Bias in the media is a tricky thing to nail down, no matter how obvious it seems from the cheap seats (where I sit, that is). What can seem like conscious choices to shape the narrative one way or another are often more likely to be structural flaws journalism (shorthand: quotes aren’t facts, or why access journalism rots your brain and your newspaper); or an unconscious process through assumptions not in evidence frame reporting and stories. (See, e.g., the Walz vs. Shapiro takes that posits that bog standard Democratic Party priorities do not represent the center of American policy preferences. (Lots to talk about there, but for another post or posts).
But sometimes bias is right out there, and the mechanisms by which it wrecks civic discourse is in plain sight. That’s the implication of this study out of MIT’s Sloan School:
One year after COVID-19 vaccines arrived, the U.S. had a vaccination rate of about 64%. That rate — lower than in most other countries with comparable access to vaccines — resulted in many preventable deaths.
A lot of blame was cast about, much of it targeting fake news stories and the social media platforms on which they spread. But new research by Jennifer Allen, SM ’22, PhD ’24, found that another overlooked source had a stronger influence on slowing vaccination rates: slightly misleading or provocative headlines from mainstream news sources.
The impact of perniciously presented but accurately reported stories was huge–much more damaging than identified mis or disinformation:
Allen and her coauthors found that exposure to stories they came to define as “vaccine-skeptical” — that is, stories that were not false and alluded to potentially harmful health effects resulting from the vaccine — reduced vaccination intentions 46 times more than misinformation flagged by fact-checkers.
“If we translate this into a specific number, we find that about 3 million people could have gotten vaccinated had they not been exposed to these stories,” Allen said. “Of course, there is then some correlation between vaccine uptake and lives saved, and so the number of preventable deaths also turns out to be relatively large….
The basic explanation for this result is audience size. In total, vaccine-related headlines that the researchers looked at received 2.7 billion views on Facebook. Content flagged as misinformation received just 0.3% of them. The most influential vaccine-skeptical headline, which was published by the Chicago Tribune, read “A Healthy Doctor Died Two Weeks After Getting a COVID Vaccine; CDC Is Investigating Why.” It reached more than 20% of Facebook’s U.S. user base and received more than six times as many views as all flagged misinformation combined.
Crucially it’s not just, or perhaps even mostly a poorly or maliciously framed story that does the damage. All it takes to produce harm is a misleading headline, “given that more than 90% of people read nothing beyond that when browsing social media.”
That is: when you read a New York Times headline that, say, reads “Trump and Harris Agree to September Debate” you have both an error in fact (Harris had long ago confirmed her attendence at the debate. Trump had ducked it and is now surrendering on this one), and a journalistic sin of omission–leaving out the entire tenor of the press conference and the fact that it was mostly a tissue of lies. The Times did do a decent fact check of the session; they would point to that to say (with some justice) that they are providing a critical analytical lens on Trump’s claims. But most people who see this coverage at all will see the “agreement” and miss the reality–that a tired and rambling old guy had a serial ragegasm.
That’s how so much of what we’ll have to fight against will play out over the next 90 days. Reasonably accurate reporting (however often driven by structurally flawed assumptions) that reporters and editors can point at to “prove” their commitment to fairness, while the work of seeding opinion in the digital town square gets done by headlines that mislead and worse. As the story of the Sloan study concludes:
Importantly, this method generalizes beyond vaccination rates and could be used to understand social media posts’ causal effects on any outcome, from brand attitudes to political polarization.
We can have some effect on this. Screaming a lot did get the NYT to change an egregious headline last week. Working the refs is important. I’ll just put this out there: many NYT reporters put their emails up on their biography pages (click on their bylines). Short, polite, firm notes about both the substance of their writing and the headlines that get slapped on it may not have an immediate effect. But they read what comes in over the transom and it shapes how they work.
This thread, it is as open as the mind of a Minnesota school kid in one of Walz’s classes.
Image: Beatrix Potter, Spectacled Mouse Reading a Newspaper, 1890
schrodingers_cat
NYT has done more to usher in the American Nazi, Trump than any other organization besides the Republican party. They are more insidious than Fox News because unlike Fox News they hide their true agenda.
Ishiyama
“Kill your television!”
Attempted Chemistry
@Ishiyama: Blow up your TV.
nettoyeur
I keep moving closer to cancelling my decades long subscription to the NYT, whose editors pull obvious punches as they both sides their headlines, and whose reporters (eg Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman) hold back crucial info until their book leave.The press is supposed to be the Greek chorus, but they are now rich folks on the make and take. Drudge and the BBC seem a better and cheaper choice.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Agree. Even when I started calling them garbage, I didn’t fully appreciate how bad they were.
Ishiyama
@Attempted Chemistry: “Snappy Sammy Smoot says: Don’t wee-wee on your teevee!”
(I have an eclectic collection of Underground Comix.)
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Vichy Times is more like radioactive waste with a long half life. They are that toxic. Especially because the rest of media follows their lead.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
This fact is underappreciated.
bbleh
@nettoyeur: @schrodingers_cat: I subscribed for DECADES, no matter where I lived (including the west coast), but I canceled a few years ago because it was evident that the quality of the product I was paying for was declining sharply.
TBF, their investigative and overseas journalism are still first-rate. But their political coverage has been truly despicable — low-quality, biased, self-centered, etc. — for many years, and now their domestic news coverage generally is following suit.
They used to be the top of my news bookmarks. Now I barely click over once a day.
The decline of The Times doubtless will provide a rich vein for future PhD dissertations.
MP
@Attempted Chemistry: Throw away your paper…
Telsiree
As someone posted on Bluesky, the NYT is a Word Puzzle App company that occasionally writes stories.
Bill Arnold
Good point. Also, many have social media accounts, with few enough replies that they almost certainly read them, though the NY Times reporters link their own stories far too infrequently these days. (policy?)
BR
Someone needs to do a comparative analysis of real investigative journalism done by the NYT in any sustained fashion vs. ProPublica, TPM, BellingCat, or lots of local weekly papers. The fact that with all their sources they didn’t break the Supreme Court stories is alone enough to know they aren’t doing their jobs.
twbrandt
@bbleh: this is what is so frustrating to me. Much of their reporting on the environment, the arts, and other issues, is stellar; but their political reporting sucks.
I canceled my subscription, but I do miss it.
MagdaInBlack
@MP: …Go to the country.
schrodingers_cat
@bbleh: Their coverage of India is pretty pathetic. Very BJP friendly. BBC is better.
Splitting Image
I think that Harris should issue a notice every week saying that the scheduled weekly press conference has been cancelled.
No notices scheduling any press conferences, of course. Just notices cancelling them. I think that Generals Peckem and Scheisskopf agreed that this was the best move if one wanted to turn simple event scheduling into a dickhead dominance game.
Since this is exactly the level that the news media operates on, they ought to appreciate the gesture.
Harrison Wesley
@Ishiyama: “Mr. Natural sez: Go fuck yourself! Do it today!”
Eolirin
@Baud: I wonder how much longer that’ll last. They’re increasingly out of step and social media doesn’t really care about the prestige to the same extent. ProPublica reporting can go viral just as easily, if not moreso, than anything they put out.
