No Conservative Left Behind: The Return of Strongarm Williams

This is why Sinclair media is the devil.  Because in addition to local news, sports, weather, sports, weather, traffic and, of course, sports and weather, they infuse the very thin gruel they serve up every night with syndicated evil like this, which is broadcast on local teevee and published on the station's website:

Trump's speech at CPAC one of the best he's ever given, says political insider

 And this:

“The president looked good, the former president looked relaxed,” said Armstrong Williams to The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat Monday morning. “I was amazed at how refreshed he looked, and also the bitterness, the anger, the pettiness, you know he's gonna say what he wants to say about the election being a fraud and he can say whatever he wants to say about Liz Cheney and we expect that, but overall, he was very presidential.”

 And this:

“He showed his commitment to the GOP and his gratitude to the Republicans that gave him the deal to become President of the United States,” said Williams. “Overall, given Trump and his past and his speeches, it's one of the best speeches that he's given in his lifetime.”

And so forth.

Now I guarantee you that in the greater Springfield metropolitan area, my wife and I may well be the only two Liberals who retain any memory of who Armstrong "Strongarm" Williams is and how he became memorable in the first place.  For the rest of the audience, the only thing they are told is that he is a "political insider" who must know something or else why would he be on their trusted local teevee program between the weather and the sports. squeezed.  Also:

NOTE: Armstrong Williams has business dealings with Sinclair Broadcast Group.

But we who possess the Liberal superpower of memory remember "Strongarm" Williams from the Before Time.

First let's  hear from the mainstream press.  In this case, the Washington Post, and it comes with a twist.

Administration Paid Commentator

Education Dept. Used Williams to Promote 'No Child' Law

Saturday, January 8, 2005; Page A01 

 

The Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $241,000 to help promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law on the air, an arrangement that Williams acknowledged yesterday involved "bad judgment" on his part.

In taking the money, funneled through the Ketchum Inc. public relations firm, Williams produced and aired a commercial on his syndicated television and radio shows featuring Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige, touted Bush's education policy, and urged other programs to interview Paige. He did not disclose the contract when talking about the law during cable television appearances or writing about it in his newspaper column.

...

Rep. George Miller (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House education committee, said the Williams contract "is propaganda, it's unethical, it's dangerous and it's illegal" and called it "worthy of Pravda." Committee Chairman John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to join Miller in requesting an inspector general's investigation, a spokesman said...

I omitted one detail that you may find either hilarious or sad.  This story was reported by "Washington Post Staff Writer, Howard Kurtz."

Yeah.  That Howard Kurtz.  From the paper that used to employ Howard Kurtz:

Fox News host’s hyperbolic take on the ‘war’ between Trump and the press

Howard Kurtz's book "Media Madness" is fast-moving and lively, but it's based on a false premise: that President Trump and the national press are at war with each other. Kurtz, a Fox News host, asserts this with hyperbolic drama in the opening pages: "Donald Trump is staking his presidency, as he did his election, on nothing less than destroying the credibility of the news media; and the media are determined to do the same to him." He elaborates: "It is scorched-earth warfare in which only one side can achieve victory."

I don't buy it, and I suspect that Kurtz — a seasoned newsman who spent decades at The Washington Post — knows it's not true.

This isn't really war, but at times it is something almost as unappealing: co-dependency...

...

Kurtz's allegiance to his masters at Fox News is evident right from the start, when he offers something I never thought possible: a heartfelt defense of Kellyanne Conway's coining of the infamous phrase "alternative facts" as she attempted to justify Trump's evidence-free insistence that his inaugural crowds were the biggest in history  — "period," as his spokesman said. Speaking to NBC's Chuck Todd, Conway argued: "You're saying it's a falsehood. And . . . Sean Spicer, our press secretary — gave alternative facts."...

This is why those of us with intact memories that go back further than breakfast find the media so twisty and broken.  Because there really is a constellation of husks and mopes like Kurtz who will sell whatever is left of their remaindered soul to whoever will put them on the payroll and toe whatever corporate line they need to in order to keep their position.

And speaking of sellouts and mopes...back to Mr. Williams on whom I believe was bestowed the sobriquet "Strongarm" by the late, great Steve Gilliard back in Before Time.  From his 2005 post as retrieved and reprinted in the Washington Monthly in 2015:

Of course it’s totally unethical and illegal, but hey, he’s already sold his soul to massa, why not sell it some more. Massa George wanted him to do somethin’ so he did it. And got paid well for it…[T]his ought to expose the character of the [African-American] conservative. They have no soul and no morals. They can be bought by their white overlords because they aspire to their status, but think themselves unworthy to be treated as the same. Now, I’ll freely admit both Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have used their position to gain personally. But this kind of craven greed is a feature of the [African-American] conservative. He shuffles and bucks along for his master, losing his soul and dignity in the process.

He has no ethics to begin with, [preferring to be] the show horse for a bunch of people who think he’s lesser than them. So why wouldn’t he use his position to enrich himself and hide his illegal arrangement with his white masters. He’s already sold his dignity and self-respect. Why not sell his reputation as well. Williams is already an embarrassment to black people. This just furthers the shame he brings.

So what's Strongarm been up to since being outed as crook?  Well, he is now the second largest African-American owner of television stations in the United States, behind only Byron Allen.  He controls them through his holding company, Howard Stirk, LLC, which, according to Wikipedia, is parented by...Sinclair broadcasting. 

So yeah, I guess he does have "business dealings with Sinclair Broadcast Group." 

Because there is a Club.

And you and I are definitely not members.

Remember When I Told You To Burn The Lifeboats?