lies and some can even be proven to be true, why did knowing this not prevent the citizens of Delaware from voting for O’Donnell? Was all this information overkill? Some pundits say that hard-pressed citizens voted for O’Donnell for just the opposite reason – they identified with her money struggles and saw themselves in her mistakes.

O’Donnell responded to the criticism by saying “Of course in this economy I've fallen on hard times. But I worked hard. I sacrificed. I made the decision that I needed to make things right".

Regardless of whether or not she wins in the general election, O’Donnell proved a crucial point when she beat out the Republican establishment in the primaries. She simply proved that negative advertising and knowledge of candidate’s flaws does not always work. Although it may be effective and certainly created in-fighting within the establishment GOP (O’Donnell was supported by Sarah Palin but not Karl Rove), its effectiveness may depend on the time and place of the election as well as the candidates involved.

Interestingly, there are studies that support this idea. Out of 143 democracies in the world, the United States ranks 139th in regard to voter turnout . The reason for this feeble turnout has been attributed to negative advertising by some researchers. Although it usually accomplishes its goal of turning people off from a candidate, it also turns citizens off from the entire electoral process as a whole. Thus, a large number of voters decide not to exercise their constitutional right.

A study conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that “negative advertising made voters significantly less likely to feel that their opinions mattered, or that elections made any difference, and most important, made them disinclined to vote (positive ad campaigns had exactly the opposite effect)".

However, Barack Obama used negative campaign advertisements heavily in his 2008 run for president, and not only won but spurred the largest voter turnout since the elections of Kennedy, Eisenhower and Johnson in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Despite this and his ultimate success, though, Obama fought Sen. John McCain’s negative campaign against him by launching a "Fight the Smears" micro-site on his campaign website. Clearly, negative advertisements (whether true or not) pose problems in the eyes of the candidates.

So what exactly is the effect of the negative advertisement and personal attack, and do they really work? All of the studies discussed provide viable feedback, but are contradictory in the claimed effect on the voter. Examples throughout history also provide convincing but oppositional evidence regarding negative advertisements. Because negative advertisements incite anxiety and concern from the viewer, engagement and attention can soon follow, leading the citizen to care more deeply about the issues and vote.

On the other hand, this same anxiety can scare voters away, leading them to believe that their viewpoints do not matter and that regardless of who wins, the negativity and flaws seen in each ad will still exist.

In the end, the question remains answerable but perplexing because data exists to support both sides of the argument. Mike Castle’s negative advertising did him no good, while Barack Obama attack ads won him the presidency. Negative advertising is more easily remembered, but also makes voters feel more helpless. All of this information makes it clear that in order for negative advertising and personal attacks to work, the time, place and candidates must be right. There is no formula, but there are certainly circumstances that can either excite or inhibit potential voters. The biggest hurdle for candidates is simply taking advantage of them.