Searching the shelves for kittens and rainbows this morning, I was only able to find one frisky little kitten left, this one carrying the news that “effective altruist’ crypto-con billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried was out $12 million and didn’t have a congressional candidate to show for the money. Yes - his never-run-before, totally-unknown Democrat Carrick Flynn (who it turns out he never actually met face-to face, since both of them put you and me to shame in our pandemic fastiodiousness) - got creamed by a two-to-one margin by state legislator Andrea Salinas, despite his massive cash advantage; Salinas got 38% compared to Flynn’s 19%.
First things first. Idaho: “the state where you can’t tell the Mormons from the Nazis.” Had me rolling on the floor! Mencken would be jealous. So true.
Regarding the press (reporters, print editors, and broadcast producers), since I am anonymous here I can say that you are too kind to call them over educated. My experience (which may be influenced by my elitist post-grad degree) is that they are not the brightest of the bunch. Most seem to graduate from the middle ranks of lesser state colleges. (Embarrassed at my own snobbery.) But really they don’t think too deeply. They are, of course, under increasingly tight deadlines in the social media environment, and staff has been cut everywhere, and they are covering more than one beat. It’s not easy to keep focus. I guess the biggest influence might be that they think of themselves as part of the upper middle class, at least culturally, and unlike the beat reporters of the mid 20th century, they do not feel a kinship with the more economically modest members of society. Thus, news about rapidly rebuilding the economy after a sharp recession, growing employment numbers, and attempts to buttress the incomes of poor folk with tax credits, just don’t fascinate them. As for why they don’t sing Biden’s praises for helping to whip Putin’s ass without risking American blood, I haven’t a clue. I guess they are conditioned to look for failure and if they don’t see it, they move on.
Final thought: Fetterman is onto something. It’s the posturing that attracts a great many voters. Trump, Schwarzenegger (second best Republican governor in California, save Jerry Brown 🤦🏻♂️), Jesse Ventura, etc. Maybe we need Democratic candidates who say we need child tax credits, and infrastructure spending, while snarling and cursing.
Hooray!!! Madison Cawthorn lost!!! Awesome!!! That was excellent news; he is just little twerp. The person who won is more similar to an establishment Republican, but he was supported by the loathsome Thom Tillis, who beat Cal Cunningham, who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Cunningham was running as a squeaky clean family guy. People thought he was a liar because he was!
It does piss me off to see Biden’s poll numbers so low. I don’t know how much people thought he could do with only a 50/50 Senate. There were and still are so many problems to tackle. I have given up cable news almost entirely. I watch highlights of shows I like. I can’t stand to watch MSM news. Besides I just end up yelling at the tv.
This is the best $7/mo I spend reading. Thank you for everything expressed in today’s TAFM. EVERYTHING. I’ve been following Fetterman since whenever, and my heart sank when I heard about the stroke and hospitalization, etc. But, his victory made my heart soar. I want to see him in the Senate. He reminds me of the politicians in Spielberg’s Lincoln. (If you have time to answer this…do you subscribe to The Cook Report? Or follow Dave Wasserman elsewhere? While I have turned away from pundits, I am really interested in the people who crunch the numbers, so DW is sort of up there, but TCR is too costly for my interest.) If I find out that any of my Republican relatives voted for that terrifying gubernatorial candidate in PA, I’m through with them. ❤️🤍💙
TC, are you the person who said the Dems’ message should be, “ The Republicans will raise your taxes and take away your Medicare, your Social Security, and your vote. That’s in their plan.”?
Back in the cold war days, when Communists were the supposed anti-Christ, I was far less afraid of them than the "Southern Baptists" into which I lumped all the far right religious groups for lack of better words. If any ideology was going to hang my grandchildren on meat hooks and watch them take three days to die it was those whom we now call evangelicals. Fifty years later, it seems I may have been right. TC, you are just full of good news today.
Tom - just a note, and you may already have done this - read today's letter from Heather Cox Richardson, especially the last subject - we are at the gates.....and the barbarians are here.
Ummmm. I’ll take that frisky kitten on the shelf. Oh wait…. I see some others sort of pressed to back of shelf and all squished. But looks like, oh good, they are grooming themselves back to friskiness and moving to front of shelf! Just in time!
another great one, Tom, and thanks for it. a really funny thing: some weeks ago, when Cawthorn's craziness was becoming manifest, I posted on FB that I could see myself pushing him down a staircase and watching him "bounce like Mildred Dunnock in "Kiss of Death." " old movies are very possibly the best source of metaphors. or WERE, for people of a certain age. how many millennials (or whatever you call people who weren't brought up on endless old Hollywood fare) would get the reference? I spend a LOT of time introducing the young folks I encounter to all of those metaphor-sources I have access to.
as to your analysis of the primaries... I think you're probably dead-on, and it gives me a sickening feeling; the same sickening feeling most of us have, I'm afraid. I told a friend a few months ago that 1)the Democrats obviously have a "messaging problem" and 2) it is horrifying that we need to be concerned with "messaging," but the second concern speaks directly to your Churchill quote. the same friend told me about his attending a meeting of "Community Land Trust" people and walking away with the realization that the people in the meeting were careful to use the right words, but were finally pretty much the same as a meeting of private real estate developers. and I like Fetterman a LOT, not least because his two dogs feature prominently in his bio and have their own Twitter accounts. for me, the Twitter account thing is a bridge too far, but then again, I'm not a public figure, so my dogs have very little to tweet about.
Another salient feature of Doug Mastriano’s campaign: at his rallies there is a guy all decked out in circa-1776, self-styled patriot garb, topped by a tri-corner hat, that blocks the press from getting in. They have pictures of the reporters they intend to block pasted up at the reception desk.
Tom, I know this is a bit late for this thread, but this you've gotta see.....people have NO idea what is coming down the pike if TFG ever gets back into the White House - which he could, because the MSM is not doing the job they are tasked with, and too many voters are low-information and often vote without considering the consequences (cf. 2016)..... Read this article from Newsweek - https://www.newsweek.com/dark-maga-donald-trump-supporters-attempt-rebrand-2024-1697855
First things first. Idaho: “the state where you can’t tell the Mormons from the Nazis.” Had me rolling on the floor! Mencken would be jealous. So true.
Regarding the press (reporters, print editors, and broadcast producers), since I am anonymous here I can say that you are too kind to call them over educated. My experience (which may be influenced by my elitist post-grad degree) is that they are not the brightest of the bunch. Most seem to graduate from the middle ranks of lesser state colleges. (Embarrassed at my own snobbery.) But really they don’t think too deeply. They are, of course, under increasingly tight deadlines in the social media environment, and staff has been cut everywhere, and they are covering more than one beat. It’s not easy to keep focus. I guess the biggest influence might be that they think of themselves as part of the upper middle class, at least culturally, and unlike the beat reporters of the mid 20th century, they do not feel a kinship with the more economically modest members of society. Thus, news about rapidly rebuilding the economy after a sharp recession, growing employment numbers, and attempts to buttress the incomes of poor folk with tax credits, just don’t fascinate them. As for why they don’t sing Biden’s praises for helping to whip Putin’s ass without risking American blood, I haven’t a clue. I guess they are conditioned to look for failure and if they don’t see it, they move on.
Final thought: Fetterman is onto something. It’s the posturing that attracts a great many voters. Trump, Schwarzenegger (second best Republican governor in California, save Jerry Brown 🤦🏻♂️), Jesse Ventura, etc. Maybe we need Democratic candidates who say we need child tax credits, and infrastructure spending, while snarling and cursing.
Hooray!!! Madison Cawthorn lost!!! Awesome!!! That was excellent news; he is just little twerp. The person who won is more similar to an establishment Republican, but he was supported by the loathsome Thom Tillis, who beat Cal Cunningham, who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Cunningham was running as a squeaky clean family guy. People thought he was a liar because he was!
It does piss me off to see Biden’s poll numbers so low. I don’t know how much people thought he could do with only a 50/50 Senate. There were and still are so many problems to tackle. I have given up cable news almost entirely. I watch highlights of shows I like. I can’t stand to watch MSM news. Besides I just end up yelling at the tv.
This is the best $7/mo I spend reading. Thank you for everything expressed in today’s TAFM. EVERYTHING. I’ve been following Fetterman since whenever, and my heart sank when I heard about the stroke and hospitalization, etc. But, his victory made my heart soar. I want to see him in the Senate. He reminds me of the politicians in Spielberg’s Lincoln. (If you have time to answer this…do you subscribe to The Cook Report? Or follow Dave Wasserman elsewhere? While I have turned away from pundits, I am really interested in the people who crunch the numbers, so DW is sort of up there, but TCR is too costly for my interest.) If I find out that any of my Republican relatives voted for that terrifying gubernatorial candidate in PA, I’m through with them. ❤️🤍💙
TC, are you the person who said the Dems’ message should be, “ The Republicans will raise your taxes and take away your Medicare, your Social Security, and your vote. That’s in their plan.”?
Back in the cold war days, when Communists were the supposed anti-Christ, I was far less afraid of them than the "Southern Baptists" into which I lumped all the far right religious groups for lack of better words. If any ideology was going to hang my grandchildren on meat hooks and watch them take three days to die it was those whom we now call evangelicals. Fifty years later, it seems I may have been right. TC, you are just full of good news today.
Tom - just a note, and you may already have done this - read today's letter from Heather Cox Richardson, especially the last subject - we are at the gates.....and the barbarians are here.
Ummmm. I’ll take that frisky kitten on the shelf. Oh wait…. I see some others sort of pressed to back of shelf and all squished. But looks like, oh good, they are grooming themselves back to friskiness and moving to front of shelf! Just in time!
another great one, Tom, and thanks for it. a really funny thing: some weeks ago, when Cawthorn's craziness was becoming manifest, I posted on FB that I could see myself pushing him down a staircase and watching him "bounce like Mildred Dunnock in "Kiss of Death." " old movies are very possibly the best source of metaphors. or WERE, for people of a certain age. how many millennials (or whatever you call people who weren't brought up on endless old Hollywood fare) would get the reference? I spend a LOT of time introducing the young folks I encounter to all of those metaphor-sources I have access to.
as to your analysis of the primaries... I think you're probably dead-on, and it gives me a sickening feeling; the same sickening feeling most of us have, I'm afraid. I told a friend a few months ago that 1)the Democrats obviously have a "messaging problem" and 2) it is horrifying that we need to be concerned with "messaging," but the second concern speaks directly to your Churchill quote. the same friend told me about his attending a meeting of "Community Land Trust" people and walking away with the realization that the people in the meeting were careful to use the right words, but were finally pretty much the same as a meeting of private real estate developers. and I like Fetterman a LOT, not least because his two dogs feature prominently in his bio and have their own Twitter accounts. for me, the Twitter account thing is a bridge too far, but then again, I'm not a public figure, so my dogs have very little to tweet about.
Another salient feature of Doug Mastriano’s campaign: at his rallies there is a guy all decked out in circa-1776, self-styled patriot garb, topped by a tri-corner hat, that blocks the press from getting in. They have pictures of the reporters they intend to block pasted up at the reception desk.
Will Bunch wrote this about it: https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/republican-attacks-press-freedom-mastriano-20220515.html
Tom, I know this is a bit late for this thread, but this you've gotta see.....people have NO idea what is coming down the pike if TFG ever gets back into the White House - which he could, because the MSM is not doing the job they are tasked with, and too many voters are low-information and often vote without considering the consequences (cf. 2016)..... Read this article from Newsweek - https://www.newsweek.com/dark-maga-donald-trump-supporters-attempt-rebrand-2024-1697855