False Equivalency: Both Sides Do It! And Other Campaign Eye-Rollers

Image from source, MSN

In this ridiculous--and ridiculously long presidential campaign--there are still some old-school rules of thumb that are still in play. There is the media fascination with and desperation to maintain the horse race over substance. And in service to that, there is the need for "balance," accomplished by boiling everything down to "both sides do it," even if it takes a false equivalency to get there. Rarely are we dealing with apples and oranges. In fact, often, it's just Bad Analogy Theater.

Here's how it works. The media, naturally, will focus on whatever has just exploded into the news cycle, this time it's usually something outrageous that Donald Trump either said or did. Often, that something occurs at a time when something negative has happened to Hillary (or at least, the media thinks it ought to be a negative for her). The Trump story has more oomph, and gets more attention, and then Right Wing World starts squawking that the media is "in the tank" for Hillary, and only focusing on Trump's woes (ignoring, of course, the countless hours of free press Trump gets in that same media.

In an effort to try to balance things out though, the media will often play up the Hillary thing. Right now, one of those non-equivalent things is The Clinton Foundation vs. Trump Inc. One is a multi-billion dollar charity that helps poor people, and which has disclosed its donors. The other is a multi-billion dollar for-profit multi-national corporation, that pointedly does not disclose its business ties.

The Clinton Foundation has attracted scrutiny to the point of absurdity over its donors, with so far baseless accusations of pay-for-play access between the charity and the State Department, when Clinton was Secretary of State. Meanwhile, the Trump business has attracted far less focused attention, even though it is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, and has even bigger financial ties to foreign entities, including the Bank of China. But it's the Clinton Foundation getting clobbered by innuendo, while Trump's businesses get passing mention.

That's par for the course this go-around though. There is so much going on in Trumpland that no one thing tends to stick, or get enough traction. With the Clinton side, it's a one-two-three punch of 1) Clinton Foundation, 2) E-mail "scandal," 3) Benghazi. Throw in a little "Mrs. Clinton has mystery diseases" rumor mongering, and you've basically got the counter-weight to the blizzard of Trump dumps. Donald calls group X a bunch of losers? Pick one of the above about Hillary, and pick at that as a counterpunch. Doesn't matter if it's baseless, pointless, or barely worth mentioning, just make sure it sounds bad for Hillary.

It's really no wonder that Hillary is keeping a relatively low profile these days. I wouldn't give a press conference either, when these old, stale topics keep getting dusted off and asked again. Everything has been asked and answered. Why risk giving a slightly different wording in an answer to have that dissected for three days, when Trump does something obnoxious daily? I'd keep my head down too. Though I'd be mightily pissed off at the double standard. And here we have--again--15,000 more emails. Doesn't matter what's in them, the insulation is that they were bad, and they were hidden. At this point, I really couldn't care less if one or six out of 15,000  maybe, could be interpreted as being classified after the fact. Sick. Of. It.

[Excerpt]

FBI uncovers 14,900 more documents in Clinton email probe

The FBI’s year-long investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server uncovered 14,900 emails and documents from her time as secretary of state that had not been disclosed by her attorneys, and a federal judge on Monday pressed the State Department to begin releasing emails sooner than mid-October as it planned. . .

Read more at: MSN

Walmart Employees Donating Food to Needy. . .Walmart Employees?

Image from source, Wonkette

You know, I'm sure this is all somehow President Obama's fault. But the optics of Walmart employees running food drives for needy Walmart employees are really, really sad.

[Excerpt]

Walmart Associates Run Thanksgiving Donation Drive So Co-Workers Can Eat People Food
 
One of these days, a modern-day Charles Dickens is going to write A Christmas Carol for our times, and it will be based on this story of a Walmart in Ohio, where employees organized “a food drive – not for the community, but for needy workers.” Total Dickens, right? The noble poor (broken of body but not of spirit), the historical significance, the double-talking bureaucratic fig leaf for the Establishment, even. . .

Read more at Wonkette

CNN's Wolf Blitzer Embarrassed On Camera by Atheist

Image from source, Raw Story

As an atheist, I can get tripped up on language, so I shouldn't be too hard on Wolf Blitzer. I had to train myself to say gesundheit when somebody sneezes, rather than "god bless you." But not all nearly automatic religious phrases are so easy to extract from the vocabulary. There are so many, most people probably don't even realize they come from the Bible. "Oh, god," and "Jesus Christ" are just the most obvious ones. But then, I'm not a high-paid journalist on CNN, I'm a hobbyist blogger.

What Blitzer does in this clip is make the assumption that if you are from Oklahoma, you must be a Christian. And while it is kind of the default there, and in much of America, it's not something you should assume. It's like assuming that the person you are talking to is heterosexual, it's not always the case, and could be embarrassing, depending upon the question. Anyway, part of Blitzer's mindset may have been that so many people when commenting upon a tragedy automatically resort to "prayer."

Whether it's a sincere belief that it will somehow do some good, or it's just a reflexive thing to say, "I'm sending my prayers" and similar phrases just filled Facebook and Twitter, not to mention the news channels*. Most people probably mean well, and surely some are in the same situation as I am, with a religion-saturated mental English phrase book. It has something to do with why I haven't blogged about the Oklahoma tornadoes until now. What can I add to this discussion?

