In case you didn’t see it last night, here is Lawrence O’Donnell’s epic takedown of the over-educated, under-intelligent, otherwise-unemployable Ivy League trust fund babies of the D.C.
I saw it last night. He nailed it. When he slammed those papers down I felt his anger and disgust. It was powerful. I just hope he doesn’t get fired for telling it like it is. He is the best!
Yes, it was EPIC, wasn’t it?!!!!! Lawrence and TC come to mind “in the same breath” for SO many reasons, which is why we find ourselves HERE now discussing our witnessing of Mr. O’Donnell THERE last night!!!
I was thrilled when I watched his show last night and have been sharing the link to it around Facebook (on my page and in comments) and in comments on Substack. He was outstanding last night.
You know the phrase “stark contrast”? It always creates such a clear juxtaposition in my mind. Trump’s time at the mic and Walz followed by Harris at the microphone……
COULD NOT BE ANY MORE OF A STARK CONTRAST than what we saw with our own eyes.
These networks thinking they so slick in controlling what we see. Well, I’ll give them cover it live or bury the live feed. But guess what? It just ain’t 3 networks anymore. We can all see what we want and deserve to see anytime we want…. It just happened here courtesy of TC….their tactics are of the past. Outdated and ignorant. Grow a pair.
Salud fellow daring warriors…it’s scary but we ain’t afraid.
Lawrence O’Donnell’s piece last night was brilliant and spot-on.I have zero faith in our press and tv coverage of news and especially politics.They are a lot of the reason that we got TFG in 2016 and they are at it again with him now.I think more and more folks are waking the hell up to this fact.The press is an enemy of We The People and our democracy.
It is so sad to hear those words. Because the free press used to be the people. Now they are driven by money and clickbait. There are still some left with integrity. I hope they stay the course.
According to Susan Glasser today, the "journalists" who got summoned to Mar A Lardo were"handpicked" by Trump. Which would explain their obseqiousness.
Lawrence O'Donnell was brilliant. I wanted to beam him into every household and media room in America. Along with TAFM, I subscribe to Rick Wilson. His Friday Brief was excellent today as usual. But he noted Trump's presser was like a WH presser, and it was not. I've watched the WH press corps go after Karine Jean Pierre and President Biden like hyenas going after the kill - yelling, talking over them and each other. The enuchs at Mar-A-Lago let Trump get away with every lie. They were as complacent to the point of nodding off. It's negligence. I grew up in the era of Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow and the like. I read Woodward and Bernstein when the Post broke open Watergate. These men weren't afraid to call out lies and hold people accountable. So watching O'Donnell last night was exhilarating. Somehow, some way we have to hold the media accountable.
That was such a contrast. You had to be brain dead to not ask the obvious follow-ups. Yes, the press corps can do its job when it wants to. How explain their unfathomable deference to someone self destructing before their eyes. Location? Fear of getting thrown out?
Those hyenas reminded me of teenagers yelling at the teacher. Karine Jean-Pierre was WAY, WAY TOO NICE. I don't give a horse's patoot if those hyenas are reporters. If they can't wait to called on, screw 'em. I would treat them like the rude juveniles they are.
So glad to see you pick this up! He laid it all out there, and his genuine outrage came through loud and clear. Good for him! We need more like him in other media outlets to replace those like WaPo’s Glenn Kessler, who has shamed himself with his latest flawed “assessment” of claims against Walz of stolen valor. Totally disgusting.
I know I mentioned this here before, but it bears repeating. Uncle Sam saw to it that I messed everything that happened in 1968. It wasn't until Lawrence's book came out that I learned what I messed. He literally gave me my year back.
I cheered and cheered throughout last night's show because it is exactly what I kept saying during the Trump shite show "conference." I emailed my strong support and appreciation for Lawrence to him and to MSNBC.
Yes, Tom, you have it right and the dreadful role of J schools in making news reporting stupid. I would add as a contributing factor that the kids going through J school tend to be the under achievers of the upper middle class who bring with them the petite bourgeoisie prejudices of their upbringing, particularly a fascination with finance and a distaste for organized labor.
