Written, directed, and starring Chris Licht:
How are we gonna cover Trump? That’s not something I stay up at night thinking about,” Chris Licht told me. “It’s very simple.”
It was the fall of 2022. This was the first of many on-the-record interviews that Licht had agreed to give me, and I wanted to know how CNN’s new leader planned to deal with another Donald Trump candidacy. Until recently Licht had been producing a successful late-night comedy show. Now, just a few months into his job running one of the world’s preeminent news organizations, he claimed to have a “simple” answer to the question that might very well come to define his legacy.
“The media has absolutely, I believe, learned its lesson,” Licht said.
Sensing my surprise, he grinned.
“I really do,” Licht said. “I think they know that he’s playing them—at least, the people in my organization. We’ve had discussions about this. We know that we’re getting played, so we’re gonna resist it.”
Licht, in fact, had not learned his lesson:
While CNN has consistently trailed both Fox and MSNBC this year, the network has been particularly under pressure as it has been attempting to pivot from its left-leaning coverage during the Trump administration.
But that has seemingly come at the expense of its core audience.
In recent weeks, Newsmax–a conservative cable network outlier–has topped CNN in several time slots — particularly with Eric Bolling beating Cooper’s main show, “AC306,” at 8 p.m.
CNN chasing wingnuts is like Joe Manchin and other blue dogs chasing Trump voters. They fucking hate you, they don’t care what you have to say or how you say it, and a core part of their cultural identity is fucking hating you. So stop sucking up to them, stop firing talent inexplicably, and stop making yourself unpalatable to the other 75% of the country who fucking hates MAGA.
Just do good journalism. Jesus christ Jay Rosen has been screaming into a vacuum for the entire Trump administration and beyond. Maybe fucking listen to him.
trollhattan
The leopard that just ate your face has the same spots as last week.
But, think of the shareholders!
Old School
Luckily, the Mike Pence town hall is coming up in a week or so. That’ll goose the ratings!
WaterGirl
@Old School:
Yawn.
Steeplejack
If CNN had “left-leaning coverage during the Trump administration,” I must have been in a coma. (Might have been better if I had been.) MSNBC barely has center-left coverage, and CNN is far to the right of them. They only looked “left-leaning” if you were squinting out of the Foxhole.
Baud
I get that it’s the NY Post, but pro-democracy is broader than left leaning.
trollhattan
@Old School: Mother will be very angry at anybody who gooses Mike.
trollhattan
@Steeplejack: The narrative they’ve been pushing since…forever that “the media is [sic] liberal” has sadly, proven extremely resilient and effective. Folks who should know better actually take it as gospel and not only do they not push back, they don’t think it through.
Because it’s sheep/cats comparing herding conservatives/liberals there is no possible “Fox for liberals” but CNN and MSNBC fill the imaginary role, anyway.
Frankensteinbeck
Manchin keeps winning re-election. I think he’s a unique case and he sure as Hell doesn’t reflect on the CNN situation, where Licht has his head up his ass so far he can see daylight. The dipstick thinks the Trump town hall was a big success.
John S.
At this point, someone just needs to come up with a Max Headroom type AI news anchor that is based on Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, etc.
It would be more authentic than the bullshit currently available, and people would probably love it.
...now I try to be amused
CNN is the present-day New Coke.
matt
Licht is one of the 9 guys at the table with the Nazi.
Frankensteinbeck
@matt:
He’s the guy who invited the Nazi.
tokyokie
@…now I try to be amused: Well, both come from Atlanta.
My right-wing mother would complain about the liberal bias back in the 1960s, and were she still alive, she’d still be complaining about it.
MattF
In case you were wondering… Trump won California in a landslide, but because of Smartmatic, Dominion, and George Soros, only one person knows that, and he will explain it to you for a small fee.
CaseyL
I try to not even go to CNN’s website anymore.
(I say “try” because my fingers do a semi-automatic news roundup in the mornings where I check a bunch of news sites – WaPo, FTFNYT, BBC, Guardian, plus my locals – and CNN was one of them for so long that I have input their url without thinking. But that’s only happened once or twice.)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MattF: How can this seem plausible to anyone?
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
@MattF: If only I didn’t have to pay him. This seems like vital information to know. The scope of this fraud is truly breathtaking.
Steeplejack
The temp has kissed 90° here in Threadkill Lane—first time this year, I think. But the humidity is only 31%, so it’s practically balmy for NoVA. And I’m not out in the sun. The apartment is still somewhat cool—the thermostat says 78°—because the brick building is somewhat slow to change with the outside temp. There’s even a bit of a cool breeze coming in.
After today the high is supposed to drop back to around 80° for the next week, so I hope I can keep my long no-A.C. streak alive.
TriassicSands
The Rosen-Jacob interview (Cole’s last link) is critically important. It effectively describes what is wrong with so much of the political coverage of the Post, Times, and NPR (which may be worst of all, because they don’t have opinion pieces that attempt to offset the bothsiderist/false equivalence/whataboutismist news reports). The interview describes in detail how the MSM have utterly failed in the post-Gingrich and now Trump eras. There is nothing mystical about what it would take to fix this, but the likelihood is approaching zero.
grumbles
This Lichthole is even more incompetent than I expected.
