I want to say a couple things about media coverage of Hands Off before it gets too small in the rearview mirror. Generally speaking, it…wasn’t great. Both the WashPost and the NYT did stories, focused on their local areas but fleshed out with details from other cities. USA Today, of all things, did a pretty good job, and I suspect got their local Gannett outfits in on it, because here in Detroit the Freep kicked the News’ butt, and that doesn’t happen all that often.
But there were notable missteps. A local TV station said “hundreds” attended the Detroit march, a laughable shortfall later changed for the web story. And both the News and TV felt the need to ring up the Michigan GOP chair for a whining quote.
I don’t recall this happening during the Tea Party protests. But the two situations, more than a decade apart, aren’t directly comparable, either.
If nothing else, the shitty coverage reflects how hollowed-out local media is today. Never chalk up to a grand conspiracy what can be more easily explained by: the weekend crew. Never the A-team in any outlet, it’s likely to be all the short-straw holders in the organization — the young and inexperienced, toiling for a similarly distracted and overworked supervisor, all charged with filling a newscast or a diminished Metro page with stuff like fatal accidents, fun runs and other weekend afterthoughts. If anyone was counting on the media to help us through this, that cavalry isn’t coming. Trust me on this: I rewatched “Spotlight” Friday night, and it was almost from another century. A fully staffed newsroom! An investigative team given time and resources to work! A supportive research team, with dusty archives in a library! It just doesn’t exist anymore except in rare, rare exceptions.
Two more signs, the first salty, the second very salty:
Finally, here’s a Substack column to read and tell me if I’m crazy because I think the guy is on to something:
After the fall of the USSR, America pressured Russia and other former Soviet republics to quickly privatize their public assets, allowing wealthy individuals from America and Europe to dramatically increase their fortunes. It seems evident that similar conspiratorial forces are now seeking to do the same to the United States, Shock Doctrine-style. To understand this, we must consider who will benefit — fantastically — from the collapse of American economic stability.
Trump’s tariffs aligns with a plan to transform the U.S. fully into a serf society ruled by tech and AI interests. To create a pliant population, you must first destroy the middle class.
…I understand why Krugman wants to view Donald Trump’s trade policy—especially his erratic, often self-defeating tariffs—as the bumbling chaos of a vicious bumbling orangutang motivated by ignorance, populist posturing for FOX, and petty vendettas. But these apparently stupid and erratic policies are, in fact, logical instruments, when seen from a different perspective. They are designed to destroy the American middle class so our country eventually becomes a serf society similar to Russia or, eventually, North Korea, with no free thinking allowed. This will give maximum freedom for billionaires but no freedom for those trapped under economic and legal obligations as the country goes down in flames.
It makes sense. Peter Thiel put JD Vance in the job for a reason. And JD Vance is one heartbeat away, and 40 years old.
Shudder.
Let’s hope the week unfolds well, shall we?
Sherri said on April 6, 2025 at 9:14 pm
I think that everyone is looking at the insanity of this administration and trying to see a method in the madness, but there may not be one. You have a couple of groups in the administration who want to destroy democracy for different ends, the techbros and the theobros, but you also have the demented malignant narcissist at the center. I don’t think the tech oligarchs want a trade war, even though they want to destroy democracy, but Trump thinks that a trade war will show that he is smart and tough and that the world will submit to America. Trump loves democracy, as long as he always wins, as he thinks he obviously always should.
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Deborah said on April 6, 2025 at 9:26 pm
I think it’s a little bit of both, well actually truth be told I’m more on the Krugman side of things but your link to the Substack guy was interesting, he has a point, maybe. Everyone is using Trump as a useful idiot, Putin, the tech overlords, the financial overlords etc. They see Trump as the guy who has popular appeal (lordy?) like those evangelical money grubbing cons, someone to take advantage of to get what THEY want. Trump doesn’t have a clue any which way, as long as they flatter him they think they can control him and to some degree they can for a while until he gets bored or feels slighted in some way. I do think it’s extremely dangerous and something needs to be done about it all pronto, whatever that is. Did the protests this weekend make a dent, probably not but it’s a start, along with a bunch of other things like what Booker did. I mean Tesla has fallen some, that’s a big deal, did it stop Musk, not yet. Will it eventually? Maybe, maybe not but we have to do something.
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linda said on April 6, 2025 at 10:35 pm
The coverage of Hands Off in Toledo by the Blade was worse. They sent no reporter, just a photographer who took one shot, and a wire (AP) story on the national events. When the Toledo crowd was between 3000-4000. The Blade and their owners, the Block family, have a paternalistic attitude towards this community, and decide who and what is important.