When Paul Krugman published a column collection on C-Plus Augustus, as Charlie Pierce called Shrub (thanks, Molly Ivins), Russell Baker (all rise) reviewed it. A letter writer wondered about his criticisms of the media. Baker responded that “something more fundamental than household economics may be reshaping journalistic attitudes toward public issues. Today’s top-drawer Washington news people are part of a highly educated, upper-middle-class elite; they belong to the culture for which the American political system works exceedingly well. Which is to say, they are, in the pure sense of the word, extremely conservative.
“Most probably passed childhood in economically sheltered times, came to adulthood in the years of plenty, went to good colleges where they developed conventionally progressive social consciences, and have now inherited the comforting benefits that 60 years of liberal government have created for the middle class.
“This is not a background likely to produce angry reporters and aggressive editors. If few made much fuss about President Bush’s granting boons to those already rolling in money, their silence may not have been because they feared the vengeance of bosses, but only because the capacity for outrage had been bred out of them....”
Tim Rutten of The Los Angeles Times smelled a story there and talked with Baker, who said of the DC press corpse (thanks, Brother Cleaver), "they lack empathy for the rest of the country. If you’ve never lacked health insurance -- and most reporters and editors never have -- you don’t understand what it means for the 43 million Americans who are doing without it, any more than the Congress does.” He also said, "The old-timers I met on those trips were an odd mixture. Many had only high school educations. One very good correspondent for the Scripps chain had spent the Depression pounding out tunes on a piano in a five-and-dime. They had a raffish but informative experience of the world that is very hard for journalists to acquire now. When I started out as a police reporter, I lived next door to a cop. Reporters don’t come out of those neighborhoods nowadays. We’ve all moved uptown. Today, reporters join clubs. They play golf.”
They are paid better, and they make extra spouting off on TV. This is the pluperfect description of what has gone wrong in DC.
Thanks. Of course, the source is Baker, not me! I applaud the reporter for seeing the review and doing something with it. I can get you the originals if you like.
"...professionalization” of any line of work - screenwriting, news reporting for example - leads to the establishment of professional training schools - fillum skool and reporter skool."
Praise to you, TC! This applies to seminaries and professionalized religious vocations, to social workers in child protective services, to certain schools of government and public administration, and most certainly law schools as the "supremes" have screamed out to us all, and on and on and on. "Professionalization" is taken as good without question, and it does not deserve such; without exposure to the complexities of life and its real-time situations, the school takes one only a small part of the way to knowledge, let alone wisdom and decision-making under pressure. There are no iron laws of anything! My apologies, but the "case study" method doesn't cut it, nor does the rarified air of economic equations! They remain abstractions! I should calm down and admit that a few such schools in certain very specific areas of study get it right, but way too few.
Another example to add to those you identified are law schools that produce lawyers who swear oaths and then go to work for felons and grifters like tfg, carry their water, then end up losing their licenses.
Hurray for the wonderful Finger Lakes! I lived there practicing pediatrics for 10 years. Hard working , generous people! Miss it every day. Had to move with my husband to Houston....
What the Fork is wrong with our institutions?? Sometimes I feel, as a country, we have reached a critical mass of stupidity; and even with the success so far of the Harris campaign, if the institutions do not feel the need to defend the truth, our collective geese are cooked.
I think I have a date with my McCallen 12 yr old tonight...sigh.
I would love to think that O'Donnell's rant would go viral and actually make a difference. And the NYT would fine a spine somewhere in the goo it is sitting in.
But I do not think so. I think too many citizens think it cannot happen here. Or just refuse to think.
Last night I discovered that Lawrence has joined the Threads community and there were hundreds upon hundreds of posts praising him last night. I suspect, given his followers, if he isn't viral by now, he will be soon. I hope so.
I live in Wichita, Ks. Koch has and is continuing to “infect” local and state politics. At least half the Republican candidates were underwritten by Koch organizations and the stupid Kansans for Life - SMH
Fuck yeah! I wish I didn’t have to sleep because watching that speech (again) made me want to work harder!
Between Lawrence and Margaret Sullivan, hopefully the point will make it across to some other outlet than the Guardian that they suck and really need to stop sucking. If the NYT didn’t have Games and Cooking, they’d be in just as much financial trouble as WaPo. Which, I guess, is why they’re scrambling to create something similar there and at failing CNN too. Everyone is sick of their trash reporting and are showing it with their wallets.
