US Advice to Diplomats: Communicate a Non-Ending Sense of Hopeless Conflict

Your government dollars at work. Stella Assange is the wife of Julian Assange. This bizarre directive from Neocon Anthony Blinken (one of the architects of the Iraq War) brings to mind US efforts to blow-up an early opportunity to settle the Ukraine-Russia dispute.

Continue ReadingUS Advice to Diplomats: Communicate a Non-Ending Sense of Hopeless Conflict

Recent Illustration of the Need for my Website Category: “Narratives in Media”

From Charles Cook of National Review:

Bluntly put, I’m going to ask you for money. But, before I do, I have a pressing question: Do you know how fire alarms work?

I do. And I’d wager that most of the press did, too, until Representative Jamaal Bowman pulled one this week in a possible attempt to shut down the work of Congress, and, in a transparent attempt to ignore the problem with his having done so, the operation of fire alarms immediately became one of those great Talmudic mysteries that prompt furrowed brows and the perplexed shrugging of shoulders. If you want to see a journalist lose faith in epistemological truth, have a Democrat do something corrupt or stupid. Within seconds, you’ll be transported to a pot-filled sophomore philosophy seminar. “When you think about it, what can we really know, dude?”

I mention The Strange Case of the Exquisitely Complicated Fire Alarm because it strikes me as a perfect example-in-miniature of how the media have elected to treat the growing evidence of serious wrongdoing by President Biden and his family. Back in 2017, when the subject of rumors was Donald Trump and his supposed “collusion” with Russia, the press treated every claim that was made as if it were self-evidently true . . . Questions were begged without relief. If it was alleged at 5 p.m. that Trump had once tried a vodka martini, by 6 the walls would be closing in. . .

With Biden, the media have taken precisely the opposite approach. I would like to say that this reversal represents a salutary overcorrection, but, of course, we all know that it is no such thing. It represents corruption. . . The press wanted Trump to be guilty, it wants Biden to be innocent, and it has proceeded accordingly in both cases. With Trump, fluff was treated as evidence; with Biden, evidence is treated as fluff.

This excellent article is the reason I created a category on this website called "Narratives in Media." It's probably my fasted growing category, with more than two hundred examples, most of these from the past three years. I created this category relatively recently; my of my older posts could have been categorized similarly. I sometimes refer to the post in this category to remind myself that we are constantly being gaslight by corporate media. When I wonder whether my positions are reasonable on COVID, immigration, Biden, Hunter Biden, politization of the U.S. security state, censorship, etc., I refer to these articles. It's simply not possible that left-leaning versus right-leaning (FOX) corporate news repeatedly come down on the opposite side of all these issues.

My main question is whether all of these so-called "reporters" and "editors" are intentionally misleading us, paltering, or whether they have drunk so much of the Kool-aid that they are oblivious to their own need to preach to us (through commission and omission) rather than simply telling us what is happening out in the world.

I do want to put in a good word for National Review, a conservative-leaning publication that is also self-critical. A conservative publication that was consistently and critically opposed to Trump. As Cook accurately says in his article on Jamal Bowman and media polarization,

I am proud to say that National Review did not behave in this manner in either case. The phrase that I have heard most frequently uttered by my colleagues during the discussion of both of these stories is “don’t get out over your skis.” Instead: Be skeptical, be open-minded, be patient, look for evidence, and follow it where it goes.

Continue ReadingRecent Illustration of the Need for my Website Category: “Narratives in Media”

All the President’s News Media

This is abhorrent. A national embarrassment. Having news media that is not adversarial to the ruling political elite is like having plumbers who prefer leaky pipes. There is nothing more fundamental for a news reporter than to be skeptical and curious. The best reporters in years past were relentlessly driven forward by the idea that powerful people constantly lie for their own personal gain.

Continue ReadingAll the President’s News Media

Joe Biden Continues to Refuse Secret Service Protection to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

I posted on this topic about a week ago but I'm posting again because the behavior of the Biden White House is despicable. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s father and uncle were assassinated. RFK, Jr. was almost murdered last week. Presidents have always granted Secret service protection to opposing candidate, who requested it, until now. I'm to the point where there is no innocent explanation for the behavior of the White House. Please watch this short video. Don't skip over the beginning where Gavin de Becker describes his noteworthy credentials.

Continue ReadingJoe Biden Continues to Refuse Secret Service Protection to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Corporate News Narrative: Not Enough Evidence to Even Investigate Joe Biden for Corruption

The Left-Leaning Corporate news on (the Associated Press in this example) serves the DNC well. In this example, the AP claims there no evidence justifying an investigation of Joe Biden for corruption. In his Tweet, Greg Price offers a succinct summary of the evidence we already know. The AP cannot bear to acknowledge any of this, however.  The rule for the progressive-leaning media is this: The answer is Joe Biden. Everything else is reverse engineering.

Continue ReadingCorporate News Narrative: Not Enough Evidence to Even Investigate Joe Biden for Corruption