Skip to main content

I hate Frank Luntz.



Just wanted to get that out there.


Addendum (4/30)--

As per Media Matters:

'Right-wing story time this week -- brought to you by Frank Luntz -- centered around the claim that financial reform legislation would encourage perpetual and permanent taxpayer bailouts. The genesis of this particular tall tale is Luntz's January memo that advised opponents of financial regulatory reform to tie the issue to big bank bailouts. Message received. Driving the clown car was Glenn Beck, who appeared on Fox & Friends to decry the "insane" idea of using $50 billion to save failing firms; Michelle Malkin claimed the bill would "institutionalize and make permanent financial bailouts"; Fox Business' Charles Gasparino said the bill contained a "slush fund" of "$50 billion to bail you out." Actually, the $50 billion fund would be paid for by the financial services industry and would cover the costs of the orderly liquidation of failing firms, quite clearly the opposite of a bailout. No worries. The Wall Street Journal's John Fund tried to argue that the bill was bad because it would bail out firms and because it let the government liquidate them. Rush Limbaugh complained that it was "a bailout bill, or a destroy 'em bill." Neat trick.'

As usual, our Republicans' talking points have been brought to you by Frank Luntz, supposed pollster and former worst-contributor to Hardball.  Screw that guy.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Magical Unrealism

The same men who say global warming is a hoax, Obamacare has been failing for eight years, and abstinence-only sex-ed works are also convinced even basic gun control is an impossible and useless approach which would only make us less safe. These are also the dudes most likely to tell you black and brown folk have it too good, Obama is a secret Muslim born in Kenya, and Sharia law is being forced on American legal systems. I wonder if there's some sort of overarching thread or theme to all this.

An introduction to a book that doesn't exist:

Prose and verse are generally accepted as distinct writing formats with their own rules, styles, and grammars.  Though their borders are somewhat vague, they have come to be seen as something of a dichotomy in the eyes of the general public.  There are, however, at least 3 other popular approaches to writing as exhibited in picture-books, comicbooks, and plays.  Though sometimes given short shrift, these styles are accepted as literature.  They are included in libraries, book stores, and academic study.  Most importantly, they are read. In the general case, there is clearly writing being done in the creation of any one of these.  But what of the wordless comic or silent play?  Should we consider scripts written, but fully realized plays, comics, and picture-books, to be performance, art, or some other kind of non-literature?  These worries of theory are kinks to be worked out, surely, but they are not of immediate practical concern to the writer...

The summer's demi-apocalypse has to wind down at some point.

It's the end of summer, once again. I could not be any more ready for cool weather, rain, and a chance for the forests to recover from the flames. After travelling near fires in Colorado and Oregon's Columbia river gorge, I am back wondering about north Seattle, under a red sun and painterly clouds, not far enough from the source of the drifting smoke. It seems like the world is burning, but that can only last so long.