Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
Dr. Richard Carrier, an atheist known on the chicken dinner circuit and professor of Ancient History, who helped get the social justice group Atheism+ started several years ago, now ironically finds himself on ‘the other side’ of the fence, as it were, by suing several people and blogs in the freethought community, including a woman who went public with a claim of sexual harassment, for $2 million.
A campaign advert, sent by the Ohio GOP, I got in the mail the other day attempts to paint Rob Portman’s challenger, Ted Strickland, as a flip-flopper on abortion. In the text of the ad it claims Planned Parenthood, which Strickland supports, is the subject of a public debate concerning ‘taxpayer funded’ abortions. The fact is that claim is a lie.
Here is an image of the mailer I got and below it is a blow-up of the part that is a lie:
I hate watching election news on TV or reading it in certain publications. It makes me angry. In a futile quest to make elections interesting, the drummed up fake balance reporting is in fact hurting our democracy.
From Media Matters:
One thing that grinds my gears every election season is the lack of effort from the members of the national journalist class. Basically most of them turn into stenographers – just repeating what political people tell them. Robin Roberts, a morning show host who thinks she is a journalist, knows what her job should be but misses the point of what it is suppose to do.
Summer repeats of TV shows are a nice time to come across things like an interview with Good Morning America host Robin Roberts on the Ellen DeGeneres show from back in February. She is asked about the 2016 Presidential election:
I simply had enough. Most days I scan the Letters-to-the-Editor section of my local paper, shake my head, and move on. But last week, I reached my breaking point. I don’t care how mentally unstable you sound, if you can’t even get basic history right, I have to call you on it. That’s why I responded to a recent letter I read. In politics, you can’t always let things slide.
I am NOT a Hillary Clinton fan, I supported Bernie during the primaries, so what set me off about Wayne B.’s letter to the editor on August 4th? He mangles history. THAT pissed me off.