THE DAILY NEWSLETTER  - WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2021

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
Amanda Gorman

Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old poet who shot to fame after performing at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, is headed to the Super Bowl.

The NFL announced Wednesday that Gorman will will write and recite an original poem during the Super Bowl LV pregame show.

The youth poet laureate will pay tribute to three honorary game captains who were chosen by the NFL thanks to their efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gorman, the youngest poet to perform at a presidential inauguration, became a breakout star thanks to her powerful and inspiring message of unity. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey were among those who praised her on social media following the inauguration.

That media moment made a huge impression. At the Big Game, the occasion, the honorees, and the whole setting are ideal, and it promises to be a moving moment.
MEDIA LOSER:
Matt Schlapp

American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp insists CPAC will be fine this year, in remarks made sloppily to Politico.

Politico spoke to Schlapp about how CPAC will fare, considering the complications of the pandemic, the convention’s relocation to Florida, and the uncertain future of the Republican Party’s relationship with former President Donald Trump. But Schlapp had some conversational regrets, apparently.

“’CPAC is going great,’ he told Politico on Tuesday, before then saying that his quote needed to be attributed without his name,” Politico writes. Awkward.

Also awkward? Schlapp recently made news over the revelation that a Trump donor paid him $750,000 to lobby the former president for a pardon that never came. 

CPAC, it seems, is threatening Politico with legal action for interviewing the event's sponsors. So the circus is now complete.

The A-Block

"NEVER FORGET"

Joe Scarborough delivered a blistering rebuke of the GOP on Wednesday's Morning Joe.

He called out Rand Paul, Ron JohnsonMarco RubioLindsey GrahamTed Cruz, and Josh Hawley each by name, likening them to terrorist sympathizers on the basis that they want to move on from what was clearly a domestic terrorist attack that, in his words, was done by individuals who were looking to assassinate their colleagues.

Vaccine Privilege

The Overlake Medical Center in Seattle is under fire for their coronavirus vaccine distribution process — which offers prioritized access for donors who gave "more than $10,000" to the hospital. The Seattle Times exposed the scheme after obtaining an email sent to those donors.

The QAnon GOP Rep

GOP Congresswoman and QAnon conspiracist Marjorie Taylor-Greene supported calls for the assassination of Democratic leaders and even proposed executing Speaker Nancy Pelosi for "treason,"  it has been revealed.

And video has emerged showing her viciously and cruelly harassing and accosting school shooting survivor David Hogg on the street just weeks after the horrific events at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead.

NotMyPillow

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell lashed out at Twitter for shutting down his account, and then bizarrely accused the company, and CEO Jack Dorsey personally, of having been secretly posting content on his Twitter account to discredit him.

The super weird interview with Tucker Carlson is one you really have to see to believe

Not Moving On

House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Hakeem Jeffries had a simple but punchy response to former Trump cabinet member Nikki Haley’s suggestion that the country “move on” from the Capitol insurrection whose incitement is the subject of ex-President Donald Trump’s second impeachment.

“Nikki, we are not moving on from insurrection. We are not moving on from sedition. We’re not moving on from a violent assault on the Capitol no matter what you might think of our efforts to hold this president accountable," said Jeffries, in a direct and blistering response on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes.

200 Million Vaccine Doses

President Joe Biden has announced the order of an additional 200 million doses from Moderna and Pfizer, in an effort to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of the summer.

Newsweek Changes Story to Fit Narrative

Newsweek quietly changed a story this week to support a new column critical of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) after his office reportedly alerted the publication to the discrepancy.

The change came after Newsweek’s Natalie Colarossi rewrote a Jan. 23 column from Salon that suggested Cotton “didn’t have” experience as an Army Ranger, despite attending the U.S. Army’s Ranger School, a course required for leaders in the 75th Army Ranger Regiment. However, the Ranger course is also open to anyone in the military and is routinely attended by soldiers and officers who never serve in a Ranger unit.

However, an Aug. 8, 2015 Newsweek story about two women who had completed the course suggested it was synonymous with being called a Ranger. “For the first time in the Army Ranger School’s 64-year history, two women have completed the intense training program and will become Rangers,” the original version noted.

Newsweek edited the story this week to allow for greater ambiguity, with the revised introduction stating...



Rupert Murdoch Embraces a Vapid New Conspiracy: A ‘Wave of Censorship’ Against Conservatives
OPINION

In the days and weeks that followed the 2020 election, President Donald Trump and his political and media allies promoted a dangerous conspiracy that the election was stolen. It wasn’t, but there were enough true believers, devotees to the Word of Trump that a deadly insurrection was waged on the Capitol in an effort to fight back against the perceived injustice of a stolen election.

This has been described as a “big lie,” a reference to the fascist tactic of fabricating a false claim from whole cloth, knowing that, if repeated enough, it would be believed. Trump now faces his second impeachment trial over that riot, and conservative media is lunging for a fresh topic to serve an audience eager to have their aggrievement justified. As a result, there is a new dangerous conspiracy afoot, and it’s being amplified by arguably the most important person in all of political media: Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch.

The new lie that is growing in size every day? That conservative voices are being stifledcensored, or silenced by what Murdoch called, in rare public comments, an “angry woke orthodoxy.”

The truth of the matter is that conservative voices aren’t being stifled for their beliefs at all...

[Read the rest from Mediaite's Colby Hall]

Must See Clips/Tweets

“It was a simpler time"

On the 18th anniversary of Jimmy Kimmel Live, host Jimmy Kimmel dug up the first joke he’s ever made about Donald Trump — and, “yes, it is about his hair.”

“Truth be told, 18 years ago we were on live after the Super Bowl, our guests were George Clooney, Snoop Dogg and Coldplay,” Kimmel said of the special day. “Tonight, I’m doing a show for 20 reluctant staff members and my guest is my cousin.”

Kimmel then revealed that to honor the occasion, someone on his team suggested they find the first joke the host has ever made about the former president.

The host then showed the 17-year-old clip, revealing the first Trump joke to ever make it to Jimmy Kimmel Live.

The Interview: New York Mag’s Olivia Nuzzi on Her Wild Ride Covering
the ‘Flamboyantly Insane’ Trump White House

Links We Like

The Problem with Bill and Melinda Gates’ Proposed Virus ‘Global Alert System’
-  Jim Geraghty, National Review
Hear Us Out: ‘Cobra Kai’ Has a Music Problem
- Lily Moayeri & Shirley Halperin, Variety

Tom Brady Is Headed To The Super Bowl At 43 Years Old. How?
- Dana G. Smith
, Popular Science
Those Covid-19 Variants? ‘Don’t Worry Yet,’ Vaccine Expert Says
- Matthew Herper, STAT News

Biden’s Pandemic Plan Might Just Work
- Dhruv Khullar, New Yorker
Reading this online? Why not get it in your inbox? Sign up for the Mediaite Live from the Greenroom Newsletter today!
Twitter
Facebook
Visit Mediaite
Copyright © 2018 Mediaite LLC All rights reserved.

Write to us:  tips@mediaite.com

Problems with these e-mails? Update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.