A WEEK IN THE LIFE: Rachel Maddow's Hannityism!

SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2016

Bad facts and "grown-ass white men:"
It's very hard to describe the morass into which the Maddow Show has descended.

The intellectual illness which now lies at its core pervades every minute of every hour. It's hard to describe a moral illness which is so vast and pervasive. But these are a few basic markers:

The Maddow program avoids one important topic after another. This includes substantive and political topics.

Instead, the program teaches us to loathe The Others. In the process, we're treated to two type of facts:

We're treated to facts which are grossly selective. We're treated to facts which are false.

On Friday evening, April 15, the big cable star who fronts this program decided to cap an appalling week with an opening segment about the vile Candidate Kasich.

The segment was designed to teach us how to loathe this candidate. It's hard to describe this segment's illness, so many thumbs were on so many scales during its execution.

Today, we'll discuss one part of this segment. Next week, we'll be returning to the world of Einstein, but we'll return to other parts of this segment in supplementary posts.

First, a bit of background about the vile person in question:

Candidate Kasich is "pro-life." As a general matter, he is opposed to abortion rights except in cases involving rape, incest or a threat to the life of the mother.

Many people won't be surprised to learn that fact about this candidate. On the presidential level, abortion rights create a hard and fast dividing line between the two major parties.

It has been a long time since a major Republican candidate wasn't "pro-life." Candidate Trump flipped on this issue when he decided to be a Republican. All the way back in 1980, George Bush the elder had to flip on this issue to make himself a viable GOP candidate.

In 1987, Dick Gephardt flipped from pro-life to pro-choice in the course of becoming a Democratic candidate, and so on. In the world we inhabit, Republican candidates are "pro-life." Democrats are "pro-choice."

Pretty much everyone knows this.

Candidate Kasich is "pro-life!" For ourselves, that's one of the reasons—there are others—why we wouldn't vote for Kasich.

That said, a lot of people are "pro-life." There's a name for people like these. They're known as "fellow citizens."

Theoretically, we aren't allowed to invent fake facts about such people just because we disagree with their stance on this issue. Such theories no longer hold on the Maddow program, which has almost totally lost its bearings and should be removed from the air.

On Friday evening, April 15, the giant star who fronts that program decided to help us learn how to loathe Candidate Kasich more fully. She devoted her opening segment to that rather familiar task.

Her deepening craziness took many forms during this course of this segment. Today, we'll restrict ourselves to her first demonstration of Kasich's moral squalor.

Her demonstration was based on selective facts, and on one fact which was false. A lot more craziness would follow as this opening segment proceeded. For today, we'll restrict ourselves to Maddow's first attack on the vile Ohio governor.

Maddow opened with a kooky attempt to "decode" (her term) photographs of two bill-signing ceremonies from the great state of Mississippi. But that was just the warm-up act. Quickly, it led the cable star to this remarkable diatribe:
MADDOW (4/15/16): When Ohio Governor John Kasich, signed legislation in 2011 that ended up closing nearly half the clinics that provide abortions in the state of Ohio, notice something similar. This was his photo op that day.

That's the photo op that Governor John Kasich staged in Ohio for signing that anti-abortion legislation. It was just him and a bunch of grown-ass white men.

And for good measure, they included, in that bill signing ceremony, a very, very young man. They also brought in a little boy who the governor invited to sit on his lap and dot the "I" in the word "Kasich" as the menfolk of Ohio got together to show the boyfolk of Ohio how women's pregnancy can be controlled by the law.
Rather plainly, Kasich had engaged in a vile act back in 2011. As he staged his vile photo op, "it was just him and a bunch of grown-ass white men."

(To watch Maddow's whole segment, click here.)


Question: As liberals and progressives, are we comfortable when a multimillionaire corporate employee throws around language like that?

We think the use of language like that betrays extremely bad judgment. On the other hand, it's clear that this Ohio governor had engaged in a deeply vile act.

As he signed that anti-abortion bill, he even brought in a little boy, to help him learn how to rule over women. Kasich and the rest of that "bunch of grown-ass white men" were helping Ohio's boyfolk learn their role in the world.

Sadly, there's a minor problem with the story as Maddow told it. The bill-signing in question happened in 2013, not in 2011. And it wasn't exactly an anti-abortion bill.

With the help of his grown-ass friends, Governor Kasich was actually signing a giant Ohio budget bill into law that day. The bill contained 5,557 pages. You can see those pages stacked on Kasich's desk in the tape Maddow aired.

The little boy was the son of one of Kasich's grown-ass cabinet members, a few of whom stood in the background. The signing took place on June 30, 2013. To see the photo, click here.

Let's be fair! There were some abortion restrictions in the mammoth budget bill, which ran to 5,557 pages. But no, it wasn't mainly an anti-abortion bill.

It was the state of Ohio's mammoth budget bill. For Maddow's purpose—for the purpose of teaching us how to loathe Kasich—the story works a good deal better if you don't tell the rubes that.

Having said that, please make no mistake—Kasich is "pro-life." For a review of his work with respect to this topic, you can read this slightly confusing report by Michelle Ye Hee Lee in the Washington Post.

Candidate Kasich is "pro-life!" In that respect, he's like every Republican White House candidate since at least 1980. The question we would ask you is this:

By what process did we get from that fact to the story this cable star told? How did we get to a story built around a false fact, a story which featured some very odd language?

That 4-year-old boy was actually dotting the "i" on a giant budget bill on the day in question. There were some abortion restrictions in the bill; Maddow could have reported what they were. Instead, she hurried ahead to some crazier nonsense as she performed her full segment.

It's hard to capture how deceptive and how crazy Maddow's full segment was. The segment was crafted to help you to loathe. Let's mention some facts it left out, just from that opening salvo.

As we'll see next week, Maddow seemed eager to give us peons the impression that Kasich has a bad reputation in Ohio. That intended impression is false. Maddow forgot to mention the giant size of his 2014 re-election. She forgot to mention his sky-high approval ratings in the state of Ohio.

Because that segment was designed to teach us to loathe, Maddow ignored something else. She forgot to mention another provision of that 2013 budget bill, which she had misdescribed and placed in the wrong year.

There actually were some abortion restrictions in that giant bill. Like every Republican for the past forty years, Kasich is "pro-life."

That said, another key provision of that bill helps explain why Candidate Kasich is having trouble in the current White House campaign. Maddow didn't tell us about it, and she never will.

Uh-oh! As part of that bill signing, Kasich used his line item veto to remove a provision concerning Medicaid. Ohio's Republican legislature had included a provision blocking the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare.

Kasich vetoed that part of the bill before he and the little boy signed it. Later that year, he circumvented his legislature and expanded Medicaid to 330,000 Ohioans completely on his own.

This heresy is one of the reasons why Kasich has failed to gain favor at the pools with Republican regulars. Later, Kasich sounded off at a Koch-organized conference IN 2014, explaining why he committed that heresy.

Politico's Alex Isenstadt describes the stormy scene here:
ISENSTADT (6/9/15): Randy Kendrick, a major contributor and the wife of Ken Kendrick, the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, rose to say she disagreed with Kasich’s decision to expand Medicaid coverage, and questioned why he’d expressed the view it was what God wanted.

The governor’s response was fiery. “I don’t know about you, lady,” he said as he pointed at Kendrick, his voice rising. “But when I get to the Pearly Gates, I’m going to have an answer for what I’ve done for the poor.”

The exchange left many stunned.
Around 20 audience members walked out of the room, and two governors also on the panel, Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, told Kasich they disagreed with him. The Ohio governor has not been invited back to a Koch seminar—opportunities for presidential aspirants to mingle with the party’s rich and powerful—in the months since.
Uh-oh! When that little boy dotted the "i" on that bill that day, he was indeed dotting the "I" on some abortion restrictions. That said, he was also dotting the "i" on health coverage for 330,000 low-income residents of his state.

