Great Moments in Media Muppetry: A Whole Jamil of Beans

 

Editor's note: so as I mentioned the other day, I'm bringing "back" a blogging-style variation on a popular feature I used to write over on ninaillingworth.com called The Wall of Shame. The twist is that rather than take-down pieces and tweet collections I'm randomly preserving evidence of media muppet headassery, one online clusterf*ck at a time. Is that petty as f*ck? You betcha, Sparky.

Typically these will just be quick blog posts with screenshots but let's just say today's subject inspired me to get a little involved and ended in this short, heavily sourced essay. I'm not saying you *have* to click on the links in this article to enjoy this piece, but today's serving of beef will certainly be more delicious if you do. 

Let's get down to business, shall we? 

A Whole Jamil of Beans

With the realization that Downmarket Mussolini's half-assed "chicken coup" has finally ground to an unofficial halt, the online discourse is turning towards discussions about Joe Biden's cabinet nominees or potential nominees and it's going just about as well as you'd expect - it's a travshamockery. 

While articulating the full contours of that debate would be beyond the scope of this piece, the basic gist of the controversy is that after relying on the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic Party to carry his decaying mummy carcass over the line against Donald Trump in the 2020 election, Joe Biden is currently shutting out qualified progressive candidates to stack his cabinet with corpse merchant lobbyists, investment bankers, and free market fundamentalists; a series of decisions that are highly unlikely to be popular with voters in general. Naturally, while progressives and the larger American left are by no means surprised at this development, they're certainly not pleased with Biden's completely predictable betrayal and many influential voices are speaking out against Palooka Joe's new pack of minions.

In response, someone has clearly given the Neoliberal Discourse Defense TeamTM marching orders to defend Biden's picks at all costs; with results that run the full gamut between farcical and Orwellian. Of course, all of that might sound like a conspiracy theory, but thanks to Clinton campaign emails published by Wikileaks and David Brock's big fat mouth, we already have a pretty good idea that this sort of thing goes on all the time. Now obviously I don't have the time to fish out dumb tweets from every blue-checkmarked lackey working in the Dem-Booster Bullsh*t Factory, but even just a cursory examination of headlines in the mainstream and faux-progressive media is fairly instructional here:

Joe Biden’s Cabinet Picks Send a Clear Message: The Adults Are Back in Charge
Here Come the Adults: Biden’s Cabinet is shaping up to be everything that Trump’s was not
Biden’s Cabinet is ‘delightfully boring.’ Can reality-TV-addled America deal with it?
Biden's dull-by-design plan
Kelly Evans: Boring Is (Hopefully) Beautiful
Analysis: Biden prioritizes experience with Cabinet picks
'A cabinet that looks like America': Harris hails Biden's diverse picks
Joe Biden nominates first woman to lead intelligence and first Latino to head homeland security
Republicans Are Really Trying to Argue That Biden's Cabinet Picks Are Corrupt
Biden keeps the peace with first Cabinet picks
Biden Cabinet picks largely unify Democrats — so far
Progressives Can’t Find Anyone in Biden's Cabinet to Be Mad About—Yet

Progressives Cheer Joe Biden's First Round of Cabinet Picks: 'A Great First Step'

Whew, that is certainly quite a lot of bullsh*t; I'm particularly impressed at the bold declarations that progressives have no issues with Biden's cabinet in light of the numerous linked examples I featured above, showing prominent progressives being actively pissed off by those picks. This is all very interesting and you could reasonably infer quite a lot about how power networks manipulate political propaganda in the American discourse just from clicking most of the links above; but ultimately the Biden Cabinet fight between neoliberals and progressives is only the backdrop in our story - the tableau on which our tale of flak goblin dipsh*tery plays out if you will.

That's because, as it turns out there is one potential Biden cabinet nominee too odious for even some portions of the braying Biden booster bunch - bawh gawd, is that Rahm Emanuel's music?!

Yes my friends, the conniving sh*t-weasel, clown prince mandarin of the neoliberal project, Rahm Emanuel himself is reported up for some sort of position in Biden's Cabinet; presumably as a reward for eating enough kittens to secure Palooka's Joes backroom support within the Party - although at this point it's fair to say, the quest to reanimate his zombie career is not going entirely swimmingly. 

And as you can see from the screenshot above, this time it isn't just progressives up in arms; Rolling Stone senior writer Jamil Smith was among the many mainstream liberals outraged by the mere idea that Rahm might be returning to national office. And quite frankly, Smith is right; Emanuel is a scumbag lying monster who helped cover up the execution-style murder of a 17 year old African American teen named Laquan McDonald by the notoriously racist and abusive CPD aka, the Chicago Police Department. While that certainly isn't the only part of Rahms resume that should automatically disqualify him from office, it's arguably the most repugnant note in a long career full of such; and yes, as Jamil notes, including Emanuel in the cabinet would be profoundly insulting for African American voters who overwhelmingly turned out for Palooka Joe in the 2020 presidential election.  

