CSotD: Mixed up, shook up, muddled up world

Chip Bok apparently went to the drawing board as soon as the election was called, but before Lightfoot responded.

“Obviously, we didn’t win the election. But I stand here with my head held high and my heart full of thanks,” Lightfoot told supporters shortly before 9 p.m.

That’s how it’s done on the blue side of the aisle.

Elsewhere in the echo chamber, Lisa Benson (Counterpoint) focuses on the Department of Energy’s report concluding that spread of the Wuhan virus was the result of a lab leak, but not a matter of biological weaponry.

However, her depiction of the media being stunned doesn’t reflect the impact of the report.

The media, which has, as a whole, never embraced any particular source, quickly went to the experts and found very little consensus on the validity of DOE’s report.

What it boils down to, if you read what reporters discovered and what experts said, is that we still don’t know, and the lab leak theory is as good as any at this point.

Gary Varvel (Creators) was also quick to celebrate this apparent dismissal of the animal-to-human origin, and presented it as a chance to mock a series of targets not all of whom have a terribly solid connection to the theory, which, as noted above, remains in play anyway.

Steve Kelley (Creators) got it right, since the FBI echoed that DOE conclusion and is also being equally doubted by the experts and by other governmental sources. As that link indicated, even the DOE report was issued with “little confidence” which National Intelligence explains thusly:

Kelley may have been looking to take a swipe at the FBI, but he hit a bullseye in not accepting their report as definitive.

As to truth, Kevin Siers pushes back against the “They all do it” fallacy, which is not simply bubbling to the surface but exploding in the wake of the revelations that Fox knew the facts of the 2020 election and consciously chose to lie and foster the “stolen election.”

It’s all well and good to play the Will Rogers simpleton role, but the antidote to uninformed wisdom is to ask for the emails from those other sources — any one of them — to show that they, too, have conspired to lie to the public.

But don’t pin this unwarranted certainty entirely on the dumbass Cliff Clavins down at the barroom or your obnoxious Thanksgiving uncle. When Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, proposed secession, she said

We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this.

And there’s the problem: They don’t talk to people with opinions that differ from their own, and that double-edged sword can also be an issue for liberals and progressives who cocoon in their own circles.

But conservative information circles seem a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more sound-proof.

Pat Bagley points out that we have a major news source, faithfully followed by millions of people, that their own internal memos show has a policy of lying in order to maintain viewership.

And Siers use of the phrase “You can’t handle the truth” is no exaggeration: When they accurately announced Biden’s win in Arizona, angry viewers switched to Newsmax to avoid hearing things they had been groomed not to believe.

The established storyline must be preserved, which is why, in the aftermath of the election, Tucker Carlson wanted to fire a staffer for publishing a fact-check that went against the official version of the truth.

Now, as David Horsey depicts it, a second load of evidence from the Dominion lawsuit further implicates Rupert Murdoch in the decision to promote nonsense and lies to hold audience, and, as Reliable Sources reports, he’s likely seeking heads to lop off.

It doesn’t help that Fox has abandoned Donald Trump and turned to Ron De Santis as the Anointed One. Trump can’t get on the network anymore and so has been attacking Fox as disloyal RINOs, which can’t be helping them to maintain their MAGA audience.

Moreover, as Joel Pett suggests, Trump’s ongoing proposal to make it easier to sue the media, which has picked up a little momentum among the most MAGA members of Congress, must surely rankle Murdoch, who is losing the Dominion case even playing within the old rules.

Point being that, if it became easier to sue for defamation, the media would lose money defending themselves against nuisance suits, but bad actors would also be open to valid and very expensive lawsuits from those they actually do defame, and who would not need the blatant, self-condemning paper trail Fox laid out for Dominion.

And, by the way, Smartmatic has a $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox for lying about them, and they must be very grateful to Dominion for assembling all that evidence.

Heads will roll at Fox, but, for those who work there, it’s a given. As NPR media reporter David Folkenflik told Darcy

Can’t We Talk About Something More Ridiculous?

Bill Bramhall put a seal on the Roald Dahl controversy, or tried to, but it continues to bubble over.

As Ann Telnaes points out, Penguin has made an attempt to deflect the problems by publishing both versions of Dahl’s work, with the “classic” version presumably including the changes he made in his lifetime, chiefly turning the Oompa Loompas from enslaved African pygmies into enslaved imaginary creatures. Or maybe not.

Those “classic” editions will be sold alongside the new, improved edition that was recently, as Bramwell put it, sanitized for our protection, under a process Dahl himself had discussed before his death:

I hope his kids are sleeping well, but I wouldn’t be.

Clay Bennett (CTFP) points out that Dahl’s interview isn’t the only thing that has popped up from a forgotten past. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee is about to sign a law banning drag shows …

… and was most dismissive of photos of him from his high school yearbook.

Disclosure: When I was in junior high, I dressed as a female cheerleader for the seniors/faculty basketball game. Also, Camp Lord O’ the Flies was an all-boys camp and I occasionally played a woman’s role in drama skits there.

Like Bill Lee, I consider it irrelevant.

Unlike Bill Lee, I also consider it irrelevant how other people play act, or live their lives, and none of my business in general.

Which is why I prefer the other Bill Lee.

And which is probably why I’m not a governor. But we’ll talk about Ron De Santis tomorrow.

Meanwhile, don’t click on this if you live in Tennessee or Florida: