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Month: August 2023

The Hustler

Published by digby on August 29, 2023

I just watched Andrea Mitchell attempt to interview the fast-talking hustler Vivek Ramaswamy. It wasn’t pretty.

Anyway, this is making the rounds today:

Philip Bump has this interesting take:

This Oct. 27, 2003, exchange between Sharpton and Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC show “Hardball,” has reentered circulation in the past few days because there was a 2024 Republican presidential candidate in the room. The event was hosted by the Harvard University Institute of Politics and, at the time, Vivek Ramaswamy was a Harvard student. So when Matthews turned to the audience for questions soon after the event started, Ramaswamy was the first to offer one.

“Rev. Sharpton, hello, I’m Vivek,” he began. “I want to ask you — last week on the show we had Sen. [John] Kerry and the week before we had Sen. [John] Edwards, and my question for you is: Of all the Democratic candidates out there, why should I vote for the one with the least political experience?”

And right there, you can probably see why the clip has gained new attention. Ramaswamy entered the 2024 presidential race without any experience in elected office, something that was leveled against the candidate during the first primary debate held last week in Wisconsin.

Sharpton, being Sharpton, had a clever response ready.

“Well, you shouldn’t,” he told Ramaswamy, “because I have the most political experience.”

The crowd laughed.

“I got involved in the political movement when I was 12 years old,” Sharpton continued. “And I’ve been involved in social policy for the last 30 years. So don’t confuse people [having] a job with political experience.” Just because an official there in Cambridge, Mass., has a position, he added, “doesn’t mean that they have political experience and it doesn’t mean they have experience to run the United States government.”

“I think that we confuse titleholders with political experience as we have seen with the present occupant in the White House,” Sharpton continued. “George Bush was a governor and clearly has shown he doesn’t have political experience.”

Ramaswamy, of course, would substitute his business background for Sharpton’s experience in social movement. But Sharpton was also almost 50 years old in 2003, 12 years older than Ramaswamy is now.

The current candidate’s critics note not only that his question suggested that those without experience in elected office should be viewed with skepticism but that he was considering voting for a Democrat in the 2004 primary — itself an obvious point of criticism for his opponents. There’s a trivial rejoinder Ramaswamy can offer, of course: The most recent Republican president was a guy with no political experience who used to vote Democratic.

The emergence of this video snippet marks a broader evolution than Ramaswamy’s own, of course. As years pass, it will become only more common for candidates to be presented with their past comments or views, thanks to the increase in how often we are recorded and how easy it is to retrieve those recordings. Even when we aren’t recording ourselves, we’re often around cameras. And the ability of automated systems to pick out our faces from even blurry, crowded photos and videos continues to improve. A 37-year-old candidate running for the presidency in 2044 will have grown up entirely in the iPhone era. Good luck to her, escaping her past comments.

In its totality, the exchange between Matthews and Sharpton is a remarkable political time capsule. It was held only weeks after Arnold Schwarzenegger usurped California Gov. Gray Davis’s position in a recall election, something that Sharpton lumped in with the 2000 presidential results to declare that “we’ve gone through a nonmilitary civil war.”

That was one of Sharpton’s approaches to the nomination that year: Pick up rhetoric from the activist base of the party and hope to parlay it into votes. It’s what Ramaswamy is doing this year, albeit with a more virulent base and a flimsier anchor to established political values.

Sharpton made it to mid-March 2004, earning no delegates. Kerry, who spoke at Harvard the week before Sharpton, got the nomination. In November, Bush was legitimately elected to a second term in office.

Not exactly the path Ramaswamy or his party want to follow.

Ramaswamy is a masterful fast-talking hustler. It is completely unsurprising that he was able to get funding for his company before he was even out of law school. There is a certain kind of person who is very attracted to people like him. He sounds like he knows what he’s talking about but it’s really all chutzpah.

The economy is tan

Published by Tom Sullivan on August 29, 2023

“A man hears what he wants to hear….”

Judd Legum wonders why President Joe Biden gets no credit for what on paper is a good economy:

1. The unemployment rate is 3.5%

The U.S. has added an average of 312K jobs every month for the last year

GDP growth has been 2.0% or higher for a year

Inflation is down to 3.2%

If the U.S. economy is doing well, why do so many Americans say it’s terrible?

2. But an August survey by Quinnipiac University found that 71% of Americans describe the economy as “not so good” or “poor.”

Just 3% say the economy is excellent.

What explains this discrepancy?

If the U.S. economy is doing well, why do so many Americans say it’s terrible?The leading economic indicators show the U.S. economy is performing well, but most Americans still believe economic conditions are extremely poor — as if the country was mired in a deep recession. Wha…https://popular.info/p/if-the-us-economy-is-doing-well-why

3. One factor is partisanship. More people today will rate the economy as poor if they don’t like the person in the White House, regardless of economic conditions.

So with Biden in the White House, a lot of Republicans are going to say the economy is bad, no matter what.

Americans’ expectations about the economy jumped 13 points after Donald Trump’s election in 2016. So it goes.

4. But only 45% of Americans lean Republican, so partisanship is not the only factor.

Another factor: millions of Americans are mired in low-paying jobs, watching the fruits of their labor get funneled to wealthy CEOs & investors

5. A new report by @IPS_DC looks the 100 public companies with the lowest wages. The report found at these companies, a group that includes the nation’s largest employers, “CEO pay averaged $15.3 million and median worker pay averaged $31,672.” That’s a ratio of 603 to 1. 

6. For example, at @DollarTree — a company that employs 200K people — the median wage is $14.7K but its CEO, Michael Witynski, made $13.98 million. That’s a ratio of 951-to-1

Over the last 3 years, the median wage of a Dollar Tree employee decreased by 4.4%

7. It’s not hard to see how Dollar Tree employees would have a negative view of the economy, notwithstanding positive aggregate economic data.

And Dollar Tree is not an aberration. Millions of other workers face similar circumstances.

8. The company with the highest CEO-to-employee pay ratio is Live Nation, the parent company of TicketMaster. In 2022, CEO Michael Rapino made $139 million, while the median Live Nation employee was paid $25,673 — a ratio of 5,414-to-1.

So why do so many Americans say the economy is terrible? My bet is on “all of the above” with a heavy dose of #3 (partisanship). Meaning where the numbers look good and CEOs see green, working people see themselves falling behind, and Republicans see tan.

“Ronald Reagan regularly wore tan suits to official events while he was president,” James Surowiecki tweeted. “So why did right-wingers pretend it was scandalous when Obama wore one to a press conference?”

For the same reason Republicans insist the economy is in the toilet. They see what they want to see and disregard the rest.

Oh, by the way:

(h/t Carolina Forward)

Counting jelly beans in jars

Published by Tom Sullivan on August 29, 2023

James Bedford Forrest Crow III

Well, you can’t accuse Tennessee Republicans of not being transparent about their contempt for democracy (The Tennessean):

The House Democratic caucus on Monday walked off the floor of the lower chamber to protest a disciplinary vote against Rep. Justin Jones, sparking a scene remarkably similar to legislative protests earlier this year in which the freshman Democrat was expelled from the General Assembly.

Lawmakers voted 70-20 to discipline Jones, D-Nashville, after House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, twice ruled Jones out of order during the House floor session Monday afternoon for what Sexton saw as Jones speaking off topic on the bills at hand.

The disciplinary vote meant Jones was silenced for the remainder of the floor session, though he could cast votes. A second vote during this special session could lead to a three-day silencing.

The Democratic caucus left the floor en masse in what they said was solidarity and frustration with unfair application of House rules.

It’s not as if Jones, a freshman since April, is trying to maintain a low profile. Jones came to play, in sportscaster-speak, not to sit at the kiddies’ table. (Or should we say, at the back of the bus?) Jones declared earlier Monday morning his intention to call a no-confidence vote in Sexton.

“The House is out of order under Cameron Sexton’s leadership. This is very disheartening, this is very troubling. This is a step toward authoritarianism, and we should all be troubled by this,” Jones said. “Our Democratic caucus was united. We walked out because that’s a charade, a sham happening in there. And the people are united in challenging authoritarianism.”

The young man doesn’t know his place, apparently. Expelling him and another Black Democrat, Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, earlier this year gave Tennessee Republicans a national black eye. Constituents swiftly voted the two back into office. Undeterred and, given the dearth of fainting couches for GOP members, their remedy on Monday was to silence Jones using tricksy “newly enacted rules designed to punish disruptive members” perhaps (to no one’s surprise) selectively applied:

[Pearson] rose to point out that Rep. Gino Bulso, R-Brentwood, had been gaveled out of order twice while presenting a different bill. But the House clerk argued Sexton had issued first an unofficial warning to Bulso before finding him out of order.

