Headline

Senate hits pause in confirming Trump judges

Coronavirus live updates: Global cases top 1.8 million, Trump retweets #FireFauci

USA faces 18 months of rolling shutdowns?

Sri Lanka celebrates first Easter since jihadist bombings in quarantine

Virus threat prompts Supreme Court to set phone arguments

WHO officials say it’s unclear if recovered coronavirus patients are immune to second infection

Obesity single biggest factor in New York hospitalizations ...

Nolte: Fauci said going to ‘malls, movie theaters, gym’ okay on Feb. 28th

Sailor from USS Theodore Roosevelt dies of coronavirus

Amazon to hire 75,000 more workers as demand rises due to coronavirus

Leaders seize new powers, dangers grow for democracy ...

George Stephanopoulos tests positive for coronavirus

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

It surely was predictable. Much of the media has gone down its favorite rabbit hole ... finding a way to castigate Trump ... this time for the COVID-10 devastation. He coulda done more in January to stop the Wuhan virus ... so that it woulda not turned into a pandemic.  He shoulda declared a national emergency and shut down the country. Spittle-flecked Joe Scarborough says everyone knew what a huge problem this was in January ... see: Diagones’ Middle Finger entry.

This blog likes to juxtapose images. But this time I am asking you, dear reader, to juxtapose time frames. Imagine for a moment one of Trump’s nightly coronavirus task force pressers ... with VP Pence and Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx and the generals and FEMA et alia ... but imagine instead this is all happening in January of this year ... when Trump still might have nipped this pandemic in the bud. Got the image? See Trump directing the task force to ask people to social distance? To not travel to or from impending hot spots? To self quarantine?

Now switch to Chris Cuomo on CNN or Morning Joe on MSNBC or George Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning ABC. Can you see them pointing angry fingers at Trump for trying to  distract America from his impeachment trial?  The snarling rhetoric would be vicious. Adam Schiff would be beside himself eviscerating Trump for compounding his heinous guilt ... lying about the threat coming out of China.

Most of our national media woulda been dripping with hypocrisy just like they are now in their trying to rewrite history.

Living Life

In taped mainstream media sit-downs, nothing is accidental. It is all in the misleading tape editing. It’s only during live TV or radio interviews where the truth can emerge ... which is why you see so few of them. 

Interviews (mis)quoted in the press, magazines or books are reliably bullshit. ... and both these practices are best known by another name, “fake news.”

Watched the recent taped interview of Trump by Stephanopoulos of ABC ... and it included editorial voiced-over comments by Stephanopoulos during the interview cutaways. This is even more dishonest and prejudicial than their misleading tape editing ... but, sadly, is also a common practice of these news media “bulls.”

Headlines

Flynn ordered to appear in court with new Trump-approved lawyer

As Trump demands major concessions, Beijing wants the world to think US will blink first

Hackers that took down Saudi oil site probing U.S. power grid ...

Pew: Illegal population booms in Red states ahead of 2020 election

Drumbeat of war grows louder as Trump ratchets up the pressure

Militarized Iranian fast-boats stopped tug boats from salvaging damaged oil tankers: US official

Trump mocks Stephanopoulos: ‘Little wise guy’ ...

Joe Biden missing in action in Iowa during Democrat’s big weekend

Trump disputes McGahn testimony over attempts to fire Mueller

Japanese oil tanker owner disagrees with US military that a mine caused blast near Iran

Mexico publishes Trump’s ‘secret deal’ ...

Graham to Trump: Make Iran ‘feel pain’

The Phone Call

Here is a hypothetical secured phone call sometime in the future from the head of Norway’s intelligence agency (NIS) to President Trump:

Trump: Hello ...

NIS: President Trump?

Trump: Yes ...

NIS: Sir, I am the head of the Norway Intelligence Service and I have some very important news for you  ...

Trump: Yes?

NIS: Sir, we have recently recovered a body off of our northern coast who had a letter in his pocket to Putin marked “for your eyes only” which requests a wire transfer of $50 million to a bank account in Cyprus which we have traced to the head of your FBI. We have verified that this man was a Ukrainian operative with close ties to Russian intelligence and he had recently visited Washington, DC with a trip to the DNC. We believe that the head of your FBI and at least three of her lieutenants also visited the DNC shortly thereafter ... and that they have been compromised. We think that this is a serious threat to your national security.

Trump: How sure are you of what you just told me?

NIS: 100%

Trump: I can’t say how important this information is to the United States. We will not forget your help in this matter. Goodbye and thank you ...

NIS: Goodbye ...


Now, according to George Stephanopoulos and much of the US media, Trump should immediately notify the head of his FBI of this phone call. I know that this is only a hypothetical, but so was Stephanopoulos’.

Should he?

Burning Up Ants

For me, the analogy that best fits the Republican presidential-primary race is one of a small child burning up ants on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass.  The child is the national media who seem to be taking a sadistic puerile pleasure in incinerating the candidates one by one with opposition research, innuendo, gotcha debate questions, and sneering asides.  And it has worked beautifully.  Tim Pawlenty, pffft!  Michelle Bachmann, pffft!  Herman Cain, pffft!  Rick Perry, pffft!  Jon Huntsman, pffft!

Who's next? 

Mitt Romney barely escaped the searing magnifying-glass flash when George Stephanopoulos, as a debate moderator, asked him in early January if a state could ban contraception (see: Contraception Question).  This out-of-left-field question was so bizarre that Romney deftly batted it away.  But it clearly presaged the current White House tactic to eliminate a GOP candidate or two by swinging the focus away from the economy and onto social issues.  Does Stephanopoulos's then-silly question seem staged to you now?

Unfortunately, poor Rick Santorum has taken this media bait on the White House's "social issue strategy" and is slowly frying under the ensuing media magnification.  And the Democratic machine is now taking the unusual tactic of spending part of its huge war chest to run opposition ads against Romney in the Michigan primary ... since the convenient media narrative is that he must win there to have a chance at the nomination.  And I think the Democrat strategy with Newt Gingrich seems to be that his ego is so big that he will seek out the seering sunlight focused beam all by himself ... thinking it is the spotlight.

And, looking back on things, I can see that the decisions that were made by Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, and Sarah Palin to stay out of this nomination melee were quite perceptive.  I think that they must have seen that big magnifying glass in the sky ...