Friday Mashup (10/21/11)

(Videos for tonight are questionable, by the way.)

No, that sleazy weasel Eric Cantor didn’t bail on his speech at Penn’s Wharton Business School here because he’s a gutless worm afraid of criticism. Of course not. It’s all the fault of those damned “Occupy” protesters in Philadelphia, isn’t it (here)?

(And of course, why the U of P would think that Cantor is someone who could actually impart anything not totally self-serving in a speech is another matter.)

And it looks like there’s more bad polling data for Number 44 based on this (he’s only at 41 percent approval, apparently...that would have been a stratospheric number for Dubya before he was done, but that's a whole other tale to tell).

Well, according to this, he leads potential Repug presidential candidate Willard Mitt Romney by 4 points and the rest of that motley bunch by substantial margins. Also, when it comes to jobs and the economy, I would say that this shows that President Obama is on the right track (and I thought this was a humorous take on all of this…if the presidential vote had occurred in 2007 instead of 2008, it would have paired Hillary Clinton against Rudy 9iu11ani).

Next (and in keeping with the whole “Obama job approval” thing), Repug political consultant David Gergen tells us the following (here)…

…in America, we are speeding toward the 2012 presidential elections, and talk quickly turns to the political considerations here. President Obama appeared Thursday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden to celebrate this "momentous day in the history of Libya" and to declare that "one of the world's longest dictators is no more."

As Obama pledged his support to Libya's future, many in the crowd and watching at home surely began to wonder about the president's own future. It is a much-discussed irony that a president elected largely around domestic concerns has gone on to amass some sterling foreign policy bona fides, while his approval on matters stateside sinks deeper and deeper. But what impact, if any, will his string of overseas successes have on his standing -- and re-election prospects -- here at home?

The first, most obvious answer is: not much.

Maybe, but it should be noted that Obama got a “bounce” of sorts after he authorized the mission to take out bin Laden (as noted here).

However, I think we should also reconsider the support given to Gaddafi (I guess that’s how you spell this dude’s name at long last) by our prior ruling cabal; this tells us of the U.S. business lobby that helped to keep him in power full of the usual right-wing suspects.

Also, anyone remember the lie about how Obama was getting us into Libya to help al Qaeda (from the usual gang of idiots, as noted here)? It should also be pointed out that Obama also approved funding for an organization run by one of Gaddafi’s sons, which drove the wingnuts typically bonkers (even though Dubya did the same thing, as noted here – also, as long as I’m talking about Fix Noise and Libya, I should bring back this golden oldie once more).

(In addition to all of this, I should note that at least Gergen didn't say that Obama's support on Libya had "crumbled" - and by the way, speaking of foreign policy, kudos to the president for this also.)

Continuing, it looks like Lisa Simeone from that supposedly “liberal” network NPR got bounced because she participated in an “Occupy Wall Street” event (here).

To highlight the total absurdity of Simeone losing her job in this manner compared to the relentless promotion of the Teahadists by The Roger Ailes Propaganda Machine (for which no one at that network has been so much as even disciplined in any way at all), I give you the following here from Eric Boehlert of Media Matters.

Finally, it looks like out Repug PA-08 U.S. House rep haz a sad (here)…

In Kate Fratti’s column last Thursday, she characterized a small-business owner here in Bucks County as an “extortionist” based on a conversation I had with the Courier Times editorial board two weeks ago. This misguided and misinformed accusation not only misrepresents the story I recounted in our meeting, but also the intentions and desires of Bucks County job creators.

The example I cited during our meeting was of a local manufacturer who has been in business for over 40 years, during which time his work has included some defense contracting. During the first 10 months of my term in Congress, I have visited dozens of local small businesses and met with the owners of countless more.

I’ll spare you the rest of Mikey’s boilerplate here – just the usual pabulum of “making government live within its means,” “uncertainty,” blah blah blah. However, I would say that he’s being particularly thin-skinned here, especially since Fratti actually included some quotes from the “job creators” Mikey professes to love for the opposing point of view in her column (something which Mikey, in typical fashion, doesn’t provide here – and by the way, I think it’s an “amateur hour” move by the newspaper not to link back to Fratti’s column in the online version of Fitzpatrick’s screed today).

For once, I would actually like to read about Fitzpatrick meeting with individuals at job fairs to hear their side of the story instead (and of course, Mikey professes ignorance on what the “Occupy Wall Street” movement is supposed to be all about – he can read this for starters).

