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Paul Krugman did something that he made clear he regarded as quite brave: He defended the Democratic Party presidential nominee and likely next U.S. president from journalistic investigations. Complaining about media bias, Krugman claimed that journalists are driven by “the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation.” While generously acknowledging that it was legitimate to take a look at the billions of dollars raised by the Clintons as she pursued increasing levels of political power — vast sums often received from the very parties most vested in her decisions as a public official — it is now “very clear,” he proclaimed, that there was absolutely nothing improper about any of what she or her husband did.
Krugman’s column, chiding the media for its unfairly negative coverage of his beloved candidate, was, predictably, a big hit among Democrats — not just because of their agreement with its content but because of what they regarded as the remarkable courage required to publicly defend someone as marginalized and besieged as the former First Lady, two-term New York Senator, Secretary of State, and current establishment-backed multi-millionaire presidential front-runner. Krugman — in a tweet-proclamation that has now been re-tweeted more than 10,000 times — heralded himself this way: “I was reluctant to write today’s column because I knew journos would hate it. But it felt like a moral duty.”
[...] The reality is that large, pro-Clinton liberal media platforms — such as Vox, and The Huffington Post, and prime-time MSNBC programs, and the columnists and editorialists of The New York Times and The Washington Post, and most major New-York-based weekly magazines — have been openly campaigning for Hillary Clinton. I don’t personally see anything wrong with that — I’m glad when journalists shed their faux-objectivity; I believe the danger of Trump’s candidacy warrants that; and I hope this candor continues past the November election — but the everyone-is-against-us self-pity from Clinton partisans is just a joke. They are the dominant voices in elite media discourse, and it’s a big reason why Clinton is highly likely to win.
That’s all the more reason why journalists should be subjecting Clinton’s financial relationships, associations, and secret communications to as much scrutiny as Donald Trump’s. That certainly does not mean that journalists should treat their various sins and transgressions as equivalent: nothing in the campaign compares to Trump’s deport-11-million-people or ban-all-Muslim policies, or his attacks on a judge for his Mexican ethnicity, etc. But this emerging narrative that Clinton should not only enjoy the support of a virtually united elite class but also a scrutiny-free march into the White House is itself quite dangerous. Clinton partisans in the media — including those who regard themselves as journalists — will continue to reflexively attack all reporting that reflects negatively on her, but that reporting should nonetheless continue with unrestrained aggression.
Source: The Intercept
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday September 07 2016, @12:04AM
I'm not too sure about this but I've heard that getting to a certain percent in one election cycle could help G. Johnson (or another third-party candidate) get onto more polls during the next one. Which could lead to him having a better chance of polling at 15% and being able to get on the debate stage. Is that about right?
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(Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Wednesday September 07 2016, @12:09AM
I started campaigning for the LP in '88 when Ron Paul made his first run for President, IIRC it ate over 95% of our resources SIMPLY TO GET ON THE BALLOT in all 50 states.
The rules are different in each state but generally speaking if you poll somewhere around 10 or 15% in one election, you get treated more like a real party for the next election. Less busy work just qualifying to put your candidate on the ballot, means more time and money to actually try to spread the message and turn out voters.
Even if he doesn't win a strong showing would help alternative candidates in many different areas next election.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @12:49AM
being able to get on the debate stage
I don't know about that. IIRC Nader polled above the required percentage, then the requirement was raised so he still couldn't participate.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 07 2016, @01:13AM
Yeah, it was raised from 5% to 15%. I know that Gary J needs 15%.
Would they raise it to 20% in a blatant show of corruption? Call me optimistic, but I'd have to believe there would be enough backlash to prop him up if Gary was polling 16% and they raised it to 20.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday September 07 2016, @01:23AM
but I'd have to believe there would be enough backlash to prop him up if Gary was polling 16% and they raised it to 20.
No there wouldn't be, because the media would completely ignore it, or paint it as a positive, and most people wouldn't care.
Those who go on about "Liberals" and "Conservatives" have entirely missed the point.
The US system is set up to ensure the ruling class continues to rule.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @01:43AM
> The US system is set up to ensure the ruling class continues to rule.
As have been all "systems" in the history of mankind.
Really, your analysis is pretty banal.
Unless you support a 100% inheritance tax and raising all children in creches you support a system that ensures the ruling class continues to rule.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Arik on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:28AM
G_D FUCKING DAMN IT you have triggered me.
How on earth does my determination to pass the tiny scraps I have managed to set aside while wasting my life trying to make the world a better place on to the heirs I designate give you any mistaken perception of a right to take those kids away and raise them on garbage?
Are you a man or an insect anonymous coward?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:52AM
He could very well be a lizard. I'll admit, I've toyed with notions about somehow taking parents out of the equation, but it either ends up at Brave New World or The Giver. It's a tantalizing idea that everybody is literally born equal.
I don't think it can work in practice. If we aren't scrimping and saving so that we might one day bestow on somebody from the next generation our own leg up, what's the point? I say that even as somebody who can't have kids. When the time comes, I'll find a way of choosing. I'd rather it be up to me than some corruptible bureaucracy.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:58AM
Equally rich or equally poor?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Wednesday September 07 2016, @03:50AM
I'll admit, I've toyed with notions about somehow taking parents out of the equation, but it either ends up at Brave New World or The Giver.
I admit I was intrigued (in a "that'd be a nifty trainwreck" way) by Newt Gingrich's proposal to emulate "Boystown" by sticking poor kids in orphanages, though I'm not sure what novel or film that would end up resembling in reality. (Probably something post–apocalyptic in the long run.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @08:14PM
If I'm not mistaken, Native Americans have already been there, done that. The results have been, at best, somewhat mixed. Not quite post-apocalyptic, but it just didn't go over too well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @03:26AM
Are you trying to Poe's Law me?
Look, if you don't believe in creches and inheritance tax, that's fine.
Most people don't.
Just don't be a hypocrite.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday September 07 2016, @12:42PM
That is what I have been encouraging people to do. If there ever was an election to just say fuck-it screw these two this is it. If you lean more environmentally liberal vote Stein, if you lean more fiscally conservative vote Johnson. The best thing would be for the candidate from either of the major parties to be elected with like 27% of the vote so it is very clear that they don't have a mandate and that the majority of people don't want what they are selling. With the first debate coming and it likely that Johnson or Stein won't be in it I have joked that I would welcome some Russian intervention [wikipedia.org] in our election process.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone