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Does the GOP Pay Friendly Bloggers?
jamie writes "According to the conservative political journalism site Daily Caller: '"It's standard operating procedure" to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that "at least half the bloggers that are out there" on the Republican side "are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales." Or in some cases, it's the ads themselves: ads at ten times the going rate are one of the ways conservative bloggers apparently get paid by the politicians they write about. In usual he-said she-said fashion, Daily Caller finds a couple of obscure liberal bloggers to mention too, but they fully disclosed payment and one of them even shut down his blog while doing consulting work, unlike Robert Stacy McCain and Dan Riehl."
why don't you understand how you are being used by the rich moneyed classes and corporate interests?
if you ARE rich and moneyed or a corporate interest, congratulations on your successful manipulation of your larger herd of sheep
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seriously this is news? The Bush administration pre-packaged a propaganda piece on their Medicare changes for news stations to run unedited. The Ministry of Information is alive and well at the GOP.
The sky is blue and astroturf is green.
Conservative activist welfare is not news - just Google Richard Mellon Scaife.
Short version: The Old Guard thought they were losing the culture war (damn hippies!), so they ponied up cash, endowments, entitlements; set up think tanks and commissions in order to control spin that never really existed in the first place.
And here we are today, with the fruits of that labour being the shallow end of the Teabagger nonsense.
Ain't rich people grand?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
What a balanced and unbiased summary. I will be sure to read the linked article and participate in what will certainly be a level-headed and thought-provoking discussion.
News flash: People lie, cheat and steal on the internet. Just like in real life.
It's sad that this needs to be news.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
This article is completely fabricated by the liberal crazies.
No one would pay some hippy bloggers for friendly reports or statistical analysis on reader responses.
This is just another countless example of how the democrats want to confuse the populace on popular issues. Issue such as, should you vote for this republican or the other republican. There are also non-political issues as stake such as which is the better music genre.... country or western. (We have both kinds of music here)
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that 'at least half the bloggers that are out there' on the Republican side 'are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales.''
And the bullshit meter goes off the scale! Half of the intersection between the sets of "Bloggers" and "Republicans" are being paid for their postings? Yeah, sure they are.
Even if the GOP (or the Dems for that matter) are dumb enough to pay for that kind of coverage, who cares? Advertising has become much more subversive lately anyway, and often times you have to try pretty hard to figure out if what you're seeing is even an ad or not.
Daily Caller finds a couple of obscure liberal bloggers to mention too, but they fully disclosed payment and one of them even shut down his blog while doing consulting work
Ah, what kind and honest people all liberals must be, and especially their bloggers and politicians!
Careful there, your bias is unzipped.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Everything is for sale, except my body, because if the conservatives wouldn't drop their principles, the fundie branch of the Republican Party would revolt.
Quick, someone tell Pudge! He can make money off his batshite insane posts.
All political parties utilize bloggers and forum posters to spread positive messages about their agenda (or negative messages about their "opponents" agenda.) Yup. Talking shit about ourselves...just one more way our country is doing its absolute hardest to fuck itself over from the inside.
PS: I realize that this sort of thing happens all over the world...but I was born, raised, and live in America, so I can only speak for my own country.
Living With a Nerd
That's small potatoes compared to outright fraud.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Michigan-Tea-Party-party-looks-like-real-astroturfing-Freep-calls-for-criminal-probe-101383014.html
I would not have expected Slashdot to have a story like this but oh well!
MSNBC is telling us how the Tea Party is raciest and the designated tours of Washington DC are designed to avoid black areas.
Fox has had show after show about two new books on how Obama has circumvented the Constitution and sold us down the river.
All I have seen on CNN is how the markets are collapsing and everything is circling the drain
Personally I think we should send Washington, as well as both the parties a simple message
YOUR FIRED! Clean out your desk and get in the unemployment line like the rest of US!
It really is time for some new blood in Washington.
The summary suggests that pay for bloggers is more a conservative phenomena than a liberal one -- ie "at least half" conservative bloggers are paid as opposed to "a couple of obscure liberal bloggers". While this may or may not be true, this is not what a fair representation of what the article says. From the article:
"
On the left, many of the once independent bloggers are now employed by, or receive money from, liberal organizations like Media Matters, the Center for American Progress and Campaign for America’s Future.
Some critics allege that the funding sources have distorted the once vibrant voice of the liberal blogosphere, discouraging dissent in favor of staying “on message” to help President Obama and Democrats in Congress pass their legislative agenda.
Indeed, many of the groups now employing liberal bloggers meet with White House aides for a weekly strategy session on Tuesday afternoons organized by the group Common Purpose. It was here that Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel famously told independent-minded liberals that they were being “fucking retarded” for straying from the party line.
"
More balance in the story summary would help everyone appreciate how the influence of money on independent media sources is a general problem, not a partisan one.
