Doing some slackin'
Saturday, October 05, 2024
Don't Talk About The War
Once again I scrolled through the opinion sections of the Post and the Times and found that most pundits are just avoiding the subjects of Israel-and-Gaza-and-Lebanon-and-Iran entirely.
I don't mean this in a "how dare they not write about this" sense. It is just notable, as conflicts in that region generally make them very excited and talkative!
With Some Power Comes Some Responsibility
Few are acting like it.
This is really important and gets things many people won’t say out loud. https://t.co/8DlXspfNAA
— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 5, 2024
Friday, October 04, 2024
The One True Bible
I'm sadly not corrrupt enough to be a grifter, but also not this imaginative!
Bids opened Monday for a contract to supply the state Department of Education with 55,000 Bibles. According to the bid documents, vendors must meet certain specifications: Bibles must be the King James Version; must contain the Old and New Testaments; must include copies of the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights; and must be bound in leather or leather-like material.
A salesperson at Mardel Christian & Education searched, and though they carry 2,900 Bibles, none fit the parameters.
But one Bible fits perfectly: Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A. Bible, endorsed by former President Donald Trump and commonly referred to as the Trump Bible. They cost $60 each online, with Trump receiving fees for his endorsement.
Our Sister Organization
Given this, it's good to have a Jake Tapper Flashback.
Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one?Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –Gibbs: ABC -Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” -- why is that appropriate for the White House to say?Gibbs: That’s our opinion.
I don't think Fox has the respectability that it once did - its peers at its sister organizations would be much less likely to defend it like this now - but it never should have.
9 Years
That is a long sentence!
A judge ripped into a Colorado county clerk for her crimes and lies before sentencing her Thursday to nine years behind bars for a data-breach scheme spawned from the rampant false claims about voting machine fraud in the 2020 presidential race.I suppose I have a bit more respect for the ones who do the crimes (and get punished) than the ones who put them up to it (and don't get punished).
Monkeysphere
Some people aren't in it.
I suppose alternative facts are necessary to fit it in with this.
On Tuesday, for instance, an Israeli bombardment killed longtime Michigan resident Kamel Jawad.One wonders how this bad information got to State, on this sensitive topic, which they didn't make sure to verify, didn't care to verify, didn't... care.
“It’s our understanding that it was a legal permanent resident, not an American citizen, but we obviously offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss,” Miller, the State Department spokesperson, said on Wednesday when asked about the incident.
But Jawad was not just a US resident, but an American citizen, according to his family. His daughter Nadine said he was killed in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh while helping elderly and displaced people.
I suppose alternative facts are necessary to fit it in with this.
The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.Hurricane sharpie time.
Someone on twitter appeared to pull the vote registration info, which I haven't tried to verify, but if correct, he was voting in 2012 so it's not like he passed the citizenship test last week.
Thursday, October 03, 2024
America's Mayor
Love this guy.
Former Donald Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani texted the wrong number in instructing someone on how to overturn the 2020 election results in Michigan, according to a court filing that was unsealed Wednesday.
No Need For Dodgy Dossiers Anymore
The first question of the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night was whether the candidates would support or oppose a pre-emptive strike on Iran by Israel. It framed the issue for Gov. Tim Walz and Senator JD Vance as urgent to consider because Tehran has “drastically reduced the time it would take to develop a nuclear weapon,” cutting its acquisition time to “one or two weeks.”
The premise behind the question from Margaret Brennan of CBS News, one of the debate’s moderators, highlights a popular confusion over what it takes to build a usable nuclear bomb.
Nuclear experts said on Wednesday that it would take Iran not weeks to make a nuclear weapon, but months and possibly as long as a year. Ms. Brennan’s question, they added, began the debate on a false note.
Is It Your Job To Inform Readers
An increasingly invoked defense of the New York Times (and other outlets) is that its critics think if only it covered Trump/Republicans the way liberals wanted them to, that Democrats would win elections. This is followed by the assertion that they don't have that power and nothing they do actually matters.
The former is, of course, a deliberate misreading of all criticism, and the latter is hilarious, especially when accompanied by alternate day tributes to the vital role of the free press in democracy.
Anyhoo, just checking in (from 2022):.WSJ Today:
The former is, of course, a deliberate misreading of all criticism, and the latter is hilarious, especially when accompanied by alternate day tributes to the vital role of the free press in democracy.
Anyhoo, just checking in (from 2022):.
An insidious radio ad campaign has reportedly taken hold in some of the most high-profile media markets of this midterm cycle, accusing Joe Biden’s administration of fomenting “antiwhite bigotry.” “When did racism against white people become okay?” asks a narrator, according to a recording obtained by Politico, before falsely accusing the White House of putting “white people last in line for COVID relief funds” and offering disaster aid “to nonwhite citizens first.”
New York times, a bit later in 2022:
Critics Say Musk Has Revealed Himself as a Conservative. It’s Not So Simple.Elon Musk has tweeted about political topics regularly since taking over Twitter, often belittling some liberal causes. But what he stands for remains largely unclear.
The Tesla CEO quietly gave tens of millions of dollars to groups with ties to Trump aide Stephen Miller and supporters of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential bid, according to people familiar with the matter.
The financial contributions, which haven’t previously been reported, show how Musk, who seemed to undergo a rapid political transformation this year, was a major force in funding Republican initiatives and candidates well before starting a super political-action committee in support of former President Donald Trump.
Musk's views were obvious to anyone who paid attention to Musk, instead of "Musk" the media PR creation, but it's against the noble ethics of journalism to ever listen to people who know what they are talking about.
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