Not All Information is Good Information

John Cole at Balloon Juice wraps up our contemporary discourse, and Republican political & messaging strategy, in one perfect nutshell. He argues that the GOP’s aim is to leave the country ungovernable, and one way to do that is spew a bunch of utter bullshit, and they’ve found the perfect bullshit vessel.

Sarah Palin is cheaper and far more effective than all the bullshit factories the Koch Foundation and others have been funding for decades.

And our media elites, desperate for access and a way to fill a 24 hour news cycle, comfortable with their village status, and cowed by decades of being called liberal, rather than calling obvious lies for what they are, will instead sit by and act like play by play announcers and color commentators at a football game, with a he-said she-said approach: “Sarah Palin claims mammogram guidelines are legally binding, Kathleen Sebelius says this is not true. What do you think? Our roundtable next with Stephen Hayes, Karl Rove, and James Carville, where we will discuss what this means for Obama and the 2010 midterm elections.”

Just depressing. On any given day, if you just quickly read a newspaper or watch cable news for fifteen minutes, there is a very solid chance you will leave the experience knowing less than when you started.

Astroturf

The Buffalo News covers its policy on Astroturf letters to the editor here.

For one thing, we don’t do third-party thank-you letters, preferring to allocate scarce space to the public debate of issues. For another, the same sort of letters went to editorial pages and editors all across the country, triggering nationwide warnings of “astroturf,” our industry’s shorthand for fake grass-roots letters. One letter we got even noted that “several organizations” wanted their talking points relayed to newspapers. The mybarackobama.com site seemed to be prominent among them. A colleague at another paper got one that didn’t even bother to fill in the blanks for a representative’s name. We still consider all letters sent to lettertoeditor@buffnews.com . But letter-senders have a better chance of getting published if they’re actually letter-writers, expressing their own views in their own words. Simple agreement with somebody else’s words is not enough, even if it saves work

Hopefully this practice will end on all sides, and people who have a sincere and strong opinion on a particular contemporary topic will put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and write the damn thing themselves.

Vicious Gangs of Medians

There’s been a spate of incidents on the renovated Main Street where undisciplined, brutal gangs of medians have jumped out in front of various vehicles.

This is reminiscent of, among other things, the vicious gangs of keep left signs that attacked unsuspecting pedestrians in Bolton, UK in the early 70s.

The Internet News Business

Hoffman Calls Givesies-Backsies in NY-23

A few weeks ago, way up in northern New York, Democrat Bill Owens defeated Doug Hoffman, a Conservative Party candidate who drew support from the tea-steepage-pouch crowd all around the country to defeat the evil Dede Scozzafava.

The result hasn’t been finalized, and the final corrected counts are coming in, and absentee ballots are being counted as well.  Every county board of elections in New York State is run with one Republican and one Democratic commissioner.  If there were any anti-Hoffman shenanigans going on, the Republican commissioners would be screaming bloody murder.

Hoffman has been going on the Glenn Beck program recently to, among other things, retroactively attempt to retract his election-night concession.  Gosh, I remember it was just 9 years ago when Al Gore refused to concede in the first place, and the Republicans accused him of everything short of infanticide.

Not one to just milquetoastedly play givesies-backsies, Hoffman went full wingnut with this insane, rambling letter to supporters accusing ACORN of attempting to steal the election in NY-23. The body of the letter is what one might typically expect from a disingenuous nutter, but my favorite part is this postscript:

I ran a different kind of campaign, one where Conservatives, Republicans, Libertarians, Tea Party and 9/12 activists rallied around. ACORN, the unions and Democratic Party were scared, and that’s why they tampered with the ballots of voters in NY-23. Will you please contribute today so we can show them that fair elections are the Will of the People? Thank you.

Yeah, the Democrats were so scared that they won the election.  The unions were so scared, they helped Owens win the election.

But the kicker is this:  ACORN didn’t send anyone to NY-23.  ACORN wasn’t there.  Even a handful of Republican BOE commissioners up there take issue with Hoffman’s outburst.

Jerry O. Eaton, Jefferson County Republican elections commissioner, called Mr. Hoffman’s assertion “absolutely false.”

“No one has touched those ballots or has access to those ballots except Board of Elections staff — and in a bipartisan manner,” he said…

…George J. Williams, Oswego County Republican chairman, said Mr. Hoffman’s assertion “is not accurate.” He said he roamed the county on Election Day and saw no evidence of tampering.

“We’re not going to take the blame because he didn’t hold his concession speech,” Mr. Williams said. “If there’s any doubt, I would never concede. I know things could happen. Did illegal things happen? No, I do not believe that.”

Mathematically, Hoffman cannot win.  It’s over.

And it’s not over because ACORN stole an election or SEIU intimidated people.  It’s over because the voters were given a stark choice between a candidate who was acutely aware – and concerned – about local issues, and a candidate who was acutely aware of what Glenn Beck’s listeners and viewers were concerned about.

In just a few days, the word ACORN has gone from being something that struck fear in the hearts of conservatives and Fox News commentators everywhere, to being the punchline of a joke.

Giuliani Still Looking To Get Elected

Former New York Mayor and punch-line-of-the-week Rudy Giuliani has decided that he won’t run for Governor in New York in 2010.  Instead, he’ll apparently run for the US Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand.

What makes this somewhat interesting is that, despite all his recent Palinist bluster, Giuliani is as much a New York Republican as, say, Dede Scozzafava.  (If he isn’t, then he’s just an inconsistent clown, which returns us to the punch-line-of-the-week.  My God, it’s all so cyclical).

Perhaps he can take a cue from his 2008 Presidential bid, and not campaign anywhere in the state except for the conservative-leaning, heavily populated Suffolk County.  Call it a “Suffolk Strategy“.  Also, Giuliani is excited to win the Senate and then quickly parlay that into another destined-to-fail Presidential run.  Look out, Florida!

A Bearded Jim Jones

Via Andrew Sullivan, Spencer Ackerman on a Khalid Sheik Mohammed trial in New York City, and the possibility that KSM will grandstand or make idiotic pronouncements somehow.

My hope for the KSM trial is that it does more than all this. It should forever shatter the pernicious myth that al-Qaeda is composed of supermen — supermen against whom America has no choice but to alter its character and most precious laws in order to confront. I suspect we’ll have an Eichmann-in-Jerusalem moment — and sorry for the unfortunate Nazi/al-Qaeda analogy; al-Qaeda are not the Nazis; but I couldn’t really think of any other parallel — except instead of the banality of evil, we’ll see the lunacy and vanity and self-absorption of it. That’s because al-Qaeda’s weltanshauung depends on a myth that holds America to be implacably determined to snuff out the glory of Islam. In reality, most Americans couldn’t give a fuck about Islam and only started to know the first thing about it because of 9/11. But that America — an America bearing no resemblance to the actual America — will be what KSM seeks to counter-indict. It’s farcical, and farcical in ways that can only benefit the real America.

But what grandstanding?

How is KSM going to grandstand?

Federal criminal trials are not state criminal trials like the OJ Simpson case.  There won’t be cameras in the courtroom, and there won’t be audio recordings, either.  He probably won’t do a perp walk, and he’ll certainly be held without bail, thus eliminating the possibility that he could hold impromptu press conferences on the courthouse steps every day.

The feds don’t put up with the kind of BS that state criminal courts let happen.  The most you’ll get is a dull recitation of the day’s events from some well-coiffed network talking head, or from some airheaded dullard on the Insider or Extra, and some courtroom sketches.  We won’t have, for instance, Nancy Grace picking video nits from the trial on a daily basis.  There won’t be OJ Simpson trying on a glove.  This will not be the media circus everyone’s assuming it will be.

But to Ackerman’s underlying point, echoing that of AG Holder – really, who cares what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say?  He’s a former, indicted board member of a morally bereft, financially troubled, ideologically unpopular terrorist death-cult.  Who gives a shit what he says or thinks?

#Acornfacts

ACORN thought it would be a good idea for OJ to try the glove on in front of the jury, over a latex glove. #acornfacts

ACORN put up the “Mission Accomplished” banner. #acornfacts

ACORN guilted Sarah Palin into doing the Couric interview. #acornfacts

every time Michael tries to get out, ACORN pulls him back in. #acornfacts

Your turn…

Reader Survey

By Christopher Smith

Last week, WNYMedia.net celebrated it’s fifth birthday.  In those five years, 6,200,000 visitors have stopped by to leave nearly 250,000 comments on 500,000 articles, videos and podcasts.

As a community, our readers have donated nearly 10,000 hours of their time to political candidates and activism efforts for which we have advocated.  We’re pretty proud of that.

So, here we are with a large daily audience, a thriving video production and web design business and a whole lot of talented writers and videographers.  We want to know more about you.  After all, you know more about our contributors than most of their families do.  So, we might as well ask you a few questions.

Over the course of the next five years, the type of content we provide and the way we provide it will change as rapidly as the Internet itself.  We want to know what you like to read about, talk about and how you share it with your friends.  We want to play with new models of journalism and start funding freelance writers to tell stories of regional import, with contributions from you.  We want to tell the stories you want to hear and we want to make a couple of bucks doing it.  You’ve built this community with us and we thank you.

So, stop over to our survey page and tell us a little about yourself.  There will be drawings for five Buffalo Prize Packs for those who fill out the survey.  The prize packs include:

Buffalo First Coupon Book – Retails for $15 and features $4,000  in coupons to local businesses!

2010 Celebrate Buffalo Calendar – A beautiful calendar by Buffalo Heritage Unlimited featuring the photography of Mark Donnelly, PhD. A $14.95 value which makes an excellent gift for anyone who appreciates the beauty of our fair city.

AUDieu:  Buffalo Says Goodbye to The Aud – AUDieu will bring you back to The Aud and all the poignant moments and memories you shared there. This beautiful 120-page, full color coffee table book tells the story of Buffalo’s Memorial Auditorium through hundreds of photographs and the memories of some of her most ardent fans.

The Fine Art Of Capturing Buffalo – Another beautiful book from Buffalo Heritage Unlimited. The Fine Art of Capturing Buffalo is an inspiring new look at the City of Buffalo, shot by award-winning photographer, Mark Donnelly, Ph.D. It’s a five-year body of his work, displaying his passion for the city, and the countless treasures that surround us.

Frozen Assets: The Beautiful Truth About WNY’s Fourth Season – View the city through the lens of perhaps our most misunderstood three months — our spectacular winters. You are invited to be inspired by the majesty of our city adorned in white, to debunk the exaggerations about our weather, and to laugh all the while you are doing it.

As always, thank you for reading, contributing and being part of our success!

New York State Senate: Useless and Redundant

Want to reduce taxes? Reduce the cost of government. Want to reduce the cost of government? Reduce the size of government. Want to reduce the size of government? Slough off a completely useless and redundant legislative house.

This would also need nonpartisan redistricting and comprehensive abolition of state authorities in their current iteration, but it’s a start.