Rasmussen: Support For Border Fence Up To 68%
—Ace
Ten percent here, ten percent there, and pretty soon you're talking about a real mandate.
Support for the building of a fence along the Mexican border has reached a new high, and voters are more confident than ever that illegal immigration can be stopped.A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 68% of U.S. voters now believe the United States should continue to build a fence on the Mexican border. That’s up nine points from March when the Obama administration halted funding for the fence and the highest level of support ever.
Just 21% oppose the continued building of the border fence.Support for the fence is strong across all demographic groups. But while 76% of Mainstream voters think the United States should continue to build the fence, 67% of the Political Class are opposed to it.
I always enjoy how twits speak of the symbolism of a thing.
That's why the "Political Class" -- the Gee Aren't I Terribly Enlightened? crowd -- opposes this. They talk about that a lot -- the symbolism of the thing.
How about discussing the reality of it? It's a fence. Its real purpose -- in real-world, real-time reality -- is to halt people from crossing a border. A real border, mind you, although on that point I concede a border is a more abstract concept than, say, a shoe.
It doesn't symbolically represent a division between the countries. It actually is a division between the countries.
And what is wrong with that?
I'm noting this because a few weeks ago I saw a guy at the riots in Toronto who complained that the police barricades were a symbol representing a division between the protesters and the G-20 representatives.
And I thought, "Gee, no, actually it's not a symbol of a division; it really is, in fact, a physical division." Because, see, you're rioting. (And not symbolically in riot, either.) You can tell it's a real-world division because now you can't get to the G-20 conference center and throw rock-metaphors through the window-symbols.
I think there is a type of person -- well-represented in the "Political Class" and in progressive politics -- that has learned, from college, that the Abstract is everything, that Real Smart People are always focused on the Abstract, on metaphors, on symbols.
And they seem to disregard the concrete, the real, almost as a dirty thing, something of concern to the plebians, who cannot of course grasp the subtleties of high representational thinking like they can. You know, with their "symbolic" barricades and all.
They spoke of the Gaza Wall the same way -- that it symbolized the separation of the peoples. When it fact it did rather more than that. It actually separated them. Because one of those peoples was murdering and butchering the other. (And, again, I stress: They did so in a non-metaphoric manner.)
I don't think this is an important point in terms of a slogan or a manifesto or that sort of thing. I don't think you can build a politics around the Concrete. (What would that bumper sticker look like?)
It's just an observation of a type of intellectually-insecure individual who parrots the pattern of thinking of his professors (who once represented intellectual authority to them -- Symbolically, of course) and elevates, always, the Abstract above the Real.
I just tend to distrust this sort of divorced-from-tangible-reality worship of the abstract. Obviously -- duh -- abstract thinking is important. It is, in certain ways, I suppose, a higher form of thinking than thinking of the concrete.
But not when it is shorn of all rootings to the actual world.
This is how evil happens. You can abstract any evil you choose into some esoteric "greater good."
Has Time magazine lost it's mind printing this heresy?
—Purple Avenger
Time is one of the big dogs. A playah with clout. Its in doctors and dentists waiting rooms ferchrisakes. Even though it sucks, Time gets major eyeball exposure.
It sounds like this piece (which Drudge also linked) has them pretty much saying - repeatedly - that Ogabe's rhetoric over the BP spill has proven vastly overblown.
Did I wake up this morning and fail to notice that gravity has stopped working? That hydrogen now has 5 protons rather than 1? Seriously, WTF? Where does some punkass fish wrapper rag like Time get off daring to even suggest that the ascended Messiah was wrong? Nerve? these peasants got it in spades I tell you!
Charlie Rangel Ethics Hearing
—DrewM.
There were reports that he cut a deal but based on the statements made so far at the House Ethics Sub-committee meeting, it doesn't sound like it.
Hearing is just getting under way.
13 charges in total broken down into 4 categories:
- Solicitation of donation for "Rangel Center" from individuals and organizations
with business in front of Ways and Means Committee while he was the
Chairman.
- Errors and omissions on financial statements to the House.
- Use of rent controlled apartment.
- Not reporting condo on income taxes.
Look, the dude just wrote the rules and tax laws, no one said anything about actually following them.
Republican on investigating sub-committee says Rangel was given more than one chance to settle the case and Rangel declined.
Rangel isn't going to appear today, it's an organizational meeting not the 'trial' phase.
Meeting just wrapped up after the two Congressmen who conducted the investigation gave their statements and formally filled the charges.
Chairwoman of committee says the documents are on the committee's website.
Most ethical Congress EVAH!
When it looked like there was a deal, I commented on Twitter that part of the deal would be for Rangel to permanently give up the Ways and Means Chairmanship...you know the one that he's going to lose in 5 months anyway.
If it goes all the way through the process that's a possibility but based on the charges it sounds like he'd either have to resign/promise not to run this year or really face expulsion (still hard to believe it would get there).
The last Congressman to make it this far was James Traficant (another Democrat) and he was tossed out and wound up spending about 5 years in federal prison.
On the political front...an ethics trial of one of the most senior Democrats in the House in the run up to this year's elections? Thank you Charlie Rangel!
Lindsey Grahamnesty Now Lindsey Grahmendment: Graham Considering Amendment To End "Birthright" Citizenship
—Ace
There is some question over whether this would require a Constitutional amendment, or whether it's a matter of interpretation such that legislation could change it. Conservatives often argue the latter, but I sort of think the Constitution says what it seems to say and so it would require a full amendment.
“I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here,” Graham said during an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake ... We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child's automatically not a citizen.”...
“People come here to have babies,” he said. “They come here to drop a child. It's called "drop and leave." To have a child in America, they cross the border, they go to the emergency room, have a child, and that child's automatically an American citizen. That shouldn't be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons.”
..
“I'm a practical guy, but when you go forward, I don't want 20 million more 20 years from now,” he said. “I want to be fair. I want to be humane. We need immigration policy, but it should be on our terms, not someone else's. I don't know how to fix it all. But I do know what makes people mad, that 12 million people came here, and there seems to be no system to deal with stopping 20 million 20 years from now.”
Graham, I'm guessing, sees this as a piece of a larger deal, a deal to get him the large-scale amnesty he wants.
But it's significant that he's thinking about conceding such a large piece to that end.
If there were serious enforcement (demonstrated over five years) plus this amendment, I could see myself persuaded to support some kind of large (but not blanket) amnesty for, say, half of the illegals here, those with the longest stays and strongest ties to the country, and say a five year special visa for the rest. But five years and that's that.
Report: Sherrod To Sue Breitbart
—DrewM.
No, her 15 minutes aren't up.
Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted an edited video of her making racially tinged remarks last week.Sherrod made the announcement in San Diego at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention.
A couple of thoughts...
I'd love to see video of this. Did the assembled journalists applaud or react negatively to the idea of suing someone for trafficking in news?
As for the suit itself (all the usual qualifiers...I'm not a lawyer, add salt to suit your taste), she's likely got no chance. As a political appointee she's clearly a public figure so the standard for defamation is pretty high and damn near unreachable in this country.
(Added: I'm assuming it's defamation. As Gabe emailed to me, we don't know the cause of action yet so keep that in mind going through this.)
She'd have to prove that Breitbart maliciously went after her with a report he knew to be false or acted with a reckless disregard for the truth. Again, that's an almost insurmountable bar for her to prove against him.
Where I think she might have a better, though still tough, case is against the person who did the edit and sent it to Breitbart. It might be possible to make a case that the story was taken so out of context and the text setting it up was so erroneous and misleading that it constituted a reckless disregard for the truth.
Of course, Sherrod isn't suing who ever that is because there's no publicity in that.
If she were serious about this, wouldn't she also be suing the Department of Agriculture for forcing her to resign? The problem there is she was a political appointee and therefore getting rid of those is only actionable if a Republican does it. And even then, not really.
On one level this will suck for Breitbart. It's going to cost time, money and effort.
On another level...jackpot!
Breitbart is on a mission to bring attention to this and to other acts of maleficence by Obama and the left. Sherrod is doing her part to ensure that he keeps getting booked on cable shows and talked about on both sides of the political divide. (Just to be clear, that's not a shot at him. Far from it. If you are fighting a battle for public opinion and support you need to have the public paying attention to you.)
