Yet Another Media Feeding Frenzy

We are heading into the dog days of summer and things are supposed to be quiet and unexciting. Nothing could be further from that right now.

Before we launch into the newest Trump media frenzy ponder this: Why did the Donald Trump Jr fiasco surface now? It’s obvious that someone has been sitting on it for a long time as the story is detailed, it was ready to go at a moment’s notice and they have all Juniors emails. Ever think that any time Trump is successful, as he was in Europe, his detractors are ready with a missile?

One may surmise that President Trump’s very long meeting with Putin was a few old friends sitting together and one may be correct. But isn’t that better than the relationship Obama had which was zero. Things always work better when people are able to communicate. Don’t worry Blanche, Trump is not going to be Putin’s new BFF nor is he going to give away the store.

Now to Donald Jr. He’s definitely not the smartest chip in the bag. He seems to be following the adage that when there’s a bad story coming it’s better to get in front of it. Junior however, seems to have jumped the fence and then some. On top of that, his story has changed a few times in the past days.

Did he commit treason? Most likely not. He certainly didn’t give away any information and from the sounds of it, didn’t receive any either. The issue is that the Russians reached out to him with the promised of something tantalizing on Hillary and he was duped. It kind of looks like he was set-up. Wait! He was set-up.

Don’t worry though. In two days something else will happen that will occupy everyone’s attention and Donald Jr. will quietly fade into the background.

Sadly, we cannot say the same about our health system and the sudden resignations of ten board members of the MUHC. This story will not go away anytime soon. In fact, it looks like it’s going to get uglier.

Where is Couillard in all of this? Is it not time to show his face? Perhaps even meet with said board members and get their side of the story instead of only listening to Barrette. Alas, that will not happen. He seems to be very happy hiding behind Barrette and letting that pit-bull be his spokesperson. It’s a big mistake. Big.

One thing particularly irksome about Barrette is that nothing is ever his fault. Any criticism levelled at him regarding the health-care system is always, every single time, someone else’s fault. And he responds in the most arrogant, condescending tone, which is infuriating.

We know that people don’t like to hear this, but ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal party does not really care about their population. Not the English, not the French and certainly not any foreigners.

Everyone suffers when the emergency wait times are 12-18 hours. Everyone suffers when they need surgery and there are no beds for post-surgery because the beds are taken up with long-term patients who were supposed to be transferred long ago but there’s no place to put them – which Barrette promised to fix by the way.

You’re going to vote for them again? They definitely feel that no matter how much they step all over the little people, we will trudge to the polls in the next election and vote them in. Is Francois Legault, head of the CAQ party  a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Is he a separatist or has he lost that dream as he keeps saying? Perhaps it’s time to take our chances with someone like him. The status quo cannot go on.

Google and Facebook are the kings of the Internet. They’ve become the gatekeepers to news and control most online ad dollars.

Finally, large media outlets are pushing back. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post say this business model cuts into their profits. No kidding.

As well, it’s harder now than ever to distinguish between fake and real news. So they want to negotiate with Google and Facebook to push them to agree to new revenue-sharing agreements, support for subscription plans, and beef up intellectual property rights.

Who is going to make sure this happens? Congress. Why? Media outlets cannot sit at a table to negotiate because of antitrust laws. Ergo the media outlets have asked Congress to mix in so they can have some leverage against the Internet monster. We hope they are successful.

Did you ever look out the window when going in for a landing and wonder how the pilot knows which runway to land the plane on? Well, one Air Canada pilot didn’t know. Seriously Blanche. We would have lost our cookies.

Seems this dude was supposed to land on an empty runway  and wound up almost landing on the taxiway – you know where the planes line up to take off. Mercifully, air traffic controllers caught his mistake and the pilot aborted the first landing. Yikes.