Nevada Blog Love
An effort to share what Nevada bloggers are posting about.
- I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Desert Beacon is the best Nevada blogger you might not be reading. The inimitable Beacon had this to day about Heller’s obtuse SCHIP vote: “When the expressions “circular firing squad,” “lemmings,” and “stuck pigs” are combined into one article about a political position, it might just be time for some serious re-thinking, and not just about “re-branding.”
- The Gleaner celebrates Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize win in his own very special way–at Clinton’s expense.
- Obama will be paying a visit to a little known outpost called Nor’Town where people on have half heads and wear funny origami hats. Meanwhile, Stanely Scandalmonger is keeping tabs on Nevada’s inconsequential governor as he travels the non-contiguous United States.
- Dullard Mush reifys the tired idea that partisan blog commenters represent online “commentary.”
- The Clinton campaign goes oversees for contributions according to Blue Lyon.
- Jerz finds more evidence of good judgement in Las Vegas. Don’t think I don’t know how lucky I am to have the Truckee as my front yard.
- Jerz also points out that he is one of those people who doesn’t understand what the SCHIP program’s purpose is and why that has everything to do with what happened to the Frost family. The SCHIP program was created to help families like the Frosts–families who do not qualify for Medicare and cannot get private health insurance. Working families that are doing everything right. So when conservative politicians like Mitch McConnell go after them for benefiting from a program that enjoys strong bipartisan support and worked exactly how it was meant to goes beyond mere partisan politics. The family was vetted–that’s what makes the whole situation a morass of ill-informed, mean-spirited hypocrisy. The Frost family situation also highlights the sordid relationship the Republican party has with extreme people like Limbaugh, Malkin and Coulter, who they tend to disavow when its convenient for them. As pointed out many including the always eloquent James Wolcott:
Rush Limbaugh and his fellow talk-radio troll dolls didn’t “pervert” conservatism–he didn’t lay siege to some maiden fair and debauch her virtue. Rush Limbaugh didn’t inject an “ideology of hate” into conservatism, he extracted the contemptuous, divisive animosity inherent in the Gingrich doctrine and sugared it up with comedy and his own personal saga for popular consumption. He, like Clarence Thomas, was just what the Republican overseers ordered. Rush Limbaugh is modern mainstream conservatism in all its bullying bluster, hypocrisy, jolly ignorance (global warming etc), slavish submission to military, corporate, and executive power, and slimeballing of political opponents. To believe otherwise is like putting your faith in those few remaining Republican moderates who always manage not to come through in the clutch, who put up a brief show of conscience or faint dissent before the inevitable capitulation. It’s a little late to suddenly look around and realize what sleazebags you’ve got on your team, especially since those sleazebags were there before you arrived. The only difference between Limbaugh and the orc pit of the right blogosphere is one of degree, or perhaps I should say radius.
As some conservative idiot who sent an email to the Frost family wrote: “Lie down with dogs, and expect to get fleas.” Its fair for opponents of the SCHIP program to question the need, but its not fair for opponents to throw a family to the wolves for benefiting from it based on need. Character assassination cannot be substituted for meaningful debate or we get presidents like Bush. For me the overarching point of all of this is that our public discourse has gone so far past civility its disturbing. What are we going to do about it?
- And finally, NV Mojo is getting on the unstoppable train that is the Myrna for Mayor campaign. I am exploring the feasibility of turning the south channel of the truckee into a never ending martini (dirty of course) as a part of my platform. And don’t worry about the children, I plan to ban them from the city.
Similar Posts:
- The Shameful SCHIP Debate
- E.J. Dionne on SCHIP
- Blaming The Victim: A Conservative Rhetorical Art Form
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Those are all political blogs. What about the blogs about fun things to do in NorNev? I mean politics is great and all, but you can get that in any state.
-M
They”re not all political but I take your point. If I forget to add you to my feed, I end up not reading your blog. Remedied.
What photo plugin are you using in wordpress?
Not sure what you mean. On iai and tbs I just copy the long code from Flickr and then float it.
The Flickr badges are just flash code from Flickr. On blog.renobikeproject.com I’m using FlickrSlider, but can’t seem to get it to work right.
But no plugins for pics…
-M
‘Lie down with dogs, and expect to get fleas’. An appropriate analogy for America as a whole. Naive voters laid down with the Shrub, and look what they gave us all for their stupidity…….
“Jerz also points out that he is one of those people who doesn’t understand what the SCHIP program’s purpose is and why that has everything to do with what happened to the Frost family.”
WTF does that mean? I said that if you don’t want to get a 12-year-old attacked, then for God’s sake don’t put him in front of the world to score political points. It was in no way an attempt to excuse the attacking of said 12-year-old. And it wasn’t a comment at all on SCHIP. I thought English majors could understand what they read.
so Mryna’s an English Major Huh! WTF is that supposed to me Jerz!!!!
-M
ps we don’t necessarily understand what we read, but we can sure write a monograph on it.
So, you’re not defending the attack on a 12 year old boy, but you’re defending the right to attack the 12 year old boy?
Part of public policy is public education. People need to find out how a program will or will not benefit constituencies. When a boy who benefited from a government program that is up for expansion tells his story, the better tactic would be to propose a change in the means testing at the state level rather than attack the family for making use of the program as intended. Its a bait and switch.
Character assassination is not a substitute for debate. The Republican party needs to learn that.
Still not comprehending. Assume the attack is unavoidable. Just for argument’s sake. Because in reality it is unavoidable. DO NOT put a 12-year-old out there to be attacked. Period. Maybe this is one case that you just can’t grasp that being a parent makes me better qualified to make a point. But I would never put my kids out there to score points, and the Democrats who did this should be ashamed that they exposed the boy to it. Who better knows what the Republicans would do? Except you’re so focused on the idea that what he did and said was right that you can’t see that they exploited him and now he’s paying the price. If you can’t get that, then fine. But it shows a DEEP lack of understanding of the very issues you profess to understand.
I’ve raised a few twelve year olds and I’ve taught thousands of them…in each frame of reference there’s a story that should be shared…this family is brave and they now have a target on their backs…not many of us would put our twelve-year olds out there - although I think it was the family - not the twelve year old that was taking the step…perhaps influenced by the “machine” - when this all goes down in the books - maybe this kid/family will be the heroes…but then, Joan of Arc is dead - hard to fathom. For every reform, every raising of awareness, it’s likely that there was a martyr….We need to get a clue about what’s wrong with the system and get off the backs of those who dare to disclose the gliches.
Don’t ban ALL the kids Myrna….we’ll need a few to fish drunk people out of the martini river with Playskool nets.
You seem not to be able to comprehend that this family was grateful for the support and wanted to tell the rest of the country what a good bill it is so that others could benefit. I don’t think having children has anything to do with it. Being cyncial probably does.
You just falling into the trap of letting yourself become distracted from the debate. The family isn’t the issue, the legislation is the issue. You’re insistence on criticizing the family for speaking out, just feeds the conservative cause–to not talk about the legislation.
Politicians on all sides use kids all the time–thats a non starter, So is your tired spiel about “if it was a REPUBLICAN.” Its just another political tactic you’ve absorbed from the conservatives who don’t like to actually debate issues. They would rather use personal attacks and arguments about equal treatment to distract from actual debate. That kind of thinking is how we’ve ended up with a legislative and executive branch full of partisan monkeys.
First, you’re right. There is an issue here. You have no clue where I stand on the issue. You THINK you know, but that’s just because you’ve got an idea that there is only one issue in this case. There are more than that. And your myopia is dragging this discussion down.
I never commented on SCHIP. Purposely. For starters, a major goal of my post was to poke fun at political issues (and bloggers who do similar posts). As part of that, I avoided the bigger issue and focused on the fact that a child was used to score political points, then the people that exploited him screamed about the fact that their asshole opponents did exactly what they would be expected to do. I believe that would qualify as something Desert Beacon calls “screaming MOM.” You could have easily ignored it or said, sure there is enough blame to go around. But instead, you just made something up that was totally inaccurate (about me, no way). So I pointed it out. Now you’re probably all red in the face because I keep responding to your bullshit and the usuals aren’t here defending you.
Myrna, you made the entire thing up about what I said. Either you didn’t really read it or you have an honesty problem. Admit that, and I’ll knock this off (yeah, I know, why would you when you have no accountability?). But to continue to defend your horrendous position is going to get you nowhere. You were wrong here. On two counts. You made stuff up, and you’re now defending people who thrust a kid into the spotlight to score political points. I never said the parents were to blame. I said everyone was to blame. If you disagreed with the position you’re defending, you’d not be defending their actions, Republican, Democrat, or whatever. Is what I’m saying tired? Maybe. But you’re the partisan monkey here, not me.
Wrong again, since you never actually discussed the issue just as the people like Mitch McConnell wanted, I couldn’t guess where you stand on it. That was my whole point.
You got sidetracked and drove the discussion somewhere else. And that was always my point. You showed you didnt understand the issue because you did exactly what bloggers like Malkin wanted you to. You defended their right to go after the boy instead of recognizing their tired ploy and debating the actual issue. I dont know how many more times I can tell you that so you’ll understand it. The issue was that you debated the right of people to attack the family instead of the legislation .
I was thinking about this last night and the whole thing of attacking the boy works like the “she asked for it” argument in sexual assault. Well, if she hadn’t of dressed like that, or acted like that or been drunk, it wouldn’t have happened. Its the same thing here. If they hadn’t of spoken out, this wouldn’t have happened. The problem is is that we need people to speak out dont we?
And yes, what you are saying is still tired. What ele am I and others supposed to conclude when you follow the conservative line of worrying about equal time for conservative view points when all the studies on the subject show time and time again that its liberals who should be worrying about equal time. So, yeah, its tired. Why not focus on something more productive?
Hi all,
Let’s all talk about it tommorrow at the Rally
scheduled at the Federal Building….Noon to One.
http://www.washoedems.org/node/626
What studies show time and time again a conservative bias in the media? Virtually every study done shows a liberal bias. Not as much as a lot of conservatives say, but a slight tilt. Plus study after study has shown that journalists as a whole identify themselves as more liberal than the general public.
And the public thinks so to. A Zogby poll this year showed two-thirds of the public feel there is a liberal bias, only 28% saw a conservative bias. And it wasn’t just Republicans thinking that way, political independents also felt there was a liberal bias by almost a 3-to-1 margin.
So is Gallup, Zogby, Accuracy in Media, Media Research Center and the American public all wrong?
About the only study you can quote is the latest Media Matters release about conservative columns outstripping liberal ones. But those are opinion columns, a very, very small part of a newspaper’s total coverage. And considering the success of conservative radio, why should an advantage in opinion columns be even newsworthy.
Wow, somehow I missed all the excitement!
Oh Lord, not you too Anon Guy. Name your studies! (Please don’t even bring the UCLA study up. I have one word for you; FLAWED). The reason conservative entities have done so many “studies” on media bias is because they’re trying to influence public opinion. And for the most part its worked as you noted above. However, just the because the conservative project to make the public believe there is a “liberal media bias” exists, doesn’t make it so. Its just that drive to influence public opinion in a politically biased way we can all thank for why most Americans think that Iraq supported al Qaeda among other things. Bravo! Success! Americans now believe things that are not true.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php?nid=&id=
Man, did this place turn into the Bill O’Reilly show or am I dreaming?
yeah, I got to unsubscribe from this. I just wanted to drop my wisecracks and make a clean getaway…
So I’m suppose to believe groups like Accuracy in Media and Media Research Center (groups that I doubt even 1% of Americans have heard of) have somehow managed to hoodwink a full 64% of America into thinking the media is liberal, when in fact, it is a conservative tool according to you?
How exactly did that happen? I’d sure like to get that return on an investment.
And the journalist polls that show most of them identifying themselves as registered Democrats and more liberal than the average voter? Was that just a carefully orchestrated scam by reporters because, you know, they are all conservative Republicans who want to trick America.
As for my alma mater’s survey, you’re right , I did see where some claimed it was flawed. But then it was the same small group of partisan people who always claim there is a conservative conspiracy in the MSM. I’m sure if Groseclose and Milyo came to a different conclusion Media Matters and such would be touting the report as pure genius, while AIM would be the one saying “Please don’t even bring the UCLA study up. I have one word for you; FLAWED.”
I’ll go with the studies not done by outfits with a political bias. I’ll go with the scientific surveys of journalists political views. But most of all I’ll go with the American public who I believe, unlike you apparently, have the necessary capabilities to determine on ther own when a story is tilted a certain way.
The difference is you’ll buy and tout polls showing the American public being two-thirds in favor of pulling out of Iraq because that it was you believe, but will quickly discount polls showing the same number of people thinking the media is liberal simply because you don’t believe that. A more open-minded person would accept both.
Wow, so my choice not to discuss the issue now means I am a tool of the right? And people thought I was the one who wanted to control the blogs around here. That’s some serious hubris, Minx.
Here’s a better analogy than the rape victim one: the one where the mother sells her daughter to the pedophile. The pedophile isn’t excused for his actions. In fact, he’s a complete and utter slimeball. But what of the mother? She sold her daughter! To a pedophile! And that’s where we are today. Take off the ideological blinders and see this for what it was. The Democrats sold out the family to score points (money to the mother). The Republicans did what was expected of them (dirtbags all around, like the pedophile) and you’re here saying that I am defending the pedophile. That’s not true and everything I have said to this point proves it.
As for your not making assumptions, what the hell is insinuating I even have any idea about Michelle Malkin say? It screams assumption, and you do look like an ass as a result. Sorry, haven’t read anything by her in several years, and even then it only took one article. See, just because you are a partisan monkey and I take a stand against something you say does not make me a partisan monkey as well. Aren’t you the one constantly talking about how screwed up we are because of partisan monkeys? Well, then feel free to stop being a part of the problem. All that I did when I came here was try to make a point that what you said about me was a lie. Now I believe that. Before, I would have bought that you didn’t really know. But it’s been three times explaining and you’re only going deeper. Why so angry?
Perhaps you would be a little more reasonable if people knew your name. I am.