Just before the midnight deadline Congress has passed a temporary budget deal that will prevent the furlough of thousands of workers and ensure that U.S. combat troops do not go unpaid. Reportedly this budget contains $39 billion in cuts and the numerous policy riders proposed by Republicans (regarding Planned Parenthood and EPA funding along with taking school lunches away from kids) have been removed.
I place the majority of the blame for the possible shutdown on the shoulders of House Speaker John Boehner. His inability to control his caucus led to these abortion and environment policy riders to be attached to a budget bill in the first place, which in turn created the deadlock. (You can find a comprehensive list of all the policy riders here.) To have presented such a poison pill laden budget to the Senate represented a huge lack of leadership from Boehner, and put this matter of a government shutdown on the political map as a reality instead of a mere talking point for conservative broadcasters.
Make no mistake, the GOP/Tea Party almost just furloughed thousands of Americans and put a question mark above combat troop pay all in the name of federal funding for abortion which is already covered by the Hyde Amendment and the unconstitutional attempt to strip previously passed legislation regarding not only the EPA but also the Consumer Protections Bureau, Medicare and legislation dating as far back as FDR's school lunch program.
It deserves some revisiting, because the IPC has backed up almost every single point I made in my post addressing AZ SB 1070. The professionals at the IPC have redoubled my words minus the flowery injections of mine.
Determining whether or not someone is in the country unlawfully is not as simple as checking a database. Under the civil immigration system, most people are entitled to appear before an immigration judge before they are officially determined to be here illegally and in the process they have the right to challenge that determination, apply for relief from removal (such as asylum), and have their day in court. The Arizona law circumvents that process, potentially punishing people for being here illegally based solely on the determination of a state law enforcement officer or a federal agency before a full determination has been made.
In a strange contrast Judge Andrew Napolitano, Senior Judaical Adviser Fox News, repeats my case that the very first measure of unconstitutionality to the SB 1070 bill will defeat it in the courts before every single measure of unconstitutionality is unpacked the way it was when I last wrote on this topic.
Immigration policy is the express business of the federal government, not the states. No state is able to set new immigration policy, let alone a bill this vague is nothing but a racist witch hunt designed to destroy all civil liberties. In my legal understanding, all the explorations beyond the point that proposals for immigration policy are not handled by the states are merely intellectual exercises.
SB 1070 fails every constitutional test, but the real tragedy here is the lie that supporting this bill is anything but akin to supporting racism via racial profiling. It's not.
CA Attorney General and former governor Jerry Brown has received the Democratic nomination for the gubernatorial race. He will be running against former eBay CEO Meg Whitman from the Republican ticket.
Whitman has already run afoul with many California voters when it surfaced she has rarely voted in California with the one proven exception of 1999 in Palo Alto. She apologized, calling her own voting record "atrocious." But the fact remains that this a woman who never took the time to weigh in on important matters effecting the state time and time again, who then suddenly decided she wants to be governor. It rings of the notion that Whitman thinks she can just buy her way into the seat.
Jerry Brown, on the other hand, is a person of good ethics. According to Wikipedia: "he refused many of the privileges and trappings of the office, forgoing the newly constructed governor's residence (which was sold in 1983) and instead renting a modest apartment at the corner of 14th and N Streets, adjacent to Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento. Instead of riding as a passenger in chauffeured limousines as previous governors had done, Brown was driven to work in a compact sedan."
The salvos have already begun to fly between Boxer and Fiorina over abortion, as you can read about here at the LA Times Web site.
Most notable for the "demon sheep" political ad that was widely circulated on the Internet, Carly Fiorina represents the far right-wing extremism of dirty pool politics (ala Karl Rove) and this pandering to the false notion that business experience amounts to good leadership in government.
Like Whitman, this appears to be a very wealthy woman who believes she can just buy her way into office.
Carly Fiorina has notably supported the "right to carry" for people on the terrorism no-fly list, saying this at a public discussion forum just prior to her nomination to the Senate candidacy. Obviously a person who thinks suspected terrorists should maintain any rights to carry guns is not fit to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Conversely Senator Barbara Boxer has a steadfast record of pro-education, pro-women's rights, and pro-environment stances to draw from. Boxer should also be noted to have co-authored the Jumpstart Broadband Act. Quoting Wikipedia: "This bill would make more spectrum available for use by devices that incorporate new broadband technology, such as WiFi."
Science literacy is at unacceptable lows in the U.S.
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the few figures in science that can explain and outline scientific facts in a way that is both entertaining and informative.
If you are anything like me then the recent lapse in any kind of reasonable or civil debate in our politics has you feeling frustrated and uncertain of what to do.
I fall back upon my classic standards of political partisanship and playing to the left-base, but in truth I am not satisfied by this in the least.
We don't need word-wars over labeling and branding, we need solutions for America that work.
We don't need more spin and more talking points, we need honest debate and informed decision making.
What Coffee Party USA offers is civility and a place for democracy to take place in a honest fashion.
I encourage any person who has formed an opinion of me that is one of "ultra-left" to understand I was most moved by U.S. Army veteran Alan P. Alborn's words that anything I have seen in a very long time. I understand far more about what motives are behind conservatives and libertarians than I let on and ultimately my views are no different from Alborn's views in regards to the matter of the free market or the size of government.
This is one element that was always part of what makes me "independent," and I am tired of being brought nearly to tears dealing with these Tea Party activists who seek to do nothing more than rewrite history and stop all rational debate while neglecting the more important issues of health care and insurance reform.
The Coffee Party Movement is the answer we have been looking for to send the message to Washington that we sent them there to get something done, not just play procedural games while Americans suffer.
We'll see if they even want me around, they have a statement about "no pundits and partisans and strategists" ... that's me three for three. But punditry can be declared, partisanship can be avoided and they will want my strategies if they ever give me a chance to share them ... so maybe I am reading too much into that statement.
We are a group of concerned Americans who want government "that responds to the needs of the majority of its citizens as expressed by our votes and by our voices; NOT corporate interests as expressed by misleading advertisements and campaign contributions."
Blood and destruction shall be so in use And dreadful objects so familiar That mothers shall but smile when they behold Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war; All pity choked with custom of fell deeds: And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, With Ate by his side come hot from hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war; That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial.
For they will not halt their spears and draw back their arrows simply for those who heard not the war drums and ignored the pronouncement of their guilt upon the mount. They will run down all of us like wheat before the scythe unless we gather out strength and fight back.
The enemy is conservatism, the worst that America has to offer the world.
The enemy seeks to alter the history of our times, to escape all consequence for that which they have wrought and lay waste to the lands with fear, poverty and misinformation.
They would replace science with rhetoric, replace reason with bigotry, replace love with vengeance, replace wisdom with pride.
The Commander told us, "I am not an ideologue."
Well I am, sir.
Not an intractable ideologue, I'll hear out the terms of the parley of the enemy forces gathered against us.
The Commander Obama will not lead us in this field, he refuses to lead the liberal movement.
So I say it is time for the Captains to start giving out some orders.
I have but one order to the Liberal Blogger Squadron that remains true to the cause:
CRY HAVOC, AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR!
That which is us, remains under seige.
Lose not faith in to the Commander and those we sent to the wreckage of Bush-Cheney, but we shall rise in this moment not dither and fade.
We have been declared the enemies of America, and I believe it time to illustrate some proven facts we all hold within ourselves for fear of the ripples they might make.
Conservatism is all too together friendly to racism.
Conservatism is all too together friendly to bigotry.
Conservatism is all too together friendly to domestic terrorism.
Conservatism is all too together friendly to all violence.
Conservatism is all too together friendly to lying to get ahead.
Conservatism is all too together friendly to tyranny.
Former George W. Bush presidential speech writer Michael Gerson has come out strongly in a recent op-ed against the use of the "r-word" in our commonly used dialectic.
The media is least attractive when it offers the pretense of fairness to cover a desire for self-serving controversy.
Professor Christopher Fairman of Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University takes to The Post today to defend the word "retard" against taboo, censorship and other forms of social repression. He argues that the r-word must be rescued from the terrible fate of the f-word. Even the n-word has "varied and evolving uses."
Defending the r-word is not the protection of free expression; it is the defense of bullies.
There is a long tradition of religious and and moral reflection on the words we choose to speak. According to the Hebrew scriptures, "Death and life are in power of the tongue." Jesus of Nazareth argued, "It is not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man."
Epithets gain and lose currency. Which means that standards of morality, respect and tact must be constantly reapplied in new circumstances -- not that all standards should be abandoned entirely.
What the Special Olympics is proposing is not government censorship, it is social stigma. In this case, such stigma is a sign of moral maturity.
I have signed the pledge at www.r-word.org. I hope you do as well.
I also encourage you to sign the Special Olympics pledge against using the derogatory label "retard" against any person for any reason.
I would also challenge any person of any variety of partisan politics, which includes myself as well, to try and refrain from personal attacks and all statements that most people would honestly agree is a simple lack of "standards of morality, respect and tact" as Gerson describes it.
The debate over a public option has essentially become a debate over the size and role of government in the health care system. The central argument, as we see it, should be one of fiscal conservatism—that a public option should play a role in addressing the very serious problem of health care cost containment. The current debate between the left and the right on this issue is obscuring the fact that consolidation in both the insurance and provider markets is propelling a higher rate of growth in health care costs. The consolidation of power, particularly in provider markets, makes it extremely difficult for insurers to negotiate rates for their services and contributes to rapid growth in health care costs. A strong public option is one that ties provider rates in some way to Medicare rates (though set at likely higher levels), and that is open to any individual or firm regardless of firm size. It would thus provide countervailing power to providers and help control cost growth.
We argue that a strong version is necessary because there is little else in health reform that can be counted on to contribute significantly to cost containment in the short term. Capping tax-exempt employer contributions to health insurance has great support among many analysts (including us), but it faces considerable political opposition. Proposals such as comparative effectiveness research, new payment approaches, medical homes and accountable care organizations, all offer promise but could take years to provide savings. Thus, the use of a strong public option to reduce government subsidy costs and as a cost containment device should be an essential part of the health reform debate.
We recognize that there is opposition to a strong public option. Both the House and Senate proposals are considering relatively weak versions to make the public option more acceptable. Both proposals would have the public option negotiate rates with physicians and hospitals. We see two problems with this. One is that negotiating rates is not simple and it raises difficult implementation issues; for example, with whom would the government negotiate? Further, negotiations are most likely to be unsuccessful with providers who have substantial market power. Since this is at the heart of the cost problem, a strategy of negotiations seems unlikely to be effective, as has been affirmed by cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
The Senate has proposed a public option with an opt-out provision. This has the advantage of recognizing regional diversity in political philosophy by allowing states to pass legislation to keep it from being offered in their states. A disadvantage of this proposal is that it would exclude many who would potentially benefit from a public option. The states likely to opt out are likely to be those with high shares of low-income people and many uninsured.
The other alternative is to establish a strong public option but not implement it unless a triggering event occurred. The goal would be to allow the private insurance system to prove that it can control costs with a new set of insurance rules and state exchanges. The triggering events could be the level of premiums exceeding a certain percentage of family incomes or the growth in health care spending exceeding certain benchmarks. Since the public option would only be triggered because of excessive costs, however measured, we assume that a relatively strong version of a public option would come into play.
We recognize that taking a strong public option off the table may be necessary to enact reform legislation. But this will mean, at a minimum, higher government subsidy costs by not permitting a payer with substantial market power to bring cost containment pressure on the system. The outcome is likely to be that costs will continue to spiral upward. In effect, the nation would be relying on the range of promising pilot approaches to cost containment that would take some time to be successful. If they are not, we may be left with increasingly regulatory approaches, such as rate setting or utilization controls that apply to all payers. This would mean much more government involvement than giving people a choice of a low-cost public option that would be required to compete with private insurers.
"Why do they always catch up to their fears in Democratic administrations?"
"It feels like all these people who want limited government, just want government limited to Republicans."
Well there it is. Lou Dobbs and Jon Stewart hit upon the central issue guiding politics today.
If these "fears about Obama" are so legitimate then why were these people feeling so secure under Bush?
These cries for "limited government" only come from the right wing when we speak of helping Americans and bettering our people. They care not if you expand the government under the call for national security reasons, or for war-making abroad.
Jon Stewart begs the question why everyone's "hair caught on fire" to Lou Dobbs, but I'm sure he knows the answer. Barack Obama, regardless of his record or his words, is what happened. After about two days in office every person on the right wing of politics (it seems) made it their personal goal to destroy him with every vile tactic they could think of. They threw their pride as Americans away and replaced it with bigotry and hatred for America.
Lou Dobbs is very much a danger like Glenn Beck in that he promotes the same wild anti-government myths and rather than approaching it rationally he just begs the question of ambigouity over the whole matter.
Dobbs calls it "advocacy journalism," I'd call it manufactured alarmism for the sake of political gain.
Tony Hake of The San Francisco Examiner was one of the first to break the real story on the web:
Britain’s Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, suffered a data breach in recent days when a hacker apparently broke into their system and made away with thousands of emails and documents. The stolen data was then posted to a Russian server and has quickly made the rounds among climate skeptics.
The electronic break in itself has been verified by the director of the research unit, Professor Phil Jones. He told Britain’s Investigate magazine's TGIF Edition "It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails."
Update, 3:45pm MDT: In regards to the authenticity, not one report disputing the veracity of the emails has come out. Many sources have talked to some of the email authors and they have not disputed the messages.
I'd say that the charge that climate skeptics "are not published in peer reviewed journals" just lost most of its power as an argument against the skeptics. But I don't see any reason to think that the AGW scientists have actually falsified data to create a consensus reality which is known to be false-to-fact. What I see is that the people who are the custodians of the currently dominant paradigm have an unhealthy ability to exclude people who might challenge that paradigm from expressing those views in important forums. Powerful scientists using their power to marginalize anyone who might challenge the authority of them, or their views, is sadly not uncommon in the history of science.
That doesn't mean their paradigm is wrong; rather, it means we need to be less romantic about the practice of science. No scientific consensus is ever as powerful as its proponents claim, because no scientists are ever as perfect as we'd like to imagine.
Wired.com has covered the issue from mainly an internet-based perspective:
The stolen cache includes more than 1,000 e-mails and more than 3,000 documents, some containing code. They were posted anonymously to an FTP server in Russia. The hacker then posted a link to the 61-MB file of data on the blog Air Vent.
The hacker’s message that accompanied the link read: “We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code and documents.”
The e-mails, which cover a decade of correspondence, are getting a lot of attention among bloggers who point to statements in them that they say suggest the scientists colluded and manipulated data to support their global warming viewpoints.
Bloggers allege that an e-mail from Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, suggests that reality contradicts scientific claims about global warming.
But Trenberth, who acknowledged the e-mail is genuine, says bloggers are missing the point he’s making in the e-mail by not reading the article cited in it. That article – An Imperative for Climate Change Planning — actually says that global warming is continuing, despite random temperature variations that would seem to suggest otherwise.
The right-wing biased media sources and persons were sure to spread this around as solid truth, and most likely have no interest in considering the source of these emails as well the entirely of the body of science rather than a single entity.
To wrap a bow on the bias dripping over every inch of conservative-media from Fox News to Real Clear Politics here is a real-time political polling statistic from RCP:
Direction of Country -- RCP Average
Right Direction
37.7
Wrong Track
57.2
Spread -19.5
The "wrong track" is getting more and more obvious to more and more Americans by the day to be the conservative ideology, and these numbers they reluctantly post are growing proof that I am right about this assertion.
When it comes to rushing to interpret the facts without any level of rational approach and spreading self-superior biased media they are the all time champions.
"You save that for your friends on the other channels."
"Fox News has it fair and balanced, as always."
This interview / clash is a perfect example of why Fox News is most certainly not a bipartisan source of news.
Kelly literally shouts-down Burton as if it was talk radio, and then repeats the corporate motto like a good little Fox-minion.
I have been a long-time viewer (on and off) of Fox News and they have never been "fair and balanced." Recently they have become nothing more than the media-wing of the GOP; these people make up the “news” to suit their now very obvious political agenda.
I love how they all try to excuse their lack of evidence by the fact that their are a million-plus viewers of Fox.
As if their credibility record and their ratings scores are one and the same. It's just pure comedy to this as the retort from the Fox News Loyalists.
Almost everything Megyn Kelly said in fact applies were I to be speaking to the network-at-large:
You just keep attacking the truth, I'll just keep defending the truth.
You save this racist code language & these fearmonger-screeds for your friends in the White Supremacy movement and the zany antics of talk radio, where it belongs.
No element of Fox News, Fox News Talk, & the NY Post is in any way "fair and balanced." False advertising from the top-down. The network can repair it’s image by simply stating itself to be in favor toward the anti-Obama movement and in disfavor of the liberal-progressive movement. It is that simple.
And you guys just can't help yourselves, you just can't stand to ethical when being unethical is just so much more provocative!
Fox News has a long way to go before it can say it does anything but promote preconceived notions as reality and sell a pro-conservative, anti-Obama narrative.
These neoconservatives always talk about the "media is in the tank for Obama" but not one of them is willing to address just how heavily Fox News is in the tank for Palin / McCain / Bush / Cheney. They won't even address all these times when clearly, under review, Fox News failed to cover the story with the widely available credible evidence and footage.
Dishonesty and misinformation are the currency Fox News chooses to deal in.
Partisanship and political pandering is all the other networks are guilty of.
Add to that the matter of the New York Post being taken to court over allegations of promoting a hostile environment toward African-Americans and promoting a workplace environment friendly to sexual harassment and you have some of the final elements of this puzzle that the people at Fox Broadcasting are trying their hardest to scramble up before anyone takes a close look.
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If I spread enough American Flags and say "God" enough times on this weblog, will I also be unchallengeable in the value in all of my blog-content and all of my internet-claims?
I'd like that very much.
If that were so it would be pure statement of fact to say that TEA Party members mainly did not vote in the Presidential 2008 Election.
I like where this is going…
Drudge is no good! (Then everyone just ignores Drudge from here out because I said so.)
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Who the heck started The News Wars, anyway?
Oppositional Research certainly didn't start with Fox News, but they most certainly fired the first shot in this "war" of the commercialized-news.
What I detect is the same thing again and again that I heard expressed by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC:
"When we do, we're cool, but when you do you're Hitler." (In regards to some of Glenn Beck comments)
When they bring in oppositional researcher--Inside Edition smear merchant--Bill O'Reilly in and start letting him call himself a "journalist," the dam began to crack and when a Democratic President took office we then finally saw the true colors of Fox Broadcasting Company.
They will use any tactic they see fit to push through their political-social agenda and when called out on their actions they intend to label all who point out their inaccurate & biased coverage as the source of the problem instead of focusing on the issue.
An example: When I used a Beck-tactic on my weblog, and clearly labeled it as "satire," some people took huge offense and some tried to claim I was using the very tactic of "defamation" that I was decrying so often.
But it's a "comedic roast" on Glenn Beck, nothing more.
It was a "joke" when I said you should tell everyone.
The only reason I did it, is to show how very easy it is to just throw around wild rumors and place anybody you want on the “hot-seat” to explain themselves.
Some people were trying to say to me in course of throwing up red flags as Glenn Beck crusades against America that it: “doesn‘t matter.”
Oh, it matters. Who will they come after next? Who is the next target for them to demonize and spin? Maybe tomorrow it will be just everyone who is not in a “tea party” who is a “racist,” trying to “destroy” this nation with “socialism / communism.” If one dares to even call themselves a Republican instead of TEA Party or Conservative Party then they will have the attack-dogs unleashed to sew fear about them?
