Archive for the ‘media’ Category

The Collision of a flight with a military helicopter over the Potomac is the first real big test for the Trump administration.

This is something that has to be handled wisely, Trump needs to be presidential while at the same time highlighting the importance of competence vs DEI when dealing with important life and death jobs.

Of course the press spin has helped him as it again seems to be titled toward amplifying the loudest and most hysterical “Blame Trump” declarations.

I suspect Trump’s instincts will prove wiser than the press’ but time will tell if I’m right or not.


While Trump executive actions have been swift and decisive and dizzying there is one thing that needs to be remembered.

All of these actions that Donald Trump has taken and he has taken many rather popular acts are completely reversible because they are by executive order.

If he wants them to stand beyond his presidency Trump needs to get these thing codified into law and the fact that the GOP house has not taken any action along those lines yet disturbs me.

Of course they might be waiting for an opportune time or might be waiting for a spending bill that can’t be filibustered to attach his EO’s to, but whatever the tact they need to keep this in mind otherwise the next Democrat president can and likely will put all of this nonsense that Trump has removed back in play with a single signature.


One of the things that never ceases to amaze me concerning the media and Donald Trump is their complete inability to learn from their mistakes.

President Trump after a term in office and four years to think about how to achieve his goals has pivoted in terms of tactics to adapt them to current conditions and has used this to achieve the highest approval ratings he has ever scored.

Meanwhile the media continues to try to spin and play “gotcha” in an age where the net allows us to debunk them to a public that doesn’t trust them.

Perhaps never having been taught how to think but only how to react they may not know how to deal with the onslaught of action that this administration has become and serving a niche market means they don’t dare go out of the zone.

They’ll have to wait for a mistake, one will eventually come but will they be ready when it does?


I’ve been surprised by the lack of focus on Abortion in the hearings for RFK JR.

The reality is that it’s going to take republican votes to sink any Trump nomination and the place where Kennedy should have been most vulnerable was abortion being a lifelong Democrat. Of course his description of abortion as a tragedy rather than something to be celebrated shows his age.

That they didn’t press it more suggests it’s all about show and fundraising from true believers than anything else.

Of course the unwillingness to celebrate killing kids rather than simply tolerating it at alone might be enough to cost him Collins and Murkowski. But will it cost him more?


As Trump’s press secretary welcomes new media to the press conferences in DC allow me to take a slight bow.

While I was unable to secure Trump as an interview in the closing days of the blog as a business I can take a bow for another matter.

I’m welcome to allow someone to correct me but unless I’m very much mistaken the very first question asked of Donald Trump either on the campaign trail or as President by a member of the new media in an official setting was asked by me in Derry NH in September of 2015

Not a bad legacy

You can’t get a better contrast between the Trump administration and the Biden Administration than the pardons issued. All the people Trump pardoned are folks that he thought were punished for their political beliefs and or overcharged were pardoned at a time when it would cause maximum blowback from the media.

Most of those Biden pardoned were those who had aided him in attacking his political foes or enriching him and or enriching him and his family and were pardoned at a point least damaging to his presidency.

Oh and there were the killers as well.


It was hilarious watching the press go after the J6 pardons and acting as if Trump didn’t care about police less than 24 hours after Biden commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier who killed two FBI agents. along with quite a few other violent criminals.

It is even more ironic that as they still complain about this they are ranting about going after violent thugs that have been let free by blue state authorities directly after committing violence because they came here illegally.

The narratives never change from the press, never.


The biggest contrast so far from Trump term 1 to Trump term 2 is the fact that the inside people are no longer restraining him.

There were a lot of things Trump wanted to do in term 1 that people in the Senate or in the Cabinet or elsewhere repeatedly advised him not to do or secretly tried to stop him from doing and Trump trying to get along went along.

Not any more, like the US army at the Kasserine Pass he learned from his last term and the years in between and is plowing full speed ahead.


One of the best realities of the situation has been Donald Trump telling people to their faces actual reality. From his inaugural speech to Davos Trump has not hesitated in calling a spade a spade and doing so in the face of those who deserve it.

Such frankness in saying the truth aloud is completely foreign to Capital Hill and their minions.

I wonder how they will deal with it?


The biggest Contrast between this week and last week has been press access.

Trump has taken questions every single day and spontaneous questions from hostile press outlets and hasn’t ducked any of them.

The press has had almost nothing to say about their sudden access and the the contrast between a president who IS in charge and a president who isn’t.

But industry has got it and Chrysler has already announced that they will restart one plant in Illinois and build another vehicle in Detroit.

Jobs no doubt that the blue governors of those states will take credit for.

  • Randolph Duke: Good, William! Now, some of our clients are speculating that the price of gold will rise in the future. And we have other clients who are speculating that the price of gold will fall. They place their orders with us, and we buy or sell their gold for them.
  • Mortimer Duke: Tell him the good part.
  • Randolph Duke: The good part, William, is that, no matter whether our clients make money or lose money, Duke & Duke get the commissions.
  • Mortimer Duke: Well? What do you think, Valentine?
  • Billy Ray: Sounds to me like you guys a couple of bookies.
  • Randolph Duke: I told you he’d understand.
Trading Places 1983

Today will be the final game of the season for the New England Patriots as they will either finish 3-14 and hold the #1 draft pick next season or they will somehow manage to beat the Buffalo Bills who are resting their key starters to get ready for the playoffs (although Josh Allen will start and play at least a few series to preserve his consecutive start record) finish 4-13 and have to settle for something in the top 8. (A tie will put them somewhere between the 2nd & 4th pick).

If you listen to sports talk radio in Massachusetts there is a lot of debate on the Patriots keep the #1 pick or trade down for multiple picks as they clearly have their QB with Drake Maye and there is some mild debate on if you sit Maye who took a nasty hit last week and start your #3 guy to see if he can do the job (and assure the pick) or play him because in theory you are trying to win a game.

But there is apparently NO debate on one thing. Every single sports station is INSISTING that Jerod Mayo must go due to the Patriots pathetic 3-14 season, in fact if he wins this game they would really call for his head for blowing the #1 pick in the draft.

While he is a rookie coach who has in fact made some rookie mistakes I want to point out two factors that the real drivers for the Dump Mayo movement can be explained by this quote from Baseball Owner Bill Veeck who famously said:

“You can draw more people with a losing team plus bread and circuses than with a losing team and a long, still silence.”

People often forget that primary job is not for a sports talk radio station to help the team win or to keep you informed. The primary job of a sports radio station is to get you to listen. So being consistent or making a proper case or not being an ass isn’t what counts, what counts is how many people can you get interested enough in what your talking about and who you’re talking with to turn the dial to your station or livestream.

So when you have an audience who got used to championship parades over the last 20 years and now have a 3-4 win team, you have a better chance of getting people to listen by creating a controversy and finding scapegoats for the mob to be set upon then you know, just talking about how much your players suck.

This is what this entire controversy is, simply talk radio trying to gin up interest and the primary evidence of this assertion I’m making was broadcast live by these very same stations a mere 18 weeks ago.

Eighteen weeks ago before the season started there was some debate on if the team should

  • start the rookie QB Drake Maye right at the start (Baptism by fire)
  • Sit Maye for the season (Watch and learn)
  • Bring him in mid way (learn a bit then see what you have)

It was a good topic with valid points for all three of these opinions and made for not only good radio but a lot of varied opinions and arguments among hosts, guests and listeners.

There was however one topic that everybody, hosts, guests and fans seemed to agree on from day 1.

The Patriots were a 4 win team.

There was the odd guy who thought they might squeak out a fifth and there was one who said if they got all the breaks they may even manage 7 wins but 4 was the number that was constantly repeated. People looked at the schedule and saw this disaster coming.

By an odd coincidence these same Patriots coached by Bill Belichick the previous season finished with a 4-13 record. This was the same Bill Belichick that all of these same hosts insisted on air:

  1. Was the greatest NFL coach of all time
  2. Had to go
  3. Should have been hired by the Cowboys or the Falcons this year.

Now maybe it’s just me but if you have the greatest coach of all time or at least a contender for the title and one who developed the greatest quarterback of all time it just might have been a good idea to keep him around to develop this new one but that’s a whole different argument. The real point I want to make is this:

If you take a team that was 4-13 the previous season under the greatest coach of all time, a team that you projected to win 4 games in the new season with the rookie coach and staff that you have, how is it credible to call for said rookie coach’s head because he finishes one game worse than the greatest coach of all time did with a similar or worse roster?

I’m sorry if Bill couldn’t take this batch of misfit toys beyond four wins you certainly can’t be screaming bloody murder if Jerod only manages three in his first year coaching them. Was it really realistic to expect him to so any better when you yourselves didn’t expect him to do so.

And given that your last first round quarterback development was hindered by three difference offensive coordinators in three years is it a really smart thing to play the same game with this QB?

Now if your goal is to create a winning team, then these points are relevant and should be made, but if instead your goal is to get people’s attention to your show when the team is a disaster area, then these point of logic go out the window, you want those fans in the stands with pitchforks and torches ready to storm the castle.

Rest assured if Mayo & company flub the upcoming draft and fail to manage to pick up and develop the offensive linemen Maye needs and do not acquire a solid 1 to 2 target for Maye to throw to and thus blow a season when you will have the easiest schedule in the league, then I might consider joining the mob storming the castle (or would if it was something important like baseball) but until then I see this coaching staff prove they can’t win with a better roster and a good young QB with a year under their belt I’ll stand pat.

By John Ruberry

“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.” Fyodor Dostoevsky. 

“‘Many are the strange chances of the world,” said Mithrandir, “and help shall oft come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.'” The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien.

A blockbuster story by the Wall Street Journal last week laid bare what most readers of Da Tech Guy have known since 2019. That Joe Biden was senile and in not in any way able to serve as president.

The mainstream media, which claims to be the protector of the public and the teller of the truth, either ignored, minimized, or on occasion, even verbally attacked people who claimed otherwise. 

We were right, they were wrong.

The optics and stakes are different in Chicago, and in one way, the stakes are higher, as opposed to the Biden so-called presidency. Because Brandon Johnson, who was a defund the police radical in 2020, is mayor of Chicago and he’s ultimately in charge of public safety 2.7 million Chicagoans.

And Johnson minimizes criminality. But he maximizes racial discord, frequently turning criticism of him as a bigoted attack.

After a mini-riot last year, which apologists call “street takeovers,” Branjo dismissed the lawlessness. “They’re young, sometimes they make silly decisions,” he said. Johnson also stressed that it was wrong to “demonize” these real-life droogs.

The Wall Street Journal says Johnson is America’s worst mayor.

Prior to his election as mayor, Johnson was Cook County board commissioner, which is a part-time job. The board is a rubber-stamp body for Cook County Board president, Boss Toni Preckwinkle, the chair of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, aka, the Chicago Machine.

Johnson was also a longtime paid organizer–and that means radical activist–for the far-left Chicago Teachers Union. It was their money–and their door-knockers–who put Branjo into the mayor’s office.

Yesterday, I saw this X post from former Chicago Tribune columnist, Eric Zorn, a liberal.

What an embarrassing failure @ChicagosMayor has turned out to be. This is shamefully hamhanded and uncollaborative.

Two days ago, in a classic Friday news dump stunt–and five days before Christmas–the Board of Education, all of whom were recently named by Johnson to replace the other members Johnson named, fired Chicago Public Schools CPO Pedro Martinez. That old board refused to fire Martinez, a Lori Lightfoot holdeover, because he stood his ground by refusing to take out a “payday” loan to pay for big raises for Chicago Teachers Union members.

Next month, per a new state law, a new board replaces the not-so-old board.

If Zorn warned about Johnson shilling for the Chicago Teachers Union over the needs of Chicagoans, I somehow missed it. I don’t recall a single mainstream, meaning liberal, Chicago journalist sounding the alarm that a leftist fox would soon be guarding the henhouse.

However, many Chicagoans, most of whom likely voted for Johnson’s moderate opponent, Paul Vallas, saw this disaster coming. There just were not enough of them to prevent this fiasco.

Martinez was fired Friday night, but he may stick around for six more months.

CPS bonds are already rated as junk.

The national media didn’t do its job vetting a sick old man running for president. And it mostly ignored Senile Joe’s many senior moments.

The Chicago media looked the other way as Branjo successfully campaigned for mayor.

But the warning signs were obvious.

A Chicago alderwoman, Silvana Tabares, summed up Johnson and his Board of Education debacle perfectly.

“You’re not just firing a CEO. You are intentionally clearing a way to saddle taxpayers with billions in costs, and the district and yourselves personally with costly litigation,” the alderwoman said. “You are being used. The mayor is a walking conflict of interest.”

I saw it coming and so did many others: Johnson is indeed a walking conflict of interest.

The Chicago media is an embarrassing failure.

Which brings me to this point: Is the local media in other towns and cities as bad as it is in Chicago?

Are these “guardians,” like Brandon Johnson, in fact foxes guarding the hen houses?

There is a glimmer of hope. Crain’s Chicago Business, the primary local media minimizer of urban mayhem, last week called for Johnson’s resignation.

Perhaps Crain’s can now honestly report on crime.

Oh, once again, I need to remind you, taxpayer-funded media is an abominable idea.

And finally, thanks to the Journal, we know now that Biden was president in name only, a triumvirate of advisors was running our country.

Who’s really running Chicago? Is it Stacy Davis Gates, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, who hoped to run for mayor herself?

Gates’ son, you should know, attends a private school.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.