TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2026
...a certain problem emerged: We're so old that we can remember when Iran was still in the news.
That takes us back to last Saturday morning. The war with Iran hadn't yet ended. The Strait of Hormuz was still blocked, upending the global economy.
Vaguely, we can remember all that! But those news topics disappeared in the wake of Cole Allen's alleged attempt to storm the White House Correspondents Dinner last Saturday night.
There we the people went again! Our news agenda was hijacked by the latest attempt at a mass shooting. Also, this mass shooting would have been political in nature—and so, we the people began to react.
We the people began to react at 7 o'clock on Sunday morning with some rather peculiar calls to C-Span's Washington Journal. We'll offer examples of those calls in tomorrow morning's report—but first, we the people began to hear from our major journalists, and it got dumb very fast.
It got dumb extremely fast—and this is who we are.
For starters, consider this report from Mediaite. It concerns a comment which was made shortly after midnight on that very Saturday night
‘Tone Down The Flipping Rhetoric!’ John Roberts Rips Hakeem Jeffries For Comments After WHCD
Fox News anchor John Roberts admonished House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for comments he made after the shooting incident at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Roberts was at the event at the Washington Hilton when a gunman ran through the magnetometer and fired shots before being tackled by security. One Secret Service agent was saved when his bulletproof vest caught the shooter’s round.
President Donald Trump, Melania Trump, and Trump officials were safely ushered out of the venue.
Roberts told host Trace Gallagher that future correspondents’ dinners “need to have Trump-level security.”
That's the way the report begins—and so far, so basically good!
Many people have voiced concern with the level of security at the dinner. But Roberts didn't leave it at that. Speaking to Gallagher on the Fox News Channel, the Fox News anchor said this:
[continuing directly]
“And then again, you know, we heard from Hakeem Jeffries just before you and I came on together. And he said, ‘Oh, we are so happy nobody was hurt.’ Well, you know, then to down the flipping rhetoric!
“You might not like the guy,” Roberts said of Trump. “You might not be able to stand him. But you call him Hitler, you call him a fascist, you call him all of these things. You call him a threat to democracy. Some lunatic out there is going to take that language to heart, that rhetoric to heart.”
“And feel emboldened!” Gallagher agreed.
In our view, Gallagher tends to be a bit of an agitprop machine. Before we consider what Roberts said, let's consider his background, and his deep experience.
John Roberts is Canadian by birth. Like Gallagher, he's a good and decent person—and he's highly experienced:
John Roberts (journalist)
John David Roberts (born November 15, 1956) is a Canadian-American television journalist. He has been working for the Fox News Channel, as the co-anchor of America Reports. Roberts joined Fox News in January 2011 as a national correspondent based in Atlanta. He was the Fox News Chief White House Correspondent from 2017 to 2021, covering the first Donald Trump presidency.
...Roberts first moved to the States in 1989 to join the Miami CBS affiliate. In 1990, he returned to Canada to host the CTV Canada AM national morning show. Roberts then returned to the States, joining CBS News in 1992 and later moved to CNN in 2006. At CBS, Roberts was an anchor on various national news programs, an anchor at their New York affiliate WCBS-TV, and White House correspondent. At CNN, Roberts was an anchor and Senior National Correspondent.
[...]
He had been widely considered a potential replacement for CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather after Rather stepped down from the anchor desk in March 2005, but Bob Schieffer was chosen on an interim basis to be the next CBS Evening News anchor, and in subsequent months, it became clear that Roberts was not under consideration for the job. During his time at CBS, Roberts received three nationals Emmy awards as well as a Gracie award for his coverage of a groundbreaking surgery to repair neural tube defects.
At CBS, Roberts had been a contender! That said, he has performed at the highest levels in American broadcast news—for CBS, CNN and the Fox News Channel—for more than thirty years.
He's deeply experienced, and he's a good and decent person. Despite all that, Roberts now blurted this:
“You might not like the guy. You might not be able to stand him. But you call him Hitler, you call him a fascist, you call him all of these things. You call him a threat to democracy. Some lunatic out there is going to take that language to heart, that rhetoric to heart."
Speaking with Gallagher just after midnight, Roberts fashioned the assailant as "a lunatic." Presumably, that may mean he thinks the assailant is "mentally ill" in some way.
We'd be inclined to think that some such mental health problem does obtain.
Roberts seemed to be angry—upset. Stating the obvious, what happened last Saturday night was upsetting for many people—yes, that does include us.
That said, Roberts almost seemed to be angry at Hakeem Jeffries for saying he was glad that no one got hurt. And then, the experienced newsman emitted a familiar type of rant, in the course of which he even offered this:
If you think a president is a threat to democracy, you shouldn't actually say it!
Roberts emitted a standard Fox News Channel presentation, in which he seemed to suggest—offering no examples—that Jeffries has been calling President Trump "Hitler" and "a fascist." By now, everyone within the reach of the Fox News Channel has offered some version of that general rant, often accompanied by tightly edited video clips in which no such statement is made.
We rarely (if ever) see the sitting president referred to as a "Hitler." That said, we hear constant allegations to that effect by stars on the Fox News Channel.
Imagine! According to Roberts, you can think that a president poses some such threat, but you must never say it! A lunatic may hear you say it and decide to show up with a gun!
To some extent, what Roberts said is of course perfectly accurate. In a nation of roughly 340 million people, including more than 200 million people ages 18-65, any criticism of a public figure may inspire some (one) unbalanced person to react in a violent way.
There's no avoiding that possibility—and a resort to gun violence has become a national norm over the past 27 years, dating to the mass shooting at Colorado's Columbine High.
It's true! If you criticize a sitting president, a disordered person may react in a disordered way. But in that part of Roberts' statement—the part about the threat to democracy—Roberts was basically saying that we the people can't be allowed to criticize a president at all.
That struck us as an extremely strange remark, from a deeply experienced person. Roberts made the comment shortly after midnight. Seven hours later, the calls to C-Span began.
Roberts is a good, decent person. That said, he made a remark that evening which strikes us as very dumb.
As he made that odd remark, then as the calls to C-Span came in, a dirty little secret was put on display:
Even as we seek "a more perfect Union," we the people just aren't extremely sharp—and we never have been!
Quite often, that's true of us the people in Blue America. It's also true of them the people who tend to align as Red.
Tomorrow: Washington Journal takes phone calls from us the people, Blue as well as Red
The Right has always wanted a country where everyone gets a participation trophy, no matter how badly they do their job.
ReplyDeleteTrump is closing America's strategic "Children dying from measles gap" with other shit hole countries.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely going to turn it around for republicans. That and the taxpayers being on the hook for the ballroom.
ReplyDeleteSomerby thinks people react emotionally, and simplistically to crises, leading public discussions to devolve into partisan blame over political rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteWhat an asshole.
This is not a crisis for Democrats.
DeleteIt is not a crisis for anybody.
DeleteHaving said that, 11:16 makes a good point about how those on the right tend to infantilize the public in order to push their agenda.
The elephant in the room is that it is almost open season on conservatives. A large percentage of liberals applaud attacks on conservatives. Instead of horror and disgust, the attacks are met with approval or justification or acceptance. Nicer liberals merely downplay or normalize them. E.g., Bob downplays, calling it, "Cole Allen's alleged attempt to storm the White House Correspondents Dinner." In fact, Allen's writings show that he was not just "storming," he was trying to kill Trump AND kill other leading Republicans.
ReplyDeleteGo take a flying fuck, dickhead, fascist asshole
DeleteThe elephant (DiC) in the room (TDH) is “We'd be inclined to think that some such mental health problem does obtain.”
DeleteThe federal government quietly awarded a no-bid contract — with a massively inflated price tag — to one of President Donald Trump’s favorite construction firms, according to a new report, which the president has strongly disputed.
DeleteBecause fuck us, what are we going to do about it.
The elephant in the room is dickhead's claim that the orange Tyrant is handing us a golden ballroom for free, the fucking imbecile.
David in Cal,
DeleteIn your opinion, why is it you never hear anyone on the Right say that the 2nd Amendment was given to us by the Founding Father to fight government tyranny?
Any Conservative who doesn't want to be shot to death by a liberal, just needs to stop turning the wheel in our direction to hit us with their car.
