Like clockwork the New York Times will passionately defend that horrible piece on Hegseth by newsplaining that giving him negative ink would somehow “abandon their central role as a source of impartial information”. And that they are heroically giving him favorable coverage to maintain access so that you, the reader, can make up your own opinions.
I have noticed that when news outlets like The Times are criticized by the left for giving republicans softball coverage the response is to newsplain to us plebs that they are heroically doing us a favor by printing Republican’s words without challenge so that we can make up our own minds. They call this “access journalism”. How noble of them.
The access journalism never seems to apply to Democrats. For them it’s more combative. They put their journalism hat on and act entitled to ask tough questions because…after all, don’t the American people have a right to know!!!???
I forgot to add, on the flip side to this, when republicans criticize the NYT or CNN or whoever, the response is to add more conservatives voices and pledge to give them more favorable coverage for “balance “.
I have absolutely never heard any news organizations say, “you know what, we need more liberal voices.”
I didn’t even read the whole haute couture of that walking haircut. He’s as qualified as I am to head the DOD- though I do have a leg up on not raping anyone pr getting drunk at work. Nevertheless…
The Democrats should have led with his résumé The whipped topping is “oh, and he’s also a sexual predator and a drunk.”
>> “Brave Republicans who would stand up to Trump have gone,” [Duckworth] said, presumably referring to characters from The West Wing. “They’re no longer in the Senate, and the ones that are left are scared for their lives.” <<
I never watched West Wing, so I don’t know anything about those particular story lines. But IRL, Duckworth may be referring to Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, two Republican Congresspersons who served on the J6 Select Committee in 2021 and helped ensure the inquiry into the Insurrection didn’t fold up and disappear. Instead, the committee’s findings led directly to indictments and prosecution by Jack Smith and the DOJ.
They both lost their Congressional jobs over it, and like many others who have stood up and spoken out, and who are still fearlessly speaking out now, Kinzinger and Cheney have dealt with vicious MAGA-adjacent attacks and death threats to themselves, their families, and their staff ever since. (Sort of like what Jasmine Crockett, for ex., is finding out now.) These days, to speak truth to THIS power is political suicide, to say the least, and life-threatening, to say the most.
I honestly have no idea. McCain is the only one who effectively stopped Trump. (Collins and Murkowski also voted against ACA repeal, but I think that McConnell had already prepared for their no votes.)
That's the rub--once you've elected a president who is a security risk and is grossly unqualified to head a government, all the rot flows downhill--how can you really worry about the competence of those below him, when they'll be carrying out his incompetent orders? What security risks could they have that would matter, when the POTUS is already giving whatever he wants to the Russians with no consequences whatsoever? Republicans are just reacting to the voters who reaped the whirlwind, we are now going to get it all good and hard.
For Democrats' part, the best they can do right now is relentlessly and repeatedly focus on this man's incompetence and security risks. "You paid off your rape victim--why should we not be worried that you're a blackmail risk now?" "You've never even run a lemonade stand, how on earth will you figure out how to run the Pentagon?" It won't matter to Republicans, but if you get the idea out into the media that this guy is an incompetent and a security risk, then when things blow up under his watch you can hammer home your earlier warnings and try to use it to sway public opinion in the next election on the theme of "Republicans cannot be trusted to run things properly".
The incompetence is provable to most people. This is your résumé, here are your job requirements- you don’t qualify. I think even MAGA understands job requirements. The rest falls under “he said/she said”.
Yep--just point out he never even ran a small office, has no experience working at any government agency, he's just a talking head on an idiot channel (and use that phrase! No reason to play nice with Fox). Repeat it over and again, and people will get it.
Don't get caught up in "can you tell me the nuclear triad" or "who is in ASEAN?" Most people don't know that stuff, and probably wouldn't know whether someone like him should know it either.
Ugh! That NYT piece confirms that this maga can't make his own fashion choices, just like Vance and the others. They all dress alike - like the traitor. They are just as ugly on the inside as on the outside, just like the traitor. And that bit about his greasy hair, oh wait, it's not greasy, it's neat. Maybe it's having been a teenager in the 1970s, but I prefer the natural look, even a little messy to helmet head hair. BTW, I am going on what you wrote about the piece, because I don't want to give the NYT any clicks.
And written by fashion writer Vanessa Friedman who is 'interpreting' his wardrobe choice. Among the bon mots she drops is calling the his bits of flair 'value signalling' because he chose them purposely...
Rachel Tashjian is her counterpart at WaPo who writes fawning pieces on Melania's 'fashion sense' (and she's not being ironic!)
"I would hope that my colleagues would put the safety and security of the nation above their own political survival.”
Sorry, Senator Duckworth, but the broligarchy has threatened any senator not sufficiently cowed to do Fuckface's bidding will be primaried. Money is speech and speech is power. The vote is guaranteed.
As a long-time NYT subscriber I was appalled by this article. Jeez! Dresses the part?
Like clockwork the New York Times will passionately defend that horrible piece on Hegseth by newsplaining that giving him negative ink would somehow “abandon their central role as a source of impartial information”. And that they are heroically giving him favorable coverage to maintain access so that you, the reader, can make up your own opinions.
Or whatever bullshit Joe Kahn comes up with.
I have noticed that when news outlets like The Times are criticized by the left for giving republicans softball coverage the response is to newsplain to us plebs that they are heroically doing us a favor by printing Republican’s words without challenge so that we can make up our own minds. They call this “access journalism”. How noble of them.
