The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

In The Mailbox: 09.22.23 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | September 23, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.22.23 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Is Cassidy Hutchinson a dirty liar?, MAGA Michigan, Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) Indicted, Is Red China Collapsing?, and U.S. Senate House of Style
Twitchy: Judge Strikes Down CA Magazine Ban, Newsom Pitches Fit, And X Laughs, “Shall not Be Infringed”, and WaPoo Runs Lame Hit Piece On Dave Portnoy & Portnoy Hits Back 
Louder With Crowder: Barstool’s Dave Portnoy catches wind of another MSM hit piece, calls WaPo reporter and exposes her journactivism, Thousands Take To The Streets Across Canada To Protest Against LGBTQ+ Indoctrination, Smug NYT reporter complains about how expensive his meal was, restaurant calls him out for being a drunk, ‘Time Traveler’ From the Year 2027 Shares ‘Proof’ That He’s The Last Person Alive And… wait, what?, and Nearly 95% Of NFTsAre Now Worthless, Report Says
Vox Popoli: The Unexpected End of Feminism, The Artillery Dilemma, Delingpole Has His Doubts, The Ustasi is Real, “We Will Lose” – Zelensky, and Young Women Need to Hear This
According To Hoyt: Through The Perilous Night, Nekulturny, and Something Wicked This Way Comes
Stoic Observations: Ugly Stupid Feeble & Lazy, also, MLK – The Last Negro
Jon Del Arroz: SJW Mags Visaggio Resorts To Cringe E-Begging Because Of “Muh Writer’s Strike”

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: The Federal Government Should Not Be Held Hostage for Ukraine Funding, The ‘Peacemaker’ Hit List, and Why (Traditional) Marriage Matters
American Greatness: Texas AG Ken Paxton Says Impeachment Effort Was Orchestrated by Biden Regime With the Help of ‘Controlled’ Texas GOP House Speaker, Our Self-Induced Catastrophe at the Border, Ray Epps Charged With a Single Misdemeanor Count of Disruptive or Disorderly Conduct, and Congress to Release New Evidence Backing Up IRS Whistleblowers Against Biden
American Thinker: Communism, Fascism, Globalism — What’s the Difference?, Presumed Rigged Until Further Notice, and The Evolution of the American Police State
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News, Animal’s Daily Slip-And-Slide-A-Potty News, First Day of Autumn, and Rule Five Looming Recession Friday
Babalu Blog: Surprise! Africans flock to Cuban beach resort for communist indoctrination, terrorist training, Cuba’s sock puppet president leaves a trail behind him at the UN, Forced labor and forced exile: The life of Cuban professionals sold as slave labor to foreign nations, Hispanics buy gasoline, too, and Developing News: Hypocritical Cuban dictatorship event in New York church shrouded in secrecy
BattleSwarm: Texas Helps Solve Ukraine’s Shell Problem, Bad Guy Beatdown Roundup, Race Hustler Ibram X. Kendi’s Woke Center Lays Off Most Staff, and LinkSwarm for September 22
Behind The Black: A close-up of the giant crack that almost splits Mars, SpaceX shows off a Raptor-2 engine during local Texas parade, Independent review: NASA’s Mars sample return mission is in big trouble, House speaker Kevin McCarthy proposes bill to extend “learning period” for rocketry, Strange wormlike tube features on slopes of Martian shield volcano, and Pushback: California county sued for using cellphones to track movements of church-goers
Cafe Hayek: Thomas Sowell on Social Justice Fallacies, An Application of Occam’s Razor, Exploring EconTalk: Charles Calomiris on the Financial Crisis (2009), and Beware Being Confused By Accounting Conventions
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday, also, Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: Another Great Road Trip – Victoria, British Columbia, Another Brand Bites the Dust?, and Ginny Machann, RIP
Da Tech Guy: Trump’s stand on life and Mother Angelica on Peanuts, If you want to win in 2024 You’d Damn Well better Deal with Reality, The Answer is: “Joe Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election As Sure as the Cincinnati Reds Won the World Series in 1919”, Celebrating Constitution Day by busting some Progressive myths about the Constitution, and If My Dynasty 1971 Draft League’s Season Ended Today
Don Surber: Chaturbate Nation, also, FOX Wants RINOs To Stop Trump
First Street Journal:  Was Deep Space Nine prescient?, also, So, which one concerns His Holiness the Pope more?
Gates Of Vienna: Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni on the Lampedusa Crisis, A Room of Your Own… But Just One, Whipping the Little Hussies Into Line, Nice Non-Work If You Can Get It, Another Culture-Enriching Sexual Emergency at a German Swimming Pool, and We’ve Only Just Begun
The Geller Report: DEMOCRATS’ INVASION: 35,000 Illegals Cross U.S. Border in Just 4 Days, POST-TRUMP AMERICA: No Major World Leaders, Allies Showed Up For Irrelevant-Biden’s UN General Assembly Speech, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tucker, Explains How Democrats Stole the Election in 2020, and These 14 American Cities Have A ‘Target’ Of Banning Meat, Dairy, And Private Vehicles By 2030
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Campbell’s Hydrogen Star, Fork Control? FIFY, and Civil Rights Victory
Hollywood In Toto: Kevin Sorbo: ‘Tolerant’ Hollywood Filled with ‘Anger and Hate’, Glenn Beck Betting Big on Conservative Movies (And More), Celebs Rally Against ‘Book Bans,’ Ignore Real Censorship, and Russell Brand: I Won’t Stop Targeting Corrupt Media, Big Pharma
The Lid: Project Veritas Is Dead-Cause Of Death: Pushing Out James O’Keefe, House Committee Reveals 22 Examples of Biden’s Corruption After Media Cries There’s “No Evidence”, and Colony Ridge: A Development for Illegal Immigrants? A “Hotbed” for Drug Cartels?
Legal Insurrection: California Federal Court Says Teachers Don’t Have to Comply With School’s Secret Gender Transitioning Policy, Supreme Court Extends Stay on Fifth Circuit Injunction Stopping Biden Admin From Coercing Big Tech to Censor Posts, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez and His Wife Indicted on Federal Bribery Charges, Cornell University Silent After Professor Receives Award for Advancing Free Expression and Intellectual Diversity, Indiana Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz Tears Into Merrick Garland, Compares DOJ to the KGB, and Education Sec. Cardona: ‘I Don’t Have Too Much Respect’ for Parents Wanting a Say in Kids Education
Nebraska Energy Observer: Truckers, Freedom, and Strikes, Oh joy! Oh bliss!, and Scattershot Friday: The Great (One) and the Good
Outkick: Dan Patrick Is Right: ESPN Should Have Shown Replay Of Nick Chubb’s Injury Against Steelers, Deion Sanders Origin Story: He Became Prime Time In 1980s, But Also Displayed Edgy Makings Of Future Coach, Urban Meyer Rips Michigan’s Soft Schedule, Stephen A. Smith Says Shohei Ohtani Isn’t Worth Huge Contract Because He Doesn’t Sell Tickets — Except He Does, Ohio State AD Says Recruits Are Demanding Money To Simply Visit Campus In NIL Era, Andrew Luck Wears Civil War Costume To 49ers/Giants Game, Proves He’s Self-Aware, and Mike Gundy’s Legendary ‘I’m A Man’ Rant Celebrates Its 16-Year Anniversary
Power Line: Clothes Make the Man, Mum’s the word, Biden’s Iran deal, The Daily Chart: Bidenomics Epic Fail, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Steube Joins GOP Colleagues In Rejecting Further $$$ To Ukraine
Shot In The Dark: All The Racket About Rackets, Not Sure What Disgusts Me More, Back Door To Federalism? and Dedicated Follower Of Fashion
The Political Hat: The First Time As Farce, The Second As Tragedy, In Ontario, Canada, The Year 2008 Is The New Year Zero, and Firing Line Friday: How Does It Look for the Dollar?
This Ain’t Hell: Four More Accounted For, Woke West Point Admissions Challenged, Marine aviator updates – F-35, Ospreys, Where are the NCOs? Where are the LEADERS?, Valor Friday, Service Academy cadet wonders if woke topics could be saved from bad batch of congressmen, Senate Democrats blink, and Black veteran pushing for equal care at VA medical facilities
Transterrestrial Musings: Long-Haul Trucking, Blue-Collar Workers, and Weird Climate Logic
Victory Girls: Ukraine Gravy Train Will Continue Even If Gov’t Shutdown Happens, “We’ve Got A Pilot In The House” – F-35, and FBI Loses Count Of Capitol Informants And We’re Shocked
Volokh Conspiracy: My Move to the Hoover Institution, Despite What Those Shadowy, Elite, Rich Jews Say, We’re Not Antisemites, and Louisiana Town Admits It Was Wrong to Block Flying “Fuck Biden” / “And Fuck You for Voting for Him” Flags
Watts Up With That: Update: DOE Appliance Minimum Efficiency Standards, The Great New England Hurricane of 1938, L A Times Article Falsely Asserts U.S. Had “Record” High Summer Temperatures in 2023, Germany’s Energy Crisis: The Perils of Delusional Virtue Signaling, and The Weather Channel’s Absurd ‘Hot’ Propaganda
The Federalist: While Western Leaders Look Away, China’s Spies Are Multiplying, Meet ‘Ad Fontes Media,’ The Left’s Latest Tool For Annihilating Conservative Voices Like The Federalist, It’s No Accident The Southern Border Is Collapsing, It’s Intentional, Federal Court Chides Dem Activists: There’s Nothing Racist About Election Integrity Laws Like Florida’s, In Leaked Video, Veterans’ Affairs Tells Providers To Promote Abortion, Avoid Saying ‘Mother’ And ‘Baby’, The Texas Teacher Who Assigned Anne Frank Graphic Novel Deserved To Be Fired, and Don’t Count On Biden’s IRS To Investigate Mark Zuckerberg’s Election-Rigging ‘Nonprofit’ Scheme
Mark Steyn: The Virtues of Disconnecting, also, Live Around the Planet

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 09.22.23 (Abbreviated Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | September 22, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.22.23 (Abbreviated Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.
OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Reality Is True Even If You Disagree With It – Oakland CA Edition
EBL: Foundation (Season 2), RAY EPPS : Is The Fix In?, and Did the Indian Government order the execution of Canadian Sikh Leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar?
Twitchy: Community Notes Nukes David Brooks And His Burger/Booze Tweet, Chris Rufo Shows How Things Are Getting Worse For Race Grifter Ibram Kendi, and Thomas Massie Catches AG Garland Lying
Louder With Crowder: Missouri High School Crowns Male Homecoming Queen… Again, Elon Musk Files Lawsuit Against Biden Admin Over DOJ’s Demand SpaceX Hire Illegals, and High school students stage walkout over district’s woke bathroom policy
Vox Popoli: The “Stop Biden” Drumbeat Begins, An Astute and Early Observation, and Russia Unlocks Allies

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Baldilocks: Corporations Pretend To Commit Suicide
CDR Salamander: An Inadequate Navy? A Common Affliction
Don Surber: Corporate Suicide

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Category: Linkagery

LOL: ‘Readers Added Context’ to Tweet by David Brooks and It’s Brutally Awesome

Posted on | September 22, 2023 | Comments Off on LOL: ‘Readers Added Context’ to Tweet by David Brooks and It’s Brutally Awesome

Used to be, every Tuesday was “David Brooks Fisking Day” around here, as I’d dismantle that dishonest fraud’s New York Times column, but I eventually got bored with it. Now the fool has committed one of the great self-owns in the history of social media: Claiming on Twitter that his burger at the airport cost $78. Internet sleuths quickly figured out what restaurant Brooks was in: 1911 Smokehouse Barbecue, where the burger costs $17, meaning that Brooks drank somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 worth of cocktails. Is this — a New York Times columnist running up a bar tab of $50 drinking call-brand scotch at an airport restaurant — really “why Americans think the economy is terrible”? Probably not.

