Good Mourning, Twitler!

(CNN) Republican strategist Jennifer Horn was up at 1 o’clock Tuesday morning writing an op-ed when she saw it: An angry tweet mentioning her by name from the President of the United States.
Donald Trump had name-checked Horn, alongside other advisers to the anti-Trump Republican group the Lincoln Project, in a late-night rant against the organization’s latest ad criticizing the President for his response to the coronavirus pandemic. Among Trump’s targets on Twitter were George Conway, the outspoken husband of White House aide Kellyanne Conway, and several veterans of John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Original movie poster

Make them all go first!

From HIVE at VANITY FAIR:

America is just over a week into the White House’s “Slow the Spread” coronavirus initiative, which recommends citizens practice social distancing and refrain as much as possible from leaving their homes. But Donald Trump has spent the past few days whining about the struggling stock market and signaling a return to business as usual, despite warnings from his own medical experts that an additional several weeks are necessary to contain the still-growing pandemic. Sending the country back into full-time work mode would undermine efforts to curb the outbreak and will almost certainly lead to more Americans dying—one worst-case model found that 2.2 million people could die if the outbreak is allowed to spread unmitigated. Right-wing media outlets know this, but they’re still backing the White House’s ill-advised pivot in near unison.

In fact, the death cult speed-run to save the stock market already has its first round of volunteers. On Monday night, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick kicked things off by telling Tucker Carlson that he is ready “to take a chance on [my] survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves,” i.e. one in which business is booming. Carlson, who commended Patrick’s comments as a necessary “conversation,” discussed the proposal on Tuesday night with his colleague Brit Hume, who concluded that it is “an entirely reasonable viewpoint.”

Original DVD cover

Rotten to the News Corps

From Variety:

Is this what implosion looks like?

Bill Shine & Jesse Watters hopefully about to get hit by a train.

Original DVD cover

Twinkletoes…make that Stinkletoes

From the Los Angeles Times:

Can the onetime “Hammer” of the U.S. House of Representatives do a mean Texas two-step?

In a move startling even by the outlandish standards of reality television, “Dancing With the Stars” announced Monday that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — a pugnacious politician under indictment for alleged money-laundering — will be a contestant in the upcoming season.

Original movie poster

With a name like Tucker, he’s got to be rude.

From Crooks & Liars:

Seriously, is there anyone more annoying than Tucker Carlson? The least self-aware pundit on TV, still nursing his own bruised ego from the thorough spanking he received at the hands of a comedian that took down his show, cried that Jon Stewart is nothing more than a partisan hack in “attacking” Jim Cramer. Mr. “I’m an ideologue, not a partisan” repeats the favorite GOP meme that Cramer was only attacked because he dared to criticize Obama’s budget. Hmm … repeating GOP talking points … but Carlson’s not speaking on behalf of his party, no sirree.

Original movie poster.

Schlock Market Smackdown

From the Los Angeles Times:

The “weeklong feud of the century” reached its climax Thursday night as Jon Stewart welcomed freshly minted nemesis Jim Cramer to ” The Daily Show.”

Cramer, who hosts the CNBC show “Mad Money,” had figured heavily in a “Daily Show” piece highlighting that network’s poor track record on the financial apocalypse, an attack originally inspired by reporter Rick Santelli’s diatribe against over-leveraged homeowners. (“If I only followed CNBC’s advice,” Stewart said then, “I’d have a million dollars today — provided I’d started with $100 million.”)

When Cramer objected publicly to what he considered unfair treatment, Stewart and his writers, smelling comedy blood, turned their sights toward him. Or, as the host described it last night, “We threw some Boston cream pies at CNBC, you got a little, obviously, shmutz on your jacket from it, you took exception, and then we decided to hit you with pies.”

CPAC? I need some Ipecac!

From Salon:

March 1, 2009 | WASHINGTON — Seizing the opportunity to speak to a national TV audience, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh told a packed house of cheering supporters at the 2009 Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual meeting in Washington to resist President Barack Obama’s plans to expand government and not “think like a minority.”

…snip…

Limbaugh exhorted conservatives to stay upbeat, blasted the alleged socialist agenda of the “Democrat Party,” and called out the new president, the one he hopes will fail.

…snip…

But strip away the platitudes and cheap applause lines about freedom, self-reliance and the virtues of capitalism, and you’re left with the subject that really interests Rush Limbaugh: himself. The conservative talker with the self-professed “talent on loan from God” spoke incessantly in the first person: there were more “I’s” in his CPAC address than in an Idaho potato field. One clear message emerged from the speech:

“Le mouvement conservative, c’est moi.”

Original movie poster.

The End of the (Big) Story

From The New York Times:

Fox News Channel, tinkering for the first time in eight years with its popular early evening lineup, is replacing its 5 p.m. news broadcast, “The Big Story,” with an election-theme program for the foreseeable future. The network confirmed this week that “America’s Election HQ,” a program that displaced “The Big Story” temporarily last month, would continue indefinitely.

Original DVD cover.