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[ursus arctos]

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He's now threatening to send federal troops to Chicago to stop the "carnage".

The conversations among senior Republicans must be fascinating

[San Bernardhinault]

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He's completely unhinged, isn't he? He has no idea how to maintain his coalition. He'll do something that they'll support, like allow the oil pipelines to get built. And then he'll say something that'll be completely anathema to huge numbers of them

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

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ursus arctos wrote: He's now threatening to send federal troops to Chicago to stop the "carnage"

Is it these guys? That would be brilliant.

[Hot Pepsi]

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ursus arctos wrote: He's now threatening to send federal troops to Chicago to stop the "carnage".

The conversations among senior Republicans must be fascinating

At this point, I kinda want to see him do something like that. Super-unconstitutional. Super-destructive. Just so we can find out how much congress and the electorate are willing to accept. That's a datapoint I'd like to have as I'm planning my future in this idiocracy.

But of course, that would lead to hundreds or thousands of deaths, so....

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

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It's just like Roosevelt's 100 days, except with cunts.

[VTTBoscombe]

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And if you decide to photograph or video the protests - you get prosecuted too.
Four more journalists thrown in GulagTrump

[Ginger Yellow]

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None of the arrest reports for the six journalists makes any specific allegations about what any of them are supposed to have done wrong. Keller’s report, which also covers the arrests of an unknown number of unidentified other people, includes a note that a police vehicle was vandalized. “I had absolutely nothing to do with the vandalism,” said Keller.

Reports on the arrests of five of the six journalists contain identical language alleging that “numerous crimes were occurring in police presence”. They state that windows were broken, fires were lit and vehicles were damaged. “The crowd was observed enticing a riot by organizing, promoting, encouraging and participating in acts of violence in furtherance of the riot,” the police reports said.

I don't know riot law, but do you really not have to allege that the person you're charging committed a specific crime?

[ursus arctos]

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Here's the statute.

A riot in the District of Columbia is a public disturbance involving an assemblage of 5 or more persons which by tumultuous and violent conduct or the threat thereof creates grave danger of damage or injury to property or persons.

It's very broad, and these are only the arrest reports. The actual charging documents will need to be more specific about the acts involved.

[Snake Plissken]

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On the subject of books, I'm reading Matt Taibbi's excellent "Insane Clown President", which is a collection of his articles on the Presidential race, largely written for Rolling Stone.

Excerpt from America is too dumb for TV news

This is a horrible thing to have to say about one's own country, but this story makes it official. America is now too dumb for TV news.

It's our fault. We in the media have spent decades turning the news into a consumer business that's basically indistinguishable from selling cheeseburgers or video games. You want bigger margins, you just cram the product full of more fat and sugar and violence and wait for your obese, over-stimulated customer to come waddling forth.

The old Edward R. Murrow, eat-your-broccoli version of the news was banished long ago. Once such whiny purists were driven from editorial posts and the ad people over the last four or five decades got invited in, things changed. Then it was nothing but murders, bombs, and panda births, delivered to thickening couch potatoes in ever briefer blasts of forty, thirty, twenty seconds.

What we call right-wing and liberal media in this country are really just two different strategies of the same kind of nihilistic lizard-brain sensationalism. The ideal CNN story is a baby down a well, while the ideal Fox story is probably a baby thrown down a well by a Muslim terrorist or an ACORN activist. Both companies offer the same service, it's just that the Fox version is a little kinkier.

When you make the news into this kind of consumer business, pretty soon audiences lose the ability to distinguish between what they think they're doing, informing themselves, and what they're actually doing, shopping.

And who shops for products he or she doesn't want? That's why the consumer news business was always destined to hit this kind of impasse. You can get by for a long time by carefully selecting the facts you know your audiences will like, and calling that news. But eventually there will be a truth that displeases your customers. What do you do then?

In this case, as Rush said, "Americans are well aware Muslims were cheering" after 9/11. Because America "knows" this, it now expects the news media to deliver that story. And if reporters refuse, it can only be out of bias.

What this 9/11 celebrations story shows is that American news audiences have had their fantasies stroked for so long that they can't even remember stuff that happened not that long ago. It's like an organic version of 1984, with audiences constantly editing even their own memories to fit their current attitudes about things.
It was preposterous from the start to think that there could have been contemporaneous broadcasts of "thousands" of people in New Jersey celebrating the 9/11 attacks. Does nobody remember how people felt that day? If there had been such broadcasts, there would have been massacres – angry Americans would have stormed Jersey City.

In fact, police had to be deployed to places like Paterson anyway to protect immigrants from exactly that sort of mob violence. This is one of the reasons we know Muslims weren't dancing en masse in the streets, because police were parked on those streets in huge numbers to keep people out.

The Newark Star-Ledger did a report in the weeks after the attacks from Paterson showing the city in "virtual lockdown," with police camped in Muslim neighborhoods for the protection of the locals.

"In this neighborhood, in South Paterson, we don't feel threatened," Samir Asmar, a Palestinian who became a U.S. citizen, told the paper. "But once we go outside, I fear for my wife and son."

