Andrew Kaczynski got upset at a modest bit of pushback from the WH:
Reply by progressive economist and RT by the WH Chief of Staff. Voters are constantly ranking economy and inflation as their number one concern. I did not say the economy was a disaster just that voters are concerned about it as polls *constantly* show. Inflation is often #1. pic.twitter.com/UxzgVxmrHU
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) October 23, 2022
We can get at the economic numbers another time, and why Americans are still pissed off, but what boggles my mind is the media guys not getting why everyone from my side of the aisle hates them. I mean, the phrase “Great News for John McCain” is going on 20 years old, ffs.
Here’s the deal, this is what the media relationship and Democrats is like. Imagine if you were watching a football game, the broadcasters turned off the camera every time the Democrats team had the ball, and you would have the current media environment for Dems and people would say “DEMS NEVER GO ON OFFENSE THEY’RE ALWAYS ON DEFENSE.” And when they switch the cameras back on and the Dems are playing defense, they force a fumble on the ten yard line and instead of the announcers stating “That’s great news for the Democrats,” instead it’s always “Terrible news for the Democrats as they now have to push 90 yards down the field.”
Meanwhile the Republicans are denying they fumbled and rejecting the fact that Democrats have the ball and are appealing to league officials in NY that the Democrats cheated, and if they don’t give the ball back they will start shooting fans, all while working on a decades long project with the field umpire and league officials to make it so the Democrats can only field nine players at a time. And because they are afraid of the threats from the repercussions, they agree to not show the points Democrats have scored on the scoreboard, even though they scored them.
That’s what it is like being a Democrat. And the Kfile and Chuck fucking Todd and the rest of them just don’t get it.
Baud
My news feed constantly has stories about how bad the economy is. Then the media talks about how people are worried about the economy.
It’s like how Dick Cheney worked with Judith Miller to sell the Iraq War.
NotMax
President Ye will fix it come 2025.
//
WaterGirl
Perfect analogy, John.
Why don’t you have DougJ do a short interview with you, you can tell that story, everyone here on social media can help make it go viral. Including that Pitchbot guy who did the interview!
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Speaking of which, 60 years ago yesterday President Kennedy informed Congress he was taking steps to diffuse a New-Clear war over Cuba – they rejected it:
That’s what it is like being a Democratic President
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
I seriously don’t understand how we’re going to make it over the long haul with a national political press like the one we have today.
J R in WV
This post is right on the money, Cole! Thanks for putting it so well. The Republican-Fascist owned main stream media works for Putin and for the billionaire owners of the American economy, not for the people of the US.
Never for the people!
But I think the MSM is way off base right now, this election cycle. The Dobbs decision was so wrong, so atypical, so evil — removing a basic right women have had for decades now, just like that, GONE!
And bragging behind the scenes about how they plan to take away birth control, the right to marry anyone you fall in love with, the ability to adopt, to use high-technology to become pregnant when necessary. The fascist Republicans broke the news about their majority on the Supreme Court way too soon, and the vast majority of people hated that news!
Don’t forget Kansas and their election last summer — they voted 60-40 against killing off their constitutional protection of reproductive health care, in spite of the polling numbers which showed the election was 50-50, which was so wrong.
And thanks for all you do Cole, for Democracy and freedom!! The amount of fund raising this little nearly top 10000 web site has done in the past couple of years, not to mention the work the Jackals have done for people running for office all over the country. Wonderful to be a part of all this organization !!
All you Jackals — keep up the good work!! We’re going to shock the news media, the RWNJ Fascists, the FTFNYT, everyone except the good American Democrats working to save Democracy in America!!
bbleh
I still think a big part of it is simple business: their audience skews OLD, and hence conservative/reactionary and Republican. They’re selling a product — newsertainment — and this is the recipe their customers like.
It does give the lie to all the cant about journalistic ethics and the “fourth estate” though. Some journalists still do good work, especially when public good coincides with profitable as in genuine political or business scandals, but there’s no question that the overall editorial environment is geared toward giving a particular audience what they want to hear and see.
Baud
@J R in WV:
👍
Martin
Reminder about polls: people can only answer what’s asked. And what’s asked is always taken as illustrative of what they’re supposed to have an opinion on. A certain amount of polling on ‘are you concerned about inflation’ is really being answered by ‘well, I am NOW’.
Cheryl from Maryland
While I hate Dan Snyder with the heat of 1000 suns, that the Washington football team beat that anti-Vaxer asshat Rodgers made today a good day. Weep Cheeseheads and then kick your tool of Putin Ron Johnson into obscurity come Election Day.
schrodingers_cat
The elite media is majority white and majority male. It is a Republican demographic. Their coverage reflects that. They play for team R.
James E Powell
@schrodingers_cat:
True. And I would add that local media is even more so. If your local TV news station is a FOX or Sinclair station, you are getting right-wing propaganda.
TS
Top headline on Washington Post when I looked
If Republicans were running the economy, those last two words would be nowhere to be found.
Here’s the media telling “most Americans” what they should be thinking.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
I agree that in all likelihood, it’s no more complicated than that.
I just can’t see it being about billionaire owners issuing orders to the editors and reporters to couch the news in the most favorable terms possible for the R’s. For one thing, word would leak out if this was happening. And for another, it would cause real dissension in newsrooms, because enough news staff would be unhappy about it, regardless of their personal beliefs.
