Introduction
So let us talk for a moment about the term “fake news.” Why are we talking about this all of a sudden? Why is this a thing now?
During the campaign there were various stories that circulated on the Internet, made up of whole cloth, some of which were not flattering to Hillary. In the aftermath of the election, when her people were flailing around in search of someone or something to blame besides Her Majesty, one of the things they tried out was the idea that it was “fake news” that had hurt her in the final days of the election. Let’s run that one up the flag pole to see if anyone salutes.
Not only did no one salute, but something else entirely happened.
Qualifications
But before proceeding further, let me acknowledge fully and sincerely that there were stories out there about Hillary that, when it came to the falsitudinous quotient, ranked pretty high up there. I also acknowledge that Nigerian princes who are stranded in Manila with a suitcase full of gold bullion are also not, shall we say, legit. Do not send them your bank account number. And further, I cheerfully note that purveyors of clickbait techniques love to tell us that what Ted Cruz said next went BOOM, and that Kellyanne Conway DESTROYED Anderson Cooper, and that when you see what Bo Derek looks like now it will BLOW YOUR MIND. So Hillary had to deal with that foolishness, as well all the rest of us. Welcome to earth, kid.
And here is another qualification. Donald Trump is a wrecking ball. It is possible to applaud the fact of some of the wreckage without applauding, um, the entire project. Remember that Elisha met privately with Hazael, but was not in cahoots with Hazael. Elisha sent a young prophet to anoint Jehu king, but was not part of Jehu’s faction. I look at Donald Trump calling CNN names in a presidential news conference, and I realize yet again that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Back to the Thread
So this is when the other thing happened. Fake news became an item of concern as the Hillary folks were trying to explain to us how the most qualified woman in the world managed to lose to Donald Jehu Trump. They put the phrase fake news into play, but they tried doing so by means of an onside kick. The ball flew like a wounded duck, landed on the pointy end, and bounced in ways that would require a sportswriter of the old school to describe. Trump picked it up, but instead of running for the end zone, he ran down the offensive line of the Democratic Party, knocking over CNN, CBS, MSNBC, two refs, and the water boy, and . . .
Look. Let us be frank with each other, you and I. Sometimes when the metaphor mojo is running a little hot, there really isn’t anything you can do except start a new paragraph and hope that the pistons didn’t melt.
At any rate, the phrase fake news was used by Hillary to refer the mole hill of Facebook stories that described her as an illegal immigrant from Area 51, and then Trump picked the phrase up and used it to refer to the Himalayas of bum dope that has been churned out by the metric ton for decades now by what we call the main stream media. He used it of them and on them, and the dang thing stuck. He refused to allow CNN to question him in a press conference because “you are fake news.” And in one presser, he said, no, no, that isn’t quite right. “You are very fake news.” Hillary tried to call flake news by the name fake news, and it got turned around and applied to a more worthy object.
Now ordinarily this would be just an insult and, if Mark Twain is to be believed, an ill-advised one. “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” But this is not an ordinary circumstance, and I honestly don’t know if the newsprint, broadcast, and cable establishment is going to be able to recover from this. Here is why.
Dinosaur Hunting
Let us go back to the logic of the Industrial Revolution, which was a centralizing logic. The capstone of that Revolution was the newsprint media established in major cities (19th century) and the broadcast media (20th century). In the 1980’s, CNN arrived as a Johnny-come-lately on cable, making one think of an episode like the United States colonizing the Philippines—you know, two centuries late and very self-important.
When I was a boy, you got your news, if you got it at all, from the newspaper or from one of the big three broadcast stations—CBS, NBC, or ABC. If they blew sunshine at you, as they frequently did, there was not really much you could do about it. In most cases, you would not even know. There was no real way to cross check anything. What we ingested was mass media, delivered in bulk. To re-adapt an image from a colorful writer of another era, stories went into the massive news factories on the hoof and came out in cans. The gatekeepers were quite diligent, and there were very few gates to guard. If your news source of choice was broadcast television, you had three flavors to choose from. The cans were all the same size, and had basically the same gelatinous content.
