Even if every Republican in Washington was thrown out of office, we’d still have FOX News to contend with and their protomorphic reality-affecting powers.
Republicans are in an Internet uproar over an erroneous media report quoting EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson as calling them “jack-booted thugs” during a speech at the University of California at Berkeley.
Trouble is, Jackson didn’t level the term at Republicans. Instead, she used it to refer to her own employees, jokingly borrowing language that the EPA’s critics have used to describe the agency’s workers.
Your pathetic facts can never be allowed to stop the Almighty Right Wing Noise Machine from LAUNCH ALL ARGLE BLARGLE NOW WITH SIRENS. That rocketship’s gonna fly and we don’t care where it lands, baby.
But in an account of the event that E&E News published Friday, a reporter described Jackson as accusing House and Senate Republicans of deliberately misleading the public with the 230,000-employee figure — then quoted her as saying, “Those jack-booted thugs knew that.”
E&E has since republished its account with a correction, but the conservative site RedState picked up the original version, setting Twitter and other sites ablaze with conservative criticism of Jackson.
Brian R.
Jackson should sue Fox News for libel. Today.
Make these assholes pay every time they knowingly publish a falsehood. Every time. Don’t let a single one pass by.
Make them fill their sites and shows with retractions until even the most dim-witted of their readers realizes that they are utterly full of shit.
capt
You LIE! (directed at Faux Spews)
I am convinced they do it on purpose at least if it suits them for the moment.
mellowjohn
sarcasm is lost on some people.
MattF
Doesn’t ‘jack-booted thugs’ come from Bush-the-First era right-wing complaints about the ATF enforcing firearms laws? My recollection is that Bush-the-First complained about the epithet, going so far as to point out that the ATF were government employees going about their jobs. Pretty funny, in retrospect.
amk
Inveterate liars and yet pox news is way ahead of other cable noise. What a fucked up country.
rickstersherpa
I predict that e-mail Ann Counter &the Sean Hannity will repeat this lie
the remainder of their days.
Linnaeus
@MattF:
Yes, that’s where it started, but of course the Republicans have conveniently forgotten that.
redshirt
Rule #37: When Democrats are in power, all government employees are “Jack Booted Thugs”.
When Republicans are in power, “Why do you hate America? Move to Canada if you hate this country so much.”
arguingwithsignposts
I thought this was going to be a post about Megan McArgleBargle. As it is, not surprising in the least.
PeakVT
@MattF: I think the political use of the phrase started with Bill Roth’s deceitful presentation to his own committee on how the IRS was a bunch of jack-booted thugs. It was all made up, of course.
ETA: Those hearings were in 1997 and 1998, so it likely wasn’t the first modern political use.
Sly
@amk:
Being first in the cable news race isn’t exactly a huge deal when you consider the markets for TV news consumers and the total daily TV audience. Very few people watch that shit. The real scandal is the widely disproportionate influence this wasteland-on-the-airwaves (and I’m including all cable news in that category) has over the public political discourse.
Regnad Kcin
Gresham’s law, dontcha know?
Samara Morgan
Julian calls this the right-wing reality distortion field.
But it happens here too, Zandar cher…just not as obviously.
Because liberals dont exhibit backfire effect.
:)
Woodrowfan
This! many times over..
Villago Delenda Est
There’s a reason why I call them Faux Nooze.
Zandar
No, even when Republicans are in power, government employees are evil thugs. Witness red state GOP legislatures continuing to purge tens of thousands of “parasites” from the payroll while voting themselves pay raises.
phantomist
Issa: Well, anyway, get this: I spoke to Lisa Jackson. You know, I told her I didn’t want to see her anymore.. She called me “Jack Booted Thug”.
Cantor: “Jack Booted Thug” (Scoffs) That’s almost a compliment.
Issa: (Agreeing) It’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.
arguingwithsignposts
@Samara Morgan: Somehow, I doubt St. Julian of Assange coined that, since the RDF has been around since at least the early ’80s.
cleek
@Sly:
plus: one network for “conservatives”, fifty networks for everybody else.
