Rachel Maddow is a nightmare!

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2013

Rachel Maddow is Fox: By now, there can be little doubt. Rachel Maddow is an official party-line, partisan hack.

She’ll fill your head full of stupid shazam. Last Friday night, the current episode continued.

For our previous report, click here.

Good God! Once again, Maddow opened her show with a 17-minute segment about Chris Christie and the traffic lanes leading onto the George Washington Bridge.

She could have been discussing something that actually matters—the interests of low-income children, let’s say.

Rachel Maddow doesn’t care about the interests of low-income kids! Instead, she keeps playing you with this stupid shazam, which comes from the world of Fox.

Pitifully, Maddow spent a large amount of Friday’s segment reviewing Christie’s driving record from 1985 through 2009. (Also, Sarah Palin’s 2008 Troopergate controversy.) She continued her endless references to The Sopranos, New Jersey culture and “mobbed-up” this and that.

Finally, she got to the “issue” at hand—the massively ginned-up controversy about lane closings at the George Washington Bridge and Christie’s so far non-existent role in same. When she did, she surprised us with a few things she said, or seemed to say, or perhaps allowed to be said.

Here’s how information trickles out on Maddow’s rather dishonest program:

Fourteen minutes into her segment, Maddow introduced Ted Mann, who has reported—and apparently misreported—various aspects of this story for the Wall Street Journal. In her second question to Mann, this is what Maddow said about the lane closings by New Jersey officials, which she spent the past week trying to slime onto Christie:
MADDOW (12/13/13): And their assertions that this was part of a traffic study—and you ferreted out a lot of these details. First, it seemed very damning that the executive director of the agency said, “I don’t know anything about a new traffic study.” We’ve since seen documentation that they did do something that looked like a study, and that continues to be their political explanation for what they were doing. The study itself, such as it was, though, does seem completely unusual and completely unlike anything else the Port Authority has ever done.
Say what? “We’ve since seen documentation that they did do something that looked like a study?”

When did “we” see that?

Searching Maddow’s previous reports on this currently worthless topic, we find no reference to any such documentation. On Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, Maddow’s segments were built around the claim that this study never happened—that any such claim was “phony.”

Suddenly, this new information flitted by, so fast you might not see it. As we’ve noted in the past, this is often the way Maddow “corrects” reports she has previously bollixed.

Late in her brief interview with Mann, a second piece of new information flew past at the speed of light. Here’s the background:

On Thursday night, Maddow built her segment around a very shaky report by Mann in that day’s Wall Street journal. According to Mann, Christie had called Governor Cuomo to complain about the way a New York official had been pushing the controversy.

This was a very shaky report, attributed to a single source—an unnamed “person familiar with the matter.” Being a hack, Maddow lovingly seized on this shaky claim, as other hacks around the liberal world were doing.

On Thursday night, Maddow built her entire segment around this shaky claim. On Friday, Christie flatly denied the claim in a press conference. That afternoon, a press spokesman for Governor Cuomo confirmed what he said, speaking by name, on the record.

Here’s the way you learned these facts on Maddow’s Fox-like program. The following Q-and-A with Mann ended her endless, 17-minute segment. Note the standard dollops of snark and misdirection as the real information flew by:
MADDOW: Ted, let me ask you about one specific thing that you reported that really seemed to get Governor Christie very excited today and not in a good way. And that was your reporting that Governor Christie, as he’s been joking about this and making light of it in public before today, had earlier this week called New York Governor Andrew Cuomo essentially to say, “Listen, your appointees, your New York appointees on this are pushing too hard for answers. Why don’t you get them to lay off.” Governor Christie is now denying that that call ever took place.

MANN: Right. And Governor Cuomo’s spokesman did too. We stand by that story. That story is right.

MADDOW: All right. Ted Mann, reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Boy, am I looking forward to reading your next piece on this! Thank you very much for being here. Appreciate it.
Since Mann seems to have gotten his last report wrong, Rachel Maddow can’t wait to read his next!

Question:

Do you even know what Mann’s statement means? Does he stand by his own report, in which Christie made that phone call? Or does he stand by the subsequent contradiction from Christie and the Cuomo spokesman?

We have no idea what Mann meant. Rachel didn’t ask.

Given her report the previous night, Maddow should have told you these things at the top of the segment. Instead, you got that puzzling statement after 17 minutes of pure shazam, including a horrified “news report” about Christie’s past traffic tickets.

Fame and millions of dollars will do this. But Rachel Maddow is a nightmare. Rachel Maddow is Fox.

Rachel thinks you’re very dumb: How dumb does Rachel think you are?

She thinks you’re very dumb:
MADDOW: All week long, I have been calling this the busiest bridge in the country. Turns out I have been understating the fact. If you go to the official New York and New Jersey web site for that bridge, they’re very proud to tell you that it is not just the busiest bridge in the country. It is the busiest bridge in the whole world!

If you say so!

The bridge is huge. It takes in more than $600 million every year in revenue, in tolls. That’s how busy it is. $600 million! And that’s how rich the agency is that runs it and that takes in the tolls. That’s why it’s a real perk of the job of being governor of New York or governor of New Jersey, that you get to appoint people to the agency that runs this bridge, which mints money like a mobbed-up casino.
Losers, guess what? The volume of traffic on the bridge has nothing to do with this story. Traffic across the bridge was not affected, only access to the bridge from the town of Fort Lee.

This time-killing, exciting diversion tells you nothing about the substance of this currently pointless story. Rachel figured you wouldn't see that.

Rachel Maddow is Fox.

83 comments:

  1. Shit sucker - even Larray Sabato says it is legit:

    "When you run for president, you will be questioned about absolutely everything, and you can’t bluff your way past something like this. It’s not personal life or his weight; it’s related directly to his conduct in office," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

    Lets even say that Maddow is swift-boating Christie, on orders from the DNC. Why is shit-sucker defending him and attacking her with such passion?

    Where was he when Kerry was swift-boated?

    Who went to Viet Nam to corroborate Kerry's story and blow away the swift-boater lies?

    The "clowning" librul media - thats who.

    What a shit-sucker.

    By the way - did shit-sucker ever take a position on the "birther" thiny?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Does Babykins here have any--oh, I dunno--facts to show that Bob has things wrong? Babykins also may want to look up the argument by authority logical fallacy while he's at it provided that babykins here isn't too busy gurgling up methane-enriched gas bubbles.

      Delete
    2. User of the term "shit sucker" to characterize TDH ;

      Look at the archives, TDH was all over the swift boat stuff, and raised a lot of significant points. As to the ridiculous birther issue, you can check the archives, but my recall is that TDH recognized that the issue was bogus (a no brainer).

      On the Christie bridge issue, you make a valid point I believe TDH is going overboard on characterizing this as a non-issue, though I believe it is unfortunate, or not rational, that the press and media focus on gaffes and non-substantive issues like this, instead of paying any attention to what would actually be the result if the policies of one or the other candidates actually were put into effect, or even bothering to explain what the positions are.

      To the extent you are making a plausibly legitimate argument,however, your use of the term "shit sucker" and "bone gnawer" is obnoxious, stupid, puerile, and repulsive. I suggest you drop these terms.

      Delete
    3. Where was he when Kerry was swift-boated?

      Where was he? Right here:

      <quote src="TDH" date="8/27/04">
      On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune’s William Rood wrote a front-page essay supporting Kerry’s account of the Silver Star incident, in which Kerry saved the lives of his crew. Aside from Kerry himself, Rood is the only surviving officer who witnessed the events of that day. Rood complained that the Swift Boat Vets were “armed with stories I know to be untrue.” He twice mentioned John O’Neill by name, directly contradicting his accounts of this incident. (In today’s New York Times, the widow of that day’s third officer also supports Kerry’s view. More below.)
      Readers, isn’t it time for America’s “journalists” to conduct a damage assessment? More specifically, isn’t it time for the lords and ladies to confront the slander campaign against Kerry—a campaign that is changing America’s White House election? Given the Swift Boat Vets’ endless clowning—their phony affidavits; their changing stories; their blatant misstatements; their unavailable “witnesses”—can America’s somnolent press fail to see that a problem exists?
      Can they catch the smell of a hoax in the air? Are they able to care about hoaxes?
      </quote>

      [D]id [TDH] ever take a position on the "birther" thiny [sic]?

      Yes:

      <quote src="TDH" date="5/16/11">
      The birther nonsense is inexcusable crap.
      </quote>

      I don't mind that your queries imply that TDH never took a "position" on the Swift Boat and birther hoaxes. I don't even mind that it took no more than a couple of minutes to answer your sincere "questions" (or is that "sincere" questions?) But if you can't understand that TDH's calls for honest reporting about Christie don't amount to "defending him," what exactly are you doing here?