This explanation appeared to infuriate the public gallery, and Democrats on the floor.

As the vote went down, the crowd screamed at Sexton, yelling, “This is a fascist state!” and “You’re racist!”

Chants only grew louder as state troopers began swarming the gallery to clear it. Demonstrators stayed in their seats as troopers began asking them to leave, but slowly cleared out into the halls to continue chanting.

The move by Sexton and his caucus had the benefit of keeping Jones from calling his non-confidence vote.

The Lost Cause never dies

It’s not as if Jones hasn’t rankled GOP feathers even before his election to the Tennessee House, as TPM reported in April:

Justin Jones, one of two Black members expelled from the state’s House of Representatives in April 2023, had run afoul of House leadership before. In 2019, as a private citizen, he was arrested following his actions in protesting a bust in the state capitol honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and later Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Klan leader’s bust was removed to the Tennessee State Museum in July 2021, 42 years after its installation. Forty-two years. Do the math. The Lost Cause never dies. The backlash to the Civil Rights movement never did.

Nor does Jim Crow. Or his progeny, James Bedford Forrest Crow III.

Soon enough, Republicans will insist Black Democrats count jelly beans in a jar before admitting them to state legislatures.

Alabama poll tax receipt.

Update:

March forth to March 4th

Published by digby on August 28, 2023

Mark your calendar. That’s the day Trump goes to trial.

Donald Trump will go to trial in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 2024, on charges that he conspired to subvert the 2020 election and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan set the date, contending that the six-month lead-up to trial would be adequate for Trump’s well-resourced attorneys to prepare for trial while acknowledging the public interest in resolving the case expediently.

That schedule met an immediate protest from Trump’s attorney John Lauro, who said he doesn’t believe he can effectively defend Trump on a six-month timeline. He and co-counsel Todd Blanche had pushed for an April 2026 trial, a date Chutkan called “far beyond what is necessary.”

The trial date raises the likelihood that Trump will spend nearly all of the presidential primary season in a criminal courtroom. In addition to the trial in Washington, he’s slated to face jurors in New York on March 25 on charges stemming from hush money payments to a porn star, and he’s scheduled to stand trial in Florida on May 20 on charges that he hoarded classified information at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Chutkan indicated on Monday she had already spoken to New York state judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s hush money case. The trial in that case might now be rescheduled from March 25 to accommodate the federal trial in Washington, which is expected to last over a month.

A trial date in Trump’s fourth criminal case — racketeering charges in Georgia for his efforts to subvert the election — has not yet been scheduled. The lead prosecutor there, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, previously signaled she wanted to take the case to trial on March 4 — the same day chosen by Chutkan for the federal election trial.

March 4 is one day before Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states will hold their primaries in the GOP presidential campaign.

Two hours after Monday’s hearing ended, Trump took to Truth Social to vent his frustration, attacking Chutkan as “biased” and “Trump Hating” and suggesting he will “appeal” her trial date. However, trial dates are typically not appealable.

The bulk of the hearing focused on the sheer volume of evidence prosecutors have handed over to Trump’s defense team to prepare for the trial: 12.8 million pages or files, drawn from grand jury interviews, the National Archives, the House Jan. 6 select committee’s evidence and Trump’s campaign and PACs.

Prosecutors on the team of special counsel Jack Smith indicated that their efforts to provide this information to Trump was “substantially complete” and came in five batches over the last several weeks. They said they had taken extraordinary steps to organize, digitize and annotate the evidence to help facilitate Trump’s ability to prepare for trial.

But Lauro, who at times grew heated in his response, said there was no way he could be ready for trial without years to prepare. He noted that there are more than 250 government witnesses he has to research, as well as additional witnesses he may decide to call. He said he’s also in the process of drafting a long series of motions seeking to shrink the case against Trump or get it dismissed altogether.

“This is an enormous, overwhelming task,” he said.

