I mean yeah, police, firemen, soldiers, nurses and the people of Ukraine might have to deal with death, destruction and life and death on a daily basis, but that’s NOTHING compared to the nasty feedback she gets from doing things like Doxing the “libs of tic tock” account person who has the audacity to take videos that people deliberately put on a public worldwide forum and post them on a public worldwide forum.
I mean can you imagine how the children of such a woman would be prepared for life? Can you imagine them being able to cope with anything with such a person as their primary role model?
Granted abortion is murder and Birth Control is a sin and every person is made in the image of God (including Ms Lorenz) and with God all things are possible but if I was the left and wanted to try to persuade people that Abortion should be an option I’d put her on the posters saying: “Do you really want people like this raising children?”
All kidding aside Ms. Lorenz reminds me of something else.
Could you imagine the reaction if a male reporter claimed PTSD over online feedback?
Our “betters” keep telling us that women are men are equal yet we keep hearing stories about how hard women have it or their inability to cope.
So which is it elites? Are woman just as strong, tough and competent as men or are in need of special protection? Choose one.
(In fairness to our elites as they can’t define “woman” or “man” this question might be too much for them.
Last year, in his farewell column, longtime Chicago journalist Phil Kadner spoke of his praises, and he indeed deserved his own pats on the back. Kadner mostly covered the generally overlooked, but corrupt, south suburbs of Chicago. I grew up there, they are a rat-hole of graft.
The latest example of why that is true took place at the University of Chicago, which hosted along with the Atlantic, the Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy conference. A quick look at the speakers at the event betrays what kind of conference it was, there were no conservative panelists. Only the self-appointed “cool kids” are allowed in the tree house.
Ah, but there were at least a couple of conservatives there, including freshman U of C student Daniel Schmidt, who challenged one of the speakers, the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum. Schmidt blew the whistle on her for dismissing the importance of the Hunter Biden laptop revelations in 2020, which at the time Applebaum wrote that it “barely registers” with her.
— The Chicago Thinker (@ThinkerChicago) April 6, 2022
Her response? “My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop I think is totally irrelevant.” Applebaum continued, “I mean it’s not whether it’s disinformation or, I mean, I didn’t think the Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be president of the United States, so I don’t find it to be interesting, that would be my problem with that as a main news story.”
Ah, now here is an enemy of the people to be sure, Anna Applebaum.
Hunter Biden, if not Joe Biden, because of what has been discovered on that laptop, can rightly be called as I’ve remarked before, the head of a Chicago-style influence peddling ring.
It’s arguable that the Biden family has sold out America to our enemies, particularly China.
The Clown Prince of Disinformation is CNN’s Brian Stelter, the host of the laughably misnamed Reliable Sources. He spoke on the next day at the conference. And it was the turn of another University of Chicago freshman, Christopher Phillips, who said of Stelter’s network, “They push the Russian collusion hoax, they push the Jussie Smollett hoax, they smear Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh as a rapist, and they also smeared Nick Sandmann as a white supremacist,” Phillips told Stelter. “And yes, they dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop affair as pure Russian disinformation.”
A University of Chicago student called out CNN and Brian Stelter for all their lies. This is phenomenal. Enjoy: pic.twitter.com/zfLKgbaY0q
Phillips continued, “With mainstream corporate journalists becoming little more than apologists and cheerleaders for the [Biden] regime, is it time to finally declare that the canon of journalistic ethics is dead or no longer operative?”
Stelter quipped, “Too bad, it’s time for lunch,” but then gave a meandering reply that didn’t address any of Phillips’ points.
The Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy conference was reminiscent of a bad Hollywood thriller, where the protagonist is finally able to report his findings of an anti-government conspiracy after escaping captivity, only to learn that those he trusts in the government are part of that nefarious plot too.
I believe there are two possibilities in regard to what has gone wrong with the mainstream media, and neither are good. The first is that the most members of the fake-news media are indeed propagandists for the left and the Democrat Party. The second is that they’ve deluded themselves into believing that they are indeed truthful providers of information, reminiscent of when legendary New York Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle, while downing booze during breakfast, remarked to a reporter with a straight face that he’s not an alcoholic.
Mantle died of liver cancer, despite receiving a liver transplant, and alcoholism very likely contributed to his death.
Where will the mainstream media end up?
Right now, the media, most of it, is indeed the enemy of the people.
One lesson from the 2020 presidential campaign, one of many, is that more than ever information is power. More importantly, the flow of information is power.
The journalistic malpractice by the mainstream media, in regard to suppressing and censoring the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, is a subject I covered here at DTG last month. Glenn Greenwald, in a Substack post, deemed it, “One of the most successful disinformation campaigns in modern American electoral history.” As for myself I can’t think of one that was worse.
Joe Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, has generally brushed off questions about Hunter’s laptop, unless she blamed “Russian disinformation” for its existence. Hunter’s MacBook Pro offers damning proof that the president’s son was the head of a Chicago-style influence peddling ring.
Last week Axios broke the news that Psaki will resign and next month join MSNBC and its Peacock streaming service in an on-air role. Axios touched on the obvious ethical concerns in its report. Psaki refuses to confirm the Axios story.
Going back to at least the Obama administration, there have been executive orders that prevent, for a period, senior officials in the executive branch of the federal government accepting a lobbying job. On his first full day in office, Biden signed an executive order that bans his political appointees from taking a lobbying job for two years after leaving their posts. Donald J. Trump signed an even stronger executive order on lobbying bans for his top staffers, one for five years, but in what I see as a bad decision, he rescinded it on his last day as president.
