The Red Line for Journalism

 

I wonder why Speaker Johnson is so passionately weighing in on the Ronna firing… oh… https://t.co/Ek1OdMBDyN pic.twitter.com/uh7JEewLpr

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) March 28, 2024

This is what I was talking about: the GOP would take the opportunity to read McDaniels' firing as being about cancelling Republicans when it is really about not giving a platform to election deniers and insurrectionists. Maybe she was "normie" by the standards of today's GOP, where asking if the 2020 vote was legitimate is now a qualifying question. But what if we just altogether derided the absolutely batshit claims that got us here--the Venezuelan voting machines, the German servers, the Italian satellites, the Chinese thermostats, that absolutely shit-pilled people seem to have believed in and are now losing their livelihood for--

I'm talking about Jeff Clarke, for whom this shit was that real. 

Or maybe for Mike Lindell. 

Ginni Thomas doesn't have a "job" per se, but she believed in the German severs.

There is a lot of rubbish otherwise sane people seem to have believed or pretended to. All of it pretty loosie-goosey bullshit.

These ideas are toxic waste, and were deployed by the Trump administration as if they were actually real, when they look like, in the clear light of day, nonsense.  Why in the world would any reputable news outlet support anyone who lent support to so much bullshit? 

UPDATE: The RNC is considering limiting NBC's access because of the McDaniel firing. But, but--they fired her first? LOL. 

Did She "Take One for the Team"?

 

BREAKING: Ronna McDaniel is out at NBC News.

Cesar Conde, Chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group, emailed the staff writing “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.” pic.twitter.com/ymy9lDprUL

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 26, 2024

I tried to avoid commenting on the NBC/Ronna McDaniel thing because the idea of a television network stunt casting a political commentator so obviously from "the conservative" side felt like a weird gimmick to me. I don't watch opinion-driven news that much for my own health and mental well-being. When I watch people obviously dissemble, I want to throw things at the tv set. If I were a news host who had someone on my set just being an insultingly gross liar, I would want to throw them off my tv set. 

NBC has now decided after mere days and the revolt of many on-air personalities, who felt sandbagged at having McDaniel, pro-insurrectionist hack, thrust upon their network and impugning their journalistic reputations by association, that they have made a terrible mistake. Away she goes!

Here's where my cynicism comes in--doesn't it feel a bit like sheep dip? $300k isn't a bad investment to demonstrate that journalism can't have the likes of go-along-to-get-along unindicted co-conspirators with the Trump attempted coup. From another direction, McDaniel now has been cancel-cultured. See how the media treats even mainstream Republicans?

See? I'm cynical. It was a shocking thing that perpetuates exactly more of the same.

TWGB: Trump is Immuno-Compromised

 

Claims of executive privilege and presidential immunity have been something like Citizen Trump's "Rosebud"--they represented a fantasy of unaccountability and lack of responsibility that might just afford an old crook some peace of mind, and that specter of hope has now been taken away. Someone of course will have to pay for this--and it will be his little rubes. When he goes sniveling that "they" (the Deep State, Biden, black hats--whatever) have singled him out, maybe they won't consider this:

Why is Trump the only president who ever had to make this case regarding immunity? Over 200 years of presidents, and not one had this problem. Maybe they were all previously completely capable of doing the job without just rolling in criminality. Trump apparently is not, because this is how he lives his life.

It's a thought! 

However, in TrumpWorld, Trump can only be failed. That's why it was time again for another really futile and stupid gesture on the part of Matt Gaetz et als.  Marjorie Taylor Greene took up the spotlight in explaining:

"And then when Joe Biden was inaugurated, and this entire Capitol complex was surrounded with 30,000 National Guard troops, none of you stood there and called that an insurrection. No, you all stayed silent."

God damn. She's right. When Joe Biden was inaugurated because he was the lawful winner of the 2020 election, and duly constituted authority were placed as security at the inauguration in case Trump and Marge's little friends started trouble again, no one DID call that perfectly lawful act an "insurrection". Will the wonders of correct syntax never cease?  

TWGB: They Texted a Criminal Conspiracy?

