Archive for the ‘Media Tripe’ Category
Apocalypse Now
Posted on: March 23, 2018
Saturday Night Massacre is really a 2016-2020 Massacre in Trump years. It’s better for the ratings. The latest victim of our slow motion descent into chaos is National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster. He was one of Trump’s beloved Generals. His predecessor in the post was Michael Flynn. Flynn is trying not to get locked up and McMaster is probably looking to get his 4 stars and retire ASAP. Stories are that Trump thought McMaster was too serious and talked too much. That must have been especially galling, to talk more than Trump. What is Trump supposed to do when a National Security Advisor talks too much? Listen? LOL. McMaster’s replacement – who needs no confirmation from the Senate – is John Bolton. Dubya first put Bolton in power as a U.N. ambassador, even though Bolton detests the U.N. So never forget that no matter how bad Trump is, Dubya was awful, awful, awful. And it’s only fitting that Bolton get a fancy new job the week we celebrate the anniversary of the Iraq War! It’s a nice present to one of the architects of that catastrophe.
Speaking of great ratings being delivered by Trump: Jeff Zucker, head of CNN, had some harsh things to say about Fox News.
“What has happened to that network in the last 18 months, especially the last year, is that it has just turned itself into state-run TV,” Zucker said. “TASS has nothing on them,” he said in reference to the Russian news agency.
[…]
Zucker said that Fox has “a handful of good journalists but they get lost in the propaganda machine.”
“The idea that they are a news channel is really not accurate at all,” he said.
This is all hilarious because Jeff Zucker made a choice during the election: he chose to elevate and normalize Trump and everything Trump stands for. Hours of uninterrupted
and unchallenged speeches by Trump aired live on CNN for months. And everybody missed the Russian story and, now we learn, Cambridge Analytica story; because of “her mails.” It’s not an exaggeration to say that Zucker is one big reason we have Trump. But that kind of self-awareness does not exist in the media. To date not a single reporter* has stepped forward and said: “Maybe her emails were less important than Trump/Russia.” Not only has no reporter done that much self-reflection, many have dug in and insist that they did nothing wrong. Some pick fights on twitter with anyone who even suggests that they might have spent too much time on unworthy subjects. Ken Vogel of the NY Times, who wrote extensively about the Clinton Foundation, and has tweeted extensively practically foaming at the mouth with rage that the Foundation is a sinister money laundering scheme, tweeted that Cambridge Analytica story is overblown. That the company is harmless. That’s the state of modern journalism.
*The only reporters who have made the point that the media covered the wrong story were already saying it in 2016. People like Soledad O’Brien, Josh Marshal, Charles Pierce and David Corn. I would give 1/2 point to Matthew Yglesias, but only 1/2 point because his Clinton Derangement Syndrome is otherwise rabid.
A final word about Facebook: the story of Cambridge Analytica harvesting profiles and data of 50,000,000 Facebook users is only beginning to hit the front pages. For most of us it’s not a new story. The name of that company has been discussed for a a couple of years and Hillary Clinton talked about it publicly as far back as Spring of last year. At the time she was trashed by every pundit and reporter for refusing to take enough (all) blame for her loss and instead blaming everyone else. Once again, however, we see that Clinton was ahead of everyone else. What she was saying wasn’t so much blame-shifting as warning. Warning that there are layers to the treachery that are still to be uncovered and explored. But the very smart people in the media let their CDS get in the way. That will never change, of course. If Hillary had won the electoral college in addition to the
popular vote she would have been buried under countless Republican investigations (no doubt she would already have been impeached.) Jason Chaffetz would still be in Congress and Trey Gowdy wouldn’t be resigning either. HRC’s administration would have been testifying on something every day of the week and the media would still be blasting her emails on the front page, in addition to some new scandal Alex Jones made up. She would also have been crushed by Democrats, who are incapable of standing by their own. (Trump really did manage to build a wall: a wall of Republicans protecting his every sin.) The Left would have been screaming that Hillary hasn’t given them a unicorn yet and the Right would have been screaming that she is taking away their rocket launchers. Trump would be starting his own media empire accusing HRC of stealing his election and whipping up right-wing paranoia of astronomical proportions. (Ok, the last part happened anyway.) HRC’s life is far more peaceful not being in the White House. Except I know that Hillary Clinton wishes she was saving us from the Apocalypse, even if it burned her first.