BretH
Gin & Tonic
@Ishiyama: Mentioning somebody named Smoot in a Levenson post is a good flex.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@twbrandt: they’re just the worst though. they can’t even cover shit in their own backyard. the upstate might not as well exist, albany is like the land of make believe where like magic, budgets would come down the hudson and sometimes keep the lights on.
they’re awful locally. they can’t cover the MTA, they’re afraid of the NYPD and they miss shit that could be seen from orbit (eg: the lies of mr. ripley, er i mean, george santos).
i dunno, maybe their sports coverage is ok, i stopped reading them a long time ago and can keep up with my knicks by other means.
but yeah. fuck the fucking new york fucking times. they’ve been blowing pervert hoover for decades. they shivved hillary, they went soft on fucking hitler. the FNYFT, down with fascists since 1933.
Chet Murthy
@nettoyeur: I find that between The Guardian (OK, they have problems too), TPM, and a few other international outlets, I get pretty decent coverage of most news, both domestic and international. I can read French passably, so I read the Le Mondy RSS feed (free), but France24 has English-language reporting.
BretH
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can’t look away
I make you think I’m delicious
With the stuff that I say
I am the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozin’ out
From your TV set
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don’t need you
Don’t go for help…no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold
That’s right, folks.. Don’t touch that dial
Torrey
Ask a journalist or a journalism teacher about misleading headlines, and they will invariably shrug and say that journalists don’t write the headlines or subheads of their articles. So, presumably, not their problem.
What I would like to find out is (a) who writes headlines and (b) how they are trained.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: As bad as they’ve been for years, NepoPublisher has brought them to a new level of suckage.
Chet Murthy
@strange visitor (from another planet):
They’re the hometown paper in the town where Li’l Donnie started his crime spree, and did most of his crimes. And they didn’t do jack to inform their readers about his long, long history of criminality.
Why pay for a fire department that doesn’t show up when there’s a fire? Useless, they are.
schrodingers_cat
@Torrey: When I wrote for my college newspaper, it was the editor who wrote the headlines. IDK what Vichy Times does.
Gin & Tonic
@strange visitor (from another planet): Not just fascists. See Duranty, Walter.
schrodingers_cat
@strange visitor (from another planet): Melissa Clark and Mark Bittman before her and the puzzle dept are what keeps the whole operation afloat.
NYT recipes are what I miss the most.
Gin & Tonic
Could have sworn there was a comment here from BretH, but it’s gone.
frosty
@Ishiyama: Caught in the grips of DESPAIR?
My all-time favorite comic.
twbrandt
@schrodingers_cat: same
Viva BrisVegas
There’s no thumb on the scale.
It’s an elbow and both feet.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Chet Murthy: no. everyone knew the slobfather was a corrupt and filthy criminal, a vile, racist bastard from day one. but he had ties with the old mob until his pal generalissimo giuliani took down the italians and then they got cozy with the russians.
it felt like he had dirt on many of the power players in the city (hmm, sounds familiar). spitzer and roger stone patronized the same prostitutes. schneiderman made noises in his direction and then was run out of town. vance jr was definitely taking money from them.
we all knew. we were screaming it out. we couldn’t believe anyone on the other side of the goddamn hudson river would believe ANYTHING that came out of his mouth. we sure didn’t.
but that show, man. that fucking apprentice. never underestimate how much mythology was built up around that bastard thanks to that fucking show
@Gin & Tonic: good point.
CarolPW
@MP: Move to the country.
Chet Murthy
@schrodingers_cat: I can see individual NYT recipes. I navigate to the recipe, then invoke the “KillSticky” browser plugin, and the sticky frame that obscures the page disappears, and I can proceed.
Chet Murthy
@strange visitor (from another planet): I agree with you that -we- knew, that most New Yorkers knew. But FTFNYT sets the tone for reporting everywhere, and they refused to report on his criminality. And so, the rest of the country thought he was just a successful businessman.
Zelma
After reading The NY Times for 60 years, I cancelled my subscription a couple of weeks ago. (I don’t remember what particular outrage it was or if it was just the cumulation of frustration.) However, they still send me the headlines and brief descriptions every day. Awful. If I could cancel again, I would!
KatKapCC
I require that painting.
MagdaInBlack
@CarolPW: Mr. Prine approves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkfqWEXdx-I
BretH
@Gin & Tonic: Just posting lyrics to Zappa’s I am the slime as it seemed appropriate.
CaseyL
Democrats need to reach uncommitted voters, such as they are.
Uncommitted voters don’t get their news online, unless they’re under age 35. They don’t read ProPublica, or TPM, or any of those outlets. They watch TV news and read mainstream newspapers.
Since the MSM is all in on Trump, that’s what the Great Uncommitted are seeing and reading.
I know Harris-Walz are focusing on local news coverage; that probably helps some. But maybe they should do more press conferences and individual interviews with outlets like NYT and WaPo – as bad as those papers are, as Trump-friendly as they are – because that’s where most people who aren’t us get their news.
MP
@MagdaInBlack: Sure do miss him.
MagdaInBlack
@MP: Yes, that one hurt.
Gvg
I feel like it should be ethically required to credit who writes every headline, just like every story or op ed. The fact that it’s not, has allowed a whole lot of slime that no one seems to be able to control. I think a lot of normies don’t even know the headline isn’t done by the writer. We should try to get someone like ProPublica or TPM or PBS to start doing that and try to change the culture of journalism. It would take decade but it could really help in the long run.
HumboldtBlue
Cheryl from Maryland
Well, this is awful, I wanted to let people know that one could see original Beatrix Potter watercolors at the Beatrix Potter Gallery in Hawkshead, Cumbria, UK. Alas, the Gallery is now permanently closed as the environment inside the building was dangerous for her watercolors; there is no current plan for displaying them again. BOTHER! BOTHER! BOTHER! When Wayne and I were there, we were able to see her originals for the book THE STORY OF A FIERCE BAD RABBIT. Also, most headlines are misleading and suck.
zhena gogolia
@Cheryl from Maryland: That is sad. She was one of my faves when I was a child.
KatKapCC
Heh, someone on Facebook shared a post that said “Kamala and Tim being running mates feels like Mom and Dad are coming to school to deal with the bully situation”.
zhena gogolia
For those who appreciate Brent Terhune, his take on Tim Walz.
Sister Golden Bear
@Chet Murthy:
Well you see, everyone already knew Trump was sociopathic pathologically lying buffoon. So why cover that when it’s old news, amirite.
That New Yorker cover about the view from Manhattan wasn’t satire, it was a documentary.
Another Scott
@CaseyL: Eh?
PewResearch.org (from November 2023):
From the graph, weekday circulation began falling in 1989 or so. The peak was around 63M.
I wonder how many of those millions is USA Today dumped on hotels and similar places every morning (do they still do that??)…
I think factual news is important. So important, in fact, that I think it should be treated as a public service. Craig’s List, etc., broke their funding model, so most of them can’t make money any more. Public Radio and VOA and all the rest of the non-profit-driven news universe should probably get much, much more support. Audiences and “engagement” and “time per visit” and all the rest are hard to measure accurately and probably can be gamed if there are benefits in doing so. But all the available evidence indicates that the “big newspapers” are not providing news information that tens of millions of people are hungry to read.
