Liberal Media Elite

Halloween fun

By Mike Luckovich
| Friday, October 27, 2006, 07:55 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

http://www.blogactive.com/2006/10/here-it-is.html

Michael J. Fox was interviewed by George Stephanopolous in a segment that ran this weekend on This Week. Various websites have run clips of the interview. This link takes you to the full piece. It’s long, just over 24 minutes. And, at times, it’s hard to watch as Michael’s stress level goes up and his symptoms become more pronounced. But if you’ve ever wanted to see an embodiment of “grace under fire” this is it. Watching any part of the interview gives you an idea but you cannot appreciate the full impact of this man’s struggle against his disease and the physical and emotional burden it puts on him…without a word of complaint from Michael.

I know it’s long. But watch it. I knew, as I was viewing it just now, that I was seeing powerful television. I did not know the full extent to which it had hammered me until it was over and I started crying.

I suspect parts of this will piss some of y’all off, but read it anyway. Former Republican Young Turk Dick Armey offers up a pretty thoughtful indictment of his party. 

So…like…everyone sees through the utter horseshit over Cheney’s “dunk in the water” obfuscation, right? The only water based “interrogation technique” (fancy term for torture that is prohibited under both the Geneva Conventions and the US Army Code) the public has heard anything about is waterboarding. He was clearly referring to waterboarding despite his and Tony Snow’s assertions that he wasn’t referring to a specific method. 

And, in an interesting development, several US Army officials have gone on record as saying that simply dunking a prisoner’s head in a bucket of water is more dangerous and equally illegal.

So…we all know Cheney just said that we torture people, right?

The reaction on the right is downright weird. The various right-wing attack poodles are all use a variation of “We don’t torture, Cheney didn’t say we torture, but it’d be okay if we did.” By weird, I guess I mean logically vapid. If you think it’s okay that the US tortures and violates international and Army law, say so. In which case, why would you need to join in the chorus of crap about how Cheney wasn’t talking about what he was talking about? If you think it’s wrong to torture, surely you would want to get to the bottom of a clear admission of torture. ‘Cause that’s more important than blind support to a guy, right?

Anyone remember when we were a great country and not just a great idea? Man, I miss those days.

There’s some interesting things afoot on the campaign front. Some of you are aware that we here at LME love Electoral Vote.com. We check it every day and it fills us with warmth and joy and love. The site is a compendium of polling information on the current election races. It only uses independent polls, which is a good policy. And while it’s cool and all (really cool) it ain’t enough.

Electoral Vote doesn’t use internal polls by either party, and or good reason. If an internal party poll is released it means one of two things…the candidate favored by the party releasing the poll is winning in a landslide or the candidate is in a close race and the internal poll cooks the numbers to make it look like their guy is winning.

Still, both parties have sophisticated polling operations and they poll constantly. They don’t release most of them, nor should they…it tips their hand. But, if you mosey over to the FEC site to see the latest ad expenditures you see some interesting disconnects between the public polls and the actions of the parties (thanks to TPM).

Here’s an example: In the Colorado 4th District the most recent independent polling data has Republican incumbent Marilyn Musgrave up on Dem challenger Angie Paccione by 10 points, 48 - 38. So…lookin’ like a lock for Marilyn, yes? But if that’s the case, given the NRCC’s need to spend to protect other close races, we wouldn’t have seen the NRCC spend $349k in that district this week (all of which was for negative ads against Ms. Paccione). You don’t pump that kind of money into a race you own when you’ve got a whole bunch of other races where your party is locked in a close battle.

Some other bits of fascination:

In the Florida 16th where Dem Tim Mahoney is running for the seat vacated by Ranking House Pedophile Mark Foley, the NRCC has pumped $529k into Republican Joe Negron’s write-in campaign. The latest polls, now two weeks old, had Mahoney up by 7%. But, clearly the Republicans think they have a shot in this heavily Repub district. Man, if Foley don’t knock you out of your party-lockstep ideological vapor lock, ain’t nothing gonna.

