NewsTrust - Media and Politics - Most Recent Stories: Opinion

Yes, Sarah, There is a Media Conspiracy

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

True/Slant - By Matt Taibbi - Nov. 23 (Opinion) - Is the media out to get Sarah Palin? It seems like most of the letters I get are insisting that I admit it. “Surely you can’t deny,” writes one woman from Florida, “that no political figure in American history has had to put up with what Sarah Palin has had to put up with from the mainstream media.” Now, this is the part of this red-blue schtick where I’m supposed to strike back without thinking and re-hash the history of, say, the Monica Lewinsky scandal in rebuttal and then, as the argument progresses, do the whole “I know you are but what am I?” thing until the end of time. I’ve decided from now on that I’m just not going to go there with any of this culture-war bullshit. It’s exhausting. I mean, hell, if you want to argue over who’s more justified in wallowing in media victimhood, that’s not a fight I mind losing. Mazel tov!

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If It Were Me, I'd Be Embarrassed

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By David Vines - Nov. 21 (Opinion) - Last Wednesday, a media firestorm erupted after a seventeen-year-old girl named Jackie was interviewed by MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell while standing in line during Sarah Palin's Michigan book signing.

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Sarah Palin, WWE Star

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TrueSlant - By Matt Taibbi - Nov. 21 (Opinion) - Obama knows the long odds against a right-wing populist winning the presidency, no matter how good she looks in a skirt or running clothes, brandishing a gun. He shouldn’t be too cocky, however, because the death of the center is ultimately a problem

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Deficit hawks attacking the wrong prey

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By David Sirota - Nov. 16 (Opinion) - When the House considered a health care expansion proposal that the CBO says will reduce the deficit by $11 billion a year, tea-party protesters and Congress' self-described "fiscal conservatives" opposed it on cost grounds. At the same time, almost none of them objected when Congress passed a White House-backed bill to spend $636 billion on defense in 2010. The hypocrisy is stunning

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TALIBAN = 9/11?? Afghanistan by Hypnosis

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Greg Palast - By Greg Palast - Nov. 15 (Opinion) - On September 11, 2001, my office building, the World Trade Center, was attacked by al Qaeda, a murder cult of Saudi Arabians, funded by Saudi Arabians. And so, in response to the Saudis' attack, America invaded ... Afghanistan. Like, HUH? And here we go again. New York Times headline last Friday: "Pakistani Army, In Its Campaign In Taliban Stronghold, Finds A Hint Of 9/11."

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The Stupid Virus (VIDEO)

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - Nov. 14 (Comedy News) - "SuperNews!"--aka the guys that brought you the Twouble with Twitters, Larry King interviewing the Large Hadron Collider and Emoticon Wars--have returned this week to bring you the answer to this question: Why are people so stupid? Turns out it's a virus spread by an Obama-hating monkey. He's responsible for birthers, the people who equate health care reform to the Holocaust, and Rush Limbaugh.

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Palin agonistes

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Howard Kurtz - Nov. 13 (Opinion) - You have to feel a twinge of sympathy for Sarah Palin.

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Josh Silver: Too Big to Block? Why Obama Must Stop the Comcast-NBC Merger

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Josh Silver - Nov. 13 (Opinion) - This train wreck of a deal will hurt all over. It will mean increased costs for cable television service; currently free online NBC content locked behind a pay wall; less opportunity for the distribution of independent media; even fewer choices and less programming diversity.

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Jon Stewart Catches Sean Hannity Falsifying Footage To Make GOP Protest Appear Bigger

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Nov. 11 (Comedy News) - Sean Hannity and his team did more than cover the event. They not only inflated the number in attendance with their words, but actually used footage from a heavily-attended protest this summer to make this health care rally appear more popular. Hannity even pointed out that this was a huge crowd for a Thursday, when the protest footage they used was from a Saturday.

