Twitchy! Michelle Malkin’s Phony War - The Daily Beast
“Nobody outside the hard-right bubble cares about these non-stories, still less will they change anyone’s vote or affect the course of any legislation. This is the fight Malkin and so many others like her have chosen: a withdrawal from concrete policy goals into a battlefield of manufactured outrage and endless, tiny, wholly meaningless victories. Meanwhile … Republicans keep losing elections and Democrats are left to run the country.”
Doran talks about Twitchy, a conservative Twitter aggregator. He talks about “malkanization” in particular, being inspired by author Brooks Bayne’s tweet (who tweeted LOL at the Holocaust). “Malkanization” refers to the victimology Doran sees on Michelle Malkin’s Twitter feed, and has roots in “Balkanization”, when countries break off into smaller, in-fighting regions.
I have to say that this isn’t new when it comes to conservative media. Even since the 2012 presidential race, it has been shown that conservatives have their own facts, irrespective of actual numbers and other stats. For example, when conservatives and Republicans tried to label Obama an “apologizer” when he toured the Middle East, there was no actual instance of him saying sorry to anything. Also, Scalia’s rebuttal of a sociological consensus on the effect gay marriage has on children (Hint: The kids are OK) despite the actual statement of consensus.
GOP Civil War spills out onto Twitter.
While I would agree with Trump that Shelly was born stupid, a specific example would’ve been nice. Like, say, her ties to white supremacism.
But then again, The Donald could be outwitted by a sack of doorknobs too.
Stories to Watch: 10/5/11
Damn it’s beautiful today. Seriously. Now here’s the news…
Any residual reason for the media to give a damn about Sarah Palin dies, as she announces she won’t run for president. Try not to let it get you too down.
Meg at Cognitive Dissonance finds a good piece; Michelle Malkin claims that the Occupy Wall Street protesters are “99%” white — because that’s just such an oh-so clever thing to say. FoxNation.com gets all excited about the observation, runs it as a piece on their site, and chooses a photo that proves Shelly wrong to accompany it. How stupid do you have to be to believe the crap at FoxNation.com? If this is any indication, pretty goddam stupid.
99-percenters have a friend in Russ Feingold. There’s also some support coming from elected dems, but none of the names are extremely surprising.
Chicago traders are assholes.
Senate dems rewrite Obama’s jobs bill, adding a “millionaires’ tax” to embarrass Republicans who vote against it.
Lamest hit job ever: RedState attacks the reporter who started Rick Perry’s “Niggerhead” scandal by revealing “public criminal records in multiple states stretching across 4 time zones.” This crime spree consists in its entirety of bouncing a check, failing to obey a highway sign, and two counts of speeding. That ought to make that whole racism story go away right pronto!
You know how people are always saying that America’s won’t do the jobs migrant workers do? Turns out that’s pretty much on the money.
Finally, is it just me or is Michele Bachmann just slightly more incoherent than normal?
News Roundup for 9/13/11
Noted hypocritical lunatic Shelly Malkin
-Headline of the Day-
“A few more words about Koward Krugman.”
Michelle Malkin is really pissed off at Paul Krugman. You might remember that Krugman wrote a 9/11 anniversary post about how the right has snatched up 9/11 for personal and political gain. Of course, they have, but that’s beside the point — it’s poor manners to point that out and Shelly will not have it. Such things simply are not done.
So she goes off on a tirade of grievance, following the rest of the rightwing blogosphere in failing to address Krugman’s argument in any way. It’s all bluster and outrage and oh-my-god-it’s-the-worst-thing-ever, but no actual rebuttal to the claim that wingnuts have taken 9/11 as their own political totem — mostly because there is no possible rebuttal. They clearly have.
Anyhoo, you’re here for the fun, not Shelly Malkin’s failure to debate while pretending to debate. Don’t worry, it’s coming. See, Malkin calls Krugman “Koward Krugman” because, for this 9/11 rant of his, he turned off the comments to his blog.
