The latest scoop from the wingnutosphere is that some former NPR fundraiser thinks that the teahadists are nuts and that the GOP has been hijacked by crazy people. This is being spun as some grave sin, when in reality it should be met with a resounding -“No shit.”
I challenge you to find anything inaccurate with this statement:
“The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian – I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird evangelical kind of move,”
I got nothing. Oh. In other news, the not at all fanatically involved in other people’s lives GOP is going to mandate sonograms for all abortions.
dmsilev
Well, I’d argue that the grammar isn’t quite right (I think it should be ‘very fundamentalist Christian’). Other than that, I got nothing either.
dms
Uloborus
Yep. But understand, the Tea Jerk masses would find this an incredible insult. They’re trying to stop the government from interfering with their lives. Obviously the way to do this is to have the government force everyone else to live the way they say they do, then make exceptions for themselves when they don’t live up to their own credo. That way no one can interfere with their lifestyle by being different or being ahead of them in line for the movies.
FYWP EDIT – There’s only a touch of snark in the above statement. While I think it’s reprehensible, I’m just describing the narcissist thought process, including how they see no hypocrisy in their positions.
Tom65
Quick, to the fainting couch – liberals are being mean!
Ah, it’s O’Keefe. Why isn’t that loathesome piece of shit rotting in a Louisiana jail right now?
BR
Cue Wolf Blitzer gravely asking “Is NPR caught in a whirlwind scandal of liberal bias? Let’s ask the best political team on television…”
dmsilev
NPR’s response should be ‘Given Mr. O’Keefe’s repeated history of deceitful video editing, we will refrain from commenting until and unless he releases the complete unedited footage of the alleged event.”
dms
cathyx
Texas just has too much money.
Corner Stone
NPR’s apology and complete disavowal of this former fundraiser in 3..2..1..
Yutsano
The answer, of course, is to completely de-fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and end the incivility of NPR at the source. Or realize it’s fucking James O’Keefe, realize thhe report isn’t anywhere near credible, and move on.
El Cid
From a fund-raising letter by U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ranger, Georgia.
kc
The mandate requiring sonograms should be accompanied by a mandate that the woman be forcibly restrained and her eyelids taped open, a la Clockwork Orange. You know, just to make sure she gets the message.
Citizen_X
Best comeback to a Texas Gooper this week: During hearings in the Lege, some state GOP legislator (don’t have the ref handy, sorry) had this exchange with a woman testifying:
(Male) Gooper: I don’t see how a sonogram is that invasive.
Woman: You wouldn’t.
Teri
I gotta tell you I am worried about the recall petitions in WI. I heard something in church Sunday about how “they” are getting their own petitions ready to go and are really going to focus on “messing those DFH’s up”. One of the past tricks that was used during signature drives was to stack petitions on a clipboard and ask people to sign them all. The top one would be “popular” and the others would be the “important” ones. I don’t know anyone involved in the WI effort but I thought I would pass this on. I can attest that there is a concerted effort to “take over” county republican party offices.
El Cid
I would like you all to use all the comment space to address my pet issues, so that my ability to employ my boundless neuroses will ensure that I can hurl sobriquet after sobriquet in order to destroy your defenses.
El Cid
@Citizen_X: Those new airport scanners are horrible violations of our right to privacy.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Cid:
Ayup.
When I think of the adjectives cruel and relentless, NPR is the first example that comes to mind. The bastards!
Cardinal Fang! Poke him with the soft cushions!
Boudica
@cathyx:
Well it sure as hell ain’t going to our schools.
Silver Owl
lol Plenty of whining going on the rightie blogs. “They hates us and they should blow us because we exist. Liberals are icky evil and mean to us.”
jwb
@Corner Stone: I’m actually wondering if defunding NPR might not be a good thing for NPR; especially if listeners stepped up and pushed the corporate underwriting to the side, it might become a responsible news outlet again.
Ok, you can stop laughing now.
Jose Padilla
I see a poll just released shows that 26% of those sampled believe Obama should be impeached (3.5% MOE), once again proving the 27% rule.
