U.S. Senator Seeks Federal Role in Protecting University Researchers From Nanoterrorists

Haha, right up there with “I am not a crook,” “I don’t recall (anything about trading arms to Iran” and “WMDs are in Iraq?”

So Goxewu. . . what’s the point of screwin’ up my name in your comments recently?  Is that the best YOU can do?  Really?

And why should I defend Murdoch and the parent company of Fox?  All of the accusations are directed against British Journalists.  Other than the usual Fox News Channel Derangement Syndrome exhibited by “intellects” (cough, cough) like Gitlin, there’s no one contending that the journalists at FNC have been having ethics issues.  I never read “News of the World.”  Nothing for me to defend.

Since Hinton was executive chairman of News Corp (which published News of the World) he seems to have taken some responsibility for the charges now leveled at some of its staff and managerial-level personnel, but I didn’t see anything about similar charges pending against WSJ or Fox News personnel. Perhaps it’s best to wait for, ah, evidence?

Sort of like, maybe, Ollie North taking the fall for Admiral Poindexter, who took the fall (sort of) for….

Right, News Corp. would only do that stuff on the other side of the Pond, and never on this side of it….because?

To recall Mort Sahl on Richard Nixon, “The question is what did Rupert Murdoch not know and when did he first not know it?”

One of the reasons I left the conservative ‘tent’ a few years ago was the odd and somewhat twisted tendency of conservatives to take it as a badge of honor to stand up for and defend the world’s biggest scumbags.  It was as if to believe generally that businesses flourish with hands-off governments, and growth and profit are generally good things for broader society, one must reflexively defend any and all instances of corporations being corporations, even when they do terrible things.  Come on, man.  An attack on Rupert Murdoch and his company (last I checked it’s his, he gets the profits, he runs the show, so he takes the responsibility, no matter how far down from his top-floor penthouse the shit hits the fans) is not an attack on conservatism (especially when the attack is justified); so why are conservatives contorting themselves into knots to defend poor Rupert in this instance of unquestionably and gravely disgusting behavior perpetuated by a branch of his empire?  What needless tribalism! 

Let’s see. . . screw anybody. . . Hmmmm. . .again with something that smacks more of Clinton than anyone else.  And I like your last bit with “technically true.”  So. . . clearly, you’d prefer something that was technically false, but more major sounding?  Silly question. . . of course you would!

It’s actually quite funny watching all the liberals scurrying about hoping and praying (well. . .probably not praying) that Bill O’Reilly will somehow be implicated in the phone hacking scandal.  Perhaps Glenn Beck was behind this pulling all the strings!   Give it up, Gox. . . there are no US journalists involved..

As it looks more likely that Gov. Perry will run for the presidency, if he wins (or any Republican) it would be a big boost for the health care industry as many liberals will suddenly develop high blood pressure, anxiety related disorders, depression, and any number of ailments.  But, it would be a big win for the country.  There would be no more attempts to censor the press as Obama did with Fox News.   Liberals simply love to hate any ideology that opposes their own.  It seems they can’t leave Fox News out of this.  I knew it would pop up again.  Oh, how surprising!

suomynona. . . Gee!  I was watching the ball game and must’ve missed all these conservatives “contorting themselves into knots” defending Murdock.  Where did you see that?  Can you give us some examples?

Trendy, face facts. You’re a radical whatever it is that you are – leftist, liberal, progressive, socialist, Bolshevik, whatever.  You would have classified Leon Trotsky a moderate Republican and I’m sure that’s what he would have looked like to you.  If you’re standing in a hole 1000 feet deep, the top of an adjacent ant hill looks like a mountain peak. . . But I’m sorry, Trendy, it’s still an ant hill and Clinton is still a left wing liberal.

Sorry, typo: “remembers to wear his nose plugs.”

You might recall numerous remarks by yourself and professormiller on the other Gitlin thread, generally to the effect of ‘you liberals just hate Fox News’ as a refutation of Gitlin’s charges against NewsCorp and Murdoch.  Which have continued on this thread.

