QOTD -- Descent Into Mass Delusion

 

America’s descent into mass delusion isn’t happenstance. The demise of courageous journalism isn’t a happy accident. Its replacement with engagement-chasing infotainment and propaganda isn’t an error. It’s a global assault on reason and informed consensus, and corporations and authoritarian bullies like Donald Trump are both architects and benefactors.

For decades, academics warned anybody who’d listen that the death of your local newspaper and broadcast consolidation was creating local “news deserts,” where residents have no access to reliable, accurate local news.  [snip]

Post-election, there’s been no shortage of handwringing about how the electorate had deep thoughts about inflationary policies. But in a country where 54 percent of adults operate at a sixth-grade reading level, public polling indicates that the public was violently and intentionally misinformed on subjects like the economy, immigration, crime, and the economy.

These distorted and patently incorrect opinions aren’t manifesting in a vacuum. They’re the direct result of a coordinated assault on education standards and independent journalism, fused with a campaign to fill the heads of the electorate with pebbles, mashed potatoes, and a rotating platter of ad engagement bait and distraction.

Whether it’s lowering the tax rates of billionaires, stripping away consumer-protection standards, destroying the environment, or decimating labor rights, Republican policies historically aren’t very popular. Which is why Republicans have spent generations undermining academia, education, journalism, and expertise itself... -- Karl Bode, writing in DAME Magazine on why "America's Right-Wing Propaganda Problem Might Be Terminal."  Bode offers some prescriptions to avoid that terminal condition, including building structural media alternatives and improving information literacy skills, all of which takes enormous time, effort, and resources.  But that requires everyone on board the democracy train to be honest about the right- wing propaganda problem.  Not sure we see that even now, after nearly 30 years of Fox "News" and more than a decade after the Malignant Fascist (MF) Trump's first serious moves onto the political stage. (h/t Mock Paper Scissors)

BONUS:  More proof, if needed.

QOTD -- Malpractice

 

Rex Huppke writes in USA Today about a form of malpractice that puts America at risk:

... No news organization would be biased to treat the cruel or racist or dishonest or gibberish-y things Trump says each day as newsworthy. Trump could absolutely become president again, and anything that downplays his true nature while zooming in tighter on Biden's issues is irresponsible and not proper news judgement. It's a play for balance, not reality.  [snip]

But in the days since the [Hur] report on Biden came out, Trump has done things over and over that are orders of magnitude more serious, and the lack of commensurate attention shows it’s well past time news organizations stop both-sides-ing these two people.

One is a normal candidate with ample flaws and policies some will dislike. The other is a criminal defendant who constantly shows he’s a raging narcissist and a profound threat to this country and the world.

Pretending otherwise isn’t objectivity. It’s journalistic malpractice.

It's also comedic malpractice, btw (see "Tweets" below;  also, if you're getting Elon Musk's approval, you might be doing it wrong).

Media Malpractice: The Texas Anti-Abortion Law

 

Our broken media was fixated for two weeks on the ultimately successful evacuation of 124,000 Afghan allies and U.S. citizens. They portrayed it -- without context -- as a shameful Biden failure, presumably because we couldn't airlift millions more for months to come, suggesting that our military should have stayed (e.g., "mainstream media" commandos Peter Baker, Richard Engel, Clarissa Ward, Ian Pannell, and Martha Raddatz). Meanwhile, they virtually ignored the horror of Texas' cruel, restrictive abortion law which was given a pass by the right-wing Supreme Court under their noses. Media Matters tallied up the number of times that cable news covered the Texas story since August 25, and discovered that it was covered just three times, all at the last moment before the law went into effect on September 1:

"The most restrictive abortion law in the country went into effect in Texas today, effectively banning abortion in the state after efforts to halt the move in court were unsuccessful. Since August 25, the law has been covered in just three cable news segments, all of which aired last night. [snip]

According to a Media Matters review, CNN and MSNBC did not devote a single segment to the story between August 25 and last night, when Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and Don Lemon on CNN had lengthy segments about it. Fox News did not cover the law in the period studied."

As we noted yesterday, the Texas law will almost certainly be the template for other Republican-controlled states to pass draconian laws that essentially ban abortion, even in cases of rape and incest as the Texas law does, impacting tens of millions of women's reproductive choices. Texas' law bans abortions at six weeks, when most women aren't aware they're pregnant, and authorizes Christofascist zealots to sue people who help women get abortions (like parents, friends, clinic workers, perhaps even taxi companies, etc.).

Republican-wired media malpractice has been common since the days of Ronald Reagan, and isn't limited to social issues. It was very rare when coverage of Hurricane Ida noted climate change / greenhouse gasses as the cause of more and more frequent monster hurricanes, not to mention years-long droughts and wildfires. The Washington Post uses the slogan "democracy dies in darkness." It's long past time that our broken media shed far more light on actions that affect the daily lives of millions of women and families, as well as our planet.

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

As expected, the Pfizer vaccine got full FDA approval today --

Federal regulators Monday granted full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine — a milestone that could help increase inoculation rates and spark a wave of vaccine mandates by employers and universities amid a surge of new cases and hospitalizations fueled by the ferocious delta variant, according to two individuals with direct knowledge of the decision.

The Food and Drug Administration action marks the first licensing of a vaccine for the coronavirus, which has swept the United States in repeated and punishing waves since early 2020, exhausting nursing staffs, filling intensive care units and raising fears among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.

The media's "over the top" coverage of the Afghanistan withdrawal reflects more on its credibility than the withdrawal does on President Biden's:

During an appearance on CNN, former White House adviser Matthew Dowd and columnist Amanda Marcotte criticized the media coverage of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as being "over the top."

"[The coverage was] way over the top and unconnected to a perspective on the issue from the beginning," Dowd told CNN's Brian Stelter on Sunday. "They've added more perspective in the final days but from the beginning, they didn't have a perspective on it."

"We should judge it by the data," he continued. "And sometimes the press has a tendency to judge things by anecdotes and not the data. And the data for the last week shows that Joe Biden has basically gotten 30,000 people out of Afghanistan without a single loss of American life."

Marcotte agreed.

"It's been over the top," she said. "I think that we were reminded of the factors that got us into some of the wars to begin with, which is there tends to be a bias in the press towards military intervention. And I think that we also see why it was so hard for presidents in the past to pull out of Afghanistan. They were afraid of exactly this kind of press overreaction."

