Everything about the news media and its coverage of Donald Trump today

 In one brief clip.  I'm thinking of this scene from A Fish Called Wanda.

Be aware, some language here.

I love that.  The shock.  The panic.  The hysterics.  And then - somebody just called!  Not even a fake name. 

That's the press right now.  Take anything - the economy, tariffs, Ukraine, deportations, cabinet shake ups, dogs and cats - you name it.  Just act like Jamie Lee Curtis.  Panic, hysteria, floods, fire famine, doom, defeat, despair! Doesn't matter the topic, just repeat the hysterics with every report.  You don't even have to sweat details. 

Not that I'm not worried of course.  Trump is taking a big risk.  There are three things that can happen.  This all works, very few are hurt and in a year or two the economy is roaring back in real life and not on media teleprompters, while other problems have been fixed and we're moving forward with a renewed hope for the future and love for our past.  I see a President Vance in that future scenario.   

Or, the tariffs and the upheaval do the job, but in the meantime millions are so damaged by the tactics that they will be left far behind the benefits, and in two and four years will vote accordingly.

Or, it blows up in Trump's and our faces, accomplishes nothing, causes endless damage and plunges things into far worse conditions than they were (which can always happen no matter how bad things are).  In which case, VP Vance can look for other employment in 2028 and we'll be looking at President Whoever-Isn't-a-Republican. 

That's about it.  Nonetheless, I'm certainly not stupid enough to buy into the manufactured hysterics and fearmongering that, for some reason, isn't being condemned by the usual sources that are often so quick to condemn such tactics.  Especially when compared to the 'forget about it all is well' from a year ago. We all know why this is and why trusting the modern press is for fools and nobody else.

In 2017, after weeks of protests, riots and violence, it became all about Trump and Putin having corrupted our democracy and stolen our election.  The election was fake, illegal, stolen, and every other week we heard stories of the latest scandal or leaked memo that was gong to topple Trump once and for all and undo the 2016 election.

This time, however, Trump's victory and, more to the point, the Left's defeat was far too decisive.  So now it's go straight to perpetual panic, the way they did in 1981 when Reagan took office.  I remember that well, as I was old enough to understand what was going on by that stage in life.  I remember the way they told us the only good thing about the Great Depression redux Reagan was about to plunge us into was that he would provoke the Soviets into a nuclear holocaust before it could ever happen. 

Having failed to experience such a depression or nuclear annihilation of humanity because of ol'Ray-gun Ronnie, I've learned that when it comes to being told to panic, the last ones I'll take seriously are journalists.  So we'll just wait and see and pray for the best.  Oh, and do ourselves a favor and ignore anything the modern press has to say about life. 

And that's that for topical posts this week. Again, it's a week for loftier things than concern about the obvious.  

What would Omar think?

Omar would be shocked

I've written before on my propensity to attribute nostalgic feelings to certain times, seasons, music and even movies.  One of the movies we watch each year as part of our annual cycle of traditions is the old 1985 yarn The Jewel of the Nile.  A subpar sequel to a surprise hit the previous year, it has all the hallmarks of a movie rushed through production for the buck of it. 

The story - and I use that term loosely - involves romantic novelist Joan Wilder finally getting her big break.  She yearns to be a serious writer.  That opportunity presents itself in the person of Omar Khalifa, a fictious leader of a fictious realm in a non-specified region of the Nile.  Yeah.  They could make up entire African regions back then.

Anyway, the ruse begins to unravel as Miss Wilder discovers all is not well in Omardom.  What she thought was the serious biography of a major political figure was just cover for a sinister plot of war, conquest and worse.  When she confronts him, she announces she will let the world know the truth.  He responds that she has no idea about the truth.  She's a romantic novelist.  That's why he hired her.  If he wanted the truth, he would hire 60 Minuets!

Ah, I finally get to the point.  All that came flooding back to me as I watched what could generously be called a leftwing hit piece and propaganda broadcast presented by Lesley Stahl for 60 Minutes.  I mean, my jaw dropped, and you all know how cynical I am about the modern thing that used to be called journalism. 

It was stunning.  It didn't even pretend, and yet I found myself asking 'Does she really think she's seeking the truth?  Does she really believe she is being unbiased, fair and balanced? Or does she know it's a hack partisan hit piece and propaganda circus and that's the point?'

