FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2026
...before heading off to the mission: We'll be spending the bulk of the day at the medical mission. For that reason, we don't expect to execute a normal report this day.
That said, we stumbled upon some comic relief in the course of our daily perusals. We start with a passage from Michelle Goldberg's new column for the New York Times.
What ever happened to Tucker Carlson? (Tucker Carlson! Remember him?)
What ever happened to Tucker? As happenstance would have it, the New Yorker's Jason Zengerle has published a book on that topic.
Goldberg discusses that book in her column. We can't vouch for the perfect accuracy of the suggestion housed in this passage, but we did find some dark humor there:
Tucker Carlson Needs His Hatreds
[...]
In 2010, [Tucker] set out to create, with The Daily Caller, a right-wing news site that would value serious, substantive reporting. Unfortunately, he soon found that his audience wanted not sober policy journalism but stories that “actively antagonized liberals,” Zengerle writes. So Carlson, committed to the site’s success, staffed up with a group of white nationalists, one of whom reportedly referred to his desk as “the Eagle’s Nest,” after Hitler’s mountain lair.
Carlson’s immersion in The Daily Caller’s analytics helped him understand, well before many of his peers, Trump’s potential appeal. His insight enabled his rise at Fox News, where he’d started as a low-level contributor. “The project at Fox of trying to find normal-seeming, television-camera-ready human beings who would make a sensible case for Donald Trump was not a small lift,” a former Fox producer told Zengerle. Carlson could do it, and that propelled him to prime time.
In such ways, the prophet Carlson roamed the American desert. At any rate, Carlson ascended to prime time at Fox--and he became the channel's top messenger.
In the aftermath of January 6, he devoted himself to a project in which he played highly selective video clips from the Capitol building that day. Those clips were selected to convey the impression, to millions of viewers, that nothing untoward had occurred.
So goes our imperfect species' recurrent, insistent madness. That said, a bit of comic relief was present in that anonymous quote about Fox:
The project at Fox of trying to find normal-seeming, television-camera-ready human beings who would make a sensible case for Donald Trump was not a small lift.
According to Zengerle, so said a former producer for Fox. On this campus, we mordantly chuckled, for the following reason:
On occasion, we ourselves have described the people we see on Fox News Channel shows as a collection of "Unrecognizables!" Some say they resemble the bar scene from Star Wars, though we ourselves wouldn't say that.
Borrowing from the late Ed McMahon, How unrecognizable are they? We ask you to ponder this fact:
Yesterday, we managed to sit through every segment of The Five, this former nation's most watched "cable news" TV program. We're not sure we've ever seen an hour so insipid, so defiantly vapid.
("And yet, this is [us]," Ezra Pound might have said.)
We may try to describe the vapidity of that hour in the next few days. Meanwhile, a bit more comic relief may have lurked in this news report from today's Times:
Greenlanders Watching Turmoil in the United States Say No Thanks
[...]
The United States defended Greenland during World War II and the Cold War, and Greenlanders used to see Americans as protectors. But now the idea of joining up with the United States—a deeply divided nation with no universal health care, widening inequality and chaos on full display in the streets of Minneapolis—is not so appealing.
“What are we supposed to think of the U.S. now?” asked Julie Rademacher, who heads a Greenlandic association in Denmark. She said she too had been disturbed by the news from Minnesota.
“I feel a lot of sympathy with many American citizens,” she said. “It must be hard to live like that.”
Those Greenlanders today! Truly, they live at the end of the earth—and yet, they feel sorry for us!
For ourselves, we can't shed the feeling that the recurrent impulse toward tyranny has already won in this land. According to that theoretic, it's all over now but the shouting—and there's plenty of that down here!
With that, we're "going out to clean the pasture spring," or to do something vaguely like that. We may try to describe yesterday's (all too recognizable) hour in the days and the weeks ahead.
Anyone who isn't a bigot, or isn't perfectly fine with bigotry, left the Republican Party over a quarter of a century ago.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete"What ever happened to Tucker?"
Well, he's been doing the best, most interesting interviews with the most interesting people on Earth. That's all.
But of course you, like a true BlueAnon, would rather listen to nytimes' Soros-monkeys. Oh well. Whatever turns you on, I guess...
"Greenlanders Watching Turmoil in the United States Say No Thanks"
That would be an interesting topic, actually. We don't see them Greenlanders on TV protesting, do we? And why is that?
The cat-lady "who heads a Greenlandic association in Denmark" aside, it seems like Greenlanders don't feel anti-American or Trump-phobic.
