"... posted a video in which he accused the police department of a conspiracy and lambasted the current media organization landscape. In the video (which, in bizarro world, is shown every hour on Fox News), Meade gets in the face of the police and demands entry, claiming he isn't media: 'I'm private media.'"
Writes The Awl. I think he said "new media." And no one calls him "Larry." You'd get a better response with "Lore." Which I don't call him either. Frankly, I'm not sure what to call him. Except "Meade" — "New Media Meade."
The irony of denying Althouse's husband access to the capitol without official media credentials is that the credentialed media has done a pathetic job of covering the events. Outside Wisconsin's own official news organs, the nationals' approach to covering the protests borders on malpractice. When Paul Krugman is bothered to get into the Times CMS to post "a blog" comparing the job you've done in Wisconsin to the one you did in the buildup to the Iraq War, well, you've done a pretty bad job.
If the events in Wisconsin prove one thing, it is that the mainstream media has become journalistically irrelevant when it comes to national issues and coverage. Broadcast media is incapable of explaining anything outside a macropatriotic framework and has proven allergic to anything that puts off even the slightest whiff of the class warfare that scares away big-market advertorial. Meanwhile, the other side is cable news' partisan echo chamber of regurgitated self-assurance, where no blow is too low and no fact needs sourcing before being leveraged to make a prearranged point.
But, hey, guess what? Governor Scott Walker is about to give his budget address, and Meade is there, seated in the chamber as I write this. I could have been there too, but I've got a class at 4:30, and we need to talk about the Commerce Clause.
ADDED: Here's the video referred to above. And in the comments, JAL says, "Woo hoo! Reminds me of a book some guy from Knoxville wrote ... uummm ... It had a militaristic tone to it ... (you know those "conservative" right wing blogger gun nuts ...) ... uhmmm ... An Army of Meades!" Oh, yes. They'd look like this. You know they came from a place called Media.
This is a political analysis piece written by the newspaper's editor Paul Fanlund, and I just can't figure out how the headline is justified. The piece begins with a cite to the NYT Magazine's profile of Chris Christie, which got me running over there to find out what Christie said about Walker. The author of that piece — Matt Bai — discusses Walker:
Now a new class of governors from both parties is promising to revisit union contracts in order to put their states on firmer fiscal ground. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker, an aggressive new Republican governor, just proposed legislation that would limit the rights of public workers to collectively bargain. “You can’t have one group who are the haves,” Walker told me recently, meaning government workers, “and one group, the private-sector workers, who are the have-nots.” Walker’s move led to protests in Madison, drawing President Obama into the debate and raising the prospect of French-style labor uprisings among public workers across America.
In part, the viral movement against public-sector unions is a result of political necessity. In states all over the country, balancing the budget has become an annual exercise in Copperfield-like illusion...
I don't see Christie backing away from Walker.
(And as for Matt Bai's "drawing President Obama into the debate" — I think Obama is keeping his distance!)
Here's the Badger Herald. Here's Professor Downs's response — which was cc'd to me:
I write in response to Grant Hermes reporting on my comments at the Law School Forum Wednesday evening. Hermes wrote that I "alluded to the idea that the governor’s proposed bill may have long-term negative effects on political areas outside of labor disputes, such as taxes and the rising cost in higher education." This is a complete misrepresentation of what I said and meant. I was talking about the crisis of debt, and how higher education is part of this crisis because we cost so much. Walker has had nothing to do [with] having caused this problem; indeed, his measures are designed to at least address the crisis of public debt in a forceful way. At no point in my discussion of this aspect of the problem did I implicate Walker's plan as a source of the problem. The cost of higher education has skyrocketed at twice the skyrocketing rate of medical care costs over the course of the last twenty years, and we are the source of this problem, not Walker.
Donald Downs Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science, Law, and Journalism
Maybe the reporter had trouble hearing a professor imply that Scott Walker might be doing something good.
ADDED: The boldface is mine. Here's the last 2 1/2 minutes of Downs's talk.
As for #1... yes, as usual, it's all about Obama. What does it mean for Obama? And his "competing desires"? Good, lord, it sounds like jacket copy for a romance novel.
The battle in Wisconsin over public employee unions has left President Obama facing a tricky balance between showing solidarity with longtime political supporters and projecting a message in favor of deep spending cuts to reduce the debt.
