The Right vs. Mid to Left Media Double Standard

[LFC]

Interesting information about how a black, leftward commentator was treated and not renewed on CNN yet they decided to keep Rick Santorum.

As a person of color, you know you’re effective and threatening when you’re consistently being targeted and smeared by the right-wing ecosystem, an incestuous group that creates and blasts the same talking points across multiple media platforms at the same time, hitting you like a blitzkrieg. I was apparently crushing it, because I was given four warnings by CNN management, each one in response to a wave of outrage manufactured by conservatives responding to basically benign comments. As it turns out, the “F your feelings” crowd is full of snowflakes who demand safe spaces for themselves.

[LFC]

Out of the batshit crazy frying pan and into the slightly less batshit crazy fire?

The aggressively pro-Trump network One America News has gone so far off the deep end since the election that staffers are jumping over to the slightly less bonkers Newsmax.

OAN has grown increasingly extreme since Donald Trump lost the election, and Newsmax has scooped up some of the right-wing network's on-air talent who have been alarmed by the conspiracy theory programming and fearful of becoming embroiled in lawsuits filed by Smartmatic and Dominion voting machine companies over false election claims, reported The Daily Beast.

"A lot of people said, 'This is insane, and maybe if they sue us, we'll stop putting stories like this out,'" said producer Marty Golingan, who was fired by OAN after going on record with the New York Times with complaints about the programming.

Another employee who recently left OAN told The Beast it was a relief to leave the right-wing network.

"I consider it a badge of honor to have left a network such as OAN as I head back to a newsroom built on ethics and integrity," that former on-air personality said.

A badge of honor is never having gone to OAN. They were always cranks, right out of the gate. I'd love to know what newsroom they went to that has "ethics and integrity." Maybe Faux News?

[pnwguy]

May 19, 2021 20:47:43 GMT LFC said:

 I'd love to know what newsroom they went to that has "ethics and integrity." Maybe Faux News?

Obviously, InfoWars!

[LFC]

The MSM is falling flat on its collective face yet again. Meanwhile the right-wing media is in a meltdown because Biden and his administration keep telling the truth about vaccines.

We’re now more than two weeks into Donald Trump publicly insisting that the January 6th insurrection was a righteous act and that the federal government must free and/or drop charges against everyone involved. He also continues to demand retribution against the Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt while defending Congress was the attack. To date, none of the journalists with access have pressed any congressional Republicans to respond to these demands from the leader of their political party.

Getting or recording responses is a major priority for us this week. If you see any examples in print or electronic media please contact us with details.

Got that? The overwhelmingly acknowledged leader of the Republican Party is giving full-throated support to an insurrection that failed and is demanding retribution from a police officer that shot somebody while trying to hold the last defense against it. The MSM is so worthless they can't even call this out.

[LFC]

Not sure if this is exactly the right thread but it will do for now. Josh Marshall is pointing out the MSM freakout over the fact that Biden isn't letting them drive his narrative. He said it's a pattern.

If nothing else for media watchers there’s a fascinating dynamic developing over the last day or so in trying to define the US exit from Afghanistan. It’s not a new dynamic. In fact, it’s one I first saw a quarter century ago when DC’s establishment press got really, really upset that not only Bill Clinton but more importantly most of the country didn’t agree with their take on impeachment in 1998. Official DC was baffled when Democrats actually managed to pick up a few seats in the 1998 midterm that was entirely about impeachment. The specifics of the case are of course pretty radically different. But the dynamic of establishment DC press escalation is not. Politico’s morning newsletter this morning captures the dynamic. It starts quoting David Axelrod making clear that Biden messed up and has admit he messed up but then notes that Biden didn’t get the message and said it was the right decision. A sort of primal scream of “WTF, JOE BIDEN?!?!?!!?!” virtually bleeds through the copy.

After quoting Biden at length saying “I stand squarely behind my decision…” Politico jumps back in: “Of course, that’s not the issue. And Republicans — as well as many in the media — were quick to point that out …”

No, no, no, Joe Biden! that’s not right!

As I’ve made clear repeatedly, it’s not like this is a big win for Biden, at least in the near term. American public opinion is never going to like seeing the people we spent twenty years and a trillion dollars fighting getting comfy in the presidential palace after the US-backed President hopped the first plane out of Kabul. That stings no matter what the backstory. But there’s also little question that the very strong consensus among establishment DC press opinion-makers is not in line with the mood or opinion of most of the country.

[goldenvalley]

Aug 17, 2021 16:37:52 GMT LFC said:

Not sure if this is exactly the right thread but it will do for now. Josh Marshall is pointing out the MSM freakout over the fact that Biden isn't letting them drive his narrative. He said it's a pattern.

