THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2023
Good luck trying that: Based on this piece for the Washington Post, Greg Sargent seems to think it's time for Dems to "wage war on Fox News."
Good freaking luck with that!
At issue are measures of basic competence. The Democratic Party leadership has shown little of that in such matters down through the many long years, and our major mainstream journalists have perhaps shown even less
Sargent links to a letter from Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch. Reading that letter, we get little sense that Schumer and Jeffries are real clear on the basic facts involved in Dominion's recent legal filings.
Reading what Sargent had written, we get little sense that he's real clear on that either.
"Like it or not, Democrats are in an information war," Sargent writes. In fact, Democrats were in an information war all the way back in the mid 1990s—an information war which was being waged by mainstream news orgs like the New York Times and the Washington Post.
(For example, see Gene Lyons, Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater. In the main, the news orgs to whom Lyons referred were the Post and the Times. Starting in March 1999, along came the war against Gore, starring Ceci and them.)
People like Sargent were determined not to tell you such things at that time. Today, they're desperate for some ardent glory, but when we imagine them planning a war, we'll suggest you hold onto your hats.
Like it or not, our whole country is involved in an information war at present. Sadly, our own blue academics, pundits and journalists are knee deep in that warfare. Our own team's a part of the problem.
Our own vastly self-impressed team is a part of the problem! Until we learn to recognize and correct our own shortcomings and foibles, we're unlikely to do real well in an attempt to wage war on Fox.
"Physician, heal thyself," someone is said to have said. It isn't likely to happen here. As with human groups all over the world, our team isn't drawn to such work.
Next week: Our own team's a part of the problem?
Full disclosure: We don't think we've ever met Greg, but we do know that he's a good person.
ReplyDeletetl;dr
Well, Fox News being the least worst establishment news service, of course your tribe will wage a war on it.
Hell, it has been doing it forever, it seems.
...and it may succeed as well; since your cult has all the power. So what? So, all the establishment media will be equally, reliably extremely shitty.
Big deal. With parts of the Al Gore's invention still operational, it shouldn't be a huge loss...
tl;dr is just over 20 sentences. You might want to consider signing up for that mental status test your genius leader passed with flying colors. In case you get stuck on the animal silhouette, it's an elephant; you're welcome. Now I get why the far right wing wants to ban all those books, so they can have an excuse for not reading. Which brings to mind the answer to a question you asked a few threads back about how many titles, NOT BOOKS, needed review under the order of your new favorite fascist. I had referenced the Duval County school system. Just under forty schools. The number of TITLES has been reported at 1.6 million. So go ahead and sign up to be a volunteer book reviewer, as it seems that the school system did not hire the requisite number to complete the task before the sun burns itself out. That is, if their abilities to persevere through twenty some odd sentences are comparable with yours.
DeleteUnamused, instead of “banning” certain books from being addressed at certain grade levels, perhaps we can just edit the author’s objectionable thoughts, ideas, and language in all the book reprints.
DeleteSound good to you?
Unamused- https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/18/roald-dahl-books-rewritten-to-remove-language-deemed-offensive
DeleteIn other British news:
Delete“In a remarkable twist, the Mail can reveal today that the mission to sanitise Dahl has been driven in part by the author's own family.
In fact, the Roald Dahl Story Company (RDSC), led by his grandson Luke Kelly, secretly agreed to Puffin embarking on a 'review' of the books in 2020.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11791077/How-Roald-Dahls-family-kept-370-million-gravy-train-track-writes-ALISON-BOSHOFF.html
Cecelia, I have no doubt that the editors of over forty percent of math textbooks in the state of Florida that were banned would consider removing a problem or two that contain objectionable substance, such as that meant to encourage empathy. On the other hand, let's give Kesey, Vonnegut, Salinger, Faulkner, Clemons and others or their heirs a call and see what they have to say about rewriting their work to satisfy the requirements of yahoos who are offended by books they wouldn't have read outside of school otherwise, for the overriding reason that they are books. Better yet, let's think seriously at this juncture about whether the Christian Taliban should be a dominant force in this culture. For their so called leader in the state of Florida, it's all about the theatrics.
Delete
Delete@11:32 PM
Sorry, but your word-salad is impossible to read, dear dembot. Try to calm down, concentrate, break your word-salads into logical paragraphs (as much as possible), and avoid obvious fallacies (at least the obvious ones).
...as for the crucial titles vs books controversy, as we remember your word-salad at the time talked about "books" not "titles". Hence, you have no one to blame but yourself.
But that was ages ago, dear. Why don't you get over yourself and move on with your all-important dembot business?
I understand that 4 sentence paragraphs are a struggle for you, tl/dr. Just keep working on it. Mommy will be proud that at least you tried.
DeleteMeh. Your mommy is too busy sucking my dick, dear dembot.
DeleteMao's so gender confused, he thinks he, not Cecelia, has a dick.
Delete
DeleteIndeed, Unamused's mommy is busy, sucking both our and Cecelia's dicks, simultaneously.
...which is, probably, the reason why Unamused is unamused...
"Indeed, Unamused's mommy is busy, sucking both our and Cecelia's dicks, simultaneously."
DeleteCongratulations, Mao. This is the smartest, most well-thought-out economic idea the Right has ever had.
Thank you, dear. Your brain-dead word-salads mean the world to us.
DeleteUnamused, who, but the man, doesn’t love empathetic math problems?
DeleteIt doesn’t matter where you put the decimal. Or the exclamation mark!
tl/dr: just keep your comments to 1-2 sentences so that when you proofread them you are not confused.
DeleteStupid school yard insults are stupid. I supposed Mao got set off by the reference to his Mommy, and it went downhill from there. In politics, truth has some role, but it competes with a lot of other things, and isn't necessarily effective, and rarely happens, more often half-truths, distortion, over-simplication.
DeleteThe Florida governor set out to own the libs, that was his sole objective, and he accomplished that empty goal.
DeleteNow all the right wing Somerby fanboys want to gloat, just another empty goal.
The true outcome of what the governor and his cohort of right wingers did is to damage society, to make life worse for everybody. They’re very proud morons.
tl/dr do I have to tell your mommy what a naughty boy you are to use such language? She would not be proud. How easy it was to reduce you to that. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:25am, you have sullied a sacred gender tenet of the left… and it’s crickets from them because you did it towards a conservative.
DeleteLove it! Thanks!
Great news. If you don't like the changes in the Roald Dahl books, there's a solution. Buy the copyrights, and you can keep the books the way they are.
DeleteCapitalism FTW!
Anonymouse 8:13am, you teach a lesson in the necessity of capitalism as well as a reverence for writers.
Deleteanon 8:13, the editing of the Roald Dahl books is one out of countless examples of Woke absurdity. they hired a sensitivity company to go through his delightful children's books to revise anything that might somehow be too upsetting to delicate children's minds. For example, a bully last named Gloop in the book is described as "enormously fat" it's now being revied to "enormous" - there are a lot of these types of changes, with even new paragraphs inserted. Libs tend to dismiss this type of thing as trivial and not harmful to the liberal cause, and in a way, who cares. On the other hand a lot of liberals are angry about the censorship, e.g., Salmon Rushdie, PEN America. The defenders against TDH's onslaughts against woke orthodoxy here dismiss the criticisms of Wokeness, even to go so far, in pure wokism, to claim that criticism of wokism is a form of "racism." Oh well.
DeleteAC/ MA,
DeleteLeave it to the "woke" Left to support Capitalism. You're not going to see Communists on the Right, like DeSantis, doing so.
anon 3:17, if you say so....
DeleteAC/ MA,
DeleteI couldn't find anything incorrect in 3:17's post either. I don't think anyone can.
What other News organization aside from Fox had the guts to build a Hannity tent across from Terri Schiavo's hospital to help promote a law that only applied to one person to save her life?... Checks notes. Nevermind, her brain was soup. But that was some damn fine reporting even if completely baseless. Agree with you they are by far the least best news org.
ReplyDelete
DeleteMeh. If you don't like it, dear dembot, don't watch it.
All there is to it.
It’s all there is to you, king of the idiots.
DeleteIf I stopped watching how would I know the hate and bullshit being fed to my family, friends, and neighbors? But being a free thinker and not a bot, I am sure you are not falling for it.
DeleteShrug. You will know, dear dembot, the way you do now: from watching your tribe's hate-mongering bullshit media.
DeleteFor the love of dog, Mao. Please go back to cosplaying as someone who doesn't love the establishment elite with all of their heart. This 2nd Grade humor nonsense is beneath Cecelia.
DeleteThe fact the Rupert Murdoch's own son called out his daddy's media empire as an enterprise whose business model revolves around doling out misinformation does not register with these morons because it is misinformation that allows them to feel good about their innate, however ignorant, prejudices.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:46 pm, since you asked… here’s my two cents- Oh, contraire, Pierre.
DeleteAnd don’t make assumptions about your family members, friends, and neighbors either.
Unamused, Rupert has two sons.
