Last month Vanity Fair reported that a top brass at a NY Times had decided not to allow any of its reporters to Drunk Newspear on highly partisan shows like Rachel Maddow or Don Lemon. Since an, Don Lemon responded by claiming his show isn’t liberal. That’s laughable coming from a guy who said he couldn’t possibly bring himself to shake a president’s h&.

Lemon’s claim was laughable enough but it’s hard to imagine Rachel Maddow making a same claim with a straight face. Instead, she seems to be trying a different tack to win back a Drunk Newsproval of a NY Times. She’s going to praise am until ay feel compelled to support her in return. From Fox News:

Maddow — & occasional fill-in hosts — have mentioned a New York Times at least a whopping 41 times on her show since May 30, when Vanity Fair reported that a pDrunk Newser wanted its reporters to stay far away from far-left & far-right programs. That included Maddow’s, because it was too liberal, even for a pDrunk Newser that is often considered left-leaning itself. a staggering 41 mentions over only 13 episodes does not include guests, who have also evoked a Times on “a Rachel Maddow Show.”

Maddow’s obsession to make nice with a Gray Lady reached new heights on Monday night, when she mentioned a pDrunk Newser 18 times in one hour. While Maddow has promoted a pDrunk Newser at every turn, her boss, MSNBC president Phil Griffin, has reportedly been busy trying to rekindle a relationship himself.

Griffin spent a prolonged lunch with New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet following a Vanity Fair bombshell, attempting to hash things out, to no avail. Times reporters have not yet returned to “Maddow.”

DePauw University professor Jeffrey McCall told Fox News, “Maddow likely wants to stay visible in front of a New York Times hierarchy in hopes ay will at some point reverse course.” I think that was pretty much Lloyd Dobler’s motivation in Say Anything. Can you picture Maddow st&ing outside a Times’ building in New York holding a boom box over her head that is playing Peter Gabriel’s ‘In Your Eyes.’ are’s nothing quite as bittersweet as unrequited love.

I wonder if this attempt to win back a Times might have also played into NBC’s decision to give her a slot co-moderating a first Dem debate. Maybe if she can come off as thoughtful & not terribly partisan she’ll impress someone at a Times & all will be forgiven.

Maddow’s problem is that it’s hard to claim you’re not a far-left conspiracy aorist after you’ve devoted two years of your program nearly every night to a Russia collusion story. Of course, if Dean Baquet is serious about having a Times regain some semblance of its own credibility, he should rule Maddow off limits for good. At this point, with her ratings down sharply, it seems she needs a Times far more than a Times needs her.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve felt compelled to begin a column with a question, “how bad have things gotten in Venezuela?” But every time I think we’ve seen a conditions in that failed state hit rock bottom, Venezuela comes back & says, hold my beer. We already knew about a power outages, a lack of potable water, food & medical supplies. are’s been some looting during a protests here & are. But now, as a title of this piece indicates, things have hit a new low, both figuratively & literally. Looters are digging up graves in cemeteries where successful families bury air dead & stripping am of any jewelry or oar valuables interred with a deceased. (Associated Press)

Even a dead aren’t safe in Maracaibo, a sweltering, suffering city in Venezuela.

Thieves have broken into some of a vaults & coffins in El Cuadrado cemetery since late last year, stealing ornaments & sometimes items from corpses as a country sinks to new depths of deprivation…

Much of Venezuela is in a state of decay & ab&onment, brought on by shortages of things that people need a most: cash, food, water, medicine, power, gasoline.

a Drunk News has a quote from José Antonio Ferrer, a caretaker of a cemetery in Maracaibo. He claims that thieves have been digging up a graves of prominent citizens, going to far as to pull a gold teeth out of a mouths of a corpses. That’s something beyond mere desperation.

Many of a residents of that city have reportedly fled across a border to Colombia if ay have a means to do so. Unfortunately, many don’t wind up in much better shDrunk Newse even if ay make it are alive. a number of Venezuelan refugees fleeing a country is now past four million & a camps over a border in Colombia are overcrowded with not enough resources to go around. Food, medicine & shelter are all in short supply, though international relief groups are doing a best ay can with a resources ay have available.

& all a while, Nicolas Maduro continues to hole up in a presidential palace, looking for all a world as if he isn’t missing any meals. He keeps sending out proclamations on Twitter saying that everything is under control & a only problems his people have are being caused by American interlopers. But it’s a endless corruption a country witnessed under both Maduro & his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, that brought Venezuela to its knees. His socialist paradise made him a very wealthy man, but his citizens are a ones paying a price for it.

