Pavlov's Presstitutes

Anti-factsers, criminal statistics and ABC's activist moderators...

(Source: Substack Image Generator)

All you need to know about the “debate”: at no point did either of the candidates or either of the hosts utter the phrase, “federal debt”...

~ A dear reader

Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Buenos Aires, Argentina...

On Tuesday evening, a weary world turned its attention deficit disorder to the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, to watch a pair of mere mammals sell their visions of the future to prospective voters. 

One ham-fisted, the other empty-headed, it was like watching two giant forks in a world full of soup. Neither had a firm handle on the issues facing working Americans, much less an effective method of delivery. 

As our dear reader mentions (quoted above), at no point during the whole sordid performance did actual substance threaten to derail cheap entertainment. 

Instead of addressing specific matters of public policy, voters got a steady diet of deflection... distraction... and diversion. At the risk of stating the obvious about the oblivious, what weren’t they thinking? A lot, apparently. 

To our reader’s particular point, the four debaters (here we include those disguised as moderators) were at pains to ignore the $35 trillion national debt-shaped elephant in the room. 

For those keeping track of the running bar tab at home, that’s $104k per citizen... or $270k per taxpayer. Even at the current rate of increase, that number is due to hit a staggering $47 trillion by 2028...or $135k per citizen. And that’s assuming there’s no “emergency” looming on the horizon which, naturally, will precipitate more “temporary” money printing to “stimulate” the economy and “correct” the “mistakes” of the “free” market.

It’s enough to fatigue one’s “...” keys, to say nothing of one’s patience... or pennies.

Pavlov’s Presstitutes

As for the aforementioned presstitutes “moderating” the event, it was clear from the get-go that the operation was a sting. ABC’s Linsey Davis and David Muir ran such comprehensive cover for Mrs. Harris that many in the audience were left wondering whether the Veep’s presence on stage was necessary at all...

(H/T @sammyX39)

While Mr. Trump was relentlessly “fact checked,” including when Muir pinged the former president for not knowing when he, himself, was being sarcastic, Mrs. Harris was left a wide-open whopper goal... 

Thus was she able to repeat a litany of hoary hoaxes, long-debunked, including of course the “fine people on both sides” chicanery: 

“Let’s remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing anti-semetic hate, and what did the president then at the time say, ‘There were fine people on each side.’”

Here’s what President Trump actually said:

“You’re changing history, you’re changing culture. You had people, and I’m not talking about the neo-nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-nazis and white nationalists, ok? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”

Anti-Factsers

Then there was the old “bloodbath” dupe, in which Harris repeated another convenient media deception, suggesting Trump promised violent retribution if not elected:

“Donald Trump, the candidate, has said in this election there will be a ‘bloodbath’...”

Once again, context is key. In this case, Trump was speaking specifically about what might happen to the auto-industry, in his view, should China prevail in the trade war. Here’s Wikipedia, with a helpful reminder of the term as widely used in an economic sense:

And here’s the clip, also in context:

Criminal Statistics

Then there was Trump’s demerit point for daring to mention rising crime across America, which Muir quickly “fact checked” (almost as if he was anticipating the claim) by citing FBI figures which show “violent crime is actually coming down in this country.”

Left unsaid was the not-inconsequential fact that those same FBI figures are “voluntarily supplied” and fail to take into account statistics from those democrat-run safe zones known as “inner cities.” Here’s The Independent:

[D]ata informing the FBI’s figures is supplied voluntarily by law enforcement agencies across the US, and do not include major metropolitan areas including Los Angeles and New York, where crime is historically high. The LAPD and NYPD are the two largest police forces in the nation, but they are not included in the FBI data, which could have changed the data if it had been included.

[...]

In March, LA law enforcement announced that violent crime in the city was in fact up 2.9 percent compared to 12 months prior, and robberies had increased almost 10 percent.

Solving crime by not counting it, or by decriminalizing it, may work for the “fact checkers,” but it offers little comfort for citizens living with the reality on the mean streets. Think of it like avoiding a recession by redefining the word, another Orwellian tactic straight from the Biden-Harris playbook. 

Naturally, the establishment press were a font of gushing enthusiasm for their brave ABC comrades-in arms…

Ho-hum... But then, what would you expect? Kamala Harris knows people in high places, after all. Like Dana Walden, the co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, ABC’s parent company. The Waldens happen to be close personal friends of Kamala Harris. They even introduced her to hubby Douglas Emhoff, the aspiring first First Gentleman. 

(Happily for Mrs. Harris, Mr. Emhoff happened to be single at the time, having recently divorced his former wife following an incident where he accidentally impregnated the nanny... enough for French paper, Le Monde, to call him “Kamala Harris’ More Than Perfect Husband.”)

Of course, this may all be a soft façade anyway, purpose built to entertain and distract. Certainly there are those who suggest the election need only be like a warm apple pie, cooling on an open window sill... i.e., easy enough to steal. Others argue it doesn’t matter either way, that the fate of the US Empire is already baked into the crust, that there are simply too many D-Day moments ahead... Debt... Deficits... Decay... Dedollarization... Demography...Demoralization... to name but a dirty half dozen.  

Needless to say, nothing was resolved – much less solved – during Tuesday night’s inane confabulation. And by Wednesday morning, as foretold in these very Notes, a miracle occurred: the sun rose, “same as it always does, to resound as of old, among its brotherly spheres.”

Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...

Cheers,

Joel Bowman

P.S. Good news, dear readers! From the East to the West… in Americas North and South… from one “End of the World” to another… the message of free markets, free minds and free people is taking hold.

Everywhere, people are beginning to see the mainstream media for the government propagandists they are… and trust in legacy outlets is plumbing historical lows.

A national Gallup poll from 2023 found that the share of respondents who said their level of trust in the media was “none at all” reached 39%, while those who trusted the media either “a great deal/a fair amount” dipped to just 32%.

A further 29% said they trusted the media “not very much,” meaning 68% of respondents fell into the “not very much/none at all” trust in media segment.

And that was before the whole “this is the best version of Biden ever” saga, the “bloodbath” hoax and the “Joyful Kamala” campaign shenanigans.

Meanwhile, independent sources – such as these humble Notes From the End of the World – continue to reach a larger and more engaged readership than ever. Over the past year alone, our audience has grown to include subscribers in all 50 US states and 133 countries around the world.

Of course, this is only possible through the generous support of our dear Notes members, to whom we are forever grateful. If you enjoy the work we do here, and would like to join our growing community of readers championing free markets, free minds and free people, please consider becoming a member here, today. Cheers!