In which I am called an astroturfer and generously offered a chance at unconditional surrender by antivaccine cranks

I am struggling to understand the meaning of "astroturfer", according to Attkisson.
Her list has lobbying groups (if I read #1 right), bloggers (both individuals and collectives), news sites, and official government spokepeople.
I'm not even sure if she means the people publishing the articles on the net or the commenters "trolling" them (yeah, because if you voice your opinion on a public place, you are "trolling")

Part of the issue may be English is second language for me.

However, her definition seems to boil down to "whoever has a different opinion from her".

Dorit Rubenstein Reiss... is a law professor at the University of California Hastings and a frequent contributor to SkepticalRaptors.com
How does she contribute frequently to a website which doesn't exist?

Heckenlively's got a long way to go before making it to Bastogne territory, as far as replies go.

She also created that list from a whopping 169 responses to her question on Twitter....not exactly a resounding endorsement - and at least she makes sure to clarify that it wasn't a "scientific" poll, just an excuse to let her crazy flag fly.

Mein Herr Doktor, she added an 's'. It's The Skeptical Raptor (skepticalraptor.com).

Now I see* where D'Ohlmsted got the idea for this:

Vaccines 2.0 is now the No. 2 book in Immunology on Amazon and climbing quickly.

* "Virology"; "Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,769 in Books."
** "Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #26,955 in Books," now #8 in its quick-climb pseudoniche. I should have tracked the day-over-day decline to ballpark the number of copies (it's dropped by about 17,000 places in a week). I'd love 10 minutes with Nielsen BookScan; Skyhorse's The Healthy Green Drink Diet stands at #740 in books.

This is good:

MSNBC, Slate.com, Los Angeles Times and Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times, MSNBC and Jon Stewart.

Parallelism, Sharyl, par-uh-lism.

Maybe you haven’t really thought much about what it means that Dr. Thompson has been granted CONGRESSIONAL IMMUNITY.

Ah, the other prong of Marcella Piper-Terry's word salad, to bookend Kennedy. No, Thompson hasn't been granted any such thing, even in 72-point type. He would have to be subpoened first.

Even Kennedy clued in on this (emphasis added):

Posey hopes to subpoena Dr. Thompson, who is still employed by CDC; Thompson has promised that he intends to come clean about CDC. “If forced to testify, I’m not going to lie. I basically have stopped lying.”

It's almost as though Kennedy and Heckenlively, both lawyers who damn well ought to know better than to spout such nonsense, were in cahoots.

^ "subpoenaed"

Mein Herr Doktor, she added an ‘s’. It’s The Skeptical Raptor (skepticalraptor.com).

We both know that, but misspelling a website (multiple times!) does not shed the aura of veracity and credibility to which a journalist might aspire. Indeed, it leaves a lingering suspicion that she has not even visited the site she is aspersing.

Orac is in with distinguished company there!

Attkisson acolytes, reprinting her list, explicitly describe its members as part of a left-wing information war.

I’ve made this offer several times in the past. I’m making it again.

After the first time one offers terms of "Unconditional surrender or face immediate annihilation", the second, third, fourth and fifth threats of immediate annihilation begin to lose some of their impact.

It does sound a bit like Custer demanding the surrender of Sitting Bull.....

Or the Saturday Night live skirt where the aliens landed & threatened us with their "muskets."

And we showed them what an Uzi can do......

I was reminded of "Comical Ali" when the US invasion of Iraq took place. He went on TV saying that the US had been repelled. As he was talking, an M1 Abrams tank drove into view.

ScienceBlogs.com (using the pseudonym “Orac”)

Attkisson's blithe conviction that RI is the only blog at Scienceblogs.com does not foster a sense that she knows her way around the Intertubes.

@good Herr Doktor: but you know, all those other listed SB blogs are just a front for RI. ONLY Orac counts. Remember this!

How does one get so convinced of one's own brilliance that it is impossible for anyone to disagree unless the vast conspiracy?

Helianthus there certainly is a legitimate use for astroturfers "fake grass"-roots.

For whatever reasons we like when the little people each on their own start rebelling against the man and then eventually come together as a movement.

So much so that the rich and powerful will spend a lot of money to create one. I have a general distrust of any grass-roots movement as often if you look behind the curtain you find a special interest group using it as part of their lobbying strategy.

I do think one of the things that should be in place to label something as "astroturf" is that movement should be at least promoting itself as a "grass roots" movement, and not much on her list does that.

I have to say that I've read and collated the work of countless journalists who thought they could make something out of spinning vaccine damage anecdotes with Wakefield into a whole cloth of an "investigation". Most of it has been in the UK, where some extremely third rate talent joined the fray. And we naturally assume that the US, for its size, would have greater abilities to bring to the party.

But even including Dan "Donald Duck" Olmsted, there's hardly anyone I've seen who have performed so poorly as Attkisson. All she's done is cobble together (mostly by Googling) scraps of old anti-vax canards. Or she offers herself to Wakefield: "Oh, but Dr Wakefield, you didn't even say that the vaccine causes autism, did you?" (not literal quote) It's really pitiful stuff.

When you compare the MMR fraud with a previous controversy over the old whole-cell DTP vaccine, it's impossible not to be struck by the difference in the calibre of the players. With DTP (which turned out to be a false scare also, after a big British piece of epidemiology collapsed) there were at least people of ability and integrity voicing the criticisms. And there was very little personal abuse.

Stripped of producers, and having shown her willingness to smear her former professional colleagues, Attkisson is likely going nowhere now. People around her will be saying: the reason we didn't run her stuff was because it was crap, and she was unreliable. Not because she was some challenge to the administration.

I particularly thought this the other day when my shiny new laptop started deleting text from my screen. When it happened to her, she claimed it was the government - doubtless because she had nothing in her book of much plausibility - and she really believes she's someone who matters.

Back in Britain, it was significant for her calibre of journalist that, when there was a big break in the Wakefield story, the BBC was unable to find a single journalist willing to come on national radio with me, and defend their journalism.

Vaccines are, in short, the crank magnet above all others.

Heaping scorn on Heckenlively is exactly the right thing to do. He is ridiculous. Nevertheless, I think a pro-vaccine mother has a good point.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/shouting-wont-win-over-vaccina…

"She says people with anti-vax views should not be shouted down, but should be able to state their views.

“Giving them a soapbox provides us the opportunity to question them and get their answers. So the new mom and dad who tune in hear our argument and hear theirs. Based on legitimate facts and not yelling, screaming and blaming, they will make their decision.”

If she was a new mother undecided about vaccines, Olsheski said, “a debate in which one side, with clear, substantiated information, and one side with only folklore, hokum and whatever else,” she would choose the “clear, concise, calm side.”"

Let's keep on trying to present the clear, concise, calm side.

"Astroturfers often disguise themselves and publish blogs, write letters to the editor, produce ads, start non-profits, establish Facebook and Twitter accounts, edit Wikipedia pages or simply post comments online to try to fool you into thinking an independent or grassroots movement is speaking. "

Dear. Ms. Attkisson: pot, meet kettle. I think you need to take a good, deep look in the mirror, dear.

@Orac: look at it this way. You beat out Jon Stewart, who has a much higher national profile and doesn't even do real news.

Well, I can see how Sharyl Attkisson might be confused about shills and "astroturf". After all, RI is just loaded with pharmaceutical ads, while antivax websites have no connection whatsoever with commercial sponsors selling glop to repair "vaccine damage" (sarcasm).