If nothing else for media watchers there’s a fascinating dynamic developing over the last day or so in trying to define the US exit from Afghanistan. It’s not a new dynamic. In fact, it’s one I first saw a quarter century ago when DC’s establishment press got really, really upset that not only Bill Clinton but more importantly most of the country didn’t agree with their take on impeachment in 1998. Official DC was baffled when Democrats actually managed to pick up a few seats in the 1998 midterm that was entirely about impeachment. The specifics of the case are of course pretty radically different. But the dynamic of establishment DC press escalation is not. Politico’s morning newsletter this morning captures the dynamic. It starts quoting David Axelrod making clear that Biden messed up and has admit he messed up but then notes that Biden didn’t get the message and said it was the right decision. A sort of primal scream of “WTF, JOE BIDEN?!?!?!!?!” virtually bleeds through the copy.

After quoting Biden at length saying “I stand squarely behind my decision…” Politico jumps back in: “Of course, that’s not the issue. And Republicans — as well as many in the media — were quick to point that out …”

No, no, no, Joe Biden! that’s not right!

As I’ve made clear repeatedly, it’s not like this is a big win for Biden, at least in the near term. American public opinion is never going to like seeing the people we spent twenty years and a trillion dollars fighting getting comfy in the presidential palace after the US-backed President hopped the first plane out of Kabul. That stings no matter what the backstory. But there’s also little question that the very strong consensus among establishment DC press opinion-makers is not in line with the mood or opinion of most of the country.

That's interesting.  MSM has a lot of footage of the people on the airstrip, the photo of a Chinook copter over a building in Kabul.  It is a largely visual medium now so hey it looks like the evacuation from Saigon...see the helicopter!  Same thing!  But Biden is giving a calm press conference supporting the decision.  These are the visuals presented to the tv and social media watchers of the US.  I think in 2 weeks the MSM will have moved on and the American public, which wasn't too invested in "winning" Afghanistan anyway, will forget about this.  

[LFC]

Josh Marshall continues to give the press a well earned drubbing for their hysterics.

Now moving into week two we’re seeing more voices disagreeing with the whole disengagement, with any withdrawal at all. Ryan Crocker, the respected and long-serving diplomat across multiple administrations, says we simply failed the test of “strategic patience” and could have and should have maintained our presence in Afghanistan with no time limit at all. This is at least a clear and defensible position. It’s one I disagree with and I could explain in another post why that is. But the US is a big rich country and certainly could have afforded to go on like this for a decade or many decades more.

That at least is a position, albeit one that has only minority support stated as such. The loud voices are ones of evasion. The real charlatans are those staking out what amounts to a phony third option – getting out cleanly, without anything that felt bad, without anything messy or ugly, a mythical walking away that doesn’t have all the collateral damage that forces you to come to grips with what you lied to yourself and others about for years. Biden’s move broke the comfortable denial and it was retooled into weaponized denial. And here we are.

On the front of denial and evasion, let me leave you with one thought. It seems increasingly clear to me that to the extent the withdrawal was jagged it was tied to Biden’s decision-making and his experience of 2009. Biden had seen Barack Obama get rolled by the Pentagon in 2009. He’d seen the same happen to President Trump again and again. Biden wanted out and he knew that to do it he’d have to move with a heavy-hand. Every push to add some more finesse or fall back on an outcomes-based approach was likely a play for more time and not leaving or even expanding the operation. I even get the sense – and this really could use more reporting – that the Pentagon was playing a sort of game of chicken with the White House. Intentional or not I’m not sure they really got that he was serious and wasn’t going to break the glass until things really started to come apart. Like I said, we could really use more reporting on that.

Based on the coverage blaring over the last week you would have concluded that the fall of the US-backed government had been followed by the slaughter of interpreters and other employees of the US mission and countless Americans unable to escape Taliban rule. But nothing like that seems to have happened. There are countless Americans outside of government working to facilitate the evacuation of Afghans they worked with or knew during the US military mission: ex-military, journalists, NGO workers and more. The fear of revenge killings and all that can happen in this kind of tumult is real and merited. State collapse is like that. The worst may yet happen and some instance of it almost certainly will. But fear of these things happening and their actually happening are not the same thing. Glossing over the difference is a necessary component of the cataclysm storyline so many in the press are peddling. They underwrote the illusion with their elegant words and now they are cast the most blame.

[LFC]

An update on the "failed" withdrawal from Afghanistan. The MSM should be ashamed. My wife puts on GMA in the mornings and we've heard little about the number of people who have already been pulled out. In full because it should be read in full.

