What You Are Not Supposed To See

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article with the following headline, “Twitter Suspends Mitch McConnell Campaign Account for Sharing Death Threats Against Mitch McConnell…”

Now why do you suppose they did that? If the threats had been against a Democrat, would the account have been suspended? No–The tweet would have simply highlighted as an example of the actions of violent right wing extremists.

The article reports:

Black Lives Matter Louisville leader Chanelle Helm is a political activist who has met with numerous high profile politicians, including current presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, to advance the identity politics of her movement.

Ms. Chanelle Helm posted video to her Facebook page showing a protest Monday at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s house. Ms. Helm was proud.

Ms. Helm was shouting: “just stab the motherf—er in the heart.”  F*ck yo neck, b*tch. Murder Turtle! Murder Turtle! … F*ck yo thoughts and prayers … F*ck you, f*ck yo wife, f*ck everything you stand for.”

To highlight the hypocrisy of the radical leftists, several social media and twitter accounts began sharing the video of Ms. Helm’s call to violence; including the twitter account of Mitch McConnell.

In response to the video showing how violent Ms. Chanelle Helm is, and bringing forth the transparency of sunlight upon the group’s objectives, Twitter began demanding the videos and tweets must be removed.  Failure to remove the video results in the twitter account being suspended from the platform.  Twitter suspended Mitch McConnell’s account.

The article concludes:

The same simpatico relationship exists with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and a host of social media platforms. The events in/around Sanford, FL (2012); Ferguson, MO (2014) and Baltimore Maryland (2015), were not just purposeful; they were quite financially lucrative for the identity network. After all, they learned at the knee of the master:

The question to ask is, “Who gains by pitting one group of people against another?” If we are fighting each other, we are noticing that our Washington politicians go to Washington as members of the middle class and quickly become millionaires. As long as they can keep us fighting among ourselves and not noticing what they are doing, they can continue their corruption.

Painting A Picture That Is Totally False

Sara Carter posted an article today about the media’s misreporting on the recent destruction of buildings in Israel. The media has totally misrepresented the events.

The article explains a few facts the media ignored:

– The land on which the buildings stood is not under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, but, as explicitly provided by the Oslo Accords, under the jurisdiction, for security purposes, of the Government of Israel
– Instead it was included inside Israel’s security barrier at the request of the very Arabs who are now complaining;
– The Arab complainants had the benefit of years of due process, which they flaunted by continuously disobeying orders of the Israeli courts that required both the Army and the Arabs to maintain the status quo until the courts could assess the legal merits of the Arabs’ claims;
– The Arabs chose to build right up against Israel’s security barrier even though they had clear notice that such construction was illegal because it impeded the Israeli army’s ability to defend Israel’s citizenry from Arab terrorist attacks.
The fact that these realities are completely ignored by all of the outraged international “authorities” is a disgrace.

The article continues:

Israel follows the rule of law. Seven years ago it passed a law which, for security reasons, prohibits the building of a structure within 250 meters (820 feet) of the Security Barrier

The Barrier was built starting in the early 2000s after the second Palestinian Arab Intifada (“Uprising”). Hundreds of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks murdered and maimed more thousands of Israeli civilians during that Uprising. Those acts of terrorism were committed by Arabs sneaking into Israeli cities and towns and blowing up buses, cafes, pizzerias, and ice cream stands. Once Israel commenced building and patrolling the Barrier, terrorism dropped dramatically, ultimately leading to a 90 percent decrease in terrorism within Israel.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It clearly illustrates the bias in the media concerning Israel. Israel lives in a bad neighborhood. The actions it has taken in preventing construction in certain areas and building walls have allowed the country to survive in that neighborhood.

When Making More Information Available To The Public Is Called A “Cover-Up”

Yesterday President Trump signed a memo allowing for the declassification of the background information on the investigation into Russian-collusion.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line Blog reported the event this way:

From the White House comes this announcement:

Today, at the request and recommendation of the Attorney General of the United States, President Donald J. Trump directed the intelligence community to quickly and fully cooperate with the Attorney General’s investigation into surveillance activities during the 2016 Presidential election.

