Octopus Overlords

Here's what happened: Biden extended the universal free meals programs at the nation's public schools, allowing 10 million additional kids to get lunch. Educators, who unanimously say the program is still very much needed, were all expecting another year's extension. However...

... Mitch McConnell interceded in the major spending bill that's now being assembled. He drew a hard line: no extension of the program. 10 million kids cut off from lunch. Why? And aide called it "an attempt to clamp down on government spending and get schools back to normal."

This is monstrous. Of all the things gov't is spending on ... of all the needs in the country as we still suffer a pandemic + inflation ... McConnell goes HERE to find a little extra money. Food out of 10 million kids' mouths. Fucking *monstrous*.

But ... look at the headline. "Finger-pointing ensues." What? McConnell did it! You can argue over his reasons, but everyone acknowledges he did it! Only one finger need point, in one direction, FFS!

A few 'graphs down: "Democrats and a long list of school groups are pointing at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for taking a hardline stance against extending the waivers."

Because ... he did it!!! That's why they're pointing at him! It's not a question!

And then we get this, from the head of the School Nutritional Association: "Congress' failure to act will undoubtedly cause students to go hungry and leave school meal programs in financial peril."

"Congress" failed to act? "Congress"?! IT. WAS. MCCONNELL.

Daehawk wrote: Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:03 pm I think if I had a kid and I couldn't afford to buy them a lunch each day or pack them one and they yanked their free one from the school Id yank my kid from school.

President Biden’s gaffe about Vladimir Putin and Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony were demonstrations of a single phenomenon.

Let me explain.

Saturday, in Warsaw, addressing Putin’s war in Ukraine, Biden departed from his prepared remarks with this coda: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” He was roundly and justifiably criticized for implying that the United States is seeking the ouster of Russia’s president. Biden has since explained that he was merely expressing “moral outrage,” insisting that it’s “ridiculous” to think he was articulating a policy of regime change.

The problem is that expressions of this kind of personal sentiment are the province of casual speech. Biden’s speech was supposed to be a formal statement to a world audience, in which certain phraseologies carry specific meanings. For example, in his case for war, Putin warned that “consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history”; it was read to imply that Russia might use nuclear weapons to deter any third-party country from interfering with its invasion.

Biden elided the line between the formal and the casual, because the off-the-cuff and even clumsy remark is his wont, from comparing La Guardia Airport to a “third-world country” to dropping an f-bomb when Obamacare was signed into law. In contrast, and despite the relatively conversational tone of his fireside chats, Franklin D. Roosevelt never seemed to go off message. We know about the colorful, even profane things Lyndon B. Johnson said behind closed doors, but he wasn’t known for saying them before the cameras.

One might be inclined to let Biden’s more unbuttoned approach pass as a personality quirk, especially today, when the line between the formal and the informal in public language has become so much hazier. The president’s oratorical messiness could be seen as consonant with the eclipse of the fedora and dancing according to plotted steps — but not this time. When the topic is war, the old ways are the only proper ones: Biden’s feelings weren’t supposed to edge out the objectivity of officialese, and his contorted effort to explain away his remark is one of his more obtuse moments.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Smith and anything to do with Biden may seem thin. But my take on what Smith did at the Oscars is that in a moment of umbrage, he, too, lost sight of the line — choosing a vernacular, of sorts, while in a regimented setting. To slap Rock was, of course, utterly unpardonable — and to an extent so stark that it gets one surmising about the psychology behind it.

...

From voting rights and redistricting to abortion and public education, state capitols across the United States are at the epicenter of the nation’s key public policy debates. This has been especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic, as state capitol buildings became ground zero in the debate over mask and vaccine mandates and other pandemic policies.

A new Pew Research Center study finds that the total number of reporters assigned to the 50 state capitols to inform citizens about legislative and administrative activity has increased by 11% since 2014, the last time this study was conducted. The gain comes largely from two main developments: new nonprofit news outlets that are employing statehouse reporters, and a shift to more part-time statehouse reporting.

El Guapo wrote: Thu Apr 07, 2022 1:48 pm Swan is really great.

Though at the same time...doesn't really get anywhere at the end of the day. McConnell just switches between assorted pre-set banal responses, and then at a certain point (as Swan presses) he just stops letting him finish questions, and never really admits anything or gives any substantive answers. What can you do though, I suppose.

malchior wrote: Thu Apr 07, 2022 1:56 pm

El Guapo wrote: Thu Apr 07, 2022 1:48 pm Swan is really great.

Though at the same time...doesn't really get anywhere at the end of the day. McConnell just switches between assorted pre-set banal responses, and then at a certain point (as Swan presses) he just stops letting him finish questions, and never really admits anything or gives any substantive answers. What can you do though, I suppose.

That's true. He'll never get Mitch to confess but what the approach does is make the evasion a prominent feature. Instead of just accepting it and shrugging as usual, Swan is highlighting the evasion. It also obviously makes McConnell uncomfortable in a way which is helpful potentially. He might end up saying more than he would otherwise. I just contrast it to the normal "playbook" which tends to accept the answer and ends up incentivizing evasion. If you always get away with it without a cost, why should you ever truthfully answer questions? If more journalists followed his example it'd potentially have some cost at least.

Kurth wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 12:10 pm I loved that exchange between Swan and McConnel. I think Swan’s great, and I don’t agree that he didn’t get anywhere. I also don’t think McConnell was all that evasive. After his opening attempts at joking around Swan’s questions (“My wife thinks I’m a great guy.”), McConnell engages and answers the question: There is no “moral red line” for him. None. I don’t know what more he could say to make it plainer that, for him, it’s party uber alles.

He pretty much owned it. He said he’s not walking back anything he said post 1/6, but he doesn’t get to pick the GOP nominee, and he’ll be supporting whoever that is, even if it’s Trump.

That seems pretty on point and pretty substantive to me.

Kurth wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 12:10 pm

malchior wrote: Thu Apr 07, 2022 1:56 pm

El Guapo wrote: Thu Apr 07, 2022 1:48 pm Swan is really great.

Though at the same time...doesn't really get anywhere at the end of the day. McConnell just switches between assorted pre-set banal responses, and then at a certain point (as Swan presses) he just stops letting him finish questions, and never really admits anything or gives any substantive answers. What can you do though, I suppose.

That's true. He'll never get Mitch to confess but what the approach does is make the evasion a prominent feature. Instead of just accepting it and shrugging as usual, Swan is highlighting the evasion. It also obviously makes McConnell uncomfortable in a way which is helpful potentially. He might end up saying more than he would otherwise. I just contrast it to the normal "playbook" which tends to accept the answer and ends up incentivizing evasion. If you always get away with it without a cost, why should you ever truthfully answer questions? If more journalists followed his example it'd potentially have some cost at least.

I loved that exchange between Swan and McConnel. I think Swan’s great, and I don’t agree that he didn’t get anywhere. I also don’t think McConnell was all that evasive. After his opening attempts at joking around Swan’s questions (“My wife thinks I’m a great guy.”), McConnell engages and answers the question: There is no “moral red line” for him. None. I don’t know what more he could say to make it plainer that, for him, it’s party uber alles.

He pretty much owned it. He said he’s not walking back anything he said post 1/6, but he doesn’t get to pick the GOP nominee, and he’ll be supporting whoever that is, even if it’s Trump.

That seems pretty on point and pretty substantive to me.

El Guapo wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 2:45 pm But on top of everything else, a vanishingly small percentage of the conservative base will see this, because of our fractured media and because the GOP has a propaganda network focused on its core supporters. I'm thinking more lately that the real harm done by Fox News may even be less what it does cover (though that does do harm) and more what it doesn't cover (negative stories about Republicans other than for RINO deviations from conservative orthodoxy).

Kurth wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2022 12:44 am @malchior - Totally understand you are not throwing shade at Swan. He’s great, and I think on that we agree. I just think the extra something you’re looking for from McConnell is basically a confession, and that’s never gonna happen.

The real question Swan never asked but that I’d really like to see put to McConnell isn’t whether he’s party uber alles — I think it’s clear that he is and also that his answers to Swan’s questions basically confirmed that. The real question is, “Why?” McConnell tries to make it out that he’s all about “the people’s choice” and that he’s just a public servant, but I think we all know that is complete and utter bullshit. If given the opportunity, I’d love to see McConnell really pushed on how every one of his political moves is really just a calculated play to maximize and retain personal power.

malchior wrote:Cool.

Warner Bros. Discovery has suspended all external marketing spend for CNN+ and has laid off CNN's longtime chief financial officer as it weighs what to do with the subscription streaming service moving forward, five sources tell Axios.

Why it matters: Inside CNN, executives think the launch has been successful. Discovery executives disagree.

• CNN+ has roughly 150,000 subscribers so far.

• Warner Bros. Discovery wants to eventually build one giant service around HBO Max.

• New leadership has replaced CNN CFO Brad Ferrer with Neil Chugani, Discovery's current CFO for streaming and international, as part of a broader finance team restructuring.

• Other high-level positions at WarnerMedia across different business functions are likely to be eliminated to cut costs and streamline leadership in coming weeks.

What to watch: Sources say a plan is being considered to replace Chris Cuomo's 9:00pm EST primetime slot with a live newscast, instead of personality-driven perspective programming.

stessier wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:26 am I'm not sure that belongs in the Death Watch thread. Not saying to move it, just saying that the failure of that service doesn't have any broader implications to me as it seemingly launched with no idea of who CNN's watchers were or how people want to get their information from the internet.

TIL that people still don't understand why so many journalists are mad at Dean Baquet and the NYT.

Yes! There has been much amazing reporting done.

Yes! You can point to many articles about Trump and an anti-democratic GOP.

But, the NYT--uniquely--has the ability to concentrate the world's attention and drive coverage on TV, radio, and every other paper.

It has, largely, used that power to OVER emphasize minor Democratic issues and to UNDER emphasize major GOP issues.

It seems reasonable to expect that historians will remember this period in US history as a time in which a muscular anti-Democratic ethnonationalism emerged and sought to eliminate the country's fundamental values.

The NYT presents the world in which the single-most damaging issue is that people don't get along more, are more divisive, more angry.

It's lapel-grabbing, attention shaping power has, largely, been used to focus the world's attention on nothing issues, like her emails.

Worse, the editor of the NYT is, ex oficio, the definer of high church journalistic best practice.

Baquet has been explicit: if we report on things in such a way that more on "the left" consistently like and more on "the right" consistently don't like, then we have failed.

This is independent of the actual facts on the ground.

This has directly impacted the day-to-day journalistic decisions of the NYT and, as a result, much of the rest of the media.

It is not hard to imagine a different approach. Say Baquet had announced that the NYT's role is to pay close attention to important issues and to cover them factually, accurately, and fearlessly, with appropriate context.

That seems like a fair description of journalism.

I feel confident that nearly every front page, every hero block on nyt.com for the last four years would have been different.

The articles would have been different.

Sharper. Better. More accurate.

malchior wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 8:34 am Baquet has been explicit: if we report on things in such a way that more on "the left" consistently like and more on "the right" consistently don't like, then we have failed.

malchior wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:24 pm

stessier wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:26 am I'm not sure that belongs in the Death Watch thread. Not saying to move it, just saying that the failure of that service doesn't have any broader implications to me as it seemingly launched with no idea of who CNN's watchers were or how people want to get their information from the internet.

My reason for including it is I align this with the bigger trends - vis a vis big business daddies killing news services chasing dollars via media consolidation deals is one of the core root reasons we have this media mess.

Carpet_pissr wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 10:33 am

malchior wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 8:34 am Baquet has been explicit: if we report on things in such a way that more on "the left" consistently like and more on "the right" consistently don't like, then we have failed.

Those were his words, or a translation/consolidation by a twitterer?

Max Peck wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 12:30 pm I don't think it was a matter of conceding defeat. CNN+ launched just before WB Discovery assumed control of CNN, and WB Discovery killed it immediately because it didn't fit into their streaming strategy. The surprising thing is the apparent lack of coordination between CNN and their incoming overlords. As I understand it, the guy at CNN who has to answer for the money invested in CNN+ has already been fired and was replaced by someone from WB Discovery.