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A Progressive Political Playground |
From the category archives:
And you think liberals are mounting a War on Christmas? Watch this monstrosity… if you dare. It’s bad enough to make you want to drown yourself in the eggnog bowl. After stopping the bleeding from your ears, first.
So, what’s a bigger attack on Christmas? Desiring that government not meddle with it and allow people to observe how they wish, or appropriating a classic carol for partisan political purposes… badly Ick.
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This is astonishing.
I have now received three (3) student papers that discuss Iraq’s attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11. All three papers mention it as an aside to another point. I’ve had two papers on the virtue of forgiveness that argue that if we had just forgiven Iraq for the 9/11 attacks, we wouldn’t be at war right now. I just read a paper on the problem of evil which asked why God allowed “the Iraq’s” to attack us on 9/11.
The thing that upsets me most here is that the the students don’t just believe that that Iraq was behind 9/11. This is a big fact in their minds, that leaps out at them, whenever they think about the state of the world.
I weep for today’s youth. Apparently truth and truthiness are now fungible. Just claim something is true often enough, and it becomes so.
HT to Andrew Sullivan.
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Are you freakin’ kidding me? Hunter was serious?
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Restore Patriotism to University Campuses Act’.
…
SEC. 3. DENIAL OF FUNDS.
(a) Denial of Funds for Permitting State Terrorist Access to Campus- No funds described in subsection (b)(1) may be provided by contract or by grant to Columbia University of New York, New York, or any subelement of Columbia University.
Wow.
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I hate driving traffic to RAB, but I can’t pass up this picture-perfect opportunity. Matty said:
But the Dispatch said:
“The renovation will be underwritten by private donations to the University Foundation, and no tax dollars will be used,” said James C. Schroeder, foundation president.
Maybe the students “don’t care” because they aren’t paying for it, chucklehead. Strickland’s tuition cap has nothing to do with the university renovating the president’s residence with private funds. Nor does it have anything to do with comments made by a former university president.
But don’t let that keep you from trying to score political points, Matty. We all know the truth doesn’t actually matter to conservatives.
UPDATE: Matty is now claiming that he meant that the 2 million could have been used to “ease the burden on tuition payers”. That requires some pretty outlandish juggling. According to the 2007-2012 Capital Plan for OSU, $58.5M dollars of state money are earmarked for capital improvements. The $2M of privately donated money equates to roughly 3.4% of the $58.5M of state capital funds. Please note that state capital funds are not tuition, nor are they tuition related. The University Foundation provides additional funds for capital improvements. The overall budget for all university activities stands in excess of $2.5B.
Of course, that’s not even considering the fact that a well-appointed residence for the president will assist in fundraising efforts.
So, if people want to say that the University Foundation would be spending it’s money more wisely on other capital improvement projects, then say that. This was a poorly executed politically-motivated hack job by RAB.
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So, we here at PB have taken some heat for attacking Matt Naugle for his falsehoods and irrelevant personal attacks. I understand that some people think we are wasting our time, and to a certain extent, I understand that view.
But I also understand that the “most prominent right-wing blog in Ohio” has a responsibility – be a good citizen in the blogging community. Lying about the facts is not a part of good citizenship. Neither is attacking family members of politicians or bloggers. I think ignoring these attacks is a mistake. I believe that this kind of ugliness must be confronted to be defeated.
As Jerid points out, this stuff has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than trying to embarrass and attack uninvolved third parties. The Ohio GOP has attacked Jerid’s mom. RABid has attacked Jerid’s dad. RABid has attacked Jennifer Brunner’s son. This stuff is pandemic. And I can’t wrap my head around the idea that anyone would think this relevant or even ethical.
This pretty much confirms my earlier decision to never ever link to RABid again. I’d ignore them entirely, if there wasn’t significant evidence that Naugle is running an astroturf blog over there, and thus is doing this at the behest of the Ohio GOP.
UPDATE: I should add – I have never, not once ever, been even remotely curious in digging for skeletons amongst Naugle’s family and friends. His mother, or father, aren’t out there blogging, carrying water, and as such aren’t even relevant. For that matter, I’m not terribly interested in Naugle’s skeletons. Unless he’s practicing one thing and preaching another, I don’t much care about his private life.
But then again, I have facts, truth, justice, and ethical behavior on my side. When you are losing the fight, I guess you might feel the need to steep to some pretty ugly behavior.
UPDATE 2: the offending post has suddenly disappeared from RABid. *POOF* – just like an “enemy combatant”. Somebody – probably one of Matty’s “handlers” from the Ohio GOP – must have decided that was in poor taste (and it was). Matty didn’t even have the nerve to leave a placeholder post apologizing for posting something so completely out of line to begin with. Well, this post isn’t going away – Matty may have retracted the post, but that doesn’t change the fact that one of the “top” conservative blogs in Ohio thought it appropriate, even fleetingly, to put something like that out there. This post will remain on the internet forever, a testament to what vicious scumbags wingnuts are. Coultergeist is cut from the same cloth.
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I’m not exactly sure what Matt Naugle’s problem is, but he seems unable to resist implying that Ted Strickland is gay, and prefers younger men. Let’s not forget the innuendos about Strickland’s vacation with a staffer, and that his wife may not even live with him. Of course, all of these “allegations” are implied rather than said directly, and all done without any shred of evidence. Not that it matters in the final analysis – I couldn’t care less if we had a gay governor.
One might think that Naugle does this to attempt to discredit Strickland with the large number of homophobic voters in Ohio. Given that the election is over, and it will be a number of years before Strickland is up for re-election, this theory doesn’t seem entirely logical, so let me offer another.
