John Hawkins of Right Wing News polled bloggers, including this one, on racism yesterday.
7) In your opinion, have you or a group you’re a part of ever been falsely accused of racism?
A) Yes: 86.9% (53 votes)
B) No: 13.1% (8 votes)8) Do you think the majority of accusations of racism in politics today are false?
A) Yes: 100% (62 votes)
B) No: 0% (0 votes)
I’ve been getting this story for two days about Los Zetas from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico crossing the border and seizing two US ranches. The mails all cite to the Examiner. No, it’s not the Examiner to which we’re all accustomed, it’s some other Examiner.
They also cite to something called the Cypress Times. The Examiner amd the Cypress Times all cite to Digger’s Realm which cites back to the Examiner.
Confederate Yankee got tired of all of the confusion and called the cops;
[SGT Perez of the Laredo PD] also provided me the number of the Webb County Sheriff’s Department. The deputy that answered the phone there was less amused, having also dealt with this rumor multiple times in a short amount of time. She also told me that there was no invasion and no law enforcement siege, and that deputies were continuing normal operations.
Of course, that’s not enough to convince Mr. Digger. This is from his comments at CY;
You want to know why [The Examiner’s] story and mine match up? Some of my initial breaking story relied on some of her info and her info relied on the info I had put together earlier on the Los Zetas.
Yeah, two sources hundreds of miles from the scene quoting from each other on “research” – I don’t see any problem with that.
Their main “evidence” is that the media isn’t reporting about it. Yeah, I wouldn’t buy that even if it came with a coupon for a free Camaro.
I think the first question I asked myself when I first read the story was “Why?” Why would Los Zetas invade the US and occupy two ranches? It’s an untenable position given the fact that we’ve toppled a couple of governments clear around the world in a matter of hours…what could possibly prevent us from prying a couple of cholos from a few ranches? Why would said cholos even want a few ranches in Texas?
Some bloggers I respect have bought the story – I don’t. Some of the commenters in CY are twisting themselves in knots trying verify the story with peripherally-related stories from days ago about gunfire in Nuevo Laredo. Some people just want to believe so badly that the Mexicans are invading under the force of arms and that the Obama Administration is letting them, everything is evidence.
I may be wrong, but given the “evidence”, I think I’d rather be wrong than right about this one. Toothless Dawg wrote to tell us that the story is false according to a friend in Laredo who says everything is calm there.
This post isn’t to disparage the people who sent me links to this…keep your links coming. I don’t slap your links up until I check the background. Obviously everything is blog post.
I picked up this video at our buddy, Gateway Pundit. Anchors Kyra Phillips and John Roberts at CNN discuss how there’s just too much free speech going on out here and it’s cutting into their own credibility and viewer share;
Their claim is that there are just too many stories going around that they don’t approve of and they just don’t have the time to check the stories out (like it’s somehow the responsibility of jerks with J-school diplomas to cleanse the internet). Kind of like all of the crap CNN started spreading on the cable-ways which spawned the need for bloggers.
I’ll admit that I jumped the gun twice on phony soldier stories, but I owned up to it both times. I’ve never seen CNN own up to any of their mistakes – so I guess they ought to clean up their own yard before they start complaining about mine.
Besides, this Sherrod story wasn’t too far off the mark. I mean, all of this crap about her not saying what we think she said is horseshit – it’s on video. It’s not like we put words in her mouth. And her audience was laughing and clapping and having a good old time before they knew how the story was going to turn out.
The video shows what it shows and no amount of false hand-wringing over bloggers will change that.
ADDED Sporkmaster:
Seems like the Simpson were a head of the game when they made this.
Kent: A new Internet watchdog is creating a stir in Springfield.
Mr. “X”, if that is real name, has come up with a
sensational scoop.
Homer: [watching at home] Darn tooting!
