The Prescience of the Obvious

Received by The Corvallis Gazette Times June 6, 2020

Printed and posted June 16, 2020

July 1, 2020

Because of a reversal of all trends related to Covid 19, Oregon governor Kate Brown mandated masks in public for all. No exceptions. By my reckoning, just in time, because masks had grown conspicuously absent at a rate similar to Oregon's Covid statistics.

Oregon per Johns Hopkins University

This page was last updated on Wednesday, July 1, 2020 at 3:00 AM EDT

Per The New York Times

 
The simplest precaution has morphed into a libertarian cause célèbre. At the grocer's just last Monday, many, many went maskless, evidently beating the drum for so-called liberty. P.T. Barnum somewhere smugly smiles.

What has he got to lose?

The Emperor's New Bible

Then, this happened...

June 1, 2020 - Tear Gas Used to Remove Crowd for Photo-Op Across from White House

SHARPIE-GATE

What's next: Trump's signature on the stimulus check?

Viewer Request to MSNBC

msnbctvinfo@nbcuni.com
msnbc.digital.editors@nbcuni.com
Rachel@msnbc.com
zach.haberman@nbcuni.com
alana.satlin@nbcuni.com

Since you seem bound and determined to air Trump's daily thing live and then fact-check later, might I suggest recording the events and airing them with an immediate fact check. It is approaching the absurd to call you "news" in the great tradition of NBC News we grew up on. Propaganda works when not conjoined with reality.

Thank you,
Stacey Youdin
Corvallis, OR

Happy New Year!

Trump's Book Club

Beach Read

Reading Level: Stable Genius

Freedom: That's Just Some People Talking

I can't take credit for the notion that fact is what enough people believe and truth is determined by how fervently they believe it. Also at a loss to rebut that observation so as to land squarely where it is needed most. Whatever happened to acquiescence to people whom we admit know more than we do? The demonization of proper facts in favor of the feel good construct has spawned supporting governors who refuse Medicaid expansion, giving credence to endorphin raising theorists in lieu of objective sources of news, eschewing the role of citizen in our system of self-governance and the list, once begun, reaches book length.

On this, the eve of the Mueller appearance before Congress, the republic cries out like a modern Diogenes. Who will tell the truth that the chief executive was far from exonerated and that his collusions and obstructions were preemptively vanished by a corrupted attorney general who got to frame the Mueller report before its dissemination? And how on Earth can someone dissolve into a puddle of what-about-ism and cultish ear covering to perpetuate the validity of a chosen side, regardless?

Be reminded of this quote from Ben Bradlee: "As long as a journalist tells the truth, in conscience and fairness, it is not his job to worry about consequences. The truth is never as dangerous as a lie in the long run. I truly believe the truth sets men free."

Freedom is what America should be all about, yes?

Checkers vs. Chess - June 2019

The Democrats are playing 24 dimensional checkers

Wayne Who?

While Republicans are playing one dimensional chess

The (R) stands for Har HAR!

The Mouth That Roared

Our Season of Luntzspeak

Projection

prə-jĕk′shən (pruh-jek-shuh n) 
The tendency to ascribe to another person feelings, thoughts, or attitudes present in oneself, or to regard external reality as embodying such feelings, thoughts, etc., in some way.

Just why do Republicans always tell us what Democrats are thinking instead of and despite what they're saying? For example, on the right and extreme right, it is a given that impeachment is job one for us, their opponents. 

Jonathan Alter stopped Kayleigh McEnany from saying just that and rebutted with the pertinent statistics that exactly 3 congresspeople were on board seeking it and fewer than 3 dozen candidates out of around 450 in the mid-terms had it as their top tier plank. As is customary, Ms. McEnany repeated it again and again until "we'll have to leave it right there" won the day.

Democrats are not thinking that, at least not out loud. I mean who couldn't say that the half ton gorilla in the room is the 239 pound orange ape in the oval office, so I shouldn't doubt that those with any modicum of common sense have gone there to some extent, but the point is you should have to stand for something to be awarded the blessings of the electorate. Such a singularly narrow issue seems like a subtle voter suppression, if defending against this straw man steals your focus and robs your potential supporters a fair look.

Without starting to go all Powerpoint on a multi-point platform, one can and should articulate one's philosophy of governance and representation; it also couldn't hurt to ask a person for her or his vote. 


This is the time we should fear the most. The informed voter has had pretty much everything for a while now. Save for the dead girl or the live boy. 

But there's time remaining for the complacent to get caught up in the inevitable media spectacle and that's when the Luntzspeak, historically, has taken over. The hidden persuaders, who not for nothing make a pretty penny, are locking up the prime slots in media and gravitating to the latest apps. They are a-readying.

"We don't need a congressperson who will be constantly distracted by hatred of Donald J. Trump, enough to investigate and impeach him day in and day out and not pay attention to the things Americans really care about." And their voice-over guys will sound all snarky, with or without the doomsday music and the grainy, black & white stills. 

What should be the response? In the past, Democrats have lapsed into far too much tit for tat and it's evident they're not particularly good at it. 

Either or both. 


With the ground being conceded by the other side including just about every positive thing since The Enlightenment (many with Republican backing), we have to hope that adopting a stance of readiness to rebut any and all crazy surely has never had a better shot at prevailing this time. Hope is good. I can show you a poster.

The topic of impeachment as a political cudgel this week will find its replacement soon. Because it's only important as dominator of the news cycle, but the fact that they accuse the Democrats of such singular focus presents beaucoup evidence of projection.

The temptation to be anything but real to fight it is their aim in keeping you on your back foot until November. Real takes real.

The impetus to out bon mot Republicans has to be let go of. They are the ones both smelling it and dealing it.


Keeping you locked in and losing the battle which you can't win (see 'rigged system') because of the Trump Triangle we should call it, carries more than a whiff of high school. Ideas (such as) going from the loonisphere, to Fox News, to the mouth and hashtag of he who must be praised or else you're fired, rinse repeat, is what got us here.

The Trump Triangle: norms enter and are never heard from again. Its zeitgeist is projection. It knows its greatest weaknesses so it knows what to turn into weapons. The Democrats must have a single issue driving them because Republicans do. They can't tell you what tomorrow's will be but they know how to hammer today's.

Woe be to anyone contemplating defensive reaction to it because when the tit changes, as it were, the old tat becomes a loser. (See: oh yeah? and what about...?)


The jazz guys say it's outside the concept of the pocket if you wait to hear the beat played to try to play on the beat. You're always late. 

Instead, know which measure of what refrain you're in and be prepared to say something, if it's your turn.

If it's your turn.

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CORRECTED TO REFLECT IT WAS JONATHAN ALTER, NOT DAVID CORN WHO CONFRONTED KAYLEIGH MCENANY