FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2025
But also, there went Joe: Yesterday, to be perfectly frank, there he went again!
Speaking frankly, the conduct in question was stumblebum conduct. At one point, the person in question—the sitting American president—actually said this:
SITTING AMERICAN PRESIDENT (4/17/25): You know, when I came in, they hit me with eggs. I just got there. I was here for one week, and they started screaming at me, "Eggs have gone through the roof."
I said, "I just got here." I was there for seven days, and I hear that eggs have done through the roof before I got there.
And there was screaming at me, the press. The fake news like you—you’re fake. And the fake news is screaming at me, like, about eggs.
I said, "I’ve only been here, this is my seventh day." And they were right, they went up 87% and you couldn’t get them. They said, "You won’t have eggs for Easter," which is coming up. Happy Easter, everybody! "You wont have eggs for Easter."
And we did an unbelievable job, and now, eggs are all over the place. And the price went down 92 percent.
Yes, that's what he said. Mediaite provides the videotape. To see the tape, just click here.
(Headline: "Trump Makes Preposterous Claim About Price of Eggs...")
Depending on where you start counting, and depending on who you trust, egg prices are (or aren't) down. But are prices down by 92 percent?
Possibly on the dark side of Mars, the planet to which his extremely peculiar DOGE dictator wants to escape, on a rocket ship, with 92 percent of his children.
(For the latest Wall Street Journal report, click here. No paywall.)
There the president had gone once again! Needless to say, he was also seen saying what you seebelow, on newly released videotape from the Fox News Channel.
On that newly released tape, he was being "interviewed "by the astonishing Rachel Campos-Duffy, a TV star who ostentatiously believes in as many as nine of the ten commandments:
SITTING AMERICAN PRESIDENT (4/17/25): Now, the one good thing is that, this term—I call it the third term, right? I just don’t want the results of the second term.
CAMPOS-DUFFY (chuckling): Yeah.
SITTING AMERICAN PRESIDENT: But we won it three times. But I don’t want the results because it was terrible.
What they’ve done to the border— When you think of it, what they’ve done to this country, with the wars—Russia Ukraine would have never happened. October 7th in Israel would have never happened. Therefore, you wouldn’t have hostages to worry about. You wouldn’t have— You wouldn’t have had anything because Iran was broke.
[Filibuster proceeds without interruption]
How about open borders? Open borders let the entire world pour into our country from prisons and everything else. But let the entire world—and it’s not South America, it’s the whole world, from— The Congo is one of the biggest—prisoners from the Congo, Congo jails, pouring into our country.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yeah.
He was still insisting that he won the 2020 election, with the Fox star chuckling along.
And then, just like that, we were back with the tale of the Congo prisons and jails ("and everything else," traditionally meaning the "insane asylums, the Silence of the Lambs stuff"). At this link, Mediaite provides the tape of this latest imitation of life.
There he had gone again! Finally, back in real time and on live TV, the president made a remarkable statement concerning the rendition of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a notorious "prison" in El Salvador:
The rendition had violated an existing court order. His administration originally said that it had been done through "administrative error."
It was an open admission of error. Weeks later, the president was saying this:
REPORTER (4/17/25): “If the court holds you in contempt, will you take steps to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States and put him in front of a judge?
SITTING AMERICAN PRESIDENT: Well, I’m not involved in it. I’m going to respond by saying you’ll have to speak to the lawyers—the DOJ.
I’ve heard many things about him, and, uh— We’ll have to find out what the truth is.
At this link, Mediaite lets you see the tape.
We’ll have to find out what the truth is! At this late date, what a remarkable thing to say!
The person in question has now spent a month inside a Central American hellhole, and the president—he isn't involved in it—says we'll have to find out what is true!
In fairness, the sitting president almost surely wasn't involved in the original decision—in the "administrative error"—by which Abrego Garcia was detained and rendered.
That said, he still says the isn't involved—and he says we still don't know the truth of the situation.
From there, he immediately transitioned to complaints about the Biden administration (and those Congo jails). For the record, some of those complains are fully justified, a point we'll be discussing next week.
Full disclosure! We're using a couple of words this morning—stumblebum, but also crackpot—which have never played a major role in standard modern journalism.
That said, we're looking at extremely unusual conduct—conduct our mainstream press corps has chosen not to describe. You could almost say they've avoided that task like the plague.
The other fellow—Elon Musk—has also engaged in weeks of astonishing conduct which passes well beyond the point of anything normally seen from any major government agent. What language should our major journalists use to describe such unusual conduct?
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. The crackpot behavior has been endless.
Also endless has been the avoidance—the refusal by newspapers like the New York Times to come to terms with this dangerous bit of reality.
In fairness, the challenge is substantial. No one has ever seen crackpot behavior to this extent from such major officials. If you throw in the conduct of TV performers like Campos-Duffy, newspapers like the New York Times have been faced with the challenge of describing a situation for which their predecessors were ever forced to create created a standard journalistic playbook.
What sort of language should journalists sue to describe such abnormal behavior? What sort of specialists should they interview with respect to this behavior?
(We almost never use the word "experts.")
Who should they talk to? What should they ask? What sorts of journalistic frameworks should they build around this astounding behavior?
In our view, our biggest news orgs have been taking a pass on such dilemmas right up to the present day.
They've been acting like this is a type of business as usual; in our view, it plainly isn't. In his new opinion column, David Brooks paints a somewhat similar portrait of what our journalists have done:
So far, we have treated the various assaults of President Trump and the acolytes in his administration as a series of different attacks. In one lane they are going after law firms. In another they savaged U.S.A.I.D. In another they’re attacking our universities. On yet another front they’re undermining NATO and on another they’re upending global trade.
But that’s the wrong way to think about it. These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back.
[...]
What is happening now is not normal politics. We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to—Democrat, independent or Republican.
What's happening now "is not normal," Brooks says. Few things could be more clear, but the news division of his paper has been treating the various assaults of President Trump and the acolytes in his administration as if they were part of some normal politics—as if there was "nothing to look at" here, nothing fundamentally astounding.
Camus described it fairly well. The fictional citizens of his fictional Oran weren't willing, or weren't able, to see that something fundamental had come to pass in their midst. They continued with their normal procedures, and a plague took hold in their town.
So it has gone with the endless crackpot behavior of people like the sitting president and Elon Musk and the Fox News Channel's legion of Campos-Duffy types. (At the New York Times, editors would hold hands and leap from the George Washington Bridge before they'd assign someone to report what happens on Fox.)
Brooks has broken from the past, in his last column and again today. Yesterday morning, we showed you what he said last week. This morning, his new column starts like this, instructive headline included:
What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal.
In the beginning there was agony. Under the empires of old, the strong did what they willed and the weak suffered what they must.
But over the centuries, people built the sinews of civilization: Constitutions to restrain power, international alliances to promote peace, legal systems to peacefully settle disputes, scientific institutions to cure disease, news outlets to advance public understanding, charitable organizations to ease suffering, businesses to build wealth and spread prosperity, and universities to preserve, transmit and advance the glories of our way of life. These institutions make our lives sweet, loving and creative, rather than nasty, brutish and short.
Trumpism is threatening all of that. It is primarily about the acquisition of power—power for its own sake. It is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men...
So far, we have treated the various assaults of President Trump and the acolytes in his administration as a series of different attacks. In one lane they are going after law firms. In another they savaged U.S.A.I.D. In another they’re attacking our universities. On yet another front they’re undermining NATO and on another they’re upending global trade.
But that’s the wrong way to think about it. These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back.
[...]
What is happening now is not normal politics. We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to—Democrat, independent or Republican.
"What's happening is not normal!" That's what the freaking headline says!
More accurate words were never spoken. It's a very important statement.
Brooks is calling for a new approach—for a new attitude. He himself is writing a different kind of opinion column—but what should the front page do?
We wouldn't rush to use words like "stumblebum" in front=page news reporting. We wouldn't refer to people as "crackpots," though we'd certainly start to inch over toward the possible use of such terms.
We would start interviewing the only kinds of people who can offer something like expertise concerning the highly unusual conduct we've been seeing from people like YouKnowWho and Musk. We'd interview people with professional experience dealing with abnormal psychology, though we'd be very careful about which such experts we chose.
Something else is true. President Trump has made various claims about the allegedly appalling conduct which occurred during the Biden years.
Get this! Some of the president's claims do have obvious merit!
We Blues have endlessly disappeared discussion of such conduct. This very morning, Joe Scarborough went off his meds again, misstating an array of facts about the Abrego Garcia case.
Last year, he told us that President Biden had never been sharper. In doing that, he probably helped Trump get elected.
