Top Ten - Speaker Johnson, Media Mistrust + Calling Balls and Strikes fairly.
The Spinners, Peter Frampton, and Curtis Mayfield + Taylor Dayne
Newly elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s well received address to the House of Representatives.
During this address he thanked and pledged to work with Democrats.
You’ll recall that working with Democrats was one of the reasons Rep. Matt Gaetz and others sought to remove Kevin McCarthy from being Speaker. But it had nothing to do with the reported ethics investigation of Gaetz. Nope. Not at all.
Two weeks after the historic vote to remove McCarthy, Gaetz said that not electing a Speaker was “a constitutional desecration.”
The phrase, “You can’t make it up” should be retired. It no longer serves a purpose.
Fellow Louisianan Senator John Kennedy told Punchbowl News:
Good Luck to Speaker Johnson! He’s going to need it. His call for decentralizing the power in the House will be put to an early test especially since some of his members really don’t care if they are in the minority.
Moving to the upcoming GOP Presidential debate in Miami, four candidates have qualified - Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy. NBC is hosting the debate.
Mike Pence, Tim Scott, and Doug Burgum have yet to qualify. Burgum likely won’t. Oh, and Larry Elder dropped out. #CueGasp
The next debate will undoubtedly focus on foreign policy which will benefit former UN Ambassador Haley. NY Sun’s blistering editorial on the UN betrayal of Israel.
The New York Sun has been calling for both Israel and America and other major Western democracies to reassess their relationships with the world body since the Sun revived its print edition early in this century. Our issues were hostility to American values, antisemitism in the United Nations itself, and the UN’s long campaign to isolate and condemn Israel in the proceedings of the UN institutions. The record is shocking.
The survey found that 23% of Americans agree that "because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country."
Reminder - politics is the antidote to violence. #IronyNoted
The American political world, lacking neutral umpires (formerly known as the 4th Estate), might want to hire Lance Barksdale - umpire from the National League Championship Series (NLCS) - he was 99.22% accurate on pitches in game 5. Not most all of the pitches are well over 90mph.
Speaking of umpires, former AG Bill Barr penned an op-ed in the WSJ on the Antitrust case against Google.
Google’s control over access to online information doesn’t only hurt our free-market economy, it also threatens free speech. In one document shown at trial, Google lists “social fairness” as a component of search quality. The same document warns employees to “discuss social fairness in search results with great caution” and asks them to think about how their emails might look to the public.
“Social fairness” is an Orwellian phrase that means political censorship. While censorship issues are beyond the scope of antitrust enforcers, Google’s power to censor is the result of its economic power, which is built on the anticompetitive conduct the antitrust laws prohibit.
More on “journalistic malpractice” Bari Weiss epic and just takedown of the NYTimes:
I mention all of this because on October 17, The New York Times sent a false report to all of its readers that presented, as fact, Hamas talking points. It claimed that Israel had bombed a hospital, killing 500 people: “Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say.”
The headline was untrue on every level. The bomb was not Israeli, but a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket aimed at Israel that misfired. The bomb didn’t hit the hospital, but the hospital parking lot.
Getting the balls and strikes called correctly is essential to a functioning democracy and the partisan turn of American media is quickly eroding trust in many institutions.
Remember WAPO updated its tagline to be “Democracy Dies in Darkness” - imagine how long professional sports leagues would last if umpires and referees helped one side over the other. Yeah, they wouldn't…
Here is Michael Shellenberger Gaza Hospital Misinformation Further Undermines Public Trust in Media and Pew Research polling on lack of trust in news outlets. He also notes WAPO is set to lose $100MM this year.
Another example - new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was widely introduced to the American public as “an election denier.”
Do those same outlets refer to those who challenged (or worse) the elections of 2000, 2004, and 2016? Answer - hell no.
Rarely, if ever, have I posted a partisan source to make a point but here goes - the list includes Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton, Hakeem Jeffries, Kamala Harris and many, many more - NONE of whom are ever introduced as election deniers. But they should be…
NO it’s not the same as what happened leading up to and on January 6, 2020; however, the point remains. Call the balls and strikes back accurately in 2000 forward and we likely don’t have Jan 6.
I feel like a rant coming on!!! Join the call today for that special moment…
This week’s Virginia FREE Friday Zoom at 3pm features a political pre-election briefing from WPA Intel’s Amanda Iovino - 2021 Pollster of the Year.
Click here to join: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87140767140
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