Meaningless noise...

National Public Radio ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos sets up the situation:

On Saturday, Jan. 19, ESPN’s Howard Bryant appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon to talk about sports.  The broadcast was taped live.  Simon asked about Lance Armstrong’s famous interview with Oprah Winfrey, and Bryant referred back to a tweet he read:

I mean, I think the big problem that I had with listening to Lance over the last couple of days was how controlled – how much he was trying to control this confession.  That someone had put out a very funny tweet in my timeline that other day that said, ‘‘With this much remorse he could be the next spokesperson for the NRA.’’  I mean, it was really that controlling.  And I’m listening to this, and I’m thinking: He’s not sorry at all about this.

Simon didn’t respond to the NRA comment, but kept the conversation focused on sports.

Listener Charles Brown... [did].  Before the audio or transcript had been posted online, Brown wrote on the show’s site, ‘‘I am looking forward to seeing the transcript of this segment, featuring Howard Bryant’s tone-deaf comparison between the remorse, or lack thereof, on the part of Lance Armstrong, and ‘the NRA.’ ’’

The transcript Brown eagerly awaited eventually arrived, but the reference to the gun association wasn’t there – either in the audio file or written transcript.  The response by Bryant now existed in both as the following:

I mean, I think the big problem that I had with listening to Lance over the last couple of days was how controlled - how much he was trying to control this confession.  And I’m listening to this, and I’m thinking: He’s not sorry at all about this.

Brown contacted our office suspicious of a conspiracy.  ‘‘There is no explanation for the post-broadcast edit.  Is this instance a representative one, for NPR editing and posting policy(ies)?’’

Bryant’s remark is yet another example of the kultursmog that pervades the MSM.  He calls it ‘‘very funny’’ (it’s not, it’s lame).  Nor does it add anything to the discussion about Lance Armstrong.  What it does is borrow somebody else’s snark^[1] to signal that Bryant has proper, PC-approved feelings and that he stands firmly against the target of today’s ten-minute hate.^[2]

MSM-ers (and progressive leftists, but I repeat myself) do this sort of thing all the time, often without even thinking about it.  For them, it’s as habitual (and content-free) as ‘‘how do you do?’’  The important thing to remember is that, when it comes to such remarks, they eventually pay no attention to what’s being said: For them it’s just meaningless noise.

Back in the day, had I been prepping the segment for broadcast, I would have grabbed my splicing block and grease pencil and made the exact excision that the NPR editors did (on the grounds of wasted time, if no other).  But that would have been before the item aired.  What happened on the 18th was different: Apparently the initial feed of the Simon-Bryant interview aired live, or at least ‘‘live-meaning-unedited.’’  But then someone with second thoughts clipped the sentence for later transmissions.^[3]

Now NPR has a policy about changes to stuff once it has been broadcast. NPRs Stuart Seidel:

Only the last feed of each show is archived and transcribed.  As a result, there are times when a listener may have heard something on a first or second feed of a show and then find that the transcript does not reflect what was aired on an early feed.

We correct errors as quickly as possible when we learn of them. Significant errors are noted on the air in ensuing feeds of a show.  When appropriate, corrections posted online note whether the error occurred in an early or final feed of a show.

...but (back to the ombudsman) in this case...

The edit in the Bryant segment was not seen as the correction of a mistake, and therefore no note was added to the transcript online that a change had been made.

So here we have... well, something.

My take is that the NPR people can’t (or won’t) see there is a problem, because they can’t see the problem.  Ombudsman, again:

...The editors were still right to excise [Bryant’s] unsupported, unexplored, non-sports comment, as clever as it might have been.

Agreed.  But what Bryant said is not just ‘‘unsupported, unexplored, [and] non-sports.’’  He also took a political position, against the National Rifle Association and, by extension, in favor of ‘‘doing something’’ about ‘‘gun violence.’’  To some folks, that might be important.  Maybe even controversial.

But the NPR-ites don’t notice, because (to them) all that Bryant did in the excised segment was mouth the usual leftist platitudes.  Again: As meaningless and content-free as ‘‘how do you do?.’’

