The guys who run Politico have posted some golly-gosh on the President who, you may have noticed, is not stupid. They call it “Obama, the puppet master.” Also “Behind the Curtain: Obama, the puppet master.” This Curtain must be some big deal. Anyway it turns out Obama is neither a fool nor is he pulling anyone’s strings.

. . the mastery mostly flows from a White House that has taken old tricks for shaping coverage (staged leaks, friendly interviews) and put them on steroids using new ones (social media, content creation, precision targeting). And it’s an equal opportunity strategy: Media across the ideological spectrum are left scrambling for access.

So this “puppet master.” He’s on Facebook?

With more technology, and fewer resources at many media companies, the balance of power between the White House and press has tipped unmistakably toward the government. This is an arguably dangerous development, and one that the Obama White House — fluent in digital media and no fan of the mainstream press — has exploited cleverly and ruthlessly.

Yes it’s all about how ruthless the Twitter can be, at least in the hands of Obama. You can see how “arguably dangerous” this is becoming.

February of 2011 the President sits down for an interview with Fox News. Bill O’Reilly interrupts him 48 times. June 2012 Obama meets with reporters in the Rose Garden to announce changes in illegal immigration policy. The Daily Caller’s Neil Munro shouts him down. Days ago at the National Prayer Breakfast, Ben Carson rants a lengthy tirade on the perfect glories of God, the Flat Tax and zombie Health Savings Accounts while Obama sits 5 feet away.

And this barely covers the insults the President has had hurled in his face. Which is to say that these media events have long since devolved into punk journalism, or skree-discussions. Taking direct shots at the President is a thing now.

In all these cases, self-serving people seized the opportunity for personal advancement. O’Reilly saw he could solidify his ‘Fuck You Pal’ bona fides. Munro was an invisible dolt at a doltery, but now we know who he is. Ben Carson is quitting his practice to run for President, and Politico dutifully publishes stories about him every day. If you think the President owes these people their fondest wishes, you’re crazy. Journalism has become the practice of masturbation. When the media become respectable, which likely will be never again, the President will, maybe, talk to them.

Do you remember when the Associated Press was a media institution? When it was a primary source for news? When an AP byline meant journalism you knew to be honest, accurate and trustworthy?

Those days are gone. Those days might as well never have existed. The Associated Press has become a disgrace. We all appreciate snappy truth-telling, but we’re not interested in a hack piece written by a right-wing fool. That’s what this big AP story is, some pundit-clown’s “fact-check” entitled “Fact check finds former president’s claims of compromise a stretch.” Here:

. . when former President Bill Clinton took the stage at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, he portrayed President Barack Obama as a pragmatic compromiser who has been stymied at every turn by Republicans. There was no mention of the role that the president and the Democrats have played in grinding compromise to a halt on some of the most important issues facing the country.

They’re hitting it hard. The headline, the sub-head, the first two paragraphs, they all repeat the fact-checker’s rebuttal: Nobody compromises. Well, let’s see.

CLINTON: “When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world, cooperation works better. …Unfortunately, the faction that now dominates the Republican Party doesn’t see it that way. They think government is the enemy and compromise is weakness. One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation.”

OOPS. Again: “One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation.” What does that say about Democrats? Nothing. Clinton only called Obama a compromiser. He said nothing of congress. But the AP’s debunk:

THE FACTS: From Clinton’s speech, voters would have no idea that the inflexibility of both parties is to blame for much of the gridlock. Right from the beginning Obama brought in as his first chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a man known for his getting his way, not for getting along.

When did Rahm Emanuel become Barack Obama? Never. At least not yet. Or does Obama do whatever Emanuel tells him to do? Emanuel is now the mayor of Chicago, so no. If this isn’t jarring stupidity or incompetence, what is it? I don’t know. More:

One of the more high-profile examples of a deal that fell apart was the outline of a proposed “grand bargain” budget agreement between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner in 2011.

The deal would have required compromise from both sides. It slashed domestic spending more than most Democrats wanted and would have raised some taxes, which most Republicans oppose.

Boehner couldn’t sell the plan to tea party factions in the House or to other conservative activists. And Obama found himself accused of going too far by some Democratic leaders. The deal died before it ever even came up for a vote.

