NOW TOO MUCH FOR US? FDR was full of hope!

TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 2023

Observing our tribe, we aren't: The Washington Post's Perry Bacon grew up in Louisville.

Also, he lives in Louisville now. This morning, he offers a column in which he reacts to yesterday's mass shooting right there in his hometown.

Below, we'll return to the first thing Bacon says in his column. For now, let's concentrate on the way he says he's been affected by yesterday's mass shooting.

Here's how his column starts:

LOUISVILLE — The only path out of America’s cycle of gun violence is for the Republican Party to change course and join Democrats in backing far-reaching gun control. Otherwise, Americans will continue to be victims of gun violence, see friends or relatives shot, or be haunted by those possibilities.

I joined the third group this week.

Writing from Louisville, Bacon says he's now haunted by the possibility that he'll see friends or relatives shot, or become such a victim himself. 

Bacon is writing from his hometown. As he continues, he describes the backdrop to his new state of apprehension:

On Monday, a man fired shots at a downtown building in Louisville, killing at least four people and injuring numerous others. I had been at the building, which housed a bank branch as well as office space, for a news conference in December, as Mayor-elect Craig Greenberg announced top aides in his administration.

The ongoing national wave of these shootings has made me increasingly leery of attending large events or visiting schools or other venues where mass carnage is all-to-easy to imagine. Five years ago, a high school friend of mine was shot (but thankfully survived) in a mass shooting in nearby Cincinnati. Monday’s shooting makes me even more nervous—I had been in this physical space before.

Perry Bacon—a good, decent person—had been at the scene of Monday's mass shooting only a few months ago. He says that yesterday's shooting—along with the prior wave of such mass killings—has left him leery of attending large public events.

Did we mention the fact that Perry Bacon is a good, decent person? We're fairly sure that we did. The fact that he is reporting such feelings identifies a second level to the rolling disaster emerging from the nation's endless wave of mass killing events:

Along with the many good, decent people who have died in these events, we have the many good, decent people who are, perfectly sensibly, being affected in the way Bacon describes. 

Making matters even worse, many of those people are children, including children in the early elementary grades. They're first and second and third graders—children who go to school every day.

Such is the emotional carnage proceeding from these events. That said, American news orgs may not be sure about how to treat these repetitive events. 

In this morning's New York Times, the Louisville mass shooting isn't a front-page event. The report about this latest mass shooting appears deep inside the National section, on page A18.

On that page, the news report from Louisville shares space today with two related reports Online, the dual headlines on the three reports look exactly like this:

Gunman Kills 5 Co-Workers at Louisville Bank on Livestream, Police Say
The police did not give a motive for the shooting in the Kentucky city but said that the gunman, who also died, had been a bank employee.

Charges Filed Against Mother of 6-Year-Old Who Shot a Teacher
Prosecutors had previously decided not to charge the boy, a first grader who took the gun to his Newport News, Va., elementary school in January.

Expelled Democratic Lawmaker Is Sworn Back in to Tennessee House
The move to reappoint Representative Justin Jones was a swift rebuke to the Republican supermajority over its decision to expel him and another lawmaker for leading a gun control protest.

In this morning's New York Times, the Louisville shooting is consigned to page A18. By way of contrast, the shooting played a dominant role lon much of cable news last night, and reactions were highly familiar.

With that, we return to Bacon's column—indeed, to his very first statement. Bacon is a good, decent person. As noted earlier, this is the way he begins:

BACON (4/10/23): The only path out of America’s cycle of gun violence is for the Republican Party to change course and join Democrats in backing far-reaching gun control. Otherwise, Americans will continue to be victims of gun violence, see friends or relatives shot, or be haunted by those possibilities.

I joined the third group this week.

The highlighted presentation is very familiar. But does it make any real sense?

Right there, in his very first statement, Bacon makes a debatable pair of claims. He claims that there actually is a "path out of America’s cycle of gun violence," and that we know what it is.

He also this this. He says that if we don't take that path, we Americans "will continue to be victims of gun violence [or] see friends or relatives shot." 

Within the tents of our own blue tribe, that's a very familiar insinuation, suggestion, statement or claim. But does it make any real sense?

Flashback! As we noted on Saturday, everywhere President Roosevelt looked, he said he saw "one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished."  He made that statement in his second inaugural address, but he said he painted that picture not in despair, but in hope.

That's what FDR saw everywhere he looked. Everywhere we look today, we see tribunes of a blue tribe who seem unable to come to terms with the size of the problem we face.

We have no confidence in those tribunes, or in the new heroes they anoint. We have no confidence in their judgment. In many cases, we'd say they're badly compromised, though that may not be a conscious state.

We have no confidence in our tribunes. We have no confidence in their judgment.

We have no confidence in the new stars they quickly anoint. When we see Joan Baez singing the anthem all over again, we sense that all may be lost.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but our self-impressed blue tribe may not be all that impressive. One of our shortcomings may be this: 

We can't see this about ourselves.

Our own blue tribe is unimpressive; the red tribe includes Tucker Carlson. Has our nation possibly reached a point which, to borrow from the poet, is "now too much for us?" 

We'll start to examine that question this week. Our own blue tribe is unimpressive, the red tribe may well be worse.

Tomorrow: Where to begin?

STARTING TOMORROW: "Back out of all this now too much for us..."

MONDAY, APRIL 10, 2023

Still looking for what to call it: "Back out of all this now too much for us..."

That's the way a poet began a somewhat inscrutable poem. We often think of that opening line as we examine our perhaps unwinnable, rapidly devolving, embarrassing national politics.

Has our national politics created a place which is "now too much for us?" It seems to us that it has, and it seems to us that our self-impressed blue tribe is a self-defeating part of that growing problem.

These national politics today! We skip from silly dispute to silly dispute, with both major tribes embellishing freely. Just consider this morning's newspapers:

In the Washington Post, Jada Yuan devotes a long analysis piece to—get this—a sillysad series of flaps which grew out of—get this—some unusual behavior after the end of the NCAA women's championship basketball game.

To her credit, Yuan doesn't present the adjusted set of basic facts which were accepted as instant Storyline as soon as the flap broke out. That said, Jill Biden was quickly thrown into the stew, thereby becoming the focus of Yuan's snarky, unhelpful report.

"Back out of all this now too much for us!" That lyric came to mind as we read Yuan's long, largely silly piece.

That's what we found in this morning's Washington Post! In this morning's New York Times, we found this letter from a college student who's 100 percent well-intentioned:

A Disney Movie, Banned in a Florida School

Re “A Ban on a Film Is a Ban on American History,” by Charles M. Blow (column, March 30):

The censorship occurring in Florida schools is a dangerous attack on education and free speech. How can children receive an adequate education if anything that a parent objects to is banned?

When I was in elementary school, we were taught about history, even if it meant acknowledging racism or hardships faced by minority groups, and we were better informed growing up because of it. To ban a Disney movie—something completely appropriate for children—because it refers to racism does nothing but harm the child.

Perhaps Florida parents should start objecting from the other side, as Mr. Blow suggests. If media depicting racism is banned, where is the ban on Thanksgiving, or on the white founding fathers, or on any slave-owning historical figure? Of course, none of this should reasonably be banned from discussion in the classroom, but Florida rule makers should be forced to consider the implications of their actions.

We have a moral obligation to stand up against what is being done in Florida.

A— L—, Boston

The writer is well-intentioned and completely sincere. That said, where to begin? 

This "ban on a film" was never a ban. No "censorship" was ever involved.

Beyond that, this non-event was quickly resolved, more than a week ago. The letter writer doesn't seem to have heard about that. 

Presumably, the Letters editor isn't aware of the quick resolution either. Say hello to the leadership cadre at the New York Times!

As you may recall, this "ban" was such a non-event that the New York Times, to its credit, never published a news report about the trivial matter. Inevitably, the Opinion pages published two (2) opinion columns about the flap—a non-flap flap which still seems to exist on the newspaper's Letters page.

Within our flailing tribe, we love love love love love love love to talk about book and film bans. Within our tribe, we think "we have a moral obligation" to trumpet such claims far and wide, embellishing as we go.

Then too, along came this lengthy report from yesterday's Washington Post. Reviewing events in the Tennessee House, Gowen and Green let this slip about the way the white lady (Rep. Gloria Johnson) manages to escape expulsion:

GOWEN AND GREEN (4/9/23): Democratic lawmakers who spoke in Johnson’s defense Thursday noted that Johnson had not shouted or banged the podium during the March 30 protest, unlike [Reps.] Jones and Pearson, but merely stood beside them in a show of support.

Johnson ultimately avoided expulsion after a vote of 65 to 30 fell one short of the two-thirds majority needed to eject her.

(For the record, the Republicans voted 65-7 in favor of Johnson's expulsion. Five or six changed their votes from the way they'd voted with respect to her two colleagues.)

Sad! If that account by Gowen and Green is accurate, Tennessee Democrats urged their Republican colleagues to let Johnson escape expulsion because she hadn't done the various things her two black colleagues had done.

