Category Archives: Media

Everything about the mainstream media.

Where Have You Gone, Learned Foot…

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…the nation turns its lonely, topical limerick and haiku writing eyes to you. And Ryan Rhodes.

But since Foot is retired and Ryan is MIA, we’ll have to fill in ourselves.

There once was a fellow named Toobin
(Don’t confuse him with Jennifer Rubin).
His career met its doom,
when he dropped trou on Zoom
Now there’s a different part getting the lube-in.

Toobin takes “lid” off,
Two weeks’ frenzy erupts, as
Biden’s lid stays on.

So Toobin had fun of the kind,
the nuns said would make you go blind.
But there’s no point in moping,
it’s just Jeff’s way of hoping
for less trouble than the conjugal kind.

Carry on.

Denormalizing

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Remember December 1, 2016?

Maybe not.

But if you don’t, I consider it my mission to make sure that date lives on – dare I say, in infamy.

It was the date that reps from the New York Times and Washington Post newsrooms went on the air and told the nation…

…well, the tiny, self-selecting part of the nation that listens to NPR on the weekend – that it was time for the news media to stop playing by the rules that they always told the nation they played by, the whole “telling people the facts and let them draw their own concusions” thing, and started using their power to “de-normalize” President Trump.

And almost four years later, here we are:

Not Martin Van Buren, the most genuinely corrupt president in history.

Not James Buchanan, the inept buffoon who all but sent out engraved invitations to the Civil War.

Not Woodrow Wilson, the Princeton dean who lied about keeping the nation out of war, did more than any other single person to federalize and weaponize Jim Crow and empower the Klan, and launch the bureaucratic state that’s eating the nation alive today.

No. Trump. A coarse populist buffoon who has, nonetheless, pretty much done what he said he’d do (start bringing troops home, revive the economy after the slowest recovery since the Depression, nominate conservative SCOTUS justices), a few nobody expected (roll the ball farther toward peace in the middle east than any president, defeated ISIS), and brought the extreme delusional madness of the left fully out in the open, where (if America is wise) it can be stomped on hard, God willing…

…oh. I get it now.

I Try…

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…to punch up. To treat people with respect. To treat people the way I’d like to be treated. To always take the high road.

But Maureen Dowd?

I’m going to take a walk on the dark side, here.

MoDo is an invincibly stupid person.

This Is Your Twin Cities Media

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The flotsam and jetsam of the left’s social media legion of the invincibly depraved has legs so tingly this morning at the news the POTUS and FLOTUS have Covid, they had to drag themselves hand over hand to the kitchen to make their avocado toast.

Of course, they were in Duluth before the news broke, so the Twin Cities media has jumped into high gear to investigate, not ballot harvesting (oh, good heavens, no) but just how close Minnesota’s GOP congresspeople and candidates actually were to the President.

Strib columnist Jennifer Brooks:

Don’t worry, Jen. John Thompson is on it.

If the FCOTUS recover without complications – fingers crossed, prayers being prayed – I’m almost tempted to send all these “journalists” sympathy cards.

Make Nick Sandman Rich Again

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A whole bunch of general counsels for a whoooole bunch of media outlets are changing their drawers right about now:

I’m smelling panicky settlements in the air.

The NYTimes‘ Memory Hole

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The NYTimes is trying to disappear some of their own paper’s history in re the “1619 Project”, which claimed that, based on the premise that America was founded primarily to exalt slavery, the nation was really founded when the first slave arrived.

Or…so they said. For a while:

Editors recently removed (without explanation or acknowledgment) the provocative statement that the project “aim[s] to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding” from the article series’ online introduction. Lead author Nikole Hannah-Jones has repeatedly claimed it is a myth that the project proposes 1619 rather than 1776 as the country’s birth year: She blamed bad-faith critics on the right for tricking the media into believing otherwise.

“One thing in which the right has been tremendously successful is getting media to frame stories in their language and through their lens,” wrote Hannah-Jones in a subsequently deleted tweet. “The #1619Project does not argue that 1619 is our true founding. We know this nation marks its founding at 1776.”

Forget for a moment that Hannah-Jones’ Twitter banner is a picture of 1776 crossed out and replaced with 1619. Forget that multiple progressive media outlets that were sympathetic to the project’s aims used the 1619-as-true-founding summary in order to explain it. Forget that a year ago, after the articles were published, both Hannah-Jones and New York Times magazine editor Jake Silverstein described the project in exactly these terms: “We sort of proposed the idea in a variety of ways that if you consider 1619 as the foundational date of the country, rather than 1776, it just changes your understanding and we call that a reframing of American history.” Just consider one last piece of evidence that Hannah-Jones is being deceptive about who invented the 1619-not-1776 framing.

My guess – she’s not being “deceptive”. She, and the Times, are backfilling and memory-holing because Identity Politics stands to cost the Democrats.

