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[Egan_BW]

The solution is obvious: place Arpaio in the path of the hurricane.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Remember that Arpaio isn't some consequence of the system. He's elected to his position, been re-elected more than once. The Pig of Pigs is the ideal type of person and cop for Republicans. The racism, the brutality and celebration thereof, the old boy "charm", it's their preferred direction for the county.. Trump's involvement is one of the more conventional moves he's made, aside from the political deafness.

[Bumber]

All I can say is hopefully the state's going to look at that pardon, go, "Thanks for the admission of guilt," and then throw whatever books they can lob at joe shitsack.

It's just vaguely amusing (or something similar to it) that chunks of the GOP base are cheering the fed effectively pissing on a state court.

I don't follow. The pardon is solely for contempt of court. What do other crimes the President can't pardon have to do with anything?

He's not going to admit guilt to anything else. He can't be pardoned for anything else.

[Reelya]

Also: Never assume malice when economic incentives will suffice. Which is more likely: All of the US media agreeing in a vast conspiracy to ignore something as obscure as UNASUR*, or the intended audience simply not giving a shit? Now, I don't want to pull the brakes on your anti-imp train, but it sort of feels like you found a couple loose bits of straw and are now warning of the big scarecrow uprising...

I was basing this on the nytimes archive search, which I did quite a while ago. There were a bunch of references to Unasur in nytimes articles up until the point it was ratified, then basically zero mentions of it from the day it was ratified onwards for a period of at least 4 years afterwards, and even after that, the occasional references appear to be mistakes, slips or user comments rather than an attempt to discuss what it is and the implications. Basically, it's mentioned so few times that the fact of omission itself becomes suspicious. e.g. how can a major rising regional power that was just created not be mentioned in any nytimes article for over 4 years, a time period in which they had over 1000 Kim Kardashian articles. It's beyond accidentally not mentioning it then.

e.g. https://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?mcubz=0#/unasur/since1851/allresults/1/allauthors/newest/ shows that UNASUR has been mentioned exactly 20 times in over a decade, with several multi-year gaps in there. Meanwhile even more obscure organizations like Mercosur, which is dominated by US interests get mentioned 10 times as often.

But ... the point is it shouldn't be obscure. It's basically the EU but for South America. South America as a whole now has it's own parliament, a president and a defense council, and they're talking about forming a single currency based on the Euro. This is the biggest political development in decades in the Western Hemisphere. New York Times, if it is in fact the go-to newspaper for in-depth reporting should be informing their readers about it.

Some shit about whether Trump doesn't like Cuba isn't actually news if the formation of a unified government of South America isn't!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The EU wasn't all that significant for a long time either, and even now only gets above national moves on occasion. Hell, the most famous EU news of recent times is Brexit.

UNASUR will get attention if it does something attention-grabbing, which currently it really isn't. There's a million ways all of it could go wrong, which means it probably will. It becomes significant only when those hurdles are overcome.

[Reelya]

    I get that it's not going to get headlines, but the sheer lack of even oblique mentions in related articles itself is suspicious. e.g. even if EU isn't geting "headlines" you do nytimes search on European Union or EU and it's going to get more hits than you can count on your fingers.

    Like I pointed out, other even more obscure organizations get mentioned occasionally in nytimes articles as offhand references all the time, being able to not write even a single article for 4 years which even had an offhand reference to UNASUR during the first 4 years they were setting it up it is strange.

    e.g. in 2010 Nestor Kirchner, ex-president of Argentina was elected Secretary General of all of South America. That's ... newsworthy. But you're not going to read about it in New York Times because then they'd have to tell you that South America has as Secretary General, which they don't want to do, because it breaks the narrative that south america is divided and needs Big Daddy America to help them.

    Fidel Castro farted isn't newsworthy, but it would probably get more coverage in the US media.

[RedKing]

Also, sorta lost in all this, Sebastian Gorka has resigned from his WH position.

ROFL lolwat

I figured Gorka would be the guy who decides to sell out as troops are storming the Trumpenbunker.


I wonder if Trump is hoping to push out Jeff Sessions and make Arpaio the new AG?

[Egan_BW]

Wait, Gorka? Is he an Ork?

[smjjames]

I get that it's not going to get headlines, but the sheer lack of even oblique mentions in related articles itself is suspicious. e.g. even if EU isn't geting "headlines" you do nytimes search on European Union or EU and it's going to get more hits than you can count on your fingers.

Like I pointed out, other even more obscure organizations get mentioned occasionally in nytimes articles as offhand references all the time, being able to not write even a single article for 4 years which even had an offhand reference to UNASUR during the first 4 years they were setting it up it is strange.

e.g. in 2010 Nestor Kirchner, ex-president of Argentina was elected Secretary General of all of South America. That's ... newsworthy. But you're not going to read about it in New York Times because then they'd have to tell you that South America has as Secretary General, which they don't want to do, because it breaks the narrative that south america is divided and needs Big Daddy America to help them.

Fidel Castro farted isn't newsworthy, but it would probably get more coverage in the US media.

Yeah it is strange, and I have no explaination for it that I know of, or can think of.

Also, sorta lost in all this, Sebastian Gorka has resigned from his WH position.

ROFL lolwat

I figured Gorka would be the guy who decides to sell out as troops are storming the Trumpenbunker.


I wonder if Trump is hoping to push out Jeff Sessions and make Arpaio the new AG?

Fat chance that Arpaio would get through confirmation, the Democrats would try to make it as difficult as possible such as preventing any hearings in the first place. Besides, the guy is 85 years old, he'd probably rather retire and just live out his twilight years.

Fidel Castro farted isn't newsworthy, but it would probably get more coverage in the US media.

You mean his corpse farting?

[RedKing]

Wait, Gorka? Is he an Ork?

More like a Hungarian Troll.

[Reelya]

Yeah it is strange, and I have no explaination for it that I know of, or can think of.

Uh, I just search for UNASUR on BBC, and the Guardian, and they actually have headlines which mention UNASUR in them, when it's relevant to a story. So ... this blanket moratorium on UNASUR articles is strangely specific to the US media in particular. Washington Post and nytimes have a problem realizing it's a thing while the British have no problem noticing it exists.

[Starver]

Fidel Castro farted isn't newsworthy, but it would probably get more coverage in the US media.

You mean his corpse farting?

He was cremated, IIRC. His ashes farting would be a wonder. Not sure what they did with them, to know how much more so...

[smjjames]

Yeah it is strange, and I have no explaination for it that I know of, or can think of.

Uh, I just search for UNASUR on BBC, and the Guardian, and they actually have headlines which mention UNASUR in them, when it's relevant to a story. So ... this blanket moratorium on UNASUR articles is strangely specific to the US media in particular. Washington Post and nytimes have a problem realizing it's a thing while the British have no problem noticing it exists.

I meant the US media market specifically.

[Reelya]

One TED talk had the quote (roughly paraphrasing) "the media doesn't tell you what to think, it tells you what to think about. That's much more effective".

e.g. the simplest way to manipulate opinion is by being selective in what gets coverage. e.g. if they mentioned UNASUR at all, then disparaged it, then people might disagree and have an input into a conversation about it. By never mentioning it, the US media ensures there's no real conversation about it, because without a shared narrative, it's hard to express an opinion about something. (note this is also Orwell 101, by not having a word for something it's hard to express an opinion about it).

The British press however couldn't give a flying fuck either way so they mention Unasur in headlines when something related to it happens. I'm sure the British have their own shaped narratives that work the same way, except they're about different topics.

Side note: think about how much more effective shaping a narrative by omission was before the internet allowed you to read other nation's newspapers ...

EDIT: I just searched Reuters and even they have articles mentioning UNASUR, they just never get picked up by nytimes or WaPo. even one recent one where Unasur condemned the situation in Venezuela. It appears that even a Venezuela-bashing article that mentions Unasur is Verboten, because not mentioning Unasur is more important than Venezuela-bashing apparently. And everyone knows that even the most tenuous Venezuela-bashing article gets wide coverage. Seriously, UNASUR can't even get a headline in the USA if they all jump up and say "fuck Venezuela" yet Mercosur got one when they did.

BTW: of course the issue is completely not about Unasur per-se, it's just indicative of the general issue of widespread narrative-shaping that goes on in even the most respected corporate journalism.

[wierd]

Everyone's favorite sheriff pardoned by Herr Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-pardons-former-arizona-sheriff-joe-arpaio/2017/08/25/afbff4b6-86b1-11e7-961d-2f373b3977ee_story.html