 

He can call it a canard, but I say if it walks like a duck… https://t.co/BB4lsFmVvY

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) April 25, 2022

Apparently, some of the cast of characters featured in the over 2,000 text messages to Mark Meadows that CNN got a hold of were advised they were getting hung out, and that's great. They should have expected that. They were involved in trying to overturn an election. It is serious business. Now, I am starting with Matt Schlapp, who as far as I know is still taking CPAC to Hungary next month and really isn't deviating at all from who he's ever been:

(I stay mad about 2000). And I would venture to add--I don't think this was completely unexpected a violation of democratic values from the Republican party, the party of Watergate and the October Surprise and Iran-Contra, and Benghazi (yeah--I am calling the politicization of that tragedy solely about elections, not at all about justice for the slain or rectification of security issues).  I don't expect better from this party. I am a little shocked about how many Republicans sold their soul and allied their reputations to Trump, the amoral reality tv show pussy-grabber.

The GOP occasionally pretends they have standards. Their support for Trump has belied this and I will not ever let them live this down. He is corruption and amorality in a saggy skin-suit. 

So, while I can laugh with all of you at Perjury Traitor Greene being shown up about her confusion at whether martial law was ever discussed (or Marshall Law, as the illiterate case may be), it's nonetheless disconcerting that apparently, there was a GOP House group chat where martial law was very strongly recommended--just days before the inauguration. When the election of Joe Biden should have been a settled cause, and the imposition of martial law would have definitely been a full military autogolpe situation. (And yet we weren't unaware that this was part of the conversation at the time--it's just who all was saying it that was striking.) 

I think it's odd to contemplate that Jason Miller was both a voice of reason, asking if some of the election fraud claims were even plausible, while also being a monster who encouraged blaming the insurrection on antifa. 

And they did it for this sweaty, deluded chump who can't admit he lost a fair election despite all the lack of evidence that his election was stolen and blames his Vice-President and the Senate Majority Leader for what is ultimately his own failure to win the necessary number of votes.  This putz, who was just cited for contempt and is going to pay $10K a day (well, his fan club will pay it, I am sure) because he isn't releasing docs to the NY AG because his business affairs look bad, probably because they are bad.  Like, why should we think they aren't? 

Trump was a crook president, and he made crooks of his party. What else is there to know? 

TWGB: Legitimate Political Discourse

 

The phrase "legitimate political discourse" sounds, in the phrasing of the Republican party, like a new and not-improved version of "the Aristocrats": there are a lot of ways to tell that joke, but the point of it is its filthiness. Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have been censured by the gutless old party for bothering to look into a national security incident affecting the seat of our democracy, but the party chooses to see them as persecuting "ordinary citizens". 

Upon hearing that the party's words were being mentioned in the press, Ronna McDaniel is incensed that this turn of phrase was meant to be the RNC's own sort of "blanket pardon" for the violent offenders on that day.  She Tweeted:

to the effect that if the NYT didn't change their interpretation of the actual words used and repeated by McDaniel in her Tweets right there, they would be guilty of hackery most foul. Her specific language seems to exempt the violent people (the ones that certain members of the GOP caucus have been lying about, pretending that they have been, for example, detained without charge--a lie, or singled out for especial mistreatment) and indicates that there is a different group of ordinary citizens that she is referring to. 

Ah! The penny drops! She means the donor/activist class of people who are the lifeblood of the party, perhaps? The people who arranged the ellipse rally and were wild with enthusiasm at the Willard? And the handful of R. Congressmen who were supposed to be the friends who were going to help former President Trump with his alternate elector scheme? 

The investigation is uncovering whether these groups of people are really so segregated, and McDaniel, and anyone else with eyes, can tell they are not, but are actually inseparable. Without nonsense-spinners like the Kraken, who may have even been considered as a Special Counsel to investigate voter fraud claims, and other regular but highly wrong and legally dubious people--how are the mobs even so angry at the stolen election that was not actually stolen at all? 

Who stuffed their brains with the nonsense of German servers, Venezuelan voting machines, Chinese thermostats, and Italian satellites? And how are the people who perpetuated that level of absurd fraud, and a White House that not only tolerated but encouraged it, not anything but illegitimate? This isn't legitimate discourse, but weaponized bullshit. It was dangerous agitprop designed to produce a chaotic and violent result on the ground, and a disruption to the country's leadership at the top, and Ms. McDaniel wants to argue semantics? 

The interest of justice lies in the pursuit of truth with neither fear nor favor, and the oath to the Constitution deserves no less fervor. 

The truth, in the atmosphere of the current conservative movement, is so toxic that former Vice-President Mike Pence looks like a goddamn hero for bothering to say it, even if it is literally so little and so late. Of course, Trump was wrong to place the responsibility for overturning the election on the shoulders of his vice-president (and a shit-ton of the potential legal liability, also too). And yet Pence looks like he is juggling torches for the effort to say what everyone knows--Trump asked him to steal an election and he declined. His one great act was merely refusing to be Trump's patsy. And that so-called president really could have watched that man be hanged dead because it was a treason against the personality cult. 

It is easy to lionize Cheney, Kinzinger and Pence for bucking their party's expectations, but how did these expectations become so low that these people seem heroes for doing basic gut-checks and referencing shared realities? It becomes clear now that the GOP supports no platform because they literally cannot distinguish what it means to have a floor, a set of operating principles other than obstructing Democrats (even for necessary things relating to basic government) and protecting their investors. They wave a Trump flag because they have lost all other standards. 

This is shameful, and they for the most part seem to have even forgotten how to be ashamed. But the Republicans who have been kicked around understand (and I don't agree with them on everything) that we have no country worth speaking of without truth and the rule of law, and this is some kind of common ground. 

And the RNC considered it completely acceptable, "legitimate political discourse" to suggest such things were not necessary. No common ground.  Democrats need to take that lesson. There are few in that tribe with whom it is possible to speak. 

TWGB: If I Were a Betting Woman

 

News: More than 50 former senior intelligence officials, including ex-Trump admin officials like Russ Travers, have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the Biden emails saga “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”https://t.co/FM6TOCpDSP

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) October 20, 2020

Now, I never have been much attracted to gambling, but if I were a a betting woman, I might not necessarily assume this is a Russian operation (but similar), but I would definitely find the provenance of the hard drive sketchy as hell because wow. It really, really is, and NY Post reporters knew they didn't like it. The FBI definitely has some questions about this, too. 

 So what to make of DNI Ratcliffe's assertion that there's no proof it is a Russian op? Well, of course. Toadies gonna toad, but also, this is the guy who used Russian disinfo to purport that despite what it looked like, Hillary Clinton was the real beneficiary of the apparent connection between the DNC hack (damn near certainly Russian) and subsequent leaks because she was able to use it to make Trump look bad. Not enough to win the election (in fact, this looks like shit Russia queued up in case Trump lost, TBH). 

In other words, Ratcliffe is saying that Russia disinfo he hasn't actually really vetted should be taken seriously, and the opinions of US intelligence oficials is...you know. Take it or leave it. Great shades of Trump at Helsinki. 

 This feels like unqualified hackery, but I see the RNC Chair eating it up, and some of the usual media outlets. I get that right wing media is a failing septic tank that has poisoned the groundwater of our national politics, but remain amazed at supposed mainstream figures who are cheerfully undermining our still-functioning and necessary institutions. The conditioning that values party over country is appallingly strong. 

 So, while the provenance of the information (which has been apparently held for some time, sprung in October, and announced by Trump-favoring partisans) remains a cause for skepticism, supposed solons of our sober-minded deliberative body wonder aloud "Is there porns?" If there is, why did the people handling it know about it and make copies rather than making that the upfront claim? And also too, what kind of bent motherfuckers go rifling through (especially child) porn or slip it onto a dodgy mockup for ratfucking purposes? 

 The second claim is the one I give more weight to. The sickness of the allegation is off-putting because we naturally recoil at the thought of harming children. But try and think of the kind of person who says "Let's use images of it to falsely smear the relative of a political candidate." 

Knowing full well that a certain group has been primed to believe this sort of thing is normalized among "elites" via the pizzagate and Q-Anon conspiracy theories, both of which are utter concocted shit. What type of person passes this on, when reason should first of all tell you the "discovery" of the laptops itself makes no sense (and Giuliani's story shifts a bit here, but still-a man living in California gets ripshit, flies crosscountry and hands his tech containing possibly badly incriminating things to a blind dude he never met before hoping he'll fix it/them then never returns? That's weird and anyone living post "But her emails" would have acid washed that shit, as the 70-something year old kids say these days, and bought a new fucking laptop with their "ill-gotten China monies" or whatever.) 

 I want to believe the cake is already baked regarding the election, but there's going to be a morning after where this messy TrumpWorld dump took place even if (when) Biden wins. No person who facilitated this smear should escape whipping. Not one.

Gaslighting by the RNC

Joe Biden can’t run from his disastrous record responding to the coronavirus.

The truth hurts, Joe!
https://t.co/uBERkgHwJX

— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) September 13, 2020

I'm pretty sure Ronna (Romney omitted) McDaniel knows perfectly well that Donald Trump is the current president of the United States and has been during the entire time that COVID-19 has been here, probably since December, at which point Trump's Chinese transportation ban (which still let like 40,000 people or so through)  was fine (and no one really complained about it) but fell short of what was needed.

We needed a national testing strategy, and allocation of PPE to the regions that needed it most. Trump sent care packages to other countries, but when blue states needed federal assistance, he told them they were on their own. This year may have felt longer than most, but a lot of us can still remember things that only happened a few months ago.

Joe Biden was running a primary campaign at the beginning of this year, but identified the problems that needed to be taken care of and leveled with the American people that this was going to be hard, and we needed to be prepared. Donald Trump, unfortunately, was running a country, badly. He did not level with the American people, and pretending he was trying to avoid panic is laughable at best. From "American carnage" onward, spreading panic and dividing people have proven to be his favorite things.

And now, Trump is running his 2020 campaign (let's face it, since being sworn in, he never wasn't) and is holding an indoor rally in Henderson, NV with very little mask-usage among the folks. You know, the way the campaign did things in Tulsa, only, from all appearances, more well-attended.
Does it seem like at even this late date Trump is doing anything to mitigate the disaster? How in the world is someone who is not president supposed to be more responsible for current events than the person in the White House? How does Ronna McDaniel square the 195,000 deaths with "good performance" on Trump's part, and why the hell would she want that record to prevail?

I can't answer that. Maybe she could answer that. But she better also explain why she thinks it's ok to gaslight people who have already been lied to by a Republican president with disastrous consequences.

But here she was earlier today:

EXCLUSIVE on #MTP: RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel defends Trump’s pandemic response@ChuckTodd: “How do you account for the fact that it’s the United States of America that accounts for 25% of the world’s deaths?

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel: “Well, we have, we do have more testing.” pic.twitter.com/rtUWjhjhJI

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 13, 2020

Testing isn't killing people. The coronavirus is. We are testing more because we have had more infections, and more people are dying.  She's repeated what Trump always says, but what Trump says makes no sense. She could do better, but doesn't dare. She's not stupid, she's just morally compromised and scared shitless of the party's mascot.  So she lies for him, even though people are dying. Even though it's Republicans at Trump rallies that could be dying.

Hey, I don't expect her to care if nasty old liberals like me bite it. But she, like Trump, doesn't care about anyone. At all. Over her current RNC chairpersonhood. That's some amazing privileged bullshit.

TWGB: No, I Mean, Everybody is in the Loop

This second video shows indicted Rudy Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman with President Trump and RNC chief Ronna McDaniel at Mar a Lago in April 2018. Trump and Parnas take pics. McDaniels hugs Fruman and says she's glad he is attending. https://t.co/ty87AAWTI1

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) January 30, 2020

"In the loop" is such a funny term. In the part of my brain that is perpetually five years old, I think "Froot Loops" when I think about loops. When I think of people being "out of the loop" politically, I think about George H. W. Bush. He didn't actually seem to really be out of the loop. Regarding the Ukrainian shakedown, Ambassador Gordon Sondland (who is still! after all this! Ambassador to the EU! Which is kind of amazeballs, right?) said "Everyone was in the loop." And friends--

That shit just keeps seeming truer and truer. It seems like a lot of (Republican) people should know better about all of this stuff, well and truly including US Senators who just recently decided they really did not want to see new documents, and they really, really, did not want to hear from more people, regarding the impeachment (which is forever) and the removal (which will happen by law or by entropy) of President Trump from the White House.

After all, some of the folks who cast votes this Friday to hear no more evil, see no more evil, and try like hell to say no more about it, were right there when the Obama Administration tried to leverage out Ukraine's dodgy prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. Those senators still were paying attention when Trump held up that aid, like Senator Portman. Senator Ron Johnson is in this loop. Lev Parnas claims that Trump's over-eager Renfield Senator Lindsey Graham is very in the loop, and that a letter was delivered to Graham from Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, looking for sanctions against Ukraine officials. There are US Senators who have been well-briefed that the CrowdStrike theory that Trump wanted investigated was also a lie.