Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

On the 90th birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Leonard Pitts, Jr., writes about what King called white moderates' desire for  “a negative peace, which is the absence of tension to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice.”  He offers three recent stories for consideration, of which we'll focus on the media story:

The stories all made recent headlines. The first was about the state of Florida posthumously pardoning the Groveland Four, a group of African-American men who suffered torture, prison and murder after being falsely accused of raping a white woman in 1949. 

The second concerns broad Republican condemnation of one of their own, Rep. Steve King, for an interview with The New York Times in which he questioned why the terms “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” should be considered offensive. 

The third involves a directive — since rescinded — NBC News sent its writers, reporters and anchors about King’s words. “Be careful to avoid characterizing [King’s] remarks as racist,” it said. suggesting that the remarks instead be described as ‘what many are calling racist’.”  [snip]

It is possible to concede that NBC has an interest in ensuring its people remain disinterested observers of events they report, yet feel that in asking them to refrain from calling obvious racism obvious racism, the network doesn’t embody journalistic rigor so much as it does white people’s too frequent refusal to call out such racism even when it’s right in front of them. 

We may safely assume most NBC executives, Republican lawmakers and Florida officials would say — and probably believe — all the right things if you asked about their commitment to racial justice. Yet given a chance to put force behind that commitment, they failed. In Florida’s case, they failed for seven decades. (our emphasis)

Focusing just on NBC, they're still having a problem calling racists "racists," as evidenced on Saturday by José Diaz-Balart's introduction of the story about MAGA punks who taunted the Native American veteran, saying it was a "troubling scene many are calling racist" (at 10:44 in the video).  Many are calling NBC News a pusillanimous, chickenshit operation.

The Los Angeles Times editorializes on the DOA offer made by bumbling Donald "Rump" Trump on Saturday:

The president clearly wants Saturday’s speech to recast his obstinate wall demand as a reasonable request in exchange for an overdue solution to the thorny problem posed by the Dreamers. But he’s responsible for the Dreamers’ dilemma too, having rashly terminated President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in order to gain leverage over Democrats in negotiations over immigration policy. 

This is a recurring theme of this transactional president’s tenure: To try to coerce Congress into supporting something that much of the country doesn’t want, he manufactures a problem in the hope that it will strengthen his bargaining position. We’ve seen it again and again — the administration’s concerted efforts to undermine Obamacare, his threats to the North American Free Trade Agreement, the tariff wars he launched with much of the industrialized world, the DACA fiasco and now the longest government shutdown in the nation’s history. 

Trump has boxed himself into a corner with his wall, and congressional Democrats aren’t inclined to give him an easy way out. That’s why Trump went public Saturday with his proposed deal — to make it seem like he’s negotiating, rather than simply prolonging the shutdown in the hope that congressional Democrats will give in. But if we’re going to get out of the mess Trump made, he has to be willing to actually negotiate, not just offer to solve another problem he created in exchange for getting the wall he fetishizes.  (our emphasis)

Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey write about how Rump (spoiler alert) ain't no dealmaker:

Trump’s management of the partial government shutdown — his first foray in divided government — has exposed as never before his shortcomings as a dealmaker. The president has been adamant about securing $5.7 billion in public money to construct his long-promised border wall, but has not won over congressional Democrats, who consider the wall immoral and have refused to negotiate over border security until the government reopens. 

The 30-day shutdown — the impacts of which have begun rippling beyond the federal workforce into the everyday lives of millions of Americans — is defining the second half of Trump’s term and has set a foundation for the nascent 2020 presidential campaign. 

The shutdown also has accentuated several fundamental traits of Trump’s presidency: his apparent shortage of empathy, in this case for furloughed workers; his difficulty accepting responsibility for a crisis he had said he would be proud to instigate; his tendency for revenge when it comes to one-upping political foes; and his seeming misunderstanding of Democrats’ motivations. (our emphasis)

How about "Shart of the Deal"?

As always, we encourage you to visit Infidel 753's link round-up where you can find out such things as what conservatives are outraged about today and the relative time cable news spent on Rep. Steve King's white supremacist musings vs. Rep. Rashida Tlaib's uttering an appropriate curse word.