A Blog Version Of The Inside Of My Head. The place where politics, film, the media, music, pop culture, and random topics collide in an orgy of neo-philisophical randomness that would make your mother scream.
Conservative outlets today are misrepresentinginformation in order to further the narrative that the "system doesn't work" - when in point of fact it did.
The misinformation started at ---- CBS?
Sources tell CBS News that would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list - Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS) - between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States.
TECS is a major law enforcement computer system that allows its approximately 120,000 users from 20 federal agencies to share information. The database is designed to identify individuals suspected of or involved in violation of federal law.
Stories on mainstream sites that begin with "sources tell..." but do not name those sources usually end badly. This one is no exception.
This is precisely the tactic that Fox"News" uses when they pull out the "some people say....." line before they deliver any number of their daily talking points on issues of the moment. One would think people would have the intellectual capacity to question specious and unsourced claims like this.
More to the point, this style of sloppy reporting does nothing to benefit the national dialog nor to harbor any sort of confidence in our security. Much in the same way that conservatives were pushing the "he almost got away" line, this in no way represents the facts surrounding the case.
Leave it to the folks at HotAir to title a lead headline with an unsourced "quote" in order to connect Obama with the murders at the University of Alabama.
An article in the Boston Herald in the headlines section of the fringe-conservative site.
The article paints the portrait of a troubled woman, no doubt, but there are referenced quotations from those that new Amy Bishop - a woman who allegedly went on a shooting spree at the University of Alabama - that provide valid information to the report. It was toward the end of the article that this rather odd "quote" was referenced.
A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting.
But Mercedes Paz, a Brookline biochemist who also oversaw Bishop’s work in 1993, described her as a friend and a likable woman.
Notice how the unsourced quote was immediately followed by a detailed one?
I'm not entirely sure what the writers, Laurel J. Sweet, Jessica Van Sack, Jessica Fargen and Ira Kantor, were intending by putting in this specious piece of data, but it certainly fits into the conservativememe that Obama supporters are unhinged zombies ready to strike at a moments notice.
If these writers expect their reporting to be taken seriously, leave out the conjecture and stick with facts.
Candidate Obama, from my perspective, has had a more unique and honest perspective on the future of America - moreso than any presidential candidate before him. And the reason behind that is due to the fact that he sees America the way it really is, flaws and triumphs side by sida, and knows that the only way that the country will benefit is by the children of this land to learn, to stay in school, to have passion for not just their country but the educational process.
Not content with an unprecedented four primetime news conferences to date in his young administration, President Obama now needs to address the entire public school system. And not just for a Hey-Kids-Howya-Doin-I’m-Your-New-President-So-Be-Good-In-School-This-Year-Mmmkay? speech.
You know, like back when I was a kid and Jimmy Carter would come around and hand out balloon animals at parties. Or maybe those were clowns. I get confused. Anyway.
Nope, Obama can’t just say hey to the kiddies and encourage them to do their homework. He has to make this a — what does the Left call it? — a teachable moment. A speech-in, if you will. Teachers have even been given handy instructions on how best to integrate The One into the classroom.
Downplaying academic achievement in favor of left-wing radical activism in the public schools is rooted in old neighborhood pal and Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers’ pedagogical philosophy. It was the Chicago Annenberg Challenge way when the two served as board members of the educational foundation — and it is the Washington Obama way now.
And while the rabid, frothing, emo wing of the conservative movement cries and whines that Obama is attempting to indoctrinate our children, let's take a look at the reality of this.
The President is actively seeking the opinions and ideas of the children of our nation. He is not just encouraging them to stay in school, to study, but to make their voices heard. What other president has offered this type of honest connection with the future generation that is going to lead this nation?
And it's almost certain that many of these children will grow up to have different ideals than his. Many will grow up to be Republicans. In all likelihood, the next Rush Limbaugh just may be sitting in a classroom next week in Iowa and hears Obama speak and doesn't become this zombie, socialist, marxist, communist, deviant that every conservative pundit from Malkin, to Hannity, to Ingraham, to Savage, on down to the three stooges of morning TV ( Fox and Friends ) claim will happen.
