The giant hoax is Trump. How can this complete phony be responsible for the direction of the Supreme Court for decades to come? Everything about his presidency is illegitimate and yet the spineless senate and “ fair and balanced” media let it go. Not sure where to go with my disgust and outrage.
And then the Republicans will jam through Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Trump's tax fraud case eventually gets to the Court and Barrett votes to acquit because that's the deal that is already set in stone. Goodbye ACA, goodbye right to choose, and then the Republican party's wet dream for thirty years, the destruction of Medicare and Social Security. The corruption will simply continue and this news story like all the others will fade into darkness. I'm convinced that the only thing that can stop this madness is a blue tsunami the likes of which this country has never seen. A thrashing so convincing that there would be no way to cheat Trumps way to a second term. Short of that, the US becomes the next Turkey. We'll still have three branches of government, a Supreme Court, there will be elections but it will just be for show. We're almost there already.
I wish the media and Democrats would focus more on the threat Barrett poses to the ACA. Being able to keep their healthcare coverage instead of being dropped or bankrupted because they have pre-existing conditions is of paramount importance to a lot of Trump supporters. If they are made to understand the serious threat Barrett poses to them I think many will prioritize that over abortion rights.
And the media needs to stop saying that it is terrible that Republicans want to destroy people’s healthcare coverage in the middle of a pandemic. It will still be horrifying even when the pandemic is over.
Mary Trump is my hero. Did she get these documents just this week after the lawsuit was filed? In that case, brilliant, but also brilliant for the NYT to work that hard getting the story out.
Do you have any idea why there is such a discrepancy between the NY Times’s political team and the investigative team? It really is mind boggling how terrible the Times’s political reporting has been for decades. The Times seems to set the standard for other media outlets so what report on and how they frame that reporting matters greatly.
However even the Times’s investigative reporters share some of the blame. They should have been much more aggressive over the years about reporting on a blatant conman like Trump. The Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett and the Philadelphia Enquirer’s David Cay Johnston covered his criminal activities and failures going back to the eighties. As Mary Trump points out most of NY and NJ media treated him as entertainment, focusing on his “colorful” playboy lifestyle instead of doing their jobs. If the NY Times had bothered to do the kind of reporting that Barrett and Johnston did Trump would never have been able to sell himself as a successful businessman. That is likely the biggest reason so many seemingly rational people still support him.
And they believe it too. A woman told me just a month ago that “Trump is a great businessman, but...” and went on to explain to me how she thought his failed presidency was nothing more than Trump just trying to work outside his wheelhouse, the little scamp. That was the moment I gave up on her. These people cannot be saved.
I know several people who still justify their support for Trump because they believe he is a successful businessman. There are many well done studies that show once someone forms a strong opinion it is very, very difficult to change it. They will use the “confirmation bias” to avoid that, cherry-picking information that supports their belief while ignored facts that debunk it. Fox News has made that much, much easier. That is why it angers me so much that the people with the power to check Trump decades ago — the media, the IRS, the state and federal government — let him get away with his abuses just like they do with so many other wealthy powerful people. It occurred to me recently that the sanctimonious James Comey was a person who was in a position to take down Trump when he was the US Atty for the Southern District of NY. By that Time there was plenty of public evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing. Comey had no problem jailing Martha Stewart even though she was clearly innocent of insider trading which was the original basis for going after her. Sending her to prison for lying to investigation was extreme and not commonly done. It really shocked many in the legal and financial community. Clearly Comey had been angered by Stewart’s refusal to bow down to him. She was an uppity woman and a strong Democrat too.
From what I have seen of the many right wingers I know it is only when something that hurts them happens as a result of their faith in that person that they will change their minds. I saw that with several people who lost big when the economy crashed in 2008. His obvious incompetence, lying us into an unnecessary disastrous war, etc. made a dent. It was only when they were personally hurt by Bush’s actions and inactions that they turned against him. I know one person like that who would have done that much sooner had her child been sent to fight in Iraq but since it was only children of people she didn’t know it didn’t count with her.