Here’s an update on the definitely failed evacuation and abandonment of everyone who ever worked for us in Afghanistan. According to the White House, 21,600 people were evacuated over the last 24 hours bringing the total number to 58,700. I know a tone of sarcasm is a bit jarring in what is a very serious and dangerous situation. But in addition to a story of great significance and human drama we’re coming off one of the biggest and most revealing press tantrums I’ve ever seen. Yesterday I said I thought we were only days away from pundit-bewailers shifting to taking credit for turning the greatest military debacle in history into a historically successful airlift. But I was wrong: it’s already happening.

Yesterday I couldn’t help but notice this article in The Atlantic by George Packer. Much of the article is quite good, a look at one family’s struggle to get out of the country. But this second paragraph on what Packer calls the “digital Dunkirk” of largely online efforts of private citizens to secure flights and evacuation for Afghan interpreters, aide workers, friends, etc jolted my attention.

At this point the phrase is too generous. In the spring of 1940, British and French forces were rescued from Dunkirk by a collaboration between the British government and ordinary people sailing their own vessels into the English Channel; it was a miraculous success. Thus far, only a fraction of endangered Afghans have gotten out of the country. The private rescue effort in Afghanistan is basically running separate from the United States government’s Operation Allies Refuge; it became necessary because the official evacuation is beset by chaos and bureaucratic blockage. Private citizens are intervening because the government, as a retired military commander told me, is “overwhelmed.” People involved in this collective effort have said that it’s the only aspect of the fall of Afghanistan that relieves a bit of their shame.

Talking about your own work as all that relieves the “shame” of American abandonment is a remarkable thing to commit to paper, digital or otherwise.

Let me say that I know a lot of people who’ve been scrambling to accomplish this. Most of the ones I know are ex-military people working from the US to expedite paperwork, make connections for Afghans they worked with during their tours of duty. It’s incredibly honorable work. But note this line from Packer. “The private rescue effort in Afghanistan is basically running separate from the United States government’s Operation Allies Refuge; it became necessary because the official evacuation is beset by chaos and bureaucratic blockage.” This is simply a remarkable thing to say when literally no one is flying out of the country right now other than through an airlift made possible by the US government and US military. There are US military planes; there are private charters; there are American civilian airliners requisitioned by the US government; there’s a mix of civilian and military flights from US allied countries. But the entire thing is possible because at least six thousand US military personnel are occupying and running the airport. Literally the entire evacuation is made possible by a US government effort.

Is it a collaboration? Absolutely. Because people need to get to the airport. Many need to get travel documents expedited. They need to find a particular flight. None of what I’m saying here is meant to take away from all the work private individuals and aid organizations are doing. It is incredibly honorable, selfless. But to portray this as some solo effort amidst US abandonment and an “overwhelmed” US government is as remarkable as it is, frankly, gross.

[goldenvalley]

I wonder how much of this news coverage is driven by a desire to show that the media is not biased in favor of Democrats, the same phenomenon that led to the never ending Hilary email coverage.

[pnwguy]

Aug 24, 2021 18:02:34 GMT goldenvalley said:

I wonder how much of this news coverage is driven by a desire to show that the media is not biased in favor of Democrats, the same phenomenon that led to the never ending Hilary email coverage.

Don't forget...   BENGHAZI!!!

But of course that was before we knew about her satanic child killing and blood drinking.  That could have added a few hundred hours more of congressional meetings and testimony.

[LFC]

Marshall rips into the media again. This interpretation of what just happened with the debt ceiling is ridiculous.

In recent months I’ve become paradoxically addicted to scanning the top insider sheets as they come out through the day – Politico, Punchbowl, Axios – because they’re like a direct injection of the DC establishment, insider zeitgeist. It’s not that you couldn’t find that before. I started TPM in many ways to critique that mindset and worldview. But it’s sort of like the way competition has made illicit drugs more concentrated and potent over the years. These sheets give it to you in a more concentrated form. They are each in competition with each other to refine and recut the giddiness, knowing expressions, punch phrases and conventional wisdom production into shorter and shorter bursts. In any case, not great for the country or journalism: but good for me inasmuch as I can observe it in one place so easily.

This morning I opened Punchbowl. And the story is: THE SPEECH. What’s the speech? Yesterday evening as Republicans were scrambling to overcome their own filibuster Chuck Schumer gave some short remarks in which he lambasted Republicans for their recklessness and fecklessness. They played chicken with the full faith and credit of the United States and thank God they lost. And now they were scrambling to put the genie of their own recklessness back in the bottle. So you suck, you lost and don’t suck next time.