That makes the edited and un-edited quotes identical.  And if they’re identical, then substituting one for the other is no correction, so what’s the problem?

Meanwhile, we rubes out here in the hinterland discover that the NRA snark has mysteriously disappeared from the ‘‘official transcript’’ on the web (and, as it turns out, the ‘‘late feeds to flyover country’’ as well), and see their suspicions of media bias (and duplicity) confirmed.  The situation not being improved by Ombudsman Schumacher-Matos characterizing listener Brown’s questions as ‘‘suspicious of a conspiracy,’’ and preemptively labeling others who might share Brown’s concerns as ‘‘conspiracy theorists.’’^[4]

I find it simply amazing that an organization that prides itself in its exquisite sensitivities- to race, national origin, economic condition, background, social status, exploitation, victimhood...- can be so absolutely, unbelievably tone-deaf to the concerns of a large portion of its constituency.

One might even suspect it’s intentional.


(Via: Insty)
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Mitch McConnell feels sad and misunderstood...

National Review: ...What’s your message to conservatives and tea-party activists who are suspicious of Republican leaders and their commitment to repeal [Obamacare]?

McConnell:  Boy, I don’t know how they could be suspicious on this issue.  Every single Republican in the House and Senate voted against Obamacare.  I must have made 125 speeches about it on the floor.  If there is any area where I don’t think conservatives of any stripe should be concerned, it would be this one.  We’ve been clear and unambiguous about Obamacare from the beginning to the end — all of it.

Well ya’see, Mitch, it’s because you and your Republican buddies in Congress-especially you guys in the Senate- have established quite a  reputation...


...not to mention that earlier in this same interview you said:

...we’re looking at all of the angles.  But our goal is to repeal it and replace it.

So already you’re doing it wrong.  And we’re supposed to trust you?

Elsewhere:
Via DrewM at Ace (and hey, Mitch, you should check out the comments.  You might learn something.)

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Dear Speaker Boehner...

While you’re waiting for all those contributions to roll in...

...why don’t you get someone to look up Reichsfluchsteuer for you?

And then fuck you^[1] and the horse you rode in on.


Elsewhere:

LATER:

RELATED (120523 22:00):

(Reason and Zero Hedge via.Insty.)
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Lamar Smith leads another assault on liberty

Radley Balko:

The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill yesterday [October 6] that would make it a federal crime for U.S. residents to discuss or plan activities on foreign soil that, if carried out in the U.S., would violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) — even if the planned activities are legal in the countries where they’re carried out.  The new law, sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas)allows prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges against anyone who discusses, plans or advises someone else to engage in any activity that violates the CSA...

"Cornellian,” commenting at Volokh:

...This statute would make it a criminal offense to have this conversation in the United States:

Friend 1:  Hey, let’s go to Amsterdam and smoke weed where it’s legal!
Friend 2:  Great idea! I’m in! (agreement)
Friend 1:  Lemme check airfare on Expedia. (overt act)

"LaSuthenboy,” commenting at PJ Tattler:

This is exactly the kind of crap that gives the left fodder for going after the right, exactly the kind of behavior that drives people away from conservatism; minding other people’s business...  This busybody BS from Republicans feeds the growth of the busybody left.

It is perfectly rational and sane to make illegal the plotting of illegal activities over the border.  But, to specifically include activities legal over the border is just another grab for power for the government.  Right or Left, the ultimate goal is to eventually have laws governing everything you do or think, down to the hours you sleep and your breaths per minute.

Lamar Smith and every representative that was party to this needs to be held by the scruff of the neck and chased around in circles with a hickory stick until he can’t sit down for a week while having the first amendment read to them over and over….with a bullhorn.

We’ve noticed Lamar Smith before.  He’s the guy who wanted to apply civil forfeiture to copyright enforcement (so the RIAA could confiscate your computer).  And who thought it would be a good idea to require anyone operating a WIFI access point maintain two years worth of user records in the name of "aiding police investigations.”

So we know what Smith is about, and it’s not about individual liberty.  It’s probably too much to ask the Republicans to read Smith out of the party; what’s less understandable is whythehell supposedly freedom-loving Texans keep re-electing him.


