…thanks to R McGee on LinkedIn
Tag: Politics
A Questioning Look at the Democratic Debates
Are you as befuddled as we were after the most recent Democratic debates? Remember: silly proposals, wrong-headed claims, and shouting out-of-turn to vie for attention. It reminded me of a preschool teacher trying to corral a group of unruly four-year-olds. It defied explanation. But WAIT! We remembered the words of renowned physicist Albert Einstein, who taught us that understanding comes not from knowing the answers, but rather from knowing the questions to ask:
Einstein
“Genius isn’t about knowing everything; it’s about knowing what questions to ask?”
So, in that we here at HardWired News are undisputed geniuses, we came up with a few questions to help us understand just what the hell went on:
If illegal aliens are undocumented immigrants, why aren’t bank robbers just making an undocumented withdrawal?
If giving every adult $1000 a month is a good thing, why isn’t giving them all $1 million a month a thousand time better?
If giving people benefits without raising taxes works, why wouldn’t giving poker players (who anteed $10 for ten chips) ten more chips make each player twice as well off?
If people who sneak into our country to get our benefits are victims deserving asylum, why aren’t home invaders entitled to take the stuff and be immediately set free?
If illegal aliens deserve American health care benefits, why not just provide it to them in their home countries so they don’t have to make the trip?
If shouting down your opposition is the way to get noticed and win, why doesn’t ANTIFA run everything?
When our current political hopefuls run out of whacko things to give away in return for votes, what will the next generation of politicos give away?
If Wall Street is the cause of all our problems, why not banish them all to concentration camps like Hitler did with his problem causers?
If using other people’s money to give free stuff away in exchange for votes is a good thing, why don’t candidates take each other’s money and buy the votes of their opponents’ supporters?
If the definition of insanity is using the same failed strategy and expecting different results, why aren’t proponents of socialism adjudicated insane?
We don’t have all the answers to these questions just now (actually we do), but we’re still geniuses for asking them. Right?
And you, Dear Reader? We’re pretty sure you have answers of your own (you’re free to post them here). Good luck!
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Disclaimer: Einstein never really said that—we made it up (they’re still damn good questions)
To-Do for 2019!
One of our occasional contributors, hapless office-boy John Bascom, has provided his list of 2019 New Year’s Resolutions. In view of our political climate and how they influenced his resolutions, we thought we’d share them with you here:
2019 New Year’s Resolutions of John Bascom
Happy New Year folks!
Is it Jeff Flake or Flakey Jeff? Guest Contributor Pat McQueen Sets Us Straight
Guest contributor Pat McQueen has some thoughts to share with us regarding the recent Kavanaugh confirmation process and the role of some of the protesters. Pat is a financial consultant, retired banker and former State of Michigan Banking Commissioner, although he still has lucid moments. While his thoughts don’t conform to the usual satire we deal in, they still shed light on some of the shenanigans going on in political Washington. Enjoy.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts…As You Like It…William Shakespeare
We were entertained by several “players” during the confirmation hearings. Nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his sexual assault accuser Dr. Ford both gave impressive performances. One may find this hard to believe, but my favorite performance was that of Ana Marie Archila, the “entertainer” performing in and around the elevator occupied by Senator Jeff Flake on or about September 28. Ms. Archila’s best line was screaming, “Look at me!”
Listening to CNN and Fox News during the Kavanaugh and Ford performances alternately, both networks provided what I would consider fair reviews for the most part.
When Ana Maria Archila gave her performance, however, I was listening to CNN. Archila’s passionate, and sometimes obnoxious, performance was reviewed in detail by CNN. The Archila reviews took a vastly different tone. CNN knew who Kavanaugh and Ford were. They had studied Ford for days and Kavanaugh for months. CNN had no idea who Archila was, yet they gave her an amazing amount of time, great deference and sympathy. My recollection is that CNN characterized Archila’s performance as powerful.
CNN fell into a trap. The trap was set by MoveOn.org, the Center for Popular Democracy and Ms. Archila. As it turns out, Ms. Archila is very good at what she does, with an annual salary and bonus in excess of $175,000 per year as co-executive director of the latter organization. The Wall Street Journal, page A19, Monday, October 8 is my source.
Archila is a paid activist that put on the performance of her life.
It shook Senator Flake and delayed and altered the confirmation process. CNN bought it hook, line and sinker, giving her instant credibility by providing her the stage, lots of time and a glowing reviews. Archila was either “fake news” reported by CNN or CNN was simply hoodwinked; your call.