If someone was lied about, or misrepresented, or the story that involved them was significantly garbled, there was no practical recourse for that person. And the fact that there was no recourse meant that there was no real disincentive for the media to avoid doing it. To be sure, there was that pesky concept called journalistic ethics that were supposed to govern the whole operation, but because there was very little practical recourse for the victim of a bad story, this meant that journalistic ethics had no one providing any police protection, and they lived on the bad side of town.
If I might insert my own testimony, as one who has been written about in newspapers and magazines a lot, it is safe to say that it is usually the case that some significant fact or facts are gotten wrong, particularly if the story involves some controversy. In other words, usually wrong, frequently unreliable. And in this regard, there has been no appreciable difference with Christian media—magazines like World, for example, have done a much poorer job with us than The New York Times has done. And this is not to say that the Times doesn’t have its issues. Heh, heh, its issues. Get it?
What this has done, over the course of decades, is create a vast pent-up frustration with the media, not quite coast to coast, but close. This has been recognized for a long time, and politicians on the right have angled for cheap points forever by attacking the media during campaigns. Yay. But everything stayed just the same after elections as before, and the frustration continued to build.
What Trump is doing is attacking a venerable institution that is already wasting away. He is dinosaur hunting with shoulder-mounted RPGs. He is shooting at them from a rented safari jeep.
Alt-Media, Not the Alt-Right
So the significant change that has occurred is that it has become possible to stay reasonably well-informed without coming into contact with any of the establishment media. A lot of people have taken the by-pass, and don’t drive through downtown Big Media at all anymore. I haven’t read a newspaper regularly for over a decade. I would have work to find out when the big three newscasts even air. I have no idea where they are hiding these days. I usually find out about breaking news through Twitter, Facebook, or various web sites. Those web sites are collated for me by me—I am my own “editor,” assembling them to taste. The editorial bias that all such sites have can be regulated and balanced with the presence of other sites. I can drop or add, depending. For example, during the heat of this last campaign I dropped Drudge (because of the pom poms), and now that the election is over, I can handle checking him again from time to time.
A Day Late
What has been striking to me is that a number of Republicans have been leaping to the defense of the legacy media. They have stood for years against media “bias,” and have complained about that liberal bias in a whiney voice for almost the same length of time, but they draw the line at Trump calling them all out for the buffoons, poltroons, and macaroons that they are. I know, don’t look it up. A macaroon is a small circular cake, a dainty, a trifle. Actually I think that works.
Moving on.
It is not an assault on freedom of the press to identify liars. It is not blackening the reputation of a venerable institution to point out that it has ceased long ago to be a venerable institution. Mencken had something to say on this: “American journalism (like the journalism of any other country) is predominately paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous but its accomplishments are insignificant.”
In short, it matters not that Donald Trump is an unworthy messenger. The dinosaurs are old and decrepit, and the safari jeep has been on paved roads the whole time, Trump is going to sleep like a baby in a luxury hotel tonight, and the entire thing is completely unfair. But the fact that something feels unfair doesn’t keep it from happening.
This accounts for why it is that celebrity journalists are dancing in place, and spitting occasionally.
The important distinction is with Trump/Obama calling a story biased, or unfair. . .and Trump calling many news outlets “the enemy of the American people”, which reeks of despotism.
We’re all good with calling out a bad story. That’s not what Trump is doing here. He’s calling “fake” any story that doesn’t paint him in the most flattering light. That’s different than what Obama did with Fox News. That’s a different animal, and we shouldn’t be for it.
Aaron, the news networks are purveyors of propaganda, yellow journalism and just straight up lies. This is not a new fact, but has been the case for decades. The vast majority of our news outlets, national and local, are enemies of the American people and that includes Fox.
