Whiskey Fire

Noble Sacrifice

Shorter Peter Beinart:

It is beautiful and moving how Democrats are all of a sudden for the first time ever in history willing to compromise on an issue of women's rights. Bart Stupak is to be especially commended for his unselfish willingness to sacrifice control of his own uterus.

I particularly enjoyed Beinart's phrasing here:

In Pennsylvania, they muscled a pro-choice candidate out of the way to clear room for anti-abortion Democrat Robert Casey, whose father had famously claimed that party bigwigs prevented him from discussing his opposition to abortion at the 1992 Democratic Convention.

This flirts with a notorious zombie lie, but does not go all the way. Kids! If you ever really, really want to adduce evidence that you know is shaky in order to advance a thesis even you yourself on some level have to know is hooey, study your Beinart. He's the master.

Hidden Hates of Urgency

Here is why I dislike the American Political Insider Press, and by "dislike," I mean, "want to toss into a vat of shark-infested sulfuric acid." It is because of this class of thing from The Politico.

When Al Franken ran for the Senate last year, the former “Saturday Night Live” star had to reassure skeptics that the fierce partisan attacks he lobbed at Republicans as an author and radio host wouldn’t define his style as a legislator. 

But because of one of his first pieces of legislation, Democrats now have their most brazen attack line of the emerging 2010 campaign season: that Republicans are insensitive to rape victims. 

The charge stems from a Franken-sponsored amendment that would prohibit the Department of Defense from contracting with companies that require employees to resolve workplace complaints — including complaints of sexual assault — through private arbitration rather than the courts. 

Only in the god-blighted shitworld of the horrible fuckassed American Political Insider Press is it possible to even fucking think for a motherfucking minute that it's Playing with Partisan Dynamite to argue that the American government should not negotiate expensive contracts with companies that shield rapists. What the fuck? What the motherfucking fuck?

What the fuck is wrong with these people? What the fuck has even happened to them that they're even talking this shit?

Two paragraphs that are, essentially, notes from a sociopath underground -- or, actually, overground, Lord help us:

“Franken's amendment may make sense for national Democrats in laying down lines of attack heading into the 2010 campaign — but this is not what Franken needs to build a base in Minnesota,” said Larry Jacobs, an expert in state politics at the University of Minnesota. “Being a poster boy of a hard-hitting campaign against the Republican Party is the opposite of what he needs in Minnesota.” 

!

And,

Privately, GOP sources acknowledge that they failed to anticipate the political consequences of a “no” vote on the amendment. And several aides said that Republicans are engaged in an internal blame game about why they agreed to a roll-call vote on the measure, rather than a simple voice vote that would have allowed the opposing senators to duck criticism. 

!

For the record, the case that inspired the Franken amendment:

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. Jones described the container as sparely furnished with a bed, table and lamp.

"It felt like prison," says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming "20/20" investigation. "I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened."

Is trying to make it illegal for the US taxpayer to pay to have women gang raped and locked in tanks a Black Eye, or a Feather in Your Cap?

For the love of FUCK.

When Delusional Isn't Quite A Strong Enough Word

By: Monica_A

Birther Madness!

They may be repugnant human beings, but damned if they aren't the most entertaining bunch of borderline personalities. It's going to be a sad day when they disbar Oily Taintz.

Senators Sipping on Gentleman Jack

Some discussion has been occurring about how the filibuster might be reformed or dispensed with. I guess this is welcome, because the more it is generally accepted that the Senate is an utterly dysfunctional institution because it can't be anything else, the better off we'll be, in that there will be a bit less bullshit in the world. The problem, though, is that the only way to get the Senate to be less of a problem is to get Senators to reform the Senate, which is something that will never happen ever, because the Senate is composed of Senators.

So I'll sign on gladly to what Bowers proposes here. But I am skeptical about his points one through three, on the grounds that I have come to think that the Senate has become so insulated from, well, democracy, that it will end up destroying the nation and the world well before anything can ever be done about fixing it via democratic means. In short, I think global climate change is more easily remedied than the United States Senate, and I'm not exaggerating.

