MoDo Confesses Word-Slutting

NYTimes Writer Admits Using Blogger's Words - TIME: "New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has admitted to using a paragraph virtually word-for-word from a prominent liberal blogger without attribution..."

That blogger would be liberal in name only, being a member of the He-Man Hillary Haters (and woman hater, in general, one presumes).

(Update: Jeez, how can a typo as bad as that header slip by you? Brainless, I am.)

Hackery

Stop Obama has been hacked again. Other non-Obama sites have also been hacked. Folks that is not political activiism nor is it censorship. It is terrorism. Don't do it. You may find the Feds at your door.

Not Hate Speech

This image appeared on a major "liberal" blog to illustrate a post about racist white men controlling the Pennsylvania election.

But it wasn't hate speech because you can ... well, never mind, I feel a rant coming on.

More Net Neutrality Nuance

Stanford Hearing an Internet Wake-Up Call | Free Press

SavetheInternet.com, April 4, 2008
By Timothy Karr



"Get ready for Round Two in the Internet’s Battle Royale of 2008. At stake is whether we should allow a handful of giant corporations to close the Web for their own gain, or whether we should put in place baseline protections that will leave our Internet open to the millions of people who use it..."

Blog Dissing

Quoted from http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/012297.php:

 

The Left Coaster: Stories of Love and Hate

In the 2000 election campaign, one of the key stories that led to Gore being falsely savaged as a liar and exaggerator was the "Love Story" incident. The basic story was simple. Vice President Gore claimed in passing during an interview that a friend of his - Eric Segal - had told a reporter in TN that the lead characters in Segal's book "Love Story" were based on Gore and his wife Tipper. The reality was that Gore had been a model but not Tipper. However, Gore had in fact accurately stated what the TN newspaper had claimed based on an interview with Eric Segal. It just so happened that the newspaper's claim was partly in error. The press corpse and the right-wing used this incident, among others, to character assassinate Gore in the 2000 election. (Read one of Bob Somerby's posts on this for more details.)

 

Today, we have the Trina Bachtel story. Believe it or not, my first reaction after I saw some alleged "liberal" bloggers go after Sen. Clinton☼ on this in knee-jerk fashion was: it's Love Story all over again - except Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, and the dozens of other frauds in the media now have willing pals in parts of the formerly "liberal" blogosphere. To me, the 2008 Democratic primary campaign is a watershed event in the history of the progressive blogosphere. It has revealed that some of the alleged "progressive" bloggers are fundamentally no different than the media and the deranged right-wing bloggers they have long claimed to detest. The Trina Bechtel incident is the "crowning" event on a sickening trend in this election campaign - where Gore was replaced by Clinton and the "media" was supplemented by an influential portion of the allegedly "progressive" blogosphere. I can easily see an entire book being written on the work of these jokers who have turned the credibility of the blogosphere to dust because of their Clinton-hatred. There used to be a time when bloggers like Glenn Greenwald and Atrios used to write again and again about how the right-wing blogosphere was almost always wrong, especially in their attacks on Democrats. Today, it is clear that such blog posts could equally well be written about a prominent section of the formerly "progressive" blogosphere.

 

It has become crystal clear that Sen. Clinton had been truthful on the Trina Bechtel story...

Bad Hillary, Bad

Quoted from http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/:

 

The Confluence

Damn, Hillary Clinton!  The race is virtually tied (and with MI and FL *actually* tied) and she has the unmitigated gall to want to continue to let people vote.  She wants to drag this out to the convention.  And now Kos, doing his best Natalie Imbruglia impersonation,  is blaming Hillary for ripping the Democratic party asunder.  Oh, woe is me!...

 

Blogosphere Jumps Shark?

Quoted from http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2008/03/30/the-progressive-blogoshperes-deal-with-the-devil/:

 

The Democratic Daily » The

...I find the slow descent to progressive irrelevancy on a couple of issues worthy of deeper discussion. First is the protection of the franchise. The idea that rules can be written to deliberately disenfranchise voters, and that politicians are “sleeping well at night” after disenfranchising voters should be something progressives shout about. A former friend of mine (good ol’ Unity Pony Obama has broken up more of my friendships than even Bush did!) used to be a big advocate of paper trails and protecting the vote. On the disenfranchisement of FL and MI because of “rules” (funny, using non secure e-voting machines can be considered “rules” as well)? Silence. An Obama win by adhering to fundamentally unjust rules is more important than principles of democacy. Sad. And dangerous.