So, what's the problem? Well, as I get older, my memory isn't always what it used to be, but for some reason I recall Jamal singing a different tune the last time a portion of the base got shafted by the elite liberal establishment - sometime back in March, or so; right after the centrist power brokers and an immensely popular former President knifed Bernie Sanders, his 2020 primary campaign, and the democratic socialist movement? 

Whoops - I betcha didn't count on becoming a walking "sowing/reaping" meme when you typed that one up huh? Smooth move ya f*cking brain genius; would you like a side order of boot to lick with that schadenfreude Jamil? But hey don't blame yourself my good man. I mean who could possibly have predicted that spuriously accusing the only truly anti-racist candidate in the 2020 Democratic Primary of taking Black voters for granted, as opposed to the guy who romanticized segregationists, helped write the racist 1994 Crime Bill and still believes cracker bullsh*t about the deficiencies of African American parenting, would at some point backfire? What kind of staggering powers of deduction would it have taken to realize that a former anti-bussing advocate who is known for peddling stories about a razor-wielding gangsta named Corn Pop and repeatedly lying about his own participation in the Civil Rights movement, might cynically discard Black voters immediately after getting elected? However could anyone in political media at all have conceivably foreseen this kind of f*ckery in advance? I mean you'd probably have to be like a senior writer who throughout his career has "explored the intersection of politics and identity" or something to figure all that sh*t out - oh, wait.

Now look, I'm not about to go off on some kind of reactionary skred about the evils of "identity politics" here, but this tweet is a prime example of high-profile Democrats and their media minions weaponizing issues of race, identity and marginalization to punch left, delegitimize anti-establishment political leaders and attack voters whose only crime is believing life would be better if there were no billionaires and we all shared our resources a little more. Furthermore, this type of divisive f*ckery is nothing new for Smith, who has clearly spent the past several years actively weaponizing issues of identity against the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic Party. and in particular, Bernie Sanders. Please keep in mind that we're talking about a guy who went from demanding Joe Biden drop out after the third debate because he's a hopelessly out of touch cracker, (while Smith himself was rather clearly in the tank for Kamala Harris, might I add) to essentially describing Palooka Joe's low-key racist declaration that "if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black” as a teachable moment; for a then 77 year old career politician, who also happens to be a U.S. Senator, and former Vice President. I don't want to call Jamil a double-talking, puppet assclown here, but let's just say the last time I saw principles that flexible, the situation involved a shady subprime mortgage.   

Or f*ck it, maybe that's just too kind and I really do want to call Smith a goddamn minion. After all, this asinine little sh*t-puppet knew full damn well when he typed that tweet that Sanders wasn't calling African American voters in South Carolina the "corporate establishment." As he made very clear at the time, Bernie was obviously talking about a months, if not years, long corporate media "fear and smear" campaign, publicly exposed clandestine "Stop Bernie" meetings among Democratic Party luminaries and yes, the Barack Obama-lead centrist "Voltron" strategy that saw almost (thanks Liz!) every other mainstream candidate drop out and endorse Biden with Sanders on the cusp of otherwise winning the nomination contest. This is simply not an honest mistake on Jamil's part because you'd have to have been living under a rock to accidentally take Sanders out of context in this extremely precise and dishonest way - clearly as a professional journalist covering the Democratic Party nomination contest for Rolling Stone, the author knew full well what Bernie was talking about; it is after all, his job. In other words, Smith's criticism was disingenuous media muppetry at its finest; which might go a long way towards explaining why Jamil is now a senior writer at Rolling Stone instead of roundtable chair-meat at MTV News; after all, we already have documented evidence that he's a real team player. 

So, will a vampire scumbag like Rahm Emanuel end up in Biden's government in the final reckoning? I have no idea! But one thing I can tell you is that Jamil's (rightfully) angry tweets won't factor into the decision at all; because even a decaying rapist mummy like Biden knows that the grumblings of an in-pocket, lacky propagandist, just don't amount to a whole Jamil of beans.

Welcome to Great Moments in Media Muppetry, agent Smith - you've certainly earned the honor.

• nina illingworth

 

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

Great Moments in Media Muppetry: Rupar Loses the Plot

 

Author's note: back in the early portions of 2016 (when America was still feeling its way through covert fascism, and hadn't quite gotten around to embracing overt fascism yet), I used to publish the occasional social media takedown piece or muppet evisceration, including a special Wall of Shame for the notably odious propagandists working in mainstream corporate media. 

