Jason Linkins
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Jason Linkins is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, covering media and politics. He's based in Washington, DC. Previously, he wrote for HuffPo's Eat The Press, and has also contributed to DCist and Wonkette.

Blog Entries by Jason Linkins

TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

(1597) Comments | Posted May 27, 2012 | 8:47 AM

Hello, everyone! Welcome once more to this ever-continuing saga of Sunday morning political shows and my attempts to provide a poorly-spelled, nonsensical alternative so that you might live a free and happy life. My name is Jason, and I'd like to wish all of you a very happy...

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Cory Booker Goes Off Message, Everyone Freaks For A Week: The Speculatron Weekly Round-Up

(1388) Comments | Posted May 25, 2012 | 5:17 PM

This week, the 2012 election season finally got to pig out on an empty-calorie feeding frenzy, in which everyone in the media pretended to have some sort of lofty conversation about the role of private equity in society while actually reminding everyone else that political elites are completely removed from...

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Classic Politico: 'Surely, All Of This Could Prove To Be Ephemeral And Meaningless'

(171) Comments | Posted May 25, 2012 | 1:28 PM

Ana Marie Cox, columnist for the Guardian, joins me today for a brief conversation.

***

ANA MARIE: Hey, you there?

JASON: Sure, what's up?

ANA MARIE: I need to complain about a Politico thing!

JASON: Okay, I am here for you.

ANA MARIE: Today's feature story, by Mike...

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Late Returns: Expert Advice On Which Polls You Should Ignore

(106) Comments | Posted May 24, 2012 | 7:23 PM

We have apparently entered the part of the 2012 mid season where the rapid accumulation of polling data is met by a burgeoning field of experts who think everyone should ignore the data in new and exciting ways that not everyone agrees upon completely.

Should you care about the...

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Morning Joe Praises Alan Simpson Potty Talk Over Policy Talk

(59) Comments | Posted May 24, 2012 | 5:35 PM

The Morning Joe crew got very excited today, because -- as you may already know -- former Sen. Alan Simpson (one of the titular heads of that whole “Simpson-Bowles Commission” that failed to approve an official plan to provide fiscal solvency) is really upset at a flyer produced...

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Massachusetts Voters Not Feeling Elizabeth Warren Cherokee Heritage Controversy, Apparently

(559) Comments | Posted May 24, 2012 | 4:40 PM

For a long while now, the hotly contested Senate race between Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and his Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren has centered around on Warren's claim to Native American heritage -- when and where it was made, what impact it has wrought, et cetera. It was never particularly clear...

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Richard Shelby Is Angry That Regulators He Sandbagged Didn't Stop JPMorgan Losses

(55) Comments | Posted May 24, 2012 | 3:21 PM

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) is shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that gambling is going on at JPMorgan, and that this gambling led to a multibillion-dollar loss on a "hedge" that was actually something that looks a lot more like an insane and irresponsible bet. But Shelby has nothing bad to say...

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Washington Free Beacon Gets Pearl-Clutchy About Obama Bundler Who Made Striptease Instructional Video

(55) Comments | Posted May 23, 2012 | 12:12 PM

The Washington Free Beacon -- which, if you don't happen to be playing the home game version of Washington's blog soap opera, was conceived of as a conservative counterweight to Think Progress -- has a massive scooplet today about a woman named Stacii Jae Johnson.

Who on earth...

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Kentucky Primary Features A 'Proxy Showdown' Between Kentucky Senators

(40) Comments | Posted May 22, 2012 | 7:25 PM

The presidential escapade continues to draw most of the media's attention these days, but there are actually some interesting downticket primaries to watch in Arkansas and Kentucky Tuesday night. Over at the Plum Line, Jonathan Bernstein provides the essential warm-up, and points to a downticket primary in Kentucky...

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Memo To Media: Obama's Harsh Campaign Tone Is Not Actually A New Thing, Okay?

(255) Comments | Posted May 22, 2012 | 6:39 PM

I'm typically a big fan of Molly Ball's work for the Atlantic. But I'm afraid that in explicating this week's private equity-Bain Capital brouhaha that spiraled into a internecine bit of mixed-messaging spatter between the White House and Newark Mayor Cory Booker -- gripping the fluttery hearts of many inside...