Can you believe it? Bill Clinton said Obama “. . is still committed to cooperation.” And the AP fact-checks the hell out of that with: “. . Obama found himself accused of going too far by some Democratic leaders. The deal died before it ever even came up for a vote.”

Obama went “too far” to appease the opposition. This is how the AP embarrasses Clinton, with strong evidence for Clinton’s claim. Who runs this circus? More:

CLINTON: “I know many Americans are still angry and frustrated with the economy. … I experienced the same thing in 1994 and early 1995. Our policies were working but most people didn’t feel it yet. By 1996, the economy was roaring, halfway through the longest peacetime expansion in American history.”

From that, here would be your fact-checker targets: 1.) policies were working 2.) by 1996 3.) the economy was roaring 4.) the longest peacetime expansion in American history. Check this debunk:

THE FACTS: But Clinton leaves out the abrupt downward turn the economy took near the end of his own second term and the role his policies played in the setting the stage for the historic financial meltdown of 2008.

Get that? This claim could have been true — “By 1996, the economy was roaring, halfway through the longest peacetime expansion in American history” — if only Bill had qualified it with this: “Incidentally the NASDAQ dropped in 2000, and I signed the Glass-Steagall Act.” The idiocy. And this:

CLINTON: “Their campaign pollster said, ‘We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.’ Now that is true. I couldn’t have said it better myself — I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad.”

Did the pollster say that? Is the quote right? Let’s ask the AP:

THE FACTS: Clinton, who famously finger-wagged a denial on national television about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky and was subsequently impeached in the House on a perjury charge, has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” Clinton told television viewers.

So he couldn’t possibly be honest now whatever he says. After all nothing’s so sincere it can survive Doing Sex Things With Lewinsky. No that’s no mind-numbing opinion that’s just a fact, pal. For now that’s it from the Associated Press, that misty hilltop from whence honesty tumbles itself headlong down a one-way street . .

What counts as ‘news’? This is an important question. Heretofore: Blah bleh experts blargh journalism. I don’t know the answer, really, I only know what’s interesting to me. What’s interesting to you? I’ll take a current event that’s changing the planet:

“The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact,” the [National Academy of Sciences] said in a statement last year.

“Climate change is a theory as certain as the theory of the Earth’s age (4.5 billion years), the Big Bang Theory, and the theory of evolution,” the highest US science body went on to say.

Tucker Carlson’s “The Daily Caller,” braap blog excelsior, isn’t impressed. Or worried, apparently.

Speaking of the way everybody knows the globe is getting warmer colder extremier because shut up, teabagger, the phenomenon actually saved me $12.99 the other day. I was thinking about buying Josh Bazell’s new novel . .

Does he know that some scientists think it was happening for a while, but it was due to fluctuations in the sun’s magnetic field and not anything human beings have done? How does Bazell explain away the theory that global warming wasn’t anthropogenic, and that it stopped 15 years ago and now we’re experiencing global cooling? Does he think those scientists aren’t really scientists because their theories don’t conform to his prejudices?

In a steel cage intellectual death match, your scientists and ours, I put the house on ours. Good luck reviving those three buggy statisticians that sleep aside the boiler in the Petrol Freedom Foundation basement. In an actual limb-ripping match, our odds get even better given the numbers.

You ask yourself. If something that unfolds over a century and changes the lives of 7 billion people doesn’t count, then what does? What’s ‘news‘ to The Daily Caller?

There you go. Need to read the coverage? Really? Fine:

A Virginia elementary school teacher told her students that “Republicans are stupid” and “they don’t care about anyone but wealthy people and businesses.”

Need more? It’s your life:

“It all started when this disabled kid came in and named all the Republicans candidates for Super Tuesday,” one student told The Daily Caller. “She [Martin] said to him, ‘I don’t like them, I think that they are stupid.’”

The US has 7 million teachers, btw. We’re done, right? No?

“I felt like the teacher was brainwashing naive, young children to believe people like me, my family and, to a certain extent, my daughter, were stupid,” [one mother] told TheDC via email.

. . and then a flying monkey ripped the face from an unassuming janitor, exposing him for the ticking nuclear weapon he really was. Sigh, no. The lone remark was the whole story. Teacher says “blah.” Mommy alerts The Daily Caller. Come to think of it, there’s your story. Outside of a parent potty-training her daughter and saying, “Look at THAT! Let’s go to Mommy’s compooder box and tell The Daily Caller,” there are no sane reasons to bother.