Biden, as well as his eventual successor, needs to sign an executive order that blocks future press secretaries, as well as White House communications directors, from media jobs for two years. From 2015-2017 Psaki served in that latter post, before leaving for an on-air job with CNN. As for that network, Psaki reportedly has also recently explored a return to CNN, as well as seeking jobs with CBS and ABC, according to Puck.
Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but last week, vice president Kamala Harris was interviewed, exclusively, by MSNBC’s Joy Reid.
As I mentioned at the top of this entry, information, as well as the censorship and suppression of it, is power. So is the granting of access to the media of senior White House officials.
It’s time to rein in, at least a little bit, the White House gatekeepers of that information.
And oh yes, Republican press secretaries have benefitted from the “revolving door” from the White House to a media gig too. Psaki’s predecessor, Kayleigh McEnany, who served under Trump, is an on-air contributor on Fox News. She negotiated the landing of that job while still working at the White House.
Within the last month two new seasons of Viking-themed series began streaming on Netflix, Vikings: Valhalla and Season Five of The Last Kingdom. The former is a sequel to another Netflix series, Vikings, which I have not seen, but as the action of Valhalla occurs about 100 years after the first batch of shows, viewers need not have tuned in to Vikings to follow the new action.
The Last Kingdom and Vikings: Valhalla have much in common, besides Scandinavians battling the English. A main plot driver in both shows is the conflict between Christians and followers of the Norse gods. Presumably Valhalla begins the same year, 1016, when Canute the Great seized the crown of England. Ironically, only two English kings, Alfred, who is played by David Dawson in the first three seasons of The Last Kingdom, and Canute, gained the epithet “the Great.” Oh, when Canute was crowned, this Viking, who later became king of Norway and Denmark, was a Christian.
Both shows attempt to be even-handed between the two cultures, but they leave out one very nasty part of Viking life, slavery. Yes, there was slavery among Christian Europeans, but slaves–thralls are what the Norse called them–were an essential part of the spoils of Viking raids. However, both series portray human sacrifice by the Scandinavians.
Vikings: Valhalla, which consists of eight episodes, is the inferior of the two shows, so let’s get that one out of our way. Its central character is Leif Erikson (Sam Corlett). Yeah, he’s the same man who journeyed to North America around 1000. While there is no historical record that says Erikson participated in wars with the English, there’s no proof that he didn’t. It’s believed around the time of his journey to North America he converted to Christianity, but he’s a follower of the Norse gods here, although he dabbles with the Christian religion. His sister, Freydís Eiríksdóttir (Frida Gustavsson), is a devout follower of the Norse faith. Freydís is romantically involved with Harald Sigurdsson (Leo Suter), who history tells us was a newborn at the time of they were “getting it on” in the show.
The main action of Vikings: Valhalla originates in the Norwegian town of Kattegat, which is ruled by Jarl Haakon (Caroline Henderson), who history tells us was a white man, but here Haakon is a black woman.
I could go on for quite much longer on the many historical anomalies, but I will conclude here that had Vikings: Valhalla had an intriguing story line, if the performances were compelling–Henderson’s overacting is particularly annoying–and hey, if the CG was believable, then I’d say, “tune in.”
But don’t.
The Last Kingdom’s fifth last season takes place around 920. Its lead character, the fictional Uhtred, whose birthright as lord of Bebbanburg in Northumbia, England was usurped by the Danes in the first episode of Season One. He was raised by Danes, during that time he abandoned Christianity for the Norse gods, although he’s not very devout. When Uhtred reaches adulthood, he’s a skilled fighter and a ladies’ man, a James Bond of the Middle Ages.
The Last Kingdom is based on Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories series of books.
Alfred the Great’s goal was not only to defeat the Danes–the word “Viking” is never uttered during The Last Kingdom–but also to create from his small kingdom of Wessex a unified England. It’s up to his son, King Edward, to complete the task, with Uhtred’s assistance of course.
All the while Uhtred is forced to confront a onetime romantic interest, fellow-Saxon and abductee, Brida (Emily Cox), whose faith in the Norse religion is strong.
Edward meanwhile has to confront betrayal within his court as a unified England seems within grasp.
While a bit wooden at times, the acting in The Last Kingdom is generally quite good. The battle scenes are intense, and the plotlines are strong enough to keep watching. But to figure out what is happening here, you absolutely have to watch the first four seasons beforehand. One flaw of The Last Kingdom, as with Ozark, which also took a year off from filming, presumably because of the COVID outbreak, is that it is need of very strong recaps at the beginning of each episode, of which there a ten this season. Hey, people forget things two years later. Another challenge in keeping the storyline straight is that many of the characters’ names, all based on historical figures, are similar; they incorporate the Old English prefix “Æthel,” which translates into modern English as “noble,” or Ælf. Had they asked me, I would have for starters changed the name of a duplicitous rat, Æthelhelm (Adrian Schiller), a character whose historical standing is foggy. In The Last Kingdom he’s the father of Edward’s second wife, Ælflæd (Amelia Clarkson). One son of Edward is Æthelstan (Harry Kilby) another is his half-brother Ælfweard (Ewan Horrocks), he’s the son of Ælflæd.
A spin-off of The Last Kingdom is in the works, a movie titled Seven Kings Must Die.
There are two more seasons of Vikings coming. I probably won’t be watching.
Both programs are rated TV-MA for violence, nudity, and sex.
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