Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

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

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Sunday Morning Open Thread: Our Failed Major Media, Still Trying to Make ‘Fetch’ Happen

Sunday Morning Open Thread: Our Failed Major Media, Still Trying to Make ‘Fetch’ Happen

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I’m genuinely sad about the demise of news media, but how will repeating the same mistakes make what they’re selling more palatable to the rest of us?



The drip, our economy has it!

Elsewhere…

Why is our Sekrit Code no longer delivering the results we prefer?!?

But even the far right media [e.g., Tim Pool] can’t stop hitting that extinction-burst button…

Sidebar: Anybody seen Betty Cracker recently?…

Reader Interactions

227Comments

  2. 2.

    lowtechcyclist

    I’ll gladly support media that reports the stakes as well as the odds, doesn’t bothsides things, and doesn’t chase every ball the RW rolls out there.

  3. 3.

    Princess

    I urge anyone who can to support the new local media that is popping up in different places. Block Club in Chicago is excellent. I’ve heard good things about a new online news source in Baltimore. They’re the future of good investigative news.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    I’m genuinely sad about the demise of news media, but how will repeating the same mistakes make what they’re selling more palatable to the rest of us?

    Agree. They’ve been trying to compete with right wing media for conservative audiences instead of meeting the market need on the left of center side.

    Capitalism Fail 101.

  8. 8.

    Matt McIrvin

    What is that Batya Ungar-Sargon tweet even claiming? It seems like a collection of phrases that don’t connect to each other. The flood of migrants eviscerated working-class wages… and this somehow prevented a recession? How would that even work? I guess they think labor shortages cause recessions?

  9. 9.

    Lapassionara

    I hope she is at the festival in Tampa. Her report would be a delight to read. (She = Betty Cracker)

    thanks, AL, for these Sunday am posts.

  10. 10.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud: Is it really that difficult?  I think you could open the Go Fuck Yourselves New York Times any day of the week and have a ball – of despair.

  13. 13.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: Shiver me timbers, how do you find so many idiots, AL?

    I keep forgetting the tag:  I Read These Morons So You Don’t Have To!

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    Top of the WaPo home page: US Economy’s Rising Growth, Falling Inflation Give US the World’s Best Recovery

    (AND the best pro-worker president of our lifetimes!)

    (also, FU Larry Summers)

    Rate cuts…incoming!!!

    The European economy, hobbled by unfamiliar weakness in Germany, is barely growing. China is struggling to recapture its sizzle. And Japan continues to disappoint.

    But in the United States, it’s a different story. Here, despite lingering consumer angst over inflation, the surprisingly strong economy is outperforming all of its major trading partners.

    Since 2020, the United States has powered through a once-in-a-century pandemic, the highest inflation in 40 years and fallout from two foreign wars. Now, after posting faster annual growth last year than in 2022, the U.S. economy is quashing fears of a new recession while offering lessons for future crisis-fighting.

    On Friday, President Biden hailed fresh government data showing that annual inflation over the second half of 2023 fell back to the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target. Coupled with Thursday’s news that the economy grew by 3.1 percent over the past 12 months, the Commerce Department report showed that the United States appears to have achieved an economic soft landing.

    The post-pandemic recovery challenged long-standing economic beliefs, such as the idea of an inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation. (As one rose, the other was expected to fall.) Expressed in what economists call the Phillips curve, this nostrum proved nearly useless in explaining the economy’s recent behavior.

    Washington’s success in reviving the economy also suggests a new approach to future downturns, one that relies more on the government’s power of the purse and less on the Federal Reserve’s control of the cost of credit.

    “Putting money in people’s hands vs. moving around interest rates, which is monetary policy, fiscal policy is going to be stronger,” Sahm said. “We cannot go into the next crisis being, like, ‘Oh, the Fed’s got this.’”

    Consumer spending is driving the economy: Real consumption rose by 0.5 percent in December, its fastest pace since last January. Pending home sales jumped, too. Following the flurry of good news, JPMorgan Chase economists said they raised their first-quarter growth forecast.

    IBM, Visa and General Electric last week each reported earnings that topped analysts’ expectations, another sign of the economy’s continued health.

    The $28 trillion U.S. economy weathered multiple shocks over the past year and returned to the growth path it was on before the pandemic. The size of the economy, adjusted for inflation, regained its pre-pandemic peak in early 2021. Through the end of September, it was more than 7 percent larger than before the pandemic. That was more than twice Japan’s gain and far better than Germany’s anemic 0.3 percent increase

    For most Americans, the growth paid off in the form of higher wages. Over the four years through September, the most recent comparison available, U.S. wages — after inflation — grew 2.8 percent.

    Most other countries in the Group of Seven industrial democracies saw a decline, according to Treasury Department data. Italian wages sank by more than 9 percent over that period, while German workers earned 7.2 percent less than they had before the pandemic.

    “The U.S. has seen a particularly strong GDP recovery and inflation has cooled sooner and more quickly than in other large, advanced economies. And the increase in real wages is unique to our country’s recovery,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a Chicago speech last week.

    Take a victory lap (not just for yourselves, but for our country), fellow armchair pundits!  =)

  19. 19.

    Rusty

    @Matt McIrvin: The flood of immigrants suppressing workers wages comment is meant to be ironic.  That has been a right wing trope,  immigrants are hurting working class Americans, the actual data says not true.

  22. 22.

    Ocotillo

    @Jeffro:  Oh yeah?!?  The national debt is higher and there are thousands of desperate people trying to get into our country to get away from the misery and violence in their country.

    Checkmate LibTard!!

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Rusty: I checked her out, I can see no irony in her lunatic ravings:

    Batya Ungar-Sargon
    @bungarsargon
    ·
    Jan 26
    We’re endlessly lectured by progressive elites in politics and the media about how GREAT the Biden economy is. It actually is great—if, like the elites lecturing you, you own a house and have a stock portfolio. But for most Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, it’s awful.

    Batya Ungar-Sargon@bungarsargon
    As @LelandVittert
    points out, Democrats got even more optimistic this month about the economy. Why? Because it’s clear we’re not headed to a recession—thanks to millions of illegal migrants encouraged by Biden’s open border who eviscerated working-class wage growth.

  26. 26.

    eclare

    Yeah, I loved The Daily Show back in the day, but I’m not sure he is in tune with the current mood.

    Only one example, Jon’s absolute shock that Republicans would vote against aid to 9/11 responders.  Where the fuck have you been for the last fifty years, Jon?

    Honestly the link that HumboldtBlue posted last night of James Carville was more where I am, mentally.

    https://twitter.com/MikeSington/status/1751311019811713204

  30. 30.

    Soprano2

    That Bayta woman was on 1A this week spewing the most unbelievable shit about TFG and his supporters. According to her they aren’t racists, misogynists, or religious bigots, and they just love gay people! I shit you not, she said that. I was commenting furiously on FB about her lies, but since 1A doesn’t seem to read the FB comments anymore none of it was read on the show. To their credit they also had Heather Cox Richardson on to correct the record, but it wasn’t nearly enough because they let that Bayta woman lie almost unchallenged for 30 minutes. She outright lies a lot, just like in that tweet. Unsurprisingly, Bill Maher likes her. What they don’t want to admit is that TFG supporters can be decent people in some parts of their lives and also be white supremacists and white Christian nationalists and facists in their political beliefs.

  31. 31.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: ​ There have been times when I lived paycheck to paycheck. I always thought getting a paycheck was nice, certainly better than not getting a paycheck.

  34. 34.

    MattF

    I think RW commentariat and politicians have deduced that Trump is going to lose big in November unless something really awful happens— so that’s what they are going for. They are the pro-chaos party now. Pro-chaos, pro-crazy, pro-Trump.

  35. 35.

    Eyeroller

    @OzarkHillbilly: I had never heard of her before her name came up a few weeks ago here at BJ, when she was on some talking-head show spewing lies and fact-free assertions.  She is apparently a complete wingnut.  Has a book upcoming called “How the Woke Media is Undermining Democracy.”  What is appalling to me is that she is considered a “real” journalist and has credits in mostly “mainstream” media.  Edit: I must have heard about her from a comment by Soprano2, which she reiterates above.

    Firstly, there has been no such flood of immigrants.  When the media were screaming about MIGRANTS over the holidays (the only time I watch TV) they were losing their minds over a few thousand people.  Secondly, actual economists have shown over and over that immigrants do not drive down wages.  But none of that matters to most media. Lying and misrepresenting facts (or not caring about facts) seems to be completely normal and accepted behavior for “pundits” and that is a significant problem IMHO.

  37. 37.

    Scout211

    I saw on Memeorandom this morning what sounded like a very good opinion piece (relevant to this thread) by Perry Bacon, jr. in WaPo. But alas, it is behind a pay wall.  Has anyone read it yet today and is it worth reading and a gifty linky?

    Title: Journalism may never again make money. So it should focus on a mission.  (Link)

  40. 40.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Baud: Agree. They’ve been trying to compete with right wing media for conservative audiences instead of meeting the market need on the left of center side.

    The newspapers, at a minimum, should have realized their only hope laid in literate people.

  43. 43.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: Oh no, she means every word. She lives in Bizzaro world where everything is opposite of what your experience and the evidence is. Check out that 1A show if you can stomach it.

  44. 44.

    MomSense

    @eclare:

    Jon was bothsidesing it so much at Daily Show to the point where I couldn’t watch it for the last I don’t remember how many years.  I also thought his rally for civility was a little too cute.  He had been watching all those years of bullshit mountain and thought that people didn’t know they could unite and work together?  It has always been a systematic and cynical process from right wing media, think tanks, operatives, politicians to foment division, promote culture wars, play to racism, anti LGBTQ+ prejudice, sexism – and on and exhaustingly on.

    David Corn wrote an excellent book American Psychosis looking at the roots of current Republican madness and discovered that it didn’t start in 2016 with Trump much as the media would like to believe.  And surprise surprise he went from being a daily contributor on MSNBC to barely on tv at all.

    Truth tellers are not welcome on mainstream media.

  45. 45.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Lapassionara: ​
     

    I hope she is at the festival in Tampa. Her report would be a delight to read. (She = Betty Cracker)

    I’m gonna tell my wife that I want to go in the next year or two. Maybe 2026, the kiddo will be out of HS then and we can travel when we want.

  47. 47.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro:

    The post-pandemic recovery challenged long-standing economic beliefs, such as the idea of an inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation. (As one rose, the other was expected to fall.) Expressed in what economists call the Phillips curve, this nostrum proved nearly useless in explaining the economy’s recent behavior.

    I thought the conventional wisdom was that the 1970s stagflation (during which high inflation persisted during times of higher unemployment) had killed the belief in the Phillips curve forever. Obviously it only has a chance of being the case if domestic wages are the main driver of the prices of goods and services.

  48. 48.

    Soprano2

    @TBone: It’s people I work with and customers at my bar, among others. Most of them I know aren’t monsters in every way; we make the mistake of saying that at our peril.

  50. 50.

    eclare

    @MomSense:

    Jon’s questioning of Kathleen Sebelious about the ACA was horrible.  I lost a lot of respect for him after that and was not such a devoted watcher.

    It will be interesting to see what kind of ratings he gets.

  51. 51.

    AM in NC

    @Soprano2: OMG, that was HER.  I heard that segment while driving, and I was just yelling at the radio.  NO WAY should they have given that raving lunatic spouting lies a platform.  I was legit horrified.

  52. 52.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: The way I always think about it is that everyone, including every one of us, has the capacity to become a monster, or to support monstrous systems. While taken too far this can lead to useless bothsiderism, I do think we need to watch out for frustration at the right’s behavior leading liberals in authoritarian directions.

  57. 57.

    Trivia Man

    Is there any legitimate reason for someone, who isnt a horse,  to get 20 ketamine doses as an outpatient? I knew people that used it recreationally but never heard of a medical use that required repeated doses.

  58. 58.

    Matt McIrvin

    The thing about the “Biden economy benefits only the elite, it’s terrible for working-class people” claim is that it’s tailor-made to peel off the left from liberalism. Because there’s a sense in which it’s true: the American economy is always terrible for working-class people and has been for the country’s entire history, with rare quasi-exceptions like the post-WWII era when the benefits still had terrible racial divisions. If you want better, you can’t not agree a little.

    The lie hidden in the half-truth is the implication that liberal adminstrations are somehow worse than conservative ones in this regard. Under Biden, labor has gained power in ways that they hadn’t for the past half-century. That’s actually pretty amazing and the people who don’t like it tend to be elites, not people living paycheck to paycheck.

  59. 59.

    Elizabelle

    @Soprano2:  My God.  Maybe 1A chose Bayta Bunghole as counterprogramming to Heather Cox Richardson, who may have been a little too honest for their taste?

    I don’t know.  I never listen to the program.  NPR is … problematic.

    I guess ugliness and lies/propaganda is more “authentic” if it comes from someone (female) with an “exotic” name??

    Someone at NPR decided to let her on their airwaves.

  60. 60.

