BREAKING: Romney Tax Returns Held Hostage! Secret Service Investigates!

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Wednesday September 05, 2012 · 7:33 PM PDT

2012/09/05 · 19:33

A mysterious group of blackmailers claims to be holding Mitt Romney's tax returns hostage. They say they stole the tax returns on August 25, and will make the information in the tax returns public on September 28th if they are not paid one million dollars ... in Bitcoins.

Thumb drives supposedly containing encrypted copies of the returns have been delivered to the headquarters of both the Republican and Democratic parties in Williamson County, Tenn.

The Secret Service is investigating.

At this point, I should stop and say that this is not an Onion article or snark. This is actually happening. (Maybe.)

AdManAnt

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Monday November 02, 2009 · 6:30 AM PST

2009/11/02 · 06:30

Pundits and political prognosticators assure us that Tuesday’s special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional district is an important indicator of national political battles to come. Now that moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava has bowed out, we’re told that Tuesday’s election will be a Manichean struggle between the forces of progressivism and conservatism that will determine the political direction of the nation.

I lived in NY-23 for five years back in the ‘90s. While not exactly a native, my time there gave me a pretty clear notion as to what this election result will tell us about the national political scene going forward. And what it will tell is: not a thing. The North Country is a fascinating and beautiful place. But it is not a mirror of America, and should not be used as such.

Read on to learn more about the North Country and Tuesday's election...

AdManAnt

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Sunday September 20, 2009 · 6:01 PM PDT

2009/09/20 · 18:01

I am the child of progressive parents.

I hail from a progressive town.

I was raised during the progressive ‘70s.

Believe me, I know what it means to say the following. But, distasteful as it is, it’s true, and we all need to learn from it.

So swallow hard and repeat this after me.

Spiro Agnew was right.

Find out why after the break...

AdManAnt

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Saturday August 08, 2009 · 7:06 AM PDT

2009/08/08 · 07:06

Sarah Palin, the Republican Party's favorite wackjob quitter, has chimed in on the health care debate:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

These "death panels" are, of course, sheer hysterical fantasy on Palin's part. But news reports show there is a government program out there killing patients. It's not Barack Obama's Federal government, though. It's Sarah Palin's Alaska.

AdManAnt

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Sunday May 03, 2009 · 11:47 AM PDT

2009/05/03 · 11:47

"[P]ursuing criminal charges would be too hard legally and politically and too easy morally. Prosecuting Bush and his men won't absolve the rest of us for what we let them do." – Jacob Weisberg in Slate

MOBSTERS KILL 29 IN MALL SHOOTOUT, POLICE DECLINE TO PRESS CHARGES

PARK CITY, May 2 (DKP) – A drug deal gone bad erupted into violence yesterday at the Park Plaza shopping center, a popular downtown strip mall. What triggered the shootout was not immediately clear, but when it was over 29 people, mostly shoppers, lay dead.

AdManAnt

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Sunday October 26, 2008 · 10:45 AM PDT

2008/10/26 · 10:45

Today on Fox News Sunday ever-erring conservative columnist Bill Kristol tried to defend his personal pet project, Sarah Palin, on the subject of her scandal-of-the-week, Clothesgate. As usual, he was completely clueless.

AdManAnt

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Saturday September 13, 2008 · 6:20 AM PDT

2008/09/13 · 06:20

The thing I miss most in campaign ads is humor. Presidential campaigns apparently feel that Serious Political Issues must have Serious Ads, complete with dramatic panning across still photos and deep-voiced narrators speaking in clipped monotones. The closest these kinds of ads ever get to humor is leaden sarcasm designed to elicit anger rather than a laugh.

That's too bad. Humor can be a great way to deal with delicate issues. Take responding to an opponent's attack ad. Lashing back in kind just makes you look like you can't take it, whereas a factual rebuttal to an inaccurate ad just propogates the attacker's lies.

Humor can defuse the situation nicely. You can get away with much more using a joke than you can in one of the standard Ken-Burns-Presents-The-Election ads, and the viewer feels entertained rather than assaulted. With that in mind I whipped up this little ad to respond to things like McCain's "Sex Ed" ad.

(More after the fold.)

AdManAnt

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Sunday September 07, 2008 · 5:17 PM PDT

2008/09/07 · 17:17

It's clear that McCain is going to use a "Rose Garden" strategy where he isolates himself and Palin from any real press scrutiny. The idea is to make the ticket look more presidential by restricting media access to only events the campaign can completely control (e.g. townhalls where the audience is 100% Republican faithful, TV interviews with softball hosts, etc.)

The Obama campaign needs to call him on it. Not because calling him on it will make McCain change his strategy--it probably won't--but because calling him on it reinforces two themes the Obama campaign has been developing over the past few weeks: McCain and Palin are out of touch with the American people, and McCain/Palin is the risky choice compared to Obama.

Here’s a couple of ad spots written with this in mind.

AdManAnt

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Sunday August 31, 2008 · 12:44 PM PDT

2008/08/31 · 12:44

propaganda –noun 1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.

The modern Republican Party has mastered the art of propaganda. Republican operatives have learned to get their talking points across so effectively that an idea that pops into in Karl Rove’s head on Monday morning generally becomes the media’s conventional wisdom by Friday afternoon.

My purpose today is not to condemn them for their success at this. If I detach myself from the actual stakes involved I can even admire the skill involved, the way you might admire the ruthless efficiency of a lion as it goes in for the kill.

But it has now become clear that their skill at propaganda has come at a price. Once the engine of its success, the GOP propaganda machine now threatens to destroy it.

There’s more....

AdManAnt

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Friday August 29, 2008 · 7:41 PM PDT

2008/08/29 · 19:41

Sarah Palin is a governor, and there's long tradition of governors running on Presidential tickets. Four out of our last five presidents have been governors. And Alaska is a huge, beautiful place, the largest of our states when measurured by square milage and the last true bastion of the American wilderness.

Does that mean Sarah Palin is ready for the national stage?

No. Not even close. Sarah Palin is, at best, an obscure local polician.

RSS

BREAKING: Romney Tax Returns Held Hostage! Secret Service Investigates!

About NY-23 From A One-Time Resident

We Are The New Silent Majority (Or, How I Learned to Love Spiro Agnew)

Auditors: Palin's Incompetence Kills Patients

Mobsters Kill 29, Police Decline to Press Charges [satire]

Bill Kristol defends his perfect Sarah on Clothesgate; Gets it wrong as usual

[ad spot] It's the New John McCain Ad!

[ad spots] Did You Know? / Does He Know?

How the Republicans fell for their own propaganda

Alaska makes Delaware look like the big leagues