May 1, 2018

The White House Correspondents' Dinner Has Always Been A Bad Idea by Parker Molloy

Each spring, journalists, politicians, and celebrities make their way to the Washington Hilton for the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. The fundraiser for the White House Correspondents’ Association is a time-honored tradition that dates back almost a century.

But it needs to end.

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The dinner, which dates back to 1921, has been the setting of an uncomfortable standoff between journalists and the people they cover. President Calvin Coolidge first attended the gathering in 1924, as have 14 other presidents since. In the 1980s, the WHCA began hiring comedians to “roast” the people and organizations in attendance, a tradition that continues today. In 1993, C-SPAN began airing the event live, putting the awkward hobnobbing on display for the whole world to see.

Since then, critics have argued that the event has become a bloated spectacle that gives Americans an unflattering look at how Washington journalism’s proverbial sausage is made. In 1972, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson even warned of the coziness between journos and politicos at events like the Correspondents’ dinner: “The most consistent and ultimately damaging failure of political journalism in America has its roots in the clubby/cocktail personal relationships that inevitably develop between politicians and journalists — in Washington or anywhere else that they meet on a day-to-day basis. When professional antagonists become after-hours drinking buddies, they are not likely to turn each other in.”

<snip>

Michelle Wolf, the comedian hired as the evening’s entertainment, did what she was brought there to do: She poked fun at the powerful. The jokes were biting, but they weren’t in any way out of the ordinary for the event. Her observations included the fact that Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders lies a lot (this is objectively true), that Trump might not be as rich as he claims he is (there’s a lot of evidence to suggest this is the case), and highlighted the hypocrisy of self-professed “pro-life” members of Congress who pay for their wives and mistresses’ abortions in secret (just last year a Republican member of the House retired for this very reason).

<snip>

With their inability to recognize their error, the WHCA illustrates exactly why its sycophantic relationship with politicians is unhealthy for the industry and for democracy as a whole. Like Thompson says: If you’re afraid of upsetting the powerful and losing access, if you’re afraid of making them dislike you, how are you supposed to hold their feet to the fire?

Washington journalists, and the WHCA specifically, need to recognize the crucial role they play in our country. Journalism is one of the only professions given an explicit shoutout in the Constitution, and for good reason: Journalists need to serve as a check on our government’s worst impulses.

more: https://www.good.is/articles/ending-the-white-house-correspondents-dinner

May 1, 2018

The Hill won't attend the WHCD without major reforms

Profiles in Cowardice...

The Hill to end attendance at WHCA dinner without 'major reforms'

The Hill said Tuesday it is pulling out of future White House Correspondents' dinners without “major reforms” to the event following the controversy that erupted over comedian Michelle Wolf’s performance at this year’s dinner on Saturday.

“The Hill, which has participated in the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner for many years, does not plan at this time to participate in the event moving forward,” James Finkelstein, The Hill’s chairman, wrote in a letter dated Tuesday to Steven Thomma, executive director of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

“In short, there's simply no reason for us to participate in something that casts our profession in a poor light. Major changes are needed to the annual event,” the letter states.

Finkelstein’s letter criticized Wolf’s performance as “out of line” and said that The Hill hoped the dinner could get “back to talking about the importance of the Fourth Estate without the kind of ugly sideshow that completely overshadowed the event this year.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/385636-the-hill-to-end-attendance-at-white-house-correspondents-dinner-without-major

May 1, 2018

Jeff Bezos is an asshole. "The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is...

....by converting my @amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it."

SFW about WaPo - he's as fucked up as Trump/Theil/Koch/etc...



Jeff Bezos is worth $131 billion, according to Forbes, and the Amazon founder and CEO is clear about the primary way he plans to spend that much money: getting to space.

"The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it," Bezos says in an interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner, published by Business Insider on Saturday.

Bezos says his work on Blue Origin, his space company, "is the most important work that I'm doing."

"Blue Origin is expensive enough to be able to use that fortune," he says. "I am currently liquidating about $1 billion a year of Amazon stock to fund Blue Origin. And I plan to continue to do that for a long time. Because you're right, you're not going to spend it on a second dinner out."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/30/jeff-bezos-says-this-is-how-he-plans-to-spend-the-bulk-of-his-fortune.html

April 30, 2018

Getting Republicans Elected Every November-Second Green Party candidate turns out to secretly be a..

Second Green Party candidate turns out to secretly be a Republican shocking!

Scrambling for ways to hold on to power through November’s midterm cycle, it seems Republicans are opting to back phony Green Party candidates in hopes of confusing voters.

After all, in a close contest a Green Party candidate siphoning away a few thousands votes from Democrats could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

<snip>

The the latest instance involves incumbent Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY). It turns out the one-time Green Party candidate Michael Zack, who abruptly dropped out this month after questions were raised about his background, used to intern in Collins’ office.

“The former Green Party candidate in a Congressional race has been exposed as a Republican plant with ties to the GOP congressman he supposedly sought to challenge,” the Daily Beast reports.

Previous and since-removed social media posts tag Zack as a far-right conservative. He’s not someone committed to the Green Party agenda of ending war and advocating for clean energy.

more: https://shareblue.com/republicans-fake-green-party-candidates-chris-collins-new-york-ny-27/

April 30, 2018

The worthless Washington media

The worthless Washington media by Ryan Cooper



The U.S. is a rotten basketcase of a nation, with an ancient and constantly backfiring Constitution, a severe case of declining empire neurosis, and an executive branch shot through with criminals and scam artists.

The elite press corps of the imperial capital plays an important part in our government's corruption, as was on vivid display once more with the tired charade of the White House Correspondents' Dinner this weekend. Comedian Michelle Wolf did what political comedians are supposed to do — use jokes to cut through the comfortable hypocrisy and expose some unpleasant truths, namely that the Trump administration is full of disgustingly amoral cretins. Much of the assembled crowd of bigshot reporters then played their part, performing scandalized outrage in defense of the corrupt regime.

<snip>

I was a bit curious to see if things would change this time, as Trump is not even bothering to hide how he is using the presidency to enrich himself, multiple former administration and campaign officials are under indictment or have pleaded guilty to serious crimes, and Trump himself is constantly whipping up psychotic anti-media hatred. Indeed, during the dinner itself, Trump was lambasting the media at a rally: "Is this better than that phony Washington White House Correspondents' Dinner? Is this more fun?" (The crowd roared.)

But no. When Wolf launched a few mild zingers at Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway — saying that Sanders' "smoky eye" makeup was made from "burnt facts," speculating about how to get Conway trapped under a tree, and attacking CNN for profiting off the Trump presidency — most of the elite D.C. press leaped to their defense. CNN's Chris Cillizza said Wolf was bullying Sanders. MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski tweeted that Wolf's makeup joke was "deplorable." The New York Times' Maggie Haberman wrote that it was "impressive" that Sanders didn't walk out. "Being mean isn't funny," whined Politico Playbook. "It's mean." Mike Allen, the dean of D.C.'s political journalists and (not coincidentally) an extraordinarily ethically compromised person himself, announced: "Media hands Trump big, embarrassing win."

<snip>

Let's be frank here: The basic job of Sanders and Conway is to lie and dissemble on behalf of a corrupt president who has taken vicious media-baiting far beyond the Spiro Agnew level. They do it nearly every time they open their mouths. That it is possible to react to these mild insults outside of this overtly and personally threatening context is final confirmation that the above journalists are not capable of perceiving the reality of the American state, much less how they are enabling it. As Alex Pareene once noted, "These people practice a form of corruption in which the corrupt individual literally cannot understand why anyone wouldn't consider him or her a stalwart and productive member of society."

more: http://theweek.com/articles/770441/worthless-washington-media

April 30, 2018

Lost in Translation "President Trump can take the Nobel prize. All we need to take is peace"

Just in case DU's righties think the South Korean President actually said that Trump deserved the Nobel Prize as the US Koch controlled media is reporting.

https://twitter.com/elisewho/status/990937026307309568

April 30, 2018

Former George W. Bush ethics lawyer chooses to run for U.S. Senate as a Democrat

Former George W. Bush ethics lawyer ditches GOP, to seek U.S. Senate in Minn. as Democrat



Richard Painter, a longtime Republican who was chief ethics lawyer for George W. Bush's White House, intends to run for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota this year as a Democrat, according to a filing he made recently with federal elections officials.

<snip>

Painter, 56, a University of Minnesota professor of corporate law who is seeking elected office for the first time, lives in Mendota Heights with his wife, Karen, an associate professor of music history at the U. They moved to Minnesota in 2007 and have children.

He announced last month that he was forming an exploratory committee. At that time, he said he was unsure whether he would run as a Republican, Democrat or independent.

"I need to think about whether there's a place for me" in the GOP, he said at the time. "I'm going to be considering any and all options." He described himself as "a centrist in many ways — right up the middle." He said he has supported Democrats.

<snip>

Painter has said that if he runs, he would not accept donations from political action committees, super PACs or what he called "dark money" groups.


http://www.startribune.com/former-george-w-bush-ethics-lawyer-to-run-for-u-s-senate-as-a-democrat/481182291/

April 29, 2018

Republican Ana Navarro comments on the WHCD

https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/990574849692139520

April 28, 2018

"I recommend you lonely incels try it some time. Just to make her afraid."

online incel boasts of following a 14 year old girl that wanted nothing to do with him...

https://twitter.com/iAmTheWarax/status/990308589515440134

https://twitter.com/iAmTheWarax/status/990308607949443074

https://twitter.com/iAmTheWarax/status/990308634667208704

https://twitter.com/iAmTheWarax/status/990308673669955585

April 12, 2018

What do conservatives actually care about?

Based on the actions of their leadership the past almost 40 years, I personally think they don't care about anything but making sure that nothing changes for the better. If I'm full of it, talk me down.