Sifting for facts from the flow of propaganda spewing forth from what is termed the Mainstream Media is a full-time job.
And their radicalization over the past ten years from being gently partisan to engaging in unprofessional advocacy to devolving into essentially a Super PAC without FEC registration status has been astonishing, disappointing, and unhealthy for democracy.
The public’s confidence in the Fourth Estate has plummeted and people are literally no longer buying what they’re saying. And whatever tattered shred of credibility becomes increasingly threadbare as they transition to a hybrid of news organization and Leftwing entertainment.
With LSU off this weekend I decided to suffer through CNN’s Saturday night programming and watched comedian Bill Maher deliver an impassioned address for unelected Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and then chased that with some kind of quasi game show that looked like a far too prolonged SNL skit featuring unfunny comedians plus the Mooch (the once vilified Trump White House drone Anthony Scaramucci), who did his best Jimmy Swaggart cry for repentance.
Little wonder that once respected network is hemorrhaging viewers.
But lo and behold a sign of hope was promulgated on their actual news segments as CNN breathlessly heralded a single poll result from the Des Moines Register newspaper showing Harris up a (gasp) three points on Republican Donald Trump!
Here was the break mere days before the election that would show the tide has turned as “white grandmas for abortion” have belatedly joined the fray against the alleged fascist who will install fascism over the fruited plain in 2024 after having not done so in 2016!
Never mind the fact that the same day the primary Iowa newspaper released their poll that an Emerson poll was dropped showing Trump with a ten point lead.
Nope, that one doesn’t count. Only the one showing their side…er…the Democratic candidate with a lead matters.
So for those Republicans on edge right now, here are a few things of interest on polls in general and those two in particular.
First, there are things called outliers, those being results that reflect something that is atypical and that the people sample just so happened to not be reflective of the whole.
Secondly, how you build your sample, that being the pool of individuals surveyed, is important. For example there are parts of the bluest of blue states that have enclaves of voters that are more crimson than Tuscaloosa. However if you arbitrarily weight certain areas at the expense of others you can get the results you want to hear even those numbers aren’t accurate.
I’m not saying that the Des Moines Register cooked their poll by adding extra ingredients but in light of the fact Trump has not been trailing all this time in Iowa and now all of a sudden swaths of voters had a Kamala epiphany is unlikely.
Now to the numbers of the DMR poll.
The vice-president was at 47%, three points ahead of Trump. But she’s the de facto incumbent. For those in office the gap between their plurality and 50% can be as telling as the margin between first and second place candidates.
Also the Des Moines Register included RFK in their poll even though he is no longer a candidate and has gone all in for Trump. The son of Bobby Kennedy is at 3%- the margin between Harris and Trump and it’s highly unlikely that share of the electorate will waste their vote.
The real significance in this story isn’t so much the numbers but that this poll is being pushed very hard as a news story. It’s a case where the Rigged Media is showing themselves for who and what they are as they’re brazenly using this as a means to fire up Democratic voters to become more active.
Don’t lose sleep over this Democratic Media pep rally story.
On to the Democratic Establishment’s new favorite Republican Establishment family, the Cheneys. There’s Dick, the war monger/profiteer, and his daughter Liz, a cold political opportunist.
They were both portrayed in the movie Veep for having sold out Mary, Dick’s lesbian daughter and Liz’s sister, for political purposes.
But the once en vogue talk of dragging Dick off to The Hague in manacles to face a war crimes trial has been silenced as the father-daughter tandem shills for Harris. In fact Kamala and Liz have even campaigned together.
Now their perfidy deserves a separate treatment (as do other prominent and now celebrated figures of the GOP’s UniParty Front), but the big story involving the family was Trump allegedly calling for Liz Cheney’s execution via firing squad.
We all heard the shock and awe over such a declaration.
Oh. So. Much. Outrage.
Except that Trump didn’t in any way, shape, or form say what they all claim he did. The AP has the full statement posted on video.
In a sit down with Tucker Carlson, Trump was asked about Liz Cheney’s opposition to his candidacy and referred to her as a war hawk and how perhaps these politicians who are so eager to launch American military interventions and invasions would think differently if the guns were pointed at their heads and not other people’s children who are actually at risk in these deployments.
Essentially K Street’s war; Main Street’s fight..
Even the profane Trump hater Joe Walsh had to call BS on such a blatant lie (mischaracterization being too kind a word) being pushed by Democrats, their media confederates, and UniParty Repubs.
And naturally this lie merely reinforces their favorite lie that Trump is a fascist.
America deserves better from the media and our political leaders.
Their irresponsible conduct has gone far beyond tipping the scales of an election through false narratives but has led to a former President being shot in one of two assassination attempts.