About 1 AM as I was getting ready to crash was a notice of an update to my OS on my screen. I thought very little of it as OS updates are a regular fact of life for any system.
This morning when I got home from mass I noticed the weather in my bottom toolbar.
While the weather is useful I had not turned on that toolbar and wondered what had put it there.
When I clicked on it suddenly there was a feed feeding me the entire MSM line in every story in sight.
Each time I shut off one “news” site it was replaced by another just as obnoxious and woke till all that was left was the Washington Examiner and Fox and while I don’t mind those sources but I didn’t want a feed at all.
I finally got into the task bar and shut off the feed from there, which frankly I should have thought of first.
I know I could have just left that weather bar there but in the end if I want something on the net I’ll ask for it but I wonder how many people just take the feed and the misinformation.
I don’t often agree with Joe Scarborough these days but there is something he said a bit back that really stuck in my head.
He was commenting on people on the right who wanted to purge Susan Collins from the GOP and noted that if you want a majority and all the advantages that a majority entails you need to keep a Susan Collins on board even if she votes against you now and again. It’s something Stacy McCain has written about repeatedly even as far back as 2008 concerning Pam Geller:
Pam is a good person and I would suggest that this guilt-by-association “urge to purge” is antithetical to the best interests of conservatism. You can’t build a movement by the process of subtraction.
And as recently as 2019 concerning Pat Buchannan:
the targeting of Buchanan is an example of the “urge to purge” that has so often damaged the conservative cause. Buchanan’s decades of loyal service to the Republican Party — he was a key adviser to both Nixon and Reagan — ought to have entitled him to a certain amount of deference, even from such an eminent figure as Buckley, and as I’ve often said, you cannot build a successful movement by a process of subtraction.
If you do a search of Joe Manchin online today you can find all kind of items about pressure being put on Joe Manchin.
Let’s cut to the chase, there is a lot of talk about pressure on Joe Manchin but there is actually NO pressure on Joe Manchin because Both Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden can count to 50.
Right now Manchin is most powerful pols in the country and he knows it. Unlike Kyrsten Sinema he could change his party affiliation tomorrow and if every Democrat in his state retaliated by voting against him next time he would still hold his senate seat for life. He knows it, and while they won’t admit it, both the media and the Democrats know it.
As long as Manchin is the 50th vote he is the boss and no amount of press angst will make a difference.
At Don Surber’s site (which is required daily reading around here) today I saw this piece from the AP about SCOTUS having a case on registering for selective service:
The question of whether it’s unconstitutional to require men but not women to register could be viewed as one with little practical impact. The last time there was a draft was during the Vietnam War, and the military has been all-volunteer since. But the registration requirement is one of the few remaining places where federal law treats men and women differently, and women’s groups are among those arguing that allowing it to stand is harmful.
The ACLU’s argument on the case is interesting:
Men who do not register can lose eligibility for student loans and civil service jobs, and failing to register is also a felony punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and five years in prison. But Tabacco Mar says the male-only requirement does more than that.
“It’s also sending a tremendously harmful message that women are less fit than men to serve their country in this particular way and conversely that men are less fit than women to stay home as caregivers in the event of an armed conflict. We think those stereotypes demean both men and women,” she said.
The section of the piece that Surber quotes suggests that if the case is taken there will be little practical impact since it’s been almost 50 years since the last draft but I strongly disagree. I suspect this case will have a lot of impact over the next few years because the Biden administration’s actions to make the Military “woke” is just the type of thing that will convince the people most likely to join our voluntary Armed services to stay away, which is frankly what our enemies are paying them for.
And when the numbers get low enough that’s when you will see the return of the draft.
So ladies and gentlemen I’d pay close attention to this case because I suspect it will have a great impact on your children before you know it.
Cardinal Richelieu: [whispered to the King] I am the state, Your Majesty. Let us say it now, privately, so that we never have need to discuss it in public. I am France, Louis. I am the state. These men have set themselves above me, and it is I, Louis, and not you who sit in judgment. I render that judgment now.
The first thought of course is given he was talking to the NYT he presumed that the audience there would never see the evidence to expose the lie since they live in a media bubble that will not report or acknowledge this evidence and to some degree this is likely correct but there is another factor to play here.
Fifteen, Ten or even Five years ago Jake Tapper was in a position where just about any media network would jump at him if available and he would be able to command a solid seven figure salary and bring in ratings and a reputation constant with such a pay.
Now however the law of diminishing returns is in play. CNN in general and Mr. Tapper in particular are now speaking to a dwindling audience which is more and more resembling a cult seeking affirmation rather that people seeking information.
Furthermore his employers whose corporates masters are dependent on the market that China provides and are thus requiring a narrative that supports such a message are not likely to be shy about enforcing that orthodoxly.
It’s easy to say: “I’m not going to sell myself.” But I don’t know what he has out for loans, or college debts for his kids or his mortgage situation or anything else and the bottom line is that there are plenty of people in his diminishing industry who would happily take over his seat at a tenth of the price he is currently commanding.
And if he finds himself off too far off the reservation it’s not just the CNN gig, it’s the prospect of book deals, or speaking engagements or all the other things that supplement his income that could suddenly vanish. Cure Henry Hill:
Henry Hill: And that’s the hardest part. Today everything is different; there’s no action… have to wait around like everyone else. Can’t even get decent food – right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I’m an average nobody… get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.
Good Fellas 1990
That’s the thing that I suspect restrains Jake Tapper in particular and prominent members of the media in general fear. Foot wrong and the same media companies that made them can toss them back into the mass of the people to live their lives as normal people. Without perks, without reputation, having to rebuild a living an an audience on one’s own merit.
This above all else is why the left has done all it can to create a post Judeo-Christian culture. Courage is one of the greatest virtues and fruits that comes from faith because when faced with such a situation we realize we are not alone.
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