Quotable Quote

“They may not agree with everything he says, but voters see clarity in Biden,” — Mika Brzezinski

Proportionality

I absolutely had to watch Morning Joe this AM after President Trump's tweetings yesterday hitting back at Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough for their daily doses of vicious vitriol directed towards him ... see: NY Times Article.Without trying to defend Trump's puerile behavior that is not befitting a president, I was expecting and did watch a conga line of outrage by the invited guests on this show. If there is a stronger word for outrage then I would use it, but I can't think of one now.

However, I was also struck by the contrast between these highly emotional reactions and the almost matter-of-fact reactions by these same players to the baseball field shooting of a Republican Congressman, Steve Scalise, last month. Not that there wasn't condemnation, but I don't recall the foaming mouths and the shallow breathing like I saw this morning on MSNBC. What we are basically comparing here is an infantile insult of two rabid Trump haters versus the attempted mass murder of Republican Congressmen.

I guess, very simply, what I am looking for (and not finding) is a sense of proportionality in our media. And it is this lack of proportionality that permits Trump to keep up this compulsive behavior (which most of us would prefer him not doing.)

Afterward: What Morning Joe and the NYT focused on was that Trump's tweets were a sexist attack on Mika. Not quite true ... he also called Joe "Psycho". Now to see why this might be apt, Google "Why Joe Scarborough left Congress" ...

After Afterward: I find it curious that the media never seems to label attacks on conservative women (Ann Coulter, Kelluanne Conway, Sarah Palin) as "sexist" ...

Morning Joe

I have watched the MSNBC show "Morning Joe" for enough time now that I think I can reproduce the typical banter between its two co-hosts ... viz:

Joe Scarborough: Trump has tweeted out this morning that he is under investigation by the Special Counsel Mueller ...

Mika Brzezinski: We've known Trump for a long time.  I'm just saying ...you can't trust anything he says because he is a liar ...

Joe Scarborough: But his lawyer said yesterday that he was not under investigation!

Mika Brzezinski: Sigh! Both Trump and his lawyer are liars ... Trump lies about lying ...

Joe Scarborough: If I were still in Congress, I would look my red-neck constituents in the eyes and tell them the truth ... like I always did and that's why they elected me ...

Mika Brzezinski: You told the truth, Trump lies ...

Joe Scarborough: My voters could always tell when I tried anything funny or political ... My voters loved my honesty ...

Mika Brzezinski: Sigh! That's what I love about you Joe ... and Elizabeth Warren ... not like Trump's constant prevarication

Joe Scarborough: And that's what I love about you Mika ... among some other things ...

Mika Brzezinski: Sigh, I mean ... I really can't fathom why Trump keeps lying all the time ... even in his tweets ... especially ... he constantly lies in his tweets ...

Joe Scarborough: You look so sexy this morning. Let's throw the show to Mike Barnicle ...

Mika Brzezinski: You look very hunky too Joe ... OK, I'm game. Did I mention that Trump is a liar? ...

[Fade to a Planned Parenthood commercial] ...

Dilbert Speaks

Scott Adams in his Dilbert blog has just promoted President Trump from der Fuhrer to Mr. Incompetent as a result of his failure to repeal and replace Obamacare ... see: Dilbert Blog. Actually this is not a dis of our president because the Hitler image was pulling Trump down far worse than a Pajama-boy image.

This is an unique Dilbert-like concept but not one that Trump should embrace as it makes his job far more difficult getting done all the things that he has promised ... at least in the short run. Adams is also predicting that Trump will be back on his mojo by year end. But in the meantime, if his opposition no longer fears him, then they likely will move into full-throated ridicule mode ... and no humans are better at ridicule than media types. Watch Mika "I'mSorryBut" Brzezinski on Morning Joe on Monday to see how deliciously sarcastic a media moonbat can get.

Outrageous

Donald Trump is outrageous. He is braggadocios, He is vain. He lies. He is pugnacious, He is puerile. He is vulgar. He is a super patriot. He loves the trappings of wealth and fortunately is wealthy. He is a bully. He is too loud. He tweets too much. He has a too-beautiful wife ... actually has had three of them ... and lots of too-beautiful children.  And he is successful in most everything he does ... even running for and becoming President of e United States ... ugh!