I expected him to try to force coverage to serve his sensibilities. He made that clear, and like a Republican tried to justify it by claiming the house flipping was a show of what “the American People” wanted.
Which, ofnaurally, he didn’t realize was an open invitation to the American People who don’t live in his head to educate him on what they want.
Josie
Thanks for posting that interview, John. It explains the problem beautifully.
Chris
Modern mainstream media comes off like an obsessive stalker who can’t stop fixating on the same one woman, no matter how many times she screams at him that it’s NOT happening, she is NOT interested, OMG GO AWAY YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING CREEP. (Even though there are tons of other people out there and statistically, there’s got to be at least some of them that would respond if he even noticed they were there).
Chris
@trollhattan:
The delusion that the courts are “liberally biased” and “filled with activist judges” appears to finally be breaking in the general public, so I don’t completely despair that it’ll eventually realize the same thing about the media.
It’s hard to imagine what could finally make it happen if even all of 2016 couldn’t do it, though.
Ken
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Especially when they have a much better election result map at https://xkcd.com/2399/ . (I love the title text on that one.)
Steeplejack
@TriassicSands:
Thanks for getting me to read it. It’s very good.
Josie
@MattF:
Good grief! I thought you were making a joke until I clicked on the thread. There oughta be a law.
eldorado
making sure every media outlet is completely ineffective and untrustworthy is worth a lot of money. not to cnn as a company mind you
raven
@tokyokie: News flash EVERYBODY whines and bitches about the “MEDIA” constantly.
Steeplejack
@Ken:
Bad link. Fixed: “2020 Election Map.”
trollhattan
@MattF: Wowzers, quite the vote map there. I see my county went “big” for Trump while, uh, Yolo went for Biden?
This explains why Jeff Davis has replaced the bear on the state flag.
Mai Naem mobile
I can’t get over Chris Licht being the producer of Stephen Colbert’s show. How do you go from Colbert to being a TFG proponent at CNN?
Alison Rose
This isn’t tagged as an open thread, but if you’re a Depeche fan and you have Amazon Prime, the livestream of their set from Primavera just started. This is the closest I’ll get to an actual live concert, and it’s awesome. I forgot how fucking good Walking In My Shoes is live.
Ken
Non-mainstream media too. Did you know that Michelle Obama is running for president in 2024?
@Steeplejack: Whoops, thanks. I wonder how that got added to the URL when I pasted.
raven
@Steeplejack: It’s still cooler down here than up there!
Omnes Omnibus
@Mai Naem mobile: He is a hired gun. I wouldn’t assume that he has any deeply held political beliefs or principles.
TriassicSands
@Steeplejack:
You’re very welcome, it was good of Cole to post it. If only more people would read it. Even if something fits with what one already knows or believes, it is good to see it laid out so clearly.
Now, the question is: How to get the important people at the Times, Post, NPR, and beyond to read it with an open mind and not the self-satisfied dismissal that characterizes so much of the responses to criticism.
Alison Rose
@Alison Rose: (Unfortunately the camera work and direction is absolute shit, whoever is in charge of this needs to be slapped. But the music sounds amazing.)
Steve in the ATL
@Alison Rose: love the glitter!
smith
This is something I harp on a lot, but I’m going to grace you with my stellar wisdom again: I think it’s a mistake to think of the actions of corporate media — including NPR, as in thrall to its corporate sponsors as any commercial network is to its corporate owners — in terms of liberal vs conservative or Republican vs Democratic positions. The meaningful distinction is rich people vs the rest of us. It is very much to the benefit of the very rich to keep the GQP in the game, no matter how insane it becomes, because the main thing is how to maintain the wealth and power of rich people.
If the power of the GQP weren’t so out of proportion with its actual popularity, those TFG tax cuts for our oligarchs would be long gone. Labor laws would be better enforced. The Supreme Court wouldn’t be gutting environmental protections. The IRS would be funded well enough to actually take on billionaire tax cheats.
When CNN or FTFNYT or the Nice Polite Republicans slant their coverage in puzzling ways that outrage our sense of reality, just ask, how does this help Jeff Bezos, or any other rich guy chosen at random, add to his money pile?
Tony Jay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Reagan won California.
Trump > Reagan
Thus ⇒ Trump must have won California.
Plus, Democrats always LIE!
Democrats say Biden won California.
Thus ⇒ Trump must have won California
What more do you NEED?
It’s OBVIOUS.
#buygold#freetheJ6heroes#russianbrides
Origuy
@trollhattan: Unsurprisingly, Kari Lake retweeted the tweet with the map. The delusion is strong there. Even Santa Clara County was marked red; I live there and I don’t know anyone who would admit to voting for Trump.
Trivia Man
@CaseyL: Same – I look at aggregators and click through on lines of interest. I visit a very wide variety and keep in mind their reputations for veracity. I am very rarely clicking the CNN links because to me that helps them use LOOK AT THE TRAFFIC!! to justify their trump enabling strategy. I’m personally convinced CNN sees a trump win as a golden goose to be The Loyal Opposition and FYIGM if the world burns.