Do you fault Obama for not saying about Fox the same things Trump says about news outlets that do not flatter him? Even if you are correct about news networks (and you are not completely wrong but you overstate) Aaron’s point still stands. Trump’s reaction against reporters and commentators who question or critique him is qualitatively different than that of any President before him. Do you really think that is so because Trump objectively views news networks as purveyors of propaganda or because they decline to be purveyors of *his* propaganda? I’m going with B.
During Vietnam, two separate unclassified reports for two different administrations were compiled using moving film, photographs and written statements detailing exactly how our news reporters were falsely reporting on actions in Vietnam. The reports showed the reporters paying rear echelon soldiers and Vietnamese soldiers to shoot up the jungle outside Saigon so that the footage could be passed off as a real firefight. The Time reporter did not leave Saigon’s bars even though he wrote that he was in I Corps just below the DMZ or in the Delta. Our reporters did not want to point out the results of… Read more »
If *nothing* the news networks reported was ever factual and all they ever projected was fabricated news then they would be guilty of *completely* misleading and false reporting. On the other hand, if amidst the sensationalism and manufactured “news”, the media does sometimes tell us, and show us, things that actually happened, then their reporting is not altogether misleading and false. For a recent example, all the news media reported to us that Trump won the electoral college and thus, to everyone’s surprise (except those who pretend not to be) Trump won the election and is now POTUS. Am I… Read more »
Keep reading the paper if you wish. However, the fact remains that our news is manufactured and only a tiny portion of it is true. When Reagan visited Berlin in 1987, I was in a bunker in Germany watching German and French TV and listening to BBC radio. The Brandenburg Gate area was packed with more Germans than when Kennedy visited. It was a huge, cheering, appreciative crowd. A few blocks away, there was a small protest. When the US news came on that night, ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN covered the visit as “Reagan Protested In Berlin” rather than… Read more »
Some of us are waking up to how it’s been the “case for decades.”
This is a video about Russia that Assange linked to that was an eye opener for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=242&v=e7HwvFyMg7A
I don’t think that falsely calling a murderer a liar is justified just because the man is otherwise evil. Nor is it helpful to falsely accuse a man of a specific lie because he is otherwise a liar. But if a man is a murderer and a liar I don’t think it behooves me to defend him the occasional time he tells the truth. Yes, if I am asked I will align myself with the truth outside a partisan spirit. But why do we have to get upset that a man with questionable ethics is taking out a vast media… Read more »
I would answer you and Dave by saying “The first ammendment means we have a free press”. Loathsome? yes Wrong at times? yes. Biased at times? yes Free? Should be always. They are not the enemy. We know who the enemy is, and we have a better country.
A free press is a good thing. A press that prints routinely prints falsehoods sprinkled with an occasional dash of truth is not a good thing. Our major news networks do not report truthfully and aren’t just biased, they are against our constitutional republic more commonly known as America.
The major news networks are the enemy of the American public.
The press should be free, but it doesn’t follow that therefore the press are not the enemy. Taken as a class, they have busied themselves for decades pushing an agenda that is designed to undermine the good, the true, and the beautiful — and they did so deliberately. Of course they’re the enemy.
The beauty of the freedom of the press is that the lamestream media doesn’t really have a means to enforce their monopoly, now that the logistical barriers are largely surmounted.
I have no objection to a free press.
Still, many of them are enemies of goodness and truth.
Well, . . you guys are fully onboard with Trump’s vision of what the media is. So, I understand more now, why He won, and how affective his message is. I strongly disagree with this line of thinking. I think the Press is led and worked in by humans and so there are agendas, and biases, etc. . . But, the beauty of America is that an adversarial Press is one of (not the only) the things that keeps checks and balances in our society. I’m not saying we consume Media unwittingly, or with no filter. Far from it. .… Read more »
So you should feel great that we have that again, after eight years of curious absence!
Aaron, many of us have had our paradigm of the media shifted through this election, not by having conservative blinders on, but by paying attention and by getting news from sources not bankrolled by Slim, Murdoch, Bezos, Soros, etc.
ASHV is correct on this issue. Aaron, where was the adversarial press for the last decade or so? Oh, that’s right — they were covering up: -Abortion body parts for sale -Obama’s failed economy -Obama and Hillary’s failed international process that destroyed the Middle East Benghazi where our ambassador was murdered and covered up by blaming a poor schmuck and his YouTube video. Remember he was put in prison to cover up the Obama administration’s mistakes. -Eric Holder’s gun running programs inside and outside the US. You do know that one of Holder’s weapons was used in Paris terrorist attacks… Read more »
To Dave, Ginny, and ASHV. . . . I didn’t address the previous 8 yrs, and btw, I agree that Obama had an easier time with the White House Press Corp. No argument. Does that mean that any negative Press about Pres. Trump is “an enemy of the American people”???? Again, I have no problem with harsh criticisms of the Press, and pointing out their leftist bias. Pres. Obama pointed out the Right slant of Fox News. That is not a problem. What Trump is doing, is trying to DELEGITIMIZE any Press that does not paint him in a favorable… Read more »
And, even if we’re saying the Press was not adversarial “enough” during Pres. obama’s tenure. Does that mean we need a “correction” now??? We need some kind of balancing of the scales? I don’t think so. That would be the worst kind of agenda-laden propaganda.
Aaron, the point is that the press is against America’s basic principles and the very framework of our country. The American press pushes false or misleading news at crucial moments which form peoples minds about events to support a direction they normally wouldn’t go otherwise. During Vietnam, there were two large set piece battles between the NVA and US forces. In both cases, the US won unprecedentedly against the NVA. The first was in the La Drang valley and the second at Khe Sanh. During and after both battles, the US media said that the US forces were defeated by… Read more »
Part of your confusion probably stems from the fact that “the American people” isn’t a single group with unified interests.
The press may not be an enemy of your people, but it definitely is the enemy of mine, and has been for decades.
Not true. You didn’t listen to his press conference in full. He said he had no problem with legitimate criticism and I think he meant it. He is simply pointing out that much of MSM has deligitimized themselves by their outrageous hypocrisy. Trump isn’t erudite and maybe that is the problem that we “educated” folk are having with him.
DJT, by professional habit speaks in ready made, off the cuff, sound bites.
For Bill Clinton, it took focus groups to come up with “It’s the economy stupid.”
DJT “don’t need no stinkin’ focus groups” to come up with tractable sound bites,
like, for instance “Very fake news!” ; – )
For the record, I LOVED his press conference. But then, I am a simpleton who likes the story of the Media Emperors Have No Clothes.
What I meant to say, is that DJT speaks, like the realestate developer that he is. For most devleopers every new / next project, is “The Greatest” project, and they Talk up the positives of every project, in grand but also fairly simple and understandable terms.
By contrast, the msm, who produce illusion, not reality, tend to talk up their points in an over complicated, agressively defensive way.
Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi! Aaron, Obama had an innocent man put in prison to cover up the administration’s mistakes. Our ambassador and four good men were murdered because Obama and Hillary would not release military assets to save them. The US press ran with that story all the way to the finish line. That is illegitimate news and makes anything that you propose Trump is doing pale by comparison. Do you understand that? The news is not just biased, it is running a full court press to dump Trump outside of Constitutional limitations and well outside of the First Amendment. Fox… Read more »
“I’m saying Trump IS trying to filter the media and trying to throw out anything he doesn’t like, or doesn’t further is agenda.”
Sure but he didn’t originate the practice. He’s just more ham handed about it.
True. But we should not give Trump a pass on behavior that we condemned in Richard Nixon.
Nor should we give a pass to the presidents in between.