My sons who were watching it with me immediately caught one telltale sign.  Whenever she interviewed a leftist activist bemoaning the horrors of conservatives and the need for the government to filter dangerous speech, she let them have an open microphone.  Basically, sit back and let them speak, a few cheers and high-fives along the way. 

The most hilarious part was when Ms. Stahl pointed out that the professor interviewed, Kate Starbird of the University of Washington, has been threatened.  And the professor said yes, she received a death threat once.  My thought was 'only once?'  In the Internet world, if you haven't had a death threat, you're a nobody.  I always get a kick out of the times journalists feel the need to bring up death threats, and when they don't.  

When she showed interviews with Ohio representative Jim Jordan, however, a good 2/3 of the interview was not him speaking.  It was Ms. Stahl overdubbing and giving us a play by play, telling us her version of what he was saying, rather than letting him say it.  Giving commentary on the nature of the interview itself, often with negative assessments.  And obviously trying to catch him at something, including asking him if Biden was actually elected and then focusing on his pause - because you know what that means.

No. As bad as I know the thing that used to be journalism is, I was legitimately stunned.  Again, that she accepted various leftwing talking points as gospel truth was bad enough.  But it was the partisan hackery.  The naked cheating on behalf of the cause. Of loving her some leftists, while having naked contempt for Jordan and the very thought of challenging leftwing narratives.  If it wasn't so serious, it would be hilarious.  More of a SNL skit or a Monty Python segment.  You could almost laugh.  Almost. 

Because it is serious, however, you really can't.  And it shows the Fourth Estate consummating its marriage to the powers that be.  And that includes warning us that if we try to do anything about it, we will have a target on our foreheads.  And the press, operating ever more like a secret police branch for the Left, will fire at will. 

BTW, money quote section from the segment: 

“Katie Harbath spent a decade at Facebook where she helped develop its policies around election misinformation. When she was there, she says it was not unusual for the government to ask Facebook to remove content, which is proper, as long as the government is not coercing.

Katie Harbath: ‘Conservatives are alleging that the platforms were taking down content at the behest of the government which is not true. The platforms made their own decisions. And many times we were pushing back on the government.’”

Note, she doesn’t deny that the government was trying to get content removed. She merely says the platforms weren’t influenced by the government, which I can actually believe. I feel most were happy to ban and remove all sorts of non-conforming content on their own. 

Also, according to 60 Minutes, she even says it’s proper, so long as the government isn’t ‘coercing’. 

At which point I would have liked Ms. Stahl to ask her if it is always proper as long as the government isn’t coercing, and to define coercing.  But that would require journalism.  Not the thing we watched that evening. 

Goodbye GetReligion

And God bless you. 

GetReligion is no more.  Terry Mattingly, journalist and journalism professor and founder of the site, has called it quits.  I didn't visit it like I used to.  In fact, in later years I seldom visited at all.  

A big issue I had in the olden days was the premise.  Beyond looking at how religious stories were covered in the print media, the premise of the site was that journalism is truly the noble profession.   No matter how bad the mauling of a story, the contributors and Mr. Mattingly would insist most reporters and press rooms were filled with honest journalists just following the facts wherever they go.  Which  accounted for the website's most common question: Why do these press rooms keep making the same mistakes over and over again? 

When I pointed out why, for instance, the NYT always erred on one side, which was the same as the Los Angeles Times, or Chicago Tribune, or New Yorker, I often got smacked down, including by Mr. Mattingly himself.  I mean, I understood.  He was  journalist.  You don't want to admit the truth about selling cars if you're a car salesman (though my dad, who sold cars a few times in his younger days, was more than happy to do so - the Hollywood meme is true, when a salesman goes to 'talk about a better deal', they're just shooting the breeze).  But still. Over the years, the denial of the obvious just got under my skin. 

I don't know what happened and when, but looking at this announcement of the site's finish, it seems he has come around to admitting the obvious.  Leaning heavily on 'both sides are guilty', he appears to concede that journalism in the classic sense is no more.  Or at least a rare breed.  He appears to concede that news agencies are basically about furthering their goals and narratives full stop.  Journalists, therefore, are to find only that which aids the cause, and ignore or attack that which does not. 

Now, the above is my paraphrase.  But I don't see in that lengthy post, or the final one, anything to suggest otherwise. It's not that he wasn't aware of what was happening in the day.  He knew there were stories whose errors or choices were clearly bias driven.  He just maintained that it was the exception to the rule.  It looks, from what I can tell, that he concedes it is now the rule. 

Despite its foibles, I appreciated Mr. Mattingly and the staff over the years.  I learned much about the nitty-gritty of journalism.  For instance, they taught me to ignore headlines, because headlines are often written by some editor, not the reporter who got the story. And they are the part of a story most easily able to drive an agenda at the expense of the facts.  

One story I recall them focusing on as an example was a story where the headline read 'Mitt Romney Defends Mormon Faith.'  That was back when the press was trying to hamstring Romney by pitting his Mormonism against the religious conversative base of the GOP.  The problem with the headline?  The only time Mormonism was mentioned at all in the entire article was one sentence that read 'When asked to defend his Mormon faith, Mitt Romney responded that he is running for president, not pastor.' 

That still sticks in my mind.  The good folks at GetReligion were brutal at times in eviscerating the press for the obvious, as in that case.  Mostly it did this when it pertained to religion news, but not always.  During the Proposition 8 whirlwind back in the day, they conceded that, even out of the sphere of religion, the press had taken on the part of marketing and propaganda organ for the Left rather than coming close to being objective. 

Nonetheless, for the longest time, they would circle around and insist that journalism was still the pure faith, and most news rooms and journalists were simply wanting to find the truth and report accordingly.  What happened, and when it happened, I don't know.  And I don't want to put words in Mr. Mattingly's mouth or assume more than he might have intended.  But it isn't hard to read the announcement, or subsequent posts, and not conclude that at least to some degree he has finally conceded what so many have known.  That the press has devolved beyond merely advancing agendas despite the truth, to actively suppressing and even attacking the truth in service of its agendas.  

It was sixty years ago today

The Beatles taught the World to play.   Or at least arrived in America to do so.  This is the 60th anniversary of what many consider one of the landmark moments of the last century.   The Beatles arrived in America to play on the Ed Sullivan Show.  That performance, before a then record setting 40% of the US population, was a pivotal moment in not just American culture, but culture as a whole.  Within a year or so, the cultural landscape of America, England and much of the free world would begin to look very, very different.  For better or more likely worse. 

I mused on that in a series I did on Beatles albums here.  As I said, I am a fan of the Beatles' music.  But as a student of history, I have always been fascinated by the monstrously out of proportion influence they had on the direction of culture in general.  This doesn't include their unmatched impact on the world of music and the modern recording industry.  Their social influence is enough to be wondered at.  

It's also interesting to watch old interviews with them and compare it to the corporate media's round the clock infomercial approach to the latest corporate generated hysterics (yes, I'm thinking this year of Taylor Swift/NFL Corp.).  Note that the press certainly jumped on the Beatlemania train.  Yet they were not above trying to jab them or pull the rug out if they could.  The famous dig by a reporter at the airport, asking if they would get haircuts while in America (their hair being a catalyst for the youth rebellion to follow).  And, of course, George Harrison's response that 'he had one yesterday.'  Playful, but the press was willing to go after them if it could, even at the height of their fame.  Compare to today where most stories about the latest endorsed hysteria is like a marketing promoter or advertiser rather than a journalist.  A reminder at just how many things have changed over the years and sometimes we don't even realize it. 

Feb 7, 1964: From British to Global phenomenon

Pope Francis and ideological commodities

I don't hate Pope Francis.  I don't think he is the Antichrist.  I don't think he sneaks around and throws banana peels in front of nursing homes just for fun.  I don't  go home every night and stick pins in my little Pope Francis doll.  

True, I don't care for how he conducts himself.  I don't like his 'do as I say, not as I do' schtick.  I don't care for his inconsistencies and at times incoherent ramblings.  I disagree with his political liberalism and nakedly Marxist based Liberation Theology.  I don't like the priorities he has established, where fealty to various leftwing (let's be honest) political agendas are the deal breakers versus fealty to the Gospel, the teachings of the Church, and the virtues of Christian living.

