Will South Carolina Be The First To Secede From The Republican Establishment Tomorrow?

[Mark]

Well we certainly agree that politicians beholden to the mainstream media and politicians approving its exaggerations -- and omissions, it might be added -- hate the mainstream’s competition, and that occasionally some in that competition -- the alternative media -- aren’t above slanting the facts too.

Still, my post wasn’t meant to suggest that Gingrich is anything less than a fascist in a suit coat with a supercilious expression on his mug.

There’s plenty of material available that nails Gingrich for what he is, another unearned money-, power- lusting politician, another pig with his clothes stole away, who’ll tell you what you want to hear in order to get you to support him.

But the truth pops out now and then ...

"FDR is the greatest practitioner of self-government, certainly in the 20th century, and maybe in American history":

FDR’s "four freedom’s" and World War II isn’t enough, he’s a Wilsonian too:

The Constituion doesn’t apply when the president declares war, a la Lincoln and FDR:

When a judge in Texas -- Fred Biery -- granted a family’s request for a temporary order barring organized public prayer at their daughter’s public high school graduation, Gingrich had this to say (about 1:10 into video):

Health insurance, Climate change, Libya War -- says one thing then just the opposite:

In the same flip-flopping line see:

A glib liar on Freddie Mac (clips about halfway through):

Etc.　

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

It's funny you mentioned that video. I just saw it on Real Clear Politics and thought it would be an excellent demonstration of what I was talking about. So I came here to post it and saw you beat me to it.

What Newt said was simple. There is nothing in Pelosi's arsenal of manipulation that will be able to cut through it to the public I mentioned. And she does have an arsenal.

Is revealing a secret a huge manipulation ploy. You bet. Secrecy is taught as an attention-getter for marketing Look at this headline: "One secret you don't know about making money on the Internet..." You almost feel compelled to check it out. Pelosi says she has a secret. So it goes viral (albeit short-lived). Well, that's one of the reasons why. If she came right out with what she's got, I don't think much of the general public would even notice, irrespective of how much the media pumped it.

Gossip? Hell yeah. People love gossip. Celebrity gossip is best of all. So what's up? Did Newt bonk Nancy in the committee room and that's why they sat on the couch together in public shilling for the global warming agenda?

Heh. I doin't think Nancy-baby is going to play that angle. But she can hint at it.

Teasing? So when is the dirty deed going to be revealed? When is Nancy going to pull the covers off? Is there really something to see? What is it? People love to be teased.

And on and on. But nothing Pelosi does in this respect can hold a candle to Newt's: "My life has been looked at by lots of people and I've been around a long time."

No denials that wrongdoing is in his past.

The people I am talking about may not like everything they see in Newt, in fact they don't, but they are pretty sure that what they see is what he is. They can look up stuff they are in doubt about and Newt even tells them to. They also see all kinds of media people (who they don't trust) going apeshit. They see Newt is scaring the bejeezus out of hamhanded influencers left and right, even old-money Republicans, and they think there is something good in that.

I know how this feels because I think this way.

Ironically, I believe this was the appeal Obama had with this same public. (And this public is HUGE.) Except with him, it was all a puff job the manipulators managed to pull off because Obama was not well known. Back then, most of this public were busy going about everyday living, doing their jobs, raising their families, just living their lives. That war in Iraq sold by the Big Hairy One of weapons of mass destruction stuck in their craw. Still, they didn't have the stomach for the stuff they saw spewing from the mouths of fundamentalist ideologues (on all sides).

So along came a dude with an image that he is the opposite of all that. These folks were just too busy to investigate and it really did look good from the way the media talked about him. So they bit. Well, this part of Obama's public has now seen the bait and switch and they think it stinks. So anything that smells even close to bait and switch now turns them off--especially stuff coming from the media. It doesn't matter who does it, for what reason, or how good the intentions are. It doesn't even matter if the manipulator is right. They just don't want to be fooled anymore.

This is particularly reflected in the current attitude toward transparency. If a politician says he wants to hide something about himself, that the public doesn't need to know about this and that, such a person loses this public. (Ask Romney.)

From what I detect, right now that's far more important to them than labels like progressive, capitalist, conservative, liberal, etc.

There's another thing. They are so sick of gotcha they want to puke--especially since they believe all the people talking in public--the reporters, the politicians, the pundits, the businesspoeple, the Internet companies like Google, even the ads for cornflakes on TV--are corrupt in their own different ways. They believe it's all a con game. There's no real interest in truth among public figures. Gotcha to prove a target is a hypocrite means nothing to this public. They think all the public players are hypocrites.

So gotcha. Big deal. One more proof that all of them lie through their teeth.

People really think like that now.

Let's do a mind experiment. Let's imagine there is something ugly Pelosi has on Newt--something that would normally bury a conservative politician. Even if it is real, it just won't matter. If Newt keeps up his current posture, Pelosi can provide a video recording of Newt saying he wants to take over the government and crown himself king, or wants to sell out to the communists, or wants to milk the USA treasury dry and line his pockets, and nobody would care. All Newt would have to do is say he got drunk one night and said some awful crap that he doesn't really think and it all goes away--at least with this growing mistrustful public. Why? Because Newt has owned up to doing crap back then.

(Well, he can't have done an Anthony Weiner, but that's about all. )

Newt's posture is something Pelosi would never do. She simply doesn't stand a chance against his untroubled attitude in owning up to former misbehavior in light of current redemption. And I don't think she is going to realize what hit her when she finally lets the cat out of the bag. At that time, I think the media will pump it hard and the money people will invest with deep pockets, but the public will scratch their heads, individual by individua and say (as they flip to another channel), "That's all you've got? What's the big deal?"

It's a new game. It doesn't work anymore by the old rules of public manipulation.

Michael

[Selene]

Precisely.

One "advantage" that I have is that I have been involved on the inside of politics for decades.

The West Side Highway collapsed on December 15th, 1973 when a dump truck carrying "30 tons of asphalt."

The dirty little secret is that the truck was overloaded. The additional dirty little secret was that the construction firm that got the emergency repair

contract was the same construction firm that owned the overloaded truck.

I know that because I was in the meeting in the Deputy Commissioner's Office when all this came out and the "award of the contract was made.

Needless to say, I know how corrupted the system is.

Mr. Newt is also explaining that it was not about the sex with Billy boy, it was the lie under oath which is what it was about.

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Still, my post wasn’t meant to suggest that Gingrich is anything less than a fascist in a suit coat with a supercilious expression on his mug.

There’s plenty of material available that nails Gingrich for what he is...

Mark,

This is exactly what I am talking about.

You've already lost this public.

I know you lost me right there. Regardless of whether you are right or wrong.

Your influence with them is nil. They tune out. They don't care what you say because it's fundamentally the same thing so many others are saying--on all sides: That person (or group) is evil and never did anything good. Ever.

(yawn...)

(That yawning is what they do. Seriously. They yawn even at the very moment the hate hormones pulsate through your bloodstream.)

I'm making a presumtion though. I'm presuming you want to convince people of your way of thinking.

Maybe you just don't care when you find someone who thinks differently. Maybe you just want to spit and leave it at that.

It's your choice. But the results (or lack of them) will follow the reality of what people are. You may not like that, you may think that people should not be that way, but this rhetorical approach you just made will do nothing to change thngs.

The law of communication is that you will not get a message across to people who do not listen to you (or read you or whatever). Even if your message gets before them, they still have to consume it before it can persuade them.

That's so fundamental it's axiomatic.

If you're only singing to the choir, though, that's fine. (I'm not saying that's your intention, just if it is, that's OK.) My comments are aimed at giving the readers something to think about.

Michael

[Selene]

Mr. Newt is also explaining that it was not about the sex with Billy boy, it was the lie under oath which is what it was about.

Gingrich: I’m no infidelity hypocrite

by Jane Musgrave | January 25th, 2012

Gingrich

MIAMI - GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich came out swinging this morning when accused of being a hypocrite for blasting then President Bill Clinton for having an affair at the same time the former House Speaker was cheating on his own wife.