...the article writer checks out the funding for ultra-left/liberal blog sites a little more carefully rather than just doing a hit piece on "conservatives" - in the interest of fairness of course. Where the heck do you think that liberal echo-chambers like Moveon.org, Huffington Post, Indymedia and a large supply of smaller liberal blogs get their funding from? Servers don't just buy themselves. Infrastructure costs money - and there's a lot *more* of it behind the "progressive" sites than conservative ones. I love the hit pieces put up on /. that front themselves as "news"...
But they are more likely to get paid in hemp baskets and batteries for their electric cars, where conservatives prefer money.
As I see it, the average reader should only care if the person writing the blog is writing things they don't believe in exchange for pay.
If someone self-identifies as a "Conservative Blogger" then I would expect that most of their readers are also conservative.
No one can force a person to read their blog. If what they have to say does not resonate with enough readers, the problem takes care of itself.
The whole idea of "exposing" these sorts of things smacks of avoiding the arena of ideas and reveals a lack of confidence in one's positions. Trying to paint conservative bloggers as paid henchmen is more about smear-tactics than trying to inform people.
This is just providing pre-justification for ignoring criticism and your own responsibility to back up your positions in the face of dissent.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Question: "Does the GOP pay friendly bloggers?"
Answer: "Does anyone NOT pay friendly bloggers? And if not, how stupid are they?"
How many of us regulars here can honestly say we've never encountered a paid shill right here on this little corner of the web? There are agents from Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and the US government. We encounter them all the time, and they're always easy to spot. If you think this is unique to this one website, you're insane.
So I say again, welcome to slashdot - or indeed the Internet - you must be new here...
Next question.
F.ear O.ppression X.enophobia.
I hope this helps your Fairness In Journalism coverage.
Yours In Astrakhan,
K. Trout
The U.S. government is controlled by those who want corruption.
As the mid-term elections draw closer and closer here in the US, expect to see more of these "rally the troops" type of half-baked stories. Typical election season chow.
/. will avoid falling in with the heard and... oh who am I kidding. Bring on the spinmeisters!
Hopefully, the editors of
I could start by simply asking "Is water wet"?
It would be far easier to say, "Yes, and so do the Independents, and the Liberals, and the Democrats, and the Republicans, and the Socialists . . . " Get the point? Of course any group with an agenda to popularize is going to sponsor / pay a blogger to say friendly things.
It's no different than advertising - it's no different than a billboard or a web ad.
It's a fools mission to try and argue this or to even belabor it with any discussion. If you don't see that the liberal agenda is popularized by the liberal media, and likewise a conservative agenda, and so forth you are sadly mistaken. No matter how you slice it it comes down to a propaganda machine. The media and advertisers try to push and pull your opinions in any way they can to sway your decision. If they can cause even the slightest shift in your POV they have been successful. So don't be surprised by it.
And democrats would never resort to such questionable tactics would they?
Here's a news flash, both sides suck and neither represents the general voting public. If the fanboy idiots of the political world would just realize that, we'd all be better off.
I doubt a single one of the people self-righteously attacking the GOP right now has the integrity to attack the Democrats and the way the mainstream media covers for them.
In the last 2 years alone, there have been scandals involving the Democrats that would have crippled the GOP by the time the media was done harping on them. Take, for instance, the scandal involving the Black Panthers. Now that Obama's in power, he's not considered a whistleblower. He's considered a "disgruntled ex employee of the DoJ." The left and mainstream media have largely taken the same "no evil here, move along people" stance on that issue that the Bush Administration did over the NSA wiretapping and its whistleblowers.
The media is even being prohibited from going near even clean up sites on the beach in the Gulf under penalty of imprisonment--under a statute that BP helped create. Where's the media? Where's the outrage over a majority Democratic Congress and President shackling the press? I could go on, but I think I've made my point for those who've been paying attention these last 2 years.
And by he, I meant "the DoJ lawyer/whistleblower."
Post something conservative and send them a bill.
I believe that is the new name for the profession that I saw the other day in a jobs-and-careers magazine. Basically lots of companies are hiring people to "manage" what people say about them online. If that doesn't involve any funny business, I want a citizenship and passport from Disneyland, where we live.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
So where do I sign up? I get paid to write SEO content for dog trainers, wart removers, and tin-foil hat conspiracy believers, so writing GOP gorp would fit right in. Please contact www.phoenixstudios.com.np for more info. thx!
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
why there are so many retarded comments posted on internet news articles.
Warning: This sig is not thread safe. For more information see Slashdot's sig policy.
If you didn't anticipate it, you were being naive. How many people would turn away the money, when there is almost no risk associated? If someone at the NY Times took the money, they'd risk losing their job and if it was a systematic thing, the NY Times would lose readers, so there's an incentive. For bloggers, there's almost no incentive -- little chance of getting caught, and little chance of consequences if they are. How many do you think are so altruistic that they'd turn away the cash? (And I'm sure liberal bloggers do the same.)
