Godwin's Law on Steroids

Bias: It’s not your imagination, President Biden really is being trolled by the press. Sure he’s not perfect but its hard to miss how his successes get short shrift while his problems get amplified.  According to the Washington Post, data analytics completed by artificial intelligence company FiscalNote show that coverage of Biden is now worse than that received by the Former Guy.  And we’re not just talking about obvious right wing outlets like the New York Post, some of the worst trolling is coming from places like Politico and other mainstream sources that hide behind patinas of “fairness” and legitimacy. This matters because as Wapo’s Dana Milbank writes his “colleagues in the media are serving as accessories to the murder of democracy.” Think about the coverage of inflation and supply problems.  Yes they’re both real concerns but not totally of Biden’s making and in any case unemployment is way down, almost at pre-pandemic levels, and that much trumpeted shortage of turkeys has not materialized.  Yet relentlessly pushing those kind of stories has an undue influence on voters and as we move into an important election cycle we’re likely to experience first hand some really dire consequences due to the mainstream press and its both siderism.  For his part the Former Guy is doing his best to take advantage of situation by getting as many “friendly” candidates in place.  Over the weekend one of those “friendlies” David Perdue, the ex-Georgia Senator who lost his seat to Jon Ossoff announced plans to primary Brian Kemp, Georgia’s current governor. Kemp is reliably right wing and accomplished at voter suppression so this isn’t about policy but because he didn’t step in to overturn the results of the last election and for that “crime” the FG wants him ousted and is particularly keen to see Georgia “right” itself which is why he also gifted the state with Senate candidate/football guy Herschel Walker.  Whoever gets the Republican gubernatorial nod will then go up against Democratic darling Stacey Abrams and while she’s been highly successful at getting more voters registered, it will still be a tough election during what is likely to be a particularly horrendous mid-term cycle.  While we’re talking crimes, real ones rather than the “steal” that the FG keeps pushing, it’s worth noting that Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department official who is quite possibly guilty of a few, including pushing for Georgia’s presidential electors to be replaced by an FG friendly set, did not show up to testify, or even plead the Fifth this weekend, something about him suffering from a “credible” illness. 

Viral Musings:  The jury is still out on the Omicron variant.  Scientists now think that it picked up some of its mutations from a run of the mill cold virus and that those are the mutations that are making it more contagious.  There’s also a chance that those mutations are making it less lethal which would be a really good thing but if we’ve learned anything thus far positive news reports should be taken with a grain of salt until we get more convincing data.  While Delta remains the dominant strain, fears of Omicron are causing a lot of people to run out for jabs, over two million shots were administered last Thursday. That’s a good thing but not as good as it sounds as a large proportion of those getting shots are either getting boosters or are among the newly eligible 5 to 11 cohort.  Under-vaccinated parts of the country remain unvaccinated and the consequences there are deadly.  According to NPR people living in counties that went 60% or higher for the FG in 2020 had 2.7 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates. As to vaccination and science, Fox’s Lara Logan who once was a respected 60 Minutes journalist has an opinion about all that. Taking Godwin’s Law to the extreme she equated virus guru Dr. Fauci with the Nazi’s most heinous doctor Joseph Mengele who among other things tortured children and did those horrific twin studies that are too disgusting to detail.  She also suggested that COVID was no worse than the flu but the Mengele comment is the one getting all the attention as it should.  Though Fox management has had nothing to say about her disgusting utterances, even they know she went beyond the pale which could explain why she disappeared from their airwaves at least for now.    

People:  Also disappearing from the airwaves is now former CNN host Chris Cuomo who has been fired for violating ethics for helping his brother/NY Governor Andrew. It’s worth noting that while both of them are out, fish heir Tucker Carlson is still employed riling up hate and pushing white supremacy on a nightly basis. We also lost former Senator, war hero and presidential candidate Bob Dole this weekend.  Lots of tributes coming in for him for being an honorable, nice guy and a war veteran who suffered for his patriotism but keep in mind that he was the only one of the living GOP presidential candidates to endorse the FG and may look good now in comparison to the Republican’s current crop of clowns.