Orange Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye (With the Usual Idiotic Poo Flinging by the Right Wing Monkeys)

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

On Friday, Sept. 25, Speaker of the House John Boehner stunned everyone (including, it seems, members of his own staff) when he announced that he was resigning not only his speakership, but also his seat in Congress, effective at the end of October.

Perhaps the most revealing thing about Boehner’s resignation was the way he approached the podium to announce it. The man best known for bursting into tears at the slightest provocation strode jauntily to the podium, nearly skipping, smiling as he literally sang, “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.”

“I used to sing that on my way to work every morning,” he added.

From the way he said it, it’s clear he hadn’t done so in a long time. And who can blame him? I’ve frequently slammed Boehner for being the most ineffective speaker of the House in that body’s long history. But I’m not sure that there is any way to actually lead a caucus that’s contained such egregious looney tunes as Michele Bachmann and that still plays host to paranoid whack jobs like Louie Gohmert and Steve King. Not, at least, without a tranquilizer dart gun and a 55-gallon oil drumfull of antipsychotic medication, both of which I’m pretty sure are against the House rules.

I mean, how do you realistically lead people who sincerely tell themselves and each other that “even though it’s never worked before, if we shut the government down this time, the Senate will go along, Obama will cave in and allow Planned Parenthood to be defunded, and everyone will love us. And after that, we’ll hold yet another vote to repeal Obamacare”? If insanity is defined as doing the exact same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then this Congress is indeed the country’s best-dressed lunatic asylum.

Then again, maybe I’ve been exactly as hard on Orange John as he deserves. Compare his leadership, for example, with that of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She has had some wild-eyed, die-hard fanatics in her caucus. Dennis Kucinich and Bart Stupak come immediately to mind. And yet, when the crucial vote for the Affordable Care Act came up, Pelosi could get her people lined up and deliver the votes for a bill some of them had previously said they hated and wouldn’t vote for.

Whether you like Pelosi or loathe her, that’s what an effective speaker does. In fact, I strongly believe her effectiveness is exactly why the right-wing howler monkeys start screeching and flinging poo at the mere mention of her name. Boehner, in contrast, can’t get his people to stop grandstanding and posturing long enough to vote for things as simple as keeping the government open and paying the debts the country has already incurred.

So what happens now? Well, as the old song goes, “freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” Since Mr. Boehner will soon shake the dust of the place off his feet and put the crazies in his rearview mirror, it looks like he’s going to dare to work with both Democrats and the few sane Republicans in the meantime to pass a “clean” funding bill that keeps the government running for a little while longer. You know, do some actual governing.

After that, however, things might just get ugly. There don’t seem to be any candidates for the speakership, at least as of this writing, who have the gumption to sit their people down and go, “Look, we’re not going to do another show vote to repeal Obamacare, we’re not going to shut down the government again because that just makes us look stupid, and let’s face it, if the longest special committee investigation in congressional history hasn’t hung the Benghazi murders around Hillary Clinton’s neck by now, it’s not going to happen. So can we actually try to get some stuff done, even if it means trying to get some Democratic votes?”

No, I fear that the Republican-“led” House of Representatives is going to sink further into delusion and anarchy. There’ll most likely be another threat of a government shutdown and maybe even default when the next funding bill runs out, just in time for Christmas. They may actually figure out a way to drive Congress’s approval rating into negative numbers.Yeah, that’ll show that rascal Obama.

THE HOWLER MONKEYS SHRIEK AND PROVE MY POINT: The idiot who calls himself "Lenny Bo" once again weighs in to tell an uncaring world how much he hates the column he faithfully reads every week:

Dusty,
I am one of millions that loathes the mindless Nancy Pelosi. If she is your model of a good leader, then we are all in trouble.

As usual, the howler monkeys prove my point with every comment.

Obamacare was cited as an example where she got all the dems in line for a vote. How exactly did she do that? Well, she herself said that the bill had to be passed before they read it! Some leadership skills - keep the sheep in the dark and feed them BS.

And get ready Dusty - when the committee busts the lid off of 'ol Hellery's antics, I expect you to write a similar column on her leadership skills.

