Open Thread Dec. 27: Russians Fulfill GOP’s Longing for Autocracy
It’s the time of year when writers turn to looking back and summing up, the better to put the work in the can and take a couple of weeks off for the holidays. In 25 years at the News-Journal I never reached enough seniority to take this week off, so I sympathize with the writers who are cranking it out while the rest of us rest — for example, the indefatigable Digby, who points out that Republicans spent almost 50 years trying to destroy reality but couldn’t succeed until they imported expertise from Russia on how to keep in power a government the majority of the population despises.
The result has been so toxic that people are turning to Democrats in the vain hope that those feckless wimps will right the ship of state (pro tip: They almost certainly can’t and won’t.) But because a Democrat won in Alabama, thanks to the Republicans nominating Satan’s younger, stupider brother, Democrats are eyeing a March special election in Pittsburgh’s southern suburbs as more evidence of an approaching blue wave in November. Once again, the Republicans have nominated a Christianist loonball for the race and Democrats have a young, “moderate” (meaning conservative) ex-Marine to carry the banner of the jackass in the district, which gave Trump 58% of its votes.
The Republicans, like the Democrats, just can’t stop themselves from following their worst instincts. For Democrats, that means feigning incompetence to keep the corporate money flowing. For Republicans, it means catering to the craziest common denominator, which means another Republican primary full of blood-letting looms, this time in Mississippi.
Turning to problems a few targeted assassinations can’t solve, Republican governance continues to produce the same chaos set loose in “Ghostbusters” when the EPA guy turns off the power grid: All the demons have been set loose. None is more destructive than Big Oil, which is celebrating its impending destruction of most life on earth by investing $180 billion in the construction of plastics factories, the better to destroy life in the ocean.
They hardly need bother. Global warming is doing a fine job all by itself, as evidenced by the closing of the Maine shrimp fishery for the fifth year in a row.
Also this: For the 10th year in a row, Barack Obama is the “most admired” man in America in Gallup’s annual poll. In second place was Donald Trump.
Tip for DL readers: If anyone still subscribes the News Journal, they just raised their prices again to something like $52 a month. If you call and say you want to cancel, they will reduce it to $38 bucks– or even less –a month. I know two people who this has happened to and reaped the savings …..so if you want to save some $$$ in the New Year, and still want the paper, basically for the obits since there is so little news in there , then call up and get your discount.
The obits are free online.
I would be an online subscriber if they didn’t track and resell every scrap of data they can steal from my browser.
Too cold to go outside side and my pellet stove is broken. 911!
What is up with the larger font and excessive white space in the “new” TNJ? The paper hasn’t been worth buying for some time now, but the new type size means that the number of pages remains the same, but the amount of news and information has diminished.
Old-timers like me, who can remember the days when there were two editions printed every day (Morning News and Journal Every Evening), are really disgusted with this poor excuse for a newspaper. I’ll continue to read my free 10 articles per month on-line, and peruse the classifieds and obits until they start charging for that as well.
Did anybody see that Mike Huckleberry said Trump is like Churchill? Lots of folks aghast at such a comparison. Many witty tweets. One of my favorites: “We will fight them on the beaches, bone spurs permitting.” Others cited history and personality to indicate the ridiculousness.
It’s all about clicks on the internet. Lookie there’s a topless woman running down the side of the page, quick click on it lol
@MikeD: the excessive white space is there because they don’t have the staff to look for wire copy to fill the holes … after they’ve already used wire stories and briefs from western Pennylvania to fill the space that used to contain local news stories written by reporters who no longer exist.
I haven’t gotten the price increase notice yet, but you’ve got m bracing for it. They never took me off the employee rate when I left — 17-plus years ago. (Maybe it’s the retiree rate now.) Anyhow, it’s shameful that they could dare charge $38/month when I snagged the WaPo online for $75/year.
Is there anything like the Delaware State News for upstate readers? I have a Sunday print and online subscription to the News Journal, but I can’t bear to spend more than 30 seconds on the website with all the ads and pop-up video and overlay ads (you’d think that paying for access would eliminate all that junk). Prices are going up for that package as well, and no amount of Sunday coupons will make up for it.
Confederate statue painted pink:
Gay confederates, nah ha
Not that there’s anything wrong with that lol
Tar and feathers might have been more appropriate.
The Wall Street Journal subscription is cheaper than the News Journal.
Go figure!
Rupert Murdoch has never minded losing money publishing propaganda. See the New York Post for evidence.