Concerning what Chuck Rosenberg said!

MONDAY, MARCH 20, 2023

Why Cohen got three years: In this, the possible Week That Was, we're going to show you some of the ways we blue tribe viewers may perhaps get misled by our own tribe's corporate tribunes.

(More correctly, "some of the ways we get misled" on a regular basis.)

For one example, consider what Chuck Rosenberg said this very morning. According to the leading authority, here's who Rosenberg is:

Chuck Rosenberg is an American attorney. He formerly served as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) and for the Southern District of Texas; as a senior FBI official on the staff of two FBI Directors; as Counselor to the Attorney General; as the Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General; as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in EDVA in Norfolk and Alexandria; and as the former Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In short, Rosenberg's vastly experienced. In the current context, he's one of several legal analysts who are able to go on MSNBC and offer informative legal analyses without reciting every Standard Tribal Script. 

Also, without revealing how much they hate Donald J. Trump as part of every presentation.

In short, the fellow is pretty much "just the facts." This morning, early in the 6 o'clock hour, he engaged in this exchange on Morning Joe concerning the so-called "hush money" payment to Stormy Daniels:

SCARBOROUGH (3/20/23): Michael Cohen got sent to jail for being part of this scheme. Why? 

ROSENBERG: Well, he pled guilty to, I believe, eight felonies under federal law, and not just this scheme. There was a tax scheme, he had made false statements. So there were more, and more serious, offenses to which he pled guilty. 

This is a narrower piece of what he pled guilty to. Now, he had an integral role, if he is to be believed, in the Trump "hush money" false bookkeeping caper. But he, Cohen, pled guilty to many more offenses, and that was in the federal system, not in the state system. 

On the down side, Rosenberg isn't supposed to be saying things like that on our own blue cable. On the brighter side, no one on our cable channel will ever attempt to flesh out the implications of what Rosenberg said.

Here's what Rosenberg said:

If you watch blue tribe cable news, you will constantly hear a presentation which takes this general form:

Michael Cohen got sentenced to three years in prison for the hush money payment. Why shouldn't Donald J. Trump get the exact same treatment?

Blue cable stars recite that script until the cows come home. In fact, Cohen was sentenced to prison for a cocktail of federal offenses, as described by the leading authority on the matter:

Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges: five counts of tax evasion, one count of making false statements to a financial institution, one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution at the request of a candidate for the "principal purpose of influencing [the] election."

In Rosenberg's assessment, the charges relating to the hush money payment were less serious than some of the other charges. That may or may not be an accurate assessment, but Cohen pled guilty to eight offenses, only two of which were connected to the payment to Daniels.

(Also, please note: Cohen pled guilty to these charges, in part as a way to lessen his possible sentence. He wasn't found guilty of the hush money charges by an actual jury during an actual trial.)

As such, it's false to say that Cohen got three years for the payment to Daniels. Still, you'll hear that embellished version of the facts over and over and over and over on programs like Deadline: White House, and even on Morning Joe.

Last Thursday, another vastly experienced legal analyst—Neal Katyal—outrageously said, on Deadline: White House, that he can imagine reasons why Merrick Farland hasn't decided to pursue Donald J. Trump in federal court for the "hush money caper."

Instantly, Katyal's angry multimillionaire host pushed back hard against his ridiculous statement. Katyal quickly backpedaled away from his momentary heresy. On Deadline: White House, Merrick Garland is wrong, wrong, wrong, and no other thoughts need apply!

At any rate, you will hear, again and again, that Cohen got three years for the hush money caper. It's an embellished version of the facts—a misstated version designed to pimp tribal Storyline and send us happily off to bed with sugarplums dancing in our easily satisfied heads.

Should Trump be facing federal charges for the hush money caper?  Personally, we're inclined to regard this as the ultimate Mickey Mouse criminal charge, whether we're talking about federal or state court.

But having said that, no! Michael Cohen didn't get three years for his role in this matter, no matter how many times you hear Hacks Like Us recite the inaccurate statement.

We're routinely misled by Hacks Like Us! Tomorrow morning, we'll look at an especially ugly evergreen charge.

Later this week: Look who said that Stormy Daniels could have been charged with extortion! Never mention views like that on our blue tribe's programs!


STARTING TOMORROW: Hacks Like Us!

MONDAY, MARCH 20, 2023

But also, Trump in chains: Today was an especially big day on Morning Joe.

At 6 A.M., Joe and Mika were joined by one sidekick (Jonathan Lemire) and by five other guests. The eight participants shared time in an uninterrupted opening segment whose contets were captured by this chyron:

LAW ENFORCEMENT PLANS FOR POSSIBLE TRUMP INDICTMENT

The uninterrupted opening segment ran a full 35 minutes. As the eight participants struggled for time, familiar perspectives emerged. 

There was no serious sign of disagreement, however minor, on any significant point. This is the shape of "cable news" in this era of tribal polarization. 

In fairness, former prosecutor Chuck Rosenberg briefly questioned the standard framing surrounding one legal point in today's opening segment. 

Rosenberg is one of several (admirable) legal analysts who have emerged in the past few years on blue tribe cable news program. We'll likely review what he said this morning before the week is through.

That said, this seems to be shaping up as the long-awaited "Week That Was"—the week in which Donald J. Trump will finally be indicted for an alleged crime. At this site, we'll be covering the way these events are covered by mainstream blue tribe pundits.

We'll start by returning to a cable news show which was broadcast last Friday. We refer to the broadcast of Deadline: White House, the two-hour daily program which has long been devoted to this unyielding framework:

Trump Trump Trump Trump Jail!

Tomorrow, we're going to start with last Friday's broadcast. One day earlier, an unusual thing had occurred:

The program is hosted by Nicolle Wallace, a rabid opponent of everyone and everything which might keep Trump out of prison. Her targets include Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose obvious cowardice Wallace assails on a daily basis.

Nothing matters on this popular show other than Trump Trump Jail. Having said that, dear God! 

Last Thursday, one of Wallace's "favorite reporters and friends" actually seemed to dissent, if only in a theoretical way, from the standard framing of a topic concerning which Wallace has a well-established, novelized point of view.

Outrageously, this regular guest had actually seemed to suggest that he could imagine possible reasons for Garland's failure to indict Trump—for his outrageous cowardice!

The guest in question is a legal expert; Wallace, of course, is not. But when the legal expert briefly diverged from established Storyline, he was instantly rebuked for his apostasy by his less qualified host. 

Just as quickly, the expert backtracked, seeming to apologize for his unseemly behavior. He tugged at his forelock as he apologized for his brief divergence from Wallace's point of view.

The next day, a wide array of standard misrepresentations were offered, all through the course of Deadline's two hours. This is the way our own blue tribe now gets scripted on such matters, by an array of "favorite reporters" and "dear, dear friends" best thought of as "Hacks Like Us."

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but the novelizations, scriptings and frameworks are well-known and unyielding. Routinely, the representations are highly selective on our own tribe's "cable news" programs.

Seldom is heard a discouraging word! Indeed, when someone introduces the tiniest bit of possible nuance, he will quickly be chastised for his divergence.

Meanwhile, this is the week when the highly disordered Donald J. Trump may finally get charged with a crime! Hacks like us hope against hope that the charge against Trump can get bumped up, by whatever manner or means, from misdemeanor to felony status.

We cast about, looking for ways the prosecutor might be able to do that. This has an unsettling resemblance to the ways of "political prosecution," but so it goes in these perilous times.

With apologies for our sour demeanor, this may finally be the week when we get to see Trump in chains! We'll follow the action in our reports. Meanwhile, full disclosure:

We'll be focused on "hacks like us!" With apologies for our feelings, we're feeling quite sour this week.

