Citing Satire as "Reporting," Raw Story Implies Iowa Pro-Hillary Shenanigans

Hillary at the 2015 Iowa Fair / Phil Roeder, CC BY 2.0

Raw Story is the Democrats’ answer to Breitbart.  Anything you see from them needs to be scrutinized carefully and fact-checked thoroughly.  Fail to, and you’ll share, repost, or cite at your own risk.

Case in point: THIS Raw Story piece is the WORST.  The author, in building a case that pro-Hillary shenanigans were afoot in the Iowa caucuses, was incredibly sloppy in his sourcing and analysis.  I’m not sure whether this resulted from his desire to prove his thesis, or the perverse incentives of “writing at the speed of the Internet” resulting in haphazard work, or both.  Just in case it’s primarily due to an unusual series of mistakes – and we’ve all made them – I’ll simply refer to him here as RS Travis.

RS Travis cites an Iowa blog for saying the EXACT OPPOSITE of what it says.  He also cites a HuffPo satire piece as “reporting,” and paints a couple of fairly even-handed Iowa newspaper editorials as being much more dramatic and sensational than they really were.   All in all, lovely. ;)

Misciting a one-year old source

RS Travis: 

The blog BleedingHeartland has been raising concerns that McGuire, who has been involved in Iowa politics for more than 20 years, is manipulating the state’s Democratic Party to favor Clinton over her challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT).

Uh, that’s not what she said.  The Bleeding Heartland post he linked to was from one year ago, when McGuire was first elected Chair - the post and all updates are from January 2015: 

Why Won't Bernie Denounce Super PAC Spending That's Helping HIM?

Bernie on the stump / Phil Roeder, CC-BY 2.0

The New York Times, reporting on Friday, January 29, 2016:

“Bernie Sanders is Democrats' Top Beneficiary of Outside Spending, Like It Or Not”* 

*This was the original, accurate headline. The NYT later subbed in a misleading, click-bait headline, which I really wish they'd get rid of.* 

I'm waiting to hear Sanders supporters - ANY Sanders supporters - call on Bernie to immediately and publicly repudiate the $5.3 million+ that super PACs have spent so far – much of it in Iowa and New Hampshire – to help Sanders and hurt Hillary.  At the very least, denouncing the $4.3 million in right wing attack ads that have been targeting Hillary would seem to be a gimme.

For the sake of consistency, if Bernie thinks all PACs are bad, he should probably respectfully request that UNNA not spend their super PAC money trying to elect him, either.  Ditto for myriad other Bernie-endorsing organizations, including MoveOn.org, which recently endorsed Bernie, and which spent almost a million dollars on campaign ads in the 2014 election season (note: MoveOn Political Action is a federal PAC rather than a super PAC, so they at least disclose their donors.)

No, Dianne Feinstein Is NOT Trying to Take Veterans' Guns

Senator Diane Feinstein / David Lee, CC BY 2.0

I love many things about modern technology.  The ease with which we can share information is absolutely amazing!  But that means it's also very easy for folks to share FALSE information.

For example, the following misinfographic ... which is a load of baloney.  

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Graphic altered to prevent further circulation of its nonsense.  Original had "Idiot" at the top and the fabricated quote at the bottom.

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) NEVER uttered these words, and sure as heck doesn't even think it.

After further conversation with my Facebook friend who posted this, I've been able to figure out the origin of this meme.  He argued that "it's a paraphrase of what she said."

Did the GOP Steal Kentucky Guv's Race? [Spoiler: Not Likely]

The Tea Party GOP Bevin-Hampton ticket won handily in an election with just 30% voter turnout / Photo: Facebook

An article from Alternet is making the rounds in online progressive and Democratic circles today, asking a provocative question:

Did GOP Insiders Steal the Kentucky Governor's Race for Tea Partier Matt Bevin?  

However, once you look at the Kentucky election results and dig a bit more into the dynamics of the race, it seems to be much ado about nothing.  And the bigger story here is that Kentucky's elected state executive offices just flipped party control from 6 Democrats and 1 Republican to 5 Republicans and 2 Democrats.

Some takes on the Alternet piece make it sound like more people voted on down-ballot races than on the Governor's race.  If true, that would be shocking - but it's not true.  Almost 10,000 more folks voted on Governor than Secretary of State, and races further down have, predictably, fewer votes cast. 

Let's look at the actual data:

Professor Limbaugh Fail: Rush Don't Know Glass-Steagall

Screenshot from Limbaugh's site.

I don't want to shock anyone, but the self-declared "Mayor of Realville" apparently really doesn't know what he's talking about.

The day after the first Democratic presidential debate, Rush Limbaugh informed his audience that “Mr. Snerdley” had spent the morning hassling him for his ignorance about the Glass-Steagall Act:

Screen shot from Limbaugh archives

Not sure how “Professor” Limbaugh missed the six or so mentions of Glass-Steagall, and moderator Anderson Cooper’s good quick-and-dirty description to bring viewers up to speed, and all of the talking head discussion about it immediately after the debate.  But whatever.