With that said, he has pointed out things I do agree with. One has been calling out the practice of seeing human beings as nothing but commodities. I don't think there is an issue with commodities per se.  But humans are not a commodity.  And he is correct in pointing that out.

But there are many ways to turn humans into a commodity.  One way that has become almost universal in our modern media culture is humans as ideological commodities.  That is, humans, human lives, human suffering, and human death matter only insofar as they can be shamelessly exploited to defend established narratives or advance political and social activism and agendas. 

This is most flagrantly demonstrated by the modern news media not giving two damns or a hell about human misery, struggles, pain or even death unless they can be used to further the press's pet objectives.  For instance, the killing of three black victims by an avowed white racist.  

There are literally dozens of Americans murdered in the country every day.  Most go unreported beyond a local news story.  Many are all but ignored even then.  Then why this?  We've had killings of multiple people in our neck of the woods over the last few weeks.  Why haven't they made the national news?  Earlier in the year a young newlywed who was not black was hacked to death by a black man with a machete.  Why didn't CNN or ABC or the NYT or other outlets rush out here and make that front page news?  Why is this killing of three people suddenly round the clock, top of the hour, international front page news?  Why is it still making news a week later? 

For obvious reasons, that's why.  I won't belabor the point or insult your intelligence by writing it all out as if you're too dense to know why.  This is a grave sin and intrinsic  evil, to so use and exploit, or ignore and dismiss, human death and misery simply based on ideological convenience. I'd like to think when Pope Francis calls hellfire down on the idea of making human beings into commodities, at the front of his mind is the modern media's flagrant exploitation of human beings for the sole purpose of advancing an agenda.  For using human beings as nothing more than ideological commodities. I'd really like to think that's on his mind when he speaks of such sins. 

Red Leader Journalism

When I say Red Leader journalism, I'm calling to mind one of the many iconic scenes from the original Star Wars.  As the rebels try against all odds to destroy the Death Star, one of the commanders (Red Leader), makes his run against the target.  If you've seen the movie, you can't help but remember the scene.  His stone cold determination and focus on the task at hand are immortalized in his monotone 'almost there...almost there.'

But when I see how the news media shamelessly exploits and focuses on and ignores and dismisses stories based purely on the advantage the stories have for the media agendas, I can't help but think of that scene.  It's as if they have the same stone cold determination to not act until a story that can be exploited comes across the news feed:

A transgender activist  just murdered six people in a conservative Christian school!

Almost there

A black man with anti-white social media posts just killed five white people!

Almost there

A Muslim just attacked multiple collage students while yelling Allahu-Akbar!

Almost there

An opponent of the LGBTQ agenda just killed someone over a Pride Flag!

It's away! 

At which point we see front page headlines, round the clock coverage, national press outlets exploding across the media, protests, debate shows, and breaking coverage 24/7 for days or even weeks.  The others being dropped within a day or two if they bother to cover them at all. 

On any given day, we'll have at least one murder in central Ohio, usually in Columbus.  Dozens are killed on a daily basis in our country.  Yet the press will only ever care when the death or attack can further the leftwing agendas and narratives. 

This is a grave evil.  One of the gravest in an age of grave evils.  The exploitation and ignoring of human beings simply to advance agendas.  A human being has been murdered.  An important person has lost her life.  But the only reason we are hearing about it now across all outlets and plastered on headlines across the nation, as dozens of other victims are ignored, is because of the issues involved.  And we darn well know it. 

May God grant peace to the loved ones of the victim and strength to those left behind.  May the killer be converted from the evil spirits that drove him to such madness and violence.  And may God have mercy on the souls of journalists who have made it clear that they see in this tragedy only an advantage.

If all people everywhere stopped paying attention to the News Media

We might just become informed.  Here's a startling headline: 

A Christian group has amassed more than 12,000 signatures to oust the Tennessee Republican leader who expelled two Black lawmakers 

Here is the story.   Of course if you follow the peanuts, you find out this is a 'Christian' activist group entirely allied with the modern secular Left, right up to embracing the eugenics of the 21st Century.  Hard left.  Note the story doesn't say 'hard left Christian group' or 'leftwing Christian group'.  

Nope.  In this case, just Christian group.  Of course it is dishonest; a falsehood that is so because it purposefully neglects to tell you what you should know, and what we darn well know it would say if it was a conservative Christian group going after a liberal Democrat. 