You know, the wingnuts have predicted Hillary Clinton's downfall since 1992. She's been investigated and investigated and investigated again, over "Travelgate," Vince Foster, Whitewater, Benghazi etc, etc, and...nothing. But with the conviction of the truly obsessed, they tell us THIS one, by God, will get her.  As I said above, they're "doing the exact same thing over and over and expecting a different result." And that's why I call them wingnuts. 

Frequent fuckwit "fugitiveguy" weighs in: 

DR doesn't seem inclined to write about Hillary. If I remember correctly he supported her over BHO in the early going in 2007.

What utter bullshit. I supported Obama from the beginning, and I've written a lot about Hillary, not a lot of it complimentary. Once again, it seems that "conservatism" is a form of brain damage wherein they lose the ability to remember anything. 

It's Ugly, Too

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

As I mentioned last week, one of the things Republicans always use to dismiss any idea that helps the middle class is, “How are you going to pay for that?” Infrastructure spending, help for college, getting more people insured — it’s always the same sneer: “How are you going to pay for that?”

Well, I have one idea that would help pay for a lot of good stuff: Junk the F-35 program.

In case you’re not familiar, permit me to indulge in a little aviation geekery. The F-35 “Lightning II” is a multi-purpose warplane developed by Lockheed Martin. The Pentagon intends to buy 2,400 of them over the next few years at a cost of $400 billion.

The Lightning II is intended to do it all: bombing, close air support of ground troops, air defense, recon — it’s like the Swiss Army Knife of aircraft. The naval variant is designed to operate from aircraft carriers. A version for the Marines has vertical takeoff and landing capability. The idea is that using one type of aircraft for multiple roles and branches of the military will standardize parts, repairs, etc.

On the surface, this sounds like a good idea, right? 

There’s only one problem: The bloody thing doesn’t work.

Last summer, the entire fleet of existing F-35’s had to be grounded because one of them caught fire on the runway. It’s the 13th time the fleet’s been grounded since 2007. Multiple studies have revealed a host of other problems. The pilot’s helmet-mounted display doesn’t work. The inertial navigation system doesn’t work.

It can’t land safely on an aircraft carrier because the tailhook doesn’t work. It doesn’t accelerate well because it’s so heavy, and using the afterburner for extra speed damages the aircraft. The main air to air missile doesn’t work, and no one can seem to figure out why. A new and sophisticated threat detection system can’t tell the difference between an incoming missile and the airplane’s own flares.

According to a report from the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, the “lift fan” that gives the Marine version the ability to take off and land vertically is so vulnerable to “catastrophic damage” from ground fire that a single bullet could bring the plane down. As the old saying goes, this thing’s so broke down, if it was a dog I’d take it out back and shoot it.

And yet the military seems determined to go ahead with this boondoggle, exhibiting truly Rumsfeldian arrogance in the process.

For instance, a test pilot who’d flown hundreds of hours in the F-35 expressed concerns that the cockpit design made it hard to spot threats from behind, which is more than a minor concern for a fighter pilot. So how did the program manager for the project respond? According to an article in Foreign Policy magazine, USAF Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan told a group of Department of Defense bigwigs, “Put that pilot in a cargo aircraft, where he won’t worry about getting gunned down.”

In December, defense reporter Tyler Rogoway revealed an Air Force report that the plane’s finicky engine has problems running on fuel from trucks warmed by sitting in the sun (a bit dicey when you think about where these things are likely to be operating). The Air Force’s solution: Don’t fix the plane, paint the fuel trucks white.

They’re even fighting to retire planes that do work, like the venerable A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft, to free up money and ground crews for a plane that isn’t going to be ready for years — if ever.

The other day, Iraqi sources reported that an A-10 attacking elements of ISIS in Iraq had four anti-aircraft missiles fired at it, “but that did not cause the aircraft any damage, prompting the remaining [ISIS] elements to leave the bodies of their dead and carry the wounded to escape toward the Shirqat district.”

So we’ve got a ground attack plane that can shrug off four AA missiles and send the terrorists scurrying, and that’s the plane the military wants to replace with one that catches fire on the runway.

We still need warplanes, but we need ones that work. We can save money modernizing and upgrading the ones that are proven able to do their jobs, rather than blowing billions on a lemon like the F-35.

That $400 billion will build a lot of roads and bridges. It’ll send a lot of young people to school. It’ll get a lot of people health care. So you want to know “where we’re going to get the money” for programs to help Americans? Let’s start by getting rid of a hideously expensive fighter jet that defends no one but the bank accounts of defense contractors and looks like it’ll kill more American airmen than the enemy will.

