Bill Whittle launches out of bed at O-dark-thirty to accommodate Scott Ott’s holiday schedule at the retail store. Stephen Green was apparently up all night anyway watching one of the 3.7 trillion movies stored on his massive hard-drive array.
Thanks to our Members for inspiring us to rise and shine for this Backstage meeting.
26 replies on “Right Angle: Backstage (11-23-2021)”
I just like talking to the women anyway… they’re prettier and they smell nice. On the other hand, my wife would be in the family room watching the game, because she likes football more than I do (I used to love it … but all the trades and teams moving cities just kind of destroyed it for me).
I like College ball. Sort of. Except BLM sort of ruined that for me, too.
Waukesha–Indian name. Accent on the first syllable. Waw-kee-shaw
I wonder if some of the “sue the bastards” calls for Kyle are partially copycat based on the success of Sandmann’s lawsuits and general frustration of many with the egregious conduct of many media companies. On the other hand, shoddy reporting with actual, factual, errors does cross the line from “oops” into something else.
A talk show around here was talking about the stores being closed on turkey day and I had a memory that some of them were even talking about that back in 2019. The govt enforced shutdowns took over last year but with the rise of online sales, the “Black” Friday tipping point of yearlong profitability had changed and with the move for Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, there just isn’t the need for door crushing sale prices and other related events.
I wonder if at some point the media maliciousness in reporting will create another Hodgeskin (sp?) and regardless of whether the Parade killer is or is not found motivated by the Rittenhouse verdict, at some point someone else will be. The opposing collary could be a victim of an early release criminal taking shots at a DA or judge which could start an entirely different kind of conflict.
Speaking of a YouTube channel… have any of you all watched Yoel and Mari. It will make you so thankful for the USA! I wish I could make all the Woke Socialist watch it.
The only thing I recall being open on Thanksgiving were some convenience stores and movie theatres.
I love how a 45 minute RA is considered “short” and that the members would star grousing.
Nothing but gratitude here for every episode & a Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Same here, same to everyone and you too. May you and all the Boblettes have a great family day together.
I think that the Right Angle Backstage episodes, even a “short” 45 minute one, are worth the price of admission alone.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Re: Kyle Rittenhouse suing the media.
The Founding Fathers never dreamed that the press would become so ideologically corrupt as to voluntarily cooperate with a politically corrupt government. Their assumption was that the press would be a faithful watchdog ever vigilant against governmental abuses of power.
This was a reasonable position because the press’ raison d’être being to sell news copy is fed directly in catching government doing things it should not. Nothing sells like scandal. It would be in the self-serving best interests of a free press to watch the government like hawks gliding over a chicken ranch waiting for any bird on the ground to become vulnerable.
The mistake is that people do not always act in reasonable ways and are not always cognizant of what constitutes their own best interests. If the press is corrupted then The People don’t get the correct, factual information they need to make sensible choices. There is always going to be a percentage of the population that is not only capable of being herded but actually desires that.
The people who want to be told what to think will welcome that instruction. In a prior era Americans were told consistently with reality that America is an exceptional and successful political experiment, the proof being in our success and the impetus and control to do ever better. In this era the people are being told just the opposite and that narrative is contrary to reality.
What we have today is a press that desires not to report on facts and events but to manipulate people to the ends of the press itself. This is an exercise in power acquisition that should have been foreseen somewhere in our history because there will always be people that will seize on any avenue to power available to them.
So today we have a press abusing its freedom to its own ends and The People be damned. We have a press with no constraints and no consequences for acting contrary to the best interests of The People. There are few or no consequences for a press that lies. If the press is willing to accept financial loss, as we see with almost all the legacy media there’s nothing to stop them from intentional manipulation of public opinion.
We are caught on the horns of a dilemma.
It seems to me the solution to that dilemma lies in the civil, not criminal, court system. The press must be held accountable in the same manner everyone else is. If you lie about someone to their provable detriment you get sued and punished. This is a function of the libel and slander laws.
The same must apply to the press. If it can be proven that they disseminated falsehoods and those falsehoods caused damage to someone then they must face the consequences of the choice to pursue that course of action. The current standard is that malice must also be proven when it applied to the media. That is a very hard thing to prove because like anything else it is very difficult to prove the intentions of another’s mind. That standard needs to be relaxed or eliminated.
The truth is always a clear and insurmountable defense against slander or libel. If you do something and the press reports what you did, they cannot be sued in court. Nor can anyone else. That the truth stands as a safeguard against any sort of defamation is enough to protect a free press the same as it protects anyone else.