So how do his enemies react to this outrageous man? Of course, by being outrageous and coming unglued. The Lefties in this  country are tying themselves in knots resisting this outrageous man. After all, outrage is the exclusive bailiwick of liberals and President Trump is an interloper. Chelsea "Potty Mouth" Handler, Code Pink, Congress's Women in White, Act Up, Michael "the Hut" Moore, the George Soros goons, the unruly Dems in the Wisconsin legislature, The View, Berkeley students, Mika "I'm sorry, but" Brzezinski ... and too many more on the hard Left are outraged at this outrage of a president. A century of sleep is lost among these resisters ... thinking up their next stunts or slurs that will make the next day's news ... to display the depth of their outrage.

This is all very humorous ... and outrageous.

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

'Godfather' [Rahm Emanuel] flips the bird when asked about 2020 prospects ...

Student threatened with expulsion after recording, posting professor's anti-Trump tirade

Terror at the pyramids: bomb attack at Egyptian tourist spots

[Hillary's] Losing campaign cost record $1.2B ...

Mika [Brzezinski]: Hillary campaign tried to get me 'pulled off the air'

Biden says Trudeau and Merkel last liberal leaders standing ....

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye impeached

Gender-fluid performer eligible in male and female Oscar categories ...

Vietnam begins its own island-building project in South China Sea

Cuba on track for 10,000 politically-motivated arrests by end of year

Caught: Snopes deliberately omits key details to protect Kerry's State Dept.

Washington Post fake news? CIA says Russia intervened in election ...

With Both Barrels

There has been a dramatic change in the tenor of media coverage of this presidential race ... presumably because the "establishment" media now sees that Donald Trump has a shot at winning. Before, he was entertainment ... now things are for keeps.  I don't recall ever seeing a more evocative turn-around on television like has occurred on Morning Joe since the Republican convention. When Trump was fighting 16 other hopefuls for the Republican nomination, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were all sweetness and light toward Trump. They honey-talked him almost every morning ... mostly by phone  ... and clearly were playing him for higher ratings.

Now I almost can't watch these two harpies anymore ... who find the most trivial  things to excoriate Trump with. Of course Trump knows the game that they are playing and won't appear on their show anymore ... which causes white spittle to form on their lips as they continually try to let him have it with both barrels. Can't they see the change in their own behavior ... and how hypocritical they appear? I guess that this is of no concern to them as their ambition overtakes any comity.

And of course, these two media mavens are not alone in trying to take Trump down. Even such Op-Ed  stalwarts as Maureen Dowd has taken fingers to keyboard to paint a grotesque hypothetical word picture of Trump after the election ... see: NY Times Op Ed. I can understand Ms. Dowd's displeasure ... but I can't fathom her vitriol ... nor that of many others.

Why is there such a uprising against Trump ... which, of course, means support for an even more distasteful and dangerous Hellary Clinton? I can only surmise that it is because Hellary still, with all her warts, represents the status quo. She is not going to give, like Trump, a voice to the voiceless in America. Trump, even more than Bernie Sanders, has come to champion the downtrodden middle class in this country. And this is a clear and present danger to the Washington elites. Too much could and probably would change ... not good. So the establishment is fighting back ...

With both barrels ...

Pillow Talk?

(This item reminds me of the Mary Matalin/James Carville surprisingly strange bedfellows.)

Are Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough a romantic item? Page Six, the gossip column of the New York Post seems to think so ... given that Mika recently got a quiet divorce and Joe was divorced three years ago ... see: New York Post Revelation.

Anyone who has watched the Morning Joe program on MSNBC over the years should have noticed that Joe's politics have been moving left and Mika's, right. Perhaps pillow talk has something to do with this melding of their political minds?

The Trump Trap?

It is very clear that Donald Trump is not a politician polished to the satisfaction of our media elites. He constantly offers up gritty suggestions that, prior to his becoming the presumptive Republican candidate, were thought as entertaining and, yes, TV ratings' grabbers. One of his primary opponents, Marco Rubio, thought that he could neutralize Trump by echoing his sleezy style. He was very, very wrong. His brief foray  into Trumpdom (remember the small hands allusion) quickly sank his nomination chances. In fact, Rubio soon realized his mistake and apologized for stepping out of character ... but it was too late.

