09.08.23
Low Octane Gas Lighting – PUBLIC BROADCASTING SERVICE
Over the past few days, we have seen the president wander off during a medal ceremony, be caught on tape admitting he was supposed to be wearing a mask, and while boarding Air Force-1 salute the Secret Service Agents. He has been delivering his share of impacted episodes, we'll just say.
We had this one on the back burner, but seeing more of Joe Biden performing this week, we had to pull back to this episode from last Friday on "Washington Week With The Atlantic." The new show with Jeffrey Goldberg at the helm has become what many of us media analysts suspected, and that is a Biden-Democrats fluffing machine. Goldberg hosted Kyle Cheney and Mark Leibovich to discuss the competition between Biden and Donald Trump in the upcoming election, and these experts were attempting to sell us on the concept, as Trump dredges up Biden's age, that the president is a man with a rapier mind who is deeply impressive on a mental level:
Kyle Cheney: There's no counterpart to that aimed at Donald Trump, who has a different demeanor than Biden, but certainly has things you could point out about his own age.
Mark Leibovich: Can I just actually just point out, though, that, I mean, it's not just making an issue of Biden's age, it's lying, it's saying he's senile, saying he's demented, saying he's out of it. I mean, I think it's important to sort of state for a fact that a lot of these are just --
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Mentally, he's quite acute.
Biden abruptly walks out of the Medal of Honor ceremony, even before the closing benediction pic.twitter.com/Ck0i8EIf8Q
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 5, 2023
Pulitzer Prize Nomination – WASHINGTON POST
- Until Phil speaks to all of them and gets direct quotes, we remain dubious.
At this point, it might serve WaPo columnist Philip Bump well to take a month off, like President Biden. Bump is in competition with The Daily Beast over which is having a worse September. For his latest, Phil appeared to have realized his error – the problem, however, is with timing.
In an attempt to scorch Trump, Bump reported that in opposition to the inherent threat to our democracy that the former president poses, 14 former presidents have signed a letter stating they want to bolster our democratic principles by opposing Trump in his attempt at being reelected.
We'll let that marinate for a moment.
What Phil is citing here is that a number of foundations associated with former presidents signed this letter, as if this is in any way a vital and important occurrence. Phil eventually came to the realization that his presentation here was rather stunted, and for that reason, he deleted this entry.
Since @PBump has deleted this gem of a post, it needs to be shared freely: pic.twitter.com/GYjoc5RUOG
— Brad Slager: CNN+ Lifetime Subscriber (@MartiniShark) September 8, 2023
Both Kinds of Standards – THE HILL
In an op-ed from Evan Davis, we get a cautionary lecture about the import and sanctity of the impeachment process. With mounting calls coming from Republicans that an impeachment of Joe Biden could become imminent, Davis sees reason to pause and possibly elevate the standard for this congressional process:
Constitutional scholar Garrett Epps has called presidential impeachment “the atomic bomb of domestic politics.” It should not become a conventional weapon of political polarization. We’re on the verge of that, however, if we as a nation don’t set a floor under the grounds for presidential impeachment.
To this, we can only respond that Evan can thank Nancy Pelosi for making this a weapon of political expediency as a result of polarization. She was the one who instigated that Trump be submitted to this process over a phone call, all in the name of being able to describe the man as "the twice impeached former president."
"We need to set ground rules for presidential impeachments" (@TheHillOpinion) https://t.co/pTZrzBVpXz pic.twitter.com/NL0Ueh1bmw
— The Hill (@thehill) September 6, 2023
Body Checking the Fact-Checkers – POLITIFACT
- Saying, "We are not doing as bad as the Great Depression," is not the selling point you think it is.
It is getting to the point that those in the press desperate to sell us on the concept that the economy is doing fine are straining so hard to do so that they are on the verge of hurting themselves. Over the past month, we have seen bad job figures come in, inflation continuing to be a reality, various sectors showing poor performances, and then we learned the deficit Biden claimed to be lowering has actually doubled.
To see how bad things are and in need of dressing up, PolitiFact tackled the issue – by correcting what is being said on TikTok. The plan here is that they saw influencers mentioning how we are doing worse today economically than in the 1930s, so the effort was made to delve into the matter and explain how those numbers were not accurately portrayed.
So there you go – Bidenomics is doing wonderfully because we technically are NOT enduring things as bad as they were during The Great Depression!
According to some TikTok influencers, the U.S. economy is in bad shape. Really bad. Worse-than-the-Great-Depression bad. But the numbers they use to back up that claim are fatally flawed. Pants on Fire! https://t.co/h5S0ootf2b
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) September 8, 2023
Presentation Paradox – Dallas Morning News
The need to scorch anyone connected to Donald Trump leads many to vacate common sense. In a story of a fracas in Texas where the former presidential medical name was involved, reporter Todd Gillman delves into the credentials of the doctor to heap scorn in a rather curious fashion:
During a scuffle at a West Texas rodeo that left him briefly in handcuffs, U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson insisted he was an emergency room doctor trying to help a girl who’d had a seizure. The former White House physician has no Texas medical license. His Virginia license expired more than three years ago, and his Florida license hasn’t been valid since he retired from the Navy in 2019, though that would in no way make it illegal or unethical to offer aid during an emergency.
The catch is that while trying to assist someone in medical distress, the police intervened for some reason. Gillman had to sell the lack of a license as if that erased years of medical knowledge while downplaying that Ronny Jackson is board-certified for emergencies – something he told police on the scene. This, while at the same time, the press is desperate to force the public to address the unlicensed First Lady as "Dr. Jill Biden."
‘I’m an ER doctor,’ @RepRonnyJackson, the former White House physician, told officers during the rodeo scuffle that left him briefly handcuffed.
— Todd J. Gillman (@toddgillman) September 7, 2023
Turns out he hasn't had a valid medical license in over 3 years.
https://t.co/xq5dVkq2io
"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature with coverage of the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation where Brad Slager looks to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media.
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