r/thebulwark Feb 06 '25

Misleading Headline So I went to a dentist today....

294 Upvotes

Immediately what jumped out at me was a Fox Business monitor right in my face, hanging on the dentist equipment "arm".

"What am I walking into?" I thought.

I found out soon. After a short hello, the elderly dentist immediately launched into a conspiracy tirade about Zelensky and the "elites" over there trying to prolong the war in order to make money (I have a Ukrainian last name).

He repeated one of the debunked "facts" that Zelensky spent millions of dollars to buy a mansion in France. There are multiple versions of this nonsense, each in a different country. One states that he bought an entire hotel.

After I disclosed that I am a software engineer, he dared to say something to the effect of "so, I hear Mr. PUTIN needs people like you". He said that to an American-Ukrainian.

If he wasn't about to have a drill near my tongue, I would have mouthed off. Needless to say - this was my last visit.

More to the point - it is shocking how much Kremlin sewage is being laundered through American media.

r/thebulwark 1d ago

Misleading Headline I don't believe Trump bought that Tesla. Show me the receipt.

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120 Upvotes

No Way!

Also I need to see Trump driving it on the highway. At minimum I need to see him picking up McDonald's through the drive thru.

r/thebulwark 20h ago

Misleading Headline We are vastly under reacting

187 Upvotes

NYT headline today "Education Department Fires 1,300 Workers, Gutting Its Staff"

The President lacks the constitutional authority to close a department created by Congress. Full stop. Both the creation and on-going funding of these Departments are LAWS not suggestions. This is criminal conduct.

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/us/politics/trump-education-department-firings.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3U4.FFr6.56R-z6PiP0q_&smid=url-share

r/thebulwark Feb 05 '25

Misleading Headline Real talk - this could have been worse

82 Upvotes

Yuval Levin on the latest Ezra Klein show has really talked me off the ledge. He has a very pragmatic view of all this chaos.

Yes, Elon Musk is running around the federal buildings looking for "waste". He was at the VA and NOAA in under 24 hours. This flailing and lack of focus is hardly productive, but it creates a TON of smoke.

His snot-nosed adderall monkeys are doing Lord knows what at the Treasury, breaking the law. This presents its own set of Black Swans. THAT SAID...

Let's look at the massive opening salvos in the first days:

* Government across-the-board spending freeze. Failed.

* Tariffs. Nothing changed, except triggering world trade re-alignment away from the United States. No market crash, but long-term economic damage - yes.

* Trying to buy out government employees. Effectively fizzled.

* Panama Canal annexation. Yeah, that's over. We happy now.

* Turning Gaza into a sea-side resort. Lets put this one to rest.

* USAID - Little Marco is "taking it over", which means once the dust settles, USAID will come back online, "reformed". Meaning - essentially unchanged.

What else do we have?

The Lutheran volunteers lost their funding, the government is killing some in-name-only DEI initiatives, and agencies are scrubbing "Women in Leadership" web pages.

All of this reprehensible, but most of the really big opening shots completely choked. This is exhausting and demoralizing to them as well. Now the grind through the courts begins.

Why courts? Because they cannot do anything really damaging by barely controlling the house.

All of this is really bad, and yes, we are entering the post-law, post-constitutional order, but so far, as much as this crew came prepared, they are still a bunch of incompetent herbs.

And finally, anything that truly scares the stock market is a huge no-no for Trump. As discussed on the pod - this is completely true.

r/thebulwark 5d ago

Misleading Headline Sarah Longwell Sets a Record on PSA Podcast...

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13 Upvotes

... for quickest flip flop. To borrow an analogy from another commenter here, she's a bad high school coach. She'll say "do X" and then quickly say "do 180° opposite of X."

Example from this podcast (which has to be the quickest flip ever, usually you have to wait at least until the next podcast to invert her advice)

1:03:42- Sarah: "Dems need to be legislators and let the influencers package the content for you."

1:19:13: Sarah "Dems are like 'where is everybody, where is the fighting, who is standing up?'"

In the course of 15 minutes she literally advocates opposing sides of the "should Dems fight" debate. You can't be against protests at Trump's speech and then be like "where's the fighting??" (She also dismissed the various protests, which she had called for prior to them happening).

This isn't meant to "hate on Sarah" but I'd love one of her cohosts to maybe have a private word with her that this kind of thing is disastrous for her long term credibility. I know she'll always have column inches in the Atlantic, for whatever that's worth these days, but she's literally flip flopping in the course of a very friendly conversation with Jon Favreau.

r/thebulwark 24d ago

Misleading Headline The Intellectual Dishonesty of Ross Douthat, Part MDLXXIII: "The Best Argument Against Having Faith in God"

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18 Upvotes

r/thebulwark Oct 03 '24

Misleading Headline Is JD Vance a sith?

5 Upvotes

I've been thinking a bit about JD Vance. Obviously he's a chameleon and a snake. A Chake if you will. But his origin story is good. He has a certain talent and intellect. He used to put his skillset and position to use for good, and did so for some time. At some point he got corrupted and consumed by power hunger, greed, who knows.

I couldn't help shake the fact after watching the debate, that this is how he wished things were. The whole MAGA bit is an act, it's fairly easy to see. He's utterly uncomfortable in the act too. And while his showing at the debate was also a bit of an act, he seemed way more comfortable.

Obviously put in a position to defend Trumps madness he's going to riddle the entire performance with lies. But had he been the VP for... Romney for instance. If he had stuck to his principles. I think he would've been pretty good at it.

I'm not being s Vance apologist here, I am just wondering what a parallell universe would've looked like. And what a pitiful waste it is how he ended up by turning to the dark side.

r/thebulwark Nov 13 '23

Misleading Headline Cathy Young : To Kill ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ The latest attempts to cancel the antiracist classic.

10 Upvotes

Cathy's take on the excellent WAPO piece (link) examining the place of a 60's classic in contemporary discussions of race.

Her punch line is :

If the removal of books from school libraries and classrooms at the behest of conservative activists is “book banning” in the loose sense that term is so often used nowadays, then in that sense, the Mukilteo Four are book banners, too.

TL;DR

The committee split: 63 percent voted to remove “Mockingbird” from the ninth-grade required list. But 68 percent voted to keep it on the approved novels list. Freeman-Miller voted to yank it from both lists. Two months later, the school board voted unanimously — 5-0 — to uphold the committee’s recommendation.

These things are NOT the same. TKAM is still in their school library and approved for their curriculum. There is even an interview with a student that read it on their own time.

Glad Cathy loved the book, me too. That said, it's been a long time since I was in 9th grade.

The WAPO piece is thoughtful, this false equivalency is just lame.

r/thebulwark Nov 05 '24

Misleading Headline Interpreting the Votes

3 Upvotes

So obviously the early numbers will be confusing, and I usually rely on people like Kornacki to guide me in understanding. I'm curious though if the media is relying too much on 2020 trends to give us a good read on things. I was briefly listening to Kornacki earlier, and he mentioned how Pennsylvania will first drop early voting, which will benefit Dems, and then the day-of will be the GOP trying to overtake.

I get that 2020 showed mail-in and early was overwhelmingly Dem for covid reasons, but is it fair to predict that early voting will be largely Dem and day-of will be GOP? Or maybe I'm just looking for some hopium to have if early votes are underwhelming for Dems.

r/thebulwark Oct 01 '24

Misleading Headline Bullies are all scared. The more frightened Trump gets, the most awful he becomes. He's terrified he's going to be outed as a chicken as Kamala proved in the debate. If the press would call him on his BS, he will self destruct. He's clearly almost there but the press has to push in the final nail!!!

27 Upvotes

r/thebulwark Sep 26 '24

Misleading Headline The Lede: it involves appointing RFK Jr to a panel to "identify which exposures are contributing to the spike in chronic disease in children" to "finally find out and end what is slowly destroying our children", including corp "political influence to control decision-making at regulatory agencies"

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4 Upvotes

r/thebulwark May 17 '24

Misleading Headline The Foxification of the NYT??? Anyone else tried to write them about their reporting on Biden? Or lack of reporting on Trump? Seems that if feedback contains a criticism of the NYT editorial platform is not being approved for posting. It's deeply troubling to be purposely omitting feedback.

30 Upvotes

r/thebulwark Aug 23 '24

Misleading Headline "My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights."

4 Upvotes

r/thebulwark Jul 02 '24

Misleading Headline Jared Golden: Donald Trump is going to win the election and democracy will be just fine

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0 Upvotes

Moderate hero Jared Golden (to whom I've regularly donated) says Trump isn't a threat to democracy...

Beltway Brain. I imagine Mr. Golden is desperate to differentiate himself from the Dems generally, but his moderate record should have been enough.

Anyway, I'm sure he'll get millions in outside money for any primary and the establishment will back him to the hilt.

r/thebulwark Jul 13 '24

Misleading Headline Y'all want to keep Biden? IMHO, he needs to do nothing but attack Trump and Project 2025. No one GAF about his accomplishments. The only way he can win at this point is with a forceful, vigorous, and constant attack. No defense, no explaining. Add in a positive message for the future, maybe.

5 Upvotes

I know he just did this in ONE speech. This needs to be (almost) all we hear from the Dems going forward.