What a billionaire owner can do, of course, is see to it that the op-ed page is ‘balanced’ between largely centrist Dems and flagrantly right-wing Republicans. But that’s not going to affect the news coverage and how it’s slanted.
Eolirin
Unfortunately it seems to be working.
I’m starting to get concerned that we may elect a Republican as Governor here in NY. All the GOP candidates here are running almost entirely on crime, with a little inflation/economy mixed in. And of course without proposing any real solutions.
It may work. They just need to gin up fear to get their turnout up. We have a harder time getting people motivated.
Zeldin defused some of the abortion topic by saying he can’t do anything to make abortion illegal as governor, which is true enough as long as we hold the legislature, though he’s not exactly saying he’s opposed to it happening either. The campaign seems to be running on “It’s just some extremists pushing abortion bans, it won’t ever happen here”.
And Hochul has the disadvantage of being a woman.
I really hope that there is a systemic fault in the polling in our favor for once, but I’m not convinced that the overperformance we’ve seen in the smaller special elections will hold when there’s more turn out. Our activists are definitely more engaged, but I’m not sure if that intensity is spilling out to enough of the people who aren’t as invested and we may need them if Republicans turn out in numbers. We had some crushing defeats on ballot measures pre-Dobbs, a reversion to something closer to that could be disastrous. I’m still hoping things go more like Pat Ryan’s race. Molinario is well respected around here, with really good constituent services, so that win meant something.
But something seems to have changed in the last month and I’m getting 2016 flashbacks. It’s making me feel sick.
Things shouldn’t be this close here.
Eolirin
@lowtechcyclist: They can make sure the people working in their news rooms have a world view wired for Republicans too. Watch who they hire and fire too.
lowtechcyclist
@Cheryl from Maryland:
I stopped watching football entirely nearly a decade ago when I read about CTE. (Thanks to Ta-Nehisi Coates for this.) But I’ll admit that, since I’d been a longtime fan of the team once known as the Redskins, Dan Snyder made it a lot easier than it otherwise would have been for me to leave football behind.
lowtechcyclist
@Eolirin:
How often is that a factor, though? Seems that the WaPo and the FTFNYT ditch someone of any note about once every decade or so.
Eolirin
@lowtechcyclist: NYT getting rid of their Public Editor, CNN getting rid of Stelter, Harwood and Toobin, hacks like Haberman having complete job security and better promotion tracks. There’s lots of ways to put your thumb on the scale without demanding things.
We know Sinclair owned local news does straight up have mandates to report on bullshit stories though.
Turgidson
I agree with all of this and like the football analogy, except for the last line. I think Chucklehead Todd and his merry band of nincompoops do “get” what they’re doing and are fine with it. They assume they won’t be among those lined up against the wall by the gazpacho when MTG takes office. In fact they’ll be among the first, but they can’t wrap their heads around *that*.
schrodingers_cat
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t think someone is telling them to do it. These biases are built in. When they say working class they mean white working class. When they say voters, they mean white voters. White is silent it is because that’s the default.
I see it because I am not the default in the US.
It has made me aware of the biases of media in India too, where the group I belong to is the among the relatively privileged groups.
cain
@bbleh: instead of getting a subscription to the New York times or the Washington Post. Why not get a subscription to ProPublica? There are so many other great publications we can put our money to and help them expand. That should be our media strategy for the rest of the decade.
All these news outlets are gonna have problems if they are depending on one demographic. In 10 years it’s gonna change again I reckon
Brachiator
@Baud:
Perhaps the economy is bad and people are worried about it.
cain
@Eolirin:
The media has been everywhere selling the story that we are going to lose. We need to stop listening to them. They are telling us what to expect and the polls themselves are likely flawed in what is asked. It’s all about a narrative.
cain
@schrodingers_cat: truth.
brendancalling
Kfile and Upchuck Toddler don’t get it?
oh, they TOTALLY get it. That’s why they’re so awful.
bbleh
@cain: Of course, and they will change with it. TFNYT of 30 years hence will look as little like TFNYT of today as today’s looks like that of 30 years ago (and you should really see 50 years ago!)
Paddy Chayefsky was a fkin clairvoyant.
Eolirin
@Brachiator: The economy isn’t bad though. Spending remains high, unemployment remains low. Prices aren’t as stable as we’d like, and Russia is fucking with food and energy prices. But a lot of our fundamentals are very sounds right now.
The media could be involved in educating people as to what’s going on, why, what can and can’t be done about it, and there’d be a whole lot less anxiety around things. Instead it holds a mirror up to people being scared and go “This is terrifying, look at how scared people are.”
They have a responsibility to inform on issues and fact not just on opinion, and they’ve completely abdicated that duty.
Alison Rose
@Turgidson: Every time I see that gazpacho thing referenced, it makes me think of a video where the creator showed a clip from a white lady ranting about CRT or something and she likely meant to say “staunch Marxists” but instead she said “starch Marxists” – and the creator then decided to make one of her Patreon tiers the “Potato Starch Marxists”, which I found endlessly amusing.
Poe Larity
For the pitchbot.
What would the NYT look like today had fascism won in the 40’s? Any different?
Perhaps not the Georgia Font.
Brachiator
@cain:
More people, especially younger generations, are already getting their news from alternate sources. The New York Times and the Washington Post are running on fumes.
J R in WV
@Eolirin:
Things are not that close there… it’s fake propaganda, and you shouldn’t be buying into it and spreading it around anywhere. All this polling is faked up for Republicans’ benefit.
