Month: November 2010

Shocker: Sarah Palin’s Teenage Daughters Act Like Teenage Girls on Facebook

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Which is incredibly significant, according to a lot of people who would never vote for Sarah Palin under any circumstance whatever:

During the premiere of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” Sunday night — a boy named Tre who went to school with the Palin kids wrote a status update that read, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska, is failing so hard right now.”
The comment sparked an intense response from Willow — who replied on the boy’s wall, “Haha your so gay. I have no idea who you are, But what I’ve seen pictures of, your disgusting … My sister had a kid and is still hot.”
Willow followed up that comment with another that read, “Tre stfu. Your such a f**got.”
Bristol Palin also got in on the smacktalk — writing a message to Tre saying, “You’re running your mouth just to talk sh*t.”
Eventually, a message board war erupted — and Bristol took aim at another person named Jon — saying, “You’ll be as successful as my baby daddy, And actually I do work my ass off. I’ve been a single mom for the last two years.”
After more users began to gang up on the Palins, Willow dropped another message that read, “Sorry that you guys are all jealous of my families success and you guys aren’t goin to go anywhere with y our lives.”

I’m more troubled by the bad spelling and grammar than I am by the “stfu,” and not in the least troubled by the use of “gay” and “faggot” as insults.

This is not “homophobia.” This is just how teenagers insult each other. One might criticize the behavior by Willow and Bristol as indecorous and unladylike, but somehow I’m having trouble accepting TMZ as an arbiter of decorum, to say nothing of the gay blogs now viciously dogpiling on the Palin girls.

UPDATE: “Headline of the Day” — thanks, Don — and as for others who have linked, does the phrase “And the Horse You Rode In On” ring a bell?

Wall Street Drops Big-Time

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 178 points, the worst one-day loss in three months. The debt crisis in Europe was a big driver of this decline, but investors were also troubled by signals from China.

In fact, it appeared that the market was pulling back everywhere — stocks, bonds, commodities — a phenomenon that Greg Harmon goes waaaay over my head to explain.

Frankly, I think a lot of people are just cashing out their investments, perhaps from necessity. If you had a 401(k) or other retirement savings and got laid off in late 2008, you’re now past the 99-week limit of unemployment benefits and may be forced to tap into your retirement fund just to pay the bills.

Almost forgot to mention: The FDIC closed three more banks on Friday, bringing the year-to-date total to 146. We’re easily on pace for 160+ bank failures this year. And a meeting of EU finance ministers ended today without agreeing on what to do about the Irish debt crisis.

With so much news of economic doom and gloom, maybe you need something to cheer you up. How about this quote?

“Tears were shed. We were absolutely
disappointed that this is going to end.”

Doesn’t that make you smile? It does me. Because the quote came from a spokesman for Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson, who got beat Nov. 2.

And the spokesman is one of 1,800 Democratic congressional staffers who are about to lose their jobs.

A sign of real hope!

Great News: Treacherous Bastard Cornyn Unanimously Re-Elected as NRSC Chair

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Warned you about this yesterday, and now look at how it’s being played:

While Cornyn’s performance as NRSC chair has been praised in Republican circles since the election, it wasn’t without speed bumps.

Where are these “Republican circles”? What kind of fools are in these “circles,” and what the hell did Cornyn do to merit praise for his performance?

Never mind that. You know why the GOP Establishment routinely screws over the conservative grassroots? Because they know that you’ll roll over and say “thank you,” that’s why. Ed Morrissey:

Cornyn’s performance is open for legitimate criticism, but to be fair, one has to keep the context of the election in mind. 

“To be fair”? Please tell me exactly what justifies any need “to be fair” to John Cornyn? Thanks to his blundering interference in Florida, Charlie Crist walked off with more than $10 million in GOP donations.

Why should Cornyn and the NRSC get a free pass while on their failures, while over at the RNC, political director Gentry Collins resigned and presented a specific indictment of the organization?

UPDATE: Professor William Jacobson imagines a Senate GOP majority that included Lisa Murkowski and Mike Castle: “Two years of such a Senate controlled by Republicans would have destroyed all of the gains of the mid-terms, and would have demoralized the Republican Party heading into 2012.”

Democrats Solicit Volunteer Activists for 2011 Campaign Training Sessions

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Democracy for America, the political action committee founded by Howard Dean after his 2004 presidential campaign, just sent this e-mail to its more than 1 million members:

Are you angry over the recent election? Good. You should be.
In 2011 we’re fighting back. We are not going to allow tea party radicals to dictate policy in Congress or the Statehouse. We are going to rebuild in all 50 states and focus on electing Democrats who will bring the bold change that our country needs.
But there are no silver bullets. No simple change of messaging or different White House strategy will be enough. We have to do the hard work of building up an army of skilled and trained organizers across the country with the goal of electing a real progressive majority.
Still angry? Good. Here’s what you can do right now.
Our National Field Organizers are working with grassroots activists like you right now to organize dozens of weekend campaign trainings in 2011. And you have the power to bring one of these great trainings to your city.
Apply to host a DFA Campaign Academy in 2011.
Since 2004, DFA has been building the progressive movement by training thousands of progressive activists and candidates every year. We’ve brought our training program to over 100 cities across the country and trained over 12,000 progressive activists.
A DFA Campaign Academy is more than just a series of interesting lectures. They are gatherings of like-minded and passionate progressives where we assess what’s worked before, learn cutting edge campaign skills and make plans for the future. We bring the best political talent in the country to your city to fire up the local progressive movement.
Want one of these trainings in your community in 2011? Then it’s time to get started now.
Apply to host a DFA Campaign Academy in 2011.
As we begin our 8th year of providing this great resource to progressive communities the demand is very high. We’re determining where in the country these trainings can have the biggest impact and we have to hear from you.
These elections were a disappointment to be sure. But I’m still here and still fighting. So is DFA and so are you. And we’re not going to be stopped because of one election.

