Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 286

Megyn Kelly: It’s the media’s fault you hate my terrible show

Megyn Kelly on "Megyn Kelly TODAY" (Credit: YouTube/Today)

Amidst terrible reviews during her first week on air, Megyn Kelly signed off her Friday “Today Show” segment in search of the one thing she so desperately needs: a scapegoat.

Bidding adieu to the audience, the reputedly ex-conservative news host thanked everyone for watching and flippantly mentioned “I’ve just been so delighted at the media response, which has been . . . ” as though she were gearing up to thank them too, before cutting herself off with an emphatic, eyebrow-furrowing “No!”

Megyn Kelly closes 1st week of NBC talk show by taking shot at “media response,” praising “viewer response” (her ratings have also been bad) pic.twitter.com/gHpshtwbuu

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) September 29, 2017

Rather, she thanked the viewers, who’s “response has been awesome” — “I am so grateful to have all of you giving us a chance,” Kelly finished, perhaps forgetting that the “media response” is a reflection of what the viewers at home are saying, and more-so, that she’s a member of the media herself. Also, her ratings, the only true measure of broad acceptance, aren’t any better than those of the previous version of the show.

Kelly made the move from Fox to NBC in early 2017, in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against Fox News President Roger Ailes and amidst what she felt was growing hostility directed toward her in the conservative media community, particularly thanks to a certain president with whom she hasn’t had the most shining relationship. NBC then took on Kelly, removing weatherman Al Roker and Tamron Hall to make space for her majesty.

In this next chapter of her career, it’s been a rough go for Kelly, who spent her first week interviewing reluctant liberal celebrities and making off-color remarks that may have flown at Fox, but have no place at NBC.

With the entire “Will & Grace” cast watching on, Kelly first interviewed a superfan of the NBC show, asking if watching is why the fan “became gay,” later adding ““I think the Will & Grace thing and the gay thing is going to work out great!” Of course, social media had a lot to say:  

Megyn Kelly is every mom trying waaaaay to hard to “relate” to her gay son but instead just makes it waaaaay worse pic.twitter.com/dh2sSi2kVq — Will Kellogg (@Will_Kellogg) September 25, 2017

I see things are off to a solid start over on Megyn Kelly’s new show… https://t.co/fOUoaX0Yyu pic.twitter.com/DmMhvzX6km

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) September 25, 2017

And the award for most cringeworthy talk show debut goes to.. Megyn Kelly for asking a Will & Grace fan if the show is why they “became gay” pic.twitter.com/Ij3LjDpEox — Steven Grossman (@stevengrossman) September 25, 2017

Later on, “W&G” star Debra Messing admitted she had not known it would be Kelly with whom she was interviewing. “Regret going on. Dismayed by her comments,” Messing commented on Instagram.

Kelly then showed off her dazzling personality in an interview with Jane Fonda, prodding the “Barefoot in the Park” actress about why she’s “not proud to admit [she’s] had work done.” It’s surely journalism like this that wins the Pulitzer Prizes. Fonda, for her part, responded without missing a beat, “We really want to talk about that right now?”

Not knowing when to call a duck a duck, Kelly continued, “One of the things people think about you when they look at you is how amazing you look!” Eventually, Fonda managed to move the conversation along, but it didn’t stop her from expressing her dismay later on in the day, telling Entertainment Tonight, “It just seemed like the wrong time and place to raise that question.”

Seems like most of Kelly’s time at NBC will be a wrong place and wrong time-type situation. But don’t forget, it will always be that damned media’s fault — even when you’re part of it. No outside voice screaming from a virtuous wilderness, Kelly’s checks are signed by NBCUniversal/Comcast signs, the fourth highest grossing media company on the planet.

Well, at least someone out there still loves ya, Kells.

Top Democrats blast Twitter over Russian bot report

Twitter's Colin Crowell and Carlos Monje enter the closed door meeting with the House Intelligence Committee (Credit: AP/Alex Brandon)

The top Democrats investigating allegations of Russian attempts to influence American politics blasted Twitter on Thursday for not doing enough to determine the extent to which many of its user accounts are controlled by Russian intelligence operatives.

“I’m more than a bit surprised, in light of all the public interest from the subject, that anyone from the Twitter team would think that the presentation made to Senate staff today even began to answer the kinds of questions that we’d asked,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner told reporters after a closed-door briefing that Twitter held for members of both houses of Congress. “There’s a lot more work they have to do.”

The company released a blog post describing some of the details that it provided to congressional investigators, including a disclosure that it had found about 200 accounts which it believed were linked to the Russian government, either officially or unofficially.

The Twitter review seems to come about in response to account data provided to the micro-blogging platform by Facebook, which had conducted its own analysis of millions of its user profiles.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., was more diplomatic than Warner in his response, saying that Twitter needed to conduct a larger review rather than just responding to Facebook’s information.