That can’t be possible. There is no way she would have gotten more documents than she already has that quickly. Trump will fight her every step of the way. It could be that someone working not the investigation of Trump for the NY State DA for Manhattan’s (Cyrus Vance) team slipped them to the media. The court ruled Trump had to turn them over to Vance.
A reminder that to the media in 2016, lies about emails mattered more than the truth about fraud and treason. How are they doing in 2020? Not much better, for the most part.
Actually I think they are doing much better in that they aren’t actively helping Trump smear Biden. The Biden-Ukraine scandal is as credible as the accusations against the Clinton Foundation that did real damage to Hillary’s support. Both accusations originated with Breitbart’s Peter Schweitzer whose books “Clinton Cash” and Secret Empires were the origins for those fake scandals. Unlike 2015-16 the media has not made as big a deal of the accusations against Biden and have repeatedly debunked them. I think Trump has scared them so much that they won’t help spread his lies the way the did with Gore and Hillary.
I am not saying I approve of the job the media is doing. They still succumb to bothsiderism and faux balance. Worse they too often blame this mess on Trump as if he is not the result of decades-long Republican lies and propaganda
I think media have tried to gin up fake scandals and controversies but they're not getting any traction. I love Biden but white males do not trigger voter animus like women or Black candidates do. Plus I think voters like Biden.
Not the major players like the NY Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, etc. Many of those outlets obsessed over Hillary’s emails in 2016, reporting on that far more than anything else about her. They are not giving more than glancing attention to Biden’s scandals. Even when Ron Johnson was holding hearings it was a minor story at best. There is no comparison between that coverage that the extensive media coverage of Benghazi, her emails, the Clinton Foundation all which they knew were hoaxes.
As raw highly respected psychological researcher Daniel Kahneman has shown in many studies people assess the relative importance of issues by the ease with which they are retrieved from memory — and that is largely determined by the extent of coverage in the media. Frequently mentioned topic are easily recalled while those that received only fleeting coverage are quickly forgotten.
(PBS is currently showing the series “Hacking Your Mind” which covers much of Kahneman and his late partner Igor Tversky’s ground breaking research. It is well worth watching.)
I think you would really appreciate that PBS series. They are running and re-running episodes in my market frequently and I know it is based on solid research about human biases, how we think in everyday situations, etc. They show kids participating in experiments and some are really fascinating. The one I happened to catch today was about how humans are deeply influenced by observing how other make decisions, solve problems, etc. The effect is so strong that we will copy seemingly obviously wrong solutions. Animals, including chimps do not do this. They explained that it appears that humans do not have a good detection system for bad social information. I was really surprised by those results and I studied this kind of research back in the 80s and 90s, including Tversky and Kahneman’s groundbreaking studies. The kid sin the study are really cute, too.
The local Sinclair channel website covered this by featuring a locally authored defense of tax loopholes prominently and made one scroll down to find the Jill Colvin AP piece about the NYTimes piece. In the section where it ran, a more prominently featured AP story about the US shipping out more test kits was accompanied by the all too familiar Trump-at-the-lecturn shot. A better choice, in terms of value, would be just to bookmark/favorite the AP website.
The same paper that is now getting accolades about their expose of Trump's tax cheating is the same paper that conspired with BreitFART to publish the libelous "Clinton Cash" book in 2016.
They also gladly published lie after lie about Hunter Biden and Burisma earlier this year.
It's the same paper that endlessly lied about Hillary's e-mails in 2016 and gave Trump pass after pass.
Too little from the Times and too late but then that is precisely what I expect from that corporate propaganda rag.
The giant hoax is Trump. How can this complete phony be responsible for the direction of the Supreme Court for decades to come? Everything about his presidency is illegitimate and yet the spineless senate and “ fair and balanced” media let it go. Not sure where to go with my disgust and outrage.
will be interesting to see how press treats him now though the election
And then the Republicans will jam through Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Trump's tax fraud case eventually gets to the Court and Barrett votes to acquit because that's the deal that is already set in stone. Goodbye ACA, goodbye right to choose, and then the Republican party's wet dream for thirty years, the destruction of Medicare and Social Security. The corruption will simply continue and this news story like all the others will fade into darkness. I'm convinced that the only thing that can stop this madness is a blue tsunami the likes of which this country has never seen. A thrashing so convincing that there would be no way to cheat Trumps way to a second term. Short of that, the US becomes the next Turkey. We'll still have three branches of government, a Supreme Court, there will be elections but it will just be for show. We're almost there already.