This seems to me to be the direction we need to go. Obviously claims that Kyle Rittenhouse killed two black people during a protest in support of an innocent black man killed by police are lies compounded with lies. The facts are known and known widely to anyone who cares to look for them. There is no excuse whatsoever for reporting such lies as fact in the media.
This has to stop. There have to be consequences. If not then the media becomes the untrustworthy propaganda organ that we are now seeing in full bloom.
I would say that the media empire is a chief cause of the problems we have in this country, or it at least exacerbates the problems to the point of fomenting conflict and inciting riots. Yes a thousand times yes to holding them accountable and suffering consequences severe enough to stop their destructive, if not treasonous, behavior. They are dangerous to say the least. Losing money is no deterrent to them – they are funded by dark money from an ever-flowing spigot.
There’s no doubt that something has to be done.
I don’t really care if they’re lying, if everyone knew they’re lying that would be fine with me. As Karl Schweitzer points out below, there’s a mechanism for that and I think it needs to be looked at with an eye towards how to best implement it.
A big part of the problem is that they’re lying about their lying. I.E. they’re presenting lies as facts and truth.
There are too many people in this nation who are duped by the distinctions between facts, lies and lying about facts and presenting lies as facts. Some way to make that more obvious and unequivocal would be great.
As Karl also points out, this is the same caliber of media “reporting” as the National Enquirer. We all know what the Enquirer publishes is fiction, there are only a very small number of people who think that stuff is real and there’s nothing to be done about them anyway.
There absolutely should be legal recourse through law suits to recover damages done to a private person like Kyle Rittenhouse. The other edge on that sword is to make it clear to the public that a breathless infatuation with the things said by people like Rachel Madcow, Don the Lemon and Christine Cuomo and farcical and only an idiot would believe them.
Even today CNN is pretending to have presented the Rittenhouse details correctly, doing so in a very sneaky manner by claiming (no, not them you see) other news media were the ones making false claims. Certainly another manipulative lie by deflection. Maybe their woke fans’ memories are so obliterated that they can’t remember longer than from one show to the next what falsehoods they’ve heard and taken for fact.
These scoundrels leave no stone unturned when it comes to lying, employing every single method there is and making up new ones as they go along.
I’d like to see class action lawsuits against these bastards, including the individual liars i.e. journalists responsible for the fictions they call news. I watch so little of that b.s., so maybe there is some kind of disclaimer on opinion shows and their hosts that clearly and boldly state that the show is for entertainment purposes only and not to be confused with truth or fact, but I doubt it. Liars, whose intent is to destroy the life of the person(s) they are lying about, should be sued into oblivion.
CNN pretending not to be responsible for what other “news” agencies said and they repeated is like Alec Baldwin claiming it wasn’t his finger on the trigger of the gun that fired the shot that killed his cinematographer. Anyone who handles a working firearm for any reason should know and strictly adhere to basic safety protocols. The final safety intervention immediately before disaster is the brain attached to the hand that holds the firearm. CNN knowingly choose to fire the gun, that someone else loaded it is irrelevant.
You may have hit on something there with a big, clear, obvious disclaimer. Moving forward if those kinds of shows want to shelter under the “entertainment” umbrella then there should be a large, unmistakeable, undeniably worded warning that this is an “entertainment purposes only” show. That’s not the case now as far as I’m aware and I do keep pretty close tabs on this sort of thing.
That would make claims of “truth” clearly laughable and then they could say whatever they want. We in turn could point to the fact that the “talking heads” are actors not pundits and their content carries little or nothing related to reality.
I.E. “You really believe those actors on CNN? If so then you must think Star Trek is real and Marvel’s Avengers are all that stand between us and malicious aliens. They’re all the same thing, entertainment.”
Mocking the stupidity of the Left is one of the most effective tools to use against it.
Even something like The View should carry a clear disclaimer that “This is an entertainment production. The opinions of the panel do not reflect the opinions of the Network and may or may not be factual”
Like I said, I don’t care if they lie. Lies and liars are nothing new. Most of what we enjoy as fiction is not true being as we must suspend our disbelief in order to enjoy the presentation. I’m a science fiction fan and while the genre tries to follow at least some science to enhance plausibility that’s solely for entertainment and we all know that.
Fiction as fiction is not the problem and I’m willing to allow for that.
The problem is fiction craftily, insidiously presented as fact. That’s not entertainment, it’s intentional deception. It’s what my ex-wife calls “Mutton done up as lamb”.
I don’t’ think making that distinction is an insurmountable legal issue either. The First Amendment guarantees Freedom of the Press, not Freedom of the Entertainment Industry. If someone is going to claim to be entertainment rather than real journalism in order to shelter from liability then …
They’ve waived their First Amendment protections by placing themselves outside the scope of the First Amendment.
