john whitehouse

Inside the alliance between right-wing media and Trump “Border Czar” Tom Homan

"This hall of mirrors, where regular people going about their lives are transformed into violent threats to community safety, inverts the actual dynamics at play" www.mediamatters.org/immigration/...

Media writing about events of the last 24 hours might want to connect some dots here.

Just a friendly suggestion.

A legislature dealing with a shortage of houses, such as exists when this is written, illustrates this rule, first by doing nothing to increase the number of houses, second by smiting the greedy landlord on the hip, third by investigating the profiteering builders and working men. For a constructive policy deals with remote and uninteresting factors, while a greedy landlord, or a profiteering plumber is visible and immediate.

very funny to read walter lippmann capture the basic dynamic of 21st century housing politics in 1922

Matthew McConaughey Smoking Meme

Jeanine Pirro’s book-length self-own

www.mediamatters.org/jeanine-pirr...

You only get about one page into Jeanine Pirro’s new book, Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy, before she calls herself an idiot. It’s not entirely clear whether she meant to do it or if she just got lost in the rapture of the prose, but she definitely calls herself an idiot. “We know what the liberal media think of Trump voters: They’re deplorables, idiots, rednecks, and people who cling to God, guns, and religion,” Pirro writes. “To those charges, I plead guilty--guilty and proud!” It’s confusing, and you’re left wondering why Pirro seemingly went out of her way to make herself look stupid. But intentional or not, it serves as an apt table-setter for the rest of the book, in which the Fox News host inflicts upon the reader a frenetic conspiracy theory that absolutely obliterates all logic and does violence upon the very notion of observable truth, and effectively discredits herself by painstakingly demonstrating that she is committed solely to the mission of kissing the ass of her friend, President Donald Trump.

when simon maloy read jeanine pirro's book

charles gasparino tweet from 4/23/25 at 7:23 pm, highlighted bit reads: what people inside the administration know but won’t say: An economic catastrophe if the original plan with China is implemented full text: Breaking: The talk on Wall Street based on their sources inside the White House is that Team Trump is looking for a face saving off ramp on trade even with China. It’s why you see the conflicting responses out of Bessent; they’re an attempt to negotiate through the media, acting tough but signaling the need for a deal (calling the China contretemps unsustainable because they are). I hear one possible way out of this is not to do done deals, but to announce some broad outline that avoids what people inside the administration know but won’t say: An economic catastrophe if the original plan with China is implemented given just how much US businesses deal with the Mainland and the rest of Asia. It won’t be easy primarily because China isn’t even talking to us yet and the deals they are poised to cut with say India dont matter that much in the scheme of things. Trump inherited a lousy trade system particularly w China that takes advantage at every step. But you would think they would know that and plan accordingly given the complexity of dealing with so many nations at once and the other variables

insane that this sentence is being written by, charitably, someone from a very very very friendly outlet to the admin

Jesse Watters screenshot from Fox News on "Trump taking on China:" Chyron: "CHINA DOESN'T HAVE THE CARDS"

"The Chinese media outlet Cailian called the US president's latest remarks "a sign Trump is already softening stance on his signature tariff policies." Trump "chickening out" was among the top trending topics on China's Weibo social media website on Wednesday.

how it started / how it's going

the second sub scene from hunt for red october iykyk

There's a second chat where the fox-news-host-turned-defense-secretary inappropriately shared highly classified information?? www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/u...

How to understand the stock market if you only watch Fox News

It's darkly humorous that AI doomers worry about an advanced technology falling into the wrong hands, which allow China to wreck our economy, throw markets into turmoil, interrupt manufacturing progress, disrupt our scientific infrastructure, and create global panic and confusion.

FOX NEWS CHYRON: Trump tariffs will make you a man?

normal things are happening

“We’re talking about doing something extraordinary here for the government to sentence people to what’s essentially slave labor, torture, prison in El Salvador based on nothing, based on having a flower tattoo,” he said. “Once we get in the neighborhood of getting rid of due process, that’s the thing that protects all of our citizenship rights.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/u...