Now, both the elite media and Trump's political opponents (one and the same) seem to be wallowing into this same dirty ditch ... thinking, by emulating Trump's coarse communication style, that they can diminish him. I just heard Elizabeth Warren call Trump a "small, insecure money grubber" and Mika Brzezinski say that Trump was "vomiting" out his latest political counterattack. Will this verbal toxicity turn the American voters against The Donald? Judging by my wife and daughter, I might say "yes." But, to me, it also sullied these two anti-Trump speakers. I also somehow doubt that my Massachusetts family is representative of most Americans. It awaits both parties' conventions and the political advertising onslaughts later in the summer before it can be determined how this mud wrestling match turns out.

If you want my guess, it would bet that those who think they can win by out-playing Trump at his grime game are fooling themselves. But what do I know?

The Worm Turns Again

Using an oft-repeated liberal media strategy,  MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show was very supportive of Donald Trump UNTIL he became the presumptive Republican candidate for president. Then what happened? Why this show turned on him like a pack of jackals ... and that includes the token Republican on this program, Joe Scarborough ... to see this worm turning go to: Politico Video.

For the early months of his campaign both Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were very supportive of Trump, usually welcoming his call-ins almost every morning. Now, just a few short months later, you can see the venom falling from their and their guests' lips as they magnify any assumed Trump failing into a disqualifying lapse. This 180-degree turn isn't even subtle. It is too obvious to be caused just by circumstances.

I say "oft repeated" because this very same scenario occurred in the last two presidential elections. Both John McCain and Mitt Romney thought that they were media darlings until they became the Republican nominees. Then the media worms performed their traditional pirouettes and started running hit piece after hit piece on them ... many of them obviously fictionalized. So Joe and Mika are following this same script. Trump has got to be a little taken aback by the swiftness of this u-turn ... as am I. For some reason I thought that these two were sincere in their early warm reception of The Donald. I was wrong.

To me, "Morning Joe" has become as biased as most of the rest of MSNBC's programming ... so toxic that I find it difficult to watch this show anymore.

Now, let us shift to the overarching issue ... should Trump "pivot" and become the personality that the liberal media and the Republican establishment wants him to become? Trump certainly doesn't seem to want to morph into this pablum persona, I believe, because he thinks that he got this far being who he is ... and he feels that this will see him through. I have no idea if this will be the case. But I think one thing for sure ... if he adopts this pablum persona, he will most certainly lose in a landslide. In investment terms, this is called being whipsawed. Voters may not vote for a blowhard ... but they clearly will not vote for a pasty, rehearsed cardboard image ... except, of course, if she is a woman.

Elevator Message

Back when I was seeking venture capital, I was told to condense my pitch into what could be sold in a short crowded elevator ride. Hillary Clinton was asked on "Morning Joe" yesterday by Mika Brzezinski to give the essence of what she would do if elected president. In an around-the-barn rambling she offered a disjointed series of platitudes that did not sell me ... or, I doubt, very many in her TV audience ... see if you can figure out what her core message is: Powerline Blog Entry. The elevator she would have to have been on would have been empty and in the Empire State Building.

As a contrast, Donald Trump obviously knows how to craft a terse message ..."Make America Great Again."

(Of course, if Hillary or Bernie Sanders were totally candid, they might just say, "Tax and spend.")

Income Inequality

In what industry do women earn much more money than men? Not surprisingly, it is the pornography industry ... see: Daily Mail Story. I suppose this has something to do with naked women having more commercial appeal than naked men. This article also points out that many of the actors in this medium, who perform as male homosexuals, are surprisingly heterosexuals. I have never ventured into this male-only cinema genre, but I have suspected that this is indeed the case with "gay" females ... not that there is anything wrong with that.

Can we also extrapolate this income differential into the high-fashion modeling business?  I suspect that this is also true. The top female model, Gisele Bundchen, certainly makes a pile more lucre than even her famous sports-star husband, Tom Brady ... see: ESPN Story. So, can we then say that income inequality is "relative?"

And there are at least 15 other industry sectors where women out-earn men ... see: Forbes Article. Can we now expect Mika Brzezinski to modify her periodic Morning Joe mouth-foaming rants against income inequality? I kinda doubt it ... for I suspect this has more to do with what Joe Scarborough earns next to what she makes.

Foaming at the Mouth

Ted Cruz is announcing his candidacy for the U.S. presidency today, the anniversary of the passing of Obamacare, and much of the media and the looney left are foaming at the mouth with hatred. This morning on the MSNBC show, Morning Joe, both Mika Brzezinski and Donnie ("often wrong but never in doubt") Deutsch could not come up with enough derisive adjectives to express their disdain for this Texas senator. I had to switch channels.