Lauro underscored the degree to which Trump’s team intends to inject national politics into the case, noting that he plans to file a motion arguing that the Justice Department is selectively prosecuting Trump because he is a political opponent of President Joe Biden. The motion, Lauro indicated, will invoke the president and his son, Hunter Biden.

Lauro accused the government of attempting to put on a “show trial” rather than seek justice.

“This man’s liberty and life is at stake,” Lauro said. “He’s no different than any American.”

He also said he expects to file a motion contending that Trump has “executive immunity” for the actions he took to overturn the 2020 election under constitutional principles related to faithfully executing federal law. And he said he separately intends to file motions to dismiss each of the charges Trump faces — including for three alleged conspiracies aimed at disrupting the transfer of power.

Chutkan repeatedly sympathized with Lauro’s burden to prepare for trial but noted that she had never seen the government take such extraordinary lengths to assemble and curate the evidence as she has in this case. Typically, she said, delays in trial dates are for defendants who can’t get competent attorneys or who are involved in multidefendant cases with superseding indictments.

She twice told Lauro to “take the temperature down” after he raised his voice to complain about the “outrage to justice” represented by prosecutors’ own expedited trial proposal of Jan. 2, 2024. Chutkan agreed that the special counsel’s timeline was too rapid but still proposed a date far closer to Smith’s preference than Trump’s.

Senior assistant special counsel Molly Gaston argued during her own remarks that Trump has had nearly a year to begin preparing to face charges in this case, noting that he’s been aware of the grand jury investigation since last September. And she noted that his attorneys have been involved in sealed grand jury proceedings beginning even earlier — in August 2022 — about the testimony of 14 witnesses. Many of those sealed proceedings have been the subject of news reports, featuring efforts by Trump to block or limit testimony from figures like former Vice President Mike Pence, chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

Gaston also noted that 7.8 million pages and files — out of the 12.8 million total — come from sources Trump has had ready access to: his own campaign, PACs and National Archives records, many of which have been the subject of prior litigation and review by his attorneys. Much of the evidence is also derived from the public filings of the Jan. 6 select committee, Gaston noted.

Of the remaining 5 million pages, about 57,000 are transcripts of grand jury witness interviews and associated exhibits. She also said prosecutors had annotated the 45-page indictment with citations to key pieces of evidence underlying every fact and allegation, an effort to point Trump’s lawyers toward the documents and testimony they intend to rely on at trial.

“It is essentially a roadmap to our case,” Gaston said.

And she said they also took the unusual step of highlighting evidence they think Trump will consider favorable to his case.

Chutkan emphasized that she would treat Trump, in her courtroom, like any other defendant, and would not give him any “more or less deference.” And she said his political schedule as he campaigns to regain the White House would not factor into her decisions. She compared him to a professional athlete facing criminal charges, saying it would be “inappropriate” to schedule a trial around that athlete’s schedule.

“Setting a trial date does not depend and should not depend on the defendant’s personal and professional obligations,” Chutkan said. “Mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule.”

We’ll see. They’re going to try to get something before the Supremes that will either delay or discard the case. I’d guess that’s entirely possible…unfortunately.

Nuts

Published by digby on August 28, 2023

Peter Navarro is batshit crazy:

The federal judge presiding over the criminal contempt of Congress case against former President Donald Trump’s onetime trade adviser Peter Navarro in DC called some of the evidence from the defense “pretty weak sauce.”

Navarro says he defied subpoenas from the House January 6 committee because Trump directed him to do so. But US District Judge Amit P. Mehta, sitting in the same courthouse as Judge Tanya Chutkin, seemed unconvinced. 

“I still don’t know what the president said,” Mehta told Navarro’s attorney Stanley Woodward, referring to the February 20, 2022, call during which Navarro said it was made clear the former president was invoking executive privilege. “I don’t have any words from the former president.” 

“That’s pretty weak sauce,” Mehta said, referring to a comment Navarro says Trump made to him about regretting not letting him testify. The comment had been used by Navarro and his team to bolster their argument that Trump did invoke privilege because his subsequent regret indicated as much.  

“The record is barren, there is nothing here, even after your client’s testimony,” Mehta told Woodward toward the end of Monday’s pre-trial hearing. 

The judge said he would make a decision later this week on whether Navarro’s testimony could be used in his trial next month. 

