I think (but I'm willing to listen to dispute on these matters) that the following are true about 20th-/21st-century American news media:

*There have always been sycophants, probably dominant, in the media;

*despite that, investigative research was still common in the mass media pre-, oh, late 1980s or so;

*today, with a few exceptions--Hersh, Savage at the Globe, the McClatchy papers, Maddow--true oppositional, investigative research has been driven out, relegated to the DFH's in the blogosphere.

If these points are true, what is different about today? My assumption would be the concentration of mass media. Is this correct?

I throw this out for discussion, because this is the real heart of the matter.

"Now if we can just solve the little dilemma of voters knowing something, we'll have no problem getting elected!"

Meanwhile, nobody ever heard anything bad about Obama. For instance, did you know his middle name's HUSSEIN? And that he's a secret Muslim socialist from a radical Christian Church who hangs around with terrorists????!!?? OMG we nevar heard ANYTHING about that stuff!!!11!!

Geez, call the waaahhhmbulance.

Instead, the real problem is the skyrocketing debt owed by, well, you, and by the banks.

Billmon explained this in an eye-opening post recently (click on sig). Government debt as a percentage of GDP has stayed at about 50% of GDP for over 30 years. This after the debt rose starting in 1981 (ahem!), started to drop again in 1993 (ahem!), and started rising again in 2001 (hack! cough! hack!).

But still, to my surprise, despite Bush's tax cuts and (thus) unfunded luxury war, the federal debt is not that much, compared the other sources of debt that we will be paying for one way or another. The personal part of that rising debt would be the all-credit lifestyle we have been urged to adopt, and treating homes like they were money trees.

But the dramatic climb in debt--638% increase in debt/GDP!--is among the banks. Basically, after the financialization of the economy, banks owe each other umpty trillion $ of imaginary money.

Please explain what we will do about that. The "free market" got us into this hole, and I don't think it's going to pull us out.

"...can we get off the ad-homs and talk facts?"

Oh, that's fucking rich, considering your first sentence in this thread, and practically every other sentence since then, has been an ad-hominem attack.

And as for facts, all you've given us is the imperious proclamation that "stimulus doesn't work." In contrast, your hero is...Coolidge?

Brilliant argument!

Aha! Finally, something that looks like an argument.

It's a start.

I shut his patronizing talk off when he threw out that story about the sheriff and the boats (I call apocryphal Republican bullshit!--I want to see some documentation).

But here I have the text, and he really, truly bitched about spending "$140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.' Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring"...blah blah blah are you fucking serious? And you're really the Governor of...Louisi-fucking-ana?

Yeah, watching volcanoes, that's retarded, huh? Almost as stupid as looking out for, I don't know, hurricanes or something.

For the benefit of the, um, less-informed out there, there are plenty of active American volcanoes, in the Aleutians, as mentioned above, eleven in the Cascades, and major volcanic centers at Long Valley in CA and Yellowstone. Tens of millions of Americans are potentially at risk from the last two; the more frequently-erupting Mt. Rainier threatens a major metropolitan area.

To mock volcano monitoring is just pig-ignorant. For the Governor of...I still can't believe it... Louisiana to do so is so utterly, dementedly dense it defies description.

I forget exactly what her military credentials are. Can someone remind me?

Congresswoman. Asshole.

Got a problem with civilian control of the military?

Given that Congress has budgetary control over wars, and is supposed to be deciding whether we actually go to war or not, then hell yes, they're supposed to have control over large-scale questions like troop strength.

And if it takes a Democratic President for our (Democratic) Congress to remember their duty to check Presidential power, hey, works for me.

The report (and TCF is only relaying the findings of the report here) doesn't say that sex education is entirely lacking in Texas, just in the vast majority (94%!) of school districts. I am glad to hear that the subject is properly covered in DISD schools, but it seems that most Texas districts fall far short. You may disagree with that result, but you ought to look over the report; it looks pretty comprehensive, covering 96% of Texas school districts.

Don't shoot the messenger!

A billion readers? Bwah hah hah hah!

That's right: Drudge's readers include, oh, half each of China, the US, and Europe, plus all of Africa.

(Anyone else hearing a Dr. Evil line? "One billion readers!")

Here's a clue: "hits" does not = "readers." You may have clicked on Salon a billion times to spread your shit, but that doesn't add up to a billion readers.

Now please: with your erstwhile logic and command of mathematics, continue lecturing us about climate science.

there was this little event, that you apparently haven't heard of, called the Reformation.

It was a couple of years ago.

Since then, people haven't been ruled by an infallible Pope. No, not even Catholics.

To illustrate: Think the Iraq war was a bloody, stupid, and criminal idea? No? Well, then: "why are you still a Catholic?"

...does that mean you're out of a job or does that mean you're out of work?