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Silly. That’s the first word that came to my mind when I began paying more attention this week to the government “shutdown” coverage that is so prevalent in the media hardly any “news” is making it through the editing rooms. I decided to do some research on the facts of the situation, since raw facts [sans spin points] are nowhere to be found in the media.

From comments I receive, I know that readers of my blog posts are almost all NOT in the category of people one popular radio talk show host calls Low Information Voters [the only reason for the “almost” before “all” is that one can never assume that “all” people can be classified in any particular way 😊.] So the approach I’m going to take here is to simply list facts, more or less in descending order of their effect on how individual legislators will vote on any particular resolution to this impasse that is ultimately found. Please note the very last item — it’s actually the one that’s the most important, even though it’s on the very bottom of this list of facts influencing our decision makers.

1. 1. Who is ultimately blamed for this “shutdown” will matter much more than anything else it may accomplish.
   2. Perceptions of the level of “pain” the “shutdown” causes matters much more than whatever level of “pain” it actually causes.
   3. The campaigns of members of the party that best manages this “spin cycle” may be made more effective than those of members of the other party in the 2020 election [stated this way, this statement is a fact — change “may be” to “will be,” and it’s no longer a fact.]
   4. This situation is about as clear a confirmation as you could find that there is a major paradigm shift well underway in this country [the main evidence that a New Paradigm is already replacing the current soon-to-be Old Paradigm is that under the current/old paradigm, problems aren’t getting solved and desirable new things aren’t being developed.]
   5. Millions of actual real people are adversely affected by “shutdowns.”
   6. The $5.7 billion [at most] for a wall that is actually the last “hurdle” to overcome [which if not singled out as the single biggest issue would not have resulted in the “shutdown”] is 0.13% of the proposed 2019 Federal spending level [that’s slightly over one tenth of one percent!] It could easily be funded by cutting 0.38% [less than four tenths of one percent] of the proposed budgets of all departments [including the non-wall components of the Homeland Security proposal.] These “cuts” would be in proposed increases — not current expenditure levels. The proposed expenditures contain no cuts anywhere, and are on average 8.88% higher than Fiscal Year 2018 levels — so if all were reduced by 0.38%, the average increase would still be 8.5%.

I considered another title for this post — Send In The Clowns, the title of Judy Collins’ 1975 hit song written by Stephen Sondheim. The The [Insert Name Here] Shutdown title won out because winning the perception battle in the eyes of Low Information Voters — i.e., what ends up replacing “[Insert Name Here]” in their eyes — is the only thing that actually matters to our legislators, who are described very well by the fourth verse of the song:

Don’t you love farce? 

My fault, I fear. 

I thought that you’d want what I want… 

Sorry, my dear! 

And where are the clowns 

Send in the clowns 

Don’t bother, they’re here.

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Charles M. Jones

Well, I’m now on record as the most accurate predictor of the outcome of the 2018 mid-term elections [I know all of my readers are astute people who see the dry humor in statements like that I make now and then 😊.] Here are the predictions I made in my last post, Your Country Needs You [checkmark equals “100% accurate”:]

• ✔️It is the 310th day of 2018. ✔️In Washington, DC, the sun will rise at 6:41am and set at 5:02pm.
• ✔️By about 11:00 to 12:00pm Eastern Time, possibly much sooner, one [and only one] of the following will be true come January*:
  • Republicans Will Have Majorities In Both The House And The Senate.
  • ✔️Republicans Will Have A Majority In The Senate But Not In The House.
  • Republicans Will Have A Majority In The House But Not In The Senate.
  • Democrats Will Have Majorities In Both The House And In The Senate.

[I should point out that ✔️technical peculiarities in some states [e.g., Mississippi] could postpone full knowledge of the election outcome considerably — days, maybe even weeks. ✔️The more extremely close races there are, the higher the probability of delays in learning the final outcome.]

• Regardless of which of the above is true, …

• • ✔️millions of people will be happy about that outcome,
  • ✔️millions will be unhappy about it,
  • ✔️millions won’t care what it was
  • ✔️and millions won’t even know what it was —
  • ✔️and Republican Donald Trump will still be President.

✔️Neither of two historically reliable indicators [overall turnout rate or the fact that since 1934 the party of a newly elected president has suffered an average loss of 23 seats in the House in the following midterm] matters in this election, so the effect of high turnout on November 6 cannot be accurately predicted because we will not know until well after November 6 WHO actually turned out to make that number so high.

So What Now?

Of the four possible outcomes [the above list,] the “winner” was Door #2: Republicans Will Have A Majority In The Senate But Not In The House. Here’s how I described that scenario last week. …  “Gridlock might worsen some, but if the Democrat majority in the House results in more by-partisan bills from that chamber [which I think might be the case,] the Senate might be more likely to reach bipartisan agreement on more merged House-Senate bills that the President would not veto.  Also, if another Supreme Court vacancy occurs, the court would continue its shift toward constitutional adherence.”

As it sits only four days later, one day after the election, it appears I was too optimistic on the legislative part of that assessment. Based on statements already being made by soon-to-be committee chairs, the Democrats will apparently continue shooting themselves in the foot for two more years — i.e., only two “planks” in their “platform:” 1) vigorously oppose whatever Trump is for; and 2) team with an eagerly supportive mainstream media to constantly accentuate all negatives and hide all positives about Trump [personally, and wherever possible without embarrassing themselves, his administration.] They seem to believe that they are now emboldened to double down on that agenda with the added ability to launch investigation after investigation — now with subpoena power.

