Tomorrow's RW meme today: "Liberal" May Day Riot!

How they equate Anarchists with Liberals/Progressives I don't know... but they do. Aren't they always whining about how we love "Mommy Government"? Yep, totally makes sense that we'd join up with a "movement" that wants no government, no authority. I detest how these little idjits reflect on us by default. But we will be hearing about this tomorrow.

SANTA CRUZ - A large group of protesters demonstrating at a May Day rally for worker's and immigrant rights downtown broke off into a riot vandalizing about a dozen businesses around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, police said.

Many in the group were carrying makeshift torches as they marched, breaking storefront windows and writing "anarchist graffiti" on buildings, according to Capt. Steve Clark. Many businesses sustained multiple broken windows including very large storefront windows at Urban Outfitters and The Rittenhouse building. Police believe at least 15 businesses suffered damage.

The violence was initiated from a group holding a rally at the town clock for May Day. Windows at Jamba Juice and Velvet Underground were left shattered and graffiti including anarchy signs were tagged onto buildings.
Because of the size and violent demeanor of the crowd, Santa Cruz police asked for help from all agencies in the county to break up the riot. At one point, protesters lit a fire on the porch of Caffe Pergolesi and blocked access to firefighters, officers said. Police were able to clear out the demonstrators before more damage was caused.

(snip)

"The damage that was caused was without purpose," Clark said. "It was senseless violence that victimized a community who cannot afford to be victimized in this manner. This did nothing to add credit to whatever they believed their cause was."

Don't even get me started on the so called "anarchists". Stupid little punk ass whiners, thinking they're all that with their (gasp) black clothes and even MOHAWKS!!! How utterly original. Bet you guys even get high and plot to take over the world? Make loud aggressive music on shoddy instruments? Who woulda thunk.


I'm sure all this aggression comes from the huge spanking I gave some little snotty git at Comcast today, but hey, I won. You don't want to mess with a woman who once wore a dress made out of black stockings and pink baby diaper safety pins, ya little shits.

Front page of Yahoo right now

TODAY - May 02, 2010

Obama visits gulf ecological disaster

--->The president reassures crews as he tries to prevent the oil spill from turning into his Katrina.<--- 'All hands on deck'

The arrows are added to get you right to the point. No, No, No, No, NO! Ugh.

Note to Punditiots: Gulf oil disaster is NOT "Obama's Katrina"

By GottaLaff

In an earlier post, I mentioned how some in the media (Gee, guess who?) are pushing the meme that the Gulf oil catastrophe is "Obama's Katrina". Wrong. It's a memorable catch phrase, but it's inaccurate, to say the least. But that won't stop them from perpetuating the lies. It never has, it never will.

While BP was the first responder, the Coast Guard reacted right away to the situation and deployed 70 vessels and 1 million feet of boom for possible service, Napolitano said.

Salazar noted that the Obama administration has ordered inspections of "blowout preventers" on other Gulf rigs. The government's job was to "keep the boot on the neck" of BP to ensure it meets its obligations in stopping the spill, dealing with the oil slick and paying for all costs and damages.

President Obama is on his way:

President Obama headed to Louisiana on Sunday to see for himself the growing oil slick from a damaged offshore well that threatens the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Compare that to this memory jogger, "A Tale of Two Photos":

As for the meme, maybe this will help, Via Greg Sargent:

Michael Shear counts the ways that the Gulf oil spill isn’t Katrina:

The gulf oil spill is no Katrina, in which 1,836 people died amid the near total devastation of one of America’s great cities…

Unlike Katrina, there has been no obvious failures of government, no images to compare to the Superdome or the flooded streets of St. Bernard Parish. And unlike Katrina, there is an easy target for blame in the current oil spill: the oil giant BP, which by law is the “responsible party” and must pay for all of the costs of the cleanup.

However, if you are a Rushpublic, it's all Obama's fault. So is that paper cut I just got, according to them.... And that flat tire that caused gridlock on the 101 freeway, along with global warming, terrorism, locusts, Vanilla Ice's career, and Trump's hair.

Quickie: Twofer edition

By GottaLaff

Today's Quickie is a twofer, and they both come by way of Greg Sargent:

* Today’s prize for bucking the Beltway-approved narrative goes to Jonathan Alter, for making an audacious suggestion: Rather than asking whether the Gulf spill is Obama’s Katrina, let’s ask whether it should give new momentum to energy reform.

* Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, a gung-ho backer of the Arizona immigration law, says he will decide whether to ride his tough-on-immigration notoriety to launch a run for higher office, commenting thusly:

“I am not running for governor now until I decide over the weekend with a glass of wine and my wife, since my mother and father came here from Italy, with a little spaghetti and meatballs.”

Well now, those are two hefty little Quickies. One relates back to this post, in which I complained about the Katrina meme that the pretend news insists upon pushing.

As for Arpaio, I posted about him here. He's hopeless and has no business being in the public eye or in public office, let alone anywhere else.

That was today's Quickie Twofer. Was it good for you?

Right Wing Meme Destroyed: Employers say they'll still offer health care benefits

So much more destroying to do.

A nationwide survey of business executives indicates that most U.S. employers, at least for now, are unlikely to stop offering health care benefits in the wake of the landmark federal health care reform law.

The online survey of nearly 3,700 executives, conducted by Crain Communications Inc. publications Workforce Management and Business Insurance, found that 52.5 percent strongly disagreed with the statement that it would be better for their organizations to stop offering health care benefits and pay a fine under the new law. An additional 15.3 percent somewhat disagreed with the notion of dropping coverage and paying the fine. Eighteen percent somewhat agreed with the idea of dropping coverage; only 14.1 percent strongly believe their organizations would be better off in dropping benefits.

(snip)

Among the largest employers—those with 25,000 or more workers—64.9 percent strongly disagreed with the statement that their organizations would be better off dropping health care benefits. An additional 12.4 percent somewhat disagreed, while 14.2 percent somewhat agreed and 8.4 percent strongly agreed.

Video- Gingrich Takes Advice From Man Who Calls Obama "The Kenyan"

Even the semi sane ones can't help themselves. Via Media Matters.

Video- Morris suggests Obama administration would use resolution authority to take over firms run by Republicans

Impossible to imagine that this "man" was once a close adviser to President Clinton.

Video- Beck repeats distortion to claim Obama was silencing tea party protesters

This is the meme du jour- the wingers on CSPAN this morning were all feigning indignation that they were being "demeaned" by the President. And check out that sweater! My my my.

The new and unimproved right wing meme

By GottaLaff

Yes, Big Bad Mean ol' Nancy Pelosi is a big bad mean ol' threat to the poor wittle Wushpublic cwy babies who feel so cheated, so hurt, so put-upon because... because... wait for it....

They lost... again:

[A]nyone trying to access the Web site of the Republican National Committee is taken on a bit of a detour to a new site -- FireNancyPelosi.com.

(link)

Oh.. my... god... they... have a.... TWEET BOMB.


H/t: Lensman23

Video- Attacking "baloney" from Obama, Cal Thomas says: "They will deny [granny] care because she's costing too much"

Isn't it sweet how the Republicans worry so much about the elderly? Via Media Matters.

Ohio's tort reform law hasn't lowered health-care costs

Heh. I was just watching the reconciliation conference on CSPAN 2, and all of the R reps were afflicted with what I call Tort Reform Tourette's. Guess they need to get another disease stat.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - As the House of Representatives prepares to vote Sunday on a package that Democrats say will make health care more affordable, critics insist the "big government takeover of health care" is not only unwarranted, but that a part of the solution is so obvious it's a crime Democrats failed to embrace it.

It's called tort reform, or putting the brakes on junk lawsuits. If doctors and hospitals don't need to worry about defending themselves against baseless malpractice lawsuits, they'll stop ordering needless, duplicative tests and halt the practice of defensive medicine, Republican congressional leaders say. It's an easy and necessary way to bring down costs for all Americans, they say.

The problem is, Ohio has already taken that step, as have many other states. Yet five years after a difficult but successful fight in Columbus to pass tort reform, health-care costs in the state have not gone down. And health policy analysts say it may not be possible to say whether costs would have spiked even higher had Ohio not passed lawsuit reform.

Costs climbed even after the legislature limited the size of jury verdicts for pain and suffering to $250,000 except in catastrophic cases, restricted punitive damages, and made it tougher to take a case to trial. In 2004, the year Ohio passed lawsuit liability reform, average premiums for employer-based family health plans were $9,590, according to data from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. By 2008, average family premiums were $11,425.

This means that four years after the state passed tort reform, health insurance for Ohio families in employer plans had gone up by 19 percent.

Markets Defy GOP Rhetoric About Obama

Silly memes. Via Taegan-

Bloomberg: "One year after U.S stocks hit their post-financial-crisis low on March 9, 2009, the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index has risen more than 68 percent, and it's up more than 41 percent since Obama took office. Credit spreads have narrowed. Commodity prices have surged. Housing prices have stabilized."

Quote of the Day

Yeah yeah, scary socialists, we know. Via Taegan-

"The way that it was presented as some kind of marketing ploy, I don't like that, but I think there's real substance here. I mean you don't have to put a name on it, but I think it's gone far beyond anything that's liberal."

-- Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times, defending the recently leaked RNC fundraising presentation that claimed President Obama was taking the country towards socialism.

Video- CNN spends 8 minutes asking if DOJ lawyers are "disloyal"

Glenn Greenwald rips 'em a new one over this here. Via Media Matters.