The Attorney General has also been delegated full and complete authority to declassify information pertaining to this investigation, in accordance with the long-established standards for handling classified information. Today’s action will help ensure that all Americans learn the truth about the events that occurred, and the actions that were taken, during the last Presidential election and will restore confidence in our public institutions.

Trump’s directive doesn’t mean that information will be declassified willy-nilly. The Attorney General is instructed to adhere to “long-established standards for handling classified information” — the same standards that those who made the initial classification decisions should have applied, but may not have in order to cover their tracks.

This is how the Associated Press reported the event:

The headline reads, “Trump moves to escalate investigation of intel agencies.”

President Donald Trump on Thursday granted Attorney General William Barr new powers to review and potentially release classified information related to the origins of the Russia investigation, a move aimed at accelerating Barr’s inquiry into whether U.S. officials improperly surveilled Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Trump directed the intelligence community to “quickly and fully cooperate” with Barr’s probe. The directive marked an escalation in Trump’s efforts to “investigate the investigators,” as he continues to try to undermine the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe amid mounting Democratic calls for impeachment proceedings.

Press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Trump is delegating to Barr the “full and complete authority” to declassify documents relating to the probe, which would ease his efforts to review the sensitive intelligence underpinnings of the investigation. Such an action could create fresh tensions within the FBI and other intelligence agencies, which have historically resisted such demands.

Still think the media is not biased? The Associated Press accuses the President of trying to undermine the findings of Robert Mueller. It fails to mention that Robert Mueller didn’t find anything. Make no mistake–the media is looking for impeachment. They want Watergate all over again. Only this time the illegal spying was the work of the people they support. That is a hard pill to swallow and is going to get even harder as the evidence comes out.

What was done to the President, his campaign, and his transition team was illegal. It was a flagrant misuse of government agencies for political purposes. Unless we want to see this sort of illegal surveillance occur during every election cycle, those responsible have to be held accountable.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

When The Public Just Doesn’t Believe Your Lies

President Trump has been frequently portrayed as a racist. This really defies logic since he received awards for his efforts toward racial harmony before he became a Republican and ran for President. He also literally fought city hall to make Mar-a-Lago open to Jews and black people when other exclusive clubs in the area were closed to those groups. Evidently some people have actually figured out that the charges of racism against the President are false.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported the following:

29% of Black Women Have Favorable or Neutral Opinion of President Trump after 2 Years in Office

That is not good news for the Democrats.

The article continues with a quote from Medium:

Interestingly, 29% of respondents had a favorable or neutral opinion of Donald Trump. Of those polled 16% responded that they “really like him” or “he’s okay”, with an additional almost 13% unsure or undecided, a much different picture than the one portrayed in most media.

“Trump’s numbers with black Democratic women show that his populist message still resonates with many. Given that Sanders also has a heavily populist message, and is currently enjoying strong support in this community, Trump’s numbers shouldn’t be that surprising.

“It’s also important to remember that Hillary Clinton badly underperformed with this group in 2016. Turnout among black Democratic women dropped from around 68% in 2008 and 70% in 2012, to about 64% in 2016.

“I think the take away here is that, to avoid a repeat of 2016, an emotionally resonant populist appeal, delivered in a way voters deem authentic, will be key to turning out this crucial Democratic constituency.“ said Walter Kawecki, the firm’s founder and CEO.

President Trump has done amazing things economically. You have to really have your head in the sand to not be impressed with the current state of the American economy. Minority groups–youth, blacks, women, etc. have all benefited from low unemployment. If the economy continues to roar along, that will make at least a small difference in the 2020 election.

 

High Crimes–Not Misdemeanors

Yesterday Sebastian Gorka posted an article at American Greatness titled, “ObamaGate: No Misdemeanors, Only High Crimes.” I understand all of us are getting tired of hearing about any of the garbage that went on in the Obama administration in terms of spying on the political opposition. However, because that issue has not yet been dealt with, it will remain in the news until those guilty of misusing federal agencies are held accountable.