If CNN had reported that Archila was a lobbyist would it have made a difference? Did CNN have an obligation to conduct any due diligence on Archila? Was CNN’s handling of the confrontation influenced by any biases or predispositions?
If I ran the NRA I would hire Archila. Maybe not; it is highly unlikely that such a riveting performance would be given any credibility by CNN on a pro-Second Amendment topic.
That is the problem.
Finally, if I were in charge of the U.S. Senate, I would not allow paid (or even unpaid) political activists unfettered access to members of the United States Senate during working hours. Flake ended up looking like a fool.
Unfortunately, CNN and its followers will continue to believe “Look at me!”
Ms. Archila, great acting! You should get an Oscar! You are vastly underpaid.
What You Always Wanted to Know About Liberal Headlines – but were afraid to ask
Are you like me, confused when national news events become convoluted headlines in the liberal press that bear little relationship to what actually happened? Well, help is on the way. HardWired News has performed an exhaustive scientific study of normal and liberal headlines, especially when they involve President Trump. We’ve constructed this handy translator to help ordinary people navigate from one to the other (thanks to confidant CW for the idea):
Well, we think you get the picture. Hopefully liberal headlines will now be more understandable to normal people with this handy translator. In the meantime, poo on fake news and Keep America Great
HardWired News Takes a Hiatus
To every thing there is a season
and a time to every purpose under the heaven
…The Holy Bible
Have you enjoyed HardWired News? Hundreds of others have with many thousands of visits to our website to read our quirky articles during the three months since we started it.
We admit we’re right-leaning. And we’re unconventional. Our style is not to rant or rave about political issues, but to inform through humor, satire, or parody. We’ve presented our beloved readers with faux New York Times articles lampooning the way they weave
ideology into “news” reporting. Then there were the put-ons of the pomposity of figures like Hillary Clinton or the inescapable bigotry of the liberals. Remember the time we announced the 
spread of the deadly disease “Liberalitis,” or the fact that the ultimate victimizer and Austin Powers’ nemesis, Dr. Evil, had been identified and located on a mountaintop in Nevada? We had as good a laugh writing it as hopefully you did reading it.
It’s mostly done with tongue-in-cheek with the intent of creating a smile in our divided world, while still making valid points to help more people understand and reflect upon the nuisances of the issues of the day.
But, as the lead-in Bible quote to this article suggests, there is a time and place for 
everything and ours is drawing to an end, at least on a regular basis. We approached this project as a short-term beta test to judge its appeal and gauge reader reaction. Those goals have been accomplished. We’ve attracted many hundreds of fans on the main website and our Facebook page, and have garnered a robust and loyal readership. But it’s hard to overstate the time and effort involved in creating the regular stream of quality content many of you have come to enjoy, and so many of our points have now been made.
So, for now, we are taking a hiatus and moving on to other projects, at least for a time. You may still see the very occasional piece here when something really rings our bell, but the three-to-four articles weekly will sadly stop for the time being.
Thank you for reading, enjoying (some liberals gave us bloody hell), and commenting on HardWired News. The site will still be here, and you can always contact us through the About page. For now, know that we deeply value your loyal readership, and wish you a bittersweet Adieu until we meet again.
CNN Goes Commando: National Enquirer Style
You gotta’ love The National Enquirer, you know—the sleazy tabloid found near grocery checkouts that your mother used to glance at when she thought no one was looking? It was as nutty as it was outrageous. Here are a few of their iconic headlines:
Supreme Court Justice Scalia—Murdered by a Hooker (May 2016)
DEA Sting! Jeb Bush Snorted Cocaine on Night Dad Became Pres (Feb. 2016)
Rita Hayworth says…”I’m back from the dead: two years a Zombie” (Dec. 1968)
Cosby had Son Murdered (October 2015)
Like your goofy Uncle Barney’s outlandish stories he weaves after a few toddies, the attention-grabbing premises—built on the tiniest grains of truth—are too scurrilous to resist.
But now the venerable Enquirer has some competition. In the face of falling ratings, CNN has adopted an Enquirer-like disregard for realism, spinning every story possible with an “ain’t Trump awful” twist to appeal to the side of liberals that desperately wants to believe the silly articles. Here are a few headlines from or about CNN:
“Donald Trump’s 57 Most Outrageous Quotes” (CNN Aug. 2017)
“Donald Trump’s last 7 days are just mind-bogglingly bad” (CNN Sept. 2017)
”CNN Faces Backlash over Doctored Trump Video” (CNBC July 2017)
These are just a few recent ones. And if you think I’m overreacting, scholars at the notoriously liberal Harvard conducted a study of news coverage about Donald Trump. They found CNN stories about the president were negative 93% of the time, the worst of any outlet studied. The Washington Examiner (May 2017) said of the study
“..coverage was so negative it is hard to argue it was anywhere near neutral…CNN’s Trump coverage was 93% negative..negative stories outpaced positive by 13-1”
Hey, but maybe you think CNN’s exaggerated anti-Trump spin is just good business. If so, you’d be wrong. During the study period, CNN continued to have weak ratings. According to TVNewser (adweek), a website devoted to covering media developments, CNN was only 8th among cable news programs, while Fox News easily held the Number One spot.
