It's a Wingnut World After All

Obama can't do anything right ever - Disney World edition:

Maybe I am crazy, but I come from a world where it is a privilege, dare I say an honor, to hear a sitting president speak in person. I guess I am a little biased, because if it were George W. Bush speaking at Disney World, I would probably rather ride the Tea Cups until I puked up my intestines. But regardless of the speaker, there is still something unique and timeless about the opportunity to see an American president speak in person. Not so for the Fair and Balanced brigade at Fox, who automatically assumes that the Kenyan Socialist Usurper is shitting all over Real Murkins' vacations by his very presence. 

I know it's belaboring the obvious at this point, but Obama can't do anything right in these people's eyes. The fact that they still hide behind the laughable 'fair and balanced' label, and the fact that people actually buy that facade, is pathetic and laughable. 

Should the Media Strive for Higher Standards than TMZ?

I think this was the biggest story of last week (via Atrios):

I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about. 

One example mentioned recently by a reader: As cited in an Adam Liptak article on the Supreme Court, a court spokeswoman said Clarence Thomas had “misunderstood” a financial disclosure form when he failed to report his wife’s earnings from the Heritage Foundation. The reader thought it not likely that Mr. Thomas “misunderstood,” and instead that he simply chose not to report the information. 

Another example: on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney often says President Obama has made speeches “apologizing for America,” a phrase to which Paul Krugman objected in a December 23 column arguing that politics has advanced to the “post-truth” stage.

Wow. The stenography of the media is one of those things the you know is going on, but when you see them openly admit it in print, it suddenly makes it much, much worse. I suppose this is progress though. The best comment by far on this revealing query comes from Glenn Greenwald:

That’s basically the equivalent of pondering in a medical journal whether doctors should treat diseases, or asking in a law review article whether lawyers should defend the legal interests of their clients, etc.: reporting facts that conflict with public claims (what Brisbane tellingly demeaned as being “truth vigilantes”) is one of the defining functions of journalism, at least in theory.

Exactly. People read the news to be informed, and for the purpose of having an independent third-party hold powerful interests and government to account. In most cases, neither of those things presently happen. And the fact that someone in Brisbane's position even has to ask this question just shows how far we've fallen. 

BOOOOOOOOOORING!

The always excellent Media Matters pillories our pedantic, infantile media's refusal to report on the Stop Online Piracy Act, a giant shit heap of a bill with significant negative ramifications to the web.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the corporate control of our media overlords and the fact that many of them have a vested interest in this bill being passed. 

Farther Down the Rabbit Hole

Some asshole over at the Politico is whining that Newt's overtly racist remarks were taken out of context and that he is being unfairly pilloried. I wish I were kidding.

Some days, American politics and the American media is like a bad reality show. It's enough to make you want to vomit profusely while hitting yourself in the junk and slamming your head against the wall all at once. 

Your Liberal Media

Via Digby:

Mitchell: at the same time Bachmann did she show some real problems being able to handle the economic questions. She really doubled down on the default of being against the debt ceiling raising and default isn't that big an issue we could have handled it. Let's see for a second the way she handled it with Lester Holt on the "Today" show. 

Bachmann: You cannot turn the economy around if you give Barack Obama a blank check for $2.4 trillion in exchange for $21 billion in cuts. 

Holt: This raising the debt ceiling was for bills that have been agreed to, not new spending 

Bachman: Actually that's not true. This money will go not just to bills that have already been spent, this will be for future money as well. That's a false statement. 

Mitchell: So here she's saying to Lester Holt that raising the debt ceiling is to take care of future money not past money, which is not factual. 

Cook: It's not true, but on the other hand she's not saying anything that a lot of Republican caucus attendees or primary voters would disagree with. 

Mitchell: So, politically it's fine. 

Cook: Yeah, politically I think it's fine ...

In other words, Bachmann is full of shit and spewing outright lies, but Republicans in general are also full of shit, and their dumb voters like that. So, I think it's okay that they're lying. Not my place to call them on it. Meh!

And Then They Promised Ponies For Every Man, Woman, and Child Too!

There are few things more painful to read than a column or book written by Thomas Friedman. They're full of hyperbole, kitschy exaggerations and doomsday scenarios that are going to happen RIGHT NOW if we don't act, folksy analogies and contrived expressions that he gleefully spews as if he's incapable of just calling a certain phenomenon or proper noun by their given name. I would say it's the literary equivalent of having a permanent ice cream headache while getting kicked repeatedly in the balls. 

Now that I have that off of my chest, John Cole links to the following Friedman abomination that is well worth mocking:

“My fellow Americans,” the Ohio Republican began. “We have just concluded a meeting with the president, prompted by this moment of extraordinary economic peril. Our party, as you know, is convinced that the main reason for our economic decline is that we have too much debt, that government has grown too big and that taxes and regulations are choking our dynamism. But I have to acknowledge that, over the years, our party has contributed to this debt burden and government spending binge. We are not innocent, and, therefore, we owe the country a strategy for governing and for fixing a problem that we helped to create — instead of just blocking the president. The G.O.P. is better than that and has more to offer the nation. Therefore, we have informed the president that our legislators are ready to reopen negotiations immediately on a ‘Grand Bargain’ to address all these debt issues once and for all and that everything will be on the table from our side — including tax reform that closes loopholes and eliminates wasteful subsidies, and, if need be, tax increases. To those who voted for us, rest assured that we will bring our conservative values to these negotiations and an emphasis on markets and meritocracies, but also a spirit of compromise and a recognition that both sides will have to bend if we are going to get the kind of comprehensive budget agreement the country needs. 

[...] 

At that point, all five leaders shook hands and retreated into the Oval Office. It was exactly 9:29 a.m. One minute later, the New York Stock Exchange opened. The Dow was up 1,223 points at the open — an all-time record.

Yes, sadly dreck like this has earned him a Pulitzer and millions of dollars in book sales. And he writes for the goddamn NY Times. I would say this classic post by Tbogg sums up how I feel about this Friedman column:

Every year in Happy Gumdrop Fairy-Tale Land all of the sprites and elves and woodland creatures gather together to pick the Rainbow Sunshine Queen. Everyone is there: the Lollipop Guild, the Star-Twinkle Toddlers, the Sparkly Unicorns, the Cookie Baking Apple-cheeked Grandmothers, the Fluffy Bunny Bund, the Rumbly-Tumbly Pupperoos, the Snowflake Princesses, the Baby Duckies All-In-A-Row, the Laughing Babies, and the Dykes on Bikes. They have a big picnic with cupcakes and gumdrops and pudding pops, stopping only to cast their votes by throwing Magic Wishing Rocks into the Well of Laughter, Comity, and Good Intentions. Afterward they spend the rest of the night dancing and singing and waving glow sticks until dawn when they tumble sleepy-eyed into beds made of the purest and whitest goose down where they dream of angels and clouds of spun sugar. 

You don’t live there. 

Grow the fuck up.

Granted that's a commentary on elections, but you get the point.

Is That a Raging Signal of Confidence in Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

Digby links to the following conversation from MSNBC's Morning Joe:

JON CORZINE: First of all, we ought to send out signals of confidence. It's easy to sit on the sidelines when you're not governing. I would love to see the President call the leaders of Congress back to Washington in the next week, walk out together and say we're going to do the Grand Bargain.  

JOE SCARBOROUGH: What a great signal that would send.  

CORZINE: It would send an enormous confidence setting tone for the market. 

What the fuck is it with these people and the boners they get for sending "signals" and "confidence"? It's just stupid. They actually believe we ought to enact some certain set of policies (ostensibly ones that fuck the poor and middle class, 'cause markets just love that shit) just to send warm fuzzies to the free market Jebus. That's what's at the crux of their statements - governance by DJIA. 

