The “Broadcaster Freedom Act” may come up for a carefully-hidden vote – and if you support freedom of speech, we need your help:

There’s a chance to get the newly expanded Broadcaster Freedom Act (BFA) tacked on as an amendment to the Financial Services appropriation on Tuesday. The BFA is currently being redrafted to prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from not only reimposing the Censorship Doctrine – also mis-known as the “Fairness Doctrine” – but also to address the new censorship threats – inc“localism” and “media diversity.”To get it a full, fair up or down vote, we need to act over the weekend and all day Monday.

We need to get as many people as possible to call their Representatives and have them tell Speaker Nancy Pelosi to add the BFA as an amendment.

Contact your representative…

Headline on USN’nWR: Sanford Affair Will Hurt Republicans in the South, Democratic Strategists Say.

Democratic strategists say the much-publicized moral lapses of Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina will damage the GOP brand in the South. 

Whew.  I’d wondered if Democratic strategists were going to spin this to show the affair – also “anything” – was going to help the GOP.

In related news:

• Dean Barkley Thinks Sanford Affair Will Help “Independence” Party In MN
• Socialist Workers Party Reps Believe Sanford Slip Will Bolster Trotskyites
• American Nazi Party Believes Sanford Affair Implicates Jews

Thanks, USN’nWR.  Now that you’ve gone online, I’m glad to see your editorial talent has gurgled down toward Minnesota “Progressive” Project level.

We’re about 18 months away from the next round of elections to the US House of Representatives. 

I remembered that when I got this email from an anonymous source:

Let’s talk about MN 4th District Representative Betty McCollum.

“B-Cup Betty”, as she’s known to her smarter colleagues on Capitol Hill – which is, let’s face it, all of them – is a product of Saint Catherine’s,  a fifth-rate Catholic women’s college that seems to succeed only in teaching its graduates how to use that hot Catholic school girl uniform to get what they want.  Which was, in fact, the only way she could get a job, much less a guy.

McCollum, being too homely and brunette to get a job in entertainment or the media, not smart enough to get into law school and not masculine enough to land a women’s studies professorship, went into education. 

She stank at it, of course – the Saint Paul School District has a sub-50% graduation rate, which sank while she was teaching, and has only fallen further since she’s been in Congress.

Unable to finish the job she was given, McCollum manipulated the DFL’s gender-equity bylaws to get herself what is broadly regarded (by anonymous but reliable DFL sources) as an “affirmative action” nomination in a cakewalk district, the Fourth.  “This was basically the political electoral equivalent of walking into a bar full of guys and saying “any of you big strong fellas wanna help me push my car?” and showing a little leg” said an anonymous source.  And even at that, for two straight elections McCollum has shown neither the guts nor the brains to face any challengers in a debate, saying (in effect) “They might talk mean about me!  They hate women!”. 

“Of course she wins in the Fourth” said an anonymous DFL source.  “The DFL could endorse a pile of monkey poo and get 55% of the vote in the Fourth!  Good lord, those people are all lobotomized union droogs!  The real question isn’t “why did an inexperienced, not-so-bright, poorly-educated party hack win in the Fourth” so much as “is there another district where such a lightweight could win any office?  I swear, if she didn’t have her gender going for her, she’d come in third for Water and Soil District Commissioner”.

Anonymous sources say McCollum – who is anonymously known for being a strutting man-hating martinet – runs an office renowned for dubious ethics.  Although specific charges have neither been filed nor prosecuted, anonymous sources say it’s just a matter of time.  “McCollum shows all the signs of being an ethics disaster” said a source who asked not to be named, but is a higher-up in the DFL; “She’s female, she’s unqualified, ill-educated and dumb, she’s a castrating bitch – or so I’ve heard – she’s Catholic, she’s of Irish descent, she’s been a union member, and she’s a woman in politics; you just know she took every bit of swag that people left on the floor”. 

“She’s dumb, poorly-educated, has no political background and was a failure as a teacher, she’s never run a race against serious competition, and she’t not even close to hot”, the source continued, “and yet she’s a high-maintenance diva!”.

Well, I went and filed that piece in the “Stupid Hack Piece” drawer. 

Along with this.  And this.  And this.

Because there’s just no room for corrosive, stupid sexism in politics!  Why, just because every single thing in the scabrous email above was identical to similar defamations of, say, Sarah Palin or Linda Chavez or Margaret Thatcher or Laura Ingraham or Michele Bachmann or…

…um, where were we?

(more…)

Part of me wonders if Hollywood is finally figuring out that there’s a huge pool of people out here for whom the War on Terror is not an abstract relic of Bush Administration paranoia:

NBC News has scheduled its controversial to-catch-a-terrorist investigative program, in which an elite team hunts war criminals.“The Wanted” will premiere Monday, July 20, at 10 p.m. with specialists in counterterrorism, foreign intelligence, war crimes and investigative journalism profiling suspected international terrorists.