But I sure will do everything I can to discredit the Senate and mock it for its absurd self-regard, because, well, the Senate is full of Senators, and I don't like that class of individual, the pompous lot of preening shits.

Deranged Idiot Derangement Syndrome

Arrogant Negro Barrack Obama went and gave a speech on a military base, just like he was the president of the United States or something. Horrors!

Lots of people right and left praising Obama on his speech at Fort Hood today. I'm not. Not because it wasn't a good speech, but because the one who delivered it doesn't believe a word he uttered....

Not that more than a few parts were plagurized, more on that later.

I can't wait.

But if Obama believed this he would have since sent troop reinforcements to Afghanistan. He would have never accused our troops of air raiding villages or killing innocents - as he has.

And as we have. Innocents have not been killed in American air raids...?

Obama's actions - and inactions since entering office have done more to cause the incident at Fort Hood than stop it.

Blame Obama first.

Because of these and so much more he has no right to speak for me or any other soldier serving this country.

He's the Commander in Chief, elected as such by the American people. He has more than the right, he has the responsibility.

Suck on it. It's called "democracy."

These were the people ranting about "derangement syndromes," recall.

Breast Flaunting for Jesus

A failed California beauty pageant contestant who loves Jesus and fake tits, and disapproves of homosexuals, at some point in her life made a film of herself masturbating, and according to an Internet Gossip Web Site, the existence of this film caused this woman to lose a lawsuit because the people she was suing found it and threatened her with it.

In the ping-pong ball brain of Ann Althouse, the reason the Internet Gossip Web Site reported on this is because Saul Alinsky told them to. Whee! For, as this idiot has it, "The lesson here is that if you have even the slightest tendency toward conservative thinking, you’re an obvious target for personal destruction by the vicious harpies of the left, especially if you’re an attractive woman."

Right. Sounds rather like these women with slight tendencies towards thought do a fine job of personally self destructing, mainly because publicly engaging in "conservative thinking" is an awfully comical thing to do.

Portrait

I dislike many New York State senators -- my own not least. But I have long had an especial dislike for Rubén Díaz Sr. of the Bronx. If you are not familiar with the gentleman, read this NYT profile, and marvel.

Every Sunday morning, the deep, melodious voice of State Senator Rubén Díaz Sr rumbles across the congregation at his Bronx church. On weekdays, it echoes across the Senate chamber as he rails against Medicaid cuts or abortion. Earlier this year, it enthralled thousands at a boisterous rally against same-sex marriage.

But ask him about the gay people in his own life, and Mr. Díaz’s voice grows quiet. His smile vanishes.

Two of his brothers are gay, he murmurs, one of them recently deceased. So is a granddaughter. There is an old friend who works for him in the Senate. And a former campaign aide.

“I love them. I love them,” says Mr. Díaz, who grew up one of 17 children in Puerto Rico. “But I don’t believe in what they are doing. They are my brothers. They are my family.”

His voice rises again. “So how could I be a homophobe?”

Right. And moving forward:

He was forced to resign from the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board years ago for suggesting that the Gay Games would encourage homosexuality and spread H.I.V. In 2003, he sued the city to shut down a high school for gay and transgender students.

As advocates push for a vote on same-sex marriage in the State Senate on Tuesday, Mr. Díaz is again speaking out, arguing that last week’s election results show that the tide has turned against allowing gay people to wed.

And, given the Democrats’ fragile majority — the party has 32 senators to the Republicans’ 30 — Mr. Díaz’s stubbornness often yields results.

“The people of the nation don’t want gay marriage,” Mr. Díaz said in an interview Monday. “They didn’t want it in California; they didn’t want it in Maine. And the people of upstate New York, after what happened to the candidate in the 23rd Congressional District, they sent a message they don’t want gay marriage. Forget about it. People don’t want it.”

Mr. Díaz argued that the bill legalizing same-sex marriage should not be allowed to come to the floor, saying the Legislature has more important issues to attend to.

And the best part:

“My religion doesn’t allow me to dance,” he said. “But that does not mean I don’t go to the party. My religion doesn’t allow me to drink. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hang around with my friends. My religion is against gay marriage. It means, I don’t agree with what you do. But let’s go out. Let’s go to the movies. Let’s be friends.”

For those of Our Readership who ever wondered why Deep Blue NY is having trouble with this rather straightforward social justice issue, well, now you know. And knowing is half the battle, insofar as knowing just exactly who the main douchebags are is always pretty crucial.

This Seemed Like A Good Idea?

By Monica_A

I guess all that additional attention from the Secret Service make some people feel real special.

Westboro Baptist Church Organizes Homophobic Anti-Obama Protest Outside Sasha And Malia’s School

American Thinker: War on Left "is coming." Soon. No, Really, Any Time Now, Probably. You Never Know, So Look Out.

by va

This is something very special from "The American Thinker," which has been on a quite a tear of late. The Problem, as editor J.R. Dunn spells it out, is that the left just loves terrorism, and terrorists, and thinks that MASS DEATH is just, meh, another one of those things that happens. "This is a historically unique situation," he says, completely different from all those other historical situations in which the left could "never be truly patriotic in the real sense," you know, in the sense of getting yourself up in a star-spangled wetsuit and whacking it to some picture of a demure Betsy Ross in three-quarters profile til you're red, and then blue, and then white in the face. (Auto-patriotic asphyxiation?) Or whatever it is J.R. Dunn does to express his love of country.

Ahem. Dunn (no relation to Anita, we presume) goes on: "Never before would effective treason by a large minority have been tolerated, particularly involving such crucial sectors as media, academia, and education." So please, oh please, tell us about what our forefathers would have done to solve this problem of people who love terror, we're all thinking, Americanly.

So how do we respond? We'll pause here to allow the loud cry of "Hang ‘em all!" to roll over us and commend everyone involved for their enthusiasm, if not their prescription. But what we need, though perhaps not as final, is something effective and workable within with contemporary social norms.

Yes, contemporary social norms you say, this is a good strategy, even if it's a not-quite-final solution. Usually wingnuts are content to stand athwart 1863 yelling stop! but every now and again they venture into contemporary methods of elimination, which is how they stay relevant. To wit: "We yank drunk drivers out of cars; we must also yank leftists out of the public sphere." And then: "The second step is to identify them. Call them out by name, relentlessly and repeatedly." If you're Michelle Malkin, call them out by name, address, place of employment, place of elementary-schooling, whatever. And then "don't bring a knife to a gun fight." This would be sound advice if Dunn or his audience knew what a gun fight looked like. But finally, there's the third step which is to "target them, isolate them and render them harmless." Ohmigod, let us all be very afraid of the little American Thinkers threatening to terrorize the nation at some point, when they get around to it, to save it from terrorists. Methinks J.R. Dunn has consumed too much tea at those parties.

Just Open a Vein

The obvious solution. That will ease everyone's worries.

Hey

Family emergency. Key-holders, the place is yours for a bit...

There's No Trick to It... It's Just a Simple Trick!

One of my very favorite Serious Conservative Commentator games is the one where they have their spite and eat it too. Some nut somewhere says something absurd; Serious Conservative Commenter acknowledges the nuttiness, because he is Very Serious; but because Serious Conservative Commenter is Conservative, he puffs forth a "but yet" and transubstantiates the nuttiness into a Telling Critique of Liberalism. Here is Father James Geraghty solemnly performing this everyday miracle:

Like Robert George, I was a little thrown when I saw President Obama giving a "shout-out" to somebody in the audience, moments before he discussed the Fort Hood shooting. Like Jonah, I'm not sure this is something worth making too much fuss about; Obama will do worse things during his presidency than make some off-key remarks right before offering his first comments on a national outrage.

But I'll note something mildly troubling about this, and it relates to something I've discussed with a few other righties lately. Back during the campaign, Joe Biden had said that Obama was going to be tested early in his presidency. Some might see the Iranian protests as his first test, or North Korea's increasingly regular missile launches, or the looming and seemingly ever-delayed decision on Afghanistan.Yet all of these events have seemed far away and fairly distant from the day-to-day life of average Americans.

Yesterday's horrific shooting, with the ever-rising number of dead and wounded, was one of the few days this year where you felt the need to get to a television and stay updated on a rapidly developing crisis. Inevitably, life will offer more of these moments, and next time it may be more than one individual with murder on their mind.

When the next crisis greets President Obama, I don't want him to drop the ball. Our friends on the left keep telling us about his great temperament, and feel certain he'll rise to the occasion in the face of hard calls, where time is of the essence, that would leave many men whimpering. I hope they're right.

But right now the early indicators are a bit ominous. We're two months past the request for more troops in Afghanistan, and still waiting for a decision. The next decision might be, "Mr. President, that unresponsive passenger jet is two minutes away from a heavily-populated area. But we can't confirm a hijacking, it might just be some unresponsive equipment. The National Guard pilots are awaiting your order to shoot it down."

It's not that big a deal, totally insignificant... BUT YET (abraca-pocus!) it is PROOF THAT OMIGOD OBAMA IS GOING TO LET THE TERRORISTS KILL US! SHRIEK!

Besides that, the Ft. Hood killings are not the first mass killings to take place in the US during the Obama presidency. Why, not a mile from where I sit right now, there was a mass killing. But this apparently did not constitute a "test," and neither did that bit of fun with the Somali pirates, and so forth, because this cute little idiotic gotcha didn't happen to occur to Geraghty at the time. Or, more likely, it did, and he's just recycling, but I can't be bothered to look it up. Suffice it to say that Obama is obviously -- OMIGOD HERE COMES A PLANEFUL OF TERRORISTS SHRIEK.

MORE. Oh the sins of Obama! From the American Thinker, the most hilariously misnamed publication in the entire history of everything:

When he finally got around to the purpose for his public appearance, he gave an uninspired and rambling dissertation on the tragedy.  Even then, he could not keep the topic focused on sympathy for the pain of others:

I want all of you to know that as Commander in Chief, that there's no greater honor, but no greater responsibility for me (emphasis his) than to make sure that the extraordinary men and women in uniform are properly cared for...

Poor soul, it's so saddening to know how this tragedy affects him. Listening to this address provides some insight into Obama's character and how he ranks his priorities.

There's that uppity black fellow again, talking about himself like he's the president of the United States or something. How gauche.

MAS! Let the douche rumpus start...

There is Nothing Worse Than an Undetermined Person

Red State's Moe Lane: the King of Incomprehensible Snark. His is an odd little realm, where, say, if he forgets to check the toilet paper before taking a dump, he'll sit there after he's done, all crusty & smelly, on his throne, as it were, yelling out in a 4th-grade "neener neener" voice, "oh yeah! Well, OBAMA wants STALIN to wipe HIS ass! HAHAHA! I'm sitting here in my OWN SHIT! The failure of Liberalism is CLEAR! Chortle laugh giggle." And all the while he's plucking dingleberries the size of dashboard dice. What I'm saying is, Moe Lane is weird.

Anyhow, Kool Moe Dumb:

Sen Roland Burris (D-IL) advocates death penalty for non-insured!

From a CNS interview (H/T: Instapundit):

CNSNews.com: “So, in general, if a person doesn’t want health insurance, do you think they should be required by the government to actually have to get it?”

Senator Burris: “Under state law, we have every one required to have automobile insurance. Now, think about that.

Sure, let’s. You see, ‘under state law’ people are not actually required to have automobile insurance: people are required to have automobile insurance if they want to own a car.  So, either this is not a good analogy - which means that Senator Roland Burris is dumber than soap - or it is a good analogy; which would mean that he thinks that people should be required to have insurance if they want to stay alive.  Heaven forbid that I suggest that any sitting Senator could possibly be about as sharp as a sack of wet mice, so I am forced to assume that he’s ready to have the willfully non-insured executed for their crimes.

This would be astonishingly stupid, if it weren't Moe Lane snarking it, which makes it just garden variety dumb. But what the hey.

If you choose to have a car, which lots and lots of Americans have no choice about, especially in The Heartland (MollyI&I live on top of a mountain, quite literally, & can't escape the need for a car to get to work), you have to buy insurance. Why? Because if there were no mandate to buy auto insurance, we'd all be fucked, that's why. Only very very rich people could ever afford to pay the real costs of even a medium-bad auto accident out of pocket, and those costs always have to be paid. So, the risk must be pooled -- or almost nobody would be able to afford to drive. This is not fucking Stalinism, it's just like that, and that's the way it is.

People who "choose" not to have health insurance now are not by and large Going Galt in the spirit of Rugged Individualism. No -- they just can't afford it. And here is where Moe Lane is especially a dick: RIGHT NOW, if you don't have health insurance, and you're an American citizen, you may very well have trouble staying alive. And good for you, Individualist! But, like, we're all still going to pay for your healthcare -- one way or the other. It is only the most blessed among us who can afford the immense costs of dying in America in a cool, offhand fashion. Most of us, we go broke. Which is what we died for at Bunker Hill, dammit, only on the installment plan.

Indeed, the whole fucking point of instituting a system where everyone is insured is to keep us from all individually going broke and to drive down costs.

If you want to stay alive and yet don't want health insurance you are what is known in The Business as a crazy asshole.

Feh.

Question of the day

by flory

Why does Michael Steele always look like his suit is two sizes too big? Is it because his head is so tiny in relation to his trunk?

Or does he pad the shoulders of his jackets to look all broad shouldered and manly and republican?

Inquiring minds want to know.

"Douched Earth Politics": Erick Erickson, Groundbreaker!

Like most people in the country who knew there were elections today, which most people in the country didn't, I've been following tonight's election results with intense interest.

As a pinko, I am sad! I'm bitterly crushed that Jim Corzine lost, as he really was crucially poised to seize the world-historical moment & establish the New Jersey Dictatorship of the Proletariat, with soviets springing up from Weehawken to Passaic... and beyond.

It's also a shame that an equally way-out-there left-wing extremist, Dede Scozzafava, got headfirst dunked by the teabaggers -- I guess she realized she was headed for a similar fate as her identical ideological soulmate, Rosa Luxemburg, and just called it a day. And who can blame her, once Glenn Beck gets involved? But fortunately Bill Owens, the world-historical victor, is ideologically sound, and will be a loyal comrade in the struggle to crush the industrialist parasites, as Obama Husseinovich commands. And even if he isn't we can always exile him to Siberia. Or Plattsburgh, where there's less to do and the weather's less balmy.

Anyhow it's always been clear and not at all crazy that ACORN dominates the upstate New York Republican party and has done so since, uh, Joseph of Arimathea founded the Knights Templar somewhere just outside Keeseville in order to mandate the flouridization of municipal water supplies. Those crafty fuckers.

It's all very confusing, but fortunately while everyone else is losing their heads Erick Erickson is able to find his ass, or perhaps his elbow, or possibly Shinola:

The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens.

This is a huge win for conservatives.

“Whaaaa. . . ?” you say.

Heh. I was actually making a fart noise.

There are two big victories at work in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.

Like, besides the one for the Democratic candidate in the official election?

First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives.

But didn't the GOP just lose with conservatives...?

In 2008, many conservatives sat home instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment chose.

I have said all along that the goal of activists must be to defeat Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy. A Hoffman win is not in the cards, but we did exactly what we set out to do — crush the establishment backed GOP candidate.

And make no mistake, despite the Beltway spin, we know for certain based on statements from the local Republican parties, that they chose Scozzafava based on advice from the Washington crowd.

So the point is that the until the national GOP stops supporting moderates who can win in moderate districts by being moderate, Erick Erickson will make these moderates lose by supporting a crazy extremist who's probably going to lose. Erick Erickson is the guy with no hair or eyebrows who has yet to learn why when you employ scorched-earth tactics, the classical advice is to not then stand around picking your nose in the middle of the cornfield.