I think part of the reason why people don’t read newspapers anymore is that they’re ungodly expensive. $500+ a year is common for non-special-offer home delivery. People struggling to put food on their family don’t have that kind of cash, and don’t have a spare hour to read the news every morning. So, like the rest of us, they scroll the headlines…
In such an environment, information and audiences are siloed and it’s hard to break into them to get information to a truly mass audience. I don’t envy the folks who are trying to do so. It’s a hard job.
Going local and meeting voters where they are via appearances, TV and radio ads, billboards, wraps on taxis and buses, memes online, good websites, endorsements, and on and on, is probably essential if we want to reach as many people on our side as possible. All of the above.
And that’s the way it used to be. I’ve mentioned before that my grandmother was a stamp collector. She had some (non-postage) stamps from Nixon’s 1972 campaign. In addition to the criming, his campaign spent a fortune on trying to get every person possible engaged no matter where they were. We can do that (without the criming) also too.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Trivia Man
@Zelma: I am hay I was able to convince my wife to cancel finally. (We kept the Games portion only)
I helped her with the comments, kept it very short. Including “report the news instead of keeping it for your books.”
The worst art is that their aura of gravitas and reputation makes their thumb on the scale so much more powerful. “Even the liberal NYT…” still carriers some weight, 20 years ago it was like it was a gospel handed down from on high. IMHO they did more to grease the skids for Bush V Gore, Weapons of mass destruction>>>Gulf War, and the email debacle>>Trump than any other single identifiable source.
KatKapCC
They’ve added some “Throwback Doug” merch :D
citizen dave
@strange visitor (from another planet): Re: “but that show, man. that fucking apprentice. never underestimate how much mythology was built up around that bastard thanks to that fucking show” [I’ve never learned how to do the cool block quote thing here]
I had not reflected on this at all, but yes. Recently read the story in a book by Patrick Keefe,
“Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks”
It’s a collection of his pieces, and the trump/apprentice story was in the New Yorker in 2018, and is available at the link. It is nauseating in many, many ways. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/07/how-mark-burnett-resurrected-donald-trump-as-an-icon-of-american-success
cain
@nettoyeur:I don’t understand why you keep it? Given the obvious harm that they are doing. They might write fair articles but the headline can be egregiously harmful.
The only way to change their behavior is to make them lose a lot of money. The irony is that their audience are not maga people it’s you.
TS
Timely post, just turned to MSNBC online and they are showing
Protesters confront Harris about War in Gaza
One tiny part of 2 days of campaign rallies with massively positive feedback. There is no solution to how the media treats a democratic nominee vs a republican nominee. Part of their mode is to search for the tiniest of errors from the democrat and applaud the republican if they come on stage wearing clothes.
Trivia Man
@Gvg: My outside the box suggestion: When someone shares a news story, regardless of original source, rewrite the headline. However you see fit. It becomes an editorial choice and your distribution list may grow because they trust YOUR spin on the story. I see it done here and other social media places, often with a snark FTFY tossed on.
But curated news sources are more important than ever. Simply adding YOUR context might help. Someone with a gift for it might become a widely shared and respected source.
CaseyL
@Another Scott:
If you’re trying to be reassuring, you’re succeeding :)…somewhat.
I’m very online, and so are my news sources, but I don’t think I’m typical in any way. BJers are very online, and so are our news sources, but are we typical in any way? Particularly for our age (many if not most of us are 60+ years old)?
My worry is that the 20-odd million who still subscribe to newspapers like NYT and WaPo, and watch TV news (network, not cable) – generally older, generally more well off, most reliable in that they vote in every election – are some of the voters we need to reach. And I don’t know that we are. And I don’t know if appealing to young people will get us 20-odd million young peoples’ votes.
citizen dave
I never ever ever listen to npr, but was getting bad music yesterday morning on the way to work, happened to turn over there right at 8 eastern, and on the DAY AFTER Tim Walz was selected as a VP candidate, and gave a speech, the NPR reporter talked about that, and THEN went to JD Vance’ reaction, and PLAYED a short soundbite (one sentence I believe) of him countering the Walz pick.
The morning after the Dems present THEIR candidate, the NPR soundbite is from the Republican opposition.
ETA: The whole “the writer doesn’t write the headline” thing has always seemed like a type of journalistic/media bullshit to me.
Trivia Man
@cain: I suspect that money is not the motivation for any o fthat media cabal. Fox and the rest are providing an ROI to the REAL movers – no regulations and no taxes is the goal and any incremental savings there is as good as or better than an actual honest profit.
Chet Murthy
@citizen dave: Indeed. The way that FTFNYT and WaPo bury the lede in paragraph nine of a ten-para piece, isn’t due to the headline editor.
Quinerly
@KatKapCC: that came up in my FB feed this AM. Love it.
waspuppet
@citizen dave:
I’m not sure which kind of bullshit you mean, but I came here to say that if it’s a digital-only publication there’s actually an excellent chance the reporter did write the headline.
Reporters don’t write their own print headlines—they can’t, because they can’t know what kind of headline it’s going to be (how many columns, lines, etc.). There’s a different kind of bullshit at work there, because I was told in my first newsroom 35 years ago that headline writers were the best and most important writers at the newspaper. And nowadays the NYTs of the world pretend they don’t know that.
Old School
@MagdaInBlack:
@CarolPW:
Build you a home
Marleedog
@citizen dave:
Select and copy the text you wish to put in the block quote. When you hit “Reply”, in the visual tab hit the quotation mark and paste in your copied text. A double return will take you outside of the block and you can go on to post your comment.
Spanky
Over here, we’re in the midst of a colonoscopy prep. The Firehose of Shit has begun!
Uh, ‘scuse me for a moment …
BethanyAnne
From the CNN “Reliable Sources” newsletter, yesterday:
TS
@citizen dave:
I was reminded of the obituary for one of my husband’s great grandmothers. It stated that she had died & then had 2 columns that talked about the life of her husband.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@BethanyAnne: Gross. My despair at humanity grows.
NotMax
O’Donnell on fire tonight.
CaseyL
@citizen dave:
Another more subtle way they distort coverage is, when they report on something a Democrat said, they usually just quote them, or give a recap in their own words rather than do an exact direct quote. When they report on something a GOPer says, they give video.
GOPers always get more and better press.
Leto
Goddamned, Lawrence O’Donnell is on fire with this opening segment. Calling most of our current reporters “too stupid” to recognize that the felon isn’t providing real answers. That the quality of their questions are wasted. That the press hasn’t learned anything since 2016. I don’t smoke, but I know I’m gonna need a carton at the end of this.
citizen dave
@Marleedog: 1,000 thank yous! (I’m putting this in a google doc–though it may well be somewhere on the BJ site too–I don’t poke around much)
Quinerly
@NotMax:
He’s lit!!!
Leto
O’Donnell contrasting how the press treats Trumpov versus how they’ve treated Biden. Showing video proof. Tom, did you coordinate with him on his show tonight? Good lord. We absolutely need a copy of this opening segment when they post it.
Edit: I honestly don’t think I’ve seen Lawrence this mad before. He’s visibly mad.
