4630

Whoever is kissing you on the cheek, they need to go on a diet.

Sorry, sometimes I can’t help it

4631

In fairness, I think it’ll take some time for the infrastructure bill to kick in, but I would expect folks to start seeing concrete impacts in the next two years, if the government is at all competent in its execution.

4632

Aye, there’s the rub, methinks.

4634

Apparently, the trick is to just say you have done a bunch of stuff, whether it’s true or not. Then average Joe and Joanne will think your presidency has been effective!

4635

To be fair, conservatives are outraged! That alone mandates wall-to-wall coverage of the “China Balloon Crisis” (per CNN).

After all the balloon is a delivery vehicle for Covid, a hoax to hurt pwesident twump and engineered by the evil genius Dr. Fauci. Don’t be a sheep and do your own research.

Seriously though, the 4th estate craves drama and if it doesn’t exist they’ll simply manufacture it. Luckily the GOP does most of the leg work for them.

4636

They sure are! Biden is a warmonger and tool of the Military Industrial complex, trying to instigate a war so his buddies can profit!

No, wait, that was last week’s memo. Biden is a wimp, he’s weak! Trump would have shot the balloon down while it was still over China to send a message! He’s making us look weak, we should immediately retaliate against China by shooting down a satellite or something!

4637

Today’s chryon for the balloon story was "Pushback on balloon shooting. So I listened to the story, eagerly awaiting some bozo bringing up some lame objection. And… nothing. After the piece ended I realized the chryon was referring to China objecting that we shot it down…

4638
4639

WaPo’s magnificent headline perfectly distilling what’s wrong with the modern press:

image

4640

Perhaps no mainstream publication did more in 2022 than the New York Times to shift the mainstream conversation around transgender equality away from obstacles to access in housing, employment, and health care and toward the idea that the most pressing issue facing the trans community is actually too much medical care. The paper’s venerable pages featured profile after profile that platformed anti-trans extremists, fearmongered about the price of transgender acceptance, and framed rising trans identification as a social contagion

4641

BEGIN RANT
Fuck The New York Times

This is part of why I absolutely despise the whole “Polls show that people think the country is heading in the wrong direction” bullshit that media like the NYT love to reiterate. What polls and what people? It is very very important to clarify whom you were asking that question to, because racist troglodyte shitgibbons will tell you the country is heading in the wrong direction because Donald Trump had an election stolen from him, Hillary’s emails, Hunter’s laptop, Critical Race Theory being taught in kindergarten and middle school bathrooms having litter boxes installed for the kids who identify as cats. Meanwhile a majority of the population will tell you the country is heading in the wrong direction because racist troglodyte shitgibbons are being given an ever increasing platform in our media and government, and now have an entire political party and multiple media outlets that cater to their racist troglodyte shitgibbonry, directly resulting in an alarming and very public rise in racism, homophobia, antisemitism and misogyny that threatens to undo decades of progress.

While FOX News, OANN and other far-right media outlets have done the majority of the heavy lifting on this, the venerable New York Times has done more than their fair share of promoting that same racism, homophobia, antisemitism and misogyny under the auspices of editorials and opinion pieces, which are the journalism equivalent of “hey, we’re just asking questions…”.

Fuck the New York Times
END RANT

4642

4643

4644

It’s weird. I know in my heart of hearts that editorial has been a thing in newspapers for a long time. Yet it feels as if they have a greater prominence than they used to. Or have more weight in shifting public opinion. But I can’t prove it.

Semi related thought - I find it a bit weird that so many of the quote-unquote-journalists who are succeeding on Substack are just former op-ed columnists, not actual reporters

4645

This from David Brooks is worth a read.

4646

I think that’s the only truly excellent column by David Brooks I’ve ever read. Well worth a read.

4647
4648

When a newspaper was on paper there would be a box saying “Highly paid opinion columnist has hot take, see page 16” on the front page. But the actual big news stories would have significant actual newsprint on the frontpage.

Now newspapers are (really) on websites the two things are on a much more equal basis. Indeed a lot of the links on the front page of a news website tend to go directly to opinion pieces.

4649

The question lurking in the minds of many with whom I’ve spoken (as well as my own): Has America gone soft?

…the notion of flexible work is a form of white-collar privilege. Americans who labor in factories or in restaurants or stores don’t have the luxury of working from home (or the quiet quitting that can accompany it)…

… we should be aware of different choices being made in other countries, particularly China, our biggest strategic adversary. The Chinese expression “996” means working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. While the Chinese government has been trying to curb this practice as part of a series of labor market reforms, in my many interactions with businessmen and investors there, I still find the prevailing work ethic extraordinary.

Author is a Wall Street stooge who had to resign from the Obama administration because he got caught embezzling from the New York state pension.

4650

Anyone who uses China’s “996” as an example should be laughed off stage immediately.