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The Real Danger of 'One Big Regulator'

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - Nov. 11 (Opinion) - Financial regulation is the next item on the political horizon, and it doesn't have to be the deathly dull wonk-battle that it sounds like. In fact, if the Democrats do their job, it can just as easily become a platform for addressing the greatest issues of them all. Our current way of regulating the financial system is dysfunctional. Oversight is dispersed among numerous confusing bodies that at times have seemed to be racing each other to the bottom. Setting up One Big Regulator would end that problem. The Obama administration's plan is to have the Federal Reserve regulate banks that might pose a "systemic risk" if they were to fail. Critics suggest the Fed is too close to the banks that it would be charged with cracking down on. What's more, the Fed's main task is monetary policy, so regulating banks would never receive the attention it deserves.

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Gordon Brown and Afghanistan: The hardest call of all

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - Nov. 11 (Opinion) - Gordon Brown can be blamed for many things about the way he has run the war in Afghanistan: not having a proper strategy, failing to communicate, failing to earn the respect of his senior generals or to anticipate a critical demand for helicopters or vehicles. But what he should not be attacked for is trying to talk honestly and honourably to Jacqui Janes, whose 20-year old son James was killed fighting in Helmand. Encounters between prime ministers and voters can be pivotal. No one will forget the encounter between Diana Gould and Margaret Thatcher over which way the Belgrano was sailing when it was sunk by a British submarine. Nor when Sharron Storer nobbled Tony Blair about cancer services during an election. But this was not one of those ...

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Copenhagen already a success

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Globe and Mail - By Bruce Anderson - Nov. 10 (Opinion) - There is a huge dysfunction between the way the average voter comes at these issues and the way policy spokespeople in the corporate, environmental NGO and government worlds often do. And at no time is this more visible than when mega climate/carbon events like Copenhagen come around. Most people are worried that the planet is under a lot of pressure, and many believe the climate is changing as a result. Considerably fewer have examined the science behind climate change, and fewer still the complex formulae that are at the heart of greenhouse-gas reduction targets.

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Animal empathy and its political implications

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Frans de Waal - Nov. 10 (Opinion) - Are Americans lacking in empathy? You would almost think so hearing Rush Limbaugh mock Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's symptoms or Missouri Rep. Cynthia Davis opposing school lunches, saying that "hunger can be a positive motivator." The latest indicator came when Arizona Senator Jon Kyl felt that there was no need for employers to cover maternity care since he himself had never had any need for it.

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Why Are the Loudest Political Voices the Most Extreme?

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ABC News - By Lee Dye - Nov. 09 (Opinion) - Those bombastic self-appointed spokespersons who rant from both the political right and left are likely driven by the conviction that their extreme views are shared by the majority of the members of their political party, but they are probably wrong, according to new research.

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Fear, Psychology, and American Voting Behavior

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Dan Agin - Nov. 09 (Comment) - Predicting American voting behavior is a game played by pollsters, politicians, and professional gamblers, and between now and the Congressional elections in 2010 you can bet your bippy that our biannual circus will be in full swing again.

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Obama watched documentary last night? FOX botched this one… | csmonitor.com

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:34:09 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - Nov. 04 -

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Glenn Beck's Hotline to Nowhere

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Thomas Frank - Nov. 04 (Opinion) - Glenn Beck, the popular Fox News host, has a red telephone on his desk that never seems to ring. Every now and then, in a moment of acute frustration, he will pick it up and give the camera his trademark pleading-puppy look. What Mr. Beck wants to hear from the phone are answers, and he wants to hear them from the highest authority in the land: the phone, he says, is "a dedicated line right to the White House." And when Mr. Beck gets things wrong, he wants his antagonists on Pennsylvania Avenue to correct him. But "They don't call. They're not going to call." One of the specific answers Mr. Beck wanted, on one of the days I watched his program last week, had to do with White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, who has been caught on film quoting one of those Mao Zedong aphorisms that wouldn't look out of place on a motivational poster. She also remarked that Mao was one of her "favorite political philosophers," an honor the Chinese Communist shared with Mother Teresa. Obviously Ms. Dunn was yet another person who deserved to be added to the long list of radicals that Mr. Beck had uncovered within the government. What's more, no one would call that red phone to reassure Mr. Beck, to tell him that the Obama administration isn't crawling with traitors or to explain why his many nightmare scenarios will not actually come to pass.

