Standardized Testing and the Death Penalty

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Two events this week reminded me of how much distance there is between myself and many other Americans.

In the wake of the death sentence imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (the younger “Boston Bomber”), I’ve heard numerous anti-death penalty screeds. Even many so-called “Conservatives” (Bill O’Reilly is staunchly anti-death penalty) have argued for “life-without-parole.”

While I can begrudgingly accept the likes of O’Reilly’s, and other religious people’s objection to the death penalty, but there is absolutely no basis on which atheists and agnostics can oppose it. ALL morality is rooted in religion. The West’s moral code is based on Judeo-Christian canons, while Sharia’s moral code is rooted in Islam’s holy books, the Quran, the Sunnah and the Sira.

The primary argument against the death penalty has been that too many innocent people have been condemned to death over faulty eye witness and other circumstantial evidence.

THAT is a rational argument.

Of course it is NOT an argument against the death penalty itself, merely in favor of much more stringently applied standards of evidence.

Today, with ubiquitous video evidence (surveillance cameras are virtually every) and DNA evidence, we can be substantially assured that those convicted under such standards of evidence are guilty.

Another argument against the death penalty is that “It is NOT a deterrent to murder,” but that is wrong on its face.

Obviously, the death penalty deters THAT particular criminal from ever murdering again. Moreover, properly applied draconian punishments (like the very public and often horrific punishments meted out under Sharia) very much DO seem to deter violent crimes, as those countries have some of the lowest violent crime rates on the globe...far lower than America’s, even lower than places like Belgium and Japan.

In short, the death penalty works.

Moreover, once properly convicted (via video &/or DNA evidence) appeals should simply be strictly limited and ONLY to appeals that offer new evidence or incontrovertibly challenge existing evidence.

Oddly enough, many of the SAME people who so strongly and inanely oppose the death penalty also oppose standardized testing and with the same “damn the facts” kind of faith-based zeal.

One very obvious truth is undeniable. There are NO reliable subjective criteria (interviews, outside activities engaged in, even grades – which can and HAVE BEEN often manipulated by unscrupulous educrats), absolutely NONE.

Many opponents of standardized testing have looked to a single 2008 study that claims that “grades are a better indicator of College success than SAT exams,” going against decades of other studies that showed the reverse.

Moreover, the 2008 Study commissioned by the College Board found high school grades are sometimes a better predictor of first-year college grades than SAT scores (previous studies have shown that SAT scores accurately predict a student’s overall College performance). But the study also found that looking at the combination of SAT scores and high school grades predicts college outcomes better than either measure does alone.

Florida’s disgraced education commissioner, Tony Bennett’s misdeeds didn’t only occur in Florida, but in Indiana, where he was commissioner in 2012. According to stories in the Associated Press, which Bennett did not refute, he wrote an email to one of his agency colleagues demanding a higher grade for a school run by one of his major campaign donors. “Anything less than an A for Christel House,” Bennett allegedly wrote, “compromises all of our accountability work.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/tony-bennett-resigns-florida-education-post-amid-scandal/2013/08/01/3082416a-faef-11e2-a369-d1954abcb7e3_story.html)

The founder of Christel House, philanthropist Christel DeHaan, had donated $130,000 to Bennett’s campaign for re-election as state school superintendent. The grade was quietly changed from a C to an A.

While unscrupulous educators can also look to circumvent standardized exams - 11 Atlanta teachers were arrested over correcting answers on their students standardized testing (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jillian-carter-ford/the-wheels-of-the-prison-_b_7026558.html), in Philadelphia, PA., a Principal and four teachers were arrested over the SAME issue, changing their student’s answers on standardized exams (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/08/philadelphia-test-cheating_n_5288140.html). All that proves is that incompetent teachers, like most incompetent workers, will do anything to avoid looking...incompetent.

Grades are far easier to manipulate, far more difficult to quantify and therefor to uncover such abuses. Standardized testing makes it far easier to uncover and prosecute incompetent teachers who are doing a deliberate disservice to the children they educate.

Moreover, standardized testing DOES NOT require “teaching to the test,” and otherwise abandoning “holistic, interdisciplinary educational methods.” An effectively EDUCATED student will be able to handle a standardized exam. Poorly educated students are generally NOT able to articulate, or otherwise demonstrate a basic comprehension of the subjects they are taught.

In effect, the anti-standardized exam movement is a pro-incompetence movement.

In a world where grades cannot be trusted and incompetent educators actively seek to circumvent standardized exams that show how poorly educated their students really are, we NEED more standardized testing, not less.

A recent study done in New York State by Achieve and the Collaborative for Students Success shows that New York’s math and reading exams very much mirror the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is considered the gold-standard in student assessment.

