Random thoughts, dubious rants, curiosities and worthy citations on the media, politics, marketing, music, inanity, and animals, among other things. Words and pictures and stuff, mostly from south central Wisconsin USA
Good luck. This is a prime example of how the "journalists" at FOX "News" present "facts."
Funny in a way, especially when Jon Stewart is the de-bunker. But there are a lot of people -- sadly, many that are even somewhat educated -- that believe this shit.
Too funny. De Facto Republican leadership at FOX News and the Tea Party folks have done what the Democrats have not been able to do in 70 elections. They essentially lost the seat by forcing out the locally chosen Republican candidate in favor of a third-party conservative.
The list of supporters of Doug Hoffman includes Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Neal Cavuto, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson, the Dick Armey, Rick Santorum, Geroge Pataki, Newt Gingrich and many more all lined up to trash regular Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava. They called her all kinds of things beyond just being a RINO, and backed the otherwise unknown Doug Hoffman.
Now, you know, this was a victory for real Republicans. Real Republican Michelle Malkin says so...
Hoffman may have lost narrowly, but NY-23 is a much
broader victory for conservatives who believe the Republican Party
should stand for core limited government principles ....This is a
victory of principle.
Better a donkey in office that acts like a donkey than a donkey in elephant’s clothing making a complete ass of the GOP.
Moreover,
NY-23 is a victory for conservatives who refuse to be marginalized in
the public square by either the unhinged left or the establishment
right. A humble accountant from upstate New York exposed the hypocrisy
of GOP leaders trying to solicit funds from conservatives by lambasting
Pelosi and the Dems’ support for high taxes, Big Labor, and bigger
government — while using conservatives’ money to subsidize a
high-taxing, Big Labor-pandering, bigger government radical. The
repercussions will be felt well beyond NY-23’s borders. Conservatives’
disgust with the status quo has been heard and felt. They have been
silent too long. They will be silent no more.
OK, Michelle. And you guys don't care about this stupid seat anyway. Forget about how the de facto leaders at FOX News harped on how important this election as, and how it would be proof that the Tea Baggers were now calling the shots and that's how the Republican party is going to reclaim the throne they so rightly deserve. That was before. Before Hoffman lost.
Jed Lewison posted a montage over at DK, under the headline Engineering Defeat, that is about eight minutes worth of the several hours FOX News gave over to promoting this race and their special candidate...
The last time NY23 was not held by a Republican, it was held by a Whig. Priceless.
Those videos of the central casting version of a white guy pretending to be a pimp and his pal doing her best to appear like a whore got a lot of people all kinds of worked up over ACORN. It gave FOX News fodder for weeks, and ultimately ACORN lost funding and government contracts.
For what those videos showed, ACORN deserved to be investigated. I have no disagreement with that at all. It may have been a little more appropriate to investigate before passing judgment, but such a process fall under the IOKIYAR rule I guess. (As an aside, though, props to RNC national chairman Michael "How We Roll" Steele for actually speaking up in favor of ACORN's CO. I wonder how many GOP heads exploded on that one. But I digress.)
That brings me to this video montage. I am shocked -- shocked! -- that FOX New hasn't been all over this hidden video sting operation. Can you believe it? Private gun sales do not require background checks even at gun shows and the like... unless the sells knowingly sell to someone who gives reason for the seller to even suspect they may not pass a background check. [18 U.S.C. §922(d)].
You can see more at GunShowUndercover.org,
plus video of "straw purchases," where a presumably prohibited buyer
makes the deal, then brings in someone totally different to fill out
the paperwork and become the "owner," right in front of the eyes of
federally licensed dealers.
Fake pimps. Fake "hos." Fake "brothels."
Real guns. Real crimes.
You tell me which one deserves time on the TeeVee, and a stampede to
the floor of the House and Senate with new legislation in hand.
This series of stings was carried out by weapons investigators for the City of New York. This wasn't a game of gotcha by a couple FOX wannabe operatives looking for a scandal. These are real investigators uncovering real crimes involving real guns... not just fishing with "what ifs." 94% of their attempted gun purchases by people admitting they cannot pass a background check -- enough to stop a sale by law -- went through anyway. (No word on how many of those ACORN "stings" didn't work. I guess that's the difference between real and play investigation.)
Help register Black people to vote? Evil! Must be shut down by any means. Sell assault weapons to people who could never pass a background check and openly admit it? Hey, go on ahead now, ya hear?
I'm not here to try to defend the ACORN nonsense. Much of it is indefensible based on what I know and read. I just want to see the same attention paid to real gun sellers breaking the law repeatedly and putting very dangerous (and needless) weapons on the street in the hands of people the law clearly says should not be packing heat.
Can you just smell those Republican values? Mmmm. Guns.
The White House online director, Jesse Lee, noted in his blog that Glenn Beck is ridiculing the attempts to bring the Olympics to the Chicago. Likely because President Obama is from Chicago, sort of, Beck is assailing the city's bid. And he seems to have good reason, don't you know:
Glenn Beck said, "Vancouver lost, how much was
it? they lost a billion dollars when they had the Olympics."
[Transcript, Glenn Beck Show, 9/29/09]
Yeah, about that. The Olympic Games in Vancouver don't take place until next year. 2010. In the future. But Glenn is so amazing! He claims he only speaks the truth, so he must have gone into the future, looked at the balance sheets for the 2010 games, and came back to warn us. Too bad he couldn't have used those powers to warn people in Samoa about the tsunami. Oh, right. American Samoa isn't really, you know, American. They look kinda brown and foreign down there. Silly me.
But, still: time-traveler! I want him to go forward again to tell me how George W. Bush will really be remembered by history. That will be good for a laugh.
Jon Stewart and the Daily Show do what they do best: expose hypocrisy and stupidity and make it funny. Well, it's kind of funny. OK, pretty funny. Yet still, this video captures what the Party of No seems to think are the key issues of the past week: The evil ACORN, the NEA, and kids singing a song about the first Black president during Black History Month.
Well, it's come to this. Venerable conservative "news" network FOX News has become liberal. Say it ain't so!
Jon Stewart does what he does best as he takes a walk through the video archives to prove FOX News now leads the pack of liberal media... if you use their own previous reporting to define "liberal."
Oh, FOX. How unfortunate that you have memory issues, no longer being able to recall what was said on your network in previous years... and even recent months. Makes me think that maybe their key editors and strategists have the reasoning capacity of ten-year-olds.
Pieces like this support polling data that places Jon Stewart -- a comedian by trade -- at the top of the list of most trusted newscasters in America. Just pointing out the rank hypocrisy of FOX -- and countless politicians and other news organizations as well -- is enough to make Stewart as the most honest. And why not? By doing so, he demonstrates every day how full of shit most of the media... and most often, FOX News... really proves themselves to be.
As
one who spent 25 years in the media planning and placement business, I
understand that advertisers don't really buy specific programs for the
most part. They package ad buys across several dayparts and even
across sibling networks. They don't buy spots; they buy aggregated
rating points.
But they can pull out of a show. And another one is out of Glenn Beck.
I was one of many who responded to the list of
advertisers airing spot on Glenn Beck's FOX News program. I went right
at one company with a more personalized appeal.
Over the past ten years or so, I worked at two different ad agencies
that handled Sargento Foods. They impressed me as a well-run company
guided by smart people. They make an excellent product that competes
with marketing behemoths like Kraft General Foods, and they are based
here in Wisconsin.
Their good name benefits not at all from being a sponsor of Beck's
crazy talk. I politely wrote to them asking why they would even want
to be associated with him. I didn't ask them not to be a Beck sponsor,
but approached the issue from the "this guy's a pox on your brand"
angle.
Initially, I received one of those "yeah, thanks, we'll share that with marketing" responses. But a day later, I received this:
We deeply appreciate your reaching out to us and sharing your
comments and concerns about Sargento ads appearing during "The Glenn
Beck Show." We sat down with the marketing department to talk about it
and I learned that we buy time periods not specific programs. But in
any event, they’ve made the decision to exclude that program from our
future ad rotation. Simply stated, Sargento ads won’t be airing during
that show. Again, thanks for contacting us.
The email included a personal salutation, as well as a specific name
of a customer relations director. That may seem insignificant, but it
is not. They were taking the time to personally reconnect. To me,
it's a sign of taking this issue seriously.
In the end, FOX likely will still keep whatever money Sargento Foods
is spending, with or without spots on Glenn Beck. But companies like
Sargento, and as diaried here as well... State Farm,
are listening. And they recognize that it does their brands no good to
be associated with the broadcast equivalent of terrorism.