What's the best way for Obama to look best? The eternal question. Is there no real Obama? Possibly not!
“This is a Wisconsin story, not a Washington one,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “False claims of White House involvement are attempts to distract from the organic grass-roots opposition that is happening in Wisconsin.”
If it's a Wisconsin story, why did Obama horn in on it? He horned in and then backed out. It's this back and forth, trying to get into the right pose to look good later on. It's so difficult for him! (As for "organic grass-roots." Organic! You just know, the Tea Party was commercially grown.) I'd like to know what's really going on! Can't the NYT ferret out some real information about the behind-the-scenes national-level politics reaching into Wisconsin instead of passing along propaganda from Dan Pfeiffer?
Now, if we can tear ourselves away from always-scintillating trials and tribulations of Barack Obama, let's look at the second article...
Union leaders urged Wisconsin teachers to return to work at schools that are open on Monday...
But the Madison schools are closed, and there was a big union vote yesterday about that, as I blogged last night. "Nearly 3,000 Madison teachers, staff and family gathered at Monona Terrace," and the press was kicked out. The NYT doesn't mention that — let alone try to find out what went on.
As the protests went on through falling sleet and snow...
As for that indoor crowd, are they Wisconsin school teachers, or are they UW students and teaching assistants? Is it still about the Scott Walker budget, or has it skewed into more generic left-wing causes? Here's the video I took inside yesterday afternoon, and those are the questions that occurred to me.
Why doesn't the NYT dig out some information? Who's involved in the organizing? How are they using Facebook and Twitter to maintain the presence in the Capitol? Who's sleeping there overnight? I photographed a sign on a pillar in the Capitol rotunda that says "talk to the TAA about how we can work together." Does the NYT know or care what the TAA even is let alone its role in organizing the protest?
Democrats in the State Senate, meanwhile, who are in the minority but are needed for a quorum, said Sunday that they intended to remain out of state — and far from the voting chamber — until Republican leaders agree to remove broad collective bargaining restrictions from the proposal to increase workers’ health care and pension costs.
“This is not a stunt, it’s not a prank,” said Senator Jon Erpenbach, one of the Democrats who drove away from Madison early Thursday, hours before a planned vote, and would say only that he was in Chicago. “This is not an option I can ever see us doing again, but in this case, it’s absolutely the right thing to do. What they want to do is not the will of the people.”
Instead of passing along a cheerleader quote from Erpenbach, how about making him tell us who's paying to house the 14 Democratic Senators in Chicago? And I want some investigation into how the protest is playing with voters around the state. Are the protests stirring up support among Wisconsinites or pissing people off? Are people outraged by the teachers taking sickout days? Are working parents struggling to find alternate childcare or leaving kids alone? Do people accept the flexible ethics of doctors giving excuse notes to protesters who called in sick and legislators who don't show up for their jobs? Are people inclined to pursue remedies like impeachment or recall? What would it take to get actual public opinion polls?
The weather here is a dreary winter mix, and the reporting drizzling in from New York only adds to slushy mush.
Calling all tea party and grassroots conservatives in Wisconsin! This is your moment. Your state is ground zero in the fight against the unions. We win there, we win everywhere.
The fight against the unions... Well, there's an open declaration that it's not about solving the budget crisis, fairness, and shared sacrifice. I'm sure the people who've been protesting for the last 4 days will appreciate your frankness. That's what they accuse the Wisconsin GOP of doing. Is that the Tea Party way? You're coming in to serve us some iced tea, here in the Wisconsin winter — ice tea with a wedge of divisiveness, for that refreshing gulp of pure partisan flavor.
Why else do you think President Obama, Organizing for America and just about every element of the Left is focused on the fight in Wisconsin? Heck, even the godfather of the union movement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, is flying into Madison today [to] address the union protestors.
Yes, the anti-Scott Walker side has its outside agitators. I don't think that necessarily helps the protesters win over the people of Wisconsin. (As I've said.) By contrast, Scott Walker and the GOP legislators have looked like they are focused on the public good, doing what needs to be done for the people of Wisconsin, which I think is a persuasive political message in Wisconsin. You want to switch that to Republicans versus Democrats in a hardcore political standoff? By bringing in your own outside agitators? Is that good Tea Party style? I don't think so!
Tomorrow, (Saturday, February 19) from noon to 3pm, the local tea party leaders from across Wisconsin and American Majority are joining in a counter protest to the unions (I Stand with Scott Walker!) on the state capitol grounds in Madison.
Okay, fine. Fine to have a protest supporting our governor. But it should be about Wisconsin and the public good — not party politics.
Confirmed speakers are Andrew Breitbart, Herman Cain, Jim Hoff of Gateway Pundit and my brother Ned with more to come.
Something tells me these people are not Wisconsinites.
Fox News, CNN and ABC News will be covering the event.
Time to flex some conservative muscle.
Flex some muscle... I know it's a metaphor, but you're sending out propaganda calling the protesters "thugs" — and that's just too belligerent. The point is for people to show up, be there, physically. That means something. And it works a whole lot better when there is nothing explicitly or implicitly violent about your speeches, signs, and caricatures. Keep it idealistic and kind-spirited, pro-Walker protesters.
And if you come in from out of state, I don't particularly want you here, but you need to know — whatever you've read about "thugs" and signs with cross-hairs and Hitler — Wisconsin people are really polite. If you don't understand that and behave extra-well, you will look like a lout — and that's even before the Democratic-friendly media do their usual work of trying to make you look bad.
I hope Wisconsinites do show up today — on all sides of the debate. Be there. I will. Let's be good citizens, interact with each other, try to understand what's going on and who thinks what, who cares about Wisconsin and who's there to take advantage of the spotlight for nonWisconsin purposes. May the greater good prevail.
ADDED: Scroll past the first 2 paragraphs to the interviews by CNN correspondent Nic Robertson, who tries to get Egyptian protesters to show how much Obama means to them and gets less than nothing:
ROBERTSON: Achmed, you've been here down here on the Square for many days. The United States and the international community. You've just listened to President Obama saying that America will support Egypt if it wants help and assistance, and hopes that there will be a good transition for jobs for the young people. What would be your message for President Obama?
ACHMED: We don't know, actually, who he supports. He serves for his own purposes, and the Egyptian people serve for our freedom and democracy. Any democratic country should see for the people, not for its own purposes....
ROBERTSON: Mustapha is joining me now. We just heard President Obama say that he wants to extend, eh, support and assistance to Egypt and Egyptians if they want any, and he hopes that there are more jobs for the young people in the future. What's your message for President Obama?
MUSTAPHA: Well, my message to President Obama is just, "We started this revolution without any outside help, and we are going to finish it also without any outside help."...
ROBERTSON: Are you pleased that President Obama has come out, however, now and said he supports this change and supports the people and supports the young people and -- and what they've done?
MUSTAPHA: Well, actually President Obama's views were kind of conflicting during the last week... but now he's saying that he's supporting the change....
ROBERTSON: The view from here is one of very happy to now hear that President Obama has swung behind the people.
I knew it. I declined to link to the reports earlier today that said he was stepping down. He will step down when he steps down and not when the news media fall over each other trying to pre-scoop the news.
"... from her early squabbles with feminism to her role as a minister with the new-age Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness, from her membership in Newt Gingrich's brain trust to her stint as populist activist - all before her greatest act, the Huffington Post."
Huffington deserves every one of those millions she'll be paid by AOL for creating this online sensation. She was once derided as "the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus" because of her many well-connected friends, but Huffington has earned her place as one of the extraordinary personalities of our time: an entrepreneur and writer who is always chasing the next big idea, wherever it is on the ideological spectrum.
Good for her. We need some extraordinary personalities for our time.
Are they Democrats or Republicans? Here's a clue: neither the word Democrat or Republican appears in the linked article. So? They're Democrats! Duh! Don't you know how to read the news?
By handing so much control over to Ms. Huffington and making her a public face of the company, AOL, which has been seen as apolitical, risks losing its nonpartisan image. Ms. Huffington said her politics would have no bearing on how she ran the new business.
What difference does it make? AOL as a brand meant something to me in the 1990s, but not now. Who cares whether AOL retains a semblance of political neutrality? In any case, mainstream media always feels pretty liberal, so why would anyone really notice. Now, that quote is from the NYT, so... think about it. The NYT would like to be the big news site that looks neutral (but satisfies liberals). HuffPo is the raging competition, which needs to be put in its place.
Could you please read this NYT article very carefully and explain to me how we know it was the Egyptian government's secret police as opposed to an exercise by opponents of the government, done to induce reporters to write stories antagonistic to the government?
