The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report blames regulators for falling asleep on the job and missing all the shoddy mortgage lending. They didn't miss it. They encouraged it...
The sham probe was led by longtime Democrat Phil Angelides, who was hand-picked by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. His biased report, hitting bookstores now, cites nine causes of the crisis, none of which is federal housing policy — the chief culprit...
Angelides, who pledged "a full and fair inquiry" free of "the political leanings" of the majority Democratic commission, did nothing of the kind.
He was no cold-eyed dispassionate investigator. The former California Democratic Party chairman has worked closely with affordable-housing activists, such as Greenlining Institute and Acorn, which in the run-up to the crisis shook down banks for billions in risky urban loans.
"Old civic activists never die, we just get recycled," Angelides joked with his old Democrat pal Bill Press on Press' radio show, as reported in the new book, "The Great American Bank Robbery: The Unauthorized Report About What Really Caused the Great Recession," by former IBD Washington bureau chief Paul Sperry.
Indeed. And the false narrative that capitalism is the problem and government the solution got recycled with him.
In his panel's 633-page report, Angelides denies banks were pressured by government into making bad loans.
So why then did mortgage lending standards suddenly break down? And how did so many subprime and other risky loans end up in the mortgage securitization pipeline?
The report doesn't answer these questions other than to presume lenders and Wall Street bankers became so greedy they suddenly abandoned centuries-old prudent banking practices and dove into a market they previously avoided like the plague...
The tightened CRA influenced subprime underwriting on both the primary and secondary markets. It pushed bankers into riskier territory, and pressured them to bend lending standards — or face stiff penalties and blocked expansion plans.
The changes fed the subprime bubble and sped the collapse of Fannie and Freddie. They added to the large number of subprime and other risky loans that failed in the banking crisis...
Still, the report concludes that the CRA "was not a significant factor" in the crisis, since it did not cover subprime lenders like Countrywide Financial.
But according to "The Great American Bank Robbery," Clinton's own Treasury found in 2000 that "the CRA may have had a positive 'demonstration effect' on lenders not covered by the Act, and thus indirectly increased lending by these institutions as well."
In addition, the book reports that Countrywide signed a first-of-its-kind Fair Lending Master Agreement with HUD pledging to ease its credit requirements and boost minority lending.
Hundreds of other other lenders inked similar deals with the government, committing them to riskier subprime lending. Not signing exposed lenders to fair-lending investigations and denial of access to the all-important secondary mortgage market.
Clinton also for the first time authorized Fannie and Freddie to earn HUD "affordable housing" credits by purchasing securities backed by subprime and other CRA mortgages, which HUD promoted as "goals-rich loans."
When Fannie and Freddie securitized subprime loans, they suddenly became safe, since the ratings agencies viewed their securitizations as guaranteed by Treasury...
Monday, January 31, 2011
Background Info
IBD:
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Times (Union Editors) Sure Have Changed
So the Times Union again lectures the government on Social Security. The tone this time is awfully shrill and, well, deceptive. Take this from Saturday's editorial for example:
What Congress first needs to do is agree that Social Security is here to stay, notwithstanding the rants of those who call it creeping socialism or the greed of a financial system that would love to see all those trillions invested in the stock market.Personally I'm not aware of anyone (that doesn't fear black helicopters) "ranting" that "all" Social Security funds should be in the stock market. At most some people reasonably, calmly, and persuasively argue that younger people should be able to invest a portion of their Social Security contributions in the stock market (see below to see who else once thought this was a good, smart idea!). And it's not "creeping socialism" - it's an aspect of outright socialism - taking your money away after you earn it and then doling it back to you as the government sees fit. And I guess they think that investing trillions in the stock market is a bad thing - I guess all those businesses couldn't use a shot of capital to expand and hire, that money is better off filtered through layer after layer of bureaucracy before being spent or thrown into shovel ready holes in the ground. Anyway, you probably know where this is going...RESEARCH PROJECT! Let's go back through a number of years of editorials to see what the Times Union once said about Social Security.
Mythmaking
Years later, the press (if Time still counts as "press") is still reporting the misinformation that Baghdad's museum was gutted by looters during/following the invasion to remove Saddam.
Unreal. I saw this and my jaw pretty much dropped - I mean, I realize these people are idiots, but this is like reporting on when Marie Curie invented the first automobile, it's just dumbfoundingly ignorant of reality:
No, not really.
You have to admit, it is fascinating that when 'reporters' today want to write something comparing to the past, they blindly find themselves comparing not to what actually happened, but the incorrect media memes that dominated the airwaves and newspaper pages at the time - so all they remember is what they heard/saw in the media echo chambers and never noticed/cared that it turned out to be utterly untrue - it's like time freezes for these people once the New York Times reports on it (except in the case where they reported how Bush really did get more votes than Gore, they never remember that one) and new information is strictly excluded.
Unreal. I saw this and my jaw pretty much dropped - I mean, I realize these people are idiots, but this is like reporting on when Marie Curie invented the first automobile, it's just dumbfoundingly ignorant of reality:
The break-in at Cairo's Egyptian Museum could have been a disaster of historic proportions, a repeat of the rape of Baghdad's multi-millennial heritage after Iraq's equivalent museum was looted in 2003.That's some pretty strong language, don't you think? The "rape" of the Iraqi's heritage? Seriously? Really?
No, not really.
You have to admit, it is fascinating that when 'reporters' today want to write something comparing to the past, they blindly find themselves comparing not to what actually happened, but the incorrect media memes that dominated the airwaves and newspaper pages at the time - so all they remember is what they heard/saw in the media echo chambers and never noticed/cared that it turned out to be utterly untrue - it's like time freezes for these people once the New York Times reports on it (except in the case where they reported how Bush really did get more votes than Gore, they never remember that one) and new information is strictly excluded.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
MoveOn Unzips
I don't think very highly of the MoveOn'ers. C'mon, I call them, rather accurately, MorOns. Their communiques to their drones are stupid...naive...incorrect...dishonest...
But this...this is just openly...I don't even know...anarchistic? I've not seen them so openly align themselves with the nutcase dropout "protesters" that think that smashing windows and threatening people at every G8 meeting.
You can tell you shocking it is to see them drop trou so blatantly...just look how many elipses I'm using!...
Their latest transmission from the braindeth star?
I don't recall conservatives, any conservatives ever claiming that their budget battles were an attack on the American economy.
Cripes. And these are the people that mock conservative movements like the TEA partiers because they get together to tell their representatives that they want them to actually read the things they vote on and stop spending their grandkids' money. Meanwhile their latest campaign is a campaign on our economy??
But this...this is just openly...I don't even know...anarchistic? I've not seen them so openly align themselves with the nutcase dropout "protesters" that think that smashing windows and threatening people at every G8 meeting.
You can tell you shocking it is to see them drop trou so blatantly...just look how many elipses I'm using!...
Their latest transmission from the braindeth star?
And we need to start now—not three months from now, when the budget's been negotiated and we only have weeks to stop it. That's why we're asking everyone to pitch in what they can each month to kick off a massive new campaign on the economy.Seriously? 'Pitch in so we can stop the budget - we have to kick off a campaign on the economy'??
I don't recall conservatives, any conservatives ever claiming that their budget battles were an attack on the American economy.
Cripes. And these are the people that mock conservative movements like the TEA partiers because they get together to tell their representatives that they want them to actually read the things they vote on and stop spending their grandkids' money. Meanwhile their latest campaign is a campaign on our economy??
Lesson In Media Bias
Tell me, class, what does the left and the press (yes, they're the same) say when conservatives or the GOP say they want to slow the rate of growth of a program? Say the budget for NIH is set to go up by 8% a years and they propose increasing their budget by 5% a year, instead.
The left says that they are proposing "cuts" and want to "slash" the budget of the NIH. Right? You know this is true. Even though they are increasing their budget, it is a CUT.
So, then, what are we to make of the 'he's so wise!' coverage of Obama's useless plan to "freeze spending" on a small part of the federal budget? Now please keep in mind that, otherwise, the spending on these items would likely rise - instead he is calling for budgets that would otherwise rise to be stilled at their current level.
That, my good friends, is media bias.
The left says that they are proposing "cuts" and want to "slash" the budget of the NIH. Right? You know this is true. Even though they are increasing their budget, it is a CUT.
So, then, what are we to make of the 'he's so wise!' coverage of Obama's useless plan to "freeze spending" on a small part of the federal budget? Now please keep in mind that, otherwise, the spending on these items would likely rise - instead he is calling for budgets that would otherwise rise to be stilled at their current level.
They have proposed slashing spending by at least $100 billion a year, and Obama responded Tuesday night by offering unspecified savings through the closing of some tax loopholes, modest budget cuts and a five-year freeze in discretionary spending that will save $40 billion a year.Yup - when a Democrat calls for budgets to have their rate of increase slowed (all the way to 0% actually), he is praised for wisely "saving $40 billion a year" - not slashing or cutting or depriving of oxygen or throttling in the cradle any budgets...he's just "saving money".
That, my good friends, is media bias.
I Coulda Sworn...
I glanced at this...
Obama calls for new era of competitiveness
and coulda sworn that it read "Obama calls for an end of competitiveness".
Can you blame me?
Obama calls for new era of competitiveness
and coulda sworn that it read "Obama calls for an end of competitiveness".
Can you blame me?
Let There Be Spankings
No, not physical spankings of Obama, but metaphorical spankings of the demagogue in chief, we certainly don't want to be accused of fostering violence!
Anyway, a little series of clicks on Algore's internet provides some more of that good old fashioned fact stuff, real history stuff...stuff to counter the ridiculous demagoguery of the man that calls himself our leader.
Where Did the Stimulus Go?
Anyway, a little series of clicks on Algore's internet provides some more of that good old fashioned fact stuff, real history stuff...stuff to counter the ridiculous demagoguery of the man that calls himself our leader.
Where Did the Stimulus Go?
During the recent recession, the U.S. Congress passed two large economic stimulus programs. President Bush’s February 2008 program totaled $152 billion. President Obama’s bill, enacted a year later, was considerably larger at $862 billion. Neither worked. After more than three years since the crisis flared up, unemployment is still very high and economic growth is weak. Why have such large sums of money failed to stimulate the economy? To answer this question, we must look at where the billions of stimulus dollars went and how they were used.
Keynesian stimulus packages come in three basic types. In the first type, the federal government puts money directly into the hands of consumers. The hope is that consumers will use the money to increase their purchases of goods and services. In the second type, the federal government directly purchases goods and services, including infrastructure projects, equipment, software, law enforcement, and education. In the third type, the federal government sends grants to state and local governments in the hope that those governments will use the funds to purchase goods and services.
In each case, according to Keynesian theories, the increase in purchases will stimulate additional economic activity over and above the initial increase in purchases. The 2008 stimulus was mainly of the first type, while the 2009 stimulus was a mix of all three types.
Dow Tops 12,000, Curb Your Enthusiasm
2 items go together that belong together - the GOP working to cut spending and the Dow showing some life as investor's gain hope.But, a few other items remain massive anchors on expectations - the whopping $1.5 TRILLION deficit the GOP "inherited" from the Democrats and Obama and the ongoing cratering of the housing market.
State Of The Fail
Of course I didn't watch Captain Failure fail at talking about how he didn't fail and how he was going to fail in his attempts to fix his failure and stop the GOP from fixing his failure.
But it's very telling this morning that there appears to be roughly, oh, zero positive buzz about Capt. Fail's most recent spectacular failure. Gee, it's almost as if people thought it would be a good idea to put someone with no experience in charge of everything only to find out that he couldn't do anything and had surrounded himself with people with no experience who couldn't do anything except tell him to keep doing things that normal people know will fail.
No 'instapoll shows Obama approval rating spike!' stories. No, 'where were you when Obama gave the SOTU?!' stories. The only direct quote placed with the main page headlines on Yahoo! says, "That's not going to fly".
Instead I'm seeing an AP fact check that obliterates Capt. Fail's fail. And some of his biggest admirers could only conjure up this reaction:
But it's very telling this morning that there appears to be roughly, oh, zero positive buzz about Capt. Fail's most recent spectacular failure. Gee, it's almost as if people thought it would be a good idea to put someone with no experience in charge of everything only to find out that he couldn't do anything and had surrounded himself with people with no experience who couldn't do anything except tell him to keep doing things that normal people know will fail.
