Thanks to Think Progress, Media Matters and Michael Moore.

More Fox scumbaggery to pass along. The President addressed West Pointers graduating on Saturday, and the media recorded it.

Fox News tried to edit and air the clip to make the President look bad, but got caught red-handed:

Obama’s particular praise for the Armed Forces begins around 11 seconds in, and the ridiculous audio edit cuts in at 31 seconds. The echoing of his address is clearly audible until then:

The second half of the clip, coming after the one minute mark, is the whitehouse.gov recording of the same speech.

Right-wing U.S. firebrand Ann Coulter will file grievance with rights panel
Tuesday March 23, 20

London, Ont. — Inflammatory right-wing pundit Ann Coulter took aim at a University of Ottawa administrator Monday night, saying an e-mail from the school warning her to use “restraint, respect and consideration” when addressing Ontario students during a speaking tour this week made her a victim of a “hate crime.”

Speaking to students and academics at the University of Western Ontario Monday, Coulter said the e-mail sent to her Friday by Francois Houle, vice-president academic and provost of the University of Ottawa, targeted her as a member of an identifiable group and as such, she will be filing a complaint with the Human Rights Commission alleging hate speech.

“I’m sure the Human Rights Commission will get to the bottom of it,” Coulter said to loud cheers from the 800-strong audience. “I think I’m the victim of a hate crime here. Either what (Mr. Houle) did was a hate crime, or the whole commission is BS.”

Oh, it’s a hate crime. Just like when my high school Health and Driver’s Ed teacher warned me not to speed. He knew I was Irish, and we all speed. I filed a rights petition with the United Nations, and they executed him.

Anyways, on Wednesday, she was met with so many protesters that the speech had to be shut down because of safety concerns:

Students are not allowed to do that. Everybody’s going to jail.

In the sense of, what? Jews are uncomfortable with an angry Muslim population? What a surprising “disaster”.

Israeli ambassador Michael Oren gets shouted down at UC Irvine:

“Well, this one will get your blood going. The ultimate responsibility for this resides with the university which has done nothing to curb this already known problem.”

The problem of interrupting speechifying you don’t agree with? That problem’s been around for thousands of years. I don’t agree with the Muslim Student Union’s tactics, but I certainly understand the anger. I’d rather have heard them go after this guy in the Q and A.

“UC Irvine has been a disaster area for Jews and a seething pot of jihadism for a long time. Students should have been expelled and the Muslim Student Union de-certified (or the equivalent) long ago.“

This isn’t “jihadism”, idiot. And de-certifying the MSU won’t make them, or the yelling, disappear.

“What you see in the video is not free speech, but the signs of a growing minority who seek to drag us down to the level of the typical Middle Eastern third world hell-holes they so admire.”

Yes, you’re so much better than them. Who is this asshole?

Solomonia (“Solomon” with an “ia” at the end) is the web log of Martin ‘Solomon.’

His last name in quotes?

. . and it dawns on her what she just did . . and then . . it gets . . awkward . .

Here’s what was loaded on the teleprompter: “Energy”, “Budget cuts”, “Tax” and “Lift American Spirits”.

Quote: “This is about the people, and it’s bigger than any one king or queen of a tea party, and it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter.”

And she got paid over $100,000 to deliver that line because the tea partiers find her ugly and boring, riiighht . . .

That’s hillbuzz.org, jazz hands.

Someone a few thousand miles away called the main blogger there a racist and he or she responded by turning bullshit, posting the names and addresses of blameless people like the terrific Rumproast‘s Kevin K..

HillBuzz has gone spiraling apeshit ever since, pulling in big wingnut traffic and donations by calling the few graffiti a wide-ranging and variably integrated Soros-Obama-DNC conspiracy. Yes, because a HillBuzz blogger isn’t wholly cerebral sunflower Cheeze-Whiz but a steely sniper of presidential power.

Anyway, aside from blogger ‘hillbuzz’ being a stupid fungal asshole, the site’s currently as funny as you will find.

Firstly, what the hell sort of hard right-wingers love Hillary Clinton? No, not kidding, that’s the ‘Hill’ in the name. Conservatives crazy for Hillary Clinton are HillBuzz.

Secondly, nothing and no one aren’t out to get them. The paranoia runs so deep that even the most innocuous comments get the Neo/Matrix treatment. It’d be overblown if it were satire:

“HB, may I ask why you like Hillary so much, and also Sarah. I know you started supporting Sarah as a protest against the nasty Obama people against Hillary. But now you sound like a loyal fan of Sarah.
Their politics are entirely different. Hillary wants public healthcare, Sarah not. Hillary for big(ger) government, Sarah not.
What areas of the democratic ideology that you gave up or will not relinquish? Hard to imagine you turning away only becuase of the base behaviors of the liberals, unless integrity trumps ideology. You said to vote them all out. No one on dem side worth saving because of personal integrity?
Just want to understand.
Thank you for helping our camp.
Take care.”

. . 2 . . 3 . .

TROLL DISSECTION 101: How to break apart a concern troll’s posting like it’s made of astroturf and Legos

This is such a weird concern-troll comment, left on a thread tonight, that we just had to let the comment stand, instead of deleting it, to break it down for you and also ponder WHAT exactly is the intent of leaving something like this.

Here it is, in full, from a poster calling herself “Penny Long”:

[. . above . .]

This is such a great example of concern-trolling, we’re going to breakdown, line by line, what’s going on here. It’s so textbook David Axelrod, he might have even written it himself.

The post goes on for three thousand words. And when the bastard ‘Penny Long’ starts typing out insidious rhythms, hillbuzz gets it:

LINE THREE: But now you sound like a loyal fan of Sarah.

This line is strange because there’s no “now you sound” or “but” about this. We’ve always been a loyal fan of Sarah. Since before Day One, which for most of the rest of you was August 29th, 2008. See remarks above, we were on the Palin Express before the train tracks were even built.

This is CLASSIC concern-trolling, folks.

People who love music could help us with this analogy, we’re sure, but if you don’t focus on the words so much, but just get a sense of the beat in this question, there’s a certain rhythm to it, almost like a haiku.

Like this:

HB (gets your attention), two loud sounds, BOOM BOOM

May I ask you why you like Hillary so much: Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba baba ba ba

and also Sarah: DA DA DADA.

Some more of the ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba beat.

Then: BOOM (But), DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DUM.

(But) BOOM

It’s easy. But he’s everywhere, and he’s paid well to populate the internets, so he could use some bipp-slatching, right? Si, claro? Como no.

Obama’s answer for America: more of me

There’s a story of an exhausted tenor at La Scala who, facing repeated cries of “Encore,” responded that he couldn’t go on. A man rose in the audience to say, “You’ll keep singing until you get it right.”

Idiot. That joke’s supposed to have the opera house in an Italian town so small that only marginal musical troupes drop by.

Indeed, for people who aren’t sticklers for political jargon, it will be a shock that last night was Obama’s first State of the Union Address, since it was his third formal address to a joint session of Congress.

State of the Union is astronomical ‘jargon’ for Goldberg’s people.

Washington graybeards and pundits have been insisting that Obama needs to “start over,” “reboot” and “tack to the middle” after Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts.

He’s too pant-loaded to hotlink. But he initially typed the whole thing out, lovingly hand-referencing and footnoting the text, and sent it all to the Library of Congress where the mail-room sentry dogs alerted and got both barrels seared with Cheetos dust. Cost to the taxpayer to ‘rescue’ two priceless German Shepherds while they sneeze their short lives away: $90,000.

In fairness, the president took a French-bath of Clintonism before he took to his beloved TelePrompTer.

In fairness: what President delivered a State of the Union speech without “his beloved TelePromTer”?

But the eau-de-Clinton couldn’t mask the stench — and Obama, in his supreme arrogance, didn’t really seem to care.

There was no “pivot to the center,” no serious accounting for the Massachusetts miracle or his misfortunes. Instead, there was an innumerate, inaccurate and distinctly unpresidential whine — blaming George W. Bush for nearly all of his problems.

Even more of Goldberg’s ‘fairness’: September the Eleventh attacks/mass murders, Osama bin Laden’s freedom, War in Iraq’s endless war crimes, the destruction of human existence’s greatest economy. Hundreds of thousands dead, millions desperate. Obama hasn’t begun to complain.

And ‘innumerate’ means “Unfamiliar with mathematical concepts and methods.”

So “innumerate . . whine” would be . . well, Jonah Goldberg.

Funny.

Justice Alito mouths ‘not true’

“. . Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said. “Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

The shot of the black-robed Supreme Court justices, stone-faced, was priceless . .

Took me a couple of viewings, but it’s true, he doesn’t like it. I’ve never seen a Supreme Court Justice react to a SOTU speech, that’s bizarre.

McCain also didn’t like Obama talking about handling the towering deficits:

McCain seen mouthing ‘blame it on Bush’ when Obama outlines the problems he inherited.

UPDATE: McCain went on Fox News and talked to Sean Hannity after the speech, saying, “What we’re hearing tonight is ‘BIOB’ — let’s call it that from now on. Blame it on Bush. Whatever has gone wrong, let’s blame it on Bush. I think the people of Massachusetts last Tuesday pretty well rejected that line of conversation.”

Is Obama about to speak? Then look at me! Over here!

Dick Cheney slams President Obama for projecting ‘weakness’
By MIKE ALLEN & JIM VANDEHEI | 12/1/09 5:40 PM EST

MCLEAN, Va. — On the eve of the unveiling of the nation’s new Afghanistan policy, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed President Barack Obama for projecting “weakness” to adversaries and warned that more workaday Afghans will side with the Taliban if they think the United States is heading for the exits.

In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president’s “agonizing” about Afghanistan strategy “has consequences for your forces in the field.”

“I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small ‘p’ political reasons, where he’s trying to balance off different competing groups in society,” Cheney said.

“Every time he delays, defers, debates, changes his position, it begins to raise questions: Is the commander in chief really behind what they’ve been asked to do?”

What a load of garbage from a guy famous for a fatal inability to make the right decision, by whatever means. Dick Cheney, the guy who was unable to protect America during 9/11. Who then retaliated by attacking Bumfuckistan Mesopotamia, killing 4,00 Americans. I can’t believe this moron is popping his head out and his mouth off in his own version of political whack-a-mole. Dangerous, incompetent and classless, what a trifecta.

Meanwhile, the guy who runs the War in Afghanistan, Republican hero General McChrystal, issued a statement commenting on Obama’s address and the ‘dithering’ review:

“The Afghanistan-Pakistan review led by the President has provided me with a clear military mission and the resources to accomplish our task. The clarity, commitment and resolve outlined in the President’s address are critical steps toward bringing security to Afghanistan and eliminating terrorist safe havens that threaten regional and global security.

“The NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) objective is equally clear: We will work toward improved security for Afghanistan and the transfer of responsibility to Afghan security forces as rapidly as conditions allow. In the meantime, our Afghan partners need the support of Coalition forces while we grow and develop the capacity of the Afghan army and police. That will be the main focus of our campaign in the months ahead.

“The 42 other nations of the Coalition will benefit from a strengthened U.S. commitment, as success in Afghanistan must be an international, integrated civil-military effort – from our security and training capacity to the governance and economic development assistance that sustains long-term stability. The concerted commitment of the international community will prevail in bringing real change to Afghanistan — a secure and stable environment that allows for effective governance, improved economic opportunity and the freedom of every Afghan to choose how they live.

“We face many challenges in Afghanistan, but our efforts are sustained by one unassailable reality: neither the Afghan people nor the international community want Afghanistan to remain a sanctuary for terror and violence. The coalition is encouraged by President Obama’s commitment and we remain resolute to empowering the Afghan people to reject the insurgency and build their own future.”

Spot on, again, Dick, dead center in reality. And by forcing a time table upon the corrupt Afghan government, they either straighten up or fail of their own accord, not that you’d think of these things. Because you just move to the right on everything, which makes you about as smart as a one-legged insect.

Go ahead Dick, take another shot: how about that Khalid Sheikh Muhammed trial in New York?

“One of their top people will be given the opportunity — courtesy of the United States government and the Obama administration — to have a platform from which they can espouse this hateful ideology that they adhere to,” he said. “I think it’s likely to give encouragement — aid and comfort — to the enemy.”

Zacarias Moussaoui ran his mouth his whole entire civilian trial in Federal court in Virginia. Don’t you recall how emboldened Al Qaeda became? Don’t you remember how much aid and comfort it gave the enemy? Weren’t you just crushed by that? Remember how Americans were agonized by it all? No?

Zacarias Moussaoui came off like an hysterical, dogmatic clown, powerless and pathetic. [here comment on dick cheney] The moron failed, on the world stage, to do the job he was tasked to do, so now he just talks to the bricks. [here comment again]

The faculty and staff of Salt Lake City’s Western Governors University posted this, in his memory. Many thanks to them.

Being a stupid lunatic means never having to say you’re sorry. That’s the lesson I get from reading wingnut posts on Obama’s ‘Stay in school and work hard’ address to kids scheduled this week.

The talk-and-spit loons are so routinely furious over the President’s traitorous breathing, or fidgeting, that their being especially irate over his speaking to their children was perhaps predictable. But now that the text of the speech is out and sadly contains no urgings to stab Republican parents or re-register them as Green Party members, there’s not much meat left to the controversy.

Ed Morrissey to the rescue.

I think the White House and Obama fouled this up from the beginning, making it look much more political than necessary, and gave their critics a boatload of ammunition with which to attack them. The speech, included in its entirety below, turned out to be entirely innocuous. But by asking teachers to impress upon children the need to “help President Obama,” they made it look blatantly political.

The real story now is…the run-up to the speech was handled poorly. Hmm. Considering that Ed and his whacko ilk are capable of yelling at jumbo-jet decibels for weeks about absolutely nothing, he may have a point. Never mind that nothing of the speech was ever going to be political, that (Republican) Presidents had done it before, that wingnuts are still again calling Obama Hitler, or that releasing the text of the speech hasn’t made a dent in the hysteria. I’m sure that if the White House had changed a few details all of this could have been avoided, and what a dumb crock of shit that is.

Continue Reading »

Did she, by any chance, mention the military? A bit, in passing.

This address opening, her first four minutes, is yet another killer (she just amazes me, the way she can get me reeling with laughter). Our brave fighting people are now the reason for everything. Pretty much anything in life. Want some candy? Think of the soldiers, and then go knock yourself out. Which shirt should you wear? The soldiers allow you the freedom to pick, so remember them and then choose away. What nasty thing will the media write next? They wouldn’t if they’d just think of the soldiers. And that one’s verbatim.

Here ya go…

Did I miss any?
1.) Fairbanks people are great because they support the soldiers.
2.) Thank you, soldiers, for protecting America.
3.) The last frontier has country pride, and the soldiers secure it.
4.) Alaska isn’t pessimistic because they have proof of the volunteer soldiers who sacrifice everything.
5.) She heard Taps for three soldiers, and they gave their all for freedoms like the freedom of speech which, “par for the course, I’m going to exercise.”
6.) The soldiers protect freedom of the press, they’re willing to die for you journalists, “so, how about, in honor of the American soldier, you quit making things up?”

Oh, lord, I hope she never goes away. Nobody tell her that brains aren’t just cheese.
——————————————————————————————————————————

ADD: Wonkette came up with this Zombie-simpatico post on Red State that likens the amazing, dynamic Sarah Palin to…Chrysler Corporation! (which recently died) Their mini-vans, and the Intrepid! (which nobody wants to be seen driving) And Newt Gingrich, in the mid-nineties! (when he got his career shredded by Clinton, and quit the House) The poster goes on to marvel that there are other Republican women as leaders, “but none have the shear magnetism and gravitas Sarah Palin has.” And, so, Palin may be better suited for the Hoover Dam than the White House.

No, wait–she’s a World War II era warplane!

Some bullets up yer ass, Mr. President?