Hi Aaron, I think you are assuming more than is warranted. I possibly read and view more liberal media than I do conservative. I do not think that Trump is honest and would not be surprised if he changed on a principle if he thought it served his purpose. But I think he is correct about left leaning media. They are quick to call out others for being fake with nary a concern of their own duplicity. They think (or at least claim) that they are objective and mostly are not. They hold righteous men in contempt and lie in… Read more »
“the enemy of the American people”
LOL! Amen. A free press is a cornerstone of American democracy and if you are so bought and paid for that you produce nothing but narratives designed exclusively to attempt to brainwash people, then you are not serving the entire concept of journalism.
I’ll comment after I finish bringing the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. back up from the basement.
Oh! wait………….
; – )
So, in your opinion, what would it look like if journalism was the enemy of the American people?
Typo: “his accounts for why”
Let me just add my “Yay!”
More corrections:
– PREDOMINANTLY paltry and worthless
– I would have TO work to find out when the big three newscasts even air
– Shouldn’t the ‘H’ in “His” in that final sentence be capitalized?
Surpirsed that you didn’t comment on Milo going to CPAC.
And the plot thickens. Milo has been disinvited from CPAC.
I heard it on CNN.
j/k
A tape surfaced in which he appears to be defending sex with boys under the age of consent.
I am a regular reader of World. I am a regular reader of you, Pastor Wilson. A quick search yielded an article that you wrote back in 2001. And there’s a Doug Wilson having something to do with a Catholic charity.
By leveling an accusation like you did, I would like to know how they did wrong by you.
I concur. World isn’t perfect but from what I’ve heard from them they’re better than ABCNNBCBS.
I think they wrote something about the accusations of plagiarism against him that he didn’t believe was accurate. If I remember right, he attempted to correct their story but they wouldn’t accept his clarification. I have only a vague recollection of it, but it can probably found by searching this site.
DW & World Magazine:
– What in the World? (https://dougwils.com/books/what-in-the-world.html)
– My Relationship with World (https://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/my-relationship-with-world.html)
– Accuracy & Objectivity (https://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/accuracy-and-objectivity.html)
– Me & Steve (https://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/me-and-steve.html)
DW & The New York Times:
– Onward Christian Soldiers (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30Christian-t.html)
I have had a dislike and distrust of the media ever since my dinky little newspaper had me engaged in a high speed chase in which we reached peak speeds of 37 mph. A trifle I know, but in truth I was simply going 35 in a 25 and and had no shoulder to pull over on. I didn’t even get a ticket, just a warning. My affection for the media has only gotten worse as I have tried desperately to comment on articles and items and learned that such things are only possible if you are thinking in a… Read more »
We’re all unworthy messengers, but many people try much harder than Trump does to be truthful, virtuous, and ethical.
Trump has his faults, no doubt, but let’s examine those terms. Is it “truthful” to break campaign promises? Is it “ethical” to allow amoral eggheads from Harvard steer you into a proxy war? Is it “virtuous” to back down from a fight that needs to be fought because you’re afraid of the blowback? All of these things were done by Bush Sr. and Jr. but few in the conservative camps went after them the way they are doing to Trump.
“Let’s run that one up the flag pole to see if anyone salutes.
Not only did no one salute, but something else entirely happened.”
A nation wide Bronx cheer, right? ; – )
“…. Sometimes when the metaphor mojo is running a little hot, there really isn’t anything you can do except start a new paragraph and hope that the pistons didn’t melt.” Now, given that I make my living modifying engines for high performance and racing, let me assure you Pastor Wilson that the reason pistons melt is not due to overheating, but rather to incorrect timing, …and your timing is always excellent. (The exception to that rule of thumb is when dealing with a 2 cycle rather than a 4 cycle engine, however I am quite sure no one around here… Read more »
Shhh. Don’t tell my chainsaw! If it weren’t for our old Stihl we wouldn’t be able to cut enough wood to reach our pollution quotas.