New York State tops the list of states that honestly measure student progress. Recently, N.Y state Chancellor for Education, Merryl Tisch has said that this new report bolsters New York’s rigorous testing of public schools students (http://www.pressreader.com/usa/new-york-daily-news/20150515/281801397540153/TextView).

Chacellor Tisch is right, just as the opponents of standardized testing are hopelessly wrong.

Like the death penalty deters murder, standardized testing works, in fact, it’s the only way to truly measure what a given student has learned over the course of their education.

Oh No He Di...INT!

Well, apparently he has.

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly (pictured above) defended fellow FNC host Megyn Kelly Monday night, saying that Santa Claus is indeed white, although he added that it really doesn't matter.

Kelly came under fire last week after saying that both Santa and Jesus were white men. She was responding to a Slate article by Aisha Harris, who wrote a vilely racist opinion piece entitled “Santa Claus Should Not Be a White Man Anymore.” (http://www.slate.com/articles/life/holidays/2013/12/santa_claus_an_old_white_man_not_anymore_meet_santa_the_penguin_a_new_christmas.html).

Hey! How come Aisha Harris hasn't been excoriated for her own disgusting bit of race baiting? Whites are not only a majority in America (72%) they also comprise over 70% of America’s poor and are the fastest growing group in poverty within the U.S. (poor, mostly rural whites have higher birth rates than any other poor group in America, prompting Charles Murray’s 1990's article, “The Coming White Underclass”). Soooo, any thought that Ms. Harris’ assertion is based on her view that there is “a rising black tide within America,” is patently and demonstrably false. As a matter of fact, African-Americans are actually a shrinking segment of America’s population, blacks at appx. 12% of the population have accounted for 36% of the abortions annually and since 1973 have shrunk from over 13% of the population to slightly over 12% today, with fully 1/3 of the blacks living in the USA today being either African or Caribbean immigrants or their descendants. That means, in real terms, since 1973, the native-born American black population within America has shrunk by more than a third! I am virtually certain that Aisha Harris is aware of those facts.

So, HOW can Aisha Harris have escaped the well-warranted outrage over her overtly racist and deliberately offensive remarks?

Whoops! I almost forgot...at this moment in time, even the most obvious and odious black bigots “can’t be called racists” in America.

Predictably, a tsunami of criticism erupted in the wake of Kelly’s remarks.

Critics said St. Nicholas, the model for Santa Claus, was from what is modern-day Turkey, and Jesus was a Middle-Eastern Jew. Both had dark skin, they said.

But O’Reilly noted, in rebuttal, that Turks today don’t consider themselves nonwhite. O’Reilly stated, “In this case, Ms. Kelly was correct. Santa was a white person. Does that matter? No, it doesn't matter. The spirit of Santa transcends all racial boundaries.” I couldn't help but notice that O’Reilly shied away from mentioning anything about the historical Jesus, who was indeed a Middle Eastern Jewish Rabbi and an anti-Roman activist. O’Reilly, who researched the historical Jesus for his book “Killing Jesus”  (http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Jesus-Martin-Dugard-OReilly/dp/1447252667/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387307746&sr=1-2&keywords=killing+jesus) has to know that the historical Jesus looked nothing like the Europeanized version used to convert the Pagans of Europe. Still, his comments about the modern-day Santa Claus, are true, in so far as they go (he wrongly focuses on the Turkish roots of St. Nicholas which is only peripherally related to the modern-day Santa Claus). Today’s Santa Claus is NOT as much based on the Turkish saint, but instead on the Dutch figure of Sinterklaas...and the Dutch are indeed very much and very proudly northern European white.

The history of the modern-day Santa Claus is easily referenced online on sites like Wikipedia;“Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle and simply “Santa“, is a mythical figure with legendary, historical and folkloric origins who, in many Western cultures, is said to bring gifts to the homes of the good children on December 24, the night before Christmas. However, in some European countries children receive their presents on St. Nicholas’ Day, December 6. The modern figure of Santa Claus is derived from the Dutch figure of Sinterklaas, which, in turn, has part of its basis in hagiographical tales concerning the historical figure of Christian bishop and gift-giver Saint Nicholas. During the Christianization of Germanic Europe, this figure may have absorbed elements of the god Odin, who was associated with the Germanic pagan midwinter event of Yule and led the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession through the sky. Over time, traits of this character and the British folklore character Father Christmas merged to form the modern Santa Claus known today.

