Concern trolling …

Where is she … On Sunday, CNN media critic/cheerleader Brian Stelter acted very concerned about whether or not first lady Melania Trump is safe, as she has not been seen publicly since May 10.  As a reminder, Mrs. Trump had kidney surgery on May 14. Nevertheless, Stelter decided to dedicate both air time and a large portion of his newsletter to the “controversy.”

When confronted with the fact that a reporter had seen the first lady in the West Wing of the White House just last week, Stelter claimed the “segment was about the last time she was seen in public.” In that same tweet, Stelter let us in on his concern trolling. Stelter concluded“imagine how you'd feel if a different First Lady wasn't seen in public for 3+ weeks.”

I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t really feel anything, since nobody elects the first lady and we all knew about her surgery. Plus she’s doing an event tonight for Gold Star families.

Oh wait, but Stelter had a response for that too. In his newsletter, Stelter wrote, “The event is closed to the press, so Monday evening may not resolve the mystery / concern / speculation...”

Stelter also fell back on his favorite trope; he’s not actually concerned, you see, he’s just asking questions.

“Melania-Truther” … The folks at Twitchy have more on the Stelter story and how he was called out by folks on Twitter. It wasn’t even close. Stelter was very much wrecked by the facts. Rating: Bananas.

Dictator Trump? … Is it a new line of attack on President Donald Trump or just a rehashing of an old one? Over the past few days, there has been increasing chatter about how much Trump reminds people of a dictator.

John Brennan wrote an op-ed over the weekend saying that Trump acts like a foreign strongman in the way he attacks the media and lies. On Saturday’s “AM Joy” with Joy Reid, a panel discussed how “Donald Trump believes in autocracy.”

This focus isn’t coincidental. This is how the media works.