In a state that is shaping up as a real battleground for the Republicans, Indiana had a couple of surprises, but it wasn’t on where money was spent, it’s where it wasn’t spent. In IN - 02, where Republican incumbent, and dedicated Bush rubber stamp, Chris “the Count” Chocola has been behind for two months, the NRCC spent nothing. All the indy polls have had Chocola down for the last few months but all have also had him significantly closing the gap in the last three weeks. But they didn’t spend a dime.

Same thing in IN - 08. Dem challenger Brad Ellsworth is up by 7 in the latest polls over Republican incumbent John Hostettler. It’s a substantial margin if it’s accurate. Apparently, it is. Once again, the NRCC spent nothing in this race.

Chris, John…there’s the bus. Please, get under it.

In the Indiana 9th, though, the Republicans are circling the wagons. This is one of the races where I think the DCCC is totally blowing it with the stupid ads its running. Last week the NRCC spent like junky who just won the Lotto, dropping $656k on behalf of rubber stamp Mike Sodrel (all of it trashing the Dem challenger, Baron Hill).

So, here we are in the homestretch of the campaign. And the Democrats are showing a remarkable ability to totally miss the point in a couple of critical races. In the Illinois 6th which features incumbent Republican and dedicated Bush rubber stamp Peter Roskam against decorated Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth…who lost both legs in Iraq…the DCCC is running two ads that are….baffling. One takes Roskam to task for favoring bans on books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Martin Luther King. The other complains that he voted to support an NRA sponsored bill that allows guns in schools.

This in a race in which the latest independent poll, by RT Strategies, has a a perfect dead heat (at 47% for each).

Oh, you fucking idiots. Yeah, sure, I think Roskam is an asshole for the book banning and the NRA support. Sold. Got it. But, let’s see….How many of the 6% undecided do you think are going to see that ad and go, HOLY SHIT! We gotta vote against this guy. I wonder what else they could hit Roskam on? Hmm…I wonder. His aggressive support for the President’s dismantling privatization of Social Security? Nah. Nowhere near the ooomph behind that as there is with the (heretofore entirely unmentioned by anyone campaigning for congress anywhere in the US) NRA. A particularly wiley strateigy, that. Bitching about the NRA in an area where a whole bunch of people like the NRA. Cagey. But what else might we use…maybe that’s the best one available. Hmmm… Oh…I know. Iraq! We could hit Roskam on his unflagging “stay the course” support for “staying the course”. Shoot. We even have a DECORATED DOUBLE AMPUTEE IRAQ VETERAN as his opponent. What are the chances that the big ass hernia on the Administration and the Republican Congress that now 70% of the electorate is opposed to, that thing called Iraq, resonates in a tight race? Oh, hell no! I’ve got the money shot, baby. Book banning.

In an effort to prove it’s not a fluke…an oops…a one-off oversight…in the Indiana 9th where Democrat Baron Hill is leading incumbent Republican rubber stamp Mike Sodrel (47-43, which is within the margin of error) but just barely…a lead that he has held for a couple of months now but has been steadily diminishing…in a district that has been drilled by deaths and injuries to local Iraq veterans…in a district with an incumbent, Sodrel, who marches in lockstep with Bush on everything…in a district that voted for Bush but has turned on him, according to polls, hard…the DCCC is running an ad that accuses Sodrel of attempting to raise taxes on the working man.

Sodrel isn’t attempting to raise taxes on the working man. He has raised them by voting unflaggingly in support of tax policies that shift that majority of the tax burden to the working class. But it’s a wonky point. It’s an Al Gore point. Perfectly valid point for Gore to bring up…in 2000. When there wasn’t an unpopular war started by an unpopular President supported by an unpopular Congress.

