Big Peace Encourages Flaming

I have written numerous articles in the past at lenght regarding the prevalence of flaming on Andrew Breitbart's websites - particularly against comments critical of the right-wing agenda.  I had left a comment on his new site, Big Peace, yesterday and noticed I had a response.  After reading the response, which seemed to be pretty offensive, attacking myself as well as calling Muslims "assholes," I had decided to report the comment to site administrators when I noticed something - the comments lacked a report button that was found on the other Big sites.

Here is a copy of my comment as well as the response:

Not only were Jamesb's comment's offensive, they were absolutely wrong.  I decided to point out how wrong he was with my followup comment (which I expcet to be deleted):

I'm sure Jamesb will probably respond with the typical conservative response, claiming that I am a self-hating white person who hates Christianity and America and that I fail to understand the threat Islam poses to America and that the Founding Fathers were Christians and that the Treaty of Tripoli of 1797 meant absolutely nothing.

I will check back to see if a report button magically surfaces but I doubt it.  Considering the site is one big anti-Islam Christian-revisionist love fest, the site moderaters probably realized that with their fan base being a bunch of intolerant political rejects, there would be no comments left if they actually moderated the comments...

Update - Someone did respond to my comment pointing out an error I had made, which I was happy to admit - the Treaty of Tripoli did not end the Barbary Wars, although the treaty was renegotiated after the first war.  According to the response, the treaty was America capitulating to the Islamic forces because America did not have a fleet at the time.  That interpretation seems interesting.  Comparatively, I am reminded of the Monroe Doctrine, which essentially told Europe to keep their hands off our hemisphere - America did not have the power to enforce such a declaration but we issued it anyway, so what makes the treaty any different...

When scrolling down, I noticed another comment I made that I completely forgot about that got even more attention from the readers. Check out the profanity-laden responses that I received:

 

Seeing that there was no report button, I decided to comment back to see what kind of responses I get.  I thought it was interesting that Jamesb (any relation to RobertB?) went as far as to visit The Midnight Review only to comment about it on Big Peace - he seemed to fail to understand the point of my recent Alan Grayson article, which was to illustrate that Grayson, a Democrat, issued a rather fair and balanced survey, especially when compared to the push polls I have received from the Republican Party.

He also does a great job at reaffirming the belief that the GOP are in bed with the tea party (despite claims that they are completely separate).  If Jamesb was the true teabagger he makes himself out to be, he would also attack the Republicans, because after all, the party represents an establishment and is at odds with the principles of the teabag fringe.  I am a moderate Republican, but you can see how tebaggers like Jamesb want to purify the GOP and eliminate the notion that the GOP is a "big tent" party, kicking moderates to the curb, which will only help democrats and real independents in the long run.

Jamesb also shows just how ignorant he truly is by picking up on the right-wing talking point vilifying Alan Grayson when he has no comprehension of the regional politics of Central Florida - Grayson's predecessor had issued a term limit promise that he broke to run against Grayson, which deeply upset his constituency.  Grayson ran a better campaign and won, and so far, he has been pretty good for his district (a pleasant departure from Ric Keller, whom I also voted for). Teabaggers love to point out that America is a Republic - a representative democracy.  Grayson is doing just that - representing his constituency.

Flame on...

Update July 10th, 2010 -  It didn't take long for me to be attacked some more.  JamesB called me a "smug ass" and then proceeded to discuss the Barbary Wars because apparently he was still stuck on my error regarding the Treaty of Tripoli of 1797, failing to miss the point.  I called him out on his use of language: "Don't call me a smug ass, asshole."  Maybe I shouldn't have used the harsh words but I didn't start it - I was simply pointing out the logical fallacies of their arguments.  Anyway, here is the response to my comment:

There are two problems with the right-wing argument.  One is the insistance that America is a Christian nation at war with Islam and the other is that the Treaty of Tripoli was a capitulation to Islamic piracy.

The treaty indicates that America was not a Christian nation and was not waging a holy war against the Islamic states of the Mediteranean.  I even pointed out that the treaty was signed by Founding Father John Adams.  The attacks against my comments essentially stated that the treaty was intended to forstall war because America did not have a powerful enough fleet to combat the pirates, and that the language in the treaty denouncing Christianity and insisting we were not at war with Islam was all a lie.  Apparently it is okay to interpret certain things to defend your position while others may not, such as the Constitution. 

I would also like to point to a couple other instances in American history in which America lacked the strength to do something yet did it anyway - the Revolutionary War and the Monroe Doctrine.  In the Revolutionary War, America fought the world's premier power despite lacking a trained army, and with the Monroe Doctrine, America lacked the capability to back up its warning to the rest of the world to keep their hands off the hemisphere.  Based on these two examples, why should I believe that the Treaty of Tripoli was just pillow talk?

It seems that as I continued along the lines of defending my reference to the treaty, the arguments against me changed - they went from claiming America was a "Christian nation" to America being a "majority Christian nation," or from America being at war with Islam to Islam being at war with America.  If you look at JamesB last flame, you can see an interesting statement - he insists that America fought the pirate states because of the establishment clause, protecting America from being colonized by Muslims.

You're making the same torchered argument that all liberals grasping at straws make - that a document here and a document there butresses your belief that the United State - a majority CHRISTIAN nation - should SURRENDER to Islam using the establishment clause as proof.

Am I to believe that America was threatened by Islam over 200 years ago and that the John Adams signed a treaty to keep the enemy at bay for close to 200 years?  This is sensationalist anti-Islamic propaganda at its finest!

Palingates Reports On The Conservative Hypocrisy Regarding The National Enquirer

It was brought to my attention that Patrick at Palingates referenced The Midnight Review in an excellent article detailing the hypocrisy surrounding the conservative's use of the National Enquirer to disparage political enemies.  As I had written in a previous article, when Sarah Palin became the target of a National Enquirer article, the publication was threatened with lawsuits - the paper stood behind it's articles claiming it had reputable sources.

I suggest reading Patrick's article over at Palingates - he had done a superb job writing about her affair, pointing out all the hypocrisies along the way (Palingates is renowned for their thorough articles).  As Patrick put it, "I don't think that the right wingers would complain - after all, the National Enquirer is a credible news source, is it not?"

Florida Teabag Infighting At Its Finest!

I came across this article on The Washington Independent by Travis Pillow that discussed some interesting things going on in the Sunshine State - Teabaggers and the GOP are attacking the new Florida Tea Party.

Back in October, a bitter feud broke out between the Tea Party Patriots and the Tea Party Express, with the former accusing the latter of aligning too closely with the GOP. Then, in March, the Tea Party Express alleged that Scott Ashjian, a self-proclaimed Tea Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Nevada, was a Democratic plant working to get Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) re-elected.

Now, the stage has moved to Florida, where an Orlando rally this weekend saw Tea Partiers criticizing the Florida Tea Party’s motives.

The rally, organized by Americans for Prosperity, brought together several dozen people to oppose the “big government policies” of Reps. Suzanne Kosmas and Alan Grayson, Florida freshmen on the Republican “hit list” of vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Speakers denounced excessive regulation and government spending, and several reserved special wrath for the Florida Tea Party, which they fear could hurt their side’s chances in November.

The long-simmering dispute between party and movement took on new significance last week as the party entered a spate of new candidates before Friday’s filing deadline. Activists claim the Democratic Party is behind many of the candidates.

Bruce O’Donahue, part of the crowded field of contenders in the Republican primary vying to challenge Grayson for the District 8 congressional seat, held a press conference Thursday in the same location as Saturday’s rally. He condemned the Tea Party and its candidate, Peg Dunmire, who he called a “Grayson stooge.”

Grayson’s response, as quoted by Politico: “All right, you got me. I invented the Tea Party. Sarah Palin is a puppet, and she does whatever I tell her to do.”

By the filing deadline Friday, the party had slated 20 candidates in Florida races.

Interesting.

The right-wing fringe who claim to be independent from the GOP are attacking an actual political party called the "Florida Tea Party" for popping up because they challenge the teabag-backed candidates in the Republican races.

I like Grayson's response to these allegations that he is behind the new party: “All right, you got me. I invented the Tea Party. Sarah Palin is a puppet, and she does whatever I tell her to do.”

What makes the teabag Republicans even more ridiculous is that they even admit that the Tea Party has connections with the overall movement, which makes the claim that some of the candidates are plants even more idiotic.

“While a few Tea Party candidates across the state do have ties to the tea party movement, in the majority of instances, it appears that the Democrats have coordinated a dishonest attempt to hide phony candidates behind the name ‘tea party’ and to confuse voters who may be supportive of the tea party movement, effectively stealing votes from true conservative candidates and injuring the grassroots tea party movement as a whole,” Republican Party of Florida chair and state Rep. John Thrasher said in a statement.

The teabag fringe has even gone so far as to sue the party, claiming it is taking away from their grassroots movement and becoming something they are against - a political machine - which is interesting because they seem to be backing candidates in the GOP machine because as local Orlando radio host and teabag organizer Jason Hoyt put it, the teabaggers need to support a united conservative front.

"We don't want to become what we're fighting," said Everett Wilkinson, chairman of the South Florida Tea Party and a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in West Palm Beach. "Filing as a political party is detrimental to everything we've done."

Orlando lawyer Fred O'Neal, who officially registered the "Tea party'' five months ago, acknowledged that he had never actually been to an official tea party. No matter. He said the "Tea'' in his party stands for "Taxed Enough Already."

"The t-e-a is what attracted me to the name," O'Neal said. "If I wanted to organize a party for the tea party movement, I would have called it the tea party movement party."

Beth Reinhard pointed out for the St. Petersburg Times that there are roughly 80 different tea party groups in Florida and there are even some national groups that share the same name, like Tea Party Nation, the Tea Party Express and the Tea Party Patriots.

Some of the other complaints coming from the fringe regarding the Florida Tea Party is that founder Fred O'Neal was once a registered Democrat, yet you don't see the tea party movement rescinding their support for former Democrat and current GOP Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle, do you?  And what about all those reports and polls coming from the right-wing that showed there were a small percentage of Democrats who joined the ranks of the tea party movement?

Essentially it boils down to this: the Republicans who have worked hard to court the tea party are upset that someone had actually created a real political party that is designed to prop up conservative non-Republican candidates.  These Republicans who were fishing for votes in the fringe are upset because they see their chances of winning election dwindling fast, so what better way to get ahead then to destroy the competition, either by defamation or threats of legal action (sounds a bit like John Smithson's tactics).

Jon Stewart's Discusses Conservative Attack Against Islam

Here is a great video from Jon Stewart's Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Wish You Weren't Here
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Things That Make You Go "Hmm"

Looking at the title of this article, one might think that I was writing about the C & C Music Factory hit with the same name, but I had an interesting thought regarding the ongoing feud between this site and conservative activist John Smithson's similarly named blog - Smithson accuses this blog of plagiarizing his site because of the similarity in titles, The Midnight Review vs. Midknight Review, so I was wondering what else is out there that not only shares a similar name, but an exact name as that of Smithson's website.

Doing a quick Google on the name "Midknight," here are my results:

Here is a comic book distributed by Red 5 Comics titled Midknight.  Do you thinik maybe Smithson got the idea for his blog from this comic, after all, the series did start back in 2007 when Smithson started blogging.

Here is a family run auto company operating out of Rockland, Maine.  What is the name of the auto company?  Mid-Knight Auto!

Here is a site out of Ohio called Midknight Mastiffs that specializes in show dogs.