Eolirin
@cain: I don’t care what the media is saying narrative wise, I care that polling has tightened substantially, to the point of being inside the margin of error, on a gov race that should be double digits in our favor. For reference Cuomo won all of his elections by 15-20 points.
If there isn’t something very wrong with the screens, something has gone wrong here.
Geminid
@Alison Rose: Babbling bonehead Boebert had one of the better malapropisms. Her primary opponent was a state senator and a hemp farmer. At their debate she referred to a vote he had taken on hemp regulation and tried to say he had ulterior motives. But instead she accused him of having “alternative motors!”
The audience cracked up, and it wasn’t the only time.
Eolirin
@J R in WV: You know how crazy that sounds? The right was saying stuff like that when Obama was kicking their asses and we made fun of them for it. We shouldn’t be relying on expectations that the polling is all off in our favor.
And I don’t see how it’s to their benefit to do that anyway. It’ll make sure our side has maximal turn out since it’s showing close races, not unwinnable ones, and that’ll pretty much doom them.
I think we need take our (political and perceptual) weakness on crime, in particular, seriously. And we should have been paying more attention to it this whole time. I’m not sure what the proper answer to that is, but we really need to find one.
Timill
@Eolirin: Polling is a function of two variables: estimating how various demographic groups intend to vote, and estimating what percentage of each demographic group will actually vote. They then figure out who will win…
They base all this off people who will pick up the phone and answer their questions. Which is not me, for one.
I expect a GOP bias as we get closer to the poll, and pollsters shift from all voters to likely voters as their basis.
But if there’s a bunch of (say) shy pro-Trump or shy pro-choice voters, all bets are off.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat:
Male too. Men aren’t even the majority and they’re still the default.
Eolirin
@Geminid: And they still chose her. These people.
piratedan
and the glory of it all is that it is context free…
is inflation up? yes, but so are wages and unemployment is down, are there conversations about how awesome those numbers are?
is there discussion about the jobs recovery post pandemic?
is it true that in the majority of the industrialized world, inflation is even worse?
Have no problems with telling the truth, but there are reasons and context provides understanding, and we wonder why people are so misinformed and this laziness in reporting the news is an essential part of this problem.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: True. And yet Orange T increased his vote share of white women in 2020 compared to 2016.
SpaceUnit
Our major media outlets are all corporations or corporate subsidiaries. The top management, executives and board members all share corporate priorities. They want to keep historically low tax rates on corporations and high-earning individuals like themselves. The want deregulation. They don’t want any government agencies looking into their business dealings. They want judicial appointments that are warm to corporate power and cool to organized labor. They want to attract similar-minded corporate advertisers. They are consummate consumers of Republican policy.
They won’t go on record with any of that of course, but I guarantee you that in private they tell each other that whatever one thinks of trump and the current state of the MAGA Republican Party, supporting the GOP is just good business and good for the bottom line. And if you’re the on-air talent you will quickly realize that it’s good for your career.
So nobody should be surprised or baffled by their hostility to Democrats. But screw them. Fuck their narratives and fuck their bullshit polls. Let’s win the midterms anyway. Fix bayonets.
Juju
@SpaceUnit: Thank you.
Brachiator
@Eolirin:
People can’t eat “sound fundamentals.” Inflation is a worldwide problem and has toppled governments.
I absolutely agree that we will get through this, but it is pointless to ignore current reality or people’s concerns.
The media could do a lot of things. Unfortunately, being helpful or supportive has never been part of their mission statement.
bbleh
@Timill: true that a polling typically involves “weighting” the results from various groups based on a lot of guesswork about who will vote (and other things), and hence that the results (and predictions) often depend as much on the biases of the pollster’s voting model as on any actual trends in what turns out to be the actual voting population.
BUT it’s also a truism that “Republicans come home,” and that polls frequently show a trend toward Republican candidates as elections approach. (Used to be you’d assume Republicans would do about 3 points better in the actual election than in the polling results, but I dunno what the current wisdom is.)
Citizen Alan
@Eolirin: The only way Dems can “win on crime” is to embrace policies meant to terrorize black folks into never leaving their homes. “Concerns about rising crime” at a time when violent crime is decreasing is nothing but a proxy for “black folks aren’t afraid of us as much as they should be.” IIRC, the gubernatorial Dem candidate in Oklahoma pointed out that the murder rate in that state was higher than in NY state, and her GOP opponent laughed at the absurdity of an objective demonstrable fact because it did not comport with his “feelings.”
Geminid
@Eolirin: Yeah, but most of the primary voters probably did not watch the debate, and Boebert had a lot of money to spend on advertising.
She definitely has a hard core of support though. The incumbent she beat in the 2020 primary took her lightly and lost with $300,000 in unspent campaign funds he was saving for the general election. Boebert had several known skeletons in her closet that Tipton could have attacked her over, but he might have hestitated to offend her fans and thought he didn’t have to.
So Boebert won the primary and went on to win the CO 3rd by 6 points, the same margin by which trump carrried the district.
Benw
Fuck the h4t3rs
Brachiator
@TS:
RE: U.S. economy is likely rebounding just before the midterms, despite inflation
Great point. The media is never as good as we might like, and is not pro-Democrats, but neither are they simplistically prophets of Doom.
Economics news reporting is actually pretty good. You just have to ignore pundits and most mainstream “analysis.”