“We hope this program sheds light on an overlooked story,” said David Corvo, executive producer at NBC News. “It is surprising how many people with serious accusations against them are living openly and avoiding any sort of judicial process.”

The project drew criticism when it was first made public in February, with government officials saying the effort could interfere with ongoing criminal investigations, and human rights advocates concerned about the program making false accusations. Lingering distaste from the news division’s similarly law-enforcement-trumping “To Catch a Predator” segments on “Dateline,” which went after accused sex crimes perpetrators, has also led to worries about the new program.

And part of me wonders if it isn’t a first salvo in a Hollywood/Media campaign to cover for Obama’s retreat on everything else related to the War on Terror – Guantamo, withdrawal from Iraq, attacks into Pakistan and the works.

Obama wouldn’t dare call it a national cause, much less a war.  But if they can spin it as entertainment…?

Seems pretty accurate to me.

It’s on the internet, so it must be true.

UPDATE:  By jinkies, I think they’ve seen my comment section!

Most everyone thought Norm Coleman’s concession speech was gracious and classy.  There were some risible exceptions (see previous)…

…and Charlie Quimby, who notes:

I heard an MPR reporter say that cameras from The UpTake were excluded from livestreaming Coleman’s announcement. Instead, the news service shot shaky video from a neighbor’s yard and posted it here — a mute commentary on the snub.The UpTake has provided the most in-depth video documentation of the various proceedings associated with the recount, but has been systematically stiffed by Coleman’s staff. If Coleman does decide to run for office again, he’s certainly not paving the way with citizen media.

Now, let’s see if we can get this straight:  Uptake, an avowedly “progressive” “news organization”, gets access to “document” the election process from election authorities led by a “progressive” Secretary of State; they do a decent job of covering the proceedings (at least, the parts where their editorial stances aren’t included), but they are unmistakeably in the bag for Al Franken throughout the entire process.

So how is Coleman wrong for ejecting them?

I have no problem with partisan media; I am partisan media!  I have no problem in particular with the Uptake, who I believe generally tries to do a good job (with a few notable problems endemic to its’ “everyone plays!” participation model). 

But being partisan media has consequences.

I am a conservative blogger and host; I can fairly easily get access to Governor Pawlenty, John Kline, Michele Bachmann, and the one good Senator Minnesota has had since 2000, Norm Coleman, at least in part because my allegiances and the audience are pretty obvious.  They all know that while there might be a tough question or two, there will be no ambushes, no smearing, nothing rebroadcast out of context.

On the other hand, last year I sent invites to appear on the Northern Alliance to Senator Klobuchar, candidate Franken, Representatives Ellson and McCollum, and RT Rybak.   Only Rybak responded (we had a good interview!); the rest didn’t even give the courtesy of a rejection.

“Well, of course!”, the standard response went.  “You’re conservative media!  The Uptake is…”

Um…what is the Uptake?

“They’re journalists!”

Well, sure – and by the same standard, so am I.

“Nooooo, Berg – you’re a fire-breathing talk show host! It’s different!”

Keep your stereotypes to yourself.  I’ll put the interviews that Ed and I (and King, and John and Brian) do up against anything on MPR.  Of course that’s a matter of opinion, but it happens to be correct.

So – why the vapors over the “progressive” Uptake’s snub?  Partisan journalism has its downside!

Here in Minnesota, we – at least those of us that pay attention – have long known that the “Minnesota Poll” can be counted on as nothing more than a reliable shill for the DFL.  The MNPoll always overpolls DFL voters, and strips that fact out of its headlines, which – especially on the eve of elections – always show DFL and Democrat candidates polling much higher than they turn out in the final polling (at least in contested elections where things are close).  One has to suspect that their reason is to drive down Republican turnout, although obviously they’ll never cop to it.

But it must work; the NYTimes is borrowing the trick to shill for Obamacare.

I saw the first polling results  – in which Americans purportedly support Obamacare by a crushing margin, even as Obama’s polling descends to merely human levels and dissatisfaction with his economic program mounts – and thought “check the polling numbers”. 

No surprise:

Out of 895 respondents, 24 percent were Republicans, 38 percent Democrats, and 38 percent were independents, according to a June 20 release from CBS News. While the release says the sampling was conducted at random, those numbers are significantly below the 32.6 percent who identify themselves as Republican according to a May survey from the nonpartisan Rasmussen Reports.

Similarly, the Times/CBS poll said 48 percent of respondents had voted for Obama, versus 25 percent for McCain, a nearly two-to-one advantage for Obama supporters. 

Had those results been reflected in the November presidential election, Obama would have garnered 66 percent of the vote to McCain’s 34 percent, Conway, president & CEO of “the polling company,” told CNSNews.com.
 
“Was the vote 66-34? You tell me,” Conway said.

No, Mr. Conway.  It was not.

And no – no media bias here.  Why ask?

SCENE:  At a sleazy bar in a newly-gentrified part of Northeast Minneapolis.  Music is playing on a jukebox, from which everything but the Indigo Girls and Sting have been removed.  A group of people – “Phoenix”, “Wege”, “Spotty”, “Aaron”, “Two Putt”, “MNob”, Jeff and “Blue Man” – sit, drinking organic beer.  One of them reads a tabloid newspaper.

BLUE MAN: “Hey, look at this!”

Thousands of bloggers who operate behind the cloak of anonymity have no right to keep their identities secret, the High Court ruled yesterday.

TWO PUTT: “HOLY CRAP!”

PHOENIX: “OMGz!  What a bunch of fascists!”

JEFF:  “Er guys?”

WEGE: “Let’s think this over.  MNob – can you do some lawyer stuff?”

MNOB: “I’ll demand a summary judgment!”

BARTENDER:  “You can’t.  The judge has already ruled.

SPOTTY: “Demand it again!”

[Some of them rise from their seats]

BLUE MAN (continues):

In a landmark decision, Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect the anonymity of a police officer who is the author of the NightJack blog. The officer, Richard Horton, 45, a detective constable with Lancashire Constabulary, had sought an injunction to stop The Times from revealing his name

SPOTTY: “So in other words, bloggers who blog anonymously aren’t protocted any more?”

AARON: “Oh, my, god…”

JEFF: “Er, Aaron?  Technically, “Aaron Landy” actually IS your name”

AARON: “I hate you”

WEGE: “Let’s run for it!”

[TWO PUTT, MNOB, SPOTTY and AARON jump up and run from the room]

BLUE MAN: “Wait – isn’t this in England?”

PHOENIX: “It doesn’t matter; their court decisions should supercede ours!”

[All of them leave the room at a dead run]

And…scene.

Conrad DeFiebre is not one of the bad ones, as a general rule, as far as media types are concerned.  While he was a Strib writer for about 600 years, he was also one of the reporters that could tell a balanced, fair story.  He was the first reporter from either of the dailes (to say nothing the TV statiosn) to be bothered with reporting the actual facts on the Concealed Carry debate back in the nineties.  For that, I’ve personally given credit where it was due, not that anyone cares.

Long story short:  He’s always been a good reporter.

But these days he works for MN2020, the regional “non-partisan” “progressive” think tank.  Which is apropos not much, except that for someone whose gig has been telling entire, complete stories for his entire career, he kinda, well, doesn’t.

His latest piece is called “Conservatives “Re-Writing History”

; I’ll direct you to read the piece to find any examples of history at all, much less conservatives “re-writing” it.

Opposition to modern transit development may be on the wane in most parts of Minnesota,

“May” it be?  Well, I guess we have to take Mr. DeFiebre’s word for it.  Perhaps he knows of a Minnesota Poll on the subject?

but it’s alive and well in one surprising location: The Minnesota History Center in St. Paul.

“Light rail is an expensive investment without return except as an exercise in chest-thumping to make a city feel like it’s in the big leagues.”

That’s a quote from Lyle Wray, former Citizens League executive director, posted in big letters in the history center’s long-running transportation exhibit “Going Places: The Mystique of Mobility.” It enjoys equal billing with more mildly-worded praise of light rail in the display’s vintage Soo Line boxcar.

OK, so we have a qualitative judgment about the “mildness” or, I dunno, “spiciness” of wording?

I’ll let that pass.

What’s worse, an accompanying video clip features half a dozen anti-light rail comments, some from anonymous on-the-street interviewees, some from inveterate transit bashers at the Taxpayers League of Minnesota.

Er – so what?  Isn’t it refreshing that the Minnesota History Center,noted conservative tools that they are (note to non-Minnesotans: they are not; they are more given to hagiographic treatment of old labor and Farmor/Labor Party organizers) actually presents both sides of a story?

Does MN2020 have a problem with that?

Oh,wait.

I digress.  My question:  Where is history, and its conservative re-write?

Worse yet, the exhibit also includes plenty of promotion of personal rapid transit, a thoroughly failed technology that has been embraced by both the rabid right and the lunatic left, mainly as a foil to responsible transit proposals.

“Rabid”?  “Lunatic?”  Such invective from a…reporter?  Why, it’s almost as if DeFiebre is getting talking points from…someone with an ax to grind?
And let’s be clear: Personal Rapid Transit seems to be a rather pie-in-the-sky proposal that’d crisscross cities with small rails for tiny, taxi-like rail cars whose destinations could be programmed for anywhere on the system, rather than shuttling back and forth on a single line.  It’s utterly un-tested, and it’s the kind of thing that draws all sorts of fawning resolutions at caucus-time demanding government support, and its cost estimates (which are usually about 10% those of light rail lines per rail mile) strike this tech/engineering industry hanger-on as hopelessly pollyannaish.

But “Thoroughly failed?”  It can not “thorougly fail” unless it’s been “thorougly tested”.

But that kind of invective on an utterly speculative subject like PRT?  Why that can only mean one thing:

Minneapolis artist, activist and blogger Ken Avidor tipped me off…

[scraaaaatch]

Ken “Avidor” Weiner is indeed a blogger.  He’s an “artist” of sorts as well – the only “cartoonist” in the Twin Cities less talented that Swiftee.  But he’s indeed an “activist” for light rail; so active, indeed, that he felt he needed at least two of him.