NOTE TO ALL DEMS: There is a 2000 lb. syphillitic albatross called Iraq that you can hang around the neck of this President and all his little Congressional minions. The vast majority of the country hates the war, doesn’t trust anyone named Bush, and thinks Congress sucks. Stop trying to be clever. Clever is what got you in this mess. Wonky is what got you pushed to the margins. This election isn’t about clever. It’s about bullets and blood and an imperial President that the country doesn’t like being blindly supported by a corrupt Congress that is liked even less. And you give us book bans and the fucking NRA? Easy choice…2000 lb. albatross or a bunch of fucking gnats like book bans and the NRA?

How dumb can you guys be? Wait. Don’t answer that. Please, just let Howard Dean call all the shots from here on out (An under-reported component of this election is that nearly every 2nd tier race that the DCCC has finally started paying attention to and pumping money into became competitive because of Dean’s 50 State Strategy…DCCC is taking credit for ‘em now but without Dean rebuilding moribund Dem networks in places like Indiana, rural Illinois, even Idaho there would be no infrastructure to support and enable the Dem candidates in those races).

Hello from New York City, where things have a different feel. It’s easy to feel isolated from the real drama going on out there this election cycle — HRC’s going to win re-election, Eliot Spitzer’s race for the governor’s manse is a runaway, etc etc etc. In Chicago and Minneapolis, the purply fringes feel closer — even in Chicago, where the urban area is politically where it needs to be but DuPage county is awfully close by. Lots of fun stuff going on in IL this year — not the least of which is that the emminently reasonable Judy Baar Topinka, GOP candidate for governor, is trailing incumbent clown and Democrat Rod Blago by miles. If I was still voting in IL, this would probably be a race in which I’d abstain (like i did in 1994 when I was faced with Glenn Poshard as the Dem candidate).

But back here — what do we have? The g*ddamn homos screwing everything up in NJ. Why, oh why, can’t those ‘mos who care about marriage this much SHUT UP for three weeks? This mobilizes the other side soooooo much more (we want marriage, they are scared of it; fear motivates like nobody’s business — this is Psych 101, people) and shoots us all in the foot. This has little right-wing traction in NJ, but a) every little bit matters — the NJ senate race is a nailbiter b) tons of traction in VA/MO/TN, where the senate fight is really happening. This event could single handedly torpedo any hope of a Democratic Senate — and nothing is more important than that goal.

And now, the NYT reports that African-American voting may be significantly less strong than in the past, as the belief that Afr-Am votes dont get counted is taking even stronger root after 2000 and 2004.

I’m getting mighty worried. Plus my other half got his voter registration card yesterday, and I didn’t. Boo! I wanna vote here — I haven’t since 1993!

Ick. Ick. ICK!

Australia’s most senior Islamic cleric has set off a firestorm of controversy after comparing women without headscarves to “uncovered meat” inviting sexual assault, comments that he has since apologized for.

“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside … without cover, and the cats come to eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s?” Sheik Taj Aldin al Hilali was quoted as saying in a sermon to some 500 worshippers in Sydney last month.

I am tired, sick and bored with people “apologizing” for their fucked-up statements. Are you sorry? Don’t fucking say it, Sheik Taj Aldin al Hilali. Don’t fucking say it, Pat Robertson. Don’t compare women to meat. Don’t issue death threats to artists. Don’t compare Jews to dogs. Don’t say that God is going to destroy Disney World because of gay people. Don’t say that Louisiana deserved it. Don’t say that Al Qaeda shouldn’t have attacked New York because Gore carried the state.

Sermon? FUCK YOU. HOW DARE YOU USE GOD FOR THIS.

My cultural tolerance comes to a screeching, full-on, did-that-guy-just-say-that, cowboy-dressed-in-all-black-just-entered-the-saloon halt when I read stories like this. An invitation to the Talib of the East and of the West: If you don’t appreciate the Enlightenment, if you believe your principles are so sacred that unpopular people must die to uphold them, if your dogma is so weak that it must be enforced by the state, if you are so high that Heaven is below you, I have no use for you. Nor does any God that is just and curious and capable of creating the Universe. Get the fuck out of our lives—be it social, sexual, political or economic. Take example from the Amish and Hutterites: Withdraw. Be as pious as you’d like. It’ll do your soul well. Just leave the rest of us the fuck alone.

The true greatness of a society is measured by how it treats the most unpopular among it. That’s why I’m so terrified of Iran and North Korea and Venezuela and Byelorus and Russia—if I am to live in a country where I can’t shoot my mouth of in public at the offense of my neighbors, it’s not a country worth living in. And if I am to live in a country where torture is even an option, it is not a country worth living in. These are absolutes. Because mercy is absolute. Dignity is absolute. Citizenship is absolute. Equality is absolute. And that’s why I’m so terrified of the Christianist Right in this country. That’s why I’m tired and angry at hearing that New Jersey’s Supreme Court told its legislature that they must recognize the dignity of gay couples—and my first reaction is that dread because that dignity will be used by the Right to scare people into voting to continue ten years of utter failure and betrayal. Just as the dignity of women is used as a tool to rally the wrongheaded Muslim masses. AAAAAAAAAARGH!

Any movement that is so absolutist (in the political sense), pigheaded (in my Mom’s sense) and joyless (in the Catholic sense) that it cannot even tolerate others with whom it must, in a free society, share public space should not be a public movement at all. It should—with Communism, Nazism, imperialism and all the other nonsense dreamed up by cynical rich people who thought they could grow fat on the rabies of the masses—be reconciled to the dustbin.

Liberal democracy: Love it or leave it.

And, yes, that means you, Rush. And Ann Coulter. And Michael Moore. And Osama bin Laden. And Pat Robertson. And blah, blah, blah. I will no longer entertain your apologies. Build a better world or get out of it. There aren’t any excuses any longer. We know better by now. And if we don’t, we should.

Watching Rumsfeld’s press conference. Geez, you can see how this guy’s managed to alienate people inside the administration. He’s terribly condescending, which is nothing new. But a couple times he’s spun off into persecution complex land. And he is being persecuted but you’d think they would have coached him a bit to tone that down. When every article that comes out about th guy features the word “embattled” beore his name I guess I thought he’d try for a little humility.

‘Least that’s how it hits me.

He just talked about benchmarks in such a way as to say they’re warm fuzzies that help people hope for the future but don’t really mean anything. Didn’t sound like he was singing the same song as the rest of the posse.

Final thoughts for today…

• We made MNSpeak.com courtesy our friend Leigha. She mentioned we had a new blog. The response:
  

  Good god. That site couldn’t be more of a parody of liberalism than if the RNC had built it. Hey … maybe … naw. All the hi-larious lefty stereotype stuff is there including the hip gay references, the obligatory use of profanity (nothing says “liberal” like using the F-word liberally, right? heh) And those t-shirts that are insulting to religious people! That really tops it off. Yup, my new favorite liberal site. So original, so biting, so … predictable.
  »» Submitted by »»» mazasapa at 9:44 PM on October 25

  Dude, we totally know! We brought that up on our first post. Didn’t we say that, and I quote, “We say fuck a lot. And none of us have any real credentials. Which means we don’t have a blogosphere niche at all.” I mean, duh.

  Maza Sapa—whom I’m considering calling just Maz, because we’re friends—goes on to say in other threads that, “I’m quite used to being insulted by wasichu.” Huh. Way to make your argument. But I’m just a winkte. Hip gay Lakota references, indeed. Make the parody complete.

• Also joining us is Jason who asks in reference to my post about how crappy DFL Web sites are designed, “No links to the sites that are well designed?” Well, no, Jason. Mostly because it’s a pain in the ass. Also, Jason: Stop writing in from work. Amelia, Frank and Don might get angry.
• So gay marriage (or something like it) will be legal in New Jersey. Will this help or hurt the GOP? Everyone must know right now! Snorefest. My guess is that the American people are done with the hysterical backlash and are willing to get on with things… like quietly making civil unions legal. Which is what the court said. And which the majority of Americans support. Non-issue. Just as God intended.
• ZDNet has a post: “In Virginia, a computer glitch has caused U.S. Senate candidate Jim Webb’s last name to be cut off from the electronic ballot in in three major cities - Alexandria, Falls Church and Charlottesville.” He’s the Democrat. But that won’t show up on the ballot. Nor will his last name. The computer company—Hart InterCivic (ain’t that great? I mean, it would be perfect if was Hart InterCivic Solutions, but whatev’)—said that they can’t get the glitch fixed in time. No, apparently, two weeks is far too short a time to change a font. Or a font size. Or figure out how to get two lines of text to show up. Or something. Oh, and there aren’t any paper ballots. And so on. Insert conspiracy theory here, although it won’t be much of a theory anymore. Sheesh. They’re not even, like, trying or anything anymore, are they?

Good night. I think I’ll have some gay fellatio with an evangelical first, though. (That one was for you, Maz’! Call me later, ‘kay?!? BFF! U R AWESOME!!!11!!!)

I wish I could read those daily memos from the RNC to their right-wing radio/TV attack poodles.

Starting with Scarborough Country last night and moving on to all the usual suspects today (Hannity, Limbaugh, et al) there have been a number of “news” features on PEOPLE THAT SHOULD SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF YOU WHEN THE DEMS TAKE THE HOUSE. Every single one of them bitches about the same five “ultra-liberals”(and only the same five). It is clearly coordinated.

Speaker of the House - Nancy Pelosi

Committee Chairs - Charles Rangel, John Conyers, Alcee Hastings, Barney Frank

Repeatedly hammering the message that they are “the most liberal members of Congress and they will be committee chairs” the stories all talk about how much farther to the left these five are than the country and the rest of the House Dems. These are liberal representatives. They are not the five most liberal by a long shot and there will surely be committee chairs that are equally or more liberal. But, those are white, straight guys. What these five are, though, is one woman, three African-Americans, and an openly gay man.

The only real surprise, I guess, is that they left out Waxman. Maybe Jew-bashing ain’t what it used to be as a vote-getter.

At the same time, Corker, the Republican Senate candidate in Tennessee, has (rightfully) condemned the overtly racist television ad the RNC is running against Ford, the African-American Dem candidate, in that state. Good for him. Doesn’t explain why Corker is running a radio ad in which every time Ford’s name is mentioned it is accompanied by jungle drums in the background.

Subliminal, you racist shit-bags. Subliminal. It’s supposed to be subtle.

Poland is now the first country to have an openly gay prime minister.

Except, not really. For context: When questioned about eastern Europe’s notorious, violent homophobia, Poland has more or less said to the rest of the EU, “Our some best friends, they are of gay! Netherlands gave Poland big check last year, very nice for to keep having big subsidies. Also, my uncle, he has car. Runs good. Very chip.”

Anyway, Prime Minister Kaczynski’s same-sex lovin’ was noted in recently declassified documents. State security. Etc. You know how Slavs are. They’re either spying on each other or demanding “observer status.” Seriously. They’re really funny.

Also: Did you know Poland’s president and prime minister are twins? Identical twins? Who speak in that creepy secret twin half-language when they’re at NATO and EU summits?

Yeah, and you thought nothing could get creepier than Jeb. Yikes.

…without buying a new blue hoodie and new blue jeans. Union made. American made. From a place that isn’t a big box. Little boxes. Not made of ticky-tacky.

I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries lately about the horrors of free trade, etc., and I feel guilty for buying clothes made overseas. Cheap? Yes. But at what cost?!?!?!?!?!?!? Pretty high, as it turns out.