Sebastian Gorka points out:

…Or look instead at Anderson Cooper, CNN’s putative doyen, who can’t even garner 0.3 percent of the population as viewers for his “flagship” program, and who recently accused Jared Kushner of “gaslighting” the nation over Russia; in other words of making statements aimed at convincing the listeners that they are insane.

This from the network that has so stoked the flames of Russia conspiracy-mongering every day for two years, that they publish outlandish pieces on Robert Mueller’s sealing indictments against the president, and as Cooper’s fellow show host Chris Cuomo qualifies the president’s public statements as those made by a convict already wearing an “orange jumpsuit,” statements that are less gaslighting than full on tinfoil-hattery.

And why was Kushner so calumniated? What craziness was he trying to sell to America as fact? His “gaslighting” sin was to state early last week that the Mueller investigation and the rest of the related farrago had done more damage to our republic and democratic practices than the original illegal actions of Russian actors on Facebook. Yet, ironically, Kushner was lambasted all over the corporate leftist media as the majority of Americans actually agreed with the president’s senior advisor.

The article concludes with some troubling information:

It has been brought to my attention by a former CIA station chief of some prominence and who has a legendary reputation inside the community of pre-Brennan operators, that Hillary Clinton’s loss did not curtail the worst activities of the outgoing Obama team. In fact, through the use of a walled-off team of contractors working inside the Intelligence Community, and for political realms alone, with no FISA-authorization or other national security justification, the Trump White House was spied upon after the January 20 inauguration. (Those responsible for this on-going crime are known to more than one investigative journalist and I have been told that the first of the new revelations will be published in the coming week).

Simply put: the Obama Administration used the most powerful intelligence capabilities in the world to attempt a penetration and subversion of the presidential campaign of the the opposing party. When that failed, they used a special prosecutor to divert attention away from that activity, log-jam the work of the new president, and clean up the evidence of what had been done to him and his team. And most un-American of all: the former intelligence leadership of the Obama Administration continued to spy illegally on Donald Trump and his closest advisers after they had moved into the White House.

Many take offense at the way President Trump uses language, at his tweets and at what they see as his hyperbole. But this week when he called the operations against him and the will of the people who chose him, a “coup” and an “attempted overthrow” of the government, he was making a simple statement of fact. One that will soon make Watergate an irrelevance.

The spying that was done in the Obama administration more closely resembles Soviet Russia than it does America. It is frightening to think that someone whose administration had so little regard for the law or the civil liberties of Americans sat in the White House for eight years. I don’t think a lot of Americans realize that the same force of government used against individuals in the Trump campaign and transition team could someday turn against them for no reason. The punishment for the actions taken against the Trump campaign and administration needs to be severe enough so that another coup attempt will never happen.

 

Where Are We And Where Are We Headed?

Politics in America right now is disturbing. It is becoming obvious that the resources of government were used for political purposes against a presidential candidate. Now that the candidate is in office, the ‘deep state’ continues to oppose him. During the next year and a half, we are going to be subject to endless investigations of everything Donald Trump has ever done combined with a media that wants to recapture the power they had during Watergate (the ability to drive a President from office). So what are we to do about it?

American history tells us that during the American Revolution, it is estimated that only 3% of the colonists were actively fighting in the field against British forces at any given time. These 3% were people who saw what was going on and chose to be involved. We need that 3% now. We need people who are willing to look past the lies being told in the mainstream media and do their own research. We need people who don’t believe the constant drumbeat of the major media that says “Orange man bad” and are willing to look at what the Trump administration has accomplished.

Next November there will be an election. President Trump will run again. A lot can happen between now and then, but even a casual glance shows that currently almost all of the Democrat candidates have wandered away from the mainstream of America. It’s up to voters to do their homework, decide what they want for America, and vote. The plans of the Democrat candidates will negatively impact our freedom and our economy. All of us who care about our country should fight those plans with everything we have. Study voting records of those in office, and study campaign contributions (opensecrets.org lists campaign contributions of all candidates).