As far as the bit about supposedly “burdensome” government regulations, I would actually like to hear which regulations Fitzpatrick and these supposed job creators are referring to (and on that subject, I thought this was typical for TV’s most notorious propaganda outfit). And if Fitzpatrick thinks that it is impossible for those zany Teahadists to oppose job creation just to hurt Obama, he should read this. And for good measure, he should read this to find out just how much he is on the wrong side when it comes to economic matters (yes, the charts show how the Senate voted, but they might as well show how House Republicans did also).

The majority of the voters in PA-08, in their eternal, dunderheaded stupidity, chose to send him to Washington last November and send Patrick Murphy home. And Fitzpatrick has done absolutely nothing since to show that he was worthy of the office.

I’ve asked it before, I’ll ask it again, and I’ll expect to ask it plenty more times before Fitzpatrick is finally gone, but ask it I must…

Where are the jobs, Mikey??!!

Thursday Mashup (10/20/11)

There’s really not a lot that’s noteworthy in last week’s Area Votes in Congress (here), aside from the fact that the ruling U.S. House Repugs continue to avoid the heavy lifting of legislation that’s actually meaningful; I suspected that Mikey The Beloved voted for that horrible Joe Pitts “Let’s Let Women Die Instead Of Providing A Life-Saving Abortion If It Is Medically Necessary” Act, and he did (here) – also, the House Repugs passed a bill to try and nullify EPA rulemaking (a typically stupid and utterly non-job creating maneuver…more on the EPA shortly), and Pitts was the only Repug in our local delegation to vote against trade adjustment assistance for workers who lost their jobs due to offshoring (figures).

On the Senate side, “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey opposed the Obama jobs bill and trade penalties against our “good friends” the Chinese, the only member of our local U.S. Senate delegation to do so in both cases (once again, take a bow, all you life forms who voted for this pirate last year).

Next, even though he’s at a new location, it’s still “same old, same old” for Former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm (here)…

This just in from Harry Reid's planet:

The Democrat believes, "It's very clear that private sector jobs are doing just fine."

This from the five-term senator from Nevada, where current unemployment is 13.4%. Nevada, the state with the nation's highest foreclosure rate.

Malcolm also makes some demented remark here about how the Obama jobs bill couldn’t be presented until Number 44 returned from his “island vacation,” or something.

I will admit that the term “just fine” is relative, but the following should be noted from here in response…

Since (the Recovery Act was signed into law), the private sector has seen a net gain of 1.4 million jobs; if public-sector employment had just held steady, without any hiring or firing, the economy would have grown by about 2 million jobs over this period. Instead, budget cuts have eliminated 572,000 government workers on net.

And on the subject of public sector jobs, I give you the following recent history lesson, for Malcolm’s benefit also (ask Man Tan Boehner about life on his “planet” also while you’re at it). And if you’re looking for some bona-fide outrage on the issue of jobs, I think that’s called for in response to this latest nonsense from the Teahadists.

Continuing, this little item from The Daily Tucker tells us that the “Occupy Wall Street” movement is “dead ending” while those zany completely not racist (supposedly) teabaggers “march on.”

Gee, that really doesn’t jibe with these numbers, does it?

Further, I give you the following from The Hill (here)…

Every election has its villain, typically a movement, person or institution that becomes a whipping post for politicians eager to energize political campaign contributors or voters … and sometimes both.

But in the increasingly polarized world of American politics, the same target for opprobrium that works so well in the early going of a presidential season hard-core party regulars can backfire spectacularly as election day draws nearer. This happens because candidates must reach beyond their base to appeal to independents and members of the other party who can be persuaded to switch sides.

Our polling indicates that one such “double-edge sword” issue already has surfaced in the 2012 election. While some presidential candidates are attacking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and generally anything that is “green,” it is increasingly apparent that there is a huge divide among voters that will sharply limit the effectiveness of this tactic.

Uh, yeah, I would say so – as noted here…

Over at Washington Monthly, Steve Benen writes:

The very existence of the EPA has never been a partisan issue until now — Nixon created the agency four decades ago — and my fear is Republican activists will loathe the office simply because their national candidates tell them to.

Kevin Drum responds:

I’m pretty sure this is wrong. Sure, Bachmann is (surprise!) more extreme than most, but the EPA has been #1 with a bullet on the corporate hate hit parade for a very long time.

I think they are both right.

Drum is right that heavily polluting industries and their interest groups like the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Farm Bureau have had it in for the EPA for years. But Benen is also right that the idea of weakening the EPA hasn’t been pushed by candidates or been paid much attention to by voters until relatively recently.

One explanation for that is the fact that, as Drum writes, “environmental protection has always polled pretty well in the abstract.” While presidents like Reagan and George W. Bush clearly had animosity for the EPA and its mission, they realized such a position was a political loser and decided to undermine the agency by, for the most part*, selecting corrupt and/or incompetent people to run it.

And attacking the environment is also part of the template created by The Sainted Ronnie R, of course; as this tells us…

Although it has been pointed out that Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) had been pretty solid on the environment as governor of California, he seemed to take a turn for the worse once he got to the White House. "The Reagan administration adopted an extraordinarily aggressive policy of issuing leases for oil, gas and coal development on tens of millions of acres of national lands -- more than any other administration in history, including the current one," the Wilderness Society's David Alberswerth has reported.

Perhaps setting the tone for much of his policy, Reagan famously (and bizarrely) said "trees cause more pollution than automobiles do," and that if "you've seen one tree you've seen them all." As president Reagan shocked greens by hiring the notorious James Watt and Anne Gorsuch for the heads of the Department of Interior and the EPA. The industry-friendly appointees worked tirelessly to roll back environmental regulations, from the Clean Air Act to the Clean Water Act. In the administration's first year, there was a 79 percent decline in the number of enforcement cases filed from regional offices to EPA headquarters, and a 69 percent decline in the number of cases filed from the EPA to the Department of Justice.

Reagan's Superfund director, Rita Lavelle, was sent to jail after a Congressional investigation into alleged corruption (called "Sewergate"). Lavelle returned to prison in 2005 after being accused of fraud in a case of faked environmental cleanup in the private sector.

Reagan also rolled back Carter's CAFE standards for car gas mileage, slashed funding for renewable energy (sending the burgeoning industry into a freefall it still hasn't recovered from), signed an executive order that forces unworkable evacuation plans on communities surrounding nuclear power plants, and unceremoniously ripped the solar panels off the White House. Reagan may have been a nice man, but he drove us right back into oil addiction, some say setting the stage for years of global conflict and indirect funding of terrorism.

I don’t know how “nice” The Sainted Ronnie R really was (this may shed some more light on that), but if he’d really been someone who cared about doing the right thing, he would not have included such self-righteous ideologues in his cabinet, particularly in the EPA (and more on James Watt is here, by the way, the guy who notoriously claimed that the “electorate” is composed of “liberals and Americans,” and that fans of The Beach Boys were “riff raff”…oh, and he also was responsible for horrific environmental exploitation in strip mining, wilderness devastation and despoilment due to offshore oil exploration).

It should also be noted that, as much as this is partly a history lesson, it’s also a candidate for the “past is prologue” file; as noted here, Repug U.S. Senators “Diaper Dave” Vitter and Jim Inhofe, along with U.S. House nematode Darrell Issa, accused John Holdren, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, of “scientific misconduct” (as if those three nitwits would be in a position to judge)…

The lawmakers also questioned an EPA assessment on the dangers posed by formaldehyde -- the National Research Council earlier this year claimed the assessment did not adequately back up some of its claims, including claims that the chemical causes leukemia and respiratory tract cancers.

Memo to Issa, Inhofe and Vitter; you think formaldehyde isn’t a big deal? Fine. Try living in a post-Katrina FEMA trailer for a few months and let me know how that works for you (here).

Finally, the formerly Moonie Times is here to tell us who the big winner was of the recent Republican presidential candidates’ beauty pageant (here)…

The unavoidable takeaway from the debate is that the GOP’s field of candidates looks worse today than during the very first debate on May 5. Conservatives and independents desperate for change in the White House already were worrying that none of the current crop of challengers was capable of beating President Obama next year. Tuesday’s fracas in Las Vegas didn’t help as the competitors dropped their gloves and leveled sucker punches at each other, notably at the erstwhile leaders in the polls. Blood was drawn from Mitt Romney, Herman Cain showed a few unprotected weak spots, and Rick Perry was left limping badly after the melee. Washington insiders - even those who support him - are disappointed with all the Texas governor’s debate performances so far and are starting to whisper that he doesn’t look strong enough for a bruising, prime-time national campaign.

