Thursday Open Thread

12 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

1. Most of me wants all journalists to quickly read this story, and start wonking out to get the audience maybe thinking about policy as opposed to horse-races and both-siderism. https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/news/2024/01/08/research-journalism-mcdevitt-punditry-democracy

   But aw hell, I've seen more stuff this morning with rumors about how FDFQ might have syphilis than anything else!

   “The U.S. news media has blood on its hands from 2016,” said Mike McDevitt, a former reporter and a professor of journalism at the College of Media, Communication and Information. “It will go down as one of the worst moments in the history of American journalism.” 

   That’s because, he said, reporters and media outlets failed to consider their role as a political institution—the so-called Fourth Estate—and their responsibility to defend democracy against a rising tide of authoritarian thought. Oftentimes, the media inadvertently contributed to the normalization of extremism, by misreading their audiences or erring in how they balance their coverage of candidates. 

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   1. Both-siderism is a business decision, not a journalistic one. 

      If the editors wanted journalism, they would tell them to do journalism.

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      1. Agreed, but I think in a lot of cases you have to go past the editors to the owners and/or publishers. That's where the real power lies.

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         1. And where the real problem lies

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   2. “'The U.S. news media has blood on its hands from 2016,' said Mike McDevitt,"

      But her emails ….

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2. Daily Kos Elections Team published this announcement:

   ● CO-05: A spokesperson for state Rep. Rose Pugliese, who serves as assistant minority leader, tells Colorado Politics that she's decided not to run to replace retiring Rep. Doug Lamborn, a fellow Republican.

    

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   1. Good. One less whack-nut in the mix. 

       

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3. Trump's Reality Show Legal behavior, Emptywheel.

   But two things about this reality theater make me convinced it is also entirely planned.

   First, something led Joe Tacopina to drop off the team the day before trial. In the past, other lawyers have dropped when they had a conflict with Boris Epshteyn, who continues to run the reality TV show that substitutes for Trump’s legal defenses. And Epshteyn even attempted to speak up, before Judge Kaplan told him, as he has told Habba repeatedly, to take a seat.

   The other indication that this has all been carefully scripted are Trump’s posts, rolling out even as he sits in the courtroom without his phone, defaming Carroll again over and over, or bitching about Kaplan. Either Trump drafted those posts in advance, or granted a staffer license to defame and attack on his behalf.

   …

    

   Trump’s entire fascist cohort would, in a normal world, be facing up to the possibility of consequences for their acts.

   But that’s not how this crowd rolls. They would rather bring down rule of law in the US than face consequences themselves. Indeed, it’s such a central part of their plan that Trump’s actually willing to spend money — or invite contempt, followed by whatever incitement with which he responds.

   It is a category error to view Trump’s trial tantrums within the rubric of normal legal consequences, even in Kaplan’s entirely predictable courtroom. They are, instead, part of a concerted effort to take down rule of law. For years, Trump has been training his cult to loathe rule of law, and his latest theater is all part of that process.

   Even as Trump is ensuring he will be the GOP’s only possibly choice in November, he is also guaranteeing that the entire party will need his attack on rule of law to succeed.

   Trump’s fascist mouthpiece, Stephen Miller, has even already started a campaign claiming that Joe Biden is causing the chaos that Trump is about to unleash.

   It’s all part of the plan.

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4. Maybe Speaker Johnson is accepting the mantle of responsibility afterall.  He seems willing to put the Kwack-A-Doodle_Doo Kaukus in their place.

   That strain between the speaker and his hard-right has begun testing the patience of other Republican lawmakers and especially among appropriators, who must negotiate and draft the annual spending bills.

   “In order to move the conservative agenda forward, we need to have Republicans vote for the rules so that we can move those issues forward. And we’re having a problem with that. It’s not a surprise. We knew that this was going to happen,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), an Appropriations Committee leader, told The Post earlier in the week. “Folks who are obstacles to bringing Republican bills to the floor? They might they call themselves what they want. They’re not conservatives.”

   Of course, it could also be a Rope-A-Dope strategy to lull Dems into believing it's smooth sailing ahead.

   Lawmakers will have to move faster to pass the 12 appropriations bills than it appears. The House and Senate are only in session together six days between Friday and March 1, the first deadline of Thursday’s bill, and 10 days between Friday and March 8, the second deadline.

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5. Tonight's vacancy committee, in HD-31 to replace Rep. Sharbini – decided on a 9-7 vote. Yep, just 16 total voters. No disrespect to the winner or participants, but that's a heckuva way to decide a House seat!

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   1. Vacancy committees certainly can be criticized.  But my standard so far is that they are flawed, but less so than other approaches. The approaches are explained by NCSL here:

      In general, the vacancy is filled either through a special election or by appointment, and the states fall evenly into two groups. Twenty-five states fill legislative vacancies through special elections. These elections may be ordered by the governor or other official after being notified of the vacancy. The time limits for the execution of a special election vary as well. The other 25 states fill legislative vacancies through some form of appointment process, whether it be by the political party of the incumbent legislator, a board of county commissioners, the governor, the legislature or members of the same house and party as the incumbent legislator.

      Special elections take a great deal of time and money, and turnout is usually abysmal.

      Appointments by the governor or impacted county commissions … have crony controversies AND can result in a partisan switch.

      Appointments by a legislature's conference avoids the partisan switch, but shifts from local activists to a less representative group. 

      So, the local vacancy committee may be a bad approach — just less bad than the others.

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      1. I basically agree with your last sentence, JID. Districts need a representative and they need one quickly, especially since the legislative session has started, so the vacancy committee gets it done in a timely manner. But I still think 16 voters making the decision is far too few, just can't see it as representative.

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