Despite his legacy of media pans and even some Republican critics, Ted Cruz will be a formidable candidate for his perspicacity and combativeness. He is a very good debater and is well versed on all the critical issues facing our nation. Beyond his mediocre polls and the vitriol likely to come his way from many talking heads in the days ahead, I would not count him out. I personally would prefer the somewhat softer-edged Hispanic, Marco Rubio, as the Republican candidate ... but, like the surprising comment from John McCann, if Cruz becomes his party's candidate, I would support him.

It may be that, given how our current Emperor is doing his damnedest to diminish this country, by the time the next election comes around, we may have the appetite for a little more militancy on the part of the Republican candidate. If Hillary Clinton or some other female is the Democrat candidate, then it may well be another election pitting the head against the heart ... a contest that, this time, could well favor the head ... someone like the " courageous conservative" Cruz.

Obesity

The American Medical Association (AMA) has just decided that obesity is a disease (see: USA Today Story).  This is a profound declaration and is likely to cause not just a ripple though our society, but a tsunami … considering that it is estimated that 1/3rd of Americans are already obese.  (Full disclosure: yours truly shops in the “hefty” section of clothing stores.)

Now, I am old enough to remember that, in Germany, being overweight was once considered to be a recognition that you had “made it” … particularly for men.  This might be a hint as to why so many in this country are fatties – we are a land of good and plenty and this plutocracy is reflected in out waistlines. Not only are we overweight, but we are also obsessed with getting svelte.  I once was friendly with Dr. Robert Atkins who made his fortune with his weight-loss theories … and is still famous long after he has expired (probably partly due to his being overweight.)  Even after the billions of dollars Americans have spent on diet fads and weight-loss regimes, things do not seem to be getting better.

So how do we fix things?  I don’t think it will be by banning super-sized drinks or by declaring that there are “food desert” areas of our cities or by forcing restaurant to list caloric contents on their menus or by many of the other cockamamie ideas touted by the likes of Mika Brzezinski or Michelle Obama.  Perhaps I too can offer a few silly suggestions:

-         stop making tobacco smokers into piranhas (maybe why Barack has stayed so thin)

-         start making pot smokers into piranhas (the munchies don’t help things)

-         bring back physical education to our school curricula

-         eliminate food stamps (EBT cards) for anyone overweight

-         locate all parking spots at least 100 yards away from the nearest store (or restaurant)

Unfortunately, these are probably not effective solutions (the real ones are too buried in our society’s ethos.)  And if I did have them, I would then be listed in the “Forbes 100,” a compendium of the world's richest people.

But the most insidious result of this AMA decision is that now millions more Americans will now likely apply for Social Security disability benefits (SSI) … in that they have this “disease” … again, an example of unintended consequences.

And what will happen to these people who then go on the federal dole?  You guessed it.

Lizzy

This morning on Morning Joe, they played a video tape of yesterday's Senate Banking Committee hearing ... Senator Elizabeth Warren's first ... in which she "hammered" a bunch of banking regulators with the repeated question, "When was the last time you took a Wall Street bank to trial?" (as a result of the 2008/2009 financial debacle.)  These regulators were visibly embarrasses and forced to respond that no bank had been indicted and put on trial in the last four years. See: Huffington Post Story

As a result of this tough questioning, Mika Brzezinski grabbed her pompoms and was audibly cheering in the background for Senator Warren's line of questioning.  And I have to admit, despite my stated animus toward this fake Indian from Massachusetts, I was cheering too. The fact that no one on Wall Street or from the financial community in general has gone to jail over the sub-prime mortgage crisis is one of the more egregious sins of the Obama administration.  Even Jon Corzine is still walking free after his company, MF Global, lost track of 1.6 billion dollars of its customer's money.

This aggressiveness on Senator Warren's part spawned the following strange thought on my part -- what if the reason Warren wasn't considered in 2011 to head up the Consumer Protection Agency wasn't because of Republican opposition, but rather because of the Obama administration's chariness ... its fear that she might start turning over stones in Washington?  She certainly has started out by upending a huge Obama bolder.

Keep it up, Lizzy!  I may end up liking you afterall.

Mika Brzezinski

Don't comment if you can sigh. Don't sigh if you can wince.  Don't wince if you can scowl.  Don't scowl if you can grimace.  (Or, alternatively, you can completely ignore those on the right by tweeting with the White House for your marching orders.)