Maddow will let you hear one of those facts; she will withhold the other. To make her demonization work better, she'll misstate the nature of the bill the little boy signed, and she'll singe your ears with language about grown-ass white men for which her own undergrown, struggling ass ought to be thrown off the air.

We wouldn't vote for Candidate Kasich. We also wouldn't go on TV and do the things Maddow did that night, the things she now does every night.

As her segment continued that night, her selective facts and her demonization continued to the point of near-lunacy. The cable star is working hard to make her viewers extremely dumb. Assuming she hasn't lost control of herself, she has long since stopped being even minimally honest.

Next week, we'll show you more of what happened as she taught us how to loathe Kasich. Journalistically, Maddow's childish, dishonest program has become a toxic waste site. There's a word for what the corporate star is now doing:

Maddow has bought into Hannityism. This familiar corporate cable approach is bad for grown-ups and four-year-old children and for all living things.

52 comments:

  1. Kasich is the person who said that teachers don't need teachers' lounges in Ohio public schools.

    The Nation today has an article about how Clinton could lose to Trump. Bernie is continuing to attack Clinton because his argument to flip super delegates is essentially that Clinton would be unable to win the general election. He must make that seem true in order to have a chance at nomination, so he cannot stop attacking her. He is willing to sabotage Democratic chances in Fall on the longshot bet that he can steal the election from Clinton voters. There is your saint.

    He doesn't care that he will most likely fail in his attempts to turn the super delegates, leaving Clinton poorer in resources and weakened going into the general election. Why should he care? He isn't a Democrat and she isn't perfect -- if she were, he wouldn't be attacking her (and she would be impervious). So it is all Clinton's fault. What a guy!

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    1. What a whiner.

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    2. Clinton isn't whining. I am, because I am tired of comment boxes full of Bernie bots chanting Look at her negatives -- highest ever!" after Sanders has done everything in his power to jack them up.

      People won't vote for someone who campaigns like this so he has to coerce super delegates. Next we'll hear threats of a third party run and the possibility of a major brawl at the convention. I have a lot to complain about.

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    3. Huffington Post has a headline today that says "Bernie Rising." Only in the last paragraph do they say that small gains in CT or IN may be too little, too late. It is dishonest to deceive naive Bernie supporters in order to keep soliciting campaign contributions.

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    4. I wrote off Huff Post as a credible source of information about this election year a long time ago. And apparently, so have many others. The traffic count there has been in a freefall for the last several months -- during an election year that's been fascinating to say the least.

      I don't fear that Hillary will be "weak" an lacking in resources to conduct a winning campaign. Especially against Trump, Cruz or Kasich (who only looks sane compared to Trump and Cruz).

      But Bernie? He's been going through money like a sailor on shore leave. Unless those $27 donations keep rolling in at the same rate (and hard to imagine they will) where is he going to get the money to run, especially since he's called the people who support Hillary "corrupt."




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    5. Bernie is angling toward a book deal, "My life as a radical socialist" after his campaign ends. Beyond that, he doesn't care whether the Democrats win in the Fall or not.

      Meanwhile, Kristof damns Clinton with faint praise. Her honesty numbers are higher than Saint Bernie's but he says merely that she isn't as dishonest as everyone thinks. How DID her negatives get so high? I wonder...

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  2. Kasich the Moderate | Full Frontal with Samantha Bee |

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBF3K5X6XE4

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  4. Candidate Kasich is "pro-life." As a general matter, he is opposed to abortion rights except in cases involving rape, incest or a threat to the life of the mother.