The access journalism never seems to apply to Democrats. For them it’s more combative. They put their journalism hat on and act entitled to ask tough questions because…after all, don’t the American people have a right to know!!!???
I forgot to add, on the flip side to this, when republicans criticize the NYT or CNN or whoever, the response is to add more conservatives voices and pledge to give them more favorable coverage for “balance “.
I have absolutely never heard any news organizations say, “you know what, we need more liberal voices.”
I wonder why that is. 🤔
That NYT piece...what a piece of trash "article." Even for the NYT, who I have zero respect for!
God, America deserves this. (waves vaguely at everything).
Individual good Americans don't... but the fucking system deserves it.
I didn’t even read the whole haute couture of that walking haircut. He’s as qualified as I am to head the DOD- though I do have a leg up on not raping anyone pr getting drunk at work. Nevertheless…
The Democrats should have led with his résumé The whipped topping is “oh, and he’s also a sexual predator and a drunk.”
The NYT always had a soft spot for fascists and dictators, this piece is in line with their fawning 1937 piece on "where Hitler plans and dreams"
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/05/30/101009858.html?pageNumber=85
And this piece from 1922 could be reprinted today with the names changed:
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/11/21/98786796.html?pageNumber=18
>> “Brave Republicans who would stand up to Trump have gone,” [Duckworth] said, presumably referring to characters from The West Wing. “They’re no longer in the Senate, and the ones that are left are scared for their lives.” <<
I never watched West Wing, so I don’t know anything about those particular story lines. But IRL, Duckworth may be referring to Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, two Republican Congresspersons who served on the J6 Select Committee in 2021 and helped ensure the inquiry into the Insurrection didn’t fold up and disappear. Instead, the committee’s findings led directly to indictments and prosecution by Jack Smith and the DOJ.
They both lost their Congressional jobs over it, and like many others who have stood up and spoken out, and who are still fearlessly speaking out now, Kinzinger and Cheney have dealt with vicious MAGA-adjacent attacks and death threats to themselves, their families, and their staff ever since. (Sort of like what Jasmine Crockett, for ex., is finding out now.) These days, to speak truth to THIS power is political suicide, to say the least, and life-threatening, to say the most.
Yeah but Kinzinger and Cheney weren’t in the Senate. McCain did block ACA repeal, but otherwise, the Senate GOP has been corrupt for a while
So, which Senators do you think she’s referring to?
I honestly have no idea. McCain is the only one who effectively stopped Trump. (Collins and Murkowski also voted against ACA repeal, but I think that McConnell had already prepared for their no votes.)
“There are no training wheels on Tammy Duckworth’s wheelchair.”
mic drop, Stephen. Thank you.
Character does not matter...only fealty to their mad carnival barker godking.
Let us do what we can to survive the incoming maladministration.
That's the rub--once you've elected a president who is a security risk and is grossly unqualified to head a government, all the rot flows downhill--how can you really worry about the competence of those below him, when they'll be carrying out his incompetent orders? What security risks could they have that would matter, when the POTUS is already giving whatever he wants to the Russians with no consequences whatsoever? Republicans are just reacting to the voters who reaped the whirlwind, we are now going to get it all good and hard.
For Democrats' part, the best they can do right now is relentlessly and repeatedly focus on this man's incompetence and security risks. "You paid off your rape victim--why should we not be worried that you're a blackmail risk now?" "You've never even run a lemonade stand, how on earth will you figure out how to run the Pentagon?" It won't matter to Republicans, but if you get the idea out into the media that this guy is an incompetent and a security risk, then when things blow up under his watch you can hammer home your earlier warnings and try to use it to sway public opinion in the next election on the theme of "Republicans cannot be trusted to run things properly".
The incompetence is provable to most people. This is your résumé, here are your job requirements- you don’t qualify. I think even MAGA understands job requirements. The rest falls under “he said/she said”.
Yep--just point out he never even ran a small office, has no experience working at any government agency, he's just a talking head on an idiot channel (and use that phrase! No reason to play nice with Fox). Repeat it over and again, and people will get it.
Don't get caught up in "can you tell me the nuclear triad" or "who is in ASEAN?" Most people don't know that stuff, and probably wouldn't know whether someone like him should know it either.
Ugh! That NYT piece confirms that this maga can't make his own fashion choices, just like Vance and the others. They all dress alike - like the traitor. They are just as ugly on the inside as on the outside, just like the traitor. And that bit about his greasy hair, oh wait, it's not greasy, it's neat. Maybe it's having been a teenager in the 1970s, but I prefer the natural look, even a little messy to helmet head hair. BTW, I am going on what you wrote about the piece, because I don't want to give the NYT any clicks.
And written by fashion writer Vanessa Friedman who is 'interpreting' his wardrobe choice. Among the bon mots she drops is calling the his bits of flair 'value signalling' because he chose them purposely...
Rachel Tashjian is her counterpart at WaPo who writes fawning pieces on Melania's 'fashion sense' (and she's not being ironic!)
"I would hope that my colleagues would put the safety and security of the nation above their own political survival.”
Sorry, Senator Duckworth, but the broligarchy has threatened any senator not sufficiently cowed to do Fuckface's bidding will be primaried. Money is speech and speech is power. The vote is guaranteed.