No 'instapoll shows Obama approval rating spike!' stories. No, 'where were you when Obama gave the SOTU?!' stories. The only direct quote placed with the main page headlines on Yahoo! says, "That's not going to fly".
Instead I'm seeing an AP fact check that obliterates Capt. Fail's fail. And some of his biggest admirers could only conjure up this reaction:
WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, it didn't come across on television, I have to say, as terribly inspiring.
SCARBOROUGH: Barack Obama famously said "I'm LeBron, baby" when it comes to these things. But if he was LeBron, then this was Game 7 of the NBA championship and he scored nine points before fouling out three minutes into the third quarter.
ANDREA MITCHELL: As much as I like civility...it did lack energy. It lacked passion...The problem that I have with it is...that it doesn't add up. That the dollars and cents don't add up. And when you fact-check it, when he's talking about increasing our exports, he's really recycling something that he said last year...It's important, but it's not a new way to do it. He's not explaining how to do it, how is that going to happen, nor is he explaining how he's going to take away the subsidies from the oil companies. That's something that he also proposed in the past. There's no path from A to B.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
That's Not A Diet
Obama apparently will be proposing the Democrat version of a diet to solve our fiscal woes - massively increase spending for 2 years to stratospheric, history-dwarfing levels, then say you don't want to increase it any more for a little while.
That's not a diet. A diet is cutting. When was the last time someone paid off their credit card debt by monstrously increasing their spending just before pledging to only keep spending that much every month? Don't buy it, GOP, for the love of this nation, don't buy it.
No problem, I'm going on a diet next week and I promise to eat only as many calories every day as I do the day before I start - of course I will double my intake before that so that my doubled intake is what I will keep taking in. No, I won't be eating any less, I just won't be eating any more. I'll be a waif in no time. Perfectly logical. Genius really.
The GOP will applaud this. The Dems will throw panties at the stage. We're doomed.
That's not a diet. A diet is cutting. When was the last time someone paid off their credit card debt by monstrously increasing their spending just before pledging to only keep spending that much every month? Don't buy it, GOP, for the love of this nation, don't buy it.
No problem, I'm going on a diet next week and I promise to eat only as many calories every day as I do the day before I start - of course I will double my intake before that so that my doubled intake is what I will keep taking in. No, I won't be eating any less, I just won't be eating any more. I'll be a waif in no time. Perfectly logical. Genius really.The GOP will applaud this. The Dems will throw panties at the stage. We're doomed.
Well, We Can HOPE
Rep. Brady (TX):
This evening, in fulfillment of Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, President Obama will give the State of the Union address.
Tonight, this president is at a crossroads.
Will he level with the American people and make a meaningful shift in administration policies or will he merely recast the same old policies with new rhetoric?
As the American people have discovered, soaring rhetoric is no substitute for effective leadership on the key issues facing our nation: jobs, runaway spending and an exploding government debt.
Therefore, I hope that we don't hear the following:
I hope the president doesn't apply the word "invest" as a synonym for "spend." Under President Obama, the U.S. has one of the worst budget deficits in the developed world. Our federal debt is exponentially increasing by $54,373 every second...
I hope the president doesn't continue to claim credit for "pulling our economy back from the brink and restoring growth."
Historically, Americans are almost genetically predisposed to bounce back from tough economic times — but not this time. Due to Obama's failed economic policies, this recovery is one of the weakest in history.
Mr. President, do yourself a favor and stop claiming your stimulus plan has "created or saved" 2.7 million to 3.7 million jobs.
According to your own Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. has lost more than 2.1 million nonfarm payroll jobs between the time your stimulus program began in February of 2009 and last month...
We must push the Senate to join the House in the repeal of ObamaCare and to replace it with common-sense, market-oriented reforms. We must also review the reams of new regulations and where appropriate reverse them.
I hope that the president doesn't continue to pour billions of dollars into subsidies in an attempt to create green energy jobs or invest in premature technologies, while shutting down proven energy sources...
Their unreasonable "permitorium" continues to prevent energy workers from returning to work. Meanwhile, the price of crude oil has risen from around $75 to around $90 per barrel, which leaves the average price of gasoline well above $3 per gallon and heading north...
I am sure President Obama will deliver a great speech. He usually does.
However, I hope that his words will be matched with deeds. Soaring rhetoric will not restore the American people's confidence in their government. President Obama needs to signal that there has been a serious change in direction, not just another rhetorical pivot.
I, for one, am hoping for change.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Ah, Yes. The Ole Democrat Double Standard!
Yes, it's a game as old as time itself.
OK, maybe not that long. The old Democrat double standard...the blinding hypocrisy. Over and over and over again:
So who did they roll out for comment when Limbaugh says something? Why they dig up Democrats of asian ancestry!
Of course the whole thing merely reminded me of the Rosie "iron doesn't burn!" O'Donnell "ching chong" incident of 2006.
Which, naturally, becomes a little research project for me. I searched the net to see how these Democrat gentlemen reacted, if at all, to her comments. And then I searched the press for reaction in 2006 and 2007. I bet you'll never guess what I found.
Actually, the first thing I found was positively priceless for the simple fact that the placement was practically prescient (p-p-p-p-tui). I found this at this site:
Yup, a news items about Wu and Honda right there directly above the item about "ching chong". What I did not find, of course, were any hits about Democrats, including these Democrats, taking her to task for her comments. Oh, sure, I found a few newspaper opinion pieces noting it - largely from columnists of asian descent (if I may be so bold as to assume this from what they say and, yes, their names). And it was noted in the press. But, and I stress BUT, it was only accompanied by statements that she was under fire from minority journalist groups and asian groups. That's it.
As an example, here's something that was in the Gazette (I searched a number of sources nationwide - not just local press), authored by Reuben Navarrette on Dec. 27, 2006:
And why should they?
Oh, I am so glad you asked that. Particularly these Congressmen, or at least one of them.
Guess, if you will, who received $1,000 from O'Donnell a handful of years earlier to her 'ching chong' incident?
Yup. Mike Honda. Nuthin' but net.
Not that I can discern any reason why the press and Democrats would go easy on someone that has given (see the top of that page) over $100,000 to Democrats and $1,000 to Republicans (actually, a Republican - a throwaway $1,000 for Elizabeth Dole to think about running for President). That's certainly a puzzler.
OK, maybe not that long. The old Democrat double standard...the blinding hypocrisy. Over and over and over again:
Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host heard by millions of Americans, came under fire from Asian Americans after he mocked the way visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao speaks...Keep that last phrase in mind when we get rolling here. The part where they acknowledge that this was intended to be humor.
"He was speaking and they weren't translating. They normally translate every couple of words, but Hu Jintao was just going, 'ching chong, ching chong, chong,'" Limbaugh said, continuing his imitation at length.
Representative David Wu, the first Chinese American to serve in Congress and a member of Obama's Democratic Party, criticized Limbaugh for his "pathetic childishness."...
Representative Mike Honda, a Japanese American Democrat who heads the Asian American caucus in Congress, accused Limbaugh of trying to "outpace others on all things inflammatory, ignorant and inane."...
Limbaugh, whose humor frequently causes controversy...
So who did they roll out for comment when Limbaugh says something? Why they dig up Democrats of asian ancestry!
Of course the whole thing merely reminded me of the Rosie "iron doesn't burn!" O'Donnell "ching chong" incident of 2006.
Which, naturally, becomes a little research project for me. I searched the net to see how these Democrat gentlemen reacted, if at all, to her comments. And then I searched the press for reaction in 2006 and 2007. I bet you'll never guess what I found.
Actually, the first thing I found was positively priceless for the simple fact that the placement was practically prescient (p-p-p-p-tui). I found this at this site:
Yup, a news items about Wu and Honda right there directly above the item about "ching chong". What I did not find, of course, were any hits about Democrats, including these Democrats, taking her to task for her comments. Oh, sure, I found a few newspaper opinion pieces noting it - largely from columnists of asian descent (if I may be so bold as to assume this from what they say and, yes, their names). And it was noted in the press. But, and I stress BUT, it was only accompanied by statements that she was under fire from minority journalist groups and asian groups. That's it.
As an example, here's something that was in the Gazette (I searched a number of sources nationwide - not just local press), authored by Reuben Navarrette on Dec. 27, 2006:
O'Donnell soon came under fire from Asian-American organizations, including the Organization of Chinese Americans and the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).As an example of her defense, here's what appeared in a column by a Vanessa Hua of the San Francisco Chronicle on Dec. 14, 2006:
"Rosie's remarks were intended to poke fun at the global attention being given to Danny DeVito's appearance on 'The View.' She certainly didn't mean to offend anyone," ABC spokesman Karl Nilsson said Wednesday."So, in other words, it was just a joke. The community of those of asian descent wasn't happy with the non-apology. Nonetheless, I can find no instance where Congressmen needed to become involved or where the press felt the need to get Congressmen to weigh in on the comments of a radio show host.
And why should they?
Oh, I am so glad you asked that. Particularly these Congressmen, or at least one of them.
Guess, if you will, who received $1,000 from O'Donnell a handful of years earlier to her 'ching chong' incident?
Yup. Mike Honda. Nuthin' but net.
Not that I can discern any reason why the press and Democrats would go easy on someone that has given (see the top of that page) over $100,000 to Democrats and $1,000 to Republicans (actually, a Republican - a throwaway $1,000 for Elizabeth Dole to think about running for President). That's certainly a puzzler.
A Couple Of Thoughts
First - and this holds for everyone at every end of the spectrum - why is it not OK for China to 'hoard' rare earth reserves, but it's OK for the US to 'hoard' oil and gas reservers?
Second - Mitt Romney, if he plays it well, could easily use MittCare to bolster a run for President. It's not even that difficult with the right message. Conservatives, and most Americans, would agree that the original intent of the federal government was for it to have certain duties. Beyond those duties it was supposed to be hands off the states - the states were where great experiments could be done. If one state wanted to require seat belts - so be it. People could agree and live there or move to a nearby state that outlawed seat belts.
Or, how about this - one state could enact mandatory health insurance requirements. Another needn't. Citizens could live in one or the other. All Mitt needs to argue, clearly, quickly, and without straying, that MittCare was something the people of Massachusetts wanted to do, it was heavily supported by the legislature, and it was within the powers of Massachusetts to enact it. So he went along with what the majority sorely felt was needed. He signed it. It has been a miserable failure. It was entirely reasonable for a state to try something like that and see if it would work or not. He, as the representative of the state's people, agreed to put it into law. It has been a miserable failure. A great experiment was tried in a state, it should not be then exported as mandatory on the entire nation. There is nothing in the Constitution that allows the federal government such a power whereas such rights are, explicitly, reserved for the several states. As the governor of a state he listened to his constituents and agreed to try this experiment. It failed. He would not repeat it for the entire nation. It was a lesson learned for all, and a lesson unlearned is merely setting a course for future failure.
Don't back away from MittCare, use it. A state had the right to try it, the federal government does not. As the chief executive of the people of the state, he listened to them and agreed to try an experiment that many claimed would work. It did not. He would not repeat it, because it has been tried and failed. If he had it to do over again, he would again listen to the wishes of those that elected him, but not if he was granted the knowledge of the future outcome, which was failure.
Period, next question.
Second - Mitt Romney, if he plays it well, could easily use MittCare to bolster a run for President. It's not even that difficult with the right message. Conservatives, and most Americans, would agree that the original intent of the federal government was for it to have certain duties. Beyond those duties it was supposed to be hands off the states - the states were where great experiments could be done. If one state wanted to require seat belts - so be it. People could agree and live there or move to a nearby state that outlawed seat belts.
Or, how about this - one state could enact mandatory health insurance requirements. Another needn't. Citizens could live in one or the other. All Mitt needs to argue, clearly, quickly, and without straying, that MittCare was something the people of Massachusetts wanted to do, it was heavily supported by the legislature, and it was within the powers of Massachusetts to enact it. So he went along with what the majority sorely felt was needed. He signed it. It has been a miserable failure. It was entirely reasonable for a state to try something like that and see if it would work or not. He, as the representative of the state's people, agreed to put it into law. It has been a miserable failure. A great experiment was tried in a state, it should not be then exported as mandatory on the entire nation. There is nothing in the Constitution that allows the federal government such a power whereas such rights are, explicitly, reserved for the several states. As the governor of a state he listened to his constituents and agreed to try this experiment. It failed. He would not repeat it for the entire nation. It was a lesson learned for all, and a lesson unlearned is merely setting a course for future failure.
Don't back away from MittCare, use it. A state had the right to try it, the federal government does not. As the chief executive of the people of the state, he listened to them and agreed to try an experiment that many claimed would work. It did not. He would not repeat it, because it has been tried and failed. If he had it to do over again, he would again listen to the wishes of those that elected him, but not if he was granted the knowledge of the future outcome, which was failure.
Period, next question.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
There Is No Spoon
Some of those plans for actual, real, specific spending cuts that Republicans never produce (according to the press):
In other words, until they deal with Medicare, Social Security, and, yes, defense, this is all just drop in the bucketland.
Jordan’s “Spending Reduction Act” would eliminate such things as the U.S. Agency for International Development and its $1.39 billion annual budget, the $445 million annual subsidy for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the $1.5 billion annual subsidy for Amtrak, $2.5 billion in high speed rail grants, the $150 million subsidy for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, and it would cut in half to $7.5 billion the federal travel budget.Of course this is pretty much smoke and mirrors at this point. I heard, I think on the radio, that even if they zeroed out ALL non-defense discretionary spending, they'd still only cut spending by 15%.
But the program eliminations and reductions would account for only $330 billion of the $2.5 trillion in cuts. The bulk of the cuts would come from returning non-defense discretionary spending – which is currently $670 billion out of a $3.8 trillion budget for the 2011 fiscal year – to the 2006 level of $496.7 billion, through 2021.
In other words, until they deal with Medicare, Social Security, and, yes, defense, this is all just drop in the bucketland.
Why You Shouldn't Take MSNBC Seriously
In case the evidence wasn't piled high and deep enough already:
The same people who had blamed Sarah Palin for the massacre at the Tucson Safeway and then taunted her for her "silence" were enraged when she responded.And this is their 'biggest' star.
Last Tuesday, the night before Palin responded, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann mocked Palin's silence throughout his show:
-- "And why is the ever self-promoting Miss Palin so quiet?"
-- "And it's quiet, isn't it?"
-- "It's too quiet."
-- "The silence is deafening from the great Northwest."
It was deemed an admission of guilt that she hadn't spoken about the Tucson shooting or denied the accusations that she had inspired the shooter.
The next day, Palin posted a video response, and Keith immediately attacked her for "the worst timed political statement ever." It's almost as if liberals would attack Palin whatever she did.
Damn, The AP Is Stupid
I clicked on this with some hope: Analysis: JFK's words in today's troubled times
Alas. Earwax.
Just how far to the left of center - heck, how far left of Barack Obama! - do you have to be to think that anyone with an IQ above room temperature and the common sense given to your average tapestry would think that telling people NOT to focus on what they can get from the government is socialist??
It is the exact, complete, 100% opposite of socialist thought to ask what you can do to contribute instead of what you can get from the government. Like his call to lower taxes to unleash the American minds and hands and grow government revenue along with the economy, this was one of Kennedy's flashes of ideology that equates with modern conservatism. For crying out loud, the guy was telling people to stop relying on the government so much! Today's Republicans aren't willing to do that and the Democrats - the Democrats would soil themselves and collapse into wriggling bowls of jelly on the floor if a Democrat president said such a thing! He'd be burned in effigy by the race hustlers (because we all know that black people rely solely on the government to survive, and solely black people rely on the government to survive, right?)!
On what planet untouched by reason would someone think that people would call asking for the government to do less is a call for more government?
Oh. Right. Moronic leftwingers like this think conservatives are this stupid. Silly me.
Congratulations, this may be one of the most asinine things I've read in quite a while, bozo.
Alas. Earwax.
Fifty years after John F. Kennedy summoned Americans to a new generation of leadership and patriotism, one thing is clear: This is no age of Camelot.I wonder what sort of measuring device, what sort of radar/sonar/radio telescopes/x-ray equipment, what sort of unit of measure you need to determine just how far this writer (the unilluminating Liz Sidoti) has her head crammed up her backside.
Were it uttered by a modern politician, Kennedy's famous "ask not" call to service might well be derided as a socialist pitch for more government.
Just how far to the left of center - heck, how far left of Barack Obama! - do you have to be to think that anyone with an IQ above room temperature and the common sense given to your average tapestry would think that telling people NOT to focus on what they can get from the government is socialist??
It is the exact, complete, 100% opposite of socialist thought to ask what you can do to contribute instead of what you can get from the government. Like his call to lower taxes to unleash the American minds and hands and grow government revenue along with the economy, this was one of Kennedy's flashes of ideology that equates with modern conservatism. For crying out loud, the guy was telling people to stop relying on the government so much! Today's Republicans aren't willing to do that and the Democrats - the Democrats would soil themselves and collapse into wriggling bowls of jelly on the floor if a Democrat president said such a thing! He'd be burned in effigy by the race hustlers (because we all know that black people rely solely on the government to survive, and solely black people rely on the government to survive, right?)!
On what planet untouched by reason would someone think that people would call asking for the government to do less is a call for more government?
Oh. Right. Moronic leftwingers like this think conservatives are this stupid. Silly me.
Congratulations, this may be one of the most asinine things I've read in quite a while, bozo.
Oh Fer Cryin' Out Loud
You've got to be kidding me...a county Democrat group actually just put out an ad chockablock with targets and gun imagery to raise money?
Sigh.
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UPDATE - And the unions get in on act, planning a 'march' on a developer's home (as Jay Tea reminds us, this won't be the first time such has happened when a crowd of leftists traumatized a 14 year old kid alone in the house they were assailing), utilizing - you got it - a "sniper sight" (as the press likes to call them). Redstate has the 'call to arms':
---
UPDATE: Is this a joke? Invoking the Democrat's newfound civility, a Democrat takes the floor to denounce conservatives, Republicans, and a majority of Americans as Nazis to dishonestly accuse them of lying about ObamaCareless. (almost) Unreal. Thank God we have access to the truth, otherwise this is all America would see from the mainstream media. Thank God more unelected Americans have read this monstrosity than have Congressmen.
---
Yet ANOTHER update
Democrat says GOP, and the majority of Americans who agree with them, are "killing Americans" by trying to repeal ObamaCareless and replace it with something that might work:
Sigh.
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UPDATE - And the unions get in on act, planning a 'march' on a developer's home (as Jay Tea reminds us, this won't be the first time such has happened when a crowd of leftists traumatized a 14 year old kid alone in the house they were assailing), utilizing - you got it - a "sniper sight" (as the press likes to call them). Redstate has the 'call to arms':
---UPDATE: Is this a joke? Invoking the Democrat's newfound civility, a Democrat takes the floor to denounce conservatives, Republicans, and a majority of Americans as Nazis to dishonestly accuse them of lying about ObamaCareless. (almost) Unreal. Thank God we have access to the truth, otherwise this is all America would see from the mainstream media. Thank God more unelected Americans have read this monstrosity than have Congressmen.
---
Yet ANOTHER update
Democrat says GOP, and the majority of Americans who agree with them, are "killing Americans" by trying to repeal ObamaCareless and replace it with something that might work:
"...this is killing Americans if we take this away, if we repeal this bill."Feel free to mentally link this to the Democrats attempts to say that calling a bill "job killing" is out of bounds. Leftists, heal thyselves.
Political Speech On The News
Why is the channel 9 news (now YNN) playing a partisan speech by Paul Tonko about an issue on which he stands in stark disagreement with a majority of Americans in the prime first 5 minutes of their newscast this morning?
And why was he allowed to claim it would lower the deficit, when the only estimates that say that come with the caveat, from the CBO itself, that it will only lower the deficit if pay to doctors stays at unattainably low levels and nothing ever changes - both of which the CBO calls very unlikely, without comment from the newscasters?
Although, I have to admit, perhaps he was more sly/devious than I thought. At first I just thought he was an idiot when he said it would "belittle the deficit". I was like, "belittle? moron."
But you know what? Look it up -
belittle: to cause (a person or thing) to seem little or less
Ah ha! Make it seem less. Exactly, bozo.
And why was he allowed to claim it would lower the deficit, when the only estimates that say that come with the caveat, from the CBO itself, that it will only lower the deficit if pay to doctors stays at unattainably low levels and nothing ever changes - both of which the CBO calls very unlikely, without comment from the newscasters?
Although, I have to admit, perhaps he was more sly/devious than I thought. At first I just thought he was an idiot when he said it would "belittle the deficit". I was like, "belittle? moron."
But you know what? Look it up -
belittle: to cause (a person or thing) to seem little or less
Ah ha! Make it seem less. Exactly, bozo.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
And Thus It Begins
Raise your hand if you're surprised.
GOP spending cuts would affect millions of people
Yeah, about 300 million...plus the millions upon millions yet to come that might actually get to live in a sustainable nation.
What part of "we don't have any more money" don't they get?
GOP spending cuts would affect millions of people
Yeah, about 300 million...plus the millions upon millions yet to come that might actually get to live in a sustainable nation.
What part of "we don't have any more money" don't they get?
New York Times' Laughable Hypocrisy
You all remember that infamous quote, repeated out of context with the intent to mislead and disparage by Paul Krugman of, yes, the New York Times and right here at home by Rex Smith (looks like no correction for his slimy, dishonest attack on Bachmann, yet, maybe he should do some "soul-searching" about his taking partial quotes out of context to smear conservatives - maybe he can team up with Carl Strock on that) - when they partially quoted conservative Rep. Michelle Bachmann as saying she wanted her constituents "armed and dangerous", right?
Of course, the full quote indicates that she wanted them "armed and dangerous" with facts and information, which is why she was handing out information at the meeting in question. Well, the Times and Times Union instantly suffered a bout of bunched panties when they dug that partial nugget up to use to attack conservatives after a deranged nut inspired by the voices in his head tried to kill someone he'd previously threatened to kill, apparently.
I guess being "armed" with facts is not only an act of violence or incitement to violence, but it is utterly beyond the pale to use such language.
Except if you're the New York Times and it's...yesterday, and it's a good thing to be "well-armed" with the "news": Where News Is Power, a Fight to Be Well-Armed:
Of course, the full quote indicates that she wanted them "armed and dangerous" with facts and information, which is why she was handing out information at the meeting in question. Well, the Times and Times Union instantly suffered a bout of bunched panties when they dug that partial nugget up to use to attack conservatives after a deranged nut inspired by the voices in his head tried to kill someone he'd previously threatened to kill, apparently.
I guess being "armed" with facts is not only an act of violence or incitement to violence, but it is utterly beyond the pale to use such language.
Except if you're the New York Times and it's...yesterday, and it's a good thing to be "well-armed" with the "news": Where News Is Power, a Fight to Be Well-Armed:
Mr. Maldonado, 26, is one of the dozens of young aides throughout the city who rise before dawn to pore over the news to synthesize it, summarize it and spin it, so their bosses start the day well-prepared. Washington is a city that traffics in information, and as these 20-something staff members are learning, who knows what — and when they know it — can be the difference between professional advancement and barely scraping by...*honk honk* Bozos.
For Mr. Maldonado, who said that “the information wars are won before work,” that means rising early to browse all of the major newspapers, new polling data, ideological Web sites and dozens of news alerts needed to equip his bosses with the best, most up-to-date nuggets.
“Our executives walk into meetings and they’re doing battles, whether it’s on health care or cap and trade, and information is power, and my job is to make sure they’re armed with the most powerful information,” he said...
Mr. Bates, 24, said his early-morning search was intended to harvest “something that’s very strong, that advances an argument well, or anything that could be jeopardizing or damaging, like criticism.”...
“Rapid response requires knowing that there is something that needs response,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “For such a young guy, Andrew has a great ability to sniff out stories that need to be handled with dispatch. During our biggest fights, from health care to the Supreme Court confirmations, Andrew repeatedly spotted potential problems in the farthest reaches of the Internet before anyone else. That information was essential to our success.”...
A version of this article appeared in print on January 18, 2011, on page A14 of the New York edition.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Lame Media Bias
Look at this ridiculously snarky item added to an otherwise OK story about Palin appearing on a TV show (yes, that's right, an entire news story about Palin appearing on a TV show - not that the press is obsessed with Palin or anything like that):
Palin received lower marks for her handling of the tragedy from more Americans than President Barack Obama did, a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Monday found.Seriously? They polled people on how the President of the United States did in handling a tragic shooting vs. how a private citizen falsely accused over and over by the press did in "handling" it? Seriously? I'd probably have given her "lower marks" also, since I have no expectation that the private citizen falsely accused has no responsibility for "handling" being falsely and despicably accused of being responsible for the crime. I also give her "lower marks" for handling the economy, passing legislation, and foreign relations, not to mention how little I believe she's done for prosecuting racists intimidating voters at polling stations - I'd give her marks, well, right about even with myself or the guy down the street.
