Almost Neanderthal, Charles Blow says!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2024

Perhaps he should drop that first word: Candidate Trump is playing for the masculine vote, Charles Blow writes today in the New York Times.

We're intrigued by the following passage, which comes near the start of Blow's column. That said, we'll guess that he's understating the emotional power of the gender-based revolt underway—a revolt which comes from way back when but also from way down below:

Why Trump’s Closing Argument Is Full of ‘Locker Room Talk’

[...]

For months, Trump has been engaged in a foulmouthed assault on Vice President Kamala Harris, reposting lewd comments about her on social media, reportedly referring to her with an expletive behind closed doors and demeaning her as “stupid.”

Last week at a rally, he said, “We can’t stand you, you’re a shit vice president,” shortly after sharing an admiring anecdote about the size of the late golfer Arnold Palmer’s penis.

We’ve heard this kind of talk from Trump before. In 2016, responding to a dig from Marco Rubio, he said, “He referred to my hands: ‘If they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem.”

This all speaks to a toxic masculinity in which the definition of what it means to be a man is reduced to the size of a sex organ. There’s an almost Neanderthal quality to it, a primal call to what Trump seems to perceive as the base nature of men.

There’s an almost Neanderthal quality to this? 

Based on some of what we've been seeing on the grisly Fox News Channel, we'll suggest that Blow might went to lose the word "almost." Beyond that, we'll suggest that he might want to double down on that other key word: "primal."

The gender pushback has struck us as very angry and highly primal on the ugly Fox News show Gutfeld! 

As we've recently noted, the program's termagant-adjacent flyweight host has been trashing Candidate Harris as a drunk and as something perhaps resembling a wh*re. As far as we know, he hasn't used that second term yet, but the insinuation has been constant—and during this very week, he has begun to refer to her simply as "that broad."

In what decade—in what century—does this undergrown little guy live? 

Greg Gutfeld seems to be living in some other era—and he seems to be incel-angry about the way These Liberal Women Today won't get off his lawn. Pathetically, he seems to have found a string of D-list comedians and other flyweights who are happy to promote his vision about the unacceptably overweight liberal women he finds all around himself, but also about the troubling woman he now describes as "that broad."

The incel-based pushback seems remarkably strong—and yes, we'd call it primal. Just a guess:

Presumably, this sort of thing is very much bred in the bone. It's stunning to see the fervor with which it's being acted out on this demented primetime show as the women of Fox look on.

Speaking about this with a friend, we thought back to Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Stanley Kubrick's final film. If memory serves, the film wasn't all that well received in real time—the leading authority offers a somewhat different report—but critical judgment has apparently improved given the passage of time.

We can't quite remember the shape of the plot, but the whole thing turns on the discovery of a throwback, sex-based secret society operating in a mansion somewhat on Long Island. We'll only say that the rituals of this secret society involve a highly primal desire to return to highly Neanderthal gender roles, though some such statement may be unfair to the actual Neanderthals who once peopled parts of the earth.

The boys of Gutfeld! are very angry and they want their supremacy back. The executive who opens this garbage can every night and turns these angry children loose is, of course, Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News.

An angry revolt is underway from below. In major ways, we Blues have spent the past sixty years developing ways to earn our way out. (More on that next week.) 

In other ways, the world is dealing with the primal desires of undergrown children, one of whom comes from a sunny land and never quite seemed to grow up.

We'll guess that Blow should focus on that one word—"primal." An angry revolt is underway from below. In the hands of the Fox Channel's angry lost boys, it tracks back before the dawn of time, and it has an amoeba vibe.

Candidate Harris is now "this broad," the program's pathetic host says. For the record, Suzanne Scott is the corporate stooge who puts this creep on the air.

CHAOS: When Anderson Cooper tried to ask...

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2024

...the candidate tried to answer: Sometimes, you just have to feel sorry for our political candidates.

Such a time occurred last night during CNN's Town Hall. Early on, Candidate Kamala Harris ran through a list of her policies, plans and proposals.

Anderson Cooper offered this sad attempt at a follow-up question: 

HARRIS (10/23/24): So that's why my plan, and it's a new approach, is about tax cuts for our small businesses so that they can invest in themselves and grow and in the process, invest in communities, invest in neighborhoods, and strengthen our economy overall.

So those are some examples. It's about a new approach, a new generation of leadership based on new ideas and, frankly, different experiences. I bring a whole set of different experiences to this job, and the way I think about it, than Joe Biden. 

COOPER: Some voters, though, might ask: You've been in the White House for four years. You were vice president, not the president. But why wasn't any of that done over the last four years?

We heard no gnashing of teeth from the candidate. If we had, we would have cheered.

In fairness, let's be fair! Cooper did include a qualifier: "You were vice president, not the president," the moderator thoughtfully said. 

Even so, that attempt at a follow-up strikes us as the world's dumbest possible question. 

Sad! The question is built on a framework which has ruled the roost, for the past several months, in the journalistic / intellectual rubber room known as the Fox News Channel. By some process of "inanity leak," the framework had now leeched over and had invaded CNN's Town Hall.

Anderson Cooper, please!  As is known by everyone except our nation's major journalists, the policies of an administration are set by American presidents, not by their vice presidents. 

This basic fact has long been understood. It helps explain why John Nance Garner once made a famous statement. In the passage shown below, the foremost authority explains:

John Nance Garner

[...]

Like most vice presidents in this era, Garner had little to do and little influence on the president's policies. He famously described the vice presidency as being "not worth a bucket of warm piss" (for many years, this quote was bowdlerized as "warm spit"). Historian Patrick Cox traces the possible origin of this quote to a 1960 conversation with Lyndon B. Johnson, who consulted Garner on John F. Kennedy's offer to run for vice president.

Like most vice presidents in this era? Presumably, the leading authority refers there to the era which still exists!

Vice presidents aren't in charge of policy! Is there someone who doesn't understand this point? People, we're just asking!

For the record, Garner was born in1868. He served as Franklin Roosevelt's vice president for eight years, up through 1941.

According to that leading authority, his assessment of the job of vice president has been widely quoted since 1960. Its meaning is widely understood—except by CNN's Cooper, along with a coffle of "journalist actors" on the Fox News Channel.

You'd think some things were so freaking obvious that even our millionaire TV stars would be able to understand them. The charade isn't performed that way at Fox—and last night, there was Cooper, adopting one of their standard frameworks!

By our reckoning, that was an unfortunate question. Politely, the candidate responded:

HARRIS (continuing directly): Well, there was a lot that was done, but there's more to do, Anderson. And—and I'm pointing out things that need to be done that haven't been done, but need to be done. And I'm not going to shy away from saying, "Hey, these are still problems that we need to fix."

In truth, a president seeking a second term might have said the same things! Mercifully, Cooper moved on at this juncture, having earned at least a half dozen "Fox News Brownie points."

That was an unfortunate moment from Cooper. A bit later on, he asked a question we would regard as obvious and plainly significant.

Under the circumstances, the question didn't have to be asked. But the question remains unanswered and unexplained, right to this very day. Last night, Cooper joined Bill Whitaker of 60 Minutes in asking the question again.

As you can see in the CNN transcript, the candidate had just responded to a question from a college student about the southern border. Perfectly sensibly, Cooper followed with this:

COOPER: Let me ask you about that. You're talking about the [border] bill that Donald Trump quashed in 2024. You talked about the bill he [presumably, President Biden] tried to get passed in 2021. That he wasn't able to get passed. 

2022, 2023, there were record border crossings. Your administration took a number, hundreds of executive actions. It didn't stem the flow. The numbers kept going up.

Finally, in 2024, just in June, three weeks before the last—the first presidential debate with Joe Biden, you instituted executive actions that had a dramatic impact, really shut down people crossing over. Why didn't your administration do that in 2022, 2023?

It's an obvious question—and it remains unanswered. Like Whitaker before him, Cooper was asking this:

Why didn't President Biden institute those executive actions during the first three years and five months of his administration? Why did he wait so long?

It's an obvious question! Sadly, you'll note that Cooper continued to throw gorilla dust with his references to "you" and "your administration"—references which continued to suggest that it was actually Candidate Harris who had somehow been in charge.

Simply put, many of our cable journalists just aren't any sharper than that! That said, the question is an obvious question—and it remains unanswered, even as we type.

As you can see from the CNN transcript, the candidate failed to answer Cooper's obvious question. As a result, Cooper posed the question again:

COOPER: But if it was that easy with that executive action, why not do it in 2022, 2023?

Once again, the candidate failed to answer! As she finished her second non-response, Cooper asked for the third time:

HARRIS: ...We have dealt with it such that, to your point, we now, as of today, as of our visit, have lower undocumented immigrants and illegal immigration than Trump when he left office. But we need a permanent solution and that requires bipartisan work.

COOPER: That's true. Do you wish you had done that? Do you wish you had done those executive orders in 2022, 2023?

The candidate evaded the question again. At this point, Cooper moved on to an extremely dumb question about one part of the bipartisan border bill, which he himself identified as a "compromise" bill.

(If you know the meaning of the word "compromise," Cooper's next question was very dumb. Also, though, the candidate's answer was poor.)

At this site, we've formulated a theory—more accurately, a speculation—about President Biden's border policy during those first three-plus years. All by itself, that unexplained border policy may hand Candidate Trump the November 5 election.

(You'll note that this was President Biden's policy. There is zero reason to assume that it was somehow Vice President Harris who was making these decisions.)

Why didn't President Biden take action sooner? At some point, we'll share the speculation we've formulated. For today, let's leave it at this as we continue to ponder the sorry state of what's left of the dying American discourse:

In our view, Candidate Harris is quite weak as an explainer, as major politicians go. 

