Saturday, October 30, 2010

Analysis of a Taibi Rant



Matt Taibbi gets on my nerves. I see him as purely partisan, rabidly partisan. I have never seen him say one kind thing about any of his opponents. He does seem to be in possession of a wider fund of factoids than the average lefty talking head. But I have quit trusting his use of factoids since I feel sure that he would never offer any context that might in any way diminish their support of his pet positions. He is just too much on the a constant offensive to inspire trust.  Brad Schaeffer who wrote a piece for Breitbart’s Big Journalism on a recent piece by Taibbi seems to like him more than I. But he ends up as suspicious of Taibbi’s arguments and conclusions as I am. I am offering a couple of long quotes from Schaeffer’s piece since they are very insightful. Keep an eye on Big Journalism because Schaeffer is due to write more about Taibbi.

"For Matt, like many on the far left, can only see one possible explanation for the genesis of the movement.  The Tea Party’s appeal must be rooted in… (wait for it)… RACISM! Well of course!  And so (yawn) here we go again.
"Taibbi offers as evidence that at a right-wing Gospel rally in Kentucky he didn’t see a single black face (doubtful, but for sake of argument we’ll take him at his word).  Therefore, the Tea Party is a racist movement.  I would imagine if he set foot in a Baptist Church in Harlem he wouldn’t see a single white face.  Would that make the entire Baptist Church an anti-white organization?  Here’s a thought.  Could it be more a matter of mathematics than attitude that the Tea Party is predominantly white?  This is an admittedly ad hoc equation, but do the numbers:  Blacks made up 13% of the 2008 electorate.  Now, in the last election 94% voted Democrat.  So, in all of the country, the pool of black Americans who did not vote Democrat is just 6% of 13% or a mere .78% of the total voting population.  That is a pool of roughly 1 million people.   This paltry sample out of a voting population of over 131 million.   Perhaps then the true story behind the mostly white complexion of the rallies is not that blacks are excluded, but rather an overwhelming number of them are affiliated with the opposition party.  Cynically keeping an entire race captive as wards of the state to ensure a reliable voting block suits the Democratic Party and  profiteering race hustlers like Al Sharpton just fine.  But it belies Taibbi’s thesis of rampant bigotry inside the Tea Party movement and, by default, a GOP which has fielded more black candidates this election cycle than ever before.
"Among many charges Taibbi claims that:  “They blame the financial crisis on poor Black homeowners”  Really?  I didn’t know Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, the execs at Fannie, Freddie , AIG, various Wall Street banks, Countrywide (just to name a few culprits with whom the Tea Partiers I know have issue) are poor black men.   Franklin Raines is black, yes, but hardly poor.  He goes on to harp on the right’s “reports about how the New Black Panthers want to ‘kill cracker babies.’”   Is that not what their Philly leader King Samir Shabazz said?  Try to imagine Taibbi’s outrage if a Tea Partier suggested “killing non-white babies.”   And since when is questioning racial favoritism in the Justice Department off limits?   Incredibly Taibbi even sees racism in the Tea Partiers’ objections to Charlie Rangel, who, yes, happens to be black.  So what?  Naturally, it has nothing to do with him a being chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee who cheats on his taxes.  Does he honestly believe that were Rangel white he’d get a pass?  Give me a break Matt!   I myself have penned several articles on Rangel’s indiscretions.
"As you can tell, the man’s color never  enters  my mind.  But it does enter Matt’s. And that’s the point isn’t it?  In fact, to label Taibbi as a tad race-obsessed is about as much of a stretch as to label DeNiro’s Al Capone handy with a baseball bat.  And, propelled by his textbook liberal white guilt complex, Taibbi’s race-tainted Louisville slugger comes whistling down hard on the back of the head of a movement that in my travels I have found to be anything but racist."
………………………………..
"The thing is, it never dawns on guys like Taibbi who deal out the race card with the proficiency of a riverboat gambler that perhaps of all the people viewing the world through race-tinted glasses, he is among the biggest offenders.  Oh right, I forgot, only right-wingers are capable of racism.  A white male left-wing journalist who spends so much of his time characterizing everyone and everything he sees on the basis of ethnicity, who surely sees a black person or awhite person rather than just a person, surely is not a racist at all.  Just ask him.  This is a man who, in a discussion with Dana Loesch recently, found Glenn Beck’s rally “offensive” because all he saw was “100,000 white people gathering on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.”   Don’t tell that to Alveda King.  Again, race, race and more race from this post-racial reporter.  When pressed, however,  he admitted he wasn’t even there."
………………….
". . . As much as they pay lip service to “the marketplace of ideas” liberals stopped caring about any opinions but their own a long time ago – and are quick to either patronize or demonize those with opposing views, all the while preaching tolerance.  (Ask Juan Williams).   This close-mindedness is grounded in a sense of intellectual and moral superiority through which they view their place in the world.  It is a condescending attitude that practically oozes off the pages of this article.  They see themselves as the sole arbiters or truth, justice, and enlightened thought and so if you oppose them you cannot be doing so from a reasonable point of view.  Therefore some baser motivation must be driving this opposition to their iconic symbol, Barack Obama, who by the way is black.  Ah-hah! Any opposition must be driven by racial animosity then.  And that is the arrogant premise from which the Matt Taibbi’s of the world strike out in search of their stories.  The problem for him is that outside of the dwindling group of the MSM faithful, no one but themselves are buying the false narrative anymore.  And so, as the election nears, and they see the tidal wave of rejection (based on principles, not skin color) of so much of what they stand for – and thought they had finally achieved in 2008 - building on the horizon, they will lash out with ever more disingenuous pieces that masquerade as journalism."