The longer the pre-primary season drags on without any frontrunner rising above the rest of the pack, the greater the opportunity becomes for a candidate in the middle of the rankings to surge late, create a brief, timely wave of excitement and run away with the nomination. The familiar face getting the most attention behind the scenes now is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. There’s a consensus that he has come off as both the smartest and most solid over the course of all the debates thus far. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin - one of the most popular conservative political celebrities not in the race - raised eyebrows by announcing her opinion that Mr. Gingrich won Tuesday night’s standoff.

Can you feel the Newt-mentum, people??!!

In response, I give you that noted political pundit J.D. Mullane of the Bucks County Courier Times (here)…

It was sad to see Newt Gingrich, once a titan of conservative politics, reduced to a pale, chubby figure on stage at a Bucks County Moose Lodge, pleading for cash.

“I will tell you flatly,” he said, “I need all the money you can give.”

Gingrich’s hapless campaign swung through Doylestown on Tuesday. The ex-Speaker of the House aims to be Republican nominee for president. Fat chance.

Gingrich, 68, has an uneasy relationship with the party’s conservative foot soldiers, whose checkbooks he attempted to conjure with road-tested applause lines about illegal immigration, liberal activist judges and “the elite media.”

But grumblings about “Mr. Newt,” as he is sometimes affectionately called by the Republican faithful, surrounded him, even among the stalwarts in the standing-room-only crowd of Kitchen Table Patriots of Bucks County.

His three marriages. His $500,000 line of credit at Tiffany’s. His flip-floppery on controlling pollution through the controversial “cap and trade” scheme. Gingrich has been a global warmist since the 1980s, and was still a man-made climate change enthusiast as recently as 2008. Not now, though.

Oh, and check this out…

Most unforgettable, if not unforgivable, is the 2008 TV commercial on global warming he made with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a liberal much loathed by the right.

In the ad, Gingrich and Pelosi sit together on a couch, awkwardly reading scripted lines.

“We don’t always see eye to eye, do we Newt?” Pelosi says.

“No,” Newt says, “But we do agree our country must take action to address climate change.”

It is so infamous that if a conservative says, “Newt on the couch with Pelosi,” every conservative within earshot knows what it means. It’ll ruin your day, if not keep you from writing a campaign check.

God, providing aid and comfort to that America-hating shrew Nancy The Li-Bu-ruul? How iconoclastic can you get?

And by the way, Baby Newton Leroy, any word on that space-based air traffic control system (here)?

More Wednesday PM Stuff

(Feeling a bit charitable today, so…)

Yes, I know there’s a lot of nutty stuff going on right now with the Repug presidential candidates, but still, let’s not lose sight of how evil the Koch Brothers really are…



…and with this in mind (speaking of above), I give you the following in response (I cannot imagine that I will ever vote for a Republican again, and yes, I actually have done so...and in a good way, the vid below is a response to this).

Wednesday PM Stuff

Probably no other posting today…

Looks like the Repugs want to revisit the supposedly good old days of no financial regulation, pre-Enron (pre-everything, if they had their way, of course – yep, more “Republican-land” mythology)…

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

…and I’m glad to see that Occupy Wall Street has chosen this as their next step (wonder if “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey thinks this is “cogent” enough)…



…and Toomey and his playmates should try doing the right thing, for a change, on the Obama jobs bill in the Senate (and that goes for the “ConservaDem” turncoats also - here)…



…and isn’t this a charming little ditty?

Wednesday AM Stuff

Happy belated 85th birthday to Chuck Berry...



...and given this item, I think the title of the following tune only is appropriate (from someone who definitely was an acolyte of sorts when it came to Berry - and yes, I know the song was about Paul...oh, and it looks like someone else doesn't think much of Cain's sense of humor).

Tuesday Mashup (10/18/11)

To begin, let’s take a trip back in time, shall we (here, from last April)…

Tea Party Republican Tom Corbett continues his scorched earth campaign as governor of Pennsylvania. He is gutting education and public services while handing out over $300 million in new tax cuts for corporations. He also takes organized hypocrisy to astonishing new heights. An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer lays out Corbett's faux fiscal conservativism in exquisite detail.

As new taxes go, a levy on natural-gas drilling in Pennsylvania would seem like a pretty easy political sell. Two-thirds of the state's voters support the idea, several polls indicate. Politicians are desperate for money to plug a $4 billion budget gap and prevent deep cuts in the state college system and other programs.

And with that in mind, I give you this from March…

With only a partial picture of the impact of Gov. Tom Corbett's proposed budget, the Pennsbury School District is already facing the loss of between $4.9 million and $6.7 million in state subsidies.

The bad news was delivered by district CEO Dr. Paul Long at a special meeting Thursday night of the Pennsbury School Board. As stark as the financial picture is, the numbers reflect no increase in teachers' salaries. The governor's proposed budget cuts affect school districts across the state, Long said.

In a brief presentation before the board, Long contrasted the cost of basic education - $15,143,000 - for the 2010-2011 school year with Corbett's proposal of $13,755,206, a loss to the district of $1,388,396. Also kicked out completely in the governor's charts are $876,385 in block grants and the state's $750,000 contribution to charter schools within the district.

If Corbett's budget stands, Pennsbury will have to find a way to make up the lost funds.

…

Board President Gene Dolnick expressed concern because of the possible impact on increasingly expensive programs such as charter schools and special education classes. He also said that the specter of vouchers, which would give district parents a choice on which schools to send their kids, could break the bank.

"I hope we are not witnessing the destruction of the public school system on the backs of our taxpayers," Dolnick said.

So what has Pennsbury done in response? From here…

…the district is also endorsing a controversial new measure in order to raise funds: selling advertisements in its schools. Three weeks ago, the district’s 16 public schools installed advertisements. Overall, there will be 218 ads district-wide.

These ads “must relate to health, education, nutrition, or student safety, and may not directly endorse products,” but some of them are sponsored by private companies and advertise products like Post-It Notes. The district hopes it can raise $425,000 annually with the ads.

You know, I really am surprised – this is no time for “half-measures,” people. How about making the students wear shirts with Nike swooshes, caps with the Coors Beer logo or sweater vests with the Apple logo (as a tribute to Steve Jobs, of course)?

Hey, at least Corbett didn’t tell Pennsbury to drill for its own natural gas (here – removing my tongue from my cheek now…what else can I say besides this being another example of Corbett’s pathetic non-governance?).

Also, did you know that the ruling Repugs in the U.S. House have already passed about a dozen “jobs” bills, according to California rep (and supposed “young gun”) Kevin McCarthy, as noted here?

Of course, we’re talking about the Repugs, so their “jobs” bills don’t create any actual, real, you know…jobs. But if you’re looking for still more stinking tax cuts, getting rid of those pesky, burdensome big gumint regulations (and by the way, don’t ask which ones, or else that’s a “gotcha” question) and passing “free” trade deals, then brother, do Boehner, Cantor and their pals have a deal for you!

Meanwhile, in the world of reality, 4 of the 6 ideas receiving popular support as noted here come from President Obama and the Democrats (and as noted here, business leaders in this country called for infrastructure spending at this “roundtable” or whatever where Obama participated recently, which, as noted here, is opposed by that sleazy weasel Cantor and his pals, including McCarthy).

Continuing, I give you the following (here)…

Congressional Republicans on Monday called for the immediate repeal of a major component of the 2010 healthcare reform law as the issue blew up in the administration’s face.

OK, I have a problem right away with this - to begin, this development wasn’t a total surprise, unfortunately; HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warned this might happen to the CLASS Act, which was crafted by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), since apparently it could not pay for itself. As noted here…

The CLASS Act is a voluntary, federally administered, consumer-financed insurance plan. The CLASS plan provides a cash benefit after a five year vestment period that can be used in multiple ways to allow an individual to stay in his or her home.

Oh, and before everyone rejoices too much about the demise of the CLASS Plan, please take note of the fact that it was supported by the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) last February, as noted in the linked article.

Returning to the Hill piece (which reads like it was largely written by GOP.gov), I give you the following from BoBo’s one-time man crush (here, second bullet)…

Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R-La.), the House sponsor of legislation to repeal the program, told The Hill that he is “pushing” Republican leaders “personally” to bring up his bill shortly after the House returns from recess next week. The only Democrat who has co-sponsored Boustany’s legislation is Rep. Daniel Lipinski (Ill.), who voted against healthcare reform last year.

The bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), also took to the floor to urge quick action.

“Hopefully we can kill this thing once and for all so it doesn’t become a drain on our children and grandchildren,” Thune said.

In response, I give you the following from K.O. in August 2009…

…the insurance industry owns the Republican Party. Not exclusively. Pharma owns part of it, too. Hospitals and HMO's, another part. Nursing homes — they have a share. You name a Republican, any Republican, and he is literally brought to you by... campaign donations from the Health Sector. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota? You gave the Republican rebuttal to the President's weekly address day before yesterday. You said the Democrats' plan was for…

"…government run health care that would disrupt our current system, and force millions of Americans who currently enjoy their employer-based coverage into a new health care plan run by government bureaucrats."

That's a bald-faced lie, Senator. And you're a bald-faced liar, whose bald face is covered by…your own health care plan run by government bureaucrats. Nobody would be forced into anything; and the Public Insurance Option is no more a disruption than letting the government sell you water, and not just Poland Spring and Sparkletts. But, as corrupt hypocrites go, Senator, at least you're well paid. What was that one statement worth to you in contributions from the Health Sector, Sen. Thune?

Five thousand dollars? Ten? We know what you are, Sir, we're arguing about the price. What about your other quote? "We can accomplish health care reform while keeping patients and their doctors in charge, not bureaucrats and politicians." Wow, Senator — this illustrates how desperate you and the other Republicans are, right? Because Sen. Thune, if you really think "bureaucrats and politicians" need to get out of the way of "patients and their doctors," then you support a woman patient's right to get an abortion, and you supported Michael Schiavo's right to take his wife off life support, and you oppose "bureaucrats and politicians" getting in the way, and we'll just mark you down on the pro-choice list. That's a rare misstep for you Sen. Thune. No twelve-thousand dollar payoff for that statement! I am not being hyperbolic, am I, Senator? On the money?

Sen. Thune has thus far received from the Health Sector, campaign contributions — and all these numbers tonight are from "The Center For Responsive Politics" — campaign contributions amounting to $1,206,176. So much for Sen. Thune.

So much, indeed.

And staying with “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” I give you this…

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said Monday that he doesn’t expect the Occupy Wall Street protest movement to last long unless it becomes more coherent.

“I’m not sure this movement is going to last if it doesn’t have some reasonably clear and cogent purpose and message and so far I haven’t seen that,” Toomey told Pennsylvania’s WKOK news radio. “For the most part there just doesn’t seem to be a coherent message.”

Oh, I don’t know – this seems pretty “clear and cogent” and “coherent” to me.

But what else can you expect from someone as out of touch as Toomey, as noted here, here and here (and who was responsible for this video)?

Finally, this appeared yesterday in the Philadelphia Daily News by Richard Aregood, in which he pays tribute to his editor, who apparently has a conservative point of view…

EDITORS, despite what writers say about them, are every journalist's best friends.

They save us, as much as they can, from making total fools of ourselves while at the same time making sure we stay grammatical and have facts to back up even our wildest assertions.

Michael Schefer has been my editor since I began writing this column. I've come to value his brains and collegiality, which have made me look smarter than I really am. He has accepted a buyout and will be leaving the Daily News. It's a big loss for the Daily News and for me.

I suppose, but Aregood basically uses this column as an excuse to say that Will Bunch and Sean Hannity are the same, only they represent opposing points of view (which is apparently OK with Aregood, since he knows where both are “coming from”). Bunch has an affiliation with Media Matters, and Hannity with Fix Noise, of course. And that makes everything just peachy.

Really? Try reading this and let me know the next time (or the first time) Bunch panders in such a shameless, utterly-fact-free manner, would you please?

Apparently, Aregood (as noted in his bio) is the Charles R. Johnson Professor of Journalism at the University of North Dakota. Still, it seems that he can’t see the difference between a journalist whose sometimes strident point of view is rooted firmly in fact-based reporting and a bought-and-paid-for Ken doll employed to sit in front of a camera and propagate Republican Party talking points.

Referencing his column once more, I would say that Aregood’s “journalistic GPS” needs some time in the shop for maintenance.

Sunday Stuff

So how exactly did it go yesterday at Occupy Montreal? Glad you asked (here)...



...and here's something that's both kind of gothic and futuristic at the same time - probably a couple of weeks early with this one.