Via Paul Constant, Erick “voice of the GOP Gated Community” Erickson sends out a very stern letter warning his fellow GOP (excuse me, conservative) bloggers to clean up their grounds, because using junker cars as lawn ornaments and the torn-out seats as porch furniture is a clear violation of the party gated community covenant:
… I think conservative media is failing to advance ideas and stories. Certainly part of that is because the general media has an ideological bias against conservatives, which makes it harder for the media to take our views seriously. But many conservatives are, instead of working doubly hard to overcome that bias, just yelling louder about the same things. The echo in the chamber has gotten so loud it is not well understood outside the echo chamber in the mainstream press and in the public. It translates only as anger and noise, neither of which are conducive to the art of persuasion…
Just as troubling, there are some conservative reporters out there who aim for the basic facts, but get stuck on talking points. Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, myself, and others have been lamenting a lot of conservative reporters for this very reason. These reporters seem to covet access to the Speaker, Senate Minority Leader, and Leadership. They report on the Republican leadership’s side without question and turn conservatives in Congress into the butt of jokes.
On more than one occasion I’ve seen conservatives treat the GOP Leadership skeptically until a friend is hired by Leadership. Suddenly, the agnostic reporter becomes a believer and often uses his perch to undermine conservatives in Congress on behalf of leadership. Everyone should be questioned and friendship with the Speaker’s and Leader’s staffs should not be a goal.
More often than not these days, conservatives are being undercut by their own leadership in Congress and not the Democrats. A conservative press that caters to the talking points of the leadership is helping undercut the conservative agenda…
So Erick the RedState, who is a Businessman more than a Believer, perceives the recent death-before-dishonor-because-Obama-is-not-the-boss-of-us antics of “Leaders” like Cantor or the anti-Hagelites as detrimental to the Republican “conservative” brand. He would rather not pay his lawyers to send out a sternly worded letter (especially since he is aware that poo-flinging monkeys like the vast majority of the right wing ‘alternative’ media have no more use for sternly-worded letters than they do for evolution or reproductive medicine). But he’s publicly edging away from loudest GOP table-pounders, trying to reposition himself just outside camera range when McConnell or McCain spills out another embarrassing paean to the good ol’ days when women and other minorities were literally chattel, and voters knew their place. Since even his meanest critics must concede that Mr. Erickson has a sharp eye for the main chance, I do believe that his epistle to the ranks must constitute Good News for John McCain the reality-based community…
***********
Apart from saluting confusion to our enemies, what’s on the agenda this evening?
Joshua Norton
Oh my. The bat-shit crazy “conservatives” vs. the regular asshole “conservatives”.
Villago Delenda Est
On this evening’s agenda…nice dinner with my friends at an Italian restaurant. Not in honor of Fascist Tony’s heritage, I might add.
We will of course drink to the confusion of all Scalia and Fuckerson types as they continue their journey to the very depths of Hell.
schrodinger's cat
I was wondering if anyone saw the PBS documentary Makers yesterday?
dmsilev
@Joshua Norton: Can’t they unite under the leadership of a batshit-crazy asshole?
JPL
@schrodinger’s cat: I missed it but heard from a friend it was great. BTW..you aren’t suggesting that Erick is a maker are you?
lol
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
I’ll be finishing the second draft of my novel tonight. It produces a sense of melancholy. There’s the accomplishment of getting it done but I’ve invested a lot in these characters and I care about them a lot. So the idea of being, in some sense, done with them is a little bit painful. I’ve experienced it reading books that moved me but this is a lot more intense, as befits the fact that a lot more effort has gone into the writing.
I’ve never experienced this feeling with a short story. I’m not sure whether that’s because they are just shorter, so there’s less investment of effort, or whether it’s because I’ve never written anything that’s felt as personal as this project has. Probably some of both.
And, let’s face it, I’ve treated several of them rather badly. Sorry, Kennedy, Phoebe and Caitlyn. I couldn’t think of any other way to get it done.