This morning, there he went again!
Also, he and Katty Kay pretended that the Morning Joe program actually cares about the rape and murder of Rachel Morin. These statements were as phony as the other guy's statements have been endlessly crackpot—and the blatant phoniness of those comments will likely be mocked on Fox, in front of that channel's large viewership.
It's time for truth and reconciliation—meaning truth even from us! At this site, we'll be probing that topic next week.
As winning candidates sometimes say, It's time for a change! But also, it may be too late.
What's happening now isn't even slightly normal. What's happening is also extremely dangerous. and it's very much time for a change!
ReplyDeleteGreat job bringing eggs prices down, Mr. President. Thank you. Great job, ongoing, draining the swamp. Great job eliminating government waste fraud and abuse. Keep it up, please.
Yes, and as usual: idiot-Democrats squealing about their agony is just perfect. Beautiful. More of that shit, please.
Dow down another 500 today. Look out below!
DeleteAnd remember, each tariff makes the swamp bigger as countries and businesses rush to Washington to make a deal for their exemption.
DeleteThe delusion/cope of 10:12 is not too interesting, but good for a chuckle I guess, MAGA tears to sip on in the morning, like a nice cup of coffee.
Delete@11:16 Not today. The Dow takes a break from trading for Good Friday.
DeleteSure. And now back to reality:
Delete"Trump has been an economic failure. On his watch, growth has slowed, consumer and business confidence has cratered, and markets have plunged, along with Americans’ wealth. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that “growth has slowed in the first quarter of this year from last year’s solid pace” and that Trump’s tariffs will result in higher inflation and slower growth.
He has been a foreign-policy failure. He said he would end wars in Gaza and Ukraine. But fighting has resumed in Gaza after the demise of the ceasefire negotiated by his predecessor, and Russia continues to brutalize Ukraine, making a mockery of Trump’s naive overtures to Vladimir Putin.
He has been a failure in the eyes of friends, having launched a trade war against Canada, Mexico, Europe and Japan; enraged Canada with talk of annexation; threatened Greenland and Panama; and cleaved the NATO alliance.
He has been a failure in the eyes of foes, as an emboldened China menaces Taiwan, punches back hard in the trade war and spreads its global influence to fill the vacuum left by Trump’s retreat from the world.
He has been a constitutional failure. His executive actions, brazen in their disregard for the law, have been slapped down more than 80 times already by judges, including those appointed by Republicans. He is flagrantly defying a unanimous Supreme Court, and his appointees are facing contempt proceedings for their abuse of the legal system.
He has been a failure in public opinion. This week’s Economist/YouGov poll finds 42 percent approving his performance and 52 percent disapproving — a 16-point swing for the worse since the start of his term. Majorities say the country is on the wrong track and out of control.
Even his few “successes” amount to less than meets the eye. Border crossings are down from already low levels, but despite all the administration’s bravado, there’s little evidence of an increase in deportations. Hopes for cost-cutting under the U.S. DOGE Service, which Elon Musk originally projected at $1 trillion this year, have been scaled back to just $150 billion — and much of that appears to be based on made-up numbers.
But Trump, whose 100th day in office is April 30, has achieved one thing that is truly remarkable: He has introduced a level of chaos and destruction so high that historians are hard-pressed to find its equal in our history.
He has upended global structures that kept the peace for generations. He has aligned America with the world’s despots. He has slashed the federal workforce and impaired the government’s ability to collect taxes, administer Social Security and fund medical research, among many other things. He has abused his power in startling ways, using the government for personal vengeance and retribution against perceived opponents, harassing law firms, universities and the free press with an authoritarian flourish. He has shattered the guardrails that limit executive power, ignoring laws, eliminating inspectors general and other mechanisms for accountability and oversight. He has displayed gratuitous cruelty in the treatment of migrants and government workers alike. He has used the government to undertake breathtaking schemes of self-enrichment. And he has left a large number of his countrymen angry and frightened.
...
Previous restructurings of government were done with careful planning and with bipartisan congressional support. But Trump “doesn’t come in as a reformer as much as a wrecking ball,” [historian Douglas] Brinkley says. “What we’re witnessing with Trump is just raw vengeance and belittling fellow Americans and creating a tinderbox situation that makes people feel we’re in a neo civil war that could go sideways at any moment.” Brinkley also notes that previous attempts at executive overreach — FDR’s court packing, Nixon’s abuses — were repelled by members of each president’s own party. But now, Republicans are silent. “That’s the missing ingredient of our time,” he says.
[cont. below]
"Another key difference: We have been through ruinous periods before, but never when the president was the one actively and knowingly causing the ruin. During past upheaval, there “wasn’t this sense that the White House, the president, is directing the destruction of 250-year-old American values,” [historian David] Greenberg says. He also notes that, because of the expansion of the executive powers over the past century, particularly during the New Deal and the Cold War, Trump has more ability to cause destruction than his predecessors did. “I don’t think we’ve ever had the combination of such a vast and extensive executive apparatus and at the same time an attempt to eliminate the built-in safeguards,” he says.
DeleteSome executive orders have a proud place in our history because they had noble aims or produced lofty accomplishments: the Emancipation Proclamation. The Manhattan Project. Enforcing school desegregation in Little Rock. But Trump’s orders are more likely to be remembered alongside those establishing Japanese internment and Operation Wetback because they are based in cruelty and in his insatiable lust for vengeance. “It’s not hyperbole to say this is the weirdest 100 days of any president in American history,” says Brinkley, “because, at its root, it is pathological narcissism.”
In the end, Trump’s 100 days, and his presidency generally, will be judged harshly for what they were not. “We remember great civilizations for their great achievements,” Greenberg says. Scientific advancement. Contributions to arts and letters. Human progress. Trump is reversing them all....
Trump thumbed his nose at the Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling saying the administration must “facilitate” the return of a migrant deported to a Salvadoran prison in violation of a court order. Instead, Trump hosted El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, the self-described “world’s coolest dictator,” who said the notion of returning the man is “preposterous.”
Reviews by CBS News and the New York Times found that the vast majority of migrants deported had no criminal records — but they are now imprisoned without due process in inhumane conditions. And now, Trump says he wants to send American citizens to the notorious prison in El Salvador. “Home-growns are next,” he told Bukele. “You’ve got to build about five more places” to imprison them. Trump and aides have lied about the Supreme Court ruling, saying that they “won” the case. Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission’s chief, Brendan Carr, threatened Comcast’s broadcasting licenses because he didn’t like what MSNBC was reporting about the dispute.
In another case, that of a Tufts University student abducted by masked federal agents and held for deportation, The Post’s John Hudson reports that the State Department determined that it did not have evidence that she engaged in antisemitic activities or supported a terrorist organization, as the government claims. And, in the latest attempted invasion of Americans’ privacy, DOGE is seeking access to a sensitive Medicare database as part of a scheme to find undocumented immigrants.
Harvard University said it would not surrender to the Trump administration’s demands that it give up its academic freedom (Trump officials had demanded changes to the school’s governance, hiring and treatment of foreign students), saying the demands “go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.” In response to Harvard’s defiance, detailed in a letter by two conservative lawyers, the administration froze $2.2 billion in grants and contracts to the school — forcing the school to halt research to fight Lou Gehrig’s disease, radiation sickness and tuberculosis. [cont. below]
"At the same time, the administration is planning an even more devastating blow to medical research: a 40 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health, The Post reports, part of a one-third cut to the Department of Health and Human Services. The administration eliminated 43 of about 200 experts from boards overseeing such research, and, in case you wonder what motivates such cuts, it turns out 38 of the 43 were female, Black or Hispanic.
DeleteThe administration also is threatening to block Harvard from enrolling any foreign students, and it has asked the IRS to take the outrageous step of revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status; Trump is now expressly embracing the sort of viewpoint discrimination that furious conservatives alleged the IRS did a decade ago, when lower-level officials subjected tax-exempt applications from mostly conservative groups to lengthy scrutiny. Trump’s IRS will likely look favorably on his request....
As the IRS becomes another partisan weapon for Trump, it is planning to cut its staff in half and slash compliance enforcement. The administration continues hacking away at the federal government. It is now illegally dismantling AmeriCorps, following similar moves at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Voice of America and National Endowment for the Humanities, among many others.
After a (Trump-appointed) federal judge ordered the administration to stop its violation of the Associated Press’s First Amendment rights and return the news organization to the White House “pool” rotation, the White House this week responded by eliminating the slot for all news wires, including Reuters and Bloomberg. It is moving toward an arrangement where, in briefings and in Q&A sessions with Trump, most of the questioning will be done by right-wing outlets. Separately, Trump, unhappy with reporting on him by “60 Minutes” on Sunday, called for CBS to have its license revoked.
