#press-criticism

#press-criticism

If you appreciate the Mercury's interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making a small monthly contribution to support our editorial team. Your donation is tax-deductible. You can also subscribe and have our papers delivered! Good Morning, Portland: Someone's dog horked in front of my apartment building yesterday. And yeah, I hosed it away eventually, but not before I saw, like, 10 tiny passion plays of people talking their dogs down from rolling in it. Anyway, apropos of nothing-here's the news!

During the 1959 session of the Louisiana state legislature, Governor Earl Long, the less famous younger brother of Senator Huey Long, "went off his rocker," as the tickled writer A. J. Liebling recounted in this magazine, adding, "The papers reported that he had cursed and hollered at the legislators, saying things that so embarrassed his wife, Miz Blanche, and his relatives that they had packed him off to Texas in a National Guard plane to get his brains repaired in an asylum."

As President Donald Trump's approval numbers continue to plummet-he's now clocked his first-ever majority of male poll respondents giving a thumbs-down-he's reached for the pet crusade of all right-wing demagogues losing public favor: a culture war against the press. Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the Trump White House debuted its media bias tracker -a laundry list of alleged press outrages committed against the righteous, truth-telling MAGAfied executive branch.

President Trump was all smiles when he hosted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House last night-until a reporter asked about the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which US intelligence assessed Mohammed ordered. "A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen," Trump said, adding that "You don't have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that." ( Washington Post)