How Drudge Operates

April 17th, 2012

Matt Drudge is an ass. Here's a screencap showing today's alarmist edition of his so-called "Report." Scary stuff. Very scary!

Yeah? Well? It's also some serious bullshit. 

The story that inspired this is an actual report on "almost 1,800 people" who are, for the most part, wealthy enough to live off of domestic investments abroad.


1,800 people.

Out of well over 300 million.

So, what's the real story? It's overwhelmingly one of avaricious greed:

"The decision by the IRS to publish the names is referred to by lawyers as "name and shame." That's because those who renounce are seen as willing to give up their citizenship primarily for financial reasons.

There's also an "exit tax" for the very rich who choose to leave. During the last 25 years, a number of millionaires and billionaires have renounced their citizenship. Among them: Ted Arison, the late founder of Carnival Cruises, and Michael Dingman, a former Ford Motor Co. director."

You read that right. 1,800 (mostly) rich people are vexed that the most powerful nation in the world thinks they should pony up for continued access to the toughest consulates and protection from the most heavily armed embassies on Earth while they make a plaything of exploitable economies and simultaneously maintain substantial holdings at home.

In other Drudge propaganda today, an ongoing, anti-terrorism urban-readiness exercise was framed this way...

Blackhawk choppers... over Chicago

"Black helicopters"

In Obama's hometown.

Get it?

2012, The Mayan Calendar and Idiots

Jan 2nd, 2011

Sigh. This is going to be a looooong year.

Obama's "Nemesis"

Oct 3rd, 2011

Jason Zengerle profiles House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) for New York Magazine. It's an ugly portrait of a very unprincipled man.

"Cantor’s role as Obama’s nemesis, as the National Review recently dubbed him, is remarkable for several reasons—none more so than the fact that, although he’s now the darling of the tea party, he initially rose to power in Washington by standing for almost everything the tea party is against..."

"Cantor’s primary job as a member of the whip operation was to cajole his fellow Republican congressmen into voting for many of the bills the tea-partiers now decry as the height of fiscal irresponsibility —including, most infamously, the 2003 Medicare prescription-drug legislation, for which he worked hand in hand with pharmaceutical-industry lobbyists and Karl Rove."

The article traces Cantor's self-transformation from establishment stooge to, well, stealth establishment stooge. It is amazing that someone so committed to preserving corporatist exploitation and defending outright waste in non-social spending has managed to dupe the GOP rank and file into believing that he is fighting for fiscal sensibility.

An interesting aside in the article actually shines a very bright light on just how Cantor has accomplished this. What's more, it also illustrates how he has marginalized Speaker Boehner while, at the same time, securing his general control over the radical, Tea Party driven newcomers who stormed into Congress last year.

"I can text Cantor and get a response back in minutes," says one freshman, explaining his allegiance. "I don’t know if Speaker Boehner even has a cell phone."

These freshman are his to control. They go home and tell their constituents his version of events. Their own narratives have been subsumed.

This is Eric Cantor's grand strategy... for Eric Cantor.

He has created and now wields a barely visible intra-party political machine. His continuing consolidation of power is impressive. His ability to call upon it to obstruct and sabotage both sides of the aisle raises the very real possibility that, as the title of Zengerle's implies, we are actually living in "Cantor's America."

The Riots and Conservative Audacity

Aug 13th, 2011
by F. Grey Parker

As the meltdown of order overcame England last week, the reading public was simultaneously subjected to a riot online. There were absurd proclamations by the left that this was a desperate response to the "austerity" measures enacted by the Torys. There were equally vulgar rushes to judgment, a lot of them, from the right. In particular, there was an incredible smear from England's answer to Michelle Rhee, Katharine Birbalsingh, who wrote hastily about the "race" of the man who was killed by London's police in the incident that lit the fuse:

"I'd like to know what they’re angry about. Mark Duggan is dead. He was shot by the police in a shootout. Duggan was in a minicab and shots were fired from both the cab and the police elsewhere. A police officer was hurt in the incident and a bullet was found lodged in a police radio. Either Duggan was shooting at the police or the driver of the minicab was. Either Duggan was in the wrong place at the wrong time and his death is a terrible tragedy – he was caught in the crossfire – or he shot at the police and the police defended themselves. Whatever the explanation, the police did not kill this man in cold blood."

First of all, she exposes a viewpoint which is actually shocking... outside of American right wing circles. The casual acceptance of official violence against people "in the wrong place" has become so common here that we in the States no longer raise much more than an eyebrow. Second of all, this sputtering and angry little rant demonstrates again why no one, either on the left or right, should rush to make political hay before the facts are established.

Shameful Spin

July 28th, 2011

A few nights ago, while monitoring the primetime opinion broadcasts, I began to see wave after wave of Republican elected officials marching past the Fox cameras and touting a recent CNN poll which they said showed that "66% of Americans support 'Cut, Cap and Balance.'" I was, needless to say, a little bit curious about this. I went to read the poll in question. A full examination reveals their claims to be the worst sort of spin. Indeed, their exclamations rise to the levels of naked propaganda.

Here is the actual text of the question and the breakdown of the responses.

At first glance, this might seem impressive. But it is not. In fact, it is a testament to the average citizen's total lack of knowledge about what "Cut, Cap and Balance" would actually legislate.

How do we know this? Because CNN continued to ask more questions. They asked the respondents about specific spending cuts and tax increases. Meaning, they actually put quantifiable policy proposals to the test. What this reveals is that roughly two thirds to three quarters of the electorate is opposed to the entire contemporary Republican mission.

Period.

Goo-Goo Syndrome

March 22nd, 2011

We know what the right is up to. They are following a blueprint handed to them from their modern hero, Paul Weyrich, in 1980. What they are doing is not new. The fierceness and ugliness with which they are doing it is. Divide, disenfranchise and denigrate. Make sure that stupid people are listening to you and that you are fueling the fire of their fears. 

Headline Of The Year Nominee

Feb 9th, 2011

"Women's Fitness Magazines Are Bullshit"

©2010-2011 Taylor-Cox

So headlines a terrific critique in Jezebel of publications that stealth-mimic the more lurid Cosmo-style rags under the guise of providing advice and guidance to improve well being. Taking particular aim at Self, Fitness and Women's Health, Morning Gloria writes:

"Between the three magazines, weight loss as the goal of fitness and calorie counting as a requirement of eating was mentioned and repeated and harped upon on over 100 pages. The second most popular topic featured in women's fitness magazines? Makeup and beauty products, which take up 60 pages of the publications. We also are taken on a delightful journey through clothing, accessories, and jewelry, because nothing says "health" like having a nice healthy watch by Tag Heuer or a cancer-fighting Kate Spade bag. There are some lessons to be learned, though, important lessons that will help all of us feel crappy about ourselves without actually getting any stronger or loving our bodies."

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