The administration’s losing streak in court continues apace. Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg opened contempt proceedings after the administration defied his order blocking certain deportations; other judges continue to block Trump’s deportations conducted without due process. A fourth law firm, Susman Godfrey, won an order blocking Trump’s punitive targeting, which the judge called “a shocking abuse of power.” Another judge stopped the administration from “unlawfully” terminating climate grants, and still another judge directed agencies to release the funds.
In Ukraine, Russia has stepped up its attacks, despite Trump’s attempts to force a settlement on Ukraine that would be favorable to Putin. Trump continued to blame the victim in the conflict: “You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.” The Post’s Spencer Hsu and Aaron Schaffer report that Trump’s interim U.S. attorney for D.C., Ed Martin, provided commentary more than 150 times on the Russian government’s propaganda outlets RT and Sputnik between 2016 and 2024, often echoing Russian talking points; he failed to report the appearances to Congress, as required for his nomination.
Stock markets kept up their wild swings as they tried to adjust to the chaos of Trump’s trade war. One Fed governor, Christopher Waller, on Monday called Trump’s tariffs “one of the biggest shocks to affect the U.S. economy in many decades.” After the Fed’s chair, Powell, warned that the tariffs would hurt growth and inflation, Trump on Thursday morning posted on Truth Social that “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” Federal law prevents Trump from sacking Powell — but legality has not been a barrier to Trump so far. [cont. below]
"In an apparent tariff climbdown, the administration said in a statement that it would make an “exception” and exempt consumer electronics from a massive tariff on Chinese goods — only for Trump to say “there was no Tariff ‘exception’ announced.” China has retaliated by suspending the export of rare earth minerals — essential for advanced technology — that the United States relies upon for 90 percent of its supply. As China tries to win over disaffected American allies, Trump continues to alienate them: The White House press secretary continued to taunt Canada, saying Wednesday the country “would benefit greatly from becoming the 51st state.”...
Delete...Trump Media launched a new attempt to monetize his presidency: branded investment accounts meant to benefit from Trump’s policies. And the White House physician, after Trump’s annual examination, credited Trump’s fine health to his “active lifestyle,” which includes “frequent victories in golf events.”
Is the good doctor unaware that Trump “wins” only on courses he owns?
On one hand, Trump’s lawlessness is terrifying: This is what happens when a government is run not by the rule of law but by the whim of one man. On the other, it is an admission of weakness: He doesn’t have the power to achieve his aims through legitimate means, so he’s trying to attain them illegally. Happily, the backlash is building.
Harvard’s fresh resistance to Trump’s attacks on academic freedom has stiffened the spine of Columbia University and others. Law firms that reached settlements with Trump to avoid punishment because of his personal vendettas are rethinking their arrangements. They are discovering, as other corporate leaders hopefully now realize, that there is no appeasing Trump, because he will always demand more. California has sued Trump over his tariffs....
...A dozen nervous House Republicans sent a letter to their leadership warning that they would oppose Trump’s major tax-and-spending bill if it “includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations.” That’s awkward, because the budget outline for the bill, which these same lawmakers supported, requires some $800 billion in such cuts.
The pressure on Trump and his enablers — from the public, the courts, the states, universities, advocates, businesses and the media — should only increase from here, and it must. This is what will prevent the next 1,360 days from being as disastrous as the first 100."
https://wapo.st/3RWUWg8
DeleteI am one sad retard. My stockpiles of loony word-salads are endless.
I am Corby.
2:36, that is a keeper. It is so hard to remember and keep track of all the corruption and criminality and authoritarians acts already coming out of this administration. It is necessary to keep track and remember. Thank you for posting that article.
DeleteHouthis FAFO
ReplyDelete“US air strikes on a key oil terminal on Yemen's Red Sea coast controlled by the Houthi movement have killed at least 74 people and wounded 171 others, the Houthi-run health ministry says.”
Small minded DiC.
DeleteActually it's quite important that ships of all nations be able to navigate the Suez Canal. Trump is actually doing something to solve the problem. The usual politician's approach is to make a few mild efforts that accomplish nothing. Just enough so that they can claim to be "trying". Trump is trying, he's doing.
DeleteTrump isn't even trying.
Delete"That said, we're looking at extremely unusual conduct—conduct our mainstream press corps has chosen not to describe. "
ReplyDeleteHow would Somerby know what the president has said or done without descriptions by the press? He is not present in the White House and has no idea what anyone is saying or doing without press reports.
These sorts of blatantly ridiculous statements don't help Somerby to communicate what he finds lacking in press coverage. Obviously, the press has been covering Trump. If Somerby is complaining about some specific aspect of press coverage, he should state what that is, not make these obviously untrue complaints about press coverage.
"What language should our major journalists use to describe such unusual conduct?
ReplyDeleteThe woods are lovely, dark and deep. The crackpot behavior has been endless. "
Maybe the mainstream press should insert lines from dead conservative poets to amplify their reports, as Somerby does? Does anyone know what he means when he quotes this line from Frost (always without attribution)? Does it help explain why behavior is crackpot or extremely unusual? Does it say anything to anyone except Somerby (for whom it seems to be either meaningless filler or some personal code)?
How does a crackpot old fool like Somerby have the nerve to lecture the working press about communication and language while sticking in phrases like this that have absolutely no meaning to anyone, communicate nothing, and make Somerby seem like he went off his rocker a long time ago?
Fictional citizens in a fictional city experiencing a fictional plague that Camus intended as a metaphor for something Somerby never mentions and that is obviously not our current situation, have nothing whatsoever to do with talking about what Trump is doing to our country. Why does Somerby waste words and space by even mentioning it? Does he imagine that anyone is impressed that he perhaps read a few pages from a book that was required reading for college students when Somerby attended Harvard? Is this a form of literary name-dropping on Somerby's part? Readers might be more impressed if he were to use such references appropriately instead of sticking them into the middle of text where they do nothing but obstruct and have no meaning.
ReplyDeleteWho is the crackpot? Can a crackpot call another person a crackpot with any credibility? Perhaps this is why Somerby is so indirect when he plays at criticizing Trump (who he urges us to pity, as recently as yesterday). Perhaps Somerby fears saying anything concrete to or about anyone, and that is why he confines his complaints to some unspecified blue media that has no real existence. There is a red media and it is Fox. There is no corresponding blue media. There is a corporate, mainstream, legacy press and there is an independent media, but no blue media. That is Somerby's invention. Critiquing an entity that has no real existence is the safest way on earth to ensure there will be no reprisals. Is Somerby that cowardly that he must always obfuscate and never say what he means about a made-up blue press that not only will not ever come after him, but cannot care what he writes, because they don't fucking exist!
So, why does Somerby write anything at all? You tell me. I have no idea why he wastes his time here, except that he does manage to spread right wing memes and talking points and despite labeling himself liberal, clearly has nothing to say to liberals. And his fanboys care enough to defend him when he goes out on limbs for the right. But who is crazy enough to pay Somerby to denigrate Einstein and hint that Bondi is accurate sometimes? Somerby today argues that Trump is pretty crazy. But is he crazy enough to pay Somerby for writing tripe? Worse people are getting paid for shitting on America these days. Why not Somerby?
So nobody is crazy enough to pay Somerby, but somebody is. Do I get that right?
DeleteSpeaking of wasting words and space...
Deleteanon 10:47 - you ask "who is the crackpot?" Certainly, it's you.
DeleteI'm a crackpot for wanting to find some sense in what Somerby has written?
DeleteI obviously have no way to know whether Somerby is being paid for what he writes, but it is a better explanation than that he would write crap like this that makes no sense and wastes everyone's time, including his own.
Psychologists are interested in people and why they do what they do. Somerby's behavior here makes very little sense. If there were an obvious explanation, I would probably lose interest and stop reading him. That is the hook.
"There is a corporate, mainstream, legacy press and there is an independent media, but no blue media."
DeleteAI Overview:
"Blue" political coverage, in the context of American politics, refers to news reporting and analysis that aligns with or is perceived to favor the Democratic Party and liberal viewpoints.
“Perceived to favor?” Well, that’s problematical, because perceptions are not always based in reality.
DeleteAnd the entire point of denying there is a true “blue” media is the idea that outlets like New York Times and the Washington Post do not in reality align with nor favor the Democratic Party. You only have to look back at the daily howler from 1998 to 2000 or so when Somerby frequently made the assertion that the so-called liberal media was not really liberal.
