Who knows how the influential political site Memeorandum works? Not I.

“Techmeme uses an algorithm to order stories by importance, which depends on several factors that include the number of links to the story’s web page and how old the story is.”

If you say so. I only know it ain’t working today.

The Crashing Bore, Sarah Palin, spoke in Wisconsin Saturday, and you know exactly whom she attacked, what she said and how she said it.

But looking at politics’ Billboard Hot 100, Memeorandum, it’s Andrew Breitbart that’s the real story. Other than Sarah, he seems to be the only living being left on Earth. Somebody should write about that.

Here, currently, is the biggest story in politics:

Yes, this is the same old story Breitbart’s been flogging for months: liberal thugs! It’s no story. How many of Andrew’s violent liberals have ever been sent to prison? None that I recall. But there it is, linked to by a whopping five sites. Yes, you’re used to seeing 20 or 30 links in the top story, no, I don’t get it. And then among a whole load of stories “related” to Larry O’Connor/Breitbart’s post . .

. . is Larry O’Connor/Breitbart’s post. It’s ‘blistering’ hot, having been linked to by another site. And then there’s . .

. . this post by Larry O’Connor/Breitbart. Surprise, it’s on Sarah Palin. Three sites have linked to it, including Conservatives4Palin, so it’s blowing up. Followed by . .

. . Andrew Breitbart’s rant against unions. Did I mention he went to a Sarah Palin event? That he was a featured speaker? His press agent can vacation in Antarctica as long as Memeorandum works like this. That got linked to by one whole site. And then . .

. . there’s yet another post at Breitbart’s website. Sarah Palin spoke yesterday, apparently. It’s a big, fat story because nobody linked to it. And then, the mobius piece de crapulence . .

. . is this post by Larry O’Connor/Breitbart.

So Andrew spoke at a Palin event and told liberals to go to hell. He ran back to his blog and wrote a post saying “Did you see it? I told them to go to hell!” His employee posted on his blog a piece saying “Did you see the post where my boss wondered if you’d seen that he told people to go to hell? Golly!”

Those are the biggest political stories of April 17, 2011. Either those or “What Might Please Andrew Breitbart”.

Violence is no joke.

Political beat-downs are nasty, ugly tragedies, bloody remnants of animal mob rule. I call upon everybody involved — the candidates, their families, their campaign aides, their backers, their respective political machines — to come to their senses and do the right thing. We must restore civility to this contest. If we can’t manage to acquit ourselves as peaceful Americans, then . . what’s the point? Seriously — why should we, or they, be subject to a gangland spectacle?

There must be some reason for this sort of behavior. You’ve got to be a helluva lot more than just a whack Tea Partier to be so insultingly, shamelessly full of shit. Especially considering that teenagers are your entire audience.

Angle, a tea party favorite who has rallied for stricter border enforcement, played down her usual conservative rhetoric in a brief discussion with a Hispanic high school group Friday in Las Vegas. The students asked her to explain her repeated use of TV spots denounced by national pro-immigrant and Hispanic organizations as race-baiting attacks.

They were students at Rancho High School. They had good reason to be concerned: she’s been hammering the ‘illegal alien’ issue to try to pull ahead of Harry Reid in her Senate campaign. These are the sorts of images she’s been flooding Nevada TV channels with:

So you can see why they’d wonder about her. There’s definitely a ‘scary brown people’ theme running through her messaging. I might feel like there were a lot of angry white people staring at me if I were one of these students. So, when she dropped by, they asked her:

Why is it that in all of your commercials you have the image of Latinos? What do you see when you hear, and I quote, “illegal aliens?”

Good question, fair enough. Sharron responded to it by lying to their faces:

I think that you’re misinterpreting those commercials. I’m not sure that those are Latinos in that commercial. What it is, is a fence and there are people coming across that fence. What we know is that our northern border is where the terrorists came through. That’s the most porous border that we have. We cannot allow terrorists; we cannot allow anyone to come across our border if we don’t know why they’re coming.

Those weren’t Latinos. That’s not the Mexican border.

Take a look at the ads’ images again, and then take a look at that answer. In the ‘fence’ video, you can see that it says ‘illegals’, clear as could be. And these are Latinos she’s talking to, telling them that they don’t know what Latinos look like, they must be mistaken. Perhaps she’s mentally ill.