And let's look at their track record. We were harangued for months by the pearl clutchers in the media as they damn near fainted telling us how badly we needed to tie a deficit reduction package to the debt ceiling vote. Because you know, confidence and stuff! Well, we did that, and what did it get us? A credit rating downgrade, the Dow has its worst day since the financial crisis in 2008, and everyone flocks to Treasury securities because people are waking up to just how shitty the global economy has become. 

I know this may sound crazy, but perhaps we might send confidence boners if we actually pursued policies that resulted in GDP growth beyond 1% or meaningful job creation, none of these bullshit half measures like patent reform or tax credits for new hires. Or if one of our political parties wasn't barking mad and didn't actively oppose any measure that might actually improve the economy. 

Shorter WSJ Op-Ed

The fastest way to regain our AAA bond rating is to proper fuck the poor and middle class. And hard. Also, the President should be less black and more like Jesus Ronald Reagan.

I wish I were kidding.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

This is the level to which we've sunk:

Neener neener Obama! Palin did it first you big poopiehead!

I know a sitting president planning a bus tour in an election year is so similar to an aimless grifter/TV personality wandering aimlessly around with the media in tow, breathlessly awaiting her to do anything/something of importance.

"Views Differ On Shape of Planet"

Krugman preaches it like he's got the love of Jebus:

Yet many people in the news media apparently can’t bring themselves to acknowledge this simple reality. News reports portray the parties as equally intransigent; pundits fantasize about some kind of “centrist” uprising, as if the problem was too much partisanship on both sides. 

Some of us have long complained about the cult of “balance,” the insistence on portraying both parties as equally wrong and equally at fault on any issue, never mind the facts. I joked long ago that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read “Views Differ on Shape of Planet.” But would that cult still rule in a situation as stark as the one we now face, in which one party is clearly engaged in blackmail and the other is dickering over the size of the ransom?

The answer, it turns out, is yes. And this is no laughing matter: The cult of balance has played an important role in bringing us to the edge of disaster. For when reporting on political disputes always implies that both sides are to blame, there is no penalty for extremism. Voters won’t punish you for outrageous behavior if all they ever hear is that both sides are at fault. 

[...] 

But making nebulous calls for centrism, like writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties, is a big cop-out — a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse.

Can I get an amen?

Remember - Democrats want to resolve the deficit by cutting ONLY $2 trillion instead of $4 trillion and without so much as a goddamned nickel in revenue increases, but they don't want to raid Medicare and Social Security, so both sides do it! Partisan intransigence! If only we could have a little bipartisanship in Washington!

Plutocrats Have Delicate Fee-Fes

Assholes:

Fox's Bolling: Focusing On Corporate Tax Breaks Was "Not Fair" And  "Was A Class Warfare."

Dobbs: Obama's Speech Was "Straightforward Class Warfare"

Limbaugh: "Obama Once Again Cranking Up The Class Warfare."

Beck: Obama "Launched An Unprecedented Class Warfare" On The "Private Jet Class."

Drudge: "Obama Launches Class Warfare."

RedState: Obama Went "Straight For The Class Warfare Jugular."

Hit the link for the full quote/text from each overpaid asshole liar pundit. 

You really can't make this shit up. They are partially right, of course; there is a class war raging in the US, but it's not being waged by Obama or us peasants without the means for private jets. It is, however, absolutely being conducted and advanced daily by the banksters, the US Chamber of Commerce and dozens of other sinister lobbying groups, the Republican party, the Koch brothers, and any number of other super moneyed plutocrats that would rather see people starving or dying from a lack of access to affordable healthcare than pay another dime in taxes or have nine vacation homes instead of ten. They want to dump carcinogens in your water and poison your air in order to inflate that stock price a bit more, bar you from unionizing or reaping any share in the company's fortunes through the sort of wages or benefits that might cut into their profit margins, use every scare tactic and lobbyist on K Street to prevent the establishment of universal healthcare and fight for cuts to Social Security simply because they can already retire several times over themselves.

But you know, Obama is mean for yelling at the Republicans and eroding the decorum among gentlemen in government. And he started a class war by speaking ill of delicate billionaires.