Brooks got more readers for that stupid tweet than he gets for his weekly columns. If the economy was really terrible, he’d be unemployed.



 

Category: David Brooks Fisking Day

CNN Ratings Hit Historic Low

Posted on | September 22, 2023 | Comments Off on CNN Ratings Hit Historic Low

An audience so tiny you need a microscope to see it:

Ratings-challenged CNN hit rock bottom in a key viewership demographic last weekend — another sign of the difficulties facing incoming boss Mark Thompson.
The cable news network logged its worst weekend ratings on record in the all important 25- to 54-year-old demo, according to the latest Nielsen data released Tuesday.
CNN — which launched in 1980 and bills itself as “the most trusted name in news” — totaled just 55,000 viewers for its weekend slate of shows that include Sunday political programs “State of the Union with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash,” and “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”
The network’s Sunday primetime lineup, which featured “The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper” and “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy,” drew 43,000 in the demo.
The ratings are the network’s worst since 1991 — the earliest TV data is readily available.
Data prior to 1991 is largely not digitized.
CNN’s overall viewership wasn’t much better.
The network logged 345,000 total viewers, trailing Fox News’ 683,000 and MSNBC’s 424,000.
Fox won the battle in the key demo as well, drawing 75,000 viewers to top MSNBC’s 47,000, which finished behind CNN.
“CNN is a ratings embarrassment,” an industry insider said. “At least with Thompson they will have a direction.”
Thompson, the former New York Times Company CEO, was tapped as CNN’s new chairman and CEO last month by parent Warner Bros. Discovery after the disastrous tenure of Chris Licht.

You might say they’re “on a roll.”



 

Category: CNN

The Toxic Lives and Influence of AWFLs

Posted on | September 21, 2023 | Comments Off on The Toxic Lives and Influence of AWFLs

A couple of days ago, the Google algorithm on my phone brought up one of those clickbait headlines — illustrated with a photo of a large-breasted woman — “Famous Celebrities You Won’t Believe Are Still Single.”

Who was that large-breasted woman? I still don’t know, because the way these clickbait articles work, you’re going to have to scroll through two dozen items before you ever get to the “featured” personality, and I stopped scrolling once I saw the name Chelsea Handler.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS BULLS**T?

Is there anyone genuinely surprised by the revelation — “You Won’t Believe”! — that Chelsea Handler is still unmarried at age 48? The woman’s life has always been a toxic dumpster fire of dysfunction, substance abuse and broken relationships. Indeed, her personal problems were the subject of her stand-up comedy routine from the time she entered showbiz in her 20s. In case you have forgotten when Chelsea Handler was actually funny, her humor was basically about (a) here habitual promiscuity and (b) her alcoholism. Her first book was entitled, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands, while her second was entitled Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea. Which is to say that, by the time she was sufficiently well-known to be called a celebrity, what was Chelsea Handler was mainly famous for was being a drunken slut.

As the subject of a stand-up routine, this was actually funny, back around 2005 or so, but as a lifestyle . . . Well, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Nor would I recommend Chelsea Handler’s brand of politics, a reflexive liberalism so dumbed-down that it makes Rob Reiner and Michael Moore seem astute by comparison. What Chelsea Handler is (besides a drunken slut) is an AWFL (Affluent White Female Liberal). These women are now the core grassroots constituency of the Democratic Party, the kind of people so insulated from reality they think CNN is objective journalism.

Despite the fact that their own lives are defined by unhappiness and broken relationships, AWFLs nevertheless think themselves fit to decide weighty matters of public policy. Does anyone really need to be lectured on political topics by someone like Chelsea Handler? Is she someone so self-evidently wise and well-informed that there are millions of Americans who turn to her in search of political guidance?

