the ‘mainstream media’ can go fuck itself it
Post# of 123681
it was a weekend full of journalistic atrocities
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/the-mainstream...um=reader2
JEFF TIEDRICH
MAY 20, 2024
the so-called mainstream media fucking sucks. this we know. on any given day, the lazy and intentionally misleading reporting from the worthless, corporate-contolled scribblers of the press makes you want to guzzle paint thinner straight from the can.
then there are entire weekends when the firehose of journalistic malpractice reaches such a level of insanity that your head explodes before you can even get that can of thinner to your lips.
we just lived through one of those weekends. witness just three of the worst offenders.
hey, here’s a thing that happened: Joe Biden borrowed $50,000 from a line of credit on his vacation home. oh, okay. did he hide it? no, it’s right there on his White House financial disclosure statement. did he use it to pay hush money to cover up a sexual encounter? no. did he falsify business records? no. did his lawyer form a shell company to obscure where the money went? no. none of that happened.
so why then is this a story?
no, seriously, why is this a story — and why did Forbes Magazine create a video about it that they plastered all over social media?
why does Forbes feel the need to call attention to Joe Biden’s perfectly normal home equity loan — implying that it’s somehow shady — when right now down in Manhattan, Little Donny Fuckface is on trial for his elaborate criminal conspiracy to conceal payments to a porn actress?
oh wait, I think I just answered my own question.
here’s another journalistic war crime, this time from Politico.
buried towards the bottom of a report on Trump’s trial is this total fucking head-scratcher of a paragraph:
It’s impossible to know exactly how Trump will behave if he returns to office. By all accounts, Trump has professionalized his 2024 campaign, suggesting he learned something from his slapdash first campaign and his 2020 reelection loss. The question is whether his views on presidential prerogatives have changed or whether he intends to be guided by loftier principles.
hello, what? let’s break down the fuckload of dipshittery here.
first sentence: “It’s impossible to know exactly how Trump will behave if he returns to office.” sure, Trump is unpredictable — but that’s because the guy is an impulsive moron with the attention span of a coked-up squirrel.
but we sure as fuck know what Trump intends to do. has Politico never heard of Project 2025?
second sentence: “Trump has professionalized his 2024 campaign, suggesting he learned something from his slapdash first campaign and his 2020 reelection loss.”
what, wait? Trump has professionalized his 2024 campaign? on what fucking planet? outside of hate-rallies, the guy has no 2024 campaign. he’s opened no field offices. he’s doing no advertising. the only thing Trump has done is turn the RNC into a shakedown operation where Trump gets his cut first, the bulk of which goes right to Alina Habba’s kidney-enhancement surgery lawyers’ fees. right now, some down-ballot candidate in Stumblefuck, Iowa can’t get money to print up lawn signs because Donny has bled the RNC dry.
now read that final sentence, because it’s a beauty: “The question is whether his views on presidential prerogatives have changed or whether he intends to be guided by loftier principles.”
what the fuck? this is Donald Trump we’re talking about — the most profoundly broken-inside person ever to have walked the earth. there are no lofty principals at work in Donny’s deteriorating brain. he’s motivated by greed, revenge, the bottomless craving for attention, and the need to stay out of prison.
how can anybody who writes about politics and has been alive for the past ten years even ask such a question?
the New York Times is horny for centrism. the Grey Lady is so desperate to live in a world where Republicans and Democrats hold hands and feed each other grapes, they’ll invent centrism where none exists, and then hump its leg.
A New Centrism Is Rising in Washington
Call it neopopulism: a bipartisan attitude that mistrusts the free-market ethos instead of embracing it.
what’s the Times’ proof of this new era of bipartisan love? that the Democrats bailed out Mike Johnson and kept him from losing his speakership.
After the bill’s passage, far-right House Republicans tried to oust Speaker Mike Johnson because he did not block it — and House Democrats voted to save Johnson’s job. There is no precedent for House members of one party to rescue a speaker from the other.
free clue for the Times: this was not your beloved centrism. the Dems saved Holy Mike’s ass out of political expediency. no sane person wanted to go through another days-long debacle where one dipshit Republican after another goes down in defeat, only to end up with someone even worse than Johnson. and nobody wants to give Marjorie Three Toes a win.
and yes, there’s no precedence for one party saving another party’s speaker, but holy shit — everything about the current gang of Republicans who control the House is unprecedented. trying and failing to impeach a president out of spite and revenge is unprecedented. refusing to say you’ll abide by the results of the 2024 election if Biden wins is super fucking unprecedented.
oh, and the other thing the Times points to is that Congress passed some bills.
Under President Biden, bipartisan majorities have passed major laws on infrastructure and semiconductor chips, as well as laws on veterans’ health, gun violence, the Postal Service, the aviation system, same-sex marriage, anti-Asian hate crimes and the electoral process. On trade, the Biden administration has kept some of the Trump administration’s signature policies and even expanded them.
excuse me, but these bills were passed because Joe Biden is awesome at politics, not because of some New York Times centrist fever dream.
let’s not forget that the current Republican-controlled House has been the least-productive House in over a century. the 118th Congress passed a total of 63 bills. compared to past Congresses, 63 is a rounding error away from zero. contrast that with the 80th Congress, the one Harry Truman famously dubbed “the do-nothing Congress. they passed 906 bills.
if 906 bills makes you the “do-nothing Congress,” 63 makes you the “incompetent as fuck clownshoe Congress.”
let’s not forget that Glitch McConnell is still using the filibuster to block the majority of the Senate’s business, and that failed football coach Tommy Tuberville destroyed our nation’s military readiness by blocking all military promotions for the better part of a year.
is this centrism, New York Times? in a pig’s eye.
while we’re on the subject of The New York Times, what the fuck is this headline trying to say?
yes indeedy — when a defendant is as fucking guilty as Donald Trump is, and there’s a shitload of evidence that proves it, the law definitely gives prosecutors an edge. it’s literally how justice works. is the Times implying that this is somehow unfair to Trump? boo fucking hoo.
now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to run out to the market. I’m all out of paint thinner.