A Quote

If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.

--Hanna Arendt

The Press

A Short "Dialog"

About a week ago, Sec'y of Defense, Pete Kegbreath - sorry - Hegseth pretended to do a Q & A with the European press, and as you might have suspected, he had nothing but fog and doublespeak to dispense.

And to their credit, the Euro-Poodles held up pretty well.

REPORTER:

You focused on what Ukraine has to give up. What concessions will be demanded of Putin?

HEGSETH:

Hmm. I would start by saying that the arguments that have been made that somehow sitting down at the table right now is making concessions to Vladimir Putin, I just reject that outright.

REPORTER:

Yes, but every “peace talk” so far has been about what Ukraine has to give up -  territory, NATO aspirations, sovereignty. So what exactly is Putin putting on the table?

HEGSETH:

Well, I don’t think it’s fair to say that we’re just giving concessions to Putin.

REPORTER:

Okay, is he pulling out the Russian troops? Paying reparations? Admitting war crimes? Or is his big “compromise” that he’s just taking less from Ukraine than he originally wanted?

HEGSETH:

Look, negotiations require both sides to make sacrifices.

REPORTER:

Yes, but only one side has launched a full-scale invasion. If a guy steals your house and offers to give you back half of your living room, that's not a "compromise" - that's a hostage deal.

HEGSETH:

I just think it's time for diplomacy.

REPORTER:

Diplomacy is great when both sides want peace. But when one side just wants a "pause" to recharge, that's not diplomacy - that's setting up for the next invasion.

HEGSETH:

So you're saying no negotiations, just endless war?

REPORTER:

No, I'm saying that a peace agreement where only one side makes sacrifices is not peace - that's a different way of saying "surrender".

Press Freedom

Less than 6 months ago, the US was ranked 17th in Press Freedom.

A month ago, we were at #42.

Now we're at #55.

It's not the fall that kills you. It's the rapid deceleration at the bottom.

Into The Mix

Another reminder who we're dealing with:

BBC World News:

A Russian journalist who campaigned against government corruption and suffered brain damage from an attack in 2008, has died aged 55. 

Mikhail Beketov, founder and editor of the Khimki newspaper, campaigned heavily against the construction of a highway through the Khimki forest near Moscow.

Mr Beketov died on Monday from cardiac arrest, said his lawyer Stalina Gurevich.

His attackers were never identified.

Mr Beketov wrote several articles criticising the planned destruction of the Khimki forest to make way for the Moscow-Saint Petersburg motorway.

He also raised suspicions that local officials were profiting from the project.

Mr Beketov continued campaigning, even after his dog was left dead on his doorstep and his car was set on fire.

Soon after, on November 13th 2008, Mr Beketov was attacked outside his home by two men using an iron bar. They smashed his hands and legs, and fractured his skull.

Mr Beketov's right leg had to be amputated, he lost most of the fingers on his left hand and he was left severely brain-damaged. The attack also left him unable to speak.

Ms Gurevich said Mr Beketov never fully recovered.

"The culprits have not been found and now we can honestly say these people were murderers," said Yevgenia Chirikova, an activist who campaigned alongside Mr Beketov.

Several other journalists and environmentalists who campaigned against the project were also attacked.

In 2010, Mr Beketov was found guilty of libelling the local mayor but was subsequently acquitted.

Some 54 journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The CPJ states that Russia has the ninth worst record for solving murders against journalists.

Mr Beketov, who said he had received threats to stop writing, was given a government print media award in 2011.

Oh Those Crazy Rich Guys

Let's just agree that sometimes, the whole Reign Of Terror thing seems like a pretty good idea.

But at least I can say Jeff Bezos seems to be taking his stewardship responsibilities seriously.

That doesn't make him the good guy in the overall drama of How These Rich Pricks Ate My Democracy, but it scores him a few points. I'm just not going to praise him for being less than a complete asshole. The guy works hard, and he's done some good things, but when just a few people win dominance over too much of our economy, it always ends up up being very bad for everybody.