So is there a lesson here? Maybe it’s if your theory is “sell the sizzle, not the steak” in news coverage, at least make sure there’s a real steak there. Otherwise, you might just go hungry—at least TV viewer-wise.
2018 JOURNALISM AWARDS ANNOUNCED
It’s well known that journalists and their cozy industry organizations fall all over themselves giving each other pointless awards. Winning them is a big driver for what and how news is covered. HardWired News has obtained an exclusive preview of the award categories and their standards for the upcoming year.
2018 Journalism Awards
CNN Award for Excellence
best story bashing Trump
CBS “Ceebies” for Outstanding Reporting
best on-air reporter who only covers Trump stories that can be spun negatively
Broadcast Journalists Organization
longest consecutive timeline mentioning nothing favorable about Trump or his administration
Best Fantasy Journalism Awards
for the reporters who publish the best and/or most unsubstantiated and baseless stories about Trump and Russian collusion, because they so desperately want it to be true (1st, 2nd, 3rd…100th prizes)
National Organization for Women: Courage in Feminism Writing Award
best articles bashing Melania and Ivanka Trump or their children, and pretending to be pro-women
Television Late-Night Comedy Patriotism Trophy
most foul names, crude jokes, and offensive skits about POTUS
The Pullitzer Prize for Journalistic Excellence
no standards, just best Trump bashing
The field is large, the competition fierce. I can’t wait to see the gala award shows on TV!
Liberalitis Pandemic Sweeping U.S. Cities
by Noj Mocsab, August 3, 2017 (TDE/AP)
The Centers for Disease Control has confirmed that the contagious disease, liberalitis, is now endemic in certain large American cities, primarily along the northern Atlantic and Pacific coasts but also in a few other major urban centers such as Chicago.
The infectious condition first emerged in the U.S. during the Roosevelt administration in the Depression-era 1930s. Its spread was largely held in check during the Eisenhower, Regan and Bush years, but now appears to be expanding.
Dr. I.M. Gutenschmartz, an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist from the Universitat ob Innsbruck in Austria, is the world’s foremost authority on the condition. In a recent interview, he explained that the virus-borne disease affects brain cells in a way that interferes with everyday common sense. “These patients are afflicted with delusions,” he explained. “They see and believe things that would be preposterous and obviously false to normal individuals.”
The delusions that result from the condition fall into common patterns. Infected individuals most frequently imagine the following things:
- Capitalism is evil, despite historic evidence that it is responsible for America’s prosperity and power
- High taxes don’t hurt the economy or the middle class, so long as they are only imposed on businesses and successful people
- Large government bureaucracies are efficient and effective
- There is no connection between socio-economic systems and freedom
- If one feels bad about something or someone, a government agency should be created to deal with it
- Corollary: the government’s main job is to give things to people
- Paying for things with debt makes them really free, with no cost or consequences to anyone ever
- Problematic behaviors such as crime, drugs, illegal immigration, cultural unemployment should be subsidized with welfare payments and social programs, then they will go away
The infection was first noted in Russia early in the twentieth century. More recently, epidemics have occurred in Greece, Cuba and Venezuela. There are disturbing signs it may have also taken hold in parts of the European Union. In the United States, university faculties, aging hippies and “millennials”—those born near the end of the last and beginning of the current centuries—are most susceptible.
“Eventually it runs its course, unfortunately with the collapse of the infected society,”
Guttenschmartz said, citing the failure of the former Soviet Union, the social chaos gripping Greece and the dysfunction in Venezuela. “These are classic end-stage scenarios,” he added. “And unfortunately, nations that contracted the disease and eventually recovered are not immune to new outbreaks; we seldom learn from history.”
Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, known to have been ravaged by the outbreak, are cooperating with the medical community by providing tissue samples for study to aid the search for a cure. Republican lawmakers, so far largely unaffected, are proposing legislation to place Sanders and Warren in isolation to protect against infecting others. People who experience the symptoms are advised to proceed left to the nearest emergency room where liberal drivel can be suctioned from the eyes, ears and mouth.
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