Matt Naugle loves “teh gay sexors.” He has a secret longing to have a passionate, hot, sweaty, manlove session with our current governor. Unfortunately for Matt, he runs in a circle that frowns quite heavily on “teh gays”, so he pushes this secret desire down deep; he tries to shut it out. However, if I learned anything from The Sopranos finale, we are who we are, and you can’t really change that. So while Naugle suppresses his desire, it works its way to the surface in other, perhaps less obvious ways. Like obsessing over the hunk of man-meat currently living at the Governor’s Mansion down in Bexley. In order to fulfill the longing for that which cannot, and will not, happen, his fantasies become real by writing obsessively, compulsively, endlessly, about implying Strickland is gay. In this particular case, he’s cast the young men in Buckeye Boys State in the role he wishes he had in his fantasy.
At this point, I’m not really sure what else it could be.
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How in the world did Oklahoma ever elect Senator Inhofe? Were they falling behind in the “crazy wingnut” race with their neighboring states? Not only does he religiously deny global warming, he’s now claiming the WMD justification for the Iraq War was a fabrication of the media! Inhofe now:
“The whole idea of weapons of mass destruction was never the issue, yet they keep trying to bring this up,” Inhofe said. […]
Pressed for an explanation, Inhofe said weapons of mass destruction were “incidental” to the decision to invade Iraq.
“The media made that the issue because they knew Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction.”
Inhofe then (2002):
Our intelligence system has said that we know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction — I believe including nuclear. There’s not one person on this panel who would tell you unequivocally that he doesn’t have the missile means now, or is nearly getting the missile means to deliver a weapon of mass destruction. And I for one am not willing to wait for that to happen.
Anybody else thinking of Slim Pickens riding the nuke all the way to the ground, waving his hat and screaming “yeehaw”, from Dr. Strangelove? Crazy!
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(CNN) Leahy with the rimshot:
“You can’t erase e-mails, not today,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont. “They’ve gone through too many servers. They can’t say they’ve been lost. That’s like saying, ‘The dog ate my homework.’ “
OK, so that’s funny. Time for the not funny – no, sorry, it’s all pretty funny. In a “this is my country?” kinda way. [click to continue…]
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Montgomery County BOE reconsiders allowing pollworkers to wear “right to life” shirts
by Lorraine on July 27, 2007 · Comments
When I finally got close to the front of the line at my polling place in 2004, a pollworker told me to cover my T-shirt. It had the words “Vote Explosion” on it.
Seeing as I had nothing to cover it with and had just spent 3 hours in line, I politely pointed out that there was no partisanship expressed by the shirt. Vote Explosion was just a loose group of friends registering folks to vote at rock shows. She replied that they were trying to avoid even the slightest possible implication of impropriety.
OK, fair enough. Polling places are supposed to be inner sanctums of nonpartisanhip. Neither voters nor pollworkers may wear political shirts, stickers, or buttons within a 100 foot radius. Although the words “Vote Explosion” aren’t explicitly partisan, neither are the words “Eagle Forum” or “MoveOn.” I think it was a wise move to err on the side of overzealousness, and simply prohibit T-shirts bearing all of the above.
The guy behind me in line loaned me his sweatshirt, and I was able to step forth to express my partisanship in the privacy of the voting booth. As an ongoing tribute of thanks to sweatshirt guy, ever since that day I’ve stowed an extra large, plain T-shirt in my purse whenever I go to vote – just in case a fellow voter is asked to cover up.
Until I read Monday’s Columbus Dispatch, it had never occurred to me that I might someday want to offer my spare shirt to a pollworker.
As part of its “Day of Democracy” effort to fill 2,200 pollworker spots in 548 precincts, Montgomery County Board of Elections deputy director Betty Smith told Dayton Right to Life executive director Christi Dodson that the organization’s logo would be permitted to be emblazoned on the chests of pollworkers.
According to the Dayton Daily News, “although Right to Life sent people to work at the polls in May, none wore the group’s shirts because they were not ready, said Christi Dodson, executive director.”
Did Smith think that as long as all the organizations that produced pollworkers were allowed to wear their t-shirts, it would be o.k.? Equal opportunity and such?
Betty Smith obviously showed unacceptable ignorance and lack of good judgment, but equally culpable are organizations that took her up on the offer. Leaders of any politically-oriented organization should know better than to participate in this “marketing” plan. But Dodson, executive director of Dayton Right To Life, was prepared to take the opportunity a step further. In reference to her organization’s members who would be acting as pollworkers on election day (italics mine):
Well, that got the attention of the good folks of the Montgomery County BOE. I’m not sure where they all were back when the “Day of Democracy” program was approved, but anyway:
I can think of one cause that is appropriate for pollworkers to champion on election day: upholding the letter and spirit of election laws. That includes maintaining an atmosphere of impartiality. Anyone who is incapable of that has no business being a pollworker.
Which brings us back to the chronic pollworker shortage, which unfortunately is not limited to Montgomery County. Here in Franklin the BOE has over 5,000 spots to fill. Cuyahoga County needs 3,000 poll workers.
So I’m going to be a pollworker November 6 and I assure you I won’t be wearing my Vote Explosion shirt. Or my Planned Parenthood pin. Heck, just for kicks I might even make sure I’m not wearing pink, orange, or black.
It will be tough to keep my opinionated nature under wraps for a full day, but I’m up to the challenge. If you’re up for it too, please join me – sign up to be a pollworker. Click here for a full list of county Boards of Elections.
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