It’s hardly a groundbreaking thought, yet it needs emphasizing now and again. The 24-hour news cycle is not a genuine reflection of the world. Just as Google and social media giants like Facebook and Twitter manipulate their algorithms to steer their users to the topics and subject material they want them to focus on, big-box media titans define and control the news simply by deciding what is news on a given day.

What these establishment outlets aren’t reporting on is much more important than what they are lavishing their coverage upon at any given moment. What many people don’t understand is that this artificial hype often is crafted in a way that entices a perfectly correct reaction that is in reality nothing more than feel-good tilting at contrived windmills.

How the Swamp Stole Your Righteous Fury

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democratic coronavirus superstar just one year ago, has been hit by the twin accusations of being a constant sexual harasser of women and of leading a disastrous COVID policy that reportedly had him intentionally attempting to mislead to downplay the deaths of more than 15,000 elderly New Yorkers in state nursing homes.

High-profile Democrat Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is roiled in similar COVID claims that could see her face criminal charges. Guess what they’d rather have you talking about instead?

Liberty Nation’s Pennel Bird wrote of Cuomo’s travails:

“[E]very time a Dr. Seuss controversy or a Meghan and Harry telenovela bobs to the surface of the media fathoms, Cuomo gets a spring in his step.”

A falsely hyped story of the day many times will genuinely appeal to a proper sense of outrage. And so the proper outrage is squandered.

Take the recent Dr. Seuss hubbub. This topic has broken out with regularity over the past couple of years. In 2017 it was first lady Melania Trump vs. the Woke Librarian at a Massachusetts elementary school who decried Theodor Geisel’s “racist illustrations.” Adding a Trump angle only made it easier for lazy media hacks to brew this tempest in a teapot.

In 2018, a museum dedicated to Dr. Seuss in his birthplace of Springfield, MA, made a splash for wiping an illustration of an Asian man with chopsticks from a mural celebrating Geisel’s work.

And here we are once again, enduring several weeks of wall-to-wall reporting. The company in charge of Dr. Seuss’ legacy has decided to cease offering six books from the Geisel canon due to its supposedly insensitive material.

That’s three news cyclones in four years, if you’re keeping score at home. Dr. Seuss is always ready to serve as a go-to controversy in a pinch.

There is no mystery why this would be so. It is a ventilation valve for the establishment, meant to distract and stifle real opposition to the installation of a larger agenda. Conservatives need to stop chasing the tail of this manipulative tool, even when they feel compelled to reply to something so patently foolish as this Seuss nonsense. Notice, yes. Comment, sure. Harp on it? A waste of effort.

And to Think That I Didn’t See It on Constitution Avenue

Eric Swalwell and Christine Fang

Connect the higher dots and the American public may realize it is being played. This nation just had the most controversial presidential election in its 245-year history, an event that featured serious accusations of ballot fraud. Yet the Supreme Court of this land refused to even take up the matter, dismissing states who questioned the shenanigans surrounding the vote in key battleground states as “lacking standing.”

There is good reason to worry that a Red Chinese honeypot operation has personally compromised a member of Congress who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) had an attractive Chinese female spy going by the name of Fang Fang or Christine Fang actively involved in his 2014 election campaign. Swalwell knew the woman, who is said to have engaged in sexual relationships with “at least” two Midwestern mayors as part of her activities in the United States.

Swalwell has so far been entirely unaffected by what should be a major scandal. But why would it be otherwise? After all, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) employed a Chinese spy on her personal staff for 20 years at a time when her husband made a fortune doing business in China. The news of this bombshell broke in 2018. Feinstein has not been subject to any serious inquiry on the matter since.

There are many things our ruling elites don’t want you to dwell on while you’re getting all worked up about The Cat in the Hat.

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Read more from Joe Schaeffer.