Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

How stupid are these people?

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

You are here: Home / Can’t Put a Shine on a Turd

Can’t Put a Shine on a Turd

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Bill Shine, Roger Ailes’ former toady at Fox who moved to the White House to run Trump’s communications, is out.

Shine becomes the latest in a long run of top communications officials to depart the Trump White House. His predecessors included Hope Hicks, Anthony Scaramucci and Michael Dubke, as well as Sean Spicer, who initially held the dual roles of press secretary and communications director.

Trump apparently blames his comms director for the press’ accurate reports about his administration’s incompetence, so the comms director is going to be a revolving door position. Shine came off as an asshole in Jane Mayer’s piece about Fox, so maybe that had a little bit to do with his ouster, though probably not much.

Reader Interactions

56Comments

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    Re your last point, being an asshole is a feature rather than a bug in this administration, so that was not likely the reason for him leaving.

  4. 4.

    Gravenstone

    Dropped this near the end of the previous thread, rezzing since it’s actually on topic here.

    Interesting take on the Bill Shine departure to “join” Trump 2020. I used the scare quotes because Josh Marshal is suggesting the organization is as much a slush fund to keep various former Trump hires off the streets and out of the public eye. Why the incentive to squirrel them away to keep them quiet?

  6. 6.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Shine is joining the Trump campaign I think. I guess that’s a demotion. It’s hard to tell, given this administration’s scorn for the press. It’s hard to remember there used to be daily press briefings where the press secretary didn’t just lie. Given that previous administrations took care with this, I like to think Trump’s lack of care matters, but who knows? He’s controlling the message through Fox, twitter, and his own dominance of the air waves instead. Maybe that’s just as good.

  7. 7.

    Kay

    Hasn’t his career centered on covering up sexual harassment at Fox? That’s why people hire and pay him, right?

    Just another “fixer”, like Cohen, but slicker.

  8. 8.

    SenyorDave

    OT, but I see the lead story on Yahoo is:
    Omar: Smile helped Obama ‘get away with murder’.

    Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is an outspoken critic of President Trump. But she’s also critical of his predecessor, former President Barack Obama.

    “We can’t be only upset with Trump,” Omar told Politico for a profile that was published Friday. “His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was.

    “That’s not what we should be looking for anymore,” she continued. “We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”

    Does she have anyone advising her? She will, and deservedly so, lose a lot of cover for these comments. I can’t think of a single justification for these remarks at the present time.

  9. 9.

    gene108

    Heard he was going to manage the Trump 2020 campaign.

    So not a shit canning, but rather a move to get an early start on the sleaze needed for Trump to run in 2020.

    I wonder, if Shine’s going to spend some time vacationing at a Black Sea dacha to unwind, between gigs.

  10. 10.

    MattF

    Trump is doing every single thing one would expect a guilty-as-hell person to do, including hiring and then firing armies of lawyers and lickspittles.

    One possibility is that Shine somehow showed some level of awareness of just how guilty Trump really is. A fatal error.

  11. 11.

    FelonyGovt

    @Gravenstone: Very plausible. Keep them earning money (using campaign cash) and out of sight for a while longer so they don’t write a tell all book.

  12. 12.

    Bill Wright

    Actually, I believe that the Mythbusters did put a shine on a coprolite in one episode. Really. Really really.

  13. 13.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    It’s weird because I thought the President and his low quality employees not having any credibility at all would matter more, but instead they just don’t say anything serious or factual at all now. That’s how they solved the credibility gap. Now they only weigh in on celebrity gossip and infighting among themselves.

  15. 15.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: It really should have been bigger news that the WH comms shop was run by a guy most notable for covering for a serial sexual harasser for decades. But since the POTUS himself is a well-known sexist pig and leering degenerate, shruggies, I guess.

  17. 17.

    Kent

    Shine came off as an asshole in Jane Mayer’s piece about Fox, so maybe that had a little bit to do with his ouster, though probably not much.

    What you meant to say was that Shine’s coming off as a asshole in Mayer’s peace wasn’t kuddos enough to save his job.

