Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

This is called “lobbying”

Posted: February 24, 2011 by datechguy in Afghanistan war, media, opinion/news, war
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Morning Joe was breathless today reporting that the well-known bastion of journalistic mud-racking on government issues Rolling Stone magazine is reporting that our troops were using “psi-ops” against US senators.

Joe breathlessly reported this as a turning point, Norah O’Donnell subbing for Mika talked about it breathlessly and then when the panel started talking about it, the one person who had actually read the article, found very little there there:

So I figured I’d take a look at rolling stone, to see what that pillar of serious news had to say.

In between their world-class coverage of Justin Bieber Superboy and their big exclusive on The Return of Bevis and Butthead to MTV I found the military story and what a story it is.

The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in “psychological operations” to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war

WOAH! sounds nasty! No wonder they hate soldiers at Columbia. Did they bug their hotels looking for dirt, plant hot blonds to snooze them and take pictures? Maybe they waterboarded or drugged them? What nefarious methods did Rolling Stone uncover that the Evil US army used against senators:

According to Holmes, who attended at least a dozen meetings with Caldwell to discuss the operation, the general wanted the IO unit to do the kind of seemingly innocuous work usually delegated to the two dozen members of his public affairs staff: compiling detailed profiles of the VIPs, including their voting records, their likes and dislikes, and their “hot-button issues.” In one email to Holmes, Caldwell’s staff also wanted to know how to shape the general’s presentations to the visiting dignitaries, and how best to “refine our messaging.” emphasis mine

…WOW that’s absolutely positively…ordinary, but I’m sure that it gets worse because in the very next paragraph it says:

According to Holmes, the general wanted the IO team to provide a “deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds.” The general’s chief of staff also asked Holmes how Caldwell could secretly manipulate the U.S. lawmakers without their knowledge. “How do we get these guys to give us more people?” he demanded. “What do I have to plant inside their heads?”

Wow he wants to find pressure point, he want to plant stuff inside their heads, boy this sounds a lot like…..lobbying.

But it’s not like Holmes the source for this story had a grudge. After all any soldier could be the subject of an Ar 15-6 investigation. And I’m sure many Colonials and their female Majors under them get reprimands over an “inappropriate relationship”. After all Rolling Stone covers stuff like this all the time and married or no they understand that as Holmes wrote: “Gimmee a break a man has needs you know.”

So this is the breathless story that Morning Joe started the show with and Norah O’Donnell in their first hour. It flew like a lead balloon and made such an impact that they followed up with their 2nd hour to go long with the crank call to Gov Walker before trying once again to sell this story as the template for the anti-war left, this time without Jamie Rubin who had popped their bubble in the first hour as MSNBC runs with the story.

The real problem lately has been reports out of Afghanistan have been encouraging and the agenda of the left when it comes to Afghanistan is the opposite of Reagan’s “We win they lose”.

One of the people who I ran into CPAC was the young lady who last year worked for Joe Scarborough who had given me the high compliment of saying I was tough but fair on him. When she greeted me I mentioned that I was even harder on him lately, she approved and it was suggested that he was more concerned these days with being accepted by the cocktail set.

When I talk about Morning Joe these days I’m often teased that I follow it because so few people watch it. The more I see of it lately the more that critique seems justified.

If the goal of Unions is provocation

Posted: February 23, 2011 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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consider me provoked:

Mike Capuano could not be reached for comment.

There was a time when even union thugs would have left a young lady alone. I’m not as young as I once was, but Tabitha if you are out filming in any area where I am nearby I humbly offer my services as an escort to help prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

If you want to know why Morning Joe was so impressed by Mitch Daniels

Posted: February 23, 2011 by datechguy in opinion/news, politics
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this is it:

Just a couple of quick comments and that’s really all I’ll make. First of all, just to affirm, the activities of today are perfectly legitimate part of the process. Even the smallest minority – and that’s what we’ve heard from the last couple days – has every right to express the strength of its views and I salute those who do.

Nothing like a republicans who covers for fleeing democrats against his own party, it always makes the heart of the no labels heart beat faster.

Little Miss Attila? Not so much.

What I saw at the Boston Union/Tea Party rally

Posted: February 23, 2011 by datechguy in economy, examiner columns, internet/free speech, opinion/news
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I got to the State house around 5:45. At the time I got there you could see two distinct groups. On the right side of the street (the state house building) were the unions. About 1200 people appeared on that side of the street (I actually counted).

