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The Missing Links?

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Is giving presidents a hard time for playing too much golf itself a pastime?

In Fahrenheit 911, filmmaker Michael Moore portrayed then-​President George W. Bush, as more golfer than president — as if W. had secured the nation’s top job as a ruse to convince his wife to let him golf more.

Likewise, Republicans attacked President Barack Obama for incessantly hitting the links. In 2014, when ISIS came frighteningly close to Baghdad, Obama went golfing, causing Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank to bemoan the fact that “Obama’s golf habit needlessly hands his critics a gimme.”

An amusing website documented all of Obama’s golf outings … and plays audio of him pledging not to rest “until the dream of healthcare reform is finally achieved” and “until every American who is able and ready and willing to work can find a job,” etc.

Note: Obama never promised not to tee off.*

“Between 2011 and 2016,” SB-​Nation reports, Donald Trump “tweeted at least 26 complaints, jokes, or scoldings about Barack Obama playing golf while president.”

Now, President Trump is getting the backswing scrutiny. While Obama didn’t golf during his first four months in office, Politico informs that Trump went golfing after two weeks and, in nine weeks, has already played a dozen rounds of golf. 

Good. I wish all the politicians in Washington spent more time on the course and less “governing.”

Even more so as Republicans consider taking a mulligan on healthcare …  and Mr. Trump invited Sen. Rand Paul to join him on the fairway. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* In the closing days of the Obama administration, Golf Digest published a story lauding Obama’s “deep commitment to supporting the golf industry.” However, the publication informed readers that, while Obama golfed more than his immediate predecessors, Presidents Clinton and Bush 43, he didn’t hit the links nearly as much as Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Woodrow Wilson.

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Accountability ideological culture media and media people

Fake News Friday

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Thirty-​three years past 1984, we’re living in an Orwellian world of “fake news.”

In November, the Washington Post informed readers that a “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during [the] election,” proclaiming a conclusion reached by “independent researchers.” The Post story noted, “There is no way to know whether the Russian campaign proved decisive in electing Trump …”

In his review for the New Yorker entitled, “The Propaganda About Russian Propaganda,” Adrian Chen skewered the Post. An obvious problem? One group of researchers cited in the Post article, ProporNot​.com, compiled a list of so-​called fake news websites so broad that, “Simply exhibiting a pattern of beliefs outside the political mainstream is enough to risk being labelled a Russian propagandist.”

At The Intercept, Ben Norton and Glenn Greenwald also slammed the Post exposé. Fretting about the enormous and uncritical reach of the article,* they noted that it was “rife with obviously reckless and unproven allegations, and fundamentally shaped by shoddy, slothful journalistic tactics.”

The problem with “respected” mainstream media outlets performing drive-​by journalism is the same as with the fake news they decry: real people might believe things that aren’t true.

For instance, a recent poll found most Democrats think “Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected president.” That’s a position devoid of any evidence. Likewise, 72 percent of Republicans still tell pollsters they remain unconvinced President Obama was born in the U.S.

What to do? Back to the basics: let’s gather and analyze the news with healthy amounts of skepticism and a mega-​dose of Common Sense.

I’ll help. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* In a follow-​up piece taking the Washington Post to task for what proved to be a false report on Russian hacking into the nation’s electric grid, Glenn Greenwald argues that, “[W]hile these debacles are embarrassing for the paper, they are also richly rewarding. That’s because journalists — including those at the Post — aggressively hype and promote the original, sensationalistic false stories, ensuring that they go viral, generating massive traffic for the Post …”

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Democracy — Oh, My!

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The President-​elect has had some difficulty booking celebrity acts for his inauguration. And instead of taking this as a cue to trim down on celebratory excess, his team has extended the guest performer list to include New York’s world-​famous chorus line dancers, the Rockettes.

The leggy, sequined showgirls might seem a perfect fit for the President-elect’s celebration — more, say, than a ballet troupe, or a string quartet — but one among the Rockettes protested.  Being a part of a performing team might seem a dream job, but not for Phoebe Pearl. She was, she wrote on Instagram, “overwhelmed with emotion,” and not in a good way. She felt “embarrassed and disappointed” that the gig “has been decided” for her.

She feels … coerced.

Dan Avery, writing before Christmas, characterizes the contract as a matter of “force.”

Welcome, Ms. Pearl, to the world that most American workers already know.

But the silliness reached high pitch with actor George Takei, who tweeted: “The members of the Rockettes and the Mormon Tabernacle are like all of us: Forced to go along with something horrible they didn’t choose.”

Democracy — oh, my!

Most people have had to put up with democratic results they did not like. Are Democrats only now understanding this?

To a degree, I sympathize. Which is why I want limits placed on government. Perhaps Democrats should have thought of this every time they cheered as their elected candidates increased presidential power. Did they not realize that someday they might lose?