They can’t have it both ways. There are already precedents for decency in broadcasting and truth in advertising. It’s not much of a stretch to include entertainment sold as fact when it’s no such thing.
The problem is not that we need to shut these people up. I’d love that but it’s futile, that vacuum will always get filled. The problem is that we need to counter the deception in a manner that amplifies the truth and nullifies the lies.
This would be a self regulating thing if implemented.
Shows like Hannity or Tucker Carlson (etc.) would not need to air a disclaimer because they stick to the truth and are not only willing but happy to back up the facts involved in their editorialized opinions. Pursuing them on legal grounds only affords them the opportunity to prove the facts in court. I think they would welcome that and so avoid sheltering as “entertainment”.
On the other hand, most of what CNN and MSNBC (etc.) broadcasts would either have to be drastically altered or else air an “entertainment disclaimer” to avoid having the crap sued out of them.
Thus, if you’re willing to forego the shelter of the entertainment umbrella you’d best be telling verifiable truth. Truth is always the best legal defense. If you’re not willing to forego the shelter of the entertainment umbrella then you must clearly and obviously state that your content is for entertainment purposes only.
It’s a simple, elegant and doable solution. Doing it isn’t simple or elegant, the Left would fight that tooth and nail. Though in the end people would have to pick a side and choose between truth and lies. Which can be used for or against them politically.
Of course nothing at all is going to happen while Democrats are in power but … This is the kind of thing the Republicans should have lined up and in the can, locked, loaded and ready to fire when they get back into power again. Which will probably happen in both the next election cycles if they play their cards right.
I’m not holding my breath hoping the Republican Party has learned its lessons and won’t totally squander the next opportunity as badly as they did the last one.
It seems that part of Sullivan could be handled by making the press run a correction on the front page of a daily print or in a banner on their web site for a number of days imposed by a judge based on the severity.
If their claim is they are not malicious but instead incompetent, then make then own up to their mistakes in such a way that it becomes obvious. Either they will self correct or people will no longer rely on them for news. I await the day the NYT is sold in grocery store checkout isles alongside the Star or whatever the other rumor rags are.
That would help, a lot. I have no doubt that being made a laughingstock would have some effect on the enthusiasm of their lies and lying.
Another part of the problem is that when confronted they claim they are not a news but an entertainment outlet.
I.E. The way for Joy Reid to at least try to get around some of her obnoxious lies is to say she’s not the news, she’s entertainment. But …
Last time I checked if you use a real persons name in a detrimental fashion and cause them harm even in “entertainment” you are still liable for various sorts and degrees of defamation.
As far as meeting the “malice” requirement, the body language and facial expressions easily take care of that. Even if they’re entertainment and “acting” what they are acting out is malice.
I’m not sure if Jimmy Fallon said something about me whether I could sue him.. he’s just a standup and people are supposed to recognize what he says isn’t real (too many people do, or did when Jon Stewart was on) but that’s not the comic’s fault, legally, I think. Not that I’d want to find out the hard way.
I think I’d compare them to WWE wrestling instead. Similar situation where normal people know it is scripted and the gullible believe it is real.
Similar to paid programming… those half hour long commercials that fill in when they don’t have a regular show, and I suppose for the same reason. Not sure the CCP would like having their name mentioned at the beginning of a CNN cast though since I think they like to keep their money with their mushrooms.
Since it is Thanksgiving, I will refrain from Whining; however, I will most certainly indulge in some wining this week! 😉
would that the “professional journalist class” had 25% of the integrity that Scott demonstrates in not making the leap to connect things that may be connected but for which there is no known connection.
Nick Sandmann was the Covington student. The fact that you could not recall his name, well QED he was not a public figure.
I also did not score well on the QED.
Of all the folks on here, I am 100% certain that you know that bit of Latin. But I get the humor. I was going to hit you with an age joke that they didn’t have standardized tests way back then, but you are only a few years older than I am, so it seems inappropriate to make jest of myself.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours good sir!
Oh, Bill, don’t fly. Just get on I-10 and drive real fast in your Camero w/ your beautiful wife. Keep driving fast till you get to the other water.
Yeah, I was thinking, “wait, isn’t that what I-10 is for?”
Also, there are ride-sharing services for private airplanes.
Thanksgiving and Americans being Americans looking forward to it guys. btw I can easily accept the condensed length, this time.
I believe from traveling in Wisconsin for many years, the town is pronounced….WAAH-ka-shaah……I am not a very good phonetic speller but the locals do accent the WAAH
Gotta put the right EM’-pha-sis on the correct SYL’-a-ble
I prefer to put the right em-PHA-sis on the corr-ECT syl-AH-ble.
But, I’m a smart-ass…