"There's no way to surrender, leave, withdraw -- whatever you want to call it -- in a war without things getting ugly," she added. "And I feel there was something pollyannaish about expecting anything different and it disappoints me the press is behaving in this way."

We critiqued the early stage of the evacuations, which reflected poorly on U.S. planning and intelligence.  But, as Dowd states, the data prove the job is finally getting done -- even as the ugliness and messiness lingers.  It's a very difficult job under almost impossible conditions.  Let's give our folks a chance to succeed. (Please also read Josh Marshall's excellent piece on this topic.)

In case you missed it, the Biden Administration is cancelling the student debt for borrowers with total and permanent disabilities:

The U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday it will cancel $5.8 billion in student debt for more than 320,000 borrowers.

The debt forgiveness, which will go to borrowers with a total and permanent disability, will be automatically granted using data already available to the Social Security Administration. People should start seeing the relief in September.

The Education Department said it also plans to stop asking these borrowers to continue sharing earnings data after they receive the relief.

“We’ve heard loud and clear from borrowers with disabilities and advocates about the need for this change, and we are excited to follow through on it,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, in a statement.

“This change reduces red tape with the aim of making processes as simple as possible for borrowers who need support.”

The Education Department under the Biden administration has also canceled student debt for thousands of students who attended for-profit schools.

Still, President Joe Biden remains under pressure from Democrats, advocates and borrowers to go further and cancel $50,000 per borrower in student debt for all.

Look for more cancellations ahead.

Moving the "reinstatement" goalposts again, My Mein Pillow seditionist crackpot Mike Lindell addressed the Nuremberg Cullman, AL, rally for the malignant former guy on Saturday:

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has once again moved back his expected timetable for Donald Trump’s magical reinstatement to the presidency, this time divining that the historic and utterly fantastical event will occur sometime before 2021 ends.  [snip]

Last month, Lindell predicted that Trump would somehow be reinstated as president sometime in August, which has not happened.

Former presidents are not “reinstated” to the presidency in the U.S. after they lose an election.

“By the morning of Aug. 13, it will be the talk of the world,” Lindell said in July, envisioning Trump’s grand return. People, he predicted, would be saying: “Hurry up! Let’s get this election pulled down, let’s right the right. Let’s get these communists out.”

But Lindell hedged his forecast late last month, even before his first prediction had a chance to flop, when he said Trump’s reinstatement might actually happen in September, once he finally presents the Supreme Court with all his supposed proof of a fraudulent election.

Now, Lindell has moved the goalposts again, though he maintains Trump will reassume the presidency sometime before the end of the year.

“When you steal an election, you don’t just steal an election and we’re going to sit here and go, ‘OK, let’s wait for 2020 — or let’s wait for 2024,’” Lindell told rallygoers in Alabama this weekend. “I’ll tell you what, it’s Trump 2021!” 

He repeated: “That’s what it is, 2021! If we don’t solve 2020, there is no 2022 and 2024.”

We're not mental health or drug abuse experts, but you don't have to be to recognize a completely unhinged person when you see one.  (Maybe he's working on an insanity defense for the $1.3 billion defamation suit?  Nah!)

Not so lucky bride news (gagging alert!):

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida eloped to Southern California, marrying his girlfriend Ginger Luckey on Saturday in a small ceremony on Catalina Island. 

The controversial 39-year-old Republican, who is under investigation as part of a sex trafficking probe, announced the wedding on his personal Twitter page. He exclaimed “I love my wife!” along with a photo of them together — he in a sport coat, she in a white dress.  [snip]

Luckey, 26, is from Southern California and works for a company that focuses on extending the life of products made from plant-based materials. 

Gaetz is under investigation as part of a probe that led to the arrest and plea deal of his close friend, Joel Greenberg, a former Seminole Count, Florida, tax collector.

We wonder if the penitentiary will allow for conjugal visits.

Finally, we recommend that you head over to Infidel 753's link round-up for the best collection of links to blog posts from around the Internet.  Go browse and enjoy!

The New Keyboard Commandos

 

Daniel Marans has a lead article in the HuffPo on the press' new belligerence regarding Afghanistan after years of benign neglect. If you've been watching the hair-on-fire coverage of the chaotic situation in Kabul or President Biden's news conferences, you'll know what Marans is talking about, as he describes here:

"As President Joe Biden ended his news conference on Friday afternoon about the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, a reporter called out an especially bellicose question.

'Why do you continue to trust the Taliban, Mr. President?' the reporter said.

Notwithstanding the militant group’s poor human rights record and ultra-conservative Islamist ideology, multiple U.S. administrations have successfully negotiated with the Taliban. The Taliban have complex interests. As Biden noted on Friday, the organization is at war with the faction of the self-declared Islamic State (also known as ISIS), which is competing for power in Afghanistan.

But the reporter’s criticism-masquerading-as-query was the culmination of a week’s worth of dramatic finger-pointing and fretting from a Washington press corps that usually prides itself on neutrality."  (our emphasis)

After four plus years of brutal treatment by the former guy and his minions, in which their reputations not to mention their freedom was threatened, one would think the "both sides" impulses of the Beltway media would have subsided. One would be wrong. Marans continues: 

"Although the White House’s failure to foresee the rapid fall of the Afghan government and prepare accordingly has exacerbated the chaos of the U.S. withdrawal, Biden and his allies are furious with what they see as reporters’ and pundits’ unduly hawkish coverage of the exit.

'The media tends to bend over backwards to ‘both-sides’ all of their coverage, but they made an exception for this,' said Eric Schultz, a deputy press secretary under President Barack Obama. 'They both-sides coverage over masks, and vaccines, and school openings and everything else. Somehow [the Afghanistan withdrawal] created a rush to judgment and a frenzy that we haven’t seen in a long time.'” (our emphasis)

As we've pointed out on an almost daily basis (here, here and yesterday) since the fall of Kabul, the press overwhelmingly fails to provide any context to the current situation, perhaps because they were asleep at the switch when the former guy made his deal for withdrawal directly with the Taliban last year (which led to this crisis), or because they think their superficial, lazy, "tough on Biden" narrative will win back some "both sides" cred. It's that mentality that helped get us the former guy and where we are.