WSJ And Krauthammer Put The NYT Over Their Knees
I wonder if the cyclical nature of journalism has a longer or shorter cycle than that of global temperatures. Journalists used to be respected and honest. But before that they were lying, manipulative bastards. Probably before that they were honest. But before that they were lying, manipulative bastards...
Clearly we're in the 'lying, manipulative bastard' phase...I wonder if it's related to sunspots. Anyway, as also used to be the case when a single media outlet could not dominate the news, we are reaching that point again - the WSJ takes the NYT over its knee as Charles Krauthammer (described as "angry" in I think it was the Gazette's letters to the editor from someone that's clearly a lickspittle for their pet bigoted columnist, Carl Strock - anyone that has seen Dr. Krauthammer on one of the many TV shows he guests on can tell you how unemotional and "angry" he is when stating his opinions and facts) does to the ever-increasingly irrelevant Paul Krugman.
WSJ:
Clearly we're in the 'lying, manipulative bastard' phase...I wonder if it's related to sunspots. Anyway, as also used to be the case when a single media outlet could not dominate the news, we are reaching that point again - the WSJ takes the NYT over its knee as Charles Krauthammer (described as "angry" in I think it was the Gazette's letters to the editor from someone that's clearly a lickspittle for their pet bigoted columnist, Carl Strock - anyone that has seen Dr. Krauthammer on one of the many TV shows he guests on can tell you how unemotional and "angry" he is when stating his opinions and facts) does to the ever-increasingly irrelevant Paul Krugman.
WSJ:
After the horrific shooting spree, the editorial board of New York Times offered a voice of reasoned circumspection: "In the aftermath of this unforgivable attack, it will be important to avoid drawing prejudicial conclusions . . .," the paper counseled.Krauthammer:
Here's how the sentence continued: ". . . from the fact that Major Hasan is an American Muslim whose parents came from the Middle East."
The Tucson Safeway massacre prompted exactly the opposite reaction. What was once known as the paper of record egged on its readers to draw invidious conclusions that are not only prejudicial but contrary to fact. In doing so, the Times has crossed a moral line...
The New York Times has seized on a madman's act of wanton violence as an excuse to instigate a witch hunt against those it regards as its domestic foes. "Instigate" is not too strong a word here: As we noted yesterday, one of the first to point an accusatory finger at the Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin was the Times's star columnist, Paul Krugman. Less than two hours after the news of the shooting broke, he opined on the Times website: "We don't have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was."
This was speculative fantasy, irresponsible but perhaps forgivable had Krugman walked it back when the facts proved contrary to his prejudices. He did not. His Monday column evinced the same damn-the-facts attitude as the editorial did.
In the column, Krugman blames the massacre on "eliminationist rhetoric," which he defines as "suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary." He rightly asserts that "there isn't any place" for such rhetoric...
But Krugman's assertion that such rhetoric comes "overwhelmingly from the right" is at best willfully ignorant. National Review's Jay Nordlinger runs down some examples on the left:Even before [George W.] Bush was elected president, the kill-Bush talk and imagery started. When Governor Bush was delivering his 2000 convention speech, Craig Kilborn, a CBS talk-show host, showed him on the screen with the words "SNIPERS WANTED." Six years later, Bill Maher, the comedian-pundit, was having a conversation with John Kerry. He asked the senator what he had gotten his wife for her birthday. Kerry answered that he had taken her to Vermont. Maher said, "You could have went to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone." (New Hampshire is an early primary state, of course.) Kerry said, "Or I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone." (This is the same Kerry who joked in 1988, "Somebody told me the other day that the Secret Service has orders that if George Bush is shot, they're to shoot Quayle.") Also in 2006, the New York comptroller, Alan Hevesi, spoke to graduating students at Queens College. He said that his fellow Democrat, Sen. Charles Schumer, would "put a bullet between the president's eyes if he could get away with it."
...Another bit of eliminationist rhetoric appeared as the lead sentence of an article on the Times op-ed page in December 2009: "A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy." The author: Paul Krugman.
A March 2010 profile of Krugman in The New Yorker featured this related detail:"I was nervous until they finally called it on Election Night," Krugman says. "We had an Election Night party at our house, thirty or forty people."Burning an effigy, like burning an American flag, is constitutionally protected symbolic speech. It is also about as eliminationist as speech can get, short of a true threat or incitement. To Krugman, it is a fun party activity. It is shockingly hypocritical for such a man to deliver a pious lecture about the dangers of eliminationist rhetoric...
"The econ department, the finance department, the Woodrow Wilson school," [Robin] Wells [Krugman's wife] says. "They were all very nervous, so they were grateful we were having the party, because they didn't want to be alone. We had two or three TVs set up and we had a little portable outside fire pit and we let people throw in an effigy or whatever they wanted to get rid of for the past eight years."
"One of our Italian colleagues threw in an effigy of Berlusconi."
What accounts for this descent into madness? We think the key lies in this sentence from yesterday's Times editorial: "But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible . . ."
The campaign of vilification against the right, led by the New York Times, is really about competition in the media industry--not commercial competition but competition for authority. When Bob Schieffer and Steny Hoyer were growing up, the New York Times had unrivaled authority to set the media's agenda, with the three major TV networks following its lead.
The ensuing decades have seen a proliferation of alternative media outlets, most notably talk radio and Fox News Channel, and a corresponding diminution of the so-called mainstream media's ability to set the boundaries of political debate.
The charge: The Tucson massacre is a consequence of the "climate of hate" created by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Obamacare opponents and sundry other liberal betes noires.
The verdict: Rarely in American political discourse has there been a charge so reckless, so scurrilous and so unsupported by evidence.
As killers go, Jared Loughner is not reticent. Yet among all his writings, postings, videos and other ravings - and in all the testimony from all the people who knew him - there is not a single reference to any of these supposed accessories to murder.
Not only is there no evidence that Loughner was impelled to violence by any of those upon whom Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, the New York Times, the Tucson sheriff and other rabid partisans are fixated. There is no evidence that he was responding to anything, political or otherwise, outside of his own head...
This is not political behavior. These are the signs of a clinical thought disorder - ideas disconnected from each other, incoherent, delusional, detached from reality.
These are all the hallmarks of a paranoid schizophrenic. And a dangerous one. A classmate found him so terrifyingly mentally disturbed that, she e-mailed friends and family, she expected to find his picture on TV after his perpetrating a mass murder. This was no idle speculation: In class "I sit by the door with my purse handy" so that she could get out fast when the shooting began.
Furthermore, the available evidence dates Loughner's fixation on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to at least 2007, when he attended a town hall of hers and felt slighted by her response. In 2007, no one had heard of Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck was still toiling on Headline News. There was no Tea Party or health-care reform. The only climate of hate was the pervasive post-Iraq campaign of vilification of George W. Bush, nicely captured by a New Republic editor who had begun an article thus: "I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it."...
The origins of Loughner's delusions are clear: mental illness. What are the origins of Krugman's?
The Model Of Perfection
Anyone else noticing that the weather forecasts keep coming up short this winter? When I went to bed last night I was supposed to wake up to a dusting that would accumulate 2-3 inches during the day, turn to a mix, and maybe we'd end up with 4-8 inches (8" if you lived in higher areas).
Well, we woke up to 3-4" already on the ground with it snowing heavily. Now the forecast says another 3-5 today. I'm pretty sure the past 2 storms have also been underestimated. And, actually, I recall our first real snowfall last fall, it was supposed to be a dusting and we got several inches.
Eventually you have to wonder why. Here's my based-on-nothing-but-perhaps-a-decent guess: While forecasting methods have been around for a while, many, many of today's forecasters rely on computer modeling to tell them what is going to happen more than ever. In many cases they actually tell you how many models they're using ("3 of the models say the storm will miss us, but they're fighting with the 4th that says it's going to be a direct hit" - I like how they're always "fighting" with each other). So I thought about it a tad more. How old are these models? I have to guess they're pretty new. In fact, I'd say they've gotta be in the past 20 years or so. In fact, I'd say many of them are more likely even newer, 5-10 years with modern tweaking as they go.
Think about that. These models have only been around for maybe a decade. What's the weather been like for the past decade and, more importantly, the past 30 years or so? Warm. Not a lot of heavy snow winters where it's just storm after storm and the snow piles up until your driveway is a high-walled topless tunnel. That's what winter was about 30 years ago. Not that 30 years means anything - not that there are 30 years cycles of solar activity that correspond to rising and falling temperatures and stuff. Right?
So in other words we have these models that have been designed, built, and calibrated to a warmer-than-average period. They're designed to see weather patterns and conditions, check them against what they know, and spit out possible outcomes. So why are they missing? Up-to-date information? That's OK. Calculations and predictions based on the data they have? Fine. But what about the third piece? What if they're designed to compare to what happened, say, in the past decade? Uh-oh.
If we are, as some are predicting, really entering a period of cooling (there has been no real warming for about a decade already - except when you keep maniacally removing weather stations in cooler areas) that would coincide with this 30 year oscillation, then they should be looking at the weather patterns and outcomes from the 70s and early 80s.
Could that be why they keep missing these storms over and over again by underestimating the amount of snow? Because the same developing system in 2009 would end up with a dusting, but the same conditions in 1979 gave 4-6"?
Just an idea.
Well, we woke up to 3-4" already on the ground with it snowing heavily. Now the forecast says another 3-5 today. I'm pretty sure the past 2 storms have also been underestimated. And, actually, I recall our first real snowfall last fall, it was supposed to be a dusting and we got several inches.
Eventually you have to wonder why. Here's my based-on-nothing-but-perhaps-a-decent guess: While forecasting methods have been around for a while, many, many of today's forecasters rely on computer modeling to tell them what is going to happen more than ever. In many cases they actually tell you how many models they're using ("3 of the models say the storm will miss us, but they're fighting with the 4th that says it's going to be a direct hit" - I like how they're always "fighting" with each other). So I thought about it a tad more. How old are these models? I have to guess they're pretty new. In fact, I'd say they've gotta be in the past 20 years or so. In fact, I'd say many of them are more likely even newer, 5-10 years with modern tweaking as they go.
Think about that. These models have only been around for maybe a decade. What's the weather been like for the past decade and, more importantly, the past 30 years or so? Warm. Not a lot of heavy snow winters where it's just storm after storm and the snow piles up until your driveway is a high-walled topless tunnel. That's what winter was about 30 years ago. Not that 30 years means anything - not that there are 30 years cycles of solar activity that correspond to rising and falling temperatures and stuff. Right?
So in other words we have these models that have been designed, built, and calibrated to a warmer-than-average period. They're designed to see weather patterns and conditions, check them against what they know, and spit out possible outcomes. So why are they missing? Up-to-date information? That's OK. Calculations and predictions based on the data they have? Fine. But what about the third piece? What if they're designed to compare to what happened, say, in the past decade? Uh-oh.
If we are, as some are predicting, really entering a period of cooling (there has been no real warming for about a decade already - except when you keep maniacally removing weather stations in cooler areas) that would coincide with this 30 year oscillation, then they should be looking at the weather patterns and outcomes from the 70s and early 80s.
Could that be why they keep missing these storms over and over again by underestimating the amount of snow? Because the same developing system in 2009 would end up with a dusting, but the same conditions in 1979 gave 4-6"?
Just an idea.
Monday, January 17, 2011
One Good Thing
I have to admit, there is one good thing to this 'let's sit together kumbayah' dealie...
At least if the libs are sitting next to a Republican they won't dare act like braying, drunken fratboys heckling NERDS!if when Obama makes an incredibly imbecilic, immature, untrue statement as Schumer and Co. did when they surrounded the unable-to-respond Supreme Court justices and attempted to embarrass them to the chagrin of American dignity.
At least if the libs are sitting next to a Republican they won't dare act like braying, drunken fratboys heckling NERDS!
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Correction Required And Requested
Rex Smith's column today contained a deceptive partial quote and I have requested a correction so that the readers misled by Rex get the truth. Request follows as sent:
Ms. Crupi,This same deceptive quote was used by liberal fool Paul Krugman and apparently so many demanded a correction that the New York Times' public editor drafted a form letter to respond and explain that deceiving readers is Ok in Krugman's case in the NYT's eyes.
