One of the things I like about the kind of writing I do hear is that it is iterative rather than definitive. Points I was trying to make in one post, which remained fuzzy or tentative in my own mind, get sharped or reconsidered by things I read in your emails or by articles I read in other publications. On this latter front, I want to return to David Frum’s article I referenced yesterday. Read More
My post yesterday on data journalism and gun control touched off quite a stir and storm. I think there was some legitimate criticism of my broad brush criticism of data journalism, or at least the way my headline could be read that way. There’s a lot of great data journalism out there. My former colleague Al Shaw flagged just one example here.
It’s not all data journalism – which I stated explicitly. The problems I noted are not intrinsic to data journalism. But they are what I would call a natural and not uncommon shortcoming: When you have a hammer, everything seems to be a nail. This is as much a problem with more conventional narrative journalistic methods as with data journalism. When you have extreme confidence in the power of (and success with) data to clarify questions and reveal patterns, you can lose track of or give too little attention to whether the questions you’re asking are even the right ones to ask. Read More
A bit more background on our particular interest in Roy Moore and Neo-Confederacy.
You might have thought ex-Rep. Michael Grimm’s political career was over or had at least hit a serious setback after he did time in federal prison for tax fraud. But Grimm, who has threatened reporters with physical violence, is pointing to his rap sheet as a selling point for the Trump Era as he campaigns to win back his old house seat. “In Washington, nice guys finish last” he’s been telling supporters. Meet certified member of the criminal element, former No. 83479-53 Michael Grimm.
We’re familiar with the still substantial number of Republican politicians from the Deep South who have various ties to ‘Neo-Confederate’ political groups. Trent Lott, who got booted from the Senate leadership fifteen years ago, was the iconic recent example. In the aftermath of Charleston and Charlottesville, the GOP has been trying to get at least visual distance from these types even as Trump and the MAGA crowd has often tried to bear hug them more aggressively. But Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore is in a very different category. He not only has all the Trent Lott style connections. His longtime backer and top financial supporter is a white supremacist who is pushing for the South to secede AGAIN and form a white, Christian Republic. Again, this isn’t just nostalgia for the first secession and Jim Crow. His group wants to secede again. Cam Joseph brings us the whole story.
At 6:10 PM this evening President Trump began a meeting with top military leaders and gave a short prepared statement to pool reporters at the White House. It was quite an aggressive statement but not terribly different from other things we’ve heard from the President. The White House then announced that press appearances were done for the day. Then roughly an hour later, a pool reporter was again called in for another by the President and the military leaders. As the pool reporter put it, “White House staff hastily assembled the pool to cover a photo spray with military leaders and their spouses before a dinner with POTUS and FLOTUS.”
Here’s the key passage, with ominous and cryptic statements from the President.
We’ll never know how close we came to President Trump assaulting innocent Puerto Rican storm victims with flying cans of chicken.
“Trump passed out yellow bags of rice and then started tossing rolls of towels into the crowd as if he were shooting free throws. The crowd laughed and cheered him on. When he contemplated doing the same with the cans of chicken, the crowd gently told him no.”
CNN scoop about Mueller and the Steele dossier may be more significant than it appears on the surface.