ADD: WOW. Now I’m almost sure of it. Who behaves this way in dealing with a Hispanic Student Union? By accusing some of them of being secretly Asian, what does that prove? How does it help her campaign?

Two days from now, on a likely mixed-weather Anchorage Saturday, Glenn Beck will arrive at the Dena’ina Center. Some time after 8:00, he will hit the stage and thousands will cheer wildly the appearance of their hero.

And why not? The radio and cable giant, the mega-star right-wing bomb thrower and self-appointed civil rights leader, re-maker of the country called America, has, unbelievably, come to their far-flung town. And the folks there, all of whom having paid 70 bucks or considerably more to watch the event, will be plenty excited.

Because of all the events he could have planned, of all the places he could have gone, Glenn chose to do this one, here. Glenn Beck ultimately chose to stage his September the Eleventh rally in this modest hub of Alaska.

How awesome. Sarah Palin trumpeted the approach of his eminence:

Glenn’s coming to the Last Frontier! . .

We can count on Glenn to make the night interesting and inspiring, and I can think of no better way to commemorate 9/11 than to gather with patriots who will “never forget.” Hope to see you there!

- Sarah Palin

So, it’s ‘Let’s us patriots get together for 9/11. Let’s commemorate it.’ Hmm.

com·mem·o·rate (k-mm-rt)

tr.v. com·mem·o·rat·ed, com·mem·o·rat·ing, com·mem·o·rates
1. To honor the memory of with a ceremony.

By the thousands, they’ll attend an event to ‘honor the memory of’ that tragic day and its victims? That doesn’t sound like Glenn Beck’s style, that sort of thing. But, then, that’s a slippery little word, ‘commemorate.’

There have likely been hundreds of events across the U.S. and across the world in the wake of the terrorist mass murders. But those were ‘memorials.’ Those were ‘services.’ People were dressed in black, long hours were spent listening to the victims’ names being read. The solemnity of the occasions matched the leaden reality of the searing losses.

This commemoration is surely different, it carries a different tone and weight, very unlike ‘memorial.’ More like ‘remembrance’ — google that with ’9/11′ and you’ll get people hawking their own specialty flags to symbolize the tragedy. Google ‘9/11 commemorate‘ and you’ll see the same, but worse — the first two links are hideous, schlocky September the Eleventh coins marketed by shameless hucksters. The video of one I posted here is so bad that the guy who put it on YouTube thought it was a parody. ‘Coin of the Realm,’ indeed.

It’s neither unfortunate nor trivial that Sarah bothered to use ‘commemorate’ for a description of the event. Because the sad truth about the Beck gathering is that it’s about cash, not the memories of the dead. You want to pay tribute to the fallen? You have to pay Glenn Beck.

The tickets for areas farthest from the stage go for $73.75. As you get closer, they go from $85.00 and $104.25 to $129.50. And for the more passionate and well-heeled honorers of tragedy, there are VIP tickets. For $225.00, they get the killer seats. They also get a ‘meet and greet’ session with the star. Or stars, rather — did I mention that Facebook-stoked Sarah is a feature of the event? You’re not surprised.

And did I say ‘seats’? They could have put seats in the arena, but then it only would have held a couple thousand people. As a ‘flat floor seating’ event, you can get up to five thousand people standing in the Dena’ina. Tickets available at Ticketmaster — be sure to indicate whether you want to be located in a ‘wet section,’ where they sell beer.

It’s also neither strange nor serendipitous for Alaskans that Beck flew all the way there to make a buck. If he’d attempted to try gouging for a 9/11 event in one of the lower 48′s major cities, the media would have eaten him alive, I bet. It would have started with the local coverage questioning his motives, and, before long, it would have been a national issue.

And before long, somebody would have remembered Beck’s radio evisceration of Obama for laying the shadow of a finger on A Day We Call 9/11. The President blackened such a Holy Day by calling on Americans to consider working for others on future September elevens: it could be a National Day of Service and Remembrance.

Glenn Beck, defender of things sacred beyond the realm of Presidents, was rendered nearly speechless.

The day of 9/11, you remember what happened. You don’t serve and serve your country. You wanna talk about wrapping yourself in the flag — you wanna talk about using the memory of 9/11 . .

You want to talk about hijacking the most sensitive day of the year to anybody who has been alive in the last 25? You wanna talk about taking that day and using it for your own purposes? . .

Your country has been taken from you. Your country is being taken from you . .

Am I the only one that still looks at the skies of New York when a plane flies and still thinks of 9/11? I don’t want my history changed. I don’t want my traditions changed. And when we do decide to change them, we’ll decide together, not on a little conference call with all my little union buddies and the Sierra Club.

You wanna talk about . . . the rape . . of a sacred memory?

Do I wanna? Don’t see as I have much choice. You are the rapist, Glenn Beck, stealing away into a lightless corner of America to try to get away with your defilement without witnesses.

You only care about yourself and money and twisted glory. You knew long ago what a meal the mass murders presented you, and you’ve been pushing others away from the table ever since. This has never been about honor, memories of the dead, or the sacred nature of anything, this is about the bounties that Conservative slash-and-burn populism provide you.

This is about greed. This is about you.

Hell, everything is about you, and pity anyone that doesn’t already know that.

Why do right-wingers demand to be lied to?

Glenn Beck this weekend: “I know that many in this country think that I’m a fear-monger. It is not a . . it is not a label that, I think, applies . .”

Glenn Beck previously:

–“I think what’s coming is horrific. I don’t even want to speak it out loud . .”

–“I can tell you there will be rivers of blood . .”

–“Are we headed for a one-world government . .”

–“A global economic holocaust is coming . .”

–“It’s September the Eleventh all over again, except we didn’t have the collapsing buildings . .”

–“If you haven’t done your homework yet — what is it going to take? I urge you to catch up on it, and catch up on it fast. It’s kind of important, for a couple of reasons. One . . uhh . . the whole end of time thing . .”

Ah, yes, the end of time. It’s on Obama’s agenda.

All Glenn Beck’s ever done to become one of the biggest and richest media figures in this country is lie from the minute he gets on camera to the second the credits roll. Now that he wants to be a civil rights leader, ushering a radical new era in American history, all he did this weekend was lie some more, including lying very obviously about his lying.

Why do right wingers want and need to be lied to? My father, a right-winger, who passed away a few years ago, had a life-long friend of his we’ll call Jim. Jim is the salt of the earth. He would never lie to you in almost any reasonable circumstance, I can’t fathom it. As a businessman, he carries the same reputation he does in private life, not a dishonest bone in his body.

But as soon as politics comes up, he can’t stand to listen to anybody who isn’t lying to him: Limbaughs and Hannitys and such. When he brings up one of their gems of ‘truth’ while around me, and I’m in the mood to shoot it down (he’s an awfully nice man, after all), he’s genuinely shocked that it might not be true.

That contrast is so stark, it’s shocking really. You’d have to torture the guy to get him to lie, and yet, of politics, he would never apply even a wisp of that behavioral standard to the media figures he trusts.

I mention this to point out how people get and indulge their politics, especially those on the right: it is a drug. It provides the sort of visceral reaction or catharsis that a decent drug would. For them, the veracity of a political thing is secondary — the primary thing is the buzz it delivers.

So your Glenn Becks are the biggest drug dealers, they deliver the best shit. They know how to distill their message so that just a little bit of it goes a very long way. And that’s why they’re all filthy rich, too, like a bunch of drug dealers. There is a hungry, jones-ing market for political smack, and the Bill O’Reillys will deliver as long as they’re able. If you can deliver the high, you get rewarded with power.

Which brings me to this, the President’s interview with Brian Williams:

“I can’t spend all my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead,” Mr. Obama told NBC’s Brian Williams in an interview in New Orleans. “The facts are the facts. And so, it’s not something that I can I think spend all my time worrying about. And I don’t think the American people want me to spend all my time worrying about it.”

He’s wrong there, I think.

A CBS News poll conducted in April found that 20 percent of Americans believe the president was born outside of the United States. Those numbers rise among self-identified Republicans and Tea Partiers. Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii. Meanwhile, a Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month showed that 18 percent of Americans incorrectly said they think Mr. Obama is Muslim. Another 43 percent said they didn’t know the president’s religion, while just 34 percent correctly said he is a Christian.

