Thursday, April 30, 2009

RNC Report: The Specter of Failure

Got another RNC "Newsletter" today.
Dear Michael,

Wait, I think I get it… This isn't addressed to me; it's just Michael Steele talking to the only person who will listen… himself!
I hope Arlen Specter's party change outrages you. It should for two reasons:

Actually I find it pretty hilarious.
First--Specter claimed it was philosophical--and pointed his finger of blame at Republicans all over America for his defection to the Democrats. He told us all to go jump in the lake today.

Shit, I've been telling you idiots to do that since 1976. Both Republicans and Democrats could use a swim.
I'm sorry, but I don't believe a word he said.

Big surprise!
Arlen Specter committed a purely political and self-serving act today. He simply believes he has a better chance of saving his political hide and his job as a Democrat. He loves the title of Senator more than he loves the party--and the principles--that elected him and nurtured him.

Wow. Figured that one out, did you? But do you hear yourself? All you're concerned with is the well-being of the Republican Party, not the country. By your own words you admit that the Republican Party is the most important thing to you, not the country, not the people and not the freedoms which this country was founded on. You guys sound more and more like Joe Stalin each day.
Second--and more importantly--Arlen Specter handed Barack Obama and his band of radical leftists nearly absolute power in the United States Senate. In leaving the Republican Party--and joining the Democrats--he absolutely undercut Republicans' efforts to slow down Obama's radical agenda through the threat of filibuster.

You mean an unbreakable grip on the senate like the Republicans had during the Bush Regime? So, it's OK if you guys have unlimited power, but not anyone else? How tyrannical of you Michael. But think of this: Had the Republican Party been more concerned with the well-being of the country than with that of itself, you idiots wouldn't be in this position in the first place. If you ask me, you guys could use a good twelve-step program and skipping ahead to step eight would be a good start.
Facing defeat in Pennsylvania's 2010 Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record, and an end to his 30 year career in the U.S. Senate, he has peddled his services--and his vote--to the leftist Obama Democrats who aim to remake America with their leftist plan.

Give me a break Mike. Politicians peddle their services every day of the year in one form or another. How many back-room deals have you been a part of since you got into the game? How many times have you voted against your constituents wishes in order to secure a vote from another politician for a deal you had brewing? The only difference here is that Specter is publicly announcing that he's for sale in order to stay in power.
As recently as April 9th, Senator Specter said he would run in the Pennsylvania primary next year as a Republican. Why the sudden change of heart? Clearly, this was an act based on political expediency by a craven politician desperate to keep his Washington power base--not the act of a statesman.

Gosh Mike, would you say the same thing if Nancy Pelosi had decided to become a Republican? No. You'd be tripping all over yourself to welcome her into the fold with open arms, bending over backwards to kiss her ass and carving a marble pedestal to put her on. Unless…
…Say, is this one of those sneaky Republican tricks? You know, send in a spy, make a big fuss over his defection to make it look real and then when the chips are down, blammo! Hundreds of tiny little Republicans begin streaming out of Specter's ass and they slaughter all the Democrats and open the castle gates from the inside?
Nahhh, you're not that smart.
His defection to the Democrat Party puts the Democrats in an almost unstoppable position to pass Obama's destructive agenda of income redistribution, health care nationalization, and a massive expansion of entitlements.

There you go again whining about the Obama Power Monopoly. You guys had one and you blew it. Under the direction of the Republican Party George Bush and his merry band of idiots relaxed and repealed so many financial and corporate restrictions that this country almost imploded. Yes, Obama is fucking things up by spending way too much money, but he has to in order to fix the mess that your party made.
Arlen Specter has put his loyalty to his own political career above his duty to his state and nation.

Just like you do every time you send out these advertisements you call "newsletters." The RNC isn't concerned with healthcare, education, unemployment or any of the other thousand things that citizens worry about every day. All it cares about is feeding its' own dwindling coffers. Perhaps if the RNC began addressing the issues that matter, people might actually start sending you some cash.
You and I have a choice. Some will use Specter's defection as an excuse to fold the tent and give up. I believe that you are not one of those people. When Benedict Arnold defected to the British, George Washington didn't fold the tent and give up either.
He grit his teeth more determined than ever to succeed. That's what I'm asking you to do today.