My guess is he's salivating at the chance to get her under oath during a deposition.
Thanks to John Noonan for the heads up on the story.
WikiLeaks Founder On Release Of Names Of Afghans: Eggs, Omelets And All Of That
—DrewM.
Oh and by the way, the Afghans that help the coalition are probably criminals anyway, so if the Taliban kill them, well, whatever.
Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing website, told The Times he would "deeply regret" any harm caused by the disclosures. But in an extensive interview yesterday he defended his actions.He claimed many informers in Afghanistan were "acting in a criminal way" by sharing false information with NATO authorities and said the White House knew informants' names could be exposed but did nothing to help WikiLeaks vet the data.
Mr Assange insisted any risk to informants' lives was outweighed by the overall importance of publishing the information.
"No one has been harmed, but should anyone come to harm of course that would be a matter of deep regret -- our goal is justice to innocents, not to harm them," he said. "That said, if we were forced into a position of publishing all of the archives or none of the archives we would publish all . . . because it's extremely important to the history of this war."
...Mr Assange told The Times many Afghan informants, including those whose details had been potentially disclosed, were "telling soldiers false stories . . . creating victims themselves".
Asked if that justified releasing their identities, the former computer hacker replied: "It doesn't mean it's OK for their identities not to be revealed."
And yet, he did. Assange is a despicable excuse of a human being who either already has or likely will soon, have blood on his han
Those on the left who cheered this release really need to be held to account for what they supported. Andrew Sullivan, the various members of the Glenn Greenwald Collective, members of the MFM and the like need to be held accountable for what they are supporting...the exposure of those fighting against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
I know they will demure and say that there should have been some controls in place and that Assange should have exercised more caution and they are sure he will in the future but we need the information and on and on.
Bull.
This is what you get when activists who aim to hurt this country take it upon themselves to substitute their judgment for those charged with making these decisions. Own it guys...blood and all.
Related: Since the CIA isn't going to 'take care' of Assange, Iowahawk is trying to bring Assange to the attention of people who will by releasing a number of interesting items including this...
Even tho I'm an atheist, I'm deeply troubled by Julian Assange's continual insults of Islam, his own former religion.
More at Iowahawk's Twitter feed.
Added: Spencer Ackerman is comfortable with false claims of racism against conservatives and throwing them through glass windows. What he's not all that comfy with is the idea of legal action against Assange.
I'm tempermentally uncomfortable with prosecuting leakers or leak-recipients. Not sure how far to take it
Behold liberals and their priorities.
Top Headline Comments 7-29-10
—Gabriel Malor
Over-nite Opun Thred
—Maetenloch
Happy H-Day all.
Here Steve McGranahan who calls himself the World's Strongest Redneck shows how he trims his hedges using his lawnmower on a stick. Probably not recommended for those with weak arms or a need for all 10 fingers.
And lest you think Steve is a one trick pony, he's also developed his own style of martial arts. But do not confuse him with the original Redneck Ninja.
(thanks to CDR M)
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BP: Tax Write Off Nets Them $10 Billion Of The $20 Billion Compensation Fund
—DrewM.
ArthurK, who does a bang up job in the headlines, has this in the sidebar but it's too fun to ignore.
Seems the most competent administration ever, let BP set up the compensation fund in a way that they can write about half of it off.
But the issue may raise red flags among federal officials, particularly in light of recent efforts by various other entities that have settled with the U.S.One notable example is Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which agreed last month not to seek deductions for $535 million in penalties as part of its settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC had sued Goldman Sachs, alleging that it hid critical information from investors in mortgage securities.
SEC officials had come under fire from Congress for previously allowing tax deductions from penalties in other cases.
Another wrinkle, though, is that it appears no other entity in hot water with the U.S. has incurred costs on the scale that BP has. The company has agreed to put $20 billion in an escrow account to pay claims for oil-spill damages.
A goof?
But half of that may now come out of government coffers, and it could prove to be embarrassing for the Obama administration, presuming the president and Hayward did not discuss the issue at their recent meeting, says David Desser, managing director of Juris Capital, which invests in corporate litigation. It was after that meeting that Hayward announced the $20 billion escrow fund.
“You would have thought in advance of that meeting, they would have thought of all of those issues,” Desser said. “How do you un-ring that bell?”
"It looks to me like maybe the administration goofed here," he added.
By going on The View of course.
How connected do you have to be to get better treatment than Goldman Sachs, which is after all the company that runs the country or something?
I'm sure there's a distinction to be made between settlements where the party admits guilt and the BP case where they are setting aside money ahead of formal charges but the politics of it look awful for Team Obama.
Bestest Administration EVER!
And Now, For Something Completely Different... (tmi3rd)
—Open Blogger
I swiped this from Hot Air's headlines last night and posted it on my Facebook page, where it got a few choice comments, particularly from some female Morons. With that in mind, I thought I'd throw this out for your consumption.
Over at PoliticsDaily, Andrew Cohen (a legal commentator for CBS News) pens a love letter to an ex... and prints it on the day of her wedding.
My initial reaction to this was to be impressed by the real emotion behind it- thinking that this was one he didn't move on and regretted it later- but after a second read of the piece, noted as well that he'd already asked her to marry him and she shot him down.
I encourage you to give this a read- I couldn't help but come away from it with the impression that Cohen bathes daily in Massengill, and then washes down his bitter wimpiness with a bubbling pint of Summer's Eve. I can't quite bring teh crushing funneh that Ace- or many of you creative morons- can, so please, leave your remarks.
No word as yet as to whether or not Cohen has a warrant out for immediate surrender of his man-card, but updates will be made available ASAP.
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Humpday Open Thread
—DrewM.
Other than the Arizona ruling, it's a pretty slow day, so tawk amongst yerselves.
Breaking: Judge Blocks Parts Of AZ Immigration Law
—DrewM.
It's not overturned but an injunction against the most important parts of the bill until a full trial takes place.
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona's immigration law from taking effect, delivering a last-minute victory to opponents of the crackdown.The overall law will still take effect Thursday, but without the provisions that angered opponents — including sections that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws.
The judge also put on hold parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled that those sections should be put on hold until the courts resolve the issues. Other provisions of the law, many of them procedural and slight revisions to existing Arizona immigration statute, will go into effect at 12:01 a.m.
..."There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new (law)," Bolton ruled. "By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a 'distinct, unusual and extraordinary' burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose."
Legal Insurrection has the decision.
Possibly Related: Obama's Hispanic support has been dropping lately. Will they be happy with this or will it seem like table scraps compared to Obama's inability/disinterest in passing immigration amnesty?
Meanwhile, the Arizona law enjoys 55% support nationally, which is probably better than any politician in the country. Well, we always knew Obama was bad at math.
As for the ruling itself, not being a lawyer I don't want to get too in the weeds but given that the standard for an injunction in this situation is the plaintiff (in this case, the US Government), "must establish that he is likely to succeed on the merits [i.e. win at trial], that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in his favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest.” it doesn't sound good.
AZ Governor Jan Brewer can appeal the injunction but Arizona is part of the 9th Circuit, so, good luck with that.
Lesson reiterated...never read too much into what questions a judge asks at a hearing for clues about how they will rule.
If you'd like to get into the legal weeds, Andy McCarthy has you covered.
Damn: NV Senate Race Moved From "Toss Up" To "Leans Democratic" By...Hitler's Own Pollster
—DrewM.
I suppose something the keeps Chuck Shumer or Dick Durbin out the majority leader's spot isn't all bad. Hey, I'm trying to find the pony in the pile of crap here.
While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is barely ahead of challenger Sharron Angle, the fact that he has the advantages of incumbency and that Barack Obama won the state by twelve percentage points helps tip the balance towards the incumbent.With three months to go, Rasmussen Reports polling shows that Republicans are poised to pick up Democratic-held Senate seats in three states— Arkansas, Indiana and North Dakota. Two others are leaning that way--Delaware and Pennsylvania. Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln is the only incumbent senator currently projected to lose a seat. The others are open-seat races following retirements by Democratic incumbents.
At the moment, no Republican-held seats appear headed for the Democratic column.
Currently, there are just six states in the Toss-Up category. Outside of the Toss-Ups, projections indicate that Democrats can probably count on having 50 Senate seats after Election Day, while Republicans will hold 44.