ETA. It’s funny. In the UK, Tory hardliners are complaining that financial news stories are accurately reporting on the failure of BREXIT and the incompetence of the Conservative Party government. This, despite the fact that most of the UK media is biased in favor of the Tories.
Suzanne
@Eolirin: Housing prices are ridiculous, and that’s a huge concern for a lot of people.
jonas
@Eolirin:
I have to admit, I had higher hopes for Hochul. She’s been a competent governor, but doesn’t do retail politics. She’s well-funded and runs a lot of ads and such, but, at least upstate, hasn’t been out pressing the flesh at all from what I can tell. That’s left a huge vacuum that Zeldin has skillfully stepped into. New York’s a miserably hard state to govern because you’ve got NYC which has it’s own entirely unique political ecosystem to deal with, and then you have the rest of the state — much of it very rural and very right-wing — that requires a different touch. Somehow Chuck Schumer seems to be good at straddling that divide. Hochul has not figured out how to square the circle yet, either with NYC or the rest of the state, despite being from Buffalo. I think Hochul will still pull it off, but just barely. It shouldn’t have been this close.
zhena gogolia
@SpaceUnit:
I like you
Starfish
@schrodingers_cat: That is interesting that the biases in the US press made you aware of the biases in the Indian press.
In some countries, much of the press was government propaganda, so people viewed it with much more skepticism than people have in the US.
I think that a skeptical lens can be useful when there are numerous types of disinformation going on, but it is rough when it feels like there is no objective reality.
Dan B
@Brachiator: I hope the UK media is reporting on the laws that were a result of aligning with the EU like labor protections, environmental laws, and more are being allowed to sunset. The proles are gonna really suffer. That will build strong “character”.
The phrase “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” Should be: The beatings will be much more severe, and only some of you will survive.
jonas
@Brachiator:
Even if the WaPo and FTFNYT don’t have the national subscriber base they once did, they still dominate the media ecosystem in that their reporting is what informs what other outlets choose to cover and how they cover it. So if the FTFNYT is running with a “Democrats are Doomed!!1!” headline, that still gets reflected on some news aggregator that some Gen-Z dude is looking at as he scrolls around for the latest Yung Gravy video.
Starfish
@Suzanne: That bubble is in the process of popping. The appetite for multimillion dollar homes is not the same when interest rates are 6-7%.
Sister Golden Bear
@schrodingers_cat: Hiring for (company) “cultural fit” invariably leads to an echo chamber reflecting who is in charge. It’s a major factor in what drives tech bro culture and other toxic aspect of Silicon Valley. Same with our media elites, especially with its nepotism, cronyism, and elitist insularity (having had graduated from the “right” schools, Villager mentality, etc. Wired for Republicans? To paraphrase the gun-wielding astronaut, they always have been.
Sister Golden Bear
@Matt McIrvin: The cis-het is also silent.
Subsole
@Brachiator: on the one hand, good. Fuck them.
On the BAD hand, it seems like a lot of the yoots are now getting their news from a professional celebrifluencer on InstaTok, who gets their news from a Patreon channel and whatever YouTube’s shillgorithm barfs up…
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@NotMax:
Personally, I’m eager for a round of President Xi.
An occupation government run by the CCP could hardly be more malevolent than the GOP.
Maybe I should just become a paid Chinese agent now, and await the rush….
Subsole
@Turgidson: They *won’t* be the first, though!
Media is only a threat to fascism when it ASKS QUESTIONS. When it challenges the official line.
Take a good look at those sweaty-tongued little dungpuppets we have today and tell me which of them will be asking inconvenient questions of their good dear close buddies in the GOP piblic information office?
jonas
@Eolirin: You’re right. Crime is up almost everywhere, but in states like NY where bail requirements have been lowered, Republicans have been able to successfully pin the upsurge on those laws, which were passed exclusively by Democrats, and Dem candidates are paying the price. It’s a bit like the “defund the police rhetoric” — virtually no actual Democratic office holders used that language and many actually pushed back against it (including President Biden), but the smear stuck.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Subsole:
Middle daughter is 27 and was spewing some Bernie shit at me again this past week.
Itold her “you have two choices – vote passionately and convince your friends to do it too, or be prepared as the vanguard of the proletariat to seize the means of production and establish a workers state. You’re not going to get anything but pain by simply whining about liberals.”
Ruckus
As many of us have said time and time again the people paying the pundits and many hard copy reporters are well on the wealthy side of the aisle of the economy. And they are greedy fucks and being told time and time again that effectively they are leaving money on the table for the other 80+% of us to try to get/hang on to, for survival. And because it’s for our survival and they don’t understand business and taxes and actually investing in something that will do more than just move more fucking greed money into their accounts and how poor they are with high six or 7 figure (or far more) bank accounts, 30 room (and more) homes and olympic sized pools and a gardening bill that runs into low 6 figures per year and they are actually fucking ignorant greedy fucks. For example and some of that crappy scent you smell, I give you that musky smell of Elon.
Dangerman
Oh, they get it. In the paychecks and end of the year bonus. I’d call them whores but at most whores have SOME scruples.
Jackie
@Eolirin: The polls have been awry since 2016. It’s time to ignore the polls AND headlines and just vote, GOTV, and stick to sports.
catothedog
There is no media that is aligned with Democrats.
We have Fox, who is completely aligned with Republicans, and gibe them an unchallenged platform.
