Nothing To Say
Today, I have nothing to say.
Obviously, that's not going to stop me from typing out a few hundred words, but after reading them, you'll find that they don't go much beyond that first sentence.
I was going to post an article on taxes and Social Security today, since it is tax day, but after waking up to the news from the Boston Marathon, I just don't think anyone really would be all that interested. So, instead, I'm saying nothing.
I spent a few hours watching the televised coverage of the Boston bombings, and walked away from it with nothing much in the way of information. This isn't really the fault of the television reporters, since they don't have much information to go on at this point, either.
What we get in these situations is a lot of rampant speculation. The actual facts everyone has to work with are few and nebulous, and they've got a lot of air time to fill, so the on-screen personalities fill it up with a bunch of verbiage which just exposes (some more than others) how pathetically inadequate most "anchors" are, when they are not reading off a script.
But I don't even have the heart to bash the media much today, truth be told. They're doing the best job they know how to do and are capable of doing, that's about all you can say.
Instead of adding to the uninformed commentary which is currently happening, today I choose to be a spectator of the news just like everyone else. I have nothing to add to the conversation, and have no unique knowledge or outlook that would even put any of it in perspective.
We're all horrified, and we're all sending our thoughts to those in Boston affected by the tragedy, that's about all anyone can intelligently say at this point.
As time goes on, and the facts become known, perhaps I'll have something to say about today's bombing. There's going to be a frenzy of people speaking their minds, once we know what actually happened, and I'll probably join in at some point.
Today, however, it just seems too early to do so. So I'm not even going to post this minimalist commentary on Huffington Post or Twitter. Because I must end where I began, as unsatisfying as it may be.
I have nothing to say.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
@CW
when stuff like this happens, i don't think anyone really knows what to say.
~joshua
here's a total non-sequitur, but something i'd like to see on the opw part of the website is a graph of the "average" president, measured over the course of months after taking office (number of months instead of specific month. how much do you want to bet that the "average" graph corresponds almost exactly to the graph of obama's ratings...
~joshua
Joshua -
Obama's numbers have actually been improving all month. Not sure why, perhaps it was championing gun control (that's just a guess). Rasmussen had him at 53 percent approval today, and his average is above 49 percent.
I know this is a non-sequitur to your non-sequitur, kind of, but just had to mention it. The next few weeks are going to be intense ones in Congress with gun control and immigration, so we'll see how that plays out.
There may be a rally-round effect with the Boston Marathon bombing, too, which is normal in times of crisis for any president.
-CW
Joshua -
As for your specific suggestion, there really isn't enough data to provide a real "average" president (at least not for a second term). Polling's only been around since FDR, and didn't really get going until Truman and Eisenhower. Since then, how many presidents have served two terms with no overlap? LBJ had overlap with JFK, and Nixon didn't finish. So we've got Reagan, Clinton, Dubya, and Eisenhower. That's not really enough for a real average -- not enough data.
-CW
Adding to the "non-sequitor"-ness (an old word I just made up) I have just read portions of the Go8's immigration legislation proposal and I have to admit that, like the Anti-Gun legislation, there are quite a few things to like about it..
My criteria for successful immigration legislation is simple. First and foremost, secure the southern border. Then for the illegals currently in country, pay some fines, wait some time and no eligibility for voting or benefits until time and fines are accomplished.
The current Go8's proposed legislation seems to cover all that...
Here's hoping it gets a fair shake and doesn't get watered down with too many useless and/or ignorant amendments..
As to the recent terrorist attack in Boston, it is heartening to see the Obama administration learning....
"HE CAN BE TAUGHT!!"
-Genie, ALADDIN
.... has learned their lessons from Benghazi and didn't hem or haw about it being a terrorist attack or not.
So, all in all, I guess I have a lot of good things to say about politics today...
Michale
I spent a few hours watching the televised coverage of the Boston bombings, and walked away from it with nothing much in the way of information. This isn't really the fault of the television reporters, since they don't have much information to go on at this point, either.
I caught some of this at the gym (my only source of TV news) and what I wish they'd show is coverage of all the people helping.
But no, there wasn't much of that. Just a steady stream of fear and speculation.
I'm sure every Muslim in the country is saying "please, don't let this be a Muslim" because even without any evidence whatsoever, many outlets are running Muslim speculation as their way of filling dead air.
I have to say I was glad to leave the gym after 30 minutes to escape the endless rotation and recycling of nothing on the TV.
-David
I'm sure every Muslim in the country is saying "please, don't let this be a Muslim" because even without any evidence whatsoever,
You mean, like a Saudi National in custody who had explosives residue on his clothing and was heard to remark immediately prior to the second device detonating, "I thought there would be a second explosion?"???
THAT kind of "no evidence"...