The reporters were kept in "a plain room," where they were not beaten but they could hear what sounded like beating. What did they actually see?
We saw a journalist with his head bandaged and others brought in with jackets thrown over their heads as they were led by armed men....
A plainclothes officer who said his name was Marwan gestured to us. “Come to the door,” he said, “and look out.”
We saw more than 20 people, Westerners and Egyptians, blindfolded and handcuffed. The room had been empty when we arrived the evening before.
“We could be treating you a lot worse,” he said in a flat tone, the facts speaking for themselves. Marwan said Egyptians were being held in the thousands. During the night we heard them being beaten, screaming after every blow.
Isn't that odd? Lots of blindfolded people, and then alarming sounds coming from elsewhere? They were kept for a day and then released.
They put us in our car with orders to put our heads down. “Look down, and don’t talk. If you look up you will see something you don’t ever want to see.”
They left us that way for 10 minutes. The only sounds were of guns being loaded and checked and duct-tape ripping.
Again, the hearing without seeing. Isn't this a strange article? Seriously, I am not trying to make trouble. I just read this article and felt like the reporters could have been duped by people manufacturing disinformation.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will speak on Monday on the separation of powers at an event organized by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and her Tea Party Caucus.
Organized by... but every member of Congress has received an invitation to attend.
The lecture is going on despite the objections of some observers. The New York Times editorial board called for Scalia to cancel his commitment.
“By meeting behind closed doors, as is planned, and by presiding over a seminar, implying give and take, the justice would give the impression that he was joining the throng — confirming his new moniker as the ‘Justice from the Tea Party,’” the board wrote in December.
The Times said it would oppose a similar event featuring a liberal Supreme Court justice and targeted at Democratic members of Congress. “The ideological nature of the group and the seminar would eclipse the justice’s independence and leave him looking rash and biased.”
Wouldn't it be ironic if that editorial left the NYT looking rash and biased? Some liberal members of Congress will attend the session. If anything fishy goes on, they'll let us know. I presume Justice Scalia will give the lecture he always gives about the proper role of courts in our constitutional system. I look forward to hearing about the supposedly outrageous statements that turn out to be entirely mundane within the set of things Scalia has been saying for decades.
What it all boils down to is: Liberals don't like it that Scalia is on the Supreme Court. They've never liked it. And the NYT is especially dedicated to making people think that his being on the Court is something untoward, some abuse of power. I'm sure there are some NYT readers who are titillated by that sensationalism, but I find it embarrassing.
"Keith will be feeling, ironically, like the 'Worst Person In The World' tonight," said CNN's Piers Morgan, referring to Olbermann's regular segment that lambasted his political enemies. "But as my grandmother always says, 'One day you're the cock of the walk, the next a feather duster.' "
The network refuses to comment on claims it has rejected an ad, so all you've got is a company with an immense self-interest in lying about it. You know, I'm not even going to link to the news website I'm talking about, because the answer to the question in the post title is that the news site is whoring for traffic. The private company would like to promote its product without forking out the millions needed to buy air time on the Super Bowl, and the news site would like to be the go-to place for ad, which isn't clever enough to go viral without the boost of the banned-from-the-Super-Bowl claim. Moreover, the product is shoddy and not worth talking about. Don't be a sucker.
"... with grotesque double-patty pile-ups and surreal towers of lettuce leaves variously signing repulsion and signifying obsession. In this month's Shape, a male model is jamming one sloppy sandwich into himself whole, without chewing or even swallowing, for the sake of promoting a story titled 'Sex, Beer, and Burgers: Why Guys Are Healthier Than You Think.' This is one of those numbers about embracing male desires: Eat a bigger lunch. Drink bottled beer as a matter of portion control. Masturbate more frequently in order to release "feel-good hormones including endorphins and oxytocin," they quote an Ivy League gynecologist, the science classing up the matter."
Why does it feel like a marriage to Ross Douthat? I'll offer 2 possible answers. See if you get it right:
1. Because Sarah Palin is a woman.
2. Because Sarah Palin is a conservative. The correct answer is #2. If Sarah Palin were a liberal, using the marriage analogy to talk about a female politician would have been recognized as too sexist.
And, yes, I realize Douthat is supposed to be the conservative columnist at the New York Times.