So we have demonstrated to the GOP that it must not take conservatives for granted.

We are assholes, hear us poop.

The GOP spent $900,000.00 on a Republican who dropped out and endorsed the Democrat.

"I borrowed your Lexus and drove it into the Gowanus Canal. You're such a dork. You really need to give me the keys to all your other cars, and your house, fuckface."

Were we to combine Scozzafava and Hoffman’s votes, Hoffman would have won.

Were you to have shut the fuck up, a GOP district since the Civil War would still be represented by a Republican.

Secondly, and just as importantly, there has all of a sudden been a huge movement among some activists to go the third party route. We see in NY-23 that this is not possible as third parties are not viable.

Uh... Erickson does not understand New York politics at all. To call an NY party like the Conservative Party, or the Working Families Party for that matter, a "third party," is just wrong. It actually strikes me that a failure to understand the basics of the NY system is responsible for a lot of the weird stuff that has been said and done about this race. Fortunately I'm too tired to explain this, or I'd feel obligated to do so. But this single comment from the Son of Erick is, well, telling. Political movements fail when they can't account for local realities, and when political movements are run by people as dumb as Erickson, this problem is only exacerbated (look it up, Erick, I know it's a hard word).

For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida. And in Florida, the conservative candidate is operating inside the GOP. If John Cornyn and the NRSC do not want to see Florida go the way of NY-23, they better stand down.

John Cornyn vs. Erick Erickson in a battle of the crazies in the Sunshine State! I know who I'm rooting for (and who I'd bet against, for that matter). 

Maybe it's time to rechristen the term "scorched earth politics" to "douched earth politics." And here you thought Erick Erickson could not be innovative. Sucks to be you!

God Bless You, Continue to Speak

Watching Bob Menendez tonight on The Daily Show, I'm reminded of this bit of Biblical Wisdom:

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a Senator to speak in public and not sound like a douche.

Maybe I'm misremembering that, but it's still frickin' true.

One Wonders...

... to what extent you have to be either deliberately or genuinely thick in order to write Official Media Criticism. Take this headline, please:

If Fox Is Partisan, It Is Not Alone

My balls. Fox is the only entire news network with a partisan agenda. Every other network plays by different rules. This is not a very difficult point to grasp, unless you have Official Media Criticism to dribble out for the New York Times.

This is a very stupid article. See if you can spot the logical flaw in how John Harwood draws the conclusion that "partisan fragmentation throughout America’s news media and their audiences has grown significantly" based upon Statistical Evidence (and note also how Harwood, toolishly, is passing on the spin of these data thrown, in the manner of a spitball, by a Republican strategist):

In audience surveys from August 2000 to March 2001, Fox News viewers tilted Republican by 44.6 percent to 36.1 percent. More narrowly — 41.4 percent to 39.4 percent — so did the audience for MSNBC. The audiences of CNN, Headline News, CNBC and Comedy Central leaned Democratic.

Four years later, amid the Iraq war and President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign, the audience data had shifted. Fox News viewers had become 51 percent Republican and just 30.8 percent Democratic, while MSNBC viewers leaned Democratic by 41.7 percent to 40.4 percent. Viewers of CNN, Headline News, CNBC and Comedy Central grew slightly more Democratic.

By 2008-9, the network audiences tilted decisively, like Fox’s. CNN viewers were more Democratic by 50.4 percent to 28.7 percent; MSNBC viewers were 53.6 percent to 27.3 percent Democratic; Headline News’ 47.3 percent to 31.4 percent Democratic; CNBC’s 46.9 percent to 32.5 percent Democratic; and Comedy Central’s 47.1 to 28.8 percent Democratic.

Comedy Central, one will note, is not in fact a news network. and so one may wonder just what the fuck it's doing here in a statistical breakdown of the partisan leanings of "America's news media and their audiences."