Compliments to mavprof still stand, and his point (minus “honing their hatchets” and such) is somewhat taken.

I’ll stipulate that the mass media in the U.S. lean somewhat liberal* and probably do give what we call liberal candidates both intentional and, let’s say, subconscious favorable coverage. Since the U.S. mass media leans somewhat liberal, the favorable coverage is milder, and more assumed-to-be-objective than that of the U.S. mass media that waxes conservative. That conservative portion is a minority, lately arrived (although pre-JFK the U.S. mass media was generally conservative, e.g., the Chandlers’ LA Times and the McCormicks’ Chicago Tribune), feels it has ground to break up and an imbalance to correct and so is more strident and shrill about its opinions.

But the story on the table right now is Murdoch’s News Corp., its patently unethical and possibly criminal behavior in the UK, and whether any of that corporate culture of to-hell-with-damaging-your-friends (the Tories and Cameron), anything-for-money has engendered wrongdoing in the States. The FBI is reportedly readying a probe, and if any of Murdoch’s underlings were phone-hacking, say, families of Sept. 11th victims, there’ll be hell to pay and a falling away from the NY Post and the WSJ and–a big blow–Fox News.

Maybe News Corp. will be found to have completely different ethics on different sides of the Pond. Somewhere over the Atlantic, perhaps, there’s an electro-magnetic field that zaps a whole different mindset into airborne News Corp. executives–feloniously avaricious when they land at Heathrow, assiduously high-road when they touch down at JFK. Stranger things have happened.

* “Liberal” in this country is practically center-right in the rest of the industrialized West, where most countries have an actual Socialist party which sometimes wins elections. In conservative Sarkozy’s France, for example, there’s single-payer health care, while over here the allegedly left-wing “Obamacare” is still a mélange of blood-sucking HMO’s. (OK, I went over the top. I should have said, politely, “private-enterprise HMO’s.” Sometimes the urge to tell the truth just overwhelms me.)

I posted the info about the Groseclose study mostly as a bargaining chip in the political labeling game, where often one (whether left- or right-leaning) is often pleased to tag opponents’ political positions as “far,” “extreme,” or “ultra-,” all of which are meant to serve as synonyms for “bad.” While there are smaller media representing pretty outre political positions, I think labeling the media under discussion on this thread with one of those tags tends more to reveal the outre stance of the one tossing off such a label.

goxewu is right in claiming the right media as major players are latecomers to this arena, and I think this is why Fox News especially has so alarmed and infuriated the political liberal-left. But just as goxewu has pointed out that US politics tend as a whole to the right compared to the European, it’s also evident that right parties in Europe seem to be acquiring an ever larger standing in a number of countries. And too, if comparisons of our range of political opinion to that of other Western countries is admissible, then perhaps such comparisons to earlier times in our own history is also (as when the Chicago Tribune and the LAT were Republican-favorable papers rather than liberal standard-bearers, as are most large urban US papers ).

Nevertheless, goxewu is right to deflect attention back to the Murdoch News Corp hacking scandal. Illegal or unethical actions on the part of news agencies (e.g., the NYT has had its own skeletons displayed in a number of controversial cases, as in the leaking of classified government documents, the Jason Blair fiasco, etc.) should be exposed and punished no doubt, but I wonder whether the zeal of those relishing the ongoing UK investigations are really more concerned with punishing bad actions or more with avenging themselves on political opponents, even perhaps to the extent of hoping (or assuming) yet uninvolved media like the WSJ (only acquired by Murdoch in late 2007) or Fox News will be implicated. Still, I think most who generally agree with the WSJ or Fox News slants won’t desert them even if some evidence of wrongdoing there is found unless it is found to be a systematic practice. 

Exactly my point. 

When political or social opinions are not informed by reality (aka “PBR label unfairly attached to you — instead of your preferred Kirin Ichiban”) or (“Clinton is a left wing liberal”), there is a large gap to maintain ruining any possibility of genuine dialogue.  

Livefree, there is no doubt that I struggle with this too. I waver in between ridicule and attempting to influence.  Both cannot be accomplished since the goal of ridicule is to diminish and the goal of influence is to broaden others perspectives.  This requires respect, accuracy and yes I dare say it empathy.  I am quick to point out fallacy in others and myself.  This does not preclude me from saying that your political points are erroneous and ill informed.

So when you agree that we all are ‘human (interesting you didn’t first say American) with lives comprised of many different facets’, it seems that you forget this piece when regaling us with the trite an typical language  of: Trotsky, socialism, leftist, Bolshevik, or progressive.  It is as if the left is some permanent monolithic group. 

I realize that this is not a persuasive argument for you, but you should probably admit that you gave up trying to understand what is going on a long time ago. It easier for you to blog from a far than to know intimately.  No worries, you were probably ripe for a simplistic binary of good versus evil, left versus right, savers versus spenders spin that comes from military training.  Frankly, I don’t know.  However, what I do know coming from a more left position that yourself is that the two “leftist” president’s elected over the last 30 years did more to dismantle the traditional left than most of the republicans (except GW Bush). 

Clinton helped pushed  through Gramm Leach Bliley, He accelerated global treaties like NAFTA, CAFTA and WTO.  He was responsible for funding war in Kosovo but not Somalia. Childhood obesity and pharmaceutical use took off under his eight years.  Financial de-regulation took hold and he presided over the largest stock market and investment boon in world history.  These are hardly accomplishments of someone from the left.  He worked with Republicans when they weren’t trying to impeach him.  He was a corporatist who’s worked well as a snake skin salesperson to southern, young audiences who did not know who he was.

Obama’s campaign finance officer was Bob Rubin’s son.  He hired Summers and Geithner (from Clinton’s previous administration) and raised more money from wall street than any single politician in history had done previously. He bailed out corporate banks (probably to prevent a further crash although we don’t know).  He stated or escalated two additional wars.  He oversaw the  renewal of the patriot act as well as the sub-standard health care law.  Habeus corpus is no longer and torture is still legal.  His administration was responsible for getting Bin Laden when the hawkish republicans floundered. We have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs and many people have lost their most fundamental supports: home, job, and purchasing power.   But what really sticks in the craw of us on the left is that he is using this ‘debt crisis’ to negotiate away the last vestiges of the social safety net (medicare and social security). 

There is no way Obama and Clinton are liberal.  No, they are just as conservative as most folks in the beltway (they are just brands to sell to demographics to make us think they are acting in our interests).  One look at their campaign donors tells us that they are not liberal by any intelligent definition of the word.

Livefree:  For me its a liberal pint of Guinness (support Ireland’s financial depression)

marthaomartha: ‘to be clear, I’m not opposed to healthcare reform.  I am opposed to railroading legislation.’

To be clear, what you’re saying here is that you’re opposed to democratically elected officials in one of the most stable and reputable democracies in the world carrying out their legislative duty by having a vote on healthcare reform, without the barrier of endless filibustering and stall-tactics? 

‘Railroading’ is a nice buzzword that the anti-reform movement came up with to act as though the admittedly spineless Democratic majority somehow had no right to govern as they promised they would when they were running *successfully* for office; but I’d like to think of this whole ‘railroading’ thing more appropriately as, I don’t know, ‘the democratic process.’  The whole Constitutionally prescribed system of separated powers is premised on the very idea that politicians and those who vote them in will act in self-interested ways, according to their political beliefs.  How is it ‘railroading’ when our legislators actually do what we, collectively, asked them to do? 

“There is no way Obama and Clinton are liberal.”  Shocking!  I suppose Anne Coulter is liberal, too.  It took you 606 words to say a lot about nothing.  Liberals are good at this. A good example of how not to be straight to the point in a response.  A refresher in composition would help your meandering, wearisomely verbose answers. Also, you certainly do not waver in ridiculing.  Recall, for some bizarre reason you labeled me a “corporate troll.”  You do have a sense of humor. 

Trend,
  Liberals:  Their myths, slogans, clamor for immediate action, messianic goals,
demonization of opponents, creation of political idols and occasional
resorts to violence (such as when Glenn Beck and his family were nearly attacked by a mob in June), all this is classic herd behavior.  There isn’t that much separating a southern Democrat from a limousine liberal on the west coast.  