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alex said on April 7, 2025 at 1:07 am
That Substack column makes some sense, certainly. What I find alarming is how fragmented the media consumption has become on the left side of the divide. We’re abandoning the Times and Post, our local news outlets have turned to shit if they haven’t already folded, and we’re reading Krugman or Rubin or Cox-Richardson or Craven or Meidas but nobody has time for all of it, not even a retiree like me who can’t get away from the computer no matter how hard I try. The zone is flooded with chaos and even the most discerning of us can’t process it.
How do you get this message across to people who need to hear it?
I think it’s time people started talking seriously about invoking the 25th, and not just on Trump but Vance and the entire administration. What will it take? They’re criminals and they need to be shut down, pronto, and duly tried for their wrongdoing so that nothing like this ever happens again.
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alex said on April 7, 2025 at 8:50 am
To counter Pinchbeck a bit, I’m sharing today’s newsletter from Krugman.
Most of the filthy rich are not on board with the oligarchic conspiracy, obviously. It seems the many of them who helped Trump get elected the second time didn’t see any of this coming and now are having their worst buyer’s remorse ever.
Certainly, both an oligarchic plot and a plutocratic resistance aren’t mutually exclusive, but it’s a positive sign that the Koch brothers and others who “own” the GOP are getting ready to call in their chits and try to make Congress get off its ass, which would be a positive first step.
I don’t believe that Krugman is completely blind to the oligarchic conspiracy; he’s just not focused on it. He’s more concerned with the immediacy of the threat posed by Trump tanking the economy and destroying international diplomacy. In his past columns, he has ascribed at least some method to Trump’s madness, namely that Trump is turning his administration into a mafia-like protection racket. The purpose of imposing tariffs is to give himself the power to suspend them for those who pay to play.
I’ve read conspiracy theories elsewhere that the wealthy really intend to have Vance doing their bidding and that they have intended all along to give Trump the boot in the middle of his term.
Anyway, there’s no shortage of theories about what’s happening, but here’s what Krugman has to say about the here and now: https://open.substack.com/pub/paulkrugman/p/political-styles-of-the-rich-and?r=43a8hi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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Suzanne said on April 7, 2025 at 9:45 am
The stock markets opened down even more. Cool. Making America Bankrupt Again.
Assuming the MAGA crowd is enjoying watching their retirement funds disappear as their prices go up and the world turns its back on the good old US of A.
I am more and more of the opinion that it ain’t going to get better in my lifetime.
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SusanG said on April 7, 2025 at 10:04 am
In the words of the Great Deana Carter, “Did I Shave My Legs for This?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzWOa8loCDI
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Mark P said on April 7, 2025 at 10:12 am
I wonder just how many retired MAGAts actually have retirement accounts in the stock market. I suspect that a lot of them are relying on Social Security alone. They may or may not be alarmed at the market going down, or care one way or the other. Losing their Social Security, on the other hand, will be literally life threatening.
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alex said on April 7, 2025 at 10:38 am
Mark P, while doubtless a fair share of MAGAts are at the low end of the income scale, there are plenty of middle- and upper-income Republicans (like some assholes I used to work for) who have fat investment portfolios and I can only hope that it’s making them reconsider their foolishness. Anecdotally, I’ve recently been told by several people that they’ve gotten burned investing in crypto, so there’s that too.
My take on the professional class is that a lot of them are so busy that they don’t pay much attention to news other than perhaps having Fox blaring in the background, so this should hit them where it hurts the most. I regret that it’s also hurting me, but them’s the breaks.
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Jeff Gill said on April 7, 2025 at 12:42 pm
I can’t say this for sure, but it’s hard to look at what Trump is doing and not think a big part of the whole chaotic program is simply to force the Fed to cut interest rates, which given his estimated $2 billion-with-a-B debt obligations, would be a huge benefit to him. If he can leverage Powell (or his replacement) to push rates down to 2 or even 1.75%, he could cut his payment schedule down by half.
Everything else is just collateral damage.
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Jeff Borden said on April 7, 2025 at 1:24 pm
There are substantial numbers of people who worship the wealthy. Consider the ringing defense of Elmo, who was born a billionaire and has never invented or engineered anything, just purchased the companies. The popularity of the “reality shows” focusing on wealthy housewives, the Shahs of Sunset, the Kardashians, even the oldie moldy “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” demonstrate a national fixation on the ruling class.
I prefer “Succession” or “White Lotus,” where the people are wealthier than King Midas, but utterly sad and miserable.
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Jakash said on April 7, 2025 at 1:48 pm
I preferred “White Lotus” up until the season that wrapped up last night. Pretty disappointed with the season and and very disappointed with that finale.
A comment of mine from the “did not age well” category, via the nn.c Wayback Machine, April 7, 2021 edition:
“How’s this for fear-mongering click-bait?
‘BREAKING: 246 fully vaccinated Michiganders got COVID-19, 3 died, state reports’
“Some less than scary context within the article: ‘That breaks down to 0.0144% of those who have gotten the vaccine have come down with a breakthrough infection,’ Thomas said. ‘So that means that the vaccine is 99.99% effective in preventing infection.