Get involved. You future, your children’s future, and your grandchildren’s future depend on it.

 

The Trump Tax Cuts

The following is a graph from a New York Times article of April 14th:

The article notes:

To a large degree, the gap between perception and reality on the tax cuts appears to flow from a sustained — and misleading — effort by liberal opponents of the law to brand it as a broad middle-class tax increase.

That effort began in the fall of 2017, when Republicans prepared to introduce legislation that models by the independent Tax Policy Center predicted could raise taxes on nearly a third of middle-class taxpayers. It continued through Mr. Trump’s signing of the law, even though the group’s models showed that the revised bill would raise taxes on relatively few in the middle class in the 2018 tax year.

The only thing missing from the article is The New York Times taking some responsibility for what is illustrated by the chart.

It gets even more interesting. The article also includes this chart:

This might be a reflection of the news sources the Democrats choose versus the news sources the Republicans choose. It illustrates the fact that much of what is being reported in major news sources is simply not true. Much of the mainstream media is doing a disservice to the people who choose to watch it.

There Is A Difference Between Affectionate and Being Creepy

The media has written a lot about Joe Biden’s style in the past few days. Today the Associated Press posted an article stating that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has stated that Joe Biden needs to understand that people have personal space that needs to be respected. Yesterday The American Thinker posted an article noting that even after the dawn of the #MeToo movement, Democrats do not seem overly concerned about Joe Biden’s behavior. Remember, this is the party of Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton,  etc. Joe Biden’s behavior seems tame. There are numerous pictures showing questionable behavior by Joe Biden, but he gets a pass. There was no actual evidence against Clarence Thomas or Brett Kavanaugh, but they were viciously attacked. The Lt. Governor of Virginia is still in office despite reports of sexual assault that were reported at the time of the incident. There seems to be a bit of a double standard here.

The American Thinker concludes:

My guess — and it is a pure guess, as I have no connections with the Dems’ inner circles — is that Joe Biden is going to see the wisdom of withdrawing from the race, especially since his son Hunter’s connections in Ukraine are at risk.  He’s old and has been making scads of money giving lectures.  He has a choice: retire and reap gratitude, honors, and many more lucrative speaking gigs, or else press forward with his candidacy and become an icon of perversion, with his son facing Trump treatment by the media, an old white male whose apologies for his privilege only further enrage the aggrieved.

I think Joe Biden is probably a very nice man, but I don’t want a man who has no respect for personal space as President. I realize that the media will pretty much leave him alone because he is a Democrat, but there would always be a controversy about his behavior swirling around him.

 

Fixing The Intelligence Community

On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article titled, “OPINION: How Could The Intelligence Community Fail So Badly?”

The article states:

Far more than a failure of journalism, the Russia collusion narrative was, at its core, a monstrous failure of U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence.

All criticism of the news media aside for the moment, the bottom line is that professional journalists received fake intelligence information from U.S. government leakers whom they trusted.

That is probably true, but I also think that the personal bias of those individuals reporting the news caused them to believe things that most people would have regarded as totally ridiculous.

The article continues:

The entire Russian collusion debacle shows that the American intelligence and counterintelligence processes have broken down.

Emphatic former CIA director John Brennan, a main engine behind spreading the Russia collusion story through the intelligence community and into the media, suddenly doesn’t sound so certain about himself. The day after Attorney General William Barr released the special prosecutor’s finding of no collusion, Brennan confessed to MSNBC, “I don’t know if I received bad information but I think I suspected that there was more than there actually was.”

This is a shocking admission from the man who was, at the time, the nation’s highest-ranking professional intelligence officer.

Brennan wasn’t indicting just himself. He inadvertently accused the entire CIA. Whatever quality control systems it has, the CIA failed to prevent “bad information” from making its way up the chain to the national strategic level.

