Tag Archives: Drudge Report

Exploiting Hurricane Sandy: How will Mitt Romney attempt it?

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Kevin Drum and a friend discussed the possibilities yesterday: 

Friend: This may be the election right here. If Obama can look like he’s handling this competently and in control he should be okay. But I’m sure Romney’s people are all in a room trying to figure out how to make this Obama’s Katrina.

Me: Benghazi didn’t work for them, so Sandy is their last hope. But I do think this is a challenge for Romney. Any criticism will look nakedly opportunistic unless there’s really a good reason for it. I think the press is probably waiting for Romney to say something obviously excessive.

Friend: I’d watch Drudge for the cues. He should have a picture of a stranded black person up at some point tomorrow.

The wingers will certainly be looking for some kind of Sandy-related incompetence to hang on Obama, but I really do think the press will be on the watch for this and ready to pounce. It’s such an obvious thing for a desperate campaign to do, and exploiting a tragedy like this a week before an election would a little too raw even for our conflict-loving media. Unless Obama really screws up something badly, Romney would probably be best served by quietly telling his surrogates to cool it on Sandy.

MEANWHILE, Romney was actually very busy yesterday — exploiting the disaster and playing politics. Via Addicting Info: 

1. Romney Batters President While Sandy Batters Coast

As Hurricane Sandy started bearing down on the Eastern Seaboard on Monday morning, Obama was in the situation room with top advisors, planning his deployment of aid to the 60 million Americans who are threatened by the storm.

“Obviously, my first priority has to be to make sure everything is in place to help the families and prepare,” Obama said today. The President has canceled campaign events for the next few days to focus his full attention on responding to the hurricane.

Elsewhere, Romney didn’t relent in his attempts to gain an edge in the swing states of Ohio and Iowa, even while cities on the East Coast started to flood on Monday. “I know they are chanting ‘four more years’ [for Obama], but we’re chanting all over this country ‘nine more days,’” Romney said callously, as the nation braced for catastrophe. After campaigning all day on Monday, the Romney campaign has reported cancellations for an event on Monday night and Tuesday.

2. Romney’s Impeding Red Cross Relief Efforts

This blunder is reminiscent of Paul Ryan’s fake photo-op visit to the soup kitchen. Romney’s team is reportedly gathering supplies to gain points with Virginia swing voters, but they’re not demonstrating their compassion as much as their ignorance of how officials operate in a disaster situation.

Even I know that, if you truly want to help, you should communicate with the agency you are seeking to assist – or just check its website.

According to the Red Cross:

Unfortunately, due to logistical constraints the Red Cross does not accept or solicit individual donations or collections of items. Items such as collected food, used clothing and shoes must be sorted, cleaned, repackaged and transported which impedes the valuable resources of money, time, and personnel.

3. Romney’s Playing Partisan Favorites With Calls To Governors

Gov. Romney has made calls exclusively to Republican Governors, namely Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) and Chris Christie (R-N.J.), to offer support and talk about storm preparation.

Romney is seemingly unconcerned about Dem-led states in the storm’s path, neglecting to call any Democratic governors bracing for the storm in states such as Maryland (Gov. O’Malley), Massachusetts (Gov. Patrick), New York (Gov. Cuomo), and North Carolina (Gov. Perdue). And it’s Romney who wrongly accuses Obama of rejecting bi-partisanship.

Of course, Obama hasn’t played any partisan favorites. Gov. Christie said today of Obama’s response efforts: “I appreciated the president’s outreach today in making sure that we know he’s watching this and is concerned about the health and welfare and safety of the people of the state of New Jersey.”

Continue reading….

Fox “news” focusing on the big issues today:

via: dropfox

Who gets trapped in Drudge Bait?

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The endless scheming of the Romney campaign attempting to move the conversation away from Mitt’s tax returns.