DeleteProblem solved.
Yes, @11:44 I agree that "some such mental health problem does obtain.” That's only 1/3 of the story. The second 1/3 is that continual repetition of wildly exaggerated criticisms of Trump and other conservatives inspire the occasional madman to commit murder. The final 1/3 is that liberals and their media allies studiously ignore what's happening, or even celebrate it.
DeleteIf you want to live in the most populated Christian nation in the world, you need to accept that it is ultra-violent.
Delete"Love it or leave it", as my fellow countrymen on the Right say.
DeleteStick those phony fractions up your decrepit mendacious ass, dickhead.
DeleteI just paid near $4:50/gal for gas this morning, fuckface
David in Cal,
DeleteYou make it sound like speaking in exaggerations in order to make a point is a bad thing.
Cole Allen was shrewdly using an "Art of the Deal" tactic, to bring Trump and the Republican Party to the negotiating table with the American people.
DeleteI have no idea what “open season on conservatives” means.
DeleteWhat our foreign troll - in conjunction with the blogger - is trying to convey is that Republicans are snowflakes and therefore we have to show a little sensitivity as Republicans rob us blind.
Delete"Open season" is a hunting metaphor. https://www.ilearntohunt.com/blog/open-season-hunting-what-does-it-mean/
Delete"dolt" is a stupid, foolish person.
Deletehttps://www.dictionary.com/browse/dolt
I know what open season means. How does it apply to conservatives? Are you saying liberals have declared open season, intending to kill conservatives? (Keeping in mind that Allen was likely mentally ill. )
Delete"t is almost open season on conservatives."
DeleteCite?
"A large percentage of liberals applaud attacks on conservatives."
Cite?
The elephant in the room is that you constantly make shit up.
Despite corporate media's selective coverage, the fact remains that the vast majority - over 75% - of political violence comes from the right (and the SPLC has played a major role in fighting right wing violence).
DeleteRemember, Republicans recently had a good chuckle over those legislators in MN being killed.
It was funny to them.
They laughed about it.
So now when they try to lecture us, they have zero credibility.
The truth is, and this really kills them, most Americans would be happy with Trump no longer being alive, regardless of how that happens.
“Storming” is the wrong word for what Allen did. (Why is everyone calling him Cole?)
DeleteSome call him Pele.
DeletePeople drop the Allen part ever since Clarence Thomas asked "Who put pubic hair on my Cole?"
@12:46 - Close. I am saying that Dems, along with much of the media, created and maintain a public atmosphere where crazy people are encouraged to kill conservatives. Dems do this by repeating false, extremist claims over and over. Note that some of these false claims were in the assassin's "Manifesto." Also, Dems and media do not publicly react strongly enough after each atrocity occurs. Reactions to an attempt on the life of, say, Barack Obama, would engender stronger reactions IMO.
DeleteUnfortunately, Republicans gleefully joked about Obama dying as well as Biden as well as joyfully joking about Dems that did suffer violence and death.
DeleteIn reality, the most biting criticism of Trump has come from those on the right, Never Trumpers and people like Vance and Gabbard and Rubio before they sold their soul and people like MTG and Tucker Carlson.
This is because Dems tend to be fairly tepid in their attacks, whereas right wingers go for the jugular.
Trump's right encourages bloodthirsty militarism, macho military posturing, gun carry and shooting, MMA, an emphasis on winning and fighting as manly behavior (not restraint, self-control, kindness or peace). The people doing most of the shooting have been right wing, the people most likely to be exposed to this violent posturing in their lives. But when some right winger acts out, it is Democrats fault for not liking Republicans.
DeleteThe media, falsely claiming there is a Republican voter who isn't a bigot, has created a public atmosphere where crazy people are encouraged to kill conservatives without firing a single shot.
DeleteFailure to adhere to the deplorables’ narrative as dictated by the felon and his cohorts is apparently a dangerous thing.
DeleteWhy should the press be any smarter or dumber than the rest of us, including those who call in to C-SPAN?
ReplyDeleteSomerby’s own rhetoric shows clearly that he divides people into smart or dumb based on his own dubious criteria. This is at the heart of racial, sexual, ethnic and other bigotries. All people do both smart and dumb things regularly as they navigate their lives.
Some teachers divide people into educated vs ignorant based on acquired knowledge. Oddly, Somerby doesn’t do that. That may reflect his often-expressed disdain for expertise, skill and experience. He shares that attitude with Trump, who appoints people to govt positions based on looks, not competence. Perhaps Somerby reasons that if he could teach for 10+ years without any qualifications others can fake it too.
Bob keeps insisting that right wing extremist John Roberts "is a good, decent person", before mildly criticizing him.
ReplyDeleteThis mitigated criticism is offered to soften the blow to his right wing readers, while hopefully triggering non right wing readers.
Being charitable, it appears Bob has the mind of a teenager - which is likely when Bob's life peaked.
Most people think the WHCD event was fake and staged, and have already moved on.
ReplyDeleteAside from Trump lying about falling down (it is on video!), one of the most significant things to come out of this event was Trump exclaiming "I am not rapist...I am not a pedophile".
And this was made even sweeter by the interviewer, ostensibly with earnestness, reacting surprised that Trump thought the accusation was about him, which was widely interpreted as a snark, a roll of the eyes, as we all know Trump is indeed a rapist and a pedophile.
If the shooter was trying to kill anyone, why was no one even injured? He is a 31 year old engineer and gamer.
ReplyDeleteAnon 1:02 - huh??? He was stopped before he could kill anyone. He shot a secret service person, who escaped injury because he had a bullet proof vest. He headed in carrying several weapons.
DeleteThese are the questions Democrats ask. Bring back the institutions.
DeleteWe do not know who shot the Secret Service member.
DeleteNone of it makes any sense, which is why most Americans think the event was staged.
Delete“I can’t see how this makes sense, therefore it doesn’t"
DeleteHehe
Agree, most people see how it does not make any sense and so reasonably conclude it was staged.
DeleteAC; you’re so fucking arrogant. FBI
Deletestill hasn’t confirmed who shot the SS agent
AC/MA, the shooter had a shotgun loaded with buckshot, not birdshot. If he hit the secret service person in the chest, there is no way the agent would escape some injury, yet he was released from the hospital immediately. That suggests Allen was not the one who shot the secret service agent.
DeleteAI: "Yes, buckshot (specifically 00 and #4) readily penetrates standard drywall and multiple interior walls. Testing shows 00 buckshot can pass through over 10 sheets of drywall, easily traversing multiple rooms and posing a severe danger to others in a home or neighboring apartments.
While 00 buckshot carries high energy, soft body armor is designed to disperse this energy, stopping the pellets, although it will cause significant blunt force trauma (severe bruising, broken ribs)."
Either the agents were wearing ceramic plate armor or they were not shot by Allen's shotgun. In contrast, a single .38 slug will be stopped by body armor and not cause the wider spread injury of a full load of buckshot.
It seems more likely that Allen didn't fire and that the agent may have been shot by another agent. Video and eyewitness accounts are not saying Allen had a weapon in his hand while running through the magnetometer, when he was stopped by agents (presumably because they were firing at him).
Does anyone know what happened to the oil King Orange Chickenshit stole from Venezuela? It’s so hard to keep up with his shameless thievery
ReplyDelete"It's a big deal not only for Chevron but the entire Gulf region," says Tim Potter. He is the director for Chevron's oil refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, the company's largest operation in the US. It is also the only major US oil company currently operating in Venezuela.
DeleteTogether this means that Chevron can extract its own Venezuelan oil, process it itself, and get it directly to the US consumer.
"It's a pretty big incentive for us to run it," Potter says. "The refinery was really designed, and we invested in the refinery, to run heavy oils like from Venezuela."
I’m referring to the tankers king chickenshit hijacked and sent to his hideout in the Middle East
DeleteWe can't be sure of the shooter's mental status until we've consulted "clinical psychologist" Mary Trump. She tells us we're asking the wrong question, because, she affirms, the event was "staged."
ReplyDeleteYour mainstream Democrat party, ladies and gentlemen. Utterly unmoored from reality. That along with their violence and moral degeneracy make them a threat to all normal people.
Squeal louder, snowflake.