I like the way former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell [a Democrat] expressed what they should do instead: “Don’t just investigate; legislate!” I can only hope they will listen to this kind of counsel — but so far, I won’t be holding my breath. Only time will tell, but for now I’d say we should brace ourselves for daily “breaking news” of revelations in numerous investigations taking up most of the media coverage for the foreseeable future.

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Charles M. Jones

In less than sixty hours from the time of this post, we should know the outcome of the November 6 midterm elections. I’ve never been able to figure out how to get paid for my incredibly deep insight [😊], but I’ll tell you in this post everything you need to know about November 6. That will save you the time and frustration involved in channel flipping and clicking through the myriad of predictions being offered 24/7 by “experts” in the media.  So just relax and enjoy life for the next sixty hours, realizing that the single most productive and constructive thing you, personally, can do — is VOTE. Here’s all you need to know about November 6:

• It is the 310th day of 2018. In Washington, DC, the sun will rise at 6:41am and set at 5:02pm.
• By about 11:00 to 12:00pm Eastern Time, possibly much sooner, one [and only one] of the following will be true come January*:
  1. Republicans Will Have Majorities In Both The House And The Senate.
  2. Republicans Will Have A Majority In The Senate But Not In The House.
  3. Republicans Will Have A Majority In The House But Not In The Senate.
  4. Democrats Will Have Majorities In Both The House And In The Senate.

I should point out that technical peculiarities in some states [e.g., Mississippi] could postpone full knowledge of the election outcome considerably — days, maybe even weeks. The more extremely close races there are, the higher the probability of delays in learning the final outcome.

Regardless of which of the above is true, millions of people will be happy about that outcome, millions will be unhappy about it, millions won’t care what it was, and millions won’t even know what it was — and Republican Donald Trump will still be President.

Predictions Of The “Experts”

Most of the better-known “experts” say that Democrats will probably gain a majority in the House, and that doing so in the Senate is at least a possibility albeit less likely. However, most of these same “experts” were predicting a Clinton landslide in 2016 right up to election day. History also presents that projection. Since 1934, the party of a newly elected president has suffered an average loss of 23 seats in the House in the following midterm.

The Way I See It, Their Opinions Don’t Matter Any More

For two reasons, I believe neither of these indicators matters in this election. First, President Trump has from his candidacy announcement to now ignored precedence and “upset the apple cart.” Election “history” simply doesn’t matter as much as it has in the past. Second, Democrats have seriously “shot themselves in the foot” for two years — they have only two “planks” in their “platform:” 1) vigorously oppose whatever Trump is for; and 2) team with an eagerly supportive mainstream media to constantly accentuate all negatives and hide all positives about Trump [personally, and wherever possible without embarrassing themselves, his administration.] On top of that, the way they conducted themselves in the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings was over-the-top despicable.

Early voting turnout indicates that total turnout in this mid-term may surpass that in all previous mid-terms, even rivaling if not exceeding turnout in the 2016 Presidential election. Again, the “experts” say high turnout favors Democrats. My take: the effect of high turnout on November 6 cannot be accurately predicted. The reason is simple — we will not know until well after November 6 WHO actually turned out to make that number so high. If it’s mostly young people, Independents and women [of all ages and races,] I’d venture to say that the outcome is a toss-up — because those voters do not think in terms of parties, “bases,” etc., and their rationale in making voting decisions is entirely different from that of the various constituencies that tend to vote as blocs. Also, if women account for a disproportionate percentage of the people generating the high turnout numbers, traditional ways of using that information to make projections are questionable because women are not as bloc-vote oriented as many “experts” think they are.

Which Of The Four Possible Outcomes Would Be Best?

In descending order of desirability in my humble opinion [same as order listed above:]

#1 — Republicans Will Have Majorities In Both The House And The Senate. I believe Republicans have become more unified and can get more done. Let the majority elected in 2016 continue — success or failure will be better determinable in 2020. If the people’s assessment is success, 2020 might even increase Republican majorities and cause the President’s re-election; if it’s failure, a much greater shift in the Legislature would be possible, and the President’s re-election would be considerably less probable unless Democrats make the same mistake in 2020 they made in in 2016 [nominate a standard, traditional politician.]

#2 — Republicans Will Have A Majority In The Senate But Not In The House. Gridlock might worsen some, but if the Democrat majority in the House results in more by-partisan bills from that chamber [which I think might be the case,] the Senate might be more likely to reach bipartisan agreement on more merged House-Senate bills that the President would not veto.  Also, if another Supreme Court vacancy occurs, the court would continue its shift toward constitutional adherence.

#3 — Republicans Will Have A Majority In The House But Not In The Senate. Similar to #2 in terms of legislation, but if another Supreme Court vacancy occurs, the court would shift back to more “legislating from the bench.”

#4 — Democrats Will Have Majorities In Both The House And In The Senate. What happens here would depend entirely on whether the Democrat majorities in both chambers could be reasonably successful in reaching bipartisan agreement on merged House-Senate bills that the President would not veto. If they stay on their current “avoid anything that might be viewed as a Trump success” tactic, that is unlikely. Also, investigations into anything and everything will consume way too much time. My prediction: worsening deadlock as Democrats just mark time until 2020 when they will assume there will be a massive shift back to a Democrat in the White House and even wider Democrat majorities in both Legislative chambers.