One some cultural issues, once in a while CNN, NBC, MSNBC agree with Democrats. Otherwise – economically, racially, and everything else that matters to government policy, they are mostly aligned with Republicans.
Democrats cannot go on any of those outlets and spew unchallenged views (like Republicans on Fox). They get questioned, criticized and bamboozled – gotcha interview questions and opinions of earth differ are the norm
Democrats have to put up with it, because they have no other media options to reach the public
If a Republican appearing on CNN/NBC/MSNBC were to get the same treatment as these channels gives Democrats, the Republican will simply NOT show up to that CNN/NBC/MSNBC again, and the channel will lose all Republican guests for its shows.
Republicans can credibly threaten to boycott independent channels, because they always have Fox to get media exposure.
Democrats, cannot play hardball with CNN, NBC, MSNBC, etc because they don’t have a fallback option, a channel or media outlet captive to them, or of their own.
To add to that the media is mostly aligned with the billionaires and Republican policy goals. Even on white supremacy, the media is aligned with Republicans, because all media is run by whites – including newspapers, NY Times included. CNN, NBC, MSNBC etc believe in a very benevolent white rule, but white rule nonetheless. Fox believes in outright racism. It’s only a matter of degree.
The current Republican base believe that CNN, NBC, MSNBC are aligned with Democrats, because even if those channels are mostly aligned with Republican policies, they are not 100%, lockstep aligned. The belief in liberal media is more of a reflection on the current state of the Republican Party, than anything else.
Subsole
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Sigh.
You’d think watching everyone from Bernie’s orbit – from Chapo Faphouse to Tulsi to Killer Mike – become GOP simps (if not outright Strasserites) would be a hint.
I lost any desire to be in their vanguard, because nobody in that vanguard stopped to ask what happens to a vanguard without an army behind it. And that’s exactly what Bernie built.
Villago Delenda Est
Andrew Kaczynski is Village scum, ignoring that this midterm is different, because the GQp has fucking launched HIMARS at their feet with Dobbs.
Lyrebird
@jonas:
I see your point, but I want to say that this part:
is one where the media has played a huge and unhelpful role. I mean, the local papers reported a bit when with Mitch McConnell and friends fking around with Covid funds to cities nearly defunded quiet a few police jobs, but still the rhetoric gets more play . Not much attention to Demings’ proposals either, who advocates for paying police officers MORE.
I don’t know. I share your disappointment with Hochul and iiuc share your determination to get out there for the D ticket.
Do you or @Eolirin: have any comments on the environmental ballot initiative?
mrmoshpotato
@Subsole:
Hahaha! True.
Brachiator
@Lyrebird:
RE: like the “defund the police rhetoric”
You can’t blame the media. Defund the police scared the shit out of many white people, including some Balloon Juice jackals. It scared the shit out of some black people. And despite media reporting that the police generally have not been defunded, conservatives have successfully used this as a wedge issue against Democrats and against efforts to reform the police and aspects of the legal system.
Subsole
@mrmoshpotato: I wish it wasn’t.
Our problem has always been getting people involved, youth more than anyone. For a moment, he seemed to be changing that. But the instant we rejected him, he started lying his ass off and discouraging them. He took a problem and very spitefully made it worse. When he could have actually been a real force for good in the world. All it would have cost him was a sliver off the venerable baobab of his pride.
Instead, that vomit-hearted bastard took a lot of good, decent kids and turned them into cynical, conspiracy-poisoned nihilarchists because his shriveled little – let’s just call it an ego – could not handle losing to a woman.
Man poisoned so many damn wells, and in the most fork-tongued, backstabbing, underhanded chickenshit way.
I am still angry about it. I will probably die angry about it. Hopefully after he has slouched his useless goddamned ass off this rock I have to share with him.
mvr
@lowtechcyclist: This is actually a hugely subtle point and why conspiracies and intentional goal-directed pursuit of the (bad) goal that actually turns out to result, is often a less plausible explanation of what goes on than something less bad-goal-directed but still the upshot of people seeking other goals that lead to the same bad upshot.
The Truffle
@Brachiator: Now former cops like Val Demings and Eric Adams are in office. Adams is a putz but no “defund the police” type.
piratedan
yeah, there’s a whole series of scary crime and immigration ads being run by the dark money Citizens for Sanity group that blame the rising crime rates on the fact that defunding the police policies have consequences… naturally the maguffiun is that no “defund the police” policies have been passed in Arizona but hey, it serves their purpose.
These are usually coupled with the anti-Katie Hobbs ads that show that she’s been backed by radical liberal groups (and the ultra liberal advocacy group cited…. Planned Parenthood) that show that she’s too-liberal for Arizona.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
eddie blake
@jonas: so crime is actually lower this year than it was last or the year before, and is still WAY lower than it was in the eighties but ok.
and they worked on the bail law to fix some of the problems.
the democrats don’t have a crime problem. they have a “crime” problem and they’re being accused of being soft on crime by a bunch of fascist criminal fucks who cheer on the insurrection and are on team treason.
we have a crime problem? FFS. they wanna defund the fbi.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/11/nyregion/new-york-bail-laws.html
laura
Hey Kfile, I Love, revere and Respect your parenting and family life and advocacy. I can simultaneously call Bullshit on bothersiderist claptrap and do so here. Pray, do tell about the two parties and which one still believes in the American Experiment and which one would have a White Christian Supremacist Order.
Both Sides Don’t.
