One of the benefits of the Todd Akin fiasco is that it has stripped away the mask of reasonable affability that Mike Huckabee has managed to wear for so long and revealed him for what he truly is, an extreme religious dogmatist who values being anti-gay and anti-abortion above all else. [Read more…]
While Mitt Romney’s tax returns have faded from the news for the moment, you can be sure that they will re-emerge as an issue. The Obama campaign had been hitting Romney hard on taxes with ads such as this one. [Read more…]
Todd Akin’s bizarre theory of rape and pregnancy has been getting brutal reviews. Perhaps the most succinct is that of Dr. Michael Greene, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School, who said, “There are no words for this — it is just nuts.” [Read more…]
Glenn Greenwald weighs in on the extensive back and forth that is taking place about the Julian Assange case, looking at the legal and political aspects of the case that have been presented, along with ways on how this could be resolved with both Assange and his accusers being treated fairly and justice served. He also examines the deep hostility of major elements of the media towards Assange and Wikileaks which has extended to those who have been concerned about the attacks on Wikileaks. [Read more…]
Yesterday, I wrote about a report put out by The Chronicle of Philanthropy disaggregating the amount of charitable giving according to various criteria. In its discussion of the report, NPR said that poor people tended to give a larger proportion of their income to charity, and tried to explain why this might be so. [Read more…]
Watch Todd Akin ask for forgiveness for his comments about rape. Most of it was based on the premise of a poor choice of words rather than a fundamentally erroneous idea, because he says “I used the wrong words in the wrong way and for that I apologize…. The mistake I made was in the words I said, not in the heart I hold.” [Read more…]
There have recently been a few high profile cases of plagiarism, the latest being Fareed Zakaria, who quickly admitted to the offense and apologized and whose TV show was initally suspended for a month as a punishment but quickly brought back. He has also resigned from Yale University’s Governing Board. [Read more…]
The media has to stop this practice of labeling anything controversial said by a politicians (or the one-percenters) as a ‘flub’ or a ‘gaffe’. Those labels should be reserved for either honest mistakes or for statements that were intended but have fairly trivial consequences. For a politician, confusing the names of the leaders of foreign countries is a gaffe. It does not tell us much about what the person’s views on foreign policy are. But saying something that you believe does not become transformed into a gaffe simply because it gets you in hot water. [Read more…]
The latest news from Pakistan lends further support to the impression that it is coming further under the sway of vigilante Islamic groups that are terrorizing those who offend their delicate sensibilities. [Read more…]