Osborne Ink || News that's fairly liberal, but never unbalanced.

idiocracy

Mar 12, 2010 Glenn Beck, Morning Video, Paranoia, Paranoia and the Post 9/11 World, Republican tinfoil hattery, dick cheney, sarah palin

The Texas School Board has officially jumped the couch:

9:40 – We’re just picking ourselves up off the floor. The board’s far-right faction has spent months now proclaiming the importance of emphasizing America’s exceptionalism in social studies classrooms. But today they voted to remove one of the greatest of America’s Founders, Thomas Jefferson, from a standard about the influence of great political philosophers on political revolutions from 1750 to today. (Emphasis mine)

Via RightWingWatch. The events were liveblogged here. And yes, this does impact you because Texas schoolbook standards are every other state’s by default. That’s how the industry works, and the wingnuts were quite aware of this when they targeted this obscure panel for activist candidates. They mean to install an idiocracy, folks.

Speaking of which, my latest YouTube offering is about the return of paranoid politics to America. Enjoy.

Adding: the song is by the defunct metal band idiot, and was pressed to CD before the movie of the same name was ever made.

The Last Sarah Palin Post I Wish I Ever Had To Write

Mar 9, 2010 millstoning, sarah palin

Today’s lesson in political message warfare is the word millstoning. Often confused with character assassination, millstoning is the practice of turning someone’s own signature phrase against them. Admittedly, I coined this particular verb; but I did it for Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize the first time.

Words with universally positive value (i.e. “hope” and “change”) are impossible to millstone without tangible failures to contradict them. When a candidate has cultivated a record as close to tabula rasa as possible, one may shout “THE MOST LIBERAL RECORD IN THE SENATE!” without much effect.

So when we read that Sarah Palin

admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada’s single-payer system.

“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada,” Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. “And I think now, isn’t that ironic?”

Sayeth the woman with chromosomal irony deficiency. After all, we’re talking about a woman who relies on socialist government health care to preserve that token of fecundity she carries “like a loaf of French bread.”

I propose an iron weight be laid on Sarah Palin. Tell her it is a medal, and she will probably smile while you put it round her neck. “Death panels” is a meme, but memes can be turned; the phrase should now reside on top of her neocon-magnets as an award for such sterling Stupid™.

I want to raise money and offer a large reward for the person who asks Sarah “when you were in Canada, were you looking for Teh Soylent Green Death Panelz™?”

If she answers yes, that person should whisper a follow-up:

“Did you find them?”

The primary purpose of Teh Death Panelz™ meme was to fill up clear air with smoke. Every minute the MSM spent debunking death panels didn’t make up for the amount of pollution the Faux Noise fear factory created; to clear the smoke, the media must spend time discussing self-evident tomfoolery.

“Death panels” must now become Sarah Palin’s millstone.

Sarah’s Reality

Mar 4, 2010 Sarah Palin 2012, Sarah Palin's poltical future, Sarahpalooza, Teh Train Wreck™, Television, sarah palin, sarah palin's wardrobe

She’s flirted with tea party televangelism; now she wants her own reality show. Somehow, it seems to me the natural end of the Sarah Palin story is a non-reality-based “reality show.” Think “John and Kate” with extra moose-hunting.

What’s sad is that she actually sees this as a step up in the world.

Of course, Celebrity Barbie has no capacity for self-examination, which is why she will never know that her sad paranoia and diva attitude piss people off. It’s the second coming of Anna Nichole Smith.

Teh Train Wreck™ continues off the rails and long past Denial Station.

In Other Words

Feb 17, 2010 Samsara of Wacky™, The Teabag Terror, The Teabagger Fail, rush limbaugh, sarah palin

Someone is eventually going to have to put subtitles on videos like this:

Translated to English: it’s okay because Rush Limbaugh and Family Guy are political while Rahm Emanuel isn’t. Or something. And you will hear her true-believing cult use the same crap all the time:

The more she says this crap, the more they love her. See how that works?

Teh Train Wreck™

Feb 14, 2010 2012 GOP nomination, Sarah Palin 2012, Sarahpalooza, Teh Train Wreck™, sarah palin

The presumptive 2012 Republican nominee actually has 29% of Americans convinced she might be qualified to be president. This is the frightening result of a Washington Post-ABC poll. Did I mention that I live among an unusual concentration of such people?