Here is a construction site called Midknight Construction.

Here is a chess site!

Here is a glove that trademarked the name "Midknight."





This is only a small amount of the web pages that came up under my search - there were a total of 115,000 pages.  Smithson's did not even come up on the first page!

The point of this article is to point out how idiotic Smithson's argument is - that this site is plagiarizing off his because this site spelled "midnight" correctly.  If Smithson would like to send some more "cease and desist" letters to the infringers above, I made the pictures above link to the offending pages...

Alan Grayson's E-newsletter Survey

I have written in the past about how I received in the mail various Republican push polls designed as surveys like the GOP YouCut program and the "2009 Obama Agenda Survey."  Today, I checked my e-mail and noticed a message from Florida Rep. Alan Grayson asking me to submit a survey so he can better represent his constituency.  I was somewhat expecting a Democratic push poll but instead I found a very balanced questionnaire.  Here are the questions as they appeared on the survey (I even left the dots filled to show my responses):

Look at the wording Grayson uses.  Would a Republican survey ask what is the best way to reduce the federal defecit and then list "cut defense spending?"  No.  More likely then not the GOP question and answer would read as the following:

The Democrats plan to increase the federal defecit by X amount of dollars with their radical health care legislation and "death panels."  What do you think is the best way to reduce the federal defecit?

• Raise taxes on the average American as well as making new ones (like the proposed "tanning tax")
• Reduce Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlements that are bankrupting this nation
• Cut defense spending making us vulnerable to terrorist attacks as well as sending the wrong message to America's enemies
• Stop paying interest on the federal debt because that money is only going to communist Chinese bondholders

Alan Grayson's survey was a welcome site to this author.

Sharron Angle On Rape: "God's Plan"

Nevada teabag senatorial candidate Sharron Angle is just a treasure trove of right-wing craziness, and her recent comments on rape just add to the steaming pile that is her campaign.  In previous interviews, Angle had described pregnancy from both rape and incest as "God's plan," but in a recent interview with the conservative Alan Stock Show, Angle compared keeping a child from incest and rape to making lemonade out of lemons.  The conservative candidate is opposed to abortion even in the most extreme cases believing that "two wrongs don't mke a right."

Sounds like Harry Reid is going up against a real winner.  Why, just recently she claimed BP was a Democratic "slush fund" andis suing her Democratic opponent for, get this, republishing her crazy views that she edited off her website claiming her campaign positions are her "intellectual property." 

Why would a candidate want to hide their beliefs?

John Smithson Changes Website After DMCA Filing

In the continuing story regarding John Smithson's baseless attacks against this website, The Midnight Review has noticed something very interesting - John Smithson changed his website yet again following his admission to plagiarizing this website.

If you haven't followed this story or are unfamiliar with this blog, let me offer a quick recap:

John Smithson is a conservative activist who operates a similarly titled blog called "Midknight Review."  A couple months ago, Smithson visited this site claiming that I plagiarized his name, demanding that The Midnight Review cease using it's name or face a legal challenge.  There was only one big problem with Smithson's accusations - Smithson offered zero proof that this website's name was stolen (which it wasn't).

In response to Smithson's claims, this site researched Smithson's site revealing that Smithson himself was guilty of plagiarizing numerous articles, which he vehemently denied any wrongdoing despite mounds of evidence against him.  Apparently, in response to these revelations, Smithson thought it was important to plagiarize one more time, copying this site!

On July 6th, I pointed out that John Smithson copied the header of this site, copying the slogan "report & opinion" and passing it off as his own.  Here is a graphic:

Notice where he writes that his site is the "best" in "original commentary?"  This would be like Reebok copying Nike's "Just Do It."

Smithson's response to this latest incident was an admission of guilt, writing that since this website's name closely resembled that of his site, he was justified in plagiarizing this site.  He failed to understand the Breyers/Dreyers comparison I offered a while back.

