The mask of objectivity is torn off and the naked bias revealed
This is stunning – not the sentiment itself, but the proud and unabashed expression of it for all to see.
At first I thought it was a hoax. Why would someone in the press – or formerly in the press – admit publicly to this way of thinking? But apparently the Times checks to make sure the person who supposedly has written the letter is in fact that person who actually wrote the letter, and in this case it’s a person they know quite well.
Here’s what I’m talking about:
A piece from the New York Times published Monday showed published letters to the editor regarding a May 2 piece from the editorial board titled “Investigate Tara Reade’s Allegations.” Reade has accused Biden of sexually assaulting her while she worked as a Senate staffer in the early 1990’s.
Martin Tolchin, a co-founder of Politico and The Hill as well as a former member of The Times’ Washington bureau, wrote in and admitted that he didn’t want an investigation into the allegation.
Here’s the content of the letter:
Frame it and hang it on a wall. pic.twitter.com/QeBH2P9jnT
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) May 5, 2020
This is Trump Derangement Syndrome of an intense variety, and an “end justifies the means” philosophy that is popular on the left. The fact that a journalist who has been in the business for over half a century will now admit publicly to advocating this line is a symptom of how far it’s gone and how popular such a sentiment is. He is, IMHO, virtue-signaling, or at least he thinks he is. He believes most thinking and decent people share his opinion and will applaud it.
Here is Tolchin’s bio, from an article in The Hill written last December and promoting a book of his:
A veteran journalist — who counts The Hill among the news organizations he helped found — has some advice for today’s reporters: “Be courageous.”
Martin Tolchin worked his way up from a copy boy making $41.50 a week at The New York Times to a 40-year career at the Gray Lady. After founding The Hill in 1994 with Jerry Finkelstein, he helped launch Politico.
Now, at 91, he’s adding to his résumé yet again, with a new book called “Politics, Journalism and the Way Things Were: My Life at the Times, The Hill and Politico.”
In the memoir, which Tolchin says his daughter urged him to write for his 10-year-old grandson, he details his decades-long experience in journalism, how the industry has changed and laughs and memorable moments from along the way.
So the guy’s 91 years old. Perhaps age has made him somewhat dotty, like Biden. Perhaps it has lowered his usual inhibitions. Or perhaps he considers his current stance “courageous.” Also from that December interview:
President Trump, Tolchin says, has inspired some “very good reporting.”
“There’s nothing like adversity to get fearless,” Tolchin says of how reporting has changed in the Trump age, “and Trump has done that.”
It certainly has been a revealing experience.
[ADDENDUM: I want to re-emphasize the opening sentence: “This is stunning – not the sentiment itself, but the proud and unabashed expression of it for all to see.” And I want to add that the Times seems to have thought there was nothing there that shouldn’t be revealed in a former longtime and highly-respected reporter of theirs. They are not ashamed. Sometimes The Resistance/Press has to do dirty things to get Trump/Hitler.]
No surprise. The press is convinced that they are the unelected and totally unaccountable fourth branch of government. Furthermore, they see no problem with flaunting it.
Ick.
These old duffers just get tired of the weasel words. He and Bernie just say what they mean. And we should take them at their word, unlike the slick, snake-oil salesmen like James Carville and Obama.
Eh. It’s hard for me to get too riled up over what some nonagenarian writes.
I just wish this decrepit dude or any of his kind could actually explain what Trump has done to justify this fanaticism.
Mike
This isn’t new at all.
Bill Clinton was given a pass for much more serious allegations and many more of them because he was of the left. Anybody who held any shred of hope that any member of the MSM was anything less than a cloaked fascist was being naive. Now they’ve abandoned the cloaks…just makes for a target-rich environment.
MBunge: “I just wish this decrepit dude or any of his kind could actually explain what Trump has done to justify this fanaticism.”
Up-voted: +1000
I’ve wondered too what on Earth has Trump done to evoke such hatred? The only thing I can think of is that he doesn’t speak as “smoothly” as they do. I think America is finished with smooth-talkers, I know I am.
On a similar note, this afternoon I overheard Comrade DeBlasio accuse President Trump of turning his back on his hometown. Sheesh! That’s rich. Last I checked New Yorkers hated Trumps guts. I say: You reap what you sow, boneheads.
(Thanks Mr. Spellchecker for giving me a good laugh! He said I misspelled “DeBlasio” so I right-clicked it. Mr. Spellchecker suggested “Delusional”. Hah!)
Thank you, Mr. Tolchin. Thank you for your refreshing honesty. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.
As a man of the right (unabashedly and unapologetically so), but who was on the left until age 30 (insert Churchill comment here), I cannot overemphasize how much I appreciate honest leftists/progressives. This is why I enjoy commentaries and opinion pieces from Fish, Zizek and Paglia (although the latter is so complex, she rather defies ideological pigeonholing).
It’s about the will to power. Power and control: those are the final goals of the left. Period. End of Story. QED. Anything and everything else is secondary to the above. The fools believe there’s more to it (that’s why they’re fools); the knaves know the above is the iron truth, but most lie about it (some eloquently, some clumsily, most middlingly). Yet, occasionally one finds a leftist who gives away the game. All of the above people, including Tolchin, are these sort. They are a breath of fresh air, and a crucial reminder to conservatives of what we are up against.
The left doesn’t care about #MeToo in and of itself, or Christine Blasey Ford or Tara Reade, or Joe Biden, or any of the allegations against Al Franken or, for that matter, Bill Clinton and the Jones/Flowers/Willey/Broderick, etc. allegations against him. If Trump was a liberal Democrat, much of the left would have shrugged about Stormy Daniels as well as the “grab her by her p****” comments.)
The left cares about achieving and maintaining power; all else is instrumental to the above. Tara Reade’s allegations were useful when Biden was considered a weak has-been who needed to get out of the way so Warren (or Harris, or Buttigieg, etc.) could be coronated (not Bernie; he’s beloved by many rabble-rousers, but the established left fears he is too stubborn to succeed). It suddenly became inconvenient when Biden was abruptly deemed the best option to stop Bernie. Now that the story just won’t go away, the left is mutating accordingly: okay, okay, let’s ‘investigate’… quickly, so Biden can be cleared with minimal damage, or (less likely) it’s too serious and embarrassing, so we can substitute Cuomo quickly…with minimal damage). But the point is (and always will be): what do we have to do to maximize our chances of achieving and maintaining power?
Mr. Tolchin gives away the game. He states what most leftists are thinking: “who cares? Let’s just elect a Democrat so we can get back in power, get scores of lefty judges appointed, shore up the Deep State, and cement our rule!”
Yes indeed. Never doubt that is what almost all leftists, progressives, liberals and supposedly “moderate” Democrats are thinking, even if most will never openly say it.
“I just wish this decrepit dude or any of his kind could actually explain what Trump has done to justify this fanaticism.”
Trump doesn’t speak in the way they expect…doesn’t sound like he went to an elite, East Coast college, even though he did…and doesn’t genuflect either to educational credentials or to the-way-we’ve-always-done-things.
Read about the pushback Churchill got…and blew away…when he challenged the decisions a naval personnel selection board was making: Regular and Irregular Channels
https://ricochet.com/696389/regular-and-irregular-channels/
Brian and David:
Yeah, he doesn’t speak as “smoothly” as they do, but, more importantly, he doesn’t dabble in “exciting” waters, like they do in
this social class, see
https://LibertyUnyielding.com/2020/04/30/beyond-the-Deep-State-MOTIVE-for-sedition/ ,
by J.E. Dyer, a retired Naval Intel officer.
She stresses the links between the D.S., big banks, elite schools, and NUKE parts dealers.
To them, Trump’s big sin is not the way he talks. That’s the type of thinking the NeverTrumpers on the so-called right indulge in. They are the ones who object primarily to Trump’s style.
People such as Tolchin object to far more. They’re not fond of his style, but it actually works in their favor because they believe they can mock and ridicule him for it. But they object most of all to the following (a) he has won by taking away some of the voters they think they should own (b) he reveals their feet of clay (c) he doesn’t play the polite game of respecting them, that they’ve grown accustomed to from the right; and (d) he has put conservative judges in place and has additionally dismantled (for now, anyway) much of their agenda of the Obama years and earlier, involving both foreign and domestic policy.
They considered victory from 2008 on their right. It was in the palms of their hand, a done deal, a sure thing, and he robbed them. Whether they literally believe he did it by conspiring with the Russians and/or cheating is almost immaterial, because however he did it, they believe they were robbed.
Neo: surely (d) is the most enduring threat. The other points can be turned around in short order.
Very Interesting…. no surprise here with an old lefty stating the obvious, come hook or crook, no way can they allow Trump to win again. There was no way he could win last time around and every prediction of the main stream media said that election night would be a wonderful humiliation when Trump went down in flames. Hillary was a done deal to all of those on the left, I was talking to two nice women friends, one a judge and one a CPA who were having a wonderful time in October looking forward to Hillary becoming the first woman president and when I told them that Trump was gaining traction they laughed at me and pretty much told me I was an idiot, no way and now how could Hillary lose, and she lost and neither of those women has spoken to me since then.
From now until the first Tuesday in November it will be no holds barred smearing Trump and pushing Biden and his chosen one VP woman and never let the truth get in the way, at all costs never let the truth spoil the election of a Democrat for president, it cannot and will not be allowed to happen. No matter what says or does from now on it will be the wrong thing and nothing any candidate for the Democrats has ever done or says will be wrong.
I did not care for Trump at all four years ago at this time but I was willing to go along and vote for him to get one more Supreme Court judge and we lucked out and got two fairly good choices who we know will disappoint us from time to time. If we can re-elect Trump once more than we have a chance to really change the judicial system, elections have consequences as one politician said not too long ago.
My wife and I were on a Zoom with our grown kids and their families this afternoon, all of them conservatives, one in Gunnison, Colorado and the other in Grosse Point Park, MI. Gunnison was hit hard with the virus at first and now my daughter in law who is a nurse at the hospital had an extra day off because they are short on patients, she had a couple of older virus folks pass away and now things are quiet. As for Grosse Pointe Park on the edge of Detroit my daughter’s best friend is a black woman who is telling her that the black vote in Detroit might go for Trump in a big way. Her friend who is in her late 40’s said that Trump was bringing jobs back to Detroit for the first time in her lifetime and black people appreciated what he was doing and now they are getting treated like crap from the Democrats in state office. I sure hope she is right about that.
Our family is in good shape to ride this thing out and they know there will be opportunities when this thing lifts up, it will be a completely new situation for a few years but we are a strong nation with resources and people who are willing to work and in time improve the situation which will take several years if we are lucky.
As for the NYT no one I know who might vote for Trump gives a teeny, tiny, rat’s assed what they write because they quit paying attention to those major lefty newspapers years ago. That old man is kind like making love to himself because he can gather all his cohorts to go along writing their stories to help Biden and they will not reach out and change the minds that voted against Hillary last time.
He paused, to some extent, the use of the federal government as an unbridled instrument dedicated by progressives to the complete reconstruction and redesign of your life and relationships, both public and private, according to their collectivist tastes and sensibilities.
They want you hemmed in, hamstrung, buggered, and placed completely at their disposal by government power, until such point as you are able to be safely replaced and finally managed out of existence in the name of a bliss which is sure to arrive once their resentments and spite have been sated.
The world is not fair. You, and your recalcitrance and exclusionary self-centeredness, are part of that unfairness. The evolutionarily annointed task of the progressive is to make it fair.
What other tool than government? Once you have been compulsorarily reoriented to serving them rather than yourself, the first phase will have been completed , and the ultimate issue of addressing what to do about the presence of such essentially bad natures in the world as your own, can be addressed.
Then, all alienation and resentment and shame and pain of inadequacy will disappear ; to be replaced by solidarity, inclusion, affairmation, and collective joy.
Trump stands in the way of all that. And it was just recently so close …. so close.
The “stunning” bit, to me, is the complete and total abdication by this guy to honestly and disinterestedly report the facts, and the absolute abandoning of journalistic principle.
But, then, this is what I’ve come to expect from this crowd.
Who would have ever thought to start 2016 that a vote for Donald Trump would wind up being a vote FOR normality. If Trump loses in 2020, we will be rewarding a non-rational narcissistic pathology that has taken over most of our political/cultural establishment. If we get rid of Trump, the behavior of his critics and enemies will not get better. It will get worse.
Mike
I was going to agree with that, but say that something needed to be added to the categorical. But you did it yourself with the observation that there are secondary considerations at work in the psychology of some progressives.
It`s my opinion that these secondary considerations are actually nearly coequal products of a first conditioning assumption , which then sets the stage for, or which psychologically “enables” them to, adopt that will to power stance without it seeming nihilistic even to themselves.
And that conditioning assumption is their solid conviction that existence is intrinsically meaningless, and that all meaning is creatively projected into it through what they view as something akin to artistic acts of commitment and bringing-to-be. Without however, any eternal recurrence of the same, being involved.
God does not exist. Therefore they must assume the role. It’s forced on them by the human condition, don’t you know ….
There are to be sure some thoroughgoing and blatant nihilists among them who don’t even bother with a veil of justification for what they do. But I think that the majority are the “fools” you describe, whose half thought through excuse of a life philosophy really does justify, to their confused or self regarding minds, an ends justifying the means approach to human relations. Is this veil of justification itself no more than an egotistic delusion? Maybe.
What’s interesting for me, is that they cannot see the obvious antinomies in their position which finally undercut their attempts to escape the ninilism which underlies and undermines both the rank and the veiled versions of the will to power stance.
Neo, in the “c”, on your list of the real Lefty leaders’ beefs vs. DJT, his refusal to play “the polite game of respecting them, that they’ve grown accustomed to from the right”, this became starkly clear when he “blatantly” defied PC, by talking against the illegals, and vowed to build a wall.
Given what is now so clear, about how infantile, or criminal, these brats are, we must assume that they will stop at utterly nothing, to smash **everyone** in their way, if they win this election.
}}} Martin Tolchin worked his way up from a copy boy making $41.50 a week at The New York Times
OK, he’s 91, which means he was born about 1929. Assume he had his first job at 16 in 1945. $41.50 in today’s dollars is $600 bucks a week. That’s 30k a year.
Man, he was just a poor poor pauper living off the breadlines and wearing rags, wasn’t he?
:-/
All their bullshit depends so much on not providing context, and no one around — products of the modern eddimikashinal system — having their own context or the sense of questioning that ties to it.
}}} Mike: If Trump loses in 2020, we will be rewarding a non-rational narcissistic pathology that has taken over most of our political/cultural establishment.
If Trump had lost in 2016, it would have been that same thing. Obama winning in 2008, and particularly in 2012, was that same thing.
The only hope is the sign that 911 kids are rejecting some or much of this.
MBunge: “I just wish this decrepit dude or any of his kind could actually explain what Trump has done to justify this fanaticism.”
prevented the dream of full communism and its paradise..
As someone else said here, the Left is and has always been about power and control. What Tara Reade say Biden did is also about power and control. So why do we hear so much about “rape culture”? Because the people who (loudly) raise that issue are encapsulated by the culture of the Left. It’s who they interact with, who they know; they have little or no connection with anyone outside it.
What do you call a culture that not just accepts, but enables and covers up (that is, defends), behavior like Biden’s alleged behavior (and worse) whenever it’s convenient to them?
I know what I call it, and it explains a lot. This man’s letter to the editor is sterling example of it.
Don’t call them out on their hypocrisy, they don’t give a damn. They’re not embarrassed. To them, it’s all about power, the ends justify the means. They want Trump out and to gain control of the levers of power again, by any means necessary. It’s all about Biden’s VP choice.
What they’re also mad about is the rightist coalition Trump brought with him. It’s almost nihilistic, which is what the left is like, so they’re having a hard time controlling the narrative, they can’t control a group that says we don’t care about you, your philosophy, or your power. It’s driving them nuts and this is their last shot.
Josh (above) makes s good point. The Left is becoming increasingly desperate. In a second term, now experienced in governance, and with a good chance of regaining the House, Trump could remake the political landscape and utterly destroy all of the Left’s institutional advantages. Their project to control Americans and consolidate themselves in power could be set back 30 or 40 years.
For them, or at least for their political project, Trump is an existential threat. So, if they are looking a little unhinged, they have reason to be. And, as the election continues, we should expect increasingly desperate measures from them.
Sorry it is not over. Nor will it be over any time soon.
The educational establishment is still firmly in the hands of the Left. Politically, the 20-30 year olds who are likely to be in positions of influence have been deeply indoctrinated. Socially/morally they are yet another generation further removed from normal family and community compared to their Boomer professors. Even another Depression will not reform their worldview. I am hoping that patriots are able to stave off the revolution until i am too old to care.
There were predictors for Trump in 2016. One was Angelo Codevilla’s essay, “The Ruling Class” in 2010, the other was the response to Sarah Palin in 2008. She was sabotaged by Nicole Wallace who was the McCain campaign hit person on her. Even so, she attracted a lot of attention that has persisted. The hatred directed toward her on the left was a “tell.”
Politico has been hard left from the first day it appeared. “The Hill” was less so but it has shifted left and finally got rid of its one good reporter John Solomon.
Totally off topic, but I wanted to make a quick note. US new cases has dropped 3 days in a row, and yesterday the new cases was the lowest it has been since March 21. Of course a bit early to get too excited, but maybe the trend will continue. Oh wait, I forgot, lockdowns are ending in many states, cases will rise dramatically and we all are going to die!!
Personal note: we went to Home Depot yesterday to buy something. Had to wear a mask to get in and they were supposedly limiting customers, but as my wife wryly noted, they were counting who went in, but not who was going out.
” He is, IMHO, virtue-signaling, or at least he thinks he is. He believes most thinking and decent people share his opinion and will applaud it.”
IMHO the vast majority of demokrats do in fact agree with him and do applaud his opinion.