This is an open thread.
Good Monday, all. We have certainly had some very good news this past week. The amazing victory of Doug Jones in Alabama took us all by surprise…and for once, it was a happy surprise! Roy Moore’s refusal to concede is both embarrassing and ridiculous, and makes both him and the Republican Party look worse (if such a thing is even possible). It won’t get him anywhere except the loony bin, which, frankly, is where he has belonged for a long time.
As DYB pointed out on Saturday, Senator-Elect Jones ran as an unabashed liberal on social issues, with the requisite full-throated support for a woman’s right to choose. It’s important to note this actual fact, as I’ve been hearing an alarming amount of noise from white men in the media who don’t seem to feel Jones had the winning strategy.
“Why can’t Democrats allow some room for pro-lifers in the Party?” bemoaned well-known sexist jackass “Tingly Leg” Chris Matthews last week. “I mean, most people are against late-term abortions. It would make such a difference in red states.” (I can’t seem to find this video – sorry folks, maybe someone else can?) Now, let me get this straight…a 70-year-old white Catholic man is advising Democrats to throw women’s rights under the bus, even after it has been demonstrated time and again that women have been critical to the special election sweeps since 2016? This was before Jones’ victory, I admit…but if moderate white Republican women didn’t go over to Jones, he wouldn’t have won. Do you really think they were worried about abortion when they went to the voting booth? Somehow I think they were more worried about their teenage daughters running into Moore in the mall!
If only Matthews were the only one pushing this crap. But alas, he’s not. White male, and now-former Republican Joe Scarborough jumped on the train that same week. Surrounding Democratic 2020 candidate John Delaney (yes, I know, who?) with an all-conservative, almost all-male audience (the sole female being Peggy Noonan), white male Delaney was mercilessly quizzed about his Catholicism and how he feels about abortion. Delaney said he feels that pro-life Democrats should “join the big tent” as long as they support the other planks of the platform, like “economic values.” Really, John, really? And how will women gain economic equality if Democrats don’t consider their rights as human rights? Or are we really supposed to accept the idiotic Sandersian myth that a $15/hr. minimum wage will magically erase the institutionalized racism and misogyny that keep women and people of color from earning their fair share of the dollar?
I’m going to bang on an old drum here: Democrats have not done right by their female supporters in decades. They never pushed through the ERA when they had the chance. When they had their first viable female candidate for the Presidency in 2008, the National Party decided Obama was more “historic,” and demonstrably rigged the nomination for him. Perhaps this innate knowledge that we are an afterthought for most Dems, is why so many of my white sisters vote Republican? Certainly after the debacle of 2008, many of us frustrated women (and the men who support us) re-registered as Independents, but came back to the fold when the Tea Party rose up and took the Republicans on the final leg of their long trip to CrazyTown.
After the Democratic Party once again allowed a sexist man to run a misogynistic campaign against Hillary in 2016, contributing to her electoral defeat, women started getting a lot smarter. They stopped passively expecting the Party to help them, and decided to take it over for themselves. The leadership of the Party should have noticed this by now. Women are running for office in unbelievable numbers, and winning, and are the backbone of the Resistance which helped defeat the overturn of the Affordable Care Act and fueled the anti-Trump furor across America. Yet, if my Maryland brother John Delaney is any indication, it’s clear that the Democratic Party still cannot get over its encrusted and myopic focus on its…male members. (Wink.)
I admit I have just started to fully understand my privilege as a white female living in a blue state. There is not a chance in hell that a pro-death Democrat will beat a pro-choice one here. And in fact, I couldn’t care less what people think privately, as long as they don’t vote to curtail a woman’s right to choose in any way. But should we really invite this kind of ambiguity into the Party, when so many women have lost access to not just abortion, but any form of pre-natal care at all? And when our maternal mortality rate has gone up so much, we’re now the only developed country where it’s increasing?
