Lost in the fog of misinformation

On That Study That Says Fox Viewers Are Misinformed…
...the one from the University of Maryland. Mediaite is to be congratulated for putting up something that not only talks about the study but actually points to it. There is an abundance of spewing and intoning and condescending out there in blogger-land, in which people merely talk about the study around virtual mouthfuls of churlish chortling, basking in the afterglow of skimming through something that comports with their prejudices in such a satisfying way. But they don't point to it. I should...

Interesting assumptions underlying a study about Fox viewers’ ignorance
The New York Times reported today on a study showing that the more one watchers Fox News, the less one knows:In particular, they found that regular viewers of the Fox News Channel, which tilts to the right in Prime Time, were significantly more likely to believe untruths about the Democratic Health Care overhaul, Climate Change and other subjects. The study found other cases where greater exposure to media meant greater misinformation on a subject. Regular viewers of MSNBC, which tilts to the le...

Economic stimulus sets the stage for next years big fight
In the year-end tax debate of 2010, President Barack Obama got the economic stimulus he sought while Democrats in Congress settled for picking a political fight. Far more quietly, Republicans pocketed a two-year extension of George W. Bush-era Tax Cuts at all income levels and a sweetened Estate Tax to go with it, without having to swallow billions in Public Works spending that would have inflamed their Tea Party supporters. By the time Obama had signed the bill on Friday, he and Rep. Eric Canto...

Economic stimulus sets the stage for next years big fight
In the year-end tax debate of 2010, President Barack Obama got the economic stimulus he sought while Democrats in Congress settled for picking a political fight. Far more quietly, Republicans pocketed a two-year extension of George W. Bush-era Tax Cuts at all income levels and a sweetened Estate Tax to go with it, without having to swallow billions in Public Works spending that would have inflamed their Tea Party supporters. By the time Obama had signed the bill on Friday, he and Rep. Eric Canto...

Your Tax Dollars at Work
On Friday, the House approved the $801 billion "Compromise" tax bill, sending it on to the White House for President Obama's signature. Over the next two years, that Budget-busting, gilded class giveaway will cost the Treasury $70 billion in revenue lost from the top 2% of Taxpayers and another $25 billion uncollected from the Richest estates in America. But sooner or later (sooner, if born-again Deficit hawks get their way), that bill will come due and it will be paid by everyone else. In the m...

Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid
Yet another study has been released proving that watching Fox News is detrimental to your intelligence. World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation. So the more you watch, the less ...

Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid
Yet another study has been released proving that watching Fox News is detrimental to your intelligence. World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation. So the more you watch, the less ...

Rep. Weiner To Mike Huckabee How Much Do You Make Over There At Fox?
There’s a reason that Rep. Anthony Weiner has showed up on every damn Fox News show recently. It’s because he delivers every damn time. Tonight he sparred with Mike Huckabee who, discussing the Tax Cut Compromise, started off with the (only slightly baiting) question “Why did you vote against what is probably the best deal the Democrats are going to get this year?” Let the battle begin! It wasn’t long before the debate moved off point with Weiner (“jokingly...

LA Times: Unacceptable Level of Bias On The Hard News Side Of FOX
In light of the recent disclosure of memos from Bill Sammon, Fox News ‘ Washington managing editor, The Los Angeles Times took Fox News to task over its “Fair and Balanced” slogan specifically and its journalistic credibility more generally. Without making overblown claims of past bias by the entire network, as many Fox News critics enjoy doing, the editorial simply states two recent facts and objectively asks those in charge of Fox News to respond. The memos from Sammon instr...

Young Spaniards adrift with 40 pct jobless rate
People wait in line at a government employment office in a Madrid suburb. Y... Demonstrators march in Madrid to Protest government Austerity measures. You... Young Spaniards are adrift in an Unemployment market that leaves a staggering 40 percent of under 25-year-olds searching in vain for a job. Even well qualified young graduates find they are shut out of the work place year after year. Spain's overall Unemployment Rate, just under 20 percent, is already the highest in the European Union. Bu...

Canada: 2-Million-Year-Old 'Mummy Trees' Reveal Harsh Climate
© Joel Barker/Ohio State University. The remains of a mummified forest that lived on Ellesmere Island in Canada some 2 to 8 million years ago, when the Arctic was cooling. The remains could offer clues to how today's Arctic will respond to Global Warming. When rangers came across mummified wood uncovered by a melting Glacier in the northernmost Arctic reaches of Canada, they had no idea they were staring at an ancient forest dating back millions of years. Researchers eventually found a tw...

Canada: 2-Million-Year-Old 'Mummy Trees' Reveal Harsh Climate
© Joel Barker/Ohio State University. The remains of a mummified forest that lived on Ellesmere Island in Canada some 2 to 8 million years ago, when the Arctic was cooling. The remains could offer clues to how today's Arctic will respond to Global Warming. When rangers came across mummified wood uncovered by a melting Glacier in the northernmost Arctic reaches of Canada, they had no idea they were staring at an ancient forest dating back millions of years. Researchers eventually found a tw...

Getting Over Earmarks
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann during a rally in April.(AP/Jim Mone) For Republicans, as well as some Democrats and the media, Earmarks are a symbol of wasteful spending and harmful quid pro quo. Recently, Republican leaders agreed to place a Moratorium on these spending requests, with support from the White House. Sean Kelly and Scott Frisch, political scientists at California State University, Channel Islands, have a friendlier view of earmarks. In their book Cheese Factories on The Moon, ...

Lie of the Year: Government takeover of health care
By Michael J.W. Stickings The St. Petersburg Times's PolitiFact.com has come out with its "Lie of the Year," a Republican lie that's a most deserving winner -- "A government takeover of Health Care": In the spring of 2009, a Republican Strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health Insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for ...

Rockefeller: Preventing action on global warming is too important for us to delay any further - But WV Senator withdraws bill t
Climate peacock Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) threatened to tie up the funding of the government with his coal-powered campaign to kill climate action before the end of the year.  But the Republicans killed the effort so that they could take the lead on it in 2011! First, Brad Johnson explains what Rockefeller tried to do: In a Press Release issued Thursday, Rockefeller said that he is willing to try to “suspend the rules on the Omnibus Appropriations bill” to force a 2/3 vote for his ̶

Bernie Sanders Puts Barack Obama to Shame
In an era of Democratic waffling and Compromise, the Independent from Vermont actually stands up for what he believes in By Matt Taibbi RollingStone December 15, 2010 Not long ago I was sitting at home writing something for publication - I won’t say what, except that it was a passage about a certain politician on the Hill. Out of habit I launched into a description that was full of nasty and personal language, and I was about to press on to the next part of the piece when suddenly I hit a ...

Lying Liars
PolitiFact announces the 2010 Lie of the Year: PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen "government takeover of Health Care" as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping Public Opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats' shellacking in the November Elections. Readers of PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Times' independent fact-checking website, also chose it as the year's most significant...

Shep Smith Asks How Senators Sleep at Night After Filibustering 9-11 First Responders Bill
Looks like at least one person over at Fox News watched Jon Stewart's segment with 9-11 First Responders reacting to the Senate Filibuster and decided to let everyone know how they felt about it. A wonderful moment of pure outrage-and classic television-from Shepard Smith on Fox News Friday afternoon as he and Chris Wallace waited for President Obama’s Tax Cut signing ceremony. Discussing the amount of money on “tax cuts for Billionaires who don’t need them,” ...

Corporate America's New Plan to Loot Our Pensions and Shred Our Social Safety Net
But this story is not just about them: Slashing Social Services affects everyone. How? -- by increasing the pool of competing workers, the large majority of whom become increasingly desperate for any sort of paying job. This newly enlarged pool of competing workers then pushes down wages and benefits for all. This will all be sold with one of the Republicans' favorite memes, "personal responsibility," and the sale will probably come off without a hitch as long as opposition can be kept weak a...

Soros Group Releases Study Calling Fox News Viewers Stupid
Whenever you see headlines like this one you have to consider the source. In this case, the source is the George Soros-funded group Alternet. Their conclusions: * 91 percent believe the stimulus Legislation lost jobs * 72 percent believe the health reform law will increase the Deficit * 72 percent believe The Economy is getting worse * 60 percent believe Climate Change is not occurring * 49 percent believe income taxes have gone up * 63 percent believe the stimulus Legislation did not include ...

What if there were no 20th Amendment?
Eugene Garver, who teaches philosophy at St. John's College in Minnesota, has made the extremely shrewed observation that were it not for the 20th Amendment, which in 1933 changed Inauguration Day from March 4 to January 20, then George W. Bush would have had to take responsiblity for the Great Bailout that occurred in January-February 2009. (There's little doubt that the Bush Administration would have done that, given that Henry Paulsen and Ben Bernanke led the initial bailout in November-Decem...

Obama keeps Bush's vast tax cuts for wealthy
President Barack Obama last night signed into law a sweeping $858bn (£554bn) tax bill that ensures tax-rate cuts introduced by former President George Bush nearly a decade ago will remain in place for another two years, offering a potentially powerful fillip to the flat US economy. The passage of the law on Capitol Hill was the most dramatic evidence yet that Bipartisan Compromise has been unexpectedly resurrected in the weeks after November's Midterm Elections. The deal was largely the one s...

Analysis: With tax bill, Dems pick political fight (AP)
WASHINGTON – In the year-end tax debate of 2010, President Barack Obama got the economic stimulus he sought while Democrats in Congress settled for picking a political fight. Far more quietly, Republicans pocketed a two-year extension of George W. Bush-era Tax Cuts at all income levels and a sweetened Estate Tax to go with it, without having to swallow billions in Public Works spending that would have inflamed their Tea Party supporters. By the time Obama had signed the bill on Friday, h...

Analysis: With tax bill, Dems pick political fight
WASHINGTON (AP) - In the year-end tax debate of 2010, President Barack Obama got the economic stimulus he sought while Democrats in Congress settled for picking a political fight. Far more quietly, Republicans pocketed a two-year extension of George W. Bush-era Tax Cuts at all income levels and a sweetened Estate Tax to go with it, without having to swallow billions in Public Works spending that would have inflamed their Tea Party supporters. By the time Obama had signed the bill on Friday, he...

U.S. Yield Curve Steepest Since February on Tax-Cut Extension
Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The extra yield Treasury investors demand to hold 10-year notes over 2-year securities touched the widest since February on speculation an extension of Tax Cuts will spur growth and increase Deficits. The benchmark 10-year yield rose this week to the highest level in seven months as Retail Sales advanced in November more than Economists forecast and the Federal Reserve said the recovery is continuing. The U.S. economy grew at a faster pace in the Third Quarter, a report is...