Republicans were upset and told Schumer the moment called for tact and conciliation, not criticism. After all the GOP leadership was scrambling to get 10 votes to help. This captured the editorial point of view. McConnell decided to help Schumer get out of a jam. But after Schumer was mean he’s unlikely to help out again. Yes, that’s the take. Quote: “As we noted before, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his colleagues aren’t likely to give them the votes for another debt-limit extension, especially after what happened on the floor yesterday. Yes, it’s petty, but senators don’t easily forget personal slights. Like never.”

It’s not that the Democrats are in a great situation. After the speech theatrics last night Manchin reiterated his opposition to a debt ceiling filibuster carveout. So it’s not like that is a given. But Lindsey Graham of all people gave us the real story on this during last night’s theatrics. He said last night that Republicans were “folding” because leadership made clear “that this may be more pressure than two Democrat senators can stand regarding changing the filibuster rules.” As I’ve said repeatedly over the last few days, McConnell could see he was backing himself into a corner – one in which it really was, default, epic GOP climbdown or filibuster carveout. So he decided to make a tactical retreat to avoid that terrible set of choices. Give him credit. He could see three or four moves ahead and moved accordingly. Most of the rest didn’t see that.

He didn’t do anything to be nice or “help.” Unsentimental calculations drove this outcome and they are highly likely do so again, despite the attempts to soap opera it up. Imagine having watched everything we’ve seen over the last six years and thinking that when a political opponent stands down after a reckless maneuver that being nice and promising never to put them in a such a situation again makes sense.

And yet here we are. The rot is deep.

[AnBr]

Aug 24, 2021 18:24:26 GMT pnwguy said:

But of course that was before we knew about her satanic child killing and blood drinking.  That could have added a few hundred hours more of congressional meetings and testimony.

You forgot about the child brothels in pizza parlor nonexistant basements.

[LFC]

They could have just titled this one The American Media is Worthless and Americans Are Stupid.

The problem with being a president who promises to clean things up after a villainous predecessor is that the press corps treats you like a superhero—which sounds like a good thing until you realize that just means you get blamed for things you can’t control.

That’s what happened to Jimmy Carter, and it’s what’s happening to Joe Biden now thanks to what Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhad has called “the Green Lantern Theory” in which voters believe a president can do anything through sheer willpower, like the DC superhero.

That mistaken belief, says Nyhad, leads to the belief that legislative failures result from a lack of will. Nyhad cites the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Biden signed into law earlier this year, “the most significant piece of legislation passed for working families in many, many decades.” When one of Biden’s core promises, the $15-an-hour wage, failed to make the final bill, progressives argued that Biden didn’t fight hard enough.

An analysis of media coverage using algorithms focused on adjectives and where they’re placed in reporting found that Biden got treated as badly or worse in his first year as president than his predecessor, who routinely lied to the American people, delighted in violating democratic norms, and used a fascistic term for reporters, calling them “enemies of the people.”

The study used artificial intelligence to scan the coverage in a “sentiment analysis” that bears out what the White House is up against. Simply put, Biden can’t catch a break. He’s signed two consequential pieces of legislation into law with a third possible by the end of the year, and that’s with razor-thin margins in Congress.

Biden has done a better job containing COVID than his predecessor, whose flagrant refusal to self-isolate after he was secretly found to test positive put hundreds of people at risk unnecessarily. White House Chief of staff Ron Klain tweeted out Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank calling on the media to be “partisans for democracy” instead of being as adversarial with a president trying to pass a bill as they were with the guy who is still trying to overthrow the election.

“We expected Biden to return us to normality and it hasn’t happened. It’s not necessarily his fault, but people aren’t grading on a curve,” says Jack Pitney, a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College. Trump benefited from low expectations, says Pitney, recounting how in early 2017, after watching Trump deliver pretty standard remarks honoring a fallen Navy SEAL, CNN commentator Van Jones enthused that was the moment Trump became president. There were other moments early on, but none endured. “Trump briefly exceeded a low baseline while Biden after a year hasn’t returned us to normalcy.”

[LFC]

Good lord this clown (former opposition research counsel for HW Bush) had to dig hard for some false equivalence. The big, bold title is "Republicans Aren’t the Only Ones Diluting Citizens’ Votes." He just can't admit that voter disenfranchisement and election theft is a 98% Republican problem so he has to claw for a few scraps. Bold mine.

Republicans and Democrats have a problem with “who” is doing the voting and, in the process, the value and worth of citizenship and the franchise is taking a beating.

On the GOP’s side of the ledger, restricting access to the ballot and electoral intimidation are features, not bugs. Indeed, in Florida and Georgia, Republicans are calling for Stasi-styled police units to handle claims of election fraud. The spirit of Jan. 6 lives on.

When Sen. Mitch McConnell publicly drew an inartful divide between “African American voters” and “Americans,” he said the quiet part aloud. From the look of things, the embers of America’s Civil War continue to glow. Hard-fought and gained voting rights are again up for grabs. Newly enacted restrictions are more than mere impediments—they are an attempt to dilute the “wrong” votes and diminish the voice of the “wrong” citizens in the process.

Meanwhile, in deep blue New York City, voting for city offices has been thrown open to all legal residents and “dreamers” who have resided in the city for more than 30 days. Non-citizens too will now have a direct say in choosing elected representatives and setting policy in America’s biggest city, which often blazes the path that Blue America is headed down.

New York’s pool of eligible voters swelled overnight by approximately 800,000, presenting another massive challenge to the city’s corrupt and inept Board of Elections. That’s more people than voted for Mayor Eric Adams in November.

Notably, Adams let the bill become law without signing it. One of his supporters, outgoing majority leader of the City Council Laurie Cumbo, loudly objected to how it diminished the votes of Black New Yorkers while noting Trump’s gains with Latino voters.

While the two parties’ moves are hardly equivalent or equal, both are responding to changing demographics and electoral outcomes. Since 1992, the GOP has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, yet has twice succeeded in grasping the ring of power solely because of the mechanics of the electoral college. At best, allegations of fraud are a salve and fig leaf for political defeat for nearly half the country.

Where to start?

a) The 800,000 can only elect local officials.

b) Note the mention of "30 days" without context. 30 days or less is the standard across the U.S. I don't think there's a state with a longer residential requirement.

c) Don't you just love lumping "demographics" with "electoral outcomes?" You know because allowing people who live and pay taxes in your jurisdiction to vote for their representation and changing the rules to stop people from voting so you can retain power are pretty much the same motivation.

d) Read on for more "balance." He actually manages to stick to reality for a bit before descending into Dem and NYC bashing but he finishes with just this little tidbit, something that clearly shows that "balance." That's pretty much all he has to say about a nationwide, systematic, 200 law change strong Republican effort to disenfranchise the wrong kind of voters.

Earlier this month, New York’s Republican and conservative stalwarts commenced a lawsuit to block the city’s new non-citizen voting law on the grounds that it violated the rights of the state’s citizens. Yet in the aftermath of the insurrection, four of New York state’s Republican members of Congress voted against certifying the results of the presidential election—even as they took their own seats.

Apparently, the value accorded to each citizen’s vote is not identical. Some are more equal than others.

[goldenvalley]

Jan 24, 2022 15:41:51 GMT LFC said:

Good lord this clown (former opposition research counsel for HW Bush) had to dig hard for some false equivalence. The big, bold title is "Republicans Aren’t the Only Ones Diluting Citizens’ Votes." He just can't admit that voter disenfranchisement and election theft is a 98% Republican problem so he has to claw for a few scraps. Bold mine.

Oh yeah some of these folks are thrilled to see the NYC law.  It confirms their belief that all illegal immigrants are allowed in just to swamp the white folks with their votes. This gives something else to write and gloat about.  

San Francisco allows noncitizen residents to vote in school board elections.  This has been the case since 2018. Two cities in Maryland allow noncitizen residents to vote in more than just school board elections.

[LFC]

Dan Pfeiffer served as White House communications director for Barack Obama. Here's an interview where he discusses the issues with Democrats getting their message out. I think the big takeaway is that the MSM isn't going to help them do it and they need to take other routes. I'd agree. The MSM has bent over backwards and twisted themselves into pretzels to try to present "both sides" and have proven incapable of calling things out by their real name such as the Jan. 6 insurrection. Not "riot." Not "protest." "Insurrection."

The biggest problem is that most Democrats continue to believe the best way we’re going to communicate, or maybe the only way to communicate our message, is through traditional press. We’re going to tell the New York Times, we’re going to tell CNN, we’re going to tell the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and they’re going to communicate that to the public. That model hasn’t worked for a very long time.

We’re in a world where Facebook dominates, where right-wing propaganda and disinformation dominates. The idea that anyone other than the most plugged-in news junkies are going to have any real information about what’s happening is just folly.

Our party tends to think the press will do our job for us. We think they’re going to communicate our message. But it’s our responsibility to get the message, or the news, from Joe Biden’s lips or Nancy Pelosi’s lips to the voters’ ears. And that’s not going to happen organically. It has to happen through paid advertising, through social content we generate, through progressive media, and there has been very little effort to adjust our communication strategy.

