Your Daily Howler keeps getting results!

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2014

Still coming, Matt Miller and Hawking: Inexorably, your Daily Howler just keeps pounding out those results. To wit:

Last night, Governor Christie wasn’t mentioned on the Maddow TV show. People! Not even once!

Yesterday, there was no news about Governor Christie, or about Fort Lee. And, for the first time in weeks, Rachel Maddow didn’t pretend that she had important, exclusive breaking news to share which no one else has reported.

Possibly concerning “Nicole,” whoever that turns out to be!

Maddow didn’t fake it! Around the nation, astonished viewers were heard saying this: Truly, our Daily Howler does keep getting results!

Future highlights:

In today’s Washington Post, we’re intrigued to see that Matt Miller will be running for the House.

Back in 1997, Miller did something extremely unusual as the groundwork was being laid for the later, two-year War Against Gore which sent George Bush to the White House.

Next week, we’ll remind you what Miller did at that time. It may help you see the way we’ve been betrayed, down through all these years, by our careerist heroes.

Also this:

On Wednesday, we said we’d be discussing our recent visit to Stephen Hawking’s 1988 book, A Brief History of Time. Snow and one other disaster struck, plus the East Coast was buried under all that bullshit from Maddow.

We plan continue that rumination on Monday. Our question: How far can a non-specialist get in Hawking’s famous book?

62 comments:

  1. Atrios today called Matt Miller a horrible person for advocating cuts in cost of living increases for social security pensions. Miller seems to think liberals should join conservatives in eroding the safety net. He implied that there are other such liberals advocating this. That is pretty scary.

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  2. Yes, I cannot wait to read what Miller said in 1977, or what Hawking wrote in 1988.

    Meanwhile, Somerby who once ridiculed Maddow for reporting a "massively ginned up controversy," now ridicules it for NOT reporting on it.

    Writing a blog is so easy.

    Writing a good one? Not so much.



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    Replies
    1. Excuse me, Miller's apparently vile words were of course allegedly uttered in 1997, a mere 17 years ago instead of 37 years ago.

      I must publish a correction.

      But then again, give Bob a few more years and he will find words spoken in 1977 that laid the foundation for the War on Gore that raged from 1998-2000 -- and beyond.

      Delete
    2. This was praise for Maddow, not ridicule.

      Delete
    3. Anon @ 12:41: Reading comprehension doesn't seem to be one of your strong points. Perhaps you should stick to your Dick and Jane primers/thrillers.

      Delete
    4. "And, for the first time in weeks, Rachel Maddow didn’t pretend that she had important, exclusive breaking news to share which no one else has reported."

      Yes, high praise indeed.

      And Horace? If all you can add is the tired old "reading comprehension" insult that stopped being cute and original 20 years ago, then I suggest you find a new hobby.

      But certainly not a new blog. You're right at home in one repeating the same insults for 16 years and thinking it is cute, origional and brilliant.

      Delete
    5. An insult doesn't have to be cute, original or brilliant to be true.

      Delete
    6. But an insult thrown out repeatedly in a knee-jerk fashion is neither cute, original, brilliant or true.

      In fact, accusing others of a lack of reading comprehension is just about the ONLY thing "Horace Pleigh" ever offers.

      Delete
    7. Well, I ain't Pleigh-ing, but do I agree with the Horace-man, you suffered a bad reading comprehension fail when you conveyed your (mis-)understanding that Somerby "ridiculed Maddow for NOT reporting on" Bridgegate yesterday.

      Everything old, tired, cliched and knee-jerk mocking regarding you is new again, douchebag. Go the fuck away.

      Delete
    8. I keep forgetting that Bob fans see only subleties when it suits their purpose, when they need to reinvent what Bob has actually said into new meanings that they think they can defend.

      And when it comes to a post dripping with ridicule and sarcasm, they stick to the literal, rewrite the past, and pretend Bob is actually complimenting Maddow.

      Delete
    9. There is certainly ridicule and sarcasm, about Maddow's usual performance. This was a deviation from it and that is a good thing. The post is not complaining because Maddow failed to talk about bridgegate. That is a misreading of the post, any way you look at it. It doesn't mean Somerby's overall opinion of Maddow has changed -- but that isn't what he said.