QOTD -- The Pentagon's Pravda

 

"... In recent days, much of the mainstream media has comported itself as the Pentagon’s Pravda. Reporters have indignantly asked the White House how it could say that America doesn’t have a vital national security interest in maintaining a military presence near Tajikistan. NBC’s Richard Engel has devoted his Twitter feed to scolding Biden for suggesting that America’s nation-building project in Afghanistan was always hopeless, and that the Kabul government was “basically a failed state.” CNN’s Jim Sciutto lamented on Twitter Wednesday, “Too many times, I’ve witnessed the US military attempt to dutifully carry out difficult & dangerous missions left to them by the miscalculations of civilian leaders.” This sentiment is disconcerting in the abstract, since it seems to suggest that civilian control of the military may be unwise. But it’s even stranger in context. As we learned just two years ago, American military leaders in Kabul systematically lied to the public about how well the war against the Taliban was going, so as to insulate their preferred foreign policy from democratic contestation." -- New York Magazine's Eric Levitz, in "The Media Is Helping Hawks Win the War Over Biden’s Withdrawal." Levitz critiques the actions of both the Biden Administration and the endless war proponents, many of whom can be found in the ranks of media who have become personally invested in the war in Afghanistan (looking at you, Engel, and you, too, Ian Pannell of ABC News).  Perhaps, in addition to their ire being directed solely at the actions of President Biden, they should direct some attention to the military leaders with whom they've become cozy, who lied to them for years about how the war was going.  We won't hold our breath, though.

QOTD -- An Existential Crisis Ignored By Horserace Journalists

Colbert I. King on the fundamental issue not getting the serious attention by the media it deserves:

White nationalism is on the rise and worming itself into the Republican mainstream. The country is experiencing a “racial justice crisis,” as Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told a virtual Howard University audience this week.

Yet, that’s not what’s dominating the front pages or cable news shows. Instead, the Biden administration is being subjected to “horse race” reporting that pays more attention to whether the president is winning or losing against Republican rivals on a range of issues — infrastructure, gun control, climate change, withdrawal from Afghanistan, you name it — than to the substance and merit of the issues themselves. Public life in Washington is once again being reduced to a competitive game between Democrats and Republicans — who’s ahead, who’s behind in the battle over who knows what.

However, some of today’s issues are more than passing fancies that grab public attention until the next big thing comes along. One that looms large with those of us deeply concerned about the health of our democracy: the Republican voter suppression crusade that will diminish access to the ballot for people of color.

The worst offenders are the "savvy DC insider" types (Politico, Punchbowl, Axios, etc.) and some cable pundits like CNN's bottom- dwelling Chris "But Her Emails!" Cillizza.  But there's plenty of blame to go around, and consumers need to be alert to what's being reported and, most importantly in the context of King's op/ ed, what's not.  And let the offenders know you know the difference and the significance.

Lincoln Dead, But Lede Buried

 

One hundred fifty-six years ago yesterday, according to the Associated Press at the time, a man and his wife went to a play, and something happened:

On the night Abraham Lincoln was shot, April 14, 1865, Associated Press correspondent Lawrence Gobright scrambled to report from the White House, the streets of the stricken capital, and even from the blood-stained box at Ford’s Theatre, where, in his memoir he reports he was handed the assassin’s gun and turned it over to authorities. Here is an edited version of his original AP dispatch:

___

WASHINGTON, APRIL 14 — President Lincoln and wife visited Ford’s Theatre this evening for the purpose of witnessing the performance of ‘The American Cousin.’ It was announced in the papers that Gen. Grant would also be present, but that gentleman took the late train of cars for New Jersey.

The theatre was densely crowded, and everybody seemed delighted with the scene before them. During the third act and while there was a temporary pause for one of the actors to enter, a sharp report of a pistol was heard, which merely attracted attention, but suggested nothing serious until a man rushed to the front of the President’s box, waving a long dagger in his right hand, exclaiming, ‘Sic semper tyrannis,’ and immediately leaped from the box, which was in the second tier, to the stage beneath, and ran across to the opposite side, made his escape amid the bewilderment of the audience from the rear of the theatre, and mounted a horse and fled.

The groans of Mrs. Lincoln first disclosed the fact that the President had been shot, when all present rose to their feet rushing towards the stage, many exclaiming, ‘Hang him, hang him!’ The excitement was of the wildest possible description...

Not-so-bright correspondent Lawrence Gobright got around to reports of Lincoln's likely mortal wound several paragraphs later, following a description of the rocking chair Lincoln was sitting in, a description of the pistol used in the assassination, and a listing of those surrounding the dying/ dead President, among other crucial factoids.  

It's not known whether Gobright managed to interview Mrs. Lincoln about the assassination, and if it was he who asked the apocryphal question, "Other than that, how was the play?"

(h/t LGM)

A Conservative's Review Of The Media At Biden's Press Conference

 

Conservative Jennifer Rubin writes about how "Biden excels at his first news conference. The media embarrass themselves."  Here's an excerpt:

One reporter [Cecilia Vega/ ABC News] mentioned a 9-year-old she had seen at the border and asked if Biden’s messaging was contributing to the problem. No, he responded, again offering a detailed answer about the problems refugees face in their home countries that create the outflow. Prodded with a question about whether overcrowding was “acceptable,” he responded, “C’mon.” Of course it was unacceptable, he said, listing steps he is taking to find more beds for unaccompanied minors. The repeated questions on the same topic were tiresome and a poor use of precious time.

Try as they might to seem “tough,” the media did not succeed in knocking Biden off message. Biden spoke in great detail and length to show not only his mastery of the issues but also to suck tension and conflict out of the room. He simply would not be lured into accepting a false premise devised by Republicans (i.e., that his nice demeanor prompts parents to send kids thousands of miles under deadly conditions). “I’m going to send him on a thousand-mile journey across a desert and up to the United States because I know Joe Biden is a nice guy and he’ll take care of him? What a desperate act to take," he said. "The circumstances must be horrible.” [snip]

The media did not distinguish themselves. By asking about immigration multiple times and echoing the false narrative that Biden had created a “surge," they showed they were more interested in sound bites than actual news. Their failure to ask about the pandemic, the recession, anti-Asian violence, climate change or even infrastructure (Biden had to bring it up himself) was nothing short of irresponsible. They pleaded for a news conference and then showed themselves to be unserious. They never laid a glove on Biden; they did, however, make the case for why these events are an utter waste of the president’s time.

