Wisconsin

It’s hard to quantify the contamination of free thought that your mainstream media have exacted on this grand republic. But I’ll give it a hearty shot. The primary culprit is the cold-blooded impuissance and intellectual surrender. Perfidy meets mindless fecklessness. Sheeple plain and brutally simple.

Wisconsin's 7th congressional district, which stretches from Superior (across from Duluth) in the northwest corner of the state, all the way down to the Monroe County suburbs north of Eau Claire and east to Wausau, is easily the biggest district in the state. Traditionally Democratic, it fell to MTV reality actor Sean Duffy when longtime Democratic powerhouse Dave Obey retired in 2010.

Can you spot the difference? One of these is part of a trained circus act doubling as entertainment that some observers have even considered to be inhumane and exploitative in fact. The other is a seal. But be not mistaken, Jon Stewart is the king of timing. Had he attempted the Stewart bit now, it wouldn’t have taken off. And success is in great part due to his 300+ writers who gave us such gems as, “The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom.” Wow. Move over Mort Sahl. Leibowitz is in the room.

How I see mainstream media news.
Believing ≠ Hoping. Look at what you believe you believe and what you know you know. You don’t. You wish and hope and trust. There’s a big difference, Sparky.
The lies your being handed are by design. “When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute.” Thus spake Walter Lippmann.

I'm the most upbeat guy you'll ever meet, always optimistic and if you started reading this blog any time since 2005, you never heard me say "I'm depressed." But Tuesday evening I was. (I was better by yesterday, cheery as ever.) Most people would say I might have been depressed because I had a chemo "tune-up" and got a bunch of drugs pumped into me including stuff that made me semi-delirious. But no, I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. I was even happy about that because one drug that usually takes 4-5 hours to infuse now only takes 90 minutes because I react so well to the process.

“News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read. And it’s only news until he’s read it. After that it’s dead.” Evelyn Waugh

Tomorrow is election day in Wisconsin. The state's OPEN primaries-- that means anyone can vote for whichever party primary they want regardless of which party they're registered with-- will pick the parties'  nominees for Congress. No one is expecting any changes.

This approximates the problem. It’s much worse. It fails to take into account the role that the media play in softening up our collective psyche. Our beloved republic is witnessing a disintegration of the Left. The necessary counterbalance. A viable vision of direction. We’re unable to appreciate neoliberalism and statist perversions camouflaging as platform. No clue as to class warfare. We’re prisoners of an autocratic oligarchy. But don’t hurt our feelings or abrade our think skin. The SJWs will find you and you’ll taste their wrath.

Most of the Wisconsin congressmembers aren't what you would call Trumpists-- and neither are their constituents. Trump, in fact, performed poorly in the state's Republican primary. Ted Cruz was the big winner with 531,129 votes (48.2%) to Trump's 386,370 (35.1%). He won 6 delegates to Cruz's 36.

Devoid of message and vision. But plenty of feigned mirth and overreaction. Loaded with schmaltz and hype. Contrived merriment and infectious glee substituting for a determined plot and plan. The first woman, the progressive, her turn – whatever. But never a word about qualifications, record and platform. Though she does have “experience.” As Willie Sutton had banking experience, I suppose.