America's Lunatic Weekend

Lies, accusations and counter-accusations, and rising temperatures at home and abroad. When does the good part begin?

Off the rails we go, with nothing to do but keep score. The weekend madness tally:

Donald Trump’s White House unveiled a new “Media Offender of the Week” site that puts a bizarre twist on the bully pulpit, complaining among other things about coverage of the white-hot “Don’t Give Up the Ship” controversy. The site describes as “subversive” media outlets that give sympathetic coverage to Democratic lawmakers like Senators Alyssa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, who two weeks ago told military and intelligence officers “You can refuse illegal orders”:

The Democrats and Fake News Media subversively implied that President Trump had issued illegal orders to service members. Every order President Trump has issued has been lawful.

At a time when Trump is throwing around terms like “sedition” and “punishable by DEATH,” it’s scary to hear his White House hinting at the idea that news reports can also be “subversive.” The “media offender of the week” does that and more. It also complains about outlets like CBS News (!) and The Independent calling deportees/detainees names like “Colorado Grandfather” in headlines instead of pointing to lists of drug arrests, or describing Kilmar Abrego Garcia as a “Maryland Dad” instead of “a pedophilic illegal migrant gangbanger.”

On one hand, demanding journalists call someone who’s never been convicted of either thing a “pedophilic gangbanger” fundamentally misunderstands media. Immigration officials might be able to make such assumptions, but for press, that’s a libel case. On the other hand, no reporter who’s seen the relevant police/probate reports or video of Abrego Garcia stammering excuses about his expired license while ferrying eight mute passengers back from the border — our own Greg Collard put together a painstaking timeline earlier this year — could put “Maryland Dad” in a headline with a straight face. Doing so is politics, not news. Unfortunately, this is fast becoming standard in the informational totaler Krieg this showdown has become.

The battle of narrative provocations escalated dramatically this weekend: