Paul Ryan, Serious Numbers Geek (Aside From His Fuzzy Numbers)
The uncritical coverage of Paul Ryan's budget plan continues.In the new issue of Time magazine,Michael Crowley and Jay Newton-Smalltell us that Ryan is "the new face of federal frugality": Just 41...
View ArticleDisability Rights Activists Are Even Invisible Getting Arrested on Capitol Hill
Elite media's selective disdain for public activism is well known. Still, you'd think some things would garner a word or two. Like 300 disability rights activists, a couple hundred in wheelchairs,...
View ArticleSingle-Payer Silenced, Again
I saw a press release yesterday announcing that Rep. Jim McDermott (D.-Wash) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I.-Vt.) were introducing a single-payer healthcare bill in both houses of Congress. Unless there...
View ArticleABC's Karl: There's No Dem Plan for Medicare (Except for the New Law)
The roundtable panel on ABC's This Week (5/29/11) spent some time talking about the politics of Medicare, specifically the idea that the recent Democratic victory in a special Congressional election in...
View ArticleTime Magazine Feeds the Bachmann-tum
The story of Michele Bachmann's surging campaign momentum continues, this time courtesy of Beltway reporter Mark Halperin of Time magazine: Why has Michele Bachmann suddenly become the It candidate?...
View ArticleBarney Frank Questions the Questions at NPR
It's an article of faith in mainstream media discussions of the budget: Social Security and Medicare are the "entitlements" driving our debt problems. That's not really true, but that's overwhelmingly...
View ArticleMother's Health News, Brought to You by Carcinogenic Baby Shampoo
Arianna Huffington had an announcement (1/19/12) about a new section in her Huffington Post: I'm delighted to announce the launch of Global Motherhood, a new section within HuffPost Impact dedicated to...
View ArticleRush and the Right: The 'Clown' GOP Leaders Fear
Rush Limbaugh's attack on Georgetown student Sandra Fluke–calling her, among other things, a "slut" for advocating for contraceptives coverage–has caused some stirrings on the right that are worth...
View ArticleSandra Fluke Controversy: Distraction or Revelation?
There seems to be a popular line emerging in the Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke controversy that says his comments are especially harmful because they distract attention from the real issues. Kathleen...
View ArticleSamuelson's Social Security Screed
Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson really doesn't like Social Security and Medicare. And he'll go a long way to argue that they're wasteful, inefficient forms of welfare. (See Extra!, 10/11.)...
View ArticleWaPo's Plug for Health Insurer Misses the Deadly Fine Print
The Washington Post (6/11/12) had a story by headlined "Largest Health Insurer to Keep Key Parts of Law Regardless of Court Ruling." In the piece, reporter N.C. Aizenman relayed UnitedHealthcare's...
View ArticleThe Race to Be First to Be Wrong at the Supreme Court
In corporate media there is always a race to be first to report a breaking story seconds before your competitors. It means nothing to the rest of the world–we're talking a matter of seconds, much of...
View ArticlePublic TV's Narrow Debate on Supreme Court and Obamacare
PBS NewsHour host Judy Woodruff introduced a panel discussion on the Supreme Court's Affordable Care Act decision (6/28/12) as a chance to get "some reaction and assessment from those who will deal...
View ArticleABC's Unrealistic Paul Ryan Reality Check
Campaign rhetoric, we're led to believe, can be hard to sort out. If Paul Ryan says his budget plan protects Medicare and the Democrats say it "ends" it, what should we believe? Those are the kinds of...
View ArticleNiall Ferguson Can't Be Factchecked!
Niall Ferguson's Newsweek cover story "Hit the Road, Barack" has attracted lots of the wrong kind of attention. As Dean Baker put it: It's hard to believe that progressive bloggers didn't get together...
View ArticlePlease Tell Dems What Magic Words on Medicare Are
Washington Post "Factchecker" Glenn Kessler (9/6/12) doesn't like the way Democrats talk about Republican Medicare plans: The claim that Republicans will "end the Medicare guarantee" has been a...
View ArticleFactchecking the Debate Moderator
With all the newfound interest in campaign factchecking in the corporate media (that enthusiasm shouldn't be confused with being good at it), it's worth remembering that it's not just the political...
View ArticleU.S. Media Ignore Toxic Legacy of U.S. Weapons
The London Independent published a harrowing story on October 14, "Iraq Records Huge Rise in Birth Defects." The piece focuses on the legacy of the U.S war in Iraq, in particular the two massive U.S....
View ArticleJoe Klein: Obama's 'Moderate' Mandate
Time magazine's Joe Klein found the lesson (11/7/12) in Obama's re-election. And it involves… wait for it… moving to the right: It will, and should, be argued that the election was a mandate for...
View ArticleYou Think You're Getting Social Security But You're Not, Says...
What should the U.S. do about the so-called "fiscal cliff"? Who better to ask than Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, "one of the world's most influential bankers"? That's what CBS Evening News must...
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