      We wouldn't have to keep explaining what his posts mean if you trolls didn't keep purposely distorting them. But, for some reason, you don't mind appearing stupid and we don't seem to mind correcting your deliberate misstatements. There's a kind of symbiosis here I guess.

      Delete
    10. It's a rhetorical tactic called damning with faint praise: the feeble compliment implies criticism.

      Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
      And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
      Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
      Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.

      — Alexander Pope, "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot"

      Delete
    11. I don't think it sounded that feeble. I think he was trying to encourage good behavior with praise.

      Delete
    12. I've never seen such exhaustive interpretation and penetrating analysis of such routinely bad writing.

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    13. *ouch*
      that'll leave a mark...

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    14. Only if (1) Somerby read it, or (2) had illusions about his writing, or (3) cared what a random troll thought about it.

      Delete
  3. The average person paying in to Social Security is poorer than the average recipient. What AnonymousFebruary 15, 2014 at 12:36 PM calls "safety net" is more realistically a program where the rich feed off the poor.

    Why do some liberals oppose a tiny reduction in this program? Probably, because they ignore the fact that SS money paid out must come from somewhere. They look at the retired people SS helps, while ignoring the larger number of children and working-age people it harms.

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    1. Lots of children pay into social security, do they?

      Social security is the main thing keeping many elderly people out of poverty. Miller was not advocating means testing for social security (something that implies it is a welfare-type program and not an insurance program or something people have earned by paying into it for years). He was advocating reducing the cost of living adjustment. That would hurt those elderly people for whom social security is the main or only source of support. Ignoring that impact on such people would also hurt children and working-age people because the burden of supporting indigent elderly people would revert to families, local communities and other welfare programs. Plus, it would rob them of the dignity of supporting themselves through their own contributions during their working years.

      SS money must come from somewhere, true, but support for elderly who have no means must also come from somewhere. The ugliness of people who will not support those in need should shame you and people like Matt Miller. The rich already feed off the poor. It is disgusting that they want to squeeze a bit more from the poor by paying less taxes, when they already have the means to evade their fair share. Framing this as taking money from the mouths of children is also disgusting -- because, as analyses of Bill Maher's misguided rant last week pointed out, children are funded by state and local funds, not federal money. Paying social security cost of living increases has no effect on support for children at all -- but it does harm those children who receive social security payment because they have lost a parent or have a disability.

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    2. Lots of children pay into social security, do they?

      Anon you acknowledge that the money from SS must come from somewhere, but it seems to me you don't fully believe it. SS is a wealth transfer program. It transfers money from those paying in to those receiving benefits.

      Yes, lots of lower and lower-middle class working parents pay into SS. Money that goes into SS can't be spent on food and medicine and toys for their children. Every additional dollar of SS benefits comes from somewhere. On average, those paying the additional dollar are poorer than those receiving it. .

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    3. And here comes David in Cal once again trying to divide the young from the old.

      "Yes, lots of lower and lower-middle class working parents pay into SS."

      And they happily do it because they know it will be there for them some day. That's called living in a civilized society, not some fucking Randoid wet dream.

      Delete
    4. mm - People "happily" pay their SS assessments, because they have no choice. As Chuck Colson said, "If you have them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow."

      I don't know how many working people are confident that SS will be there for them some day. E.g., Bob has written to point out that many people think SS needs to be "saved". http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh070808.shtml People who hold this opinion presumably think there's a real risk that SS won't be saved.

      Another applicable aphorism is Stein's Law, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop," Long term, today's tax rates will not support will not support today's rates of government spending. This is the case, not only for the federal government, but for many state and local governments. Something will have to change. Therefore, one should be wary of any long term prediction of tax rates or of government programs.

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    5. David, if that's the case then I'm sure Republicans would sweep the House and Senate if they just ran on abolishing SS. Then all those poor people will have their choice.

      And yes, Bob has written about the fact that many young people don't think they'll ever receive SS benefits. And why is that?

      **************
      For the most part, young people “don’t think Social Security is going to be there for them” because they’ve been deceived, for year after year, by an army of pseudo-conservative dissemblers who are given free rein by our sad, hapless press corps.
      ******************http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh092807.shtml

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    6. Oh and one more thing DinC. Here's my little saying.

      Once a dick, always a dick.

      Republicans have been trying to destroy SS from the moment it was created.

      Delete
    7. Today's tax rates are the lowest they've been a long time. Spending is also lower than in the past. Yet, conservatives are still complaining and trying to lower both. Unfortunately, services are worse, infrastructure is deteriorating, and our government is not as effective as it has been in the past either. So, we are seeing the effects of neglecting to fund our government and it is hurting people. People have a lot more to worry about than social security, and it is conservatives who are contributing to that worry.

      Whether young people think social security will be there or not, they will get their checks when they reach retirement age. If they manage to save beyond that, more power to them. So, what is the harm in young people worrying about their old age? If it causes them to join with conservatives in dismantling the ONLY source of security they will have in old age, they will be doing something very foolish economically speaking. If you abet them in this, David, you are doing something evil.

      The financial health of our nation does not depend on taxes or spending. It depends on the success of our industries. To starve education, development of new technologies, investment in infrastructure that supports our economy, and so on, by decreasing spending is doing far more harm than giving seniors a reasonable cost of living increase so they do not slip into poverty (and thereby become a bigger drain on public resources). An inability to see how everything fits together makes people like you, David, vulnerable to the demagoguery of the right, which is not driven by concern for anyone's welfare except the wealthy. Those people already have enough money. It is time for them to care about someone besides themselves. If that fits you, David, then people apply this to yourself as well.

      Delete
  4. Bob, you know I love you, but you may suffer from delusions of grandeur if you think MSNBC is taking its cues from your blog. Who knows the actual reason Maddow didn't mention Christie? But it's much more likely it had something to do with Bill Maher's clever post: http://www.real-time-with-bill-maher-blog.com/index/2014/2/14/msnbc-ya

    Who do you suppose is the bigger name among liberal "elites": Somerby or Maher?

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    1. Do you also believe that Somerby has a staff of analysts working on a campus?

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  5. OMB (The Third Time Is The Charm) A KZ Rerun

    Maddow has been playing the fool, a role to which she brings many skills in an age when anything goes. Ditto-heads love her. BOB (paraphrased badly) Part 4 Anything Goes

    Yes! The answer to the question posed in our earlier comment, did BOBreaders ever get a chance to read McMorris Roger's (McM R)actual "false bogus horror story misstatement" is yes. Thank BOB in blogosphere! Praise be to BOB and the bandwidth. In the third post of the fourth in a series! Both sentences appear! Anything goes! Everything's Included! Framed by "What she said was wrong" and another lengthy explanation of "facts" presented by the Spokane Review.

    But let's put these two horror filled bogus sentences to the Christie/Baroni Test: presumed true by virtue of ignorance/misleading underlings/good intentions.

    Let's play BOB!

    "Not long ago, I got a letter from Bette in Spokane" begins the high ranking pol. This seems true. The Review article indicates a woman named Bette communicated with McM R, although not defined specifically by letter. It happened "late last year." McM R spoke in the first month of this year so we think that meets a reasonable standard of recency.

    "who had hoped the president's health care law would save her money" said McM R. Bette could have been better defined than by her hopes for an outcome from legislation, but Obama did run on "Hope." We have no idea what emotions Bette communicated to McM R. The Review reporter should have asked her. McM R could have given Bette's full name, but her staff failed to follow up on a phone call to her so McM R rightly protected her privacy. This sloppy staff work also could have resulted in better information in the speech. McM R's staff may have been trying in good faith to study the details of Bette's situation and just bungled it. We don't know.