Santa Claus is generally depicted as a portly, joyous, white-bearded man — sometimes with spectacles — wearing a red coat with white collar and cuffs, white-cuffed red trousers, and black leather belt and boots and carries a bag full of gifts for children. Images of him rarely have a beard with no moustache. This image became popular in the United States and Canada in the 19th century due to the significant influence of Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” and of caricaturist and political cartoonist Thomas Nast. This image has been maintained and reinforced through song, radio, television, children’s books and films.”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus)

Both O’Reilly and Kelly correctly note that the real target of the criticism is Fox News itself.

That criticism has been, from the start, rooted in anti-working class bigotry, often anti-white bigotry and an antipathy toward free speech on the part of those who've leveled those criticisms.

With Conservatives and traditionalists outnumbering liberals by around 2 to 1 (at least according to Gallup: http://www.gallup.com/poll/152021/conservatives-remain-largest-ideological-group.aspx), America’s media SHOULD reflect that reality rather than look to alienate the single largest group of Americans.

Suffice to say, when even noted FNC critics like Media Matters founder David Brock openly admit that America’s media should be far more Conservative, it SHOULD be time for ALL Left-of-Center Americans of good will to throw in the towel on that one.

Why is FoxNews Always Under Attack?....

WoW! According to Howell Raines the failed NY Times Executive Director, who left shortly after presiding over the Jason Blair scandal in 2003, FoxNews’ ((FNC) Roger Ailes “has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations...”

Raines asks, “Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes...for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration - a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?”

Apparently Howell Raines is either hopelessly hyper-partisan or stupefyingly ignorant of today’s news media landscape...or perhaps both.

FNC, like CNN and MSNBC, the other major 24-hour Cable News Networks offers straight news during the day and Commentary in the evenings.

The mainstream broadcast media (ABC, CBS and NBC, a/k/a the MSM) have long been reliably Center-Left, peopled by a staff that has consistently been over 80% both liberal in outlook and registered Democrats politically.

But recently MSNBC has brought a virulently Leftist and hyper-partisan agenda to an unprecedented level.

MSNBC’s evening crew is the most liberally biased and politically partisan on the air today. Their evening Commentary line-up of Schultz, Matthews, Olbermann and Maddow are all committed (and in a few cases committable) far-Left partisans.

FNC’s evening Commentary crew consists of the fiercely Independent Glenn beck, who has excoriated progressives both Democratic (Carter and Obama) and Republican (Hoover, Nixon, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr.), the slightly Left-of-Center, traditionalist Bill O’Reilly, a man who opposes the death penalty, supports a guest-worker program, believes in a strong environmental agenda and regularly rails against “oil companies profiteering at the expense of the folks,” often mistaken for a “Conservative,” by far-Left partisans who revile his traditionalist views and his support for things like Megan’s Law and stricter penalties for pedophiles and the Christmas Holiday. Sean Hannity, a very partisan Conservative and a generally reliable Republican supporter is the lone partisan in FNC’s evening line-up. He’s followed by Greta Van Sustern, a lawyer who usually focuses on crime stories along some other legal issues.

So why have some, like Howell Raines, excoriated FNC without objecting one bit to the far more egregious, hyper-partisan, and out of step with America propaganda they’re nightly spewing out on MSNBC?

Almost certainly because Raines is delusional enough to believe he lives in a Center-Left country, when there is absolutely no indication that is so.

In fact, the most generous poll to date shows self-identified Conservatives (40%) outnumbering self-identified Liberals (21%) by about 2 to 1. America is and long has been a Center-Right nation. This goes a long way to explaining why both Conservative Talk Radio and FNC slaughter their competition in the all important ratings war.

Today FNC has 4X as many viewers as CNN, while the far-Left MSNBC isn’t even on the ratings radar!

Why do you think that is?

Primarily it’s because the American people’s political views aren’t shaped, nor even very much influenced by the media, if they were, then through the 1960s and 1970s, when Liberals held a veritable monopoly status over America’s MSM, America would’ve been a Center-Left nation. It was most certainly not.

In fact, those were the same folks, the same viewers and listeners who gave the likes of Rush Limbaugh and other Conservative Talk Radio hosts the HUGE ratings advantage they enjoyed long before FNC came on the scene.

That too shows that media figures and pundits don’t convert the people, nor even sway them much, if at all. Instead it proves that the people respond to those who espouse views that resonate with their own, they gravitate to the people and views that mirror their own. It really is that simple.

Apparently Howell Raines is someone who sees nothing wrong with a corrupt, pro-BIG government media pushing a vile, largely anti-Capitalist/anti-American agenda on an increasingly unwilling populace. That’s the ONLY way to explain his seeing FNC, a lone Center-Right media outlet, as a threat, while apparently having no problem at all with the far more vile and hyper-partisan MSNBC.

