Tag Archives: CNN

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane … It’s ????

Leave a reply

In its continuing quest to out-stupid Fox News, CNN has published a rambling collection of actual and implied attacks on the U.S. government regarding the shooting down of four “things” by U.S. fighter jets under the direction of our Commander in Chief, the President of the United States. https://cnn.it/3lw7wGi

One “thing” has been identified as a Chinese surveillance balloon. The other three remain UFOs. OMG!!!! UFOs! In American airspace. Say it ain’t so, Joe.

The CNN headline says the “trio of new intrusions leaves America’s leaders grasping for explanations.” Grasping. Well, maybe. Or maybe, just maybe, the people we entrust with our safety against foreign forces of darkness and evil have decided it’s smarter to not be talking too much until they know more, by, for example, retrieving and examining the wreckage of these “alien” craft.

But we can clear up a few points right off the bat. If these three UFOs are genuine alien craft, do we really believe it would be so simple a matter as to send up a few fighters to blow them out of the sky? If it is that simple, and they are aliens visiting Earth for surveillance, is this a version of intergalactic “rope-a-dope” in which they let us shoot down these useless devices to “see what we’ve got” while we punch ourselves out” and then they swoop in and take over the planet? Has Marjorie Taylor Greene talked to QAnon and gotten the inside skinny on this, fed it to CNN and, well, go there if you like.

CNN says,

A deepening national security mystery is threatening a political storm after US fighter jets scrambled three days in a row to shoot down a trio of unidentified aerial objects high over the North American continent….the thin details trickling out of the Pentagon and Capitol Hill about are making an already highly unusual international episode even more bizarre and confusing.

Naturally, Republicans are using the situation, CNN calls it “an information vacuum,” to attack President Biden. CNN notes the “intrigue” ,,, unfolding against a tense global situation” which, if given a moment of sober thought, might explain why the administration is reticent to just start throwing around explanations and accusations in an evolving and potentially dangerous situation. Even putative Democrats like Jon Tester of Montana (yes, there) could not contain himself:

The military needs to have a plan to not only determine what’s out there, but (to) determine the dangers that go with it.

Fantastic. Why do we assume our military, the largest and most expensive in the world by far, does not have a plan? Because they aren’t revealing it to the entire world? Is there a coherent military person or other serious thinker who thinks it’s a good idea for the military, faced with a possible threat, to race out with details of its defensive plans so that the party(ies) behind the threat will learn the plan? Anyone think that’s a good idea? Anyone?

Orson Welles, where are you when we need you?

Well, we have CNN:

It’s not normal for Americans to settle down for the Super Bowl with their president firing off orders to blast unknown objects out of the North American sky.

Yes, we certainly don’t want Americans’ Super Bowl experience to be infringed by the War of the Worlds. CNN, always ready to help us understand current events, and undeterred by the possibility of unnerving Super Bowl fans, raises the specter of questions that remain unanswered but loom over us like a brooding omnipresence potentially ready at any moment to destroy the United States or indeed the entire world:

  • “Are the latest incidents linked in any way to Beijing’s espionage program described by the administration after the shooting down of the Chinese balloon and other reported crossings of other balloons over US territory? Any indication of successive Chinese breaches of US airspace would mark a serious twist in US-China relations already tested by a belligerent Beijing at what may be the start of a 21st century Cold War.
  • … are the latest strange objects flying over North America linked to some other hostile power or group, corporate or private entity? Are they even connected to one another or are they simply the result of coincidences at a time of heightened awareness and tensions?
  • If the latter situation is the case, is NORAD now picking up more objects that are potentially hostile given a state of heightened alert after the Chinese balloon crisis? If the objects are suspicious is there a sudden spike in such flights or did such objects fly across the continent with impunity in the past? Given the already increased threat to civilian aircraft – for instance from more low flying drones – is this a new problem that that should concern the aviation industry?
  • Finally, what is the political impact of this string of incidents. Biden was criticized by Republicansfor citing the possibility of injury to civilians or damage to buildings on the ground for waiting so long to shoot down the Chinese balloon earlier this month.”