Beyond all of that: if footage of such a celebration existed, it would have skyrocketed around the country, and not popped off ineffectually on some local broadcast for just Donald Trump to see and remember. The whole thing is nuts.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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antoine polus wrote:

I saw this recommended on Twitter.

I read most of another of his books... The Bubble and Beyond. He gives an interesting history of debt. Goes back thousands of years to point out that huge debt bubbles were traditionally ended in two ways: by writing off bad debts or by bloodshed. They guy has incredible knowledge about the history of interconnectedness of flows of money.

His knowledge of contemporary politics is a bit iffy.

Cheers. Interconnectness of flows of money sounds like an important concept to get to know.

[Incandenza]

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Trump is suspending federal funding to "sanctuary cities" like NYC, LA, San Francisco, and Seattle.

[Hot Pepsi]

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Those cities, as far as I can tell, plan to tell him to go fuck himself.

[ursus arctos]

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And make money off the pay per view rights.

It would be YUGE

[Lang Spoon]

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So the cities that don't act the maggot toward illegals are the richest and fastest growing? Well fancy that. Good god of he keeps ruling by tweet decree we might have mini Hansa networks on the coasts soon, Islands of Decency in a landward sea of cunts (Iowa withholding grain to the starving besieged LAers, Red Cross supplies only getting through to fucking Orange County as the new West Aleppo).

[Hot Pepsi]

Trump's Card

Snake Plissken wrote: On the subject of books, I'm reading Matt Taibbi's excellent "Insane Clown President", which is a collection of his articles on the Presidential race, largely written for Rolling Stone.

Excerpt from America is too dumb for TV news

This is a horrible thing to have to say about one's own country, but this story makes it official. America is now too dumb for TV news.

It's our fault. We in the media have spent decades turning the news into a consumer business that's basically indistinguishable from selling cheeseburgers or video games. You want bigger margins, you just cram the product full of more fat and sugar and violence and wait for your obese, over-stimulated customer to come waddling forth.

The old Edward R. Murrow, eat-your-broccoli version of the news was banished long ago. Once such whiny purists were driven from editorial posts and the ad people over the last four or five decades got invited in, things changed. Then it was nothing but murders, bombs, and panda births, delivered to thickening couch potatoes in ever briefer blasts of forty, thirty, twenty seconds.

What we call right-wing and liberal media in this country are really just two different strategies of the same kind of nihilistic lizard-brain sensationalism. The ideal CNN story is a baby down a well, while the ideal Fox story is probably a baby thrown down a well by a Muslim terrorist or an ACORN activist. Both companies offer the same service, it's just that the Fox version is a little kinkier.

When you make the news into this kind of consumer business, pretty soon audiences lose the ability to distinguish between what they think they're doing, informing themselves, and what they're actually doing, shopping.

And who shops for products he or she doesn't want? That's why the consumer news business was always destined to hit this kind of impasse. You can get by for a long time by carefully selecting the facts you know your audiences will like, and calling that news. But eventually there will be a truth that displeases your customers. What do you do then?

In this case, as Rush said, "Americans are well aware Muslims were cheering" after 9/11. Because America "knows" this, it now expects the news media to deliver that story. And if reporters refuse, it can only be out of bias.

What this 9/11 celebrations story shows is that American news audiences have had their fantasies stroked for so long that they can't even remember stuff that happened not that long ago. It's like an organic version of 1984, with audiences constantly editing even their own memories to fit their current attitudes about things.
It was preposterous from the start to think that there could have been contemporaneous broadcasts of "thousands" of people in New Jersey celebrating the 9/11 attacks. Does nobody remember how people felt that day? If there had been such broadcasts, there would have been massacres – angry Americans would have stormed Jersey City.

In fact, police had to be deployed to places like Paterson anyway to protect immigrants from exactly that sort of mob violence. This is one of the reasons we know Muslims weren't dancing en masse in the streets, because police were parked on those streets in huge numbers to keep people out.

The Newark Star-Ledger did a report in the weeks after the attacks from Paterson showing the city in "virtual lockdown," with police camped in Muslim neighborhoods for the protection of the locals.

"In this neighborhood, in South Paterson, we don't feel threatened," Samir Asmar, a Palestinian who became a U.S. citizen, told the paper. "But once we go outside, I fear for my wife and son."

Beyond all of that: if footage of such a celebration existed, it would have skyrocketed around the country, and not popped off ineffectually on some local broadcast for just Donald Trump to see and remember. The whole thing is nuts.

I don't think America is alone in this. But I don't know if any other country has commercial cable news like we do. Instead you have shit like The Daily Mail. I assume every country in Europe has a version of the Daily Mail, but I'm not sure.

Commenters have been warning about the perils of for-profit news for at least 20 years, even before the web and Facebook amplified the problem. And further back, we had yellow journalism and before that, just good old-fashioned ignorance. Most people didn't consume any kind of print or electronic media at all. Just rumors they heard around the saloon.

The Golden Age of tv news was actually pretty short, and probably not that great, really. I mean, Walte Cronkite couldn't cover a hell of a lot in 30 minutes. The internet is 95% garbage, but it has provided outlets for stories that never would have received any attention at all in the past. So that's something.

[WOM]

Trump's Card

Hot Pepsi wrote: The Golden Age of tv news was actually pretty short, and probably not that great, really. I mean, Walte Cronkite couldn't cover a hell of a lot in 30 minutes.

More importantly, I think Walter Cronkite stood for the idea that your country was to be taken seriously and that being informed mattered. It's been pointed out a number of times that even shows like Playboy's Penthouse and The Tonight Show had on serious, intelligent guests and discussed Ideas. Nowadays, that's a quaint rarity for NPR.

[Lang Spoon]

Trump's Card

True dat. Even BBC 4 that was conceived as highfalutin can't seem to commission anything that can't shoehorn Britain's [insert superlative] into its title, and it's mostly ra-ra over simplified history bollocks. Fucking Starkey on Royal music is taking the piss.

Watching something like the Ascent of Man, that would never ever get made now. Not with poor old Broni on camera, and not without way more shitty CGI and dramatic recreation (and a snappier hook or neat as a bow overarching theory). The fact Dominic Sandbrook is given a proper series on BBC 2 is frightening but fucking predictable. They only keep Meades on cos it's cheap I suppose.

A coarsening of culture, and what the plebs can tolerate is the same as the biggest ratings. Mr Parkes has a v good Quietus article about all this that's is handily way more coherent. It's self fulfilling with the BBC and all Serious Media now under pressure from the even worse competition. BBC News esp seems to be even more brazenly pro Govt and sceptical to any unreceived opinion.

[Amor de Cosmos]

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A coarsening of culture, and what the plebs can tolerate is the seen as the biggest ratings.

True, but it goes beyond that I think. "Quality" shows like The Crown, Victoria and Downton Abbey are important in maintaining the notion that England remains, in an important sense, all about a particular version the past, and that's where people should look for meaning and guidance.

[Lang Spoon]

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Oh yeah, and those shows are giving off such a reactionary nostalgic view of those times when England meant Great Britain and eternal Empire.

I'd guess The Crown glosses over loads of Victoria's horrible deeds and traits, and gives a more Strikingly Modern Queen, an anachronistic Progressive kicking against stuffy convention. And Downton is fucking horrible politics straight up. I've never knowingly watched an episode past the age of about 6 at my gran's, but I'm sure something like Upstairs Downstairs was much more nuanced. It was made well within living memory of the old white working class servantry(fuck even You Rang Milord? was laughing at the toffs in the 90s- fuck I hate that sitcom) They might have been sentimental but I'm sure Downton shit wouldn't have been made then.

[Amor de Cosmos]

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I'm sure something like Upstairs Downstairs was much more nuanced.

You're quite right, it was. There were lots of socio-cultural details in UD, that DA would never had portrayed. I remember an amusing discussion with an American friend over tiny scene in Upstairs Downstairs. It showed two of the maids sharing a bed. He thought it was a commentary on the sexual proclivities of the British lower classes. "No Tom." I said, "it's because they're cold. There was no heating in those rooms."

[Snake Plissken]

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The book contains a hell of a lot of areas where you could copy and paste Brexit for Trump, Corbyn for Sanders and other examples. There was a great thing that I will paraphrase badly - "the people decided they had had enough of thinkfluencers who didn't have the first clue about what was happening in their lives and decided to seize the power back. And when they had that power and that freedom, they then chose to give it straight to the worlds most unapologetic asshole." Although it refers to Trump, you could easily apply it to Brexit.

As for the TV thing, the bit in the book so far had me in a "Holy shit" moment was that the only two major countries where the national media was trusted less than politicians was the USA and the UK. It explains a hell of a lot.

[Fussbudget]

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Lang Spoon wrote: I'd guess The Crown glosses over loads of Victoria's horrible deeds and traits, and gives a more Strikingly Modern Queen, an anachronistic Progressive kicking against stuffy convention.

The Crown is about Elizabeth II, isn't it? Not that it changes your point or owt.

[Etienne]

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AP:
BREAKING: Trump administration mandating EPA scientific studies, data undergo review by political staff before public release.

This is fucking insane.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Hot Pepsi wrote: Those cities, as far as I can tell, plan to tell him to go fuck himself.

I picked up in Texas that this is a "base" issue for Trump. As of course, you all know anyway. But I was only there 9 days.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Amor de Cosmos wrote: I'm sure something like Upstairs Downstairs was much more nuanced.

You're quite right, it was. There were lots of socio-cultural details in UD, that DA would never had portrayed. I remember an amusing discussion with an American friend over tiny scene in Upstairs Downstairs. It showed two of the maids sharing a bed. He thought it was a commentary on the sexual proclivities of the British lower classes. "No Tom." I said, "it's because they're cold. There was no heating in those rooms."

Reminds me of this, for someone reason.



Lovers? Or just cold? Or both?