But let's take a step back. Is this really such an odd thing for a president to do?
On November 14, 1988, Reagan addressed and took questions from students from four area middle schools in the Old Executive Office Building. According to press secretary Marvin Fitzwater, the speech was broadcast live and rebroadcast by C-Span, and Instructional Television Network fed the program “t o schools nationwide on three different days.” Much of Reagan’s speech that day covered the American “vision of self-government” and the need “to keep faith with the unfinished vision of the greatness and wonder of America” but in the middle of the speech, the president went off on a tangent about the importance of low taxes...Do Sean Hannity and the folks at NewsBusters think President Reagan was engaging in Maoist indoctrination? Do Glenn Beck and WorldNetDaily think Reagan was pulling a Mussolini or attempting to assemble his own Hitler Youth? Or is it possible that the conservative media has decided that if Obama is for it – whether “it” means “universal health care” or “stay in school” – they’re against it?
Not only are we seeing another classic example of the rank and very loud hypocrisy from the Right, but there is another aspect of this that needs to be addressed. And that is, who are we to trust with the future of our nations children?
Do we trust them to those that teach the whole of American history, the good and the bad linked hand in hand in lessons learned and goals acheived? Or, do we leave the education of America's youth to those that wish to selectively edit American history, to revise widely known facts, that favor religious beliefs over scientific facts?
Have you ever had one of those moments where your brain simply freezes when you hear something so outrageously stupid? Well, you're about to.
Practically from the start, Beck's claim is completely refuted. It isn't the individual that uses the website to turn in the old car, it is the dealer.
Although there are several sections within the website that allow the consumer to see if they qualify, find answers in the FAQ section, as well as read current updates on the program, this mysterious page that has Beck all in a lather simlpy does not exist on the page for the consumer.
There may be a few reasons for this. Either Beck was punked by one of his alleged "constitutional watch-dogs" or he is simply making this up as he goes along. I'm opting for the later, but who really know.
The page does exists, though in a different form, in the dealer page of supplierpayments.esc.gov. This has nothing to do with the consumer, this is a TOS that is between dealerships that are transfering billions of dollars. Naturally, the language of the TOS is going to be strong and Federal oversight will be part of that.
Even right-wingblogs are starting to own up to the very real fact that Beck has been off the rails for quite some time.
Is there a point at which most reasonable people will start realizing that Glenn Beck is a raving freakazoid nut sandwich? Maybe this point?....What a disgrace; this is nothing but unjustifiable fear mongering, by idiots.
Why the feds would target something this supposedly nefarious at a tiny niche of people who want to trade in their gas-guzzlers is as unclear to me as why they’d tell you they’re doing it instead of doing it surreptitiously, as would be the case if GB’s allusion to Nazism near the beginning were accurate. I’m looking forward to hearing more on Monday, though, especially from Guilfoyle about how agreeing to the website’s terms of use grants the state a perfectly legal license to do whatever it wants with your computer.
But, some conservative blogs are still peddling this as fact.
After spending nearly an hour sifting through the CARS website, I haven't even found anything remotely close to what Beck is prattling on about. Of course, this should come as no suprise, as Beck would likely find fault in the Obama administration should it find the cure for cancer and AIDS within the same week.
This story, and that of Sarah Palin's continuous parading of her children as part of her political theatre, are more divergent than almost anything immaginable. Whereas Barack Obama has mentioned his children limited times and never in the context of a politicized statement, Sarah Palin has multiple examples ranging from her infomercial on Fox"News" with Bristol and her new grandchild to nearly every speaking engagement having one of her three ( if not all ) her daughters in tow ready to vamp it up for the cameras. And Palin was even noted to have taken her entire family on "business" trips.
So, considered the reality of the situation, it is difficult for anyone to swallow the meme of "leave my children alone" that Palin trots out each and every time someone makes a comment about her using her kids as set-dressing.
Now the Obama's are getting a taste of this from conservatives. And this time, it is completely without warrant and shows not only the very real racist component that has resided within many corners of the conservative movement for generations, but the rank hypocrisy that threads itself through nearly every facet of their ideology.
