Fair and Balanced?

December 2017
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

OUR LINKS

YubaNet
White House Blog
Watts Up With That?
The Union
Sierra Thread
RL “Bob” Crabb
Barry Pruett Blog

Fair and Balanced?

07 December 2017

George Rebane

I was going to leave be our little conversation on RL Crabb’s blog (here), but subsequent defenders of Bob’s political art motivate me to ask for someone to fill in the question on the right side of the little ‘fair and balanced’ see-saw below. Bob has long maintained that he views the world from some pristine, non-ideological middle, as he doles out his wit and barbs equally at both sides. The record does not support that assertion. But then, I have never claimed the ability to properly place the fulcrum in these matters. Everyone else seems to know how to do that; I must have been standing in the wrong line when that skill was being handed out. In any event, what political art from the Right would balance such an assault on President Trump’s whole family?

Posted in Critical Thinking & Numeracy, Our Country, The Liberal Mind

37 responses to “Fair and Balanced?”

rl crabb

07 December 2017

Ha Ha Ha! Looks like I’ve planted a burr under your saddle, Rebane. Well, for starters you could read the chapter “Us & Them” in my book, Scablands. Or maybe you’ll recall my series “Inept vs. Insane.” (It’s up to the reader to decide which is which.)
So I parodied the Trump family, ala the Addams Family? If you hadn’t noticed, Don, Eric, and Ivanka all have jobs in the campaign and/or the White House, which makes them fair game. Melania is more famous for wearing nothing than a slinky black dress. Which leaves us with little Baron, the boy who never smiles. Okay, I apologize for giving him the Pugsley treatment. All better now?
Too bad you never showed the same outrage at the numerous slurs against the Obama or Clinton family, but then, you didn’t vote for their parents so all’s good.
You hypocrites don’t have much to say about President Pussygrabber or Judge Jailbait. You’ve gotten in bed with them, so quit your bellyaching and take it like the Big Man you claim to be.
For years, I tried to find some common ground with the conservative movement, but like the progressives, I trust you as far as I can Throw you. You’re poison to the idea of democracy and compromise.
Clear enough for you?

LikeLike
George Rebane

07 December 2017

rlcrabb 206pm – Good vitriol Bob. But a careful re-reading of your text reveals that you have decided not to point us to a single cartoon that you consider to balance the one you featured on your blog. I don’t think waving your arm at some arcane collection that doesn’t highlight an equivalent example from the Right quite answers my challenge to you. Most certainly it would not cut it with broader audiences. But the best part are your apologetics to support your home made mid-roader mantle. Since you claim there are so many of such “numerous slurs” from the Right, please point us to but a SINGLE ONE that would allow the rest of us to understand where your perch on the road is located.

LikeLike
Gregory

07 December 2017

There’s no balancing that rant. RL, why didn’t it run in The Union?
“For years, I tried to find some common ground with the conservative movement, but like the progressives, I trust you as far as I can Throw you. You’re poison to the idea of democracy and compromise”
I’m not part of the “conservative movement” Earl, and you won’t talk to me, either. You’ve this bizarre idea that if only the smart people on the left and right would compromise to a middle ground, where you are, all would be well… but you can’t see the middle, either.

LikeLike
Gregory

07 December 2017

So, slavery vs abolition? Where is the happy middle ground?
That was settled a century and a half ago. There is no happy middle ground.
More recently… living constitution or textualist/originalism? Where’s the middle ground there? At the moment, that’s a 5/4 split in the Supremes, favoring the idea that if you don’t like the words in the constitution and what they mean, you need to amend it as has been done many times before. Not get justices in place who will take the Queen of Hearts view as told to Alice… the words mean what she wants them to mean, nothing more, nothing less.
As one who truly does not care what religion the president is, thank goodness we have Goresuch not Garland sitting in the high court now. And the ‘travel ban’ was put in place out of the reach of judges in Hawaii by a 7/2 vote with only Wise Latina Sotomayor and former ACLU attorney Ginsberg voting to allow the clear constitutional powers of the President to control the borders be at the whim of provincial judges.

LikeLike
Gregory

07 December 2017

Regarding the Kid Who Never Smiles…
http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.12991338.1484955525!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/display_960/image.jpg
Looks like a normal smiling kid to me, out and about with dad. Maybe you’re looking for reasons to treat him like an Addams, Earl.