And if you want a right of refusal, make sure it is in your contract.

The Rockette does not have a leg to stand on.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

The Revenge of the Gatekeepers

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We saw glimmerings last year when Twitter began to selectively enforce “policy” against some (Milo Yiannoupolis) and not against others (the hordes of leftists who threatened to assassinate Donald Trump).

You could see it in Hillary Clinton’s campaign; after Trump won, it loomed to eclipse all reason.

And on Thursday I noted Congress’s reaction.

I refer to the hysteria over non-​Democratic “memes” and “fake news” that trumped the erstwhile gatekeepers of the Fourth Estate and the political classes — including the lobbying and bureaucratic cliques — and stymied the ascension of Mrs. Clinton to the Most Powerful Office in the Whole Wide World.

Now Facebook has come on board with a way to combat this freewheeling flow of ideas.

Fact-​checking.

Hayley Tsukayama, writing in the Washington Post, explained the new program:

The social network is going to partner with the Poynter International Fact-​Checking Network, which includes groups such as Snopes, to evaluate articles flagged by Facebook users.

If those articles don’t pass the smell test for the fact-​checkers, Facebook will pass on that evaluation with a little label whenever they are posted or shared, along with a link to the organization that debunked the story.

The problem, here, is not a First Amendment issue: Facebook is not the government; when it tampers with your communications, it does not break the law.

The problem is that the Internet’s self-​proclaimed fact-​checkers are not exactly fair-​minded, or even capable of sticking to the facts. I quoted Nietzsche yesterday (“there are no facts, only interpretations”), today I will merely reference Ben Shapiro, who has a history with false fact-​checkers, and riff off of Juvenal: who will fact check the fact checkers? (Obvious, I know.)

Meanwhile, the folks behind new social media service minds​.com offer an innovative posting promotion system, and promise never to sneakily favor some ideas over others.

The proper response to a business firm’s discriminatory policy is to provide market pressure.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Prestige, Trump & the Media

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“Donald Trump’s election has really undermined America’s democratic prestige in China,” offered Claremont McKenna College Professor Minxin Pei on a recent hour of The Diane Rehm Show, public radio from our nation’s capital. When Pei added that it has “set back the prospect of democracy in China for years,” Mrs. Rehm let out an audible moan.

Then Diane asked her guests, “as members of the press” what they “make” of President-​Elect Trump’s “rejection of his meeting with The New York Times.”

“It seems,” bemoaned James Fallows, the Atlantic’s national correspondent, “a continuation of his not having any normal press conferences, dealing entirely outside normal press channels and seeming not to recognize the legitimacy of this part of the democratic fabric.”

“I don’t know anything about the specific details about the New York Times meeting,” admitted the Financial Times’ Geoff Dyer. Still, that didn’t stop Dyer from announcing that, “But it’s part of a pattern … to a much more conflict-​ual, antagonistic, almost bullying relationship with the media.”

Elizabeth Economy, with the Council on Foreign Relations, found it “disturbing” that Donald Trump thinks “he can be his own media, he can simply tweet out whatever he wants, he can make his homegrown videos and sort of impart his information directly to the American public, without the mediating influence of the media.”

Let’s welcome Elizabeth to America.

“We are all recognizing we’re on new terrain now and need to find some way to keep telling the truth, or our best approximation of it, in very different circumstances,” concluded Fallows ominously.

Trump, as you’ll recall, did wind up attending that meeting at The Times.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Indecency Abounds

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The most indecent aspect of this bizarre election year? The “grab them” comment … from a decade ago? The lies about lies about lies? The “debates”?

Maybe not. Maybe it’s the infamous “mainstream media.”

Last week I wrote about the most obvious case, that of Donna Brazile and her helping hand emails to the Clinton campaign, accomplishing what years of mere induction and analysis could not: justifying, totally, the epithet for CNN as the “Clinton News Network.”

But it was nearly the whole media that was in the tank, as we say nowadays, for Mrs. Clinton. This has been obvious for some time. Even mainstream media mavens have noticed it, as I wrote not too long ago.

Will more journalists and TV faux-​journalists notice?

They certainly have now noticed that they did not see a Trump victory coming.

Delusional about Hillary Clinton’s likability, and about how normal folks react to her history of corruption and scandal, TV talking heads and powerful newspapers doubled down in her favor … which may have actually helped precipitate a result against their intention.

The mainstream media triggers much of America, you see, especially the parts of the country that revolted against the prospect of a Clinton Dynasty.

Not that I place myself above journalists as objective, either. I’m not a journalist. I’m an activist. I am for liberty. Responsibility. Accountability. Limited government. I’m no more a fan of major party messiahs than I am of their rah-​rah boys in the journalist biz.

I’m not exactly shouting about Trump’s win. I’m just happy that Hillary — and her vast Democratic-​partisan media conspiracy — lost.

If this be indecency, make the most of it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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