Please note: TV journalism ceased to exist almost the moment the firewall between news departments and entertainment departments was severed in the 90s. What you’re complaining about is media personalities fighting for viewers to earn advertising dollars for which reporting the news and reality as fact is anathema to their purpose.
That in and of itself is not terrible. It's when they decided to change the news departments to prioritize profits, that things started going horribly wrong.
60 Minutes made money on the scale of the top entertainment shows and didn't cost nearly as much to produce. It was a huge popular hit that had a tremendous impact on network television. It was must-see tv every Sunday night and what everyone talked about at work on Monday morning. It's not surprising that the network news divisions soon abandoned their principles in pursuit of the big bucks. It also didn't help that the Fairness Doctrine was abolished.
I remember being told I was a Cassandra when I warned thirty years ago that we would see entire networks dedicated to propaganda posing as news. They sure showed me.
The media: "Boring, he said only good things, that we all need to work together, that our destinies are linked, how can we maintain the 24 hour outrage media coverage that we need to survive?"
I listened to a few minutes. An uninspiring speaker with dull speechwriters. But try to imagine what any republican candidate might have said. (Hutchinson perhaps excepted.)
Such a person would likely be shot by a NYPD officer who felt threatened. A Fulton County Sherrif’s deputy will then plant a gun on the hooded antifa person.
Why is everyone feeling the need to evaluate Biden’s performance, as though it’s a reasonable consideration to think about the viability of a second term? We do two consecutive terms as often as we can get them, and for good reason. Republicans make messes and light fires. It often takes the first term to clean all that up and right the ship. The second term is for making actual progress. Which is the bigger concern? Biden’s age or Trump’s everything? We are more likely to get a second term than another first. That’s as simple as it gets. I would like to keep the Nazis and insurrectionists from taking over in 2024, and hopefully get my bodily autonomy back. Those things are more important and pressing than concerns over Biden’s age or how left he really is. Now is definitely not the appropriate time to start questioning the team leadership. Wait until we defeat the Nazis first and keep control over the nukes.
Myself, I can see the country telling women to wait their turn to have any human rights returned to them, because nazis must be put down first. Women with full equality seems to scare the shit out of many men. A female VP frightens them, a POC female VP REALLY frightens them. There is such an effort being made to erase her, to diminish her contributions and role as much as possible. I suppose if one builds one's self-esteem on the notion that being male is inherently superior, and being female is a lesser, more "helpmate" or subservient role, then putting a female in charge would be emasculating the USA in the eyes of the world? I do wonder what the underlying insecurities are. It is a very strong prejudice.
We came so close to putting full equality into our Constitution! We should have realized Bill Barr was going to use everything available to him to fuck it up. The amendment can still be saved/fixed, but we would have to have at least the executive and the legislative branches on our side to do it, and it would have to become a top priority.
Yes, the fascists must be defeated. Climate change is real. Oligarchy and extreme income inequality are not good, and theocracy is a creeping threat. Corruption abounds. And all those people looking at what makes a people happier and stronger? They keep bringing up that treating females well is one of the key things to making a good life for many a real and lasting possibility. I wish females didn't have to keep giving up their seats. If Biden/Harris team doesn't get to make it happen, it may never happen. *Sigh*
Dems have previously had opportunities to help women reach equality and they chose not to, or they chose to do the bare minimum, or they chose to put the issue on the back burner at every election. You know, “women’s issues” are just niche issues, cuz 50%+ of the populace are treated as a minority. It’s definitely not just Republicans. It’s systemic. Now that Roe has been rolled back and the issue has proven to be a broadly impactful one that would effect elections, it’s being taken more seriously. They won’t be able to just quietly ignore the glaring abuse and lack of rights this time. And stopping the Nazis will probably be prioritized over all other issues, but we can connect our issues to that goal.
Because it's easy to get clout and social media likes, to pile on with the lazy punditry and media-driven concern trolling.
If it wasn't his age it'd be something else. None of this is in good faith, especially the ones who just say for "reasons" that they should have a top of the ticket that's different than Kamala Harris, the sitting goddamn VP.
Exactly. And, at this point, if someone thinks it’s cool to keep pushing the right wing’s propaganda narratives for them, as though they are good-faith considerations, they are willfully missing how serious a situation we are in. It’s bratty and foolish. It’s sabotaging. And we have a real Nazi problem that must be dealt with before we can toy around with the idea of changing leadership or changing course. Harris is there in case Biden should fall. That’s the purpose of the VP. All suggestions that Dems won’t support Biden for a second term are unserious trolling.
She would. And honestly, most people who aren’t entirely abhorrent would do at least okay at it because the POTUS is surrounded by experts and advisors. You have to intentionally work against doing well in order to fail. But Harris is qualified and competent. There should be no worries there.
> ... because the POTUS is surrounded by experts and advisors.
*If* they put competent experts and advisors in place, and *if* POTUS then listens to them. The previous administration amply demonstrated that neither is a foregone conclusion.
The previous administration intentionally worked against good advice given, and replaced competent advisors with cronies and yes-men. There was no attempt at being competent or even a leader.
Their issues mostly revolve around their racism and sexism. Gasp! What if the black woman became president because is OLD! This applies to most Republicans and some Democrats.
I think Biden has pushed through more progressive actions than Bernie could have and could have done more except for a stacked Supreme Court full of right wing hacks and the gerrymandered Republican control of the House. Manchin and Sinema did not help. Especially Sinema who won her seat claiming to be progressive. We knew who Manchin was but Sinema got in under false pretenses. Biden is not to blame for those obstacles.
I have been percolating a crossover fan fiction mash-up where TFG / PAB's legal team, desperate and clutching at straws, uses a wizard and some tech bros to Magic / Super Science Tech a time warp to bring Judge Dredd to our world to "take care of" Jack Smith before Jack Smith puts the finishing touches on TFG's room reservation with the federal Bureau of Prisons. (For those of you unfamiliar with Judge Dredd: he is the future Super Fascist who runs what is left of America after a future nuclear war destroys everything except the eastern seaboard. That remnant is one big Mega-City and Judge Dredd runs the fucking joint.)
The twist comes when Judge Dredd confronts Jack Smith in the courtroom in a climatic showdown and Dredd realizes that Jack Smith is 100% right to be doing what he is doing! Dredd switches sides and helps with the prosecution!
The Big Reveal turns out to be uncovering the fact that future Judge Dredd is an actual clone built from Jack Smith's DNA that has been preserved at the NIH, in our near future. That DNA sample was taken after Jack Smith's successful crusade to bring TFG /PAB to justice and Old Handsome Joe Biden signs an executive order to preserve Jack Smith's 'right stuff' for future generations. Dredd laments how he has lost his way and betrayed his roots!
Judge Dredd, with his newly opened eyes, is returned to the future where he promptly orders himself to be imprisoned in the iso-cubes for the rest of his life and the Constitution is restored.
TFG/PAB's preserved corpse is exhumed and paraded in the streets of Mega-City One during the celebration.
You simply have NO idea how much I enjoy watching this incredibly proficient White House ASL interpreter. This young woman is SO effective at communicating the emotional nuance of President Biden's speech, one of the primary difficulties of communicating with sign language.
This woman has absolutely mastered that skill and is incredibly articulate!
Last night before turning out the lights, I closed my book (on my iPad) and made the mistake of opening the Washington Post app (I was going to do a sudoku to lull myself to sleep), when I saw right up front and center one of their OMG DEMOCRATS ARE SO WORRIED BIDEN SO OLLLLLLLDDDD! stories and I might have scared the cat because I was so annoyed.
They're going to waltz us right into a dictatorship.
I saw that he was "going to Detroit" and I wondered exactly what his play was. Try to be a populist? No, the unions will eat him alive. Side with management? That'd be EXCELLENT
Please note: TV journalism ceased to exist almost the moment the firewall between news departments and entertainment departments was severed in the 90s. What you’re complaining about is media personalities fighting for viewers to earn advertising dollars for which reporting the news and reality as fact is anathema to their purpose.
> ... the firewall between news departments and entertainment departments was severed in the 90s.
Err, what now? (No, seriously, I'm not familiar with what specifically you're referring to.)
The success of 60 Minutes in the 70s really got the networks thinking that the news departments could be a profit center.
That in and of itself is not terrible. It's when they decided to change the news departments to prioritize profits, that things started going horribly wrong.
60 Minutes made money on the scale of the top entertainment shows and didn't cost nearly as much to produce. It was a huge popular hit that had a tremendous impact on network television. It was must-see tv every Sunday night and what everyone talked about at work on Monday morning. It's not surprising that the network news divisions soon abandoned their principles in pursuit of the big bucks. It also didn't help that the Fairness Doctrine was abolished.
News was not seen as a profit-enigine, but was separate from the entertainment branch and its formulating. That changed at some point and here we are.
Please research the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Danke!
Whoever could have predicted the movie Network would be a documentary?
I remember being told I was a Cassandra when I warned thirty years ago that we would see entire networks dedicated to propaganda posing as news. They sure showed me.
You WERE a Cassandra. Cassandras are accurate prophets who are not believed.
In Network, that would make you "Sibyl the Soothsayer"
The media: "Boring, he said only good things, that we all need to work together, that our destinies are linked, how can we maintain the 24 hour outrage media coverage that we need to survive?"
