Month: August 2010

CA Gov: Whitman Has Spent Nearly $100 Mil – $500k Per Day – to Buy Governor’s Office

Jon Ponder

Los Angeles Times:

$531,378.

That’s the amount of money Meg Whitman spent per day on her gubernatorial campaign from May 23 to June 30.

Just to put that in some perspective: Democrat Jerry Brown has spend a little more than $377,000 total since Jan. 1. Though to be fair, labor groups did spend about $4 million on Brown’s behalf from the end of May through June.

Whitman has now spent $99.7 million on her race since she first formed an exploratory committee in 2009.

That’s right. Meg Whitman is spending more per day than Jerry Brown’s campaign has spent period.

G.O.-Tea Party on the Run: RNC Cancels Fundraiser with Racist Provocateur Breitbart

Jon Ponder
I think it’s safe to say the RNC is rescheduling its Breitbart fundraiser for either the 12th of Never or possibly the 14th of Not-Gonna-Happen.

Yesterday I described the Brieitbart rules of political warfare as simple: If your side is on offense, you are winning. If you’re on defense, you’re losing. I suggested that recent events — a Fox News admission that its deceptive coverage of the Shirley Sherrod scandal was inept, the Friday night announcement of the resignation of Republican astroturfer Mark “Colored People” Williams from Tea Party Express and the media silence of tea bagger candidates Rand Paul and Sharron Angle — were all signs of the GO-Tea Party’s new defensive crouch. Now comes this.

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Daily Show Destroys Haters’ Bizarre Claim That Hitler, Top Nazis Were Gay

Jon Ponder
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Gay Reichs
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

HuffPost:

On last night’s Daily Show, Jason Jones made a complete mockery out of anti-gay wingnut Scott Lively and his theory that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were gay.

After Lively explains that the Nazis murdered homosexuals to cover up the fact that they, too, were secretly gay, Jones asks: “So that which you hate the most, you secretly are?”

With a special appearance by our own Corey Johnson, and friends David Mixner, Dan Choi, Michael Crawford, and Jamie McGonnigal.

Cheney Hospitalized after Heart Surgery

Jon Ponder

SFGate/AP:

Daughter Liz Cheney says her 69-year-old dad is out of intensive care and hopes to return home this week. She tells “Fox News Sunday” that he’s already planning trips for fly fishing and hunting later this year.

Dick Cheney has had five heart attacks since he was 37. In his recent surgery at a northern Virginia hospital, Cheney had a small pump installed to help his heart work.

After the operation, Cheney said in a statement that he was entering a new phase of treatment for what he called “increasing congestive heart failure.”

What’s really remarkable about this report is that it may represent the first time a Cheney made a public statement that wasn’t a lie. Note that I said, it “may” be the first time.

Breitbart Rules of War: If You’re on Defense, You’re Losing – The G.O.-Tea Party Is on Defense, And Dem Polling Is Up

Jon Ponder

There’s a spoof of a training video at Conor Friedersdorf’s blog at True/Slant titled, “How to Argue with Andrew Breitbart,” in which animated characters trade tips on debating Breitbart, the latest phenom of right-wing racism — the guy behind the smearing of Shirley Sherrod and the bogus but effective destruction of the anti-poverty group, ACORN.

The video is funny, if a bit long, and the instructions go into a lot of specifics. “If Breitbart says ‘x,’ then whatever you do, don’t say ‘y.'” That sort of thing.

But I would say it’s a lot simpler than that. Breitbart is just the latest expositor of Lee Atwater-Karl Rove attack politics, the central precept of which is very simple: If you are on offense, you are winning. If you are on defense, you are losing. To stay on offense, attack, attack, attack, even when — especially when — you are wrong.

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