A D.A. Takes A Dive In Ferguson

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

The one thing that kept going through my mind as the world waited and waited and waited for the grand jury decision in the case of State of Missouri vs. Darren Wilson was, “Man, I wish every defendant got the level of due process that guy’s getting.”

Because let me tell you, folks, if it had been Michael Brown’s case — or yours or mine, for that matter — in front of that grand jury, there wouldn’t have been weeks of waiting for a decision. The grand jury would have indicted and been home before lunch.

I’ve been in Superior Court when a grand jury is meeting more times than I can count. I’ve seen a couple of hundred cases at a time handed to them. And I’ve seen those cases come back within hours with every single blessed one of them marked “a true bill.” Many of those defendants that go to trial are either exonerated or found guilty of lesser charges by the full or “petit” jury.

No less a conservative jurist than Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has explained the purpose of the grand jury as “not to determine guilt or innocence, but to assess whether there is adequate basis for bringing a criminal charge. … That has always been so; and to make the assessment, it has always been thought sufficient to hear only the prosecutor’s side.”

A typical grand jury hears only what the prosecutor wants it to hear and routinely rubber-stamps whatever the DA asks for.

The way prosecutor Robert McCulloch presented the Wilson case to the grand jury, however, was, to say the least, extraordinary. Rather than present the evidence most favorable to the state and ask for a specific charge, as it’s usually done, McCulloch decided he’d present all the evidence, good and bad, to the grand jury, and let it decide.

Sounds great, huh? I agree. I’d love it if all grand juries were like that. But they’re not. Not for the likes of you and me. Instead of the usual procedure, McCulloch transformed the grand jury into a mini-trial of the matter — which his office then proceeded to deliberately lose for the state.

If you look at the transcripts, you see DAs vigorously cross-examining the witnesses who support what would have normally been the state’s case, while treating the supposed defendant with kid gloves and accepting his story at face value. (“If he had not grabbed the gun while he was hitting you in the face, would you still have used deadly force”?)

St. Louis County Assistant District Attorneys Kathy Alizadeh and Sheila Whirley, who examined Wilson, didn’t even bother to cross-examine him on the unlikely things in his testimony. Things like Wilson’s claim that Michael Brown hit him in the face — hard enough to make Wilson fear for his life — with his right hand, a hand Wilson claimed was still holding stolen cigarillos from a convenience store robbery, and yet didn’t break or damage any of those cigarillos. (Q: “Were there any broken cigarillos or anything in your car later?” A: “No.”)

Or the claim that Michael Brown was “reaching into his waistband” as he supposedly charged Wilson, even though, since he was unarmed, there was absolutely nothing to reach for. Or Wilson’s assertion that Brown ran 20-30 feet away from the police car before turning back and charging another 10 feet back toward Wilson, when Brown (as even McCulloch later admitted in his own press conference) died about 150 feet away from the car.

Any DA would have asked these questions — if he or she was trying even halfheartedly for an indictment.

Perhaps the most stunning thing the DA’s office did in throwing this case occurred on Sept. 16, shortly before Wilson testified. At that time, Alizadeh handed the jury a 1979 Missouri statute that says that an officer has the right to use deadly force if “immediately necessary to effect the arrest or prevent the escape from custody.” Alizadeh did not, however, mention that statutes like that had been found unconstitutional six years later by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The St. Louis County DA’s office threw that hearing. And it did so as clumsily as a novice WWE wrestler taking his first dive pursuant to that night’s script.

Darren Wilson may or may not be guilty of murdering Michael Brown. One thing is undeniable, however: He did not receive something that is supposed to be so fundamental a principle of our system that it’s carved into the front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building: “equal justice under law.”

Darren Wilson got breaks from the prosecution that no one else would have. And that is why people are in the streets.

THE GOBSHITES SPEAK: 

I knew this one would produce a storm of nasty personal attacks and utterly uninformed balderdash from laypeople claiming expertise in the law while managing to get everything wrong.

As usual, I'm right. 

Anonymous coward "pearlharbor" writes: 

...are you unclear why Wilson shot Brown? Or are you unclear why this was even a story?Let me help you. Brown messed with the wrong cop. If it were me, and I was a cop and some thug reached into my car I would have shot him right then and there.