But of course the Soros-monkeys inside you head will never tell you that, Bob. Oh well.
Get back to raping children, RINO.
Delete"..it seems like Greenland ers don't feel ...Trump-phobic." You think they don't dislike Trump over there, MAGAt? That red cap of yours may be on a little too tight.
Delete"it seems like Greenlanders don't feel anti-American or Trump-phobic."
DeleteDuh. Doieee. U R Stoopid:
"polls from early 2025/2026 indicate that an overwhelming majority of Greenlanders, approximately 85%, oppose becoming part of the United States and instead prefer to remain with Denmark or pursue independence."
“In 2010, [Tucker] set out to create, with The Daily Caller, a right-wing news site that would value serious, substantive reporting. Unfortunately, he soon found that his audience wanted not sober policy journalism but stories that “actively antagonized liberals,”
ReplyDeleteSame scenario as to your anonymouse critics, Bob. Keep ignoring them. Never give in.
Carlson's disordered contempt for the people he thinks of as women was rarely disguised on his relentlessly dimwitted TV show. That said, it's hard to understand how any intelligent person's attitudes in this area can be as deeply disordered as Carlson's seem to be.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:27am, Carlson has to be open about it. He can’t call women trannytrolls and then lecture on sexism. - anonymously . Anonymices know they have it all over Tucker there.
DeleteRihard Carlson's "lonely boy" engages in deep stupidication pretty much every night.
Delete“Lost boy”, lonely boy.
DeleteCecelia, why did you get up early to discuss this? Carlson is a waste of everyone's time. Important things happened today but this is what you and Somerby focus on? There is something wrong with both of you.
DeleteNight after night, the angry Carlson performed a virtual parody of logic- and evidence-based analysis. Is it possible that something is "wrong" with this very strange, very angry, deeply entitled fellow?
DeleteCarlson has never pretended to be anything other than what he obviously was. Unlike Somerby and Cecelia.
DeleteCarlson and Somerby are both nepo-babies, born into money that has enabled them to spread their filthy ideas while having full attention focused on themselves, doing nothing to make this a better world. How is anything they have done any kind of accomplishment under those circumstances?
DeleteNobody expects Bob to change, his condition is baked in and deeply rooted, we all understand that.
DeleteWhat drives this strange man-pretending-to-be-a-woman nuts is that Bob is unable to get his worldview to gain any traction, that Bob has been exposed for who he really is.
As frustrating as it is for these sad lost souls, being inauthentic these days is harder to conceal and easier for everyone to see.
It is tragic to observe these people driven to such bitterness and such hateful rages, something that emerges from the darkness of their backgrounds that they had little control over.
Trump comments on the latest deranged psychopath communist Democrat martyr
ReplyDelete“Alex Pretti's stock has gone WAY DOWN with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer…”
“It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”
Except no one sees this as a black mark against Pretti except right wing propagandists. Getting angry is not punishable by death in our country. What is wrong with you assholes?
DeleteIt comes as no surprise that Trump is an asshole, and he likes to remind us of it every day.
DeletePretti is not a martyr. He is a victim of targeted ICE terrorism. Pretti did not choose to be shot (which would make him a martyr). He was trying to help others on the street when ICE shot him multiple times in the back. That is murder and we do not call murder victims martyrs because they did not choose to be killed. Words have meanings.
DeleteGetting so angry you resist arrest and accidentally show your gun and make officers fear imminent injury or death is indeed legally punishable by death. Furthermore the burden of proof is on you to prove they did not have a reasonable fear when they became aware he was armed as he violently resisted, which you will never do. So yes, it is punishable by death.
DeleteWhat part of "legal use of lethal force" confuse you idiots? The law doesn't care that the deranged psycho in the videos used to be employed as a nurse who was around veterans, which is frightening.
DeleteYour stupidity makes me fear imminent injury to our country. Can I legally kill you?
DeleteDon Lemon has been arrested and is in federal custody. His lawyer says agents picked him up in Los Angeles as he was trying to go to the Grammy Awards. I can't stop laughing.
ReplyDeleteWhat the fuck is wrong with you?
Delete
DeleteIt is good, I love it.
Lock 'em up, Donald, lock 'em up.
Lock him up. Teach them they can't invade churches which they hate.
Delete
DeleteUnfortunately, if he is convicted, he will probably love it in jail. He is a homo, isn't he? Like every other Democrat.