I can’t imagine a whole fifth of the country buying outrageous lies about any Republican president. Obama is wrong to believe that it’s only silly ridiculousness. Huge sections of the country are walking around with heads full of Glenn Beck’s Terrorist Purple Haze. At some point, as it is with any drug that distorts perception and reality, if enough people are under the influence, bad things will happen.

You can’t seriously believe this has no deleterious effects upon the political environment and the tenor of the times. When one side of the country believes things wildly untrue and is getting very well rewarded for doing so, viscerally and psychologically, you are setting the nation up for some serious stress at some point. You may even be headed towards violence. You can’t ignore so many people and think it will help you, as a President or a nation, in the long run.

As the first seriously contending Black presidential candidate, you may have been able to run by ignoring the lunatics on the right, but you’re the President now. You’ve got to attend to the whole nation. If you don’t start seriously pushing back at these caustic lies, you’re running a dangerous course for everybody involved.

Texas schools board rewrites US history with lessons promoting God and guns
Chris McGreal, Houston | Sunday 16 May 2010

…The board is to vote on a sweeping purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school textbooks in favour of what [Cynthia] Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy.

“We are fighting for our children’s education and our nation’s future,” Dunbar said. “In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections.”

And that, the laughable idea of “corrections,” gives you a snap shot of just how blindly politicized and caustic the school board-ers are. Over and over again, they planned to and succeeded in voting to “correct” History.

What was so wrong? Certain words kept appearing in their textbooks. Huh? That’s right — bad words kept popping up. So they had to be wiped out.

The words were inappropriate? No. The words were inaccurate? No. The words were poorly chosen, misused? No. The words stung. Nothing more than that. They were unpalatable to some people, those with smothering buttoned-down psychologies who exult in exporting hospital-corners Americanism. The people who now run the Texas Board of Education.

Well, who wouldn’t want America to be perfect? Who’d rather hear that the United States screws up, incarcerates the blameless, brutalizes the peaceable, slaughters the defenseless? Not these solid Republicans. Not these folks who can’t bear honesty, not anyone immature to the point of believing the past can be re-texted into vanity.

Not the Texas Christian textbook tyrants.

Scholars on the curriculum teams had argued that “capitalism” and “free market” are commonly used terms in economics courses and everyday discourse…

Terri Leo (R- Spring): “I do think words mean things. . . . I see no reason, frankly, to compromise with liberal professors from academia.”

The commie academics stunk up “capitalism” badly. So the Texans decided they’re no longer going to lay their students down at the feet of the eggheads, no longer going to allow the c-word to be seen in their books. The leftists don’t get to beat kids up with their elitist agenda.

After the discussion, the board voted to strike all instances of “capitalism” from the state’s curriculum.

“Capitalism” certainly isn’t inaccurate, but it’s rank to their sensibilities, so it’s out. “Democratic” too:

One amendment required students to learn about the “unintended consequences” of the Great Society, affirmative action, and Title IX programs, and another replaced references to “democratic societies” to references to “republican societies.”

The Board struck the word “democratic” from the description of the U.S. government, instead terming it a “constitutional republic.”

We certainly operate by democratic principles. But why mention that if it ingratiates the d-word into students’ minds? Just substitute it with “republican.” Obliterate the rival party: a correction.

And then there’s slavery. There’s no hiding behind the pretense of balance by trying to call it anything else . .

The education board has dropped references to the slave trade in favour of calling it the more innocuous “Atlantic triangular trade” . .

. . but they’re atomically pretentious. The mere attempt to re-brand slavery properly abominates the school board. It indicts the Texans as a suspect bunch harboring an unhealthy obsession with evil and, likely, a latent disappointment with the abolition of it.

Buying, selling, working to death, killing human beings — these are at least tolerable to the Texas Conservatives. Otherwise, there would be no need to protect or rehabilitate any of it, right? There’s no way to view centuries of human trade as scandalized unless it were possible to scandalize it somehow. It’s the liberals, we’re left to assume, that are to blame for putting a stink on it, not the events themselves. And this word that’s a remnant of the conspiracy, it’s not fair or patriotic any more to let it go.

They simply have to put it right. This considerable slice of American history deserves to be free from the recriminations of History intellectuals and the self-righteous — the politics forced upon school books as “slavery.” The British are “Redcoats,” Sacco and Vanzetti are still “Anarchists” and the Holocaust remains “The Holocaust.” But you better leave the Atlantic Triangular Trade alone.

HIGH THERE

YOU JUST CLICKED ON MY PAGE :-0

SUBJEXX AND VERBZ LOLZ!

\m/\o.o/\m/

I wanted to post this for two reasons:

1.) The Conservatives’ traditional ability, on display, to deny reality seconds after it occurs.
2.) The picture.

– Newt Gingrich calls Sonia Sotomayor racist, calls for her withdrawal.
– Tom Tancredo calls Sotomayor racist, calls for nomination to be blocked.
– Rush Limbaugh calls Sotomayor a racist, a hack and a danger.

. . as long as President Obama (and other Democrats like him) continue to seek judges based on their policy preferences rather than their commitment to interpreting the Constitution as written and intended by the Founding Fathers (and as ratified by the people), the post of Supreme Court Justice will inevitably be a political one. And so – like it or not – Republicans have no choice but to follow the Democrats’ example of treating judicial nominees like political punching bags, rather than as decent, accomplished – and presumptively impartial – jurists.

Hmm, perhaps her memory is a bit sketchy? Perhaps because she is a COBALT-PEEPERED ZOMBIE DISTRACTED BY THE SIGHT OF YOUR BRAIN?

Fresh off witnessing the mysteries of what the right-wing call “funny,” we move on to a bigger head-scratcher: The Sarah Palin phenomenon. She’s not just popular with the trailer-parkin’ mouth-breathin’ lots — that alone would be merely amusing. Conservative ‘intellectuals’ (?) find all sorts of things to praise about her. It is absolutely impossible, but it happens again and again.

Here’s a case: Tony Lee in The Atlantic writes the sort of piece that Sarah would immediately post on her Facebook page if she only understood it. No, she is not a gold-digging trifle, she is a substantive woman. She’s a major political figure who poses the single greatest threat to the Democrats and to Barack Obama. Tony says this is the force, the potential, and the political whirlwind. This is the future of Republican politics:

A Conservative’s Case for Sarah Palin’s Genius
May 16 2010, 1:24 PM ET | Comment

I hadn’t seen Sarah Palin speak in person since the 2008 elections. If one just watched or read mainstream media accounts of her paid speeches and appearances since then, including some accounts that have been featured on this site, one may have come to the conclusion that Palin was just a money-hungry ex-politician devoid of conviction, half-heartedly speaking to various interest groups and causes to line her pockets or raise her national profile to peddle books that she didn’t even write herself.

I call bullshit. No one said she was a half-hearted anything, that’s for sure. She’s an enthusiastic empty vessel, everybody knows that. A pin-headed cheerleader for a grateful and oblivious right-wing.

Curious about how such memes can develop among supposedly intelligent commentators (most of whom are on the left, but the right has its fair share too), I went to Palin’s speech in Washington, D.C. on Friday, where she spoke at a breakfast hosted by The Susan B. Anthony List, an extremely influential pro-life organization.

Nowhere did I see a caricature of a bumbling dolt just going through the motions. What I did hear was substance. Warmth. Humor. Unapologetic feistiness. And an optimistic belief in conservative values and principles. And what I saw was the makings of a potentially transcendent and transformational figure not only for the conservative movement but for American politics.

I dare you to watch this for yourself and see anything of what this Tony Lee speaks. How can intelligent people watch this and see a similar intelligence? How could they possibly see a future? She would have to govern the American people, after all — can you imagine that? A president who’s dumber than 80% of the populace? Why would that be good? Why would people desire it?

Politics first, last and always with the Bushies:

Do you remember this fool? She’s a legend:

“C’MON, man. I’m trying to take a little milk break here . .

. . easy with the jokes, there, K?”

“WHA . . CABRERO!?!?” *SNUUURRRFF*

“DAMMIT SYMON, YOU DEVIL . . *kaff* . . IT’S COMING OUT MY NOSE . .”

“Mmm, huh? . .

. . can’t really hear ya, Johnny, see, I got a little mess . .”