Can you imagine the Republicans’ hysterical reaction if Biden had ordered an immediate take-down and Americans on the ground were hit by debris? And, what if the debris were alien in nature – a virus worse than COVID? Worse than the common cold? OMG!!! Alien debris. Run for your lives!

CNN then reveals that “The political blame game is heating up.” Well, that’s a shock. Can you imagine that Republicans would pass the opportunity to attack the President when matters of national security were at stake? You can’t because they never would.

Republicans, however, don’t really know what they want. GOP Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio (of course) objected on the one hand that the President “didn’t act quickly enough before” while simultaneously claiming the administration was “somewhat trigger-happy.” Then, to round out the complaints, CNN notes that China has claimed the U.S. had been flying “high-altitude balloons into its airspace more than 10 times since January 2022,” a charge the White House denied. [If it were true, do we seriously believe the U.S. would have admitted it?}

Finally, CNN joins the chorus by noting that Biden “has yet to speak to Americans in person about the trio of incidents over the weekend.” And it repeats, in case you forgot it, that Biden is under attack for waiting to shoot down the Chinese balloon while also noting that “New speculation and criticism could be premature as officials work to fully understand the sequence of events and more about the objects.”

On the other hand, CNN notes that It’s possible that “in a unique, fast-moving situation, the government may not know much more than it is saying.” But … “the piecemeal emergence of details is adding to the confusion.” On the other hand, on the other hand….

CNN wraps up with the Republican clincher:

Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana [again] appeared to make a direct link,,, between the Chinese balloon and the latest objects, even if there is no confirmation so far that they are connected.

It doesn’t give me much safe feelings knowing that these devices are smaller,” he said. “I am very concerned with the cumulative data that is being collected. … I need some answers, and the American people need answers.”

I can’t begin to tell you how concerned I am about the anxiety and lack of “safe feelings” being experienced by Republicans because mean old Joe Biden won’t tell them everything they want to know (if he did, they’d attack him for revealing too much).

“Such speculation may be premature, CNN acknowledges, “But fierce political debate over the balloon has clearly changed Biden’s tolerance threshold for unknown aerial objects. It’s now a case of shoot first, investigate later.”

Do you have a coherent idea what that means? In the context of the presence in U.S. airspace of unknown “flying objects,” it is particularly ridiculous. Do we really want the U.S. government to speculate about this situation? Would Republicans rather the U.S. investigate first or shoot first? Doesn’t seem like you can have it both ways.

As for me, we’re making plans to move to Area 51. If this really is aliens, that seems like the safest place to be.

News About the News

Leave a reply

I am puzzled by an Opinion piece published in the Washington Post, entitled “It appears CNN and the New York Times forgot a lesson of the Trump years.” https://wapo.st/3v3aynM

The lead paragraph says,

Two of America’s most important news outlets, CNN and the New York Times, are signaling that they will continue and even increase some of the both sides-ism, false equivalence and centrist bias that has long impaired coverage of U.S. politics and therefore our democracy itself. I hope they reconsider.

The ensuing argument suggests that these decisions have something to do with limiting coverage intended “to reaching people whose views might not be in the mainstream,” including in particular Black people who “disproportionately lack power and influence.”

The changes, according to author Perry Bacon, Jr., are wrapped in the cloth of “independence,” citing, importunings that Times’ staff not use Twitter so much and a CNN memo saying the network “must return to largely covering ‘hard news.’”

Mr. Bacon notes that,

Twitter was essential to the rise of Black Lives Matter — and also was a useful platform for former president Donald Trump. Trump is now off Twitter, but it remains a powerful tool for movements and activists, particularly on the left and outside both parties’ establishments.

In terms of independence, let’s be honest, the Times and CNN are declaring freedom from the left — they are not worried about being cast as too aligned with the Republicans.… I suspect independence and not doing advocacy are just updated terms for problematic forms of objectivity and neutrality that mainstream news organizations have long favored. During Trump’s presidency, the Times and CNN played an important role in signaling to the nation that he was behaving in extreme and at times anti-democratic ways. This honest coverage was nothing to be ashamed of. Now, these news executives are implying some of that coverage was misguided and won’t happen in the future.