If you think I am wrong, who thinks that putative voters for Biden will now refuse to vote for him in November due to the sex allegations? There is no way in hell that Biden supporters will refuse to vote for him, irrespective of any “proof” or information.
True believers in a cause are immune to any facts or information that opposes their deeply held religious beliefs; any contrary/troubling information is dismissed out of hand and ignored. The individual cannot and will not allow dissonance to disrupt their deeply held pseudo-religious beliefs.
These types of folks are really no different than neo-Nazis today who believe that the holocaust never happened, or no different than folks who believe that 9-11 was due to the machinations of Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and the Israeli Mossad.
I will say this for the umpteenth time; the real danger in folks like Tolchin is that they vote, and in a representative democracy, voters can willingly and freely vote for a national suicide (think Venezuela).
Tolchin is no different than the vast majority of democrats; they believe what they believe.
Like members of any extremist groups – Nazis, Klan, CPUSA, ANTIFA, etc – the ends justifies the means.
aNonnyMouse: That article reveals that there a lot of people who need to have their ways of life destroyed.
Mbunge asks what Trump has done “to justify this fanaticism.”
Neo answers well, but I think there’s something she left out: Trump beat Hillary.
That was a towering example of lèse majesté. How could he dare? Hillary was the anointed one, the successor to Obama’s glorious 8 years. (I hope I don’t have to put in ‘close sarcasm’ here — you all understand, right?)
And as I recall it happening, almost no one saw Trump’s victory coming. It was beyond expectation because in their bubble, no one they knew would vote for Trump. And we all remember Hillary refusing to concede, newscasters crying on screen, and a ballroom of Hillary supporters standing in total shock. This was like no other political defeat I’ve ever seen. Meltdown does not do it justice. It was the end of the world.
Under these circumstances, fanaticism on the part of Democrats is understandable, even if it is not acceptable to the rest of us. Their world had truly ended. The fanaticism did not just pop up then — that bud had been growing for 8 years or more. And on that night the bud they were all watching for so long to flower just dropped off the vine without flowering.
It is almost sad. Almost. But one cannot be sad over the failure of a delusion.
“They are not ashamed?”
Why should they be ashamed? Shame requires both a moral code, and the awareness that one has violated that code…and usually, the awareness that others have found out about the violation.
But this is the left we’re talking about, here, and Ideas Have Consequences.
Leftism sprouts partly from a firm conviction that the moral admonitions of Holy Writ and Tradition are in themselves despicable and benighted. And although leftists are mostly ignorant of the kinds of classical virtue ethics which once permeated Western thought and lingers still in the Aristotelian/Thomist tradition, the idea that morality is an objective, discoverable thing — that an “ought” can and does proceed from an “is” — likewise is either scorned as “unsophisticated” or vilified as “fascist.”
Proceeding from such convictions (but still possessing the basic human instinct for seeking moral justification and heroism), leftists naturally attempt to form a replacement moral code. But there are no coherent replacements: The stock objections to Kant and Diderot and Sartre and Nietzsche and Hume and Moore and everything else from the 16th century to Peter Singer’s most recent dalliance with bestiality are all correct objections. The post-Enlightenment competing schools of moral theory can’t resolve their differences because they’re all wrong.
The fallback position is sentimentalism: The view that morals are mere subjective feelings of distaste associated with various actions. For lack of any other twig on which to alight, all leftist moralizing eventually collapses to the sentimentalist position. (Plus it’s easy enough — lazy and cynical enough — that even a leftist can wrap his brain around it with minimal effort.)
The morality-as-sentiment view relegates the opinion that Sexual Perversion Is Bad to the same category of expression as That Edible Candlewax Which Americans Hilariously Call “Swiss” Cheese Is Bad. That can be an advantage: It’s great stuff, if you’re a sexual libertine; or even if you’re quite traditional but your boss is a sexual libertine, since it excuses you from feeling any moral obligation to admonish, which might prove risky to your financial well-being.
Unfortunately, the morality-as-sentiment view also puts the opinion that Censorship Is Bad and Representing Political Lies As News Is Bad into the same category as American “Swiss” Cheese Is Bad: They become mere subjective preferences, personal tastes. Vandalism Is Bad and Violent Intimidation Is Bad and Totalitarian Oppression Is Bad go along for the ride.
Now if you convince someone that his moral qualms about slandering his political opponents are in the same category as his distaste for “Swiss” cheese, it shouldn’t surprise anyone if he’s sometimes willing, if the cost/benefit ratio looks right, to slander his political enemies! He’s willing to eat the “Swiss” cheese if he’s hungry enough; certainly he’ll be willing to firebomb his opponent’s headquarters or drum up absurd rape accusations about the opposition party’s judicial nominee if it’ll help him win.
