mjh's blog

John Leo Lies

USNews.com: John Leo: A regrettable limit on life (4/4/05)

Think of the Terri Schiavo case as another red-versus-blue issue. Congress, Republican-dominated and therefore mostly red, asked the federal courts to take a fresh look. The federal judiciary, in its customary imperial blue, contemptuously told Congress to take a hike. It wouldn’t delay the execution for even a few days. For that, you need to be a convicted cop killer. …

Terri Schiavo, who is severely damaged, but not in pain or dying, not brain dead, and in no position to protest her own execution on grounds that other people consider it best for her. …

She has never been given a PET scan, one of the most sophisticated tests used to diagnose PVS, apparently because her husband refused to allow it. The killing of Schiavo is a scandal successfully redefined as unexceptional and therefore moral.

Somebody needs to represent the brain-dead and John Leo is certainly qualified.

I read Leo in part because it’s good for me, just like a small amount of arsenic or a few leeches might be. If Leo is one of the deep thinkers, they are indeed a shallow bunch. His regular appearance is ample proof the “liberal media” hasn’t been very effective in shutting out the Radical Right (we’re just not as effective as fascists as they will be). Of course, you might argue that Leo is a straw man, a liberal writing as stupidly as possible to make all conservatives look bad. It’s working.

In what I am sure won’t be the last Schiavo column, even though she is now dead, Leo does it all. He misrepresents, distorts, and distracts. Just one of his lies: calling the judiciary ‘blue’ when conservatives have appointed more judges than liberals. The fascist end-game involves destroying the third branch of government — from within or without doesn’t matter to them.

While the vast majority of those surveyed — on the left and the right — said “keep the government out of Schiavo’s fate,” Leo says it is another Red vs Blue issue (and you know who the good guys are). That’s a bald-faced lie told to split people and exploit that split. Typical behavior for Leo and his ilk.

Leo knows little about the facts of Schiavo’s condition and less about medicine. Either he has gone out of his way to stay ignorant or he’s denying the truth.

If Leo is a sincere disability advocate, where has he been? How often has he spoken out on behalf of people in irreversible comas or persistent vegetative states?

The silver lining to Terri’s cloud is that many people are taking the time to talk with their loved ones about how they want to be treated if they should ever end up in such a condition. Don’t just talk — put it in writing. mjh

QOTD

The propaganda machine has plenty of time to repair the damage. Heck, within a few months Fox News will have the true believers convinced that Harry Reid personally pulled out Shiavo’s feeding tube while Nancy Pelosi held her down. — Billmon

Killing Free Speech One Town Hall at a Time

In case you missed the story, 3 people who legitimately obtained tickets to a Bush “Town Hall” were ejected because one of them had an unsupportive bumper sticker on her car in the parking lot, not on her forehead.

Surprise. The President who called upon a fake reporter to ask slanted questions, the President who staged numerous campaign rallys with carefully selected audiences, the President who authorized countless fake news reports and payments to “independent” columnists to promote his agenda, that President is surrounded by guys pretending to be Secret Service — more fakes. Why? Because the real Secret Service recognizes the First Amendment — can’t have that. mjh

Bush and his GOP henchmen are living a lie

Free speech checked at the door By Jim Spencer, Denver Post Staff Writer

The man near the entrance of George Bush’s nonpolitical, taxpayer-financed “town hall” meeting Monday stopped Karen Bauer and Leslie Weise. He directed the two Denver women toward a man in a smiley-face tie.

“You’ve been ID’d,” the second man told them. …

[S]miley-face-tie guy said the Secret Service was coming to speak to them.

Soon, a stocky man with a shaved head, an earpiece and a red lapel pin arrived. He never identified himself as a Secret Service agent, but he did have a message.

“He said we were allowed to go in, but if we caused any problems, we’d be taken to jail,” said Bauer, a 38-year-old marketing coordinator.

Bauer and Weise will meet today with Secret Service officials to discuss their removal from the Bush meeting.

“Freedom of speech, general assembly, they’re all guaranteed under the Constitution,” said Lon Garner, special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Denver district. “We are not an enforcement arm to the president other than security.”

Garner said his agents don’t remove people from presidential gatherings unless they break the law. The Republican staff, on the other hand, may ask people to leave, Garner said. And like the Secret Service, they also wear lapel pins and earpieces. …

“This was an official White House event and not a political event,” Colorado GOP executive director David Wardrop explained.

Anyone with tickets could have attended, added assistant presidential press secretary Allen Abney.

“The White House welcomes people exercising the right to free speech,” he said.

The facts beg to differ. Bauer, Weise and Young had tickets. None acted up. …

George Bush and his GOP henchmen are living a lie.

The president constantly claims freedom as God’s gift to everyone. …

But societies that smother dissent are never free.

[via Colorado Luis]

Pssst. Wanna know a secret?

Well, I can’t tell you everything just yet. I can say I’ve joined another blog collective and you’ll be able to read it soon. This group has a focus on all things Albuquerque, with a variety of perspectives and styles. I’ll be looking at local media with a jaded eye. I hope you’ll like it. I’ll tell you more in a few weeks. If you can’t wait, write me. mjh

Here’s what I wrote over there this week…
Continue reading Pssst. Wanna know a secret?…

Liberals Want Your Children!

I am shocked, absolutely shocked, to discover that college faculties are overwhelmingly liberal, according to an overwhelmingly conservative study. How can it be that people who devote their lives to studying and teaching would also conspire to exclude that vast collective of conservative scholars?

To become a college professor, you must be prepared to work for years without profit. Sure, professors earn big bucks in the end (I almost made $20K before my pay was cut 3 times in 2 years), but they spend years studying and living off loans and grants. Here’s a free life-altering tip: if you want to get rich, quick or otherwise, don’t become a teacher.

Hmmm. Could there be a connection? Could it be that liberals don’t drive conservatives away from academia, but that corporations draw conservatives away instead? Could it be that someone who pursues personal profit has less interest in pursuing knowledge for its own sake? Should we conduct a survey of CEOs earning more than $10 million per year? Will we be shocked by the results?

Oh, so many ironies. Soon conservatives will be demanding quotas — 51% of your faculty must be conservative — while denying them for any other disadvantaged classes. Soon conservatives will be making the same argument Chairman Mao made, that intellectuals need to toil in the fields to understand the working class — close the universities, they do us no good!

Oh, those Rightwing Whiners, those Radical Handwringers. While we enjoy a good laugh over this nearly self-mocking “problem,” please note the deadly serious undercurrent. This is the fascist end-game, to root out the evil of liberalism wherever they find it. Having conquered commerce and the government, the Radical Right turns to the last small haven for people who think differently. These are the most dangerous liberals who, just like gays, seek to convert children from the one true way. From the womb to no-end-to-life-support, Our Leaders will decide what’s OK to teach, to think, and to say. Your kind can retreat to Manhattan and San Francisco, but liberals will no longer be allowed to gather in groups where they constitute more than 49% of the mob. Majority Rules! Minority Vanishes!

By the way, that same survey had a couple of other tidbits. First, women are grossly underrepresented. So, I question the true liberalism of campuses that can’t correct such a long-standing problem. Second, while just 15% surveyed called themselves conservative, only 11% called themselves Republican. Nearly one in three well-educated conservatives refuses to vote Republican. mjh

This issue flared up locally last year.

Saint Pete on Call-in Radio

Thursday morning, 3/31, Pete Domenici will be on 770 KKOB AM, answering questions.

