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This is a news analysis, commentary and personal opinion website - that was kicked off on 9-2-02.

To go to the Home Page, you may click on the logo (at the top) at any time or click here.

OBJECTIVES OF THIS SITE

Overall, I hope that this website and my work will be more than a drop in the ocean of public opinion, with the goal of influencing America's traditions of freedom, liberty and democracy because I have long admired the United States for what it has stood for over the years. When I started this website, it was with the intent of focusing on important political and socio-economic issues facing the U.S. and to find ways to provide more balance to public debates on these issues. [NOTE: Since early 2005, I have been doing almost all of my research and blogging over at The Left Coaster; as a result, this website is rarely updated].

My blogging/research is as much an opportunity for me to learn more about the U.S. and the world, as it is to write about them. For the longest time, I never held firm political leanings and even in 2001/2002 I was at best a political novice who was not anywhere near as informed on history and politics as I am today. My writings at that time are a good reflection of my naivete and in fact, I have always considered myself a left-leaning independent. The Bush administration and the GOP's words and actions over the last several years drove me to become a firm Democratic supporter in recent years. That said, I still believe quite strongly that balance of powers and an honest and inquisitive fourth estate (media) is critical for a properly functioning constitutionally-liberal democracy (a term borrowed from Fareed Zakaria - reflecting the balance between liberties and democracy) and would like to see significant representation of more than one party at all levels of Government.

It is impossible for me to comment on every key issue or news article on every area that this site covers. I simply don't have time to post on a regular basis given that this is a hobby more than anything else - nor do I have time to cover every topic that may be the hottest topic at any given time. I pick and choose topics and issues based on the time I have available to cover them.  

- The Realist (TR)

CONTACT INFORMATION

To contact me or to send your comments/feedback, please email feedback-at-eriposte-dot-com. Civility will be appreciated.

For those of you who are new to this site, I have included below some comments from other writers/bloggers about my work here at eRiposte and at The Left Coaster.

A SAMPLE OF COMMENTS ABOUT my work at eRiposte and at The Left Coaster FROM OTHER WRITERS, PROGRAMS, MEDIA or ORGANIZATIONS - grouped by topic

URANIUM FROM AFRICA and VALERIE PLAME EXPOSE

Investigative reporter Solomon Hughes in the British magazine Private Eye:

The US released the telegram after a legal appeal, but still blacked out some words, including a space that appears to refer to two separate deliveries. There are several more very close matches between the March telegram and the Niger forgeries, largely ignored by newspapers, but outlined by American “blog” called “the left coaster”.

Investigative reporter Murray Waas:

I recommend this posting on the leftcoaster.com by Eriposte about the forged Niger documents that led to the Plame affair.

Investigative blogger and CIA leak case expert Marcy Wheeler (aka Emptywheel @ The Next Hurrah) in her great book "Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy":

As I finished my series on Miller’s reporting, I started tracking a story—obviously leaked—about a memo summarizing the State Department’s judgment of allegations that Iraq attempted to buy uranium from Niger. From that point forward, I was hooked, and I was following the related developments on a near-daily basis.

It was this kind of sustained attention that has led bloggers to a lot of key scoops in this case. The most impressive is eRiposte’s discovery that someone laundered the content of the Niger forgeries before cabling that content to the CIA.

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Investigative blogger Josh Marshall (Talkingpointsmemo):

Very interesting news out of Italy this morning, and news which appears to confirm a theory advanced recently by a poster at theleftcoaster.com (big coup for him, about which I'll explain more later).
...
The report sent over from Italy removed the out-of-date names (one of the key reasons they were spotted later as forgeries) and replaced them with the correct names. In other words, there seems to have been a conscious effort to cover up the fact that the documents were bogus, to clean them up, as it were.

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Rick Perlstein in The New Republic:

Or on the screen. January 23, the day Carney landed on his own petard, was also, as it happens, the first day of testimony in the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of former vice-presidential Chief of Staff Scooter Libby. And some of the distinguished gentlemen and gentleladies of the press have seemed none too pleased that the journalistic pace is being set by the rotating cast of “live bloggers” at Firedoglake (FDL), who, thanks to a press pass secured by Arianna Huffington, have been providing a near-transcript-quality record in real time of the proceedings, interwoven with contextualization by writers more expert in many cases than the cable news legal commentators, wrapped up each afternoon by a video summary.

By phone from her home in Chicago, Christina Siun O’Connell, FDL’s part-time press secretary (yes, blogs now have press secretaries; full disclosure: she is also my friend), lists the names of the team, some of whom write under pseudonyms: Pachacutec; TRex; Swopa (“Plame geek extraordinaire”); ERiposte (“who, I think, is male”). The most expert among them, Marcy Wheeler—a former academic from Ann Arbor whose book Anatomy of Deceit was published to coincide with the case by a brand new book imprint, Vaster, established by bloggers (the book is already in a second printing)—has only recently come out of the shadows. (She used to be known as “emptywheel.”)

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Investigative reporter Murray Waas in "The United States v. I. Lewis Libby" (page 574):

Among bloggers my reporting and knowledge of the case was regularly enlightened by John Amato of Crooksandliars.com; Jeralyn Merritt of Talkleft.com; Jane Hamsher, Pachacutec, TRex, Phoenix Woman, and Christy Hardin Smith at firedoglake.com; Swopa; Joe Gandelman at the moderatevoice.com; Tom McGuire [sic] at JustOneMinute.com; Marcy Wheeler aka Emptywheel at TheNexthurrah.com; Greg Sargent at several blogs, his most recent home being with TPM media; Jay Rosen at Press Think; everyone at Dailykos.com; and eriposte and Steve Soto at theleftcoaster.com

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Investigative reporter Laura Rozen (War and Piece):

Over at the Left Coaster, blogger eRiposte has an impressively encyclopedic understanding of the ins and outs of the Niger yellowcake claims, including the troubling question of why the British government won't climb down from its claim that it had a second independent source of the discredited claims.

Investigative reporter Laura Rozen (War and Piece):

eRiposte has another important Nigergate find. Not only did Sismi "correct" multiple glaring flaws in the information from the Niger forgeries it sent on to the CIA, it appears that the US withheld the most glaringly fake forgery from the bunch that it forwarded onto the IAEA. Go read.

Investigative reporter Craig Unger in Vanity Fair:

Several press outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle, United Press International, and The American Conservative, as well as a chorus of bloggers—Daily Kos, the Left Coaster, and Raw Story among them—have raised the question of whether Ledeen was involved with the Niger documents. But none have found any hard evidence.

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson on Larry King Live (CNN):

KING: New York City, hello.

CALLER FROM NEW YORK CITY: Ambassador Wilson, any idea who forged the yellow cake documents and the motivation? These were not third rate forgeries.

WILSON: Well, actually Dr. ElBaradei said they were obvious forgeries and his deputy said that a two hour search on Google would have told even a novice forensic analyst that they were forgeries. So, they were not great forgeries, should not have fooled the intelligence community or the White House for that matter.

I don't -- there has been a series of articles published in the Italian magazine or the Italian newspaper "La Republica" just this week. Some of those articles have been (INAUDIBLE) in some American reporting.

There are a couple of web blogs, particularly Talking Points Memo and the Left Coaster that have also taken a good look and done a study into what they think some of the possible sources of the documents might have been.

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson in an email to his supporters (links added):

As you think about this, our website (Wilsonsupport.org) has a copy of the letter I sent to the SSCI when its report first came out, challenging some of its conclusions. The LeftCoaster has a terrific study by eriposte on the whole Niger forgery case from beginning to end. Firedoglake and the Next Hurrah both have highly informative analyses of the case by skilled researchers and former prosecutors. I recommend them all as resoruces to jog memories.

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Cursor:

And with Libby's testimony seen as 'key to Rove inquiry,' a Niger forgeries finding goes from Left Coaster to La Repubblica.

Arianna Huffington (Huffington Post):

For a complete list of every White House and GOP mouthpiece lie about Rove and Wilson, see this great compilation by eriposte at Left Coaster.

