Mr. Campion,
I think it is important to point out the inaccuracies in our political discourse and you do it with great pleasure, it would seem. However, your rabid attack on this completely fabricated outrage over Planned Parenthood that not only threatens to shut down the federal government, but has led to complete chaos in Congress is as good as it gets and much needed. (PLANNED PARENTHOOD & MADE UP SHIT – Issue: 8/12/15)
I too like you have no interest in this story. I do not use Planned Parenthood, obviously as a man, and I actually do not support abortion. But I also do not own a gun and will never own a gun, but support the Second Amendment. I hate smoking and pretty much cannot tolerate smokers, but I am one of the few who think these laws against smoking in every corner of society are overkill.
It is always easy for people to get behind something with no teeth when it has no interest to them personally. But it is impossible for me to believe that after the preponderance of evidence that these supposed horrible “videos” that FOX News has been playing over and over were nothing but the propaganda wing of an anti-abortion group filled with lies, exaggerations and exploiting wayward employees, all of whom should be fired, that anyone with a brain would continue to believe it. They want to believe it, sure, but it does not make it true.
I am appalled that Congress is spending more money “investigating” this than it would cost to fund half of it.
Thanx for your voice, the voice of truth and reason.
—Adam S.
The best thing you’ve written in a while. Good stuff.
—Peter Blasevick
The problem with these Planned Parenthood protests is that there is Google now. It is harder and harder for people to snow the public if the public would just use the tools available to it. Once I saw the videos, which were disturbing, I immediately went to Google, typed in the controversy and saw all the real information about it, went on the Planned Parenthood site and discovered what was actually happening, which is all legal, and then went about my business. Now my life and my government has to be interrupted by senators who assume we have no access to information, as if this was the 1950s and McCarthy was still running around just making shit up (as you wrote so beautifully) and a bunch of scared, uninformed people are lapping it up like lemmings.
Google people, ever heard of it?
—Meredith Pinckney
I need to ask everyone this, seriously; unless you are religious, and maybe married and some kind of throw-back, old-fashioned, apron-wearing, curler queen, why in the world if you are a woman you would ever, EVER consider voting for a Republican? This Planned Parenthood thing is off-the-charts asinine. I am embarrassed to just listen to it, much less believe it is even an issue. Abortion is legal and has been for over 40 years, no one in either party has any gusto to overturn Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood assists millions of women with 90 percent of other issues beyond abortion and there is a legal framework in place to use discarded tissue for research that is helping millions of others with so many different diseases and it is all done with the written consent of the parents, SO WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE ASSHOLES DOING BUT TRYING TO ATTACK WOMEN???
Anyone have an answer for this?
Nope.
I rest my case.
Go Hillary!
—Dana Moales
Hi James,
I don’t think we need to wait for your thrilling exposé on your Trump position. (MEDIA, MONEY & DONALD TRUMP – Issue: 8/26/15) You are most probably (based on how I read this column) going to mock him and not take him seriously. You will do so at your own peril. Trump is the guy we have been waiting for. Rich enough that he doesn’t need the lobbyist or the K Street dollars. Bold enough that he doesn’t care what some $45,000 a year pundit on CNN thinks of him and confident enough to know that he is speaking what a large number of the American population have been waiting to hear. Washington IS the problem, the politicians ARE stupid and America CAN be great again. We long for the days when a Ronald spoke of the shining city on the hill and people flocked to him and made him one of our most beloved presidents.
You want to know why Trump is faring so well? Go into a blue-collar pub or tavern and listen to the people. The clothes may be different, they may not travel in a private jet but they sound just like Trump on the campaign trail. Illegal immigration is wrong, Washington is an immoral cesspool and we are going broke because of dunderheads. Trump is not just expressing a view, he is validating it.
Trump isn’t going anywhere. The Mainstream Media took their best shot at him and fell short. Mr. Trump has a very good chance of being the GOP nominee.
Oh and one last thing…you tried to call this a circus and mocked him by making him out as a circus barker but the fact is, he is the ONLY candidate of either party talking specifics. The dude changed the game by being specific on immigration. There was no “come see the dog faced boy inside the tent” shit…he told you right where he was coming from. Rather than the circus barker, he was the pitcher who told the batter, “I am going to throw heat right down Broadway, let’s see if you have the stones to hit it.”
Peace,
—Bill Roberts
While I think your point is right on about how Trump is merely some kind of media creation to keep people watching political stuff as a reality show idea in a time when it is usually dark, I also think that Trump’s surge and his sustaining such a surge is based on the volume of candidates. And I don’t necessarily think it has to do with there just being enough in the field to make a polling at 25 percent a leader to represent a major political party for the presidency, but because everyone else in the field just looks like carbon copies; angry senators, tough-guy governors and people who are outside government with half of Trump’s media appeal and monstrous personality.
But I think it is quite obvious to us all that the media has grossly overhyped this, unless you are Donald Trump who on the one hand abuses the media by agreeing to be on every show at every minute of the day and then picks on it as an entity when it the coverage doesn’t go his way. He’s like a child, and the coverage, the popularity (such as it is) and his entire existence speaks to the child in us. We need to be told what to do, we need to be excited by waving hands and name-calling, and we need to be told things we want to hear even though there is little to no chance we will ever get them. And we like bright, shiny things that distract us from boredom.
—Adamssss35zing
Do yourself no favors and “like” this idiot at www.facebook.com/jc.author
James Campion is the Managing Editor of The Reality Check News & Information Desk and the author of “Deep Tank Jersey”, “Fear No Art”, “Trailing Jesus”, “Midnight For Cinderella” and “Y”.