    Soprano2

    @AM in NC: If you’re on FB you should go read the comments. I was on there yelling with you! So were other regular listeners. The host, who is a black gay woman, was not correctly prepared for her appearance. She was saying insane things, and didn’t get much pushback on them. TFG supporters love gay people? Is she nuts?

    ETA it may have been On Point, I’m not sure right now. It was one of those two shows.

  63. 63.

    Scout211

    @Dagaetch: @eclare:

    Thank you!  The opinion piece is good.

    A few snippets:

    We are in the middle of one of the worst times for the news business in my lifetime. The local newspaper industry has been collapsing for two decades, since the internet began siphoning revenue from print advertising. National print journalism and television were doing a bit better and then had a resurgence during Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and presidency, which captivated the country and alarmed left-leaning Americans. But the Trump Bump went away after he left office. Web traffic and TV audience data suggests Americans are much less interested in news about Trump’s latest presidential campaign compared with his runs in 2016 and 2020.

    And it’s now clear billionaires aren’t a panacea for the news industry. The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, and other super-wealthy individuals who have purchased news outlets haven’t been as successful making money in journalism as in their other businesses and have cut staff to minimize their losses.

    . . .
    The journalism industry itself and the public need to fully embrace a shifted landscape. The era when many news outlets were also successful businesses is over — and might never return. Foundations, wealthy individuals, average Americans and even local and state governments, much more than in the past, are being asked to subsidize news outlets through subscriptions or donations. Public radio stations holding fundraising drives used to be an anomaly in an industry largely funded by advertising. But in the future, it is likely that lots of news organizations will essentially be charities, asking rich people and also you to help them provide a critical service that the market won’t support.

    So what kind of journalism should Americans be willing to fund? Three kinds in particular. Government and policy news, particularly at the local and state levels; watchdog journalism that closely scrutinizes powerful individuals, companies and political leaders; and cultural coverage, from important books and movies to faith and spirituality.
    . . .

    I don’t expect there to be as many full-time journalists in America as there were in 1998 anytime soon. I am not optimistic about the future of my profession. But I am not fatalistic about it either. Decades ago, journalists helped inspire the nation to end Jim Crow in the South. More recently, they have brought much-needed attention to America’s enormous income and racial inequality and been an important check on Trump’s antidemocratic actions.

    The rise of Trump unfortunately hasn’t created a profitable journalism industry. But it can create a purposeful one — if journalists bring their unique skills and strengths to America’s crises and Americans embrace them for doing so.

  64. 64.

    eclare

    @Trivia Man:

    I think there are some repeated doses for treating depression, but those should always be in an office under a Dr’s supervision.  If someone received twenty doses, that sounds like a party.  Unfortunately sometimes those parties don’t end well:  Matthew Perry.  He had enough ketamine in him you could have performed surgery.

  72. 72.

    Suzanne

    I am trying to decide if Imma go running, or do a workout on my Peloton. I wanted to go do a trail run today, but it rained last night and it’s supposed to start again here shortly, which means lotsa mud. Not my deal. I know that Peloton is a bougie thing, but OMG I love it. Total sanity-saver during the pandemic.

    As for the border…. I refuse to accept the issue as they keep framing it. I don’t know how anyone expects to have produce or production housing or a clean hotel room (or a clean anything) or landscape maintenance without immigrants, documented or not, coming across the southern border.

    John’s in Arizona now, The entire economy of that place is built on cheap labor of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. It literally does not exist otherwise. Same for huge swaths of the country. I will get up in my feelings when someone comes up with a plausible solution.

  73. 73.

    Elizabelle

    @geg6:  NPR was so obviously bad, but just about all of the majors were, it turns out.

    Agree with Baud (?) upstream that they could have realized there was an appetite (paying!) for accurate news that was not rightwing propaganda and framing.

    They peed in their own beds.  Now they’re crying about wet sheets.  No one wants to sleep in urine.

    Imagine that.

    (FWIW, I think the Los Angeles TImes is a good paper.  I am sad to see them in trouble, and hope they can pull through.)

    I feel terrible about subscribing to the FTF NY Times.  And Jeff Bezos has screwed with the WaPost and installed an insane clickbait editor.  Sally Buzbee.  So many dishonest headlines.

  74. 74.

    geg6

    @Elizabelle:

    It might be interesting to see how he tees up this time.  His Apple show was cancelled because he got into a battle with them over his coverage of AI, China and Israel.  Will he be more like Bill Maher and be continuously whining about cancel culture and wokeism or will he now see who the real enemies are?  Can Mr. Both Sides now see there is only one side?  I hope so, but I’m not optimistic.

  76. 76.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The thing about the “Biden economy benefits only the elite, it’s terrible for working-class people” claim is that it’s tailor-made to peel off the left from liberalism. Because there’s a sense in which it’s true: the American economy is always terrible for working-class people and has been for the country’s entire history, with rare quasi-exceptions like the post-WWII era when the benefits still had terrible racial divisions. If you want better, you can’t not agree a little. 

    Agreed.
    This is why, tho, as frustrating as I feel the left can be at times…. they’re essentially correct about the policy solution to the problem.

  77. 77.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I will never forgive Stewart for his Obama interview.  Stewart focused the entire interview on saying Obama betrayed his promise to bring ‘change’, because ‘change’ would mean bipartisanship.  He blamed Obama for Republicans going apeshit, and cared about nothing else.  It was disgusting.

    His former employees have said he is highly unsympathetic to racial issues as well.  No surprise there from a man who considers O’Reilly a good friend.

  78. 78.

    Princess

    Honestly, I think they’re bringing back Jon Stewart because they thing he can both-sides Trump and Biden in a way that will actually be compelling for the liberals who fell for him before.

    I do not think it is going to work how how they expected.

  79. 79.

    Chris

    @eclare:

    Yeah, I loved The Daily Show back in the day, but I’m not sure he is in tune with the current mood.

    Only one example, Jon’s absolute shock that Republicans would vote against aid to 9/11 responders.  Where the fuck have you been for the last fifty years, Jon?

    On the one hand, this and the earlier point about the “deep shallowness” of Jon Stewart is absolutely true.  On the other hand, it’s also absolutely true that he was vastly better than 95% of “real” media pundits.

    There are people vastly superior to him, like Paul Krugman, but none that have his audience.

  80. 80.

    geg6

    @Elizabelle:

    It was called The Problem With Jon Stewart.  It was a podcast/streaming show.  I listened to a few episodes (I listen to podcasts while doing laundry and such).  The ones I listened to were pretty good.  Interviews mostly.

  82. 82.

    eclare

    @geg6:

    I do give Jon props for recognizing great talent, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver, among many, and the always overlooked Samantha Bee.  I much preferred Colbert on the Report, but Oliver brings the receipts every Sunday night.  I look forward to his coverage this year.