We very much wish that wasn't the case, Also though, there's this:

The Fox News Channel is a fount of intellectual squalor. Last night, a leading framework from that Potemkin News Channel leaked over into the work performed on CNN.

A form of moral and intellectual chaos emerges from Fox on a daily basis. Consider one new example:

On one of that channel's primetime shows, Candidate Harris is now routinely referred to as "that broad." The angry pushback from incel culture is on full display there each night. 

(Eyes Wide Shut, come on down!)

A form of moral and intellectual chaos emerges from the Fox News Channel on a daily and nightly basis. The existence of social media only makes matters worse.

Last night, we got to see another small part of the problem. Simply put, we humans aren't gigantically bright, our big stars perhaps a bit less. 

Simply put, we humans aren't built for this type of work! In closing, Earth to Anderson Cooper:

It's true! Candidate Harris has "been in the White House for four years"—but she hasn't been in charge!

Everyone understands that fact. Everyone on the face of the earth except our millionaire stars!

Tomorrow: We're still trying to make our way back to what the public was told last weekend by The Man Who Screams, with much more to follow.

When two unflattering reports appeared...

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2024

...Fox & Friends swung into action: Ainsley Earhardt wasn't present on the Fox & Friends couch today. For that reason, the four friends this morning were these:

Fox & Friends co-hosts, October 23, 2024
Steve Doocy
Brian Kilmeade
Lawrence Jones
Kayleigh McEnany (substitute friend)

We think it's important to start saying their names. With the Internet Archive down again—the victim of a cyberattack—we'll be working from this post by Colby Hall over at Mediaite.

This morning, at 7:15 Eastern, the four friends swung into action. At issue was a pair of unflattering reports about Candidate Donald J. Trump.

Under current arrangements, the friends are paid, by their corporate owners, to propagandize on behalf of Candidate Trump. The goal is to wash the brains of viewers of any concerns about Candidate Trump. As we've previously noted, this practice is modeled on the 2004 Hollywood film of this name:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This morning, a certain circumstance needed to be addressed. Two (2) unflattering reports had appeared about Candidate Trump. One report was in The Atlantic, the other was in the New York Times.

With the Internet Archive down again, we can't conduct a full check of the way these two reports were handled in the course of the program's three hours. As part of his report for Mediaite, Hall offers videotape of one four-minute segment—a segment which helps the discerning observer see the nature of corporate "cable news" propaganda and the role it now plays in our lives.

For starters, sad! Hall doesn't call attention to this fact, but the friends only mention the report about Trump which appears in The Atlantic. The lengthy interview with General John Kelly which appears in the New York Times goes unmentioned by the friends as they complete their corporate rounds in the segment for which Hall has provided videotape.

Hall does cite an obvious problem with the service provided by the four friends. We offer a quick bit of background:

It fell to the friends to assure Fox viewers that the unflattering accounts of Trump's behavior in The Atlantic can't possibly be right. That said, it seems to us that the unflattering report in the New York Times is far more striking than the corresponding piece in The Atlantic.  

The Atlantic piece is largely recap of prior reporting. The report in the Times includes extensive audiotape of General Kelly talking about the endless array of peculiar things Trump said to him during the eighteen months he spent as President Trump's second chief of staff.

(As president, Trump had four chiefs of staff in all.)

At any rate, the friends were required to give the impression that any such unflattering claims simply couldn't be right. At one point, Hall spies an apparent implausibility in the path the four friends trod:

HALL (10/23/24): McEnany has consistently claimed that John Kelly’s retelling of a private conversation he had with Trump in Normandy, in which the 45th president allegedly labeled US soldiers buried in a cemetery as “suckers and losers” has been debunked—though there is no way that she could disprove Kelly’s account.

[..]

It’s not clear how she can reasonably conclude how a private conversation “never happened,” but if she believes that to be true, then she is clearly saying that John Kelly is lying about what he says the former president told him personally.

Is General Kelly lying about that alleged statement by Trump? In the New York Times report, Kelly recounts a wide array of strange remarks President Trump allegedly made. He also says that Trump made remarks of the "suckers and losers" type on an array of occasions.

Skillfully, the four friends simply disappear the detailed Times report. Along the way, Jones, the dumbest and most self-assured of the four regular friends, claims to blast the whole kerfuffle to smithereens by offering an account of the circumstance in which the "suckers and losers" comment was supposedly made.

The circumstance described by Jones doesn't seem to jibe with The Atlantic's reporting, or with Kelly's statements to the Times.

Is Donald J. Trump "a fascist?" You can hear General Kelly state that view as part of the extensive New York Times videotape.

Perhaps for that reason, the friends fail to mention the existence of the Times report. Instead, they pick out a statement from The Atlantic and allege that they've shot it down.

The friends are hired by the corporation to convey such impressions—to keep pro-Trump minds "spotless." Morning Joe performs a similar function for Blue America's cable news viewers, though to a substantially lesser extent and in a less stupid manner.

Under current arrangements, our nation's journalistic discourse lies in ruins. The Internet Archive is still down, the victim of a cyberattack.

Under the direction of Suzanne Scott, the Fox News Channel conducts a fraud against the American people on a round-the-clock basis. Sadly, it's hard to report the way this scam has worked in this current instance with the Internet Archive still down.

Pray for Rosemary's baby, the deep state once said. At this site, we pray for the Archive!

CHAOS: On Fox, the lady's a drunk but also a wh*re!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2024

At the Times, this disappears: It was 5:20 p.m. Finally, the little guy was ready to spout.

We refer to his physical stature in part because he himself constantly does. Tragically, we're forced to guess that his physical stature, and the way it may have affected his upbringing, including his years at Serra High, is part of the story being played out as Blue America may perhaps be on its way down for the count.

Will Blue America be shown the door after we the people have voted? We can't answer that question. But almost surely, Candidate Harris doesn't have the election in the bag.

So the little guy now said, on The Five, as you can see at this link:

GUTFELD (10/22/24): The only thing Kamala has in the bag is a bottler of pinot grigio.

[PAUSE]

That's all I'm gonna say.

That's what the angry little guy said. As you can see on the tape, he paused for a laugh, but no laugh emerged.

This was the Fox News Channel's Greg Gutfeld, attempting to transfer his grimy sensibility from his eponymous 10 p.m. "cable news" program to the more august inanity found each afternoon on the clowncar TV program clownishly known as The Five.  

(For the record, The Five has the highest viewership in all of "cable news.")

On this occasion, the other four panelists plainly weren't willing to play! But then again, there was Candidate Donald J. Trump, playing the same primeval card down in North Carolina.

To its credit, NBC News reported some of what this other candidate said:

For the second time in a day, Trump resorts to false personal attacks on Harris

Former President Donald Trump slammed Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday night as a “lunatic" and “stupid” and questioned whether she had a problem with alcohol or drugs—the second time over the course of the day that he made false personal attacks on his Democratic opponent.

At a nearly two-hour rally Tuesday night in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump launched into a diatribe about Harris’ Oct. 7 appearance on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that ended with his falsely suggesting she had substance abuse issue.

“She was so bad, she gave an answer. This never happened to me,” Trump said. “She gave an answer that was so bad that they changed it. They took it out, threw it out. They didn’t, like, edit a little bit, take a word out.”

“She didn’t know where the hell she was going,” Trump continued. “Did she drink? Is she on drugs? I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I have no idea.”

[...]

The false notion of Harris' being a drunk has grown in popularity in conservative circles online.

In fairness, Candidate Trump was just asking! He quickly said that he doesn't know if Candidate Harris drinks, or if she's maybe on drugs.

This disordered man has no idea! But so it went as a disordered man delivered his disordered thoughts to us the misused American people.

Meanwhile, is it true? Has the notion that Harris is a drunk "grown in popularity in conservative circles online?" 

We don't know the answer to that. But as we've noted in the past, this claim or suggestion or insinuation has become a standard feature of the other disordered fellow's primetime "cable news" program. 

Suzanne Scott is the Fox executive who sends this small and disordered man onto the air to spread that message on a nightly basis. That said, the claim that Candidate Harris is a drunk arrives on the Gutfeld! program with a fairly steady companion—and Suzanne Scott is the Fox executive who puts that on the air too.

The companion message is this:

 On Monday evening's Gutfeld! show, the disordered man had already spread the insinuation that "she's a drunk." Finally, up jumped one of his panelists to voice the companion insult. 

Near the end of the program's first segment, he voiced the second piece of the messaging, occasioning loud acclaim. Here's how the garbage went down:

As the opening segment moved along, the children had been taking turns saying how brilliant their candidate's stint at McDonald's had been.

The children all read from their messaging points. After the gruesome Kennedy kicked Candidate Harris around a bit, one other panelist, at long last, finally offered this:

LOFTUS (10/21/24): I loved this Trump at McDonald's thing. It really made my weekend. It was fantastic—so many jokes were flying around...

It was fantastic! And like, "Oh, Kamala—she's gonna be working at Five Guys."

GUTFELD [stage laugh]: Ha ha ha ha ha.

AUDIENCE: [GROANS, SHOUTING, APPLAUSE]

GUTFELD: We don't do that! We don't—

LOFTUS: Everyone knows she's gonna be working at In-and-Out! Come on, now!

AUDIENCE: [LOUDER CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

GUTFELD: Wowwwwww!

"If was like Christmas yesterday," this D-List comedian now merrily said. And by the way—if you don't know what this pitiful throwback was saying, it seems that everyone in the Gutfeld! audience did! 

(If you have the right cable connection, you can watch this mandated garbage simply by clicking here.)

Candidate Harris is a drunk, but she's also "a hooch!" We're quoting the gruesome Kennedy from the grisly Fox News Channel show we transcribed in this October 9 report.

People like this have always been with us; now, they're aggressively acting out as part of a classic revolt. That said, those twin messages have been widespread on the Gutfeld! program—on this utterly gruesome, though highly instructive, primetime "cable news" show. 

The sexual insults have been general over several Fox News Channel programs. For the record, Suzanne Scott is the multimillionaire executive who pulls the lid off the Gutfeld! garbage can each night, thereby waving this garbage onto the air.

Sadly, this:

 Among us the people—among us human—this sort of thing is deeply bred in the bone. Last night, on Alex Wagner Tonight, Wagner aired a discussion by a group of black men in a Philadelphia barbershop. 

Kevin Harden is a defense attorney, and he's also a Harris supporter. At several points, he spoke with admirable clarity concerning what's bred in the bone:

HARDEN (10/22/24): Like, Charlamagne is in the commercial—he's in the commercial!—talkin' [BLEEPED] about Kamala! And it's cool, but he's literally like—

And it's popular! We have to recognize that—

VOICE OFF-CAMERA: Antonio Brown.

HARDEN: Antonio Brown! It's popular. People calling her a whore...

People calling her a whore—or, on Fox, "a hooch!" Earlier, Harden had said this:

HARDEN: It's unfortunate that we grew up in a culture where these sorts of things are talked about.

Truer words were never spoken, But this sort of thing is bred in the bone, going all the way back to the siege of Troy. 

In the present day, Suzanne Scott is the multimillionaire who waves this garbage onto the air. The children arrive and the children recite, then deposit their corporate checks.

Candidate Trump is playing this card; so is the 60-year-old child who headlines the Gutfeld! program. Just for the record, the moral squalor of this primetime TV show is wedded to its intellectual squalor.

All in all, it adds up to a certain type of chaos. It represents the end of anything resembling an American "national discourse." At present, it may be lighting the way to Blue America's dusty defeat.

Or not! Meanwhile, here's the role which is being played by a second major news org:

As this garbage has been spewed by Fox, the timorous souls at the New York Times have tended to avert their gaze.

This morning, a news report appears in the Times about Trump's behavior in North Carolina. We've seen what NBC News reported. Headline incudes, here are the relevant parts of the Times report:

Trump Courts Christian Voters, Days After Vulgar Remarks at a Rally

Former President Donald J. Trump on Monday used the language of persecution to make a sweeping claim that only he could protect Christian voters, darkly warning religious communities that they would come under legal, cultural, political and global assault if he lost in November.

Mr. Trump, a former tabloid fixture who was once caught on tape boasting of grabbing women by their genitals, spoke of himself at the 11th Hour Faith Leaders Meeting in Concord, N.C., as not just a champion of Christian causes and values but as a member of the faithful.

Two days after he made a crude remark at a rally about a famous golfer’s penis size and used profanity to insult Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Trump spoke on Monday of the importance of religion in his life, recalling going to church as a child and framing his survival of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., as an act of divine intervention. 

[...] 

Later, he traveled to Greenville, N.C., for a rally where he continued to hammer the federal response to the hurricane, lobbed repeated personal insults at Ms. Harris and stoked fear around illegal immigration. He also revived his calls to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport criminal gang members without due process. “Think of that, 1798,” Mr. Trump told the crowd. “That’s when we had real politicians that said we’re not going to play games. We have to go back to 1798.”

Readers, what were the "personal insults" which he repeatedly "lobbed?" For better or worse, the Times report doesn't say. Beyond that, the New York Times never reports or discusses the gruesome behavior at Fox. They don't seem to want a fight.

One major news org is on the attack. The other major news org is averting its gaze. 

In the process, is Blue America going down? In our view, we've been earning our way out for the past sixty years. At any rate, an ugly revolt from below is now operating each night in a state of absolute silence.

Silence once "invaded the suburbs." As the New York Times runs and hides, an obvious, ancient form of chaos is running all through what's left of the national discourse.

She's a drunk, but also a whore. As Red America hears all about it, Blue America slumbers and snores.

Tomorrow: The Man Who Screams offers his latest "report"

Coming: Ezra Klein—a good, decent person—authors an odd report  

What did Candidate Trump really say?

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2024

Tapper gets it (remarkably) wrong: In our view, the Fox News Channel is conducting a fraud against the American public. As it does, the big news orgs in Blue America agree to avert their gaze.

We're speaking about a journalistic fraud. Under the American system, it's the kind of fraud which is hard to pursue in court. 

In that sense, it's a bit of a metaphorical fraud, but it's an act of fraud nonetheless. In the face of this behavior, big news orgs like the New York Times have agreed—they will neither report nor discuss what happens on that heavily watched "news channel."

That said, our stars over here in Blue America are also inclined to commit the (journalistic) sins that flesh is heir to. That's especially true at fraught times such as these—but we were stunned by the magnitude of Jake Tapper's errors on Sunday's State of the Union.

At issue is an extremely basic question: What did Candidate Trump actually say? On the occasion in question, he'd been asked a fairly simple question. Once again, here's what that question was:

BARTIROMO (10/13/24): One of the elements at the border has brought in Tren de Aragua, this Venezuelan gang—quite dangerous. You told us about this...

It was an Afghan refugee [who was] charged with plotting an Election Day massacre.

TRUMP: Nothing surprises me. 

BARTIROMO: What about that, though? Are you expecting chaos on Election Day?

TRUMP: No. Not from the side which votes for Trump.

BARTIROMO: But I'm just wondering if these outside agitators will start up on Election Day. Let's say you win. Let's remember, you've got 50,000 Chinese nationals in this country in the last couple of years. There are people on the terrorist watch list—350 in the last couple of years. Like you said—13,000 murderers and 15,000 rapists. 

What are you expecting? Joe Biden said he doesn’t think it’s going to be a peaceful Election Day.

Once again, that's the date-specific question Trump was asked. The question came from Maria Bartiromo on her Fox News program, Sunday Morning Futures. 

As you can see, Bartiromo was asking a very specific question. She was asking if the candidate thought that a certain unspecified type of of "chaos" might occur on Election Day.

At four separate points, Bartiromo specified that she was asking about the possibility of "chaos"—apparently, about the possibility of disruption or violence—on Election Day. 

She was asking about Election Day! Here's what Trump said in reply:

TRUMP (continuing directly): Well, he doesn’t have any idea what’s happening, in all fairness. He spends most of his day sleeping. 

I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroying our country—by the way, totally destroying our country. The towns and villages, they’re being inundated. 

But I don’t think they're the problem in terms of Election Day. I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're—and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military, because they can’t let that happen.

Quite typically, he began with an insult aimed at President Biden, then continued from there. That said:

Like Bartiromo, he spoke about what he thought could possibly happen on Election Day.

He seemed to say that we have "some very bad people"—"some sick people, radical left lunatics"—who could conceivably create a problem, presumably of the type Bartiromo had mentioned, "in terms of Election Day." 

He called them "the enemy from within," "the people from within." He didn't say who he had in mind, and Bartiromo didn't ask.  He said he wasn't worried about Tren de Aragua. He said these sick people, these radical left lunatics, might produce some sort of chaos on that particular day.

"If necessary," he said these unspecified people could be "handled by the National Guard." (For the record, that's what eventually happened with respect to the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6.) 

"If really necessary," these people could even be handled by the military, he said. Please note:

This whole exchange, beginning to end, concerned some unspecified type of "chaos" which might occur on Election Day. Bartiromo mentioned "Election Day" four separate times—and then, Trump followed suit. 

Unless you were watching CNN's State of the Union! On that program, Tapper's producers had now "edited" this exchange down so far that this was all viewers were shown as he spoke with Speaker Mike Johnson:

TAPPER (10/20/24): In multiple interviews this week, Donald Trump repeatedly referred to prominent Democrats and others on the left in the United States, American citizens, as, quote, "the enemy from within," unquote.

And he suggested as president he would want to use the National Guard or military against them. Let me play some of that for our viewers:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're—and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military, because they can’t let that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: One of the first things you did when you joined Congress was to create the Honor and Civility Caucus. Does wanting to use the military against political opponents, would that pass muster with the Civility Caucus?

Sad! Across the lone and level sands, that was all that remained!

Viewers weren't shown any part of the question Trump had been asked. In this newer, deeper "edit," viewers weren't even shown the part of Trump's answer where he himself said that he was talking about things which could possibly happen on Election Day. That specific reference was also wiped away!

That was a terrible edit. Making matters that much worse, Tapper led with a simple assertion:

According to Tapper, Trump had been referring to "prominent Democrats" when he "suggested" that he might "use the National Guard or military against them." 

We're sorry, but there is no such obvious "suggestion" in what the candidate said. Of course, much of that was wiped away when Tapper's producers edited out a basic fact—this whole exchange concerned the possibility of a type of "chaos" on Election Day, full stop.

In his initial response, Johnson seemed to be substantially clearer than Tapper was about what had actually been said. As you can see from the CNN transcript, he was met with stone-cold tribal certainty from Tapper—with stone-cold True Belief.

Much later in the interview with Bartiromo, Trump had also referred to several prominent Democrats as "the enemy from within." In our view, that's a disordered thing to do, but at that time, he said nothing—zero; nada; the null set; zilch—about using the National Guard or the military against them.

That reference came much later in the session with Bartiromo. The possible use of force wasn't mentioned at that time.

Question! Does Tapper think that Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff are likely to produce the kind of "chaos" on Election Day that this earlier exchange explicitly concerned? 

In his usual unkempt way, the candidate said that "some sick people, radical left lunatics" might generate that kind of chaos on that specific occasion. But the viewer's ability to evaluate what Tapper was saying was stolen away by that astonishing edit—an edit which wiped away all knowledge of what the Q-and-A was explicitly about.

