what the fuck. pic.twitter.com/0iD9NBgTkl
— sean. ?? (@SeanMcElwee) December 31, 2017
President Trump has brought a reality-show accessibility to a once-aloof presidency, invigorating voters who felt alienated by the establishment https://t.co/arNi1F2bNr
— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 31, 2017
The Night King has brought a winter wonderland to once temperate Westeros, invigorating a once dead army
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) December 31, 2017
The Grey Lady will not be intimidated by a bunch of bloggers and comedians! Like the Republican Party, the more we mock them, the harder they shall burnish Lord Smallgloves’… credentials!!!
The New York Times has brought a tabloid tv complicity to a once-admired newspaper, invigorating readers to seek out the Washington Post. https://t.co/rPTMOh8CrA
— Steve Marmel (@Marmel) January 1, 2018
After all the heated criticism of that last interview with Trump, it's as if they're saying, "You think THAT was groveling? Here, hold my beer."
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) January 1, 2018
There is no evidence in this piece of these "many" people being "electrified"; his poll numbers stink and not even safari reporting says it. pic.twitter.com/AXRQGNZ2nl
— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) December 31, 2017
Not holding Trump to the same standard as every other president is a choice. It’s being made every day by Congressional Republicans and by well-fed editors and tv producers and executives who’ve decided it’s uncouth to truly make a stink about it.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) December 31, 2017
I suspect this is about stroking his ego so he'll keep on talking to NYT reporters.
— manu saadia ? (@trekonomics) January 1, 2018
Yeah, this source greaser is such a hot take you’re about to start a grease fire. https://t.co/GlnF3rV26M
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) January 1, 2018
"It reinvented what it means to be entertainment!"
— Schooley (@Rschooley) December 31, 2017
The NYTimes is still too “dignified” to run cartoons, but ya gotta admit, they’re keeping us entertained… after their own hapless fashion.
Jerzy Russian
That clip on the top can’t be real, can it?
chopper
oh fuck me, this “obama was aloof” bullshit again.
Mnemosyne
I’m hoping that raven checks in tonight to tell us about his Rose Parade/Rose Bowl day, but he’s probably still prostrated by that game’s photo finish.
(Or so I gleaned from the other thread. I do not partake of sportsball.)
Millard Filmore
open thread? A GLOBAL DISASTER IS COMING!!!! The plant from which chocolate comes may go extinct in 40 years. There is no desert without chocolate.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141950874
chopper
@Jerzy Russian:
Lionel Hutz – Of course you did. But there’s the truth [shakes his head] and the truth [smiles brightly and nods]. Let me show you. [opens a book full of houses for sale]
Marge – It’s awfully small.
Lionel Hutz – I’d say it’s awfully cozy. [turns page]
Marge – That’s dilapidated.
Lionel Hutz – Rustic! [turns page]
Marge – That house is on fire!
Lionel Hutz – Motivated seller!
Adam L Silverman
@Jerzy Russian: It is. There’s one really bad/troubling paragraph in the article. The overall point it is trying to make is okay: that the President’s behavior and actions are radically altering the presidency and American politics, this may or may not outlast him, and it may or may not be a good thing. The author kind of went off the rails while making it.
Ryan
@Millard Filmore: Now can we take climate change seriously? Thanks Republicans!
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: Steady. 1) They’ve already developed a CRISP genetically modified cacao plant that can grow in other places and 2) the real issues/problems are where cacao is grown as a monocultured product. So there are a lot of ways to ensure that cacao doesn’t go extinct.
Jerzy Russian
@Mnemosyne: I would imagine he is tired as hell, having been up since circa 4:00 a.m. At least I would be.
Jerzy Russian
@Adam L Silverman: I don’t hold a degree in journalism, but I don’t see how anything Trump does can be a good thing (apart from firing his whole staff, including Pence, before resigning and turning himself in to the federal marshals).
Duane
FTFNYT must enjoy being mocked, ridiculed, and generally abused around the world. Why else write these Trumpsucking articles. It can’t sell papers, can it?