      Delete
    4. "But if you can't understand that TDH's calls for honest reporting about Christie don't amount to "defending him," what exactly are you doing here?"

      He's persecuting heresy. That's what trolls do.

      Delete
  2. According to Jonathan Haidt, who studied values held by liberals and conservatives, liberals care more about fairness than conservatives tend to (although both groups care about it). It should be no surprise to you then that Somerby cares about fairness, especially in a profession that is supposed to hold that as its own value in performing its job. That Fox is unfair and essentially an arm of the Republican party, does not excuse those on the left who adopt the same banana-republic tactics. We are liberals because we do not believe in doing the same things as conservatives do, even if it helps win elections to play dirty.

    You do not belong here. You clearly do not hold those values because you repeatedly fail to understand why Somerby criticizes the left media for behaving unethically. You are an ugly troll whose main purpose seems to be to deflect attention away from the points Somerby makes here by personal attack. Using profanities does not strengthen your case. It reveals the ugliness of your soul. Just go away now.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Of course you are right, but the troll has top be stopped and that is simple. No other blogger with allow such abuse.

      Delete
    2. Correcting:

      No other blogger would allow such abuse of himself and his decent readers.

      Delete
    3. AnonymousDecember 16, 2013 at 12:57 PM

      You are dishonest about the blogger:

      "Somerby cares about fairness"

      No he doesn't. He was nit-picking the Right many years back and now he is not-picking the left. Remember the smartest guy in the room? The one who knows the tomato isn't a vegetable or that there are two Niles etc.? Thats this blogger.

      This blogger has expanded gotcha! into a decade plus long "career". Go read what other public figures are saying about him.

      You are wrong about me because I am offering points in rebuttal of the blogger. The profanity comes naturally as did the comment about Palin that got Bashir fired.

      This blogger is now running on empty - he really needs to stop. Its amazing you guys are willing to drink such crappy Kool Aid.

      Delete
    4. "You do not belong here. You clearly do not hold those values because you repeatedly fail to understand why Somerby criticizes the left media for behaving unethically. You are an ugly troll whose main purpose seems to be to deflect attention away from the points Somerby makes here by personal attack. Using profanities does not strengthen your case. It reveals the ugliness of your soul. Just go away now."

      Do I ever agree. Notice the ugliness of the response.

      Delete
    5. This whole exchange adds to my feelings of uncleanliness and apprehension when injecting my frequent readership and commentary here in conversations with my many friends who are facinated by revelations of my internet whereabouts.

      Delete
    6. Anon@1:31 -- You are complaining because Somerby is insufficiently partisan, a bad liberal, furthering the right by criticizing the left. Somerby's cause is improving people's critical thinking skills. He is still behaving like a teacher, online, trying to get people to think more clearly regardless of their political persuasion, point of view, or cause. You want his blog to be something else. It is his and he isn't going to change it to suit your tastes. So, stop bothering everyone in comments with your complaints.

      Delete
    7. AnonymousDecember 16, 2013 at 3:13 PM

      But he is playing a futile gotcha! game ONLY against "librulz".


      When his gotcha! game is played on him (as I have caught him out so many times) - he looks as silly or sloppy as his liberal targets.

      HE NEEDS TO GO AWAY. After the "war on Gore" he has had nothing to say.

      Delete
    8. Bone-gnawer seems to have been liberal at one time - but lately he is an undeclared Lieberman/Pat Caddell type.

      EVERYTHING he has ever written is futile/ugly/envious nitpicking.

      War on Gore? BFD. Gore would have visited greater horrors on Iraq than Baby Bush who carried out a clear-cut military war instead of the death-by-sanctions imposed by Clinton-Gore (Albright - "was killing 500,000 children worth it" - yes).

      And the shark-jumping over Zimmerman (oh all those posts about those gorgeous injuries suffered by Z - that "librulz" lied about) is something for the ages

      Delete
    9. This whole exchange adds to my feelings of uncleanliness and apprehension when injecting my frequent readership and commentary here in conversations with my many friends who are fascinated by revelations of my internet whereabouts.

      -- I share these feelings.

      Delete

    10. Anonymous at 6:20

      Thank your for sharing my sharing. Perhaps we can come together on some forum and cleanse our souls and heal our shame.


      Delete
  3. So if Maddow is a (Democratic) party-hack, will you stop calling her a "liberal"?
    The Democratic Party isn't liberal, and it hasn't been since Somerby hero, Bill Clinton, third-wayed it to Republican-lite.

    Berto

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous at 12:57 pm,
    Can you name even one liberal in the corporate-owned media? Somerby's had this blog for years, and he hasn't been able to do it yet.

    Berto

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bob, I am pleading with you to stop the crazed trolling. I feel unclean the moment I catch a troll post even though I immediately stop reading the post.

    Trolls have made ashamed of ever telling any other person I read this blog.

    Please ban the trolls, only a couple of people are the problem obviously. Please ban the trolls so I can continue reading the blog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you told your friends you are by far the most frequent commenter at TDH, passing the position previously held by David in Cal?

      Delete
    2. I must disagree about banning this troll. I have two reasons. The first is that troll is a subjective term. I have been called a troll literally hundreds of times because I am in the habit of dissenting from my own kind. I've also been banned from sites about a dozen times. Too often people call someone a troll when what the really mean is a person they vehemently disagree with and group thinky bastards are tired of experiencing the potentially healthy displeasure of cognitive dissonance. Also, reality is often excruciating disagreeable and sometimes the best way to achieve clarity is being openly disagreeable oneself.

      The second reason is that trolls like the babe we've got here is such a monstrous, in-your-face asshole that he or she is doing such an A-one job of destroying their own credibility that we hardly have to do anything to look good by comparison. They are their own worst enemies. Why on earth would we want to protect them from themselves? I say don't!

      Delete
    3. This troll is unclean. She admits it. She is shamed before her friends. She goes straight to the comments when reading posts. She need not be banned. She must be shunned.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous, I don't think people are trolling here, or at least most are not. Bob does enough good work (notably, on education) that he's worth checking in on regularly. And people who are truly left-liberal (I'm not sure I'd categorize Bob S. even as liberal, but categories don't matter if the arguments are good) are far more critical of the press, not least the "liberal" press, than Bob is. So, problem with his critical stance toward the "liberal" press -- the people I think you think are trolling know without Bob's help how badly the press sucks. (Think that add for The Nation, where Sam Waterston asks, Are you looking for that liberal bias that you can't find anywhere?)
    The problem is that Bob can seize on stories that may not be reported perfectly but are reported decently and then go into high dudgeon over minor imperfections. And his choice of stories on which to do so is very strange. I think some people visit this site regularly out of a lurid fascination with how he can mangle things on stories that should matter to "liberals." Such fascination takes hold of me now as I see him blunderingly double down on this story.

    Bob really is misrepresenting this Port Authority story, and journalists' coverage of it, to readers who may be unaware of it since, so far, the story has remained pretty local (Rachel Maddow and a few others excepted). I'd provide links, but I assume people know how to google.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Since you're accusing Bob of misrepresenting the story, don't you owe us a description of what the correct story actually is? Mere assertion is not proof.

      Delete
    2. Really, it was on Morning Joe this am.

      Delete
  7. So far there's been 2 high level resignations handed in to Christie, 12 total subpoenas issued, a solid day of testimony after which the mystery still remains, and I still haven't seen anything Maddow reported on that was not true. Why does Maddow's reporting have TDH's panties in a bunch? All the major metropolitan newspapers are reporting the same things, including Wall Street Journal, New York Times. We don't know what happened but a lot of people are going to a lot of trouble to try to find out. Maddow is simply reporting this. Is that OK with you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Knowledge of what is "true" in this case requires an omniscience that only God holds. The rest of us must rely on evidence of what may have happened. There is no evidence so far that (1) Christie had anything to do with closing the bridge entrance, or (2) Christie called Cuomo to complain about an investigation, or (3) there was no "study" being conducted that might justify the closure. Maddow asserted each of these things without evidence. That is Somerby's point. Reporters are not supposed to do that.

      Delete
    2. (1) Christie had anything to do with closing the bridge entrance,

      Maddow never stated that as a fact.

      (2) Christie called Cuomo to complain about an investigation,

      Maddow reported what the Wall Street Journal reported. She never stated that she knew independently that it happened for a fact.

      (3) there was no "study" being conducted that might justify the closure.

      Again, Maddow doesn't know independently of what has been reported and never claimed or made any allegations to the contrary.

      The fact that we're now up to 12 subpoenas, 2 high level resignations and still no evidence of a double-dare secret study might indicate something interesting occcurred. Again, what the fuck is wrong with you people? This is a story.

