Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Friday, September 11, 2009

Joe Wilson; the new Republican hero

by Jay McDonough



Wilsontees Rep. Joe "you lie" Wilson was reportedly reprimanded by his Republican colleagues following his outburst during President Obama's health care reform speech to Congress Wednesday night.  He later announced he had called the White House and apologized for his outburst.  It was also reported yesterday that Robert Miller, Wilson's Democratic opponent in his re-election bid, had a huge spike in fundraising following Wilson's little temper tantrum.



Back in the old days, someone would make a mistake and apologize for it.  They might be forgiven, or they might not.  It looks like today, those same folks could end up being made into heroes.



W0721 Rep. Wilson has become something of a celebrity, praised by contingents of Republicans with t-shirts and bumperstickers announcing the latest Joe the Plumber/Sarah Palin/Tea Partier figure for the Republican Party; a loud, uninformed, gullible and willing to lie symbol of how completely screwed up our political process has become.



The news today that Rep. Wilson is now raking in cash for his re-election campaign is, sadly, not a big surprise.  And the video the Congressman has just made to solicit campaign donations is telling about today's poltics: Mr. Wilson spends most of the video attacking those who support these health care reform proposals (as opposed to attacking the health care proposals themselves) and says:

"Please go to JoeWilsonforCongress.com and contribute to my efforts to defeat the proponents of government run health care".



It may be that Rep. Wilson disagrees with the current health care proposals, but what's really important is that the proponents of the bills be defeated.



Andrew Sullivan had a short excerpt from a Pat Buchanan (yeah, that Pat Buchanan) column this morning:

We seem not only to disagree with each other more than ever, but to have come almost to detest one another. Politically, culturally, racially, we seem ever ready to go for each others' throats.





It's hard to imagine this story ends happily.





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