The conservative blog Free Republic posted this pic of Malia Obama and asked commentors to give their thoughts.
A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion."
And this is coming from the same people that decried any mention of Sarah Palin's children.
While it should be pointed out that there were ( and probably still are ) the fringe members of the liberal / progressive movement that believe that Bristol Palin is the real mother of Sarah's child Trig, that meme was mainstreamed by people like Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, and conservative talk radio. Not that they advocated the theory, but they made it out to be a much larger, more pluralized, opinion than it every was or will be.
The comments directed toward Sarah Palin's diabled child were swiftly denounced by the Left but the conservative movement is still trying to keep that story alive. Truth-be-told, it is the only example ( save David Letterman's comedic riff ) that can be construed as an "attack" or a "smear" on the Palin family.
So what do other bloggers have to say about this?
BlueGal @ Crooks And Liars has a point that dovetails with mine.
Anyone who has ever blogged knows that there are the occasional commenters who post things that embarrass us. If a blog in question has a commenting policy that forbids racist, abusive, violent, or otherwise inappropriate comments, we at Crooks and Liars don't make an issue of it if, on a blog we disagree with, some commenter slips through their gate with a comment that violates those policies.
We also know that some right-wing blogs, namely Michelle Malkin and her Hot Air brigade, run through our comment threads regularly looking for comments that might embarrass us. That's not the reason for our policy, we simply have standards.
When this Free Republic "spokesman" is given an opportunity to distance himself and the blog from some ridiculous comments that he and the blog were not initially responsible for, he instead uses his fifteen seconds of fame to exclaim that the left wing blogs "have no standards." Really.
And I agree with BG - there isn't a blog around that is going to be able to prevent all the idiocy that gets put up on their stie. This is a concept that Bill O'Reilly struggles with even today.
But when Free Republic spokesperson Kristinn Stewart was given the opportunity to state that these comments were offensive and out of line he decided that he would lambast liberal / progressive blogs for "not having standards".
Shuster is correct - this and what people are saying about Sarah Palin or her children is completely different.
But, such is the slippery slope of free-speech. And that is the ultimate argument that will be waged by the far-right - it is their right to free speech to say these things. It's becoming increasingly more and more apparent that the far-right conservatives within the Republican party can't seperate blatant hate-speech from criticism.
Having grown up in a part of the US where abject hatred towards not only blacks but any ethnicity other than "white" is acceptable - and apparently passed down as tradition - I have become somewhat numb to the racial epithets that I have to hear on virtually a daily basis. But this is simply beyond the pale.
Granted, some of these people have softened there rhetoric within their own accusations to allow them room to wiggle away from saying Obama is absolutley orchestrating the closings, but the mere fact that they are giving credence to such a laughable claim is richly deserving of our mockery.
Another fine example of ignorance in advertising from the fine folks at NOM.
You remember when you were a kid and you played at school with ALL the kids, no matter what sociological background, what ethnicity, how rich or how poor their families were? Kids can clearly see past all that and know what is important in life.
The willfully ingorant controlling the words of children is not only scary, but shows the depth of dishonesty which they are willing to go.
Suddenly, I'm reminded of the mouth-agapes grunt from seething, wing-nut, prattle-heads about children being used in the debate over SCHIP.
While some are attempting to not look like complete doofs - but are still giant douche-tacos, it is becoming more and more apparent that these people are either running out of source material to write about, or they are quickly becoming that which they have continually claimed to loathe these 8 years prior.
As with their continued harping of Obama using a teleprompter, doesn't this discussing smack of rank hypocrisy?
Seriously, they're shoes.
Granted, they are expensive, but does this actually warrant such nonsensical ramblings from conservatives? Of course it does. We are, after all, speaking about a wandering, leaderless, class of people that would prefer to talk about how right they are about everything and not even offer facts to back these statements up or have any type of coherent plan for the future.
As for Michelle, I'm willing to bet that her shoes aren't going to end up in trash bags.