  85. 85.

    Trivia Man

    @Suzanne: IMHO we have agoid start to a solution with existing laws.

    Vigorously enforce laws that punish company owners who defy labor laws.  A blind eye to hiring undocumented workers. It’s not a couple of people cleverly circumventing the process – the same owners are busted hundreds and thousands of times. And still they persist. Put them in jail and disband the company- including the “contractors “.

    Enforce the letter of the H1B program. That whole  shadow labor market helps drive bug $$$ to the process of undercutting labor.

    Before we revamp the whole system, get someone to run the programs that defaults to slightly more worker friendly and see what happens.

  89. 89.

    NotMax

    @Chris

    it’s also absolutely true that he was vastly better than 95% of “real” media pundits

    That’s. for good or ill, on the shoulders of the writing staff much more than the face on camera.

    Know someone who interned on the writing staff when Stewart was there. He’s related some interesting tales, none of which I remember near well enough to attempt to repeat here with any semblance of accuracy.

  91. 91.

    MomSense

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Agree completely with you.  I was rooting for Wanda Sykes personally.  I think she’s brilliant and funny and would have made the show a lot more relevant.

  92. 92.

    Trivia Man

    @Trivia Man: Especially needed is enforcement of OSHA violations. Death in a workplace that intentionally breaks safety regs to maximize profit should not be a minor fine. Strip all profits for a month ir something- make that calculation cones down as “cheaper to comply” instead of “cheaper to apologize and pay a small fine”.

  93. 93.

    Suzanne

    @Trivia Man: What I meant by “a solution” was “a way to run the country without exploiting undocumented immigrants’ labor”. We have no way to do that, functionally. So everyone can piss and moan about the border, but I don’t take it seriously, and I refuse to do so until there’s a meaningful proposal to keep these essential functions moving without it.

    I agree with you: if we wanted to truly solve this issue, start with the exploiters.

  94. 94.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    RE: The Cosplay Confederates Infesting Governor’s Offices in Texas and Oklahoma, along with their co-conspirators

    The non-existent “crisis” that they’re working hard to turn into an actual crisis by rebellion would:

    – Destroy the value of the world’s primary reserve currency, resulting in complete financial collapse and the destruction of the savings and retirements of every American;

    – Trigger a massive worldwide economic depression with wholesale disruptions to the delivery of of essential energy and food commodities, as well as the manufacture of everything from consumer goods to medication; and

    – The destruction of all transfer programs to their in-state residents, including SS, Medicare, DFAS payments, ag subsidies, water subsidies.

    Starvation and wars will result. Deaths in the US would number in the millions – maybe 10s of millions. The Cosplay Confederates can’t shoot a shuttered refinery or pharmaceutical plant into operation, nor can they shoot crop production into being.

    If the world is lucky, such of your impoverished children and grandchildren that survive can forge a new economic and political order that’s more sustainable. There will be a North American Federation of sorts, probably governed from Toronto, Seattle, Boston or Philadelphia, and the economy and society for your great grandkids will be far more mixed.

  95. 95.

    eclare

    @geg6:

    I know someone who knew someone who was in the Report audience just before the Correspondents’ dinner that Colbert hosted.  Someone asked what Stephen was planning to do/say.  His response, “I’m going to mock the president to his face.”

    Love that attitude.

  96. 96.

    Starfish

    @Trivia Man: Apparently, after Matthew Perry’s death, there was the discussion of ketamine infusion therapy. Apparently, some people are on that for acute pain.

    Anyway, Perry had way more ketamine in his system than could be explained by ketamine infusion therapy.

  97. 97.

    Chris

    @Trivia Man:

    It’s worth noting that every now and then, naive anti-immigration activists who really were born yesterday try to pass new rules imposing harsh punishment on those who employ illegal immigrants by referendum.

    And every time, now matter how red the state or county is, the referendum goes down in flames.  Because the average wingnut knows damn well how much they benefit from illegal immigrants and the last thing they want is to end that.  They don’t want illegal immigration to stop.  They just don’t ever want them to stop being illegal.  (Hence the constant fury at “open borders,” which no one in any position of power is advocating, and the constant shooting down of proposed reforms that offer paths to citizenship or ways to regularize the status of certain illegal immigrants, like those who came here when they were six months old).

  98. 98.

    Suzanne

    Until the people who complain about the border are willing to pay $12 for a basket of strawberries, all commentary is on the “when I win the lottery!” level of reality.

  104. 104.

    MomSense

    @Suzanne:

    The roofers were at our office on Thursday – removed the old roof and replaced a huge roof all in one day.  I was talking to them in my terrible spanish and they were all migrant laborers  – in Central Maine.  The contractor was a local.

    All the assholes who complain about the borders and “illegals” do not want to face the reality of labor in this country.  The romaine for their olive garden caesar salads doesn’t pick itself.

  106. 106.

    randy khan

    Reporters (when they still have jobs) are in the class – and socialize with the class – that probably has had the fewest gains under Biden.  But they’re still better off because, among other things, they’re not nearly as likely to die from an awful disease as they were under Trump.

  108. 108.

    Layer8Problem

    I had enjoyed Jon Stewart.  He presented as smart and humorous and I spotted him the softball interviews with right-wingers since getting them on in a safe space got the nutbar right population to watch the rest of the show where the “correspondents” made the right look like fools.

    Then he brought John Yoo on the show and dropped the ball.  The man was teed up and ready to be pounded into the ground.  It was like Stewart had done no research on the man, someone who justified the chief executive authorizing the torture of children of terrorists.  Stewart could have gotten more dirt in that interview asking about the man’s hobbies and what was his idea of a perfect date.

  111. 111.

    schrodingers_cat

    @MomSense: They want these migrants to work without any protections and below the minimum wage. That’s why they never go against the people that employ them

    Its the same with H1-B’s also they only rail against the workers/employees never the owners/corporate bosses who hire them.

  113. 113.

    eclare

    @Suzanne:

    QFT.  We are spoiled by having cheap produce year round.  In the past kids were happy to get oranges in their Christmas stockings because they were so expensive.

  114. 114.

    rikyrah

    @Suzanne:

    Kills me. Iowa, most important issue for GOP voters…immigration?😒😒

     

    A 90+% White State, with few immigrants…. That’s in the middle of the phucking country, and NOT on the border…

    Immigration😒😒

  116. 116.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Frankensteinbeck: I remember that interview. When he had Nancy Pelosi on, he insulted her non-stop. Compare that to his softball interviews of the architects of the Iraq disaster and the torture program (Rumsfeld and Yoo) when they were on his show. He is also a vaccine truther.

  117. 117.