‘And then, when you say three people have died after getting fully vaccinated, that means that 0.00176% of those vaccinated have died. That means that the vaccine is 99.999% effective in preventing death.'”
https://twitter.com/freep/status/1379433473140617220
Oops.
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Dexter Friend said on April 7, 2025 at 2:17 pm
I enjoyed the post script message by Mike White as he recapped the storyline of White Lotus3.
I say the finale was brilliant, and the seasons got progressively better. Next? Mike White said he is going away from so much wave-crashing. I will be waiting for S4.
I am also watching “Dark Winds”, but it’s hard. Ads every few minutes and such a slow unfolding plot.
Then comes “The Righteous Gemstones”. It is so over-the-top and loud and crazy, well…it’s too much Danny McBride at times. It’s all him as you know. I loved “Eastbound and Down” and “Vice Principals”, but seeing John Goodman in a 69 with his dead wife’s best friend was an “oh jeezuss kreist, what next” moment, and then listening to McBride and his sister describing the 69 act and their revulsion was even worse.
That guy with the poster suggesting a real way to MAGA? 2 bits sez he is being hunted down by Trump’s snatch and grab goons. Hello El Salvador. Soy Inocente!
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Jason T. said on April 7, 2025 at 2:58 pm
Richard Mellon Scaife, publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and other local rags around Pittsburgh, actually chartered buses to send local readers of his newspapers to various Tea Party protests, and the papers duly covered the bus trips as if they were news.
Yes … it was a billionaire was busing protestors, but it wasn’t George Soros.
I canceled my subscription to our rag over that.
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Sherri said on April 7, 2025 at 4:20 pm
I think there are many motives one can ascribe to Trump, but it may be too clever by half to assume any of them are real. It is clear that Trump doesn’t understand what a tariff or a trade deficit really are, so why do we assume that he would understand the impact of his tariffs on the economy?
Because he is Trump, he can’t admit that he crashed the economy by mistake, so he will announce many conflicting and/or nonsensical purposes for the tariffs. That doesn’t mean that he planned anything beyond tariffs good, other countries will pay.
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Sherri said on April 7, 2025 at 4:37 pm
So I can start planning, do I need to prepare to go to one of RFKJr’s wellness farms or to pick up a screwdriver and start screwing screws in iPhones as Commerce Secretary Lutnick says? Just wondering how the new Cultural Revolution is going to play out, since the administration seems determined to wipe out all our savings as quickly as possible.
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Suzanne said on April 7, 2025 at 4:51 pm
I was torn on the White Lotus finale. It had me on the edge of my seat but the more I ponder it, the less I liked the ending. I loved the Belinda character and I was sad to see her get the money only to turn around and treat Pornchai just like Tanya treated her. (It reminded me of a girl on my freshman dorm floor whose father had suddenly gotten quite wealthy quickly for reasons I don’t recall, maybe an invention or something. I do remember her proudly proclaiming that “rich girls don’t have morals!” when she cheated on her boyfriend or something.) Also, I didn’t believe that some could wire millions of dollars from overseas into someone’s personal bank account that easily like Greg/Gary did for Belinda.
There were other things that bothered me, too, but overall, I didn’t think it was as good as the other 2 seasons. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son, though, really has some acting chops!
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Deborah said on April 7, 2025 at 5:19 pm
I watched one episode of White Lotus on an international flight, that’s all that was available, I thought it was quite good but I didn’t want to get HBO or whatever it’s on. I should just get it for a month and binge watch all 3 seasons and then quit, if you can do that. I’m doing that with Severance on Apple+.
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Jakash said on April 7, 2025 at 5:29 pm
While your opinion about “White Lotus” is well-supported at IMDB, Dexter, where last night’s finale is clocking in at an impressive 8.3-out-of-10 average, I have a number of things I’d whine about if it weren’t so soon. It’s been less than 24 hours since it was on and I’m sure many will be catching up in the days to come, so I won’t post any spoilers.
That being said, I agree with Suzanne, though I was annoyed even while watching it. 🙂
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Carter Cleland said on April 7, 2025 at 6:38 pm
One last sign I saw in Evanston, Il.
They’re eating the Checks, They’re eating the Balances!
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Colleen Condron said on April 7, 2025 at 8:08 pm
Yaaayyyy. My 403b has lost 10 percent of its value. I want to cry over all that’s going on, but what good would it do….
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Julie Robinson said on April 7, 2025 at 8:23 pm
No heart to go look. Have enjoyed the posters at a remove with a horrible cold. Not COVID, thank goodness. Our daughter went to the protest in her clerical collar, with a sign that read If Empathy is a Sin, Sin Boldly. She also spoke to the City Council meeting this afternoon about the police chief signing a cooperative agreement with ICE.