“It is clear that Twitter has significant forensic work to do to understand the depth and breadth of Russian activity during the campaign,” Schiff told Politico in an emailed statement.

Many Twitter accounts are partially or fully automated, meaning that posts appear automatically when a website publishes content, or when other Twitter users send tweets mentioning certain phrases or hashtags. Unlike most other social media platforms, Twitter does not prohibit automated accounts, also sometimes called “Twitter bots.” Many government agencies as well as legitimate news organizations and activist groups utilize automated feeds to share their messages with Twitter followers. Sometimes, automated accounts are used for humorous purposes, such as the account “Real Press Sec.” which generates a real-looking press release based upon every tweet sent out by President Donald Trump.

Because automated bot accounts are allowed in certain forms, it is difficult for Twitter to police its platform for abuse from bots. The sheer volume of tweets that are sent every day also makes it difficult for Twitter to track abuse of bot accounts.

While Twitter allows automated accounts to exist on its platform, it does prohibit spam postings — such as when bots repeatedly post the same phrases, which sometimes constitute attempts to manipulate the site’s popular Trending Topics feature. In its efforts to block users who merely post the same information repeatedly, the company said that it has created several measures to detect inappropriate activity.

“As patterns of malicious activity evolve, we’re adapting to meet them head-on. On average, our automated systems catch more than 3.2 million suspicious accounts globally per week — more than double the amount we detected this time last year,” the social network wrote Thursday.

Besides spreading disinformation, Twitter has also been accused of counting illegitimate accounts in the user numbers it presents to investors. The company pushed back strongly against this in its blog post.

“We have not and do not include spam accounts that we have identified in the active user numbers that we report to shareholders,” the unsigned statement reads.

Nearly 15 percent of Twitter accounts have been estimated to be automated, according to a University of Southern California study.

In an earlier statement posted in June, Colin Crowell, the company’s vice president for public policy, argued that Twitter’s real-time nature was self-correcting in many ways since replies to any tweet are also displayed below it, meaning anyone can dispute assertions made by someone else.

“Twitter’s open and real-time nature is a powerful antidote to the spreading of all types of false information,” he wrote. “This is important because we cannot distinguish whether every single Tweet from every person is truthful or not. We, as a company, should not be the arbiter of truth.”

There may be some truth to this claim. According to another report released by a research organization affiliated with Harvard University, web sites and organizations who distribute low-quality or false news have much greater popularity on Facebook than on Twitter.

“Disproportionate popularity on Facebook is a strong indicator of highly partisan and unreliable media,” the researchers wrote.

Bar owner says “Lynch Kaepernick” doormat isn’t racist — but, um . . .

Colin Kaepernick (Credit: Getty/Scott Cunningham)

Jason Burle thought it would be a good idea to place the jerseys of NFL stars and social-justice advocate Marshawn Lynch and Colin Kaepernick side-by-side as doormats before the entrance of his bar, called SNAFU, in Lake Ozark, Missouri — in that order. Thus the makeshift doormat read “Lynch Kaepernick.”

TELL ME AGAIN…that #TakeAKnee isn't about race. This Ozarks bar made a doormat from 2 #NFL jerseys; "Lynch Kaepernick" #ImWithKaep #Resist pic.twitter.com/yEimSpbYd9

— Chet Powell (@ChetPowell) September 28, 2017

See how that works?

Of course, Kaepernick began the movement of kneeling for the national anthem before NFL games to protest police brutality and racial injustice in America. Marshawn Lynch is another player who has participated in what is now a widespread protest.

Burle claims he placed the jerseys as doormats as a counter-protest to the NFL protests. It had, he insists, nothing to do with race.

“They were placed the way they came out of the box,” Burle said of the jerseys in an interview with KOMU. “There was no ill intent.” Okay.

After the media outcry, Burle switched the jerseys around to read “Kaepernick Lynch.” He insists that it wasn’t meant to be racist and, as a veteran, he is just trying to support those who serve, according to ABC7. SNAFU is largely themed around honoring the military.

A passerby, Taylor Sloan, took to social media to express his distaste for the doormats in their original “Lynch Kaepernick” configuration. “It put a bad taste in my mouth,” he told KOMU, a Missouri TV station. “It just really upsets me when I see people put a faux patriotism guise on racism.”

In a now-deleted Facebook thread, Burle responded to Sloan, saying “It’s funny to me that someone would look that far deeply into it just to find a racist link.”Apparently simply knowing how to read means you’re looking “far deeply into it” — the racial insinuation is that obvious. Unless, of course, you have literally no knowledge of the systematic racism and violence black people have endured in the United States for centuries.

Or, y’know, if you’re into it.

 

 

9 reminders the GOP has nominated a maniac for senator in Roy Moore

(Credit: AP/Brynn Anderson)

Meet Roy Moore. When he’s not waving a six-shooter like Yosemite Sam, he can often be founding railing against the evils of homosexuality and the impending institution of Sharia law. After defeating Luther Strange in the Alabama Republican primary, despite the campaign efforts of President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Moore is on the verge of assuming the seat Attorney General Jeff Sessions vacated in the United States Senate, with Democratic opponent Doug Jones unlikely to receive much in the way of funding from the DNC.

Moore is a throwback to a bygone era of American lunacy, when the country rallied around George W. Bush’s band of neoconservatives and the evangelical movement was perhaps the most potent force in right-wing politics. As chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Moore was twice booted from office for defying federal law: first in 2003 for commissioning a monument of the Ten Commandments and refusing to remove it from the Alabama Judicial Building; and again in 2016, when he was suspended for instructing probate judges to ignore the ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges and enforce the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. Moore resigned in April, after being reelected four years prior.

Since his victory Tuesday night, he has secured enthusiastic endorsements from both Vice President Mike Pence and Trump himself, who surreptitiously deleted his tweets endorsing Strange. “Spoke to Roy Moore of Alabama last night for the first time,” the president tweeted Wednesday morning. “Sounds like a really great guy who ran a fantastic race. He will help to #MAGA!”

Here are just a handful of the more clueless and deranged things this great guy has said over the past decade or so.

1. On homosexuality

“Homosexual conduct should be illegal,” Moore told C-SPAN in 2005. “It is immoral. It is defined by the law as detestable.”

Just last week, Moore declared that “abortion, sodomy and sexual perversion” have “swept the country.”

“Our foundation has been shaken,” he told Alabama voters. “When we become one nation under god again, when liberty and justice for all reigns across our land, we will be truly good again.”

2. On 9/11

During a speech in February at the Open Door Baptist Church, Moore argued that the 9/11 terrorist attack was an act of divine retribution.

“Because you have despised His word and trust in perverseness and oppression, and say thereon . . . therefore this iniquity will be to you as a breach ready to fall, swell out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instance,” he thundered, quoting from the Book of Isaiah. “Sounds a little bit like the Pentagon, whose breaking came suddenly at an instance, doesn’t it? If you think that’s coincidence, if you go to verse 25: ‘There should be up on every high mountain and upon every hill, rivers and streams of water in the day of the great slaughter when the towers will fall.'”

3. On people of color

“Now we have blacks and whites fighting, reds and yellows fighting, Democrats and Republicans fighting, men and women fighting,” he told rallygoers at an ostensible call for unity in Florence, Alabama last week. “What’s going to unite us? What’s going to bring us back together? A president? A Congress? No. It’s going to be god.”

The Moore campaign defended his slurring of Native and Asian American communities by citing (what else) a song called “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” whose lyrics include “all the children of the world — red, brown, yellow, black and white.”

4. On Vladimir Putin

Back in August, the Alabama judge told the Guardian that “maybe Putin is right” about homosexuality. The Russian head of state has said it’s his “duty” to stop same-sex marriage and “uphold traditional values,” amid reports that members of the country’s LGBT community have been rounded up and tortured, possibly under the president’s orders.

Moore went on to suggest that the United States has become a “focus of evil in the modern world,” while praising Russia for “protecting Russian young people against homosexual propaganda.”

5. On same-sex marriage

Shortly after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell, Moore pronounced it “even worse” than 1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson, which established racial segregation as the law of the land.

“I believe it’s worse because it affects our entire system of morality and family values,” he told CNN. “There is no such thing as same-sex marriage in the constitution. The words are not there, we’ve never had it in our history.”

6. On Sharia law

According to Moore, Sharia law has come to the United States, specifically to the cities and townships of Illinois and Indiana. At least that’s what he’s heard. He can’t really be sure.

“I was informed that there were. But if they’re not, it doesn’t matter,” he told Vox’s Jeff Stein. “Sharia law incorporates Muslim law into the law. That’s not what we do. We do not punish people according to the Christian precepts of our faith — so there’s a difference. I’ll just say this: I don’t know if there are. I understand that there are some.”

7. On Rep. Keith Ellison

In December 2006, on the day Keith Ellison was to be sworn in as the first Muslim member of Congress, Moore penned an op-ed in WorldNetDaily arguing that Ellison’s faith should preclude him from holding office.

“Enough evidence exists for Congress to question Ellison’s qualifications to be a member of Congress as well as his commitment to the Constitution in view of his apparent determination to embrace the Quran and an Islamic philosophy directly contrary to the principles of the Constitution,” he wrote. “In 1943, we would never have allowed a member of Congress to take their oath on ‘Mein Kampf,’ or someone in the 1950s to swear allegiance to the ‘Communist Manifesto.'”