I canceled both NYT and WAPO. Haven't missed either one. I also read CNN is doing away with viewer feedback. This is a shame since I regularly told them they sucked since new ownership came in.
Yes, I too cancelled NYT andWAPO and don't miss them at all. Yes, CNN is doing away with feedback. They're regularly at the bottom of the stack. I stopped watching them back in 2015.
Thank you, Tom, for your words and thank you for bringing us Larry O'Donnell and Kamala Harris. As a 29 year Union member who sat on the Board of Directors of two different Unions I appreciate everything Unions do. Kamala was correct, Unions brought to all American workers 5 day work weeks, 8 hour days, paid vacations, and paid sick leave.
Since Reagan started breaking unions in 1981 the workplace has deteriorated into hell. People working two to four jobs, 12 hour days, gig jobs with no benefits, while simultaneously dropping further and further toward poverty, No paid time off, no sick leave - work til you drop, then please die quickly so we don't have to support you.
Social Security IS NOT A BENEFIT- you earned it, you paid into it every damned working day of your life. The same with most pensions. Payments were deducted from my salary for my teachers' pension and my public employees pension, I paid into Social Security for more than 80 quarters. I'm entitled because I paid into them.
And guess who he REAL welfare queens (gut mostly kings) are? Not that poor family living down the street, nor someone's retarded child. It's the wealthiest corporations - especially fossil fuels and corporate farms [not family owned farms].
People earning more than $168,000 don't pay a dime for Social Security - that should be raised to at least $400,000.
I certainly agree, Maggie. Something else we're fighting for: because I am a retired teacher and a retired county worker and also worked 20 years under Social Security, I am penalized for my two State Government pensions and instead of getting the $2000+ I would get had I only worked that twenty years I get less than $1500. I paid into both my State Pensions and worked 29 years there combined. I was told by a Social Security manager that was my punishment for working!
That literally is BS, Fay. Seriously - punishment for working? I believe it.
I felt so lucky that the construction co. I worked for for 29 years had a profit sharing program - I'm ashamed to say I never paid into it - which would have been the smart thing. But even so I had a good amount when the company went out of business. Of course in todays world that really isnt much, I guess (if you believe the writeups) I worked for another 9 or 10 years after that.
So I'm on SS & my profit sharing money. Just hoping my dog, cat & bird and I can keep on going.
Good luck to you, Maggie. I worked until 6 weeks before my 88th birthday, Then I retired, sold my house and gave each of my four grandchildren their inheritances. I admit it isn't easy living on about one-third of what I was making when employed. I moved into what was supposed to be an Independent Senior Living apartment where I can afford the rent and still feed myself. Calliope, the orange and white lady cat and I are not expensive but we have little to spare, I hope that manager was just being sarcastic. The California division of the Teachers union has been trying for years to get legislation passed to revoke the law that permitted these penalties (officially called the Government Pension Offset - GPO - and Windfall Exemption Prevention WEP) I'm hoping that the Harris/Walz will bring us the needed votes in Congress to get both programs revoked, Thanks for your concern Maggie.
Thanks Maggie. I too, hope reversing GPO and WEP is successful, but I doubt it will help me. I'm already 91 rapidly approaching 92 and no one in m,y extended family has made it more than a month or two beyond 95 so Callie and I will not be around to see it. But there are numerous younger teachers and government retirees who could use the help, and deserve it.
I saw it last night. He nailed it. When he slammed those papers down I felt his anger and disgust. It was powerful. I just hope he doesn’t get fired for telling it like it is. He is the best!
Yes, it was EPIC, wasn’t it?!!!!! Lawrence and TC come to mind “in the same breath” for SO many reasons, which is why we find ourselves HERE now discussing our witnessing of Mr. O’Donnell THERE last night!!!
I was thrilled when I watched his show last night and have been sharing the link to it around Facebook (on my page and in comments) and in comments on Substack. He was outstanding last night.
You know the phrase “stark contrast”? It always creates such a clear juxtaposition in my mind. Trump’s time at the mic and Walz followed by Harris at the microphone……
COULD NOT BE ANY MORE OF A STARK CONTRAST than what we saw with our own eyes.
