Category: Blogs

I know how Pat Austin feels

Pat Austin is going through what I am going through….:

A Facebook friend noted today, “I can’t keep up with your blog posts!”

Don’t get used to it; I slacked off in 2013 because real life kept me busy.  I probably suffered from some blogger burnout, too.  Like a lot of conservative bloggers, I got real disheartened after the last presidential election.  Between the two, I didn’t do a lot of relevant blogging last year.

via And So it Goes in Shreveport: A Note on Blogging.

I know how she feels, I really do.

When you have to strain to even put up a blog posting and you find yourself trashing posts in Draft, because you just don’t like what you are writing; you are suffering from burnout. I’m there now. It just ain’t fun anymore; and really has not been since around 2008.

Quoting myself, which I hate doing! — :

One of the characteristics of having A.D.H.D. is that we bore terribly easy. I do this very much so. Another thing is that I utterly hate having to repeat myself over and over. Once I write something about politics, Democrats and Obama; I have wrote it and I hate having to rehash things that I have already written about.

I think another thing too, for me anyhow; is that back in the day,( 2006 till 2008) as much as I hate that term — is that when I was on the “skeptical left of center” or as I like to call it; a Bush critic —- things were different. I had a motivation. I was criticising Bush. For me, it really was not from a partisan perspective. But, more from a reality perspective. I never considered myself a hardcore leftist at all. I just disagreed with what Bush was doing with Iraq.

Now that Bush is gone. I find myself struggling to write about anything. Yeah, I’ve written my share of stuff about Obama. Yes, socialism sucks. Yes, big government sucks. Yes Democrats are stupid. Blah, Blah, blah… I’ve said till I am blue in the face. I did my share of defending America from what I perceived as evil and anti-American. However, there comes a point when you begin to realize that no one is really listening to what you are writing; and I am NOT the type to write what people want to hear. I tried that crap on my old blog for a bit; and I was freaking miserable.

Oh, sure, I got hits and eyeballs on the blog. But it was not me. It was me writing in another style or someone else’s voice. I quit that quickly, and vowed never to do that crap, ever again.  I want people to know what I think, not what some Republican or ultra-conservative wants to hear.

There are some people who will write what they think people want to hear. I have a word for those kind of people — sell outs. I have never, nor will I ever sell my soul out to anyone for the price of getting seen anywhere.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that I am not interested in being a part of the echo chamber at all. I did that for a short time, when I was blogging. But, on the right; the echo chamber is quite partisan and I am just not into partisan politics at all. Some people dig that sort of a thing; but not me. Do not get me wrong here; I disagree with direction of the Democrats at the moment. But, I really do have issues with the Republicans and some of the so-called Conservatives as well. The good part is, I have company. I am not the only one who feels the way that I do.

I also tend to be quite cynical as well — with both parties. This might be seen as bad; but I believe a cynical mistrust of Government is good thing. No matter who or what party is in power. 

John Podhoretz gets exposed for the intolerant Trotskyite that he truly is

This is great;  a Trotskyite Zionist goes for a debate; and the minute he sees that he is losing the debate — he storms off the stage, takes his marbles and goes home.

I am referring to the greatest Trotskyite, Zionist, Neoconservative of them all — John Podhoretz.

See here, here, here and here.

Money quote:

Bottom line: I’d had a long day and I didn’t see the point in spending more of it getting booed and shushed. So I left. So sue me.

If only we could sue you and your family for all the trillions of dollars — and the 4000+ lives that were  wasted in the Iraq War —- which you and your satanic Father were cheerleaders for, after 9/11. Actually, I would very much like to see criminal charges filed against you and few of your Trotskyite friends as well. However, as we realists know; that will never happened to a protected class as yourself.

You want to know what got wrong with Conservatism? You want to know why the GOP is in the shape that it is in? Look no further than this man here and his idiotic Trotskyite magazine that he runs. They are the true enemies of America; they are the ones who put us in the war that almost broke this Nation and ruined its standing in the world.

It is a pity that there is not true justice in this Nation of ours; otherwise, this man and his friends would be sitting in jail cells.