Yes, but I'm not George Washington. And your inflated comparison is nothing more than the ether you publish it in. This is not the Revolutionary War. Do you realize that your statement above, while intended to paint Specter in a traitorious light, actually paints the Democrats as "Enemy Combatants?" Is that how you truly feel about half of the country? How badly do you want to defeat your enemy, the Democrats? Are you going to shoot them? Capture them and put them in your own private Andersonville? Would you waterboard them?
Join me in this fight by making a secure online contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500 or $1,000 right now to build our army of supporters and defeat Democrat candidates like Arlen Specter in next year's elections.
Stand with me. I need your support today.
Sincerely,
Michael Steele
Chairman, Republican National Committee
P.S. Michael, we need to respond to Senator Specter's decision to join President Obama's efforts to change America into a European Welfare State. Please help our Party move forward by making a secure online contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500 or $1,000 to give our Republican leaders & candidates the political muscle they need to resist the Obama-Pelosi-Specter agenda. Thank you.

And there's the usual beggars' request for money. Keep trying Mike. You're not getting better, just funnier!

Friday, April 24, 2009

Dissecting RNC Propaganda

You don't hear much from the Republicans these days. Unless of course you're on the RNC mailing list. Every week I get a personal message from RNC Chairman Michael Steele asking me to take action to thwart the evil that President Barack Obama does. It's really funny and never fails to teach me about spin with its creative mixture of rhetoric, opinion and the occasional fact thrown in here and there. I thought I'd share one with you.

Dear Michael,


They all start like this. As if Mr Steele is my personal buddy. It's designed to give recipients that 'Wow, he knows my name!' squishy feeling inside, but I know it's just a macro in the mail program that just pastes in the recipients first name. Now that I think of it, It might be funny to sign up as "Shithead Jones" just so I can get e-mails from the RNC that start, "Dear Shithead."

Recently in his speech in France, Barack Obama called America "arrogant." 1 I'm sure the French loved it -- And so did the liberal press.

But who is this president who calls the American people arrogant?


OK, the footnote on this one looks like this:

1 "[A]rrogant." (President Barack Obama, Town Hall, Strasbourg, France, 4/3/09)


Far be it from me to instruct an educated man like Mike, but I'm not sure you can footnote one single word. I mean, there is the question of context. It's as if he said 'doughnut' or 'pistachio.' Really Mike, if you can't provide the whole quote, or at the least a link to it, you may as well not bother with the footnotes. To clarify your point, Obama did indeed use the word 'arrogant' but not about America per se. He used it in reference to the Bush Regime and its attitude to the rest of the world in matters of foreign policy.

This is the same politician whose supporters anointed him "The One" and a candidate who boasted that his election would be remembered as "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." 2


Get a grip Mike. You cannot accuse Obama of arrogance on the basis of a nickname give him by other people. Many people call Junior Bush a moron. Does that make it true? And your quote is extraordinarily miselading. Not only does the link connect to a Neo-Con blogger who equates it with Moses parting the Red Sea, your selective editing implies that Obama has delusions of grandeur. Want the truth? He was referring to Global Warming. Want to read the whole quote? Here you go: "The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals." See what I mean about context? Ver, very naughty Michael. And very, very arrogant to think that intelligent people would not see through your clever ruse.

This is the same man who indicated his disdain for small town and working Americans when he said they "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them," while addressing a group of San Francisco caviar and champagne liberal elitists.

How arrogant is that? Arrogant enough?


Have you ever been to a small town Mr Steele? I've been to plenty. We all remember this statement and the flap that resulted, but guess what? Small Town America does cling to its guns and its God. And they are distrustful and wary of people who aren't like them. It's a sad fact of life, but many communities are extraordinarily insular; small town, big city, you name it. People cling to certain beliefs and seek out like-minded individuals for companionship. This is how neighborhoods, villages, towns, cities and nations are formed. I think the RNC is just miffed at this generalization because it hits too close to home: Guns, God and Fear.

In truth, President Obama seems to champion the twisted "Blame-America First" mentality of the worst of the American left.

More importantly, it shows an absence of wisdom to criticize the United States while on foreign soil, and then join with the Pelosi-Reid Democrats in Congress to do everything possible to end American exceptionalism and create a weak, dependent socialist state patterned after the examples of Europe.