Kent: But we must never forget that the real news is on local
TV, delivered by real officially licensed newsmen, like
me, Kent Brockman. Coming up: how do they get those dogs
to talk on the beer commercials? [a reporter in a big
cowboy hat appears] Cowboy Steve will tell you!
It was announced yesterday that TSO has been accepted to the Board of Trustees of the most excellent soldier support group Soldiers’ Angels;
Soldiers’ Angels announces the appointment of military veteran, new media expert and lobbyist Mark Seavey to the Board of Trustees. Drawing on thirteen years’ experience advocating for veterans, Seavey will work closely with COL (ret) Henry Cook on legislative liaison efforts.
A strong advocate for veterans, Seavey began his career with The American Legion in 1997 as an Appeals Representative and later served with the National Legislative Commission as an Assistant Director and Grassroots Coordinator. Recently promoted to New Media Manager, Seavey serves as steward of The Burn Pit and also runs a highly-respected personal milblog which specializes in debunking fraudulent military service claims.
“I couldn’t be happier about being selected for the Board of Soldiers’ Angels,” says Seavey, who first encountered Soldiers’ Angels through his work with military blogs.
I guess this is one more excuse for him to avoid posting here. And since he “runs” This Ain’t Hell, I’m waiting for some checks to reimburse my expenses over the last four years. I swear….
But congratulations to my buddy…I guess Soldiers’ Angels and the American Legion see the potential that I saw more than two years ago when I asked TSO join us here. Now we can all wait together for that potential to come to fruition.
Our buddy, Alex Horton from the excellent blog “Army of Dude” who beat us out for a third place slot in the 2009 Weblog Awards (behind Michael Yon and Blackfive) has won himself a job at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs as their new media guy. There’s more at Mudville Gazette.
Alex tells us that his intention is to make the DVA more accesible and responsive to veterans especially those who use the internet.
Horton has been there and done that in Iraq, and then used his blog as a platform to battle the VA over the their inability to efficiently distribute benefits from the new GI Bill.
I hope you’ll all join us congratulating Alex and wishing him the best. If anyone can drag the VA into the 21st century it’s Alex Horton.
Yesterday, Andrew Breitbart offered a $100,000 reward for the archives of the JournoList, the leftist media’s secret email group from which leaked the emails that brought Washington Post’s David Weigel down.
Well, Iowahawk claims he’s owed the prize;
EZRA KLEIN: wassup
MATTHEW YGLESIAS: my dick
JOSH MARSHALL: lolz!!! 😀
EZRA KLEIN: hahahahahaha
MATTHEW YGLESIAS: whos got assignmt for 1st period talking points for tomorrow
JOSH MARSHALL: boehlert was supposed to get them from Mr Soros
Put down any liquids that you may be consuming and head over to the link.
Laughing Wolf from Blackfive sent a message asking for your assistance this morning;
I would like to ask a favor of you and your readers. I know some are very particular about charities, and as such I would like to get feedback on what we have up at cwtt.org [Cooking With the Troops]. Such feedback, plus any information on organization sites they find particularly good or helpful will help us develop our “real” site. Would you be willing to pass this along to them?
So I know you guys are click-averse (since none of you click my ads) but help out one of my rum-drinking, cigar-smoking buddies.
I’ve been staying on the periphery of the Michael Yon discussion. I was uncomfortable with whole thing because Yon came through for us during the surge and I truly believed that all he needed was a break. To a lesser extent, I’ve fallen victim to coming up with new and different ways to increase blog traffic (and hopefully find some readers who would click the ads or kick a few bucks my way) and the resulting burn out – so I thought Yon just needed a rest.
But today, Yon went on the G. Gordon Liddy show and just lost the remainder of respect I felt I owed him. Here’s a portion of the show;
Yon just pushed me over to the milkook column. As recently as yesterday, I defended Yon in an email to our old friend Lt Nixon (who has found some faulty reporting from Yon on the problems in Thailand). Yeah, I think I’m through hanging out my junk for crackpots to stomp on.