The really head-scratching, forehead-smiting aspect of the MSM's toadying to Cheato is this: they somehow fail to notice the ginormous groundswell of energy and enthusiasm generated by the Harris/Walz ticket. I'm dating myself here, but it's like the Beatles coming to America and the press only writing about Perry Como.
Amen. One note: There has been some reporting on who was that Black man on the helicopter, but again, not in the way it needs to be framed: that Pol Potbelly is a pathological liar, a bigot, or a dementia patient. We know he's all three. But the media won't even go for one of them.
Trump is blathering that the Harris/Walz rallies have had no attendees, zero, zilch, nada. It's all fake AI. If President Biden said that about Trump rallies, it would be front page news. This is all such bullshit. Trump is seriously mentally ill - just off his rocker nuts but these "news" people aid and enable him. The complete lack of integrity and ethics drives me crazy.
No one can count on the "legacy" media these days. There are a few journalists and columnists you can read who work for these media organizations, but what really galls me is the lousy headlines/ledes which shape what the reader interprets even before reading one word.
"As George Orwell pointed out, “It is difficult for a man to recognize the truth when his paycheck demands that he not do so.”
The gop has been marching the nation into a dystopian unreality for years. I would love to see an article or just a list of all the right wing think tanks and media organizations that are so prevalent in our nation today along with the dates they were founded, who have been leaders, what their financials are, their policy positions, the works. Name names. Show the dots and the dollars. Because what we've got is not new. The folks running these shows want the unsuspecting to call it conservatism, but that identity hides the wolf in sheep's clothing. The movement to end democracy has been here for at least 60 plus years, under the radar mostly, but finally out in the open. Project 2025 is now out there for everyone to see AND the training videos are stunning. Bravo Pro Publica! They got another donation for their effort.
What is really disheartening is just how gullible some fellow Americans have become. Proves just how critical not only this election is but how critical every election will be, local, state, and Federal for all the years to come. After all, power is the only goal some have, because having such power makes stealing so much easier.
WORK. WORK. WORK. LAUGH AND SMILE. ELECT HARRIS/WALZ and BLUE candidates everywhere on the ballot!
About the movement to end democracy -- Jacob Heilbrunn's recent AMERICA LAST: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators takes it back to the beginning of the 20th century, and Rachel Maddow's PREQUEL and her ULTRA podcast series focus on fascists in the interwar period and those who fought back against them. And going back to the 19th century, the white South after the death of Reconstruction was a sort of laboratory for ending democracy on a regional level.
This, plus the very depressing read in the Atlantic ("Trump is setting the stage to challenge the election" and Chris LaCivita swears that it--the election--won't be over until Trump's hand is on the Bible to be sworn in) is going to ruin my sleep tonight. Gonna be a two gummy night.
Let’s just do the hard work of electing Harris/Walz by a landslide. We can and must do this. Onward. Are you really up for Christofacism, a narcissistic lunatic, and Fuzz Face?I am not.
Didn't say I wouldn't--or wasn't already--working on getting Harris and Walz elected.
I merely said I wouldn't sleep well, thinking about the article in the Atlantic and Tom's piece here.
I write postcards and I'm on the local Dem committee and I also am a ballot clerk in my (very rural) town. I wear pro-Dem slogan tees where I go in town and talk up "Life is better--and less vote suppressive--under Dems" in any way I can whether it be in person or online. I just fired off a letter to our local NBC station which runs a 'ask if this claim is true' segment during their evening news hour. It's called "Verify" and last night, the question was: "Kamala says that Trump will cut Social Security--is this true?"
AND THEY SAID IT WASN'T!!! The "verifiers" said that Trump has never promised to cut Social Security...that he spoke about it some time back but backed away. And the blasted VERIFY segment never even mentioned that cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid was practically a feature in the budget section of Project 2025! That is lying by omission, and is misleading at best. I'm furious with the local print media (and national as well--although I have jettisoned NYT and Wapo from my subscription list already), now it's our local horse's patooties that are handing out disinformation.
Chump was absolutely right for all the wrong reasons. Our “free press” has become the enemy of the people. When such blatant bias is in our face, we can’t trust the money-grubbing bastards. Chump accuses, they (everybody it seems) get defensive and say “not me” and chump gets his reward, and we get shafted. A cunning idiot has turned our world upside down. Granted, it was teetering on the brink, thanks to the W/Dickie debacle, but chump couldn’t have budged Walter Cronkite or his bosses at CBS.