TS
@Brachiator:
When this type of complaint appears in the US – the MSM says “so sorry sirs” and change their reporting.
There really are some major differences between how people react in the US vs. UK. I think it probably relates to the style of government where the PM is in place at the pleasure of his/her political party and the parliament, rather than being separately elected & able to be of the opposite party to the congress majority. Once a political party loses in the commons (cf the US House of Reps) there is a change of government. This only happens in the US with a change of President.
jonas
@Lyrebird:
The one statewide ballot initiative in NY authorizes the state to issue about $4 billion in bonds (i.e. borrow money) targeted specifically at environmental and climate-change mitigation projects. As in all things NY, what one doesn’t know, of course, is that once that money goes through the sausage-making process in Albany, how much will benefit upstate vs. the City.
In the context of NY state’s GDP and budget, this is pretty small potatoes. At least the state is earmarking some spending for necessary climate-related mitigation, flood control, erosion control, etc. Makes a lot of sense, imho. The Republican response is that we should instead invest in more fracking, punching immigrants, and tax cuts for hedge fund managers, so there you go…
Subsole
@Brachiator:
The bitter irony is that here in very purple Texas, we may as well defund the fuckers.
I mean, if I have to go armed at school, at work, in my car, at home, in the grocery store, on the highway, and always be on my guard every second and ready to defend myself with violence because their little powertrip party keeps handing out assault weapons to every flaccid little spunkstain with an inferiority complex that asks for one, then what the hell am I paying the cops for? I’m already doing their job for them. They need a slice off my paycheck, too?
We had a shooting at a hospital here. I have friends doing clinicals there. They’re fine, but two nurses very much aren’t. And goddamn am I sick of this shit.
Sorry to be a downer.
We have a chance to turn things around. We just have to keep fighting.
Lyrebird
@jonas: thanks!
KSinMA
@WaterGirl: Yes!
Jackie
Hear hear!
“The American Medical Association is finally coming out against politicians who insert themselves into the medical care of individual Americans.”
“Dr. Resneck spoke to Congress back in July about what would happen and how things would unfold due to the elimination of Roe v. Wade and restrictive laws like those in Texas and other states.
“We are starting to see the consequences, and we know what happens when pregnant patients who either need or want an abortion cannot get one,” the doctor explained. “Sometimes, they turn to self-managed abortions, and we know from history, and other countries, as well, is that is a bad medical consequence. Sometimes, they have the resources and are able to travel to another state, but lines are getting longer in those states. And so people are getting abortions later. And as a result, we know of a study a few years ago of patients that are turned away and ultimately do not get abortions that they are seeking, and end up with more health problems and mental health issues.””
https://www.rawstory.com/american-medical-association-president-women/
Damien Veatch
This entire rant assumes that The Media is a single entity. If some reporter wrote something that hurt John Cole’s feelings a decade ago, then that’s obviously Andrew Kaczynski’s fault today. Almost every attack hurled at Andrew isn’t that he wrote something particularly objectionable (in a fucking tweet, of all things), but that The Media is always being mean to progressives, and it’s Andrew’s job to correct this.
Also, the description that Andrew “got upset” at “some mild pushback from the WH” is hilariously false. He politely objected to the fact that the WH flat out lied about what he said.
This is why the Democrats continue to lose elections–because the chattering class who alternately advise and whine to the party, absolutely suck at politics. Get better John Cole.
brendancalling
On a totally unrelated note, I had a dinner date at my place and it ended with a kiss.
Which is to say, if a gal is willing to kiss an ugly old mug like me—and I am old and ugly, and she is neither of those things—then the Dems can win in 2022. Just like the Phils getting to the WS.
We gonna do it in 2022. Ignore the [paid] haters.
jonas
@eddie blake:
The problem with the bail law is this: you never hear about the guy who, because he didn’t have to post bail, got to keep his job, his apartment, and his kids, and make restitution for the minor crime he was involved in. You do hear about the guy who steals a car, gets caught, arrested, booked, released, and then later that day carjacks and rapes a woman. Yes, crime’s lower than in the 80’s and early 90’s, but you also have to be about 50 or older to really remember those days. For younger people, what’s going on now is pretty scary. And yes, the media doesn’t help. If it bleeds, it leads, etc.
eddie blake
@jonas: i mean, i’m 49. i remember and boy were things fucked up back then, so that’s a spot-on observation.
jonas
@eddie blake:
Lol! Me too! Go 49-ers!
matt
@TS: they won’t notice it because the coverage will continue to be bad, and people don’t really directly experience something as complex as the US economy except in a very localized way.
Kelly
The Oregonian, the biggest paper in Oregon, has endorsed all Democrats for Congress and the Governor. Most of my life it has supported Republicans. The endorsements play down partisanship and for each seat more or less say the Democrat is serious and knows how to govern and the Republican doesn’t.
Oregon Republicans TV adds are running hard against Portland which may play well to the rural base but most the voters live in the cities. I’m hoping the city folk are feeling a bit insulted.
Jim Appleton
I had an interesting conversation today with an archeologist who leans progressive, and is fairly savvy.
I asked her to excavate and stratify the breakdowns which got us in this mess.
She said the “natural” is essentially the Roosevelt layer, which solved a lot of problems and set the stage for, e.g., expanding the safety net (now vilified as “socialism” — fuck yeah! Dems need to take control of this low hanging fruit among the “Keep your hands off my Social Security” knuckledraggers), civil rights, voting rights, and Roe v Wade.