Mnemosyne
@Jerzy Russian:
And he had to drive back to Torrance, which is a pretty big hike from Pasadena. I just don’t want to miss hearing the story since I have to get up early tomorrow.
danielx
Clearly the NYT is of the opinion that lord shortfingers will be mightily impressed with the use of Preparation H for lip gloss.
KickBoxBanana
Just move on. Not worth caring about that has been rag.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Omg the ratio on that NYT tweet
Mike J
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): And their social media people are going to be saying, “look at the engagement numbers!”
Adam L Silverman
@Jerzy Russian: The only good things would be if it forces a long overdue rebalancing of power away from the executive to the legislative – this of course requires members of Congress who actually want to do their jobs. And if it leads to a lot of the taken for granted norms, customs, and traditions to be codified into law so that this meshugas can’t be repeated. Finally, if it leads to reforms for how Congress functions so that the legislative branch check the Founders and Framers envisioned protecting against a President like the current actually can’t be stymied by one feckless party when it is in the majority.
Mnemosyne
Repeating a recommendation from the thread below for people in chilly climes:
People on Amazon are weirdly enthusastic about this blanket. I’m not ready to marry it like some people are, but it really is very soft and warm without being heavy. WaterGirl’s niece bought one for her for her holiday stay in IL but I haven’t heard how it worked out.
I would be under it right now except that the cat is napping on it and she bites.
(I used Cole’s Amazon affiliate link for the above link so he’ll get a few pennies if people buy one.)
danielx
James E. Powell
I always get pushback for saying this, but I really think we’d be better off without the New York Times as it currently functions in the press/media world. The supposedly good reporting can be published elsewhere by other people. What needs to die is the NYT as the official decider of what stories will be covered and how they will be covered.
The NYT’s deliberate editorial and coverage decisions on Whitewater, the War on Gore, the promotion of George W. Bush as Our Young Churchill, the cheerleading of the Iraq invasion, the normalization of McConnell & the GOP’s obstruction, Benghazi, EMAILS!!!, Clinton Foundation, Shadows & Clouds! Shadows & Clouds!
Those decisions gave us George W. Bush, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Alito, Shelby County, Citizens United, the cancellation of Medicaid expansion, and finally Trump in the White House. What the fuck good is the NYT’s other activities if they are going to give us all that horror in less than 25 years?
Kylroy
What blows my mind is that USA Today, a paper dismissed as a hack McNews operation since it’s inception, has *no problem* calling Hair Furor an incompetent embarrassment, while most of the Very Serious Media struggle to say Trump is very different in a *bad* way.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: I want to hear it too. What an amazing trip and fantastic game for him.
seaboogie
“Mr Trump is creating precedents that may outlast his tenure. He is making our presidency more authentic or more autocratic, depending on the vantage point. Either way, it may never be the same”.
So says the Vichy Times. But her emails…
Would like to see Levenson’s take on this.
hellslittlestangel
The New York Times is sure that if it keeps giving Trump its lunch money, eventually he’ll stop beating it up after school.
jc
It may be that the NY Times is stroking Trump’s ego so he’ll keep on talking to their reporters.
But Trump clearly loves to stroke his own ego, in public, on a regular basis … he obviously gets off on it. But ewww …
Jerzy Russian
@Adam L Silverman:
Yup, like full financial disclosure for all candidates for federal office, for example.
Somehow we have to have a representative Congress and Senate. Get rid of gerrymandering, give each state equal representation in Congress (as I recall the average congress critter in California represents a lot more people than the single congress critter from Wyoming or Montana), etc. If by some unlikely (but technically not impossible) string of quantum fluctuations I find myself in charge of everything, I will make you my Chief of Staff so you can figure out how best to implement all of this.
hellslittlestangel
I feel bad for Paul Krugman. When he wrote, ”Shape of the Planet: Both Sides Have a Point,” he couldn’t possibly have known he was working for the paper that would one day adopt that framing.
Adam L Silverman
@Jerzy Russian: Except for browning stew meat. Apparently that isn’t my forte.//
?BillinGlendaleCA
Since Baud is usually offline at his time…The New York Times is garbage.
Mnemosyne
@Jerzy Russian:
For one example: Wyoming, the smallest state, gets 1 House Representative for their population of about 584K.
My House district in CA (CA-30) has a population of about 726K. That seems like a pretty significant difference in representation.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: That’s due to all the illegals voting in your district. /Republican Party
Jerzy Russian
@Mnemosyne: Shortly after the election I did a quick and dirty computation and found that California would have close to 100 electoral votes if we had truly proportional representation. I wonder how hard it would be to change the number of congress critters so that each member has (roughly) the same number of constituents (although I don’t wonder about it hard enough to actually use google at the moment).
Jerzy Russian
@Adam L Silverman: The man knows his limitations! Exactly what I need in a Chief of Staff.
Tim C.
Aloof was the code-word for “uppity” wasn’t it?
seaboogie
@James E. Powell: You’re not getting pushback here – not from me, at least. Was talking to an AP reporter the other day, and she was kind of surprised that I dismissed the NYT out of hand. Told her that my subscription of choice is WAPO – less than ideal, but more accurate and useful than the Times.
Mnemosyne
@Jerzy Russian:
IIRC, the standard is that each House member is supposed to have about 710K constituents, which IMO is WAY too many, and it varies a lot even with that as the “average.”
Montana actually gets kind of screwed because they’ve passed 1 million in population but still only get 1 House rep. If I understand the current formula correctly (and I may not!) they would need a minimum population of 1.42 million to get two Reps, and another state with more than 1 Rep would have to have one taken away, which would then screw people in that state.
Mnemosyne
@Tim C.:
Also, “elitist.” Elitist was the Obama-era version of the N-word.
seaboogie
@Mnemosyne: and 2 senators – that’s where it counts the most.
Chris
@chopper:
Unless he was wearing jeans in the Oval Office! Then he was trashy and ghetto.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Per this article 1.05 million. And the state does have a clear east/west divide, although Montana does see itself as one unit. But yes the old formula is way out of date for the House.
Jerzy Russian
@Mnemosyne: OK, I googled a bit. The total number of congress critters is set at 435 by an act of Congress in 1929. That cap on the number seems dumb to me since states may grow (or shrink) in population at very uneven rates. One assumes a future Congress can increase this number and make other reforms (although it would help to have the president and Supreme Court also on board).
Sister Golden Bear
@Jerzy Russian:
Or one reason I get torqued when I hear conservatives from states like that complaining about how evil libruls dominate the country.
Sebastian
Has this been featured here? I came across a Thomas Friedman OpEd Generator and it’s good!!
http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/about.php
fuckwit
@Jerzy Russian: now with the Salt tax deduction gone, we can have a proper revolt: no taxation without representation!
kd bart
The New York Times thought Susan Alexander’s performance in the lead was outstanding.
scav
Well, they must be on a single-minded mission to demonstrate the the Orange Twit doesn’t lie 100% of the time: they are in point of fact the failing New York Times.
AxelFoley
@James E. Powell:
Co-signeth to the Nth degree
Amir Khalid
I am mystified: to what, exactly, is Trump’s presidency more authentic than Obama’s?
Amir Khalid
Swung by a bookstore today. The hardcover of What Happened was on display at RM124. I’ll wait for the paperback.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid:
He speaks frontier gibberish like the common volk.
Walker
@Amir Khalid:
Authentically racist. Which is what his supporters want.
gVOR08
My Gawd. I still subscribe online, despite being close to cancelling several times. I hadn’t read this article until I saw it here. It’s everything that’s wrong with the NYT in one article. I note in today’s Times that kid Sulzberger is now officially publisher. These events are presumably connected.
Peale
@Amir Khalid: he grants a nyt lackey “access”.
TS
@Amir Khalid:
White guy = authentic
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks for the link
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Drumpf just gave all those fat cat six-figure gossip columnists at Vichy Times a big tax cut. Why wouldn’t they be on bended knee
Sixstringfanatic
@Jerzy Russian: I did some research on this topic after last year’s Electoral College disaster (in the immediate aftermath, the consensus view was “Abolish the EC!” This would require a constitutional amendment; much easier to just expand the membership of the damn House of Reps.) and the only real reason I could find for capping the House at 435 members was that the actual House chamber cannot physically hold more than that number. So we would need a new act of Congress and a new, larger chamber for the House of Reps. Good luck getting Republicans to agree to either of those.