Mojotron
maybe instead of fighting peak wingnut we should steer into it and put O’Keefe in charge of taping the sonograms.
Pangloss
Meanwhile, the not-at-all involved in others’ lives GOP legislators in Indiana and Illinois are proposing bills mandating ultrasound for women seeking an abortion….
Who wants to bet some of these people have cousins who just happen to be in the ultrasound biz?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kc:
Just the other day I was driving around town saw a new species of wingnut bumper sticker (on the back of a Ford F-350, naturally). It said: “Abortion is the ultimate terrorism”
Do you get that ladies? You are WORSE THAN OSAMA BIN LADEN!
Women are walking around with Wombs of Mass Destruction! They’re in the area around their lady parts and east, west, south and north somewhat. Something must be done about this!
Tom65
The setup was obviously designed to catch an NPR exec taking donations from Scary Brown People, but all they could get was someone calling racists…racists.
O’Keefe better raise his game if he wants another cash infusion from Breitbart.
John Cole
Alright, Matoko is banned again. I’m sick and tired of every thread being dominated by her crazy bullshit. Replying to your own comments to spam? Christ- get professional help. I suggest lithium.
Ash Can
I’m with Tom65 — hasn’t that O’Keefe wanker been locked up yet??
On the other hand, it seems to me that the major news outlets quietly ignored O’Keefe the last time he broke some “news,” so I think there’s a good chance this horsecrap isn’t going to get anywhere either.
(Now if only said news outlets would wake up and smell the coffee with the story Kay’s posting about, directly above…)
chopper
@John Cole:
thank fucking god.
Cat Lady
@John Cole:
All of the internet thanks you.
Ash Can
PS @Cole: You are beautiful.
Scott
@Boudica: It’s not going to any other state employees.
I think the Texas Lege is just going to fire everyone and give themselves (and their worshipful master Rick Perry) massive pay raises.
Scott
@John Cole: Yay! (throw confetti) (distributes beers)
Corner Stone
@El Cid: We here are too smart to fall for such a transparent trap, you tap dancing fiend!
…Dammit!
El Cid
The vacuum of curiously line-spaced comments built around the continual use of social science catch-phrases in support of name-calling and absolutist pronouncements will inevitably be filled. Comments sections abhor a vacuum.
R-Jud
@Scott:
I read that as “distributes bears”.
jrg
I saw that yesterday in S,N!’s comment section. That’s got to be one of the most vile piece of legislation I’ve ever heard of.
What kind of a moron can say with a straight face that the GOP stands for liberty and small government? That assertion is so far removed from reality, I cannot even begin to grasp how fucking stupid you’d have to be to believe it.
Bulworth
This must be more of that less government I keep hearing about.
El Cid
@Corner Stone: You won’t be joking when you’re in the way of a volley of Savion Glover-level flamenco routines reinterpreting the Moors’ loss of Granada, all on an elevated stage with reflected resonance.
Phoenix
I wonder if O’Keefe is embarrassed. Not ashamed, as he is obviously immune to shame, but embarrassed that he is not very good at his ostensibly chosen profession. It would be shrill to suggest his chosen profession is attacking anyone his corporate masters don’t like so let’s assume his profession is doing undercover investigations. I suppose in his case this could be called speaking truth to the powerless.
And that is the problem. O’Keefe is crummy at his job, he just has good promoters. He’s been cited as evidence to destroy organizations, but his track record consists of getting bottom rung employees to say embarrassing things and almost being sent to prison but for who he knows. And the embarrassing things all come from badly edited video. And he’s been doing this for a while.
Meanwhile Ian Murphey makes 1 call and manages to get a standing Governor to admit he considered using agent provocateurs amongst other things. O’Keefe would probably give a kidney to have been on one end of that call with a Democratic governor on the other. But he just isn’t good enough. He’s the pop star with great marketing that makes sure his mindless single is distributed everywhere but secretly knows that he’ll be promptly forgotten while those who don’t have the fanfare now will be listened to far into the future.
It will be interesting to see if O’Keefe will be satisfied with the money that comes from being a well marketed hack, or if he will desperately try to keep rekindling the magic. But you can’t do it forever…you slowly get more desperate, you stop getting interesting footage and settle for anything that brings back some semblance of that past attention. And maybe that will be his fate. O’Keefe will wake up one day and realize he’s become the equivalent of Christina Aguilera singing at the superbowl. It sure feels like he’s getting close already.
ghadflyyy
As a journalism graduate, I remember the many hours of classes devoted to “objective reporting”. Reporters have certain rules (no adjectives, always get both sides, no personal opinions, report the facts), but I gave up on the myth of 100% objectivity a long time ago.
Journalists tend to have passionate opinions, as most human beings do. Your feelings and opinions obviously shape who you are as a person. Those feelings are of course going to drive one’s writing. One can try to tame those feelings, and it is possible to write a story covering the facts, showcasing the many sides to an issue. But for people to expect someone involved in journalism to not have personal opinions is, well, simply stupid.
If this NPR guy had sent a memo to his reporters, telling them to frame an issue a certain way, use certain words that may be more damaging to the Tea Party, then sure, this may be a legitimate story. But all the man did was vent his own feelings on a particular issue. Fox news sent memos to reporters advising them to frame issues a certain way, use words that may be more damaging to issues such as health care and global warming. Yet do you see the O’Keefes making a fuss about that?
It should also be noted that these pranksters baited the NPR official repeatedly with quotes about “National Palestinian Radio” and other offensive, stereotypical tripe aimed at discrediting one of the right’s most popular punching bags.
I don’t care what the executives at Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, CSPAN, and NPR think about individual issues. I do care that news organizations be fair, accurate, truthful, and ultimately open-minded in their reporting.
And NPR tends to fit that description more than any other, I’ve found.
Omnes Omnibus
@El Cid: I would go to see that. Will you be touring?
R-Jud
@jrg:
To be fair, it would have to be quite a small government to fit inside a lady’s uterus.
BillinChicago
Here ya go:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/npr_appalled_by_exec_ron_schillers_comments_in_jam.php?ref=fpblg
Can we officially refer to NPR as “those kale eating surrender Nazis” now?
joe from Lowell
@Teri: How worried can you be? Getting enough signatures just means that there is an election. 12 of the 14 Democratic Senators are people who managed to win election as Democrats in 2010. In a more favorable electoral climate than the one in which they won, what’s going to happen to them?
Chris
Mmmm… I’d say the religious right and the fundies aren’t as central to the movement as they were in the eighties, nineties and first half of the 2,000s. The scene’s shifted away from them and towards the crazy libertarian types.
It’s still fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and it’s still completely fucking insane, I just think the fundie overtones are receding somewhat.
Corner Stone
@El Cid: Ahh, but you forget Spaniard. You lost your greatest weapon in 2003 when Gregory Hines passed.
We took him out shortly after the Iraq Invasion began, knowing without him your skills would inevitably degrade to a shadow of their former robusto!
That’s right. Muslims control cancer. What did you really think the “war on terror” was about?
David Brooks (not that one)
@Corner Stone:
Read the Weigel article linked on the link. They did, before you got to 2.
Corner Stone
@BillinChicago: Like clockwork, those Nice Polite Republicans are.
Chris
No, Juan Williams was fired for making bigoted statements on the air.
I do love that someone I know used the Juan Williams story as an example of political correctness to say “see, it just proves there’s no freedom of speech unless you’re not white.” How their brain went from Juan Williams’ firing to white oppression, I’m not sure.
To the tune of what, 2%? You fund the Koch Brothers by dozens of times more than that every time a governor gives them a no-bid contract.
arguingwithsignposts
@John Cole:
Well, see, there is some good news today!
Corner Stone
@David Brooks (not that one): Thanks.
I don’t read Weigel too much as he’s a punk.
ETA, the link goes to memeorandum which I never click if I can help it.
joe from Lowell
@BillinChicago:
Absolutely. That guy seemed to express a degree of emotion, and accurately described the right-wing fringe.
That’s is totally contrary to what NPR stands for. Now, fifteen seconds of the world’s lightest jazz…
El Cid
@Corner Stone: When one Hines falls, there are 30 more in secret tapping camps you don’t see.
@Omnes Omnibus: By the time you see the routine, it will be already too late, with our new over-the-horizon fire-and-please-forget Riverdance tech.
Catsy
@John Cole:
This is one of the greatest things that has happened to Balloon Juice in a very long time.
debit
@John Cole: I will give you oral sex any place, anytime, anywhere if you make that permanent. I AM SERIOUS.
Amir_Khalid
@John Cole: That’s two red cards in fairly quick succession. When this ban is up, maybe her comments should be automatically sent into moderation (if this is technically possible) until she learns not to hog comment threads, flaunt her obsessions or stalk frontpagers.
Despite her tiresomeness she does manage, once in a while, to add something of interest to the conversation; and I would hate to see a fellow commenter permanently banned (which I wouldn’t blame you for considering) unless it were really truly absofrakkinglutely necessary.
Mike E
@joe from Lowell: I saw a (tiny) bumper sticker, on an Acura I think, that said, “I listened to NPR before it was cool.” I so wanted to get my sharpie out at the next red light to edit it: “…back when it was relevant.”
I weep for our supposed Free Press
singfoom
I love my local NPR station, but the national organization really needs to grow a pair. Guy calls Tea Partiers on their bullshit and NPR is appalled and reaches for it’s fainting couch.
If they were smart, they’d have said they were offended by his tone, but not his content. Oh noes, a guy described a group of people who have repeatedly shown their racism and hate as racists.
They’re better than other news organizations, but they’re still mostly mealy mouthed establishment tools. The only thing that redeems the organization is the funding they provide for individual shows that aren’t mealy mouthed establishment tools.
I’m a huge fan of On the Media and Left, Right and Center, but those are locally produced instead of nationally produced.
Can we get a Bobo like nickname for EJ Dionne? Cause jesus, his “analysis” is so conventional wisdom villager bullshit.
debit
@debit: Possibly that was inappropriate. I was overcome by the moment.
JGabriel
I doubt it will have any effect, but I’ve posted this (or similar) to several of the O’Keefe/NPR stories:
I mean, seriously, O’Keefe is a convicted felon. Why aren’t reporters including that info in their stories?
.
Uloborus
@John Cole:
…I hate to cheer anybody being banned, but thank you. There aren’t many people who make me actually just not want to read a thread anymore, but M-C is one of them. It’s like trying to talk to the fucking Riddler. ‘Ha ha, you don’t know this because I just made it up so I’m smarter than you.’ God damn.
There, you see? I don’t get that nasty about people very often! You have a *very* small number of trolls who just make any conversation they latch onto tedious and annoying and usually completely OT, and she was the most prolific.
DKF
The only truly compelling argument I can think of against government involvement in health care is the prospect of Republican government involvement in health care.
celticdragonchick
@John Cole:
Thank you!
Chris
@singfoom:
Yeah. Like, seriously: are you shitting me? Fox News has called liberals far, far worse than just “crazy” for virtually its entire lifespan – hell, that kind of talk is practically a prerequesite for going on the air there. But one lone NPR guy finally points out that they’re completely fucking insane and all of a sudden it’s the end of the world? Christ, please do grow a pair.
johnsmith1882
What are you talking about, John? The teabaggers aren’t the same-old same-old ass end of the Republican party, interested only in an anti-abortion, pro-gun, reactionary whites-only agenda. They are True Patriots, who decided they had enough with paying taxes a Whole two months after the black guy took office. Don’t you remember the ruckus they made when W took a surplus and turned it into a deficit in less than a year? Or their marches when the federal deficit tripled under W? They’ve been consistently fiscally conservative all along, for shame for suggesting otherwise.
eemom
@debit:
totally understandable. Hell, I’m so grateful I’ve been sitting here trying to think of a way to top that.
I’d offer to adopt Rosie, but one of my doggies has aggression issues.
Dennis SGMM
If it meant that NPR would stop giving softball interviews to Republican pols I would happily kip in more than I already do to help make up for the absence of government funding. As it stands, the place went to hell in a handcart when Bush appointed some of his lackeys to the board in the interest of “balance.” I donate because I listen to Le Show and the Tappet Brothers, otherwise it’s not worth the trouble.
eemom
@singfoom:
Objection. That is totally unfair. Dionne’s no Rude Pundit, but his heart is in the right place, he wants the right things, he never does false equivalency, and he is never an arrogant asshole. No way does he deserve comparison to Brooksfuck.
ruemara
@Teri:
Recall petitions started first on the conservative side, out in Utah.
Elia
Kudos to this Shadowy Liberal Elitist for calling out Teahadists for being rabid white ethnocentric nationalists, rather than actually Christian. Wish more liberals would make the same distinction.
Fe E
@debit:
Well, damn. This might be the most unique BJ comment on BJ ever!
Herbal Infusion Bagger
PWL
Sonograms, eh? Yep, that’s the Republican way: “Get government off our backs”–and into their vaginas.
But noooo, they’re not teahadists….
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@El Cid:
make pregnant women fly somewhere away from texas for their abortion, problem solved!
Judas Escargot (aka ninja fetus with a taste for bruschetta)
@Amir_Khalid:
Despite her tiresomeness she does manage, once in a while, to add something of interest to the conversation
Just a ‘this’, to this.
I actually agree with some of her main points (the ‘third culture’/’GOP is doomed long-term because they can’t deal with empirical reality’ stuff). Just don’t be so fecking obnoxious about it.
And, you know– she did turn out to be (kinda) right about the EDK “conversion”.
Mike
Quick question:
Who’s going to pay for these sonograms, the nanny state? Or are they forcing Americans to pay for something the Constitution doesn’t say they have to?
Oh wait, I forgot. Sluts’ rights aren’t guaranteed by the Constitution.
El Cid
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: I don’t think the terahertz scanning of women and coloreds is a violation of anyone’s rights. I think you have to have a soul for the Fourth Amendment to apply, and women are always carrying the potential for an embryo to gestate. Any consideration of rights of privacy for women would hamper the protection of fetuses and pre-fetal persons.
Howlin Wolfe
I’m still pissed that Van Jones had to resign from the Obama administration because he observed, accurately in my opinion, that the Repukes are the party of assholes. I can’t find any reasonable dispute with that: they spew shit from their orifices. In the more colloquial meaning, they value the type of personality that most people would generally describe as “asshole”.
Bubblegum Tate
@Phoenix:
I dunno…I feel like if that’s going to happen (and that’s a big if), it won’t be for a while. He’s not quote the wingnut celebrity he was, but he still gets a decent fluffing from Breitbart’s Merry Band of Idiots. Plus, he definitely seems the type to look in the mirror every morning and say, “I’m the guy who took down ACORN. Fuck yeah!”
Embarrassment takes a long time to sink in with the O’Keefes of the world. I’d bet that despite his track record of failure, his criminal record, etc., he still thinks of himself as a daring, intrepid, and above all successful reporter.
melanerpes
NPR requiescat in pace.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@El Cid:
that is true, its one of god’s mysteries why he locks up so many right raised christians in the uteri of such lesser beings. real freedom of religion as guaranteed to us by our founding fathers will not be ours until we alone get to determine who those ovum-proxies are allowed to have sex with, and since all sex other than procreative sex is a threat to procreative sex, we must also have dominion over all the sex, had by everyone, clearly it’s what god commands us to do.
Teri
@joe from Lowell: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/unlocking-the-republican-ballot-1996-2000/
Teri
@ruemara: The guy Eric O’Keefe’s wife runs a petition organiztion http://hisvorpal.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/wisconsin-money-slush-okeefe-and-jacob-to-kliesmet/ and frankly scares the hell out of me