TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026
Tyrus drops in on The Five: Is the era of rational discourse over?
As we noted yesterday, that's what the headline says on a new essay for The Atlantic. To show how obvious that notion is, let's think about the latest thing the sitting president has said.
Headline included, here's the start of Mediaite's report:
Trump Posts Bonkers Memes Slamming Political Foes From ‘Traitor’ Obama to Powell In a Dumpster
President Donald Trump went on a social media spree on Monday afternoon that included posting memes of “traitor” ex-President Barack Obama bowing before Iran’s Ayatollah and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell falling into a dumpster.
The commander-in-chief posted the pictures of his political enemies on Truth Social.
His first post was a three-part meme that showed a triumphant Trump raising his fist alongside a kneeling ex-President Joe Biden donning a mask and Obama bowing.
That picture said “LEADERS LEAD” above Trump, followed by “COWARDS KNEEL” under Biden and “TRAITORS BOW” under Obama.
And so on, insanely, from there. You can see the madness in question, including the Fed chairman's descent into a dumpster, simply by clicking here.
The New York Times rarely reports very strange conduct of this type by the sitting president. The paper has been disappearing conduct like this for the past fifteen years
The sitting president has been messaging the world this way since 2011. Our major orgs have never had the courage to ask what this behavior might mean.
Can an "era of rational discourse" survive this sort of messaging from the Oval Office? Then too, there was yesterday's hard-hitting report by Jesse Watters and Tyrus yesterday on The Five:
Jesse Watters Blames Biden for Spirit Airlines Collapse: ‘Let Thousands of Workers Lose Their Job’
Fox News host Jesse Watters blamed former President Joe Biden for the collapse of Spirit Airlines and letting “thousands of workers lose their job.”
Watters and his co-hosts on The Five slammed the Biden administration’s Department of Justice for blocking the $3.8 billion merger between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines in January 2024 on antitrust grounds. At the time, the DOJ argued that removing the “ultra-low-cost” airline would deprive travelers of options and increase ticket prices.
And so on from there. We interrupt this transmission to ask an obvious question:
How many people think Jesse Watters knows anything whatsoever about the merger proposal which the Biden DOJ opposed?
Surely, no sane person will have any confidence in Watters' competence in this area. Adding insult to injury, Watters was joined by Tyrus, the former professional "wrestler," in the task of pretending to analyze this matter.
Mediaite offers videotape of the ruminations of Tyrus. Here's what the "bloated blowhard" had to say on our clownlike nation's most-watched "cable news" TV show:
TYRUS (5/3/26): Well, mission accomplished! Because less competition!
I’m going to miss Spirit Airlines—I'll be honest with ya. I’m going to miss the hours of sitting in the airport watching people behave the way they behave, the fights, the dragging out, you know? You always kind of feel a little better when you go to get on your Delta—love you guys, millionaire miles!
You know, but the sad part is she [Elizabeth Warren] was right. Fewer flights, higher fares, mission accomplished! You just don’t get it.
They get involved in things they don’t know. I think it’s funny that people who fly private are so concerned with JetBlue and Spirit merging together. And they stopped it, and they’re great, and now— What do we have? How many people were stranded?
Why do they hate the airports? What happened? Did the airports not give them complimentary water in first class? They don’t want to pay the TSA agents, they don't want—
I mean, why does the Democratic Party continually go after airports? And in the name of the people! I don’t think any person who was flying Spirit this weekend, whose flight was canceled and you can’t transfer the ticket because it’s gone, was saying, "Wow, thanks, Warren! This is great! I'm so happy that I'm not gonna be able to go see my family at affordable ticket [sic]," although the bag stuff was ridiculous.
But they just eliminated a place for people who can't afford airline tickets normally to go see family members and travel and go to work and stuff. So, nice job! Nice job, guys!
"Why do they hate the airports?" Tyrus wanted to know!
Like Tyrus, we don't have the slightest idea about the wisdom, or lack of same, involved in the rejection of last year's merger proposal. We do remember a different era, when this nation's major news shows would bring a specialist or two on the air to evaluate a matter like this.
In the case of The Five, a gang of willing messenger children are shoved out onto the set each day, armed with producers notes about the topics which will be subjected to a form of pseudo-discussion.
Agitprop follows from there.
In fairness, we'll assume that Tyrus was doing the best he could with the topic at hand. He's normally confined to the 10 p.m. sewage flow which takes place on Gutfeld!
Following Tyrus, Watters then launched some comedy shtick, leading to his closing thought: Biden Bad Bad Bad!
Is the era of rational discourse over? Over there, in Red America, this is what now passes for news.
Over here, in Blue America, our timorous but heralded major news orgs refuse to discuss this state of affairs. They disappear the president's troubling conduct.
They disappear The Five.
I'm old enough to remember when Bob himself would attack the NY Times for uncritically amplifying Republican talking points and then research the topic and post a coherent counterargument to nonsense from corporate media.