Let me tell you a little story about Chelsea Handler. When she was in her early 30s, and beginning to have some serious show-business success, Chelsea started dating NBC executive Ted Harbert, then the head of the NBC-owned E! Entertainment cable channel. Harbert was recently divorced and 20 years older than Chelsea. This relationship lasted about five years, the longest Chelsea had ever been with anyone, and probably the closest she ever got to being married. After they broke up, Chelsea told a reporter it was because she and Harbert couldn’t separate their show-business work from their personal lives. More recently, however, Chelsea has told a new version of events:

Chelsea Handler realized she had to break up with her ex-boyfriend Ted Harbert after having a threesome with him and her masseuse.
“I was very turned on by this woman,” the comedian told Andy Cohen of the massage therapist during Wednesday’s episode of SiriusXM’s “Andy Radio,” clarifying that she has “slept with a woman” but “hasn’t dated a woman.”
She added, “I ended up hooking up with her several times without the guy.”
“That’s when I knew it was time to break up with the guy,” she said. , , ,
Handler admitted she never told Harbert that she was sleeping with the masseuse on the side, but she called their threesome “fun” and said she would have one again.

Everyone all together now: “Eeehh-YYUKKK!”

See, the thing about Chelsea Handler is, when she made a career of making jokes about her life as a drunken slut, she was young, and kind of good-looking. But she is well past the point where anyone wants to think about her having sex, with men or women or both simultaneously.

Anyway, I hadn’t thought about Chelsea Handler at all for a long time, and the only reason I did was because of that clickbait headline with the picture of a woman with very large breasts. Who was she? I don’t know, but if any of y’all figure it out, please let me know in the comments.



 

Category: Celebrities, Liberals

Police Officer Survives Shootout

Posted on | September 21, 2023 | Comments Off on Police Officer Survives Shootout

If you should ever happen to be in Louisville, Kentucky, allow me to offer this advice: Avoid the intersection of S. 40th Street and W. Kentucky Street. As a matter of fact, you might want to avoid being anywhere near that neighborhood. But frankly, you’d do best to stay far, far away from Louisville, a “wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

Last week, in the wee hours of the morning, Officer Brandon Haley was patrolling the dangerous streets of Louisville when he encountered a vehicle with no lights. He attempted to catch up with the vehicle:

The vehicle was traveling westbound on Kentucky Street and turned south on 40th Street where the vehicle came to rest on the sidewalk. . . . Officer Haley exited his vehicle and advised that two subjects were running. As Officer Haley ran towards the vehicle, several subjects began shooting from a house on the west side of 40th Street. Officer Haley was immediately struck and fell to the ground and returned fire.
While still being shot at, Officer Haley ran to the opposite side of the street where he was met by Officer [Colin] Billotto. As Officer Billotto began assessing Officer Haley’s injuries, the subject or subjects began shooting at officers again. Officer Billotto returned fire and dragged Officer Haley to a safer position.
Officer Billotto immediately began to relay information to responding officers while rendering aid to Officer Haley. Officer Haley was placed in a police car and transported to University Hospital with life-threatening injuries. Numerous officers responded, including LMPD’s Hostage Negotiation Team, as well as SWAT. Over the course of the next several hours, five persons of interest were taken into custody and multiple guns and narcotics were seized at the scene.

Officer Haley survived his wounds. On Wednesday, Louisville police released bodycam video of the shootout, which I can’t embed here because YouTube has classified it as too violent and graphic. While no suspects have yet been charged with shooting Officer Haley, police did make multiple arrests at the scene:

Officers received a search warrant to search the house on South 40th and found various illegal drugs and nine guns — two of which were reported stolen. According to police reports, officers tried to get Dominique Thompson Jr., 27, and Quantez Porter, 28, resisted coming out of the home.
Residents told LMPD a person was hiding in their backyard. Officers found Jemond Groves, 21, hiding and a gun in a pile of brush nearby. After checking the gun, it was determined it was reported stolen.
Thompson is charged with drug trafficking, gun possession by a convicted felon and resisting arrest. Porter’s charges are drug trafficking, gun possession and resisting arrest. Groves is charged with gun possession by a convicted felon and trespassing, since he was found in another yard, and wasn’t asked to come over. A fourth man,Jaquan Ranson, was also arrested [and] faces similar charges.

In other words, while we don’t know who shot the cop, we do know that a search warrant found nine guns, two of them stolen, and two convicted felons. But am I the only one who suspects that a search warrant of any home in that neighborhood would yield similar results? The whole area is crawling with armed felons, and you’d have difficulty finding a law-abiding citizen anywhere within a five-block radius of the intersection of S. 40th Street and W. Kentucky Street. It’s Mos Eisley, in real life.

The last Republican mayor of Louisville left office in 1969.



 

Category: Crime, Kentucky

In The Mailbox: 09.20.23 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | September 20, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.20.23 (Morning Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.
OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: David Kurlan: Washington’s Farewell Address
Twitchy: Roseanne Knocks Self-Righteous George Takei Down A Few Pegs, “He Knows He Screwed Up”, and Appointees To DHS “Intelligence Experts Group” Make Irony Meters Explode
Louder With Crowder: Corporate sellout Howard Stern lashes out at Lauren Boebert for showing too much t*tty. Yes, THAT Howard Stern!, also, Larry David gets in Elon Musk’s face with hissy fit over GOP support: “Do you just want to murder kids?”
Vox Popoli: YouTube Piles On, also, The True Goal of the WereWest

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Greatness: Government Jobs Increasing Under Biden, Voter Registration Charities: A Massive, Overlooked Scandal, and Biden Bumbles His Way Through Another UN Speech
American Thinker: Mark Levin’s The Democrat Party Hates America
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Religion and Politics News
Babalu Blog: Biden administration ready to roll out stealth version of Obamapalooza 2.0, offer direct aid to Cuban dictatorship, Video of the Day: Christianity is surging in communist Cuba, and Teen goes from misery and oppression in Cuba to Miss Teen Universe Arizona
BattleSwarm: Japan’s Bigmotor Collapses Because It Was Fraud All The Way Down
Behind The Black: Electron rocket fails during launch, SpaceX sues to get Justice’s discrimination suit thrown out on constitutional grounds, Ingenuity completes 59th flight, a hop setting a new altitude record, The northern interior rim of the largest volcano in the solar system, and The emerging long term ramifications of the Ukraine War
CDR Salamander: Why Engineers Should Not Be Readiness Officers
Da Tech Guy: Tide is our woke laundry detergent, Tent Cities and COVID Vaccines Both Subsidized Profit Centers, DaTechGuy’s Almost Daily Pintastic NE 2023 Posts Quick Clips and the Free Play Room, and Small towns face a serious shortage of cops
Dana Loesch: What Trump Gets Wrong About Abortion Limitation Law & The Problem It Causes For The Right
Don Surber: Biden Needs To Drop Charges Against Trump
First Street Journal: Are the teachers’ unions writing purportedly straight news pieces for The Washington Post?
The Geller Report: WAIT, WHAT? Zelensky Visits Wounded Ukrainian Soldiers in NYC Hospital
Glenn Reynolds: Fetterman Nation
Hogewash: What Do Eagles and Big Cats Have in Common?, I’m Not Making This Up, You Know, and Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: Totally Killer Brings Back the ’80s (Thanks Goodness!)
Legal Insurrection: Student Body President at Florida International U. Says ‘Defending DEI Policies is Top Priority’, Failed Dept. Energy Nominee Appointed to Senior Role in Efficient Energy Office, Nothing To See Here: Hacktivist Media Two-Steps From No Evidence of Biden Wrongdoing To No ‘Direct’ Evidence, and U. Michigan Given $5 Million to Build Global Center for Understanding Climate Change
Nebraska Energy Observer: Even I…
Outkick: Browns Trade For Deshaun Watson Looks Like An All-Time Worst, Patriots Fan Dies After ‘Incident’ At Gillette Stadium, Congressman Rob Gronkowski? Former NFL Star Isn’t Ruling It Out, Season-Ending Nick Chubb Injury Elicits Sympathy And Re-Ignites NFL Running Back Pay Debate, and Olivia Casta Dumps Out New AI Content, Sad Browns & Steelers Fans, Plus John Fetterman’s Hoodie Attire Vs. 1950s Baseball Fans
Power Line: (D., Lower Slobbovia), Abbe is shabby suing IRS, and Comic Relief from the Left
Shark Tank: Salazar Urges State Dept. To Add Sandinistas To Blacklist
Shot In The Dark: Open Letter To Minnetonka
This Ain’t Hell: Temporary NCO promotions going away, PTSD Treatment- MDMA Approval by 2024?, Debris field located in South Carolina in search for F-35, and Props to a good optics company
Transterrestrial Musings: The Teen Transgender Lawsuits
Victory Girls: Is Democrat Money Drying Up?
Volokh Conspiracy: Court Rejects Pseudonymity in Lawsuit Over “Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum”
Watts Up With That: Wrong, Euronews, Fire Ants Are Unlikely to Flourish in Most of Europe
The Federalist: Pro-Lifers Shouldn’t Trust Trump, Alabama’s New ‘Voter Integrity Database’ Shows States Don’t Need Leftist-Linked ERIC To Manage Voter Rolls, Apple Will Curb Your Internet Freedom Until Congress Crushes Its Monopoly, Here’s The Authoritative List Of Lies Joe Biden Has Told As President: 250 And Counting, and Falling Household Income Numbers Show How ‘Bidenflation’ Has Hit Americans’ Wallets
Mark Steyn: Ofcommed Again