Obama Takes the Gloves Off

To the extent that he can, anyway.

On taxes:

There's been a lot of discussion about revenues and raising taxes in recent weeks, so I want to be clear about what we're proposing here. I spent the last two years cutting taxes for ordinary Americans, and I want to extend those middle-class tax cuts. The tax cuts I'm proposing we get rid of are tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires; tax breaks for oil companies and hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners.

It would be nice if we could keep every tax break there is, but we've got to make some tough choices here if we want to reduce our deficit. And if we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we've got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship. That means we've got to stop funding certain grants for medical research. That means that food safety may be compromised. That means that Medicare has to bear a greater part of the burden. Those are the choices we have to make.

So the bottom line is this: Any agreement to reduce our deficit is going to require tough decisions and balanced solutions. And before we ask our seniors to pay more for health care, before we cut our children's education, before we sacrifice our commitment to the research and innovation that will help create more jobs in the economy, I think it's only fair to ask an oil company or a corporate jet owner that has done so well to give up a tax break that no other business enjoys. I don't think that's real radical. I think the majority of Americans agree with that.

I really don't know why he diddled around with the Biden talks and all of the behind the scenes chicanery for so long. This is a winning message. It's a populist message. The polls pretty much scream just this - no one wants to cut Social Security Medicare, everyone wants to cut defense, everyone thinks the uber rich and corporations ought to pay more in taxes (if some of them pay any at all). No one gives a shit about Obama's post-partisan-change-the-tone-of-Washington dreck. It was good for a campaign, but really - no one cares once you're in office. People want tangible results that they care about, not a warm fuzzy because Obama is trying his best not to hurt the Republican's fee-fees. And it's an easy contrast to draw too. Republicans want no tax increases ever because they are wholly owned subsidiary of the plutocrats and corporate elite. They just act like higher taxes kill jobs for the low information types to have a rationale to believe in their blindly ignorant anti-tax dogma.

And he savages Congress too:

And I've got to say, I'm very amused when I start hearing comments about, well, the President needs to show more leadership on this. Let me tell you something. Right after we finished dealing with the government shutdown, averting a government shutdown, I called the leaders here together. I said we've got to get done -- get this done. I put Vice President Biden in charge of a process -- that, by the way, has made real progress -- but these guys have met, worked through all of these issues. I met with every single caucus for an hour to an hour and a half each -- Republican senators, Democratic senators; Republican House, Democratic House. I've met with the leaders multiple times. At a certain point, they need to do their job.

And so, this thing, which is just not on the level, where we have meetings and discussions, and we're working through process, and when they decide they're not happy with the fact that at some point you've got to make a choice, they just all step back and say, well, you know, the President needs to get this done -- they need to do their job.

Now is the time to go ahead and make the tough choices. That's why they're called leaders. And I've already shown that I'm willing to make some decisions that are very tough and will give my base of voters further reason to give me a hard time. But it's got to be done.

And so there's no point in procrastinating. There's no point in putting it off. We've got to get this done. And if by the end of this week, we have not seen substantial progress, then I think members of Congress need to understand we are going to start having to cancel things and stay here until we get it done.

They're in one week, they're out one week. And then they're saying, Obama has got to step in. You need to be here. I've been here. I've been doing Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis. You stay here. Let's get it done.

Here, here. I have never seen a bigger bunch of piss pants whiners than the 111th/112th Congress, or more sternly worded letters written to the President asking him to hold their collective hands on this issue or that. You didn't consult us on Libya, we need more leadership in the government shutdown talks, we need you to step in on the debt ceiling. You are legislators. You were elected to do a job. Put on the big boy pants and legislate. This was long overdue.