ReplyDeleteThese days he just whines about the democratization of media, whines about people getting cancelled for their racism, sexism and xenophobia, and offers his own version of amplifying Fox News garbage, all while blaming the victims who he calls the "Blues".
"Over here, in Blue America, our timorous but heralded major news orgs refuse to discuss this state of affairs. They disappear the president's troubling conduct. "
ReplyDeleteThis is a total lie by Somerby.
He's being provocative.
DeleteThere are other words for lying than provocative. He is being dishonest, he is distorting the truth, he is distracting us all from the Epstein files another day, he is shilling for the right, he is trying to be relevant without putting any effort into understanding real current events, and so on.
DeleteOr, perhaps, he is warning us that Fox propaganda is being incessantly broadcast to large portions of the population without any significant pushback from the main media or Dem politicians.
DeleteAnd, perhaps, he believes that this is the primary disease infecting our democracy.
DeleteWhat about the Epstein files is he distracting us from?
DeleteThe fact that he’s burying them, shit for brains
DeleteI appreciate that Somerby isn't one of those rat-fucking Right-wingers who thinks if we explain that how we got here is the racism, misogyny, and xenophobia of Republican voters, it'll be the fault of people who point that out in public that Republicans vote for vile pieces of shit.
DeleteFrom Robyn Pennacchia (Wonkette):
ReplyDelete"Last week, during an appearance on the Betches podcast, actress Emily Blunt had some advice for young women who hate their jobs: “Quit.”
“Just find something that you deeply want to do,” she suggested. “Even if you’re earning no money, as long as you love it, you’ll be happy.”
It did not go over well! To be fair, Blunt was being a bit cheeky with the “quit” part, but people are maybe quite not in the mood right now to be told, by very rich people, that they’ll be just fine with no money. While it’s great and ideal to aspire to a career one actually loves, since most human beings have to pay rent and eat food and sometimes even take care of other human beings, they can’t quit the job they hate before they get the job they love.
Let’s be real, though, even when you get to do what you love for a living, there are still days when things are less than perfect. Like, for instance, when you have to write about Greg Gutfeld being a gross misogynist on Fox News. Again...
In a recent discussion about Blunt’s comments on Fox’s The Five, Gutfeld decided to take a moment to leapfrog right into a bizarre rant about how maybe women aren’t happy in their careers because they can only be fulfilled by being stay-at-home-moms.
He said:
“Why do people hate their jobs? That was the question. They aren't fulfilling, right? And for women, they might not find fulfillment in that job, you know. There's nothing as fulfilling as being a mom. And if that bothers you when I say that, you got to ask yourself why. If somebody tells you, you know, you'll find — maybe the job isn't fulfilling because that's not where your fulfillment is. It's in being a mother, and if you can't respond calmly to that, you should look at that.”
Yes, ladies, if you’re going to get hysterical every time a guy like Greg Gutfeld just happens to know more about what you want for your own life than you do (because of your tiny woman brain), you need to look at that. Or have it looked at. Because maybe you’re not mad at Greg Gutfeld, maybe you just have a wandering womb. Maybe your uterus is just flitting all around your body, making you have crazy thoughts like “I want a career!” and “Greg Gutfeld is an incredible douchebag.”
To be fair, Gutfeld is clearly just trying to go along with the latest trend among male right-wing podcasters and X the Everything App power users: telling women that they’d just be happier staying home, taking care of their husbands and having babies. Surely this has nothing at all to do with the fact that women in their 20s are outpacing men the same age in educational attainment and their careers and even earning more, and the fact that they really only started this shit when that became apparent within the last couple years.
Or, you know, it absolutely does and they think they’re going to manifest Stepford and if they just keep saying this over and over again that they’ll be able to “The Secret” women into going along with it, eventually. The thing is, that kind of propaganda doesn’t have much of a chance of working when your audience is like 98 percent angry little men and 2 percent pick-me girls who are just out here looking for the worst possible men in the world to agree with in order to feel superior to other women."
Somerby thinks sexism is about Gutfeld calling some woman on The View a cow. That isn't it. That is just saying stuff that Somerby and other guys in Gutfeld's audience secretly thrill at hearing him say out loud. It is these pernicious thoughts about whether women can work outside the home and be happy that are sexist and especially misogynist, since banning women from the workplace and confining them to housework supports the patriarchy whereas calling some woman a cow does not.
Well said.
DeleteEmily Blunt vying to be the next Maria Antoinette is hardly surprising considering her right wing husband and the content he produces.
How do you think it will be received if I tell my feminist friends that calling some woman a "cow" is not about sexism because it does not provide support for the patriarchy?
DeleteWhat a luxury to expect a job to be fulfilling! For most of us, a job is how we pay for food and other stuff. We work for the money. Our analysis of lack of fulfillment is, "That's why they call it work."
DeleteAgain you display your complete lack of love and empathy you nasty Nazi bitch David
Delete“Is the era of rational discourse over?”
