James O'Keefe arrested

[carsonfire]

Doing VK a favor, suggesting a safe thread for him in an otherwise bad week for Democrats.

BTW, have you all heard the news about Keenspot?

[VictorK]

I'll take you up on that.

Hey, maybe for his next video O'Keefe should dress up as a plumber and ask G. Gordon Liddy how to burglarize and wire tap Democratic offices.

Boom! Hey-oh.

[Dave.gillam]

Wonder what else the Dems are about to be caught in.

[carsonfire]

Heh, get a load of this:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32039.html

Poll: Fox most trusted name in news

Fox is the most trusted television news network in the country, according to a new poll out Tuesday.

A Public Policy Polling nationwide survey of 1,151 registered voters Jan. 18-19 found that 49 percent of Americans trusted Fox News, 10 percentage points more than any other network.

Thirty-seven percent said they didn’t trust Fox, also the lowest level of distrust that any of the networks recorded.

The PPP is the Dem pollsters who got the Scott Brown race right. They got the numbers right, anyway, but their analysis of their own data (like it was with Brown) is a bit unhinged because of their own bias:

“A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most neutral and unbiased conveyors of news,” said PPP President Dean Debnam in his analysis of the poll. “But the media landscape has really changed, and now they’re turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.”

It has been liberal-dominated, Democrat-friendly media who have been bending over backwards to tell Democrats "what they want to hear". It has been that media which has tried suppressing news unfavorable to Democrats, and has tried very hard to participate in false memes that don't pan out. They are not perceived as neutral and unbiased conveyors of news because, for all their pomposity and high self-regard, they are not.

[VictorK]

This is why PPP concluded that the results are about polarization and not truthseeking:

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_National_126.pdf

Conservative Trust Of Media Outlets (Yes/No)--PPP Poll 1/26/10

FOX NEWS: 75/13
CNN: 22/60
ABC NEWS: 16/67
NBC NEWS: 15/66
CBS NEWS: 14/68

Liberal Trust of Media Outlets (Yes/No)--PPP Poll 1/26/10

NBC NEWS: 64/22
CNN: 63/21
CBS NEWS: 56/29
ABC NEWS: 50/31
FOX NEWS: 26/66

Moderate Trust of Media Outlets (Yes/No)--PPP Poll 1/26/10

CNN: 47/31
NBC NEWS: 44/33
CBS NEWS: 41/33
ABC NEWS: 39/34
FOX NEWS: 33/48

FoxNews is the least trusted news source among liberals and moderates, but it's the only news source that conservatives trust.

[Dave.gillam]

I think Id like to see what DEM pollsters consider "moderate" before I give any credence to these numbers. It wouldnt be the first time they rigged a poll.

[VictorK]

Looking at the poll it allowed for self identification. This is how the ID broke down:

14% Liberal
47% Moderate
39% Conservative

That's why FoxNews is the most trusted overall, because when you aggregate those groups overwhelming conservative support pushes it to the front.

[Casual Notice]

Of course it doesn't hurt that the other four news media don't have four media giants making near-constant jokes and comments about how they're evil corrupt liars.

[carsonfire]

Looking at the poll it allowed for self identification. This is how the ID broke down:

14% Liberal
47% Moderate
39% Conservative

Heh. The Democrat poll was clearly biased against Democrats!

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124958/Conse ... Group.aspx

Conservatives Finish 2009 as No. 1 Ideological Group
Uptick owing largely to more independents calling themselves conservative
by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- The increased conservatism that Gallup first identified among Americans last June persisted throughout the year, so that the final year-end political ideology figures confirm Gallup's initial reporting: conservatives (40%) outnumbered both moderates (36%) and liberals (21%) across the nation in 2009.

More broadly, the percentage of Americans calling themselves either conservative or liberal has increased over the last decade, while the percentage of moderates has declined.

So VK's complaint is that the Democrat poll is weighted unfairly in favor of conservatives at 39%, when conservatives clearly only make up 40%.

Meanwhile, media polls which frequently wildly oversample Democrats frequently prove wrong -- except to Democrats, who take the oversampled polls as proof that there's something fishy going on at the ballot box. In other words, they only want to believe polls and counts that tell them what they want to hear.

What about that James O'Keefe, anyway? (still trying to help VK out)

Oh, and seriously -- have you guys heard about Keenspot?

[VictorK]

So VK's complaint is that the Democrat poll is weighted unfairly in favor of conservatives at 39%, when conservatives clearly only make up 40%.

When did I say that things were weighted unfairly in favor of conservatives? I'm saying that the only reason FoxNews is the most trusted is because it's almost the exclusively trusted new source of conservatives, and it's the strength of the conservative loyalty to the network that pushes it to the front when liberals and moderates both have it at the bottom of the list, but have more parity over all.

