Bloggasm

The idea of bloggers raising money for progressive candidates that support certain issues is nothing new — the Blue America PAC has been around for awhile and had already raised hundreds of thousands for candidates in the past. But with the recent news that the public option may get cut out of healthcare reform, Howie Klein and the three other popular bloggers that make up the PAC knew they would have to take action quickly. On Tuesday they launched the “Standing Up For The Public Option” campaign and managed to raise over $100,000 in less than 24 hours for the candidates they chose. The goal is to raise a quarter of a million dollars for dozens of lawmakers that have taken a pledge to support a “robust public option,” a means of rewarding those who are standing firm against pressures to back down and support a more watered-down bill. As of this writing, that goal is nearly met, with almost $240,000 raised so far.

“We’re trying to show Congress that they don’t have to depend on these lobbyist and these corporate CEOs for money,” Klein, who writes for the blog DownWithTyrany, told me in a phone interview.

The blogger said that so far over 2,500 people have donated, most simply choosing a handful of candidates to give a dollar each to.

“That says so much to me when someone does that, because someone who gives $5, they might not have more money to give,” Klein said. “I got an email from a woman today who used to be a rock and roll singer, a woman I know. And she told me she’s unemployed and has no money. She can’t afford her COBRA anymore, and so she’s given it up. And she had $40, and that $40 meant a lot to her, and she donated one dollar to 40 different candidates.”

He said that progressive bloggers have provided a means for constituents to differentiate between candidates based on the issues they support, rather than just encouraging them to donate to someone simply because he or she is a Democrat.

“They’re giving it to people who are progressives, people who are fighting for working families,” Klein explained “People who are backing the positions they’re in favor of. If you’re in favor of a public option, and it’s important to you, well these are the candidates that are supporting it.”

The campaign wouldn’t be nearly as effective, he said, if it weren’t for the fact that dozens of bloggers have linked to the pledge campaign after it was initially announced. He said that after the major national blogs began trumpeting it, many state and local blogs took up the torch and rallied behind candidates in their own states that were on the list.

“We have the California bloggers saying, ‘let’s make sure our people will get lots of money and pump them up,’” he said. “And the Texas bloggers, these are among the most politically aggressive people I’ve ever met in my life, not just on this issue but others. These people are amazing. When they found out there were three Texans on there they went berserk and have been rallying the Texas blogosphere. There were three of these [candidates] from Texas, and they all jumped to the front of the ranks with the number of people and the amount that was being donated to them. And it’s been a battle for the top slot.”

Klein said that in addition to providing monetary support to the candidates, the campaign also lets them know there are “literally thousands and thousands out there who admire what they’re doing.” In an environment where nearly all lawmakers are feeling pressure to concede their views in this debate, such moral support may be a welcome reprieve as they try to stand their ground.

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After Salon’s Glenn Greenwald pointed out that Mike Huckabee appeared to commit the ultimate sin by bashing American policy on foreign soil, Huckabee apparently considered his argument worthy enough to warrant a response.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee defended himself Tuesday against accusations from liberal bloggers that he has been “bashing America” during his ongoing visit to Israel. . . .

Huckabee’s response pointed directly to a post by Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, who wrote Monday that the former governor “is now bashing America in front of a foreign audience” . . . . “Isn’t there some righteous Washington prohibition on criticizing America’s foreign policy while on dreaded ‘foreign soil’?” Greenwald asked. . . .

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Insane Sarah Palin, Late At Night On July 4, Threatens To Sue Entire Internet, Via Twitter

So, after crazily quitting her elected position as governor of Alaska, via an alarming backyard last-minute press conference void of any explanation , at the classic 4 p.m. hour of the Friday-Holiday news dump, Sarah Palin is now twatting on the twitter about how her Anchorage attorneys are going to SUE THE AMERICAN MEDIA, for saying “WTF?”

Honestly, this is what Sarah Palin twatted on Saturday Night, July 4th, Independence Day, in America.

Her link goes to (of course) Scientologist nut and sub-literate weirdo Greta Van Susteren’s blog on FoxNews.com, where Greta has helpfully (?) posted seven pages of legal threats from Palin’s lawyers, although you can’t actually read beyond the first vague page of whining bullshit, because Greta/Fox can’t figure out how to operate the Internet.

But, from other websites, we gather Palin’s lawyers plan lawsuits against MSNBC, the New York Times, the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, individual bloggers in Alaska, and other such anti-Palin forces such as “rain on your wedding day” and static cling.

As a side note, he’s absolutely right about Greta Van Susteren; she does not know how to use the internet. Trying to read her blog is like attempting to view a mashup of your average emo Myspace page and a 1998 Geocities website.

