US Politics- Political Media is the Worst Kind of Media

[Fez]

Continue...

And as for the political media:

There's the fact that they are giving far more coverage to the fact that they didn't have access to Obama's round of golf with Tiger Woods than to any actual news story. I can't find it now, but Politico had a four-page deep dive story on the issue just the other day.

Then there's this:

On Feb. 6, I called a Republican aide on Capitol Hill with a question: Did Hagel’s Senate critics know of controversial groups that he had addressed?

Hagel was in hot water for alleged hostility to Israel. So, I asked my source, had Hagel given a speech to, say, the “Junior League of Hezbollah, in France”? And: What about “Friends of Hamas”?

The names were so over-the-top, so linked to terrorism in the Middle East, that it was clear I was talking hypothetically and hyperbolically. No one could take seriously the idea that organizations with those names existed — let alone that a former senator would speak to them.

Or so I thought.

The aide promised to get back to me. I followed up with an e-mail, as a reminder: “Did he get $25K speaking fee from Friends of Hamas?” I asked.

The source never responded, and I moved on.

I couldn’t have imagined what would happen next. On Feb. 7, the conservative web site Breitbart.com screamed this headline:

“SECRET HAGEL DONOR?: WHITE HOUSE SPOX DUCKS QUESTION ON ‘FRIENDS OF HAMAS’

The article goes on from there.

I think the original reporter is kind of an ass, and his source an idiot, but the way other news (and "news") outlets just ran with it without confirmation is as bad as video game journalism.

[Fragile Bird]

Seems like immigration will be a hot, hot topic going forward. McCain spoke in Arizona in some town halls and met some angry people.

During a heated town hall gathering in the Phoenix suburb of Sun Lakes, McCain said the border near Yuma is largely secure, but he said smugglers are using the border near Tucson to pump drugs into Phoenix. He said immigration reform should be contingent on better border security that must rely largely on technology able to detect border crossings.

McCain said a tamper-proof Social Security card would help combat identity fraud, and noted any path to citizenship must require immigrants to learn English, cover back taxes and pay fines for breaking immigration laws.

"There are 11 million people living here illegally," he said. "We are not going to get enough buses to deport them."

Some audience members shouted out their disapproval

.

One man yelled that only guns would discourage illegal immigration. Another man complained that illegal immigrants should never be able to become citizens or vote. A third man said illegal immigrants were illiterate invaders who wanted free government benefits.

[Fez]

Not sure what else they're doing, but DOD plans on furloughing all 800,000 of its civilian employees one day a week for 22 weeks as part of the sequestration.

And people wonder why the US government has ongoing concerns about a brain drain...

[Oblique]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/mcconnell-office-duped-onion-style-piece-gitmo-140113809--politics.html

McConnell’s office duped by The Onion-style piece on Gitmo

QUOTE

“I am writing on behalf of a constituent who has contacted me regarding Guantanamo Bay prisoners receiving Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits,” McConnell wrote. “I would appreciate your review and response to my constituent’s concerns.”

What triggered the unnamed Kentuckian’s worries? This post.

“By allowing the detainees to use the Department of Veterans Affairs, we hope to completely crush their souls with bureaucracy,” a (fake) Pentagon spokesman says in the piece.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki is then quoted as saying: “Because most ‘guests’ at Guantanamo Bay have been there nearly a decade and there is no end in site for their ‘visit,’ the Department of Veterans Affairs is ready to have their claims processed in 12-15 years as per standard operating procedure.”

This is, as Danger Room reporter Spencer Ackerman points out, an attempt “to send up the inadequate, mollasses-slow [sic] benefits the government provides to the nation’s veterans.”

END QUOTE

[Tempra]

Not sure what else they're doing, but DOD plans on furloughing all 800,000 of its civilian employees one day a week for 22 weeks as part of the sequestration.

And people wonder why the US government has ongoing concerns about a brain drain...

Those lazy bums should be glad they have a job! I kid, of course. The furloughs are ridiculous. I wonder how much time and money has been wasted planning for sequestration. Hopefully it doesn't happen as that is essentially a 20% paycut.

[Fez]

Its been too long since we had a sex scandal, too bad these folks are all retired already,

Former New Mexico senator Pete Domenici, a Republican, disclosed Wednesday that he has a son born in secrecy 30 years ago.

“More than 30 years ago, I fathered a child outside my marriage,” Domenici told the Albuquerque Journal in a statement. “I deeply regret this and am very sorry for my behavior. I hope New Mexicans will view that my accomplishments for my beloved state outweigh my personal transgression.”

Domenici said that he kept the matter secret because the mother of the child, Michelle Laxalt, asked him to do so. Her father, Paul Laxalt, was himself a U.S. senator from Nevada from 1974 to 1987.

That'd be one way for Reid to break the filibuster, threaten to seduce McConnell's daughter.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/19/is-your-local-police-department-using-pi

In a stunning fit of PR brilliance, the Federal Government spends $5.5 million on shooting targets that look like pregnant women and little kids. To get federal agents used to the idea of shooting at pregnant women and little kids. Awesome.

[Oblique]

http://reason.com/bl...rtment-using-pi

In a stunning fit of PR brilliance, the Federal Government spends $5.5 million on shooting targets that look like pregnant women and little kids. To get federal agents used to the idea of shooting at pregnant women and little kids. Awesome.

Read the article and saw this quote......

(one officer explaining that he enlarged photos of his own kids to use as targets so that he would not be caught off guard with such a drastically new experience while on duty)

The mind....it boggles. :ack:

[Shryke]

Seems like immigration will be a hot, hot topic going forward. McCain spoke in Arizona in some town halls and met some angry people.

