Category Archives: Journalism

UPDATED: Larry Wilmore Roasted The Reporters

Barack Obama, Celebrity, Journalism, Media, Race

Actually, I was wrong to dismiss comic Larry Wilmore; he had his moments at the White House Correspondent Dinner, 2016. When those came, they were good. Did you see all the sourpuss faces, Wolf Blitzer and the females, especially? (Wilmore was easy on Donald Trump, for some reason.)

My favorite lines:

“It’s nice to match the names (in this room) to the faces in the Panama Papers.”

Apropos the president’s drone dropping, “Obama can’t be killing print journalism tonight, that industry has been dead for a while.”

“Speaking of drones how is Wolf Blitzer still on TV?”

“I used to watch CNN back when it was a news network.”

“Beyoncé is not anti-cop, at the most, she’s anti-pants.”

“MSNBC put Chris Hayes on probation because they thought he was related to Isaac Hayes.”

“MSNBC got rid of so many black people I thought Boko Haram was running it.”

“Lincoln Chafee is back to doing what he does best, manning the pottery booth at the craft fair.”

“In less than a year, Mr. president, you’ll be playing golf every day. Some things won’t be that different.”

“After eight years in the White House, Mr. president, we are really going to miss Michelle.”

UPDATE (5/1): No good jokes from Obama, who used to turn in good performances at the DC Sycophants’Dinner.

2016 Annual White House Sycophants’ Supper

Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Ethics, Government, Journalism, Media

The annual White House Sycophants’ Dinner is where the most pretentious people in the country—in politics, journalism and entertainment—convene to revel in their ability to petition and curry favor with one another, usually to the detriment of the rest of us in Rome’s provinces. Those gathered at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, or its Christmas party, are not the country’s natural aristocracy, but its authentic Idiocracy.

The events and the invited say a great deal about the press, its ethics and code of conduct. Like nothing else, the Sycophant’s Supper is a mark of a corrupt politics and press, as the un-watchful dogs of the media have no business frolicking with the president and his minions. This co-optation, however, is the hallmark of the celebrity press, in general. The days following these glitzy events, the Gilded Ones will spend genuflecting to … themselves.

The 2015 gig was given to an affirmative action stand-up comic, talent-less Cecily Weak. Expect a repeat with this year’s anti-white prize fighter, Comedy Central’s Larry Wilmore. Wilmore is neither talented nor funny. He’s going to be gunning for The Great White, Donald Trump, who should, frankly, give the event a miss.

Warned Omarosa Manigault: “I think there’s going to be a lot of jokes about Trump. But I think the biggest joke is on them because he’s going to be the President of the United States.”

President Barack Obama, however, is capable of being very funny, although his political exploits have marred his ability to make thinking people laugh at any of his jokes, no matter how self-deprecating.

Funny Obama past jokes:

* “And I’m feeling sorry — believe it or not — for the Speaker of the House, as well. These days, the House Republicans actually give John Boehner a harder time than they give me, which means orange really is the new black.”

* “Let’s face it Fox, you’ll miss me when I’m gone. It’ll be harder to convince the American people that Hillary was born in Kenya.”

* Obama on CNN’s wall-to-wall coverage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 – a frequent target of the night’s jokes: He noted that he had just returned from a trip to Malaysia. “The lengths we have to go to to get CNN coverage these days,” Obama said, adding, “I think they’re still searching for their table” at the Hilton ballroom.

* “MSNBC is here, they’re a little overwhelmed. They’ve never seen an audience this big before.”

Jay Leno’s routine at the SS 2010 was the best, because he was way smarter and certainly more politically astute.

‘Shahs of Sunset’ Christiane Amanpoor Mocks ‘Poor Me’ America

Celebrity, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Iran, Journalism, Media, Race

In ways intellectual, Christiane Amanpoor is impoverished. The famous CNN anchor, however, is not poor. Amanpoor’s net worth is $12.5 Million. She’s lived, loved and worked among the upper echelons her entire life, in her birth place of Iran, too. Amanpoor is more authentically “Shahs of Sunset” than ordinary America.

Read how Amapoor conflates America (“rich”) with Americans (many of whom are awfully poor).

Via Media Matters comes Christian Amanpoor’s take on Trump’s America. She apparently is unfamiliar with white, working-class demographics:

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: [Donald Trump] always comes back to the dollars and cents. So, America’s broke, therefore, America’s weak. These are not true, right, so everybody else has to pony up. This is a businessman’s view of the world, presumably. But it doesn’t make sense when he talks about, for instance, NATO. NATO is not obsolete. Yes, NATO was created 60-plus years ago in response to the Soviet threat. But still, NATO is the organizing principle by which American and the Western democracies’ security is taken care of. And NATO is not just about the United States putting money in. It’s about all the other countries putting in their two percent of GDP as well. Now, they don’t all, that’s true, and America wants them to put more than they do right now. But a good number, nearly half of the NATO countries, put their two percent of GDP in. And the other countries do certain things that America doesn’t do. Now, America, because it is the most powerful military in the world, does a lot of the heavy lifting. You know, you have a military operation and America will do the troop lifting, for instance. Or it will do, you know, many of those kinds of things. But many of the other countries, whether it’s in Afghanistan or elsewhere, pick up a huge lot of the burden as well.

BROOKE BALDWIN (HOST): What about his point on nukes, how he said specifically he would be open to allowing Japan and South Korea to build their own nuclear arsenals so they can protect themselves from North Korea and China?

AMANPOUR: Well again, that puts on its head decades of the United States and its Pacific allies’ security relationship, and this is one of the first times we’ve heard a serious candidate, if not the first time, who will probably be the nominee for the Republican Party, put that forward, and it’s not a Republican sort of point of view that I’ve ever heard in previous elections. This poor me, America’s weak kind of thing is not the way Republicans generally see their view, and Americans’ view in the world. So one of the reasons why Japan does not have a nuclear arsenal is because of the horror that Japan committed during the Second World War. So Japan has been kind of forced to be a pacifist, pretty much, state. It has a military but it’s not an offensive military capability. And so there was a tradeoff. OK, you trade that off. And if there’s a problem, we’ll come to your rescue. But in the meantime, you’ll help us keep the peace in many other ways in that region. So that’s one of the reasons why Japan doesn’t have nukes. And then of course, well, when it comes to ISIS and all the other things, you need allies to be able to go and help you. [CNN, CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, 3/28/16]

April Fields’ Day: Michelle Fool & Journalism’s Feminization

Feminism, Gender, Journalism, Media, Pop-Culture, Republicans

“April Fields’ Day: Michelle Fool & Journalism’s Feminization” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

In the 1990s, broadcaster Charles Sykes wrote an important book called “A Nation Of Victims: The Decay of the American Character.”

Fast forward to 2016, and Mr. Sykes is defending a character on grounds he once rejected in his trailblazing book.

When Mr. Sykes lamented the “The Decay of the American Character,” no reader was under the impression it was the mettle of reporter Michelle Fields he was hankering for and hoping to see restored.

I’ve watched the grainy footage that has fueled the hysterics of Ms. Fields and her shameful sisterhood, housebroken males included. The whole world has watched.

In it, Donald Trump can be clearly observed recoiling defensively, as Ms. Fields presses up against him.

Invisible to the naked eye was the assault Fields alleges.

Still, if Hillary Clinton’s flesh were being pressed by a reporter like Fields, and sidekick Huma Abedin forcefully flicked the reporter aside, I’d say the same. No assault occurred. No litigation should follow. Leave Huma the heck alone.

In other words, a reasonable individual can easily accept—even in the absence of visual evidence—that a protective campaign manager, former cop Corey Lewandowski, might have instinctively shoved the pushy reporter away from Mr. Trump.

To frame this melee as an assault and manufacture a national incident is beneath contempt; is disgraceful.

Unacceptable is that the law rushed to validate Fields’ hurt feelings by charging Lewandowski with a misdemeanor battery.

As unacceptable was the reaction of Ms. Fields and her solipsistic sisters—those with the Y chromosome included.

Ms. Fields is not a victim and her conduct demonstrates decay of character.

Were she a reasonable professional, Ms. Fields would’ve grasped that there was no intention to harm her; only to protect a man who is in constant, real danger. (A bruised massive ego aside, Fields was unharmed.) …

… “April Fields’ Day: Michelle Fool & Journalism’s Feminization” is the current column, now on WND.