Did you ever get the feeling that you are living in some kind of warped tabloid world?
That's how I feel when I watch the cable news channels and even when I read DailyKos sometimes. I hardly turn the news channels on anymore and when I have the TV on it is more likely to be on Netflix (either movies or Al Jazeera via Netfilx Newscaster) than anything else. I don't even watch the MSNBC evening shows anymore with any regularity.
Yesterday I made the unfortunate choice of watching MSNBC all morning, or at least having it on in the background. I can't even tell you how many times they reported on Rep. Anthony Weiner and showed clips of him supposedly evading questions. An interview with him later in the evening showed that he is not particularly tech savvy and he was trying to figure the whole thing out himself, and that is probably the reason why he did not want to make any definitive statements.
But MSNBC's Luke Russert mocked him and Chuck Todd brought on a guest to question his integrity and mock him some more, and hour after hour they reported on it and reported on it as if it was the most pressing issue of the day! Meanwhile, the source of the news story was Breitbart, a known liar and manipulator.
But such is the state of the United States of Gossipmerica.
Meanwhile I kept wondering to myself: While they watch Donald Trump and Sarah Palin eat pizza in NYC, do they know about this story?
House GOP Pulls Libya War Powers Resolution, Fearing It Would Pass
The House Republican leadership, after agreeing to allow a vote on a privileged War Powers resolution from Dennis Kucinich which would end US involvement in the war in Libya, has now yanked that vote from the calendar.
And what about this story?
FEMA To Demand That Hurricane Katrina Victims Return Aid Money
NEW ORLEANS -- Nearly six years have passed since Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans in misery, but many residents haven't forgiven the Federal Emergency Management Agency for its sluggish response to the storm. Now another delayed reaction by FEMA – a stop-and-start push to recoup millions of dollars in disaster aid – is reminding storm victims why they often cursed the agency's name.
As a new hurricane season begins Wednesday, FEMA is working to determine how much money it overpaid or mistakenly awarded to victims of the destructive 2005 hurricane season.
And this story?
Yastrow: “We Are on the Verge of a Great, Great Depression”
The news that frequent CNBC guest Peter Yastrow of Yastrow Origer (and formerly with DT Trading) told CNBC that “We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The [Federal Reserve] knows it” is going viral today.
And I wondered if Americans had any idea that people in the know in the financial world are saying that the problems that caused the crash of 2008 have not been addressed properly and that they are predicting that we are headed for another crash, perhaps sooner rather than later.
Mobius Says Another Financial Crisis ‘Around The Corner’
Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management’s emerging markets group, said another financial crisis is inevitable because the causes of the previous one haven’t been resolved.
“There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis,” Mobius said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo today in response to a question about price swings. “Are the derivatives regulated? No. Are you still getting growth in derivatives? Yes.”
I wondered if Americans knew that the people we elected are considering undermining (and some are working very hard at this) the most successful social programs in American history.
I wondered if they realized that people like Alan Catfood Simpson should have been thrown out on his tail instead of taken seriously and given any kind of influence in this country. Do they realize how absurd it is for Mr. Three-hundred and fifty million teats to be trying to destroy our programs as he himself enjoys his government pensions and benefits?
The Beatification of Senator Simpson
Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson has been a holy terror ever since he was appointed by President Obama to co-chair his deficit commission last year. With equal fervor he has attacked both his opponents and the basic facts surrounding the budget in general and Social Security in particular.
Ordinarily, either his rudeness or his lack of understanding of the facts on the issues where he is supposed to be an expert would be sufficient to have him exiled from the public limelight. Yet, because his views coincide with the editorial positions at elite news outlets like the Washington Post, his credibility as a spokesperson on the budget and Social Security is never tarnished.
And I wondered if the citizens of the United States of Gossipmerica, particularly the ones with "Support Our Troops" magnets on their cars, know how unpopular we are in the Middle East -- how we are losing the battle for hearts and minds.
I wondered if the United States of Gossipmerica had ever reported with any regularity the number of innocent people we are killing with drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This week’s incident in which 14 women and children were killed by a reckless aerial bomber was not the first such crime these forces have committed, and one would fully understand Karzai’s resentment. NATO’s argument that nightly raids on Afghan houses were necessary to defeat militants is no excuse for murdering civilians who have nothing to do with such elements.
http://nation.com.pk/...
However, there has been no response by the government to the US drone attacks which have phenomenally increased over the past ten days. There have been five drone hits on North Waziristan Agency so far since May 14, killing many innocent people who are generally unaccounted for.
...
They argued that each drone strike since 2004 had killed an average of ten civilians, causing undue irritation to the local population wary of the US-led exercise. They said the US might have achieved some tactical gains, but in general the drone strikes always remained counter-productive in the efforts to fight terrorism in the region.
http://news.google.com/...
The sources said local villagers who rushed to the spot to pursue rescue work faced problems as the drones were still flying in the area and in keeping with past practices could have fired more missiles.
This is the sixth drone attack after the US Special Forces attack in Abbottabad on May 2 in which the al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed and the 27th in North Waziristan in 2011.
http://www.paktribune.com/...
The Friday’s drone attack in North Waziristan, killing at least four persons, was the third such attack since the passage of May 14 resolution and the 212th since the adoption of the unanimous resolution by parliament on October 23, 2008.
After the passage of October 23, 2008 resolution, almost 2,000 innocent people have been killed by these drone attacks but the will of parliament remains unimplemented. During the last six days and following the May 14 resolution, almost 20 innocents have been killed.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/...
How many Americans understand that we have the same kinds of boiling water nuclear reactors here in our country and how many realize that we have a major problem with spent fuel rods and instead of solving that problem we just keep packing more and more fuel rods in vulnerable spent fuel pools?
Risk Of Radiation Release From Spent Fuel Is Greater In The U.S. Than Japan
• The risk of a catastrophic release of radiation from an accident at a spent nuclear fuel pool is much higher in the United States than at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies. Spent fuel at many U.S. plants in facilities that were never designed for long-term storage exceeds that stored at the four damaged units of the Japanese plant. For example, the spent fuel in a pool at Vermont Yankee plant exceeds the combined total in the pools at the four troubled reactors at the Fukushima site. There are more than 30 million spent fuel rods in these storage pools in the U.S., the "largest concentration of radioactivity on the planet," according to author Robert Alvarez. The institute recommends moving most of the spent fuel from pools to dry air-cooled steel casks, which is a safer storage method.
It's not that gossipy news should never be on TV, it's what they choose to focus on and how much priority they place on it while they ignore the critical news but more difficult to report news. For instance there was one story on the news yesterday that was tabloidish but definitely belonged there.
I mean, in this case you've got a governor who came in slashing education and public funding left and right, who calls for "fiscal sacrifice" and then takes the brand new $12.5 million state helicopter to his son's baseball game, sends a limo to drive him 300 feet from the copter to the bleachers, and doesn't have one public event scheduled for that day or the next.
But the Weiner story was the most important story of the day in the United States of Gossipmerica, and the pundits were busy being the judge and jury, as were some pompous brand new (?) dkos users who were certain Weiner was lying. Lying, I say! They just *knew* it, and spent considerable resources telling everyone about it.
Lastly I wondered if the good people of the United States of Gossipmerica know that they are remarkably like frogs in a slowly boiling pot and that our tabloid media is the one supplying the fuel for the burners.