Don’t Forget The Paradigm Shift

These mid-term elections might very well be the most significant evidence so far of the Major Paradigm Shift Well Underway that I’ve been writing about for two years — particularly if the high turnout numbers cause the “experts” to be wrong [again — as they were in 2016.] I’ll plan to do some post-election blogging about that angle.

Anyway, whether you agree with my assessment of where we are and how these outcomes will play out or not, please VOTE on or before November 6! YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU. And remember, if you don’t vote at all, you could be unwittingly voting for some candidates that you would NOT vote for if you did vote!! [I wrote extensively about why that is so in the weeks leading up to the 2016 elections.]

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Thanks for reading this post, and if you regularly follow my Blog, for that, too. Please consider sharing this or other posts with your friends, colleagues and associates.

 

Charles M. Jones

This post is an appeal to anybody reading it to VOTE on or before November 6. There is only one thing you, personally, can do right now to support our current situation and direction if you like them or change them if you don’t — VOTE.  We are deluged with “election statistics” these days, but one of them is far and away the most disappointing of all — voter turnout. The U.S. ranks 26th among 35 of the most developed countries in voter turnout — 55.7% of the voting-age population; 86.8% of registered voters. #1 is Belgium at 87.21% and 89.37%, respectfully. The only countries that rank below us are Luxembourg, Slovenia, Poland, Chile, Latvia, Switzerland, Iceland, Japan and Turkey [source: Pew Research Center — 5/21/18.]

I started the web site www.USAparadigm.com and began posting weekly blogs through it a couple of months before the 2016 elections. My motivation for doing that was that I truly felt that election would be the most significant of my life time [I was 71 years old that year.] In retrospect, I believe I was correct in that assessment. As we approach the upcoming mid-term elections, I honestly believe they may be even more significant in some ways.

For anybody reading this who does not like our current President, please don’t quit reading when I say that there is not a doubt in my mind that our country is much better off today than it would have been at this time had Hillary Clinton been elected President in 2016. Please understand that I don’t “like” President Trump. I view him as an extremely narcissistic man who lacks good judgment in some aspects of his role as POTUS. He is too quick to speak [or “tweet”] his mind, and he’s insensitive to how his remarks might affect or be interpreted by some people — even his supporters. And he is not the moral model I would like to see in our President — which I could also say about the two most recent Democrat Presidents. 

What Matters

However, what we all need to do is focus on what matters — facts. In the overall scheme of things, whether I “like” our President doesn’t matter. What matters is whether our country is in a good place and moving in a good direction under his leadership. Consider these facts [condensed from over 50 items listed on 10/16/18 by Sean Hannity]:

• • Employment. Almost 4 million jobs have been created since the election. More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history. We have created more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump’s election. Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than three decades. New unemployment claims recently hit a 49-year low. African-American unemployment has recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded. Hispanic-American unemployment is at the lowest rate ever recorded. Asian-American unemployment recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded. Women’s unemployment recently reached the lowest rate in 65 years. Youth unemployment has recently hit the lowest rate in nearly half a century. We are at the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded for Americans without a high school diploma. Veterans’ unemployment recently reached its lowest rate in nearly 20 years.
  • The Economy. Economic growth last quarter hit 4.2% [in his second term, President Obama said that 1.5% to 2% was the “new normal.”] Median household income has hit the highest level ever recorded. Almost 3.9 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps since Trump’s election. 95% of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future—the highest percentage ever. Retail sales surged last month, up another 6 percent over last year. The biggest package of tax cuts and reforms in history has been implemented. After tax cuts, over $300 billion poured back in to the U.S. in the first quarter alone, and small businesses have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years. A record number of regulations has been eliminated. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been up as much as 45% since Trump’s election, and even after the current “correction” is up 35%.
  • Foreign Policy And Trade Relations. We withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal. We moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. We are protecting Americans from terrorists with the Travel Ban, upheld by Supreme Court. We concluded a historic U.S.-Mexico Trade Deal to replace NAFTA [negotiations with Canada are underway.] We reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports. We imposed tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum to protect our national security. We imposed tariffs on China in response to their forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices. Net exports are on track to increase by $59 billion this year. We increased our coal exports by 60%. U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high. We are a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
  • The Judiciary Branch Of Our Government. Confirmed more circuit court judges than any other new administration. Confirmed Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, at least slowing if not stopping a massive move in an extremely liberal direction in our country enabled by a “legislating from the bench” mentality.

None of this gets the media coverage it would get absent the extreme media bias against President Trump.

What’s At Stake

The “experts” say that Democrats will probably gain a majority in the House in the mid-terms, and that doing so in the Senate is at least a possibility. However, most of these same “experts” were predicting a Clinton landslide in 2016 right up to election day. History also presents that projection. For two reasons, though, I believe neither of these indicators matters in this election. First, President Trump has from his candidacy announcement to now ignored precedence and “upset the apple cart.” Election “history” simply doesn’t matter as much as it has in the past. Second, Democrats have seriously “shot themselves in the foot” for two years — they have no agenda other than “oppose whatever Trump is for.” On top of that, the way they conducted themselves in the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings was despicable. Now, it appears they are behind the “caravan” making its way to our southern border, an undertaking that seems to be about to backfire.

