I'd been hiking, listening to the "Daily" from the "New York Times" and the "Daily 202" from the "Washington Post." The "Daily 202" is better. It's shorter. It's one big idea, plus a few short riffs every weekday. And it's only as long as there's information. As in it could be six minutes or thirty, depending upon what is going on. But the main host, James Hohmann, is on vacation for two weeks, so if you want the full experience, wait until Monday July 20th to tune in.
So, the big story this week is the coronavirus. The latest question is whether we need to shut down the country again. Now if we do, that may save some lives, but what is our plan after everybody is home for awhile, do we just reopen once again? That's been proven to be a bad strategy. Without testing and contact tracing we're just going to replicate the present situation. Sure, if people wore masks, that would help, but masks kill, as you know, they stifle your freedom and your oxygen and impinge upon your freedom. It's just like George Floyd saying he can't breathe. Republicans can die too.
And speaking of podcasts, you should check out the "New York Times"'s "1619." In this era of Black Lives Matter, the truth is very few white people know black history, which is excavated in this podcast. Lincoln may have freed the slaves, but he wanted them to emigrate to other countries, because he didn't believe whites and blacks could live together. Rutherford made a deal with the Democrats to remove overseers in the south in order to become president. The end result? Jim Crow.
So, I was going to stream more of "1619" on my drive home, but pushing the buttons on SiriusXM first, I came across Sean Hannity, who said he was going to have Trump on. This was a repeat of his show, I'd already read the news, I figured I'd give it a shot. But I never made it to Trump, because for twenty minutes, the entirety of my drive home, Hannity excoriated Biden and the Democrats. It's an alternative universe. If Biden wins, there will be riots in the street, socialism will reign, our great American experiment, our country, will come to an end, you will not recognize it. Huh? Isn't that what is going on now? But if you listen to Fox, there's no way you'd know that.
And speaking of Fox, today in the "Washington Post," Max Boot, a conservative, takes down the cancel culture of the right: wapo.st/3gPjsLU He says:
"The rest of the conservative movement can be just as intolerant of dissent. I learned this the hard way when I was the op-ed editor of the Wall Street Journal from 1997 to 2002. As I recount in my book 'The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right,' I was nearly fired for trying to run an op-ed critical of supply-side economics by Paul Krugman, a future Nobel laureate in economics. The editorial-page philosophy was that it would run one liberal column a week; if readers wanted more, they could turn to the New York Times."
I get the "Wall Street Journal." My worry is people who read only it have a skewed, one-sided opinion. I have an educated friend who refuses to read the "New York Times," he just spews the viewpoint of the "Journal," intensely. And when the courts go the other way...he weasels out of it. And now, with the courts packed with Republican judges, it will go his way more often.
And then there's yesterday's Supreme Court decision. If Trump's taxes are not released before the election it makes no difference, it won't have an effect, and that's the way it's gonna play out.
That's one thing that bugs me about the left, it will not acknowledge that Trump wins each and every time, with almost no exceptions. The left drily prints his heinous activity, talking heads rail on MSNBC, and nothing changes. The country may not be winning, but the Donald most certainly is, again and again and again.
Vindman talks and ends up having to resign. Canceling whistleblower conduct. Sure, billionaires can blow the whistle, but the average person needs the paycheck!
I could go on and on, but I don't think it would make any difference.
First and foremost, most people get their news from the internet, which is so skewed, if it's not outright false. If you surfed you'd believe that vaccinations are the problem with America, if we just eradicated them everybody would be healthy, and the greatest threat to our country is George Soros, as if anybody had that much power in today's society.
But they want bogeymen.
And the truth is it's nearly impossible to get an abortion in a red state anyway. If you've got money, you can travel, even to another state. Many people can't afford the process of getting an abortion, never mind the abortion itself. The travel, the hotels, the multiple visits.
And I thought the United States was founded upon the separation of church and state. I don't need God to bless us, I just need some rationality and foresight. And you may be saved by the Rapture, but for the rest of us, can we do something about climate change? Hell, if we can't even fight Covid-19, I guess not.
The truth is the people on television are paid to bloviate.
And the truth is all their bloviation is based on the "New York Times" and "Washington Post" anyway, you could just buy subscriptions to those papers and give up TV completely. And it's not only the left, but the right. Tune into Laura Ingraham or Tucker Carlson, they usually lead with a story from the "Times." Sure, they annihilate it, but there's no independent reporting done whatsoever.
And video can be altered and...
Did you read the latest issue of "Bloomberg Businessweek," "The Heist Issue"? You've got to read "How the American Worker Got Fleeced": bloom.bg/2ANgfNj It will depress you to no end. Unions got busted, wages stayed stagnant, the National Labor Relations Board sides with the corporations and if you express your opinion you get fired. Furthermore, you're not even working for the company itself, you're a contractor, with no benefits.
"At Google parent Alphabet Inc., which counts more than 110,000 employees, the contract workers have overtaken the direct workforce."
That'd be like more than half of the Yankees making less, being able to be fired at will with no recourse. And if they refused to play in the Covid-19 era, they'd sacrifice their paychecks.
You're on your own in America.
As for Biden... What bugs me is a lot of what the right says is true. He does bungle, he does make gaffes, he is out of touch, and he lost every single debate with his counterparts in the primary season.
So, Thomas Friedman comes up with an excellent strategy:
"Biden Should Not Debate Trump Unless... - Here are two conditions the Democrat should set.": nyti.ms/2W4zw48
Friedman wants Trump to release his taxes and to agree to having a fact-checking team on site.
So, what happens?
Crickets on the left, because progressives hate Friedman. Biden won't take a stand, his goal is to take no stand, to let Trump self-immolate, not knowing we're voting for a leader. As for the right...THEY'RE SAYING BIDEN IS AFRAID TO DEBATE TRUMP! Get this straight, Biden has said nothing, it's only Tom Friedman who has weighed in, and now the right is defining the debate and winning it as the left fiddles as Rome burns.
And the right keeps hammering the foibles and excesses of the left. Such that if you're only exposed to the right wing viewpoint, it makes sense. And the truth is the left is made up of politicians who do what is expedient and are in the pork game too. But, the left doesn't fight back, it just complains about Trump, to no effect.
This is the America we are living in. There's no leadership. All we've got is a game, which you want to believe is a simulation, but is deadly real.
The right aligns with an agenda, the left just goes on like it's business as usual. The right hammers a story endlessly, just check out the "Wall Street Journal" op-ed pages. But the left moves on from the crisis. But the truth is America is not moving on.
Be afraid, be very afraid. The right has defined the left as takers...who will take away your freedom, even to wear a mask, never mind your money, which you need in this challenging era, all the while giving power to the government, which no one has faith in. As for the left...it's got few attack dogs, it won't support those who are, AOC is an enemy on both the right and the left. The left doesn't hammer right wing foibles again and again. It feels they're self-evident. But they're not to many. This is a war, and if you watched "Hamilton" you know that the States won despite having a smaller army, despite being a much-lesser power. Which is why you should be wary of the polls saying Trump is losing. Many people are afraid to admit they're voting for Trump, worried about the blowback, like with the Goya bean company CEO...but they want to keep their money and they've got no time for people of color and...
This is where we are today.
I feel powerless.
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