As we noted last week, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is played out every day and every night on the Fox News Channel. 

Routinely, viewers are kept from hearing the statements which have Trump's critics deeply concerned. Similarly, viewers aren't shown the videotape of the violence which occurred on January 6. They're allowed to live in their own spotless realm, free from any complications which might darken their view of the world.

That's basically what Tapper's producers did with that very deep "edit." Meanwhile, please understand this:

All across Blue America's world, tribal minds will now insist that what Tapper said was perfectly right. Indeed, Colby Hall has explicitly done that over at Mediaite!

In fact, Tapper got it amazingly wrong when he spoke with Johnson. He also seemed to be completely sure that he had it amazingly right! We think of the gloomy but telling closing line of the final song of Paul Simon's Graceland album. 

In the current context, there's no way around this tribal warfare. Simply put, we humans are wired to  react to events in these ways.

That's why we must learn to live alone.

So went Simon's closing line. We think of that gloomy closing line in this new, somewhat different context.

The Fox News Channel is conducting a free-floating fraud against the public. Over here in Blue America, we simply aren't wired to defeat it. Simply put, we the Blues, much like the Reds, just aren't sufficiently sharp.

Fuller disclosure: On Morning Joe, they love that very deep edit with all it allows. Mika loves the edit, and Joe loves it too!

We humans are wired to function this way. We're wired to spin and to fight.

CHAOS: Fox News gushed about a good deed!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2024

A good deed which never occurred: We first heard about the good deed on last Friday's Gutfeld! program.

Because we're familiar with the rolling (journalistic) fraud perpetrated by the Fox News Channel, it occurred to us that we'd better fact-check what we'd been told.

For the record, this journalistic fraud occurs under the radar as the New York Times and MSNBC choose to defer to Fox. We'll offer further thoughts on that deference as the week proceeds. More specifically, we'll offer further thoughts on the journalistic chaos which results from that long-standing act of avoidance.

First, though, let's establish what we were told about "the good deed" in question—about the "good deed" Candidate Trump was said to have once done.

We were told about the good deed in the penultimate segment of Friday's Gutfeld! program. The program aired at 10 p.m. in East (7 p.m. out on the coast), with a rebroadcast to follow.

The chronicler was George Murdoch, a former professional "wrestler" who goes by the journalistic stage name Tyrus. He's part of the ever-changing panel of (journalistic) clowns the Fox News Channel employs each night to air its preferred propaganda.

An angry fellow named Greg Gutfeld oversees this nightly act of fraud. Judging from appearances, decision-makers at the New York Times would jump off the George Washington Bridge before they'd choose to report and discuss this state of affairs.

(To appearances, no one wants to tangle with Fox. That includes Joe and Mika and their like-minded panels of guests.)

Back to Tyrus! In fairness, he's a skilled raconteur, but one who may perhaps be accustomed to pretense through his years of artifice in his previous profession. 

Below, you see the leading authority's thumbnail about the Gutfeld! panelist. It's from this fellow that we first heard about the alleged "good deed:"

Tyrus (wrestler)

George Murdoch (born February 21, 1973) is an American cable news personality, actor, and former professional wrestler known by his ring/stage name Tyrus. As a wrestler, he was formerly signed to the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), where he is a former NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion. As a cable news personality, he appears on Fox News, and its sister streaming service Fox Nation, primarily as a co-host/panelist on the late-night talk show Gutfeld!, as well as a contributor/fill-in host on other programs. In 2024, Tyrus was named host of Maintaining with Tyrus on the streaming platform OutKick, which is owned by Fox.

The headline pegs him as a wrestler. The body of the thumbnail describes him as a "cable news personality," which could of course perhaps be seen as a contradiction in terms.

Once again, let's be fair. Tyrus is a capable raconteur—but as a panelist on a "news" program, he's a corporate-owned confection, as are the other panelists arrayed around him on a nightly basis. 

With respect to the current matter, let's take a look at the record:

On September 25, Candidate Trump appeared for the full hour on the Gutfeld! program. On that occasion, Tyrus engaged in submissive acts of butt-kissing which surpassed all human understanding.

Last Friday night, the big guy was at it again. 

Incredibly enough, the candidate in question—Donald J. Trump—had appeared on this fellow's streaming program, Maintaining with Tyrus. As noted above, the program is offered by "the streaming platform OutKick, which is owned by Fox."

Remarkably, the nominee had agreed to be interviewed by the former professional "wrestler!" By Friday evening, the interview had apparently been available at Outkick for something like twelve hours.

Here's the way the Gutfeld! performance went down:

The fellow who hosts the Gutfeld! show asked the former professional "wrestler" what sorts of "odd things" he may have learned from his session with the candidate. 

Gushing profusely, the big blob of (journalistic) Jello expounded on the main thing he had learned. Below, you see the way he started:

MURDOCH-TYRUS (8/17/24): The craziest thing that I realized is how much he doesn't want to talk about good deeds. He really fought me on that—you know, talking about a lot of the things that he's done in his life.  Because we—

The media's done such a good job painting him as—the Hitler comments, and "He's a racist," and he's all these things. But you look at the deeds he's done—employees, his relationships with Muhammad Ali, Mandela. Things he's done in the community. But he never wants to talk about it.

Thus spake Murdoch-Tyrus—and we're willing to admit it! We ourselves had never heard about the "good deeds" the candidate had done for Ali and for Nelson Mandela, one of the last century's moral giants.

That said, we're familiar with the nature of this particular "cable news" program. For that reason, we decided that we'd better check it out.

Before we show you what we found, let's complete our account of what the "cable news personality" said last Friday on Gutfeld!

As a "rubber room roundtable" panel looked on—Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was there, plus Dagen McDowell of the Fox Business Network!—the wrestler explained that Trump doesn't even like to discuss how "devoted he is to his grandkids."

He doesn't even want to talk about that! The wrestler wrapped up with this:

MURDOCH-TYRUS: So that was the biggest thing. He will talk about anything under the sun, but getting him to talk about good deeds? He really didn't want to do it. 

But once he started doing it, he was glad he did it, if that makes any sense.

So said the former champ. But actually, no! As things turned out, it didn't make any sense!

The wrestler's Outkick interview with Trump had long since been dispensed as part of the Murdoch empire's propaganda campaign. But what "good deed" had the candidate done for Nelson Mandela? 

You can find several fact-checks through a simple act of Googling. But here's the simple, bare-bones way Newsweek laid it out:

Did Trump Let Nelson Mandela Use His Plane for Free?

Former President Donald Trump was asked on Friday about the time, in 1990, that he flew the late South African President Nelson Mandela and 80 others out to the U.S.

"The United States government wasn't helping him. No one was helping him," Fox News contributor George "Tyrus" Murdoch told Trump during a Friday interview on his show on the OutKick streaming platform.

"You chartered a 727 plane for their entire trip," Murdoch continued. "How is somebody...Why is it hard for you to talk about the things you've done? Why do we not know those things?"

"I just like helping people," Trump replied. "I help a lot of people, and I enjoy doing it, and I never talk about it's nice that you bring it up."

Trump did help fly Mandela, the revered anti-apartheid activist, to the U.S. in the summer of 1990. But as the Los Angeles Times reported, he charged the trip's organizers $130,000 to charter the plane.

So went the alleged "good deed." Several other fact-checks exist—and as the Newsweek report continues, it cites Glenn Kessler's fact-check, hidden away on X:

The Times also reported that Mandela had initially asked Trump if he could rent the real-estate mogul's private jet. Trump told Mandela that the jet was unavailable because it was being serviced, and he then offered Mandela a 727 plane from Trump Shuttle.

The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler also provided additional context for the story on Friday, after Trump's interview with Tyrus aired.

"The Trump Shuttle was in financial trouble because Trump made a bad deal and ended up with too many 727s," Kessler wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "He had already put the airline up for sale and would soon lose control of it to the banks. He didn't offer his own plane but charged Mandela $130,000 to borrow one of his unused jets."

No one heard about any of this on the Gutfeld! "cable news" program or during the Outkick "interview." Briefly, let's review:

The gushing about the candidate's "good deeds" started during an "interview" on a streaming platform which is owned by Fox.

Apparently, someone had prompted Tyrus to ask the candidate about the many good deeds he hates to discuss. There followed an absurd account of a good deed allegedly done for Nelson Mandela—a gushing account which jumped to that evening's Gutfeld! show, then on to Fox & Friends Weekend  the next morning.

Millions of citizens heard this tale about the good deed and the candidate's giant modesty. Many fewer citizens will ever be exposed to the several fact-checks which followed. 

Stating the obvious, this is part of an ongoing act of (journalistic) fraud being conducted by the Murdoch empire—an ongoing act which goes unreported and undiscussed by Blue America's most prominent and most trusted major news orgs.

Does Candidate Trump expect a particular type of "chaos" to occur on Election Day? As we noted yesterday, the candidate was asked that (highly specific) question by Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, October 13. 

He proceeded to give an answer which is being "creatively edited" all over Blue America's cable channels. We'll offer more on that matter this afternoon, assuming the absence of power outages, WiFi blackouts or time-consuming Internet scams.

Will that particular type of chaos occur on Election Day? We know of no reason to think it will, though related types of chaos could certainly start soon thereafter.

That said, our nation's journalistic "chaos" has been general for a long time now. As a type of fraud is perpetrated by the Murdoch empire, the major orgs of Blue America have chosen to avert their gaze and to remain very still.

Tomorrow: The pro-life woman supposedly locked up (by Vice President Harris, no less!) for the act of praying? The truly ridiculous interview with the two college kids from Wisconsin-LaCrosse? 

The journalistic chaos in question is endless, and it goes unremarked. To our dismay at this site, a cyberattack on the Internet Archive has made this other type of chaos much harder to track and report.

"Planned outage" delays our Tapper report!

MONDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2024

As noted, the chaos is general: Plainly, Gilda Radner was right. Quite plainly, it's always something!

Today, our utility company conducted another "Planned Outage" in our area. This took our power out for roughly eight hours. With it went the ability to post the report we previewed this morning.

We'll postpone that report until tomorrow. For now, this quick overview:

Everybody makes mistakes. This now includes Jake Tapper!

On yesterday's State of the Union, during his interview with Speaker Mike Johnson, Tapper aired a piece of videotape which had been heavily—and disastrously—edited. 

At issue was the response by Candidate Trump, one week before, to a question from Maria Bartiromo. We showed you the text of Bartiromo's question at the start of this morning's report. After a bit of (heavy) editing, Tapper played videotape of one small part of Trump's reply. He didn't play any part of Bartiromo's original question.

Thanks to this textbook terrible editing, viewers had no way of knowing what Bartiromo had actually asked. The editing had also removed the part of Trump's answer which showed what he was specifically talking about when he gave his reply.  

This was truly terrible editing. That said, it allowed Tapper to present his own account of what Trump had actually meant in the part of his statement which survived the edit. been saying. Tapper then proceeded to criticize Johnson when Johnson's answer came much closer to being accurate than the account Tapper insisted on giving.

Around here, between the three-day storm-related WiFi Wipeout and planned outages by our utility, the disconnects from modernity are becoming general. 

Also, there was the catastrophic cyberattack on the invaluable Internet Archive, which took the Archive down. This other outage has badly restricted our ability to report the disgraceful parody of journalism being conducted, day and night, by the Fox News Channel.

(You'll never learn about what they're doing by reading the New York Times.)

That said, Hallelujah! As our power has returned, we now see that the Internet Archive is up and running again, though it looks like eleven days of material may perhaps have been lost. 

We hope the Archive will soon return to normal functioning. That said, Tapper's edit—and his account of what Trump said—were just remarkably bogus. 

Full disclosure:

There's a good chance that you won't want to believe that! That said, insistence on the infallibility of one's own tribe doesn't make such a fantasy true.

Tapper's bungled interaction with Johnson was hailed by one and all on today's Morning Joe. Over here in Blue America, our own tribe is partisan too. Our tribe is prone to the (journalistic) sins that flesh is heir to.

That said, the Fox News Channel is conducting a journalistic fraud on the larger society. You'll never learn anything about that from reading the timorous New York Times.

WiFi and electricity and the Archive oh my! That said, the Internat Archive seems to be returning to life. We ourselves will return on the morrow.

CHAOS: Do you expect chaos, the hopeful was asked!

MONDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2024

The chaos is already here: It's exactly as we noted in Friday afternoon's report.

On Sunday morning, October 13, the former president—the current candidate—was asked if he expects "chaos."

In fact, the question was more specific than that. Below, you see the question Candidate Trump was asked by Maria Bartiromo on her Fox News Channel program, Sunday Morning Futures.

Quite plainly, Bartiromo was asking about the possibility of "chaos" on Election Day. Just to establish a basic record, here's a slightly fuller transcript of the question Trump was asked:

BARTIROMO (10/13/24): One of the elements at the border has brought in Tren de Aragua, this Venezuelan gang—quite dangerous. You told us about this...

It was an Afghan refugee [who was] charged with plotting an Election Day massacre.

TRUMP: Nothing surprises me. 

BARTIROMO: What about that, though? Are you expecting chaos on Election Day?

TRUMP: No. Not from the side which votes for Trump.

BARTIROMO: But I'm just wondering if these outside agitators will start up on Election Day. Let's say you win. Let's remember, you've got 50,000 Chinese nationals in this country in the last couple of years. There are people on the terrorist watch list—350 in the last couple of years. Like you said—13,000 murderers and 15,000 rapists. 

What are you expecting? Joe Biden said he doesn’t think it’s going to be a peaceful Election Day.

Might there be "chaos" on Election Day? Is it possible that Election Day won't be "peaceful" this year?

Quite plainly, that's the question the candidate was asked. This afternoon, we'll take a fuller look at what he said in reply.

Will there be "chaos" on Election Day? That's what Trump was asked.

Especially in light of President Biden's remark, nothing was obviously "wrong" with the question. But in our view, the question from Bartiromo ignored a larger, more fundamental point:

With Election Day just sixteen days off, the chaos is already general.

We aren't speaking about physical violence or acts of physical disruption, as Bartiromo seemed to be doing. We're speaking about acts of moral and intellectual chaos—about chaos within the national discourse, to the extent that a discourse exists.

Within that realm, the chaos is general over the whole U.S.! We watched its manifestations all weekend long as we sat in our viewing chamber. We were able to observe the major players who keep bringing us this moral and intellectual—and journalistic—chaos.

A great deal of the moral and intellectual chaos is coming from this candidate himself. As Election Day draws near, his presentations get stranger and stranger, as noted in this report from print editions of today's New York Times:

At a Pennsylvania Rally, Trump Descends to New Levels of Vulgarity

Former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday spewed crude and vulgar remarks at a rally in Pennsylvania that included an off-color remark about a famous golfer’s penis size and a coarse insult about Vice President Kamala Harris.

The performance, 17 days before the election in a critical battleground state, added to the impression of the Republican nominee as increasingly unfiltered and undisciplined. It comes as some of Mr. Trump’s allies and aides worry that Mr. Trump’s temperament and crass style are alienating undecided voters.

[...]

Mr. Trump opened his speech at the airport in Latrobe, Pa., with 12 minutes of reminiscing about the golfer Arnold Palmer, who grew up in the Western Pennsylvania town and for whom the airport was named.

His monologue culminated in lewd remarks about the size of Mr. Palmer’s penis. Moments later, Mr. Trump gave the crowd an opportunity to call out a profanity. He went on to use that four-letter word to describe Ms. Harris.

[...]

Mr. Trump urged his supporters to vote, telling them that they had to send a crude message to Ms. Harris: “We can’t stand you, you’re a shit vice president.”

Given traditional norms, a type of chaos seems to be lurking in this public behavior. Then again, there was the steady flow of ludicrous presentations being made on Fox News Channel programs all through the weekend, with steady streams of clownish misinformation—but also with "coarse insults"—being offered to millions of viewers.

On programs aired by the Fox News Channel, the journalistic chaos was general. This afternoon, we'll show you a type of journalistic chaos which has been quite widespread on CNN and MSNBC.

In our view—we'd say unmistakably—the chaos was general on the Fox News Channel. As the week proceeds, we'll show you examples of the remarkable journalistic disorder being aired by employees of that corporate entity as Election Day draws near.

In our view, it's hard to miss an obvious fact—whatever its occasional merits might be, the Fox News Channel is primary a corporate propaganda channel. Then again, there's the conduct of another major news org—the aforementioned New York Times.

In fairness to the New York Times, the following words must be said. In its attempt to report and discuss the ongoing conduct of Candidate Trump, the paper is forced to enter journalistic territory for which there is no modern precedent.

No candidate for president has ever behaved in the way this candidate routinely does. This means that there is no established template for the way a major newspaper—a major newspaper like the Times—should report the highly unusual behavior of this particular nominee.

That said, and in our view, the New York Times still hasn't devised a respectable journalistic way to deal with this hopeful's behavior. Here, for example, is the fuller way this morning's news report starts:

At a Pennsylvania Rally, Trump Descends to New Levels of Vulgarity

Former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday spewed crude and vulgar remarks at a rally in Pennsylvania that included an off-color remark about a famous golfer’s penis size and a coarse insult about Vice President Kamala Harris.

The performance, 17 days before the election in a critical battleground state, added to the impression of the Republican nominee as increasingly unfiltered and undisciplined. It comes as some of Mr. Trump’s allies and aides worry that Mr. Trump’s temperament and crass style are alienating undecided voters.

It was unclear if the outbursts and insults were an expression of his frustration as the campaign grinds on or of his reflexive desire to entertain his crowds. At her own events on Saturday, Ms. Harris called attention to Mr. Trump’s temperament and his tendency to “go off script and ramble.”

Sad! Immediately after describing the candidate's highly unusual conduct, the newspaper gave its readers two (2) possible explanations for the candidate's conduct. Times readers were offered two choices:

It could be that the candidate is frustrated. Or it could be that the candidate is trying to entertain his crowds.

That was the entire menu; no other possibility was offered. In this way, the New York Times continues to whistle past the graveyard—journalistically, continues to play it safe, to duck and dodge and fail.

(Borrowing the language of Frost: Something they've been withholding has been making us weak.)

We single out the New York Times because it's the most significant news org in all of Blue America. The aforementioned Fox Fews Channel may be the most significant news org in the other America—over there in our modern Red America.

For now, forget the way the Times has covered, or has failed to cover, the aforementioned Candidate Trump. With respect to that other news orgs, the New York Times has aggressively refused to come to terms with the journalistic chaos being sown over there. But so it goes as a struggling (and possibly failing) nation approaches the same Election Day Bartiromo was asking about.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. With Election Day two weeks away, we'd have to say that the chaos is general over the two subdivisions of the United States.

We aren't speaking about the kind of chaos Bartiromo was asking about. We're speaking about the intellectual, moral, journalistic chaos which now pervades every square inch of our "national discourse," to the extent that some such creature is still drawing breath.

The chaos is general at the Fox News Channel. The New York Times keeps taking a pass—just keeps averting its gaze.

Sometimes, our own news orgs in Blue America contribute to the disorder in affirmative ways. We'll be examining all these unhealthy phenomena as the week proceeds.