The numbers are similar to Bush’s late approval numbers. So as far as I’m concerned, the Republicans can go ahead and crown her; she’s only going to say more stupid between now and then. The electorate knows what they’re seeing, but it will take time for the true believers to realize that she’s just cashing in on the ignorance she promotes.

Palin’s permanent revolution is a train wreck that left Denial Station on November 5th, 2008, and whistled past acceptance a long time ago. There will be no president Sarah and she knows it. But she would rather play queen anyway. Expect the old white men who DO plan to run in 2012 to  fawn all over her like a schoolboy crush.

Tea Party Crashing

Feb 7, 2010 Breitbart, James O'Keefe, Sarah Palin 2012, Sarahpalooza, Teh Train Wreck™, The Teabagger Fail, sarah palin

Gaylord. Heh. Sumptuous digs for a "populist" movement.

Well, last night was interesting.

I needed to be in Nashville yesterday anyway, so I crashed the tea party at the Gaylord (heh!) Grand Ole Opry Hotel and Convention Center to catch as much video as possible. I went as a citizen journalist with every intention of promoting my work via Huffington Post in all probability, but in the form of You Tube video that will be available elsewhere (including, and especially, my own website).

I introduced myself as Matt Osborne to everyone who asked. No one asked if I was with a media organization, including the woman who eventually “threw me out,” until Sarah’s speech was over and I was literally leaving the way I’d come. I got silent video of convention participants and Judge Roy Moore of Ye Ten Commandments. I talked to “media colleagues” and got samples of the propaganda. Though I was refused entry to the ballroom to so much as take a photo of Sarah, I watched a little of her speech on somebody’s laptop.

After getting shots through the wide-open banquet hall doors, I proceeded to interview two participants off-camera for research purposes. I didn’t take quotes and continued introducing myself as Matt Osborne.

I say all of this as prologue to explain that I’m working on a video involving Andy Breitbart; I was hoping to run into him, but was more concerned with getting video to lay out the narrative of astroturfery and right-wing nontroversy. If you follow my posts at HuffPo or my blog, you know that these are very big areas of interest for me; they’re subjects on which Maddow has reported as well.

So just in case I ran into Breitbart, I had decided to adopt the O’Keefe method: I went under pretext. The best part is, I did not lie about these things, and still got plenty of video. As far as professional ethics go, I think I did pretty well. My girlfriend thought it would be fun to try and say she was a high school senior working on a report for her government class; she does in fact appear quite young, but she’s no professional. Nevertheless, it’s her camera.

As I said, I got GREAT video that will be ready later today (I hope), but I didn’t get to meet or see Breitbart. So I was on my way out the same way I came in (the back door leads to the Opry Mills Mall parking lot; the facility has 24-7 public access) when I was stopped by a woman who claimed to be the event’s media liaison.

She had the a sharp, angry tone of a harpy. Mind you, this woman had already caught sight of us and the camera shortly after we came in  and did nothing. When I now held out my hand and introduced myself as Matt Osborne, she asked me who I was with and I suddenly grew devil’s horns. Remember, I had already done what I’d come to do; just to find out what would happen, I said two words that may get me in real trouble:

“Huffington Post.”

I said that because (of course) Huffington Post is not a “real media organization” (while Breitbart, who borrowed the Huffington Post business model to spread demonstrable lies and paranoid racist agit-prop, was a central figure at the convention). Huffington Post alone does not get invited to the tea party. Wing Nut Daily is more “respectable.”

The harpy said I would have been treated like any other media organization if I had checked in with her, but I got VIDEO of their plan for me. No thanks — the media room was on the opposite end of the extremely large building, and reporters from other news agencies described an oppressive atmosphere.

Remember, I used public access. I took video of people already appearing on video. I didn’t tape or record interviews. As far as ethics are concerned, I’ll gladly compare mine to James O’Keefe any bloody day. Which must be why I grinned when the harpy said she should have expected as much, that HuffPo was an unprofessional outfit and I was the perfect example.

I tore a page out of the Breitbart-O’Keefe playbook and she called me “unprofessional.” Let that sink in.