The article goes on to mention that journalists have learned to depend on leaks from government officials. Leaking classified information is a crime punishable by law. Those leaking need to be held accountable. At the same time, the government needs to be more transparent. A lot of things that are classified are classified to save the government from embarrassment.

The article concludes:

This leads to the most dangerous conclusion of all. The Russia collusion debacle has shown that the FBI and CIA leadership are not effectively under the oversight of elected officials, but instead are capable of tampering with the American democratic process and constitutional governance.

All this must stop. President Trump should assemble a team of solid intelligence and counterintelligence veterans to dig deep into the FBI and CIA leadership, discover the real nature of the problems and devise solutions before our system self-destructs.

It’s time to create an intelligence community that is apolitical. I don’t know if that is possible, but it’s a great goal.

The Power Of The Media Illustrated

This is the current polling from RealClearPolitics:

This is some recent economic news reported by The Washington Times on January 9:

Given the dazzling December economic data, it’s no wonder the press gave it short shrift. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy added a whopping 312,000 jobs, far more than the expected 176,000. After revisions, job gains have averaged an impressive 254,000 per month over the past three months. Job growth in 2018 (an average of 220,000 per month) passed that of both 2016 (195,000) and 2017 (182,000). Payrolls increased by 2.6 million in 2018, the highest since 2015.

The sunny jobs picture encouraged 419,000 new workers to enter the workforce and sent the labor force participation rate up to 63.1 percent. Unemployment rates among blacks, Latinos and women are at or near historic lows.

Job growth has also meant significant wage growth. Wages are up a stunning 3.2 percent from last year and .4 percent from November. December was the third straight month that the yearlong growth in nominal average hourly earnings was above 3 percent in nearly a decade; the last time we saw that trend was April 2009. Wages are also being given an assist by inflation being kept in check.

The article at The Washington Times concludes:

His (President Trump’s) astounding economic track record is their worst nightmare. It puts the lie to the nonsense Mr. Obama, the Democrats and the media have been shoveling for years: That anemic economic growth, high unemployment, the collapse of manufacturing and grotesque trade imbalances were the “new normal.”

It also pointedly demonstrates that the statist vision — radical wealth redistribution, socialized medicine, green energy chimeras, social justice enforcement, limits on free speech, private property and gun ownership, and the rule of the leftist mob — creates only tyranny, poverty, injustice and servitude. (Note the deflection: These are things the left claims to want to eradicate.)

Mr. Trump and his economic thunderbolt are exposing the left and its policies as irredeemably bankrupt, economically and morally. And that is perhaps the biggest reason why they must try to destroy him.

A lot of this economic news has not been reported. However, people do notice when there are more jobs available and there is more money in their paycheck. President Trump’s approval numbers are finally in positive numbers. The economy is booming. What would be the basis for most Americans believing America is headed in the wrong direction? Might it be the constant negative reporting from the media? Can you imaging what President Trump’s approval rating would be if the media were actually balanced? Just remember–the people vote. The media represents only a small percentage of votes.

A Perspective You Won’t Hear In The Mainstream Media

Any illusions I might have had about objectivity in the mainstream media have been totally destroyed during the Trump administration. I understand that the press is biased, but I don’t believe I have ever seen them this vicious.

The American Thinker posted an article today that provides a perspective on President Trump that we haven’t heard a lot of.

The article reports:

My husband worked for Trump when he took over the Old Commodore Hotel on 42nd Street and transformed it into the Grand Hyatt.

He was then married to Ivana Trump, and for twelve years, my husband watched him completely salvage the dying Midtown area of Manhattan.  Not only did he never see a hint of racism in the man, but he was convinced he was completely colorblind.  He staffed the hotel with a majority of minority workers in all positions, from executive managers to housekeeping.

My husband was raised in the Deep South and knows what a racist looks and acts like, and it ain’t our president.  In 1998 and 1999, Jesse Jackson was praising Trump for a lifetime of help to the black community.  Trump had been involved with Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition and was instrumental in opening Wall Street to it.  Of course, Jesse Jackson has never been one to adhere to deep convictions.  He was against abortion and redefining marriage before succumbing to the Democrat left wing.