  18. 18.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH
    UH HUH

    After Being Called Out for Lack of Black Execs, CNN Blames Delay in Meeting with NABJ on Roland Martin

    Anne Branigin
    Yesterday 3:17pm

    The National Association of Black Journalists put CNN on blast Tuesday, calling out the cable network for its failure to hire and retain black people in key decision-making roles, as well as for CNN president Jeff Zucker’s refusal to meet with a four-person delegation of NABJ leadership.

    As a result, the black journalists’ organization has placed CNN on a “special media monitoring list,” according to an announcement posted on its website.

    In its statement, NABJ highlighted CNN’s specific failings with regard to diversity, which included the following bulleted list:

    ▪ CNN President Jeff Zucker has no black direct reports.

    ▪ There are no black Executive Producers at CNN.

    ▪ There are no black Vice Presidents on the news side at CNN.

    ▪ There are no black Senior Vice Presidents on the news side at CNN.

    CNN responded the same day, seemingly blaming NABJ board member Roland Martin for the delay in addressing NABJ’s concerns.

    Lips pursed

  20. 20.

    Yutsano

    Looks like he’s going from one side of the grift to another. Not much sympathy there.

  21. 21.

    Mart

    @SenyorDave: Good on her. Obama ending the Iraq war except he did not. He accepted drone killings in half a dozen Muslim countries. He accepted bloated defense spending. Etc. Realize I am a dirty old hippy pacifist, but these things are all true of the Obama administration. (He also left the crooks behind the global financial collapse completely off the hook.)

  22. 22.

    Kent

    @SenyorDave:

    OT, but I see the lead story on Yahoo is:
    Omar: Smile helped Obama ‘get away with murder’.

    Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is an outspoken critic of President Trump. But she’s also critical of his predecessor, former President Barack Obama.

    “We can’t be only upset with Trump,” Omar told Politico for a profile that was published Friday. “His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was.

    “That’s not what we should be looking for anymore,” she continued. “We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”

    Does she have anyone advising her? She will, and deservedly so, lose a lot of cover for these comments. I can’t think of a single justification for these remarks at the present time.

    Didn’t read the article. Is it some reference to the wars in Afganistan and Libya and things like drone strikes? There certainly were legitimate reasons to be concerned about the projection of military power around the world under Obama.

    Although I agree entirely that as a Dem Congresswoman she is incredibly stupid and naive to “go there”. It’s a fine argument to make in a college political science class but probably not what you want to lead with in a high-profile elected position.

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

    47 Months: A Case Study in Systemic Racism and Why The Time for Tokenism is Over

    There is righteous – and right – outrage at Judge T.S. Ellis’ feather-light sentence on Paul Manafort in the case against him in Virginia. The sentencing guidelines called for the imposition of a 20-year sentence, but Judge Ellis took it upon himself to ignore the guidelines and sentence Manafort to 47 months.

    It’s not that Ellis has any great general opposition to imposing harsh sentences, even on men of means. In 2009, Judge Ellis sentenced former Rep. William Jefferson – who committed crimes similar to what Paul Manafort was convicted of by the Virginia jury – to 13 years in prison, about half the time recommended in the government’s sentencing memorandum. In contrast, Paul Manafort got less than a quarter of the time prosecutors outlined in his sentencing memo. William Jefferson, though, is black.

    This isn’t about resources. This is about race. This is what racism is about.

    When we utter the word ‘racism’, most people automatically think of epithets, terms used to refer to individuals. Or a little more advanced, we think of phobias that individuals hold against groups of people. And racism is in part about that: the conscious and subconscious thoughts, words and actions of individuals, epithets and attitudes directed from individuals to other individuals or groups.

    But racism is far less about the individual epithets and far, far more about systemic, institutionalized, normalized disparity in the treatments of whole groups of people. It is more about attitudes that are ingrained in the bricks that make up our justice system than about stereotypes harbored by individuals, without excuse though those might be.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    Fox wants you to know they caught and killed the Stormy Daniels story because it didn’t meet their high journalistic standards:

    Daniels and her associates were playing a bizarre cat-and-mouse game with Fox News and other outlets, trying to get their story out without fingerprints and, ultimately, without enough proof to publish.
    We and others practiced solid journalism. Now, that’s being spun in an effort to prove the opposite

    Turn on Fox right now. See if you can spot these standards. I mean, these people are on fucking tv 24/7 and they’re telling us to ignore out lying eyes and take their word for it.