I listened to a few minutes. An uninspiring speaker with dull speechwriters. But try to imagine what any republican candidate might have said. (Hutchinson perhaps excepted.)
Let's hope nobody at the UN is wearing a hoodie or shorts; that would end all hope for life on Earth!
Such a person would likely be shot by a NYPD officer who felt threatened. A Fulton County Sherrif’s deputy will then plant a gun on the hooded antifa person.
Why is everyone feeling the need to evaluate Biden’s performance, as though it’s a reasonable consideration to think about the viability of a second term? We do two consecutive terms as often as we can get them, and for good reason. Republicans make messes and light fires. It often takes the first term to clean all that up and right the ship. The second term is for making actual progress. Which is the bigger concern? Biden’s age or Trump’s everything? We are more likely to get a second term than another first. That’s as simple as it gets. I would like to keep the Nazis and insurrectionists from taking over in 2024, and hopefully get my bodily autonomy back. Those things are more important and pressing than concerns over Biden’s age or how left he really is. Now is definitely not the appropriate time to start questioning the team leadership. Wait until we defeat the Nazis first and keep control over the nukes.
Myself, I can see the country telling women to wait their turn to have any human rights returned to them, because nazis must be put down first. Women with full equality seems to scare the shit out of many men. A female VP frightens them, a POC female VP REALLY frightens them. There is such an effort being made to erase her, to diminish her contributions and role as much as possible. I suppose if one builds one's self-esteem on the notion that being male is inherently superior, and being female is a lesser, more "helpmate" or subservient role, then putting a female in charge would be emasculating the USA in the eyes of the world? I do wonder what the underlying insecurities are. It is a very strong prejudice.
We came so close to putting full equality into our Constitution! We should have realized Bill Barr was going to use everything available to him to fuck it up. The amendment can still be saved/fixed, but we would have to have at least the executive and the legislative branches on our side to do it, and it would have to become a top priority.
Yes, the fascists must be defeated. Climate change is real. Oligarchy and extreme income inequality are not good, and theocracy is a creeping threat. Corruption abounds. And all those people looking at what makes a people happier and stronger? They keep bringing up that treating females well is one of the key things to making a good life for many a real and lasting possibility. I wish females didn't have to keep giving up their seats. If Biden/Harris team doesn't get to make it happen, it may never happen. *Sigh*
Dems have previously had opportunities to help women reach equality and they chose not to, or they chose to do the bare minimum, or they chose to put the issue on the back burner at every election. You know, “women’s issues” are just niche issues, cuz 50%+ of the populace are treated as a minority. It’s definitely not just Republicans. It’s systemic. Now that Roe has been rolled back and the issue has proven to be a broadly impactful one that would effect elections, it’s being taken more seriously. They won’t be able to just quietly ignore the glaring abuse and lack of rights this time. And stopping the Nazis will probably be prioritized over all other issues, but we can connect our issues to that goal.
I hope you are right! We need to be the squeaky wheel, for sure.
> Which is the bigger concern? Biden’s age or Trump’s everything?
<chef-kiss>
Amen.
Because it's easy to get clout and social media likes, to pile on with the lazy punditry and media-driven concern trolling.
If it wasn't his age it'd be something else. None of this is in good faith, especially the ones who just say for "reasons" that they should have a top of the ticket that's different than Kamala Harris, the sitting goddamn VP.
Exactly. And, at this point, if someone thinks it’s cool to keep pushing the right wing’s propaganda narratives for them, as though they are good-faith considerations, they are willfully missing how serious a situation we are in. It’s bratty and foolish. It’s sabotaging. And we have a real Nazi problem that must be dealt with before we can toy around with the idea of changing leadership or changing course. Harris is there in case Biden should fall. That’s the purpose of the VP. All suggestions that Dems won’t support Biden for a second term are unserious trolling.
And come on, Harris will be a fine president.
She would. And honestly, most people who aren’t entirely abhorrent would do at least okay at it because the POTUS is surrounded by experts and advisors. You have to intentionally work against doing well in order to fail. But Harris is qualified and competent. There should be no worries there.
> ... because the POTUS is surrounded by experts and advisors.
*If* they put competent experts and advisors in place, and *if* POTUS then listens to them. The previous administration amply demonstrated that neither is a foregone conclusion.
The previous administration intentionally worked against good advice given, and replaced competent advisors with cronies and yes-men. There was no attempt at being competent or even a leader.
Their issues mostly revolve around their racism and sexism. Gasp! What if the black woman became president because is OLD! This applies to most Republicans and some Democrats.
Kamala Harris is the best argument for Biden’s re-election, in my opinion. I am hopeful for her presidency. It may be misplaced hope, but wth.
I think Biden has pushed through more progressive actions than Bernie could have and could have done more except for a stacked Supreme Court full of right wing hacks and the gerrymandered Republican control of the House. Manchin and Sinema did not help. Especially Sinema who won her seat claiming to be progressive. We knew who Manchin was but Sinema got in under false pretenses. Biden is not to blame for those obstacles.
He’s been surprisingly progressive or supportive of progressive policies. I didn’t expect that at all.
When you look up "Centrist Democrat" in the dictionary, it says "see also: Biden, Joseph R. Jr."
He's been supportive of progressive policies because that's where the party has moved, and they are compatible with his core convictions.
Especially when you consider he's had a Congress barely on his side.
He’s been herding cats like a BOSS. I was not onboard the Biden train during the primaries. He has earned my respect since then.
I have been percolating a crossover fan fiction mash-up where TFG / PAB's legal team, desperate and clutching at straws, uses a wizard and some tech bros to Magic / Super Science Tech a time warp to bring Judge Dredd to our world to "take care of" Jack Smith before Jack Smith puts the finishing touches on TFG's room reservation with the federal Bureau of Prisons. (For those of you unfamiliar with Judge Dredd: he is the future Super Fascist who runs what is left of America after a future nuclear war destroys everything except the eastern seaboard. That remnant is one big Mega-City and Judge Dredd runs the fucking joint.)
The twist comes when Judge Dredd confronts Jack Smith in the courtroom in a climatic showdown and Dredd realizes that Jack Smith is 100% right to be doing what he is doing! Dredd switches sides and helps with the prosecution!
The Big Reveal turns out to be uncovering the fact that future Judge Dredd is an actual clone built from Jack Smith's DNA that has been preserved at the NIH, in our near future. That DNA sample was taken after Jack Smith's successful crusade to bring TFG /PAB to justice and Old Handsome Joe Biden signs an executive order to preserve Jack Smith's 'right stuff' for future generations. Dredd laments how he has lost his way and betrayed his roots!
Judge Dredd, with his newly opened eyes, is returned to the future where he promptly orders himself to be imprisoned in the iso-cubes for the rest of his life and the Constitution is restored.
TFG/PAB's preserved corpse is exhumed and paraded in the streets of Mega-City One during the celebration.
This is all well and good, but I can't wait to hear what UN Ambassador Taylor-Greene and Secretary of State Boebert have to say.
What about Joint Chiefs head Elno?
Thank you President Biden
You simply have NO idea how much I enjoy watching this incredibly proficient White House ASL interpreter. This young woman is SO effective at communicating the emotional nuance of President Biden's speech, one of the primary difficulties of communicating with sign language.
This woman has absolutely mastered that skill and is incredibly articulate!
You know she's deaf? There is a hearing interpreter who does the voice to sign, and she does the amazing combination of precision and poetry
What's got China all butthurt that they couldn't send some middle manager to the UN to pretend to give a fuck about the world?
They're gonna team up with Russia to make a new group that is to the UN what Gab is to Twitter.
Last night before turning out the lights, I closed my book (on my iPad) and made the mistake of opening the Washington Post app (I was going to do a sudoku to lull myself to sleep), when I saw right up front and center one of their OMG DEMOCRATS ARE SO WORRIED BIDEN SO OLLLLLLLDDDD! stories and I might have scared the cat because I was so annoyed.
They're going to waltz us right into a dictatorship.
OT: OK, I have to prep for a meeting, but before I go, a lil' humor -
𝗕𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗽𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘆𝘀 𝗚𝗢𝗣 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀: 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁
https://www.rawstory.com/msn-uk/biden-impeachment/
Yeah Joe's getting up there. He's not my first choice for the job, not because of his age.
But the alternative is someone that wants to pile up bodies in the middle of 5th avenue and burn them, so... It's either, or.
Is Joe perfect? No. Is he the best option we have right now? Most definitely YES.
As my Dad says, "No sinless saint has ever run for public office."
Joe's the only one, right now, that can save our asses you know.
Indeed, I do.
See also "Almighty v Alternative"
OT: Thank God. I was so afraid they'd fall for PAB's tired bullshit...
𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗨𝗔𝗪 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗺𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-union-workers/
So, the UAW will endorse ALL THE DEMS in 2024?
Please GOD.
I saw that he was "going to Detroit" and I wondered exactly what his play was. Try to be a populist? No, the unions will eat him alive. Side with management? That'd be EXCELLENT
I would love the crowd to get rude.
"Where does he even get off?"
Not in the theater like one congressvermin I could mention...
Weird. He's not making it about himself. And embarrassing us. Like, an actual POTUS!
This has to be somewhat reassuring to our allies and the international community.
"Oh, look, this one's not a maniac."
Did they laugh at him yet?