Inevitably in a story like this, some troll beats their chest and announces how they would have been big and tough and brave in this situation and busted a cap in some thug's ass. The claim of being a tough guy might be a little more credible if the person making it wasn't afraid to use their own name. 

Pearl goes on: To your confusion about the grand jury. Seems like your experience as an attorney is getting in the way of your judgement. [sic] They look at the evidence and decide whether there is enough to convict.

No, they are supposed to look at the evidence and see if, weighing that evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, there is enough to go to trial. 

Maybe in your little legal world defending Michael Brown types it's crystal clear. But out here in the real world average people tend to look at the facts and decide not twist them to mold the outcome they want. It's sad when an attorney loses faith in the system he's been manipulating over the years.

Thanks for the vote of confidence in my ability to manipulate the system. I'm in the phone book. 

The aptly named Walter B, Bull Jr. has this to offer: 

You are an Officer of the Court Dusty and when you have nothing important to say you should just "sit down and shut up."

Mr. Bull, as it turns out, "wrote and published a newspaper, “The Sandhills Pulse” that was distributed in the local community" and now stylesl himself "The Voice of NC" on a blog. Until today, neither I nor anyone I know has ever heard of either the failed "newspaper" or the blog. 

Those who can, do; those who can't, tell those who can to sit down and shut up. 

Of course, no visit to the comments section would be complete without a visit from inveterate gobshite "Francis", he of over 1180 posts, almost all of them personal attacks on me, several of which have been outright libelous and have thus been deleted: 

I would comment but it will be deleted, so I agree " just sit down and shut up ", you have no more information on this than anyone else, always trying to be more than you are.

'Nuff said. 

Truth or Parody?

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Lord, it’s hot out there. It’s hot enough to make a bishop cuss. Birds are pulling worms out of the ground using potholders. I saw a dog chasing a cat and they were both walking.

So, since it’s too hot to go outside, let’s stay inside and play a game. How about one of my favorite games: “Truth or Parody”? I’ll tell you an occurrence and you tell me if it actually happened, or if it’s satire.

Ready? Here we go:

1. A Republican congressman from Florida created a series of awkward moments during a congressional hearing when he warmly welcomed a pair of witnesses with brown skin and East Asian names by talking about how he wanted closer relations with their country and how fond he was of “Bollywood” movies (a genre of musical cinema made in India). Unfortunately, the witnesses were both Americans who are senior officials in the U.S. government.

2.  Ex-Alaska Gov. and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin recently unveiled an online subscription video service where her fans can pay $9.95 a month to watch messages from Palin and hear her commentaries on a variety of issues. Unfortunately, the launch of the service was spoiled by a glitch in which all of the videos quit halfway through playback.

3. Outgoing Minnesota Rep. and potential presidential candidate Michele Bachmann recently proposed solving the problem of unaccompanied immigrant children by creating labor camps, or as she called them, “Americanization facilities.” She said, “We’d get private-sector business leaders to locate to those facilities and give these children low-risk jobs to do. And they’d learn about the American way of life, earn their keep, and everyone wins in the end.”

4. An Arizona state legislator spoke out against national Common Core standards by claiming he’d heard they used “fuzzy math” that “substitutes letters for numbers at some points” — a description of algebra.

And now, the answers:

1.  True. Last Thursday, freshman Rep. Curt Clawson, despite having a list of witnesses to a congressional hearing before him, mistook Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Biswal and Assistant Secretary of Commerce Arun Kumar as representatives of the Indian government.

According to an article in Foreign Policy Magazine, “Although both Biswal and Kumar were introduced as U.S. officials by the chairman of the Asia and Pacific subcommittee, Clawson repeatedly asked them questions about ‘your country’ and ‘your government,’ in reference to the state of India.”

Clawson (the tea party candidate, naturally) later used a basketball metaphor, describing the incident as “throwing an air ball” on his part. I’d say it’s more like he came on the court and tackled one of his assistant coaches after unsuccessfully trying to throw him out at third.

2.  Half true. Sarah Palin’s new Internet subscription website is designed, in her words, to “go beyond the sound bites and cut through the media’s politically correct filter.” And, one suspects, avoid those pesky confrontations with reality that even the formerly fawning Fox News has been forcing on her.