    We can judge Fox News. We can watch their low quality work at any time, and have for years.

    I don’t care about the Daniels story anymore. The public found out about it despite best efforts of all these media outlets to hide it. The question now is what they’re catching and killing now, today. What are we going to find out about the Trump Administration that they didn’t tell us?

  26. 26.

    geg6

    @Kent:

    Yeah, I’m beginning to think she’s really not the brightest bulb in the box.

    I certainly have my disagreements with Obama’s foreign policy, but she is stepping into a real field of landmines here.

  27. 27.

    debit

    @SenyorDave:

    As she saw it, the party ostensibly committed to progressive values had become complicit in perpetuating the status quo. Omar says the “hope and change” offered by Barack Obama was a mirage. Recalling the “caging of kids” at the U.S.-Mexico border and the “droning of countries around the world” on Obama’s watch, she argues that the Democratic president operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor.

    “We can’t be only upset with Trump. … His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was,” Omar says. “And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”

    But there were kids caged at the border. There were civilians killed by drones. I don’t like that she’s only naming Obama and not, say, Bush, but she’s not lying.

  28. 28.

    Gravenstone

    @Mart:

    (He also left the crooks behind the global financial collapse completely off the hook.)

    Because most of what they did was (unfortunately) legal. But hey, thanks for playing. Here’s your lifetime supply of Rice-a-Roni (the San Francisco treat!) as a consolation prize.

  29. 29.

    geg6

    @debit:

    She’s equating Obama with Trump. And his policies and actions with Trump’s. As I said above, I have my disagreements with things Obama did, but he was not a monster or a deliberate murderer. She needs to step back and think about whether or not she wants to stay in Congress. By the looks of it, her district may be safe Dem, but it doesn’t mean that it will be safe for her.

  31. 31.

    Gravenstone

    @debit: That’s some shitty assed writing in that excerpt. Because I’m taking from those sentences as currently structured that she is implying the caging of children also occurred under Obama’s watch. And that shit doesn’t fly. If that’s actually what she intended to say, then her grasp of facts is somewhat tenuous.

  32. 32.

    rikyrah

    @geg6:

    She’s equating Obama with Trump. And his policies and actions with Trump’s. As I said above, I have my disagreements with things Obama did, but he was not a monster or a deliberate murderer. She needs to step back and think about whether or not she wants to stay in Congress. By the looks of it, her district may be safe Dem, but it doesn’t mean that it will be safe for her.

    That is the truth.
    The primary you see coming could be your own, Congresswoman.

    They always fall back on the ‘ oh, so nobody can criticize Obama?’ bullshyt.

    No…when you bring up bullshyt criticisms not based in reality…no, you cannot.

    But, Omar don’t have to worry…her azz is cancelled.

  33. 33.

    rikyrah

    Watch: Arkansas State Sen. Stephanie Flowers Is the Hero We Deserve

    Stephen A. Crockett Jr.
    Today 2:12pm

    ………………..

    Arkansas State Sen. Stephanie Flowers has officially become my spirit human after an impassioned speech during a debate over the state’s “stand your ground” law.

    Flowers, A Democrat from Pine Bluff and the lone black face on the state’s eight-member committee, wanted more time to debate the merits of “stand your ground law,” which argues that civilians have the rights to use their firearms when they feel threatened because it disproportionately targets people of color.

    …………………………..

    She also pointed to gun rights enthusiasts who openly carry guns in front of the Arkansas courthouse and how uncomfortable that makes her feel because she doesn’t know if any of these people are crazy. She called them bullies.

    At one point, Arkansas Sen. Alan Clark, a Republican from Lonsdale, Ark., who must’ve never had a “What you aren’t going to do” experience in his life, learned Wednesday that what he’s not going to do is try and tell Sen. Flowers that she needs to stop.

    Oh, but he tried it.

    “Senator, you need to stop,” Clark said.

    “No, I don’t!” Flowers replied.

    “Yes you do,” Clark shot back.

    “No, I don’t!” Flowers said. “What the hell you gonna do? Shoot me?”

