Tonight Donald Trump spoke in complete sentences, read what he was given, seemed mostly sober, and as such is being treated like the second coming of Ronald Reagan by a pundit corps desperate to change none of its behavior. If Trump is a normal president, they don’t have to! Therefore, he will be a normal president. All I heard tonight was a collection of stuff you say to your liberal sister-in-law when you’re arguing with her about stuff you think she believes. Stuff that’s correct but also not the point, stuff that makes you sound virtuous and her sound like a … Continue reading What You Wanted To Say to Your Liberal Family Members
Have some goddamn pride: President Donald Trump is holding court with “regional press affiliates” in a private dinner on Monday, the White House said. The meeting is comparable to the off-the-record lunch Trump will host Tuesday with major network anchors ahead of his first address to Congress. In the past month the messages from institutional media leaders have been only slightly more consistent than those of Trump’s spokespeople. Subscribe to us, because these are extraordinary times, except we need to preserve traditions at all costs, because that’s how things are done! Trump’s administration is de-legitimizing the press, which is UNAMERICAN, but … Continue reading Tell Me Again How Critical the Press Considers Itself
Fuck it, I’m going to Yale: Mr. Secretary has a new title: Professor. Former Secretary of State John Kerry was out of work for about a month before landing a new job at his alma mater, Yale, where he will teach a course as well as host presentations called “Kerry Conversations.” The new program, called the Kerry Initiative, was announced today by the university’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. “Secretary Kerry is going to teach school,” said Jim Levinsohn, director of the institute, home of the new program. “Students are going to show up, and that’s going to be John … Continue reading BRB GRAD SCHOOL APPLICATION DUE
Sorry about playing hooky last Monday, good people – was more than a little under the weather. Also, I had to wash my hair, and didn’t have a thing to wear.
Also, this edition of “Obsession” is going to be a “The Darnold”-free zone, because – feet of clay.
NEW YORK (AP) — Conservative activist James O’Keefe has announced plans to release recordings Thursday morning that he says were made secretly inside CNN.
O’Keefe tells the network in an interview that the media is a “huge target” of his and he’s targeting CNN specifically because it “has a very important role as an arbiter of news.”
So – it’s time for the big reveal that will bring the Commie News Network (wait, aren’t commies supposed to be the good guys now?) to its KNEES!!
To: TigerClaws
Site appears to have crashed.
Either a WHOLE LOT of people are trying to get on, or the Deep State has launched a cyberattack.
She seems nice: Mulkey explained her comments in the postgame press conference, saying she was tired of hearing the scandal discussed on a national stage by people not involved in the investigation who “don’t know what they’re talking about.” She said the scandal is over and she would send her daughter to the private Christian university, claiming the “problems we have at Baylor are no different than the problems at any other school in America.” THERE IS SUCH AN EASY WAY OUT OF THIS, guys. I’m gonna tell you what it is. I’m gonna tell you how to make sure … Continue reading Avoidable Problems
It’s almost like if you do things well, everything will be okay: It recently launched its 23rd edition, in Richmond, Texas, and has 186 employees and 11 open positions (that’s up from 7 editions and 63 employees in 2010). And this year, to help it expand further, Community Impact committed fully to dead-tree-ness and took the unusual step of opening its own printing plant. The 36,000-square-foot, $15 million facility opened in October in Pflugerville, next door to Community Impact’s main offices. (Here’s what the print product looks like.) “We were outgrowing the capacity of the printer we’d worked with over … Continue reading Do What Works
Could we please stop jerking ourselves off about this crap? Press gaggles — on-the-record scrums with communication staffers that disallow video recording — are a staple of White House reporting, and it’s highly unusual for a reporter to be barred from the meeting. Today, after Trump delivered a stinging (and contradictory) critique of the media, The New York Times, CNN, the L.A. Times, Politico and BuzzFeed were prevented from attending. The Associated Press and Time boycotted the gaggle in solidarity with their colleagues. Other news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal, One America News Network and Fox News were allowed in … Continue reading Today on Everyone’s Obsession with the Gaggle
The young woman sitting next to me scrunched up her face as she looked at a resume I would have killed for at her age. She had three internships, including one at a major media outlet and a second at a center for investigative journalism. She was the editor of her paper and had earned honors and awards along the way. Still, she had that look. “I just hope I get a job,” she said. “It’s rough out there…” I half smiled as I shook my head and told her, “You’re going to be fine. You have a ton of … Continue reading Seeds of Hope
Further confirmation that the fate of the world rests in the tiny hands of the most immature person to officially swear the oath. Christ. The key to keeping Trump’s Twitter habit under control, according to six former campaign officials, is to ensure that his personal media consumption includes a steady stream of praise. And when no such praise was to be found, staff would turn to friendly outlets to drum some up — and make sure it made its way to Trump’s desk. … The in-person touch is also important to keeping Trump from running too hot. One Trump associate … Continue reading Hail To The Twerp
I usually don’t use greatest hits/best of covers for this feature. Why? They’re rarely very distinctive. Time Peace is an exception to that rule. This 1968 album from the Rascals has nifty pop art packaging and I love pop art. It … Continue reading Album Cover Art Wednesday: Time Peace
Ugh. True story: Mr. A and Doc and the Missus and I were all in an antique store not too far from our house, and Missus and I were about to FUCK. UP. the vintage clothing in this place. The prices were crazy cheap and everything was in great condition. I had three suits on a pile and was considering some dresses when the guys, who’d wandered into the back of the store, came back and pulled us away. “We’re leaving.” They looked like they’d seen ghosts. “But it’s all so awesome, and we’re practically stealing, look, it’s like 20 … Continue reading Collect Whatever Weird Shit You Want, But … This?