Flipper

Flipper

When I was growing up the main-stream media clearly had a right-leaning bias.  Some time around the early 1970's things there flipped dramatically to the left.  I suspect it was a result of the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon's resignation.  However, the events in Viet Nam and the resulting protests ... along with Walter Cronkite's declaration of our eventual defeat by the Viet Cong ... and the publishing of the Pentagon papers by the New York Times ... all clearly presaged Woodward and Bernstein's triumph.  After that, the media fully realized its transformative powers and believed that its primary mission was bringing about even more social change ... as opposed to just reporting,  This coupled with the Supreme Court's decisions emasculating libel laws gave the U.S. media an extraordinary headwind to port.

The question then poses itself -- when will our media's bias flip back to the right?  (And I can confidently predict that this will happen someday ... the question is, of course, when?)  Clearly the Fox News network and the successes of the right-leaning talk radio (and some blogs) suggests that there is some movement in this direction.  However, the media tally (mostly network news, newspapers, Hollywood, and news magazines) is still overwhelmingly liberal.  My wife posed this very question to me this morning while watching Morning Joe on MS/NBC (which was sans Joe Scarborough, and, thus, a little hard to digest without some antacid tablets ... Mika Brzezinski's continued smirks exacerbated my dyspepsia.)

Over the course of today, I've attempted to answer this question many ways ... perhaps a Democrat scandal of the magnitude of Nixon's ... perhaps when Fox News's ratings match those of the combined network news programs ... perhaps even when a right-slanted movie takes the country by storm (Act of Valor?).  All these things are possible indications, but, upon much reflection, I have come up with what I believe to be the acid test ... that would be when that political chameleon, Arianna Huffington, flips back and, once again, becomes a conservative.

Leaning Right

I was surprised to see that both lefties, Chris Matthews and Katrina Vanden Heuvel, this morning on Morning Joe appeared to be moving away from supporting President Obama and towards backing Mitt Romney in the next Presidential sweepstakes. (Mika Brzezinski is still a solid rump-swab for The Barry.)  And these are not the only paleo-turncoats I've noticed among Democrats.  Increasingly, Obama's support appears to be slipping within his previously-solid base.  This is surprising, even shocking, to me ... and the question is why?

All I can come up with is that, even though such people would prefer to have the U.S. become a Socialist (or even a Communist) country, they, nevertheless, still want to have a country.

Afterward: See Further Proof 

The Emperor's New Clothes

Hans Christian Andersen tried to teach us about the pomposity of high political office thusly:

The emperor walked beneath the beautiful canopy in the procession, and all the people in the street and in their windows said, "Goodness, the emperor's new clothes are incomparable! What a beautiful train on his jacket. What a perfect fit!" No one wanted it to be noticed that he could see nothing, for then it would be said that he was unfit for his position or that he was stupid. None of the emperor's clothes had ever before received such praise.

"But he doesn't have anything on!" said a small child.

"Good Lord, let us hear the voice of an innocent child!" said the father, and whispered to another what the child had said.

"A small child said that he doesn't have anything on!"

Finally everyone was saying, "He doesn't have anything on!"

In my blog yesterday I mentioned how Mark Halperin had noted that The Barry had acted like "a dick" in his press conference the previous day.  After he had blurted this out, there was universal but short-lived mirth on the set of the Morning Joe show on MSNBC.  Mark Halperin effectively was Andersen's small child calling out our Emperor President for his haughtiness and hubris ... which few others have been willing to notice.  Quickly, however everyone was running around like their hair was on fire ... trying to bury this truism like a cat in a litter box.  Even Mr. Halperin ate a large piece of humble pie when he fully realized what was about to happen to him (and, of course, it did as he was subsequently indefinitely suspended.)  He repeatedly apologized.  Mika Brzezinski apologized.  Joe Scarborough apologized.  The show's producer apologized.  The make-up lady apologized.  The grip and best-boy apologized.

However, the truth will always shine through.  The Barry really is a dick ... even regaled in his new finery.

Why We Are Bombing Libya

 

Who will be the first to condemn President Obama for trading blood for oil?  Rachel "Mad Dog" Maddow?  Chris "Tingle up My Leg" Matthews?  Paul "Useful Idiot" Krugman?  Keith "Over the Top" Olbermann?  Mika "Ms. Smirker" Brzezinski?  Bill "Fifth Column" Moyers?  David "Go for the Throat" Gregory?