In response to this blatant disregard for intellectual property rights, I filed a Digital Millenium Copyright Act infringement notification against John Smithson and lo and behold, Smithson changed his header to the following:

Notice how Smithson also altered the text below his header, to indicate that his blog was "copyrighted?"  Why would Smithson conveniently change his website after a DMCA notice had been filed, especially since he adamantly defended his plagiarism in a comment left on this site?  Luckily The Midnight Review has photographic evidence of his violation, as well as the other occasions involving his improper copying and citation of others' works.

Last time I checked, Smithson did not own any copyright to the name "The Midnight Review" and prior to the creation of this website, had never even referenced his site as such.  I'll tell you who does own rights to the name, as well as the domain TheMidnightReview.com - me!

Smithson's antics are typical for the kind of person he is - a conservative activist.  He has shown that he will stop at nothing to try and advance his agenda in taking down opposing thoughts and opinions - this blog is definitely not part of the right-wing fringe that Smithson represents.  In his attempts to intimidate the authors of this blog with claims of plagiarism and threats of legal action, he had committed acts of libel.

This isn't the first time John Smithson had gotten in to some water with his blog either - back in December, Google had removed his blog and disabled the URL because they deemed his site violated their Terms of Service for spamming.

All that The Midnight Review requests from John Smithson is an official apology posted on his website and for him to cease publishing false information about the authors of this blog.

Hawaii Governor Vetoes Civil Unions Bill. Why?

From an article by Tamara Audi from The Wall Street Journal:

In a controversial last-minute decision, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle Tuesday vetoed legislation that would have allowed same-sex civil unions in her state. The move was a setback for gay rights groups, and once again thrust Hawaii onto the frontlines of the national battle over gay marriage.

In announcing her decision Tuesday afternoon, the Republican governor said at a news conference that she felt the bill was "essentially same-sex marriage by another name."

Republicans are constantly complaining that gay marriage is an assault on the institute of marriage, so what did the elected representatives of Hawaii do?  They decided to create a secular union for homosexuals to utilize and join together.

Was that good enough? 

No.

The Republican governor decided that unions are the same thing as marriage.  What does that mean?  Republicans will never support gay unions because they think two people of the same sex joined together is icky.

With decisions like this, it is amazing that the Log Cabin Republicans still associate with the GOP. 

I just don't get any of this.  Legislators are elected by the people and those elected to represent Hawaiians voted in favor of civil unions.  Sounds to me like the GOP is the one who are out of step with the electorate...

John Smithson Admits To Plagiarism

If you read the previous article from this website, you would see that I pointed out that conservative activist John Smithson had copied this website.  John Smithson was kind enough to reply to that article admitting to plagairising The Midnight Review.

Here is his comment:

See where Smithson states that he changed the header of his site to make his "wedded" to this one?  I took a screen shot of his comment for posterity.  

Here was my response:

I find Smithson's confession very interesting.

John Smithson Copies The Midnight Review

It has come to the attention to this website that conservative activist John Smithson has plagiarized this website.  If you are unaware of who John Smithson is, don't feel bad, not many people do - a couple months ago he attacked this blog for plagiarizing his website because of the similarities of names.

This morning I decided to check up on our little friend when I noticed that John Smithson had changed his header to the following:

Notice any similarities with the header of this site?  Here is a snapshot of Smithson's header from June 26th:

Now take a look at a banner created for this site from June 24th:

The Midnight Review added to the title of this blog "Report & Opinion" right before Smithson's title conveniently changed, copying this site.  Looks like Smithson is a bit of a hypocrite if you ask me.

I wonder why he changed the name of his site - my bet is that he is too unoriginal to come up with something of his own and so he has to steal it from someone else, which is why he has plagiarized so many other articles on his own site in the past.

Also, I just wanted to point out that it has been almost 80 days since Smithson threatened this site with a "cease and desist" for allegedly plagiarizing his site.

Comedy...