Sure, I'm sorry, and it's heartbreaking to see and hear the details of what's going on. I can say "my heart goes out to the survivors," of course, which is exactly as helpful as prayer, which is to say, not much. So, I donated to the Red Cross. And I'm asking you to do it too. It's not even difficult.

Just get out your cell phone, start a new text to 90999 (where you'd ordinarily put a phone number), with the message:  REDCROSS   That will automatically donate $10 to the American Red Cross, and will be added to your phone bill. It literally couldn't be easier.

[Excerpt]

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer tells atheist tornado survivor: ‘You gotta thank the Lord’

With the number of atheists continuing to rise, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday afternoon learned the danger of assuming on live television that his interviewee is a Christian.

“I guess, you gotta thank the Lord, right?” he told the survivor of a deadly tornado that ripped through Oklahoma. “Do you thank the Lord?. . .”

Read more at: Raw Story

*As an aside, I've got to say that I find the notion of prayer in these situations to be hard to fathom. To me, prayer is basically wishing, hoping, begging to get what you want, with the intensity going up according to the direness of the wish. When something good comes to pass (survival, good health, good fortune), "God answered our prayers." When something bad happens, you have to get down on your knees and pray some more. And have people pray for you, even if who you're praying for is already dead, or missing. For the missing, prayer is really perplexing. It's almost like a Schrödinger's cat exercise. Since we don't know whether the missing person is alive or dead, offering up a prayer essentially makes them that cat in the box, and our prayer can decide its fate. When in reality, that person is either really alive or dead. The prayer isn't going to change that. And you're offering these prayers to a deity that is responsible for the natural disaster in the first place! Further, what are the implications of being saved by a prayer, when there is death and devastation all around you? They didn't pray (or have loved ones who prayed for them) hard enough? They weren't worthy? 

So, now maybe you understand why I have such difficulty expressing myself and dealing with others' expressions after tragedies like this. When you are a person who puts "God" (as a concept and a being) on more or less equal footing with Superman and Yosemite Sam, it is difficult  to hear this imaginary being invoked repeatedly as though it does any good. Besides making the person who expresses the sentiment feel better, of course.

Stephanie Miller and Bill Press Apologize and Denounce Salvation Army Fundraiser

Image from AfterEllen

To the average person, there is nothing wrong with The Salvation Army. It's a nifty chain of thrift stores, and a charity outfit that collects change in kettles outside of grocery stores. But it is prudent to remember the "Salvation" part of their name (and possibly the "Army" part). This is a religious organization, and a socially conservative one at that. They've had a long and storied history of anti-gay policies in particular. As one of the gays, I've been subtly aware of this history, and avoid associating with the organization.

Stephanie Miller and Bill Press--both radio and Current TV hosts--didn't get the memo. They agreed to a fundraising drive for The Salvation Army, and Steph had a representative for the group on the air for an interview. I happened to be listening, and found it odd. But in truth, the guy was selling a bill of goods to Steph and her audience. To me, it sounded like the organization was changing their ways. But, no, they're not. Unsurprisingly, both shows started to take heat, some of it ridiculously venomous.

Image found at The Progressive Puppy

Look Stephanie Miller is gay. Her producer Chris LaVoie is gay. Many of their regular guests are gay or "gay adjacent" like Hal Sparks. No way, no how did the show knowingly promote anti-gay bigotry. Settle down people. And now, both Steph and Bill Press have apologized profusely, rescinded their sponsorship agreement, and personally matched funds already raised for The Trevor Project. Yes, they goofed. But they made it right.

Rush Limbaugh's Little Joke Very Costly

Image from source, NYTimes.com

I've marveled several times on this site, how strange it is that the very same story can be seen in two very different ways by conservatives and liberals. When it comes to the Rush Limbaugh "phony soldiers" story, it didn't matter where the truth actually lay (in this case, the truth supported the left's interpretation), the right held firm, and does to this day.

Rush's contention that his "phony soldiers" comment only applied to a certain type of individual--and one in particular, Jesse Macbeth--is not supported by the evidence. As the original (full) transcript showed, Rush was calling anti-war soldiers who had been contacted by the mainstream media "phony soldiers." Jesse Macbeth was not in that category, to my knowledge, and Rush himself didn't bring him up until a couple of minutes later on his show.

Ah, but regardless of the truth, Limbaugh is running with his side of the story. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a tit-for-tat move to counter the condemnation of MoveOn.org, condemned Limbaugh's words in a letter to Clear Channel (Limbaugh's employer). Limbaugh in turn, saying that the Clear Channel president is a good friend, obtained the letter and put it on eBay. Proceeds were to go to charity (one that Limbaugh directs), and Limbaugh pledged to match the final bid himself.

The sale finished at $2.1 million, which--I'd imagine--is a lot higher than Limbaugh expected. Since he is the director of the charity, it might be a good idea to keep an eye on his half of the $4.2 million donation!

[Excerpt]

Critical Letter to Limbaugh Fetches $2 Million

After Rush Limbaugh referred to Iraq war veterans critical of the war as “phony soldiers,” he received a letter of complaint signed by 41 Democratic senators. He decided to auction the letter, which he described as “this glittering jewel of colossal ignorance,” for charity, and he pledged to match the price, dollar for dollar.

On Thursday night, Mr. Limbaugh, the conservative radio talk show host, said he thought the letter would bring in as much as $1 million. He was wrong. . .

Read the rest at: NYTimes.com