Today’s Winner

Thanks, Jay. No doubt you’ll get angry replies here about DeMint’s strategy. I get it that he has a clear plan to Nov. victory; whether it’s the “right” plan is quite another matter. How can his Neo-TP strategy win 50.1% of general vote while angering minorities and risk “independents” (disenfranchised R’s) + so many other non-TP’s? When you interviewed him does he understand that he might deliver “flawlessly” on his strategy and still come up way short? Are he and Lindsay Graham close friends / colleagues or rivals? If you have more thoughts and stuff the editors left out please post ‘em here, Jay, thanks.

This is wonderful news for all rational, thinking Americans. The further the Republican Party becomes beholden to knuckle dragging troglodytes like Jim DeMint, the faster it’s slide into irrelevancy.

Let the unthinking, rage filled teabaggers vent their incoherent anger by following the lead of people like DeMint and Rand Paul. The rest of us recognize that Jim DeMint cheerled the Bush administration’s disastrous handling of the economy, the wars, energy policy, education, the EPA, FEMA, etc. and now have no solutions to offer other than empty slogans like freedom, liberty and small government.

As Pres.Obama said a couple of days ago, people like DeMint were responsible for driving us into the ditch, and then declaring that they were rooting for failure when the other side was elected to get us out. I look forward to the continuing radicalization and splintering of the Republican Party.

Just to be clear Jim DeMint had very little if any impact on Rand Paul’s win in KY. He sat on the sidelines until May 5th.

By the way Rand Paul said on NPR today that he would have voted against the Civil Rights Act.

Oh poor sambam34, I know it feels good when you attempt to feebly rationalize where has all the Obama momentum gone?
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You see sambam, the vast MAJORITY of Americans have had some of Obama’s “hope and change” and we’ve decided it isn’t what we want.
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Perhaps instead of attacking those of us on the right, you would be better to look within and ask yourself, what happened?. We haven’t changed, your policy and programs simply do not work. Progressivism is being rejected, soundly, by Americans. We know the lies when we hear them. We equally know the truth when it is spoken.
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If I were you, I would write dear Leader a letter and beg him to stop his madness. Stop his push to socialize America. Stop his push to globalize all nations into one world order. America has always been independent.
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Yes, we have mobilized for the world in the past when other insane radicals like Hitler have tried to take over the world, Obama is no different. We will stop him too.

Yeah, but for almost two weeks he was a playa’.

Tim Kaine and Howard Dean have been all over the tubes today, but not a peep from Michael Steele lately. Anybody see him?

He’s still sitting in a corner facing the wall. He’s being punished until he learns to behave himself.

If I were you, I would write dear Leader a letter and beg him to stop his madness. Stop his push to socialize America.
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Do it, Rusty. Write the letter yourself since it’s your idea. For once don’t just sit on your ass and whine; do something you really believe in and tell the WH how you really feel. If you’re man enough that is, or are you just a chickenhawk? Or just chicken?

Mike went over to friendly terrority at Fox News and it worked out real well for him.

CAVUTO: Michael, the Tea Partiers didn’t like Senator Bennett.
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STEELE: That’s fine.
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CAVUTO: Fairly or not, they didn’t like him. The established Republican Party did.
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STEELE: Ok, that may be. But wait a minute.
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CAVUTO: I’m just saying that for you to say there is no angst between the two…
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STEELE: Neil, don’t mix. Please stop.
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CAVUTO: There clearly is.
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STEELE: Please do not mix the Republican Party establishment, I don’t know who that is, by the way.
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CAVUTO: You, you, you!
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STEELE: With activists, I, no…
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CAVUTO: You, you, you, you, you.
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STEELE: Neil, have you been reading my press lately, I don’t think the last thing you could say about me is that I’m part of the establishment.
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CAVUTO: Well, that’s true because everybody hates you. I’m kidding.
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http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/19/steele-cavuto-establishment/

So…the republicans are really enthusiastic about voting and the democrats aren’t nearly as fired up. Many more democrats turned out to cast votes yesterday. Does one vote still count as one vote? Does a really enthusiastic Teabagger vote get counted twice? If so, the democrats are in trouble.

Somebody cut sacredh’s mike. Can’t stay on script. Cut the mike!

Are we back to counting all the dead people who ACORN signed up?

