Does anybody here feel outrage about Jim Acosta’s White House
press pass? I don’t. But I had access to CNN for a little while last night and
got the impression that the press pass is major news on a level with a Stormy
Daniels comment.
Not only is CNN
suing the President of the United States (whatever you think of him) to get
Acosta’s press pass restored, but all the other big news outlets including Fox
(!) have joined CNN in court. Take that back: It looks bigger than Stormy
Daniels.
I’ve quoted
here before, I think, the late Dean J. L. O’Sullivan’s observation that
Washington has ruined more good journalists than booze. The White House press
corps is a good example of that, although the National Press Club, where the
elite of press and politics pretend to like each other and too often do, is
worse. But it happens in small towns, too. In my first reporting job I worked
in a two-newspaper town, and television news was just beginning to be a factor.
Someone had a bright idea to start a press club where we could all have lunch
and invite in speakers and be fat and happy together. We had an informal
meeting at my paper where, with no quibbles, we decided unanimously that we didn’t want to be
any part of that.
I was once
invited to join a proposed Drama Critics Circle. I declined on grounds we
reviewed more musicals and revues than drahmahs; what we were was reviewers not
critics, and people who join circles are square.
The problem is,
when human beings hang out together, people get lazy. You can no more expect a
reporter to scoop a chum than you can expect a cop to arrest a buddy. That is more outrageous than His
Petulance taking away someone’s press pass. But it’s the human condition.
Now, the White House press corps is not a club or a circle. It's an administrative necessity because of the numbers of outlets that need access to the executive branch. Putting on my Michael Bechloss hat, presidential press conferences began in the FDR era. Wheelchair-bound Roosevelt would invite the reporters into his office and they'd stand around his desk trying to get him to say what they knew he believed, and he would parry them and try to keep them guessing. It was great sport all around. But there were only three wire services and maybe 15 newspapers maintained a Washington bureau, and there were no TV lights to contend with.
But times change. When the war began, the sport ended, and as the press grew in size and became The Media, somebody had to get a handle or the gerbils would overrun the White House.
So now the plaintiffs are invoking freedom of the press. The White House is invoking respectful behavior. (Read that last sentence again. Wow.) The White House even provided, as evidence, a doctored tape from an established Baloney News source that it prefers to the CIA. It got caught in the lie. Still, it says the President ought to have some control.
Control. Did you see the President's performance? For that matter, did you ever see a Sam Donaldson performance when Sam was at his apex?
The Great Press
Pass Grab is just another bit of shtick in His Petulance’s act.
Caught flat-footed when asked about attorney George T. Conway’s assertion that the acting attorney general was appointed unconstitutionally, the best
H.P. could do was: “Do you mean Mr. Kellyanne Conway?” (Oh, good one, Sir.)
But that is
what he does. When he does it to Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau or to French
President Emmanuel Macron, that’s outrageous. When he does it to one of the
usual suspects, it’s just tantrums as usual. The British say that, in a recent
phone call, Mr. Melania Trump reamed out Prime Minister May in words that
normally would start a war, but Mrs. May ignored the insults, considering the
source.
Nobody takes
the source seriously, except maybe Steve Doocy. That is outrageous because in his position he could
make a lot of people miserable without thinking twice. So we have a president
nobody takes seriously, and CNN and every other news organization you respect
(plus Fox) is exercised over a stinkin’ press pass?
I suppose it is
embarrassing to Acosta that 50 other CNN employees have a White House pass and
he doesn’t. But I. F. Stone (1907-89) never had a White House press pass, and
he broke more stories than all 51 of them.
Paul Moses offers a reflection on his experience with the same scenario. That time it was between Paul and then-mayor Rudolph Guiliani.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.commonwealmagazine.org/stupid-questions
Did watch the CNN take on this last night. Jeffrey Tobin was the single honest talking head in the discussion, opining that this may not be a straightforward first amendment issue.