Note to Conrad DeFiebre: you might wanna pick better sources for this stuff.  Not that “Sources” matter so much in your new career – clearly John Fitzgerald is mushy on the subject – but still.

But yet again, I digress.

The post is a puff piece about the wonders of light rail, and how short-sheeted they allegedly are in the MHS presenation on the subject.

So where is the the ballyhooed “conservative rewrite of history?”  It’s the present.  And the issue of “is light rail a boon or a doggle” is very, very Very, VERY, VERY much in the balance.

Because even if oil runs out tomorrow, the free market will have developed a hydrogen-powered car (the ultimate Personal Rapid Transit) and a network of nuclear powered hydro stations long before government will have built rails to haul the gray, lumpen hordes of proles about.

Methinks “No” isn’t the answer the Strib was looking for.

Instant Poll: Is the Shubert Theater project a good use of stimulus funds?

Read over the weekend at a local anonymous leftyblog, essentially labelling any criticism of Sonia Sotomayor as one form of “racism” or another:

But you know what? Count me among those who think that she is a bit better than the white men out there calling her unintelligent, lazy, fat, unqualified, racist, an irresponsible spender, ugly, and arrogant.

I’d be the first of those links.  You’ll note that in no way do I call Judge Sotomayor unintelligent – anywhere, at all, much less in the piece linked above – but merely point out some commentary wondering she’s a bit of a professional lightweight for the highest court in the land.

Of course, as we’ve discovered in the past four months, dissent and skepticism about government is not the highest form of patriotism after all, but in fact one form depravity or another, whichever is convenient.

But as we’ve seen, in this anonyblogger’s post as well as some of the comments in my post, Sotomayor is serving the only purposes Obama really has for her nomination; to serve as a sop to female and Hispanic voters, and give the left a shrieking point, an ugly strawman to use to demonize dissent.  Just like with Obama himself.

Oh, yeah:

*Title stolen (and modified) from Anonymous Liberal

Well, that doesn’t narrow things down much, does it?

I remember discussing the Obama/ACORN link, and some of the allegations against ACORN, before and immediately after the election – and especially after allegations surfaced that ACORN was going to directly and indirectly benefit from Porkulus – and being told “There’s just no story!”.  (“Told” was, let’s just say, a nice way of putting it – it was usually more of a “sneer”).

And I’d look at the evidence on the one hand, and see and hear what I was being told on the other, and wonder – why don’t these people think this is a problem?

I realized it when I read this bit the other day; when the New York Times claims that it’s “All The News That’s Fit To Print”, American lefties just take that very, very literally;  if it doesn’t appear in the NYTimes, then it must not be news:

Acknowledging what the blogosphere has known for weeks, the New York Times finally went on record to admit that just before last Election Day it killed a politically sensitive news story involving corruption allegations that might have made the Obama campaign look bad.

But the admission on Sunday, which came seven months after NYT staff reporter Stephanie Strom’s reporting about possibly illegal coordination between the Obama campaign and ACORN last year, took the form of a snarky column from Clark Hoyt, the Old Gray Lady’s “public editor.” Hoyt used the word “nonsense” to describe the allegations of impropriety leveled against ACORN and the Obama campaign.

Read the whole thing.

And observe the pattern,which follows Bill Clinton’s old pattern for dealing with issues; Deny, Delay, Destroy (or at least Denigrate).  It’s a pattern every lefty, in the media and politics, big and small (remember how the Minnesoros Monitor/”Independent” reacted to allegations they were on George Soros’ payroll? delays, denials and, finally, snark?).

Eventually America will get tired of getting led, and informed, by a pack of ethical greased-pigs who learned english from Jon Stewart.

Won’t they?

Ya gotta have faith.

Note to Glenn Beck:

I actually like your TV show, if only because it’s better than most cable-TV methane-fests.

But on the air?

Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Beck.  You’re a conservative, ergo right about everything underneath all the schtick.  Duly noted.

But if people were to take your hyperbole seriously, Glenn, we’d all be moving into bunkers in the mountains; I certainly want to after listening to you for an eveing.

So I say, Glenn Beck; lead the way.

It’s been over twenty-two years since Tom Barnard took the helm of the morning show at a formerly-sleepy Minneapolis “classic rock” station and made it into the most successful local morning show in America.

We’ll come back to the numbers.

It’s considered a faux pas in polite Twin Cities society to admit liking the KQ Morning show,which is into its third decade of dominating the ratings like no other radio show in the country, including Howard Stern at his peak.   Oh, the show does the nuts and bolts of radio really, really well; the interplay between Barnard and his huge cast is smooth and polished, in a completely amateur-sounding way.  And some of his supporting cast are excellent in their own right; Mike “Stretch” Gelfand, the show’s adenoidal Jewish horse-handicapper is hilarious, and engineer Brian Zepp is to straight lines what an all-star NHL goalie is to pucks; he never lets one past him.