That’s NOT OK and that’s why Howell Raines’ views are recklessly irresponsible and dangerously antithetical to an open discourse where all sides are able to offer their best arguments and the people themselves decide which side to support.

Keith Olberamnn’s Latest BIG LIE!...

I’ve got to hand at least one thing to Keith Olbermann, no one can make shear idiocy sound so pedantic.

What a guy!

Recently, Bill O’Reilly noted what the Wall Street Journal and others had singled out awhile back, that “The UAW worker’s compensation package hovers around $70/hour compared to the $50/hour compensation package for GM’s, Ford’s and Chrysler’s non-Union competitors, making those UAW shops hopelessly uncompetitive.”

Never passing up an opportunity to both pander to a Liberal cause, while taking a cheap shot at O’Reilly at the very same time, Olbermann took to, perhaps one of the most disingenuous routes of championing of the UAW ever seen.

First, Olbermann played a clip of O’Reilly comparing the relative costs of the different compensation packages, then Keith piously intoned that O’Reilly’s claim of a “one-third disparity in wages” is erroneous, noting that “GM’s workers and Toyota’s workers wages are nearly identical.”

While that’s TRUE about GM’s and Toyota’s WAGE packages, O’Reilly was talking about OVERALL compensation packages!

And those compensation packages include pension and health-care benefits!

.

It’s THERE, in those benefits packages, that the UAW’s workforce far outstrips their competitor’s compensation packages! It’s in those pension and health-care costs where the UAW’s compensation package’s value grows to a full one-third larger than its competitors!

But Olbermann, the slimeball, left that part out to deliberately imply that O’Reilly claimed something that he clearly didn’t.

That’s just one of the many reasons why Keith Olberamnn’s ratings are in the toilet.

Maybe next time he gives a “Worst Person in the World” award, old Keith will take a look in the mirror, for a change.

Oh NO! Even Bill O’Reilly Doesn’t GET IT!!!

Bill O’Reilly is generally a pretty fair minded commentator in my view and I say that despite the fact that he’s far more Liberal than I am (he opposes the death penalty, supports a guest worker program for illegal immigrants, etc.).

He’s an Ivy League New Yorker, after all, so how “Conservative” is he really going to be?

He has been a stalwart crusader for tougher sanctions against pedophiles, although I surmise he opposes the death penalty for repeat child sex offenders, which I support, and his crusade in favor of Megan’s Law and Jessica’s Law are admirable.

One area that I’ve always had a huge problem with Bill O’Reilly over is his views on “energy policy.” For a long time, he’s advocated American companies selling American oil to U.S. consumers at slightly above cost – it supposedly costs appx. $20/barrel for Energy Companies to take oil from America’s reserves, so Bill O’Reilly would suggest selling it to the American people at $25 to $30/barrel.

What’s wrong with that?

What’s wrong with it is that we exist within a global economy. Should Exxon-Mobil and Chevron be forced to sell U.S. at below world market prices (currently nearly $125/barrel), foreign oil companies would still sell theirs at world market prices, still reap huge profits AND eventually buy out/take-over America’s energy companies!

When O’Reilly interviewed Ben Mezrich this past Wednesday night (4/23/08), the author of the book Rigged about how the oil futures market sets world oil prices, Bill O’Reilly showed a startling degree of ignorance by asking, “OK, so who’s the guy who sets the world price of oil? Somebody has to set it at $125/barrel, it just doesn’t arrive at that number.”

Ben Mezrich replied, “It would be great if there were one such person-”

O’Reilly then stated, “Look, there’s got to be that one person. If you don’t know him, that’s fine, neither do I.”

What Mr. Mezrich didn’t get a chance to say was that there is NO ONE person! Commodities futures markets are an open auction, where the price of various commodities are bid up and down according to various investors/speculators “bets” based on the exiting information at hand.

Commodities futures markets are as open an economic democracy as you can get. Anyone can come in and invest on futures of any given commodity from corn to unleaded gasoline.

People of all kinds, from all economic strata are free to bid, invest, speculate on the price of any given commodity. You can “Buy” or bid, or invest/speculate on the price of that commodity going up, or “Short” and bid, invest/speculate based on the belief that that commodity will go down.

Behind those bids or investments/speculation are the market parameters (supply and demand for each commodity) and those market parameters play the same role in the mercantile exchange/commodities markets as do corporate fundamentals (the fiscal health of a given company) in the stock market. When more and more people believe that the market parameters for oil and unleaded gasoline point to a price rise for those commodities, the price of those commodities is bid upward until such a point, where no one will bid it any higher.

Right now, the U.S. has huge reserves of petroleum in shale oil, oil sands and both offshore in huge underwater deposits and in ANWR in the Artic, that it is not bringing to market.

Over the past decade or so, both India and China have modernized and industrialized and are now using far more oil than they did before.

That growing DEMAND amidst an artificially tightened SUPPLY has created market parameters for oil and gasoline futures that would indicate rising prices.

Even though world oil supply has risen sharply over the past decade, world demand has far outstripped that supply.

In the U.S. outrageously high federal and local gasoline taxes, federally mandated “summer blends” and policies that have (1) made building new refineries both more expensive and less profitable and (2) limited access to our huge supplies of oil and natural gas have all conspired to raise gasoline prices.

And yet, if even Bill O’Reilly, who’s father worked as an accountant for a major Energy Company, doesn’t get how this system works, how can we expect regular folks or even lowly politicians to get it?

Right now the world market is acting exactly as it should. In the face of rising demand outstripping the supply of a given commodity, the price of that commodity rises.

That is GOOD!

What it does is it makes the cost of that commodity so prohibitive that we are forced, as consumers, not to waste any of that commodity we own.

When government moves in to artificially lower the price of a commodity under those conditions, it winds up SUBSIDIZING waste, and ultimately makes the problem WORSE, by further driving up demand!

Ironically enough, the U.S. government could do something to bring down the price of oil and gasoline, by moving to INCREASE global supply, by bringing more of our own oil to market!

But we’re NOT doing that.

Looking for “the one man to blame” for setting the world price of oil so high” is as foolish and fruitless an endeavor as searching to find Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

Kos Goes Nuclear on O’Reilly

Recently Bill O’Reilly was instrumental in getting Jet Blue to drop its sponsorship for the Yearly Kos Convention and has highlighted the hypocrisy of many moderate and Liberal, though not far Left, Dems who’re planning to attend the event. Democrats, like Hillary Clinton, who are regularly lambasted in the Kos comments section.

Now Kos is going after O’Reilly....hard.

O’Reilly claims his moderators scrub his board of vile, vulgar comments and personal attacks. Now O'Reilly is charging that some Kossocks are posting comments on his board and claiming they’re from O’Reilly members in an escalating war between the two sides.

Interestingly enough, one Kossock recently attributed the quotes that other Kossocks claimed were from posters on O’Reilly’s board to O’Reilly himself; “Last week, the falafel-loving Bill O'Reilly declared a jihad against "the" Daily Kos, declaring it a hate site on par with the Nazis and the KKK.

"And in keeping with his non-existent journalistic standards, he produced random posts that he mined from the thousands of comments made here everyday...check that. He had had some low-level intern search for examples of hate from the thousands of comments made here everyday and presented them as representative of Daily Kos.

"Well, what's good for the goose is good for the fried balls of spiced fava beans. Here, presented for your consideration, are some deep thoughts from the denizens of billoreillydotcom, and following the logic of Bill O'Reilly, it means that:

"Bill O'Reilly advocates an armed rebellion against our government:

"Harry Reid playing politics? I wonder who's pulling his strings... I am ready for the new surge. Oh Keep your guns loaded. Mine are.

"If she wins which hopefully she won't. My guns are loaded for the revolt are yours??
"President Hillary Rodham Clinton no way I am keeping my guns loaded if she is elected because there will be a civil war."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/25/14044/5057

Well, all this brought me back to a relatively recent furor involving the far Left and Bill O’Reilly. On June 4th, O’Reilly took the NY Times to task for failing to cover the recently busted “JFK Terror Plot” on page 1, as most news organs around the country had done.
.
A friend of mine emailed me that a website charmingly named oreilly-sucks.com had posted that they'd caught O'Reilly in a lie. I was skeptical when I saw the name of the site, but checked it out and found this;

"6-5-07 -- Last night Bill O'Reilly devoted an entire segment to attacking the NY Times for not covering the arrests made in the JFK airport terrorist plot on the front page...

..."One problem there Billy, the New York Times did cover the JFK terror plot on the front page of its Sunday edition. You wouldn't know it from watching O'Reilly, who chose to show only the top half of the front page. "Now I'm not making this up," he told his viewers. "You see it. This is not the Colbert Report. This is The Factor and this is the fact."

"But his fact is a lie, and he was making it up, he literally made it up, here is what Billy had on the screen." (they showed the front page of the 6-3-07 Sunday NY Times, above the fold)

http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/oreillynytimeslie.htm

Well, I still had the Sunday NY Times of 6/3/07 at that time and when I saw that story and guess what?

The NY Times DID NOT cover the story on the front page, below the fold or anywhere else!

Except Bill O'Reilly DID make a technical error. The story was NOT on page A-37, but on A-30.