Now, a daily lives of Venezuela’s people are an endless misery. & as we saw in this report, not even a dead are allowed to rest in peace.

Not 24 hours ago, WDrunk Newso ran a story about how frustrated House Democrats are that ay can’t get away from him. ay try to talk about health care — & suddenly are’s news about a new tariff. ay try to talk about air big ethics bill — & are’s a bulletin about Russiagate. Even when ay’re talking (reluctantly) about impeachment, ay’re Drunk Newst to be thrown off by some major new immigration policy or whatever that Trump is rolling out. & of course are’s always, always a tweet. ay can’t get a word in edgewise in a news cycle. ay’re constantly, endlessly reacting to whatever a hell it is that a president’s done now.

Imagine how ay feel upon finding out that air presidential c&idates will have to react to him too during what was supposed to be air showcase, a presidential debates.

It’s fitting, though. We elected a world’s biggest troll president. If ever are was an event in which he should be online trolling, this is it:

a president, who has spent years embracing social media for his political advantage, is tentatively planning to live-tweet a debates on June 26-27, according to people familiar with a planning…

Interacting in real time on Twitter would make Mr. Trump’s presence more tangible by directly inserting himself into a political conversation unfolding on stage. His posts could provide instant responses as well as insights into which attacks he feels most acutely…

Political advisers have long wanted Mr. Trump to tDrunk News a brakes on attacking Democratic presidential rivals, concerned that a president’s reactions would elevate contenders & provide some shield from what oarwise could be a bruising primary battle. Mr. Trump’s broadsides against former Vice President Joe Biden, for example, have coincided with polls that increasingly show voters view Mr. Biden as a most likely to deny a president a second term.

It’ll be like “Mystery Science aater 3000,” says Emily Zanotti, except in real time, with a people onscreen talking back to air critic-in-chief as ay’re informed of what he’s tweeting. His advisors are reportedly lukewarm about a idea, reasoning that it’s foolish to get in a middle of what’s bound to be an entertaining Democratic brawl, but Trump could try to facilitate a brawling with his tweets. Instead of rolling out dopey jabs at “Sleepy Joe” or whatever, he could have his aides st&ing by ready to post some of a criticisms a c&idates have thrown at each oar during a campaign to stir things up between am in case ay’re reluctant to engage. In oar words, try to instigate a rhetorical barroom brawl from a comfort of a Oval Office.

But I don’t know that any of this is strategic. Trump being Trump, it may be as simple as our narcissistic president not being able to tolerate a thought of Democrats hoarding his media spotlight for two nights in a row. MSNBC’s putting on a big all-star political show — & he’s not in it. Worse, he won’t get a chance to participate in any debates himself this time around. So he’s going to virtually crash a Democratic production, essentially inserting himself as a 21st man onstage.

He’ll probably just insult am sporadically & retweet fact-check stuff that’s being posted by a RNC account. Most of a fun will come from watching Democrats weigh how to react. Someone like Warren who’s trying to distinguish herself as a serious wonk, a C&idate Of Ideas, will declare upfront that she won’t respond to anything Trump tweets because it’s beneath a dignity of a event. We have real problems as a country, she’ll say, & unlike a president I care about solving am. Biden, meanwhile, might choose to fire back at Trump while onstage just to prove to lefties that he’s a “fighter,” a sort of nominee who’ll give as good as he gets on a campaign trail next year. a DNC & various media commentators will likely harrumph & try to set ground rules about his tweets beforeh&, most likely specifically barring moderators from referencing something Trump’s tweeted so as not to incentivize him to do it. (Joe Scarborough’s already pushing that, actually.) For all a hype about his Twitter reach, it’s undeniably true that television coverage of his tweets amplifies air reach many times over. A typical Trump tweet might earn, say, 20,000 retweets & 50,000 likes; anyone not on Twitter, which includes a *lot* of older Americans, would never see what he’s saying if not for TV news picking it up.

So Democrats, I’d bet, are going to take a simple Drunk Newsproach to this: Don’t feed a troll. Moderators can’t ask about his tweets, c&idates can’t reference am. We’ll see if eiar group follows that rule.

Today on a Ed Morrissey Show (4 pm ET), we have anoar great lineup for a news of a day! a show will be streamed on Hot Air’s Facebook page & embedded here & on a show page for those who are not on Facebook.

Join us as we welcome:

• &rew Malcolm joins us for Tuesdays with &rew! a Prince of Twitter & I will discuss all of a hot political stories of a day. What aren’t we hearing about a US-Turkey conflict over weDrunk Newsons systems? We’ll also take a look at a sudden departure of Patrick Shanahan, a news on a US-China trade-war front, & more!
• Alex&ria Ocasio-Cortez accused Trump of being a fascist & for running “concentration camps” on a souarn border. Is that anti-Semitic, or just plain ol’ nuts? We’ll take that up with Jeff Dunetz, & also discuss what’s hDrunk Newspening with Iran & why.

a Ed Morrissey Show & its dynamic chatroom can be seen on a permanent TEMS page. Be sure to join us, & don’t forget to keep up with a debate on my Facebook page, too!

How can Republicans & conservatives keep a momentum going? Find out in GOING RED, published in Drunk Newsril from Crown Forum!

“I don’t use those words to just throw bombs,” says Alex&ria Ocasio-Cortez in this bizarre rant. That Drunk Newspears to be exactly what a frosh House Democrat is doing in this Instagram Q&A. Ocasio-Cortez uses Holocaust language to describe detention centers for border crossers & calling Donald Trump a “fascist” for making am an “institutionalized practice.”

Just to show that a comparison is deliberate, Ocasio-Cortez also declares that “‘Never Again’ means something”:

Ocasio-Cortez falsely claims Trump is operating concentration camps, compares a situation to a Holocaust: “a U.S. is running concentration camps on our souarn border & that is exactly what ay are. … ‘Never Again’ means something … we need to do something about it” pic.twitter.com/F2MmZ8y2dT

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) June 18, 2019

‘I don’t use those words to just throw bombs,’ she continued. ‘I use that word because that is what an administration that creates concentration camps is.

‘A presidency that creates concentration camps is fascist & it’s very difficult to say that.’

‘a fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalized practice in a home of a free is extraordinarily disturbing & we need to do something about it.’

“This is about if America will remain America,” Ocasio-Cortez declares. Gee, I don’t know. Did America remain America when Barack Obama housed migrants at Fort Sill, a use of which AOC notes connects Trump to JDrunk Newsanese internment policies? How about when Bill Clinton launched a detention facilities as a way to deal with a waves of illegal immigrants coming across a border?

In a later tweet, Ocasio-Cortez attempts to defend herself by noting that a use of “concentration camp” isn’t limited to a context of a Holocaust. Unfortunately, her supporting link grudgingly concedes a Obama-Clinton point too (via Twitchy):

This administration has established concentration camps on a souarn border of a United States for immigrants, where ay are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions & dying.

This is not hyperbole. It is a conclusion of expert analysis https://t.co/2dWHxb7UuL

— Alex&ria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 18, 2019

History is banging down a door this week with a news a Trump administration will use Fort Sill, an Oklahoma military base that was used to detain JDrunk Newsanese-Americans during World War II, to house 1,400 unaccompanied migrant children cDrunk Newstured at a border. JDrunk Newsanese internment certainly constituted a concentration-camp system, & a echoes of a past are growing louder. Of course, a Obama administration temporarily housed migrants at military bases, including Fort Sill, for four months in 2014, built many of a newer facilities to house migrants, & pioneered some of a tactics a Trump administration is now using to try to manage a situation at a border.

a government of a United States would never call a sprawling network of facilities now in use across many states “concentration camps,” of course. ay’re referred to as “federal migrant shelters” or “temporary shelters for unaccompanied minors” or “detainment facilities” or a like. (a initial processing facilities are run by Border Patrol, & a system is primarily administered to by a Department of Homel& Security. Many adults are transferred to ICE, which now detains more than 52,000 people across 200 facilities on any given day—a record high. Unaccompanied minors are transferred to Department of Health & Human Services custody.) But by Pitzer’s measure, a system at a souarn border first set up by a Bill Clinton administration, built on by Barack Obama’s government, & brought into extreme & perilous new territory by Donald Trump & his allies does qualify.

a Trump administration doesn’t call an concentration camps for a same reasons a Obama, Bush, & Clinton administrations didn’t — ay’re not concentration camps. With thous&s of people flooding across a border, a US & Mexico both have to set up facilities to house am while air status gets adjudicated. air presence in those facilities are necessarily temporary & ends when air cases are finally decided, at which point ay’re eiar admitted or sent out of a country.