GOP Character Assassination Time: The Teleprompter Meme is Part of a Decades Long Campaign

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, courtesy of my pal Mark Karlin:

I was sick and tired of the Republicans using personality misrepresentations of Democratic leaders -- which the corporate mainstream press repeated ad nauseum -- to try to turn them into negative caricatures, an endeavor in which they have been largely successful. [...]

What is most alarming is that the Democrats rarely seem to be able to counterattack successfully. That's what is particularly distubing about the latest "Obama uses a teleprompter" meme that has infested the mainstream media, egged on by Sarah Palin and the Republican PR/media echo chamber. It's beyond ludicrous: do they think George W. Bush memorized his speeches?

[...] It defines Dems in a negative way that goes right to the subconscious of many Americans, enough to foul up democracy and obstruct the workings of government, not to mention defeat Democrats. [...]

Start acting like your character and integrity matter by fighting back and going after the Republicans. They are extremely vulnerable, but you won't stop them with promises of "bi-partisanship," an act that they only interpret as a sign of vulnerabilty and weakness.

You can read the whole thing here.

Right Wing Meme Alert

Rep. Frank Wolf claims trying terror suspects in civilian courts would be treating them better than our military.

Grassley was just on MSNBC saying the exact same thing. Must have been in the talking points memo this morning.

Video- Fox and Friends push Tampa mayor on latest "bow-gate" episode: "It's hard for me to believe that this is such a major issue"

I hadn't heard about this one, and man do Douchey and friend work hard to push it. Notice the sighs and condescending comments when the Mayor is talking. No wonder Fox's parent group NewsCorpse is low on the list of ethical rankings of corporations. Via NewsHounds.

Video- NBC's Williams adopts right-wing "Climategate" smear: "Have the books been cooked on climate change?"

I heard this last night and could not believe the stenography.

New Rightie meme: Democrats = Ego

By GottaLaff

There seems to be a meme emerging from the right:

Periodically, conservatives latch onto a new line of attack against President Obama. Apparently, the new one is "narcissism." Marty Peretz talked it up yesterday in a bizarre piece, and George Will endorsed the argument in his column today.

There you have it. Cheap shots are the new red.

When I broke the "Should Obama be killed?" Facebook poll and reported it to the Secret Service, I got this comment:

Anonymous said...

why do all poltical bloggers and talk show hosts have such inflated egos?

Generalize much?

Yesterday I posted about how proud Paddy and I were to have been included in such great company, re: Wikio's Top 100 Political Poll. Here's what another Anonymous said...

congrads on the traffic spike but you should be a little more humble about it since the reason your traffic spiked was due to an assassination threat against the president. that's serious business and breaking out the proverbial party hats and bubbly is unseemly behavior.

You can read my reply, just follow the link. Funny how the most critical commenters won't identify themselves, even with a pseudonym.

Anyway, after putting up the Facebook poll post, I got an e-mail from the developer of the app for the poll. In it, he defended himself and then he added a jab that was puzzling to me.

Note: He claimed he was an Obama voter. But his first instinct after having been put on the spot was to attack with the ol' E word synonyms:

As it stands now, Facebook has disabled the entire application (not
just that one poll), which is frustrating for me and will be taking up
most of my time for the next few days. I'm sure I'll also get a call
from the Secret Service which will be awesome.

I understand you're enjoying your 15 minutes of blogging fame and are feeling pretty righteous right now, but keep in mind this could have been resolved in a much less public and destructive way if you had taken the time to reach out to me first.

Then, some wingnut who got a kick out of calling me "Buttercup" wrote up an entire post on his site about my apparent narcissism:

The blogger that started this — “GottaLaff,” at the The Political Carnival — is luxuriating in the reflected glow of petty fame from having reported an asshole on Facebook to the Secret Service.

Do I sense a trend here? And I'm just some "nobody" blogger, not the president.

I find it amusing that they can't tell the difference between being a good citizen and craving fame. These people also really need to learn to differentiate between feelings of accomplishment, or of having done the right thing, as opposed to arrogance or cockiness.

I kid. They know the difference, we all know that.

Just a guess, but if a Washington Times reporter or someone from Fox had reported the same thing, I bet they wouldn't be accused of being a glory hound.

Angie Coiro, who interviewed me on the Radio Machine, made this a main topic of our conversation, so it seems many of us are raising our eyebrows at this pathetic and rather laughable lashing out.

By shaking the shiny keys of groundless and nonsensical insults, these whiners can try to distract from the real issues of the day, but it just makes them look weak, petty, and desperate.

If this is all the right has left in their arsenal, they're in bigger trouble than we thought.

H/t: Gr8RDH

Video- Jon Stewart mocks freak-out over school kids "SHOCK VIDEO"

Heads up, they found another one.