DeleteMaybe your pals in the Deep State, who lead Trump around by his nose, will beat us up.
From the surveillance video we see Cole Allen running past a security checkpoint in the hotel, clearly not brandishing a weapon - he may have had a weapon secured somewhere on his body.
ReplyDeleteSeconds later Cole Allen is then subdued by agents, handcuffed and shirtless on the floor.
Did Cole Allen fire any shots at all?
What is up with Wolf Blitzer's testimony? It doesn't make any sense.
This is the elephant in the room.
DeleteUs Republicans always wind up shooting ourselves in the foot.
I'm guessing Wolf probably mistook one of the agents for Cole.
DeleteGetting a fucking moron, with a 5-decade history of running businesses into the ground (when they aren't adjudicated as frauds) elected President of the USA will be Putin's legacy.
ReplyDeleteFollowing thru on his promise to tone down the divisive rhetoric and political violence, King Chickenshit had his DOJ indict former FBI Director Comey again
ReplyDelete(and when the fucking media refers to the Trump DOJ, they mean Trump's fucking lawyers)
Because fuck us, what are we going to do about it..
And Comey's a Republican. They're eating their own. Too funny!
Delete
ReplyDeleteFrom Ken Klippenstein
Cole Tomas Allen
Extremist. Radicalized. Leftist. Anti-Christian. Democrat.
To read the coverage of Cole Allen, the alleged White House Correspondents' Association dinner gunman, you'd think he was a poster boy for the administration's belief that the country is under siege from a left-wing insurgency (see: NSPM-7). The evidence, as you'll see, says otherwise — but everyone from the White House to major media outlets are sticking to the script regardless.
President Trump declared Allen “radicalized.”
RNC Chairman Joe Gruters blamed a “radicalized left” for the incident, calling it “the inevitable result of a radicalized left that has normalized political violence.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said investigators were probing any connection Allen may have had to left-wing groups or were looking for accomplices and co-conspirators.
Even hyper-liberal MSNOW (formerly MSNBC) “Justice and Intelligence” correspondent Ken Dilanian parrots the administration line, claiming Allen is one of several attackers “on the far left fringes”:
“So it really fits the pattern of what we’ve seen with Luigi Mangione, accused of killing the United Healthcare CEO, or Tyler Robinson, accused of killing Charlie Kirk — of these sorts of people on the far-left fringes who have become radicalized, who are living in a world of unreality, bombarded by conspiracy theories, who decide that they have to take violent action.”
But as I’ve written, Luigi Mangione, Tyler Robinson and now Cole Allen were neither far-left nor on any partisan fringe. Instead, they were united in a sense of frustration with failed institutions defined by inaction — and a determination to embody the opposite through shocking spectacles of action. What nobody in power wants to admit is that the belief that institutions have failed is as mainstream as Taylor Swift, not the fringe radicalism of '70s outfits like the Weather Underground that pundits keep invoking.
Allen, his social media posts reveal, was not singularly focused on Trump. He had plenty of contempt for Democratic leaders too — a contempt for both parties that, far from being fringe, actually puts squarely in the majority of American opinion. By early 2025, the Democratic Party had sunk to historic lows: 27% approval in NBC News polling and 29% at CNN — the lowest in CNN's polling since 1992. A Pew survey found 59% of Democrats disapproved of their own congressional leadership. That’s more than 25 million American voters, according to the latest numbers.
Hating the political establishment may once have made you a member of the radical fringe, but those days are long gone. Strange as it may seem, Allen is, politically speaking, a dime a dozen.
DeleteConsider his social media posts.
“If this is the extent to which Democratic leadership is willing to lead, it is time to form an actual third party,” Allen posted on Bluesky on January 21, 2025.
It was one of numerous other similar posts in which Allen called for an alternative to the Democrat and Republican parties.
“At this point might be faster to replace it with a new party … call it the ‘Do Something’ party, idk,” he said in another post, one of countless hints at his frustration with political inaction.
“If this is the level of analysis coming out of the leaders of the dem party!!…might need an entirely new party tbh,” he said in another post.
“I swear the democrat party does not comprehend the concept of priorities…,” he wrote on February 13.