8. On right to work and DACA

Corporate-friendly “right-to-work” legislation, which Republicans have been baying for since Trump captured the White House, would allow workers to opt out of payments to unions that have previously been compulsory. If a bill were to be signed into federal law, it could prove a devastating blow to an embattled labor movement. Moore appears to have no idea what “right to work” even means.

“Right to work?” he asked one of his questioners at an American Principles Project in April. “Explain . . . a little bit.”

Moore seems no less bewildered by the subject of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Here’s what he had to say about Dreamers during a radio interview in July:

“Pardon? The Dreamers program? Why don’t you . . . quit beating around and tell me what it is.”

9. On Barack Obama

Trump may not have endorsed Moore in the Republican primary, but the president shares one of Moore’s favorite racist pastimes: birtherism. The Alabama Republican first cast doubt on Barack Obama’s citizenship in 2008, and as recently as 2016.

“My opinion is that there is a big question about that,” Moore told a meeting of the Constitution Party in December. “My personal belief is that he isn’t [a U.S. citizen], but that’s probably over and done in a few days, unless we get something else to come along,”

H/T Politico

California is Bernie Sanders’ battleground for health care

(Credit: AP/Andrew Harnik)

The country and California must move toward guaranteed health care for all, regardless of what happens next week when Senate Republicans vote on their final bill of 2017 to dismantle Obamacare and Medicaid, both Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT. and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said in separate San Francisco rallies on Friday.

“Every poll that I have seen indicates that more and more Americans support a Medicare-for-all single-payer program,” Sanders said to a rally organized by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United Organizing Committee during its annual convention. “It is a struggle about what this great nation stands for. It is a struggle about whether or not every working person in this country has healthcare as a right, or whether we allow insurance companies and drug companies to continue to rip us off. It is a struggle about whether Congress listens to the American people or listens to the billionaires who make huge sums of money off of the current system.”

Sanders praised Friday’s announcement by Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, that he would not vote yes on the so-called Cassidy-Graham legislation that would deprive an estimated 32 million people of health coverage over the next decade and deprive states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare of tens of billions in federal funds over the next six years.

“But even with Sen. McCain’s opposition, our struggle on this legislation is not over,” he told a crowd of several thousand. “While we have got to wage an all-out battle to defeat this horrific legislation, we’ve also got to understand that in terms of health care, maintaining the status quo is just not good enough. Our job is not just to prevent tens of millions of Americans from being thrown off of the health insurance they currently have. Our job is to join every other major country on earth and guarantee health care to all people as a right and not a privilege.”

Sanders’ remarks addressed the near-term crisis of the Senate GOP’s bill to dismantle health safety nets and his solution, Medicare-for-all legislation, introduced this month with 16 Democratic co-sponsors. While he called the Cassidy-Graham legislation “cruel” and “immoral,” Sanders also laid out the case for his proposal, which would expand and gradually lower the age that individuals could be covered by Medicare, the federal program for people 65 and older.

“Today, we begin the debate vital to the future of our economy,” he said. “The function of a rational healthcare system is to provide healthcare to all people when they need it, and not to argue with the insurance companies as to whether or not they are covered for the procedures that they paid for. Today, we say to those families in California, Vermont and all over this country, who are spending $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a year on health insurance, that we know that this is an insane amount of money to be paying in order to protect your families. And we are here to tell you that under a Medicare-for-all single-payer system the cost of health care for the average middle-class family will significantly decline and that family will be much better off than under the current dysfunctional system.”

Sanders also warned the crowd not to believe the coming wave of disinformation defending the status quo.

“Now, my Republican friends will tell you that you may have to pay more in taxes, and depending on your income, that’s true,” he said. “But what they won’t tell you is that you no longer have to pay that $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 a year to the private insurance companies. And today we tell the drug companies, we are sick and tired of being ripped off by your greed . . . And we say to the small business community, get on board Medicare-for-all because it’s going to benefit you substantially.”

California’s Healthcare Woes

Several hours earlier, California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom addressed 1,500 nurses, pledging his unwavering support to revive and shepherd a statewide single-payer bill that pro-industry Democrats this past summer blocked in the legislature.

Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor and 2018 gubernatorial candidate, worked to create a citywide public healthcare while he was mayor. In 2016, he urged the Democratic National Committee to include Medicare-for-all in its platform. Unlike many Democrats who advocate for reform, he has a record of achieving it.

“I made a commitment — firm,” Newsome said after his speech, speaking of his pledge to revive the statewide single-payer bill if he is elected governor—and to push for it in the legislature before then. “This is an expectation game that I will match: that I will, day one, and I know that’s a rote cliché, but day one [if elected] hit the ground running on leading this effort. It’s not a nice-to-have conversation; it’s a must-have conversation.”