But it’s easy to see why the show doesn’t get any love from the Twin Cities’ self-appoitned intelligentsia.  Even leaving aside the show’s occasional contoversies, the show is often described as a junior high locker room, with the sort of potty mouth language that only Al Franken can get away with, the crude, catty peekaboo sexual banter that only Chelsea Handler is allowed to do, and the sort of constant pr0n references that Twin Cities hipsters will only accept in a Diablo Cody book or in a performance art piece at the Bryant Lake Bowl.

But it’s not a junior high locker room.   It’s more like one of those beer commercials that you see around super-bowl time.

Work with me, here.

On the show, you have a cross-section of America like you see nowhere else in the Twin Cities media.  I mean,  nowhere! Quick; name an audibly-African-American voice on MPR? An identified “out” gay, anywhere in the Twin Cities media?

In those Super Bowl beer ads, you see a vision of superbowl parties around the country, each of which shows a perfect racial cross-section of this nation,with black and hispanic and the occasional asian partier joining all us crackers – a heartwarming vision of racial harmony in 2009 that also exists very rarely in nature.  And it is a rarity in nature at least in part because Americans are panicked at the notion of offending each other; race and gender orientation in America isn’t just a third rail, it’s a foggy midnight in a Newell Park Transfer Yard full of third rails.

And yet Barnard’s show is like that fictional party, with a middle-aged white guy, a “dumb blonde”, a black guy, a left-leaning Jewish guy, a schlemiel from Jersey, a redneck, a slumming news anchor, a dizzyingly-obsessed pr0n nerd and – for a few years – an openly gay guy, all doing what real people would do if this society were remotely grown-up about race, gender and gender-orientation; bagging on each other constantly, with a nudge and a wink and the subtext that we’re all grownups, so just relax and get over yourselves.

If the whole nation got along like the KQ Morning Show does, it’d be a better place.

Plus, all those whinging libs who’ve been threatening to move to Canada probably would have to shut up and just do it. 

But they’re not, which brings us back to the numbers.  Barnard’s show gets, literally, the best market share of any major-market morning show anywhere in the country.  He was the first person since the Great Depression to upset WCCO in the mornings.  In an era where music radio’s audience is collapsing, he and only he still gets Golden-Age-of-WCCO-type numbers.  Which means that it’s physically impossible, in one of the most “liberal” cities in the country, to make up those numbers entirely of third-shifters, white trash from the Brooklyns and Shakopee and Newport and the other usual cliché closet crackers.  It means that some of that audience has to be those irritating, preening libs sitting next to you who claim they listen religiously to Cathy Wurzer or Jim Ed Poole or podcasts of Prairie Home Companion on the way to work.

So now you’re onto them.  So if you’re chatting with ’em by the water cooler, and they make some statement you agree with, just respond by saying “Ex-ACT-ly”, or “HEY now, ain’t nothing wrong with that”, or “EVERYONE’S a winner!”; if you see that muted, panicky, “I’ve been made” look in their eyes, you’ll know it.

And what a wondeful world that’ll be, huh?

I’m not a big Michael Savage fan.  Never have been.

But when it comes down to something between him and libtalker/idiot Ed Schultz, I’ll cop to it; I’ll close ranks.

Schultz is calling for an “international Weiner ban”, which is the kind of joke that’d lead to half an hour of junior-high-level tittering on Schultz’ daily 180 minutes of hate:

On Thursday, May 14, syndicated left of center radio talk show host Ed Schultz, who has hosted The Ed Show, a daily political talk program (6-7 PM ET) on MSNBC since April 6, devoted his regular “Psycho Talk” segment to Michael Savage…

Having seen Schultz grow red-faced and downright unhinged in debating the cool, professional, civil Michael Medved (and equally unhinged the next day on his show, attacking me, the lowly MC), that whole “Psycho Talk” thing is…

…you know where this is going, right?

I digress:

With a caption over a photo of Savage that read “Pond Scum,” Schultz, who referred to Savage by his birth name, Michael Weiner, which he consistently mispronounced, said:

“Oh, what a sweet irony we have here tonight in the Psycho Talk zone. [Savage] wants Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s help to get him off the UK banned list. This is the same guy who calls her a ‘fraud,’ a ‘yokel,’ a ‘very dangerous person. . .’

“Now here’s an idea: Maybe I should send a letter over to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and say ‘Dear Madam Secretary, Would you please encourage other world leaders to ban Weiner from their countries. . .’

“We’re calling for an international Weiner ban.”

Video of the segment can be viewed here.

Not that you’d want to.

Take two patties of crap.

Mold them around a piece of pungent, sharp swiss cheese to form a “Juicy Lucy” patty.  Grill the patties to perfection, and put them on a fresh, just-crusty-enough Kaiser bun, with Jamaica onions, tomatoes, a little smear of garlic paste, dijon mustard and ketchup.  Plate it with some impeccable steak fries with pepper-catchup and ranch dipping sauce. 

You’ll have a real work of culinary art and craft on your hands, a testimony to the skill of the cook and the quality of the ingredients…

…or you would, if it weren’t for the fact at the center of it all it’s still just a crap sandwich. 

Film buffs tell me I’m supposed to looooove Quentin Tarantino.

I can’t stand him.

Oh,  Pulp Fiction is all right; it’s entertaining, but terribly overrated.  But a little of it goes a looooong way.

Which is better than I can say for the rest of his filmography.  Reservoir Dogs is like Diner for people who were raised by bad dog trainers.  The Kill Bills  were like the sandwich above; crap sandwiches, albeit well-crafted with with the occasional “ooh, cool!” piled between the patties of crap and the bun.  I never saw Grindhouse, but I’ll take a guess and wager “crappiest” was the adjective I’m looking for.

But here’s my big beef (as it were); what would we say if, say, a music producer came to the fore whose entire oeuvre was recapturing the magic of Tommy Roe or Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods?  We – people who care about actual music – would shake our heads, mutter etro Uber Alles people have gone too far”, and go about our business.

If a chef opened a high end restaurant featuring Tang, Space Food Sticks and Cap’n Crunch, what’d the culinary crowd say?

Well, we know what some of them – the crowd that flocks to Chino Latino to get abused by the surly hipster waitstaff, the ones that get their yuks at just how tacky people used to be by wallowing in faux irony.

And that’d explain Tarantino.  He’s a one trick pony; his only trick is endless, pointless homage to the kitschiest, ugliest, shabbiest things American moviemaking has ever done.

Wheee.

Tracy Eberly at Anti-Strib once said that my dislike of Tarantino was a musician thing:

Mitch Berg has highlighted the massive chasm that exists between movie people and music people.

He actually admits to hating Quentin Taratino’s movies!

No.  It’s a “I dislike, and refuse to celebrate, crap” thing.  Accepting Tarentino as a good example, much less as the sine qua non of American filmmaking is like going to Manny’s and ordering a cow flop steak with all the trimmings.

Look – just for future references:  Doesn’t matter if it’s crap music, crap literature, crap dance or crap movies.  And it really doesn’t matter if it’s just a well-crafted, lovingly-obsessive, irony-drenched homage to crap, or the first-generation variety. Crap is Crap. 

Tarantino: he may not be crap.  He’s just built a career out of repackaging crap for those who idealize crap or, worse, think that paying homage to crap ennobles it. 

Go ahead, Quentin.  Pull.

The WaPo writes about a colleague’s job change:

Senior Producer Sasha Johnson announced Monday she’s leaving journalism to serve as press secretary at the Department of Transportation, meaning yet another member of the Fourth Estate has left to join the Obama administration

Isolated jump?  As the artcle notes, hardly.  The WaPo piece notes the large number of reporters who’ve taken jobs in the Obama administration.

It’s not just in DC, of course; reporters in the Twin Cities have long found jobs waiting for them with left-leaning governments and pols.  A very partial list; my old colleague Karen Louise Booth jumped from being MPR’s Capitol Bureau chief to being head of communications for the DFL.  Brian Lambert left the Pioneer Press to work for Senator “Brave Sir” Mark Dayton. A scan of spokespeople for any variety of local DFL pols shows a who’s who of former producers, reporters and executives.

Indeed, it’d be interesting to start a list of our own.  Other examples, if you know ’em?  Put ’em in the comments!

…when “swagger” was a bad characteristic in a president?  Why, it doesn’t seem so long ago.

But everything has, apparently, changed; CNN has apparently hired a Swagger (or, as the stupid kids are spelling it today, “swagga”) consultant to analyze Obama’s…well, you know where this is leading, right?

Evidence of “swagga” offered by the panel included: Obama being corrected by his wife during an interview and accepting it graciously; and, Obama hugging people.

After the segment, fellow CNN anchor Heidi Collins Kyra Phillips (who’d teased the segment by telling viewers, “If you look closely, you might notice the commander in chief has more swagger than Mick Jagger…”) asked Holmes whether any white American president has had swagger, to which Holmes replied:

Maybe it’s one of these things you’re not supposed to say, but you can go from Billy Dee Williams to Shaft to whoever you want to talk about and there’s just a bit of a swagger that we associate with them…

After which Collins Phillips and Holmes (really!) “hug it out” and exchange a “fist-bump.”

 In the meantime, Mark Hemingway at NRO also asks:

A reader asks, “Wasn’t it just yesterday that a swaggering president was a bad thing?” The answer to that is clearly yes:

White House Watch: Bush swagger could crimp domestic agenda

Obama rejects swagger of Bush for a sober analysis of economic crisis

Republican Convention Turns on the Macho Swagger, Misrepresents Bush Legacy

Bush’s Iraq swagger a distant memory

A Bit Too Much Texas Swagger

Lame Duck Bush Has Swagger, Not Waddle: President Continues To Do As He Pleases

Swagger to the center: Bush is in danger of leaving the country in far worse shape than he found it. It’s time for a new direction

How to Swagger and Bully Your Way to Disaster: Bush’s Foreign Adventurism

. . . and etc. There’s much more where that came from.