I also never click CNN channel on cable (why yes, I am an old – why do you ask?) I find myself checking in on Faux often for short bursts. The stupid, it burns, but I want to see what THEY consider the headline news. (Spoiler: hunter biden is still the top of their hit parade. Plus I like hearing the trump/ desantis death match play out.
obligatory: FTFNYT
trollhattan
@Origuy: I’m proposing it was a double-reverse thing where, as with some of our propositions where your vote yes is actually a no, and vice versa, we Libs were told that a vote for Trump was actually a vote against Trump and then were outsmarted by the SOROS [psst, don’t say “Jew”] voting machines that switched us back to Biden. Chaos!
This is part of why, like Boof Kavanaugh, I continue with beer.
Jeffro
I saw a link to this piece on Twitter from Jamelle Bouie and read the whole thing. What a sad and useless pursuit of MAGA voters, and way to be trumpov’s willing victim.
Frankensteinbeck
@smith:
I think the journalists who criticize the industry from their time inside it almost never say they were told to slant to rich people. They talk about ego and a group think where both sides being equal proves you are the savvy observer of the game. When someone does lean on the system for results, like Licht, it is quickly revealed.
Tony Jay
@TriassicSands:
Send it on an e-mail with an impressively ‘Heartland’ group like The National Patriot American Citizens Party as the return address. Maybe have a little American eagle icon at the top. Not just flying around, but standing up and stretching its wings out. Holding onto a ring of some kind with maybe a cross shape in it, a St Andrew’s Cross for preference, so it’s non-denominational.
And send it from a Diner. They love that.
Jeffro
CNN is what my RWNJ dad watches for about 5 minutes out of every hour, to convince himself he’s getting news from ‘multiple sources, you know, not just Fox’.
There aren’t enough eyerolls in all the land when he throws THAT nonsense out there…
RaflW
James Fallows has also been very patiently blogging into the vacuum along with Rosen. Their ideas are complementary to each other. But arrogance seems to be the watchword in masthead editors at papers, and Licht-level dudes at the networks.
RedDirtGirl
@trollhattan: Bwah hah hah!
TriassicSands
@Tony Jay:
Unfortunately, I won’t live long enough to get all that together.
smith
@Frankensteinbeck: You’ve never worked for a company where you were never explicitly told, but nevertheless knew what would get you rewards? Journalists can see what kind of stories are rewarded, who gets bylines and prominent placement, who gets juicy assignments. Somehow there’s always room for another Cletus Safari at the FTFNYT.
EriktheRed
WTF is this “left-leaning coverage” they’re talking about???
Jeffro
@CaseyL: Not Fox? Their website is a hoot! =P
Looking at their website once in a while is actually beneficial in three ways:
Fox and Newsmax viewers really are our home-grown North Koreans at this point.
Roger Moore
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
They believe because they want to believe, not because there’s any convincing evidence. I actually tried clicking on one of his links because it was talking about something I actually know about, and the link was a 404. I got to the same page manually, and it didn’t say what he claimed it said.
Steeplejack
@raven:
It often is! I’m just over the river from the D.C. swamp.
I keep track of Snellville, because that’s where my friends are.
trollhattan
Friends let their dog out at five in the morning to go to the bathroom, only to have a coyote grab him and begin to run off. Dad intervened, the coyote dropped the dog and now he’s at UC Davis vet school having survived the surgery. Time will tell whether the old boy survives.
Nature’s a bitch!
Ivan X
@MattF: for some masochistic reason, I read all 973 tweets in that thread, plus responses, and I feel measurably stupider.
NotMax
Craven News Netshirk.
WaterGirl
@Ken: Your period at the end of the sentence was included in the URL. I fixed it.
trollhattan
@EriktheRed: I keep coming back to that same easily disprovable canard.
mrmoshpotato
Chris Licht is absolutely, I believe, a fucking moron.
Though I don’t really believe that he thinks that the media “learned its lesson.”
Or maybe the lesson is that the fat orange fascist shitstain is a cash cow for these assholes who are failing in their jobs as the Constitutional-protected press.
Roger Moore
@smith:
I think people underestimate the level of crazy among the ultra-rich. They aren’t funding the nuts in the GQP just because it will help them keep their tax cuts; a lot of them are true believers in the
racism[Edit: I should say bigotry as a more general term], too.WaterGirl
@trollhattan: Oh, no! That’s horrible. tears.
smith
@Roger Moore: Granted, but they’d drop the racism in a flash if it cost them money.
moops
I think the NY Post, and everyone in the media, thinks that left-leaning reporting is repeating things Trump says, verbatim, that make him look bad.
Proper centrist objective journalism requires you to clean up and paraphrase and minimize and normalize GOP rhetoric and Trump’s literal statements in particular.
Jeffro
btw Ron Filipkowski on Twitter has taken to calling DeSantis “Captain Ozempic” and verily, I am slain
LOLOL
Ivan X
@Alison Rose: We just saw them in Lyon on Wednesday with 55,000 other people! Was amazing! Enjoy the stream (and the silence)!
PJ
@smith: An added element is that many journalists see themselves as either part of the elite or upper class (even if their salaries don’t qualify at this point in time, they will eventually.) They went to J-school and Ivies and have parents who worked at these media outlets. So they identify with the wealthy and the politically powerful – if they are not their actual friends, they want them to be their friends, or at least see themselves as peers. This is a far cry from when journalism was a working class job and was far too dirty to be considered a profession.
Their was a piece about Licht around the time of the Trump town hall, and in it he made a comment (I’m paraphrasing) that it didn’t matter to him personally if Trump won in 2024. And this is the fact. Chris Licht will not suffer any direct harm if Trump or the GOP gain control over government; in fact, he’ll probably benefit by tax cuts on the wealthy. So the news is just a game for ratings, advertisement, and attention. Researching and delivering factual information that will help the audience in making decisions about preserving and strengthening democracy is not within the remit of Licht and many journalists.
Alison Rose
@Ivan X: They did Home and Martin sounds like such a freaking angel.
Roger Moore
@smith:
I don’t think they would. The actual evidence shows Democrats are better on the economy than Republicans. Even the ultra-rich do better under Democrats despite the higher taxes. That doesn’t matter to them because the ultra-rich don’t actually need more money. They already have more money than all their descendants to the Nth generation could spend.
What they care about is relative status. The goal isn’t to get as much money as possible; it’s to be able to lord their money over everyone else. They hate the Democrats because we think everyone should be treated the same regardless of their race, gender, or wealth.
mrmoshpotato
From Wikipedia (verified by IMDB)
“He is best known as the showrunner and executive producer of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”
Mother*$+&@/!
Chris
@Roger Moore:
As an addendum to this, I think even when you leave the usual “social issues” prejudices at the door (racism, sexism, homophobia), what’s left isn’t about money, so much as class snobbery and class solidarity.
Labor lawyers from both sides of the negotiating table keep saying that they’ve repeatedly seen management blow a hundred dollars in legal fees to try and save a nickel on labor costs, or screw itself royally by refusing to listen to its lawyers’ warnings that they’re in a bad position and may want to settle on not-completely-ideal terms because they think that would be losing face for the sake of their lessers.
Or for a more blatant example, there’s always Elon Musk setting a ton of money on fire and running one of the world’s social media giants into the ground by using it entirely to deal with his personal issues, try to silence anyone who might be saying mean things about him, and fire every employee who might know what they’re doing rather than admit that he might not be know more than everybody at Twitter about every job at Twitter.
Rich people aren’t driven by money. They’re driven by pure ego and status games. The money’s just a way of indulging these.
trollhattan
@WaterGirl: It’s the fear of all pet owners in the country, plus you never know when (this pup is not a youngster and there’s never before been an issue).
So far he’s hanging in there, so cautious optimism.
Ivan X
@Alison Rose: ooh I don’t think they played Home at our show! He did sound amazing on A Question Of Lust. I like their dynamic, in which he’s the songwriter but not the frontman. It’s an unusual and potent partnership.
Was fun to see them in Europe; they’re really like The Rolling Stones over there. We sat next to a guy there with his 14 year old daughter and she knew the words, too.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
There was a post on LGM a year or two ago relating reporting from Burma after its latest military coup.
The generals being interviewed would admit straight up that yes, the economy was doing better under democracy, yes, even they personally were doing better under democracy, but they still prefer military dictatorship, because they have more power and receive more respect under military dictatorship.
There are a ludicrous number of elites who really would rather live in a hovel as long as they get to be its kings, than live in a palace that they’d have to share with other people.
Kristine
@Alison Rose: Well, shoot. I didn’t know.
Walking in My Shoes is a favorite of mine too.
smith
@Roger Moore: I don’t agree that money doesn’t matter to them — it’s the essential pathology of the ultra-rich to crave ever more even when every extra dollar they acquire is essentially worthless to them.
I do agree that comparative status is the driving motive, though. But this does not necessarily require bigotry to achieve. Certainly there are fascist true believers among the very rich, but there are also many who, for instance, are quite comfortable with their companies being perceived as “woke” if it’s good for business, even while they shovel money at the GQP.
Ivan X
@mrmoshpotato: probably all the more reason he’d want to prove his “unbiased” bona fides. They take the bait every time.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato: It is NOT a good idea to take someone from the entertainment side of the bidnez and put them in the news side. Their yardstick for success is vastly different and more importantly, driven by the wrong goals and objectives.
Of course it’s been decades since news divisions were prestige holdings for the networks and mostly loss-leaders, free of profit margin pressure.
Now news is infotainment, has pressures for market share and ad revenue, plus unfortunately, a Colbert show falls into the same cracks because it’s also current affairs driven.
Kristine
@trollhattan: That’s a fear of mine–I live a stone’s throw from a nature preserve and can hear the coyote serenade most every night. My backyard is fenced, but still.
mrmoshpotato
@Old School:
Are they really giving a platform to the non-shouty fascist?
Odie Hugh Manatee
I read this without looking to see who is to blame for writing it and within a few sentences I knew I was reading the John I have loved to read for years. Once again, you have nailed it.
You haz a style, man and it’s good. How about the media listens to JG Cole?
