The Modern “News” Cycle

When you hear the phrase "the new cycle," it makes you think about something that's pretty simple. Curious Reporters) find something interesting and report on it. Later, if something changes about that thing, it seems interesting. They were reported on those changes. It's based in curiosity and a desire to keep the rest of us updated about interesting things in the world. But is that how the new cycle actually works? Sharyl Atkisson describes a surreal, modern version of the news cycle:

Here's one problem.

"News" has turned into the following:

The NYT and others:

1. Misreports/are grossly wrong in the moment.

2. Much later, they bring up the rear and admit the things long after most everybody else already knew.

3. Then, people treat the admission as if the thing many knew all along is now, suddenly, true. And only really valid now that the media has belatedly agreed.

4. Nobody reforms or demotes the reporters or outlets who got things so wrong to begin with. This is the pattern with Covid, Covid vaccines, and Fauci, of course, but also many other topics.

Reacting to Jimmie Dore's recent comment:

Still can’t believe that The New York Times ADMITTED & PRINTED that the "conspiracy theorists" were right about COVID and that Fauci and the "experts" LIED to the public.

What’s even more disturbing is how many people I know in Hollywood who are completely ignoring all this & don’t have the decency to APOLOGIZE to the people they viciously slandered & attacked for being skeptical of BiG Pharma & government during COVID.

I can forgive the people who acted like monsters & we’re wrong about Covid, but they’ll NEVER forgive me for being right about Covid.

Both of these remind me of Matt Taibbi's term "bomb holing."  Here's how he describes it:

This technique of using the next bombshell story to push the last one down a memory-hole — call it Bombholing

Continue ReadingThe Modern “News” Cycle

COVID Shots and Potential Miscarriages

Public health officials, including Falchi, made public statements that is safe for pregnant women to get the Covid shot, despite the fact that pregnant women were excluded from the Covid shot trials. At a minimum, corporate media should be all over this story. They should be racing each other to get to the bottom of this.

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Glenn Greenwald: There is a National Craving for a Third Political Party

Can we find a way to get a legitimate third party on the national ballot in 2028? Glenn Greenwald believe that, as a country, we are motivated to try. The alternative is more of the same. More incompetence. More corruption. More focus on getting re-elected rather than improving the country.

Glenn Greenwald: "I think where people are who never before would have considered it are going to be much more open to identifying with movements or even kind of campaigns or parties that are not connected to or identifying as Republican or Democrat. We've seen ones in the past that have worked like Ross Perot. Of course, he was a billionaire, which is maybe what you need. But he had a very successful third-party candidacy based on the support by both Clinton and Bush 41 for free trade. That, as he very presciently warned, would deindustrialize the country, suck out all jobs, and you know you've seen that before. But I think we've never been more ripe for it because both parties are hated, and the system itself is hated, and I think people are craving a credible alternative. It's just hard to create a credible alternative given all the barriers that have been deliberately erected."

Tucker Carlson: "But something is coming. You feel that?"

Greenwald: "For sure. I mean, no doubt. How can it not? I mean, this is you know, the biggest myth, the biggest lie of our political system is that the two political parties can't agree on anything. They're always at each other's throats. It's always so polarized. The reality is that the two political parties agree at 90% at least of major policy issues. The only time the media covers it is in those very few cases when they disagree, and it casts the appearance that they're always disagreeing. Obama himself, when they used to use this very vitriolic language against him, like John Boehner and the House Republicans, he would always say in private, we all know it's theater. We're all playing within the two 40-yard lines. That's the reality of the two political parties in the United States. This myth that there's these vast fundamental differences between the two parties is crucial to giving you the sense that you have this wild freedom that everything is just so free spirited and and and and nothing is controlled or limited. When reality, there's lockdown on most policy debates because both parties are fully on board because they save serve the same donor classes, they serve the same interests, and that is, I think, more and more people are realizing that."

I would love to see an alternative political party. For the past several elections I have cast vote for increasingly, the worst candidate I have ever voted for. That is not a meaningful action. That is a joke. That is theater. And many of the people with whom I speak, feel the same way.

I am concerned, however, that the cost of forming a third-party and successfully getting that candidate on the ballot is daunting. I say this because of what the DNC did to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. last election cycle. Democrats, including the DNC and its allied groups, pursued multiple legal and regulatory challenges aimed at limiting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 independent presidential campaign, primarily by contesting his ballot access and related activities. And it's worth remembering that these obstructionist actions mirror historical Democratic efforts against third-party or independent candidates seen as potential spoilers (e.g., extensive litigation against Ralph Nader in 2004 across many states).

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald: There is a National Craving for a Third Political Party

Jeffrey Tucker’s Summary of Fauci’s Diary

Jeffrey Tucker's has now published his summary of the Diary of Anthony Fauci, "The Science." One of Tucker's comments concerns diary excerpt #8:

"Meanwhile, on Feb. 8, 2020, Fauci got word that the case fatality rate was not 2–3 percent but 0.2 percent, in line with a bad flu and hardly justifying a CCP-like response. Fauci later exaggerated the “mortality rate” as ten times the annual flu." Fauci himself wrote this (excerpt #8):

Tom Frieden called me this AM and we discussed various aspects of the outbreak. He and I are on the same page in thinking tht this is acting like a bad influenza in its 'ansmissibility and that the denominator is much greater than 34,867 (above) making the case fatality rate (CFR) more like 0.2-0.3 % rather than 2.0%.

After this entry, in early-to-mid February 2020, Fauci publicly announced a COVID case fatality rate (CFR) of roughly 2–2.3%.

Many more lies and inconsistencies are found throughout Fauci's diary entries, pointed out by Tucker in his summary.

Continue ReadingJeffrey Tucker’s Summary of Fauci’s Diary

AI’s Threat to Up and Coming Professionals Threatens a “Tragedy of the Cognitive Commons”

In "The Tragedy of the Cognitive Commons: How AI Could Disrupt the Regeneration of Professional Expertise" Nolan Lovett writes: "AI-assisted productivity and AI-independent expertise are not the same capability, and developing one does not automatically build the other."

This is an extremely serious problem in the context of training young and upcoming workers. For instance, many lawyers with lifetimes of experience know how to ride herd over AI. They can spot when AI is missing the mark. They know when it is spewing mere information, long strings of words that that lack persuasive content. They can recognize when AI goes off the rails and almost instinctively implement corrective prompts. Just like how chess masters can quickly spot dangers and opportunities on a chessboard.

I'm worried that our current crop of law students and young lawyers will take the easy way out, over and over, because it's too damned tempting. Until they are mid-career and it's is too late. They might never acquire the intellectual skills and rigorous habits of perseverance that are necessary to adequately and safely use AI in the legal field. Their clients will be the ones to pay the price.

This is, indeed, as Lovett writes, "a threat to the cognitive commons":

Without intervention, organizational responses to competitive pressures will deplete the shared expertise that all organizations rely on. By eliminating entry-level positions, organizations prioritize efficiency while socializing the costs of diminishing knowledge. This leads to increased systemic fragility, where failures occur due to validators lacking the Internalized Mastery required for substantive oversight and a loss of meaningful agency in automated work. As retirees leave without adequate successors, the pool of experts shrinks, reducing the ability for independent validation and crisis management.

Continue ReadingAI’s Threat to Up and Coming Professionals Threatens a “Tragedy of the Cognitive Commons”