And Scott Bessent. He's a homo too. Don't forget him.
DeleteMy God, Bondi is fucking out of her mind. This is free speech party, right, maggot?
DeleteTriggered, Hillary?
DeleteScott Bessent never talks about being a homo.
Delete11:38 is the level of debate we get now on TDH. Good job, Bob. You really attract the lowest of the low maggot slugs.
DeleteThe ex-CNN anchor's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy Awards.
Delete"Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case,' Lowell said. "This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand.
"Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court," Lowell added.
Communist New York Mayor Mamdani murdered 10 homeless people during the freeze. Scumbag.
ReplyDeleteMayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration ordered city cops and sanitation workers to stop tearing down homeless encampments just weeks before 10 people were found dead outdoors during the Arctic deep freeze, The Post has learned.
The order, which came shortly after the democratic socialist took office, left responsibility with the camps for the ill-equipped Department of Homeless Services who were caught flatfooted for the task with little guidance from the administration, sources revealed Wednesday
Global warming caused this change in climate, not Mamdani.
DeleteLiberal morality says we should let the homeless freeze in the streets because climate change.
DeleteDon't be ridiculous. All the right wing trolls are back. Why does Somerby let these people or bots disrupt discussion on his blog? Too lazy to figure out how to block them?
DeleteHillary Clinton tells it like it is, in an article in Atlantic, but Somerby wants to discuss Tucker Carlson? What is wrong with Somerby?
ReplyDeleteSomerby finds "comic relief" in today's news. The people of Minnesota, not so much:
ReplyDelete"let’s get real: Minneapolis is still a war zone, because Tommy Cash-Bags wants it that way
meet the new boss...
Jeff Tiedrich
Jan 30
hey, remember when Obergruppenführer Greg Bovino got his freakishly undersized ass stuffed into a shoebox and mailed back to where he came from?
remember how his replacement, Tom Homan, immediately put an end to the Itsy-Bitsy Nazi’s lawless fuckery? remember what happened next? who could ever forget how Minnesota was overrun by fluffy bunnies with rainbows shooting out of their adorable butts.
of course you don’t remember any of that shit. neither do I.
and neither does Minnesota Senator Tina Smith.
“there is real harm that is unfolding in Minnesota as we speak. nothing has changed on the ground even though President Trump sent Homan to Minnesota.”
Senator Smith is right. nothing has changed in Minneapolis — except we’ve traded a trigger-happy psychopath who loves to get his hands dirty for a trigger-happy psychopath who leaves the trigger-pulling to others.
as Pete Townshend so wisely counseled us, ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss.’"
It is nice of Somerby to promote that new book about Tucker Carlson, suggesting it is humorous so lots of people will buy it to read the "jokes". There is something wrong with Somerby if he finds anything about our current situation remotely funny. And no, being a former standup does not entitle him to laugh at the troubles of other people, whether Carlson or the people of Minnesota or Don Lemon's arrest (Somerby used to trash Don Lemon regularly) or the death of democracy (which Somerby proclaimed a done deal before Trump was even reelected). So much "humor" in the news that it is hard to know what to discuss first, says Somerby this morning.
ReplyDeleteLaughing at tragic things is part of the cruelty described by Hillary Clinton in her Atlantic article. It shows the lack of empathy the right has been cultivating. Somerby shares that lack of empathy. Perhaps it is part of his narcissism, or perhaps he too is trying to show strength, or maybe he just wants the MAGA lost boys to like him better, or maybe he just shits on everything for the money. Hard to know, and of course, there may be multiple reason, but Somerby is as far from a liberal as it is possible to be without becoming a parody of a MAGA asshole.
Is there some reason why Somerby refers to his own medical treatment as a "mission"? I hope he feels better, but missionaries usually are there to help other people, not receive help from others. Is Somerby suggesting that he is gracing doctors with his presence? Whatever floats his boat, but it is another abuse of meaning from a man who now lives solely to propagandize for the wrong team.
mission -- definition:
"1. an important assignment carried out for political, religious, or commercial purposes, typically involving travel.
2. the vocation or calling of a religious organization, especially a Christian one, to go out into the world and spread its faith."
Democrats defining issue is the legal right to butcher almost a million children a year and Hillary dedicated her life to making sure it continues. No one thinks they are anything but deranged sociopaths with zero empathy.
DeleteWhere is the empathy in letting women die in emergency rooms because doctors in MAGA states are afraid to treat them for miscarriage because they might be prosecuted for abortion? Where is the empathy among men (they are nearly always men) who consider a fetus more important than the mother?