Even major media gets away with it. News Corp (owners of Fox and the Wall Street Journal) just agave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. They are open advocates for the Republican party. Yet Fox News is the most popular cable channel, the Wall Street Journal is the most popular newspaper (or 2nd to USA Today?), and people like Bill O'Reilly and Glen Beck utter falsehoods and slander consistently, and are rewarded with the highest ratings on cable. Much of what bloggers write is just as bad. Why would taking some cash matter to their readers?
Readers get what they demand.
There's no fixed definition for the term "conservative". It all depends on the current situation in the given frame of reference.
If we're talking about America today, "conservatism" is all about protecting the status quo, where the government is run by corporations.
The ideology you've incorrectly associated with "conservatism" is actually called liberalism. It makes sense why you don't know that, of course. Western, corporate-controlled media and corporate-controlled government have gone out of their way to make most people think of anything with the word "liberal" in it as being a horrible thing.
...I understand why the US seems to be a hotbed of conspiracy theorists. There's no way to actually see what's going on, so commenting on politics as a private citizen becomes something like making weather reports?
Emotions! In your brain!
All you have to do is read the comment section in the Washington Post on any article with Obama's name to find dozens of comments that no unpaid partisan would bother posting. It saddens me how much the republican party is buying popular opinion and I'm not sure that they're all that unsuccessful at it. The problem is that the democratic party is mostly fighting fair, (way less propaganda postings and emails) and as such is being destroyed/overwhelmed by the current republican agenda.
your statement tells me a lot about your psychology, but little to do with reality. of course corruption exists. that it controls me or that it is insurmountable is not true. however, if corruption is ever going to succeed in this world, it needs the complicity of people like you: those who won't fight it, but simply accept it. so the more people who think like you, the more corruption there is: you are an accessory to the crime in your lack of action and lack of resistance
so congratulations on having the psychology of a slave. but i'm sorry, i'm not a slave, so i'll be fighting that corruption, and i'll be rejecting your helpless hopeless self-fulfilling defeatism. your psychology defines the parameters of how your life will suck, but not mine
the united states government is composed of the will of the people. to some extent (but not the whole way, and not insurmountably), that isn't true, such as with corporate money rousing conservative rabble with faux news propaganda. and to that extent that the us government, defined to represent the will of the people, fails that definition and fails to represent the will of the people... well, to me, that is merely the extent to which we have some pus filled pimples to pop
i am not an ignorant idealist: corruption will never go away completely, and corruption will always grow back like the fungus it is. the simple truth is that it is a constant clean up process, that will never end, and will go on forever. no one truly wise understands this problem in any other way. cleaning up corruption is merely an ongoing maintenance function, like taking out the garbage every week. it shouldn't scare you, it shouldn't depress you. it is merely a fact of life you accept and constantly guard against, and always will. there exists no utopia where corruption does not exist, and no utopia, composed of human beings, can ever be founded that would be free of corruption. it is what it is. accept its existence, but never stop cleaning it up. the best you can do minimize it, but it is far worse to stop fighting it, and let it grow and do more injustice and damage
so pick a broom and join me in cleaning things up, or shut the fuck up, you useless ignorant mindlessly negative piece of shit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i'm not clicking that
(thank you slashdot, for overtly publishing link domains)
kindly point me to a reputable news source
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Political blogging is a business and business is good!
Somebody is paying editors to scrub the Fox News article.
. . . if it doesn't get what you want? Of course, how you spend it says more about you than what you get for it.
Let's follow the money:
1. Bob the Blogger has $100
2. Bob buys $100 in pizzas from Large Conservative Pizza Corp owned by part-time abortion clinic bombers
C. Large Conservative Pizza Corp pays Larry the Lobbyist for some much needed bribery, I mean influence consideration!
4. Larry the Lobbyist pays Congressman Craig for said "influence"
5. Congressman Craig pays Bob the Blogger for some much needed "good will of the American People"
6. ???
7. Profit!
It's the Corporate American Way. Don't ask so surprised. Just put out your hand, and turn off you real thoughts, sheeple.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
and we all know what socialism is: a bad scary word
europeans practice socialism, and we all know it is historically because of nazis and communists, and europeans don't appreciate how we single handedly won world war ii for them
the next time i pass a man dying in the street, i am sure to smile and say that i will be giving him no aid, so he can die in peace knowing he wasn't tainted by the evil socialist impulse to help your neighbor: that's anti-christian too! everyone must be self-reliant all the time. because the moment we give the slightest aid to someone in need, that is a slippery unstoppable slope to absolute communism!
the real american way is to not care about the welfare of your fellow americans, to the point you impoverish your society, and therefore, eventually impoverish yourself (tears, sniffle)
down with the middle class!
(sparkly bald eagle holding flag gif)
DISMEMBER IN NOVEMBER!
FREE(to be)DUMB!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
why don't you understand how you are being used by the rich moneyed government workers and public employee unions?
if you ARE rich and moneyed government worker, congratulations on your successful manipulation of your larger herd of sheep
------
you act as if one side is more virtuous than the other. totally not true. fact is it's a fight between evil corporations vs. incompetent government. i'd rather not have one side dominate, thank you very much.
In case you wondered, like I did, the GOP is apparently an acronym, Grand Old Party, ie the Republicans. I know /. is US-centric, but, come on, give the rest of us a break and speak English! Thank GOD (not an acronym) for Google.
Smivs on the intertubes!
which is a reputable news source
and you think i should read this?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Spades_HQ
an overtly partisan blog?
and this is supposed to convince of me anything other than that you are trying very, very hard to be the stereotypical conservative sheep?
son: you are a dictionary worthy portrait of absolute brain washed propagandization and completely blindness
you honestly think a PARTISAN BLOG is a worthy retort to REAL WORLD FACTS?
stunning. sad
the great march of the morons
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I wonder how much the person who posted this got paid....hmmm...
a) This is not a soley "Republican" issue....many Democrat bloggers get paid, and many so-called grass-roots not-for-profits are merely paid mouth-pieces.
b) Both the Republican and Democrat Party suck. But when a article is posted like this, total political crap on a geek site. It sucks WORSE!!!!
c) Join issue causes, stop supporting these parties. You can be a pro-gun and pro-gay. You can be pro-life and pro-environment. Neither party should have a hold of any issue.
d) Did I mention that both the Republicans and Democrats SUCK!!!!!
Would be nice if I could come to slashdot and get geek info rather than geek-ganda. Oh well. Life goes on.
I disagree with the politics of AGW fanatics, so I must be a paid shill of the oil companies, or maybe it's the coal companies.
I disagree with the politics of left-wing lunatics so I must be a paid shill of the Republican party.
So why ain't I rich?
that bill is so flawed as to be beyond stupid.
First, why should it matter who exercises free speech? Why should there be limits on who can? Let alone why are some groups given exceptions from the law specifically in the bill? Simple, this about protecting those in power. Take any bill in Congress by its name and you know exactly that its purpose is to do the opposite.
I sometimes cringe when seeing what is moderated insightful on these boards, the bias of the site is so blatant at times it boggles the mind. We see knee jerk reactions, parrot head responses, and group think moderation all the time. Yet tell me what has changed since 06, let alone 08? Nothing. If anything it has gotten worse.
Let alone the idiot suggestion of the story that its only Conservative bloggers who are being paid. Very much like the story out of Digg about a group who acts as one to suppress. Well why shouldn't they. They are merely employing tactics that the other side figured out first. The problem is, one side doesn't like losing their advantage so they take all the things they know they have been doing that aren't kosher and try to firmly place those actions on their opposites. It lets them keep themselves on their self perceived high road.
It does not work, regardless of moderation here, at Digg, or any other site, those who watch these stupid games and call them for it know whats going on and laugh at it. Keep voting for your Democrats and Republicans, you deserve them.
Any act which suppresses any speech should be feared.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Ok, I forgive you. I just referred to the country as "the company." Or, is that a more accurate statement anyway?
Facts have a liberal bias.
1. yes, at that point people will wake up. when there's no more middle class and we have become haiti. i'd rather prefer we not become haiti just to teach propagandized low iq conservative sheep a lesson
2. high speed trading IS theft, it is manipulation of the marketplace (libertarians somehow believe a market left to its own devices will be free and fair, when the truth is, you need the government to police the hell out of it or the big players will abuse the little ones). but the problem is easy to solve: just put a "heartbeat" in the marketplace: every second, or 3 seconds, or whatever, trades go forth. they do not occur in between those heartbeats. they queue in line, until the next tick of clock, and then they go forth. in this way, no one can trade faster than anyone else
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The left has been hiring protesters for some time, which is why you often see familiar faces at differing rallies. As has been mentioned, there are plenty of funded left-wing blogs. As usual, it's only an issue when it's right-wing.
What's funny here, if you RTFA, is that these are hardly huge blogs and certainly not really news blogs per se' and doesn't appear to be coming from the RNC. So we're talking about certain Republican campaigns. Much ado about nothing.
Is that all the information you can process at a time?
has no relevance"
do i laugh?
or do i cry?
sir: you are the downfall of this country
not because you are right leaning, but because you reject truth, you reject OBVIOUSLY NEUTRAL NEWS SOURCES in favor of OBVIOUSLY BIASED OPINION
show me a left leaning person who professes the same stupidity, and i will say the same thing about them!
because the problem, son, is not being conservative, or liberal
in fact, i would WELCOME an intellectually honest conversation with an honest open minded intelligent conservative, FOR ONCE
but they seem to all be dead. they seemed to have been taken over by the bleacher creatures, cretins like yourself who OPENLY and WITHOUT SHAME, as a mark of PRIDE (amazing!), trumpet the fact that they PREFER rumor, innuendo, and outright deceit... over neutral news sources
incredible. stunning. very sad for the country i love
intelligent conservativism is dead. long bleat the sheep: biased, and PROUD OF IT
incredible! i still cant' get over how proud you are of your self-professed ignorant
you actually believe your closed minded, walled off garden of bias, is a source of strength
WOW
how does one deal with such zombified people?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
now follow the money to the source, and identify those guys.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
his round-up of replies: http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2010/08/round-up-daily-callers-false-defamatory-story-on-rightside-blogs.html
basically he was asked to write-up a document detailing how the GOP could more effectively communicate with bloggers to get the conservative message out there, and he got paid a couple hundred for it. It's not like they were "buying" him with a couple hundred when he's already a conservative activist (which is why he's blogging in the first place.)