Again.

Look Into The Gaslight

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During the Bush years, as many as a third of Democrats had some level of belief that 9/11 was an inside job.

Today, a significant number – on social media, it looks like a supermajority – believe that Trump colluded with Russia, that Kavanaugh raped someone, that “white supremacists” started the riots, that “Anti”-fa is anti-fascist, that Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s purported “dying wish” should have some legal merit and that the Electoral College disenfranchises them.

Which is why we’re seeing this sort of “journalism”, doubtlessly placed by a Democrat attack-PR firm, about a movement whose adherence among the GOP is likely in low single digits.

Yep – it’s Berg’s 7th Law, and Urban Progressive Privilege – a gaslighting twofer!

The Inconvenient Response

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A friend of the blog writes:

Here is the President’s press briefing from March 16. http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-3/ 

As I read it for the first time ever, I am amazed at how similar his statements are to almost every other elected leader, regardless of party. President Trump tells us here that he recommends social distancing, limit gatherings to 10 people, avoid restaurants, bars. Choose take out. Choose distance learning if possible. And he states, way back in March, that this is going to be going on for a while, maybe past August, he suggests.
These are his prepared statements. What I mainly heard reported at the time was his off the cuff responses to the media. He is a wild man with his words when he’s not reigned in. Everyone knows it.
The media is now complaining that Trump knew the whole time how dangerous this was and “minimized” it. Yet, here, on March 16, his prepared remarks do not minimize it. In fact, he even asks us Americans to make sacrifices. He reminds the young that they will have milder cases, but can easily spread it. Think about the vulnerable elderly around us.
It is all there. But, the media chose to focus on other things, chose to portray this as political- Republicans versus Democrats. 
Now, the President’s rallies in some counties in Nevada have been cancelled. The media again wants us to believe that Trump is not on the side of protecting citizens by reporting a faux conflict between the President and the Governor of Nevada. Yet, the White House guidelines recommend smaller gatherings due to current virus spread in those areas where the President would rally. As the Press Secretary said, no one is forbidding a spontaneous gatherings. But, the President cannot host a large gathering himself. These distinctions are important. It shouldn’t take research to read between the lines. When can we hold the media responsible for the public reaction to the virus?

I think we are holding them responsible.

Problem is, the people who aren’t inclined to trust the media can’t disdain them more, and the Legion of the Invincibly Ignorant who still do aren’t going to be convinced no matter what.

Repeat A Big Lie Slickly Enough

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I rarely watch pay television, I’m generally reading a book or watching a movie on Netflix. So I was surprised at the quality of Joe Biden’s campaign ads.

If I didn’t know he’s been hiding in the basement the last six months, didn’t know he stumbles and flubs his way through interviews, didn’t know he’s been silent in the face of riots across the nation, I’d be impressed. He talks like a patriotic American. 

The ads are lies,  but they are good lies. 

We know hardcore conservatives will vote for Trump and hardcore liberals will vote for Biden. It’s the mushy headed individuals in the middle, who don’t make up their mind until right now, just before the election. Those are the ones who decide the election in the end. If these ads work for them, Trump is in trouble.

Joe Doakes

They are good – although if you listen to the audio, you can tell Biden’s voice-over track is spliced together. There’s no way the old fella did those reads sitting behind a mike in one take.

This Is Today’s News Media

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This may be the greatest lower-third super (aka “Chyron”, aaka the graphic at the bottom of the shot)) in the history of propaganda:

When life gives you rotten fruit, ferment it down until you can make a flaming sambuca:

Fictional People On A Fictional Golf Course

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SCENE: A golf course. THE REAL KILLERS – for whom OJ Simpson has been looking for a quarter century – are walking toward the first tee box when they are approached by THE WHITE SUPREMACIST HELL’s ANGEL

THE REAL KILLERS: Hey – we need a foursome. Wanna join us?

THE WHITE SUPREMACIST HELL’S ANGEL: Hey – aren’t you guys the…

THE REAL KILLERS: Yep, that’s us. Got a way scot-free for two murders. OJ is still out there, but he’ll never find us. Wanna tee up? And what’s your story again?

THE WHITE SUPREMACIST HELL’S ANGEL: Oh, I’m a white supremacist member of an outlaw bike club. Twin Cities and National media spread the word that I started the riots. Then I disappeared from the news forever.

THE REAL KILLERS: Wow. You kinda came and went in a hurry.

THE WHITE SUPREMACIST HELL’S ANGEL: I know, right? Hey – you mind if my friends (mostions toward THE ROVING PACKS OF WHITE SUPREMACISTS WHO SUPPOSEDLY DID THE LOOTING) play through real quick? They’re riding a unicorn, so they should be pretty fast.

THE REAL KILLERS: No problem! ( THE ROVING PACKS OF WHITE SUPREMACISTS WHO SUPPOSEDLY DID THE LOOTING wave “thanks” and gallop past)).

