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More from the liberal media

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The Times recently printed a puff piece about Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart is the right wing media agitator who, having successfully obtained Anthony Weiner’s scalp, is now batting .250 when it comes to the scandals he’s agitated. In the other three he demonstrably lied or distorted evidence. Each time the media duly reported his allegations, while printing retractions, if at all, long after it was too late for the victims.

In yet another demonstration of that peculiar right leaning liberal bias that the media has embraced, the Times has now seen fit to retroactively sanitize Breitbart’s lies. The full story is at Media Matters.

See for yourself. From the original article [emphasis added]:

Defending himself, Mr. Breitbart said that the video came to him already edited, and that the crowd applauded when Ms. Sherrod said she did not help the man.

From the correction:

In a short video clip of the speech, which Mr. Breitbart released as evidence that Ms. Sherrod acknowledged not helping a white farmer, some audience members nodded and murmured in apparent approval; they did not applaud, although Mr. Breitbart stated that they did.

From the updated text in the article:

Mr. Breitbart said that the video came to him already edited, and that some audience members nodded and murmured in apparent approval when Ms. Sherrod said she did not help the man.

So, the Times, in its correction, asserts unequivocally that Breitbart lied to its reporter, and then changed the text of the article to make it look like he told the truth. The term Orwellian can be somewhat misused, but in this case it’s right on target. After all, doing what the Times did was what Winston Smith did for a living.


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Friday Night Music, Fourth of July

Friday, July 1, 2011

Sure seems like ages ago, doesn’t it?


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Obama ready to give away the election?

Thursday, June 30, 2011

It appears that Obama may be about to make a deal to get the Republicans to do what their banker masters would force them to do anyway. Apparently, the deal will include Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts. Thus will he throw away the best issues the Democrats have for 2012. Since even the people of this country are unlikely to elect any of the clowns vying to oppose him (though you never know), it will be the Democratic members of the House and Senate that walk the plank to vote for this deal (which Obama will no doubt announce as a triumph of bipartisanship) that will pay. To add further insult to both insult and injury, there are a fair number of Republicans who will refuse to vote to increase the debt ceiling. They will then, more than likely, along with some who do vote for the deal, accuse Democrats of cutting Social Security and Medicare. Like the last time, they’ll get away with it.

I suppose being even a totally ineffective President has its perks, but you have to wonder why Obama would want to practically guarantee that he’ll be dealing with Republican majorities for his entire second term. Won’t it be fun to see him nominate a right winger to the Supreme Court in a reasonable act of compromise with the new Republican majority?

Meanwhile, the poor Democrats responsible for trying to get Democrats elected continue to flog the Medicare issue, along with Paul Ryan, little realizing that the issue will soon blow up in their faces.

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Cantor bets against the country

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Nothing much to add to this. I’m just passing it along to see that it gets maximum circulation: Eric Cantor is betting that the country will self destruct.

Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, had between $1,000 and $15,000 invested in ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury EFT. The fund aggressively “shorts” long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, meaning that it performs well when U.S. debt is undesirable. (A short is when the trader hopes to profit from the decline in the value of an asset.)

According to his latest financial disclosure statement, which covers the year 2010 and has been publicly available since this spring, Cantor still has up to $15,000 in the same fund. Contacted by Salon this week, Cantor’s office gave no indication that the Virginia Republican, who has played a leading role in the debt ceiling negotiations, has divested himself of these holdings since his last filing. Unless an agreement can be reached, the U.S. could begin defaulting on its debt payments on Aug. 2. If that happens and Cantor is still invested in the fund, the value of his holdings would skyrocket.

My my.

What’s both fascinating and sickening (outrage is out of the question, fatigue set in so long ago) about this is that we all know that this story will go nowhere. It will get the IOKYAR pass and we will go on to discussing whether Mark Halperin’s basic point was right and that Obama really did break the rules by pointing out that the Republicans are not bargaining in good faith. In Washington almost all truth is inconvenient, or at least not something fit for polite conversation, much like discussion of rampant Republican corruption.