ReplyDeleteBut the whole tantrum reminds us that in addition to the country being dismantled by Trump, the media itself is fast losing perspective on its own mission, for example, the inside-inside story of Melania Trump trying to have someone fired. REALLY BIG STORY!! not.
Members of the White House press corps can be divas, and perhaps some have enjoyed casting themselves in the lead role in the continuing saga of Defender of Free Speech Against the Tyrant.
ReplyDeleteTrump has been in office for two years--plenty long enough for reporters and editors to develop some guidelines for covering Trump without allowing him to bait them.
Stories are too often focused on Trump's tone and body language. For Chrissakes, everyone knows he carries himself like Mussolini, acts like a six year old who needs a nap, and has Lon Chaney for a hair and make-up artist. If I want to fixate on that, I'll watch late night TV.
Not enough questions are asked about things "regular" people care about: the environment, infrastructure, drug prices, troops abroad, etc.
Jean, you just touched on something I left out. I admit that there has to be some form of herding now that there are so many White House correspondents. But what the herding does is pull people into a bubble, where Gen. Kelly is "John," and the current White House counsel (whom we plebians lost track of three counsels ago) is also known by his first name and/or nickname. Also in the bubble are things the White House employees talk about and the way those employees view such things in terms of the next election and their own life after these dwindling years of fame. And since the insiders know all these things, that is what they talk about. But they never talk about things plebians talk about because their status automatically puts them on a different level than "regular" people. If poor Jim Acosta doesn't get his plastic card back soon, he will be mute on the sidelines of peer group conversations he used to understand. Such conversations, it goes without saying, are not about things "regular" people think about.
DeleteA friend who works for the WAPost noticed immediately when she got to Washington that people at parties never ask what you do or where you're from. Rather they ask who you work for. She who works for the Treasury secretary is much more important than a Ph.d who knows more than Steve Mnuchin will ever know about economics. My friend learned to say she worked for Ben Bradlee, when actually she was two levels down from him.
I think that's a good point, Tom. The press corps tends to talk about "watercooler" issues because they've been sucked into West Wing job drama, which is fun to gossip about, but does not affect regular people.
DeleteThe White House contingent needs to do more than talk to the guys in MAGA hats down to the coffee shop. They need to spend two weeks driving on my roads, drinking my water, trying to find the best prices for my drugs, listening to teachers explain why kids in my town can't learn, dealing with my meth cookers and opioid addicts, and hearing my farmers worry about where they're gonna sell their soybeans.
No one here gives two hoots about the Mueller investigation or why Trump didn't go out in the rain in France. (Any woman born before 1960 could tell you humidity is hell on hairspray and pancake makeup, end of story.)
The whole Acosta thing is more surreality show stuff. It's all about Trump and when it's not about Trump, it's about corporate press personalities.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, a snow storm is blasting outside right now. I guess all those climatologists were wrong. I'm throwing out all my physics books.
Oh, Stanley. You and Jim Inhofe. What an odd couple. {:-) }
ReplyDeleteYeah, Tom. Jimmy and I could have a snowball fight. But mine would have rocks in 'em.
ReplyDeleteI guess I do care about the president trying to shut down a reporter or a network, although I admit my tolerance for journalists who thirst to be the Guy Who Brings Down A Presidency is exceptionally low. I'm glad that the other news orgs are showing solidarity. I can choose - and I do choose every single day - not to watch Acosta or his ridiculous network. I don't want the president deciding who gets to cover him and who doesn't.
ReplyDeleteJim, glad to hear that you don't think it's a good thing for the WH to try to shut down freedom of the press.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I do live too close to the bubble, even though not in it.
I think the attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of the press by this WH for the last two years are very serious matters. I also think that interference in our electoral process by a hostile foreign power (or powers) is serious. I think that learning the truth about attempts to corrupt politicians and/or their close associates by the same hostile power(s) is important.
The Mueller investigation IS important. The freedom of press/speech IS important.