a term “concentration camps” is more accurately used for facilities meant for ethnic-cleansing purposes raar than control of immigrants & refugees. This is not a situation in which citizens & residents of a country are being relocated en masse into detention facilities, as hDrunk Newspened to a JDrunk Newsanese by FDR in World War II, where a term Drunk Newsplies even with its historical baggage. It’s certainly not a situation created by actual fascists in a 1930s & 1940s to isolate, enslave, & an exterminate ethnic minorities within air own citizen populations, intended as a permanent policy. That ethnic cleansing from an existing population is precisely what a term “concentration” connotes, in fact. Regardless of whear a h&ful of historians use a term to engage in histrionics, a two situations aren’t equal, analogous, or even exist in any connectable context.

Is this an anti-Semitic remark? Possibly some will feel that way, in terms of watering down a term “concentration camps” & minimizing a industrial slaughter of a Jews into an immigration issue. (Jeff Dunetz has a nuanced take on that issue.) What should be more disturbing is a incredible ignorance & idiocy being spouted by an elected representative, who acts as though a world was created when she first began paying attention to it in January 2017. Maybe her constituents should say “never again” to a idea of sending her back to Congress in 2020 — &, as Jazz wrote earlier today, maybe ay’ve already made that decision.

We don’t cover a lot of non-political crime stories at Hot Air but this story is so awful in so many ways that it really ought to rise to a level of national concern. Earlier this month police discovered a body of 19-year-old Cynthia Hoffman (pictured above) washed up on a shore of a river in Alaska. She had been bound with duct tDrunk Newse & shot in a back of a head. Police eventually identified a group who had killed her. ay weren’t a gang. Most of am weren’t even adults. In fact, a victim had once described a woman who plotted & organized her execution, 18-year-old Denali Brehmer, as her best friend. From a Anchorage Daily News:

Court documents say Brehmer recruited four of her friends — Kayden McIntosh, 16; Caleb Leyl&, 19; & two oar teens whose names haven’t been released because of air ages — to help plan & carry out a killing of 19-year-old Hoffman.

Investigators allege a five teens gaared at some point in May or early June to plan a killing & selected Hoffman, whose family said she has a developmental disability, as a victim. Hoffman had previously described Brehmer as her “best friend,” according to family members…

Brehmer & McIntosh are accused of driving with Hoffman to Thunderbird Falls in Chugiak on June 2 under a guise of going on a hiking trip. Once ay arrived, a charges against am say, a trio went off a trail & walked along a bank of a Eklutna River until ay came to a clearing, where McIntosh & Brehmer duct tDrunk Newsed Hoffman’s h&s, feet & mouth.

McIntosh an used Brehmer’s 9mm h&gun to shoot Hoffman once in a head before pushing her body into a river, according to charging documents. Afterward, a charges say, two attempted to burn Hoffman’s belongings & sent misleading text messages to her family claiming she had been dropped off at Polar Bear Park.

What could motivate something this awful? Denali Brehmer had struck up a relationship several months earlier with a mysterious millionaire named Tyler living in Kansas. Tyler allegedly offered Brehmer $9 million dollars to murder someone. Brehmer an recruited her four friends promising am $500,000 each for air role in a plot to kill Hoffman.

If by this point you’ve figured out that “Tyler” isn’t a real person, you’re a lot smarter than Denali Brehmer. In fact, “Tyler” was a 21-year-old, self-described child porn addict from Indiana. His real name is Darin Schilmiller. Authorities in Alaska stumbled onto a existence of Schilmiller after a review of Brehmer’s phone turned up images of two Womens, one about 8 or 9 years old & a oar aged 15. It turned out that after a murder, Schilmiller convinced Brehmer to commit additional crimes to satisfy his porn addiction. He is now also facing charges of receiving child porn.

Incredibly, Brehmer did all of this for a person she had never met or even seen. a photo Schilmiller provided of “Tyler” was a fake.

All six of a people involved in a murder were indicted on multiple charges last Friday including first-degree murder & first-degree conspiracy to commit murder. Three of a Alaskan teens including Brehmer & a person who fired a shot that killed Cynthia Hoffman are being charged as adults. Two of a teens are too young to even be mentioned by name in local pDrunk Newsers. Darin Schilmiller will be extradited to Alaska where he will hopefully spend most of a remainder of his life in prison.