But the part about the videos cutting off halfway through was my little joke. Given half-term governor Palin’s track record in regard to sticking with things, however, I wouldn’t spring for the long-term subscription.

3.  Parody. One that caught quite a few people, because when it comes to Congresswoman Crazy Eyes, no pronouncement seems too bizarre. This is, after all, the woman who recently said that the unaccompanied children flooding the U.S. Southern border came from “Yemen, Iran, Iraq and other terrorist nations,” and that they might be carrying “Ebola and other diseases like that,” even though there is not a shred of evidence for either claim.

4.  True. State Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson, told a Senate education committee that he was suspicious of Common Core standards because they’d been “hijacked by Washington.” Asked by another legislator if he’d actually seen the standards, Melvin said he’d been “exposed to them” and that there was “fuzzy math that substitutes letters for numbers.” For God’s sake, let’s not expose the poor man to calculus. Those Greek letters will blow his little mind.

A maxim developed on the Internet, known as Poe’s Law, states that “without a clear indication of the author’s intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism” (definition via Wikipedia).

Or, as I put it, “The hard part about satire is staying ahead of reality.” This difficulty is particularly pronounced when you’re dealing with the party of proud ignorance, manic xenophobia, and general craziness.

Enjoy your August!

Homer Simpson Explains What's Going On At NC's DHHS

You want to know why Health and Human Services Secretary Aldona Wos is doing a half-assed job administering Medicaid and food stamps? Because that's the way the Republicans want it. They don't like Medicaid, don't like food stamps and absolutely loathe poor people. So they screw up the programs they don't like, then try to blame Obamacare. 

The Big Benghazi Fizzle

The Pilot Newspaper: Columns:

In his classic work “Democracy in America,” French historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that “the job of the journalist in America is to attack coarsely, without preparation and without art, to set aside principles in order to grab men.”

That was in 1835. Looks like things haven’t changed much, judging by the recent “60 Minutes” debacle, in which the venerable CBS program recently ended up with egg on its face over its sloppy reporting about last year’s deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Correspondent Lara Logan introduced us to “Morgan Jones,” who, we were told, was using an alias to protect his safety. “Jones” told a tale of derring-do and high-level betrayal that night that was suitable for a thriller novel or a blockbuster movie.

He’d rushed to the compound upon learning it was under attack and gone over the wall. He’d knocked out a terrorist with his rifle butt. He’d sneaked into an al-Qaida-controlled hospital where he’d seen the dead and burned body of Ambassador Chris Stevens (cue big dramatic music). “Jones” recounted how the ambassador himself had told him he was worried about security, but that his pleas for help had fallen on deaf ears.

The right wing went insane (I mean, even more than usual) with joy. Finally, they had something they could really use to turn the tragedy into political gain again. After all, it had worked so well for Mitt Romney.

They even had a sad-eyed hero who’d only been doing his job when he was betrayed by those in power. Twitter exploded with the right-wing war cry of “BENGHAZIIIIIII!” Lindsey Graham stomped his dainty little feet and said he was going to hold up every Obama nomination until he got some answers.

Well, he got some, but probably not the ones he wanted, as the story began to unravel. It turns out that “Morgan Jones” was actually Dylan Davies, a security contractor (i.e., a mercenary). He’d given written reports to both his employer, the British company Blue Mountain, and to the FBI. Those reports contradicted what he’d told “60 Minutes.”

For instance, he’d told both his employer and the FBI that roadblocks had prevented him from even getting to the consulate compound. Like the general in the old soldier’s song (the one who got the Croix de Guerre), “the son of a gun was never there.”

“60 Minutes” first said that it stood by its story. Then, when the FBI report was revealed by The New York Times, Logan finally went on-air with an apology.

How could this happen? What would motivate a TV news institution like “60 Minutes” to be so sloppy that it wouldn’t fact-check or do any vetting on this guy and what he’d said to other people before dropping his bombshells on the air? Well, it’s exactly the motivation described by de Tocqueville: “to grab men” (and, since this is the modern world, women).

This was a big story. It was dramatic. It would inspire editorials, tweets, and the usual yelling on the usual on-air yell-fests. Both “Benghazi” and “60 Minutes” would be on everyone’s lips for weeks. They’d probably even be cited in congressional investigations. And “60 Minutes” wouldn’t just be reporting big news, it would BE big news.

It’s the same motivation that once led the same program, in its now-defunct Wednesday edition, to run a story on the premature departure of George W. Bush from the Texas Air National Guard that featured alleged “official memos” that later turned out to be fakes. A lot of liberals fell for that one, because they wanted to.

Just as there are inconvenient truths, there are convenient falsehoods, and the “Jones” story was a very convenient one for CBS and its ratings, as well as for the right-wing rubes for whom no snake oil is too dubious to swallow if they think it might be the magic potion that makes the man they love to hate go away.

However, it’s the job of entertainment to show us what we want to see, and thus make money for the producers. Journalism should show us what we need to see, whether or not it’s popular or profitable. Like so many other news outlets these days, “60 Minutes” set aside principles “in order to grab men” and went for entertainment and ratings over actual reporting of the truth.

In the process, CBS, and the wingnuts who suddenly loved it (if only for one night), got snookered by a glib con man. Both managed to damage their brand even further than it already was.

Bearing False Twitness

Latest Newspaper Column:

Steve Bouser's columns don't usually cause me alarm, but the one he wrote for this past Wednesday's paper, about the number of people getting more and more of their news from social media, certainly did.

This is not because I dislike or fear Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the like. Truth be told, I probably spend a lot more time on those things than I should.

(In my defense, I first got on Facebook because my literary agent at the time told me all the other writers were doing it, and it was a cheap and easy way to present myself to my audience. So now, a few years and 5,000 Facebook friends later, I justify the time wasted - sorry, spent - by claiming I'm marketing. A flimsy rationalization, but it's the only one I have.)

No, it's not an aversion to social media that alarms me when I hear that 19 percent of all Americans, and a whopping 33 percent of those under 30, get some or all of their news from social networks like Facebook or Twitter. I'm alarmed because I know those networks so well. I know them well enough not to trust them.

Twitter in particular is a classic example of the old maxim that you can determine the collective IQ of a group by taking the IQ of the dumbest person in it, and dividing it by the number of people in the group.

Not that there aren't some bright and fascinating people on Twitter. I "follow" very smart folks like astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, talented ones like writers John Scalzi and Neil Gaiman, and entertaining ones like actress and geek-goddess Felicia Day. A lot of my far-flung cadre of friends in the writing business are on Twitter, and an evening spent tweeting back and forth with them is like being present at a great literary cocktail party. Except at a cocktail party, I'm usually dressed. Usually. There was that time in Milwaukee ... never mind.

But Twitter is also full of idiots, crackpots and the chronically ignorant. Twitter is the place where, after it was revealed that the Boston Marathon bombers were from Chechnya, thousands of calls went up for the U.S. to start bombing ... the Czech Republic.

So many, in fact, that the Czech ambassador actually had to issue a statement on the embassy website, noting "in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding" and reminding Americans that "the Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities - the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation."

He did not add "you freaking imbeciles," which is what I would have done. This is probably why I'm not an ambassador.

By the way, other tweets and Facebook posts claiming that failed VP candidate and reality TV star Sarah Palin was one of those calling for an invasion of the Czech Republic and "other Arab countries" turned out to be untrue was well. Those tweets linked to a joke "story" in the online satirical newspaper The Daily Currant.

Perhaps more ominously, Twitter in particular has shown itself to be highly vulnerable to hacking and the hijacking of supposedly reliable news sources to spread misinformation by pranksters or more serious political dirty tricksters.

Just last week, the Associated Press Twitter account was taken over by hackers who posted that a bomb had gone off at the White House and that President Obama had been injured. Some tweeters immediately cried "shenanigans,", and AP took the account down quickly, but not before the Dow Jones Industrial average plunged 140 points in the space of a few minutes.

A group calling itself the "Syrian Electronic Army" claimed responsibility for the hack, but one can't help but wonder if perhaps some clever stock speculator was doing some short selling before having a hacker buddy send the Dow into a spin. But that's just the way my mind works after years of reading conspiracy thrillers.

As we discussed last week, you can't always trust the TV news to bring you the latest facts, since they've now collectively decided that passing on unconfirmed and often anonymous "reports" (aka rumors, conjectures and general BS) is a substitute for actual journalism. But trusting social media is even riskier.