Olmsted's surrender-now-or-pay-the-consequences threat speaks to desperation (the heat over antivaxers' contribution to the current measles outbreak must be getting to him) rather than reality.

Since I was not required elsewhere for a while, I had the sublime pleasure** of rifling through Heckenlively's writing over the past year - which is preserved intact for posterity at AoA- and find it intriguing that he often casts himself and his cronies in a fantasy-based heroic light.

Travelling back through the mists of recent time, I discover that he refers to fellow and sister Skyhorse authors as 'Guardians of the Galaxy' ( Nov), Knights Templar
( Aug), "supernatural detectives' and 'Free People of Middle Earth' ( both, July, with himself apparently as Aragorn, no less), he imposes Superman imagery upon the words of Luther ( June) or hints at being Edward Snowden whilst noting that his opponents envision his cohorts and their thought leaders as being " like H-tler" and of course, he calls for surrender at least 3 times.

I would venture that trying on different identities as one slips on new clothes in a store's changing room is rather juvenile for a person of his age and many of his choices appear overly influenced by pop culture more suited to an adolescent.

Relying upon tropes like these illustrates desperation, immaturity and a surprising lack of general verbal ability for a person who has at least two university degrees.

** yeah, right.

Heckenlively has boosted his own sense of grandeur by co-authoring a book with a (once upon a time) real scientist, whose qualifications in the AoA world were greatly enhanced by her work being subject to the super gamma ray blast of Orac’s co-Science Blogger Erv http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2011/09/30/xmrv-and-chronic-fatigue-syndr-2… . The book is called Plague, which is little more than an extended apologia for the co-author’s career crash though its primary message seems concerned to appropriate Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fybromyalgia and any other difficult to treat/understand medical condition as mere colonies of a Grand Autism de Fe of health conspiracy.

@Helianthus

I agree that her definition of "astroturfing" seems to be different than what everyone else thinks it means. I also got the impression that by that term she means "anyone who doesn't agree with me or dares to criticize my writing". Of course, the real definition implies people who are paid by some interest group or company to pretend to be a grass roots movement, usually involving multiple fake personas per person. It's a potentially libelous accusation, but Attkisson has an out: "It's not me calling them this. It's my Twitter followers." She doesn't even have the conviction to stand behind her libel.

His choice of words, if used at the places I've worked, would be investigated as threats. I can't even imagine putting my name to something that unhinged. How embarrassing would it be to be related to Heckenlively?

Truth is that the conspiracy nutters and other right wing nut jobs *routinely* use sock-puppets, astroturfing and other dirty tricks, so they assume everyone else does as well. Paranoia has no bounds.

Hell, even the fact that the majority of pro-science, pro-reality commentators use their real names (like you would for a devious secret campaign) isn't good enough for them. Must be in the pay of the Big Farmer, etc...

These people are just ignorant religious rednecks who think the Sun goes around the Earth and dinosaurs are a conspiracy too. There is no reasoning with them, all you can do is fight to keep their lunatic views away from your own children.

Travelling back through the mists of recent time, I discover that he refers to fellow and sister Skyhorse authors as ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ ( Nov), Knights Templar
( Aug), “supernatural detectives’ and ‘Free People of Middle Earth’ ( both, July, with himself apparently as Aragorn, no less), he imposes Superman imagery upon the words of Luther ( June) or hints at being Edward Snowden whilst noting that his opponents envision his cohorts and their thought leaders as being ” like H-tler” and of course, he calls for surrender at least 3 times.

Good L-rd. The man should really join a LARP group or something; there are better outlets for such impulses.

I'm inclined to say that Attkisson is just complete insane (with all apologies to those suffering mental illness, I just don't know how else to categorize such apparently delusional thinking) and that she doesn't actually understand the use of the term "astroturfing". Paul Offit can't be astroturf, because he doesn't claim to be a grass roots organization, or anything other than what he is. This goes for Orac as well, and most of the others. Jon Stewart? Since when is Jon Stewart the name of an organization built and funded entirely by industry that puts on a charade of being a grass roots group? It's utterly incoherent. But she's just reporting the results of an "informal, non-scientific survey....The results represent 169 Twitter respondents who answered a public query either directly or through direct message." So a delusional women asked her unhinged Twitter followers who the top astroturfers were and got back an absurd list of basically everyone they don't like. Quality work.

@Helianthus: Your difficulties in understanding Atkisson are due to her poor understanding of English, not yours. As Inigo Montoya would say of Atkisson's definition of "astroturf": "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means." The first item on her list is in fact the very opposite of astroturf, and none of the others come anywhere close. Now, if Atkisson and Bill Maher were to form a group called "Citizens for Sane Vaccine Policy", funded almost entirely by their money, that would be astroturf (usually, it's corporations who want to give the impression that their position has far more popular support than it actually has, but I'm having a hard time envisioning a major corporation taking an anti-vax position). The term refers to fake grass roots, an analogy to the kind of astroturf that was designed to be an artificial grass surface for athletic events.

I’m inclined to say that Attkisson is just complete insane (with all apologies to those suffering mental illness, I just don’t know how else to categorize such apparently delusional thinking)

"Delusional" is a place to start. "Sloppy" is even better.

As has been noted above and elsewhere - the Canary Party, TMR & the other spin-off groups fit her definition of "astroturffing" perfectly....

@#1 - Helianthus
It's not your English, I'm a native English speaker and had to look it up. I'm in the UK so it may be a more common expression in the US or just an expression I've not come across. Anyway the Urban dictionary gives the definition as:

"astroturf

Creating the impression of public support by paying people in the public to pretend to be supportive.

The false support can take the form of letters to the editor, postings on message boards in response to criticism, and writing to politicians in support of the cause.

Astroturfing is the opposite of "grassroots", genuine public support of an issue. "

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=astroturf

The clear insinuation is that all of those on her list are doing what they do for profit from some unnamed corporate benefactor.

@Eric - I only have five fingers on both hands.

Heckenlively would be pitiable if he hadn't spent so much (of someone else's) money subjecting his daughter to quackery, and advocating for the return of dangerous diseases (by way of advocating against the most effective means of defeating them).

re Gus and JP:

I too don't know what terms we should use to refer to her state of being because we wouldn't want to insult people who truly have mental illness;

it's difficult- but here goes ( and I did study this- meaning both language and psychology)

-I suppose that it's REALLY wrong to call a person 'schizophrenic' or 'bipolar' because those are actual clinical diagnoses-
- 'insane' is generally legal terminology therefore alright ( ?)
-'crazy' is used more vernacularly but possibly refers to SMI
-' idiot', 'imbecile' and 'moron' formerly were diagnostic terms for ID but have come to mean 'stupidity writ large' so I wouldn't mind them ( altho' Matt Carey does)

- 'delusional' can be aptly descriptive although delusions are a symptom of SMI
-' wacky',' loony' and 'not playing with a full deck' may be used without fear
- 'barking' is acceptable
- 'misguided'. 'mal-educated', 'dis-informed', 'unaware', 'deluded' and 'ridiculous' are fine.

@Kaymarie/Todd/Eric Lund

Thanks. I had a strong feeling she was using the word in a very liberal way, but I would have had trouble defining "astroturf" on my own. Now this part is much clearer.

@ MI Dawn

but you know, all those other listed SB blogs are just a front for RI.