These networks thinking they so slick in controlling what we see. Well, I’ll give them cover it live or bury the live feed. But guess what? It just ain’t 3 networks anymore. We can all see what we want and deserve to see anytime we want…. It just happened here courtesy of TC….their tactics are of the past. Outdated and ignorant. Grow a pair.
Salud fellow daring warriors…it’s scary but we ain’t afraid.
🗽
Lawrence O’Donnell’s piece last night was brilliant and spot-on.I have zero faith in our press and tv coverage of news and especially politics.They are a lot of the reason that we got TFG in 2016 and they are at it again with him now.I think more and more folks are waking the hell up to this fact.The press is an enemy of We The People and our democracy.
It is so sad to hear those words. Because the free press used to be the people. Now they are driven by money and clickbait. There are still some left with integrity. I hope they stay the course.
According to Susan Glasser today, the "journalists" who got summoned to Mar A Lardo were"handpicked" by Trump. Which would explain their obseqiousness.
Lawrence O'Donnell was brilliant. I wanted to beam him into every household and media room in America. Along with TAFM, I subscribe to Rick Wilson. His Friday Brief was excellent today as usual. But he noted Trump's presser was like a WH presser, and it was not. I've watched the WH press corps go after Karine Jean Pierre and President Biden like hyenas going after the kill - yelling, talking over them and each other. The enuchs at Mar-A-Lago let Trump get away with every lie. They were as complacent to the point of nodding off. It's negligence. I grew up in the era of Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow and the like. I read Woodward and Bernstein when the Post broke open Watergate. These men weren't afraid to call out lies and hold people accountable. So watching O'Donnell last night was exhilarating. Somehow, some way we have to hold the media accountable.
Interestingly enough, the hyenas (good description) and the eunuchs (also good) were the same people.
Yes!
That was such a contrast. You had to be brain dead to not ask the obvious follow-ups. Yes, the press corps can do its job when it wants to. How explain their unfathomable deference to someone self destructing before their eyes. Location? Fear of getting thrown out?
Probably all of this. When I find myself yelling at the TV, it's not good. :)
Those hyenas reminded me of teenagers yelling at the teacher. Karine Jean-Pierre was WAY, WAY TOO NICE. I don't give a horse's patoot if those hyenas are reporters. If they can't wait to called on, screw 'em. I would treat them like the rude juveniles they are.
Absolutely.
So insightful. So important. So sad.
So glad to see you pick this up! He laid it all out there, and his genuine outrage came through loud and clear. Good for him! We need more like him in other media outlets to replace those like WaPo’s Glenn Kessler, who has shamed himself with his latest flawed “assessment” of claims against Walz of stolen valor. Totally disgusting.
Did you do Lawrence the favor he asked and buy his book? We did.
I bought it when it first came out in hardback. I'm going to do him the favor over the weekend of a book review.
I just purchased the audible version for my commute. Driving time flies listening to a good book!
It's very good.
I know I mentioned this here before, but it bears repeating. Uncle Sam saw to it that I messed everything that happened in 1968. It wasn't until Lawrence's book came out that I learned what I messed. He literally gave me my year back.
That book by O'Donnell was very well written!
He are a perfeshinul riter... :-)
YES!! Because he deserved that.
Thanks for the reminder.It is the least I could do.
I did too.
I cheered and cheered throughout last night's show because it is exactly what I kept saying during the Trump shite show "conference." I emailed my strong support and appreciation for Lawrence to him and to MSNBC.
How do you do that?
Yes, Tom, you have it right and the dreadful role of J schools in making news reporting stupid. I would add as a contributing factor that the kids going through J school tend to be the under achievers of the upper middle class who bring with them the petite bourgeoisie prejudices of their upbringing, particularly a fascination with finance and a distaste for organized labor.
Yes, exactly.
I am reminded of something ....
When Paul Krugman published a column collection on C-Plus Augustus, as Charlie Pierce called Shrub (thanks, Molly Ivins), Russell Baker (all rise) reviewed it. A letter writer wondered about his criticisms of the media. Baker responded that “something more fundamental than household economics may be reshaping journalistic attitudes toward public issues. Today’s top-drawer Washington news people are part of a highly educated, upper-middle-class elite; they belong to the culture for which the American political system works exceedingly well. Which is to say, they are, in the pure sense of the word, extremely conservative.
“Most probably passed childhood in economically sheltered times, came to adulthood in the years of plenty, went to good colleges where they developed conventionally progressive social consciences, and have now inherited the comforting benefits that 60 years of liberal government have created for the middle class.
“This is not a background likely to produce angry reporters and aggressive editors. If few made much fuss about President Bush’s granting boons to those already rolling in money, their silence may not have been because they feared the vengeance of bosses, but only because the capacity for outrage had been bred out of them....”
Tim Rutten of The Los Angeles Times smelled a story there and talked with Baker, who said of the DC press corpse (thanks, Brother Cleaver), "they lack empathy for the rest of the country. If you’ve never lacked health insurance -- and most reporters and editors never have -- you don’t understand what it means for the 43 million Americans who are doing without it, any more than the Congress does.” He also said, "The old-timers I met on those trips were an odd mixture. Many had only high school educations. One very good correspondent for the Scripps chain had spent the Depression pounding out tunes on a piano in a five-and-dime. They had a raffish but informative experience of the world that is very hard for journalists to acquire now. When I started out as a police reporter, I lived next door to a cop. Reporters don’t come out of those neighborhoods nowadays. We’ve all moved uptown. Today, reporters join clubs. They play golf.”
They are paid better, and they make extra spouting off on TV. This is the pluperfect description of what has gone wrong in DC.
I'm going to use this - with credit to the source - in a longer takedown of these people.
Thanks. Of course, the source is Baker, not me! I applaud the reporter for seeing the review and doing something with it. I can get you the originals if you like.
Yes please (via email).
Looking forward to it, Tom. 👍🏻
Excellent assessment!!
"...professionalization” of any line of work - screenwriting, news reporting for example - leads to the establishment of professional training schools - fillum skool and reporter skool."
Praise to you, TC! This applies to seminaries and professionalized religious vocations, to social workers in child protective services, to certain schools of government and public administration, and most certainly law schools as the "supremes" have screamed out to us all, and on and on and on. "Professionalization" is taken as good without question, and it does not deserve such; without exposure to the complexities of life and its real-time situations, the school takes one only a small part of the way to knowledge, let alone wisdom and decision-making under pressure. There are no iron laws of anything! My apologies, but the "case study" method doesn't cut it, nor does the rarified air of economic equations! They remain abstractions! I should calm down and admit that a few such schools in certain very specific areas of study get it right, but way too few.
Excellent rant, John.
Another example to add to those you identified are law schools that produce lawyers who swear oaths and then go to work for felons and grifters like tfg, carry their water, then end up losing their licenses.
The college I graduated from way back in 1969, Keuka College , prides itself as a college of experiential learning, to this day.
Hurray for the wonderful Finger Lakes! I lived there practicing pediatrics for 10 years. Hard working , generous people! Miss it every day. Had to move with my husband to Houston....
What the Fork is wrong with our institutions?? Sometimes I feel, as a country, we have reached a critical mass of stupidity; and even with the success so far of the Harris campaign, if the institutions do not feel the need to defend the truth, our collective geese are cooked.
I think I have a date with my McCallen 12 yr old tonight...sigh.
I would love to think that O'Donnell's rant would go viral and actually make a difference. And the NYT would fine a spine somewhere in the goo it is sitting in.
But I do not think so. I think too many citizens think it cannot happen here. Or just refuse to think.
Last night I discovered that Lawrence has joined the Threads community and there were hundreds upon hundreds of posts praising him last night. I suspect, given his followers, if he isn't viral by now, he will be soon. I hope so.
I think schools are infected with “chairs” underwritten by the likes of Charles Koch.
That has been an aim of the Koch’s and their allies for decades.
I live in Wichita, Ks. Koch has and is continuing to “infect” local and state politics. At least half the Republican candidates were underwritten by Koch organizations and the stupid Kansans for Life - SMH
Fuck yeah! I wish I didn’t have to sleep because watching that speech (again) made me want to work harder!