Navarro stood for the duration of the hearing with his arms folded, even as he fielded questions from the attorneys. When he was off the stand, he paced back and forth near his team of attorneys, and he became testy with the prosecutor once they began their cross-examination, causing the judge to instruct him on how to conduct himself.

Good lord, what a lunatic. What a horrible client.

He was a top adviser in the Trump administration. Only the best people …

The Nuremberg defense in Atlanta Georgia

Published by digby on August 28, 2023
Herman Goering on trial at Nuremberg

I wrote this last week:

On Tuesday, Meadows became the first defendant in the Georgia case (but surely not the last) to announce that he would request moving his case to federal court because his alleged criminal activity “all occurred during his tenure and as part of his service as Chief of Staff.” In his statement, Meadows explained that “arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the President’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the President” were all part of his duties and that you would expect the president’s chief of staff “to do these sorts of things.” It sounds like Meadows’ defense will be, as they say, that he was just following orders.

I guess I was right. Much to the surprise of most legal observers, Meadows testified today in the hearing to request his trial be moved to federal court:

In the hearing, Mr. Meadows said that Mr. Trump directed him to set up the now-famous phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State. During the call — a major focus of the case — Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Raffensperger and said he wanted to “find” nearly 12,000 more Trump votes, enough to reverse his defeat in Georgia.

“I was asked to reach out,” Mr. Meadows testified.

I’m sure that’s true. But he participated in the call:

Meadows: So Mr. President, if I might be able to jump in and I’ll give Brad a chance. Mr. Secretary, obviously there is, there are allegations where we believe that not every vote or fair vote and legal vote was counted and that’s at odds with the representation from the secretary of state’s office.

What I’m hopeful for is there some way that we can we can find some kind of agreement to look at this a little bit more fully. You know the president mentioned Fulton County.

But in some of these areas where there seems to be a difference of where the facts seem to lead, and so Mr. Secretary, I was hopeful that, you know, in the spirit of cooperation and compromise is there something that we can at least have a discussion to look at some of these allegations to find a path forward that’s less litigious?

Was that part of his official duty? Was this?

Meadows: Mr. President. This is Mark. It sounds like we’ve got two different sides agreeing that we can look at these areas ands I assume that we can do that within the next 24 to 48 hours to go ahead and get that reconciled so that we can look at the two claims and making sure that we get the access to the secretary of state’s data to either validate or invalidate the claims that have been made. Is that correct?

Germany: No, that’s not what I said. I’m happy to have our lawyers sit down with Kurt and the lawyers on that side and explain to my him, here’s, based on what we’ve looked at so far, here’s how we know this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.

Meadows: So what you’re saying, Ryan, let me let me make sure … so what you’re saying is you really don’t want to give access to the data. You just want to make another case on why the lawsuit is wrong?

That is not anyone’s idea of an official duty of a presidential chief of staff. It’s campaign business and has nothing to do with the office of president.

He broke the law. He should have known better.

Booing DeSanctimonious

Published by digby on August 28, 2023

Governor Ron DeSantis was heckled and booed at a Sunday vigil held to honor victims of the racist mass shooting at a Jacksonville store the previous day.

The boos began from the moment the Florida governor was introduced and continued as he tried to deliver his remarks. DeSantis acknowledged Ju’Coby Pittman, the city councilwoman who organized the prayer vigil, and promised assistance from the state government to go toward security for Edward Waters University, a historically Black university that the gunman initially visited prior to the shooting.

“We’re not going to allow these institutions to be targeted by people,” he said, stopping as the noise from the crowd grew even louder.

At that moment, Pittman got up and grabbed the microphone from the stand and addressed the hundreds of people gathered, telling them to let DeSantis continue.

“It ain’t about parties today. A bullet don’t know a party,” she said.

The BBC reports that DeSantis was ultimately able to finish his speech, reiterating comments he had made the day of the shooting.

“The fact of the matter is you had a major-league scumbag come down from Clay County here and what he did is totally unacceptable in the state of Florida,” he said. “We are not going to let people be targeted based on their race. We’re going to stand up and we’re going to do what we need to do to make sure evil doesn’t triumph in the state of Florida.”

During his tenure, DeSantis has faced criticism for his weakening of gun laws statewide, as well as his ongoing war against what he calls“anti-woke” ideologies, which has resulted in drastic changes to Florida school curriculums and a rejection of a planned AP African American Studies course.

