Say, what’s in the real news?

Lara Trump explains that a kid who works in the lodge could never ski faster than Eric.

Remember when we coined the phrase “fake news” to describe the proliferation of hoax stories on social media? That genie got out of the bottle fast. The term meant “made-up reports” for about two weeks before Trumpsters coopted it entirely. Now “fake news” is their term for any item critical of the president, including factual reporting of events by legacy news organizations. They prefer “real news,” i.e. statements from people who are not journalists, disseminated by flacks who hold the very idea of objectivity in contempt. It took about six months to get from “watch out for hoaxes” to the assertion that only propaganda is real. Step one was to classify actual events that reflect poorly on the president as “fake news.” Step two is this:

Let’s talk about the things that make this news real:

  1. It is devoted to reporting good things about one subject.
  2. The reporter is the subject’s daughter-in-law.
  3. It contains no interviews with or quotes from anyone else.
  4. It is not broadcast on a news network.

Compare this shot of reality to last week’s reports that multiple people got fired from the White House staff, Obamacare repeal died in the senate, and the president has been asking people if he can legally pardon himself. All that stuff is fake. This video does not mention it explicitly, but we know it’s fake because it distracts us from appreciating the president. Lara Trump implies it with her very first sentence, “I bet you haven’t heard about all the accomplishments the president had this week, because there’s so much fake news out there.”

This statement sets up a weird dichotomy. It’s not as though knowing the Mooch got fired prevents you from knowing that the Dow has reached an all-time high, but Reporter Trump implies that you either know President Trump is doing a great job or you’ve fallen victim to fake news. That news is fake not because investigation shows it didn’t really happen, but merely because Trump fans refuse to listen to it. This is an extremely bracing way to think about the distinction between “real” and “fake.”

Another difference between fake news and the real news, though, is that the real news is not new. This video reports that President Trump continues to donate his salary, unemployment continues to be low, and the Dow continues to be high. One problem with the plan to replace the fake news of sourced reporting and reputable outlets with real news from the wife of the president’s kid is that it doesn’t really satisfy people’s appetite for fresh information about what just happened, i.e. the “news” of the world. It’s weird that Trump & Trump’s Real News would not try to replicate the reporting that most people agree is the lifeblood of what they call fake news.

But maybe they don’t think of it that way. Maybe Trumpworld looks at the Washington Post and the New York Times and determines that their signature feature is not comprehensive reporting on breaking events, but rather stuff that makes Trump look bad. Compare this to their own product, stuff that makes Trump look good. It seems fatuous, but maybe once you commit to approaching all knowledge as instrumental—not as a way to understand the world but as a way to wield power—you kind of forget how truth smells. If you only care about the score, the ref seems like another player. Why not compete with him?

Lara Trump’s real news is a dispatch from a world where the Washington Post is propaganda, too. The more one tries to parse the logic of Trumpworld, the more one suspects that it is not about lying so much as denying the distinction between truth and lies. The question of whether a statistic is accurate or a story really happened is orthogonal to the terms “real” and “fake” as Trumpworld uses them. Pointing out that what they call “fake news” actually happened is like saying the symphony is oblong. That President Trump is making America great again is their only claim of fact, and they take it as an article of faith. All other realness flows from there.

Comey firing reveals that Sergei Lavrov has savage deadpan

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson takes a look at one beautiful SOB.

Maybe you heard about this, but President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey last night. I thought Comey had been fired to spend more time with his family, and Trump let him go as a reward for completing such a thorough investigation of any connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. But apparently that investigation is ongoing, even though the president just fired the man in charge of it. Why he would do something that looks so bad at first glance—and at subsequent glances leading up to prolonged eye contact, until you’re just staring into the terrible optics of this thing and flicking your tongue a little—is unclear. It took everyone by surprise. But then along comes Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov:

Asked if Comey’s firing would cast a pall over his talks with Rex Tillerson, Lavrov responds, “Was he fired?” In this moment, his whole demeanor changes. He spent the last few seconds with downcast eyes, but now he draws himself up and looks straight at the reporter. “Was he fired?” he asks again. “You’re kidding!” Then he..scoffs? Rolls his eyes? Whatever it is, it’s an expression of knowing disdain any middle-school girl would be proud of, and he delivers it without mercy.