Blue coverage doesn't mean there is a blue media, much less a Blue America as Somerby uses the term. He is trying to generalize inappropriately, in my opinion. Fox has a Republican propaganda machine going. There is no blue equivalent to that. The blue political spectrum is more diverse, less cohesive, less homogeneous. The right has message control and talking points. On the left, people go their own way. But there is no left equivalent to the way the right operates with party discipline. Liberal viewpoints are varied. The Democratic Party is only a thing during elections and then it reflects the party platform and the views of the nominee. The right now is defined by Trump, either MAGA or anti-Trump. The anti-Trumpers do not have access to Red media such as Fox. They sometimes appear in mainstream or legacy media and that does not make them Blue.
DeleteCNN and MSNBC cover Trump exhaustively. When is the last time either of them did a report showing Trump in a positive light?
DeleteReally, they're not blue? (meaning Dems not libs).
CNN has Trumpist people on all those god awful panel shows.
Delete"Really, they're not blue? (meaning Dems not libs)."
DeleteCorrect.
Egg prices are up and Trump is killing children in Yemen which unsurprisingly has done nothing to lessen Houthis' attacks.
ReplyDeleteSo of course trolls, addled by being stuck in their windowless bunker and their gruel being ever more rationed, attack an obscure right wing blog with lazy falsehoods.
Nearly a laugh.
"Brooks is calling for a new approach—for a new attitude. He himself is writing a different kind of opinion column—but what should the front page do?"
ReplyDeleteIs Somerby really calling for the news reporting side of the NY Times to start editorializing with its front page? It would turn the NY Times into a biased outlet. It would also focus the attention of Trump and his govt on the press and they might attempt to place limits and controls on the press that would undermine its independence, even more than the right-wing ownership of such papers has already done. It would undermine trust in the objectivity and fairness of reporting on that front page.
The first amendment of the constitution allows even biased reporting to be published without government interference, but is it a good idea to turn news reports into editorial spaces throughout the paper? I don't think so.
In a sense, the biased reporting in favor of Trump during the last campaign (and before that) already used front page reports to push Trump's candidacy. It is sufficient to report Trump's actions without making the paper one giant editorial against him, as Somerby seems to advocate.
Brooks has come late to the party in terms of recognizing the damage Trump is doing to our nation. But he is still a Republican, a conservative. Why would we liberals want to see his views dominate the front page, when our own voices have been fighting Trump since before the election? If anyone were to become the voice of our nation, a front page clarion call to action, it wouldn't be Brooks. As an actual liberal, I would greatly prefer AOC and Bernie, and the Democrats fighting the fight against Trump, Musk, Doge and the rest of the Republican craziness.
The coven is doing a mass anonymouse assault on Bob today. They were up till all hours searching the files and preparing for it. You know… the kind of assault where anonymices simultaneously charge Somerby with being a paid influencer for Russia and a superfluous untalented nobody failure. They relentlessly launch personal attacks on a blogger and his blog, but anyone who defends or merely finds Bob an interesting read is a troll in their scheme. I’ve written Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk with the idea of launching their crew into outer space, but that’s too cruel a thing to do to the cosmos.
ReplyDeleteEither or, Cecelia. He is either a paid hack or a demented old man, not necessarily both. And you are definitely a troll, based on your mind-reading of Somerby, the lack of substance in your comments and your attacks on other commenters here.
DeleteAnonymouse 11:21sm, when actions belie words, as they endlessly do with your coven, it’s the actions that tell the story. You aren’t fooling anyone.
DeleteCecelia is a troll that thinks it is funny that they are a man pretending to be a woman, with many of their comments unironically attacking transgender people.
DeleteHe is easily triggered by comments that criticize Somerby too acutely and accurately, defending his hero that provides him emotional comfort from the distraught over his delusional sense of dominance constantly being challenged.
Poor poor Cecelia, we pity him (per instructions from Somerby), even though he is a creepy old dude.
It takes Cecelia a long time to write the short quips she posts, so she assumes that those of us with better writing skills take a long time too, staying up all night to anticipate what Somerby might spew the next day. That is so obviously ridiculous that I feel sorry for her and how poor her own language skills must be to think this.
DeleteAnonymouse 11:43am, you’re an anonymouse trying to impersonate a sentient human being. Believing that gender is predicated upon biology is not a personal attack on tranfolks. However, anonymices ARE here for the specific reason of attacking Bob and anyone who disagrees with you and in the course of your tenure have called Bob demented, a pedophile, gay, a dishonest man, and a paid operative. That’s for starters. Anonymices are nearly ALL the things you accuse Bob of being.
DeleteCoven is obviously intended by Cecelia as a derogatory term. It has been associated with witches who worship the devil. I wonder if Cecelia is aware that she is also denigrating the modern day religion of Wicca?
Delete"Wicca, an alternative minority religion whose adherents, regardless of gender, call themselves witches, began in the U.K. in the 1940s. Wicca and Witchcraft are part of the larger contemporary pagan movement, which includes druids and heathens among others."
I realize that Cecelia most likely doesn't care who she insults, but I do suppose that she might like to actually hit her intended target and not just spray nastiness around indiscriminately.
I am not personally Wiccan and I do not belong to a coven. Even if I did, attacking someone's religion instead of their opinions strikes me as a bigoted approach to discussion, even by right wingers. But there are also trolls using anti-Semitic references here. All of these violate the blogspot rules about hate speech.
Anonymouse 11:47am, you guys make strategize and you plot. You’re not at all subtle.
DeleteAnd goodness knows you’re witches.
DeleteOddly, it is the fanboys of Somerby who most often refer to him as a pedophile. I suspect that Somerby's inappropriate comments about Anne Frank arise as a coded message to his white supremacist readers. Hard to say about his defense of Roy Moore though. That could have just been his daily assignment by his right wing handlers, given that Moore was running for office as a Republican at the time the accusations against him were being reported.
DeleteSomerby was almost certainly a victim of childhood abuse, suffering the attendant trauma.
DeleteSomerby himself has admitted being inappropriate towards young women, and some here may have even witnessed or been a victim of such behavior.
But no, we do not refer to Somerby as a pedo, what we do do is suspect some of the trolls/fanboys of possibly suffering from pedo predilections, which is almost always a manifestation of childhood abuse.
The way Cecelia mangles English is almost as hilarious as the way he pretends to be a woman (check out @11:59).
DeleteHilarious, but also sad, when you consider how many wounds Cecelia carries around with him.
It is a pity.
No legitimate reader - critic or fan- of Somerby has called him a pedophile. That’s just one of the many dreadfully slanderous appellations that your coven has hung on him. The Roy Moore canard is something you always like to roll out. In the course of the operation against Moore (and there was one) a point was made about Moore saying that he first noticed his wife when she was fifteen or sixteen. Bob’s point was was that it’s only been within the last fifty or so years that teenage wives were considered unusual. My mother had only recently turned 18 when she married my 29-year-old dad. Bob’s argument was that mores (some geographically based )have changed with the times and his point was some needed context.
DeleteAnonymouse 12:22pm, the way you mangle fair play and logic should be your concern.
DeleteSomerby's defense of Moore, who was believably accused of raping a minor (aside from his notorious trolling of malls looking for teens while in his 30s), was shameful.
DeleteBut it was not surprising, coming from someone with a history of creepily trying to flirt with young women who made it clear they had zero interest in him (I mean, who would? he's an ancient doddering old bachelor).
Anonymouse 12:37pm, there are a jillion bloggers who will tell you what you wish to hear every day, all day. This one won’t. Whether you’re on the right or the left. Go find an honest way to make a living.
Delete"No legitimate reader - critic or fan- of Somerby has called him a pedophile. That’s just one of the many dreadfully slanderous appellations that your coven has hung on him."
DeleteThere's nothing "dreadfully slanderous" about it. We Democrats view Minor Attracted Persons (MAPs) as an oppressed minority, the most stigmatized group in our society.
Cecelia, your mom was to young. That’s why you’re abnormal.
DeleteAnonymouse 12:47pm, statements such as yours are very reassuring when they come from anonymices.
DeleteAnonymouse 1:24pm, you’d be happier if babies in general were sacrificed to Digby.
DeleteThat 12:47 comment was gratuitously cruel. Also, it was misspelled. It’s “too”, not “to”.
DeleteThe right wing is where the accusations of pedophilia come from. Biden and even Hillary Clinto were so accused. There are actual abusers of underage girls on the right, such as Matt Gaetz and Trump himself. Given that right wing accusations are confessions, perhaps that is why they so often try to call the left pedos. The word is now overused. But Somerby should still try to avoid gushing over 12 year olds and defending the men who are exhibiting inappropriate sexual behavior. I wouldn't join the incels speculating that girls lose their appeal when they turn legal, either.
