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Trump will milk the "will he/won't he run" cash cow as long as possible. Declaring one way turns off the spigot, the other way requires donations to be reported to the FEC. As with everything else in this mentally disturbed con man's life, this is a grift. And once again, the media refuse to talk about it. If they cannot bring themselves to honestly report a blatant plot to fleece donors, can it surprise anyone that they won't report a more subtle - but still highly visible - effort to destroy a bedrock principle of democracy?

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I noticed last week it was reported Trump has raised $105M and has made $0 contributions to any GOP candidates. Ie it’s always a grift for him

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We know why. Control the money and you increase your stranglehold on the Party!

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So true. The Greatest Grifter in the history of the World proves PT Barnum was right. PLENTY OF SUCKERS were born.

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This assessment is spot on. We learned a bit more yesterday when the Kraken lawyer, Sydney Powell, admitted that the disruption plan on 1/6 was working—but the National Guard showed up sooner than they expected and Nancy reconvened the House to finish the vote when they thought it would have been postponed for several days to give them extra time to uncover “proof” of the “steal.”

What makes the media coverage even more insulting, when they get pushback from readers on social media etc, they say it’s “sour grapes”—oh you want us only to cover the other guy—refusing to understand we aren’t criticizing reporting per se, but their decided “narrative,” the stupid gotcha manufactured crises that dominates their coverage of Dems, their stenography when it comes to the GOP, the imbalance (Meet the Press et al), and the false bothsidism. They refuse to acknowledge their own role and what they do and instead answer with snark. Their Dems terrible “narrative” goes back to Carter and really picked up steam with reporters who came of age beginning in the 80s—and has only gotten worse.

All I suggest is that everyone get involved at the grass roots to help Dems in their districts and states get elected to every office possible. And keep pushing back on bad coverage—call them out in comments to storis in their publications, in letters to the Ed, places like this, and on SM. It’s the (only) power we’ve got.

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Excellent advice

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Both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were deemed outsiders crashing the Beltway elite's sensibilities. They simply weren't the kind of people who made the guest list at Katherine Graham's dinner parties, and the coverage reflected it. Recall the apocryphal stories about Tim Russert being spotted at McDonald's after those affairs because he was so busy talking to the VIPs that he didn't have time to eat at a dinner party. {Not sure, but I think Russert was the source of such claptrap.}

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Tim Russert was bad but his son doubled done on the Pressitution until Nancy smacked that little brat down in public.

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lol. Luke Russert should have gone by "Tim W. Russert."

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And there is this: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/09/inside-ag-sulzbergers-top-times-project

In case you can't read it, here is the synopsis below the header:

"On a mission for 10 million paying customers, the paper has formed a new team to help ensure confidence in its journalism and broaden its reach beyond coastal hubs and across political lines. The goal, says one source, is to 'win people over.'"

God help us.

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Which means that the Times will double down on going back to the same Ohio diner to talk to the same racist Trump voters.

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Exactly! Subtext: "Mean Democrats yell at us on Twitter because they don't understand journalisting so we're going to publish more stories about Real White Americans In The Heartland who love Trump. Take that Libruls. Neener Neener."

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!!!!!!

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A common thread among the trumpies in my life; a major majority have little or no idea how our form of democracy is supposed to work. And they don't care to learn. They think "blowing it all up" is an answer to what they see and hear on fox and other right wing players, and revel in sharing their hero's never-ending victimhood. But worse, they actually believe his lies, and seem to think his self dealing over the past 4 years makes him a "winner" and someone to be admired. They're living in a low budget tv sitcom.

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Lots of the FG’s supporters first got to know him on The Apprentice, thus the reality tv prez. I doubt civics came up much on any of his 10? seasons. Ignorance is winning the day.

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Thank-you Eric!

As I said last week, this is THE story and our Failed Political Press ™ were ignoring it.

I don’t like conspiratorial thinking, but the facts keep pointing us in that direction. There is an agenda in the media, and I appreciate your ability and willingness to amplify these moments.

And I’d like to point out, too, as if adding insult to injury, Chuck Todd had Meghan McCain on Meet the Press for reasons unknowable, as well as ignoring the story of the Coup Memo. Anyone have any guesses why Upchuck did that?

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yes, another MTP low pt over the weekend

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"Anyone have any guesses why Upchuck did that?"

You are a wise person who answered your own question:

"There is an agenda in the media".

If we buy into that premise the behaviors we question are answered.

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If there is anything that displays how clueless The NY Times is, it’s “The Conversation” with the ‘comedy’ duo of Gail Collins and Brett “Bedbug” Stephens turning critical issues into a bunch of puerile yuks. (I never felt the need to use the word puerile until reading them this morning.)

Would you believe they’re asking what it will take to give the Biden administration a ‘reset’ or how they can give Kamala Harris a start on becoming a ‘real’ Vice President?

Facepalm.

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ugh yeah the Conversation is painful

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Those 2 are disgusting.