We didn’t have to do this in the Trump years because Trump dominated the conversation and he made the case against himself all the time, and that was sufficient to win elections.

[Bact PhD]

The only counter I would make to that is, “What age demographic shoes up at the polls reliably?”

Hint: It ain’t the under-55s.

Of course, there’s no reason political figures can’t “walk and chew gum at the same time.” It’s just that the 65+ crowd is still consuming conventional media far more than social.

[LFC]

WTF is CBS News THINKING?

CBS News caught a lot of flack this week for hiring former Donald Trump staffer Mick Mulvaney as an analyst.

Mulvaney, a former South Carolina congressman who led the Office of Budget Management and served as Trump's acting chief of staff, made his first appearance Tuesday on CBS's streaming service to discuss President Joe Biden's new budget proposal.

"We've never taxed wealth before, we've taxed income," Mulvaney said. "In fact, the Constitution might not even allow a property tax ... but that's the basic framework. We'll figure out how much money you've got on things like unrealized stock gains business that you might own and even though you didn't make money off that last year we're still going to tax you on it. That's the basis of this proposal."

The move drew strong criticism from many viewers.

CBS News did not mention a single time in the segment this morning that Mulvaney worked for Trump, lied about the Ukraine quid pro quo, or anything he did as a liar for Trump. CBS News is legitimately lying to the public to rehabilitate the image of a Trump official
— Matt Negrin, HOST OF HARDBALL AT 7PM ON MSNBC (@matt Negrin, HOST OF HARDBALL AT 7PM ON MSNBC) 1648557330

[LFC]

CBS admitted that hired Mulvaney just so they had access to Republicans.

CBS Honcho Admits Mick Mulvaney Hire Was For ‘Access’ To Republicans

One of the co-presidents of CBS News told upset network employees that Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was hired to be a contributor because “getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority” and “we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms,” according to the Washington Post.

• A senior CBS News producer reportedly tried to defend Mulvaney’s hiring by pointing out the fact that 74.2 million people voted for Trump. LOL.

• Mulvaney’s there to provide “political analysis,” according to the network’s press release. Again, LOL (except it’s pretty hard to laugh when you’re watching one of Trump’s worst cronies get rehabilitated into a supposedly trustworthy source of insight in real time!).

[goldenvalley]

Mar 31, 2022 14:44:01 GMT LFC said:

CBS admitted that hired Mulvaney just so they had access to Republicans.

CBS Honcho Admits Mick Mulvaney Hire Was For ‘Access’ To Republicans

One of the co-presidents of CBS News told upset network employees that Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was hired to be a contributor because “getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority” and “we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms,” according to the Washington Post.

• A senior CBS News producer reportedly tried to defend Mulvaney’s hiring by pointing out the fact that 74.2 million people voted for Trump. LOL.

• Mulvaney’s there to provide “political analysis,” according to the network’s press release. Again, LOL (except it’s pretty hard to laugh when you’re watching one of Trump’s worst cronies get rehabilitated into a supposedly trustworthy source of insight in real time!).

CNN hired former Trump campaign manager and future Trump press secretary for same reasons. I'm guessing CBS or CNN would have hired Kellyanne Conway if they could.

[LFC]

The MSM has almost completely missed the story about Greg Abbott's truck inspection ploy that completely gummed up cross border trade for food and other goods. Gawd they suck.

It’s hard to keep up these days with the tides of Republican malevolence and press failures. But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this one. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been mounting various stunts in recent weeks to keep the border immigration issue at a boil for his own 2022 reelection campaign. His latest move was to impose universal safety inspections on trucks coming from Mexico into Texas to snarl the border, drive up prices and possibly create food shortages in the United States. The proximate reason for this move is President Biden’s decision to phase out COVID-era restrictions on asylum seekers. Price spikes and border chaos are his weapon against Biden.

The chaos has been so immediate and extreme that Abbott has garnered substantial pushback even from state Republicans. State Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller on Tuesday attacked Abbott’s new policy as “political theater” and “economy killing action.” “Your inspection protocol is not stopping illegal immigration. It is stopping food from getting to grocery store shelves and in many cases causing food to rot in trucks — many of which are owned by Texas and other American companies. … The people of Texas deserve better!”

Abbott’s move seems constitutionally dubious at best. State governors have no authority to regulate or interdict other trade between US states or international trade. He is able to do it under the guise of ‘safety inspections’. But the federal government already does safety inspections. And these are clearly being used to throttle trade which, again, states have no authority to do.

Yesterday Abbott loosened the policy at a subset of border crossings but left most in place.

The U.S. continues to be wracked by supply chain disruptions and inflation. This move seems designed — and well designed — to exacerbate both. Abbott’s calculation, probably accurate, is that he can create chaos and price spikes to pressure Biden and it’s no skin off his back since Biden will be blamed anyway. It’s all gravy.

I had my eyes on this story at a distance. And then I noticed something yesterday. The daily Axios newsletter I get front-paged the story but left out most of what I’ve just described. It presented it as somehow a continuation of the Canadian trucker COVID activism of a few months ago — more “trucker” activism. “The next trucker protest crisis is brewing south of the border, with Mexican truckers blockading bridges amid growing fears over fruit and vegetable shortages,” Mike Allen wrote in his lede.

Sid Miller’s criticism was included, as was the issue of safety inspections. But the fact that this was a crisis created by Abbott for his own political purposes was left out entirely. Just another “trucker protest.” Seemingly more “truckers” protesting Biden himself.

These are truly the days of our discontent. The political climate is bleak, elite DC press corruption is pervasive.

[LFC]

I don't know what's happening at Axios but they seem to be wading deeper towards the right-wing fever swamp. TPM points out something that should be pretty obvious to any journalistic outfit interested in reality.

Yesterday I got two emails from Axios, both of which ran with headlines about the “big story” being Republicans getting ready to take “revenge” against Democrats for subpoenaing Kevin McCarthy and his colleagues. The GOP “plans revenge”; the GOP’s “Jan 6 payback.” This was, as they put it in their argot, the “big story.” Every Axios newsletter yesterday seemed to run with some version of that.

As a factual matter, there’s little question that Republicans will make this and the whole investigation into their new grievance in which they’ve been victimized and now need to even the score. But of course, framing the matter this way and making it the “big story” makes the whole story into a back and forth escalation of tit for tats. One must ask, revenge for what?

The January 6th insurrection did happen. It was a violent assault on the U.S. capital, a seditious conspiracy. McCarthy himself is not even accused of anything. Indeed, his dark secret is that he wasn’t part of it and actually was really pissed about what was happening in real time. He’s being subpoenaed because he’s refused to answer questions as a witness. Jan. 6th happened. It was a violent insurrection. There’s an investigation into it. He refuses to testify. It seems like a rhetorical or inherently partisan question but again, revenge for what?

Defendants often want revenge against the judge. But you don’t usually see news stories headlined: “Oh boy! The judge is sure gonna get it!” The Axios stories on this read a bit like if you had a household newspaper in a home with an abuser: Janey knew dad gets really, really mad before she asked him to stop hitting mommy.

So I was pleasantly surprised that Punchbowl, the latest or still relatively recent entrant in the DC insider newsletter world, had a rather different take: “Yes, it’s unprecedented to subpoena members of Congress in a non-ethics case, there’s no question about that. Or to issue subpoenas to multiple members as part of a group. But you know what else is unprecedented? An insurrection at the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.”

Punchbowl has the rightly respected old pro John Bresnahan as one of the founders. So that probably keeps them a bit more on track. But the Axios perspective is certainly the more dominant one in town, if it is somewhat more egregious than most. It’s an illustration of how these attitudes and viewpoints profoundly shape how news is covered and the assumptions that are baked into it.

BTW Axios wrote an article on media traffic and did some interesting categorizations of right and left as well as determining that accuracy actually didn't matter for their little anal-ysis. Mother Jones questioned this after they were categorized the same as Newsmax only for the left.

Back to that Axios article, whose authors, Sara Fischer and Neal Rothschild, say they made their assessment “in consultation with news bias ranking service NewsGuard.” NewsGuard, originally co-launched by veteran media entrepreneur Steve Brill, assesses news sites’ trustworthiness, giving a green check mark to those that adhere to “basic standards of credibility and transparency” and a red exclamation mark to sites that do not. It also labels sites politically. Mother Jones is categorized as “left-leaning” and bears a green check mark. Newsmax is “conservative” and has a red flag for publishing “false and unsubstantiated” claims.

So why the change from NewsGuard’s “left-leaning” classification to Axios’ “far left”? I asked the Axios reporters, and they emailed: “Our categorizations of publishers are based on the point of view of the outlet, not the standard of journalism…We also used our own analysis for the groupings—as they are necessarily subjective, we can understand and respect if you disagree with the classifications.”

“Necessarily subjective” assessments? In other words, this analysis of bias in the news is based on just…bias?

[LFC]

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune posted, and then took down, and op-ed that defended the Proud Boys as good, normal people. Turns out the author is married to one.

