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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Sunday, November 20, 2011

Lunatics taking over the asylum

By BJ Bjornson

If anyone ever wonders what the difference between the crazies of the left and the crazies on the right is, this story should suffice for one of the exhibits.


The birther wars continue. Orly Taitz, birther queen of California, personally filed a complaint in New Hampshire on Saturday that challenged President Obama�s U.S. citizenship and argued for his removal from the state�s ballot, reports the Concord Monitor.

New Hampshire�s electoral governing body, the Ballot Law Commission, turned down the complaint in a public hearing via 5-0 vote. It got pretty ugly shortly thereafter.

�Traitors!� screamed the members of the attending public. �Treason!�

�You have no decency! You have no honesty! You�re committing treason!�

The group of birthers, which included several New Hampshire state representatives, erupted after the decision, shouting at the commission attorneys as they tried to exit the hearing room. Another state representative apparently suggested committee members should cover their face with a mask if they ever found themselves in his district.


Now admittedly, the article doesn�t mention which party those state representatives were members of, but given Taitz goes on to accuse all of the commission members of being Democrats (wrongly as it turns out), I think it�s safe bet to say the birther contingent was pure Republican.

And that is the basic difference these days. The crazies on the left are actually a fringe that nobody takes too seriously. (Hell, some would argue they don�t even take the mainstream left too seriously anymore these days, even if they shoudl.)

The right, on the other hand, has been electing their crazies to represent them, which is why the Republican primary resembles a clown show, and is scary given they actually control one branch of Congress and may yet win the other two again.



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