Category Archives: The Contrarian

The Vegetarian News Diet

Joe Scarborough Yells At, Mocks Mika Brzezinski About Obama (VIDEO) | HuffPost

Joe Scarborough of MSNBC lost his shit Monday, which is not news. But why he was ranting might be.

In a segment about Rudy Giuliani on the Morning Joe show, Scarborough railed against the endless leaks springing from federal investigations, leaks that do not lead to indictments. Most recently, he said, he’d been told to eat lunch at his desk because charges were imminent against Matt Gaetz and Giuliani. But each call, he brayed, resulted in bupkis.

“If they got a case, then bring the charges and try the case!” he shrilled. “Why do they keep leaking to all these news agencies ‘Oh we’re investigating…’ Don’t tell us what you’re investigating! Investigate it, bring the charges or don’t bring the charges. What happens if they don’t bring charges against Rudy? This hangs over his head! At what point do they stop leaking inside the FBI and just do their damn job?!”

Good question, Joe. We could probably ask the same of you. And us.

The legal wonk on Joe’s show was a bit shell-shocked by the verbal mortar, and pointed out that it’s not just the FBI that leaks. Leaks come from prosecutors, defense attorneys, prospective defendants — anyone within the scope of the investigation, he said.

Or maybe, Joe, you’ve got bad sources.

If a tipster promises a story that doesn’t materialize, that tipster should lose stock in your reporting. Who forced you to run a speculative story? Do you not have a choice in the matter?

It’s certainly salacious (and fun) to see the legal sword of Damocles dangle over the necks of political scumbags. But the outlets that run speculation, that seek shelter in the word “allegedly,” are being as cavalier as the agencies they cover.

It’s easy to see why it happens. When you have 24-hour news channels, but not 24 hours of news, the outlets can’t help themselves. They will Silly Putty stories into existence.

It’s not fake news: No one is saying the bus crashed when it didn’t. It’s fretful news: “Did you hear the bus brakes are being inspected? They could give at any moment!”

Vegetarianism is all the rage, especially here. (Personally, I’m not a vegan, but I think the chickens and cows I eat are.) So I suggest a vegetarian news diet. As an old newspaper man, the arduous task of printing news on parchment demanded a time delay for news confirmation, and a trimming of marbled news content.

That’s not an option in a digital age. So why not a leaner news diet, one that’s been processed? Even dining on YouTube select cuts (where I found Scarborough’s rant) limits how much you ingest. Sites like Politico and The Daily Beast may not be the sentinels of journalism, but they can run only so many stories. Ultimately, they have to exercise some discretion.

But the 24-7’s are like a burrito buffet at 7-Eleven. Eat whenever you want, as much as you want. At some point, though, you’re going to get fat. Maybe diabetes.

Scarborough finished his belch with a quote from the U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Reagan. “It’s like that old Ray Donovan question ‘Where do I go to get my reputation back?'”

Again, good question, Joe.

Heard Immunity

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JULY 20: Anti-vaccine protesters demonstrate outside 2019 Comic-Con International on July 20, 2019 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Daniel Knighton/Getty Images)

My mom finally dumped the tax preparer she employed for the past five years, thank god.

I’d pleaded with her since she moved to South Carolina to give the accountant, an old family friend, the ax after Mom said she was still paying taxes in Georgia “because Robin said that’s where my pension was based.”

But I finally won my case this year, when Mom passed along that Robin — and her mother — said they weren’t going to get a COVID vaccine “because it alters your DNA.”

“They should be so lucky,” I scoffed. I then argued why that opinion mattered. “How would you feel if you knew your pilot felt the same way?” I asked. “Do you really want someone in charge of your fate, financial or physical, if they don’t believe in science?”

Then I stumbled upon a jarring two-month study that confirmed my mother’s accountant was hardly unique. Last week, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released a detailed report on anti-vaxxer disinformation on social media. The report found that up to 65 percent of “anti-vaccine content” on Facebook and Twitter originated from twelve influencers within the anti-vaxxer movement. 

Entitled The Disinformation Dozen, the CCDH tracked 425 social media accounts supporting anti-vaxxer theories on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The accounts racked up 59.2 million followers in December — an increase of 877,000 more than they had in June.

Moreover, the analysis of 689,000 “anti-vaccine comment” posts found that about 73 percent of the content came from the Disinformation Dozen.

Regardless of your take on vaccines, I recommend reading the report, because its got some damning information, including a detailed indictment of the 12.

Atop the list is Joseph Mercola, “a successful anti-vaccine entrepreneur, peddling dietary supplements and false cures as alternatives to vaccines.” Mercola, whose accounts remains active on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, has around 3.6 million followers. Among is cure-alls is a “Hydrogen Peroxide Nebulization” therapy to fight coronavirus.

Joseph Mercola

Second on the list is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD), one of five organizations CCDH identifies as an anti-vaxxer group. Emblazoned atop CHD website is a garish promotion of its latest feature, Medical Racism: The New Apartheid.

From CHD website

Given the difficulty of getting communities of color to trust the medical community — particularly vaccinations — is it any wonder why we are still losing 1,000 people daily to the pandemic? The list includes authors, website founders and an alternative medicines physician. It’s a rogue’s gallery of swindlers, charlatans and the factually-challenged.

What’s impressive about the report is that it offers, like the vaccination, a path forward. Namely, de-platforming, which has become an invaluable tool in modulating — and moderating — the national blood pressure. That’s bad news for panic porn outlets like CNN, which has seen a 45% drop in viewership since Trump was knocked off his soapbox. But when’s the last time your stomach churned from the latest lie posted by Agent Orange?

Its recommendations:

  • Establish a clear threshold for enforcement action (such as a “two-strikes” rule on accuracy).
  • crosstown Display corrective posts to users exposed to disinformation.
  • Add warning screens when users click links to misinformation sites.
  • Institute an Accountability Application Programming Interface (API) to make the AI of social media platforms more effective.
  • Ban private and secret anti-vaccine Facebook groups.

Then of course, there’s the hard way forward: through. When COVID was hurtling past a quarter-million Americans dead on its way beyond a half-million, the right brayed about the need for herd immunity. Some folks, they bloviated, may have to risk death and go back to school or work for the greater good. That was before we had vaccination options.

Now that they’re here, perhaps what we need is heard immunity. A salvo in the “Well, that’s what I hear” defense against the progress of science and emperical evidence. It helped inoculate many of us against the Big Lie, though not entirely. Dominion’s billion-dollar lawsuits against the most egregious misinformers will cull some of that herd.

Which brings us back to Mom’s H&R Blockhead accountant. According to the CCHD study, about 1 in 6 Americans prefer ignorance over information, feelings over fact. That’s means about 17% of this country doesn’t believe in advancement.

That sounds about right.