Tomorrow: For starters, a grossly selective presentation about a deeply serious charge


Teach the Florida first graders well!

SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 2023

The stupidification, it burns: Let the word go forth to the nations:

The word "woke" appeared on the front page of Friday's New York Times! Indeed, the key if deeply baffling term appeared in the second paragraph of a front-page report by Sarah Mervosh, a good and decent person.

Online, the lengthy report carries a somewhat opaque headline. In print editions, the lengthy report began as shown, print headline included:

Florida Re-Edits A New Subject: Social Studies

The nitty-gritty process of reviewing and approving school textbooks has typically been an administrative affair, drawing the attention of education experts, publishing executives and state bureaucrats.

But in Florida, textbooks have become hot politics, part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s campaign against what he describes as “woke indoctrination” in public schools, particularly when it comes to race and gender. Last year, his administration made a splash when it rejected dozens of math textbooks, citing “prohibited topics.”

Now, the state is reviewing curriculum in what is perhaps the most contentious subject in education: social studies.

Just to be clear, there is no claim in the Mervosh report that Florida has "re-edited" anything at this point. 

We're not even sure what that headline might mean. But such is the way of our mainstream journalism at its brainiest end.

At any rate, Mervosh's report continued from there. The word "woke" was right there in paragraph 2, admittedly as part of a quotation from Governor Lack of Precision.

The Mervosh report triggered loads of excitement within our own blue circles. At issue was the way one (1) textbook publisher, Studies Weekly, had proposed teaching the story of Rosa Parks to Florida's several first graders.

In a new version of a pre-existing textbook, Studies Weekly had dumbed down its account of what happened to Mrs. Parks on a very famous bus in 1955. More specifically, it had essentially removed the fact that she had been ordered to move from her seat that day so that a "white" person could sit in the seat instead.

The fact that one publisher had made this revision produced a barrel of excitement within our own blue circles. Frequently lost in the excitement was this buzzkill of a fact:

The Florida Department of Education has rejected the Studies Weekly textbook series for use in the state's public schools. The dumbed-down version of what happened to Mrs. Parks will not be approved for statewide use.

That's right! The Studies Weekly textbooks are out, along with the dumbed-down version of the Rosa Parks story. If you read all the way to the end of Mervosh's extremely lengthy report, you read this somewhat inconclusive account of the matter:

MERVOSH: The Florida Department of Education suggested that Studies Weekly had overreached. Any publisher that “avoids the topic of race when teaching the Civil Rights movement, slavery, segregation, etc. would not be adhering to Florida law,” the department said in a statement.

But Studies Weekly said it was trying to follow Florida’s standards, including the Stop W.O.K.E. Act.

“All publishers are expected to design a curriculum that aligns with” those requirements, John McCurdy, the company’s chief executive, said in an email.

The company’s curriculum is no longer under consideration by the state.

After questions from The Times, the company removed its second, scrubbed-down version of the curriculum from its website last week and said that it had withdrawn from the state’s review.

The Florida Department of Education said it had already rejected the publisher, citing a bureaucratic snafu in the company’s submission.

By our count, those are paragraphs 40-45 of a 46-graf report.

At any rate, the Studies Weekly textbooks are out, possibly due to an unspecified "bureaucratic snafu." But along the way, the Florida Department of Education has now said that Studies Weekly had "overreached" in some of its textbook revisions. 

Under Florida law, the Department has said, you can't dumb down the topic of race in such ways, not even for first graders! And yes, the Florida laws in question include the childishly named Stop W.O.K.E. Act, whose varied and voluminous provisions require the teaching of "the civil rights movement to the present," along with "the history of African Americans, including the history of African peoples before the political conflicts that led to the development of slavery, the passage to America, the enslavement experience, abolition, and the contributions of African Americans to society."

So it says within the (very murky) Stop W.O.K.E Act. 

Meanwhile, how should first graders be taught about Rosa Parks? Intelligent people would understand that that is a very good question—a question which has no single perfect answer.

Intelligent people might be eager to tackle such a significant question. Unfortunately, within our profit-based corporate circles, our tribe features the kinds of people who loomed on cable last night.

We refer to cable star Alex Wagner and the person with whom she pretended to discuss this topic. That would be Florida State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a good and decent person who may perhaps be a bit inclined to walks on the polarized side. 

The pair staged a deeply unintelligent pseudo-discussion. Eventually, Eskamani offered this description of the kinds of people who may not agree with her own infallible views on all such points of concern:

WAGNER (3/17/23): ...These folks, the Florida Citizens Alliance, seem to have an outsized role in determining what children can learn. Is there a counter movement on the progressive side that is working to push back? 

ESKAMANI: Well first of all, this is a very good point.

Govenor Ron DeSantis has surrounded himself with extremists, whether it's this organization, or Moms For Liberty, or think tanks from other states that come to Florida. He has surrounded himself with some of the worst characters and people who do not have the best interests of every child in mind.

But to answer your question...

According to experts, this is the way it's always been, dating back into prehistory.

In the present situation, leave it to hacks like ours! Before she could speak to the "very good point" Wagner had inevitably raised, Eskamani let it be known that people who don't share her own infallible views are "some of the worst characters," apparently on the whole planet.

They're people who do not have "the best interests of every child in mind," in the way she herself quite infallibly does.

If we wanted to be judgmental, it would be hard to have sufficient contempt for people who propagandize us in this ancient, stupid manner. But this is the way "blue corporate cable" panders to our own atavistic impulses as it seeks to maximize ratings and its bottom line.

Meanwhile, how about it? What should first graders be taught about our nation's brutal racial history?  Let's check in with Goofus and Gallant! 

Gallant understands that that's an excellent question. Goofus expounds on blue tribe cable every night of the week.

A giant cable star like Wagner could spend some time every night wrestling with the many questions involved in this important matter. That would start with the actual contents of Florida's Stop WOKE Act, for which we've never been able to find a clean text online.

What does the Stop WOKE Act even say? People like Wagner don't care! Neither do mainstream journalists, based on their tolerance of the current state of affairs.

(Without offering a link to any version of the law's text, Mervosh makes a few attempts to quote from its contents. For what it's worth, this is the cleanest version of the legislation we've been able to find online. It comes to us, live and direct, from Florida's Governor Harvard Law Hodgepodge.)

People like Wagner are never going to try to tell you what the act even says. Whether they know it or not, they are being sent on the air to dumbnify the national discourse and to stupidify our self-impressed tribe all the way down to the ground.

How much are they paid it pursue these noble tasks? You aren't allowed to know that! Also, the corporate bosses no longer provide transcripts of the things they say. It isn't just the Stop WOKE Act whose contents get lost in the mist!

In closing, what should first graders be taught about such moral giants as Mrs. Parks? 

You're asking a truly excellent question! Please keep such concerns to yourself!

The dumbnification, it burns: To watch last evening's ten-minute segment, you can just click here.

According to the New York Times, a dumbed-down version of the Rosa Parks story will not be approved for statewide use. The TV segment opens with this more pleasing chyron:

STORY OF CIVIL RIGHTS ICON ROSA PARKS BEING RE-WRITTEN IN SOME SOCIAL STUDIES TEXTBOOKS

The Times report reports no such thing. The tribal dumbnification is constant, just as it ever was.


Where does the New York Times find these guys?

FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2023

Poverty abolition: Where does the New York Times find these guys?

In the present instance, we refer to Matthew Desmond, a sociologist at Princeton, where he is the director of the Eviction Lab. His new guest essay for the Times appears beneath this somewhat murky but challenging headline:

America Is in a Disgraced Class of Its Own

Long story short, Desmond is recommending that we Americans become "poverty abolitionists." His essay starts as shown:

DESMOND (3/17/23): The United States has a poverty problem.