During a wide-ranging interview with Spanish-language television Univision, the twice-divorced Gingrich said he wasn’t criticizing Clinton’s sexual dalliance with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He said he was criticising Clinton’s response to it.

Clinton lied under oath, Gringrich said.

“I have never lied under oath. I have never committed perjury. I have never committed a felony,” he said. Clinton’s lapse was more serious because the former president is a lawyer and should have known better. Gingrich is a historian.

Further, he said, he has no regrets about lacing into CNN newscaster John King for beginning a debate last week in South Carolina by asking about his ex-wife’s claims that he asked her to embrace an “open marriage” when he was having an affair with his now wife, Callista.

With all the problems facing the country, the question about his personal life was simply inappropriate, he said. His ex-wife’s claims were false, he said.

As to his attack on the media in response to the question, he noted: The audience loved it.

[Mark]

Michael,

I’m addressing anyone who thinks Gingrich has a streak, or pocket, or vein, of libertarianism in him -- or anyone who is interested in that point.

Gingrich has done and said many statist, anti-liberty things and I’ve documented half a dozen of them. On the reverse side there is ... extraordinarily little considering how he’s being promoted here.

Yes, to answer your question, I do want to convince people of what I write about, and also shore up the thinking of people who already agreed with it but don’t have the time to flesh out the argument/evidence and articulate it.

Keep in mind that the principle audience in a discussion is the legion of lurkers, not so much the interlocutors.

My god, I used interlocutors in a sentence. It just came out. At least it’s better than discussants, LOL.

Did I spit on Gingrich? That creep deserves it. You’re right though, I think, in one respect: I should have spat on the poor man after the references rather than before.

Instead of:

PTUI! Evidence, QED.

do it this way:

Evidence, PTUI!

Mark

[Selene]

... House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, who said on Wednesday night on

CNN's John King

that Mr. Gingrich would never become President of the United States.

"There is something I know. The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him that's their prerogative," said Congresswoman Pelosi. "I don't even think that's going to happen."

Stretch droops:

Pelosi talking about what's public

By: Tim Mak

January 25, 2012 07:47 AM EST

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that she wasn’t referring to any confidential knowledge of Newt Gingrich that would prevent him from becoming president.

Pelosi clarified her remarks after saying on Tuesday on CNN about Gingrich, “He’s not going to be president of the United States… . Let me just make my prediction and stand by it … There is something I know.”

Pelosi’s spokesperson said that the remarks were being misinterpreted, and that she was merely referring to things that were in a 1990s-era Ethics Committee report compiled on Gingrich, which is in the public record.

“The ‘something’ Leader Pelosi knows is that Newt Gingrich will not be President of the United States. She made that clear last night,” said spokesperson Drew Hammill. “Leader Pelosi previously made a reference to the extensive amount of information that is in the public record, including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware.”

Pelosi issued a statement Wednesday, saying, “Any reference I would make to the Ethics Committee is confined to the public record.”

This is the second time the minority leader has hinted that she might have some particular knowledge about Gingrich.

“One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi told Talking Points Memo in December. “I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”

“Not right here,” Pelosi said, when asked for more detail. “When the time’s right.”

Newt Gingrich on Wednesday dismissed Pelosi’s most recent comments about him.

“She lives in a San Francisco environment of strange fantasies and strange understandings of reality. I have no idea what’s in Nancy Pelosi’s head. If she knows something, spit it out. Tell us what it is. I have no idea what she’s talking about,” Gingrich said on NBC’s “Today” show.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=

Taking it directly at these folks always works. The Hunt For Red October model works.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

My god, I used interlocutors in a sentence. It just came out.

Mark,

LOL...

Ain't it weird how that stuff grows on you?

I catch it in myself at times. It just creeps right on in and makes itself at home before I even see it...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Did Newt bonk Nancy in the committee room and that's why they sat on the couch together in public shilling for the global warming agenda?

