Iβm a journalist and politics junkie who founded my own progressive politics site, Talking Points Memo, all the way back in 2000. Am particularly interested in political scandal, inter-Democratic conflicts, and the business of news publishing. I also built my own boat. You can find us on talkingpointsmemo.com or follow me on Twitter at @joshtpm.
For now, feel free to ask me anything!
Proof: https://i.redd.it/snpsx9f9oy331.jpg
The federal government is seizing medical supplies bound for states and cities at ports while telling the states they are required to supply themselves. SNAFU.
Regardless of your views on Rand Paul and the healthcare debate, I think we can all agree that sloppy journalism and repeating misleading claims is not a good thing.
The original misleading headline currently enjoys 3rd place on /r/all at the time of this writing, with 29 thousand upvotes, just to show how far this "news" has gone. https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/afy6tj/rand_paul_enemy_of_socialized_medicine_will_go_to/
Original misleading article: http://archive.is/J9LcX
>Headline: Rand Paul, Enemy Of Socialized Medicine, Will Go To Canada For Surgery
>Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) will travel to Canada in late January to get hernia surgery, related to the attack he sustained from a neighbor in 2017, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.
>Notably, Paul is adamantly against socialized medicine and has called the idea of a national public health care system βslavery.β Canada enjoys publicly funded universal healthcare.
>At the time of the attack, which was reportedly over lawn maintenance disputes, Paul also suffered six broken ribs and a bruised lung. Paul has sued for damages.
On the corrected article it reads "This story was updating [sic] following comments from Sen. Paulβs spokesperson to clarify that the hospital in question is privately owned." They really should have just deleted the article because there isn't much there now that the main part of the story was false. Instead, they removed one paragraph, added a line to one paragraph, then added 4 whole new paragraphs. I guess they had to figure out how to make the story somewhat interesting since they were enjoying hundreds of thousands of clicks from that Reddit post.
The story was originally reported in Louisville Courier Journal, then repeated by Talking Points Memo and many others in the mainstream and alternative media.
Corrected article: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/rand-paul-canada-for-surgery
Facts to get out there:
- Hillary had a MAJORITY, not a plurality, in 2016 and it was a big one - millions of votes. Trying to get the supers to overturn a MAJORITY is very very shitty on Bernie's part.
- The DNC has ranked choice voting in 2020, the winner isn't the person who gets a plurality on the first vote, it is the person who has a majority on the last vote. 2016 proved that the majority don't like him.
- Bernie helped create these rules. People are staying in who would otherwise have dropped by now because of the rules Bernie demanded. If the rules weren't like this people would be dropping like they did in 2016 leaving one moderate to kick his ass ... again.
- Bernie wanting to stop the voting on a round where he has a plurality is as dishonest as him claiming victory in Iowa - which also had ranked choice voting - even though Pete had more votes than him on the final ballot after folks with unviable candidates re-aligned.
- Bernie is a low down stinking cheater with no respect for the rules. Presidents can't be people who think they are above the rules.
So me and my dad got into a debate last night about the Nunes Memo. I took the position that the memo doesnβt clear Trump of potential wrong doing and that the FBI is just doing its job. He took the position that the FBI is corrupted and members of the Bureau are going after Trump for politically motivated reasons.
He focused his argument on McCabeβs resignation, the Strzok-Page text messages, and the Steele Dossierβs validity. I argued that FBI isnβt biased because of itβs investigation into Clintonβs emails, the Nunes Memo lack of examples of conspiracy against Trump, and reasoning that even if the Steele dossier was the only piece of evidence used to get the FISA warrant, the FBI need to corroborate the information in the dossier.
Heβs response was to again point to the FBI as corrupt, this point that there was a couple, the husband who worked in the FBI and the wife who worked for Fusion GPS, who fabricated the dossier for political reasons and then got buzzfeed to verify it, he brought up the Russians calling Carter Page an idiot, and the Clinton campaign paid for dossier and colluded with the Russian through Steele. The only real response that I had to this was that the FBI would have to verify their sources and wouldnβt let a politically motivated dossier be the only proof unless there was evidence to back it up. But he was dismissive of these claims.
Itβs very clear to me that my dad is only relying on GOP and Fox News talking points and Iβm curious if there is any good debunking of the claims that he made throughout the debate? Iβll admit that I havenβt been following this issues that closely, but itβs clear, from what Iβve read, that thereβs something there when it comes to the FISA warrant. Iβm just looking for better rebuttals based in fact than just based on thought experiments.