    Starfish

    @schrodingers_cat: Yes.

    There are a lot of people in this group being physically abused by their employers and having wages stolen by their employers. These things are far more prevalent than “a dangerous immigrant is going to get you” and yet there seems to be a lot of focus on the latter and not so much focus on the former.

  120. 120.

    Suzanne

    @MomSense:
    The roofers were at our office on Thursday – removed the old roof and replaced a huge roof all in one day.  I was talking to them in my terrible spanish and they were all migrant laborers  – in Central Maine.  The contractor was a local.

    All the assholes who complain about the borders and “illegals” do not want to face the reality of labor in this country.  The romaine for their olive garden caesar salads doesn’t pick itself.

    100%.
    When I lived in AZ, I remember reading that upwards of 40% of the so-called “low-skill” construction workforce was immigrants, most undocumented. And to note, “low-skill” doesn’t really mean that they didn’t have skills. It meant that they didn’t have certifications or completed a formal apprenticeship, like a journeyman.

    Nothing — and I mean nothing — gets built in this country in the last thirty years without significant amounts of undocumented labor.

  122. 122.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Baud:

    [tough talking Plano commercial realtor/Abbott donor]

    ”What do you mean I have no funds to cover finishing things off on my projects and the gas station has no gas to sell me for the F-250 I use to commute to my office in Dallas? And my house is 7000 square feet and it’s February. I need heat!”

  125. 125.

    eclare

    @NotMax:

    A guy called in whose car stopped going in reverse.  I still remember Click and Clack saying, in those Cambridge MA accents, with some careful planning you don’t need reverse.

    And the guy whose truck was infested with horse flies whose friend owned an industrial freezer.  What to do…

  126. 126.

    Suzanne

    @rikyrah: Every once in a while when the weather is nice on a weekend, I go to the farmers’ market in the bougie suburb adjacent to my (much more working-class) neighborhood. The produce is great. Every single farm stand has one white person and like ten Latino workers. There is nowhere in the country that isn’t using Latino workers for agriculture.

    Iowa wants to cut off that pipeline? I can’t imagine why they want to sink their industry.

  127. 127.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    BTW, I’m squicky about executions generally, but am willing to encourage it for the Confederate Cosplay ringleaders this time around.

    Televised hangings would be nice for everybody except Abbott. His method involves a boat ramp…

  129. 129.

    Steeplejack

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I think I see the problem.

    Orpheas: “Hey sorry I didn’t respond to your text I’m trying to process a nonstop 24/7 onslaught of information with a brain designed to collect nuts in a forest.”

  130. 130.

    Chris

    @Baud:

    There’s a federal law that prevents ICE from raiding farms.

    And there are meatpacking plants and other factories that have standing arrangements with ICE so that ICE will raid them and deport most of their workforce every year, but only at the end of the season, so that all the work is done already but the employer doesn’t have to part with that last paycheck.  Yes.

    The entire immigration debate is a gigantic scam played by the anti-immigration side on everybody else (and chiefly the large mass of “gee I don’t know, I guess both sides must have a point” schmucks in the middle).  They use anti-immigrant rhetoric to demand an increasingly ludicrous panoply of laws which they then use selectively and strategically to ensure that immigrants remain easily exploitable.

    Economically speaking, the laws “against immigration” that were passed from the late nineteenth century until today were largely about ensuring that the rising number of protections for the American working class that occurred throughout the twentieth century would always exclude large numbers of the actual working class.  The process that powered the American economy all through the nineteenth century, where a desperate person would get off the boat from Germany or Ireland (or worse, China or Japan) and immediately become economic cannon fodder for the robber-barons, could continue, regardless of what it said on all that legislation that FDR or LBJ signed.  I’m not saying everybody involved in this was aware from the start that that’s what it was about, but that’s what it worked out to.  And far more people than we give them credit for are in fact completely aware of it, which is why common sense laws cracking down on the employers that draw the immigrants here in the first place either never pass or are never enforced.

  134. 134.

    matt

    that batya angband-sorghum is a gibbering fuckwit.

    if immigrants supercharge the economy like she says, maybe that’s something for us to think about….

  135. 135.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: I will also note that I never once heard of ICE raiding an active job site. Instead, they’d go try to find people offering themselves for day labor outside the fucken Home Depot or in their neighborhoods. It’s absolute bullshit.

  136. 136.

    Chris

    @Baud:

    I thought that bit of legal hypocrisy was interesting.

    Whenever you see an instance of conservative hypocrisy, it’s always worth asking “is this hypocrisy, or is it simply a well-executed scam?”  A lot of the time, it’s the latter.

  137. 137.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    As @LelandVittert points out, Democrats got even more optimistic this month about the economy. Why? Because it’s clear we’re not headed to a recession—thanks to millions of illegal migrants encouraged by Biden’s open border who eviscerated working-class wage growth.

    Wow, that’s some next level bullshit. “Crisis at the Border!1!” is pretty much all they have at this point. Oh, and anti-trans bigotry

  138. 138.

    jonas

    @Baud: I think it’s fair to say the LA Times was the one major metropolitan daily that, either on its editorial page or in the newsroom, has *not* insisted on bothsides-ing everything or reporting from a defensive crouch trying to avoid rightwing outrage. Their investigative and local reporting has gotten really, really good and Michael Hilzik on the opinion page has become one of my go-to pundits on a weekly basis. After (re)building a really good paper, Soon-Shiong is now like “ok, make money, damn you!” and it’s not that simple. I think in the current media market, you can either do great journalism or you can have a cash cow. You can’t do both.

    I think in the future, investigative journalism in particular will probably have to be done on a non-profit basis, like Pro Publica or something.

  139. 139.

    frosty

    @Princess: Baltimore Banner. I signed up. Mostly Baltimore news, some Maryland, not much national. A lot of former Sun reporter bylines. Lots of Ravens news too! Duh

    ETA They’re non-profit BTW.

  140. 140.

    NotMax

    @jonas

    Where is Bill “If the news division is showing a profit we’re doing something wrong” Paley of CBS when we need him?

  141. 141.

    Scout211

    @Layer8Problem: It was like Stewart had done no research on the man, someone who justified the chief executive authorizing the torture of children of terrorists.  Stewart could have gotten more dirt in that interview asking about the man’s hobbies and what was his idea of a perfect date.

     

    That’s why I liked Trevor Noah and his researchers and writers so much better than Jon Stewart in the latter half of his tenure at the Daily Show. Typically, Trevor Noah would read the book  of the author he was interviewing and most definitely would have researched his guests.

    I hope Jon Stewart does better with his research for the upcoming campaign for his once a week stint there.  I will reserve my judgement at this point.