I worry that what these executives want in the future is for their coverage of political issues to be perceived as equally independent from Republicans and Democrats. Such an approach is likely to lead to false equivalence and obfuscation — for example, reporters being worried about forthrightly identifying inaccurate statements by politicians. It basically encourages Republicans to continue to lodge bad-faith claims of media bias. It will put Black reporters in a bind, since honestly describing that the aim of some GOP-sponsored voting laws is to make it harder for Black people to cast ballots might sound like what a civil rights advocate or a Democrat might say.

The problem here, I suspect, is that of which view of journalistic history we take here. My experience, and that of many, many others inside and outside of journalism, was that CNN helped Trump’s campaign and his presidency with its non-stop coverage of his every utterance, no matter how false or destructive. CNN became Fox-Light for a very long time. If there was a turn-around at all, it occurred during the worst days of the pandemic, when Trump’s dissembling, lying, incompetence and malfeasance regarding COVID, supported across the board by the Republican Party, was daily killing Americans by the thousands and tens of thousands.

Mr. Bacon speculates that what is coming is, “replacing political commentary with more reporters standing in front of buildings like the White House and summarizing the words of elected officials. Such an approach will no doubt limit anti-Republican commentary and make GOP officials happier. But the goal should be to inform the audience, not appease officials in each party equally. When I watch cable news, I learn the most from the commentators ….”

Maybe what’s at the root of the problem is that the Trump-era media, here looking mainly at New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and the old MSM networks, became confused about the distinction between actual “news” (what happened, when, etc. focusing on genuinely significant facts about significant events) and “arguments.” With the view that a 24-hour news cycle must be covered, and that “breaking news” was the only item of interest at any moment, it wasn’t surprising perhaps that major media bought into the Trump/Bannon “flood the zone” approach.

An alternative, still available, would be to revert to the model that worked well back in the day. For example, CBS’s Walter Cronkite, a news figure trusted by most Americans at the time, presented the “news” every evening. He was followed by Eric Sevareid who “analyzed” or “interpreted” a selection of important events. They did not need constant panels of political shills arguing endlessly and repetitively about what was happening, what it meant, and who was winning.

This is how Wikipedia summarizes Cronkite’s career:

Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as “the most trusted man in America” after being so named in an opinion poll. Cronkite reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombings in World War II; the Nuremberg trials; combat in the Vietnam War; the Dawson’s Field hijackings; Watergate; the Iran Hostage Crisis; and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr., and Beatles musician John Lennon. He was also known for his extensive coverage of the U.S. space program …. Cronkite is known for his departing catchphrase, “And that’s the way it is”, followed by the date of the broadcast.

When Cronkite spoke editorially, it was clear what he was doing, as in his famous report on the Vietnam War after the Tet Offensive:

We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi’s winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that – negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate…. To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy’s intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. [https://bit.ly/3L3DxgY]

Clear separation between “news” – the facts – and “opinions, interpretations, evaluations” is still possible but it requires a major change of focus by the media, an end to click-bait headlines followed by often inaccurate and confusing mixtures of “what happened” and “what it means.” It also requires resistance to the idea that “news” consists of constantly covering the most clownish and false claims just because someone “famous” said them. The best case in point was the constant coverage of the daily “press conferences” held by Trump to promote himself and his administration’s alleged response to the pandemic.

The separation of news and opinion will require more work from editors to be sure that “reports” are factual, clear about the unknowns in situations in which facts are unclear, and free of opinions of reporters about the importance of “facts” reported. Have reporters stick to facts and interpreters do the evaluating. Forget the panels of political shills and when an interpreter makes claims that are false, tell the audience that there is no evidence to support the statements made. It’s not easy to do this, obviously, but being clear will be appreciated by the audience in the long run.