Irony-stock


Ed Morrissey of Hot Air has this to say about today's convergence of clowns and college kids:

Basically, this is a celebration of political laziness masquerading as ironic detachment, which is something generations have enjoyed in their early adulthood without making it an industry.  Instead of having making actual, serious, and developed political arguments, it’s much easier to make fun of those who do on both sides of the political divide and pretend that one is above it all.  Should be lots of fun, vapid entertainment, and entirely meaningless, sort of like a Michael Bay movie

Mary Katharine Ham presents: The Infirmityville Horror

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h/t: Daily Caller

Friday, October 29, 2010

We'll Meet Again

Vera Lynn

Primrose Lane

Jerry Wallace

Janine Turner and the Constitution

I'm not posting this because Janine Turner is hot. (Even though she is.) I find it inspiring that a normal citizen who works for a living has become so involved in studying the constitution and the Federalist Papers. I also like the way she calmly evaded Spitzer's attempt to get her to say something extreme or crazy. She was too classy and in control to even treat him like the back stabbing bottom feeder he is.

Arianna Needs A New Act: The Returns from 'Lizard Brain' Are Diminishing

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


h/t: Domestic Divapalooza

اسمهان ليالي الأنس

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I only post this because I would appreciate it if someone would explain it to me.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

NPR Staffing Decision 2010

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The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
NPR Staffing Decision 2010
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorRally to Restore Sanity

h/t: Betsey's Page

HOW LIBERALS ARGUE

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h/t: Breitbart TV

KRAUTHAMMER ON OBAMA’S DIVISIVE RHETORIC: ‘THIS IS HOW THE GREAT, POST-RACIAL PROMISE OF OBAMA ENDS’

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h/t: Breitbart TV

So You Want to Get a PhD in the Humanities

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h/t: Betsy's Page

ObamaCare and Abortion Funding

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h/t: Divine Ripples

UC Physics Professor Calls Global Warming a Scam


From National Review, Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara said of the global warming scam: “The money flood has become the raison d’etre of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs,” he wrote in a letter to APS president Curtis G. Callan Jr. of Princeton University. Lewis continued: “It is, of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.”
He said the APS’s methods of closing down debate on climate change were a ‘corruption’ of its purpose.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Bullwinkle Cheerios TV commercial

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Bach, "Little" Fugue (G minor, BWV 578)

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Tom and Jerry

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Michigan Claims It Is Illegal to Advertise for a Christian Roommate

With all the problems Michigan has they are wasting scarce resources on this. They appear to be breeding some bureaucrats who will fight foolishly for more and more control of any little bit of citizen's private lives. This just makes the Tea Party advocacy for smaller government look more sensible and necessary.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

La Bamba - Ritchie Valens

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Bobby Darin - Beyond the Sea, LIVE 1960

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kos Confused about Juan Williams/NPR


Maybe the daily kos is trying to reverse the trend of hysterical desperation that the frenzied left has been discharging nonstop into the public discourse. Maybe in an attempt to scare off fewer voters they are attempting a less strident tone. Because they went easy on Sarah Palin today. They damned her with faint abuse when they modulated their slander to the mild epithet, “the inconsequential dropout former governor of Alaska.” Without knowing their history on this you wouldn’t know if, instead of hating her, they don’t just feel that she is beneath their notice.
Juan Williams was dealt with in the same tone of mild disgust. In a statement that mangles the facts they send Juan off stage with the other nonentities: “Juan Williams was fired for making bigoted comments, but the real statement about the state of our traditional media is that such a mediocrity had a job as a pundit to begin with.”
Off the front page one of kos’s diarists does an analysis of the NPR FU. This confused leftie wants to make the discussion about how wrong William’s friends are to classify this as a First Amendment issue. Very revealing. I have not come across one serious commenter on the flap that sees it has having anything to do with the First Amendment. The inescapable conclusion is that kos must feel that NPR’s position is so indefensible that they have to act like it doesn’t even exist. Kos feels the need to create a fantasy issue and a fantasy battlefield so that they can declare victory and depart the field.

George Will Puts Campaign Spending in Context While Amanpour Ignores Him and Keeps Repeating DNC Talking Points THE BIG LIE IS ALIVE IN WASHINGTON

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h/t: NewsBusters

Linda Ronstadt and Bobby Darin - Long Long Time

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Dingell vs. Steele: the Illusion of Tort Reform in ObamaCare

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Your Stimulus Dollars at Work

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h/t: the Blaze

THOUGHT CRIMEs: Think What We Think...Or Else

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Another nightmare of ‘liberal’ intolerance and anti-intellectualism forced on students through emotional coercion and abuse of authority. This is eerily like what was recently done to Juan Williams. He was fired for a thought crime. He had a feeling that his lefty employers dislike and he did not fearfully hide it from the light of day. So he was fired. Over the phone, yet. While his former employer made a snarky remark to the press about his mental health.
But those who spend time in the MSM see this kind of intolerance and anti-intellectualism all the time. The regular inhabitants of the MSM seldom engage in reasoned arguments and almost never provide empirical proof of what they have to say. They traffic in name calling and the assignment of blame and shame. All of their opponents are some blend of racist, insane and extreme. The reader or viewer will seldom know why the enemy is felt to be such a nasty, no good person. The viewer only knows that the target has been sent to stand in the naughty corner by the loud person who thinks he is an authority figure.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Erika Lewis and Tuba Skinny - Love Sick Blues

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Bush Book Bulletin

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h/t: Breitbart TV

LOUDER WITH CROWDER: EVIL RICH PEOPLE!

This video has some insight into how Obamanomics is out of touch with the realities of our economy. The Light of Chicago would put the jobs of twenty-five employees at risk just to keep alive the hate and fear based jealousy of 'the rich' that seems to be basic to energizing most of the left.

h/t: Breitbart TV

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Bach - Brandenburg Concertos No.2 - ii: Andante

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CNN’S COOPER NAILS NAACP’S JEALOUS ON TEA PARTY ‘STUDY’

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Juan Williams Is Learning the Consequences that Flow from Having Feelings the PolitBuro Has Not Approved

Just feelings . . . nothing more than feelings. You should note that Juan is careful to always spout only accepted opinions and ideas. But that is not good enough. Sometimes he has funny feelings that are not totally in line with his beliefs. But now he knows that he has to keep a closer watch on what he says. You might say NPR has engineered a very public move to have a chilling effect on Juan's freedom of expression. The PolitBuro is very much alive, on the taxpayer's dime.

Haydn Trumpet Concerto

3rd mvt

NAACP Hypocrisy

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h/t: Breitbart TV

Michelle Malkin defends conservative women

Sometimes it feels like most denizens of DC and NY are surrogates of the president. It used to be that there might be one or two surrogates. I wonder if this just indicates how much the ‘elites’ feel that their self worth is dependent on their political party having power.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

P. E. Bach Symphony for string 5 in b minor

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Mika Brzezinski Is the White House Spokesperson on MSNBC

She has admitted that the White House sends her emails during the show to let her know what to say. Oh, and if you believe that the Obama campaign will actually reveal the sources of all of their donations from '08 you probably also believe that ObamaCare will be cost effective and allow you to keep your insurance plan if you want to.

h/t: NewsBusters

Bach - Brandenburg Concertos No.1 - ii: Adagio

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Retro 1955 Teaserama starring Bettie Page and Tempest Storm

"So big we had to use wide screen"

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise: The Beeb Still Worships Obama

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h/t: Breitbart TV

Where Is the Love For President?