POLITICO: “CIA director David Petraeus is knocking down suggestions that he might agree to serve as the vice presidential runningmate for likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. “Director Petraeus feels very privileged to be able to continue to serve our country in his current position and, as he has stated clearly numerous times before, he will not seek elected office,” CIA spokesman Preston Golson said Tuesday. The flutter of interest in a possible pick of the retired Army general as VP was triggered by a post on the Drudge Report, a conservative website known to have close ties to members of the Romney high command.”

Alex Jones and “the Aurora Theater Shooting Was A Staged Event” conspiracy

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Like anyone else, I love a good conspiracy theory. Here’s one that isn’t: below is a video clip of Alex “Crazy for a Profit” Jones arguing that the Aurora Theater Shooting was a “staged event.” By the way, I would be shocked if Alex Jones was not on the NRA’s payroll (see images below).

In his spectacular midway-barker style, Jones “connects the dots” for us between James Holmes and the theater shooting to the upcoming UN Arms Treaty Conference, Fast and Furious, the Uni-bomber, Jared Loughner, Columbine, MK ULTRA, the “Globalist Command Center (the alternate US capital) in Denver / Colorado Springs, President Obama and the Democrats and, naturally, the opening of the actual Batman movie itself.

Of course, he calls this “analyzing” the event.

…

In Alex Jones’ “analysis”, the real victim here is James Holmes — your typical “patsy” who was drugged up and duped to take the fall. This is MK ULTRA stuff, people! Just like Jared Loughner in Arizona, Jones says.

What really happened in that movie theater? Well, some “black-op” masked operator came into the theater and did the shooting (JUST LIKE COLUMBINE!). Then James Holmes was drugged with “amnesiacs” (since he wasn’t killed immediately, LIKE WITH COLUMBINE) so he would then take the blame. BOOM. Get it? Where’s your God now, sheeple?

I guess Holmes must have been covertly drugged with “PCP and LSD” practically 24/7 over the past few months while he ordered and received the almost 100 shipments that contained his 6,000 rounds of ammo, body armor, and explosive materials. It all makes sense now. No wonder he wasn’t doing well at school.

And by the way, what’s this upcoming evil librul commie event where they’re comin’ fer our guns?

NRA Kicks Off UN Arms Treaty Conference With Fearmongering: …Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also said that treaty is “opportunity to promote the same high standards for the entire international community that the United States and other responsible arms exporters already have in place to ensure that weaponry is transferred for legitimate purposes.” A senior policy advisor to the humanitarian organization Oxfam America has also pushed back against claims that the treaty has the nefarious purpose of interfering with domestic law: “No government is discussing a treaty that would ever impact the right to bear arms, nor require regulation of domestic sales of arms,” said Scott Stedjan, a senior policy adviser at the relief group Oxfam America. “This is totally about international transfer of arms so that they don’t go to human rights abusers.”

Those words from their mouths are code for globalist takeover. They are so totally compiling our names in their secret computer database for firearm confiscation AND for the mass roundup of the real ‘Mericans into FEMA camps.  Don’t be fooled, people: buy gold, more guns, and survival seeds now.

Related:

What ever happened to Matt Drudge? Drudge Promotes Story From Conspiracy Website (Alex Jones’ INFOWARS.com) Claiming Obama Plans To Murder Conservative Journalists (7/6/2012)

Not racist though

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via: early-onset-of-night

Related: Bill Maher: the problem with racism is Matt Drudge

On a related note, this was overheard at a Tea Party rally this weekend: Ozark Tea Party board member Inge Marler considers this joke an “ice breaker:”

A black kid asks his mom, ‘Mama, what’s a democracy?’
‘Well, son, that be when white folks work every day so us po’ folks can get all our benefits.’
‘But mama, don’t the white folk get mad about that?’
‘They sho do, son. They sho do. And that’s called racism.’

After her joke was reported, Marler told the Baxter Bulletin she’d stop using it. Audio of the speech can be heard here.

Just for the record: More white people are on welfare than black people.