While Sanders spoke in broad strokes about the need for national healthcare reform, Newsom spoke about the specific impacts that both the Graham-Cassidy legislation and status quo of ongoing healthcare cost increases were having on California.

“We are on a cusp of a potential tsunami the likes of which we never could have imagined with the Graham-Cassidy bill that will potentially impact 6.7 million Californians by 2027, and depending on the studies, as much $78 billion [in lost federal healthcare funds] by 2026, the low end being $57.5 billion, and that’s a game-changer,” he said. “That requires an order of magnitude shift in the way we approach health-care policy. We can’t play in the margins with a bill like this coming down the pike.”

But even if the Senate Republican bill doesn’t pass next week, Newsom said California healthcare spending was unsustainable.

“You can’t afford to continue doing what we have done,” he said. “Healthcare is devouring the [state] budget. There’s no sector of our budget is growing more significantly than healthcare. The budget in California is a healthcare budget. The UC [University of California] budget is a healthcare budget. The CSU [California State University] tuition increases that we debated just three days ago; it’s a healthcare tuition increase. The private sector: you want to talk about wage suppression in this country? We could talk about globalization and technology, all profoundly important, why aren’t people talking about healthcare?”

Democrats were mistaken to be avoiding this debate in California and for criticizing Sanders’ efforts, Newsom said.

“This whole idea that we can only do one thing at a time is insulting not just absurd,” he said. “Somebody said to me that Bernie Sanders is going to debate the Graham-Cassidy bill on CNN [next week] and Democrats are upset. Because we have someone who actually has an alternative? A positive alternative? Maybe that’s fundamentally the problem with the Democratic Party. It goes to the core of what’s wrong with our party. We have no positive alternative vision. And here we have a positive alternative vision that includes all Americans to reduce costs, provide quality care and advance a principle that’s been advanced around the rest of the world successfully, and people are critical of the fact thst he should just be playing defense. That’s hardly an aspiration — defense. We need an offensive strategy. I think it’s very healthy. You can do both.”

When asked what was preventing single-payer from moving ahead in California, Newsom was quick to reply.

“The unknown,” he said. “This is not small ball. Everything we are talking about: SB-562 [the stalled bill] is a tectonic plate. No one is denying that . . . It’s the issue that defines our time, public and private. So what is significant about it is we have had a system that everyone is recognizing can no longer continue to thrive, let alone survive, and that requires some new thinking. That requires winners and losers and that’s the answer to your question. There are winners and losers in this debate.”

As Sanders reminded the crowd several hours later, the pharmaceutical industry spent $128 million in California to defeat a proposed 2016 state ballot measure that would have required drug companies to charge state agencies what they currently charge the federal Veterans Administration, which negotiates bulk pricing.

“Let me conclude by saying this,” Sanders said. “This is the year 2017. For decades, great Americans from FDR to John F. Kennedy have talked about health care as a right. After decades of talk, now is the time to get it done.”

Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America’s democracy and voting rights. He is the author of several books on elections and the co-author of Who Controls Our Schools: How Billionaire-Sponsored Privatization Is Destroying Democracy and the Charter School Industry (AlterNet eBook, 2016).

 

Megyn Kelly Today needs you to forget how she built her career

Megyn Kelly (Credit: AP/Chris Pizzello)

Megyn Kelly — the former Fox News host who NBC hoped would become the latest star in the network’s firmament — opened the premiere episode of her new morning talk show, “Megyn Kelly Today,” by laughing at the idea that she might devote time to her sometimes foe President Donald Trump’s latest remarks. “The truth is, I am kind of done with politics for now,” she told a live studio audience with a smile.

During the hour that followed, Kelly offered up a panoply of typical morning show fare — a synergistic but wooden sit-down with the stars of “Will and Grace,” returning to the network’s airwaves this week; a soft-focus piece on a Chicago nun who is “cleaning up her streets”; and Oprah-esque “surprises” for members of the audience, for her guests, and for Kelly herself. Along the way, Kelly sought to wash away her past work and rebrand herself as a joyful and upbeat bringer of hope.

Kelly devoted much of her opening monologue to crafting an origin story, trying to connect with her morning show audience by describing her upbringing, her parents, the death of her father, and her career. “I went on to become a TV anchor. And that was good, until it wasn’t,” she explained. “So much division. So much outrage. And I wasn’t happy,” she said of the 2016 presidential election. “For years I had dreamed of hosting a more uplifting show,” Kelly added. She said the dream was answered by NBC, which allowed her to host the new morning show, “whose mission would be to deliver hope and optimism and inspiration and empowerment.”