[monkmunk]

What's the news about Keenspot?

[Casual Notice]

The Crosby's are essentially closing it and turning it into a for-profit outlet for their own projects. Allegedly, the first many Keenspotters heard about it was when they read the Fleen article on it. There has been much furor, and, of course, Kurtz and Bobby had a fight in the comments section of the article.

So, what I'm gathering is that liberals who now consider themselves "moderates" and have never seen more of Fox News than the well-edited soundbytes on The Daily Show and Colbert trust CNN more. Enh. Like it matters. News was never all that ethical and anyone who trusts any news outlet to spit out the truth on all things deserves what their naivete gets them.

[carsonfire]

The Crosby's are essentially closing it and turning it into a for-profit outlet for their own projects. Allegedly, the first many Keenspotters heard about it was when they read the Fleen article on it. There has been much furor, and, of course, Kurtz and Bobby had a fight in the comments section of the article.

Heh... Scott Kurtz and anybody in the Crosby family having a fight is what would be called "the bottom story of the day".

The Fleen article might have been the first place some Keenspotters heard about it, if they never read the group mail or occasionally check in with our members' forum. The document that Fleen posted is simply the announcement to the members. The problem is, not everybody signs up for the mail or keeps up with the forum.

Not everybody is happy, but I haven't seen much in the way of "furor". Myself, I have to admit that I'm not really surprised or upset about this development.

A little distracted right now, listening to the State of the Union...

[VictorK]

A little distracted right now, listening to the State of the Union...

Why? I don't really care much what he says. The only people who care are the punditocracy.

[carsonfire]

I have a bad habit of listening to junk like this, thinking it might be important.

I once bought a boxed set of Great Speeches on CD.

[VictorK]

The Republicans won't listen, the Democrats won't listen, Obama won't follow through, the American people will forget if they even saw it in the first place.

[carsonfire]

Anyway, the Keenspot news means that I will have to either A) give up my recently-required independent Elf Life website or B) separate Elf Life from Keenspot.

Elf Life's been a mess for years, so I don't think it's high priority right now for anybody but me. So I think that kind of puts it in a gray area, from Keenspot's point of view, at best. That is, I don't think my staying or leaving hurts *or* helps them.

So I'm kind of thinking that Elf Life will become separated by July, and hopefully I'll have it swinging a bit better by then, too.

That also means that I probably will go ahead and open up a new political forum over at elflife.net sometime soon, to replace this one. I've been threatening to close down this one forever, anyway.

Oh, that reminds me... not that it matters much, but the old Winger archive is back up... uh... here:

http://elflife.net/elflife/comics/winge ... winger.php

[carsonfire]

Meanwhile, Andrew Brietbart, who at first said he had no idea what O'Keefe was doing, must have finally had a chance to talk to O'Keefe. Yesterday he was in the dark, but today is smugly predicting...

http://bigjournalism.com/abreitbart/201 ... rnalism%29

For those in the mainstream media committed to report the false and libelous narrative of “Watergate Jr.,” “wiretapping” and “bugging,” I predict much egg on your J-school grad faces.

I can't wait to see how this plays out. It's drama, at least!

...in fact, I think I just now figured out what his post title means: "A1 to A73 in 24 Hours". He's referring to chess, isn't he?

[VictorK]

“Was Mr. O’Keefe up to one of his patented and obvious clown nose-on hidden camera tricks, trying to make his subjects look foolish?”

If he was his own subject, does this make sense? Landrieu? The police? If it's a reference to chess it must be nth dimensional chess 'cause I'm not seeing how getting arrested for a wiretapping plot makes anyone look foolish but yourself. Though I suppose there's always the possibility of hilariously thin police evidence, though you'd hope that given O'Keefe's reputation and that one of the other plotters was the son of an acting US Attorney that they'd be a little more careful.

It's also hilarious that Breitbart calls these claims libelous when defending a guy who heavily doctored interview tapes to get the effect he wanted...O'Keefe is not journalsit, he's a partisan hit man.

[carsonfire]

It's also hilarious that Breitbart calls these claims libelous when defending a guy who heavily doctored interview tapes to get the effect he wanted...O'Keefe is not journalsit, he's a partisan hit man.

Yeah, I know what you mean. MediaMatters and Michael Moore would NEVER edit material in order to falsify a claim, would they?

[VictorK]

Yeah, I know what you mean. MediaMatters and Michael Moore would NEVER edit material in order to falsify a claim, would they?

Is that a defense of O'Keefe or are you trying to say that I support falsified material (supposing that it exists) from those sources?