This excellent Slate article explains why we’re going backwards instead of forwards in the area of women’s health. There are three reasons: poverty, lack of access to health care, and regressive contraception and abortion policies. All of these issues disproportionately affect African-American women, who die in childbirth at 3 times the rate of white women, and 98% of whom voted for Doug Jones, a pro-choice Democrat.
I hope we’re seeing the connection here.
I’m not going to threaten to leave the Party. I’m over that; as I’ve said a few times now, I’ll vote for an artichoke if it has a D next to it. Our democracy depends on wresting power from the wanna-be Fascist in the White House, and the cowardly, corrupt Republicans who are enabling his blatant dismantling of our sacred rule of law.
But I will say this. If the Democrats do not get their sh*t together and start respecting women’s rights as much as they respect that cranky old Socialist’s annoying rants, they will most assuredly hear from me. And I suspect millions of my sisters and brothers will do the same.
This is an open thread.
It’s a day of the week that ends with “ay,” so it must be Hillary Derangement Syndrome day. On Tuesday night Washington Post fired off a nuke into the political media with a shocking story called: “Clinton campaign, DNC paid for research that led to Russia dossier.” This sent the internet reeling with indignation. About half of the political press forgot that this information is about a year old. Let’s travel back in time to October 31, 2016 when the very first article about the Steele Dossier was written by David Corn of Mother Jones. In it Corn noted that the Dossier was originally commissioned by a Trump opponent (probably Jeb!) But after the GOP imploded and Trump became the nominee, they abandoned it, to be picked up by Democrats. In January 2017 both CNN and New York Times specifically mentioned that the Democrats had connections to the Clinton campaign and the DNC. So almost a year later, WaPo identified the Democrat (lawyer Mark Elias.) That’s the bombshell. I hope your bomb shelters are fully stocked folks.
So what reporter had the hottest take of all on this HUGE story? I’ll give you one guess. You’re right!
Please note here Haberman’s use of the word “lie.” Lie! Infamously, this is a word the press will not use when describing Donald Trump or any member of his cabinet. Twitter user Patrick Karlsson put together a stunning thread of Haberman’s past tweets refusing to use the word “lie”about Trump. Over and over and over. It’s worth checking out here if you want to get very angry. “Untruths,” “falsehoods,” “inaccurate narrative,” etc. are the words Haberman has chosen when discussing Trump. Never “lie.” Not even once.
Some members of the press did react with surprise at the surprise. Joy Reid tweeted: “Only the American media could make a scandal out of opposition research.” Michael Weiss: “OK, people, let’s cut the shit. Trump dossier was commissioned by the team of a *Republican* candidate (not hard to guess which one either).” Josh Marshall: “The Big WaPo Story & Why Everyone Needs to Thank Marc Elias.” Chris Hayes: “Ah yes. We’ve now entered the “Real Russia Scandal” phase.” NPR’s David Folkenflik: “Better headline for valid WaPo story: Trump oppo research dossier funded first by anon GOP foe and then by HRC/Dems.”
But the damage is done, once again. As Joy Reid also said: Who paid for the Steele dossier is the new “but her emails.”
Also worth noting: Sarah Huckabee Sanders retweeted Haberman’s sanctimonious tweet.
Also, Fox before the WaPo story.
This is an open thread.
In Brief
Posted on: October 18, 2017
- In: Breaking News | Civil Rights | Donald Trump | Entertainment | Feminism | Media Tripe | movies | Remembrance | Uncategorized | Womens' Rights
- 111 Comments
Hello Widdershins,
My apologies for being an absentee poster. I run out of hours in the day and have no computer at work. Only a very weak signal on my iPhone. But I’m sure the news keeps everyone busy. I’ll be back to my regular schedule in a week!
The worst thing I read all day is Dump’s awful phone call to the widow of slain U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson. After ignoring the 4 American soldiers killed in Niger for weeks (he golfed though), he finally brought himself to call a family. And he told the pregnant Myeshia Johnson: “He knew what he signed up for.” There truly is no end to Trump’s depravity. But we should read the names of the 4 soldiers killed and a hold a moment of silence because our president doesn’t care.