I make up nothing: this, yesterday, was by far the biggest story on Tucker Carlson’s Edsel blog. The Weasel Zippers had to re-post it:

Virginia Elementary School Teacher Tells Students “Republicans Are Stupid”…
Posted by Zip | 32 comments

We’re so stupid that we find it abhorrent when a teacher pushes liberal propaganda on unsuspecting students.

Via Daily Caller:

The Lonely Conservative was all over it:

Virginia School Teacher Told Class Republicans are Stupid
By Lonely Conservative | April 5, 2012

The Daily Caller reported that on primary day in Virginia, a school teacher told her class that the Republicans on the ballot are all stupid, and that Democrats do more for communities and schools. Tax dollars pay this woman’s salary. Many of those dollars come from Republicans.

And the Washington Free Beacon put it up in all caps:

VA. TEACHER MOCKS REPUBLICANS, DISABLED STUDENT
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff – April 5, 2012 9:26 am

A middle school teacher in Fairfax, Va. mocked a disabled student’s recitation of GOP presidential contenders, saying “Republicans are stupid.”

From the Daily Caller:

“. . I don’t like them, I think that they are stupid.” A woman said it, the Caller reported it, and the red ass that is conservatism throbbed a little hotter. Yesterday, in Maimanah, Afghanistan, three Ohio National Guardsmen were killed in a suicide attack. Routinely, across America . .

Riki Ingram, 18, Baker, La., shot his leg while “holstering” his gun to his pocket following a robbery (December). Ethan Bennett, 36, Monroe, Wash., aiming at a squirrel running up his leg, shot his foot (November). Special Deputy Ted Maze, Bedford, Ind., shot his hand while reloading at a training session (June). Kenneth Fortson, 21, Atlanta, was killed in a police chase following a home invasion (by, apparently, holding a gun as his pickup truck hit a tree and jarred his trigger finger) (October). Larry Godwin, 68, Redfield, Iowa, shot himself twice firing at a raccoon in a live trap . .

Pictured (l to r): sober media, drunken public

Shorter Mona Charen, National Review:

“Rahm Emanuel. The Duke Lacrosse thing was about a ghetto hooker. The Matthew Shepard thing was about a drug deal. Several young black males died February twenty-sixth. One got shot by a white guy. Journalism.”

There are the actors, over there, the audience. Here come the media, the go-betweens. Someone has to convey the, uh, hmm. Some group has to tell you, ehh, err. Okay — here come the useless, self-important assholes of the world:

At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.

Great journalism, sober and accurate. While he writhed on a bed of fur-lined German bonds, President Bon Bon struck an ominous tone with the Democrat Dauphins:

“Back to wiping your own butts?”

Hell no. Bring back Day Spa America. 4 more years of neck rubs and personal attendants. This circular war footing / economic downturn creates nothing if not a blissed whirlpool of languor. Bankers foreclosing on your house? Whatever. You and 172 people interviewing for the one job opening in past 6 months? I’m tired. Your son’s remains being interred in Arlington? He’s not going anywhere.

Yes, simple times call for simple narratives. You’d be surprised to find out this “news” story didn’t originate with the New York Post. Nor from Fox News Channel, either. This was ABC News style journalism, aka your liberal media. Not that anyone noticed.

Sitter in Chief
Barack Obama and the infantilization of America
James Taranto | Wall Street Journal

. . Here’s ABC News, reporting on the speech the president gave in Fog City: “At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.”

Oh no! Horror of horrors! Obama is the only thing standing between us and having to rely on ourselves! And do you know what they call people who rely on themselves?

Adults.

Here’s a photo of you the WSJ appended to Taranto’s piece:

Much for the worse we’d be without professional, big league journalism.

Here’s a crisis, if ever there were one. What would happen to America should someone on TV claim to be one thing but actually be another? What if someone claimed to be straight but were actually gay? What if someone claimed to be Indian but were actually Italian? What if someone claimed to be clever but were actually stupid?

I can hardly imagine the consequences. The television is no place for mere appearances. TV was invented to bear the steely truth about people right into your homes, citizens. Right down to their fricking DNA.