[carsonfire]

I mean that the left often edits things, and too obviously edits in a way to change context and falsify meanings -- and I can cite specific examples from both Michael Moore and MediaMatters where specific deceptions were created by leaving out context, or re-ordering reality in order to support a provably false charge. Editing alone doesn't mean that you were doing something underhanded -- unless you were doing something underhanded.

I'm not too familiar with the charges regarding editing of the Acorn material, but I assume that as a so-called filmmaker, O'Keefe released the relevant portions of the tape, and didn't just issue raw feed of him and his accomplice sitting in the waiting room for hours on end. Or is it alleged that he did something to falsify the interviews? That's what's mostly important -- is there any question that the substance or meaning of the Acorn interviews is incorrect? I have not heard that alleged once -- only repetition of the charge that "it was edited".

I'm not even necessarily defending the way it was done, but this kind of gotcha journalism is practiced all the time, with few complaints when we think the "right" people are targeted -- by Dateline, for example, when they set up the pervs. There's editing involved there -- *every time*. The question is, did they edit things in a way to deceive? Did they change the meaning of what they filmed? If I were the perv making noise about *that* being edited, it's what we would call "a bluff" -- an attempt to create a seed of doubt where (most likely) none is warranted.

A minor correction of something stupid -- my dull, blinking eyes are looking up there where I said my recently "required" site -- of course, I meant "recently acquired". Duh, duh, duh duh duh. Sorry about that.

[carsonfire]

Ugh... by the way, this says more about his own prejudice than ours:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelca ... ml?showall

After the State of the Union speech, MSNBC's Chris Matthews quickly drew criticism for saying that he "forgot [Obama] was black tonight for an hour."

While that one line made its way around the Internet, much of the context — a larger point about the presidency and race — got lost. So now, Matthews explained what he meant on MSNBC.

"I think he's done something wonderful," Matthews said. "I think he's taken us beyond black and white in our politics, wonderfully so, in just a year."

This is a twit who's been looking at videos of tea parties and angrily storming that he sees too many white faces -- from a show on a network with literally an all-white lineup.

Only in the fevered racist minds of Democrats has this ever been about race for conservatives. When we talk about leftism and socialism, it's not "code words". Leftism and socialism means leftism and socialism. The previous administration -- Republican -- advanced blacks to the highest position they had ever held in federal government, and the racist Democrat response was to yawn. They are only interested in such things when it involves self-flattery, i.e., "look how much better and more tolerant WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE are!" And, seriously, I think a lot of it has to do with over-compensation of a largely racist history, being literally the historic party of slavery and the Ku Klux Klan, which is only worth noting now because they try to paint the party of Lincoln as the party of slavery and the Ku Klux Klan.

While blacks do largely reject the Republican party and vote Democrat in large numbers, one of the most important contemporary conservative philosophers is black; one of the more brilliant jurists on the Supreme Court (despite Harry Reid's own racist ignorance) is black and conservative. While there are of course going to be racists who also happen to be Republican or conservative, the problem is individual in nature, and not a systemic one. Many conservatives would have liked to see Condoleeza Rice run for higher office.

The brain and the person are more important than skin color -- unless you're a racist host on MSNBC, who is *just now* getting over Obama being black.

[carsonfire]

Well, here the media corrections begin:

http://patterico.com/2010/01/28/cbs-new ... fications/

...the Washington Post yesterday retracted its claim that the feds are charging James O’Keefe with an attempt to bug Mary Landrieu’s phones:

Earlier versions of this story incorrectly reported that James O’Keefe faced charges in an alleged plot to bug the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu. The charges were related to an alleged plot to tamper with a phone system. The headline incorrectly referred to a plot to bug the phone and a caption incorrectly referred to an alleged wiretap scheme.

Some other organizations owe corrections and clarifications.

The press mischaracterization of this was widespread, because all of the media immediately seized on the sensational -- but evidently false -- charge that O'Keefe was trying to bug/wire the office. Apparently there is no support for that accusation at all.

What it's starting to look like -- and I might be wrong on this -- is that this prank was designed not as a "break-in", but to get the politician's office on record saying that their phones work. That could be characterized as dumb, but not criminal.

But that the press is quick to lob accusations based on their own political biases is significant, and could become the bigger story. The press is less concerned, for instance, with Democrats showing up at polls with weapons than they were about a goofball videographer trying to get political types saying dumb things on camera. They celebrate their own goofball videographer for trying to get Republicans to say stupid things, but would like to find an excuse to destroy a more minor goofball videographer for going after the "wrong" people.

[monkmunk]

The story i'm getting is that they wanted to disconnect the phones, to show that no-one would notice, but now it's a question of what their 'intent' was, and i'm less good at mind-reading than some.