RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/13/as-trump-spoke-stocks-soared-but-cnn-wont-tell-you-that/

Donald Trump and the team he assembled to fight the Wuhan virus in the United States gave a press conference this afternoon at the White House. As the president and his team spoke, the stock market soared, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing Friday at an all-time record increase of 1,972.

The wide-ranging but highly focused press conference laid out concrete plans to drastically increase testing for coronavirus in the United States. It laid out public-private partnerships to make this happen, including Google creating a portal for those seeking testing.

On the financial side, Trump offered a suspension of interest for student debt, an aggressive approach to the oil crisis, and suggested the federal government was prepared to send taxpayer dollars to the cruise and airline industries, among others, to recoup losses from the pandemic.

The stock market roared. Yesterday’s record losses were won back. This is enormously good news for millions of Americans with 401(k)s or stocks. It is absolutely something that every American should celebrate. By the way, the largest gain in the Dow Jones ever also happens to be pretty newsworthy.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/11/trumps-chernobyl-media-wuhan-virus-hysteria-stokes-public-panic/

Not only is it clear that corporate media can’t be trusted to provide accurate information about an issue of public concern, it’s clear they don’t care about public health or the economy.

Since the coronavirus came on the horizon, media figures have been stoking panic, leading to mass shortages of basic health supplies, business travel cancellations, and market drops, all while the confirmed disease number hiked yesterday to around 0.000002 percent of the U.S. population.

So far, U.S. cases of the basic seasonal flu outnumber coronavirus cases by a factor of 45,000 (using federal stats for this year’s flu and real-time tracking of coronavirus confirmations). The flu season has even been especially bad this year, with between 20,000 and 52,000 deaths, compared to 29 so far from coronavirus.

According to infectious disease expert Dr. Paul Carson, who works for the North Dakota public health department, the flu appears to be about five times more contagious than coronavirus, which means containment is possible, although especially for the elderly coronavirus appears to have higher death rates. Especially for the young, however, the flu is still more dangerous than coronavirus in the United States, said the U.S. surgeon general Monday.

  ✔ @CBSNews

Surgeon general: “If you are a child or young adult, you are more likely to die from the flu, if you get it, than you are to die from coronavirus. So, there is something about being young that is protective.” https://cbsn.ws/2TR5X4b

Yet did this year’s flu “pandemic” tank the stock market, get members of Congress on the House floor wearing gas masks, cause Americans suffering from the common cold and post-surgery pain to find no relief due to empty shelves at stores, and have the president stampeding to burn untold taxpayer dollars on “economic stimulus” amid decades of federal debt and deficits? No.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/03/10/the-media-induced-coronavirus-panic-is-worse-than-the-disease/

The deliberate panic created over the coronavirus is not victimless. Far from it.

When the radioactive dust settles from this orchestrated panic-strategy, potentially hundreds of billions will have been lost, thousands of businesses closed, and millions of employees fired. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged by more than 1,000 points.

When the coronavirus first reared its ugly head, many in the media instantly saw it as a cheap and easy way to increase clicks, newspaper sales, viewers, listeners, and most especially ad revenue.

In the guise of “informing the public,” they intended to run scare headlines and stories to spike attention to their sites. And run them, they did.

One of the oldest axioms in the news business being: “If it bleeds, it leads.” The coronavirus was tailor-made for that requirement.

Except, now even the media executives pushing the scare tactics for hoped-for increased ad revenue have realized they went way too far and opened a Pandora’s Box they are unable to close.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-3-8-the-real-new-york-times-or-a-parody
DPS Note: 

Given that so many of you neither live in New York, nor even in America, I am nevertheless circulating this about the NY Times because it is widely read worldwide and because, even if you don’t read it, the news you do read and hear or see on television is quite often driven by the political agenda of what is considered the premier newspaper around. So do read this through. It may not pertain to any subject which interests you, but it is a widow into how the far left has captured our newsrooms and the distorted picture of reality which is then foisted on all of us.

You could find yourself asking that question about the pile of newsprint that resembles the New York Times more or less any day; but the rag with the New York Times banner on top that got delivered to me yesterday really leaves me scratching my head. Is this real, or did someone swipe the actual paper out of my mail slot early in the morning and substitute the parody edition? Judging from the physical item before me, I would go with parody. But then I discover that all of the dubious articles can be found on the nytimes.com website. Could the devious parodists have hacked the website as well?