DeleteWhat is the other son’s opinion?
The Terri Schiavo case is a prime example of the workings of limited government, republican style. That is, limited to 24/7 harrassment of anyone who gets in the way of their craven agenda. Jeb Bush had some strong opinions on how to deal with recreational drugs as well, as long as they did not apply to his own family, his son a boarding prep school kid who somehow managed to remain a student (in a school with zero tolerance for marijuana use) , after being found with the stuff on at least one occasion .
DeleteUnamused, I assume by “craven agenda” you mean Shiavo’s parents and their desire that she remained alive and if need be, solely under their care.
DeleteSchiavo’s husband was her legal guardian at that point, not her parents. The court finally decided that her wishes did not include continued lifesaving procedures. I hope to God some Republican doesn’t step in to grandstand and try to alter my mother’s wishes expressed in her living will.
DeleteThe other son, you mean the one whose enterprise has been shown now to have knowingly marketed false claims that led to storming the Capital. Why should I care? The Schiavo parents who had no rights in the matter of sustaining a brain dead carcass with severe cerebral atrophy and no EEG activity for fifteen years? What's more there is no reason to think Mrs. Schiavo would have wanted to be force fed having arrived at that state via a severe eating disorder. Of course the republican governor got what he wanted out of the case, and when he lost tried to go after the husband via the attorney general of the state, in typical republican fashion. Your comments here are trolling bullshit not warranting a response, but there you have it.
DeleteYou have to realize, in 2005, Terry Schiavo was the type of deep thinker the GOP was recruiting to be a reliable Republican voter.
DeleteUnamused, I don’t just doubt, I utterly disbelieve, Mrs Schiavo’s husband would have ever referred to his wife as a “brain dead carcass”.
DeleteBut you do you. Only you. No one else wants your words put into their mouths.
I certainly do not give a crap what anyone calls me when I am 15 years and counting without EEG activity, but if some random blogger thinks that I should yield the rights my spouse has in the matter to parental control, then you are disrespecting me and my spouse. A court of law sided with her husband, and if you want to take the parental side against his, that is your foolish perogative.
Deleteprerogative
DeleteDear Anonymouse 11:55am, Unamused brought up Schiavo.
DeleteI defended Terri Schiavo, her parents, and her husband against Ubamused’s callousness.
No you didn’t. There’s something wrong with your brain.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:20pm, no, there’s something wrong with your glasses.
DeleteThe carnival circus that Terri Schiavo's parents unwisely and Jeb Bush calculatingly turned her last days into is what any normal person would render callous. Your calling offense to a word and defending these people against it has the theatrical style of some latter day Don Quixote. Rings a little hollow, but nice try.
Delete“Brain dead carcass” is several words.
DeleteBrain dead are two words that her husband espoused and, being brain dead, Terri couldn't have objected to. So no apologies extended. Her parents had fifteen years to rethink their position and ludicrously didn't. When the shoe fits. Brain dead. But you can count to three and if a registered republican are likely qualified to write a math text for Ron DeSantis.
DeleteUnamused, it’s that third word that Mr. Schiavo never would have uttered which makes the difference.
DeleteYour inability to glean that qualifies you as being the other two words- brain dead.
Brain dead Carcass/ Trump 2024!
DeleteCecelia has been a huge parent's rights advocate, since she found out how hard they fought child labor laws and unions.
DeleteHow can our own team be so terrible if we impress ourselves? In my experience, our team is highly self-critical.
ReplyDeletePointing your finger and hissing at any fellow liberal who goes off script is not “self-critical”.
DeleteThat’s why we never ever do that.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:17pm, you only do it every day.
DeleteNo liberal points and hisses, utter nonsense.
DeleteWe also don’t pretend to be female when we aren’t.
We do feel terrible you are trapped in a labyrinth of hate.
Anonymouse 9:23 pm, don’t feel terrible. I engage anonymices willingly in this labyrinth of their hate.
DeleteWithout a thought in the world,
DeleteSomerby has declared a war, while the rest of us are mainly trying to get Democrats elected to office.
ReplyDeleteSomerby’s language always seems to echo the right wing, even while he insists he is a liberal. Today he is as over-wrought as Tucker, the original excitable boy.
It is enough to get Biden reelected without takng down Murdoch and Fox news. Is it a coincidence that this call to arms arrives when Fox has abandoned Trump for DeSantis?
Somerby is less than the least of Democrat's challenges. Spending one quarter of a millisecond worrying about this blog in the context of the Democrat's battered brand is like standing on the beach trying to outyell a typhoon.
DeleteYour head is unbudgingly stuck in your ass. You actually help Democrats lose.
That’s what Somerby says too, but like everything else there’s no evidence of it. Biden is president for example.
DeletePopular voter winners in 7 of the
Deletelast 8 Presidential Elections not bad
for a “battered brand.”
I admit, given the quality
of the running against them,
the Dems wins are sadly close.
The only thing Democrats have going for them is low quality opponents.
Deletehttps://www.americanfamilyvoices.org/post/a-strategy-for-factory-towns
The Democratic Party and its progressive allies dug themselves into a deep hole in terms of Factory Towns and the people who live in them. Our brand is pretty damaged in these places, and voters are both cynical about what we are saying now, and unaware of all that Democrats have accomplished that will directly benefit them.
Bob has been trying to tell you for years exactly what this think tank is trying to tell you. And you kill the messenger in the lowest McCarthyite way and call the potential voters racists.
Your head is stuck forever in your ass. You could be dumber.
It's your fault that you are a stupid asshole but it's not your fault that the Democratic party is in the position they are in. That would be Hillary Clinton's fault.
DeleteAnonymouse 11;10 pm, no. What Dems have going for them is low quality advocates.
DeleteThat’s 7 popular votes of the last
Delete8. Only the white man’s affirmative
action ( the electoral college)
has saved the right. Bob likes
to find certain districts the Dems
have lost but…..
That’s 7 of the last 8.
The original commenter here was worried about this blog preventing the Democrats from winning another election.
Delete6:42,
DeleteThey shouldn't worry too much about it. The political set-up in the USA, has them competing in a two-party system. They'll continue to win elections because they're only running against Republicans.
Continue? They've lost half of the elections this century.
DeleteYes, continue.
DeletePer 8:49, they've won half of the elections this century.
11:10 you mean that phony think tank (I’ll leave it for another day) that says Biden is our best leader and that he will beat Trump, you mean that one? You fucking moron.
DeleteThat essay asserts silly claims preceded by words like “probably”, so yes that’s nearly as weak as the arguments Somerby makes.
There is zero evidence Trump voters can be persuaded, the notion is laughable. Somerby is a right winger which is why he pushes nonsense political strategy. Electoral politics is about motivation, not persuasion; Dem voters indeed are motivated by the fight for social justice - Lux is a grifter.
Thanks for playing, but you’re just running a con and nobody’s fooled by your foolishness.
Somerby says Schumer and Jeffries don’t understand the Dominion lawsuit, implying he does, all without pointing out a single mistake. I doubt that’s true.
ReplyDelete“We get little sense Shumer and Jeffries are
ReplyDeletereal clear on the basic fact” ….
the last of explanation on this speaks
volumes. Bob has ignored the basic
facts on the election lies for two years.
OT: well, the Murdoch case is in.
ReplyDeleteThanks National News media, for
inexplicably insisting we root
around in this tawdry, if unremarkable,
Murder Case. I saw no one even
try to justify why this story was
given such remarkable emphasis.
It received that level of media attention because the protagonists were of the same class as our burgeoning upper echelon media members.
DeleteWho could forget when economically anxious Republican voters were so pissed-off that Trump gave the rich and corporations a HUGE tax break, they collectively yawned?
DeleteGood times.
Anonymouse 8:41am, of course they weren’t pissed off.
DeleteTax breaks bring a loosening of the belt which results in expansion, salary increases, and more hiring.
Try stock buy backs, Cecelia.
DeleteDid Trump’s tax cuts boost hiring? Most companies say no
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/did-trumps-tax-cuts-boost-hiring-most-companies-say-no
Tax breaks can be logically expected to do very little for spending when the recipient already has many times over the capital to buy those items. The Arthur Laffer cult unfortunately predominates the republican tax policy mantra, not because they believe that crap, but because it gives them cover with the rubes that are so simple minded as to vote for them espousing such garbage. Economic models have the Laffer curve kicking in for economic stimulation when marginal tax rates are in the vicinity of 70%. The top tier makes most of their money in the capital gains tax bracket, which is why current and longstanding tax policy has the desired effect for the elite of consistently distributing capital disproportionately into their pockets. Read up on it or look ridiculous in the comments section.
DeleteOnly a crybaby would complain that tax breaks given to the copyright owner of Roald Dahl books was a mistake.
DeleteAnother spot-on post by Somerby.
ReplyDeleteAt 4:25, the media liberal who spends most
ReplyDeleteof their time bashing liberals is a corporate
Media staple. Bob is appalling/amusing
because he takes the tradition to
Nonsensical extremes.
Anonymouse 10:36 pm, I can’t evaluate the plausibility of your statement until you name the media liberal staples who do that.
DeleteBill Maher, Richard Cohen, Brian Williams, Alan Holmes….off into infinity…..
DeleteBill Maher for one.
DeleteThe New York Times, and slightly less so, the Washington Post. MSNBC/CNN is literally run by right wingers. Y’all wake me when a Somerby fanboy makes a coherent claim.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:49pm, you’re not exactly a reliable judge of such things.
DeleteYou bozos can’t tolerate Somerby criticizing a media that you deem as monolithically conservative.
"Monolithically" conservative?
DeleteSome of them know how to spell.
And those guys represent the entire…,completely green eyeshade…and conservative …U.S. media that Bob disses…much to your disapproval.
DeleteYou may be able to spell things correctly, but that’s all you can do.
Cecelia is the real thing.
DeleteI've been trying to goad her into making a good faith argument, for almost 6 months at TDH. She's withstood my challenge, and hasn't budged from posting nonsense.
"And once the crew hits the stage the crowd gets involved
ReplyDeleteWe show love they show it back all problems solved
You can boom shalock and jump to the sounds I pump
But I ain't quitting till I'm shitting on Donald Trump"
Anonymouse 1:30am, you’d better off with a real job.
DeleteCecelia, take your own advice, can’t you? Or better yet, get a LIFE. You’re aroused, exercised and compelled to respond, TO EVERY COMMENT by anonymous commenters to a blog of no importance?
Deletemh, better yet, you live your life.
DeleteOn Wednesday, Eli Lilly announced they were cutting the price of insulin to $35, in reaction to a long continuous pressure from Democratic politicians, thereby making life just a little better for millions of Americans.
ReplyDeleteAcross the aisle, republican goons spent the day searching for Hunter Biden's dick pics and whining to the world because Twitter took them down before the midterms.
https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lilly-supply-614000-additional-doses-bamlanivimab-and-etesevimab
DeleteEli Lilly is such a sweetheart.
Eli Lilly had no choice but to lower their prices:
Deletehttps://www.theverge.com/2022/7/8/23200404/california-insulin-drug-prices-governor-newsom
I suppose if a right winger ever had a salient and coherent point to make, they wouldn’t have such a rightly deserved bad reputation.
Funny you should mention that monoclonal antibody treatment. Expensive. Does not work and is advised against use for the Omicron variant, by the pharmaceutical company that manufactures the stuff. At a time when the omicron variant comprised well over 95% of new cases in the state of Florida, Ron DeSantis held a press conference for the sole purpose of excoriating the Biden administration for not supplying Florida with this expensive and ineffective drug. Subsequently he launched a campaign to investigate the risk of side effects from the vaccine, which has a proven efficacy at preventing severe COVID infection and death. It is not currently possible to obtain the vaccine from the office of a primary physician in Florida thanks to this investigation, although CVS and Walgreens stock it. Limiting the availability of a known effective prophylactic and espousing the benefit of an expensive and ineffective drug is DeSantis at his usual theatrical best, playing for the base.
DeleteGraveyards are filled with bodies that have a better ear for sarcasm and irony than anonymices and company.
DeleteWhat does your comment add to discussion Cecelia? It has no substance and only insults others. Why did you bother to write it?
DeleteAnonymouse 11:22pm, if you think my comment added nothing salient to the “discussion” why not merely ignore it?
DeleteIt’s an open and unmoderated comment board on the internet, not a symposium.
Graveyards are filled with bodies that showed up at the hospital unvaccinated and demanding hydroxychloroquine or invermectin. Largely thanks to right wing media outlets that lie to their subscribers as a business model. You would think that MAGA republicans could have gotten that one thing right considering that their cult hero helped fast track the vaccine.
DeleteThis entire blogboard is filled with anonymouse fever dreams.
DeleteIt’s a veritable zombi party of anonymices growling, walking into each other, and having their various appendages knocked off.
LOL, 3:56.
DeleteThe media's theory that there is a Republican voter who isn't a bigot, has been damaged by their inability to locate one.
Anonymouse flying monkey 8:29am, you’ve pumped into the wall and your nose is on the floor.
DeleteYou might want to pick it up.
Cecelia is drunk-commenting again.
DeleteCecelia says: "It’s an open and unmoderated comment board on the internet, not a symposium."
DeleteThis isn't exactly true. The blog is moderated, but for some reason Somerby only removes commercial spam and not troll droppings.