Actually, bullets do have parties. Gun nuts like the racist freak who killed those people aren’t Democrats.

And evil is already triumphing in Florida. They elected DeSantis.

Meanwhile on Truth Social

Published by digby on August 28, 2023

At the point that picture was taken, 200,000 people had died of COVID in the previous three months and Trump was telling everyone to drink bleach. Good times for sure.

He self-soothes by re-posting memes like that over and over again. He seems to be having a particularly tough day and it’s not surprising. His DC trial is set for March 4th, one day before Super Tuesday.

Gentle reminder: that man is the front runner for the Republican nomination for president.

Millennial Edgelord for president

Published by digby on August 28, 2023

Vivek Ranmaswwamy is the future of the GOP

There is a lot of talk these days about what is to become of the Republican Party once Trump is gone. It seems a bit premature considering that Trump is still very much present and whether he wins or loses, he’s not going anywhere until he’s six feet under. Still, the man is 77 years old so it’s natural to consider what’s going to be left of the hulking wreck of the GOP once he leaves this mortal coil.

The fact that Trump is the runaway favorite to win the 2024 Republican nomination despite the 91 felony charges he faces in four different cases really says it all about where the party is today. Polling over the past couple of weeks confirms that most Republicans still believe The Big Lie and are convinced that his legal troubles are trumped up charges by a Democratic Party Deep State conspiracy. Whether they actually buy this is debatable, but it’s clear that they are sticking with their man regardless. Criminal or not, they like what he’s selling. No, actually they love what he’s selling. And what that comes down to is transgressivism.

They love his crude defiance of all social norms, that he acts as though they don’t even exist. They love that he doesn’t follow the rules or even follow the law if that’s what it takes to get what he wants and they love that their enemies can’t make him capitulate even when he’s caught red-handed. They believe that he is being persecuted (just as they believe they themselves are persecuted) for saying things that aren’t politically correct and they love that he won’t stop doing it no matter what. They love that he will do whatever it takes to own the libs, even if it doesn’t make any sense because that is what it will take to Make America Theirs Again.

Are the attitudes that fuel this love for Trump the new ideology (if you want to call it that) of the Republican Party? I hope not but I really don’t know. The sinking of the good ship DeSantis shows that it takes more than “anti-woke” policies to capture these voters’ attention. Trump proved that policy in general is an after thought in today’s GOP. (They didn’t even put out a party platform in 2020, instead just opted for a statement that essentially said, “we’ll have what Trump’s having.”) Trump has no ideology and neither do the MAGA followers. It’s all about defiance, disobedience, breaking the rules. He makes it ok for his followers to let their freak flags (or giant Trump flags) fly, just as he does.

There’s a term for people who do this: edgelords, defined as “someone who intentionally expresses opinions that are likely to shock or offend people, especially on the internet, as a way of making others notice or admire them.” I’m reminded of a young fellow who joined the racists marching at Charlottesville who explained what it was all about for him:

It’s kind of a fun idea. Just being able to say, like, ‘Hey man, white power!’ You know? To be quite honest, I love to be offensive. It’s fun.

Don’t underestimate the fun factor. In a recent Times/Sienna poll of the Republican field they actually asked where the candidates rated on the fun scale and nobody came close to Trump. When it comes to traditional personal qualities one might seek in a president, other candidates actually rate higher on such characteristics as “likeable” and “moral.” But when asked who was more “fun” Trump’s lead on that characteristic, 54%, matches his position overall in the race. That’s what makes him different. He makes owning the libs fun.

So where does this go from here? We caught a glimpse this past week of how that might play out in a Trumpless world. At last week’s Republican debate the nation was introduced to a charismatic gadfly by the name of Vivek Ramaswamy, a previously unknown biotech entrepreneur who has made a surprising surge in the polls after impressing audiences in Iowa.

In the debate you could see that he has a flair for the dramatic and cared nothing for the usual rules and norms of these political events. Like Trump in the 2016 debates he insulted the other candidates, calling them all “bought and paid for” obnoxiously provoking attacks, all the while pledging undying fealty to Donald Trump. He backed the idea of invading Mexico, denied climate change agitating for more use of fossil fuels, and promised to pardon Trump if he wins the election. And it was all delivered with a big, playful smile that gave the audience permission to enjoy the transgressive, edgelord fun.