Here's the take on Jeff Bezos vs David Pecker via The Medium:

Something unusual happened to me yesterday. Actually, for me it wasn’t just unusual — it was a first. I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Or at least that’s what the top people at the National Enquirer thought. I’m glad they thought that, because it emboldened them to put it all in writing. Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten.

AMI, the owner of the National Enquirer, led by David Pecker, recently entered into an immunity deal with the Department of Justice related to their role in the so-called “Catch and Kill” process on behalf of President Trump and his election campaign. Mr. Pecker and his company have also been investigated for various actions they’ve taken on behalf of the Saudi Government.

- and -

Here’s a piece of context: My ownership of the Washington Post is a complexifier for me. It’s unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy.

President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. Also, The Post’s essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles.

(Even though The Post is a complexifier for me, I do not at all regret my investment. The Post is a critical institution with a critical mission. My stewardship of The Post and my support of its mission, which will remain unswerving, is something I will be most proud of when I’m 90 and reviewing my life, if I’m lucky enough to live that long, regardless of any complexities it creates for me.)

I think the main point that comes of this is that we'll be able to concentrate a lot of fire on the truly shitty practice of Politically Weaponizing The Press. 

We need to get back to understanding how damaging Yellow Journalism is, and I find it hard to believe I'm the only one who seems to remember learning about this shit back in high school.

Guardians Of The Truth

That'll put a knot in his knickers

Editor-In-Chief, Time Magazine:

It has long been the first move in the authoritarian playbook: controlling the flow of information and debate that is freedom’s lifeblood. And in 2018, the playbook worked. Today, democracy around the world faces its biggest crisis in decades, its foundations undermined by invective from on high and toxins from below, by new technologies that power ancient impulses, by a poisonous cocktail of strongmen and weakening institutions. From Russia to Riyadh to Silicon Valley, manipulation and abuse of truth is the common thread in so many of this year’s major headlines, an insidious and growing threat to freedom.
- and - 

In its highest forms, influence—the measure that has for nine decades been the focus of TIME’s Person of the Year—derives from courage. Like all human gifts, courage comes to us at varying levels and at varying moments. This year we are recognizing four journalists and one news organization who have paid a terrible price to seize the challenge of this moment: Jamal Khashoggi, Maria Ressa, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, and the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Md.

They are representative of a broader fight by countless others around the world—as of Dec. 10, at least 52 journalists have been murdered in 2018—who risk all to tell the story of our time.

Murder Is Just Alright

Today's Asshole Alert via WaPo's Robert Costa and Karoun Demerjian:

Hard-line Republicans and conservative commentators are mounting a whispering campaign against Jamal Khashoggi that is designed to protect President Trump from criticism of his handling of the dissident journalist’s alleged murder by operatives of Saudi Arabia — and support Trump’s continued aversion to a forceful response to the oil-rich desert kingdom.

In recent days, a cadre of conservative House Republicans allied with Trump has been privately exchanging articles from right-wing outlets that fuel suspicion of Khashoggi, highlighting his association with the Muslim Brotherhood in his youth and raising conspiratorial questions about his work decades ago as an embedded reporter covering Osama bin Laden, according to four GOP officials involved in the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Those aspersions — which many lawmakers have been wary of stating publicly because of the political risks of doing so — have begun to flare into public view as conservative media outlets have amplified the claims, which are aimed in part at protecting Trump as he works to preserve the U.S.-Saudi relationship and avoid confronting the Saudis on human rights.


So, standard GOP playbook shittiness - "he was no angel" - with every Virginian's favorite Bull-Conner-wanna-be, Corey Stewart, chiming right in, on cue and in perfect harmony:

The message was echoed on the campaign trail. Virginia Republican Corey A. Stewart, who is challenging Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), told a local radio program Thursday that “Khashoggi was not a good guy himself.”