DeleteHere is a link to Digby's blog, for those who wonder who Cecelia is talking about. Digby doesn't participate here, but she is a hell of lot better blogger than Somerby, and always has been. She too goes way back to 2000, but unlike Somerby she has won awards for her writing.
Deletehttps://digbysblog.net/
You can't blame childhood abuse for wrongdoing as an adult. Most people who were abused do not do bad things as a consequence. There is a responsibility for anyone who has trauma to work it out with a therapist and prevent their issues from harming others.
DeleteSomerby has this idea that losing one's father to divorce or death is maiming in adulthood. He calls men who share that experience of loss "Lost Boys". In studies of the effects of early childhood loss, most boys who experience what happened to Tucker Carlson or J.D. Vance or Somerby himself do not wind up as the bizarre creatures these men have become. Most boys get over divorces and adjust, leading normal and fulfilling lives. People are responsible for their own life choices.
Anonymouse 4:25pm, so your argument is that anonymices are going by the rightwing playbook when it comes to their treatment of Somerby. Duly noted.
DeleteNo, as I pointed out earlier, no one on the left has accused Somerby of being a pedophile.
DeleteSomerby is negligible. Digby is outstanding.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:11pm, you’re lying.
DeleteI am saddened by the Times's lack of balance. Anyone should be able to write a column arguing either side of a controversial issue. All one has to do is look at conservative and liberal sites to see what the arguments are.
ReplyDeleteBut, the Times eschews balance. Their allegedly conservative pundit is vociferously arguing the anti Trump side. Apparently they will not not allow the pro-Trump side to be published in their newspaper.
You misunderstand. The Times has not actually done this -- Somerby is proposing it should do it. Brooks wrote an editorial, not a news report. The pro-Trump side appears in editorials all the time. If anything, the balance is in favor of conservatives.
Delete11:19 your comment is fine but you misunderstand too, DiC is not genuine, he is a troll stuck in a windowless bunker coerced into posting comments full of misinformation and bad faith arguments.
DeleteDue to his circumstance, he is exceedingly lonely and desperate for attention, unfortunately any attention only enables his worst traits, spreading misery to both blog readers and himself.
DiC thinks the Times should give Brooks' column to Mike Lindell.
DeleteBrooks is a weasel, at least Mike Lindell is relatively open with his fascistic views.
DeleteFor a more "balanced" view of David fucking Brooks, read the great Driftglass. Always.
DeleteBrooks comes up often over the decades because he was the most committed, effective and ubiquitous Conservative operative inside the establishment media. A middleman -- sort of the Right wing's pet PBS Mennonite. And it was my opinion then (which has proven out over time) that men like Brooks were much more dangerous than, say, a fully-outed thug like Tom DeLay.
Brooks' job was to sell Conservative's poison to the Center: to reassure the Moderates and “Reagan Democrats” and to coax the Undecideds into the Windowless Fundy Panel Truck by dandying their evil up in perfumed NYT-speak. And it was my judgement, since the battle for the future of the country was going to take place in the middle, that these respectable, mainstream elite media zealots-in-sheep's-clothing like Brooks were the ones that deserved extra-special attention since their propaganda didn't trip the Limbaugh or the Fox News alarm.
https://driftglass.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-reader-asks-tell-me-this-trip-to-2005.html
I am saddened by the Times's lack of balance. Anyone should be able to write a column arguing either side of a controversial issue. All one has to do is look at conservative and liberal sites to see what the arguments are.
DeleteThis sums up your confusion and muddled thinking, David, quite aptly. The job of a newspaper is to tease out an accurate presentation of facts. If someone is stating that the earth is flat, we don't need to delve into the issue and present both sides. Brooks is a conservative columnist and he remains that. No, The Times is not under any obligation to find someone to advocate for untenable and insane positions taken by this administration. These positions include:
1. The right to kidnap people.
2. The right to dictate how universities conduct their business.
3. The right to demand of other countries that they cede their territories and sovereignty to the US.
4. The right to ignore spending appropriated by Congress.
5. The right to ignore the courts.
...the list goes on and on and on. We are dealing with an old, addled, and a seriously disturbed man in Trump.
Delete"2. The right to dictate how universities conduct their business."
Jeez, you idiot-Democrats are idiots.
If you want my money, then yes, I will dictate you how you contact your business. But you don't have to take my money.
Don't take taxpayers' money, get you tax-exempt status repealed, and do whatever the fuck you want.
Thanks trumptard.
DeleteThe return on investment that the government gets by funding research at Harvard is quite high.
DeleteIlya - Your points are well-taken. However, if you were required to present a list of things showing how well Trump is doing his job, you could do that.
DeleteBTW it was liberals who spearheaded the government's right to dictate to universities. Liberals voted for a law that takes funding away from discriminating universities. Liberals removed Bob Jones U's tax deductibility, setting a dangerous precedent.
Delete"The return on investment that the government gets by funding research at Harvard is quite high."
Ha-ha. Do you know the one about a thousand lawyers chained to the bottom of the sea?
Thanks for the laughs, Soros-bot.
Harvard is among a group of top research universities in the nation. Its research benefits all of us.
Delete
DeleteHarvard has $100 billion of its own money, invested in Wall Street, in hedge funds and shit like that. It's been subsidised in all sort of ways (by government student loans, for example). It's tax exempt and its managers are paid a million/year.
And Harvard is the victim now? Cracka, please.
“ Harvard is the victim “
DeleteNow, talk about a straw man. The US is actually the victim, potentially losing out on important research.
DeleteYeah, why don't you shove it, that "important research" of yours, Mr. Nigerian Prince.
People are confusing two sources of funding that universities receive. One comes from their endowment, which consists of money donated to them by the wealthy or left to them in people's wills. That is the money that is used for building projects, to fund student tuitions when students can't pay, and invested for future use to support operations in future years. The money that comes from the public is via govt grants for specific research projects. Faculty write grant proposals which are funded if they have merit. The use of that money is confined to the specific uses relevant to each grant. It is not a slush fund and not used to operate the university. Student tuition comes from wealthy parents and supports ongoing university operation (teacher salaries, dorms, food service, landscaping, operating expenses like accounting, admissions, enrollment, record-keeping, graduation, recruiting). Students who cannot afford tuition get student loans that go to the university or are subsidized by Harvard grants using their endowment funds. The idea that the US govt directly subsidizes Harvard is not true because Harvard is a private university. In some states, public universities are funded directly by their state legislatures. They too charge tuition and receive grants for research and do fund-raising from donors, but to a lesser extent, often charging students much less than private universities do, attracting less research faculty and smaller donations from the wealthy. Many state university faculty have a commitment to providing opportunities to students from all walks of life and are proud of serving the more diverse student body who go to such school.
DeleteTop public universities include UC Berkeley and UCLA, University of Washington. Top private universities include Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Vanderbilt (named for the rich people who established them).
Research that is performed under govt grants becomes part of the public domain and anyone can use the techniques developed or the findings. That's why researcher publish in journals and present their work at conferences, as explicitly required by their grants. In contrast, private companies that do research own the results and do not have to share them. Private universities may own the work of their research faculty and receive money for selling what they discover or collaborate with companies formed to develop what emerges from research by their faculty.
DeleteSetting aside the things that I mentioned in my non-exhaustive list, what has Trump accomplished that he should be given credit for?
DeleteThe stock and bond market are in turmoil. Inflation continues unabated. They are giving up on Ukraine/Russia peace deal, which was supposed to happen on day 1. By the way, Trump saying that he was sarcastic about that only makes him look worse.
So, what would be the positive news from the Trump administration that NY Times should be writing about? Savings from randomly firing federal workers? They did cover that.
Liberals voted for a law that takes funding away from discriminating universities. Liberals removed Bob Jones U's tax deductibility, setting a dangerous precedent..
DeleteUmm...yes, we have neutral laws -- that is, they are not directed to any specific institution or mention it by name -- that require certain type of conduct from universities and others. It's not even in the same ballpark. Trump's pursuit of absolute power is unprecedented. Do not delude yourself into thinking that he's trying to rectify any issues, e.g. anti-Semitism. No, everyone must submit to Trump. Now, there may be people standing in the shadows who have bigger plans, but that's a different story.
"Something else is true. President Trump has made various claims about the allegedly appalling conduct which occurred during the Biden years.
ReplyDeleteGet this! Some of the president's claims do have obvious merit!
We Blues have endlessly disappeared discussion of such conduct. This very morning, Joe Scarborough went off his meds again, misstating an array of facts about the Abrego Garcia case."
And here we see why Somerby wrote today's column. A right winger couldn't do a better job and no liberal would say this stuff. Somerby has his own birther cause -- Biden was too old and there was a coverup, he hints! Trump is telling the truth about something -- good luck figuring out what. Scarborough is not telling the truth about Garcia (but Somerby argued yesterday that Bondi is). Right wing talking points galore. And the NY Times cannot be trusted because Brooks has infected its editorial pages and the front page is next (or is it, given that only Somerby is proposing it be devoted to Trump attacks).
Why does Somerby always join the wrong side when there is an official abuse of power? The kindest explanation is that someone pays him to write this crap.
Agree.
Delete"Biden was too old and there was a coverup, he hints!"
DeleteYou don't like 'coverup'? How about a mass averting of glances?
At the end of Biden's term, multiple highly credible journalists interviewed Biden and were surprised to report that he did not appear to be suffering from any mental impairment.
DeleteBiden had bad foreign policy, which corporate media was down for, but Biden too strongly bucked that trend of increasing wealth inequality (started by Reagan, and even Clinton and Obama carried water for), and so he had to go, per corporate media and the few remaining establishment Dems that still cling to power.
Several new books are addressing Biden's mental faculties during his time in office. They suggest Biden's team actively concealed his decline and downplayed his health issues, an explicit accusation of a cover-up.
Delete"At the end of Biden's term, multiple highly credible journalists interviewed Biden and were surprised to report that he did not appear to be suffering from any mental impairment."
DeleteName one.
Biden doesn't have to prove his cognitive competence. He did that every day, according to his doctors who administered that Montreal test every morning as part of Biden's daily routine. Numerous people stood behind Biden's competence, including foreign leaders who he met with, members of Congress, members of his own staff, and politicians he worked with.
DeleteThis idea that he was incompetent and that his staff covered for him is yet another conspiracy theory. If someone says that Trump won in 2020 and was robbed of his victory, no troll has the right to ask for proof this didn't happen. Similarly, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and the burden of proof is on the person spouting those claims (those claiming Biden's incompetence in the face of an outstanding term in office) not those who believe he was fine and showed only signs of normal aging appropriate to his age.
If Biden were showing the kind of behavior that Trump has been showing for the past several years, he would have been removed from office by his own cabinet. The cover up is on the right. Every accusation by a right winger is a confession.
DeleteYes, some people are trying to make hay with book sales. What is new about that. Remember the book that said Hillary used to hang dildos from the White House Christmas tree? Was that true? How about the one about the list of people killed by the Clintons, including Vince Foster. Was that true? Then there was the one about Reagan having Alzheimer's while in office, covered up by Nancy. There is still controversy about that, some claiming that he had incipient symptoms but not full blown disability, while others said he was never quite right. Was JFK's back pain more disabling than claimed and was he addicted to painkillers? That was claimed after his death. How far down this road do you really want to go?
The facts of Biden's term in office speak for themselves. He will always be regarded as an excellent president, far better than Trump (even in his first term). Trump is a disaster and will be remembered as a clown, whether they ultimately prove he has dementia or not. Because he has no accomplishments -- only destruction and he will be blamed for the coming great depression.
Sounds like you can't name one.
DeleteI am not willing to waste my time chasing your stupid remarks. Biden isn't running for anything and I doubt he cares what you say about him. Go waste someone else's time.
DeleteBut all you would need to do is type two words: a first and last name.
DeleteYou typed 32 words telling me you didn't want to waste your time typing 2 words.
Here's one, FBI Director Christopher Wray, appointed by Donald Trump in his first term:
Delete""When did you notice his decline?" says Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as he questions FBI Dir. Wray on President Biden's cognitive ability. He continues to ask, "Since you're the FBI Director, I was just sort of wondering like, who's running the country?" Dir. Wray shares that he doesn't meet with President Biden very often but he hasn't observed what the congressman is referencing and characterizes his briefings with the president as "uneventful" and unremarkable." In addition, he confirms that he had briefed the president before 10 am and after 4 pm."
Here's another one, suggesting you can track down the list put out by the white house:
"In the days since special counsel Robert Hur released a report that described Biden’s memory as “significantly limited,” presidential appointees and friendly lawmakers have been stepping forward one by one to attest to his acuity.
Biden asks “pertinent questions” and cares about “minute details,” they’ve told news outlets. He is “very engaging” and detail-oriented. The White House went so far as to put out a memo name-checking senior officials from both parties who’ve said they found Biden to be mentally sharp."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/bidens-allies-are-stepping-forward-vouch-age-questions-rcna138124
"Perhaps no official spends more time with Biden than his chief of staff, Jeff Zients. Press aides did not make him available for an interview. Instead, they released a statement from Zients that compared Biden favorably to much younger presidents — including Barack Obama, for whom Biden served as vice president.
“President Biden has gotten more done in three years than any other president in recent history,” Zients said. “How? No one works harder. No one asks tougher questions. No one is better at making decisions.”
Gene Sperling, an economic adviser to each of the last three Democratic presidents who now oversees the implementation of Biden’s American Rescue Plan, said the president’s advisers have grown accustomed to fielding detailed questions from him over minute policy details.
“Like a good student, you overprepare,” Sperling said of the homework that goes into a meeting with Biden. “When he does grill you, you’re happy you did.”
There is more but it is really not relevant to anything any more.
@4:47 Say thank you...
Delete5:03 those are not journalists. They are people that worked with Biden and were friendly to him. Those people, in those passages, are committing the cover-up.
DeleteThe original claim was that 'multiple journalists' were "surprised to report that he did not appear to be suffering from any mental impairment."
Delete5:03 trots out statements of Biden Admin personnel and 'friendly' (Democratic) lawmakers'--not journalists--who quite unremarkably refuse to say how addled their boss is.
Where are the interviews with multiple journalists?
503. Your source is literally post Hur report spin. You have shown us literally a coordinated cover-up effort by Biden’s inner circle.
Delete5:09,
Deleteno journalists, no thank you.
Just because no one has ever been able to name a Republican voter who isn't a bigot, doesn't mean they don't exist (in someone's imagination).
DeleteOnce they get you to believe in God, getting you to believe there is a Republican voter who isn't a bigot is child's play.
Delete7:16,
DeleteThe journalists in Somerby's imaginary blue media don't have names, because they aren't real.
Attorney Joyce Vance at Civil Discourse discusses the 4th Circuit Court's opinion on the meaning of the word "facilitate":
ReplyDeletehttps://joycevance.substack.com/p/a-fourth-circuit-judge-warns-against
"Here, the government wanted to put a stop to the fast-tracked discovery plan Judge Xinis had put into motion.
It didn’t take long for the Fourth Circuit to reject the government’s request. In fact, they ruled before Abrego Garcia’s lawyers had even filed a response. This is a 3-0 decision in a conservative circuit, with the opinion authored by J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan in 1984. I remember his appointment very well, because it happened while I was in law school at the University of Virginia where he taught, and it put an end to my plans to take a class with him the following year. Wilkinson is a staunch conservative and a highly regarded jurist. He was reportedly on the shortlist to replace Chief Justice Rehnquist when he became ill in 2005..."
"Judge Wilkinson rejects the government’s position that the Supreme Court decision in the case would “allow the government to do essentially nothing,” writing that the Court’s decision:
“Requires the government ‘to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.…
“‘Facilitate’ is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear…. The plain and active meaning of the word cannot be diluted by its constriction, as the government would have it, to a narrow term of art. We are not bound in this context by a definition crafted by an administrative agency and contained in a mere policy directive….
“Thus, the government’s argument that all it must do is ‘remove any domestic barriers to [Abrego Garcia’s] return,’…is not well taken in light of the Supreme Court’s command that the government facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.
“‘Facilitation’ does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country’s prisons that the withholding order forbids and, further, to do so in disregard of a court order that the government not so subtly spurns….
“Allowing all this would…reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.”
“What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal.”
ReplyDeleteWhen Brooks uses the term “not normal”, he isn’t talking about abnormal psychology, as Somerby would have it, unless you consider the ruthless pursuit of power abnormal, and a matter for psychiatrists.
Good point.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteVan Hollen has sipped margaritas with Kilmar.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever seen a margarita? The beverages in that photo don’t look like margaritas.
DeleteCC - If it is a margarita, I'm wondering: If you'd been cooped up for a month is a ghastly gulag, might you unwind with a margarita?
DeleteNope. Cecelia fell for the fascist dictator's little jape.
DeleteYes, I know about the jape. I'm just surprised that CC would give the slightest shit whether Kilmar had a margarita.
