If Sinclair gets to gobble up Tribune Media, what sort of things can we expect on our local news programs? Why, ginned up anti-Muslim terror reports, of course! Or, as they call them, "Terrorism Alert Desk" segments, which, you won't be surprised to learn, are not exactly substantive. Sinclair ran run about 200 of them last year, and I guess if you see one more than every other calendar day, you might start to think TEH MUZLIMZ ARE TEH KILLINGZ TEH PEEPULZ!!!! everywhere. You have to remind yourself that 1.5 billion Muslims inhabit the Earth, and "Imam Reads to Blind Grandmother" isn't likely to hit the "Terrorism Alert Desk." Or even the "news desk."
Jim Naureckas at FAIR finds a Pew Research Center study anxious to point out that the youngs are liberal and the olds aren't, but strangely not anxious to point out that just about every age group has become more liberal over the last seven years. He also points out, toward the end, that social media outlets have enabled more Americans to get past the "media gatekeepers" -- and that those gatekeepers love telling us we're all in our own "bubbles," rather than the bubble they would prefer to keep us in.
Every once in a while you need to hear a former Republican remind us that Republicans only have "one idea" anymore, and that idea is tax cuts. It's good to hear someone count "the administration's dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its rules against consumer fraud" as an offense against law and order. And it's also good to hear someone remind everyone that Sen. Flake sure talks a good game about the President's various offenses against civilization, but "votes with machine-like consistency in favor of the president’s destructive agenda and unqualified nominees." Mr. Flake gave us the "resolution of disapproval" that repealed internet privacy protections, you recall.
Ho hum, the President announces stiff new tariffs against imported aluminum and steel, and then we learn that one of his advisors, the notorious Carl Icahn, just so happened to have sold over $30 million of stock in the heavily steel-dependent Manitowoc Company during a ten-day period starting on February 12. I have no opinion on whether these tariffs are actually a good idea, but here's the trouble: Mr. Icahn hadn't traded any stocks in Manitowoc for almost three years before February 12, and of course steel stocks (including Manitowoc's) went down bigly after the President's announcement. Could that be illegal insider trading? And could the "insider" who supplied Mr. Icahn with his info be the President? These are questions worth asking.
Finally, Office of Management and Budget releases report stating that "major" federal regulations enacted between 2006 and 2016 had financial benefits that far, far outweighed their costs. You would think this Administration, in particular, would have tried to cook the books, but apparently they just settled for hoping that we'd never notice, what with all the drama that surrounds our President. Also, too, OMB found that regulations tend not to be "a significant factor in employment," meaning regulations don't kill jobs. That won't stop Republicans from repeating a bunch of crap, nor will it prevent the "liberal" media from failing to question them on it. Which is why we trust ourselves.
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