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The CNN+ Catastrophe Who could possibly have seen this one coming? Charles C. W. Cooke

Posted By on April 13th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/the-cnn-catastrophe/

The funny thing about markets is that they need both supply and demand to work. CNN+, America’s newest streaming service, certainly has the supply part down. It has been heralded by a multi-million-dollar marketing campaign and pushed relentlessly on CNN’s cable channels, and it is available on the web, on iPhone and Android, on Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV. What it doesn’t have, it seems, is the demand — the customers. Per CNBC, “fewer than 10,000 people are using CNN+ on a daily basis two weeks into its existence, according to people familiar with the matter.” And this is after CNN announced The Don Lemon Show would be featured on the service. What gives?

Wouldn’t you just have loved to been in the room when CNN’s leadership met with the enablers at McKinsey and told them that the network expected its new streaming service to have 15 to 18 million subscribers by 2026? What McKinsey’s consultants should have said in response to this — what McKinsey’s consultants would have said had they been doing their job — is, “Are you joking, you delusional lunatics?” Their reaction should have been shock and embarrassment, followed by a cacophony of derisive laughter, and at the end of it all, the delivery of some tough love. What they seem to have done, instead, is jumped up onto the table like Stephen Glass describing his fictional Jukt Micronics meeting and shouted, “Yes, yes — a thousand times, yes.”

In theory, at least, the role of an organization such as McKinsey is to ask, “Why?” Everyone wants to start a streaming service. Why does yours make sense? If CNN were run by thoughtful people, it might have taken the opportunity to ask some fundamental questions of itself before procuring a new toy: “Who are we?” “What do we do?” “Are we good at it?” “Why do our staff keep getting themselves embroiled in scandals?” “Has anyone heard Brianna Keilar utter a single sentence that might be termed useful?”

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Pulitzer Prize Winner David Mamet: Teachers ‘Are Abusing Kids Mentally and Using Sex To Do So’ By Michael W. Chapman

Posted By on April 13th, 2022

https://cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/pulitzer-prize-winner-david-mamet-teachers-are-abusing-kids-mentally-and

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and celebrated filmmaker David Mamet said if there is no community control over the schools, then many kids will be indoctrinated and groomed by teachers who are “sexual predators,” people who abuse the children “mentally” and use “sex to do so.”

Mamet, a former leftist-turned-conservative, also said that not a few “teachers are inclined, typically men, because men are predators, to pedophilia,” and that’s why strict community control of the schools is necessary.

Mamet, whose screenwriting credits include The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Verdict, Hoffa, and The Untouchables, made his remarks on Fox’s Life, Liberty & Levin, hosted by author and talk-radio host Mark Levin.

During a segment about Mamet’s new best selling book, Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch, Levin said, “David, I want to read something that you wrote, so the American people hear this and then I’d like you to comment further on this.

“‘Margaret Sanger believed in euthanasia and sterilization of ‘unfortunate’ and mentally challenged, and Blacks. She was the founder of Planned Parenthood, which, like all organizations expanded its brief, (originally one of control of sub-humans) in the control of all conception. Her insights were taken up in the 60s with ‘hygiene classes,’ which became ‘sex education,’ educators holding that because perhaps the children were not taught at home, the higher orders needed to take charge, and now we have kindergartens trained in a bizarre catechism of sexual identity politics.'”

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Scoop’ for Today By John Rossi

Posted By on April 13th, 2022

https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2022/04/12/scoop_for_today_826782.html

Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama’s foreign policy guru, once boasted how he had created an “echo chamber” in the press corps to publicize the administration’s foreign policy moves: they were just a bunch of 27-year-olds who know nothing about foreign policy, he said.

With war booming between Russia and Ukraine, and our foreign correspondents brushing off their flak jackets and camouflage gear, it might be time to return to the definite study of how the foreign policy elite cover a war, Evelyn Waugh’s “Scoop. ”

“Scoop” appeared in May 1938 — if you are interested in coincidences, or  what Chesterton called “God’s way of punning” — it was published less than two weeks after George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia,” which was a failure at first, but now like “Scoop” is considered a classic.  “Scoop” was largely based on Waugh’s experiences covering the Italo-Ethiopian war for the Daily Mail in 1935.  The experiences in that war left Waugh with unpleasant memories, and he particularly came to detest the cynicism, outright distortions and lies of the journalists covering the war.

“Scoop” subtitled “A Novel About Journalists” — was the fourth and, in my view, the funniest and most savage of his satiric novels — “Decline and Fall” runs a close second in my view.  The protagonist William Boot writes a nature column, “Lush Places,” for the Daily Beast, the largest newspaper in England. Lord Copper, the all-powerful owner of the paper mistakenly orders the wrong Boot to cover a civil war that is supposed to have broken out in the mythical country of Ishmaelia, a thinly veiled version of Ethiopia. The editor, Salter, a comic foil for Copper is told that Boot possesses a high-class style, and checks out his latest column: “Feather-footed through the plashy fen the questioning vole…”  “That must be good style,” he observes, “At least, it doesn’t sound like anything else to me.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Maher: Five Years Ago No One Was Talking About Abolishing The Police, Pregnant Men, Or Legalizing Looting Posted By Ian Schwartz

Posted By on April 13th, 2022

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/04/12/maher_five_years_ago_no_one_was_talking_about_abolishing_the_police_pregnant_men_or_legalizing_looting.html

HBO host Bill Maher says he hasn’t changed, it is the left that has changed in an interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

MAHER: When people say to me, ‘don’t you think you’ve gotten more conservative?’ No, I haven’t. The left has gotten goofier.

JOE ROGAN: Yes.

MAHER: So I seem more conservative, maybe, but it’s not me who changed. I feel that I’m the same guy but five years ago, we hadn’t spent $6 trillion to stay home. I understand we had to do something with the pandemic, I’m not sure that was — I remember when a trillion dollars was too much to spend on anything. We didn’t spend a trillion to bail out the economy in 2008. So, we didn’t do that.

Five years ago no one was talking about abolishing the police, you know. There was no talk about pregnant men. I mean, looting was still illegal.

Have I changed? No. If someone had said 20 years ago, ‘I’m not sure looting is a bad thing,’ I would have opposed it then. So I haven’t changed.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Helping China Plunder American Tech Companies | Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on April 13th, 2022

https://www.newsweek.com/biden-helping-china-plunder-american-tech-companies-opinion-1697054

The Biden administration has proposed a technical—but critical—change to U.S. patent policy that could have been drafted in Beijing. In fact, a Chinese front organization has formally endorsed the proposal, which will gut protection for an especially important type of American patents.

Last December, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, along with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, issued the Draft Policy Statement on Licensing Negotiations and Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments.

The Draft Policy, according to the Justice Department, would lead to “widespread and efficient licensing” by holders of standards-essential patents (SEPs) and thereby “promote technology innovation, further consumer choice and enable industry competitiveness.”

As the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes in its public comment on the Draft Policy, the Justice Department promotes the change “as an effort to encourage good-faith licensing negotiations.”

Standards are the technical specifications that “shape” products, services and processes. SEPs, which protect the technology included in standards, safeguard American economic leadership. SEPs defining 5G communications are held by American companies, for instance. Standards are a hotly contested tech battleground between the U.S. and China.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

While Everyone Else Is Kicking Themselves For Voting For Biden, College-Educated Women Are Doubling Down By: Joy Pullmann

Posted By on April 13th, 2022

https://thefederalist.com/2022/04/12/while-everyone-else-is-kicking-themselves-for-voting-for-biden-college-educated-women-are-doubling-down/

Why are lots of men willing to admit that they were wrong in 2020, while college-educated women are doubling down?

NBC News recently compared several polls to find huge shifts from Democrats to Republicans in 2022 midterm voter preferences. The big exception to these shifts across many demographics was college-educated women, who in NBC’s aggregation showed even stronger support for Democrats now than ahead of the last midterm election.

Here’s the key graphic, which zoomed around social media Sunday, and below that the NBC segment.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ukraine War: The Moral Corruption of Germany’s Political Elite by Soeren Kern

Posted By on April 13th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18425/ukraine-germany-morals

Questions are being belatedly asked — and grudgingly answered — about many aspects of Merkel’s failed Russia policy, including her decisions to block Ukraine’s prospective membership in NATO, gut the German military, undermine the transatlantic alliance, and institutionalize Germany’s overdependence on Russian energy supplies.

The responsibility for Germany’s failed Russia policy goes far beyond Merkel: German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and a large cross section of Germany’s business, media and political elite have supported — and continue to support — pro-Russia (as well as pro-China and pro-Iran) policies that sacrifice democracy, human rights, and the rule of law on the altar of financial gain.

“The president of Germany is not ready to admit any of his huge personal responsibility for the failure of Berlin’s Russia policy mistake. Even in times of such a war he wants to build new bridges with Russia.” — Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk, interview with the Los Angeles Times.

“The modus operandi of German & EU politics is the indefinite postponement of conflicts. This seemed to have worked well in times of peace (though not in relation to Russia, obviously). The consequences of such an approach in times of war can be catastrophic.” — Stefan Auer, Professor of European studies, University of Hong Kong.

“The problem in my view is one of mindset…. This Zeitenwende [turning point in German-Russian relations] will only succeed if it arrives in the heads of an entire complacent generation of boomer politicians in Germany who have to accept that their naïveté, egocentrism and smug self-righteous conviction in the supposed higher morality of their actions has directly contributed to the greatest catastrophe in European politics since 1945.” — Georg Löfflmann, a German professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick

“Germany’s stubborn insistence on engaging with the Russian leader in the face of his sustained aggression (a catalog of misdeeds ranging from the invasion of Georgia to assassinations of enemies abroad and war crimes in Syria) was nothing short of a catastrophic blunder, one that will earn Merkel a place in the pantheon of political naiveté alongside Neville Chamberlain.” — Matt Karnitschnig, Chief Europe Correspondent, Politico.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing a long-overdue reevaluation of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s legacy of appeasing Russian President Vladimir Putin.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Killing Fields of Wind Energy Cannot Be Ignored On the irony of self-proclaimed guardians of the earth promoting a regressive—even primitive—energy technology that is killing millions of the planet’s creatures. By Vijay Jayaraj

Posted By on April 13th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/12/killing-fields-of-wind-energy-cannot-be-ignored/

A NextEra subsidiary’s recent revelation of the mass killing of bald and golden eagles exposed the ugly secret that nearly all wind projects share: the wanton destruction of rare and endangered species. On April 5, in a case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, ESI Energy pleaded guilty to killing more than 150 eagles in eight states. The company was fined $8 million.

The Justice Department said the company was fined for killing the birds “without obtaining or even seeking the necessary permit.” In other words, the completion of paperwork would have made the killings legal.

For too long, the slaughter of birds by wind turbines has been allowed to continue under the faux emergency declaration of climate alarmists. But with bird mortality in the millions and the lack of promised benefits from wind energy, the only rational option is to end the development of wind farms.

Studies in the last two years have confirmed what scientists and conservationists have been saying all along: There is blood on the blades of these wind farms, causing irreversible damage to thousands of bird species, including those listed in endangered and vulnerable categories.

In 2021, scientists did a comprehensive study of wind-farm effects on mammalian and avian life. They considered 825 peer-reviewed articles that showed that the “construction, operation and maintenance of wind facilities affect mortality and behavior of mammals and birds as well as habitat suitability.” 

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Kids’ Books By John Stossel

Posted By on April 13th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/columns/john-stossel/2022/04/13/kids-books-n1589231

Bookstores now sell only certain kinds of children’s books.

“Go into Barnes & Noble,” says Bethany Mandel in my new video, “and you will be met with a wall of biographies. Probably 27 different books about former Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Great. A ton about Kamala Harris. Great.”

But where are the biographies on conservatives? There weren’t any. 

She found lots on people like Hillary Clinton, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren and Rachel Carson, but not one on conservatives like Margaret Thatcher or Amy Coney Barrett.

“It’s time to bring those books to the market because Lord knows the publishing industry won’t,” says Mandel.

So, she created Heroes of Liberty, a company that will publish books on conservatives like Barrett, Ronald Reagan and Thomas Sowell.

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Maybe they will call it CNN minus By Silvio Canto, Jr.

Posted By on April 13th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/maybe_they_will_call_it_cnn_minus.html

Have you received an offer to join CNN plus?   I saw one yesterday but I decided to pass.  Honestly, I’ve already got enough to see or listen to.  And I don’t watch CNN anyway. 

CNN plus is off to a rough start according to news reports:    

Fewer than 10,000 people are using CNN+ on a daily basis two weeks into its existence, according to people familiar with the matter.

The people spoke with CNBC on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss nonpublic data.

CNN+ launched on March 29. The subscription news streaming service, which charges $5.99 a month or $59.99 annually, only became available on Roku on Monday and still isn’t on Android TV. Still, the paltry audience casts doubt on the future of the application following the recently completed combination of Discovery and WarnerMedia into Warner Bros. Discovery.

To put that daily user number in perspective, CNN’s cable network suffered a sharp decline in viewership last year but still rang up an average of 773,000 total viewers a day.

“We continue to be happy with the launch and its progress after only two weeks,” a CNN spokesperson said.

CNN continues to be happy?  Well, at least the CNN spokesperson has a positive attitude.