THE WHITE SUPREMACIST HELL’S ANGEL: Who is that playing up ahead of us?

THE REAL KILLERS: That’d be Jussie Smollet’s MAGA-hat-wearing attackers.

THE WHITE SUPREMACIST HELL’S ANGEL: Ahh. Hey, nice driver you got there…

(And SCENE)

Unreported

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While the Democrats work at quietly deflecting the nation’s attention from their senile soon-to-be-nominee, the media would seem to be working hard on keeping anyone from digging too hard into Kamala Harris’s past.

With good reason.

During her decade-and-a-half tenure as a chief prosecutor, Harris would fail to prosecute a single case of priest abuse and her office would strangely hide vital records on abuses that had occurred, despite the protests of victims’ groups.

Harris’s predecessor as San Francisco district attorney, Terence Hallinan, was aware of and had prosecuted numerous Catholic priests on sexual misconduct involving children. And he had been gathering case files for even more… Hallinan’s office had launched an investigation and quickly discovered that the San Francisco Archdiocese had extensive internal records concerning complaints going back some seventy-five years. In spring of 2002, Hallinan demanded the church turn them over to his office.

Now, there were reasons for this – some of them legal…

…and some of them apparently, er, convenience:

…many of the cases were past what had been the statute of limitations. And just as the cases were heating up, the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturned a 1994 California law that retroactively eliminated the statute of limitations for sexual abuse cases. So instead of criminal prosecution for the older cases, Hallinan was forced to change his strategy. He wanted to hold the offenders accountable by releasing the clergy abuse files to the public and aiding the victims in civil cases.

But then Terence Hallinan made a big mistake. He lost his reelection bid to Kamala Harris. Of course, she had a little help from the local Catholic organizations that were freaking out over the prospect for Hallinan releasing the documents and helping the abuse victims.

The media’s job is covering stories about Democrats.

With a pillow.

Until the convulsions stop.

What A Difference Four Years Makes

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Far be it for me, a mere peasant, to question the journalistic integrity of the New York Times…But, may please the court of opinion, there might be a slight difference in the way the “newspaper of record” carried the two different announcements of vice presidential candidates, four years apart.Well, the key and I might notice it, anyway. Let’s see how you do:

“Kamala Jong Un” – Photo by Glamour Shots, K Street, Washington DC. I suspect it’s the same photographer who shoots Amy Klobuchar for the Star Tribune

Flashback four years:

I know I needed that bit of red highlighter, myself

But don’t you dare say the media is biased.

Almost As If By Plan

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In the late 1980s, Gallup took a poll about race relations among African-Americans. About a third said racism had an effect on their lives.

Thirty years later – during the regime of the nation’s first African-American president – that percentage had doubled.

The graph over the past 20 years or so looks like this:

Note the beginning of the slide – the middle of an election where the Democrats needed to pull out all the stops to counter the Tea Party and general dissatisfaction with the collapse of the healthcare system.

Unexpected?

Hardly. It was by design.

Graph depicts the prevalence of the terms “Race” and “Racism” in our “elite’ media’s narrative:

Why, it’s almost as if the “elite” media needed to create a crisis for the “elite” political class not to waste.

Remember – “race conflict” is merely a delivery system for “class conflict”.

Slither

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I take no joy in observing Joe Biden seems to be slipping into dementia. I’ve got family suffering from one degree of senile dementia or another – if you need to know the details, you already do – and it’s a horrible thing.

Of course, there needs to be a reckoning for the elder abusers propping him up in this run for the Presidency.

But fear not. To his biggest, most powerful supporters, dementia isn’t the problem. The system is! It’s time to scrap the debates!

But not, of course, because of the candidate’s mental state, nosireebob:

This, by the way, isn’t written out of any concern that Donald Trump will prevail over Joe Biden in the debates; Mr. Biden has done just fine in a long string of such contests. The point is that “winning” a debate, however assessed, should be irrelevant, as are the debates themselves.

Sarah Palin – derided as an anti-intellectual joke by the usual suspects these days – fought Biden to (I’ll be charitable) a standstill in 2008, when nobody was attacking his mental state. Ethics, yes – acuity, no.

Trump vs. Biden would be a little like Mohammed Ali vs. Jerry Cooney.

This is a bald-faced evasion.

Blue Fragility: Open Letter To Jonathan Chait

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To: Johnathan “Chaitful” Chait
From: Mitch Berg – Red State Sleeper Agent
Re: This Little “Eliminationist Hatred” Problem You Have

Mr. Chait

We go way back, of course – and not in a good way. You have a bit of a history of being a horrible excuse for a human being. But you are a gift that keeps giving, for people like me, so for that I thank you, even if backhandedly.

This past week, you wrote an article in “New York Magazine” claiming that the Republican response to Covid is, in your terms, a “Death Cult”.

I won’t pullquote anything – the article is long, and never really improves over the title.

But I have two questions.

First, some background – here’s the listed Covid fatalities/million as of last Friday:

  • NY (D): 1,684
  • NJ (D): 1,790
  • US average: 474
  • FL (R): 319
  • MN (DFL): 291
  • TX (R): 241
  • ND (R): 135

So I’ve got two questions for you, Mr. Chait:

  1. Did you ever refer to Cuomo (or the governors of NJ/CT/MA) as running a “death cult?” I’ll confess, I’m an infrequent reader of yours. I only read you (or John Fugelsang) when you step on your d**k spectacularly – but I’d hate to be unfair.
  2. I wager you a shiny new quarter that as of November 3, 2020, TX and FL will be below half NY’s fatalities per million. Any action on that bet?

Thanks.

By the way – at the risk of sounding uncharitable, there are times that I think you are God’s karmic gift to me for never teasing the short-bus kids in elementary school. For this, I thank Him, and urge you to keep up the, uh, work, karmically speaking.

That is all.

Side Note: I’m making this the The George W. Bush Corollary To Berg’s Seventh Law – All of a Republican’s sins, imaginary or (for sake of argument) real, will be forgotten once the Republican can no longer hold office. 

The Second Amendment Freedom Activist’s Eternal Lament

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As David Harsanyi notes, there is no issue save religion that the mainstream, especially “elite”, media, do a worse job of covering than guns.

At RealClearPolitics, John Lott reports that legacy media outlets often quite literally allow anti–Second Amendment activists to write their news stories on gun policy. Politico hasn’t quite done that today, but . . . well, I’m not sure having reporters dutifully repackaging Everytown USA press releases is any better.

The whole thing is worth a read – not that it tells you anything you don’t know.   Even the best better among Twin Cities newsrooms, NPR, has given anti-gun activists an unfettered, unedited and un-fact-checked voice (although as we noted at that time, the bias’s roots were more likely financial than ideological). 

The media does do a terrible job.  Not for lack of effort on the part of gun-rights activists…

…and not without some good results.   I’ve noticed, at least at the local level, that journos can – or at least could – be taught.  Over the years, there’ve been examples of reporters that actually listened, and learned to write the whole story and tell the truth on the issue…

…before moving on elsewhere and being replaced by a new wave of journos with the same set of superstitions their predecessors had slowly cut loose.   The whole new generation then needs to be slowly, painstakingly taught that “gun owner <> incipient mass murdering white supremacist”.  

It’s a job that, it seems, will never end. 

Of course, any hint of departing from the narrative is weeded out at the local level – there is not a single national “journalist” outside overtly conservative media that can cover this issue fairly, or even accurately.   And Big Left runs a constant effort to groom reports to take Big Gun Control’s “facts” as fact.  

Which, as Harsanyi notes, is all too successful.  

By the way – if you are among the journos who reads this space, I’d be more than happy to take you to the range one of these days.  Have your people call my people.  

Loose

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

It annoys me when writers are carefree with their words.  As Mark Twain pointed out: “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”


This article starts out saying: “So when a crisis of the magnitude of the COVID-19 global pandemic forces restaurants to close, and their revenue drops to zero overnight, things get particularly dire.”

Except it didn’t.  Covid was not the cause, Covid was the excuse.  Restaurants were closed by the government and remain closed to various degrees in various states because of politicians

There is no evidence bar patrons in Wisconsin (wide open) are dying in greater numbers than Minnesota (some controls) or California (total ban).  Same virus, diffferent government, different revenue loss,

Okay, it’s nit picking.  I get that.  But still, blaming your restaurant woes on a virus is a conceptual error.  It’s not the virus’ fault.  It’s the Governor’s fault.  And we must not forget that because there is always an excuse to take away your rights, if we’re willing to let them.

Joe Doakes

Most journalists – including some NPR “science correspondents” – can’t discern cause and effect, or correlation and causation, much less the finer points of science.

Governor Waaaaaaaahlz

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Governor Walz, during his presser yesterday:

And yet, somehow, the four states surrounding us, with the same exact federal government, managed to avoid a complete slaughter in their long-term care facilities.

Weird.

Y’know what’d be cool?

If we had some institution that’d probe a little further with the Governor on questions like this.

Perhaps an institution with printing presses and transmitters. Staffed by people who see themselves as a monastic cult of truth-seekers1…

Naaah. That’s just crazy talk.

Also – if all the specifics of the state’s Covid response depend on federal action, then there’s really no need for the Governor to maintain emergency powers, is there? Tangent – isn’t that a curious combination? Decisively seizing emergency power, and then whining about how he as no…power?

1 All due respect to Tom Hauser, who seems to be the closest thing the Twin CIties media has to a genuine journalist.