22over7
I think Eric sqaured is reading his comment threads again. Not too long ago I read a post on Redstate that decried the absolutism concerning homosexuality and women’s rights. The comments below were a cesspool of right-wing vitriol, saying mainly that they were NEVER going to shut up to make the fags and the sluts feel better about themselves.
Ptooey.
You can’t do anything with these people.
Trollhattan
@schrodinger’s cat:
Hadn’t heard of it. Is there a Pt2 called “Takers” or am I completely at sea, here?
Nemo_N
CNN is reporting Scalia’s BS with the title “Justice Scalia Offends Civil Rights Leaders”.
Just some people who get offended by everything! No way to know who is right!
Gin & Tonic
@Nemo_N: I wonder when they’ll write the hed “Justice Scalia Offends Thinking Human Beings”
schrodinger's cat
@JPL:
@Trollhattan:
No. It has nothing to with Eric or Romney’s infamous quote. It was about the history of the women’s movement from 50s to the present. It was a 3 hour series. I missed the last part, which was 90s to the present.
Trollhattan
@Nemo_N:
To be fair, “Civil Rights Leaders” are a subset of the larger group “People with at least half a brain that can think, and stuff.”
jl
@Nemo_N: What’s wrong with “Justice Scalia raves like lunatic in court”?
JPL
@schrodinger’s cat: Just teasing. I’m hoping to watch it at another time.
WereBear
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): When I finished my second novel, a suspense thriller, my darling agent called to say it was wonderful… except, as he so delicately put it, the ending lacked a certain intensity.
Well, fact is, I had pulled my punches. I had gotten so fond of my embattled heroine that I just… couldn’t… go through with it.
But I buckled down and did it on the second round. Much better, darling agent said.
You can’t help but be fond of them.
schrodinger's cat
@WereBear: Was your embattled heroine a kitteh?
Rex Everything
I’m not a real rah-rah party line Donk-cheering kind of guy. But I am LOVING watching the implosion of the GOP.
trex
While he may be a businessman more than a believer, he is also a businessman who at least pretends to be a believer, and in truth it isn’t easy to suss out his sincerity in this matter more than it is with anyone else who involves himself with politics and religion and a culture war at the same time.
In the article you quote, when he solicits interest in being a new wave conservative reporter the sole ideological requirement is that any interested party be pro-life. Also, after the last presidential election Erickson made a big deal about ultimately not letting the results get him down because “Jesus is his Lord and Savior.” That’s pretty believery stuff, but it also may just be very petulant and cynical, sort of the ultimate soteriological raspberry to liberals (“I’m going to Heaven and you’re all going to Hell, nyaa nyaa!)
Personally I just think that he and others like him are very disturbed and broken individuals with no integrity.
Mandalay
The rating numbers for Fox News are currently swirling round the bowl, and the wingnuts have lost.
Erickson’s rant was probably handed to him by his new boss, Roger Ailes. He wants to sideline the crazies and create a kinder, gentler Fox News that will be appealing to Democrats who would vote for DINOs like Evan Bayh, Harold Ford and Ed Rendell.
A similar thing happened last November when Hannity was instructed to “evolve” his position on immigration PDQ, so Fox could get some Hispanic viewers.
Of course Ailes didn’t explicitly tell them what to say. Like a mob boss, he probably just described the problem, and told them to “take care of it”. So Erickson and Hannity quickly connected the dots to avoid sleeping with the fishes.
Linda Featheringill
I wish there was a way to publicize the fact that Tony’s racist rant makes the whole court look stupid. I’m looking for a way to make the whole court be embarrassed by his racism. The liberal judges are probably already embarrassed. Now if we can convince the others that they look like a bunch of Keystone Kops.
chrome agnomen
@Linda Featheringill:
if only there were some nation-wide system of disseminating information…
Platonicspoof
Bernie Sanders was on CSPAN today opposing Jack Lew’s nomination as Treasury Secretary,
but mostly a statement about wealth inequality, oligarchy,
bailouts and tax evasion and the deficit, etc. (pdf):
Link from Senator Sanders web page.