Whether the “experts” are right this time, and whether election “history” will matter this time, remains to be seen. What’s at stake? Whether we continue progressing economically or begin heading back to an anemic economy, whether we continue getting the Judiciary branch of our government back to making decisions based on the Constitution rather than “legislating from the bench,” … well, those two are enough for me.

Whether you agree with my assessment of where we are or not, please VOTE on or before November 6!

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Thanks for reading this post, and if you regularly follow my Blog, for that, too. Please consider sharing this or other posts with your friends, colleagues and associates.

 

Charles M. Jones

Anybody who gets into the fray over Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation process will immediately be considered either “one of us” or “one of them.” “Us” to some is “those who will stop at nothing to keep this man from becoming a Supreme Court Justice.” “Us” to others is “those who think this man is imminently qualified and should be confirmed.” “Them,” of course, is “anybody who isn’t one of “us.”

Since regardless of whatever else I write at this point, I will be classified by any given reader of this post as either “one of us” or “one of them” and in one of the two camps I just described, I’ll simply express very succinctly my own opinion and then insert verbatim a letter Judge Kavanaugh wrote to Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein of the Senate Judiciary Committee about this matter. To any readers who, after reading this post, consider me one of “us,” thanks. To any who, after reading it, consider me one of “them,” thank you for reading it anyway.

How This Looks To Me

You could not find a better example than this whole confirmation process of how polarized our government is — and the way I see it, how polarized our country is. I honestly hope sanity prevails, and this man’s nomination is confirmed. If the accusations about him from 30 years ago are ultimately confirmed to be facts, then there is a process for dealing with that if the facts indicate a need for “dealing with that.” As it sits right now — if for no other reason than the fact that this whole thing arose from something that Senator Feinstein knew about two months ago but chose to go public with only as it was becoming clear that Judge Kavanaugh was about to be confirmed — I’m for having an up or down vote one way or the other, whether he is confirmed or not. Let Senators who vote one way or the other because of their political decision about how their vote may affect them answer later, when the facts are known, for what will ultimately be viewed as either their mistake or their good judgment.

The remainder of this post is Judge Kavanaugh’s letter — nothing else I’ve written. …

Judge Kavanaugh’s Letter

September 24, 2018

Dear Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein:

When I testified in front of the Senate three weeks ago, I explained my belief that fair process is foundational to justice and to our democracy.

At that time, I sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee for more than 31 hours and answered questions under oath. I then answered more questions at a confidential session. The following week, I responded to more than 1,200 written questions, more than have been submitted to all previous Supreme Court nominees combined.

Only after that exhaustive process was complete did I learn, through the news media, about a 36-year-old allegation from high school that had been asserted months earlier and withheld from me throughout the hearing process. First it was an anonymous allegation that I categorically and unequivocally denied. Soon after the accuser was identified, I repeated my denial on the record and made clear that I wished to appear before the Committee. I then repeated my denial to Committee investigators—under criminal penalties for false statements. All of the witnesses identified by Dr. Ford as being present at the party she describes are on the record to the Committee saying they have no recollection of any such party happening. I asked to testify before the Committee again under oath as soon as possible, so that both Dr. Ford and I could both be heard. I thank Chairman Grassley for scheduling that hearing for Thursday.

Last night, another false and uncorroborated accusation from 35 years ago was published. Once again, those alleged to have been witnesses to the event deny it ever happened. There is now a frenzy to come up with something—anything—that will block this process and a vote on my confirmation from occurring.

These are smears, pure and simple. And they debase our public discourse. But they are also a threat to any man or woman who wishes to serve our country. Such grotesque and obvious character assassination—if allowed to succeed—will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from service.

As I told the Committee during my hearing, a federal judge must be independent, not swayed by public or political pressure. That is the kind of judge I will always be. I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process. The coordinated effort to destroy my good name will not drive me out. The vile threats of violence against my family will not drive me out. The last-minute character assassination will not succeed.

I have devoted my career to serving the public and the cause of justice, and particularly to promoting the equality and dignity of women. Women from every phase of my life have come forward to attest to my character. I am grateful to them. I owe it to them, and to my family, to defend my integrity and my name. I look forward to answering questions from the Senate on Thursday.

Sincerely,
Brett M. Kavanaugh

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Thanks for reading this post, and if you regularly follow my Blog, for that, too. Please consider sharing this or other posts with your friends, colleagues and associates.

 

Charles M. Jones

 

I’m sure my July 22 post What’s More Dangerous Than Fake News? was the reason FaceBook’s stock experienced the worst one-day drop in stock market history just a few days later. Those three days between my post and the historic drop were simply due to the fact that posts usually take exactly that long to peak out on number of readers per day — so by Thursday, enough investors had gotten wind of my infuriation with FaceBook’s censoring of the post of a dear friend of mine to trigger the drop.

I’m sure those of you who know me, quick studies that you are, picked up on the humor in my opening paragraph. Thinking of humor reminds me of the old adage “All work and no play makes Jack [or Charles 😊 ] a dull boy.”  This, in turn, brought to mind that although I inject humorous remarks into my posts now and then, all of them are on what I consider to be serious topics — serious simply because I am passionate in my belief that we are indeed in the midst of a major paradigm shift in this country [and in the world, for that matter,] and I feel almost what you might call a mission to point out the evidence of that shift and enlighten anybody who will listen to me as to what the New Paradigm is shaping up to be.

