Tag Archives: responsibilities

Dishonesty of the Press

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The White House Press Corps has its collective panties bunched up again; this time the cause of their angst is White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany refusal to kowtow to them and her open disdain for their contemptible behavior.

Poor ABC News correspondent Jon Karl, who’s the current head of the WHPC wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post, complaining that she doesn’t run the daily press briefings in accordance with his preferences in the right way.

The job is to inform the public: to be an intermediary between the president and a press corps the public relies on for information….

Of course, the press isn’t the least bit arrogant or self-important. They’re the gateway to what we know; we rely on them. No, we don’t. Usually, we bypass the press and go straight to the sources—real sources, not those the press masquerades as “officials” or “anonymous sources.”

Denying reality….

Of course, there can’t possibly be differing interpretations of events. McEnany must be denying reality.

Karl specifically pointed to derisive statements McEnany made about Seattle’s so-called autonomous zone, arguing she wrongly implied that President Trump liberated the city from its occupation.

Except that McEnany did no such thing, neither did Trump. She merely reported what he said—that he’d act if they didn’t, followed by their acting, followed by Trump’s bragging about having successfully prodded them. Look who’s really denying reality.

And

he [Karl] accused her of implying in a July 6 briefing that reporters didn’t care about shootings in New York….

An accurate implication, since the press corps, in that briefing, displayed exactly zero interest in the New York shootings. Here’s how McEnany closed that briefing:

I was asked probably 12 questions about the Confederate flag. This president is focused on action, and I’m a little dismayed that I didn’t receive one question on the deaths that we got in this country this weekend. I didn’t receive one question about New York City shootings doubling for the third straight week.

The lack of questions regarding that surge—still surging—of murders and what might the President think or do or plan to do about them—in favor or the press’ manufactured spat over the NASCAR and Confederate Flag beef—is a pretty strong indication of the press’ lack of interest in those murders.

How dare this person object to press misbehaviors? Doesn’t she know the press is above reproach?

Vote Fraud

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It happened in West Virginia, and it didn’t involve vote harvesters or vote canvassers or vote counters.

A West Virginia postal carrier pleaded guilty Thursday to altering mail-in requests for absentee voter ballots.
Thomas Cooper entered the plea in federal court in Elkins to attempted election fraud and injury to the mail, US Attorney Bill Powell said in a statement.
Cooper was charged in May after eight mail-in requests for absentee voter ballots had their party affiliations altered.

This was a failure of West Virginia’s decision to mail ballot applications to all registered voters, whether they asked for one or not.

But Progressive-Democrats say there is no mail vote fraud. And they are honorable men. So are they all, all of the Left, honorable men.

A Thought on Kipp

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Since I’m thinking about things today.

KIPP Public Schools is a nation-wide charter school organization that has had outsized success in teaching its students, as has virtually all charter and voucher schools and school organizations in the US.  It had a motto, Work Hard. Be Nice., which it scrapped in an attempt to pander to the woke gangs.

In defense of that move, Kipp Co-Founder Dave Levin wrote a Letter to The Wall Street Journal. Toward the end of that letter, Levin made the remarkable claim that

Hard work is essential. Character matters.

Which is true for most of us, but it seems petty rationalization from Levin. If he really believed in the importance of hard work and character, he and his organization would not have struck their Work Hard. Be Nice. motto altogether.

Work Hard. Be Nice. Create our Future.—adapted from Kipp’s claimed Vision statement—would have been a fine update.

But no.

It’s Been Going On for a Year

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This is what Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, in a series of tweets, said so weakly about antifa on 2 July 2019 after that gang assaulted journalist Andy Ngo and others, putting them in the hospital:

Portland has always been a beacon of free speech. We are proud of that history.
— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 1, 2019

But in the last couple of years, some have increasingly used their opportunity to exercise their 1st amendment rights, as an opportunity to incite violence.
— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 1, 2019

Over the weekend some chose to engage in violence in Portland, which is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 1, 2019

Wheeler then said ‘twarn’t him:

I wasn’t even here. I wasn’t even in the United States. I was with my family in Ecuador on a wildlife tour.

Because he was out of all contact with the world.

No, wait–his Number Two wasn’t following the command set and instructions he’d left behind when he went on his trip.

No, wait–no one was following the corporate culture he’d so carefully set up when he took office.

Now we have this:

Police in Portland, OR, declared a riot around 11 pm local time Saturday as Independence Day marked the 38th consecutive day of civil unrest in the city.

Not peaceful protesting for 38 days, civil unrest—and Saturday was the second consecutive day the police have had to declare a riot and move to disperse the gathered thugs and rioters.

Riot? The “gathering” was shooting fireworks, not into the air in celebration, but directly at the Multnomah County Justice Center. Yes, riot.

This is another example of Progressive-Democrat governance.

New Case Rates and Death Rates

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Current data indicate a reduction in new (read: confirmed) cases of Wuhan Virus—45,000 cases on Independence Day vs 50,000 cases the day prior.  Fun with statistics: that’s a 10% drop—wow.

It is promising, but a single datum isn’t very dispositive.

What really interested me, though, is this, also presented in the article at the link:

In contrast to the surge in positive diagnoses, the death rate has slowed mostly to the hundreds a day in recent weeks, from a peak of more than 2,000 daily during several weeks in April.

And:

Infectious-disease epidemiologists caution that deaths typically lag behind other indicators, as the disease often progresses over the course of weeks in the most severe cases.

The rise in new case detections has only been in progress for a week, or so, and many of those detections are the result of massively increased testing finding massively increased existing infections (hence my correction above to consider “confirmed” rather than solely “new”).

With this virus’ incubation period of 2-14 days, and the fact that, if the infection proves fatal to an individual, that will occur generally from 4-11 days after hospitalization, I’ll be looking at hospitalization rates over the next week, or so, and mortality rates over the latter half of July. Those are the data most likely to be associated with the recent rise in cases detected.

New/confirmed infection rates by themselves are pretty meaningless.