The deeply serious Heritage Foundation -- and this is real -- has a countdown clock on its frontpage, showing to the second milisecond the time that we all have left before we become -- all together now -- unsafe and unprotected (h/t sysprog):
It is true, of course, that many right-wing polemicists use fearmongering techniques like this manipulatively, to exploit the Terrorist threat for more unchecked government power and to advance their political agenda.
But many of them actually believe this, and there are undoubtedly all sorts of individuals in the U.S. today nervously looking at their clocks, with accelerating heartbeat and a deepening sense of foreboding, knowing that the Hour of Danger is nigh upon us. This pitiful, fear-drenched absurdity is the face of the Bush Movement, the symbol of the post-9/11 Bush Era in the United States.
List of things we should really fear:
1.The deeply serious think tanker wannabes at Heritage Foundation can't even spell the word EXTENSION...
2.The deeply serious think tanker wannabes at Heritage Foundation don't seem to be able to tell the time, since they appear to keep resetting their clock.
At least they fixed the spelling on their count-up clock now. As of this post we are a little over 3 hours past doomed to some kind of Constitutionally protected privacy and about ten hours into LOL from their stupidity.
Some of you may not have noticed, as you do your last minute Christmas shopping, but there is a class war going on in this country... And the powers that be don't give a fuck if they have to use violence to stifle the voices of those that are willing to stand up against their brutal economic rape of the downtrodden in New Orleans.
There was a tornado warning on Thursday, December 20th, with a cool front marching down south. The tornado that touched down though, was the incredible spirit, will and determination of those fighting for public, and affordable housing in this city, and taking on the NOPD and New Orleans City Council in the process.
We were prepared, Thursday, to challenge what we already knew would go down: the vote in the affirmative by the New Orleans City Council to demolish over 4000 units of critical, public and affordable housing in New Orleans. Our intent was to keep the meeting from happening, to prevent the vote, by peaceful, but loud, raucous protest. There was no intent to commit violence. Many of us were quite willing to be arrested. One of the principles decided on by public housing residents in this struggle is that it will be a non-violent struggle.
There were not now, nor have there ever been, plans to commit violence by any of our people. However, when people are physically attacked by police, sometimes you fight back. You can call it instinct, survival, or foolhardy, call it what you will, but human nature being what it is, sometimes people fight back. The first punch was thrown by the NOPD however, which you can observe by watching the above video.
I was one of those locked out that day. I brought my camera, fully intending to document even though locked out. We were behind and to the side of council chambers, locked out by virtue of a pair of handcuffs on the gate that encloses a covered driveway behind the chambers.
Police lined that covered driveway, and we knew there were significant numbers in the chambers. We received phone reports that our colleagues had prevented the meeting from beginning, by chanting and shouting and demanding that those locked out be allowed in.
Suddenly, from the outside, we saw at least 10 police officers rush into the building. We knew it was going down inside. We all began to scream and some of us shook the gate violently. We wanted in to help defend our sisters and brothers.
Readers of The Shock Doctrine know that one of the most shameless examples of disaster capitalism has been the attempt to exploit the disastrous flooding of New Orleans to close down that city’s public housing projects, some of the only affordable units in the city. Most of the buildings sustained minimal flood damage, but they happen to occupy valuable land that make for perfect condo developments and hotels.
The final showdown over New Orleans public housing is playing out in dramatic fashion right now. The conflict is a classic example of the “triple shock” formula at the core of the doctrine.
First came the shock of the original disaster: the flood and the traumatic evacuation.
Next came the “economic shock therapy”: using the window of opportunity opened up by the first shock to push through a rapid-fire attack on the city’s public services and spaces, most notably it’s homes, schools and hospitals.
Now we see that as residents of New Orleans try to resist these attacks, they are being met with a third shock: the shock of the police baton and the Taser gun, used on the bodies of protestors outside New Orleans City Hall yesterday.
Democracy Now! has been covering this fight all week, with amazing reports from filmmakers Jacquie Soohen and Rick Rowley (Rick was arrested in the crackdown). Watch residents react to the bulldozing of their homes here.
