Fact-esque

And the Ripples Spread

On Friday, GOP members of the House crawled up on a cross of petroleum and documented it for posterity.  The splash that (brilliant) stunt made wasn't huge but the ripples are spreading.  The official cameras were off during the drama and so the congress members were reduced to using new media to record their campaign commercials:

Mr. Culberson took it a step further, using his Nokia 95 cellphone to film fellow members speaking about the event. (Because House rules prohibit private cameras on the House floor, Mr. Culberson stepped into a hallway.)

The videos were shared live on the Internet through the streaming video service Qik. They were also archived for later viewing, and Mr. Culberson’s 12-minute video of a news conference concluding the affair received 22,000 views.

So big deal, right?  22,000 views is nothing and I've never heard of Qik.  But I have heard of C-Span:

As the Republicans departed the House chambers, a C-Span host explained the camera restrictions and said, “We don’t have a lot to show you.” So, in the absence of professional video, the cable channel showed one of Mr. Culberson’s videos, a conversation with John Carter, a Texas Republican. “The only way that we’re able to communicate with the public is through this live streaming video,” Mr. Culberson said, acting as a cameraman, interviewer, orator, and broadcaster all at once.

I hope I'm overestimating the impact this will have over the next few weeks.  But I don't know a lot of people who can resist an underdog, even when the underdog is the Oil Industry.

State of the Union Fun

Operation Legacy kicks off tonight!  I hear that President 32% has three "big topics" to discuss in his State of the Union address.  The first two are his awesome adventure in Iraq, which we are totally winning, and the economy, which he is totally stimulating.  The third is global warming.  I don't know what specific lies he's going to tell but just for fun, let's cast our minds back to what Republicans prefer to do when it comes to protecting the world from climate catastrophe.  Remember Operation Offset?  From the Gristmill, 2005:

No, seriously, we have to "cut unnecessary spending." [to pay for money sent to the Gulf Coast -eR]  And the House Republicans   are ready, with their "Operation   Offset," a list   of cuts (PDF) they say could squeeze $500 billion in 10 years   out of the federal budget.

Unsurprisingly, the cuts impose pain almost exclusively on programs   meant to help the environment and the less fortunate. Here are a few of   the cuts:

• Eliminate the EnergyStar program;
• eliminate state and community grants for energy conservation;
• eliminate  National Parks   Heritage Areas;
• reduce Amtrak subsidies (how come they never call highway spending "subsidies"?);
• eliminate the high-speed rail and light-rail programs;
• reduce fish and wildlife habitat construction;
• reduce Department of Energy  Office of   Environmental Management;
• eliminate the Applied Research for Renewable Energy Sources program;
• eliminate the FreedomCar program; and
• eliminate the Hydrogen   Fuel Initiative.

Note that, as Brad Plumer points out, almost every federal program to encourage clean energy is cut, while the energy bill's recent billions in subsidies to oil and gas companies remain untouched.

Live by the Sword

Yes, yes, the AP story about Republan candidate Mitt Romney's family's "polygamy branch" is riduculous and emblematic of a big part of what's wrong with the corporate media's political reporting.   Media Matters finds stories every day that make that point.   On the other hand, payback is a bitch: (from the same story)

This month, Ann Romney tried a different tack, taking a lighthearted jab at her husband's main Republican competitors, Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, as she introduced Romney at a Missouri GOP dinner.

The biggest difference between her husband and the other candidates, Ann Romney said, is that "he's had only one wife."

McCain has been married twice; Giuliani three times.

Look, they're all standard-bearers for the modern Republan party and so by definition suffer from severely flawed characters and are not suited to run a country, but using someone's marriage average as the measure of his/her ability to lead just opens the door to the kind of crap that got planted in the AP yesterday.   Die by the sword.

UPDATE: In the spirit of KathyR's confession, I would like to come clean as well.  My grandfather ran a gambling hall.  I suppose I'll never be President now since we all know that people with shady family histories are automatically out of the running.