Oh, the schedenfreude you get from watching their courting of bigoted morons blowing up in their faces is the best kind of joy.

[Shryke]

Continue...

And as for the political media:

There's the fact that they are giving far more coverage to the fact that they didn't have access to Obama's round of golf with Tiger Woods than to any actual news story. I can't find it now, but Politico had a four-page deep dive story on the issue just the other day.

My new favourite name for them is "Tiger Beat on the Potomac". Thank you Charlie Pierce.

On that note: http://gawker.com/5985342/the-politico-is-mad-that-the-white-house-does-and-doesnt-talk-to-the-politico?utm_source=kotaku.com&utm_medium=recirculation&utm_campaign=recirculation

The Politico, America's worst media outlet, has a big story today about what's wrong with the White House's relationship with the political media, such as The Politico. According to Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, President Obama disdains, freezes out, and circumvents the representatives of the Fourth Estate, including reporters from The Politico, rather than opening himself up to their serious questions. "This is an arguably dangerous development," The Politico explains.

(Here we pause to invoke the old and useful rule, promulgated by the columnist Alex Beam, that "arguably" is a synonym for "not.)

Then there's this:

The article goes on from there.

I think the original reporter is kind of an ass, and his source an idiot, but the way other news (and "news") outlets just ran with it without confirmation is as bad as video game journalism.

I don't see how he's an ass. It's not his fault these people are that stupid. I do love how there's not even a hint of journalistic objectivity going on from the Right here. He calls a Republican aide and it ends up on Breitbart.

[lokisnow]

I love the descriptor, "Tiger Beat on the Potomac" We should always refer to the beltway media in this way, because it more accurately reflects the idiocy of their reporting and their slobbering approach to journalism. Beltway media just doesn't capture that. We don't need a golf professional related story to use the phrase "Tiger Beat on the Potomac" we should use that phrase all the time.

[awesome possum]

http://reason.com/bl...rtment-using-pi

In a stunning fit of PR brilliance, the Federal Government spends $5.5 million on shooting targets that look like pregnant women and little kids. To get federal agents used to the idea of shooting at pregnant women and little kids. Awesome.

Misleading much? The article says the government spent 5.5 million on contracts with this company that makes a wide variety of targets and not that it has spent the money on these specific targets.

[DanteGabriel]

If the Tea Party is already sending out emails with Karl Rove in a Nazi uniform, it's not distasteful for me to say that I wish the GOP would just go ahead and Night of the Long Knives itself, right?

[DanteGabriel]

There's the fact that they are giving far more coverage to the fact that they didn't have access to Obama's round of golf with Tiger Woods than to any actual news story. I can't find it now, but Politico had a four-page deep dive story on the issue just the other day.

Politico is pathetic. It's as if the pompous, half-bright frat boys in a mediocre college comedy got jobs as journalists. Their idea of journalistic research is checking Drudge and then calling someone's press secretary for comment. Their shtick of referring to Obama's and Romney's camps during the election as "Chicago" and "Boston" was jarring and stupid. But they think they are God's gift to political coverage. I don't even understand how they were created. All of a sudden I started seeing links to boilerplate horseshit written by a newly organized crop of smug assholes, and now they think they are synonymous with political journalism.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

So sequestration is this Friday, right? Is it gonna happen?

[Horza]

Politico is pompous, half-bright frat boys [who] got jobs as journalists.

fixed.

[ThinkerX]

So sequestration is this Friday, right?

I was under the impression it hit the first week of March...or was it March 1?

Is it gonna happen?

I've been seeing editorials and print articles to the effect that an increasing number of democrats and republicans alike no longer see it as utterly unthinkable.

The democrats see it as a way of forcing cuts to military spending.

The republicans see this as the best way of forcing cuts on SS and mediwhatever.

The last editorial I saw mentioned something about the heads of the bipartisan committee deal from a while back stepping forward, calling the current sequestration plan...not very bright...and advocating targeted cuts, mostly to the social/medical side of things.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Perhaps an actual case of "Voter Fraud":

http://now.msn.com/m...obama-six-times

And in the interest of equal time "Voter Fraud" in favor of the Republicans:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/06/u-s-election-machine-glitches-and-voter-fraud-reported-as-america-goes-to-the-polls/

[The Undead Martyr]

I was under the impression it hit the first week of March...or was it March 1?

I've been seeing editorials and print articles to the effect that an increasing number of democrats and republicans alike no longer see it as utterly unthinkable.

The democrats see it as a way of forcing cuts to military spending.

The republicans see this as the best way of forcing cuts on SS and mediwhatever.

The last editorial I saw mentioned something about the heads of the bipartisan committee deal from a while back stepping forward, calling the current sequestration plan...not very bright...and advocating targeted cuts, mostly to the social/medical side of things.

Why? Our bridges are shit.

To paraphrase one of my editorial asignments, cutting civvie spending isn't beating a dead horse, it's stripping the last bits of meat from its bleached bones and complaining about the maggots.

See, "compromise" isn't raising taxes and cutting spending. "Common sense" is halving DoD spending and eliminating the entirety of the Bush-era Tax cuts, plus maybe instituting a VAT,

Also science, but that's just me and Neil Degrasse Tyson.

[Tempra]

So sequestration is this Friday, right? Is it gonna happen?

March 1. However, the cuts do not have to go into place immediately, which means Congress will delay fixing its fuckup as long as possible.