So let’s try to keep track of things, here:

Out: Tingly legs, the rule of law.

In: Swagger, McCarthyism.

Do try to keep up.

That is all Word.

You are a blogger, writing for a blog that is, let’s just say, “hyperspecialized” on one local politician.

In some of your more many flights of fancy, you call yourself a “citizen journalist”.  I will, in fact, call you “journalist”; first, you have to call me “Admiral”.

But I digress.

You asked me a question last week on your “blog”; if the Tea Parties are as independent as I said they were in a stand-up interview with am anonymous blogger who was roaming the Capitol grounds with a camera during the Tea Party, “who pays for the porta-potties?”

I’m sure you chuckled a high-pitched, strangled, adenoidal cackle as you hit “Post” on that one.

But since you fancy yourself a “journalist”, I thought I’d ask you, why not do what “journalists” do?  Do what I used to do back when I was a “reporter”; do the actual work, and call around and find out who paid for the porta-potties, so as to tell once and for all if there’s a vast, right-wing conspiracy behind the Tea Parties, or if it is (like pretty much everything that’s ever been in your “blog”) a rumor and an assumption and a nudge and wink and strangled cackle?

Oh, yeah – I talked with Toni Backdahl, one of the people from “Moving MN Forward”, the grass roots group that organized the MN Tea Party.  She writes:

– Walgreens stuff for event:  10.64

– Adobe font for T-shirts:  58.72

– domain names .org, .inf, .net:  50

– building tops for barrels:  34.08

– office max:  33.62

– archivers paper:  17.06

– banners:  220.97

– Blick art:  24.58

–  metal for stand:  123.56

–  insurance:  463.81

– t-shirts Monitors:  567

– Office supply:  122.59

– 2-way radios:   330

Total costs:   2056.63

donations:   1630

left to cover:   -426

The above is [one of the local organizer]’s account for her portion of the event. Online T-Shirt sales figure is not included here, but our portion is minimal and most likely will not cover the deficit. Also they sold some t-shirts at the event but haven’t received any info on that either.

[Another local organizer] received a few donations from friends of his to cover the cost of printing (15,000 flyers and 10,000 post cards)

Port-a-potties were $497.00 (one friend gave him $500 for it)

I had about $200.00 worth of expenses (cell phone, hosting, printing and misc) that I donated without reimbursement

[Another local organizer] had about $100.00 worth of expenses in cell phone charges she donated without reimbursement. Angela had expenses for the credential materials she donated without reimbursement.

We all brought garbage bags and water (which got mixed into the water from [Minnesotans for Limited Government])

Sounds like Rush Limbaugh and “Faux” News (hahaha, that never gets old -no, really) teamed up!

But at any rate – see?  It’s fairly simple.  Question answered.

Now you can respond to this one of two ways:  do some digging and find actual evidence that there’s some larger, more sinister group funding these Tea Parties, or giggle your strangled little giggle and snark “Suuuuuure, that’s all“, and scamper back to your little cave.

I’m guessing you’ll go with “B”.

Now, since we’re all playing “journalist”, I have a question for all of you: Is the entire staff your Bachman-Derangement-Syndrome motivated blog a result of attempted lobotomies gone terribly wrong, or did your parents feed you peeled lead paint chips as babies?

See?  That’s journalism!

Playing little doop-di-doop games with Photoshop?  Not so much.

Starting about November 5, I figured that Obama, and especially the Congress’ Democrats, after being thwarted for almost thirty years, would not be able to resist overreach.

Hugh Hewitt, writing from the road on his “100 Days Tour”, writes:

The energy of the tea parties and which we see on our tour of the country may not be a majority movement yet, but it clearly indicates that the new president has blown off the idea of a new politics and a new bipartisanship, and that the signal has been received loud and clear. The unaligned voters of America thought they might be electing a post-partisan, post-ideological president but already know –and will learn again and again– that what they actually got was a hard left ideologue with a wonderful reading voice. Bait-and-switch has never gone over very well with Americans.

By the way – do try to make it to the “Obama’s First 100 Days” get-together at the Convention Center, a week from tonight.  Go here for details.  I hope to see you there.

After years of insisting he’s “Not the DFL’s Monkey”, rumor has it that former Strib columnist Nick Coleman attended “Drinking Liberally”, the weekly local liberal party that, like most local liberal events, isn’t local at all.

Connect the dots, people.  Connect the dots.

I hope you can make it to the Tax Cut Rally tomorrow!

I will not be there – the NARN show falls smack in the middle of the rally’s time slot so it’d be dicey (and it’s pretty much a project of a competing radio station, not that I’d boycott it, per se; I just dance with the one that brung me, if you catch my drift). 