And footage from yesterday’s police crackdown and Tasering of protestors inside and outside city hall here.
That last segment contains a terrific interview with Kali Akuno, executive director of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund. Akuno puts the demolitions in the big picture, telling Amy Goodman:
This is just one particular piece of this whole program. Public hospitals are also being shut down and set to be demolished and destroyed in New Orleans. And they’ve systematically dismantled the public education system and beginning demolition on many of the schools in New Orleans–that’s on the agenda right now–and trying to totally turn that system over to a charter and a voucher system, to privatize and just really go forward with a major experiment, which was initially laid out by the Heritage Foundation and other neoconservative think tanks shortly after the storm. So this is just really the fulfillment of this program.
Akuno is referring to the Heritage Foundation’s infamous post-Katrina meeting with the Republican Study Group in which participants laid out their plans to turn New Orleans into a Petri dish for every policy they can’t ram through without a disaster. Read the minutes on my website.
Former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz — who resigned last month after being embroiled in a corruption scandal at the World Bank — announced that he has found a comfortable landing pad from which to continue to disseminate his right-wing ideology:
Paul Wolfowitz vowed to continue in political life after he steps down as president of the World Bank this weekend following an internal revolt. … He said he would be joining the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, as a visiting scholar, which would allow him to continue influencing public policy.
Before the Iraq war, AEI helped spawn the administration’s regime change plans. Several Iraq war architects — such as Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, and Doug Feith — previously worked at AEI before their service in the administration. In February 2003, President Bush delivered a major policy speech to AEI, mapping out his war plan, “thanking them [AEI] for their service” and support for the invasion.
AEI is right down there in the far right wing Heritage Foundation gutter of shame, and is little more than a front group for right wing nutty propaganda, and featuring such a superb cheerleading chorus to add to the pundits TV lineup of war on real news analysis.
Propaganda and outright lies are their favoured tools.
Truth is their enemy.
Groups like AEI and Heritage Foundation have acted in the interests of the Neoconservative death cult and the corporatist allies that have funded them all along. Do not ever mistake these propaganda groups as representative of a real conservative's perspective. They are warmongers and war profiteers. They are as different from a real, honest, conservative as the difference between my liberal agenda and a communist's.
While pressure on the Baghdad government mounted, Iraqi oil unions staged protests in early June. Many Iraqis believe the measure would drive the oil industry toward privatization and unfairly benefit outside oil companies.
"We think the proposed oil law doesn't serve the interests of the Iraqi people at all," said Faleh Abood Umara, general secretary of the Southern Oil Company Union and the Iraqi Federation of Oil Workers' Unions, at a news conference in New York on June 18. "It emphasizes or confirms American hegemony over Iraqi oil fields."
The unions have said they worry negotiations could result in a law that would give foreign companies too much influence. But details of how foreign investors would be involved are still being nailed down, said David Pumphrey, deputy director of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ...
... Foreign oil companies, meanwhile, are waiting for the oil law to provide a structure in which to operate in the country. The law was intended to build confidence in the stability of the system and provide incentives to work in a still violent region.
"This is an industry that makes very long decisions. They reap their profits over a period of decades, and it takes years to develop projects," Greg Priddy, an energy analyst at the Eurasia Group, told the NewsHour in May.
"They need to be confident that it's going to be stable, not just the next few years, but out 30 years or so, way beyond the U.S. occupation."
We knew this was about oil, this just documents it.
A little quoted, and nearly ignored, article from the 2006 LA Times:
A centerpiece of the Iraq Study Group's report is its advocacy for securing foreign companies' long-term access to Iraqi oil fields.
WHILE THE Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence.
Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq's importance to its region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder: "It has the world's second-largest known oil reserves." The group then proceeds to give very specific and radical recommendations as to what the United States should do to secure those reserves. If the proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.
The report makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room: that we are fighting, killing and dying in a war for oil. It states in plain language that the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met.