If, as critics allege, Trump is truly a Nazi, then why has he been heralded as Israel’s biggest supporter?  Why was he the only president to move our embassy to Jerusalem?  Why didn’t he object to his daughter’s conversion to Judaism?  It’s so easy to hurl accusations of racism and Nazism because frankly, the brain-dead mobs are interested only in vandalism and mayhem and totally disinterested in truth.  They also have no idea what racism and Nazism historically mean.

What on Earth did Donald Trump do to deserve these unfair labels?  Apparently, he told the truth about what was happening to the country he loves so much.  The fact is that Trump has never been against immigrants or immigration – just the abuse of our laws.

There are a lot of reasons for the hatred of President Trump. He represents a serious threat to the status quo. He is a businessman–businessmen solve problems–politicians simply recite problems to get re-elected and then neglect to solve them. If President Trump is successful, the gravy train that Washington politicians have been on for decades may slow down a little. If President Trump succeeds in solving even a small percentage of Washington’s problems, he will expose the ineffectiveness of government by the political class. Government by the political class was not what our Founding Fathers designed, and it would be wonderful to see it end.

Fireworks And Crickets

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today with the headline, “Corrupt Media Reported on Kavanaugh Accuser 100 Times More than Ellison Accusers Who Actually Filed Police Report.”

The article reminds us that in August Rep. Keith Ellison’s former lover Karen Monahan hurled serious accusations at the current Deputy Chairman of the Democrat Party. There are evidently witnesses to the physical and mental abuse of Ms. Monahan. Ms. Monahan’s son also has stated that he has seen video of the abuse.

The article reports:

Austin Monahan described seeing video of Keith Ellison –Screaming “f*cking bitch!” and dragging his mother off a bed by her feet!

In the middle of 2017, I was using my moms computer trying to download something and I clicked on a file, I found over 100 text and twitters messages and video almost 2 min long that showed Keith Ellison dragging my mama off the bed by her feet, screaming and calling her a “fucking bitch” and telling her to get the fuck out of his house.

There is a record of a 911 call from Ms. Monahan.

The article includes the following:

Meanwhile Keith Ellison’s candidacy continues unchecked. Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation is temporarily stalled. The media has been quiet on Ellison in order not to hinder his campaign. The media has been loud on Judge Kavanuagh in order to stall his confirmation. The media has become a political arm of the Democrat party, and they need to be ignored and shunned by the American voters. They are no longer a reliable source of information.

The Leaking Echo Chamber

Real Clear Investigations posted an article today about the targeted anti-Trump leaks to the press coming from the Justice Department.

The article reports:

A trail of evidence appearing in major news outlets suggests a campaign to undermine President Trump from within the government through illegal leaks of classified information, and then to thwart congressional investigators probing the disclosures.

On Monday the Justice Department released a handful of texts and other documents that included two former officials known for their anti-Trump bias – Peter Strzok and Lisa Page of the FBI – discussing the DOJ’s “media leak strategy.” Strzok now says, through his lawyer, that that strategy was aimed at preventing leaks. Nevertheless, days later he and Page approvingly mention forthcoming news articles critical of Trump associates.

“The leaks that have been coming out of the FBI and DOJ since 2016 are unconscionable,” said retired FBI supervisory special agent James Gagliano. “There’s a difference between whistleblowing and leaking for self-serving or partisan purposes.”

Past and present U.S. officials say the template for the leak campaign can be traced back to the Obama administration’s efforts to sell the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which made the press reliant on background conversations and favorable leaks from government officials. Obama adviser Ben Rhodes told the New York Times in 2016 that “we created an echo chamber” that “helped retail the administration’s narrative.”

“That same configuration,” said Michael Doran, a senior official in the George W. Bush White House, “the press, political operatives, newly minted experts, social media validators—was repurposed to target Trump, his campaign, transition team, then presidency.” The echo chamber’s primary instrument in attacking the current White House, said Doran, “is the Russia collusion narrative.”