Total following of top right-leaning and left-leaning online shows; shows are represented by circles with sizes proportional to total following across platforms. Circles of right-leaning shows are larger and more prevalent, with the largest circles for Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, etc.

As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows, this media ecosystem becomes more influential. A new Media Matters’ study shows how overwhelmingly right-leaning this ecosystem is -- with nearly five times the following of left-leaning online shows. www.mediamatters.org/google/right...

Laura Ingraham tried to explain hip-hop lyrics to the editor-in-chief of Vibe. It went poorly. Ingraham even got the name of Kendrick Lamar’s album wrong.

just named to the kennedy center board
www.mediamatters.org/laura-ingrah...

A caller pleaded to a Fox host to protect Ukrainians who fled to America to escape war. Now, the Trump administration is reportedly planning on revoking their legal status. On  the radio show of Fox’s Mark Levin, one Republican caller worried about the effects of revoking parole for Ukrainians fleeing war, sharing his concern for his Ukrainian fiancée and her family. Now...

A caller pleaded to a Fox host to protect Ukrainians who fled to America to escape war. Now, the Trump administration is reportedly planning on revoking their legal status. www.mediamatters.org/russias-inva...

Said it before, but I think you have to sort of invert Marx to get current politics: A lot of rhetoric that’s supposedly about economic interests is a mask for cultural interests. They get reframed for pollsters as being about economics, because that’s a respectable thing to worry about.

screenshot of transcript of a youtube interview with andrew tate: TATE: No, you can't. But this is actually interesting, so let's analyze this. Free speech. This is a interesting conversation because America believes it has free speech. It doesn't. But every single country in the world has things you cannot talk about. Every single country in the world has off topics -- off-limit topics. In Russia, it's Putin, in the Middle East, it's Islam, in Turkey, it's Erdogan. If you talk against them, you're going to get in a lot trouble. Do you know what the American one is? FORGEARD: What, speaking out against the Dems? TATE: Speaking out against the Jews. If you speak out — FORGEARD: Oh, the Jews.

the thing about the manosphere is that these people have no idea what they're dealing with www.mediamatters.org/manosphere/y...

You guys don’t ever have to watch Trump speak FYI. If it’s making you sick turn it off.

I get why trump pushes that line—he desperately wants the US to abandon Ukraine but is pathologically averse to owning his own decisions so needs to frame it as Ze's fault—but why anyone else repeats it verbatim is beyond me. It is very obviously false

There is something downright surreal about this talking point that the guy whose country is being utterly ravaged by war somehow isn’t interested in peace. But the guy who decided to invade unprovoked is, presumably? People buy this?

i think that Silicon Valley believes that it has purchased the United States of America and no longer needs to justify its actions to anyone else. that's certainly how SV companies are run now.

was listening to a prominent right wing radio host take callers afterward and one guy just called in distraught because he doesn't understand why republicans like him are on this side. the host went to extremes to argue that trump personally isn't on the wrong side but didn't defend vance one bit

The fundamental problem with Dem messaging is that they are making it crystal clear they don’t take seriously their own rhetoric about the existential threat Trump poses. Which is perverse, because it’s true. But if they don’t why should anyone else?

Magnificent dumbass

systematically going around breaking shit the government needs to work is a form of civic education for low-engagement voters whose effects will outlast this administration

US hegemony is over. The good long-term outcome is a joint hegemony among a bloc of liberal democracies--which would be much better than one dependent entirely on one country's politics.

The bad one is a large-scale nuclear war caused by rampant mass proliferation.

yea, from a pro wrestling perspective this makes the most sense -- interrupting someone to cut a promo on them is a staple. it's bad for intl relations of course but if you don't care about that...

Headline: Fox Business suggests Trump creating a recession could be a good thing Subheadline: Charles Payne: “I agree with you 1,000% ... maybe there's a little temporary pain” Written by Media Matters Staff Published 02/26/25 4:32 PM EST

Fox News screenshot from Iraq War timeframe: Chyron: "ALL-OUT CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ: COULD IT BE A GOOD THING?"