This isn’t the first time Kelly has — and sought to separate herself from — the rancor of political discourse. But this rising wave of vitriol didn’t emerge fully formed in 2016, and Kelly was no mere onlooker to the trend — she was one of its foremost beneficiaries. Kelly spent years at Fox News, a network built on the division and outrage she now decries. And her raw talent for playing on the racial anxieties and resentmentsof her audience helped make her a Fox star.

pic.twitter.com/0XCAaUMrnb

— Media Matters (@mmfa) September 25, 2017

Kelly has always been a savvy self-promoter, and during her time at Fox she drew fawning profiles from reporters who focused on her “Megyn moment” takedowns of right-wing guests and her sympathetic confrontation with a brutish, vulgar Trump rather than her larger body of work. If you push her, she’ll still defend the work she did at Fox, and she refuses to criticize her past employers. As her premiere shows, she’d rather not talk about it, and would rather you wouldn’t either. She is no doubt hoping that this latest effort at self-re-creation will produce more uncritical media coverage — and an audience for her NBC show.

But what may trip her up is that this rebranding requires us all to forget that this isn’t the first NBC program Kelly has debuted this year. “As you know, I am the new kid here on The Rock,” Kelly said at the top of a pre-taped segment in which she hung out with her “new “Today” family.” But while Kelly may not have previously had the opportunity to ride bicycles to work with Al Roker or make eggs with Matt Lauer, she’s been in the NBC studios for months, working on “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly,” a newsmagazine program the network had hoped would be its answer to CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

Kelly may now be promoting her morning show by saying she’s “kind of done with politics.” But just a few months ago, she was championing her journalistic bona fides on the “Sunday Night” press tour. “I’ve spent enough time staring at the refrigerator, it’s time to do some news,” she told “The Hollywood Reporter” in April. The program launched with an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin and also featured a sit-downwith the pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

But “Sunday Night” was a flop — a boring show that never found an audience, routinely losing its time slot not only to “60 Minutes,” but also to reruns of “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” before NBC pulled the plug and put the show on hiatus two episodes early in July. The program exposed Kelly’s weaknesses when cut off from the outrage sensibility that made her reputation: She lacks creativity in putting together an interesting show and range in interviewing nonpolitical guests.

“Sunday Night”’s failure was bad for NBC’s reputation, but as a relatively inexpensive show in a low-profile time slot, it was hardly cataclysmic for the network. “Megyn Kelly Today,” however, represents a sizable bet from NBC that Kelly will be able to bring credit and ratings to the network’s high-profile, moneymaking franchise. “If she doesn’t [succeed], it’ll be a disaster for NBC,” a news-industry veteran told Vanity Fair earlier this month.

It was an ominous sign for the network that Kelly has already proved she lacks a built-in audience that will follow her from show to show. What’s worse for NBC is that the very skills “Sunday Night” exposed Kelly as lacking are crucial for daytime talk shows. And that competitive market has been the career graveyard of any number of previously successful TV hosts.

In Trump’s America, is the Supreme Court still seen as legitimate?

(Credit: Getty/Alex Wong)

On Oct. 10, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments about the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s travel ban. The justices may rule that Trump has exceeded his constitutional authority, or they may dodge the issue entirely, saying that the travel ban’s scheduled Sept. 24 end date takes the decision out of the court’s hands.

Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, some Americans will agree and others will not. And whatever the decision, the court will expect the president to comply with its ruling. Political leaders usually follow court decisions they disagree with out of a sense of duty: They believe the Supreme Court’s decisions deserve respect because obedience to the law is an essential feature of democracy. Political scientists call this belief “legitimacy.”

Research suggests that the U.S. Supreme Court’s legitimacy is high and holds steady, even when it makes decisions the public dislikes.

But is this true in the midst of our current political turmoil?

We set out to find the answer. Here’s what we found.

The Supreme Court’s broad support

We asked a representative sample of Americans about the U.S. Supreme Court’s legitimacy in a recent Penn State McCourtney Mood of the Nation Poll. Specifically, we asked citizens about what they would want to do if the Supreme Court began making many unpopular decisions.

Only a few Americans would want to eliminate the Supreme Court altogether. About 20 percent would endorse narrowing the scope of the court by limiting the types of cases it is able to decide. And about 32 percent felt that even if the court made unpopular decisions, we should leave it alone. The margin of error for these results was ± 4.2 percent.

The largest group of respondents — 44 percent — endorsed the idea that justices should be periodically reappointed rather than serving life terms. Reappointment procedures are already used for many state supreme courts, including those in New Jersey, South Carolina and Virginia. Women, African-Americans and Americans over 65 were especially likely to endorse periodic reappointment.

After respondents gave their answers, we asked them to explain their choices in their own words. These responses provide a richer description of how ordinary citizens think about the judicial branch of our government.

In their own words

Citizens expressed concern about the Supreme Court’s accumulation of power and were mindful of its role in the system of checks and balances. Many who supported periodic reappointment focused on the inflexibility of current justices. Many characterized sitting justices as “old-fashioned,” “out of touch” and “unable to keep up with the times.”