    "but found out instead her premiums were going up nearly $700 a month." McM R concludes her first sentence or her contribution to this "ever mendacious campaign." This, of course, is where the scandal vultures, BOB included, dunk, hang, and shoot down the story, causing it to asphixiate, drown, and collapse. The numbers, they conclude, are not accurate. It is hard to tell from the many figures thrown about what is the truth. But giving McM R the Baroni bounce, we must note we have never seen the letter, if it was a letter. Bette may have used the phrase "nearly $700 a month." McM R may have been seeking the answer to the penny when her staff fell down on the job.

    Can we talk? BOB disappeared something. The Review added an Editor's Note to their article. This note indicated Bette got a policy offer with even higher premiums, $1,679 a month. This means McM R could have said Bette's premiums jumped "almost a dozen hundred" or even "over 300%!" We salute the Congresswoman for her modesty. We fault BOB for leaving it out. (In BOB's defense, the Editor's note was 60 words, only one word shorter than the entire portion of the speech devoted to Bette, if you count the second sentence, which really isn't just about Bette. We know BOB can count.)

    "We've all talked to too many people who've received cancellation notices they didn't expect or who can no longer see the doctors they always have." This long close to this major embellishment is conceded seemingly even by BOB. "Bette Grenier of Spokane actually did get a cancellation notice", he wrote, implying McM R was right about this. But McM R did not say Bette's policy was cancelled. She may not have known. She did not say Bette could not see her favorite doctor either. She just said we've all talked to too many such people. Clearly McM R never talked to Bette. Bette never even bothered to call her staff back.

    KZ

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    1. "McM R's staff may have been trying in good faith to study the details of Bette's situation and just bungled it. We don't know."

      Absolutely. After all, we can never hold any politician responsible for the malfeasance of the people who work for them. This theme has been resounding on TDH for nearly three months now.

      And to add some context, the "Bette in Spokane" stories were perfected by no less a pol than the guy who made a certain blogger's roommate his running mate in 1992.

      Bill Clinton was a master at finding Butch in Oklahoma City or Alice in Minneapolis and using their stories to illustrate a strong point about policy. And the eager "scandal culture" press of that day was anxious to prove him wrong, only they couldn't. Bill's stories were effective because they were true.

      Republicans have been trying to imitate this for many years, forgetting the fundamental correlation between effectiveness and truth hence Sen. Maverick's flop with "Joe the Plumber," and McMorris Rodgers' fable of "Bette in Spokane."

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    2. And shouldn't we also apply the new "(Hearts) Baroni" test as well.

      I'm sure that if we asked HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius herself, she would deny that McMorris Rodgers commutes to work on a broomstick.

      This means she must be telling the truth, or at the very least, thought that the fable she would be selling to all those uninformed NY Times readers was true at the time she said it, before those pesky "additional details" were added.

      Delete
    3. All could be true. It is possible. Except maybe the part about Sebelius. Well, maybe even that. You could be sure. We aren't.

      KZ

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    4. I assure you from flyover country that Secretary Sebelius is Malala if ever a pol was Malala. Far more than Sokolich, whose story keeps changing with those Christish "additional details."

      Even though McMorris Rodgers said blatant misrepresentations about the ACA on national TV, thereby misinforming millions of NY Times readers, Secretary Sebelius still (hearts) her in her (hearts) of (hearts).

      Delete
  6. Calling KZ!

    Since you are a master of deciphering alien languages, can you explain this to me?

    "On Wednesday, we said we’d be discussing our recent visit to Stephen Hawking’s 1988 book, A Brief History of Time. Snow and one other disaster struck, plus the East Coast was buried under all that bullshit from Maddow."

    One would think that being stuck inside one's home by the snow and "one other disaster" (the broken key? I will leave it to the victims of Katrina and Sandy to argue with Somerby over the meaning of "disaster.") would be the perfect opportunity to "ruminate" (or is it "muse"?) on a book published 26 years ago.

    After all, Bob's Fan Club rushed to Wikipedia to learn everything they could learn about "A Brief History of Time" without actually reading the book. Here they are, primed for a deep discussion, and their hero leaves them in the lurch.

    Is this any way to treat his fans?

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    1. Isn't it an advantage that we now have time to dig up a copy of Hawking's book and see how far we each can get before failing to understand it? Book clubs work best if the members actually read the book being discussed.

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    2. This is presuming that the few remaining members of the Bob Fan Club actually own a copy of Hawking's 1988 tome, or have the inclination to run to their library or the nearest half-price used book score to dig one up that way.

      Why would they go to all that trouble when Wikipedia and its Cliff Notes version of the Cliff Notes is a mere mouseclick away?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Brief_History_of_Time

      Delete
  7. We agree. It has been a tough winter although your temperature varies depending on what part of the 2% of the globe you live on you live in (read that slowly). It is a tribal thing, especially for ruminants on the remnants of the jersey shore where rubes rally for Rachel.

    Oh, to answer your question. We copied and pasted our comment from the last post over here at this one. It is not snowing here so we could. More traffic. Cone free environment.

    Yes. TDH is FANtastic. Tomorrow: A whole post about something other than Rachel. Until the last line of a four part series.

    KZ

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  8. At the end of last year, the Media was basically quite cooperative with
    The Republicans as they screamed to the sky about the problems with the Obamacare Website. It was a major travesty, perhaps the biggest
    disaster of all time, we might have learned daily at Fox News.

    It served as a very helpful distraction from the government shutdown,
    a costly and unnecessary debacle the Tea Party had inflicted on The Nation.

    Now we can see that it was roughly as substantial as the I.R.S. scandal, Bullshit, that is.

    Has Bob really been doing his job, watching how this played out? Or has he rather been too concerned with, well, basically Rachel Maddow, to see if the left is getting a break? Did the young Somerby really pay attention to the deal Jimmy Carter got from the Press? Has he ever really been concerned about these things beyond how they affected a personal friend of his in one instance?

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    1. Are you talking about Pete Seeger?

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    2. Greg, you know very well how this game works. Everything relates back to the War on Gore.

      Chris Christie's deputy chief of staff ordering "traffic problems"? It's really more proof of how vile the War on Gore was.

      We saw this play out hard during the last presidential election.

      Mitt says he loves firing people? War on Gore.

      Mitt led a gang that held down a kid and cut off his hair? War on Gore.

      Mitt saying he doesn't care about 47 percent of the country? War on Gore.

      Now in fairness, Bob did address the pseudo-scandal of the ACA startup, including a Nov. 20 post about how incoherent Nancy Pelosi was in defending the "if you like it, you can keep it" line.

      You will have to scour the incomparable archives yourself to find out if Bob said anything about a "massively ginned up controversy" regarding the start up of the ACA Web site.

      I have and it seems Bob was pretty much preoccupied at the time with examining test scores from Finland.








      Delete
    3. Well, after a summer bashing the Polish miracle, don't you think by the time of the ACA roll out those Finn's were due for some comeuppance.

      Delete
    4. You're an idiot, 7:06 PM Anon.

      You don't like hearing about the War on Gore, that's your prerogative.

      But only an idiot (you) thinks reference to media behavior in the present as being like (similar to, sharing the same traits as) media behavior then is an attempt at "proof of how vile the War on Gore was."

      Delete
    5. Personally, putting "The War On Gore" up front as a major element in the disaster of 2000 is O.K. with me, I don't mind talking about it. My question is, does the Daily Howler really care about the make up of the Corporate Press beyond the attacks on Clinton and Gore, the latter being at least a one time personal friend? His utter disinterest in how the Press played the Obama care disaster, as a way of lettering The Republicans off the hook for the government shut down (yes, perhaps they were going to anyway) raises questions. I didn't go to Harvard (by a longshot) but I could see rough draft of The War on Gore in the way Jimmy Carter was battered. Yet Bob seems to think everything was O.K. back in the days of David and Walter. So, it's possible this boring obsession with Rachel may have everything to do with the refusal to see what's right in front of his face. Or, maybe Bob's old pal O'Reilly DIDN'T ask the President of The United States about the I.R.S. Scandal.

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    6. Greg, my criticism is in the fact that the "War on Gore" is the lens through which Bob now views EVERYTHING. It reached the point of ridiculousness long ago, but certainly no better expressed by than by such posts entitled "Chris Christie said he invented the Internet."

      To Somerby, everything becomes the "War on Gore" -- pseudo-scandals manufactured by a scandal culture media, and we are well beyond the point where Somerby even bothers to try to distinguish actual scandals from phony ones.

      Your point about Carter is a good one. I would go back even more and point that there was quite a "War on Truman" as well.




      Delete
    7. A scandal becomes an actual scandal where there is proof it exists beyond the accusations of partisan attackers (of whatever party).

      Gore is mentioned maybe once a month here. Trying to portray Somerby as someone with little to say entails pretending that all that is ever mentioned here is Gore. That is absurd to anyone who reads this blog regularly. While the war on Gore is used as an example and analogy, the main focus here is nearly always current events.

      Even if Somerby were talking about Gore every day (which he is not), that would not negate whatever point he is making in other posts here.

      The history of press attacks on candidates goes back to the revolution. You can point to highly partisan papers waging wars on opposition candidates using scurrilous attacks involving out-of-wedlock children, bad blood, drunkenness, and so on. People were able to discount this by considering the partisan proclivities of the publishers. Today, with the NY Times and other media pretending to be unbiased, attacks on candidates (mostly manufactured) tend to be believed by readers instead of discounted as examples of bias. We have come to expect neutral reporting and do not recognize when it is not neutral. That is one of the main points of this blog. To construe this as Somerby defending a college pal is ridiculous. So, where as you coming from in your attacks on Somerby? You pretend to be disinterested readers, but I don't think that is true because anyone who was a casual reader wouldn't be pretending that Gore is the only topic here, especially lately.

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    8. "Gore is mentioned maybe once a month here."

      I truly do not know what to say to a person who would think that is true.

      Delete
    9. See KZ's list of Dec topics below. Then say "I guess I was wrong."

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    10. List of topics? Did you actually read any of them to make sure you were correct? I would, but I remember there was one in there about how Rachel Maddow doesn't care about low-income black children because she had the gall to ask the media to be sensitive and not air the 911 tapes about the Newtown shooting on the first anniversary of that tragedy.

      I would be very surprised if there were no mention of the War on Gore, or the pseud-scandals of the 1990s.

      I don't have the stomach to look, having been reminded by KZ's list how he floundered from topic to topic looking for anything that would attract clicks and eyeballs as he entered his fourth month commuting between Baltimore, Poland and Finland.

      So I will concede your point: Bob Somerby actually went TWO WHOLE WEEKS without mentioning Al Gore.

      Then he stumbled upon Chris and the Bridge and the pent-up demand was released!

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    11. Anon @ 10:59

      "The press corps' war against Candidate Gore..."

      It appears afresh atop every page even when it does not wind its way into a post.



      Delete
    12. Beneath the words "Companion Site".

      Delete
  9. Your Howler Sometimes Misss Results

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/on-the-killing-of-jordan-davis-by-michael-dunn/283870/

    ReplyDelete
  10. OMB (The Way We Were/Truth to Tell No One Cares)

    December 2013, America's blog slept, musing mightily over minor cares, unaware of the brewing storm that would plunge it into months long mortal combat.

    Football 12/2/13

    "Script never sleeps, college football edition: John Feinstein knows who should play Florida State for the college football title......
    Who should be in the title game? There’s no real way to tell....
    Here too, script never sleeps.....In our view, there are no “two best teams” this year.....It isn’t clear that Auburn rules. Will someone teach Feinstein to say this? " BOB 12/02/13

    Finland 12/2/13
    Homer, Hector, Holocaust 2/2/13
    Finland 12/3/13
    Football 12/3/13
    Finland 12/3/13
    Silly Salon 12/3/13
    Rachel Maddow Doesn't Care About Black Kids 12/4/13
    Silly Salon 12/4/13
    Silly Salon 12/5/13
    Finland! 12/5/13
    MSNBC (Hayes) 12/5/13
    MSNBC (Bashir) 12/5/13
    Finland !! 12/6/13
    Krugman (Silly Salon) 12/6/13
    Finland !!! (Special Saturday Edition) 12/7/13
    PISA Cult 12/9/13
    Silly Dowd 12/9/13
    Silly Salon 12/9/13
    PISA Cult 12/10/13
    Silly Salon 12/10/13
    Mandela Musings 12/10/13
    PISA Cult 12/11/13
    Silly Salon Mandela + Walsh 12/12/13
    Pisa Cult 12/12/13

    "Today, though, we’re often struck—indeed, overwhelmed—by the monumental, overpowering dumbness of the American discourse...

    The dumbness of the discourse on Fox. The dumbness of the discourse from Rachel and Lawrence.

    The dumbness of the leading books about our public schools. The dumbness of the editorial in yesterday’s New York Times.

    Beyond that, one more point seems clear to us. As we honor the work of Ripley and Ravitch, we prove that we are secretly too dumb to be self-governing.

    Truth to tell, no one cares much about any of this." BOB 12/12/13

    DECEMBER 13, 1013: A DATE THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY

    "Maddow Proves it All Night Long!

    Won’t stop teasing Chris Christie: Just eighteen minutes into the show, Maddow was teasing Chris Christie.

    She wanted us rubes to watch her full hour."

    BOB knew at once his duty. He knew looked back!

    KZ






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    1. And as certain as Red Pollard once rode Seabiscuit, Somerby will ride his new thoroughbred clickbait, Bridgegate, out of Maddow and sired by Zimmerman.

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    2. Nothing about Gore in KZ's list.

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    3. I particularly call attention to the Dec. 4 post: "Rachel Maddow's very long, rather strange presentation."

      KZ describes it, quite accurately, with a quote from Somerby: "Let us tell you who Maddow’s channel doesn’t care about. Her channel doesn’t care about our country’s “black” kids, or about their parents."

      What could possibly prompt such a vile, hateful conclusion?

      It was the fact that Rachel Maddow implored, and even begged, her colleagues in the media not to broadcast the 911 tapes with the sounds of children being murdered.

      These were white, middle-class children, ergo, Maddow doesn't care about low-income black children.

      If ever one post revealed the sick, warped mind that Bob Fans so dearly worship, if ever one post ever exposed the depth of his utter hatred of Rachel Maddow, this is the one.

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    4. Using the death of children to attack Somerby is indeed vile.

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    5. Right. Using the death of children to attack Rachel Maddow is the brilliant analysis we come to expect from Somerby.

      Pointing out that Somerby used the death of children to attack Maddow is vile.

      Such is the mind of the Bob Fan in which nothing that Somerby ever says, no matter how vile, can't be turned around to accuse Somerby's critics of the very viless of their Hero.

      You have learned well, Grasshopper. Perhaps he will now promote you to deputy pig killer.

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    6. It is a waste of everyone's time to look up how you have distorted quotes to charge Somerby with something ugly. It is enough to point out how your hatred tarnishes your soul.

      Delete
  11. Regarding that opening Football post.

    Auburn played (and lost) to Florida State in the National Championsip. Arizona State was dismantled in the Who Cares Bowl by lowly Texas Tech. Your Howler Gets Results, but doesn't publish them when they betray his prognostication.

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    1. And please note that in his second football post, Somerby reached all the way back to 1998 to find evidence that Arizona State belonged in the big game in 2014 instead of Auburn.

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  12. It's pretty stunning how much true media malpractice and clowning --- with significant implications for the country --- Bob has flat out ignored this past year because he can't stop playing with his favorite toys: race (Zimmerman) and Rachel. May I suggest that anyone inclined to read this site for media criticism skip it from now on and go right to Krugman. Bob used to serve as a useful corrective. He has become the very clown show he derides.

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    1. How about if you skip this site and we continue to read what we want? No reason we cannot read this blog AND Krugman.

      Media Matters does a great job of documenting all that media malpractice on the right. I'd bet most of us read that too. They aren't so good at seeing the mote in their own eye. That's why this site is important.

      We're all bozos on this bus. But if you want to compare clown shoes, I'd say yours are bigger. No one mentions Zimmerman here except trolls, mean ugly trolls.

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    2. Zimmerman is to trolls as Gore is to Somerby?

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