Of course, you knew that. So you won’t be surprised by the reaction of that clever guardian of television, Brent Bozell. He bolted upright from his chair when he heard the Pulitzer committee’s media annex, Dancing With The Stars, will include Chaz Bono in its next season.

How can they do that? Don’t they know who Chaz really is?

Dancing With the Lecturers
Brent Bozell | Sept. 9, 2011 | Townhall.com

. . Once the cute little blond daughter, Chastity, that everyone of a certain age remembers from the old “Sonny and Cher Show” on CBS is now the female-denying Chaz Bono.

ABC didn’t name Bono because “he’s” known as a dancer. They named “him” because he’s well-known as an LGBT activist, with an emphasis on the “T.”

Everything about this stinks, doesn’t it? “He,” as if. When will the media liberals figure this out: TV shows are too important to be messed with? And yet, here they go again. Putting on a woman (or maybe a “it”?) who’s an obvious liar. This is awful.

. . no one should have any doubt that Chaz Bono is going to be instructing America about the need to overcome their “transphobia” — on the show and everywhere else.

I don’t need your bullcrap education. I just wanna watch the stars dance. Okay?

ABC and the rest of the media universe can do all the pretending they want, but that’s not going to make Bono a real male. It’s not a completely inaccurate stereotype for people to say so. Silly, old-fashioned me; I’m stuck on human beings made as males and females.

Right. Other than those folks with Turner’s and Klinefelter’s and undescended testicles and Testis Determining Factor translocations, mutations, or a host of other conditions, syndromes and realities, everybody is male or female. Hulloooo ABC. It cut off its breasts, fer chrissakes.

Despite “his” low voice, and his sideburns and his awful decision to amputate his own breasts, Bono remains a woman.

Thank you. Exactly.

Anything happen today? Sure.

As night fell on Tuesday after a day in which rebel forces gained “full control” over Moammar Gadhafi’s fortified Bab al-Aziziya compound in Libya’s capital, heavy fighting was reported in a southern desert city, Sabha, that rebels forecast would be Gadhafi loyalists’ last redoubt . .

That’s some big news. Also: Charges were dropped against the ultra-powerful, ultra-capitalist Dominique Strauss-Kahn. So if you’re an immigrant with a checkered past, don’t allow yourself to be sexually assaulted by a powerful man. Right, lesson learned.

In a bit of freak news, an earthquake hit the East Coast. Folks in D.C. felt it. How big an earthquake? Nobody ended up with stitches after running through broken glass.

So, a tremor. Hello, blog friends, Los Angeles calling. And this is how you rate these things — people getting injured, or bricks falling on your car, maybe killing it. Once that happens, you have an “event.” This quake, instead, was perhaps interesting. Something to chat about over a pint at the end of the day.

Of course, to the chattering class, whose sensibilities get knocked senseless by the Drudge Report on an hourly basis, the earth shaking rates a new chapter in the Bible. Who’s in charge of writing that thing, anyway? Oh, right, Matt Drudge:

Matt Drudge’s above-the-fold coverage of the earthquake featured a series of links about the story and a link telling readers that “Obama was on golf course…”

. . developing . .

BREAKING: President Played Golf Through Tremageddon
Matt Drudge | Capitol Testament Correspondent | August Without Question

Unnamed White House sources have confirmed that President Barack Obama remained at a golf resort for the entire duration of the capital temblor crisis, now commonly called “Earthgate.” Those same sources also tell the Drudge Report that the president himself will now take responsibility for the decision to play golf in advance of the natural disaster.

After a 5-something earthquake rolls through L.A., nobody — but nobody — gives a damn where the mayor was at the time.

Here’s something about earthquakes: they’re utterly random. They often come around in the middle of the night. So if you’re concerned about where the California governor was when the ground started rolling beneath you, you’re mentally ill.

But if you’re apparently wondering where the president was, when Matt Drudge shit his chair, you’re a journalist?

Yes, I know some of you panicked at feeling an earthquake for the first time. But there’s no reason for this political crap. If a flaming meteor landed in an Alexandria parking lot, killing and injuring no one, would you demand to know where the president was at the time? Yes, some of you would.

Meanwhile, while golfers cower, men of brilliance do this:

House of Cards
PowerLine | by John Hinderaker | August 23, 2011

If we have any geniuses in American public life these days, they are Mark Steyn and Michael Ramirez. The earthquake along the east coast had barely subsided when Ramirez drew this cartoon:

See? They were stacking the national debt when the tremor hit, and now it’s fallen to the ground. Time to collect the debt and, uh, sort it into, err, re-stack it so it, eh, hmmm. Anyway, that’s what happened today.

Journalism? Politics. Politics? Journalism. How do you do? How do you do. Right. Whaddyasay we go someplace a little more intimate? Somewhere where we could get together. Have a couple of pops, strafe the breeze. Jam a nightstick up reality’s ass. Sure.

How about the Washington Times editorial board?

EDITORIAL: Obama: Whites need not apply
Liberals don’t want our government to mirror our society

Who puts two colons at the front of a title? Oh: That’s right: An editor. Clowns. These guys get: Paid to — punctuate for … a living.

I enjoy the Times the way I enjoy watching re-runs of Friends. I sit, and I think, “These people are retarded.”

The White House issued an executive order on Thursday titled “Establishing a Coordinated Government-wide Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce.” The purpose of the order is “to promote the federal workplace as a model of equal opportunity, diversity and inclusion.” In other words, it would be better for the government if public-spirited white workers sought employment elsewhere.

It would be better for some White people to seek employment elsewhere. Members of the Ku Klux Klan, for instance. People who’ve had facial reconstructive surgery to look like a Fuhrer. Pat Buchanan. Bay Buchanan. Knuckleheads who name their kids “Bay.” “Bay” women. People named “Bay.”

Whatever were Obama and his committee commies thinking?

Comrade Hidalgo: Comrade, Sir, have you seen the latest polls?

Comrade President: [*sigh*] Yes.

Comrade Hidalgo: We need to do something, and quick.

Comrade President: Yes. Yes — it’s that time, Hidalgo.

Both: TIME TO KILL OUR WHITE VOTERS.

Comrade President: Jinx. Buy me a potato.

Comrade Hidalgo: [scribbles on arm]

Comrade President: ‘We begin by starving them. Kick them out of their cushy politburo jobs.’ Good. Let’s call it “Blah Diversity Blah.” Change part of that, if you like. Then, of course, phase two.

Comrade Hidalgo: [starts scribbling . . ]

Comrade President: . . the Julian Schnabel paintings.

Comrade Hidalgo: [stomps feet]

Comrade President: Buy me a tractor.

Wait. There’s more:

The partier in chief
President relaxes on Martha’s Vineyard while American economy falters

President Obama is chilling out at the beach while the country’s economic engine is headed for a deep freeze. Those lucky enough to have a job will slug it out at work Monday while Mr. Obama parties with the rich and powerful.

This is the third year the Obama family has escaped to the liberal, upper-crust enclave of Martha’s Vineyard . .

. . which is, what, 140 miles from Kennebunkport? So it’s on another planet, apparently.

This is funny. The poor, hounded Wall Street Journal, boo hoo, takes to its own pages. You all should know how hurt they are after their CEO, Les Hinton, resigned in the wake of their parent company, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., being exposed for outrageous, criminal scumbaggery.

It isn’t fair!

News and Its Critics
A tabloid’s excesses don’t tarnish thousands of other journalists.
Wall Street Journal | July 18, 2011

. . It is also worth noting the irony of so much moral outrage devoted to a single media company, when British tabloids have been known for decades for buying scoops and digging up dirt on the famous. Fleet Street in general has long had a well-earned global reputation for the blind-quote, single-sourced story that may or may not be true. The understandable outrage in this case stems from the hacking of a noncelebrity, the murder victim Milly Dowler.

Sure, our people are scumbags. Fleet Street are scumbags! Yeah! Whaddya want . . ? But one teenaged kid, ferchrisssakes. Sheesh.

Yeah, it was the 13 year old’s voicemails that they hacked. And deleted — causing the family to believe she was still alive when she was already dead. Yikes.

But this whole thing started years ago, 2006, when it was discovered Rupert’s News of the World routinely hacked the phones of the British royal family. Editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were arrested and sent to prison. And from there, in slow motion, the scandal blows up and blows up. So I don’t know what the WSJ are huffing at.

