The mainstream media can show its patriotism for our democracy by ignoring this Anti-American! His energy is being the center of attention. Stop covering his BS !
Daniel, thanks for trying to get attention paid to our Constitution and the 14th Amendment's statement that insurrectionists should not be able to hold public office. I find it interesting that our media have not picked up on that. It is of importance but somehow they cover Trump's nonsense but can't manage to cite our Constitution. Are they so desperate to get the attention of the Trumpers and Trumpettes they will ignore what could be a really important story for our nation? I guess so!
Ruth Sheets ; The corporate owned media do not want to see the kind of changes that those of us who do not support tRump want and need. The end of Citizens United and tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy, for example. They were fed by tRump when he got in office, and they will be given trillions more if he 'wins' again! The Greedheads want more! To the extent that they support alliances with Autocrats/Authoritarians around the globe. they will go after the money no matter where it leads them ; Democracy be damned, along with decency. Our very world.
Laurie, that is the problem with addiction. The ultra-rich individuals and corporations are so deeply addicted they can't see beyond the money and power they are addicted to. People scorn the men and women who become addicted to drugs and alcohol they hope will relieve their pain and depression. Money and power itself lead to addiction. To keep the money flowing, the addicted ones will do anything and everything to get their regular fix, even buying Twitter so they can do whatever they want to get unrestricted power and hopefully money too. I don't know how to fight this kind of addiction because people actually admire people thus addicted, in fact many want to be them. One would never say that about someone addicted to opioids or alcohol yet, it seems to me the addictions are equally soul-destroying. The money-power addiction does enormous harm to a whole lot of people that one person being addicted to opioids or alcohol can never do. We should be calling it out and naming it the addiction it is.
Because he hasn't (yet) been found guilty of insurrection, I think that the Constitution cannot (yet) be applied to the Orange Sadist's attempt to run again (thus hoping to avoid adverse judgments by the DOJ -- and SCOTUS).
That is why he has announced so early! He wants to avoid the law, and be allowed to run again. If he is allowed back on Twitter and Facebook, he can spread more lies, and possibly pull off a 'win'.
He's a stinkin maniac,what's more important,our democracy or his BS? I keep praying for a change of heart and a mindset change for the Maga crowd and his supporters who've been duped and don't know it.
Hey Daniel wasn't it PT Barnum that also said there's a sucker born every minute and two to take him. Looks like we got a whole truck load of MAGA suckers.. pathetic..
Check My Ads (www.https://checkmyads.org) is a great way to tackle advertising in the media. This media watchdog is run by smart folks from within the industry and acknowledges that much advertising is packaged by brokers before it is sold to the buyer. CMA recognizes that many businesses would be shocked to find that their ads end up, say, on Fox shows and parses that out so that we, the consumer, can notify the businesses of our opinions (or threaten to boycott, if it comes to that). But many businesses are glad to know that they're sponsoring these extremist media. It's a fascinating concept that "follows the money" and gives us some power in fighting back.
I'm just including this here because it's so doggone >awesome< that I think it should be viewed by as many of us here as possible: https://youtu.be/mBDciaEZ-II
Otherwise, I apologize to you for my impertinence!
Age is real. The higher risk of illness and death is real. Why can't people understand and accept this? I don't understand. [To all of my "attackers": I did not use the word "unfit" in this post.]
kdsherpa ; Death is real. our planet is in danger, along with all of us, as Democracy itself is not 'out of the woods'. The right leader now could help get us out of the path we are on. Time is short, not just for Bernie, but for all of us. No more long court battles. We don't have time to wait to change our Constitution. Or the election after the next election. Or another generation. How much evidence do we need to see? If something makes sense, do we toss it just because it's 'old'? A good leader can mentor (actually, Bernie has mentored many good people) the ones who can carry on with policies based on the truths and laws we actually have in the Constitution. laws that existed before 'Citizens United". Guardrails and limits that have been removed. Regulations that were ignored at our peril.
? That's not what I wrote. "Higher risk" is a statistical statement. (BTW, I'm a 70-year-old doctor and have cared for many, many young people who have died. It is not easy, to say the least.)
It has nothing to do with "unfit". Joe, Bernie, Nancy, Jim Clyburn: they are all fit mentally and physically at this time, thank God. But the numbers are against them, in a way that they are not against someone in her/his 40's. Of COURSE young people die!
And of COURSE being young doesn't make you "fit". But look at the statistics and tell me if the numbers are even. Having said that, you sound absolutely fascinating! As a lover of classical music, your teenage years through your current composing is a wonderful story!
Exactly. If he won the presidency Congress would never let him change anything even if both houses were majorly democrats. However he would move the party left. That's what I want and a majority of us want. It wound be great to watch the Republican party run left like the democractic party has chasing the republican party right all these decades.
DZK ; If sharing Bernie's speech is impertinence ; it is fine with me. It is sad that such a leader was blocked from being President. Anyone who interfered with his campaign is part of the problem, (and you know who you are if you are reading this.).
It's all about the "S" word, that Republicans have bitched about since FDR! Hell! It goes back to the imposition if income tax - under his Republican cousin Teddy, I believe I recall, the >first< to be characterized as "progressive." Indeed, "progress" was the buzz-word of the '50s, even as McCarthy conducted his witch hunts for communists.
Yep! Right out of 1984. Not Democratic Socialism, call it DemSoc - like IngSoc - and tell 'em all to live on the street and be free! I think you could sell that to a MAGA!
Keith, you are so right! A patriot ignores Trump and Kump as much as possible. Clearly, as Dr. Reich points out, Trump has nothing to offer anyone but the same old nonsense that voters have generally rejected.
That includes Robert Reich and almost all liberals. All they talk about it Trump. The Democratic Party needs to shift from the anti-Trump/anti-Republican party to the pro-people party, but their corporate ties and consultants evidently prevent that.
I believe the proper diagnosis of corporate control of both political parties, Republicans 99.9% Democrats maybe 80% but including their leadership is indeed a pro-people observation. The only way to stop the rise of Trump or opportunistic theocrats like Desantis is to elect Democrats who do not accept corporate PAC money and who like Nancy Pelosi believe that insider trading is part of the privilege of being a $100 millionaire in Congress. Trump candidates were extremely competitive if you haven't noticed, and while it is a positive that they lost it doesn't mean he has lost influence and it doesn't mean that Democrats will learn anything from it.
I've already observed this is no time for euphoria, and that the Democrats squeaked by - 1%, I recently heard. However, it's disingenuous to consider said corporate control of the political environment is not >exactly< what the Republicans and conservative SCOTUS justices stand for. Messaging takes oodles of money, whatever the message. Do you expect corporate interests to quit financing both sides of the debate if one side "just says no" to that campaign money? Do you expect Republicans, who - by the way, approve of, in thought, word, deed, without honestly saying they intend to screw the public in service to their masters - don't, by that standard, consider the only crime as being caught? By that reasoning, Putin should've taken Ukraine in one week. I agree the situation is shit. I >don't< believe castigating the Democrats, who - by the way, at least attempt to serve the general public, for whatever political reason - is properly a pro-people observation. >>It's attempting to pass the obvious off as special insight.<< Do you have anything other than building walls to protect the US workers trying to compete for jobs as migrant farm workers, landscapers, or the other mean labor said immigrants must settle for and endure, that >no Tweety-voter< would sit still for a NY second in taking? Or are you proposing eliminating taxes on "the job creators," like their ilk liked to do with the old plantation owners, who provided plenty of jobs? What platform do you support? Be >specific.< What program(s) do you have in mind? And, don't bullshit me! I'm not a MAGA moron, and neither is anyone else who regularly participates in this forum.
I believe the obsession with Trump and the Republicans is misguided or at least too late, because the reason Trump could rise to power is ineffectual public policy of both parties. No society or civilization has survived the level of wealth inequality that is present in the US at this time, and Trump is merely the spectre of years of outsourcing of working class jobs, lipservice from Democrats to the cause of black and brown people, and both parties funneling money to the top, whether its Trump's tax cuts or the ACA. I know what Trump is, I know what the Republicans are, but I also know the Democrats have been saying one thing and doing another then making excuses for it for decades. I'll leave it to Malcolm X-- “The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox. One is a wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.” -Malcolm X
Who would ever agree to be trump's spokesperson? That would be a dangerous position and one Trump would typically ignore. And what if they used words with more than one syllable or more than 4 letters?
Oh, great. Here are your marching orders, media: Suppress information about this country's most pernicious domestic danger. Every word that comes out of that mouth is important because of the millions of voters who believe his evil lies. They must be made known to all.
Here's the secret. ol' Tweety's learned how to stand public information on its ear. His "genius" lies in turning news broadcasts into $billions in free campaign advertisement. Does that help clarify the nature of the problem? It's not about suppressing information. We've >all< been informed - ad nauseum - about ol' Tweety's antics and attitudes. That job is done. The only thing that matters now is insight on what underhanded bullshit he conjures to pull next. We get overloaded with the irrelevant, well understood one, but not so much about the less understood other. As an example, when the internet first came about, I came across many who were awe-struck with how all the information about anything they could think of, would come up with a word or two in a search engine. I always told them that burying you in information was equivalent to suppressing information - and I stand by it to this day, and have ample support in that view from other quarters. The response was invariably a blank stare. We're seeing the impact of that simple truth in the role of information playing out today. If good information must be sorted out from absolute bullshit, one questions the nature of all the info you must sort through.
The gold standard is an intelligent, cogent answer to a simple question that dazzles me with brilliance, rather than trying to baffle me with bullshit. The same applies to >any< news - ol' Tweety or otherwise. Do you see where I'm going with this?
DZK, I do see where you are going with your insights about information overload. I find myself having to turn it off after shorter and shorter amounts of time because first, I am learning nothing new, and second, I feel like a victim of unfiltered nonsense. It's painful. Trump's inane rant the other night was covered everywhere, but little about the climate conference in Egypt was in the mainstream. The latter is far more important, but one would never know it by the news coverage.
Anecdote. I was a letter carrier in the DC area on 9/11. Now that's a really obnoxious thing to bring up, but after about a week, I made comment to one of the postal patrons on my route about it all, to which he replied: "Is anything else going on in the rest of the world?" I had to give him >full marks< for that rhetorical question!
The Republican Party is veering away from Trump, (don’t get me wrong, he still has his cult, though it is waning) I think ultimately it will come down to Trump and DeSantis for the party nomination, which DeSantis will win.
On the topic of DeSantis he is essentially Trump, albeit younger and with a more stable functioning brain. But just as Xenophobic, racist and power hungry as Trump. It’s an equally scary proposition.