‘Nuf O’ That — Now For Some More Humor

Now that I have in the preceding paragraph at least injected the obligatory serious note for one of my posts, I’m going to take a break this week and just share some interesting points about FaceBook’s market capitalization plunge [some of which are humorous for me, but not, I’d say, for Mark Zuckerberg.] …

FaceBook lost about $100 billion [that’s a “b”] on Thursday 7/26. Worse, though, is that Mark Zuckerberg’s personal net worth “plummeted” by about $15 billion [yeah, that’s a “b,” too.] And don’t you know, it gets even worse if you can imagine that. … That drop knocked him down two entire notches on Forbes’ list of the richest people on the planet — from 4th to 6th, still behind Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ($149 billion), Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ($95 billion), LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault ($84 billion), and now also behind Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett ($83 billion) and Amancio Ortega ($72 billion), founder of retailing group Inditex. To add insult to injury, it cost him a top-five position on that list. Poor Mark’s net worth is now a paltry $67 billion [we’re still talking “b’s”, here.] My heart goes out to him. If he’s learned the lesson he needed to learn about value systems and worldview, it’s a shame that this newfound knowledge came at the cost of sending him into poverty.

Now that I’m On A Roll With This Humor …

Heck, I’m going to stay with humor this week and not even try to close this post on a serious note. I love the dry humor of John Kennedy, referring here not to the former President but to the current “Junior” Senator from my home state of Louisiana. I’ll close with some of my favorites from among his quips when responding to questions from the media on issues of the day. …

• • “Facebook is a great company, but it’s no longer a company; it’s a country. That’s how powerful it is. And its behavior lately has kind of been getting into the foothills of creepy.”
  • “I think they’re making a big mistake if they start tacking on extraneous issues to the budget. We have enough trouble doing a budget by itself. We haven’t had one since Moses walked the earth. It’s embarrassing.”
  • “So far there’s been a lot of chopping, but I don’t see any chips flying. And I don’t think that’s going to change.” [referring to the battle du jour over gun control legislation]
  • “I am not. I am petrified of giving the power to confiscate guns and ask questions later to public officials. … If you trust government, you obviously failed history class. The Native Americans gave up their guns, too.” [in response to a question about whether he is “afraid of the NRA”]
  • “We’ve got … some hogs who have all four feet and their snout in the trough. And we’ve got to find out who they are, gentlemen.” [expressing thoughts about Pentagon contractors fleecing taxpayers]
  • “It sounds like she was playing Frisbee in the quad during history class.” [referring to the author of a Washington Post article entitled “It’s time to give Socialism a try”]
  • “As we say in Louisiana, President Trump is a hard dog to keep on the porch. He’s not a porch dog; he’s a running dog. He likes to do things his way.” [speaking of President Trump after the president fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson]
  • “Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots. I think most Americans are wondering how some folks up here made it through the birth canal.” [in reference to one of the “budget shutdown” battles]

I’m stopping here not because there aren’t more of these — I could probably have found several times this many with Google’s continued help. I’m just invoking my self-imposed length limit for my blogs.

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Well, maybe I unwittingly closed on a serious note after all. Judging from remarks like these, this not-so-Junior-sounding “Junior” Senator’s apparent assessment of the Washington establishment, and his perspective in general, are spot on! This guy’s up there in a class with the likes of Will Rogers and Yogi Berra.

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Thanks for reading this post, and if you regularly follow my Blog, for that, too. Please consider sharing this or other posts with your friends, colleagues and associates.

 

Charles M. Jones

What’s more dangerous than Fake News? The short answer is “Inappropriately Censored Content.” Although I’ll be the first to agree that there’s a lot of content in the media that should be censored, the critical question we need to address is “Who decides what is “inappropriate” or “offensive?” The natural corollary is “On what is that decision based?”

I had planned on a different topic this week, but changed to this topic after reading a blog post by my good friend David Fowler, a former two-term Tennessee Senator who is President of Family Action Council of Tennessee [David’s Profile]. To a non-Tennessean, the post would appear to be about the current Governor’s race here, and it is, but the content is much bigger than Tennessee politics and something I believe everybody in this country needs to understand.

Because of the content and its importance to people like me who share David’s worldview, I was INFURIATED when I read this postscript: “P.S. — Because Facebook has disallowed our attempts to boost the commentaries we’ve posted (not politically correct enough!), in order to reach more people, if you like these thoughts, please consider sharing it on Facebook.“ [this link will take you to this specific post of David’s: The Post Referenced Here].

Who Decides?

My self-imposed length limitations don’t allow capacity here to expound on the actual content of David’s post, but in a nutshell, his basic theme was that the worldview of candidates is probably the best indicator of how effective they will be in the office they seek — and it’s not that difficult to figure out what the worldview of a candidate is. {If you’re a new reader of my posts and want to know more about what I mean by worldview, you can catch up on that at this page at this site: Why I’m Doing What I Do.}

In 1967, Ed Ames recorded a popular song entitled Who Will Answer? The original version in Spanish was written by Luis Eduardo Aute. Ames’ recording was an adapted version in English that contained new lyrics by songwriter Sheila Davis. The chorus raises a good question. …

If the soul is darkened by a fear it cannot name. If the mind is baffled when the rules don’t fit the game. Who will answer? Who will answer? Who will answer?