This whole story is just ridiculous. Not one person has said "I got paid to write story X" except an unnamed source who claims it happens all the time.
Seriously. This has been happening since Bush and probably before. Did someone just wake up and notice?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
it describes how republicans voted
its not an opinion
its a fact
here's a protip for you: facts actually still exist in this world. and 2,000 bluster-filled blatantly partisan blogs don't dispute the facts
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Buy one or two full page spreads. Then you're the story and lots of press.
Remember when Gartner Research, a supposed unbiased research agency, was paid by Microsoft to target total cost of ownership and say Linux cost more? Well, Well the CEO of Gartner stood by their "research". Well it turns out that Microsoft told them what was considered cost and what wasn't and that specific items were talked about and others weren't etc... So in reality Microsoft should have wrote the research and then Gartner signed off on it as "Validation".
Why did they do that? "Because they paid for the research."
Good luck all you Utopian zombies.
So you throw away what little influence you have on the system in a bid to make a statement? Eh.
Blar.
fact #1: all news is biased. it is impossible to scrub the bias out of any news story ever published, or ever will be published, as long as the news is reported by human beings
fact #2: a blatant piece of propaganda is ENORMOUSLY biased. in comparison to trying to hew to neutrality as much as possible. that will get you close to actual neutrality, that anyone with sufficient brainpower will understand the truth and the facts as they are. this is in obvious contrast to propaganda news sources which actually as their goal is to distort and tell half-truths and lie
therefore, the THEORETICAL limits of impartiality in no way means reputable fact-based is journalism is anything remotely comparable to the proudly and openly lying propaganda that some assholes try to pass off as news today, and others actually believe to be equally valid to reputable news sources, for lack of sufficient brain wattage
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The pot is black. Underneath its painted on exterior the pot is black, and it is only because the pot pays lots of money to be painted that it ever appears to be white. Often the money changes hands slyly so that people can't realize that the pot is black. In fact lets show you this very black pot over here to demonstrate how black the pot really is. This is a pot that payed a lot of money to be painted white but we caught it. Oh and the kettle is also black.
Thanks slashdot for showing your political bias as always. The article was bad enough, but when it was posted on slashdot it became even more one sided. "Does the GOP pay friendly bloggers?" Yeah that's unbiased. Also, don't pose a question when you are going to tell the readers something. Be honest about your slant: "The GOP pays for friendly bloggers." Would be a much nicer headline.
With the breaking news in the last 24 hours that the dangerous radical Saudi financing the 'Ground Zero' 'Mosque' through a series of charities was none other than the largest non-Murdoch shareholder of Fox News , is there a connection to any of these blogs and Alwaleed Bin Talal, the man Fox News itself says funds radical madrasses all over the world? Do any of these blogs have connections to members of think-tanks and PACs like The Heritage Foundation or FreedomWorks? Secretive organizations which appear often on a news channel funded by this same Saudi money that many on Fox News openly question may have financial ties to Iran?
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
Like deregulating industry and starting wars on poor evidence?
Those seem pretty damn risky to me.
Blar.
If there were members of the KKK, in robes, with baseball bats and truncheons at a polling station, it would have been national news even though the KKK has probably even fewer members today. The story is about voter intimidation.
intelligent conservatism has died
in its wake, these boorish bleacher creatures, without honesty and without intelligence
they somehow believe cheering for their team is more important than fact-based examination of the issues
their minds are closed, their mouths are wide open, and this country will suffer for their loud low iq zombiehood
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
is anyone listening?
will we get banishment of this manipulation of the market by its largest players?
we need regulations here
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sarah Palin Rocks... .. now where is my buck?
http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/985/bd_slide3.jpg
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
It depends on if you are talking about fiscal policy or not. A fiscal conservative is not necessarily also a political conservative.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
To make up for the state run left-wing media.
i am of the people, for the people. i want the policies that are best for them
your packaged response would be: "you don't speak for me"
fine, i won't speak for the wackjob fringe
then this is where you either:
1. assert your policies. thereby speaking for the people. thereby being a complete hypocrite of committing the same crime you accuse me of
2. assert no one should speak for anyone. as if this is possible in a society. if you wish to not be a part of society, then fine: fuck off, go away, shut up, and let those who actually care about society care for society
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
>>>If we're talking about America today, "conservatism" is all about protecting the status quo, where the government is run by corporations.
Complete and other bullshit. Conservative was developed in opposition to FDR's New Deal, and since the 1940s has meant holding to Jeffersonian ideals, like obeying the Constitution's limit on government power. In recent years (2002-8) some forgot those ideals because they were caught by anti-terrorist war fever, but the overall seventy year history has been towards less government.
I am Republican-registered, and I am firmly against corporations. I hate them almost as much as I hate the jack-booted thugs in WW2 flicks.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
To all the people who are ostensibly conservative, stop trying to point out "but but, they do it too."
This sort of behavior shouldn't be tolerated by conservatives, and it shouldn't be whitewashed as "well everybody does it."
It's an ethical violation to not *at least* disclose that you're being supported by a campaign when you're writing posts to support that campaign. The people doing it are categorically, unequivocally, unabashedly wrong to be doing it, regardless of which party or candidate they're supporting.
If you tolerate it as a tactic in support of your own ideology, how can you criticize someone else for employing the same tactics?
>>>the word "liberal" in it as being a horrible thing.
Liberal is not a bad word, if it's used in the sense of the original 1600s-1800s liberals i.e. Small, chained government and maximum, individual liberty. They both share the same root.
The problem is that the modern word has been hijacked by people who want to turn citizens into Serfs of the government. To compel citizens to do certain things (or else be punished) is a perversion of the word "liberal" idealism. It's merely a throwback to the pre-enlightenment age where human beings were just playthings of the government leadership.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
“It’s standard operating procedure” to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative.
Really? Who is this person quoting? How could anyone confirm this? Yet, of course many here will run with this as it's true. Judging by the grammatical errors in the article, the author doesn't place a significant emphasis on detail.
It's always been well known that the Republican Party coordinated the work of a lot of conservative bloggers. Somehow, it goes less well noticed that the Democratic Party does the same thing, although it got off to a late start.
A significant problem in political blogging is that in order to attract a readership, a blog must be frequently cited on other popular blogs. Once a blog is cut out of the loop, it's finished.
There were a number of left-leaning blogs I used to follow regularly, that would complain of the dominance of "A-list blogs," which were more or less conventionally liberal Democratic Party supporters, that would consistently toe the Democrat line, and would pay short shrift to issues of gender, race, and sexuality. The A-list bloggers, generally straight white young men, would regularly link to each other, would rarely link to blogs written by talented writers who were women, people of color, or sexual minorities, and would close ranks to resist criticisms of their writing or of the Democratic Party from that quarter.
In early 2004, this changed sharply. Suddenly, a subset of those bloggers were being invited to conferences with Democratic Party officials, offered vacations in exchange for favorable blog posts, and were subscribing to liberal email lists that directed them on what topics to blog about -- exactly on the model of Republican conservative bloggers. Suddenly, there was a split in the community of left bloggers, as those that had been less critical of the Democratic Party were drawn in to active support of it. Their criticisms of the Democratic Party completely ceased, they began supporting the war in Iraq, and they began condemning former allies for their criticisms of liberal politics from the left. In short, a subset of the B-list bloggers was promoted into the A-list, which meant that they were working for the Democratic Party, and actively opposed to left criticism of the Democratic Party. Whether they were directly paid isn't really so much the central issue. The net effect was that a lot of talented writers, in particular women of color, gave up on political blogging entirely.
The Democratic Party's role in US politics has long been to break up and silence any political movements on the left. This was particularly noticeable in 2000, when it methodically demolished the US wing of the anti-globalization movement, and in 2004, when it broke up the anti-war movement.
I think congress should pass a bill to provide free keyboards to those who must have broken shift keys.
Daily Caller finds a couple of obscure liberal bloggers
Do you mean "a couple of obscure Democratic bloggers?"
Because by contrasting "Republican" and "Liberal" you make it look like you are implying that Republicans are, in any way, conservative.
This is bad for your image of credibility among thinking individuals.
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
What? The political terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' were in use far before that -- the actual origin of the term is from the late 1700s in response to the French Revolution.
Poppycock. We haven't seen true conservatism in that sense on the national stage since the 50s. It was hijacked then by McCarthyism, and we haven't gotten it back since then. Reagan? Not remotely a conservative, except in relation to corporate behavior. Bush Sr? Hah. The neo-conservatives have been running the show since before Nixon... and guess what? There's a reason they are distinguished in name from conservatives.
Furthermore, even that definition of conservatism is a hijacking. I suggest you actually read some political theory and history before espousing your made-up or poorly-researched "facts".
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
That's the only venue in which they have a chance. Voting for a 3rd party in a Federal election doesn't seem to make a difference.
I'm thinking we need to wait for local 3rd party politicians to filter upwards before we'll have viable 3rd party candidates on a national level.
Blar.
The corps often take the balls out of regulations, but at least there is SOMETHING there.
