Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Neil Morrison,
I wouldn’t be either but it’s still there on the DLC site replete with “Behind Enemy Lines”.
For God’s sake, Neil please go look at that fucking sustained Malkin "Mummy, they do it too so stop being soooo mean" post. I’ll wait.
Now, please explain to me the equivalence between some far-left numpty at an anti-Bush rally six years ago who can’t even spell the vulgarisms on his placard and a PAC working on behalf of a woman who, two short years ago, Malkin considered fit to be Vice-President of the United States?
Something else – you might be aware that there will be a general election in New Zealand this year. Both National and Labour have “target” lists of key marginals, but I’ve never seen anything as downright creepy as a map with gunsights / cross-hairs / “surveyor’s marks” what-fraking-ever imposed on those electorates. I assure you that if that kind of crap comes across my desk from whoever is selected to contest North Shore, I will happily go on Public Address Radio and explain exactly why I’ll vote Labour for the first (and hopefully last) time in my life.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Neil Morrison,
2. The maps. Not a good idea to criticise others for something one has already done. I really don’t find these arguments about crosshairs vs bullseyes all that convincing.
I'm not exactly convinced by Michelle Malkin doing a selective trawl through Kos, Democratic Underground and her photo album of selected fuck-wits at anti-war protests and saying "see, they're just as bad". (The link's over at Kiwiblog, I'm not stinking up my keyboard.) Michelle can give me a fucking call when Rep. Bachman gets shot in the head, and five others (including a nine year old girl and a congressional staffer) are killed, at a public event.
And, bluntly, when a rhetorical napalm thrower like Malkin has to appeal to the far-left to make excuses for the far-right, she's admitted defeat before she hit post.
But I think you've really made clear what I find really depressing about the Tea Party/Palinistas -- they're children with no moral intelligence.
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One of the few things I doubt that Palin has any difficulty using with great competence is a weapon, be it a firearm or a knife.
Hell, you should track down some real hunters’ views of Sarah Palin’s Alaska. “Lamestream poser” would be an accurate, but heavily cleaned up, summary.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
And…..
Oh yeah… that comment about the little girl who was killed was beyond vile. Seriously, I pity any journalist who has had to deal with Palin for any length of time. She's like some 'roid rage prom queen who has never had to grow up,
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Neil Morrison,
Palin’s map wasn’t a great target for countering her rhetoric since similar DLC graphics could be easily found. That’s not to argue for any sort of equivalence in the overall styles of rhetoric, just that this was not a good example.
It’s actually turning out to be a brilliant target (so to speak) when Palin – or her likely her PR flacks have been sanitising her Twitter and FB with Orwellian diligence and a Palin aide’s denial spin involved sticking her head so fair up her arse I feared she was going to get suck and asphyxiate.
Money quote:
All that said, this exchange between Palin aide Rebecca Mansour and Palin-supporting radio host Tammy Bruce is completely absurd. Bruce begins by describing the map of SarahPAC’s 20 midterm election targets – members of Congress in districts that went for McCain/Palin in 2008 who voted for health care reform – and referring to the targets on the map as “surveyor’s symbols.” Mansour points out that “targeted districts” are part of political parlance – obviously true – and says this. (It starts at around 11:40 in the clip.)
MANSOUR: I just want to clarify again, and maybe it wasn’t done on the record enough by us when this came out, the graphic, is just, it’s basically – we never, ever, ever intended it to be gunsights. It was simply crosshairs like you see on maps.
BRUCE: Well, it’s a surveyor’s symbol. It’s a surveyor’s symbol.
MANSOUR: It’s a surveyor’s symbol. I just want to say this, Tammy, if I can. This graphic was done, not even done in house – we had a political graphics professional who did this for us.
I’d also recommend reading the rest of the post, because it nicely fisks just what a load of bullshit Mansour was peddling. No care, no responsibility.
When you get caught out out follow this simple rule:
1) Blame everyone else - from the" lamestream media"to some mysterious third-party consultant who apparently went rogue.2) If that doesn't work, lie. Re-write history, no matter how recent or easily checked, until nobody (least of all Palin herself) can keep the lies straight any more.
3) Repeat steps one and two until "the enemy" dies of exhaustion.
4) Reload and do it all over again.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Rich Lock,
Yes, indeed.
Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, SPOCK SPOCK SPOCK!
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Meanwhile, Fox News boss prez Roger Ailes delivers a masterclass in bull-Shatner false equivalence:
One money quote among many:
That’s what should happen. You know, they’re using this thing...apparently there was a map from one of Palin’s things that had her (Congresswoman Giffords) targeted district. So, we looked at the internet and the first thing we found in 2007, the Democrat Party had a targeted map with targets on it for the Palin district. These maps have been used for for years that I know of. I have two pictures of myself with a bull's-eye on my head. This is just bullshit. This goes on... both sides are wrong, but they both do it.
I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast. I hope the other side does that.
Listen, I have a picture of Sarah Palin hanging from the end of a rope. They made a doll up like her and hung her.
I'm very tempted to disregard my own advice, and speculate whether Ailes is a sociopath or just suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder maintained by a delusional architeture straight out of Inception.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Neil Morrison,
It may not be the full picture yet but when people are trying to draw conclusions about politics it's probably the best place to start.
I think it would actually be a very good place to start for people not to label someone a paranoid schizophrenic (which is actually a tricky diagnosis to make when you're a mental health professional in the room) on the basis of fuck all squared.
That's a general comment not a personal slam, Neil, and to be honest I'm as bad as anyone at reflextive nut-shaming and should know better. A LOT better. Work in progress...
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to BenWilson,
Yes, I'm kind of bemused at the sour-puss-ness surrounding the impending RWC.
As a citizen and tax-payer, I reserve the right to keep being bitter about crap like the "clean venue" legislation -- because I just don't think it's a proper function of government to be providing income protection/corporate welfare for sporting events.
Otherwise, the Rugby World Cup isn't my cup of tea but it's happening. Mi casa, su casa. Have a nice time, try not make too much noise and if you piss on my rug I won't be a Lebowski about it.
Unfortunately, the planned holiday during the height of the RWC has fallen through because Veolia Transport's approach to leave requests for the duration are (basically) "don't even ask, as a refusal may offend". (There's also been some very clear hints that any spike in sick leave may well be injurious to your continued employment.)
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Man, Loughner may have been genuinely mentally ill, but he was hoovering up the wingnut rhetoric.
And, again, I'm going to ask for the psychiatric diagnosis to be left to people who are qualified and in a position to make it. Seriously, I'm finding the nut-shaming (that's slut-shaming for the mentally ill) rhetoric is getting suffocating. IIRC, Sacha has already posted a link to this rather nice take-down of the "crazy talk" but it is worth reading twice.
Money quote:
A 2009 analysis of nearly 20,000 individuals concluded that increased risk of violence was associated with drug and alcohol problems, regardless of whether the person had schizophrenia. Two similar analyses on bipolar patients showed, along similar lines, that the risk of violent crime is fractionally increased by the illness, while it goes up substantially among those who are dependent on intoxicating substances. In other words, it's likely that some of the people in your local bar are at greater risk of committing murder than your average person with mental illness.
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