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The presidential debates: Mitt, Barack, and the supersecret handshake
Mitt and Barack are going to have a likely contentious sit-down Wednesday night at the University of Denver’s Ritchie Center. Well, probably more like a stand-up. In most past presidential debates, the...
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A rich man’s insider trading deserves prison
The American government wants Rajat K. Gupta to go to prison for up to a decade. He wants to go to Rwanda to do community service and call that sufficient punishment for his crimes. A jury convicted...
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On Nov. 6, I’ll vote for a liar for president
No matter how I try to rationalize it, I’m going to vote for a liar for president of the United States. And, no matter how I try to ignore history, I realize that I likely have always voted for a liar...
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Congress: Why throwing the bums out won’t improve it
I like sausage. I don’t care what names attach to them. I like sausage, be it bratwurst, kielbasa, bauerwurst, chorizo, bangers, Italian, summer, or linguica. Different meats (beef, pork, even...
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Four more years? Of what? Same old shit, no matter who wins.
I have cast a vote for president every four years for nearly half a century. Doing so is an obligation of citizenship. Each cast ballot has reminded me of those, in other nations, for whom voting is...
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When (and why) should an energy subsidy end?
A German-made 900kWh PowerWind56 wind turbine dominates the summit of Mount Institute in Hawley, Mass. It provides, says a ski industry website, 100 percent of the electricity needs of Berkshire East....
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Is $6 billion in political spending a big deal? Depends on context.
Is $6 billion a lot of money? Depends. To Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, perhaps not so much. To me and 99.99 percent of Americans, yeah, it’s a lot of money. But, like much in life, the assignment of...
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The new transparency: Newspapers mine public data, and not everyone’s happy...
Better get used to it, people. As governments increasingly place public information online, news organizations are going to demand access to it and print it — but not always with appropriate context....
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At last: How to get Congress to work a full week
Americans do not have an effective Congress because its members’ fears of political poverty leave them spending too much time begging for money from those who have lots of it. That leaves too little...
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Redistricting: by deceitfully moving a line, I can rule forever
In America, most — but probably not all — citizens who seek public office do so with initial good intent. They wish to perform a public service. That quaint, altruistic notion lasts, on the national...
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Pew study: Newspapers’ hard times continue
Shocked! Shocked we should be! But the latest report on the State of the Media by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism comes as no surprise. The bottom line: Fewer resources...
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Is CNN’s Howard Kurtz still credible? We’ll see.
How much credence should I place, beginning now, in whatever media reporter and critic Howard Kurtz says or writes? First came his ill-considered contretemps regarding NBA player Jason Collins’...
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So you wanna be a citizen journalist? Good luck with that.
Citizen journalist. Citizen journalist? How does that adjective modify journalist? What is a citizen journalist? How does a citizen journalist differ from a plain, ink-stained (or digitally adept),...
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How much time does a source have to respond to reporter’s request for...
The deadline is now. Thirty years ago, I faced a deadline once a day. For any reporter today, the deadline is … well, now. The technological leap into the Internet era that changed the notion of...
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How to stop journalists: Say they might be criminals
If you’re the guv’mint, and you want a journalist’s notes, emails, phone records, and such, and you don’t want to get a subpoena ’cause the journalist would be notified, no problemo. Just cite...
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Walter Pincus, the law, journalists … and the chilling effect of Obama’s war...
When Walter Pincus — Polk, Emmy, and Pulitzer winner — speaks about the intersection of national security, the First Amendment, and journalism, I listen. So should journalists who reacted as I did to...
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Kurtz to leave CNN for Fox: Egads. Another crack in his credibility?
Did he fall or was he pushed? Howard Kurtz, host of the media-criticism program Reliable Sources since 1998, has set sail from the turbulent seas of CNN for the turgid waters of Fox News Channel. Fox...
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a little world rarely seen …
We are often told to “think big.” (It’s a formula for success, apparently.) I choose to think small. As small as possible. That’s my hobby: Bringing to larger life the world of the small. I’ve been...
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Building my own news machine, whether I like it or not
I didn’t realize it until this morning. I have not watched CNN in more than five weeks. Since Ted Turner set loose the Chicken Noodle Network in June 1980, I have watched it daily — in the morning as I...
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