From one kind of depraved to a very different kind of depraved, the story of Harvey Weinstein is continuing to reverberate in the entertainment industry. There are now at least 47 women who have accused Weinstein of harassing or assaulting them. Of the well-known actresses the most recent story comes from Lena Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister on the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones.” The story, of course, is bigger than Weinstein. The singer/actress Björk, who has starred in only one movie, critically acclaimed “Dancer in the Dark,” wrote a letter in which she referenced being abused by a Danish director. Since she only appeared in one film and that film was made by a Dane, the unnamed director is Lars von Trier. Von Trier makes controversial films (I personally detest each and every one of them). In 2011 he stunned the Cannes Film Festival when he announced during a press conference:
“I found out I was actually a Nazi. My family were German. And that also gave me some pleasure. What can I say? I understand Hitler…I sympathize with him a bit.”
Molly Ringwald has also said she’s had “plenty of Harveys of my own.” She says she was first assaulted when she was 13. Reese Witherspoon says she was sexually assaulted by a director when she was 16. And America Ferrera said that she remembers the first time she was assaulted was when she was 9.
On Monday I went out to grab a Starbucks while at work. Crossing the street on 49th St and Park Avenue (a short distance from Grand Central station), I saw an SUV almost run over a young woman. He was backing up against his light and not paying attention. He side-swiped this woman (she was not breaking any laws), and only reason he didn’t actually run her over was because she jumped out of the way in time. So she started yelling to him to watch it, he hit her with his car. This man, big man, in his late 40’s, looked out of the window and said: “Oh did I hit you? Let me see. Where? In the back? Show me. Turn around baby, let me see you from the back.” As she began to turn to show him…she froze. I think all the witnesses did. It became obvious he was literally trying to see her ass. He was sexually harassing woman in the middle of the street that he just literally hit with his car… You could see her face changing as she realized what was happening and that dumbass grinned at her. It was truly breathtaking.
To make you feel maybe 1% better about all this insanity – there is the story of the immortal Carrie Fisher. After being told by a friend, screenwriter Heather Robinson, that a studio executive sexually assaulted her, Carrie Fisher took matters into her own hands. She personally delivered to the executive a Tiffany box. Inside the box – a cow tongue. And a note: “If you ever touch my darling Heather or any other woman again, the next delivery will be something of yours in a much smaller box.”
And finally, if you follow reporters on social media you may have noticed that a few voices have been oddly missing for several days. New York Times voices. The normally rambunctious Maggie Haberman has been MIA. Glenn Thrush quit twitter altogether. And then we found out why. The bosses have slapped down their on-line behavior. Dean Baquet (a man who has a lot to answer for as far as the 2016 coverage) announced new social media rules for his reporters. And poor Maggie and Glenn, their entire gig is up. The stuff they are best at – snide condescension and sarcasm are discouraged. I think these rules broke Maggie.
So what’s on your mind Widdershins?
Good morning Widdershins.
My current job refuses to give me internet access during the day (I think that may be unconstitutional and I’m talking to lawyers about it), so I’m going to be a bit MIA during the day for the next month.
Being away from the cyber has its advantages: not being bombarded by Dump news feels weird, but ignorance is often bliss. If Kim Dong-Bum launches a nuke I’d rather just die not knowing it’s coming towards us. Same goes for Dump launching one.
I was able to witness some of the latest batshit insanity from Maggie Haberman, however. You’ll recall that her partner in intellectual dishonesty and moral bankruptcy Glenn Thrush quit Twitter (RIP). I’m grateful because there’s enough stupidity there already. Haberman has so far held out as the most active voice of the New York Times’ Clinton Derangement Syndrome. If anyone out there in the universe has thinner skin than Donald Dump, it’s Maggie Haberman. I used to think Chris Cillizza was the worst reporter alive (yes, worse than anyone on Fox). But today I came to the conclusion that actually Haberman is worse than Cillizza. In fact, I think Haberman is worse than Hitler. Literally, she’s worse than Hitler.