That’s where it starts to get muddy.
She marked the biggest disruption at the loss of the fairness doctrine.
That’s when educational standards, the then distant right-wing media, Citizens United, unindicted Trump co-conspirators, etc all got their start.
My next question was how to fix all that.
“Fuck if I know. I’m an archeologist.”
mrmoshpotato
@Kelly:
The Rethuglican assclown running for governor here in Illinois has repeatedly called Chicago a hellhole.
I look forward to his humiliating loss.
Subsole
@Damien Veatch:
Pull my finger.
Subsole
@brendancalling:
Go you!
Damien Veatch
@eddie blake: You are absolutely right. So what’s the solution? Should Dems try to formulate a message that can effectively convey to low information voters that they don’t want to defund the police, or should they just keep the same message but cry about how the media covers them?
Matt McIrvin
@jonas:
Yes, BUT, for most of the period when crime actually was visibly dropping relative to the very recent past, most people still thought it was increasing. The exception was, I think, just a couple of years in the late 90s. Perceptions are almost completely divorced from the reality, always.
Jim Appleton
@mrmoshpotato: I’m in Wasco County. The overall impression is that very few R voters here pay attention to the candidate other than the R. Take a look at who won the primary to run against Ron Wyden.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Rae_Perkins
mrmoshpotato
@Jim Appleton: I hope enough city folk care to go vote.
mrmoshpotato
Phillies vs Astros.
Go Phillies!
And fuck the fucking Yankees!
Kelly
@Jim Appleton: I’m in rural Marion county near the Linn County line. Might as well be Idaho. Jo Rae Perkins believes crazy things and has no meaningful experience to inform her performance if elected to the US Senate. Yet her 39% to 57% loss to Jeff Merkley in 2020 was about how well the rest of the state wide Republicans did.
Subsole
@mrmoshpotato: Is said assclown from Illinois, or is he a transplant?
Because that seems a little…’tone deaf’ isn’t quite the word.
Subsole
@Matt McIrvin: I always chuckle a bit when I recall that once, long long ago, there was actually a movie whose central premise was that the government walled off Manhattan and converted it into an open-air prison.
Speaking of perception and reality.
Jackie
@mrmoshpotato: The Yankees got 🧹 🧹 🧹 !!! baaahaahaaha!!!!
GOOOO Phillies!!!
mrmoshpotato
@Subsole: Louisville, Illinois which is 100 miles east of Saint Louis, MO to give you an idea.
mrmoshpotato
@Jackie: The Yankees got swept at Yankee Stadium! So good!
Matt McIrvin
@Subsole: Also, if I recall correctly, this is almost always NOT about people perceiving rising crime in their own neighborhood–they’ll usually say it’s fine where they live (even if it’s actually not), but they heard crime is exploding somewhere else.
Subsole
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah. Same with the economy. “I’m doing fine, but other folks are hurting.
Edit: and of course there’s the dogwhistle aspect of the whole thing.
scribbler
@brendancalling: what a sweet story! Thanks for sharing.
eddie blake
@Subsole: yeah. john carpenter. escape from ny. starring kurt russell from 1981. fun flick.
@Damien Veatch: umm…i dunno what the fuck you’re talking about. they should formulate a new formula or keep that new formula and cry about it? yeah. that’s totally what dems are doing. crying about it.
not that your insinuation makes any fucking sense, i guess on your planet, when the fascist gop complains about media coverage, it’s a savvy move, working the refs. dems: crying.
FFS.
sukabi
John, I would say they DO get it…and they don’t care that that you’re upset….to one extent or another they’ve proven they’re playing on team gop / corporate power.
Subsole
@eddie blake: I often wonder if those films reflected an actual preoccupation with rising crime/violence, or if we were kind of reaching out to these outlandish scenarios because our lives were getting safer and more stable. We were bored, so we imagined crime everywhere to relieve the ennui.
Jacel
This evening I took time to watch Johathan Capehart’s “The Sunday Show” that I Tivoed from MSNBC this morning, as usual, but rarely find time to watch. To my surprise, his two hours included a substantial walking-around interview with President Biden and a live phone interview with Speaker Pelosi. I’m glad to see Democratic officials spending time on a “Sunday show” that doesn’t go about devaluing them, as Todd and others at the same daypart do.
ColoradoGuy
The economy … at the new gas station in town, the display LCD blats out a cheerful little tune and loudly says “APPLY WITHIN!” every minute the gas is pumping. Every restaurant has a sign saying “HIRING NOW!” Some signs even say “WE PAY YOU THE SAME DAY!”
Methinks there is a labor shortage, at least here in Colorado. Dunno about the rest of the country.
Nora Lenderbee
I want to thank Martin and everyone who participated in this morning’s thread about ballot propositions. You’ve made me rethink my position on two of them.
eddie blake
@Subsole: crime was pretty bad in nyc in the late seventies and eighties before dropping in the mid nineties. the subway was horrible; unreliable and dangerous. crime all over the country was bad before the crack era kicked off and that just made things crazy.
but in the mid nineties, nationwide, the bottom dropped out and crime began to plummet.
kevin drum had an interesting theory that lead in paint and gasoline was the culprit.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health
eta- it really wasn’t until koch’s third term or maybe dinkins that the subway became safe-and- reliable. (and it’s not nearly as reliable today as it used to be back then)
Subsole
@eddie blake: I have heard about the lead paint/gas theory. It seems pretty plausible to me.