Trade concerns and economic concerns are important too - but, IMHO I think assaults on our constitution and on our electoral process are even more important than the current challenges facing soybean farmers - challenges they face because of actions taken by the man they supported for President. He promised a trade war. Why didn't they pay attention? Now the rest of the country has to bail them out with billions of $ of subsidies that "conservatives" used to oppose.
We coastal types do need to try to better comprehend life in the ag and rust belt sectors, but people in those sectors also need to look at the bigger picture and try to understand what some are trying to do to undermine the essential foundations of this country (Trump himself, and Trump in his attempts to shut down a very important investigation). They need to understand why Mueller is working to find out what the anti-American powers are doing so that we can defend our country against them. Perhaps I spent too many years working with those who support the national security community (the alphabet agencies), but I know that these threats are real and represent a danger to our country – ALL of us- including those in the parts of the country that don’t border oceans.
This administration has been attacking the national security community since day 1. Why? Perhaps Mueller will find out.
The trade crisis will pass eventually. They may have to grow something else, or find new markets, or convince this administration that the game of chicken has lasted long enough. Or maybe learn another way to make a living. It's happened throughout history. The industrial revolution killed a whole lot of jobs. But in the long run, it helped lift millions out of poverty. That's the way the real world economy works.
You are a businessman, Jim, so you know this is the way things work.
I choose not to watch TV news. I have never seen Acosta in action. I have never seen Hannity in action. Seeing still photos of Sour Sarah H is plenty. She, like her boss, always seems to have a scowl on her face. I don't watch the talking heads nor do I listen to radio talk shows. I do not want to watch performers, whether the performer is the grade B reality show host who is living in the WH, or a news reporter. I read.
If people in the rural areas of this country are not concerned about the most important issues facing our country today then maybe the first priority is to fix the local schools. If the teachers say that the kids in town aren't learning, then it seems that maybe the local folk should do something. Schools are mostly a local enterprise. School boards are elected locally. Budgets are approved locally. Teachers are hired locally.
It's a two way street. If the coastals need to educate themselves about the rural sectors, the rural folk need also to educate themselves about those who live elsewhere and have other concerns. I have lost count of the numbers of articles and book reviews I have read exhorting we "coastal elites" to learn about our fellow Americans in red America. We have been overloaded with them. But maybe the folks in rural areas should also be told that they need to educate themselves too so they can better understand the rest of the larger community that is the USA. They are not the only people in the US with problems.
It's hard to worry about elites who have stated that they have the wherewithal to spend the Trump years in the South of France if they wish. :-)
DeleteSure, I'm concerned about Trump trying to muzzle the press and suspend rights with executive orders.
At the same time, I just don't think the White House press corps in particular is especially tuned in to what matters to many Americans, coastal or cornfield.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteJean, we are in a solid position financially. We did work hard for it. I am not talking about people like my husband and I, I'm talking about rural whites not wanting to learn about the problems urban blacks and minorities all over the US face. Not all here are elite.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading dozens of articles, a book or two, and endless interviews of people all over Trump country, I am beginning to see both resentment and a sense of entitlement. They should not have to move. They should not have to learn a new skill. They should not have to get their GED or complete a certificate program.
My Irish ancestors moved because there was nobody to bail them out. My d-i-l’s mother moved to the US because she was very poor and by leaving her children behind with her own mother, she could get a better job and support her family at home and eventually bring them to the US. My d-i-l is financially successful, but she and her mom still face obstacles because they are black women. My d-i-law's mom gave up her comfort zone. After getting to the US, she learned a new skill and spent 30 years working all night, every night, standing on her feet, running big, loud machines - not in Smalltown OH, but in Miami, FL. Another d-i-l was born in a refugee camp. When her parents made it to the US they did not speak the language. They had no money. The skills they had in rural Viet Nam were not in great demand in San Francisco. They moved to save their family from an oppressive government. They learned the language. They learned new skills. They worked and worked and gave their family a new life (this d-i-l has a PhD). To this day they miss Viet Nam. They miss living in their own culture, with their own language, and food and music. But they did it. My admiration for my d-in-laws’ parents knows no bounds.
