

Society & Culture
Despite the Pervasive Bottom Feeding, We Are Free to Choose
Deregulation has an upside as well
Among the many thoughtful responses to my recent article, Contemporary America: A Nation of Bottom Feeders, one in particular stood out and is reprinted here (with some slight editing):
A thought provoking piece, Jeff. Easy accessibility and overwhelming choice certainly have caused a media (and social media) frenzy for our attention.
That said, we all have God given free choice and, at least for now in this country, freedom of speech. To wit, the older I get and the less time I have left in this veil of tears, the more cognizant I have become of how valuable my time is and how discerning I need to be in the use of it.
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With regard to current events, I have become more and more selective about where I obtain my news. For example, after reading “the newspaper of record” religiously for decades, I stopped going to the New York Times in 2000 as I saw more and more biased editorializing instead of hard news on the front page.
I stopped watching cable and network news during the 2016 campaign as I watched the emergence of the almost 100% negative echo chamber against Trump. I’m sure you have seen the montages of multiple mainstream media commentators parroting the same talking points at the same time. Epoch Times online is now my preferred authority: a truly balanced, worldwide perspective along with excellent commentary and opinion identified as such.
And even in the entertainment realm, we really do have a choice. Most of what is on cable is insipid trash, but several streaming services offer much better fare. And even if there is still questionable material (the Obamas on Netflix comes to mind), the beauty of streaming is that you can watch quality documentaries and films of your own choice when you want to, free of intrusive commercial ads (for the most part).
My point: deregulation has an upside as well. I shudder to think of the alternative given the current trend of corporate/intelligence/media/government control in our country. Is it better to have government over-regulation, such as the CCP social credit system where you only hear and see what you are allowed to by a tyrannical regime?
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News
Mainstream Media: Intentionally and Diabolically Unfair and Unbalanced
All pretense that the mainstream media strives for objectivity is gone
by Jay DeLancey and Jeff Davidson
The grandest mistake the American populace committed in the last half-century was assuming that our media was even somewhat fair and balanced. Likewise proceeding in the last two decades as if the Internet giants had no dog in the political arena proved to be a mistake of historical proportions.
Today because so many people, still, are conditioned as such, the mere fact that say, a CNN, has a website prompts some people to believe that the network have something of value to offer. Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, whose focus is classics and military history, says that the New York Times is “a shell of what it used to be.”
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Nothing Objective to Offer
The paper always leaned to the left, since it’s founding, but it did an intermittently semi-decent job in reporting the facts. The Times sent their reporters out to the streets to do hard-core reporting. The mission was to gather relevant data, identify sources, talk to people, find eye witnesses, speak to bonafide experts, attain corroboration, and then when they were sure of what they had written, submit the story or feature.
Their articles probably never represented a 50-50 balance – perhaps 55-45 or 60-40 in favor of the left. Today, no rational media observer would contend that the balance is 70-30, or even 80-20. Study after study reveals, say, in the case of covering Donald Trump, that 92% of all features are negative, and that is not to say the remaining 8% are positive. Mostly, they’re neutral.
If you are a Trump or DeSantis supporter, or a Republican running for Senate or the House of Representatives, for governor in your state, or for any other position of prominence, you simply cannot expect a fair shake from the press, nationally, and in most cases locally. Indeed, you’re likely to be demonized, endlessly, over issues for which Democrats receive a free pass.
Compromised to the Breaking Point
The New York Times and The Washington Post of old, as biased as they might’ve been, at least offered some semblance of up-to-date information, with facts and figures when they had them, and timely reporting as situations unfolded. Hansen remarked that today the people who run these newspapers are trading on the decades of hard work and the reputations built up over more than 100 years.
Those who put in the seed work are dead and gone and thus, obviously, have no say about what’s going on today. The Times and the Post, in less than a generation, are destroying their own reputations. The people who currently run these ‘news’ organizations are dragging them down at warp speed and don’t even recognize the damage that they are doing.
By 2030, what is now a shell of an organization will be less so, and it wouldn’t be too wild to predict that the Times could totally morph into something else. The Post is not far behind in devising its own demise.
The Pretense is Gone
Each of the countless newspapers that feed off of these two publishing giants suffer as well. All such pretense that the mainstream media strives for objectivity is gone. The good news, if you could call it that, is everyone on the right is now vitally all aware that this has happened.
Those who strive for integrity in elections, those who are on the right, and those who are routinely demonized by the left, understand what’s occurring to the nth degree. It’s not fair, but to know what you face is a benefit of sorts.
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Elections
Democrats Once Made Sense Occasionally
By today’s standards JFK would be considered a conservative
With RFK, Jr. already favored by a sizable percentage of Democrats for the 2024 nomination, I recall a visit I made to his mother’s home. In 1988, I was invited by a friend to attend a Democratic fund raising reception for a congressional candidate, running in Northern Virginia. The reception was to be held at the home of Ethel Kennedy in McLean, VA.
I was eager to attend, although skeptical that the reception would actually be held in Mrs. Kennedy’s home. I felt certain it would be held in the back yard, or in a special tent on grounds that were meticulously groomed for the event.
To my surprise, the event was held in her home and the hundreds of people who attended apparently were free to roam about the first floor without restriction. I found this to be totally amazing. Here was a home, that by any measure, contained artifacts which future generations would clamor to see.
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A Panoply of Pop Culture and History
Every room contained personal photos of Bobby Kennedy, Jack Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Ted Kennedy and the entire clan, as well as awards, citations, and personal mementos. Guests could have pocketed their choice of mementos at any time. Apparently none did – at any time. More astounding, Mrs. Kennedy seemed completely unconcerned about the possibility.
As I meandered about the grounds, I made my way to the pool house. Between a couch and a chair, on a phone stand, along with the phone, was a roster of phone numbers typed and inserted in a plastic sleeve. I looked at the list. Ted Kennedy’s congressional phone number and his private number in Hyannis were listed. Jackie Kennedy’s personal phone number in New York was listed. Other family members, celebrities’ and luminaries’ personal phone numbers were listed.
Any reporter or paparazzi could have cashed in simply by copying the numbers on the list and selling them to the tabloids. This backyard, this yard, this house, on a typical street in McLean, VA had no fences, no guard dogs, none of what I would have expected the widow of a historical figure – a millionairess – to have.
People-oriented to the Max
I thought about all the time and energy that I, and most of the people I know, spend to safeguard our privacy, to ensure no one is looking over our shoulder when we’re doing something as simple as reading a newspaper on an airplane. Ethel Kennedy, however, was a public person, circa 1988.
It seemed inconceivable that an Ethel Kennedy could be so open and people-oriented, and not need the barriers and protectors that most of us believe we need.
As that night’s affair ended, I marveled when Ethel Kennedy stood at the door and bade all guests a fond farewell. She shook my hand and thanked me for coming as if I had been one of the Democratic Party’s most staunch supporters and honored guests in her home.
Accessible and Not-off-the-Wall
I was not a Democrat and never seek to be one, but this I know: by today’s standards JFK would be considered a conservative, or certainly someone ‘unworthy’ of the Democrat nomination. RFK senior likely would be in the same category.
Sure, many of their views and policies would be appear to be be left of center or at the center, but perhaps no more so than John McCain or George W. Bush. In any case, any Kennedy would be preferable to the tyrannical Leftist monsters currently in power, seeking to destroy America.
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