Get vaccinated against the fatal scourge of GroupThink

The best thing about U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-WI, is that he infuriates the dishonest hypocrites of the Left. (They were for the filibuster before they were against it.) Our RoJo gives their uplifted noses a good hard twist.

The essential Kimberley Strassel protests the attempted political assassination of Senator Johnson. Typical is this New York Times news headline: “Assaulting the truth, Ron Johnson helps erode confidence In government.”

Ms. Strassel counters: “Mr. Johnson’s real offense is refusing to roll over to the progressive and public-health police and continuing to ask tough questions,”

The Beltway press has a special grudge against Mr. Johnson, since his fact-finding efforts exposed its bias and ineptitude last fall. Mr. Johnson and Sen. Chuck Grassley in September issued a report on Hunter Biden’s sleazy foreign business dealings. Democrats and the media tried mightily to brand it “Russian disinformation,” only to be roundly refuted when the younger Mr. Biden’s business partner and documents later backed up the report, and when news leaked that Hunter Biden was under federal investigation for the sort of transactions Mr. Johnson had brought to light.

Eroding confidence in the news media

Back to that New York Times hit job. It asserted that Mr. Johnson’s “drumbeat of distortions, false theories and lies reminds some Wisconsin Republicans of Sen. Joseph McCarthy.” Strassel continues:

It even quoted former Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a fellow Republican, saying the infamous senator’s name. But Mr. Sensenbrenner tells me he never said Mr. Johnson was like McCarthy — and the Times knows it. He’d been making a general point about Wisconsin’s love of mavericks (he also mentioned Sen. William Proxmire ), and noting that its voters appreciate that Mr. Johnson “thinks outside the box.”

By the same token, the execrable CNN began its slanted news coverage of Georgia’s new election security laws by playing the race card — the last refuge of a scoundrel these overly Woke days. Gov. Kemp signed the legislation — which actually codified into law for the first time, ballot drop boxes, albeit under the control of election authorities. Don’t want someone pouring bleach into the box when no one is around. But you wouldn’t know that from CNN’s coverage. No, Gov. Kemp signed the law under a landscape painting of a well known Georgia plantation. Get the PikShah!

Count on Uncle Joe (that scoundrel) to cry “Jim Crow.” Georgia Republicans want Blacks standing in line to vote to die of dehydration, CNN alleged. As if other races don’t get thirsty. Thank you, Baby Jesus, for the Wall Street Journal:

The point is to prevent activists from showing up in union shirts — or National Rifle Association shirts, for that matter — and passing out drinks and snacks, with some subtle electioneering thrown in. As for the genuinely thirsty, the new law specifically allows poll workers to provide “self-service water from an unattended receptacle.”

Our groupthink news media

Strassel notes that most of the news media (count the exceptions on one hand) is partisan Left, with barely a pretext of objectivity. Federal appellate judge Laurence Silberman incorporates that observation in a dissent he wrote 03-19-21:

Two of the three most influential papers (at least historically), The New York Times and The Washington Post, are virtually Democratic Party broadsheets. And the news section of The Wall Street Journal leans in the same direction. The orientation of these three papers is followed by The Associated Press and most large papers across the country … Nearly all television — network and cable — is a Democratic Party trumpet. Even the government-supported National Public Radio follows along. As has become apparent, Silicon Valley … similarly filters news delivery in ways favorable to the Democratic Party. …

Judge Silberman’s bottom line: “There can be little question that the overwhelming uniformity of news bias in the United States has an enormous political impact. The insightful book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind [shows] that media bias [helps] Democratic Party candidates by 8–10% in the typical election.” 

Blaska’s Bottom Line: The dishonest news media elected Donald Trump.

What do YOU believe?