"Let Us Not Be Nuts."

"Here is a grand old party frozen, suspended, mesmerized, in thrall to a gaggle of showboats and radio entertainers and small mobs of fist-shakers standing staunch for unreality, and no Republican elected official dares say, 'Let us not be nuts'."
- Garrison Keillor

John Boehner (R-OH) - I Don't think women should be paid as much as men for doing the exact same work. That's why I voted against The Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 1338). I also voted against protecting credit card holders from sudden interest rate increases surprise changes in terms of agreement (H.R. 5244).


Michele Bachmann (R-MN) - I don't want small businesses to get a tax-cut as a hiring incentive to create jobs. That's why I voted against the Small Business Lending Act (H.R. 5297). However, I did make firearms exempt from repossession during bankrupcy, but that was only for businesses - not individuals like you (H.R. 5827)


John McCain (R-AZ) - I think companies like Halliburton/KBR should be allowed to lock rape victims in shipping containers for days - even weeks - to keep them from testifying in court against the company. This happened to a young woman named Jamie Leigh Jones and she's my daughter's age. That's why I voted against Amendment 2588 to the Defense Appropriations Bill H.R. 3326. I also voted against repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell', a pay increase for soldiers and a program to treat PTSD.


Carly Fiorina (R-CA) - I want to give all of America's jobs to China and India. I use the term "globalization" rather than "outsourcing" because we've added yet another way to take away American jobs. You see, by successfully promoting H1-B Visa programs, we can actually ship immigrants into the USA and give them your job for much cheaper than what you'd work for. You can call that "insourcing". When I was queen bee at Hewlett Packard, I laid off 18,000 American workers and made decisions which led to 30,000 more being laid off when I was gone.


Charlie Crist (R-FL) - I like to tell everyone that I'm concerned about the environment, but under my governorship, Pensacola FL became the American city with the absolute most polluted water. That was before the oil spill in our gulf. When the BP disaster happened, I thought it was more important to collect $25 Million from the oil company for tourism advertisements telling everyone to come to our beaches before I even knew whether or not that was safe. I have been suspected of being in the closet as a homosexual for quite some time now, but I think dashed those myths by signing a few anti-gay laws including one that forbids gays from even getting civil union in Florida, let alone marriage. And just to rub it in, I got married the week after I passed the no gay marriage bill.


Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) - I really hate homosexuals. In fact, my Senate staff likes to send death threats to gay bloggers in their spare time. I tried to pass a law that would effectively open up all of our Federal land including National Parks to hunting. This would probably result in children being shot, but I don't care. Even John McCain says I'm "reprehensible" because I attacked the patriotism of my veteran opponent to get my first seat in the Senate. I want to privatize social security, eliminate the IRS and get warrantless wiretaps on US citizens. I want to make it a felony just to drive a woman to an abortion clinic.

How Liberal Bloggers Are Helping Republicans

You think you are exposing a scandal, but what you're actually doing is promoting someone you hate to a better rank on Google.

On June 9th, while supposedly waiting to be interviewed by KXTV in Sacramento, Carly Fiorina (a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate) said something VERY scandalous... She called Barbara Boxer's hairstyle "so yesterday". What she (supposedly) didn't know is that her mic was on and the video of her catty comment would be "leaked".

Sounds like the perfect chance to give her a gut-punch on your blog, right? I mean, you could really spin that. You could call her a "gossip" or a "catty elitist who cares more about fashion than substance"... This could be the end of her, right?

Wrong.

This is what strategists call a "manufactured scandal". It's something that's "leaked" by the campaign itself to trigger a surge in Google searches but doesn't really do all that much to damage the reputation of the candidate in question.

Fiorina also made sure to mention that her buddy Meg Whitman decided to be interviewed by Sean Hannity. So when Politics Daily and the Huffington Post did their part and made mountains out of molehills with this "caught on open mic" scenario, this is what the results looked like:

Google Searching "Carly Fiorina Hair":
You get a story about Fiorina's Courageous Battle With Cancer.

Google Searching "Carly Fiorina Hair Barbara Boxer":
You get her wikipedia page, which presents a sanitized version of her corporate legacy summed up with another quote about Boxer: "After losing all my hair, Barbara Boxer just isn't so scary anymore." (Another reference to her cancer survivor status.)

Google Searching "Carly Fiorina Whitman Hannity Comment":
You get Carly Fiorina and Sean Hannity in a mutual admiration love-fest with eachother where Fiorina expresses profusely that she is friends with Whitman and that she was afraid Hannity would be "too tough" on her.

You see what this all adds up to?

There were THOUSANDS of liberal bloggers doing their part to advertise Carly Fiorina's spin campaign for a week after the manufactured scandal was "leaked".

The biggest mistake a Liberal Blogger can make is to assume that Republicans are all ignorant people with misspelled signs at a Tea Party or an NRA rally. In reality, if this were a game of chess, they'd already have you in check-mate.

Obama's poll numbers are in the tank, healthcare reform is a win-win situation for the Insurance Lobby (mandatory Insurance with no public option), the war rages on, Gitmo is still open for business, faith-based initiatives are funneling millions of your tax dollars into the right-wing think tanks, billionaires have that antsy-dancey feeling in their pants again and millions of dollars are being dumped into any campaign against a democratic incumbent or gay candidate.

Republicans have convinced America that there is an all-powerful "liberal media" out there, hellbent on denying the "truth" and that somehow, the most watched News channel in the world (FOX NEWS) is just not a part of this grand conspiracy. Meanwhile, "our side", MSNBC, has chosen to legitimize the Tea Party as a "grassroots movement that became a real political party" and they've completely forgotten that it is actually just tightly controlled Republican atro-turf.

You must never forget that Republicans are masters in the art of deception and propaganda - and especially today's Republicans who hail from the corporate dotcom revolution and have learned how to use facebook and adwords to their advantage.

Here are some of my suggestions for liberal bloggers to avoid unwittingly helping Republicans to spin the media in their favor:


1) Never blog about Sarah Palin. She is the media center of Right-Wing talking points and any exposure you give her is always a "freebie" to the GOP. Everything that relates to Palin is a carefully crafted device to get you to do exactly what you're thinking of doing. Remember that.

2) Find some politicians you actually like and blog about their success. Far too many liberals are going down the path of defensiveness and it gives the Republicans quite an edge. The President himself just can't seem to score a few kind words from the mainstream media even though conservatives maintain that we are talking about a "liberal media".

3) Decide what your values are and start from there. Conservatives are able to follow eachother blindly without ever worrying about back-stabbing or sabotage because they all share the exact same values. A Liberal without a clear understanding of his own values will find himself struggling to explain exactly what he is so concerned about and it does more harm to his position than good.

4) Attack someone in your own party on occasion. Decide who the bad apple is in your bunch and expose them as a "wolf in sheep's clothing". This is a great way to draw in some readers from that highly coveted "independent/moderate" group.

5) Do NOT rely on the mainstream media for all your news. Networks like CNN, FOX, MSNBC and CBS are good for an occassional glance, but you should be using the internet to its fullest capability and really digging for information that YOU have decided that YOU care about. Any first-hand information or interviews you can get are far better than recycling whatever the latest talking point is.