Anyway: the harpy texted or tweeted someone. I did not have a press credential from HuffPo (I don’t think they have any, actually) so I began to explain that I am an unpaid blogger for Huffington Post…but she was already calling security as the words started coming out of my mouth.

The harpy said that I was to be detained and held for questioning, which was not about to happen for any number of reasons. It’s still the goddamn United States of America; I am not easily intimidated by civilians playing tinfoil god. I also found her highly offensive, so I just said “no” and turned to walk away.

Then the harpy followed me (she would follow me all the way to my car, she said). She attempted to taunt us (laughable) and hollered that we were in terrible trouble — which, in fact, we were; my girlfriend has breathing problems and was now having difficulty getting enough air.

When the harpy realized how I’d accessed the building, she took verbal offense that I had not paid $18 for self-parking. At that point I turned to her in an attempt at reconciliation; there were no grounds for arresting us, and my girlfriend was having a panic attack.

Which is the moment the harpy called the police. Irony: I was in a building full of people convinced the president was an illegitimate foreign agent bent on removing their constitutional rights.

We lost her and made a clean extraction, but there’s no video of all this — my girlfriend was so scared she thought she would drop the camera.

I will understand if Huffington Post is forced to disavow me. That’s fine; I’ll take whatever bad-boy punishment Arianna determines — and make no whimper of complaint under the lash. (Though it would be great to get some consideration from George Soros, who has yet to send me that check we’re all supposedly earning in the liberal ’sphere.) The fact is, I haven’t made any money by being on HuffPo and that’s not what I blog there for.

The woman called herself an employee of Gaylord’s, but I have yet to confirm that and have reason to doubt it. More as this develops…

ADDING: She actually yelled a verbal no-trespass order for the entire convention center and the Opry Mills mall at my back. Boo f***ing wa wa hoo, I can’t drive two hours to pay a retail markup.

ALSO ADDING: Did you know that shutting a door is “assault?” I didn’t, until the harpy shouted this fact too. Interesting how adaptable definitions become whenever wingnuts get involved.

Also also Adding: Gaylord (heh). Turns out the great Nashvegas institution is a corporate welfare recipient.

Scammy Smell Smites Silly Sophist

Jan 12, 2010 Right Online, Sarah Palin's poltical future, Sarahpalooza, Teabag Terror, Teabaggers, The Teabag Terror, The Teabagger Fail, astroturf politics, sarah palin, wingnutosphere

I’ve been forecasting this meltdown since last April. From Alan Colmes’s Liberaland, we learn that tea party panjandrum Erick Erickson will not attend the astroturfers convention in Nashville because it “smells scammy:”

I am afraid Sarah Palin is going to harm herself unintentionally over this tea party convention in Nashville.

Full disclosure: I have asked several of the tea party organizations that, early on, I was supportive of to stop using my name and RedState’s logo. I think the tea party movement has largely descended into ego and quest for purpose for individuals at the expense of what the tea party movement started out to be.

That’s not to say it is in every case. I have much good to say about groups like Tea Party Patriots, but I think this national tea party convention smells scammy.

Let me be blunt: charging people $500.00 plus the costs of travel and lodging to go to a “National Tea Party Convention” run by a for profit group no one has ever heard of sounds as credible as an email from Nigeria promising me a million bucks if I fork over my bank account number.

To me, the most hilarious and telling aspect of teabagging is the self-deception necessary to believe nonsense — for example, that Sarah Palin isn’t a paranoid ignoramus bent on soaking up speaking fees. Erickson doesn’t seem to notice that his party (and it is, once again, his Republican party) has long since become a for-profit scheme.

I think the tea party movement has largely descended into ego and quest for purpose for individuals at the expense of what the tea party movement started out to be.

The “movement” was never what he wanted to imagine. Teabaggery is just the latest iteration of the same right-wing get-rich-quick scam, and that’s all it ever was.

Palin Pals Around With Commies

Dec 9, 2009 Sarahpalooza, sarah palin

Dreaming of Magnum’s Ferrari

Dec 7, 2009 Palin-Bachmann Syndrome™, racism, sarah palin

The Dangers Of Poor Audio Devices

Dec 5, 2009 Sarahpalooza, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, climate change, sarah palin