This will of course ignite a chorus of 'the tea party is killing the Republicans!' stories in the MFM and the leftysphere.
I think it's pretty clear that Angle is not the ideal candidate for Nevada.
What’s hurting the Republican? For starters, an astounding 58 percent find Angle’s positions “extreme.”
Yeah, that's not good.
There's no need to indict the whole tea party movement as 'too extreme' or on balance bad for Republicans but like any mass movement, it's going to come with some baggage and what appeals to the base isn't going to appeal to everyone. Also, let's not kid ourselves, Sue Lowden didn't turn out to be the greatest candidate ever either. Still, she was the safer choice and probably wouldn't suffer from 58% of Nevadans saying she was too extreme.
Before we start killing Republican primary voters, let's remember that the professionals in Washington are the folks that were touting the likes of Arlen Specter and Charlie Crist right up until the moment they bailed on the party.
Still, there is no denying that Reid is/was in a desperately weak position and the Republican's choice of candidates may cost them not only a pick up in a purple state but a nice trophy scalp as well.
BTW- His son Rory, who doesn't appear to have a last name, is still getting killed in the race for Governor.
WikiLeaks Afghanistan Dump Not So Harmless After All
—DrewM.
My first reaction to the reports on the Afghan war logs was pretty much the same as most people...not much new here. My second thought was, if we all are having the same reaction, there's a good chance we are wrong.
Turns out the documents could be quite harmful if you are an Afghan who provided information to US forces.
In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times of London found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing detailed intelligence to U.S. forces. Their villages are given for identification and also, in many cases, their fathers' names.U.S. officers recorded detailed logs of the information fed to them by named local informants, particularly tribal elders.
...
A senior official at the Afghan Foreign Ministry, who declined to be named, said: "The leaks certainly have put in real risk and danger the lives and integrity of many Afghans. The U.S. is both morally and legally responsible for any harm that the leaks might cause to the individuals, particularly those who have been named. It will further limit the U.S./international access to the uncensored views of Afghans."
If, really when, one or more of these people turns up dead should* Afghanistan charge WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange with complicity in their murder? I say yes. The same goes for Army Private Bradley Manning if it turns out he's the leaker.
There's always a tension in a free society between the need to keep secrets and the need to have an informed citizenry. There is never a need for the release of the names of people who risk their lives not only to help us but their own country fight terrorists.
Anyone celebrating and reveling in the release of all these documents is simply cheering the death of people fighting to live free from the tyranny of the Taliban. We shouldn't let the likes of the Greenwald collective and St. Andrew of the Heartache weasel out of what they have supported here.
The war in Afghanistan is a fight for the people. The first battle in that war is for their trust, trust we won't abandon them and trust that they can support us by providing information. Assange and possibly Manning are simply fighting on the terrorist's side. We should act accordingly.
* I changed "will" to "should" because I was thinking about the propriety of it not the likelihood of it. I doubt they will.
Where Has All The Oil Gone?
—DrewM.
Perhaps some good news from the Deepwater Horizon spill...the oil seems to have dispersed on the surface faster than people thought it would.
The dissolution of the slick should reduce the risk of oil killing more animals or hitting shorelines. But it does not end the many problems and scientific uncertainties associated with the spill, and federal leaders emphasized this week that they had no intention of walking away from those problems any time soon....
Scientists said the rapid dissipation of the surface oil was probably due to a combination of factors. The gulf has an immense natural capacity to break down oil, which leaks into it at a steady rate from thousands of natural seeps. Though none of the seeps is anywhere near the size of the Deepwater Horizon leak, they do mean that the gulf is swarming with bacteria that can eat oil.
The winds from two storms that blew through the gulf in recent weeks, including a storm over the weekend that disintegrated before making landfall, also appear to have contributed to a rapid dispersion of the oil. Then there was the response mounted by BP and the government, the largest in history, involving more than 4,000 boats attacking the oil with skimming equipment, controlled surface burns and other tactics.
Some of the compounds in the oil evaporate, reducing their impact on the environment. Jeffrey W. Short, a former government scientist who studied oil spills and now works for the environmental advocacy group Oceana, said that as much as 40 percent of the oil in the gulf might have simply evaporated once it reached the surface.
One of the things the story speculates on is that since oil has been leaking naturally into the Gulf more or less forever, there's a pre-existing supply of bacteria in the water which feeds on oil and breaks it up naturally.
While this is clearly good news, there are still concerns about the effect of the oil at depth.
It's almost as if the Earth and it's various ecosystems are large and complex things we don't fully understand. One might think that would lead scientists and policy makers to exercise a degree of humility when it comes to sweeping pronouncements and economy killing edicts of various kinds.
Top Headline Comments 7-28-10
—Gabriel Malor
Poor, overshadowed Preston. He stayed at his post. When the trainees ran, he stayed.
Open Overnight Thread
—Maetenloch
Welcome to the boringest night of the week.
Well here's video of a Valley Girl contest that took place in Encino, CA in 1982. It's from an episode of Real People and is like a time capsule of a simpler time when ValSpeak wasn't like totally despised.
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Is Photography in Public Illegal?
—Maetenloch
Well a lot of police and security guards would like you to think so.
Here's a case out of Maryland where a man is facing 16 years in prison for violating Maryland's wiretapping laws. His crime - videotaping a MD State Trooper in plain clothes pulling a gun on him and giving him a ticket.
Back on March 5th Anthony Graber was riding his motorcycle with a videocamera attached to his helmet on I-95 and when he exited the interstate a car suddenly pulled in front of him and a man jumped out with his gun pulled. That man turned out to be an off-duty State Trooper in civilian clothes and in his personal vehicle. He identified himself and gave Graber a ticket (which he clearly deserved since he had reached speeds up to 127mph during his filming). Afterwards Graber posted the video on YouTube.
Ten days later when the officer found out about the video, the state police got an arrest warrant for Graber and raided his house early in the morning seizing all computers and video cameras. He's now facing up to 16 years in prison for taping the encounter. Apparently Maryland is one of the few states that requires approval of both parties being recorded and that's the basis for charging him with wiretapping.
Update: Progressoverpeace notes that it's the audio - not the video - that makes the state's wiretapping law apply.
Here's the video in question
So a couple of points -
1. He was clearly speeding and so deserved the ticket. It would be interesting to see what speed the officer wrote him up at.
2. The officer didn't identify himself until he was right up to the driver. I don't know what the standard police procedures are but if Graber had pulled his own weapon or fled, I would have considered that reasonable behavior under the circumstances. I'm guessing the trooper screwed up which is why he wanted the video removed.
3. It's hard to argue that the recording was surreptitious when the GoPro helmet camera was clearly visible and the officer approached the driver against his will in a public place. So the whole case seems to just be an example of police harassment.
And here's Glenn Reynolds' view on the case and harassment against public photography in general.
Open Blog
—Ace
Sorry I keep doing this. I am on a deadline to complete a written piece. I had hoped to finish this past weekend, but I was sick as a dog Friday and Saturday. Now I'm under the gun.
I'll be here tomorrow, too, but will hang the open blog sign again: I really do need to finish this thing.
Australia Offers Cave Tour in Klingon; Ace, No One Else, Books Immediate Qantas Flight
—Jack M.
Well, you and I call it "Qantas". Ace calls it the "N.C.C 1701-F".
Currently a self-guided audio tour at the caves in the Blue Mountains is offered in eight languages, but staff came up with the idea of adding the fictional language Klingon as the caves did once feature in the popular TV series."In the Star Trek universe, Jenolan Caves was first immortalized in the Next Generation episode 'Relics,' through the naming of a 'Sydney Class' Starship — the USS Jenolan," the Jenolan Caves Reserve Trust said in a statement.
"Now, this relationship will be developed further, when Jenolan Caves adds the language of Star Trek's great warrior race to a tour of their most popular cave."
I didn't really have much to add to this nerdarific story. I just wanted to punk Ace in a headline.
But since I have led y'all down this geeky path, I suppose I should reward you for following.
So here's a photo of the red-headed hottie in the new Doctor Who series. Which isn't a bad show. If you watch it with the sound off, and only when she is on the screen.
