The GOP has become the party of Orwell's nightmares

From Salon:
 "The Republican Party has become the Orwellian party, and Fox News’ Frank Luntz is perhaps the most notorious GOP spin-doctor.

“[Politicians] are living, breathing embodiments of the language they use,” said Luntz during an NPR interview. “When you’re selling a product or service it doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect. When you’re a politician, one wrong word changes the … meaning of something.”

          ...

"It is actually refreshing to see a Republican politician distort the truth without the usual duplicity. Trump is a complete bullshit artist, but not in the usual mechanical way that we typically see from other politicians. Indeed, this is one of the qualities that has made him so popular (and unpopular), and his dishonesty has been contagious.
Other GOP candidates have quickly jumped on the bullshit bandwagon, and as PolitiFact rulings reveal, the more dishonest the GOP candidate is, the more successful he or she becomes. It was only a matter of time until the lies and distortions caught up with Republicans. The party has built its modern platform on deception, and has carefully crafted an entire phraseology to back it up. But there is no amount of spin that can make Trump look honest. And Trump is, after all, the new face of the GOP." 

 This is why Orwell's Politics and the English Language should be required reading. It's a gateway to discussions of political and media literacy.

Torture: when they do it vs when we do it

Jason Leopold made an interesting observation on how the US media are covering what might have happened to US soldier Bowe Berghdahl while in captivity by the Taliban: 

Indeed, the Washington Post even uses the T word in the headline.

Compare this to reporting on what the US has done:

And this from the New York Times: 

So as Squealer in Animal Farm would put it:  "They do it TORTURE, We do it Enhanced Interrogation Techniques."