9:00 am – 10:00
(505) 243-3333 (in Albuquerque)
Or Toll Free on your Verizon or Alltel Wireless Phone #770

UNM Today: Colores! to honor Senator Pete Domenici as “Notable New Mexican”

Colores! explores the remarkable life of The Senator From New Mexico: Pete V. Domenici airing Wednesday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

QOTD

“Now that I, too, am a professional whore, I can see that the sharp distinction I used to draw between the working press and the shoe scrapings of the PR industry was simply a vanity of vanities — a product of my youthful arrogance …. And whatever real distinction there may have once been between journalism and flackery has long since been swept away by the howling, gibbering tsunami of the cable news channels, leaving only a few dazed refugees clinging to the treetops in the print press. And pretty soon they’ll be gone, too.” — Billmon

2 QOTD

The closest parallel I can think of to current American politics is Israel. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Israelis downplayed the rise of religious extremists. But no more: extremists have already killed one prime minister, and everyone realizes that Ariel Sharon is at risk.

America isn’t yet a place where liberal politicians, and even conservatives who aren’t sufficiently hard-line, fear assassination. But unless moderates take a stand against the growing power of domestic extremists, it can happen here. — Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: What’s Going On?” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/opinion/29krugman.html?”>The New York Times > Opinion >PAUL KRUGMAN
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Bush “enjoys the stubborn conviction of the unreflective mind.” — Michael Kinsley

Wheres the Fire?

by Jeff Parker, Florida Today

Bush’s overall approval rating is just 43 percent, with 48 percent disapproval

Public Opinion Watch – Mar. 30, 2005 – Center for American Progress
Public Opinion Watch by Ruy Teixeira

Bush’s overall approval rating is just 43 percent, with 48 percent disapproval. In addition, his rating on Iraq is now only 39 percent approval/53 percent disapproval, and his rating on the economy is a stunningly bad 36/53, further evidence of growing public disenchantment with the economy.

Let us not forget Congress. In the wake of its handling of the Schiavo case, Congress’s approval rating has plunged to 34 percent against 49 percent disapproving.

Consumer Comfort Index Hits New 2005 Low (washingtonpost.com) By Claudia Deane, Washington Post Staff Writer

Consumer confidence has reached a new low for the year in the wake of soaring gasoline prices across the nation, with the latest Washington Post-ABC News Consumer Comfort Index standing at -13, down four points from last week and three points below its 19-year average.

The index of consumer sentiment was last in this territory in the summer of 2004, following a late winter and spring surge in gas prices that sent consumer confidence reeling until late June.

Arizona GOP legislators just can’t let well enough alone

Monkey business
GOP legislators just can’t let well enough alone

Now that conservative Republicans have an edge at the Legislature, they can’t resist trying to gum up projects and agencies that are humming along just fine, thanks.

This does nothing to move Arizona into the future. …

Hey, team! You’re running toward the wrong goal line. …

Every legislative session sees its share of misguided proposals. But this year they have gone so far that you have to wonder, what’s next?

Synchronicity

The Writer’s Almanac

On this day in 1973, the last American combat troops left Vietnam, ending the direct involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. Several thousand civilian Defense Department employees stayed on in Vietnam after the withdrawal of troops. The last of these Americans were airlifted out of the country when Saigon fell to the Communists on April 30, 1975.
—–
This day in 1865 marked the beginning of the Appomattox Campaign, the final campaign of the Civil War.
—–

As we look back to the end of US military involvement in Vietnam, remember that our “defeat” (our failure to finish destroying Vietnam) has been a powerful motivator for the Radical Right for over 30 years. To this day, they and their children and their grandchildren despise the dirty hippies and peaceniks they blame — all those disloyal Liberals who see more value in peace than perpetual war.

I wonder how many of those same people still curse the Union almost 140 years after the Civil War. Hatred has 9 lives. mjh

QOTD

What I finally had to confront was the fact that truth alone is impotent in the face of modern propaganda techniques ? as developed, field tested, refined and deployed by Madison Avenue, the Pentagon, the think tanks, the marketing departments of major corporations, the communications departments of major research universities, etc. …

And in a world where the airwaves are overloaded 24/7 with the mindless babbling of complete idiots, it isn?t very hard to make inconvenient facts disappear, or create new pseudofacts that reinforce whatever bias or cultural affinity you want to cultivate ? particularly if the audience is already disposed to prefer your reassuring lies to discomforting truths told by strangers.

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