    It is at this point that a single tear fell from my right eye. I didn’t even know that I was on the verge of tears but Sen. Flowers bullied it out of me. Maybe it was her passion or her willingness to speak up for those whose voices are usually silenced. Maybe it was just her full-on gangster, “I don’t give a fuck about anybody in this room” attitude. Or, maybe it was because any black man that has been raised by a strong black woman has seen this happen before. My mom acted like this for me all the time. It was indignant and embarrassing to me as a child, but it became the quality of my mom that I wished I had once I got older.

  35. 35.

    guachi

    @Mart:

    I have zero problem with the US using drones to kill people. I have yet to hear a coherent criticism of why using drones is worse than any other method of killing people.

  37. 37.

    debit

    @geg6: I’m going to step away from this because I am clearly not seeing what others are and don’t want to argue when I’m clearly missing something.

  38. 38.

    Brickley Paiste

    @SenyorDave:

    Yep Omar is an indisciplined asshole. Her posturing has kept Ds off message for almost a week

    Unfortunately some people, including some commenters here, begin and end their analysis with “She has dark skin and wears that head scarf thing so I MUST DEFEND HER”

    Her shots at Obama will shut up some of those folks.

    Either Pelosi or someone will sit her down and explain what STFU means and enforce it and she will mature and do her job and maybe be a good player for the Ds. Or she will keep yammering until she has no defenders

    We’ll see

  39. 39.

    geg6

    @guachi:

    If you’re going to wage war, it seems to me that drones are the least lethal to innocents that we’ve found so far. Innocents still will die, but not in large numbers as in the past. I hate all weapons of war, but I’m also not a pacifist. So going with the least lethal method would seem to be the best way to go.

  40. 40.

    rp

    The argument against drones has always struck me as bizarre. Does it bother people because we’re targeting specific individuals? Is that somehow worse than dropping a bunch of dumb bombs that kill hundreds? Maybe it’s an example of “1 death is a tragedy, 1,000 is a statistic.”

  42. 42.

    Mart

    @guachiMaybe if we were middle East Muslims we just might have a problem with the U.S. bombing us almost non stop since 1991. But hey, better to kill them over there as long as we minimize civilian casualties. Also too, I am not aware of any declared wars we have been fighting during this time.

    There was bipartisan support to increase the defense budget by 70 billion last year. While mostly R’s cut rich people and corporate taxes; combined it exploded the deficit while the economy is expanding. There needs to be outrage from the left of this theft. There is virtually none from elected officials. The military is a bipartisan sacred cow. Where is Eisenhower when you need him?

  43. 43.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @rikyrah: We need more like her to be heard daily. As you know. Thanks for pointing us to it.

  44. 44.

    Jay Noble

    @SenyorDave: I sped read through the article – it’s quite long and the Oman “quotes” are clear toward the end. And why “qoutes”? Because none of the direct quotes contain the word “Obama”. Not one. She said “many of the people”. Certainly Obama had more polish – compared to Trump, so did Bush. Given that, All the previous Presidents had more polish.

    Politico has put up some really really shady articles this week. Are they compensating for the few good ones latelY

  45. 45.

    J R in WV

    @guachi:

    I have zero problem with the US using drones to kill people. I have yet to hear a coherent criticism of why using drones is worse than any other method of killing people.

    Here’s my problem with using drones to kill people. Those bad boys are piloted by young troops a thousand miles away, using low res video feeds to select a target to strike with Hellfire missile. You can find these video images and watch them, listen to the discussion of what they’re seeing and targeting, see the missile hit a facility or truck or outdoor gathering with your own eyes. Just use a search engine and take a look and see if you would be willing to pull the trigger on a missile with that amount of data.

    Sometimes instead of Hellfireing a bus load of terrorists, they hit the school bus instead. Or instead of blowing up a mountain top where jihadists are training, they blow up a wedding ceremony, instead, Oops! Sorry about killing two whole families.

    I’m not making these examples up, either, they are right out of the headlines on page A21.

    Obviously if there are troops on the ground calling in a strike there is a better chance of hitting the correct target, but it still isn’t a perfect scoring system. And it isn’t a declared war, either. We’re blowing up people in their home turf, what if this was going on in Oklahoma? Or Maine woodlands…

    On the other hand, I have been supporting Congresswoman Omar until now. I don’t know why she persists in walking into minefields and attacking popular figures in her own party. Strange actions, as odd as Chelsea Manning refusing to attend a closed door hearing, which is another weird thing in today’s news.