By March, he was calling for the ouster of the top-ranking Democrat in Congress, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“Is there such a thing as a vote of no confidence for Senate minority leader?” he posted on March 13.
The day before, Allen was cracking jokes about Schumer’s uselessness.
“Schumer is acting like an rpg [role playing game] player who hoards every single potion, powerup, and consumable he comes across because ‘maybe I’ll need them later,’” he wrote on March 12.
“Schumer’s assignment was not turned in on time,” he cracked on April 8 — days before the attack.
To call Allen a foot soldier of the Democratic left requires ignoring much of what he posted online. It’s a convenient narrative — it casts political violence as a product of partisan extremism rather than what the polling actually suggests: a broad, bipartisan collapse of faith in American institutions and their leadership.
Have to agree about Schumer
DeleteThe displeasure with each party is not symmetrical though.
DeleteIn essence, Republican voters are unhappy their party is not even more corrupt, whereas Dem voters are unhappy their party is not more anti-corruption.
Ignoring this asymmetry is poor analysis.
I don't understand how I could find proof for those assertions.
DeleteMany of us are disappointed that our political parties have not joined forces to remove Trump from office, given his obvious corruption, incompetence, unwillingness to support the Constitution, focus on attacking targeted enemies, use of the government for personal purposes, destruction of national monuments, his needless wars and killing of fishing boat crews, his allowing cronies to destroy what so many people built (including scientific research, alternative energy, national parks and conservation, the arts, progress in medicine), his persecution of women and minorities, and so on.
DeleteCongress has been so unwilling to act to defend our nation, that neither party deserves public support. In that, I agree with Cole Allen. I think he was making a political statement with his attack, trying to shame our election officials into doing their jobs for the people. We should all be ashamed that Trump is still pretending to be president while lining his pockets. We should all be asking "when will this stop?"
Yes, this is peripherally about guns, violence, partisan hate, and youthful despair, but it is also about how do we remove such an obviously incompetent person from control over our govt? I do not see Somerby or anyone else grappling with that question. This attacker showed courage. Why are our elected officials so lacking in that quality?
Yes Waylon, you aren’t skilled at research or making arguments.
DeleteAnd so?
I think Waylon has made a good case about the beliefs of Allen, if not the motives of all disgruntled party members.
DeleteBetter trolling please.
DeleteWhen you shake hands on a deal with Donny Chickenshit, count your fingers afterwards
ReplyDeleteWhile the DOJ officially dropped its criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on April 24, 2026,, President Trump immediately contradicted this, stating the probe was "not dropped". This move appears to renege on earlier indications that the investigation into building renovations would
As I understand it, there are two investigations. The investigation into illegal activity by Powell is ended. But, the investigation continues into why this project costs an unreasonable amount.
DeleteFuck off, fascist freak
DeleteFake news. They dropped all investigations due to lack of evidence.
DeleteWhat’s fake? I saw the orange abomination saying it to a reporter with my own eyes and ears
DeleteSpeaking of construction projects, why does that ballroom cost so much?
DeleteThe fucking art of the fucking deal
Delete7:51 : Probably because donors can use it as a tax write off.
DeleteThe DOJ dropping all investigations and Trump saying that the probe was not dropped are consistent entirely with Trump lying about it. What’s not to understand about this?
Delete"As I understand it, ...."
ReplyDeleteThere's your problem right there.
Linda McMahon said a lot of appalling things today as Secretary of Education. Crickets from Somerby. He used to pretend to care about education, but has said nothing about it since the time he agreed with book banning and disputed whether MS has increased reading scores for 4th graders. Sometimes I think he doesn't care about education at all.
ReplyDeleteA day doesn’t go by when members of his cabinet don’t say appalling things. It is hard to keep up. Not Somerby’s fault.
DeleteYeah but I never see Somerby ever ever comment on the fire hose of appalling things coming from the cabinet.
DeleteThe fucking orange abomination wants to put his face on US passports,
ReplyDeleteBecause fuck us, what are we going to do about it
Only the bottom dwelling deplorables at this point are unable to recognize him for what he is and what havoc is resulting from his corrupt and incompetent administration.
DeleteNonsense, the deplorables know full well what he is and they love it!
Delete