FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2025
An assault on the human experiment: As Secretary Rumsfeld used to say, a nation marches into the future with the species it has.
Within our own imperfect species, some attitudes die very hard. Experts say that such attitudes are bred in the bone. For better or worse—quite often for worse—they're part of who we are.
One such attitude was on display last night on the Fox News Channel. Every night, CEO Suzanne Scott pries open the garbage can and this sort of conduct crawls out:
Kid Rock Tells Fox News America Has Low Birth Rate Because ‘No Guy Wants to Sleep’ With ‘Ugly Ass, Broke, Crazy’ Liberal Women
That's the headline on the report from Mediaite. As you can see by clicking this link, this is part of what crawled forth onto the land:
During an interview on Thursday with the 54-year-old musician, Fox News host Jesse Watters played a clip of a group of liberal protesters and asked, “When you play your concerts, do you ever see anybody with blue hair, armpit hair—female armpit hair? Some of these people we’re looking at, Kid, I don’t know.”
“Listen, I was just watching your clips, and you know, we have this low birth rate in America, and it all made sense,” replied Kid Rock. “It just hit me right now because who’s gonna sleep with these ugly ass, broke, crazy, deranged, TDS liberal women?”
He continued, “I mean, you look at these rallies, it’s like a bunch of women that no guy wants to sleep with and a bunch of dudes that want to sleep with each other.”
Watters had spotted some armpit hair. It had shaken him right to his soul, and his guest knew where to go from there.
Kid Rock is 54; Watters is 46. Certain attitudes, bred in the bone, are slow to disappear. On the Fox News Channel, those attitudes are put on display every night.
Two hours later, Greg Gutfeld crawled out for his own prime time, "cable news" show. He opened with his standard two minutes of jokes, the better to create an illusion by.
This is not a comedy show; it isn't "political satire." It's a stone-cold a corporate propaganda vehicle which hides behind comedy elements.
Last night, it was still exactly10:00 p.m. when this strangely angry man offered this as his second joke:
GUTFELD (5/15/25): Michelle [Obama] also admitted on the podcast that she fights with her husband over the thermostat.
She wants it at 70 degrees, while he wants it up his butt.
The claim that Barack Obama is secretly gay is now a standard part of this ghastly "cable news" program. (Also, President Obama's wife is secretly a man.) It gets mixed in with various claims in which the (female) co-hosts of The View are relentlessly compared to horses and cows and pigs and whales and dogs of various sorts.
This little guy, with his Russkie wife, almost seems to be sunk in angry incel culture. Suzanne Scott turns this fellow loose each night with a cast of flunkies hired to say that they agree with his various endless tirades.
Watters, Gutfeld, Kid Rock? They're part of who we are! So are the major orgs in Blue America which refuse to report or discuss what happens on these astonishing shows on this ersatz "cable news" channel.
The ugly conduct on this channel constitutes an assault on the human experiment. More specifically, some of the conduct is ugly. Some is the conduct is merely stupid, is merely the work of clowns.
The channel's conduct represents an assault on the possibility of the American project, challenged as it already is. But at the New York Times, at MSNBC, at CNN, at Mediaite, the various suits who set the rules have agreed that this idiotic, ugly conduct can't be reported and also can't be discussed.
David Brooks won't talk about this. Neither will Lawrence O'Donnell.
With that, we return to the all-star lineup assembled for the Gutfeld! program of last Tuesday night.
Just how stupid does this channel get? These are the people Scott had waved onto the air, with the direction that they should help a defective host pretend to discuss the world's major news events:
Panelists, Gutfeld! program: May 6, 2025
Kennedy: Former MTV VJ
Tyrus: Former professional "wrestler"
Jamie Lissow: Star of "The Divorced Dad Comedy Tour"
Paul Mauro: Former NYPD Inspector
It was the standard gathering of stumblebum flyweights, with the gay-baiting, misogyny-adjacent Gutfeld in the driver's seat. For the record, no other part of American journalism is perfect. Also, though, no other part of American journalism is as defiantly stupid as this.
With that, we pause for a minor aside:
There's often (not always) an obvious element of truth to this host's endless diatribes. That said, he can't seem to offer his critiques without the furious anger and the ugly assaults which are his basic stock in trade.
The inability to beat back anger is a part of who we are. It dates all the way back to "The Rage of Achilles" (and of Agamemnon) at the very dawn of the west.
Today, the inability to beat back anger presents in such ways as these:
Trump’s Comms Director Blows Up at Reporter: ‘You Must Be Truly F*cking Stupid’
[...]
“CNN had this blithering idiot on @InsidePolitics from The Daily Beast named @JoannaColes making unsubstantiated claims about President Trump’s health,” he wrote at the time. “Joanna is a piece of shit, clearly suffering from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome rotting her pea-sized brain.”
That would qualify as one meltdown. Also, we can offer this:
‘SHAME ON YOU!’ Seb Gorka Totally Melts Down Under Questioning in Live Interview
[...]
"Oh, of course you don’t. It’s just accidents. The four symbols represent the letters MS. This is why Politico is a joke. This is where you are gutter press and fake news that those four symbols that just happen to comport with the letters, MS, and the numbers 13, don’t, in this case, represent MS-13. You’re sitting here live defending a member of MS-13. That’s why I regret coming here. Because this isn’t journalism, this is protecting those who hate America. Shame on you. We are saving lives. Saving lives!"
For the record, we're fairly sure that Dasha Burns isn't the "gutter press." That said, we suggest that you might want to review those two reports from Mediaite.
(On tape from that same Politico event, we saw Callie Means constantly responding to sensible questions from Burns with barely disguised hints of his great magisterial anger. He managed to hold his condescension and his anger in check in a way that some others didn't.)
Those instincts are part of who we are as we try to march into the future. So was the conversation which took place on Tuesday evening, May 6, on the Gutfeld! program.
The CEO had grouped a former VJ with a former "wrestler," and also with a Divorced Dad. They were now invited to slime Dr. Fauci for perhaps the ten millionth time.
There was no sign that any of these flyweights had the first freaking idea what they were talking about. For the record, the former "wrestler" is an ever-expanding blob of self-regard. The former VJ is quite hard to describe.
The flyweights proceeded to deliver the dope about the aforementioned Fauci. It started with a bogus claim from the poisonous host about the size of Dr. Fauci's federal pension, then spiraled down from there.
The VJ, the "wrestler" and the poisonous host had a great deal to tell us this night.
Dr. Fauci is "a horrible, vile person," Fox viewers were quickly told. The problem is that he's just "so immoral and authoritarian."
Also, Dr. Fauci had killed a million people in the course of the Covid pandemic. "His ass should be dragged through the House and the Senate every damn day" in the course of a grand inquisition about "the beagles and the lockdowns and the school closures and the church closures and all the rest of it," Red America's voters were told.
Viewers were told that Dr. Fauci had been helping the Chinese develop bioweapons. Those weapons were "worse than mustard gas." They were "worse than what Hitler had."
If the Chinese has been giving Hunter Biden diamonds, "what do you think they were fiving him for helping them make bioweapons?" Inquiring minds at the Fox News Channel very much wanted to know!
At one point, the disordered person who helms the show gave voice to an unexplained thought. "We don't even have time to look at his role in AIDS,"' the poisonous fellow said, as if his collection of defectives would have had the slightest idea about any aspect of that.
The gong-show went on and on, in standard Fox News Channel fashion. Apparently because conversations like these are being scored as "political satire" and "entertainment," the chroniclers at Mediaite have apparently been told that they must take a dive with respect to these presentations.
A studio audience cheered as this unpacking pf garbage went on. Finally, the capper came from the former professional "wrestler." The massive bag of self-regard brought the segment to a close:
TYRUS (5/6/25): A lot of people don't have grandparents today because of that son of a bitch.
GUTFELD: Yeah! All right!
[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]
GUTFELD: Up next, Greasy Gavin is back.
"Greasy Gavin" is Governor Newsom. Basically, this is all these idiots have.
These "conversations" take place night after night on this primetime "cable news" program. It airs at 7 p.m. on the coast, but Variety praises it as the most-watched "late night" program.
Nancy Pelosi has used too much Botox. President Obama is gay.
Liberal women are all too fat. With apologies, President Biden's pants are still full of "turds."
The angry stumblebum booked on this show are part of who we are. So is the refusal in Blue America to discuss this nightly assault.
Lawrence O'Donnell won't talk about this. Neither will Rachel Maddow. David Brooks won't mention this either.
As Dylan noted long ago, all three "went to the finest schools." The silence they exhibit is part of who we are.
There's nothing anyone can do about this. As with Russell and Gödel, so too here:
This is all we have.
ReplyDeleteThe liberal women thing, the TDS thing, the Fauci thing, it's all true. Your own TDS prevents you from being able to see it.
Live with it, Bob. Learn to cope.
Somerby's essay is full of ugly stuff today. Some of it comes from Gutfeld (who knows why Somerby feels compelled to repeat it), some from Kid Rock (who knows why Somerby feels compelled to repeat that) and some is as misquote of Donald Rumsfeld, who said you go into war with the army you have, not into the future with the species you have. Altering his quote should have been acknowledged by Somerby, not misattributed to Rumsfeld, who said something very different.
ReplyDeleteNone of us wants to go into the future as adversaries because uniting as a species is the better approach to dealing with urgent problems, such as global warming, climate-related migration, and resource allocation problems that will require us to work together, not against each other.
Perhaps Somerby thinks he was being wry, but there is no way to guess his intentions unless he signals them, and he generally doesn't do that. Today he again gives over his own pulpit to the worst elements of the right, so that they can say ugly things about women. There are many things the left might say about Gutfeld and his ilk, but the right loves him. Apparently, so does Somerby, judging by the time he devotes to repeating the noise on that show. And then he blames O'Donnell, Maddow and Somerby's new bestie David Brooks because they don 't promote Gutfeld on their shows.
We on the left are not Gutfeld. We don't have to share the blame for Gutfeld's excesses. The rightful owners of that stuff are the right wingers who watch his show, including Somerby, who cannot wait to transcribe it so that those of us avoiding Gutfeld have him rubbed in our faces, daily.
When the future arrives and the right is still squabbling over who can treat people the worst, we will be less prepared to deal with our troubles than we would be had Somerby embraced the left and not just the right. Whatever our faults on the left, we don't spend airtime maligning women for their looks. And we don't blame lefties for going to school, because those skills and knowledge will be needed in the future.
Somerby has things very wrong, as usual, but as Rumsfeld didn't say, we go into the future with the species we have.
“[Somerby] cannot wait to transcribe it so that those of us avoiding Gutfeld have him rubbed in our faces, daily.”
DeleteDid you know that there’s a simple solution to this problem?
The problem is not what you think it is. It isn't that Somerby is saying things I don't want to read about Gutfeld's routine. The problem is that Somerby is using this blog to promote Gutfeld and right wing memes while pretending to be liberal, then chiding liberals for being responsible for what Gutfeld produces because we didn't repeat it like Somerby did.
DeleteThe day that Somerby admits he is not a liberal, I will stop pointing that out in comments. Truth matters. Somerby is a lying liar. You can use your simple solution to ignore my comments, if they bother you but at least focus on the real problem, which is the destruction of truth by the right, weakening our democracy.
“Stone-cold corporate propaganda vehicle”
Delete“An assault on the human experiment”
“Idiotic, ugly conduct”
This is how Somerby “promotes” Gutfeld and his show.
“Truth matters. Somerby is a lying liar.”
DeleteOK, truth-teller. Put up. Identify one thing Somerby has said that is false, and prove that Somerby knows it was false.
DG, Somerby occasionally says that Gutfeld is correct about some things. He said it quite recently about Gutfeld vis a vis Biden. That renders his criticism somewhat ambiguous.
DeleteI’m sure Satan and Hitler and Trump were all occasionally right about something or other. Saying so doesn’t equate to an endorsement of Satan or Hitler or Trump — or Gutfeld.
DeleteThe word “we” is inclusive of Gutfeld. Hitler was an analogy to a bad person, someone we would agree is bad. I am arguing we shouldn’t include Gutfeld who Somerby endorsed by inclusion as “we”. Humans punish deviancy via social exclusion. Somerby argues we shouldn’t do that.
DeleteSomerby is not a liberal. I have argued that daily for years. Of course he knows what he’s doing.
DeleteSo, truth-teller, this is all you got to prove Somerby is a “lying liar”? Your irrational belief that Somerby is not a liberal?