Chet Murthy
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
I share your sense of despair at the parlous state of our electorate. I -do- wonder whether there are democracies with electorates that -aren’t- comprised mostly of Ariana Grande voters. I really do. Maybe there aren’t any.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Chet Murthy: There needs to be more media literacy. You can bring horses to water, but you can’t make them think.
KatKapCC
@NotMax: @Leto: I do love him, but I really really wish he did not feel this odd need to almost always say Trump’s first name every time he refers to him. Like, 90% of the time he says “Donald Trump” throughout his monologues. We know which Trump it is! Though I suppose it’s better than the people who insist on still calling him President Trump or Mr Trump.
cain
@Trivia Man:
But starving them of that money means that they can’t pay right wingers to write editorials or pay right wing editors.
middlelee
@citizen dave: When I worked for newspapers it was the layout people who wrote the headlines.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Looks like someone banned him. I just un-banned him, his comments should show up in a minute.
edit: Okay, they are back.
sdhays
@Another Scott: 1989 is several years before the internet started to be ubiquitous, so what changed?
Chet Murthy
@KatKapCC: I haven’t watched Lawrence in a long time [though when I do, I love him], but if I had my druthers, we’d all call him “Donald”. Not “Donald Trump” and not “Mr./President Trump”. Hell, I’d prefer a diminutive “Donnie”. None of that is insulting, none of that is a slur. But it’s disrespectful, and that’s why I wish they’d do it. Ah, well.
Leto
@KatKapCC: he’s more professional than I’ll ever be when referring to him.
Jay
@Chet Murthy:
Don-Old.
HumboldtBlue
Kamala’s speech in front of the UAW was fantastic!
HumboldtBlue
@Chet Murthy:
Larry was fired up tonight!
jimmiraybob
Lawrence O’Donnell is burning down the house tonight. He is not happy with today’s media performance.
dww44
@BethanyAnne: Guess they must be conservative subscribers cause all the liberals I know have been leaving in spite of all those offers to subscribe for $50.00 a year. I get them every day.
Leto
“We can’t let it be 2016 all over again. We all have to continue to try to improve the way we cover this presidential campaign. That’s the lesson of the day.” – O’Donnell
Damn straight.
eemom
@Viva BrisVegas:
Thank you. The evil the media does in this country can’t be overstated. “Thumb on scale” is a joke.
As for the absolute worst of the worst New YorKKK Times, this month celebrates its 85th anniversary as enabler/adorer of fascism. Check out the front page on Sunday, August 20, 1939 — 8 months after Kristallnacht.
BR
@HumboldtBlue:
Her speech really was something. I think even better than her stump speech.
dww44
@jimmiraybob: we need more of what he did tonight. Hopefully some of those not named reporters he was talking about watched.
TS
@HumboldtBlue:
Didn’t score a mention in any news items I saw – how typical. I guess that was why Lawrence showed it on his show
KatKapCC
@Chet Murthy: Could use Jeff Tiedrich’s name: Little Donny Fuckface. The suits at MSNBC might not like that one.
KatKapCC
@HumboldtBlue: The right is gonna use clips of her saying “the collective” to bleat about cOmMUniSm
Ishiyama
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Dorothy Parker, challenged to use the word “horticulture” in a sentence: “you can lead a horticulture, but you cannot make her think”.
Leto
Gotta say, the press release from Harris/Walz is the way to treat him. Just utter disrespect.
I guess his whole show will be on the utter failure of the media with Trumpov. Good.
lamh47
Lawrence O’Donnell is ripping his colleagues in the MSM including some on his own network.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1821732742029099206
lamh47
I was saying in the previous thread…
Basically the media is mad because the Harris/Walz campaign is too quick and out front with response to the attacks Chump and company trying to sling at them. As soon as the attack comes, Harris campaign swift messaging HQ sprints into gear before the media can set their narrative. The media is hating and their love for letting agent orange set narratives are currently being bested by the Harris campaign and they are hating it!
Harris campaign like…AHT…AHT…AHT…
matt
Remember who were gleefully participating in the anti-anti-COVID pile on – contrarian ‘smart glasses’ wearing douches like Matt Yglesias and Nate Silver.
matt
@lamh47: The Harris campaign is, with skill, effectively countering the media’s power to shape the campaign and force her to make choices she doesn’t want to make (Shapiro, cough cough).
Leto
@lamh47: the Harris campaign is following Martin’s advice: don’t wait on them. They’re simply not going to do their jobs. Take the attack to him directly, and just continue to ignore them. You want your interviews? Then start doing your fucking jobs.
Senator Bob Casey (PA) up next on his show. Currently at commercial.
Spanky
@lamh47: By calling them “mistakes”, I think he’s really missing the nut of the matter. And given who signs his paycheck, I don’t think he’s ever going to say how deliberate the bias is.
matt
@Chet Murthy: Donnie’s the one, as in ‘shut the fuck up Donnie’.
Leto
@lamh47: yup, this is the part where he really showed his anger. And it’s justified. He’s correct on every point.
CaseyL
Well, Sinclair Broadcasting does indeed order its on-air talent to use the exact words they’re given, which have a GOP slant.
I suspect other outlets do much the same thing, though maybe not quite so overtly. There aren’t too many well-paying jobs in journalism anymore, and wage slaves know better than to piss off their boss.
Another problem is, I just don’t know where these journalists are coming from. They all seem to be celebrity hires, social media stars, and once-upon-a-time bloggers, with no experience or training in actual journalism. They don’t do policy analysis because they’re not interested/don’t know how; they don’t do rhetoric analysis because ditto, and they sure as hell don’t do “background” or “investigative” work if it means talking to anyone who isn’t on their curated Rolodex.
‘
Lyrebird
Good for him! It really doesn’t seem like Michelle Wolf (sp?) reading the journalists the riot act back at that press correspondents’ dinner got through to many. I’m sure some of the outstanding exceptions are still doing great work, like Farenthold and the other guy with a German-ish name. But the Trump fluffing and the horse-race stuff over investigation has huge costs for our nation and for people around the world!
ETA: @lamh47: Love seeing it! Thank HEAVEN and JRB and thousands of hard working people we have MVP’s team to show ’em how it’s done!
HumboldtBlue
@KatKapCC:
I thought the same thing.
Chet Murthy
@Leto: I needed a cigarette after that. And I don’t smoke.
Bupalos
I just watched 4 minutes of the Trump thing. WTF are you all doing?!?!?! This was every bit as bad as Biden’s debate, maybe worse… the guy is pausing a full 2 seconds to try and remember the word “man” which was very specifically in his cognitive test that he is so fucking proud of.
This is a tire-fire in a dumpster that is floating down a river that is burning. With the corpse of a 78 year old…………………………..man… in it. Man, woman, person, tv, camera…. Thus ends the gospel of Donald Jessica Trump.
Tim and Kamala 8/7 = 40%, Tim and Kamala 8/8 = 80% with an arrow pointing up.
This is why they weren’t letting Trump out of his cage, it’s very very similar to what happened to Biden but they sacrificed their party to Gwar so they’re fucking stuck with it our party still functions. Jesus Christ.