It's spelled out in Recommendation No. 63, which calls on the U.S. to "assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise" and to "encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies." This recommendation would turn Iraq's nationalized oil industry into a commercial entity that could be partly or fully privatized by foreign firms."
I guess that is what they mean when they say the ISG was made up of "moderate and bipartisan" elderly statesmen. It means they will shill for the oil industries too.
The U.S. State Department's Oil and Energy Working Group, meeting between December 2002 and April 2003, also said that Iraq "should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war." Its preferred method of privatization was a form of oil contract called a production-sharing agreement. These agreements are preferred by the oil industry but rejected by all the top oil producers in the Middle East because they grant greater control and more profits to the companies than the governments. The Heritage Foundation also released a report in March 2003 calling for the full privatization of Iraq's oil sector. One representative of the foundation, Edwin Meese III, is a member of the Iraq Study Group. Another, James J. Carafano, assisted in the study group's work.
For any degree of oil privatization to take place, and for it to apply to all the country's oil fields, Iraq has to amend its constitution and pass a new national oil law. The constitution is ambiguous as to whether control over future revenues from as-yet-undeveloped oil fields should be shared among its provinces or held and distributed by the central government.
This is a crucial issue, with trillions of dollars at stake, because only 17 of Iraq's 80 known oil fields have been developed. Recommendation No. 26 of the Iraq Study Group calls for a review of the constitution to be "pursued on an urgent basis." Recommendation No. 28 calls for putting control of Iraq's oil revenues in the hands of the central government. Recommendation No. 63 also calls on the U.S. government to "provide technical assistance to the Iraqi government to prepare a draft oil law."
Go read the entire article and then be sick to your stomachs...
It has always been about the big oil companies getting their slice of the pie... And that appears to be one of the few truly bipartisan efforts on Capitol Hill. Until the oil companies get what they feel they are entitled to, those "Iraq Constitution" changes you hear lawmakers and the White House talk about (the ones that steal oil rights from Iraqis, but they don't mention that...), the occupation will continue. Regardless of how much it is tearing Iraq apart.
Iraqis know what this is about. When will Americans face up to the realities of Iraq?
Tell Your State Senator and State Representative: Vote No on Same-Sex "Marriage"
We hope to see as many of you as possible at our May 23rd Rally and Lobby Day for Marriage, which begins at 10:00 a.m. on the steps of the state capitol in Hartford. Your willingness to fight for the protection of marriage will make the difference between victory and defeat--and pro same-sex "marriage" activists know it.
Then they quote from Love Makes a Family's Anne Stanback (email from Monday, May 7) ---
Here's an excerpt from one of their messages:
Opponents of marriage equality, who are well organized and well funded, have been generating huge numbers of calls and emails and supporters must show our support too. Pro-family voters are doing such a good job making their voices heard that our opponents are forced into claiming it's because FIC is "well-funded." In fact, we are vastly outfunded by our opposition.
Then it gets funny:
Consider this excerpt from a Courant column on a pro same-sex "marriage" fundraiser held last month:
While those at the Bushnell were getting their groove thing going, Love Makes a Family's "Eat, Drink & Be Married" event had a whole lot of dinner parties going on around town, aimed at raising money to continue efforts toward marriage equality for same-sex couples.
At the West End home of Michael Wilson (Hartford Stage's artistic director) and his partner, Jeff Cowie, the theme was "Let's Stick Together" and dinner did that - literally. From asparagus-studded choux pastry puffs to Korean beef, all of the food was served - you've got it - on a stick.
"The seven cooks in the kitchen has been a challenge," said Wilson, who was more than willing to show off the 105-year-old house that was once the residence of Life magazine photographer Arthur Rickerby and his author wife, Wanda Rickerby.
Unlike our opponents, FIC does not owe its success to an ability to put seven cooks in one kitchen. Whatever we have accomplished we owe to you: your willingness to pray for us, to contact your legislators, to attend our rallies and to donate to our matching grant campaigns.
In fact, the difficulty in meeting our matching grant campaign goal of $50,000 by the end of this month is making it harder for us to stop same-sex "marriage" and other threats to the family. That's why we need your help.