  142. 142.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Anne Laurie: 

    I keep forgetting the tag: I Read These Morons So You Don’t Have To!

    Speaking of “so you don’t have to”,

    I watch too much YouTube. They have a video of a lady with an unusual super power. She has a job of watching Fox News and other right wing sources for hours every day.

    link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-pbjtG_qrE
    title: “SECRET Coordination between Trump and Fox Finally Exposed | On Democracy”

    Wildly fascinating.

    I watch too much YouTube.

  144. 144.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Bob Goodlatte used to be my Republican Representative when I lived in the Shenandoah Valley. Goodlatte retired in 2020 after a long Congressional career protecting the interests of Shenandoah agri-business in the areas of immigration policy and enforcement. In his prior calling, Goodlatte was an immigration attorney.

  145. 145.

    p.a.

    Was it Alabama during the W era that cleaned out migrant workers?: produce rotted in the fields.

     

    At a recent wake my tRumpist cousin went off on how he LOVED immigrant craftspeople: they show up and WORK compared to American contractors.  It was a wake so I didn’t point out his vote would fuck these people.

     

    I think the SF Fed did a major study on the wage effect of immigrant labor.  It drove up American’s wages in part because the ability to speak English became a monetizable  skill.  Natives moved into positions of management where they would not necessarily be otherwise.

  146. 146.

    Fair Economist

    @Scout211: Fundamentally, journalism is a public service. It needs to be funded by the government. Starting with reporting government actions, especially at the local level, where it’s becoming hard to find out what municipalities are doing.

  147. 147.

    Chris

    @MomSense:

    If they could go back to slavery they would.

    Rural and especially agricultural America today looks increasingly just like the antebellum South.  A playground for landed gentry where the actual work is done by an imported workforce with no rights, the power and ownership rests in the hands of a hereditary upper class, and there’s increasingly nothing between them.  When people talk about rural America being full of ghost towns and a middle class that’s collapsed, this is what they’re talking about.

    It should be noted that this is exactly the future that abolitionists and free soilers more generally saw coming and wanted to prevent.  Most of them didn’t care about the slaves, quite a few were actively hostile to the slaves, but they were smart enough to see that that kind of slaves-and-masters society would destroy any semblance of a healthy middle class society in which people like them had any hope of making it, and smart enough to blame the slave-owners for it.  The right-wing has been furiously smearing and attacking this mindset as “class warfare” for many decades, so now we’ve got the present situation instead, where everybody pretends that the “slaves” just popped up out of nowhere and the “slave owners” aren’t even discussed, like they’re completely irrelevant to the whole story.

  149. 149.

    Chris

    @p.a.:

    Was it Alabama during the W era that cleaned out migrant workers?: produce rotted in the fields.

    I think it was Georgia, right after the W era.  And yep, that’s what happened.

  151. 151.

    Delk

    Newspaper websites nag you about using ad blockers. I understand that they need to generate income but they have the most obtrusive ads that make trying to read the site frustrating.

  153. 153.

    jonas

    thanks to millions of illegal migrants encouraged by Biden’s open border who eviscerated working-class wage growth.

    Yes, all those working-class Joes who used to make $25/hr selling candy on the NYC subway have gotten kicked to the curb by some Ecuadorian kid willing to work for $25/day. So sad.

  154. 154.

    Chris

    @jonas:

    To quote a friend’s dad’s Facebook post from the other day:

    “I keep waiting for someone to tell me ‘I was a fruit picker until all those illegal immigrants showed up!'”

  155. 155.

    different-church-lady

    Whoever this Batya idiot is: in order for that assertion to make sense, you need to believe there are no poor Democrats, which is just utterly divorced from reality.

  156. 156.

    Salty Sam .

    @Suzanne: I will also note that I never once heard of ICE raiding an active job site.

    Shortly after Trump was inaugurated, I witnessed an ICE raid of the harbor where we lived on our boat.  It was/is the primary harbor for the oyster fishermen in the Corpus Christi area.  Those fishermen are, of course, almost 100% undocumented Mexicans.

    The boats have to be back in port before sundown, so at about 4 pm, there is a parade of oyster boats entering the harbor.  ICE agents had a huge paddy wagon onsite, and were plucking men off the boats as they tied up at their slip.

    I asked one ICE agent WTF was going on?  He said “normal business, we do this all the time…”

    Bullshit- I had already lived there for five years and had never seen any immigration enforcement.  It was all purely performative for the new (mal)administration.

  157. 157.

    Steeplejack

    @eclare:

    My favorite Car Talk was the one where they went round and round with a caller about something and eventually concluded that it is possible for three people to know less about a topic than one person.

  158. 158.

    p.a.

    @Delk: +10.  Newspapers and local tv station online news pages are horrific.  Popups, clutter, too much data even for good internet.

     

    And I’m not creating logins for the newspapers.  I deal with enough effing passwords already.

  162. 162.

    different-church-lady

    Everything on NPR now is shitty and hollow. Especially A1. It’s all just polished surface.

  163. 163.

    Chris

    @different-church-lady:

    Worth noting that it’s a divorce from reality that the media has been pushing very hard since long before Trump.  The entire unstated premise behind the Cletus Safaris and probably 95% of media political coverage is that there are only two kinds of people in America: 1) college-educated blue-state liberal urbanites, who are the Upper Class, and 2) uneducated red-state conservatives rurals, who are the Working Class.

    (Which is bullshit even within those two categories; the Starbucks barista making minimum wage on a college degree that never got her a high-paying job isn’t “upper class,” and the owner of the car dealership he inherited from his parents and is the biggest employer and basically the Boss Hogg of his little rural Alabama county isn’t “working class.”  But it tries very hard to pretend that there are no liberals who even exist outside of those two categories.  It works because so many poor liberals are either women or not-white, which makes them “not even people” as far as many are concerned).

  165. 165.

    Chris

    @Salty Sam .:

    Bullshit- I had already lived there for five years and had never seen any immigration enforcement.  It was all purely performative for the new (mal)administration.

    Don’t forget the Obama administration instructed ICE in no uncertain terms to focus on violent criminals – the rapists and murderers and gang members that ICE loves to tell us about so we’ll swoon at how manly and brave they are and how dangerous their job is, but that they never actually go anywhere near.  That’s why they hated him so much.  Trump immediately reversed that and told them to just grab anybody and not even look too closely at whether they were even illegal in the first place.

    I’m not surprised at all that you saw what you did right after the inauguration.  It probably happened all over the country.  ICE was over the moon that they could finally go back to doing what they’d been doing all along.

  167. 167.

    Suzanne

    @Salty Sam .: So I used to live in the western part of Mesa, AZ, which was founded by Mormon settlers, but now that general area is largely populated by poor and working-class Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. It pisses many white Mormons off that the downtown areas around the LDS Temple have become pretty “down-market” and there’s been a lot of white flight to further-out suburbs like East Mesa, Gilbert, Queen Creek, San Tan Valley, etc.

    So anyway. The downtown area has the Temple nearby, but also a lot of social services like Department of Economic Security, bus stops, main public library, etc. So, of course, the Sheriff’s office (under Arpaio) in 2006 decided to do a downtown Mesa raid at City Hall and the library, and they assembled at an apartment complex. Without alerting the Mesa PD, led by George Gascón at the time, because they hated the Mesa PD. It was utter chaos. They arrested a bunch of people at the library, and more at the apartment complex.

    Those fuckers were willing to cause huge levels of panic, including sending in SWAT, all to terrorize a community of poor people.

  169. 169.

    Lyrebird

    @OzarkHillbilly: @different-church-lady:

    I thought she was “just” another sociopath with an obviously Jewish name (much more so than mine for instance) that the right wing has been trotting out to try to hide their fascist leanings, like Raichik the horrible who encourages attacks on children’s hospitals. (spits)

    Google says, “Batya Ungar-Sargon is the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek. Before that, she was the opinion editor of the Forward, the largest Jewish media outlet in America. She has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, the New York Review of Books Daily”

    AAAAAAAAAAACK

    A shonda before all the nations and another dangerous person.

    And aren’t people who work for campaigns supposed to step away from journalism roles or something?

  170. 170.

    jonas

    @Chris:uneducated red-state conservatives rurals, who are the Working Class.

    Right. Even though the “working class” white guy in the Ohio diner owns a contracting company, drives an $80,000 pickup, and makes $200k a year.

  172. 172.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: Well, their policy solution is generally something like “eliminate market capitalism” which I don’t think is going to happen, and hasn’t happened in the European social democracies they admire. They’ve also sometimes got a xenophobic streak which this peculiar person seems to be playing on.

  173. 173.

    Bill Arnold

    @Rusty:
    Really? Ironic? I only skimmed the account before replying but e.g. the twitter bio is

    Batya Ungar-Sargon
    @bungarsargon Opinion Editor @Newsweek
    . Author: “Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy” & “Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women”,

    and the last week’s posts and retweets align with that. There is a consistent theme of how Trump pursues the votes of the Republican-leaning parts of the working class, sure.

  174. 174.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin: I am aware of a pretty small slice of the left which argues for “the end of capitalism”, but a much bigger part of it that I see favors a significant expansion of the welfare state but still provides private ownership of for-profit business. I think equating the left with what amounts to communism is kind of a category error.

    Also, I mean, they have a solid point about late capitalism not being great for human flourishing!

  176. 176.

    TBone

    @eclare: I am honored that you read it.  K.I.S.S. is a good reminder (Keep it simple, stunad! 😆) for all of us, especially story tellers.

  178. 178.

    Soprano2

    @eclare: That show was great. I still use their maxim “the stingy man pays the most” because in my experience that’s mostly true.

  179. 179.

    Bill Arnold

    @Trivia Man:
    Talks-to-dolphins guy John Lilly was a ketamine user; he called it “Vitamin K”. On ‘modified human agents’: John Lilly and the paranoid style in American neuroscience
    More to the point, it is known to dramatically increase neuroplasticity, along with some (many, actually) psychedelics.
    Bunch of interesting and serious scientific laboratory research, especially starting less than 10 years ago. Interest in use in treatment of drug-resistant depression and PTSD, among other such conditions.
    The interest in [ketamine, psychadelics)] in the techbro world is as nootropics for self-modification; basically, self-experimentation, rolling dice for a possible mental edge.

  186. 186.

    Chris

    @Suzanne:

    I think equating the left with what amounts to communism is kind of a category error.

    As much as I hate No True Scotsman arguments, I’m increasingly dubious that the “communist” left (meaning the people with the Che Guevara T-shirts) can even be labeled “left wing” at all.  They’re increasingly crypto-alt-rightists who sing the praises of people like Trump and Musk for supposedly being against “the system” are are willing to throw longstanding left-wing causes like women’s rights and civil rights under the bus for the sake of their new friends.  The conceit used to be that they were at least economically left-wing, and as late as ten years ago you could still have said that, but these days I barely even hear that from them anymore.

  187. 187.

    TBone

    @eclare: that’s where it works best!  I wasn’t referring to anything you’ve posted, just to life and stories in general.  Especially mine.

  188. 188.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne:

    Also, I mean, they have a solid point about late capitalism not being great for human flourishing!

    They’re not wrong about 21st century capitalism, but I’ve never liked “late-stage capitalism” as a term because it was invented by the Soviets in the early 20th century to describe capitalism as it existed then. And then after WW2 economic miracles happened all over the world and the capitalism was in a golden age for the next few decades

  192. 192.

    Jeffro

    The journalism industry itself and the public need to fully embrace a shifted landscape. The era when many news outlets were also successful businesses is over — and might never return.  But in the future, it is likely that lots of news organizations will essentially be charities, asking rich people and also you to help them provide a critical service that the market won’t support.

    I almost wonder if local, state, and national news should be functions of government.

    Or, barring that, set up independent organizations and fund them from some sort of very low tax on X

    I know folks on the left AND right will have their reasons for fearing state-sponsored news, paid for with public funds in some way…but if the alternative is “news” from social media, or the charity of billionaires, I will take a taxpayer-supported Albemarle County Public Register, State of Virginia Courier, and United States Daily Mail any day.

  194. 194.

    Fair Economist

    @jonas:

    You can’t have government reporting on itself. The media *must* be an independent check and balance, but its profit model is badly outmoded.

    You absolutely can have the government report on itself. The BBC and the CBC are decidedly better than the US media, and for all its faults Nice Polite Republicans is better than US commercial media.

  195. 195.

    Starfish

    @Delk: There is one template used by a lot of newspaper websites that is extremely obnoxious. Papers big enough to not be using some of those more general newspaper website templates have better control of their ads because they care about reader experience.

  198. 198.

    Starfish

    @different-church-lady: Some of the more interesting stuff has moved to podcasts. The people who did public radio also do some of the more polished podcasts that do not involve an hour and a half of people rambling. “On the Media” has a good podcast.

  199. 199.

    jonas

    @Fair Economist:  The BBC and the CBC are decidedly better than the US media, and for all its faults Nice Polite Republicans is better than US commercial media.

    I’d ask Tony Jay how well the BBC does holding the government accountable these days. We’re used to these outfits’ excellent international coverage here in the US, which is a different matter.

  204. 204.

    Soprano2

    @geg6: Some people here think the Pod Save America guys, who all worked for Obama, are Bernie supporters. I don’t get it either. Talking about Bernie is not the same as supporting him or being a Bernie bro. I never got that feeling from them.

  205. 205.

    catclub

    @OzarkHillbilly: But for most Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, it’s awful.

     

    And it is always a struggle for them. When has the economy actually been better for people who live paycheck to paycheck? When they are unemployed? When they have less savings?

  206. 206.

    Chris

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Sure.  But Red-Brown alliance implies an alliance – if nothing else, it implies the existence of two separate factions that at least ostensibly believe and practice different things, even if both things are bad, which was the case for communists and fascists in the 1930s and 1940s.  I increasingly don’t even see that alliance anymore.  What I see are the anemic remnants of the once-significant “Red” faction just signing up with the “Browns” and gradually adopting all their positions.

    The dirtbag “left” these days is all-in behind Trump and Musk.  They don’t even have their own idols like Bernie Sanders was a decade ago, and I don’t even hear about left-wing causes like Medicare For All anymore.

  207. 207.

    Soprano2

    @Starfish: i listen to that one, it is great. I listen to NPR because I think it’s still the best place to get accurate news, even with all its faults.

  209. 209.

    TBone

    @Chris: I resemble that remark.  I still read Bernie’s emails.  We have bigger fires to attend to now but an ally is an ally and Labor is benefitting currently, surely not a coincidence.

  210. 210.

    Kathleen

    @MomSense: I stopped watching him years before he left. I felt he was borderline dismissive and disrespectful to Michelle Obama and Nancy Pelosi when he interviewed them, yet was always deferential to right wingers. Plus the endless bothersiderism and “Rally For Sanity”. I loathe  him.

  212. 212.

    Kathleen

    @satby: Same here, Satby. I would listen to NPR on my afternoon commute and the number of times I was so made I could have driven my car off the road kept increasing until I decided I needed to stop listening. This was 2015. Its coverage of 2016 campaign was FTFNYT level cringe and I’ve never gone back.

  214. 214.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Bill Arnold: Back in the 1990s when I was active in the Usenet physics newsgroups I sparred frequently with a former physicist who had gotten deeply into that scene and hung with all those counterculture-science guys. I get the impression he did a lot of ketamine. I don’t think it did anything good for him. Dude had had a lot of conversations with the Omega Point beings at the end of time who told him he was on the right track with his faster-than-light quantum communications scheme. I have to give him credit, it was one of those deals where you actually needed at least graduate-level skills to figure out what was wrong with it. Sometimes he also claimed to be an officer in Starfleet.

  216. 216.

    Nukular Biskits

    Super late to this discussion but here’s my $.02 anyway:

    For the most part, “local” media is failing us in terms of investigative journalism, analysis of complex issues and holding elected officials accountable.

    Some of you know that I regularly rail at the local mullet wrapper, The Sun Herald, and the local TV station, WLOX, about their unwillingness to do any serious reporting.  In fact, if I want to know what’s going on (at least at a state level), I typically turn to the Mississippi Free Press (to which I donate) and MS Today.  Both are non-profits and do a far better job than do the corporate-owned media outlets on the MS Coast.

  217. 217.

    Brachiator

    @eclare:

    Yeah, I loved The Daily Show back in the day, but I’m not sure he is in tune with the current mood.

    I only watched the Daily Show after Trevor Noah became host. Enjoyed it greatly.

    Saw some Stewart clips, some good, some just okay.

  218. 218.

    artem1s

    @Baud: ​

    They’ve been trying to compete with right wing media for conservative audiences instead of meeting the market need on the left of center side.Capitalism Fail 101.

    Owners consolidating media into giant media conglomerates has a lot to do with their desperation forclickbait.Social media is also tanking spectacularly. Users of Faceplant thought they could have a nice place to keep up with their friends and relatives across the country. Instead it’s turned into a troll farm for bots trying to influence elections and legislation. Safe spaces diminished in proportion to how much the sites were reliant on clicks and ad buys. The only reason XShitter isn’t on that list is because they laid off all their staff last year.​

  219. 219.

    stinger

    @Suzanne:

    I never once heard of ICE raiding an active job site.

    Actually, they raided a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, one morning in May 2008, arresting 400 people. That afternoon, hundreds of children came home from school to find their parents. gone. Just disappeared.

  220. 220.

    RaflW

    @Jeffro:

    Washington’s success in reviving the economy also suggests a new approach to future downturns, one that relies more on the government’s power of the purse and less on the Federal Reserve’s control of the cost of credit.

    The party of tax cut Jesus will totally, 100% completely unlearn this lesson if they get control of government again.

  222. 222.

    Citizen Alan

    @Matt McIrvin: I know. There are times I get so mad at what some MAGA freak has done or proposes to do that I have to stop myself from using eliminationist rhetoric myself. There are tons of people in and around the GOP who I would tell to their faces that I don’t consider them to be in any sense human beings.

  223. 223.

    Citizen Alan

    @eclare: Kids were never happy to get oranges at Christmas, no matter how much they cost. Well, maybe back in the days when scurvy was a problem, I guess.

  225. 225.

    Citizen Alan

    @Kathleen:

     I vote for whining about cancel culture.

    The real reason I have so much contempt for Bill Maher is that he literally  was cancelled. Back in 2002, Politically Incorrect was a successful, popular show. But then, after 9/11, Maher made a single comment which was taken out of context and distorted by right-wingers to paint him as unpatriotic, and ABC took it off the air.  People don’t realize the extent to which Maher’s obsession with “cancel culture” at the Oberlin College while the Florida GOP government is outright banning books is driven by craven and gutless cowardice on his part. Maher goes after left wing cancel culture because he knows the left wing can’t get his ass fired the way  fascist cancel culture can if he pokes that bear instead.

  226. 226.

    Glidwrith

    @rikyrah: There’s a ton of meat processing plants in Iowa, all of them run with undocumented workers, all raided by ICE on a regular basis to keep them in line.

    As this labor pool has dried up because of Covid, Iowa and the other red states have been steadily pushing child labor as a replacement.

    ETA: and I read a little further, everyone else got to this first.

  227. 227.

    Chris

    @Citizen Alan:

    The reason we hear so much about left-wing cancel culture is precisely that it doesn’t exist. If it did, people would know better than to piss it off.

    (I’ve occasionally wondered how many people in witch-burning societies ever actually believed in witches. After all, if I actually believed the woman next door had Satan on speed dial and the ability to make me infertile, leprous, or just dead of a heart attack, my nose would get really brown when I was around her).

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