When a handful of Republican members actually voted the way their Democratic colleagues had urged, our blue tribe did what we now do best. We fanned out across the countryside, proclaiming that Johnson's narrow escape proved that the Republicans were just a gang of racists! 

That is very, very much the way we now play the game.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but we are now, very much, in a place grown "too much for us."

There's no way to win in the world we're inventing. Tomorrow, we'll start trying to take you down that unpopular conceptual path.

CARLSON UNBOUND: Three nights of menace went unremarked!

MONDAY, APRIL 10, 2023

Carlson, ignored and unbound: Last Friday, we said we were going to spend this week reviewing Tucker Carlson's "meltdown."

(We're quoting Salon's Samaa Khullar, who reported what Carlson did.)

We didn't lie when we said that. But as it turns out, we misspoke.

It really would take at least a week to do justice to the ugliness, and to the stupidity and the menace, of the three Carlson programs in question. 

To the jaw-dropping dumbness of the three programs. To the silence with which they were met.

It would take at least a week to review the ridiculous conduct in question. Since other topics await discussion, we're going to suggest that you familiarize yourself with what Carlson said and did on those three broadcasts of Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Beyond that, we'll suggest something else:

We'll suggest that you marvel at the silence with which those three broadcasts were met throughout the mainstream press and all through blue tribe cable. 

At Salon, a very young journalist had the good sense to record what Carlson had said. But across the sweep of the mainstream press, Carlson's astonishing conduct was met with silence—with the type of silence with which such conduct has been greeted for roughly three decades now.

The mainstream press has averted its gaze dating all the way back to the 1990s, when the very holy Reverend Falwell was peddling a crackpot film about the many murders conducted by Bill and Hillary Clinton. 

(There was no Internet then. Falwell had to parade across the countryside selling copies of his tape.)

The mainstream press corps averted its gaze from Falwell's remarkable conduct. In our view, the press corps' default to such silence—to such avoidance—hasn't worked especially well. 

As of 1998, Gennifer Flowers was running a for-profit web site devoted to the same crazy theme—to the Clintons' many deeply troubling murders. Meanwhile, wouldn't you know it?

By 1999, the mainstream press corps was lionizing Flowers as one of our great truth tellers. Blue tribals don't know about this poisonous history because the children we've been trained to trust spend their time informing us about Spiro T. Agnew instead.

Which of Carlson's nightly programs are we talking about? We're talking about the set of programs which started on Tuesday evening, March 28.

By Thursday night, March 30, the lunacy and the menace were so strong that Khullar spoke up at Salon. Below, you see the dual headlines which sit atop the (partial) transcripts of the first two proframs in this poisonous sequence:

Tuesday, March 28, 2023:

TUCKER CARLSON: The trans movement is targeting Christians
Tucker dissects what is not being said about shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee

Wednesday, March 29, 2023:

TUCKER CARLSON: Garland lying when he says motive in Nashville school shooting hasn't been identified
Tucker takes a look at why the Nashville school shooter's manifesto has not been released

The trans movement is targeting Christians! With conduct which was perfectly captured by that truly remarkable headline, Carlson began the stupid and dangerous three-night "meltdown" which has gone almost wholly unnoticed.

By Thursday night, the "meltdown" had reached the point where Khullar spoke up at Salon. Understandably, the home site for Tucker Carlson Tonight has posted no transcript for Carlson's disordered program that night—but we posted the contents of its most remarkable segment the very next morning.

Meanwhile, consider this:

"The trans movement is targeting Christians!"

With the monologue recorded beneath that headline, Carlson began the three-night breakdown which would go almost wholly unnoticed. Last Friday, we gave you a tiny sample of the sheer stupidity with which Carlson pretended to establish his poisonous case on that first night.

On many nights (though not on all), the sheer stupidity of Carlson's performance is its defining characteristic. On those frequent occasions, Tucker Carlson Tonight is defined by Carlson's logical leaps and fractured facts.

On those nights, the program is defined by the sheer stupidity of the way Carlson paraphrases the statements of public figures. By the spectacular dumbness he brings to his parodies of "news analysis."

By the ease with which he selects his "facts." By the logical leaps he provides.

So it was on the three nights under review. That said, by Thursday night, March 30, Carlson's truly spectacular dumbness had turned to menace.

Carlson's "meltdown" had produced a genuine air of menace. The following day, a peaceful, easy feeling prevailed all over blue cable as the children joked and played.

If you review the transcripts in question, you'll find Carlson advancing some of the dumbest theses ever advanced on American air. This is the theory you'll see him advance—and no, we aren't making this up:

"Transgenderists" are murdering our Christian kids because "transgenderists" believe that they themselves are God! 

"Transgenderists" believe that they themselves are God! That's the braindead, gong-show thesis this silly abandoned child spread across the countryside across the sweep of three nights. 

"Transgenderists" believe that they're God! It would be hard to come up with something stupider than that—but Carlson is likely to try. At any rate, that was the theory Carlson drew from our nation's latest mass shooting—the mass shooting which took place at the start of that week inside a Nashville school.

By that Thursday night, Carlson and his guests were connecting the murders in Nashville to the indictment of Donald J. Trump, which had been announced that day. On that program—on the program for which no transcript has been posted—Jason Whitlock's performance showcased the anguish, the anger and the menace which can arise from the product Carlson is selling.

It would take at least a week to run through the sheer stupidity on display in these three programs. But out of that brain-jangling stupidity, there emerged an overt call to arms.

Whitlock offered that call to arms on Thursday evening, March 30. Carlson voiced agreement. 

We posted the transcript the following morning. At Salon, a very young journalist had the good sense to report what Whitlock and Carlson had said and done that night.

Elsewhere, the waters closed over. Carlson's astounding performance was met with almost total silence. The mainstream press has behaved this way all through the era of Rush and Sean, but Carlson's work is becoming more dangerous still.

That Thursday evening, Whitlock's performance gave the world a troubling look at where Carlson's behavior can lead. To an extent which can't be measured, cable performances of this type have already given us January 6. The ongoing craziness of Carlson's "analyses" could lead to something worse.

It's very, very hard to know why Carlson behaves as he does. It's often said that he can't possibly believe the various things he says—that he simply can't be that stupid.

As with others, so too here. It seems to us it would take (carefully selected) medical / psychological specialists to create an intelligent discussion of behavior so odd and extreme. 

For better or worse, that discussion isn't going to happen within the tents of the high-end mainstream press corps. Their journalistic "ethics" forbids such discussion! 

(It's also true that our mainstream news orgs, as a group, may not have the technical chops to know how to talk about Carlson's work. They simply don't have those skills.)

We leave you today with one main thought—this silence of the lambs hasn't helped. 

The silence of the lamps in the mainstream press. The silence of the lambs in blue tribe cable—the silence of lambs who have names like Joe and Mika and Nicolle and Lawrence and Rachel.

We've said it for the past twenty years. When millions of people are disinformed or misinformed or proselytized in such remarkable ways, it should be front-page news.

Dating all the way back to the very holy Reverend Falwell, the mainstream press has generally preferred to avert its gaze from such peculiar behavior. The longing for avoidance is understandable, but go ahead:

Read again what Whitlock said to Tucker Carlson that night. Jason Whitlock was wholly sincere, but "what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

As before, so too today: To watch the tape of Whitlock's segment, you can just click here.

You can't believe the things you hear...

SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 2023

...on programs like Morning Joe: Everywhere President Roosevelt looked, he saw a constellation of human conditions—conditions which actually matter. 

Also, he saw "a challenge to our democracy." This was part of FDR's second inaugural address:

ROOSEVELT (1/20/37): But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.

I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. But it is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope...

That's what President Roosevelt saw everywhere he looked. By way of contrast:

Everywhere we look, we see lazy, multimillionaire "journalists" spilling from clowncars on programs like Morning Joe. 

Millions of American children are still growing up in difficult conditions. Millions of other people are trying to enter the country, trying to escape worse conditions elsewhere.

You'll rarely hear about such matters on programs like Morning Joe. Instead, you tend to hear a lot of uninformed clowning and Storyline-scripted guff—as, for example, on yesterday morning's show.

The program had just aired videotape of a fleetingly accurate public statement made the day before. 

The fleetingly accurate public statement concerned the types of people who haven't been expelled from the Tennessee House. Knowing nothing about the topic, but Joe and Mika reacted:

JOE (4/7/23): You listen, and you find out, the people who committed domestic violence—

MIKA: Yeah. And sexual abuse.

JOE: —and other abuse, allowed to stay in there. Even if you urinate in a fellow member's chair, you get promoted in Tennessee to the leadership.

So cool! It made for wonderful messaging—but to what extent was it accurate?

You can of course be fully certain the Joe and Mika had no earthly idea. They were drawing on the public statement by Rep. Justin Jones, and they were assuming that what Jones had said was accurate.

The show had just played tape of Jones' statement. This is what he had said:

REP. JONES (4/5/23): Let's talk about expulsion. For years, one of your colleagues who was an admitted child molester sat in this chamber: no expulsion. One member sits in this chamber who was found guilty of domestic violence. no expulsion. 