I was going to write a whole summary of how shit went down today on Twitter in the war between Haberman and Nate Silver, but then I read this Wonkette piece titled “New York Times’ Maggie Haberman Has Chosen To Be A Dick Today” and they summarize the series of unfortunate events of the day beautifully. The only thing I would change here is their belief that Haberman is sometimes a good reporter. She’s not really. She gets her Trump fluff from Jared and Ivanka. She sells her soul to the devil for access and 666 looks like Javanka. I’d bet money that those are her two primary sources in the White House. I’d also bet Bannon and Kellyanne were Thrush’s (RIP.)
And it wasn’t just about the fucking emails either. When there wasn’t any Hillary email dirt to make up shit about, NYT was going hard on whether the Clinton Foundation was raping puppies or Hillary was getting lesbian ass on the side, or, literally, stories about Hillary Clinton’s contractor not getting the permits for her kitchen reno, you know, just asking all the normal journalism questions you’d expect from the Grey Lady. Oh, and how can we forget, but the NYT payroll department was financing Maureen Dowd’s pot brownie habit the ENTIRE TIME, so she could write her asshole columns about Hillary Clinton and her big dick.
Meanwhile, the Times, in the form of haggard loser “reporter” Eric Lichtblau, was maniacally jizzing itself to exonerate Donald Trump of all Russian crimes past, present and future. Heckuva job, you lazy cockbags.
Haberman, instead of saying, “Yeah we really did blow a goat on that one,” went ad hominem at Nate Silver, because as we said in the headline, she has decided to be a dick today.
All this dick waving today, of course, comes on the heels of Hillary Clinton giving -2,009,982 fucks about what any of these assholes think anymore. We know Haberman and Thrush (RIP) were furious at Clinton since 2014 for not giving them access. They avenged their fragile egos by working furiously to get Trump – who gave them access – into the White House. At the end of the day, journalists are not indifferent about who wins or loses. Throwing Thrush’ hat in with Trump’s cabal has made them appear invaluable. Because they have access. Haberman made her career by getting Trump elected. This is why I think she’s worse than Hitler.
Let us not forget that the New York Times has gifted America two things: WMDs/Iraq War and now Hillary’s emails/Trump. This is the New York Times’ legacy.
To be fair, Haberman was not the only dick today. I was surprised that The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza whipped his out today too. For a minute, as I read it, I thought it was a comment by Cillizza and that seemed normal. Then I realized it was Lizza. Fucking asshole.
So in short, I’m glad I don’t have cyber access all day.
What’s on your mind Widdershins? This is an open thread.
Let them eat Manolo Blahniks
Posted on: August 30, 2017
- In: Current Events | Donald Trump | Environment | Media Tripe | Politics | Uncategorized | Weather | Zombie Apocalypse
- 98 Comments
Good morning Widdershins,
Hurricane Harvey has been a massive catastrophe. As I was writing this on Tuesday evening, a levee in a county south of Houston has breached. “NOTICE: The levee at Columbia Lakes has been breached!! GET OUT NOW!!!” Brazoria County said on Twitter on Tuesday morning. Many trillions of gallons of water have fallen. The entire Texas National Guard has been deployed. Meanwhile president Dump and his wife (wearing 4” heels) went to visit and Dump wondered at the size of the crowd assembled. “What a crowd, what a turnout,” he declared in Corpus Cristi. Meanwhile Glenn Thrush of the New York Times declared that Dump “used the dulcet, reassuring and uplifting language of prior presidents” when speaking of the disaster, in an article with the headline: “Harvey Gives Trump A Chance to Reclaim Power to Unify.” I assume that’s when Dump wasn’t wearing his $40 hats his company sells while making appearances in Texas. The New York Times has reached peak dumpster fire in their apologia and legitimization of Dump. Just a few days ago their reporters (you know the ones) were screaming on twitter that everything is Hillary’s fault. (I’m sure I’m wrong about it being peak. Bigger dumpster fires are yet to come.) The only person at the Times with any sense of decency is Paul Krugman who sent out a series of tweets pointing out the media screwed up. Sadly the political desk at the Times, headed by Dean Baquet, doesn’t listen to Krugman.