Villago Delenda Est
@arguingwithsignposts:
St. Julian of Assange invented language, fool.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Not quite. He invented all the cool things. The dull bits were invented by Dead White Male Phailosophers. Do try to keep up.
Samara Morgan
@arguingwithsignposts:
dont you think this is true, foo’?
this is why you sukked “Our” EDK’s glibertarian cock while sneering at Assange and Manning.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Does everything look like an example of the Prophet Julian’s wisdom now? The American right-wing-influenced media has been up to these tricks, deliberately cherry-picking or distorting the truth for political advantage, for decades; Assange only started up Wikileaks in 2006.
And confirmation bias has been recognized for a long time. That it exists among the political right as well as the political left, or for that matter here at Balloon Juice, is a trivial observation. Everyone has it; not everyone is scrupulous enough to avoid it, no one who does try to do so is wholly successful. You yourself exhibit it on a regular basis.
But the front-pagers and commenters do try to keep the conversation honest here at Balloon Juice. You’ve been commenting here long enough to recognize that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan:
You are, of course, the noble exception, right? I call bull shit. Or, phrased more politely, what Amir Khalid said.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus:
it is to laff.
EDK and de Bore got all their linkage from an approving Sully. You cudlips got scammed.
I am the exception. I link.
@Amir Khalid: backfire effect and neuropolitics are NEW PARADIGMS.
Like Hacktivisim.
Like OWS.
Like Anonymous.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
I sit before my monitor corrected.
Unlike some other people around here…
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: do you know who the most honest frontpager here was?
He lasted one post.
that nice jewish techno guy.
these fuckers ran him off.
xian
@Villago Delenda Est: i love the way she’s now on a firstname basis with Julian. I just hope for his sake she still isn’t under age.
Peter
@Samara Morgan: A stunning example of Matoko Exceptionalism.
El Cid
I am astonished and outraged that you called me a sack-butted slug. At least I’m sure that’s what I heard you say.
MattF
Not to seem ungrateful, but the upthread discussion of the original meaning of Argle Blargle was more amusing, IMO.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: Everyone new frontpager here, with the possible exceptions of SP&T and Tom Levenson, got savaged in the comment sections. Go back and take a look.
Zandar
I demand better trolling.
Omnes Omnibus
@Zandar: I would say “You’ll get nothing and like it!” but it looks like you will get ‘toko like everyone else.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
You don’t know that Samara. All you know is that they haven’t been tested adequately so they have never been shown to exhibit it. That is a much weaker constraint.
xian
@Samara Morgan: why do you use a sex act as a pejorative?
piratedan
well at least I can acknowledge that ArgyBargy was quite possible the best Squeeze album evah….oops, got my gy and gle mixed up again didn’t i?
Omnes Omnibus
@piratedan: Great album.
Steve
If only she had used a more RedState-appropriate term, like “goat-f*cking child molester.”
piratedan
@Omnes Omnibus: agreed…played it til the vinyl bled
xian
@THE: danger, you are going to create a backfire effect in Idoru’s belief system.
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid:
The child errs into idolatry? HOOCODANODE??
Woodrowfan
this comments thread lacks something. Somebody accuse ABL of reverse racism, that should complete it..
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Villago Delenda Est: @Omnes Omnibus: Clearly the two of you are bored today, or trying to avoid an unpleasant task.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I need to grade some papers this weekend and go to the grocery store. Why do you mention it?
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: I need to make up for the housecleaning I neglected over my birthday weekend. So far that task awaits still.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Amir Khalid: Your unfailing graciousness in the face of raging rudeness is impressive.
piratedan
@Woodrowfan: maybe a JC cooking extravaganza would also be in order
JPL
Yesterday Doug identified unReality Check a partial troll. I’m not sure what criteria he uses but I assume SM is a full troll.
Davis X. Machina
The truth of an assertion depends upon the extent to which it advances the Party and supports its role as Vanguard of the Revolution.