A third of the country’s people live in households making less than $55,000. Many are not officially counted among the poor, but there is plenty of economic hardship above the poverty line. And plenty far below it as well. According to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which accounts for government aid and living expenses, more than one in 25 people in America 65 or older lived in deep poverty in 2021, meaning that they’d have to, at minimum, double their incomes just to reach the poverty line.

Programs like housing assistance and food stamps are effective and essential, protecting millions of families from hunger and homelessness each year. But the United States devotes far fewer resources to these programs, as a share of its gross domestic product, than other rich democracies, which places America in a disgraced class of its own on the world stage.

On the eve of the Covid pandemic, in 2019, our child poverty rate was roughly double that of several peer nations, including Canada, South Korea and Germany. Anyone who has visited these countries can plainly see the difference, can experience what it might be like to live in a country without widespread public decay. When abroad, I have on several occasions heard Europeans use the phrase “American-style deprivation.”

The essay continues from there. 

For what it's worth, Kevin Drum offered a recent post in which he suggested that Desmond, in a separate essay, was using a statistical measure which substantially overstates the number of people in poverty. 

We don't know if Drum's critique was right. Our own view is that such statistical matters are so complexified that we could never get straight on such measures even if we wanted to.

Which of course we don't.

In his new essay, Desmond seems to say, somewhat angrily, that better-off Americans simply don't care if others are caught in poverty. With that in mind, we just watched the start of today's Deadline: White House:

It's one of our blue tribe's "cable news" programs which almost seems to have been invented to conclusively prove Desmond's point. 

In our view, someone ought to take Desmond aside and help him cool his roll. Here within our exalted blue tribe, we simply don't care about topics like his. There's only one thing our blue stars care about, and they're more than happy to make thar fact crystal clear.

There's only one topic our blue stars discuss:

Trump Trump Trump Trump Jail!

Our tribunes care about nothing else, nor are they planning to change. How much are they paid to treat us this way?

You aren't permitted to know. 

DUMB AND DUMB: Everyone knows what "Wokeness" means!

FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2023

From there, it's dumb all the way down: In full fairness, George Will's column got off to a pretty good start.

The column appeared last week, on Wednesday, March 8. The Stanford Law School hecklefest hadn't happened yet.

Having said that, how prophetic! In the Washington Post, Will's new column, headline included, started at Stanford, as shown:

Woke word-policing is now beyond satire

Sometimes in politics, which currently saturates everything, worse is better. When a political craze based on a bad idea achieves a critical mass, one wants it to be undone by ridiculous excess. Consider the movement to scrub from the English language and the rest of life everything that anyone might consider harmful or otherwise retrograde.

Worse really is better in today’s America (if you will pardon that noun; some at Stanford University will not; read on) as the fever of foolishness denoted by the word “woke” now defies satire. At Stanford, a full-service, broad-spectrum educational institution, an “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” several months ago listed words to avoid lest they make someone feel sad, unsafe, disrespected or something. Problematic words include “American,” which suggests that America (this column enjoys being transgressive) is the most important country in North and South America. The list was quickly drenched by an acid rain of derision, and Stanford distanced itself from itself: The university’s chief information officer said the list was not a mandate. 

The puzzling word "Woke" was right there in the headline. Meanwhile, out in Palo Alto, a certain pattern had perhaps begun to emerge:

In the matter under review, one branch of Stanford had perhaps gone a bit rogue. In response, the university’s chief information officer had jumped in with a disclaimer. 

One day after Will's column appeared, the hecklefest happened at Stanford Law School. The dean of the law school—and the university's president—soon offered a formal apology, rejecting the behavior of the heckling students and of an associate dean.

The headline which sat above Will's column began with the puzzling word "Woke." Nor had some editor taken liberties with the columnist's intentions. 

In the column under review, Will quickly offered this assessment of Stanford's (now defunct) “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative”—and yes, that's its actual name: 

"[T]he fever of foolishness denoted by the word 'woke' now defies satire."  