I fail to see how (for example) relaxing and not enforcing financial regulations helps the little guy at all.
Blar.
Go ahead and check out the "Journolist" coverage. That's where "real" MFM types conspired to suppress bad news about Obama, and coordinate attacks on conservatives. Of course, that wasn't a story worth mentioning on /..
The Liberal Crooks & Liars web site gets higher then normal rates from the Ron Wyden Campaign and other liberal campaigns and groups.
Abraham Lincoln appointed two of those judges.
A Republican in 1886 was not the same thing as a Republican in 2010. One of the most famous Democrats of the time was Jefferson Davis, the secessionist who had became President of the Confederate States of America in an effort to keep the South's economic tradition of slavery alive.
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad was heard in 1886. The governor of California at the time the case was raised was George Stoneman, a Democrat, and it was pushed to the California Supreme Court because their articles of Constitution specifically went out of their way to tax the railroads. The reason it got to the US Supreme Court was due to the Jurisdiction and Removal Act of 1875, which was passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by Ulysses S. Grant (a Republican and a military officer who served in the American Civil War on the side of the Northern Abolitionists). This law was specifically created to protect former slaves from state-level judicial persecution. http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/landmark_11.html, and the railroad more or less abused it to get a favorable ruling... but it was California that forced the issue.
-- Terry
And IIRC they're usually on the "liberaltarian" side of that category as well. Not everybody who thinks it's nice to keep more control over your own money is a conservative.
Look at some of their Op-Eds from this month: "America, Home of the Free -- Except for Muslims?" and "Mosque Debate is a Red Herring", arguing against the current conservative assault on the First Amendment. "Government Needs to Divorce the Marriage Business", arguing for equal public treatment of homosexual and heterosexual unions. "It's a WikiLeaks World, Get Used to it", arguing for increased official release of even military secrets. "US Spying Spawns a Dystopian Epidemic", arguing against the Bush-expanded state surveillance. If the RNC is paying Cato, they're not getting their money's worth.
So, GOP candidates target advertisement to conservative blogs, and the OP thinks they are overpaying. That seems like a conspiracy built on a nice fluffy cloud. Who is to say that the value of highly targeted advertising is not worth 10x more than general web advertising? Perhaps each conservative blog impression generates 10x the donations and votes as does a general web ad impression. That is not at all uncommon in marketing to pay extra for a proven desirable demographic.
/. that my small company got nothing. I can fabricate the exact same conspiracy theory as the OP with Obama and GE, except in reverse. The only difference is my conspiracy theory involves flushing public money down the toilet.
Perhaps GOP candidates have to do this because the major media outlets are closed to them. GE actively campaigned for Pres. Obama in 2008 through its NBC and MSNBC outlets and later received billions of dollars in bailouts and stimulus. I can assure
If you ever bother to check, The Dems aren't proposing increasing taxes on the rich and lowering taxes on the poor, they're suggesting raising taxes on the rich and raising different taxes on the poor.
The raising/lowering taxes on the rich/poor is accurate if the total taxes required are equal. Unfortunately, we have a national debt that needs to be paid down and raising taxes are unavoidable. In that situation, raising taxes for everyone but the most destitute is unavoidable, but should be raised on a curve so as to minimize the pain as much as possible based on your ability to pay. I was just simplifying the concept.
I wrote several posts in a positive light for the Democrats. I was so positive in the local area that I was paid by a major well-known campaign people and some of the local house people.
Best part is that I would have done it for free.
I agree with most of your points, except for a flat tax system. A couple years ago, I made an excel spreadsheet using actual census records of incomes to demonstrate how increasing taxes on the top 1% by 10% allow the bottom 50% to pay drastically lower taxes. (I wish I still had that spreadsheet) A flat tax system however would at least double what the lower 50% pay right now. Do you really want to double your taxes so to help someone else buy their third house?
granted, just fir the election, but I think it would be worth it - just think of the poor electrons - do it for the electrons!
Okay, you got me. But palestinian protests are also always in English. The last few Iranian "protests" were in English. Same goes for Iraqi and even (partly) Turkish ones.
And unless I'm very, very wrong your remark doesn't fly for all off these.
The subject of this thread is still a lie. There's a grain of truth to the accusation : obviously politicians pay for good press.
To get elected, Obama paid :
$244 million to broadcast media
$133 million to "miscellaneous media"
$26 million to internet media
$20 million to print media
$3 million to media consultants
How much of that went to bloggers. I don't know, but I'm betting at least a million or two.
source
I seem to recall a little of that money going to a blogger in trade for not publishing a video of a certain extremely racist pastor. Seems stupid now, as it turns out no democrats care about "black" people being racist.
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Because that's Chad and not USA, doofus.
OK, if dems do it too, find the evidence. Go on, it should be simple, if everyone's doing it all just as much. Pop along and come back when you've got the evidence.
PS when you invaded Iraq, why? Every government physically attacks a subset of their own people!
