Congrats to All; Palousitics is #1 Again

If you pay attention to the little BlogNetNews widget on the sidebar, you will have noticed that Palousitics is the #1 most influential political blog in Washington again this week. My thanks to all the "Forbes Gang" for helping make this possible.

Speaking of the "Forbes Gang," note that BlogNetNews has added some more categories to their influence index. One of these is for the most inluential conerative blog. Our own Mike Costello's blog The Pajamahadin is #3, with Palousitics at #4, no doubt thanks to Mike's excellent writing skills.

BNN also now has a 12-week rolling average, in which Palousitics is #5. Considering the big-time Puget Sound political blogs that places us with, that's pretty humbling.

Remember Rule #1 of Murphy's Rules of Combat: "If the enemy is in range, so are you." As we grow in influence and effectiveness, we will draw fire from the opposition. Recent events have proven that to be true. Take these as awards for a job well done and motivation to keep on doing what we have been doing.

On Blogging, Mountains and Molehills, and No Sense of Humor

To listen to some whiners around here, you would think they had never heard of blogging before or just what that entails. Political bloggers are generally a partisan and snarky lot and blog commenters often get very satirical or downright vicious with their words.

For example, a few years ago, former Whitman County Democratic State Committeeman Dave Gibney wrote the following comment on the liberal Washblog:

ALways thought the rapture would be a good thing. All the stuck up assholes would be gone. :)

Gibney's comment was in response to a Washblog contributor who was "disturbed" that Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers attended a "fundamentalist Christian college," writing:

As another layer is peeled away from that American girl facade, instead of a garden variety Reagan conservative Christian, I see another hypocritical fundamentalist.

Now, did anyone make an issue of this comment when Dave threw his hat in the ring for a Pullman City Council appointment? Did anyone demand that the Whitman County Democrats apologize to all Palouse evangelicals because of Gibney's comment. No, of course not. Dave was making a joke. Hence the smiley face. Some might have been offended, but there is no right in the Constitution to not be offended.

Current Whitman County Democratic State Committeeman and former candidate for Whitman County Auditor Nathan Horter has been a diarist at Daily Kos.

Another diarist at Daily Kos, A. Whitney Brown, wrote last year:

Do I still support the individual men and women who have given so much to serve their country? No. I think they’re a bunch of idiots. I also think they’re morally retarded.

Wow. Once again, has anyone demanded an apology from the Whitman County Democrats, assuming Horter must feel the same way about our troops because he "countenances" posts like that by blogging at Daily Kos. No, of course not. That would be guilt by association a la McCarthyism. Theoretically, American political parties have moved beyond that kind of chilling of free speech.

Or have they? Could a local party be so desperate for a victory that they would say or do anything, no matter how exaggerated, how ridiculous or how base to try to win? I think we now know the answer to that question.

The Whitman County Democrats have bigger problems than me right now, and this little campaign of distraction, distortion, and dirt is not going to help.

Bias at the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Moscow-Pullman Daily News publisher Nathan Alford has repeatedly extolled to me the virtues of free speech and the press. But is the press at the Daily News free of bias?

You read these examples and tell me:

In 2005, a letter to the editor from Ed Schweitzer endorsing Wal-Mart was sat on until the day after the Pullman City Council election in which a PARD member was running. The Daily Evergreen published the same letter two weeks before.

A reporter from the Daily News wanted to cover my visit to the Wal-Mart Home Office in April 2006, but an editor killed the story.

A BREO press release last year about a petition from a group of seniors in favor of Wal-Mart was never covered.

Libelous and defamatory comments from PARD members and sympathizers are allowed to be posted and remain posted at Dnews.com in the name of the "Safe Harbor."

So when a reader of this blog wrote a rebuttal to Chris Lupke's latest insane rant against me, what did the Daily News do? Bury it.

Oh, every letter to the editor trampling out the vintage where the sour grapes are stored from Lupke, Orlich, Damm, et. al. gets published. But here's the letter sent in a few weeks ago that you haven't seen in the Daily News:

I read with interest the letter from Christopher Lupke dated July 5, 2008. In the letter he claims the salary he makes is inaccurate. The information on salaries comes from http://lbloom.net/wsu07.html. The information on the web site is gathered from the Washington State Office of Financial Management and is for 2007. I checked both the salary for my husband and myself. According to the website, both were listed correctly. When the list first came out, I also discussed this site with friends who work at WSU and they agreed that the information was correct. Therefore my question is this…is your listed salary too high or too low, Mr. Lupke? Or is it that you are embarrassed to be earning that much money for only nine months of work? According to Mr. Forbes figures the average Pullman family earns $40,709 a year. It certainly makes it difficult to claim non-elite status when you are earning approximately 54% more for nine months of work than the average Pullmanite makes in a year.

As for the comment, “This pig needs to be removed from the trough.” It was written by a commentator to the blog, not Mr. Forbes personally. Many people can post to blogs. This is just a typical example of taking something out of context for your own personal end. Rather similar to what PARD did to Pullman for the last few years by their unseemly lawsuits and their claim of representing the common people of Pullman. At any rate, the comment was meant to show some professors are elitists and make far too much money for the work they do.

If you want the healing to begin, PARD should apologize for holding Pullman hostage and putting our tax base in jeopardy.

I expect this kind of crap from the puerile Watermelon. But a paper run by level-headed adults? I think we can find a better local newspaper.

Democrats Push for End of Free Speech

To welcome Michelle Obama to Seattle yesterday, the Washington State Republican Party produced this video of Washingtonians stating how they were proud of their country (since Mamaobama stated earlier this year that she was proud of her country for the first time.)



Queen Christine called the video a part of "shameful attacks" by the Republican Party and demanded that Dino Rossi denounce them. The Obama campaign referred to the video as part of a campaign of "false and mean-spirited attacks."

Huh? How is expressing love of your country "shameful" or "mean-spirited?" These people are aware of Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, and Move on.org, right? Pretty tame by comparison to what goes on there day after day. Heck, down in Moonbat Central, San Franciscans are going to vote this fall whether to name a sewage plant after the President of the United States as a demonstration of their contempt for him (and the office.)

So Michelle Obama makes herself a public figure by campaigning for her husband, and nothing she says on his behalf can be refuted or criticized?

Yep, thus sayeth the Obamessiah. In an interview published in this month's Glamour magazine, the Obamalord proclaims that, even if the McCain campaign isn't doing it

...but I would say that the apparatus of conservative columnists, blogs and the like. Talk shows, talk radio....When you see in the span of two or three or four weeks essentially the same talking points being used on a whole variety of shows or a whole variety of columns, over and over again....Hillary Clinton was subject to this, others have been subject to this in the past...It is part of our political environment that I'd like to change.

Change the political environment? In what way? Revoking the First Amendment? Thought crimes? Informers? Kangaroo courts? Reeducation camps?

Many Obamaniacs believe that the Dalai Bama is a "enlightened being" not of this world. It's only natural then that heretics and non-believers be purged in an Inquisition.

A cult of personality, a la 1930's Germany. Scary times ahead for the Republic, folks.

Will Palousitics Be Next?

Blogger blogs with bad things to say about the Obamessiah are being shut down. From Publius' Forum:

Apparently, this campaign merely took advantage of Google/Blogger’s flawed system of finding spam blogs. So, it looks like what we have here is an Obama dirty trick to shut down political opposition. Looks like Obmatons aren’t much for that whole democracy thing, eh?

Stay tuned. Looks like I may be making the move from Blogger sooner than I had planned.