It's Always Something

.@Liz_Cheney: Republicans claim to be a party of ‘law and order.’ Donald Trump does not believe in the rule of law. He will use violence to achieve his own ends. The damage he could do if he is reelected is significant pic.twitter.com/xMWuFsamq4

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 8, 2024

Like this?

Trump is now threatening to prosecute and imprison lawyers, donors, and election officials for something that he himself tried to do in 2020: Interfere with the election results.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 8, 2024

Even though it's the same old "if I don't win, there was cheating" argument Trump has made since 2015 in the primaries, you'd think this kind of statement would be newsworthy.

Whether it’s Donald Trump paying hush money to a porn star or Kamala Harris buying Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset Salt Free Italian Seasoning, both candidates have made some questionable expenditures.

— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) September 8, 2024

I expect, though, more coverage of this.

https://t.co/CqOv5FEUko

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 8, 2024

Which may be happening. But how did the NYT report Trump's speech? Verbatim? Or as something that merely sounded "political"?

Learned a new word today: "sane-washing." It's the process whereby the media cover up Trump's unintelligible gibberish by cleaning up his quotes, never reporting his mental deterioration, and pretending he's sane no matter how insane his comments.

— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) September 8, 2024

The term started with Aaron Rupar (let Webster's take note!). It may yet spread to the editorial rooms of some of the major news outlets. Or, yeah, probably not.

Hard to overstate how appalling it is that Republicans are happily sanitizing Trump's most explicit authoritarian threat yet to jail political foes en masse. If GOP elites condemned this stuff it would break through to voters more. Rs are just fine w/authoritarian rule, full stop https://t.co/FJ28I4AuG9

— Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) September 8, 2024

I don't really expect Republicans to buck Trump, so I give Kristen Welker credit for noticing what Trump said.

pic.twitter.com/RDWBUwMWtj

— Gene Steratore (@GeneSteratore) September 8, 2024

The Lovely Wife is watching the Texans game; besides, this is relevant to the conversation here.

Media: When Trump says it will be “bloody,” he simply means this metaphorically. Or he’s just being sarcastic. We just spoke to Jason Miller and he cleared this up for us. Here is what Trump really means … https://t.co/fDaSuxHauq

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) September 8, 2024

Or they just ignore it altogether. Much easier that way.

Trump -again- promising to imprison whole swaths of people on the basis of lies and personal grudges.

That this isn’t 24-hour-a-day headline news is a failure all around.

And don’t tell me people already know this. They don’t. Not the ones who’ll decide the election. https://t.co/HOWlImEInG

— Ian Bassin 🇺🇸 (@ianbassin) September 8, 2024

"Old news." "We expect this of Trump." "What else is new?"