That Shocking Time When The Media Invented A Fake News Story, And CNN Wasn’t To Blame

(Because The Campaign Never Ends)

Heavy marijuana use has been linked to a “mysterious stomach illness” by researchers and doctors in Colorado and California, where pot use has been essentially fully legalized. Victims report experiencing pain, vomiting and (big surprise) “mental fog” as symptoms. Hey, docs, it’s not the pot: It’s the nacho cheese Doritos and Big Gulp cherry Slurpees.

There was a time not so long ago when I used to tell all my friends that Matt Damon does not make bad movies. And it was true: from Mystic Pizza to Good Will Hunting to Saving Private Ryan to The Bourne Identity and on and on and on, the guy was churning out 2, 3, 4 movies a year that were all worth paying to see. I mean, even Ocean’s 13 was at least entertaining.

But then came 2012, and it all fell apart. If you look at Damon’s filmography, you will see that that was the only year during his entire career in which he made only a single film. For some odd reason, the single film Damon chose to do that year was the wretched, stupefyingly tedious anti-fracking screed called Promised Land, a truly horrid bit of abject fiction that was just awful in every way. The film failed miserably at the box office – grossing about a third of its production costs – and without doubt represents a true turning point in Damon’s career trajectory.

Since making the decision to participate in that pathetic hit piece on the Pennsylvania oil and gas industry, ditching all possible entertainment value for the sake of making a left-wing social statement, Damon has had a hard time making a movie that isn’t laugh-out-loud awful. This year’s choices were so bad that Damon has not one, but two flicks on film critic Rex Reed’s 10 Worst Films of 2017 list: Down-Sizing and Suburbicon. Given Damon’s long and very-much-aware association with the wretched Harvey Weinstein, this career turn could not happen to a nicer guy.

Tuesday was a slow news day, and slow news days always mean fewer Internet clicks for the nation’s desperate-to-survive fake news services. Thus, when the story came out that a large magnolia tree on the White House grounds that was planted during the presidency of Andrew Jackson almost 200 years ago was going to need to be removed because it was in imminent danger of falling over, some fake news services couldn’t resist trying to turn this seemingly non-controversial story into click-bait.

The story originated with CNN, the king of all the news-faking services. Stunningly, the fake journalists and editors at CNN actually played this story straight, reporting correctly that, while the final decision on the tree’s fate fell to First Lady Melania Trump – since the First Lady is always responsible for the maintenance of the White House grounds – she made the decision based on the strong recommendations of the National Park Service. CNN amazingly reported this story correctly, by-the-numbers, with a tame headline that reads “Exclusive: Iconic White House Tree To Be Cut Down.” All of which was – in perhaps a first for the struggling cable network – 100% true.

But then the secondary fake media outlets got involved, and, acting as the pack of sewer rats they truly are, decided to turn the story into clickbait with inflammatory headlines blaming the First Lady for the fate of the poor, defenseless tree, and a social media firestorm of mindless hatred from social justice warriors was born. Newsweek‘s tweet headline reads “Melania Trump Orders Removal of Near-200 Year-old Tree From White House”. The creeps at The Hill ran with the even more ridiculous “Melania Trump removing White House tree that’s stood since early 1800s”, implying that the evil wife of the evil Trump would be taking an axe to the damn tree, presumably while dressed in her spiked heels and a red dress adorned with swastikas.

And just like that, a new social media SJW cause du jour was made up out of whole cloth by a bunch of snot-nosed interns who man the Twitter desks at the various fake news media click bait operations. None of which is especially surprising, of course, other than the fact that CNN, the fakest fakety fake news outlet of them all, happened to be the one among all of them that actually just reported the facts of the story.

All of which proves yet again that the Christmas season truly is a time of miracles.

Just another day in Fake News Media America.

That is all.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Today’s Campaign Update

(Because The Campaign Never Ends)