    I want some new indictments, please Mr Mueller! Can’t we have just a couple, please???

  46. 46.

    gene108

    @SenyorDave:

    Read the link.

    I think, if Democrats can have total control of government the next 30-40 years, ie the public has become much more liberal, we might might be willing to consider her view points.

    I don’t know much about her, other than she is a Somali refugee and devout Muslim woman.

    It seems like a few Democratic freshman got a lot of attention for being different (AOC for defeating an incumbent, with a minimally funded campaign, as well as being young for a Congresscritter and easy on the eyes, Omar for wearing a hijab, etc.), and they seem to want to define things on their terms, without working out how it’ll play in Peoria or impact people in unsafe seats.*

    *I’ve lived in my district for over 20 years. In 2008, we had a Democrat win office, but he was defeated in 2010. In 2018, was had a Democrat get elected. I’d like to see him get re-elected. The rest of the time, the district was represented by Republicans.

  47. 47.

    West of the Rockies

    @debit:

    Nonetheless, is this her first big public statement after last week’s hornet nest? The subject matter seems a dubious choice.

  48. 48.

    les

    @Gravenstone:

    Because most of what they did was (unfortunately) legal. But hey, thanks for playing. Here’s your lifetime supply of Rice-a-Roni (the San Francisco treat!) as a consolation prize.

    And because Eric Holder and the admin believed it might “cost jobs.” Marketplace did a 3 part on why nobody went to jail, and compared it to earlier financial scandals. Made me kinda sick.

    Loved Obama and (mostly) his admin; but I think it’s damn fair to point out that a lot of not so good stuff went on then too.

  50. 50.

    Another Scott

    @Kent: I’m skimming it.

    It strikes me as a typical Politico piece – lots of sensational statements, or actually fragments of statements, that you can’t tell whether you should believe or not.

    https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/08/ilhan-omar-dean-phillips-minnesota-democratic-party-225696

    To better understand these dueling visions for the Democratic Party, I sat down with both Omar and Phillips, spent several days in their communities and talked with some of their constituents. What I learned is that, despite the cautionary tale offered by years of vicious Republican infighting, Democrats are dangerously close to entering into their own fratricidal conflict. On matters of both style and substance, the fractures within this freshman class are indicative of the broader divisions in a party long overdue for an ideological reckoning.

    Oooh. Dems in Disarray!!

    Beware the ellipses. Beware the quotes that aren’t her words.

    As she saw it, the party ostensibly committed to progressive values had become complicit in perpetuating the status quo. Omar says the “hope and change” offered by Barack Obama was a mirage. Recalling the “caging of kids” at the U.S.-Mexico border and the “droning of countries around the world” on Obama’s watch, she argues that the Democratic president operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor.

    What is he quoting there? How much of that is his interpretation? What’s he leaving out?

    There’s plenty to criticize Obama about. But this is a piece to feed the Dems in Disarray meme. It’s little more than that. There’s no sign that the Democrats in the House are actually in disarray based on their voting – none at all.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  51. 51.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @J R in WV:

    Those bad boys are piloted by young troops a thousand miles away, using low res video feeds to select a target to strike with Hellfire missile.

    You do recall that Manning’s great crime was posting gun-sight video from a slow moving Cobra attack helicopter blowing an Iraq TV crew away because the crew thought a camera looked like a missile launcher that might be used to kill them. I would offer a drone pilot in a warehouse thousand of miles away has a lot less personal pressure on him to pull the trigger since his life isn’t on the line.

  53. 53.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Another Scott:

    Yahoo did a bad job of summarizing the Politico article, to the point of being dangerously misleading. And I’m inclined to be a bit skeptical about how accurately Politico conveyed what Omar actually said. Would love to hear a recording or read a full transcript of that interview.

  56. 56.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brickley Paiste:

    Unfortunately some people, including some commenters here, begin and end their analysis with “She has dark skin and wears that head scarf thing so I MUST DEFEND HER”

    I would never call another Balloon Juice commenter a bigot, but you tempt me.

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