While these posts were (mostly) fun to write, the truth is that they involved a lot of busy work and ultimately, I would go on to find better uses of my time. Despite this realization however, it has for years continued to gnaw on me that these ridiculous minions and stenographers can so easily get away with saying literally the most obtuse, crass bullsh*t online and due to the ideological slant of mainstream corporate media (Fox and Sinclair excepted for reasons of "open fascism") nobody is ever going to even remember their asinine gaffes, let alone call them out on it. And that sucks.

Unfortunately, I simply don't have the kind of time or energy for tracking the full careers of neoliberal media lackeys and their foibles that I used to - but I'm always searching for short, blog-style posts and this smells like an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. So what I'm going to do is start (sporadically) blogging about the dumb sh*t (mostly, but not exclusively) liberal propagandists say online, one disingenuous sh*t-puppet moment at a time. I'll include a screenshot, a bit of background on the writer and if necessary contextualize why what they just typed for all the world to see is absurd nonsense and f*ckery. 

Naturally these posts will be no means be intended to be all encompassing but if I can in some small way contribute to warning the public about blue-checkmark assclowns on their Twitter feeds before they develop an emotional investment in faux-progressive, centrist politics - I feel like the (minimal) effort involved will be worth it.

Rupar Loses the Plot

So, I thought we'd start off this series by splashing around in the shallow end of Twitter for a hot minute and take a look at the social media feed of Aaron Rupar, who I've been assured is something called a "viral video guru" over at Vox (a "liberal" blogging-style company that ultimately traces much of its funding back to Comcast.) Despite being an obvious sh*tlib muppet, Aaron is often retweeted on nominally left-wing Twitter feeds and has staked out a claim as a rising star in the online liberal hack industry; primarily by engaging in the undoubtedly Herculean task of.. um, watching Fox News all day and reposting clips of dumb crap Trump or fascist network minions say into a live camera. 

Don't get me wrong, Rupar isn't a total maggot; if nothing else his contributions to mocking cracker fascist loudspeakers like Tucker Carlson make him slightly more useful than flaming dog poop in a bag, but only slightly. With the low-hanging fruit of a fascist like Trump slowly fading into the background however, it seems clear that Rupar's services are now being directed towards defending the mainstream Democratic Party establishment at all costs - including this tweet attacking (more) lefty writer David Dayen to defend one of Biden's cabinet nominees:

In terms of context here, there's really not a whole lot to add; nothing Dayen said, or Prospect published about Antony Blinken was untrue, or out of line - Blinken is in fact a corpse merchant scum-sucking lobbyist and an objectively terrible choice for Secretary of State, particularly if you're not a big fan of Israeli apartheid and the slow genocide of Palestinians. Furthermore, as many sh*tposters on Twitter were quick to point out, the vast majority of people in American society manage to make their way in private sector life without trading on their high-level government contacts in the world of arms sales and police state surveillance. While this is obviously slightly less crass, Aaron's tweet certainly calls to mind the vigorous defense of former President Obama's right to profit off protecting criminals on Wall Street with post-presidency speaking appearances because "rich white guys do it all the time" or something; although Rupar unquestionably lacks the artistry of a lackey propagandist like Trevor Noah for example. 

In the end, and for all of its staggering headassery - the tweet itself is simply rather droll; in addition to being fundamentally disingenuous. If anything, the most interesting thing about Rupar's keyboard fart here is that there's a non-zero percent chance he was trying and utterly failing to obliquely reference either the "we live in a society" meme, or a popular anti-capitalist cartoon by Matt Bors. Or maybe not, maybe Rupar is just a boot-licking assclown who legitimately thought he'd get away with this half assed dunk; based on the overall quality of his Twitter feed, it's impossible to rule out either conclusion. 

One thing we can say for certain however is that Aaron Rupar and his weak-assed attempt at throwing shade on a better journalist to protect imperial power, is now a "great moment in media muppetry" for all time - or until they make me delete this blog ahead of my show trial.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

New Deluxe Wall of Shame Update: Sean Hannity - Link

The moment has finally arrived; Fox News Talk Show Thingy Sean Hannity takes his rightful place on our Wall of Shame.

Read "New Deluxe Wall of Shame Update: Sean Hannity" here. 

- nina illingworth

Wall of Shame: New Year’s Update Special

Editor's Note: well, I haven't exactly been good about keeping this site updated even though ninaillingworth.com has had many posts since I last put a teaser up here. I'm trying harder to make better use of my limited advertising resources in 2017 however - so I'm back; as before these will not be complete posts but rather excerpts and links back to my main site.