 

The other issue is the legitimization of media manipulation. When the media was giving George W. Bush a free ride and cheer leading the nation to war in Iraq the progressive blogosphere was rightly up in arms. But, as Boehlert says above, part of the progressive blogosphere has encouraged the manipulation of the facts in regard to press coverage of Hillary Clinton. There has been a willful acceptance and active participation in the sexist attacks and character assassination of Hillary Clinton, as the Drudge picture fiasco so clearly demonstrates. The progressive blogosphere’s participation in the manipulation is probably best characterized by Matt Yglesia’s claim that us Hillary folk need to be told by “credible party leaders” how to vote and participate in the electoral process...

 

A Question

"If Obama has the nomination wrapped up, why is his campaign going after Clinton so hard?"

 

JoeCHI | 03.28.2008 - 4:33 pm | #   Link

Someone Told Us

Well, uh, not me, but some people.

A Great Reckoning : NO QUARTER: "Such is the state of the coverage of Campaign 2008, with its fact-free “analysis”, that at times it becomes necessary to state the obvious.

We told you so..."

About Those Blogwars

Discourse in the Prorgressive Political Blogoshphere...

It's not as bad as you think.

KosKotting

Jon Swift

"...Daily Kos founder and President for Life Markos Moulitsas responded with characteristic sensitivity to her concerns. "First, these people should read up on the definition of 'strike.' What they're doing is a 'boycott.'" He said. What Markos was saying, I think, is that not only are supporters of Clinton traitors to the liberal cause, they are incredibly stupid as well. They have been posting on his site for free for all of this time while Markos has been raking in money and not sharing one cent of it with them, which certainly cannot be characterized as an employer-employee relationship as anyone who has taken an Economics 101 class and is not a dunderheaded Clinton supporter would know. Although Markos suggested that the word "boycott" would be more appropriate than "strike," I think the word he was looking for was "slave revolt," since "slave" is a much more appropriate term for someone who works for no pay while the plantation owner enriches himself. The word "slave," however, has certain unfortunate racial connotations that he probably felt it would be best not to raise, so he went with the word "boycott" instead..."

Freeway Blogger Free

Highway blogger exonerated | NEWS | Asheville CITIZEN-TIMES.com: "ASHEVILLE – A judge found highway blogger Jonas Phillips not guilty Thursday of breaking a city law when he hung a sign from an overpass urging the impeachment of President Bush.

Phillips, 36, of West Asheville, had been charged by police with blocking a city sidewalk on the Haywood Road bridge over Interstate 240.

The defendant testified during his trial in Buncombe County District Court that he didn’t impede traffic on the sidewalk or the roadway when the dangled the sign reading “Impeach Bush, Cheney” for several minutes shortly before 8 a.m. Aug. 15.

His attorney, Bill Auman, told Judge James Calvin Hill that Phillips was selectively prosecuted because of the content of the sign. Others who have displayed signs over roadways have not been charged, he said..."

Conan The Cranky

Fade, over at House of the Rising Sons , made the above poster about this humble blog. He has also created some other nifty graphics, including for one of our new links: Current Jam .

Moving Past MoveOn

The following basically summarizes what happened to me with MoveOn and what I ultimately also did about it.

Quoted from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robin-maxwell/moveon-and-keep-movin_b_86285.html:

Robin Maxwell: MoveOn... and Keep Movin' Right Outta My Life - Politics on The Huffington Post

...A few weeks ago MoveOn announced their intention to endorse a presidential candidate. I was asked to choose my favorite. Something about this request made me uncomfortable. I hadn't yet made up my mind between John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. In fact, I'd recently received an insightful, fact-filled letter from Michael Moore pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate, their voting records on everything from health care to the war in Iraq, how much money had been contributed to their campaign coffers, and by whom.

Michael had something nice to say about each candidate, but in the end he respectfully submitted his personal preference for the record - Edwards. It helped me immensely to have the facts in front of me so I could narrow things down and make an informed choice.

As for MoveOn's ill-advised poll, I ignored it...

I was increasingly turned off by the blatant "hands-off" bias of the press towards Obama, the slavering, almost cult-like adoration of a candidate who was unquestioningly charismatic, an inspiring speaker, who had been on the right side of the vote to go to war with Iraq, but was still a bit green behind the ears...

