Prior to and early during World War II, Associated Press (AP) reporters, or ‘Newshawks’ as some affectionately called them, attempted to walk the fine line between reporting the news from Germany honestly or allowing their stories to be airbrushed by Nazi censors. In playing the game with Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, AP’s respected Newshawks that played their Nazi games became little more than besmirched Mud Hens (properly named ‘American coot’) when WW II ended.
History began repeating itself in 2020 during the Covid pandemic. Authoritarian forces seeking to regain control of the U.S. government used the dominant corporate news media to control the flow of information to citizens as it locked down society and destroyed the economy. The modern-day Mud Hens, who aligned with the Washington power establishments, blamed the pandemic on the Trump Administration. They managed a massive propaganda campaign to elect reliable Joe Biden who sought refuge in his basement during the 2020 election campaign.
It became evident two years later to any observer that President Joe Biden was experiencing dementia issues related to his age. The Mud Hens refused to inform the People that the president was cognitively impaired to perform his full range of responsibilities. Then when these infirmaries were revealed to the millions who watched his June 28th debate with Donald Trump, the media hens were “shocked, shocked” that that their sources had covered up the obvious.
Did the Mud Hens miss the story that Biden’s Administration had thereby largely been controlled by unidentified shadow managers? After jumping into the beds of the Federal power brokers, the Mud Hens allowed their newly crowned candidate Kamala Harris to move into the presidency without asking any questions of her. But like in the children’s game Musical Chairs, suddenly the music stopped last week, and there was no place for the Mud Hens to sit as they scrambled to find a place of refuge to roost!
On the two days of October 15-16, the prognosis for the 2024 U.S. Presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump moved from “too close to call” to “Trump will be re-elected”! What changed this election dynamic so that Trump became the favored winner?
The voting public suddenly stopped listening to the Mud Hens!
On October 15 Donald Trump was interviewed at the Chicago Bloomberg Economic Forum by Richard John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News. For over an hour, Trump answered non-stop, in-depth questions on any subject giving no quarter and repeatedly backing down the very aggressive liberal interviewer. Any negative comments Trump made about the Biden/Harris Administration were never the primary responses to his exchanges with Micklethwait.
On the next day October 16, Kamala Harris sat down for less than thirty minutes with Brett Baier of Fox News. During her interview, she refused to answer basic information about immigration that would have been damaging to her campaign. She then turned the ten other questions raised by Baier into a filibuster on the evil Donald Trump refusing, as if by design, to answer a single question.
The notable aspects of these two interviews are that they were both hosted by interviewers who were less than a fan of the candidate across from them; furthermore, the events occurred on consecutive days where the contrasts in capability of these two seeking to be president were memorable in vivid color. One report on the Trump interview stated that “Trump crumbled when pressed on economic policy in tense interview”. When the Mud Hens tried to portray the Harris interview as how ‘tough’ she was, most viewers simply changed the channel to Netflix.
On October 17 Donald Trump’s momentum continued for the third consecutive day at the 79th Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. Trump was clearly at home in this New York celebrity environment where he reminded the uncomfortable Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that Trump was the first one to contribute to Schumer’s first election campaign years ago. Candidate Harris chose not to join this Catholic charity event. Then she added further Catholic insult to injury with her brief inappropriate video appearance lacking humor.
The best the Mud Hens could do in response was CNN’s headline the next day – “Trump headlines Al Smith Dinner, calls Harris ‘disrespectful’ for not attending”.
Barring another October Surprise, the two interviews this week followed by the Al Smith Dinner were the game-changers for the 2024 election. If that is the case, Trump will win!
TW3
John Whitmore Jenkins
October 24, 2024, 2023
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