I admit that I'm "at wits' end." You see, I'm sick of propaganda.
After all, day after day the MSM and Cable TV routinely espouse outrageous misrepresentations (and sometimes even downright lies), yet many of our fellow citizens appear to be absolutely oblivious to this fact. Read below the fold...
(This Open Letter to Bernie Sanders was posted on November 20. I'm very glad I can now post it here on my favorite political blog.)
Dear Bernie,
Today, you told the “Democrats stop caving in . . . ” to the interests of corporations, the tea party, wealthy individuals, and the Republicans in Congress. The only problem with your fiery statement is that you began it by “caving in” to them yourself. You did this by immediately legitimizing their frame of reference by saying:
“Here is something we all can agree on: Federal deficits are a serious problem.”
If you're really tired of the bullying then I think you need to stop believing in and start denying the basic premise the Republicans, the Blue Dogs, most Democrats and the Administration are all using to bully you and us into agreeing to spending cuts in key discretionary programs and entitlement programs, and also into not moving for more spending on jobs, better entitlement programs, including Medicare for All, and better discretionary programs we need to solve our many national problems. That premise is that the United States of America, the issuer of its own fiat currency, and the ultimate source of all US Dollars can run out of the money needed to continue to deficit spend and to pay its bills. Read below the fold...
I don't really mean to single out Gallup here. Well, I guess I do; but they're certainly not the only guilty party in the polling industry of doing what I'm about to rail against. Let's begin by stipulating that public polls cannot escape ideological and selection biases in how they frame questions and alternative closed end response choices. Nevertheless, if poll results are to be considered even minimally descriptive of public opinion, they must make a concerted effort to include multiple frames and not exclude response choices that go beyond the dominant ideology. After all what good are polls that channel opinion in pre-determined directions compared to those that allow respondents to express their own tendencies? Read below the fold...
As the United States Government approaches “running of money” to pay its bills, news articles and pronouncements by politicians about the debt ceiling dispute focus on several things. First, they talk about the dire consequences of defaulting on our obligations. Second, they talk about the need for spending cuts that will put us on a long-term path to balancing the budget, getting a Government surplus, and improving the debt-to-GDP ratio. Third, they talk about the debt ceiling preventing the Government from issuing further debt instruments to “fund” paying for its obligations. Read below the fold...
I couldn’t pass up commenting on this NYT op-ed "Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt" by Julie Zhuo. Basically, Zhuo equates anonymity online with trolling. How much better it would be, she thinks, if we attached our real names to our posts and comments. What makes this especially rich is that Zhuo works for Facebook, a site notorious for its poor privacy controls. So I suppose if we all used our real names it might not improve "civility" on the internet, like that should be a priority anyway, but it would certainly solve a problem for Facebook. Read below the fold...
Before I share some incredible quotes from a profound article by Ted Rall, I just heard talk on MSM news about the depressing jobs situation. WH response is “muted” the reporter said. A clip of Obama was then shown speaking with “respectful” concern, reminding us of the slow trek to recovery. After all, all that money gone. That darn deficit.
Let’s see, best he had for Main Street was “Cash for Clunkers” and asks us now to use whatever is left of our “audacity of hope” for those eventual “green jobs”. Right! Best for Wall Street, however, here’s all our cash along with the national credit card and the power also to continue unencumbered to shake down the broken citizenry. Knock yourselves out as much and long as you guys want! Read below the fold...
What frustrates single payer advocates the most is how they have been sidelined from the national health finance reform debate. People who support single payer, or enhanced and improved Medicare for All, have long waited for the chance to present their case to the American people for real health care reform via a single payer method. With the ever increasing cost of care, and the growing number of uninsured and under insured Americans, single payer advocates view inclusion of proposals that support a one payer system for financing health care an essential part of the debate. Read below the fold...
Are there any limits to what can be said about political opponents? Should there be any limits? Does anything go, no matter who is the target? Are we all no better now than Karl Rove? Read below the fold...
In what is being heralded as one of the most momentous and politically astute moves of this extended primary campaign, Hillary Clinton's Communication Director, Howard Wolfson, has signaled that the Clinton Campaign will be withdrawing from the North Carolina contest and focusing all of their efforts on the other May 6th primary in the state of Indiana. Read below the fold...
The last post I wrote on this site took us through the backdoor sliders that Rove and Atwater plunked on Democrats in the Republicans’ last successful bids. At first, I was going to examine how some of the previous backdoor sliders were being used today(The Dean Scream morphing into The Hillary Cackle, for example), but recent events have pushed that one to the far burner.
While it looks like the Rezko situation, which I first believed was going to be the Backdoor Slider that makes Obama freeze at the plate for Strike Three, and would give McCain the White House at that point, I’ve come to realize that Rezko will be the frontal assault – or the High-Inside Fastball that Rove and company will throw at him. McCain, thanks to the Read below the fold...
Blame it on Paul Krugman—he started it! (explanation below)
FWIW, by Buffalo Springfield
Last week, a songwriter here in Nashville asked our DFA group, "Where are OUR war protest songs? They're being written and recorded--but the radio still won't play them!" Read below the fold...
