Clipping blog

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• Clearing the Browser Tabs – Selfish, Foolish Hollywood Wednesday Edition
• Did Ford Taste the Power of the Pimp Hand?
• Blogger/Activist for Congress?

Clearing the Browser Tabs – Selfish, Foolish Hollywood Wednesday Edition Posted: 28 Sep 2011 03:10 AM PDT I am really tired of the casual insults from snarky half-wits I and my friends have to endure during prime-time television. I don’t watch Dancing with the Stars, but a good number of my friends do. Most of them are conservative and consider themselves Tea Partiers or at least are sympathetic to the causes of smaller government and fiscal responsibility the Tea Parties represent. When they watch the show, they want to root for their favorite couples and question the judges’ decisions and enjoy the competition. They do not deserve to be sandbagged in the middle of the show by some arrogant fashion maven who thought the middle of the show would be a fine time to tell them that they stink. Admittedly, this is a small example of the garbage that Hollywood throws at conservatives in even the most family-friendly show. Glee, a show I know is wildly popular among my female conservative friends, has all but declared open war on them this season. It’s supposed to be about singing high-schoolers. It’s not. It’s about the politics of the writers and actors involved. It’s about how they put their own needs and desires above the audience and demand that we accept their selfishness as actual talent worthy of our time and money. Enough is enough. We need to reward shows that respect our sensibilities (and notice I did not say they needed to cater to them) and punish those that do not until the people who make the shows we watch get the message. Unplug from the networks. Send letters to sponsors. Support the good shows with your advertising dollars and enthusiastic praise. Demand better and you’ll get better. Good show last night — a nice combination of rantiness and geekiness, with some Herman Cain talk thrown in for good measure. The show post will be up a bit later in the day. I’m expecting to be busy at work, but I’ll get it up as soon as I have some free time. And now, links! Smitty has returned! I was stuck at work, so I couldn’t meet him at the airport, but I’m glad he is reunited with his family, safe and sound. Today, the word “racism” means nothing at all. We can thank the mavens of multiculturalism and their pathetic sentries of sensitivity for rendering it useless. It’s time we all admitted that Barack Obama’s “recovery summers” have turned out to be two years of stagnant malaise and it’s his fault. Did the President get a heads-up about Solyndra before the big government loan went through? My friend Ali Akbar wrote a heartfelt and honest open letter of invitation to noted race-baiter Morgan Freeman. I hope Freeman takes Ali up on his offer. Let’s say you were the Governor of a state and during your term, you drive it into complete financial ruin. Illiteracy rates went through the roof, poverty rates exploded, and people fled your state like it was on fire. Would your next big move be to write a book detailing your plan to lower unemployment and secure the nation’s economic future? No? Mine neither. Ted Leonsis came so close to the heart of Barack Obama’s useless crusades against “the rich”. I suspect he didn’t want to take the extra step to the logical conclusion, that Barack Obama dislikes his success intensely and believes he is a bad person for enjoying any part of it. Seriously. Who thought an anti-cheese billboard in Wisconsin would get anything but ridicule. Yes, I said “anti-cheese billboard”. Go look. I was inside an very solid building during the earthquake that struck the Maryland/Virginia area not long ago, and it rattled me. I would not have wanted to be anywhere near the Washington Monument when it struck, much less inside it. Rules for the fashion-conscious barbarian.

