Tuesday, January 14, 2025
The Ones You Most Suspect
A former high energy Democratic fundraiser, failed congressional candidate and social media influencer is now raising money for President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural committee.
Lindy Li made the shocking 180 after an extraordinary journey though a crazy year in Democratic politics culminating in Kamala Harris' historic loss to Donald Trump.
Better Late Than Never
WASHINGTON (AP) Biden administration will move to lift #Cuba's state sponsor of terror designation in final days of term, AP sources say
— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) January 14, 2025
Trying To Win The Last Battle
To a great degree (not just!) voters are mad about whatever the teevee is telling them to be mad about, or at least are channeling their anger into those issues, and to make that work for the Dems, they need to get out in front of the next issue and make sure that one is on TV.
The Fantasy Democratic Party
But in recent elections Democrats increasingly cast themselves as full-throated defenders of immigrants, regardless of legal status, while Republicans increasingly portrayed even legal immigration as a negative force in American life.Once you get past the 'clowns to the left, jokers to the right' framing, the piece is clearly way to the left of where the Democrats currently are, but self-identifying centrists can never acknowledge such things.
The lesson for Democrats is there's no point in "moving to the right" as they'll never get any "credit" for it anyway. Even from the New York Times!
Heroes And Villains
I was admittedly swept up in Liz as an authentic and sympathetic person. She’s gentle and charismatic, in a quiet way. My editor laughed at me when I shared these impressions, telling me (and I quote), “Amy Chozick, you got rolled!” I vigorously disagreed! You don’t know her like I do! But then, something very strange happened. I worked my way through a list of Ms. Holmes’s friends, family and longtime supporters, whom she and Mr. Evans suggested I speak to. One of these friends said Ms. Holmes had genuine intentions at Theranos and didn’t deserve a lengthy prison sentence. Then, this person requested anonymity to caution me not to believe everything Ms. Holmes says.This warning stuck with me, and it got at something that had been gnawing on me since I first met Ms. Holmes. How do you have an honest conversation with a person whose fraud trial has played out so publicly? I tried to ask Ms. Holmes this directly. How do I believe you when you’ve been convicted of (basically) lying? But how could I ask someone who was nursing her 11-day-old baby on a white sofa two feet away if she was actually conning me?
There's no way I - a seasoned political reporter, completely entranced by Rudy Giuliani and Andrew Cuomo - could be conned!
The Politics Show
Chozick was one of the star political reporters for years. You can see her view of politics and political coverage: it is a grand epic requiring politicians well-suited to be cast in the role of hero, where performance is everything.
Rudy being filmed walking the streets on 9/11, or Cuomo being on cable news confidently saying things, represents both the apogee and the limit of politics. That is what politics is for. There is little need to ask why Rudy was on the streets instead of in his command center, or what Cuomo was doing when he wasn't performing. Only dorks would care about that stuff.
Most importantly, in The Politics Show, it is the stars of that show who are the protagonists, not the voters. We exist merely to watch, the politicians to perform, and the press to craft the narrative around that. What they actually do, what their policies do, is irrelevant.
I actually think political coverage is less like this now (it has other flaws), but it was journalism from 2000 to 2016
Monday, January 13, 2025
Mister We Could Use A Man Like Andrew Cuomo Again
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People keep saying the scenes out of Los Angeles look like something from a movie. Except they don’t, not really. Movies need a protagonist. Every on-screen apocalypse has a leader. So where is ours?
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I would love a deus ex machina to change this story line or for the real-estate developer and would-be mayor Rick Caruso to divert the dancing fountain at his mall, the Grove. For now, I’d settle for some reassurance that there is a plan. That it’s going to be horrific, but that we will get through this. Los Angeles will endure and rebuild. Together. For someone to, you know, lead.
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I can’t keep up with Rudy Giuliani’s criminal indictments, but after Sept. 11, America’s mayor stood at ground zero and assured a broken city that the terrorist attacks would only make us stronger. Will someone — anyone? — stand in the detritus of the Pacific Palisades or Pasadena and say the same about Los Angeles?
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In those dark early Covid months, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York didn’t deliver niceties. (I’m not sure he’d know how.) But his daily briefings became essential.
Who is this person in the Times pining away for Rudy and Andrew? Who wants someone to go on teevee and pretend to do stuff, even if that stuff is catastrophic? Who just wants the tragedy to be a fun little story on TV, like her other fun stories on TV, like The Politics Show?
Chozick began writing about Clinton in 2007, while working for The Wall Street Journal.[4] In 2008, she was a member of the traveling press of both Clinton and Barack Obama.[3] That year, Chozick wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal questioning whether Obama was too thin to be elected president, given the average weight of Americans; commentator Timothy Noah wrote that this was a racist dog-whistle that invited white people to focus on his appearance and consequently "dwell on…his dark skin."[5]
After writing for the Journal for eight years, she joined the Times in 2011 to write about corporate media.[6] In 2013, she was promoted to the Times' political team, with a focus on Hillary Clinton and the Clinton family.[7] In 2016, she said that as a result of her reporting on Clinton, specifically on her clinching the Democratic nomination for president in June of that year, that she had received death threats from supporters of Clinton's rival in this campaign, Bernie Sanders.[8]
She is the author of Chasing Hillary, a memoir about covering Clinton. With Julie Plec, Chozick adapted the book as a television series called The Girls on the Bus.[9]
In 2023, Chozick wrote a story extolling the putative transformation of Elizabeth Holmes, who was convicted for fraud in her role with Theranos, into a harmless suburban housewife. The piece was accompanied by glamorous photos of Holmes, including holding her two babies with a backdrop of the Pacific Ocean. Some media criticized Chozick for whitewashing a white collar criminal,[10][11] but others said the profile succeeded in capturing Holmes in the act of fooling the journalist assigned to profile her.[12]
Another Victory
...adding, the other case about the Supreme Court justice specifically is not over.
Release It
Judge Aileen Cannon said on Monday that she would not block the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigation into Donald Trump and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
However, Cannon has scheduled a court hearing later this week regarding the part of Smith’s report dealing with the classified documents probe.
Ongoing Tragedy
Is That Good
Over the last four years, web traffic has cratered. According to internal data shared with Semafor in recent weeks, the Post’s daily traffic last year reached a nadir of just a quarter of what it was at its peak in January 2021. That month, the Post had around 22.5 million daily active users. But by the middle of 2024, its daily users hovered around 2.5-3 million daily users.Especially true with billionaire owners.
Suckers
Everybody else just did free work for Amazon, ignoring other issues.
The City of Philadelphia and its transit agency were completely wrapped up in providing its basketball team a bargaining chip for two years, distracting them from other priorities.
I was against the Center City arena because it was clear to me, from the various submitted plans, that they didn't have any idea what they were doing, that they weren't even bothering to try to figure out the logistical issues.
I thought this was because they were dumbasses. I was wrong! It was because they really weren't trying too hard because they never expected to build it!