DeleteGuys, I don’t think you ascertained that Burkele was being deadly ironic, let alone me.
DeleteIt just seemed out of character, but I underestimated your sense of black humor.
DeleteUh huh.
DeleteBukele’s “irony” serves his and Trump’s fascist propaganda. No wonder Cecelia was so anxious to stare it.
Delete*share (not stare)
DeleteAnonymouse 3:03pm, too bad you have the tin ear of a zealot, but I guess that keeps you blissfully unaware when unsavory folks are making fun of us.
DeleteRiiiigght, Cecelia. That’s of course what you meant by your original comment.
DeleteAnonymouse 3:10pm, absolutely not.
DeleteThey clearly don't know what irony is or how to recognize it.
DeleteAnonymouse 3:21pm, you clearly do know what irony is and you also know the real intentions of every lyricist and poet.
DeleteI tend to believe Robert Frost when he says his own poem was written about his mother.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAnonymouse 3:34, only if it was canvenient.
DeleteThere is no such word as "canvenient"
DeleteThey sipped margaritas with everybody. Between the booze and the groupies and the drugs and the brown M&Ms, those pop metal pioneers sipped just about everything that could be sipped with everyone they could sip with them. The cradle will rock.
Delete"Burkele was being deadly ironic"
DeleteNo fewer than one of us is unclear on the meaning of that word.
Trump is nothing new, he is Reagan all over again, just on steroids and more brazen with the fascism, racism, sexism, and xenophobia.
ReplyDeletePretty rich of Brooks whining about Trump when Brooks was a cheerleader for Reagan. Trump is just bad for Republican branding because Trump is not good at being discrete, but he end result is essentially the same - increasing wealth inequality, oppression of women and people of color.
Reagan on steroids, even accepting this characterization, is new and pretty fucking bad.
DeleteBut Trump is qualitatively different. Brooks is correct in stating that power -- and absolute power at that -- is the end goal for Trump. There's no pretense that what he's doing is public policy.
How people can think badly of Reagan is beyond me. He won the Cold War against the USSR, without actual killing. His economic reforms brought a decade of prosperity. I can't think a recent President who had an accomplishment as terrific as either of these.
DeleteDisagree to an extent, dominance has always been the goal of Republicans - including Brooks, Reagan was not any less harmful to society, and in many ways Reagan was worse because he was more discrete giving cover for even establishment Third Way neoliberal Dems to join along.
DeleteIn no way am I suggesting Trump is not a serious and severe threat and unnecessary stress test, but he is nothing new as far as outcomes go, just in the method, which people like Brooks and Somerby recognize as being bad for Republican branding in the long term.
Revisit the horrors of Reagan, you will find they echo what is ongoing, and include horrors Trump has yet to reach (lots of blood on Reagan's hands).
Putin is way worse than the USSR.
DeleteReagan did not win the cold war - complete strawman, USSR dissolved due to internal pressures unrelated to Reagan.
Reagan brought on the disappearance of the middle class and the burgeoning of poverty, Reagan started the largest redistribution of wealth in history, starting the historic transfer of $50+ trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. Reagan cut funding for social safety nets kneecapping our society, and he played all kinds of murderous games from the Middle East to Central America.
Reagan was a true nightmare, the trailblazer for Bush and Trump.
These days Trump is widely considered our worst president in modern times, but barely beating out Reagan. largely because Reagan was smarter and better hid his true pernicious nature.
The USSR was way worse than Putin if you live in East Germany, Romania, Poland, etc.
Delete
DeleteThis is such a dumb comment!!! Zowie!
"Reagan did not win the cold war - complete strawman"
DeleteA strawman is an argument one attributes to one's opponent that is deliberately chosen for its weakness, so it can be easily refuted ('knocked down').
DiC did make the claim that Reagan won the cold war so that claim is in no sense a strawman.
Your third paragraph is not a refutation of dic’s potential use if a straw man. Him saying it is not proof that it isn’t a straw man argument, Dr Logic.
DeleteThe word you want is discreet, not discrete.
DeletePerhaps this will help clarify:
Deletea fundamental aspect of a strawman argument is that it is attributed to one's opponent.
DiC made his claim on his own behalf; he did not attribute the claim to his opponent. It therefore does not meet the criteria.
Reaganomics was an abject failure and continues to be in the hands of republicans unless success is measured by how poorly the economy functions and how much money is funneled to the rich from the middle class. Even one of it's architects, Bruce Bartlett, abandoned it after the 2008 recession. The Laffer curve is an embodiment of it and may have some grounding in reality when marginal tax rates are greater than 70%; nonetheless it is the holy grail of republican nonsensical economics. Those espousing current Republican pablum and talking points regarding economics are either woefully ignorant or only concerned about maintaining the status financially that Reagan's policies bestowed upon them at the expense of others.
DeleteDiC was responding to another comment about Reagan. Whether it is a straw man depends upon its relationship to the previous comment.
Deletethe comment at 3:37 was made by, of course, Dr. Logic.
DeleteThe original comment said ““Reagan all over again, just on steroids and more brazen with the fascism, racism, sexism, and xenophobia.”
DeleteDiC responded with:
“Reagan won the Cold War.”
Now, I don’t know if that’s technically a straw man, but it doesn’t counter the accusation of Reagan as a fascist, racist or sexist.
3:40 may be interested in knowing that many humans, if unsure of the correct usage of a term like ‘attribute’, can edify their understanding by consulting a reference work of common word definitions, also called a dictionary.
Delete"edify their understanding" is odd usage
Deletebetter to say edify themselves or improve their understanding
Wikipedia:
DeleteStraw man argument:
“refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction.
The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition”
Argument: “Reagan was a fascist, racist, sexist”
DiC: “how can people think badly of Reagan? ; he won the Cold War.”
DiC replaced the original argument with a different proposition.
The USSR was way worse than Putin
DeleteThat's nonsense. You have to go back to Stalin for things to be as bad as Putin. After Stalin's death, the level of repression dropped dramatically -- until Putin.
4:59,
DeleteDr. Logic disagrees. The key here is that the straw man must be an argument which, if true, would bolster the opponent's position.
Suppose an opponent accuses you of advocating proposition A. To qualify as a straw man, proposition A must be something you could reasonably be imagined as advocating.
As an example: suppose DiC had said, “You think Reagan is a racist because he didn’t marry a black woman.” This is a lousy argument, but one you could be imagined as making.
However, what DiC actually argued was: “Reagan can’t be a racist since he defeated Russia in the Cold War.” This is a proposition you would never advocate since if true, it would undermine your position, not support it.
That’s why DiC’s argument was not a straw man. It’s more of a non sequitur.
A straw man argument IS a non sequitur.
DeleteThen why are there two different terms?
DeleteBecause a straw man is a type of non sequitur:
DeleteHere’s an example of a strawman fallacy:
1: I don’t support musk randomly firing Government employees and shutting down agencies.
2: oh, so you support waste and fraud?
2’s argument is a straw man, but it is also a non sequitur, in that 1’s statement does not imply support for waste and fraud.
2 could have phrased his rebuttal this way: but Musk is cutting waste and fraud.
It is still a non sequitur, and no less a straw man.
Okay, here's some basic logic for you:
Deleteif all straw mans are non sequiturs, then are all non sequiturs straw mans?
And if the answer is no, then what was the point of your post at 7:20?
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteA strawman argument is different from a non-sequitur. I have to agree with Dr. Logic here.
DeleteA strawman argument -- as the name implies -- is a purposely very weak argument that no one is proposing, but is very easy to knock down.
In any case, Reagan did not win the cold war. He happened to be in the office when the Soviet Union started to implode. That's about the sum of it.
Reagan's economic prosperity was to a great extent fueled by deficit military spending. It was not sustainable and soon enough it collapsed and there was a recession. In many ways, Reagan was the beginning of the end. The US has turned away from any pretense of building or maintaining a sustainable society.
Trump, however, is something else altogether. Historical analogies are always imperfect, but certainly all mildly educated, reasonable people would agree that there's a whiff Mao's cultural revolution in what he's doing. A more recent analogy would be the destruction of the civil society and bureaucratic state in Iraq -- except, of course, Trump is doing it here, from within. Putin approves.
“Also, he and Katty Kay pretended that the Morning Joe program actually cares about the rape and murder of Rachel Morin. These statements were as phony as the other guy's statements have been endlessly crackpot—and the blatant phoniness of those comments will likely be mocked on Fox, in front of that channel's large viewership.”
ReplyDeleteWhat Trump and the White House (and Bukele) are doing is quite insidious in regard to this incident that Somerby mentions almost as an aside.