And all the commenters are just Orac answering to himself. And anyway, Orac is Bonnie Offiit :-)

@ JP

The man should really join a LARP group or something

I never tried LARP, but my experience at the dice-and-paper version lead me to suspect that Heckenlively wouldn't be much appreciated by his unfortunate fellow players. Large hams and chaotic stupid characters may be fun to watch at first, but that doesn't last long...

DM: 'OK, your small party of newbies stumble across an invading army of 1000 orcs'

Heckenlively/Aragorn: 'I walk to the orc leader with the huge choppa and tell him "I’m offering you a way out. A complete and unconditional surrender. You’re just going to have to trust in our good graces. What say you?" '

Couldn't resist tweeting back to Atkinson:

"Who else?" "Count me in!" *evil grin*

Welp, I study language too, am something of an amateur psychologist (as many literature types are, especially those who enjoy a game of poker) and I've seen a fair few mental health professionals in my life myself, so I'll reply:

-I suppose that it’s REALLY wrong to call a person ‘schizophrenic’ or ‘bipolar’ because those are actual clinical diagnoses-

Yeah, this is the usage that bothers me the most. "Ugh, she's so bipolar," etc. Offensive and, as importantly, incorrect.

– ‘insane’ is generally legal terminology therefore alright ( ?)

It's definitely proximate to actual diagnosed mental illness, though; unless you're in Cypress Hill or something, I wouldn't go around using it to refer to people.

-‘crazy’ is used more vernacularly but possibly refers to SMI

I know people who don't like this one, but I find myself using it, though never to refer to people, I suppose - more like ideas or things, usually. So not "he's crazy," but "Oh man, that new Pho place on Division is crazy good," etc.

-‘ idiot’, ‘imbecile’ and ‘moron’ formerly were diagnostic terms for ID but have come to mean ‘stupidity writ large’ so I wouldn’t mind them ( altho’ Matt Carey does)

Yeah, I admit to using these as well. I guess I like to insult people sometimes.

‘delusional’ can be aptly descriptive although delusions are a symptom of SMI

Yeah, which is why I try not to use it lightly; I suppose "deluded" may be a better alternative. In general, I'm not a big fan of using words associated with mental illness as insults.

The rest I agree with. The interesting thing about trying not to use words like "crazy," "insane," etc, is that it actually forces you to pay more attention to the words you use, possibly resulting in more descriptive, accurate, and interesting language.

Ah, the sign of an imploding crank: the growing belief that the *entire world* is in on the conspiracy against you.

It's logically absurd, since it makes no sense for a conspiracy to consist of the majority rather than the minority (if you have the majority, you have no need to conspire becuase you have already won), but if one has invested enough of oneself personally in an idea, perhaps it is more appealing than accepting the possibility of having been wrong.

Antivaccinationism over the past couple of centuries has gone in cycles. It starts off as a conspiracy theory, then grows in popularity until the majority start to hear about it, wonder about it, realize that it's nuts, and laugh at it. It dies down again, until the last echos of laughter have faded, before it starts to reemerge. I think the Disneyland outbreak prompted the current backlash against antivaccinationism. The torchbearers of the movement of course feel wounded; they've had great fun being lauded for their bravery and cleverness, but now it's gone beyond their little echo chambers and they're starting to see that people do not think so highly of them after all.

Painful, I'm sure. But they built themselves into this box, and now these supposed champions of truth and free speech get to really hear the responses to their claims. Of course they don't like it. They never will. And I doubt they'll come to their senses. But they're laughingstocks now.

@ JP:

And I am frequently personally unsettled by a suspicion that more than a few of the people regularly eviscerated at RI *may* have a diagnosable condition AND may be in need of help.

I know for sure that one of our targets from TMR suffers from depression and went off meds.

HOWEVER I suspect that calling out their public misinformation campaigns and harmful ideas outweighs being excessively cautious with their feelings because of their psychological issues.
I feel better about insulting alt med entrepreneurs even if they are not running on all cylinders.

Dr. Paul Offit of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who earned an undisclosed fortune from Merck pharmaceuticals,

Dr. Offit should use some of his "undisclosed fortune" to sue Heckenlively/Attkisson for libel.

Interesting to note errors at SkepticalRaptor.com indicating a possible hack/attack. Classy.

HOWEVER I suspect that calling out their public misinformation campaigns and harmful ideas outweighs being excessively cautious with their feelings because of their psychological issues.
I feel better about insulting alt med entrepreneurs even if they are not running on all cylinders.

Oh, I've nothing against insulting people, really - I just don't think mental illness should be used as an insult in general. It's not for the benefit of the alties, etc., etc.

Not to mention that some of the best people have mental health issues and some of the worst do not. (The reverse applies as well, of course.) And I don't want to be lumped in with people like Dr. Jack Wolfson, for example.

Interesting to note errors at SkepticalRaptor.com indicating a possible hack/attack. Classy.

Nope. The hosting platform for SR isn't robust enough to support the popularity of the site, according to its owner. He is kind of at his wit's end as how to fix the situation.

Why does Sharyl Atkinson remind me of Brain from "Pinkey and the Brain?" Hmmmm.

Brain: The 24-hour deadline has passed, yet there has been no message from Earth [orac]! It is most curious. Perhaps I was too lenient.

Pinky: Either that or everyone's gone back to reading books [Respectful Insolence].

Dr. Paul Offit of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who earned an undisclosed fortune from Merck pharmaceuticals

Jeeze, another shopworn myth that just will not die. August 18, 2009:

“CHOP sold its patent for $182 million. This information was made publicly available and was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time. The inventors, Fred Clark, Stan Plotkin, and me split 10 percent of that three ways. This means that we each received about $6 million.”

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2009/12/22/paul-offits-mythical-millio…

I hate to labour the point, but if you were to show Ms Attkisson's list and arguments to ANY investigative journalist who has revealed more than the attendance list at the local school board, they would say that she was certainly not one of their kind.

Investigative journalists bring new facts to public discourse. Facts, with evidence. Allegations against individuals - for example that Andrew Wakefield is a research cheat - require proof. Documents, parental statements, records, transcripts.

An investigative journalist would not put up lists of names, with invective and smears, or what people said in Tweets. They would feel lucky to put up one name. And to PROVE it.

If Ms Attkisson took just one of these names - say Mother Jones, who she identifies as purportedly corrupt - and placed it in front of an editor, they would say: "Great story, Sharyl. Now, what's your evidence?" I think this is at the heart of why they let her go.

What she has done is simply post disgusting abuse that she can't substantiate, any more than she can substantiate that there is one person on planet earth who has autism, who wouldn't have autism if they were not vaccinated.

Assertion journalism is not investigative journalism. If she did what she did with that list in the UK, she would be bankrupted with libel actions. Unfortunatey (in my view) the first amendment allows people to fabricate ad hominem.

As with the incident with her laptop - and doubtless her book - it's full of insult and insinuation. Does she think that there is any media organisation in the world who wouldn't want to take down President Obama, or any senior politician, if the evidence was there and they thought they could prove it? The commercial and critical payback would be so overwhelming - as the Post found when Watergate transformed a sleepy provincial newspaper into a world-class nameplate - that any organisation would be up for it. Succesfully following the money usually produces a huge return for the pursuers. Any serious journalist knows that.