Mulcaire is a central figure in the story — investigations into his dealings recovered “4,000 names or partial names and nearly 3,000 full or partial telephone numbers.” While Rupert’s NOTW and parent company routinely lied to and stonewalled investigators over the years, the extent of the massive hacking eventually became clear.

Victims: former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, royal family members and aides, celebrities, government officials, News of the World’s own executives, soccer coaches and officials, publicists, a dead teenage girl, dead soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families, murder victims of the 7/7 bombings and their families, and hundreds upon hundreds more. In other words, if you were anybody that the public had taken an interest in, for any reason — even if you were dead — Rupert’s people came after you with a vengeance. Nothing was private or sacred. Oh, and let’s not forget: they were bribing Scotland Yard all the while.

But back to the WSJ:

The political mob has been quick to call for a criminal probe into whether News Corp. executives violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act with payments to British security or government officials in return for information used in news stories. Attorney General Eric Holder quickly obliged last week, without so much as a fare-thee-well to the First Amendment.

Not so much as a howdya-doo! The U.S. Attorney General is all uppity about bribing important people without once considering our First Amendment protections! Hey — how about the commissioner of Scotland Yard resigning yesterday? Boy, that came out of nowhere.

Who are you trying to kid? It’s out of character for the slimy Murdoch octopus to lay its gentle tentacle upon the reader this way. The Wall Street journal, ladies and gentlemen.

Just think if Uncle Rupert had to cash their chips in. We wouldn’t get any more of this:

Get Ready for a 70% Marginal Tax Rate
Michael Boskin | Wall Street Journal

. . The current top federal rate of 35% is scheduled to rise to 39.6% in 2013 (plus one-to-two points from the phase-out of itemized deductions for singles making above $200,000 and couples earning above $250,000). The payroll tax is 12.4% for Social Security (capped at $106,000), and 2.9% for Medicare (no income cap). While the payroll tax is theoretically split between employers and employees, the employers’ share is ultimately shifted to workers in the form of lower wages.

Did you catch that? That’s something Rupert’s people never do — what’s known as ‘lying.’ Payroll taxes are the taxes for Social Security and Medicare. You pay half, your employer pays half. Your part: 6.2% and 1.45%. Your employer: the same. But in the world of the Fleet Street Journal, your employer pays only “theoretically.” Put a gun up to your employer’s head and he’ll produce the receipts, though. Strange.

Obama’s considering a payroll tax break for businesses, and, if it comes through, you can expect immediate reimbursement from your employer. When manatees fly.

Thus the marginal tax rate paid on wages combining all these taxes is 44.1%.

That would be in the real world. In the mystical fairyland of Planet Earth, it’s 35% + 1.45% = 36.45%. Which is not bad for whatever chunk of money you make above $370,000 a year.

So, for a family in high-cost California taxed at the top federal rate, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts in 2013, the 0.9% increase in payroll taxes to fund ObamaCare, and the president’s proposal to eventually uncap Social Security payroll taxes would lift its combined marginal tax rate to a stunning 58.4%.

. . and, as usual, nothing adds up. I mean Mr. Reality can’t even tally his own numbers, it’s hilarious. The “stunning” 58.4% is an increase of 14.3%. Between the additional 6.2% in Social Security tax (closing the post-$106,000 gap, which Obama can’t swing), the 0.9% bump in Medicare, the 10.5% levy in California (which already exists [??]), and the 4.6% federal tax increase if — IF — we dumped the Bush cuts . . what again? Boing!

It would be a shame to be denied journalism like this.

I love these posts. We’re in control of everything, we tell everybody what to do, and they do it. As a result, America is sinking like the Titanic. Thank you for bearing witness to my awesome destructive powers:

For The Sake Of The Republic, It’s Time To Hold The Mainstream Media Accountable
Douglas MacKinnon | Townhall.com

New York Democrat Anthony Weiner’s tortured answers about his “Twitter-gate” episode and the mainstream media’s at least initial reluctance to cover the story, speaks [sic] volumes not only about the No. 1 obstacle the GOP faces in trying to retake the White House in 2012. It also speaks to the No. 1 obstacle millions of like-minded Americans face as they fight to protect and preserve traditional values, the rule of law, common sense and our sovereign borders.