Rex Smith's column in the Sunday paper contained a very misleading partial quotation. He references the term "armed and dangerous" from Rep. Bachmann as an example of something used by someone that should do some "soul-searching". Clearly, as the full quote, not the selectively edited quote, shows, if anything I would think Mr. Smith would applaud that "armed and dangerous" quote from the Representative.
Her full quote:
"I'm going to have materials for people when they leave. I want people armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax, because we need to fight back."
Clearly this is not any sort of 'violence urging' quotation as Mr. Smith portrayed it to be unless he is terribly concerned that her constituents are going to attack someone with reading materials. If Mr. Smith had simply been referencing 'violent imagery' or 'terminology' and saying that such a statement is thus inappropriate, I could find no fault with that. But no reasonable reader would think that is why Mr. Smith included the quote as it was coupled with his advice that she conduct "soul-searching" for saying it.
A correction should be issued to explain that this quote was taken out of context and the full quote in context should be provided to readers deceived, intentionally or accidentally, by Mr. Smith.
Thank you.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Selective Outrage
The rather selective outrage of the local liberal press over the use the term "blood libel" by the gal they are NOT obsessed with, Sarah Palin (did I mention they're NOT obsessed with her?) caused me to waste a few precious moments seeing just how outrageous the term is to them.
The parameters of this research project are simple. A search for "blood libel" in the New York Times, Gazette, and Times Union for the past 25 years (not all papers searched for the full time period), beginning before Sarah Palin got their hearts pounding and made them all lightheaded with the vapors. But they're NOT obsessed with that stupid "angry" hick. Not at all.
Frankly, more hits than I expected. I have expressly removed incidents where it was used in its oldest form (vs. the form that Sarah Palin (did I mention they're NOT obsessed with her?) used it and the way it is often used now.
TU, column by Les Payne, 12-12-07 - accuses Mormons of blood libel against black
NYT, news of the day, 11-25-06 - This week, Mr. Fiedler accused an op-ed contributor for El Nuevo Herald of "blood libel" for suggesting that a Herald reporter who broke the Marti story had ties to Cuba's spy agency.
NYT, Frank Rich, 10-15-06 - accuses the Bush administration of blood libel
NYT, Saul Bellow's obituary, 4-16-05 - A few people in the radical black community tried to spread a story that Jewish doctors were deliberately infecting black children with H.I.V., and Mr. Bellow objected to this "blood libel" in an article printed in The Chicago Tribune.
TU, news of the day, 11-21-02 - Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin laid a charge of `` blood libel '' on those holding the Israeli army accountable because they had the camps surrounded when Christian militiamen went in to slaughter hundreds of Palestinians.
NYT, science news, 9-17-02 - And he chides the sociobiology critics for turning a scholarly debate "into harassment, slurs, misrepresentation, doctored quotations, and, most recently, blood libel."
NYT, news of the day, 5-7-02 - In a speech here tonight to the Anti-Defamation League, Mr. Sharon expressed relief that the United Nations had been forced to abandon a proposed fact-finding mission into Israel's actions in the Jenin refugee camp, calling Palestinian accusations of a massacre there "a Palestinian blood libel."
NYT, from the 3rd Lazio/Clinton debate, 10-28-00 - It's very difficult to accept that you are a consistent supporter when you stand on the sidelines while Suha Arafat issues a blood libel suggesting that Israelis have been orchestrating an attack on Palestinian women and children with poison.
TU, column by Dan Lynch, 10-5-97 - Now there's a new movie out that portrays him as a sleazy crook and bribe-taker. For the benefit of anybody unfamiliar with who and what this man was and the thoroughly admirable life he led, I thought I'd mention that the movie ``Hoodlum'' from MGM/UA perpetrates a blood libel against the memory of an honorable public servant.
I guess in '97 it was OK for a columnist in the Times Union to accuse someone of blood libel for showing someone as a crook and bribe-taker - not even an inspiration for mass murder.
NYT, column by William Pollard, 3-13-94 - I know from working with men and women who carry badges that there are far more good, caring police officers than bad ones. I reject the blood libel that the police have no respect for people of color, that they are oppressors and that we owe them no consideration.
NYT, news of the day, 8-22-91 - "This was a one-sided attack on the Jewish community," said Rabbi Butman, delivering a eulogy to the crowd assembled along Eastern Parkway. "This is a blood libel that the community of Crown Heights has been accused of."
NYT, column by AM Rosenthal, 9-14-90 - We are not dealing here with country-club anti-Semitism but with the blood libel that often grows out of it: Jews are not like us but are others, with alien loyalties for which they will sacrifice the lives of Americans.
NYT, book review, 12-5-89 - During the yellow fever plague a form of blood libel is imposed on the blacks in Philadelphia; they are said to be both responsible for and immune to sickness because of the color of their skin.
The parameters of this research project are simple. A search for "blood libel" in the New York Times, Gazette, and Times Union for the past 25 years (not all papers searched for the full time period), beginning before Sarah Palin got their hearts pounding and made them all lightheaded with the vapors. But they're NOT obsessed with that stupid "angry" hick. Not at all.
Frankly, more hits than I expected. I have expressly removed incidents where it was used in its oldest form (vs. the form that Sarah Palin (did I mention they're NOT obsessed with her?) used it and the way it is often used now.
TU, column by Les Payne, 12-12-07 - accuses Mormons of blood libel against black
NYT, news of the day, 11-25-06 - This week, Mr. Fiedler accused an op-ed contributor for El Nuevo Herald of "blood libel" for suggesting that a Herald reporter who broke the Marti story had ties to Cuba's spy agency.
NYT, Frank Rich, 10-15-06 - accuses the Bush administration of blood libel
NYT, Saul Bellow's obituary, 4-16-05 - A few people in the radical black community tried to spread a story that Jewish doctors were deliberately infecting black children with H.I.V., and Mr. Bellow objected to this "blood libel" in an article printed in The Chicago Tribune.
TU, news of the day, 11-21-02 - Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin laid a charge of `` blood libel '' on those holding the Israeli army accountable because they had the camps surrounded when Christian militiamen went in to slaughter hundreds of Palestinians.
NYT, science news, 9-17-02 - And he chides the sociobiology critics for turning a scholarly debate "into harassment, slurs, misrepresentation, doctored quotations, and, most recently, blood libel."
NYT, news of the day, 5-7-02 - In a speech here tonight to the Anti-Defamation League, Mr. Sharon expressed relief that the United Nations had been forced to abandon a proposed fact-finding mission into Israel's actions in the Jenin refugee camp, calling Palestinian accusations of a massacre there "a Palestinian blood libel."
NYT, from the 3rd Lazio/Clinton debate, 10-28-00 - It's very difficult to accept that you are a consistent supporter when you stand on the sidelines while Suha Arafat issues a blood libel suggesting that Israelis have been orchestrating an attack on Palestinian women and children with poison.
TU, column by Dan Lynch, 10-5-97 - Now there's a new movie out that portrays him as a sleazy crook and bribe-taker. For the benefit of anybody unfamiliar with who and what this man was and the thoroughly admirable life he led, I thought I'd mention that the movie ``Hoodlum'' from MGM/UA perpetrates a blood libel against the memory of an honorable public servant.
I guess in '97 it was OK for a columnist in the Times Union to accuse someone of blood libel for showing someone as a crook and bribe-taker - not even an inspiration for mass murder.
NYT, column by William Pollard, 3-13-94 - I know from working with men and women who carry badges that there are far more good, caring police officers than bad ones. I reject the blood libel that the police have no respect for people of color, that they are oppressors and that we owe them no consideration.
NYT, news of the day, 8-22-91 - "This was a one-sided attack on the Jewish community," said Rabbi Butman, delivering a eulogy to the crowd assembled along Eastern Parkway. "This is a blood libel that the community of Crown Heights has been accused of."
NYT, column by AM Rosenthal, 9-14-90 - We are not dealing here with country-club anti-Semitism but with the blood libel that often grows out of it: Jews are not like us but are others, with alien loyalties for which they will sacrifice the lives of Americans.
NYT, book review, 12-5-89 - During the yellow fever plague a form of blood libel is imposed on the blacks in Philadelphia; they are said to be both responsible for and immune to sickness because of the color of their skin.
Just Another Brick In The Wall
Michelle Malkin pulls back the focus so you can see the wall and not the newest brick:
In April 2009, a disgruntled, unemployed loser shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers in a horrifying bloodbath...There is only 1 thing in common between each of these events.
That same month, a sick, evil man named Jiverly Voong ambushed an immigration center in Binghamton, N.Y....
In June 2009, a depraved, elderly anti-Semite named James von Brunn gunned down a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in D.C....
In late August 2009, as lawmakers faced citizen revolts at health care town halls nationwide, the Colorado Democratic Party decried a window-smashing vandalism attack at its Denver headquarters...
In September 2009, Bill Sparkman, a federal U.S. Census worker, was found dead in a secluded rural Kentucky cemetery with the word "Fed" scrawled on his chest with a rope around his neck...
In February 2010, ticking time-bomb professor Amy Bishop gunned down three of her colleagues at University of Alabama-Huntsville, and suicide pilot Joseph Andrew Stack flew a stolen small plane into an Austin, Texas, office complex that contained an Internal Revenue Service office...
In May 2010, liberal New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to preemptively pin the Times Square bombing attempt on "someone with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something."...
In August 2010, Democratic supporters of Missouri Rep. Russ Carnahan blamed a "firebombing" at the congressman's St. Louis office on tea party suspects...
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Night And Day
Night:
But tonight at the memorial for the Tucson massacre victims, it will be a sea of blue as the White House unveils the “Together We Thrive” logo and slogan.
Yes, the Tucson massacre is being branded...
Attendees at the memorial tonight report that they are being handed out the blue and white t-shirts as they enter the venue.
A reader in attendance tells me via Twitter that volunteers will be wearing red-and-white shirts...
Update 8:03pm Eastern Obama enters stadium to wild applause...
Native American gives rambling speech while holding a feather. His remarks are frequently interrupted by whoops and cheers. He gives a shout-out to his son serving in Afghanistan. Brags about his ethnic Mexican background. Babbles about two-legged and four-legged creatures and the feminine energy that comes from Mother Earth.
Mercy.
More whoops and hollers for the National Anthem singer.
More whoops and hollers for the University of Arizona president...
Brewer brings reverence and sobriety to the event, God bless her: We will go forward “in prayer, unbending and unbowed.”
And immediately, the sobriety is broken by massive whoops and hollers for Janet Napolitano.
Just. Gross.
After reading Isaiah 40, more whoops and hollers for Napolitano...
8:42pm Eastern U of A president intro’ing Obama. Cheers, whoops, shout-outs. Ear-splitting applause as he heads to podium.
Audience screaming “WE LOVE YOU!”
People still cheering as he starts his remarks...
Massive applause, whoops as he finishes...
Last update: I didn’t trust my ears, but the NYTimes confirms that there were some boos when Gov. Brewer spoke.
Disgraceful.Even as it began, some conservative commentators were posting comments criticizing the memorial service for being overly partisan and more like a pep rally, and there were some boos in the hall when Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, spoke. Those reactions would have been hard to imagine, say, in the days after the Oklahoma City bombing.
***
And day:Reader Joshua Jones, who lived through the Virginia Tech shooting rampage and attended the campus memorial where President Bush spoke, e-mails his response to the whooping and hollering during President Obama’s memorial tribute to the Tucson massacre victims at the University of Arizona tonight:Mrs. Malkin,Joshua sends a video reminder that there are young people — taking their cue from solemn adults — who know how to act appropriately at a college campus memorial for victims of mass murder.
My background:
I was in the audience in Cassel Coliseum on April 17, 2007. I heard President Bush speak after a crazy b@st@rd (Seung-Hui Cho) shot up my college...
President Bush spoke for barely 10 minutes if that. He was solemn, dignified and respectful-although the microphone that broadcast into the rest of the coliseum was barely working and we could barely hear and understand him as a result-we got the point he made.
President Obama’s disgusting attempt at what appears to be a political rally in the wake of a similar massacre is beyond reprehensible.
