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By Mark D, January 28, 2011 3:48 pm

So with the whole Giffords shooting, I have seen a lot of people come out from the right and claim that the left makes just as violent a level of threats. Most of these are from protests (and really, do we have to start showing pictures of what the Tea Party protests look like in comparison?) along with a poorly edited quote from Kerry back in 2004. I was thinking about it, and really, if your on the left you most likely believe that Bush Jr is guilty of war crimes. His home state of Texas is also one of the most infamous when it comes to executions, and during his time as Governor even the mentally ill faced the possibility of the death penalty.

If you believe that Bush is guilty of war crimes (an excellent argument made in this book by Vincent Burgliosi) then you view him as responsible for the deaths of over 2000 American soldiers. This isn’t even considering the Iraqi civilian death count. As governor Bush showed no compassion for anyone on death row and wouldn’t show it for someone who had a hand in 2000 American deaths. While some people on the left might be a tad nuts and actually want to kill Bush, I think most people would want him to face a fair trial. All but the most clueless of Americans have to know that Bush lied to start a war with Iraq, claiming Iraq was a threat and a sponsor of Al Queda (along with the nudge nudge wink wink they sponsored 9/11).

When people talk about killing Obama (or shooting representatives) you have to question what exactly was done to them?  You can’t even make the argument that Obama somehow stole the election. They want to kill him because he’s not an American Citizen? (btw Snopes even says he’s an American) They want to kill him because he gave them health care? I mean it’s a flat out ridiculous scenario. Let’s not forget that Giffords made Palin’s crosshair map because she had voted for health care.

It’s unfathomable that people are actually upset over getting government health care. In 2000, the last time the World Health Organization did global rankings (and at a time when the US economy was strong) the United States ranked 37th. We were behind Costa Rica and in front of Slovenia. Those horrible socialists in Cuba were 39th. So even in the best possible situation, the American health care system was ranking around 2nd and 3rd world Countries. For what should be a Superpower, being unable to take care of your own citizens is an embarrassment. Especially when you consider how much Cuba is hurt by the trade embargo.

Of course you could always have the delusional thought that Obama is a Muslim Nazi Socialist who will destroy the country by all means necessary. If you believe so, I’m shocked you’ve gotten this far in this post. But to be fair, if you had an understanding of history at all you’d realize that it’s impossible to be a Nazi and a Socialist. Now you could make the argument that the Nazi party was “National Socialist” but the reality is that the Socialist was there in name only. While Hitler told the workers he was for them, he would tell the capitalists that it was a lie to get the vote of the people.  Also as I’ve mentioned in the past, the Communists and Socialists were some of the first people the Nazis rounded up when they took power.

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By Mark D, January 23, 2011 3:53 pm

This may come as a shock, but I was never a huge fan of Keith Olbermann. I always considered him a bit of a douche when he was a host on Sportscenter, and couldn’t have cared less when he got his own show. I’ve come to have a respect for his show and I’ve enjoyed a lot of the clips of it I’ve been sent. I don’t think I ever saw a full episode, and I almost always changed the channel when he started interviewing someone (I do the same to Stewart and Colbert). I’ve heard some rumors about him being a jackass in/around the MSNBC offices. But I’ve also heard a lot of people claim that no one else worked as hard on their show, with him being involved heavily in daily research.

But you have to give him credit where credit is due. If he helped guide MSNBC to a more left leaning network, then he did political discourse in the country a favor. While Fox News has been in the pocket of the Republican party, the other news networks have taken a middle of the road path with an unwillingness to call them on it. Considering that George W Bush was re-elected in 2004, it wasn’t the popular thing to come out against him before the election. But it was the right thing to point out the lies and fearmongering being used by the right. I remember when Bush was first announcing the invasion of Iraq, I was telling everyone I could that it was a waste of life and no one took me seriously. My friends now take me seriously when I talk about this stuff. It was the lack of a counter which allowed the whole country to be taken down the rabbit hole.

One thing you really have to give MSNBC/Olbermann credit for is that unlike Fox News they aren’t just lapdogs for the Democrats. They have been just as critical of Obama as they have ever been of Bush. It even got to the point that I remember the Daily Show claiming MSNBC was doing it wrong when it came to defending Obama. During his time with the network he was the figurehead and central in their movement from an also-ran to Fox News biggest rival.