Nope. I'm afraid the anti-vaxxers have drawn another blank. Full of puffing herself, I think she's merely a fearless peddler of smear and abuse. I think the anti-vaxxers deserve better.

This is just too wonderful not to share -- lovely parody.

http://reductress.com/post/i-know-whats-best-for-the-health-of-my-famil…

@SelenaWolf

You take that back! How dare you besmirch the lovable and adorable Brain by comparing Attkisson to him. Brain may be a megalomaniac who regularly gets things wrong, but at least he's entertaining.

According to her TedX talk, “Hallmarks of astroturf and propaganda include use of inflammatory language such as quack, crank, nutty, pseudo, paranoid and conspiracy.”

I wonder if Ted will annotate the talk that Sharyl Attkisson gave with a disclaimer that she is a crank.

What Attkisson purveys is not journalism at all but fits in perfectly amongst the varied assemblage we refer to as anti-vax, woo-topia, alt media and internet medical gossip.
No wonder Dan & Co adore her.

I just got a chuckle on Twitter. I went to see if Attkisson had said anything about any of the criticism she's gotten for this post and find that I have been blocked. So much for open, honest dialogue. This from someone who titled her book "Stonewalled".

So, Sharyl Attkisson has been reduced to the opening act for Kent Heckenlively?

She left out National Geographic, whose cover this month includes the vaccines-cause-autism groups with those who deny the moon landing and evolution.

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2015/02/19/national-geographic-the-war…

I just got a chuckle on Twitter. I went to see if Attkisson had said anything about any of the criticism she’s gotten for this post and find that I have been blocked. So much for open, honest dialogue. This from someone who titled her book “Stonewalled”.

She deleted all the comments on her blog too. She used to have a facebook based comment system. She ditched that and went to a comment system that she can moderate. And moderate heavily she does.

She left out National Geographic, whose cover this month includes the vaccines-cause-autism groups with those who deny the moon landing and evolution.

And you can be sure that in the next couple of months every " Big Pharma shill" medical practitioner will have a copy of this in their waiting room.

The conspiracy continues to grow ... oh, the horror.

@Matt Carey

Such courage! If only we could have more people like Sharyl Attkisson, Investigative Gossip Columnist.

If there are any pharma shills out there who can see their way to paying me money to plant false stories in The Sunday Times, I promise not to have a hidden camera just to claim my third press award.

Honest. I really won't.

I can't believe she did a TedX talk. I do like that the site Mike linked to calls it a Ted talk, rather than TedX. But I though Ted had issued guidance to TedX organizers to avoid pseudoscience? I guess her talk didn't get flagged because everybody knows there are actual astroturf groups and they maybe didn't realize she'd be slipping in the old vaccine/autism link. Either way, the University of Nevada ought to be ashamed that that video is out there with their name and logo at the start of it.

That number for Congressman Bill Posey is (202) 225-3671. I hear they’re making their way through the Thompson documents, so if you could help them wrap up a couple loose ends, I’m sure they’d appreciate it. The clock is ticking!

Picking up on subtext isn't usually my strong suit, but it sounds to me like they're beginning to realize there's nothing incriminating in these documents they pinned their hopes on and now they're hoping to bluff someone into revealing the Big Pharma/CDC conspiracy they just know has to exist.

there’s nothing incriminating in these documents they pinned their hopes on

IIRC, someone from Posey's office confirmed that they had been given some documents... possibly by Thompson, possibly directly from the CDC. The "hundreds of thousands of documents" component of the fantasy rests on one report from a hyperventilating Alex Jones wannabee who claimed to have heard it from an anonymous source.
http://benswann.com/update-congressmans-office-in-possession-of-100000-…

Gus Snarp: Ted has tried to enforce guidelines for the TedX talks but they are independently organized, so occasionally pseudoscience gets through.

For example, Ted added a disclaimer to the talk of nutrition-cures-MS quack Terry Wahls "Note from TED: This talk, which features health advice based on a personal narrative, has been flagged as potentially outside TED's curatorial guidelines. Viewer discretion advised."

I do hope that Ted adds a disclaimer so Attkisson can accuse Ted of being part of the alleged astroturfing campaign.

Back in WWII, during the Battle of the Bulge, surrounded US troops received from General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz. the commander of the German forces -

To the U.S.A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne.

The fortune of war is changing. This time the U.S.A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Our near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St. Hubert by passing through Hompre-Sibret-Tillet. Libramont is in German hands.

There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note.

If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U.S.A. troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours term.

All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well-known American humanity.

The German Commander

General Anthony Clement McAuliffe sent the following reply

To the German Commander.

NUTS!

The American Commander

I rather suspect that Heckenlively’s offer will universally be likewise answered.

Per the usual, the cranks of woo do the VERY THING they accuse others of. I loved her air quotes around "Science", as if she would know the difference. You couldn't make up this kind of entertainment if you tried!

Kudos, Orac!

On a somewhat related topic, Narad might find this interesting, though it's somewhat old news (from January). Attkisson has filed suit against the United States government. Included in her complaint is the U.S. Postal Service.

Wow, we actually spent time talking about this airhead! I'm visualizing the Mount Rushmore of Stupidity and including Attkisson, Bachmann, Palin and for a fourth, I'd like to nominate Rush Limbaugh. Just sayin'.

Brian @47: Consider that Ms. Atkisson managed to get fired from a major US news organization. Which, if you are familiar with the "Opinions Differ Regarding Shape of Earth" mentality which pervades these organizations, is truly amazing. When you espouse views favorable to the US political right (as Ms. Atkisson does; the reflexive opposition to gun regulation indicated by the first entry on her astroturf list is a right-wing view), you have to go pretty far off the deep end to achieve that dubious distinction, which Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Don Lemon, etc., have avoided thus far.

Helianthus@35: Yes, "chaotic stupid" is an apt description of our Mr. Heckenlively. He reminds me of some of the loudmouth AI opponents I have encountered in Civilization type games. My archer/chariot/horseman unit has just found his capital city. "We will refrain from crushing you if you give us the secret of [insert tech here]." I decline. "You reject our generous offer? Prepare for WAR!" Said capital city turns out to be inadequately defended, and I capture it within a turn or two.

And all the commenters are just Orac answering to himself.

"The rabid, hate filled, pro pharma vaccine mob are online reputation sock puppets & astroturfers in my experience.

"Each operative can manage 20+ online personas using software which creates & runs online presences using FaceBook & Twitter etc....

"Posted by: humanati | <a href="http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/03/debating-vaccines-online.html?cid=6a… 21, 2014 at 05:36 PM"

"The media blitz is not ending because it's paid-for PR. I would like to know if it's our own tax dollars paying for this - I assume it is. All the online polls are skewed by paid PR people who bash 'anti-vaxxers'. All the online articles too. They also have robo-posters, software that allows people like Dorit Reiss to post faster than humanly possible. So don't assume the masses really are against us (the pro-safety, pro-choice group). PR just spins it to look that way.

"Posted by: AnneS | February 16, 2015 at 11:19 AM"

^ Eh, you get the drift.

@Eric Lund:

Slight correction. Glenn Beck actually managed to get himself fired from FOX News. He has his own little media "empire" now called "The Blaze." I went through a phase a couple years ago where I used to watch it online at times, in the manner at which one cannot stop gawking at a train wreck.

More disturbing were the times were he said something I sort of agreed with. Those usually fell under the "five minute rule," though: the first few minutes of a segment might actually seem kind of logical or reality based, and then all of a sudden, Beck takes a hard turn and careens clear out to left field. You get this with Alex Jones sometimes, too.