Kristine
@Alison Rose: I hope they repeat it.
mrmoshpotato
@Steeplejack:
I must’ve been in a 4-year coma too.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Poor pup — I hope he makes it!
MisterForkbeard
What still blows my mind is that the media insists on saying CNN was left-leaning. It wasn’t. It was very sensible centrist, but it occasionally called bullshit on obvious republican bullshit. That was it – that was all you needed to be called “left”.
Even these articles describing CNN and how it’ll never be able to capture the ‘right’ audience just can’t accept that at all. There’s exactly two sides to everything: Right, and left and the media squarely between them regardless of actual truth or accuracy.
Chris
@mrmoshpotato:
“Today is the day Donald Trump became President!”
Meanwhile we’re running on two years straight of uninterrupted “Joe Biden’s Failed Presidency” headlines. Inflation! Recession just around the corner! Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
Miss Bianca
@Jeffro: I’m not sure I grok the reference. I R confoozled. What’s a “Captain Ozempic”?
ETA: I googled it and came up with “Ozempic” which I guess is…some kind of drug? Nothing I’d ever heard of, anyway.
zhena gogolia
@Miss Bianca: Ozempic is a drug for weight loss, I think. I don’t think DeSantis is particularly fat, so it doesn’t work for me. Trump is much fatter.
Chris
@MisterForkbeard:
Well, if CNN is your definition of “the left,” it helps keep the debate limited to an incredibly narrow spectrum.
Alison Rose
@Ivan X: I was hoooooping they’d do A Question of Lust, that’s my fave Martin song, and that crescendo on the chorus slays me every time. And yes, I love how many young people are in the audience!! Makes me happy :)
Miss Bianca
@zhena gogolia: Ah. Yeah. Doesn’t work for me either, but that’s what makes horse races.
Jeffro
@Miss Bianca: Ozempic is one of a new class of weight-loss drugs that apparently work really well, but can give the user a bit of a flat aspect (among other side effects)
So, ‘Captain Ozempic’ = Ron is taking the drug to slim down for the campaign.
Alison Rose
@Kristine: Since it’s on Prime Video, I imagine you’ll be able to access it afterward?? I don’t know, I barely use it, LOL
Jeffro
@zhena gogolia: He was kinda chunky a year ago but has slimmed down quite a bit since then.
schrodingers_cat
Remind me again who went on Joe Rogan show to chase white working class votes? Whose supporters broadcast Tara Reade’s fake allegations from their media perches. And who used to go Lou Dobbs to spew venom against immigrants to appeal to white votes?
Scout211
@Miss Bianca: Ozempic and at least a couple of other medications are for type 2 diabetes but also cause weight loss. They suddenly became weight loss drugs and are prescribed by many physicians and weight-loss clinics due to the effectiveness and lower side effect risks than weight loss drugs of the past.
ETA: or as Jeffro said:
ETA: Deleted info. Others got there first.
RaflW
@Frankensteinbeck: As was pointed out to me many years ago, the top editors at the really big papers, as well as the TV presenters/opinion ppl on the cable nets and big local stations have incomes, home values and retirement portfolios that put them into some rather wealthy tax brackets themselves.
And the recent revelations about Harlan Crow have also exposed how many in the upper reaches of the press he has befriended (and others like Bezos or countless other super-rich do it, no doubt).
And holy shit, the Aspen Ideas Festival or that f**king Davos gathering are designed to transmit the rich agenda to media apparatchiks.
In the guise of conferences, cocktail parties, and the like.
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro: Oh, okay, I didn’t get that aspect of it. Too inside baseball!
mrmoshpotato
@Alison Rose:
Iron Maiden’s old concert videos are a hot mess. Rock in Rio 2001 is unwatchable because Steve Harris couldn’t be bothered to hold a camera shot for more than 5 seconds. And why am I seeing Bruce just standing there with his mic while a guitar solo is going on?
Alison Rose
@mrmoshpotato: Like, they’ll make the screen purposely dark or blurry, or it’ll change views like every single second sometimes. It’s annoying.
Ivan X
@Alison Rose: just watched Never Let Me Down, was incredible. Agree about the shite camerawork.
rikyrah
Referencing the Vice President
David Darmofal (@david_darmofal) tweeted at 3:49 PM on Fri, Jun 02, 2023:
This video is Republicans’ biggest nightmare. It’s why they’ve got a 24/7 campaign going to try to destroy her politically. And as the video shows, it’s not working. & it’s not working, in part, because Republicans have lost touch with younger people.
(https://twitter.com/david_darmofal/status/1664735972557312000?t=rLFiDkaFnn_-Jmp_k6gbwQ&s=03)
mrmoshpotato
@Chris: Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.
Ruckus
faux news is effectively yelling fire in the newsroom. And they do this without of course actually yelling fire. You of course understand that I’m riffing on yelling fire in a theater to cause chaos…
But that’s what they have been doing for 25 years now. Basically yelling fire on your TV so that it has become expected that the news can be delivered in that manner. And it has affected all of our news delivery to some extent. And part of how it’s done is to get faux news on in as many pubic spaces as possible. At gyms, hospitals and really anyplace that is open to the public. And it’s “news” so it’s accepted as the truth. But it’s faux news truth, always slanted, always presented as bad news. And as they gained viewing numbers, other outlets have a tendency to drift that direction. And if all you watched was faux news, you’d never notice.