BellyCat
Is this like the Mensa puzzle: how long until a frog reaches the end of a log if they keep jumping half way?
Suggestion: Nut up or own your ambivalence.
Trivia Man
@KatKapCC: Don Old Trump is an acceptable variation
Or just Old Man Trump as his common reference title
Leto
@Chet Murthy: like I said above, I don’t smoke and I need a carton! I’ll toss a few your way :)
lamh47
@Spanky: it’s more than anyone else on his network or the other media is doing.
He also called on the audience to confront the media on social media as well.
And guess what…it’s exactly what KHive and general Kamala supporters along with the campgain HQ team, have been doing
Bupalos
I only watched 6 minutes before I began to feel bad for Trump and think “someone should really do something” and not let him just twist in the wind like this… but who??? The Qannon Shaman??
different-church-lady
@Bupalos: Gee, nice of you to notice.
RaflW
The’ NYT’s twelfth paragraph of Trump’s presser said “His wide-ranging remarks were sometimes meandering.”
Fuuuuuuuk the NYT. I glanced at the AP writeup that my local daily carried. Also made him sound basically really normal.
The press needs the French Revolution treatment. I’m apoplectic.
But I also don’t understand how the print media isn’t a wider laughingstock. Don’t most people watch clips as well as read the paper. Or see skeets/Xits/whatever.
Occupying two alternate universes seems unsustainable for the print press.
Kay
@Bupalos:
It was bad but I’m mean. I laughed out loud at points. What on earth is wrong with him?
Bupalos
@different-church-lady: This is brand fucking new, church-lady. This is the worst Trump has looked ever ever and is a game changer.
Maybe it took Biden getting out of the way and not big footing Trump’s cognitive decline with his own…”mmmpfhh we finally defeated medicare….”
or maybe it took the primal fear that he’s been living with the last two weeks staring at real candidates that can actually do this thing. But he is launching in to “FUCK IT WE’LL DO IT LIVE, WE’LL DO IT LIVE!!!!!”
Gin & Tonic
@RaflW:
Politico couldn’t even say something like “meandering.” Here’s their take:
Nettoyeur
@Chet Murthy: I am a fluent French speaker (lived there for years), should probably try Le Monde again. I used to find it kinda Left Bank stuffy (decades ago I read a real snoozer there entitled “Is there a place for Protestantism in France?”), Liberation neo Trotskyite knee jerk anti American , and Le Figaro über bourgeois (egads, I even sound like a Frenchman!). Guardian, BBC, TPM for sure and cheaper too. WaPo under Marty Barron was great and steal but it’s being Murdoched (I am US-Aussie dual national so like any decent Australian I cant wait for Rupert to cark it). Time for some changes. I don’t do Wordle, and what need from Wirecutter I can generally get for free. The one thing kinda nice is the NYT Archive.
Bupalos
@Kay: He’s in cognitive decline and he’s absolutely scared shitless. He isn’t even breathing normally. Also he is thinking “when I’m in trouble, I just go wing it, people love that, that works….” and it’s literally like a ball player who’s knees are giving out. He tried the same thing at the convention.
HE PAUSED A FULL 2-3 SECONDS DESPERATELY TRYING TO COME UP WITH THE WORD “MAN.”
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Bupalos:
Come on, I don’t think Biden’s having cognitive decline. His age has simply caught up to him
different-church-lady
@Bupalos: I have no idea what any of this has to do with you being right about Biden and everyone else being wrong.
Bupalos
@Gin & Tonic: OH “DECLINED” YOU SAY???!?!!?
KatKapCC
@lamh47: Okay, sorry if I am old and dumb, but what is AHT?
Leto
Huh, look at that. Literally nothing wrong with Diaper Don’s ear. Diaper Don and his Diaper Baby Cult. So damn weird.
The Thin Black Duke
Bupalos is equating Biden’s appearance at the debate with Trump’s horrifying meltdown pretending to be a press conference today. Oh no. Nope. Fuck that. Donnie is fucking crazy and the thought of that sociopath back in the White House scares the shit out of me.
different-church-lady
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Having spent the last month trying to convince us that we’re all wrong for thinking Biden wasn’t senile, Bupalos will now spend the next month trying to convince us we’re all wrong for thinking Trump isn’t senile, even though we’re all perfectly willing to believe Trump is senile.
KatKapCC
@Bupalos: Why do you think you need to scream at everyone here about Trump being nuts? We know. Calm the heck down. Your comments are not exactly giving “super strong mental state” either.
Kay
@Bupalos:
Yup. The whole “inflation” sequence. My God.
different-church-lady
@The Thin Black Duke: This is truly new adventuring in Sea Lioning.
BellyCat
Got a Sunday FTFNYT thrown on my porch last weekend. I called the police to report them for littering.
Bupalos
@different-church-lady: WHAT??!
You’re obsessed with old shit.
Celebrate. Trump is exposed. Yes, this was the argument. “Old” is going to stick to one of the candidates when it’s a choice between 2 candidates. Take out the 81 year old that is struggling to speak and people might notice the angry alzheimer’s patient that is beating him like a rented mule is…an alzheimer’s patient that couldn’t beat anyone else.
It’s a very good evening. We are very likely to win. This is a thing we might have hoped would happen that is happening.
Chet Murthy
@Nettoyeur: I use Feedly as an RSS reader. Put all my RSS feeds in it. Le Monde has a free one. So that goes in. Every day, I get a whole bunch of “top 1/3-2/3 of article” entries, and I can read ’em in French, or translate to English and read that way. France has a different take on the world, from the US.
HumboldtBlue
BR
@Kay:
I usually can’t stand watching him, but today it was hilarious. It was so nonsensical and low energy at the same time.
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: also from Politico:
Chet Murthy
@The Thin Black Duke: @different-church-lady: Oh interesting. Bupalos is still on that whinge, eh? I guess it’s good I still have him pied.
different-church-lady
@Chet Murthy: There is no notion another person can have that our good friend Bupalos cannot correct.
Leto
Just a reminder: pie is amazing. It’s a gluten free, sugar free, fat free, whatever you need it to be free, dessert. Indulge yourselves.
BellyCat
@Bupalos: Pro Tip Challenge: Can you attack Trump without casting shade on Biden?
SRSLY… Think about it
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Bupalos: no. from the moment that johnny nappleseed came gliding down that golden escalator, he’s been vomiting out incomprehensible gibberish and the media has been covering for him.
during the entire debate where you decided it was time to excoriate uncle joe, the nodfather worked himself up into a lather…. but didn’t make one whit of sense. dude didn’t complete a sentence, let alone a thought. he just tiraded through all of what the media pretended were answers with loud bombast and bile, leaving tapper and bash to thank him for his spittle-flecked assaults on the english language.
but you know, people decided that night that joe hadda go. funny that.
eta- did you just notice NOW captain sniffles has breathing issues? FFS.
Kay
@BR:
He’s a little scary though. I did laugh but knowing I should take it seriously. I couldn’t read his face – tense and blank- terror? He’s afraid?
Leto
@HumboldtBlue: JV Vance continuing to show why leadership doesn’t listen to junior enlisted.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@strange visitor (from another planet): That’s it. All of it, right there.