Most of his commentary is simply bizarre, clearly designed for the express purpose of going viral. He talks a lot and he talks very fast and most of it makes little sense. Here’s an example that will make your head spin:

This is a man who says he wants all students to pass a civics test. Not that it matters, The Republican base doesn’t care that this is nonsense. They just like the sound of it.

Ramaswamy was called to task on the Sunday shows for a couple of particularly odious comments he’s made on the issue of race. CNN reported that he’d snidely declared:

I’m sure the boogeyman white supremacists exist somewhere in America. I have just never met him. Never seen one. Never met one in my life, right? Maybe I will meet a — maybe I will meet a unicorn sooner. And maybe those exist too.

And he called Rep. Ayana Pressley, D-Ma.,who is Black, “a modern grand wizard of the KKK” and then complained that he was offended that journalist Kara Swisher had referred to him as “Ramasmarmy” citing it as an example of racist speech. That’s a quintessential edgelord trick, to make a heinous comment and then cry victim for something much less egregious, laughing all the way. CNN’s Dana Bash and NBC’s Chuck Todd pushed him hard but he just talked and talked, mostly gibberish and right wing buzzwards, until there was nothing left to say.

There isn’t much good news in this, I’m afraid. This man certainly isn’t going to become the nominee — they have Trump after all — but he’s the one candidate who really gets what the new Republican Party responds to. He’s a very smart, highly educated, savvy, modern hustler who has found that he has a knack for politics. I’m afraid that the era of the GOP edgelord is right around the corner. And it’s not likely to be much fun for the rest of us.

Salon

Fox not a news organization

Published by Tom Sullivan on August 28, 2023

But you knew that

“Again, bear in mind that Fox is not a news organization,” semi-retired journalist, Sam Litzinger, reminds Mastodon readers. Litzinger refers to this Saturday evening story at CNN Business:

Fox News apologized Saturday to a Gold Star family for publishing a false story last month claiming that the family had to pay $60,000 to ship the remains of their fallen relative back from Afghanistan because the Pentagon refused to pay.

“The now unpublished story has been addressed internally and we sincerely apologize to the Gee family,” a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement, referencing the family of fallen Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, who was one of 13 service members killed in a terror attack at the Kabul airport in 2021 while assisting with US withdrawal efforts.

The apology came after a Military.com report this week drew attention to the issue and indicated that the right-wing outlet’s top executives had repeatedly been notified by senior members of the Marine Corps that it was pushing a false story.

Fox applied a bandaid to its false story by changing the headline to attribute the claim to Rep. Cory Mills (R) of Florida. But Mills retracted his statement. Fox then deleted the entire story “without a correction or explanation.”

Deleting an entire story is exceedingly rare in news media and is seen as a last-ditch measure if the entire premise of the article is incorrect. Deleting a story without offering readers an explanation or correction is widely considered to be unethical.

In this case, Fox News did not publicly address the incident until the Military.com story ignited backlash against the outlet.

While unethical, the behavior is typical for Fox News. The outlet often breaks traditional news ethics and traffics in dishonest reporting and commentary.

Yeah, we noticed. So did Fox personalities who peddle this stuff. So did Dominion Voting Systems.

CNN Business cites a “Reliable Source”s story days ago about the propaganda outlet:

The dishonorable conduct spelled out in black and white in the cache of legal filings would get most journalists fired at actual news organizations and constitute scandals that would permanently run them out of the news business — maybe even other industries as well.

And yet, just months later, Fox News is trying to move on, as if the shameful behavior brought to light by the Dominion case simply evaporated from history the moment it opened up its checkbook. In fact, while Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch did pay a record sum of money to make the Dominion case vanish, they kept in place the channel’s top executives, Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace. And, perhaps more importantly, they have expressed zero regrets for the dishonest Fox News programming that threw them in legal hot water.

But Fox News attempting to move past the embarrassing saga is not surprising. It is to be expected. What is striking, however, is how many credible news organizations are failing to describe in clear-eyed terms to their audiences — who count on them, and often pay them to deliver the unvarnished truth — what the network actually is.

Nevertheless, Fox News runs 24/7 on TV sets at restaurants, bars, and on military bases.