      ***************
      Port Authority workers testified on Monday that the lane closings had caused emergency vehicles to be delayed, commutes to stretch to four hours and children to be late to the first day of school. It cost the agency toll revenue and overtime pay.

      Mr. Wildstein, the workers said, told them not to tell anyone about the closings, and had not followed procedure for such significant changes to traffic patterns — 75,000 cars use those lanes each day. The Port Authority workers said they had gone along with the plan despite warning it would “not end well”; they said they had feared for their jobs, because Mr. Wildstein worked for Mr. Baroni, and Mr. Baroni worked for the governor.

      If there was a traffic study, the workers testified, it had not resulted in any report that they knew of. '
      http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/nyregion/on-lane-closings-christie-says-hell-turn-the-page.html?_r=0

      ****************************

      Delete
    3. Maddow has been careful NOT to assert that no study existed -- rather, in the shows I watched she's been careful to say that there was no evidence of a study (evidence that should be pretty easy to come by, if it existed). She has also been careful to say that there is no evidence that Christie had anything to do with the closing of the bridge. (I don't think even his worst enemies think he knew about it. That's not the point. The point is the kind of irresponsible cronies he has put into positions of authority and the fear non-partisan people working under them have for their jobs if they object to illegal orders.) I don't remember what Rachel said/how she phrased things about the alleged Cuomo-Christie call, which at this point is a minor hiccup in the story anyway.
      And no, it is not my responsibility to supply an alternative story here. It's Bob's responsibility to criticize fairly.
      Those interested in learning more about the story do know how to explore the internet, I assume. In addition to NYT and WSJ stories, try http://www.northjersey.com/news/PA_domains.html?page=all (and go from there). I haven't checked the Star Ledger or the Trenton papers (which presumably have been covering the hearings -- yes, hearings! (That's how trivial this story is, and Rachel's just doing a Fox version of birther stories or something.)

      Delete
  8. bob somerby says,

    "Question:
    Do you even know what Mann’s statement means? Does he stand by his own report, in which Christie made that phone call? Or does he stand by the subsequent contradiction from Christie and the Cuomo spokesman?
    We have no idea what Mann meant."

    >>> well i do know beyond a shadow of a doubt -- assuming the wall street reporter is not a complete idiot.

    going by the context you provide in your column, mainly the direct quotes, and the application of common sense, he meant that he does, "stand by his own report, in which Christie made that phone call".

    youre welcome.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for staying on topic and making me proud to mention my readership of this superb blog to my friends.

      Delete
    2. youre welcome. i am continually called a troll, but if the blogger, bob somerby, is misrepresenting himself as a liberal, then he is is a systemic troll (confusing the general discourse) and those who support him are trolls as well.

      the same principle would apply to a secretly liberal blogger who was trying to pass himself off as a conservative. he would be a systemic troll and all his liberal supporters would be trolls as well.

      Delete
    3. i was born and raised in america. if my parents came from england instead of ireland, would you call me english? if your answer is no, then you are a bigot.

      Delete
    4. then the answer is no. what do you take me for, irish?

      Delete
    5. The problem is that when people are being dishonest, they can us the literal meaning of words to create an impression then wiggle out of it later by saying they actually meant the other interpretation. It is like Clinton's statement about the meaning of "is" and whether or not a blow job qualifies as having sex (or a way to avoid having sex). They get to give the impression they want without having to worry about being sued later because they can always claim they stood by their reporting of Cuomo's denial. So, there are complexities here.

      Delete
    6. Anon. @ 2:47. perfect english explanation.

      Delete
  9. And where does he live - in Peoria?

    "Losers, guess what? The volume of traffic on the bridge has nothing to do with this story. Traffic across the bridge was not affected, only access to the bridge from the town of Fort Lee."

    Fort Lee and Manhattan ARE on opposite sides of the river.

    You HAVE to cross the bridge to go to Manhattan from Fort Lee.

    So if the lanes from Fort Lee that lead to the toll plazas were closed - that would have forced the Fort Lee-ans to compete with the general traffic crossing the bridge.

    Can't even get his nit-picking straight.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Losers? Do you even know what Somerby's comment means? Who is Somerby calling losers? His readers? Maddow viewers? We have no idea who Somerby means.

      Delete
    2. somerby is calling maddows viewers losers. in the context of this column and previous ones on maddow, maddow is regularly dishonest, according to somerby, and so any regular viewer of hers is easily conned and therefore a loser.

