Media Corruption

[SamSpade]

Michael Nesmith always wore a wool cap.

Evidently, he wore it to his Monkees interview and it caught on and became his signature.
But the reason he wore it at all was, he rode a motorcycle and it kept his hair out of his eyes.

 

[GURPS]

‘K BYE!’ Max Boot dramatically calling the country’s prognosis GRIM because his friends are threatening to leave does NOT go well and LOL​

Max has friends? Who knew?

From WaPo:

A lot of the gloom and doom is due, of course, to the high rate of inflation, which will subside in time. But there are more intractable problems, too, such as the persistence of racism and income inequality.

Racism and inequality.

Dude.

That we have far more gun violence than other advanced democracies and yet can’t implement common-sense gun-safety regulations (such as a ban on military-style assault rifles and high-capacity magazines) is a damning indictment of our democracy. So, too, is our failure to do more to address climate change even as temperatures spike. When we do act, it often makes the situation worse, not better.

Oh, it gets dumber.

One of the instruments of Trumpian purges would be Schedule F, a new category of federal employment that Trump created in 2020 (and Biden rescinded), which would have removed tens of thousands of federal employees from civil service protections. By reviving Schedule F, Trump could fire career officials and replace them with ultra-MAGA loyalists. “F” might as well stand for “fascism,” because that is what we will get if Trump were to appoint his most fanatical acolytes to the most powerful positions in government.

Holy crap.

What a bunch of entitled, babbling, nonsense. Max and his privileged pals live in the best country in this world, a country people are willing to die to get into, and he’s whining about MAGA, racism, and inequality.

Suck it up.

 

[GURPS]

Black WaPo columnist proudly brags about the time he and his wife decided to ‘disappear’ their daughter’s white doll​

Last month, antiracist scholar and professor and grifter Ibram X. Kendi wrote a piece for The Atlantic describing the personal hell he and his partner were put through when their daughter started playing with a white doll.

Well, it seems that this is officially a serious problem in the antiracist community, at least if this “Perspective” piece by Washington Post contributing columnist Damon Young is any indication:




Young writes:

We still don’t know how it got into our house. Maybe it was a present from my mother-in-law. (She regularly sneaks toys and snacks to our kids like they’re prisoners and Cheetos gets them phone card minutes.) Maybe it was borrowed from a classmate. Or maybe it conjured itself into existence through alchemy and spells. Either way, two months ago, when my wife and I noticed that our 6-year-old daughter was playing with a White baby doll with long blond hair, our immediate thought was “Wait … where did that come from?” And then, after watching her dote on it for two days, our thoughts shifted.

“So … how do we get rid of it?”

“How do we get rid of it?” Shouldn’t you be saving that for your pro-abort “Perspective” piece, Damon? Get it together, man.

 

[GURPS]

More from Vanity Fair’s Charlotte Klein:

This past weekend, Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio, both of whom are up for reelection this fall, headlined the Republican Party of Florida’s annual Sunshine Summit. Other high-profile Florida Republicans were also in attendance at the Hardrock Hotel & Casino event, which this year tried something new: after seven years of being open to the press, “it limited which media could attend, giving inside-the-room access to right-wing outlets that give the governor positive coverage,” Politico reports, adding that traditional GOP figures were “largely replaced by the conservative social media influencers with massive followings who have recently moved to Florida and become some of DeSantis’ most vocal backers.”
Many local and national mainstream outlets were unable to get press credentials, according to the Tallahassee Democrat, including the Miami Herald, Politico, Florida Politics, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. A Florida wire service, the Wall Street Journal, and Business Insider were among the few mainstream outlets allowed to cover at least some parts of the weekend:

“It has come to my attention that some liberal media activists are mad because they aren’t allowed into #SunshineSummit this weekend,” DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw tweeted Friday. “My message to them is to try crying about it,” she continued, “Then go to kickboxing and have a margarita. And write the same hit piece you were gonna write anyway.” As the Tallahassee Democrat notes, Republicans continued to bash mainstream publications at the event itself, with DeSantis telling the Daily Wire that he wanted to avoid “a bunch of left-wing media asking our primary candidates a bunch of gotcha questions” and his campaign spokesman, Dave Abrams, claiming the media “tantrums” about press credentials “validates our presumption that fair coverage was never a thought for them.”

Well, are you feeling outraged and terrified yet? No? In that case, join the club. Because if we’re being completely honest, we’re not really seeing what the big deal is. Pushaw’s right that, as a general rule, liberal reporters really don’t need to be at these GOP events because they already know what narrative they want to push anyway.

Vanity Fair sounds the alarm over Republicans' 'aversion to media scrutiny' without even a smidgen of self-awareness

twitchy.com

 

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[GURPS]

Chait writes:

It’s difficult to analyze this subject without forming a view on the underlying question of the media’s bias, and there are few questions more subject to bias than the subject of media bias itself. My view is that the mainstream media does have an overall liberal lean, and that it has grown over time, as legacy media brands have hired staff from newer online organs that have no tradition of objectivity. But those changes have made their strongest mark in the coverage of culture and lifestyle, while political news has mostly retained its traditional character.
Whether the news media treats the Republican Party more or less harshly than the Democratic Party is a question that can’t be measured, and which most people settle by resorting to anecdotes. Partisans cling to examples of the media treating their side unfairly, with especially noxious examples hauled out of storage to be gazed at repeatedly, like cherished family heirlooms.
For the purposes of my argument here, I’d like to bracket it. The only point I need to make is that the mainstream media does routinely report critically on the Democratic Party. If you are watching CNN or reading the New York Times, you have encountered a steady stream of articles questioning whether Joe Biden is too old for the age, noting high inflation, pummeling the Afghanistan withdrawal, and so on. Whether you believe this level of criticism is excessive or insufficient is a matter of perspective, but the clear fact is that it exists.
Nothing like this exists within the conservative media. The communications apparatus of the conservative movement was established with the goal of advancing the right’s political interests. Its organs often borrow superficial conventions, like bylines and the inverted-pyramid structure, to create the simulacrum of a traditional news medium. But the people working in these institutions understand they are working for the conservative movement, not on behalf of the public’s right to know. Their approach to malfeasance by their side is to ignore, distort, or change the subject to some agreed-upon sin by the enemy (a practice called “whataboutism”).

Amazing.

Jonathan Chait fears that 'the GOP's refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of mainstream media' poses a grave threat to American democracy

twitchy.com

 

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[GURPS]

Media credits Biden for al Qaeda leader's death after attacking Trump for similar counterterror ops​

CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter highlighted Dickerson's comments and described Zawahiri's death as "a bookend to the 9/11 era." The headline for his Monday newsletter was a Biden quote: "Justice has been delivered."

CNN added that the strike "hands Biden a political win."

MSNBC's "Morning Joe," meanwhile, opened its show on Tuesday with a mash-up of Biden and former President Obama vowing retribution against terrorists. Trump was absent from the mash-up — as was former President George W. Bush.

On ABC, "The View" cohost Joy Behar responded to a clip of Biden's announcement by praising the president.

"He's like Liam Neeson" in the "Taken" series, she said, before quoting a famous line from the movie: "I will find you, and I will kill you."

Despite the praise and positive portrayal, however, some outlets, including Just the News, noted experts were arguing the operation highlighted problems with Biden's decision last year to withdraw all U.S. military forces from Afghanistan.

Biden said in his remarks that Zawahiri was living and killed in downtown Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, where he moved after the U.S. withdrawal and countrywide takeover by the Taliban, an Islamist group allied with al Qaeda.

 

[GURPS]

Censored doctors join AGs' lawsuit against feds for Big Tech collusion, new officials sued​

he plaintiff list is growing longer in a lawsuit alleging Biden administration collusion with Big Tech in censoring wrongthink on COVID-19, election integrity and Hunter Biden's business dealings.

Three weeks ago, a federal court authorized discovery in the case, a First Amendment and Administrative Procedure Act challenge.

Two of the three authors of the anti-lockdown Great Barrington Declaration, Stanford Medicine health policy professor Jay Bhattacharya and vaccine safety pioneer Martin Kulldorff, joined the amended lawsuit filed by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri AG Eric Schmitt.

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When then-National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins called for a "quick and devastating published take down" of the "fringe epidemiologists" who wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, it spurred "an organized campaign" that slurred and defamed the authors, he said.

Google "deboost[ed] search results" for the document days after Collins' directive, Facebook removed its page for a week for calling for age- and risk-based vaccine priority, LinkedIn censored Kulldorff's posts, and YouTube took down his COVID roundtable with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Twitter sanctioned his account for saying naturally immune people don't need COVID vaccines and masks didn't protect elderly people from COVID, and quoting a black studies professor who wrote about "the historical use of enforced mask use among enslaved populations."

"The most devastating consequence of censoring is ... the reluctance of scientists to openly express and debate scientific questions using their varied scientific expertise," he wrote.

Bhattacharya's declaration said Collins' directive produced "a relentless covert campaign of social-media censorship" — against himself and coauthor Suneptra Gupta of Oxford, among others — that was "politically driven by government actors" to protect their narrative that "there was no dissent" on COVID mitigations.

 

[Clem72]

‘K BYE!’ Max Boot dramatically calling the country’s prognosis GRIM because his friends are threatening to leave does NOT go well and LOL​

Max has friends? Who knew?

From WaPo:



Racism and inequality.

Dude.



Oh, it gets dumber.



Holy crap.

What a bunch of entitled, babbling, nonsense. Max and his privileged pals live in the best country in this world, a country people are willing to die to get into, and he’s whining about MAGA, racism, and inequality.

Suck it up.

The schedule F thing is true though, made it trivial to "reclassify" any career civil service position as a politically appointed one. This means, for instance, if you felt the IRS was a bit too liberal leaning you could fire and appoint several division chiefs of your preference. As far as we know Trump didn't actually use this authority, but it's odd that he put it in place.

That said, all of the important government jobs seem to already be political appointees so it may not make much difference.

 

[GURPS]

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s covid rebound — his second bout of covid within 30 days — just became symptomatic yesterday, as media reported that Biden’s doctor said the Resident has a “loose cough.”


https://twitter.com/AP/status/1554533271555514368


I wondered about that “loose cough.” I’ve heard of a “dry cough” and a “wet cough” but never a “loose cough.” So I went on HealthLine.com and found the page titled “What Does My Type of Cough Mean?” There were four types of coughs listed there: wet, dry, paroxysmal, and croup. No loose.

Googling didn’t help either. Biden’s rebound is the first link returned. Doesn’t seem like “loose cough” is a common expression. Does his cough fall out sometimes? Does it rattle around in this throat whenever he turns left? Is a loose cough like loose bowels? What’s it mean?

Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe one of our healthcare C&Cers can explain it.

Anyway, Biden will be quarantined until Thursday, at least, depending on what his tests show. He’ll probably be locked away until the news cycle improves. His rebound is convenient timing, in that he doesn’t have to answer any questions about Pelosi’s lunatic trip to Taiwan.

Still, there are lots of other unanswered questions. Does Biden want to roll the dice with Paxlovid again? Or is he going to demand a full refund since his first course of Paxlovid backfired? Maybe they’ll give him a credit for future doses. Or, would he like to try monoclonal antibodies yet? Has he learned his lesson — is he going to do a better job of wearing his mask from now on? Is Jill bringing him his favorite flavors of ice cream to make him feel better?

Inquiring minds want to know.

☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Wednesday, August 3, 2022 ☙ LOOSE 🦠

Biden's loose Paxlovid coughs; Pelosi visits Taiwan — for what?; VAERS shows safety signals for kids; EU jab contract with Pfizer leaks; California joins the monkeypox emergency club; and more...

www.coffeeandcovid.com

 

[GURPS]

New York Times: We can’t let bad vibes lead us to a recession from our current ‘vibe-cession’​

Scanlon writes:

The vibes in the economy are … weird. That weirdness has real effects. A recent study found that broader vibes do indeed drive what people do, with media narratives about the economy accounting for 42 percent of the fall in consumer sentiment in the second half of 2021.
Indicators like G.D.P. are important, but much of the time, the root of economic problems lies with expectations. When we think about things like inflation, financial conditions and monetary policy, it’s best to frame them through people. And people are, of course, silly and messy. Far too many economists and experts forget that the economy is really a bunch of people “peopling” around and trying to make sense of this world.
When policy is more focused on indicators that might not fully reflect reality, and not on the silly and messy people whom the policy is meant to serve, we enter dangerous territory.
There is no recession yet. Right now we are in a “vibe-cession” of sorts — a period of declining expectations that people are feeling based on both real-world worries and past experiences. Things are off. And if they don’t improve, we will have to worry about more than bad vibes.

 

[GURPS]

Lone Liberal on The Five Gets Interrupted by Every Co-Host in Less than Three Minutes​

Tarlov noted a plea from New York Mayor Eric Adams, who said the city is willing to accept the migrants, but it needs assistance to do so.