DeleteThere is no law preventing such treatments whether or not a doctor imagined there was. So one death caused by a mistake versus half a million lives saved so far by restrictions after Roe. Your argument is those children should be dead because a doctor made a mistake.
Delete"It is nice of Somerby to promote that new book about Tucker Carlson, suggesting it is humorous so lots of people will buy it to read the "jokes"."
DeleteNominations for the stupidest comment in January are almost closed. Above we have our front runner.
The half million children who were not permitted to be murdered by abortion doctors are in their cribs or pre schools today. We saved their lives. You fought to have them executed. Yes they are more important than the risk that a doctor would misunderstand the law and make a mistake. All moral people understand this.
DeleteYou "saved their lives" at what cost? How many will require massive medical attention for the rest of their lives (however short that may be)? How many will have the love and attention they deserve when their mothers were inseminated by rape or incest, or at too young an age to know how to be mothers? How many are born into extreme poverty where they will suffer? If you do not admit such considerations, you are merely forcing women to give birth regardless of their circumstances, perhaps as punishment for having sex, without any thought for the lives of those you are "saving". But you know all this. It is not important to you because all you want is to make sure women don't make their own decisions.
DeleteLookee how the anti-abortion troll manages to hijack the comments in an entirely unrelated discussion. Why don't you guys get a life, instead of ruining other people's lives? These anti-abortion extremists are always men. What does that tell you about the issue?
DeleteWell, I bet that Somerby would discuss Colby Hall's opinion piece at Mediaite. I guess he doesn't have time today. Perhaps he will get to it tomorrow. Today he is busy promoting the new book about Tucker Carlson. Does he realize that a book like that is going to have only a MAGA audience. Left wingers are not going to read it, any more than we are going to attend the Melania movie. Why is Somerby discussing the reading habits of right wing pseudo-intellectuals? We read different books over here in blue America.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it mean to be "highly selective"? Carlson showed videos of peaceful 1/6 demonstrators. Well, perhaps 90% of the demonstrators were peaceful. How can it be highly selective to focus on the majority?
ReplyDeleteThe numbers are even more extreme in the case of ICE. ICE mishandled at least a couple of dozen detentions in MN, including the tragic deaths. Some were partially the fault of outside interference, but set that aside. And, there must be other badly handled situations by ICE in addition to the dozens reported. Assume the total is 100 to include unreported incidents in MN and elsewhere. No, let's assume it's 1000! Well ICE had 600,000 successful detentions without incident. So the problematic ones were only 0.17%. Yet there's been no coverage of the 99.83% that well well. That's what I call highly selective reporting.
go take a flying fuck, dickhead in cal, you fucking fascist freak. go crawl back under your rock
DeleteThere is a similarity between David's numbers game and that of the anti-abortion troll. How many peaceful demonstrators on 1/6 excuse one killer? How many maternal deaths excuse forced births? Is it OK to kill baby Hitler if it would save 6 million Jews?
DeleteWhy not focus on humane and effective procedures for all instead of posing these bizarre exercises in lack of empathy. David in particular needs to read HIllary's essay in Atlantic.
Well, perhaps 90% of the demonstrators were peaceful. How can it be highly selective to focus on the majority?
DeleteThat's a really ironic statement coming from someone who incessantly focuses on a very tiny minority of immigrants -- smaller than native-born Americans -- who commit crime.
But if you want me to explain why it's only newsworthy to focus on a very large group of people who were looking to subvert the election and assaulted the capitol police, I will be happy to do that. Perhaps, you can discern it for yourself.
Here’s an analogy, Dic: Most children in the US do not get measles. Why selectively report so much on the ones who do, representing the largest outbreak in 25 years?
DeleteVance declared that ICE/CBP have absolute immunity. As far as I know, no investigation is being done into the killing of Renee Good, and there may or may not be some sham investigation into the Alex Pretti killing. Plus, there have been thousands of “mistakes” made by ICE, as well as unconstitutional actions. Since the admin isn’t really trying to rein in their agents, then reporting these abuses is the only way the public hears about them, and it is the only way to try to stop these abuses through public and political pressure. Otherwise, we live in a police state run by an authoritarian government, something you once feared, DiC.
Humane effective procedures are to not end the lives of our fellow humans at their youngest ages in the womb because they are inconvenient.
Delete"We may try to describe yesterday's (all too recognizable) hour in the days and the weeks ahead. "
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up.