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Jeff Greenfield Wants You To Stop Writing All Your Pointless 'Biden-for-Clinton' Veep-Switch Stories

(28) Comments | Posted May 22, 2012 | 3:36 PM

Jeff Greenfield has heard all of your wild-eyed ideas about the possibility that President Barack Obama might pursue some election year gambit and switch out Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton atop the 2012 ticket, associated political hacks of America, and he would like you all to cut it...

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Karl Rove, Crossroads GPS Go 'Subtle' This Week, Suddenly Get Lots Of Positive Coverage

(123) Comments | Posted May 22, 2012 | 3:19 PM

The New York Times' Jeremy Peters reports that the new Crossroads GPS ad "Basketball" is set to "become one of the most heavily broadcast political commercials of this phase of the general election."

...
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John Wolfe: Meet The Man Who Might Pull An Arkansas Primary Upset, But Probably Won't

(247) Comments | Posted May 22, 2012 | 12:10 PM

If President Barack Obama is going to lose one of these Democratic primaries, it obviously won't be to some convict in West Virginia or to anti-abortion performance artist Randall Terry in Oklahoma. However, it could happen in Arkansas tonight, where he is challenged on the ballot...

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The 2012 Speculatron Weekly Roundup For May 18, 2012

(1999) Comments | Posted May 18, 2012 | 5:42 PM

What began in Indiana continued in Nebraska this week, as long-shot state Sen. Deb Fischer scored an underdog victory in Nebraska's GOP primary for the U.S. Senate, besting the efforts of two candidates more firmly established in the state's political hierarchy -- state AG Jon Bruning and state Treasurer Don...

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Late Returns: Angus King Will Determine The Fate Of America

(24) Comments | Posted May 17, 2012 | 7:26 PM

Nate Silver has taken a look across the great pollscape of American politics and has some good news for Democrats -- their odds of keeping control of the Senate have improved:

When we last took an overview of Senate races in December, Republicans appeared to be slight favorites...
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Americans Elect Admits Defeat: 'The Primary Process ... Has Come To An End'

(10) Comments | Posted May 17, 2012 | 6:35 PM

Well, after a couple days of fretting behind the scenes with the members of its "online community" (at least those few members who managed to discover the secret link by which they could communicate their feelings), Americans Elect has decided to give up on dreams of changing the...

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John Derbyshire Is Pretty Sure That The Vast Majority Of Blacks 'Prefer White Supremacy' Because Liberia!

(352) Comments | Posted May 17, 2012 | 4:23 PM

John Derbyshire, who was recently kicked out of the National Review's community of deep thinkers because his overt racism had finally become somewhat embarrassing for them, has swum back to VDARE, where his white-supremacist leanings are encouraged. He quickly made himself comfortable, publishing a post in...

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Americans Elect Continues To Fail At The Internet

(101) Comments | Posted May 17, 2012 | 3:00 PM

At some point today, the folks behind Americans Elect -- the super whiz-bang effort to get an anthropomorphic Thomas Friedman column elected president -- will announce what they are going to do now that the big run-up effort to get people to sufficiently support one or more of a thousand...

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Mike Huckabee And Citizens United Were Totally Just Kidding About That 'Political Whores' Mailer

(161) Comments | Posted May 17, 2012 | 12:25 PM

Earlier this week, BuzzFeed's Zeke Miller obtained a hard copy of a letter from the conservative nonprofit group Citizens United, signed by sometime presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, in which Huckabee complained that President Barack Obama had "surrounded himself with morally repugnant political whores with...

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Rep. Joe Pitts Says Zombie, Comatose Man Need To Team Up For Middle East Peace

(152) Comments | Posted May 16, 2012 | 10:37 PM

Presented without comment, here is the report from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Replying to a Chester County constituent's email regarding Middle East tensions, [U.S. Representative Joe] Pitts (R-Pa.) wrote on April 20 that "it is now incumbent on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasir Arafat" to...
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