DeleteWell, if you’re dealing with @3:55, (aka Slabby®), it always will be so. Jesus, what a fuckwit.
Leroy
Joan rivers used to make fat jokes about women all the time. Was she a sexist?
DeleteYes, and a victim of sexism. Who was her audience and what would they laugh at?
DeleteDogface look up the words sexism and misogyny and note the differences in meaning.
DeleteOK. I see that using jokes to belittle women is an example of "sexism." Seems to me that calling a woman a "cow" qualifies, don't you? (And I really have difficulty believing that I have to make this case to a feminist.)
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete5:58 - I think that's an unusually astute and true observation. And it makes me feel sad for her.
DeleteTSA works for DHS which was not being funded because Republicans didn't want to examine ICE misbehavior (such as killing protesters for no reason). The Republicans finally caved and Congress passed a bill that now funds TSA but still not ICE -- a victory for the Democrats.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Spirit failed because of higher gas prices. It has nothing to do with whether Democrats hate airports or airlines. Democratic voters see through this kind of silly talk, but apparently Republicans do not. I see no reason why Somerby should make a big deal over this routine Republican propaganda or care what Gutfeld says about it on his garbagey show. And then Somerby comes along and pretends no one has been reporting properly, when this is just a non-issue built out of Republican talking points -- now being echoed by Somerby.
Why does Somerby think we Democrats are required to both report and discuss every stupid thing Republicans say, such as that Democrats hate airports?
"Why does Somerby think we Democrats are required to both report and discuss every stupid thing Republicans say"
DeleteI think Somerby believes that a failure to acknowledge and challenge the garbage spewing from Fox leads many to believe the garbage and then vote Republican.
4:26 if that is Somerby's analysis, that is damning, since that analysis is silly and trivial. I did not expect you of all people to expose Somerby's nonsense in such a manner, good for you.
DeletePerhaps it's silly and trivial, but then it should be easy for you to demonstrate why, right?
DeleteIt is Somerby’s burden to prove that crazy assertion
Delete“ Somerby believes that a failure to acknowledge and challenge the garbage spewing from Fox leads many to believe the garbage and then vote Republican.”
DeleteCan you show us a passage where he makes this claim?
Every day when he complains that the press doesn’t mention something.
DeleteThe people watching Fox don’t watch or read mainstream news.
Delete5:55,
DeleteSo crickets it is.
These have been several reports today about Trump's unexpected dentist visit while at Mar a Lago, his cankles (an obvious symptom of poor health) and the fact that Trump is now overdue for his annual physical exam (as of April 11). This is hardly the press ignoring Trump's behavior. It is going to the source of Trump's likely problem, his worsening dementia and inability to attend to the contents of the job. His staff has been described as trying to distract him with projects that will keep him away from anything related to our national security.
ReplyDeleteAs bad as Trump is, Vance is probably worse, so it is better if Trump can hang on for a couple more years.
DeleteHow's Vance worse?
DeleteHe's younger.
DeleteVance lies just as much but less obviously.
DeleteTrump demands names of 2020 election workers in Fulton County, GA
ReplyDeleteBecause fuck them, what are they going to do about it
I'm thinking about getting a bumper sticker with your trademark:
Delete"Because Fuck Us, What Are We Going To Do About It?"
DG, it makes no sense unless as a tag line to news of latest authoritarian assault on our country, but you b u
DeleteI know exctly what you're saying, but I think it works because whatever the latest outrage Trump has commited will be on your mind when you see the bumper sticker.
DeleteI mean, he invades Greenland. You see a car with a sticker saying, "Fuck Us, What Are We Going To Do About It?" I think you might put two and two together.
DeleteAnd I'm going on too long, I know, but the reason I like it so much is because of the ambiguity. Does it mean "Fuck It, There's Nothing We Can Do About It?" Or, instead, does it mean, "Fuck This! And What Are Going To Do About It?"
DeleteIt’s not that complicated. The man has been given complete immunity. The Supreme Court 6 has given him “fuck you” undiluted power.
Delete'"Project Freedom (The Movement of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz) will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the Agreement can be finalized and signed,” Trump wrote.'
ReplyDeleteWe have an agreement. Just needs to be finalized. Then signed. Art of the Deal, baby.
This doesn't seem to make sense. Why shouldn't ships continue to go through the Strait while the agreement is finalized?
DeleteTrump's statements about Iran blew through the making sense checkpoint a long time ago.
DeleteMakes perfect sense to anyone aware that Trump has been lying about this illegal war of choice since it began.
DeleteRight-wingers don't care about gas prices, the cost of living, the federal deficit, nor anything else that doesn't involve keeping minorities down.
Delete9:08,
DeleteThat only seems true, if you listen to what Right-wingers say, and watch their actions.
I'm willing to bet if you stopped doing that, you too might be able to be convinced they aren't all just bigots.
There are 271 Republicans in Congress. 5 of them are Black. But don’t worry, they will gerrymander that number down to zero.
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