Trump Commends the Deep State; Media Buries That Fact
The Trump press conference yesterday has left me thinking that goldfish might do a better job of covering this guy than the people currently doing so.
As I’ll describe, after covering it live, many outlets have chosen to bury what a blubbery mess the former President was. Then NYT, which assigned multiple reporters on any given day to repeat, “Joe Biden old,” had taken all stories about the presser off its front page by the time it released the Dead Tree version.
Admittedly, there wasn’t much news.
But there was a piece that I think merits more attention. Trump was apparently asked (the entire presser was set up such that Trump claimed not to be able to hear the questions, and they weren’t picked up on the coverage) whether the FBI had interviewed him as part of the investigation into the Thomas Crooks shooting attempt. He described:
They have. The FBI came to see me about the shooter. Uh, I think they’ve done a very good job. And I think they did a very good job with respect to this other lunatic that they have in custody.
The reference to “this other lunatic” is likely a reference to Asif Merchant, the Pakistani man accused of attempting to solicit paid killers to assassinate Trump on behalf of Iran.
This is newsworthy!
It’s newsworthy, because Trump’s allies in Congress are gunning for Chris Wray regarding the Crooks investigation.
And it is newsworthy, because Trump has spent years demonizing the Deep State, only to commend them when they preempt an attack on him.
Nevermind that (as LOLGOP and I laid out in one of our Ball of Threads episodes) almost everyone the FBI first targeted in Crossfire Hurricaine (including Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn, and Paul Manafort) were, or were attempting to, monetize their access to Trump. Trump was, at first, one of the victims of that investigation too.
If you believe what Konstantin Kilimnik told Paul Manafort in December 2016, Page even went to Russia and claimed to be negotiating on Ukraine on behalf of Trump.
Trump could have viewed himself as a victim of that influence peddling, but his narcissism prevented that.
He undoubtedly does view himself as the victim here, rightly so. And because of that, he’s willing to commend the work the FBI does.
That answer deserves wider coverage, not least so the Trump mob that has been targeting the FBI might tone things down.
Alas, the media wants horserace, and to hell with US democracy and rule of law.
Update: ABC describes that during Trump’s victim interview, he quizzed them for more details about Crooks.
Goldfish. You nailed it.
I’m looking forward to watching the Ball of Thread video later, after my chores. Very newsworthy, indeed, that Trump made that reference, probably to Asif Merchant. It was exceptionally observant of you to point out that information on your post the other day, in reference to the Crooks shooting. Quite remarkable that a possibility like that hadn’t occurred to us.
I think our brains are so fried that we have rushed to welcoming a fresh, viable, optimistic candidate and we have pushed aside other ongoing concerns. I am consistently impressed how you nudge us to remember things that should not be forgotten. Now, we have the opportunity to do both. Thanks, Marcy!
Yes, goldfish. Deliberate to not hear the questions allowing him to spew more “bing bing bong bong bing” BS.
Lawrence: ‘Stupidest’ candidate Trump did not answer reporters’ questions
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-oTJ49nls)
The behavior of the media at that press conference got Lawrence O’Donnell about as angry as I’ve ever seen him.
Yes, his anger pointed out the double standard by the media. Also the appalling and disrespectful behavior to President Biden and Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary.
O’Donnell was en fuego.
It seems that the goldfish are preoccupied
https://www.curbed.com/article/the-brooklyn-puddle-of-goldfish-causes-tension-in-bed-stuy.html
The walking catfish are available to sub for goldfish, tho:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/walking-catfish-florida-hurricane-debby-what-to-know/
RE: “fast healer” when asked where his shot off ear went to. That’s newsworthy, no? Or maybe not, to a goldfish?
Yes, his perfectly intact ear should be a major story. It seems by his perfect ear that he was not grazed by an AR bullet. As of yet, there is no publicly known evidence of any injury to Mr. Trump. He wont release any information. Oddly, the alleged attempt on his life isn’t high on his grievance rants, it seems it is still illegal invasion and stolen election. It is not like him to omit such a major injustice.
Well, there was the blood in the initial pictures. I suspect the bullet may have just missed him, and the shockwave burst some blood vessels in the ear; the earlobe bleeds a lot, as it happens, from even small nicks. Not to mention, as the Earl has observed, the potential adds to whatever brain issues he’s having.
“there was the blood”
Actually, no. There is no evidence that the red stuff we saw was blood or not blood, or assuming it was blood, that it was Trump’s disease infested blood or someone else’s, or some animal’s blood, or stage blood.
His injury, if any, was NOT to the lobe, which is the lower, fleshy part, but to the upper, cartilage part.
I have lived in the Dallas area for most of my life, and my fourth grade class was one of the ones that was hustled into the auditorium to watch live coverage after the Kennedy assassination on one small-for-2024 TV while they were deciding whether to send us all home, so I have ABSOLUTELY NO desire to do ballistic analysis on website comment threads (imagine even the Reagan assassination, much less the Kennedy assassination, in the Facebook/Twitter era – yuck!).
But, HAVING SAID THAT, we know what we (thought we) saw (blood on Trump’s face). My understanding, correct me if I’m wrong, was that the victim who died at the scene was between Trump and the shooter, but the two critically wounded victims were on the other side of Trump from the shooter. I was wondering if what hit Trump might have been splatter from the first victim, especially since we’ve been so vague about whether Trump was hit by a bullet, a bullet fragment, or something else (ballistics analysis is hard, so I’m not complaining).
The possibility that the blood was Trump’s, and resulted from the high-velocity near-miss breaking blood vessels, sounds as reasonable as anything else I’ve seen discussed (that wasn’t Warren Commission “magic bullet”-level conspiracy theories), but as we keep saying, there’s an awful lot of information that would be helpful, that Trump isn’t releasing.
Maybe one day we’ll know.
I think I speculated on possible spatter from a victim, but Trump must have felt something more than that to flinch and reach for his ear the way he did.
Whatever the case, you may appreciate the close-up photos taken of Trump during his remarks to the press at Mar-a-Lago. Go to https://newsroom.ap.org/editorial-photos-videos, search for “donald trump” and then scroll to photos taken at Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2024 at 3:12 pm ET and earlier. There are at least three which feature his “injured” ear.
Excellent piece! And this quote is spot-on: “ Alas, the media wants horserace, and to hell with US democracy and rule of law.”
The US press has always been the most self-censored press in the world.
In addition, J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles, just to name two, were integral leaders of the Deep State that existed inside the US Government.
Both worked closely with Meyer Lansky and the US Mafia in the 1960s to overthrow Castro and allow Lansky and the Mafia to retake their casino operations in Cuba.
I believe Dulles, Hoover, Lansky and the Batista supporting Cuban exile community in Florida also created and executed the plan to assassinate JFK.
Trump is likely to have read, or someone he trusted read to him, the details of the Hoover and Dulles connection to the Lansky Mafia and their plan to overthrow Castro (and JFK, too) with help from the Batista exile community in Florida.
The media does want a horse race so they can gain viewers and more advertising dollars, all the while ignoring the fact that this election is between an organized crime syndicate beard named Trump (controlled and financed by Putin) who covets being an authoritarian dictator vs. the Harris led campaign to allow the US to remain a participatory republic democracy while, at the same time, defeating Putin’s organized crime syndicate.
“The media does want a horse race so they can gain viewers and more advertising dollars….”
Don’t forget that the media (which is corporate and protects corporate not public interests) wants a horse race because it is the easiest kind of story to cover. Costs less too.
Agreed.
This is the lede from The Independent story, it’s really not that hard: “Former President Donald Trump spent nearly an hour at his Palm Beach, Florida, social club on Thursday ranting to a room full of reporters as he tries to grab the spotlight from a resurgent Democratic ticket fronted by Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-press-conference-kamala-harris-b2593570.html
A refreshingly accurate headline not often seen in the USA.
Maybe change the word “reporters” to “supporters” and the assessment might be even more accurate.
The news media knows that he is becoming less coherent and focussed. The news media is propping him up every time they translate his gibberish into something that sounds like a policy.
“reporters” + “supporters” = “resporters” – the press folk who are rooting for the person they are covering, for any of a number of reasons, so can’t or won’t provide unbiased coverage.
If that sounds right to other people, maybe we should make “resporters” happen, as they said in “Mean Girls”.
Thanks.
He also used whatever that was yesterday to repeat his false claims, in the most creepy manner yet, that he never called for Hilary Clinton to be locked up…as though he didn’t publicly lobby Barr to indict her.
“Bill Barr is gonna go down as either greatest attorney general in history of the country, or he’s gonna go down as a very sad situation,”
“Why isn’t Hillary Clinton being indicted?”
Interview with Maria Bartiromo, October 8, 2020.
I think we’re witnessing him realize that he will again lose his bid to have all charges dismissed against him on January 21, 2025.
Unfortunately, I think we are insulting goldfish by suggesting they are the mental equal to reporters on the campaign trail.
from Google “Goldfish are smarter than commonly thought and have many cognitive abilities similar to humans, including:
Memory
Goldfish can remember where they are usually fed in their tank, and can even remember other goldfish after long periods of separation. They can also retain spatial memories for at least six months, and can solve tasks with increasing speed even if they haven’t performed them for a long time.
Problem-solving
Goldfish can learn to associate actions with rewards, and can quickly learn to prefer certain cues over others. For example, if pushing a red paddle earns them food, but a blue paddle doesn’t, they’ll learn to prefer the red paddle and continue to do so even after the experiment is over. Goldfish can also be taught to escape nets and navigate mazes, and can remember how to do these tasks for weeks or months.
Spatial awareness
Goldfish can form cognitive maps and learn complex spatial relationships, and can use landmarks or symbols to orient themselves. A 2020 neurological study found evidence that goldfish form navigational cognitive maps. ”
The reporter’s notepad might be a challenge.
I thought “Finding Nemo” was hilarious, but wanted to post about that characterization as an insult to goldfish. I didn’t, and I’m glad I didn’t, because your post is the one I would have wished for. Thank you for the details.
We’re well into single-celled organism territory.
A single cell with a single thought.
I see someone beat me to the defense of goldfish intelligence. However you didn’t mention that they can drive: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/watch-this-fish-out-of-water-drive-a-mini-vehicle-on-land-180979328/ so I figured I would hop in and add that.
Not intending to redirect the thread, but mainstream media selective attention, dropping one more example. Last month, NYT and other major media all over – NYT headline = “Trump, Appealing to Bitcoin Fans, Vows U.S. Will Be ‘Crypto Capital of the Planet’ ” a Nashville keynote speech opportunity. Horse race.
So, now try search = Donald Trump Jr. Is Launching A Crypto-Platform To “Take On” The Banks
What you will see, the crypto websites are all over that story. I first saw it on ZeroHedge, and plugged the Tyler Durden headline directly into the search to try second sourcing, (not giving links as a safety concern). The search when I did it showed no Mainstream interest in the Don Jr hustle, family money presumably to be at risk, yet for MSM it’s apparently not news. Two dots, a simple connect. The grift goes on. Newsworthy info of candidate character.
I wondered what the angle was besides a possible gratuities a.k.a. kickbacks for Trump’s promises to crypto-bros (and petrostates mafiosi) of unrestrained markets. Building a future income stream for Donnie Jr. makes sense, too.
“Trumpcoin?” An income stream, or another bankruptcy stinging others but without personal wounds. ZeroHedge is weird, but sometimes finds things not covered elsewhere. It is as with Breitbart, every so often, see what they are up to, ZeroHedge is more diverse, less locked into scapegoating.
Crypto gets mid-item mention in the Republican 2024 Party Platform. Curiously so. The Platform Trump managed. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform — one can word search, “crypto” mentioned only one place in a 1,2.3 listing of “Emerging Industries.” Top billing. Along with AI and outer space industrial aspects, as 2 and 3..
That was another brilliant episode of Ball of Thread, Marcy. Thanks so much.