This clip is funny. I never thought Mika Brzezinski could seriously compete in The Most Stupid Woman in Cable News Contest and lose. But here is Leslie Stahl giving Mika some serious competition. Mika just sees Obama as a great leader but Stahl sees the light of Chicago as the great and healing doctor who saved the economy and now faces an amazingly ungrateful populous. There is enough stupid here to supply the Democratic Party with plenty of denial regardless of the depths of any electoral defeat.

h/t: NewsBusters

NEW STUDY SHOWS TEA PARTY NOT RACIST; MEDIA UNFAIR IN COVERAGE

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h/t: Breitbart TV

Monday, October 18, 2010

Liz Cheney Exposes Howard Dean In Lie

I totally missed this yesterday and only came across it by accident this evening. Bob Sheiffer and Howard Dean are both going at Liz with DNC talking points. The more Liz sticks to the facts of the case the louder Dean gets with his lies.

h/t: NewsBusters

Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto for strings & b.c. in C major

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Down Memory Lane: A Coulter Interview from the First Days of the Obama Presidency

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Alice in SundayMorningLand



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"Amanpour is a ratings and journalistic disaster. It is hard to understand why she was picked for a serious Sunday talk-show-host position and even harder to understand what she is still doing there. The White House is taking an opportunity to clean house. Shouldn’t ABC News do the same?"
Jennifer Rubin
Quality nears the zero point and there is an avalanche of viewer losses. Yet week after week we still have Amanpour spouting White House and DNC talking points never noticing recalcitrant reality slapping her repeatedly in the face.
Same morning, same beltway over at NBC David Gregory is trying to resurrect the worn out and never proven slander that the Tea Parties are racist. A Colorado Democrat supplies an account of his personal experience that invalidates Gregory's slander.
It all makes for a surreal picture. Political discussion shows where the hosts were once expected to be unbiased facilitators of discussion have shape shifted over the past couple of decades. It is funny to watch the liberal hacks who claim to have suddenly grown concerned about the sad fate of the Republican Party. The more popular support the Republicans gain among the public the more the hacks bemoan how extreme and crazy they have become. If the Republicans get just a little more popular they will probably call in the coroner. These shows have grown into monstrosities that are mere burlesques of their former selves. Which explains why so much of the audience has moved on.

Victoria Jackson Spoofs Meghan McCain

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Victor Davis Hanson Questions Obama's Political Past

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Sunday, October 17, 2010

Patsy Cline ~ Tennessee Waltz

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Fan Dance

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The History of Political Correctness

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h/t: Domestic Divapalooza

Birth of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’

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Patsy Cline - ‘You Belong To Me’

I am very partial to this little song. I especially enjoy the lyrics. They are simple but effective. They fill the mind with pleasant thoughts of exotic locales and a sustaining love that will not go wrong if properly cultivated. And these words sit upon a pleasant but not overpowering melody. It is the middling happiness that the fifties had so much of.

Victor Davis Hanson Political Correctness - A God That Failed?

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Stevie Nicks & Chris Isaak - Red River Valley

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Andrew Breitbart Speaking Against Harry Pelosi

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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Video: The heart of the Tea Party movement

An excellent introduction to the basic ideas.

h/t: Hot Air.com

What Homeless? What Unemployed?

If we presently had a Republican president the networks would have wall to wall video coverage of endless armies of homeless and unemployed. Instead we see an army of talking heads explaining how evil and crazy Republicans are and how unappreciated our heroic president is. This song, James McMurtry doing "We can't make it here" that I discovered on my brother's FB page, begins to give some idea of the ugly pictures that would be found on the news if we had a Republican president.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

“They Call Themselves A News Network But They Are Doing Nothing But Campaigning for Barack Obama”

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Brian Preston Debates Markos Moulitsas



This starts out slow but becomes interesting. Of especial note is Kos's inability to factually back up his allegations about the Tea Party.


DEM GOV CANDIDATE STUMPED ON HOW TO CREATE A JOB

Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut is the poor lost Democrat. And Linda McMahon is the one who knows something about jobs and the marketplace.

h/t: Breitbart TV