Hello and Happy New Year! As regular readers know, one of the most popular features here on ninaillingworth.com is our constantly expanding Wall of Shame; a humorous, no holds barred look at the simpering pack of mendacious liars, shills and sycophants that pass for the American free press in what is now clearly, one of the most corrupt times in history. 
 
Over the past few months of compiling tweets and writing updates; I’ve often been asked why I didn’t include numerous, objectively hilarious tweets by accomplished Wall of Shame “honorees” and in most cases, it’s simply because the tweet was published after I’d already written-up a given entry – with so many “worthy” but unrecognized nominees still roaming the wilds of Twitter; it’s awful hard to justify going back to get “better” bad tweets from people we’ve already enshrined. 

In light of the above, and in no small way influenced by the consumption of copious quantities of alcohol; I thought it might be fun to compile a mass Wall of Shame update composed of one stunningly obtuse or dishonest tweet from each of our current, inducted Wall of Shamers – a sort of “where are these dipshits now” shout out to celebrate the New Year by counting coup on craven, chunder-headed collaborators; I even included some bonus links and an official, ninaillingworth.com suggested New Year’s resolution for each honoree: 

Check out the Tweets and read Nina's proposed New Year's Resolutions on ninaillingworth.com... 

- Nina Illingworth

New “Deluxe” Wall of Shame Update: Jonathan Capehart Edition

Editor’s note: well, we’re finally here – after several months and literally dozens of requests, the “illustrious” Jonathan Capehart has finally joined our other “distinguished’ honorees on the Wall of Shame. 

Initially, I’d resisted adding Capehart to the wall because while there is no question whatsoever that he’s an insipid, partisan shill who openly spreads disinformation for the Democratic Party at virtually every possible opportunity; his method of doing so is so staggeringly banal, robotic and soulless to the point of being literally “un-funny.” To paraphrase a much better writer than myself, Jonathan Capehart is how “the whole hep world would use Twitter if the fascists on Madison Avenue ever completely won the war for our hearts and minds;” the guy is a walking, talking, bullshiting infomercial for the Democratic Party – certainly worthy of scorn, but not really “Wall of Shame” material in the classical sense. 

Imaging my surprise then when I typed Jonathan’s name up in the ol’ Google search machine and the magic of the internet spit back clear evidence that Capehart had spent the better part of February  falsely smearing Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party and then actually fucking married into it when he tied the knot with longtime boyfriend Nick Schmit (Assistant Chief of Protocol at the State Department) in May. It would seem that there’s a calculating political operative somewhere behind Capehart’s dull, vacant eyes; which is a problem when you’re supposed to be a fucking journalist and you write for something called the “PostPartisan Blog.” 

Of course, the problem of Capehart’s insipid and quite frankly boring, advertisement quality tweets still remains, but I’ve tried to address this by presenting a larger number of Jonathan’s tweets to highlight the sheer volume of mindlessly stupid shilling for Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party that he engages in:

Read the rest of the article on ninaillingworth.com today...

New “Deluxe” Wall of Shame Updates: August 27th

New “Deluxe” Wall of Shame Updates: August 27th

Editor’s note: it has been said, by minds perhaps greater than my own, that “all work and no play make Homer something, something.” While I’m still not entirely sure what that means, I thought it might be nice to shift gears today and revisit one of my favorite hobbies – exposing sniveling, mark-assed, shill propagandists masquerading as the ostensibly “liberal” media. Yes my friends, it’s time for a new Wall of Shame update and today we’ll be looking at two folks who’ve probably deserved this “honor” for quite some time: Matty Yglesias and Joy-Ann Reid.

In the interests of full disclosure* I should mention that both of these upstanding, impartial media professionals have me blocked on Twitter for reasons that escape my memory but will undoubtedly become crystal clear by the time we’re finished this post. All information presented is publicly available and indeed, proudly touted by both Yglesias and Reid as part of their work in “journalism.” Additionally, none of these tweets have been edited in any way; although, they may not appear in chronological order as they are often grouped by topic – space permitting, I tried to leave the dates and time-stamps on the individual tweets wherever possible.

Finally, and I really do believe this should go without saying but here goes anyways; the purpose of these posts and indeed the Wall of Shame in general is to point out the obvious, mainstream media bias towards “the status quo” and certain politicians by grouping screenshots of the things they say on social media into one reference guide. We’re also looking to have a little fun here, so there are some jokes – this is not however an open call to harass anyone online for fuck’s sake:

Read the rest of the article on ninaillingworth.com today... 

- Nina Illingworth