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The mainstream media’s addiction to excitement is helping to destroy our democracy. If a competent, extremely well-qualified candidate like Angela Merkel were to run for president here the media would either completely ignore them or have a field day mocking them. In contrast the Germans have just chosen to replace the center-right Christian Democratic Union Merkel with her center-left Social Democrat Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholtz. Scholtz was also Merkel’s Finance Minister. He played a powerful role in the Merkel government. (The assumption is that Scholtz, as head of his party, will replace Merkel and form a coalition with Merkel’s party. That means nothing much has changed.)

Scholtz, like Merkel, is a competent, boring political leader yet I this morning heard a report that it was going to be a shock to have the boring Merkel replaced by this man. Given that he and his Social Democrats have been her reliable coalition partner for years that is a huge exaggeration. Unlike the US media, the German media doesn’t seem to find it strange that people would prefer competence over entertainment.

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Two quick points to add:

1. Like the GOP base is addicted to the most unhinged, literally murderous pandering, the mainstream media are addicted to audience growth even if it requires a focus on trivial news or normalizing a pathologically unfit POTUS.

2. The collapse of functional, responsive democracies should be a huge story. Unfortunately, the mainstream would never report it honestly. tl;dr version: Many states, of which the US is one, have failed (or chosen not) to be responsive to the needs of the majority of their respective peoples. (In our case, we’re incapable of a complete national response to Covid. When a state can’t respond as required to a health emergency of a global pandemic, it’s pretty f***ing sad. Well, far worse than sad.)

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addicted is def the right word

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Our media is ignoring stories about the disastrous Boris Johnson/Tory rule of the UK. Biden was right he said Boris was a clone of Trump. You would think that would be worth some coverage in the US media.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/27/media-government-cronyism-dishonesty-bbc-press

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Thanks Eric. In 2002 and 2003 the Bush Admin OLC issued the infamous "Torture memos." They were leaked to the press in 2004. (Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal ). Signatories John Yoo is a law professor; Jay Bybee a Federal Judge.

I don't think we need to reach back to Nixon for analogies to the 6-page Coup Memo, nor hold our collective breath for accountability. Normalizing an insurrection seems analogous to normalizing torture. So John Eastman may have to choose between law professor and Judge but he won't face consequences.

That said, there are some voices bubbling up speaking to the authoritarian push towards chaos. (Once we have complete chaos we will need "order.")

Oh, and a shout-out to Nancy Pelosi for reconvening and finishing the vote.

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Speaking of torture - in the midst of a 60 Minutes fluff session with Leslie Stahl, Liz Cheney issued a stark reminder of who she truly is when she denied that waterboarding is torture. Apparently, when it comes to honesty and decency, the Cheney family is still in the test drive mode.

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Dick Cheney shot Harry Whittington in the face, neck and chest. Whittington later suffered a non-fatal heart attack due to a lead pellet in or near his heart. His lung also collapsed. At the time in 2006 Cheney's approval was 18%. And WMD....

Not sure what coattails Liz is riding.

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Wake up msm, the sky really IS falling. The Dems and the press are what stand in the way of this not so silent autocratic coup creeping across our country a bit at a time, day by day, and right before our eyes (or should I say the Manchin and Sinemas in our party). This is not a secret. We are on the verge of losing voting rights, abortion rights, freedom of the press, all enabled by the fourth estate and R political hacks who lack any iota of integrity nor love for the Constitution nor the country, contrary to their bloviating about ‘freedom.’ Headlines across the media spectrum should be screaming every day about the threats of a coup by THE ex PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES and his acolytes. If there’s nothing more important to the country than this, I can’t imagine what is. Oops. Forgot. The most important news of the days are often about the poor souls in diners who refuse covid vaccinations and the FG who leads them around by the nose w/his lies and whether or not he might or might not run again. They’ve all lost their minds and are bringing ruin to the US.

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The msm are a cheap date.

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With each passing day the Press Corpse proves just how complicit they are with the Republican push to rig elections.

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Remember their outrage regarding the Brooks Brothers Riot in Florida in 2000 - the event that stopped the recount? I don't either.

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Growing up as a boy in the 1960s, it was easy to assume that the end would come as a result of nuclear weapons. It would have been hard to imagine that decades later, the United States would end as a result of a narcissistic psychopath that spewed lies constantly and a press corp that saw it fit not to call it out to the level required, instead enjoying the profit made from keeping the con going. Where's the front page story today in the New York Times and Washington Post that Trump lied about winning the Arizona recount after it was determined that Biden actually gained votes? He lied about it at his rally, a complete lie right in the wake of the embarrassing news yet the stories remain if he will run again. Look folks, our democracy is over. Let's face the facts. Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema are not coming to the rescue. We will not see the voting rights bill passed. With Republican state run legislative voting bills being passed, gerrymandering, and the Big Lie continuing to be the Republican mantra, we are likely to lose the House and Senate next year. Not enough Democrats are taking this threat seriously enough and the press is cheerleading the coup.

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I had to do a Google search just to see who did and did not cover the 6 page memo (not that I don't trust you - I was just stunned). The NYT printed the entire document and then said not a single word about it. No analysis, no op ed, no opinion piece. Nada.

I think it's high time that we organize a boycott of these papers so they know that their Trumpism is unacceptable. I have about zero following in social media but would love to team up with someone to get this going. A few dozen people cancelling their subscriptions doesn't get the job done. We need a mass movement. Oddly enough it's the more liberal, educated people who actually pay for these papers (NYT, WaPo) so a mass boycott might actually be effective.

Also, hope springs eternal that Rump will be indicted in a serious way and will be ineligible to run. But most of me thinks that is just never going to happen, clear crimes uncovered notwithstanding. :-(

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The Hungarian word for prostitute is kurva, except it's uttered with contempt and rolling the r. It's a beautiful word for describing the occupants of the DC political media brothel, led by its madam, the chief chucktodd of them all, who rivals only Senator Huckleberry Adolf Pederasty of South Carolina in his love for all things McCain.

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If there has been a more glaring journalistic failure than the barely visible coverage of the John Eastman coup memo, I can't recall it. I want to see newsroom leaks about this issue. No way I buy the idea that there weren't reporters and editors enraged and embarrassed by this.

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Where is the Facebook button?

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Found it. I had to sign in all over again.

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Why would you boycott all of MSNBC’s shows? They have many shows that regularly report on the appalling demise of our democracy. Even Joe Scarborough regularly talks about this. All their primetime shows are completely focused on the threat to our democracy and our health posed by Trump, his cult followers and the spineless Republicans.

My biggest complaint is that those shows, like most of the media, are completely ignoring similar threats to other democracies, particularly the UK. I rarely see reports about just what a disaster Boris Johnson and his Brexit insanity has been for that country. It is appalling that he is still in power. Frighteningly the UK has even more conservative and right wing national newspapers/tabloids than we do. Murdoch owns The Sun and the London Times but there are others, too. Now they are going to have two right wing television networks. GB has gotten off to a rocky start but it now has given the democracy-hating Nigel Farage his own show. Even worse, Rupert Murdoch and Piers Morgan are starting a British version of Fox News.

From what I have read in publications like The Guardian and The New European the British media has not been willing to make it clear that a lot of the problems the UK is having now are the direct result of Brexit and Boris’s bad leadership. They have been blaming Covid, rather than Boris and his right wing Tories whose incompetence and cronyism has been breathtaking. The US media mostly ignores this important story which should be a cautionary tale for us.

Last week I was shocked to read about the serious energy crisis Europe is dealing with. They have a shortage of natural gas which Putin is refusing to help ease with increased production. The economic fallout threatens Europe’s economic recovery from the effects of Covid and may well impact us as well yet our media can’t be bothered even covering this serious story. Because the UK has left the common energy market and has also restricted pipelines from the continent the Brits are likely to be particularly hard hit but I have read that the economic fallout is likely to affect us too. That alone should be a reason for the US press to cover the story but I guess it’s not exciting enough yet.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/27/media-government-cronyism-dishonesty-bbc-press

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MSNBC from 4pm on is worthwhile, beginning with Nicolle Wallace. I never miss her show.

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Me too. She’s one of the good ones. Disagree with Penny on this one. Also like Velshi on weekends.

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I have repeatedly heard her speak in favor of the Covid relief funds and taxing the rich. The same is true for all the evening hosts. It is clear that you don’t watch those shows.

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Inflame division? Filled with hyperbole? They point out exactly try what is happening. This is the BS Jon Stewart line, which is just more false “bothsidism.” I am not looking forward to his return on Apple+.

Our democracy won’t survive if we don’t call out those who are trying to destroy it and shine a light on what they are doing.

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Wow--haven't seen a Jon Stewart critic in a long time. Perhaps since CNN Crossfire hosts tried.

Always worth a revisit: YouTube search: Crossfire Jon Stewart.

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Crossfire itself was an idiotic show. But as a loyal viewer of TDSWJS, it was eyerolling how Stewart would too often fall into the same "they all suck" bothsidism. Go back and watch his closing speech at the end of his Rally for Sanity and tell me how that holds up today, when we have Americans—"the aw shucks people just like us"—who refuse to get vaccinated, and are now trying to take Covid-sick family out of ICUs and telling others not to take them to the hospital/ER in the first place.

But, Stewart did compare the media to the dog from Up—"Squirrel!"—a brilliant comparison that sadly remains true today.

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"This was not a rally to look down our noses at people of faith, ..."

http://faculty.washington.edu/jwhelan/Documents/Speeches/Stewart%20Sanity%20Rally.pdf

Transcript. Don't see the bothsidism in the speech; didn't see it on his show.

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You can fact check what is said on Fox News and on MSNBC. One of them constantly tells lies and the other is reporting facts and not treating what is going on as if it were normal. I frequently see reports on attempts to make voting harder, especially for minorities along with interviews of people who are working hard to ensure that doesn’t happen. I know that angers Trump supporters but there is no excuse for hiding the truth just to spare their feelings. That is how democracies get destroyed — on side plays hardball and the other tries to be polite.

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