I'm proud of Wisconsin-based Sargento, as well as another former client
of mine, State Farm. I'm happy that I can continue to feel good about
being a customer of theirs.
The Fourth of July Tea Party circuit was pretty much a bust. Sparse crowds. Uninspired yelling. White supremacist recruiting. All in all, not nearly as powerful as the April 15th FOX News ratings promotion.
At least the folks that gathered in Times Square to hear the wisdom of Stephen Baldwin were an informed group. Well, actually, not so much on the "informed" thing. But they were certainly entertaining...
Honestly, it's the first thing I thought of. Unfortunately, Billo the Clown was taking the day off. Maybe he's in seclusion. Maybe he's out getting drunk. Maybe he was realizing that he doesn't shape the world after all.
I've been waiting for this day so that I could say something special to you.
You see, Bill, I remember exactly where I was when I heard you
declare on your radio show, shortly after Election Day 2008, that "that
guttersnipe" Al Franken would "never" set foot inside the United States
Senate.
It wasn't a toss-away line. You were emphatic. You called Al Franken a guttersnipe and swore he'd never
become a United States Senator. Do you remember that, Bill? I do. I was
in the car with my partner driving down Falmouth Street in Portland. As
we turned the corner onto Oakdale Street, you made your bitter,
non-negotiable declaration. I seared that moment into my brain, Bill.
And here we are, at the intersection of Psychic Friends Network Avenue
and Reality Boulevard.
This morning I want to tell you something, Bill O'Reilly. Come closer... Closer... Cloooooser...
Okay, man, that's close enough.
Now, with my lips a quarter-inch from your---whoo---abnormally-waxy ear canal, I can finally whisper the words I've waited nearly eight months to say:
"Game over, Bill. You lose. And not just another battle with Al. This time you lost the war."
I couldn't have said it better myself. Now excuse me while I laugh my ass off before I get back to that thesis thing.
This Mark Sanford scandal has been breathtaking to watch. As scandals go, it has so much chunky goodness, it's like Christmas and a few birthdays rolled into one! I mean, honestly, this gem is going to top the charts.
The whole drama over Where's Waldo starts with the governor's security guys not being able to say where he is.
Then apparently inexperienced and annoying lieutenant governor gets annoyed. The wife says she has no idea where he is (but actually knows way more than she let on). The staff either lies or just repeats a lie about hiking on the Appalachian Trail, leaving them to look to be either complicit or clueless.
The Appalachian Trail story line gets funny as we find out Sunday was Naked Hiking Day and that the government stimulus plan Sanford fought so hard to turn away actually kicked money toward said Appalachian Trail.
Columbia SC newspapermen stake out the Atlanta airport. Surprise! "I was in Argentina!"
There's a tearful press conference, admission of guilt and claim of remorse and regret. Apologize to nearly everyone everywhere. Apologize some more. And a bit more. Then admit marital infidelity. Whoops!
FOX News goes to battle stations, changing the chirons to indicate that Sanford is a Democrat, even though there is ample digital proof they (and nearly everyone) are well aware he is oh-so-Republican.
Old emails leak out and go front page in the local paper, who had been sitting on them since December (!), reinforcing claims that local media and other pols knew of the hanky and the panky for a while. Mrs. Sanford goes public. A pillar in the holier-than-you-gays-sanctity-of-marriage movement had been kicked out by the missus two weeks ago.
Whew!
I want in on the scandal! The best I can do is to shamelessly rip off a really, really funny comment from Jed Lewison at DK, who apparently shamelessly nicked it from someone else:
Subject: Inside word from Sanford
It was a slight miscommunication between Sanford and his staff. He
told them he'd be "spiking some Argentina tail," and they thought he'd
said, "hiking the Appalachian trail." It was an honest mistake. I
think they handled it well...family values and all.
At least I was able to scam the top comment on this post at DK and used it to say I was stealing it.
And in these days of instant digital media, stuff like this is already hitting the Internets...
Might as well keep borrowing, this time turning to Keith Olberman, who teamed with Lewis Black, to discuss the plausibility (or lack thereof) of the Appalachian Trail hiking cover story.
Governor? May I call you Mark? Let's face it, Mark: you, sir, are fucked. But you do have the heartfelt appreciation of Senator Ensign for taking the spotlight off him, and from Governor Palin for making her look kinda good, at least for a few days.