Our Distorted Media

The GOP is demanding laws that will limit what Presidents can do in office. That’s great. That’s as it should be. Too bad none of them came up with these laws when Trump was in office. That’s why the Dems would like to see some of those laws be retroactive. This would probably be unconstitutional, but it would never happen anyway. The point is, what would happen if the GOP got their laws and Trump got elected again? The only thing that kept Trump out of irons while he was doing as he pleased in office was the lack of such laws, and by the way, the reason they have not previously been considered is that congress never conceived a situation in which the American people would ever elect anyone like Trump. But we did and as soon as he was kicked out of office George Santos was elected. Another one! It’s as if it’s written in Marjorie Taylor-Greene’s book of witchcraft that we must always have an elected sociopath even crazier than her, in office in Washington.

Well, Trump is gone, and Santos appears to be on his way. It looks like Taylor-Greene will have to face the fact that she is the craziest one left in office.

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No matter what anyone says, the battle goes on. The GOP is never going to give up its search for a way to get rid of Medicare and Social Security. Joe Biden’s brilliant put down of the rude Republicans at the State of the Union isn’t going to change anything. It’s only result will be to give Mitch McConnell more trouble than he is looking for.

When Sarah Huckabee Sanders babbled about the fight still being between the normal people and the crazies, she definitely had it right. Only she was looking for the crazies on the wrong side of the aisle. I mean come on, if you are really looking for genuine certifiable, off the wall, nutcases can you come up with a better list than Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, George Santos, Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley or Rick Scott. It’s a lineup made in heaven or in this case the local looney bin. Don’t take my word for it, just look into Rick Scotts eyes as he’s blathering about ending these programs. I mean really look. That’s certifiably insane baby! That’s the real thing.

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This weekend Fareed Zacharia had David Miliband and Richard Haas on his show as guests. I can’t think of three more informed and intelligent people to be in the same room with when considering foreign affairs. And unsurprisingly, when not dealing with dictators or crazed super right- or left-wing politicians, these three brilliant men showed us that conclusions can be reached when the facts are driven by reason and logic rather than childish wants.

It was clear that all three understood that we cannot ignore our responsibilities to Ukraine, not because of anything we owe them but because they are the line that cannot be crossed. The concept of land conquest, buried for the last 70 or so years, cannot be allowed to be reborn. Putin is trying to fight a war that with good reason, has been over longer than the average lifetime. National power and prestige are no longer based on how much land one controls. If that were true China would be the most powerful nation on earth and Russia would be a close second instead of a second-class power.

One would hope that China understands this concept as well as the three men who are the target of this piece. They explained clearly how China’s place as the second largest economy in the world would only worsen in the event of a war over Taiwan. They went further to explain that China’s best chance of catching us in the global race is to fight us on the economic front as opposed to any thought of a military front. It appears that the world would be a better place if Zacharia, Haas and Miliband somehow ruled.

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Half the prosecutors in the country are digging through mountains of evidence trying to find the golden arrow that will pierce Donald Trump’s injunction proof heart. Meanwhile, we are faced with Rupert Murdoch, a foreign billionaire who has done almost as much damage to the concept of democracy as Trump. Murdoch, who until now has evaded any legal entanglements despite his having told as many lies and printed as much false bullshit as Trump ever has, is about to face a defamation lawsuit that just might bring down his entire media empire.

Voting machine manufacturer Dominion is pushing a 1.6-billion-dollar lawsuit against News Corp and the Murdoch empire, and it appears they might win. 1.6 billion bucks! That should put a crimp in the Murdoch bank account. It’s based on the fact that while Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Piro were pounding home the lie that the election had been rigged and Dominion’s machines were  tampered with, people within their own organizations had been telling them that none of this was true, that Biden had legitimately won the election. This was a position that even Murdoch admitted, but it seems his lackeys didn’t get the message. Instead, they took it upon themselves to save the company’s stock from falling, because of the assumption that this would happen when they reported the bad news that Trump had lost the election.

Fox and NY Post reporters stand out as degenerate examples of the kind of lying slime that destroy the ability of honest reporters to engender the kind of believability necessary to make them an essential part of their readers and viewers information pipeline. Without confident believability our whole information system collapses and we discover entire communities accepting the lies of the Hannity’s and the Carlson’s and ultimately, the Murdoch’s and Trump’s.

This kind of reporting isn’t limited to Right Wing media, although it is much less prevalent and much less blatant in the media of the Left where it is usually not so much deliberate lying as it is the omission of segments of information, thereby not giving “the other side of the story.” This is exactly why News Corp is getting their ass sued now. Their people didn’t just leave out a significant part of the story, they outright lied about the basic foundation of the story. They didn’t leave out the fact that Trump was lying about the election results, they flat out stated that the election had been won by Trump and the results had been rigged to falsely show that Biden had won. They did this knowing that it was all a lie.

Maybe when Dominion has broken Murdoch, some other DA who is not too busy will take the lies of Hannity, Carlson and Ingraham in hand and show them how such distortions of facts can easily lead to the inside of a cell.