You think that everyone to the left of your table should be dead anyway. So STFU.

Oh poor little decondivawannabe, I have written our dear Leader, well I emailed him does that count? I write a blog too, maybe you have visited our site? I am sure our dear Leader or his representatives know exactly how I feel, he does have the amply competent Mr Holder in charge of any criminal investigations, with the use of the FBI at his beck and call.
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I was simply urging sambam to perhaps find out what happened to the great Democrat/Liberal metanoia of 2008. How this vast liberal voting block now seems to be somewhat muted in comparison. How the recently dejected and routed Republican Party, not long ago was pronounced “dead for the next 30 years”.
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The resurrection was almost miraculous, wouldn’t you say? Almost as fast as Christ himself rose from the dead in 3 days.
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Enjoy!! I know I am!!
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LOL!!
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Oh gysgt, just because there is a vast number of liberals who THINK they see dead people and then subsequently sign them up to vote with ACORN’s help, doesn’t mean I wish ill-will upon these great Americans.
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I just want them to be relgated back into the progressive holes they crawled out of.

Today’s winners are radical left-wing extremists, not the slogan rich, idea free, tea baggers. The Left clearly won last night.

DelusionalDerek has awoken from his afternoon nap. How nice.

You have a blog? Oh, that’s what that link is at the bottom of your rants, I mean, replies. Better yet, why not post your email here for all to share? I’ll bet Jay will get a kick out if it, please make her happy (redact your email address, of course).

You see sambam, the vast MAJORITY of Americans have had some of Obama’s “hope and change” and we’ve decided it isn’t what we want.
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If by “vast MAJORITY” you mean “less than half the country,” then yes, you’re right. Gallup has Obama’s approval-disapproval at 49-45, with more approving than disapproving.
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But hey, this is Rusty we’re talking about, and he’s never been one to let “facts” or “evidence” or “reality” color his opinion.

This guy’s nuttier than a Snickers bar.
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Mark it down right now — Rand Paul is going to lose. He’s already polling poorly, with a pre-primary poll showing a Paul-Conway contest would break 42-39, and as he keeps flapping his lips on things like that, the independents will run like hell for a known quantity like Conway.

Right, all those dead people that ACORN staffers themselves flagged for local election boards and who were never actually registered to vote. What a menace.

I see Teabaggers. They walk around just like real people and they don’t even know they’re teabaggers.

Testing. Testing. Can anybody hear me? Is this thing working?

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Be sure to watch his interview from tonight with Rachel Maddow, where he persists in criticizing Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Amazing.

Jay Newton-Small
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just about everyone outside the Beltway loathes just about everyone inside the Beltway
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Yes, but we especially loathe that screechy assclown Howard Fineman.

Doesn’t one of DeMint’s candidates have to be crowned before we can call him a king-maker? November’s still a long time away. I know pretender-to-the-throne-maker doesn’t have quite the same zing, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

RustyQH sez: You see sambam, the vast MAJORITY of Americans have had some of Obama’s “hope and change” and we’ve decided it isn’t what we want.

Either Obama’s approval ratings have dropped dramatically below 50% since yesterday, or Rusty doesn’t know what “vast” or “majority” or even “MAJORITY” mean.

IT is no coincidence that the capslock key is on the left hand side of the keyboard. Manufacturers have long recognised that for people using it, their right hand is busy doing other things.

deconstructiva: I am with you. That piece of admiring reporting on DeMint left a lot of information unreported. What lobbiests support him? Where does his campaign money come from? Let’s learn more about his motivations.

He was on Maddow and made a fool of himself. He is also against the Disabilities Act. The Civil Rights Act and Disabilities Act should not be applied to businesses. It interferes with their free speech. So according to Rand, Blacks should not expect to be allowed to use businesses that are public accomodations.
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They must learn that a Hyatt can ban them and don’t expect to get a seat at the Olive Garden. Also, if you are in a wheel chair, just have someone carry you up to your hotel room.
Also, he wants a $2000 deductible for Medicaid. To know him is not going to make him lovable.
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As I stated on another thread, I find his father interesting. I wouldn’t vote for him. But, he seems kind. Rand is a neanderthal.

Rand Paul has ruled he can’t appear at privately owned venues.

Amen. He was still defendng his completely erroneous predictions last night. Pundit perfidity.

CAVUTO: Well, that’s true because everybody hates you. I’m kidding.
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(Three seconds later)
CAVUTO: Not really.

I don’t know, that’s a tough call. There’s so many perfectly hate-able Village idiots, you know?
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There’s Fred Hiatt, there’s Bill Kristol, there’s Richard Cohen…

It seems the NY Times has burned everyone again with the Blumentahl story.
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1. The AP now has the full video of the Norwalk speech. Elsewhere in that 2008 speech, writes Susan Haigh, Blumenthal describes his past accurately, saying he “served in the military during the Vietnam era.” At minimum, New York Times reporter Raymond Hernandez should have included that detail in his story. This is, as I say, the big smoking gun in the story, and the Times failed to disclose that in that same speech, Blumenthal gave a more complete and accurate description of his service.

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2. Jean Risley, the woman from the Connecticut Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the source of the Times quote about Blumenthal claiming to have been spat upon, says she was misquoted and that Blumenthal never made false claims to her about Vietnam. She appeared at Blumenthal’s event yesterday.

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3. The Times needs to resolve the discrepancy between the claim by the Linda McMahon campaign that they are the source of the Times story and Hernandez’s repeated denials that this is true. It’s an odd situation: to have someone claiming to be a journalistic source while the reporter tries to avoid talking about it. It usually cuts the other way. This issue tracks back to issue #1. Did Hernandez fail to include the full context of Blumenthal’s 2008 remarks because he had only the video provided by the McMahon campaign — they say they’re the ones who gave it to him — and therefore saw only what they wanted him to see?

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4.The Times did not merely claim that Blumenthal was trafficking in falsehoods. The original story said that Blumenthal has been so consistently misleading that the idea of his service in Vietnam had become a widely accepted part of his public persona.
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http://blogs.courant.com/colin_mcenroe_to_wit/2010/05/the-flaws-in-the-nyt-blumentha.html

Of course now as I predicted yesterday before the release of the full video that we would learn that the NYT played fast and loose with the facts, the village is scrambling to shift the story. So for once and for all can now stop calling them the liberal media because apparently CNN isn’t the only members of the mainstream press that have embraced the Conservative method of deflection. When the truth is not on your side change the subject. On Morning Joe its all about the subsequent erroneous stories in the newspapers over the years, as if the annoying habit of a lazy press corps to repeat entries from lexis-nexis without any independent fact-checking isn’t the reason for the repetition of errors. No, it’s Blumenthal’s fault that the Hartford Courant got the profile wrong, so why are we wasting time focused on the NYT either deliberately omitting the full video clip or not bothering the look at the full video before going forward with an accusation being promoted by the a political rival. The NYT is either a shill or they got rolled, but let’s focus on things that fuel our outrage at a Democrat because that’s what drives ratings, web hits and circulation. Reporter’s producing shoddy work is so not relevant. Lastly, when all fails attack attack attack the story is now why doesn’t he come clean that he was in the reserves just to dodge service in Vietnam War. the reserves back then is not like the reserves now… Funny, I don’t remember anyone in the media asking George Bush to come clean and admit that he joined the Air National Guard just to avoid going to Vietnam, do you?

I don’t remember anyone in the media asking George Bush to come clean and admit that he joined the Air National Guard just to avoid going to Vietnam, do you?

Actually plenty of people asked that question, but when one element of the story turned out to be wrong, the echo chamber successfully managed to get the entire issue to disappear. Perhaps Blumenthal should learn something. We should be demanding Raymond Hernandez’s head on a platter.

newfreedomblog it was clearly a victory for the Left who ignored the centrist Dems plea to support people like Specter. However, the Left is almost completely absent from the media, who are 24/7 focused on the idea free teabaggers, so you wouldn’t know. The only time they get a mention is when the media falsely compares them to the far right, using lazy man analogies.

I’m sorry Paul, but I remember them asking him why he showed up late and where he was when he left early, but I certainly don’t remember anyone asking him to apologize for joining the reserves to dodge going to Vietnam or to come clean and admit that this was his rationale. But if you say they did I will defer to you because clearly I didn’t see every news report out there. Nevertheless, I’d like to see a bit more push back on the NYT because it seems like they are developing a bit of a pattern for leaving out pertinent facts that don’t fit the preferred narrative.
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Moreover, I’m hoping that after this the default reaction of more commenters on this site will be to question the validity of the press rather than immediately join their pursuit to take someone down. It’s the god-like feeling of making or breaking a career that they like and whenever they engage in that kind of behavior we ought to question their motives, tactics and accuracy first.