 

Chuck Schumer on Wall Street and Left & Right Wing Blogs

I found these two quotes to be interesting, they’re from an interview in The New Republic:

IC: You and Mayor Bloomberg, in 2007, said that reregulating Wall Street would cause people to flee overseas to London. That is very different than Warren.

CS: It has got to be, to me, a careful balance, OK? Wall Street excesses helped lead to the Great Recession. And to sit there and do nothing, or do what the Republicans want—repeal Dodd-Frank—makes no sense. But on the other hand, I think that you just don’t attack Wall Street because they’re successful or rich.

I just unsuccessfully, with Bloomberg, supported raising the building height in midtown Manhattan, so we could build more office buildings. Office buildings are our factories—imagine the people of Michigan saying, “We don’t want to build a new auto factory, because the Ford family will get richer, or the person who builds the factory will make money.” You’ve got to look at the effect on average folks. The vast majority of the people employed by Wall Street are the secretary who goes in to work on the Long Island Rail Road, who makes fifty, sixty, seventy thousand dollars a year. I’m not saying Elizabeth does this, but there are some on the far left who just have a visceral hatred of Wall Street. It’s counterproductive.

IC: You don’t think Elizabeth Warren makes a villain out of Wall Street?

CS: I am just going to leave it at what I said.

Okay, I get this, he is an anti-populist, most mainline establishment Democrats are. This is because they get most of their funding from big businesses, believe it or not. Warren is a fluke and what I would call a liberal version of a Tea Partier. Grassroots and all that.

However, this quote here really made me wonder:

IC: Forget Warren then. Is this a problem for your party?

CS: You don’t want to go after them for the sake of going after them. The left-wing blogs want you to be completely and always anti–Wall Street. It’s not the right way to be.

IC: So are the left-wing blogs as bad as the Tea Party ones in this case?

CS: Left-wing blogs are the mirror image. They just have less credibility and less clout.

We do? That is news to me. I have not had anyone from the Republican Party contact me at all. Of course, I am a Paleoconservative and a good majority of the Republican Party is pretty much Neoconservative; but I digress. I think Schumer might be overstating that one a bit. I can tell you this; if Schumer is saying that the right-wing blogs are taking marching orders from the RNC, then he is very highly mistaken. Anyone who reads the blogs on the right knows that the grassroots/tea party crowd, which does make up a good amount of the Blogosphere; is not very happy with the RNC at all.

So, this idea that the right-wing blogs have some sort of special inside clout with the party, I believe, is a mistaken assumption on Schumer’s part.

Others: Post Politics, Mock Paper Scissors, Daily Kos, Shakesville, Talking Points Memo, Outside the Beltway, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Dish, Althouse. (Via Memeornadum)

Whoa: DailyKos Censors Ted Rall

This is crazy….

The Story via Ted Rall: (H/T Newsbusters)

Daily Kos is a major liberal/Democratic Party blog. About a year ago, the blog began running cartoons. To their credit, they paid a modest fee for them. Many alternative political cartoonists were invited; I was not.

At the time, the owner of the blog mentioned as an aside that I would be welcome, like anyone else, to post to Daily Kos. A few weeks ago, I decided to take him up on that.

Why did I post there for free? To access readers, many of whom would enjoy my work if they saw it. It was an experiment.

The experiment ended yesterday. When I went to log on, I received the above message. I clicked the acknowledgement.

Which marks the end of my experiment posting to Daily Kos. I might consider altering the way I draw a political figure for a paying client. A very high-paying client. Someone who employed me full-time.

I’m sure not going to alter my drawing style for $0.00 money.

The offending Cartoon, hopefully Rall won’t beat me up for this:

If You Like Our Troops, You Can Keep Them

For publishing that, he got the following from DailyKos’s admins:

Untitled-1

You can look at the conversation about the posting at DailyKos.

Mr. Rall, you just earned yourself a place on my blogroll. Kudos to you for being brave enough to speak the truth about Obama and his disaster of a healthcare plan.

I believe it goes without saying, that this right here; is a perfect, textbook example of why I stopped voting for the Democratic Party.

Um, that’s pretty low brow ya’ll…

Nothing really shocks me in the political blogosphere anymore; but this here; is pretty darned low brow.

Click here, here and here.

I mean, I know that Reid did this here; but…. accusations of child molestation? Come on. 🙄

Of course, this is to be expected of the Trotskyite neoconservative right. As they do have a reputation of smearing people with untrue accusations; believe me, I know.

It’s just sad, really sad. 🙁 Whatever happened to blogger ethics, integrity and moral values?

UPDATE: I feel the need to post this update to say the following: I don’t claim to be any sort of a moral authority or anything like that. In fact, I will readily admit to have done some incredibly stupid stuff, when I started blogging. However, I just do not believe that the conservative right is going to help their cause any; especially among the blogging community,by lobbing tasteless and stupid accusations such as this one.

For one, the accusation comes from an anonymous source and from blogs that are simply not reliable. I think if the conservative right believes that lobbing accusations such as this is going to help their cause or even help defeat Harry Reid; then I believe they’re going to be highly mistaken.

I will simply say this: this little idea here is simply out of hand and I believe that it is going to hurt everyone on the right even in 2016 especially if the mainstream media like Fox News picks this up.

I can understand the entire Anthony Weiner scenario. But this here; this could damage someone’s marriage and family. Even if it is proven to be untrue. I simply do not understand how people can do this and look at themselves in the mirror this goes well beyond slander this is simply uncalled for.

I think the conservative blogosphere needs to really look at themselves in the mirror and think long and hard about this and ask themselves this; is this what the conservative blogosphere wants to be known for? Slandering people who they disagree with politically or don’t like what they did politically?

It simply does not make sense to this former left of center turned Paleoconservative.

And I simply ask those who have blogged about this and now have it on their site; do the ends justify the means? Does destroying a man’s reputation simply because you disagree with him justify blogging an unreliable story reported by anonymous sources by unreliable blogs?

I shudder to think the responses by those who I linked to, I really do.

I could understand the liberal left doing this to a Republican. However, I never thought I would see the day when conservatives, who are supposed to be better than the nasty liberal left, would actually do something like this? It is a sad state of affairs and shows you where America and the political blogosphere, especially on the right has come. It is simply a sad parody of what it was in 2006 when I started.

Memo to Chris Rossini: Please, cut the crap!

I have Ron Paul’s new institute for freedom feed in my rss reader.

More specifically I have the sub-blog “Neocon Watch” in the reader; which I do enjoy reading; because quite frankly I believe the neocon right should be watched. 

But, there was a blog entry that was done on November 6, 2013; that really makes me wonder, what exactly is the point of that blog? Is it for the honest reporting of the actions of the neoconservative right; or is it just another idiotic love fest of the former Representative from Texas?

What I am referring to; is this entry here, which is about the actions of a Democratic Senator from Illinois. 

Quoting the entry:

Congressman, Brad Schneider (D-IL), was in the process of introducing a bill in the House that sought to delay a new round of sanctions on Iran. That is, until the neocon Free Beacon caught wind of it.

How dare Schneider suggest waiting a measly four months before increasing sanctions?

Following the Free Beacon’s story, Schneider shelved the bill. He then“organized an impromptu conference Tuesday evening to explain to pro-Israel leaders why he authored a bill that could delay a new round of Iran sanctions…”

So Schneider shelves the bill, and then explains himself to pro-Israel leaders? What?

The story gets even better. The Wall Street Journal reports that:

Congressman Schneider has called upon the Senate to immediately pass the ‘Preventing a Nuclear Iran Act’ and opposes any legislation that would delay, hinder, or stop current or future sanctions.

Okay, that is all fine and dandy; but this is where the blog entry stops being about factual reporting and starts sounding like an idiotic Ron Paul commercial.

Quote:

What a turnaround!

Kinda makes you miss Congressman Ron Paul, doesn’t it?

Here’s how the story would have been different were he still in the House. Congressman Paul would have drafted a bill that would abolish all sanctions against Iran. After all, sanctions are an act of war.

The neocon Free Beacon could then write whatever it wanted to show its displeasure. They would surely use every derogatory name in the book. Congressman Paul would still file the bill. There would be no apologies, and the great American Congressman would surely not feel the need to explain himself to special interest groups.

While it may be sad that the voice for liberty is no longer in Congress, there is a tremendous bright side to the story. The much freer, and non-restrained Ron Paul is representing liberty like never before!

Again, I ask; what exactly is the point of this blog; is it to legitimately report on the Wilsonian right and left……..or is it an continuous Ron Paul commercial?

Not to make this about personalities; but when it comes to pro-American policies; especially those of economics, Patrick J. Buchanan wins that hands down. Ron Paul would rather see America undermined in trade, than to protect the American worker. Which is why I prefer him over Ron Paul any day of the week.   

Interesting Reading: A brief note on why the progressive blog movement failed by Ian Welsh

As a former left-of-center blogger; I find this very, very interesting….

In the early 2000s progressive blogging seemed like a big deal.  At the first Yearly Kos, as it was called then, big name politicians came and kissed our ass.  We were covered by major newspaper and TV outlets.  Etc…

Today, we are nothing.

The reason is simple: we could not elect enough of our people. We could not instill sufficient fear.  We could not defeat incumbents.  We did not produce juice.  Clark and Dean didn’t win the 2004 Presidential nomination. Dean was taken out in a particularly nasty fashion (via the manufactured Dean Scream.)

via A brief note on why the progressive blog movement failed | Ian Welsh.

Update: I feel the need to nitpick a little bit:

The Tea Party, say what you will about them, gets a great deal of obeisance from Republicans for one simple reason: they will primary you if they don’t like how you’ve been voting, and they’ll probably win that primary.  They are feared.  Progressives are not feared, because they do not believe enough in their ostensible principles to act on them in an effective fashion.

Meh, Eh…. Meh….. I don’t know how much the Republican Party, fears the Tea Party movement. Now the establishment types; oh yes, they worry, quite a bit.  However, I do not look for the Tea Party “power”, if you will — to last much longer at all. Ted Cruz’s little shutdown drama, might have backfired a bit. There are some pretty ticked off people in the ranks of the GOP; namely Business types.  There are some establishment type PAC’s firing up, that might end up going after some of the Tea Party darlings.

What happened was this, Ted Cruz and the House Republicans made one glaring oversight. They forgot that there is two different wings of the Republican Party. There is a the grassroots, populist wing and then, there is the other wing of the party, which donates the most money — the big and small and medium size business that give OOODLES of money to the GOP —- and they ain’t happy one bit. This might be a problem for Cruz and his Tea Party friends in the house. 2014 will tell that story, trust me.

Plus too, there are a few other reasons why Blogging isn’t what it was:

  • Lack of novelty status – Blogs aren’t new anymore. Blogs are just one of many social media “Thingamabobs” out there now. We’re competing with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the rest of ’em. As bloggers, we should use them to promote postings and so forth. Like they say, adapt or die.
  • Corporatization – Everyone, or well; almost everyone is on someone else’s dole. I’ve griped about that for years. There’s no independence in the Blogosphere anymore. It’s not just on the left either. A good deal of the right-wing blogosphere is on someone’s dole too and I don’t mean the Koch brothers either.

Also too:

The turning point was when Joe Lieberman, though defeated in a primary, managed to be elected anyway.  After the 2006 House capture by Democrats, Pelosi’s democrats betrayed the fundamental principles that the prog blogosphere stood for: they did nothing to stop the war, for example.  The Prog blogosphere took it, and worse, most of the blogs that did come out against House Democratic Vichy behaviour, lost audience.  (Yes, they did. I tracked this stuff carefully at the time.)

None of which was the fault Progressives blogosphere. You can lead ’em to the watering hole; but you can’t make ’em drink. You guys did your jobs. Not your fault the Democrats sold you all out. Just my opinion.

Related:

Reaction in the blogosphere on the left, naturally, isn’t too good. Here’s the roundup: (Via Memeorandum) The Raw Story, Firedoglake, Booman Tribune and Balloon Juice