Some of us are so well funded that we don't get a penny for any of the Blogging and activism we do. Unlike the bigoted and overpaid "asparagus-studded choux pastry puffs" at the FIC Blog that are obviously suffering from stick envy.
Bill O'Brien, president of Connecticut Right to Life, said the group wants Rell to veto the bill. O'Brien said "the state has no business" telling Catholic hospitals to do something that goes against the church's teachings.
"We can't kill a person that was conceived of rape," O'Brien said.
Nothing like a baby that comes from a good old fashioned clubbing over the head!
Caveman Peter (FIC tribe) speaks:
As we have noted before, the next likely step will be a lawsuit based on the Connecticut Religious Freedom Act. Watch for more information.
Nothing like a caveman starting a lawsuit that will wind up cutting off all state funding to the hospital's medicine man. But that isn't what this post is about.
A quick look at the others that enjoy their women barefoot and pregnant, clubbed and dragged off to be raped and FORCED to bear them children... The leaders an outspoken members of some anti-woman groups as yanked from the FIC Blog:
The bishops of every state but New York fought the sort of law that is being advanced in the Connecticut legislature [emphasis added]. New York, for some reason, was the only state where Catholic lobbyists had no objection to such a law.
Legislative Democrats on Thursday threw pointed questions at Gov. M. Jodi Rell, asking if her Capitol staff worked to solicit campaign cash from arts and tourism leaders whose groups depend on state funds to operate....
Rell's press office did not return several calls from The Courant beginning late Thursday afternoon....
A month ago Rell's press secretary, Chris Cooper, acknowledged that Moody, Dukes and other Rell staffers "could have" provided the address list to the campaign although they "do not specifically remember" doing so. That prompted Democratic State Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo to request the current probe. "How could they not remember?" she asked.
"The campaign received this list through Lisa Moody. The lists were provided on a computer disc. ... I believe all of the individuals on the list were mailed a letter," Kevin M. Deneen, the lawyer from Windsor who managed Rell's successful election effort last year, wrote in a letter faxed Wednesday to two Democratic state legislative leaders who had asked questions about the campaign solicitations.
Report: Top Rell Aide `Misled' Committee: "Gov. M. Jodi Rell's chief of staff, M. Lisa Moody, 'misled' a legislative committee by giving sworn testimony that was 'not credible' regarding a Rell fundraiser last year, according to a draft copy of a new legislative report.
The report, obtained Wednesday by The Courant, also says that state elections enforcement chief Jeffrey Garfield should face 'some form of reprimand or censure' because he deleted important information from an investigative report and released the unedited version only after hearings were completed last spring."
Just in case you follow the FIC line of thought and didn't know, misled is another word for LIED, as for Rell's original reaction to her Moody Period:
Moody was suspended by Rell for two weeks after admitting that she handed out invitations to commissioners on state time. Her actions led to seven days of often-contentious legislative hearings in May. Sixteen of Rell's commissioners or deputies were fined $500 each to settle a case under a state law that prohibits those officials from soliciting campaign contributions from their subordinates.
The 14-page report quotes Moody as telling at least one senior staff member, "I am not twisting your arm, but I am," regarding the fundraiser.
The report also states that Moody told one deputy commissioner that "this meeting isn't happening" and another that "it's after 5" - meaning that the workday was officially over for state employees.
Also, we all know that "she testified at a legislative hearing that she did not fully read an ethics memo that it turned out she had edited." But I am betting there are alot more juicy details in the full unedited report that was released in a redacted (lying) version.
Go over and read it at the courant to see some of the reccommendations to stop this sort of waste of our government employees time. As for now I'll leave you with this last little snippet:
The report calls for Garfield's censure or reprimand because his investigation report deleted certain facts that the committee never knew about until after the hearings were closed. That included deleting the chief state's attorney's "interview notes" from two investigators who had spoken to Rell late last year, and deleting all references to DPUC Commissioner Anne George, "who kiddingly referred to Ms. Moody as `John Rowland.'" [...] Dan Moreland was said to have told investigators that when Moody handed George the fundraiser invitations, George responded, "Are you nuts?" George then told Moody, "OK, John Rowland" - a reference to the former governor who served a federal prison sentence on a corruption-related charge.