We had a former Speaker sit in this chamber who is now under federal investigation: no expulsion. We have a member still under federal investigation: no expulsion. 

We had a member pee in another member’s chair in this chamber: no expulsion. In fact, they're in leadership, in the governor's administration.

We can't honestly say that Rep. Jones is a stickler for perfect accuracy. After lengthy attempts at fact-checking, we can't say that he described any of his five examples in a reasonably accurate way. 

Inevitably, Joe turned to the exciting statement about the member who urinated in his fellow member's chair. It made for wonderful messaging—but has any such thing ever happened?

As best we can tell, no member of the Tennessee House has ever been accused of such conduct, let alone found to have done such a thing. The reference seems to take us back to the summer of 2019, to a semi-accusation which seems to have been floating around about Michael Lofti, a legislative staffer. 

In a failed attempt to report this matter, Business Insider described the incident as stated by Rep. Gloria Johnson, who seems to be even less reliable about such matters than Rep, Jones. At any rate, Business Insider said this:

[Rep. Johnson] also called out a lawmaker who was accused of peeing in the seat of another legislator, saying that no one was punished. The lawmaker accused of urinating on the seat has denied the allegations.

So Johnson's version of the story flowed! Sadly, Business Insider linked to this August 2019 news report in the Nashville Tennessean as the source for this claim. The news report makes a fleeting reference to Lofti's denial. 

Having said that, alas! Apparently, Business Insider hadn't noticed. But despite what Jones and Johnson have said, Lofti wasn't and isn't a lawmaker / legislator / House member, though he does now work as a staffer to the governor.

Presumably, Lofti couldn't have been "expelled" from a seat in the House which he never held. Beyond that, there seems to be no apparent evidence that any such urination episode ever really occurred. 

It's always possible that some such incident did take place. But Tennessee journalists have made no attempt, down through the years, to report or discuss the alleged, and long-forgotten, apparent non-event.

Needless to say, Scarborough didn't know any of this as he swung into action. He simply proceeded with Storyline, in the insultingly stupid way our own tribe's message teams do.

Credit where due! In the (Nashville) Tennessean, Vivian Jones has written a lengthy, fair-minded report about this week's unfortunate events. As you can see below, she named two of the people to whom Rep. Jones referred in the statement we've posted above.

In our view, she seems to have glossed her accounts of those matters in a way which favors Rep. Jones. She skipped past other cases where the accuracy of Rep. Jones' claims might be harder to defend. 

Still, two or more cheers for Vivian Jones! Along the way, her reporting conveyed the way civility has possibly ceased to exist within the Tennessee House. 

VIVIAN JONES (4/7/23): Former House Speaker Glen Casada, R-Franklin, is currently under federal indictment on corruption-related charges. He did not run for reelection amid the federal charges, but no action was taken to remove him from his seat. No action was taken against former Rep. David Byrd, R-Waynesboro, who faced child sexual abuse allegations from decades earlier.

In response, Rep. Sabi “Doc” Kumar, R-Springfield, accused Jones of having called him “brown face” after a recent committee hearing. 

“In all those 53 years in America, I have never encountered a racial slur. I’m really not sure any of that applies to me. I live a good life,” Kumar said. “Yet, you on tape called me a ‘brown face.’ Yes, sir. It’s on tape. It’s on tape. You called me that after a committee meeting on that same day. … You shoved your finger in my face and said, ‘Kumar, they will never accept you.’ You said it twice, and you were so intimidating that the sergeant at arms without my invitation came in to intervene between us.” 

Jones later explained from the podium that he had said Kumar “put a brown face on white supremacy.” Kumar is the only non-white member of the Republican caucus.

It seems to us that Vivian Jones may have glossed her accounts of the Casada and Byrd matters. Concerning the "one member [who] sits in this chamber who was found guilty of domestic violence," we're assuming that was a reference to Rep. Torrey Harris, who hasn't been "found guilty of domestic violence," but who was arrested on two related counts in July of last year.

Rep. Harris is 32. He's a gay black man from Memphis. He was arrested with respect to a very trivial incident involving himself and a former boyfriend, and the pair's pet dog.

According to the Daily Memphian, the case against Rep. Harris was "retired" in January of this year. That said, he's a young gay black Democrat from Memphis—and, in spite of his arrest on those two charges, he wasn't expelled from the legislature by the Republican super-majority.

(Presumably, he's the person Joe was referring to when he clucked about "domestic abuse.")

Meanwhile, Rep. Jones hadn't called Rep. Kumar "brown face." He had merely said that Rep. Kumar "put a brown face on white supremacy." Or so Rep. Jones has said!

At any rate, things have come badly undone in this body, as is true elsewhere around the nation. Events of the past week seems to have made that clear.

In our view, the lazy rote conduct of people like Joe and Mika doesn't especially help. Meanwhile, blue tribe members shouldn't assume the accuracy of the various Storyline Tales we receive from the people the corporation has taught us to think of as friends.

Over the course of the past dozen years, nationwide messaging has increasingly mixed the red and the blue with the black and the white. Given the brutality and the emotional power of global and national racial history, it's a dangerous way to play the game—and no, you can't necessarily believe the things our political heroes and corporate tribunes will be inclined to tell us.

We hope the two reps get reinstated. We hope Rep. Harris prospers. That said, we return to yesterday's looming questions:

Who the heck lost Tennessee? Aside from repeating stupid stories, how do we get it back?

Lawrence was very, very upset!

FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 2023

Mr. Gorbachev, build up that wall: Tennessee wasn't always bright red.

In 1992 and 1996, the Clinton/Gore ticket won the state, though it did so fairly narrowly. In 2000, Gore/Lieberman lost the state by four points. 

On the presidential level, it's been all bright red from there:

Tennessee presidential elections:
2004: Bush 56.8%, Kerry 42.5%
2008: McCain 56.9%, Obama 41.8%
2012: Romney 59.5%, Obama 39.1%
2016: Trump 60.7%, Clinton 34.7%
2020: Trump 60.7%, Biden 37.4%

Earlier, though, the state had been blue! Here's where matters stood as of 1992:

Tennessee, January 1992:
Governor: Ned McWherter (D)
United States Senate: Al Gore (D), James Sasser (D) 
United States House of Reps:  Democrats 6 seats, Republicans 3

Pepperidge Farm remembers! From there, it's been straight downhill.

Today, it's nothing like that. Tennessee is blazing red and is likely to stay that way.

What accounts for all that change? We can't exactly tell you. We'd be inclined to say that much of the commentary on cable last night didn't seem likely to help.

Tennessee's giant shift to the red virtually defines the political problem our own blue tribe currently faces. We'll guess it may not gigantically help when cable shouters, along with Tennessee Democratic pols, spend an evening dointhis:

Comparing current Tennessee pols to Bull Connor; remarking that Tennessee is where the Ku Klux Klan was born and where Dr. King was murdered; referring to "lynch mobs" and "lynching trees;" comparing their own "assassinations" to that of Dr. King; and also saying lots of other high-octane stuff.

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," an American president once said. Last night, it seemed to us that our cable shouters were happily working to build a certain wall up.

Should the Tennessee House have voted to remove two members? Everyone in our blue tribe knows how to answer that question.

We also know what we should say about why the racist rednecks did that, and about why the racist rednecks let the white woman stay. 

We all know exactly what we should say about why she got to stay. That said, and just for the record, the numbers break down like this:

Only seven (7) of the 75 Republican members of the Tennessee House voted to let the white woman stay—and two of the seven also voted to let one or both of the black guys stay. 

(Rep. Charlie Baum (R) voted to let all three Democrats stay. Rep. Bryan Richey (R) voted to boot Rep. Jones but to let the other two stay.)

In other words, only five of the 75 Republican members voted to boot the two black guys while letting the white woman stay. The giant majority of the Republican pols voted to boot all three.

That said, everyone from Joe and Mika's sidekicks on down knew that the different outcomes in those cases showed that the Tennessee House is just a pile of Republican racists. Everyone memorized the point:

They voted to kick the black guys out but to let the white lady stay!

The white woman, who survived by only one vote, told the story that way herself! Given the way the game is now played, it tends to be the only thing our blue tribe knows how to say.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. That said, a major continental nation can't survive if it splits into a wide array of increasingly self-referential identity groups and at least two warring political tribes.

Mr. Gorbachev, build up that wall! That's what we heard Lawrence and them happily saying last night.

We suspect that you may disagree, but please remember this—we've long said that there seems to be no obvious way out of our growing mess.

A continental nation can't survive as a collection of warring identity groups and siloed political tribes. Meanwhile, for better or worse, the "democratization of media" makes it harder and harder to avoid breaking apart in such ways.

On the brighter side, those young black Tennessee pols were reacting to the murder of three 9-year-old white kids.

That was a very advanced version of the classic "black and white together" stance. On the basis of that virtually unmentioned fact, we'll praise them to the skies!

Elsewhere, we'd have to say that we saw all three of the "Tennessee Three" wandering off the rails.