JL, it’s closely guarded secret that the EPA’s metaphor mojo is powered by a coal fired, low RPM reciprocating steam engine. This explains why they are so hard pressed to come up with any good metaphors! ; – )
Well I guess if you wanted to put the right’s wholesale retreat into a nice, thick bubble in the most flattering terms possible, you’d say something like this. If you look at it straight, it’s just tribalism and confirmation bias at work. No one wants to read anything that might trouble their delicate minds. The only way to get something like the truth is to visit as many bubbles as possible.
So,… ihow would you “put” left’s wholesale internal sanctimony attack?
Do they not demonstrate grave issues with tribalism, confirmation bias, basic logic, and cause and effect?
Not in the same way. They didn’t consciously hunker down into a bubble
the way the right did. Instead the bubble kind of settled on them, and
then they found that even mainstream Republicanism annoyed them
sufficiently that they’d rather not hear about it anymore.
Mmmm, not really, If you consider that the left has some relationship to Marx, I think it’s more like the left created their own “fake bubble” communisim/socialism, and then wanted everyone to live in it.
I think there is the social left which is not necessarily Marxist. Most of my leftist friends have too much money to favor Marxism. They favor a secular state with tolerance for diversity.
Well Jilly! You just helped me invent a new word!
“fauxcialisim” ????????????
Come to think of it, our very Jr. Senator, “fauxcahontas” is the epitome of “fauxcialism”! ????
Better to start at the English Civil War with your history of leftism.
Ash, one could say that Cromwell and the Puritans, took a lesson from Israel, and chose God as a king, rather than a man.
Looking at the English civil war that way, wouldn’t that make you the “leftist”? ????
Anyway, I am happy to saddle Marx with design responsibility for our current version of recreational leftist socialism.
Paid for, as always, by non- socialists.
LOL, no.
Thus saith “lord” Ash. ; – )
Oliver was a “Lord Protector”, not a king.
Then again, who was “king” of the American Puritans?
The Stuarts. James I and Charles I to start with.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mass03.asp
Mayflower Compact In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc. Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our… Read more »
Yes. And?
They put God first, like I said, then men.
You said “LOL” to that, which was a weak response, from you, a guy who sometimes displays more game than that.
That’s fine.
The people who cut off their rightful king’s head did not put God first.
Was Henry VIII right to break with Rome? Were the people who refused to go along with him heroic martyrs or were they rebels against their sovereign?
My impression is that there were plenty of good reasons to maneuver for political independence from Rome, and Henry picked a fairly bad one.
My impression is there were plenty of good men with good reasons to maneuver for ecclesiastical independence from Rome and they used a bad man to facilitate the move.
Ash, king Chuck, ran afoul of the Magna Carta, Chuck was tried for his crimes, found guilty and executed. People who honorably execute the Law against criminals do put God first.
Kings who are convicted criminals lose their right.
Even if one grants that Parliament had the authority to do that (which I don’t), that doesn’t explain their refusal to submit to Charles II.
Would David have been justified in killing Saul?
Well, Saul certainly was not justified in actually attempting to murder David. David was gracious and did not kill Saul, even when he had multiple opourtunities.
On the other hand Jehu was justified in killing Joram, Ahaziah and Jezebel. So there are instances where executing kings is OK.
Finally, monarchy did come back to England after Cromwell, and not all of the Puritans came to America, so those Puritans did allow themselves to be subjects of the proceeding monarchs. Of course, Parliment and the Prime minister, hold the most power now, and the monarch is currently a more ceremonial position.
The “Glorious Revolution” ended the sovereignty of the English king. William III was a mere appendage of Parliament.
Why not the Diet of Worms and “Here I Stand” ? That was the real watershed wasn’t it?
The Reformation definitely shook up the power dynamic between prince, emperor, and pope. But it only led to the execution of a king by rebellious fanatics in one country.
You can’t be serious. But of course you are. Otherwise, you’d be a Roman Catholic. Look, for all his flaws, Jefferson was not wrong in his belief that the American revolution and the French one were a singular thing. And separating these from the English is likewise arbitrary. They don’t call it the ‘Age of Revolution’ for nothing.
