The Politics Thread

[Khan]

Yeah, IA that Little Jimmy Comey needs to pull up a chair and sit a spell.

[amybrickwallace]

 

Plus, there's the fact that NBC sat on that infamous tape with Trump and Billy Bush. The network is supposedly doing an inside investigation into the whole Lauer mess, but shouldn't Comcast hire an outside party to investigate? 

 

There's no way that the higher-ups at NBC didn't know what was going on with Lauer. It wasn't until Variety and The New York Times began sniffing around that NBC began their damage control. 

[dragonflies]

 

 

[DramatistDreamer]

Hey, why doesn't the U.S. just withdraw from the UN?  Why stop there, just withdraw from every pact, every bloody institution for international cooperation.

 

US quits UN global compact on migration, says it'll set its own policy

[Roman]

http://www.businessinsider.com/abc-news-suspends-brian-ross-over-serious-error-in-michael-flynn-story-2017-12

Don't know if this has been posted.

[Khan]

 

They should.

 

As for Brian Ross and his HUGE fumble: considering how much of an impact his bombshell made not just on everyone's news feeds, essentially burying the stories on the Senate tax bill for the day, but also on the stock markets, I'd say his suspension is just.  (Although firing him would be good, too.)

 

Look, I understand the desire to "get" Trump and his allies.  Lord KNOWS I understand the desire.  However, if these efforts on the part of the MSM to expose TrumpCo. as a den of thieves have any chance of achieving their desired effect, then they've got to stop behaving so recklessly.  Brian Ross and ABC News' blunder was not the first time a major news outlet effed up a story involving Trump and his allies -- and it probably won't be the last -- but it absolutely needs to stop.  Being first to report something means squat if you don't get it right; and these days, with Trump Nation dismissing anything that isn't from Fox News as "fake news," I think being right is more crucial.

Edited December 3, 2017 by Khan

[marceline]

 

NBC is pro-Trump. This is the network that airs "The Apprentice" and let Trump host SNL. 

[JaneAusten]

I'm with you on this.  I tend to believe the story is true, but right now there is nothing to back up the claim. And Ross actually should be fired. Just imagine if this story came from a woman or PoC. Their ass would have been grass by now.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Which is why I scoff at people lumping Lauer, Rose et. al as part of the "liberal" corps.  No they're not. In fact, most media veer toward conservative in the way they run their businesses.  FoxNewsChannel is so right-wing, that they've skewed the metrics.

 

It's also like I've been posting in the Hollywood predators thread, although many actors and some directors and a few producers tend to be liberal, the vast majority of studio executives and bosses espouse Republican beliefs and vote in that manner. 

Going all the way back to Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM was a staunch conservative and the head of the California Republican party. Consequently, he was a co-founder of AMPAS, the organization in charge of the Academy Awards (AKA Oscars).

 

Does anyone really believe that the likes of Les Moonves is a liberal??

Please register in order to view this content

 

(and before anyone starts going on about Harvey Weinstein/Miramax and The Weinstein Company were always niche, boutique studios compared to the likes of Warner Brothers and 21st Century Fox)

We know how many media corporate executives promoted the idea of Trump's legitimacy as a viable candidate for ratings, which is why I feel little sympathy for them being treated so poorly in the press corp by the WH. They helped to unleash this beast.

Edited December 3, 2017 by DramatistDreamer

[JaneAusten]

As I have said CHINA. 

 

Part of the issue here is fiscal also. Nothing in the tax bill is encouraging business to come back to the US, they are not getting penalized or tariffed for moving and keeping facilities overseas and I have to read the bill, but it would not shock me if there were incentives in there for businesses keeping their facilities outside of the US. Businesses also need to go where talent they need is. I am no fan of Apple, Google, etc but you need specialized talent in many areas of these organizations, and we aren't preparing for that and it will be worse with the education cuts in the tax bill. So they will have no choice but to send jobs to places where that talent exists(see the education focus in the Asian countries now). We don't live in an isolationist world and progress doesn't stop.

[Khan]

 

Exactly.  This is why I regard all the criticisms of the current administration on SNL as little more than posturing.  In a way, that's a shame.  Once upon a time, SNL was where you could speak truth to power.

 

True.  In fact, women and POC have been exiled from the news business for far, far less.

 

Also true.  Of course, back in Louis B. Mayer's day, being a Republican meant something different from whatever it means today.  If Louis B. Mayer and his ilk were alive today, they'd definitely be considered centrists, or maybe even libertarians.

Edited December 3, 2017 by Khan

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Maybe but we know that it wasn't just working class whites who voted Republican in this election. Kathy Griffin (God bless her rant) unmasked quite a few Trump supporters who are media bigwigs. If Mayer were alive today, I have no doubt he'd be screeching about how "unpatriotic" those entitled NFL players are as he was a big producer of patriotic propaganda films during WWII.

The studio bosses of the biggest names (WB, 2st Century Fox) are conservatives, which speaks a lot to why the current Hollywood slate of films feature a majority of comic book heroes and white male centered movies.  The only reason why that is changing is because so many of those franchises are losing money.

[DramatistDreamer]

[JaneAusten]

As usual anything Trump/Kushner is motivated by 2 things greed and money. Kushnar was head of a foundation pushing for an illegal Israeli settlement, something else he "forgot" to include on his security clearance. The guy behind Middle East peace by creating more chaos and war

 

http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-disclosure-form-west-bank-settlements-israel-white-house-729290

[DramatistDreamer]

I think Kushner and Mohammed Bin-Salman (MBS) in their secret meeting must've agreed to try to break things apart so that they can recast the Middle East to benefit themselves and their ilk, regardless of whether it leads to war.

 

Sure MBS has decided to enact some long overdue reforms (including giving Saudi women the right to drive) but his heavy-handed approach, including jailing just about all the princes that had some political clout (and therefore could've posed a challenge to his leadership) over 'corruption charges' even while nobody dare ask how MBS and his family 'earned' their massive fortune.

 

Although MBS seems to be saying many of the 'right' things when he speaks of reform in his country, but many of his actions, especially those that are reverberating outside the Kingdom, into the Middle East, appear to be reckless (e.g. Yemen) and it makes him look like some unstudied dilettante princeling (a feature that he would have in common with Kushner) who wants to ride roughshod over people to get what he wants, regardless of whether it has disastrous effects on huge populations of people.

Edited December 4, 2017 by DramatistDreamer