Tag Archives: CBS News

Can You Pardon Someone Who Has Never Been Charged With Anything?

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Can you pardon someone who has never been charged with a crime? We may be about to find that out.

On Friday, Breitbart reported the following:

White House lawyers are studying preemptive pardons that President Joe Biden has discussed with senior aides, according to multiple establishment media reports.

Democrat and media allies have urged Biden in the last several weeks to pardon many of his comrades, including Mark Milley, Christopher Wray, Justice Department lawyers, Joe Biden himself, the whole Biden family, Liz Cheney, Mark Milley, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and Adam Kinzinger, among others.

All of these people tried to disrupt the first Trump administration. Some of them committed crimes in the process–destroying evidence, illegal contact with foreign leaders, lying before Congress (is that a crime?), blocking investigations, etc. Although it would be nice to see some of them held accountable for their crimes, I think there are probably more important things for the new Trump administration to do. Some of those things are cutting federal spending, de-politicization of the Justice Department, securing our border, reestablishing energy independence, and restoring America’s position on the world state. Those priorities are an indication of the size of the mess the Biden administration has created in the past four years.

According to CBS News:

Among those who could be eligible for preemptive legal relief include well-known names at the center of many of the most rancorous moments of the first Trump administration, many of whom remain the subject of his public ire.

The list includes Dr. Anthony Fauci, who helped coordinate the nation’s COVID-19 response and later served as Mr. Biden’s top science adviser; retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has called Trump a “fascist” and provided information for several books and news reports detailing the former president’s behavior and activities around the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol; California Democratic Senator-elect Adam Schiff, and other Democratic and Republican lawmakers who led the two impeachment cases against Trump or sat on the House committee that reviewed the Jan. 6 attack — a group that includes former Wyoming Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who actively campaigned against Trump this past fall.

Fauci, Milley and Cheney were not immediately available for comment. In an interview with NPR in late November, Schiff said he didn’t think a preemptive pardon is a good idea, because “I think the courts are strong enough to withstand” threats made by Trump.

Just because they may belong in jail does not mean it would be constructive to put them there.

Why The Secrecy?

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On Wednesday, Guy Benson posted an article at Townhall wondering why CBS News is so reluctant to release the full audio of its interview with Vice-President Kamala Harris.

The article reports:

As we recently outlined, it has been a damaging, credibility-harming few weeks for CBS News.  The network violated its own debate rules with a disputed-to-misleading ‘fact check’ of JD Vance at the Vice Presidential debate, then cut off his microphone as he calmly picked apart their assertion.  Their morning show was thrown into chaos when some employees melted down over an anchor asking pointed, tough questions of an anti-Israel zealot, resulting in angry recriminations, tears, and a series of embarrassing leaks.  Then there was the curious 60 Minutes edit of Kamala Harris’ answer regarding US-Israeli relations, which looked completely different in a teaser clip, compared to what aired on the broadcast itself.  As a refresher, here’s the side-by-side juxtaposition:

Neither answer really said anything!

The article includes a quote from The Federalist reminds us why President Trump was not interested in sitting down for an interview with CBS News:

During the interview [with Trump] — which aired on Oct. 25, the week before the 2020 election, and garnered nearly 17 million views — longtime anchor [Leslie Stahl] flat-out denied that the Biden family was under any sort of scandal at all. The interview was so combative that the Trump campaign released the full raw footage before network publication. “He’s in the midst of a scandal,” Trump said in reference to emails from the laptop revealing Joe Biden was lying about involvement with Hunter’s overseas business ventures. “He’s not,” Stahl said, interrupting the president to outright dismiss the criticism. “He’s not, no.” Stahl went on to deny that then-Vice President Joe Biden spied on the Trump campaign in 2016, and claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop couldn’t be verified.

We all know that was lies. The other part of that story is that numerous sources have claimed that there was child pornography on Hunter’s laptop. Why has he not been charged for that? The mainstream media is not the friend of the American people.

When Being Interviewed, Always Make Your Own Copy Of The Interview

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On Tuesday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about a recent CBS interview with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Thankfully, Speaker Johnson (unbeknownst to CBS) had his staff also recording the interview while it was taking place.

The article reports:

One of the most blatant examples of media manipulation was recently discovered when CBS 60-Minutes deceptively edited a response from Kamala Harris, replacing her ‘word salad’ answer with a completely different answer to an entirely different question. [SEE HERE]

This past Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on CBS Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan and the editing and manufacturing was done again before broadcast.  Unbeknownst to CBS, Speaker Johnson’s staff were recording the interview from his side of the camera.  Johnson released a series of video segments today (via Twitter) showing how CBS intentionally took out the important elements of his responses.

