For the last time: there will be no health care bill passed

The lede on this NYT article begins “In a surprise setback for Democratic leaders,” and then goes on to describe how Joe Lieberman has said he will not vote for the health care bill, even in its current form: a watered-down compromise of a compromise of a compromise. And all I can think is, which [...]

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Does Fox News falsify research to support their own theories on global warming?

Some say, “Yes.”
After being caught using a hilarious wrong graphic, Fox News has promptly denied that it did anything wrong! We elitists just don’t get how “percents” in a poll can add up to more than a hundred “percent.” (Someone remind me what “per cent” means again?)
In any case, I’m not sure if it’s ironic [...]

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Oh Politico, how I hate you so

The Politico is a true Beltway institution, and emblematic of so much of what is sick with our journalism. Today, John Harris has a piece called “7 stories Obama doesn’t want told.” It’s about controlling the narratives and memes that constitute the image of Obama. Hmm, well that could be interesting. Maybe something about how [...]

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Rush Limbaugh is a victim

I love it when Rush becomes everything he has railed against for years. Race-baiter and racism-accuser? Check.
Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates? “He’s a racist,” Mr. Limbaugh said. “He’s an angry racist.”
Sonja Sotomayor? “She’s a bigot. She’s a racist,” Mr. Limbaugh said.
President Obama? He’s “the biggest reverse racist in history.”
Always the victim/playing the victim card? Check. [...]

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Texas Governor Rick Perry is complicit in murder

And he must realize it. You might recall that a few weeks ago I blogged here, here, and here about Cameron Todd Willingham, the man who was executed by Texas for a crime that never happened. He was put to death for allegedly starting a fire that killed his children, but subsequent examinations showed that [...]

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Concern trolls and health care

I see them more frequently now than I ever have. “Concern troll” is a term with which I’ve become familiar only recently. Urban dictionary has a pretty good explanation:
“In an argument (usually a political debate), a concern troll is someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of [...]

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More he-said-she-said media failure

Rarely does one paragraph so perfectly crystallize so much of what is wrong with the media. But David von Drehle, you achieve just that when you write in Time magazine in your cover story about Glenn Beck and the 9/12 rally in D.C.:
“If you get your information from liberal sources, the crowd numbered about 70,000, [...]

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A peek behind the curtain

A criminal investigation into an Iraq security contractor has revealed some ugly truths about our current occupation/reconstruction efforts there. It’s easy to say that this is one bad apple, but given the report’s detail of the scope of the malfeasance, I doubt that this was an isolated case.
The amount of miscommunication and incompetence-disguised-as-pragmatism is outrageous:
The [...]

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Just so we’re clear…

If you call a reporter a “major league asshole” during your campaign and don’t apologize, you become President of the United States.
If you tell a respected Senator “go fuck yourself” and then feel better afterwards, you stay Vice President of the United States.
If you call your opponents “assholes” — before you ever took the job [...]

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The CIA are a bunch of pussies

The other day, the Washington Post had a piece about how awesome torture was and how it worked, that read as though it were written by Dick Cheney or Stephen Hayes. I’m used to seeing those by now, but it wasn’t in the Op-Ed section. Instead, it was a news story from the front-page section. [...]

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