Fox News famously relies on the trope that “some people say …” in order to insert unsourced (i.e., Fox’s own) opinions into a news story. “Serious people say” and “no one seriously thinks” are the flip side of this technique. Corporate-owned newspapers and broadcast media outlets use “some people say” in order to define the range of acceptable discourse and “no one seriously thinks” to smear opinions that are widespread among the public at large as marginal, infantile and perhaps even insane.
August 5, 2011
mmmmmmmm soup
(Source: milkmanamok)
July 31, 2011
July 29, 2011
When Eric Cantor shut down debt ceiling negotiations last week, it did more than just rekindle fears that the U.S. government might soon default on its debt obligations — it also brought him closer to reaping a small financial windfall from his investment in a mutual fund whose performance is directly affected by debt ceiling brinkmanship. Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, had between $1,000 and $15,000 invested in ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20 Year Treasury EFT. The fund aggressively “shorts” long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, meaning that it performs well when U.S. debt is undesirable.