The folks at oreilly-sucks.com even had a NY Times front page pictured, but it's largely unreadable, though I wouldn't be surprised if they photoshopped the page A-30 article onto their online front page.

Ironically enough, they were undermined by the old "Gray Lady" herself, when the NY Times acknowledged not putting the story on page one and rationalized their reasons for doing so, shortly after this dust up.

Even other NYC newpapers noticed. The NY Post wrote a piece on that curious bit of journalism that went;

GRAY LADY, GRIM AGENDA

"June 5, 2007 -- Terror plot? What terror plot? That's what The New York Times seems to be asking, even as most news outlets are giving front-page coverage to the recently foiled scheme to blow up JFK Airport's fuel pipeline.

"The paper's goal seems to be getting America to lower its guard - which can only lead to disaster.

"The suspects were "Short on Cash / And a Long Way From Realizing Goals," one Times headline insisted yesterday. Regarding two of the men arrested, a second headline asserted that "Neither Seemed an Extremist."

"Indeed, on Sunday the paper barely covered the arrests of three suspects behind the plot: Its main story appeared A-37 pages back. A second piece undermined the significance of that story: "Plot Was Unlikely To Work, Experts Say, Citing Safeguards and Pipeline Structure."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06052007/postopinion/editorials/gray_lady__grim_agenda_editorials_.htm

OK, they, like Limbaugh and O'Reilly had the page wrong (A-37), although that makes me wonder whether it was different pages in different editions.
But Brian Maloney over at the radioequalizer got it right;

IT WAS ON PAGE A30

"After their assertion was refuted even by the New York Times itself, a nasty attack by liberal bloggers against conservative talk show hosts has backfired.

"After Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and other hosts lambasted the Sunday New York Times for burying news of the JFK terror plot bust, Think Progress, News Hounds and other lefties accused them of lying.

"By claiming the story actually was covered on page one and even asserting that O'Reilly intentionally misled viewers by showing only the top part of the page on camera, these smear sites were truly pulling a fast one.

"While Limbaugh said JFK terrorism plot coverage was found on page A30, O'Reilly says he found it on A37.

http://radioequalizer.blogspot.com/2007/06/rush-limbaugh-bill-oreilly-jfk-terror.html


After seeing a number of egregious misrepresentations from these sites, I'm convinced they weren't just "pulling a fast one," as Brian said, but were engaged in something far more deliberate and malicious, and very possibly civilly actionable.

That story was my introduction to such "websites" and as I suspected, judging by many of their names, I expected very little and wasn't disappointed.

Suffice to say, if such people would lie about such an obvious and easily provable issue (whether or not the NY Times covered the “JFK Terror Plot” on page A-1 -they did not), then they’d almost certainly lie about ANYthing.

Whether they realize it or not, these bloggers are open to civil litigation and the attorney's I know all seem to feel that that would be a wise course in some of the more egregious cases, as it wouldn't merely stand a real chance of winning damages for the accused, even if it didn't, it would cost the defendant in legal fees.

You can't leave off any qualifiers, or intros when quoting someone, for instance, if O'Reilly said, "While I'm against the death penalty, there are times when I'd support the death penalty for pedophiles and not lethal injection, the very prolonged and painful deaths, their acts warrant," it is civilly actionable to say "That O'Reilly said, 'I'd support the death penalty for pedophiles and not lethal injection, the very prolonged and painful death, their acts warrant.' " The fact that that snippet is in there does not shield that deliberate, egregious and obviously malicious misquote from civil action. In fact, THAT kind of misquote, the kind that changes the entire meaning of what the commentator said is demonstrably and overtly malicious and very probably opens the person doing the misquoting to civil litigation.

When a person misquotes another individually that egregiously and that maliciously the consensus is that that may well reach the level of proving "deliberate, malicious intent" and leave that person liable to substantial civil damages.

Up to this point O'Reilly and others have adhered to the strategy that ignoring these folks is the best possible strategy, as it denies them the attention they seek, but now that he's engaged Kos (over Jet Blue) , that attention is a moot point, so that strategy may no longer be sound.

O'Reilly acknowledges that the U.S. "must confront the Islamic jihadists," well, it's becoming increasingly clear that people like O'Reilly have to confront the Liberal jihadists here at home.

Red Bell-Bottoms, or What in THE hell happened to Keith Olbermann?!

Here's the sad thing for me, I must confess that I really, really liked Keith Olbermann for a very long time.

He was half of perhaps the greatest Sports Center duo ever on ESPN! He and Dan Patrick comprised a dynamic duo that brought sports highlights to, well, new heights.

Today Keith Olbermann is the whole (as in A-hole) of perhaps the most disastrous political talk commentary show on TV.

From "Joumanji" to "Jou-OhMyGodit'satrainwreck" in about four years (3/31/03)? That's gotta be some kind of record.

Sure, he's taken his Countdown right from his old Sports Center day's top highlights and he's added his "Today's Worst Person in the World" segment...a segment so lame that it could be a really bad Daily Show skit, but it's not even crazy enough, or edgy enough to be that.

It's just heart-wrenchingly lame.

How lame is it?

Well, it's so lame that just based on that one segment alone, I'm making Keith Olbermann my "Douschebag Du Jour" (and I just came up with that on the spot and it's funnier and less bulky than Olberman's poor man's Jon Stewart impersonation) for the entire month of March 2007 (what can I say, I'm a lazy bastard....but at least I'm not mind-numbingly lame).

So, where did Keith Olbermann go wrong?

Well, he left Dan Patrick and Sports Center for one thing. What kind of a nitwit would leave a gold mine like that?

But even more disastrous, Keith Olbermann decided that he'd engage in a little thing we like to call "Liberal commentary."

Come on Keith!

Liberal commentary is a lot like red bell-bottoms.

Now go look in the mirror.

What do you see?

OK, look harder.......yeah, you're a white suburbanite punk, same as me.

You have to be either a woman or a black guy to pull off red bell-bottoms Keith and you're neither.

Think about it! Women (sorry ladies) can pull off just about anything fashion-wise (it's true) because, sad as it may seem, no one's paying any attention to the fat chicks and every guy is just imagining all the others naked.

See how that goes? Red bell-bottoms/burqua, it really doesn't mater, because we're all busy trying to picture you ladies naked.

Black guys, well that's another story altogether.

I don't know how they can pull off such fashion faux pas, I guess life's just innately unfair.

You've seen it a million times by now. Your in the 7/11 (stop, don't act as though you don't go there) and in walks....no saunters...a black kid wearing red bell-bottoms...and it's a GUY! They're also low riders, half way down his butt revealing his four pair of underwear....and your stunned...stunned that ANY guy could actually pull off that fashion atrocity, but low and behold, he's doing it. Going where very few straight men have ever gone before.

What's the first thing you ask yourself?

No, NOT, "What's he doing wearing four pair of underwear?" Although that's a fair question.

Right, "I wonder how I'd look in that get up?"

And suddenly, almost instinctively and certainly against your will, a vision as horrific as a fat guy in a speedo slams itself off the four walls of your brain, rattling around in there like the image of some horrific war wound, or Mike Dukakis sitting dorkily inside that tank wearing a helmet seventeen sizes too big...and you realize exactly what you'd look like wearing those low rider, red bell-bottoms - like a middle aged, white dork wearing a grossly obscene, ass-revealing costume guaranteed to drive others around you into fits of uncontrollable violence.

You shudder at the thought and come to your senses. Red bell-bottoms just aren't for the likes of you and me.

But as if to confirm this revelation, a young white kid struts into the same store in almost the exact same get up...and he grins and flashes you a bunch of what you presume to be gang signs, as he stands there looking as ridiculous as a chimpanzee in overalls.

Your first thought is "Should I get a gun, or just a bat to put this poor son-of -bitch out of his misery?" I mean you really feel sorry for this pathetic shitbird even more so because you realize, "There but for the grace of a few horrific images..."

You see Keith? Liberal commentary is the verbal equivalent of those red bell-bottoms. It's hard to look good, let alone manly wearing them, especially for white suburbanite punks like us.

You think I don't sympathize?!

You think I haven't heard that same siren's call?

Sure I have! How many times have I heard that call, "JMK, you're a funny guy and you can really turn a phrase...at least some of the time...and we could really use you over here on the Left......that's aisle NINE, under red bell-bottoms. Sure they don't look good on everyone, but we believe you could pull it off."

Yeah right!

The day I try and squeeze my fat, white-bread ass into a pair of low rider, red bell-bottoms, is the day I finish off that ensemble with what I like to call a twelve gauge necktie.

In short, come to your senses Kieth, just stop it. Give up the ghost and crawl back to Dan Patrick and ESPN....if they'll still have you, but give up on this ill-fated, ill-conceived political commentary show. It's pathetic....as pathetic as a pair of red bell-bottoms on a middle aged white suburbanite punk.

And drop your ridiculous one-sided "feud" with Bill O'Reilly. You're not coming off like a pit bull with a grip on O'Reilly's jugular, but as a bouncing, drooling puppy-dog humping his leg.

The fact of the matter is that O'Reilly has already "deliveranced" you...and by "deliveranced," I mean grabbed you by both ears and butt reamed you like a meth-crazed hillbilly, demanding that you squeal like a pig."

<

Sorry, but that's the butt-ugly reality of it all.

You're NOT Ned Beatty and quite frankly, you don't need that. ...and neither does the viewing public - which for you is your entire family and the eight other MSNBC regulars breathlessly waiting for Joe Scarborough.

Please Keith, PLEASE!!! Take off those red bell-bottoms, you look ridiculous.

Or was it Bill O’Reilly???

I know some of folks will say that the Super-moderate O’Reilly (against Capital punishment and more environmentalist than most Dems) takes credit for everything, but here he may well have a point.

After outlining his argument that no Presidential candidate would have, say David Dukes (who recently surfaced in both the Ukraine and Iran to deny the holocaust ever occurred) write for them, then how come there is so much less outrage when two self-avowed anti-Christian fanatics (McEwan & Marcotte) are hired by a mainstream Presidential candidate?

On the hypocrisy of outrage O’Reilly is certainly right, of course, McEwan and Marcotte are exactly the same as David Dukes, though I really don’t understand why either’s views should be verboten. I would certainly NOT dismiss a candidate who embraced David Dukes, even though I disagree with many of Dukes’ views. I probably wouldn’t vote for that candidate, but I respect their right to endorse and be endorsed by whom they wish to be associated. Same with Marcotte and McEwan, I don’t “blame” the Edwards campaign for their views, BUT I still associate that campaign with these two, so I associate that campaign with a vuirulent form of bigotry – anti-Christian bigotry.

At any rate, back to O’Reilly and the Edwards camp, it seems O’Reilly found out that William Donahue of the Catholic League had informed the Edwards campaign that Marcotte had written a post describing, in pornographic detail, “Mary, the mother of Jesus, having sex with the Lord.”

The Catholic League reported that John Edwards’ response was that while he disagreed with Marcotte’s words, he wouldn’t fire either Marcotte or McEwan.

O’Reilly claims he had a producer call the Edwards camp, but no one there would talk to them about the issue, so Bill O’Reilly went on TV and laid out the entire above scenario. As he notes, “Within minutes of the broadcast, the Edwards campaign got rid of Marcotte. McEwan left the next day.”
Indeed O’Reilly’s right about the timing of Amanda Marcotte’s being let go by the Edwards campaign, so could it be that Bill O’Reilly, and not Marcotte’s insanely poor judgment on the Duke case, in a post subsequently “sanitized” and radically changed, was the reason Marcotte was let go?

Could be.

At least the timing’s so right, that it certainly makes it hard to argue with O’Reilly’s claim of credit.

In fact, that same week, O’Reilly asked Jane Fleming, the executive director of the Young Democrats Association, the same question, on air, that he posed to the Edwards campaign off air, “Would you hire a person who’d said vile things about blacks.”
“No,” she answered tersely.

“So why is OK to hire someone who says vile things about Christians?”

Fleming had no answer and appeared flummoxed by the question the Edwards campaign wisely avoided.

But avoiding the question doesn’t avoid the issue!

For better or worse, John Edwards hired and willingly associated his campaign with two radical anti-Christian zealots. Amanda Marcotte is on the same level as a Ted Rall or a David Dukes – outright bigots who are proud of their bigotry.

As I said, no bigotry should be out of bounds, speech is free, the results (alienation, loss of support, loss of market-share for businesses, etc) are not. Speech comes with concomitant responsibilities and the speaker must bear the brunt of the effects of that speech.

Tim Hardaway, an NBA stalwart from 1989 to 2003, recently acknowledged that “...I hate gays. If there were a gay guy on my team, I’d do my best to distance myself from him...”
The NBA disavowed those remarks and asked Hardaway to leave Las Vegas where he was representing the NBA during All-Star weekend. Hardaway was free to voice those views, but they had consequences.

In response the always outspoken Charles Barkley said, “Timmy’s a good guy, but those remarks are just stupid...I’ve played with gay teammates and that never bothered me. You know bothers me? You not being able to play ball!...You know what else bothers me? People feeling they have to announce their sexuality, like, “Hay, I’m gay.” Who cares?!”
Just as Hardaway’s remarks are protected from government action by the 1st Amendment, they are NOT free from repercussions by employers.

Same with people like Amanda Marcotte, David Dukes and other extremists – their views are protected from government censure, but they are NOT free from ramifications with employers, or an unreceptive public. You have to be able to bear the impact of whatever speech you endorse. Just as David Dukes is alienated and ostracized for his views in America, the likes of Amanda Marcotte deserve the same condemnation...and those who endorse/hire her deserve to be held accountable for that faux pas.