So I went on a bit of a tear on Sunday because I am sick of this shit. To which Whet responded by showing me this: Texas Monthly bears the tagline “The National Magazine of Texas”–and it has lived up to the billing. Since its founding in 1973, the magazine has won 13 national magazine awards for public interest, politics, feature writing, and general excellence. It was a mantle embraced by former owner Emmis Communications Corp, which sold the magazine in October 2016 to Genesis Park, a private equity firm co-founded by Paul Hobby, grandson of former Texas governor William … Continue reading This Thing is Working. Let’s Kill It.
As the kids say, read the thread: 1. There is rightful frustration in media that many people don’t trust them. Yet that is partly because media doesn’t speak to many people — Chris Arnade (@Chris_arnade) February 17, 2017 Okay, we’ve covered before the idea that this media hate is something new, either for Trump or the Republican party, but one thing we haven’t talked about is the money behind the media hate, the money that made it happen. I’m not talking about the financing of Fox News. I’m talking about the money that left Fox News the only game in … Continue reading On Enemies, and Their People
We’re back on the weather roller coaster in New Orleans. One day it’s unseasonably warm, the next it’s colder than average. It’s almost as crazy as the Current Occupant of the White House. Did you see that insane press conference by the least racist and anti-Semitic person ever? In response to the crazy, I tweeted this:
Trump did everything but howl at the moon and chew on the carpet at that press conference. He looks ready for the straitjacket.
I hope all the Busters and Steiners are happy right now. They insisted that there was no difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They were wrong. She’s sane.
Did y’all see the cartoon that was based on the Norman Rockwell painting that’s this week’s featured image? Here it is on the Tweeter Tube. I refuse to upload it:
On Sunday, the Belleville News-Democrat published this cartoon by Glenn McCoy. It appears to equate Betsy DeVos, Trump’s controversial pick for secretary of education, with Ruby Bridges, the first black child to attend an all-white school in the South.
Ruby Bridges *was* the first black student to attend an all-white elementary school in New Orleans in 1960. She was not the first overall: that honor belonged to the Little Rock Nine in 1957. The last I heard New Orleans was in the South. Y’all should spend less time cutting and pasting tweets and more time on research.
This week’s theme song fits both my mood and the temper of the times. The Forecast (Calls For Pain) comes from Robert Cray’s brilliant 1990 album Midnight Stroll:
It’s time to take a midnight stroll to the break. The forecast is for more mirth than pain on the other side.
One of my former students became a science reporter a few years out of school and once found himself on a trip to Chernobyl. A group of researchers were collecting stool samples from people who lived adjacent to the old Russian nuclear reactor, trying to see if they were suffering from any radioactive poisoning nearly three decades after the meltdown. He sent me a post card from the area with a final line I still love: “Journalism. It’s a shitty job but somebody has to do it.” I thought about him and that trip today when I was trying to … Continue reading Journalism: A shitty job in a nuclear winter
I’d like to thank everyone who donated to VAYLA’s New Orleans East Tornado Relief fund. They’ve exceeded their original goal and have raised nearly $20K. Here’s another chance to give: What would a post like this be without some musical gratitude? Stanton Moore is a New Orleans musician so I decided to let the exclamation point slide. Continue reading Thanks, Y’all
Maybe the GOP-controlled Congress wanted to prove they too could mix elements of incompetent stumblebum and amoral jackassery … or maybe they just did it for, I dunno, fuck’s sake … but they voted to remove restrictions on buying guns for individuals who qualify … Continue reading Gun Nuts
Dystopian fiction is hot right now. I cannot imagine why. Brave New World was one of the first dystopian novels. It has remained in print since its initial publication in 1932. Here are two of the many covers Huxley’s book has … Continue reading Pulp Fiction Thursday: Brave New World
Keep pretending Trump doesn’t hate you and maybe it will magically be true! The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner is not a mood ring. It doesn’t care if President Trump — or any president — likes, dislikes, celebrates, scorns or ignores White House reporters. The annual gala does not indicate, illustrate or represent the relationship between the White House and the reporters who cover it. It is an institution that celebrates one bedrock American value, the First Amendment, and two journalistic goals: to highlight excellent reporting and to award scholarships to the next generation of American journalists. That has always … Continue reading Today in Things That Were Always Bullshit: WCHA Dinner
Republicans were always gonna be okay with it: In effect, congressional Republicans have sought to compartmentalize Mr. Trump’s presidency, adopting a cafeteria-style approach. They reach for the more appealing offerings, such as the Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, and avert their gaze from less appetizing or, to some, downright indefensible elements (America is not so different from Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia), which would have surely drawn relentless rebukes if uttered by President Barack Obama. Some lawmakers take comfort knowing that the president’s behavior last year didn’t hurt their campaigns, and they have used the electoral result as a … Continue reading But They’ll Let Me Cut Taxes, Mom!
