Here are my observations on some of the news of the day.
FAKE NEWS IN USA TODAY – The headline in the paper’s Sunday insert reads, “Mass shootings are rare in heavily armed Switzerland.” Fake News. USA Today intimates that Switzerland has had fewer mass shootings than the U.S. You may recall my February 20, 2018 report on mass shooting statistics for 18 European countries, the U.S. and Canada.
Revisiting the statistics by the Crime Prevention Research Center per one million people, I found that Switzerland ranks 7th in annual death rate by mass shootings, compared to the 11th place ranking of the U.S. And, Switzerland ranks 4th in the frequency of these shootings, while the U.S. ranked 12th.
OLYMPIAN TRASHES IVANKA TRUMP – Gus Kenworthy is certainly not worthy of representing the U.S. as an Olympian. He tweeted that he was so proud of his team, saying they all worked so hard, “Well … everyone except Ivanka. Honestly. TF is she doing here??” How disgusting, distasteful, disgraceful and immature.
Why did he feel the need to insult the president’s daughter, who was there representing her father for the closing ceremonies? Another example of one of our over-indulged athletes.
POOR DI – Despite representing California for over a quarter-century, Dianne Feinstein, in a humiliating setback, was denied endorsement by the California Democrat Party on Saturday.
State Sen. Kevin De Leon garnered 54 percent of the vote of the 3,000 delegates compared to 37 percent for Feinstein. It appears that the delegates have determined that Feinstein isn’t far enough left, like fellow Senator Kamela Harris.
TRANSPARENCY OBAMA STYLE – Surely, you remember our former president telling us he was the most transparent president in history; well, I guess things change when you become an ex-president. Did you hear about the rules set forth for the media and audience on hand for the former president’s speech at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center?
They were not only banned from recording or streaming the talk, but prohibited from even talking about what he said. “Those who fail to adhere to this policy will be subject to removal from the conference and denied tickets to future SSAC conferences,” the conference warned.
“Oh, no!” wrote Joe Battenfeld for the Boston Herald online, “We can’t cover any more SSAC events? How ever would we survive? The journalistic equivalent of the death penalty.”
