CJR - the Columbia Journalism Review - posted an important story this morning, linked below in the first comment. It's about a 5-minute read that breaks down the failures of the New York Times and the Washington Post regarding political reporting. Consumers of both broadsheets will note that CJR correctly tars the Times as significantly worse at their job, though both papers of record are shitting the bed when it comes to maintaining a properly informed public.

For all the talk about the polarization of news, the siloing of information, or even the bizarre and mindless assertion of a liberal-biased media, the real problem is capitalism - though CJR doesn't come right out and say that, so I'm saying it here.

Before anything noble or enlightened about informing the public and the virtues of independent journalism, newspapers want to keep their readers' attention. So, when it comes to politics, the absolute imperative is to sell the horserace. If, by the very nature of the horses involved, that race is a thoroughbred vs. an old nag, then the media needs to boost the slowpoke, hobble the speedster, or both.

Emmett Till would, and should, be celebrating his eighty-second birthday today - just a little older than my mom and dad, whom I'll be traveling to see very soon.

Till, visiting family from his home in Chicago, was murdered in the small town of Money, Mississippi, by folks who "take care of their own."

The purpose of the murder was vengeance against Till for having the temerity to exist and to breathe the same air as the very white, very upstanding, very small-town people of Money. It was also a warning to anyone else who looked like Till that they'd better not try that in a small town where people "take care of their own" and define "their own" in the most appalling of ways.

The Jason Aldean shit got stuck in my craw again today, and I was going to write something long and critical about how he DIDN’T grow up in a small town. He grew up in a majority Black city, Macon, Georgia, but CHOSE to attend a Christian school where the student body is STILL over 90% white in 2023. I was gonna write about how the town where he filmed his video, Columbia, Tennessee, is no longer a small town, but it WAS one in 1927 when Henry Choate was tied to the back of a car and dragged through the streets of that small town before being hanged right where Aldean CHOSE to stage his video.

I was gonna write about how the whole point of Sundown Towns across America was never having to SAY the words, “Get out by dark, N*****,” because that shit is IMPLIED by the militancy of statements like, “We protect our own round here,” when “our own,” are all fish-belly white and hair-trigger angry about them “outsiders from the city coming 'round here to do no good."

Just ask Ahmaud Arbery's people about that.

Country music wankstain Jason Aldean recently aired a video for his song "Try That in a Small Town" and outed himself as yet another in a seemingly endless line of pathetic, talentless, terrified racist white dudes with stylists and record contracts out of Nashville.

The song is a paean to violence against the upstart wokes, it's a hymn about the sacred, insular, hateful "ethic" of sundown towns in rural America where "outsiders" should fear for their lives if they don't like the way we do things around here.

Aside from the artist being a garbage-soul, "Try That in a Small Town" is also just an awful song of bad writing, canned phrasing, gaudy production, and ham-fisted tropes. It's a godawful mess, and I do not suggest you bother with it for one minute more.

The butt of the scuttle suggests that Trump is looking at charges on three counts in the Jan 6 case:

- 18 U.S.C. § 371 - Conspiracy to defraud the U.S. - When two or more people conspire either to commit any offense against the United States or to defraud the United States or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.

- 18 U.S. Code § 242 - Deprivation of rights under color of law - makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.

- 18 U.S. Code § 1512 - Tampering with a witness - prohibits tampering with witnesses, victims, or informants in a legal case, with the intent to obstruct justice. It makes it a crime to engage in actions such as intimidation, retaliation, or bribery to hinder the communication of information or cooperation with law enforcement or the judicial system.

On May 19, I wrote this about Ron DeSantis when much of the punditocracy was still hyping him as the next big thing. “What a fucking idiot. What a cruel, cowardly, bullying idiot. If you’re getting into the DeSantis market, short the fuck out of your position. He’s a political tragedy just beginning to implode.”

As has become painfully obvious, that assessment was on the money, and tonight, I’d like to do two things: First, I’d like to take a bit of a victory lap at spotting this also-ran for what he was before the herd caught up. Second, I’d like to draft the first (of thousands) of autopsies concerning the DeSantis campaign that will be written when he officially drops from the race after Iowa. The fact that he’s still technically alive, politically, makes it that much more fun.

Call it a premortem.