Opinions are great, but pure political-extremism combined with the bitter rejection of looking at the issue from multiple sources of information gathering is just plain willful ignorance. Not an opinion. Glenn Beck is an enabler for fringe anti-government groups, anti-black groups, anti-liberal groups and other hate-based organizations.
I once said I might sot down and talk broadcasting with him and other of the conservative-media feed. I take it back.
I have nothing to learn from these broadcasting-jackals that I could not learn reading Mad Magazine or listening to late-night AM Radio.
...
The News Wars started before there even was such a beast as MSNBC to bite back at that wild dog of "Fox News."
The News Wars started with people like me, and much more importantly people like LiberalViewer, who spoke truth to network-power and demanded better coverage from any network that would make such a bold claim as to be "fair & balanced news."
It may not be clear to millions of Americans what a "fabricated conspiracy theory" is, exactly.
But it is perfectly clear to me.
Barack Obama is no more a "socialist," than George W. Bush is a "fascist."
If people in the public insist on extremist labeling then so be it, but no recognized network should be promoting this notion that extremist political labeling is an action of "fairness" or an element of "balance."
I have put on my "Colbert-suit" for a blog post, or two.
They circulated (to the best of my knowledge) in conservative-internet circles rather quickly.
But if I mimic the vile tactics of their new poster-boy Glenn Beck, I am a naughty & vile person.
I believe my form of internet-satire has some small value only that I will admit outright that is satire thereby meaning entirely ambiguous information. However, I believe I will lean away from internet-satire in that it goes greatly misunderstood even when clearly declared as just pure hyperbolic nonsense.
Unbeknownst to them of course that the one they were linking to would much such statements as:
I recently checked the pay-outs to Democrats versus Republicans in terms of Monsanto campaign slush-money, and while the totals are not significant the individual contributions to Congressmen are quite significant.
Two Democratic Congressmen took $500 each, one from my home state, and two Republican took $10,000+ each. Both in states where the corn market is more significant to the "big-agriculture" industry.
The fact remains that Canada has discussed banning the use of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) in their food and Britain has a labeling procedure in place while North America continues to ignore the matter by and large.
Like many of a somewhat scientific persuasion, I believe further research is needed on the usefulness of GMOs and primarily concerned the matter of the repeated failure to disclose both sides of the story on the matter by major news outlets across the U.S.
I see now the great failing in alarmism and it more important to have a public making informed decisions on matters regarding our food, or even matters regarding our health care insurance, rather than being given misleading and omitted coverage from any news group.
It is important to note in a discussion of media-finance and corporate hush-money that the Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) recently started receiving corporate-donations from Monsanto. I am of the persuasion to believe that an entity like PBS would likely graciously turn down the money if only they had the public support in donations to do such a thing.
As it stands PBS remains a credible news source despite some amount of corporate funding and Fox (News Corp) is the least credible of any television broadcasting to date.
I’m The Mad Hatter, as I explained in a previous post, and this is free-flowing cognitive-internet instant-publishing a.k.a. “blogging for nothing.”
For those of you who are highly against internet / blogger-net advertising let me tell you a little story:
I once wrote more than one very thought-out essays that were duplicated from my own websites and posted elsewhere on the web with no authorship included, and of course ads all over it.
I gave up on this notion of “internet purity” on that day.
Anything and everything you post on the internet you completely lose the rights to, end of story.
As long as I don’t have the rights to it I guess it really doesn’t matter if I fully “monetize” all my three-platform blogging. So far it’s been two out of three and I don’t really want to put ads on WordPress. I like the site just like that, but in all reality: “If you are not making at least some amount of money on this post you are being screwed.” That is, if you put a piece with any amount of work to it that is only backed by your personal credibility.
I had mixed feelings about being “word-jacked” at the time, and I still do.
I have spoken of a sense of “duality” about myself before. This whole issue expresses it well.
Part of me was angry, nobody will ever read something else of mine if they wanted to and only saw the duplicate, and the other part of me was pleased.
I am the “most imitated.”
Imitation is the highest of flattery.
Thank you, random internet spam-bot / scammer, you promoted my analytical essay on society and politics to a website that most likely obtains far greater hits than I do.
Yay!
As to another topic, the topic in question here:
Why does Eric blog, anyway?
Surprisingly, I’m sure, it’s a dual-effort.
One part of me is on here to “just have fun” as my About describes on Wordpress.
The other part of is sitting around going: “Hey! I have rarely spoken point of view and the inside-line on certain elements of hearsay and what have you. I gotta get out the word!”
An example?
The Afghanistan War should have been handled like a police action from the beginning and should have been out within a years time, of course not invading Iraq in the first place. What we have now is this term “quagmire” I am sure we are familiar with by now.
The Politics of War has to stop. The Politics of War-for-Profit might have taken a heavy blow with the absence of Republican John McCain in The White House and the re-naming of Blackwater to “Xe” but the peril remains in continuing to feed to war machine.
Something like that probably.
Another example?
Maybe my anecdotal tale of Lockheed-Martin military bunkers and firefighters and explosives and wildfires.
I’m not saying: “I rule.”
I’m saying: “Somehow I don‘t totally suck.”
I have been going through here and “enhancing” my blog-posts. Not taking things out, that’s not it. I have deleted one post, because I was so vague it was upsetting to me to actually read it. It was one of the first posts I did. I like to add links, correct typos / bad grammar o’ mine, rambling sentences, and images / video.
I would like to point out to fellow blogger that we have a problem here: Nobody, and I mean nobody, goes backwards on the blogs. (I mean even I forget to go backwards and I love blogs!) It’s all running through the cyber-forest at top speed. It’s impossible to write nothing but trying-to-be-impressive-learning-stuff when something random you posted is just so damn interesting to people and nobody reads the items more to the nature of my thoughts on overseas conflicts. That’s my point, the credibility has to come first here in my case. Unfortunately so, since I am trying to expose false-credibility and bad business practices.
There are a rare pack led by Ezra Klein that have obtained a high level of credibility by value of their work alone, but I present to you that these people may be some of the great minds of our times. The bar is far too high.
I have the outmost respect for Ezra Klein and his work. I have only neglected to “blogroll him” because of sheer laziness. His work in researching the health care bills should not be overlooked.
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I am the soothsayer of the internet!
I spoke of “astroturfing” prior to Nancy Pelosi and prior to Keith Olberman attaching it in front of every word he says.
I didn’t say “astroturfing” but I couldn’t remember that term or the book in which I had read it before, so whatever.
But hey!
I’m running Congress from my laptop over here! Does anybody know this!?!
Now you do!
I’m totally convinced that (not really) that major figures across the nation in media and politics are reading this blog on a regular basis!
You should too!
I hold the Liberal Movement is in palm, where I go they go.
They back me about Fox.
They back about astroturfing.
Before they go there, I have to go there first.
You know what I mean?
The “trend-setters” be known by their own arrogant volition.
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It’s writing practice. I have a few novels on the back-burner. When I just completely stop blogging for awhile it’s probably because I am writing a lot.
Those pieces of writing I posted on Open Salon are what I call: “dead ends.”
That’s the “real-life” response when I am asked this question.
I am just practicing my writing and at first everything went online and now if I do something really good I probably shouldn’t post it and just hang on to it.
Some pf the stuff I am working on behind the scenes is that which is designed to be very “internet-draft” but still well composed and substantial.
I saw an ad in Harper’s Magazine that caught my eye and I apply the concept to blogging rather than news magazines:
“100% Content Free”
How much of blogging is just “content over substance” and do we give proper regard to those who have substance? I merely pose the question without pointing any fingers or giving any examples of low-credibility internet publishing.
I’ve always invited people to “fact check me” as Monique C. did when I made the declarative statement that “tea party people did not vote in 2008.”
I believe I still have neglected to reply due to internet-swamping but she was right to point out that I have no statistics.
I don’t. I also say in the body of the blog where I am basing it off of though: people who are either blogging under their own credibility on the right wing or those who espouse on open forums like talk radio / internet domains.
So it is just an assertion of mine and she was right to point out that I probably should have just said upfront that I have no figures or numbers of any kind to back it up, it’s complete web-punditry.
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I dunno. I proposed a health care bill over here … I mean, I feel like writing one out just so people can see it’s not magic fairies from pixie-land. It’s called “legislation,” and for some strange reason I can read it.
Strange places this blogging journey is taking me.
Alan Grayson did something very simple in his statements: he defined the opposition.
What we hear today in terms of conservative rhetoric is almost entirely defining the opposition in a extremely slanted and most frequently completely untrue fashion.
The claims of "Marxist leanings" and "communist affinity" and "non-nationalized citizen" and "secret Muslim" and "infanticidist" all originate solely in the minds of those who seek only to destroy and demean him not just as a politician but as a man. Some of these media jackals care nothing for liberty, and care only to tear a man down with lies to enhance their own career.
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Alan Grayson is my hero. I hope everyone takes notes, this is how you deal with an unreasonable and destructive political force in the nation.
It is people like Tom Price who have to apologize to the dead. People like that who have to beg for forgiveness of the families who lost loved ones, all because Price had to let his friends make more money at the cost of people's lives.
Point them out for the pack of lying dogs on FOX News and un-American propagandists of talk radio that they are.
When I first set forth to imprint myself upon the wildly evolving beast of the blogosphere I held with me a tenuous goal: to create a fully bipartisanblog.
A place that would be both policy and ideology neutral, yet dealt in real news topics.
While the value of this concept in itself still appears quite sound in my mind, I discovered through personal experience that throwing that concept away was the best thing I ever did for my blog as a rank amateur in the mix. (Still working on that.)
Blogger tis I:
My posting entitled “Ann Coulter Still Sucks” was one of first impressions unto this wild animal of internet-posting that I can claim to my credit. Every word of that is partisanship, I am completely unashamed.
My posting entitled “The Libra-Scorpio Cusp” is enjoyed by many. I point out an internet inconsistency between websites and briefly address my feelings on Astrology.