I grew up with little money. My SS record starts when I was 13. I earned $1.00/hr and my mom sometimes had to borrow $ from me. I would be embarrassed at the local grocery store when asked to remind my mom that she was months behind in paying her bill. I have already mentioned that I was effectively homeless my soph year of college.
But I was rich- because I was white, and my parents were educated. I lived in Calif where the state funded college scholarships, and I had friends to stay with when we lost our home.
I know that people trying to save the farm, or pay the rent have concerns that to them as individuals are more pressing than attempts to subvert our election system. But attempts to damage our democracy may be more important in the long run.
One thing that frustrates me as a "coastal elite" is the fact that so many of those who are hurting seem to be unwilling to help themselves. They don't want to learn a new skill. They don't want to take a training course (often free at govt run job centers) to learn how to fix computers. They want their old factory job back. After all, their daddy worked there and his daddy too. They don't want to go to where the jobs are. They want to stay where they know everyone in town.
There are a lot of skilled factory jobs in the US that big companies say they cannot fill with local staff. So they hire foreign workers - workers who know how to manage the software that runs the robots that make the goods. The truly poor who live south of the US WALK 1000, even 2000 miles to try to get a job. Many Americans prefer welfare if working means cleaning all the toilets in an office building every night. Or stooping over all day in the hot sun in California's central valley to pick strawberries. The farmers in CA can't raise wages any higher - but the born-in-the-USA locals still don't want the jobs in the fields that have opened up because migrant workers are afraid to show up because of ICE.
You are probably right about the WH press corps. But they work to get on a first name basis to cultivate sources. It's part of their job. I'm sure Tom got to know all the PTB in the chanceries he covered as a journalist.
"One thing that frustrates me as a 'coastal elite' is the fact that so many of those who are hurting seem to be unwilling to help themselves. They don't want to learn a new skill. They don't want to take a training course (often free at govt run job centers) to learn how to fix computers. They want their old factory job back. After all, their daddy worked there and his daddy too. They don't want to go to where the jobs are. They want to stay where they know everyone in town."
DeleteAnd your basis for these sweeping generalities is ...?
When the GM plant closed in Flint and the Great Recession hit in my area, my class limits were raised from 25 to 30 students to accommodate those looking to get certificates in computer and info tech, HVAC, diesel fleet management, culinary arts, and in radiology/sonography, EMT, etc. In fact, I was hired to boost the Gen Ed instructors by 100 percent to cope with the incoming load of students.
So there are some numbers (albeit limited to a small, two-county area of Michigan) that seem to run counter to the narrative you offer of who we are here in the cornfield.
Tom didn't get to know all the PTB in the chanceries. In my day if you didn't talk to the bishop himself, you didn't get anything printable anyway. I remember the first time I tried to talk to the bishop of Evansville, Ind. His chancellor almost fainted dead away and needed help to tel me "no way."
DeleteAnyway, nobody else was doing what we were doing when I was doing it.
Basically I tried to avoid other journalists. I once tried to get a guy thrown out of a press conference for coming late and asking a question that had been answered earlier. If there was a press area and a public area, I sat in the public area and talked to the people around me.
Tom, yes, that was also my m.o. The woman who covered the state/county beat was a schmoozer with the great and powerful. She got good stories, no doubt about it. But my preference was to sit in the public areas and chat with The Folks. I would often ask them, "What do you think I ought to ask as follow-up questions tomorrow?" '
DeleteI have to say that we've seen what Anne is talking about, and also what Jean is saying. There are people who don't want to put forth the effort to better their condition, and those who try their best. My husband's part time gig in retirement is teaching GED classes through the community college. The state recently made the requirements more rigorous, in response to feedback from employers. Some of the students have stepped up to the plate and tried harder. And some of them quit coming to class after finding out it's harder than they thought. I can't say for sure that the ones who increased their efforts are going to end up in better jobs. But I'm pretty sure they have a better chance than the ones who gave up.
DeleteIMO, what some of the people in flyover country need to do is to quit telling themselves comforting lies. Such as the one that the country is in great shape because the economy hasn't crashed.
Katherine, so you think we tell ourselves comforting lies more than people outside the Midwest? I'm a glass-half-empty type of person,so I don't have much use for comfort.
DeleteJean, I'm sorry if it seems that I was saying that EVERYONE who has lost a factory job in the red states doesn't want to help themselves. Obviously a lot of people do. My sweeping generalities are based on a lot of reading. I read lots of articles, lots of interviews with Trump supporters, lots of analyses by the analyses people, lots of facts and figures and data. I read Hillbilly Elegy and in depth reviews of a number of other books touching on the topic. Etc. After a while I made some connections to what I was reading about Trump people in the depressed areas and a project I worked on about 8 years ago.
DeleteI was fairly sympathetic at first, sad for people who had lost their way of life along with their jobs. Sad also that they have placed so much hope and trust in someone who was simply not going to deliver for them. A huckster who manipulates them. I don’t feel sad for the true bigots who cheer him when he trots out his wall and anti-immigrant fear and hate rhetoric.
Those who really thought the good old times were going to come back were simply gullible.
After a while, I started to see themes coming through in some cases. Probably reflecting the minority, but that minority includes avid Trump people. The reporters probably overly focused on a lot of the do-nothing types, and did not report enough of the reinvent themselves types. But there were plenty of studies out there that show the resisting change and getting retraining aren't a tiny group. I also began to connect this group to a project I worked on several years back, long before Trump. The project was to create a center (university based) that would support efforts to create wide access for online workforce development. During the research for this center, I learned something about how the govts (fed and local) try to help people thrown out of jobs. About the retraining available. And about the strong resistance of some to the idea of it. There is even stronger resistance to the idea of having to move somewhere to get the jobs that they might qualify for if they did the retraining. It’s understandable, but unfortunately, moving is sometimes necessary. And many do it. When too many have to leave, it increases the dangers of creating ghost towns, but fixing that – bringing in the jobs – is an even more challenging proposition.
My Irish side grandfather grew up on a farm on a small town near Corning NY. Somewhere he learned some building and engineering skills. His string of jobs eventually landed him in Los Angles. He worked on the Erie railroad for a while. Then, at some point he moved to a silver mining town in Nevada where he supervised a mining crew. That is where he met my grandmother, whose brother worked for the mines too. She had joined him there and became postmistress of the town. She and her brother had grown up on a farm in Nebraska near North Platte. She felt sad for the prostitutes lured there with false promises of legit jobs, and wrote letters for them to their families, assuring the families they had gotten great jobs as “waitresses” in the restaurants there, sometimes sending money home in the letters. My grandparents continued west and spent a short time in Washington state, before heading to LA around 1905 where they stayed. My grandmother had great stories! (the only grandparent I knew) In LA he started his own construction (roadbuilding) company which was quite successful. His company paved some of LA’s most famous streets for the very first time. They were dirt roads. He wouldn't believe the amount of concrete there now. The mining town in Nevada became a ghost town. There are a lot of ghost towns in the west, abandoned when the mines were worked out. This story has been repeated countless times in US history.
Jean, we can consider living in France in the less expensive areas (between Marseilles and Spain) because our fully paid off house of 46 years would rent for much more than it would cost us to rent there. In fact, it would probably cover many normal day to day expenses in addition to rent. Our SS is decent because my husband worked full-time to age 71, didn't take SS until 70. I had planned to do the same, but had to quit working when my hearing loss became too severe and couldn't work anymore. Stopped at 67, which was full-retirement age. Switched to my own account this year, at age 70 after drawing on my husband's for those three years. Mine is higher than it was when it was a percentage of his. My husband continued to work part-time until he was 74. We maxed our retirement contributions also. SS on top of rent from our house would let us live comfortably in France. Just need to convince my husband!