Goes to show that even the insiders know that Rowland politics are alive and kicking in the Governor Rell's office. As for Garfield, if he absorbs the bulk of the blame in the cover up of Rell's Moody period, wouldn't that make him the political equivalent of a used tampon? Time to trash him...
I wonder who will end up being the tampon that gets flushed this time around? Or maybe, just maybe, Rell and Moody will actually take responsibility for their own illegal and unethical campaigning actions for a change?
Soft peddling their message doesn't make the FIC any less dangerous to this country. It just makes them dangerous AND dishonest about their message. That family is the product of the thinking and messanging put forth by the far-right-wingnuts at the Heritage Foundation and taken to into the relms of their wildest wet dreams.
Like it or not FIC, you should be proud of how your messages have enlightened: That whack-job family is one of yours!
This is a bit about Equal Rights, Civil Rights and, more importantly, knowing your wingnut opposition, and who they chose to associate and share political tactics with. (Please bear with me if it seems to meander a little! CM1)
The debate over legalizing gay marriage is as raucous as the reaction to civil unions has been quiet. The recent Judiciary Committee hearing overflowed even the overflow room at the Legislative Office Building. Bloggers and protesters are loudly weighing in on the rights and wrongs of same-sex marriage.
Why push the question? Connecticut has lived with civil unions for a year and a half in utter peace and quiet. Many couples are happy and secure, with virtually all the rights of traditional marriage that the state can confer.
But not happy enough. Gay couples want the real thing. They deserve marriage and the full panoply of legal privileges that accompany it.."
If you want to see what CT politicians and concerned citizens had to say about all of this, ctblogger has a pretty complete look at the hearing they had last week.
Maggie Gallagher is actually notorious. Back in the 2005, her and Armstrong Williams (and others) were found to have received money from the Bush administration while claiming to be independent reporters.
It really doesn't matter what the issue is. The incompetent and lying bush administration has no problems with buying propaganda to slip into our News Media everywhere. Add to that, they couple this bought'n'paid-for media PROPAGANDA pressure with co-ordianted efforts at portraying "ground swell support" with front groups in local areas.
The biggest naysayer, bordering on gay bashing, concerning Equal Rights in Marriage in Connecticut is the small and little read FIC Blog, that is associated with the far right wingnut Heritage think tank, which is little more than a bush cheerleading squad, and where any criticism of bush and his policies is a firing offense:
Last month (ed note: First posted on August 7, 2006. CM1) the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, fired John Hulsman. Heritage refuses to say exactly why they let him go, but the New Republic reports the “reasons for Hulsman’s departure” are “perfectly evident”; he criticized the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Hulsman previously had kept his dissent to himself, but “years of insurgency, civil war, and general chaos” in Iraq led him to speak out.
In an essay last year for The National Interest, Hulsman took issue with Bush’s policy in Iraq:
[N]eoconservatives, through their policies of expending blood and treasure for problematic gains such as Iraq, are significantly retarding America’s ability to act against the true barbarians at the gate - Al-Qaeda and Islamist extremists.
And Hulsman criticized the Bush administration’s refusal to talk to regimes it dislikes, specifically Iran:
America, on the other hand, having determined the mullahs in Iran were evil, disdained to engage them. But we cannot only conduct diplomatic relations with Canada; I have always naively thought a major reason for diplomacy was talking to those one didn’t agree with, in an effort to modify their behavior to suit one’s own national interests.
These critiques may seem mild, but as Chris Preble of the Cato Institute explains: “At Heritage, anything that smacks of criticism of Bush will not be tolerated.”
