The Elites Are Manipulating You

Thursday morning, MSNBC’s Morning Joe conducted its post-debate analysis of the final battle between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. It was one of the better shows the program has put on in a while. Instead of the vanilla groupthink into which the show has been descending, opposition and even strong, sarcastic disagreement grabbed the participants. It was refreshing to see an actual discussion.

More than that, it provided viewers, and voters, with some vital information.

At about the 7:29 mark of the show, Joe Scarborough introduced political commentator Mark Halperin, an anti-Trumper who nonetheless retains a measure of objectivity and mental sobriety. He asked Halperin how he scored Wednesday night’s debate. Here’s Halperin’s reply:

“I’m fascinated by a parallel universe in which Trump hadn’t said what he said about respecting the results because he had a lot of good moments. I think he got more of his message out than he ever has. He had the demeanor that a lot of people wanted to see. But there’s no doubt that it’s the revenge of the elites. Elites do not accept that that was an appropriate answer. And it’s not just the coverage in the media aftermath of the debate, the coverage this morning; but until he explains it (his answer) and gets in sync with everyone on his campaign team, I don’t think he’s going to get to talk about much else. That means every bit of good he might have done last night with a strong performance, and her strong performance, I don’t think matters much.”

Scarborough then asked Halperin this question:

“How many people in Scranton, Pennsylvania, care about what he said in that answer compared to people in newsrooms that are (makes whining sounds) whimpering and whining with their, you know, their soy lattes?”

Halperin replied:

“That’s why I say it’s the revenge of the elites. Elites in both parties have been against Trump from the beginning…”

Mika interjected: “Yes, they have.”

Halperin continued:

“They look at this answer as wrong, morally wrong, against our traditions. And so, the elites have the power to make this the whole debate. You know, Kellyanne Conway and others came into the spin room afterward and said, Why are you seizing on one moment? Well, because it’s a moment that is out of sync with everyone else in his campaign. It’s a moment that offends the sensibilities of elites, and it’s a moment that will dominate forever what this debate is about. I think what he said was wrong and his tone was wrong. And it was an unforced error. But there’s no doubt, Joe, you’re right. Normal people won’t care about that answer. That’s why I say again, elites control a lot of this process. They don’t like that answer, and for good reasons. It was not an acceptable answer in the realm of American discourse.”

For reasons I detailed in yesterday’s post, I disagree with Halperin’s take that Trump’s answer was not an acceptable one in the realm of American discourse, that what Trump said was wrong, and that he said it in a tone that was wrong. More importantly, others who possess greater knowledge of history than I have flatly dismissed the kind of objection that Halperin made.

For brevity’s sake, I’ll simply point out the many times the Founding Fathers and others throughout our history, as well as in the history of other nations, have declared loudly the need for perpetual vigilance to safeguard our liberty.

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.” – Thomas Paine

“But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government.” – Andrew Jackson

“Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power…. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” – John F. Kennedy

So what can we take away from Halperin’s remarks?

First, and there is no getting around the terminology, our country has a class of elites who dominate both parties, the economy, the government, and society.

Second, these elites often work together for their common purposes, and they at the least, to quote Halperin, “control a lot of the process.” That “process” is the operation of the above named spheres and the dissemination or suppression of relevant information to conduct the operation of the above named spheres via the organs of mass media.

Third, because of that level of control, “the elites have the power to make this the whole debate”.

In other words, the elites can dictate what issues will be presented to you and the triggers and imagery they will use to capture and hold your attention; they will frame the issues, provide the scenery, and situate the perspective from which you will view; the energy and intensity and color of the kabuki theater spectacle will direct you to the proper emotional, “ethical”, and intellectual conclusions! They will make it seem so noble and so obvious!

It isn’t Trump’s job to assume the inviolability of an elitist principle of respecting the outcome. More importantly, it isn’t our job! We are supposed to assume the worst, and we should be constantly checking to see whether the election process is rigged or not; it isn’t our job to validate something without looking warily at it and testing it.

Liberty calls for vigilance! Liberty’s work is never completed, and its work cannot be approached with complacency or indifference or selfishness.

Yet if you watched any of the post-debate coverage, watched the next morning’s news programs, or read the newspapers, is that not exactly what you witnessed? Did you not see an outrage that anyone could call into question the outcome of an election? Did the media minions discuss the whole debate or did they concentrate on Trump’s answer on the election result and the significance they wanted you to take from it? What did the major newspapers headline? Did the TV and press journalists merely report what happened at the debate, or did they damn Trump’s remarks or claim how dangerous and unprecedented they were… and how dangerous Trump is?