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GOP heads to HuffPost:

When Tom Coburn wanted to pitch his criticism of the Democrats’ health care plan last month, the senator’s office considered sympathetic media outlets like The Wall Street Journal and the conservative blog RedState.

Instead, the Oklahoma Republican went with The Huffington Post.

Despite its liberal leanings, Republican member and aides have begun heading to The Huffington Post to talk up their views.

Arianna Huffington, who co-founded the eponymous site four years ago this month, said that increased Republican engagement “is a reflection of our traffic, our brand, and the fact that we are increasingly seen … as an Internet newspaper, not positioned ideologically in terms of how we cover the news.”

Tevis narrowly lost the election for a Kansas House of Representatives seat, but he’s launched a new web comic announcing his strategy for a 2010 run

Though presidential candidates Barrack Obama and Ron Paul shattered records last year for online campaign fundraising, Sean Tevis’ Internet fundraising success may be even more extraordinary. After virtually no luck raising money door-to-door (reportedly he brought in a meager $25) the rookie candidate published a web comic paying homage to XKCD that — with a series of tech geek references and pleas for donations — was linked to from thousands of websites and covered by major media outlets ranging from the Wall Street Journal to the LA Times. In the first 24 hours after publishing the comic he had received $25,000, and by the end of the campaign he had racked up over $109,000, most of which came from out-of-state donors. And he was running in a district where only 10,103 people voted. When votes were finally cast, he lost to his conservative opponent in a heavily Republican district by only 452 votes.

For a couple months after his defeat he went back to just working as an information architect and stayed out of the political sphere. But in February, Tevis was at first excited and then quickly horrified when he found out that Kansas Representative Scott Schwab had introduced House Bill No. 2244 to the state legislature, referring to it as the “Sean Tevis Bill.” If passed, it would have forced a candidate to file a public report with a person’s full name and home address on it if he donates less than $50 to a political campaign, but only if the candidate raised over $1,000 in small donations. What first seemed like a bill promoting campaign transparency was simply an attempt to target one person: Sean Tevis.

“When you hear there’s a bill being introduced and it has your name on it, you want it to be something great, or at least something good, but once you actually read it and go through it and you realize it’s almost the opposite of what you’ve been campaigning for or what you wanted to accomplish, it just made me mad, really mad,” Tevis told me in a phone conversation. “So I wrote a press release, put it on my website, and sent it out to a couple news organizations. But what really made the difference was just putting it on my site. Apparently so many people had subscribed to my RSS feed that it made it to Metafilter, and to BoingBoing, to Reddit, and to a couple other places. Because it made it onto those, people were actually calling the state capitol while the legislature was in session, and the guy who was introducing the bill apparently had to turn off his phone while he was out on the house floor because so many people were calling to complain.”

The bill was swiftly killed, but by now Tevis’ inner political activist had been reawakened. After seeing yet again the passionate following he had from those who fervently believed in the same issues, he decided that he wanted to make another go at his local seat, convinced this time he could perform even better and win. But at this point the candidate was not willing to lie dormant for several months waiting for the campaign season to come up. So he went back to his comic strip and illustrated over 100 panels detailing not only what he had been up to thus far, but what he planned on accomplishing in the months ahead.

“I’m an information architect by trade, and what that means is I look at how groups collaborate with each other, whether it’s business units, or things within a company, and I try to find ways to get better information in front of others, and hopefully improve it,” Tevis said. “And I had collected all those [constituents'] information from going door to door … and because I lost, I wasn’t going to be able to act on it, and I thought that well, maybe I can go give it to my opponent. But he really does not like me. After the election, I called to give my concession speech and he hung up on me. He’s not a friendly guy. There was a lot of media attention about me, and he took it very personally, like ‘I really hate this guy, what is he doing?’”

So in Tevis’ new plan, he would visit a minimum of 50 politicians across the state and US to not only share the information he gathered from his constituents, but also to promote his own ideas for transparency in government.

“It’d be nice when I go meet these politicians if I could wear a shirt saying who’s sponsoring me,” he said. “They’re all real people who are sponsoring. They’re not sponsored by lobbyist or corporations. I wanted to get a real person’s name on my shirt. And then I would also give a shirt to the politician themselves just for meeting with me.”

Tevis officially kicks off his visits on June 1, but he said that he’s already met with one representative who would soon be out of the country for several months and unable to meet with him any other time. For those who donate $13,37, he’ll be wearing their names on his shirt when he sits down with a politician, and the $120 donors will have their names printed on the shirt given to the elected official.

But the burning question I had for Tevis was this: In all the coverage of his campaign — both on the internet and off – did anyone ever get a reaction from Randall Munroe — the creator of XKCD — to the candidate’s homage to him?