Like Pigfords At A Trough
—Ace
How, exactly, did a settlement originally thought to benefit a couple of thousand black farmers swell into a general $50,000-a-head handout to nearing a 100,000 people, most of whom weren't even farmers?
Well, one part you know -- instead of money being paid to black farmers, the settlement soon applied to... blacks who could allege they considered taking up farming but were dissuaded, supposedly, by rumors the USDA would deny them loans later should they get into financial difficulty.
So... Um, okay, any black person who can write down on a claim form that he once had an "intent to farm" is now eligible for free federal money.
We already paid just shy of one billion in damages for this nonsense and now Congress is supposed to authorize another $1.5 billion to, you know, make whole all those people who now say, "Oh yeah, I forgot, I wanted to buy a farm too but didn't because of racism."
(And gee! Who could have guessed there were so many until we started writing checks out to those who would claim they wanted passionately to farm!)
In related news, I'm black, and I have always felt a need for seed.
Mike Pence: No, TurboTax Tim, The Country Cannot "Withstand" Tax Hikes
—Ace
"This administration defines 'good policy' as what the country can withstand? The country cannot withstand more spending more borrowing more bailouts or more taxes, and House Republicans will fight this tax increase with everything we've got."
Meanwhile, a PJM writer speculates that Democrats are pondering how to reverse their course without seeming like they're reversing course.
The Democrats must know $75 billion in new taxes next year (and $1.4 trillion over 10 years, according to Michael Boskin in the Wall Street Journal) could push the economy into a coma. It could certainly stifle job growth.The Congressional Budget Office agrees. In fact, it nearly doubles down on the figures. It estimates $115 billion next year and $2.6 trillion by 2020.
Now, they may not read the bills they pass. But the Democrats must be aware that the CBO predicts big damage if they let the tax cuts expire.
They need the makeup and disguises in order to finesse what they must do. They must keep all or most of the Bush tax cuts or they must replace them with other tax cuts. They cannot afford to drug the economy with tax increases at this stage.
How do they pull this off?
...
They can hardly admit their opponents were right — the critics who called for tax cuts 18 months ago, not to mention those who months ago called for Congress and the president to announce they would extend the Bush cuts.
Also, there is a swig of castor oil you must take when you admit your opponent is right. You must concede you were wrong. If they extend tax cuts now, they concede their recovery plan was wrong. With it, they spent, rather than cut. They gave the back of their hand to small and mid-sized businesses. In this they were wrong and dumb and out of touch with the real world of job creation.
I linked a few weeks ago a piece by Keynesian liberal economist Brad DeLong making the case we needed a bigger stimulus, or a new one, but noting that he'd be happy with tax cuts -- which, he noted (as if it needed noting), also constitute Keynesian stimulus.
Sure would have been nice for Obama to have noticed that a year and a half ago.
Oh wait, he didn't write the bill; he let Nancy Pelosi write it for him.
Sure would have been nice for Nancy Pelosi to have noticed that a year and a half ago.
Julian Assange Promises More Leaks, Jazz-Hands
—Ace
Information wants to be fierce!
I've been derelict in mentioning this. Via Hot Air, a summary by an Afghanistan vet who notes the leaks tell us little we didn't know about the war, but a little more about what we already suspected of International Intersex Investigator Julian Assange.
I myself first went to Afghanistan as a young Army officer in 2002 and returned two years later after having led a small special operations unit — what Mr. Assange calls an “assassination squad.”...
The Guardian editorialized on Sunday that the documents released reveal “a very different landscape ... from the one with which we have become familiar.” But whoever wrote that has not been reading the reports of his own newspaper’s reporters in Afghanistan.
The news media have done a good job of showing the public that the Afghan war is a highly complex environment stretching beyond the borders of the fractured country. Often what appears to be a two-way conflict between the government and an insurgency is better described as intertribal rivalry. And often that intertribal rivalry is worsened or overshadowed by the violent trade in drugs.
...
Mr. Assange says he is a journalist, but he is not. He is an activist, and to what end it is not clear. This week — as when he released a video in April showing American helicopter gunships killing Iraqi civilians in 2007 — he has been throwing around the term “war crimes,” but offers no context for the events he is judging. It seems that the death of any civilian in war, an unavoidable occurrence, is a “crime.”
If his desire is to promote peace, Mr. Assange and his brand of activism are not as helpful as he imagines. By muddying the waters between journalism and activism, and by throwing his organization into the debate on Afghanistan with little apparent regard for the hard moral choices and dearth of good policy options facing decision-makers, he is being as reckless and destructive as the contemptible soldier or soldiers who leaked the documents in the first place.
I don't think his first desire is to promote peace. I think he shares the same Internet Disease many of us have -- his first desire is to promote himself, to make himself a star.
Apparently he got sick of being an ugly-duckling Club Kid and decided to try his hand at international intersex investigation.
Guy's Got One Source? Pfc Bradley Manning was already charged with leaking the so-lied "Collateral Murder" video. The Pentagon suspects he also leaked this stack of minor documents.
This guy should be in jail for the rest of his life.
If this Julian Assange's one big source -- well, I think his fifteen minutes are up, even if he does look like Andy Warhol's scheduling secretary.
Oh: One of the big "gets" here, supposedly, is the revelation that helicopters are being brought down by anti-aircraft missiles, similar to the Stingers we armed the anti-Soviet forces with in the eighties.
The leap made immediately by the left is that these are in fact Stingers, because the left loves that Narrative, We Armed Them And Now The Chickens Are Coming Home To Roost.
But the documents don't say that, at least not that I've seen.
You know, a lot of people now make these missiles. What was advanced tech 25 years ago is now easily knocked-off by the Chinese, Russians, or other similar reverse-engineer techo-parasites.
Could a Stinger even be functional after over 25 years?
Could it be functional after 25 years of being lugged around a rocky environment and secreted in caves that likely get very hot and very cold?
Could it functional after 25 years of being maintained by... well, as Ash would say, primitive screwheads?
The Pashtuns are not Arabs, but as they say of the Arabs: Arabs don't do maintenance. I doubt the Pashtuns are bears about it, either.
Encore for Jazz-Hands: The Glenn Beck goof on Adam Gadahn is below.
Continue reading
Al Franken Warns Gravely: Darryl Issa of the Oversight Committee Is Planning On Doubling His Staff Should His Party Win In November
—Ace
"They'll implement a truly dangerous agenda," Franken said Saturday. "Everything is on the table, from repealing health care reform to privatizing Social Security." Not only will GOP lawmakers "punch loopholes in our regulations," they will also "shred the social safety net," while their "corporate backers" work to enact "an even more dangerous agenda."Bad as all that might be, Franken suggested that a little-known Republican congressman from California is plotting something even worse. "Darrell Issa is planning to double his staff," Franken said, referring to the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, "and embark on a witch hunt in hopes of bringing down the Obama administration."
A lot of Republicans chuckled when they heard that. Issa planning to double his staff? Well yes, that's what happens when a party takes over the House. Since 1995, the practice of the oversight committee has been to have a two-to-one ratio of majority to minority staff. When Democrats took control after winning the House in 2006, they doubled their staff, while the losing Republicans cut theirs in half. If Republicans win in 2010, they will double their staff and Democrats will cut theirs in half. That's the way it works.
Perhaps Franken, who has only been a senator for a year, and always with a big Democratic majority, doesn't know that. He has never experienced the dislocation a change in party control brings to Capitol Hill. Of course, if Democrats lose the Senate in November, he'll learn quickly.
In related news, if Republicans win in November, they're planning on "packing the committees" with members of their party, and "slashing" the number of Democrats on them.
Also: Franken warns that Issa and Boehner are actually planning to bestow themselves with "new titles" implying some kind of "heirarchical, top-down leadership structure."
Jazz-hands!
Chavez threatens to halt US oil shipments
—Purple Avenger
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to cut off oil supplies to the United States if his country was attacked by U.S.-backed Colombia in a dispute over allegations that Venezuela provides a haven for Colombian guerrillas...The particulars of Colombia's accusations have been documented beyond question by multiple sources and reported on by numerous news agencies for many years now, so Chavez is essentially attempting to defend the indefensible by Bondo'ing it over with blustery bullshit and patent lies.
The only question at this point would be if the OAS will be intimidated enough by VE military power, and the clear lack of spine and obvious leftist sympathies in the current American junta, to the point that it has no choice but to downplay the plainly true Colombian accusations.
The risk in that seemingly lower risk path is the VE will feel emboldened to ratchet up its aggression against its island neighbors - the ABC (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao) islands being obvious next targets. Dominica has already fallen victim and lost a small uninhabited peripheral island to Chavez bullying a few years ago.
Pro-Life Groups Demand Inquiry Into Kagan's Perjured Testimony
—Ace
A letter created by Americans United for Life Action and signed by at least 30 state, national and legal organizations asks for "an investigation into discrepancies between Kagan's testimony before Congress and written documentation of her undue influence on medical organizations while advising President William J. Clinton on partial-birth abortion legislation."
The article links this weeks-old analysis from liberal, pro-choice Slate, decimating Kagan. And, actually, William Saletan spins here for her a little bit, and yet it's still damning.
Kagan, who was then an associate White House counsel, was doing her job: advancing the president's interests. The real culprit was ACOG, which adopted Kagan's spin without acknowledgment. But the larger problem is the credence subsequently given to ACOG's statement by courts, including the Supreme Court. Judges have put too much faith in statements from scientific organizations. This credulity must stop.The Kagan story appeared Tuesday in National Review and CNSNews.com. You can read the underlying papers at the Media Research Center. There are three crucial documents. The first is a memo from Kagan on June 22, 1996, describing a meeting with ACOG's chief lobbyist and its former president. The main takeaway from the meeting, Kagan wrote, was that "there are an exceedingly small number of partial birth abortions that could meet the standard the President has articulated," i.e., abortions in which the partial-birth technique was necessary to protect a woman's life or health. She explained:
In the vast majority of cases, selection of the partial birth procedure is not necessary to avert serious adverse consequences to a woman's health; another option—whether another abortion procedure or, in the post-viability context, birth through a caesarean section, induced labor, or carrying the pregnancy to term—is equally safe.The second document is a draft ACOG statement on "intact D&X" (aka partial-birth) abortions, faxed by ACOG to the White House on Dec. 5, 1996. The statement said that
a select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure, as defined above, would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman. Notwithstanding this conclusion, ACOG strongly believes that decisions about medical treatment must be made by the doctor, in consultation with the patient, based upon the woman's particular circumstances. The potential exists that legislation prohibiting specific medical practices, such as intact D & X, may outlaw techniques that are critical to the lives and health of American women.The third document is a set of undated notes in Kagan's handwriting, offering "suggested options" for editing the ACOG statement. They included this sentence: "An intact D+X, however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, and a doctor should be allowed to make this determination." This sentence was added verbatim to the final ACOG statement released on Jan. 12, 1997, which read in part:
A select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure, as defined above, would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman. An intact D&X, however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, and only the doctor, in consultation with the patient, based upon the woman's particular circumstances can make this decision.The basic story is pretty clear: Kagan, with ACOG's consent, edited the statement to say that intact D&X "may be the best or most appropriate procedure" in some cases. Conservatives have pounced on this, claiming that Kagan "fudged the results of [ACOG's] study," "made up 'scientific facts,' " and "participated in a gigantic scientific deception." These charges are exaggerated. The sentence Kagan added was hypothetical. It didn't assert, alter, or conceal any data. Nor did it "override a scientific finding," as National Review alleges, or "trump" ACOG's conclusions, as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, contends. Even Power Line, a respected conservative blog, acknowledges that ACOG's draft and Kagan's edit "are not technically inconsistent." Kagan didn't override ACOG's scientific judgments. She reframed them.
No she didn't do just that.
The word "may" has a lot of meanings. It expresses a possibility... but what level of possibility are we talking about? I can say the sun may not rise tomorrow -- and, indeed, it is technically possible that some unannounced catastrophe could arrest the earth's spin so that the sun never rose again.
Or I can say it "may" rain tomorrow based on forecasts of a 60% likelihood of precipitation.
There is obviously a lot of ground covered here, and large differences between that first and second sense of "may." The first sense states merely that something is technically possible, no matter how unlikely; the second sense states it's likely.
In Kagan's case, she was specifically told that doctors could identify no situations in which the partial birth abortion was needed to save the life or health of the mother... and, indeed, they had trouble even imagining such situations!
In her own notes, she confesses this (this is from that first link):
In a June 22, 1996, memo, Kagan admitted that her meeting with the ACOG was "something of a revelation," for she learned that "in the vast majority of cases, selection of the partial-birth procedure is not necessary to avert serious adverse consequences to a woman's health."In a Dec. 14 memo of that year, Kagan summarized the official ACOG report released in October as a "disaster," for it stated that "a select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman," a resounding blow to the president's position.
But the ACOG position was that the doctor should have the right to make a decision on a case-by-case basis. That's a conclusion, not a fact, and what was sought from them was the actual facts that should guide legislators and courts.
So Kagan changed the facts. Rather than admit that her position is based upon a situation that trained OB/GYN's have difficulty even imagining, she recast this negative -- this statement of a negative likelihood of the need of a partial birth abortion -- into a positive. It may be necessary. Just like the sun may not rise tomorrow.
True -- it may happen that way, but betting men would take odds against.
In no possible world would ACOG's actual position -- "we can identify no actual situations in which this procedure is necessary, and in fact have trouble even imagining such situations, but we think doctors should still have that option" -- ever carried the day in courts. That's why she branded the facts a "disaster" for her side -- they were a disaster.
So she changed the facts. Rather than the truth -- that this hadn't happened before and seemed unlikely to happen in the future -- she offered a lie: "It may be necessary," as if doctors had in mind a set of circumstances in which this would be the case.
In fact, they explicitly did not.
This is not "reframing." This is relying upon the inherent ambiguity of the word "may" to turn a clear statement that the procedure has never been necessary under real-world circumstances and in fact it's hard to imagine it being necessary under speculative, imaginary ones into a statement that the procedure may be necessary.
(This is why PowerLine says there is no "technical inconsistency" in changing the meaning by use of the word "may" -- because the broad meaning of "may" gives you a lot of room to deceive without being caught in convictable perjury. But they are speaking only to that -- not towards whether there was an effort to deceive and alter meaning, an effort that resulted in wild success for untruth.)
Even after Saletan offers his weak "reframing" claim, he notes that Kagan lied offered testimony at odds with the facts.
[Kagan answered a question about her role in drafting the language by saying] that she had just been "clarifying the second aspect of what [ACOG] thought." Progressive blogs picked up this spin, claiming that she merely "clarified" ACOG's findings and made its position "more clear" so that its "intent was correctly understood." Come on. Kagan didn't just "clarify" ACOG's position. She changed its emphasis. If a Bush aide had done something like this during the stem-cell debate, progressive blogs would have screamed bloody murder.At the hearing, Kagan said ACOG had told her that intact D&X "was in some circumstances the medically best procedure." But that doesn't quite match her 1996 memo about her meeting with ACOG. In the memo, she wrote that
we went through every circumstance imaginable—post- and pre-viability, assuming malformed fetuses, assuming other medical conditions, etc., etc.—and there just aren't many where use of the partial-birth abortion is the least risky, let alone the "necessary," approach. No one should worry about being able to drive a truck through the President's proposed exception; the real issue is whether anything at all can get through it.The language in this memo—"imaginable," "let alone," the quotes around "necessary"—depicts a conversation in which nobody could think of a real case where intact D&X was, as Kagan's revision would later put it, "the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman."
And yet the spin is offered that she merely "reframed" the issue, changed the emphasis, by turning a the facts -- that in every circumstance imaginable, this procedure simply wasn't necessary -- into the useful lie that it "may" be necessary.
Shouldn't her "may" have had a caveat there? As in "It may be necessary, but an exhaustive analysis of every imaginable scenario has yet to uncover a situation in which it is in fact necessary"?
Because if you've ruled out all situations you've looked at, but are still claiming it "may" be necessary, the truth demands a disclosure of precisely how unimaginable you yourself have found it to be.
And based on this lie, the courts have consistently claimed it was "unconstitutional" to prohibit (or merely limit) this procedure.
I'd say "expect that to change," but then, hey, Elena Kagan's soon to be ruling on her own lie.
Hm! I just realized -- we commonly differentiate the two uses of may in both written and spoken English.
When we are talking about a far-fetched, entirely hypoethetical slim possibility, we draw out the word to highlight that we're using it in that way -- "I guess the 12th Imam maaayyy rise tomorrow and lead Iran in battle against us." "I suppose Obamanomics coooullld work."
We italicize them in written English to stress these dubious possibilities as well.
No italics, though, for Kagan! No attempt to alert her reader -- the judges she would now presume to join -- that she was indulging in speculations about extreme unlikelihoods.
Nope, just plain old fashioned "may," same as you might say on a cloudy day, "You may want to bring an umbrella."
Top Headline Comments 7-27-10
—Gabriel Malor
There's a place downtown, where the freaks all come around.
Overnight Open Thread
—Maetenloch
Welcome to the Monday.
Facebook Friends And How Come You Tawk So Funneh
Does your dialect determine your Facebook connections?
Well here's a map of US dialects:
And here's an analysis of the geography of Facebook friend links by Pete Warden:
So you can see quite a bit of overlap but also a lot of areas where roughly equivalent dialects didn't cluster together and different dialects did. So there's more going on than just nearness and accents.
It's interesting to note that there are also distinct social borders in some places. For instance as Pete points out Columbus, OH and Charleston, WV are only 162 miles apart but by dialect and social connections they might as well be a 1000 miles away from each other.
Continue reading
Senator Kerry When Faced With Yacht Questions: "Can I Get Out of Here, Please?"
—Gabriel Malor
Last week, Democratic Congresscritter Charlie Rangel* got pissy that a mere reporter would dare to ask him about his ethics problems. Today Democratic Senator John Kerry had an uncomfortable confrontation with reporters asking about tax-evasion and his yacht.
Actually, watch the video (it's in the sidebar) and see how fast he whips around to glare at whichever reporter yelled out "will you pay any of those taxes back?"
His answer:
There's nothing more to say about it. I have said-- wait a minute, let's get this very straight, I've said consistently we will pay our taxes, we have always paid our taxes. It's not an issue. Period. We've always paid our taxes; we'll pay our taxes.
Senator Kerry says the yacht is in Rhode Island, which does not have the same taxes on nautical vessels as Massachusetts, because "it's being worked on." He finishes by whinging, "Can I get out of here, please?"
Thanks to...uh, my Dad.
*Yes, I totally meant Rangel, but I'm still having MondayBrain in a bad way.
Words and Expressions The Internet Revived, And Shouldn't Have
—Ace
This was just a passing thought, but it's passed through me before.
The internet has created some new words -- "FAIL" as a noun, for example. ("Win," too, as in "made of win.")
A lot of these are good.
It's also revived a lot of musty, archaic, sort of pretentious words that had entirely died in spoken English, and 95% in written English, too.
I've noticed a few of these "rescued words" before. The only one I can think of now is daresay, but I know there are others -- this occurred to me before thinking about other words.
Ten years ago you wouldn't be caught dead writing, or for God's sake speaking, this dead word.
But the internet has revived it. People are daresaying all the time, way too much for my liking.
In fact: I hate to say this but I daresay if you google you'll find I've used it.
Part of this I guess is cross-pollenization from British writers, where I daresay many archaic/musty/fussy/pretentious/abandoned words are still part of everyday spoken English. And I guess that many Americans' inherent Anglophilism impels them to adopt these foreign words as a sort of affect of sophistication.
Help me out -- I know there are like ten words that show up way too frequently on blogs, which had been all but bannished from everyday American-accented English a while ago.
You know what I mean? Because I don't, but I daresay I'm keen to find out what I mean.
Actually... I daresay the word, maybe, is unobjectionable and useful, and so maybe it's not wrong that it's been revived.
I daresay, however, that if you used this word ten years ago, you would have gotten your ass kicked.
Another one -- Adam Carolla one time said he wanted to beat the hell out of any guy who used the expression "How so?"
That was like ten years ago. But "How so?" is now being used all the time.
If he told that joke today, no one would get it. It would be like him saying he doesn't like guys who use the word "shirt."
Our Phone-Callin', Fact-Checkin' Leftist Media At Work: FoxNews Caused Sherrod To Be Fired By Only Mentioning The Story After She'd Actually Been Fired
—Ace
I know; now I'm double-posting myself.
But via Hot Air, we see the cleanest expression possible of the media's devotion to accurately reporting a story without regard to political advantage.
Now, a lot of lefty bloggers are quoted there; more than genuine Old Media workers. But there are Old Media hands like Richard Cohen making the absolutely false statement...
A clip of that speech made the rounds of right wing blogs and media outlets -- Fox News, for instance -- and in no time Vilsack ordered the woman canned.
McClatchy Newspapers:
Posted on the website of right-wing provocateur Andrew Breitbart, and then trumpeted on Fox News and other cable channels, the video made it sound like the African-American Sherrod had once refused to aid a farm couple because they were white. Conservatives went wild with indignation. In a hasty reaction, the NAACP called for Sherrod's head, too. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack got it.
An NBC affiliate:
Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted only that part of the speech, to boost his own claim that the NAACP is racist. FOX News commentators ran with the story and demanded Sherrod's resignation from her job as director of rural development in Georgia. That led to USDA administrators to ask for her resignation Monday.
Just today CBS News quoted Media Matters as authoritative on the Black Pathers story (they "debunked" stuff, CBS News claimed). So here's CBS News' vouched-for Eric Boehlert of Media Matters:
Look, the first mistake they made, or the Department of Agriculture, or whoever was making the calls, they believed something that Andrew Breitbart put on his Web site. That‘s mistake one. And then they believed a smear campaign, a character assassination attack that Fox News was peddling.
Charles Kaiser of the NYT and Newsweek:
A completely discredited right-wing blogger posts an edited video which seems to convict a black Agriculture department official of racism. Fox News runs the distorted clip continuously on all of its shows Monday. Before giving Shirley Sherrod a chance to tell her side of the story, the Agriculture department demands and receives the resignation of the head of its rural development office in Georgia.
Let me point something out: Within hours, the rightwing was walking away from the story and correcting the record.
Let me guess -- there will be no apologies nor corrections in this case, from the left media, will there?
Correction! In my post below on Bob Schieffer/Bot Schieffert, I stated that CNN aired this clip before FoxNews did.
Now I realize I've done what all these phone-call makin', fact-checking paragons of journalism did-- I conflated the coverage Tuesday morning/afternoon with the coverage on Monday.
The CNN piece I saw was from Tuesday, after she'd been fired already.
It is not true, I don't think, that CNN covered this first. Certainly the one piece of evidence I was relying on was false evidence -- my memory tricked me.
Now, I just corrected the record -- something you will not see from the Washington Post's Richard Cohen, the New York Times' Charles Kaiser, CBS News' Bob Shieffer, or McClatchy newspapers.
Trig Trutherism, Again
—Ace
No, I'm not double-posting accidentally -- I know Slublog covered this below.
A couple of points I'd make:
First, a lot of these guys say "leave this alone, no good can come of it" before going into a "but if it's true..." scenario, and it's usually the "if it's true..." scenario that has the most attention lavished on it.
Second: Is the MFM going to cover this? They certainly squealed a lot when some right wingers (almost none in the commentariat) gave credence to the birth certificate conspiracy theory.
But here is the creme de la creme of young liberal thought-leaders (well, maybe not creme de la creme, but chosen by Ezra Klein of the Washington Post as being important seriously discussing the ramifications if the wackiest conspiracy theory since 9/11 Trutherism (and maybe wackier than that) is true or not.
I like Slublog's point: Maybe Andrew Sullivan continues to push this despite putative damage to his reputation among the liberal chattering class because in fact there is no damage to his reputation among the liberal chattering class about it; they're all around 50% on board with it, and repeatedly say "However, if some reporter thinks this rumor is worth investigating further, and he or she absolutely nails this story, that would be great."
I submit that based on these emails, the liberal chattering class does sort of believe this, or at least isn't terribly interested in dissuading others from investigating -- after all, if someone should happen to "nail this story," then "that would be great."
So is this why the MFM refuses to note that the left is taken with bizarre conspiracy theories of their own? Because to the MFM as a whole the conspiracy theory seems like it's sort of maybe true?