If Anthony Weiner isn’t in a penitentiary by now, “the rule of law, common sense and our sovereign borders” will have been forever destroyed. All lost, beyond our abilities to return them to their previous golden but cotton-candy delicate glory.

I weep over truth and decency. I cry for the Conservatives’ long-delayed satisfaction of watching us, by the millions, tear our hairshirts and weep hot salty tears for ever being quite so different from the unassailable right wing.

How is it we refuse to see that acting different from them is, by definition, immorality? We are lost, headstrong and arrogant. We think we can re-invent the wheel of righteousness: we cannot. We are fools.

Oh, by the way: Senator David Vitter fucked a lot of prostitutes, but those insults apparently bounced like superballs off the sanctity of “the rule of law, common sense and our sovereign borders.” He kept his job, too, because the righteous were okay with all that.

Green lights everywhere people, you’re all good to go. Got an old photo of Rep. Anthony Weiner looking nasty? Ugly? Spinach in his teeth? Blow it up and run it on the front page.

Didya hear a rumor he kicks his dog? Good enough for us. Type it up, have it ready in 10 minutes, and then post it with the photo. Wait — do you think we could sell he molests old ladies? Whatever, type that up, too.

Dem: Weiner ‘ought to be’ at Israel Day parade
Politico | June 6 2011

Rep. Anthony Weiner was MIA at this weekend’s big Israel Day parade in New York City, drawing fire from members of his own party who said he should have shown up.

He’s turned his back on the Dems! Turned his back on the Jewish community! They despise the bastard — and why not? Look at what he did!

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y), also at the parade, noted Weiner’s absence but avoided criticism. “It’s going to be up to the congressman how he handles this and people will have their opinion when they actually have the facts,” he told the New York Post.

A handful of Weiner’s colleagues who represent New York City in the House refused to comment at the parade.

“I’m not here to pass judgment,” Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) told CBS. “I’m not trained in that area.”

“I know what you want to ask me, and I don’t want to answer,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney said.

Okay, the Dems aren’t falling for Politco’s crap. But Politico wrote the story anyway. By now, the stories pretty much write themselves.

New #Weinergate info revealed: Porn star Miss Ginger Lee appears to have gotten more than one private message from Weiner
Daily Caller | June 6, 2011

Newly uncovered information in the ongoing #Weinergate scandal raises more questions as to just how much private communication New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner had with porn star and stripper Miss Ginger Lee.

He’s hounding a porn star! Disgusting! Ptew! Who would do that? It’s vile!

Lee’s only press statement on #Weinergate was to TheDC and she hasn’t answered any of the basic questions regarding her communications with Weiner. “I haven’t met Rep Weiner. I follow him on twitter because I support him & what he stands for,” Lee said in an email to TheDC last Wednesday morning. “I have been hounded by his political opponents but that hasn’t changed my view of him and what he fights for.”

Well, the media have to hound stupid porn stars. When a bimbo won’t play ball, what does she expect — a medal? Doesn’t she grasp the gravity of the situation? A man’s bad reputation is at stake. OR: an automobile’s bad reputation:

Rep. Anthony Weiner’s car is registered in New York but way out of date
New York Daily News | June 5 2011

After a week of facing questions about lewd Twitter photos, Rep. Anthony Weiner Saturday had more explaining to do: why his Nissan Pathfinder has New York license plates but a 2007 registration sticker . .

It had a New York license plate – US Congress 9 – but no sign of an inspection sticker in the windshield and what appeared to be an expired July 2007 registration sticker.

Jammed on the dashboard was a sign that read “Congress.”

He jammed the placard? What an asshole. That’s it.

Well, had enough of this yet? Yes, all of us are sick of it. No more, someone’s gotta go. What, the media? Forget it — they’re forever, you’re stuck with them.

In June 2007 he was busted for failing to display current license plates and failing to display an inspection sticker. Weiner took heat for the violations because he has doggedly been forcing diplomats to pay the millions they owe in unpaid New York City parking fines.

He was arrested? Naw, just “busted” in the vernacular of the Daily News. In the scandalous way. You know what they mean.

Are you a little sad? Carrying some amount of dread? Do you sense that the union stand-off in Wisconsin will likely end badly?