So what are we to do? Well, my advice is to look at a lot of different sources. Also, never believe the first thing you read or hear. Skepticism isn't a perfect system, but it'll have to do.

Wingnuts Punk'd Again

Latest newspaper Column:

You know, I've never really been a huge fan of former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel. I don't dislike him, mind you; he's just never been someone who excited me all that much.

He does get a lot of respect from me for being one of the first Republicans to buck his party and point out that George Dubbya's Wacky Iraqi Adventure was turning into another Vietnam. But when I found out that President Obama was nominating him for defense secretary, my reaction was, and I quote: "Meh."

What I saw of his confirmation hearings didn't stir up any more excitement. But, as so often happens with politicians in the Washington monkey house, I find myself rising to defend him, not because of his own merits, but because of the people attacking him and, more importantly, the way they go about it.

First, the Israel Lobby tried to paint Hagel as anti-Semitic for pointing out that there actually is such a thing as an Israel Lobby. Then Lindsey Graham announced that he intended to filibuster Mr. Hagel's nomination - the first time this had ever been done to a secretary of defense nominee - in a snit over the fact that, after hours upon hours of hearings, the only result of Republican attempts to create a "Benghazi-Gate" scandal has been to make former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the most popular politician in the country, according to the Quinnipiac University Poll taken afterward.

Of course, Hagel had nothing to do with the Benghazi killings or the State Department, but let's not let that get in the way if Lindsay Graham's got some tantrumin' to do!

But for true crack-brained right-wing attacks, you've got to go to the Internet loony bin known as Breitbart.com.

After the death at an early age of its founder, Andrew Breitbart, some wondered if the muckrakers at Breitbart.com (who became famous for shamelessly doctored and deceptively edited "expose" videos of ACORN and Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod), would fade away. Sadly, it seems that the perpetually apoplectic Mr. Breitbart may have actually been a moderating influence, which should give you an idea of the level of crazy we're dealing with here.

On Feb. 7, a headline at Breitbart.com blared, "SECRET HAGEL DONOR?" The story, written by "editor at large" Ben Shapiro, claimed that the administration was refusing to turn over documents about possible foreign sources of funding for Hagel because one of those was a group called "Friends of Hamas."

Given the mainstream media's penchant for taking any unsourced and sketchy Breitbart.com story and running with it without bothering to check it out (See "Sherrod, Shirley," above), it's probably a miracle that this didn't blow up into another one of those scandals where the accusations turned out to be hollow, but not before they nearly destroyed people's lives and careers.

In fact, reporters began asking people like Mike Huckabee what they thought about the story, while never actually bothering to ask whether the story they were asking for comment on was true. But what does that matter? Friends of Hamas "has a ring to it," in the words of Lou Dobbs.

Well, the name may have a ring to it, but once again, there's no bell. No one - not the State Department, not the Treasury Department, not any reporter who stirred himself or herself long enough to do a simple Google or Lexis search - could find any record of any such group ever existing.

There's a reason for that: It was a joke.

On Feb. 19, New York Daily News reporter Dan Friedman wrote in an op-ed that the "Friends of Hamas" reference came from a mildly sarcastic hypothetical question he'd asked an anonymous Republican staffer on Capitol Hill.

"I asked my source," Friedman wrote, "had Hagel given a speech to, say, the 'Junior League of Hezbollah, in France'? What about 'Friends of Hamas'?"

He had no idea that anyone would take the names seriously. They were "so over-the-top, so linked to terrorism in the Middle East, that it was clear he was talking hypothetically and hyperbolically. No one could take seriously the idea that organizations with those names existed."

No one, that is, except a pack of right-wing pseudo-journalists with axes to grind and not enough journalistic ethics to even pretend to try to find corroboration, so long as the story has a "ring" to it.

Worse, they don't have the sense to recognize sarcasm when they hear it. That's why the right, once again, has egg on its face.

It's been said (either by Joseph Conrad or Doctor Who) that you can judge a man by the quality of his enemies. Given the sorry state of Mr. Hagel's enemies, I hope he does get confirmed.

Life Of Illusion (The Director's Cut)

Latest Newspaper Column: 

[Note: this is the unedited version. The one in the paper eliminates the first paragraphs because the editor was afraid the Party of Love might firebomb the newspaper office.] 

So now, at long last, the election is over, and President Barack Obama will have his second term. Before we get to our discussion of what happened and why, let me just take the time to say: HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!