Leto
@Kay: the next time you eat mashed potatoes, start asking it policy questions. It’s basically what he looks like, and you’ll get more cogent answers.
BR
@Kay:
Did he look scared to you? I didn’t read that. He seemed more tired than anything — sort of going through the motions, but his heart didn’t seem in it.
Bupalos
@different-church-lady: I’m not getting into a dumb meta argument with you incredibly wrong people about your online space. I have no idea why you don’t pie me, if I was as patently fucking wrong about the thing I was forever being bitter about I’d use the pie filter for the first time.
Trump is decompensating because Biden withdrew. That is why, and that is why we gunna win. This is what happened, if you can’t deal with it because you were into Bidenmania and treating politics like some kind of morality play… well, awesome. I’m actually kinda stoked there are Bidenstans that are as… enthusiastically… delusional as that. Thanks for harshing my mellow.
The Thin Black Duke
@Chet Murthy: As unlikely as it was, I thought Bupalos was due for a redemption arc. My mistake. Back to the pastry shop.
strange visitor (from another planet)
FFS. this is gonna go on as long as the “oh noes, the evil, eeeevil democrats shivved that noble al franken with (eight) accusations of sexual impropriety!! we could sure use his like in the senate today if not for that meddling gillibrand and those blasted power-hungry partisans!”
@Bupalos: dude, derp furor has been STEADILY decompensating for years. biden’s departure had nothing to do with it.
HumboldtBlue
Sweet Jesus beating a cartoonist with a stick, this is fucking perfect.
different-church-lady
@Bupalos:
For the same reason cats enjoy batting toys around.
The Thin Black Duke
@BellyCat: Bupalos understands the assignment.
Chet Murthy
@The Thin Black Duke: I pied him the same time I blocked him over at LG&M (b/c of crazy shit he was spouting over there). This was before the “three weeks of hell”.
lamh47
@KatKapCC:
colloquialism for “Stop!” “Hey- no!” “You better not!” etc –
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Bupalos: If one side is arguing tactics and the other is arguing morality; as a member of the latter, I find no problem telling you you’re a shithead regardless of outcome, actual or counterfactual.
Bupalos
@strange visitor (from another planet): I can’t believe I started this up again. Not where I thought we are.
People. I’m sorry. No. Do not respond to me. Just go back as if I hadn’t posted. Seriously I do not care about the Biden issue, it leaked out of my [[[pie hole]]] and I totally did not think about how it was going to land.
HumboldtBlue
THIS IS EVEN BETTER!!! CRAZY TRAIN!!!!!!
Bupalos
I’m going to officially apologize to this thread for activating the BidenStay people. I honestly did not think this was still a thing. There is no fucking way this is what we should be talking about, and I’ll accept it’s probably my fault.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Bupalos: you know the expression, “let sleeping dogs lie”?!? just give it a fucking rest.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Bupalos:
No, you’re making wild accusations of Biden having cognitive decline, that’s what people are objecting to. Lots of people accept now that it was the correct course of action (hopefully, fingers crossed) for him to drop his reelection bid
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The way it went down doesn’t leave room for me to think it was the right thing. He wasn’t given a choice.
I’m willing to accept it; but I won’t accept any dickery, flaunting, stunting, or other such self-congratulatory behavior.
The Thin Black Duke
Derailment in progress.
Chet Murthy
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Amen. It’s what’s turned me off from LG&M of late. Some of the FPers don’t seem to understand what you wrote.
NotMax
Dolt 45 campaign honchos must now know how the staff at Chernobyl felt.
Kay
@BR:
He did. I saw it as “blank” but I think he’s very tense.
Ari Fleisher said he should “get off the field” (meaning end the press conference, not his candidacy)
TS
Why on earth do they call it a news conference. Kamala answered more questions from reporters on the tarmac than trump did in this ridiculous “event”. He gave in incoherent speech to his BFF the US political media – who wrapped it up in red ribbon & represented it as something of merit
Bupalos
@strange visitor (from another planet): I didn’t even know I did it. Go look at the little offhanded thing I said that started it. Then it’s like “here comes the evil conspirator.”
I mean, it’s definitely true that the reason Trump has to come out and do feats of cognitive strength which he can’t do is because of [something that happened a few weeks ago that we’re not allowed to mention ] If that thing hadn’t happened, this wouldn’t have either.
Do we really have to do this Ixne on Oldite thing? Biden is a fucking hero, he was a great president and he just saved the republic by doing something almost no one in history had the strength to do, a world-historical jiujitsu thing that oh no we can’t mention because “ageism….” and more realistically “Being wrong on the internet” is worse than death.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@TS: Unless it bears the official term “news conference,” the fact of Harris answering questions changes nothing. The media would rather wield a technical fact as a weapon than discuss the more meaningful truth.
TS
Don’t think I’ve ever used pie before, now I’m craving candy hearts
Jacel
@Ishiyama: Snappy Sammy Smooth was one of the most memorable characters from that era, without any of the sex, drugs, or violence typical of underground comics.
TS
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Should have also noted, all those questions were about trump – nothing about her own campaign, VP nominee, policies – just trump. Any wonder she doesn’t call press conferences.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@The Thin Black Duke: in a sense, not. the hundreds of articles and op-eds the times ran on biden’s decrepitude vs the handful depicting dozo the clown’s downward spiral into dementia certainly colored people’s lenses when the “drop biden” cacophony became deafening.
hence, thumb-on-the-scale leads to bupalos and others being welded to their perceptions that were pressed into their brains like a ludovico technique they didn’t notice being applied. it’s hard to explain to fish what water is.
or, dude is more on topic than he’ll ever realize.
@Bupalos: you can say biden is old. we KNOW he’s old. HE knows he’s old. what he’s NOT is demented. what he’s not is afflicted by fucking parkinsons. you don’t have to gild the lily to make your fucking point. and if you HAVE to bend reality to make your point, maybe….don’t?
Bupalos
@Kay: I’m still going through this thing but I’m kinda amazed that there apparently isn’t anyone that can pull the plug. This is the wages of turning the party over to Trump. They are soooo fucked. It’s taken way longer than I thought but it’s here.
What confuses me is someone did pull the plug on the black Journalists thing. Why not here? Where is this campaign right now? They tried to have JV do the campaigning and it was an embarrassing shitshow, then they tried this gambit and it’s way worse…. and then there was no one to pull the plug, they just let it keep happening for like an hour? Where is this campaign right now? Feels like there’s no bottom.
KatKapCC
@lamh47: Thanks!
different-church-lady
@Bupalos: Look, all I did is make a snide observation about how amazing it was that nobody else knew any of this before you did.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@strange visitor (from another planet): 👏👏👏
BR
@Bupalos:
I mean he was in his own house. It’s not really easy to say “sorry, he needs to get going” when he has no other events and lives there.
BR
I am still enjoying the Tim Walz fixed your bicycle site. I think it’s a fun little thing for normies too.
https://timwalzfixedyourbicycle.com/
KatKapCC
@Bupalos:
Okay:
Yeah, what a mystery as to why your comment would have been seen as yet more shit-stirring from someone who probably lists “shit-stirring” in the Skills and Attributes section of their resume.
BR
For those who are looking for a slightly better mainstream news outlet, the LA Times is frequently better than NYT or WaPo in its political reporting and columns. For example, headline story today:
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-08-08/2024-election-trump-news-conference-harris-september-debate
Chet Murthy
@The Thin Black Duke: Hey everybody, if we -all- pie him and just ignore his comments, he -will- go away. Or at least, he won’t be able to derail the thread.
Kay
@Bupalos:
Moments of lucidity at the start of every topic? So I’d think “that sentence tracked …is this as bad as I thought?” Then right downhill. Over and over. Like false hope :)
HumboldtBlue
@BR:
That’s brilliant.
Kay
@BR:
lol
i forgot about that. That makes it even funnier
different-church-lady
@Chet Murthy: ”Very well. We shall resume in an hour.“
Lyrebird
@BR: THanks!
And hey apparently some folks at the NYT did some in depth factchecking (DKos link to summary) about the orange menace saying crap about MVP and saying inaccurate things about a flight with Jerry Brown (Trump was saying it was with Willie Brown, dragging that all back)
@Chet Murthy: very good point.
Bupalos
@different-church-lady: I have no idea what that means. I watched Trump’s thing and was FUCKING STOKED because we’re going to win…. and if you said yeah duh thanks we know, that’s a buzzkill… but fine.
I think other people got set off because this online collection of words is way too deep in people’s lives, and some ungodly horror “happened” here they just can’t forget or forgive… the same thing that is why we’re likely to win. Don’t know how to pie but I’m skipping anything from the 4 or 5 deadeners that still want to blow any ember into dumb bitter conspiracy shit while celebrating how incredibly wrong they were.
wjca
@Trivia Man:
“Old Man Trump” seems just way too warm and fuzzy. TCFG doesn’t rate that.
lamh47
Bupalos
@BR: That’s an interesting point. This was literally just downstairs from where gramps takes his naps.
This is so fucking weird. I’ve gone from Kamala 40% to Kamala 85% in the course of a couple hours. I think Trump is incapacitated. This should be soooo easy to stay afloat, if you can just bumble out and say “San Francisco” and “Gas Prices” you can nail down like 48% of the country and I think he literally just can’t do that.
BellyCat
@The Thin Black Duke: Was initially sympathetic. Was then tolerant. Now am increasingly concerned.
This is not an “assignment”, from my perspective. Bupalos, your perspective is becoming perilously less valued than it once was. YOU NEED TO LET GO. And if you can’t, talk to some trusted people IRL about why you can’t.
At this point, Biden appears relevant to only two people in the election. Trump and you.
Let’s look forward…
Frankensteinbeck
@BR:
Oh my god, this is beautiful.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@BellyCat: Biden is relevant in this election. His administration accomplished great things and Democrats, led by Kamala Harris, intend to carry forward our mission with vigor and fresh eyes.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@BR: @Frankensteinbeck: That was so fun and truly wholesome.
Chet Murthy
@Lyrebird: Huh. So TCFG can’t even remember the names of high government officials he’s met with ? Gosh, I wonder if this is a sign of dementia? Parkinsons? Maybe he needs to be checked by a phalanx of independent neurologists ?
Yeah, no, we’re FTFNYT and our job is to help him win.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
To be sure it’s done correctly, this must be done remotely.
BR
@lamh47:
Here’s the youtube version of the Lawrence bit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-oTJ49nls
BellyCat
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Give it a fucking rest. I’m not dismissing Biden’s AMAZING accomplishments, nor is anyone else.
Biden’s relevance to discussions about the Roevember election are (past tense) precedential but not (future tense) presidential.
Bupalos
This was a massive inflection point in the election. Folks here that are suspicious of me are probably suspicious because I live a fairly Tim Walz existence, a liberal in red exurbia that coaches kids and interacts with Trumpers and watches these families fuck themselves over…and mostly for that reason can’t summon the same kind of radio Rwanda shit that earns likes here and runs the internet algorithmic capture sequence. You have to be able to say “evil.” Did you notice that a couple Berners thought they’d show up in a space like this and try to rub Tim Walz in your face, as if you declared surrender to them?…because that’s what they thought they were fighting you about? That had to be confusing, and I think I understood what these dopes were thinking.
From my perspective a big thing happened at this press conference. Trump isn’t going to recover I don’t think. I was struck that the board doesn’t seem to feel that something big happened here, but I think it did. Trump telegraphed a kind of fear and incapacity that is going to shake the foundation I think. I guess we’ll see.
HumboldtBlue
“Tim Walz made you a plate, and none of the food was touching.”
Hahahahahahahahaha… so many gems
strange visitor (from another planet)
@BR: ty.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@BellyCat: Rest? I was cheerleading. I was actually recognizing you for not antagonizing. It was easy because I had to toggle you from my pie filter.
We’re going to do this. We can deal with undue influence once the twins are in hand.
Jackie
@BR: I watched live. It was AWESOME! He ripped into EVERY network; including NBC/MSNBC! I gave him a standing ovation 😁👏🏻
danielx
Trying to remember how many article headings I’ve read that begin with “Trump lashes out…”. Can’t come up with anything except a lot, which I suspect is one of the reasons even normies are getting sick of his ugly, bloated mug and incoherent bellowing.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Like some kind of weird tentacle.monster…
BellyCat
Bravo, Armchair Pilot of the Pie Filter!
NEWSFLASH: You and Bupalos have become two sides of the same broken record.
LET IT GO.
The focus NOW is on defeating Trump. It is time to row together without staring into the mirror at what is behind.
KatKapCC
@Bupalos:
Odd way to spell “annoyed”.
rikyrah
@NotMax:
He absolutely is…
Go LarryO✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾
Bupalos
@BellyCat: HAHA no, I’m not going to read back, but if you think I encouraged this “let’s talk about your dumb bitterness” thing, I really didn’t. You just say something like “there are candidates who are old, and that’s not good whether it’s…” and they fly off the handle HORRIBLE DEATH BECAUSE MY ONLINE WORLD FELT UNSAFE FOR A SEC!!!!!!
And weeks later they’re still all up in it. All up in “well yes the real world is likely saved, but have you considered how destabilizing it was that my carefully curated online “world” was briefly less than 92% affirming of my beliefs that it is there to confirm??!??!!?
Seriously hope you people aren’t reading this via the “pie” safety thing.
Bupalos
@KatKapCC: Gogh. Please write longer posts. When there this short, my effort to skip them gets derailed because it all fits in my eyes at once..
Be like “Bupalos is a conspiracy bot that was sent to do the thing that he know’s he’s doing, the conspiracy… which is to blah blah blah… keep going for at least 3 or 4 lines because any less than that and I read it accidentally.
Origuy
The Walz’s 17-year-old son, Gus, has a learning disability. People Magazine got an exclusive from the family.
Note that “non-verbal” does not mean that he cannot speak.
KatKapCC
@Bupalos: I am asking this in all sincerity: Are you ok? What have you taken tonight? When did you last sleep?
Jackie
@Origuy: That was a great article. And, yet, just one more reason to hope he and Kamala will be the leaders of our nation.
rikyrah
@KatKapCC:
Imagine an elder pointing their finger and waving it back and forth at you and shaking their head side to side.