Indeed I misinerpreted your phrasing. I’m sure you’re right that no one asked him directly abnout such things. I have two thoughts. First is that if anyone had confronted W in that manner, they’d have immediately lost their access. Secondly while watching people squirm makes for good theater, it isn’t always the best path toward the truth. That’s why I find MS’s complaints about Obama not holding pressers so tedious. The whole exercise is usually a game to see if the reporters can get the President to lose his cool and has absolutely nothing to do with gathering information.

Jason Links has a good article on how the White House Press Corps has got there panties in a wad because Univision got called on during the Mexican president’s visit. I love this part.

“God knows that anytime a White House reporter doesn’t get to disgorge the narrative they’ve swallowed in advance, it could get lodged in the abdomen and cause colo-rectal tumors, and no one wants to see that. I’ll take a vaguely dumb, confrontational question over one that launches a new inside-the-Obama-White-House novella any day of the week.”
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/media/the-news/eat-the-press/

Agreed, the press can be useless when they are only interested in furthering a narrative. You would think by now they would have figured out that a narrative and spin is the same thing and both can be quite removed from the truth. But what’s going on, do you think the NYT is acting like CNN in the wake of losing the ratings war with Fox? Are they so frightened by new media that they are turning into the National Enquirer, and the old version at that, because the NI seems to have gotten much better at getting the real story than the NYT lately?

Nothing that complex. An opponent called a reporter with a scoop. A cursory glance at it looked good. A few phone calls for filler and voila’ – a story that will talked about for days. The fact that the talk would be about shoddy, lazy reporting was certainly not anticipated.
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No conspiracy necessary. The story was good enough to run except for the ‘accurate and complete’ part. Any outlet would have done the same (except, of course, for the lack of research and follow through….)

Derek:
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If you mean a “clear victory for liberals on the left” because Sleastak won over the old, nearly in his grave Alrene Specter, then yes that was a victory for the left. I am also glad personally that Sleastak won. It just makes it much easier for Pennsylvanians to vote for Toomey.
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The 12th District race which Dems have claimed victory, is a different question. Yes they kept a 30+ year seat in the Democrat camp, but at what cost?
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Critz ran on purely conservative values and issues. He of course is for 2nd amendment gun rights and gun ownership, a no brainer in this area. He also ran against Obama and Pelosi stating day after day on his TV commercials, “I would not have voted for Health Care Reform, I would have voted agains the bailouts and stimulus packages, I WILL vote against Cap and Trade, I will vote against giving anymore bailouts to wall street.
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Is that a “victory”? LOL

Off Topic But certainly important and missing from the discourse: Why is there so much focus on the the major banks being scrutinized by a new consumer financial protection agency, when so few ordinary people beyond the occasional mortgage even deal with them. Yet Republicans who claim thy are on the side of real Americans want to protect the loan sharks of pay day loans, and mortgage companies that led us down this road with their predatory loans by stripping the agency from having any power over their dealing with the public. the entities most likely to come into contact with consumers ill equipped to protect themselves against their tricks and traps, they want to exempt the entities that are most likely to come into contact with those Americans who are least financially literate. Senator Shelby can’t possibly be as stupid as he sounds, he must know that advocating that rural, less educated whites in his states are just as vulnerable as minorities.

Raymond Hernandez did take the time to invent a narrative. The NYT is apparently so down on coin that they must have the editors doing side jobs now instead of vetting their reporters stories. It not like they have been burned like this before of course. Judith Miller, Zachery Kouwe, Jayson Blair.

This was just as much a victory for the Left as anyone else the media has decided won the day. Given how badly the Keynesians (Soicofascists) are screwing up the country, by trying to stimulate the economy rather than let a new depression set in, one would have thought the “take back the country” crowd would have cleaned the table.

Yeah its almost as if they just don’t give a crap anymore. I guess you can’t eat your reputation so being considered the paper of record if you are losing your circulation doesn’t mean very much so they are going for sensation over substance.