-Matt

Matt Blizek, Field Director
Democracy for America

P.S. We’re scheduling our 2011 Campaign Academies right now and if you want one in your community you need to act fast.
Forward this email on to 5 of your local progressive friends and see if they want to help bring one of these great trainings to your community.

The e-mail contains links to a “DFA Campaign Academy Application.”

Charlie Rangel: Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

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Even his fellow Democrats can’t deny he’s a crook. Isn’t it amazing that a guy who’s been in Congress since 1971 — and indeed was chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee — still manages to claim victimhood?

“How can anyone have confidence in the decision of the ethics subcommittee when I was deprived of due process rights, right to counsel and was not even in the room? . . .
“While I am required to accept the findings of the Ethics Committee, I am compelled to state again the unfairness of its continuation without affording me the opportunity to obtain legal counsel as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.”

Right. In all his corrupt swindling — his seaside resort in the Caribbean, arranging tax loopholes for his benefactors, setting up a bogus campaign consulting contract for his son, running a shakedown over rum taxes  — it never occurred to Rangel to set aside any of his ill-gotten gains to pay for lawyers to defend him if he were to get caught.

BTW, for youngsters who may not remember Watergate, the headline on this post is borrowed from a once-famous “Doonesbury” cartoon about Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell:

Youngsters probably also don’t remember when “Doonesbury” was occasionally funny.

Keynesianism and David Brooks

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Now that the election is over, we can return to our regular blogging schedule, and Tuesday is David Brooks Fisking Day hereabouts. Interestingly, Brooks isn’t half-bad today, as he mocks the presumptions of the neo-Keynesian consensus:

The economic approach embraced by the most prominent liberals over the past few years is mostly mechanical. The economy is treated like a big machine; the people in it like rational, utility maximizing cogs. The performance of the economic machine can be predicted with quantitative macroeconomic models.
These models can be used to make highly specific projections. If the government borrows $1 and then spends it, it will produce $1.50 worth of economic activity. If the government spends $800 billion on a stimulus package, that will produce 3.5 million in new jobs.
Everything is rigorous. Everything is science.

What Brooks is actually saying is that these projections appear to be rigorous and scientific, at least to liberals. He then continues by pointing out that this apparent “scientific” certainty is baseless — there are a lot of unpredictable factors in economic activity, and many consequences of government policy are not knowable until after the fact.

However, given several decades of experience with Keynesian interventionism to study, certain results of the stimulus-and-bailout agenda were actually quite predictable, and I did predict them: “It Won’t Work” (December 2008), “It Still Won’t Work” (February 2009), and “The Fundamentals Still Suck” (May 2009).

One would think that Brooks might take notice of the fact that, while he was busy admiring the crease in the president’s pants leg, others were warning that Obamanomics would not lead to recovery. (In February 2009, hundreds of economists signed an open letter from the Cato Institute to that effect.)

Or perhaps Brook supposes we have forgotten how in November 2008 he praised the incoming administration’s “overeducated Achievatrons” with multiple Ivy League degrees (“the personnel decisions have been superb”), and also does not expect us state-school-educated peons to remember that he was on the wrong side of every issue for the past two years. (February 2009: “Geithner’s plan is huge but also disciplined. It’s designed by someone aware of government’s limitations.”)

David Brooks never admits error. Still less can he ever admit that those he ridiculed were right, right, right when he was wrong, wrong wrong.

He “represents a fatal cancer to the Republican Party.”

Behind-the-Scenes Video: Fox News Colleagues Mocking Sarah Palin

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Fox News pays Sarah Palin as a contributor to their network. And apparently to be “fair and balanced,” they also pay Judith Miller and Liz Trotta to make fun of Sarah Palin:

Read the story at The American Spectator.

UPDATE: Here’s what was said:

LIZ TROTTA: “Alessandra Stanley [of the New York Times] had the best line [in her Nov. 11 review]. She said the new [Palin TLC] show was like ‘The Sound of Music’ without the Nazis, without the romance and without the music.”

JUDITH MILLER (laughing): “Oh, the Washington Post hated it, too . . . [Post TV critic Hank Steuver] said [Palin has] the kind of sound of a voice when warning you to heed the bears – it would actually scare the bears. . . . He said you just get the sense that all she’s waiting for when she’s looking at this great outdoors is to get back to her SUV for enough bars to send out her latest twitter about the beauty of the environment.”

OK, that’s what was said during the commercial break. Here’s what was said when the show came back on the air:

SCOTT: She has gotten a lot of heat for that new show. Some lefty groups, Ellis, are pushing Discovery Communications to pull the plug. How about at that for freedom of speech?
[ELLIS] HENICAN: Strategic misstep on the part of the lefty groups, as you mentioned. Let the woman talk. Believe me, the more she talks, the better off they are.
(LAUGHTER)
[JON] SCOTT: Interesting that some of these folks who don’t like her — I mean, she puts eyeballs in front of television sets, right?
MILLER: Yeah, and she got a network to pay her a million dollars per episode to do this. But I found the most interesting review to come from Karl Rove, who is not exactly a left wing lunatic, who said this is not going to advance her presidential prospects. This doesn’t make her look presidential. I’d listen to Karl.
TROTTA: And the numbers keep going down every time she makes appearance, her popularity numbers. You have to keep track of those. The more you see her, the less you like her. And overexposure is something the Democrats have to pray for.
SCOTT: So you think that —
TROTTA: Plus the fact that they can bank on the timidity of most men, who are so absolutely spooked by feminism that they’re afraid to criticize her.
HENICAN: Give her something on the Cartoon Network.

You can send an e-mail to Fox News.