“No, but I’ve always wondered what he’s thought of these. If you do talk to him though, tell him I said hi and I love his work.”

If you follow my Twitter account, you know that all of Friday night I posted a constant stream of updates about the fact that Drudge was ignoring the Troopergate report that found that Palin had violated ethics laws. Given Drudge’s power in driving media narratives, I considered this to be a major media scandal.

Someone else seems to have noticed: Drudge Report Uses Racial Undertones, Blatant Propaganda to Boost McCain

In the meantime, the one article unfavorable to Republicans received none of the star treatment the positive stories did. Early Saturday morning, Drudge posted the headline, “Report Stings Palin Over Troopergate,” in response to the harsh critique of Palin’s “abuse of power” to emerge from the State of Alaska’s investigation into the scandal. But far from the top-of-the-fold, bold/underlined/italicized headlines that seemed to offer bad news for the Obama camp, this one was buried on the left-hand side, about two-thirds of the way down the page. By 2:41 on Sunday morning, the story was completely erased from the site.

I sent an email to conservative Power Line blogger John Hinderaker last night asking for comment on a 2005 post he made criticizing economist Paul Krugman. I have yet to receive a response. Here is the email:

Hey John,

I’m working on a blog post juxtaposing this piece written by you in 2005:

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011291.php

With this post written by one of your co bloggers today:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/10/021766.php

I was hoping to get a comment from you about the two posts. Would you say, given current events in the market, that your criticisms were wrong about Krugman’s column? Do you plan to write a follow-up post that addresses your 2005 blog post? Do you feel that the fact that you criticized those who predicted a coming financial crisis affects your credibility on your current coverage of the crisis, particularly in blog posts like this one:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/10/021764.php

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts,
Simon Owens

If you don’t feel like following all those links, here’s what John wrote in 2005:

It must be depressing to be Paul Krugman. No matter how well the economy performs, Krugman’s bitter vendetta against the Bush administration requires him to hunt for the black lining in a sky full of silvery clouds. With the economy now booming, what can Krugman possibly have to complain about? In today’s column, titled That Hissing Sound, Krugman says there is a housing bubble, and it’s about to burst…

There are, of course, obvious differences between houses and stocks. Most people own only one house at a time, and transaction costs make it impractical to buy and sell houses the way you buy and sell stocks. Krugman thinks the fact that James Glassman doesn’t buy the bubble theory is evidence in its favor, but if you read Glassman’s article on the subject, you’ll see that he actually makes some of the same points that Krugman does. But he argues, persuasively in my view, that there is little reason to fear a catastrophic collapse in home prices.

Krugman will have to come up with something much better, I think, to cause many others to share his pessimism.

And then yesterday, Power Line had the nerve to publish this:

Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Prize in economics. In the 1980s and early 1990s, I read plenty of what Krugman had to say about economics. It struck me as first-rate. In fact, Krugman’s reputation as an exceptional economist is what caused me to read him in the first place. I’m in no position to judge whether Krugman’s work from that era merits a Nobel Prize, but I suspect it makes him a colorable choice.

Eventually, Krugman veered off into left-wing commentary (I’ve always wondered whether it was President Clinton’s decision not to make him head of the Council of Economic Advisers that pushed Krugman in these directions — punditry and hyper-leftism; he wrote somewhat bitterly about that snub at the time). The economic analysis Krugman serves up in his New York Times columns is often an embarrassment. Obviously, op-eds are not the best format for sophisticated analysis, but there is no excuse for Krugman’s persistent fudging of data and inability to distinguish economc fact from partisan desire that Donald Luskin and others have chronicled over the years.

Unfortunately, it may well be the case that Krugman won his award due at least in part to his left-wing, anti-Bush commentary. Every year, we have occasion to note the leftist bias of the Nobel awards. The prizes seem to have become, in part, a method of rewarding Bush’s harshest critics, Al Gore and Jimmy Carter for example. If there’s a chemist out there who has written an anti-Bush op-ed, there may well be a Nobel Prize in his or her future.

The Nobel Prize is just another example of an institution whose veneration once crossed ideological lines, but that the left has long since captured. Other such institutions include the NAACP, the New York Times, Amnesty International, and (though it was never really venerated) the American Bar Association. The left’s “long march” through these institutions has deprived them of their credibility and their status as honest brokers.

In the case of the Nobel Prize, the money must be welcome. But as honors go, a Nobel Prize in anything relating to public policy is not much more meaningful than praise from the Daily Kos.

As I mentioned before, conservatives attack journalists, PhD academics and scientists as having a liberal bias. Now add Nobel prize winners to the list. When are they going to put 2 and 2 together that perhaps the reason that these immensely intelligent and talented people prefer liberalism is simply because reality favors liberalism.