As we conduct this exploration, we'll be returning to a form of President Lincoln's question—the question he asked in Gettysburg, though in a much different context.

At present, the chaos is general over the nation! Can some such very large modern nation expect to "long endure?"

Tomorrow: Calling the roll at the Fox News Channel

This afternoon: Jake Tapper, with a remarkable edit

SATURDAY: The problem here is very simple!

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2024

President Lincoln's bet: Perhaps he was able to see where the culture would go! 

Whatever the explanation might be, President Lincoln chose to state his gamble in the form of a question—in the form of a test:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers [sic] brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men [sic] are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

Could some such nation "long endure?" Speaking at Gettysburg, President Lincoln was willing to bet that it could.

Today we're engaged in another internal war. Across the sea, a different president—the (presumably) sociopathic Putin—is betting that Lincoln was wrong.

No one should know any better than Putin that empires don't tend to endure. 

Our own nation was never exactly an empire. Today, though, it's a giant continental enterprise. 

It encompasses many different regions and their varying culture zones. It includes many "identity" groups, none of which are "wrong."

The Soviet Union also encompassed many "identities." As a younger Putin sat and watched, that union came undone.

President Putin is betting today that President Lincoln was wrong. It's entirely possible that Putin is right. We'll work from this framework next week as we list the various players involved in the drama as the immediate endgame approaches.

According to experts, the problem here is simple. "We the people"—we the humans—aren't wired for this sort of work!

Our own view goes something like this:

"If history has taught us anything," it may have taught us that.

Full disclosure: We stumbled upon these musings today as we watched the first hour of the ridiculous propaganda show known as Fox & Friends Weekend. This morning, the highly paid friends in question were these:

Fox friends, Saturday morning
Rachel Campos-Duffy
Will Cain
Charlie Hurt

Fuller disclosure! The problem extends beyond that undisguised propaganda show and beyond those three "cable news" friends. 

It even extends beyond the channel which airs that baldly ridiculous program. It extends all the way over to Us! 

On balance, we Blues aren't wired for this sort of work either. We've proved it again and again.

What did Donald Trump actually say?

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2024

Editing can be fun: Three cheers for Alex Griffing, breakout star of Mediaite. We see that he's done the transcribing we'd planned to do yesterday.

We refer to something said by Candidate Trump when he spoke with Maria Bartiromo last weekend on her Sunday Morning Futures program for Fox. 

With an assist from Griffing's transcription, here's the rather slender exchange which has generated a great deal of interest. You'll note that Trump was asked about a very specific possibility concerning Election Day:

BARTIROMO (10/13/24): It was an Afghan refugee charged with plotting an Election Day massacre.

TRUMP: Nothing surprises me. 

BARTIROMO: What about that, though? Are you expecting chaos on Election Day?

TRUMP: No. Not from the side which votes for Trump.

BARTIROMO: But I'm just wondering if these outside agitators will start up on Election Day. Let's say you win. Let's remember, you've got 50,000 Chinese nationals in this country in the last couple of years. There are people on the terrorist watch list—350 in the last couple of years. Like you said—13,000 murderers and 15,000 rapists. 

What are you expecting? Joe Biden said he doesn’t think it’s going to be a peaceful Election Day.

TRUMP: Well, he doesn’t have any idea what’s happening, in all fairness. He spends most of his day sleeping. 

I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroying our country—by the way, totally destroying our country. The towns and villages, they’re being inundated. 

But I don’t think they're the problem in terms of Election Day. I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're—and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military, because they can’t let that happen.

Warning! We can't vouch for Bartiromo's numbers. A lot of bogus claims have been floating around the Fox News Channel with respect to the number of criminals who have recently entered the country. We can't vouch for the numbers Bartiromo offered there. 

That said, that was the full exchange at that point in time. Bartiromo asked Trump about possible violence—about possible "chaos"—on Election Day. Quite explicitly, he then discussed the possibility that "the enemy within"—a bunch of radical left lunatics—could imaginably try to create some such chaos on that specific day.

Who was the candidate talking about? As is routine at this point, the candidate didn't make his meaning especially clear. At that point, Bartiromo moved on to a different topic, as you can see at Griffing's post

Clearly, Trump had said that some "radical left lunatics"—some "very bad people"—might need to be subdued by the National Guard, conceivably even by the military, on Election Day. But what sorts of "very bad people" did he have in mind? 

Bartiromo didn't ask, and the candidate didn't say. Did this disordered candidate really mean anything at all? We can't necessarily say.

Forced to guess, we would have guessed that he might have had "antifa" types in mind. In his own post, Griffing mentions the campus groups who have demonstrated against Israel's conduct in Gaza.

One thing is clear. Nothing in this actual exchange suggests that Trump was talking about calling out the National Guard, or even the military, to subdue Nancy Pelosi or some such major political types. He was speaking about Election Day only, and nothing he said seemed to suggest that he was talking about subduing his political rivals.

All across Blue America's cable landscape, this exchange has been edited down to eliminate Bartiromo's question. With her question edited away, it becomes much less obvious that Trump was specifically discussing Election Day, full stop.

It's amazing to us that serious journalists would edit this exchange that way. But with increasing frequency, this is the journalism we have chosen as our heavily tribalized nation just keeps coming apart.

Much later in the interview, Bartiromo asked a totally different question—a question about Trump's possible second term. As he answered this question, Trump returned to his "enemy of the people" rhetoric, but also to the childish nicknames with which he has burdened the discourse. 

Griffing has transcribed that later exchange. Much later in the interview, here's the question Trump was asked:

BARTIROMO: What will you do to guard against the bureaucrats undermining you in a second term? 

That's the question he was now asked. To see the ridiculous things the candidate said—childish nicknames included!—click here for Griffing's post.

In that later statement, this childish, badly disordered man refers to Rep. Schiff as "the enemy from within." He goes on and on, then on and on, but he doesn't say anything about trying to lock Schiff up.

Creative paraphrase can be great fun. So can creative editing.

Increasingly, this is the journalism we have chosen. Such choices can be enjoyable, but they also can cause great harm.

Few things this candidate says make sense. We Blues should perhaps try harder.

A DISTANT LAND: Whitaker asked, and so did Baier!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2024

The obvious question not answered: With apologies, we're going to quote sacred Thoreau one more time. Once again, we refer to his longing to be transported to a type of distant land:

Walden; or, Life in the Woods

[...]

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. 

Our former Middlesex County neighbor longed for a world in which writers would offer sincere accounts of their lives. If some writer had lived sincerely, he said, "it must have been in a distant land to me."

What did our former neighbor mean? As we noted in Monday's report, we assume he meant something like this:

Inevitably, he lives of others differ from our own, and do so to a large degree. ("Planet is dissimilar from planet," Yevtushenko said.) Someone who has live sincerely and is speaking sincerely will inevitably seem to be describing "somewhere I have never traveled"—a land distant from any land Thoreau had personally known.

We'll offer a twist on that longing. For ourselves, we'd love to see a public discourse in which professional journalists offered competent accounts of the public world in which we citizens live. 

But alas! In the wake of Wednesday's performance by Bret Baier—after watching snatches of "cable news" last night, Red and Blue alike—it must be said that any such world would be a far distant land.

We Americans! We pretend that we are blessed with something resembling a "national discourse." We pretend we have something known as journalism, performed by respectable people who often "went to the finest schools."

In truth, some of the performers in question are obvious lost souls. Astonishingly, they live to go on the air in prime time each night and talk about who may be "banging" Jill Biden. They long to go on the air to compare Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg to a pair of "hippos." 

(Tuesday night's Gutfeld! program. This is an endless theme on this demented primetime "cable news" program as Blue America averts its gaze.)

Some of our "journalists" are lost souls. Remarkably few of the people in question are impressively competent. 

As we noted yesterday, at least one of the people apparently lives in a $37 million Palm Beach mansion. On Wednesday evening, on the Fox News Channel, this peculiar state of affairs seemed to be present for all to see in Bret Baier's gruesome work.

As we noted yesterday, Baier spent the second half hour on Wednesday night attempting to justify the various things he'd said and done during the first half hour. A trio of Fox News Channel hacks assured him that he had been great.

Yesterday, Baier claimed that he'd made a mistake in one part of his "interview" with Candidate Harris. We know of no obvious reason to believe what Baier said.

It's going to be a long, long time before we imagine that Baier is sincere. That said, he asked some perfectly sensible questions during the course of that gruesome half hour—and thanks to the invaluable Rev site, a transcript of the interview now exists. 

(For that transcript, accompanied by videotape, you can just click here.)

One of Baier's questions is shown below. It came right at the one-minute mark, during the flood of interruptions with which Baier chose to begin.

You might call it a "loaded," rather partisan question. You might see it as an accusatory question designed to put the candidate in an awkward position. 

We don't recommend the shape of this question. But it touches upon one of the largest (unanswered) policy questions of the current White House campaign:

BAIER (10/16/24): When you came into office, your administration immediately reversed a number of Trump border policies, most significantly, the policy that required illegal immigrants to be detained through deportation either in the U.S. or in Mexico. And you switched that policy—they were released from custody awaiting trial. 

So instead—included in those were a large number of single men, adult men who went on to commit heinous crimes. So looking back, do you regret the decision to terminate "remain in Mexico" at the beginning of your administration?

Given the reference to heinous crimes, you might call that a "loaded" question. On the other hand, those heinous crimes really were committed, and Baier was asking a form of this extremely basic policy question:

What explains U.S. policy with respect to the southern border during the Biden Administration's first three-plus years?

Especially for those who watch Fox News, that's an extremely basic policy question—a question which lies at the heart of the current presidential campaign. On the other hand:

For people who watch CNN or MSNBC, that whole topic has largely been disappeared in the past few years. Nothing to look at, such viewers have essentially been told.