This is the quote from the New York Times article about the echo chamber:

As Malley (Rob Malley, a favored troubleshooter who ran negotiations that could keep the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in power during the Obama administration) and representatives of the State Department, including Wendy Sherman and Secretary of State John Kerry, engaged in formal negotiations with the Iranians, to ratify details of a framework that had already been agreed upon, Rhodes’s war room did its work on Capitol Hill and with reporters. In the spring of last year, legions of arms-control experts began popping up at think tanks and on social media, and then became key sources for hundreds of often-clueless reporters. “We created an echo chamber,” he admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”

This is how it works. Find a cooperative person who wants to be on television as an expert. Feed him the conclusion you want him to draw. Then find another one.

The press is not currently our friend. Maybe that will change someday, but right now that is the situation. If we want to keep our representative republic, we need to vote against the political party that has consistently used government agencies and anyone in the press who was willing to cooperate for partisan purposes.

The Media Only Told Half Of The Story (As Usual)

The Daily Wire posted an article today about the disinviting of Kaitlan Collins, a White House correspondent for CNN, to a Rose Garden press conference. The media would have you believe that Ms. Collins is being censored for asking the wrong questions or that CNN was barred from the Rose Garden press conference. Neither is true.

The article reports what actually happened:

But White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders offered a very different account.

“At the conclusion of a press event in the Oval Office a reporter shouted questions and refused to leave despite repeatedly being asked to do so,” Sanders said in a statement. “Subsequently, our staff informed her she was not welcome to participate in the next event, but made clear that any other journalist from her network could attend.”

When you are asked to leave the Oval Office, it is wise to do so.

The article concludes:

Just as fellow CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta has been doing since Day 1 of the Trump administration, Collins is clearly trying to get famous by being “tough” on the president. But she’s not being tough, she’s being rude. Ask a question, maybe two, then get out.

So now, that’s a new tactic by the press: Get into the Oval, then simply refuse to leave.

When Trump tires of the tactic (he will) and bars the entire press corps from his office, the MSM will be up in arms.

And when that happens, they should, perhaps, direct some of their ire toward Collins and Acosta. There’s a way to do the job, a very difficult job, without being rude. Give it a try, White House press corps, you just might like it.

We need Emily Post to educate the press corps on basic manners. They seem to have forgotten or never learned them.

What New Craziness Is This?

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article that included a video of Jennifer Rubin on MSNBC. You can follow the link to watch the entire video (I couldn’t figure out how to embed it), but there is just one part I want to share.

This is Ms Rubin’s comment regarding Sarah Sanders:

“[N]o one is telling them to be violent protesters, but we’re not going to let these people go through life unscathed,” Rubin told host Joy Reid. “Sarah Huckabee has no right to live a life of no fuss, no muss, after lying to the press, after inciting against the press. These people should be made uncomfortable, and I think that’s a life sentence, frankly.”

So, if at any point in my life I work for someone the media does not approve of, I am to be made miserable for the rest of my life. Not only is that ridiculous, it is dangerous. Who appointed Ms. Rubin the judge of all that is correct? Where is the civility the political left is always talking about?

Much of our news media has become mentally unbalanced. They are like an animal backed into a corner–they know their glory days are ending as Americans get wise to their bias, and they are not going down without a fight.

Conclusions Not Based On Facts

Bearing Arms posted an article today about the game the media plays comparing apples and oranges in order to infringe on our Second Amendment rights. The latest example the media is sighting is Iceland.

This is a recent quote from NBC News:

Like many of his countrymen, Olaf Garðar Garðarsson is eager to get his hands on a rifle.

But he can’t just walk into a store and buy one. Instead, he is sitting through a mandatory four-hour lecture on the history and physics of the firearm.

This is Iceland — the gun-loving nation that hasn’t experienced a gun-related murder since 2007.