Thank you, Tom, for this insightful report. As I've said before I rarely get angry, but when I do I slash out (like my cat) in the spring of 2023 I got angry at the lies being simpered on CNN, then they fired two of my favorite anchors, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, so I cancelled my cable and now watch only DVDs on my TV set. I also cancelled my subscription to the Sacramento Bee and have a bare bones subscription to NYT. It's good to know that I'm not the only one annoyed at the decreasing quality of today's journalists. I fist got disgusted when TV reporters started literally started shoving microphones into the faces of parents who had just lost one or more children to some tragedy with the inane, insensitive question "How do you feel about the loss of your child". If it had been me I'd have ripped the damned mic out of their hand and knocked them on the head, asking how does that make you feel.
So whatever dirt there is out there on the insipid orange turd, is probably believable, is there anything you don't think he would do, rack your brain, incest - no problem, treason - no problem, golden showers with beautiful Russian hookers - no problem. Those are just the first 3 things that come to mind. He is beyond despicable , whatever it is, it probably puts at risk his election. It's going to come out eventually 3 different news organizations have seen it. So it might come down to a question of timing, somebody like the bartender at Romney's speech is going to spill it out, maybe after the Democratic Convention next week. I would bet on all 3 at once. I hope it comes out too late for the repugnantkins to do anything but cringe and vote for Kamala, because finally they might be forced to see the light..
The frightening truth is that many individuals who vote for the likes of Trump are equally despicable. The ex leader of the pro MAGA Democratic Unionist Party here in Northern Ireland and his wife are currently awaiting their day in court after being charged with crime number one on your list. This fact has not affected his popularity amongst his extreme British Unionist faithful. They are seemingly silently sympathetic with the alleged perpetrator and are doubling down on attacking political opponents.
Yes, they choose their idols based on the kinds of sins and malpractice they themselves want to be absolved of. The magas here are the millionaires and billionaires who are into psychological and sexual adventuring on the one end and the proudly uneducated and barely literate who coalesce around gaudy merchandise on the other because it gives them a united identity they can't get within their communities or even within their own families (Their votes and donations are small price to pay to finally belong to Sigma Tau Trumpa.).
The NY Times today had an article about Tim Walz and China. The story itself was well researched and well written. Its headline echoed Republican attack lines. I only saw it because my cousin subscribes to the paper edition. Anyone who still has a sub, see for yourself and decide what to tell them..
I agree - really good article - too bad the repubs with all the criticizing have no conception of actual public service! Too scary to think of someone who spend time in a "furrin" country! (Cotton?)
Thank you, Tom, for resurrecting the Russell Baker and Tim Rutten critiques of the press corps back east. Perhaps I’ve been subconsciously channeling them all this time.
This is worrisome indeed, but Orwell summed it up nicely. I vacillate between being appalled by the general levels of stupidity and the belief that regular folks are smarter and more discerning that elites give them credit for. There are two books I read that speak to this: Deer Hunting With Jesus and Excellent Sheep. Both authors names elude me just now but their writing left an indelible impression on me.
The author of DEER HUNTING WITH JESUS was the late Joe Bageant. I *love* that book. His RAINBOW PIE is also very good. I learned about Bageant from his contributions to AlterNet in the 2000s. He died in 2011. I so wish he'd been around when HILLBILLY ELEGY was published. He would have taken JD Vance to the cleaners.
The really head-scratching, forehead-smiting aspect of the MSM's toadying to Cheato is this: they somehow fail to notice the ginormous groundswell of energy and enthusiasm generated by the Harris/Walz ticket. I'm dating myself here, but it's like the Beatles coming to America and the press only writing about Perry Como.
Truly inspired analogy!
Perfection, Tom. Thank you. Superb summary of what we who have dumped the MSM know to be true. No less upsetting, however.
Amen. One note: There has been some reporting on who was that Black man on the helicopter, but again, not in the way it needs to be framed: that Pol Potbelly is a pathological liar, a bigot, or a dementia patient. We know he's all three. But the media won't even go for one of them.
Trump is blathering that the Harris/Walz rallies have had no attendees, zero, zilch, nada. It's all fake AI. If President Biden said that about Trump rallies, it would be front page news. This is all such bullshit. Trump is seriously mentally ill - just off his rocker nuts but these "news" people aid and enable him. The complete lack of integrity and ethics drives me crazy.
I’m with you on this one hundred percent. Nobody is coming to save us. We have to work together to save ourselves and our country.
Yes!
Breaking News! The FBI is
now investigating the
supposed Iranian/Trump
hack.
Thank you Tom for dissecting
MSM so beautifully.
ProPublica has Project2025
videos! They were sent from
inside the red fascist regime.
Elmo Muck's, fake America PAC is also being investigated for violation of election laws.
YES!!! Love it! Thanks. 💙
No one can count on the "legacy" media these days. There are a few journalists and columnists you can read who work for these media organizations, but what really galls me is the lousy headlines/ledes which shape what the reader interprets even before reading one word.
"As George Orwell pointed out, “It is difficult for a man to recognize the truth when his paycheck demands that he not do so.”
The gop has been marching the nation into a dystopian unreality for years. I would love to see an article or just a list of all the right wing think tanks and media organizations that are so prevalent in our nation today along with the dates they were founded, who have been leaders, what their financials are, their policy positions, the works. Name names. Show the dots and the dollars. Because what we've got is not new. The folks running these shows want the unsuspecting to call it conservatism, but that identity hides the wolf in sheep's clothing. The movement to end democracy has been here for at least 60 plus years, under the radar mostly, but finally out in the open. Project 2025 is now out there for everyone to see AND the training videos are stunning. Bravo Pro Publica! They got another donation for their effort.
What is really disheartening is just how gullible some fellow Americans have become. Proves just how critical not only this election is but how critical every election will be, local, state, and Federal for all the years to come. After all, power is the only goal some have, because having such power makes stealing so much easier.
WORK. WORK. WORK. LAUGH AND SMILE. ELECT HARRIS/WALZ and BLUE candidates everywhere on the ballot!
About the movement to end democracy -- Jacob Heilbrunn's recent AMERICA LAST: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators takes it back to the beginning of the 20th century, and Rachel Maddow's PREQUEL and her ULTRA podcast series focus on fascists in the interwar period and those who fought back against them. And going back to the 19th century, the white South after the death of Reconstruction was a sort of laboratory for ending democracy on a regional level.
Excellent book!
This, plus the very depressing read in the Atlantic ("Trump is setting the stage to challenge the election" and Chris LaCivita swears that it--the election--won't be over until Trump's hand is on the Bible to be sworn in) is going to ruin my sleep tonight. Gonna be a two gummy night.
Let’s just do the hard work of electing Harris/Walz by a landslide. We can and must do this. Onward. Are you really up for Christofacism, a narcissistic lunatic, and Fuzz Face?I am not.
Didn't say I wouldn't--or wasn't already--working on getting Harris and Walz elected.
I merely said I wouldn't sleep well, thinking about the article in the Atlantic and Tom's piece here.
I write postcards and I'm on the local Dem committee and I also am a ballot clerk in my (very rural) town. I wear pro-Dem slogan tees where I go in town and talk up "Life is better--and less vote suppressive--under Dems" in any way I can whether it be in person or online. I just fired off a letter to our local NBC station which runs a 'ask if this claim is true' segment during their evening news hour. It's called "Verify" and last night, the question was: "Kamala says that Trump will cut Social Security--is this true?"
AND THEY SAID IT WASN'T!!! The "verifiers" said that Trump has never promised to cut Social Security...that he spoke about it some time back but backed away. And the blasted VERIFY segment never even mentioned that cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid was practically a feature in the budget section of Project 2025! That is lying by omission, and is misleading at best. I'm furious with the local print media (and national as well--although I have jettisoned NYT and Wapo from my subscription list already), now it's our local horse's patooties that are handing out disinformation.
You must not be familiar with TL Mills. Last thing he ever would say is that he is “up” for any MAGat bull dookie.
Nothing wrong with pointing out the blatant threats and scary tactics and proclamations that abound.
It is scary. But I’ve never found anyone on TC’s subscriber list that is afraid.
Salud, Susan.
🗽
p.s. let’s hope it never becomes a 3 gummie night, TL!
🤪 Being somewhat depressed about the hatred and racism that abounds in the Repubbie party is not the the same as fear. Just sayin'.
Chump was absolutely right for all the wrong reasons. Our “free press” has become the enemy of the people. When such blatant bias is in our face, we can’t trust the money-grubbing bastards. Chump accuses, they (everybody it seems) get defensive and say “not me” and chump gets his reward, and we get shafted. A cunning idiot has turned our world upside down. Granted, it was teetering on the brink, thanks to the W/Dickie debacle, but chump couldn’t have budged Walter Cronkite or his bosses at CBS.
Thank you, Tom, for this insightful report. As I've said before I rarely get angry, but when I do I slash out (like my cat) in the spring of 2023 I got angry at the lies being simpered on CNN, then they fired two of my favorite anchors, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, so I cancelled my cable and now watch only DVDs on my TV set. I also cancelled my subscription to the Sacramento Bee and have a bare bones subscription to NYT. It's good to know that I'm not the only one annoyed at the decreasing quality of today's journalists. I fist got disgusted when TV reporters started literally started shoving microphones into the faces of parents who had just lost one or more children to some tragedy with the inane, insensitive question "How do you feel about the loss of your child". If it had been me I'd have ripped the damned mic out of their hand and knocked them on the head, asking how does that make you feel.
So whatever dirt there is out there on the insipid orange turd, is probably believable, is there anything you don't think he would do, rack your brain, incest - no problem, treason - no problem, golden showers with beautiful Russian hookers - no problem. Those are just the first 3 things that come to mind. He is beyond despicable , whatever it is, it probably puts at risk his election. It's going to come out eventually 3 different news organizations have seen it. So it might come down to a question of timing, somebody like the bartender at Romney's speech is going to spill it out, maybe after the Democratic Convention next week. I would bet on all 3 at once. I hope it comes out too late for the repugnantkins to do anything but cringe and vote for Kamala, because finally they might be forced to see the light..
The frightening truth is that many individuals who vote for the likes of Trump are equally despicable. The ex leader of the pro MAGA Democratic Unionist Party here in Northern Ireland and his wife are currently awaiting their day in court after being charged with crime number one on your list. This fact has not affected his popularity amongst his extreme British Unionist faithful. They are seemingly silently sympathetic with the alleged perpetrator and are doubling down on attacking political opponents.
Yes, they choose their idols based on the kinds of sins and malpractice they themselves want to be absolved of. The magas here are the millionaires and billionaires who are into psychological and sexual adventuring on the one end and the proudly uneducated and barely literate who coalesce around gaudy merchandise on the other because it gives them a united identity they can't get within their communities or even within their own families (Their votes and donations are small price to pay to finally belong to Sigma Tau Trumpa.).
The NY Times today had an article about Tim Walz and China. The story itself was well researched and well written. Its headline echoed Republican attack lines. I only saw it because my cousin subscribes to the paper edition. Anyone who still has a sub, see for yourself and decide what to tell them..
Exactly. It tried so hard to live up to its click bait misdirection history.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/11/us/tim-walz-china.html?unlocked_article_code=1.CU4.5OR9._aOGH9C0s0xn&smid=url-share
Thank you Gail. This was
actually a great article.
I agree - really good article - too bad the repubs with all the criticizing have no conception of actual public service! Too scary to think of someone who spend time in a "furrin" country! (Cotton?)
Tom Cotton, referred to here
in AR as Ear Swab, is all talk,
lots of very hot air and no
action. A waste of space in
the senate and on the planet.
Ear Swab? Perfect! And I agree total waste of space.
I thought so too. From the headline though I was on the defensive.
Print edition headline: “Deep China Ties Played Big Role In Walz’s Past.”
Epic piece TC. Many thanks.
Thank you, Tom, for resurrecting the Russell Baker and Tim Rutten critiques of the press corps back east. Perhaps I’ve been subconsciously channeling them all this time.
This is worrisome indeed, but Orwell summed it up nicely. I vacillate between being appalled by the general levels of stupidity and the belief that regular folks are smarter and more discerning that elites give them credit for. There are two books I read that speak to this: Deer Hunting With Jesus and Excellent Sheep. Both authors names elude me just now but their writing left an indelible impression on me.
The author of DEER HUNTING WITH JESUS was the late Joe Bageant. I *love* that book. His RAINBOW PIE is also very good. I learned about Bageant from his contributions to AlterNet in the 2000s. He died in 2011. I so wish he'd been around when HILLBILLY ELEGY was published. He would have taken JD Vance to the cleaners.
Another good post today, TC
Kevin D Williamson had an interesting discussion on a related topic this morning. https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/wanderland/of-course-theyre-weird/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Of%20Course%20They%20re%20Weird&utm_campaign=Of%20Course%20They%20re%20Weird
Thanks for that👍