Al Gore made some serious mistakes in 2000 — not having Bill campaign with him, picking Lieberman — but establishment media’s anti-Clinton/Gore jihad is the main reason the race was so close. If you’re not up-to-speed on this topic, Bob Somerby has devoted even more words to it than it deserves. I’ll give a quick Billy Joel-style rundown of American politics from 1999 to 2003: “Earth tones, Gore lactating, Chris Matthews pontificating, cowboy king, another war, I can’t take it anymore”.
It’s happening again.
Krugman:
True fact: I was reluctant to write today's col because I knew journos would hate it. But it felt like a moral duty https://t.co/ldee224frl
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) September 5, 2016
So I would urge journalists to ask whether they are reporting facts or simply engaging in innuendo, and urge the public to read with a critical eye. If reports about a candidate talk about how something “raises questions,” creates “shadows,” or anything similar, be aware that these are all too often weasel words used to create the impression of wrongdoing out of thin air.
And here’s a pro tip: the best ways to judge a candidate’s character are to look at what he or she has actually done, and what policies he or she is proposing. Mr. Trump’s record of bilking students, stiffing contractors and more is a good indicator of how he’d act as president; Mrs. Clinton’s speaking style and body language aren’t. George W. Bush’s policy lies gave me a much better handle on who he was than all the up-close-and-personal reporting of 2000, and the contrast between Mr. Trump’s policy incoherence and Mrs. Clinton’s carefulness speaks volumes today.
Trentrunner
“…creates ‘shadows'” was direct shade at NYT’s own reporting. Nicely done, Krugman.
Let’s hope this pushback from outlets most journos read and respect (Vox, Atlantic, New Yorker, now Krugman) works. Because they’ve clearly lost the plot.
cmorenc
But the MSM can’t have a horse-race without putting a horse-face on the candidates. Without the innuendo from Clinton’s SoS days, foundation days, and so on back to Vince Foster/Whitewater days, all they’ve got on Clinton is a policy wonk with a ton of connections throughout the national and international power structure. BO-ring, when over here in Trump. we have a talking mule, MUCH more interesting subject-matter, but still not much of a horse race unless the MSM covers Clinton enough like a horse to make the horse-race narrative credible. The horse race narrative is both much easier work for the MSM to cover, and purportedly lots more interesting than a policy-wonk-fest.
tofubo
4th estate => 5th column not good for illumination & explanation
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Trentrunner: PK threw several strong punches at the Times reporting (within the contract constraints he has about not criticizing Times people by name, etc.). E.g. (as pointed out downstairs) using a WP link for Trump’s Bondi payment. It was clearly mainly directed at the Times, and I’m sure that’s why he feels especially reticent about it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Humdog
The why of it all really stumps me. I cannot see any reason for their slant so I wonder if it is subconscious for the NYT? Their awake mind cannot prefer Trump to Clinton.
schrodinger's cat
MSM’s influence has decreased since 2000. We have to see how much.
Sean
All the journalists want the journalists to write about facts and not innuendo and fake scandal.
Somebody needs to go first.
schrodinger's cat
@Humdog: If there is no horse race, no one is going to click their election related stories. They are lazy. This is the only prism through which they can cover the elections.
Emma
I think this time the candidate — and us — will be more prepared to fight back. We need to keep hammering at them and GOTV!
Also, no matter how much the “DC elite” tries, the vast majority of the communities of color will rather vote for a one-eyed drunken moose than for Trump.
scav
@Trentrunner: Continued respect for K-Thug. But even more than journalists, whatever corporate management level now substituting for editors and higher levels setting their agenda and driving the plot need to be thwacked hard too.
Immanentize
@Humdog: maybe Trump and Stone have some solid dirt on Punch and Pinch? Totally possible re: Junior Salzberger
ETA One of my former colleagues is married into that family. Her husband is a loyal Times company man, but gossipy.
Mathguy
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s true, but the same kind of “horse race” nonsense pervades everything. It’s really been difficult for Clinton to even response to the BS, let alone change the conversation to something useful to voters.
Elizabelle
@Humdog: I don’t see how it could be subconscious at this point. It’s so damn blatant, with the coverage (scandals!) and noncoverage (serious policy proposals) of all things Clinton.
Is is a generational divide, where these reporters don’t know what actually happened in the 1990s, and it’s always been innuendo and conventional wisdom to them?
Are there no editors? Worse, are there editors with an agenda? I have really started wondering about headline writing, as a profession. They’re so far off the actual article, so often. That’s not a mistake.
Elizabelle
@scav: I am curious if the Times is actually losing any subscribers.
Have been tempted to cancel my sub, in protest, but I do depend on them for the non-ridiculous (ie. non Election 2016, as covered by their crack political team) coverage. What to do?
Kay
I agree. I think that’s why older or longer-term Democrats are so panicky. They know how this story ends. I think what gets to me is the blandness of it. How it was and is treated as routine-just an atmospheric condition that is the natural order of things. They never see the import of their actions while it’s happening. That was horrifying to watch once- twice seems cruel.
msdc
There’s no question that the major media outlets (esp. the NYT) will try to Gore Clinton, but HRC isn’t running the kind of campaign that can be Gored so easily. She’s seen the Gore campaign and the Obama campaigns, and she’s emulating the right ones. It’s kind of refreshing to belong to the organized party for a change.
And then there’s the other side of the ticket. Dubya’s claim to be a uniter, not a divider was ridiculous on the face of it, but he at least had the demeanor to play the part for a willing media. Trump… not so much.
I don’t think the media have the power to swing this one. I think the worst they can do will be to continue to smear Clinton with a mostly unearned reputation for dishonesty, and prime the pump for endless Republican “investigations.” Which is bad enough, and makes it all the more important that we turn out the vote, run up the score, and try to take the House and Senate back so they don’t get the chance to put on Whitewater 2: Benghazi Boogaloo, because that show never ends.
JPL
@Elizabelle: That’s how I feel. These days, I skip the politics page. Patrick Healy’s cast a shadow over the entire newspaper. He must be so proud.
Politically Lost
Well, it’s not their job to fact check and it certainly isn’t their job to take a side … so all they can do is report the corrupt duopoly
Kay
It’s way worse, too, because with Bush there was a record. The warnings were based on a record. Trump is the whole possible universe of horrible outcomes. Talk about reap the whirlwind. Jesus are WE screwed, huh? A wing and a prayer.
Elizabelle
I wonder if the constant derision of Clinton might impel her voters all the more to the polls. I cannot wait to vote.
My reader comment on the Krugman column was not published. So far. Think it might be because I called out two of the worst NY Times reporters — Patrick Healy and Amy Chozick — by name. Neither of them has any business covering politics; they’re horrible.
Pogonip
I just got an ad in Spanish. First one I’ve ever got on Balloon Juice.
Speaking of ads, can one of you front pagers PLEASE get rid of that one of the poor woman in the black dress with the badly swollen face? I am so sick of that I even tried clicking on it. It still comes back–the zombie ad from Hell!
patrick II
The ads I would love to see from Clinton or one of her super pacs is to find some of those 3,500 contractors Trump bilked. Then I would interview them and find a few who looked/sounded good on TV. Then I would make an ad that started like an ordinary ad for constructing a kitchen, pouring concrete, whatever and with a picture of some of the work they had done including that for Trump. I would finish by letting these guys tell the public how they had done this good work for Trump, but that Trump stole from them by refusing to pay his bills and bullying them with big money when they tried to go to court.
