Beat The Press

 

 

"We are not going to let the fake news tell us what to do, how to live, or what to believe. We are free and independent people, and we will make our own choices."

 

Donald Trump

CPAC convention, 2/24/17

 

The Spice of Lies

Every month it seems, the right wing comes up with a catchy euphemism in order to distract the already pitifully distracted American people. A good example would be the term "job creators". They couldn't just come out and say they didn't want the "rich" or the "wealthy" to pay their fair share of taxes, so they came up with "job creators". Clever, huh? Their new idiotic catchphrase is "fake news". Trump's Hermann Goering wannabe, Steve Bannon, has labeled the press, "the opposition party". Not to any thinking person's surprise, the propaganda is finding acceptance in too many quarters for comfort. A lot of the  inmates of Idiot Nation are swallowing the bullshit with a smile and a giggle.

 

There was something they refer to as a "gaggle" in the White House press room yesterday. This is an informal gathering where TV cameras are usually turned off and reporters are obliged to resort to the old fashioned drudgery of taking notes. These events are not as uncommon as you might imagine. There is no rule  that says television needs to be present to record every second of history. The republic survived its first 170 years without the electronic media. When a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound if a video camera is not there to record that sound? It probably does. I'm still in the process of researching this tricky subject. Let me get back to you.

 

What made yesterday's little event different was the fact that representatives of  New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Politico were denied access to the briefing. To their credit, Time magazine and the Associated Press boycotted the gathering. Every news media outlet should have followed suit.

Herr Priebus

What we have here may very well prove to be the proverbial tipping point. That the Trump administration had been displaying tendencies that leaned toward the tyrannical is no profound scoop; anyone who bothered to pay a modicum of attention was able to figure that out at the starting gate. But this is something else indeed. The New York Times is not an underground, left wing rag, churned out in some embittered, elderly communist's basement on a shoestring budget. It's the most respected newspaper in the world - the paper of record - an institution that has been around over a century-and-a-half. It's "crime" (along with that of the LA Times and Politico) is that it has been disclosing to the public a few unpleasant facts recently that the Donald and his handmaidens would rather you and I remain in the dark about - particularly a recent report that chief-of-staff Reince Priebus was caught red handed trying to put the old kibosh on an ongoing FBI investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. This administration is a rolling scandal that metastasizes with the passing of each day. Ain't this oodles of fun to watch? 

Did you ever think you would live to see the day when we would be looking back at George W. Bush with a feeling of tender nostalgia? At the Trump inaugural last month, Dubya seemed to be a man almost giddy in his cheerfulness. And why wouldn't he seem that way? His reign as the most corrupt, incompetent chief executive in the history of human mediocrity has come to an end. I'd be pretty damned cheerful, too, were I in his shoes.

What is happening at the moment is nothing less than the rape of the First Amendment. Are we to expect this country to survive if this is allowed to occur? The time has come to take the gloves off, kids. Hurl the shit at the fan and let it fall where it may.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED READING:

Who's Making Things Up? Trump or the Media?
by Elizabeth Williamson

This dandy little essay appeared in yesterday's New York Times. Here's a link to read it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/opinion/trump-offers-good-soup-but-no-substance.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0

It's a keeper!