Deleteanon 12:35 - true that you have "argued" that TDH "is not a liberal" apparently for years as part of your demented crusade. The annoying issue, and the insult to any sane person's intelligence is that your arguments are ridiculous - as exemplified by t your above post. You are impervious to reason.
DeleteIf there’s ever was a show-and-tell for the opinions of Gutfeld and Watters, it’s the anonymouse coven. Endless scolding, endless umbrage, endless pique. Zero humor, perspective, tolerance. They show Bob wrong and prove the clowns right.They actually want it that way.
DeleteIt’s funny, because Cecelia is a regular viewer of Gutfeld!
DeleteSo, is this a denunciation of a figure who is a cancer on discourse, or not:
Delete“There's often (not always) an obvious element of truth to this host's endless diatribes."
That undercuts the criticism it seems to me.
Whether Somerby is a liberal or not, is not really the crux of the matter.
DeleteSomerby is a right winger (many liberals are), just like "DG", which is why he defends him so heroically.
Indeed, Somerby explains himself this very day:
"There's often (not always) an obvious element of truth to this host's endless diatribes."
Furthermore, Somerby ascribes to the right wing notion that these "attitudes" are "bred in the bone", which is false but a long held right wing view going back to Hobbes.
Some folks want to present themselves as struggling with the bone simple, trivially obvious circumstance that not everyone says what they mean directly, and that you can not take people at face value.
Cons routinely rely on their marks having the trait of being excessively literal.
1:56 beat me to the punch, because the sentiment is obvious.
DeleteAnonymouse 2:00pm, depends upon the time period. I hear Greg, off and on, at 5pm, because the old man watches The Five. We don’t watch a thing at 10pm.
DeleteIncoherence from the man pretending to be a woman in order to "own the libs"...who knew?
DeleteAnonymouse 2:18pm, you do, you perspicacious little house mouse.
DeleteSo, Somerby may be a liberal, but that doesn’t matter because he’s actually right-wing, and only marks who think he says what he means could fail to detect his wily metaphorical true meanings. Have I got that right?
Delete(Oh, and I’m so blinded by the literal that I never realized that, deep down in some true metaphorical sense, I’m right-wing, too! I guess I’ve been voting the wrong way my whole lifetime.)
“There’s often (not always) an obvious element of truth to [Gutfeld’s] endless diatribes.”
DeleteThis is merely a banal, but true, statement. For example, Gutfeld makes a Biden poop joke. The obvious element of truth is that Biden is losing it. This is a truth that every single person (except for a few dead-enders) can see, at least if they watched Biden’s debate.
What are you talking about, DG? Biden wasn’t incontinent.
DeleteAnd Somerby frequently printed Gutfeld’s “poopy pants” jokes. What you’re saying is that Somerby was merely objecting to Gutfeld’s tone, and not his ultimate meaning?
Somerby objects to Gutfeld’s tone AND his meaning. Somerby merely notes that there is often an ELEMENT of truth buried in the steaming pile of propaganda. (All good propaganda contains an element of truth.) Gutfeld says Biden poops himself. Everybody knows that Gutfeld is not reporting something he knows personally. But the element of truth is that Biden is feeling some of the effects of advanced age.
DeleteDG, there is no truth to the smears against Biden.
DeleteThen in that case, (Biden poopy pants), DG, Somerby isn’t objecting to Gutfeld’s MEANING, because Somerby agrees with him (and you) about Biden.
DeleteOf course. That element is true, but it’s but a small part of the propaganda bilge that Gutfeld is shoveling.
DeleteToday, Somerby seems to be far from liberal because he doesn't understand or support the understandings of our culture emerging from the women's movement of the past 60 years. He expresses views more consistent with conservatism in analyzing On the Waterfront and talking about #MeToo as if it were not current. I'm sure that the elimination of DEI and feminism being attempted by Trump is A-OK with Somerby but liberals still are working toward women's rights.
DeleteMaybe Somerby doesn't know that Weinstein is being tried again for his sexual misbehavior?
DeleteI share his disgust for the garbage can material being purveyed by Fox, but what would be accomplished by having it discussed by the so-called Blue media? Those who like Fox certainly won’t have their minds changed, and the rest of us will just have our opinions reinforced. We’ll just wind up back where we started, only with the Fox garbage being more widely disseminated.
ReplyDeleteAnd there is an opportunity cost as well. Every minute spent discussing Gutfeld on such shows is a minute that could have been spent explaining Trump's malfeasance and reporting current events, informing audiences instead of outraging them (outrage is the game played by Fox, not thinking adults).
DeleteYep, I agree. There's little value in picking apart trash that comes from the likes of Gutfeld and Watters. The viewers who can't see it for what it is are not likely to be swayed by any in-depth discussion.
DeleteSo, some here are fine with ignoring the Fox shitshow. Others, like me, think the Fox shitshow is a predominant cause of the rapidly approaching end of the American Dream and wish that there was some concerted effort to confront and expose it.
DeleteAnd Somerby seems like almost the only lonely voice trying to sound the alarm, and for his efforts he gets told he’s a right-wing asset of Putin.
DeleteThere are more urgent alarms that need to be sounded.
DeleteAnd DG, Somerby isn’t a “lonely voice.” You need to read more blogs, Twitter feeds, and substacks.
DeleteExactly. His point is there is no mainstream pushback against Fox propaganda. Fox reaches millions and is on 24/7. A substack or a blog doesn’t reach even 1/10000th of the number that Fox reaches, and has maybe one or two entries a day. It’s like fighting a tank armed with a popsicle stick.
DeleteThat is not Somerby's point at all. His point is that the left is just as "bad" as the right because Fox News is a cesspool. If that makes sense to you, there is something wrong with you.
Delete"With apologies, President Biden's pants are still full of "turds."
ReplyDeleteWith apologies? What apologies? Somerby is one of the guys who pushed Biden off his own ticket for being too old, mentally incompetent. Biden has now given two interviews during which he appeared competent and not at all cognitively impaired. He did fine as he made his appeal to fight for our democracy. Even the assholes pushing Original Sin admit that. Somerby might have noted that Biden at his age can handle an interview better than Trump, who stopped making sense a long time ago, and no one cared. Turds in Trump's pants too, but there is a double standard, here at Somerby's blog. The turd in this room is Somerby.
Trump is trying to shred the Constitution while Somerby thinks the biggest problem on earth is Gutfeld! You don't keep someone like Trump out of office by kneecapping your incumbent president before an election, as Somerby did.
The book Original Sin offers examples of Biden's senility like his failure pay attention to Jon Favreau's mother at a party, or his supposed inability to recognize George Clooney at another event. These are slights to the egos of guys who think a lot of themselves. Why should the president pay attention to these guys when they have no role at all in government, nothing to offer for the time it would take to schmooz them? Trump punishes people for slights to his ego, and apparently Democrats on the fringes of politics do too. They did Harris no favor, and they did a great disservice to our country with their attacks on Biden, encouraged by enemies of the left. I wonder if George Clooney is aware that he himself is old now and doesn't look the same as he did in the films that Biden would have seen him in?
Many people in comments on various websites have been pointing out that Biden isn't running for anything now, not defending his legacy, but urgently trying to rally Democrats to resist Trump's tyranny. He is setting an example that people like Somerby should be following. Not repeating turd jokes about Biden's pants. Listening to Biden's words.
It seems to me the worst part about the Biden scandal is the coverup.
DeleteThe coverup is covering up the fact that Biden is not suffering from mental impairment, while Trump's mental impairment is painfully obvious, along with his corruption and criminality.
DeleteTypical of Republicans, lacking integrity is a feature, not a bug.
I asked AI whether women on the right or the left weigh more and this is what it said:
ReplyDelete"In general, the two vertical halves of the human body, right and left, are believed to weigh approximately the same. The density of most tissues is roughly equal, so the location of organs like the heart, spleen, and stomach on the left, and the liver on the right, doesn't significantly alter the overall weight distribution. While there might be slight variations due to individual differences in organ sizes and other factors, the weight distribution tends to be balanced. "
These are the 10 fattest states:
ReplyDeleteWest Virginia Alabama Kentucky Oklahoma Mississippi Arkansas South Dakota Louisiana Ohio Missouri
Note that they are all red states. Obesity tends to go with poverty, which is also higher in red states.
If Gutfeld and Kid Rock are too dainty to tolerate body hair, they may be too prissy for sex.
Latent homosexuality is highly prevalent among Republicans.
DeleteTheir internal oppression is problematic because it manifests through oppression of others.