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Just a coincidence, no doubt

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Republican who knocked off Russ Feingold has found himself in a bit of trouble. He loaned himself $9,000.000.00 to run for the Senate. Then, after he won, the company he formerly ran paid him $10,000.000.00 in “deferred compensation”. The two numbers align up well, and suspicious minds might suspect that his corporation actually funded his campaign, and-wouldn’t you know it-suspicious minds are saying exactly that. Turns out that without a written compensation agreement signed before he ran for office he should be in a peck of trouble.

I’m no election law expert, but it seems to me there’s as much of a whiff of impropriety about this as there was about the tawdry John Edwards situation. Will this be another example of IOKYAR, or will the Justice Department sit up and take notice? Stay tuned, but don’t hold your breath.

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If you can pay, you get the megaphone

Monday, June 27, 2011

If you’re rich enough, you get to shout.

Most politicized Supreme Court ever.


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Great column at the Day

Monday, June 27, 2011

I wrote a letter to the Editor at the Day last week. I never heard back from them and, what with one thing and another, forgot all about it. Then, there it was in this morning’s paper, promoted (I think it’s a promotion) to a guest commentary. Whatever, anytime I can call Joe Lieberman a bitter old man in print, I’ll grab at the chance.

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Connecticut has bragging rights too

Monday, June 27, 2011

Nice pictures from parade celebrating the gay marriage bill in New York.

I was interested in this story in the Globe, in which several folks from the state to the North gloat about the fact that they beat New York to the punch.

That’s all true, but I think Connecticut’s experience puts us above all the rest. Our gay marriage was mandated by our Supreme Court, as happened in Massachusetts, so it was not quite the triumph as the legislative victory in New York. On the other hand, our legislature passed enabling legislation without much fuss at all.

But I think our distinction lies in the public reaction, or to be more precise, the relative lack of any public reaction. It might be stretching it to say that there was nary a ripple, but the waters stayed exceedingly calm. Even the usual suspects (the Catholic Church, etc.) did not go into the hysterics so common elsewhere, and to the extent they did, they got no traction. We can be justly proud that our reaction was sort of a non-reaction. As a (at least I think) result, oddly enough, Connecticut seems to go missing as often as not when states that allow gay marriage are mentioned in the press.

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Friday Night Music

Friday, June 24, 2011

As my wife pointed out, the choice is pretty much made for me this week, given Clarence Clemons’ recent death. I realize he’s a bit of a second banana in any Springsteen video, but I decided to go with this one because of the great extended solo, not to mention the superior video and audio.

It occurs to me that as time goes on the videos on this feature will be increasingly driven by the obituaries, which is a tad depressing. On the plus side it introduces a bit of randomness into things.


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Who needs reality when you control the discourse

Friday, June 24, 2011

According to the CBO, if we simply do nothing to current law, meaning the Bush gift to the rich is terminated and doctor’s fees are limited as the law has supposedly required since 1996 or thereabouts, the deficit will disappear on its own. Even if we give the doctors a pass, the deficit is reduced dramatically. The only reason the deficit is an issue is because the Republicans harp about it, while the Democrats cower, and, of course, every Republican policy, when you dig into it, increase the deficit while further enriching the rich.

This is the sort of thing that makes you think that perhaps the fix is in; that Democrats are just there to play the role of foil to Republicans, but their ultimate objective is pretty much the same. We will, I predict, here next to nothing from the Democrats, not to mention the press, about the fact that all this deficit talk is empty posturing of the first order. To talk about the reality of the CBO report would require a Washington politician to go against the prevailing Beltway consensus, and very few of them have the guts to do that. Better to buy into a narrative so entrenched that it seeps into establishment press coverage without raising a Beltway eye and avoid the isolation and derision that is peculiarly reserved for those who tell the truth in Washington.

The fact that the rest of us are being driven into poverty, while our kids see their future prospects destroyed by eternal recession, is neither here nor there to these people. We are collateral damage at best.


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