    No, that's what he says about abortion rights. But the law he signed does not provide the exceptions that he says he supports. And he has signed into law a bill defunding Planned Parenthood clinics. So he's "pro-life" just like the rest of the Republicans. He just lies about it. The scare quotes are just another way of saying that the policy is vile. And for me, politicians who support such policies are vile as well, whether they're my fellow citizens or not.

    I don't like Rachel Maddow. She's lazy, she avoids important topics, and I find her demeanor cloying to the point of nausea. But she's not wrong about Kasich.

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    1. Nor about Christie, McDonnell, or Snyder.

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    2. All the more reason to be accurate in her attacks against those guys. If she is lazy about it, she will generate sympathy for them and undermine valid criticisms of them. She is not wrong but she still needs to do her job properly or she is a liability to the left.

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    3. Hey @ 12:29. Last I checked the only thing she got wrong here was the year of the bill signing. That's gonna generate sympathy? Like the sympathy she generated for Christie and McDonnell due to all the things Bob said were "wrong" in her coverage of them?

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    4. A Blast from the Past with Boxcar Bob!


      Governor Ultrasound still hasn’t been charged!

      TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

      Once again, Maddow errs: Your Daily Howler just keeps getting those results!

      We still haven’t reviewed Rachel Maddow’s biggest groaners from last week."

      HOW MANY HIGHLIGHTS IN ONE LITTLE POST CAN YOU STAND?

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    5. She deliberately used a photo of a bill signing from the wrong year, because it had a child in it, to make Kasich appear extra ugly. That kind of manipulation of facts is called propagandizing, not reporting. Journalism has professional ethics. She doesn't follow them. This is far from a minor mistake. And there have been enough examples of this stuff described here to show that it is a pattern of behavior for her.

      That Kasich, Christie and others are slimy doesn't excuse Maddow. She could do her homework and build a case against them -- there are enough facts for that. Instead she takes shortcuts and doesn't trust her viewers to know who the "bad guys" are.

      John Oliver and Samantha Bee are better at this than she is, largely because they do the work to make a case without manufacturing evidence and distorting facts to fit a narrative. And they aren't even journalists! If Maddow were half as effective as they are, she would be worth her millions. But sadly, she isn't.

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    6. So THAT'S why Kasich is suddenly steam-rolling to the White House! All that sympathy generated because Maddow used a bill signing photo from the wrong year!

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    7. In point of fact, Anonymous at 3:51 Maddow used the photo from the right year and the right bill for the facts she laid out about legislation which shut down almost half of the abortion clinics in Ohio. She stated the year incorrectly.

      And Bob Somerby used exactly the same tactics he deplores in this very post and many other posts to deplore what Maddow did.

      He is either the biggest hypocrite around or a propagandist engaging in deception a carefully selected facts to teach his tribe to loathe certain people.

      He has some nerve talkng about moral illness or suggesting mental illness in anyone other than himself.

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    8. As you yourself acknowledge, Maddow had her facts wrong. Also, she herself has stated that she is bipolar. That's an Axis I major mental illness. Unless you think she got that fact wrong too, your attack on Somerby is unjustified.

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    9. No, Maddow got one fact wrong. She stated an event happened in 2011 and it happened in 2013.

      I would love your link to her saying she is bipolar. But the mental condition of Ms. Maddow has nothing to do with my statement that Somerby has some nerve suggesting mental illness in anyone other than himself.

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    10. Doubling down in your situation is just stupid.

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    11. No link, obviously. How would Bob describe this? "Theoretically, we aren't allowed to invent fake facts about such people just because we disagree with their stance..."

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    12. You could have googled this yourself.

      "Essentially ever since puberty, every since I was 11 or 12, I guess, I’ve had cyclical depression. That’s, you know, something that has been a defining feature of my life as an adult. And it’s manageable, but it’s real. And doesn’t take away from my joy in my work or my energy, but coping with depression is something that is part of the everyday way that I live and have lived as long as I can remember."

      http://www.wired.com/2012/04/rachel-maddow-gets-depressed/

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    13. "Maddow suffers, she says, from "cyclical" depression. "One of the manifestations of depression for me is that I lose my will. And I thereby lose my ability to focus. I don't think I'll ever have the day-to-day consistency in my performance that something like This American Life has. If I'm not depressed and I'm on and I can focus and I can think through something hard and without interruption and without existential emptiness that comes from depression, that gives me – not mania. But I exalt. I exalt in not being depressed."

      Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/rachel-maddows-quiet-war-20120627#ixzz46qYgRrgZ
      Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

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    14. ""Ever since puberty, ever since I was 11 or 12, I've had cyclical depression. That's something that has been a defining feature of my life as an adult. It's manageable. But it's real. And it doesn't take away from my joy or my work or my energy, but coping with depression is something that is part of the everyday way that I live and have lived for as long as I can remember. ... Depression for me, you can't distract your way out of it. ... When you are depressed, it's like the rest of the world is the mother ship, and you're out there on a little pod and your line gets cut and you don't connect with anything. You sort of disappear. And so it's not something you can talk-therapy out of. It's really a chemical thing. You get adrenaline from work, but adrenaline is not a cure."

      http://www.npr.org/2012/03/27/148611615/rachel-maddow-the-fresh-air-interview

      This is apparently part of her official bio, the set of anecdotes and explanations she gives at every interview. It is part of what we are given in order to worship her better.

      Note that she does not use any medically recognizable term. Cyclothymic depression would fit the adjective "cyclical" but that isn't what she means from her description. She is careful to disavow mania yet she talks about adrenaline. She doesn't describe any medication. Given her histrionic personality, it may be that she is not depressed at all, beyond what any normal person feels from time to time, but magnified to fit the grandiosity of her personality. She doesn't describe getting help or anything she is doing to treat her depression beyond her "struggle."

      I am willing to stipulate she is not actually depressed, just borrowing that disorder from others who are clinically depressed in order to make herself seem larger than life, to give her a tragic struggle. Is that your take on her too?

      All these words are direct quotes from her. They are not from Somerby or any third party. They are right from the great one's own lips.

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    15. "I am willing to stipulate....All these words are direct quotes from her"

      All these 234 words...Two sort-of-paragraphs.

      Well, aren't you the wonderful psychiatrist from afar, willing to diagnose - sight unseen based on sort-of paragraphs - what a person is and is not.

      "Is that your take on her too?" No. My take is that you are as self centered and self righteous as Bob Somerby. And as self deluding.

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    16. She diagnosed herself. You cannot escape that FACT.

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    17. Funny, but I missed the bipolar confession.

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    18. What do you think "cyclical depression" means?

      From NIMH.gov:

      "Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks. There are four basic types of bipolar disorder; all of them involve clear changes in mood, energy, and activity levels."

      The word cyclical means that her mood states change, the depression comes and goes. That is the essence of the definition.

      She diagnosed herself. Whether she is correct or not is a different matter. I think she is not but you tell me I have no basis for that judgment.

      It is a shame that she does not believe in talking therapies, since they can be very effective in treating depression, including organic mood disorders that have a chemical basis.

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    19. Excessive literalism is also a sign of mental illness or brain injury. This troll is looking for a quote where Maddows says "I have bipolar depression" and if she didn't say it exactly that way then Maddow never confessed to any struggle.

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    20. "Note that she does not use any medically recognizable term."

      Noted.

      "Cyclothymic depression would fit the adjective "cyclical" but that isn't what she means from her description."

      So she doesn't mean the first part of what you need for you diagnosis.

      "She is careful to disavow mania yet she talks about adrenaline."

      She doesn't admit to the manic part, and she responds to the direct question of Terry Gross. which included reference to adrenaline in the broadcasts.

      "Also, she herself has stated that she is bipolar. That's an Axis I major mental illness."

      You are full of shit.

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  5. Thank you for bringing this deception to light. I agree that it is never okay to mislead or lie, in the service of a good cause or otherwise. Of course, if I didn't agree, I wouldn't be a faithful reader of The Howler.

    I do want to speak up, however, for the relative handful of Republican elected officials who held principled stands in support of reproductive rights, and voting accordingly without exception. Representative Jim Greenwood, Senator Jim Jeffords, and Senator Olympia Snowe come immediately to mind.

    I think it is worth pointing out, too, that in practical policy terms, there's no way to enforce an abortion ban with exceptions for rape and incest. We have no "fast track" legal process for determining whether a girl or woman has been raped in time for her to abort in the first or second trimester - and heaven knows these people won't take her word for it. Even if a patient were allowed to simply vouch that she had been raped, few doctors would be willing to perform the procedure if they thought after-the-fact court proceedings might invalidate the claim of rape, thus making the abortion prohibited. I would also think that prosecutors would be loathe to follow through on rape allegations if the victim has an abortion, as the defense would allege that as the motive for bringing false charges.

    My point here is to say that while it is true that many of our fellow citizens hold the position of 'illegal except for rape and incest,' few of them have thought through what it would mean to enforce such a law. And that's understandable - thinking through all the implications of a policy isn't their job.

    But it is the job of an elected official, and especially a governor and candidate for POTUS. It is in this respect that Kasich distinguishes himself as particularly craven.

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    1. These considerations also apply to second guessing doctors about whether a woman's life us endangered by her pregnancy. If you believe it would be wrong to compel delivery under true cases if incest or rape and there is no way to determine official certainty, the decision must be left to the individual (benefit of the doubt) because the alternative reinjures a victim. Our legal system has always decided uncertain cases that way -- presumed innocence. Kasich and others are engaged in actively subverting the law, one based on core principles of our justice system. That is worse than craven.

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    2. Not only that, but you get to Chris Matthews' famous question of Donald Trump. If you make abortion illegal, who goes to jail?

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  6. This week alone, 16,000 words, 52 pages on how terrible Maddow is. 85% of it is a repetition of what was said before, even in virtually identical language. The work of a crank, or what?

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    1. Well, Bob has certainly appeals to the audience that thinks the No. 1 problem in the world today is Rachel Maddow. And he has thrown them red meat every day this week, sometimes twice a day, and on many, many days before this week as well.

      Their numbers must be legion. Probably well into the dozens.

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    2. I think you should invite KZ into this discussion too. It is Sunday and the trinity is incomplete without him.

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    3. 10 words or 20 million, the point remains regrettably valid and unimpeached.

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    4. It's a critique of liberal/"high end media", not an effort to determine the world's #1 problem, in that, Maddow is a legitimate topic.

      I agree she does a worse than poor job representing a liberal perspective on behalf of NBC and their corporate conglomerate owners.

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  7. Did Bob leave his kitchen to pen this effort to ensure fairness for another Republican Governor unfairly attacked by the vile Maddow?

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    1. You seem to think Maddow is being unfairly attacked by the vile Somerby. I think that makes you a yuge chump.

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    2. Stick to making Sanders supporters with as small a mind as yours mad until November.

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    3. Sanders supporters are claiming that Clinton "wants war with Iran" and that she will be indicted as a result of the FBI investigation of her and the Clinton Foundation. Do you suppose Clinton supporters are made joyful by this sort of garbage -- which comes straight from Karl Rove?

      I wonder how Clinton's negatives stay as low as they are with Sanders people saying such things about them on every blog that allows comments?

      Who has a mind small enough to believe such stuff? If they don't themselves believe it, who is so lacking in principles that they would spread this against the nominal Democratic presidential nominee? Sanders doesn't care because he will go back to Vermont and live happily ever after. The rest of us will be stuck with the results of his folly, whether it is Cruz or Trump or Romney.

      You can needle the Clinton people here but you cannot outvote them. You can only sabotage the campaign and give the election to the Republicans. What a slimy goal!

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  8. In Bob's latest chapter in "Week Before Last with Rachel Maddow" Our Own Minor Blogging Star covered a number of failings in Rachel Maddow coverage in a segment concerning Governor John Kasich.

    Of course Bob's prologue was as long as a Maddow prologue, but after 40% of his post had been written he finally expressed his first objection:

    "Question: As liberals and progressives, are we comfortable when a multimillionaire corporate employee throws around language like that?

    We think the use of language like that betrays extremely bad judgment."

    Apparently the use of lanbguage offended Bob's devolving wrinkled white man's ascot.

    He couldn't pleasure himself on other mistakes before popping his wad on the off color and skin color references.

    It is moments like these, when Bob pimps proper prose,that have led many to call him the Friar.

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    1. Time for you to leave your keyboard and go pleasure yourself in another part of your basement.

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  9. Who needs another stupid TV show to loathe Republicans?

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  10. Obsessively BobistApril 25, 2016 at 9:37 AM

    Before you leave this wonderful piece of work, ponder one more way in which it illustrates past Somerby lessons.

    Hear Bob denounce the spinning power of pluralization, from a rant less than two weeks old:

    "There it is—the power of pluralization! One past statement from 1996 might seem a bit slight as a spur to furious discussion. For that reason, let's stick an "s" on the end! Let's turn one statement into "past statements," with a good solid "s" on the end!"

    Bob Somerby, attacking the New York Times for use of the plural once in an editorial to imply Hillary Clinton did something more than once.

    http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2016/04/assistantassociate-professor-watch-94.html

    Here he is, using pluralization not once, not twice, but three times to set up an attack on Maddow for getting a date wrong.

    "We're treated to facts which are grossly selective. We're treated to facts which are false....
    Theoretically, we aren't allowed to invent fake facts..."

    That said, when Bob gets to the actual attack he starts pulling his plural punches:

    "Her demonstration was based on selective facts, and on one fact which was false."

    Since the mistake is the date, 2013 instead of 2011, is this a "false" fact or a "wrong" fact? Certainly the error in the date does nothing to mislead any viewer about a further point.

    But what are the selective facts? That this was a budget bill, not primarily an abortion bill? That is one. Where are the others to make up Bob's use of the plural? Bob would have you think it is the Medicaid restriction veto Maddow does not mention.
    Is that "selective use?" She didn't use a thing. If it is, given that it was a 5,000 page budget bill, and Bob mentioned one thing Maddow left out, didn't Bob himself use "selective facts" himself by leaving out things on at lest 4,999 other pages?

    Our Bob. Able to demonstrate how immoral and insane others are by lying like himself?

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    1. No, the "mistake" is pulling a photo from the wrong year in order to portray Kasich as more heinous (because a child was part of that picture, making Kasich look more mendacious). You keep insisting this was a simple error in which Maddow got the year wrong. It wasn't. She deliberately pulled a photo from the wrong year to make Kasich look uglier. And yes, that is selective use.

      You cannot know what was in Maddow's mind when she did that. You insist that the date was the mistake, not the deliberate use of an incorrect photo. That puts the best spin on things because then she had the correct photo but just wrote the wrong year. But in that case, she also portrayed a budget bill as an abortion bill, leaving out the facts about what the bill actually was about. You cannot have this both ways. You do not explain why, if she just got the year wrong, she also blatantly misrepresented the nature of the bill being signed. Somerby didn't do that -- Maddow did.

      The larger question is why you are contorting yourself and the facts into a pretzel to defend Maddow when she so little deserves it.

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    2. You tiny minded idiot. Maddow pulled a picture from the 2013 budget bill signing because the 2013 bill had the abortion rstrictions in it. She called it 2011.

      The larger question is why you are contorting yourself to defend Bob for doing what he said the New York Times did. Or for what he says Maddow did. I was not defending Maddow or the New York Times, just pointing out that crazy Bob, who is obsessed with Maddow, does exactly the same things he rants about others doing.

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    3. Dave the Guitar PlayerApril 25, 2016 at 1:30 PM

      If you come here to get the facts from Bob, you are mistaken. Bob is not a journalist and has never claimed to be one. However, the New York Times and Maddow do pretend to be journalists and are very much in the public discourse. They deserve the criticism they get here and comparing Bob's behavior to theirs is simply misdirection. Get over your loathing of Bob and direct your attention to the media types who are the subject of this blog.

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    4. I would assume it would be fair to call you a guitar player even if you did not use it in your nym. Bob is a journalist because he writes and publishes a named journal usually six days a week. Just because he is a bad one doesn't mean he isn't trying.

      Do you want to argue he is not a reporter?

      No argument from me. Neither is Rachel the broadcast infotainer or the editorial writers from the New York Times.

      Bob attacking people for doing exactly what
      he himslef does is not journalism either. It is hypocrisy.

      And lets get two more things straight for those who defend Bob. Noting what Bob does is not a comparison to anyone. Noting what Bob does is not a defense of anyone.

      If Bob wrote a blog complaining about people letting their dog dump on the sidewalk, taking note that Bob is crapping on the pavement while ranting about dogs is not a defense of dog shit or even dog owners.

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    5. @12:40

      Maddow may have used the wrong date, but she also characterized a budget bill as an anti-abortion bill and then claimed that the young boy depicted in the photo was being taught how to subjugate women. That's not a tiny mistake in a date. It is propagandizing.

      I disagree that Somerby does the same thing as Maddow or the NY Times. I disagree that he is a journalist just because he has a blog. Blogs, especially vanity blogs, are reflections of the authors' opinions and feelings, their subjective experience and views on a topic. They are not objective factual reporting of news events -- which is what journalists are trained to produce. Journalism requires a degree and has professional ethics. Journalists get paid because they provide a skilled service. Maddow has explicitly stated on many occasions that she is a journalist. It is her profession.

      I've got news for you -- everyone is a hypocrite by your standards. So what? The things you point out have nothing to do with Somerby's arguments or with anything germane to other commenters.

      With Zika around, I think it is in poor taste to call anyone a tiny-minded idiot these days. You want to watch that.

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  11. My husband broke up with me last week, i was so frustrated and i could not know what next to do again, i love my husband so much but he was cheating on me with another woman and this makes him broke up with me so that he can be able to get marry to the other lady and this lady i think use witchcraft on my husband to make him hate me and my kids and this was so critical and uncalled-for,I cry all day and night for God to send me a helper to get back my man until i went to NY to see a friend and who was having the same problem with me but she latter got her Husband back and i asked her how she was able to get her husband back and she told me that their was a powerful spell caster in Africa name Dr.Unity that he help with love spell in getting back lost lover back and i decided to contacted the same Dr.Unity and he told me what is needed to be done for me to have my man back and i did it although i doubted it but i did it and the Dr told me that i will get the result after 48hours, and he told me that my husband was going to call me by 9pm in my time and i still doubted his word, to my surprise my husband really called me and told me that he miss me so much, Oh My God i was so happy, and today i am happy with my man again and we are joyfully living together as one good family and i thank the powerful spell caster Dr.Unity of Unityspelltemple@gmail.com , he is so powerful and i decided to share my story on the internet that good spell casters still exist and Dr.Unity is one of the good spell caster who i will always pray to live long to help his children in the time of trouble, if you are there and your lover is turning you down, or you have your husband moved to another woman, do not cry anymore contact the powerful spell caster Dr.Unity on his email: Unityspelltemple@gmail.com .if you have any problem contact Dr.Unity, i give you 100% guarantee that he will help you. Thank you sooooo much!!!

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