It is NOT "simplifying the concept" when you state something that is false. Suggesting that if we elect Dems we will mostly see a lowering of tax rates is false, since the Dems have neither the ability to lower taxes, nor any interest in doing so. The best you can say about them is that they'd make a better effort to hide the extra taxes you'd be paying from you....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
...this isn't news. While I never suspected people were getting paid, there have been people who were obvious political hacks eternally present regurgitating professional-sounding sound bites and basically trolling stories without any intention of engaging in debate. I don't mind dissenting opinions being posted or even that they're professional bloggers, my problem is that they aren't even trying to engage the forum community. They just want to get their shots plastered all over a website.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Way to not understand. That tax model is quite correct and you are just misrepresenting it to try and prove a point.
I suppose you think we can pull our way out of this economic slump and bailouts of giant corporations with puppies and wishes? As per http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/, we currently owe $43,261.80 per citizen! Maybe you can afford to write a check for this, but not most of us lower and middle class. If the corporate-welfare republicans (not all republicans are this type) didn't bankrupt our country, this wouldn't be a problem. I realize that Obama isn't exactly reducing our debt either, but at this point I don't think he has much choice. History has not shown the republicans to be any better. Check out this link http://zfacts.com/p/318.html and see how much good Bush/Reagan's tax policies have done to paying our debts.
The moderation on this entire discussion is a complete failure. It reflects not the content of the posters but the political slant of the readership. And based on which way the slant goes half the discussion gets buried or lost.
At some point there should just be a button to either agree or disagree and leave it up to votes. Not that the votes have any value whatsoever at this point, except to make the readers somehow feel better about themselves.
I just want to see what both sides are saying on the topic without moderation destroying half the discussion.
Oh, I understand now. You're just a blithering retard.
This is not news.
Republicans do it. Democrats do it. Microsoft does it. Oracle does it.
This is how advertising is carried on in the modern world. Slashdot should realize that it isn't just republicans who astroturf. It's every large group.
Paying bloggers for favorable treatment has some precedent (you lefties don't think the Right beat you to the punch, do you?):
http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit-archive/archives/020436.php
Payment for political blogging is nothing new. A quick Google search http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F2000%2Ccd_max%3A12%2F31%2F2009&q=political+bloggers+paid+by&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= for "political bloggers paid by" and constrained to the years 2000 to 2009 show over 72M hits. It's more interesting to me that so many are surprised by it.
It doesn't matter anymore.
We don't have a 2 party system. It's 1 party, Money. The Corporate Party.
Corporations don't care if your Republican or Democrat. They are backing both parties. All they want is favorable laws for them so they can make more money. That is it.
If you think one party is going to be better in the long run, it won't.
We have let our political system fail us, and honestly, it's time we fixed it. And the government.
Shit ain't going to get better. That's not how it works. We have a fail system that has to be rebuilt, or we will soon become a 3rd rate country.
We can do nothing and hope this all goes away, but let me ask you this.
Has it? Are we better off now then we were 10 years ago? 20 years ago?
You ready for the next 10 years, or the next 20 years?
*Note I don't have a political party I belong to. I seriously don't believe in them. I used to think I was a democrat, but I woke up to reality. Ya, there's other policital parties, but I don't follow them. I'm told the pirate party has similiar ideals, but they are about fixing it from the inside. I believe the inside is broken beyond repair. No need to fix, just need to restart with a new foundation built on the principals our country was founded on, not what it's come to be.
Be seeing you...
Oh, Canada,
why can't we be like you?
First, the we get the Slashdot story about conservatives burying stories on Digg, that ignored similar actions by leftists a few years earlier, in 2007.
Now we get this story, and again it sounds oddly familiar... because in 2005, it was the left doing it.
Hey CmdrTaco, how about getting out of your leftist shell and paying full attention?
Not arguing for either side, but did you know that England controlled Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Turkey for a while and was instramental in the formation of their modern governments?
It was right after WWI and the fall of the ottoman empire which is also why we/they were/are entrenched in Israel and the Palestine territory. The majority of newly formed territories formed their own functioning governments and moved on, some dicked around and the mess is still there. Then of course, there are those in which internal revolution changes the scene greatly but it's part of their past.
I don't know of any "democrat" party, but I have heard of the "Democratic" party. Get that one right, and maybe civil discourse can ensue.
Ask Me About... The 80's!
I applaud Republicans for convincing the other two thirds that they are a half.
Yes. It is called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paid_news
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
>>>What? The political terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' were in use far before that -- the actual origin of the term is from the late 1700s in response to the French Revolution.
But no longer means the same thing. The people who used to be conservative (pro-monarchy and/or big government) absconded the word liberal for themselves. At least that was the case here in the States. Now a liberal no longer represents the small government ideal of the 1700s.
You can not apply old terms to modern post-1930s American politics. The words, like words in the novel 1984, were redefined.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
And yet I'll bet you'll continue to bitch and moan when we call you the definition of a Republican rather than use the label.