The answer of course is that including it makes a tendentious conclusion smell better; but still, its inclusion serves admirably to demonstrate that tendentiousness.

Because it does not take two, or more, to "polarize." It takes one. Fox gleefully went full metal GOP, and by and large other networks remained "objective" and "nonpartisan," according to the very strange interpretation of such concepts on the part of the media elites.

This was -- and largely remains -- the American media landscape when it comes to teevee news: one entirely partisan news/opinion/poo-flinging network, and then everything else is Village property, with the exception of three cable opinion shows (Olbermann, Maddow, and whatshisface), and then... uh, The Daily Show... a fake news program on a comedy network. And then Colbert. And that's it. (Moreover, it is worth remembering that MSNBC did not decide to go "partisan left" -- Olbermann did -- and Jon Stewart became a "liberal" opinion monger largely by default, in the sense that all he's ever really done is point out that the American right constantly makes up silly lies and is allowed to get away with it, which is "partisanship" in the sense that "recognizing the obvious" is "socialism." And also, remember, Olbermann is "balanced" by Scarborough, and Comedy Central tried hard at first to "balance" Stewart with that horrendous abortion of a Colin Quinn program, which was entertaining in the sense that your horrible sputtering drunken asshole uncle is entertaining when he gives you a hug right after he calls you a fag.) 

If the viewership numbers have shifted, this is pretty much entirely because of Fox. Fox viewers are convinced that every other media outlet is involved in a dark socialist conspiracy to destroy America (and that is not even exaggeration for comic effect), the Main Stream Media pretends the socialist conspiracy theory is One Side of the Story, and anyone who wants actual news, Lord help them, is fucked.

Hence this, from Harwood, is bullshit:

partisan fragmentation throughout America’s news media and their audiences has grown significantly. Future Republican presidents will have to decide, as Team Obama has, how to buck or accommodate that trend.

No, they won't. They will not face a liberal equivalent of Fox.  What they will do is not a mystery. They will pretend every other network besides Fox is "partisan," they will denounce The Media, and the Media will flog themselves over their imaginary offenses against imaginary "heartland voters," and the only news opinion shows worth watching will be on comedy stations.

Abusing the Signal

Funny.

Adam Kirsch reviews Anne C. Heller's new Ayn Rand biography in this weekend's Book Review. His piece offers this nugget about John Galt's long radio address in the novel Atlas Shrugged:

A Random House editor told Rand that "if she gave up 7 cents per copy in royalties, she could have the extra paper needed to print Galt's oration."

Kirsch calls the agreement a "sign of the great contradiction that haunts her writing," observing that "giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine capitalist . . . would have done."

But Rand's decision to exchange money — a portion of her royalties — for extra paper is capitalism at work. Rand bought something that had financial value to her: the ability to disseminate her idea in the form she desired.

Without such an elegant capitalist mechanism through which to make this trade, the alternative solution would have been messy and unsatisfying. Rand would have had to give up part of Galt's speech or try to find a new publisher.

Well, when you want solid expertise on the economics of publishing tedious unreadable right-wing bullshit nobody would ever pay for straight-up on the actual market even if they were drunk or insane or threatened at gunpoint, where else would you go but the National Review?

Whiskey Fire Book Club

By Monica_A

You must read "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" by Jeff Sharlet. Once you have read this book, the past eight years will make sense. The banality of Bush. Scary, but informative.

Shh... Don't speak - just savor the moment

by Ripley

This leads to this, which states this:

Here’s the thing — if we make Earl Pomeroy’s [D-ND -- ed.] life extremely painful for the next week, Republicans are going to think twice about jumping ship and so will a lot of the Blue Dog Democrats.

This fine dog poop can be shipped to Earl Pomeroy at

Office of Congressman Earl Pomeroy
3003 32nd Ave S Suite 6
Fargo, ND 58103

Likewise, you can tie up his phone lines by calling (701) 224-0355 and then (202) 225-2611 to express your dissatisfaction.

*Note: if you use our link, I can track the orders sent and Amazon kicks back some cash to RedState too! A win-win.

Rip -