Clipping blog |
- Clearing the Browser Tabs – Gunrunning Thursday Edition
- DC Kids Win a Big One Today Thanks to Congress
- It Must Be A Slow News Day, Because There’s A Fight Over Sarah Palin
- And With That, A Bad Idea Died a Quiet Death
- The Delivery Presents – An Extremist Rant about Extremists
| Clearing the Browser Tabs – Gunrunning Thursday Edition Posted: 31 Mar 2011 03:10 AM PDT If you haven’t heard of Operation Gunrunner, you should probably read up on it a bit. Start with Michelle’s link-filled post here, then move over to this post by Patterico. The latter post is especially important because it appears from all the evidence available that thanks to some pretty stunning incompetence at the federal level, one of our ICE Agents is dead. The Feds have posted a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Agent Zapata’s killer. I’d suggest they could find some pretty good leads inside their own Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Senators Chuck Grassley (R – Iowa) and Darrell Issa (R – Calif.) have been on this case for at least a month and, despite their evidence, they’ve gotten nothing but stonewalling from the administration. Hopefully, their investigation will lead to an arrest, possibly even an arrest of whoever murdered Agent Zapata. And now, links!
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| DC Kids Win a Big One Today Thanks to Congress Posted: 30 Mar 2011 07:02 PM PDT Slowly, but surely, we’re taking back our schools from the big-money, big-power teachers’ union heads.
This was a no-brainer vote, really. The DC program was wildly successful and residents overwhelmingly supported it. The only reason it died is because the NEA opposed it. Barack Obama and the Democrats followed the NEA’s lead because, well, lots and lots of reasons that had nothing at all to do with children or education. Thankfully, they lost today and the children of Washington, DC won. Some of them are going to get a chance for a better education because of it, assuming that the Senate approves the bill. That’s worthy of celebration. (via Cubachi)
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| It Must Be A Slow News Day, Because There’s A Fight Over Sarah Palin Posted: 30 Mar 2011 05:22 PM PDT
The Daily Caller ran a story about how Sarah Palin’s show Sarah Palin’s Alaska received a bit over a million dollars in tax credits thanks to a fairly common incentive states use to bring television and movie production, and all the jobs and spending that comes with them. Palin originally signed the bill into law in 2008, which, I suppose, is the controversy here. Palin responded, as it her wont, from Facebook. She blasted the Daily Caller for being “sloppy”, false, and residing in an “ivory tower” and threw a few elbows at Tucker Carlson and her critics for good measure. Yawn. Nevertheless, since this is Sarah Palin we’re talking about, the whole thing has blown up into not one but two memorandum threads. The usual suspects have jumped in to crowbar Palin, the Daily Caller and Palin’s critics, or both. I’m with both Rob Long and Ace on this, but I want to amplify one point: both parties in this kerfuffle acted stupidly. First off, the Daily Caller should never have run the article. It’s not news. OH, sure, it’s an easy piece to write — a few minutes on Google or with memeorandum and you can get the critics’ point of view then get a statement from the Palin camp and the story basically writes itself. But what, exactly, is the story? What happened in Alaska that hasn’t happened in states governed by Republicans a hundred times? What about Palin makes this incident special? There’s nothing as far as I can see that makes this story newsworthy and if the reporter has pitched it to me I would have killed it and told him to go dig up a real story. However, Palin shares a heaping helping of blame, too. Her statement to the Daily Caller was about 650 words long. Her response to the story on Facebook weighs in at around 1000. Why in the world did she need 1,650 words to answer what is essentially a routine story? For that matter, why did she reply at all? This story would have died slowly and quietly has she issued a very simple two or three sentence statement to the Daily Caller and let the thing go. Whoever is advising her needs to be fired for not doing everything in their power to stop Palin from going nuclear and turning this into a deal that has people talking about it today. I admit, I don’t have a particularly high opinion of the Daily Caller’s editorial decisions. From where I sit, the site spends entirely too much time digging up utterly unremarkable dirt on Republicans and not nearly enough time investigating Democrats. Tucker Carlson said, when he announced he would start the site, that he wanted it to be the right’s version of The Huffington Post. Well, HuffPo doesn’t waste its time writing gotcha pieces on Democrats. There are about a bazillion gotcha pieces on Democrats Carlson’s crew could write but, for whatever reason, he’s fine with his reporters saving their most vicious whacks for people on the right. And that’s fine. It’s Carlson’s site. He can do whatever he wants. The best thing Palin could have done was to let it lie. She doesn’t have to respond to every faintly-negative story about her in the media. That she can’t let even a frippery like this story pass makes her look brittle and defensive, as if she simply can’t let anyone have the last word in an argument. I can’t imagine that tendency makes her look more Presidential. We already have a President with a fragile ego who can’t ignore a slight. We certainly don’t need two in a row. Yeah, it must be a slow news day because this story has become, well, a story. It’s not like there’s nothing else going on, right? (By the way, yes I fully realize that I’m mocking myself with the “slow news day” lines. I’m not so fancy that I can’t rag on myself, unlike certain media outlets and political figures.)
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| And With That, A Bad Idea Died a Quiet Death Posted: 30 Mar 2011 12:34 PM PDT
At the risk of leaning into Pauline Kael territory, I don’t know anyone who thought such an early debate was a good idea and I certainly wouldn’t have advised a candidate to participate. There are far better ways to get their issues in front of people than a debate at this point, especially when no one knows for sure who the real competition for the nomination is. Besides, I don’t see a compelling reason for any Republican to help Politico and NBC burnish their reputations as serious news organizations. It’s not as if either organization gives Republicans a fair shake. Why should Republicans put themselves out to help them?
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| The Delivery Presents – An Extremist Rant about Extremists Posted: 30 Mar 2011 11:06 AM PDT
I entirely dedicated the first half to the risible Democratic notion that a paltry amount of budget-cutting is extremist behavior and the larger notion that the Democratic party has dedicated itself wholly to forcing things on you that you plainly do not want — huge deficits, expensive and inconvenient electric cars, an America where they get more choices and you get fewer. The second half is all about how politicians and party operatives yet to grasp the essential truth that social media is not about selling but about building trust-based and service-based relationships. Don’t worry — it’s a lot less boring than it sounds. Also, the Friday show is a go! I am lining up Chris Muir, of the Day by Day cartoon, for at least half the show and I have a couple things to talk about that I didn’t cover Tuesday evening. Friday’s special show starts at 8 P.M. Eastern on UStream with a little music and pre-show warmup. I’d love to see you in the chatroom!
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You can tell it’s a slow news day by what stories ignite little meaningless brush fires. Take today for instance.
Okay, I admit it. I like ranting. Wait…check that. I really like ranting and | You are subscribed to email updates from The Sundries Shack To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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