Category Archives: Media

Veteran CNN Panelist ‘Thinks’ Trump Candidacy Focused On ‘Cultural Issues’

Conservatism, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Media, Republicans

“I used to watch CNN back when it was a news network,” mocked comedian Larry Wilmore. So right. It’s hard to sit through a session with a procession of vacuous panelists, plonked along long desks, conducting dual-perspective screaming matches.

One of them, Amanda Carpenter, squeaked out that now that Donald Trump is the GOP nominee, the shift of the debate will be to new, oddball social/cultural issues, different from the old abortion, gay marriage preoccupations.


No one will miss the latter obsessions, including the potty problem in North Carolina. But what on earth is Carpenter talking about?

Is building a wall on the Southern border a “cultural rage” thing?

Is negotiating beneficial trade deals a social issue?

Is charging NATO members 100% of the costs of defending them a social issue? (That plan, too, is lacking. The US should withdraw from all forever-binding treaties and sign short-term individual deals as needed. The Japanese, for instance, hate the US military presence in Okinawa; they don’t think it’s good for them. Ditto Europeans about American military presence there; they prefer Muslim subversives. So are Americans for America First sick of trundling around the world aimlessly, oft destructively.)

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.

The One Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory The Left Will Accept

Conservatism, Donald Trump, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Republicans

Banana Republicans are so corrupt, so used to having their way; have been swimming in polluted waters for so long—that they imagine their Republican Rules are true and good and that any upheaval in their insider’s game is a source of corruption, rather than a source of cleansing.

John Ziegler, a fast-talking radio mouth, has accused some conservative media, notably Sean Hannity, of “selling [their] soul to build up Donald Trump.”

Ziegler, apparently, blames Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and other “’conservative’ media for willingly enabling this hostile takeover of the Republican Party.”

Where in Ziegler’s equation is the Republican Party base? The voters? To me it looks as though the base is trying to purge the corrupt establishment, and has chosen Donald Trump to do so on their behalf. When you’re mired in the muck as Ziegler has been for so long, it’s hard to see clearly.

If the likes of Ziegler are upset, it’s because Trump is breaking stuff that needs breaking.

MORE.