THE DAILY NEWSLETTER - MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2022

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
Jim Cramer

On Monday's episode of Squawk on the Street, CNBC’s Jim Cramer cited bad earnings, fears of tightening by the Fed, and the Russian threat to Ukraine as factors in stocks plummeting and some alarm across the board about the market.

He then told his audience that it might feel good to sell, but don’t do so in a panic because you might not be able to get back in.

“Look I’m not negative,” said Cramer. “I’m trying to give you a positive scenario here. I’m saying when stocks are down this much...that you shouldn’t just say, ‘Holy cow, I’m getting killed,’ because you should realize you’ve been getting killed.”

“So now you have to decide what stocks are down a certain percentage from their high, that still could be worth a great deal,” he said. “And those are ones that you have to do some buying.”

Cramer's colleague David Faber brought up reports of companies with "names that you know very well" whose stock prices were "down dramatically off their highs after a very strong year last year."

“But should we just decide that it’s over? And let’s look at selling here, and then betting we can get back in?” Cramer replied. “Are you that good? I mean, is this something that you can do easily?”

"If it bleeds, it leads" is a long-running cliche about our 24-7 news cycle, and there's a similar temptation for the financial media to issue doom-and-gloom predictions. Cramer is "arguably the most recognizable financial journalist working in the media," as we described him in our ranking of the Mediaite Most Influential in News Media 2021 list. He's earned the long-term goodwill of his audience by not preaching panic, even though it might create short-term ratings.

MEDIA LOSER:
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke at an anti-vaccine rally in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, spewing an incredible array of conspiracy theories, including comparing those who defy vaccine mandates to Jews hiding from Nazi genocide during the Holocaust.

Yes, really.

Kennedy told the rally audience that "technological mechanisms" were being used "to control every aspect of behavior, of conduct, of thought, and to obliterate dissent," in ways that past "totalitarian states" had been unable to accomplish.

“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” Kennedy continued. “I visited in 1962 East Germany with my father, and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible — many died doing it, but it was possible.”

Anne Frank, her mother Edith, father Otto, and older sister Margot lived with four other Jews to hide from the Nazis in a cramped attic annex above the Amsterdam factory where her father had worked, until they were discovered and sent to concentration camps. Only Otto Frank survived.

That is what Kennedy thought was a valid situation to compare to people refusing to take a safe and effective vaccine. He then coughed up an absolutely bonkers sample platter of conspiracy theories, hitting Microsoft founder Bill Gates, 5G cell phone technology, and satellites.

If Kennedy could have just added a mention of chemtrails in that wacky little rant, he would’ve gotten Tinfoil Hat Bingo.

Divisive. Daft. Disappointing. Dangerous. And those are just some of the D adjectives to describe RFK Jr.'s demented display at the anti-vaxx rally. "Simply deranged" was how CNN's John Berman described the speech. 

The A-Block

'Sorry, Bari Weiss, Covid's Still a Thing'

Journalist Bari Weiss' latest comments about the Covid-19 pandemic went, for lack of a better term, viral this weekend as Twitter got ahold of a video clip from her Friday evening appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher.

“We were told, you get the vaccine. You get the vaccine and you get back to normal. And, we haven’t gotten back to normal, and it’s ridiculous at this point,” said Weiss. “I know that so many of my liberal and progressive friends are with me on this and they do not want to say it out loud because they are scared to be called anti-vax or to be called science denial, or to be, you know, smeared as a Trumper.”

The pandemic restrictions, especially those that affect schools, are "going to be remembered by the younger generation as a catastrophic moral crime,” she added.

Mehdi Hasan was, umm, not a fan of Weiss' comments -- or Maher's concurrence with her -- unloading in a "60 Second Rant" during his MSNBC show Sunday evening

“Oh, it’s ridiculous, is it?” said Hasan in response to the clip of Weiss, noting that “on the same day that Weiss and Maher were complaining about our obsessive focus on Covid-19 and urging us all to move on from the pandemic,” 3,506 Americans died from it.

“And look, the people who should be complaining right now are our overworked and burned out health care workers,” he continued in his rapid-fire rant. “But no, it’s never them moaning or whinging about the pandemic. It’s the Bari Weisses and Bill Mahers and Tucker Carlsons of this world.”

The View's Whoopi Goldberg took a similar stance, slamming Maher's comments as "not really funny" to those who had lost family or friends to Covid-19. "How dare you be so flippant, man?" she asked, arguing that "nobody on the planet really wants to go through this," but "this is what we're doing to protect our families."


In Other News...

WATCH: Trump Spox Hails Aaron Rodgers For Questioning 2020 Election Results

Bennie Thompson Confirms Bill Barr Has Been Speaking With Jan. 6 Committee: ‘The Public Needs to Know’ What the White House was Planning

Biden Reportedly Offered to Do Interviews in Defense of His Embattled Chief of Staff Ron Klain

Don Jr. Social Media Rant Goes Viral For All the Wrong Reasons

Bob Costas: The Olympics Deserve ‘All of the Disdain and Disgust’ They Get for Going Back to China

Must See Clip

A wild moment during a wild game

It was an epic weekend for football fans, as the playoff games to determine who will face off in this year's Super Bowl whittled the field down to four. 

The matchup between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs was a remarkable game in many respects -- including renewing debate among fans about the NFL's overtime rules -- but there's one moment late in the game that really stood out.

Bill wide receiver Stefon Diggs laid the wood on a rogue Chiefs fan who moronically thought it would be a lark to interrupt the final minutes of an incredible fourth quarter by running onto the field. Video of that moment was captured by a fan in attendance named Carl Fugate, who originally posted the video on Twitter.

Watch Diggs' teeth-rattling tackle -- and some pro wrestling moves expertly executed by security -- here.

Links We Like

This Isn’t Jim Crow 2.0
- Larry Hogan, The Atlantic
Biden's Boring First Year
- Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason
A Troll's Progress: How one of the right's most vicious bigots touched all the bases
- Charlie Sykes, The Bulwark
Peloton’s big whoops
- Emily Stewart, Vox
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