Why do I feel like a lot of Russians are good at the kind of joke where you pretend not to know something and then make the other person feel stupid for telling you about it? Russophobia, probably. But whether he has mastered a national pastime or just a useful technique of boss humor, Lavrov really sells it here. The first time I watched this footage, I thought he genuinely didn’t know.

That’s part of what makes this such a great response. Lots of people didn’t know Comey had been fired. According to the Times, Comey himself was delivering a speech in Los Angeles when the news appeared on video screens behind him. By convincingly acting like he, too, was shocked by the news and then showing that he played us, Lavrov sends a message: “Of course I knew.” Our stunning news is old hat to him. It’s an attitude that lets him neatly avoid the question, which was not “did you know Comey got fired” but “will Comey’s firing cast a shadow on these talks?”

“When will the Leningrad Soviet distribute heating oil for the winter?” the people demand. “Is it cold?”  young Precinct Director Lavrov responds. “Is it cold? You’re kidding?” He rolls his eyes and gets into his limo, which takes him to the airport for his flight to Sochi or wherever. Damned Russians—always one step ahead.

United issues statement after dragging passenger off overbooked flight

A seemingly unconscious passenger is dragged off UA flight 3411.

It’s a good thing United Airlines recently changed its slogan from “fly the friendly skies” to “get knocked unconscious and dragged off the plane,” or they might be vulnerable to ribbing. Last night, passengers on flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville were asked to volunteer f0r a later flight so that four members of another United flight crew could take their seats. Two passengers volunteered and received $800 vouchers. The airline randomly selected another passenger for removal: a man who said he was as a physician scheduled to see patients in Louisville the next day and refused. Eventually, security officers pulled the man screaming from his seat, apparently knocking him unconscious before dragging his limp body down the aisle. Seriously. Here’s a statement from United:

Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked. After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate. We apologize for the overbook situation. Further details on the removed customer should be directed to authorities.

Classic use of the passive voice here: The flight “was overbooked,” so law enforcement “was asked” to manhandle one of United’s customers. By whom we cannot know—probably the same disembodied forces that created the “overbook situation.” But perhaps the most thrilling part of this statement is its bold new use of the words “volunteer” and “voluntarily.” Close reading and fairly disturbing video after the jump.

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You like this riot-control bulldozer, right?

The Bozena Riot mobile crowd-control unit

The Bozena Riot is a 15,000-pound riot-control bulldozer whose frontal wall can expand to the width of city streets, raising and lowering to either protect or release dozens of police. It’s bullet- and fireproof, and it can be operated either from a cockpit behind the wall or by remote control. Its loudspeakers, cameras, and high-pressure tear gas nozzles just scream “consent of the governed.” As the manufacturer’s website puts it:

The system offers a solution for both protecting the law-enforcement units in action and controlling the situation whenever peace maintenance is required.

The primary use of the passive voice in English is to disguise whoever is doing something. This bulldozer system offers solutions for “whenever peace maintenance is required.” But who requires peace? If the Bozena Riot’s first role is to protect “law-enforcement units in action,” who endangers them by ordering action in the first place? The answer, in theory, is us. We pay the taxes that might purchase this thing, and we require the peace to be maintained. Right? You love the Bozena Riot and are glad someone manufactured it. I mean, what else could you love? Riots?

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Snoop shoots “clown resembling Donald Trump,” unleashes anarchy

Wednesday

In the annals of FoxNews.com headlines, “Snoop Dogg shoots clown resembling Donald Trump in new music video” is a low-key classic. You don’t hear about a lot of clowns that resemble Mahatma Gandhi, or clowns resembling the brave men and women who died in 9/11. And “resembling” is such a pleasingly circumspect word, in contrast with the absurdity of everything else in this headline. Now is a fun time to remember that Fox News shares a parent company with The New York Post, who seem not to have reported on this event but would probably have done it differently. Anyway, I want to emphasize that Snoop Dogg shot a clown resembling Donald Trump in a music video, not in real life. That makes it a symbolic act—a message, probably. This theory is supported by S.D. Dogg’s remarks to Billboard:

I feel like it’s a lot of people making cool records, having fun, partying, but nobody’s dealing with the real issue with this fucking clown as president and the shit that we dealing with out here. So I wanted to take time out to push pause on a party record and make one of these records for the time being.

Notice how he assures us he’s working on a party record, too. Snoop has been doing this for a long time. Also, he sucks now. Or does he? This clown video is actually pretty…okay, I’m not willing to say it’s good. But I’m glad I watched it. Video after the jump.

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