GOP--Sore Losers

[MGuy]

Blue Dogs are certainly what I was thinking about when I said "independent" but I didn't want to use a blanket negative statement like "self interested" or "selfish" for the Dems because there are groups that are actually trying to do positive things for everyone.

[Crissa]

FOX News' Megan Kelly[/url]]And there you have it. An extraordinary showing out of Pennsylvania. As we watched for the past hour non-stop, an informed, articulate, and very concerned group of American people take their questions directly to their elected representative, Senator Arlen Specter, who they attempted to put on his heels with some very tough questioning. This is American democracy at work. This will not provide fodder for those who describe these folks as angry mobs or dismiss them as un-American. It will however provide a lot of fodder for debate.

She was watching this.

Toilet paper.

-Crissa

[MGuy]

I would ask where exactly was the questioning at but then this is only a part of it and fair enough I didn't see the whole thing. I am sure i don't have to point this out but for a man who was prepared to speak AND given the chance to I most certainly didn't hear a god damn question.

Fox news is garbage. I remember back when I was 14 when I was trying to explain to my mom why I didn't watch the news. "It's how you find out about the world" I was told "but the news doesn't even make sense to me" I would say...

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Here's a news story to give some context

Basically, the guy was upset that they only passed out 30 cards to the first 30 people who wanted to speak, and he wasn't one of them. This, even though the hall was packed with anti-reform people, and they also got to ask the lion's share of the questions.

[erik]

Moar Fox News awesomeness.



It's no wonder that people are less informed after watching their shows than they were beforehand.

[Lago PARANOIA]

http://iowaindependent.com/18456/grassl ... on-grandma

“In the House bill, there is counseling for end of life,” Grassley said. “You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma”

The conspiracy theory of the government deciding who lives and dies has been making the rounds of late, gaining momentum after former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted a message on her Facebook saying President Obama’s health care plan might kill her child who was born with Down Syndrome.

Why are we working with this jackass at all?

I've really, really been trying not to blow my stack at the healthcare debate but I'm done being polite. Fuck all of you stealing, lying motherfuckers who don't want health care reform.

[Heath Robinson]

That's a shop. Surely it's a shop. It's a shop, right?

[MGuy]

http://iowaindependent.com/18456/grassl ... on-grandma

“In the House bill, there is counseling for end of life,” Grassley said. “You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma”

The conspiracy theory of the government deciding who lives and dies has been making the rounds of late, gaining momentum after former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted a message on her Facebook saying President Obama’s health care plan might kill her child who was born with Down Syndrome.

Why are we working with this jackass at all?

I've really, really been trying not to blow my stack at the healthcare debate but I'm done being polite. Fuck all of you stealing, lying motherfuckers who don't want health care reform.

Now I don't think a number of people are stealers and liars. A bunch of them are sheeple who don't know any better.

[Crissa]

That's a shop. Surely it's a shop. It's a shop, right?

Somewhere there's a list, with pictures, of every Republican caught in a scandal displayed as a Democrat in a chyron on FOX.

You'd think they'd... Well no, why would they? These mistakes don't hurt their bottom line.

CNN has done the map mistake thing before, getting the labels floated wrong or whatnot; it's incredibly easy to do. But this one is pretty blatantly wrong.

Someone should've been fired, but I doubt they were.

-Crissa

[Titanium Dragon]

Fox News is little more than a propaganda station, and doesn't believe in things like "fact checking" or even "making sense" or "being internally consistent". Of course, they're hardly the only station which behaves in such a manner, simply the worst and most blatant about it; I'm not sure that they even pretend to be a real news organization anymore to anyone but their base.

MSNBC is rapidly approaching the same place, though. They do apologize (rarely), but that hardly changes the fact that they make egregious factual errors or slant the news in the first place. Which is stupid anyway; reality makes the Republicans look dumb, you don't really need to make up or distort shit to make them look any more stupid. Sadly, they aren't even left-wing, but really moderate-left. Then again, selling propaganda to people who were angry at Bush for disseminating propaganda hardly seems productive but hey, what do I know?

That map is hardly the most shocking display of stupidity on the part of Fox (or should I say, Faux?), though you would think they'd be able to get the country we're at war with in the right place. One would think that... but one would obviously be mistaken.

Then again, apparently 8% of (North? South? Forget which) Carolinians don't know or think Hawaii isn't a state. Which explains, oh, 20% or so of Birthers. And some egregious percentage of Americans cannot place Iraq on a map, and I'm sure at least some of them work for everyone's favorite mouthpiece for crazy people.

And as for the self-interest of Democrats... having had some contact with politicians, I can tell you a few things. Firstly, a lot of them are idiots. We always call them morons, but when you actually deal with them, you realize that they actually often ARE that stupid. Secondly, a lot of them believe they are not actually corrupt, evil, or whatever in doing what they do. They simply do not understand that what they are doing is wrong, because they have lost all touch with reality. They've been sucked up to for so long it is alien to them for something to upset their world view and point out that they are doing horrible things, and thus they simply reject it out of hand. Likewise, they reject such things about other people, their friends in the Senate - it is precisely their friendships that they so tout which cause so many problems.

And thirdly, even the good ones basically are never going to agree with you on everything, and most of the good ones are only good because they are capable of rejecting all the idiotic noise which constantly surrounds them - which means that they reject a lot of criticism too, which may or may not be valid, simply because they do not have the time to distinguish, and do what they personally feel is best.

That said, if you write letters to politicians, they WILL be read. Maybe not by the politican themselves, but certainly by their staff, and if sufficient number of people write in to them, you can indeed influence them. Heck, I wrote a letter to my representatives and senators in Congress asking them to get Obama to change his mind, and I got responses. Sure, they were form letters, but they were form letters which responded as to why they were going to support Sotomayor.

And just in case you're wondering, I'm further left than she is by a lot, which was why I was annoyed. We have 60 people, appoint someone who is very progressive for crying out loud.

Then again, its not like Obama is liberal.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

http://iowaindependent.com/18456/grassl ... on-grandma

“In the House bill, there is counseling for end of life,” Grassley said. “You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma”

The conspiracy theory of the government deciding who lives and dies has been making the rounds of late, gaining momentum after former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted a message on her Facebook saying President Obama’s health care plan might kill her child who was born with Down Syndrome.

Why are we working with this jackass at all?

I agree. Grassley has lost any slim claim to bipartisanship or reasonableness. I wonder how long before anybody but MSNBC and liberal blogs starts acting accordingly.

[Crissa]

Yeah, the base sure is smart.

...Also, just because MSNBC has two liberal newsanchors hardly makes the 'as bad as' Fox. Can you even point to a mistake they made that would have someone other than feminists or liberals upset?

-Crissa

[MGuy]

The people at Fox are THOSE kind of Christians who can't believe for a second that Egypt is in Africa. This isn't so much a mistake but a doctrine they obvious follow.

-Titanium: I don't really expect people in office to be any smarter than your average Joe. Expecting something like that would be like going back in time and assuming Noblemen were smarter than your Commoners. They may have "better" education but that doesn't guarantee that any of them are actually "smarter" then the people they serve. Now this isn't a particular bad thing if you consider that they are supposed to represent their base. I don't give really half a shit about the Judge Obama picked. The Supreme Court is and always will be a pretty status quo institution. Sure every once in a while, when the moon is at its highest peak and the universe is in just the right alignment and last Tuesday I ate a really good sandwich, they might make a decision that actually matters but this happens so little I can hardly bring myself to care who the new robe is. Soto is just the "cleanest" judge he could pick with nothing the Repubs with their hate sticks could beat to any effect.

[Heath Robinson]

Yeah, the base sure is smart.

I can't help but start thinking up signs for a Briton to hold at such an event.

"Socialised health care would kill Stephen Hawking!"
"Anyone notice how few hawks there are these days?"
"Malthus = Rationing! Say no to Malthus!"
"Reject reality of Liberal Elite! Build one on FOX and Bibles!"
"Adam Smith wasn't a Democrat!"
"Kenyan children are British subjects! Say no to British neo-colonialism!"

[Titanium Dragon]

...Also, just because MSNBC has two liberal newsanchors hardly makes the 'as bad as' Fox. Can you even point to a mistake they made that would have someone other than feminists or liberals upset?

Two? They have more than two, and their pet conservative is a strawman (though in a rather different way from Combes; rather than being quiet and reserved, instead he's just crazy). Hardball is certainly slanted as well, at least.

And they aren't as bad as Fox, they're just getting there.

Though they are at least funny sometimes. Their juvenile enjoyment of covering the teabaggers was, while immature, quite amusing deep down on the inside.

Speaking of... why on Earth do these groups NOT use Google when they come up with their names? I mean, I know half of them are closeted anyway, but you'd think they wouldn't just let it hang out there like that.

[RobbyPants]

Somewhere there's a list, with pictures, of every Republican caught in a scandal displayed as a Democrat in a chyron on FOX.-Crissa

Is this what you're thinking of?

Mislabeling Public Figures in News Captions

In October 2006, former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) was embroiled in a scandal involving allegations that he engaged in sexually explicit electronic communications with underage congressional pages. Several left-leaning media outlets pointed out that the O'Reilly Factor, a Fox News program, showed a total of three video cutaways in two segments that labeled Mark Foley with a "D" for Democrat [66]. O'Reilly Factor executive producer David Tabacoff responded that the mislabeling was "an honest mistake" [67].

July 23, 2007, during Alberto Gonzalez's testimony before the Senate Justice Department Oversight Commitee, Senator Arlen Specter, at the time a Republican was labeled a Democrat when he was leading the direct examination. [68]

March 23, 2009, Huffington Post reported that Fox News mislabeled Washington D.C. Councilman Michael A. Brown as being Michael D. Brown who was the head of FEMA during Hurricane Katrina. [69]

In June 2009, Media Matters showed screen shots from Fox News mislabeling South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford with a "D" for Democrat during his press conference admitting to an extra-marital affair.[70] Fox News later corrected the mistake. Others have claimed that such errors are simple copying edit error, noting that Fox News once labeled John McCain a democrat, while sources such as the Huffington Post imply ulterior motives[71][72]

[Crissa]

Yeah. When Fox News labeled McCain a Democrat, the article was about him doing something the right-wing didn't approve of (speaking out against torture, if I recall).

I really wish if you were going to actually paint MSNBC as making mistakes, you'd find those, or name names of which anchors are flaming liberals. You're basically calling Tucker Carlson (yes, he's since been let go) a strawman.

However, it hardly compares with articles in The Weekly Standard for slant, does it?

-Crissa

[Titanium Dragon]

Yeah. When Fox News labeled McCain a Democrat, the article was about him doing something the right-wing didn't approve of (speaking out against torture, if I recall).

I really wish if you were going to actually paint MSNBC as making mistakes, you'd find those, or name names of which anchors are flaming liberals. You're basically calling Tucker Carlson (yes, he's since been let go) a strawman.

MSNBC isn't actually promoting a flaming liberal point of view. And I was actually referring to Pat Buchanan, not Tucker Carlson, because when they want some random conservative on to beat on them seem to call him up.

Then again, with half the craziness I see around, maybe he's not as much of a strawman as I would like.

MSNBC is basically promoting a moderate, left-leaning stance with the exception of Rachel Maddow. Keith Olbermann, for all his yelling, screaming, ranting, and asking people to resign, is really not all that liberal, and the same goes for their other hosts.

However, it hardly compares with articles in The Weekly Standard for slant, does it?

-Crissa

Being better than the Weekly Standard is a pretty low bar. Most Livejournals have more journalistic integrity than that organization.

[Koumei]

teabaggers

you'd think they wouldn't just let it hang out there like that.

I'm pretty sure I don't need to say anything else on that matter.

Incidentally, wasn't there a time when news companies got in trouble, and were fined for misrepresenting the information? I seem to recall the BBC was fined because it accidentally put a few video sequences in the wrong order, making it look like the Queen had stormed out of a building in a huff.

Yes, I know this would make Fox News financially bankrupt in a day and a half, but they're morally bankrupt already, so why not?

*goes to see who Keith makes his awesome attacks against now that Bush is gone*

[Draco_Argentum]

-Titanium: I don't really expect people in office to be any smarter than your average Joe.

I do, people in charge of health care and wars and shit had damn well better be smarter than average.

[Titanium Dragon]

*goes to see who Keith makes his awesome attacks against now that Bush is gone*

He kind of still insults Bush, though its really mostly the administration rather than the man (and really he focuses heavily on Cheney as well as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly).

He does make fun of the Republicans with their sex scandals, but I think that's mostly because they're horrible hypocrites. And also because they are really, really stupid. Yeah, Bill Clinton didn't know how to keep it in his pants, but he didn't call Monica Lewinsky his soulmate or vanish into a foreign country for a week, nor did he decide it'd be a good idea to bribe the people he slept with.

I do, people in charge of health care and wars and shit had damn well better be smarter than average.

They SHOULD be. Operative word there being SHOULD.

Remember Vietnam? Remember the Korean War? FEMA? Fuck, pretty much anything from the last administration?

The people in charge are only as good as they are allowed to be, and only as good as will be appointed. Idiots will tend to appoint other idiots, whereas intelligent people tend to appoint other intelligent people, and corrupt people other corrupt people. Hence why the Bush administration was full of a mixture of incompetent morons and highly corrupt individuals, but very few intelligent, non-corrupt ones - there was no one intelligent and non-corrupt to appoint them.

The bureaucracy can only do so much to oppose the president.

[Neeeek]

Two? They have more than two, and their pet conservative is a strawman (though in a rather different way from Combes; rather than being quiet and reserved, instead he's just crazy).

Uh...MSNBC has a former Republican congressman as the host of a 3-hour daily show.

[Crissa]

A collected scoring of claims on the healthcare debate rated from lie, to false, to slight, mostly, and completely true...

I'm a bit confused on the difference between pants on fire and false, but perhaps that's the difference between being wrong about a number and making shit up.

-Crissa

[Crissa]

Numbers of Guests on Fox News to discuss Health Care


This is what we're working against. You certainly won't find any of the top three (or seven) news networks imbalanced in any other way, although this is the extreme one.

-Crissa

[Draco_Argentum]

They SHOULD be. Operative word there being SHOULD.

Obviously. I was just countering MGuy's insane idea that them having average intelligence people in charge was a good thing.