DeleteWe are lucky to live in an area with good jobs (and a way higher cost of living than the rural mid-west. Based on House Hunters on HGTV, a house the size of ours (only brand new with all the bells and whistles and open plans etc instead of 46 years old) in the midwest in a similar suburb of a city like Minneapolis would cost about 1/3 of what it does here). We are lucky too because we both had good educations. But all of you miedwesterners here on the board also had good educations. Some in the mid-west rural areas did not. So that's the target marget for designing retraining/re-education programs. Both of us worked full-time while earning grad degrees at night. Slower but we got there and opened up better jobs. But we and others like us are seen as coastal elites who had it easy. Well, definitely easier than many in the rural midwest in the manufacturing communities and some of the farming communities, but it wasn't just handed to us either.
So, we are now evenly defensive about our respective communities. Truce?
I admire you tremendously Jean, because of all you do and have done - for your own family, for your parish, for your extended family, for your students - while dealing with a terrible, terrible illness with the added stress of having access to decent health insurance on top of it. I don't know if you are Medicare age yet or not, but I hope so. Sick people should NOT have to stress about how to pay for care and we firmly support universal coverage for everyone even if my taxes go up.
Jim, I gave up watching news when my kids were young. When I started watching many years later we had entered the era of shouting people down and being obnoxious. So I quickly stopped watching. I prefer to focus on content, on information rather than on the personalities of the reporters and the people they are covering. I literally cannot stand to watch or listen to Trump and unfortunately, he's on TV news a lot.
TV news distracts from the real stuff because of the personality and styles of the talking heads and reporters and politicians.
Thank you for your kind words, Anne. I admire you, too, and I enjoy hearing you talk about my "old home" in the Episcopal Church.
DeleteYes, truce.
Medicare next year. I will be interested to see, given the supplemental, whether we will save any money. So far, we have been able to navigate with the help of Obamacare the early and middle phases of what the oncologist calls leukemia in slow motion.
Jim Pauwels,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote, "I can choose ...not to watch Acosta or his ridiculous network." I don't have access to CNN, and so am wondering what it's like. What do you mean when you say it's "ridiculous"?
Yeah, I don't watch it either, and am wondering what it's like also. I know that I gave up Fox a long time ago.
DeleteTo me, CNN is pro-corporate press. I get my news from Democracy Now and Catholic magazines. For me, CNN is superior to Fox in things like climate change coverage. But they don't go far enough in linking hurricanes and wild fires to climate change. Fox, of course, is in Never Never Land.
DeleteSo maybe my attitude is a little jaded from too many years of watching Jon Stewart on the Daily Show - he spent his career pillorying CNN. One of his favorite themes was how obsessed the network was with silly gadgets and technology. Here's a pretty good clip. And btw, tell me what you think to see a vital President Obama at his rhetorical peak.
Deletehttp://www.cc.com/video-clips/hziqf0/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-revolutionary-road---skyfail
Ha! I miss Jon Stewart.
DeleteMy parents always had MSNBC blaring (and Chris Matthews on blare can make your ears bleed). MSNBC spent more time on commentary than actual info, and the crawl and split screens made me dizzy.
We live in some type of broadcast dead zone where we only get PBS, prosperity gospel evangelicals, and local Fox affiliate.
I listen to the NPR for most of my news. I prefer not to get distracted with busy visuals.
CNN: We watch it until we don't, usually about 15 minutes of Anderson Cooper. I like Jeffrey Toobin who seems to march to his own drummer and very often counters Cooper's leading question. Sometimes the panels on Cooper, which pit sorta conservatives against sorts liberals have their moments. Rick Santorum has turned into a kind of schmoozy amused conservative. But over-all I agree with the criticism of CNN.
DeleteChris Cuomo (brother of Andrew) follows Cooper. He is a strong inoculation against ever thinking Andrew might make a good presidential candidate.
Acosta and CNN won in court today - whether that is the only round or just the first round of legal dispute is yet to become apparent. It may be worth noting that the judge who ruled against Trump was a Federalist-Society-endorsed Trump appointee. David French has the story at National Review's The Corner blog:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trump-appointed-judge-rules-for-cnn-jim-acosta/
Yeah, Trump said he was going to issue rules for "decorum." Quoth he: "Decorum. You have to practice decorum."
DeleteAnybody who has watched one of his press conferences -- like the one with Putin when he kissed upward and kicked downward, or like this week's -- sees someone interrupting, making snide asides, insulting people, repeating himself and lying. That is decorum as practiced by the principal.
One of his annoying practices is to call on someone, and then interrupt to go back to the previous answer. Like:
P: OK, John?
John: Sir, I'd like to ask about Burma...
P: And I told General Kelly to get right on it, and you'll hear something very soon. (To John) Go ahead.
John: Thank you. Many people have been rounded up...
P: Very soon. You people say I am overplaying the issue. Just look at what ISIS is doing there. (to John) Go ahead. It's Myanmar, by the way, not Burma.
J: Uh...
P: A lot of people are going to be surprised I know that.
The excepts you see on TV don't even hint at how much diversion, deflection and disorganization Trump creates even while arriving at the 1 minute sound bite that becomes his big deal for the day.
Decorum? I spit on his decorum.
Tom, I don't know whether that is real dialogue you quoted there, but I can aver that it is true to life. As for decorum, I guess we take a sliver of comfort that at least he learned a new word and is trying it out. My kids did that when they were three.
DeleteSo the Sass Pass Restoration Ruling seems to be temporary/contingent on the fact that Fifth Amendment "due process" was not followed. What would due process look like here?
ReplyDeleteIf I got the story right, there is no due process for this situation, but you can be sure Sarah Sanders & Co. will write up one!
DeleteAs I understood the First Amendment part of the ruling, the judge said that the White.House obviously cannot let EVERYbody in, but once in, the.pass could not be revoked for cause. I don't think it's up to Sarah et al to define "cause," not to say they won't try ...
DeleteOff topic a bit, but does anyone have any ideas about what's up with Nancy Pelosi? Apparently part of her own party doesn't think she ought to be speaker of the House again. But Trump has offered to help her out (?!)
ReplyDeleteThe Republicans have spent years demonizing Nancy because 1) she is a woman, 2) they can't imagine her constituents in San Francisco as real Americans, 3) she is a woman, 4) her Second Amendment credentials are nearly non-existent, 5) she is a woman, and 6) they can't bash Hillary Clinton all the time. Some frightened Democrats used not supporting her as garlic to keep the vampires away from their necks during the election. Trump would love to have her as Speaker because he has all his dirty little digs in his twitter phone already and because, as a red-blooded American male, he figures she would be easy. Did I mention she is a woman?
DeleteSo a large helping of misogyny; and I'm guessing ageism too. But so far the ones who say it's somebody else's turn haven't come up with a credible somebody
DeleteAgeism and sexism, right. But let's add the animosity to people who know how to get things done! Both parties seem to suffer from it.
DeleteI think Democrats see Pelosi of a piece with Hillary Clinton (cuz older woman), and Hillary not only lost them the White House, but she failed to keep it out of Trump's hands.
DeleteI haven't heard any persuasive arguments against her leadership. It's all vague grumbling about new blood and diversity.
Democrats seem poised to devour themselves. Which is good for Repubs. And bad for getting rid of Trump in 2020.
Throw in E. Warren with Pelosi and Clinton. She fits the profile, and he has a nasty nickname for her. He hasn't bothered with a new name for Schumer. It's a guy thing with him.
DeleteCryin' Chuck. Little Bob. Lyin'/Beautiful Ted.
DeleteI understand he referred to Rep. Adam Schiff in a tweet as "Little Adam Sh**". Classy.
ReplyDeleteI saw that, too. Kind of a middle-school diss, which is where he seems to be emotionally stuck.
Delete