He Succeeded

 Well, Donald Trump's dog and pony show at Walter Reed Hospital has succeeded in pushing his disastrous debate performance, his criminal tax avoidance, his appointment of a religious fanatic to the Supreme Court, Republican efforts to destroy Obamacare, his further collapse in the polls, his siding with white supremacists and a dozen other abominations totally out of the news.  Or shall I say that he gave the mainstream media permission to go chasing this utterly ridiculous hoax on a 24 hour a day basis, and in the process ignore everything that the American people need to know about.

I know it must get sickeningly repetitive, but I have to say it again:  The mainstream media are not the dupes of the Republicans; they are their collaborators.  The media are owned by the hyper-rich, who use their property to promote their own interests, the same way the use their ownership of the Republican party.  And let me be clear; this is not true in the same way that rich people own practically all businesses in this country.  Until the Reagan administration, around 85% of the mainstream press was owned by individuals or small companies.  Then "deregulation," i.e. taking things that were crimes, and just making them legal, as long as the beneficiaries were rich people, took over, and here we are. The press in the United States always had a right wing slant, but it really took off thanks to Reagan, and here we are- one more institution vital to a thriving democracy destroyed to sate the greed of the rich.  And now, Trump's hateful dumb show becomes more important than the survival of the country.  God help us if the Republicans cheat their way into four more years of this abomination.