And finally, just like any time a Democrat calls Republicans on their bull shit, the media clutches their pearls in shocked horror:

I'm not going to go into the implications of a Drudge's cabana boy Halperin calling the President a dick on national television. See Greg Sargent for a comprehensive take down of why this obfuscates the real problem with our tabloid media. I will just note that Republicans are allowed, or even expected, to strut around preening and saying all kinds of ridiculous and often objectively false statements about the President and the Democrats, and the second any one Democrat says something to the contrary (or FSM forbid, forceful), the GOP and their media stenographers lose their shit over the lack of "civility" in our discourse. 

Also too, Halperin was well aware of the fact that there was no tape delay, and spewed his childish, pedantic comment anyway. I am willing to bet that he is angling for a Juan Williams style departure to Fox News. MSNBC eventually fires him, or Halperin leaves citing irreconcilable differences, he picks up an enormous contract as a Fox host/contributor, and voila, it's a victory for the Fox News Channel and a triumph over the meanie liberal media that punishes and censors people that take a position against the President. Just watch.

ThomasGate

I am sure that this will be afforded the same level of breathless media frenzy for that accompanied WeinerGate. You know, because having IM conversations and tweeting dick pics is a serious problem that demands weeks of coverage. Judicial conflicts of interest in highest court in the land? Meh. BOOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIIIIING.

Tabloid Media, Continued

This week TPM (via Steve Benen) put together what is probably the quintessential statement on our media's willful abdication and complete failure to perform their responsibility of public accountability, transparency, or reporting on true crises or anything that actually matters:

They may as well have stuck their fingers in their ears and screamed BLAH BLAH BLAH JOBS MEDICARE AND THE MIDDLE CLASS BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! GOD! When is she going to talk about Weiner's dick pictures?!

These people have something seriously wrong with them.

Freedom to Poison Yourself on the Water of the Free Market

John Cole offers the following on the GOP's increasingly strange hatred of EPA:

As chance would have it, today in my post office box (another government service that I absolutely cherish) there was a piece of mail from the local public service department, where I get my water. It was an annual EPA required report, detailing in clear English, where my water comes from. Half of it is treated surface water from the Ohio River, the rest is from deep wells along the banks of the river. The report outlined backup plans should the Ohio become contaminated (more and more likely as Pennsylvania allows drillers to simply dump whatever the fuck they want in the water), and then went on and provided the annual data on the level of contaminants in my drinking water.

I like this. I think it is valuable for a number of reasons, beyond simply keeping me informed. It also verifies that the folks who provide me my water are keeping an eye on things, and providing a safe, clean product that I and my neighbors can consume. It’s the very model of good government. This is why we band together to form government- to do things that would be impossible to do otherwise.

To Republicans, though, this is an evil thing. And this is why I get so livid at the assholes in the media who cover the Republicans and give us the he said/she said version of things. If Republicans had their way, you and your kids would likely be drinking contaminated water and no one would be around to tell you about it. That’s the facts in the case, not “Bachmann claims the EPA kills jobs, while Democrats disagree.” This is why our media is failing us. When Republicans want to end the EPA, it’s not some esoteric debate about big government Democrats and small government conservatives. It’s not he said/she said. It’s “they don’t want you to know about all the shit GE dumped in the Hudson, and furthermore, they don’t want GE to clean it up, either, and as a matter of fact, GE should not be regulated in any way shape or form and should be free to dump shit in your water” versus “we need some sensible regulations to limit the harm corporations do to the environment so we can protect the population and make sure we have clean drinking water.”

I honestly don't understand this either, or how the Republican base has become so unhinged from reality that they actually go along with this shit. It's really not a partisan issue that we ought to have some basic form of government accountability that ensures, at a minimum, that the water we drink and the air we breathe is, you know, conducive to sustaining human life.

The Tabloid Press Corps

Greenwald:

There are few things more sickening -- or revealing -- to behold than a D.C. sex scandal. Huge numbers of people prance around flamboyantly condemning behavior in which they themselves routinely engage. Media stars contrive all sorts of high-minded justifications for luxuriating in every last dirty detail, when nothing is more obvious than that their only real interest is vicarious titillation. Reporters who would never dare challenge powerful political figures who torture, illegally eavesdrop, wage illegal wars or feed at the trough of sleazy legalized bribery suddenly walk upright -- like proud peacocks with their feathers extended -- pretending to be hard-core adversarial journalists as they collectively kick a sexually humiliated figure stripped of all importance. The ritual is as nauseating as it is predictable.