Brachiator
Some breaking news
Now, the Tories have to get Mordaunt to drop out. Conservative Party MPs clearly want Sunak. But hard-core Conservative Party members have been saying on talk radio shows that they do not think that Black and Brown people are really “British.”
If I understand the process correctly, if 170 MPs back Sunak, or all other candidates drop out, a vote by Conservative Party membership won’t really matter.
And Tories will never call a general election.
Jackie
@mrmoshpotato: Morning Joe will be epic! Willie Giest will be crying. LOL
Jim Appleton
@Kelly: You’ve probably seen the blue, bilingual lawn signs, “God, Family, Country — Vote Republican”.
Acquaintances I’ve otherwise respected with those signs up don’t seem to know much about Perkins other than that “we” need her vote.
RaflW
@Brachiator: What fraction of a Scaramuch was Boris ‘back in the running’?
Hahaha!
Tony Jay
@Damien Veatch:
Sorry to rain on your parade, but why should anyone here waste a moment of their time listening to the ‘wisdom’ of a thrice-convicted dog strangler with a history of exposing himself to college students?
What? That’s not who you are? Sorry, dipshit, I can’t hear you. Maybe you’d better craft a better message so that people don’t dismiss you as a sexual predator with a hard-on for murdering puppies.
Speak up, Rapey McWoofchoker, I couldn’t catch your brilliant messaging over the screams of pubescent girls and the yelping of at-risk canines.
I guess that means you don’t really have any good ideas after all.
AM in NC
Damn, John, you come up with the most apt analogies.
I have been using the “tire rims and anthrax for dinner” analogy for years now to help “normies” better understand where we are WRT compromise with the GOP, and am going to co-opt this one too.
Wish every Democrat on camera would quote it back to whichever Chucktodd is trying to bothsides them to death.
karensky
@Baud: Absolutely!
Matt McIrvin
@eddie blake: Yes, the period of much higher crime rates from about 1970-1995 was real and, oddly, a global phenomenon.
The lead hypothesis is a little too neat to me, but I figure it was almost certainly one of several contributors.
The rise in the past few years is also real but it’s still a small rise compared to what happened back then. One difference is that the 1970s-80s wave was an increase across all crimes, whereas this recent one seems to be a rise in violence specifically, and especially homicide. Property crimes aren’t up except for a few that seem to be motivated by specific economic conditions, like catalytic converter thefts.
It also seems to be leveling out now that some of the disruptions associated with COVID shutdowns are clearing. But the rise in homicide started before COVID so it might not just be that. The huge wave of gun purchases sparked by COVID-associated paranoia can’t have helped.
Kropacetic
I love Biden but I will say he elevated that smear being used against the party by smearing his own party with it at the State of the Union.
This is why we can’t just react to Republican framing, we have to focus on our solutions. Rather than seek a Sista Souljah moment, Biden should have put forward a constructive platform of public safety reform.
brantl
@Brachiator: The economy is better than they say it is, and they are thumbing the scales. They keep rah-rah’ing the “typical expectation” instead of actual track record. The Democrats have been better for the economy, by all metrics, since Hoover was president, but they keep touting “some people say that Republicans are better for the economy”, that’s what happens when the refs are both PTSD’ed and paid by your oppositon.
Ruckus
If we look at TV, what is the worst “news channel”?
Of course it’s faux news, if it was only slanted that might be acceptable but slanted does not come close to how fucking bad it is. And it’s everywhere because the wealthy dumb ass that started it made sure it’s every where, and charged more for it’s hard hitting, lying bullshit. Go anywhere and if there is a TV on it’s got faux news on, unless someone has complained – a lot. And loudly. It’s taken 30 yrs but it has become ubiquitous. Actually it didn’t take that long but here we are.
So why am I saying once again what we all know?
Because repetition was the goal in the first place, constant/consistent bullshit, consistent views, consistent exposure gets acceptance. We all have our little worlds we live in, some of us have peered outside on occasion and seen that there is more than our favorite tavern, restaurant, grocery store. If you live in the USA outback there isn’t a lot more than that to look at and like. And TV may have 200 or 2000 channels if you have cable but 90% of them are trying to sell you crap you have zero need for or programs that try to accumulate you to a way of thinking that the only reason you work is to buy crap you don’t have any need for. How different is the NYT or many other newspapers to that concept, we want you to think of spending money is the entire point of existence. The wealthy almost always want you to purchase something they have invested in so that they can get even wealthier. Is Elon in any way not that person? Or any other of the numerous billionaires? (I’m sure there are exceptions, but their names escape me – always)
My point is that it is not the structure of our government that does that, it is many of the people that run for office or who they become when they get showered with money that is pocket change to a billionaire to buy their loyalty. How many of our politicians are far wealthier than average? We all like money, it makes our lives easier, possibly better. But we have to tax income in proportion to it’s level – IOW the higher the income the higher the tax percentage. They will still be fucking rich, but so will the country and the population will be far, far better served. After all what is the difference between 100 billion and 120 billion? Bragging rights at the club? Because right now we give people with lots of money ways to make more that the normal people can’t participate in and that has lower tax rates than someone who actually gets their hands dirty actually working. The rich will still be wealthy, but so will the country and far more of it’s citizens will be reasonably taken care of.
chopper
“american voters wondering why things are as bad as we keep telling them they are”