Anyway, check here for the details.  And feel free to call into the NARN between 1 and 3PM with updates; we’d love to hear how many Minnesotans have had enough.

Jason Lewis – the host I always wanted to be when I grew up, even if he works for a lesser station today – writes:

In fact, Minnesota Democrats have already proposed over $2 billion in new taxes, notwithstanding the state may receive billions in federal stimulus money. By the way, the stimulus money coming from Washington is part of the greatest spending binge in history. This has resulted in unprecedented federal borrowing as well as massive new tax increase proposals.

Because of this fiscal crisis, we are ratcheting-up our plans for this year’s TAX CUT RALLY. We have expanded the number of activities to include more booths, more points of interest, and even kid-friendly activities such as food, music, and refreshments. We might even have a prize or two for the best sign!

Don’t forget to bring a food donation for metro-area food shelves, sponsored by Hope for the City.

So bring a radio and tune in the NARN while you’re there!

According to David Brauer, the Twin Cities’ Clear Channel stations are outsourcing their news.

Not to Bangalore, Manila or Mumbai, funny as that would be.  But almost as good:

Not that anyone listens to the local Clear Channel radio family (KFAN, K102, KOOL 108, KDWB, Cities 97) for the newscasts, but amid budget-slashing, the Denver Post reports the Mile High City’s KOA-AM “will now provide news for four other markets: Colorado Springs/Pueblo, Ft. Collins, Minneapolis and Ft. Smith, Arkansas.”

The biggest impact might be felt at conservative talk station KTLK, where host-newscaster chatter has at time produced some interesting exchanges. I can’t wait to hear some Colorado drone get Little Rock, Red Rocks and Rocori mixed up. Talk about your Rocky Mountain oy-sters!

Har.

Well, good for Denver, anyway.  KOA – the WCCO of Denver – has always had a commitment to doing commercial radio news; if they have a niche that’ll keep some jobs open, good for them. Expect more of this sort of thing.

More interesting, perhaps?  Brauer calls KTLK “conservative”.  Now, when KTLK-FM went on the air, it steered aggressively down the middle; it had drunk the post-’04 Koolaid that “conservative talk is dead”, so other than Limbaugh and Hannity the station steered well clear of the “conservative” label.

But with Chris Baker, Limbaugh, Hannity, Jason Lewis and Glenn Beck anchoring the station these days, it’d seem the consultants were wrong again. Which should shock nobody that’s ever worked in radio, but it’s nice to see the market put a bullet in that meme’s head once and for all.

Ever notice how you’re not seeing as much public opinion polling about the President these days?  Especially in the MSM?

There’s a reason for that: 

According to Gallup’s April survey, Americans have a lower approval of Mr. Obama at this point than all but one president since Gallup began tracking this in 1969. The only new president less popular was Bill Clinton, who got off to a notoriously bad start after trying to force homosexuals on the military and a federal raid in Waco, Texas, that killed 86. Mr. Obama’s current approval rating of 56 percent is only one tick higher than the 55-percent approval Mr. Clinton had during those crises.

Given the traction of the tea party movement (and the gracelessness of the leftymedia’s response on the President’s behalf to the growing popular dissent), let’s remember what happened in 1994 (with a GOP that could focus on a message and sell it to people, naturally).

As the attached chart shows, five presidents rated higher than Mr. Obama after 100 days in office. Ronald Reagan topped the charts in April 1981 with 67 percent approval. Following the Gipper, in order of popularity, were: Jimmy Carter with 63 percent in 1977; George W. Bush with 62 percent in 2001; Richard Nixon with 61 percent in 1969; and George H.W. Bush with 58 percent in 1989.

Of course, you won’t see much about this in the MSM; they’ve got an investment to protect:

USA Today’s front page touted the April poll results as positive, with the headline: “Public thinks highly of Obama.” The current cover of Newsweek magazine ponders “The Secret of His [Mr. Obama’s] Success.”

The tail is flakking for the dog.

 I’m codifying this as Berg’s Eighth Law:

Democrats will only profess respect for a Republican when it serves their direct interest.

The examples are legion; John McCain was every Dem’s favorite Republican – until he became a threat.  And mark my words – if Chuck Hagel had a consertive epiphany tomorrow, he’s be demonized as well.  In Minnesota, it’s the same thing; to the likes of Lori Sturdevant (who is as perfect a totem as exists for the Twin Cities’ media’s attitude on politics) the only Republicans that count are the ones like Ron Erhard, the ones that are indistinguishable from DFLers.

I found this bit from John Nichols’ exceedingly dim hit piece in The Nation just after I published my last one; I add emphasis:

Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: “Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not.”

Even now, Collins continues to use her official website to highlight the fact that she led the fight to strip the pandemic preparedness money out of the Senate’s version of the stimulus measure.

I suspect Sue Collins, having offended her Democrat masters, won’t be doing lunch in DC for a while.

And in conclusion, a line almost too stupid even for Grace Kelly: 

Did Rove, Collins and their compatriots want a pandemic?

I said “almost”.