How long can Trump sing the same old songs?

Donald Trump held a rally in Ohio on Saturday, his first since leaving office. It was ostensibly in support of a Republican candidate mounting a primary challenge to an incumbent Republican congressperson who had committed the sin of voting in favor of Trump’s impeachment. But of course, the rally was about him. Everything is always about him.

So what did Trump say to the thousands who turned out to hear their Dear Leader? Did he have anything new? Apparently not.

Appearing to relish being back in front of thousands of supporters, Trump repeated his false claim that his defeat in the November 2020 election was marred by fraud.
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Trump survived a second impeachment on a charge linked to the violence and has kept broad influence over the Republican Party, in part by leaving open the question of whether he will run for office again in 2024.

He dangled that possibility on Saturday to the crowd.

“We won the election twice and it’s possible we’ll have to win it a third time. It’s possible,” he said.
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The former president highlighted parts of his regular grievance list at the rally, with particular focus on the rising number of immigrants crossing over the U.S. southern border, an issue Republicans have zeroed in on to rally their voters.
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Trump repeatedly attacked what he called “woke generals,” following an exchange this week in which the top U.S. military officer hit back against a growing conservative movement opposed to teaching certain theories about racism.

“Our generals and our admirals are now focused more on this nonsense than they are on our enemies,” Trump said.

He criticized the media, a regular foil, and tried to co-opt the phrase “Big Lie,” which critics have used to describe his efforts to discredit the 2020 results.

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When an unscripted interview goes wildly wrong

Some interviewers of authors have not read the books prior to broadcast and depend on the authors to drive the interview. In this clip from the comedy show Newhart, Bob Newhart plays Dick Loudon who runs a B&B with his wife in rural Vermont but also hosts a local TV show about books. We see an interview that goes wildly wrong because he and his staff have not read the book. But his guest would not be considered that unusual today.

Treating prisoners humanely

On the latest episode of his show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver continues his series of exposes on the awful incarceration system in the US where prisoners are subjected to cruel conditions, as if the fact that they have been convicted of a crime means that they cease to be deserving of the minimal requirements of decency.

In the clip, he shows one prison superintendent who seems to be an outright sociopath in the way he responds to conditions in his prison.

Selling snake oil as news

I long ago stopped watching TV news and talk shows, either on local stations or on the national networks. They never said anything that I did not hear about elsewhere and instead spent a lot of time on mindless blather that was truly irritating. And of course there were the numerous commercial breaks.

But sometimes you cannot avoid them, such as when the TV is on in a doctor’s waiting room or in the boarding areas for flights and then you would often see segments where the host would interview people who were talking about some new product that supposedly has beneficial effects on health.

On his show Last Week Tonight on Sunday, John Oliver dissected such segments, showing how often they were what are called ‘sponsored content’, i.e. essentially advertisements paid for by the manufacturer of the product that the ‘news’ shows presented without clearly disclosing this key fact.

Towards the end of the segment, Oliver’s team pulls off one of the pranks they are famous for and that is worth watching. They clearly plan these shows well in advance of airing.