The Grey Lady piffles

Are staff writers at the New York Times suffering from ennui brought on by piffling pundits & piddly politicians?  'Cause they're writing stuff that doesn't even remotely resemble news.  

Today's FirstRead headline -  Emails Show Hillary Clinton Adviser Sidestepping Potential Conflict.   HUH?  They created a story out of Huma Abedin immediately taking herself OUT of a conversation due to potential conflict of interests.

Sad evidence of something I've come to suspect - writers no longer know how to be reporters.  String together words like HRC chief of staff, Huma Abedin (Anthony Wiener's wife!  Saudi ancestry!), e-mail & there's gotta be a story in there!!  Or not.  

What a waste of ink & time...

In November 2012, Kris Balderston, then in charge of the Global Partnership Initiative in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s office, sent an email about a potential joint initiative involving the State Department and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The email was sent to a group of people, including Huma Abedin, the deputy chief of staff to Mrs. Clinton, and to Thomas Shea, who at the time was one of the managing directors of Teneo, the firm where Ms. Abedin had a contract as a consultant, and which represented the Rockefeller Foundation.

Ms. Abedin quickly replied that she needed to be removed from the discussion because she was concerned about a conflict of interest.

But the exchange demonstrated the potential for such issues to have arisen as part of her status as a special government employee, a designation that allowed her to work for Teneo, the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and the Clintons personally.

So the big news was not that anything WRONG happened, but that it COULD have.  Yeah, like we didn't know that?  What the story actually illustrates - although it's not presented as if it does - is that Ms. Abedin handled the situation precisely in the way she should.

I am getting sooooo tired of media outlets getting riled up over non-issues. 

Thinkest thou there might be a connection between the gosh awful reporting coming out of outlets like The Grey Lady & the fact most are owned by only six (6) corporations?  

The days of the 4th estate standing up for the rights of the individual citizens are past & we're back in the good old, bad old days of yellow journalism*.  Just substitute Murdock & his ilk for Hearst & his.

High principles have rolled over in the face of higher profits for a select circle of corporate owners. Want proof?  How about the "newspaper of record" running a non-story that gives the whiff of scandal instead of applauding the  Clinton camp for acting exactly as they'd pledged.

God help us all - the 4th estate has left the building.

* Yellow journalism was a style of newspaper reporting that emphasized sensationalism over facts. During its heyday in the late 19th century it was one of many factors that helped push the United States and Spain into war in Cuba and the Philippines.    Seems we're back to the future. 

The long game

Savvy politicos know that the winning hand is often held by whoever has the nerve to play the long game.  It helps when opponents are virtually clueless about the game that's actually being dealt.

Praise be for a sister - as committed a mid-late 20th century conservative as you could find - who ALWAYS pointed out the fallacy of ever believing a Republican who seemed to say that Roe v. Wade was untouchable, that Social Security was now the law of the land & untouchable, ditto Medicare.  She said that bringing down those three things were always & would be forever the core goal of the modern GOP.  I think she could have thrown in the any civil rights act & still been on target.

 

Bill Buckley was the erudite master of the long game.  It's time to get very afraid, Heather Cox Richardson's article in Salon, is an important read for understanding the genesis & evolution of his Conservative Movement that, seven years after his death, took down John Boehner.  A very long game, indeed.

 

 

One brief excerpt, that particularly speaks to what I've seen over the past 15 years, especially since 2009:
By the time of the George W. Bush administration, Movement Conservatives controlled the Republican Party, and they abandoned reality in favor of their simple story line. A member of the Bush administration famously noted to journalist Ron Suskind that “the reality-based” view of the world was obsolete. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” this senior adviser to the president told Suskind. “When we act, we create our own reality.”  


photo credits:  neveryetmelted. com, mrctv.org

Dick Cheney in drag?

Sorry if you find the headline offensive - it's me being upfront about how spectacularly offensive I find almost every aspect of Carly Fiorina, someone I expected to support, until she started talking.  

In my opinion, the heading is simply correct.  She's a female version of Dick Cheney.  My guess is she might take that as a compliment.  

        

"Fiorina also expressed support for the government’s sweeping surveillance programs, including the NSA’s data collection program -- saying she did not think it “went too far” -- and the post-9/11 warrantless wiretapping program, which was ordered by the Bush White House and collected in bulk the phone records and emails of Americans.  "

Instead of this... Try this...

Instead of this...

try this!

Biden her time?

The media all in for Biden throwing his hat in the ring.  But imagine Elizabeth Warren entering the race!  Her lack of experience can't be a draw back in the general - three out of the top four GOP candidates have NO government experience.  She has the charisma & oomph utterly lacking in Hillary.  And she has a track record of government-related accomplishments.  

You go, girl!

  

Piddling politics, piffling pundits

How low can Campaign 2016 go?  Stay tuned!

 

 

photo credits - westernjournalism.com

 

Tragically played for chumps

My in-depth education about terrorism started back in the early 1970s, on my first trip to England.  First two lessons learned - 1) if you see a bag on the sidewalk, DON'T touch it;  2) don't let terrorism succeed by being terrified - beat the bastards at their own game by living without fear.  The IRA unleashed a lot of attacks against British citizens, especially in London, but the Brits stood tall & resolute & didn't lash out at a known but unidentifiable enemy.  

Here on the other side of The Pond, it's another story.  The mastermind behind 9/11 knew his prey.  Sadly, Osama Bin Laden right fully earned his own Mission Accomplished banner.  Could write more, but this Daily Kos article says it better than I could.