And Fox Shall Have No Dominion

Posted a response to the settlement of Dominion vs. Fox News on the Substack Wednesday, a little bit depressed along with Steve, and forgot to notify you all here, immersed as I was in the vileness of Milo and Ali and the rest of them, but anyhow it's at the above link, and I think it's got at least half an idea that might be of interest, and to which I might return sometime. If you haven't seen it, you could have a look.

Also on the Substack, a little housekeeping info: I'm still not completely sure what I want to do with it, or exactly why, except that it has to do with the broader project of detaching myself from the Twitter, as Elmo's mismanagement gets to be more and more of a problem—in the latest, celebrating his favorite holiday of 4/20, he took away all the blue checkmarks of verification from those who were verified, while keeping it for the marks who had ponied up $8, so now they are all like the imperial cronies who purchased baronies on the cheap from Napoleon III, so that the check is now literally an indication that the possessor is nobody, like the unfortunate Mr. Turd:

Spicey Meatball

Melissa McCarthy, via Death and Taxes.

You know what I'd like Sean Spicer to do? I'd like him to show up on national television to tell everybody in the world that taxpayers were paying him substantial sums of money to tell the American people lies so incredible he could hardly keep a straight face, and that rather than being ashamed of this abuse of the public trust he actually thought it was kind of funny.

Oh wait, that's what he did.

The narrative of what a terrible thing Colbert and the Emmy producers did in having Spicey on the show, participating in the mockery of his character, is being led by folks like Chris Cillizza

Hollywood validated -- and celebrated --lying last nighthttps://t.co/y5E992y4bR pic.twitter.com/nacydFKyEo

— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) September 18, 2017

and Frank Bruni—

The Four Clarifications

Via haggadot.com.

My favorite Passover tradition is the Clarification of the Holocaust Remarks

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) April 11, 2017

The first Spicer is the wise Spicer, who explained that Hitler wasn't gassing his own people. True! He didn't think Jews were people. /1 https://t.co/j2EMNk5bwk

— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) April 12, 2017

The second Spicer is the wicked Spicer, who suggested that you just don't use airplanes on innocent people because gas chambers are better?

— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) April 12, 2017

The third Spicer is the simple Spicer, who was worried about using airplanes on population centers instead of "Holocaust centers"?

— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) April 12, 2017

And the fourth Spicer is the one who forgot, "What is the question?"

— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) April 12, 2017

The Designated Liar

Another courageous thing Fred Hiatt did once, in 1999. Fortuitously it should help him manage Wapo's opinion coverage of the Trump White House.

Fred Hiatt joins the #Resistance!

Greatest moment in the history of Twitter

Up for a week now (h/t PalmerReport) and he still hasn't deleted it, but here's a screen shot just in case.

Facts are stubborn things. But you could try flattering them.

Poster print, 1900, via Wikimedia Commons.

Verbatim press secretary Sean Spicer, as reported in the LA Times:

“It's not about one tweet. It's not about one picture. It's about a constant theme,” Spicer said in a lengthy monologue. “It's about sitting here every time and being told, ‘No. Well, we don't think he can do that. He'll never accomplish that. He can't win that. It won't be the biggest. It's not gonna be that good. The crowds aren't that big. He's not that successful.’" 

Spicer spent more time on the subject than on any other issue during a briefing of more than an hour in which he was asked about such weighty topics as the U.S. Embassy in Israel, immigration and tax reform....

“It's an amazing view,” Spicer said. “And then to hear, ‘Well, look at this shot,’ and ... ‘It wasn't that big.’ It's a little demoralizing because when you're sitting there and you're looking out and you're in awe of just how awesome that view is and how many people are there and you go back and you turn on the television and you see shots of comparing this and that.”

I mean right, can you imagine how Obama would have whined if they'd treated him like that, belittling his every accomplishment by comparing him to somebody who did it three times better and by coldly and cruelly examining the evidence?