Our reaction was quite similar.  As we expected, many of the assembled paladins of the "public's right to know" came armed with their loaded questions of the "when did you stop beating your wife" sort.  Many of the prima donnas asked follow-up after follow- up after follow- up, soaking up time that other reporters could have used for their questions (though we're quite happy and amused that Fox's White House troll Peter "Deuce" Doocy was "snubbed" -- see post below).

"Unserious" is the precise descriptor of these ego- trippers, who've already moved on from our democracy's still unfolding existential crisis to manufacture one around a humanitarian problem that was largely the doing of the former guy, and which will take more than the two months the Administration has been in office to address and solve -- to which anyone who has worked in government or a large corporate bureaucracy can attest (in the process dealing with the legal red tape and having to work with foreign governments). 

But the need is now! -- to boost sagging readership, increase clicks and traffic, and keep the advertising bucks flowing in!!  Maybe we got the media we deserve, but it's certainly not the media we want or need in these times.

BONUS:  Critiques from other perspectives here, here, and here.

"We Need You To Call It A 'Crisis'! Please Call It A Crisis!!"

 

It didn't take much sleuthing to figure out why the media is determined to focus the nation's attention on "Crisis at the Border!" even as more existential, but difficult- to- soundbite crises threaten to overwhelm us:

Barely two months into the post-Trump era, news outlets are indeed losing much of the audience and readership they gained during his chaotic presidency. In other words, journalism’s Trump bump may be giving way to a slump.

After a record-setting January, traffic to the nation’s most popular mainstream news sites, including The Washington Post, plummeted in February, according to the audience tracking firm ComScore. The top sites were also generally doing worse than in February of last year, when the pandemic became a major international news story. [snip]

The story is largely the same for cable and broadcast news. Audiences grew during the pandemic last spring and summer, remained high in the fall as Trump tried to fight his electoral defeat with false claims of voter fraud, and swelled in the first few weeks of 2021 when a mob attacked the Capitol and Trump became the first president in history to be impeached and acquitted twice. [snip]

The most deeply affected network is CNN. After surpassing rivals Fox News and MSNBC in January, the network has lost 45 percent of its prime-time audience in the past five weeks, according to Nielsen Media Research. MSNBC’s audience has dropped 26 percent in the same period. Fox News — the most Trump-friendly of the three networks in its prime-time opinion shows — has essentially regained its leading position by standing still; its ratings have fallen just 6 percent since the first weeks of the year. The cable networks declined to discuss their ratings outlook for this article.

But, of course, it always comes down to the Les Moonves dictum that, while the former guy's toxicity may be bad for the country, "it's damn good for CBS."  (Let's not forget the role CNN, under "ratings whore" Jeff Zucker, played in Trump's rise, either.) 

Last night, saying the quiet part loud, ABC News' anchor David Muir pressed a reporter on why won't the Biden Administration call it a 'crisis'!? begging for a reason why the ratings- starved networks can't get the Administration to help it boost their click-bait, ratings- boosting narrative (skip to 3:33).

If we have a "crisis" in this country -- and we do -- it's the fact that one of our two political parties is committed to an anti- democracy agenda, prefaced by the foiled insurrection on January 6.  But that, and the renewal of America that's just begun under President Biden, doesn't stir the dark soul like "caravans of brown immigrants" does.  Here's Ryan Cooper on the media's "crisis" crisis:

This is nonsense. There is a problem at the border, but it is not remotely a "crisis." It's an administrative challenge that could be solved easily with more resources and clear policy — not even ranking with, say, the importance of securing loose nuclear material, much less the ongoing global pandemic, or the truly civilization-threatening crisis of climate change. The mainstream media is in effect collaborating with Republicans to stoke unreasoning xenophobic panic. [snip]

The border situation "is a political crisis for the new president, with no easy way out," said NBC's Chuck Todd on Meet the Press over the weekend, exercising his considerable political influence to create that crisis. He contrasted the conservative demand of a "big wall and some stricter enforcement of the border" with progressive demands for "humane treatment for migrants fleeing violence … and a path to citizenship for those that are already here" — falsely implying that both are equally extreme and impossible.

It's true that it would be much cheaper and simpler to deflate the frenzy of media hysteria by doing what Trump did — basically closing the border, throwing penniless refugees back over it, and forcing Mexico to deal with the problem. Dealing with migrants in a fair and humane fashion will require money, patience, and good administration. But how better to solve a fake crisis created by Republicans and bored occupants of green rooms in Washington, D.C. than with a fake solution?

Cooper details what the media is determined to ignore in its reporting about the border situation.  It's worth a read to help inoculate yourself against the bad faith "border crisis" stories you'll be seeing until the next shiny object appears from the media's assignment desk at Fox "News."

 

Monday Reading

 

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

We shared a tweet by Will Bunch yesterday that linked to his article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "President Biden’s ‘mistake’ at U.S. southern border isn’t what clueless pundits, GOP think it is." Here's an excerpt in case you didn't have a chance to read the article:

The border situation is neither the first crisis facing the new administration nor close to the biggest — not with a pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 Americans and the related economic crisis leaving 10 million out of work — but it is the nation’s most visible problem that can be so easily demagogued by Republicans looking to score cheap political points against a popular president, or get lapped up by Beltway journalists eager to go back to the brunch of lazy punditry. Indeed, the Sunday morning talk shows — ABC even flew its panelists to an outdoor location at the border — seemed to openly salivate at a return to the days of swinging at Democrats with a club furnished by the RNC.

With America’s former demagogue-in-chief retired to a golf pasture and banned from Twitter, House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has gamely stepped up to the plate — claiming that “this crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration” and tweeting nonsensically about “open borders” when the reality is instead that thousands are detained. But attacks like McCarthy’s are now driving off-kilter coverage like Sunday’s breathless, four-byline lead story in the Washington Post that centers the notion that Biden’s policies are to blame — with amnesia about the Post’s own reporting last fall while Trump was president that awful conditions in Central America were already driving an uptick in refugees, let alone the role that the inhumane policies of POTUS 45 have played in making things worse. What’s more, overall border crossings right now are similar to 2019 — when Trump was in the White House.

Critics of the Washington Post article like the attorney Luppe B. Luppen (@nycsouthpaw) noted that part of the “blame” for the crisis attributed to Biden is ending the Trump administration’s program called “Remain in Mexico” which, in blocking asylum seekers, created — and this is how the Post described it in its own article — “families crowded into squalid camps” on this other side of the border. Let that sink in: The Post article amplifies the idea that a policy that created a human rights nightmare of unsanitary refugee camps was a policy success that a Democratic president foolishly overturned.