Fay, I like that, "Teenager Ron." OMG! Why is it Republicans choose child-men and child-women to represent them? Maybe it's because they are comfortable having children around since they have kept their children (or wish they had kept their children) as children. Their fear of books, Transgender young people, people who don't look like them, exposing their children to concepts they themselves don't understand, and all the other ghosties and beasties that haunt their lives keep them scared, almost like kids themselves. Maybe Dems and Independents need to help them value adulthood more.
Republicans, like all authoritarians, cater to the simple-minded. Their sophisticates work in the background. I.e., upper middle class educated white suburbanites who vote Republican know which side their bread is buttered on and tolerate the stupid messaging. But the unwashed masses of conservatives that are submissive and conformist require sports talk language. Read Bob Altemeyer's research on authoritarians and it will go a long way toward explaining Trumpers:
Robert Anthony Altemeyer . . . is a retired Professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba. Altemeyer also produced the right-wing authoritarianism scale, or RWA Scale, as well as the related left-wing authoritarianism scale, or LWA Scale.[Wikipedia]
I've said it before, that what's really unsettling is that DeSantis understands government and knows how to govern. ol' Tweety was >always< an ignoramus having no idea of governance in the US, or how US government works. That's why he faces the prospect of experiencing the "hospitality" of one of Uncle Sam's world-renowned "luxury bed & breakfasts!" I doubt that would be an issue for DeSantis. As a preview, where has any of the litigation gone that has been brought against DeSantis for human trafficking refugees?
DZK, DeSantis is a lot more scary than Trump because he knows what he is doing, has some government experience, and holds all the hates, fears, and self-righteousness of Trump, but backs it with a warped white Christian nationalism that calls for a Catholic (or at least Christian) nation he can rule and shape to his desperate need for money, power, and adulation. The fact that so little has been done regarding his flouting of the law when it comes to trafficking and planning to establish a private militia in Florida does not bode well for our future if he gets any more power than he already has.
DeSantis stunts and "end justifies the means" non-ethos smacks of 1930s nazifying Germany. If the people of Florida are ignorant of or choose to ignore history, then it'll be up to citizens of the other 49 states ---many are beyond hope at present-- to check his path toward white Christian nationalism....
Mark, DeSantis is trying every right-wing stunt to see which will work best for the crazies who are coming off their addiction to Trump. The fact that nothing has happened related to his shenanigans related to the trafficking, book banning, CRT (which he knows nothing about), his trans bullying, lack of preparedness for Hurricane Ian but claim of having done something to help when it was really Biden and the federal government who came to Florida's aid, etc. is a pretty good indicator that DeSantis has a lot of support and that the federal government is afraid of him. Disgusting!
Watch Rick Steves's "The Rise of Fascism in Europe" on PBS/Passport. He lays it all out in his mellow and conversational way. Almost like watching the news. And be sure to look up the Beer Hall Putsch, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch
Thanks for mentioning. I don't watch live TV and didn't know that PBS has started to charge for some services. They should drop the "public" from their moniker. Ditto for NPR. Over the years, they could have worked a LOT harder to publicize their need for government funding, getting the public to lobby for them Instead, they took the easier route and begged their audience for donations. Obviously GOP regimes were parsimonious with them, but still . . .
We have Ronald McReagan to thank for that dick-move. It's also consistent with the Citizens United we all know and love so well. PBS used to be exactly that. It was publicly funded almost exclusively, although they also took donations.
Mark Trafton ; They should not get paid. The one they are helping get away had a good original idea : (Tell them They're fired! ) Our Attorney General ; Merrick Garland and the rest of the D.O.J. I have to say that there seems to be a theme here. The Secret Service gets bought off, the Supreme court is bought off ; Why not the D. O. J.? If Cyrus Vance jumped ship (how convenient for the perps) in The Southern District of New York ; Then his replacement , Alan Bragg could not get justice done.. What 's up there? I see a pattern. Something smells again and again! Corruption. Too much money in the wrong hands. An imbalance that is not sustainable!
Derek, yes, and isn't that too bad that our DOJ got caught up in that ridiculous worry about looking partisan when Republicans are walking all over people's rights, staged an insurrection, and run candidates who were involved in the insurrection? Then there are the governors involved in trafficking and DeSantis planning his own private militia, and stuff we don't even know about yet that are in the works. As much as I respected Garland, I do not think he is up to the job and we will all pay for that.
If only Garland would resign. Biden could then install an acting AG who is not afraid of “looking partisan” and who doesn’t think “no precedent” is an excuse.
I think that is just an excuse. Laurie Blair is not blind like most. Many, many reportings have been made of appointments of anti-democracy people. It's time we include the DOJ in the list of compromised Fed Agengies. We have to take the blinders off. I'm not saying Garland specifically,but why not?
On this I take exception. I think what you interpret as weakness is Garland wanting to "get it right." He doesn't want to bring a case he can't win decisively. That takes time, and a lot of it, to make sure he's got all the legal loopholes that ol' Tweety, et al, can slither through securely plugged. I'm >absolutely certain< about the kind of hell that would be raised if he took a case that isn't rock-solid into court, just to have it thrown out over a clever nonsense argument relying on an unforeseen loophole, or evidence improperly gathered. Patience is necessary - no matter >how< nerve-wracking - and >that's< a national virtue the US citizenry are by no means world renowned for.
DZK, I truly hope you are right about Garland. I like him, but there are so many crimes it is hard to believe none of them has been researched sufficiently yet, with the number of people on the staff at DOJ. Trump's lawyers are guaranteed to make challenges that will reach to the ceiling which will take years to clear, because that is what Trump's collection of questionable lawyers can do with their particular set of skills. If Garland does not get a handle on it soon, the 2024 election will be upon us and nothing will have happened. and Trump will walk!
Good point, but Garland still has 2 years. Patience. The wheels of justice turn slowly - excruciatingly so. Here in OH, a high profile case about one >family< murdering another >family< 6 years ago over who was to have custody of a Romeo & Juliet type couple's kid appears to be finally reaching it's conclusion. No suicide involved in this one. Romeo's family outright murdered every last member of Juliet's family one night - except for the kid.
Ruth Sheets ; Yes, and what about DeSantis' promise to lock people up as soon as he can if he has the power!? So we have private prisons and now, I'm reading your post about "DeSantis planning his own private militia". Scary! This from a man who wants to ban books with factual information he does not want the public to know about, and makes Draconian laws to limit people's rights in his state. What will he not try at the national level?
Laurie, your question about what DeSantis would do if he had a larger platform is a good but frightening one. His moves remind me and several people on this thread of the march into Nazism in the 1930s. DeSantis has now been empowered by the pathetic Floridians who choose not to think about the consequences of their actions. They live in a state that is on the verge of disappearing due to ocean levels rising but do little or nothing about it until there is a hurricane on the horizon and still they do as little as they can. No wonder they vote for a fool like DeSantis because he distracts them with all his BS about Trans kids, book-banning, idea of starting his own private militia (starting to sound like Brown Shirts), voting suppression, busing lied-to immigrants to northern cities, ignorance about critical race theory, and the rest. We the People are in trouble if something is not done to stop the fascist moves on the part of DeSantis and his crazy would-be Nazis, or at least anti-American fascists. He even got the Latino/Latinx vote when he uses them instead of respecting them.
I think it's because they don't want to risk screwing it up and having a case brought to court under popular pressure thrown out because a lame-assed defense lawyer finds a hole in the prosecution to slither through. I'm sure any lawyer out here would be inclined to see my point.
In other words, “I don’t want to risk it because there’s a slim chance I might lose.”
That’s not legal strategy. That’s cowardice. That’s choosing not to do the right thing and pursue justice because you’re afraid of what idiots would say if you lose.
I am not sure how well DeSantis knows government. He does know how to play for a Floridian audience and get its votes. How he will do in the larger audience of this country remains to be seen.
Well, unlike ol' Tweety, he's had government experience, and has been able to brandish it effectively to achieve his stated ends. One shouldn't conclude his level of knowledge based on not liking what he's done as a governor. Indeed, you should pay close attention to the fact that he's effectively pulled-off the crap you object to. Just sayin'.
So his stated ends so far has been to dis science to fuel deaths by Covid in his home state to remarkable numbers, cry wolf as to the evils of CRT and transgender individuals, and sees a need to use Florida money to fly immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. My likes and dislikes have nothing to do with the reality that DeSantis has as much to offer this country as the Former Failed Guy even with his supposed knowledge of government.
Joanne, yep, he has already done a whole lot, trying to do as much harm as he could manage without making too many waves in Washington. Biden came into Florida to help with hurricane relief and DeSantis and Rubio got the credit. DeSantis is the kind of person who respects no one and will push every boundary to see what he can get away with. He has already proven he can get away with a lot. He won reelection and until he decides to run for president, he will spread his evil in Florida where it can move out to infect the Confederacy and white wannabee states.
Oh, I agree. However, the fact remains that he knew enough about government and governance to pull it off. Imagine that occupying 1600! Whether or not you like his track record, it's an effective track record in accomplishing >his< ends, and that's >exactly< what's dangerous.
Effective in Crayola red Florida. In Florida. A state that also has Marco Rubio and Rick Scott. Look to how well Rubio played to a country wide audience. I don’t get why you believe DeSantis is “effective” just because he’s a hit in Florida.
Many republicans have drifted away from trump, but not their mutual hatreds. It’s a concern that they, and too many independents, will happily replace trump with the worse DeSantis.
He may be worse, but we still have to see how he plays out on the national stage. He doesn't seem to have the "charisma" (or whatever it is) of the other guy from Florida. Just don't think the MAGA ladies are gonna fall for him -- he's not a kitty grabber.
Perhaps "DeSanctimonious"should be defined ans an expert at the manipulation of Gorernance. {Read Law} That would seem to be the object of the exercise of our privelaged Law Schools today.
You mean, define him as a career politician? I agree! See the original BBC version of "House of Cards," featuring Ian Richardson. Ignore its Netflix bullshit clone. Urquhart is a Tory - >NOT< a Democrat. Urquhart would've produced the Netflix version!
Joanne, I am not sure DeSantis needs to know much more about government than he already does. Republicans care more about how something looks and talks than if there is any depth of knowledge or experience. The challenge will be, will Independents buy his crap. I suspect a lot will.
One would really need to see how I dependents view DeSantis’ Covid response, his stands on CRT, his homophobia, and his flying migrants from Texas to Martha’s
Vineyard among other stunts. I get that there is a voter who yearns for this kind of candidate. I just can’t believe the country as a whole wants him.
Joanne, I, too would like to see how more than the white and white wannabees in Florida see DeSantis's hate-mongering and nonsense about the over-fragility of white children related to learning about people different from themselves. I can't help but wonder what his kids are like and if they are just clones of or puppets for their daddy. Are they OK with their dad lying to people about jobs and homes?
Oh Derek, you are right about DeSantis and I find that really scary. DeSantis, unlike Trump most of the time, knows what he is doing but has no moral compass any American should be willing to follow. He has the blaming down as well as the fearmongering, hatred, and anger-boosting. DeSantis, though is equally racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, and generally disgusting. He does have youth, as you say, so I think the Trumpers and Trumpettes will turn to him as they come to realize their messiah Donnie is no longer functioning. They just can't let go of their isms and phobias for the good of the nation and world.
In some ways, DeathSantis is more dangerous than the former guy. He understands the mechanics of government and could be a huge threat to equality and democracy. Everyone acknowledged how whacky TFG was. But Ron the Con operates under the guise of being more professional and reasonable. But he is a vicious fascist.
Bill, alas, I agree with you about DeSantis being a fascist. He has all the trappings, even hiding some of his cruelty in his warped religious pronouncements. His disgusting ad just before the election implying that DeSantis was anointed by god to rule and do all the cruel things he has been doing was appalling, but clearly a lot of Floridians agreed or if they didn't, they mostly stayed home. That's shameful, but pretty typical of American voters.
Lots of us voted here in FL, just not enough to counter the Trump-lovers who infest this state. I wish we'd had a more viable candidate to run against him. I moved here in '76 because it's where I should have been all my life but it's a very scary place to live right now. I fear it will get so much worse unless we return to upholding the rule of law for everyone and somehow get the MAGA crowd to truly understand what embracing authoritarianism really means. I recently saw a bumper sticker that said "Choose Love - Choose Trump" and it made me both sad and angry.
Bobbie, I am sorry that Florida ignored reality and went with DeSantis, Rubio, and the rest of their malignant crowd. They seem to ignore reality in every area of their lives, allowing those fools in your assembly to make laws that deliberately hurt their fellow citizens, and for no reason other than that they can and DeSantis likes it and can use it to game more power from the racist xenophobes who lurk just about everywhere in our society right now. They are not a majority, but they are fired up to somehow prove their worthiness for something they couldn't even name, and will vote an their righteousness, believing god is on board with their hatred and self-righteousness.
I heard an NPR discussion on this the other day that pointed out that DeSantis is not particularly charismatic and doesn't present well on camera. So I look for his campaign to douse voters with ads that minimize that.
I just heard that in a You Tube clip a little while ago, as well. Here's the clip. I hold this guy's views in high regard. I was going to post it for more visibility elsewhere, but since it supports your info, I'll post it here.
Why the scramble for a New Big Daddy? How about leadership THROUGH a new, regional independence in the House, connecting genuine ideas among citizens and politicians to effect specific changes? People would be open to genuine progress from Republicans. Instead, they flock like moths to brighter lights. “I got to get me a new pimp!” is not very admirable.
Steve, the problem is Republicans basically have no worthy ideas. They imagine they want something like the 1950s back in this country (MAGA), a time that was not particularly great for a lot of people. I suspect it is so much better looking back than it would be if repeated. I guess when people have no ideas, they search for leaders they think have them, but the candidates they choose have none. I suspect they are looking to DeSantis because he has a big mouth, spouts a lot of the hates and fears they have, and has not been held accountable for any of the things he has done. I guess that looks good to the scared white people who want to think they are superior. They don't have anything else to fall back on, or, think they don't.
Unfortunately, we're operating under "new rules," and they're >not< friggin' Bill Maher's. It's Citizens' United that's cramming up the political culture with obscene amounts of cold, hard cash. What you're talking about as a "New Big Daddy" is a product sold to a consumer market. It's not about democratic governance. It's about commerce.
Bob, what I have noticed is that it really doesn't matter which college or university one attends. What one gets from that education depends a whole lot on what one brings into the situation. If one is white, privileged, feeling superior, one will gain what one needs to keep feeling superior to others and use their intelligence to cheat, lie, use cruelty, make excuses, and more, just as DeSantis, Ted Cruz, and others have done. If one brings a caring personality, a will to work for others as Justices Sotomayor, Jackson, and Ginsburg, and the Obamas did, the rights and needs of others will be paramount in one's decision-making. I wish there were a way to inject the "superior-feeling" ones with a dose of empathy and reality that they are not really superior, when they enter college, but alas, that "drug" hasn't been invented yet.
I am not a T**** fan, but I take great value from his rise and control of the R party. His vile presence encouraged the vile, unhinged, willfully ignorant, and cruel natures of a large swath of our population to reveal themselves. We see them now, whereas we didn't before, which fueled complacency at the ballot box, not realizing how fragile our democracy truly is--we can no longer take the presumed perpetuity of self-government for granted. Before T****, the power-hungry and compromised could hide behind the more elegant and articulate cruelty of pseudo-Christian "conservatives" (many of them still in power), like Graham and McConnell and Pompeo. Many of them all-to-eager to throw out our democracy and replace it with a craven, mobbed-up dictator so they can stay in power at all costs, not realizing that there would be a price to pay in the future much greater than the price they could have paid for showing a little human courage (like Liz Cheney). The curtain has been pulled back. Murdoch & Co. made their Frankenstein. Keeping him off their headlines won't prevent him from continuing to own the dregs of the GOP. He's their monster now. May he destroy every last one of the traitorous set that would sell these United States to the highest, cruelest bidder. And may we bring back Civil Studies and institute 1-2 years of mandatory service following high school to instill a sense of individual + collective honor and duty and community in our culture again. We are so much stronger when we are sympathetic to our differences and build bridges that raise all of us a little higher.
Wasn't Musk born in South Africa, and doesn't that disqualify him from running for President. The way he's been acting lately in such a high profile way that appears to be trying to appeal to Trump's base looks like he is thinking on the line you suggest though.
I think Trump is likely to choose an attractive woman (physically, not characterwise) as his running mate, like Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard or Kari Lake. It didn't work well for McCain though.
Didn't have to click on the link to know what you were referring to! Loved Dan Hicks & his hot licks. If only tRump would go away. I certainly would not miss him! He's like the house guest that just won't leave!
Yep. Even the Sacramento Bee mentioned trump's rant in a small paragraph on an inside page I predict a full out two year old temper tantrum from baby donnie, with feet stamping and shouting. I hope he does carry the banner for the grand old party of trump. That would end the strangle hold the extremists have held on the Republican party since the days of Newt Gingrich, Not that I'd ever vote Republican but it's nice to have an Honorable Opposition instead of a bunch of screaming middle schoolers.
Unfortunately, the alternative is being unaware of what the wanker's up to. We wouldn't create an info vacuum around - say - Putin, would we? "Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer." Just sayin'.
Yes, but do they have to show the montage of mug shots? We know what the perp looks like! I imagine he thrives on that! Get us the facts, yes, but stop feeding the beasts' ego with those endless images of his face!
You mean confine his coverage to radio broadcast news? I can't bring any numbers to bear, but I mightily suspect the radio news audience is relatively small for anyone other than NPR & BBC World radio junkies - like myself. Otherwise, TV is about showing images, and most US audiences prefer images with their news. That's something I gleaned as a musician when I became aware of what people actually meant when the language morphed from "I'm going to attend a concert" to "I'm going to >see< a concert." It even explains the song "Video Killed the Radio Star," from nearly 1/2 a century ago! ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8r-tXRLazs ) Hell, back as far in history as 19th Century Europe, there was even near violent controversy between the "Brahmsians" and the "Wagnerites," over the role of music with respect to drama. Brahms advocated pure music, independent of stage drama, whereas Wagner wrote Opera - and opera is all about dramatic visual imagery. >That's< the crux of the matter. Showing images is what TV news broadcasts >do<. Just sayin'.
I don't know where you got the idea that I wanted to confine images to the radio. Images and radio don't mix. DZK; Somehow, there was a glitch in the communication. I was merely saying I would like to see fewer or no pictures/ videos of the former guy. I get bombarded by them while watching MSNBC, and I would bet the same thing on any 'news' show.
BTW: I failed to mention that I was contrasting a visual medium with a non-visual medium. I didn't say anything about you wanting to confine images to radio (?) and am mystified how you got that from what I was saying. It's in the nature of TV news to use images. If it's news about ol' Tweety, they'll show pictures of ol' Tweety. That's the long and short of it. Radio, by contrast, doesn't rely on images to tell the story. It relies on language alone to tell any story.
What would be understandable is wishing there'd be fewer stories about ol' Tweety, but ol' Tweety's a media whore who will pull any bat-shit bullshit you can't simply ignore to get himself into the news. If he has any self-proclaimed genius, that's it. Draw your own conclusions about "stable."
I understand. But what I'm trying to say is what you suggest is anathema to the medium. News broadcasts showing pictures supporting the story is standard, business practice. It derives from nearly 2 millennia in the Roman Church's practice of telling the story of the Crucifixion as "Stations of the Cross," in which icons of scenes in the story are visited in sequence in a ritual telling for an illiterate audience. It's a way of telling a story that's ingrained in the Western European consciousness. I realize you wish they'd stop. But they won't - any more than they'll stop interrupting TV programs and sports events with commercials. It's what TV understands as the best way to tell a story - or advertise products. It's a steaming freight-train of karma.
No you didn't. I did. You just seemed to be complaining about TV using ol' Tweety's images. Radio, a medium without images, is the only alternative. My discussion concerns the simple fact that TV broadcast's stock in trade is imagery - so objecting to certain images on an image-driven medium is a bit like expecting radio to >show< images of anything. That's all.
DZK, you're right, we do need to know what they are up to, but not every time a Democratic or Independent candidate says something reportable. Many media scrounge up something from the Republican election denier/insurgent just to prove they are "balanced." That's not balance, it's pandering or something equally repulsive.
True enough, but that "bridge too far" - over the Rubicon? Troubled water, indeed! - was crossed in '16. We're talkin' 'bout putting the toothpaste back in the tube, now. And as long as the SCOTUS remains conservative, we must endure it and deal with it. After all, they'll be ruling that no amendments other than the 1st & 2nd exist, where the 2nd is the more important. Griping about how the news outlets report the news is a little like going to the beach and shouting at a hurricane - not that it shouldn't be made continually clear, but then, the Tweety-wankers have already done that for themselves, a perilous balance indeed!
DZK, yes, the Supreme Court is or claims to be in love with the first and second amendments except that they have warped both beyond recognition. The first calls money speech and works to limit the press, assembly, and makes Christianity somehow able to dictate what employers can do and employees have to put up with and more. The second, OMG, white people should be able to open carry weapons everywhere, except in the Supreme Court, of course. The rest of the amendments are only used if the Court can twist them to give their friends whatever they want. Hell, according to Alito and Thomas, women and people of color aren't even in the Constitution!
Girl Scientist, yes, journalistic malpractice! I like that term. The quality of coverage of the midterm campaigns was less than stellar. The various media felt they had to present candidates as though they were of equal quality which, I think, is in itself a lie. An election-denier is definitely not as worthy to run as someone who has actually serve the constituents. A January 6th insurgent is not of the same quality as someone who actually cares about the people of their community or state. Just because an insurgent says something does not mean it has to be reported. I don't care who pays for it. If candidates want to put out lies and to gaslight, they can pay for ads, where pretty much anything is allowed.
it's not jounalism, it's stenography. journalists don't print lies (knowingly). the media prints what it's told to print. journalism has nothing to do with it.
Paul, I think you are right saying what most media are doing is not journalism. When lies are either said or repeated, those who are doing it are something other than journalists depending on the severity of the statement or support of the repeated lie. It took "journalists" 2 years and more before they would identify any of the myriad lies Trump told as lies. They repeated them and would hint that it was just what Trump said, but they couldn't manage the word "lie." Most still have trouble with the word for what the claims actually are, "lies." They will say, "no evidence, mostly false" (but don't say what part is true), "not really correct, not true," and some other similar words and phrases. Maybe if the respected journalists had used the word "lie" more often and made note of what was a lie and why it was false, Trump may not have gotten so far. Then there is accountability. When so many Republicans who participated in the insurrection have not been held accountable, people come to believe Democrats are the ones lying about what happened. Well, they're not! The media need to make that very clear.
Brilliant summary Robert, of, hopefully, the dying days of the most heinous douchebag against democracy and global stability.
Trump's rise can only be pointed to all the dumb media lobotomised Americans who do not have the capacity for independent thinking and follow Trump like zombies.
If the problems created by this narcissist was only quarantined within the US borders there would be no issues. However, America's morons' tentacles reach the far corners of the globe and therein lies a potential massive political pandemic.
I was asked to write an article about Professor Reich on Substack until I figure that out I will post it here:
Professor Reich has been a fixture in academia and American politics for decades. As Secretary of Labor he was responsible for raising the minimum wage among his many other achievements for the working class. His blog has provided many with his unique and powerful insights into the American political system. He also taught a free "Wealth and Poverty " course for which I proudly earned a "Certificate of Completion". His sober analyses are sprinkled with his wit and his own personal experiences making otherwise difficult subjects more enjoyable.
Hear Hear !! I do admire brief, succinct and accurite posts like this one. Cudos for your Statement !! And Cudos for Robert Reich and his efforts to keep us educated and informed.
Trump had a strange look when he returned to the stage for his bigly announcement. It was not the look of excitement, as you would expect. It was more like a daze, or deep reflection like he was thinking of his secret Rosebud from childhood.
He was "low energy." He did not seem present. But if you're going to tell all those hum dingers about the country going down the tubes since Biden was elected, and how great everything was before that, you're clearly not connected to reality in the first place.
Perhaps the look was... I wish I could smile and scream, but I can't move my damn face because of all the Botox!
Some crazy guy was ranting in Florida Tuesday night....I think his name started with a T. Not sure. But on to the real news. Every potential Republican candidate for the Presidency is a mortal threat to democracy because none of them back voting rights and they all thrive on dark money from oligarchs to buy elections.
Goober Youngkin (tRump Ultra Lite) just came out with new state standards for teaching history. They are called the SOLs (not kidding). They redact MLK and Juneteenth from the curriculum. Wonder if they will mention the Confederacy or the KKK.
They've got to lead now, but they wont do that for the middle class. Tax cuts have to be paid for too. All their rhetoric translates to failed policy.
Note: Trump was necessary as a GOP candidate because he was not connected to failed Republican policy. They needed a blank policy slate that they could paint as "a businessman."
Reporters and political pundits have suggested in post-election commentary that the country owes a debt of gratitude to Biden for his steadfast and humble performance during the recent elections. I think so too. But I can't see that the country owes any sympathy nor do we owe any of our attention to old bone spur. From an emotional stance, the one thing we probably could do, should do, is feel sorry for the miserable folks who have no better idea than to linger in the sway of tangerine twatwaddle's ongoing narcissism and self-pity. He is the victim, he claims. Well, NO. The real victims are those folks in the MAGAGA movement, probably mostly nice people, who just can't seem to pull away from the distorted, hateful, violent false reality projected by that man and his fringe group supporters. Let's hope that most people will start to see through the scam for what it is, even if they do so slowly, and let's reserve a bit of generosity for any Republicans who recover their good sense.
I watched the interview with the EX-VP Mike Pence on CNN last night. I was pushed back by his inability to apply blame for anything Trump had done. The people of this country needed to know the truth behind Trump's folly. Pence could have with one sentence told the people the truth concerning the Ex-president's inability to lead. Mike Pence was asked the question if he thought Trump should ever be allowed to be President again. Two letters strung together to form a negative response would have sealed the fate of the EX-president. NO, was all he had to say. The failure of Pence to put a fine point on the issue made me wonder if the EX-VP had the makeup necessary to run for office himself. He acted weak in a position that required strength. Pence, after the mob scene at the capital, could never muster enough votes to get the nomination. Trump's mob shouted "hang Pence" I really find it hard to believe those crazies at the capital would ever consider voting for the man they wanted to lynch. The intestinal fortitude required to be president seems to be missing from Pence's composition. A weak leader is something we are all too familiar with, we don't need another one. The administration composed of Trump and Pence needs to be put to rest, new blood is needed to find a better place.
The mainstream media can show its patriotism for our democracy by ignoring this Anti-American! His energy is being the center of attention. Stop covering his BS !
As long as he sells, they'll continue to give him a platform and free publicity. The question is how to make him toxic to advertisers.
I'm not the media but I spent an hour or so sending Robert's "Reject and Disqualify Trump from Running for President Under the Fourteenth Amendment for Engaging in the January 6th Insurrection." https://actionnetwork.org/forms/reject-and-disqualify-trump-from-running-for-president-under-the-fourteenth-amendment-for-engaging-in-the-january-6th-insurrection?source=social-imca&referrer=group-inequality-media-civic-action&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fsecure.actblue.com%2Fdonate%2Fimca_disqualify_trump&fbclid=IwAR14hDhVoT9EgnQRgJITsOsM56vbeOnOTHTJdA_muNrXF8SuXkm62nTHXxI I haven't seen much in the media about this. But it shows that I'm still preoccupied.
I'm currently watching a segment on Morning Joe about the megadonors who say they will no longer donate to Trump.
Trump operates on the PT Barnum theory. As long as they mention him, good or ill, he is happy.
Daniel, thanks for trying to get attention paid to our Constitution and the 14th Amendment's statement that insurrectionists should not be able to hold public office. I find it interesting that our media have not picked up on that. It is of importance but somehow they cover Trump's nonsense but can't manage to cite our Constitution. Are they so desperate to get the attention of the Trumpers and Trumpettes they will ignore what could be a really important story for our nation? I guess so!
Ruth Sheets ; The corporate owned media do not want to see the kind of changes that those of us who do not support tRump want and need. The end of Citizens United and tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy, for example. They were fed by tRump when he got in office, and they will be given trillions more if he 'wins' again! The Greedheads want more! To the extent that they support alliances with Autocrats/Authoritarians around the globe. they will go after the money no matter where it leads them ; Democracy be damned, along with decency. Our very world.
Laurie, that is the problem with addiction. The ultra-rich individuals and corporations are so deeply addicted they can't see beyond the money and power they are addicted to. People scorn the men and women who become addicted to drugs and alcohol they hope will relieve their pain and depression. Money and power itself lead to addiction. To keep the money flowing, the addicted ones will do anything and everything to get their regular fix, even buying Twitter so they can do whatever they want to get unrestricted power and hopefully money too. I don't know how to fight this kind of addiction because people actually admire people thus addicted, in fact many want to be them. One would never say that about someone addicted to opioids or alcohol yet, it seems to me the addictions are equally soul-destroying. The money-power addiction does enormous harm to a whole lot of people that one person being addicted to opioids or alcohol can never do. We should be calling it out and naming it the addiction it is.
I agree.
Horrible, and true.
Spot on Laurie.
Because he hasn't (yet) been found guilty of insurrection, I think that the Constitution cannot (yet) be applied to the Orange Sadist's attempt to run again (thus hoping to avoid adverse judgments by the DOJ -- and SCOTUS).
That is why he has announced so early! He wants to avoid the law, and be allowed to run again. If he is allowed back on Twitter and Facebook, he can spread more lies, and possibly pull off a 'win'.
Of course!
He's a stinkin maniac,what's more important,our democracy or his BS? I keep praying for a change of heart and a mindset change for the Maga crowd and his supporters who've been duped and don't know it.
👍🏼
Total insanity.
Hey Daniel wasn't it PT Barnum that also said there's a sucker born every minute and two to take him. Looks like we got a whole truck load of MAGA suckers.. pathetic..
Check My Ads (www.https://checkmyads.org) is a great way to tackle advertising in the media. This media watchdog is run by smart folks from within the industry and acknowledges that much advertising is packaged by brokers before it is sold to the buyer. CMA recognizes that many businesses would be shocked to find that their ads end up, say, on Fox shows and parses that out so that we, the consumer, can notify the businesses of our opinions (or threaten to boycott, if it comes to that). But many businesses are glad to know that they're sponsoring these extremist media. It's a fascinating concept that "follows the money" and gives us some power in fighting back.
The old Vaudeville principle: "The >only< bad publicity is >no< publicity!" - and ol' Tweety's spent his life in entertainment!
I'm just including this here because it's so doggone >awesome< that I think it should be viewed by as many of us here as possible: https://youtu.be/mBDciaEZ-II
Otherwise, I apologize to you for my impertinence!
I love Bernie. We need a younger version to help him with his message. Without the Bernie's of the world we will all perish.
At the very least if the corporate democratic party would put him forward, he could move the Overton Window. Oh, that would push them out!
He's passionate about what he believes.
Age is real. The higher risk of illness and death is real. Why can't people understand and accept this? I don't understand. [To all of my "attackers": I did not use the word "unfit" in this post.]
people's constitution's vary
some are Way more Spry at 70
than many at 40 or 50. I don't see Bernie
Ever retire. his Fire glows too Hot for him to step down
it's Interesting
reading the Obits of
those who live so Long
and their Professions which
they remain in -- Productively!
til their Eighties & Nineties. whoa
kdsherpa ; Death is real. our planet is in danger, along with all of us, as Democracy itself is not 'out of the woods'. The right leader now could help get us out of the path we are on. Time is short, not just for Bernie, but for all of us. No more long court battles. We don't have time to wait to change our Constitution. Or the election after the next election. Or another generation. How much evidence do we need to see? If something makes sense, do we toss it just because it's 'old'? A good leader can mentor (actually, Bernie has mentored many good people) the ones who can carry on with policies based on the truths and laws we actually have in the Constitution. laws that existed before 'Citizens United". Guardrails and limits that have been removed. Regulations that were ignored at our peril.
If you believe only old people get ill and die, kdsherpa, you're in for some unhappy surprises sooner than you expect.
? That's not what I wrote. "Higher risk" is a statistical statement. (BTW, I'm a 70-year-old doctor and have cared for many, many young people who have died. It is not easy, to say the least.)
It has nothing to do with "unfit". Joe, Bernie, Nancy, Jim Clyburn: they are all fit mentally and physically at this time, thank God. But the numbers are against them, in a way that they are not against someone in her/his 40's. Of COURSE young people die!
And of COURSE being young doesn't make you "fit". But look at the statistics and tell me if the numbers are even. Having said that, you sound absolutely fascinating! As a lover of classical music, your teenage years through your current composing is a wonderful story!
Exactly. If he won the presidency Congress would never let him change anything even if both houses were majorly democrats. However he would move the party left. That's what I want and a majority of us want. It wound be great to watch the Republican party run left like the democractic party has chasing the republican party right all these decades.
Thank you. He is unique and fantastic. We need more like him. Thanks for this
Yes, Bernie is the real deal.
DZK ; If sharing Bernie's speech is impertinence ; it is fine with me. It is sad that such a leader was blocked from being President. Anyone who interfered with his campaign is part of the problem, (and you know who you are if you are reading this.).
It's all about the "S" word, that Republicans have bitched about since FDR! Hell! It goes back to the imposition if income tax - under his Republican cousin Teddy, I believe I recall, the >first< to be characterized as "progressive." Indeed, "progress" was the buzz-word of the '50s, even as McCarthy conducted his witch hunts for communists.
I'm no Fran Kluntz thnx god but
Weaponizing the Lingo's be-
come a Science anymore
perhaps we make it a
Verb & shorten it to
Progress & go
from there
.
perhaps socialism can be redeemed
by calling it Democratic Socialism
where we Vote on Stuff like Hand-
outs for the Wealthy and BIG
Oil and why not the
Murdochs too
Yep! Right out of 1984. Not Democratic Socialism, call it DemSoc - like IngSoc - and tell 'em all to live on the street and be free! I think you could sell that to a MAGA!
love it, thanks!
Just watched it. Bernie’s points were right on. I noticed Lindsey’s head bobbing up and down in agreement too.
Hahaha!
Keith, you are so right! A patriot ignores Trump and Kump as much as possible. Clearly, as Dr. Reich points out, Trump has nothing to offer anyone but the same old nonsense that voters have generally rejected.
That includes Robert Reich and almost all liberals. All they talk about it Trump. The Democratic Party needs to shift from the anti-Trump/anti-Republican party to the pro-people party, but their corporate ties and consultants evidently prevent that.
Actually Prof. Reich thankfully talks about way more than Trump. Which makes your post just proof you really don’t know what Prof. Reich talks about.
Ahem. I don't see any pro-people message >anywhere< in your comment. I only see the kind of attack you accuse. Vintage Republican.
I believe the proper diagnosis of corporate control of both political parties, Republicans 99.9% Democrats maybe 80% but including their leadership is indeed a pro-people observation. The only way to stop the rise of Trump or opportunistic theocrats like Desantis is to elect Democrats who do not accept corporate PAC money and who like Nancy Pelosi believe that insider trading is part of the privilege of being a $100 millionaire in Congress. Trump candidates were extremely competitive if you haven't noticed, and while it is a positive that they lost it doesn't mean he has lost influence and it doesn't mean that Democrats will learn anything from it.
I've already observed this is no time for euphoria, and that the Democrats squeaked by - 1%, I recently heard. However, it's disingenuous to consider said corporate control of the political environment is not >exactly< what the Republicans and conservative SCOTUS justices stand for. Messaging takes oodles of money, whatever the message. Do you expect corporate interests to quit financing both sides of the debate if one side "just says no" to that campaign money? Do you expect Republicans, who - by the way, approve of, in thought, word, deed, without honestly saying they intend to screw the public in service to their masters - don't, by that standard, consider the only crime as being caught? By that reasoning, Putin should've taken Ukraine in one week. I agree the situation is shit. I >don't< believe castigating the Democrats, who - by the way, at least attempt to serve the general public, for whatever political reason - is properly a pro-people observation. >>It's attempting to pass the obvious off as special insight.<< Do you have anything other than building walls to protect the US workers trying to compete for jobs as migrant farm workers, landscapers, or the other mean labor said immigrants must settle for and endure, that >no Tweety-voter< would sit still for a NY second in taking? Or are you proposing eliminating taxes on "the job creators," like their ilk liked to do with the old plantation owners, who provided plenty of jobs? What platform do you support? Be >specific.< What program(s) do you have in mind? And, don't bullshit me! I'm not a MAGA moron, and neither is anyone else who regularly participates in this forum.
I believe the obsession with Trump and the Republicans is misguided or at least too late, because the reason Trump could rise to power is ineffectual public policy of both parties. No society or civilization has survived the level of wealth inequality that is present in the US at this time, and Trump is merely the spectre of years of outsourcing of working class jobs, lipservice from Democrats to the cause of black and brown people, and both parties funneling money to the top, whether its Trump's tax cuts or the ACA. I know what Trump is, I know what the Republicans are, but I also know the Democrats have been saying one thing and doing another then making excuses for it for decades. I'll leave it to Malcolm X-- “The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox. One is a wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.” -Malcolm X
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-spokesperson-fox-news-violated-first-amendment-speech-1759916
The only interesting bit from this article is that Trump has a “spokesperson”. As if he hasn’t spoken enough on his own.
Who would ever agree to be trump's spokesperson? That would be a dangerous position and one Trump would typically ignore. And what if they used words with more than one syllable or more than 4 letters?
LOLOLOLOL!!!
Great article!
Oh, great. Here are your marching orders, media: Suppress information about this country's most pernicious domestic danger. Every word that comes out of that mouth is important because of the millions of voters who believe his evil lies. They must be made known to all.
Oh Difny, you get what is going on with the media! That seems to be what passes for journalism in the political arena now.
Here's the secret. ol' Tweety's learned how to stand public information on its ear. His "genius" lies in turning news broadcasts into $billions in free campaign advertisement. Does that help clarify the nature of the problem? It's not about suppressing information. We've >all< been informed - ad nauseum - about ol' Tweety's antics and attitudes. That job is done. The only thing that matters now is insight on what underhanded bullshit he conjures to pull next. We get overloaded with the irrelevant, well understood one, but not so much about the less understood other. As an example, when the internet first came about, I came across many who were awe-struck with how all the information about anything they could think of, would come up with a word or two in a search engine. I always told them that burying you in information was equivalent to suppressing information - and I stand by it to this day, and have ample support in that view from other quarters. The response was invariably a blank stare. We're seeing the impact of that simple truth in the role of information playing out today. If good information must be sorted out from absolute bullshit, one questions the nature of all the info you must sort through.
The gold standard is an intelligent, cogent answer to a simple question that dazzles me with brilliance, rather than trying to baffle me with bullshit. The same applies to >any< news - ol' Tweety or otherwise. Do you see where I'm going with this?
DZK, I do see where you are going with your insights about information overload. I find myself having to turn it off after shorter and shorter amounts of time because first, I am learning nothing new, and second, I feel like a victim of unfiltered nonsense. It's painful. Trump's inane rant the other night was covered everywhere, but little about the climate conference in Egypt was in the mainstream. The latter is far more important, but one would never know it by the news coverage.
Anecdote. I was a letter carrier in the DC area on 9/11. Now that's a really obnoxious thing to bring up, but after about a week, I made comment to one of the postal patrons on my route about it all, to which he replied: "Is anything else going on in the rest of the world?" I had to give him >full marks< for that rhetorical question!
Exactly!
The Republican Party is veering away from Trump, (don’t get me wrong, he still has his cult, though it is waning) I think ultimately it will come down to Trump and DeSantis for the party nomination, which DeSantis will win.
On the topic of DeSantis he is essentially Trump, albeit younger and with a more stable functioning brain. But just as Xenophobic, racist and power hungry as Trump. It’s an equally scary proposition.
You've got that right Derek, instead of baby donnie, you've got teenager ron
Fay, I like that, "Teenager Ron." OMG! Why is it Republicans choose child-men and child-women to represent them? Maybe it's because they are comfortable having children around since they have kept their children (or wish they had kept their children) as children. Their fear of books, Transgender young people, people who don't look like them, exposing their children to concepts they themselves don't understand, and all the other ghosties and beasties that haunt their lives keep them scared, almost like kids themselves. Maybe Dems and Independents need to help them value adulthood more.
Child-men and child-women such as the disgusting MTG, lauren Bobblehead, matt gates, and gym jordan. Why, indeed?
I think you've accurately diagnosed the health of the conservative republican--perpetual adolescence.
& a too-deep Fascination with
poop and the naughty bits.
is it too Late to Save them?
Republicans, like all authoritarians, cater to the simple-minded. Their sophisticates work in the background. I.e., upper middle class educated white suburbanites who vote Republican know which side their bread is buttered on and tolerate the stupid messaging. But the unwashed masses of conservatives that are submissive and conformist require sports talk language. Read Bob Altemeyer's research on authoritarians and it will go a long way toward explaining Trumpers:
Robert Anthony Altemeyer . . . is a retired Professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba. Altemeyer also produced the right-wing authoritarianism scale, or RWA Scale, as well as the related left-wing authoritarianism scale, or LWA Scale.[Wikipedia]
Altemeyer offers a free downloadable book online: https://theauthoritarians.org
It's because they will be around longer. Like the far right SCOTUS will be around way past democracy dying because of them.
And you're positively correct or more so, S. A. Linden.
the diaper-clad toddler-i-c
kow-towing to Putin
on bended knee
.
and the DeSatanist guy
at Last among equals
with the Planet's
Horrorshow
Tyrants.
OMG Kristofarian, You nailed the Trump-DeSantis transition!
'Republican' Utopia!
the Fourth and
FINAL Reich.
(NO relation
to our Robert)!
Can FOX Sell it?
stay Tuned.
That was an impostor: the famous drag queen, Rhonda Sanctimonious, the first Generation 💤 candidate for president.
I've said it before, that what's really unsettling is that DeSantis understands government and knows how to govern. ol' Tweety was >always< an ignoramus having no idea of governance in the US, or how US government works. That's why he faces the prospect of experiencing the "hospitality" of one of Uncle Sam's world-renowned "luxury bed & breakfasts!" I doubt that would be an issue for DeSantis. As a preview, where has any of the litigation gone that has been brought against DeSantis for human trafficking refugees?
AN UPDATE: (From a guy whose views I hold in high regard.) : https://youtu.be/D3DgPj5Ty1k
DZK, DeSantis is a lot more scary than Trump because he knows what he is doing, has some government experience, and holds all the hates, fears, and self-righteousness of Trump, but backs it with a warped white Christian nationalism that calls for a Catholic (or at least Christian) nation he can rule and shape to his desperate need for money, power, and adulation. The fact that so little has been done regarding his flouting of the law when it comes to trafficking and planning to establish a private militia in Florida does not bode well for our future if he gets any more power than he already has.
DeSantis stunts and "end justifies the means" non-ethos smacks of 1930s nazifying Germany. If the people of Florida are ignorant of or choose to ignore history, then it'll be up to citizens of the other 49 states ---many are beyond hope at present-- to check his path toward white Christian nationalism....
Mark, DeSantis is trying every right-wing stunt to see which will work best for the crazies who are coming off their addiction to Trump. The fact that nothing has happened related to his shenanigans related to the trafficking, book banning, CRT (which he knows nothing about), his trans bullying, lack of preparedness for Hurricane Ian but claim of having done something to help when it was really Biden and the federal government who came to Florida's aid, etc. is a pretty good indicator that DeSantis has a lot of support and that the federal government is afraid of him. Disgusting!
Watch Rick Steves's "The Rise of Fascism in Europe" on PBS/Passport. He lays it all out in his mellow and conversational way. Almost like watching the news. And be sure to look up the Beer Hall Putsch, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch
A >great< reference!
Thanks for mentioning. I don't watch live TV and didn't know that PBS has started to charge for some services. They should drop the "public" from their moniker. Ditto for NPR. Over the years, they could have worked a LOT harder to publicize their need for government funding, getting the public to lobby for them Instead, they took the easier route and begged their audience for donations. Obviously GOP regimes were parsimonious with them, but still . . .
We have Ronald McReagan to thank for that dick-move. It's also consistent with the Citizens United we all know and love so well. PBS used to be exactly that. It was publicly funded almost exclusively, although they also took donations.
Exactly.
Exactly.
His CV: Naval Justice School (2005), Harvard Law School (2005), Yale University (2001), Dunedin
Nowhere, and it most likely won’t because the DOJ is too scared of appearing partisan as opposed to doing the right thing.
Indeed. The idea that the DOJ remains a non-political organization while it clearly is worried about political fallout? Oxymoronic!
Well said!
How about this? DOJ, do your damned job according to your oath and your bond, wherever the facts lead. Show some cojones.
Mark Trafton ; They should not get paid. The one they are helping get away had a good original idea : (Tell them They're fired! ) Our Attorney General ; Merrick Garland and the rest of the D.O.J. I have to say that there seems to be a theme here. The Secret Service gets bought off, the Supreme court is bought off ; Why not the D. O. J.? If Cyrus Vance jumped ship (how convenient for the perps) in The Southern District of New York ; Then his replacement , Alan Bragg could not get justice done.. What 's up there? I see a pattern. Something smells again and again! Corruption. Too much money in the wrong hands. An imbalance that is not sustainable!
Derek, yes, and isn't that too bad that our DOJ got caught up in that ridiculous worry about looking partisan when Republicans are walking all over people's rights, staged an insurrection, and run candidates who were involved in the insurrection? Then there are the governors involved in trafficking and DeSantis planning his own private militia, and stuff we don't even know about yet that are in the works. As much as I respected Garland, I do not think he is up to the job and we will all pay for that.
Garland is a Judge weighing all the facts in a trial.
We need a Prosecuting Attorney General who will bring a case to trial.
where's
Kamala?
If only Garland would resign. Biden could then install an acting AG who is not afraid of “looking partisan” and who doesn’t think “no precedent” is an excuse.
Keith Ellison!
I think that is just an excuse. Laurie Blair is not blind like most. Many, many reportings have been made of appointments of anti-democracy people. It's time we include the DOJ in the list of compromised Fed Agengies. We have to take the blinders off. I'm not saying Garland specifically,but why not?
On this I take exception. I think what you interpret as weakness is Garland wanting to "get it right." He doesn't want to bring a case he can't win decisively. That takes time, and a lot of it, to make sure he's got all the legal loopholes that ol' Tweety, et al, can slither through securely plugged. I'm >absolutely certain< about the kind of hell that would be raised if he took a case that isn't rock-solid into court, just to have it thrown out over a clever nonsense argument relying on an unforeseen loophole, or evidence improperly gathered. Patience is necessary - no matter >how< nerve-wracking - and >that's< a national virtue the US citizenry are by no means world renowned for.
DZK, I truly hope you are right about Garland. I like him, but there are so many crimes it is hard to believe none of them has been researched sufficiently yet, with the number of people on the staff at DOJ. Trump's lawyers are guaranteed to make challenges that will reach to the ceiling which will take years to clear, because that is what Trump's collection of questionable lawyers can do with their particular set of skills. If Garland does not get a handle on it soon, the 2024 election will be upon us and nothing will have happened. and Trump will walk!
Good point, but Garland still has 2 years. Patience. The wheels of justice turn slowly - excruciatingly so. Here in OH, a high profile case about one >family< murdering another >family< 6 years ago over who was to have custody of a Romeo & Juliet type couple's kid appears to be finally reaching it's conclusion. No suicide involved in this one. Romeo's family outright murdered every last member of Juliet's family one night - except for the kid.
Ruth Sheets ; Yes, and what about DeSantis' promise to lock people up as soon as he can if he has the power!? So we have private prisons and now, I'm reading your post about "DeSantis planning his own private militia". Scary! This from a man who wants to ban books with factual information he does not want the public to know about, and makes Draconian laws to limit people's rights in his state. What will he not try at the national level?
Laurie, your question about what DeSantis would do if he had a larger platform is a good but frightening one. His moves remind me and several people on this thread of the march into Nazism in the 1930s. DeSantis has now been empowered by the pathetic Floridians who choose not to think about the consequences of their actions. They live in a state that is on the verge of disappearing due to ocean levels rising but do little or nothing about it until there is a hurricane on the horizon and still they do as little as they can. No wonder they vote for a fool like DeSantis because he distracts them with all his BS about Trans kids, book-banning, idea of starting his own private militia (starting to sound like Brown Shirts), voting suppression, busing lied-to immigrants to northern cities, ignorance about critical race theory, and the rest. We the People are in trouble if something is not done to stop the fascist moves on the part of DeSantis and his crazy would-be Nazis, or at least anti-American fascists. He even got the Latino/Latinx vote when he uses them instead of respecting them.
Exactly.
Nuts!
Bravo! Spoken like the US general at Bastogne! LOL! (Gen. Anthony McAuliffe)
"woof!"
LOL!
I think it's because they don't want to risk screwing it up and having a case brought to court under popular pressure thrown out because a lame-assed defense lawyer finds a hole in the prosecution to slither through. I'm sure any lawyer out here would be inclined to see my point.
In other words, “I don’t want to risk it because there’s a slim chance I might lose.”
That’s not legal strategy. That’s cowardice. That’s choosing not to do the right thing and pursue justice because you’re afraid of what idiots would say if you lose.
So tell me all you know about prosecuting a RICO case.
How much time you got?
I am not sure how well DeSantis knows government. He does know how to play for a Floridian audience and get its votes. How he will do in the larger audience of this country remains to be seen.
Well, unlike ol' Tweety, he's had government experience, and has been able to brandish it effectively to achieve his stated ends. One shouldn't conclude his level of knowledge based on not liking what he's done as a governor. Indeed, you should pay close attention to the fact that he's effectively pulled-off the crap you object to. Just sayin'.
So his stated ends so far has been to dis science to fuel deaths by Covid in his home state to remarkable numbers, cry wolf as to the evils of CRT and transgender individuals, and sees a need to use Florida money to fly immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. My likes and dislikes have nothing to do with the reality that DeSantis has as much to offer this country as the Former Failed Guy even with his supposed knowledge of government.
Joanne, yep, he has already done a whole lot, trying to do as much harm as he could manage without making too many waves in Washington. Biden came into Florida to help with hurricane relief and DeSantis and Rubio got the credit. DeSantis is the kind of person who respects no one and will push every boundary to see what he can get away with. He has already proven he can get away with a lot. He won reelection and until he decides to run for president, he will spread his evil in Florida where it can move out to infect the Confederacy and white wannabee states.
Oh, I agree. However, the fact remains that he knew enough about government and governance to pull it off. Imagine that occupying 1600! Whether or not you like his track record, it's an effective track record in accomplishing >his< ends, and that's >exactly< what's dangerous.
Effective in Crayola red Florida. In Florida. A state that also has Marco Rubio and Rick Scott. Look to how well Rubio played to a country wide audience. I don’t get why you believe DeSantis is “effective” just because he’s a hit in Florida.
Many republicans have drifted away from trump, but not their mutual hatreds. It’s a concern that they, and too many independents, will happily replace trump with the worse DeSantis.
He may be worse, but we still have to see how he plays out on the national stage. He doesn't seem to have the "charisma" (or whatever it is) of the other guy from Florida. Just don't think the MAGA ladies are gonna fall for him -- he's not a kitty grabber.
Words to take seriously. Those hatreds have been a'festerin' since the '60s - the 1860s!
Sad truth.
Perhaps "DeSanctimonious"should be defined ans an expert at the manipulation of Gorernance. {Read Law} That would seem to be the object of the exercise of our privelaged Law Schools today.
You mean, define him as a career politician? I agree! See the original BBC version of "House of Cards," featuring Ian Richardson. Ignore its Netflix bullshit clone. Urquhart is a Tory - >NOT< a Democrat. Urquhart would've produced the Netflix version!
Joanne, I am not sure DeSantis needs to know much more about government than he already does. Republicans care more about how something looks and talks than if there is any depth of knowledge or experience. The challenge will be, will Independents buy his crap. I suspect a lot will.
One would really need to see how I dependents view DeSantis’ Covid response, his stands on CRT, his homophobia, and his flying migrants from Texas to Martha’s
Vineyard among other stunts. I get that there is a voter who yearns for this kind of candidate. I just can’t believe the country as a whole wants him.
Joanne, I, too would like to see how more than the white and white wannabees in Florida see DeSantis's hate-mongering and nonsense about the over-fragility of white children related to learning about people different from themselves. I can't help but wonder what his kids are like and if they are just clones of or puppets for their daddy. Are they OK with their dad lying to people about jobs and homes?
I think the word you’re looking for is “ignoranus.”
Thanks! I'll file that back for future use!
You're very right. He knows how to use government to accomplish his nefarious objectives.
I'm afraid you're right, DZK. He is truly more of a threat to our democracy than dumbbell trump.
Oh Derek, you are right about DeSantis and I find that really scary. DeSantis, unlike Trump most of the time, knows what he is doing but has no moral compass any American should be willing to follow. He has the blaming down as well as the fearmongering, hatred, and anger-boosting. DeSantis, though is equally racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, and generally disgusting. He does have youth, as you say, so I think the Trumpers and Trumpettes will turn to him as they come to realize their messiah Donnie is no longer functioning. They just can't let go of their isms and phobias for the good of the nation and world.
In some ways, DeathSantis is more dangerous than the former guy. He understands the mechanics of government and could be a huge threat to equality and democracy. Everyone acknowledged how whacky TFG was. But Ron the Con operates under the guise of being more professional and reasonable. But he is a vicious fascist.
Bill, alas, I agree with you about DeSantis being a fascist. He has all the trappings, even hiding some of his cruelty in his warped religious pronouncements. His disgusting ad just before the election implying that DeSantis was anointed by god to rule and do all the cruel things he has been doing was appalling, but clearly a lot of Floridians agreed or if they didn't, they mostly stayed home. That's shameful, but pretty typical of American voters.
Lots of us voted here in FL, just not enough to counter the Trump-lovers who infest this state. I wish we'd had a more viable candidate to run against him. I moved here in '76 because it's where I should have been all my life but it's a very scary place to live right now. I fear it will get so much worse unless we return to upholding the rule of law for everyone and somehow get the MAGA crowd to truly understand what embracing authoritarianism really means. I recently saw a bumper sticker that said "Choose Love - Choose Trump" and it made me both sad and angry.
Bobbie, I am sorry that Florida ignored reality and went with DeSantis, Rubio, and the rest of their malignant crowd. They seem to ignore reality in every area of their lives, allowing those fools in your assembly to make laws that deliberately hurt their fellow citizens, and for no reason other than that they can and DeSantis likes it and can use it to game more power from the racist xenophobes who lurk just about everywhere in our society right now. They are not a majority, but they are fired up to somehow prove their worthiness for something they couldn't even name, and will vote an their righteousness, believing god is on board with their hatred and self-righteousness.
Agreed.
I heard an NPR discussion on this the other day that pointed out that DeSantis is not particularly charismatic and doesn't present well on camera. So I look for his campaign to douse voters with ads that minimize that.
I just heard that in a You Tube clip a little while ago, as well. Here's the clip. I hold this guy's views in high regard. I was going to post it for more visibility elsewhere, but since it supports your info, I'll post it here.
they'll cast his comely Profile
mirroring Mussolini's and
the Rubes Will fall for it
hook line and stinker
.
they've come
outta the
Closet
.
and fascism's
what's for
Dinner.
Why the scramble for a New Big Daddy? How about leadership THROUGH a new, regional independence in the House, connecting genuine ideas among citizens and politicians to effect specific changes? People would be open to genuine progress from Republicans. Instead, they flock like moths to brighter lights. “I got to get me a new pimp!” is not very admirable.
Steve, the problem is Republicans basically have no worthy ideas. They imagine they want something like the 1950s back in this country (MAGA), a time that was not particularly great for a lot of people. I suspect it is so much better looking back than it would be if repeated. I guess when people have no ideas, they search for leaders they think have them, but the candidates they choose have none. I suspect they are looking to DeSantis because he has a big mouth, spouts a lot of the hates and fears they have, and has not been held accountable for any of the things he has done. I guess that looks good to the scared white people who want to think they are superior. They don't have anything else to fall back on, or, think they don't.
Think something more along the lines of "The Andy Griffith Show," and Mayberry. >That's< the product attempting to be sold.
Unfortunately, we're operating under "new rules," and they're >not< friggin' Bill Maher's. It's Citizens' United that's cramming up the political culture with obscene amounts of cold, hard cash. What you're talking about as a "New Big Daddy" is a product sold to a consumer market. It's not about democratic governance. It's about commerce.
DeSatan is tRump's Minni Me
DeSantis is clearly an authoritarian. And he is smart: Naval Justice School (2005), Harvard Law School (2005), Yale University (2001).
Bob, what I have noticed is that it really doesn't matter which college or university one attends. What one gets from that education depends a whole lot on what one brings into the situation. If one is white, privileged, feeling superior, one will gain what one needs to keep feeling superior to others and use their intelligence to cheat, lie, use cruelty, make excuses, and more, just as DeSantis, Ted Cruz, and others have done. If one brings a caring personality, a will to work for others as Justices Sotomayor, Jackson, and Ginsburg, and the Obamas did, the rights and needs of others will be paramount in one's decision-making. I wish there were a way to inject the "superior-feeling" ones with a dose of empathy and reality that they are not really superior, when they enter college, but alas, that "drug" hasn't been invented yet.
You've just defined "The Force." I leave it to you to figure out which is "The Dark Side."
DZK, the Dark Side, Hmmmm! Could it be Darth DeSatan?
Not what >I< had in mind, but if that's how it works for you, then by all means - Darth DeSatan.
Thanks for updating his pedigree. Like I said, the bastard knows >exactly< what he's a'doin'!
I am not a T**** fan, but I take great value from his rise and control of the R party. His vile presence encouraged the vile, unhinged, willfully ignorant, and cruel natures of a large swath of our population to reveal themselves. We see them now, whereas we didn't before, which fueled complacency at the ballot box, not realizing how fragile our democracy truly is--we can no longer take the presumed perpetuity of self-government for granted. Before T****, the power-hungry and compromised could hide behind the more elegant and articulate cruelty of pseudo-Christian "conservatives" (many of them still in power), like Graham and McConnell and Pompeo. Many of them all-to-eager to throw out our democracy and replace it with a craven, mobbed-up dictator so they can stay in power at all costs, not realizing that there would be a price to pay in the future much greater than the price they could have paid for showing a little human courage (like Liz Cheney). The curtain has been pulled back. Murdoch & Co. made their Frankenstein. Keeping him off their headlines won't prevent him from continuing to own the dregs of the GOP. He's their monster now. May he destroy every last one of the traitorous set that would sell these United States to the highest, cruelest bidder. And may we bring back Civil Studies and institute 1-2 years of mandatory service following high school to instill a sense of individual + collective honor and duty and community in our culture again. We are so much stronger when we are sympathetic to our differences and build bridges that raise all of us a little higher.
No matter what the future brings, I will never forget how many United States citizens passionately defended Overt corruption.
Well done Stacey.🏆
Stacey,
Spot on! I've been trying to articulate this position for a long time. You've done it well!
Wow !! Beatiful and concise post. Thanks of ryour participation !!
The Scum Also Rises.
It's fake. Trump scams his base so they’ll flood him with money.
Trump also wants DOJ to treat him as if he a candidate. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/06/us/politics/trump-special-counsel.html
Speaking of unhinged, ignorant, and cruel, I foresee a tRump-Musk ticket in 2024. What odds will you give me? Remember, you heard it here first!
If tRump = Twitler, then
Musk = Twitler Youth.
Wasn't Musk born in South Africa, and doesn't that disqualify him from running for President. The way he's been acting lately in such a high profile way that appears to be trying to appeal to Trump's base looks like he is thinking on the line you suggest though.
I think Trump is likely to choose an attractive woman (physically, not characterwise) as his running mate, like Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard or Kari Lake. It didn't work well for McCain though.
Laws are made to be broken, especially for EelOn. You don't think he could afford to buy a new birth certificate?
Trump DeSantis is a better bet.
They are going to beat each other's brains out LONG before the election.
No way. You missed Reagan Bush.
Please can we NOT SEE reporting on the guy from Florida. It is dreary and destructive. Let him be relegated to third page news or not at all.
In Yiddish we say, "May his name be forgotten."
With an aliah to Dan Hicks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW9-FOLG-iA
Didn't have to click on the link to know what you were referring to! Loved Dan Hicks & his hot licks. If only tRump would go away. I certainly would not miss him! He's like the house guest that just won't leave!
Good!
back of the whole paper!
Where your parakeet can poop on him. Why is there no poop emoji on this keyboard?
Hahaha! If only that would obliterate his influence and image! Would be sweet!
Yep. Even the Sacramento Bee mentioned trump's rant in a small paragraph on an inside page I predict a full out two year old temper tantrum from baby donnie, with feet stamping and shouting. I hope he does carry the banner for the grand old party of trump. That would end the strangle hold the extremists have held on the Republican party since the days of Newt Gingrich, Not that I'd ever vote Republican but it's nice to have an Honorable Opposition instead of a bunch of screaming middle schoolers.
Better to have a smart enemy than a stupid friend.
Define smart : evil is unsustainable.
Yikes!
i was rather incensed that the mainstream media is (mostly) still complicit in trump's fantastical lies. i view this as journalistic malpractice.
Unfortunately, the alternative is being unaware of what the wanker's up to. We wouldn't create an info vacuum around - say - Putin, would we? "Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer." Just sayin'.
Yes, but do they have to show the montage of mug shots? We know what the perp looks like! I imagine he thrives on that! Get us the facts, yes, but stop feeding the beasts' ego with those endless images of his face!
You mean confine his coverage to radio broadcast news? I can't bring any numbers to bear, but I mightily suspect the radio news audience is relatively small for anyone other than NPR & BBC World radio junkies - like myself. Otherwise, TV is about showing images, and most US audiences prefer images with their news. That's something I gleaned as a musician when I became aware of what people actually meant when the language morphed from "I'm going to attend a concert" to "I'm going to >see< a concert." It even explains the song "Video Killed the Radio Star," from nearly 1/2 a century ago! ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8r-tXRLazs ) Hell, back as far in history as 19th Century Europe, there was even near violent controversy between the "Brahmsians" and the "Wagnerites," over the role of music with respect to drama. Brahms advocated pure music, independent of stage drama, whereas Wagner wrote Opera - and opera is all about dramatic visual imagery. >That's< the crux of the matter. Showing images is what TV news broadcasts >do<. Just sayin'.
Since my commute is short, I never listen to radio anymore. Plus I hate ads.
Me neither, I have 832 sea shanties on my iPhone.
I don't know where you got the idea that I wanted to confine images to the radio. Images and radio don't mix. DZK; Somehow, there was a glitch in the communication. I was merely saying I would like to see fewer or no pictures/ videos of the former guy. I get bombarded by them while watching MSNBC, and I would bet the same thing on any 'news' show.
BTW: I failed to mention that I was contrasting a visual medium with a non-visual medium. I didn't say anything about you wanting to confine images to radio (?) and am mystified how you got that from what I was saying. It's in the nature of TV news to use images. If it's news about ol' Tweety, they'll show pictures of ol' Tweety. That's the long and short of it. Radio, by contrast, doesn't rely on images to tell the story. It relies on language alone to tell any story.
What would be understandable is wishing there'd be fewer stories about ol' Tweety, but ol' Tweety's a media whore who will pull any bat-shit bullshit you can't simply ignore to get himself into the news. If he has any self-proclaimed genius, that's it. Draw your own conclusions about "stable."
I understand. But what I'm trying to say is what you suggest is anathema to the medium. News broadcasts showing pictures supporting the story is standard, business practice. It derives from nearly 2 millennia in the Roman Church's practice of telling the story of the Crucifixion as "Stations of the Cross," in which icons of scenes in the story are visited in sequence in a ritual telling for an illiterate audience. It's a way of telling a story that's ingrained in the Western European consciousness. I realize you wish they'd stop. But they won't - any more than they'll stop interrupting TV programs and sports events with commercials. It's what TV understands as the best way to tell a story - or advertise products. It's a steaming freight-train of karma.
ohhh kayyy
Did I mention radio?
No you didn't. I did. You just seemed to be complaining about TV using ol' Tweety's images. Radio, a medium without images, is the only alternative. My discussion concerns the simple fact that TV broadcast's stock in trade is imagery - so objecting to certain images on an image-driven medium is a bit like expecting radio to >show< images of anything. That's all.
I just had a flashback to Marshall McLuhan discussing the difference between hot and cold media.
DZK, you're right, we do need to know what they are up to, but not every time a Democratic or Independent candidate says something reportable. Many media scrounge up something from the Republican election denier/insurgent just to prove they are "balanced." That's not balance, it's pandering or something equally repulsive.
True enough, but that "bridge too far" - over the Rubicon? Troubled water, indeed! - was crossed in '16. We're talkin' 'bout putting the toothpaste back in the tube, now. And as long as the SCOTUS remains conservative, we must endure it and deal with it. After all, they'll be ruling that no amendments other than the 1st & 2nd exist, where the 2nd is the more important. Griping about how the news outlets report the news is a little like going to the beach and shouting at a hurricane - not that it shouldn't be made continually clear, but then, the Tweety-wankers have already done that for themselves, a perilous balance indeed!
DZK, yes, the Supreme Court is or claims to be in love with the first and second amendments except that they have warped both beyond recognition. The first calls money speech and works to limit the press, assembly, and makes Christianity somehow able to dictate what employers can do and employees have to put up with and more. The second, OMG, white people should be able to open carry weapons everywhere, except in the Supreme Court, of course. The rest of the amendments are only used if the Court can twist them to give their friends whatever they want. Hell, according to Alito and Thomas, women and people of color aren't even in the Constitution!
Funny about that bullshit argument that it's nowhere to be found in The Constitution, ain't it ‽
Wanker? Isn’t he running for Senate in Georgia?
Herschel, indeed! LOL!
Girl Scientist, yes, journalistic malpractice! I like that term. The quality of coverage of the midterm campaigns was less than stellar. The various media felt they had to present candidates as though they were of equal quality which, I think, is in itself a lie. An election-denier is definitely not as worthy to run as someone who has actually serve the constituents. A January 6th insurgent is not of the same quality as someone who actually cares about the people of their community or state. Just because an insurgent says something does not mean it has to be reported. I don't care who pays for it. If candidates want to put out lies and to gaslight, they can pay for ads, where pretty much anything is allowed.
I hate to see so much coverage of tfg.
it's not jounalism, it's stenography. journalists don't print lies (knowingly). the media prints what it's told to print. journalism has nothing to do with it.
Paul, I think you are right saying what most media are doing is not journalism. When lies are either said or repeated, those who are doing it are something other than journalists depending on the severity of the statement or support of the repeated lie. It took "journalists" 2 years and more before they would identify any of the myriad lies Trump told as lies. They repeated them and would hint that it was just what Trump said, but they couldn't manage the word "lie." Most still have trouble with the word for what the claims actually are, "lies." They will say, "no evidence, mostly false" (but don't say what part is true), "not really correct, not true," and some other similar words and phrases. Maybe if the respected journalists had used the word "lie" more often and made note of what was a lie and why it was false, Trump may not have gotten so far. Then there is accountability. When so many Republicans who participated in the insurrection have not been held accountable, people come to believe Democrats are the ones lying about what happened. Well, they're not! The media need to make that very clear.
Brilliant summary Robert, of, hopefully, the dying days of the most heinous douchebag against democracy and global stability.
Trump's rise can only be pointed to all the dumb media lobotomised Americans who do not have the capacity for independent thinking and follow Trump like zombies.
If the problems created by this narcissist was only quarantined within the US borders there would be no issues. However, America's morons' tentacles reach the far corners of the globe and therein lies a potential massive political pandemic.
Thank you for your insightful comments.
I was asked to write an article about Professor Reich on Substack until I figure that out I will post it here:
Professor Reich has been a fixture in academia and American politics for decades. As Secretary of Labor he was responsible for raising the minimum wage among his many other achievements for the working class. His blog has provided many with his unique and powerful insights into the American political system. He also taught a free "Wealth and Poverty " course for which I proudly earned a "Certificate of Completion". His sober analyses are sprinkled with his wit and his own personal experiences making otherwise difficult subjects more enjoyable.
Hear Hear !! I do admire brief, succinct and accurite posts like this one. Cudos for your Statement !! And Cudos for Robert Reich and his efforts to keep us educated and informed.
Thank you!
I really enjoyed Murdock's means of handling it:"Florida Man Makes Announcement." And all I have to say is do your job Garland.
Trump had a strange look when he returned to the stage for his bigly announcement. It was not the look of excitement, as you would expect. It was more like a daze, or deep reflection like he was thinking of his secret Rosebud from childhood.
He was "low energy." He did not seem present. But if you're going to tell all those hum dingers about the country going down the tubes since Biden was elected, and how great everything was before that, you're clearly not connected to reality in the first place.
Perhaps the look was... I wish I could smile and scream, but I can't move my damn face because of all the Botox!
Some crazy guy was ranting in Florida Tuesday night....I think his name started with a T. Not sure. But on to the real news. Every potential Republican candidate for the Presidency is a mortal threat to democracy because none of them back voting rights and they all thrive on dark money from oligarchs to buy elections.
Most of them are flight risks and belong in Guantanamo.
Goober Youngkin (tRump Ultra Lite) just came out with new state standards for teaching history. They are called the SOLs (not kidding). They redact MLK and Juneteenth from the curriculum. Wonder if they will mention the Confederacy or the KKK.
He sounds like he thinks he's an emperor!
Spoiled-Brat Baby is living proof that if you're born to wealth, you don't have need a lot of brain power in the U.S. So sad yet so very true.
All you need is a strong desire to get what you want at all costs! Your wealth will keep others doing your dirty work.
tRump will give more 'tax breaks' to the obscenely wealthy who support him, no doubt, if he can.
He's not likely to have that power again.
Thanks, Robert. Keep it up. I’m concerned about 2 years of Rethuglicans controlling the House.
They've got to lead now, but they wont do that for the middle class. Tax cuts have to be paid for too. All their rhetoric translates to failed policy.
Note: Trump was necessary as a GOP candidate because he was not connected to failed Republican policy. They needed a blank policy slate that they could paint as "a businessman."
Maybe I have psychic eyeglasses, but I mis(?)-read this as Trump's last bank". Whatever happens, he will use this as an opportunity to milk his base.
Reporters and political pundits have suggested in post-election commentary that the country owes a debt of gratitude to Biden for his steadfast and humble performance during the recent elections. I think so too. But I can't see that the country owes any sympathy nor do we owe any of our attention to old bone spur. From an emotional stance, the one thing we probably could do, should do, is feel sorry for the miserable folks who have no better idea than to linger in the sway of tangerine twatwaddle's ongoing narcissism and self-pity. He is the victim, he claims. Well, NO. The real victims are those folks in the MAGAGA movement, probably mostly nice people, who just can't seem to pull away from the distorted, hateful, violent false reality projected by that man and his fringe group supporters. Let's hope that most people will start to see through the scam for what it is, even if they do so slowly, and let's reserve a bit of generosity for any Republicans who recover their good sense.
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Pensive!
Donald Hodgins <silencenotbad@gmail.com>
6:28 AM (0 minutes ago)
to 360
I watched the interview with the EX-VP Mike Pence on CNN last night. I was pushed back by his inability to apply blame for anything Trump had done. The people of this country needed to know the truth behind Trump's folly. Pence could have with one sentence told the people the truth concerning the Ex-president's inability to lead. Mike Pence was asked the question if he thought Trump should ever be allowed to be President again. Two letters strung together to form a negative response would have sealed the fate of the EX-president. NO, was all he had to say. The failure of Pence to put a fine point on the issue made me wonder if the EX-VP had the makeup necessary to run for office himself. He acted weak in a position that required strength. Pence, after the mob scene at the capital, could never muster enough votes to get the nomination. Trump's mob shouted "hang Pence" I really find it hard to believe those crazies at the capital would ever consider voting for the man they wanted to lynch. The intestinal fortitude required to be president seems to be missing from Pence's composition. A weak leader is something we are all too familiar with, we don't need another one. The administration composed of Trump and Pence needs to be put to rest, new blood is needed to find a better place.
I saw it, too. He does not display Presidential timber.
No fire in the belly? He should try eating pizza before bedtime.