Have a thought that is counterproductive to the neocon agenda and you lose your job at Heritage. That is some quality thinking that Brian and the FIC Blog choses to associate themselves with. Low quality thinking, and kool-aide drinking. The far right skewered Heritage Foundation lists Brian and the FIC as a resource for their far tight wingnut agenda on a couple of issues: Education (much like right wing fanatics across the country, FIC wants to kill the public education system in favor of privatization... See Iraq and Katrina for inevitable results of privatization of our school systems) and, of course, Marriage.
Some of FIC's funding seems to come from sources that finance Heritage and a littany of other far right wingnut organizations. (You can research that one on your own, just know that it is true and would likely take another whole post to dig.) I wonder what would happen to bush poodles like Brian if they actually turned on bush policies? Would the funding for FIC Blog dry up?
FIC's sitemeter proves that his Blog is not read very much by Connecticut residents, so I doubt they are paying his bills. And unless the CT's left Blogosphere links to him, which is why, likely, he tries to pick little arguments with us all the time, he gets little traffic from nutmeggers. (You can see his traffic at sitemeter, and we have already proven this point, much to Brian and the FIC's chagrin)
So... Whomelse is the FIC associated with? People like this:
Jeffrey Satinover:
In cooperation with the Heritage Foundation and under the auspices of the ICQA, Dr. Satinover is overseeing the development of a fully crooss-linked international database of medical, social science and legal citations with associated metanalyses and aggegrated data tables. The purpose of the database is assist concerned scholars, attorneys, social scientists, policy analysts and citizens worldwide in addressing the nearly-universal problem of the embedding in legal documents of gross distortions (or even wholesale inventions) of social science conclusions to make ideologically-driven alterations in public policy appear rationally based.
Kenneth Von Kohorn is the founder and president of Von Kohorn Research and Advisory, an investment advisory firm located in Westport. He is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. In addition to serving on the Yankee board, Kenneth also serves as chairman of the board of the Family Institute of Connecticut and as a board member of the Institute for American Values and of Toward Tradition.
Now, we all know pretty much about Focus on the Family, and we are also familiar with the Heritage Foundation's fanatacism, but it seems that FIC has a link to "Toward Tradition" as well as Heritage:
Toward Tradition is a non-profit (501.c.3), educational organization working to advance our nation toward the traditional Judeo-Christian values that defined America’s creation and became the blueprint for her greatness. We believe that only a new alliance of concerned citizens can re-identify and dramatically strengthen the core values necessary for America to maintain that greatness and moral leadership. These values are: faith-based American principles of constitutional and limited government; the rule of law; representative democracy; free markets; a strong military; and, a moral public culture.
Objectives: Using both classic and contemporary tools of persuasion, Toward Tradition promotes these positive traditional values while opposing the negative forces of “secular fundamentalism” and anti-religion bigotry. In his best-selling book of the same name, Rabbi Lapin labeled this mission “America’s Real War”
Concerned Jews share this objective with many evangelical and conservative Christians. Working together, they focus on our common cultural, moral, and political goals. The corollary benefit of this alliance is that the majority gentile culture sees that American Jews are not monolithically liberal, and that many of the “progressive” forces in this country are advocating positions that are in fact abhorrent to traditional Judaism.
Just another group hellbent on portraying bush policies as the rightous way and Liberalism as "abhorrent to traditional Judaism." Sounds like he is soft peddling the "anti-semite" label on us, doesn't it? And obviously, against Jews as well:
Why So Many Jews Are Liberal As a visible, politically conservative rabbi, whose conservatism flows inevitably and directly from his Judaism, I endure a never-ending barrage of attacks. I don’t much mind them as they remind me of my mission—standing astride America’s secular path to decline, decadence, and depravity, but I do feel sorry for the pain these assaults cause my family. Especially so since most of these attacks come from other Jews; indignant Jews outraged by a rabbi who does not subscribe to the principles of liberalism.
Yes... The Liberals, and especially the Jewish Liberals that attack you the most, the one's that are "standing astride America’s secular path to decline, decadence, and depravity" are the cause of all your problems and you are the victim, constantly being attacked by everyone.
Do any of you wingnuts ever stop to think that this barrage comes at you from everywhere because of the load of crap that you spew daily?
In the same way that the rabbi is couching "anti-semitism" (IMHO) in his soft peddling of radical views, the FIC is soft peddling their bigotry against gay and lesbians in their war against Equal Rights in Marriage and couching it in their extremist views of religion and politics. We aren't buying. None of us in CT are buying it.
In other words: If you don't want your FIC Blog to remain in the miniscule minority of the Connecticut Blogosphere Brian:
Stop being such fringe-thinking far right wingnuts. OK? And stop soft peddling a bigoted agenda against Marriage Equality.
Spazeboy disagrees with us on broad issues, but on the particular issue we were debating he was the only one who offered a clear solution. Post a screenshot of our statistics. We did that, and it shows clearly that we were not lying about anything.
What you posted proved clearly that you had deceived your readers. Whether through deliberate attempts or ignorance, a deception is a lie. Also, I told you in the comments to put up a public sitemeter to prove me wrong.
If you are not getting page views even close to the 350,000 number it is impossible for you to be getting the hits. Put your sitemeter on the net and let it tell the truth. As For now, the graphics I linked out speak the obvious truth. You don’t have the traffic to support claims of those numbers. In fact the stats suggest your site is in decline. But your post says you are growing? Mighty confusing, eh? Also much of the traffic to your site is the same/similar traffic that goes to all of the “Family Institute” sister sites in other states. Suggesting that much of your traffic is likely from out of State.
I linked out to unbiased Blog tracking sites. Just because you say something does not make it true. Prove me wrong and I will amend or retract the post.
That was a most reasonable answer to your problem. I was correct in everything that I wrote, and yet you don’t consider that reasonable enough for your site?
In that diary you wite after realizing that what I pointed out about your hit counts was correct:
An apology may be in order here. Perhaps he thinks that hits are not the best indicator of readership. The more I learn, the more I agree with that.
Yet, instead of actually making an apology you go into a HUGE BUT BUT BUT:
But, please, don’t accuse someone of lying without taking some basic steps to get your facts straight.
P.S. Drinking Liberally still can’t admit to the fact that he was wrong, plain and simple.
I am therefore including a link to a screenshot of our statistics (following Spazeboy’s advice, who has been the most civil in this discussion) that shows clearly we were not lying. Period. We never lied, attempted to deceive, or distorted the numbers. Drinking Liberally got it completely wrong.
I had my facts straight. Even you had to admit that. I was correct, plain and simple.
I am tempted to say that your embarrassment at having been called out BIG TIME, not just by me but here and here by ConnecticutBLOG and MLN as well by those pesky LIBERAL FACTS, may be what is holding you back from actually making an apology to your readers, and from acknowledging that not only am I an opponent, but in fact a reasonable one. Reasonable enough that I even forewarned you that I would be calling you out on your claimed readership.
This vanity you are exhibiting only further exemplifies the points of what I wrote about your being a pious fraud, etc., something that I told you in the comments I was quite reasonably willing to retract or amend if you could prove me wrong. Something I am still willing to do IF you actually ever make an apology to your readers for the deceptions, and IF you consider ammending the posts that label me as drunk and unreasonable for pointing out these facts about your deceptions.
Are they aware that they're messing around with the big boys? FIC, I appeal to you to stop before you embarrass yourselves even more.
Now, I know I am not one of the "big boys" of Connecticut political Blogging, but I also know that FIC is digging the hole deeper. Clearly they have not proven me wrong in any of my charges. BUT I am willing to give FIC a SECOND CHANCE to prove me wrong on the points about their character.
It won’t change the fact that I disagree with you on almost every topic you write about - since I am for Marriage Equality, politically Pro-Choice, against public money for private schools, believe strongly in The Wall of Seperation, etc. etc. - but that is a different story…
On the announcement of their revamped FIC Blog they tout their great numbers:
Connecticut in the Crosshairs began in 2004 and quickly became one of the most viewed political blogs in the state. The media tried to ignore us and the liberal blogs loved to mock us (which just made us smile and blog more!) but we kept growing until we were receiving over 350,000 hits a month. Given that the technology we were using was, frankly, junk, this was a major coup. But we’ve learned a lot since then and we now have one of the best blogging platforms around. In the future we will be adding even more functionality, with a video and audio podcast already in the works.