TriassicSands
@TS:
Authentic Amurkin = stupid, ignorant, bigoted, selfish, and stupid. And did I mention stupid? Really, really stupid.
TriassicSands
The Washington Post credits Trump with a mere 1,950 false or misleading statements in 347 days. That’s about 5.6 a day — every day. You can’t get more authentic than that.
Kay
It’s just mindless power-wielding at this point. They just throw their weight around, almost randomly. Promoting the invasion of Iraq, launching that weird grudge against Hillary Clinton, normalizing Trump, doesn’t matter- just any which way.
There’s a Chicago columnist who uses a phrase “clout-heavy”- I don’t know if he invented it but he uses it for Chicago pols and movers and shakers. That’s what the NYTimes is to me- not an observer but an actor. A clout-heavy private sector actor.
I just want some ordinary oversight. They don’t have to crack the Russia interference mystery or define “populism”. They could just cover the corruption and self-dealing within the Trump Administration. If they can’t do extraordinary work just do good ordinary work- investigate some of the Trump actions within the context of previous standards for Presidents. Just hold him to the Bill Clinton standard.
Barry
@Amir Khalid:
“I am mystified: to what, exactly, is Trump’s presidency more authentic than Obama’s?”
Whiteness.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Cheryl Rofer
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: That is amazing. Switch a few words around, and it’s Baker’s article.
Uncle Cosmo
@Sixstringfanatic:
Replace the desks with smaller versions whose tops are touchscreens but no external speakers (provide wireless headsets) so they can watch their favorite sporting event- that’s all most of the fuckers are good for anyway.
NorthLeft12
@chopper: President Obama is being labelled as aloof? WTF?
Can someone explain exactly what that refers to?
I always thought he was regularly meeting people, especially ordinary Americans. This sounds to me that the NYT is whining over not getting [enough] interviews with President Obama.
zhena gogolia
@Kylroy:
Yeah. That is really eye-opening.
Citizen_X
This sentence enrages me like nothing since Kellyanne’s “alternative facts.” There can be no objective standard of autocracy? That way lies madness.
NorthLeft12
@Citizen_X: Also, what the hell does “more authentic” mean? I know there have been a few snarky responses above that refer to race, but come on, what does the author/editor/publisher really mean by this?
MikeS
@Sister Golden Bear: If the Congressional Apportionment was actually approved by Connecticut’s upper legislative chamber in May 1790 then we should right now have one representative for every 50K citizens. Which would give us a congress of about 4,600 representatives and would proportionately boost the # of Electors in the EC. Although Eugene Martin LaVergne who is pushing this is either a crank or being stonewalled. I guess the big questions are: 1) Can a state (or one branch of its legislature) rescind a ratification vote at any point before the amendment is adpoted? and 2) Who has the say of when an amendment is adpoted; is it the US Archivist or congress or who?
JR
@Adam L Silverman: CRISPR (minor correction).
We are going to be in for a long strange future with CRISPR, which honestly allows for genetic engineering as the popular imagination would have it.
SFAW
@NorthLeft12:
That was a meme during one or more of the campaigns — I seem to recall Rove pushing that one, but not sure. It also came up at times during the early years of his Presidency, when the Party of Traitors had started to try to delegitimize Obama as President.
@NorthLeft12:
It means that Lying Littledick “speaks the language” of “real” people, i.e., racists and other assorted wingnuts who voted for him. I’ve read variations of that ridiculous comment more than a couple of times.
FlipYrWhig
I abhor the word “authentic” in politics, and anyone who uses it unironically. As far as I can tell it means “proud asshole” and/or “funny-looking.” And you’ll notice that no woman in politics ever gets called “authentic.”