To Be In The Liberal Press
In order to be in the leftwing press today (or at least to be one of the cool kids in the leftwing press and get invited to the good parties) you have to contort your brain and believe all of these things simultaneously:
1. That Sarah Palin is an attention-seeking whore that cannot resist making everything about her.
2. You are not obsessed with Sarah Palin.
3. That it is merely logical that the first, the VERY FIRST thing the media should do after a localized tragic incident when no information, not even the name of the perpetrator or the bloody toll is known, simply because a Democrat appears to have been the target, is to start screeching for the scalp of the very same Sarah Palin.
4. You are totally not obsessed with Sarah Palin.
5. After the evidence, piles and reams of it, becomes known, putting the complete lie to any sort of nutball conspiracy against Sarah Palin or Tea Parties, and even after your leader himself says they had no blame in it, you still find it appropriate to immediately start snarking at, you guessed it, Sarah Palin.
6. You are utterly and completely, most emphatically, completely, totally, and utterly, 100 percent, tower of power, glimmer and glower, NOT obsessed with Sarah Palin.
1. That Sarah Palin is an attention-seeking whore that cannot resist making everything about her.
2. You are not obsessed with Sarah Palin.
3. That it is merely logical that the first, the VERY FIRST thing the media should do after a localized tragic incident when no information, not even the name of the perpetrator or the bloody toll is known, simply because a Democrat appears to have been the target, is to start screeching for the scalp of the very same Sarah Palin.
4. You are totally not obsessed with Sarah Palin.
5. After the evidence, piles and reams of it, becomes known, putting the complete lie to any sort of nutball conspiracy against Sarah Palin or Tea Parties, and even after your leader himself says they had no blame in it, you still find it appropriate to immediately start snarking at, you guessed it, Sarah Palin.
6. You are utterly and completely, most emphatically, completely, totally, and utterly, 100 percent, tower of power, glimmer and glower, NOT obsessed with Sarah Palin.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Interesting
Interesting, if old - April 9, 2010 editorial in the Times Union following that mine tragedy:
Exactly.
Federal laws passed just four years ago to increase mine safety are being undermined...No longer is the issue mere regulation. It's the enforcement of those regulations, through criminal prosecution and jail time if necessary.Who was President in 2006? Who controlled Congress in 2006? Who is President and chief executive in charge of enforcement now when "laws...are being undermined", when the "issue" is "enforcement of those regulations"?
Exactly.
editoriaLIES
Beat goes on...backwards. August 14, 2010 Times Union:
Objections that additional state aid adds to the deficit aren't valid, either...
There is a criticism to be made of this latest, and rather modest, economic revival effort, though. It comes at the expense of delaying what were supposed to be increases in the food stamp program...
Some House Democrats are talking already about restoring benefits that help feed more Americans than ever -- 40.8 million as of May. They should be.
So, claiming that it adds to the deficit isn't valid...but Democrats are already planning to add back in the spending they basically pretended to take out to make it look like it's not going to add to the deficit...a measure the editors approve of.
Huh? Personally, I get cramps when I contort like that.
Objections that additional state aid adds to the deficit aren't valid, either...
There is a criticism to be made of this latest, and rather modest, economic revival effort, though. It comes at the expense of delaying what were supposed to be increases in the food stamp program...
Some House Democrats are talking already about restoring benefits that help feed more Americans than ever -- 40.8 million as of May. They should be.
So, claiming that it adds to the deficit isn't valid...but Democrats are already planning to add back in the spending they basically pretended to take out to make it look like it's not going to add to the deficit...a measure the editors approve of.
Huh? Personally, I get cramps when I contort like that.
And Now For Something Completely Different
Real history from Walter Williams:
You might think, for example, that there's constitutional authority for Congress to spend for highway construction and bridges. President James Madison on March 3, 1817 vetoed a public works bill saying: "Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled 'An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,'...I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States and to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated."That Jefferson quote is pretty heavy. Basically what revisionists want to do is take "general welfare" and take it to mean that an introductory statement is actually carte blanche for the government to do whatever it wants if it claims anyone will benefit (for now we'll ignore the ludicrous argument that it refers to "welfare programs" as we now know them, something that didn't exist at the time and which the authors and signatories would never have approved). Instead, what Jefferson and Madison are saying it that the federal government shall be accountable for the general welfare in accordance with its constitutional powers. National defense for example. Treaties. Regulating trade between states (aka stopping states from erecting trade barriers and such amongst themselves). Establishing courts. By these methods and these methods only was the federal government to protect the general welfare. Heavy.
Madison, who is sometimes referred to as the father of our Constitution, added to his veto statement, "The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers."
Here's my question to any member of the House who might vote for funds for "constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses": Was Madison just plain constitutionally ignorant or has the Constitution been amended to permit such spending?
What about handouts to poor people, businesses, senior citizens and foreigners?
Madison said, "Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."
In 1854, President Franklin Piece vetoed a bill to help the mentally ill, saying, "I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity..."
President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill for charity relief, saying, "I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution..."
Again, my question to House members who'd vote for handouts is: Were these leaders just plain constitutionally ignorant or mean-spirited, or has our Constitution been amended to authorize charity?
Suppose a congressman attempts to comply with the new rule by asserting that his measure is authorized by the Constitution's general welfare clause. Here's what Thomas Jefferson said: "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
Madison added, "With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
editoriaLIES
How did I let these go so long? I guess I was just so disgusted with politics last fall...September 2, 2010:
It was a historic moment. A milestone...The President didn't announce the end of the Iraq war, only "the end of the combat mission." In truth, 50,000 troops remain.
Funny, when Bush announced the end of major combat operations it wasn't a "historic moment. A milestone" while operations continued - it was a time for ridicule and mockery.
A war based on a wrong premise -- that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction -- did, to be sure, oust a brutal, dangerous dictator regarded by many as a madman.
Lie. Weapons of mass destruction were, as we know, recovered from Iraq, this was made very public (despite press efforts to minimize the news and even fail to report it) and then reinforced lately by the press' precious "wikileaks". Additionally, the "war's premise" was not just weapons of mass destruction, as anyone with basic english skills and a copy of the authorization for use of military force knows.
But so far, this conflict has failed to replace his regime with a stable government or conditions that inspire Iraq's citizens to see a brighter future.
Sorry, polls and the uptick in economic activity and even the move towards things like tourism in Iraq indicate that this is a lie (#2). When people are quarreling with bills and proposals instead of grenades, most people would consider that a "brighter future".
I believe we've now hit an even 200 proven lies in the Times Union editorials in just a couple of short years. Goodness gracious me.
It was a historic moment. A milestone...The President didn't announce the end of the Iraq war, only "the end of the combat mission." In truth, 50,000 troops remain.
Funny, when Bush announced the end of major combat operations it wasn't a "historic moment. A milestone" while operations continued - it was a time for ridicule and mockery.
A war based on a wrong premise -- that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction -- did, to be sure, oust a brutal, dangerous dictator regarded by many as a madman.
Lie. Weapons of mass destruction were, as we know, recovered from Iraq, this was made very public (despite press efforts to minimize the news and even fail to report it) and then reinforced lately by the press' precious "wikileaks". Additionally, the "war's premise" was not just weapons of mass destruction, as anyone with basic english skills and a copy of the authorization for use of military force knows.
But so far, this conflict has failed to replace his regime with a stable government or conditions that inspire Iraq's citizens to see a brighter future.
Sorry, polls and the uptick in economic activity and even the move towards things like tourism in Iraq indicate that this is a lie (#2). When people are quarreling with bills and proposals instead of grenades, most people would consider that a "brighter future".
I believe we've now hit an even 200 proven lies in the Times Union editorials in just a couple of short years. Goodness gracious me.
editoriaLIES
More catching up - September 9, 2010 Times Union:
President Obama comes out with a plan to create some of the jobs the country so desperately needs and to attend to its badly neglected transportation infrastructure.
So how do the Republicans respond?
In a word -- a single politically driven word, absent of any substantive alternative economic plan of their own -- "'no."
Lie #1 - the GOP presented a number of plans to help the private sector create jobs. It's simply untrue to claim they didn't or pretend plans based on historical precedent with business input isn't "substantive" - You don't need handouts to unions, more abortion funding, or tax hikes to make something "substantive".
The prompt and shrill chorus led by House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio makes it clearer than ever that from now until the November elections, the lack of jobs in this country is an issue for the Republicans to exploit politically rather than a crisis to address constructively.
Lie #2 - the GOP presented a number of plans, the Democrats and Obama refused to implement them, consider them, or even listen to them.
Soon enough, Mr. Boehner and the rest of the Republicans may get their wish -- control of Congress after a two-year campaign of resistance to the Obama administration. Then they'll have to do more than shout ''no.'' They'll be expected to find a way to get the country working again.
ha! yeah, right, except now all we hear from Obama and Reid is "no!"
President Obama comes out with a plan to create some of the jobs the country so desperately needs and to attend to its badly neglected transportation infrastructure.
So how do the Republicans respond?
In a word -- a single politically driven word, absent of any substantive alternative economic plan of their own -- "'no."
Lie #1 - the GOP presented a number of plans to help the private sector create jobs. It's simply untrue to claim they didn't or pretend plans based on historical precedent with business input isn't "substantive" - You don't need handouts to unions, more abortion funding, or tax hikes to make something "substantive".
The prompt and shrill chorus led by House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio makes it clearer than ever that from now until the November elections, the lack of jobs in this country is an issue for the Republicans to exploit politically rather than a crisis to address constructively.
Lie #2 - the GOP presented a number of plans, the Democrats and Obama refused to implement them, consider them, or even listen to them.
Soon enough, Mr. Boehner and the rest of the Republicans may get their wish -- control of Congress after a two-year campaign of resistance to the Obama administration. Then they'll have to do more than shout ''no.'' They'll be expected to find a way to get the country working again.
ha! yeah, right, except now all we hear from Obama and Reid is "no!"
editoriaLIES
Still catching up: September 14, 2010 Times Union:
Even that, though, would deprive the government of about $3.3 trillion in revenue over 10 years, money it will sorely miss as it struggles with the challenges of creating jobs in a frightening time of prolonged unemployment.
Lie #1 - This is a lie unless you believe that history won't repeat itself and lower tax rates won't lead to higher tax revenue.
Lie #2 - The government doesn't create jobs except jobs that are paid for with more taxes.
Lie #3 - More taxes aren't going to help the government "create jobs" even if you believe, against historical precedent and common sense, that higher taxes make people work harder to earn more money to give to the government.
It's Mr. McConnell who remains a paragon of true fiscal irresponsibility. In his view, more tax cuts for anyone must mean more tax cuts for everyone.
Gimme a break. See arguments above and everywhere else here and elsewhere. Lie #4. Lie #5 is putting words in his mouth.
So what if the price of extending tax cuts enacted nine years ago, when the government was actually running a surplus
Are they serious? No, they're lying (#6). When the tax cuts were passed the nation was seeing the world go into recession and experiencing the collapse of the dot-com bubble. The thought at the time was that the economy could experience a severe recession if action wasn't taken. After the tax cuts the recession was mild, the economy was even able to absorb the 9-11 attacks. The ignorant or duplicitous editors want you to revise history and believe that the tax cuts were passed in a time of warm fuzzies and rainbows.
Even that, though, would deprive the government of about $3.3 trillion in revenue over 10 years, money it will sorely miss as it struggles with the challenges of creating jobs in a frightening time of prolonged unemployment.
Lie #1 - This is a lie unless you believe that history won't repeat itself and lower tax rates won't lead to higher tax revenue.
Lie #2 - The government doesn't create jobs except jobs that are paid for with more taxes.
Lie #3 - More taxes aren't going to help the government "create jobs" even if you believe, against historical precedent and common sense, that higher taxes make people work harder to earn more money to give to the government.
It's Mr. McConnell who remains a paragon of true fiscal irresponsibility. In his view, more tax cuts for anyone must mean more tax cuts for everyone.
Gimme a break. See arguments above and everywhere else here and elsewhere. Lie #4. Lie #5 is putting words in his mouth.
So what if the price of extending tax cuts enacted nine years ago, when the government was actually running a surplus
Are they serious? No, they're lying (#6). When the tax cuts were passed the nation was seeing the world go into recession and experiencing the collapse of the dot-com bubble. The thought at the time was that the economy could experience a severe recession if action wasn't taken. After the tax cuts the recession was mild, the economy was even able to absorb the 9-11 attacks. The ignorant or duplicitous editors want you to revise history and believe that the tax cuts were passed in a time of warm fuzzies and rainbows.
editoriaLIES
Catching up a little here...
December 8, 2010 Times Union:
Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats, who had so correctly held up tax cuts for the affluent as an example of the indulgence and fiscal recklessness of the Bush era, will now have only themselves to blame for continuing them. And for giving what is still Congress' minority party exactly what it wants.
"fiscal recklessness" is a lie - tax receipts went up and unemployment went down - if that's "recklessness", then I wonder what they call lower receipts and job losses resulting from tax hikes.
In continuing unaffordable tax cuts for people who simply don't need them
Lie #2, that's like saying 'I can't afford to put money in the back and earn interest on it!' - Lower tax rates resulted in higher tax collections.
this deal pushes America one more step down an unsustainable course that has already led it, with the help of two wars waged on the nation's credit card, to a nearly $14 trillion national debt
This is #3, but it's almost a joke. Actual cost of Iraq, much more expensive than Afghanistan is here: link. And what, exactly, do tax rates have to do with spending? Exactly. Not sure how increased tax revenues lead to more debt, personally.
Handing out unnecessary tax cuts without paying for them
Lie #4 - taking less of someone's money is not a 'handout' that must be 'paid for'. This is the same old tired liberal ideology where individuals do not earn money and are not entitled to keep any money except that which the government deigns to "give" them.
Handing out unnecessary tax cuts without paying for them flies in the face of the message of fiscal discipline that Republicans ran on just weeks ago
Lie #5 - Republicans, unlike Democrats, look at historical examples and see that lower tax rates lead to higher tax revenues, which is 100% in line with the fiscal discipline they ran on.
Apparently, though, we're to take it on faith that the same tax cuts for the rich that were in place while the economy lost millions of jobs will suddenly spur the rich to create new ones. Or at least not take away any more. Please.
Yeah, that's hard to believe, why you'd have to believe that history will repeat itself like when Bush did it, Clinton did it, Reagan did it, Kennedy did it, etc.
We're scratching our heads as much as anybody over why President Obama seems to have so readily surrendered to the Republicans on the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Ahem..."Please." Perhaps the editors, firmly ensconced in one of the bluest of blue states, a state so blue the GOP couldn't even rustle up any candidates for statewide office to oppose the liberals that captured every post, failed to notice the "shellacking" that the President, his party, and his ideology shared by the editors took in November. In their way of thinking, not only should Obama have done whatever the hell he wanted no matter what people said or wanted when he had unstoppable majorities in Congress, but he should keep on going against the wishes of a strong majority of Americans after getting his rear handed to him in November. C'mon out of your bubble, Rex and friends, the GOP won't bite...especially not in New York.
The Gazette got into the act the same day:
The deal -- which also includes an important extension of unemployment benefits; a one-year, 33 percent reduction on workers' Social Security takeout; and an estate tax change that will benefit the rich even more than George W. Bush did -- will cost the government roughly $800 billion. Ironically, that's about the size of the stimulus package Obama got passed when he took office -- without any help from Republicans.
Thus it seems clearer than ever that GOP opposition to the stimulus package wasn't so much about its cost as the politics of who benefits from the government's largess. With the help of people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, they outmaneuvered the Democrats and convinced the public that cutting taxes for the rich is more important than cutting the deficit.
Refer to Lie #5 above for explanation on why this is a lie in the Gazette.
December 8, 2010 Times Union:
Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats, who had so correctly held up tax cuts for the affluent as an example of the indulgence and fiscal recklessness of the Bush era, will now have only themselves to blame for continuing them. And for giving what is still Congress' minority party exactly what it wants.
"fiscal recklessness" is a lie - tax receipts went up and unemployment went down - if that's "recklessness", then I wonder what they call lower receipts and job losses resulting from tax hikes.
In continuing unaffordable tax cuts for people who simply don't need them
Lie #2, that's like saying 'I can't afford to put money in the back and earn interest on it!' - Lower tax rates resulted in higher tax collections.
this deal pushes America one more step down an unsustainable course that has already led it, with the help of two wars waged on the nation's credit card, to a nearly $14 trillion national debt
This is #3, but it's almost a joke. Actual cost of Iraq, much more expensive than Afghanistan is here: link. And what, exactly, do tax rates have to do with spending? Exactly. Not sure how increased tax revenues lead to more debt, personally.
Handing out unnecessary tax cuts without paying for them
Lie #4 - taking less of someone's money is not a 'handout' that must be 'paid for'. This is the same old tired liberal ideology where individuals do not earn money and are not entitled to keep any money except that which the government deigns to "give" them.
Handing out unnecessary tax cuts without paying for them flies in the face of the message of fiscal discipline that Republicans ran on just weeks ago
Lie #5 - Republicans, unlike Democrats, look at historical examples and see that lower tax rates lead to higher tax revenues, which is 100% in line with the fiscal discipline they ran on.
Apparently, though, we're to take it on faith that the same tax cuts for the rich that were in place while the economy lost millions of jobs will suddenly spur the rich to create new ones. Or at least not take away any more. Please.
Yeah, that's hard to believe, why you'd have to believe that history will repeat itself like when Bush did it, Clinton did it, Reagan did it, Kennedy did it, etc.
We're scratching our heads as much as anybody over why President Obama seems to have so readily surrendered to the Republicans on the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Ahem..."Please." Perhaps the editors, firmly ensconced in one of the bluest of blue states, a state so blue the GOP couldn't even rustle up any candidates for statewide office to oppose the liberals that captured every post, failed to notice the "shellacking" that the President, his party, and his ideology shared by the editors took in November. In their way of thinking, not only should Obama have done whatever the hell he wanted no matter what people said or wanted when he had unstoppable majorities in Congress, but he should keep on going against the wishes of a strong majority of Americans after getting his rear handed to him in November. C'mon out of your bubble, Rex and friends, the GOP won't bite...especially not in New York.
The Gazette got into the act the same day:
The deal -- which also includes an important extension of unemployment benefits; a one-year, 33 percent reduction on workers' Social Security takeout; and an estate tax change that will benefit the rich even more than George W. Bush did -- will cost the government roughly $800 billion. Ironically, that's about the size of the stimulus package Obama got passed when he took office -- without any help from Republicans.
Thus it seems clearer than ever that GOP opposition to the stimulus package wasn't so much about its cost as the politics of who benefits from the government's largess. With the help of people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, they outmaneuvered the Democrats and convinced the public that cutting taxes for the rich is more important than cutting the deficit.
Refer to Lie #5 above for explanation on why this is a lie in the Gazette.
Democrat Rep. Assaults Reporter - NY Press Silent
I had left a little note to myself to follow up on this...do you happen to remember a while back, I think this was shortly after the nutter running for governor on the GOP line threatened a reporter (which of course was all over the local news), when a Democrat incumbent actually seemed to assault a reporter?
You probably don't remember it. It didn't get much play in the local press.
Check it out:
Hinchey Tangles With Reporter
The only place you're likely to see this is on cable news' blog.
He shows up three times. None mention the incident at all. I guess the press isn't so interested in 'shield laws' when it's a Democrat they're pulling for laying hands on them...literally. Interesting that he "got in his face" just like his party's leader, Obama, told his followers to "get in their face" if they don't agree with you/Obama. Just thought I'd point that out.
Noticed one other thing in this item by Liz Benjamin (I wonder if anyone has called on her to resign because of it) - see that part at the beginning: "Rep. Maurice Hinchey, who suddenly finds himself in the GOP’s crosshairs". She links to her source: Conservative group to launch advertising campaign against Hinchey
Thing is, I can't find any sort of terminology anywhere close to putting Hinchey "in the GOP's crosshairs". Seems that violent, inflamed, murder-inducing term is used solely by Benjamin, essentially putting words in this group's mouth. Just thought I'd point that out.
You probably don't remember it. It didn't get much play in the local press.
Check it out:
Hinchey Tangles With Reporter
The only place you're likely to see this is on cable news' blog.
Rep. Maurice Hinchey, who suddenly finds himself in the GOP’s crosshairs, had a heated exchange with a local reporter at last night’s debate that became physical before the congressman disengaged and walked away, according to witnesses...I did a little search looking for any and all Hinchey stories at the Gazette, Times Union, and New York Times from the middle of October to the end of the year.
After the shooters turned off their cameras and started to break down, Hinchey made a beeline for Kemble and got in his face, according to a YNN videographer who was on the scene. The congressman poked Kemble in the chest aggressively, according to the YNN staffer.
I spoke with Kemble briefly this afternoon, and he told me Hinchey “put his hand on my throat” and then “realized what he had done and walked away.” The YNN shooter told me he did not witness this part of the altercation.
He shows up three times. None mention the incident at all. I guess the press isn't so interested in 'shield laws' when it's a Democrat they're pulling for laying hands on them...literally. Interesting that he "got in his face" just like his party's leader, Obama, told his followers to "get in their face" if they don't agree with you/Obama. Just thought I'd point that out.
Noticed one other thing in this item by Liz Benjamin (I wonder if anyone has called on her to resign because of it) - see that part at the beginning: "Rep. Maurice Hinchey, who suddenly finds himself in the GOP’s crosshairs". She links to her source: Conservative group to launch advertising campaign against Hinchey
Thing is, I can't find any sort of terminology anywhere close to putting Hinchey "in the GOP's crosshairs". Seems that violent, inflamed, murder-inducing term is used solely by Benjamin, essentially putting words in this group's mouth. Just thought I'd point that out.
No. No, They Don't.
Answer: No. No, they don't.
Question: Do They Know How Dumb They Are?
Talk about being beclowned:
UPDATE: continuing stupidity as the dumbdial, already spun up over 10, nears 12:
Or a double barrel of monkeys.
Or a double barrel of apples.
Or a double barrel of run.
Or that Obama had to start blasting away at the crowd with a shotgun?
Question: Do They Know How Dumb They Are?
Talk about being beclowned:
The folks at USA Today really ought to vet their candidates for the "Et Cetera -- Smart insights on the news of the day" section of the print edition of its editorial page a bit more thoroughly.---
Wednesday morning's opener in that section (apparently not available online) featured two paragraphs from a New York Times op-ed by former Pennsylvania Congressman Paul Kanjorski, including this final sentence:Therefore, it is incumbent on all Americans to create an atmosphere of civility and respect in which political discourse can flow freely, without fear of violent confrontation.As I noted yesterday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog; original HT Mark Hemingway at the Washington Examiner), Kanjorski's entitlement to lecture on civility is more than a little suspect, given what he said about Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott and the health insurance industry last year:"That Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida," Mr. Kanjorski said. "Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him."
UPDATE: continuing stupidity as the dumbdial, already spun up over 10, nears 12:
Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) has been an outspoken critic of the use of so-called violent or vitriolic political rhetoric. Specifically, he has bemoaned references to targeting candidates or any type of reference to guns.Perhaps he was referring to a double barrel of laughs.
On MSNBC this afternoon he said President Obama had to put on a "double barrel" effort at last night's memorial service in Arizona.
Or a double barrel of monkeys.
Or a double barrel of apples.
Or a double barrel of run.
Or that Obama had to start blasting away at the crowd with a shotgun?
Reload
I'd totally forgotten this...thanks, Newsbusters!
Here's the former governor speaking on the subject at March's Tea Party Express gathering in Searchlight, Nevada:
SARAH PALIN: Now, when I talk about "It’s not a time to retreat, it’s a time to reload," what I’m talking about – now media, try to get this right, okay? That’s not inciting violence. What’s that, that is doing is trying to inspire people to get involved in their local elections and these upcoming federal elections. It’s telling people that their arms are their votes. It’s not inciting violence. It’s telling people, “Don’t ever let anybody tell you to sit down and shut up Americans. You stand up and you stand tall.”
Too True
Interesting comment on a post at Outside the Beltway - If this deranged shooter had instead been a muslim screaming 'allah akbar!' the media would be rolling out 'no way to discern motives', 'don't rush to any conclusions', 'deranged individual', 'loner gunman', 'acted alone', 'laughable that violent rhetoric in his mosque led to this', 'not part of any widespread ideology, 'conservatism is a political ideology of peace' - OOPS! How'd that one sneak in there?
If You Really Thought...