Now this is a masterful combination of button-pressing Mike! Who wrote it for you? Surely you will incite many of the Party Faithful with this one. You make blatant statements designed to anger the "converted" and at the same time salt them with escape clauses for plausible deniabilty. Words like "seems" and "shows" are great fallbacks when you're called to the carpet for being wrong. "Well, we didn't say he was blaming America, we said it seemed like he was."

* He has taken steps towards nationalizing American auto companies; firing executives while leaving in power the same Union Bosses who funded his campaign and helped cripple the U.S.'s manufacturing base.


Yes, unfortunately it does look like we're on a road to Nationalization. But what else are we going to do after the Republican Party allowed the auto companies to run their businesses into the ground? Don't even think of blaming Obama for the mess you and your cronies created with special congressional set-asides and the loosening of emission restrictions.

* He has refused to let financial firms pay back taxpayer-funded bailout loans 3 so he can make them hostages to the whims of the Federal government.


Actually, the banks you refer to do not want to "pay back" the loans. They want to retroactively not accept them in the first place. This is because they wish to continue the risky and immoral practices which caused the financial crisis in the first place. Not only that, but they know when they return the money, the smaller banks which need Federal assistance to stay afloat will look less attractive to customers and this may cause some investors to shift their money to the banks that can afford to pay back the loans. Then as the smaller banks fail, the remaining banks scoop them up at bargain prices.

* As a lawyer, Obama once sued the same financial institutions on behalf of radical groups like ACORN for failing to use leftist social engineering criteria for lending instead of an applicant's ability to repay a loan.


Wow, not even a footnote for this one? Just more buzzwords designed to anger up the Republican blood. Lawyers and leftists and ACORN, OH MY!! Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, Mike.

* He campaigned on "transparency" and "integrity" in government and then has nominated a rogue gallery of tax evaders, Washington bureaucrats, and lobbyists to run his Administration.


Yay! Mikey finally got one right! Except no one really gives a shit these days. Both Republicans and Democrats have conditioned us to look the other way when it comes to politicians and their foibles. Tax evasion, bribery, adultery, misogyny, pederasty… been there, done that and we really don't care anymore. I mean, I do, but I'm more concerned about you idiots lowering my taxes, fixing my streets and returning pride to the country in which I live. To paraphrase Katharine Hepburn, you can people your bed with sheep for all I care.

* Obama brazenly follows his chief of staff's maxim of "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste...This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before" 4 to cripple our free markets with massive taxation and spending that wrests away our freedoms and puts even our great-grandchildren in debt.


Uh-huh. Not unlike using a national tragedy to invent a false conflict in order to invade a country which had nothing to do with the tragedy in the hopes of killing the guy that sent assassins after your daddy? Sound familiar Mikey? You can't give Rom Emanuel credit for a strategy invented by Karl Rove. Well, he didn't invent it, but he sure as hell turned it into an art form.

* And now, anyone who dares speak out against or challenge Obama's ultra-liberal agenda, such as the hundreds of thousands of patriots who attended last week's Tea Parties, should expect to be labeled "unhealthy" by this Adminstration. 5 Now, THAT is arrogance!


Again Mikey, sounds familiar… remember how anyone in disagreement with the Bush Regime was automatically labeled Un-American? As for the Tea-baggers being patriots, how so? These were not brave individuals protesting for their beliefs. They were basically actors hired and shepherded by groups run by the RNC and the two Dicks, Armey and Cheney. Don't try to tell me that a summer blockbuster is an independent art film, Mikey, I know the difference. Not only that, but you infer that Obama himself is calling the Tea-Baggers "unhealthy" when in fact it was a comment made by one of his many advisers, David Axelrod. Way to spin the facts, Mikey!

You know that Barack Obama's hubris and charisma conceal the inexperience and lack of wisdom that our country cannot afford in its president.

And though the teleprompter and mainstream media liberals may delay America's realization of the peril the Obama White House portends for our future for a while, the eventual failure of leftist policies and ineffective leadership will not.


So, you'd rather Obama look like an inept, marble-mouthed retard? Well, I suppose after eight years of Junior you've grown accustomed to that. Nice use of the word 'teleprompter' though! With that one word you imply that Obama is not smart enough to make a speech without one and also that the words he reads are not his own. Teleprompters have been around since the 1950's Mike, and before that there were cue cards. We all know that a politician can't make a speech without one these days, Democrat or Republican. I'm just thankful that Obama can use one without stumbling over the words every two sentences and continuously saying "uhhh… errrr…" like his predecessor.