Between Lawrence and Margaret Sullivan, hopefully the point will make it across to some other outlet than the Guardian that they suck and really need to stop sucking. If the NYT didn’t have Games and Cooking, they’d be in just as much financial trouble as WaPo. Which, I guess, is why they’re scrambling to create something similar there and at failing CNN too. Everyone is sick of their trash reporting and are showing it with their wallets.
I canceled both NYT and WAPO. Haven't missed either one. I also read CNN is doing away with viewer feedback. This is a shame since I regularly told them they sucked since new ownership came in.
Yes, I too cancelled NYT andWAPO and don't miss them at all. Yes, CNN is doing away with feedback. They're regularly at the bottom of the stack. I stopped watching them back in 2015.
We are kindred spirits, TC!
Just to mention The Guardian. Independent!!
Excellent coverage of Kamala- Walz.
(I gave up on my sub to both of those papers.)
Take a peek today:-)
Thank you, Tom, for your words and thank you for bringing us Larry O'Donnell and Kamala Harris. As a 29 year Union member who sat on the Board of Directors of two different Unions I appreciate everything Unions do. Kamala was correct, Unions brought to all American workers 5 day work weeks, 8 hour days, paid vacations, and paid sick leave.
Since Reagan started breaking unions in 1981 the workplace has deteriorated into hell. People working two to four jobs, 12 hour days, gig jobs with no benefits, while simultaneously dropping further and further toward poverty, No paid time off, no sick leave - work til you drop, then please die quickly so we don't have to support you.
Social Security IS NOT A BENEFIT- you earned it, you paid into it every damned working day of your life. The same with most pensions. Payments were deducted from my salary for my teachers' pension and my public employees pension, I paid into Social Security for more than 80 quarters. I'm entitled because I paid into them.
And guess who he REAL welfare queens (gut mostly kings) are? Not that poor family living down the street, nor someone's retarded child. It's the wealthiest corporations - especially fossil fuels and corporate farms [not family owned farms].
People earning more than $168,000 don't pay a dime for Social Security - that should be raised to at least $400,000.
SS is also NOT and "entitlement" - at least not the way repubs intend it.
On the other hand, since we all paid into it with our own money - we ARE entitled!!!
And boy do they need to raise the "high" limit.
I certainly agree, Maggie. Something else we're fighting for: because I am a retired teacher and a retired county worker and also worked 20 years under Social Security, I am penalized for my two State Government pensions and instead of getting the $2000+ I would get had I only worked that twenty years I get less than $1500. I paid into both my State Pensions and worked 29 years there combined. I was told by a Social Security manager that was my punishment for working!
That literally is BS, Fay. Seriously - punishment for working? I believe it.
I felt so lucky that the construction co. I worked for for 29 years had a profit sharing program - I'm ashamed to say I never paid into it - which would have been the smart thing. But even so I had a good amount when the company went out of business. Of course in todays world that really isnt much, I guess (if you believe the writeups) I worked for another 9 or 10 years after that.
So I'm on SS & my profit sharing money. Just hoping my dog, cat & bird and I can keep on going.
Good luck to you, Maggie. I worked until 6 weeks before my 88th birthday, Then I retired, sold my house and gave each of my four grandchildren their inheritances. I admit it isn't easy living on about one-third of what I was making when employed. I moved into what was supposed to be an Independent Senior Living apartment where I can afford the rent and still feed myself. Calliope, the orange and white lady cat and I are not expensive but we have little to spare, I hope that manager was just being sarcastic. The California division of the Teachers union has been trying for years to get legislation passed to revoke the law that permitted these penalties (officially called the Government Pension Offset - GPO - and Windfall Exemption Prevention WEP) I'm hoping that the Harris/Walz will bring us the needed votes in Congress to get both programs revoked, Thanks for your concern Maggie.
Wow - you outdid me by far.
I hope its successful - getting the programs revoked. It sure would make a difference to you AND Calliope!
Thanks Maggie. I too, hope reversing GPO and WEP is successful, but I doubt it will help me. I'm already 91 rapidly approaching 92 and no one in m,y extended family has made it more than a month or two beyond 95 so Callie and I will not be around to see it. But there are numerous younger teachers and government retirees who could use the help, and deserve it.
Hacks hacking hacks!