I use those lyrics here as a segue to pose this question regarding censorship decisions: Who decides? I realize that the views expressed by David Fowler may be “offensive” to someone who does not share his beliefs. But does that justify censoring his posts because he expresses concepts from a perspective rooted in those beliefs? No! I doubt seriously that FaceBook would censor posts by people with more liberal views on factors to be considered in making voting decisions. The company is dominated by liberal thinkers like its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

What’s More Dangerous Than Fake News?

As I said earlier, the short answer to the question “What’s more dangerous than Fake News?” is Inappropriately Censored Content. I have written extensively about Fake News, so I won’t get into that here other than just referencing a few examples: News Or NNTN Circa 2017, Fake News Or Just Meaningless News?, Semi-Fake News, and Announcing My New App News4Me.

If content has been censored, somebody has made that decision, and that person has ostensibly made that decision based on one or more criteria for determining the appropriateness of the content. That is why Inappropriately Censored Content is much more dangerous than Fake News. In Fake News, the reader / listener / watcher has the content and can assess for him / herself whether it’s real or fake. If content has been censored, the reader / listener / watcher never even sees or hears it, so he / she has no opportunity to make that assessment. That, in a nutshell, is why Inappropriately Censored Content is the more dangerous of the two — it shifts the decision about “appropriateness” to somebody else.

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Charles M. Jones

During the two years since I created this website and began posting to this blog, I have been a more frequent tracker of “news” outlets than I was in previous years [these days, I often put the word “news” in quotes because of all the “fake news” I have to sift through to get the news.] I also access more opinion and commentary material — purposely seeking a broad perspective that allows me to understand both sides of issues that are fueling the current highly polarized environment [sometimes, “all sides” would fit better than “both sides.”]

Last weekend, I was intrigued with a column written by a person you might say is [compared with me] on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum. Her name is Saritha Prabhu. Sometimes her weekly column in one of the media sources I track is farther into the weeds than I want to get on some particular issue. In those weeks, I either don’t read it based on the title, or if I begin reading it and quickly see that she’s just one more voice expressing thoughts I’ve already heard a dozen times that week I quit reading or maybe just quickly skim through the rest of it [she’s very astute, in my opinion, and often expresses broader-perspective, above-the-fray concepts, so I wouldn’t want to miss a unique aspect of an in-the-weeds topic she may be focused on that week.]

I thought her 7/8/18 article was excellent — not because I’m a Republican and she’s a Democrat who was airing what she clearly views as “dirty laundry” within her own party, but because she was rising above the trees to see the forest, and expressing very eloquently some serious faults in our current governmental modus operandi that are highly visible in both parties. I firmly believe that if more Conservatives could read articles like hers and not impulsively jump on phrases they could use to put down on Liberals — and if more Liberals could read articles like this one of mine and not impulsively jump on phrases they could use to put down on Conservatives — this country would be much better off.

Just A Few Examples

Before I move on to the “bottom line” of what I’m trying to communicate in this post, let me just share some phrases from her article as examples of why I found it so impressive [try to ignore Democrat / Liberal / Left and Republican / Conservative / Right thinking and read this without any of those biases]. …

“To many of my long-time progressive readers, I’ve suddenly become an elephant in donkey’s clothing. …The 2016 election was an eyeopener for me. … It was the year I recognized that our two political parties have become dinosaurs, ossified beyond recognition. Yes, there’s grassroots energy in the Democratic party, but party leadership is essentially bereft of ideas. … Sixty-three million voters — including millions of African-Americans, Hispanics and Democrats — rejected status quo politics and voted in a strong, rank outsider to shake the establishment from their comfortable perches. Would Trump’s supporters have preferred a decent, moral, well-behaved, well-informed populist? Sure, but in dire times, you take the populist who shows up because beggars can’t be choosers. … I’m no Trump supporter, but I’ve been horrified and repulsed by the political and cultural left’s hatred, demonization and mistreatment toward President Trump, his family, his administration officials and his voters, which is even worse (if that’s possible) than what the right did to President Obama.”

Why Are You A … Republican? … Democrat? … Independent? … Member Of Some Other Party?

The reason that my answer to that question is “Republican” is not that I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Republican who believes every plank in his party’s platform is exactly the “right” plank. My reason is simply that if I want to be able to fully participate in elections and maximize the effectiveness of my vote in all elections, I have to be either a Republican or a Democrat in what is unfortunately still the Current Paradigm [a New Paradigm is taking over at a rapidly-accelerating pace, but decisions today have to be made based on where we are, not where we’re going.] Any other choice limits my ability to vote in primary elections, making me unable to influence which candidates in the general election will be the “least despicable” if that is the choice that is shaping up [which was the case in 2016 — see my 10/16/16 post Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall, … as just one example of many posts I wrote expressing this thought prior to the election; as for more on the Paradigm Shift, you could go to many of my blog posts, but a good starting point would be the A Major Paradigm Shift Well Underway page at this site.]