Here’s a fun game; go to Shelly’s login page and try to register to comment. Guess what? You can’t do it. She turned off registration in 2005 and only rarely opens it up to new commenters. And, when you are able to register, your comments damned well better be along the lines of “OH MY GOD, YOU’RE SO AWESOME!!” or you’ll be banned right pronto.
So Krugman shut comments down for a day, while Shelly’s been allowing only the most fawning commenters for six freakin’ years.
I’m sorry, who’s the koward again? (Michelle Malkin)
-True patriots go splat-
Tom Toles takes on the right’s love for austerity.
Click to embiggen
Don’t worry, it’ll spur good old American innovation; i.e., you’ll figure out how to fly before you hit the ground. (Washington Post)
-Bonus HotD-
“Fox News Cold Freaking Out Over Obama’s Use of Crappy Paper Clip.”
No, really. (Wonkette, with video)
News Roundup for 3/21/11
Not atypical
-Headline of the day-
“How Dumb Are We?”
Pretty darn dumb. Some of us, anyway. See Newsweek asked a bunch of people questions from the US Citizenship test — you know, the quiz that immigrants have to take to become citizens. Turns out that, at this point in time, 38% of natural born citizens wouldn’t qualify for citizenship if they had to apply for it.
According to the report, “29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar.”
And the thing is, the test isn’t really all that hard. In order to pass, you only need to answer six questions correctly — out of one hundred. That’s right, you only need to score 6% and 38% couldn’t even do that.
Which goes a long way toward explaining what’s wrong with our political landscape these days; people who don’t know shit have opinions. The report uses our current budget debate as an example, pointing out that a “2010 World Public Opinion survey found that Americans want to tackle deficits by cutting foreign aid from what they believe is the current level (27 percent of the budget) to a more prudent 13 percent. The real number is under 1 percent. A Jan. 25 CNN poll, meanwhile, discovered that even though 71 percent of voters want smaller government, vast majorities oppose cuts to Medicare (81 percent), Social Security (78 percent), and Medicaid (70 percent). Instead, they prefer to slash waste — a category that, in their fantasy world, seems to include 50 percent of spending, according to a 2009 Gallup poll.”
And people wonder how outfits like Fox News can pull the wool over people’s eyes so often. The wool’s already there, all they do is style it. (Newsweek)
-Trying hard to be offended-
If there’s one thing I know about Michelle Malkin, it’s that if there’s any way to become offended by something, she’ll be offended by it. It’s like her hobby.
So imagine how outraged Shelly got when she learned that NPR’s comedy quiz Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me deeply insulted her family and her heritage. During a regular segment, contestants are given several news stories — only one of which is true — and are then asked which one was real. Unfortunately, the Malkin family made an appearance:
Conservative commentator and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin has expressed her fear that there are Muslims amongst us who are hiding their true identity. The most prominent, she claims, being Barack Obama. However, when she set out to find proof of these undercover Muslims, she found more than she bargained for.
It turns out that there are, indeed, some Muslims hiding their identity to fly under the radar. The most pertinent one for Malkin being her own grandfather.
Yes, Grandpa Malkin, who is from the Philippines but lives with Michelle’s parents, had not told the family about his religion for fear of being ostracized and thrown out. “Do you know how hard it is to pray five times a day when your family doesn’t know?”
“I had to excuse myself to the bathroom every time I wanted to pray.”
“And the ham dinners, don’t get me started on the ham dinners.”
Malkin was in shock when her grandfather revealed his true identity to her. He explained that he had been closeted Muslim for too long and it was time for him to live his life and be happy with himself. Malkin used the revelation to confirm her argument that Muslims are taking over. First they wanted the youth, and now they’re going after my grandfather? My 90-year-old grandfather? This is sick.
Needless to say, this is the worst thing ever! And it doesn’t help that the guy saying all of the lies is a Muslim comedian!
She then goes on to fact-check the piece — which was revealed later in the show to be untrue anyway — because NPR is liberal and is trying to get people to think she’s a Muslim!
