Linked List: May 12, 2020

Tuesday, 12 May 2020

The Elevator Scene From ‘The Shining’ in Miniature 

Exquisite model work and photography from Aleia Murawski and Samuel Copeland. Don’t miss the behind-the-scenes follow-up.

Howard Stern on Trump 

Howard Stern:

The oddity in all of this is the people Trump despises most, love him the most. The people who are voting for Trump for the most part… he wouldn’t even let them in a fucking hotel. He’d be disgusted by them. Go to Mar-a-Lago, see if there’s any people who look like you.

Trump’s Totally Sane and Not at All Lunatic Thoughts on Mother’s Day 

Trump called in to “Fox and Friends” on Friday morning. You really have to see it — I’m linking here to Late Night With Seth Meyer’s segment on it. He spent the entire 20 minutes railing against his perceived enemies. Really. I mean, whether you like or dislike him — and it’s fair to say the “Fox and Friends” audience is his audience — who wanted to hear this? Nobody is thinking about anything but the pandemic. We don’t agree what to do about it, but it’s quite obvious to everyone that there is no other subject worth the president’s time right now. And yet this is what’s on the man’s mind.

And then his call-in ends with the softball of softball questions — what message does he have for all the moms in America, and what are his plans with his wife for Mother’s Day? That was the question — watch. His answer, I swear, was about fighter jets and the U.S. military budget.

He could walk around wearing a sandwich board reading “I’m a lunatic” and it would be less clear that he’s unraveling.

The Tweets of a Mad King 

Toluse Olorunnipa, reporting for The Washington Post:

On a day when coronavirus deaths passed 80,000 and top government scientists warned of the perils of loosening public health restrictions too soon, President Trump used his massive public platform to suggest a talk-show host he has clashed with committed murder.

His baseless charge capped a 48-hour stretch in which he accused scores of perceived opponents of criminal acts ranging from illegal espionage to election rigging.

Since writing “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY” at 8:10 a.m. on Sunday, Trump has used his Twitter account to make or elevate allegations of criminal conduct against no less than 20 individuals and organizations. Since Sunday, he has tweeted more often about alleged crimes by his perceived opponents than he has about the pandemic ravaging the country with mass death and unemployment.

Dan Froomkin:

This WaPo article by @ToluseO reads like a dam broke in the newsroom and all the things reporters have been wanting to write about Trump spilled out.

IT’S FABULOUS.

It’s full of truths, no bothesidesism, nothing mealy-mouthed about it.

‘Bothsidesism Stalks The New York Times’ 

Josh Marshall, writing at Talking Points Memo:

Let’s start with the title: “Dropping of Flynn Case Heightens Fears of Justice Dept. Politicization”.

We are well past “fears of politicization”. When the President’s loyalist Attorney General intervenes on the President’s behalf in a case in which a defendant/loyalist has already pled guilty in order to short-circuit a prosecution about which no disinterested party has raised any substantial question … well, that is the definition of politicization. It also comes after numerous similar actions by the Barr Justice Department.

One good way to judge these questions is to imagine how the Times would cover a similar set of facts in another country. To suggest that this would be framed as leading to “fears of politicization” would be absurd.

When someone chops someone’s head off that does not lead to fears of people being killed. That is people being killed.

The perverse truth is that despite the right’s decades-long demonization of “mainstream media” as being unfairly biased against conservatives — and Trump’s turning that dial to 11, with his railing against “fake news” and repeatedly calling the news media “the enemy of the people” — the truth is that news analysis at premier outlets like The Times is biased toward the right in the way that they bend their coverage to appear “objective” to both sides, no matter how preposterous one of those sides has become.

“Views Still Differ on Shape of Planet” is no joke.