It’s unfortunate, but our country has developed classes. The elites have the cattle prods; we amble about as confused members of the herd, if we allow them their way. We can take responsibility for our individual and collective actions and for the outcomes in our political lives. We can take the cattle prods away from them and restore genuine liberty and accountability.

To do that, we must oppose their machinations and their policies and their candidates. We must slap away the funnels through which they try to force-feed their ideas to us. According to our Forefathers, we should assume the elites intend to manipulate us and our system, perverting it into a new kind of tyranny. So we must stand against them and for godly moral, legal, and political principles that promote liberty and the common welfare. When they, or any one or group of us, try to violate or corrupt those principles, as men are wont to do, we must stop them utterly.

It will not come overnight, but it must begin. The first thing we can do is to vote for Trump. A vote for Trump – his election as president – becomes the first upsetting of the apple cart. It is only the first, but it’s a start. If Trump does not live up to his outsider status, to what he promised in relation to our liberty, our defense, our economy, and the destruction of special interests and those conveniences (perpetual terms in office) that facilitate their hegemony, then we will vote him out.

It’s as simple as that. We try him. If he doesn’t do what we want, we dump him and find someone else.

A vote for Hillary, however, restores or keeps in place the fullness of power Trump has threatened to dissolve, a power that is wielded by the elites and for the elites but often to our detriment and indebtedness, an indebtedness we exhaust our lives slaving to eliminate.

The candidate of the elites is Hillary. That’s why even Republicans have prostituted themselves to endorse her. She maintains the status quo that Trump threatens.

The choice is yours. Be manipulated and vote for Hillary and allow the manipulation to continue; or vote for Trump, shrugging off the manipulation and taking the reins to steer your, and your country’s, own political future.

The Unequal Coverage of Equal Pay

Noticeably absent from Morning Joe’s groupthink discussion this morning was serious comment about the huge pay discrepancy between male and female employees at the Clinton Foundation. Wikileaks released campaign emails that documented the research and growing concern about the pay for the Foundations top executives.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had attacked Hillary on this very issue in the spring. Politifact rated it only half true, citing crude methodology.

Yet the concerns voiced in the emails of Hillary’s own campaigners and researchers demonstrated the flaws they found and the dichotomy between Hillary’s stated position on equal pay and her failure to apply it to her own organization. This is the second time she has been called to account for saying one thing about equal pay and doing another. Previously, she had been paying her male senate staffers more than her female senate staffers, according to reports.

The Clinton campaign has attempted to deflect the facts about the equal pay gap by citing the earlier, Politifact study.

The problem with Politifact’s earlier rating lies in the wording and in the inability to turn the statement around.

First, Trump’s claim about the pay gap between men and women at the Clinton Foundation is not “half true”. Without question, the Clinton Foundation men make more in salary and benefits than the Clinton Foundation women.

What Politifact was saying was that it did not possess enough evidence to know whether an “apples to apples” comparison could be made. Were men being paid more for the same work at the Foundation than women?

It’s not clear why the folks at Politifact did not pursue a study that would have enabled such a comparison. Their lassitude only gives them leeway to say they can confirm the first part of Trump’s statement. It does not give them the leeway to conclude that Trump’s statement was, therefore, only half true.

The proof is that Politifact cannot convert the statement to “Hillary applies her belief in equal pay to the Clinton Foundation and so is not a hypocrite.” In fact, such a statement would have to be rated “completely false” by the Politifact method. Why? First, a pay gap between men and women exists. Even Hillary’s researchers acknowledge that. Two, because there is no apples to apples comparison, Clinton cannot assert truthfully that she is faithfully applying what she believes about equal pay (i.e., not being a hypocrite). She won’t know that until such a comparison is done.

As with so many other issues and questions, none of this troubles the Morning Joe group-thinkers. If they were to accurately and forcefully report on the contradictions and hypocrisy and imbalance of Hillary, it would likely sink her candidacy and promote the outsider rebel to the presidency. The establishment cannot allow that. In their eyes, the Trump Train has to be derailed before it is too late.

Don’t let them do it!

What Democracy?

The tilt is in.

The media ridicules assertions that it is biased, then provides its own proof that it is in the way it reports the news.

Once again, I’ll draw an example from MSNBC and its Morning Joe program.

The show has spotlighted a few of Donald Trumps statements or actions, usually the more sensational ones. It continues to talk about his comments on the Access Hollywood video, either live or on the scrolls and banners at the bottom of the screen. And it continues to comment on Trump’s assertion the election is rigged. Those topics give them criticism they can stream continually without saying anything new.

Yet the Wikileaks revelations detailed in the emails of Clinton or of her campaign or other associates receive a cursory mention and dismissal. Morning Joe will scrutinize, for the purposes of derogation, Trump’s assertion the election is rigged. They will seek and bring on air someone from, say, the state of Indiana to tell us, “Naw, nothing going wrong in the Hoosier state!” But when they see in actual campaign emails or in undercover video footage Democrat or campaign operatives taking notes about how to register illegal aliens so they can vote, you hear not a peep, no indignation, no in-depth examination about the truth or falsity, no journalistic inquisitiveness.

The only news the networks and the major press outlets provide is negative news about Trump. It’s the only news acceptable to them. Does that not raise the alarum that democracy and objectivity are dead?

Then you hear political mercenaries like Elise Jordan blather about Trump’s diversionary tactics, and Mike Barnicle chiming in about Trump’s only campaign narrative of anger, with Jordan predicting a nasty post-election November.

“He seems to really be setting the stage for a nasty November, after his loss, and calling into question the veracity of the American political system; and he’s clearly not planning on being a gracious loser, which I hope that he would come around and understand how important it is to the democratic process, this idea that when you lose you concede with grace.”

Jordan worked for Rand Paul, who lost big and early in the Republican primary. My question to her in regard to losing with grace is: Do you mean losing graciously like the Bushes? Like Mitt Romney (who wasn’t running but acted as if he might)? Like Ted Cruz? Like Marco Rubio? Like John Kasich? Like Rand Paul?

None of them lost graciously. All provided either half-hearted support, no support, or even supported the candidate of the other party instead of their own party’s candidate, who won fair and square!

The actions of the elite Republicans deliberately sabotaged the Republican candidate and aided and abetted the very candidate Republicans have demonized for decades. They have destroyed the Republican Party, or contributed to its destruction. Yet Jordan wants to wax pious and declare that Trump should honor the sabotaged process and, by implication, mend the country and the party, even though it clearly isn’t and doesn’t feel healed.

Had Rand Paul earned the Republican nomination, do you think Jordan would be hollering about Hillary’s and her party’s subversion of the election process?

You bet!

Do you think she would be clamoring for an investigation of the Wikileaks revelations?

You bet!

Do you think she might be calling the process rigged?

You bet!

She would not have appeared on MSNBC, though, because they would not have given her time to explore the mystery of the lack of press coverage. Nope. That would be verboten! The media will not entertain any faithless questioning of its magisterium. Their inquisitors, like Barnicle, Mika Brzezinski, the social engineers at the Post and the Times, will place any dissent in their Iron Maidens and puncture it!

Democracy? Where? What the hell are you bastards talking about? Democracy means listening to the people, not you making the people listen and accept what you say, flooding them with an endless stream of your tunneling carnival sophistry.

The Perils of Decoding “Coded” Language

Mike Barnicle appears frequently on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to offer his political commentary. Barnicle lurks in the shadows of left wingery, though he seems reasonably well educated and experienced. Some websites describe him as an award-winning broadcast and print journalist. He brings some cred to the table.

Barnicle tries his best to appear middle-of-the-road and equanimous. When the going gets tough, however, he quickly reveals his true sentiments.

Tuesday morning the Morning Joe crew played a clip of Trump speaking at one of his rallies. The successful real estate mogul identified once again to the audience his sense that the autocratic party establishments and their media collaborators rig campaigns and elections to suit their desired outcome. Trump named a few locales where he thought such rigging was in process, such as Philadelphia and St. Louis.

Barnicle did some processing of his own. His rusty, coughing mental machinery produced this delightful, if trite, commodity: Trump was employing “coded” language. Crusty Barnicle declared the Republican nominee’s reference to Philly and St. Louis, and one other city I can’t remember, meant The Donald was pointing at one subversive culprit: blacks – a.k.a. African-Americans!

WWWOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!

By virtue of his implication, Barnicle’s puffy righteousness pronounced Trump a racist, thereby repeating and reaffirming and confirming all of Hillary’s and all of her clamorous media collaborators’ blathering about Trump’s nasty penchant for hate.

Never mind that Trump has continually identified wealthy and powerful elites and special interests and their media lackeys as the culprits, and that 99% of blacks, thanks to the mismanaged Obama economy, cannot be a part of that cabal. For that matter, probably 90% or more of whites, orientals, Indians, gays, women, Hispanics, and any other minority you can contemplate, cannot and are not a part of that special clique either.

Facing that truth would require Barnicle to search his calloused soul. He can’t do that. That would mean he and his bias have been part of the problem. “No! No! It cannot be mmmeeeeeeee!”

Hillary and her media collaborators often resort to labeling to convey a message. She does not have anything substantive to say about Trump, so she just calls him a racist. Why? No particular reason. He does not want to suppress black voters. In fact, he wants more of them to vote for him. She does not name any fact to support her contention. Oh, every now and again she’ll say that something Trump said or did will “equate” to racism. Some KKKer was in his audience of tens of thousands. Or he didn’t out of the blue condemn someone or something.

Of course, Hillary selects carefully what she wants to highlight. Trump does, after all, condemn those who kill Americans and others because of their perverted religious beliefs. Ah! That’s different! That condemnation of evil is bad. Its xenophobic or religiophobic or something.

Hillary is such a scammer! Such a con artist! Such a two-face! So are her media collaborators.

Hillary cannot tell the truth. If she ever does, her narrative that Trump is a divider will fall apart. She can’t allow that to happen, eh?

I don’t know how Barnicle built his reputation. It certainly wasn’t on objectivity. It’s probably one of those situations where all his professional and personal pals got together to laud his partial reporting. It’s funny how Barnicle wants to decode Trump’s hidden meaning when he can’t even figure out the plain meaning in the emails produced by Wikileaks that Hillary’s lackeys at the Department of State wanted a quid pro quo deal with the FBI: we’ll allow more foreign assignments of your agents, if you change the classification of Hillary’s emails.

Not even a raised eyebrow for the obvious.

But Barnicle – oooooooooo! – Barnicle can decipher Trump’s secret messages. Stay tuned. Next time Trump mentions the city “Orlando” by name, you’ll know he’s hating on Mickey and Pluto.

MSNBC Bozos Clown Around About Univision Anchor Ejection

It is funny how some folks rail against Fox News’ bias, as if they were the only game in town. Just a few stations down (up) the TV guide lies MSNBC, most of whose hosts bear the same biases, albeit in a different direction.

I was watching the five o’clock news hour this Wednesday evening, usually hosted, I think, by Don Lemon. Instead, some fat black cat guested and kept tossing his opinion around. He and his two interviewees built each other up in their opinion that Donald Trump (Is there no escaping his presence!?) is anti-Latino because he booted Univision anchor Jorge Ramos from an Iowa Q & A and anti-woman because of his war of words with poor Megyn Kelly. Why they had a veritable Kick Trump Fest! They did declare that Trump is a bully for the way he treats the press.

Isn’t that laughable!? Donald Trump bullying those six- or seven-figure salaried big-time news reporters who claim they ask the “tough” questions! Guess they are not so tough after all!

You know what, just because you’ve labeled yourself a professional fact-finder doesn’t mean you get to be rude and must be taken out of turn because you think your question or your say is more important than anybody else’s. You don’t enjoy privilege. I know all you news anchors and reporters and talk show commentators would like to be the same as Chris Matthews, a slobbering, stuttering, stammering interrupter who stumbles over what any of his guests have to say like a drunk sotted with his own sense of self-importance. But we viewers don’t give you that privilege. It’s one you take for yourselves in spite of our disbelief at your rotten, information-muddying behavior.

Instead of letting us find out what Trump had to say, his philosophy, plan, and policy specifics, you got in the way, selfish Jorge Ramos, and made yourself the news! And guess what? I don’t care if three-quarters of Hispanics get their news from you or not. That doesn’t entitle you to be an assclown. Shut up, sit down, and wait your turn like everybody else.

And you bozos at MSNBC who are circling the wagons around Ramos’ rudeness, you look, well, bozoic! Other reporters did not act rudely. Other reporters didn’t try to talk even though someone else’s question was selected.

Furthermore, stop trying to shape my thoughts with your outlandish opinions and start reporting the facts. Don’t tell me Trump is anti-Latino or anti-woman. I’ll decide for myself!

The day I let some airhead anchor decide for me how to think is the day I drop off my intellect at the flea market. Ain’t happenin’ anytime soon.