A comedy bit which admits to being untrue must not be allowed to sully Shelly’s reputation like that. It simply must be answered.
Preferably, with copious amounts of completely unwarranted outrage. The perpetually offended and infinitely aggrieved teabagging masses who read her blog expect no less. (Michelle Malkin)
-Bonus HotD-
“Scott Walker Touts His Union-Busting Agenda As ‘Progressive’.”
I guess that makes him a commie then. All you wingnuts have to stop loving him now.
Sorry, those are the rules. I don’t make them up. (ThinkProgress)
Real Populism Blooms, Right Wing Media Fumes
Last night, a loose, disorganized coalition of Marxist rebels, street gangs, and union thugs stormed the Capitol Square in Madison, Wisconsin, seizing the Capitol itself and occupying it. The air was thick with smoke as the rebels destroyed everything they could find. Local residents cowered in their basements, hoping the rampaging maniacs wouldn’t find them, as the grim specter of death stalked this once proud city under the cover of night. Prayers for salvation went unanswered and it seemed even God had abandoned the populace.
At least, that’s the impression you’d get if you were watching Fox News at about 4:00 central yesterday.
Fox’s coverage was so extreme and so over-the-top that people were tweeting Fox’s account to get updates on the death toll.
And the reporter who claims that protesters hit him? I’m going to go ahead and apply Breitbart’s rule on that — video or it never happened. Let the right live with the absurd burden of proof they demand of everyone else. Besides, there’s good reason to believe itdid never happen, since he makes the claim during a cutaway. Protesters would have no idea that the images weren’t being broadcast — there’s no big neon “ON AIR” sign that goes dark in the field — so there’d be no way for them to know that it was a perfect time to start whacking Fox’s man on the scene over the head with their signs.
Meanwhile, over at Michelle Malkin’s blog, we’re told of a “breakdown of civil order” that “will lead to more civil disorder” by “Big Labor squatters who have grimed and slimed up the Capitol for almost two weeks.” A quick check of the comment thread shows panicked calls for the National Guard to drive the protesters out with “Tear gas and bayonets.” Ironically and hypocritically, these comments appear next to a sidebar item whining about how uncivil the left has been.
What all of this tells me is that the right is terrified right now. After whipping teapartiers up into a frenzy and walking away with the elections, Republicans and conservative media thought the country would be easy pickings. They’d dismantle our institutions and sell them off piece by piece — and the populace, cowed by the “electoral might” of the Tea Party, would roll over and let it happen.
But once people got a taste of what Republican rule really meant, they didn’t like it much. Republicans were warned again and again that they had no mandate. Polling showed that voters actually liked Republicans less than they liked Democrats. The wisest thing, everyone with any sense agreed, was for the GOP to take a caretaker role until they could boost their approvals a bit, then win in 2012 with an honest-to-goodness mandate. But Republicans, apparently too impatient for levelheadedness and restraint, went ahead and pretended they had a mandate anyway, steamrollering radical legislation through and acting as if they’d been elected pretty much unanimously. And look what happened. Fox News is reduced to reporting a nonexistent Maoist revolt in Madison, Wisconsin, as state after state finds itself facing the same wave of populist uprising. To flirt with the poetic, the GOP has awoken a sleeping giant.
That went well.
If you want to see what political overreach looks like, look to the Office of the Governor of Wisconsin. If you want to see what the consequences of that overreach are, look at the ripple-effect radiating outward across the country from that office.
And, if you want to see what democracy looks like, look at the protesters gathered in the capitol rotunda last night — as well as the police who joined them.
-Wisco
Comment thread from Michelle Malkin’s post on the labor protests at the Wisconsin capitol and decision not to clear the building of protesters. Behold the hypocrisy.
Is it just me or does the comment column make that “union civility” whine look stupid, hypocritical, insane, etc.?
You’ve got to wonder what it is that these people do to their brains to maintain this level of cognitive dissonance. Wood alcohol martinis maybe?