Agreed. The French and American revolutions were pretty immediately downstream from the English one. I certainly think many political consequences of the Reformation were… regrettable. If the Church had more integrity and less investment in temporal power at the time, the opening for opportunistic German princes, etc., would not necessarily have developed.
“No one wants to read anything that might trouble their delicate minds.”
LOL! Most things I read these days seem to trouble my delicate mind
God willing, that bubble will stretch from the Atlantic to Pacific in my lifetime.
Hilarious.
By the way, are you familiar with the research that shows American conservatives are much better at modelling the opinions and beliefs of progressives than vice versa?
The minority effect in action, no? Sort of the same way black people understand more about white culture than the reverse.
Yes.
Now, think about what that means for your comment above.
I thought about it. No impact.
I’m sure it felt like thinking.
Haha, always a pleasure sir.
Sounds interesting. Can you give me a link?
Do you think this might be, in part, because many conservatives start off liberal?
Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Righteous Mind” covers this somewhat.
https://theindependentwhig.com/haidt-passages/haidt/conservatives-understand-liberals-better-than-liberals-understand-conservatives/
I can see why you’d think that way; after all, it’s not like your side lost the election.
I’m on no one’s side man.
If you aren’t on our side, why should we listen to you?
Of course not, man.
The massive defeat the left suffered in the last election looks totally like “the right’s wholesale retreat into a nice, thick bubble.”
The farce is strong with this one.
Small correction. It wasn’t Hillary having an alien baby that prompted the ‘fake news’ tag. It was and is the vast network of pedophiles running around Washington and beyond. It doesn’t take a doctorate from Yale to recognize the truth here, and I suspect it’s going to be more #RealNews than most of us are ready to handle.
Of course, as with everything else this administration will do successfully, when the evil is exposed it will be all due to pure dumb, buffoonish, bombastic, cheeto-colored, stumbled upon luck.
Is there anything that Cheetos don’t improve?
No, I think not. ; – )
Brilliant branding!
WikiLeaks perfectly timed the release of the Podesta (a.k.a. Mr. Ashes) and DNC emails. Not too far from the election, so the fickle public didn’t forget and not too close so that investigators had time to sift through them. The most damaging ones came the week of the election, when all the leftist foot soldiers were out campaigning and had no time to do damage control.
As soon as the election was over, the brown shirts were reassigned and the trolling began in earnest on the websites and twitter feeds of the citizen journalists and the term “fake news” appeared.
WikiLeaks had very helpful timing. And to be fair to the leftists, they thought the cheers of Hillary winning would drown out any talk of pizza or pasta. The main failing of the left is that they only have one rule book, and it depends on the right’s inherent need to be polite and civil. Praise God that He gave the Republicans a leader who is not adverse to being impolite or uncivil. It is the second most effective means to out-Alinsky Alinsky. The first and best means is to stand firm in the truth, not give ground and declare… Read more »
It’s been fantastically entertaining to watch. God willing he’ll destroy the CIA next.
(There is still much work to be done; still looking forward to a day when journalism is licensed or illegal.)
You need to revisit Milton’s Aereopagitica.
Things have come to a pretty pass when a Catholic supports a Puritan against a Presbyterian wants to restore the Stuarts. I wasn’t familiar with this speech by Milton, so I had a look. First off, if he’s this verbose in anything else this is going to be the last work by Milton I bother with. Anyway, he cites approvingly ancient restrictions on the “blasphemous, atheisticall, and Libellous”; care to make any guesses how much of journalism he’d categorise that way? Finally: “For God sure esteems the growth and compleating of one vertuous person, more then the restraint of ten… Read more »
Don’t dismiss “Paradise Lost”; it is unbelievably gorgeous.
My forebears were all over the map, religiously speaking. One branch of the family was involved in the Monmouth Rebellion against James II. Another was part of a long string of Dissenters who eventually formed a cult called the Bible Christians. But most of us were peasants who cheered for the Cavaliers. “I could not love thee, dear, so much/Loved I not honour more.” I’m sure we hid them in our humble huts.
Some years ago, I saw a copy of the Weekly World News in the grocery store checkout lane with the headline, “WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO HAIRY APE BABY.” The very next week, the headline was, “HAIRY APE WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO NORMAL BABY.” They were efficient in the “use of concept” department. Checks and balances are all fine and well, but when you get to the end of the line of that system, it’s the American public who decides what level of lies we are willing to put up with. For it to work properly, we need a well-educated public… Read more »
It’s killing me that many Christians think our biggest problem is Trump’s checkered past and his banter with the press. What about bravery folks? When did that virtue go out of style? There is a tremendous war going on in the cybersphere, with some very gutsy folks putting their lives on the line to expose the truth about oligarchy, corruption and deep state control. Meanwhile, American Christian leaders aren’t even willing to mount a full-scale defense of a grandma florist.
Amen! You tell ’em. Courage is a virtue, standing up for things is a virtue. Leaving a Christian grandma out hanging in the wind because you’re afraid of rocking the boat…not virtue.
So you’re fine with Milo’s promiscuous sex life but would not provide the flowers if he wanted to get married?
ME can speak for herself and likely will, but I would say no and yes: I object strenuously to his sex life, and would also not provide flowers if asked. Which he wouldn’t, because he actually values freedom of religion. But this kind of equivocation is beside the point: my opinion of Milo’s licentiousness is immaterial, because no-one has asked me to regulate the matter. If I were legislating, his sex life would be illegal and his own dreadful experience in childhood would be exhibit A. But that is neither here nor there. I also think people should avoid the… Read more »
I feel very sorry for the lady, but it is a difficult case to defend because Washington State law is very clear about prohibiting discrimination in business contexts. I read the ruling carefully, and the law as written did not give them much leeway. It seemed to hinge on whether you can draw a distinction between what a person is and what a person does. If a gay guy gets married, he is probably going to marry another guy. The court held that if you object to the person he marries, you are objecting to his gayness because his gayness… Read more »
You’re missing the boat, Jill. Don’t feel sorry for her. She has enormous treasure waiting for her in heaven. Her case is not sad–it is a glorious example of the common man standing against the tyranny of the state. She is a kind, gracious bull-dog. She is my hero.
Red-pill out of the California Matrix, Jill, and join us in Middle Earth. You’ll feel so much better as the cognitive dissonance leaves your brain.
jillybean wrote: I feel very sorry for the lady, but it is a difficult case to defend because Washington State law is very clear about prohibiting discrimination in business contexts. I read the ruling carefully, and the law as written did not give them much leeway. I continue to be disappointed in jillybean’s inability to grasp the issue. She can be much better than this. The issue is not her reading of Washington State law, or how clear it is. Does jillybean suppose that the disciples should have consulted local law before they started preaching another King besides Caesar? What… Read more »
I am always sorry to disappoint you, Katecho, and I have been thinking about this for a couple of days. I don’t want to beat up on a dear old lady who was caught off guard in deciding exactly what to say, so can we make this hypothetical but with the same fact pattern? The apostles would have done the right thing and broken the law, but I doubt that they would have appealed to Caesar to protect their conscience rights. This, it seems to me, is where these cases get a little muddy. If I decide to engage in… Read more »
jillybean wrote: I don’t think your typical small business owner should have to choose martyrdom as the price of obeying his or her conscience. What about your atypical small business owner? What about your typical large business owner? Speaking of what is, does jillybean not realize that people are losing their businesses and livelihoods as the price of obeying their conscience? Why is she talking about this as if it was hypothetical or theoretically abstract? jillybean wrote: But neither would I give carte blanche to everyone who claims personal belief as a reason to discriminate against traditionally protected minorities. What… Read more »
Back in the day it really wasn’t three news outlets, it was two. UPI and API mostly. They just read what came off the ticker. Did you say “macaroons” because you didn’t want to say “maroons” :-)