LEOs and Military types don't have the luxury of considering best-case scenarios first.. At least, not if they want to do their jobs, which is to keep people alive...
Michale
I'm sure every Muslim in the country is saying "please, don't let this be a Muslim" because even without any evidence whatsoever, many outlets are running Muslim speculation as their way of filling dead air.
Yeh this is why despite the fact there have been many domestic terrorist attacks before people now associate the word 'terrorist' with '9/11'... Anyway as with any of these attacks we can only just sit and wait until the facts become clear (unless you're the right wing media and it's election season).
Such a cowardly act though - to attack an event where people are pushing their physical fitness in the name of charity.
Anyway as with any of these attacks we can only just sit and wait until the facts become clear
The problem with that is that, when the facts DO become clear, people with a political agenda refuse to accept them..
As in the case of the Benghazi terrorist attack..
The facts were clear within 12 hours of the attack. Clear enough to make an accurate assessment.
Yet, due to political considerations, our leaders never made the proper assessment until almost TWO WEEKS later...
As I said above, it appears the Obama Administration learned their lesson...
Michale
.. Anyway as with any of these attacks we can only just sit and wait until the facts become clear (unless you're the right wing media and it's election season).
And, of course, the LEFT would never stoop to such alarmist speculation, right???
Barney Frank has already blamed tax cuts for the attacks.
And the Left Loons like Matthews, Axelrod et al are blaming Right Wing militias...
Once again we see that there is no attack you can slam against the Right that can't ALSO be leveled at the Left...
Michale
Lol at the idea you have a "clear picture" 12 hours after an attack. Amazing.
I can't even be bothered responding to your absolute nonsense today. Lol blaming tax cuts lolol amazing where do you get this ludicrous nonsense...
Lol at the idea you have a "clear picture" 12 hours after an attack. Amazing.
And yet, I called it dead on ballz accurate... Explain that... :D
Lol blaming tax cuts lolol amazing where do you get this ludicrous nonsense...
From one of your vaunted Democrats, Barney Frank..
But since you can't be bothered... :D
Michale
Such a cowardly act though - to attack an event where people are pushing their physical fitness in the name of charity.
Total asshole cowards.
-David
Total asshole cowards.
Yep.. Ship their cowardly asses to Gitmo...
One of the things that is universally agreed here in Weigantia...
Michale
You mean, like a Saudi National in custody who had explosives residue on his clothing and was heard to remark immediately prior to the second device detonating, "I thought there would be a second explosion?"???
THAT kind of "no evidence"...
You are referring to a news report from a media outlet who first said 12 people were dead (and stuck by this all day). Oh and the fact that this guy has been released and declared innocent. So yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh no evidence.
This is exactly the kind of nonsense and fear-mongering I'd expect in the 12 hours after an attack, when no concrete facts are available...
A good rule of thumb ... question everything you hear immediately after a tragedy like this.
Here's an interesting history of some past news mistakes ...
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/boston-marathon-bombing-misinformation-911-newtown
Oh and the fact that this guy has been released and declared innocent.
"Of course, you can PROVE that, right? Oh that's right. I forgot. You were absent the day they taught Law at Law School!"
Regardless, you said "clear picture 12 hours after the attack" with regards to Benghazi...
As usual, when caught being wrong, you change the parameters....
With regards to Boston, of course things are fluid..
Yet, you don't seem to have a problem with your Left Wing nutballs going on and on about Right Wing militias and tax cuts..
You just have a problem with considering the REAL possibility that it was a Muslim terrorist attack..
Why is that??
Despite your koom-bye-ya ignorant beliefs, sometimes Muslims ARE guilty of terrorism...
Michale...
There was an 8 yr old among those killed by the terrorist attack...
What a difference between the reaction from the Left to the Sandy Hook killings and the brutal murder of this little boy..
Like I said.. Political Agenda comes first before any other consideration...
How sad is that...
Michale
Why is it that the Left doesn't have any problems "jumping to conclusions" when they can blame guns or Right Wing extremists or the like??
But yet the Left fall all over themselves to "wait into all the evidence is in" when the evidence starts pointing to Muslim terrorists??
Why is it that, with the Left, it's always fellow Americans first and Muslim terrorists a far distant second??
Michale
A good rule of thumb ... question everything you hear immediately after a tragedy like this.
I completely agree with that assessment..
*MY* beef is that the questioning should NOT be based on political agenda criteria... AND the questioning should be consistent..
In other words, why question when evidence shows a Muslim terrorist, yet support some Left Wing whack job that says Right Wing militias or tax cuts are to blame..
Michale
It's being reported that the two devices that detonated where "pressure cooker bombs"..
These types of bombs are utilized extensively in Afghanistan and Pakistan..
Further, Al Qaeda operatives have called for terrorist attacks at American sporting events..
Michale
Michty, let me put it to you this way...