“. . HORSEFLY!?!?” *SNUUURRRFF*

“. . TOO *cough* MUCH!! . . Symon — *wheeze* I shoulda KNOWED . .”

“Not with you, Johnny D . .

. . you are sooooommme pistol . .”

“. . RESOUNDING . . YAY!?!?” *SNUUURRRFF*

“AGAIN!! DAMN YOU Symon!”

“. . please, Johnny, I’m beggin’ you . .

. . NO MORE . . ”

“. . the BRICKS?!?! *SNUUURRRFF*

“. . aww HELL CAPTAIN . . *sputter* . . JOHNNY D. SYMON, INTERNET CONSERVATIVE . . *snork* . . YOU’RE the BEST . . . *kaff!* . . *kaff!-kaff!* . .”

This post below is a good example of one of the newest tactics in political smearing.

It’s a young cousin to the Rove-ian tactic of tagging your opponent with the opposite of how he (or she) could be perceived. If he says he’s a reformer, scream that he’s corrupt. If he says he’s an outsider, call him a sleazy crony. Don’t bother with much of anything like facts, they just get in the way. If he says he’s a dog, get the whole Republican Convention to ‘meow’ whenever someone mentions his name. That’s how John Kerry, wounded Vietnam veteran, became a draft-dodging sissypants in the eyes of the right wing.

The new tactic is even more ridiculous and unfounded than the last. It goes like this: when your opponent shows interest in an issue, take every negative view and connotation within arm’s length and throw it at him. If he wants to do good things for children, he’s a nanny-stater, a government bully, a socialist, a zealot, immature, dangerous, anti-family and a child molester. Never mind that those charges are mutually exclusive in myriad ways, it’s all true.

This tactic is particularly attractive to the party of ‘NO.’ Since you don’t really take an actual side to anything because you don’t actually respect the government or want it to help Americans, there’s little hypocrisy in throwing the bad stuff on opposing sides of an issue at anybody you hate.

To wit, this post on Obama’s push for financial regulation:

Friday, April 30, 2010

The Corrupt Party, the Stupid Party, and the Birth of Crony Fascism
by Scott Wheeler

. . For more than a week now, we’ve been advising Republican Senators that they must demand a special prosecutor investigate the already documented connection between President Obama, Wall Street Financiers and the Congressional Democrats who have been loudly posturing that they are going after “big business.”

Corruption! The Democrats have been assaulting the public trust.

A brief perusal of FEC filings shows that Obama has been the recipient of nearly a million dollars from Goldman Sachs – Obama’s largest corporate contributor, the very entity under investigation by his own SEC, the same folks dragged to the Hill in televised humiliation this week — AND that the majority of Wall Street dough lands in Democrat campaign accounts. Pretty shocking revelations, there for all to witness, and yet, silence from Republicans.

Cronyism! The Democrats are doing the bidding of the criminal financiers. Like Goldman Sachs, who apparently asked to be investigated and perhaps slapped with criminal indictments.

Democrats have been publicly assaulting the free enterprise system for years.

They’re anti-business! That’s why they always pocket “the majority of Wall Street dough.” And why Goldman wants to live in their jails.

And now, finally, they have the votes, the political coverage and the compliant press required for them to fashion legislation that assumes control of certain businesses, allowing them to pick and choose who succeeds based solely on their record of donations to Democrats.

That’s how Democrats managed “to pick and choose” corporate donor numero uno, Goldman Sachs, for a giant investigation. The Wall Street behemoth now “succeeds” to be shamed, humiliated and perhaps imprisoned.

It’s a modern-day spoils system, designed by shameless and hypocritical legislators, and guaranteed the approval of America’s first socialist president. [. . em. in orig. --ed.]

Yes, that damned anti-business crony-capitalist system-gaming pro-business Socialistic corrupted reformer. Also known as . . what?!?

Can you at all see where there’s discussion of a particular view of financial regulation in here? There’s none, and that’s the point. The party of ‘NO’ can’t make or win discussions because they essentially sport a nihilism familiar to slaves. They’re owned by a corporate-ocracy in this case. Whatever the corporations want, that’s what Republicans want, so they don’t want financial reforms, but they haven’t any reasons why. So you get this hysterical guilt-by-all-associations attack Wheeler trots out for us, here.