When you espouse views favorable to the US political right (as Ms. Atkisson does; the reflexive opposition to gun regulation indicated by the first entry on her astroturf list is a right-wing view

So the first two entries on her list of 27 "Top 10" astroturfers are there for their opposition to gun violence. She explains on her blogpost that MediaMatters gets an entry of its own (while DailyKos shares an entry with HuffPost) because it opposes FOX News and is left-leaning (and is linked to fund-raising "to help elect liberal Democrats to Congress").

Is she angling for a new career in Fox? Or simply hoping to board the rightwing grifting gravy-train?

After Reiss and Offitt as a who-headed entity at entry #3, and the five science blogs or blog networks who are collectively Astroturfer #4, she seemed to run out of steam. There are 17 more names, comprising the remaining 6 Top Astroturfers, but she can't be arsed explaining why she grouped them that way, as they're all "A final category".

@Narad - Wow, that means I don't actually exist! I'm just one of a myriad of personas simulated by a bot. Weird. I don't feel like a bot. ;-)

Attkisson has filed suit against the United States government.

She removed it (D.C. Superior 2014-CA-8321) to federal court yesterday.

Just so you know how Dr. Bob feels about things:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/measles-651618-medical-year.html

Obviously, Sears can't be an astroturfer, since he makes his money directly from vulnerable people rather than by being paid to prey on vulnerable people.

@herr doktor bimler #61

Oh, I'm not doubting the existence of the documents, though I always suspected the "hundreds of thousands" was an exaggeration. It's just idle speculation, but I'm sure you remember how obscenely triumphant their tone was when the "whistleblower" story first broke: "now we have PROOF of the CDC coverup and you will all be sorry!" Then relative silence for awhile, and now, suddenly, Heckenlively brings it back up, but beneath the bravado he's almost wheedling, "C'mon you guys, we know you did it, fess up!" I just have a hunch that someone in Posey's office finished going through those documents and sent some of the leaders of the antivax community the memo that they've got no case.

"though I always suspected the “hundreds of thousands” was an exaggeration"

100,000 pieces of regular paper would weigh about 1000 lbs. (a ream of 500 sheets is about 5 pounds, and this would be 200 reams).

If someone spent 1 minute per document, 100,000 documents would take 1667 hours to go through, or about 40 man weeks.

The time it would take to produce 100,000 documents is even longer. How many people here can say that their group as produced 100,000 documents in 10 years (about the time Mr. Thompson would have been collecting the alleged documents). 10,000 documents a year? Seriously? That's about 27 documents per day. OK, if each one is an email and someone spends a lot of time on email.

And spreading this estimate out over 10 years is generous. Likely the time frame of interest is much less.

And then add that a large fraction of the documents produced by these groups have already been provided to Mr. Posey and Brian Hooker through FOIA and congressional requests.

Hundreds of thousands is certainly inflated to make this sound far more impressive than it is. Which, given the fact that it's been six months and Mr. Posey has yet to come forward with a smoking gun, is not that impressive.

Just so you know how Dr. Bob feels about things:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/measles-651618-medical-year.html

Quoth Dr. Sears:

It’s measles, people. It’s not the plague. It’s not polio. It’s not Ebola. It’s measles. If the plague hits, let’s force everyone to vaccinate. But measles? Measles? We need something a lot more dangerous than that if we are going to rob each and every patient of the sacred right of informed consent.

Doesn't Dr. Sears know that the plague actually is endemic to the US, but it's generally not a big deal? Wouldn't you expect a doctor to know that?

If she was a new mother undecided about vaccines, Olsheski said, “a debate in which one side, with clear, substantiated information, and one side with only folklore, hokum and whatever else,” she would choose the “clear, concise, calm side.””

Let’s keep on trying to present the clear, concise, calm side.

The problem is that the antivaxxers have things that are a reasonable facimile of "clear, substantiated information" if you don't know any better.

@ justthestats:

That's right:
they cite supposedly peer reviewed studies, journal articles, experts in immunology, physicians, neurologists, professors, informational websites etc.

AND heavily rehearsed and over-determined parental testimony- by those who eye- witnessed the onset of autism post-vaccination A carefully prepared *mise-en-scene* awaits whomsoever enters their venues unwarily.

If the plague hits, let’s force everyone to vaccinate.

That is an uncharacteristic thing for Dr Sears to say when the efficacy and safety of the plague vaccine remain untested. Tom Jefferson and the Cochrane Collaboration could find no studies for meta-analysis.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD000976/abstract;j…

Are we sure that he has not been replaced by a Vacbot?

I do have to say that Atkinson's list is the worst abuse of the word "ten" I've heard this week.

@Denice Walter:
Exactly.

How does it feel to be a part of this fake manufactured blog cloaked as an authority on science? The writers here are all paid by somebody with an agenda at seed.

I just have a hunch that someone in Posey’s office finished going through those documents and sent some of the leaders of the antivax community the memo that they’ve got no case.

This is Posey we're talking about. If they aren't written in crayon, he's out of his depth.

Narad@68: That's some weapons grade projection there. RI has occasionally been infested by sock puppets (like the idiot earlier this week who, according to Orac, was using a variety of fake e-mail addresses in his posts). That guy rightly got the banhammer dropped on him. But most of the regulars here are real people with verifiable identities.

Of course I've heard the rumors that the CIA or some other three-letter agency have software to run sock puppets on social media, and there are people who spam social media, usually to sell a product or ask me to help them move a fortune of dubious provenance out of $THIRD_WORLD_COUNTRY via my bank account in exchange for a cut. Since we're already supposedly in on this vast conspiracy, it's no great leap for them to conclude that the CIA or spam kings are letting us have their software. They are deluded enough to think they are a majority, so the commenters who disagree with them have to be sock puppets.

In further AoA news, D'Ohlmsted really puts his foot in it:

Measles vax was cultured from a boy who lived in D.C. ... named Edmonston ... local news reports that he still lives here and ... decided not to give his son the measles vaccine. ... didn't say why. Wild.

Whoops.

"When the time came to vaccinate his own son in the 1970s, Edmonston and his wife decided not to because they were concerned about possible reactions to vaccines.

"'She was dead set against (the vaccination) and I was a bit disappointed. But you see we had an agreement that child rearing was largely in her hands, so I went along,' he said.

"Now, Edmonston attributes high rates of vaccination to the fact that his son, now 34, never got measles.

"'Our own child did not benefit from the measles vaccine in which I had a small part. We knew that we were benefiting from a risk that was being taken by others,' he told the Star in an email.

"'I quite understand why some people would say our decision was morally wrong. Also, having read about the more recent studies on vaccinations … I’ve changed my thinking and now agree with those who say that it is in each child’s best interest to be vaccinated, based on the statistical chances of infection and of apparent bad reactions.'"

@Denise walter#34: I think it's an entirely valid criticism/observation, so long as you're not using it to poke fun or make light of a serious issue.

There are a bunch of people who I would describe as opinion leaders in vaccine hesitancy - I'm not talking about parents who have bought into woo, but the ones actively promoting it - who, from a layperson/armchair perspective, seem to suffer from untreated mental illness, and have gravitated towards this stuff as a coping mechanism. It's kind of sad, but just as much a danger to public safety as someone who isn't a police officer directing traffic in a busy intersection.