Given that restraint, if I look at the platform planks of those two parties and start putting checkmarks by the planks that best fit my worldview and ideological / philosophical mindset and Xs by planks with which I literally cannot identify, I end up with more checkmarks by Republican planks than by Democrat planks and more Xs by Democrat planks than Republican planks — ergo, I’m a Republican. However, I could actually paraphrase some of Ms. Prabhu’s remarks, tailored to my party rather than hers, and come up with a similarly scathing indictment against the Republican Party. …

“Our two political parties have become dinosaurs, ossified beyond recognition. Yes, there’s grassroots energy in the Republican party, but party leadership is essentially bereft of ideas [on which they can agree even among themselves]. … I’m [not a supporter of President Trump as a person, but I’m supportive of what he has accomplished and is trying to accomplish — and] I’ve been horrified and repulsed by the political and cultural left’s hatred, demonization and mistreatment toward [him,] his family, his administration officials and his voters, which is [much] worse … than what the right did to President Obama.”

Come, Let Us Reason Together …

As I began wrapping this post up, my 12/13/17 post I’m With Eliza Doolittle came to mind. In it, I referred to Eliza’s [played by Audrey Hepburn] wistful song Wouldn’t It Be Lovely in the 1964 musical My Fair Lady as a way to say how great it would be if our government could actually function as it was designed to function. Alas, though, that would require a departure from the herd mentality exhibited in both parties and a “Come, let us reason together” mindset. What neither party seems to realize is that by continuing on the loggerheads path they are both following, they are accelerating the Paradigm Shift that will ultimately result in their becoming irrelevant.

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[Note: If you’d like to read the article by Ms. Prabhu that I quoted in this post, you can access it at this link: The Democratic Party left me — and I’m not alone]

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Charles M. Jones

I titled this post as Part 2 of another post just a few weeks ago [The Power Of The Media – Part 1 (renamed “”Part 1” after this post)] because I am feeling more and more every day that the media is a big problem that is at the root of much of the polarized, controversial atmosphere in which we find ourselves today. I referred in that post to several past posts I’ve written about the media here in the United States [e.g., News Or NNTN Circa 2017, Fake News Or Just Meaningless News?, Semi-Fake News, Announcing My New App News4Me]. That Part 1 post was focused more on the power of the media, and it’s on that theme I’ll pick up here.

From A Distance …

One of my favorite songs is From A Distance, written in 1987 by Julie Gold, the most popular rendition of which is Bette Midler’s 1990 recording. Consider these excerpts from the lyrics:

“From a distance, the world looks blue and green, and the snow capped mountains white. From a distance, the ocean meets the stream, and the eagle takes to flight. … From a distance, you look like my friend, even though we are at war. From a distance, I just cannot comprehend what all this fighting is for. From a distance, there is harmony, and it echoes through the land.”

I’m a big science fiction fan — the “classy” kind like Star Trek and Star Wars. The visual image From A Distance creates in my mind is similar to the image of a planet that is formed in the minds the crew of an approaching spaceship — i.e., “from a distance,” the planet is peaceful and tranquil, or maybe it’s undergoing massive seismic disturbances, or perhaps its inhabitants are engaged in a raging global war.

Picking up on that analogy, let’s imagine that we are in a plane flying low enough to make mountains, rivers, fields, cities, houses and buildings visible — and people, too, but not low enough to distinguish individual people and see what they are doing in detail. On any given day, we would no doubt view the United States as peaceful and tranquil — farmers tending their farms, people in cities going to work and coming home, people enjoying vacations, etc. … Even on a day like Saturday June 30, when “hundreds of thousands” of people at 750 different locations across America are marching and rallying in protest of immigration policies, from our vantage point that is only about one tenth of one percent of the population, so it doesn’t affect our overall impression of the country.

But The Media’s Magnifying Glass …

I mentioned in a February 2017 post that 90 percent of U.S. media is controlled by six corporations [re: Fake News Or Just Meaningless News?] — so we can logically assume that they are driven by at least two factors that bring into question their objectivity: 1) their responsibility to their shareholders to maximize profits; and 2) the worldview of their top leadership [i.e., the context within which these leaders make decisions about what does and does not make it into their publications and broadcasts.]

What that means vis-a-vis the subject of this post is that if the media has an agenda that would be bolstered by magnified visibility of what 0.1% of the population is doing on a given day [which in this case I believe they do], it will provide that magnified visibility — by 24/7 coverage instead of just one-of-many-items coverage, and by providing more free air time to politicians with like agendas than to less ideologically-aligned politicians.

I should point out that my reference to “0.1% of the population” is apparently a generous estimate based on less “splashy” news coverage two days later. “Hundreds of thousands” — specifically, somewhere in the 300,000 to 350,000 range — would be “about 0.1% of the population.” In a USA Today article two days later, the phrase used was “tens of thousands.” When you Google “total number of people in immigration protests,” you get lots of hits, but if you click on links to articles 6/30/18 or later by major media outlets you don’t find much in the way of specific post-event estimates. The phrase “hundreds of thousands” usually appears in articles before or on 6/30/18 about the size of crowds expected. So … if the actual number was even half that [150,000 — 175,000], I should have used 0.05% [5 one-hundredths of 1%.]

Another thing to factor into my point here is the fact that any kind of scheduled protest that catches this level of visibility requires a huge logistical effort. Does anyone really think these are all just spontaneous events, just thousands of concerned citizens banding together under no overall direction from organizers and financiers? Read the details within articles and you’ll find that the organizations that provided that direction and financing in the June 30 protests are the same ones involved in all “demonstrations and protests du jour” with one common theme that is congruous with “the Resistance” [politicians, many media outlets, celebrities, etc., who generally oppose anything being done by the current Administration.]