Recently I was honored to have received an Editor’s Pick on Open Salon for what accounts to the end result of these bipartisan efforts of mine.
In course of presenting the issue of Jimmy Carter’s words concerning race in America, I unconsciously fell into my routine of trying to revive the lost art of bipartisanship.
I presented the words of Alan Wilson rebuking the words of Carter directly as to any racial motives in his father Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst.
I withheld the words of what I view as righteous indignation and retained myself to news-commentary.
However, my truly Bipartisan Blogging is dead. I fully intend to address every issue that I view as significant regardless of the possible offense drawn from that perspective.
Once you mix an opinion with a platform, you get punditry. Once the opinion is interjected into the Left versus Right Debate, it is already too late.
What remains within me though are the principals of striving toward fair play and equal consideration of alternative perspectives, and still with my own case intact. The value of this bipartisanship effort is lost, but the spirit remains intact. The reason being for this loss, in my view, has to do this the source from which it comes.
Despite all reports to the contrary, I am not a big deal.
The person to revive journalistic standards in the United States, is not I.
I instead must cry out into the wilderness to capture this beast, while those within the press need only touch a laptop. So is the way of things. But while ‘truth’ can be subjective, the facts are not.
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“You can have your own opinion, but you don’t get to chose your own facts.”
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I make a great many declarative statements in the course of blogging, formed primarily from simple political and media analysis, which accounts to online punditry.
But I believe strongly in full disclosure of the fact that I am a liberal and freely admit it may alter my world view in some cases.
But the facts don’t lie, and I believe in the growing majority of cases the facts are on my side.
Pointing Fingers:
It could be said that I am extremely critical of the right wing in US Politics.
If one were to ever take the time to read backwards into my blog it can be found that I have tried to draw a line between "Thinking Conservatives" and "Limited Conservatives".
Treading this line in not some political game on my part, but rather my honest opinion on those matters.
I believe that is what we have escaped from in the madness of mass computing and super-fast news-cycles. Partisanship sells books as much as it moves blog-hits, so perhaps some of these political shock jocks like Ann Coulter would rather be reasonable in her arguments, but it simply doesn’t pay the bills.
The truth being what is lost in this exchange, and I think that sort of thing is a shame.
I would much rather have a discussion in disagreement than just label others as “tools”, “fascists”, “un-American”, or “racists”.
But that creation of mine that might cross party lines, and maybe bring sanity to the mix to see what happens will have to wait for a another day. The raw truth of opinion should not replace factual evidence. Such is the road to tyranny.
So I have taken another road. I drew a line in the sand that allows me to say what I will of Republicans, or Democrats.
For instance, the Republican Party is currently self-destructing and the Democratic Party has dropped the ball on health care reform.
Such statements embody my current stage in blogging evolution.
Finale:
The spirit of political bipartisanship and the need for balance remains within me, but the middle ground is now mainly unattainable without the acceptance of false claims and baseless assertions. Any critical review of facts debunks most conservative mantras.
There is much to be said for ideological differences enhancing a debate but when the debate is centered around misrepresentations and sweeping accusations of assumed wrong-doing there simply to no room in which to move in.
I will most likely continue to be mistaken for a conservative by both machines that dictate ad banners and internet users alike, but this just a by-product of my attempt to split everything down the middle.
To me, most these differences are best settled in the voting booth at election time.
But if the accuracy of the information we receive is suspect and unverifiable then we have a responsibility as citizens to recognize this fact.
This tense political and social division has forever been an element of American Life, but I believe that the situation is amplified by media-giants who profit from the repetition of partisan smears of any person or group.
I can only pray for a day of more a more honest and non-biased form of journalism catching the eye of the American public, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
According to the Public Broadcasting Station (affiliate: KQED) and the Mexican authorities an estimated 5,000 people have been killed in Mexico in the past year.
480 missing persons and kidnapping cases leave loving parents asking continually unanswered questions of the Mexican authorities.
A Cartel televised informant described a complete lack of any code of conduct in any of his experiences. He stated that Tijuana was the central focus of the Cartels for the drug trade, and launching point into the US.
The President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, was reported to say he saw "no escape" from a tail-spin into a corrupt culture of violence and drug lords in years to come.
The notion that the state of Mexican-national affairs will not ultimately effect American-national affairs is not supported by facts.
The likelihood of these events in Mexico between 2007 and 2008 effecting America in a highly negative fashion in years to come becomes more likely under any system that precludes the importance of action.
The danger posed by the Cartels and other violent organizations established in Mexico should be at the highest of priorities of border-state governors and all applicable agencies charged to such matters in our government.
"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American," Carter told NBC News. "I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that shares the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African-Americans."
"That racism inclination still exists, and I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of belief among many white people -- not just in the South but around the country -- that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply," Carter said.
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The oldest son of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, Alan Wilson, has come to his father's defense in regards to a racial motivation to the uncouth interruption of President Obama during an address to a Joint-Session of Congress.
"There is not a racist bone in my dad's body," said Alan Wilson, an Iraq veteran who is running for state attorney general in South Carolina. "He doesn't even laugh at distasteful jokes. I won't comment on former President Carter, because I don't know President Carter. But I know my dad, and it's just not in him."
"It's unfortunate people make that jump. People can disagree — and appropriately disagree — on issues of substance, but when they make the jump to race it's absolutely ludicrous. My brothers and I were raised by our parents to respect everyone regardless of background or race."
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I personally believe that former President Carter's words were the absolute truth. I doubt that Rep. Wilson was motivated by a direct, personal hatred for Barack Obama based on his skin color but rather that he chose to be so disrespectful and chose to insult the nation in the way he did because of the exact principals that Carter touched on in the above quote.
The notion that Obama is not qualified to state facts as a President addressing the Congress and that one must not even hear out his entire address before rebuking him, is so outrageous and unheard of up until this point, that few other explanations remain. Joe Wilson continues to defend his un-American slander and claim that he was truthful in his statements when in fact he was, and is, completely misguided.
The notion that all strong resistance to Obama coming from the middle and the right is pure racism is also inaccurate, in my view.
However, the people who constantly use the argument that not everyone opposed to Obama is a racist are very often the same people who fail to point out the racists on the right and fail to be honest about the reasons for their outrage. Or they fail to give any rational explanation that makes any kind of sense for their intense fear and willingness to believe wild claims about Barack Obama.
Rep. Wilson calls The President of The United States a "liar" at this point in regards to the legislation effecting illegal immigrants; if you failed to hear the audio that caused the interruption.
This was an excellent Address on Health Care by President Obama. All significant issues were cogently addressed, but I found the president should have expounded further upon the specifics of the budget and the concept of "deficit neutrality." Perhaps it is my own failure in understanding but I do not fully understand this notion as it pertains to health care.
I also think this clear explanation was needed much closer to the onset of the national debate instead of at this point in time and also hopefully prior to the town hall debate setting, but I see the issue of Health Care Reform as being underlined and placed in the foreground.
Those who chose not to listen and refute every word Obama speaks will most likely continue to do so.
The issue of a 'failure to sell' Health Care Reform and explain the proposal is put to rest, in my view.
I see these God-forsaken ads running on my blog about how people are supposed to “Stop Obama-care Now!” and I would like to metaphorically spit on this nonsense once and for all. Anyone attaching the misnomer of “socialized medicine” or using the phrase “Obama-care” has already labeled themselves as part of the partisan agenda weakening this country from within everyday.
I contend that if we witnessed these same bills moving through Congress proposed my Republicans instead of Democrats that many of the same harsh opponents of reform would flip-flop their stance entirely. Almost anyone questioned on their position in the media or otherwise states that they think there should be “some kind” of reform.
I am left to think that a vast majority of the resistance to the passage of these measures is simply playing politics on behalf of Republicans, in that if President Obama signs a successful humanitarian bill that enhances the lives of so many American families the political consequences to their party will be too severe to manage.
At least the televised and media punditry are motivated by this end, if noting else.
This ’Party of No’ mentality is dangerous to us all. If anyone has a valid objection or concern by all means they should make themselves known. But when a person simply stands on the legs of right wing talking points and shaky numbers I tend to think they would be a strong advocate for “McCain-care” if the universe where all flipped upside down.
In my opinion, all these news-blogging websites are the same thing wrapped up in a different package. This age of faster and faster news-cycles combining with worldwide communications expanding to new heights has spawned a new phenomena of people like myself feeling the need to respond to every single news story in all the world.
Then expound upon some line of thought in some blog and someone comments-back: “Keep it short and sweet.” Sometimes there is none of that. Sometimes I run out anything and we end up with the new and famous and amazing micro-blogging (Tweet)!
The ‘protectors’ of the freedom of speech and ’balanced’ media have opened up a talking-back-at-you website. They let my liberal stuff through just like anyone else.
This site has morphed from comment moderation taken to new tyrannical heights and has landed right back where all the internet is, sanity. Though I’ll the first to admit that almost every post on the website is written by a liberal.
I don’t live in the UK but this news-site has always caught my eye. I just think they have better articles than a lot of American media to discuss or reference.
I might have promoted you and you never knew it. I try and point out anything I think is great in both credible source and just pure internet source. If you have a blog I am the one who just randomly spread it around on Facebook or maybe Stumble.
I have no idea why people do this but YouTube comment threads often become beyond the limits of sanity in terms of length, and the dialogue goes beyond any measure of civility in about 90% of the cases. I can barely ever help myself, I’ve allowed myself to childish and tawdry while speaking to vile and hostile people. If you like car-crashes and Jerry Springer … you might want to just read the comments under a video without even bothering with whatever the original post was.
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It’s just my point of view.
That it all fits in the same pale. One big not-so happy family and internet traffic.
The only credibility on most internet posting is attached to the credibility of the domain combined with the author. I’ll listen to anybody, but I’m not about to try and attach any level of credibility to myself. This is all just my opinion. But I think some certain few out there somehow manage to get opinion and real news confused in all the commotion of the New Media.
(Monsivais/AP)
