"I am blissfully not a spokesperson for the Kremlin" — Jen Psaki pic.twitter.com/QO2YFwXb5I
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 16, 2021
Saturday Morning Open Thread: You *LOVE* To See ItPost + Comments (159)
This post is in: Biden Administration in Action, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Media Mudlarks
"I am blissfully not a spokesperson for the Kremlin" — Jen Psaki pic.twitter.com/QO2YFwXb5I
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 16, 2021
Saturday Morning Open Thread: You *LOVE* To See ItPost + Comments (159)
This post is in: Open Threads, President Biden, Republicans in Disarray!, Media Mudlarks, Our Failed Media Experiment
The president's job approval numbers, per new Politico/Morning Consult numbers pic.twitter.com/GjTZ8VNflh
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) April 14, 2021
This post is in: Open Threads, President Biden, Media Mudlarks
Ed ‘Not Officially An RNC Operative’ O’Keefe, relentlessly probing for the big stories:
Jen Psaki was grilled today about how often Biden talks to Obama and what they talk about pic.twitter.com/EZv5nViyU1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 8, 2021
There are several problems facing the nation today, and we should get around to discussing them, BUT NOT BEFORE WE FIND OUT WHY AND HOW OFTEN THE PRESIDENT IS ASSOCIATING WITH A KNOWN AND AVOWED BLACK MAN!
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) April 8, 2021
They are probably talking about all the stupid questions the reporters ask Psaki.
— Liat ????? #democratsavage✊ (@arunningriot) April 8, 2021
It is wrong to wish harm upon others, but if Ed O’Keefe were to choke on his frustrations to the point of sustaining physical injury… I’d find it hard to be properly sympathetic.
Late Night Open Thread: <em> ‘*Another* Biden Scandal Exposed!!!1!!’</em>Post + Comments (53)
This post is in: Media, Open Threads, President Biden, Proud to Be A Democrat, Media Mudlarks, Our Failed Media Experiment, Schadenfreude
Nope. This is not intentional parody. https://t.co/2LY0KQ9AmG
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 6, 2021
From the ‘Short Attention Span’ file, by an experienced Washington Post reporter:
… Juicy details about the president’s behind-the-scenes conduct and decision-making? No one seems able to dig up anything interesting.
Early forecasts of major policy proposals on the horizon, a.k.a. the grand tradition of the Washington trial balloon? A story we’re not getting to read these days.
Insider accounts of West Wing rivalries, analyses of who wields influence with the president, detailed lists of Oval Office visitors? No such thing anymore.
Reporters drank lustily from the fire hose of leaks that emanated from the West Wing during the past four years. President Donald Trump’s inexperience and chaotic management style begot “West Side Story”-level infighting among subordinates, which translated into the drip-drip-drip of insider accounts, sometimes on a near-daily basis. The leaks were pooled into detailed narratives, featuring multiple sources. Despite periodic vows of a crackdown, the leaks ran nearly unplugged for four years, including during Trump’s final, desperate days in office.
Since then, the pipeline has gone dry…
“No question, the Trump White House leaked a lot, especially in the early days when the tribal rivalries were fiercest,” said New York Times reporter Peter Baker. “The Biden people have come in more disciplined so far, and we haven’t had as much insight into the behind-the-scenes fights and debates inside the White House.”…
Media Mudlarks Open Thread: <em>We’re *Dying* Over Here, Dude!</em>Post + Comments (92)
This post is in: Open Threads, Republican Venality, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You, Trump Crime Cartel, Media Mudlarks
buy the ticket, ride the ride https://t.co/pIsLnsNnGc
— kilgore trout, a student of martial arts (@KT_So_It_Goes) April 4, 2021
A reassuring indicator that The Former Guy is truly Former — The NYTimes is now willing to tell us that he (and his party) would happily steal the pennies off a corpse’s eyes:
… Facing a cash crunch and getting badly outspent by the Democrats, the campaign had begun last September to set up recurring donations by default for online donors, for every week until the election.
Contributors had to wade through a fine-print disclaimer and manually uncheck a box to opt out.
As the election neared, the Trump team made that disclaimer increasingly opaque, an investigation by The New York Times showed. It introduced a second prechecked box, known internally as a “money bomb,” that doubled a person’s contribution. Eventually its solicitations featured lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language.
The tactic ensnared scores of unsuspecting Trump loyalists — retirees, military veterans, nurses and even experienced political operatives. Soon, banks and credit card companies were inundated with fraud complaints from the president’s own supporters about donations they had not intended to make, sometimes for thousands of dollars…
The sheer magnitude of the money involved is staggering for politics. In the final two and a half months of 2020, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and their shared accounts issued more than 530,000 refunds worth $64.3 million to online donors. All campaigns make refunds for various reasons, including to people who give more than the legal limit. But the sum the Trump operation refunded dwarfed that of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign and his equivalent Democratic committees, which made 37,000 online refunds totaling $5.6 million in that time.
The recurring donations swelled Mr. Trump’s treasury in September and October, just as his finances were deteriorating. He was then able to use tens of millions of dollars he raised after the election, under the guise of fighting his unfounded fraud claims, to help cover the refunds he owed…
Late Night GOP Venality Open Thread: Grifters Gonna GriftPost + Comments (36)
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Dog Blogging, Open Threads, Trump Crime Cartel, Media Mudlarks, Our Failed Media Experiment
The Government Accountability Office has issued a damning report about Ivanka Trump’s Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative. https://t.co/5fxEoUA0xt
— POLITICO (@politico) March 31, 2021
Our very serious Presidential Media doesn’t understand administration or accounting any better than Jarvanka… but piles of poo, *that* they feel fully qualified to report.
We’ll be cleaning up after the Trump Crime Cartel for the next twenty years (assuming the world doesn’t change out of recognition in the meantime), and there’s a nontrivial percentage of Our Failed Media that will never understand why, much less how.
Today, Biden’s dog pooped on the floor and a GAO investigation reported that Ivanka’s $265 million pet policy project was a catastrophe of planning with no clear execution.
Same-same. https://t.co/JJ7i7OyGQF
— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) March 31, 2021
We have officially had more coverage of Major and Champ misbehaving than of private email use in the Trump administration. Almost as though the idea that email use was the single most important thing in the world was reporters being very well-trained lapdogs of the GOP. https://t.co/aRU1N70Ppc
— Alex Hazanov. (@alexhazanov) March 31, 2021
Gaetz has a major minor problem, while Biden has a minor Major problem.
— Jim Trailmaster (@jim_sidewalk) March 31, 2021
Late Night Open Thread: Media Mudlarks Stick to What They KnowPost + Comments (38)
This post is in: Media, President Biden, Proud to Be A Democrat, Media Mudlarks
I can understand why Biden might be reluctant to have a press conference pic.twitter.com/FczexsCMzg
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 4, 2021
They’re fekking desperate, at this point.
Maybe Psaki should start winging nerf balls at the most egregious offenders. Get outa here! And don’t come back until you have a question worth asking!
(The yammering class would *love* it. There’d be a mad scramble for possession, and the trophy projectiles would be proudly enshrined in the happy possessors’ home offices.)
Late Night Open Thread: Our Failed Media MudlarksPost + Comments (20)