Something “great” was possible in healthcare reform when the Republicans said (predictably) no to single-payer, then (revealingly) no to even a public option and proposed instead the magic bullet of the free-enterprise system allowing HMOs “compete” (like the credit card companies do, with fine print) across state lines?

The Republican position on healthcare is basically every girl for herself, and any helping out is the nanny state intruding. With race-to-the-bottom economic Darwinists on one side of the aisle, we’re lucky we got the mediocre, complicated bill that we did. 

I suppose your analysis leaves out the enormous savings that would take place by cutting out the middle man (insurance companies) and being able to use the leverage of the federal government to drive down or negotiate  the escalating costs of health care in the US (since cost containment is rarely considered a benefit after it is secured)……

* “Medicare has has 40 years to secure these elusive ‘savings’ resulting from buying power and cutting out the middle man.  Medicare does and always has cost more on a cost/patient basis than 3rd party insurance.  There is no shortage of evidence on this.”

Three problems with this:
1) fungibility of revenue streams and trustworthiness of gov’t data
      Point: ‘savings’ definitions can be and have been manipulated
2) 3rd Party insurers make money precisely because they deny or limit service
      Point: adopt few strategies of 3rd PI while maintaining Medicare saves $$
3) Gaming of the medicare system is rampant
      Point: elusive savings requires both a public option & reforming coverage

* “Medical inflation has outstripped general inflation for more than 15 years and the population is aging.  Its a matter of mathematics, not politics, that health care costs would eventually consume an inordinate amount of U.S. resources.”
 
To claim that this is apolitical is absurd.  College tuition has generally outstripped general inflation and the population is losing jobs in mass.  Is that purely mathematical?  The honest to god answer is that we have limited resources and time with huge choices ahead of us that will affect our ecology, economy, and social fabric for decades.  These are highly political issues and most of the solutions (see the American Enterprise Institute) have a really shitty free market solution attached to them. 

As we have seen with POMO, QE1 & 2: there is enough money out there to payoff everyone’s mortgage, provide health care to 300 million people and create jobs.  The problem is free market capitalism really never is about solving problems.  Its about exporting them away from the source as a means of concealing it for as long as possible until a crisis occurs and then jumping up and down with the solution that is most advantageous.  War, defense spending, financial weapons of mass destruction are perfect examples.  This is much more than a lesson in demographics martha.

marthaomartha: ‘I guess that I just like to imagine that when a democracy sets out to
fundamentally change the operation of 1/7 of its economy, that it can do
a better job of it than to pass an 1800 page piece of legislation, most
certainly NOT READ by any of those exercising their franchise,’

Slavery was once a major part of the US economy, too.  And the solution there wasn’t exactly ‘bipartisan.’  Like many political issues that come down to the fundamentals of our pursuit of happiness, access to basic healthcare is something that economic forces will often work against, not in favor of.  But it takes reformers, often unpopular, to make a difference for the better in such cases in which progress is not popular among business elites and their lobbies.

marthaomartha: ‘Several years of living in London has taught me a healthy skepticism for single payer despite its many merits.’

Perhaps you should have been more observant of the UK system while you were a Londoner (or more observant of the US healthcare debate).  The NHS is not at all the kind of single-payer system the US eve considered in recent healthcare debates and proposals; it’s a national health service in which NHS doctors are employees of the state.  US Democrats have proposed a government-run, single-payer insurance system, but never a nationalized or socialized healthcare system.  The difference is very important, but it’s not a difference frequently observed by those whose committed partisanship rendered health reform in the US the 1800 page thing to which your previously alluded. 

* “To imply that you have to know someone personally before you describe them as conservative or liberal is quite strange.”

A simple research methods course addressing the topics: accuracy, precision, validity and reliability seem to be in order.  Then again, a six year old is often told to not judge a book by its cover. 

This reminds me of a Dorothy Parker quote: ” you can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make them think”.