STARTING TOMORROW: Under the Big Top!

MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 2022

A vast nation, coming undone:  The new arrival on the front has choked off all other conversation.

The conversation about this arrival sketches the shape of a very large nation in serious disarray.

The conceptual chaos is general! On CNN's State of the Union, manifest nonsense like this was treated as if it made sense:

JENNINGS (8/14/22): I mean, I sort of felt this week like we're at the circus now. We're all under the Big Top. 

And this can only end one of two ways: He's got to be indicted, or Merrick Garland has to resign. 

You can't raid the president's house, the former president, and possible future candidate, say to the American people, "We think he's violating three different laws," and then do nothing.

So this has—to me—

KEILAR: Was it justified?

JENNINGS: Well, yes. If you think there are classified documents—and I totally get, if you have got top-secret information—which we don't know what it is, by the way—but if you got these documents, and they're not supposed to be out in the open, absolutely. 

But this cannot end in any—in any other way. I mean, how could it possibly end with just, "Well, OK, we got them back, and it's over now?" That—there's no going back now.

Scott Jennings is CNN's resident conservative commentator. CNN turns to Jennings for conservative reaction from someone who isn't out of his mind.

In fairness, Jennings was certainly right on one score. He was right when he said that we, the conceptually scattered American people, are all under the Big Top now.

Scott Jennings was certainly right when he said that our world's a circus! But in his own turn in the center ring, Jennings offered this:

He said the search of Mar-a-Lago was justified—but also, he said that Merrick Garland may have to resign!

Jennings said Garland will have to resign if Donald Trump isn't indicted. Please don't make us run through the various ways this reasoning doesn't make sense.

Now that you've let that cup pass from our lips, we'll outline one such possibility. In some world, it could turn out that Trump was being misinformed by his Florida lawyers, at least one of whom is a fairly obvious nut.

It could turn out that Donald J. Trump actually didn't know that there were top-secret documents on his property, among his possessions. This is one of the three million possibilities which could turn out to be true.

On the other hand, was Trump knowingly holding those top-secret documents? We have no way of knowing, but that's an obvious possibility too! Indeed, here's how far NBC's Ken Delanian was willing to go as he imagined some possibilities on yesterday's Meet the Press:

DILANIAN (8/14/22): There's so much we don't know because we haven't seen that affidavit of probable cause where the FBI lays out the justification [for conducting the search]. 

There's a couple of possibilities here. One is that this was just about getting the documents back. The FBI has their documents. That's the end of it. 

Another is that there were crimes committed here about the mishandling of information, and we'll see a case go forward. 

And then the third, most ominous possibility is it's something even worse than that. It's about: What was Donald Trump doing with those documents? Why did he have them there? Some of these documents would be worth billions of dollars to our adversaries, Andrea.

Speaking with guest host Andrea Mitchell, Dilanian floated the possibility that the documents in question could have been worth billions of dollars to Trump on the open market. (Stephanie Ruhle had floated the same possibility last Friday night.)

Is it possible that Trump was planning to sell those documents to foreign adversaries? Stating the ominously obvious, that's a possibility too—though that doesn't mean that it's true!

Jennings was right in one basic way, Dilanian in another. Jennings said we're all under the Big Top now. Dilanian stressed the fact that "there's so much we [still] don't know."

What are some of the things we don't know? We still don't know how many top-secret documents were found at Mar-a-Lago.

We're told that Trump had five "sets" of top-secret documents—but how many top-secret documents actually come in a "set?" 

Did Trump have thousands of pages of top-secret materials, lugged away in five large boxes? Or did he possibly have twelve to fifteen sheets of top-secret paper, marbled through a huge array of White House menus, weather maps and letters from Kim-Jong Un?

How many documents is five "sets?" Is it a very large amount, or is it just a little? 

The conceptual weaknesses of us the people is such that we've never so much as seen this question arise. For today, let it represent the three million other things we the former people still don't know.

We the former people have now become we the disconnected tribes. Depending on which tribe we're in, we've heard different claims, and believe different things, about what happened last week.

We're living deep inside a Babel under a three (million)-ring Big Top. The intellectual skills of our upper-end scribes offer us No Way Out.

Hillary's emails are back in this world. So are a wide array of bogus or unfortunate claims, most of them, though not all, from The Other Side.

The chaos was general on C-Span this weekend. Within the upper reaches of cable news, things weren't ginormously better.

Meanwhile, there was George Will, making an eye-catching claim about us the American people. We clicked his link, then we clicked and we clicked and we clicked again.

We were swirled around and around, in a brain-dead circle. Such is our discourse now.

Tomorrow: Where to begin?

How many documents come in a set?

SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 2022

We humans, attempting to function: Decades ago, the comedy world was in a general uproar. 

At issue was the number of raisins a person might find in a scoop.

Kellogg's was promising "two scoops of raisins" in every box of Raisin Bran. That said, the company was making this explicit promise on its giant FAMILY SIZE carton—but also on its famously tiny single-serving box!

(This nearly five-pound, boxcar-sized carton was so huge that it contained two separate bags of Raisin Bran. But the Kellogg's people were alleging that it too contained "two scoops!") 

A potent philosophical debate had thereby broken out. How could every size carton of Raisin Bran contain the same two scoops? Was Kellogg's perhaps using different sized scoops? Inquiring minds needed to know.

Yesterday afternoon, a similar problem arose as the men and women of cable news tried to explain, or at least attempted to seem to be trying to explain, a new arrival on the front. On the surface, the question was this: 

How many top-secret documents come in a set? Alternately, how many top-secret documents come in a box?

That was the new basic question. Beneath the surface, the anthropological question was this:

To what extent are we human beings built for explanation?

As you know, the background to this newly-arrived rumination was and is this:

The GSA had clumsily included some top-secret documents in the packages a former president had taken to his muggy Florida nesting place, Mar-a-Lago.

The former president had no idea that the GSA had stupidly done this. Quite plainly, it wasn't the former president's fault, and certainly not on Fox.

Yesterday afternoon, a magistrate judge released an inventory of the materials the FBI removed from the former president's premises in Monday's court-authorized search. 

(This "raid" took place "in the predawn hours," though only for those who watch Fox.)

On cable, famous stars began attempting to describe the contents of  that inventory. The effort continues on the front page of today's New York Times:

HABERMAN ET AL (8/13/22): Federal agents removed top secret documents when they searched former President Donald J. Trump’s Florida residence on Monday as part of an investigation into possible violations of the Espionage Act and other laws, according to a search warrant made public on Friday.

F.B.I. agents seized 11 sets of documents in all, including some marked as “classified/TS/SCI”—shorthand for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” according to an inventory of the materials seized in the search. Information categorized in that fashion is meant to be viewed only in a secure government facility.

[...]

In total, agents collected four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents and three sets of confidential documents, the inventory showed. 

The highlighted statements are technically accurate. Los federales had, in fact, seized and removed "11 sets of documents in all." 

Elsewhere, the number of documents taken has been enumerated by the "box." That said, this raised an obvious question. 

Just how many top-secret documents come in a "set" or a "box?"

Is a "set of documents" a lot of documents, or is it just a little? In fairness, there's no apparent way to answer that question at the present time, based on the inventory released by the magistrate judge.

That said, we watched hour after hour of cable "news" last night. We saw no one call attention to the imprecision of quantification surrounding this endless discussion.

Did Donald J. Trump have a very large number of top-secret documents, or did he have just a few? On our campus, this seemed like an obvious point of concern—but as is often the case on cable, this elementary factual question seemed to occur to no one.

Is a "set" of documents a lot or a little? Also, how many documents come in a "box?" Just how big are these boxes?

Sometimes as we watched cable, it even seemed to us that a smaller number of boxes had entered Trump's premises and a larger number of boxes had, over time, emerged. Still, the cable stars lumbered along, tending to group around message. 

They attempted to convict or defend the former president, depending on which channel they were on. But no one attempted to estimate the size of the unauthorized stash which cluttered the Mar-a-Lago property, though certainly not by the pool.

How many documents come in a set, or in a box?  To our ear, that was one unidentified question. A second such question was this:

What explains the chronology surrounding that visit in June?

Apparently in early June, some officials from the FBI visited Wreck-of-the-Hesperus. You can watch many hours of cable discussion without getting a clear idea of the way the chronology surrounding this visit works. 

You'll hear that the FBI officials met with lawyers for Trump. You'll hear that they later instructed agents for Trump to put a padlock on the door to a room where  materials were being stored.

You'll hear those statements again and again, then you'll hear them some more. You'll rarely hear anyone try to untangle the puzzles here, or even note the fact that such obvious puzzles exist. To wit:

Why did the FBI suggest or order the installation of the padlock?

If officials thought that top-secret materials were, or might be, in that room, why didn't they simply take such materials when they were on-site in June? If they thought they already had the relevant materials, why did they care if a padlock was placed on the room days later?

You can watch hours of cable news without hearing these puzzles identified. (To see Mick Mulvaney attempt to do so last night on CNN, you can just click here.)

Instead, you'll hear pundits on one channel wondering how long Donald J. Trump could end up being in jail. On the other channel, you'll hear screeching gargoyles angrily asking why Hillary Clinton is still on the loose. Mary Dagen McDowell of The Five, angrily come on down!