There's no obvious way out of our failing nation's growing political mess. Putting it another way, there's no obvious way for our team to win, and there are roughly a million ways to continue to lose.

Remember when Tennessee was blue? We leave you with this question:

What has happened in the years since then? How the heck did we ever get all the way from there to here?

(Feel free to mention Rush and Sean, but also Fox News and Tucker. Feel free to mention the Internet and the rise of social media.)

CARLSON UNBOUND: It was the sheer stupidity, Stupid!

FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 2023

But also, the danger and the silence: Tucker Carlson was loaded for bear when last Tuesday night's program began.

He began, as he often (though not always) does, with a baldly inaccurate statement. His presentation dealt with NPR—and with the transgender movement:

CARLSON (3/28/23): Good evening, and welcome to Tucker Carlson Tonight.

It was just last week that we noticed that parts of the transgender movement seemed to be getting militant and possibly dangerous. We did a whole segment about it on Thursday night [March 23]. 

That segment was sparked by an NPR segment we had heard and never expected to hear. 

NPR as always, as a matter of editorial policy, completely opposes civilian ownership of firearms, with the possible exception of the IRS agents.  

Yet here suddenly was that very same station, National Public Radio, positively urging trans people to buy guns, as many guns as possible, and if necessary to use them. 

As usual, Carson was warning his viewers that a certain group of Others were becoming very dangerous. 

He began with a bit of snark in which NPR was said to be advocating for heavily armed IRS agents. Then, he described a surprising NPR segment—an NPR segment, needless to say, which had never taken place.

Had Carlson actually heard a broadcast in which NPR "urged trans people to buy as many guns as possible, and if necessary to use them?"

Actually no, he hadn't. Simply put, no such segment had ever been broadcast by NPR.

No such segment had ever been broadcast. But so it went at the start of the evening on the increasingly dangerous, frequently crackpot "cable news" program, Tucker Carlson Tonight. 

As Carlson spoke, his corporate owner, Fox News, was up to its ears in a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. 

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, the Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Channel had repeatedly aired crackpot claims about Dominion—crackpot claims which major players at Fox News had privately described as "crazy" and false.

As Carlson went on the air last Tuesday night, this behavior by Fox News had been widely reported and discussed. But here was Carlson, beginning his show with a bogus claim about a nonexistent NPR segment he seemed to think he had heard.

NPR had never aired any such report. At this link, you can listen to the actual segment to which Carlson referred. You can also read a clean, proofread transcript of what was actually said during the actual segment.

The segment described a group of trans people who were training themselves on the use of guns out of fear of anti-trans violence. At no point had NPR's Todd Bookman engaged in the types of advocacy Carlson seemed to think he had scarily heard.

In fairness to Carlson, a person can almost believe that he may have actually thought that he heard a segment of the type he described. 

Carlson's behavior isn't overtly disordered during every broadcast of Tucker Carlson Tonight. That said, his presentations routinely involve leaps of logic and fractured facts in such overt, ridiculous ways as to cause fair-minded viewers to wonder about his mental and medical well-being.

That said, Carlson's presentation was severely disordered last Tuesday night. His claims about the murderous "transgenderist" movement would only become more perverse on the following night.

In even a mildly rational world, it would be astounding to think that a major network like Fox News would put this person on the air at all, let alone at a time when the corporation's behavior is being dismantled in the course of a high-profile lawsuit.

That would be in a mildly rational world. In the universe we all inhabit, an entirely different set of standards and norms seems to apply.

It's going to take us all next week to walk you through the disordered claims Carlson made last Tuesday and Wednesday nights. On a journalistic basis, the sheer stupidity of Carlson's work was matched by its ugliness and by its menace—but of one thing Carlson could be sure:

As Carlson went on the air all last week, he could be sure of this:

No one in the wider press corps was going to say a word about what he was doing on these deranged, disordered broadcasts. He would be able to air his broadcasts without any reporting or commentary in the wider journalistic world.

On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the sheer stupidity of Carlson's torrent of claims was matched by their irresponsibility and their danger and menace. That said, Fox News could feel fairly sure that no one in the mainstream press would report what Carlson was saying and doing.

On the blue tribe's cable news channel, Carlson's counterparts were happily discussing the topic they ride as a pleasurable hobbyhorse and as a ratings magnet:

Trump Trump Trump Trump Jail!

Blue tribe hosts ignored Carlson's broadcasts. Almost everywhere else, a similar silence prevailed. 

Last Thursday night, Carlson staged his most disturbing broadcast of the week. As we noted in this report, one young journalist at Salon reported what he had said and done.

One very young journalist was alarmed by the Fox star's lack of clothes. At the New York Times and the Washington Post, near total silence prevailed.

It was the (ongoing) silence of the lambs—the lambs of the mainstream press corps and of the blue tribal world. 

Starting next Monday, we'll spend a week taking you through the various ugly and dangerous claims the Fox ratings star broadcast last week. For today, one early admission:

We won't be able to get to it all. The lunacy was general over CarlsonWorld for three consecutive nights.

Carlson's claims were frequently nutty—but they were also disordered, dangerous. 

The New York Times didn't say a word; the Washington Post was silent. Dating at least to the 1990s, life has been easier, for all concerned, when they choose to avert their gaze. 

"It's the economy, Stupid," a famous campaign bromide once said.

All last week, it was the blinding stupidity you might have noticed first if you watched Carlson's programs. At first glance, It was the sheer stupidity, Stupid on this disordered show.

Also, though, it was the danger, and it was the menace. It was the dangerous air of menace as mainstream press silence prevailed. 

Next week: We'll try to do the best we can. There's no way to get to it all.

Kristof assesses the Trump indictment!

THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2023

Who should we pity / detest? How strong does Alvin Bragg's case against Donald J. Trump seem to be?

We asked that question yesterday. We'll ask it again today.

For ourselves, we simply don't know the answer! As with any other defendant, we'd like to see Donald J. Trump charged with a "recognizable" crime—with a crime whose parameters can be explained to the average person.

So far, that doesn't quite seem to have happened. In this morning's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof offers his assessment of this state of affairs.

In our view, Kristof casts himself in the Nestor role as he starts his column. Headline included, he starts with some good sound advice:

Do Critics of Trump’s Indictment Have a Point?

Republican leaders and Fox News personalities have erupted at the arrest of Donald Trump, so let’s consider some of their concerns.

“I believe the New York prosecutor has stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda.” —Senator Mitt Romney

Is this indictment a legal stretch? It may be. Even some sharp critics of Trump find the case thin. We liberals should recognize our biases and tread carefully.

Kristof quotes Romney voicing reservations about the indictment. He then says that he has some concerns too!  

Kristof even goes so far as to say that says we liberals should "recognize our biases" when we assess this matter! Given the way our self-impressed tribe all too frequently tends to function, this is akin to asking a pack of mosquitoes to stop with all the mosquito bites.

Throughout the column, Kristof quotes conservative complaints about the indictment, then offers his own reactions. He agrees with some conservative complaints, disagrees sharply with others.

In the end, he says we need "a sober, measured process," not "glee or a rush to judgment." We agree with that advice. We also offer these reactions to a few things Kristof says:

Kristof: "Paying hush money to a porn star is not inherently a crime."

As far as we know, that statement is technically accurate. Paying a porn star isn't a crime—except on Morning Joe!

On this morning's program, Joe and Mika seemed determined to break the world record for the most times saying "porn star" during one four-hour period. All too often, Porn star porn star porn star porn star has come to replace our tribe's previous top incantation:

Trump Trump Trump Trump Jail!

Meanwhile, it remains an embarrassing measure of our species' mental horizon. Before we can decide how to vote, we must be told if some candidate had sex with someone ten years earlier, on just one occasion!

Kristof: "In Bragg’s favor is the fact that Trump’s 'fixer,' Michael Cohen, already went to prison on these facts."

As we've noted before, that statement is a bit of stretch. Many miles of hard legal road are sanded away in that thoroughly memorized statement of alleged fact.

Kristof: "There’s so much fever and delusion out there."

That's Kristof's reaction to some crazy and / or stupid claims made by several commentators. (By Andrew Napolitano, as cited by Infowars. Also, by one of Trump's current lawyers.)

In fact, there's a lot of Crazy out there now, with a whole lot more to come. Dating back to Reverend Falwell's insinuations and claims about all the people the Clintons murdered, the mainstream press has done a poor job dealing with this part of American (and human) life.

Our advice? It's time to bring medical and psychological specialists into our discussions of such behavior. Also, we liberals might want to be sure that we avoid bogus claims.

Kristof: "It's important that Democrats act responsibly toward a man they detest." 

In our view, this raises an important point—a point with which you may disagree. Before we tell you what that point is, we'll offer the longer passage from the end of Kristof's column:

KRISTOF: A CNN poll found that 60 percent of the public approves of the Manhattan indictment, but that about three-quarters believe the prosecution is driven at least in part by politics.

All this makes it all the more important that Democrats act responsibly toward a man that they detest. I wish the first indictment were stronger on its face, but I’m wary of prejudging the case—and let’s brace ourselves for more tumult ahead.

That's how Kristof ends his column—with good, sound advice. We have one reservation about his advice. But first, let's think about this:

In that CNN poll, three-quarters of respondents said they "believe the prosecution is driven at least in part by politics!" That should be a sobering statistic—a serious cause for concern.

Earlier, Kristof had raised the possibility that some red state prosecutors might start pursuing the highest Democratic politicians with flimsy prosecutions. Obviously, that could happen, especially to the extent that Trump gets charged with crimes which no one can quite recognize, describe or explain.

Remember: Except on programs like Morning Joe, it isn't a crime to get shaken down by "a porn star," or even by a doorman! According to Bragg, Trump or his associates paid hush money to one of each. 

As far as we know, no one believes the doorman's threatened claim was actually true. Can this possibly be the way we want our elections to work?

Our final suggestion is this:

Kristof says we should act responsibly toward a person we detest. Borrowing from the early Alanis Morissette, how about if we just stop detesting people?

We continue along in our view that Trump seems to be some (serious) form of "mentally ill." Because our high-end journalists refuse to enter the 20th century, this obvious possibility plays no role in our 21st century journalism.

"I pity the poor immigrant," Dylan (metaphorically) said. As you can see if you click this link, Dylan's lyrics described Donald J. Trump to a T:

Who eats but is not satisfied
Who hears but does not see
Who falls in love with wealth itself
And turns his back on me

It seems to us that pity works better, on a political basis, than reams of detestation.

Can you imagine pitying Trump? For starters, we'll ask you this:

Would you want to be that disordered person—the person Dylan described?

CARLSON UNBOUND: We won't be posting until this afternoon!

THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2023

Possibly not on this topic: We're losing a chunk of time this morning. For that reason, we won't be posting until this afternoon, possibly not on this topic.

We want to record the very strange things Tucker Carlson was saying last week. We want to question the wisdom of ignoring such disordered remarks.

On blue tribe cable, we talk about Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Jail, and we talk about little else. Our stars prefer not to talk about Fox. On blue tribe cable, and in the upper-end press, we leave Carlson ignored and unbound.

Carlson's disordered remarks should be recorded. If we don't return to this topic today, we'll return to this topic tomorrow.

CNN, New York Times unsure about Bragg!

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2023

Rachel can't say naughty words: How strong does Alvin Bragg's case against Donald J. Trump seem to be?

At this point, we have no idea. If Trump is going to be charged with a crime, we'd like it to be a recognizable, explainable crime. (For the record, we would favor that same approach for anyone charged with a crime.)

We're not sure that that happened yesterday. We'll start with CNN.

Last night, at 8 P.M., CNN gathered the troops to stage an evaluation. Assessments of the indictment were strikingly poor. 

Paula Reid went first. She closed by saying this:

REID (4/4/23): Look, I've passed two Bar exams. I'm having a little trouble following Alvin Bragg's argument here. So it's unclear if the average Manhattan juror will be able to follow it as well. 

And even if they can, even if they get a conviction, it still has to survive appeals, which is going to be difficult for cases built on novel legal theories.

For Reid, Bragg's argument is hard to follow—and there are still "novel legal theories" there.

We can't assess Reid's level of legal expertise. "Senior legal analyst" Elie Honig went next. He was underwhelmed too:

HONIG: The only way this gets bumped up, each of these counts gets bumped up to a felony, is if you can show that they falsified the records to commit some second crime, and here is where we're going to run into legal problems, because the indictment does not say what that second crime is, which is completely inexplicable to me.

[...]

I am a big believer in Alvin Bragg. He is a former colleague of mine, I believe in his capacity and his integrity, but I have real questions about this. 

Next up with Jessica Roth, a Cardozo Law School professor. She sounded underwhelmed too:

ROTH: Well, I was disappointed that there wasn't more in the indictment in terms of laying out what the legal theory was with more precision. Today was supposed to be the big reveal, where we would get that information. And to the extent that we have a sense of what the theory of the case is, in terms of what are the crimes that would have been furthered or concealed by the falsification of records, it is not in the indictment.

[...]

It may be also that he's trying to leave options open in terms of what the evidence most firmly supports in terms of what that other crime was. But it would have been, I think, helpful if he had committed to a theory of the case, or even if it was in the alternative, to lay out exactly what those crimes were, even if ultimately, the jury would decide, well, at least one of them was furthered by the falsification.

Anderson Cooper also spoke to Andrew McCabe, a senior law enforcement analyst. McCabe is no fan of Donald J. Trump, but he was downbeat too:

COOPER: What I'm hearing now, just to tee you up is, it looks like the District Attorney, Bragg has set up, you know, a very solid case for 34 misdemeanors related to business fraud, but not a huge amount of confidence in the attempt by Mr. Bragg to turn this into 34 felony charges. What are you hearing?

MCCABE: Very, very similar commentary, Jake. So I if I had to characterize it, it's a disappointment. I think everyone was hoping we would see more about the direction that they intend to take this prosecution. What is the legal theory that ties that very solid misdemeanor case, 34 counts of misdemeanors to the intent to conceal another crime, which is what makes it a felony. It simply isn't there.

Now it's possible that the DA has an elaborate and solid theory that's backed up by a lot of evidence and he has just decided to conceal that at this point. That would be, I think it's a strange decision on his part. But nevertheless, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.

At the end of the day, if all of our legal friends read this indictment and don't see a way to a felony, it's hard to imagine convincing a jury that that they should get there.

We were surprised by how consistent the negativity was. 

Does that mean that something's wrong with the case? We have no idea. That said, it seemed to us that Charlie Savage's more balanced assessment on the front page of this morning's New York Times quickly turned a bit negative too:

SAVAGE (4/5/23): As was widely predicted, [Bragg] is pointing toward alleged violations of both federal and state elections laws. By doing so, he is in part plunging forward with a premise that has given pause to even some of Mr. Trump’s toughest critics.

[...]

Indeed, a range of election-law specialists on Tuesday expressed fresh doubt about whether Mr. Bragg could successfully use campaign finance laws alone to elevate the bookkeeping fraud charges to felonies. Among those skeptics were Richard L. Hasen, a University of California at Los Angeles legal scholar, and Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a longtime election lawyer for the Republican Party and a critic of Mr. Trump.

Even with the addition of the claim about intended false statements to tax authorities, Robert Kelner, the chairman of the election and political law practice group at the firm Covington & Burling, remained uncertain that it would show an intent to commit another crime.

“The local prosecutors seem to be relying in part on a bank shot exploiting Michael Cohen’s guilty plea in a federal campaign finance case,” he said. “But there were serious questions about the legal basis for the case against Cohen, making that a dubious foundation for a case against a former president. Prosecutors also allude vaguely to ‘steps’ taken to violate tax laws, but they say little to establish what that might mean.”

In this case, as in all cases, we'd favor indictment on the basis of a recognizable crime. (Like "shooting someone on Fifth Avenue," to cite one possible example.)  It sounds like Bragg has a long way to go if he wants to make his charge against Trump explainable to people like us, to the everyday average rubes.

CNN was surprisingly negative. On MSNBC, during that same 8 P.M. hour, general hilarity prevailed.

It all started at 8:09 when it fell to Rachel Maddow to talk about David Pecker., whose name is extremely embarrassing and very hard to say. Almost surely, you know what happened next. Rachel has been playing this card for a great many years at this point.

Ten minutes later, Lawrence said that some Trump supporter outside the courthouse yesterday kept asking him about his vagina [sic]. 

Just like that, Rachel was in the soup again! Once again, the children laughed and played and mugged and clowned and generally enjoyed their social hour with their high-profile favorites and friends.

Our extremely self-impressed tribe is a childish, embarrassing mess. As a group, we seem to be completely unable to see this.

(You can enjoy the clowning again thanks to the Internet Archive. For reasons which must be perfectly obvious, MSNBC has long since stopped transcribing its primetime "cable news" shows.)

CARLSON UNBOUND: On cable, our favorites were peaceful and easy!

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2023

At Salon, a young journalist spoke: Late last Friday afternoon, a peaceful, easy feeling prevailed oner blue tribe cable.

News of Donald J. Trump's indictment had been released the day before. As we noted yesterday, viewers were rewarded with some good strong tribal reinforcement on Friday's Deadline: White House.

In just the first three minutes of the show, Nicolle Wallace made two (2) references to the presence of "our favorite reporters and friends." She also assured us that "our legal friends" would be on hand to explain the whole darn thing.

We had even been granted one "lucky for us"—all in the first three minutes! Also, Trump was ritualized as "the twice-impeached, disgraced ex-president." That was the first thing she said!

Right at the start of her show, an all-new and newly relaxed Wallace favored us with a shower of incantations. Blue tribe viewers would be rewarded for the next two hours with a peaceful easy feeling concerning events in Wallace's narrow world.

Elsewhere, earlier in the day, a young reporter at Salon had exhibited better judgment.

That young reporter, Samaa Khullar, is a senior at NYU. She had watched red tribe cable the night before.

She had derived no peaceful, easy feeling from what she had seen that night. We had watched red tribe cable too—and we'd been alarmed by what we saw. 

In Friday morning's report, we posted the transcript of one especially startling segment from Thursday evening's Tucker Carlson Tonight. Shortly after noon that same day, Khullar's report appeared at Salon, beneath this dual headline:

Fox News stokes fears of political "violence" over Trump indictment
"I hope you're ready for whatever's next," one pundit said. "If that's what they want, let's get to it"

The overwritten, fuller headline was a bit less than fully artful. That said, Carlson's program on Thursday night had indeed seemed to stoke fears of such violence, or had perhaps done something a great deal worse. 

Later that Friday, the city mice would laze about on Deadline: White House. More alertly, Khullar seemed to think that there were certain things the public needed to know.

The young reporter's aim was true. Her report began as shown:

KHULLAR (3/31/23): Fox News host Tucker Carlson had a meltdown on his show Thursday night after news broke that a Manhattan grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump in a hush-money case, calling it a targeted "political purge" against Republicans. 

"The rule of law appears to be suspended tonight, not just for Trump but for anyone who would consider voting for him," Carlson said on his show. "This is what it seems to be. It is a political purge." 

"It almost feels they're pushing the population to react," he said, referring to Democrats. "'We think they're demoralized and passive, let's see if they really are.' At what point do we conclude they're doing this in order to produce a reaction?"

While Carlson implied that there might be "retaliation from red states," his guests were much more straightforward in their warnings of political violence.

There had been no peaceful, easy feeling on Thursday's Tucker Carlson Tonight! 

Carlson's guests had indeed been fairly straightforward in their "warnings" of political violence. For ourselves, we'd say that Khullar was being a bit soft with her use of that particular word. 

At one point, one guest had moved beyond "warnings." Still and all, for better or worse, Khullar had chosen to start a bit slow:

KHULLAR (continuing directly): Comedian Adam Carolla asserted that "people are going to go out and protest. Somebody is going to do something stupid and then they're going to fire up the DOJ, just like January 6th." 

Carlson then claimed that Republican voters were being "pushed into a corner." Carolla responded: "I feel like it's to get them to react so that the government can now swoop in."

The Deep State was going to lock them all up! At this point, Khullar posted a tweet which noted that Carolla was "the third Tucker Carlson guest tonight to claim Trump supporters are being set up to react violently." 

The specter of violence had been general on the Carlson show. At this point, Khullar described the remarkable segment we ourselves had transcribed:

KHULLAR (continuing directly): Sports columnist Jason Whitlock then accused Democrats of "agitating for unrest" and cautioned that he is "ready for whatever's next."

Whitlock's rhetoric closely resembled the former president's calls to action from his supporters after the 2020 election. "I hope every other man out there watching this show, I hope you're ready for whatever's next," Whitlock told Carlson. "If that's what they want, let's get to it."

Khullar offered more detail about Whitlock's extended remarks. 

As we noted last Friday morning, Whitlock seemed to have gone well beyond a mere "warning" about future violence.  It seemed to us that he was offering an obvious call to arms. 

Thus spake Jason Whitlock in reaction to Trump's indictment. To her credit, Khullat didn't stop there. She even reported what Glenn Beck had said:

KHULLAR: Radio host Glenn Beck echoed Whitlock's inflammatory remarks.

"They wanted violence from the right from the beginning," Beck told Carlson, arguing that Democrats were purposely trying to provoke Republicans by indicting Trump. "They can't wait [for] it. They need it. They want you to strike out. Why? Because then they can close the cage."

Beck also predicted that the country would be "at war" by 2025.

Khullar linked to videotape of Beck's inflammatory but fuzzy segment. 

(With whom would "the country" be at war by 2025? Beck wasn't specific about that, but the air of great menace prevailed.)

Carlson's hour last Thursday night was one of the most remarkable hours we've ever seen on "cable news." Lucky for us blue tribe viewers, if we watch Wallace's two-hour program each day, we city mice will never be required to know what the country mice are saying.

We get to enjoy an easy feeling, reinforced by our favorites and friends. We won't be forced to lose our mellow by knowing that there's a bad moon rising over there in the other tribe.

Last night, our blue tribe pundits adopted a vaudevillian air during the 8 o'clock hour. A peaceful, easy feeling had been replaced by the lamebrain mugging and clowning our tribe has come to love.

We'll give you excerpts this afternoon. For now, let's end with this:

Carlson's program last Thursday night involved a bad moon rising. That said, his programs had possibly been even uglier, and more dangerous, on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

On blue tribe cable, you aren't encouraged to know such things. The New York Times and the Washington Post also avert their gaze in the face of such peculiar, disturbing events.

The mainstream press and our own blue tribe have played it this way forever. At this site, we've long said that it's an unwise way to play.

Nicolle reassured us with incantations. Last night, Rachel massively clowned.

Last Friday, shortly after noon, a very young reporter spoke at Salon. A very large tree fell in the forest, and nobody heard a sound!

Tomorrow: Tucker on Tuesday and Wednesday nights

Friday: The Post and the Times look away

Men's game spoiled by lack of taunting!

TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2023

Florida culture war ends: Last evening, UConn defeated San Diego State in a national championship basketball clash spoiled by the failure to taunt the losing team after the game was over.

In a related matter, Kevin Drum has called attention to a dual headline from The Guardian. As you can see in Drum's post, The Guardian's headlines say this:

Ruby Bridges: how a 90s Disney movie about racism caused a culture war
A 1998 movie about school segregation has led to a white mother worrying about her child feeling guilty about racism

Drum's thoroughly sensible point is this. It's amazing to see what some news orgs will describe as "a culture war" at this point in time.

For our money, the most instructive part of Drum's post involves the dull-witted reactions of fiery commenters from our own blue tribe. 

In truth, there has been very little definitive reporting about the actual outlook of the "white mother" who stated a view about the appropriate use of the film in this matter. On the whole, Drum's fiery, highly self-assured commenters don't seem to have noticed this fact. 

Instead, self-assured commenters describe this person as a white jerk—as a privileged, stupid Karen who is advancing a white supremacist grievance against uppity blacks. They describe her as a poor little snowflake whose complaint is "just another variation of exactly the same story as is in the film."

They simply assume that they understand the substance of her suggestion / complaint. Reading their comments, we think again of how amazingly unsophisticated our self-impressed blue tribe often is. Also, of the way our non-artificial human intelligence tends to run on the rocket fuel known as preferred Storyline.

Meanwhile:

According to the Tampa Bay Tribune, the film in question has been cleared for continued use, including with second graders, at the Florida grade school in question. The following comment strikes us as well-intentioned but not especially insightful:

SOLOCHEK (4/3/23): “It demonstrates that here in St. Petersburg, all of American history is important to be taught to our scholars,” [Terri] Lipsey Scott said outside the school. “It saddens me that we even had to have a meeting.”

What a shame that we had to pay attention to someone else's view! Meanwhile, all of American history should be taught and presented to all our "scholars?" Even to first and second graders? 

Surely, no one could really believe that. And yet, we've seen such comments, again and again and again and again, whenever our tribe makes its latest attempt to discuss such matters. This is a striking example of the way human (not artificial) intelligence tends to run on memorized script and internalized Storyline.

Later in the report, the school board's vice chair gives voice to the type of mature reaction which is rarely on display in the comments to Drum's post. This is what she said: 

SOLOCHEK: [Laura] Hine, the school board’s vice chairperson, said she was pleased that the district process for reviewing challenged materials worked properly. She said she was proud of North Shore, where her children attend, for demonstrating that the procedure can be done fairly and democratically.

She said the school’s second grade parents have taken the needed next step, reaching out to [Emily] Conklin to let her know that they respect her voice and welcome her family.

“Our society has got to come to a place where we can have a conversation, disagree and then stand together,” Hine said.

In that way, Hine threw a bone to the white supremacist Karen. In the comments to Drum's post, a rather familiar type of mob was running through the streets.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. According to major international experts, our self-impressed tribe, like all human tribes, is often just extremely limited and is routinely unable to see that.

In this way, a complete and total non-event mercifully came to an end. Or, as Homer thoughtfully put it:

Such was their burial of Hector, breaker of horses.

CARLSON UNBOUND: We enjoyed a peaceful easy feeling...

TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2023

...as Tucker girded for war: We start today with a report from the world of blue tribe cable.

Last Friday afternoon, on blue tribe cable, a peaceful easy feeling obtained in the immediate aftermath of the indictment of Donald J. Trump.

On Deadline: White House, Nicolle Wallace was able to relax for the first time in years. This led to a possibly somewhat comical performance at the start of last Friday's show.

The blue tribe Javert indulged herself in an array of her favorite incantations and formulations. The incantations were aimed at Rubes Like Us. It started at 4 o'clock sharp:

Instantly, at 4 o'clock sharp, Wallace emitted one of her most favorite incantations. ("Most favorite" is one of her terms.) Within seconds of the start of the show, she referred to Donald J. Trump as "the twice-impeached, forever disgraced ex-president."

On this very special occasion, she'd thrown in the word "forever." Soon thereafter, at 4:01, viewers were treated to this:

There's a lot of news developing this hour. We're going to take you through all of it with our favorite reporters and friends.

Yay yay yay yay yay yay yay! Our favorites were going to be there! Also, we were going to get it all!

Nixole was going to take us through all of it with our favorite reporters and friends! Soon after that, at 4:02, she indulged herself with this all-new construction:

We can report that, according to two sources familiar with the matter, [the indictment] lists thirty counts of document fraud-related charges. Our legal friends are here to help us understand what that might mean.

Yay yay yay yay yay yay yay! "Our legal friends" were going to help us too! We don't think we'd ever heard that formulation before!

It was still just 4:02, but our hearts were being set at ease. Then—it was still just 4:03—we got an unusual double twofer. We got to hear the original formulation again, attached to a "lucky for us:"

That's where we begin today with some of our favorite reporters and friends:

Someone who knows the details of this case probably better than most of us, New York Times investigative reporter Susanne Craig is here. Also joining us, Andrew Weissman, former Justice Department prosecutor... Plus the editor at large of The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes is back with us. And with us on set, Mike Schmidt, New York Times Washington correspondent.

Lucky for us, they're all NBC contributors.

It was still 4:03. Already, we had enjoyed two references to "our favorite reporters and friends." Also, we'd enjoyed one "lucky for us," along with an all-new reference to "our legal friends."

Our worried hearts had been set at ease by the use these childish incantations, incantations designed to assure us that we were among our closest friends. 

Goneril and Regan would be on hand. No Cordelias need apply!

This childishly hypnotic framing dates back many years in TV history. We'd track it to the opening segment of the old Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s. In more recent times, it probably tracks to the hit TV show, Friends.

On cable, Fox News appropriated the farming first, creating the morning program Fox & Friends. (At the time, we described it as the dumbest show in the history of TV news.)

At some point, MSNBC decided to cash in on these grooming techniques. Today, everyone on the channel quickly tells us that everyone else is their friend, with Stephanies sometimes going so far as to refer to certain perhaps unlikely suspects as her "very, very dear friends."

Presumably, techniques like this have come to us through the work of Rashida Jones, MSNBC's president and a good, decent person. In this 2021 profile in the Washington Post, Jones was quoted asking this somewhat comical question:

“We have audiences that will sit there and watch [MSNBC] for hours and hours and hours,” Jones said. “So, how do we get more people into that camp?”

How can we make them sit there and watch us all day? Making us think we're serviced by friends may have been one of the answers!

Wherever the practice originated, a peaceful, easy feeling had descended on the set of Deadline: White House as of last Friday afternoon. Of one thing we viewers could be certain:

We'd never be asked to hear about what was happening Over There, on Tucker's Carlson's astonishing show.

For marks like us, it was a peaceful, easy feeling, even as Carlson and his friends were aggressively girding for war. 

Last Friday morning, we showed you the transcript of one of Carlson's segments from Thursday night—the night before Wallace showered us with references to the lucky way we would be helped by our various friends.

Watching Wallace go through her paces, we would never have to hear about what was happening Over there. 

We wouldn't hear about what Jason Whitlock had said the previous night, or about what Glenn Beck had said. We wouldn't hear about what Carlson himself had said, on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, about the "transgenderist" war which was being conducted against our 9-year-old Christian kids.

In fact, there's a whole lot of things we're never forced to hear about when we sell our souls to a TV star and the rest of our many friends. We will be serviced with what we want, with: 

Trump Trump Trump Trump Jail!

Carlson had staged an astonishing program last Thursday night. If possible, his programs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights had been crazier, stupider, uglier., more dangerous.

Over at Salon, a (very) young journalist named Samaa Khullar had known enough to report what Carlson, Whitlock and Beck had said. (Khullar is a senior at NYU.)  

Elsewhere, almost no one ever did—and Wallace fulfilled a type of corporate mission, telling us that we would hear from no one but our friends.

We think you need to hear more about what Carlson has been saying. For us, this theme stretches all the way back to the earliest days of this site—to the press corps' failure to come to terms with the things being said at that time by major figures like Rush and Sean, but also by the extremely holy Reverend Falwell.

By now, our "cable news" culture has split into two. Each major channel feeds its viewers the pablum they very much like.

Wallace and her friends seem to know what we want. We'll suggest, in the next few days, that there may be a few things we need.

Tomorrow: Three cheers for Samaa Khullar

As always, our full disclosure: Please remember—this is all anthropology now. Nothing we say is intended to change the way our tribe gets serviced.

The New York Times has stuck to its guns!

MONDAY, APRIL 3, 2023

Also, LSU wins: Moments ago, it occurred to us to check it out—to do so one last time.

As it turns out, the New York Times stuck to its guns! It never filed a news report about the one (1) Florida elementary school where one (1) parent stated her view about the annual practice of showing a certain 96-minute film to the school's second graders.

The film in question was the 1998 ABC/Disney film, Ruby Bridges. The parent thought the film would be more appropriate at a higher grade level. The school said it would look at the film and reach a judgment concerning the parent's view.

In our view, it's entirely possible that the parents has a decent point. It's also entirely possible that she possibly doesn't, on balance. 

But as we noted last Thursday, this was a total non-event. According to the Times' search engine, but also very much to its credit, the New York Times never bowed to contemporary conventional wisdom by publishing a news report about this non-event

This morning, all over ESPN, we saw many others bowing low to contemporary conventional wisdom. At issue was a rather unusual bit of taunting in the aftermath of yesterday's win by LSU in the final game of the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament. 

A wide range of obedient cable sports pundits turned themselves into pretzels this morning in order 1) to pretend that no taunting had occurred, or 2) to pretend that everyone engages in this same sort of behavior, especially male college athletes, or 3) to say that this is the way we now want our college-age athletes to behave. Especially our college-age women!

During the 10 o'clock hour, we were disappointed in the estimable Molly Qerim. Four hours earlier, we'd felt a certain degree of contempt for Max Kellerman as he found a way to knuckle under to script. 

That said, everyone knew what they were expected to say, and everyone proceeded to say it. 

Also, everyone knows why everyone said it. In our own considered view, we can't say this actually helps.

STARTING TOMORROW: Tucker Unbound!

MONDAY, APRIL 3, 2023

No buzzkill need apply: Tribal warfare can lead us humans to say the darnedest things.

In fairness, we won't all agree on what the silly things are. In our view, Michelle Goldberg made a fairly silly suggestion in this portion of a recent New York Times column:

GOLDBERG (3/31/23): [T]he hush money payments to Trump’s paramours might seem like a minor issue, but it’s part of a pattern of anti-democratic behavior. As The Wall Street Journal reported, in addition to hearing about the payoff to the porn film star Stormy Daniels, the grand jury in New York heard extensive questioning about the payoff to a Playboy model, Karen McDougal. Both women were going to tell their stories before the 2016 election. Unlawful means were used to silence them, which is why Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, went to prison.

For the record:

Michael Cohen went to prison after pleading guilty to eight separate criminal charges, only one or two of which involved the payments to Daniels. As we've repeatedly noted, Goldberg's embellishment concerning this matter is now a standard part of blue tribe novelization and lore.

It's also true that Daniels wasn't "silenced" in the scary way that scary term might imply. 

Was Stormy Daniels "silenced?" Stating the obvious, Daniels could have proceeded to "tell her story" any time she wanted. Instead, she chose to negotiate with Trump's agents, seeking a big sack of cash. 

(Were "unlawful means" used to "silence" Daniels? As far as we know, no one claims that there was anything illegal about the payments to Daniels themselves.)

For our money, Goldberg has her thumb on the scales in various ways as she thumbnails this story. (We've omitted the fact that Cohen keeps saying that he was forced to plead guilty to crimes he didn't commit.)

In our view, Foldberg told a fairly novelized tale. So it can go when a very large nation splits into tribes and invents a journalistic world which is segregated by viewpoint. 

Tribunes of the warring tribes may sand the edges off basic facts and embellish freely. They do so confident in the knowledge that their accounts will never be challenged within their own tribal realm. 

So it can go! According to experts. so it can go when human populations split into tribes, with  different sets of novelized, perhaps even cartoonized, facts.

That said, we still haven't reached the part of Goldberg's presentation which strikes us as basically silly. What strikes us as basically silly is this suggestion:

We needed to hear Stormy Daniels' story before we could know how to vote!

That suggestion strikes us as deeply silly, bordering on the demented. That said, it was just a suggestion in Goldberg's hands—but that very same night, Lanny Davis directly stated this silly idea, speaking with a reliably compliant Lawrence O'Donnell.

In fairness, Davis is a well-known lawyer. In this case, he's representing Cohen. Still and all, it must be said:

He came right out and said the following, as a tribal enabler looked on:

DAVIS (3/31/23): Let's just say, final comment to you, Lawrence. This is a very powerful case about a very serious crime that is not just what Mr. Pence said was a finance crime, a campaign finance crime, as if that's not an important crime.

This is called, by the Southern District prosecutors who worked for Mr. Trump, a serious crime that can undermine a democracy. 

If somebody can pay money to stop the American people from getting information that they need in order to vote, this is a serious crime. 

Yes, he actually said it! In order to know how to vote within our beloved democracy, "the American people" needed to know that Daniels had sex with Donald Trump on one occasion. On one occasion in 2006! 

Or at least, we needed to know that she says she did. When she "tells her story!"

American citizens, please! How could we the people have known how to vote if we weren't allowed to hear Daniels tell her story about that one (1) alleged sexual interaction? 

A "very serious crime" was committed when Daniels was "silenced," to use the misleading term Goldberg employed. Speaking with Lawrence, Davis came out and stated the view which Goldberg had merely suggested.

That said, how about it? Was our democracy undermined when Daniels silenced herself? When we the people didn't get to hear her "tell her story?"

In our view, that statement moves past "silly" to a much more pitiful realm. In fairness, Goldberg had merely made the suggestion. As Lawrence sat obligingly by, Davis brought in all back home.

Were we the people, and "our democracy," undermined in that way? If so, perhaps we need to move beyond the mere proposal that candidates should be required to publish their tax records. 

Perhaps we need to require candidates to list all sexual partners over something like the previous twenty years! Not necessarily excluding the various times they "lusted" or "committed adultery in [their] heart!"

Davis's statement to Lawrences struck us as stunningly silly. Others will reach a different assessment. That said, we move on to this:

In our view, a whole lot of silly was spilling out of blue tribe cable last week. But over on red tribe cable, the behavior was sometimes three steps past astounding. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday nights of last week, Tucker Carlson fumed and foamed concerning the "transgenderist" mobs who feel free to murder our Christian children because they believe that they themselves are God.

It was already crazy (and stupid) on Tuesday night. On Wednesday night, it got worse.

On Thursday afternoon, the Trump indictment was announced. Just a few hours later that evening, Carlson was saying that he agreed with this:

WHITLOCK (3/30/23): Today, in our state capitol, which is right here in Nashville, the transgender antigun crowd took over the House for a time. And then, by the time I get home, I find out Donald Trump has been indicted. And I hear you loud and clear. 

They are agitating for unrest. That's the only way to interpret this. They are agitating for unrest. And there's a godless element in this country that doesn't care about fairness. They don't care about the will of the people. They care about power and control. 

As you have spelled out this week, they think they're God, and they think that they can make up the rules. They can decide what fairness is. They don't have a Biblical worldview.

It's sickening for me. I'm upset. I'm emotional. I'm—I'm ready for whatever is next. And I hope, every other man out there watching this show, I hope you're ready for whatever's next.

If that's what they want, let's get to it.

Jason Whitlock is ready "for whatever is next." For his fuller remarks, just click here.

For the record, Whitlock is fully sincere. He said he hopes that every man in Carlson's audience is ready to go there with him.

There was more, a great deal more, and Carlson said he agreed with his guest. But over on our own blue cable, happy talk experts like Lawrence and Rachel simply refuse to discuss this.

Over on our own blue cable, a happy mellow feeling prevailed in the wake of Trump's indictment. Nicolle Wallace finally got to relax. Rachel went on and on, then on and on and on and on, about the way there's nothing to look at here.

Elsewhere, Carlson was preparing for war. As has long been the norm, his conduct went almost wholly unreported. It was Tucker Ignored and Unbound.

All this week, we'll discuss what Carlson and some of his guests were saying all last week. In keeping with upper-end journalistic tradition, you won't read about this in the New York Times. You won't be hearing about this on our tribe's side of the segregated cable news aisle.

At this site, we thought we heard lot of silly last week. Did we also hear a lot of dangerous / disordered / deranged?

Our blue tribe was feeling mellow.  And when our tribe is feeling mellow, no buzzkill need apply!

Tomorrow: Shall we start with last Tuesday night?

Human discernment being rolled back!

SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 2023

A river to skate away on: Last evening, watching the Joni Mitchell PBS special, we felt sorry for "the amazingly talented Ledisi."

Ledisi had agreed to sing Mitchell's well-known song, "River." Certain songs, by certain singer-songwriters, should possibly never be covered. 

River may be one of those songs:

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

But it don't snow here
It stays pretty green
I'm going to make a lot of money
Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on...

Absent the very important next lyric, that's the way River begins.

To our ear, River includes the most authentic-sounding confession we've ever heard in a singer-songwriter's song. That helps make River hard to cover. It isn't anyone's fault.

River always makes us think of a story from childhood. Our mother was disinclined to describe the circumstances of her upbringing and her youth, but occasionally an anecdote would be recounted.

One such anecdote involved the time she skated so far up the Merrimack that she couldn't get home before nightfall. Her mother, our own grandmother, had been worried, angry, mad.

What was that girl, or perhaps that teenager, skating away to that day? As a "venturesome girl" in an age which didn't yet value venturesome girls, we almost wish that that young person had known how to skate even farther away.

We felt sorry for the talented singer who agreed to cover that song. Long ago, Mitchell had already sung the confession. Midway through the song, the confession goes like this:

I'm so hard to handle,
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had. 

Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

Some of that language may have been ironic. (Or not.) To our ear, the confession has always sounded one million percent sincere.

River always makes us think of our mother's long skate up the Merrimack. Opening Day always makes us think of Opening Day, 1956, a very cold day at the Fens.

Today, you can fact-check almost anything. Yesterday, we decided to fact-check our recollection of how cold it was that day, high up in the grandstand at windswept Fenway Park.

It was our first MLB game—and pretty much sure enough! At nearby Logan Airport, it was 55 degrees at game time, with a wind speed of 21 miles per hour. Temperatures dropped as the game moved along. We huddled with our mother and our sister, way high up in the stands.

Maybe you had to be there! At any rate, we were surprised to see that, as of now, you can fact-check even that! In these, the days of miracle and wonder, you can fact-check almost anything—but this is also a time when human discernment is melting away in the face of the jealous demands of heightened tribal identity.

For today, we're referring to the disappearing distinction between "falsehoods" and "lies." The distinction was once widely observed. It was still being observed, last evening, in this Washington Post news report:

ELLISON ET AL (3/31/23): In his ruling, [Judge] Davis determined that [Fox News] had undeniably broadcast falsehoods when it allowed allies of Donald Trump to float baseless conspiracy theories about Dominion supposedly rigging voting machines to boost Joe Biden.

However, Davis said he will leave it to a jury to decide whether Fox knew the statements were false when they aired them or acted recklessly in doing so—the “actual malice” standard required to prove a case of defamation.

The Post reported what the judge had determined—that Fox News had, in fact, broadcast "falsehoods." It would be left to a jury to decide "whether Fox knew the statements were false"—that is, whether the falsehoods were lies.

Down through the many long years, English speakers developed and respected the distinction between falsehoods, misstatements and lies. 

Such distinctions are widely observed in other human languages. Over the course of the past twenty years, our own faltering tribe has been eliminating the distinction. 

Every man [sic] a king, Huey Long memorably said. Today, our own tribe lives by a different watchword:

Every misstatement a lie!

It started in earnest with David Corn's explicit confession in the preface to his 2003 book, The Lies of George W. Bush. In our view, David's an excellent person, but he seemed to be rolling back human discernment in search of a more thrilling tale.

As of yesterday, they even have our favorite blogger! No name will be mentioned, but his headline says this:

Judge rules that Fox News lied

As is clear in the excerpt the blogger posted, that plainly isn't what the judge had ruled. But all across the blue tribal world, an extremely fundamental distinction has been, and is being, erased.

It's highly exciting to use the term "lies." It makes for improved tribal product.

Lawrence loves to say the word "lies." On his show, everyone is "lying" pretty much all the time. Tucker Carlson is now going even farther in this direction on his increasingly deranged Fox News TV program.

Here's the big surprise from yesterday's post, the one which carried that headline. The very first commenter voiced some confusion about what the blogger had said!

The commenter knew that, by ancient tradition, a falsehood isn't necessarily a lie. To his credit, and for that reason, the commenter was puzzled by the blogger's post.

In an age of onrushing tribal war, each tribe seeks heightened bombast. Human discernment is sanded away in pursuit of more potent name-calling.

Most remarkably, Rachel and Lawrence refuse to discuss what Tucker is saying each night. Our own tribe's channel is selling pure pleasure to Marks Like Us in the wake of this week's indictment.

No river lets us skate away from these unhelpful behaviors. In terms of what Carlson is saying and doing, the Merrimack doesn't run all the way to Canada, or to some land beyond that.

As we learned on Thursday night, it's coming on time for "whatever is next." We plan to discuss Carlson's astonishing conduct next week. Rachel and Lawrence, raking in dough, quite simply aren't going to go there.

By way of contrast, Mitchell's confession in River has always struck us as completely sincere.

Could confession perhaps be good for the soul? To hear her original performance, you can just click this right here.