Speaking of Dean Baquet, read this remarkable article about Baquet, the media, Melania Trump’s plagiarized speech, and Meredith McIver, who took responsibility for stealing Michelle Obama’s words. Is McIver an actual person? Who knows! Even though the Times, among others, wrote glowingly about her, nobody seems to have met this woman in at least 10 years. And Baquet thinks the reporter who asked to confirm that someone at the Times actually has met this woman is a “moron.”
…we really don’t know if Meredith McIver is real, alive, and well, or not — she may very well be. But I know the explanations from Team Trump for what happened at the time were completely ridiculous — one involved Sean Spicer and a My Little Pony box (please, Google it); I know that other people searching for Meredith have received anonymous threats; I know that a phone conversation I had with Meredith’s alleged ex-boyfriend, Stephen Palitz, led to far more questions than answers; I know that fake social media accounts for Meredith popped up immediatley after she accepted blame…and suddenly and inexplicably began communicating in Russian before disappearing again.
A few months ago, Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the NYTimes, fired the paper’s public editor. The public editor was originally hired after the paper’s disastrous coverage leading up to the Iraq War. Now Sulzberger declared the role was no longer necessary because the public would keep his reporters honest. On Tuesday evening Peter Daou, a former Clinton staffer who is very vocal in his defense of Clinton on twitter, announced he has now been blocked by 3 major Times reporters, including Thrush and Haberman. How does one keep reporters honest – when reporters block you?
What’s on your minds Widdershins? This is an open thread.
Acts of Randomness
Posted on: August 23, 2017
Hello Widdershins,
We have survived another week without a nuclear apocalypse. Yay? Doesn’t mean another one won’t come tomorrow. The 45h Dump is escalating the war in Afghanistan (hey, remember when Rita Skeeter Maureen Dowd wrote a whole column arguing that Dump was a “dove” and Hillary was the “hawk?” LOL yeah.) John McCain and Lady Graham couldn’t be happier about more war. And a twitter war broke out between the NYTimes Twins (Thrush and Haberman) and people with a brain, many of whom happened to be Clinton supporters, but not exclusively, after Thrush went on a sexist tirade listing all the things Hillary did wrong during the election. This is after a Harvard study showed that “her emails” was the single most covered story in the media, which perhaps was unwise of the media. But Times Twins found other reasons for the 2016 disaster, among them that Hillary flew home for dinner every night of the campaign (some have disputed that), that she spoke too much (he actually said that) during the campaign, waged a silly war on the media, and should have listened to people more, and that Huma Abedin should have fired. These are things Glenn Thrush tweeted and Haberman backed up, and then Jonathan Martin jumped in too. I’ll just leave the topic right there because I’m getting palpitations right now.
We are also learning that the DNC is having a hard time raising money. Liberal organizations are not having difficulties. Individual political campaigns, like Jon Ossoff’s for example, and organizations like ACLU. So liberals are giving away a lot of money – they’re just steering clear of the DNC. Perhaps, possibly, just maybe the reason is Bernie Sanders? The disastrous “Unity Tour” and endless screaming by Sanders proxies like Nina Turner, as well as DNC’s attempts to reach white people, at the expense of its actual base (women and people of color) is not going to bring out the donations. And Sanders supporters are not going to start sending their $27 to the DNC. So Tom Perez has some decisions to make. Stick with Bernie and his Bros, and starve DNC of its base money, or throw Bernie into the trash where he belongs.
New Republic also notes that
“Obama and Clinton are both high-profile Democrats and neither have been helping the DNC raise much money,” Beckel said. There is a finite amount of resources, and it’s possible that Obama and Clinton are pulling the deep donor networks that they have cultivated away from the party itself. (Obama, however, has reportedly been privately advising Tom Perez.)
And in really fun news: there’s a state of war between Dump and McTurtle.
It seems that the President personally berated McConnell the last time they did talk, on August 9, repeating his complaints about the Senate and about the mild criticism its leader aimed at him. And the two pols have been carrying out a proxy war via Trump’s attacks on, and McConnell’s vigorous support for, Republican senators who have disrespected POTUS, notably Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who recently published a book that rejected Trump’s claim to be a legitimate conservative.
Per the failing NY Times, the Dump/McTurtle conversation on August 9th turned into a cursing shouting match. Lordy I hope there are tapes!
What’s on your mind Widdershins?
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