I'm with you. This is a stupid narrative to pursue on either end. Not the one hand it looks like a petty partisan attack on trump by the liberal media. Being the ratings who're he always has been, it got under his skin and he reacted. But what is the real reason? What is the misdirection that trump is pulling and the idiotic media is chasing? I'm convinced every thin skinned attack trump has done has made something more damaging fly under the radar.

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"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden

No one is focused on the content of his speech? I mean, this entire campaign, transition and now inauguration has been smoke and mirrors, populist messages about change, draining the swamp, putting America first, but there's been little substance--or at least the substance that's been there has been overshadowed by the controversies. This is another instance. Is it all intentional? I think it mostly is, but I also think it's as much a product of him being a massive egotistical, thin-skinned asshole.

but there's been little substance--or at least the substance that's been there has been overshadowed by the controversies.


On actual policy what has been said has been confusing, because Trump seems to be saying one thing while is Cabinet members have been saying something different or the complete reverse during confirmation meetings!

Trump himself - in a rage last week about the CIA threatened major changes for the intelligence agencies with a heads-will-roll attitude. Yesterday, "I love you" he says to the CIA!

The ACA will be gone, but replaced by what? . . . . . birds chirping!

Trump has spoken a great deal about a major infrastructure program - which is actually well needed, but he's also talking about substantial tax cuts - so right there you have a major spending programs and a major reduction in government revenue that's going to mean massive increases to the deficit and the debt.

It's also leaked out that their could be significant cuts to Medicare and Medicaid - just as the Baby Boomers all start to enter Senior-hood in HUGE numbers.

Hang on!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

but there's been little substance--or at least the substance that's been there has been overshadowed by the controversies.

The real size of the inauguration crowd isn't a controversy, it's petty gossip.

And yeah, there's actually been a remarkable amount of substance in the whole day that Trump has been president that's been overshadowed by it.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

you and i are on the same page on trump, but i disagree with your general assessment of the media. i think most journalists really do try and report honestly. certainly biases sneak in, but they arent just speaking out of their asses like trump does.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

i think most journalists really do try and report honestly. certainly biases sneak in, but they arent just speaking out of their asses like trump does.


That's my take also.


There are a lot of good journalists out there and maybe people have to be a little more selective on who they read or listen to but in general, I think they do try and report honestly. If people are going to start having doubts about everything, I think the blame falls on Trump as he has repeatedly shown a complete disregard for facts.

Uh huh.

They are (and have been) operating exactly on Trump's level.

It would be bad enough if they just got sucked into insisting that they're right and Trump is wrong about some stupid, trivial, nonsense issue. And it is that bad. But then they also lie about stupid, trivial, nonsense issues, too. Like I said, check out CNN's claims about Nancy Sinatra.

And then there's the rest of us, who insist that coverage about the inauguration crowd size IS newsworthy, and DOES justify the amount of scrutiny and attention it's getting, but don't actually expect the press to investigate claims about WMDs before going to war, or about the actual effects of a radical national healthcare plan- because those things are hard.

It's just depressing.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

I think this is just the beginning and will plague trumps presidency. CNN knows what buttons to push and has clearly shown it can keep Trump off balance both during the election, and now during the infancy of his first term. Trumps problem is he cannot and will not ignore the trolling. This will not end well for him. He's crazy if he thinks twitter will be his flanking manoeuvre.

Up here in canuckstan the former conservative government did the same thing shortly after winning power when they practically shut out powerful liberal shills such as the CBC (our pinker version of CNN). Their reasoning I believe, and it made sense to me at the time, was why the fuck would conservatives engage with a liberal media when NO MATTER what positive things they did or said, it would be spun with derision and partisan reporting. They never recovered from that because up here the CBC mandate is to spoon feed the electorate the liberal message.

The arrogance of outlets like CNN was on full display during the election when they were confidently on full "get Hilary elected" mode. Now that Trump has won, CNN 'et al' is snivelling out loud as to why Trump won't kiss their ass. Good luck to Trump with this, because even though he's correct, he's never going to win this battle.

Damn man, even Fox has turned against them and are lying.

"I was there on the Mall. ... I am telling you, there were huge empty areas,” Wallace said, saying he saw the difference with his own eyes. "

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

http://ew.com/...nauguration-ratings/

So if you account for online streaming viewers, guess what, Trump (may have) had more viewers than O. Who'd a thunk it.

Here's an example of the media doing their job.

CNN has a list of the things Trump has accomplished so far. Trump and his team have to start focussing on things like this.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/trump-first-days-actions/index.html

Trump pressured park service to produce more crowded crowd photos.


It's time for Trump to visit N. Korea and learn photo shop.

I have to say, as I scroll down and look at the Wa Post headlines I ask myself, is this Breitbart, the Huff Post or the Washington Post. Sorry, the media have lost it.

By the way, the local TV station in Denver (9NEWS) posted a memo from the Trump administration for their show NEXT. The supposed "gag order" for federal agencies. One problem, right next to it they posted the "gag order" from the Obama administration sent out in 2008. The memos were almost word for word with the exception of a reference to social media which was there in 2008, just not to the same extent as it is today. The breathless day to day rants coming from the media and the left would be funny if not so wearying.

It is definitely going to a long 4, or maybe 8 years for many of our more revered media outlets and their loyal, left wing readers.

So, what you're saying is that another person in the Trump Admin committed plagiarism. Man, will these people ever have an original idea.

Yea but the media with the most outrageous will get the greater audience of lunatics. It'll become a race to feed the loonies.

Kind of like Fox News was feeding you Loonies bullshit for the last 8 years? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! What a load of partisan horseshit!

https://www.theguardian.com/...d-size-photos-edited

NPS Photoshopped inauguration crowd photos?

I just don't believe that he had them do that. Any president that would make that a priority on his first day of office would have to be a petty, childish, egotistical idiot. Shirley you don't think that any of those adjectives describe Trump do you? Help me out if I omitted some other adjectives that apply.

OK, I'm a TDSer. But so what? Photographers use Photoshop. The crop for framing, etc. Color match. Writers use word editors. Radio interviewers use sound-editing. They all crop out stuff that's not useful to communicate.

And the job of Spicer as part of the WH Communications staff is go make Trump look good. That's pretty much his job.

small hands