Briefly, let's be clear:

As far as we know, there is no way for cable news stars to report the actual number of documents with which the hapless GSA saddled the plainly innocent Trump.

How many documents come in a set? How many come in a box? Cable stars can't provide specific numbers. They could at least call attention to the nature of this basic, undisclosed fact.

Also this:

As far as we know, there is no way for cable stars to explain what happened in and around that visit to Casa-el-Bunko in June. In the interest of clarity, they could at least identify the unresolved points of puzzlement which seem to surround that event.

At a time like this, the various stars of cable news talk and talk and talk. On Fox, the cable stars all tell you one story. On MSNBC, you hear a different tale. 

(Under current arrangements, these segregated groups of talkers almost never meet.)

In this instance, there is one other obvious question we'd like to hear identified by various cable stars. That question goes like this:

Is it possible that Donald J. Trump was selling the chance to view these, and possibly other, top-secret documents?

Obviously, yes—it's possible! Also, we have no idea if any such thing has occurred.

That said, the FBI apparently subpoenaed Mar-a-Lago surveillance tape to let them see who entered, or possibly who had previously entered, The Room With the Shiny New Padlock (alternately, The Room For a View). Our basic question would be this:

How many "wine stewards" at Mar-a-Lago are newly arrived from some hostile  power? Could that explain why they kept going in and out of that room?

With that, we return to the day's basic questions:

How many raisins come in a scoop? Also, how many top-secret documents come in a set or a box?

We've spoken to major experts concerning these unresolved questions. Concerning the documents, the consensus is this:

Question: How many documents come in a set?

Answer: Quite likely, a genuine shitload!

Next week: The human cognition files, starting with George Will's column

Question(s) for the day!

FRIDAY, AUGIUST 12, 2022

As the excitement builds: The question for the day is this:

Will Donald J. Trump allow the materials to be released by the magistrate judge? As of last night, he was suggesting that that would be his wish.

Or will he allow himself to be overruled by his super-cautious lawyers? Will he play the silly old trick where the cautious lawyers manage to hold the eager client back?

Final question:

If something embarrassing or potentially incriminating appears on the list of items removed from Mar-a-Lago, will Donald J. Trump say it was planted? Please remember this:

He only took the fifth this week because he finally saw that all the unfairness, and all the fake news, meant that he basically had to!

For extra credit only: If someone says that something was planted, is there any actual way to prove that the person's statement is false? 

(Putting it a different way: How much of what we accept as true is based upon the question of who we trust?)

THE MILBANK FILES: On Fox, Kilmeade mutilates sleep!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2022

What Milbank is talking about: Last evening, Brian Kilmeade arrived on the front during the 8 P.M. hour.

Kilmeade was serving as guest host on Tucker Carlson Tonight. When the latest (possible) bombshell hit, he was speaking with Lara Trump.

The possible bombshell involved the claim that Donald J. Trump may have been hiding top-secret documents involving nuclear weapons at his Mar-a-Lago estate—possible documents he had possibly refused to return to the National Archives.

Had Trump really been hiding such documents at his muggy estate? This morning, as we type, that fact is still unknown. 

The facts remain unknown. Given the way our system now works, we the people will never agree on what the facts actually are.

We the people will never agree as to what actually happened here! But here's how the angry Kilmeade proceeded when the report of this possibility broke at the Washington Post:

KILMEADE (8/11/22): Let's read this together. The Washington Post has just crossed with this story. They believe the reason why the raid took place is because they were worried that your father-in-law had documents related to nuclear weapons among the items the FBI wanted back. 

[Quoting from the Post] "The unusual search underscores deep concerns among government officials about the types of information they thought could be located at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club."

So far, that was almost accurate! But now, as the fuming Kilmeade continued, this braindead exchange occurred:

KILMEADE (continuing directly): Did you see any nuclear reports at the Mar-a-Lago club? Maybe around the pool, by the lifeguard stand?

LARA TRUMP: Yeah, no. Those were not disseminated freely at Mar-a-Lago. I mean, who knows?

Lara hadn't seen any nuclear documents as she lounged by the pool! Deftly, she changed the subject now, instantly offering this:

"By the way, I think it's a mystery to a lot of people what could rise to the level of not taking a different approach and instead raiding the former president's home."

She just couldn't figure it out! With that, Lara Trump moved on from the possible bombshell report about the possible nuclear documents. She and the angry, fuming Kilmeade never returned to the topic.

Kilmeade had been behaving like a madman right from the start of the hour. At this point, around 8:20 P.M., the ultimate journalistic inanity—There were no documents out by the pool!—had finally hit the fan.

Or did that happen a few minutes later, at the end of Kilmeade's angry opening segment? At that point, the functionary sent Lara Trump packing, then told viewers this:

KILMEADE: This is not going away. Violent crime out of control. Democrats aren't interested in doing anything to make our cities safer, including the one we're in. Instead, they want to arm IRS agents to hunt down everyday Americans. 

And don't forget, by the way—this is great! A brand new episode of Tucker's blockbuster documentary, a Tucker Carlson Original, out right now.

It is called "Cattle Mutilations," and you can stream it on Fox Nation. Free membership, and extended preview, only if you go to Tucker Carlson.com.

There followed an ad for the blockbuster new documentary. The ad included the possibility that the many mutilations in the past forty years have been caused by extraterrestrials. 

No, we aren't making this up! Thanks to the Internet Archive, you can watch this whole segment, and the subsequent Cattle Mutilations ad, just by clicking here.

The ad for the cattle mutilations may have made what went before seem almost sane by comparison. That said, this is the cultural state of affairs Dana Milbank is describing in his new book, the one with the slightly odd title:

The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five-Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party

Roughly thirty years after Newt Gingrich composed his vocabulary lists; thirty-four years after Rush Limbaugh took his program national; almost thirty years after Jerry Falwell began promoting the many murders committed by Bill and Hillary Clinton; twenty-eight years after Limbaugh dramatically linked Hillary Clinton to the death of Vince Foster:

Roughly three decades after those lunacies, Fox viewers were being told that Lara Trump hadn't seen any nuclear documents as she went off the high-dive board at the Mar-a-Lago pool. Also, the IRS will be sending armed agents to take control of their money!

Beyond that, viewers could get a free preview of Tucker Carlson's documentary about the way extra-terrestrials have possibly been mutilating our cattle. This is the cultural state of affairs the Milbank book discusses in its own somewhat undisciplined way.

We refer to the cultural rot which obtains within the organs of the Republican Party itself. But also, within the various media organs devoted to spreading the party's various messages as a type of silent secession continues to gather steam.

Was Donald J. Trump actually hiding top-secret documents concerning nuclear weapons? If so, why might he have been doing such a thing?

As we type, the answer to the first question is unknown. Given the apparent psychiatric facts the mainstream press refuses to discuss, it's easy to imagine answers to the second question.

Basic facts about the possible bombshell remain unknown at this time. But as Macbeth once murdered sleep, the extraterrestrials now running Fox have mutilated journalistic norms in the manner described.

Full disclosure! If this latest arrival hadn't occurred, we would have discussed a few other events this morning. 

We would have discussed the role of the mainstream press in the intellectual meltdown which began spreading through the herd in the 1990s. We would have discussed the failure of our own blue tribe to see what was happening at that point, or to offer a peep of complaint.

We would have cited Gene Lyons' book, Fools For Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater. We would have cited the way the press corps booed and jeered Candidate Gore's every word as they sat in the press room during the first Democratic debate of Campaign 2000—and yes, there were three on-the-record sources concerning this astonishing conduct, Jake Tapper now being best known.

Unfortunately, what happened in the mainstream press corps stayed in the mainstream press corps, right on through the silly pursuit of Candidate Clinton's emails. The people our tribe is trained to respect didn't tell us about this, and we the blue people weren't sharp enough to notice these things on our own.

As it turns out, many humans will do and say almost anything in search of position / wealth / fame. Also, we human beings love to say whatever the last ten people just said.

These basic anthropological facts have become painfully clear. The stunningly ridiculous Kilmeade continued to nail down those learnings last night. 

Mainly, though, it all boils down to this:

Aliens have been consuming our cattle! Some who perform for the Fox News Channel have also been eating our brains!

Mar-a-Lago in chains, defiled!

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2022

Garland pours it on: “They even broke into my safe!” a disappointed Donald J. Trump wrote.

The former president was describing the strong-arm tactics of the FBI in Monday's search of Mar-a-Lago (Middle Frisian, Damaged/marred/fouled lagoon), his sumptuous Florida home.

The entry into the former president's safe had been especially shocking. 

Most typically, law enforcement agents conducting a search will randomly look around inside the subject's home. 

But who would stoop so low as to look inside a subject's locked safe while conducting a search for contraband? At this point, the FBI, a runaway agency, won't even decline to do that!

Today, we spent some time watching the Fox News Channel as we awaited Merrick Garland's statement. We were somewhat puzzled by the nighttime footage of Mar-a-Lago the channel insisted on running.

Most reporting on this event says the FBI began its search on Monday at 9 A.M. In this report, CBS News seems to say that the search began at a more leisurely 10 A.M.

Today, on Fox, Martha McCallum said the "raid" had begun "in the predawn hours." Producers kept playing the videotape which seemed to support her statement, which could imaginably even be right.

After Garland made his brief statement, McCallum brought the ludicrous Joe Concha on. He said we should all have our heads examined if we believe a single world the attorney general said. 

On MSNBC, Garland was praised for noting the fact that at least one of Trump's lawyers was present during the search. Garland had thereby undermined any possible claim that evidence could have been planted.

In that same CBS report, the network quoted one of the lawyers saying that, while she'd been present,  she hadn't been allowed to watch the actual search. We don't know what actually happened and quite likely we never will.

In the unlikely event that we find out, we can feel fairly sure that no one else ever will. Each tribe will hear its own news reports. As with Florida's weather, so too here:

If you don't like the facts you're hearing, you can simply wait a while. Or you can change the channel! 

At any rate, they even looked inside Donald Trump's safe! On Fox, the moral to the story is clear:

If they can do that to Donald J. Trump, they can even do it to you!

The remaining question: How many sales receipts from Vladimir Putin are included in the papers the FBI hauled away?

Also this:

Luckily, Xerox machines are illegal in Florida. This means that Trump couldn't have copied the three million top-dollar documents he has returned to the feds.

THE MILBANK FILES: George Will jumps in to denounce Josh Hawley!

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2022

"How did it get so far?" Dana Milbank is certainly right in one of his book's key points:

The current lunacy of our American discourse didn't start with Donald J. Trump. Having said that, let's also say this:

In his new book, Milbank isn't trying to trace the history of "the current lunacy of American discourse." He limits his field in a pleasing way, under this slightly odd title:

The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five-Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party

Milbank is tracing the crack-up of the Republican Party alone. There's no question that such a crack-up has occurred, but what about everyone else?

Full disclosure! For ourselves, we'd always seek to draw a distinction between Republican office-holders / opinion leaders and plain old Republican voters. 

Under current arrangements, the first group works to mislead the second. The second group gets misled.

It's true that a crack-up has occurred among both parts of the GOP. But Milbank fails to mention the crack-up of everyone else, including his own mainstream press corps—and, of course, himself.

All too plainly, the Republican Party has cracked up over the past (let's say) thirty years. As we noted in Tuesday's report,  Milbank traces it back to Newt Gingrich in 1997.

In this way, Milbank gifts himself with a nice round quarter century—with a nice round twenty-five years.

In fact, Gingrich was promoting the crack-up long before that, urging voters to demonize Others in the ugliest, stupidest ways. But those were the demonization wars. Other elements of our societal crack-up were already underway in those ancient days, and not only on the right.

Belief in The Crazy was well underway, with the Reverend Falwell urging the flock to believe that the Clintons had engaged in a wide range of murders. 

In 1994—that was 28 years ago—Rush Limbaugh gave nationwide voice to the ugly idea that Hillary Clinton, then the first lady, was involved in the death of Vince Foster. It was already working that way as of then.  

(For the record, Limbaugh's radio program had gone national in 1988, on the ABC Radio Network.)

As it turned out, there seemed to be a substantial market in full-blown belief in The Crazy. As of 1996, former FBI agent Gary Aldrich was selling a book which included the claim that the first lady had decorated the White House Christmas tree "with drug paraphernalia, condoms and c*ck rings."

Like Meredith Willson's Music Man, Aldrich was peddling belief in The Crazy. His book was a major best-seller.

As it turned out, belief in The Crazy was amazingly easy to sell by that time. In fairness, this belief in The Crazy, during this era, didn't exclusively come from the right.

Way back in the 1980s, improbable belief in child sex abuse seemed to have swept through the country. On the basis of utterly lunatic claims, operators of several preschools were subjected to endless trials and then to long prison terms.

These episodes proceeded through the courts, not through the organs and instruments of the Republican crack-up. 

Belief in The Crazy was easy to sell. So was the ugly demonization of Others engineered by Gingrich and his remarkably ugly, remarkably braindead, quite lengthy vocabulary lists.

Belief in The Crazy and love of The Ugly were peddled by GOP organs. But at some point, an honest historian must mention at least two other groups. 

One such group would be the mainstream press. The other would be us, The Blue Voters.

Tomorrow morning, we'll skip ahead to the role those two groups played in our society's wider crack-up—the crack-up we're still undergoing. 

There is no doubt that Donald J. Trump now serves as drum major for this headlong decline. But the mainstream press corps, and we the blue people, have also played a steady role in this dangerous downward spiral.

So, some say, has Milbank himself—though he's right to trace one part of this wider societal crack-up to the years before Trump's arrival.

"How did things ever get so far?" That's what Vito Corleone is reportedly said to have said. 

How did things get so far? In his new book, Milbank traces one highly significant part of our societal decline—but he omits all the rest.

Tomorrow, we'll quickly recall the role the mainstream press corps played in our ongoing crack-up. We'll mention the ways our own slumbering tribe has failed to confront this problem.

We'll also look at a statement which appears in George Will's new column. In the Washington Post, the headline above the new column says this:

Josh Hawley, senator-as-symptom of a broken news business

It's a broken news business, the columnist says. Even as he batters Josh Hawley around, Will offers this startling statement:

"More than half of Americans between ages 16 and 74 read below the sixth-grade level."

We'd never seen that claim before, and so we began clicking links. 

How well do our journalists reason and read? That's one of the anthropological factors at play in the crack-up Milbank is chronicling.

How well do our journalists reason and read? Tomorrow, your answer appears.

Tomorrow: Today we have clicking of links

They want Donham sent to prison!

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2022

She's 88 years old: We've just returned from several hours off campus. We find that we've been thinking about a conversation we saw on CNN last night

Laura Coates and Areva Martin conducted the conversation. They want Carolyn Bryant Donham sent to prison, right now.

We aren't saying they're right or their wrong in their assessment. We will say that we think their conversation was extremely instructive.

Unpacking the facts a little bit more, Coates and Martin want Donham sent to prison for her role, real or imagined, in a vicious murder she rather plainly didn't commit. 

The unmistakably vicious killing occurred in 1955. For the record, Carolyn Bryant Donham is 88 years old.

The brutal murder was conducted by Donham's husband and brother in-law. It was one of Mississippi most famous, most vicious racial murders. 

The innocent victim was Emmett Till, who was just 14 years old.

Why were Coates and Martin discussing this well-known case? Below, you see the start of their conversation, and you can see the general outlines of their view of the case:

COATES (8/9/22): A grand jury in Mississippi declining to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham. If that name sounds familiar, she is the white woman who accused a 14-year-old Black teenager, Emmett Till, of making advances towards her nearly 70 years ago. 

Now, those accusations led to Till's brutal death, a murder that shook America to its core and frankly does to this very day.

And only after Emmett Till's mother decided to have an open casket funeral—and a warning that this image is disturbing—for the world to see what they did to her boy, the horrors done to her son. Do you realize that Emmett Till would've turned 81 years old two weeks ago?

CNN legal analyst Areva Martin, she joins me now. 

Areva, nothing at all lessens the shock and the pain of seeing that image or thinking about this happening seven decades ago. And yet, after seven hours of testimony, the grand jury decided there wasn't enough evidence to indict her on kidnapping or manslaughter charges. 

Now, there is a difference between how people think about moral culpability, legal culpability, and what a grand jury would be deciding, right?

MARTIN: Well, absolutely, Laura. It is shocking as the story is and the horrors of it. As you said, even 70 years later, it is still as painful to think about what happened to Emmett Till.

I am not surprised that the grand jury did not come back with an indictment for Carolyn Bryant. We know that there have been efforts over the last 10 to 15 years to have the case, you know, reopened, to have it re-investigated, to have charges brought against Carolyn Bryant. But every time that there has been a re-investigation of the facts of this case, the outcome has been the same.

There's been a determination that there is just not enough evidence to charge her, even though we know that there is this alleged memoir where Carolyn Bryant apparently recanted her statement about what Emmett Till did. 

But even with that memoir being out in the public sphere, no district attorney has been willing to move forward with charges against her.

COATES: We also learned that back in June, there was an unserved warrant for her arrest that was found charging her and her then-husband Roy Bryant and brother-in-law J.W. Milam in Emmett Till's abduction.

I have to tell you, just saying their names just sickens me to think about what they did, what the two men, what they did to Emmett Till. It really—it causes me a great deal of pain to even articulate that. They were arrested and they were acquitted on murder charges, only to then confess later.

But Donham, she was never taken into custody. So, this wasn't followed up on? I mean, no arrest warrant until now? That's stunning to people.

MARTIN: It absolutely is stunning. And you talk about the system failing this family. That's exactly what happened, Laura. The system failed the Till family.

The conversation continues from there.

Donham's role in the Emmett Till murder has been re-investigated several times in the past seventeen years. Coates thinks it's stunning that grand juries have refused to charge Donham, though she never quite answers this obvious question:

What should those grand juries have charged Donham with?  What should Donham, age 88, be frog-marched to prison for? 

Should she be charged with kidnapping or manslaughter? Coates is happy to float the idea, but she doesn't bother attempting to explain the logic of her suggestion, or the state of the evidence, to the extent that any exists.

Two grand juries have now found insufficient evidence to charge Donham with anything. If memory serves, the grand jury back in 2005 or 2007 was predominantly black.

Still, the journalists want to see her shipped off. For their full conversation, click here.

We've been watching American journalists on a daily basis for the past twenty-four years. This conversation seemed familiar in certain unflattering ways.

