My doctor’s waiting room this morning had MSNBC on for some perverse reason. Astounding. Pure propaganda from an alternate reality. I do not understand how anyone with an IQ above that of clam chowder can watch such garbage without having a stroke. Maybe my doctor is trying to drum up business.
This seems unethical to me.
I saw gas lines while driving to my appointment. Israel is under attack again, and the Biden Administration is giving comfort to the Palestinians. Inflation is looming; illegal immigrants are literally being courted by the government. The public is being paid not to work; the CDC has its knee on the neck of our basic liberties. Crime is surging in the major cities as law enforcement is being demonized.The President is essentially Chauncey Gardener. And what does MSNBC consider the most important story of the day?
House Republicans are stripping Liz Cheney of her leadership position. Seriously. MSNBC had a stern-looking panel that was treating this bit of inside baseball as if it was a momentous occurrence. Why? Easy: it allowed the talking heads to talk about Donald Trump, to cheer someone who hates him as much as they do, and to denigrate Republicans for doing what any responsible political party would do, because MSNBC is a Democratic Party propaganda organ.
Of course Cheney is losing her post. A party can’t have one of its leaders constantly bashing its previous President who over 75 million people voted for just months ago! That’s suicidal. Like it or not, Donald Trump is popular with the GOP base, and Liz Cheney, whose animus toward him is at least as personal as it is substantive, can’t change that, especially since she has the personal charisma of a toilet brush. All she can do is weaken the party.
Can you imagine how long it would have taken the Democrats to dump a Congressional leader who dared to criticize Barack Obama? Hilariously, MSNBC was prominently featuring the certifiably incompetent Michael Steele, former Republican National Committee Chairman, as a critic of his party’s action against Cheney. This was the man who prompted Tucker Carlson to facepalm during the debate among candidates for the RNC position when Steele answered the question, “What is your favorite novel?” with the howler, “‘War and Peace’…’It was the best of times, it was the worst of times!” Under his leadership, Republicans sent out fundraisers disguised as official census documents. Steele isn’t just an idiot, he’s an unethical idiot.
The only other story MSNBC felt was crucial is the Hill hearings on the January 6 riot (at least the network has stopped calling it an “insurrection,” though Liz Cheney hasn’t.) “Acting Defense Secretary will blame Trump” the crawl read. It’s really ridiculous. Nobody who watches MSNBC needs to be persuaded that Trump…well, lets have that clip from “The Birds”:
All MSNBC is doing is feeding pre-existing anti-Trump mania for its ratings. This isn’t journalism. It’s pandering. It’s like giving heroin addicts a shot.
Conservative pundit Jim Treacher, a near NeverTrumper, wrote about the phenomenon yesterday, writing in part,
“[O]ur moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the press finally agreed with Trump about something: They both wish he was still president! Don’t believe me? Just look at this. I don’t watch Stephen Colbert and neither does anybody else, but thanks to the miracle of the Internet, we can catch a glimpse of what we’re not missing. Four months into the Biden administration, Colbert is still doing Trump jokes:
Treacher continues,
“They miss Trump. They hate him so much that they don’t even realize how much they love him. He’s all they think about, and they don’t know what to do without him. …And this phenomenon isn’t limited to the comedians who think they’re journalists. It’s also affecting the Democratic Party activists who think they’re journalists. They spent four years desperately trying to get rid of Trump, and now they can’t stop talking about him…But then, what else are the #Resistance types supposed to do these days? They wouldn’t be so obsessed with Liz Cheney right now if they didn’t need to distract us from the fact that Biden is a dud. Inflation, skyrocketing gas prices, persistent unemployment, the worst border crisis in decades… And we’re not even six months into the Biden era. No wonder they only want to talk about Trump!”
Ethics Alarms 
And it’s just not MSNBC. You are echoing a number of my concerns today. And I’m getting scared. Bear with me:
1. Just found out — stupid me — that mining lithium for car batteries is about the dirtiest mining there is (including coal), and of course the conservationists — along with the media — have managed to pretty much bury this fact. (Look it up.) Electric cars — including the mining of lithium and the so far no safe plan to properly dispose of batteries containing lithium when need be — post a major and additional pollution threat. I have articles on this, which I missed before. I decided to monitor the mainstream media to see if this ever hits. (It was buried — only with partial information) in the business section of the New York Times. (They are good at that..) Should have been a front page story, especially since Biden has promised an additional 10 million electric cars and the auto manufacturers are going along.
Also, with our electrical grids in need of modernization and protection against cyber attacks, what’s going to happen when 10 million cars (or a quarter of that) plug into their home electricity? Are we prepared for that? The Southwest can’t even protect our gas pipelines from cyber attacks. We know now that our entire grid could come down, but why bother, since we’re going to do it to ourselves? Reducing pollution is a clear priority, but it it isn’t thought through, and not a topic for discussion because it’s hidden from us, we’re walking a very thin tightrope. Good luck, everybody.
2. No new taxes yet, but April’s inflation rate was 4%. 4% in one month!! This is of great concern. We are already paying his )*(*&*&%$ taxes with this kind of inflation. And not only the ‘rich guys’ are affected by inflation: the little guys get his hardest.
3. Why are we not helping Israel right now? Why are only anti-Israel Muslims getting press to blame Israel for ‘starting” it? It is known and acknowledged that Hamas is funded and armed by Iran. Israel is our ally. Is this how we will be treating them? What allies will we have left? What the fuck is the administration thinking?
4. Why did the CDC allow a major teacher’s union to sit in on meetings regarding the status of COVID and school openings and then change their decision that schools could open? The Union said ‘not yet,’ and then so did the CDC. CDC is supposed to be science: not politics. This union was a major donor to the Biden campaign. So don’t tell me to “trust the science” when this proves it’s been completely politicized.
Depressed and frightened.
More later. Got that crap off my chest.
XXOO
#4 I don’t think it’s unreasonable for government agencies to consult with representatives from major stakeholders before enacting new regulations or recommendations. So the question is not “why did the teachers’ union have a seat at the table” but rather “who was there to represent students?”.
This is supposed to be a decision based on science and objective judgment based on health considerations. “Stakeholders” should be irrelevant to the CDC’s recommendations.
Correct.
The CDC is not the decision maker, just an advisor.
They need to mandate masks to be worn by all TVs that show MSNBC. Their shit is infectious!
“I saw gas lines while driving to my appointment. Israel is under attack again, and the Biden Administration is giving comfort to the Palestinians. Inflation is looming; illegal immigrants are literally being courted by the government. The public is being paid not to work; the CDC has its knee on the neck of our basic liberties. Crime is surging in the major cities as law enforcement is being demonized.The President is essentially Chauncey Gardener.”
Is anyone else seeing the Joe Biden/Jimmy Carter parrallels?
One could point out that the gas lines are a symptom of an acute problem, while gas lines back then were caused by the chronic, enduring problem of price controls.
The upside is that if we can survive the 18 months to the midterms, this might all generate a sort of perfect storm to soundly flip the house and senate. It would certainly be extremely bitter medicine along the way, but getting a little relief now while letting the disease progress could ultimately be drastically worse for the nation and make recovery much more difficult.
Interesting that you should compare Slowjoe to Chauncey Gardiner; you’re not the only one:
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/290364
I recall in 2008 the debate about off shore drilling. The rebuttal argument often drilled down to (ha!), “It will take 10 years to see a difference.” Well, here we are 13 years later. We were also silly to worry about being oil independent. Sorry, the world still runs on oil.
This isn’t Obama 2.0, it’s Carter 2.0.