Naming names:

H.R.313, the "Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011.”

Unlike most legislation, the effect of this two-page bill would seem easily understandable by anybody (except possibly its sponsor^[1]): It adds this paragraph to Section 406 of the (existing) Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 846):

Whoever, within the United States, conspires with one or more persons, or aids or abets one or more persons, regardless of where such other persons are located, to engage in conduct at any place outside the United States that would constitute a violation of this title if committed within the United States, shall be subject to the same penalties that would apply to such conduct if it were to occur within the United States.

Simple, direct, obvious... right?  No exception for legal conduct, and no excuses for voting for it, either.

Vote:  October 6, 2011: Order to report as amended, passed 20-7

In fact, there’s even less than no excuse:  Before the order to report was voted, Robert C. Scott [D-VA] offered an amendment that would have fixed the problem:

Page 2, line 16, after "that" insert "is a criminal offense in the place where the conduct occurrs and".

The committee REJECTED Scott’s amendment, 11-3.

So Mr. Scott tried again, this time eliminating prosecution for de minimis offenses:

...insert "punishable by a term of inprisonment greater than 20 years" after "violation of this title"

That one was voted down 11-12

So: Every Republican who voted for this bill had been made aware that there was a problem, and chose to ignore it.  Lamar and his Gang of 15 (Republicans, plus 4 Democrats) have a bunch of explaining to do.

Elsewhere:

^[1] Related (added 111030 20:15):

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More mush, this time from the candidates

From Mitt Romney, the expected:

"I don’t know on which issue I’m not conservative,” he told Sean Hannity in a radio interview...  "I think my record is as conservative as you’ll find..”

Romney did identify one way in which he differs from some of his GOP rivals: "I may not be as incendiary or outlandish in rhetoric.”

To which Smitty replies

Shag your rhetoric, mister: it’s your results that have people wondering...

And from Rick Perry, the disappointing:

My Tax and Spending Reform Plan
…
ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley must be quickly repealed…

Why only "section 404,” Mr. Candidate?  What’s so special about the rest of SarBox that it deserves to survive?

and, if necessary, replaced…

No.  Right there, you accept defeat.

NONE of these laws were ever "necessary.”  By allowing that possibility, you imply that as President you’d be just fine with the usual beltway-driven tinkering and no-results cleverness instead of achieving what we need now: the outright obliteration of the federal programs and regulations that are eating our economy alive.


Related:

Previously:
Romney and Smitty links via (and my remarks cross-posted at) Daily Pundit.

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Wrong hat

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor delivers more mush for the rubes:

...This fall the Republican Party will pursue a legislative agenda that boosts economic growth through reducing the regulatory and tax burden.

Gee Eric, too bad you didn’t start pushing that agenda last fall.  Why, we might even be out of the deprecession by now!

We will make sure...

("We will make sure...” Pretty confident, aren’t-cha?  Does that include the "we only control one-half of one-third of the government” gang?)

...that Washington policies are less restrictive to businesses small and large.

"Less restrictive,” the man says.  Well, I guess that being strangled with a noose beats being garotted with a wire, but personally I was hoping for more of a "dynamiting barriers” approach...

Our goals...

(That’s better. You don’t have to actually achieve "goals.”)

...include repealing the "3 percent withholding rule”...

The item that’s atop everyone’s list, I’m sure.
 
(Why, every morning, right after I pour my first coffee, I think: "If I were in charge, what one thing could I do that would get the economy off stall and allay everyone’s worries about the future?  I know:  I’d repeal the 3 percent withholding rule!  That’ll show ’em!  Just watch!  (Now, wotthehel is the ‘3 percent withholding rule’, anyway?)...”

(Pssst... Hey Eric.  Which of your campaign contributors asked for that one?   No, no... it’s O.K., man...)

...which serves as an effective tax increase on those who do business with the government...

Y’know, just a thought, but while you’re at it maybe you could try making it less expensive to do business- period.  Just a thought!

...and overturning the EPA’s proposed regulations that inhibit jobs in areas as varied as cement and farm dust.

