Just as you can say a quick dash to the Emergency Room is “inconvenient” rather than a frightening, often terrifying, medical ordeal, it’s possible to state everything in a way that advances your argument.  This is known as framing, it’s a common technique in sales and bullying.  At its most extreme, it is The Big Lie, a cynical tactic that was perfected during Hitler’s audacious and influential experiment in shaping mass opinion.

A reporter asks a House Democrat how much more pain it will take for the American people before Democrats stop shutting the government down and simply sign on to a “clean continuing resolution” to pass Project 2025’s agenda, with the unreliable promise that Republicans will finally negotiate,  after all the Heritage Foundations demands are met and all leverage surrendered.  

Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO), with a real-time masterclass on how to, literally, flip the script.   Excellent answer, sir!

Corporate mass media is, tragically for an informed citizenry, run by corporations and their human alter egos.  Virtually every one of these super powerful “persons” is a psychopath.  They have no empathy, they demand their right to own everything, are reckless with the well-being of others and they lack all capacity for remorse.  In a word, monsters, destructive creatures without souls. 

Shari Redstone, intent on selling what she inherited for $8,000,000,000, and scrupulous about not alienating an insane, vengeful president’s bullying FCC chair, sold her father’s once highly respected news channel to Trump megadonors,  billionaire father and son team.  They, in turn, paid a provocative right-wing influencer, Bari Weiss, $150,000,000 for her web-based news/opinion service and placed her in charge of editing the news for CBS/the new owners of CBS.   Prior to Shari Redstone finalizing her multi-billion dollar deal, with the blessing of Trump’s loyal FCC, CBS agreed to pay Trump $16,000,000  for editing a 60 Minutes segment featuring his 2024 opponent Kamala Harris (as every outlet always edits every interview).   Here’s part of what ran on Bari Weiss’s 60 Minutes the other night.   Talk about living in the Age of Incoherence.

Why did Trump pardon the richest man in cryptocurrency, the guy who paid $2 billion dollars to Trump’s sons? Because he didn’t know anything about the guy, except that he got only a 4-month sentence. Apparently he didn’t know anything about the 50 million fine he was ordered to pay. Apparently all Trump knows is he has every right under Article Two to pardon whoever he wants, including the most depraved criminals in the world, as long as he has something to gain from pardoning them.