So it goes in a nation of silos! But what explains the border policies of President Biden's first three-plus year? Nine days earlier, on 60 Minutes, Bill Whitaker had asked that same question a bit more directly when he interviewed Candidate Harris. 

In fact, as we noted in real time, he asked it three separate times:

WHITAKER (10/7/24): You recently visited the southern border and embraced President Biden's recent crackdown on asylum seekers. And that crackdown produced an almost immediate and dramatic decrease in the number of border crossings. If that's the right answer now, why didn't your administration take those steps in 2021?

WHITAKER: I've been covering the border for years, and so I know this is not a problem that started with your administration. But there was an historic flood of undocumented immigrants coming across the border the first three years of your administration. As a matter of fact, arrivals quadrupled from the last year of President Trump. Was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did?

WHITAKER: What I was asking was, was it a mistake to kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place?

Was it a mistake to adopt those border policies? Whitaker asked three times.

Why did he ask three separate times? As we noted in real time, he asked the question three separate times because Candidate Harris kept refusing to answer the question. She kept changing the subject, speaking instead about the bipartisan border bill which appeared earlier this year.

That's an important topic too, but it isn't what Whitaker had asked her about. After her third refusal to answer, the CBS newsman moved on.

On Wednesday night, at the one-minute mark, Baier began to ask the same question in a more confrontational way. In our view, Whitaker's presentation was more professional on a journalistic basis. But Baier was asking an obvious question—and once again, Candidate Harris kept evading the thrust of the question.

As we watched on Wednesday night, we were disappointed by that evasion, bordering on dismayed. This has been, and remains, a very important issue within this campaign—and the candidate for whom we'll be voting just kept evading the question, first when Whitaker asked, then when Baier followed suit.

As with Whitaker, so too here—Baier asked several times. There was an obvious partisan edge to some of the ways he framed the question, but he asked it again and again.

Here he is, returning to this general question at the four-minute mark:

BAIER: Back to the original premise. Jocelyn Nungaray, Rachel Morin, Laken Riley, they are young women who were brutally assaulted and killed by some of the men who were released at the beginning of the administration, well before a negotiated bipartisan bill [in 2024]. ...This is a specific policy decision by your administration to release these men into the country. So what I’m saying to you, do you owe those families an apology?

You might even call that a "hostile" question. On the other hand, it involves a blindingly obvious policy question:

Why did the Biden Administration maintain those permissive border policies over the first three-plus years? And was that a mistake?

Baier kept asking variants of that question; the candidate kept failing to answer. At the seven-minute mark, Baier framed the question as shown:

BAIER: During that time, you said repeatedly that the border was secure. When in your mind did it start becoming a crisis?

Oof! That involves an awkward part of the candidate's record as vice president. Once again, Baier received a non-answer answer—at which point, he made one last attempt:

BAIER: There were 90-plus executive orders that were rescinded in the first days. Many of those were Trump border policies. 

I’m not going to stay here [on this topic] because there’s other things to talk about. But you frequently talked to the Border Patrol Union for support of that bipartisan bill and they did. They supported it, but they also just endorsed Donald Trump and said you’ve been “a failure with border security.” Why do you think they said that?

That was a form of that same question. Again, the candidate failed to offer a direct answer of some kind. As with Whitaker, so too here. The candidate failed to speak to a blindingly obvious set of policy questions:

What explains the border policies of the first three-plus years? Why didn't President Biden take the actions he recently took at some earlier point? Was that a mistake?

Full and complete disclosure:

When such questions are asked, Candidate Harris is being asked about a set of major policy decisions made by someone else!

There was no such official as President Harris during the past four years. These decisions belong to President Biden, not to the vice president who served in his administration.

For all we know, it's even possible that Vice President Harris argued against those policy decisions. To the best of our knowledge, there's no way to know at this time, one way or the other.

That said:

First by Whitaker, then by Baier, the candidate was asked about a set of major policy decisions. As things turned out, have those decisions turned out to be a mistake?

She kept refusing to answer. Because we're hoping that she'll win this election, we were dismayed when she did.

In fairness, the candidate is in an awkward position here. Given the way our politics works, it's always difficult for a sitting vice president to oppose the sitting president's policy decisions, even when the sitting vice president is running to replace that president.

(See Vice President/Candidate Hubert Humphrey, running to replace President Lyndon Johnson as Vietnam continued to rage in 1968. Humphrey finally broke with Johnson on Vietnam—and, by standard reckonings, this came just a bit too late.)

In fairness, Harris is in a difficult spot with respect to this policy question. On the other hand, it's a blindingly obvious question, one which is playing a major role in the current campaign.

It's a very basic question. On Wednesday night, the candidate still didn't seem to have a good way of responding.

We were dismayed as Baier's loaded questions went unanswered. We were dismayed because we're going to vote for Candidate Harris and because we hope she'll win. 

That said:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But our "national discourse" barely exists at the present time.

On Red America's cable news channel, policy at the southern border has been a major point of concern over the past four years. On Blue America's cable news channels, millionaire hosts have long averted their gaze.

Nothing to look at, our own tribe's cable news channels have said. And in the wake of Wednesday's event, Blue America's cable news has largely disappeared this substantial part of the Baier-Harris exchange.

Sad! In this area of concern, Red America's cable news hacks have actually been more on target than Blue America's counterparts. That said:

If a fulsome discourse exists somewhere, it exists in a far distant land from here. 

Within what's left of our national discourse, we Americans currently live inside two giant silos. In Blue America, we're largely been told, for the past four years, that this topic doesn't exists. If Candidate Harris fails to win, this will be one of the major ways that former president Donald J. Trump ends up in the Oval again.

In our view, Baier's performance was egregious on Wednesday night. As we've told you in the past:

You can't run a middle-class democracy with a multimillionaire press corps. It simply can't be done.

We thought Baier's behavior was egregious, inexcusable, baldly partisan in tone. On the other hand, he kept asking a very basic question, just like Whitaker did.

Tomorrow: What explains what President Biden did? Our own (completely speculative) semi-theory about this puzzling question

We lost half the day to an Internet scam!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2024

A review of what happened last night: We'd planned to show you what we meant when we referred to the "doctored-adjacent" videotape of What Trump Was Asked and Said.

We refer to something Trump was asked when he appeared with Maria Bartiromo last Sunday on Fox. Sadly, the bulk of our day was eaten up as we battled with an online financial scam.

For that reason, we can't show you the full transcript of last Sunday's exchange. Instead, we'll leave you with some basic points about What Happened Last Night:

Bret Baier's behavior: In our view, Baier disgraced himself with his appalling behavior last night. At the New York Times, Michael Grynbaum isn't real far behind, given the mush-mouthed, "both sidesy" way he has now described last evening's events.

In our view, Baier's behavior was a disgrace. Last evening, in the 6 o'clock hour, he spent the first half hour attacking Harris. He then spent the second half hour attempting to justify the three hundred things he had done.

The other hirelings said he'd been great. Harold Ford played along.

Bret Baier's Palm Beach lodgings: Did you know that the fair-and-balanced anchor in question recently purchased a $37 million Palm Breach mansion? We didn't know that either! 

As a bit of professional courtesy, the mainstream press corps agrees that such matters must never be discussed. But it's just as we told you a long time ago:

You can't run a middle-class democracy with a multimillionaire press corps.

We're sorry, but no—it can't be done! Meanwhile, also this:

Who's being naive [now], Kay?

This is a problem within Blue America's multimillionaire pundit corps, as well over there in the land of the Red. This has been a problem in Blue America dating back to the days when Jack Welch ran NBC News.

What's up with those polling figures? Has anyone ever produced a set of polling figures like the ones Fox News has now offered? According to those new polling results, Trump is ahead by two points nationwide—but Harris is ahead by six points across the seven key battleground states!

Do those numbers make any kind of sense? We spent the day entangled in a scam, so we haven't had a chance to see what anyone may have said.

Concerning the southern border: As Bill Whitaker did on 60 Minutes, Baier asked an obvious question about policy at the southern border from 2021 right on through early 2024.

Candidate Harris failed to answer this obvious question again. 

Tomorrow, we'll walk you through that disappointing aspect of her performance. You can also look forward to this:

Before the week is through, we'll discuss an emerging theory in which we try to explain why the Biden Administration—not "the Harris Administration"—may have decided to do what it did.

For the record, our theory predates this recent post by Kevin Drum—and our theory may be laughably wrong. But people have asked and asked and asked about why the border was handled the way it was for those first three years, and no one has ever tried to explain, even when they're directly asked. 

This year's election may well be decided by these (almost) four years of silence—years of silence which rolled by as the millionaire stars of Blue America's cable news acted like there was nothing to look at there. Instead, the stars stayed focused on the sacred task of getting Trump locked up, a type of focus the Harris campaign seems to have cast aside as a political loser.

(As of last night on All In, Rachel Maddow was still obsessing about Stormy Daniels! Reportedly, Maddow is paid $30 million per year.)

On balance, we've been badly served by those massively-paid giant TV stars. The giant sums our stars get paid are a Baier-style problem too.

You can't run a middle-class democracy with a millionaire press corps?

We thought we'd just say it again.

A DISTANT LAND: "Just let me finish," the newsman said!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2024

Palm Beach is forever: Is there any possible chance the latest poll is "right?"

We refer to the latest poll from Fox News. Yesterday, results of that survey were reported, including on the Fox News Channel itself. 

Those new results seem very odd. Online, the news report at the Fox news site starts off exactly like this:

Fox News Poll: Trump ahead of Harris by 2 points nationally

Former President Trump is ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential contest 50%-48%, according to a new Fox News national survey. That’s a reversal from last month, when Harris had a narrow advantage.