      Delete
    3. The way I read that paragraph Somerby is talking to me. Unless I choose not to believe what he says.

      Delete
    4. You don't have to cross that bridge, and you don't have to use that entrance. How do you suppose people who don't live in Fort Lee get across the bridge?

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    5. Tolls only apply to those going to New York. Westbound to New Jersey is always free. Some restrictions apply. This iconic bridge is not just an engineering marvel. It is the busiest bridge in the world.

      Delete
  10. Here's a paragraph from the NYT about the two guys Christie just threw under the bus:

    "Mr. Baroni, who earned $291,100 at the Port Authority in 2011, is a former Republican state senator who was appointed by Mr. Christie in the face of a primary challenge for his legislative seat. At the Port Authority, he created a new job for Mr. Wildstein, who was a high school friend of the governor and who later became mayor of their hometown, Livingston, and started an anonymous political blog that was noted for scoops from the United States attorney’s office when Mr. Christie led it. "

    These two friends of Chris have just resigned--kind of surprising given that their traffic study was so legitimate and all... But TDH thinks Christie's role in the matter is "non-existent" -- because people just resign from $290,000/year political appointments for no reason.

    The illness at this blog appears terminal. Even the sock-puppetry has gone rancid.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey, it's Joisey. If I was them two guys what resigned, I wouldn't take up no invitation to go on a fishing trip of my fat buddy's yacht.

      Delete
    2. How does being childhood friends make someone complicit in a specific event years later? How many friends has Obama appointed to things? Do you think Christie invented patronage? Is there a suggestion that these men were not qualified for their jobs? People routinely resign when under fire in order to keep their mess from harming others, whether guilty or innocent. It is enough to raise a scandal. Even Obama doesn't stand by folks who are attracting too much heat. Are you perhaps suggesting that Christie asked them to resign? I think that seems plausible, but how is that a discredit to him as Governor? If they screwed up, they should resign.

      Delete
  11. Maddow destroyed Chris Christie, possibly killing his chances for the Presidency. A remarkable feat.

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    Replies
    1. Yet another promising Presidential career ended by the unfair liberal media.

      Delete
    2. The guy saying that Maddow destroyed Christie didn't even mention Somerby's main point: That Maddow falsely claimed that a study was "phonied up"

      Delete
    3. I thought Somerby's main point was the destruction of Al Gore's Presidency by the media. Silly me. I just don't know how I got here. Guess I'll have to go back and see if I can't find the larger meaning of Martin Bahir.

      Delete
    4. Gore isn't mentioned in this article, Pottymouth. Are you mentally ok?

      Delete
    5. Gore appears with every post.

      Delete
    6. Liberal Media? What the hell are you smoking. Since 1996, when Clinton changed the rules, we have 5 or 6 giant corporate media companies that own the lot.

      Delete
  12. We're supposed to accept denials from Christie and the Cuomo flack as disproving the WSJ story?

    Not if you're a reporter.

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    Replies
    1. You must accept them unless you have proof to the contrary. It would be a major coup to prove that a politician lied about a denial. Presumably the reporter will come forward with his proof. Oh, crickets, silence...must not have much proof. So, yes, we are all supposed to accept the denials because you cannot call someone a liar without proof, especially if you are a reporter.

      Delete
    2. Neither Christie or Cuomo denied it unconditionally.

      This blog is supposed to be about getting facts straight, and I see alot of folks incapable of understanding the english language.

      Delete
    3. "I see alot of folks incapable of understanding the english language."

      >>> yes. for a long time now . also poor logic. makes for some wildly wrongheaded comments. or, as i tend to think, the right just lies a lot and the result is often poor supporting arguments for their preconceived conclusions.

      Delete
  13. "She could have been discussing something that actually matters—the interests of low-income children, let’s say.

    And Somerby could have been discussing something that actually matters, like the latest vindication of the victim of liberal media bias, George Zimmerman.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup - "Librul war on Zimmerman" - bone-gnawer's earth-shattering scoop that leaves Watergate in the dust.

      Too many days have gone by without "he was told to stay in his car" - enquiring minds want to know whats up with that.

      Delete
    2. Pottymouth is livid that he can't prove Zimmerman pointed a gun at his girlfriend. I"d be cursing if I were you, too.

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    3. Wish you would get away.

      Delete
    4. "She could have been discussing something that actually matters—the interests of low-income children, let’s say." -b. somerby

      low income children are going to get hurt the worst if the moneyed interests' tools in the gop, who somerby regularly sides with, get their way and continue to cause the income and wealth gaps in this country to widen.