Produces The Image

In the spirit of the old adage “One picture is worth a thousand words,” I’ll just point out that the cartoon I chose as the lead graphic for this post summarizes pretty well the image of the United States one might draw if he/she simply used the media — rather than the high-altitude flyover I mentioned above — as the mechanism for forming that image. Had headlines like “One tenth of one percent of the U.S. population took part today in demonstrations against the administration’s zero-tolerance border control policy” simply been one item among many in the media on June 30, the cartoonist’s image probably would have been much different.

What was in the media, though? — Headlines like “Hundreds of thousands all across America took part today in demonstrations against President Trump’s zero-tolerance border control policy,” accompanied by 24-hour “on the scene” coverage that reduced almost all other news to brief mention at best, or no coverage at all at worst.

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This is about as stark an example of the power of the media as you can find. My takeaway: never assume that what you see emphasized in the media on any given day is an accurate portrayal of how this country would be viewed that day by the crew of a plane flying high enough to see the bigger picture.

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Charles M. Jones

Anybody who’d suggest that the USA may not be as far from anarchy as most of us think would be labeled as one of “those people” by the mainstream media — “those people” being lunatics, heretics, prophets of doom, unenlightened, … etc. Any sensible person knows that a country as sophisticated as we are could never devolve to the kinds of situations we see in “countries like that” — right? I’d certainly like to believe that.

OK, Maybe I’m One Of “Those People”

Just pause for a moment, back away from the din of day-to-day media coverage of Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ ejection from the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, and think about it in context with several other fairly recent events [I referred to some of these in two of my posts about a year ago and one just a couple of months ago — Enough Already, Are There Any Limits On Anything Any More?] and A Bridge Too Far …

• • The rising frequency and severity of mass killings [re: my post Mass Murders Accelerating]
  • The attack on a Congressional baseball practice field that seriously wounded Congressman Steve Scalise
  • Others mentioned in the above-referenced posts — extremely foul and vicious remarks by people like Stephen Colbert, Kathy Lee Griffin [after her “decapitated Trump” Tweet], Madonna Ciccone, Ashley Judd, Michelle Wolf, et al.

The Coup De Grâce

Firmly solidifying her status as the Democrats’ most embarrassingly dense Representative, Maxine Waters — speaking to the apparently minute number of people who care what she thinks — came out with this challenge during all the flareup over Ms. Sanders’ ejection from the restaurant: “If you think we’re rallying now you ain’t seen nothing yet. If you see anybody from that (Trump) Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

Think about that. … An elected member of our Legislature actively trying to incite people to “create crowds” and heckle anybody in the Trump administration wherever they see them! Even worse, instead of her entire party soundly rebuking her for those remarks, some key Democrats actually made supportive comments about them and attempted to put a “Well, Trump set this kind of tone; what do you expect?” spin on them.

Surely, this was the coup de grâce, the final blow to sensibility in our government.

How Much Worse Can It Get?

Unfortunately, a lot.  Just today, I read two articles [in “mainstream” media — not far out “rags”] that discussed the very real possibility that this country may actually be headed toward another civil war!  Much of the rationale in those articles was similar to mine in this post.

More likely than civil war, though, is increasing chaos and the unfortunate end of such an environment [read on … .]  An increasing percentage of U.S. citizens has a humanism/naturalism worldview [as opposed to a theistic worldview]. I have written extensively about the difference, enough to make this post far too long if I repeated even a fraction of that text here [this page link on this site will give you the essentials: Why I’m Doing What I Do]. My reason for bringing worldview into the subject at hand is simply that in a society in which there is no absolute standard, there is no standard.

In that kind of environment, each person adopts his/her own set of standards — so on any given day, somebody is going to say or do something that somebody else will say is “wrong.” I’ve also said before that we have too many people in this country with too much time on their hands. Those people, fueled by [and organized and funded by] numerous “organizations with a cause,” are the ones you see in most demonstrations against whoever is the culprit in the wrong du jour.

To extrapolate the current environment of partial chaos in this country to complete chaos — i.e., anarchy — is not as big a stretch as most of us think it is. And if we look at history, what follows chaos? Totalitarianism. Which faction of our government is best poised to swoop in and save us from total chaos? I’ll close with a hint. The poster child of that faction came very close to becoming the Presidential nominee of one of the two major parties in 2016, and another very visible and outspoken face of that faction [who can play the woman card if the party decides that would be advantageous] is at least mentioned as a potential Presidential candidate in 2020.

Personally, I think the Republicans should pray that Maxine Waters [who is not the woman I was referring to in the preceding paragraph] ends up being the Democrats’ 2020 nominee. That would no doubt result in her rising to #1 on the list of worst defeats in history, displacing James Cox, who lost to Warren Harding in 1920 by a margin of 26.17% [I looked it up — I would have guessed George McGovern, Walter Mondale or Barry Goldwater, but their loss margins, though all huge, were a little less: 23.5%, 18.21%, and 22.58%, respectively.😊 ]

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Thanks for reading this post, and if you regularly follow my Blog, for that, too. Please consider sharing this or other posts with your friends, colleagues and associates.

 

Charles M. Jones