MattF
Yeah, Erick ibn Erick is becoming an interesting case study. Got to where he is by firing up the mob.. but now the old days of badmouthing caprine sexual congress are downplayed in favor of thoughtful commentary. He was young and stupid, once. Now he’s older.
Southern Beale
Y’all hear that Human Events has shuttered its print publication? Eagerly await the flurry of news stories about how there’s “no market for right wing media.” You know, like how they did after Air America folded? LOL.
mclaren
“Conservative media is failing to advance ideas and stories.” Would that be ideas like “the earth is 6000 years old”? Or ideas like “vaccines cause autism”?
Conservatism has no ideas, only junkthink and fairytales and delusions. Reality, as the saying goes, has a well-known liberal bias.
Anoniminous
usch då
Wish Erick son of Erick would change his name to Bubba and stop embarrassing the rest of the Scandinavian-American community. We already labor under the ignominy of 10,000 Stan and Ollie jokes.
And lutfisk (note proper spelling.) Also. Too.
Southern Beale
I would also like everyone to please STFU about how poor Chris Christies is getting “snubbed” and “dissed” by the cray-cray at CPAC. Seriously? Is anyone outside of the “liberal” media buying this crap?
mclaren
@MattF:
You win this thread for the phrase “caprine sexual congress.” Now if we could work in teledildonics, you’d have a real Tea Party slogan in the making…
Southern Beale
@mclaren:
To be fair, I’ve seen plenty of liberals advance ideas like “vaccines cause autism” too. But yeah I get your point.
mclaren
@jl:
That’s shrill. Also, too, insufficiently bipartisan. Only liberals rave. When conservatives gibber and foam at the mouth, it’s Burkean and well-considered.
ranchandsyrup
Always be playing the victim, Eprick.
gbear
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Spoiler!!
22over7
@Southern Beale:
I think Christie is a boorish lout who will never be president (his schtick doesn’t work outside NJ), but I never thought he was stupid. The CPAC convention is a clown car of losers. He’s probably thriled not to be included in that rabble.
kindness
Today was really depressing across the blogsphere. Between the (usual) moronic teahaddists, the worthless MSM and our Supreme Court who wants to leave us in the 1800’s….Wonkette was my only joy. No humor to be had anywhere.
Teresa
It would never cross the wind storm blowing in Erickson head non-stop that conservatives like him, Limbaugh etc are unwanted assholes to the majority of human beings.
WereBear
@schrodinger’s cat: No; in fact there were no kittehs in it at all!
My next one, however; I believe will have to.
nodakfarmboy
Since it’s an open thread…
I’m currently shopping around for my first DSLR. I think I’ve settled on going with a Canon (I’ve heard good things about the available lenses in the EF and EF-S lines) but I’m wavering on what model to go with. Do I just stick with the entry level Rebel T4i, or hop up to the EOS 60D? I think I’ve come to the conclusion that anything full frame is going to be beyond my budget.
In any case, I’m willing to be led. Any advice from Juicers into photography would be much appreciated.
gbear
@22over7:
I’d agree. Privately, between friends, I bet he’s laughing and wearing it like a badge.
Anoniminous
@kindness:
On the good news side, Justice Scalia is in favor of eliminating a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” African-Americans are only 3/5ths of a person and it’s a defilement of the American political process when they get to cast one whole vote.
Litlebritdifrnt
@nodakfarmboy:
I don’t even know what cameras are even made anymore but I bought my Sony A 100 many moons ago and have never felt the need to replace it. It is a wonderfully easy to use camera that takes beautiful shots.
mclaren
@22over7:
Christie is one of those loud hardass in-your-face East Coast “blow it out your ass” guys who plays well in New Jersey or Philly but wouldn’t work as a political figure nationwide. Christie’s whole shtick in New Jersey involves having a campaign worker follow Christie around and film incidents where Christie gets into abusive screaming matches with hecklers at his speeches. A large segment of the upper Atlantic seaboard voters loves that stuff, but the rest of the country…not so much.
Suffern ACE
@nodakfarmboy: the entry level is fine. I have one. I bought mine three years ago. I’ve taken about 10,000 pictures with it. I’m a little snap happy. I don’t miss coming home from vacation with 25 rolls of film to develop.
raven
@nodakfarmboy: I bought the Rebel T3 kit last year and love it. I take tons of pictures and, along with Lightroom, I’m getting great results.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@gbear: That only matters if I ever end up with more than four readers.
raven
@nodakfarmboy: Steve’s digicam has great advice.
ranchandsyrup
@nodakfarmboy: I just went through this decision tree. entry level on the camera body. Save your $$ for lenses. I went Nikon D3100 because I found a great deal online.
dmsilev
@nodakfarmboy: Full-frame is expensive, and I wouldn’t recommend starting there. As far as which crop-frame model to get, I would strongly advise finding some place that has floor models of both and seeing how they feel in your hand. The low-end models tend to be smaller and lighter than the mid-range stuff and if you have big hands you may find the smaller cameras uncomfortable and cramped.
RareSanity
@nodakfarmboy:
I have a T3i and love it!
I would say not to focus so much on full frame vs. cropped, they make not a bit of difference in the mechanics or quality of the pictures produced. The only difference is the total field of view the sensor can capture is 1.6 times larger in the full-frame models.
Sure the full-frame bodies might have a few more bells and whistles, but they come at a pretty large price premium, and you have to ask yourself, “Do I really need them?” Most of the time you don’t. You’ll know when you’ve outgrown the entry-level models, when you can describe, exactly, the the missing feature that is limiting you in what you need to do.
I’ve had mine for a almost a year now, I’m still learning the basics of how to take photographs, let alone all of the additional features that modern DSLR add on top of that. The entry level models do a good job of keeping a lot of chafe out of your way, so you can concentrate on taking pictures and learning about photography.
One thing to keep in mind. EF lens are compatible with both full-frame and APS-C (cropped) cameras, however, the EF-S lenses are only compatible with the cropped sensors. EF-S lenses tend to be less expensive because they only work on the cropped cameras. But, there are EF-S lenses that the pros will say rival the performance of any L-series EF lens, at 25% of the cost.
Point being, don’t think that just because the Rebels are “entry-level” that they are lacking in features.
Julia Grey
I like how he tore apart the conservative shit storm that was made up over the “Obama Give Me Cell-Phone” lady. And he did it as only one example of how conservatives have chased things that are, well, not strictly TRUE in order to keep generating outrages and scandals de jour.
The guy was making sense in that he was pointing out one of the big problems with conservative media, namely the Mighty Wurlitzer/Puke Funnel effect.
He is not making sense at all, however, when he says that the reason that conservatives have resorted to mass delusion, lying and ludicrous exaggeration of minor (and NON-)scandals is because they just feel so helpless in this difficult era of the (tee hee) liberal domination of the press.
MikeJ
@ranchandsyrup: One point: Olympus builds image stabilization into the camera. Darn near everyone else builds it into lenses (or not). Which means that if you want image stabilization you have to pay for every time you buy a new lens or you can pay for it once and buy it built into the camera.
raven
@RareSanity: I was bummed to learn that mine doesn’t work with the remote, that’s the only negative so far.
raven
@RareSanity: Here’s a bee I caught.
? Martin
Man, something is starting to unravel.
Scalia goes all white pride on the bench – moreso than usual.