Many mentioned the need for “new ideas” and more “open-minded justices.” A 52-year-old independent from Missouri summed it up this way: “No one should serve for life. In anything.”

A sizable number felt that the court’s decisions should fall more closely in line with public opinion on individual cases, illustrating a longstanding debate in the U.S. about the ideal level of political independence for the judicial branch. Research on the Supreme Court appointment process suggests that periodic reappointment may satisfy these concerns. If each president is able to appoint a set number of justices, rather than waiting until there is a vacancy due to death or retirement, the court’s membership might better reflect the recent political climate.

Perhaps the most striking pattern in the answers we received is the lack of polarization. There was some modest difference — for example, Democrats were a little more likely to favor reforms of all kinds. However, supporters of reappointment and supporters of that status quo included large numbers of Republicans, Democrats and independents.

We see no evidence that Trump’s rhetoric about judiciary legitimacy has created two hostile camps with widely differing views on the court. This is consistent with recent academic research on the topic, suggesting the possibility that future public debates about judicial reforms can be multipartisan, reasoned and thoughtful.

Most importantly, the poll’s results show that the Supreme Court is broadly supported by the American people. Even at a point in history where support for other political institutions is low, we can expect that the vast majority of Americans will respect the court’s decisions on the controversial issues it faces this term.

Michael Nelson, Jeffrey L. Hyde and Sharon D. Hyde and Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professor in Political Science and Affiliate Law Faculty, Pennsylvania State University; Eric Plutzer, Professor of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University, and Michael Berkman, Professor Political Science and Director of McCourtney Institute for Democracy, Pennsylvania State University

Soraia’s lead singer on how music saved her life

“Music is my lover in every way, it’s never let me down,” vocalist ZouZou Mansour of the rock band Soraia said on “Salon Stage.” “I’ve struggled a lot with suicidal thoughts and attempted suicide and music saved my life.”

Two members of the four-piece Philadelphia rock band performed their song “Wandering Star” from their forthcoming album “Dead Reckoning,” out October 13. The band’s name, Soraia, derives from Mansour’s first name, but also from its meaning, “bright guiding star” in Arabic. Mansour and guitarist and vocalist Mike Reisman talked openly during “Salon Stage” about the healing powers of music. “When I play music, I escape,” Reisman said, “I feel like it’s a different plane of existence from waking life.”

From personal experience, Mansour sees addiction and alcoholism as living in a vacuum. “You can’t connect,” she said. But with music, it’s something the world shares, and as an artist, she facilitates that connection.

“I realized that instead of trying to destroy my own life, I’m now trying to create it every day in a new way,” Mansour said. “It’s never over, it’s never too late, and I got some really good music from letting myself feel things I should have been feeling all along, and just expressing that to other people.”

Soraia includes ZouZou Mansour (lead vocals), Mike Reisman (lead/rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Travis Smith (bass, backing vocals) and Brianna Sig (drums, percussion, backing vocals). The rock band is signed to Steven Van Zandt’s label Wicked Cool Records.

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“Will & Grace”: Not must-see, but not dead on revival either

Boy oh boy does NBC hope you’ve missed the mind-blowing physical humor of Sean Hayes.

And Karen’s inebriated boob honking.

And the late 90s, and the early aughts, and “Must See TV,” particularly the timespan ruled by “Will & Grace.”

Don’t you miss all that? Somebody does. I mean, millions of people voted a “Must See TV” star into the White House hoping he’d apply the same wildly exaggerated level of business acumen he peddled like meth-infused snake oil on “The Apprentice” to governance. He hasn’t! But we’re paying attention to him. Sad!

So NBC hopes it will be with the return of Will (Eric McCormack), Grace (Debra Messing), Jack (Hayes) and Karen (Megan Mullally) to our screens as of 9 p.m. Thursday. Admittedly the Peacock may be on to something in its choice to go full bore with a revival heralded months ago with the reassurance that nothing has changed in the lives of the deliriously witty quartet. The accoutrements in Will’s apartment have been updated, but the feng shui is consistent. Karen and Jack remain the mastery of the cruel and witty rejoinder; Will and Grace are still co-dependent. Each episode stacks the pop culture references higher than Karen’s pill collection.

Don’t even inquire as to whether the storyline incorporates anything from the original run’s finale because honestly, the existence of these new episodes is barely explainable. In case you’re curious, though, the writers expeditiously answer that question within the first couple of minutes of the premiere. Right after a sequence that shoves the audience back into the deep end of the show’s signature back-and-forth repartee that gleans laughter out of a quick round of Ellen DeGeneres’ “Heads Up!” and a zinger about Grindr.

The script drips with 2017 references, but the banter, the physical humor and the covalent bond holding the foursome together take us right back to the George W. Bush administration. Depending on who you are, maybe that’s not so terrible. Maybe this is exactly the kind of gooey American cheese product you’ve been craving, and if that’s true, bon appétit.