Ahem. On to the post-election analysis.

I’ve said before that Mitt Romney was destined to be the John Kerry of the Republican Party. Each man was a rich, entitled Massachusetts moderate trying to convince his party's skeptical base he was one of them, despite having once supported the thing that that base purported to despise most (the Iraq War in Kerry's case, the individual mandate in Romney's). Both Kerry and Romney ran against controversial incumbents, with a central message that amounted to “I’m not him.” And both fell short. But Mitt Romney fell much shorter than Kerry. Why? Perhaps because the “him” Romney was running against didn’t exist.

The imaginary Barack Obama that the Republicans were running against bore little or no resemblance to the actual man in the White House. Imaginary Obama was a scowling, far-left radical, a socialist, a fascist or a communist, depending on who was yelling into the mike at the time. Imaginary Obama was simultaneously an evil schemer who was plotting 24/7 to destroy America and a guy who was too dumb to get into college without affirmative action or to speak without a teleprompter. Imaginary Obama was a divisive, harshly partisan figure, hated by all, even his former supporters. Worst of all, he was an incompetent, a miserable failure at absolutely everything he touched.

The problem with this strategy is that the actual Barack Obama that non-delusional people could see was a smart, calm, moderate with good likability ratings who’d brought the unemployment numbers down at a steady if sometimes maddeningly slow pace, saved the auto industry, and brought Osama bin Laden to justice. People heard the Right dismissing every bit of good news, crying doom and gloom, and insisting “everything’s getting worse,” looked around, and went, “hmmm, it really isn’t.”

Then along came Sandy. The quick Presidential response to the hurricane and the grateful reaction of Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who only a few weeks before had been savaging Obama at the GOP convention, blew away any lingering doubts non-delusional voters may have had about both the President’s competence and his ability to work with Republicans.

As the polls showed the President pulling further and further ahead in crucial swing states, Republicans began pulling the blanket of delusion over their heads. Pundits like Dick Morris, Karl Rove, Michael Barone and even the usually sane George W. Will predicted a Romney landslide, with Will predicting 321 EVs for Romney.

 One expects this sort of thing from hacks like Morris, Barone and Rove, but Will really should have known better. The polls were “skewed,” they insisted, because they assumed that Democratic voter turnout would be the same in 2012 as it was in 2008. That wasn’t going to happen this year, they asserted with the all the misguided and uninformed bravado of a latter-day George Armstrong Custer.

Actually, had you asked earlier in the year, I might have said you had a point. There were a lot of disaffected Democrats, particularly on the Left. (Anyone who says liberals all think the same has clearly never been around any). But that was before the GOP, some of its prominent supporters, and its candidates began taking extreme radical positions on things like abortion, contraception, gay rights, and immigration, and saying things that frightened, offended or ticked off Latinos, LGBT people, African-Americans, and especially women. That fired up the very constituencies the GOP had told themselves would stay home.

So thanks, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, Todd Akin, Rick Santorum, John Koster, Richard Mourdock, etc.! You fired liberals up and damaged the GOP brand with moderates, probably for years. And right wingers, dwelling as they do in their tightly woven cocoons where only Fox News and talk radio can penetrate, never even saw it. They still don’t. But numbers really don’t lie.

Now that the Republican leadership has failed in their stated number one goal of making Barack Obama a “one term president,” what will they do? Will they actually start pushing bills other than futile grandstanding attempts to “repeal Obamacare”? Will they actually deal in good faith on the budget?

Well, we live in hope. But first they’re going to have to do is stop deluding themselves that everyone hates the President and the Democrats as much as they think they do and that they’ll be rewarded for obstructionism. Reality, it’s said, has a well-known liberal bias, but it’s still reality. 

And Now You Know

50 Reasons No One Wants to Publish Your First Book

Some highlights:

2. There’s this thing called punctuation. You might want to look into it.

7. It probably wasn’t a good idea to base the main character on yourself, considering how much most people seem to hate you.

28. Because they threw away their annual budget on the new Lindsay Lohan autobiography, BOOKS ARE RETARDED.

My personal favorite:

31. There’s a fine line between writing authentic regional dialogue and making all of your characters sound like stroke victims.

Check out the whole thing, though. It's priceless.

via Bookgasm.