As I peruse various threads and subs, I have noticed, many of users defending terror acts committed by Palestinians (or trying to defend their own generalizations about people in Israel) trotting out the word "settlements" and "privilege" every time people talk about terror acts in Israel, justifying or "explaining" the attacks but refusing to say whether they support them, as if those 'Terror apologists' intentions were not clear.
When, in the past, I have seen the wide use of this argument (or deflection, as in this instance), it has sometimes later come to light that the arguments are the main part of the current "Palasbara" strategy, and the people participating are either cribbing from those materials, or repeating arguments of others who are.
For example, you might all remember the recent 'whitewashing' by the New York Times, oped by Marwan Barghouti, where he claimed he was falsely imprisoned by Israel again and again, while completely ignoring the terror attacks committed by him and his people, and the New York Times failed to mention the many deaths they are directly guilty of. Of course, it seems that the argument is part of an attempt to gain power in the PA and divert the conversation from the crimes and make it seem like the guilty are the victims. A thing that many people on reddit, twitter, and facebook are doing right now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/opinion/palestinian-hunger-strike-prisoners-call-for-justice.html
Is that the case in this instance? Is diverting the conversation on a regular basis now going to get the pushback that the bigot who humanize terrorists hope for? Does anyone have a copy of the latest BDS talking points?
Okay this is a bit long, but this is my email to my old buddy Josh Micah Marshall from Talking Points Memo on what I considered his recent hit piece on Sanders:
Hello Josh.
Just wanted to make a few comments on your derisive piece on Bernie Sanders not prevailing in primaries.
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That was highly selective reporting focussing only on the IA 03. Turns out, J.D. Scholten, Berniecrat and Our Revolution candidate won the IA 04 Dem primary, and will face Steve King in the fall. Didnβt see that on your site.
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This joins a stream of recent media attack pieces that are giving a highly distorted view of OR and Justice Dems and other progressive groups trying to rebuild the Dem Party along its traditional (and winning) political lines. OR candidates have been winning ~ 45%, with wins in Repub areas that Dems have ignored - the change in the VA statehouse came with OR victories. We are fighting entrenched money and power, that wasnβt going to be easy.
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Sanders has a much bigger vision than just winning individual elections. He got thousands of us to run (and mostly win) local elections last year. This year there were significant inroads and wins - but the point was to change the politics and the discussions. Even in contests where the progressives lost, the more conventional candidates were forced to discuss (and sometimes support) things like Medicare for all, tuition-free public college, Green New Deal, etc. Many of these races are long shots, so there will be losses. But there were some unexpected wins. That is part of what a political revolution is, and Sanders doesnβt care about being ridiculed by the likes of MSM political pundits.
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Those in the D.C-N.Y. media and political bubble appear to still not understand the emergence of Trump. Obamaβs JD protected the largest, richest criminals on the planet while millions lost their homes. He expanded the wars and the national security state, and gave himself the power to ignore habeas corpus in detaining those suspected of being βnational securityβ threats. He left the country with 50% of the population at or near poverty. 80% of us never fully recovered from the Recession. You were surprised by Sanders, then stunned by Trump. Hasnβt that made you reconsider some of your assumptions?
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The Dems have lost 1100+ state and federal legislative sets and governorships since 2010. The βBlue Waveβ may not happen this fall. No one in my neighborhood cares about Russia (really, we ridiculed this level of obsession
As I peruse various threads and subs, I have noticed, over the last couple weeks, a sharp spike in those defending crimes committed by Israel (or trying to defend their own generalizations about members of the Palestinian ethnicity) trotting out the word "smear" when people point to the clear implications of their positions and comments, as if those Israeli-firsters' intentions were not clear.
When, in the past, I have seen the wide use of a new argument (or deflection, as in this instance), it has sometimes later come to light that the arguments are part of the current Hasbara strategy, and the people participating are either cribbing from those materials, or repeating arguments of others who are.
For example, you might all remember the 'pinkwashing' debate, when the suggested Hasbara tack was to categorically claim that Israelis are better than Palestinians, and the crimes of the Israeli state should be ignored, because Israel protects the rights of gay people (or women, or whomever...). Of course, it turned out that the argument was part and parcel of a more than $90M public relations push...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/pinkwashing-and-israels-use-of-gays-as-a-messaging-tool.html
Is that the case in this instance? Is accusing anyone that points out that one dehumanizes Palestinians on a regular basis now going to get a pushback that the bigot who dehumanizes is being "smeared"? Does anyone have a copy of the latest Hasabara talking points?