LikeLike
Scott Obermuller

07 December 2017

Oh, let him be. As I mentioned earlier, If the Obamas had decorated the WH in the exact same way, Crabb wouldn’t have said or done anything about it. Haters have to hate.
But this: “You’re poison to the idea of democracy and compromise.”
Crabb is swinging pretty wildly here. He can’t come up with a single instance of any of us conservatives being ‘poison’ to the idea of democracy. That’s just a flat out fabrication, but I always thought he had a good imagination.
As far as the ‘idea’ of compromise – well… Maybe Crabb can give us examples of him compromising on topics such as child rape, murder, etc.
I think Crabb is really talking about what he thinks are things that can be compromised vs what conservatives think can compromised on.
That is a whole different topic.

LikeLike
Walt

07 December 2017

DAMN RL,, You didn’t give credit where due. I guess theft of bitching is fine in your world. You STOLE the words of two of us here.( Yes, word for word) Did Gregory or myself even get a bit of credit from your swiping of what we said? HELL! You didn’t even use my likeness in your illustration! (Now that’s low)
What? don’t have a clue what I’m talking about? ( OK,,, it was a while ago. Your old, and memory’s get short.)
Recall me being buttsore about the county wanting permits to fix one damn board on my deck? (still pissed) Yup you took that and ran.
Gregory( pretty sure it was he,,) pointed out what that permit would generate for the rest of the house. ( You turned him into an inspector with a clipboard going down the list of other things the county can invade.)
Nope, not even a “thanks guys”. I guess that’s what tunists do. Oh well.
Your ONLY good swipe at a Lefty (that I can remember) was CARTMAN.
Still love your work non the less. But you do lean more Left by the week. By Monday you might need a kickstand.

LikeLike
Robert Cross

07 December 2017

Fair and balanced means that extreme right wing propaganda gets the same coverage as the truth in order to confuse people and delay/prevent any timely change for the better while the grifters quomodocunquize. Naw.. tobacco isn’t harmful. There is no ‘real’ proof it causes cancer, right? Just ask the tobacco industry. They have no reason to lie. How many acres of land and how many houses and people need to burn before those nasty climate deniers even begin to recognize that something isn’t right with the weather. Well, if you get your information from Fox, or Breitbart or Daily Caller, or Townhall, or the Heritage Foundation, or Wattsup or Heartland, or any number of billionaire financed fraud mills then there is nothing wrong at all. President Donnie says we need more coal and oil not less ( fyi: so he and his buddies can cash in on their fossil fuel investments while they still can)…In fact, if anything… if climate change is real, it’s not caused by fossil fuels. If the climate is changing for the worse it’s caused by Hillary Clinton.

LikeLike
rl crabb

07 December 2017

You boys seem to have more time on your hands than I do. Lots of jobs to finish up before Christmas and New Years. Why don’t you look through my posts from the last five years or so. I’m sure you could find more than one where I dump on the Dems. It wouldn’t make any difference though. As I’ve said before, one eye blind to anything on the left side. See ya in 2018.

LikeLike
Don Bessee

07 December 2017

The cross one says If the climate is changing for the worse its caused by Hillary Clinton. Well she sure contributes a lot of CO2 on her book shilling tour and never ending list of blame for her own epic fail. 😉

LikeLike
Todd Juvinall

07 December 2017

Justy like all liberal hypocrites, RL takes his little ball and goes home. When faced with questions to back up his slander he cannot. That is why he is not credible in a discussion on partisanship.Just a blithering idiot of the mealy-mouth class,

LikeLike
Scott Obermuller

07 December 2017

Oh dear – the cross one is really crossed up, now.
” Naw.. tobacco isn’t harmful. There is no ‘real’ proof it causes cancer, right? Just ask the tobacco industry. They have no reason to lie.”
I’m trying real hard to connect that to conservative thought.
” How many acres of land and how many houses and people need to burn before those nasty climate deniers even begin to recognize that something isn’t right with the weather.”
Bobby – SoCal has been having nasty fires with houses burning right to the ground for decades. My mother grew up in the Baldwin Park area and I can remember her telling about all sorts of nasty fires. They are ‘worse’ now because there are so many more homes to burn in areas where there used to be nothing but brush. And so many more fire bugs to set them off at just the right time.
I’m sorry all of the dire predictions of doom that the climate change nut cases scared you with haven’t come true, but that’s totally on your end, skippy.

LikeLike
Scott Obermuller

07 December 2017

“You boys seem to have more time on your hands than I do.”
Crabb, you had the time to throw rocks…
Nuff said.

