Seriously US media WTF!??! You have a fucking job. Do it. Ask Trump and every single Trump admin official about this. It’s fucking important . How many American troops are we deploying to Venezuela to “run” it? What’s their mission? Where are they being deployed? If the answer is “none” what mechanism is the US “running” Venezuela. If they don’t know ask them to explain why this is not just the POTUS blatantly lying to the American people.
It’s not going change what’s happening but it’s your fucking job to ask that question and discuss the answers live on air for every minute available. Not just have a couple of talking heads discuss what the president said.
That’s an actual fuck load of troops. Venezuela is much bigger than Iraq and covered in rainforest. When was an administration official asked about that explicitly? I’m not seeing a single example looking at my news feed (Guardian, CNN, etc)
Our media seems constitutionally incapable, even after a solid decade of this shit, of accurately reporting on politicians who are not acting in good faith. They just act as stenographers and give the admin the uttermost deference. Shame on them.
I agree. But the impulse to “normalize” is so strong in a lot of these people that they do so no matter how bizarre the reality. Donald could strangle Melania on-camera and they’d be all 'this is part of our system, we may not be used to it but we have to have faith in the Founders…’
Then fucking ask them about that fucking bullshit. It’s your fucking job. Everyone knows it’s bullshit but we aren’t all getting paid to actually quiz the executive branch about what they are doing. Fuck you guys. Do your job. Fuckers.
Yes, some terrible things have happened in Venezuela in recent years. No, it’s not the U.S.’s duty to solve those problems, when we can’t even manage ourselves.
IMO by “we’ll run Venezuela” he does not mean “we’ll do the work”. He means “they’ll work for us and do as told.” The vague “the Secretary and a team” (“Top. Men.”) is just what he thought of on the spot when asked “wait, we’ll run Venezuela? Who’ll be doing that?”
When asked who’d pay for it all he talked about the great profits the Oil Cos would make once they recovered their nationalized assets. So watch out, Big Oil dudes, seems you’re going to be the ones on the hook for the nationbuilding.
If only there was an industry based on the idea that you, as the people tasked with asking questions on behalf of Americans, could ask the representatives of the executive branch questions to clarify if that is what the POTUS meant when he said that
So it will be run by Rubio and Hegseth. A pipsqueak and a drunk. Right. This has fiasco written all over it. In five years when it’s apparent what a cluster fuck this was, I’m sure the MAGAbots who are currently masturbating all over Facebook will find a way to blame Democrats.
But what is it? I have no fucking idea, and I’m fairly obsessively online. Fucking ask some goddamned questions you bunch of chicken shit journos. It’s your fucking job. FFS
I’m fairly sure it’s just a flat out lie by a demented fascist with no connection to reality. But it would be super awesome if the part of society we trust with investigating whether this is a flat our lie by a POTUS with dementia or the beginning of long and costly military occupation actually fucking did that !!
It isn’t that I don’t agree with your basic premise – I do – but there’s an unforgivable part to the dynamic and a reasonably understandable part that co-exist, IMHO.
I watch all the videos that Heather Cox Richardson puts out. I simply don’t think her profile gets close to the level of Trump’s (administration’s) radar, or I think there might be pressure on her to self-censor.
Much as we, here, tend to agree that we’re tiny fish who are highly unlikely to rise to Trump’s Enemies List.
Trump wields significant power – perhaps far more over the corporate owners of the consolidated media than over some of the wide-eyed, hard-working, high IQ journalists that they employ – people who are still likely a bit idealistic about the industry they inhabit and the pecuniary interests of their employers.
It also reminds me so very much of the runup to the Iraq invasion, when half the country was thoroughly convinced that we were being lied into war and the corporate media seemed totally cowed. At the time, GWBush was making tremendous hay out of the “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists” bullshit. Trump has a panoply of his own bullying, intimidation, threats & insults, demagoguery, and Mafia tactics that serve to squelch ‘normal’ dissent that is properly the purview of the Fourth Estate.
TL;DR: with Trump, a dogged journalist with titanium integrity and sack has to decide on which hill they’re willing to die, while their corporate masters view everything through the lens of a spreadsheet. It’s an unenviable position.