What I Want from the Media

Leave a reply

My memory may be faulty but as I recall the years of the Vietnam War and after for some time, you knew that in the early evening the “news” would be on television. There were, of course, only three networks but you did have some choice. My favorites were Walter Cronkite and commentator Eric Sevareid on CBS, but there were other significant “anchors” and analysts that I often chose to watch. By and large, Cronkite told you what happened that day around the world. There were news “reports” from the field often accompanied by film footage, especially during the War.

The news shows weren’t very long but you generally felt you got the gist of important developments since the prior evening. And, in the meantime, you also had access to newspapers that were published in some places twice a day or even more. In Memphis, Tennessee, where I spent my formative years, we had a morning paper, the Commercial Appeal, and an evening paper, the Press-Scimitar. The latter ceased publication in 1983, long after I had departed the city, but the Appeal still publishes seven days a week.

Cronkite and Sevareid were both news geniuses. Cronkite was considered one of the most trusted newsmen in the country, and Sevareid, in a few minutes of prepared remarks, would provide incisive thoughts to help you understand the events of the times. In later years I encountered Sevareid several times eating lunch in a restaurant near my Washington law firm’s offices. He seemed usually to dine alone and I never worked up the nerve to interrupt his solitude. I was pretty sure he was still thinking deeply about what was going on in the world.

Of course, I understand that times have changed. We have the internet and 24-hour cable TV “news” shows like CNN. And 24-hour propaganda shows like Fox News. Many great newspapers have failed as a result; all are challenged to remain viable in the era of “free” news around the clock.

What troubles me the most is that the cable news shows that you can turn to while the networks continue showing the mind-numbing garbage that they have contracted to broadcast do not report the news of the day. Instead, they seem to focus on one or two stories and repeat the coverage of them until something else they deem worthy of coverage happens. If you watch CNN on any given day, you will see that anchor after anchor repeats the “Breaking News” mantra that the prior anchors have already reported, calling on many of the same field reporters to “being us up to date on what you have learned.” There follows the same story that the prior segment covered, often involving the same questions and the same answers.

The other favorite of CNN and its competitors is the panel of “experts.” Back in the day, we had Sevareid; now we have panels of experts, again often repeated in subsequent segments. Worse yet, the cable shows appear to believe they are obligated to be “balanced” in their coverage, which has the effect of making them complicit in the false equivalencies that the Trump administration shills are pitching. Cronkite and Sevareid were interested in “equivalencies.” They saw their jobs as reporting the truth. After being fed an endless stream of lies about the combat outcomes in Vietnam, Cronkite famously had had enough and said so on the air.

It was a breathtaking moment in journalism and, I believe, in that moment changed the opinions of millions by telling the truth. He didn’t then bring on an administration shill to argue that the reports of combat outcomes were in fact correct. No panel of experts spent hours each day arguing about it. And no one like Kellyanne Conway was given a voice over the network to spread administration propaganda. A news show was about reporting news of the day, often on a variety of subjects, not just repeating the same story all day until a new “breaking news” story showed up.

So, call me old fashioned and unrealistic. It won’t be the first time. I suspect there are many like me who are sick to death of having “news” presented as a panel discussion or, worse, a “debate” with administration shills and complicit politicians claiming that down is up and lies are truth. I doubt there is any way to return to the “good ole days” of news broadcasting but I continue to hope that at least some news figures will begin calling out the lies and propaganda when it is presented.

We have an important election coming up in 2020, an election that may well determine the fate of the American republic. Meanwhile, there is going to be an impeachment inquiry and investigation of the president and his henchmen/women who have violated multiple laws and their oaths of office. It is crucial that the American people get the truth about these events. CNN, MSNBC and the others need to rethink their approach to news reporting before it is too late. If they help Trump get re-elected, by continuing to serve as vehicles for his disinformation campaign, he will turn on them with a vengeance. He will then be a lame duck and will have nothing to lose, nothing to restrain his authoritarian propensities now so fully on display.

Trump Guilty of Impersonating a President

Leave a reply

According to a law passed in 1948, it is a federal crime to impersonate a federal officer. Title 18 of the U.S. Code, section 912 provides:

Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such, or in such pretended character demands or obtains any money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

In the case of Donald Trump, I vote for “both.” Any relationship between Donald Trump and an actual president of the United States is both purely coincidental and fictitious. He was elected with the help of a hostile foreign power and lost the popular vote. I understand that he and the White House Press Secretary continue to claim he won the popular vote but that assertion, as with so many others, is blatantly and demonstrably false. We have a serial liar for president.

The latest example of Trump’s grossly inappropriate conduct is his visit to Pittsburgh that was resisted by most of the responsible, and respectful, people there. It wasn’t that they all opposed his visit. They just didn’t want the distraction while they were grieving and planning the prompt burials required by the Jewish faith.

Trump, however, could care less about the latest victims of AR-15 enabled mass violence. His visit was a political gesture that, like so many others, was designed to suit his political base and has nothing to do with respect for the dead, for Jewish people or anything other than self-interest and maintenance of political power. If it were otherwise, Trump would have respected the request of local officials and families of the dead to come at another time. His political calculation is that this is the best time. Otherwise, according to the White House, the visit might have interfered with Trump’s planned election rallies for the mid-term elections. Always first-things-first at the Trump White House.

I actually expect that Trump is quite happy that the Pittsburgh visit has stirred yet another hornet’s nest of turmoil. Trump’s political strategy is to dominate the news regardless of the circumstances and regardless of who may be affected. It’s part of his deflection strategy that often works because the news media, the people he claims to hate because they criticize him, hang on his every word and his every move. Jake Tapper just stated on CNN that Trump came with the “best of intentions.” How Tapper knows that will remain a mystery. Why he felt it was appropriate to say it is beyond my understanding as well. It is just one example of the media fawning on the man that responds to them with the charge that they are the “enemy of the people.” Someday, historians will explore the devil’s bargain the media have made with Trump: “kick me again, I love the pain and the attention.”

Look at it this way. The school yard bully beats up a different kid every day for six months. Then, as the school year ends, he gives some candy to one of his victims. Should everyone conclude from this one act of generosity amidst dozens of acts of evil that the bully had good intentions and was “doing the right thing?” I rest my case.

Maybe the media should try another approach – like ignoring what Trump says and does once in a while. CNN, for example, will apparently spend the entire day and evening rehashing and rehashing Trump’s visit to Pittsburgh. Surely there is more news to report than this. Nothing new is emerging. The same people are interviewed repeatedly and asked the same questions and make the same remarks. Many local officials are obviously reluctant to question the president’s motives publicly. Why?  Because they know he’s a bully and could turn on them in a heartbeat with vicious tweets and humiliating statements at his “rallies.” How about the media tries depriving Trump of the constant free national and worldwide publicity he seeks and see how he likes it? Fox News will always be there for him, making stuff up and promoting his far-right authoritarian agenda.

The so-called mainstream media have, I suggest, aided the “normalization” of Trump’s behavior to such an extent that many of his outrageous lies get little or no pushback, further enhancing the fantastical beliefs of his sycophants that he speaks the truth. The mid-term elections may well be the last chance the United States has to re-establish some balance of power in the government, rebuilding the system of checks and balances that the Framers of the Constitution assumed would always exist. They were wrong. Having all three branches of the federal government in the hands of one political party headed by an authoritarian bully has been catastrophic for American democratic institutions. One need look no further than the voter suppression activities being pursued by the Republican Party around the country in an effort to steal another election from the people. If you agree with me about this, it is imperative that you vote, no matter where you live. And take some other people with you. Don’t let the apathy of others undermine your rights as an American. November 6. Do it.

No Führer in America

2 Replies

Donald Trump, the illegitimate president of the United States, hasn’t brought up the idea of a master race yet, but it seems likely that it’s only a matter of time. The concept is already implicit in his views on immigration and citizenship. How long will it be before it gives up that ridiculous thumbs up routine of his and demands some form of salute from everyone? Meanwhile, he continues his deflection strategy as the mid-term elections draw near.