Millions of people loved “Will & Grace” as they were, and the highest compliment a person can pay to these new episodes is that they click right on to the old ones like a shiny replica of a caboose on a classic steam engine. People desiring respite from the agita of 2017 may embrace these new adventures of old sitcom characters who used to be regular guests in their homes.

However, a person can’t ignore how much of series creators David Kohan’s and Max Mutchnick’s style feels like a throwback to a bygone era, and not in a retro chic kind of way. “Will & Grace” was terrific fun in its heyday, which lasted from 1998 through 2006 and is said to have played a significant role in changing the nation’s attitudes towards LGBTQ citizens. The show reminds us of this none too subtly in an episode that also acknowledges that Jack and Will have gotten old enough that at their local pick-up joint, the Cockpit, the younger crowd thinks of them as “daddies.”

Will counters this later by lecturing one of them on the importance of knowing their history and how mightily the generations who came before the Millennial reign struggled, in essence admonishing him for failing to respect his elders. On the other hand, Will sets the mood for his young companion by playing classic Madonna, because apparently he’s been in hypersleep for the past 11 years and has never heard of Lady Gaga or St. Vincent or RuPaul . . . oh, wait.

And this moment niftily captures the spiritual dissonance of these new “Will & Grace” episodes. The gang’s still a hoot, their personalities remain adorbs. When the tone clicks, and it does, we’re reminded that Will’s, Grace’s, Karen’s and Jack’s loyalty and love for one another is the secret sauce that made the original incarnation of the sitcom a hit.

The writers would like to pretend that their old metronomic pattern of banging out punchlines is timeless and their shiny, vivid “Must See TV” approach still has gas in the sunken place that is today’s America. “Fuller House” and the “Gilmore Girls” reboot adopted the same philosophy, believing perhaps that viewers would love the series as it was, now. But we’ve all aged, the world has grown colder, and television comedy itself has evolved to find ways to coax laughter out of its audience while addressing fraught issues with heart and sincerity.

“Will & Grace” rarely ever does that. Thus the first episode’s high jinks bringing Will and Grace, separately, into Donald Trump’s White House — Karen and Melania are gal pals, natch — feel forced and self-congratulatory all at once (not to mention tone deaf in light of current events surrounding Trump’s fuss over athletes declining invitations to the White House but, in fairness, the producers could not have known that would happen when they were filming it).

Prior to that moment Grace nearly chokes on the phrase, “You are so WOKE” and cranks out a one-liner about pussy hats. Not long after that Jack cracks, “Who talks like that?” as Grace leaves the room, following with, “OK, who’s the guy? Your lips are pursed, your neck is flushed and you’re presenting,” accentuating the last word with a theatrical jut of the hips. Oh, the irony!

The guy, by the way, is an elected official whose policies Will adamantly opposes — but he’s also hot, so it’s really just a hook-up ploy. Pause for laughter!

“Will & Grace” may have affected social change more than a decade ago but it’s obvious that the producers haven’t a clue as to how to speak to where and who we are now in a way that’s honest and refrains from seeming polarizing. But this is a show about two gay men and their straight female allies, one of whom is unrepentantly self-centered, ditzy and a Trumpster.

It simply cannot get away with saying absolutely nothing at all or, worse, doing it in with gleeful smugness. That might have flown in years past, but that was then. If NBC expects us to stick with this crew for 16 episodes, let alone a second round of 13, the writers have an obligation to bring them into the here and now.

Lisa Ling is ready for sexual healing

For the fourth season of her CNN series, “This Is Life With Lisa Ling,” debuting October 1 at 10 p.m. ET, journalist, author and television host Lisa Ling went inside a right-wing militia, a transgender beauty pageant, a polygamous community and more. But she wanted to kick things off on a more intimate note.

In the season’s first episode, “Sexual Healing,” Ling explores our culture’s often dysfunctional relationship with sexuality and talks to an eclectic collection of individuals seeking a deeper connection. Along the way, she confronts her own feelings on the subject — and winds up shedding more than her inhibitions.

“I’ve always had a lot of hangups about sex,” she admitted on a recent episode of “Salon Talks.” “I grew up in a pretty conservative household. . . . Even as an adult it’s been difficult to talk openly about it.”

But Ling knew she wasn’t alone in that awkwardness and wanted to use her platform bring it out in the open. “My sense is that a lot of people feel that way and they have always felt this sort of shame around sex.”

“In doing episodes like ‘Sexual Healing,’ my hope is that we can start to normalize the conversation around sex,” she added. “At the end of the day, we’re constantly promoting it and publicizing it, and yet we’re shaming it and policing it and politicizing it. . . . Something that is so natural, so organic to who we are, any inhibition in that area affects you. And this applies to everyone.”

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