“For us, it would be really strange if you could get a license to buy a gun and you had no idea how to handle it,” says Garðarsson, 28, a mechanical engineer. “I would find it very odd if [a gun owner] had never even learned which is the pointy end and which is the trigger end.”

Iceland is a sparsely populated island in the northern Atlantic. Its tiny population of some 330,000 live on a landmass around the size of Kentucky.

St. Louis, Missouri, which has a population slightly smaller than Iceland’s, had 193 homicides linked to firearms last year.

Icelanders believe the rigorous gun laws on this small, remote volcanic rock can offer lessons to the United States.

I have no problem with gun safety classes. I took one when I moved to North Carolina because I realized very quickly that the culture in North Carolina regarding guns was very different from that of Massachusetts. But I took that course by choice. No one forced me to do it. I think those courses are a good idea. I think forcing people to take them is a bad idea. Our gun crimes haven’t come from citizens who would be willing to take those courses. Even if we banned guns totally, criminals would still find a way to get them. Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, but it also has a very high rate of murder by gun. The only reason a politician wants to take guns away from citizens or infringe on citizens’ rights to have guns is to increase the power of the government and decrease the power of citizens to prevent government overreach.

The article further reminds us:

Iceland and the United States are very different when it comes to key issues, namely those of culture. Iceland is culturally homogenous, with 94 percent of its population coming from Norse or Celtic roots and only six percent coming from some other group. Because of this, the Icelandic culture is easily dominant, making those who come from other cultures step up and adhere to the social rules of their new nation as much as the civil and criminal rules. The fact that the culture has been there, more or less, for over a thousand years solidifies that in a lot of minds. While that culture has changed over the years, it’s still there, and it drives society.

Meanwhile, the United States is culturally diverse.

What works for Iceland won’t work for America. Our culture is very different. Iceland is essentially a socialist country. As you drive through the countryside, all of the houses look alike–there are no houses that stand out with creative designs. It is a much more homogenous society than America. Our freedom and diversity are part of what makes us great. When the media says that Icelandic gun laws would work in America, they are doing both countries a disservice.

 

It’s Getting Hard To Figure Out Who Is Playing Fair

Sometimes I get very frustrated when I look at news stories and try to figure out who is telling the truth. During the ‘silly season’ which we are currently in, it is sometimes difficult to sort out truth from fiction.

Today’s Daily Caller reported that Media Matters for America (MMFA), a supposedly non-partisan organization which is tax-exempt, is lobbying Congress for support in opposing the Keystone Pipeline.

The article reports:

In an email distributed to the offices of both Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Republican Sen. James Inhofe on Wednesday — and obtained by The Daily Caller — Media Matters employee Emilee Pierce sought to “flag” a liberal study by the organization released Thursday in an effort to manipulate coverage of the Keystone pipeline.

The email, addressed to Boxer staffer Mary Kerr and Inhofe staffer Matt Dempsey, sought to “flag that MMFA will be putting out a major, quantitative report on media coverage of KXL tomorrow [Thursday] morning.”

“The study will be similar to our [Environmental Protection Agency] counting study (http://mediamatters.org/research/201106070010) — and will drill home the point the media bought right into Big Oil’s desired frame on KXL,” the email reads, “focusing largely on the (inflated) number of jobs that could be created, without paying due attention to the many other important issues at stake. (Ranchers’ land, spills, climate change, etc.)”

“We are hoping for a big media splash,  but — more importantly — we’re hoping that allies will be able to leverage it to gain favorable coverage,” Pierce continued.

Media Matters for America on its website describes itself as:

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.

This is not correcting conservative misinformation–this is putting out their own misinformation in concert with members of Congress who should know better. Their tax-exempt status should be investigated.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Evaluating The Pictures You See On The News

Power Line posted a story today examining the role of journalists in reporting a story and the influence they have. Please follow the above link to the story to view the video included in the story (I’m sorry–I can’t figure out how to download the video!).

The video is by Italian photojournalist Ruben Salvadori covering the tension between Israel and the Arabs in the West Bank.

Enhanced by Zemanta