Trump has ordered more than 5,000 American troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to, presumably, confront the “caravan” of refugees and asylum seekers moving slowly through Mexico toward the United States. He has claimed, with the usual lack of evidence or truth, that the group has been seeded with Middle Eastern terrorists.

So, what do we expect to come of this?  Will the troops be ordered to fire on the refugees? Is this going to be another Kent State to a higher power with mass casualties? Will Trump’s racist base support a massacre of unarmed people fleeing oppression? Will the troops follow an order to fire on unarmed immigrants for trying to cross the border illegally? Or bayonet them? Beat them into submission? He will stop at nothing to get what he wants. What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe this incident, if it turns violent, will be the Trumpian equivalent of the Reichstag fire that gave Hitler the excuse he wanted (blaming the attack on the communists) to begin the final takeover of Germany by the Nazi Party. As reported by Wikipedia, “The term Reichstag fire has come to refer to false flag actions perpetrated or facilitated by an authority to promote their own interests through popular approval of retribution or retraction of civil rights.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire That’s close enough.

Trump no doubt loves the idea of ordering the Army around but he is not, and never will be, the American version of the Führer. One of those in history was one too many. But he is playing with fire, literally, in ordering troops to the border. Will the troops cross the border, entering under arms a foreign country’s territory? If so, Trump will, in keeping with his usual approach, blame the outcome on the members of the caravan. “If they hadn’t threatened to cross our border, we would not have had to invade Mexico and shoot them!”

In a related vein, and also connected to the imminent mid-term elections, Trump has announced that he has received advice that he can, by executive order, nullify the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Almost all authentic legal commentators believe that idea is ridiculous. Here is the relevant text:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. [emphasis added]

The idea that Trump can change the meaning of the 14th Amendment is indeed ridiculous. Even a few Republicans think so. That doesn’t mean he won’t try. He knows he’ll be challenged in the courts, which is fine with him. Being challenged in court will give Trump yet another pretext for accusing the court system of bias against him, giving his political base yet another reason to feel oppressed by the “system.”

Rick Santorum was on television last night, playing the role of the loyal Republican mouthpiece, blathering and blaming the divisiveness surrounding Trump’s Pittsburgh incursion on the local people in Pittsburgh rather than Trump’s typically insensitive decision to visit when he was told it was too soon and he was not welcome. Some of CNN’s pundits are falling all over themselves to justify Trump’s decision, arguing that Trump is actually trying to engage in healing actions rather than taking political advantage of the national focus on the Pittsburgh situation.

It is beyond remarkable that these same pundits who routinely question Trump’s divisive comments about race now wipe out that record in an effort to attribute sincerity to his visit. Trump is an insensitive, self-interested bully and nothing he does in one moment can wipe out his racism, misogyny and hate-filled agenda that he pursues at every other opportunity. It comes with ill grace every time the press says “oh, look, Trump is acting like a human being.” It’s not only rare but it’s utterly false.

Trump’s proposal to override the Constitution by executive order reflects a total lack of understanding of the Constitution but, more fundamentally, total indifference to its meaning. Trump will do whatever he thinks will win him political points with his hard-core base of supporters who apparently have also not been schooled in the fundamentals of the Constitution they claim to revere. Trump has violated his oath of office multiple times and this would be just another one. He’ll lose in court and use that to proclaim himself and his supporters as victims. And his base will buy it.

It’s time for Trump to go.  Time to say goodbye. But first there is an election. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “you’ll have a republic if you can keep it.” People of good will must vote for Democrats or we will lose the republic. History teaches that once democracy fails, it is nearly impossible to restore. Let’s not fail. Take your family and friends to the polls and vote.

 

Some Advice for CNN

Leave a reply

Ah, the ironies. CNN helped make Donald Trump’s candidacy by broadcasting every minute of everything he said or did during the campaign, including having Trump’s campaign shills as constant participants on “panels of political experts” to discuss endlessly every detail of Trump’s behavior. CNN became, in effect, the carnival barkers for the Trump sideshow.