We saw no particular sign that Coates and Martin could have reported the remarkably complicated facts of this very old, horrid case. That said, they made it clear where they stood:

They want to see Donham sent to prison, though it wasn't entirely clear what she should be sent there for.

Donham is 88 years old. It isn't clear that she played a direct role, of any kind, in this vicious killing.

That said, the journalists want to see her locked up. In several ways, this conversation shows us the complex face of our flailing nation as it slides down toward the sea.

The past isn't even past. We believe Abraham Lincoln said that!

Further disclosure: Your lizard brain will urge you to say that the journalists are right. That said, you and your sacred lizard brain don't have the slightest idea what the facts are either.

THE MILBANK FILES: Other folks started this, Milbank says!

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2022

Some folks disappear: It's much as sacred Chekhov once correctly reported:

"The appearance on the front of a new arrival...became the topic of general conversation."

In Chekhov's account, the new arrival was "a lady with a lapdog." Here and now, in our own place and time, the most recent of many new arrivals has been an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, yielding widespread reaction to same.

(We're quoting the start of Chekhov's story, The Lady with the Lapdog. Several major figures—Nabokov and Cornel West among them—have described it as one of the greatest stories ever penned.)

This more recent arrival appeared on the front at 7 o'clock Monday night. This morning, in the Washington Post, five reporters describe one part of the general conversation:

BARRETT ET AL (8/10/22): Dozens of die-hard Trump supporters came to Palm Beach on Tuesday to express their support. Adriane Shochet, 64, of Lake Worth, Fla., bought a $14 broomstick, which she attached to an American flag and waved as she stood on the causeway that overlooks part of Mar-a-Lago.

“I just needed to come out and show the whole free world that this is frightening, and if they can do this, what’s next?” Shochet said. “This is the polar opposite of whatever effect politically they thought they were going to get because all it’s doing is empowering the right politically.”

Dozens of people—at least twenty-four!—arrived on the scene at Palm Beach. As quoted, Shochet wondered what "they" might do next if "they" are allowed to do this.

Shochet was hardly alone in her state of concern. As they continued, the WaPo Five recorded some other reactions:

BARRETT ET AL (continuing directly): Passing motorists honked in support. One man stood on the bridge, which crosses the Intracoastal Waterway, holding the American flag upside down—widely recognized as a symbol of his belief that the country is in distress.

Pat Stewart, 85, found the “Trump 2020” flag that used to fly at her house in Jupiter, Fla., which she had expected to keep tucked away until the next presidential election. For several hours, she stood in the sun alongside a friend who was visiting from Michigan, who is also 85, waving at passing motorists.

“I was very angry, very angry, and very upset, that our government would do this to an ex-president,” Stewart said. Even though aides said Trump was in New York and at his golf club and residence in Bedminster, N.J., this week, Stewart held out hope that he was at Mar-a-Lago.

“We want him to come out and announce he’s running for president,” she said.

Stewart's comments were part of the general conversation triggered by Monday's arrival. It isn't clear that her comments make perfect sense, though there's certainly nothing especially new about that.

Stewart was very angry, and very upset, with respect to the governmental conduct in question. Shochet wondered what "they" will do next if "they" are permitted to do this, as they  basically are.

Within the borders of the Post report, Stewart and Shochet weren't asked to explain what was actually wrong with the government's conduct. Given the lack of information about the background to the search, it wasn't clear that these discussants knew what they were talking about—and it didn't seem that the WaPo Five had actually tried to find out.

"Verdict first, trial later," a Lewis Carroll character once said. So it went along the front as the new conversation broke out.

On various sides of various aisles, people had access to very few facts—but many people were expressing firm views, or engaging in rich speculations. This was especially true, though not exclusively so, within the group Dana Milbank discusses in—what else?—his new book.

Milbank's book has a somewhat clumsy title and a slightly truncated chronology. He focuses on one part of a terrible state of affairs. His title reads like this:

The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five-Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party

"Destructionist" is a brand-new term, but it could always catch on. As we noted yesterday, the specific crack-up to which he refers has been going on for more than twenty-five years at this point.

That said, Milbank's claim of a crack-up is entirely fair, though other groups have been failing too.  And as we noted yesterday, Donald J. Trump didn't start the specific crack-up under review, as Milbank correctly says.

It isn't just the Republican Party which has been cracking up. That said, it isn't clear that any other major societal group has cracked up to the same extent.

The crack-up involves a range of behaviors our press corps is loath to discuss. The anthropological background here involves such questions as these:

Major public figures: Newt Gingrich was plainly there at the start. Is it possible that he could be diagnosed as a "sociopath?" 

According to a major study, more than six percent of adults males can be so diagnosed. Our press corps would jump off the Golden Gate Bridge before it would agree to discuss such topics.

We the regular people: To what extent are we the regular people possessed of good sound judgment? In the crack-up which Milbank describes, we the people have often seemed to have remarkably limited powers of discernment.

Especially at times of tribal warfare, there seems to be nothing so crazy that we the regular people won't be available to believe it. 

We the regular people today!  In the crack-up which Milbank describes, we came to believe that Hillary Clinton was involved in a range of murders. Also, that she was trafficking children for sexual purposes  out of a pizza joint. 

We believed that Obama was born in Kenya. We now believe that the2020 election was stolen, even though Donald J. Trump has never attempted to produce a white paper, or anything like it, supporting that unfounded claim.

Increasingly, it seems that there's nothing so silly, or so unfounded, that we the regular people aren't capable of believing it. That said, throughout the period under review, our press corps has been wed to a rather silly branding statement: 

"The American people are pretty sharp."

The American people are pretty sharp? Increasingly, it becomes clear that this isn't exactly true. 

That said, the press corps would exile itself to the Gobi Desert before it would make the discernment of us the regular people a topic of explicit review. Our press corps doesn't discuss the mental health of political figures, and it doesn't discuss the basic discernment of us the regular people.

Sadly, another group was there at the start of the crack-up in question. It's an important societal group—a group which Milbank seems disinclined to mention.

This group is persistently disappeared in discussions of the crack-ups of the past thirty years. We refer to the guild to which Milbank belongs. We refer to the mainstream press corps.

Gingrich was there at the start of the crack-up. Tomorrow, we'll add more names from the cultural right, Falwell and Limbaugh among them.

That said, the upper-end press corps was also there at the start. And how about us, the regular people from the blue tribe? Is there some way in which we the blue people were also there?

"We are not enemies, but friends," Lincoln said. "We must not be enemies."

He said that in his First Inaugural Address. In his more famous Second Inaugural, he pretty much said this:

We in the North did this too. 

Our group did this too, Lincoln surprisingly said. Does that sort of thinking still represent a type of good solid judgment?

On Monday night, the latest arrival became the latest topic of conversation.

It hasn't been just Stewart and Shochet, who hurried to Palm Beach. At this point, no one really knows what we're talking about as this conversation goes on and on

Few of us are inclined to say that, surely not in a full-blooded way. Anthropologically speaking, our cognitive powers are rather limited, our tribal instincts quite strong.

Tomorrow: Gingrich wasn't alone

A final note on inflation reduction!

TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2022

Elsewhere, anthropology rules: Reactions to yesterday's events at Mar-a-Lago represent a sprawling anthropology lesson. 

The lesson involves what happens to people—the things we people will say and do—when our nations divide into tribes.

As of today, our tribal division is much more advanced, but we'll postpone that discussion. For now, let's take one more look at the idea that the Inflation Reduction Act involves inflation reduction.

We'll start with Paul Krugman's new column. Here's what Krugman says:

KRUGMAN (8/9/22): Republicans like Mitt Romney are trying to lump this legislation in with last year’s American Rescue Plan, which they claim caused inflation to spike.

Never mind whether this claim is true. The key thing is to do the math. The Inflation Reduction Act calls for spending less than $500 billion over a decade, compared with the American Rescue Plan’s $1.9 trillion in a single year—and will actually reduce the deficit. That’s why independent analysts find that it will have little effect on inflation.

According to Krugman, independent analysts "find that [the Inflation Reduction Act] will have little effect on inflation." As we noted a few days ago, that's what the CBO has officially said.

Krugman links to an analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model. The analysis he links to says this:

PENN WHARTON: The Act would very slightly increase inflation until 2024 and decrease inflation thereafter. These point estimates are statistically indistinguishable from zero, thereby indicating low confidence that the legislation will have any impact on inflation.

More specifically:

PENN WHARTON: We estimate that the Inflation Reduction Act will produce a very small increase in inflation for the first few years, up to 0.05 percent points in 2024. We estimate a 0.25 percentage point fall in the PCE price index by the late 2020s. These point estimates, however, are not statistically different than zero, thereby indicating a very low level of confidence that the legislation will have any impact on inflation.

To the extent that they can make an estimate, Penn Wharton says the act will (very slightly)   increase inflation up to and including 2024. 

On the brighter if utterly pointless side, they estimate a small drop in the rate of inflation "by the late 2020s." That said, they offer a "very low level of confidence that the legislation will have any impact on inflation" at all.

With that, Penn Wharton largely agrees with the official assessment by the CBO. As noted, this is the analysis that Krugman, a top economist and an expert, has chosen to cite today.

We mention this because we looked in last night on the NBC Nightly News. At the end of a very brief report on this legislation, cable's own Ali Vitali had this cheerful, upbeat exchange with guest host Tom Llamas:

LLAMAS (8/8/22): The bill is expected to pass in the House. What are experts saying on how it will affect the current inflation crisis?

VITALI: Tom, top economists say this bill will put downward pressure on inflation. A group of former Treasury secretaries from Democratic and Republican administration had urged Congress to pass it, saying investments in energy and health care will fight inflation and lower costs, while setting the table for long-term economic growth.

Vitali seems to be referring to this brief, August 3 statement by five former Treasury secretaries—four Democrats and one lone Republican. 

These top economists devoted exactly two words to their analysis of the bill's likely effect on inflation. Vitali chose to go with that, embellishing what the former secretaries said while failing to mention the CBO and pretty much everyone else.

This is the world we live in today. We're living in a market economy. Alert consumers can shop around to find the news product they like.

THE MILBANK FILES: "Donald Trump didn’t create this!"

TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2022

Dana Milbank remembers: This past Sunday, the Washington Post offered an essay which was adapted from—what else?—a new book.

The essay was written by Dana Milbank. At one point, he correctly said this:

MILBANK (8/7/22): It is crucial to understand that Donald Trump didn’t create this noxious environment. He isn’t some hideous, orange Venus emerging from the half-shell. Rather, he is a brilliant opportunist; he saw the direction the Republican Party was taking and the appetites it was stoking. The onetime pro-choice advocate of universal health care reinvented himself to give Republicans what they wanted. Because Trump is merely a reflection of the sickness in the GOP, the problem won’t go away when he does.

Each person will have to judge the claim that Donald J. Trump actually isn't "some hideous, orange Venus emerging from the half-shell." 

That said, it's true that Trump didn't create the noxious environment which currently rules our politics and pervades our national discourse. 

Other performers started the fire. At one point, for example, Milbank remembers an event from September 27, 1994, the day when Rep. Bob Michel stepped aside, allowing Newt Gingrich to become the Republican Party's leader in the House:

MILBANK: Gingrich had avoided service in Vietnam and regarded Democrats as the enemy, impugning their patriotism and otherwise savaging them nightly on the House floor for the benefit of C-SPAN viewers.

“Newt! Newt! Newt! Newt!” the candidates and lawmakers chanted. A pudgy 51-year-old with a helmet of gray hair approached the lectern. “The fact is that America is in trouble,” Gingrich declared. “It is impossible to maintain American civilization with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year-olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of AIDS and 18-year-olds getting diplomas they can’t even read.” The pejoratives piled up in Gingrich’s shouted, finger-wagging harangue: “Collapsing … Failed so totally … Worried about their jobs … Worried about their safety … Trust broke down … Out of touch … Wasteful … Dumb … Ineffective … Out of balance … Malaise … Drug dealers … Pimps … Prostitution … Crime … Barbarism … Devastation … Human tragedy … Chaos and poverty.” “Recognize that if America fails, our children will live on a dark and bloody planet,” Gingrich told them.

Whatever a person might think of the views which Gingrich expressed that day, such presentations were clearly the start of "American carnage." 

Had Gingrich "avoided service in Vietnam?" So had a wide array of major figures from both political parties. For the record, we've never heard an account of Milbank's military service after emerging from Yale.

That said, did Gingrich "regard Democrats as the enemy?" In our view, Milbank frequently puts his thumbs on the scale in Sunday's essay, but it's very hard to disagree with that assessment of the attitude Gingrich brought to the party.

Forget the words which rained down from Gingrich that day in September 1994. Long before the address which Milbank quotes, Gingrich had been schooling Republicans in the best ways to describe Democrats. 

All the way back in 1990, a conservative entity named GOPAC had been circulating a list of 133 words assembled by Gingrich—a list of words conservatives should use to characterize themselves and Others.

What words should conservatives use in describing Democrats? You can peruse the full list here, but such words as "sick, pathetic, traitors, destructive" appear early on the long list.

In Gingrich's view, that was the way one of our two political tribes should describe the members of the other. This advice was already being aggressively pushed as far back as 1990—and not by Donald J. Trump.

For whatever reason, Milbank has chosen an awkward title for his book. The title is a bit of a mouthful. It goes exactly like this:

The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party

"Destructionists"—is that a word? If Milbank has his way, it will become one now.

On balance, we aren't fans of Milbank's work for the Post. That said, we were thrilled to see one major thrust of his new book.

For the record, many people will agree with the approach Newt Gingrich suggested. On balance, tens of millions of voters agree with the type of rhetoric, and the type of politics, performed today by Donald J. Trump.

Those people are our fellow citizens, and they have a right to their views. That said:

As of 1990, were Democratic office-holders "sick, pathetic, traitors, destructive?" ("Corrupt, intolerant, selfish, insensitive?") 

Such questions are always a matter of judgment. That said, a modern nation can't hope to survive the harsh, unyielding  tribal warfare Gingrich recommended. 

("We must not be enemies," Lincoln advised. "We are not enemies, but friends.")

Milbank is right when he says that Donald J. Trump didn't invent the type of rhetoric, and the brand of politics, which is now widespread within the GOP.

The Others were "sick, pathetic, traitors, destructive!" Gingrich was saying that way back when, and he was telling other conservatives that they should speak the same way.

Other aspects of our modern Crazy were also taking form at that time. For today, we'll offer this closing thought:

Milbank describes the problems among the Republican Party, and among no one else. He fails to discuss the ways his own guild, the mainstream press, has contributed to this plainly "destructive" societal decline.

Tomorrow: Trump didn't invent The Crazy

An extra credit assignment: In September 1990,  the New York Times published a Political Memo about the 133 words.

That was 32 years ago! To peruse it, just click here.

Inquiring blue minds are eager to know!

MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 2022

Bonfire(s) of the inanities: Give the death of the late Chadwick Boseman, should Marvel Studios cast someone else in the role of T'Challa, the king of Wakanda?

This morning, on its opinion page, the New York Times was helping up think that one through. 

Meanwhile, is it possible that two of the passengers on the Titanic were, in fact, a gay couple?

This morning, with links all over its decaying online edition for the second straight day, the Washington Post was helping us think about that.

Slate entered the world, way back when, as an intelligent center-left site. Bright and early this very morning, its editors were helping us ponder such issues as this:

RICH JUZWIAK / AUG 07, 2022 / 6:00 PM
I’m Having a Very Distracting Reaction to My Hot Friends’ New Relationship

 Good solid thought-provoking stuff!  And of course, also this:

SLATE STAFF / AUG 07, 2022 / 8:00 AM
Help! Can I Use My Dead Wife’s Vibrator With My New Girlfriend?

You'd almost think that the whole Slate staff had pitched in on that rumination! (Sub-headline: "Is This Creepy?")

It's easy to see the terrible problem created by lunatic public figures like Alex Jones. It's easy to roll our eyes at the people who believe the things they're told by such disordered players.

But as our nation slides toward the sea, Slate is moving in the direction of the Daily Beast, which is now routinely tabloid. On occasion, we get the impression that the Atlantic may be drifting toward Slate.

Was there a gay couple on the Titanic? Should Marvel cast someone else as T'Challa?

Here within our own blue tents, our brightest inquiring minds want to know. We mention this as a way of suggesting—well, we'll let the Slate staff guess. 

STARTING TOMORROW: The Milbank Files!

MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 2022

Bonfire(s) of the inanities: This morning, we had to chuckle.

It was 6:07 A.M. Eastern. Mika was listing the basic provisions of the bill the Senate has now passed in one of its lunatic all-nighter sessions.

She cited the provision which would "invest more than $300 billion" in "climate reform." She said the bill would allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices for the first time. 

The bill would also impose a 15% minimum tax on large corporations. So she correctly said.

Those were the basic provisions Mika cited. Now, as she prepared to throw to Joe, we had to chuckle at one part of what she said:

MIKA (8/8/22): Joe, I just want to start with how big a win this is. 

The name of this bill—The Inflation Reduction Act. Everything seems to be lining up in a way which has brought this together for Democrats, hopefully ultimately in a way that Americans can understand—that they have been working on their agenda and they got it done.

JOE: Yeah. It's been incredible.

Joe proceeded from there. We had to chuckle at the way Mika cited the name of the bill.

Everybody understands that the so-called Inflation Reduction Act has virtually nothing to do with inflation reduction. That isn't what the bill is about. This basic fact has been explained again and again and again.

Everyone knows that about this bill. But when she mentioned how big a win this new bill is, Mika added a bit of unintentional humor to the mix:

As she started, she stressed the name of the bill. She did this without making any attempt to say what the name of the bill has to do with its contents. 

(You can assess Mika's presentation at this handy link. Once there, just click on "Joe: This has been an extraordinarily successful two years legislatively," then advance to the 3-minute mark.)

Repeat! Everyone knows that the name of this bill has nothing to do with its contents. Unless they're watching MSNBC, where we now get the impression that tribunes are now going out of their way to make us rubes think different.

Are bosses at this particular channel directing tribunes to stress the bill's  misleading name? For the first time, we're seeing behaviors which make us wonder about the possibility of such backstage direction. For last weekend's example, click here. 

At any rate, so it goes in the tribalized world into which "cable news" has descended. We mention Mika's presentation because it was unintentionally funny, and because we've now descended to the point here we're willing to take our comic relief wherever we can find it.

We're willing to take our comic relief wherever it can be found! That said, the realities of our flailing  "public discourse" are extremely grave. 

We compliment the Washington Post's Dana Milbank for calling attention to the fact that this enormous problem wasn't invented by Donald J. Trump. He does so in (what else?) a new book, The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party.

Milbank cites a list of players who have brought us to this state. We're prepared to suggest that he's omitting one key set of players in this disastrous decline—a decline which dates back more than 25 years.

Alex Jones is currently in the news, where he should have been all along. As one of our craziest "music men [sic]," he belongs in this set of players.

Milbank names several others. We'll try to categorize them this week—and to direct your attention to some players in this deeply dangerous state of affairs Milbank seems to omit. 

Tomorrow: Milbank remembers

Stephanie Ruhle now rules the waves!

SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 2022

A place where our team's always right: We've really come to loathe the way she runs The 11th Hour.

Last night, Stephanie Ruhle introduced her opening four-person pundit panel, saying, as she always does, that the pundits would help us "get smarter." 

In her second question of the night, she unfurled the tribal banner. Speaking of a major bill which may soon pass through the Congress, she said this to the New York Times' Peter Baker:

RUHLE (8/5/22): Let's talk about the politics. Put your Donnie Deutsch Branding Hat on, and the branding of even calling it, Peter, "The Inflation Reduction Act."

We know inflation is one of the top issues for the American people. For weeks, if not months, people have been asking, "What are you going to do?"

Now they will be able to say, "We passed this major legislation," and Republicans will have to say, "What did we do on inflation reduction? We voted against it."

For the record, and as all viewers of Blue Cable know, Donnie Deutsche is one of our tribe's "favorite reporters and friends." His is persistently branded that way om the popular serial repetition show, Deadline: White House.

At any rate, Yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay! We get to say we reduced inflation! It's right there in the name of the bill!

By way of contrast, Republicans will now have to say that they voted against the bill! Yay yay yay yay yay!

Stating the obvious, that plainly isn't what Republicans are going to say. It also isn't what they're saying about the bill right now.

That said, here's what Baker said to Ruhle in reply. Somewhat sheepishly, the well-informed Timesman let some sunlight in:

BAKER (continuing directly): Yeah, I mean, that's a point they will make, no question about it. But it's a kind of a clever naming, right?

The real purpose of this bill is not to reduce inflation. It's to spend on climate, which is a priority for Democrats, and a lot of Republicans for that matter too.

They want to spend on health care. They want to have a minimum tax for corporations that have been getting away with not paying any tax.

These are all big priorities the president has had long before inflation became an issue. It's not like inflation suddenly caused them to want to do these things. 

They're making the argument that it will help curb inflation. There's an argument about that, some of the economists out there saying, "Well, maybe not that much."

So I don't think it's really aimed at inflation as the primary goal, even if they can make the argument it will have some beneficial impact on it.

Say what? The Inflation Reduction Act isn't aimed at inflation reduction? That was just a bit of "clever naming?"

Also, "some of the economists out there" are saying it won't help reduce inflation much (and certainly not in the short term)? Is one of our favorite reporters and friends really permitted to say that?

In fairness, Baker hadn't exactly gone out on a limb as he made these comments. Here is the CBO's formal assessment, which it offered in Q-and-A form:

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE (8/4/22): How Would Enacting the Bill Affect Inflation in 2022 and 2023?

In calendar year 2022, enacting the bill would have a negligible effect on inflation, in CBO’s assessment. In calendar year 2023, inflation would probably be between 0.1 percentage point lower and 0.1 percentage point higher under the bill than it would be under current law, CBO estimates.

That doesn't seem like a giant amount of inflation reduction! And people are concerned about inflation right now, in the current year and the next, not at some imaginary point in the more distant future.

That assessment by the CBO doesn't mean that the Inflation Reduction Act is a lousy bill. It simply means that the so-called Inflation Reduction Act won't have much effect on inflation reduction, and certainly not next week.

Indeed, here's what Paul Krugman has said on this matter, before going on to discuss the important matters the bill really seeks to address:

KRUGMAN (8/2/22): First, would the law, in fact, reduce inflation? Yes, probably—or at least it would reduce inflationary pressures. That’s because the legislation’s increased spending, mainly on clean energy but also on health care, would be more than offset through its tax provisions; so it would be a deficit reduction act, which other things being equal would make it disinflationary.

According to Krugman, the bill would probably reduce inflation. Or it would at least do something related to that, other things being equal.

It would probably reduce inflation, but Krugman isn't real sure—and he doesn't say when, or by how much, this reduction would likely happen. (He went on to say that the bill is "a very big deal," due to its potential effect on other important matters.)

None of this means that the Inflation Reduction Act is a bad bill. It simply means that the bill actually may indeed involve some "clever naming." That said: 

Given the silly, tribe-pleasing way Ruhle posed her question last night, Baker's response, however mildly stated, qualified as a bombshell.

Question! Did Ruhle go on to examine the bombshell claim—the claim that the Inflation Reduction Act may not have much effect on inflation reduction? That's it's mainly a matter of naming?

Dearest darlings, use your heads! Having a four-member pundit panel means never having to say you're sorry! 

In this case, Ruhle simply moved ahead to her next pundit, asking a wholly unrelated question. She had pimped the greatness of the bill in what it allows our tribe to say. On cable news as it currently stands, viewers will never be asked to learn that the truth may be quite different.

Ruhle introduced her panel last night as she always does. She told us that the gaggle of guests was going help us "get smarter." 

For herself, she proceeded to scattershot her questions around, persistently leaning her head on her hands in the manner of Rodin's The Thinker. This strikes us as an awkward branding exercise, though we certainly can't be sure.

It seems to us that Ruhle has been thrown in over her head with her new late evening assignment—or at least, that she disconcertingly seems to feel that way. But in her silly exchange with Baker, we all can see what "cable news" is all about at this juncture.

"Cable news" is designed to tell us this:

Our team will now get to say wonderful things! The Others will be frog-marched about, admitting their shameful defeat!

Later in the program: Later, Ruhle spent two segments listening to monologues by presidential historian Michael Beschloss.

Beschloss was linking in from the antique furniture wing of the Sorbonne, where he currently seems to reside.

SERIOUSLY ILL-ADVISED: We were surprised by what Spielberg did!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2022

Amusing Ourselves During Trump:  We were surprised when we learned who the director was.

We had put the film on pause because we wanted to check. Its representations had become so odd—and, in one instance, so unkind—that we wondered who had been at the helm of the ship.

We were watching The Post, the Oscar-nominated film about the decision by the Washington Post to publish the Pentagon Papers. 

The film appeared in 2017. It concerned allegedly important events from the summer of 1971. 

We watched the film last weekend. For some reason, we thought that we had already seen it. As it turned out, we hadn't.

When we put the film on pause, we'd already sat through several improbable sequences. That included the ridiculous scene where Ben Bradlee sends a very young, nervous intern off to New York City with the absurd instruction that he should learn what Neil Sheehan was planning to publish next about the war in Vietnam.

These scenes were registering as odd on our internal "representation of reality" meter. But then, about 40 minutes into the film, we met The Shlubby General Assignment Reporter, and we watched the strangest, and the least humane, representation of reality yet.

The sequence starts when The Young Hippie Woman in the Tie-Dyed Skirt arrives in the Post's newsroom carrying what looks like a shoebox. 

She makes an extremely dumb remark to the self-identified general assignment reporter, then drops the shoebox on his desk and scurries out of the room.

When the young reporter opens the box, he finds material which seems to be part of the Pentagon Papers—the mother lode his newspaper has been pursuing. He hurries off to inform the bosses—but first, let's describe this good and decent young man:

In cinematic terms, the young general assignment reporter is unmistakably shlubby. He's somewhat short, and he's overweight. His beard is plainly unkempt.

We're also forced to note that he speaks with a bit of a lisp. He doesn't have a confident air. This guy wouldn't make it on cable.

In cinematic terms, this good, decent person doesn't hail from Thomas Mann's land of "the blond and blue-eyed," from Homer's realm of the nobles. When he hurries off to alert Bradlee concerning what has been left on his desk, he interacts haltingly with his cultural betters.

This produces one of the weirdest representations of reality ever brought to the silver screen.

The young reporter is finally able to hand the shoebox off to Bradlee himself. As Bradlee and a gaggle of editors come to see what the shoebox contains, they ask the young man where he got it.

The young reporter starts to explain—or at least, he makes a halting attempt. As best we can reconstruct who stated each line in the exchange, the exchange starts out like this:

POST EDITOR: Ben, I think we got something.

BRADLEE: What is it? Jesus Christ! Sh*t! Are these part of the pages of the McNamara study?

POST EDITOR: Where did you get these?

REPORTER: Somebody left them on my desk.

So far, so perfectly sensible. But as the exchange continues, it ceases to be an exchange. Nobody's listening to the young reporter, but he weirdly continues to talk all the same.

Weirdly, he continues to speak in his ineffectual way, even when nobody's listening. You would have to see the scene to see how weird it is:

POST EDITOR: On your desk?

REPORTER: I didn't—i—it was a woman.

POST EDITOR: What a woman?

BRADLEE: We got over a hundred pages of the McNamara study here!

POST EDITOR: What woman?

REPORTER: She was a hippie woman. She had one of those, uh—

BRADLEE: Hey, Debbie, give me Bagdikian!

REPORTER: I don't know what they're called, but it's one of those skirts—

POST EDITOR: He's uh—

REPORTER: —that looks like you're uh—

POST EDITOR: He's out, he just went—

REPORTER: —swirling in colors.

POST EDITOR: —somewhere

REPORTER: I don't— Probably between 5'4 and 5'6.

BRADLEE: Well, these are the real thing.

REPORTER: Oh, she's uh—

BRADLEE: We are back in the ballgame.

REPORTER: It was a tie-dyed, sir. It was a tie-dyed skirt.

BRADLEE: This is gonna be the front page of tomorrow's paper.

That's the way this site records the actual words which are spoken. Absolutely no one is listening, but the conventionally unimpressive reporter just keeps on talking in his comically ineffectual way.

We doubt that anyone has ever behaved this way in the history of human life. Presumably, we're supposed to be amused by this shlubby young person's discomfort, by his humorous lack of cool.

There's a vaudeville feel to this silly scene—a scene which simply isn't derived from actual lived reality. This is the director's peculiar representation of same, and it struck us as so strange and unkind that we finally decided to pause the film, wondering whose work we were watching.

As it turned out, we were watching the work of Steven Spielberg, who's plainly a good, decent person. That said, the earlier scene with the nervous young intern hadn't made a lick of sense. The scene with this general assignment reporter was unattractive, unpleasant, unkind.

We wondered why a person like Spielberg would want to feature a scene of this type. We wondered why an audience would think this unlikely behavior made sense. 

Beyond that, we wondered why an audience wouldn't think that this scene was unattractive, unkind. Here is one possible answer:

As we've noted, major critics seemed to agree that the various scenes of this general type—scenes which litter this Oscar-nominated film—were "thoroughly entertaining."

In the review of the film in the New York Times, we were told that Spielberg had brought three "funnymen" into the cast, providing us with "physical comedy," with plenty of "stumbling and fumbling."

In fairness, that's the way it was, in this and in other strange scenes.

In this scene, the hippie girl who somehow has the Papers makes a dumb remark. The general assignment reporter keeps talking long after everyone has stopped listening.

Later, his betters make virtual fools of themselves, fumbling and stumbling in various ways as they continue to hunt down the Papers. Critics said this was done for entertainment purposes, and those critics seemed to approve.

In a movie about several serious matters, this fumbling and stumbling prevailed. We thought of the 1985 book by Neil Postman [sic], Amusing Ourselves to Death:  Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.

Postman's book is one of those books about journalism which is often cited as a courtesy, but is almost never analyzed, quoted or read or discussed. 

In part, that may be because Amusing Ourselves to Death is a bit too academicky. It states an important general theme, but soon gets lost in its high-end academic ideas.

What was Postman's general claim? The leading authority on his book starts its discussion as shown:

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) is a book by educator Neil Postman...In the introduction to his book, Postman said that the contemporary world was better reflected by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, whose public was oppressed by their addiction to amusement, rather than by [George] Orwell's work, where they were oppressed by state control.

Did some such addiction to amusement perhaps exist as of 2017, when a good, decent person like Steven Spielberg thought it made sense to entertain us with physical comedy in telling a story about two deeply serious matters? 

Putting it a different way, did some such addiction to entertainment perhaps exist in the minds of people like Spielberg, and in the minds of the people who review our films and even bring us our "news?" The leading authority on Postman's book also describes it this way:

Postman asserts the presentation of television news is a form of entertainment programming; arguing that the inclusion of theme music, the interruption of commercials, and "talking hairdos" bear witness that televised news cannot readily be taken seriously. 

Today, the presentation of our news has moved well past the use of theme music and "talking hairdos." We're entertained, each of us in our tribal caves, by highly partisan shouting and ranting, and by the careful selection of facts and scandal themes.

Each tribe is handed its own set of scandals, delivered by its own set of profit-based tribunes. We got no sense, from watching The Post, that Spielberg, a massively popular figure, possesses even the slightest clue about how dangerous this has become.

(Decent people who experience massive success may be inclined to lose touch.)

There's more to say about The Post, but the week has come to an end. We thought the film largely came out of a carnival show, and we thought this suggested something bad about the state of the nation.

Back in 1975, All the President's Men was a fundamentally serious film. Its director didn't seen to feel the need to lard it up with "physical comedy"—with "stumbling and fumbling"—in the way Spielberg apparently did when he directed The Post.

Major critics praised The Post. They seemed to see nothing odd, let alone wrong, with all the fumbling and stumbling. Having said that, we'll close with this:

Big Hollywood has long since succumbed to the goal of Amusing Ourselves. In various ways, Big Journalism seems to have journeyed there too.

As we watch our cable channels, as we go to the multiplex, it may not occur to us the people that we're being amused in the direction of a type of death. That said, Spielberg's movie is larded with representations which are just astoundingly dumb, and reviewers don't seem to have noticed.

Postman's book appeared in 1985. Thirty-seven years later, have our overpaid corporate elites managed to amuse us the people to death? 

Things have looked better in recent weeks, but the gong-shows will keep coming at us. The fact is, we're still amusing ourselves, or being directed to be amused, after all these years.

Could Dobbs help Democrats hold the House?

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2022

Price of gas, come on down:  Is it possible that Democrats could end up holding the House?

As usual, everything's possible! That said, Tuesday's pro-abortion rights vote in Kansas has the blue world wishin' and hopin'. Also this:

On last evening's Last Word, viewers were instantly told about that new Monmouth poll. Guest host Zerlina Maxwell did the honors:

MAXWELL (8/3/22): New polling today shows further movement away from the Republicans' extreme agenda. A new Monmouth poll finds that 50% of Americans want Democrats to be in control of the Congress compared to 43% who want Republicans to be in charge. And that's an 11-point swing away from Republicans just since the month of May.

Maxwell's report was accurate as far as it went. Inevitably, Morning Joe delivered the same good news this morning.

As far as it goes, it's all true! In the new Monmouth poll, 50 percent of respondents said they favor Democratic control of the House—but that 7-point advantage only holds among the somewhat motley crew known as "all Americans."

Among the more distinguished group known as "registered voters," the Democratic advantage in the Monmouth poll slips to just three points (Democrats 49, Republicans 46). And of course, it's often assumed, for various reasons, that Democrats need something like a 7-point advantage in surveys of this type if they hope to have a fighting chance to emerge with control of the House.

At any rate, that Monmouth poll is encouraging. Until you click over to 538.com, where a person can learn that other recent surveys exist, some of which tilt in a different direction. 

Having said that, let us also say this:

Another new survey, by YouGov for Yahoo News, shows Democrats with a 6-point advantage among registered voters. We don't see much point in pushing the Monmouth survey while ignoring that.

Long ago and far away—during Campaign 2000, for example—cable channels would typically cite a compendium of recent polls when some new survey appeared. By now, even that practice may be fading away as cable channels  restrict themselves to citing the outcomes their particular viewers might like.

At this point, the GOP almost seems to be trying to snatch November defeat from the jaws of victory. But November is still a long ways away, and no single survey should ever be regarded as "right."

The Democrats may be gaining ground. As barkers used to say on TV,  Gas prices, come on down!

SERIOUSLY AMUSING: Entertained by The Girl With the Lemonade Stand!

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2022

"It really happened that way:" Steven Spielberg's Oscar-nominated film, The Post, appeared in December 2017. 

When the well-received film hit the multiplex, major critics accurately said that it was built around a treatment of two major societal issues.

Most explicitly, it provided a history of the Washington Post's decision to publish the so-called Pentagon Papers all the way back in The Summer of 71. 

Also, it offered a look at the ubiquitous sexism of that earlier era, as seen in the way Katharine Graham, the Post's owner and publisher, was treated by the many men who surrounded her—by the many men on her board of directors, on her legal team, among the top figures at the Post, even among her closest friends.

Beyond that, critics tended to say that the film offered a warning about American president Donald J. Trump, who was nearing the end of his first year in the Oval Office. 

What Nixon did in 1971, Trump would be prepared to do again! Critics agreed that Spielberg's film was offering as a bit of a warning in this general regard. 

On its face, the film was dealing with deeply serious issues. Arguably, this might have made it seem a bit strange to see the way Spielberg decided to make his film "thoroughly entertaining"—to see the way the film provided "a rollicking, enjoyable time at the movies," possibly even a “rock-’em-sock-’em two hours of grab-yer-ass entertainment."  

(For citations, see yesterday's report.)

The year was 2017. For some reason,  Spielberg's film about these vital matters was being sold to us the people as "grab-yer-ass entertainment." 

Had we the people possibly been "amusing ourselves to [intellectual] death" in the 46 years since Graham made the decision to publish the Papers? More specifically, had we the average people succumbed to this intellectual malady? Or had it possibly been happening on the Hollywood end—perhaps among the nation's "elites" more than among the mere people?

Such questions are hard to answer. That said, we suspect that someone may have been asking some such questions after watching Spielberg's slapstick-riddled film. We base that upon a passage from the 3-and-a-half star review the film received from Ann Hornaday in that very same Washington Post.

As we've noted in the past, we've known Ann a little these many long years, and we like her a lot. At one point in her review, she offered a bit of a protest:

HORNADAY (12/7/17): Those tense couple of weeks in June [1971] form the spine of "The Post," a fleet, stirring, thoroughly entertaining movie in which Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks play Graham and Bradlee with just the right balance of modesty, gusto and expertly deployed star power. Directed by Steven Spielberg from a script by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, "The Post" canters along with crisp pacing and straightforward, unfussy clarity...

[...]

[His] instinctive sense of what it takes to connect with a mass audience—so often snobbily dismissed as “middlebrow”—is precisely what distinguishes Spielberg as an artist, and it allows “The Post” to go for broke with such unselfconscious energy, feeling and, every so often, sheer beauty. And in fairness, sometimes what seems like overkill is backed up by the facts: If Bradlee’s young daughter Marina setting up a lemonade stand at a crucial juncture strikes some filmgoers as folksy to a fault, they should know that it really happened that way.

In Hornaday's rendering, Spielberg was "connect[ing] with a mass audience" through the various insertions which made his film so entertaining. 

Did those entertaining insertions sometimes "seem like overkill?" If so, readers should know that they were (sometimes) "backed up by the facts," Hornaday said. 

As her example, she cited the case of The Girl With the Lemonade Stand.

To our ear, this passage suggests the possibility that there may have been murmurs about Spielberg's constant use of a type of "middlebrow" comic relief. When we watched the film last weekend, the (wise-cracking) Girl With the Lemonade Stand provided one of many such examples—but yes, the girl can be said to be (very loosely) "based on a true story," or at least on one fleeting report of same.

The background:

Midway through the film, the Washington Post's Ben Bagdikian has been dispatched to a motel near Boston to retrieve the Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg. At the time, Bagdikian—a highly respected figure—was the Post's assistant managing editor for national news.

Bagdikian is played by Bob Odenkirk, one of the three "funnymen" Spielberg employs to "lighten the heaviness with physical comedy," specifically through their "fumbling and stumbling." He's portrayed as a major figure inside the Post, which he actually was. 

That said:

By the time he heads for Boston, we've already seen Bagdikian clumsily surrender control of a pay phone as fumbles for the pencil and paper he neglected to have available as he's given the phone number at which Ellsberg can be reached.

After losing control of the phone, he starts frantically repeating the number to himself—the number he failed to write down due to his fumbling lack of preparation. He then spills a fistful of pocket change all over the sidewalk as he attempts to dial the number has has struggled to get.

(As one of our analysts said, "If that's the way the Washington Post was gathering information back then, it's no wonder they were constantly getting outplayed by the New York Times.") 

Back to Bagdikian's struggles:

After fumbling away control of the pay phone and spilling his change all over the sidewalk, he has somehow managed to get to Boston—and he has acquired the Papers. 

We now see him on the plane as he flies back to D.C. He's shown haplessly trying to fasten a seatbelt around a large carton on the seat beside him, the carton containing the Papers. A stewardess looks on in amusement as his fumbling and stumbling continues.

Eventually, Bagdikian arrives in D.C. with the Papers. He heads straight for Bradlee's house, where the Papers will be reviewed—and when he arrives, the aforementioned Girl With the Lemonade Stand is perched out front on the sidewalk.

As Hornaday notes in her review, it's possible that "it really happened that way." In his 1995 memoir, A Good Life, Bradlee pens this fleeting remark on page 303:

At 10:30 A.M., Thursday, June 17, Bagdikian rushed past Marina Bradlee, age 10, tending her lemonade stand outside our house in Georgetown, and we were back in business.

For the next twelve hours, the Bradlee library on N Street served as a remote newsroom, where editors and reporters started sorting, reading and annotating 4,400 pages, and the Bradlee living room served as a legal office, where lawyers and newspaper editors started the most basic discussions about the duty and right of a newspaper to publish...

According to Bradlee's book, the adorable girl with the lemonade stand was actually there on the sidewalk that morning. Two pages later, he pens a second fleeting remark in which he says that Marina wandered through the house during the day, attempting to sell her product.

In this sense, the presence of The Adorable Girl in Spielberg's film is actually "based on a true story," or at least on one published report of same. That said, Spielberg takes Bradlee's fleeting reference to his daughter and runs. 

We see the youngster again and again in the ensuing scene. We see her as she brings her large LEMONADE sign indoors, then as she brings the components of her stand indoors. We see her as she wanders around, selling her lemonade to a mob of Post personnel, as her mother flies about, offering everyone sandwiches. 

In its presentation of this chaos, the film creates an adaptation of the famous scene involving the Marx Brothers in the fantastically overcrowded stateroom in A Night at the Opera. Inevitably, the girl is scripted with a wisecrack at the expense of her clueless elders:

MARINA: Do you want lemonade?

POST EMPLOYEE: It's a little early for me.

SECOND POST EMPLOYEE: Ah, loosen up, I'm buying. What kind of lemonade you have there?

MARINA (sarcastically): Uh, it's the one with the lemons in it?

In this thoroughly entertaining film, Post employees frequently tend to fumble and stumble. Inevitably, the adorable 10-year-old girl with the stand is sarcastically cracking wise. 

This structure comes straight out of sitcom land. Does it hail from a dying culture?

Based upon Ben Bradlee's report, his daughter Marina really was there when the Pentagon Papers arrived. Spielberg took that brief citation and ran. From that point on, the way "it really happened" came straight out of Hollywood's brain.

In this Oscar-nominated film, Hollywood took serious topics and rendered them thoroughly entertaining. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, until such time as it is.

Tomorrow: Portrait of a reporter. Portrait of an age?

Even more text messages can't be found!

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2022

We don't all know what happened: In our view, Kevin Drum's extensive work on the effects of exposure to lead is just about the most interesting work the Internet has ever produced.

(Also, see his cover report for Mother Jones on this topic. For an overview and link, click here.)

We say this because we don't intend what follows to seem like pointless snark. We mean it to be an important example concerning an important basic principle.

In this new post, Kevin notes that even more text messages have turned out to be missing / wiped / erased / unavailable. He quotes CNN reporting this:

SNEED AND COHEN (8/2/22): The Defense Department wiped the phones of top departing DOD and Army officials at the end of the Trump administration, deleting any texts from key witnesses to events surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, according to court filings.

[The officials include] former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, former chief of staff Kash Patel, and former Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, among other prominent Pentagon officials.

Assuming CNN's report is accurate, this means that texts are unavailable for various officials and employees "across multiple agencies." Texts are unavailable from the Secret Service, from the Department of Homeland Security, and now from the Department of Defense.

Now for our main point. After Kevin posts the quoted material, he asks a very good question:

DRUM (8/2/22): The Pentagon's explanation is that this is routine: When anyone leaves DOD they turn in their phone and the phone is wiped. I must have at least a few readers who have worked for DOD and then left. Is this true?

Is that statement by the DOD true? Sensible minds want to know!

We mention this because it differs from Kevin's reaction to the initial reporting about the Secret Service. We all know what's going on here, he said, perhaps prematurely, in a post at the time.

At the time, we noted that we didn't know what was going on, and we doubted that Kevin did either. We adumbrated a very important principle:

Novelizations are instantaneous. But you have to wait, perhaps a long time, if you want to know the actual facts.

All across the blue tribe dial, corporate hustlers spread instant novelizations about the Secret Service texts. Quite a few facts were disappeared in service to Storyline.

(Since that time, it has become more and more clear that the Inspector General who started the flap about the Secret Service is highly unreliable. We have neither space enough, nor time, to list all the other facts which have been shoved to the side so people like Lawrence and Joe can sell us the angry rants which serve their preferred cable product, scandal.)

Kevin has received the following comment to his new post. We don't know how much of this is accurate:

COMMENT (8/3/22): I am on the fence. I've been in IT for decades much of it in the DC area. Incompetency is definitely not out of the question for much of the data loss due to wipes. It was only in 2017 that texts were deemed as records requiring retention and agencies had until 2019 to comply. Who knows whether such policies were actually being used in 2021?

Also the wipes are not the problem. That is normal operating procedure. The problem is that the retention requirement says the data must be retained in an external system. It would be a pretty crappy system if losing the phone meant losing the records.

This is clear from https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-36/chapter-XII/subchapter-B/part-1236/subpart-B, "Agencies must incorporate controls into the electronic information system or integrate them into a recordkeeping system that is external to the information system itself (see § 1236.20 of this part)."

In other words the kerfuffle around wiping is a smokescreen.

To our non tech-savvy ear, that seems to suggest the possibility that a lot of agencies have possibly never bothered constructing an "external system" for automatically retaining these records. 

That said, is any of that comment accurate? We have no idea. 

Kevin started out by saying that everyone knew. In his new post, he says that he himself doesn't. 

Most likely, that was true all along. Nor is it obvious that we the rubes will ever know what has been happening here. We know of no reason for thinking that our press corps is up to the substantial challenge of settling such a question.

Lawrence and Joe and Mika and Claire pushed instant Storyline. Everybody else joined in. It was "good television," but it was also good solid fun.

Lawrence and Joe pushed the one product served by today's "cable news." Can our floundering, tribalized nation possibly hope to survive it?

Recalling a different day: For Drum's cover report on exposure to lead, you can just click here. Much more work was offered online.