I sometimes think if people just stopped paying attention to the media, it might go away.  If anything else, we might begin to find out what's really happening in the world.  After all, we wouldn't have to go through the effort of unlearning that half truths, diversions and false narratives that inundate us on a 24/7 basis before we even get started looking for the information the press doesn't tell us.  

BTW, the fact that the lawmakers were black appears irrelevant.  And it came down to one vote difference.  Yet every single news outlet rushed with the emphasis being only on skin color.  Which reminds me that the only thing worse than naked racism is nakedly exploiting racism.  Again, turn off the news and cancel the subscriptions, and you might just learn what's happening in the world. 

Because of the news media

That's why:

"This is how it came to dominate the marketplace and loom so large in the American psyche"

Because the news media ignores stories that don't fit the press's agendas and narratives.

Because the news media has perfected the practice of making molehills out of mountains and mountains out of molehills.  

Because the news media waits until an AR-15 or similar gun is used and then keeps the discussion focused only on that one element of the story.

Because the press spends little to no time focused on any crime, murder, killing or other tragic event unless it can tie it around America as racist, phobic, bigoted nation or an AR-15 or similar weapon. 

Because the press all but refuses to allow any solutions, causes, symptoms or anything about violence in our modern culture to be discussed if it can't be linked to American racism, bigotry or assault weapons. 

Heaven forfend the press allows the conversation to drift to the godless morals, values and narcissism we've all but sanctified as a culture, all of which preceded the sudden emergence of the era of active shooter events. 

That's how it happened.  It's not rocket science. 

It reminds me of journalists sitting around the table on a Sunday morning newscast wondering why Americans are so obsessed about a story the press has been headlining 24/7 for the last three weeks.  Sometimes you just can't make it up.  Nor can you fathom how the press can write these things and not see the obvious.  It's either naked mendacity, or it's a pathological lack of self-awareness. 

At least it wasn't a hate crime

If you've missed this story, it's probably because you get your news from national press outlets.  The story of a white father shot and killed by a black assailant who, according to witnesses, went on to dance over the father's body is local news fare at best.  Why?  Because it's a white father who died heroically blocking his child from the black gunman. 

Had it been the opposite, a white gunman and a black father complete with gloating over the victim, you bet your damn bank account that this would be a national press narrative, even with Afghanistan blowing itself halfway to hell and the floods and fires we continue seeing on the national news cycle.  

But it wasn't.  One of the greatest evils the modern press has visited upon mankind has been to sanctify the idea that we should only care about human suffering if we can exploit that human suffering for our pet agendas.  It's not new.  This has been happening for years.  Likely generations.  All the news that's fit to print is just a way of saying all the news we choose to report on, versus the stories that we choose not to cover.  I think nobody ever stopped to ask what the standards were for making such decisions.

Today, it's not hard to figure the standards.  Can a killing be exploited to drive home the 1619 Project Narrative?  Or perhaps the persecution of the LGBTQ movement?  Or gender inequality?  Guns, of course, are always a safe bet.  But we can't let gun stories that bring questions about the above narratives get out of hand.  So even if this might buttress the gun control narrative, a black man dancing over the dead white father he just shot could get the sheeple to ask questions about white privilege and white only racism. 

So don't expect any household names out of this.  I Googled the story and found only a couple national level outlets even mention the story.  Most stories were either conservative outlets or local news outlets.  It's the point where I can almost guess which stories will be ignored by the press based on the demographic identity of the parties involved.  The worst part?  I'm almost always right.  And that is a scandal. 

May God have mercy on the soul of the killer, and cover the victim's family with peace and strength.  May the victim's son grow up to remember his dad as the hero he was, not as a body danced upon by a man seen as the real victim of his father's privilege.  And may God have mercy on the twisted and wicked field of journalism that so doesn't care about anything or anyone, and increasingly gloats over the fact that we know this but can do nothing about it.  

A picture is not worth a thousand words

 Case in point:

Not a color photo of early 20th Century America   

Yep.  When we consider that both our corporate interests and news media outlets are now activists for the leftwing agenda, they barely have to pretend.   Really.  I watch and read news today, and there is no real attempt to present their stories as being objective. In most cases, it's pure advocacy. 

Nonetheless, on those rarest of occasions where they feel the need to trot out a video or photograph to give the notion of objective journalism some heft, we still should be wary.  It comes down to trust.  Because even photos and videos can be easily manipulated and edited, I must therefore trust the source.  And today, I would trust honest Larry the used car salesman before I trust the press. Therefore, show me a photo or a video, and it means nothing.  The distrust is still there. 

Biden blinks

So President Biden will finally give a press conference.  This is the longest in modern presidential history that a new president has gone without giving a press conference.  And we all know why. 

It should be noted that the "press" is nothing of the sort.  It is not journalism or media or press. It is the propaganda arm of the secular Left.  To that end, it lifts up and promotes various leftist agendas and the party that embraces those agendas - most of the time.  On a few occasions, however, the press will turn on those same leftists under certain circumstances.

One of those circumstances is when the general untouchable position of the press is challenged.  Remember Obama?  The man the press lifted up as the new Messiah?  Remember when Obama told media outlets not to use FOX News as a source?  Whew.  The press was on him like white on rice  Why?  Not that any of them would ever have used FOX anyway.  But they did not appreciate a sitting president - even one of their own - telling them what to do.

Another case is here with President Biden. By not having a press conference the Biden administration was inadvertently showing how pointless and meaningless these conferences are.  After all, we're getting by quite nicely without them. Poll after poll has shown Biden as the most popular president in history, and all is improving around the world.  Who needs press conferences?  

That's the last thing the media wants.  So beginning a couple weeks ago, I noticed reports starting to slip in this 'still no  press conference' jab when covering this or that story.  It was around then we also began hearing about the border crisis.  It's my guess - my opinion - that the press was trotting out the border crisis to force Biden's hand.  A sort of 'we're going to keep hammering this until you talk' tactic.  

I could be wrong, but I'll guess after the press conference the press's reporting on the crisis will change.  It will be emphasized how it's all Trump's fault.  The daily reports of abuse and suffering along the border will diminish.  It will be back to 'Biden saving the world one day at a time' reporting.  For the record, that's my guess.  Even today, after the announcement, I noticed a different tone when reporting on the border crisis than I had the last several days. Again, I could be wrong.  The press could keep the border crisis front and center and squarely on the White House lawn.  But I'm guessing not. 

The dumbest headline of the year

And that's saying something.  Headlines, we all know, are usually written by someone other than the journalist who wrote the article.  Therefore, it may not be the journalist's fault if the headline is misleading, false or dumb.  But whoever is responsible for this has some explaining to do:

Katie Couric's 'condescending, elitist' remarks calling to 'deprogram' GOP retires journo (journalist) label, crisis say.

Who in the world ever thought she was an objective journalist?  That's like  believing in the Loch Ness Monster.  Who watched her over any amount of time and concluded she was being fair and objective?  For that matter, who watches or reads anything today and concludes they're dealing with a media that reports, rather than makes, the news?  I mean, does anyone ever believe the media any more?  I mused on that here.  

Local news still isn't so bad and, depending on the outlet, there appears some attempt among some of our regional newscasts to at least maintain the illusion of objective journalism.  Most mainstream, national outlets have long put that down.  

Papers, such as they are, act mostly as published marketing material for secularism, socialism and the political Left.  We won't even discuss the morning news shows.  The old daytime talk shows were  more objective.  The evening news casts seem to be about where cable news was a decade ago.  

So a headline that acts like there is even such a thing as objective journalism would itself be a knee slapper.  But even twenty years ago, when there was still some notion that journalism and objectivity were not like kosher ham, Ms. Couric was a glaring exception.  Everyone knew her biases because she wore them on her sleeve and reported and interviewed accordingly - much to the cheers of the critics and 'objective' journalists of the day. 

Dear The Atlantic: This is not news

The news story sweeping the propaganda ministry news media is that Trump despises all veterans, thinks they're morons, and has nothing but contempt for them all.  We know this because The Atlantic has reported it.  We know The Atlantic is correct because it has this story from multiple anonymous sources.

Wait.  What?  I'm sorry, but I barely trust a news story today when they provide video taped evidence with names and credentials.  Do you think I'm going to believe a story based on 'I can't tell you who said it, but trust me, he's reliable'?  Next thing you know The Atlantic will be insisting Professional Wrestling is real. 