We must be ready when that time comes.

Please help the Republican Party's effort to spread the word about the Democrats' arrogance of power and support GOP Members of Congress as they work to hold the Obama Democrats accountable to the American people, by making a contribution of $1,000, $500, $100, $50, or $25 to the Republican National Committee today.

Your gift will also help support the recruitment and election of principled candidates who will defeat the Democrats in 2009 and 2010 and lay the groundwork for ending Barack Obama's grip on power in 2012. Thank you.


And here we have the real heart of the matter. Greed. Rather than tout policy alternatives or invite people to a discussion on what can be done to fix the myriad of problems we face today, most created by the Republicans, all Mike really wants is our money. The RNC has destroyed the moral and financial fabric of the United States and still has the gall to ask us to feed the beast! Talk about fucking arrogance!

Sincerely,

Michael Steele
Chairman, Republican National Committee


Sincerely? Please. You are the quintessential bum asking for a handout, promising to buy a meal but then heading straight to the liquor store. Sorry, but you can't have my money. Do you know how hard my mother works in order to scrape up enough cash to send me every month so I can live the High Life? You have a job, use your own money.

P.S. Michael, the RNC is working hard to hold back the Obama Democrats' damaging, arrogant power grab -- please take this opportunity right now to support our fight against ineffective leadership and failed legislation by making a secure online contribution of $1,000, $500, $100, $50, or $25 to the RNC today. Thank you.


OMG!! What did I just tell you Mike! Are you deaf or just plain stupid? No money for you, bad puppet!

1 "[A]rrogant." (President Barack Obama, Town Hall, Strasbourg, France, 4/3/09)

2"[T]he moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks After The Democrat Primary, St. Paul, MN, 6/3/08)

3"[R]efused to let financial firms pay back taxpayer-funded bailout loans..." (Stuart Varney, "Obama Wants To Control The Banks," The Wall Street Journal, 4/4/09)

4"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste...This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before." (Gerald F. Seib, "In Crisis, Opportunity For Obama," The Wall Street Journal, 11/21/08)

5"I think any time you have severe economic conditions there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that's unhealthy," (David Axelrod, "Face the Nation" 4/19/09)


This is what passes for footnotes in the RNC these days. Out-of-context, vague quotes sliced thinner than chipped ham. And even though we live in the digital age, there are few actual links to click. The few that are there connect to Party Faithful sites which serve to further obfuscate the true context and meaning of the quotes. If this is the best that Michael Steele and the RNC can do, then the "extreme left-wing" really has nothing to worry about.

Unless stupid people vote.

Uh-oh.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

April Ficks

Well, it's April Fool's Day here on Earth and the much dreaded quartet of Conficker virii are live and gnawing away at your Windows operating systems like a starving dog on a homeless man's leg. Or at least, they're supposed to be. By the way in case you're wondering, the name Conficker is reported to be a combination of 'configure' and the german 'fick' which means exactly what you think it does.

According to reports on CNN, the virii don't appear to be doing much damage anywhere, or if they are, no one seems to be noticing, however one member of the Conficker Cabal, a group of tech nerds dedicated to stopping the virii and tracking down it's author, some ten million computers have been infected by the insidious worm.

Conficker comes in four flavors dubbed A, B, C and amazingly, D. The virii take advantage of weak spots in the Windows OS and could possibly do one or more of the following: Reset and lockout users from account logins, disabling of Auto Updates and Error Reporting service, slowdown of domain services, LAN congestion, blocking of antivirus software and Windows update services. Guess you guys should have bought a Mac.

Now I know my readers are thinking that I'm making light of a serious situation here, but I'm not. Really. Conficker is such a terrible thing that multi-billion dollar corporate giant Microsoft has offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the Conficker author(s). Wow. That's almost a lot of money. They must really almost want that guy caught.

I'd love to sit here and discuss how interseting it is that April 1st marks both the Conficker trigger date and the start of the G-20 summit, but I really need to start chasing down those Confickerers so I can get that reward money. And just so you know Mr Gates, I'm spending most of it on Mac supplies!