And that is the lens through which to see Martin Tolchin’s brag — it wasn’t an admission, it was a braggadocious waving of his tribal colors — that he would stifle legitimate news in order to win.
Of course he would. He is a leftist, living in the thought-world of leftists. He doesn’t think there’s any objective moral code, still less a divine enforcer of one. He thinks that by showing his willingness to Eat Bad Cheese for the sake of the cause, he proves how strong are the emotions which attach him to that cause. And he knows all the other left-leaning sentimentalists will think highly of him for doing so.
He is, as it were, “practicing his good works before men.” Well, he has his reward.
Of course we all ignore how femnism has designated who the new targets are
(and of course the old targets are a subset of the new ones too! convenient)
At first I thought it was a hoax. Why would someone in the press – or formerly in the press – admit publicly to this way of thinking?
formerly in the press doesnt matter, below will be examples from current press… (like today)
because they know that the people who might be against them wont be… the ladies are not suddenly going to wake up to save the “Neo-Juden” labeled as the opposite (and not Jewish)… These are the people who the greatest generation SAVED and so the children of that generation must share their fate in order to complete the goal of the Magyar Struggle… how often have we known the idea was that if your an X-Lover, you share what is for X? why do we think it doesn’t apply?
wait till they figure out who is the source of a new supply, boy are those ladies going to suddenly be confused as to why the world will turn on them (now they have no one to stand with them).
“No whites allowed” safe space for employees of Oregon county:
This, as in Germany does not apply to the elite, of which there were certain peoples in the party that were immune to what the lower caste was getting (examples are legendary)..
Even the rhetoric of going back to work…
The whiteness of anti-lockdown protests
How ignorance, privilege, and anti-black racism is driving white protesters to risk their lives.
Being white is the default identity in America. Whiteness is our cultural tapestry. It’s America’s norm, against which all others are measured, and there is a special kind of security that comes along with being the norm. So when you suddenly do not have free rein to go about your business unchecked, it can feel like a massive threat. And in turn, protesters have taken to the streets to fight to keep that security. That feeling of “oppression” these white protesters have voiced is the residual effect of living in a country that has been shaped to cater to their racial majority status, and consequently, their perceived loss of power and privilege.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Dumped Milk, Smashed Eggs, Plowed Vegetables: Food Waste of the Pandemic
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/business/coronavirus-destroying-food.html
US restaurant closings spur farmers to destroy food
https://www.ft.com/content/da5c2e66-c946-4726-b6a5-b1dbdd6b7f50
Wasted milk, euthanized livestock: Photos show how coronavirus has devastated US agriculture
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/02/coronavirus-devastates-agriculture-dumped-milk-euthanized-livestock.html
-=-=-=-=-=-
Dont worry… you know who will be blamed for this too despite wanting to prevent it
after all, in germany 1933, who was to blame for all the ills of society at that time?
whats different? if its not the same target then its different? really?
Hosts of Jewish Weddings Arrested in New Jersey for Violating Coronavirus Rules
4 arrested after ultra-Orthodox wedding violates coronavirus restrictions
NY cops chase hearse as they disperse Jewish funeral in Brooklyn and arrest a teen after mayor Bill de Blasio was branded a hypocrite for ordering crackdown to stop coronavirus spreading
3 Jewish Israelis indicted for praying on Temple Mount
FBI: Man who spoke of hating Jews held in temple bomb plot
The left is openly rooting for as many people to die from this as possible. Though they say they hope those who die are all Trump supporters, the reality is that people of all stripes will be affected. Even with the push to highlight the “disparate impact” of the virus in the Afrrican-American community (without getting into the veracity or reasons for those claims), no Democrat is bemoaning the loss of voting capital in that important bloc for them. Why? Because they know that they, unlike the Republicans, don’t need actual humans to vote to win elections. As long as they are in charge of checking people in to vote (which can result in 130% voter turnout), registering the votes, and counting the votes (especially if done through the mail), they can produce enough to erase any deficit.
People dying only affects the side that relies on actual votes.
Anyone seen the video of Dr. Judy Mikovits that is going viral on facebook? Absolutely eviscerates Fauci. If the censors don’t start erasing like crazy, it will impact the election. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVoAeNNwyFg
If anyone encounters a right-wing corona-skeptic ranting about how this has all been a hoax and we destroyed the economy for nothing, tell them to look at Minnesota.
In less than two months, there have been 2,000 more coronavirus cases in MN than the worst flu season in the past six years. It less than two months, coronavirus has also killed more Minnesotans than any flu did the last six years, and the flu season usually lasts four to six months. And if you look at the trends, it is virtually a certainty that coronavirus will kill AT LEAST 50% more in Minnesota than the worse flu season in the past six years. And that’s WITH the most extreme disease mitigation efforts any of us have ever seen.
Yes, the initial projections of viral apocalypse were wrong. Yes, it is a disease that’s by far most deadly to 70+ segment of the population. But this is not a hoax and it’s alarming to see appropriate levels of skepticism devolve into pure know-nothingism.
Mike
Roy: “as the election continues, we should expect increasingly desperate measures….”
Indeed. The Western world hasn’t seen anything like this, since late Weimar.
If this crowd wins, they’ll make the Night of the Long Knives look like a stroll in the park.
Mr Bunge:
Does your strawman ride on your hobby horse without your help or is it automated (robotic)?
Honest, but nor refreshing.
Mbunge…”Yes, the initial projections of viral apocalypse were wrong. Yes, it is a disease that’s by far most deadly to 70+ segment of the population. But this is not a hoax and it’s alarming to see appropriate levels of skepticism devolve into pure know-nothingism.”
That is correct…though the absolutist hysteria exists on both sides. “Progressives” are acting as if the need for *some* distancing rules means that every rule thought up by any state government or local official is thereby justified.
Actually, Open vs Close is not binary; it is a continuum. And I don’t think there is any real quantitative data to estimate the relative disease transmission effect of, for example, banning indoor theaters, banning private gatherings, banning church services of 20 people in a building that holds 500, and keeping the New York subways open.
Median age of dead in Minnesota is like a 115 or so. Clearly they need to protect their nursing homes better.
David: “I don’t think there is any **real quantitative data** to estimate the relative disease transmission effect of, for example, banning indoor theaters, banning private gatherings,….”
As that is, and was, true, there was no **sound quantitative** basis for the draconian lockdown imposed, and maintained, by Blue state tyrants.
See e.g. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13350456&
postID=2331737092247285425&bpli=1 .
Hopefully the New York Times and the rest of the necrotic MSM are reaching their expiration date.
I wonder about the theory that the dominant life force of progressives is the yearning for power…victory…control of others…
If this is true, why do they seem to consistently lack shrewdness?, cleverness or acumen in action? A shrewd politician would never settle on Biden, would never want a minimum wage, or rent control, or to believe all accusatory women—carte blanche…. on and on they repeatedly make unforced errors. It seems as if they needlessly act dumb.
If their life force is to gain power, then they cannot rationally hold such opinions because they will then go on in life and be embarrassed repeatedly as life and reality proves them wrong…over and over.
So you will say that this only proves them slow or dumb. Well, sure, but it could also mean that this diagnosis is wrong.
I would guess that another possible reason d’être for the liberal mindset is their desire to be a part of a club whose members are the elite. This makes them feel powerful and respected and in a driver’s seat, at the wheel of society’s culture, almost as good as actually wielding power and much easier to achieve.
Yeah, SCOTT, this bunch has been playing with fire for at least a decade, see analysis from Archdruid J.M. Greer (who called DJT’s victory, in Jan. 2016!!).
On how DJT’s plain-speaking appeal forestalled the deplorables’ storming of the gates, see
https://www.Ecosophia.net/dancers-at-the-end-of-time-Part-Three-a-mortal-splendor/ .
On the current Left’s outright Quixotic modes of thinking, see
https://www.Ecosophia.net/dancers-at-the-end-of-time-Part-Two-Facts-are-the-Enemies-of-truth/ .
On how so many “prosperous, well-educated, well-informed people” have abandoned “certain very simple kinds of reasoning”, see
https://www.Ecosophia.net/dancers-at-the-end-of-time-Part-One-the-Flight-from-Reason/ .
Dnaxy, the leaders mostly want power, the flock mostly wants to “FEEL powerful and respected”.
The leaders won’t “be embarrassed repeatedly as life and reality proves them wrong”, because they know they can keep pushing the buttons of the flock (who **don’t care** how often their leaders are proven wrong, as long as the flock can assuage their FEELings of loneliness, by being “in” with the Elite).
MBunge:
Looking at your 1:01 PM comment I see no links to where you got your information.
But I very much doubt it’s relevant for flu cases or flu deaths in Minnesota, and I’ll tell you why. Read this post, and read it carefully. You will learn that we actually have little idea how many people die of the flu; it is all estimates after the fact, and the number of people tested for it and listed as dying of it is always much smaller than the number estimated to have died of it. It is not common for a person with flu (or even dying of it) to be tested for it, for the reasons listed in the post.
So far in Minnesota, 485 people have died of COVID. That’s with much more testing of those with symptoms, plus inclusion of people suspected to have died from it. If you compare to the “bad” flu year of 2017-2018, here’s an article written in earlier Feb of that year and dealing with Minnesota. It says this:
That’s just 3 weeks in January. I can’t find any flu death data for Minnesota for the whole season, but if you take the percentage of the US population that lives in Minnesota, and then take that percentage of the estimated flu deaths as a whole in 2017-2018, you get a figure of 1,214. COVID has a long way to go in Minnesota before reaching that figure.
And remember that flu killed not just old people, but a not inconsiderable number of children under 5 as well.
Lastly, I don’t think anyone here is saying COVID is a hoax. They are saying the hype of the initial predictions was either a hoax or more likely just plain error-laden, and that these “expert” predictions aren’t worth much.
That article also said that so far (early February 2018) in Minnesota there had been 3,839 hospitalizations for the flu. And the flu season was far from over. In contrast, this year in Minnesota, as of May 4 there have been 1,271 patients hospitalized for COVID.
So in term of hospitalizations, the 2017-2018 flu season was much worse early on in Minnesota than COVID is so far. COVID may end up being similar, but it certainly isn’t up to this point, as far as I can tell.
But this is not a hoax and it’s alarming to see appropriate levels of skepticism devolve into pure know-nothingism.
This is a bit hysterical. Nobody said the virus was a hoax. Trump compared the hysteria to the hoax of Russia and it has been shown to be the case. For example, why is the ridiculous reaction to hydroxychloroquine happening ? The draconian shutdown orders are another.
It is fairly simple to request those at risk to self quarantine. Most are retired and not working. The younger population is relatively resistant and at much lower risk. Instead, we have state judges imprisoning and fining $500 per day a woman who dared to reopen her hair salon.
The nursing homes contain a high concentration of the most susceptible but, in New York anyway, they were obliged to accept infected cases. Some mistakes were made early when little was known but the NYC subways are still open and crowded.
“I don’t want justice, whatever that may be. I want a win…”
“You were given the choice between justice and a win at any cost. You chose a win at ANY cost, and you WILL have…justice.”
Yeah, Mike, why must great suspicion of Cuomo etc., on “in New York anyway, they were *obliged* to accept infected cases”, reasonably arouse charges of “pure know-nothingism”?
Barry Meislin on May 6, 2020 at 3:14 pm said:
“I don’t want justice, whatever that may be. I want a win…”
“You were given the choice between justice and a win at any cost. You chose a win at ANY cost, and you WILL have…justice.”
* * *
I see you know your Delphic Oracle history well.
Plus a bit of the Old Testament.
All rolled into one: The Gods of the Copy-Book Headings by Rudyard Kipling.
Artfldgr on May 5, 2020 at 11:25 pm said:
MBunge: “I just wish this decrepit dude or any of his kind could actually explain what Trump has done to justify this fanaticism.”
prevented the dream of full communism and its paradise..
* * *
On the money.
Dodger, you are on a pithy-comment roll today!
An interesting personal story of political conversion.
He gives a picture of the Trump-haters among the populace in general, though, not the political operatives whose life-style, career, income, and ideology are threatened by MAGA policies.
And definitely not the Hillary-supporting Obama-complicit Deep State.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/why_dont_i_hate_donald_trump.html?utm_source=vuukle&utm_medium=newsfeed
Too good to check?
https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/05/06/project-veritas-exposes-cbs-news-this-morning-crew-faking-a-scene-at-a-michigan-covid-testing-site/
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/03/10/new-york-times-attempts-to-create-fake-spy-story-to-discredit-trump-administration-and-project-veritas/
Let’s tear some more masks off.
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/05/06/831799/
Which links to this – do read Grenell’s letter to Schiff – it is a gentleman’s classic “I’m sorry you’re so stupid” put-down.
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/04/21/822888/
An honest journalist at CNN?
That’s a different kind of mask being torn off!
https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/05/06/former-fbi-official-and-cnn-analyst-changes-his-mind-now-says-michael-flynn-was-railroaded/
McEnany ripped a lot of mask-wearers today.
https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/05/06/kayleigh-mcenany-shows-shes-really-good-at-being-press-secretary-roasts-media-after-gotcha-question/
Masks shredded completely now.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/justice-department-mueller-scope-memo-russia-investigation-trump
https://www.foxnews.com/media/graham-mueller-probe-illegitimate-to-begin-with