Sunday, September 4, 2016

Tale of Two Photos: Our Broken Media, Cont'd.


Neo-fascist bigot Donald "Rump" Trump's recent ballyhooed "outreach" to African-Americans at a Detroit "church" made headlines.  But check out the two perspectives in the photos below, the first angled from the front, and the second showing the scene from the back of the room (click on photos to enlarge):

Photo: Evan Vucci, Associated Press
Photo: Shane Goldmacher, Politico

Lots of empty chairs, no? Surprised you haven't seen much of the second photo? Note the wire service photo makes it appear as though Rump was a hit to the churchgoers, when in fact only a fraction of the room was occupied.  It's all part of the campaign by our broken media to "normalize" Rump into something he's not.

(h/t to Daily Kos)

Quote Of The Day - Trump, Ailes And The Media


Charles P. Pierce on one of the many unsavory advisers to neo- fascist Donald "Rump" Trump, the abhorrent Roger "Jabba the Nut" Ailes:
There were Mongol chieftains who treated women better than this tawdry tub of goo. It is here where we should remind ourselves that this unseemly blob of encrusted hormones is a trusted adviser to the current Republican presidential nominee. Of course, Huma Abedin, e-mails, Anthony Weiner, private server, optics, narrative.
The latest outstanding piece of real journalism by The New Yorker's Gabriel Sherman on Ailes' depravity goes largely missing in the media mosh pit.  Ailes is a man thing in Rump's inner circle, providing media and debate advice, but the easily- connectable dots aren't being connected. Why? Well, it doesn't contribute to the media's primal urge to tear down Hillary Clinton and get the horserace their bottom line demands.

In this or any other week where Rump's ongoing sleazy evasiveness in releasing his tax returns and medical records, his hiring of the lowest bottom-feeder in the political sewer (David Bossie), his stonewalling on his wife's immigration status, his "model" agency's violations of immigration laws, his pay- for- play scandals, as well as the backdrop of his racist alt- right and Russian oligarch support, any of which could be the focus of honest investigative journalism and headlining stories, instead we get ... well, Charlie already said it, and at this point, we're just beating a dead horse (giving us an excuse to use that gif).

BONUS:  Right --
BONUS II:  Be sure to read Josh Marshall on the political reporters hacks at the effing New York Times continuing efforts to bring down the Clintons.

BONUS III:  Paul Waldman wants you to guess which of two -- a scandal and a non-scandal -- will get the most sustained media play. (Updated here.)

Sunday Sermon



Do you suppose some of these African-American ministers / cranks / grifters were persuaded to embrace neo-fascist alt-right hero Donald "Rump" Trump by a "charitable donation" from Rump? That would be a story for our intrepid "journalists" to investigate.

Saturday, September 3, 2016

Time To Act


By now, you've no doubt noticed that we've had it with the corporate "mainstream media's" double standard in covering Hillary Clinton, embodied by the "Clinton Rules:"
1) Everything, no matter how ludicrous-sounding, is worthy of a full investigation by federal agencies, Congress, the "vast right-wing conspiracy," and mainstream media outlets. 
2) Every allegation, no matter how ludicrous, is believable until it can be proven completely and utterly false. And even then, it keeps a life of its own in the conservative media world. 
3) The media assumes that Clinton is acting in bad faith until there's hard evidence otherwise. 
4) Everything is newsworthy because the Clintons are the equivalent of America's royal family. 
5) Everything she does is fake and calculated for maximum political benefit.
For as long as the Clintons have been in the public eye, Republicans and their willing dupes in the media have been creating "scandals" and "controversies" and "perceptions" surrounding them. (Think Whitewater, Vince Foster, Filegate, etc.)  In recent years, we see it playing out with a vengeance in the Benghazi!!! , email server and Clinton Foundation nothingburgers.  With the transition of each of these from the right- wing noise machine into the "mainstream media," the desired effect of lowering the "trustworthiness" and "likeability" polling numbers of Hillary Clinton has occurred.  This process has been referred to as the right-wing "puke funnel," described by James Carville long ago.  A corollary is the "it's out there" rationale offered by Beltway sage Cokie Roberts as an excuse for "mainstream journalists" to catapult every piece of sh*t coming out of the puke funnel into our living rooms, because, "it's out there!"

