Note the headless angel, the creepy succession of men, and — topping it all off — the little puppet boy. Beyond heads — hands: I like the mirrored hand gestures, the angel and Joe Biden and then Tom Cotton and Pinocchio. All the human entities frown. We can't know the expression on the angel statues head and Pinocchio is slack-jawed and woozy.
"Frank Rich, writing in The Times in 1999, said he was a 'grandstander whom many, I included, once feared as the Devil of journalism incarnate.'... [Journalist Matthew Lysiak, author of 'The Drudge Revolution'] said in an interview that rival websites are 'licking their chops — they see blood in the water.' But he noted that there may be another factor in Drudge Report’s recent loss of traffic: the rise of social media. 'Matt Drudge was always first at everything, but not anymore, not even close — Twitter’s first,' Mr. Lysiak said. 'For years now, people have been wondering who the next Drudge is, but it isn’t a person. It’s a social media revolution, and he sees that writing on the wall.' But Mr. Drudge has a deep desire, and a talent, for staying relevant, Mr. Lysiak said. Betting big on Mr. Trump did the trick in 2016. Betting against him could work this time around. Mr. Lysiak suggested that readers who expected Mr. Drudge’s site to stay true to one line of political thought were misguided. 'In reality, while Matt Drudge has his own personal political opinions, his website has absolutely no loyalty to any political party or ideology,' he said. 'Now he’s thinking long-term, really putting his political capital on a Biden candidacy. And if that happens, he will once again weaponize his site on behalf of more conservative causes.'"
The link on "Long, Hot Summer" goes to "In Miami-Dade, dueling rallies in support of Black Lives Matter and President Trump" (Miami Herald). I don't really know what's in that article that justifies the photograph of what I'm calling a blackface fist or that headline using a phrase that back in the 1960s meant there would be "race riots" in the city all summer....
It's got to be to chime with that blackface fist that Drudge chooses 2-fisted Biden to illustrate "POLL: Trump losing female vote by historic margin..." That picture is one of several pictures at the link, which goes to "LADY TROUBLES/Trump ‘losing female vote to Biden by a historic margin not seen in more than 50 years’ – but men still on his side'" (The Sun). In that poll, Biden has a 20-point advantage with women, and Trump has a 2-point advantage with men. Polls — who believes them?! But why 2 fists when the issue is his appeal to women? Don't we imagine that the female preference for Biden over Trump is that he seems to be a kinder, gentler fellow?
Perhaps Drudge means to suggest that women are going to need a strong protector, and there's Biden, balling up his fists — does he look adequate to fight for you, as this "long, hot summer" comes on? In that light, consider the third item in my screen shot: "Winston Churchill's picture mysteriously vanishes from Google amid rising tensions" (knewz):
Searches for ‘British prime minister’ and ‘World War 2 generals’ called up photos of everyone else but the legendary British prime minister — just after his statue in London was defiled. The images were eventually restored. The picture of Winston Churchill suspiciously vanished from Google search results on Saturday just as the legendary British prime minister was under siege from racial justice protesters in the United Kingdom. The images reappeared about 12 hours later on Sunday, with Google saying it was an unintentional “updating issue.”
The old-school belligerent male protector is disappearing from the scene, and all we've got left is old man Biden, because the women seem to think he'll have to do.
Drudge, amusingly, took the "invincibility" that WaPo intended only as an insult to Trump — who supposedly thinks he is invincible — and turned it into a reality — the idea that Trump is invincible.
This reminds me of something I've heard Scott Adams say a few times. If we see a word next to a person's name, it gets connected to that person, and it doesn't stay put in the precise meaning it had where we first saw it. The original user of the words can't control them after they enter other people's head.
WaPo intended to make Trump look like a delusional, dangerous fool, but maybe Drudge's presentation is something like what happens to WaPo's headline as it sets up residency in the human brain.
My favorite part was when there was all this crosstalk and she busted out with: "A house divided cannot stand!"
I'm thinking, come on, Amy! That can be your trademark! When other people are talking, you just call out an old Lincoln quote: "My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read!" "I am a slow walker, but I never walk back!" "There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes!" You get the idea.
ADDED: By "right now," I was referring to the page as it looked at 2019/08/27 Tue 07:47:10 EST. At 2019/08/27 Tue 07:48:10 EST, it did not look like that anymore. Accuracy achieved via the DrudgeReportArchives.com.
The Waters link goes to a June 28th piece in Vulture, which I blogged on June 28th, here. I've already quoted the relevant stuff. Asked if Trump makes him laugh, Waters said:
Never. But neither do most of the Democrat character candidates running now either. And you could argue it’s not a funny time, which is true.... There are 40 [Democrats] that are going to divide it all up. You know, the gay one I like. I’d vote for any of them, even though it would be really hard for me to vote for Elizabeth Warren who has never once said a funny thing in her entire life....
But what's this other story?! "MAD Magazine to Cease Publication." I click through to the article at comicbook.com and it begins with an update: "Details have emerged regarding the future of MAD magazine following the end of original content later this year." There's a link, and I click through to another comicbook.com piece:
MAD magazine will not be completely closing down, as previously reported -- although most of its new content will cease, and availability for the iconic humor magazine will be reduced... Rather than closing up shop, the plan at present is to continue publishing issues that will feature reprinted classic MAD pieces, wrapped with new covers art....
The venerable humor magazine, which launched in 1952 at EC Comics, relaunched in 2018.... The 2017 reorganization and subsequent 2018 reboot both struggled with finding an identity for MAD in an increasingly satire-saturated world.
So maybe it's not the Era of That's Not Funny. Maybe it's the Era of Too Much Funny. We're told "MAD struggled to find an elusive niche," and it "doubled down on lampooning the Trump administration." But that didn't work! Too much competition, and you lose all the pro-Trump readers. But you can't do pro-Trump humor. You alienate the anti-Trump readers, and Trump himself does the pro-Trump humor so well that you have to compete with him. By the way, are conservative humor publications ever good? For example, The Babylon Bee? Always bad.
... meant that Elizabeth Warren was considering naming Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as her VP choice.
The link goes to "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dangles 2020 endorsement: Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren?" That is, the "her" is AOC, and AOC might endorse Warren. That still strongly demonstrates the power of AOC. It didn't work on me, but Drudge assumed we'd look at that picture and those words and see AOC as the active participant, the "her" who might do something important. I assumed the dominance of Warren — she's the "her" — but I was imagining AOC, a freshman Congresswoman, as a potential VP choice.
Drudge's link goes to a UK paper, The Sun, which is, I guess they can't help it, focused on British royalty: "COMB ON OVER Donald Trump sports slick new ‘hat hair’ before flying to meet the Queen." But Trump's hair has nothing to do with the Queen. It has to do with wearing a hat — he'd been golfing — and then finding himself in a situation where he had to take off the hat. You can get this info just from reading The Sun: "Trump had come straight from a game of golf and had only just taken off his baseball cap when he got in front of the cameras at a Virginia church." The Sun goes on to survey social media, where the most common joke seems to be about how, unlike usually, he looks "normal."
What Trump was doing — apparently spontaneously, without taking time to do his hair — was attending a church memorial service for the victims of the Virginia Beach shootings:
Trump's lack of vanity is a bit disarming (considering how much effort he's put into maintaining his trademark elaborate hairdo over the years), but it's really nothing compared to the profundity of the religious observance for the recently murdered human beings.
Trump haters who feel disarmed — because they can't lob their usual "narcissist" insult — could say that he deliberately suddenly changed his hairstyle to get people to talk about it and then he'd win in the end because he'll be able to call them trivial for not respecting religion and murder victims. Because that's the kind of thing he does, right? Like the way he wants to be impeached.
UPDATE: Here's how Trump actually looks with the Queen today. The hair is pretty much back to his usual swooping, sweeping style, maybe slightly more sedate, but the best part of the video is when Melania comes into view (looking more magnificent than ever):
"Insiders also claim not to be surprised that the conclusion of the long-awaited Mueller report—or at least the Trump-appointed attorney general's summary—was a whimper, not a bang for an outlet that has invested so much time and energy, in primetime and throughout its dayparts, in the notion that Trump is unworthy of the Oval Office and might at some point be forced to give it up. And it’s also possible that the Mueller disappointment drove loyal viewers away in much the same way that people avoid looking at their 401(k)s when the stock market is down. Maddow, who has consistently vied for the first or second top-rated cable news program, was sixth on Monday evening, down almost 500,000 total viewers from the previous Monday, as was MSNBC’s second top-rated program in primetime, The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.... The hope now is that Trump’s conduct as president, along with the ramping up of the 2020 presidential campaign, will prove powerful storylines that will give MSNBC the opportunity to regroup.... 'This stuff ebbs and flows,' said one network insider. 'I think we’re ebbing.'"
Maddow was way down on Monday night, but I watched, and I hadn't watched Maddow in months. I wonder how many of her Monday viewers were people like me, who have not been feeding on collusion delusion and wanted to see how it looks when a collusion delusionist deflates. But one night of that was enough. It's not as funny as you might think. It's boring.
It means: These elections are a referendum on Trump, and we don't know the answer yet.
Perhaps Drudge will lighten the image as the results come in and he's ready with a smiling face or a grim face. Perhaps something in between — or some face of puzzlement if it's close and there are recounts in the offing.
A segment on Fox News this morning where hosts laughed and joked their way through a discussion on political impact of terror was bizarre. Not even 48 hours since blood flowed at synagogue? Check your soul in the makeup chair!
Drudge did not respond to multiple requests for comment late Monday night....
The Drudge Report... prominently featured links to news stories related to the segment and included an image of Campos-Duffy, who appears to be laughing. In all capital letters, the headline of one story on the site reads, “LAUGHTER, JOKES ON FOXNEWS SEGMENT ABOUT TERROR FALLOUT?” Beneath that is a brief three-word line linking to a story that included Fox’s response: “Network: Chyron error."...
The past is different from the future. You can't go to either place, but if you wait around, what you once thought of as the future will for a brief shining moment be the present, and then it will fall off into the past, so you can think about it differently, because you've had the chance to see it once, but from where it will never run by in the present again, so there's no second look, but you can talk about it with the dubious authority of memory.
So here I am in the present, seeing this:
That's a nice graphic depiction of the future, but it's not a picture of the future.
Thursday will look like what it really is when it's Thursday.
The name "chicken" has its origins in a game in which two drivers drive towards each other on a collision course: one must swerve, or both may die in the crash, but if one driver swerves and the other does not, the one who swerved will be called a "chicken", meaning a coward; this terminology is most prevalent in political science and economics. The name "hawk–dove" refers to a situation in which there is a competition for a shared resource and the contestants can choose either conciliation or conflict; this terminology is most commonly used in biology and evolutionary game theory. From a game-theoretic point of view, "chicken" and "hawk–dove" are identical; the different names stem from parallel development of the basic principles in different research areas. The game has also been used to describe the mutual assured destruction of nuclear warfare, especially the sort of brinkmanship involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, suggested last year that he secretly record President Trump in the White House to expose the chaos consuming the administration, and he discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office for being unfit....
Mr. Rosenstein was just two weeks into his job. He had begun overseeing the Russia investigation and played a key role in the president’s dismissal of Mr. Comey by writing a memo critical of his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Mr. Rosenstein was caught off guard when Mr. Trump cited the memo in the firing, and he began telling people that he feared he had been used.
Mr. Rosenstein made the remarks about secretly recording Mr. Trump and about the 25th Amendment in meetings and conversations with other Justice Department and F.B.I. officials. Several people described the episodes, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations....
Thanks to commenter readering for saying — on my post about the "Battle of Brett" Drudge graphic — "Much better Drudge headline now."
Drudge rarely uses the siren in recent years, so it has a big impact now.
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