Roger Moore
@smith:
I think we’re talking past each other. I agree that they want more money, but for the ultra-rich that money is mostly important as a status symbol, not because they actually have some purchase they want to make that requires more money than they have. That means they don’t really care that much if Democrats would provide them with more absolute purchasing power than Republicans. They care far more about their relative status, so changes that are neutral for them but make the rest of us worse off may be better from their standpoint than ones that improve life for everyone equally.
rikyrah
Hope Restored In DFW (@Kennymack1971) tweeted at 3:51 PM on Fri, Jun 02, 2023:
When they come for POTUS about his age understand who the real target is, was and has always been. They’re shook.
(https://twitter.com/Kennymack1971/status/1664736565556330498?t=MwcWpV7WqUTLkDLmbT1sfA&s=03)
Scout211
Does this surprise anyone? No, didn’t think so.
Alison Rose
@Ivan X: I admit I was doing the arm motion on my sofa :P And yelling out the appropriate line in Personal Jesus. Hope my neighbors enjoyed!!!
I do wish they would’ve done a couple more tracks from the new album, but I understand that at a festival like this, people wanna hear what they wanna hear.
Set list:
Encore:
MattF
@Scout211: Maybe Ivana has it.
RaflW
@Scout211: I would think there are several documents he is clutching and petting like Gollum’s ring. If only he might still have such a denouement to come.
smith
@Roger Moore: I don’t think we disagree in any fundamental way.It just depends on where the focus is placed on the means-to-ends progression.
Geminid
@mrmoshpotato:
Or smacked by a flying silver carp while driving a boat down the Illinois River!
Ivan X
@Alison Rose: right, exactly. People pay their money, plus being a festival, if they’re not necessarily the band that others came to see, you kinda wanna play what people know, vs the dedicated fans at a show you headline who are going to be tolerant of and even eager about the new material. They played several tracks off the new record at the Lyon show. Thanks for letting us know about the stream, was the perfect thing in the taxi back home from the airport.
Jay
@zhena gogolia:
Ozempic is a diabetes control drug, that when used “off brand”, can result in weight loss. The brand, and several others are pushing campaigns that “whisper” about the drug, while never saying what it does, knowing people will go online and find “weight loss”.
In BC, you can’t get Ozempic and it’s clones, with out a diabetes diagnosis, because between on line pharmacy raids and the ad campaigns, diabetics were having a hard time getting the drug, or affording it, because weight obsessed “Merkins” were basically “looting” the pharmacies for the newest “vanity drug”, rather than diet and exercise.
smith
@Scout211: The tape was apparently recorded at Bedminster, so it is puzzling that the Feds have not yet gotten a search warrant there. Especially as we know boxes of documents were moved from MAL.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Yep that’s what they are really afraid of when they bring up Biden’s age.
zhena gogolia
@Jay: Diet and exercise don’t work!
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: I love that twitter thread. Lots of good tweets there.
Alison Rose
@Ivan X: I have this dream that maybe for like the 45th anniversary in 2025, they’ll do a special fan-driven concert where they let people vote for the setlist by having them fill out a survey with their top 5 songs that have either never or rarely been done live, and then they compile all the responses and take like the top 20 songs. Think of how chaotic!! :P I would bribe people to vote for And Then and Puppets and The Darkest Star.
Old School
@mrmoshpotato:
They are indeed. The Pence town hall is Wednesday, June 7th.
(The Nikki Haley one is this Sunday – June 4th.)
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato:
Rotating tag?
mrmoshpotato
@Geminid: Are there carp problems downstate?
Scout211
@WaterGirl: Scroll down the thread, many commenters have explained. Short version, it’s a trend now with celebrities to use a type 2 diabetes drug like Ozempic for weight loss off-label.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
V.P. Harris in a stunning pride vest/jacket.
Jay
@Scout211:
and it’s causing problems for people who need the drug to treat diabetes,……
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: Go right ahead. :)
Roger Moore
@zhena gogolia:
Ozempic is a drug originally developed for Type II Diabetes that turns out to promote weight loss, too. In one of these weird things, people are way more excited about the weight loss side than the Diabetes side, so it’s become something of a fad.
Jay
@zhena gogolia:
snark tags are missing from your comment,………
mrmoshpotato
Can everyone start talking about personal injury lawyers or those companies that’ll buy your home no questions asked?
Keeps me from having to turn on network news.
Tenar Arha
@trollhattan: oh no! Best wishes for the pup
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato: ”Help, I’ve fallen and can’t reach the remote!”
Geminid
@mrmoshpotato: Yes, the fish police are trying to keep the invasive silver carp from reaching Lake Michigan by way of the Illinois River. Besides their voracious appetite for vegetation, the carp have become a boating hazard. They get spooked by the sound of approaching motorboats and will leap up to ten feet in the air to escape. Boaters hitting them have been hospitalized and more rarely, killed.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: I did!
mrmoshpotato
@Geminid: I see. I wonder if they’d make a good fish fry.
different-church-lady
Sooooooooo… you’re just letting your organization continue to be played? Because he is playing you just as much as ever, and you seem to be blithe about that.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Roger Moore:
My internist referenced it the other day during an office visit when I described a conversation I had with my now-deceased father-in-law’s oncologist about Keytruda and the “tv commercial side effects list” that he recited to me.
My internist said “oh, like this diet drug that everyone is prescribing now.”
My response was “yeah – like Phen-fen.”
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Old School: Oh yes.. a Pence town hall will generate lots of buzz. I mean those ratings will fly up. No matter how hard you try, you can’t swat Pence down!
sukabi
@Old School: lol…yep, I can hear the flush already…
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady:
Yup! Easier than doing the actual work to push back against Dump’s firehose of lies.
Roger Moore
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
We actually have a pretty good idea about how GLP-1 agonists cause weight loss: they make people feel full sooner. The result is that they eat less. It’s pretty close to ideal for a weight loss drug because it achieves what everyone says you’re supposed to do- eating less- without requiring willpower or even a conscious decision to eat less. Adjusting your appetite is much safer than adjusting your metabolism, which has been the main method of action for previous weight loss drugs.
Chris T.
@Roger Moore:
Or, as someone put it, “making them jump”. I can’t find the article(s) I’m looking for, but someone had a nice write-up on how those with too much money were clearly enjoying it by dangling dollars in front of those who needed them. Their relative wealth forced others to serve their every want.
TriassicSands
@Roger Moore: @smith:
It would be interesting if we could test the absolute versus relative wealth question. Sadly, there is no realistic or reliable way to do that, but I would find it interesting to pose a choice to wealthy people.
Which would you choose:
I don’t think we would get honest answers unless the result reflected the question. That is, once they answered, their answer would become reality. But, I suspect, different people would respond differently. Often, answers would be tailored to appearances — that is, not wanting to be seen as (too) greedy.
Also, answers might vary based on the actual figures chosen.
But, I really suspect that some wealthy people are more concerned with relative wealth and some more concerned with the actual amount. That would reflect the fact that people are different and no group can always be reliably described monolithically. But, whether relative or actual wealth would be more important, naked greed would, contrary to the previous sentence, probably be a consistent characteristic. Even if unstated.
Jay
@mrmoshpotato:
Fish Fry, not really, they do make a good fish ball when properly prepared, (too many fine bones). In Asia, they are an important food fish, here they are just a destructive invasive species.
smith
@TriassicSands: And whether it’s absolute or relative wealth they crave, it’s the naked greed that harms the rest of us.
karen marie
@trollhattan: My brother’s cat was snatched by a couple coyotes when he was about ten feet away. The cat managed to escape their jaws but ran straight into a large prickly pear. Cat had no deep bite wounds but had to go to the vet to get thousands of prickers pulled out.
I lived up in the boondocks of Cave Creek for a year before I elected to move to a more civilized area (first Scottsdale, now Mesa) to get away from the coyotes, javelinas, rattle snakes, tarantulas and scorpions. And the unremitting heat with no shade, no grass, just bare dirt radiating heat, and fucking cacti. Jumping Cholla are not called “jumping” for no reason. Motherfuckers.
Another Scott
@TriassicSands: People are always making comparisons to their peers. It’s not the $ amount they have that matters, it’s whether they have more than Joe in the mansion down the street.
I blame the Forbes 400.
Grr…,
Scott.
karen marie
@Jeffro: I don’t get it. What’s the connection between a diabetes drug taken for weight loss and DeSaster?
Citizen Alan
@Chris: Or perhaps “a cardboard box under an overpass, cooking sparrows on bent curtain rods over a trash can fire”?
Citizen Alan
@Jeffro: Ozympic did not give me a “flat aspect” so much as explosive diarrhea, which is why I very quickly told my doctor that I was not taking. It anymore.
Jay
@karen marie:
30 years ago, walking my old dog Sugar off lead on the trails by Burnaby Lake, in the fog and mist. Had a “dog” come out onto the trail in front of us and do the “puppy wants to play” stichk.
Quickly got Sugar, who was used to us (her and me) having to deal with bears and cougars, back on lead.
The “decoy” pulls the “wants to play” stichk, get’s the off lead dog to chase them off trail, where the rest of the pack is waiting. That’s how years ago, coyotes here learned to take down large dogs. Sugar was a 95lb Rottie/Black Lab cross.
zhena gogolia
@karen marie: Based on my reading of the above various comments, I think that people assume he’s been taking it because he has lost weight since starting the campaign. The drug supposedly causes people to have a “flat” affect. So calling him “Captain Ozembic” refers to his taking the weight loss drug and as a result, having no charisma.
I do not think it’s a good nickname, because (1) he was never that fat, (2) most people have no idea what he’s weighed in the past, (3) it kind of stigmatizes people who need to take the drug, (4) MOST PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE SIDE EFFECTS OF OZEMBIC ARE, and (5) most importantly, HE NEVER HAD ANY CHARISMA
Jay
@karen marie:
Death Santis has slimmed down quickly, so drug use or liposuction,…….
Jay
@zhena gogolia:
side effects may include AL, (anal leakage),…..
zhena gogolia
@Jay: I’ll stay “pleasingly plump” (as my father used to say), thank you very much.
WaterGirl
@Jay: Oh, ugh. Glad you knew what was up.
sherparick
If you know of it, the 1976 movie “Network” is really a documentary masquerading as satire. And all network executives are really the Robert Duvall and Ned Beatty characters.
Jay
@zhena gogolia:
being a moron hardbody, never cared about that aspect of “size”,
cared about personality.
Have a “type”, and every girl who fit my type turned out very quickly to be toxic,
Plus, up here, we get winter, and winter nights are long and cold,………
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia:
There’s nothing pleasing about DeathSantis. :)
Jay
@WaterGirl:
I ever tell you my cougar stories?
(Not well aged women in bars),…..
zhena gogolia
@mrmoshpotato: Did I say he was pleasingly plump?
Burnspbesq
@TriassicSands:
As long as it continues to attract the eyeballs that advertisers want to attract, “this” will never be “fixed.”
If you want a cable news network to tell you what you think you want to hear, buy one.
The naivete and wishful thinking about the news media is astounding.
karen marie
@Geminid: They’re BIG!
According to wiki, silver carp can weigh 110 pounds!
That’s a big fish.
@mrmoshpotato: Unfortunately, US Geological says that while they’re tasty, people don’t like them because they have intramuscular bones.
Mousebumples
Pharmacist checking in.
Agreed with most of the glp1/Ozempic comments above. For clarity –
Medicare regulations prohibit the coverage of weight loss as an indication, which is why there are 2 brand names for the above products – even when dosing overlaps.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Excellent use of color!
Jay
@karen marie:
they make good fish cakes, fish balls, but yeah, it’s the radial bone structure that makes them a pain to clean and prep.
Tasty, not really, bland white meat, but it takes on any flavours you want to infuse.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: Love my magenta!
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: What happened to new post?
WaterGirl
In case anyone is wondering…
I just saw that the esteemed Tom Levenson is composing a post in the back room, so I pulled the post I had just posted, and I will put it up later this evening.
Roger Moore
@Mousebumples:
Thanks for the explanation. This is something I have wondered about. I know the brand names will often differ between markets, but it never made a lot of sense to me why they’d differ between indications. Now I understand.
Jacqueline Squid Onassis
When Licht says, “Don’t virtue signal,” he gives away the game. Only MAGA types use that language.
Redshift
@smith:
You can’t get a search warrant for an entire building and go toss the place (unlike tv). It has to be for specific locations, so you really need to have somebody from inside testifying. And the news story about boxes allegedly being moved there isn’t nearly specific enough for legal purposes.
Mousebumples
@Roger Moore: Happy to help! I actually just got that answer from a coworker (as an explanation – I knew the Medicare part already) last week, so glad I can pass it along. 😊
And maybe Medicare will change their stance on weight loss. The change in how these drugs assist weight loss (vs older ones) and all the poor outcomes associated with obesity (*said as a person who is overweight, though trying to exercise with 2 kids under 4 is tough)… We’ll see. I’d like to see more insurances cover it, but it may not be cost effective for employers in the short term.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Geminid:
That sounds like communism….
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Jay:
My go to “thing” has always been “outward good girl, but slightly trashy”. It has proved problematic at times.
Omnes Omnibus
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
My type has usually been “interested in me.” Obviously, this is inherently problematic.
Ivan X
Another thing that’s well worth noting about these GLP-1 drugs is that for many people, it seems to make them want to drink less, or not at all. That has the potential to be profound if they ever come down in price.
TriassicSands
@Another Scott:
Yes, relative affluence is an important factor in the U.S. But since I’ve never been filthy rich, and find the mindset alien, I can’t say what the importance is among the wealthy between relative and absolute wealth. But I do expect that their attitudes may be quite different from those of the non-wealthy, in part, because they will never be satisfied that they have enough, no matter how much they have.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Ach!
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s my type too! And as to your second point…yeah. Also. Too. ; )
worn
@Steeplejack: And suddenly, I thought of the funny line from a tv ad from long ago: “Loganville, whar’s Loganville?”
Now I’m sitting here wistfully recalling The Wolfman and Donna…
ETA: left coast late yet again
James E Powell
@sherparick:
Arthur Jensen owns everything, including the supreme court.
And all the Max Schumachers are long gone.
Steeplejack
@worn:
I remember “Whar’s Loganville?”
My friends actually live close to Centerville, between Snellville and Loganville. Their ZIP Code used to be in Loganville, which I liked better, but got switched to Snellville, which I dislike the sound of.
I did like that back in the day one of the TV or radio stations’ traffic helicopter guy used to refer to the natives as “Snellvillains.” The one that was better was referring to the residents of Villa Rica as “Villa Ricardos.”
Chris
@Citizen Alan:
Well yes, bang on, with the caveat that…
That phrase usually gets invoked for Main Street conservatives, to explain why ordinary non-rich voters would happily embrace policies that make them far worse off and only seem to benefit the rich. It’s a lot rarer that I see that phrase applied to the rich themselves.