Woodward reportedly gets an email from the WH: ‘”Very senior person” at White House emailed Bob Woodward “you’re going to regret doing this,” says Woodward on CNN’
And the House GOP looks like they may back down on path to citizenship and VAWA.
I think we may have reached a tipping point of some sort here. The folks that get elected seem to be feeling the potential electoral consequences being born by the folks that don’t get elected.
RareSanity
@raven:
I didn’t really research the whole thing as much as I should have. I just knew that my Dad was a Canon (AE-1) man, so too will I. I got a great price on it at Costco because the T4i was arriving in a couple of months.
I just kinda got lucky I guess. I’m really, really happy with it though…I played around with my friend’s Nikon, and didn’t care for it at all.
I hear you on the remote feature, I’ve used that in attempts to take pictures of stars at night.
Once I found out that I could hook it up to my old Galaxy S3 and have full remote control, with this app, I feel in love all over again. *laffs*
ranchandsyrup
@MikeJ: Good point. The lens that came with the kit has stabilization and my wife really likes it (having the stabilization option) so I am stuck with that lens cost going forward.
RareSanity
@raven:
Wow! Really nice shot!
I wish I was patient enough to do nature photography. With a 6 year old, I’m really more of a “event” photographer. I’m gonna try and dig a few of my better ones up and let yo see them.
Baud
@? Martin:
Reportedly? It’s an email. Put up or shut up, Woodward.
mclaren
@? Martin:
More like something is finishing its unraveling. The unraveling started with Reagan’s election. He put in place all the policies that people are increasingly realizing are wrecking America today. Privatization…tax cuts for the rich…massive military spending…crazy unwinnable foreign military adventures…deregulation of businesses…subversion of the rule of law…U.S. government spying on U.S. citizens…it all cranked up to overdrive under Reagan.
But America was so wealthy and the middle class so strong in the 1980s, John Q. Public didn’t care very much. Now that America has pissed so much of its wealth away on these crazy policies and now that the middle class has been so badly eroded by this self-destructive economic tax-cuts-for-billionaires economic hara-kiri, everyone is starting to wake up and take notice.
RareSanity
@raven:
Here’s one I took at the Georgia Aquarium…
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8085/8513652039_1508ba4ffa.jpg
raven
@RareSanity: Sweet!
Anne Laurie
@trex:
I could be wrong — I mostly pay attention to Erickson when progressive sites mention something he’s done — but I think Erickson’s in the vast class of ‘Judeo-Cristian’ Americans who believes in a God who happens to mirror exactly what Erickson admires most about himself. He’s not ‘very disturbed & broken’, he’s just a well-fed suburban straight white family guy who’s making a good career out of telling other well-fed suburban white family guys that they are the cream of human civilization and God’s Own Chosen. “Pro-life” is a symbolic touchstone, the marker for ‘Stop letting people who are not middle-aged straight white guys decide how they’re going to live their own lives’, which guys like Erickson use to bait the sanke-handlers lower on the right-wing food chain, and the ‘We’re going to heaven, but those Lie-brals are not” is toothless tribalism. As somebody said about David “Maoist turned McCarthyite” Horowitz, if the progressives had won control of national politics in the 1980s, if there wasn’t a safe & profitable career to be made mouthing propaganda for the Koch brothers and Pete Peterson, Erickson would be earning a living demanding that Limpbaugh and Cantor be sent to the FEMA re-education camps.
It’s an easier gig than selling real estate or running a car dealership, because when your politicizing fails, dissatisfied customers can’t demand their money back.
dmbeaster
@mclaren:
Agree with this. Since 1980, no Republican has ever remotely tried to balance the budget. Instead, it is massive deficits to finance tax giveaways to the rich, while blaming Democrats for deficits they create (but the tax cuts pay for themselves!).
Republican law breaking – Iran/contra was more serious than Watergate, but had next to no consequences. Illegal gun running operated out of the White House. Theft of millions from the US Treasury to finance that operation (I always loved how that crew thought that reimbursing the US government for the cost of hardware sold to Iran, while skimming the massive profits, was something other than theft). The lesson was you could get away with it, and the same actors showed up again to repeat the bad behavior. John Dean opined that Bush behavior was also worse than Watergate. Massive illegal wiretaps. Torture. Fraud to induce war.
I like to co-opt the Republican trope that morals are declining in America by agreeing, and then listing this collapse of any kind of morality by modern Republicans (including Reagan) as the cause. Makes their jaws go slack, for a second at least. But hopefully it also teaches the unaware just how much we have declined because these jerks have jettisoned any sense of propriety about how to run the country.
Anne Laurie
@Mandalay:
Bingo!
Erickson’s a good middle manager, working hard & dreaming of a corner office in the Right-Wing Media Lie Factory. Ailes wouldn’t have to dictate a rant for Erickson — once the Big Boss made his new direction for the Company clear, Erickson would pride himself upon the speed & fluency of his own conversion to Sensible Moderate “conservative, not Republican-Leadership”.
imonlylurking
We have a bad air quality day here in Minneapolis and it’s killing me. Moar codeine!
SiubhanDuinne
@MattF:
Saw what you did.
SiubhanDuinne
@Anoniminous:
Bubba Bubbason?
Anne Laurie
@SiubhanDuinne: Yeah, animal trainers make a distinction between intelligent and willing. As the concept was introduced to me, by an exasperated nun trying to wrangle fifty-odd third-graders single-handed, “There are two kinds of greyhounds that get put down after their first trial: the ones who are too dumb to chase the mechancial rabbit, and the ones who are too smart to chase the mechanical rabbit.”
Erickson’s selling point is that he will always chase the mechanical rabbit, no matter which direction it leads him this time; he will never be distracted by any temptations that are not the mechanical rabbit. Strictly business!
Wilson Heath
In other news of the brain-damaged, noted macro-economist Sarah Palin “thinks” a US debt default is now inevitable. Oh, and that the feds are stocking up bullets to kill its own citizens in the coming chaos. [warning, winning the morning link] It’s a shame she didn’t enter the 2012 primaries, but if she isn’t shot by the Social Security Administration or NOAA in the meantime,[seriously, the weather gestapo is gonna be the next conspiracy] there’s always 2016. Run, Sarah, Run!
Poopyman
I don’t know if anyone has mentioned, down through the posts, that today is the tenth anniversary of Mr. Roger’s passing.
So I raise my glass of Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout to you, Fred. I doubt you would approve.
Patricia Kayden
@Wilson Heath: Who in the GOP would be so dumb to let Palin run in 2016 (or in any other year) for the Presidency of these United States? I assume the Repubs will put up some boring middle aged, White guy — someone who is not a Mormon (or some other questionable religion) in 2016. That rules out Rubio and Jindal.
They want to at least come close to winning the next time around.
Steeplejack
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
How long did it take you to write your novel? What is your “process”? And were there any “how to write” books that you found helpful?
bulworth
Hahahahahahahahaahh
bulworth
Wait…what the hell are my talking points now!?!
KS in MA
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Congratulations!
Tonal Crow
Really? They advance all kinds of ideas (e.g., earth is 6000 years old, tax cuts always increase government revenues while simultaneously starving the beast, global warming is a lib’ral hoax, contraception is evil, Saddam is an imminent threat, Teh Ghey is killing ‘merica…) and stories (e.g., BENGHAZI!!!!!!! SOLYNDRA!!!!!!! BIRTH CERTIFICATE!!!!! ROMNEY WINS!!!!!!!!).
That you think the “general media” are against you prevents you from putting forward your own ideas and stories how exactly?
On the contrary, the public’s just now beginning to understand it, with the first fruits being Romney’s loss, rapidly-increasing acceptance of gay marriage, and falling affinity with the GOP.
I love the smell of sour Republican whine and cheese in the morning.