If a "Person Of Interest" was being questioned and it was reported he was some redneck wearing cammie pants and a Rush Limbaugh/Sarah Palin/I Love The Tea Party T-Shirt, the Left couldn't start blaming the Right fast enough..
We don't even have to rely on conjecture because we have SEEN it happen!
So, please. Don't presume to lecture me on "waiting for all the evidence to come in".. You only seem to want to "wait for evidence" when it's a Muslim terrorist...
If it's a redneck Limbaugh lover, you have all the evidence you need...
Michale
Yeah, michty, you terrorist lover!
Why wait for evidence?
I think we should just start rounding up all the Muslims and putting them in camps. Hmmm ... what could we call the camps?
Nevermind ... I'm sure we'll think of something. Then, we just torture the shit out of them until someone confesses ("torture the shit" btw is an American expression which means to torture the shit out of someone - trademark pending).
-David
p.s. Freedom!!!!
(you have to scream this last bit without any sense of irony)
OK, guys...
More on the same subject. Today's post is up.
Michale -
Please keep in mind: how many of the reports that have come in so far have been wrong (multiple devices, third device which has been disabled, bomb at the library, bomb was in trash can, 12 dead, etc., etc....), when giving credence to any report not out of the mouth of a LEO (to use a favorite term of yours).
Think about it: when you were a law enforcement officer, how much credence did you give to "media reports" versus actual evidence?
-CW
@CW[4],
i guess my idea was to statistically ignore overlap, by counting months in office, regardless of when those months were, and whenever an individual left office, remove them from the equation. yes, the eighth year of the graph would be the mean of only eisenhower, reagan, clinton and bush II, maybe changing the line's color or thickness at every point where number of presidents in the equation (n) shrinks. but even so, it would be interesting to see what the measures of central tendency might yield. while it's true that transitioning from vice president is qualitatively different from being elected in one's own right, the factors that impact how the public views a new president may still be the same.
i suppose a different way of looking at it would be to use polling based on the part of each four year term, regardless of which president served during that part. the only thing about that would i think be a higher likelihood of data spikes in the places where the terms of kennedy and nixon end. anyhow, not sure if my central tendency hypothesis is worth testing; it's just a bit of navel gazing really.
David,
Yeah, michty, you terrorist lover!
Why wait for evidence?
Yea.. Why wait for evidence?? Ya'all didn't want to wait for evidence in Benghazi when ya'll bought the Administration's spin, hook, line and sinker..
THAT is my point.. Ya'all don't care about waiting when the preliminary evidence paints the picture that ya'all like....
It's only when the evidence starts pointing to something that doesn't mesh with the Leftist agenda... THEN ya'all want to "wait for the evidence..."
I think we should just start rounding up all the Muslims and putting them in camps. Hmmm ... what could we call the camps?
How about "internment centers".. Wasn't that what Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt called them??
But, once again, you miss the point..
Ya'all WANT to "create camps" when the evidence points to redneck Right Wing Limbaugh/Palin/Tea Party lovers.... Remember Loughner??
But when the evidence against Loughner points to a Leftist pot-smoking latte drinking radical....????
All of the sudden, it's..... "Maybe we should wait for ALL the evidence....???"
Which is why I said above.....
If ya'all could at least BE CONSISTENT in your search for evidence, then I could respect that..
But ya'all are only concerned with "the evidence" when it goes in a direction that doesn't fit the agenda....
CW,
Think about it: when you were a law enforcement officer, how much credence did you give to "media reports" versus actual evidence?
Granted.. I am not there and cannot see the actual evidence.. However, if multiple sources are reporting similar (yet not identical) evidence, then it's a good chance that there is validity to the report..
*MY* only beef is that the rank and file here would accept as gospel if media reports indicated a Budweiser-swilling, Limbaugh-Loving, Palin/Tea Party T-Shirt wearing redneck was being questioned as a suspect..... Rank-N-File Weigantians would be swearing up and down that Right Wing Extremists were guilty as hell!!
But let those same Weigantians hear that a Muslim suspect is being questioned, then (all of the sudden) it's "We need to wait for all the evidence"....
That's what happened when that scumbag opened up at a Tuscon mini-mall and killed several people and wounded CongressCritter Gabbie.... The Left was galvanized IMMEDIATELY to blame the Right and the Tea Party without ANY evidence whatsoever...
So... My question is a valid one..
Why is it that we have to "wait for the evidence" when the evidence points to a Muslim terrorist, yet it's perfectly OK to condemn the ENTIRE Right Wing without ANY evidence whatsoever???
I think it's a valid point and one that has been ignored for far too long....
Michale
Michale -
Oh, I disagree. Remember OK City? Early reports were it was a Middle Eastern terrorist... turned out to be wrong, though.
