Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Headlines - Tuesday March 20

 
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The CBO is projecting that the president's new budget would crush the deficit to almost zero by 2017. Via Kevin Drum, here's the chart.

Also, please note the "actual" side of the chart showing that the deficit has gone down since the president was inaugurated. Put another way: the president has reduced the deficit.

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More than 2,200 warm temperature records have been set so far in March. Take a look at the map above to see where temps are crazy departures from normal.

This isn't your average heat wave. Its duration, set against more than a century of record keeping, makes it one for the climate change chronicles.

What will it take for people to get the picture? The bankruptcy of an agricultural industry? Wildfires in the Midwest? Mass sticker-shock at the grocery?

I'm afraid it will take certain areas of the country becoming practically uninhabitable before roughly 40 percent of the country begins to question the "climate change is a liberal hoax" narrative they've been fed by their politicians and Fox News. Because Al Gore is fat. Or something.

(via Mother Jones)

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Bob Cesca: Far-Right Lied About CBO Healthcare Report
 
The other day I received a tweet from a far-right reader who accused me of being a "lying crook" for supporting the healthcare reform law, and, in the same tweet, the guy cited this item from the Washington Examiner insisting that the CBO has increased the cost of the ACA by almost a trillion dollars.

Holy effing crap on a stick! A treeeeeeellion dollars!

Of course if either this Twitter follower or the Examiner had actually read the CBO report, they would've learned that the CBO made no such claim.

The lie spread all around the wingnutosphere and Fox News and became so insane the CBO had to post an article debunking the lies. There's also this one from Media Matters. And this one from Krugman.

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Wow: Woman in Indiana faces 45 years in prison for "attempted feticide" after attempted suicide

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Catholic church reportedly castrated boys who reported priest sex abuse

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We take our good news out of this Supreme Court where we can get it. "The Supreme Court on Monday announced that it would not hear an appeal brought by Christian student groups against San Diego State University because of its non-discrimination policy. ... The announcement lets stand a ruling last August by the U.S. Court of Appeals to the Ninth Circuit, which held (PDF) that the university's policy was constitutional, even though it prevented Alpha Delta Chi -- a Christian sorority -- and Alpha Gamma Omega -- a Christian fraternity -- from gaining official recognition on campus. ... The fraternity and sorority required members to adhere to certain Christian teachings, which conflicted with SDSU's policy prohibiting discrimination based "on the basis of race, sex, color, age, religion, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental handicap, ancestry, or medical condition.""

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The science of climate change just keeps on piling up the proof. "Researchers have updated HadCRUT - one of the main global temperate records, which dates back to 1850. One of the main changes is the inclusion of more data from the Arctic region, which has experienced one of the greatest levels of warming. The amendments do not change the long-term trend, but the data now lists 2010, rather than 1998, as the warmest year on record. The update is reported in the published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. HadCRUT is compiled by the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit (Cru) at the University of East Anglia, and is one of three global records used extensively by climatologists."

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Trayvon Martin's Last Phone Call, Moments Before Tragic Death, Undermines Account Killer Gave To Police

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Fact-Free Fox News Blames Gas Prices On Obama | Ignoring Big Oil's record profits and Wall Street speculators, Fox News repeatedly blamed President Barack Obama for rising gasoline prices, Media Matters research finds. "Our results show that Fox News covered gas prices far more often than other news outlets — more than CNN and MSNBC combined. 55% of Fox News coverage suggested that President Obama is to blame for rising gas prices. In total, Fox blamed Obama 144 times in two months – more than three times as much as all other news outlets combined."

 

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Fox Ewes not all that interested in reporting on shooting deaths of unarmed teenagers

Fox News can generally be relied upon for a steady stream of artlessly jingoistic vomit, spewing forth from helmet-headed hairspray sacks who move their lips while reading important reports on hurricanes and other outrages against Heartland (= white, irrespective of actual location) America. What Fox usually fails at, though, is reporting on outrages against Urban (= black, etc.) America. (Kenneth Gladney excepted!) The latest such outrage to receive Fox News' patented bitchy silent treatment is the unprovoked shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a black teenager who found himself in the wrong Florida neighborhood (you know, where his father lived), being hunted like prey — ALLEGEDLY but also PROBABLY — by a local paranoiac vigilante known for being "fixated on crime and focused on young, black males." Hmm, that description… kind of sounds like every Fox scare-segment ever? READ MORE »

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