IRAQ'S ALUMINUM TUBES

Former federal Prosecutor and U.S. Attorney Elizabeth de la Vega in her book United States v. George W. Bush et al.:

"aluminum tubes allegations": For an excellent analysis on this topic, see Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus, "Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence," Washington Post (August 10, 2003). For a detailed chronology see the series by eriposte, "WMDgate: Fixing Intelligence Around Policy," The Left Coaster, http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/006022.php. [page 251]

BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S ILLEGAL DOMESTIC SPYING PROGRAM

Glenn Greenwald (subsequent author of the New York Times Best-Selling book, How Would A Patriot Act?):

As is often the case, the discussion of the NSA law-breaking scandal in the blogosphere has been infinitely more thorough, informed and informative than in all of the mainstream newspapers, magazines and television programs combined. Eriposte at The Left Coaster has posted a superb compilation of all of the arguments and evidence marshaled by the blogosphere which negate each pro-Bush talking point on this issue.

ELECTION 2004 COVERAGE

This American Life on WBEZ Chicago Public Radio / NPR:

In this show, a This American Life Special Report: Vote Fraud.
Stories of election year chicanery appear in the paper every day. TAL contributor Jack Hitt compiles a list of the most egregious accounts, double checks the facts, and gives his election eve rundown of the dirtiest tricks so far.

We've made Jack Hitt's story available as its own RealAudio file; listen now.

Also, some public service. If you felt like someone tried to interfere with your right to vote this election, call 866-OUR-VOTE, a special hotline run by the Election Protection Coalition.

Further information about vote fraud is available from the eRiposte site and from dKosopedia's Voter Registration Fraud Clearinghouse.

[eRiposte note: A transcript of the show (with audio) is also available here].

"Voting Rights Act: Evidence of Continued Need" - Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee of the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Ninth Congress, Second Session, March 8, 2006 has multiple references to my work at Vote Watch 2004. For example, in Volume III, page 3976, in the discussion of Voter Suppression in Arizona:

Media agencies were also responsible for misinforming the public with regards to voting fraud. The most significant of these incidents occurred when a Fox Television News reporter confronted two females who had set up a voter registration drive on the University of Arizona, Tucson, campus.¹⁴ The reporter incorrectly accused them of setting up students to commit felonies by registering out-of-state students to vote in Arizona when they were not eligible to do so. ¹⁵

...[FOOTNOTES:

 14 Katha Pollitt, Fox Hunting Student Voters, The Nation, Oct. 5, 2004, available at http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20041011&s=pollitt [....]; Vote Watch 2004, "Older News: Fox News Reporter Intimidates Students Registering New Voters in Arizona, Suggesting They Were Potentially Signing Up Students to Commit Felonies," available at http://vote2004.eriposte.com/swingstates/arizona.htm ...

The Guardian News Blog (U.K.):

Links: 03.11.2004

• eRiposte's Vote Watch 2004

Markos Moulitsas (of Dailykos) writing in The Guardian (U.K.):

There are several clearing houses of voter suppression and fraud online, like the Voter Registration Fraud Clearinghouse and [eRiposte] Vote Watch 2004.

Jeffrey Dubner at The American Prospect:

• Vote Watch 2004 -- An ever-growing list of news clippings about vote suppression, voter fraud, voting irregularities, and the like.

The Institute for Policy Studies cited the eRiposte Vote Watch 2004 Ohio page in their report "Obstacles to a Democratic Election: Reports of Electoral Problems in Key U.S. States during the 2004 Election"

Duncan Black (aka Atrios) at Media Matters for America:

A front-page article in the October 27 edition of The Wall Street Journal, titled "Block the Vote: As a Final Gambit, Parties Are Trying to Damp Turnout," staff reporter John Harwood wrote about the issue of "voter suppression," creating a false equivalency between Democratic and Republican efforts to reduce votes for their opponent.
...
Voter suppression efforts aimed at Democratic and newly registered voters are not simply about, as Harwood characterized it, making voting a "hassle." Examples (which are listed on the Vote Watch 2004 website) include:
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Many more examples can be found at Vote2004.eRiposte.Com.
— D.B.B.

El Pais (Spain's leading newspaper) La Jornada Electoral (Election Day tracker?) mentioned eRiposte Vote Watch 2004.

Prof. Michael Froomkin (University of Miami School of Law), Discourse.net:

Vote2004.eRiposte.Com is your one-stop-shopping site for news about vote/election fraud, vote suppression, voting irregularities, and voter intimidation in this election.

Lots (far too much for comfort) stuff here…

The site is well-organized: you can view news chronologically, or by red/swing/blue states or by state. Here, for example, is the Florida electoral vote fraud and suppression page.

ELECTION 2008 COVERAGE

Eric Boehlert in "Bloggers on the Bus" (Free Press, 2009), page 128:

[Eriposte] knew that [Sen. Hillary] Clinton was never going to be warmly embraced online, but [he] was shocked by the netroots' treatment of her in early 2008. Blogging during the campaign at Steve Soto's site, the Left Coaster, eriposte eventually resorted to sarcastic headlines to mock what he saw as the all-consuming anti-Clinton blogosphere: "Hillary Destroys All That is Decent and Pure, Yet Again!"

"SWIFT BOAT VETERANS" COVERAGE

Elisabeth Donovan, Miami Herald WeBlog:

Michael Froomkin at Discourse.net points to several responses to the group, including that of ERiposte.com, which has compiled lots and lots of background on Sen. Kerry's service in Vietnam. The author has something to say, too, that I think expresses what many feel about these claims...

Prof. Brad DeLong (U. C. Berkeley, Economics)

Swift and Useful

Rapid response:

Welcome to Swiftvets.eRiposte.Com! : Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" v. The Truth

Prof. Brian Leiter (School of Law, University of Texas at Austin):

This site wipes the floor with the "Smear Boat Veterans."

FAKE "DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE BANNED" STORY IN CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA

Atrios (Duncan Black):

Eriposte actually does some real journalism and takes a look a the materials in question, discovering that some of them are actually bogus.

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Columbia Journalism Review's CJR Daily/Campaign Desk:

For an exhaustive, albeit lefty-tinged, rundown of the controversy, click here.

Will Femia ("Clicked") at MSNBC:

Was Stephen Williams discriminated against because he was a "Christian"?  (This is the continuation of the Declaration of Independence hoax story we saw last week.)

Julian Sanchez in Reason Online "The True Spirit of Xmas"

It is, of course, not true: The Declaration appears in the school's standard textbooks and hangs on classroom walls. The school's principal, rather, insisted on pre-approving the handouts of a single teacher who had long generated complaints from parents because he was using his American History lessons as a pretext from indoctrination—a teacher who, as one student put it, "talks about Jesus 100 times a day." Judging by this Easter assignment and various other handouts [eRiposte links], including fabricated quotations from Founding Fathers on the topic of religion, the concern was well motivated.

Parent from Stevens Creek Elementary School (Cupertino, CA) and member of group We The Parents, in response to an interview question from me about the usefulness of blogs:

[eRiposte]: Did you find the coverage of this issue on blogs useful? If so, do you think it was less or more useful than the mainstream media coverage?

[Dick] Crouch: Do you mean the Drudge report or eRiposte? You have to make a judgment about who you're going to trust, usually on a fairly slim basis. And whatever the faults of the mainstream media, there's a lot less editorial control and balance in the blogosphere. I think it's a tribute to eRiposte that both liberal and conservative parents found it valuable (though some of the conservatives did grumble about the ideological slant). But eRiposte was pretty unusual in this respect.

ECONOMY

Washington Mutual Group of Funds cites eRiposte as one of their sources in their spotlight note:

Democrats vs. Republicans: The Economic Effect

Kevin Drum (formerly of Calpundit and now at Washington Monthly):

MORE ECONOMIC ANALYSIS....THE REPUBLICANS ARE STEALING OUR MONEY!....The folks at eRiposte have yet another cheap and cheerful economic analysis showing that Republicans are looting strong Democratic controlled states (like California!) and redistributing our wealth to weaker Republican controlled states. Do I believe it? Maybe. Then again, maybe it's just a cheap partisan shot. But if so, at least it's backed up with colorful charts and regression analyses.

[P.S. Kevin joked in his post that I asked him to post this, but I actually did not and he acknowledged it in an email exchange]

Nick Confessore at The American Prospect:

And at any rate, history is not kind to Republican stewardship of the economy. Check out this wonderful and apparently well-sourced page on eRiposte which averages Democratic and Republican presidencies on any number of economic indicators.

IRAQ

In her article titled "THE TROUBLE WITH MIXED MOTIVES - Debating the Political, Legal, and Moral Dimensions of Intervention" in the Naval War College Review, Summer/Autumn 2004, Vol. LVII, No. 3/4, Commander Susan D. Fink, U. S. Navy, cites the following eRiposte summary:

A Review of Worldwide Support (or Lack of It) for War on Iraq," Eriposte, www.eriposte.com/war_peace/iraq/iraq_war_worldwide_support.htm

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Kevin Drum (formerly of Calpundit and now at Washington Monthly):

WHAT THE WORLD THINKS OF WAR....So what does the rest of the world think of our little war? Thankfully, there's no need to guess any longer because eRiposte — in its typical chart-happy style — has laid it all out for us: opinion polls about the war from France to Albania to India and beyond.

CIVIL RIGHTS

Off The Kuff:

I agree with Atrios, this post on eRiposte about the mass arrest of immigrants who had responded to an INS request to come in for some paperwork processing is a must read. This is bad on many levels, and it deserves to get some harsh scrutiny.

IMMIGRATION

Robin Arnette (Editor, Minority Scientists Network - MiSciNet) in Next Wave (Science Magazine publication):

I take this opportunity to voice my concerns about the controversial views put forth by Samuel P. Huntington in "The Hispanic Challenge," published in Foreign Policy magazine by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
...
Although I don't agree with many of the views offered in "The Hispanic Challenge," I'm glad it was written because it sparks debate and intellectual curiosity. Believe it or not, many people share the same views even if they don't admit it. The best way to confront the issue is to put everything on the table and invite rational discussion. To read other responses to the essay, please see the text box below.
...
Other Rebuttals
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- "Immigration issues in the U.S. Part II: A Response to Samuel Huntington's ‘The Hispanic Challenge'" [from eRiposte]

MEDIA

Prof. David D. Perlmutter in "Blog Wars" (Oxford University Press, 2008), page 126:

David Neiwert (Orcinus):

eRiposte has finished up his great 15-part series, How the Liberal Media Myth is Created, which recaps information many of us already knew, but puts it together in a cogent way that offers some insight into how to battle the meme. He's also begun a follow-up series at The Left Coaster titled "Why the Liberal Media Myth Persists", with Part 1 and Part 2 already up.

Atrios (Eschaton):

Eriposte has set up a comprehensive media bias page.

Dwight Meredith (formerly at Politics, Law and Autism and now at Wampum):

Eriposte has done an enormous amount of work to post a compilation, in chart form, of the "myths, lie, deceit, bias, denial or just plain B.S." the media feeds the public about Democratic leaders including Al Gore, John Kerry and Bill Clinton. For each such instance, Eriposte identified the charge, the perpetrator, the victim and the debunker with links to the facts.

The chart is an invaluable resource for anyone writing about media coverage of Democrats. The chart will undoubtedly grow over time. Send your examples to Eriposte.

A lot of work went into building the chart. Putting it together was a public service. Please go see for yourself.

ENVIRONMENT

Kevin Drum (formerly of Calpundit and now at Washington Monthly):

GLOBAL WARMING....ARE CONSERVATIVES EMBRACING POSTMODERN SCIENCE?....Is global warming real? How can you decide?
...
If you like graphs and charts, the guys at eRiposte have a whole bunch of them here. Read 'em and weep.

RELIGION IN SCHOOLS AND CHRISTIAN RIGHT

Dave Johnson (of Seeing the Forest):

Wow

Over at eRiposte, go read Fundamentalism in the United States: A Brief Summary of the Christian Right in the U.S. Court system ad let others know about it.

Update - In the comments Alice suggests forwarding this to your local education assn. Good idea. Schools, educators, school boards, teacher associations... let them know about eRiposte's work.

SUPREME COURT

Will Femia ("Clicked"), MSNBC:

The Left Coaster has a pretty amazing work up of Harriet Miers’ bio.