Well, as "Howard Beale" put it,


Our brother blogger Tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors says it's time to take action, and we heartily agree. Go over and read his piece and then let your feelings be known about the media's smarmy contribution to the savaging of Hillary Clinton and the rise of neo- fascist Donald "Rump" Trump.  We're going to start with our local newspaper, the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle, which has made a cottage industry out of pursuing "perceptions" surrounding the Clintons. Here's Tengrain's list of collaborators who need to hear from people about their puerile coverage:

NBC News
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112

CBS News
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

ABC News
47 West 66th Street
New York, NY 10023

Copy on communication to networks:

Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554

Heading into the homestretch of the campaign, we need to make our voices heard. This is an existential election for what's left of American democracy.

Today's Cartoon Twofer - Humpty Trumpty And "The Softening"


(click on images to enlarge)


(Steve Benson, via gocomics.com)


(Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee)

Motown Not Buying Rump's Con



As we noted in the post below, neo-fascist bigot Donald "Rump" Trump has been employing useful idiots and religious grifters like Mark Burns in the African-American community to fake his "outreach" to them. Whatever "outreach" is taking place is not aimed at African-Americans: it's a stunt aimed at wavering Republicans in the suburbs who don't want to overtly support a candidate who has repeatedly dealt in hate speech against minorities (dog whistles, of course, are OK). If he can con enough of them to believe that he's not a bigot, he may persuade them to vote for him in November. Yesterday, Rump sat down behind closed doors with a group of black Republican pols and grifters in Philadelphia in a patently obvious attempt to appear to be listening to their concerns (you can be certain the words "black lives matter" were not uttered in his presence).

Today, Rump is in Detroit, meeting with another pliable (and, being a Rump backer, rather odd) black minister who is "interviewing" Rump, but only after submitting questions in advance to the Rump campaign, so as to ensure a carefully canned response. This charade, after years of Rump leading the birther movement which accused the first African-American President as being a foreign-born usurper, after attacking the "Black Lives Matter" movement against targeted violence toward the black community, after receiving support from David Duke and other white supremacists, etc. When Rump does address a crowd to talk about issues affecting the black and minority community, it's in overwhelmingly white communities (West Bend, WI, Dimondale, MI, Everett, WA, etc.)  So when the broken corporate press plays the game with Rump and says this is his "outreach" to African-Americans, remember his long record of stoking white resentment and white nationalism, as well as their attempts to "normalize" him.

(photo: Detroit residents protest visit of Rump to Detroit, via NBC News)

Pastor Burns, Trump Surrogate, Gets Burned On False Bio


Perhaps you saw neo- fascist white supremacist Donald "Rump" Trump's favorite house Negro prosperity gospel pastor, Mark Burns, at the Republican National Convention Shitshow ranting in his "benediction" about Democrats being the enemy and calling on "God" to defeat Hillary Clinton?  Or, more recently, Burns was quoted as saying Clinton wanted "genocide" against African Americans?  He's also the godly man who tweeted the cartoon of Clinton in blackface with the caption:  "Black Americans, THANK YOU FOR YOUR VOTES and letting me use you again..See you again in 4 years." 

Yes, that douche.

Well, since Rump only has the Best People in his camp, we're shocked! to learn that pastor Burns is a bit of a fraud:
Mark Burns's very bad week just got much worse. 
Days after the top Trump backer and Republican convention speaker was forced to apologize for tweeting a cartoon of Hillary Clinton in blackface, CNN did some digging into his apparently inflated bio claims. 
The televangelist on Friday night admitted to overstating some of his claims on his Facebook page. Then, on Saturday morning, CNN aired this brutal interview with Burns, in which he struggles to explain his readily apparent résumé inflation.
Here's the CNN report, with the painful takedown of Elmer Gantry Burns (please self- administer your extreme schadenfreude medication now):



Hummina hummina. "Character."  Yeah, right.  As a proponent of the "prosperity gospel" scam, one only has to wonder how much Elmer Gantry Burns' prosperity has increased since his association with Rump.

Friday, September 2, 2016

Weekend South Music


St. Paul, MN- based alt rock band Hippo Campus released "South," a single from their EP of the same name, last October.  Enjoy the music, and the interspersed SoCal scenes!

Another Turd Drops In Trumpland


The campaign of neo-fascist demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump has announced the hiring of David Bossie, the noted ratf*cker and force behind the ironically-named Citizens United group, as its deputy campaign manager. A hard-line right-winger, Bossie's reputation was founded on his scurrilous pursuit of the Clintons for the past 20 years, smearing them with deceptive accusations and innuendo.  He was fired from his staff position with the House of Representatives (by Newt "Poot" Gingrich's direction, no less) for leaking edited and misleading investigative material in an attempt to smear President Clinton. With Citizens United (a front organization for wealthy right-wing plutocrats), he was behind Citizens United v. FEC, which opened the floodgates to dark, corporate money in political campaigns.

The Clinton campaign's response, delivered by John Podesta, was swift and accurate:
“David Bossie is so craven and maniacal that in the heyday of the overreaching, Gingrich-era Congress, the top Whitewater conspiracy theorist in the House had to fire him for doctoring evidence. He has devoted his career ever since to trying to tear down Hillary Clinton. For months now, Citizens United has been acting as an arm of the Trump campaign, and this hiring of Bossie now makes it official. This is just the latest sign that Donald Trump has put the most extreme elements of the right-wing fringe in the driver’s seat of his campaign.”
If anything confirms Rump's extremism and desperation, even given the hiring of Steve Bannon, it's the hiring of this despicable, obsessed hack.

Cat Sees Trump, Acts Rationally


Visual evidence that at least this one cat has more sense than countless millions of Americans (lol "Richard M. Nixon"):

(h/t Balloon Juice)

Trump's Anti-Immigration "Screech"


Stephen Colbert does what the craven corporate media will not:  show neo- fascist blowhard Donald "Rump" Trump for what he is (Projection much? Notice when Rump refers, approvingly, to the United States as a "big bully"):



BONUS:  Josh Marshall has a sober look at Rump's "screech," calling it what it is -- hate speech -- and calling out the media for soft- pedaling it.

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Today's Cartoon - Debate Prep


(click on image to enlarge)


(Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press)

He's the change candidate (you know, the candidate you have to change).

Today's "Bridge On The River Kwai" Metaphor


A metaphor, via brief film clip, of the day after Election 2016, wherein Sir Alec Guinness plays the Trump- normalizing, horserace hankering, Clinton- hating media, and the bridge is America.



Of course, that would wrongly presume they had self- awareness and consciences.

BONUS: These tweets illustrate the point:


Payaso Quote of the Day


"(Trump's) done for with the Hispanic community....I want you to remember this one word: payaso. It means clown. This guy is a complete clown." -- President and CEO of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Javier Palomarez on MSNBC's Morning Blow this morning (no link), reflecting on yesterday's dark and angry deportation speech by neo-fascist payaso Donald "Rump" Trump in Phoenix. Interesting when you consider that the USHCOC represents the conservative element of the Hispanic business community. Now, they need to make sure that any remaining Hispanic supporters / apologists for Rump are identified the same way.

BONUS:  It looks like half of the hacks on Rump's Hispanic photo op "advisory" committee are about to resign after his deportation speech yesterday. Hasta la vista, payaso!

New Trump, Same As The Old Trump



After his hastily- arranged photo op yesterday with Mexican sucker President Enrique Peña Nieto, neo- fascist deporter Donald "Rump" Trump (or our "Mexican" appellation for him, "Pauncho") made a long- awaited speech in Phoenix that was intended to clarify his and his campaign's contradictory and floundering immigration "policy."  For those in the media desperate for a "pivot" and a horserace, and those "independents" and Republicans who are looking for "cover" to support "Pauncho," we have a bulletin for you:  New Trump, Same As The Old Trump.
Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation,” Trump said during what he billed as a major policy speech in Phoenix. “That is what it means to have laws and to have a country. Otherwise we don’t have a country.”  [snip] 
The truth is, the central issue is not the needs of the 11 million illegal immigrants, or however many it may be.”  (our emphasis)
And "the wall?"
Also promised on the border: an “impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful southern border wall,” bolstered by technology and paid for by Mexico.

He talked about the wall hours after meeting with with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City. Trump said in a joint press conference afterward the meeting that the two men hadn’t discussed payment for the wall. Peña Nieto later said he told Trump that Mexico refuses pay.

Trump apparently wasn’t convinced.

“Mexico will pay for the wall,” he said during his speech. “100 percent. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for the wall.”  (our emphasis)
In short, you could replay yesterday's shouty, hateful Phoenix speech and it would be the same as any speech on immigration Rump's given in the past year, and as the late, great Molly Ivins would have said, "probably sounded better in the original German."

We could go on about what audience Rump is attempting to con at this particular moment, but Norman Ornstein sussed it out perfectly for us:

BONUS:  Charles Pierce has a great piece on the sniveling media and Rump.

(Photo:  President Pena Nieto and Pauncho yesterday.)