Dear Commons Community,

Nobel Laureate and  NY Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has a strong piece in today’s NY Times on what he terms  “a well-developed right-wing media infrastructure.”   Using Dickens “A Christmas Carol” as his introduction, Krugman provides several examples of how elements of the Republican Party establishment have evolved into a switch and bait operation designed to confuse the American people with data distortion and pseudo research via well-funded conservative “think thanks”.  The best insight in this piece is ”

“Still, why does it matter what some politicians and think tanks say? The answer is that there’s a well-developed right-wing media infrastructure in place to catapult the propaganda, as former President George W. Bush put it, to rapidly disseminate bogus analysis to a wide audience where it becomes part of what “everyone knows.” (There’s nothing comparable on the left, which has fallen far behind in the humbug race.)”

He concludes:  “So  in this holiday season, let’s remember the wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge. Not the bit about denying food and medical care to those who need them: [but] America’s failure to take care of its own less-fortunate citizens is a national disgrace”.

Tony