LikeLike
Gregory

07 December 2017

Don’t start nothin’ you can’t or won’t finish, RL. Your ‘toon version of the politics of the USA, Inept v. Insane, is a C- student’s view of American politics. Do you actually read much?
The most insane people I’ve interacted with on the local blogosphere are progs… like your bosom buddy, best friend forever Chris Peterson who, when the Virgina shooter who was hunting GOP congresscritters for real, came to mind as a kindred spirit… hence my referring to him ever since as Chris Hodgekinson. Truly unhinged and taken to inventing shit to throw into the fan.
Then there’s Michael P. Anderson of Clientworks who once intimated Bush II voters should be found out and reeducated. I wonder how that worked out for him.
And of course there’s Robert Cross who is a more placid proggie airhead given to thinking the sorts of thoughts (to elevate them a bit) in his 5:54PM above.

LikeLike
Gregory

07 December 2017

“maybe you’ll recall my series “Inept vs. Insane.” (It’s up to the reader to decide which is which.)”
Oooh, oooh I know this one RL. The insane is the one you drew in a straitjacket. The GOP elephant.

LikeLike
Todd Juvinall

07 December 2017

Once (1992 or so) while traveling to Billings, Montana to visit my wife’s family we decided then to travel west to Spokane, Wahington where my dad was born. Along the interstate, in the panhandle of Idaho, we saw a plaque on the side of the road and stopped. It was positioned to look to the north and at a great b=view of the forest. The plaque said that ONE MILLION acres of this forest burned a hundred years ago. Long before RobbieC and his Climate Change true believers were born.

LikeLike
Walt

07 December 2017

RL.. You say you stick it to both sides. I would believe that only IF,, you had ever drew “O” kneeling on a Muslim prayer rug facing East in the Oval office. I don’t recall seeing anything close to that. Nope, I doubt you would.
I also recall you caved in like a mine shaft when the “draw Mohamed”
crap hit.(or did I miss your rendition?)

LikeLike
Todd Juvinall

07 December 2017

RL never did one Obama cartoon chastising him for anything. If he did he can prove it easily. My guess, nada.

LikeLike
Gregory

07 December 2017

“” Naw.. tobacco isn’t harmful. There is no ‘real’ proof it causes cancer, right? Just ask the tobacco industry. They have no reason to lie.”
I’m trying real hard to connect that to conservative thought. ” Scott O 643
Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes is her magnum opus connecting the Tobacco lobby tactics with ‘climate denialism’. Real loony toons stuff from a non-scientist pretending to have gravitas in science. I recall watching her on C-SPAN with her co-author promoting the book at an LA Times Book Fair, and she was asked about Freeman Dyson, perhaps the greatest scientist of the 20th century who is still living and thinking. Her answer was that his support of skeptic positions was just because he’s old and out of the limelight and saying outrageous things about the climate was his way of getting attention. In short, he was old and in the way… ignore him.
Oreskes’ co author tried to tamp her down when she started in on Dyson, saying something like “He’s still real sharp” but she ignored it. Personally, I think Freeman Dyson will be smarter than Naomi Oreskes ever was 10 minutes after be breathes his last.
Dyson lauded one of my favorite scientists of today, Nir Shaviv, as the two got to know each other at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study (Dyson’s lair for decades) where Shaviv spent a year sabbatical as an IBM Einstein Fellow. A nice gig if you can get it… Naomi has been bouncing around herself, landed at Harvard not long ago.
Her brother (Michael?) gained some notoriety recently as he was the guy bounced from NPR News management for sexual improprieties.

LikeLike
jon smith

07 December 2017

Todd 7:03- Your shallowness and ignorance of anything outside of your minuscule home range is truly staggering. It’s hard to believe you only learned of the largest fire in American history by looking at a sign on the side of the road. Most of us learned about “the big burn” in grade school and then studied it in college (did you graduate? I didn’t think so). It was a pivotal event in our country’s history with national ramifications we live with today . . . and you hadn’t even heard of it. Amazing.

LikeLike
Don Bessee

07 December 2017

As if most @ 833. Hey, lets poll the NU honor students. 😉

LikeLike
Todd Juvinall

07 December 2017

jon smith | 07 December 2017 at 08:33 PM
Say what? You are truly unhinged and every post proves it. And I don’t have to list my life accomplishments to know you are a failure in life as much as I have neen a siccess. But you liberals are really too full of yourself. What you are full of though is well known.

LikeLike
Todd Juvinall

07 December 2017

And jon smith, pot growing is not something you should be proud of.

LikeLike
jon smith

08 December 2017

Todd I congratulate you on your ability to mangle every sentence in single post. You are quite the siccess.

