Category Archives: media news

Ponder when elections are ‘rigged’

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Donald J. Trump is playing the “rigged election”  card as if it’s a new gambit.

The Republican presidential nominee says the electoral system is “rigged.” He says voter fraud is rampant at polling places. He blames the media for “rigging” its coverage of his battle with Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I must add, too, that he says all this without providing a scintilla of credible evidence.

Well, way back in the early days of the GOP primary, Trump lost the Iowa caucus to Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. His excuse then? It was “rigged,” he said. Cruz’s team stole that one from Trump, said the eventual party nominee.

The rigged election stuff is the mantra of someone who’s going to lose. That’s all it is.

As for the media bias he keeps harping on, I feel a need to mention only this: The media gave Trump invaluable free advertising and publicity throughout his march to the GOP nomination. He called a press event? The media were there. He made a statement of any kind, carrying any kind of weight? The media covered it like a blanket. Trump would fire off an accusation or call an opponent a schoolyard-style name? Why, the media were on that, too.

Trump is about to lose his first and likely final campaign for public office. He is sounding like someone who doesn’t know how to lose with grace and class.

‘Media bias’ is a non-starter, Rep. Kingston

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Jack Kingston today made arguably the most absurd assertion I’ve ever heard about alleged “media bias” in covering the 2016 presidential election.

The former Republican congressman from Georgia — who supports Donald J. Trump’s election to the presidency — actually said the lack of newspaper endorsements illustrates the point that the media are biased against his candidate.

Kingston took  that leap today on MSBNC. He was reminded immediately, however, that many of the newspapers that have endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton have adhered to historically conservative editorial policies. Thus, the papers’ aren’t traditionally “liberal” organs.

UNITED STATES - Dec 12: Rep. Jack Kingston, R-GA., address the media during a press conference in the House Studio B in the U.S. Capitol on December 12, 2013. (Photo By Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call)

Kingston stuck to his mantra. The media are biased, he said, continuing the line that Trump, VP nominee Mike Pence and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway have been reciting whenever possible.

Oh … my.

The media always are a convenient target for losing political campaigns. That part of this tactic from Trump isn’t particularly new or original. I’ve heard it for decades.

Trump’s floundering campaign has revealed only the profound failure of the candidate. It has shown us this man’s unfitness for the job he seeks. His lack of knowledge of anything speaks volumes. His desperate tactics as the campaign draws to a close only affirm the wisdom of the newspapers’ editorial positions.

Donald Trump is losing this campaign. Moreover, he is acting like someone who has lost his mind.

As for former Rep. Kingston, he is smarter than he demonstrated today with that ridiculous assertion about media bias.

What’s with the first-name usage for Hillary?

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I’ve wondered about this for nearly as long as Hillary Rodham Clinton has been in public life — which seems like forever.

Why do the media, the political class, historians and Mr. and Mrs. J.Q. Public refer to the Democratic nominee for president as “Hillary”?

I’ll admit to doing it in casual conversation. My wife and I talk about this election all the time. We’re caught up by it. We’re enthralled — if that’s the right word — by all of its patently bizarre twists and turns.

Then I’ll toss out something like this: “Did you hear what Hillary and Trump said today?” My wife identifies the two major-party candidates the same way.

The Republican nominee doesn’t get the same air of familiarity, if that’s what it is. We refer to Donald J. Trump as “Trump.” I’m inclined to use more, um, descriptive terminology at times. And yes, I’m quite sure those on the other side attach the same pejorative qualifiers to Hillary.

See, there I go again … falling into that first-name trap.

I mean no disrespect. I take her as seriously as I do any other politician, male or female.

I’ll admit to using first names on other pols. Newt, Mitt and Jeb are my favorites. Their names are unusual enough that you don’t need to last names to know about whom one is referring. It’s kind of like Wilt, Arnie, Tiger and Kareem … you know?

There’s got to be a psychologist out there who can explain it to me.

Hey, do you think Dr. Phil might be looking for a topic to cover on his TV show.

Trump keeps reaching way, way back

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It wasn’t enough, I guess, for Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump to dredge up a two-decade-old case involving a former president to link him to his wife, who happens to be Trump’s current opponent for the presidency.

Oh, no. Today, he went back even farther, July 1969, to allege that the media covered up a “crime” committed by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy after he drove off a bridge in Massachusetts, which resulted in the drowning death of a young woman who was riding in his car.

Trump again blamed the media for covering up Hillary and Bill Clinton’s “crimes,” just as it did for Kennedy.

I keep hearing about this alleged “cover-up” and keep wondering: What the hell is this clown talking about? What cover-up?