“It is my responsibility to give the American people a candid assessment of the situation in Iraq.” –George Bush, 10/25/2006

Posted without comment

We have apparently entered a period of escalation in Iraq…or so said the Prez just a minute ago during his press conference. We must, he says, defeat them over there. Not because we don’t want to fight them here. But because they will use it as a base of operations to launch the “radical Islamist agenda” (I wonder if it’s related to the radical homosexual agenda) which has a “stated goal” of a “radical Islamic empire” from Spain to Indonesia.

So, just in case you Spaniards didn’t know…we’re doing this for you.

Plus, they’ll control oil reserves.

So…WMD, Hussein, bin Laden, democracy in the Middle East, Islamic empire, oil reserves.

Wonder what’s next.

Who the fuck designed Mike Hatch’s Web site? Governor MySpace much?

And who the fucking hell told Amy Klobuchar that a fucking donation splash page was the best way to start her “Web presence”? Probably some fuckwad who uses the term “Web presence.”

Pawlenty and Kennedy’s sites are actually nice. Functional. Pretty. Good sites. Why do DFL sites suck so bad? The only major Minnesota race I could find where the Republican Web site sucked more than the DFL Web site was Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer vs. Mark Ritchie. Even though Ritchie’s looks suspiciously like BuyBlue.org, it’s better than the church cookbook of a nightmare that Kiffmeyer put up. And the difference between the parties’ main sites is pretty wide: The GOP wins the Web design contest.

Which brings up an interesting question, one that I as a lefty graphic designer have pondered for some time: If Democrats are supposed to be the creative, learned ones in control of All Media Everywhere (but especially the news and Hollywood and the New York performance-art scene), why the hell do Democratic communications materials look like shit?

BUT!!! What I really want to know is why a Wisconsin design firm is the one redoing state Web sites. And so close before the election starts, too.

This is not a satire…no matter how cheesy the background music or how bad the Clint Eastwood imitation. This is an actual ad being run in the tightly contested IN-08 House race.

hostettlerpelosiad.mp3

You’d think if anyone had a copy of the Radical Homosexual Agenda it would be something called the Liberal Media Elite. Well, I’ve checked all our databases and crashed through a few drawers and I can’t find one anywhere. I bet it got caught in my spam filter. I anyone has a copy of it, could you please send it to us here at LME? We’re waaaaay behind in getting it distributed to our brainwashed, latte-sipping (and of course gay) minions.

This is embarrasing. We’re so bad at keeping track of paperwork.

Partly, this post results from having a hard-on for lazy shit by environmental organizations. Mostly, given that we’re in polling season prior to the elections and it’s illustrative of why surveys often suck.

Matthew got me hip to the Slate Green Challenge. Generally, it consists of taking a quiz to assess your carbon output and then participating in a “challenge” to reduce said output. Which is a pretty cool thing. Like, if we knew how much shit we’re throwing into the air we might do a little somethin’-somethin’ to lessen it. Very laudable.

But, jesus, the Treehugger (an organization, not a term of derision) is one worthless piece of shit.

Let’s assume that the goal of the quiz is to give you an admittedly imprecise but magnitudinally correct estimate of how much carbon you’re responsible for throwing in the air. The Treehugger quiz is done in such a way that it all but guarantees people under-report, my guess is to a substantial degree, their actual carbon output.

‘Cause they’re so busy being glib and hip little enviros. And I’m sure they are. Good for them. But the point of this exercise was to get me, the quiz-taker, to have an “oh, my” moment in which I realized the degree to which I carelessly and needlessly throw additional carbon into the atmosphere.

Let me count the ways…

Continue reading “The Slate Green Challenge: Worthwhile Goal - Stupid Execution”

Reporters Without Borders came out with their 2006 Worldwide Press Freedom Index. This is what they had to say about the US:

Deterioration in the United States and Japan, with France also slipping

The United States (53rd) has fallen nine places since last year, after being in 17th position in the first year of the Index, in 2002. Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of “national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his “war on terrorism.” The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.

Seems to be safe in countries that end with “land”, tho’.