Why are Fox “News” viewers so misinformed? Is it them, or is it Fox?

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image: bartcop.com

So you’re a misinformed Fox “News” viewer — but why are you so misinformed? Turns out, it’s a little bit you (because you’re attracted to a source like Fox in the first place) and it’s a little bit of Fox itself — a political operation which pretends to be a news channel, purposely misleading it’s base viewers, telling you what you want to hear but not necessarily what you should know. In other words, you’re in your own little world of paranoia and incorrect beliefs because you like that world. 

The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers are the Most Misinformed – Authoritarian people have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape factual challenges to their beliefs.

[...] When are people most likely to seek out self-affirming information? Hart found that they’re most vulnerable to selective exposure if they have defensive goals—for instance, being highly committed to a preexisting view, and especially a view that is tied to a person’s core values. Another defensive motivation identified in Hart’s study was closed-mindedness, which makes a great deal of sense. It is probably part of the definition of being closed-minded, or dogmatic, that you prefer to consume information that agrees with what you already believe.

So who’s closed-minded? Multiple studies have shown that political conservatives—e.g., Fox viewers–tend to have a higher need for closure. Indeed, this includes a group called right-wing authoritarians, who are increasingly prevalent in the Republican Party. This suggests they should also be more likely to select themselves into belief-affirming information streams, like Fox News or right-wing talk radio or the Drudge Report. Indeed, a number of research results support this idea.

[...] PIPA’s study of misinformation in the 2010 election didn’t just show that Fox News viewers were more misinformed than viewers of other channels. It also showed that watching more Fox made believing in nine separate political misperceptions more likely. And that was a unique effect, unlike any observed with the other news channels that were studied. “With all of the other media outlets, the more exposed you were, the less likely you were to have misinformation,” explains PIPA’s director, political psychologist Steven Kull. “While with Fox, the more exposure you had, in most cases, the more misinformation you had. And that is really, in a way, the most powerful factor, because it strongly suggests they were actually getting the information from Fox.”

Indeed, this effect was even present in non-Republicans–another indicator that Fox is probably its cause. As Kull explains, “even if you’re a liberal Democrat, you are affected by the station.” If you watched Fox, you were more likely to believe the nine falsehoods, regardless of your political party affiliation.

[...] the Fox “effect” probably occurs both because the station churns out falsehoods that conservatives readily accept—falsehoods that may even seem convincing to some liberals on occasion—but also because conservatives are overwhelmingly inclined to choose to watch Fox to begin with.

At the same time, it’s important to note that they’re also disinclined to watch anything else… Continue reading…

It’s like a perpetual feedback loop of happy, Orwellian horseshit: Fox is anything but ‘fair and balanced,’ but as long as they tell you that’s what they are, you get to pretend that’s a valid description of your chosen news source.

If you’re happy knowing that about yourself, great. Just don’t be surprised or offended when your friends and loved ones won’t discuss issues with you anymore, or when they make the circling motion with their finger on the side of their head. As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story.

Gingrich’s chickens are coming home to roost: Adios, Newt

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Newt Gingrich’s campaign admitted Wednesday that the former Speaker had not provided ABC News “witnesses” that would undermine his former wife Marianne’s claims that he had requested an open relationship, despite Gingrich having claimed to have done so in his widely praised debate performance last Thursday. — Gingrich campaign admits it provided no ‘witnesses’ to refute ex-wife’s claims

via: thedailywhat:

Lies Newt Gingrich Told Me of the Day: John King, not one to let things go, has successfully managed to compel the Gingrich campaign to admit that the GOP presidential candidate was “wrong” when he claimed that his staff offered up witnesses to debunk the claims made by his ex-wife on ABC’s Nightline. Watch video:


…

Interesting! What else has Newt lied about, I wonder… maybe his relationship with Saint Reagan?

via: afternoonsnoozebutton:

Gingrich: “I helped Governor Reagan become President Reagan”…”I developed supply side economics in the 1970’s”

(Also, Gingrich also possibly discovered electricity and formed man in his own image.)

Uh, oh. Drudge alert!

via: inothernews:

“Well,” said Ronald Reagan’s ghost, “it’s bedtime for Newtzo.”

Here are Drudge’s links:

Matt Drudge is emo over Sarah Palin’s news

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Siren and everything.

The half-term, former governor says she’s not running for president in 2012.

However, she does want her teafans to continue donating money and buying her books, so she “leaves the door open” for a future run for office.

It’s going to be difficult not to ask the Teaparty, “How’d all that Quitty, Screechy stuff work out for ya?”

Roundup: RWNJ Faux Outrageous Outrage of the Day — Jim Hoffa Jr. and Union Thuggery!

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TBogg: Pearls Were Clutched. Sphincters Were Clenched – Jimmy Hoffa Jr. makes reference to “son’s-of-bitches” and immediately teabaggers and Republicans and conservatives and rightwing bloggers think he’s speaking specifically about them (guilt? … deeply guarded family secret?  …  mom really was a bitch?) and so they get the vapors and now they are super totally  not going to vote for the black guy.

Oh noes! Not Breitbartoacalypse II?

TPM: No regrets — On calling Republican members of Congress “sons of bitches” in a speech on Monday, Teamsters President James Hoffa tells TPM he would say it all over again.

All fun aside, this is the REAL issue — doctored video and lies:

MMFA – Matt Gertz: Fox Doctors Hoffa Speech To Fabricate Call For Violence — Right-wing bloggers misled by dishonest Fox News video editing are attacking Teamsters President James Hoffa, Jr. for supposedly urging violence against Tea Party activists during a Labor Day speech. Conservatives are also attacking President Obama, who appeared at the event, for “sanctioning violence against fellow Americans” by failing to denounce Hoffa. But fuller context included in other Fox segments makes clear that Hoffa wasn’t calling for violence but was actually urging the crowd to vote out Republican members of Congress.

Charles Johnson: Fox News Deceptively Edits Video to Smear Teamsters Pres. Hoffa — Absolutely blatant lying from Fox — Fox News aired a flat-out dishonest, edited version of Hoffa’s speech, deliberately doctored to remove a crucial point and make it look as though Hoffa was calling for violence and civil war.

This is the edited clip aired repeatedly by Fox “News” today:

ABC News has an unedited clip: 

An actual, unedited transcript of Hoffa’s remarks:

We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They’ve got a war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner. It’s going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We’re going to win that war.

President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. AndPresident Obama, we want one thing: jobs, jobs, jobs… That’s what we’re going to tell him. He’s gonna be … and when he sees what we’re doing here, he will be inspired. But he needs help. And you know what? Everybody here’s got to vote. If we go back, and we keep the eye on the prize, let’s take these son of a bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.

Hoffa was talking about VOTING OUT the sons of bitches? Oh, my. Obama has a responsibility to tell Hoffa he owes a quarter to the cuss jar – but THAT’S ABOUT IT.

Morning in the bunker

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Politics

  • The number of substantial, documented, quantifiable accomplishments of President Obama’s:  over 300.
  • Think Progress: Essentially, the U.S. taxpayer paid BP to lease a rig that was incorporated in a foreign country for the purpose of avoiding the U.S. corporate tax. And the U.S. tax code is actually riddled with breaks for the oil industry, despite that industry’s record profits in recent years.
  • “I think one thing as a Republican and I think Republicans can be proud of is that we don’t politicize foreign wars.” ~ Bill Kristol

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News

  • Portland, Oregon: One month after the disappearance of 7-year-old Kyron Horman,  a landscaper told police the Oregon boy’s stepmother tried to hire him to kill her husband.

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Misc

  • Daily What: This is the way the world ends: Not with a bang but with a TV Hat.

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