We did everything just the way grownups would have. Why didn’t it work?

— Piggy, “Lord of the Flies”

Right-wing bloggers (Michelle Malkin, Adam Baldwin, Katie Pavlich) have been hyping a story lately of a 16-year old conservative girl who was purportedly subjected to “vulgar comments from progressives” after recording a youtube video arguing in favor of the North Carolina amendment outlawing gay marriage. The girl is now scheduled to appear on Fox and Friends on Wednesday morning to pass along her story.

The original post from the girl included four purported examples of “vulgar comments from the Left,” and I absolutely condemn the comments (though one is not really in the same class as the others). But one thing that jumped out immediately was that one of the comments ( “I repeat queerbait, don’t expect me to endorse it!”) was from someone named “ACORNSUCKS.” Yeah, that name doesn’t exactly sound like someone from “the Left.” In fact, if you look at ACORNSUCK’s youtube page, you’ll see that the account routinely favorites videos about Mitt Romney. Furthermore, in the original youtube comments, it’s pretty clear that ACORNSUCKS is defending the youtube video and attacking people arguing in favor of gay marriage. For example:

So the author was being deliberately dishonest to suggest that this comment was representative of “the Left.”

With this in mind, I decided to look at the other 3 comments used as examples of “vulgarity from the Left.” Someone called TheAtheist79 said the following:

This bitch is Psycho!

OK, so this guy has “atheist” in his name, he’s got to be a lefty, right? I don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t seem that way. The actual youtube account for TheAtheist79 is now gone. However, if you do a google search for “theAtheist79” what you find is a lot of comments in a lot of different places that are primarily focused on arguing against the existence of human-influenced climate change. For example:

So yeah, a climate change denier. Not exactly a defining trait of “the Left.’

Another comment was from funnykoreantv:

you think you’re brave because you come out in public spewing your ignorance? no that just makes you foolish. the very reason you make a video is to spread ideas and discussion to people whom you’ve never met. so people make inferences from your video and its up to you to make sure you’re complete with your portrayal. here, you portray stupidity and ignorance.

I can’t really tell from the youtube profile whether this person is liberal or conservative, but the comment wasn’t really that vulgar, at least compared to the others.

So that leaves the last, and definitely worst (illegal even?) comment from UniversalHourglass:

Hey, you really seem like one stupid c*nt. That being said, I’d still let you wrap yours lips around my c*ck.’

This is a more complicated case than the others. UniversalHourglass makes fun of conservatives in the video comments. And if you look at his youtube feed, he also clearly doesn’t like Mitt Romney. On the other hand, he also hates Occupy Wall Street, and routinely uses the words “ni**ers” and “fa**ots.” Furthermore, he tells both men and women that he would “do” them and even makes vulgar suggestions that he’s pleasuring himself. In other words, if you look at his feed, the thing that stands out is not that he’s “liberal” or “conservative,” but rather that he’s a completely unhinged looney who clearly intentionally says offensive stuff to get a rise out of people. So claiming that one nutbag that says offensive and perverted stuff to pretty much everyone on the internet, both left and right, is somehow revealing about “the Left” is clearly ridiculous.

So out of 4 claims of “vulgar comments from the Left” maybe one of them is 1/2 true. But on the bright side, that’s a better batting average than James O’Keefe!

Today, Breitbart.com ace blogger Dan Riehl tweeted the latest conspiracy theory to hit the wingnut blogosphere:

RT @AureliusPundit: Did White House dr Photo of President “Throwing” Football?- tinyurl.com/cdg8z7c

— DanRiehl (@DanRiehl) May 21, 2012

The link goes to “Pundit Press,” where “Aurelius” is analyzing the pixels in a photo tweeted by the White House…

Continue reading…

Andrew Kaczynski discovered a 2002 interview that sheds more light on the situation with Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital and the Ampad paper company, and it doesn’t make Romney look any better: Former Bain Executive: Romney Bears Blame for Ampad Layoffs.

According to a 2002 interview with former managing director of Bain Capital Marc Wolpow, Romney was directly responsible for Ampad’s layoffs. Wopow and a fellow Bain partner sat on the board of directors of Ampad, and were responsible with carrying out the Bain business plan that caused the layoffs.

“My job was to maximize the profits to Bain Capital’s partners from the Ampad transaction,” Wolpow told the Globe in 2002.

Wolpow said Romney was responsible for the business plan carried out by Bain in Indiana.”Mitt’s employees executed that transaction,” he said. “We carried out the business plan. He was CEO of the firm.”

”I reported directly to Mitt Romney … You can’t be CEO of Bain Capital and say, `I really don’t know what my guys were doing.”

Still pictures will be available at http://www.corypoole.com

700 pictures through a Coronado Solar Max 60 Double Stack telescope were used to make this video. The Telescope has a very narrow bandpass allowing you to see the chromosphere and not the much brighter photosphere below it. The music was composed in Abelton Live.

(h/t: Dangerous Minds.)

The new advertisement from the Obama campaign continues their devastating criticism of Mitt Romney’s vulture capitalism techniques, with the story of the plundering of SCM Office Supplies.

Meanwhile, Newark mayor Cory Booker is walking back his criticism of the Obama campaign’s ads today — but not entirely.

The Obama team saw Booker equating attacks on Bain Capital with attacks on Rev. Jeremiah Wright — he said almost exactly those words — and knew they had a political mess to clean up.

“This election, like all other elections, is going to be a choice between two candidates, two records and two visions for the country,” said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt on a conference call Monday morning. “We’ve not heard an affirmative vision from [Romney].”

Trur [sic] enough. But, it’s also clear from watching the entirety of Booker’s video that he isn’t really walking back his comments as much as he is trying to provide more context than is typically available on a Sunday show roundtable appearance.

Watch Booker’s video; it’s obvious he doesn’t like the negativity of the campaign — on both sides — and despite what we can only assume was heavy pressure by the Obama team to fix the glitch, he isn’t willing to entirely walk back his comments.