As Bob Shieffer (aka Bot Shieffert) said, they won't publish "unless they think a story is true." Well, if they think Trig Trutherism might be true -- and it sure seems that about half of them do, but refrain from saying so publicly purely for prudential, careerist reasons -- then I guess they wouldn't be able to expose this insanity for what it is.
Bob Shieffer Calls Upon "New Media" To Do Fact-Checking Before Making Allegation, While Doing No Fact-Checking Before Making Allegation
—Ace
Great post at Just One Minute: Do as I say, not as I do.
Bob Schieffer of CBS News 'Face The Nation' is irrationally exuberant over the Shirley Sherrod debacle; he calls on the New Media to adopt the rigorous fact checking of our diligent Old Media but delivers this baffler:Here's one way: Old Media makes its share of mistakes, but not if we can help it. We still call people involved in a story to get their side; editors fact check; and we never publish or broadcast anything unless we think it's true.Last week, we saw what can happen when it's done the other way.
A partisan blogger with an agenda - not a journalist - put the heavily edited, totally out of context, now infamous sound bite of Shirley Sherrod on the Internet. Some of the cable folk picked up the story, and demanded the woman's ouster.
Which cable folk demanded the woman's ouster? He means Fox, of course.
But maybe he should check his facts. Since he doesn't trust the "New Media," he should pick up the phone and call Old Media guy Howie Kurtz:
But for all the chatter -- some of it from Sherrod herself -- that she was done in by Fox News, the network didn't touch the story until her forced resignation was made public Monday evening, with the exception of brief comments by O'Reilly. [Note: While those comments were taped at around 5:50, they didnt't air until 8:50, after the White House had fired her, and well after the NAACP had condemned her. -- ace] After a news meeting Monday afternoon, an e-mail directive was sent to the news staff in which Fox Senior Vice President Michael Clemente said: "Let's take our time and get the facts straight on this story. Can we get confirmation and comments from Sherrod before going on-air. Let's make sure we do this right."Sherrod may be the only official ever dismissed because of the fear that Fox host Glenn Beck might go after her. As Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tried to pressure her into resigning, Sherrod says Deputy Undersecretary Cheryl Cook called her Monday to say "do it, because you're going to be on 'Glenn Beck' tonight." And for all the focus on Fox, much of the mainstream media ran with a fragmentary story that painted an obscure 62-year-old Georgian as an unrepentant racist.
...
Ironically, Beck defended Sherrod on Tuesday, saying that "context matters" and he would have objected if someone had shown a video of him at an AA meeting saying he used to pass out from drinking but omitting the part where he says he found Jesus and gave up alcohol.
Note well: I saw this story on TV first on CNN -- CNN was running it that day, and the reporters interviewing Sherrod were pretty skeptical of their claims. But they certainly did not demand the woman's ouster, either.
CNN ran the story, and the video, before FoxNews. (Correction: No they didn't; see correction below, and more ruminations about this two posts up.)
Howard Kurtz, CNN employee, doesn't mention that.
Bob Shieffer of CBS News fails to realize that CBSTV ran the story on their website before FoxNews.
Bob Shieffer, however, wants you to know "We still call people involved in a story to get their side; editors fact check; and we never publish or broadcast anything unless we think it's true. "
It's that last part that's the laugher -- yes, I'm sure that's true, that you never publish anything "unless you think it's true."
The trouble is, Bobby, you seem to come to the table "thinking" a lot of things are true before bothering to make those phone-calls or do that fact-checking.
Repeat after me: Bob Shieffer, master phone-call-maker, fact-checker extraordinaire, will never retract this baseless smear nor even acknowledge that there is so much as a debate over what he "thinks is true."
Correction! I stated that CNN aired this clip before FoxNews did.
Now I realize I've done what all these phone-call makin', fact-checking paragons of journalism did-- I conflated the coverage Tuesday morning/afternoon with the coverage on Monday.
The CNN piece I saw was from Tuesday, after she'd been fired already.
It is not true, I don't think, that CNN covered this first. Certainly the one piece of evidence I was relying on was false evidence -- my memory tricked me.
Now, I just corrected the record -- something you will not see from the Washington Post's Richard Cohen, the New York Times' Charles Kaiser, CBS News' Bob Shieffer, or McClatchy newspapers.
Another JournoList Leak;
Plus: Jim Treacher: Every Day I Wake From Cold-Sweat White-Knuckle Nightmares Over Fear Of This Walking Armageddon
—Ace
Really good Daily Caller hit on JournoList, in which message coordination in order to attack Sarah Palin is explicitly suggested. (Link Fixed!)
In fairness, Ezra Klein claims that they aren't in the business of message coordination, but with all this coordination going on, his statement reads as pro forma CYA to me.
Luke Mitchell, then a senior editor at Harper’s magazine, asked Tomasky if his paper would be able to help: “Michael – Isn’t this something that can be fanned a bit by, say, the Guardian?”Tomasky didn’t think it would work....
Mitchell replied: “Fair enough! But it seems to me that a concerted effort on the part of the left partisan press could be useful. Why geld ourselves? A lot of the people on this list work for organizations that are far more influential than, say, the Washington Times.
“Open question: Would it be a good use of this list to co-ordinate a message of the week along the lines of the GOP? Or is that too loathsome? It certainly sounds loathsome. But so does losing!”
...
While other members of the group debated whether to coordinate a pro-Obama message – or, more precisely, whether to concede that such a message was being coordinated — Todd Gitlin of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism had already made up his mind. Gitlin, whose job is to train the next generation of America’s most elite journalists, wrote this impassioned plea on behalf of the Obama campaign:
“On the question of liberals coordinating, what the hell’s wrong with some critical mass of liberal bloggers & journalists saying the following among themselves:
“McCain lies about his maverick status. Routinely, cavalierly, cynically. Palin lies about her maverick status. Ditto, ditto, ditto. McCain has a wretched temperament. McCain is a warmonger. Palin belongs to a crackpot church and feels warmly about a crackpot party that trashes America.
“Repeat after me:
“McCain lies about his maverick status. Routinely, cavalierly, cynically. Palin lies about her maverick status. Ditto, ditto, ditto. McCain has a wretched temperament. McCain is a warmonger. Palin belongs to a crackpot church and feels warmly about a crackpot party that trashes America.
“These people are cynical. These people are taking you for a ride. These people are fakes. These people love Bush.
“Again. And again. Vary the details. There are plenty. Somebody on the ‘list posted a strong list of McCain lies earlier today. Hammer it. Philosophize, as Nietzsche said, with a hammer.
“I don’t know about any of you, but I’m not waiting for any coordination. Get on with it!”
And so they did.
Repeat after me.
Repeat after me.
Repeat after me.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
The keep claiming they're envious of the "message discipline on the right."
Really?
Repeat after me: You've forgotten more about message discipline than we've ever known.
But as Gitlin suggests, did they really need coordination to do what they were all going to wink-wink do anyway?
This is an interesting piece on JournoList (though rich with nuance, which isn't always appreciated):
The juicy bits from the JournoList archive, exhumed and disseminated through the (conservative) Daily Caller website, show leading mainstream U.S. journalists discussing things like how to trash and smear Sarah Palin most effectively, in the moments after John McCain selected her as his running mate. Or, how to distract America from the scandal of Barack Obama's long and intimate affiliation with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, when that story hit the fan.It is interesting that the major themes of mainstream journalistic reporting exactly repeated those thrashed out on JournoList, beforehand -- where it was taken for granted that the journalists' purpose was to get Obama elected, by performing services as an informal "detachment" of the Obama campaign. It looks for all the world like a carefully-organized conspiracy.
And yet it isn't. As Joe Klein, of Time magazine -- prominent both as journalist and on JournoList -- hath protested, he didn't need any strategy sessions in e-mail to decide how to attack Palin; he could "easily" have selected all the angles, by himself. And I do not doubt for a moment that he is telling the truth.
It was his word "easily" that I found most significant. I could myself, in advance, "easily" have guessed from which angles Joe Klein would attack Sarah Palin, and will, as he promises, continue to attack her. The dogs in Pavlov's experiment did not "conspire" to salivate.
I think that's about right -- it's hard to say it's a classic conspiracy, exactly, when every individual involved intended to commit the same crimes regardless of whether he was asked to participate.
There is a conspiracy of a kind, here, though: One of such full and complete infiltration of important institutions by determined, lockstep partisans that without even needing a JournoList or any other formal group-messaging mechanism, the institutions' stated missions are subverted and a new mission is created.
That couldn't happen if there were greater ideological diversity in the media (or academy, or in NGOs, or etc.) But with the partisan transnational progressives having achieved 90% dominance in these institutions, they do in fact have the power to change a mission -- from academic excellence to political indoctrination; from a disinterested and accurate reportage to DNC blast-fax dissemination.
They don't need to conspire to do this, per se: They need only overlook their actual ethical and professional duties so that their personal passions become, de facto, the institutional mission.
The conspiracy comes in when no one among them is permitted to challenge this subversion of mission without experiencing career setback. A conspiracy of arrogance, then, with a conspiracy of cowardice, too.
Meanwhile, Jim Treacher is haunted by the Shape of Fear: Boo! Jazz-hands!
Debating Trig Trutherism
—Slublog
At the Journolist. The Daily Caller has the raw emails.
A sample, from Ryan Donmoyer, "objective" journalist:
Again, statistically speaking, I believe it is highly more likely that a teen mother would have a child with Downs than it is for a 44-year-old woman to conceive without fertility help.There was some pushback, but overall many of those participating in the conversation seemed to think the idea that Palin was covering up her daughter's pregnancy was, as the Mythbusters might say...plausible.As far as I can tell, the following is the circumstantial evidence, and not all of it is vetted:
1) Sarah Palin doesn’t look even remotely pregnant in photographs that are supposed to be her third trimester.
2) The state of Alaska yesterday removed official photographs of her the months that coincide with her third trimester.
3) Her staff was surprised to find out she was pregnant when she announced at 7 months.
4) Her teenage daughter disappeared from school for months, claiming mono during the time that coincided with her third trimester.
5) She opted to take a long flight after her water broke which probably isn’t consistent with anything any doctor would recommend. (But her daughter might have needed her).
6) She returned to work 3 days after the baby was born.
7) In undated photos, the daughter looks like she definitely could be pregnant. People who saw the daughter yesterday tell me that she def looks like she could be post-partum.
8 ) It’s far more likely for a teenager to have a child with Downs Syndrome than it is for a 43-year-old woman to conceive naturally.
9) Supposedly, the baby’s grandparents refused to issue any kind of statement when the baby was born, for whatever little that’s worth.
The thread also contains some important parenting advice from Dylan Matthews, whose name matches that of a researcher for the Washington Post.
I understand the impulse to dismiss this as non-news. But assuming the baby is Sarah Palin’s, her conduct was the equivalent of punching herself in the stomach. It’s gross, gross negligence. I still remember when a family friend delivered her baby, knowing from the amnio that it had Down’s, and the surgeries went on for days. The baby was declared dead, revived, etc., etc. It’s a horrendous process. It was hard enough for her at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, the best hospital in NE north of Boston, but doing that in Wasilla? Doing it in Wasilla when she very well could have stayed in Dallas? That offends me. That sort of thing warrants a social services call.Remember, though, Journolist is just boring shop talk. Nothing to see here.So I’m inclined to believe that the girl’s the daughter’s, because Palin is an absolutely wretched parent otherwise. Believing it’s the daughter is probably the most flattering possible angle here.
If nothing else, this thread exposes the total contempt many in the media had for Sarah Palin. They were perfectly willing to believe the worst of a woman they had only known of for a short time. The only reason for their hatred was that Palin threatened the political fortunes of the guy they hoped would be elected president.
I've always wondered why Andrew Sullivan kept on the Trig story, even after the election. Now we know - it seems Trig Trutherism was kind of the norm among his peers. Sullivan was just more open with his conspiracy theory-mongering.
Charles Sherrod on Video: "We Must Stop The White Man And His Uncle Toms From Stealing Our Elections"
—Ace
Does this sound to you like a guy with a heart open to racial healing?
Or a man whose heart is poisoned by hate who, by virtue of his exalted position in the black community, continues transmitting to young black minds the vile idea that true black authenticity is only to be found in an unquenchable hatred of the white man?
And, of course, his "Uncle Toms" -- blacks who don't believe in the same creed of extreme separatism (Sherrod is black economic separatist) and unreasoning hatred of all things white.
Overnight Open Thread
—Maetenloch
A Modest Proposal: Should The Blog Buy a Satellite?
The $8,000 DIY Satellite Kit and Morons in Spaaaace
So Interorbital Systems (IOS) says it can deploy 32 tiny satellites simultaneously from a rocket launched from the Pacific island of Tonga and each satellite will only cost a measly 8 grand. For that you get a TubeSat kit with microcomputer, a transceiver, and batteries and a free launch into space. The satellites will be released into orbit at 192 miles above the Earth and will eventually re-enter the atmosphere and burn up after a few months.
You know - $8,000 is nothing in the big scheme of things. So I'm thinking that if we all took up a collection and Ace was willing to subsist on lower quality ramen, we could become the first very blog with its own satellite. Imagine that - morons with a space program. Oh the humanity! If nothing else, I figure MoronSat could just repeat the Anka rant over and over. And maybe throw in a few moron-fave songs.
We'll be going where no blog has ever gone before and doing it with moronitude! All we need now is 80 generous morons to pony up $100 and we're there. Best of all - the FCC has no jurisdiction in space. This could be just the first step in stupidity but one giant leap for morons.
Continue reading
Grim Days for Global Warmenists
—Dave In Texas
The whitewash of the CRU emails has been laid on, but the goddang planet is not cooperating.
In America, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been trumpeting that, according to its much-quoted worldwide temperature data, the first six months of this year were the hottest ever recorded. But expert analysis on Watts Up With That, the US science blog, shows that NOAA's claimed warming appears to be strangely concentrated in those parts of the world where it has fewest weather stations. In Greenland, for instance, two of the hottest spots, showing a startling five-degree rise in temperatures, have no weather stations at all.A second technique the warmists have used lately to keep their spirits up has been to repeat incessantly that the official inquiries into the "Climategate" scandal have cleared the top IPCC scientists involved of any wrongdoing, and that their science has been "vindicated". But, as has been pointed out by critics like Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit, this is hardly surprising, since the inquiries were careful not to interview any experts, such as himself, who could have explained just why the emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were so horribly damaging.
Meanwhile, in South America, it's kinda cold.
Via the H2.
Hey, I Thought Ill-Considered Charges of Racism Were Wrong Or Something
—Ace
Apparently I'm missing some nuance.
Most members of the media, both liberal and conservative, expressed outrage over Sherrod’s sacking and the unfair media coverage that followed. Keith Olbermann denounced the “political guillotine” of Fox News and Breitbart, and the conservative desire to “convict the benevolent as racist.” It was important, Olbermann maintained, to remember that facts matter and that hyperbolic bloggers who end up treating their quarry like Danton should be humiliated...Even Sherrod, having just observed the consequences of sloppily charging people with racism, told CNN that Breitbart “knew what effect [the video] would have on the conservative, racist people he's dealing with.” And as the scripted media introspection and the rehearsed “conversations” about race were inaugurated by those who already knew the answers, blogger and former Journolist member Matt Yglesias was falsely accusing libertarian economist Arnold Kling of racism—the second time Kling has had to endure the toxic charge. But Kling, unlike Sherrod, is an enemy.
If all this counted as a teachable moment, it is unclear who the students were.
Oh Boy: White House Recommended Release of Lockerbie Bomber Over Jailtime In Libya
—Ace
The choices offered to the White House were "compassionate leave" for that terminal, last-stages cancer that hasn't taken the spring out his step yet, or continued jailing in Libya.
Why the White House didn't reject both and demand continued jail in Scotland I don't know.
But given the choice -- jail or freedom -- the White House chose... freeeeedommm!
It's nice they can support freedom once in a while, but this isn't the right time for that.
THE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya.Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.
The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer.
The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens to undermine US President Barack Obama's claim last week that all Americans were "surprised, disappointed and angry" to learn of Megrahi's release.
Scottish ministers viewed the level of US resistance to compassionate release as "half-hearted" and a sign it would be accepted.
The US has tried to keep the letter secret, refusing to give permission to the Scottish authorities to publish it on the grounds it would prevent future "frank and open communications" with other governments.
But of course they did.