If you really thought that 'angry political rhetoric' caused individuals to go on murderous rampages then:
1. By blaming Palin you are inciting people to exact revenge and murder (or attempt to murder) Palin or other conservatives; or
2. You're lying when you say that 'angry political rhetoric' causes deranged individuals to kill people.
1. By blaming Palin you are inciting people to exact revenge and murder (or attempt to murder) Palin or other conservatives; or
2. You're lying when you say that 'angry political rhetoric' causes deranged individuals to kill people.
Simply Amazing
At the same time that the New York Times is blaming Sarah Palin and her 'ilk' for the murders committed by a deranged individual in an editorial, they're running actual news that tells a completely different story:
Did you catch that last bit? "He said he stopped talking to Mr. Loughner last March, when their interactions grew increasingly unpredictable and troubling."
That would be before the big Tea Party tax day rallies. That would be before the Obamacare townhalls. That would be before the sometimes-corrosive election campaigns last year. That would be before Palin posted her 'map' at the end of March.
Don't let the facts get in your way, lefties. Keep on accusing a majority of Americans of being responsible for the murderous actions of a deranged individual. That's gonna work out good for you.
The police were sent to the home where Jared L. Loughner lived with his family on more than one occasion before the attack here on Saturday that left a congresswoman fighting for her life and six others dead, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said on Tuesday...Seems that the left hand doesn't know what the lefter hand is doing.
A friend of Mr. Loughner’s also said in an interview on Tuesday that Mr. Loughner, 22, was skilled with a gun — as early as high school — and had talked about a philosophy of fostering chaos...
“He was a nihilist and loves causing chaos, and that is probably why he did the shooting, along with the fact he was sick in the head,” said Zane Gutierrez, 21, who was living in a trailer outside Tucson and met Mr. Loughner sometimes to shoot at cans for target practice...
The new details from Mr. Gutierrez about Mr. Loughner — including his philosophy of anarchy and his expertise with a handgun, suggest that the earliest signs of behavior that may have ultimately led to the attacks started several years ago.
Mr. Gutierrez said his friend had become obsessed with the meaning of dreams and their importance. He talked about reading Friedrich Nietzsche’s book “The Will To Power” and embraced ideas about the corrosive, destructive effects of nihilism — a belief in nothing. And every day, his friend said, Mr. Loughner would get up and write in his dream journal, recording the world he experienced in sleep and its possible meanings...
“He would ask me constantly, ‘Do you see that blue tree over there?’ He would admit to seeing the sky as orange and the grass as blue,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “Normal people don’t talk about that stuff.”...
Jared Loughner’s retreat — whether into the desert with his gun, or into the recesses of his dreams — coincided with a broader retreat by the Loughner family that left them increasingly isolated from their community, neighbors said...
One neighbor, George Gayan, who said he had known the family for 30 years, described a kind of a gradual “pulling back” by the family...
“It got worse over time,” Mr. Gutierrez said. He said he stopped talking to Mr. Loughner last March, when their interactions grew increasingly unpredictable and troubling.
“He would call me at 2 a.m. and asked, ‘Are you hanging out in front of my house, stalking me?’ He started to get really paranoid, and said he did not want to see us anymore and did not trust us,” Mr. Gutierrez said, referring to himself and another friend. “He thought we were plotting to kill him or steal his car.”
*
A version of this article appeared in print on January 12, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition.
Did you catch that last bit? "He said he stopped talking to Mr. Loughner last March, when their interactions grew increasingly unpredictable and troubling."
That would be before the big Tea Party tax day rallies. That would be before the Obamacare townhalls. That would be before the sometimes-corrosive election campaigns last year. That would be before Palin posted her 'map' at the end of March.
Don't let the facts get in your way, lefties. Keep on accusing a majority of Americans of being responsible for the murderous actions of a deranged individual. That's gonna work out good for you.
Guns EVERYWHERE!
If guns ownership is so rampant, especially in Arizona, with so many people going around everywhere with guns because they're so obsessed with guns (as the left keeps reminding us) and toting guns all around because they're paranoid and angry...
How come no one else at this event seemingly had a gun that they could use to stop this deranged individual before he could do so much damage?
How come no one else at this event seemingly had a gun that they could use to stop this deranged individual before he could do so much damage?
My Analysis Can Out-Dumb Yours!
A deranged individual murders 6 people and tries to kill many more.
The left blames conservatives for it because of their "angry rhetoric".
They stop there.
That analysis is dumb (and without merit).
But we can go dumber. That's right.
Why is there so much angry rhetoric on the right?
Because they're angry at the idiotic actions of liberals. If not for the disastrous, unpopular actions the liberals running America (into the ground) then there would be no reason for conservatives to be angry. Right?
That's right...liberals are to blame.
--
And, say, where's Charlie Rangel in all this?? He should be defending Palin!
The left blames conservatives for it because of their "angry rhetoric".
They stop there.
That analysis is dumb (and without merit).
But we can go dumber. That's right.
Why is there so much angry rhetoric on the right?
Because they're angry at the idiotic actions of liberals. If not for the disastrous, unpopular actions the liberals running America (into the ground) then there would be no reason for conservatives to be angry. Right?
That's right...liberals are to blame.
--
And, say, where's Charlie Rangel in all this?? He should be defending Palin!
Why are the Democrats so afraid of Palin and her popularity. The answer was astonishing.
"You got to be kind to the disabled," Rangel said.
editoriaLIES
Tuesday's Gazette, they didn't want to miss out on the lying fun:
But while it may be hard to find the smoking gun in terms of motivation, that doesn't mean it's wrong to wonder if a politics so divided and uncompromising, so filled with nasty, hateful, paranoid rhetoric on the part of many conservatives (and not only the far right), contributed in some way to what happened in Tucson.
So let's see...the "nasty, hateful, paranoid rhetoric" ins't just on the part of the "far right", but "many conservatives".
And not the left.
If they bring a knife, we bring a gun. Get in their faces. Shove them. Get in the back of the bus. Don't do a lot of talking. Put him up against a wall and shoot him. Take up firebombing. Palin should be raped by a bunch of black guys.
By George, I think they've got something! Sorry, have to ding the lie meter for blaming conservatives for causing a deranged lefto/anarchist for killing a rightward-leaning Democrat who opposed the majority Democrats in the House last week. Think much?
Guns aren't about to go away, but is a rational discussion about them too much to ask?
A "rational discussion" does not begin with banning guns (free clue, there, no charge).
But while it may be hard to find the smoking gun in terms of motivation, that doesn't mean it's wrong to wonder if a politics so divided and uncompromising, so filled with nasty, hateful, paranoid rhetoric on the part of many conservatives (and not only the far right), contributed in some way to what happened in Tucson.
So let's see...the "nasty, hateful, paranoid rhetoric" ins't just on the part of the "far right", but "many conservatives".
And not the left.
If they bring a knife, we bring a gun. Get in their faces. Shove them. Get in the back of the bus. Don't do a lot of talking. Put him up against a wall and shoot him. Take up firebombing. Palin should be raped by a bunch of black guys.
By George, I think they've got something! Sorry, have to ding the lie meter for blaming conservatives for causing a deranged lefto/anarchist for killing a rightward-leaning Democrat who opposed the majority Democrats in the House last week. Think much?
Guns aren't about to go away, but is a rational discussion about them too much to ask?
A "rational discussion" does not begin with banning guns (free clue, there, no charge).
editoriaLIES
Tuesday's Times Union, as usual behind the facts curve:
To be sure, you can't draw a straight line from Ms. Palin's map to Saturday's massacre in Tucson.
This is a lie. By the time this editorial was in our hands we knew that, in fact, no line of any sort could be drawn - the deranged shooter (who was NOT shouting 'Palin Akbar!' Mr. funnyman cartoonist, unlike actual terrorist acts committed with fullblown evidence of goal) became obsessed with Giffords 2 years before 'Palin's map' ever saw the light of day.
Funny how they manage to list four politicians they think are guilty of inflaming nutjobs to murder, but none of them are Democrats, and none of them said anything NEARLY as bad as PA Rep. Kanjorski (D) calling for the governor of Florida, then a candidate, to be put up against a wall and shot. No metaphors. No political phrasing. An actual call for murder based on his pre-political profession. And while they find fault with campaign ads with guns, they somehow have overlooked Democrat senator (then candidate and Governor of WV) shooting guns in an ad and saying that the federal government better watch its step (so to speak).
What do we have, for all our lofty rhetoric, today? Six of our own fellow citizens dead, and many of the rest at each others' throats.
Really? Gee, I'm having a hard time finding lots of prominent conservatives blaming the much-more-hateful-and-violent speech of the left for the attempted murder of a conservative-leaning Democrat that opposed Pelosi. Seems to me that "many of the rest of us" means "the left of us".
And, as for their editorial title "We need to talk" - well, let's just say that what I'm about to say is in bad taste, but it needs to be said...maybe, just maybe if the President wasn't so busy telling Republicans to "not do a lot of talking" and get out of the way and get to "the back of the bus" and if Pelosi and Reid weren't busy calling the people that flooded town hall meetings that wanted to "talk" about the spending and Obamacare anti-American and Nazis instead of letting them talk, if they maybe let the GOP have some say in legislation instead of locking them out and cutting backroom deals to pass legislation that they didn't want to hear Americans tell them they opposed...maybe such angry rhetoric wouldn't be necessary. If you tell people to shut up, don't listen when they talk (telling them you'd piss on them if it wasn't a waste of urine!), maybe you shouldn't be surprised when they start to yell, instead.
-
more:
To be sure, you can't draw a straight line from Ms. Palin's map to Saturday's massacre in Tucson.
This is a lie. By the time this editorial was in our hands we knew that, in fact, no line of any sort could be drawn - the deranged shooter (who was NOT shouting 'Palin Akbar!' Mr. funnyman cartoonist, unlike actual terrorist acts committed with fullblown evidence of goal) became obsessed with Giffords 2 years before 'Palin's map' ever saw the light of day.
Funny how they manage to list four politicians they think are guilty of inflaming nutjobs to murder, but none of them are Democrats, and none of them said anything NEARLY as bad as PA Rep. Kanjorski (D) calling for the governor of Florida, then a candidate, to be put up against a wall and shot. No metaphors. No political phrasing. An actual call for murder based on his pre-political profession. And while they find fault with campaign ads with guns, they somehow have overlooked Democrat senator (then candidate and Governor of WV) shooting guns in an ad and saying that the federal government better watch its step (so to speak).
What do we have, for all our lofty rhetoric, today? Six of our own fellow citizens dead, and many of the rest at each others' throats.
Really? Gee, I'm having a hard time finding lots of prominent conservatives blaming the much-more-hateful-and-violent speech of the left for the attempted murder of a conservative-leaning Democrat that opposed Pelosi. Seems to me that "many of the rest of us" means "the left of us".
And, as for their editorial title "We need to talk" - well, let's just say that what I'm about to say is in bad taste, but it needs to be said...maybe, just maybe if the President wasn't so busy telling Republicans to "not do a lot of talking" and get out of the way and get to "the back of the bus" and if Pelosi and Reid weren't busy calling the people that flooded town hall meetings that wanted to "talk" about the spending and Obamacare anti-American and Nazis instead of letting them talk, if they maybe let the GOP have some say in legislation instead of locking them out and cutting backroom deals to pass legislation that they didn't want to hear Americans tell them they opposed...maybe such angry rhetoric wouldn't be necessary. If you tell people to shut up, don't listen when they talk (telling them you'd piss on them if it wasn't a waste of urine!), maybe you shouldn't be surprised when they start to yell, instead.
-
more:
The outrage evidenced this week was not to be found when a film festival showed “Death of a President,” a movie depicting the imagined assassination of President Bush. “Poor taste or, as some say, thought-provoking?” MSNBC daytime anchor Amy Robach mildly wondered on September 1, 2006...People knowing this are the reason Obama will not be able to Oklahoma-fy this.
On his national radio show in 2009, however, Schultz wished for Dick Cheney’s death: “He is an enemy of the country, in my opinion, Dick Cheney is, he is an enemy of the country....Lord, take him to the Promised Land, will you?”On his national radio show in 2009, however, Schultz wished for Dick Cheney’s death: “He is an enemy of the country, in my opinion, Dick Cheney is, he is an enemy of the country....Lord, take him to the Promised Land, will you?”...
In 2009, then-Air America radio host Montel Williams urged Congresswoman Michele Bachmann to kill herself: “Slit your wrist! Go ahead! I mean, you know, why not? I mean, if you want to — or, you know, do us all a better thing. Move that knife up about two feet. I mean, start right at the collarbone.”...
Talking about the then-Vice President in 2007, after al Qaeda exploded a truck bomb at a base in Afghanistan near where Cheney was visiting, Maher argued: “I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.”
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