Holy shit, Senator Elizabeth Warren apparently murdered a bankster in the Senate today:
I’m honest to goodness physically aroused.
This post is in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Fuck The Middle-Class, Fuck The Poor, Proud to Be A Democrat, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You
Holy shit, Senator Elizabeth Warren apparently murdered a bankster in the Senate today:
I’m honest to goodness physically aroused.
This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance
Colorado is releasing their menu of plans for the Exchanges for 2017. Unsubsidized rates went up and the number of offerings declined. That is bad news.
The good news is Colorado seems to have adopted a Silver Gap strategy which should lead to higher enrollment and healthier pools.
The spread between the #1 and #2 Silver must have increased significantly to produce this type of cost savings.
by DougJ| 101 Comments
This post is in: Our Failed Media Experiment
I’m a bit surprised that so many even-the-liberals (who can use usually be counted on to agree that W is a good man or whatever) are turning forcefully against both sides do it.
Here’s E. J. Dionne, on a break from agreeing with his good friend David on the Snooze Hour, noticing that “the coverage of Trump and Clinton does suggest that a media exquisitely sensitive to conservative criticism now overcompensates against the other side.” Here’s Nick Kristof, on a break from chasing sex workers, observing that faux fairness is normalizing Trump.
The often excessively mild-mannered Kevin Trump Drum puts it quite well:
I don’t think I can count the number of reporters who have investigated the Clinton Foundation or the number of pieces they’ve written. The net result has been (a) no actual serious misconduct uncovered, but (b) a steady drumbeat of stories implying that something improper was going on.
Now then: how many reporters have been investigating the Trump Foundation? I might be missing someone, but basically the answer is one: David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post. The net result has been (a) plenty of actual misconduct uncovered, but (b) very little in the way of public attention to it.
This is why so many people can somehow believe that Hillary Clinton is less trustworthy than Donald Trump. In truth, it’s not even close. Trump is probably the world champion in the sport of lying; he cares about nothing but enriching himself and getting even with his enemies; and his political positions change with the wind. He’s just about the least trustworthy person on the planet.
Gonna make you, make you, make you noticePost + Comments (101)
This post is in: Election 2016, Clown Shoes, Our Failed Media Experiment
Cancelling my subscription last week just looks smarter and smarter. Today’s “good lord what the hell are they thinking” moment is provided by public editor Liz Spayd:
Suppose that Donald Trump stops insisting President Obama was born outside the United States, and then saddles Hillary Clinton with starting the rumor in the first place. Is that stretching the truth? An unfounded assertion? An error? A falsehood?
Or is it a flat-out lie?
The New York Times voted for “lie” in writing last Friday about Trump’s decision to abandon the birther movement, using the word in two stories and a front-page headline: “Trump Gives Up a Lie but Refuses to Repent.”
It’s not all that often that The Times newsroom throws around the word “lie,” but Trump seems to bring it out in the place. Another story that ran in recent days used the term to describe Trump’s deception on his plans for a $1 trillion small-business tax cut.
How about calling something a lie WHEN IT IS A FUCKING LIE? But wait, it gets better:
I asked the political editor Carolyn Ryan about when that word gets clearance for use. Her definition of a lie is when there’s a deliberate attempt to deceive — when someone knowingly fails to tell the truth.
“A lie is different from the spin, exaggerations and squabbling between candidates that are commonplace in politics,” she said. “It is not a word we will use lightly.”
These are the factors that Ryan said would determine the conditions under which the word is used:
■ It is not used for matters of opinion, but only when the facts are demonstrably clear.
■ Intentionality is important — in the case of Trump and birtherism, he repeated the lie for years, in the face of overwhelming facts that disproved it, suggesting this was a deliberate attempt by Trump to deceive.
■ It is not used to police more frivolous disputes among political candidates or political factions.
“Lie” is a loaded word, all right, a favorite of campaign operatives. You score every time you can get the media to catch your opponent in one, and it’s into the bonus round if you can get them to actually call it a “lie.”
Oh, jesus fucking christ. According to the NYT’s alchemical handbook, a lie is no longer a lie when it is a minor or frivolous lie. These people have completely lost the plot and the NY Times is a rudderless organization at this point. Right now there are thousands of journalism professors hoping their students who work at the NY Times don’t have their school name published in their bio.
If a house was on fire, and the NY Times was the fire department, the news team would come up and describe in glorious detail the size and color of the flames, the smell of the smoke, the extent of the damage, all the while missing Donald Trump sitting on a pile of empty kerosene containers juggling road flares. The analysis squad would then swoop in and point out that this is going to make living there hard, that other house have been on fire before and were rebuilt, and that really, both sides have had house fires and right now the polling data says it is 50/50 as to whether the fire should be put out.
Ross Douthat would write that the fire was God’s will, Brooks would note that sometimes true conservatism means just letting things burn and that out of this may arise a Burkean renewal of spirit, political arsonist Maureen Dowd would run to the back yard and set the shed on fire before putting on her Pradas and calling in to flirt with Don Imus, and Paul Krugman would single-handedly save all the occupants of the household and then pass out from exhaustion as the only person manning a firehose.
A couple days later, Liz Spayd would show up to wank about the true nature of a fire hydrant, when it is and is not appropriate to use one, describe the platonic ideal of firefighting, and then piss on the ashes. A month later Dean Baquet would show up reeking of absinthe and crab boil, mumble something about needing to do a better job next time, and then fuck off out of sight for a month until the next time the New York Times shits the bed.
The whole organization is fucking hopelessly lost right now.
Absolutely Rudderless at the New York TimesPost + Comments (139)
by DougJ| 14 Comments
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Readership Capture
We raised over 8K in the last 15 hours, let’s keep it going.
You know the drill, we’re nine hundred ninety two thou short of a millPost + Comments (14)
by DougJ| 114 Comments
This post is in: Election 2016, Republicans in Disarray!
If you haven’t switched from NYT to WaPo for political coverage yet, here’s one more reason:
Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses, according to interviews and a review of legal documents.
[….]“I represent 700 nonprofits a year, and I’ve never encountered anything so brazen,” said Jeffrey Tenenbaum, who advises charities at the Venable law firm in Washington. After The Post described the details of these Trump Foundation gifts, Tenenbaum described them as “really shocking.”
Meanwhile the Times is writing a lot about how the dumpster bombing is affecting New Yorkers’ fee-fees. We all have sympathy for the victims of the bombs of course, but my guess is that most people in Manhattan don’t wet their beds quite as often as the media (and let’s be blunt, ISIS) would like them to.
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 96 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
Folks, the update hit last afternoon and it was pretty undramatic. There are likely a few issues here and there, so please use this post to report them. I will be working on other things this morning and early pm, but will check this post before I consider my work done.
There is no guarantee that I will fix everything or do what is asked, but I will see what I can do for things that make sense or are truly bad. Thanks to all for your kind words and help in identifying remaining issues.
ETA: Back button is fixed and HTML help hidden for now. I know there are a few small issues to solve on the mobile site too, but since most users access the desktop site, it’s my priority right now.
Update Done: Use This Post To Report IssuesPost + Comments (96)