[...]

Can one even imagine how much different -- and better -- our political culture would be if our establishment media devoted even a fraction of the critical scrutiny and adversarial energy it devoted to the Weiner matter to things that actually matter? But that won't happen, because the people who comprise that press corps, with rare exception, are both incapable of focusing on things that matter and uninterested in doing so. Talking about shirtless pictures and expressing outrage about private sexual behavior -- like some angry, chattering soap opera fan furious that one of their best-known characters cheated -- is about the limit of their abilities and their function. And doing so is so easy, so fun, so self-justifying, and so exciting in that evasively tingly sort of way.

You know, things that actually matter, like this:

"They're saying there are more jobs. I'm just wondering where those jobs are," Lambrecht said.

About 6.2 million Americans, 45.1 percent of all unemployed workers in this country, have been jobless for more than six months - a higher percentage than during the Great Depression.

The bigger the gap on someone's resume, the more questions employers have.

"(Employers) think: 'Oh, well, there must be something really wrong with them because they haven't gotten a job in 6 months, a year, 2 years.' But that's not necessarily the case," said Marjorie Gardner-Cruse with the Hollywood Worksource Center.

The problem of course is the economy, but some industries, especially certain manufacturing jobs, are not ever expected to come back. Experts say unemployed workers need to be prepared to change careers.

Who has time to talk about the worst unemployment crisis in history when there are penis Twitter pics and deficits to clutch our pearls about?

Beltway Groupthink

I can't remember what story it was that I read that made me think of this, but I randomly thought of this term today:

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups of people. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints.

Sound like anyone you know? You know...maybe like, everyone in DC and the establishment media? Deficits hysteria? Budgets should be balanced through cuts and never revenue? FIghting multiple useless, prolonged wars is always an awesome idea?

Looks like the Wikipedia entry read my mind as well:

More recently, Dina Badie argues that the invasion of Iraq by the United States was driven by groupthink. According to Badie, groupthink was largely responsible for the shift in the U.S. administration’s view on Sadam Hussein that eventually led to military action in Iraq. After 9/11, “stress, promotional leadership, and intergroup conflict” were all factors that gave way to the occurrence of groupthink

New tag.

Sigh

I have no words:

Of all the newspaper headlines covering the death of Osama bin Laden, the most provocative may have been the New York Daily News.

Their "Rot in Hell" Monday headline, with a full front-page photo of bin Laden, was mentioned by the cable news networks and generated buzz on the on-line social networks.

So do Americans think that the founder and leader of the al Qaeda terrorist network is now in hell?

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Tuesday, 61 percent of the public says yes, with one in ten saying no and nearly a quarter unsure.

"Not all Americans believe in hell - a point of view reflected in the relatively large number of 'don't know' responses - and many religions don't include punishment in an afterlife as part of their teachings," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Nonetheless, the six in ten who say bin Laden is in hell reflects how strongly many Americans feel that bin Laden was an evil figure."

"This is one question on which there is little partisan division - at least six in ten Democrats, independents and Republicans all believe bin Laden is in hell," adds Holland.

Well thank Jebus for that. We may not agree on much, but OMG LOOK there's bipartisan consensus that bin Laden is in Hell! And our poll data confirms that Americans think that the man responsible for blowing up the WTC and killing 3,000 Americans is an evil figure! Hard hitting, ground breaking, in your fucking face news!

Next up, we go to your Twitter pages to find out if you think Obama is a meanie poopy face doodie head for not releasing photos of a bullet-ridden mangled bin Laden corpse, and Wolf Blitzer breaks out the Minority Report ginormous touch screen to manipulate data and show us stuff with things. All that and more stupid unnecessary ill informed jackassery - after this.

(h/t HuffPost)