Let’s consider first the section of the paper headed “New York.” A lot can go on in a city of almost 9 million people, and there are many pressing issues here in our City with important developments happening every day. A few examples of developing local issues include: recent criminal law reforms, including reforms of the bail system, and an associated spike in crime; exploding Medicaid spending; the results of recent tightening of the rent regulation system; the success (or failure) of government “affordable housing” initiatives; the City and State government budgets; and many, many more. Perhaps we can educate ourselves a little on some of these issues?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/conan-political-pilgrim-our-time-bruce-bawer/

It all started with Jon Stewart, whose sixteen-year hosting stint on the Daily Show (1999-2015) marked a sea change from the Johnny Carson era, when late-night entertainment was pretty much free of drastic political slant (at least on the part of the hosts). Stewart’s show, sold as a comic take on the news, was in reality a nightly dose of blatant left-wing propaganda – and was, alarmingly, many young people’s main source of news. Taped interviews with conservatives and libertarians were routinely edited to make them look stupid. Alas, Stewart’s show, not Carson’s, became the template for every one of the current late-night talk shows on American broadcast TV.

One talk-show host who likes to think that he’s different from the rest of the herd is Conan O’Brien. In a recent Oxford Union appearance, he faulted other talk shows for being “all about politics” and for constantly attacking Trump, and declared that he, by contrast, tries to do “silly” and “crazy” comedy that won’t date after a day or two. Well, that sounded refreshing, so I decided to catch up on Conan’s work, which I hadn’t checked out in years. From the Oxford Union gig – which demonstrated that, twenty-seven years into his career as a talk-show host, Conan is still big with young people – I learned that in addition to his nightly TBS show and tons of show clips on YouTube, he has a podcast, plus Conan without Borders, a Netflix series (originally aired in prime time on TBS) on which he travels to various countries around the world.

Admittedly, Conan’s YouTube channel proved to contain some genuinely amusing bits – for example, take-offs on Northern Ireland’s first same-sex marriage and on the Scandinavian “hygge” craze. But the political bias is unmistakable. In a monologue posted on February 28, Conan mocked the fact that Mike Pence had been put in charge of combating the Coronavirus. When Conan does spoof Democrats, it’s for innocuous stuff, such as the presidential candidates talking on top of one another at the February 25 Charleston debate. A recent bit about Bernie Sanders zinged him not for his radical policy positions (au contraire) but because he’s a “grumpy old white guy.”

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/03/donna-brazile-tells-rnc-chair-ronna-mcdaniel-to-go-to-hell-in-unhinged-rant-on-fox/

Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile exploded on Fox News Tuesday morning, accusing RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel of repeating Russian talking points and telling her to “go to hell!”

Brazile, a regular Fox News contributor, was on “America’s Newsroom” with Ed Henry and Sandra Smith to discuss the Super Tuesday elections, and was asked about comments McDaniel had made earlier in the day about the potential for a brokered convention on the Democrat side.

A brokered convention happens when no candidate has a majority of the delegates’ votes and the nomination is decided through a sketchy process of political horse trading.

Pundits of of all political persuasions have been speculating for weeks that Democrats may end up choosing their nominee out of a brokered convention.

McDaniel said that such a process would be “rigged against Bernie if those Super Delegates get their way on that second vote.”

Brazile was incensed.

“First of all, I want to talk to my Republican friends,” she said. “First of all, stay the hell out of our race. Stay the HELL out of our race!”

Brazile added heatedly that she gets “sick and tired” of listening to Republicans talking about the Democrats’ process, and then went on the offensive.

“First of all, they don’t have a process,” she charged, meaning the RNC. “They’re cancelling primaries. They have winner-take all. They don’t have the kind of Democracy that we see on the Democratic side.”

The longtime political strategist then dusted off the Democrats’ dog-eared RussiaGate playbook.

“And for people to use Russian talking points to sew division among Americans …. That is stupid!” she exclaimed. “So, Ronna, go to hell!”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/chris-matthews-retires-lloyd-billingsley/

“I’m retiring,” said Chris Matthews at the top of his show on Monday night. “This will be my last ‘Hardball.’” A younger generation was “ready to take the reins,” Matthews said, but it turned out there was more to it. The longtime MSNBC host, 74, had made some inappropriate comments on a woman’s appearance, and had come to realize that such things are “never okay.” That settled an issue that had been brewing for several days.

Last Saturday, MSNBC stars Rachel Maddow, Brian Williams, and Nicolle Wallace assembled to cover the South Carolina Democrat primary. Viewers wondered why Chris Matthews was not among them.

The night before, the Washington Examiner explained, GQ columnist Laura Bassett accused Matthews of “inappropriately flirting” with her four years ago. In the makeup chair, Matthews reportedly asked Bassett “why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?” And another time he made comments about her red dress.

Bassett was uncertain if any of it amounted to illegal sexual misconduct but Matthews’ tiff with Elizabeth Warren over Michael Bloomberg’s conduct prompted Bassett to speak out. MSNBC duly yanked Matthews, who had been in hot water before.

“A female staffer was paid severance by NBC after accusing Chris Matthews of sexual harassment,” Erin Nyren noted in Variety back in 2017. Matthews had reportedly “made inappropriate comments and jokes about her in front of other people.” The unnamed woman departed the show, reportedly with a payment of $40,000. According to the story Matthews received a “formal reprimand,” but remained on the show. One of his favorite guests was Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti.