News from the Ministry of Truth
The Friday Letter / No. 429 / Purim ends at sundown
A big challenge for me as a college writing teacher is helping students learn the difference between reliable and unreliable sources, between truth and propaganda, between internet slop and professional-grade research. In my 15 years at this, it’s gotten more difficult as the mainstream media drift from information providers to propaganda merchants.
Consider this CNN story:
“We accept Joe Biden is the duly elected president of the United States,” former Pence chief of staff Marc Short told CNN’s Pamela Brown on ‘Newsroom’ Saturday evening, despite Pence playing a role in perpetuating baseless election fraud theories that Trump repeatedly pushed ahead of the attack on the Capitol(emphasis added).
Informed readers see red flags here. First, the story was co-authored by Jim Acosta, a partisan journalist whose obnoxious behavior at Trump press briefings showed him more interested in putting on a performance than gathering information for CNN viewers.
The second flag is the editorial opinion disguised as fact. We may never know the actual election vote totals, because the courts did not hear the arguments or consider evidence. It is a fact that massive election fraud took place, and it is a fact that Trump continues to dispute the results. Disputing a claim is not a baseless conspiracy theory. It is a claim.
To this day, Hillary Clinton claims she won the presidency in 2016. To this day, Stacey Abrams claims she was elected governor of Georgia and even thinks she actually is the governor. Nobody on the media Left has called these claims baseless election fraud theories.
A third flag is the implication that Trump incited the Capitol Hill riot, which we know from the timeline of his speech and the attacks is not true. Were some of his words ill-advised? Probably, but that’s another matter.
You’re never too old
We were gratified to learn that Mr. Potato Head has confronted his sexual dysphoria head-on, so to speak. Though he is 70, Mr. Potato Head has finally realized that he is not a “he” at all. From here on, he respectfully asks to be known simply as Potato Head – not he, not she, not cis. Seeing not a scintilla of humor in the matter, the Associated Press reports straight-faced that Hasbro, Mr. Potato Head’s maker, has seen the light and is acquiescing to the Loony Left to remove any suggestion that any living thing might actually be a male or female.
If this isn’t wacky enough, consider a proposed bill in the California Assembly by two House Democrats that would fine retailers $1,000 if they dare to sell their toys and child-care products in separate boys and girls departments. And you thought it couldn’t get any crazier than this. Be sure to come back next week. We’ll find something.
Short takes on the news
Improving public safety – Chicago style. Illinois unleashes a novel weapon in the war on rising crime: eliminate cash bail. The bill was pushed by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus. Chicago had 201 shootings in January, up from 137 a year earlier, and 51 homicides, the highest in four years. Said Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office: Illinois now changes “from a system of pretrial detention that prioritizes wealth, to one that prioritizes public safety.” . . .
Authoritarian government’s best friend. Amazon aids the anti-First Amendment movement by banning Ryan Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement, a top seller for the last three years. Amazon calls it hate speech. Thriftbooks says the book is “temporarily unavailable” with 20 buyers waiting in line and a supply of only eight a month. . . .
Banking and financial service providers move to shut down gun dealers, fossil fuel suppliers, for-profit colleges and payday lenders. Payment processor Affirm cuts off MyPillow because founder Mike Lindell supports President Trump’s claims of election fraud. In 2019, PayPal teamed with the extremist anti-Christian Southern Poverty Law Center to identify conservative customers in order to deny them services. SPLC maintains a list of organizations it calls hate groups. On the “Just the News” television program, GOP Rep. Ted Budd of North Carolina, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said leftists are pressuring financial institutions to dump conservative customers. Budd, a federally-licensed gun dealer, calls it “the next frontier for the radical left.” . . .
Where is Susie’s Lemonade when you need it? An undercover mole released a Coca-Cola training video that tells employees to be “less white,” which means being “less arrogant, less certain, less defensive, less ignorant and more humble.” How about less Coke? . . .
Speech control moves ahead at breathtaking speed, faster than most realize. Congressional Democrats jawbone cable TV providers to drop Fox News, One America News, and NewsMax. Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats sent a letter to AT&T, Verizon, Roku, Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Charter, DISH, Cox, Altice and Hulu, and Google parent Alphabet. “Right-wing media outlets, like Newsmax, One America News Network (OANN), and Fox News all aired misinformation about the November 2020 elections,” committee members Eshoo and McNerney wrote. “These same networks also have been key vectors of spreading misinformation related to the pandemic.” Sports commentator Jason Whitlock doesn’t get it. “Americans have so much in common,” he tells Glenn Beck. . . .
The Black Student Union at George Washington University gets more than 8,000 signatures on a petition demanding the school remove its statue of: George Washington. . . . Bill Gates throws $1 million into a campaign to declare math education “racist.” . . .
Florida’s only statewide elected Democrat, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, defies the DeSantis order to lower flags in honor of Rush Limbaugh, saying “We will not celebrate hate speech, bigotry, and division.” Limbaugh has been recognized as one of the country’s most generous celebrities, donating millions to such charities as Tunnels 2 Towers, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation.
Selective bragging rights
Michael Madigan, recently forced out as Illinois Democrat Party chairman after finally being ousted as longtime Speaker of the Illinois House, is proud of his accomplishments. “Over the last two decades,” he told the Chicago Tribune, “we’ve increased the number of women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ community serving in elected office in Illinois and helped send a hometown Chicago leader to the White House.
“We’ve faced conservative extremism and always stood up for the hardworking women and men of Illinois. Together we’ve held steady as the ‘blue wall’ in the Midwest, held supermajorities in the legislature and passed landmark legislation that has made Illinois a leader in progressive policy.”
On Jim Mason’s Thursday radio program at WLBK in DeKalb, we learned that Madigan has one other accomplishment he forget to mention. When he became speaker in 1983, the state’s employee pension fund deficit was $6 billion. At the end of his run it had grown to $149 billion. This is why Democrats are pushing so hard for the “Coronavirus relief” bill, which has little to do with the coronavirus and lots to do with bailing out corrupt Democrat-ruled states.
The Friday Letter is updated later Friday at The News-Guardian.