The Union side of the street


On the other side of the street was the tea party folk, mixed with union folk, there were considerably more Union folk so they spilled over but the Tea Party had flags at the Shaw memorial precariously perched on the top of an ice bank.

The police did the best to keep the side apart at first and keep the road open since there was no permit to close it:

A Boston police office works to keep the road open

After my initial count I started interviewing I began on the Union side of the street with Kat:

The next willing person to talk was from the Democratic Socialists of America, ironic:

As soon as I talked to him a union fellow came up to me to claim that the tea party was having people show up pretending to be union folk. The irony of that statement was huge. This is called “projection” and we would see more of that before the end of the day.

I then crossed the street the crowd was getting thicker as more union folk turned up (were the stewards counting?). On the Tea Party side was Susan who was pushing a priest in a wheelchair and is clearly more Catholic than me:

At this point the crowd surge was really large, I noticed Marty Lamb

(I’ve been seeing him everywhere lately) who had a bit of a tale to tell:

I didn’t see Marty Knocked down, if someone has the film I’d like to see it. I also didn’t know they were making some union guys sign in. That suggest payment but I have no direct evidence of that.

At this point the street was shut down, I went to the police to ask about it and they said it was a matter of safety, too many people were there and they could not guarantee safety of people if cars kept going though

Street was closed off

I then climbed up the ice hill and saw Roxeanne (who will talk about this Saturday on the show) and talked to Ralph who was now surrounded by union guys so his flag would not show up in the pictures

Climbing down was a bit of an adventure. I briefly chatted with one of the union guys covering the event and we agreed that the ice hill didn’t care what side anyone was on.

And of course the Axis of Fedora was represented:

Now that's a Fedora look

more than once:

As the day wore on there were more of the standard: “I show up for every protest” people along with the LaRouche cult (sans Obama Hitler mustaches signs) their suggestions were…interesting.

Shortly afterward

Michael Graham's doctor notes

Michael Graham of WTKK showed up and he was not well received by the union folk as he gave out his “Doctor Notes”

The union guys swarmed him so police had to come, ironically one of the union guys heckling him made the best case of anyone there for unions in general:

This guy should have been on the stage, if the unions were smart he would be their spokesman. Meanwhile I followed Graham as his very presence made buzz

and seemed to drive people over the edge:

To craziness and Nazi salutes. This really took State Rep Bastein (R Gardner) aback

He talked to me about it directly afterward:

We never saw this kind of nonsense in our neck of the woods. I lost track of Graham at this point but found an interesting person who had lived in the Soviet Union who had some comment:

It’s funny how people who have actually lived under oppression seem to be on the conservative side. He was the second Russian I had met today saying the same thing.

At this point (about 5:30) it looked like things were dying down

However it wasn’t as dead as I thought as this fellow started to call the Tea Party people (who were more prominent as some union people started leaving) mass murderers.

I tried to interview the union guy who tried to block the interview but he declined curtly. Even more interestingly was an actress Trudy and her friend Bob who both talked to me until my memory card filled:

It was really interesting to see really odd charges made against the tea party which are totally contrary to reality and to my own reporting over the last 14 months but I never thought to ask her, if she was an actress for all these decades with the Union to look out for her, how is it she never made it into the middle class? I guess the union movement didn’t do much for her.

Once I changed my card I talked to Edward of the tea party who I see regularly at these events and Karen who follows me on twitter (thanks)

We both bemoaned the lateness of our Koch brother checks that should be keeping us in luxury. I made it a point to stay as the union folk packed up, there was a fair amount of trash that was left in the area and I wanted to see if they would pick up after themselves, in the end pickup was done but from an unexpected source:

Yes that’s right, a tea party guy was picking up after the union, after all “janitor” was likely not in their job description.

At that point I went back to the tea and a nice fellow allowed me to put my PC on his bag as he sat allowing me to finish my Examiner article (click on it, that’s worth .75 of a cent to me).

How did it come out? Well it really will have no effect on Wisconsin but you could see that the union side was tense, they are very afraid of what is going on in Wisconsin, they were in denial about the last election, and I think they realize that it’s a question of when (not if) Gov Walker wins this fight.

The image of democrats fleeing the state and doctors giving out “sick notes” have made a very bad impression that is likely going to stick. Even worse if Walker turns Wisconsin around he will be copied and the game will be over.

Update: Welcome Big Government and Gateway pundit readers. Take a peek around and don’t forget to check out my two articles on the subject at the Examiner. Anger and Loathing in Boston and The News Hounds that didn’t Bark. Also check out my two interviews with Andrew Breitbart, one from CPAC and one from Madison.

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