The media were all over the Kennedy story when it happened. They covered every single element of the tragedy. They reported on the delay in reporting the accident. They reported on the suspected favors done to protect Kennedy.

As for Clinton, the media have been covering her lengthy public career like a blanket. Every single aspect of Clinton’s life — public and private — has been examined more closely than a lab rat under a microscope.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/300286-trump-raises-chappaquiddick-in-anti-clinton-tirade

This kind of tactic simply is laughable on its face.

I always am tempted to ask when I hear of these so-called media conspiracies: How in the world do you know of the events the media are covering up … if you haven’t heard it or read it — in the media?

This ‘debate’ didn’t elevate the discussion

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Of all the analyses I’ve heard and read about the second presidential debate between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald J. Trump, one of them stands out.

It came from a talking head who referred to the initial 1960 debate between then-Vice President Richard Nixon and then-U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy.

It was a serious affair. No audience in the room. Just the candidates and the questioners.

The analyst suggested that there was great hope in 1960 that these events might elevate the quality of the discourse. That it would force the candidates to be civil, collegial and serious. After all, the theory went, they were being beamed into voters’ living rooms. Who wants to hear such trash talk from candidates seeking to become the head of state?

Well, so much for high expectations.

Clinton-Trump II didn’t sink to the level that many prognosticators thought it might. But it damn sure didn’t rise to anything approaching a high-minded discussion about issues.

The overarching issue, of course, was that infamous video recording of Trump talking in 2005 about how he sought to do certain disgraceful things with and to women.

All of that context managed to lower the bar to a horrible level. It made the debate seem small.

As Chuck Todd, the NBC newsman and “Meet the Press” moderator, noted: The debate didn’t do much to enhance the principle of democracy.

In need of an intervention

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I never — not in a zillion years — thought I would say this, but here goes.

I need an intervention because I left my cell phone at home today while I was at work. I felt oddly disconnected from the world.

Some of you who’ve read this blog for some time know the drill. I had vowed to become the last person on Earth to own a cell phone. I waged a public — and passionate — campaign to that end.

Then I declared victory and purchased my cell phone. My wife bought one, too. Our first phones weren’t of the “smart” variety. They were those flip-top phones that didn’t work very well.

Then we upgraded to smart phones.

I still don’t use many of the functions built into the thing, but I do rely on it for some useful things: e-mail retrieval, reading news services come immediately to mind.

I left the thing at home today. I couldn’t check my e-mail, which arrives regularly during the day. I couldn’t keep up with the news and commentary.

For a good part of the day I was adrift.

I felt oddly out of touch.

Then my work day ended. I went to meet someone for lunch, only the friend I had planned to meet had sent me a Facebook message — which I also can read on my phone — asking if we could reschedule for another day. My friend has a sinus infection and needed to see a doctor.

Had I had my phone with me, I would have known that fact and would have avoided making the trip across town for a lunch date that never materialized.

What have I become? Am I now addicted to this geeky technology?

I need help!

Media stars jousting over candidates of their choice

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My list of pet peeves has grown over the years as I have grown older.

I don’t call myself a curmudgeon, but I do at times come off as a fuddy-duddy. Some things about contemporary journalism, for instance, annoy me greatly.

Such as when reporters and commentators become newsmakers. My old-school thought is that they should be apart from the action. They can report on it and, yes, comment on it without making hay.

That all said, now we have two Fox News stars jousting with each other. News anchor Megyn Kelly has become a “supporter” of Hillary Rodham Clinton, says avid Donald J. Trump ally Sean Hannity.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/megyn-kelly-sean-hannity-trade-barbs-over-trump-treatment-229220

The feud is on.

Hannity is a commentator. He is a strong conservative voice on the “fair and balanced” cable network. He’s been in Trump’s camp since the beginning of this presidential campaign.

Now he’s decided to challenge Kelly, who serves another function at Fox; she is a news anchor. She’s also a pretty solid journalist. Kelly had the bad form, I guess in Hannity’s view, to ask Trump some tough questions way back during that first GOP primary debate. She wanted Trump to explain his highly offensive comments about women. The exchange that ensued sparked a feud that continues to this day.

That makes Kelly a Hillary Clinton supporter, according to Hannity.

I should note that of the two, Megyn Kelly is the one with a journalism education and professional background. Hannity lacks those educational credentials; he’s a talker.

I, frankly, don’t much care who she intends to vote for when the time comes. It shouldn’t even be a topic for public discussion. But then we have Hannity — who doesn’t hide his own bias — trying to make noise … which is all this is, in my humble view.

These media stars need to settle down. They ought to stop firing their barbs at each other and concentrate on the individuals and policies on which they report and offer opinion.

Who’s the major culprit in this goofy exchange?

Sean Hannity. Of course!

My advice to the young man? Knock it off, dude, and keep on shilling for Trump.

‘1984’ has come true, but not in the way we thought it might

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George Orwell wrote a book that was published in 1949 that portrayed the world dominated by the ominous eye of “Big Brother.”

“1984,” which I read once in high school, told a chilling story of dominance, loss of individual freedom and civil liberty.

In the 66 years since the novel’s publication, its meaning has come to define the incursion of big, overarching, overreaching, overbearing government.

The thought occurred to me other morning: Big brother exists, all right, but it’s not necessarily in the form that Orwell envisioned.

Social media have morphed into our Big Brother.

Think about all the prying eyes that actually are the devices that millennials and generation-Xers are packing around with them. All those “smart phones” have cameras on them.

People take pictures of everything. Of everyone. At any time. In any place. For any reason.

The list of victims of this big brother incursion is seemingly endless.

All of this serves as a lesson on public behavior. Be wary — be very wary — of your surroundings. All those teenage girls you see with smart phones in their hands? Any one of them could point that camera at you at any moment and snap a picture of you doing something you don’t want seen by anyone.

It’s been said that you can measure one’s character by what they do when no one is looking. In this age of Big Brother, everyone is looking. It’s not necessarily government’s prying eyes, but it’s every bit as insidious.

Welcome to Oceania.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/03/big-brother-must-have-blinked-on-this-one/

‘Atlantic’ makes history with endorsement

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Hillary Rodham Clinton’s pile of media endorsements has added a significant new voice.

While I have conceded that endorsements from elite media organs don’t pack the wallop they once did, this one has gotten some traction.

“The Atlantic” has issued its third presidential endorsement in its 159-year history. The first one went to the nation’s first Republican presidential candidate, a guy named Abraham Lincoln, in 1860.

Five score and four years later, in 1964, “The Atlantic” weighed in with an endorsement of President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Now it has backed Hillary Clinton.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-and-against-donald-trump/501161/?utm_source=atlfb

Here’s a snippet from the editorial: “Today, our position is similar to the one in which The Atlantic’s editors found themselves in 1964. We are impressed by many of the qualities of the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, even as we are exasperated by others, but we are mainly concerned with the Republican Party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, who might be the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American presidency.”

This is a fascinating development as the campaign heads for its final month. I’m so glad it’s almost over. I am running out of stamina listening to the candidates trashing each other.

“The Atlantic” concludes its editorial endorsement with this: “We believe in American democracy, in which individuals from various parties of different ideological stripes can advance their ideas and compete for the affection of voters. But Trump is not a man of ideas. He is a demagogue, a xenophobe, a sexist, a know-nothing, and a liar. He is spectacularly unfit for office, and voters—the statesmen and thinkers of the ballot box—should act in defense of American democracy and elect his opponent.”

Ouch, man!

To be candid, the endorsement doesn’t convey unbridled confidence in Clinton’s standing. It’s more of a non-endorsement of  Donald J. Trump. I suppose that sums up what has shaped up to be the theme of this campaign: The candidates cannot stand on their own record exclusively, so they pound away at their opponents’ weaknesses.

Trump is the most profoundly unqualified and unfit candidate for the presidency most of us ever have seen.

Will this endorsement matter? Will it be the difference between winning and losing? I doubt it. Still, it’s worth your time to read and to digest what the editors of a distinguished publication have to say about the next election for the presidency of the United States.

Oh, I am so glad it’s about to be over.

Trump muscles his way into Pence’s big moment

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One more thought on what the nation witnessed Tuesday night … then I’ll move on.

Democratic nominee Tim Kaine and Republican nominee Mike Pence jousted vigorously at their vice-presidential “debate” in Farmville, Va.

They talked a lot about their presidential running mates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

But here’s the deal. Trump decided during the event to start “live tweeting” while his man Pence was on the stage.

I have to agree with the assertion made by media and political commentators about that back story. It was that Trump simply is not wired to stand aside and let his running mate do what was assigned to do. Trump just had to throw his own thoughts out there in real time while his No. 2 guy was talking on national television.

Some GOP strategists thought it only showed that Trump and Pence comprise a political “team” and that Trump merely was lending support to his running mate.

Sure thing.

It’s fair to wonder: What might Trump think of Pence doing that very thing during the upcoming Sunday night joint appearance with Hillary?