[☕️ C&C NEWS ☙ Tuesday, November 22, 2022 ☙ ORNAMENTAL RIGHTS 🦠 UN Human Rights Commissioner stands up against human rights; Biden flip flops on support for killer; AP fires Russian-missile reporter; and the WSJ likens SBF to Trump, or vice-versa, or something. Jeff Childers]

...🔥 The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed Sunday comparing FTX’s slovenly frontman Sam Bankman-Fried to … former president Donald Trump! The piece is headlined, “What Donald Trump and Sam Bankman-Fried Have in Common,” further explained by the sub-headline, “Both men cast themselves as saviors. Yet both deceived and exploited their supporters.”

Yeah, they’re TOTALLY the same. Okay.

The writer goes through a long laundry lists of complaints about Donald Trump and them metaphorically compares them to SBF. That part is largely unoriginal and dull. But then she got a little more interesting when she discovered one single difference between the two:

Yet there’s one striking difference: Most Republicans didn’t buy Mr. Trump’s election lies, and many GOP leaders called them out. By contrast, a sycophantic press and sophisticated investors—including BlackRock, Sequoia Capital and SoftBank—seem to have disregarded the glaring red flags about Mr. Bankman-Fried.

Indeed! She points out that nobody — not journalists or investors or analysts — ever asked Sam some very simple questions like, where did the $74 million to buy the Bahamas properties come from, or where did the $37 million he gave to democrats come from?

That was the article’s high point. The op-ed quickly ramped down to a lame ending, concluding “FTX failed because Mr. Bankman-Fried’s supporters lost confidence in him.” On one level, this is just inartful wishful thinking, showing the writer stretching to make a final comparison to Trump — i.e., maybe Trump’s supporters will lose confidence in him, too.

But at a deeper level, the op-ed’s silly conclusion illustrates how corporate media is still running cover for Bankman-Fried. FTX didn’t fail because investors lost confidence. Its bankruptcy filings show it had less than a million dollars’ assets, after it raised — and spent — almost ten BILLION bucks.

No, FTX failed because Sam Bankman-Fried is a politically-connected crook, and FTX was a fake front for a massive criminal conspiracy, protected by politicians and by corporate media. Corporate media like the Wall Street Journal.

The whole silly, throwaway op-ed is a strategic plate of narrative psyops. It ties SBF to Republicans (‘he’s like Trump’) instead of democrats, minimizes SBF’s criminal culpability (‘his investors lost confidence’), and plants the story in the world of politics and virtue signaling, instead of where it should be: news and media manipulation.

All of which makes me wonder: how many news grant dollars did the Wall Street Journal take from Sam’s fake nonprofits?

The ‘news grant’ technique is very sophisticated, like all good con jobs. They say the best cons are the most ridiculous ones, leaving the victim too embarrassed or ashamed to admit he got conned. Let’s suppose the WSJ got $10 million from an FTX partner, say, the “Happy Sunny Human Good Works Foundation.” All good so far.

But, now that the gravy train has crashed into a school bus filled with investors, if the Journal were ever to admit FTX was a fraud, they’d hypothetically have to admit the gift of $10 million was stolen investor money, and then they might have to give it all back.

In other words, telling the truth about FTX could cost a media company millions. Devilishly clever. And, because the money transfers are shamelessly dressed up as “grants,” the Journal couldn’t even claim they’d EARNED the money. They’d have no moral or ethical justification for keeping it.

Who knows, maybe there’s some kind of lesson here. Maybe, if you’re a news company, you shouldn’t take large unearned, unsolicited, and undisclosed gifts, because it could leave you in a tight spot later. Just say no! I realize it’s tempting, but money isn’t everything, and it’s how the Devil gets you.

Just an idea. https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/c-and-c-news-tuesday-november-22

[☕️ C&C NEWS ☙ Wednesday, November 23, 2022 ☙ PERSISTENT MORTALITY 🦠 Lots of things to be grateful for; Ash Jha is a moron; Fauci's last briefing and his first deposition; Disney's new super-gay stripper show; Elon is getting fed up; study reveals booming SADS; more! Jeff Childers]

...I hope each and every one of you has a joyful and rewarding Thanksgiving, filled with hope and love and good cheer, and of course, reflection on everything that we DO have to be grateful for, in spite of Bill Gates, George Soros, man-boy Sam Bankman-Fried, election cheaters, and all our generation’s other particular challenges to our sanity. https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/c-and-c-news-wednesday-november-23

[☕️ C&C NEWS ☙ Saturday, November 26, 2022 ☙ IN THE DARK 🦠 There's a lot going on with Twitter and you'll find it all here; Disney rapidly reorganizes; Died Suddenly doc spreading; San Fran hotels pay millions to de-louse; Ukraine is now powerless; and more. Jeff Childers]

...Next week, Zelenskyy will be back in the States, cozy and warm, gnoshing on pancetta-wrapped baby asparagus and leading an all-star panel at the New York Times, along with his good comrade, Sam Bankman-Fried. https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/c-and-c-news-saturday-november-26