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Back To School




Category: Linkagery

The Delusions of Michael Tomasky

Posted on | September 19, 2023 | Comments Off on The Delusions of Michael Tomasky

How can anyone be so out of touch with reality as to believe that Joe Biden is a victim of Republican bias in the media?

It’s often asked in my circles: Why isn’t Joe Biden getting more credit for his accomplishments? As with anything, there’s no single reason. Inflation is a factor. His age is as well. Ditto the fact that people aren’t quite yet seeing the infrastructure improvements or the lower prescription drug costs.
There is no one reason. But there is one overwhelming factor in play: the media. Or rather, the two medias. It’s very important that people understand this: We reside in a media environment that promotes — whether it intends to or not — right-wing authoritarian spectacle. At the same time, as a culture, it’s consistently obsessed with who “won the day,” while placing far less value on the fact that the civic and democratic health of the country is nurtured through practices such as deliberation, compromise, and sober governance. The result is bad for Joe Biden. But it’s potentially tragic for democracy. . . .

Let’s pause here to ask a couple of questions: First, what are the “accomplishments” for which Biden is not getting enough credit? And secondly, what “circles” does Michael Tomasky operate in, that he is “often asked” this question? Would we be correct to surmise that the number of Republican voters in Tomasky’s “circles” is at or near zero? Would it also be fair to guess that a lot of people in Tomasky’s “circles” work in academia or media, in such lucrative positions as to be more or less exempt from the economic and social problems that affect most Americans? The fact that Tomasky can toss out a sentence like “Inflation is a factor” — deserving no more than four words in a 2,500 column — is highly suggestive here. Then there is his citation of what he seems to consider two exemplary “accomplishments” of Biden’s tenure, “infrastructure improvements” and “lower prescription drug costs.” Perhaps I’m a victim of the alleged media bias toward “right-wing authoritarian spectacle,” but I’m entirely unfamiliar with these “accomplishments” for which Tomasky says Biden deserves credit.

And isn’t this kind of a straw man anyway? Whatever Biden and Democrats did about prescription drug prices, were Republicans against it? Is the GOP in the pockets of the Big Pharma lobby in a way that Democrats are not? But because I am not currently taking any prescription drugs, I have no direct interest in this issue, and thus have no cause to say “Thank you, Joe Biden.” Maybe others who care more about this issue can enlighten me about the causes of their gratitude.

As for “infrastructure,” when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, they used the word as an elastic label with no meaning beyond, “Whatever liberals want to spend federal money for.” Biden and Pelosi and Schumer talked a lot about “roads and bridges,” the basic meaning of public infrastructure, but the $1.2 trillion bill contained just $110 billion (less than 10% of the total) to “fund roads, bridges, and other projects that most Americans would consider infrastructure.” It was crammed full of stuff that has nothing to do with such basic infrastructure, including billions of dollars in funding for electric vehicles and a $66 billion giveaway to Amtrak. When was the last time you rode an Amtrak train? If you can’t remember, then you’re probably not part of Michael Tomasky’s “circles,” in which liberals are mystified at the public ingratitude for the blessings of Biden’s infrastructure bill. Now, back to Tomasky’s column and the “right-wing authoritarian spectacle” problem:

Mainstream media audiences and newsrooms have shrunk. Consider: In 1990, newspapers reached 63 million readers; in 2020, that number was 24 million. In 2006, newspapers employed about 75,000 people. In 2020, that figure was 31,000. The right-wing media, meanwhile, has grown and grown: Fox, One America, Newsmax, talk radio, Sinclair and all its local TV and radio news operations, and much more.
So the right-wing media today is, I’d argue, at least equal in size to the mainstream media. But here’s the more important point. The right-wing media has more power to set the news agenda than the mainstream media. It’s vital to understand this fact, and why it’s so.
The success of the right-wing media is by and large due to the way they speak in lockstep, with one voice, and the way they push one very partisan agenda. They promote Republicans and conservatives, and they say nothing good ever about Democrats or liberals (exception: people who go off the reservation and willingly foul the Democratic-liberal nest, like Joe Manchin or some liberal academic or talking head who turns right, like Glenn Greenwald). Their guiding ethos is not journalistic but political: to advance one party and creed and work their readers and viewers into a constant state of agitation about the other party and creed. And in a time when the Republican Party project has little to do with policy and everything to do with fomenting culture war, no matter how trivial, the right-wing Wurlitzer is adept at ginning up a good two-minute hate against something that got tweeted or what Mr. Potato Head is wearing that week—and here, the mainstream media, chasing engagement like a child fields for candy, follows the right down into these rabbit holes.
The mainstream media, in contrast, do not speak with one very partisan voice; they speak in many voices — critically, including many non-polemical ones. Their guiding ethos is not political but journalistic. Sure, they’re “liberal,” in two senses. First, their editorial pages typically endorse Democrats. And second, they are culturally liberal, because they are mostly based in big cities and their staffs include lots of LGBTQ people, for example, and precious few evangelical Christians.
But even with all that, the mainstream media do not serve a transparent political agenda in the way the right-media do. When The New York Times or CNN or MSNBC gets a scoop about serious corruption in the Biden administration, they pursue the lead and, if verified, report it. If Fox got such a scoop about Donald Trump … well, it’s conceivable that there’s someone left there who wants to do real journalism and who might pursue it. I wish that person luck, though, in getting it on the air. And even if Fox were forced to report it, they’d quickly find ways to rebut it. . . .

Well, you can read the whole thing, if you need any more reason to shake your head in wonder that anyone could actually believe this stuff.

For the past 20 years or so, I’ve marveled at how obsessed liberals are with “right-wing media.” David Brock collected many millions of dollars to fund Media Matters specifically because, after Republican victories in the 2000 and 2002 election, liberals became convinced that Fox News and conservative talk radio had tilted the media landscape to the right. Speaking of a “transparent political agenda,” what was the goal of Brock’s project other than to smear and demonize anyone associated with “right-wing media,” in an effort to silence these voices? And there have been times, particularly when Tucker Carlson was at Fox News, that you could turn on CNN or MSNBC and watch the talking heads ranting about what those Evil Fox People were doing, as if these complaints were “news.”

Because I’m pretty sure most of you didn’t follow the “read the whole thing” link, I’ll tell you that Tomasky concludes by urging that “in addition to telling the literal, factual truth,” the mainstream media must keep its focus on “the larger truth, that American democracy is under grave threat.” By which he means of course, REPUBLICANS MIGHT WIN THE NEXT ELECTION! This is the root cause of all the hysteria behind Tomasky’s complaints. In what he calls “my circles,” Tomasky is surrounded by fellow Democrats who think that democracy, per se, is entirely dependent on Democrats winning every election.

There is a word for people who believe such things. That word is crazy and, as I’m sure you know by now, Crazy People Are Dangerous.



 

Category: Media Bias
« go back — keep looking »