ALL early reports should be taken with a grain of salt. Especially those by the media, without an LEO source to back them up.
But I have a question for you. Since, as I posit in my Tues. article (why are we still commenting here and not on today's article? Just wondering...), "terrorism" is defined differently by different people, what is your definition?
That's kind of a trick question, so I'll let you see behind the curtain of my thinking: is a US Embassy or Consulate or other diplomatic entity a valid military target? Or is an attack upon it an act of terrorism? What is your definition, precisely?
I'd be interested to hear your response to that.
-CW
David,
Excellent post, I laughed hard. You forgot to add AMurca!!!!! though.
Michale,
Wow some serious ranting. You need to calm down you're getting hysterical. Rather than argue with your hysterics I'll pick one line that I thought was kind of stupid:
Ya'all didn't want to wait for evidence in Benghazi when ya'll bought the Administration's spin, hook, line and sinker...
If ya'all could at least BE CONSISTENT in your search for evidence, then I could respect that..
Lol you are so unbelievably wrong. We are being consistent. Back with Benghazi the administration's "spin" was to wait for evidence. We are saying the EXACT SAME THING now. The only reason you didn't like this 'spin' was because it was election season and you didn't want to wait, you wanted to blame Obama immediately.
Now you don't like the spin because (once again, shockingly) you think they are trying to hide something. But since it's no longer election season you're confused and unable to find a 'motive' for them hiding anything...
Lol you are so unbelievably wrong. We are being consistent. Back with Benghazi the administration's "spin" was to wait for evidence.
WRONG....
The Administration's spin was that it was a protest gone bad, despite absolutely NO EVIDENCE to support that..
THAT, incidentally, was ya'alls story as well...
Only when that total BS story became TOO unbelievable for even the most hysterical Obama supporter, THEN the spin from the Administration (and ya'all) became "let's wait for all the evidence"...
You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts...
Now you don't like the spin because (once again, shockingly) you think they are trying to hide something.
Not at all.. My point is that ya'all refuse to accept ANY evidence that is contrary to your political ideology... Whether it is terrorism or Human Caused Global Warming (Yet The Planet Is Cooling) or some punk thug with a pack of skittles or anything..
Ya'all simply refuse to accept ANY facts that doesn't support your political ideology...
Michale
Ya'all simply refuse to accept ANY facts that doesn't support your political ideology...
No, I merely refuse to accept a 'Michale-fact' (something that couldn't be further from a fact than if you got a 5 year old to write down the first thing that came into his head).
The FACTS are nobody has a clue about who was responsible for Boston. Period. Until the authorities do their relevant investigations, saying anything else is pure stupid speculation. And, like I mentioned many times now, the speculation you come up with is likely to be in line with your own frames, biases and media that you frequent - a point you have proven exactly in this thread.
The FACTS are nobody has a clue about who was responsible for Boston.
The fact that you think that is a fact shows how completely and utterly ignorant you are of terrorism and the investigative process...
Now, if you want to rephrase that to say, "The FACTS are that I don't have a clue about who was responsible for Boston" THEN you would be stating a fact...
Fortunately for this country, those that ARE investigating this terrorist are a little bit smarter....
That IS a fact, of which I know personally...
Michale
Lol amazing logic. You do realise that the fact that the Boston bombing actually happened means that NOBODY had a clue who was responsible after it happened?
Anyway cross post from other thread but you know the media must be reporting some outright bullshit when the FBI has to publicly slap them down: http://www.businessinsider.com/boston-marathon-arrest-bombing-reports-fbi-2013-4
Anyway cross post from other thread but you know the media must be reporting some outright bullshit when the FBI has to publicly slap them down: http://www.businessinsider.com/boston-marathon-arrest-bombing-reports-fbi-2013-4
What do ya expect from a Left Wing media outlet who doesn't know terrorism from trapezoid....
You do realise that the fact that the Boston bombing actually happened means that NOBODY had a clue who was responsible after it happened?
Once again, you get slammed down so you change your story..
You stated, "The FACTS are nobody has a clue about who was responsible for Boston."
In other words, you are saying that, in the here and now, no one has a clue about who is responsible..
That is a completely moronic statement and shows me that you are completely and utterly clueless about the investigative process in particular and terrorism in general..
Michale
That is a completely moronic statement and shows me that you are completely and utterly clueless about the investigative process in particular and terrorism in general..
That came out a little harsher than I intended. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the fact that you are ignorant of these matters. I am sure that, in your chosen profession or field of expertise, I am a complete and utter moron as well...
In this particular field, I have decades of experience and training to fall back on. And I can assure you with the utmost confidence that, within 4 to 8 hours of this bombing, the experts investigating had a damn site more than a "clue" as to what was what, who was who and why to the why...
The fact that most was not shared with the general public is a testament to the professionalism of those investigators..
Michale