Anonymouse 2:05pm, nah. Anonymices always resort to essentially calling those they dislike a ‘fag’.
DeleteDo you see no difference between the terms "latent homosexuality" and "fag" Cecelia?
DeleteAnonymouse 6:50pm, I do not. That is essentially the spirit behind the sort of mud that you throw.
DeleteWe on the left don’t consider being gay a bad thing. Latent homosexuality comes from Freud and sexual orientation research. Fag is a derogatory term from schoolyard bullying, oftain aimed at kids who are not gay. Nice people don’t use the word fag. Latent homosexual refers to someone who doesn’t know he is gay but whose behavior is distorted by it.
DeleteIt is telling that you seem to consider both terms to be slurs.
Anonymouse 7:53pm, if you were writing a truthful sentence, you’d say “anonymices are progressive and therefore have no qualms as to homosexuality. However, we will accuse others of being closet gays and we’ll do it in the slimmest way possible. After all, we hate conservatives gays more than straight ones.”
DeleteThe fags who vote for us progressives are good fags. The rest of the fags are deplorable.
DeleteAny liberal that has never seen Gutfeld will not be surprised at the misogyny. He’s a conservative…
ReplyDeleteWhat does it tell you about conservatives that Gutfeld’s show is one of the highest rated on Fox?
Are we not supposed to connect the two things?
Gutfeld, yesterday:
DeleteGREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): Trump has annexed the territory of common sense, and you have the Dems outside looking in, and they're convinced that it's just better to keep moving left then it is to just come join the fun, join the party, because they hate Trump so much. And by doing that, as you see with Springsteen, who is a pussy for doing that in another country and not doing it in America, he is a -- I already said it.
"Surrender, Dorothy"
Delete"Springsteen, who is a pussy for doing that in another country and not doing it in America, he is a -- I already said it. "
DeleteSpringsteen's been saying it in this country for years.
One of the complaints in Original Sin, supposedly indicating that Biden has declined to the point of mumbling is that he doesn't speak clearly. He is hard to understand, someone complained, they couldn't tell what he was saying. Biden has always had speech defects. What is Trump's excuse for this (from Jeff Tiedrich):
ReplyDelete"“…apprehended as an example, the ISIS terrorists of uh the Albrecht Grob, the one that caused all of the problems in Afghanistan.”
Donny — a tired, sweaty mess in this clip — is apparently referring to Abu Ghraib, the notorious hellhole torture-prison run by George W. Bush’s merry band of psychopaths in Iraq (not Afghanistan).
let’s give Old Mumblemouth the benefit of the doubt, that ‘ghraib’ has many possible pronunciations. but how do you fuck up “abu”? it’s three letters — and Donny’s reading off a teleprompter. it’s right there in front of him: A-B-U. it’s not like he had to dredge it up from memory.
might we get the press interested in reporting on Donny’s rapidly-decaying brain? could we get the worthless scribs to forget for five minutes about how old Joe Biden is (spoiler alert: very), and maybe report on what’s going on in the Oval Office right now?"
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/donny-dumbfuck-got-played-his-new
I've had the experience of trying to talk to someone about something serious at a party or reception. When it is noisy and you realize the person you are talking to isn't listening, sometimes you give up without completing your thought. Trump said this stuff in a speech, reading off a teleprompter!
There is a thing called "linguistic charity" in linguistics. It refers to the speaker and the listener working together to construct meaning. The listener makes the interpretation that will best fit the meaning of what the speaker seems to be saying. This is necessary because communication occurs in messy environments with imperfect word choices and grammar, on the fly. When there is no good will, the listener withholds that effort and can misconstrue or fail to recognize what the speaker means.
There is obviously no good will in the Original Sin anecdotes about Biden's mumbling. Does that mean Biden was saying nothing coherent? You would have to be there to know, but it is clear that the people in that book hold Biden in low esteem and are not motivated to hear him.
In the case of Trump, even people who work hard cannot tell what he means because he is truly impaired, especially when speaking off the cuff or digressing in a speech. Trump's language failures are truly concerning and several neuropsychologists have written articles about his decline from past speeches and what it might mean for his cognitive abilities.
Trump is impaired but the attention is being shifted away from him and onto the former president, who was arguably not impaired, even in the most recent interviews. Why are these authors trying to give Trump cover by portraying Biden this way? Yes, money is a motive, but why else? Neither author is left wing, but who bought all those copies of their book before its release date, putting it on the NY Times bestseller list? It wasn't Democrats. At least, not the kind of Democrats who voted for Harris. This is obviously the kind of book that would appeal to Biden haters. But who are the Biden haters, aside from Republicans? What motivated them to sabotage their own party, as they clearly did in retrospect? Ask Somerby. He was one of them.
Well said.
DeleteBiden lost that sping in his step. That's why he handed it off to Kamala. He had grown too old for the rigors of the job.
DeleteBiden was forced off his own ticket by the right wing, working with media like the Washington Post (which promoted those fake videos) and the NY Times who ran stories about Biden's age 24/7 while promoting Trump. And then ego-wounded celebrities like George Clooney decided that if Biden didn't pander to him, Biden must be too demented to run. Now two Republican shills, Tapper & Thompsen are publishing the obligatory hit piece on Biden and the Dems, furthering right wing conspiracy theories that Hunter or Jill Biden or Michelle Obama were actually running the White House using Biden's autopen.
DeleteMeanwhile, who runs the nation while Trump is busy golfing? Did Trump ever walk the course, or has he always driven his cart right up to the hole? Remember back in 2017 when he took his first foreign trip and all of the other heads of state walked to the meeting venue while Trump insisted on being driven in a cart? How fit was that? And Trump is only older now, Melania has left him (wonder why?) and he doesn't sleep at night, just during his daily activities (such as they are). For all of his years, there are no pictures of Biden sleeping through important govt events. And stuttering (which the right calls "mumbling") has never been considered a symptom of dementia.
Biden was no longer capable of performing the duties of president. Age caught up with him. So they held a primary and voters chose Kamala.
DeleteWe on the left are not wrestlers and VJs. Somerby is referring to Gutfeld & crew but using the pronoun "we" to imply that we are all as bad as Gutfeld et al. Presumably because we are all the same species. That is too broad a brush to be meaningful. Even Hitler was the same species, but that doesn't make Hitler the same as any random normal human being. And we on the left are not like Gutfeld with his turd jokes.
ReplyDeleteOne aspect of being human is that we have norms, ideals and we strive to be better behaved according to our understanding of expectations of those we respect (family, parents, role models, figures of authority, heroes). When someone deliberately violates those norms and behaves badly to achieve some personal goal (make money, put Trump in office, gain negative attention to stroke one's ego) they are behaving in a contrary manner to what most members of our species do. We define that as deviant behavior and try to cope with it as a group (society, community, family group). So, being bad is not normal for humans and not a part of social behavior that promotes our survival as a species, enhances group cohesion and furthers our progress as a people.
Somerby argues that we should include and welcome deviancy. That is counter-productive to our species' survival and not something we should do. Even anthropologists living in caves would not support Somerby's suggestions about embracing evil, whether it is Trump or Hitler, or the people who further them. This is wrong. Believing in right and wrong is normal for humans, not redefining wrong so that it is confused with right.
So, you read this essay as Somerby’s embrace of Hitler. How insightful!
DeleteCome on, DG. That isn’t at all what 11:40 is saying.
Delete“Somerby’s suggestions about embracing evil, whether it is Trump or Hitler”
DeleteNot 11:40 - Sincerely, if I’m misreading, tell me how. What could 11:40 mean other than “Somerby suggests we should embrace evil, even if that evil is Hitler”?
DeleteSomerby wants to embrace Gutfeld. I draw the line at that.
DeleteDG failing to understand basic grammar is so on point for the character he plays here.
Delete2:10 - When you’ve got nothing, deflect!
Delete"Greasy Gavin" is Governor Newsom. Basically, this is all these idiots have.
ReplyDeleteWell, that and the fact of his demonstrated record of failure as both the Mayor of San Francisco and Governor of California to destroy any chance of him getting elected POTUS.
Using one of Trump's obnoxious nicknames for the people he dislikes doesn't mean he is right about them. It just signals his attitude toward them, like when he called Rubio "Little Marco". Name calling is childish, but so is Trump.
DeleteTrump should have gone with “the Rev. Gary Gavin Newsom”.
Delete‘the major orgs in Blue America which refuse to report or discuss what happens on these astonishing shows on this ersatz "cable news" channel.’
ReplyDeleteEveryone has known how contemptible conservative media figures are ever since Limbaugh made fun of Chelsea Clinton and Michael J Fox.
Should the New York Times run a daily “Gutfeld watch” column, where they repeat his observations? And then what are they supposed to say? “This is contemptible?” It would be the same column every single day, but with different “jokes.”
I suppose they could do an exposé on him (if they haven’t already). But how often? And what should the conclusion be? “Look at how awful gutfeld is?” A better idea would be to profile his audience and ask them why they like him so much. Except I think we really already know the answer to that. Ultimately, can Murdoch be shamed into removing Gutfeld, or is that not what Somerby wants? Because another issue is that Somerby never 100% condemns Gutfeld. Just recently he said vis-à-vis Gutfeld‘s take on Biden that Gutfeld was essentially correct.
Somerby is a right winger, so he appreciates Gutfeld's sentiments but recognizes that the way Gutfeld delivers his views is boorish and bad for branding.
DeleteToday in the US edition of the Independent:
Deletehttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kid-rock-fox-news-women-birthrate-b2752537.html
Kid Rock has always been gay.
DeleteWhether that means he is a cocksucker or lame or both, there's nothing wrong with that.
"There's often (not always) an obvious element of truth to this host's endless diatribes."
ReplyDeleteOften?
Not all liberal women are too fat but they're too old and angry. Stupid too.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you're just too immature and ignorant?
Delete"they're too old and angry" for what? For you to have sex with them? I'm sure they'll be devastated to hear this news. Let's see a picture of you, Prince Charming.
DeleteThis is no doubt why Somerby has never married. He dislikes women, they sense it and want nothing to do with him. He is now too old and angry for a sexual relationship with any woman. That is what hating women gets you.
DeleteWhat the fuck are you even talking about? I was replying to the @1:33, who wasn't referring to Somerby. Maybe stop being over eager to "hear" your own "voice" and work more on reading comprehension.
DeleteParty of Ka-MALA and Waltz that tried unsuccessfully to brand the normal candidates "weird" now wants more civility. Too bad. We're not being nice anymore.
ReplyDeleteYou never were nice.
DeleteCruelty is the point, and they think it provides cover for their weirdness.
DeleteDon't confuse Walz (Harris's vp nominee) with Waltz (the Republican appointee of Trump's who added the journalist to his insecure chats that violated national security by providing access to classified chats about Houthi attacks). Spelling matters.
DeleteOf all the adjectives to apply to Trump and Vance, 'normal' would have been among the last.
DeleteThe stock market is higher today than at any point in Joe Biden's term. Illegal criminals are being deported. Drug costs are coming down. Democrats hate all this.
ReplyDelete“ Drug costs are coming down. ”
DeleteOh really.
The stock market is well below where Biden had it, and drug prices are not going down.
DeleteFake news from the right wing moron 1:39 is hardly surprising though.
Wrong.
Delete24 Nov 2024, the Dow closed at 44,910. Today: ~42,550.
Trump is not deporting criminals, which Biden was, maybe that is why Trump is curiously not deporting criminals, although it could just merely be incompetence.
DeleteTrump is deporting innocent immigrants and even US citizens, and even kids that are US citizens, and even kids that are US citizens that have cancer - which dovetails nicely with Trump's cuts to cancer research.
When does it become the Trump economy?
DeletePRES. DONALD TRUMP:
It partially is right now. And I really mean this. I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy
After announcing or revising tariffs over 50 times the felon can claim ownership.
DeleteDGMay 16, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Delete"But the element of truth is that Biden is feeling some of the effects of advanced age."
Now do Trump:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1239080534283347
I agree Quaker that this is a repulsive practice. IMO Presidents generally have less impact on the economy than they claim -- especially the good results. The main credit for a good economy should go to the millions of people who work hard to make the economy successful.
ReplyDelete"Quaker in a BasementMay 16, 2025 at 2:15 PM
ReplyDeleteWrong.
24 Nov 2024, the Dow closed at 44,910. Today: ~42,550."
Seems "well below where Biden had it" to me.
Sorry. You and I were writing at the same time. My comment was directed to the original comment at 1:39: "The stock market is higher today than at any point in Joe Biden's term."
Delete