I wish the media and Democrats would focus more on the threat Barrett poses to the ACA. Being able to keep their healthcare coverage instead of being dropped or bankrupted because they have pre-existing conditions is of paramount importance to a lot of Trump supporters. If they are made to understand the serious threat Barrett poses to them I think many will prioritize that over abortion rights.
And the media needs to stop saying that it is terrible that Republicans want to destroy people’s healthcare coverage in the middle of a pandemic. It will still be horrifying even when the pandemic is over.
I think that is the Democrats' plan - focus on her position on issues that affect people the most, e.g., ACA, abortion, etc.
You're correct!
It was a joy seeing you on Sunday's AM Joy. 🙂
Oh thanks I appreciate it. Always an interesting discussion
Mary Trump is my hero. Did she get these documents just this week after the lawsuit was filed? In that case, brilliant, but also brilliant for the NYT to work that hard getting the story out.
yes great work....it’s telling that the scoop came from NYT investigative team not it’s DC/White House team
Do you have any idea why there is such a discrepancy between the NY Times’s political team and the investigative team? It really is mind boggling how terrible the Times’s political reporting has been for decades. The Times seems to set the standard for other media outlets so what report on and how they frame that reporting matters greatly.
However even the Times’s investigative reporters share some of the blame. They should have been much more aggressive over the years about reporting on a blatant conman like Trump. The Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett and the Philadelphia Enquirer’s David Cay Johnston covered his criminal activities and failures going back to the eighties. As Mary Trump points out most of NY and NJ media treated him as entertainment, focusing on his “colorful” playboy lifestyle instead of doing their jobs. If the NY Times had bothered to do the kind of reporting that Barrett and Johnston did Trump would never have been able to sell himself as a successful businessman. That is likely the biggest reason so many seemingly rational people still support him.
And they believe it too. A woman told me just a month ago that “Trump is a great businessman, but...” and went on to explain to me how she thought his failed presidency was nothing more than Trump just trying to work outside his wheelhouse, the little scamp. That was the moment I gave up on her. These people cannot be saved.
I know several people who still justify their support for Trump because they believe he is a successful businessman. There are many well done studies that show once someone forms a strong opinion it is very, very difficult to change it. They will use the “confirmation bias” to avoid that, cherry-picking information that supports their belief while ignored facts that debunk it. Fox News has made that much, much easier. That is why it angers me so much that the people with the power to check Trump decades ago — the media, the IRS, the state and federal government — let him get away with his abuses just like they do with so many other wealthy powerful people. It occurred to me recently that the sanctimonious James Comey was a person who was in a position to take down Trump when he was the US Atty for the Southern District of NY. By that Time there was plenty of public evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing. Comey had no problem jailing Martha Stewart even though she was clearly innocent of insider trading which was the original basis for going after her. Sending her to prison for lying to investigation was extreme and not commonly done. It really shocked many in the legal and financial community. Clearly Comey had been angered by Stewart’s refusal to bow down to him. She was an uppity woman and a strong Democrat too.
From what I have seen of the many right wingers I know it is only when something that hurts them happens as a result of their faith in that person that they will change their minds. I saw that with several people who lost big when the economy crashed in 2008. His obvious incompetence, lying us into an unnecessary disastrous war, etc. made a dent. It was only when they were personally hurt by Bush’s actions and inactions that they turned against him. I know one person like that who would have done that much sooner had her child been sent to fight in Iraq but since it was only children of people she didn’t know it didn’t count with her.
That can’t be possible. There is no way she would have gotten more documents than she already has that quickly. Trump will fight her every step of the way. It could be that someone working not the investigation of Trump for the NY State DA for Manhattan’s (Cyrus Vance) team slipped them to the media. The court ruled Trump had to turn them over to Vance.
After I wrote the above comment, Mary Trump came out and said she had nothing to do with it. So, good reporting job by the Times.
Greetings from the South!
Trump voters in a nutshell, via local reporter Josh Moon. They really cannot be saved:
https://twitter.com/josh_moon/status/1310426089613918208?s=21
A reminder that to the media in 2016, lies about emails mattered more than the truth about fraud and treason. How are they doing in 2020? Not much better, for the most part.
Actually I think they are doing much better in that they aren’t actively helping Trump smear Biden. The Biden-Ukraine scandal is as credible as the accusations against the Clinton Foundation that did real damage to Hillary’s support. Both accusations originated with Breitbart’s Peter Schweitzer whose books “Clinton Cash” and Secret Empires were the origins for those fake scandals. Unlike 2015-16 the media has not made as big a deal of the accusations against Biden and have repeatedly debunked them. I think Trump has scared them so much that they won’t help spread his lies the way the did with Gore and Hillary.
I am not saying I approve of the job the media is doing. They still succumb to bothsiderism and faux balance. Worse they too often blame this mess on Trump as if he is not the result of decades-long Republican lies and propaganda
I think media have tried to gin up fake scandals and controversies but they're not getting any traction. I love Biden but white males do not trigger voter animus like women or Black candidates do. Plus I think voters like Biden.
Not the major players like the NY Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, etc. Many of those outlets obsessed over Hillary’s emails in 2016, reporting on that far more than anything else about her. They are not giving more than glancing attention to Biden’s scandals. Even when Ron Johnson was holding hearings it was a minor story at best. There is no comparison between that coverage that the extensive media coverage of Benghazi, her emails, the Clinton Foundation all which they knew were hoaxes.
As raw highly respected psychological researcher Daniel Kahneman has shown in many studies people assess the relative importance of issues by the ease with which they are retrieved from memory — and that is largely determined by the extent of coverage in the media. Frequently mentioned topic are easily recalled while those that received only fleeting coverage are quickly forgotten.
(PBS is currently showing the series “Hacking Your Mind” which covers much of Kahneman and his late partner Igor Tversky’s ground breaking research. It is well worth watching.)
Interesting information about studies. Thanks.
I think you would really appreciate that PBS series. They are running and re-running episodes in my market frequently and I know it is based on solid research about human biases, how we think in everyday situations, etc. They show kids participating in experiments and some are really fascinating. The one I happened to catch today was about how humans are deeply influenced by observing how other make decisions, solve problems, etc. The effect is so strong that we will copy seemingly obviously wrong solutions. Animals, including chimps do not do this. They explained that it appears that humans do not have a good detection system for bad social information. I was really surprised by those results and I studied this kind of research back in the 80s and 90s, including Tversky and Kahneman’s groundbreaking studies. The kid sin the study are really cute, too.
The headlines are definitely not good news for Trump. I especially like the way Kevin Drum has distilled it to a simple story, complete with a graph. https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/donald-trump-has-been-losing-money-every-year-since-2012/
oh nice, good link thanks for sharing
Has this story died? We’re trumps debate antics an effort to push this off of the front page?
The local Sinclair channel website covered this by featuring a locally authored defense of tax loopholes prominently and made one scroll down to find the Jill Colvin AP piece about the NYTimes piece. In the section where it ran, a more prominently featured AP story about the US shipping out more test kits was accompanied by the all too familiar Trump-at-the-lecturn shot. A better choice, in terms of value, would be just to bookmark/favorite the AP website.
The same paper that is now getting accolades about their expose of Trump's tax cheating is the same paper that conspired with BreitFART to publish the libelous "Clinton Cash" book in 2016.
They also gladly published lie after lie about Hunter Biden and Burisma earlier this year.
It's the same paper that endlessly lied about Hillary's e-mails in 2016 and gave Trump pass after pass.
Too little from the Times and too late but then that is precisely what I expect from that corporate propaganda rag.
Bottle Rockets thank you for including "Dog" in Fun Stuff.