The folks in media who make a living monitoring Fox News for problematic content may want to take a gander at the daily goings-on at MSNBC.
Because the left-wing cable news network is every bit as deranged and out of control as they say Fox News is.
An MSNBC panel erupted in laughter recently, for example, after a guest suggested Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is a closeted gay man who has “never seen a vagina.”
Riveting, uplifting stuff, folks.
“Lindsey Graham,” MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle began, “is more than doubling down. He is going further, pushing a federal ban [on abortion at 15 weeks]. A national ban on abortion. Why would he even be doing this?”
She added, “They overturned Roe v. Wade. So, for that portion of their base who wanted that, you got what you wanted. Why do this? Republicans don’t even support it across the board.”
Interjected MSNBC guest Judy Gold, “And the fact that he is telling women what to do with their bodies. He’s never seen a vagina! He has never seen a naked woman. And he is telling me—”
Everyone laughed.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Ruhle grinned.
“Judy,” said CNBC’s Ron Insana, “we refer to that as an unconfirmed report.”
“Someone needs to find out,” laughed guest Liz Plank.
They are, of course, referring to the persistent, unconfirmed rumor that Graham is a closeted homosexual. It’s an old and tired line of attack, brought up exclusively whenever Graham does something that upsets or annoys someone. The senator’s critics, including everyone at MSNBC apparently, go straight to accusing him of being a secret homosexual whenever he runs afoul of their professed principles.
Weirdly enough, the people who make a living writing 500-700-word stories dissecting Fox News’s Tucker Carlson’s nightly monologues have been curiously, almost strategically silent regarding MSNBC’s gay-baiting attack on Graham.
It can’t be missed that the same people who focus obsessively on Fox News, accusing it of “coarsening” our beloved discourse and devaluing our beloved “norms,” have absolutely no interest whatsoever in holding MSNBC similarly accountable for the bilge it pumps out daily.
It’s almost as if the “discourse” and “norms” crowd doesn’t even know MSNBC exists. Either that or they simply don’t care when the problematic content comes from their own side.
Garbage
Democrats can say just about anything on national television and get away with it.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota claimed recently that a vote for the Democratic Party is a vote for fewer hurricanes. As in, if you vote for Democrats in the midterm elections, they’ll put an end to hurricanes (or at least reduce them).
That’s the power of the federal government, baby!
“If the Republicans take charge,” the senator said during a recent appearance on MSNBC (hey, there’s that mysteriously free-from-media-criticism network again!), “a number of them have been talking about an abortion ban. You guys know that. You featured it on the show.”
She added, “That’s why we’ve got to win this midterm. We just did something about climate change for the first time in decades. That’s why we got to win this as that hurricane bears down on Florida. We’ve got to win in the midterms.”
Not a single person on the MSNBC panel challenged Klobuchar. Not a single person had the temerity to ask whether Democrats can really reduce the number of hurricanes should they maintain control in Congress.
“Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar,” said host Mika Brzezinski, “thank you for being on this morning. Great to see you.”
And that was that.
Anyway, back to Trump’s lies and grandiose campaign promises! More at 11!
Nonsense
The Washington Post, which has gone through the five stages of grief in response to the U.S. recession, has reached the final phase in its journey of despair: acceptance.
“7 ways a recession could be good for you financially,” reads the headline of a Sept. 29 column by the Washington Post’s Michelle Singletary. Its subhead reads, “Hey, a recession isn’t all bad news. Here are seven silver linings.”
We’re a long way from those earlier articles denying the United States is even in a recession.
“As bad as things are — rising interest rates, high inflation, stock market tumbling — the economy hasn’t imploded as it did during the Great Depression,” Singletary writes. “While many people are hurting, there may be ways to cushion the downside.”
She adds, “Of course, times are tough — and for some people, much more than others. But remember that fear will not help you make wise financial decisions.”
If this advice sounds familiar, it should. Singletary is the same Washington Post reporter who said rather infamously in June, back when her paper denied the U.S. was headed for a recession, that people worried about a hard economic downturn should “stop complaining” and “calm down and back off.”
“There’s a great deal of Americans where it is uncomfortable that they’re spending more,” she said during an appearance on MSNBC (there is it again!), “but they are not going to go under.”
“You know,” she continued, “you got to stop complaining when there’s so many people who literally the inflation rate means they may only have two meals instead of three. There are Americans who did extremely well in the last two years in the market. You still have your job.”
Singletary added, “And yeah, it’s costing you more for gas, but guess what, you’re still going to take that holiday, that Fourth of July vacation. You can still eat out. So, I’m going to need you to calm down and back off because it feeds into this fear, and then this fear feeds into people making decisions that creates the very thing they’re fearful of.”
Her latest advice in the pages of the Washington Post is particularly amusing considering it was not too long ago the paper went to bat for the Biden administration’s absurd assertion that the U.S. is not technically in a recession because, well, it’s using a new definition now for what constitutes a “recession.”
In July of this year, the U.S. economy contracted by minus 0.9% in the second quarter, following on the heels of a contraction of minus 1.6% in the first quarter. A recession is defined typically as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP. July’s data showed the U.S. economy suffered two consecutive quarters of negative GDP. This is a recession.
Amazingly, the Biden White House and its backers in the press chose simply to deny reality. They claimed the U.S. is not really in a recession because, well, we’re simply redefining what it means to be in a recession.
“Two negative quarters of GDP growth is not the technical definition of recession,” Biden economic adviser and current National Economic Council Director Brian Deese told reporters in July. “It’s not the definition that economists have traditionally relied on.”
This is the same Deese who remarked in 2008 that the “technical definition” of recession is “two consecutive quarters of negative growth.”
Not one to leave the Biden administration hanging, the Washington Post was close behind, pushing the White House spin that, despite all data and long-standing understandings of what makes a recession, the U.S. is not really in a recession.
“Two quarters of negative GDP typically signal a recession,” said the Washington Post’s Heather Long. “But the group of economists that declare a recession have not acted yet.”
The paper published a separate article titled, “The 8 economists who decide if the U.S. is in a recession.” Its subhead reads, “Even if gross domestic product figures show a shrinking economy, a recession won’t officially have begun unless the National Bureau of Economic Research says so.”
Fun fact: You don’t need the National Bureau of Economic Research’s permission to declare a recession a recession.
The Washington Post feared elsewhere the numbers showing the U.S. definitely entered into a recession may “raise concerns that the country may be heading into a recession.”
Later, on July 28, the Washington Post published a column titled, “These experts don’t think we are in a recession and neither do I.”
Later, the paper published yet another article quietly downplaying the numbers. Its headline reads: “U.S. economy shrinks again in second quarter, reviving recession fears.” Its subhead reads, “The latest GDP reading comes at a time of mounting worries about the economy’s resilience.”
From “we’re not technically in a recession” to “7 ways a recession could be good for you financially,” and all it took was a swift kick in the pants by reality.