It sometime stuns me to see the various side effects of our dying civilization.  As my boys once said, we're the generation that finally proves an education isn't enough.  Despite our education, people will take The Atlantic at face value.  Despite enough examples to fill Jupiter of news stories being wrong, and being wrong always in ways that make only one side of the political divide look back, you'll have people add this to their 'why I hate Trump' list.  Again, propaganda is for both the weak and the willing minded.  And sometimes those two camps are the same.

Is this saying I don't believe it?  Nothing would surprise me since it's people in a fallen world.  People can be quite nasty as well as good.  Given Trump's previous statements about POWs and certain veterans that cross him, it's not off of the table.  I'm just saying that in 2020, there are only two kinds of people in the world.  There are fools, and there are those who know better than to take any news story today at face value, especially if its proof is a bunch of sources it can't reveal. 

FOX News anchors are one up on the MSM

So according to Ralph Peters, a former FOX analyst, the FOX anchors know they are propaganda for Trump, and know they tell lies for Trump.  Good for them.  That puts them one up on the rest of the MSM anchors who apparently aren't quite so self-aware.

Of course this sort of 'reporting' is just gossip.  What are the FOX anchors to do? Deny it?  It's likely true.  They, like the rest of the MSM, have to be smart enough to know that their network filters news stories and spins the news and ignores the news based on a given set of agendas which likely include, but are hardly exclusive to, political and ideological platforms.

But the old 'I have it on authority because I talked to them  behind closed doors and they said so' never flew with me.  I remember some journalist said the same of Rush Limbaugh a few years ago.  According to him, he and Limbaugh were at dinner together. While there, Limbaugh unloaded over how it was all a fake, he didn't believe any of it, and he laughed at the morons and dolts who made him rich because of it.

Of course that's foolproof.  Limbaugh could deny it, but anyone who wants to believe it will, and they'll just say Limbaugh is covering his arse and continuing the act.  It's air tight gossip that leaves no way to overcome it.  In short, it's not really reporting.  It's just 'Come here, I just heard the juiciest...!'  Which, of course, is in many ways what the thing formerly known as American journalism has been reduced to.

I guess sexual affairs can impact one's job performance

At least according to some stories beginning to trickle in regarding General Petraeus' resignation.  For example:

"Officials will want to know if there was any link between David Petraeus’s extramarital activities and what has been increasingly criticized as the CIA’s weak performance during the Benghazi attack."

Ah yes, if we can but travel in the Wayback Machine to those crazy days of the late 1990s, we will remember that all of the best and brightest assured us it was ludicrous to think a sexual affair could impact someone's job performance.  Why, that was just old puritanical lunacy of the third order. Clearly a man could be doing the naughty thing in his very office, while coolly and deftly managing the affairs of the world without missing a beat.  So we were told.

One of the benefits of the modern progressive inspired era of living in a nation of punditry rather than principles  is that the obviously indisputable eternal truth of today can easily be tossed aside tomorrow.  If it's brought up?  Why, it's either just rank partisanship denying the obvious (that it couldn't be the President's fault, it must have had something to do with the affair), or it's treated as archaic thinking of backward has-beens.

CNN's Randi Kaye gives Lawrence Krauss a blank check

And helps him fill in the amount.  So Lawrence Krauss is part of the new dispensation of atheists, preferring the term anti-theist.  That is, realizing that you can't prove a negative, and that science has been a poor tool in proving there is no God, it's time to change the terms.  Which is what he did in this interview.  The question has always been simple: why is there something instead of nothing?

Well Dr. Krauss and company have an answer: the universe could come from nothing, all it needs is the laws of nature!  Anyone who made it past kindergarten will, of course, see the flaw in that one.  Where did the laws of nature come from?  Don't they constitute something?  Dr. Krauss seems to use the phrase "laws of nature" in the same manner that religious folks speak of God.  Dr. Kruass explains that empty space is a bubbling cauldron of particles just waiting to do something. How do you define nothing as having something like particles?  Later, Dr. Krauss explains that we can remove particles from empty space and it still has weight.  Is this the empty space he means when the he says the universe can come from no things, or is it the later empty space devoid of particles?  If so, does empty space automatically have particles and they have to be removed?  If so, who did the removing?