The House has the power to bring those regulations to a halt instantly: Defund ’em.  But do you guys have the nerve?  Hah!

We plan...

And we know all about "the best-laid plans...”

...to prevent the NLRB from inhibiting where a business chooses to create jobs.

Answer:  Defund them, too.  (But what am I thinking!)

...We were elected to change the way Washington does business and spends money.

"...and so far, we haven’t delivered squat.  But hope (and promises) spring eternal:  ‘This Time For Sure!  Presto!’”

Via:  AOSHQ

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Toward a government of men...

In response to last weekend’s Wall Street Journal article As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Ensnared, a law professor writes:

...You suggest that it is "increasingly easy for Americans to end up on the wrong side” of a "balloon[ing]” body of federal criminal law.  What you fail to discuss is the prosecutorial discretion imbedded in our criminal justice system.  Not every violation of criminal law brought to the attention of law enforcement authorities results in an indictment...  I suspect that in each of the cases [cited in the article] the prosecutors had reasons beyond the surface elements of the crimes... for commencing the particular prosecution.  I also suspect that in each of their jurisdictions many more instances of similar conduct were resolved civilly or not pursued at all.

The real question, in my view, isn’t wheher Congress has criminalized innocent behaviour, but whether prosecutors are exercising their discretion properly...

Prof. R. Michael Cassidy
Boston College Law School
Newton, Mass.

Prof. Cassidy writes as if the "many more instances” being "not pursued” is a good thing.  He’s wrong.  Every violation of the law "brought to the attention of law enforcement authorities” that does not lead to prosecution takes us one step closer to a "government of men, not laws,” in which there will be one law for the elite and connected, and another law for the targeted (and the rest of us).   The only barrier:  The good behaviour of men who, after all, are not only lawyers but also politicians.

That Cassidy sees the question of "whether Congress has criminalized innocent behaviour” as less important than whether prosecutorial discretion is being "properly” exercised may stem from confidence that a J.D. (Harvard) "Masonic handshake” will protect him from the "ballooning law + prosecutorial malice” mousetraps that lie in wait for the rest of us.  But circumstances have a way of changing; just ask Martha Stewart.


Related:
Outside reading (HT for some: Instapundit):

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The Establishment is heard from

Megan McArdle, concern troll:

Jonathan Podhoretz reads a Quinnipiac poll showing that by a margin of 48-34, the public is going to blame Republicans and not Obama if we don't raise the debt ceiling, and joins the ranks of the Washington sellouts:

At some point, those who believe it will be acceptable to go to August 3 without an increase in the debt limit, as well as those who believe the politics favor the Republicans, are going to have to reckon with the fact that there are no data points supporting their beliefs.

Wrongo, Jonny Boy.  I’ll see your poll, and raise you one.  Here’s Gallup:

Despite agreement among leaders of both sides of the political aisle in Washington that raising the U.S. debt ceiling is necessary, more Americans want their member of Congress to vote against such a bill than for it, 42% vs. 22%, while one-third are unsure.
...
A follow-up question finds Americans more sympathetic to the Republicans’ argument than Obama’s.  Specifically, when asked to say which is their greater concern, 51% say raising the debt ceiling without plans for major future spending cuts concerns them more, while 32% are more concerned with the risk of a major economic crisis if Congress does not take action.

...and here’s Gallup, again:

Registered voters by a significant margin now say they are more likely to vote for the "Republican Party’s candidate for president” than for President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, 47% to 39%.  Preferences had been fairly evenly divided [earlier] this year...

...?

Oh well, back to Megan:

I know I’m beating a dead horse at this point, but I continue to be mystified by what the base, the activists, and the politicians who are pushing the "no new revenue” stance hope to accomplish.

Stop the spending, maybe?  Get the budget under control?  Save the country?

Let’s start by pointing out the obvious: the Democrats do not show any signs of caving.

Therefore, Republicans are supposed to roll over?

They have offered what seem...

(note that word)

...to be very attractive deals, and been turned down.  Think you’re going to get a more attractive deal?  Every time another poll like this comes out, your bargaining position gets worse.