I think seeing some of the small business/working people Trump actually cheated instead of talking about it in the abstract would be an effective ad.
Pogonip
Today’s goodmorningkitten.com. : a cute gray kitten and a sweet story of how the owner rescued it. Balloon Juice readers will love it. Enjoy!
scav
@Elizabelle: Traditionally, one could also count on a concern for not damaging the brand reputation alongside the subscriptions, but if their business team has Trumpiteis, they’ll figure the bad publicity and reputation is just as much a success as any good reputation.
Immanentize
@JPL: maybe Healy has something to do with it, but don’t kid yourself, the Times is a family newspaper business. Should people people blame his editors or Hearst? Same with the Times, just more subtle.
debbie
@Kay:
Can’t help but notice you’re sounding less and less confident that Clinton has this.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
The facts contradict their argument. Trump has had constant media exposure. We know nothing more about him now than we knew in January. In some ways I know LESS. They’re introduced this whole speculative “motive” narrative- what he MIGHT be up to. They take his words and say “well,he probably meant something else”. We know LESS.
Immanentize
@patrick II: I suspect you will see plenty of ads like that in October. Probably related to some topic she raises in the first debate.
Roger Moore
@Humdog:
I think they’re still smarting over the 1990s. The Times went all in on the fake Clinton scandals back then and came up empty. They’re like the police who justify framing people by claiming the people they framed were gang members and thus were surely guilty of something terrible, even if they weren’t guilty of the specific crime for which they were framed. They don’t really care whether any particular scandal is true or not; they’re so sure of the Clintons’ generalized guilt that they just want to nail them for something.
Kay
@debbie:
Well, what I think doesn’t mean anything. The people I talk to take nothing for granted because they’re (essentially) powerless. That’s my circle. I was going to do what I was going to do regardless of the odds, so in a real way it doesn’t matter to me- it doesn’t drive action or inaction.
msdc
@Kay: @debbie: Panicking doesn’t win elections.
Ruviana
@Pogonip: Is it the one where she’s talking to Larry King?
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle:
IIRC Pam Spaulding in 2008 explained Hillary’s surprise victory in New Hampshire by calling out this exact phenomenon and dubbing it, in (dis)honor of Chris Matthews, “The Tweety Effect.”
Troublesome Carp fka Geeno
This is how I want the “horse race” to go.
Davis X. Machina
@Roger Moore: It’s the Curse of the Sulzbergers.
Forty-plus years ago, the Post got Watergate, and got Nixon. The damned Post — a company paper in a one-industry town, kept afloat by its TV stations! Not the Gray Lady, the Paper of Record!
Until the Times has its scalp, there will be no peace.
It’s not the Times’ fault. It’s not the Clinton’s fault. It’s Werner Herzog’s fault.
Kay
@debbie:
The truth is I always believe I will win on some level. It’s either optimism or delusion, right? It works for me. I’d rather be disappointed once than 100 times :)
Kay
@msdc:
I agree but “panicking” is a very real part of the Democratic base. They’re not going to change into strutting Republicans, and there’s nothing magical about confidence anyway. I heard again and again how Obama was “toast” from Republicans here in 2012. They were plenty confident. They just didn’t win.
Tripod
@Humdog:
What is there to understand. The current generation of those in news media who have the power to dictate coverage are some combination of white, male, conservative and not going to cross their bosses.
Tripod
@Davis X. Machina:
That, and progressives of a certain age think those publications current coverage will reflect what they were fifty years ago.
The Dangerman
@msdc:
Therein lies the problem. She’s told some whoppers over the years; they all, do, of course, so it’s not like she’s any different, but she’s the anti-teflon candidate for some reason.
/sniper fire
Mike E
So much time, so little
to doconcern…strike that; reverse it.Kathleen
@Elizabelle: I don’t remember where I saw this (perhaps it was a tweet or a commenter here) but I am thinking that they may be actual Trump supporters. Wouldn’t that be the simplest, most straightforward explanation that might also account for their skewed coverage on African Americans (“thugs” vs. “Boys Will Be Boys”). It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
SenyorDave
Somebody pointed out on TV this morning that Donald Trump has been less vetted than a candidate for city council would have been. Obviously Clinton’s campaign will have to do the vetting. How much does Trump owe foreign creditors? I hope Clinton is spending big money to investigate him financially. Because a significant portion of the electorate still sees Trump as shrewd businessman instead of a con man with a fortune that may well be a house of cards.
I’m convinced that Clinton has to go negative, go after his business practices, go after his history of racism. then the MSM might have to address these issues just to fact check the ads.
Mike J
Related,see this thread of tweets from Nate Silver matching poling with cycles of Trump friendliness.
Tripod
@srv:
So Trump’s upside is a +130 electoral college drubbing Obama\RMoney style.
Sounds about right.
msdc
@Kay:
Yes–the part that’s gotten used to losing (and is sometimes disappointed when they don’t).
As for the rest of it, I’ll take data and organization over confidence any day, and at the moment none of those warrant the hair-pulling, sky-is-falling rhetoric either.
Kay
@SenyorDave:
It’s true. That it took them 18 months to figure that out is terrifying. This AG thing might be productive because there are public officials and public records involved- they don’t need Trump to voluntarily disclose which is what they have been relying upon, his good faith disclosures, which is mind=blowing all by itself. They are wholly relying on Donald Trump to vet Donald Trump.
NY actually investigated Trump U. Maybe the NY AG’s records can shed some light here.
Troublesome Carp fka Geeno
@Kay: Sounds like a FOIA request.
Kathleen
@Kay: I experienced that same sinking feeling during Whitewater hearings, Clinton’s impeachment and the run up to Iraq War. To quote the young woman in Casablanca who, after asking Rick if she would be “bad” if she accepted Captain Renault’s proposition in order to get their transit papers, says “The devil has the people by the throat” in reference to the country from which they escaped. I’ve thought about that line quite often in the past 25 years while watching the media stir people into a frenzy.
Kathleen
@Roger Moore: The Captain Ahab’s of the Village hunting for Moby Bill.
Roger Moore
@The Dangerman:
Probably because there’s been a giant right-wing conspiracy dedicated to sliming her and her husband. It’s amazing what 30+ years of slander will do to somebody’s reputation.
debbie
@Kay:
I don’t think Schneiderman’s closed the investigation in NY yet. Googling around, there’s a HuffPo post about Trump’s allegations that Obama bribed Schneiderman to investigate Trump U. Talk about deflection!
Kathleen
@SenyorDave: In Manslime MediaSpeak “citing facts” equals “going negative”.
Kay
@debbie:
I think the question for the state AG’s was whether they would join an investigation. They do that in those multi-state investigations- states join. So maybe NY AG knows if Fl and/or TX indicated they would join NY and then dropped it.
The Dangerman
@Roger Moore:
Again, therein lies the lesson; probably better to have a candidate without the reputation.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Emma:
So you’re saying Palin has a chance?
sherparick
@schrodinger’s cat: They also know that Drudge, Breitbart, Newsmax, and Fox Nation will link their anti-Clinton stories and will not link their Trump stories unless partial to Trump. They do crave those conservative clicks.
scav
Apparently Chris Wallace could be replaced by a good alarm clock and powerpoint stack and he aspires to nothing better. For once, Powerpoint might be the more attractive option.
Shell
“weasel words” is being kind.
Kay
How’s Day 543 of the email investigation going? I no longer listen to “questions raised” bullshit. They found nothing and they’re too dishonest to admit it. Put up or shut up time came and went a long time ago.
ruemara
I don’t think they’re Trump supporters but I think the allure of righteous hatred at the not right candidate is too hard to pass up. They were fawning over “populist” (white male anecdotes to the uppity black guy with the temerity to not jump at everything the right people said) choices. They got Clinton. Sanders has the lustre of new and different and penis owning. She’s not a hot babe, she’s not a radical activist with a safe record of losing, she’s a solid political player who’s largely good with a small pile of bad. Ergo, she should be destroyed.
Trump is a media buffoon who’s every foul utterance sells ad space. He’s so cartoonishly evil, it becomes very easy for progressives™ & Serious Journalists® to say it just wouldn’t be so bad, he’s just performing antics. Marginalized people simply cannot afford to take those risks. These guys aren’t marginalized.
Ok, brekkie over. I have to go do some work. And smoke this here trip-tip in the oven while I put old job projects to bed.
ruemara
Hey I’m in moderation but I don’t know why.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Anyone want to bet Krugman looses his gig over this column ?
Emma
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Nope. She has two eyes even if one blinks at random times.
ruemara
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: I think he’s too respected & brings in readers & sharing. That’s their life blood. However, wouldn’t be the first time management didn’t get what an employee was worth.
Joel
The difference is that the national press has no power anymore. That’s an alarming development but it’s their fault as much as anyone’s.
Roger Moore
@The Dangerman:
I don’t think this is as obvious as you do. Yes, Clinton has a well established reputation, but that has a positive side. It means that there’s not much the Republicans can do to move the needle by slandering her further; people who haven’t been convinced already probably aren’t going to be convinced by any new lies the Republicans concoct. John Kerry is a good example of how somebody with a good but not well established reputation can be brought down by a well run slander campaign. Anyone who thinks Bernie wouldn’t have been incredibly vulnerable to the same kind of thing is deluding themselves.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@SenyorDave: She addressed his racism. They yawned and brought up the emails.
Roger Moore
@ruemara:
You mentioned a body part Bernie and Trump have that Hillary doesn’t.
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman:
Oh man. That is a fucking good one. Pull the other one, would you? It’s got bells on.
Mike E
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: He’ll step away/retire before he’s ever fired. Jesus… look who writes regularly for these rags, and then ask yourself if there’s any consequence to printing a shitty column. Ever.
edited to remove an errant reply subject
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Mike E: Yeah, but usually those shitty columns are written “against” Democrats. Writing a column criticizing the hardworking, Pulitzer prize winning, journos maybe too much.
Corner Stone
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: He has some kind of agreed upon “red line” that he has obliquely referenced a few times. This article does not cross it, to my reading.
It’s really not all that harsh or devastating in and of itself. It does starkly make his point though, and the prominence of the real estate used is/could be impactful.
Roger Moore
@Mike E:
It depends on the shitty column. Columns that are shitty because they are flagrantly dishonest in service of The Narrative are exactly what those columnists are being hired for. Columns that are shitty because they take a dump all over The Narrative and point out that the emperor has no clothes can be a firing offense.
The Dangerman
@Roger Moore:
FWIW, I’m not a Sanders person. This year, nobody rocked my world. Obama spoiled me rotten.
As for a reputation being a positive, that’s probably correct and Hillary will win. My disappointment is if there is any year where there should be a wave election for the Left, this is it. Trump is historically bad (by a LOT) . Sadly, I don’t feel a wave coming but I could be proved happily wrong.
Mike E
@Roger Moore: I suppose I’d rather bet you than Tilda, but no K-thug removal over this call out of our indolent press. Speculation is fun tho amirite?
hovercraft
@Elizabelle:
The agenda is to have a ‘race’, a cake walk is bad for business. As to the question of ‘seasoned’ reporters and editors, they are some of the worst. You have to remember back to the nineties when the ‘Clintons” arrived in DC having defeated the patrician Poppy Bush, they were regarded as unsophisticated hicks, who did not know the ways of DC. They refused to bow down before the villagers and rightly pushed back, which in turn made the villagers more vicious, which made the Clintons more defensive. This is the same media that was aware of many high profile people who were having affairs and they looked the other way. The republicans using the likes of David Bossie were looking through the Clintons garbage and raising baseless questions. The media has always gone along with the GOP in insisting that everything they have ever touched be investigated while republicans can say and do virtually anything with minimal scrutiny. The Clintons and the media have a hate hate relationship, and despite everything the media has written and said about them they are still popular. This “there are questions narrative” will never end, Hillary just needs to stick to her game plan and GOTV. The media acting like spending August fundraising is new and unusual, is another bullshit story. I guess I have an amazing memory, because I remember stories before and after the Olympics telling me not to expect to see the candidates too much because August is the month when the candidates organize and fund raise in preparation for the final sprint. Now suddenly the fact that she’s been doing just that shows that she’s out of touch and focused on rich people? These people are scum, they hate the fact that she has been able to get this far while holding them at arms length, I just heard Mrs Greenspan griping about this being the latest that the press has gotten on the candidates plane, and then grudgingly tacking on that the press is not on Trump’s plane either. Funny how that’s the first mention of the latter that I’ve heard.
Obama has been a horrible president for the DC media, he has circumvented them as much as possible, talking to local media and bloggers and other outlets, and communicating directly to citizens/ voters through social media and Whitehouse.gov . He has openly showed his disdain for them, and the last thing they want is another president in the same vein, they are afraid that she will accelerate their marginalization. They are also bored by everything Clinton, these two ‘scandals’ that they have been pursuing for the last year and a half have produced nothing, they keep digging because they are desperate, but there’s nothing except ‘optics’. Trump is entertaining, so what if he’ll blow up the world, at least they’ll be playing on the deck as the world goes down.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@The Dangerman: It’s still very early. The fall campaign hasn’t really started yet.
Trump is bankrupting the RNC (from August 27):
The GOP can’t win without resources. We’ve still got a great chance to run up the score in the fall. Eyes on the prize…
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
If the NY Times were stupid enough to lose Krugman, I think they’d see a lot of subscribers head for the exits.
Many of us sure don’t subscribe for Bobo Brooks or the Clinton Derangement on constant display.
And that’s what makes the Times’ slant this year so interesting to me. Why are they doing it? The rightwingers probably don’t pay for the newspaper they deplore, and doesn’t a newspaper need subscribers as well as advertisers?
Steeplejack (tablet)
@ruemara:
“Penis.”
scav
@Mike E: I was in the middle of replying along similar lines that there’s not a strong reason to assume the probability of firing was symmetric over all possible connotations of the word “shitty”. Might be, might not be. Normally I’d think they’d keep with the clicks generated, but the bias is getting pretty overt so I hesitate slightly about making firm prognostications (still lean unlikely).
Elizabelle
@hovercraft: Good comment.
By shabby “view from nowhere” scandal-mongering reporting, the media has accelerated their own damn marginalization. I wish they would realize that pandering to, or being concerned with, the rightwing wurlitzer has destroyed their own credibility. And now they’re being colonized — Politico alumni are landing gigs throughout the establishment media. Megyn Kelly is very likely to end up at CNN.
The New York Times is such a sad case. I will not be able to look at them the same, from here out. Just glad they give some column space to Paul Krugman. I think he’s window dressing for them. They’ve lost the plot.
germy
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Last week’s New Yorker magazine has a cartoon of an empty field with a deserted road going through it. Caption: “Sightings to date of Tilda Swinton in Kansas”
shomi
Doug tacky lyric title J is looking at his always wrong crystal ball again. Once again he is indulging in his favorite obession. How Republicans and the Media are like totally going to do in Hillary and charge her with a crime or impeach or ruin her election.
Thankfully, DougJ is right about as often as Bill Krystol
Kay
@Elizabelle:
The job sucks though. I know cable anchors are paid a lot but Fox is a sewer. Imagine working there with that gross pig trolling the hallways and threatening people. It must be soul-destroying bad work. They didn’t know that was going on? Please.
Chris
@cmorenc:
The media certainly loves a horse race. But I also don’t believe for a second that if the Democrats turned out a candidate as extreme, unqualified, and antidemocratic as Trump, the media would maintain any pretense of equivalence just to keep the race interesting. They’d be all-in behind the Republican with no questions asked.
The media has simply been wired for Republicans all my life. And even with Trump running, they’re finding it impossible to break the habit.
Roger Moore
@Mike E:
If I were a gambling man, I would bet that KThug won’t be fired over this. He avoided directly slagging his colleagues at the Times by name while still making it completely clear what he was talking about. As long as he manages that, he may annoy his (secondary) employer but hasn’t committed a technical firing offense.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
The Right, with its bullying, has totally cowed the media. Remember the cries of “Traitor!” in the lead-up to Iraq? It began before that, but they totally amped up the volume, and their idiot supporters knew no better.
It doesn’t matter whether conservatives buy their papers (and they do, of course), they’ll still condemn them loudly, no matter how far to the right the media tacks. Which is sad because they can’t win the Right’s approval, so they might as well report what they actually know, just like their forerunners.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I’d love Roger Ailes to take down as many careers as he made, on his way out.
Also, I think we will all feel a lot better once we get out there, talking to actual Democratic voters and persuadables. Sometimes it’s best to get away from the internets.
The media presents a very skewed version of what is not always reality. Yes, the media treatment of Clinton scares me. But we can outwork them, and we have better candidates, all along the spectrum. It’s why they have to lie and obscure so much.
I do wonder about the Koch Brothers’ alleged multimillion dollar GOTV operations. How well will they work, with Trump as the headliner?
I’d guess there are a lot of women, Democrats and not, who are waiting to cast a vote for Hillary; they’re sick of the misogyny.
We can win this. It’s why they’re sapping our morale with these fraudulent stories.
debbie
@Roger Moore:
You don’t think linking to the Post’s coverage of the Trump U. scam was a kind of slagging?
Elizabelle
@debbie: It was masterful.
If we’re disgusted, how do you think K-Thug feels?
sukabi
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: I clicked over and read his whole editorial, thinking after reading your comment that it must have been a blistering indictment of the NYT and other info outlets… disappointment doesn’t begin to describe my feelings.
If Krugman loses his gig as a result of that editorial, then we, have much bigger problems. It means that we cannot trust our “news organizations” with providing even a sliver of light to shine thru. It means that their agenda does not include truth or justice or even an exposition of facts good or bad, but that they are playing a game that does not involve the best interests “of the people or the country”. And yes, that’s been true for a long time, what’s different now, is that IF THEY CHOSE to actually commit an act of journalism, all they’d have to do is peruse some public records and they could write the expose of their lifetime. Pretty sure New York City and NY State keeps public records. Bet there is a whole shelf or two devoted to D. Trump’s shady business practices. You can’t be sued 3200+ times and not generate public records.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Elizabelle:
I would like to think that they don’t know their audience, but I fear that they actually do.
David Brooks has been on their OpEd page since September 2003.
They’re spending a bundle on their web page and must have all kinds of metrics about who is reading it.
Unfortunately, there aren’t as many people who self-identify as “liberal” as who self-identify as “conservative” according to the NORC’s GSS (and self-identified “moderates” are larger than either group).
It’s probably a lost cause to expect that the NY Times is going to change their political coverage. Yes, let them know that their coverage annoys you, but don’t expect them to change.
Where should we go instead? Here, ThinkProgress (though their redesigned web page is annoying), Dean Baker’s Beat The Press blog at CEPR, RawStory are in my list of daily skims for news.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
It was definitely slagging The Times, but it wasn’t doing it by name, which sounds as if it’s the red line he isn’t supposed to cross. He can always respond that he would have been happy to link to his own paper’s coverage, but he can’t because there hasn’t been any.
piratedan
@The Dangerman: well in counterpoint to that, its not as if these fuckers are above simply making shit up no matter who the nominee… ex. John Kerry, winner of a Purple Heart.
Until we get something resembling an impartial media, I think we’re continuing to fight battles with one hand behind out backs… The people claim that Clinton has no policies, and yet she does. Her web page is chock full of positions. Outlined in detail. Have we heard a single piece in the MSM about any of that? It’s the same breathless hope of out tigerbeat on the Potomic speculating that there will be some e-mail, given to someone that will show that there may have been one actual impropriety… meanwhile, 3K lawsuits are on the dockets in various and sundry jurisdictions that show that Trump has stiffed, defrauded and misrepresented himself throughout the country thru the various business enterprises that he controls and the most meaningful nugget in the MSM is a non-existent pivot attempting to show how very fucking presidential he is on his heartless and cruel immigration policy.
It’s not to say that there isn’t real journalism going on, but it sure as fuck isn’t on the front pages or treated as the lead story.
scav
Modern business/management practice has amply demonstrated that there’s as much personal profit to be made in driving a company into the ground as there is in maintaining it for the long haul. So there aren’t really any choke-chains to pull on anymore if the highest ups decide to go walkabout and do whatever they damn well fancy with institutions in private hands. Shareholders might revolt, but that will likely kick in later after the water is really running over the gunnels.
Feathers
There’s a reason why “just asking questions” gets shortened to “JAQing off” on the feminist twittersphere. The issue with JAQing isn’t the question, it’s that the asker doesn’t care about the answer. Or to be more precise, doesn’t care about the truth. This is proven with the refusal to accept the answer(s) given.
Why? Usually because the person being JAQed at isn’t seen as being credible enough to change the JAQS mind about whatever topic the “question” covers. It’s really just an insanely lazy way to go through life. Wafting about in an air of self-regard, “asking questions” of people whose opinions on the matter you don’t care about.
Once again, the Obama campaign opened up a “discussion on race,” but the Clinton campaign isn’t getting us to talk about misogyny.
Villago Delenda Est
My nym. Again and again.
JPL
@sukabi: He has been sued a lot, but he also sues people who he feels crossed him a lot. Mr. Trump can I please have the thirty dollars you owe me? No, now I’m getting my lawyer on the line, because you insulted me.
germy
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Agreed, but I often find myself getting pissed at the rawstory editors for being too clickbaity and misleading in their headlines and articles. Too much exaggeration. Someone is always “totally destroying” someone else on a cable program, when the clip shows them politely disagreeing. I understand sites are desperate for clicks, but I sort of resent being manipulated.
ruemara
Free the Peen! Wait…
hovercraft
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
The silver lining for them is that outside groups like the Koch Brothers outfit which remember has almost a billion dollars, are not playing in the presidential race, instead they are focusing on GOTV and down ballot races. Their biggest impediment is going to be their inability to coordinate with campaigns, but money won’t be a problem, One of the little commented upon problems with Strickland in Ohio, is that in addition to being a shitty candidate, outside groups have bombarded him with negative Ads. This is the landmine waiting out there for all of our down ballot candidates.
Villago Delenda Est
@Troublesome Carp fka Geeno: Look at the reaction of the crowd. They were not disappointed, by any means, at a blow out…in fact, they exulted in it.
The MSM is utterly worthless. That is the most exciting horse race I’ve ever seen…and it wasn’t even close.
Applejinx
@sukabi:
You know, not that Bernie would’ve been the slightest bit better off—there are people who have been saying the game is this rigged, all along.
I don’t remember any of us saying Clinton was a nogoodnik BUT the sainted media would doubtless save us. On the contrary, by now we’re counting on Clinton not being a nogoodnik, because everything else is completely and utterly fucked.
I like how Krugman linked to Post coverage. That is the most savage burn imaginable, and he’s got to know it.
Much like with Nick Hanauer and plutocrats, when things get stupid enough you’ll get some insiders breaking ranks. Revolutions only happen when the ranks of the rich and powerful include a bunch of capable and well-connected apostates.
jc
We can “urge the public to read with a critical eye.” But it may already be too late for that. Most folks today are poorly informed, swamped and don’t have the time or resources to figure out the political truth on their own.
The most thoughtful, trustworthy analysis I see comes from blogs like this one, not from mainstream, corporate sources. The MSM is more part of the problem than they are part of the solution.
germy
@efgoldman:
Unfortunately there is a “trickle down” effect from their opinion leadership. Their “suspicions” get repeated on TV and radio news. People who never read a newspaper or do online research hear the anti-Clinton stuff while getting their kids ready for school or enjoying their morning coffee before work.
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: To the barricades.
You are right, efg.
And we need President Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Senate, and our improved numbers in the House, to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and redo the parts of the (1996?) Telecomm Act that allowed these media-owing leviathans. Too much media consolidation; they are failing, so break them up.
Even if they’re circle jerking and fapping each other off, we badly need a functioning and responsible press. They’re not meant to be vanity enterprises and corporate PR outlets. Is a problem.
JR in WV
@Troublesome Carp fka Geeno:
That film from 1973 of Secretariat running away from the other horses in the Belmont to take the Triple Crown by breaking the record for the distance by over 2 seconds… it always makes me a little misty. The jockey just rode the horse, no use of the whip. That morning the horse was walking on his hind feet and bucking, he was so ready to run!
I love horses. Dogs and cats too, of course.
I hope Hillary is her own Secretariat, our own champion. I’m now volunteered, as well as monthly contributor, not much else I can do…
CaseyL
@Elizabelle: Well, I reached my breaking point a few days ago, and canceled. I’d been a subscriber for 15 years. Though I have to say, for the last few of those years, I hadn’t read much other than the entertainment and magazine sections.
prob50
@Kay:
Well, why not? After all, Dick Cheney vetted himself for the VP gig. Nobody said “boo” about it, since Dick was supposed to be the “Adult” who would guide the likeably ignorant Boy George. A great idea, if only Dick hadn’t turned out to be a crazy freaking psychopath. I sure would like to know what sort of questions Shotgun Dick asked the prospective nominees he rejected. Probably any potential candidate who didn’t wholeheartedly support invading Iraq, overthrowing Hussein and installing that Dick’s favorite Iraqi exile was dismissed out of hand.
sukabi
@JPL: well of course he does, points to his “character”, I had added a bit to my comment, but it didn’t take… the nyt and other info outlets are willfully, actively doing everything in their power to ignore, hide, and cover-up any and all Trump questionable activities, while simultaneously making a grand performance of “getting to the bottom of” Clinton’s emails, foundation, ect.
They have become less useful than tits on a boar, and are working on besting FOX in the “we’ve got the most ill-informed readers/viewers in the US of fucking A”.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@hovercraft: Yup. Outside money is a problem. But Kochs’s and Turdblossom’s (earlier) money hasn’t actually been all that effective (except in isolated cases). Let’s see…
Policy.Mic on how the Koch Brothers spent $643M and have little to show for it on the policy side.
Yes, money matters. It matters a lot. But it’s just one part of the picture and Trump is missing lots of the other puzzle pieces.
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
PsiFighter37
I think Hillary spending all of August fundraising was a strategic mistake that will make the election be much closer than it should have been. She should have been spending that time carpet-bombing the Donald in marginal states when he was at his weakest.
debbie
@Roger Moore:
I took the no naming to mean all of them. I could be wrong. By the way, I think MoDo’s said far worse and she’s still there.
PPCLI
Another small example of how nobody calls Trump on obvious bullshit. In his Detroit photo-op he talked about how he would build lots of stuff — including “New roads and bridges”.
“New roads and bridges”, eh? Did he mention the second bridge over the Detroit river, which has been blocked for decades by the Republicans in the Michigan legislature (bought and paid for by the corrupt owner of the Ambassador bridge)? [It isn’t just that they are bought and paid for that makes them hostile, of course. It is also that they hate Detroit because of all the Democratic voters there, and are opposed to anything that would help it.] And the Republicans are blocking it even though even the Chamber of Commerce and the big three automakers say it is necessary, it would mean lots of jobs and an economic boost to Detroit, and Canada and the Feds are willing to pay up front, with no Michigan money (they have given up on Michigan’s participation)? And I guess I should add that even Republican governor Snyder is energetically in favor and has moved heaven and earth to try to get it done). His own party still says no. (Credit to Snyder where it’s due, especially since so little credit is due him, it would be mean not to to give him this one.)
Because that is one bridge that is needed, and could have been built any time in the last 20 years, if it were not for the benevolent Republicans who just love African-Americans soooooo much, unlike the evil Democrats who run a plantation. I’m surprised that Trump didn’t talk about it. And that none of the professional journalists asked about it.\s
The Ancient Randonnuer
@Applejinx:
Most revolutions are led by people with means. Mao wasn’t born a peasant.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@germy: Yeah, RawStory has the “OMG! Click Here!!1” disease. It’s unfortunate.