Now because I’m insane I was interested in seeing what the comments would be like on Yahoo! News comments. I don’t know why I keep going back to them, I guess I’m just amused as to how much venom people can have for someone. I mean the right is so riled up about MSNBC and NBC they’ll actually chant NBC Lies at rallies. It’s almost like the 2 minute hate. I sorted these comments based on the Highest amount of ratings:

“Good! He was worthless!” 1325 Up 507 Down

“Good riddance….” 810 Up 245 Down

“He is a lying piece of crap.” 738 Up 213 Down

“Best news I’ve read all day” 734 Up 181 Down

“the world is a better place with him off the air” 716 Up 189 Down

“I Love Lucy re-runs would get better ratings.” 589 Up 138 Down

“It is a shame. Countdown was the best news show on the air.” 562 Up 1498 Down

“Take Rachel Maddow with you – you’re both idiots!” 521 Up 148 Down

“Accuracy was his forte.Showing you with facts how the republicans LIE to the masses was his specialty. Sure gonna miss him.” 438 Up 1225 Down

“We have lost a critical voice in our countries debate” 405 Up 1136 Down

I don’t get it. Two of the three positive comments for him were relatively minor and didn’t bash anyone. You would think such comments would have gotten some love especially when someone’s leaving their job. How the negative comments combined don’t have as many down votes as a single of the positive comments is mind melting. Is the internet that conservative? am I overrating the amount of conservatives on the internet? I mean there are some people who no matter what craziness they did get a positive response from people as they leave.

I really wish the best for Keith Olbermann, even if I do think a good amount of it might have been him being a douche around the offices. I also hope this isn’t a sign of NBC taking a new direction with the channel now that Comcast has taken over. Thankfully we have Brent Bozzell (seriously, someone interviewed him about Olbermann and it was in the AP report) to inform us that the show taking over for Countdown is an even bigger evil meanie liberal. I guess for Conservatives it’s be careful what you wish for.

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By Mark D, October 19, 2010 8:33 pm

As I mentioned the other day, I tend to get most of my News stories from Yahoo!, since I enjoy AP stories. Well something that’s been bothering me is the insanity in the comments. Now some of the problem comes from the fact that Yahoo re-uses the url for news stories since AP stories have to be pulled after 3 months. So a story that involves Obama and the US would be under Obama-US4 and when a new story would be put into it’s spot the old comments would stay with that story. It’s a technological problem more then a conspiracy of any sort.

For example a newer story I was reading again involve the Yes Men pulling another prank, this time on Chevron. Now given what one would suspect of people’s attitudes towards big oil companies (you know, after the whole BP thing) you might expect that most people agree with the article and what the Yes Men are doing. Instead a quick view of the highest rated comments finds that every comment in agreement with the Yes Men have 20-25 Thumbs down. Most of them have more thumbs down then thumbs up, despite being in support of what one could guess would be a broadly popular move.

Even wilder, there is only one comment in the highest rated which doesn’t have 20 thumbs down, it’s not even in the double digit thumbs down. Yet it’s the second highest rated comment and seems to be combative to what the Yes Men are doing, here it is:

The biggest ad hoaxes are the campaigns by the politicians.
They’ll say anything to get elected, and make any promise.
Once elected, it’s business as usual, and they’ll raise taxes and spend more of our money to benefit their cronies and special interests, and also foreign governments like Pakistan.
So the various companies’ ads are small potatoes, compared to the huge hoaxes perpetrated by both Republicrooks and Democrooks.
Remember Obama’s promises? Has he kept even one of them?

There are so many things wrong with this comment. Does anyone remember when George W. Bush said in a debate with Al Gore that American Troops should not be used in “Nation Building”. It’s always amazing to me how these tea party people come out against both parties, but always finish their rant with a bashing of Obama. I find it amazing that time and time again they claim to be against both parties, yet always seem to save the most venom for Obama.

I’ve always taken the internet to be a very liberal beast. Maybe it’s because Yahoo! is such a mainstream site. Or maybe the internet reflects the reality of a bunch of idiots screaming louder then anyone else. I don’t think this is some sort of conspiracy by Yahoo! But I wouldn’t put it beyond there being more groups like the one that worked on Digg to bury liberal stories and posters.

Maybe I’m wrong and Tea Party people just have plenty of time when they aren’t watching Fox News to comment on Yahoo! News stories. It just seems to be a continuing almost somewhat disturbing trend that liberal comments are buried so quickly. I’ve found that when I’ve left liberal comments on especially busy news stories that within 5-10 minutes the comment has been removed. Some of them haven’t even been as blatantly liberal as you might think.

My friend probably has it right though, she keeps telling me I should stop stressing over it and stop reading the comments. That it’s a bunch of loons causing trouble and it’s working because I’m stressing over it. But I was wondering if anyone else reads the Yahoo! News comments and think they are a bunch of maniacs?