You’re all using outdated, bourgeois notions of ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’, based on whether the utterance comports with some external ‘reality’.
Real, revolutionary Truth soars above these antiquated dialectical opposites.
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: Nah, she is merely totally self-absorbed with low social skills. Sometimes it presents as trolling.
Yutsano
OT: football thread please and thank you?
Zandar
Had already scheduled one for 1 PM.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@JPL: Actually, OccupyDougJ, announced that she occasionally says interesting things. Perhaps he drinks a bit, and has skewed perceptions at those times. My point being, I doubt he’d describe her as full metal troll. And of course, O.O’s view is accurate.
Davis X. Machina
@Brian R.:Re libel: Times v. Sullivan.
If a cabinet-level administrator isn’t a public figure, I’m an Adélie penguin. And imagine how such lawsuits will run, absent Sullivan, in a second Romney term…
hrprogressive
Well, Republicans are jack-booted thugs, so…
This is just another case of the Teabaggers being angry when someone points out a fact about them.
Nothing to see here, move along.
S. cerevisiae
Have these conservative fucksticks ever met any EPA employees? I have met many, and “jack-booted thugs” is the last way I would characterize them – Much closer to science geeks and accountants.
Grung_e_Gene
The Rightwing Alternate Universe can never be stopped only appeased. It is a relentless eating machine, all internet stories must conform to the narrative, Conservative good/liberal bad
Bex
@PeakVT: Didn’t look it up, but I think the comment was made by a spokescritter for the NRA talking about the ATF, maybe 20 years ago or so.
xian
mockery does seem to ward it off
Bubblegum Tate
@phantomist:
And then a bird flew into Issa’s head.
JenJen
Gotta love the way Red State, in their correction, apologizes for “any inconvenience.” In the sense that the truth may have been inconvenient, or what?
eemom
St. Julian the Libertarian, if you please.
Yutsano
@eemom:
HERETIC CUDLIP!
/m_c
OzoneR
Certainly this would never happen if Obama use the bully pulpit.
xian
St. Julian the Glibertarian rentboi*
(*another matoko_chan sexuality-oriented slur disguised in queer-hipster clothing)
iriedc
My observation of Administrator Jackson is that she is aware of & sensitive to the effects of the right-wing noise machine, but she is not overly intimidated by it. Progressives (writ large) could learn a lot from observing how she operates.
Samara Morgan
@eemom: explain how an anti-capitalist can be a libertarian.
crone.
Samara Morgan
@Yutsano: housekeeping aid.
Samara Morgan
@Zandar: i learned my game at Mastertroll’s knee.
ABT
Yutsano
@Samara Morgan: You’re no fun when you’re pouting.
Samara Morgan
@THE: jaysus spock just leave it. only conservatives exhibited backfire effect in the study we were discussing.
You have another study, one that contradicts that, link it.
Samara Morgan
@Yutsano: im not pouting, im tryng to bait Zandar into giving me a timeout.
its a rite of passage.
/wicked grin
didnt you like the Guide to Monster Housekeeping?
Samara Morgan
A right of passage or possibly a litmus test.
Kain and de Bore never had the nads to outright ban me.
They would just mark one of my comments as spam so i couldn’t comment.
AL selectively deletes my comments because she doesnt want her crush Dave Weigel so see that sheez a closet JAFI.
chacun a son gout
Caz
Fox is a news organization. You’re so out of touch with reality is pathetic. Informed people laugh at you for your idiotic views and statements, not that you’ll ever know as long as you stay in this little buffoon juice echo chamber. Useful idiot.
eemom
@Samara Morgan:
Ask the Swedish social*st and erstwhile fervent supporter of your Divine One, who called him a libertarian. A “solitary and shabby libertarian“, to be exact.
Also too, explain how an “anti-capitalist” chose a luxurious British mansion to hole up in for the last year. Unless he’s, you know, a hypocrite.
[reposted to elude moderation]
eemom
@Yutsano:
She really hates it that her hero has been outed as a libertarian.
And no, it can’t be rubbed in often enough. Tee hee.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: Libertarian does not necessarily equal capitalist. One is a political philosophy and the other is an economic system.
Samara Morgan
@eemom: /yawn
outed by who?
what is it with this blog.
flaming full frontal free market glibertarians like Kain get FP slots, while the juicitariat crotchsniffs Assange and sneers at Manning as a traitor.
i guess that is just how crones roll.
face it eemom– you have it in for Assange because of your humiliation over the A-stan doc drop…where you were spectacularily WRONG.
why dont you run off and fry up some palestinian baby livers for dinner?
Trapped in SC
Why can’t we just call Fox News “News Entertainment”? You know, like wrestling is referred to as Sports Entertainment. I mean, most of it is bullshit, and the rest is fake, so why not?
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: jaysus Omnes dont pretend you are as IQchallenged as eemom.
Libertarians are essentially crypto-conservatives.
Julian is a crypto-anarchist if anything.
it relly burns you guys that Julian and OWS and Anonymous and the Arab Spring islamists are all on the same side.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: I did not say anything about Assange here. I am simply pointing out that a political theory and an economic theory do not necessarily go hand in hand despite that fact that the majority of people who adhere to one, libertarianism, also adhere to the other. I know political theory bores you and economics confuses you, but the terms have meanings and you can’t just apply them at random to people you don’t like.
scav
What I particularly love is that loko is herself proof, a near ideal exemplar of backfire in a self-professed liberal. The paper she keeps waving at us actually says in its conclusion
such a giggle that little imp is. And she accuses everyone else being unable to read or reason and practically pants to be put in time out as though that is evidence of her being correct. Being expelled for hysterics is easily confused with being awarded a doctorate.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: well…maybe i AM confuzzled about libertarians since i do not see how can Assange can be considered one….. or maybe “libertarian” means something else in Sweden.
But fortunately here is Onetime FP and Expert Libertarian Erik “Beyond Unions” Kain to enlighten us all on the true meaning of libertarian.
And what do you know, american libertarians at least are just crypto-conservatives.
:)
AA+ Bonds
THANK GOD one of the frontpagers is FINALLY reading Fox Nation.
It’s how you find out about conservative stories before they happen. Hell, it’s how I’ve found out about all those conservative stories that I’ve told BJers about before they happen.
How Ailes set up a completely public trial balloon site, a controlled stand-in for the role the radical right-wing press played in the 1990s, and the left ignores it, I’ll never know.
It’s as if during the era of the Soviet Union, American intelligence could subscribe to a newsletter that planned out what would appear in Pravda next month, but they were like “naaaaaaah.”
AA+ Bonds
EVERYONE HURRY UP AND HATE WIKILEAKS TO LOOK COOL BECAUSE IT TOTALLY DESERVES NO CREDIT FOR ALL THE SHIT HAPPENING IN AMERICA AND THE REST OF THE WORLD
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: It has to be intentional, the way you miss points and respond with non sequiturs.
Samara Morgan
@scav: again, both Jay Rosen and I arrived at the same conclusion–IN NYHANS STUDY, ONLY conservatives were OBSERVED to exhibit backfire effect.
I am not saying ANYTHING about ALL conservatives, and neither is Rosen.
But he does say this.
AA+ Bonds
Man, it sure is good to be a Serious Liberal and feel that good ol’ white-power hatred for anything the left has done to make itself a force to be reckoned with over the last five years.
Now let’s pour ourselves some Riesling and listen to these fabulous audiotapes I have of cracking skulls from the 1968 Democratic Convention. It’s my favorite song!
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: what point did i miss?
AA+ Bonds
The most LOL thing is that the Teamsters are now officially to the left of all Democratic critics of left-wing popular movements, because this time they’re a really happy and joyous part of that movement.
The party has left the crypto-conservatives behind, toodle oodle oo.
Omnes Omnibus
@AA+ Bonds: Hey, I won’t deny that it deserves some credit. What I won’t do is say that Assange and WikiLeaks changed the world on their own and that, due to them, everything will be different from here on out. That denies the agency of a shitload of people, some of whom risked their lives, to bring changes to their parts of the world. So get off your fucking high horse.
Edited to remove duplicated portion.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: The fact that political and economic philosophies are not necessarily aligned. Also, quoting Kain as some sort of Ur-libertarian is not only an appeal to authority, but also a rather foolish one
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: On observation, free market philosophy and libertarianism exhibit a near perfect correlation.
ie, i have never seen a single libertarian swear allegiance to any other economic philosophy, have you?
its like not all christians are conservatives, but almost all conservatives are christians.
i can say with confidence actually, while not all free market fans are libertarians, ALL libertarians are freemarket fans. Kain is an excellent example of that.
but please, do name a libertarian that doesnt embrace the “freed” market.
/taps foot impatiently
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: you are saying Assange and WL DIDNT change the world?
Because the world is changed.
freddie
@Samara Morgan: They’re waiting for you over at the ABL post. Especially eemom.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: Kain isnt an Ur-libertarian.
He is a TYPICAL libertarian and freemarket fan.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: Did you read the words I wrote? If so, please assume I was trying to say what the words say. If not, please go read the words – preferably in order.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: According to some, Julian Assange is a libertarian who is not a capitalist. So there.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
No Samara I won’t leave it as long as you keep lying about it — exaggerating it.
Only conservatives were adequately tested.
If you have any evidence that your exaggerated version is true, link it.
Besides Samara you are missing a much more important point here:
The fact that you are one of the most conservative people I have ever met.
Samara Morgan
@freddie: sry de Bore, i got other plans.
sayonara
Samara Morgan
@THE: i gave you Jay Rosen’s opinion.
and idc.
THE
@Samara Morgan: I gave you Rosen and Nyhans nuanced conclusion in their peer-reviewed paper.
Edit: I think you just have trouble with the whole idea of weak constraints:
You have a very binary mind. I have told you that before.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: but i contest that he is NOT a libertarian. Find another counter example.
:)
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: THE has cited sections of that study to you showing that it admits that it is limited and that further research is required. In other words, the study itself says that it is really the opening round in the discussion and not the end. You place far too much weight on it. It is one study, it is not exhaustive, and you are being a dogmatic fool.
Samara Morgan
@THE: which is not contra Rosen’s opinion OR mine. Only conservatives were observed to exhibit backfire effect IN THAT STUDY.
Of course if you want to make broader conclusions you have to do more research.
duh.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: You will reject any example I put forward.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
No you are the one who is making more narrow and focused conclusions than the data supports.
It is the narrower conclusion that requires more evidence to support it. The broad conclusion is the default conclusion by Ockham’s razor.
Edit: The simplest conclusion is that all humans are alike – unless we know them not to be.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: neither jay rosen or i said it was definitive.
i dont know that i place too much weight on it…..i think people that dismiss it (the we-are-all-the-same posse) “are too quick to suggest that a kind of symmetry reigns over political behavior.”–Rosen.
im interested right now in the asymmetry of neuropolitics, Social Dominance Order and Right Wing Authoritarianism.
Right Wing Authoritarianism has also only been observed ON THE RIGHT lol.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: no i wont. Its just that i do not believe Julian is a libertarian. And I’ve read all his stuff.
THE
@Samara Morgan: :
Exactly Samara. And you are the classic Right Wing Authoritarian.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: You know what, I will give you a libertarian non-capitalist – Noam Chomsky. Go ahead a explain that he is not a libertarian. How about Bakunin?
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: ill have to see if chomsky is a libertarian. you may be right about Bakunin.
;)
now, gtg.
buhbye, buhbye
The Other Chuck
So what does it say about republicans when someone says “Jack-Booted Thugs” and they _automatically_ think the term is being leveled at them?
Oh, right, nothing we didn’t already know, and nothing they have the capacity to learn.
Yutsano
@Samara Morgan:
LOVE MY GOD YOU HERETICS!!
Are you even listening to yourself?
scav
loko running about saying “All Taxis are BLUE!” and then saying it is so true because in a one specific kid’s book all the illustrations indeed only showed blue cabs although other colors were mentioned in the text. This is getting funnier and funnier.
SiubhanDuinne
So late to this thread that no one will probably even see this, but I do think we have a fresh new rotating tag:
xian
the arglebargle is strong in this one.
also, too, libertarian == anarchist.
also, three, call someone “crone” dismissively in my presence and you’re getting a spanking.
Samara Morgan
@THE:
but they arent….because of the biological basis of behavior.
THE
Samara, please try to understand. The problem is how strongly does a person react to reject corrective information that is contrary to their beliefs.
We have no evidence that there is any difference between liberals and conservatives, or blondes and redheads or left handed and right handed on this variable.
Even if there was subgroups in the population that responded to this variable differently; first you would have to map out the boundary: Is it really Liberal vs. Conservative that distinguishes the response subgroups? (As opposed to introvert/extrovert or some other psychological variable) And does the crossover occur at the mid point or what?
You haven’t even begun to establish that there are subgroups with different responses, and you have no idea what parameter, if any, is relevant in distinguishing them.
That is why, in the absence of contrary evidence, we use the simplest assumption first: The null hypothesis. If it fails or we get more detailed information that there are subgroups with different responses; then we make the model more elaborate — Once we know what is empirically relevant.
Samara Morgan
@THE: you are doing exactly what Jay Rosen and I both SCIENTIFICALLY deplore.
There is an emerging body of SCIENTIFIC evidence that conservatives and liberals are MORPHOLOGICALLY and FUNCTIONALLY different. That there are STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT BETWEEN GROUP DIFFERENCES.
Nyhans study is one small piece of the puzzle but it is EMPIRICALLY, UNEQUIVOCABLY TRUE that only conservatives exhibited backfire effect IN THAT STUDY.
THE
But you don’t know that liberals don’t also exhibit it if you ask a sufficiently provocative question.
EDIT: We are talking about this parameter not some other parameter.
As I said you are the most conservative person I know so you are currently exhibiting the backfire effect, right?
Samara Morgan
@THE:
and you dont know that they would. again, all jay rosen and i are saying is that in the Nyhan study ONLY CONSERVATIVES EXHIBITED BACKFIRE EFFECT.
/yawn
i am simply never going to play galatea to your pygmalion.
its a waste of your time.
THE
But I have no apriori reason to prefer that the axis of differentiation (assuming there is such an axis) is along the liberal-conservative direction. In this particular case.
If my belief is conditioned by the evidence, the evidence supporting your hypothesis, in this particular case is still weak. So my faith in it is weak. And I position myself to keep an open mind and seek more evidence.
I think the real problem here is that like all ultra-rightists, it is not truth that you seek, it is that you seek to make science serve your political agenda.
Your ultraconservative religiosity is another example of you rejecting objective truth to pursue political-religious fantasies.
Your values have never been my values. You could never be my Galatea.
THE
Oh and just to change the topic for a moment. After talking about Star Wars games the other day, I tried installing a couple on my Win-7 computer.
The two most recent ones: SW-JK2 Jedi Outcast (2002), and SW-JK2 Jedi Academy (2003), both installed without difficulty. I only needed to tweak the .cfg files to make it Full-HD and 16:9-WS and it looks pretty good now on my TV-monitor. There are a few minor bugs, but they were already there in Win-XP.
The 3 earlier pre-2000 Jedi Knight FPS games won’t load. I believe I would have to use a DOS emulator like DOSBox to get them to run. Too much trouble for me I think. I will content myself with the two later games.
General impression after playing it for a few hours again after all these years: These old games were poor at rendering humans and other living things, but they were awesome at architecture. They really immerse you in the StarWars techno-themed environments. Space stations, super-cities, etc. Look great on Full-HD-WS.