That was it. From then on, every time I got another "Vote for Obama" email from MoveOn I sent back a reply telling them to cease and desist from treating me and the other 30% of their dissenting membership with disrespect. That perhaps they had gotten too big for their .org britches. That they should forget intra-party partisanship and throw their substantial weight into making sure Hillary and Barack won the general election in November. And that maybe they should respond to my emails.

Get a grip on yourself, guys. Deflate your self-important heads. But until then, MoveOn, you can just unsubscribe me.

Comment of the Day

Quoted from 'myiq2xu Says' @: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/02/07/and-so-it-beginsobama-excitementcult/#comments:

Crooks and Liars » And so it begins…Obama excitement=Cult

I’ve been commenting on various blogs for quite a while now, but it wasn’t until I dared to say negative things about St. Barack that people responded with nasty, vicious personal attacks.

Criticize Hillary and people will disagree, but criticize Obama and they will call you names and insult you

Problem Progressive Bloggers

House of the Rising Sons: Bloggers Selling out: "Note to all my fellow Blog-Patriots, fighting the good fight and struggling to take our country back:

If Your Blog is sportin' Rush Limbaugh ads, then YOU are part of the [edit] problem.

If you are selling hate speech, unknowingly or not, as pop-ups or ads on your sidebar, then You are a two bit hypocrite.

I am tired of seeing ads pimping Ann Coulter's email on top of supposedly Progressive blogs. Is the money from these ads trickling into your credit card worth it If one more American becomes indoctrinated with her vile spew as a result of an ad on your blog?..."

Raw Story Wins Reporting Award

The Raw Story | Raw Story Investigates reporter wins investigative reporting award: "Long before Blackwater became the topic du jour for the mainstream media, Raw Story's Investigative team was on the march.

Raw Story is proud to announce Raw Story Investigates' Miriam Raftery won third prize in the San Diego Press Club's annual reporting for daily newspapers and websites in the category of investigative reporting.

Raftery won for an article she wrote on Blackwater, 'Massive security contractor faces growing protest in rural California town over 824-acre base...'"

Congratulations to Raw Story and to Raftery. We should all be thankful that there are a few places still doing God's Work in journalism.

The Daily Snark

John Ridley: Stop the Presses: Al Sharpton's a Hatemongeringt Hypocrite"...Toward the tail end of that TV news cycle whipped storm, when it was pointed out to Al that a variation of Imus's rant could be heard with an exponent in heavy rotation within a certain variety of rap music, Al promised to go at the extreme ends of the music business with the same camera-whoring zeal with which he attacked Imus.

On the 12th it will have been a month since Imus was dropped by CBS.

Though I make a point of closely following the news, I was apparently otherwise occupied during the ten minutes Al was flogging his big Anti-misogyny in Music Campaign...."

Chris Kelly:"Every time Michael Medved interprets a poll, a statistician dies. According to Medved, a made-up non-quasi-plurality of Democrats don't not not think that the president didn't see 9/11 coming..."

James Wolcott:"It has not been a bravura week in the right blogosphere.

Despite giving it her Diamandas Galas banshee all, Shamela of Atlas Shrugs was able only to whip up eight to ten stragglers for an anti-CAIR protest rally in midtown Manhattan. So sad. As one disillusioned citizen-soldier moped, "There were no press at all, not even a kooky cable station. I was so surprised, I mean here I am in a city where there are what, 20 million people in a 30 mile radius, most of which read the internet, hopefully concerned about our fate, and 8 people show up?" I blame the low turnout on Shamela's foolhardy decision to defect from Pajamas Media and exile herself to the cold, distant, obscure interstellar reaches of the internet. She shouts into the void to no avail..."

TPM Gets Some Due

Blogs can top the presses - Los Angeles Times: "..It's 20 or so blocks up town to the heart of the media establishment, the Midtown towers that house the big newspaper, magazine and book publishers. And yet it was here in a neighborhood of bodegas and floral wholesalers that, over the last two months, one of the biggest news stories in the country — the Bush administration's firing of a group of U.S. attorneys — was pieced together by the reporters of the blog Talking Points Memo..."

It's great they're getting some attention. Way to go, guys!

Update: Josh also got a mention on "This Week"