And never mind that a federal judge ruled in November, or two months before Biden took office, that America had to stop Trump’s policy of turning away unaccompanied minors — one of the many nuances lost in our newest pseudo-debate.

They never learn, they never change.  Less than 3 months after the Republican Party and its militia wing attempted a coup to cancel the results of the election, the media is in its default business- as- usual, he said/she said mode -- ahistorical and, yes, amoral.

Of course the insurrection at the Capitol was sedition, and let the charges reflect that:

Michael Sherwin, the federal prosecutor who had led the criminal investigation into the Capitol riot, said that evidence in the probe is “trending” toward sedition charges. 

The former acting U.S. attorney in Washington told CBS News’s “60 Minutes” that thus far, none of the more than 400 defendants have been charged with sedition, which is conspiracy to overthrow the government.

During the interview that aired Wednesday, “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley questioned Sherwin about the sedition statute saying it “seems like a very low bar.”

“I don't think it's a low bar, Scott, but I will tell you this: I personally believe the evidence is trending towards that, and probably meets those elements,” Sherwin said.

In the same interview, Sherwin also said he thought Donald "Mango Mussolini" Trump could be criminally culpable for the insurrection and that prosecutors are exploring "everything."

Soon to join his glorious pantheon of failed Trump- brands, Trump's hawt new Twitter- like social media vehicle ("Shitter"? "Bitter"?):

Former President Donald Trump is coming back to social media -- but this time with his own network, a Trump spokesperson told Fox News on Sunday.

Jason Miller, a long-time adviser and spokesperson for Trump's 2020 campaign told Howard Kurtz on Fox's "MediaBuzz" that Trump will be "returning to social media in probably about two or three months." He added Trump's return will be with "his own platform" that will attract "tens of millions" of new users and "completely redefine the game." 

 

"This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media," Miller told Kurtz. "It's going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what President Trump does, but it will be his own platform."

... Maybe "Slammer," for where he'll hopefully be in the future?

The days of an American President kissing Putin's ass are over:

The Biden administration is preparing a series of aggressive cyber attacks on Russia in a major shift in tactics designed as a warning shot to rival powers.

The attack, which is expected in the next fortnight, is in retaliation for the SolarWinds hack, the large-scale infiltration of American government agencies and corporations discovered late last year that was traced back to the Kremlin. [snip]

The US will not target civilian structures or networks, but the hack is instead designed as a direct challenge to Mr Putin, Russia’s President, and his cyber army, The Telegraph understands.

The White House confirmed it will take “a mix of actions” - both “seen and unseen” - although it did not provide specifics on when and how it would do so.

At long last, make that thug pay for his attacks on our country.

Infidel 753's link round-up to posts from around the Internet is awaiting you.  If you haven't already visited it by the time you finish reading this sentence, no soup for you!

Media Whines About Biden's Press Availability

 

The whining has reached the editorial page of the Washington Post : 

WHITE HOUSE press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that President Biden would hold a news conference “before the end of the month.” Last month would have been better, and this week would be better than next. Avoiding news conferences must not become a regular habit for Mr. Biden. He is the president, and Americans have every right to expect that he will regularly submit himself to substantial questioning.  [snip]

But each of his 15 most recent predecessors, including Mr. Trump, held a full news conference within their first 33 days in office. Mr. Biden has been in office for 46 days. It was only after journalists’ complaints became increasingly loud — and following a wave of bad press — that Ms. Psaki announced Friday that the president would appear for an extended, unaccompanied question-and-answer session with reporters.

Could it be -- just maybe -- that he's been too busy getting things done and undoing the damage left by the former guy?  Like getting the vaccination distribution program jump- started?  Like getting his administration staffed after a non-transition?  Like getting his legislative agenda lined up and passing the American Rescue Plan Act?  Bueller?  Bueller?

We're reminded of the limited positive value of these press conferences which, under the former guy, tended to allow lies and misinformation to be spread largely unchallenged by the assembled press who rarely followed up on lie- studded answers.  That's not going to be a problem with President Biden, but we see how the media is likely to act anyway based on past performance.  This is from a 2015 Columbia Journalism Review article about President Obama' press conferences (our emphasis):

The press, meanwhile, shows itself to be a willing hostage to the modern demands for a click-worthy story and a tweetable quote. At press conferences, the overwhelming tendency is to ask about the day’s headline or to look for the “gotcha” question, instead of addressing long-term accountability issues. Frequently, one journalist after the next will ask the same question, as they did during the post-election news conference. Reporters ask questions not to get information, but to get a reaction. And even with that strategy, they rarely succeed. 

Of course, no one is asking or expecting the media to throw softball questions at President Biden, but let's get real about the more prosaic motivations here, which haven't changed since that description was written. And of course, the media has a vested interest in showing that it doesn't have a political bias and will go after a Democratic president even as he's fighting anti- democratic forces in the country that would ultimately end a free press. 

But the media should also have a bias in favor of democracy, which is the existential struggle of the moment in this country that only one party is fighting. As Dan Froomkin of PressWatchers puts it:

... [O]ne party, you have certainly noticed, has over the last decade or two descended into a froth of racism, grievance and reality-denial. Asking you to triangulate between today’s Democrats and today’s Republicans is effectively asking you to lobotomize yourself. I’m against that.

Defining our job as “not taking sides between the two parties” has also empowered bad-faith critics to accuse us of bias when we are simply calling out the truth. We will not take sides with one political party or the other, ever. But we will proudly, enthusiastically, take the side of wide-ranging, fact-based debate.

So, yes, President Biden will hold a news conference soon.  Let's see if anything has changed in the way of media responsibility and perspective.

BONUS:  At least one observer aside from us is skeptical --

After Biden holds a formal news conference, which is soon I assume, given he was no doubt waiting for a wave of good news to ride, what will they complain about then?

— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 7, 2021

 

What if he just answered every question, “You’ll have to wait and see” and “I’ll be announcing something in about two weeks.” Would that clear the hurdle?

— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 7, 2021

White House Press Reverts To Republican-Wired Form

 

The Republican- wired press is back.

Eagerly lapping up the bad faith of Republicans looking to retain power and leverage by invoking "unity" and "bipartisanship" to foil the Biden Administration from the get-go, several in the press secretary's briefing yesterday lobbed their loaded questions at Press Secretary Jen Psaki. 

