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AP asks if Obama is too articulate
Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press has written the most insipid news analysis on the Obama presidency in recent memory. Here’s the key passage, which culminates in Sidoti asking if Obama is “obnoxiously articulate”: Obama has been a constant presence in the mass media as he expands the bureaucracy’s reach into the private sector while
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Bill Maher spreads flu vaccine myths
The NYT’s Tara Parker-Pope has a great fact-checking post on the misinformation about the H1N1 “swine flu” vaccine being promoted by Bill Maher on his HBO show: The talk show host Bill Maher is best known for his pointed political commentary. But lately he has been dispensing surprisingly unscientific medical advice about flu and the
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Flu vaccine myths pervasive
Things are looking grim on the H1N1 “swine flu” vaccine misperception front. Know-nothing pundits like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill Maher are already suggesting that the vaccine is unnecessary or dangerous. These beliefs are apparently widespread — fewer than half of all parents are currently planning to vaccinate their children, and many of them
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This American Life on health care
Back in May of last year, I recommended a This American Life episode on the financial crisis titled “The Giant Pool of Money”. Let me do the same with part one of their new health care primer, which is titled “More is Less” (part two is coming next week). The portion I’ve listened to thus
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DNC compares GOP to terrorists
In a rejoinder to criticism of Obama’s Nobel Prize by RNC chair Michael Steele, DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse smeared the GOP as having “thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the Taliban and Hamas”: “The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the Taliban and Hamas this morning –
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Paul Broun smears Nancy Pelosi
Via Talking Points Memo, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) recently called Nancy Pelosi one of the “domestic enemies of the Constitution” shortly after saying that “[Second Amendment] gun rights are actually critical to prevent treason in America” (emphasis added): We’ve lost a lot of freedom in America. People just don’t understand how much we’ve lost. I
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McCaughey: Still a worthy target?
CJR’s Greg Marx has a nice post up assessing the value of targeting professional health care dissembler Betsy McCaughey. On the one hand, as he notes, she’s had a profoundly negative impact on mainstream debate and deserves to be “named and shamed” for her deceptions. For that reason, I’m happy to see TNR publishing a
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The postmodernists at Fox News
Continuing my series documenting the turn toward postmodernism on the right, here’s a disturbing quote from a Fox News executive that was flagged by Jon Chait at TNR: “The fact that our numbers are up 30 plus in the news arena on basic cable I’d like to think is a sign that we are just
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Washington Post soft on Orly Taitz
Did the world really need a Washington Post profile of almost 2500 words on the “charming but ferocious tenacity” of crazed birther activist Orly Taitz? It is, as the Washington Independent’s David Weigel points out, “possibly the least critical thing ever written about this severely disturbed person who’s encouraging the military to rebel against the
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Revisiting Obama’s health care speech
Back on Sept. 9, I predicted that President Obama’s speech to Congress on health care was “not likely to change much in terms of public opinion” based on previous political science research. A few days later, I noted weak and inconsistent evidence of an effect (a claim that was disputed by Nate Silver). University of