No one is required to agree with Will's assessment. In our view, decent people should try to avoid using language which conveys undesired meanings or implications, or which makes people feel disrespected.

We'll guess that Will would agree with that general stance. At any rate, he soon moved on from Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” to another aspect of life on The Farm—to the school's “Protected Identity Harm” system:

WILL: Back at Stanford, more than 75 professors are opposing the university’s snitching apparatus. The “Protected Identity Harm” system enables—actually, by its existence, it encourages—students to anonymously report allegations against other students, from whom they have experienced what the system calls “harm because of who they are and how they show up in the world.”

The PIH website breathlessly greets visitors: “If you are on this website, we recognize that you might have experienced something traumatic. Take a sip of water. Take a deep breath.” PIH recently made national news when someone reported the trauma of seeing a student reading Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”

Will seems to disapprove of this initiative too. No one is forced to agree with him, but surely everyone knows that this is the sort of thing people frequently have in mind when they tag systems or people as "Woke" or excessively Woke.

Back to the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative, to which Will provides this link. When we clicked, we found an expansive document.

We found thirteen pages of words and terms which might qualify as harmful. At the very top of page one, students were offered a warning they should consider before venturing into the woods:

Content Warning: This website contains language that is offensive or harmful. Please engage with this website at your own pace.

We scrolled through the whole thing, marveling at many of the terms we were advised to avoid. For example: 

Did you know that it might be offensive or harmful to say "Hip hip hooray," or even "Hip-hip hurray?"

We didn't know that either! But there the terms sat, on the endless list, with the alleged offense explained.

No one is forced to agree with Will's view—with the view that this document takes "Wokeness" past the point of satire. Our own reaction was a bit different, and we'll describe it below.

That said, one of Will's statements was factually accurate. In late December, Stanford's Chief Information Officer did issue a "clarification," saying this in part:

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

[...]

We have particularly heard concerns about the guide’s treatment of the term “American.” We understand and appreciate those concerns. To be very clear, not only is the use of the term “American” not banned at Stanford, it is absolutely welcomed. The intent of this particular entry on the EHLI website was to provide perspective on how the term may be imprecise in some specific uses, and to show that in some cases the alternate term “US citizen” may be more precise and appropriate. But, we clearly missed the mark in this presentation.

Steve Gallagher / Chief Information Officer

The use of the term "American" is absolutely welcomed at Stanford? 

At that point, we have to sign on with Will. The silliness of that clarification does seem to take us somewhere we have never traveled, beyond the reach of satire. 

Two weeks later, Gallagher posted a second statement, noting that the 13 pages of recommendations had been eliminated altogether. The “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” site had been canceled—taken down.

Was something "wrong" with that initiative at Stanford? No one is required to think so. 

That said, everyone knows that this is the sort of thing people will criticize as "Woke." Except when clowns perform on blue cable, there's no great mystery about this.

It's also true that criticism of this sort of endeavor isn't restricted to conservatives or right-wingers. Six days before Will's column appeared, George Packer—and no, he isn't a conservative—had published a longer essay for The Atlantic on this very same topic.

Packer never used the word "Woke." But here's the way his essay started, dual headlines included

THE MORAL CASE AGAINST EQUITY LANGUAGE
What’s a “justice-involved person”?

The Sierra Club’s Equity Language Guide discourages using the words stand, Americans, blind, and crazy. The first two fail at inclusion, because not everyone can stand and not everyone living in this country is a citizen. The third and fourth, even as figures of speech (“Legislators are blind to climate change”), are insulting to the disabled. The guide also rejects the disabled in favor of people living with disabilities, for the same reason that enslaved person has generally replaced slave: to affirm, by the tenets of what’s called “people-first language,” that “everyone is first and foremost a person, not their disability or other identity.”