I feel that way. The new Governor, Scott Walker, simply holds more power and influence than our union friends. He’s got the momentum, and he’s got the media, so he’s got the advantage.

Of course, when the New York Times acts professionally inept and dishonest in your favor, it sure makes union-busting easier. Six days ago, this was the hottest story in politics:

This thing:

Union Bonds in Wisconsin Begin to Fray
By A. G. SULZBERGER and MONICA DAVEY | February 21, 2011

JANESVILLE, Wis. — Rich Hahan worked at the General Motors plant here until it closed about two years ago. He moved to Detroit to take another G.M. job while his wife and children stayed here, but then the automaker cut more jobs. So Mr. Hahan, 50, found himself back in Janesville, collecting unemployment for a time, and watching as the city’s industrial base seemed to crumble away.

Among the top five employers here are the county, the schools and the city. And that was enough to make Mr. Hahan, a union man from a union town, a supporter of Gov. Scott Walker’s sweeping proposal to cut the benefits and collective-bargaining rights of public workers in Wisconsin, a plan that has set off a firestorm of debate and protests at the state Capitol. He says he still believes in unions, but thinks those in the public sector lead to wasteful spending because of what he sees as lavish benefits and endless negotiations.

“Something needs to be done,” he said, “and quickly.”

Gosh, something needs to be done. Sure, I’ll throw my good ol’ union and all my mates overboard. Got no choice. Why? Something needs to be DONE! This can’t go on! Jobs! Recession! Debt! Something! Everything!

How about . . lies! Turns out the story was bullshit before it hit 10 letters. Rich Hahan is actually Rich Hahn. And he’s not in a union. Nope, not, never was. Brand spanking new blogger Keith Olbermann writes:

Except the source, Rick Hahn, now admits that while he worked in union factories, he was never, you know, in a union per se. So why did the Diogenes of the Times, Mr. Sulzberger, believe he had found his honest union man? Because Hahn “described himself to a reporter as a ‘union guy.’”

And yes, Hahan/Hahn’s deception, intentional or accidental (and if you noticed the multiple spelling, yes, Mr. Sulzberger of the Times also got the guy’s name wrong) sat out there in the alleged newspaper of record for four days, during which nobody bothered to correct the sloppy, destructive reporting of the Family Heir. When they finally did, editors buried it inside.

And Sulzberger is the son of the publisher? Yep. Niiiiice. Let’s take a look at yer liberal media, shall we? Let’s look at all the workers Sulzberger interviewed for “Union Bonds in Wisconsin Begin to Fray”, the biggest story in politics a few days ago.

Rich Hahn wasn’t a union guy, we now know. Cindy Kuehn? “It’s about time the buck stops.” Not a union member. Crystal Watkins? “I don’t have any of that,” she said. Nope. Mary Kay Horter? “I don’t get to bargain in my job, either . . ” Definitely not: “. . her husband’s Chevy dealership had teetered on the brink of closing after General Motors declared bankruptcy, for which she blamed unions.” Dave Bergman? “There are a lot of people out of work right now that would take a job without a union . .” Self-employed bartender, working seven days a week, no way.

But wait — here we go, it finally gets a little better, just before the end of the piece:

In Whitewater, Ben Penwell, a lawyer whose wife is a public employee, said he saw no reason to strip away workers’ bargaining rights if they had agreed to benefit cuts.

“They’re willing to do what’s necessary fiscally without giving up rights in the future,” he said.

And Pat Wellnitz, working in his accounting office on Sunday, wondered why such bargaining provisions were needed if the real problem was simply saving money.

“That’s pretty drastic even for a staunch Republican,” he said.

But, then, the end:

. . others suggested that unions had perhaps had outlived their usefulness. Carrie Fox, who works at a billboard advertising company, said she hoped that the battle would encourage other governors to rein in public- and private-sector unions.

“I know there was a point for unions back in the day because people were being abused,” she said. “But now there’s workers’ rights; there’s laws that protect us.”

Not much in the way of pro-union anything. And none of those last couple union-tolerant folks is in a union that Governor Walker is stripping of powers. Actually, nowhere in Sulzberger’s piece is there anyone belonging to any union, anywhere. And yet, the New York Times heir apparent had the nerve to call it “Union Bonds in Wisconsin Begin to Fray.” Fox News only wishes it could be this deceptive and damning.