tvmojoe.bsky.social
West coast editor for New York Mag's Vulture. (Middle-aged) child of television. Allen Ludden superfan. YouTube archaeologist.
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Anyway, as we all learned from the widespread praise for Good Night and Good Luck, it is vitally important that journalists be able to speak about the powerful with bluntness and clarity, as long as it happened 70 years ago www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/a...
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Imagining a world where we had Milton Bradley’s CLEW game… it certainly makes sense as a spelling. And I guess it’s the original spelling of when a “clew” was literally a ball of yarn? janeaddams.ramapo.edu/2023/06/get-...
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this is ABC's main story about the matter. They may well (finally) be doing separate stories just on that aspect in order to get extra clicks. But this is the central framing. abcnews.go.com/US/mistakenl...
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But I'm sorry, those tidbits are not worth ignoring who Carlson is and how Wells has abetted his rise. Wells says Trump had no approval over content, but he doesn't need it! Carlson is fulling in the tank.
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Yes, but the ABC report (at least at the time I posted) buried that key detail halfway down the story. That IS the story--not the prosecution or alleged crimes.
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The fact that outlets like WaPo and ABC are willing to show such deference to law enforcement and the government even when there are so many red flags just underscores how broken mainstreaming reporting on crime and justice in the US is, as @radleybalko.bsky.social has reported repeatedly.
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But the story here is a clear abuse of prosecutorial power, not that some guy DURING TRUMP'S FIRST TERM, might have engaged in low-level illegal activity so it's OK to send him to a dungeon in El Salvador without a trial.
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None of this means that Abrego Garcia has the right to be in the US. It's also possible he might have driven undocumented persons across state lines as cops in 2022 suspected he was doing. That's not the same as "human smuggling" or some of the crazy things Bondi accused him of doing w/o charging.
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Adding sentences deep into a story hinting that these could be literally Trump-ed up charges doesn't make the story balanced. It just underscores how these outlets are helping Trump/Bondi by refusing to lead with the obvious: The WH is politically prosecuting someone to avoid admitting it messed up
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"Washington has become the court of Nero, an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a jester high on ketamine in charge of purging the civil service.
This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States."
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My dad would give me $10, and I’d just roam around the neighborhood for hours. I’d walk up to 7-11 and buy whatever I wanted (usually candy and newspapers like the LA Herald-Examiner because, yes, I was a nerd who knew I wanted to be a reporter since I was like 11.)
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Sorry to be so earnest and even corny. We've always had national embarassments and disgraces, from racism and unchecked capitalism to foreign disasters like Iraq and VIetnam. I don't know that we've ever been a total joke of a country....until now.
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...and most of all, that this is what the US is now. We've gone from a country envied around the world (despite our very real flaws+evils) to an idiot-led, dysfunctional oligarchy on the verge of becoming an autocracy. So many died in the Civil War, WWII and the civil rights movement for...this.
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I got this email today.
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...there's still a (perhaps overly conspiratorial) part of me that thinks some of this is for show, either with or without Trump's knowledge. The tell will be what changes get made to the budget bill in the Senate. If this ends with Musk claiming victory, then this was a planned fight, IMO.
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Say, "We agree this bill will explode the deficit--because it slashes taxes far more than it cuts spending, while the spending it cuts will cost us more in the long run."
But overall, while it's surely possible Musk just used Trump then walked away OR Trump WH pushed Musk out...
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This is also why it's dumb for any Dem to just carelessly say "Elon is right." It has to be, "He's right this bill is bad but the reason it balloons the budget isn't 'pork'--it's tax cuts for Elon and his billioaire pals." Co-opt the critique but point out the hyprocrisy.
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And honestly, I think people inside the Trump WH would have preferred even deeper cuts but were probably overruled earlier by cabinet secretatries, GOP interest groups, etc. If the end result is a bill that cuts MORE spending while keeping tax cuts for rich? Trump, Musk both happy.
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When Dems suggest doing soemthing good (make college free, make health care a right), media focus on cost: "You can't pay for it! It's a lot of money."
When Trump suggests doing something awful, media frames it as "Dems and special interest groups are opposed, but people in diners love it."
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Trump's "big" plans always operate from a place of fear ("build a wall! kick out 'bad' people! erase trans Americans!") or sound big but actually help relatively few (no tax on tips, no tax on social security.) But they're showy and media love 'em.
Dem plans? Not so much.
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She went big on big, workable ideas that were broadly popular and helpful to most Americans-- vs., say, canceling student debt, which benefits a lot of Americans but not most (given how many Americans paid for college years ago. BTW, I support prorgams to cancel or greatly reduce student debt!)