Heh. I doin't think Nancy-baby is going to play that angle. But she can hint at it.

Pelosi just backtracked after Newt said put up or shut up.

I swear, I've been around too many pop artists. I've seen plenty of this highly public high-vanity bedroom stuff before.

It sounds an awful lot to me like Newt really did bonk her and just now told her, "I don't have anything to lose if this comes out 'cause folks know I'm crazy, but you do. They'll laugh you right out of Congress. So bring it on, baby."

I know that's wrong on so many levels it's pathetic, but I can't help myself...

Michael

[Peter]

Michael wrote:

I know that's wrong on so many levels it's pathetic, but I can't help myself...

End quote

When she was in her teens and twenties Pelosi was thought to be wild, and for a lady her age she still has nice boobs. When she was bringing reluctant Democrats into her office, one by one, to convince them to vote for Obamacare, she would periodically appear looking disheveled. I said to myself, she looks like a women who just got her boobs fondled and her lips are puffy.

Peter

[Mikee]

Gives a new dimension to fatuous blowhard. The Pelosi ick factor just increased exponentially.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The weird part is this is exactly what Newt is doing for the most part--presenting facts and views, good and bad, without strategic omissions[sic] and exaggerations...

Adam,

I've been having trouble with my spellchecker recently, so this "[sic]" stuck in my mind.

(Firefox 9 defaults to no dictionary for some damn reason. Not having a spellchecker has been worrying the crap out of me because I'm not a naturally good speller. Trying to figure all that out was a pain in the butt, but I finally got a cryptic tip in the labyrinths of a search, fiddled with it some and finally fixed it. If anyone else is having this problem, let me know and I'll tell you what to do.)

Now that I've fixed this thing, I came back here to comment. But I see that I did spell the word "omissions" correctly.

Well... there it is.

Michael

[Selene]

The weird part is this is exactly what Newt is doing for the most part--presenting facts and views, good and bad, without strategic omissions[sic] and exaggerations...

Adam,

I've been having trouble with my spellchecker recently, so this "[sic]" stuck in my mind.

(Firefox 9 defaults to no dictionary for some damn reason. Not having a spellchecker has been worrying the crap out of me because I'm not a naturally good speller. Trying to figure all that out was a pain in the butt, but I finally got a cryptic tip in the labyrinths of a search, fiddled with it some and finally fixed it. If anyone else is having this problem, let me know and I'll tell you what to do.)

Now that I've fixed this thing, I came back here to comment. But I see that I did spell the word "omissions" correctly.

Well... there it is.

Michael

Michael:

Damn and here I thought it was just something in my computer! Yes, since I deployed Firefox 9 [there is a 10 now that I have not engaged yet] the spell checker has been dead.

I am also not a "good" speller since I tend to "hear" the word rather than "see" the word.

I also participate in the Firefox program as a "test pilot" for some of their new stuff and then my computer sends them data so that, hopefully, they can improve their wonderful product.

Since it went dead, I will sometimes have to copy the word and then run it through my computer dictionary for the "proper" spelling which, although time consuming, gives me some insights into the etymological roots of a word which I find intriguing.

One of the downsides to having Ted Keer leave in a huff, oh well, onward objectivist soldiers marching off to reason!

So what do I do, or does it self correct?

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

Make a reply here (or on any other thread).

After you have written one line, right click.

There will be an item called "Languages" in the pop-up. But you have to write some stuff first. If not, "Languages" does not appear.

Then choose "English / United States."

I suggest you spell some stuff wrong on purpose just so you can see the red squiggly line appear under it. Then you can breathe a sigh of relief. (It actually feels great. )

The problem is that you will have to do this for each site where you use an editor, After you do it once for a site, you don't have to do it again. For example, once you do it for OL, it will keep spell-checking OL from there on out. (I'm not sure yet what happens if you Clear your history and cookies. Maybe you will have to do it again if you run the Clear.)

But if you go to, say, a blog and make a comment, you will have to do that right-click process. And for each site where you post.

Hope that helps.

Michael