Dr. Krauss then makes a jab at religious people saying that most don't believe silly things like a man being eaten by a whale or a priest turning a wafer into Jesus, so they just put those silly things aside because they want to believe.  The questions that could have been asked there are legion, for they are many.  Do you have stats, what constitutes many?  What about the beliefs of other religions?  He said the major religions but only gave examples of Christianity (Catholicism particularly).  What of the others?  Also, Pew Research has found that a significant number or atheists admit to praying, and that some (around 6%) believe in a personal God. Is it possible they find a universe of nothing but matter to be silly, and does that mean anything?  If the fact that religious people don't necessarily believe what they should about religion is supposed to mean something, wouldn't the fact that atheists don't believe what they should about atheism mean something too?

Of course the biggie could have been asked: Dr. Krause, you already seem to believe that the universe is merely material, and that nothing beyond the material exists, so you are confining your examination of all creation to the physical sciences.  Do you have any evidence that this assumption and this practice is correct?  Plus, of course, it could have been asked: Dr. Krause, you say there is no evidence for purpose in the universe, could you define that?  Or, how about this: Dr. Krause, you seem to be saying everything could come from nothing but then talking about things that appear to be something (particles, laws of nature).  Is it possible you are redefining terms like 'nothing' based on a more narrow field of study, the practice of which has no proof for being valid (see question about assuming a material creation above)?  Dr. Krause, is it possible that you are using terms like 'nothing' in ways that apply only to the physics lab, and not to the average person who hasn't already concluded that all creation is only material, and there is nothing else?  Kudos to my wife, who is more scientifically inclined and whose Dad is a chemist, for pointing out that he really was using definitions based solely on mathematical and physical premises, rather than the broader understanding of such terms.  

All of these could have been asked.  But they weren't.  All CNN host Randi Kaye could do was hand him a blank slate with such piercing questions as wouldn't some think that a universe out of nothing is as weird as God creating it?  Or my favorite, so you're saying there is no God?  He's a bleeping atheist.  Duh.  This is why atheism not being the majority viewpoint is so puzzling.  When this is the crack journalism that brings it to the masses, you'd think everyone would believe in atheism.  As it is, perhaps everyone else is more perceptive than Ms. Kaye, and wiser than Dr. Krauss.

Note: I'm no scientist.  But those are the questions I would ask simply as I went down and listened to the different points Dr. Krauss was making.  I'm not saying there are no answers to my questions.  I'm saying at least I would have asked them.

The AP and Obama's surging poll numbers

So all the news outlets across the nation are abuzz about the sudden surge of Obama's poll numbers since the killing of Bin Laden.  Looks like now folks think he can do it all, hunt down terrorists, protect our country, fix our economy.  Why, the list is endless.  No doubt 60% surveyed will expect the walking on water any moment!

But wait.  Not so fast.  Turns out the AP (that stands for Associated Propaganda Press), has fudged the numbers a bit.  You see, under my firm belief that one of the biggest wastes of human history is the professional study, survey, or poll, the AP has decided to give Democrats a disproportionate amount of say, 17 points higher that is.  That means they asked a larger number of democrats than they should, a number that far exceeds the national percentage of Democrats.

Why?  Because, as I've said before, Journalism is dead, long live Propaganda.  We've always prided ourselves on looking down our noses at those journalists of old who cooked up wars, elevated preachers, and told Rosie the Riveter to go home when the war was over.  But turns out, things haven't changed.  If they never were that bad then, they are that bad now. The AP is all about promoting a socialist, secular, culturally and politically liberal agenda.  Obama is their best hope. So realizing that a floundering economy, several missteps over the last year or so, an apathetic base, an outraged opposition, and diving poll numbers all meant the possibility of a one term president, the AP got to work.

They lied.  They fixed the race, hedged the bet, stacked the numbers to make the poll say what they wanted.  Then they went to work, along with the rest of the media, to 'interpret' this for the masses.  Clearly, we are being told, this shows that the American public is falling in love again, Obama's great, gives us chocolate cake, 2012 is in the bag, it's time we all promise to serve the One.  Sickening.  Again, we are reminded that after 5000 years, humans have learned very little.  It's not that we fall for propaganda, for certainly the Internet Age makes such information readily available.  But we love it.  Just like humans always have.