      Delete
  14. Somerby is wrong - traffic across the bridge was affected. On the bridge itself traffic was lighter than usual, since so many people were held up in Fort Lee. As for all those people in Fort Lee trying to get on to the bridge, they were certainly affected - some were held up for hours. True, they were only potential traffic on the bridge since they couldn't get on.

    A good fraction of that world-leading traffic across the bridge actually gets on at Fort Lee, so I think this is relevant.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They shut down substantial portions of traffic in Los Angeles everytime Obama arrives for a fund-raising event. No one considers it a major crime, even though it is clearly politically motivated and has nothing to do with government. No studies are being performed and people are inconvenienced for hours in a very densely populated city. Shall we alert Rachel Maddow?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous at 2:58

      Good observation. George W. Bush was no Obama. That is why he did not go into New Orleans after Katrina. He didn't want to shut down the traffic while they were evacuating people from the Superdome.

      Delete
    3. Sure, and they do the same here in NYC when the President some to town. The difference is those street closings and traffic diversions are announced in advance. In the case of the G.W> Bridge closings, not even the police department of the local town of Fort Lee had any advance notice of the closures, so there was no opportunity to prepare the public or emergency services for the event. THAT's the difference here!

      Delete
    4. But how do you distinguish incompetence from malfeasance? Not by the effect, but by the intention.

      Delete
    5. When the bridge gets a call from a Christie appointee and close associate to close the lanes the next day, and to tell no one about it, that suggests to me that there was a little more than mere incompetence going on here.

      Delete
    6. You know that they told them specifically not to inform anyone of the closure? Is it not possible that through diffusion of responsibility each person thought someone else had informed the appropriate people? That would be incompetence. Is there a transcript of that call somewhere?

      Delete
    7. "Is it not possible that through diffusion of responsibility each person thought someone else had informed the appropriate people?" Anon

      "diffusion of responsibility"?????

      I don't think you have a clear understanding of how the Port Authority of NY/NJ works.

      What we "know" is that Port Authority workers testified under oath and under penalty of perjury to that fact. There is no ambiguity about that, they were told not to tell anyone about the closings. And son-of-a-gun, nobody knew, including law enforcement, until it was done.


      ***************
      Port Authority workers testified on Monday that the lane closings had caused emergency vehicles to be delayed, commutes to stretch to four hours and children to be late to the first day of school. It cost the agency toll revenue and overtime pay.

      Mr. Wildstein, the workers said, told them not to tell anyone about the closings, and had not followed procedure for such significant changes to traffic patterns — 75,000 cars use those lanes each day. The Port Authority workers said they had gone along with the plan despite warning it would “not end well”; they said they had feared for their jobs, because Mr. Wildstein worked for Mr. Baroni, and Mr. Baroni worked for the governor.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/nyregion/on-lane-closings-christie-says-hell-turn-the-page.html?_r=0
      *****************************

      Delete
  15. Rachel Maddow is FOX, I love that. Chris Hayes is the only person I watch of the channel.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hayes devoted what, 19 more minutes to the GW Bridge story tonight?

      Delete
    2. Really, Maddow is FOX? I don't see her spouting a bunch of racist crap. It's a low freaking bar, but Maddow is NOT Fox. I don't see how the false equivalence helps.

      Delete
  16. I'd like to know what documents Maddow has seen which suggest some sort of study was going on when the lanes were closed.

    ReplyDelete
  17. In today's NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/nyregion/cornered-by-accusations-christie-parries-with-jokes-and-stonewalls-with-snarls.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0

    The NYT story has a link to this, in USA Today but originally from the Asbury Park (NJ) Press:
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/12/08/christie-public-records-access/3906285/

    Welcome to the Garden State.

    This isn't some minor story that Rachel and MSNBC have suddenly decided to fabricate or over-play. It's an important story -- set of stories, really -- that FINALLY is getting some attention beyond NJ.

    ReplyDelete
  18. So, in light of yesterday's revelations about Christie, is the Daily Howler standing by it's assertion that Maddow is a "nightmare?"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shut up, Mr. Kessinger. Integrity is for other people, not the stainless Mr. Somerby.

      And after all...

      "She could have been discussing something that actually matters—the interests of low-income children, let’s say."

      ...unless those children are trapped in buses for two hours, one supposes?

      Delete
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