I find that number to be impressive if it were true... But is it?
I looked around at some of the more popular Blogs in Connecticut and decided to do a simple comparison. I found that one of ctblogger's site connecticutBLOG generated about 1329 hits in the last week alone... Not bad! He has been averaging somewhere in between 2,500 and 80,000 hits per month in the last year. That is outstanding! Not the most popular Blog in the nation (HuffPo), nor even the most trafficked site in Connecticut, but great numbers for any political Blog.
As outstanding as ctblogger's numbers are, they are still dwarfed by the Family Institute of Connecticut's claimed 350,000 hits per month. Alexa rates connecticutBLOG a very respectable 1,410,658.
Traffic Rank for connecticutblog.blogspot.com: 1,410,658
Considering the millions of Blogs out there that is a very good number ESPECIALLY for a political blog. Not quite up there with the dailyKos (Ranked 1,764) but an awesome ranking all things considered. It lead me to wonder where Alexa would have the FIC Blog ranked...
Traffic Rank for ctfamily.org: 5,553,563
No! That can't be right? The FIC says they get 350,000 hits per month and connecticutBLOG has never had more than 80,000 on it's best month? How could ctblogger's Blog be higher ranked for traffic ranking than the FIC's Blog?
Those really high peaks in blue are connecticutBLOG on their best days... Reaching 80,ooo hits AND 100,000 page views in the month of August. Again WOW! As for the really tiny bumps in red... Those are the supposed 350,000 hits per month that are claimed bye the FIC.
Looking at those numbers compared to ctbloggers it is easy to see that it is impossible for the FIC website to have 350,000 hits per month when their ranking is so low and, even on the FIC's best days, they don't even get as many pageviews as connecticutBLOG.
Little wonder why the FIC doesn't have a viewable sitemeter on their website, huh?
I think the Family Institute of Connecticut is lying the big lie. And I think I have proven it. Aren't those great moral values that they want to preach to your families? The FIC site is a pious fraud. Much like the hipocritical Dobsonites, these lying immoral fraudsters should focus on their own damned families.
Note: Those numbers on the Alexa links can fluctuate, but those were the numbers reflected as this was written.
The FIC is mad that some in the corporate owned media doesn't share their radical point of view that gay and lesbian marriages should be banned:
The more the Courant continues in its left-lunacy the more people come to our blog.
Anyway, Sherlock has given us the grand idea of running a poll on this question (on the right of the blog). I think its pretty likely that many of our readers are going to say they have either cancelled their subscription to a major paper because of bias or considered doing so.
First, many come to the Blog simply to point out hipocrisy... And, secondly, the poll question they ask?
Have you cancelled your subscription to the Courant or another state paper because of liberal bias?
* No, the Courant is fair and balanced! * This is a lame poll, and I refuse to respond! * Yes, the Courant is way out in left-field! * No, but I've seriously considered cancelling!
OK... So the second was more of the first!
The FIC poll exposes their site as a pious fraud, most likely by ID (Ignorant Design).
If you wanted an honest poll you would add this choice to it:
NO, I cancelled because the Courant, and the bulk of the MSM, is on right-wing-crack!
But the goal of your FIC site is obviously not to inform people with honest ideas. Your agenda is to perpetrate mass ignorance on society with biased deceptions and myths. In other words: Christianist gay and lesbian bashing done in the name of Jesus, who never preached such hatred.
Instead of looking for dividing factors amongst political and religious factions, any group that claims morality and religion as their compass should be looking more at the issues like poverty and the enviornment that could be uniting factors.
Your sites' agenda exposes the not-so-hidden hate and divide messages that false christians emulate in the political arena. Some moral values...
It is true, of course, that many right-wing polemicists use fearmongering techniques like this manipulatively, to exploit the Terrorist threat for more unchecked government power and to advance their political agenda.