Source: took intro to psych in high school AND as an undergrad; so, take with a grain of salt if you must, but it just seems painfully obvious to me.

@sadasd:

Without studies, it's hard to be sure, but I'd be willing to bet that you won't find a stastitically greater level of mental illness among anti-vaxxers than you will within the general population. Axis I disorders, anyway. You might find greater incidences of Axis II or "personality" disorders there, I suppose. (I'm personally ambivalent about the whole idea of personality disorders; often enough, they're just used as garbage can diagnoses for difficult people, who often grow out of them in any case. Full disclosure: I've never been diagnosed with a personality disorder, for the record.)

Sh*tty coping mechanisms can be found in just about anybody. Axis I disorders are a whole other ballpark, and ought not be confused with sh*tty coping mechanisms, although the latter can exacerbate the former. I'm speaking as somebody with personal experience both in my own life, and with personal experience among close friends. I've spent a fair bit of time trying to talk people down from the heights of manic episodes, or providing reality checks to people suffering from probable schizophrenia.

A little bit of education in psychology doesn't really equip one to diagnose anybody. I recall a discussion with an undergraduate who'd taken a psychopathology course and proceded to tell me all about bipolar disorder and its symptoms. (OK, so she gotta hold of a copy of the DSM; I've pored through it, too.) The kicker:

"And bipolar disorder is cured with lithium!"
"No, it's treated with lithium, or a host of other psychiatric drugs."
"Same difference!"
"No, it's GD not the same difference. You go and tell a diabetic that they can be cured with insulin."

somebody with an agenda at seed

I am not familiar with this language.

Unfortunately on every single article I hear some antivaxxer talking about AstroTurfing. They are so brainwashed.

Speaking of mental disorders, did anyone see that article that said "authorities say eating healthy is a mental disorder"? Sometimes pseudoscience people are too much for me to deal with.

@ Sullivanthepoop:

They may be referring to *Orthorexia* wherein eating perfectly becomes an obsession.

"I just have a hunch that someone in Posey’s office finished going through those documents and sent some of the leaders of the antivax community the memo that they’ve got no case."

Why would he do this when that community is donating large sums of money to his campaign?

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2015/02/07/over-20k-in-donations-to-co…

Well, one does have to admit that for a minimum of effort on her part, Sharyl Attkisson did get people talking about her.

"Unfortunately on every single article I hear some antivaxxer talking about AstroTurfing. "

Yep. Last year it was "bully". Everyone who disagrees with them is a bully. Before that it was "shill".

They accrete vocabulary. Add a new term, it rises to prominence for a while then fades back into the rotation.

"You pharma shill, you are just trying to bully me as part of your astroturf campaign"

See how easy that was?

@JP #87 Sorry, my sarcasm wasn't obvious; I'm supremely unqualified to diagnose mental illness, via innernets or otherwise - just a casual observation. The tendency for loggorrhea that has been discussed here before, the perceived persecution, the propensity for finding conspiracy and coverup at every turn; it just seems...not right in the head.

Of course I’ve heard the rumors that the CIA or some other three-letter agency have software to run sock puppets on social media, and there are people who spam social media, usually to sell a product or ask me to help them move a fortune of dubious provenance out of $THIRD_WORLD_COUNTRY via my bank account in exchange for a cut.

It isn't hard. Even the NVIC has built a twitter bot.

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2015/01/20/so-the-national-vaccine-inf…

They call it a "tweet machine" and list on their tax form as an accomplishment that it created almost 9000 tweets in one year (about 1 per hour).

@DW:

‘misguided’. ‘mal-educated’, ‘dis-informed’, ‘unaware’, ‘deluded’ and ‘ridiculous’ are fine.

The only possible utility of 'deluded' that I'm coming up with is to somehow try to "soften" 'delusional' to mebbe RLY mean "have been deluded," which really doesn't work when someone has constructed the harbored collection of delusions by and for themself.

@JP:

I’m inclined to say that Attkisson is just complete insane (with all apologies to those suffering mental illness, I just don’t know how else to categorize such apparently delusional thinking)

“Delusional” is a place to start. “Sloppy” is even better.

How about "disordered thinking"?

@Narad:

How about “disordered thinking”?

From a strictly linguistic standpoint, it makes sense. My qualm is that the particular term is actually used to refer to a symptom of psychotic disorders.

I mean, there are also different kinds of disordered thinking. Paranoid thinking, for instance. Like, I was out with my firned Barb (whose mental health has not been the greatest for the past couple years) at a dive bar last year, playing pool and all, and this guy was pretty seriously chatting her up. I mean, he wasn't obnixious or anything, and he was kind of funny. Later, on the walk home, she was telling me all these ideas she had in her head about how he was out to get her in some way, some of which were elaborate and odd, and asking if they made any sense.

"Barb, he wanted to sleep with you. That's honestly all I could pick up on."

There's another kind of disordered thinking which is really just sloppy thinking, ala Rudolf Steiner - taking loose metaphors literally. I have a feeling for some reason that the SOB was doing it willfully, being a self-aggrandizing occultist, but that can also be a symptom of some underlying mental illness. My method of providing a reality check to that kind of thinking is not especialy sophisticated: "You know that's not real, right?"

The only possible utility of ‘deluded’ that I’m coming up with is to somehow try to “soften” ‘delusional’ to mebbe RLY mean “have been deluded,” which really doesn’t work when someone has constructed the harbored collection of delusions by and for themself.

There ought to be a word for this - something along the lines of "self-deluded," but including an element of purpose or willfullness.

“Delusional” is a place to start. “Sloppy” is even better.

How about “disordered thinking”?

How about "bat sh!t crazy"?

"Let's take a look at Ms. Attkisson's description of astroturfers. From her twitter feed:

"#Astroturfers and propagandists disguise themselves and operate on both political left and right. They disguise themselves/their interests & start nonprofits, write letters to editors, use social media, news media partners.to try to fool u into believing an independent voice is speaking."

Well, Dang, Orac. You are so completely disguised. (funny how your critics ignore your other not-so-secret blog and that your identity is even more super secret).

And, dang, you are on both...or no...end of the political spectrum.

And your interests? No one could ever tell your interests! What are they? It's not like there are thousands of articles here describing your interests!

And that nonprofit you started...or didn't.

And, damn those people who write letters to the editors, use social media and news media partners! Damn them!

In her next TEDx talk, Sharyl Attkisson with team up with a certain "six degrees of separation" expert to unmask Orac's ties to Big Pharma(tm).

Too bad you aren't really independent. Like Dan Olmsted, whom Ms. Attkisson has praised for his independence. Mr. Olmsted has taken no special interest money. I'm sure that all those ads in what for years was a for profit blog (and likely still generates revenue and salary for him) have no influence on his editorial decisions. He's a true grass roots voice! No money from SafeMinds, NAA, Barry Segal, JB Handley, supplement companies, Generation Rescue...

Independent. I don't think that word means what she thinks it means.

I'll add other words: "Investigative journalism", research, scientific acumen...

@ Justthestats

Dr. Bob seems to be trotting out the worn out "Brady Bunch fallacy" again.It is getting old.I came here to post this editorial I just found,although it was written almost two weeks ago.It is really well written,and lays out both the problem the antivaxers have caused,as well as what measles can do to the body.I would suggest everybody share it as much as possible.

https://medium.com/matter/measles-is-just-the-beginning-3c32a6fce9cf

Well, Dang, Orac. You are so completely disguised. (funny how your critics ignore your other not-so-secret blog and that your identity is even more super secret).

Yeaaah, I was pretty surprised that these super-investigators mentioned only Orac by pseudonym.

vaccine inventor Dr. Paul Offit of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who earned an undisclosed fortune from Merck pharmaceuticals; and his apparent replacement in trolling blogs Dorit Rubenstein Reiss.

Uh. So Dr Offit trolled (= commented on regularly) blogs ? You learn something new everyday, I thought he only gave interviews in newspapers.

@ Narad #85 Dr Olmsted has an uncanny ability to conceal truth in his reports. For example, the father of one of Wakefield's 12 victims in his 1998 Lancet paper wrote to Olmsted telling him that the paper was "a clear misrepresentation of my son's history" and "outright fabrication".

Did he write that on his website? Of course not. Instead he fraudulently abused me and identified the patient.

From a strictly linguistic standpoint, it makes sense. My qualm is that the particular term is actually used to refer to a symptom of psychotic disorders.

That's why I invoked it.

About Sharyl Attkison in particular... could be. I didn't think she was actually in such a bad way based on her astroturf article - it struck me more as lazy and dishonest - but then I went over to Salon and read in a little bit more detail about her "hacking" concerns:

She released a video of the purported “hacking” that showed text being deleted from a document she was working on, leading many people to surmise that the “hack” was actually just a stuck backspace key. There was also a lot of weird, circumstantial stuff that Attkisson obsessed over, like her computer making a weird noise in the night, and a stray cable attached to her Internet service box. Attkisson herself has been inconsistent in her story, claiming at various points that she knows and doesn’t know who hacked her.

Pretty much everything Attkisson identified as proof of the hacking was found to be innocuous. The stray cable she found was of the sort her Internet provider uses all the time, and “could not be used to monitor or otherwise affect the phone or internet service at her residence.” Attkisson’s video of text being deleted from a document? That “appeared to be caused by the backspace key being stuck, rather than a remote intrusion.”

It is reminiscent of some of the stories a friend of mine who works for a certain Bureau would relate after work on the one day a month or so when he had complaint call duty.

The weird thing is, though, she's in her 50s, and she seems to have done pretty well by herself so far, given all the awards she's racked up. I mean, schizophrenia, for instance, typically hits women later then men, but still in their 20s, not in their 50s.

I'm no shrink, but I doubt she's mentally ill. Rather, she's constructed an elaborate web of explanations to support her beliefs. She's gone down the rabbit whole of wrongness.

There are three possible reasons to think everybody is out to get you:

1) They really are out to get you. (Unlikely, but sometimes people really are the target of a conspiracy.)

2) They aren't out to get you, but mental illness makes you believe they are.

3) They aren't out to get you, but you can't accept that since the alternative would be to accept that you've staked your entire reputation on a lie.

I suspect 3 is quite a bit more common than we usually appreciate.

I wouldn't used 'disordered' because it conjures up thought pathologies ( SMI) and I doubt if any of these partisans experience THAT.

In my not so humble opinion, I think that we're describing people who are not SMI but may have minor, other or perhaps no potential diagnoses- just a skewed, self-serving manner of comprehending the world around them. In addition, most of those I discuss are *writing* what they blithely describe as 'informational content' in order to promote said skewed perspective and to network socially.

To be perfectly frank, whilst I cannot possibly EVER diagnose anyone, I would venture that more than a handful of the regulars ( including commenters) at AoA/ TMR/ etc would benefit from psychological intervention.

Seth Kalichman, who observed a group of hiv/aids denialists closely, has used NPD to describe some of the leaders in the movement. I haven't interacted with any anti-vaxxers- FORTUNATELY- and only have read or listened to their tripe-( except for a few internet collisions).

We should always remember that Dan, Kim, Cat, Prof, Rev, Jake et al are trying to attract an audience thus histrionics may be attributed to their habitual attention seeking rather than to personality disorder ( altho' I wouldn't rule it out entirely in a few cases).

I would regard tales of so-called hacking as merely a way of getting people to listen to her when they haven't otherwise ( same deal @ PRN this week) as if to say, " I'm SO important that the government/ the powers-that-be need to stop my investigation!" Her tight-leaning political innuendo suggests that she's angling for a career at a pseudonews outlet.

Think about this:
would any of AoA prized contributors ever get a book deal if they didn't have either a personal tale of autism woe or a conspiracy imbroglio PLUS a like-minded, fellow traveler book publisher at Skyhorse?

@Calli:

Yeah, I pretty much agree, although her video about the "hacking" incident was honestly pretty far out there.

Actually, I suppose that a good investigative journalist (which Attkisson by all accounts was for a long time) almost has to have a tendency toward paranoia (with a lower-case "p," so to speak.)

@Denice:

I would regard tales of so-called hacking as merely a way of getting people to listen to her when they haven’t otherwise ( same deal @ PRN this week) as if to say, ” I’m SO important that the government/ the powers-that-be need to stop my investigation!” Her tight-leaning political innuendo suggests that she’s angling for a career at a pseudonews outlet.

Highly plausible, but still ultimately puzzling. She used to have a real career - why on earth would she be angling to join the dark side?

In my not so humble opinion, I think that we’re describing people who are not SMI but may have minor, other or perhaps no potential diagnoses- just a skewed, self-serving manner of comprehending the world around them.

Regarding alties and cranks in general, yep, this is also my not-so-humble opinion.

That should be:
RIGHT-leaning and TRAVELLER

@ JP:

I don't know . Perhaps she has always leaned towards the right and now without a decent broadcasting job, finds it not so unpalatable.
It seems that post- 2008, many right-leaning Americans would full-tilt loony I wonder if it has something to do with a certain fellow nicknamed 'Barry'?.

That should be WENT full-tilt..
Pardonez-moi, I don't have my glasses.

It seems that post- 2008, many right-leaning Americans would full-tilt loony I wonder if it has something to do with a certain fellow nicknamed ‘Barry’?.

Ha. None of them are racists, either.

"You can’t ask what we’re going to do to you."

What an unmitigated kook. That's dangerously close to a threat.

@ JP:

I just took a peek at her website...Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
her material over the past week appears to be catering to a particularly jaundiced mindset. SO sure, she' fishing for a job at rightwing newslop service or a libertarian, conspiracy tossing website.
I wasn't familiar with her at all so I don't know if she had ever done reasonably decent work- I only know of her anti-vaccine garbage courtesy of the usual suspects and Orac's surgical examination.

@Denice:

To be honest, I hadn't really heard of her before either, so I fired up the Google this morning while still bleary-eyed and pre-coffee. I'm going by her Wikipedia page, G-d help me, but she was at CBS for 21 years, and was nominated several times for and eventually won an Emmy for "Outstanding Investigative Journalism." The transformation from respectable, right-leaning TV journalist to outright crank is astounding.

Oh, bother, she didn't win that third Emmy after all:

In 2012, CBS News accepted an Investigative Reporting Award given to Attkisson's reporting on ATF's Fast and Furious gunwalker controversy. The award was from Accuracy in Media, a non-profit news media watchdog group, and was presented at a Conservative Political Action Conference.[18]

In June 2012, Attkisson's investigative reporting for the Gunwalker story also won the CBS Evening News the Radio and Television News Directors Association's National Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Video Investigative Reporting. The award was presented October 8, 2012 in New York City.[19] In July 2012, Attkisson's Gunwalker: Fast and Furious reporting received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.[20]

I blame my poor reading comprehension on frustration resulting from the past couple of hours I've spent trying to fix my record player, to no avail. There are times when I envy my brother his mechanical intelligence.

Investigative Reporting Award given to Attkisson’s reporting on ATF’s Fast and Furious gunwalker controversy. The award was from Accuracy in Media, a non-profit news media watchdog group, and was presented at a Conservative Political Action Conference

A conservative group commended Attkisson, at CPAC, for the effort she put into blaming the Obama administration for a Bush-administration policy? Sounds like she has been a hack propagandist right from the start.

Well, she's been around since 1991, so perhaps not from the start, but for a while now. It turns out she actually did win at least one Emmy:

In 2002, she co-authored a college textbook, Writing Right for Broadcast and Internet News; later that same year she won an Emmy Award for her Investigative Journalism about the American Red Cross.[4] The award was presented in New York City on September 10, 2002.[10] Attkisson was part of the CBS News team that received RTNDA-Edward R. Murrow Awards in 2005 for Overall Excellence.[8]

Seriously, Wikipedia's prose standards are awful. Why on earth they constantly have "received an Emmy Award nomination" instead of "was nominated for an Emmy Award" is beyond me.

She left CBS in 2012 because of its supposed "liberal bias," and the network's feeling that her work was "agenda-driven" - I'll say. It does seem like she fell into the general Obama-era right-wing mass hysteria.

"And so I’m offering you a way out. A complete and unconditional surrender. You can’t ask what we’re going to do to you. You’re just going to have to trust in our good graces."

I'm confused about this "trust" thing.

If I come forward in "unconditional surrender" and admit that I'm a pro-vaccine astroturfer on the payroll of Big Pharma, seeding comments sections of message boards with pro-vax propaganda, will antivaxers' "good graces" protect me?

Seems like William Thompson's reward for trusting in Brian Hooker and Andy Wakefield was to have his remarks recorded and released without his knowledge and approval, and to have his alleged mental breakdown leaked.

And then of course we heard about the "grave danger" Thompson was in from the Other Side (legal action, firing, mayhem etc.).

So I'm thinking - nah, better just keep taking the money and posting the Pharma Agenda. Coming in from the cold just sounds too darn risky.

I totally agree, Dr Bacon:
at least our money is guaranteed.

AND if we did cross over to the other side, we'd have to listen to Heckenlively's infernal, ceaseless whining and role-play posturing as well as hearing various anti-vaxxers' wise, all-natural mother sayings and tales of martyrdom and to top it all off, having to meet Jameson ,Larson, OLMSTED, Dachel, Stagliano and Hooker in person.

I'm far more content attending cocktail parties, accepting money from Mr Mudock and having fashion designers offering me swag.

"And so I’m offering you a way out. A complete and
unconditional surrender. You can’t ask what we’re going to do to you. You’re just going to have to trust in our good graces.”

I'll surrender...when you pry my laptop out of my cold dead hands, Heckenlively.

I think there's a fourth possible reason to think everyone's out to get you.

If they're all out to get you, it must be for a reason. You must somehow be really, really important or special or even dangerous. You matter, what you do and say matters, and clearly the more people out to get you, the more special you must be.

@ JGC:

I think I said something similar @ 107 .

Why on earth they constantly have “received an Emmy Award nomination” instead of “was nominated for an Emmy Award” is beyond me.

Relying on the Whackyweedia itself for elucidation, it sounds as if a candidate for an Emmy must pass a first round of judging before it officially becomes a "nomination", making a subtle distinction from merely "being nominated".

@ lilady:

Reading his quote over : it sounds just a bit and S&M-ish.
UCK. So perhaps he's not only involved with RP in the hero/ graphic novel sense but in the OTHER sense as well.
That's truly disturbing. More like sickening actually.

delete that AND

Reading his quote over : it sounds just a bit and S&M-ish.
UCK. So perhaps he’s not only involved with RP in the hero/ graphic novel sense but in the OTHER sense as well.

Oh, ick. Fifty Shades of Heckenlivly, anybody?

I found Brian Deer's #47 sad. So low has the noble tradition of investigative reporting sunk, the Brian must give us an elementary primer.

No, Atkisson is not an investigative journalist, nor ever was she. She's a talking head. There are very few actual investigative reporters these days. Their stories take a long time to produce, thus cost a lot of money. And they make trouble without adding to the value of any media property that employs them. On magazine shows like 60 Minutes, some of the producers and their staff may have actual investigation credential. But in the U.S. the bulk of investigative reporting was once done by big market newspapers and TV stations. They just don't do that stuff anymore. I lived in Philadelphia in 83-84 and there were just outstanding investigations in the Inquirer, and on one of the local TV stations that had a long serving senior reporter specializing in that stuff.

The reason someone like At-kiss can get away with cerrying that label, id so few people ever encounter the real thing for comparison anymore.

@ hdb #115

A conservative group commended Attkisson, at CPAC, for the effort she put into blaming the Obama administration for a Bush-administration policy?

Let me apply my recently acquired knowledge of the meaning of "astroturfer" :
In the context of this misaimed adward, would "Accuracy in Media, a non-profit news media watchdog group", qualify as astroturf?
Projection and hypocrisy from an antivax talking head. Why am I not surprised?

I note that Heckenlively refuses to approve any post that is not a glowing panegyric.

The mere suggestion that Kent might be living in a fantasyland commits your comment to perpetual moderation pergatory.

any post that is not a glowing panegyric
Perhaps you meant 'paregoric'. That's the effect his comment threads have on me, anyway.

The reason someone like At-kiss can get away with cerrying that label, id so few people ever encounter the real thing for comparison anymore.

I saw that one movie with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in it once. Does that count?

I'm pretty sure Sharyl Attkison knows exactly what she's doing, and doesn't care. It made her a successful reporter on for a major network, and she's probably making a nice living being a shill for conservatives, alt-med wackos, and the like.

@ JP #133. Not really, and I don't mean to be glib or nit-picky. To really understand investigative journalism, you have to experience the uncovering of something not known to you or the general public. Watergate is history. You can learn things about what journalists do from the All The President's Men, as it's one of the more accurate portrayals on film. But to appreciate it's social significance... just imagine readers of the Sunday Times opening their paper in 2004 to read the first part of Brian's expose of Andrew Wakefield at the height of the autism scare. The ground shakes. Fake investigative journalism like Atkisson's Fast and Furious 'story' gets just enough information to raise spurious questions. The real thing may not be definitive proof, but it always has a lot more empirical substance. The point isn't "isn't this suspicious?". The point is, "Gotcha!"

Re: Astroturfing

On February 22, 2015, Anne Dachel, the “Media Editor” of the for-profit anti-vaccine web site Age of Autism, whose comments are prominently sponsored by a for-profit advertiser at that site, noted on her own web site that she uses different networks and email addresses to post her anti-vaccine comments.

I tried to post comments but no matter what network or email address I used, I was unable to.

If you look up the definition of "astroturf" in the dictionary - Anne Dachel's picture is there.

Rug pee'ers did not do this, man...http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-KDCBbtJ4mhYuu/the_big_lebowski_1998_bo…

For the first time since graduating from Hastings three decades ago I can feel pride in having gone there.