BREAKING: Rachel's tease, after Brian's confession!

SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 2018

What chance mutation hath wrought: She was stuck in the middle of two waves of clowning, one of them vile, when viewers were handed her tease.

She wanted viewers to stick around for the full hour this evening. This improves ratings, builds her prestige, and puts millions of dollars into her pants.

For that reason, she offered a tease she knew was untrue. The horrible star of corporate liberal "cable news" proceeded to tell viewers this:

MADDOW (8/16/18): Boy, has there been a lot of news today! The jury in the Paul Manafort case met for just over seven hours today before they ultimately broke off deliberations.

And they passed a note to the judge overseeing the case. There were four questions for the judge on that note.

We're going to get some expert advice in just a moment from somebody who used to be the lead federal prosecutor in that district—the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. We're going to talk to that expert, the person who has had that experience, because seasoned prosecutors who know the district, who know the judge, they can sometimes look at moments like that with the jury asking questions, with those specific kinds of questions being asked, they can sometimes tell you what that might mean for how the trial is likely to turn out.

So we're going to have that coming up in just a few minutes. I am super-curious as to what somebody who might know would think about that development today with the jury today. So I'm looking forward to that.

That ardent tease was Grade A bullshit. But then, what else is new?

The segment Maddow teased that way wasn't scheduled to come up "in a minute," or even "in a few minutes." The corporate con man told us that to get us to stick around.

More significantly, Rachel knew that her expert guest, the sober and serious Chuck Rosenberg, wasn't going to "tell you what [those four questions] might mean for how the trial is likely to turn out." Even as Rachel convincingly told us that, she knew it wasn't true.

In fact, Rosenberg was going to tell "Rache" that you can't tell anything from the questions the jury had sent to the judge. Rachel knew that because Rosenberg had already said that, on Deadline: White House, at 4 o'clock that very same afternoon.

Duh. Rachel Maddow was conning us rubes in search of self-advancement. She'd already engaged in a slimy exchange in which she claimed that she'd been "just weeping at my desk all day long" over the death of Aretha Franklin.

She would proceed from there to her tease, then on to some time-wasting nonsense in which she staged one of her trademark dramatic readings of utter trivia from the transcript of the Manafort trial. Chuckling and grinning and playing the fool, she then moved in for the kill:

MADDOW: The judge in this case is like watching a parking lot where one person in the parking lot is trying to play bumper cars even though everybody is actually in a regular car. Like, what is he talking about?

"I have a boring dinner tonight. It's not even at a restaurant. You jurors might show up." What is he talking about?

I mean, I love court transcripts no matter what because I'm a dork. But I am honestly going to miss these Judge Ellis transcripts more than the rest when this is all over.

As usual, Rachel was talking about herself, her long-time favorite topic. (In fairness, someone finally got her to stop playing old videotape of herself.) But why did Rachel say what she did about her pitifully dorky self?

Applying the obvious bit of translation, "I love court transcripts no matter what because I'm a dork" was this con man's way of saying this:

"I engage in this stupid offbeat behavior because I'm more fey, and much smarter, than you are." In the language of humblebrag, that's what it means when players like Maddow say they're a dork, a geek or or a nerd.

In these ways, this disordered person was engaged in selling the car this past Thursday night. Before her hour was done, she would stage another pointless transcript reading, concluding, as always, with this:

MADDOW: By the way, here's something to look forward to. Today, Judge Ellis said he's actually going to make the jury's physical note a part of the public record. So we will get to see their note as well, which probably means I will act it out.

She'll probably act it out! As she has specifically told us, Rachel simply can't help herself. That said, this pose is all part of selling the car. It's also part of the ugly corporate process by which the world keeps getting dumbed down.

It's all about entertainment now. The next afternoon, near the start of Deadline: White House, a budding comedian entertained us like this:

WALLACE (8/17/18): John, I want to talk about a few of the names on that list, because—

HEILEMANN: Did you just call me, did you just call me "John?"

WALLACE: "Heilemann."

HEILEMANN: OK! Jesus, that was so weird. I was like looking around, wondering who is on remote called "John." It can't be me!

WALLACE: It's Friday in August. We've got 6-year-olds here.

HEILEMANN: I know. Can I point out, how do I know your child is here?

[SHOUT IS HEARD OFF-CAMERA]

I can hear Liam over there.

[HOLDS UP TOOTSIE ROLLS]

We've got Tootsie Rolls, it's TGIF. Just to be clear, that's how we're rollin' today.

For what it's worth, Heilemann has even begun to dress like Shecky Greene. Whether it's Morning Joe or Deadline: White House, he rarely appears on cable without some display of the comedy stylings on which he seems to be working.

His initial question to Wallace—Did you just call me John?—didn't exactly make obvious sense, except as a gateway to all the hilarity. As for Wallace, she laughed and laughed as she constantly does was on this group chorale program.

To appearances, Wallace hasn't had this much fun since her beloved Bush Admin was forced to stop torturing everyone it managed to capture. Her happy hour/propaganda show is constantly built around gales of laughter—laughter and lots of group fun with the folk she describes as "our friends."

(In fairness to Heilemann, he'd never heard that his partner, Halperin, was engaged in all that sexual conduct. Mika hadn't heard it either! We want to make these points clear!)

This is the swill we liberals are sold on "cable news" in this, the era which has followed our 25 years of group silence. The suits who run our own corporate channel make sure that we're endlessly entertained and amused by our very best cable news friends.

We hear nothing on our shows except standard reactions to only one topic, The Chase. This is the channel we've chosen.

Maddow is so deep in the weeds of the Manafort trial that you can't see the boondocks from there. She keeps staging her pointless dramatic readings, then says she just can't help it.

Occasionally, glimmers of life outside the cave manage to slip through the cracks. On the evening before Rachel claimed that she'd been weeping all day long, Brian took sixty seconds near the end of his hour to let us know what we're being shielded from as this profit-based gong show rolls on.

In one brief moment, Brian pulled the curtain back from the corporate swill all around:

WILLIAMS (8/15/18): Before we get to a break, the Trump administration has corrected a number we brought to you on last night`s broadcast. We mentioned it during the course of our update about the 559 migrant children still separated from their families because of the Trump administration's so-called zero tolerance policy at the border.

We further told you that federal officials have been unable to connect five of those children to any known parents. That figure came from the Trump administration and today, they issued a correction of their own math. It turns out there are 26 migrant children in U.S. custody for whom the government has been unable to connect in any way with the parents or family members who might have brought them here.

Now, another break.

Brian devoted a handful of seconds to this astounding misconduct by the federal government. That said, you don't hear about this astounding misconduct on Maddow's show. She's too busy saying that she was weeping all day, followed by pointless public readings which she stupidly says she can't stop.

She only does it because she's a dork—and because she and her owners correctly assume that we're just a bunch of marks.

These are repulsive corporate players, engaged in repulsive behavior. It's hard to list the many topics they skip so they can entertain us full-time with The Chase, a winning topic from the standpoint of propaganda, entertainment and ratings.

The Chase is a winning topic! For that reason, you won't heard about those 559 children from Maddow, who long ago went out of control. She's too busy entertaining us and, most important, helping us learn the best ways to adore her most fully.

Those children don't count on this cable channel. Neither do the school kids of L.A., who we'll discuss next week.

We don't hear, on our cable channel, that many whole states have higher readings of lead exposure than Flint ever did. You won't hear about kids in Appalachia whose parents can't afford to take them to the dentist.

You won't see the data on the costs of American health care. You won't hear about any of these topics because these corporate con men don't care, and because their corporate owners want these topics suppressed.

All such topics are disappeared. They talk about the tweets of Trump, along with endlessly pointless piddle from Manafort's trial.

The past performance of people like Maddow and Williams helps explain why Donald J. Trump currently sits in the White House. The same is true pf Lawrence, who topped Rachel Thursday night on the subject of Aretha, letting us know that he saved the napkin from one of her birthday parties.

The analysts choked and gagged, flashing back to his recollections concerning his friend, "Greg Peck." More appallingly, Lawrence pandered to tribal pities last Thursday night with a long recollection of the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson. The gruesome con man who helped elect Trump started out like this:

O'DONNELL (8/9/18): On this very day, August 9th, exactly four years ago at 12:01 p.m., 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot six times and killed by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer. Michael Brown was unarmed, at least 100 feet away from the police officer, and incapable of harming the police officer when the officer began firing at Michael Brown.

As the bullets hit Michael Brown, rendering him completely helpless, the officer decided to continue to fire. Michael Brown was hit with six bullets, including one in the head, to stop what was obviously a nonexistent threat, especially after the first bullet hit Michael Brown.

Ferguson, Missouri police left Michael Brown's body on the street where he fell for four hours on this day four years ago and the people in Ferguson rose up in protest...

Before he was done, Lawrence even cited Eric Holder by name. He failed to report the fact that Holder's Justice Department published a formal report saying that every shot fired that day had been justified.

We have no particular view on that finding, but we do know it occurred. Holder specifically said he agreed with that formal report. Lawrence didn't want to tell you that on this propagandistic occasion.

(Holder's report also addressed the delay in body removal.)

These are terrible corporate players. Chance mutations, long ago, may help explain why they behave as they do.

They serve us the bullshit they know we'll swallow. As they pleasure us in these ways, those 559 children rate maybe a minute near the end of Brian's program.

Next week: Some things we won't hear on cable, not even from our best cable news friends!