This, from New York Effing Times reporter Mike Shear (remember that name):

Q   That's fine. So I want to push you a little bit more on that question.  Like if there’s this call for unity that the President made in his speech yesterday, but there has so far been almost no fig leaf even to the Republican Party.  You don’t have a Republican Cabinet member, like President Obama and, I think, President Clinton had.  You — you know, the executive orders that he’s come out the gate have been largely designed at erasing as much of the Trump legacy as you can with executive orders, much of which the Republican Party likes and agrees with.  You’ve put forth an immigration bill that has a path to citizenship but doesn’t do much of a nod towards the border security.  And you’ve got a 1.9-trillion-dollar COVID relief bill that has, as folks have said, already drawn all sorts of criticism.  Where is the — where is the actual action behind this idea of bipartisanship? 

And when are we going to see one of those, you know, sort of, substantial outreaches that says, “This is something that, you know, the Republicans want to do, too”?

We won't go into how much the Times needs to atone for its part in installing Mango Mussolini in office ("but her emails!").  That's well known by now, which makes this preening jackass's question even more infuriating than it otherwise might be.

Psaki's response, in part:

But, Mike, is unemployment insurance only an issue that Democrats in the country want?  Do only Democrats want their kids to go back to schools?  Do only Democrats want vaccines to be distributed across the country?  That’s — we feel that that package — he feels that package is designed for bipartisan support. [snip]

I think if you talk to Democrats — or Republicans on the Hill, which I know many of you do, they will say they’re not looking for something symbolic.  They are looking for engagement.  They’re looking to have a conversation.  They’re looking to have a dialogue.  And that’s exactly what he’s going to do.

That was a pretty deft response, though we wish she would have reminded him of the mandate President Biden won at the ballot box (81 million votes, 306 electoral college votes), and that the party of sedition needs to make amends before it's allowed to use "unity" as a cloak for its obstructionism.  But, President Biden brought some of this on himself by his liberal use of that word outside of the context of the insurrection and the long history of Republican bad faith (and, yes, we know, the narrow margins in the House and Senate yada yada).

Here's another gem, this one from NBC's Kristen Welker (remember her name, too):

Q     Jen, President Biden is reversing a number of former President Trump’s policies, and we’re seeing some of former President Trump’s staffers be placed on leave or be reassigned.  Is there an attempt to purge Trump officials?

MS. PSAKI:  Well, there’s a new administration, so obviously there are a number of new officials in place.  I know there was some reporting, for example — and I don’t know if this is who you were referencing, so you tell me if not — of the head of the NLRB.  That’s an individual who was not carrying out the — you know, anyone would tell you, not just from our administration — the objectives of the NLRB.  And so they were — they’re no longer in their position.  And we’ll — we’ll take — make those decisions as needed.

Q     So there’s not an effort writ large that you’re assessing — reassessing individuals in the administration?

MS. PSAKI:  Well, Kristen, as you know, when a new administration comes in, there’s a massive changeover in political appointees and nominees and people who will serve in a variety of roles...

We're pretty certain Welker knows how things work when a new Administration takes over from an old one, especially one as criminal and ethically challenged as the last.  So, we're not sure if "Is there an attempt to purge Trump officials?" is one of the most ignorant questions she's ever asked, or one of the most devious, designed to imply that the Biden Administration is doing something abnormal or unAmerican.  (Welker, by our unscientific measure, also seemed to be among the last of the corporate media reporters to use the word "lie" -- and then only infrequently -- to describe what was coming out of Mango Mussolini's and his various spokesliars' mouths.)

There's more in the transcript that would indicate that at least some of the White House press are going to try to prove their "independent" cred now that democracy has, for now, been saved.  So, it's back to business as usual, Republican- wired, "both sides," "what- aboutism."  Our heroes!

BONUS:  Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan has a generally good take on the press and how they should comport themselves.  A snippet:

But soon, I’d guess, another norm will return: the desire to appear combative and to blow things out of proportion to demonstrate toughness. Because journalists pride themselves on being tough and objective, they like to take an adversarial-seeming approach, especially to the party in power or the candidate with whom they most identify. (And, of course, actually holding power to account is the most important job that journalists have. It’s what we’re here for.)

But there’s a difference between truly holding power to account and grandstanding. It’s the latter that gave rise to ridiculous dust-ups like the one over President Barack Obama’s wearing of a tan suit — not to mention the vast and shameful overplaying of the Hillary Clinton email scandal during the 2016 campaign.

The national media should show toughness, but of a different sort. If they’ve learned the lessons of the past four years — and I confess that I have my doubts — they’ll do things differently.

They will resist false equivalency. For example, they’ll think twice before they put a reality-denying senator like Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) or Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on the air to promote false claims about election fraud simply because they feel they need to “balance” all the (truthful) Democratic voices.

We have our doubts, too.  So Democrats need to push back early and strongly.

BONUS II:  We're not the only ones who noticed.

 

Tweets Of The Day -- "Court-Packing" Media Dualism

Headline in today's Washington Post, p. A9 :"Court-packing question continues to dog Biden campaign."  

More accurately:  "Republican- wired reporters dog Biden campaign with hypothetical question aimed at distracting from years of real Republican court- packing."

Come on news media. Look at this guy. And you're trying to stir up some bullshit about Biden and court packing in the final days of the campaign knowing the GOP did this --- AND THEY"RE BRAGGING ABOUT IT ON FOX NEWS???

This is a big reason why this country is in such trouble;. https://t.co/gMXjgUSNFX

— digby (@digby56) October 11, 2020

 

Journalists. You’re taking the bait. Republicans already packed the courts. Mitch laughed about it. Your job is not both sides. It’s the truth.

— Bradley Whitford (@BradleyWhitford) October 12, 2020

 

Jesus Christ.
Just stop it. https://t.co/geLQHATgWx

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) October 12, 2020

 

What the brouhaha over Biden's deferral on "court-packing" really says is this: media have accepted a dualism where Republicans destroy norms and Democrats preserve them. So if Biden challenges a norm, it gets breathless coverage, just as it does when Trump doesn't lie.

— 🕷Dante Atkins🕷 (@DanteAtkins) October 11, 2020

 

The other was Ducey in Arizona. He games a commission that recommends nominees for the governor to choose from, so it was extra sleazy.

— Joshua Holland 🔥 (@JoshuaHol) October 11, 2020

 

The media focus on Biden’s answers on “court packing” are astounding given that the media has hardly explained how far to the right the confirmation of Justice Barrett will move the Supreme Court. It will affect climate change, affirmative action, voting rights, reproductive rts

— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) October 11, 2020

 

"Will Biden pack the courts" is the new "Hillary's emails"--a way for journos and others to demonstrate a false "balance" by wildly overweighting a small qualm on one side so that it appears as significant as huge scandals on the other. https://t.co/R81M7C0Klh

— Christopher Orr (@OrrChris) October 11, 2020

 

The tell that this is just something journalists are doing to be “tough on both sides” and not an issue people think voters care about is that the WaPo/ABC poll that was in the field this week didn’t even bother including a question about court packing https://t.co/lrZDnHS2kG

— Max (@aoxamaxoa) October 11, 2020

 

See also here.  Just to be clear, we would support "court balancing" for both the Supreme Court and lower courts to counter years of anti- democratic court- packing by Moscow Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republican rats, that was solely intended to frustrate and subvert popular, progressive initiatives that they couldn't defeat at the ballot box. 

Tweets Of The Day -- "But Her E-Mails," 2020 Edition

 

Biden is again asked why voters don’t deserve to know his views on court packing. He responds: “The only court packing going on right now is going on with Republicans packing the court right now ... I’m going to stay focused on it so we don’t take our eyes off the ball here." pic.twitter.com/E9H5rIXMX2

— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) October 10, 2020

 

I’ve seen more journalists complaining about Biden not indulging hypotheticals than I’ve seen cover Trump’s recently uncovered massive tax fraud. https://t.co/7Wojg9ofMH

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) October 10, 2020

 

From 2015 to 2017, Mitch McConnell refused to seat any of Obama’s 100+ federal judges. Then he raced to fill them after Trump was elected. They did the same with Merrick Garland’s seat.

Don’t @ me with your “court packing.” Let’s talk about court UNPACKING.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) October 11, 2020

 

Can we at least recognize that “Court Packing” at all levels of the judiciary has been the Republican playbook for decades? Asking for Merrick Garland.

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) October 11, 2020

 

I love how all these ppl are projecting what Republicans have been doing for 4 years and using that projection to demonize the Democrats for what they *might* do in the future, if elected.

— Athena's Daughter (@AltAnonB) October 10, 2020

 

When it comes to the Supreme Court, the balance of media attention between something Democrats could possibly, maybe do one day if 10 different things line up and something Republicans are doing right fucking now, seems a bit off.

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) October 11, 2020

 

QOTD -- The Media Challenge

"...[T]he challenge to the mainstream press runs deeper than rendering Trump’s law and order propaganda in honest terms. Trump’s commitment to mass deception as a campaign tactic is exclusive and total. Not one of his central appeals to voters, or his in-progress schemes to manipulate them, is rooted in truth. Not his claims about his pre-coronavirus economic record; not his handling of the economy in the wake of the pandemic, nor of the pandemic itself; not his efforts to undo the Russia investigation, or persecute its investigators; not his absentee-voting disinformation or his feigned ignorance of sabotage at the Postal Service; not his claim to being “tough on China” or to “draining the swamp” or to protecting pre-existing conditions protections. The notion that he embodies law and order is just as topsy turvy, but news outlets have nevertheless allowed him to dictate the tenor of their coverage of civic unrest to them. If professional journalists respond to the challenge of a president campaigning on fiction by pretending, for the sake of argument, that it’s truth, then the media failures of 2020 will outstrip the media failures of 2016, which nearly destroyed the country."  -- Brian Beutler, in "The Media Fails Its Biggest Trump 2020 Test."  Beutler calls out some repeat 2016/2020 offenders like the New York Effing Times and Associated Press.  To be sure there are media outlets -- print, cable and broadcast -- that usually fact- check in real time when they present stories about Trump (muted kudos to the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and ABC News for starters). 

Not recognizing and reporting the peril we face from Trump and his corrupt, rotted out party won't be just a media oops or an "honest mistake" this time around.  It could usher in an even darker and possibly final chapter in our nation's history.

Tweets Of The Day -- Normalizing

The same jaded "savvy" media insiders who produced the 2016 normalization fiasco are still alive and well, and doing their damnedest to fuck us over again:

if voters don’t care about lawbreaking, it doesn’t matter! https://t.co/CUPSWx6tw7

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) August 26, 2020

Worth making a direct comparison:

-The New York Times front page ignores legal and ethical issues, and frames the RNC messages that the GOP is trying to convey.

-The Washington Post front page puts the legal issues, falsehoods, and anti-semitic speaker front and center. pic.twitter.com/yATXGRv0hg

— Will Stancil (@whstancil) August 26, 2020

 

And--with some notable exceptions, including this space--a DC Press frothing at the keyboard to make it all sound normal. https://t.co/aSK4Z7MZiX

— Bryan Smith (@bryrsmith) August 26, 2020

 

The big story tonight from the convention was the in your face illegality. Pundits who talked about the optics of the convention, whether it went off well, and did not first and foremost talk about the unprecedented breach of law and decency committed journalistic malpractice.

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) August 26, 2020

 

I'm disgusted at how news coverage today is soft-pedaling @SecPompeo's RNC speech as "breaking a norm." It was, according to Pompeo's own State Department, *illegal*. It shouldn't just be an aside in the coverage roundups; Trump is weaponizing the US government for his campaign.

— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) August 26, 2020

 

Do reporters know they are not obligated to find something to gush about in this mess?

— Schooley (@Rschooley) August 26, 2020

 

And let’s keep our eyes on the ball:

Normalization of these Hatch Act violations is laying the groundwork for even more serious violations in the weeks ahead — as Barr’s Department of Justice and other agencies may be used to bolster Trump’s re-election campaign. https://t.co/aBUH86Cxrw

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) August 26, 2020

 

This. And it’s exacerbated by a media that paints things like the Hatch Act as quaint ideas that no one cares about, and uses euphemisms to describe the lawlessness. Another broken guardrail when it comes to the rule of law. https://t.co/V8S9pfyrWp

— Amy Spitalnick (@amyspitalnick) August 26, 2020

 

Fun fact: the Hatch Act was originally passed because the media persuaded people they should care about the misuse of public resources.

— Eric Rauchway (@rauchway) August 26, 2020

 

Tweet Of The Day -- Generic Problem (UPDATED)

If you have a media platform and you generically blame "Congress" for failing to extend UI benefits you're a significant part of the problem.

— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) August 2, 2020

Here's just one example from Lemieux of a chronic problem.

UPDATE:  Tengrain has more examples, if any were needed.

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

In case you missed it, on Sunday the 29 daily McClatchy newspapers (circulation 2.4 million) published an op/ ed co- authored by Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren on broad reforms needed to flush the corruption of the Trump regime out of the political system, illustrated by the corrupt bungling of the COVID-19 pandemic:

... Trump seems to think he can direct funding for the response to this crisis based on which politicians are nice to him, which states he’s trying to win in November and which businesses he wants to enrich — all without any accountability. We have a different view.

Taxpayer relief should go to those most in need. Hospitals, essential workers, small businesses, and state and local governments should get the help they need immediately. If large corporations want help, they should agree not to turn around and fire all their workers. The relief bill’s unconscionable tax giveaway that overwhelmingly benefits millionaires should be repealed. But that is not enough.

During the recent presidential primary, both of us called for significant reforms to end Washington corruption and guarantee a government that works for the people. We urgently need those broader reforms now.

The op/ ed goes to to talk about reforms in the areas of conflict of interest, lobbying and oversight that a Democratic administration would pursue.

David Roth writes about how the media has become sucked into the "empire of stupidity" reigned over by Very Stable Genius Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump:

... The rhythm of every news cycle is more or less the same, just as the shape of every daily presidential press briefing is generally similar to the previous day’s. The variables have changed under the pressure of the pandemic, though, which has had the strange effect of destabilizing what had become a more or less automatic process without changing it in any meaningful way. Some very long shadows are now troubling the corners of those familiar shots, but the cameras still whir into action at the same time each day. That alone guarantees that Trump will keep showing up, because it’s simply not in the man to pass up an opportunity to talk on television. Similarly, when the reporters at these briefings see the president of the United States standing there, swaying oddly and doing accordion things with his hands while putting strange childlike questions to his team of experts, it is simply not in them to focus their attention anywhere else.

And so they ask Trump questions about what he’s saying, and he talks about what he always talks about; he never knows anything useful, cannot tell the truth about the few things he knows, and is pulled by his own preposterous vanity and insecurities back toward the only thing he really cares about, which is himself. This is what the news is made of, now—the things that a vainglorious fraud says, and then the things that other people on television say about how Dangerous and Irresponsible they are, and then what Trump says about that in his amphetamized after-dark Twitter sessions or scrambling tantrum-swept mornings. It’s not that the things Trump says aren’t actually dangerous or irresponsible: They absolutely are. The bigger problem is that the definition by which these things are considered news—basically, because the president says them—is no longer workable.

Scott Lemieux at LGM has some thoughts about how the allegations made by Tara Reade will be used by the same media that plays along with Trumpland dystopia:

One thing we should be very clear about here is that Reade’s allegations are being used as a translucent pretext. Reade has never said that her complaint included a claim of sexual assault, and is now claiming that it didn’t claim sexual harassment either. And, in addition, the Senate Papers don’t include personnel files. There’s as much chance of finding something material to Reade’s claims in Biden’s documents as there is of uncovering secret Biden connections to the Kennedy assassination. This has nothing to do with Reade and everything to do with reporters wanting some raw material to churn out months of EMAILS! stories to balance out the corrupt president completely botching his handling of a pandemic and economic depression. That’s it.

It’s also worth noting that the Times’s ridiculous “clouds raised” stories about the Clinton Foundation make clear that there’s basically no chance that reporters are going to spend weeks looking through boxes of records in Newark, DE and just conclude “nope, turns out there’s nothing there.” Biden releasing the papers will just lead to a bunch of negative stories built on decades-old minutia hyped up by reporters and editors desperate to justify an unwise investment of time and resources. And when it turns up nothing about Reade, this won’t end the requests for more records — there’s always something else you could provide, more questions to be raised, more shadows to be cast. The only winning move in Transparency Calvinball is not to play.

Over at Balloon Juice, Adam Silverman deconstructs a case in point of how the media is serving as a willing tool of right- wing propaganda, with a bogus claim about Biden that ABC News "reporter" Sasha Pezenik tweeted out:

What is really going on here, and it is going to accelerate and grow until or unless reporters, editors, and producers get their acts together, is a two pronged influence operation. The first part is to get misinformation about Vice President Biden out into the mainstream media as quickly as possible, Because once it is reported on, no matter how quick the debunking is, the misinformation will be seized on and promoted, while the debunking will, at best, get pointed to by people like me. Pezenik had a legit news story to break last night, but it wasn’t the story she broke. She even had all the pieces to break the real news, which was “failed Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell is attempting to smear Vice President Biden with a false allegation, which we were able to debunk with two phone calls. We are continuing our investigation in an attempt to learn why O’Donnell is doing this.” That framing would have allowed Pezenik and ABC News to break the story last night. But that isn’t what they did. O’Donnell and whoever put O’Donnell up to this knows that reporters have a sweet tooth for this type of thing. And they also know that if they can get the allegation out there through a legitimate news source, they will have laundered the misinformation successfully because almost no one they’re trying to message to is going to pay attention to the debunking.

The second part of this influence operation is agitprop. It is to further the President’s, the Republican Party’s, the conservative movement’s, Fox News’s, prominent Republicans’, conservatives’, and their surrogates’ argument that the real and legitimate news sources in the US are actually fake. That they cannot be trusted to report accurately or fairly. It is to create cognitive dissonance where the false and debunked in real time accusations against Vice President Biden are accepted as true, while at the same time the argument that the news media is lying to everyone and can’t be trusted because they botched the story by reporting factually wrong information is reinforced. It is a have your cake and eat it too influence operation. It is also, exactly, what Putin has been trying to do within Russia, within the US, and around the world for well over a decade. It is the attempt to create the dynamic where because nothing is true anything and everything is possible.

If you hoped the media learned its lesson from the disproportionate focus in 2016 on Hillary Clinton's email management protocols while Trump was demonstrating his grotesque, monumental lack of fitness for office, it appears you would be wrong.  At least now we're forewarned how they're going to handle things.  The blowback on this media behavior needs to be ferocious this time around.

Once again, Infidel 753 has labored to provide the best link round- up on the internet, so you would be well advised to check it out (as well as his regular posts, like this one!).