Did Ford Taste the Power of the Pimp Hand? Posted: 27 Sep 2011 01:38 PM PDT I don’t quite know how to say this, but there’s a very good chance the Obama administration might have an Abuse of Power scandal brewing today. Yes, I know. You’re probably saying to yourself, “Abuse of Power? Those meek little lambs? Impossible!” On the other hand, you might also say, “Jimmie, I know all about Operation Fast and Furious and Solyndra. What do you mean by ‘very good chance’ and ‘might’? This administration wields its power like a guy named Huggy Bear wields his mighty pimp hand!”. You’re right, of course. What you and I think of as “abuse of power” Barack Obama things of as “just regular old political power”. This scandal could be very bad though. If it’s true, the administration used the might of our government, borrowed our power as citizens, to make a company retract a commercial some might see as critical of one of the President’s favorite programs. Granted, it’s not as if the President actually fired a CEO of a private enterprise or anything, but…well…here’s the story. Ford has a series of commercials wherein they get a few regular folks, let them drive a Ford car or truck around for a while, then surprise then with press conference where they get a chance to brag about how much they loved the Ford car. One of those commercials featured a man named Chris, who told the assembled “reporters” that he would never buy an automobile from a company that took a government bailout. As you can imagine, the commercial made a bit of a splash, as most companies don’t do political commentary unless they’re owned mostly by the government or stand to receive truckloads of money in return for their lobbying efforts. Today, Daniel Howes reported in his column for the Detroit News that Ford has pulled that ad under direct pressure from the White House. …Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House questioned whether the copy was publicly denigrating the controversial bailout policy CEO Alan Mulally repeatedly supported in the dark days of late 2008, in early ’09 and again when the ad flap arose. And more. With President Barack Obama tuning his re-election campaign amid dismal economic conditions and simmering antipathy toward his stimulus spending and associated bailouts, the Ford ad carried the makings of a political liability when Team Obama can least afford yet another one. Can’t have that. The ad, pulled in response to White House questions (and, presumably, carping from rival GM), threatened to rekindle the negative (if accurate) association just when the president wants credit for their positive results (GM and Chrysler are moving forward, making money and selling vehicles) and to distance himself from any public downside of his decision. In other words, where presidential politics and automotive marketing collide — clean, green, politically correct vehicles not included — the president wins and the automaker loses because the benefit of the battle isn’t worth the cost of waging it. This column made its way around Twitter earlier today, but I wanted to wait until there was some independent verification of the story. Michelle Malkin dug into the story and found that Howes is standing behind the story. On the other hand, Ford’s Social Media Manager told her that his company did not pull the ad under pressure and directed her to this post on Ford’s Facebook page that says the company pulled the ad because it has run its normally-scheduled course. Indeed, the ad is still part of Ford’s YouTube channel with only about 300 views, though the original version of the commercial, the version that was linked in the original reports that got the impressive number of views, is no longer there. I note the number of views because it is possible that Ford pulled one version of the ad knowing that most bloggers and media organizations wouldn’t go back and change their links, assuming they knew the video has been pulled in the first place. That wouldn’t be a complete walkback, but it would effectively stop most people from viewing the commercial. After all, how many people would take the time to search for a different version on Ford’s YouTube channel without a specific reason to do so? If the commercial isn’t on television and it’s more difficult to find on the web, the White House would get most of what it wants and Ford could save face. Of course, such a thing would only occur to a very devious person who knew social media pretty well and surely those people don’t exist, right? So here’s where the story stands. The reporter who made the allegation stands by the information given to him by a Ford VP and the original version of the video, the one that got goodness knows how many links and views, is gone from YouTube. Ford says it has not pulled the video and a version of it, viewed by only a few, does remain on Ford’s YouTube channel where a clever person could find it. We’ll have to see how the details play out, assuming more of them come out over the next few days. As of now, the rumor of the government pimp hand remains a plausible rumor. I hope it is not true.

Blogger/Activist for Congress? Posted: 27 Sep 2011 12:03 PM PDT Though I don’t know him personally, I have heard of conservative activist and New Media star Steve Foley, but I have certainly heard of him. He worked hard to build up his blog The Minority Report then turned the social capital he built there into effective grassroots political work in New York and Massachusetts during the special elections there. Now, thanks to Stacy McCain, I’ve learned that Foley may try his hand as a Congressional candidate for the open seat of the 47th District in California. The GOP does not have a particularly deep bench nor a strong state party organization (which is how we got such woeful candidates as Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina in 2008), but Foley can help build one. His platform is solidly conservative, and has plenty of room for him to develop more detailed plans. I look forward to seeing what he does from here out and wish him much success.

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