Blog: TAPPED

THE RACE CARD. It’s worth linking to some recent Media Matters items on Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson who, rather than adopting the Robert Samuelson bad statistics approach to immigration restrictionism, have left the racism pretty close to the surface of their thinking about the issue. And, one has to concede that O�Reilly and Gibson […]

NUCLEAR BLUFFING. Dahlia Lithwick‘s ruminations on a possible revival of the nuclear option fight and the dangers this particular method of base-pandering could pose for the GOP are worth reading. Lithwick argues that the Bush administration wouldn’t be able to appease its religious right base even if Senate Republicans pulled the nuclear trigger this fall, […]

A MODEST PROPOSAL. The new issue of Blueprint, the bimonthly journal of the Democratic Leadership Council, which went up online today, features an article by Tony Blair entitled �Fighting for Values,� which is part of the magazine�s cover package on �Defeating Jihadism.� The piece is a resounding defense of civilization and globalization, a scathing attack […]

EVIL BAD MEN. Thinking a bit more about the conservative conflation of border security and terrorism, I’ve become fairly convinced that we have a semantic problem. Liberals have often complained that the “War on Terror” is too broad a term — it’s like, as Jon Stewart put it, a war on ennui. What should have […]

WHY DO POLITICAL ADS SUCK? I don’t really know what to make of this Ned Lamont ad featuring Markos Moulitsas, but two things immediately jump out. One, you’re not going to just forget that you ever saw it. Two, it’s destined to attract some buzz, free media, attention, etc. These are things you would think […]

HOW TO ARGUE LIKE A CONSERVATIVE. Just as they apparently think it’s out of the question to point out that something said by a foreign baddie is, in fact, correct, conservatives also seem to think that the ex-CEO of Qwest’s status as a corporate crook somehow deals a crippling blow to liberals’ appreciation for his […]

WHO OWNS FACTS? Major League Baseball has apparently decided that it not only owns the rights to broadcast baseball games but owns the statistics as well, so it can shut down unlicensed commercial fantasy baseball operations. Personally, I’d be thrilled if fantasy baseball gets wiped off the planet, but that’s neither here nor there. If […]

WHY DID VERIZON AND BELLSOUTH ISSUE DENIALS AFTER THE STORY BROKE? Here’s another thing about the denials that doesn’t quite add up. As we’ve seen, both Verizon and Bellsouth have more or less denied the USA Today story saying that the NSA has been secretly collecting their phone records. USA Today appears to be sticking […]

LOOKING FOR EVIL IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES. To follow up on Matt’s point below, the GOP’s scaremongering on terror has become downright comical. They’re hysterical over the prospect that terrorists will board a plane, fly to Mexico, spend months planning and making the deadly cross-desert trek, arrive in the US dehydrated and exhausted, and […]

LATINO ASSIMILATION FACTS. Along with the fake issue of immigration and national security is the fake concern that Hispanic immigrants don’t assimilate. For example, Robert Samuelson earns his bones today as one of those white pundits, employed by white editors, writing for an audience of white people, who has the courage to speak uncomfortable “truths” […]