“The Biden administration should be providing it,” Tarlov said. “We don’t have enough beds for them. We don’t have enough space for them. We are a sanctuary city. And it would behoove the Biden administration to live up to their talk about this and give the money to D.C. and give it to New York if you think that we have enough space for them. We have the jobs for them and make sure that they can do that–”

“Don’t forget the schools,” Sandra Smith abruptly chimed in. “The schools are inundated.”

“We lost millions of public school students,” Tarlov replied. “Put the kids in–”

“Should we give the money to Texas?” Jeanine Pirro interrupted.

“Sure,” Tarlov answered. “Every state that has a problem should get more federal funding.”

“But we don’t have the money,” said Pirro.

“We do have the money!” responded Tarlov. “We print money–”

“The money needs to go to the border,” Joey Jones said, jumping in. “We don’t need American taxpayer dollars that’s been taken by the federal government to go to these cities who have proclaimed themselves sanctuary cities so that their constituents and their residents don’t feel the pain and don’t vote them out of office for making them a sanctuary city to begin with.”

Later, Pirro asked Tarlov what President Joe Biden should do about the situation.

“He should give out federal funds to places where these migrants are going,” she answered. “He should work on border security. Last week they started closing off that big gap in Yuma–”

 

[stgislander]

That is my one problem with The Five. Everybody yells over Jessica. They don't do it with Harold, and truthfully who cares if they do it with Geraldo. They gotta let Jessica say her stupid sh!t completely so everyone watching fully understands what the left is saying/wanting.

 

[GURPS]

Consider the situation in Florida where every newspaper editorial page seems to hate Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. This week he suspended Democrat Andrew Warren, the duly elected prosecutor of Hillsborough County. Tampa is the county seat.

Well, the Tampa Bay Times is fit to be tied. It ran a stronger than dirt editorial, "DeSantis: You’re not king of Florida."

It was all smoke with little light, as it began, "Gov. Ron DeSantis’ suspension Thursday of Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren was politically craven, legally suspect, suspiciously timed and odorously soaked in autocracy, partisanship and bad faith — in other words, completely in keeping with this governor’s behavior. Warren should not have provided DeSantis a narrow opportunity to exploit. But that doesn’t excuse the governor’s gross abuse of power, his contempt for Hillsborough voters or his disregard for due process."

Whew.

But actually the case has due process. The state Senate will decide if Warren's flat-out refusal to enforce the 15-week ban on abortion warrants his dismissal.

The intemperate attack on DeSantis is mere virtue signaling. No senators will read the editorial, slap themselves on the forehead and say change his vote. No, the editorial is just there to assure readers that they are correct to hate DeSantis.

To regain trust, ditch the editorial page

donsurber.blogspot.com

 

[GURPS]

Ignore Media Spin About Jobs, Economy is Dreadful​

All these signs show an economy in trouble, not one that is expanding with robust job growth. Thus, the so-called record job numbers and low unemployment rate being touted by the Democrats and the media are truly a mirage.

Upon closer examination, the July labor report shows plenty of troubling statistics. Fox News host Charles Payne noted that in July there were 68,000 fewer Black Americans employed. He also discovered that there were 71,000 fewer full-time jobs, while part-time employment exploded by 384,000. This economy is so awful that the number of people forced to work two full-time jobs increased by 92,000 in July to a staggering level of 433,000 Americans.

Other compelling statistics indicate the true economic problems the country is confronting. In July, the number of self-employed Americans dropped by 279,000, while the number of Americans not in the workforce altogether increased to a staggering level of 100,051,000 in July, an increase of 239,000 from June.

These are individuals who may be retired, receiving an education, serving as a family caregiver, or choosing not to work or seek employment. With so many Americans not in the workforce, the labor force participation rate dropped in July to 62.1%.

With over one hundred million Americans not participating in the workforce, it is no surprise that the gross domestic product has been declining. Not only are more Americans surviving by accessing the funds in their retirement accounts, but more Americans are depending on financial assistance from a myriad of federal government programs.

Prior to the start of the pandemic, the labor force participation rate was 63.4%. This shows that the media reports that the labor force has returned to pre-pandemic levels are patently false. In fact, there are 623,000 fewer people in the workforce today than in February of 2020, right before the pandemic began.