Harris, however, is ahead by 6 points among voters from the seven key battleground states...

That raises the question of whether the Democrat could win the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote. In 2000 and 2016, it was the GOP candidate who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College.

Is anything like that possible? Given recent electoral history, is it even imaginable that Candidate Trump could win the nationwide vote by two points, with Candidate Harris sweeping to substantial wins in the battleground states?

In theory, everything's possible! That said, some polling results may seem to come to us from a far distant land.

Yesterday, (we believe) we saw Bret Baier announce the two-point nationwide lead for Candidate Trump. After Baier proceeded to "interview" Candidate Harris, we did see Martha MacCallum come on the air and announce that Harris was ahead by six points across the battleground states.

Given recent history, those numbers seem to come from a distant land. For the vast majority of American citizens, so do the basic facts about Brett Baier's Florida mansion.

Last evening, the interruptions came thick and fast as Baier "interviewed" Harris. If it's dark comedy you enjoy, the dark comedy arrived quite quickly, during the session's first two minutes.

Below, you see Baier's first question for Harris, along with what immediately followed. Also, you see his first array of interruptions, the second or third or fourth of which includes an unintentionally comical twist.

That's the only statement we'll highlight in this ridiculous mess:

BAIER (10/16/24): You know, voters tell pollsters all over the country and here in Pennsylvania that immigration is one of the key issues that they're looking at this election, and specifically the influx of illegal immigrants from more than 150 countries. How many illegal immigrants would you estimate your administration has released into the country over the last three and a half years?

HARRIS: Well, I'm glad you raised the issue of immigration because I agree with you. It is a topic of discussion that people want to rightly have, and you know what I'm going to talk about right now, which is—

BAIER: Yeah, but just a number. Do you think it's one million, three million?

HARRIS: Brett, let's just get to the point, okay? The point is that we have a broken immigration system that needs to be repaired. And—

BAIER: So your Homeland Security Secretary said that 85 percent of apprehensions—

HARRIS: But I'm not finished. I'm not finished. We have an immigration system—

BAIER: It's a rough estimate of six million people—

HARRIS: —that needs to be—

BAIER: —have been released into the country. Let me just finish, and I'll get to the question. I promise you.

HARRIS: I was beginning to answer you.

At that point, Baier added a mini filibuster. We'll post that text below. To watch the entire "interview," you can just click here.

At any rate, there you see the first two or three or four interruptions, depending on how you're counting. Imaginably, the first interruption could even perhaps be defended, although the sheer volume of insistent interruption became absurd and indefensible as the auto-da-fe adjacent "interview" rolled along.

Just that quickly, though, the dark comedy arrived on the scene! "Let me just finish," the major star of cable news said at one point to Harris. 

"Let me just finish, and I'll get to the question." He even included a promise!

Too funny! "Ler me just finish," the newsman said, as if he was the person running for office and she was the querulous journalist who wouldn't let the public hear what the candidate had to say!

"I was beginning to answer you," the actual candidate said. From there, Baier continued along with the aforementioned filibuster as the nominee finally realized that, at least for the moment, she would just have to sit and watch.

For our money, Baier staged an inexcusable gong-show in those opening moments, and the behavior continued from there. We'll guess that a mansion which exists in a distant land may have been part of the calculation which lay behind this procedure.

Despite what Lawrence O'Donnell would later angrily claim, Baier is not typically part of the extensive propaganda wing of the Fox News Channel. Yesterday, for whatever reason, another side of Bret Baier seemed to arrive on the scene.

Was that mansion in Palm Beach some part of Baier's calculation? Long ago and far away, the Washingtonian's Mimi Montgomery had perhaps pre-explained last evening's inexcusable performance by Baier.

Montgomery's report appeared in October 2023. Headline included, her report started like this, with plenty of photos to follow:

Fox News’s Bret Baier Lists DC Home for $32 Million—a Potential Record

A potentially record-setting DC home has just gone on the market: Fox News’s Bret Baier and his wife, Amy, are listing their French chateau-style [upscale Washington DC] home for $31.9 million, reports The Wall Street Journal. If it goes for asking price, it’ll be the most expensive residential sale in DC history...

The 16,250-square-foot estate was completed last year and sits on 1.47 acres, with five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and two half-baths. Other touches include a custom bar in the living room with a floor-to-ceiling wine display; a primary suite with two primary baths and heated floors; a home gym; a cinema; a spa; a two-story, indoor sports court; and a golf simulator. Throughout the gated property, you’ll also find a paved motor court with a fountain, tiered gardens, a 56-foot-long heated pool, a chipping and putting green, and two three-car garages.

This isn’t the Baiers only recent real-estate news: They purchased a $37 million Palm Beach mansion earlier this year. They sold their previous DC property, an over 10,000-square-foot home in Phillips Park, for $6.5 million in 2021, according to DC property records.

For the record, it was almost surely the "floor-to-ceiling wine display" which drove up the asking price on the newsman's otherwise modest 16,250-square-foot D.C. estate. The background to the proposed sale of that mansion might seem to go like this:

When Baier acquired the $37 million Palm Beach crib, he apparently had to let his French chateau-style Washington D.C. estate go! That said, according to Montgomery's report, the Baiers have been movin' on up in the real estate world over past four years:

The heartwarming story might be titled, Up from The Middle Class! By dint of hard work and coupon-clipping, the Baiers have come all the way up from the relative poverty of their previous 10,000-square-foot shack—all the way up to the Palm Beach cottage they'd already managed to acquire.

Just a guess! For most American citizens—for those who live in Red America and for those who live in Blue—knowledge of Baier's Palm Beach mansion exists in some unexplored distant land.

As we've noted many times in the past, information like this about media figures is almost never mentioned or discussed by other media figures. We'll guess that it wouldn't occur to many voters that a figure like Baier is moving and shaking in the distant land described in Montgomery's report.

That said, is it possible that the gentleman's Palm Beach mansion played a role in the way he conducted yesterday's "interview" of Candidate Harris? In this case, we're going to say that some such thing is extremely possible!

In our view, Lawrence O'Donnell went over the top in various ways as he ranted about Baier's journalism on last evening's Last Word. O'Donnell has many strengths as a journalist, but this is a less  helpful impulse to which he's strongly inclined. 

He tends to get his Boston Irish up, at which point he starts referring to everything as a "lie." So it went last night, though there were other problems with his angry, 12-minute opening statement, which you can watch by clicking here.

At one point, like almost everyone on CNN and MSNBC, O'Donnell played a lightly doctored piece of videotape from Trump's appearance on Fox last Sunday morning with Maria Bartiromo. 

(Is that edited bit of videotape better described as "doctored-adjacent?" We'll leave that up to you!)

However you want to score it, we regard that edited videotape as basically misleading. It's not as bad as what Baier did throughout the course of last evening's "interview," but it reminds us of a basic point:

If somewhere there does exists a discourse run by fully competent journalists, that discourse is taking place in a far distant land from here. 

In our view, Bret Baier adopted a new role last night:

Normally, he isn't part of the extensive propaganda wing of the Fox News Channel. He isn't Hannity and he isn't Gutfeld.  He isn't even Judge Jeanine, and he isn't Laura Ingraham.

In his normal performance, he isn't like the nine (9!) regular co-hosts who patrol the Approved Tribal Landscape as part of the Fox & Friends franchise. We refer to the nine (9!) co-hosts who appear on Fox & Friends, on Fox & Friends Weekend or on Fox & Friends First.

He certainly isn't Mark Levin, also known as The Man Who Screams. He isn't like the rotating panelists who all agree with each other about every point on The Big Weekend Show.

Normally, Baier actually doesn't function as part of that well-equipped army, but last night, he plainly did. Just a guess:

People sometimes get released by Fox, and Baier may have a note on that Palm Beach mansion he has to keep up.

Baier's performance was awful. Four hours later, O'Donnell came on and ranted in a familiar way.

For ourselves, we were disappointed—almost dismayed—by at least two parts of the candidate's performance. Here's what will happen next:

On Fox, voters will be told about those parts of her performance all day long today and then on into the night. On CNN and MSNBC, those non-answer answers by Candidate Harris will be disappeared—will be swept far away.

Does a competent national discourse exist somewhere, monitored and moderated by a fully competent press corps?

If so, that discourse is underway in a land far distant from here. We'll try to get to that doctored videotape in the next few days. We'll definitely look at two non-answers by Candidate Harris in tomorrow's installment.

Did someone gain from last night's event? We have no idea! Candidate Harris may have gained a bit of support, or it could be that she lost some. 

Meanwhile, could that new Fox News poll possibly be "right?" Is it possible that Trump could win the nationwide popular vote, but get swept away in the battleground states?

Our answer to your question is this:

Polling comes and polling goes—but Palm Beach may be forever.

Tomorrow: Once again, Harris is asked about the southern border during the first three years

Saturday: At long last, our emerging theory about southern border policy during those first three years

He blustered ahead from there: "Let me just finish," the newsman implored, and then he blustered ahead.

The candidate was getting in very few words. Continuing our transcript from above, here's what the newsman said next:

BAIER: Let me just finish, and I'll get to the question. I promise you.

HARRIS: I was beginning to answer you.

BAIER: And when you came into office, your administration immediately reversed a number of Trump border policies, most significantly the policy that required illegal immigrants to be detained through deportation, either in the U.S. or in Mexico, and you switched that policy. They were released from custody awaiting trial. So instead included in those were a large number of single men, adult men, who went on to commit heinous crimes.

So looking back, do you regret the decision to terminate Remain in Mexico at the beginning of your administration?

On and on the newsman went as the candidate sat and watched. In the modern media landscape, it's Palm Beach mortgages which must be paid, attention perhaps a bit less.