http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/22/1240110/-Chuck-Todd-Is-The-Embodiment-Of-A-Delegitimized-Traditional-Media - by Egberto Willies
Willies says, "Chuck Todd is the encapsulation of what is wrong with America’s traditional media. His interviews seem serious. He attempts to appear impartial. However he always gets rolled by the Right Wing. He allows them to spew misinformation with ever so little pushback [even though] he knows [their] platform is being used to deceive....He abdicates that journalistic responsibility when he further says, 'What I always love is people say, "Well, it's you folks' fault in the media." No, it's the president of the United States' fault for not selling it.' "
Then Chuck Todd is not a journalist; he is a transcriptionist. This has nothing to do with his impartiality. It has to do with NOT JUST reporting what the right wing SAID; it has to do with reporting what they were TRYING HARD NOT TO SAY if not for a good journalist who manages to get at the TRUTH. This is true impartiality. Think Soledad O'Brien.
Good journalistic impartiality should act as both a filter and a microphone. A filter to attenuate the attempts at deceptive, misleading, and just plain fact-free statements. A microphone to amplify the President's (and others') selling of their true statements.
Straight talk not circular logic
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Thursday, September 19, 2013
The Medicare-for-All fix
I think the Houston Chronicle editorial staff is getting way too excited about the bipartisan way Congress is working to “repair Medicare” and the “doc fix” (see editorial The doc fix, Monday, September 9, 2013).
There is only one way to “fix” all of this. It is single-payer Medicare-for-All. I know, I know; some people are sick of hearing it. They need to listen harder. As it is, Medicare does a remarkable job considering it only covers the oldest and sickest of us. Medicare’s medical claims cost expressed as a medical loss ratio (the very term illustrates exactly what is wrong with our current system) is 97%, but we think ACA has actually accomplished something by making the private health insurance industry come up to 80% or 85%!
When we are all in one insurance pool, we will have complete choice of providers. That is where we need to have competition in the system. The providers should have to compete for our business, and this is what will bring about the “quality and efficiency” that some members of Congress tell us they are looking for.
The devil is in the details of the lack of reasoning that is hindering us from moving to single-payer Medicare-for-All, which Sen. Harry Reid has acknowledged (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20130911,0,2211922.column) should be our end goal. The only thing keeping us from it is the sheer bloodymindedness of those who won’t listen.
There is only one way to “fix” all of this. It is single-payer Medicare-for-All. I know, I know; some people are sick of hearing it. They need to listen harder. As it is, Medicare does a remarkable job considering it only covers the oldest and sickest of us. Medicare’s medical claims cost expressed as a medical loss ratio (the very term illustrates exactly what is wrong with our current system) is 97%, but we think ACA has actually accomplished something by making the private health insurance industry come up to 80% or 85%!
When we are all in one insurance pool, we will have complete choice of providers. That is where we need to have competition in the system. The providers should have to compete for our business, and this is what will bring about the “quality and efficiency” that some members of Congress tell us they are looking for.
The devil is in the details of the lack of reasoning that is hindering us from moving to single-payer Medicare-for-All, which Sen. Harry Reid has acknowledged (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20130911,0,2211922.column) should be our end goal. The only thing keeping us from it is the sheer bloodymindedness of those who won’t listen.
Monday, September 16, 2013
Welcome! And good riddance Larry Summers! So much for your putdown of women!
Welcome to Straight Talk Not Circular Logic. Here we strive to give you the straight stuff - no rhetorical tricks like minimizing, comparing apples to oranges, just plain obfuscating, diversion, and of course no circular logic...you get the idea.
Aren't you all glad Larry Summers threw in the towel? It sure solved a big problem for most of the rest of us. Let's hope Pres. Obama will choose for the Fed one of the Straight Talk Not Circular Logic ilk, namely Janet Yellen, and get himself some brownie points for selecting a woman who has enough cred that nobody has to use the excuse she is just a token woman.
We have had a great bunch of clever, intelligent, savvy, courageous, compassionate, straight-talking women in American public life in recent years up to the present. They sure show up a lot of the men, don't they. Janet Yellen, Elizabeth Warren, Brooksley Born, Meredith Whitney, Sheila Bair, Hillary Clinton, Wendy Davis, Amy Goodman, Naomi Klein, Molly Ivins, Ann Richards, Rachel Maddow, Melissa Harris-Perry, Soledad O'Brien, and many others. They do not indulge in circular logic: Hooray for them!
Aren't you all glad Larry Summers threw in the towel? It sure solved a big problem for most of the rest of us. Let's hope Pres. Obama will choose for the Fed one of the Straight Talk Not Circular Logic ilk, namely Janet Yellen, and get himself some brownie points for selecting a woman who has enough cred that nobody has to use the excuse she is just a token woman.
We have had a great bunch of clever, intelligent, savvy, courageous, compassionate, straight-talking women in American public life in recent years up to the present. They sure show up a lot of the men, don't they. Janet Yellen, Elizabeth Warren, Brooksley Born, Meredith Whitney, Sheila Bair, Hillary Clinton, Wendy Davis, Amy Goodman, Naomi Klein, Molly Ivins, Ann Richards, Rachel Maddow, Melissa Harris-Perry, Soledad O'Brien, and many others. They do not indulge in circular logic: Hooray for them!
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