The guide’s purpose is not just to make sure that the Sierra Club avoids obviously derogatory terms, such as welfare queen. It seeks to cleanse language of any trace of privilege, hierarchy, bias, or exclusion. In its zeal, the Sierra Club has clear-cut a whole national park of words. Urban, vibrant, hardworking, and brown bag all crash to earth for subtle racism. Y’all supplants the patriarchal you guys, and elevate voices replaces empower, which used to be uplifting but is now condescending. The poor is classist; battle and minefield disrespect veterans; depressing appropriates a disability; migrant—no explanation, it just has to go.

For the record, we're very glad that "enslaved person" has generally replaced "slave."  We recall how pleased were the first time we saw a major figure—the novelist Alice Walker—use the longer, less dehumanizing term in a major public forum.

That said, we're inclined to agree with Packer's assessment of these sweeping language guides, which he voiced in this passage:

PACKER: The project of the guides is utopian, but they’re a symptom of deep pessimism. They belong to a fractured culture in which symbolic gestures are preferable to concrete actions, argument is no longer desirable, each viewpoint has its own impenetrable dialect, and only the most fluent insiders possess the power to say what is real. What I’ve described is not just a problem of the progressive left. The far right has a different vocabulary, but it, too, relies on authoritarian shibboleths to enforce orthodoxy. It will be a sign of political renewal if Americans can say maddening things to one another in a common language that doesn’t require any guide.

At this site, we're not in favor of people "say[ing] maddening things to one another." But we agree with Packer's assessment of the harm of "a fractured culture," and we're inclined to agree with the claim that these lists of forbidden / permitted words reflect a culture, even here in our own blue world, in which we like to perform symbolic gestures at the expense of taking concrete actions and exploring real daily concerns.

Our own reaction to Stanford's 13 pages went a great deal like this:

We wondered who had actually spent their time assembling this braindead, voluminous list of words we paragons mustn't say.  We wondered who could possibly have that much time on their hands. We wondered about the discussions in which these high-end scriveners weren't engaged as they listed the many words you can't say on TV, or for that matter anywhere else.

We shouldn't use the term "peanut gallery?" We shouldn't use the term "rule of thumb" for all the harm it might cause? 

We should stay away from brown bag, gangbusters, grandfather, master (as a noun and as a verb), immigrant, trigger warning? We'll offer two thoughts as you scroll through the endless list:

The people who compiled the list seem to be monumentally clueless. Also, they may be the kinds of people who engage in these moral panics while refusing to discuss what goes on in low-income schools, or the reasons for our nation's astonishing medical spending, or what we should do at the Southern border, or what might be the best way for our own inept blue tribe to peel voters away from Trump.

We've often noted the way our elite blue tribe orgs avoid such real-world discussions. We've often suggested one obvious possible reason:

At bottom, they simply don't care. They don't care about kids in our low-income schools. They have very good health care themselves, and they don't much care about you.

Then sure enough, last Friday night, there they sat, hard at work, the corporate Disciples of Dumb. They sat on Stephanie Ruhle's "cable news" show, peopling her "Friday Nightcap" time-killer and pretending they had no idea what the word "Woke" even means.

At this site, we don't believe in terrible people. We'd advise you to follow our leadership on this point of concern.

We don't believe in terrible people! But if we did, that's what those cable stooges would be. 

They aggressively dumbnify our blue tribe every single day. You aren't allowed to know how much they're paid to engage in this stupidified conduct.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but at the highest cultural levels, our vastly self-impressed blue tribe just isn't especially sharp. On cable, the bosses hire gangs of stooges who will feed us the pleasing gruel which sends us off to sleep.

As a group, we've been too dumb to see through this decades-old process. The truly dumb people, we feel quite sure, are the bad people found Over There!

Our tribe is profoundly self-impressed, but also perhaps a bit clueless. Despondent anthropologists keep insisting that is the hard-wired way of the world. 

These experts say that these reactions are deeply bred in the bone. They say that, anthropologically speaking, there will be no getting beyond this.

It can get very dumb on red tribe cable. It can get very faux Over Here.