Is TBogg on hiatus there? I can’t find him from the front page any more, and it looks like little has changed in his archive recently. I hope he hasn’t gone GBCW on us…
Cheers,
Scott.
Fair Economist
@sukabi:
Donahue, at the time the biggest name in TV talk shows, was fired for opposing the Iraq War. From the supposed “liberal” network, MSNBC.
We have had those problems a long time.
Kay
Have any of you seen The Queen of Versailles? It so reminds me of Trump. When they lose all their money in the crash the wife says that the little people got screwed. She means her and her husband. They were big Bush donors and at one point in the film the husband hints that he has some information on Bush stealing Florida. He’s not horrified though- he’s proud.
Gindy51
@germy: I can’t even read that site anymore. Their all in for Bernie crap drove me away fast.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv: Source? If it’s Politico, it’s crap.
Doug R
@The Dangerman: Cite your sources. Be specific.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@PPCLI: Great post.
But what are voters supposed to do? The Democrat running against these people 1) has to exist, and 2) has to be willing to say that “Bobbie Gooper voted against the bridge and has always voted against the bridge. That’s wrong. Vote for me and we’ll get the bridge built!”. Too often those two things don’t happen, so voters don’t have a choice or a way to know who to vote for to have change happen.
I don’t know much of anything about Michigan politics, but around here in NoVA there are lots of things done at the state level that are infuriating. They’re done by down-state people who have no competition in their districts due to gerrymandering and the like.
It’s a multi-year process to turn the ship of state.
Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Feathers:
To me the problem is the people asking the questions don’t consider Clinton a credible witness to events she herself experienced. That’s what jumps out at me, and there’s a real history there for women. They weren’t considered credible by themselves. That’s part of the lower status, right? She has to produce other information or people to back up her story and Trump does not. It bothers me. A lot. The same thing for Obama. He had to produce “validators” – people who were given a presumption of credibility.
grandpa john
Forget the bullshit from the MSM hyping the irrelevant natlonal polls and their supposed “narrowing” . the only polls that matter are state polls . Every site, like Sam Wang’s PEC, that gives EV count based on aggregation of state polls have had almost no change since the conventions. Sams numbers have been the same for the last 2 to 3 weeks and well over 300 for Clinton. The best nerve calmer to be found once or twice a day I click over to PEC and check the top of the page that shows Clinton 341.
sigaba
@PPCLI:
Reporting on facts and actual policy issues is just too parochial and wonky for the VSPs. What’s important is who you wanna have a beer with. Do no write what happened, people can get that for free on blogs; what marquee reporters are under pressure to produce are endless stream of non-falsifiable hypotheses on what things “mean” or how they “play” or what the “optics” are. It’s called “value added.”
Kathleen
@efgoldman: With all due respect to Mrs. EF, I want to marry your comment. Is she open to Sister Posters?
Trentrunner
@Kay: This is smart and also right. Also, depressing.
germy
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I just went there out of curiosity, and sure enough their lead headline is “Ben Carson Freaks Out Over His Missing Luggage On CNN!”
I didn’t click on the video but I suspect it’s footage of Carson saying quietly “Gee, where’s my luggage?”
Ruviana
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I recall him saying he was writing a book fwiw.
Kathleen
@efgoldman: Also, too, goat pictures. Lots and lots of goat pictures.
gene108
@debbie:
If Connie Chung’s interview with Martina Navratilova was any indication, many in the media probably believed speaking out against the Iraq war was traitorous.
I do not think the Right has bullied the media, because I think the media has always had a deference to the rich and powerful, as well as the conventional wisdom of the era. This is how we end up with the myth of blacks being predisposed to crime circulating throughout the country, the Red Scare and the post-9/11/01 coverage of wanting a war.
What the “liberal media” canard has done is create a group of voters, who will never believe negative reports on Consevatism can be accurate because the reporters are basically communists looking to destroy Real America.
This gives Reoublicans a lot of room to misbehave and still have the backing of their voters.
Roger Moore
@PsiFighter37:
I’m going to disagree. We’re counting on GOTV as the thing that’s going to win not just the presidential race but also the important down-ballot stuff. That’s going to cost a lot of money, which means a lot of fundraising. Also, that fundraising has to happen early, because building the GOTV machine also takes time, so the money has to be there early. And if you’re going to take some time off from big campaign appearances to raise money, the late summer doldrums seem like a good time to do it; people are going to be paying much closer attention in September and October than they were in August.
Kathleen
@Ruviana: I think too that he’s doing some straight up reporting vs writing his blog. I saw a post with his byline in the News section. He’s active on Twitter.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@germy: Hehe. I can’t find that at RawStory at the moment. TheHill has it, though.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who thinks Carson is a deeply weird man.)
Elizabelle
@PsiFighter37: I dunno. I think post-Labor Day Hillary and Obama and Biden and Elizabeth Warren and all the surrogates are gonna open a can of Whoop Ass on Trump. And his Republican enablers. He is not an aberration that demonically appeared amongst the Republicans.
Plus, we have got a lot of good candidates. And non-rightwing people are sick of the do nothing Congress and a Senate that won’t even consider a Supreme Court nomination.
I don’t mind Hillary fundraising, debate-prepping, and just plain resting a bit in August. It’s not like she missed any coverage in the NY Times and other papers of record. They don’t much cover her speeches and appearances.
Look — over there! Trump!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Ruviana: Thanks! I’d skimmed the archives but nothing jumped out at me.
Cheers,
Scott.
sukabi
@Fair Economist: yes I do realize that, but it seems that media/news orgs it’s gone beyond “maintain the status quo/power structure” to “let’s see what The Joker® will do”
EllenR
About ads: I started using FireFox in Privacy mode (settings), and almost all ads disappeared. Seems to hurt the Twitter feed, but everything else is fine.
Ruviana
@Roger Moore: And she was doing smaller local things that got local coverage. We might not see it nationally but it was there. Meanwhile Donnie was stepping on his own dick.
gogol's wife
@The Dangerman:
So who would your preferred candidate have been?
rikyrah
Things have changed since 2000.
1. Hillary is NOT running away from the President.
2. All hands on deck with campaigning for Hillary.
3. Social Media and its pushback
4. At the nuts and bolts level, Hillary is taking care of business.
5. It is still all about GOTV
6. SHOW ME where Trump does better with non-Whites than Willard.
germy
@Elizabelle: Campaign season is too damn long. Absurdly long. Don’t other countries accomplish the same thing in a few months? Why does this drag on for over a year?
(I know the answer. $$$)
p.a.
@germy: I was in the gym so fortunately couldn’t hear (I would have broken something), but Thurs or Fri a CNN chyron re: Clinton emails went something like this: following up on the NYT blockbuster report on Sec Clinton’s emails… This is a paraphrase EXCEPT THEY DID USE THE WORD ‘BLOCKBUSTER’.
To quote Dave Barry, “I am not making this up!”
Now re:NYT. I assume to become a REPORTER there one must have displayed exemplary competence in one’s previous employment. SO, how much of this pathetic demonstration of incompetence is driven by ownership/upper management, even down to assignment editor level. And I guess if this is true, we have to add the cravenness of the reporters for submitting to (and submitting for publication) this dreck. Does no one resign for principle anymore?
Ruviana
@Kathleen: Yes, definitely straight reporting. Tho I miss the blog.
gogol's wife
@germy:
Yes, I used to get excited at the phrase “totally destroys.” Now I know what it really means.
germy
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Holy shit… I just went back and the Carson luggage story is gone. Just a few minutes ago it was the top story, the biggest thing.
They’re fucked up over there. Are they sort of the Drudge Report of the left?
germy
@gogol’s wife: How many times have they used the word “eviscerated”?
Emerald
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Good point there, but I’m much more cynical. I think they’re doing it for straight up money. They started with botching their Whitewater coverage, which led to Gore’s almost-defeat, which led to Bush, which led to the Iraq war. They also famously botched their coverage of the Iraq war.
As the so-called “newspaper of record,” They had a large hand in creating the chaos in which the world now finds itself. All of that chaos is the lifeblood of newspapers. It generates eyes on the page and abundant clicks.
Why would they want Trump to win? Answer: same reason.
But I doubt they will fire Krugman. They’ll just ignore him.
Corner Stone
@PsiFighter37:
The final election push starts tomorrow. She has K2 in the bank and he is underwater. People who don’t pay attention aren’t going to start until maybe *maybe* the first debate in a few weeks.
Keep letting him sieg heil until then.
James E Powell
@PsiFighter37:
Respectfully disagree. The handful of movable voters are not movable in August.
HRC’s doing a good job of holding her fire. Unless Trump pulls another disastrous move that forces his number down again, nothing is going to change until the debates.
The only reason the race tightened, if it even did, is because the corporate press/media decided to prop up the Trump campaign. It’s not like it isn’t obvious. Just now I saw an MSNBC reporter positively gushing about how presidential Trump sounded in a tweet. NB – No he didn’t.
Kay
@Trentrunner:
Real US history, too:
They weren’t credible enough to serve on juries. Black people weren’t either. Not reliable witnesses. It wasn’t that long ago. It pisses me off anew every time I hear this subtext, how she needs an endless parade of witnesses and documents and endorsements and Trump does not. His word is enough, until shown to be false.
pseudonymous in nc
One of the more frustrating aspects of this w/r/t to the NYT is that the paper has decades of institutional knowledge of Trump. The people on the metro desk know that he’s got dirty hands for all of his property deals. The people on the culture & society desk knows that he shows up to charity events and never writes a check. The people on the finance desk know that the city’s actual billionaires laugh when he’s counted among their number. But for some reason, it feels like it can only report all that in snippets or hints, and the politics desk’s view-from-nowhere and long history of Whitewater look-squirrel reporting kicks in.
I don’t think this is a repeat of 2000 (or 2004). As rikyrah says, the entire top tier of Dems hits the campaign trail staring today. (It’s not really been mentioned, but on September 1 in ’08 and ’12 the conventions hadn’t even finished.) August is still the month for raising money, opening field offices, building an actual campaign.
ruemara
@PsiFighter37: Based on what? How many effective national campaigns have you run? What specific detailed strategy is “she” failing at? Honestly, the back seat candidating that fills so much free time, it amazes me. Do you know how many offices she has in any swing state? Or how many states are now swing? The HRC organization has been working on what counts, GOTV, door knocking and registration. It’s not going to get covered.
sinnedbackward
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Well, he already “loosed” it. Question is whether the stone hits anybody who hits back.
Kathleen
@efgoldman: Open minded!
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Another point: the Republican candidate is deliberately antagonizing minorities rather than courting them. It isn’t discussed as much as it should be, but W won 35% of the Hispanic vote in 2000 and 44% in 2004, and he needed those votes rather than the 25-30% other post-Reagan Republican candidates have won to tip the election. Trump isn’t going to do even that well with Hispanics.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
The PEC says the cake is baked. Il Douche is bankrupting the RNC. His GOTV effort was shit to begin with. Sure, he beats the clown car with 40% but that’s earning him bupkis in the general.
The issue isn’t the media throwing the election to Trump. The issue is expecting this same shit if/when David Duke’s the Republican nominee in 2020 and beyond. The issue is the corporate media normalizing fascism and white supremacy in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. The issue is the corporate media embracing reactionary politics, thus destroying the balance of the two party system. The issue is long term, and nobody in the big chairs gives a damn about the long term anymore.
Villago delenda est? That’s looking awfully tempting right now.
ruemara
@efgoldman: More , WE got this. All she has to do is be basic level at decent.
Roger Moore
@germy:
The big difference is that our elections are on a regular calendar rather than called according to the decisions of the governing party. If you look at the campaign schedule, it’s almost the primary campaign, not the general election. We can afford to have that long primary because the governing party can’t wrong foot the opposition by calling a snap election in the middle of their leadership struggle.
dww44
@Kay: Although late to this thread, I truly do think you underestimate your influence. You’ve gobs of political experience and work on your resumé, you live in a battleground state, you possess terrific insight, and you are able to motivate those of us who read your comments here.
Heck, my reading tells me we are on the down side right now, and while that’s disconcerting, I think it bodes well for the Democratic ticket up and down the ballot in November if we are motivated to GOTV.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
And often it’s still good after he’s been shown to be a liar. That’s the most frustrating part to me.
Corner Stone
Trump’s history of corruption is mind-boggling. So why is Clinton supposedly the corrupt one?
“In the heat of a presidential campaign, you’d think that a story about one party’s nominee giving a large contribution to a state attorney general who promptly shut down an inquiry into that nominee’s scam “university” would be enormous news. But we continue to hear almost nothing about what happened between Donald Trump and Florida attorney general Pam Bondi.”
WaPo
dww44
@msdc:
That’s a perfect description of most of the commenters over at Booman’s place and swear if they haven’t tainted him with their pessimism.
D58826
It’s not panic abou the tightening of the polls. After all Hillary still has a bigger lead than Obama did in 2008 at this point. It’s the bloody unpredictability of this years race. This time last year who would have thought that Trump would really really be the nominee? Who would have thought that with his cartoon campaign structure and outrageous statements that he would have a 30% chance of winning come November? So I would sleep better if Hillary was up by 12 points rather than 6. It just a bigger margin for error if there is an October surprise or an international crisis. And 12 points increases the chances of retaking both the House and the Senate as well as some of the state elections.
Hmmmm. maybe it is just a bit of panic:-) :-)
cckids
@patrick II:
Those would be great. Here in Nevada, Hillary’s running an ad about Trump’s clothing line being made overseas. Most of the talking in it is done by the owner of the New England Shirt Co, a small business, family-owned for generations. Shows the employees doing shirt-making jobs. The (very effective) tag line is “Donald Trump says he can’t make his shirts here, that it’s impossible. He didn’t ask us”. (paraphrasing). It works very, very well, and should resonate with union members. Hopefully it will get wider play.
D58826
@Roger Moore: And I suspect that there are a number of well respected and well read perches that he would land on if he were fired. In fact it might add to his reputation. Being willing to speak truth to power regardless of the possible fallout and all of that
Corner Stone
Donald Trump buys himself an attorney general for $25,000
“It gets even worse. After a Bondi campaign committee received a $25,000 check from the Trump Foundation, the attorney general’s office dropped its inquiry into Trump U. (In a call to the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times bureau Tuesday, Bondi protested that her office had never opened a formal investigation”
pseudonymous in nc
@Roger Moore:
Not quite. Plenty of countries have fixed or near-fixed election calendars. France’s presidential election is the closest comparison, and while there’s a longer “phony war” as candidates declare and gauge their support (thanks to US influence) the actual election campaign is pretty short.
It’s partly the immense amount of money needed to run a US campaign, it’s partly the size of the country, it’s partly the cultural belief that candidates have to spend months eating fried food in Iowa and New Hampshire and wherever.
Villago Delenda Est
You know that Cliff Richard song, “Devil Woman”?
He wasn’t singing about Hillary.
He was singing about Maureen Dowd.
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone: The most disappointing thing about this is that Bondi is such a cheap whore.
msdc
@sukabi:
Except he won’t, and the notion that he could is a bit of hyperbolic scaremongering local to this thread.
I mean, worry about the problems the media actually has, not the shit somebody here stirred up.
D58826
@gene108:
Think Dixie Chicks!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@cckids:
That ad’s been playing in NC, too.
SenyorDave
If Connie Chung’s interview with Martina Navratilova was any indication, many in the media probably believed speaking out against the Iraq war was traitorous.
I just read the interview and Chung was amazing! She decided that she was judge, jury and executioner, and the target was Navritilova. Apparently Navritilova being a naturalized citizen meant she was not permitted to speak out against the government, according to Connie Chung. Here’s a transcript:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0207/17/cct.00.html
JPL
Hillary is talking now, although with a softer voice. She was coughing and now that seems under control, but she’s allergic to something. I feel her pain.
Now MSNBC is talking about the coughing fit…
fk em
Speech is being carried on CBSN
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Villago Delenda Est: One of the most memorable bits from Randy McNally’s reminiscences about Operation Rocky Top was his utter outrage at how low the initial bribe was and, by inference, how cheaply his fellow legislators could be bought.
JPL
Hillary’s allergy attack will become the new talking point for MSM..
D58826
@JPL: Well the ‘allergy attack’ is a direct result of the stroke that she suffered and obvious the brain damage is affecting her lungs. It’s all tied together. Alex Jones told me so./
hovercraft
Forrest Trump is running for president.
pseudonymous in nc
@Villago Delenda Est:
Ugh, I really don’t like that choice of language.
Yeah, state officials are cheap to buy. But really the most disappointing thing is that she got 70% of what Greg Abbott got in Texas. Male privilege even applies to
bribcampaign contributions.PsiFighter37
@efgoldman: Perhaps I am being too pessimistic. I was out of the country for a week and deliberately tuned out as much as I could. It mainly just seems to be that the polls are closer (TPM’s VA average shows Trump up, I think?). That said, there are so many shitty / dodgy polls these days that it’s hard to tell what is worthwhile to pay attention to.
I hope that Hillary buries Donald in the first debate, though, although there’s probably a good chance he nukes himself. He either will come off as a con artist or as idiotic as Palin did in the VP debate in 2008.
James E Powell
@PsiFighter37:
I, too, am never sure where to look for accurate information about polls, but I figure when Nate Silver & Sam Wang are both showing Clinton a +70% favorite to win, I can rely on that.
Shell
Yes, cause god forbid they should just carry the speech itself, without the reporter commenting and talking over everything she’s saying,.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@PsiFighter37:
538’s pollster ratings
JR in WV
@efgoldman:
Those “cable” news outlets are actually all sat signal broadcasters – even if you have wired cable, your cable provider gets that signal from a sat dish, and Faux et al send their programming to those sats with radio signals, which are all licensed by the FCC.
Plus, it is interstate commerce, which is explicitly regulated by congress according to the constitution. Is it free speech? Well so was CBS, NBC and ABC back in the fairness doctrine day.
And newspapers were strictly regulated by anti-trust laws. It was barely legal for one news operation to buy out another by the time I was born. It was legal before anti-trust laws, and I forget and don’t care to look up when that happened. But Faux is a trust, and a political org, not a news biz. It needs to be broken, really, put out of business for its illegal activity sanctioned at the top.
If corporations are people, they need to suffer the death penalty for breaking business regulations. Shock! But it’s true!
sukabi
@msdc: Don’t stop reading in the middle of the comment, I don’t think Krugman is in danger of losing his job over his editorial, I was responding to someone who does. I thought the editorial was very mild compared to what is actually needed.
Kay
Ridiculous clown runs for President. This meritocracy thing is working out great, I must say. Race to the bottom.
Jeffro
@msdc: well said
JR in WV
@efgoldman:
With all due respect, Mr. EF, she wants to marry your comment… so Mrs. EFG shouldn’t even miss you, as the comment is already in the wild!
;-)
Cleos
@Elizabelle:
I feel the same way — and am almost (but won’t ever be quite) hoping that one or more of Trump’s inbred white trash “monitors” tries to stop me. The election will be memorable for that person(s), and NOT in a good way.
It does sound like a good approach for some GOTV drives.
JR in WV
@Shell:
NBC lost me during the DNC convention when time after time a great, clear, specific speech was presented, live, for me to watch. Immediately followed by (usually) Andrea Mitchell telling obvious lies about the content of the speech, making slanderous comments about the delivery of the speech or the morals of the speaker, etc.
I mean, telling me I didn’t hear what I heard, didn’t see what I just saw, it was too much. The next night we watched CBS, and now we watch CBS nightly news. I won’t watch NBC news programming whether broadcast or internet based whatever.
That first night of the convention NBC / MSNBC joined Fox and CNN as no longer believable. I include the NY Times, which covers Science, Arts and leisure well, but distorts international and national geo-political news for its own inscrutable purposes, to its own (profitable?) ends. If they tell me it’s raining out, I will have to go out on the porch and look, because they lie, they can’t help it any more. I don’t know where in their editorial / management chain of command the rot happened, but it’s there, it’s deep set, and it won’t go away by itself.
They are doomed as honest brokers of news. Someone is crazy in their upper management groups, probably a relative of the ownership families. Or someone with photos of vastly criminal acts.
Something… but crazy means we probably can’t even wildly guess a close to reality reason.
Cleos
@The Dangerman:
But we, including you, don’t. Live with it.
Cleos
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Blücher!
Cleos
@ruemara: Careful; there’s just so much room on the Fainting Couch.
Turgidson
@Politically Lost: Ron Fournier, is that you?
Ruckus
@Kay:
His word is enough, until long after it’s been proven overwhelmingly to be false.
Fixed that for you.
bluefish
@Davis X. Machina: Thank you, laughing. Great self-helpy type landscapey quotes, Werner. Ain’t it the truth? Total yeah on WaPo history of recent memory too. Very funny. On to the barricades, Bubba.
mapaghimagisk
Good on Krugman for calling them out, but I don’t think it’s enough to make me want to buy the paper.
Villago Delenda Est
@JR in WV: Mrs. Greenspan has a very low tumbrel manifest number. Almost as low as Chuckles the Toddlers.