And WaPo puts up an appropriate defensive fact for Khashoggi (something I certainly didn't know) - but buries it in the 9th paragraph.

While Khashoggi was once sympathetic to Islamist movements, he moved toward a more liberal, secular point of view, according to experts on the Middle East who have tracked his career. Khashoggi knew bin Laden in the 1980s and 1990s during the civil war in Afghanistan, but his interactionswith bin Laden were as a journalist with a point of view who was working with a prized source.


I shit on the press whenever I think they're doing their little Press Poodle show, and I'll continue doing that, but there's always a line that you don't cross. Ever. 

I think everything has something to do with drawing lines; and making decisions about where the lines should be; and trying to make sure we're staying on the "right" side of those lines. You know - Morality and Ethics, and all those silly notions of what it takes to maintain a civilization.

When things are as weird as they are in the middle east, those lines can get pretty fuzzy. And while I'm sympathetic to the frustration, and I've expressed that frustration on at least a few occasions by saying something like, "Fuck 'em - let's just turn the place into the world's biggest glass bowl and let the tourists take over".

But that doesn't work. I know that. Hell, until recently, I thought everybody knew that. But here we are, with Lord Commander Bonespurs at his rally in Montana, telling us that if we just kill enough people - the right people according to him and him alone - everybody gets real polite and agreeable all of a sudden. And the rubes eat it up.

Then, a possible glimmer of sanity via Reuters:

So grave is the fallout from the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi that King Salman has felt compelled to intervene, five sources with links to the Saudi royal family said.

Last Thursday, Oct. 11, the king dispatched his most trusted aide, Prince Khaled al-Faisal, governor of Mecca, to Istanbul to try to defuse the crisis.

World leaders were demanding an explanation and concern was growing in parts of the royal court that the king’s son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to whom he has delegated vast powers, was struggling to contain the fallout, the sources said.

During Prince Khaled’s visit, Turkey and Saudi Arabia agreed to form a joint working group to investigate Khashoggi’s disappearance. The king subsequently ordered the Saudi public prosecutor to open an inquiry based on its findings.

“The selection of Khaled, a senior royal with high status, is telling as he is the king’s personal adviser, his right hand man and has had very strong ties and a friendship with (Turkish President) Erdogan,” said a Saudi source with links to government circles.

Since the meeting between Prince Khaled and Erdogan, King Salman has been “asserting himself” in managing the affair, according to a different source, a Saudi businessman who lives abroad but is close to royal circles.


But - did you catch it? - "a joint working group". Erdogan and Prince Khaled are going to investigate the thing to find out if the Saudi government is a bunch of murdering assholes, and whether or not the Turks helped them.

I think we already know how this one turns out.

Today's Tweet

Politicians keep telling us we don't trust the press - some politicians lie.

And I don't wanna name names or anything, but the name of the biggest lying-est sack of shit of 'em all kinda rhymes with Fondled Rump.

Is there any trust left in journalism?

Read more in #TheInsider: https://t.co/MANqAhfxmw pic.twitter.com/vOqq79bnzB

— PressReader (@PressReader) July 13, 2017

Yikes

From the front page of the Chicago Tribune yesterday:

So, there is actually a President Bartlet, and they call her Chancellor Merkel.

Angela Merkel has an undergrad in Physics & Physical Chemistry (1978 - Leipzig U), and a doctorate in Quantum Chemistry (1986 - German Academy of Science, Berlin).

Donald Trump can't even spell PhD.

WaPo Hangs In

It seems pretty weird, but WaPo is starting to do some real reporting all of a sudden.

In response to a question about his party’s plan to increase the cost of health insurance, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) suggested that people should “invest in their own health care” instead of “getting that new iPhone.” He doubled-down on the point in a later interview: “People need to make a conscious choice, and I believe in self-reliance.” Of course, Chaffetz is wrong. But he isn’t alone.

While he has been met with justifiable derision for the comparison (Christopher Ingraham walked through the math for us, pointing out that a year’s worth of health care would equal 23 iPhone 7 Pluses in price), the claim he is making is hardly new. Chaffetz was articulating a commonly held belief that poverty in the United States is, by and large, the result of laziness, immorality and irresponsibility. If only people made better choices — if they worked harder, stayed in school, got married, didn’t have children they couldn’t afford, spent what money they had more wisely and saved more — then they wouldn’t be poor, or so the reasoning goes.

This insistence that people would not be poor if only they would try harder defines the thinking behind the signature welfare restructuring law of the Clinton era, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. It’s the logic at the heart of efforts to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients, to drug-test people collecting unemployment insurance or to forbid food stamp recipients to buy steak and lobster.

Since the invention of the mythic welfare queen in the 1960s, this has been the story we most reliably tell about why people are poor. Never mind that research from across the social sciences shows us, over and again, that it’s a lie. Never mind low wages or lack of jobs, the poor quality of too many schools, the dearth of marriageable males in poor black communities (thanks to a racialized criminal justice system and ongoing discrimination in the labor market), or the high cost of birth control and day care. Never mind the fact that the largest group of poor people in the United States are children. Never mind the grim reality that most American adults who are poor are not poor from lack of effort but despite it.

The reason poor people are poor has nothing to do with how they manage their money.

Poverty is not a moral deficiency.

Being poor enough to require assistance from government doesn't mean poor people like it where they are.

And and and

Stop blaming poverty on the poor.

Intercepted Podcast

LGBTQ issues, some scary NSA shit and 45* vs The Press.



Intercepted on Stitcher

Pushing Back

WaPo:

A new poll from Quinnipiac University suggests that while people may be broadly unhappy with the mainstream media, they still think it's more credible than Trump. The president regularly accuses the press of “fake news,” but people see more “fake news” coming out of his own mouth.

The poll asked who registered voters “trust more to tell you the truth about important issues.” A majority — 52 percent — picked the media. Just 37 percent picked Trump.

The poll did find that registered voters by a narrow margin think the media has treated Trump unfairly, with 50 percent saying they disapproved of the coverage of Trump and 45 percent approving. But voters are even more critical of Trump's treatment of the media, with 61 percent disapproving and 35 percent approving.

Even 23 percent of Republicans say Trump is mistreating the media, and independents disapprove 59-35.

And in case you missed it, WaPo quietly added a little something to it's banner:

 

Which brings us to Three Things About The Daddy State

1. Every government needs to do certain things without telling us about it, but the Daddy State needs the dark more than any other. There are way too many things they can't afford to let us see - a lot more than in anything resembling a democracy. Leakers and the Press are light-shiners; Daddy Staters hate them, and spend a shitload of time and energy covering their own asses and fighting disclosure - because they're always up to no good, and they know it.
2. The greatest threat to the Daddy State is anybody with a functioning memory. 45* is always carping about the Press because they write things down and compare what he says today with what he said before - sometimes moments before.  Creating the illusion of near-infallibility is a key element in any cult. Pointing out mistakes and contradictions makes you their enemy. And boy oh boy do they love having enemies.
3. Citizens who insist on being involved in the decision-making process comprise the best possible preventative measure and the best remedy.

That last one sounds like a very old and very tired cliché because we always assume we get to make up our minds and freely express our opinions and go out and vote once in a while.

But we've internalized the Rent-Seeker's ambition - sit on your ass enjoying the benefits while everybody else does the work.  Anywhere from 40% to 60% of the people who could vote don't vote.

Because we've also internalized the bullshit (fed to us all the time) that government sucks; they're all the same anyway; both parties are corrupt; the major candidates are just two sides of the same coin so why bother blah blah fuckin' blah.

Get past it.

You want better choices? Get your ass out to a Caucus; or vote in the primary.  And take somebody with you. And stop being so damned polite to people who won't help. When you refuse to be part of the solution you become part of the problem. ie: If you think it's shitty but you refuse to make even the simplest effort to improve it, then you're helping the buttheads who're making it shitty. Silence implies consent.

Or you could run for office yourself.  Have you not seen some of these bozos? Look who's in the White House right now.  It is - for all practical purposes and by every modern standard - impossible for you to be any worse than what we've got now.

Cutting to the chase: Bullet point 3a is real simple. When everybody votes, the Daddy State loses - by definition the Daddy State loses and Democracy wins when we all take part in this little experiment called Self-Government.

WTF Moments

Rolling Stone

Standout: "The leaks are real. The news is fake."

I can say I've been a little impressed with the Press Poodles performing better than they've done before.  We still need to find the new Sam Donaldson, but they're starting to get up and push back.

The 45* Problem

Headlines at Vox this morning:

This is a very bad pattern.

Questions Remain Unanswered

In WaPo's Daily 202 today:

We're working under some assumptions, which is always a little dicey, but I keep thinking 9 corroborating sources makes this a matter of being pretty solidly confident of the conclusions.

And 9 sources means this is a big fucking deal, and that there's a bigger fucking-er deal yet to be uncovered.

1. What, if anything, did Trump authorize Flynn to tell the Russians before his inauguration?

2. Why was Trump planning to stand by Flynn?

3. What did White House counsel Donald McGahn do after the then-acting attorney general notified him last month that Flynn was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail?

4. What is the status of the FBI investigation into possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia?

5. Will Spicer and Pence apologize for making false statements to the American people?

6. Will Flynn face prosecution under the Logan Act?

7. What will the Senate Intelligence Committee uncover about contacts Flynn and others affiliated with Trump had with Russia before the election?

8. Who replaces Flynn?

9. Who else leaves the White House because Flynn is gone?

10. Who exactly is in charge at the White House?

I Hear You - Now Show Me

I'll call it a win when I see evidence down the road, but I'm willing to give 'em a conditional Atta-Boy for right now, and hope others will follow.

From Reuters yesterday (01-31-17): 

In a message to staff today, Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler wrote about covering President Trump the Reuters way:

The first 12 days of the Trump presidency (yes, that’s all it’s been!) have been memorable for all – and especially challenging for us in the news business. It’s not every day that a U.S. president calls journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth” or that his chief strategist dubs the media “the opposition party.” It’s hardly surprising that the air is thick with questions and theories about how to cover the new Administration.

So what is the Reuters answer? To oppose the administration? To appease it? To boycott its briefings? To use our platform to rally support for the media? All these ideas are out there, and they may be right for some news operations, but they don’t make sense for Reuters. We already know what to do because we do it every day, and we do it all over the world.

To state the obvious, Reuters is a global news organization that reports independently and fairly in more than 100 countries, including many in which the media is unwelcome and frequently under attack. I am perpetually proud of our work in places such as Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Thailand, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia, nations in which we sometimes encounter some combination of censorship, legal prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats to our journalists. We respond to all of these by doing our best to protect our journalists, by recommitting ourselves to reporting fairly and honestly, by doggedly gathering hard-to-get information – and by remaining impartial. We write very rarely about ourselves and our troubles and very often about the issues that will make a difference in the businesses and lives of our readers and viewers.

We don’t know yet how sharp the Trump administration’s attacks will be over time or to what extent those attacks will be accompanied by legal restrictions on our news-gathering. But we do know that we must follow the same rules that govern our work anywhere, namely:

Do’s:

--Cover what matters in people’s lives and provide them the facts they need to make better decisions.

--Become ever-more resourceful: If one door to information closes, open another one.

--Give up on hand-outs and worry less about official access. They were never all that valuable anyway. Our coverage of Iran has been outstanding, and we have virtually no official access. What we have are sources.

--Get out into the country and learn more about how people live, what they think, what helps and hurts them, and how the government and its actions appear to them, not to us.

--Keep the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles close at hand, remembering that “the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved.”

Don’ts:

--Never be intimidated, but:

--Don’t pick unnecessary fights or make the story about us. We may care about the inside baseball but the public generally doesn’t and might not be on our side even if it did.

--Don’t vent publicly about what might be understandable day-to-day frustration. In countless other countries, we keep our own counsel so we can do our reporting without being suspected of personal animus. We need to do that in the U.S., too.

--Don’t take too dark a view of the reporting environment: It’s an opportunity for us to practice the skills we’ve learned in much tougher places around the world and to lead by example – and therefore to provide the freshest, most useful, and most illuminating information and insight of any news organization anywhere.

This is our mission, in the U.S. and everywhere. We make a difference in the world because we practice professional journalism that is both intrepid and unbiased. When we make mistakes, which we do, we correct them quickly and fully. When we don’t know something, we say so. When we hear rumors, we track them down and report them only when we are confident that they are factual. We value speed but not haste: When something needs more checking, we take the time to check it. We try to avoid “permanent exclusives” – first but wrong. We operate with calm integrity not just because it’s in our rulebook but because – over 165 years – it has enabled us to do the best work and the most good.

Thank Goodness It Wasn't Me

On Trump's plan for the White House press corps:

Watch this video on The Scene.

Today's Podcast

Bob and Chez:



On Press Poodles and Trump's "plan" to do what Trump always does - make nice with Daddy or Daddy will fuck you up.

Starting at about 25:00, we get to the meat of the matter as the guys illustrate what looks a lot like Trump's attempt to dismantle the tattered remains of the 4th Estate - ie: consider your exile a gift, because then you'll have practically nothing more to lose and that gives you the freedom to do your job the way it's meant to be done.  You're the receiver going over the middle - there's a safety or a linebacker looking to hammer somebody.  And make no mistake, he's gonna pound your ass whether you catch the ball or not - so catch the fuckin' football.

Today's It Begins

Politico:

On Friday morning, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted a request for House and Senate intelligence committees to investigate the leak of a classified intelligence report to NBC News reporters.

“I am asking the chairs of the House and Senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it,” he tweeted. "Before I, or anyone, saw the classified and/or highly confidential hacking intelligence report, it was leaked out to @NBCNews. So serious!" he added on Sunday.

But how likely is such an investigation to happen, and what would happen if it did? Attorneys that have represented journalists and government employees say that such an investigation would be extremely unusual, with only one comparable hearing, held in 1976.

So, for now, a move against NBC is unlikely - the Congress Critters know they can't spank reporters without getting their own tits caught in the wringer - the usual political reality of Safety By Mutual Culpability - but Trump doesn't really care about that. It may look like a Drain The Swamp opportunity, but he just uses that as cover to further his own ends.  It's another chance for him to stand in the middle and play the factions against each other.

He doesn't care about the leak, and he doesn't care about the info. He cares about whether or not he can use the situation to (eg) punish "The Lugenpresse" for being mean to him, while keeping the option to hit back against "enemies" on Capitol Hill by threatening to torch a few of their staffers etc etc etc.

Because it's not about right or wrong - legal vs illegal - to a guy like Trump, these things are of no value in themselves; they're fungible. Their value is determined only by their usefulness as trade goods in The Marketplace of Power.

It's always and only about the simple binary: Pro-Trump vs Anti-Trump.

That's his strength and that's what makes him very very dangerous. Not because he plays the same ol' game (and he is playing the same old game), but because he plays that game while pretending he's not playing it - or he can not play it while pretending he is playing it - or any combination that he thinks suits his purpose at any given moment.

And since the rubes have been sold on the idea that there is no objective reality anyway, they just get in line and away we go.

The gaslighting is so fucking strong.