Last night was probably our last dinner hosting foreign visitors through the State Department. We assume it’s being axed. This group was supposed to be women in STEM jobs, but ended up being half men, because of stupidity.
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Jeff Gill said on April 7, 2025 at 9:11 pm
It’s hard to believe that there’s no way Duke can win this game tonight.
I had picked Michigan State in my bracket. Oh well.
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Jakash said on April 8, 2025 at 1:17 am
“I had picked Michigan State in my bracket.” As a solid Midwesterner and citizen of original Big Ten country might. Me too…
My Final Four were among the Elite Eight, and two made it through, but those were the ones I didn’t really want. Both my Final Two were knocked out a week ago Sunday, leaving me in the odd and unprecedented predicament of rooting for Houston tonight. Oh well.
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basset said on April 8, 2025 at 6:13 am
No connection to either team here but as a Hoosier I had to root against Houston because of Kelvin Sampson’s misbehavior when he was at Indiana. Good game, good result.
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Julie Robinson said on April 8, 2025 at 8:41 am
Same, basset. Cheaters like him should receive permanent bans.
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Dorothy said on April 8, 2025 at 8:56 am
Deborah do yourself a favor and binge Slow Horses while you have that Apple subscription. Use closed captioning because those Brits…. I think (and hope) you’ll love it.
I can’t say that the White Lotus ending surprised me. Except for one instance but we were probably all surprised by it. No spoilers from me. Having Sam Rockwell and Scott Glenn appear was nice. Scott has REALLY aged but he can still act and that’s all that matters.
Jeff I was in your neighborhood, sort of, on Sunday but you have a set schedule on Sunday mornings so no possible meet up! My granddaughter danced at a feis at the Cherry Valley Resort. Out of 7 dances she got 2 second place medals and 2 ribbons for fourth place. Not too shady for an 8 year old. I think we’re going to be attending these events a few times a year so we need to go better prepared. Getting new camp chairs and a rolling cart to bring along all we need for a 6-8 hour day is really necessary. I could not believe I was reading and absorbing my next book club book (Mad Honey by Jodi Piccoult)in the middle of dozens of pounding hard shoe Irish dancers all around me. The noise was deafening but the people watching opportunities are boundless!
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Deborah said on April 8, 2025 at 10:07 am
I had read that there’s going to be a parade in DC consisting of marching soldiers, tanks etc. Today I read that June 14th was the chosen parade day because it’s Trump’s birthday. Could this be any more like North Korea?
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alex said on April 8, 2025 at 11:11 am
Trump wanted a parade of tanks and goose-stepping soldiers during his first term, no doubt to try to impress Putin and Xi, but at least back then people were willing to give him a firm “no.” And back then he wanted it on the Fourth of July, not as a frivolous birthday present to himself.
What a fucking freak.
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alex said on April 8, 2025 at 11:26 am
A small victory but maybe a glimmer of hope. Gift article.
https://wapo.st/42necrY
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Julie Robinson said on April 8, 2025 at 11:27 am
June 14 is also Flag Day. Guess that’s why he likes to wrap himself in it.
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Jeff Borden said on April 8, 2025 at 11:54 am
In addition to whatever millions it will cost to lionize Il Douche, a parade with tanks
, missile carriers, etc. will heavily damage D.C. streets. That was the reason given in the First Reich, when he begged for a show of military force like France on Bastille Day. Now, no one will speak up. Cowardice reigns.
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Jakash said on April 8, 2025 at 12:19 pm
To whatever extent you care, which I’m guessing is minimal, congratulations on the NCAA title in your adopted state, Julie!
I know nothing about Kelvin Sampson that I didn’t hear last night, but I do know that the Florida teams have always been among my least favorite… Alas, what I heard were many references to how old he is, and had to just put up with the fact that he’s not much older than I am. D’oh!
The orange felon sharing his birthday with Flag Day is an excellent cosmic joke. Apparently Sinclair Lewis never precisely said “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross,” but that was a chillingly accurate prediction by whoever concocted it, regardless.
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Sherri said on April 8, 2025 at 2:19 pm
A permanent ban is pretty excessive for what Kelvin Sampson did at IU, which was participate in calls to recruits when he wasn’t supposed to be calling recruits. For that, he got a five year show-cause penalty, which means that any school hiring him within those five years had to prove to the NCAA that there was a good reason to hire him.
Five years is pretty long for recruiting violations. The NCAA handed out a 10 year show cause penalty to former Baylor basketball coach Dave Bliss, who paid tuition for some players, and after one of them was murdered, tried to suggest that the player had sold drugs to pay his tuition. Brian Bohannon, a baseball coach at Alabama, was given a 15 year show cause for involvement with gambling; he was giving inside information to a friend to then place bets.
No coach from Penn State received a show cause penalty over the Sandusky scandal.
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