According to...?

Anyway, Megan goes on to explain (at great length) why every last item in the current federal budget is absolutely untouchable, and that, regardless of what they do, Republicans will be "blamed" for whatever happens:

Voters are telling pollsters they’re going to blame the Republicans for the shutdown. And the spending cuts you're going to do won't even be that popular with the tea party, who aren’t much more enthusiastic about Medicare/Medicaid cuts than the rest of the country.

Winding up with the Horrible Conclusion;

To me that sounds like "huge Democratic victory in 2012".

Oh dear.  Its hopeless.  Why, if only those Republicans understood what is possible, if only they knew their place.  The whole situation is unsolvable, so might as well give it up.

Sound familiar?

It should.  What’s going on here is that we’re starting to hear (indirectly) from what used to be called the "Eastern Establishment:” all those individuals and groups whose income or existence leeches off an ever-expanding federal government.  You know: The beltway lobbyists and their clients, the "independent" groups that trade government grants for agitation for more government power,^[1] the corporations protected by a webs of regulations... those guys.  They’re worried that any move toward a smaller, less intrusive federal government could mean loss of their perks, bennies, and power^[2] and right now protecting those perks, bennies, and power means convincing the Republicans to - again- forget their principles and cut another good old Standard D.C. Compromise, i.e., Give the Democrats What They Want.  So they’re calling on their beltway-press buddies to help.  And so we’re seeing pieces like Megan’s.

The perennial question of why on earth the Republican party should be taking advice from a press that is increasingly an arm of the Democrat party is above my pay grade (for today), but from my seat out here in the heartland it sure looks like "Republican intransigence” is excactly what the public is asking for, and the presidential polling is reflecting it.

Now if only the Republicans can figure that out...

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When they come looking for contributions, better hang on to your wallet...

NRSC Press Release:

National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) today announced that businesswoman and civic leader Carly Fiorina will join the organization as a Vice Chair for the 2012 election cycle.

Serving alongside Cornyn and NRSC Vice Chairman U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Fiorina will amplify Senate Republicans’ focus on healing America’s troubled economy, and assist with the NRSC’s crucial fundraising efforts in support of a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.

Cornyn, Fiorina, and Hatch.  (Oh hell, here’s a link for both Cornyn and Hatch!)  Hey, what could go wrong?

Via R.S.McCain, who notes Fiorina’s astounding record of success:

In 2010, a year when Republicans were winning a nationwide landslide, Carly Fiorina pissed away $21.5 million — including more than $5 million of her own money — and lost to Barbara Boxer by a 10% margin.

Can you say, "sinecure for another failed Gentry RINO”?  I thought you could.

Now try "Republicans take Senate in 2012”?  With this crew (could we call ’em "The Three Stooges”?) in charge, that’s a bit harder, isn’t it?

UPDATE (110715 17:00):  Welcome Daily Pundit readers!

Related:

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Here comes the cave

The Hill:

House Republicans on Wednesday showed a new willingness to talk about closing tax loopholes

caving in to the Democrats ( FIFY)

in the context of negotiations to raise the nation’s $14.3 billion debt ceiling.

The signal was made by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the man who left debt talks led by Vice President Biden two weeks ago...

...and is a proud member of The 92 (which is all you need to know, really).

The GOP’s move was seen as a positive sign...

by Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself)

that a deal will be reached

taxes will be increased, while the deficit remains untouched ( FTFY,T)

...
"If the president wants to talk loopholes, we’ll talk loopholes,” Cantor said, with one caveat: Any revenue gained from ending a tax break should be used to lower other taxes, the second-ranking House Republican said...

Yah, yah, yah... more RINO promises.  BTW, how’s that light bulb ban repeal goin’, Mister Majority Leader, hmmm?

That drew a sharp response from Democrats, who said the demand would prevent them from winning any deficit cuts through the elimination of tax loopholes.

To which, Bill Quick:

...Never, not once, not one single time have... tax increases ever resulted in those taxes being used to decrease the national debt.

But unlike elephants, RINOs never remember.

UPDATE: Bend over:
Related:

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