FlipYrWhig
Also, I’m old enough to remember when Big Media was all worked up about the need to restore dignity to the Oval Office. Notice too that they never say that anymore.
sherparick1
@James E. Powell: On Jay Rosen’s thread I came across this twit storm from Heidi Moore of the Guardian. https://twitter.com/moorehn/status/946600523498708992
Jay Rosen himself, on his blog, Pressthink, wrote the following a months ago. The Times news room and management has been obsessed with getting credibility with its conservative critics since the Reagan administration. It simply does not understand that for these people, the strawman of media and in particular NY Times bias is far to useful to every give away.
“…I keep coming back to these words: If our journalists are perceived as biased… that can undercut the credibility of the entire newsroom. Dean Baquet — who approved these words and made them law — doesn’t seem to realize that if the perception of critics can edit the actions of his staff then he has surrendered power to enemies of the Times, who will always perceive bias because it is basic to their interests to do so. This is part of a larger problem in mainstream journalism, which is unable to think politically because it is constantly accused of acting politically by hyper-partisan critics peddling fixed ideas…”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
There is a grain of truth to that headline; there next Democrat president does something that puts them in a twist the reply can be “suck on it, Donald Trump”. Because you know the conservatives will find their patriotism and fiscal responsibility the next time their is a Democrat in office.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Wasn’t the NYT publishing in the ’30s? Might be fun to check their archives.
chopper
@Chris:
or a brown suit. always remember the brown suit.
(hope the word brown doesn’t trigger adam)
FlipYrWhig
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The media will probably say “the Trump presidency changed both sides, and now we’re anxious that Democrats will follow in a worrisome path of populism and partisanship instead of taking on the hard problems of a democracy, like entitlement reform.”
chopper
@NorthLeft12:
all throughout his presidency very special people in the press kept at him for being “aloof”, mostly because he wasn’t chummy with them like the likes of mccain.
Tenar Arha
@Cheryl Rofer: Every time the Times pulls one of these stunts I remember that article from 1922, and remind myself that the Times has almost always been untrustworthy about the times they were writing about for almost 100 years.
Gin & Tonic
@Tenar Arha: Or Walter Duranty’s denial of the devastating famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine in 1932-33.
Barney
“A reality-show accessibility”? Most people debate whether reality shows debase TV entertainment (compared with the higher intellectual and moral standards of, say, sitcoms), and the NYT is claiming that bringing that style to governing the most powerful country in the world could be a good thing. They really are cheapening their own name.
Tenar Arha
@Gin & Tonic: The one that came right to mind for me was the AIDS epidemic, especially at the beginning. If they’d properly covered it as what it was, a major new epidemic, maybe fewer would have died.
It’s the combination of self-importance and fetal crouching that infuriates. (I’m sure the other newspapers have had similar moments, but because they haven’t cultivated some kind of pedestal I don’t feel the same need to point out their flaws).
Gin & Tonic
@Tenar Arha: You know, I lived in NYC during the late 70’s and early 80’s, and my wife worked in some of the leading hospitals. I’m more willing to cut them slack on that one, as I think nearly every news outlet fell down on the job at the beginning.
schrodingers_cat
@NorthLeft12: Aloof== did not kow-tow to the denizens of the Media Village of which the Gray Lady is the queen.
Doug R
@Adam L Silverman:
The problem being that decent democratic presidents are held in check already, we gotta work on making the legislative branch express the will of the majority.
J R in WV
@James E. Powell:
Holy cow, Powell, you left out torture, war crimes, hundreds of thousands of deaths, the disruption of the middle east that may not end in our lifetimes… The N Y Times is
almost</del. personally responsible for enabling the most concentrated evil in this nation since the end of reconstruction in the deep south after the civil war. Or the genocide of Native Americans. One of those great evils, anyway.Anyway, good job, just wanted to add a few more details to your already good roundup. Also, back in the 1930s, they thought Chancellor Hitler was going to be the nuts for the resurrection of Europe, and his kind of leadership would be good for America after all the evil FDR had committed! Did NOT work out the way they said it would, did it!?
J R in WV
@J R in WV:
Dammit, always check the HTML tags!!!! My bad. Meant to strike thru just the word
almostand missed closing the end delete tag by using a period instead of the upper case period, a right pointy bracket.