This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Media

  • PolitiFact busted, again

    Politifact, the nominally non-partisan “fact checker” which takes a statement by a politician, surveys a group of “experts” of their own choosing and then coughs up a “truth-o-meter” score, has landed in hot water, again. Previously it was when the liberal media establishment got all asshurt over Politifact calling the claim that Republicans were trying to end Medicare the “Lie of the Year”, much to the amusement of columnists like Mark Hemingway over at The Weekly Standard. Hemingway had previously worked to expose so called “fact checking” organizations as being fundamentally misrepresentative highlighting, among other things, the absurdity of using AP reports as the arbiter of proper military analysis after Politifact went after Romney on a Iran statement.

    This time around it again concerns our military.
    (more…)

  • CNN and their tabloid curiosity

    ROS sends us a link to NewBusters who reports on John King’s first question to Newt Gingrich about his wife’s dishing on her marriage;

    You all know that I’m no Gingrich fan, but it does grate on me that the debate is becoming more about the candidates’ personal and professional than the issues. I oppose Barack Obama and Ron Paul on the issues, not on whether I like them personally or not.

    And who is shocked that an ex-wife would attack her husband? If you could see my in box, you’d know I’m not surprised. I have several ex-wives dishing on their former spouses in the Stolen Valor arena. Just got one yesterday on one of our favorites.

    A moderator whose job is to focus on the debate shouldn’t be asking questions better served in the tabloids than debate on national television. I don’t remember anyone asking Abe Lincoln if his wife was stable enough to be first lady during his series of debates.

  • Ron Paul, the turd in the conservative punchbowl

    I’m staying off of the debate for the Republican primaries…you may have noticed. Except for expressing my extreme displeasure with Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, I’m just not getting involved. You guys pick the candidate, and I’ll vote for him.

    But, I did see some footage this morning of Ron Paul in last night’s debate and it should be discouraging for anyone who wants the best GOP candidate for the office. I’m pretty sure that, in the realm of foreign policy, Ron Paul is no better than the current occupant of the White House.

    Last night he said something to the effect of “Of course people hate us, what with us flying around dropping bombs on all of these countries”. I can’t find the exact quote anywhere on the internet, which doesn’t surprise me very much since the media wants Paul to be the GOP candidate. It’s not even listed in today’s Washington Post‘s “jaw-dropping quotes” from last night’s debate.

    Since when do we care if people hate us? Is that what our foreign policy should be based upon…making people like us? And the last time I checked, we were dropping bombs on people who kill Americans, or want to kill Americans. Are they all that worried about whether we like them or not?

    A Ron Paul presidency would return us to a pre-1941 level of defense. Our troops will be carrying 2x4s to simulate rifles and driving cardboard tanks. His supporters include Code Pink and Michael Moore, who’ve been opposed to attacking our enemies since 9/11, so what are these Paulian people thinking? Or are they thinking? Their favorite advice to me is “read a book” or “do your own research”. But they appear to be the most uneducated, inexperienced buffoons on the planet.

    ADDED: I just saw this on Facebook from Jim Treacher;

    Some people think Ron Paul is confused and scatterbrained, but that’s only based on all available evidence.

  • Target: You

    “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.” -Saul Alinsky

    The silent majority’s revulsion at the New Left’s demonization of Vietnam-era veterans created an environment in the popular consciousnesses that said, “Never again. Never again will returning troops be spit upon and libeled as criminals.” However, the media’s discovery of the 3/2 urination video has crystallized in my mind a reality of anti-war propaganda, that the nature and character of the troops themselves is the battleground, yet again.

    In the wake of the video’s discovery, a sad dichotomy has emerged in the media. On one side are the “reasonable” and “responsible” forces who call for the discipline of these Marines for their actions. They studiously call for deeper investigations and ask “the hard questions” about how and why this happened. Those who have served in uniform, our nation’s true journalists, conservatives and those on the left with the strategic and moral clarity of the late Christopher Hitchens are left to cry out for context and make emotional declarations of solidarity with the dehumanization of Taliban fighters. In other words the narrative established in the opening hours of the story forced the defenders of the American service member into the indefensible position of championing pissing on dead people. That’s a losing fight.

    In very recent history the discovery that Marines had urinated on the enemy’s dead would have triggered an internal disciplinary action, if for no other reason than such behavior undermines the professionalism and bearing upon which the Marine Corps stakes so much of its reputation. Today, though, it becomes a media firestorm, a chance for the often collusionary anti-war and anti-American forces to vilify the effort in Afghanistan as a lost cause perpetrated by the morally bankrupt. Stories such as these, in conjunction with the largely manufactured rash of recent PTSD horror stories, function to establish a narrative of immoral entropy, making the case that the war effort in Afghanistan is fundamentally corrosive to everyone touched by it. Instead of a difficult and noble endeavor to do right, to spread basic human rights and to doggedly pursue the most evil cabal of men in modern history it is a cancer on the nation to be cut out without mercy for the well being of the entire nation.

    This is a fight which will be waged at your expense; the active duty and reserve service members and the families which sacrifice so much to put them and keep them in the fight. There’s a target on your back. Keep your chin up and your nose clean.

  • Some liberal activists appear prone to committing terrorism

    Why? Because, in a demographic of millions, over the course of several decades, a few of them them committed acts of violent terrorism. Ergo, there’s nothing wrong with the straight faced statment, “some liberal activists are prone to terrorism.” At least that’s the logic behind Reuters Pentagon Corresponding Phil Stewart in his recent column speculating the recent video by the whizz kids in 3/2 “could be the new Abu Gharib.”

    …experts inside and outside the U.S. military are so far unconvinced the incident will cause as much damage as Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal did, even as it stirs anti-American sentiment and revives questions about why some American troops appear prone to committing abuses — and then proudly documenting them.

    Stay classy, Phil.

  • TAH on BBC

    This afternoon between 1 and 2 PM Eastern Time, I’ll be on BBC World discussing the Marines in the urination video with Troy Steward of Bouhammer’s Afghanistan Blog and You Served Radio along with some guests from Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. BBC has promised to send me a link so you guys can listen in during your lunch (those are my lunch hours) and I’ll put the podcast up after it becomes available (about 3pm).

    Any points you want me to hit, in case my steel trap mind hasn’t yet?

    Added: The show will be at this link between 1 & 2 Eastern Time.

    Added 2x: If you missed the show, the podcast will be here at about 3PM Eastern Time.

  • Occupy protesters “save” baby

    ROS sends this link from CNN about a douche nozzle who left his 13-month-old baby unattended and alone at the Occupy DC protest;

    Police were called around 10 a.m. and found the baby girl wearing only a “onesie,” Schlosser said. Temperatures in Washington at the time were in the low 40s.

    DC Fire and EMS responded and found the child in good health, Schlosser said. She is now in the custody of Washington’s Child and Family Services Agency.

    A man claiming to be the girl’s father returned to the park about 30 minutes later.

    He has been charged with attempted second degree cruelty to a child, according to Schlosser.

    Yeah, the only reason I mention this is because I saw a “teaser” about the story on the local DC news about how DC protesters “saved” a baby. Um, it was an Occupy DC protester who abandoned his baby among the rats and filth in Farragut MacPherson Square. Wouldn’t a responsible news organization report the story like that? It was DC’s Fox5, by the way.

  • CNN POS

    I was held hostage in my doctor’s waiting room at Fort Belvoir today and tortured by having to watch CNN. TSO says he can’t watch Fox News because of the minutiae that they call news. But this is the reason I can’t watch CNN. They spent about 30 seconds on the murder/suicide on Christmas Day in Texas during which Aziz Yazdanpanah showed at his family’s house and killed six members of his family. however, in their report, CNN didn’t bother to even mention the killer’s name let alone float the theory that it might have been an honor killing because his daughter was dating a non-Muslim man. The only thing they said about the murderer is that he was wearing a Santa Claus suit.

    Then about ten seconds later, they ran a story for more than five minutes about “Jewish radicals” who were trying to force their dress code on people in their village. The reporter who was telling the audience was nearly breathless in his reportage, emphasizing the phrase “Jewish radicals” every time he said it in every sentence. Now all these Jewish members of a sect are doing is calling people, mostly women, names for their clothing. They weren’t assaulting anyone, or shooting anyone, but somehow this is worth more broadcast time than a guy who terrorized his family for years and then murdered his family on Christmas Day wearing a Santa suit.

    I dunno, maybe I’m just too excitable when it comes to CNN.