Now, Trump is President-Elect and he is demonstrating that he is exactly the same person and personality that was kept in the public eye by CNN during the campaign. This should come as no surprise. Now he no longer needs to “make nice” and so he refused, in his first press conference in seven months to let the CNN reporter in attendance ask a question. He accused CNN of being “fake news” and indicated, yet again, that he will brook no unwelcome questioning of himself from the press, no matter how prominent.

Then CNN gave another opportunity for KellyAnne Conway, Trump’s shill-in-chief, to bumble and fumble her way through more demonstrably false accusations about the way CNN reported the latest Trump “news.” The CNN team, led by Anderson Cooper, a day later still trying to find a way to do its job, showed how stung they were by the Trump rejection and the Trump/Conway claims that CNN reported something that it demonstrably did not report.

Helpfully, Carl Bernstein, one of the contributors to the CNN reports and who knows a thing or two about reporting and politics, defined “reporting” as the “best available version of the truth.”

Here, then, is some advice for CNN about how it can develop a more constructive relationship with the soon-to-be President and his team of fact-deniers:

  1. Just report the damn news! You know, what happened today that is of interest to the American people?
  1. Eliminate the endless panels of “experts” arguing endlessly over every statement that Trump makes. Just report what he says, what others say, what happens (with as much verification as possible) and let the viewers/readers decide without having to listen to Trump shills like Jeffrey Lord and Conway re-write and re-interpret what Trump said into gibberish. Continuing what you have been doing adds credence to the Trump mode of operation and helps raise doubts about the accuracy and legitimacy of your own reporting. If you’re going to continue to claim that CNN is about journalism, then just report the news as truthfully and accurately as possible and move on. Let the Trump machine finds its own outlets (it will always have Fox and Breitbart) to make its case.
  1. For guidance, review some of the tapes of Walter Cronkite and Eric Sevareid of CBS News in the 1960s. If you want to add interpretation and analysis to the facts, have your “experts” appear alone to state what they believe. Make them own the analysis.

That’s it. Do yourselves and America a favor and remove yourselves as the one of the “usual suspects” Trump wants to paint with a bias brush. Report the news!

YET ANOTHER DOUBLE STANDARD IN THE 2016 ELECTION

Leave a reply

Having watched yet another CNN display of breathless reporting of Hillary Clinton’s health episode, I am constrained to note the existence of another double standard at work in the 2016 presidential election. Wolf Blitzer spent many minutes haranguing New York Mayor Bill di Blasio about whether the illness should not have been publicly disclosed two days ago when first diagnosed and whether she must now make more detailed disclosures about her health. CNN played the video of Clinton stumbling into the SUV that was to take her away from the 9/11 memorial ceremony when she fell ill. And played it. And played it. Over and over again.

Yes, there was mention of the fact, yes fact, that the only health information disclosed by Donald Trump was a ludicrous letter from his gastroenterologist declaring Trump to be the most fit candidate in history. But the “story” was Clinton’s health and the implication was that she had withheld vital information from the public and might be suffering a devastating disability. CNN’s video feed to Yahoo.com earlier in the day included the SUV stumble video under a heading similar to “See Clinton Falter.”  Today’s early feed runs an opinion/reporting (it’s hard to tell) piece entitled “The no-transparency election” which appears to equate the disclosure positions of the two candidates.

The Clinton story on live CNN television was embellished by yet another “panel of political experts,” all familiar CNN faces, whose main interest seemed to be that Trump’s vice presidential partner, Mike Pence, had stated that all presidential candidates should disclose their tax returns and health records and therefore isn’t Mike Pence just the best supporter of his candidate Trump? That Mike Pence, boy, he’s better at supporting Trump than Trump is. What a guy!

Wow and Wow. To be clear, I believe it was a mistake for Clinton to fail to disclose the pneumonia diagnosis when it was made. Blame her staff for that one. Or blame her if you like. It was also a mistake to place her in a position where her medical condition could be photographed in such an awkward way. That one belongs to her staff.

But on the merits, the double standard at work here is that Hillary Clinton has already released a large trove of medical records and many years’ worth of tax returns, while her opponent has relied on an intestinal specialist to address his health in a useless and summary way and has used trivial and nonsensical excuses for refusing to disclose his tax returns. If there is real “news” in this, it should be about what Trump is hiding. CNN should be running a countdown clock or something similar, showing the number of days that Trump has refused to provide meaningful information about either subject. Why is CNN not reporting this important issue every day?

The CNN treatment of Ms. Clinton effectively punishes her for providing more disclosure than her opponent, whose intransigence is remarked upon mostly in passing. Future candidates may take note of this and follow Trump’s lead by refusing full disclosure. The longer he gets away with this outrage, the greater the precedent for future candidates who, like Trump, have something to hide. This issue goes beyond Trump’s likely false claims about his massive personal charitable giving, which is important as regards his credibility. Trump’s worldwide business holdings raise a unique question of how he would separate himself from those interests if he were elected President of the United States. With less than two months left before the election, is it not time that the press, in addition to fulminating over Ms. Clinton’s temperature, began seriously demanding answers to that critical question? Will the media pursue this in the upcoming debates or continue to badger Clinton about the emails and Benghazi, about which she has endured endless examination in Congress and elsewhere?

Is the explanation for this obsession with Ms. Clinton’s health, while effectively giving Trump a pass on the issue, a product of the old saw that a woman is a more delicate creature than a man and thus any show of weakness is a possible sign of more serious inadequacies? Trump has been making such claims for some time, without any factual basis. Catching a cold, or a lung infection, is a factual basis for saying that Ms. Clinton, like most humans, is susceptible to occasional illness. But she is not the first to stumble. There was George W. Bush in Japan at a state dinner. And, of course, Gerald Ford was a habitual stumblebum but never disqualified, for that reason, from being president. There are others.

And, yes, I am aware of the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle and the problems it presents, but CNN is at least somewhat self-aware and therefore has the capacity to resist the temptations it creates. The managers at CNN should take a serious look at the manner in which the network covers this election. Having provided Donald Trump with a daily platform for every fabrication and insult that he has uttered since entering the primaries, CNN should look inward and be sure it is not implicitly buying into the Trump song and dance. And, oh yes, North Korea has a deliverable nuke program in the works. CNN??

BROKEN NEWS – TRUMP BUYS CNN, CHANGES NAME TO “TRUMP NEWS TODAY” (TNT)

Leave a reply

Washington, DC – July 5, 2016:  It was learned today that Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president of the United States, has purchased Cable News Network, normally known as CNN, for an undisclosed sum. Trump hired the public relations firm of Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey to advise in connection with the transaction.

“When you think about,” Trump added, “my buying CNN makes perfect sense. They spend 90 percent of their time talking about me, anyway, with around-the-clock panel discussions and live video of my every utterance, so why shouldn’t I own it? Isn’t the press supposed to be free in this country? Believe me, CNN wasn’t free. It cost me a bundle, but with my former campaign manager working for them now, it was clearly the right move. Their constant coverage really helped my campaign and saved me a lot of money. And now, this way, we can cut costs by eliminating what remains of their so-called journalists. Instead of constant speculation about what I said and what I meant to say, they can just ask me directly and I’ll tell them what to report. They should just report the news I give them. That’s it,” Trump said.”

In a related development, Trump’s advisors hinted that Trump, at his own expense, had purchased large tracts of land along the U.S.-Mexican border and was already starting construction of his infamous Wall. A large area has been set aside for construction of Trump Castle, similar to a hotel, but with a moat, for the convenience of visitors to the massive construction site.

Around-the-clock web cam coverage of the construction is being suggested for broadcast by TNT. Trump is also planning to sell the dirt from the Wall excavation as souvenirs for his supporters. Finally, word leaked out from his campaign that he is considering renting shooting positions along the wall to aspiring owners of AR-15 rifles who, for a fee, have the opportunity to stand guard and fend off anyone seeking to breach or scale the Wall. His spokesperson said that Trump meant to say that only rubber bullets would be permitted. Thus, even if Mexico does not end up paying for the Wall, Trump will still make a killing, figuratively speaking, of course.

Note: This is satire. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.  Believe it.

Or not.