I have no idea what Joe Scarborough said here, but I’m quite certain that Fox isn’t going to use it simply to mock Scarborough.
I try not to question the sincerity of any man who says he is against the rape and murder of a woman.
DeleteSomerby did exactly that, saying that Scarborough was pretending to care about this rape/murder. I believe that Somerby is perhaps projecting his own feelings onto Scarborough, and perhaps it is Somerby himself who feels nothing for that poor woman. That makes it easier to imagine that other men, such as Joe, might care as little as Somerby does.
When someone is willing to use a young woman's death for political purposes, to scapegoat immigrants and imply that those wrongly deported are all murderers and rapists, perhaps even of this very girl, then they clearly don't care about her death as a tragedy, but only as an opportunity to accuse a whole class of people of heinous acts.
Morin's death gets lost in the in-fighting, whether it is Joe "pretending" or Somerby accusing or the right wing smearing other migrants with one man's criminality. Somerby has no idea what Joe Scarborough's feelings are about this crime and no right to say that he doesn't care about it. Illegally deporting all migrants won't prevent the next rape/murder nor will mistreating migrants bring back Rachel Morin. It will only heap more suffering on people who have nothing to do with that crime.
Somerby obviously cares so much about what happened to Rachel Morin that he never mentioned her death a year and a half ago when it took place. He didn't even mention the trial -- the jury deliberated for less than an hour. He only hauls this out when the right wing decides to use her death themselves to persecute Garcia and other immigrants now being mistreated by Trump's administration.
Anonymouse 3:13pm, there’s not a soul here who doesn’t understand that your first sentence is a hilarious lie or that you’ve just convicted yourself via your own indictment/argument against Bob.
DeleteSo you doubt not only Joe Scarborough's sincerity, but also mine?
DeleteDo you realize how ugly you look when you react this way?
Anonymouse 4:39pm, no, just your “sincerity”.
DeleteSo, you disagree with Somerby about Scarborough's sincerity then?
DeleteAnonymouse 4:54pm, neither way. I don’t watch Scarborough and didn’t see the segment. I do watch you.
DeleteSo you have no idea what you are babbling about.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:05pm, I know what you wrote and that the motives you attributed to Somerby would also apply to you via your own action/argument.
DeleteRight, you have no idea what you’re babbling about.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:02pm, right. After all, you are the Dylan and Frost whisperer.
Delete“ the Dylan and Frost whisperer” along with Bob, who frequently uses them in his own writing.
Delete"When someone is willing to use a young woman's death for political purposes..." That's done all the time by gun control advocates. Right now it's being done by USAID defenders who say that people are dying because Musk cut their financial support
DeletePeople ARE dying because Musk cut their financial support.
DeleteSure they are. And people are being shot to death. And, some illegal immigrants are murdering people. It's perfectly appropriate to use these deaths for political purposes. When a policy is leading to people being killed one should be pointing to these deaths when asking for changes in that policy.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:57pm, but you’re the person invariably telling Somerby that he’s misappropriated their works.
DeleteUS cuts to HIV aid will cost millions of lives - UNAids chief
DeleteUS funding cuts will lead to an additional 2,000 new HIV infections each day and over six million further deaths over the next four years, the UNAids chief has warned.
It would mark a stark reversal in the global fight against HIV, which has seen the number of deaths from the disease decrease from more than two million in 2004 to 600,000 in 2023, the most recent year for which figures are available.
UNAids Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said the US government's decision to pause foreign aid - which included funding for HIV programmes - was already having devastating consequences.
She called on the US to reverse the cuts immediately, warning women and girls were being hit particularly hard.
Dickhead in Cal: Ever hear the expression, "penny wise/pound foolish"?
Is this what you would call eliminating "waste" from our federal budget?
"What sort of specialists should they interview with respect to this behavior?
ReplyDelete(We almost never use the word "experts.")"
Why does Somerby not use the word "experts"? One of the hallmarks of both Trump and the right wing is the ongoing attack on expertise. Trump did it to Fauci, in order to scapegoat him for American deaths resulting from Trump's own failure to cope effectively with covid. Ultimately the right wing was claiming that Fauci caused covid. Now Trump and the right are attacking Powell, the Fed chairman, a financial expert whose job is to protect against recession and depressions by adjusting the interest rate for federal lending. The Federal Reserve Board that Powell heads: "...conducts the nation's monetary policy, promotes financial system stability, supervises and regulates financial institutions, fosters payment and settlement system safety and efficiency, and promotes consumer protection and community development." Trump has been attacking Powell in order to scapegoat him for the chaos wrought by Trump's own tariffs. Not coincidentally, the people Musk has been firing including experts in many fields, including top scientists and scholars. These too are the people who help keep things from falling apart by applying their knowledge and skills to things like airplane safety, weather forecasting, disease control, health research and clean air and water safety. All those experts are gone. And Trump (and the right wing) have replaced people who know things with crackpots like RFK Jr. and Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem. Trump has thoroughly implemented his plan of replacing people with real qualifications with quacks, celebrities, and above all, loyalists, while Musk cuts all of the effective govt departments and agencies providing services in the past administration.
None of us thought the film "Idiocracy" was a documentary, but Trump has been turning our country into a worse version of the future depicted in that "comedy." Somerby has been attacking the idea of expertise for years now, going back at least to 2015 and likely before then. I at first chalked it up to bitterness about his own experiences at Harvard, but now I can connect the dots and see that this is ideological and a means of control exercised by autocracies. And Somerby is helping advance that attack on knowledge.
It is weird that support for education and the value of knowledge has become a left wing attribute, part of being a Democrat. That happened when the right started calling left wingers elitists and blaming universities for "woke". It is a shame that an attribute that benefits people generally is relegated to one party, one partisan political view, when many scientists and scholars, inventors and experts have been conservative or held idiosyncratic political views over time. People, as a species, own our collective accumulation of expertise. In the long run, this attack on expertise may be the most damaging thing Trump has done, setting us all back enormously and destroying the US competitive advantage it has relied upon to make us a wealthy and prosperous nation. And that will be Somerby's fault too. Because he never misses an opportunity to disparage expertise.
"Next week: Us Blues"
ReplyDeleteSomerby is not one of us.
Anonymouse 4:53pm, no kidding… The vast majority of liberals aren’t militant online activists.
DeleteThey are attending rallies and protests in real life.
DeleteRight, Cecelia. Somerby isn’t one of the vast majority of liberals who aren’t militant online activists.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:08pm, if Somerby was a militant online activist you wouldn’t be here denouncing him daily.
DeleteSomerby is a militant online activist.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:01pm, and he’s the monster hiding under your bed.
DeleteWhat are the monsters hiding under your bed, Cecelia, since you frequently make reference to them?
DeleteAnonymouse 7:55 pm, I have three Roombas. Dust bunnies don’t make it under our beds.
DeleteWhen I was a little kid, the monsters weren’t under my bed. They were between the bed and the wall.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:45pm, I don’t remember ever being afraid of monsters, although I don’t think that I doubted their existence. I was and still am afraid of bugs.
Delete"The White House crafted the X post, changing the headline to claim GarcÃa would never return.
ReplyDeleteThe original headline, which referenced a meeting between Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen (MD) and GarcÃa, read: "Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Maryland Man in El Salvador." The White House changed it to read "Senator Meets with Deported MS-13 Illegal Alien in El Salvador Who's Never Coming Back."
Former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance posted on X, "I suspect this is going to show up in a variety of court pleadings. Whoever thought this was cute at the time may be less giddy when this becomes evidence of intent to disobey a court order."
Multiple courts have found that GarcÃa was deported without due process, and judges have insisted that the government must act to restore his rights.
So far, one judge is considering contempt charges against the administration, while another has indicated that she's weighing contempt proceedings against the Trump administration, NBC News reported."
This is Burkele’s message on X saying he’s not sending Kilmar back to the US.
Deletehttps://x.com/nayibbukele/status/1913035243918864742?s=46&t=oYvKLjVc8YzJIvwKoQTYBQ
Has the Trump administration even tried to get him back?
DeleteAnonymouse 5:26pm, doubtful.
DeleteAs if you know…
DeleteThat message is 22 hrs old. If the court threatens DOJ with criminal contempt, his attitude will change because Trump’s will change.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:57pm, doubtfulness conveys uncertainty, Einstein.
DeleteEinstein didn’t like uncertainty.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:42pm, are you sure?
DeleteC: ISWYDT
DeleteThank you for the detailed overview, If you’re looking to luxury carpets, this resource provides all the necessary details
ReplyDelete