Following criticism over its decision to run a pro-Proud Boys op-ed and not disclose the author was the spouse of a member of the far-right extremist group, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune took down the controversial column on Monday. As of publication, the digital article was replaced with a 404 error message. The original piece, titled “Attacking Proud Boys does a disservice to caring school parents,” was a response to an earlier guest op-ed in the Herald-Tribune that called out Sarasota school board members’ friendly association with the violent organization. “When I think about the Proud Boys, I think of fathers, business owners and veterans,” Radovich wrote in her column. “These fathers have spoken at many School Board meetings. They are concerned about the direction that their local schools are heading in, and I commend them for coming to School Board meetings.” While the op-ed that Radovich was responding to specifically identified her as the spouse of Nicholas Radovich, a member of the Proud Boys, she and the paper failed to disclose this information in her piece. Beyond that, the paper sparked outrage for providing a platform that gushed over the Proud Boys, a group that has been deemed a terrorist organization in several countries. The opinion and executive editors for the Herald-Tribune did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Now why is this in the doubled standard thread? Because I can't imagine any remotely mainstream media outlet publishing a similar defense of a left-wing group that has, in its own publicly available words, dedicated itself to violence, has a long history of violence, helped plan and execute an insurrection, and has multiple members incarcerated or indicted for violence. Who the HELL at the paper thought this was remotely reasonable to put up? Either they're an idiot who doesn't actually follow the news or they're a MAGAt who were all in on this bullshit. Or both. If the latter they need to be fired ASAP.

[goldenvalley]

Jul 11, 2022 15:42:41 GMT LFC said:

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune posted, and then took down, and op-ed that defended the Proud Boys as good, normal people. Turns out the author is married to one.

Following criticism over its decision to run a pro-Proud Boys op-ed and not disclose the author was the spouse of a member of the far-right extremist group, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune took down the controversial column on Monday. As of publication, the digital article was replaced with a 404 error message. The original piece, titled “Attacking Proud Boys does a disservice to caring school parents,” was a response to an earlier guest op-ed in the Herald-Tribune that called out Sarasota school board members’ friendly association with the violent organization. “When I think about the Proud Boys, I think of fathers, business owners and veterans,” Radovich wrote in her column. “These fathers have spoken at many School Board meetings. They are concerned about the direction that their local schools are heading in, and I commend them for coming to School Board meetings.” While the op-ed that Radovich was responding to specifically identified her as the spouse of Nicholas Radovich, a member of the Proud Boys, she and the paper failed to disclose this information in her piece. Beyond that, the paper sparked outrage for providing a platform that gushed over the Proud Boys, a group that has been deemed a terrorist organization in several countries. The opinion and executive editors for the Herald-Tribune did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Now why is this in the doubled standard thread? Because I can't imagine any remotely mainstream media outlet publishing a similar defense of a left-wing group that has, in its own publicly available words, dedicated itself to violence, has a long history of violence, helped plan and execute an insurrection, and has multiple members incarcerated or indicted for violence. Who the HELL at the paper thought this was remotely reasonable to put up? Either they're an idiot who doesn't actually follow the news or they're a MAGAt who were all in on this bullshit. Or both. If the latter they need to be fired ASAP.

I am getting the impression that there are lots of Proud Boys in Florida.  This article reminded me of an article about a woman in rural Oregon running for school board. Her opponent was a woman who was married to either a Proud Boy or and Oath Keeper.  This person home schooled her kids (why was she running for school board?) and says her society consists of the folks in one of those groups who are really nice, get together for barbecues, and help each other out.  

[Bact PhD]

Jul 11, 2022 18:47:51 GMT goldenvalley said:

Jul 11, 2022 15:42:41 GMT LFC said:

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune posted, and then took down, and op-ed that defended the Proud Boys as good, normal people. Turns out the author is married to one.

Now why is this in the doubled standard thread? Because I can't imagine any remotely mainstream media outlet publishing a similar defense of a left-wing group that has, in its own publicly available words, dedicated itself to violence, has a long history of violence, helped plan and execute an insurrection, and has multiple members incarcerated or indicted for violence. Who the HELL at the paper thought this was remotely reasonable to put up? Either they're an idiot who doesn't actually follow the news or they're a MAGAt who were all in on this bullshit. Or both. If the latter they need to be fired ASAP.

I am getting the impression that there are lots of Proud Boys in Florida.  …

Yeeeahhh.
Over the last couple decades, Flori-DUH has become something of a hotbed of hate-group activity. We had a disproportionate number of January 6 participants, too. Somehow, though, the activity here doesn’t seem to get quite the coverage that it does in places like Idaho. Of course, these folks have to compete with the other oddballs and misfits for attention—remember, the term “Florida Man” originated here…