“AHT AHT AHT
I don’t think so”
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@BellyCat: So I tell you I was positively acknowledging you and cheerleading Kamala.
I was setting you as a positive counter-example to Bupalos and you’re so caught in old anger that you can’t take a compliment and some positive vibes.
Sorry I was wrong now and right before. 🥧
Bupalos
“I think she’s worse than Biden, because he got forced into the position… but she was there long before…she destroyed San Francisco…she destroyed California, as the AG, but as the DA… She destroyed. SAN FRANCISCO… friend of mine Bob Tisch. You all know the Tisch family. He was in many cities with companies. He said the greatest city, in the country, is San francisco….That was about 20 years ago. And he passed away. A while ago. And he would be looking down, and said “what happened?” He thought it was the best city in the country. He had divisions there. Lowes. And uh he would be looking down in horror now when he sees…She destroyed…no cash bail…weak on crime… ahhrh … terrible…and yet they weaponized the system against me. …they have me….I have so many lawyers…Now they wanna delay cases.. I won the big case in Florida. I WON THE BIG CASE…. and no one even wrote about it…. I WON the BIG case… the judge was a brilliant judge. And all they do is they play the refs with the judges but this judge was a fair but brilliant judge and as you probably heard, the big documents case, I won it. Now Biden LOST it. Because he didn’t have presidential immunity. He didn’t have the presidential records act, he lost it. But the special… I call it prosecutor, the special counsel, but the special prosecutor to me… he… ah… appointed by him…appointed by garland…he said the man’s incompetent. He can’t stand trial. But he can run for president but we no longer have to worry about that because we have someone that is in my opinion MORE incompetent, she couldn’t pass her bar exam and lots of other things and she…”
All of this isn’t more than 10% worse than the last time he ran. But it’s a really critical 10% I think. I think there’s a threshold being crossed. Like he will lose about 10% of his people because this is literally too hard to follow and fill in the gaps if you’re a compromised person.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Bupalos: I’m no more comfortable armchair diagnosing Trump than anyone else. Besides, if Trump were confirmed to have dementia, that would still be at most his fifth biggest disqualifier to the Presidency.
Bupalos
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Please. 4 lines. If it’s 3 lines I read it even when I’m trying to skip it. And then I have to talk to people with horrible judgement who want to make dumb moral issues out of politics.
To the point, Trump is a malignant narcissist. This is a slam dunk clinical diagnosis, that if you are uncomfortable with for medical ethical reasons on the internet, it’s because you are too online.
He is, medically speaking, deep into cognitive decline, and also medically speaking, an absolute fucking turd. He may have early dementia signs, and if he has dementia that would be the best thing about him. This “ethics in political commentary” stuff is…what? The next post after “don’t diagnose trump without a medical degree” will be “everyone who is inclined to vote for trump should be electrocuted.”
Bupalos
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Please. 4 lines. If it’s 3 lines I read it even when I’m trying to skip it. And then I have to talk to people with horrible judgement who want to make dumb moral issues out of politics.
To the point, Trump is a malignant narcissist. This is a slam dunk clinical diagnosis, that if you are uncomfortable with for medical ethical reasons on the internet, it’s because you are too online.
He is, medically speaking, deep into cognitive decline, and also medically speaking, an absolute fucking turd. He may have early dementia signs, and if he has dementia that would be the best thing about him. This “ethics in political commentary” stuff is…what? The next post after “don’t diagnose trump without a medical degree” will be “everyone who is inclined to vote for trump should be electrocuted.”
ColoradoGuy
I’ve been thinking about that near-miss with the AR-15 round traveling at Mach 3. Whether it touched his ear or not (the miraculous recovery suggesting not), it was still close enough to be pretty traumatic. His hearing could be damaged in that ear, and adding hearing loss and tinnitus, on top of dementia and paranoia, would be challenging to anyone.
A particularly awful thing about tinnitus is the more emotional and wound up you get, the worse it gets. You have train yourself to relax before it starts to diminish.
Princess
@Origuy: I just googled it. Interesting! But confusing practice to name it after what isn’t wrong rather than what is — people with it have normal to superior verbal abilities, I was interested to learn.
i contrast their openness about their son’s diagnosis, which helps normalize it, with all the secrecy and whispers about what is going on with Barron.
Geminid
@ColoradoGuy: The assasination attempt had to affect Trump’s emotional state. It seemed to charge him up immediately afterwards. And it did seem to give his campaign, or at least his followers, some energy.
This was at a time when the Trump Train was on a roll; he’d weathered the primaries without much damage and was looking forward to an enthusiastic convention. Plus, the opposition was in trouble. It looked like the campaign was peaking at the right time!
But there was something odd about the general response to the shooting, a thing that did not happen. There was no significant outpouring of sympathy and concern for Donald Trump. A day or so later, most people were like, “Meh. Another security SNAFU…sad about the firefighter though.”
Trump notices stuff like this. He could see that most people don’t much care for him.
So if Trump got an emotional boost it did not last long. I think what’s left now is the fear. How is that being processed? Maybe not that well.
Chris Johnson
Woof. It takes quite a bit to get me to pie commenters, but one surefire way to manage it is the concealed payload.
“Wow, Trump is so bad he is DOOMED even though the democratic party are genocide enablers!”
“What? I said Trump was doomed! What’s the matter with you people? Can’t you understand I’m on your side? Don’t you understand that I said Donald Trump is a decompensating fool with his ill-smelling brain leaking out his ears? Sheesh, this is as bad as when Hillary Clinton ate babies at Comet Ping-Pong.”
“…WHAT? You people, seriously…”
Dougboy
My email to Matt Murray, WaPo’s Executive Editor, along with his response from yesterday about this very topic – he elides my point about headlines being click-baity and credulous.
Me: Your political reporting is becoming farcical in its attempts to launder Republican talking points with ridiculous headlines, such as the recent Swift Boat-style garbage from JD Vance. I valued your political coverage during the Trump administration, as your group of reporters (and presumably editors) were fairly objective, but the transparent attempts to generate clicks with superficial, misleading reporting is reprehensible. I realize that WaPo’s financial position is enhanced by Trump/Republican drama, but one would hope for a better effort at flatly describing rat-f*cking by the Republicans for what it is.
I’m about a week away from canceling my subscription, which I realize doesn’t matter to you or your organization. And no, I’m not looking for an epistemic bubble in which to reside, but taking Republican claims at face value is a complete capitulation of your journalistic integrity.
Murray: Doug you really should read the story, which carefully parses claims from facts and speaks to an array of voices. It does anything BUT echo political talking points. I do hope you keep subscribing and reading. But if your expectation is that The Washington Post will ONLY write positive things about your candidates maybe you should move on. We publish robust stories on ALL of them and aim to hold power to account, not just Republican power.
Comrade Misfit
Trump takes a week off, only does one rally in an extremely friendly state that has less chance of voting for Harris than Pyongyang does of not voting for Kim Jong-un, and nobody in the MSM questions that.
Another Scott
@sdhays:
It was a slow, but ever increasing catastrophe for newspapers.
This Brookings Essay gives a flavor, but not a lot of hard numbers.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.