LikeLike
Todd Juvinall

08 December 2017

Why yes, I make you look the fool with every word. Looks like I was right.

LikeLike
jon smith

08 December 2017

Regarding the fulcrum and your question, “what political art from the Right would balance such an assault on President Trump’s whole family?” Unfortunately we can’t upload art to fulfill your request but in Google images, search “hang Barak o nigger” and other popular and creative right wing jingles. You’ll have to move the fulcrum under “President Pussygrabber” to get a fair and balanced teeter totter.

LikeLike
Gregory

08 December 2017

‘jon smith’, the balance GR was looking for was in art from RL Crabb, who yesterday wrote

““We hold collectivism in any and all its forms to be a social disease that is infectious, virulent, and in its progress always fatal to the society that embraces it.”[quoting Rebane]
So when that’s where your negotiations begin, what’s the point of negotiating at all?

Golly RL, I thought the negotiations began with the US Constitution, its Amendments including the Bill of Rights, the California constitution and other federal and state laws. We already have a Republic, the question is, can we keep it?

LikeLike
George Rebane

08 December 2017

jons 839am – You are really denigrating our resident political cartoonist RL Crabb with that remark. I don’t think any RR reader believes Bob to be some fringe element of the Left. To most people Bob’s work shows him to be a distinctly left-of-center political commentator with the ability to occasionally see the follies perpetrated by his ideological cohort. That you can only cite examples from the Right’s fringe speaks volumes, and underlines the thrust of my commentary. To balance your citations, anyone here could point out equivalents from the Left’s fringe. To spell it out, I maintain that the mainstream Left has taken another lurch in that direction with the entry into broad-brush condemnations like Bob’s above effort. I haven’t been able to find an equivalent departure from the mainstream Right, and apparently neither have you.

LikeLike
Todd Juvinall

08 December 2017

I have never uttered the “N” word in my life. So jon smith, you are truly unhinged and a racist.

LikeLike
George Rebane

08 December 2017

Gentlemen – your exchange of ad hominems is getting really boring. Stick to the topic.

LikeLike
jon smith

08 December 2017

GR-Regarding the pivot of 9:25 – I answered your question directly. If you were asking your question metaphorically I didn’t (and still don’t) get it. I’ll let Bob decide if he feels I was in any way denigrating his work.

LikeLike
George Rebane

08 December 2017

jons 950am – were you to be designated as the Left’s counterpart to the outrages you cite from the Right, I suppose then that you would feel quite at home. IMHO, I don’t think Bob would like to be placed in the symmetrical part of that ideological spectrum as you have so explicitly done in your 839am. And I am not asking the question metaphorically – what part of “please point us to but a SINGLE ONE …” gives you difficulty?

LikeLike
jon smith

08 December 2017

11:22 Here is your query in it’s entirety, “what political art from the Right would balance such an assault on President Trump’s whole family?”
I provided a perfectly reasonable answer and now you are waffling by claiming to have asked an entirely different question, gaslighting my reply, and putting words into Bob’s mouth when he is quite capable of speaking for himself.

LikeLike
George Rebane

08 December 2017

jons 1137am – a more careful reading of the linked conversation with Bob, here and on Bob’s blog, and examination of the above graphic, calling for filling in the empty box, should convince you that no “entirely different question” was ever asked. In any event, if you didn’t understand it then, can you grok it now?

LikeLike
Todd Juvinall

08 December 2017

I applaud your attempts to make sense of something that makes no snese. Liberals are truly unhinged.

LikeLike
Bonnie McGuire

08 December 2017

The arguing about left and right gets ridiculous and distracting on purpose…by the mentality that got it started. There are tests to see what you really are. Simple common sense proves it without taking the test. Far right and left are the same….big government controlling and dictating. Moderate is less government and freedom of, by and for the people who produce everything. Most of us are moderate leaning a little left or right. Considering the Golden Rule’s do unto others as you would have them do to you encompasses the 10 commandments. Those intelligent men who put great effort into creating our Constitution understood this.

LikeLike
Gregory

08 December 2017

George 11:49
My interpretation of your challenge was for art to be placed right of the fulcrum… from RL (Mr. Balanced) Crabb’s body of work.
I also recall RL angrily defending Reinette Senum’s Doghouses for the Homeless initiative and Stephen Frisch of the wretchedly misnamed Sierra Business Council as at least doing something.
Doing the wrong thing sucks the oxygen out of the room for useful work to be done.

LikeLike