21 Comments
Apr 2, 2023Liked by Susan Bordo

The MSM are is all about clicks. It is a sad thing but too many people do not want to read articles any more they only read headlines.

There are 34 charges against him and so I'm guessing there is a lot we doln't know. Given the magnitude of the historic event of bringing criminal charges against a former president I am going to take a leap of faith and assume that Alvin Bragg has got the goods on him cause from what I have read about him, Bragg is no fool.

It would however be more appropriate to me if the DOJ had been the first to bring charges over his possession of secret documents, obstructing justice, inciting an insurrection etc. but instead we have an AG who is sadly lacking in his ability to do the job. It could have happened if the special investigator had been assigned from day one. Perhaps now that another has shown him up, Garland will muster the courage to confront trump with his crimes.

Letting trump go unchallenged for over 2 years and grow more and more enboldened has not been a good look for the Biden Administration. After all, Garland serves at the pleasure of the president and the buck stops there.

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I pretty much agree with all of this. I suspect Bragg knows much more than we know at this point. The fact that he initially didn’t want to pursue the case but then changed his mind wasn’t due to political pressure (IMO), but to having discovered what you are calling “the goods.” I also wish Garland hadn’t been so cautious (not so different from Mueller in that way) but I’m not sure I see the DOJ’s lagging as bearing much on Biden, though. What could Biden do about it? If he fussed and pushed the GOP would have accused him of political vengeance. A mess.

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The Jan 6th attack on the capitol was the most egregious assault on our democratcy in US history. For the AG to immediately go after all the little people that were doing trump's dirty work and not go after those at the top who orchestrated the insurrection in my opinion is unconscionable. There was simply no justifiable reason for not appointing a special investigator from the beginning. Biden made a bad choice in Garland as AG and could have replaced him. However you are correct about the GOP reaction but of course it was different when trump did it to Sessions. The fact is, Republicans are now established hypocrites and liars and Democratic leadership can't make every decision based on their reactions. What we have right now in gov't is a mess and sadly it's most likely to get a whole lot messier going forward.

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Loved your media takedown. Totally agree the Right is intentionally missing the point in this case and the Left is helping to spread the Lie with the click-bait headlines. Then the OJSimpson coverage of Trumps motor caravan to NYC today on MSNBC and CNN today, falling into another Trump rabbit hole and he's laughing all the way to the bank. Depressing.

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I was not at my tv and missed the caravan. Did CNN really broadcast the whole thing? Disgusting.

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Yes, CNN and MSNBC both showed it continually, sometimes on split screens as they talked about it. I suppose we'll see more of the circus today. The bright spot in the news yesterday, which was barely covered, was the thousands of students in Tennessee who skipped school to protest at the capital demanding their legislators save students rather than guns. We live in a topsy-turvy world.

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Another fabulous Newsletter on "the Media" and their horrible job at informing America of what is really going on in politics today. The spin seems to cater to Trump and his never-ending victimhood. What-aboutism has taken over. Upsetting the media still faults Hillary for illegal possession of classified documents - which has been proven to be FALSE _ NO classified data was found. Bill Clinton was punished for his consensual affair with Monica. I firmly believe the media is corporately owned by powerful white men in this Country who will do anything to be sure power stays that way. Hillary won the vote by 3 Million yet they never ever give her the credit. They are threatened by a powerful/intelligent woman like Hillary so they choose to ignore her. Interesting observation was when Trump requested his supporters Go Our and Protest his only supporters were thousands of media reporters. Very telling. They are creating the hype and pushing it for clicks. I LOVE when you cover the media - they need much more scrutiny on the games they play and who they favor. I firmly believe we would NOT have Trump if the media didn't give him so much coverage and a huge platform and they blamed Hillary.

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Thank you so much. It’s no surprise that they didn’t review my Hillary book and they don’t even answer my pitches and queries about pieces. I’ve given up and decided to just go my own way on substack and hope I get more great readers like you!!

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I agree it's tiresome. I regret to say it's also tiresome all the repetition to try to make the campaign fraud central because it's so useless. Here it's the mainsteam newspapers who are funded by the very wealthy who may well prefer Trump even now to the least improvement in social justice, public transportation, anything decent at all, or the least hike in their outrageously small taxes.

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And some of them (the MSNBC gang) don’t even seem to realize that they aren’t the “good guys.” Better than Fox, sure, but also highly influenced by Foxian tactics of audience pleasing. Depressing.

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Apr 3, 2023Liked by Susan Bordo

I would like to add that there’s nothing wrong in my view with a woman being a sex worker if that’s the career she chooses. It’s a tough way to make a living. But so is being a waitress.

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I agree. I hope you know that I was putting on the “voice” of the Trump supporter when I dissed sex workers.

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“Makes for a juicy headline, it hardly seems worth noting. And a lazy one, too, allowing simple, constantly repeated mantras to replace precise description.”

I’d say this is true of 95% of NYT and Vox and other lefty papers since 2020, especially around race and gender issues. Probably true of Fox and the right side as well but I wouldn’t know cause I don’t read/watch em.

Michael Mohr

‘Sincere American Writing’

https://michaelmohr.substack.com/

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They all do it now but Fox started it all. Roger Ailes basically offered “repeat, repeat” and don’t worry if it’s true as a prescription for Fox.

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Well I can’t argue there. I’m no fan of Fox that’s for sure. I think on the left it seemed to start as Trump rose, and then exploded in 2020.

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Thanks for the hammer to the head explanation. I knew that, many did, but the theatrics of the Stormy association will probably prevail in this case.

The sideshow to this out of control media frenza, however, is the federal charges that may come from all the threats Trump is making. It is predicted that the judge will set bail, with instructions of behavior. NO THREATS, basically. If Thrump continues his inciteful posts and threats, the judge could revoke bail and jail him.

I would celebrate, of course, but this perceived additional level of "persecution" would open the spout for even more crybaby outrage from the magats. What is needed is for one of the really serious matters to come to trial. And soon.

As the saying goes, we live in " interesting times."

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Yes it often seems as we’re damned no matter which way it goes. But at this point I tend to be pessimistic about where the arc of the universe is bending. Wasn’t always that way. The last 8 years really slammed my soul. Thank goodness I live with two people (husband and daughter,) one of whom is constitutionally hopeful and the other so cynical that she’s beyond being upset about it all.

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And the tornadoes missed you, so there's a good side.

The other obvious thing is Trump's obesity....health crisis.

Any number of people he's betrayed could turn on him.

The Republican convention will be disgusting. I am thinking Chris Christie, who has not joined the crying baboon squad, and stepped back from the whole uproar embarrassment... might just rise above it all. Yet have the mafia boss appeal of Trump.

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!!!!!

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Apr 3, 2023Liked by Susan Bordo

That’s it, except that I love reading commentary by people who clearly understand the political, legal, and social systems and can explain them so beautifully!

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Thank you! I’m really enjoying writing again. Had forgotten how essential it is to my being, even when I’m writing about things that are so unstrung!

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