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Whaddaya Mean Obama Hasn't Done Anything?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Esquire - By John H. Richardson - Nov. 03 (Comment) - A blow-by-blow breakdown of the young president's first year reveals that today's frustration stems not from a lack of policy so much as a lack of common ground. Therein lies the myth of the American center.

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Iraq & Afghan Wars: Just Give Me Some Truth

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Nov. 03 (Opinion) - When it came to the war in Iraq, “I should have been the canary in the coal mine,” Alissa Rubin wrote this week in the New York Times. “But like so many others around me, I did not want to believe what I saw.”

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22 Things Dick Cheney Can't Recall About the Plame Case

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Nick Baumann - Oct. 31 (Opinion) - Notes from former Vice President Dick Cheney's interview with the FBI about the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA identity were finally released on Friday afternoon after a lengthy legal battle. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued the Justice Department last year to obtain the interview notes; a judge finally ordered their release on October 1. In the interview, Cheney demonstrated a behavior common among Bush administration officials under investigation: he couldn't remember much of anything. Here's a non-comprehensive list of 22 things Dick Cheney claimed he couldn't recall about the Plame case, in the order they appear in the FBI's notes:

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Lieberman Twists the Knife

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Robert Scheer - Oct. 28 (Opinion) - Is there a more hypocritical figure in American politics than Joe Lieberman? The Connecticut senator declared Tuesday that he would support a filibuster of any health care reform bill that has a public option -- even the version with the "trigger" compromise accepted by Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe -- because it might cost money Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/lieberman-twists-the-knif_b_336457.html

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Derailing unprecedented health reform would be unprecedented

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

bestoftheleftpodcast.com - By Jay - Oct. 28 (Opinion) - Edition #309 Act 1: Kid is denied healthcare for being too skinny – The Young Turks Act 2: Max Baucus and Senate health reform – Bill Moyers Journal Act 3: Medicare Part E – Thom Hartmann Act 4: Healthcare, now what – This American Life Act 5: Dems stopping healthcare would be unprecedented – Rachel Maddow Act 6: The history of our healthcare system – This American Life Act 7: Insurance company calls sick people dogs – The Young Turks Act 8: Further reporting on anti-healthcare campaign – Rachel Maddow

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The White House’s war with Fox News

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Yorker - By Louis Menand - Oct. 26 (Opinion) - In 2008, half the people who watched the Fox News Channel were over sixty-three, which is the oldest demographic in the cable-news business, and, according to a poll, the majority of the ones who watched the most strident programs, such as Sean Hannity’s and Bill O’Reilly’s shows, were men. All that chesty fulminating apparently functions as political Cialis. Fox News shows should probably carry a warning: Contact your doctor if you have rage lasting more than four hours.

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In recent polls, GOP limited to Southern comfort

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

OregonLive.com - By David Sarasohn - Oct. 24 (Opinion) - For months, Barack Obama’s national approval rating has been hovering in the low to mid-50s. The level is respectable — his predecessor hadn’t been there for his last three years — but not exactly intimidating, not exactly a number to make congressmen think they’d better get in line

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The Great American Ideological Crackup

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Jon Meachen - Oct. 24 (Opinion) - Which puts the Fox News affair in an interesting light. To the base, the White House looks tough, willing to hit back—all while the base is getting few of the substantive reforms it has fought for. I am not suggesting that the Obama administration has staged the Fox protest as a bread-and-circuses ploy in order to give otherwise dissatisfied Democrats something to cheer, but no matter what the intention, the contretemps has made the White House seem more progressive than it is.

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