Please follow the link to The Conservative Treehouse to watch the videos of what was actually said and what was shown to the viewers. If you are still relying on the mainstream media for your news, you are not only misinformed, you are also uninformed.

Are We Living In A Police State?

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News organizations are firing employees because of law ratings. CNN, BuzzFeed, and Vice Media have all recently announced layoffs. CBS is also firing reporters.

On Thursday (updated Friday), The New York Post reported the following:

The acclaimed CBS reporter who was investigating the Hunter Biden laptop scandal before she was fired last week had her personal files seized by the network in an “unprecedented” move, sources told The Post on Thursday.

Catherine Herridge — who is the middle of a First Amendment case being closely watched by journalists nationwide — was among 20 CBS News staffers let go as part of a larger purge of hundreds of employees at parent company Paramount Global.

Her firing had stunned co-workers, but the network’s decision to hold on to her personal materials, along with her work laptop where she may have other confidential info, has left many staffers shaken, according to insiders.

“It’s so extraordinary,” a source familiar with the situation told The Post, noting that the files — which are presumptively now the property of CBS News — most likely contain confidential material from Herridge’s stints at both Fox and CBS.

The source said the network boxed up all her personal belongings except for Herridge’s notes and files and informed her that it would decide what — if anything — would be returned to her.

“They never seize documents [when you’re let go],” a second source close to the network said.

Brit Hume posted the following on Twitter:

 

This is just one more step in the direction of a police state where the media is controlled by the people in power.

The article at The New York Post concludes:

Jonathan Turley — a legal scholar and a former CBS legal analyst who first broke the news of Herridge’s documents being seized in an opinion piece for The Hill — said the timing of the journalist’s termination raised suspicions.

“She was pursuing stories that were unwelcomed by the Biden White House and many Democratic powerhouses, including the Hur report on Joe Biden’s diminished mental capacity, the Biden corruption scandal and the Hunter Biden laptop,” Turley wrote.

Under normal circumstances, journalists are entitled to their notes and make available the files if needed in future ligation, but leaving sensitive documents in the hands of unnamed CBS officials, could compromise Herridge’s numerous other confidential sources.

It also potentially violates HIPAA laws, as her files may also contain personal and family medical records.

Turley said CBS’ “heavy-handed approach” to the files” is “dead wrong” and that it had “sent a chilling signal in the ranks” of the network.

SAG-AFTRA, the union which represents CBS staffers, condemned the network for seizing Herridge’s notes and research from her office.

“This action is deeply concerning concerning to the union because it sets a dangerous precedent for all media professionals and threatens the very foundation of the First Amendment,” the union said in a statement to The Post.

The union added it has been in touch with CBS News and is hopeful the matter “will be resolved shortly.”

We are in a dangerous place.

I Know This Is Just An Incredible Coincidence…

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On Monday, Townhall posted an article about the family of the first American hostage released by Hamas. Oddly enough, in the past that family had purchased one of Hunter Biden’s pictures.

The article quotes CBS News:

Abigail Mor Edan, the youngest U.S. citizen held by Hamas, was among the group of hostages released back to Israel on Sunday, both President Biden and the Israeli military confirmed. 

Abigail, whose parents were killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, turned 4 years old last week while in captivity in Gaza. She was kidnapped and taken to the Palestinian enclave during the deadly rampage along with an estimated 240 others, according to Israeli officials. 

…President Biden spoke about Abigail’s release in televised remarks Sunday. 

“She’s free and she’s in Israel now,” Mr. Biden said, adding that Abigail has “been through a terrible trauma.” The child’s mother was killed in front of her by Hamas militants before her father was also gunned down while using his body to shield Abigail from the attack. Abigail then ran to neighbors for help, Mr. Biden said. 

“What she endured is unthinkable,” he said. 

Abigail’s great-aunt, Liz Hirsh Naftali, and her cousin, Noa Naftali, said in a statement Sunday, “We hoped and prayed today would come. There are no words to express our relief and gratitude that Abigail is safe and coming home.”

The article includes the following:

 

I guess it matters who you know, even when you are four years old.

 

What We Are Actually Supporting In Ukraine

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On September 24th, CBS News posted an article about exactly how American tax dollars are being spent in Ukraine. The lack of financial accountability for the billions of dollars we have spent in Ukraine is disturbing.

The article reports:

The U.S. has spent just over $43 billion on military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded. That’s equivalent to about 5% of the American defense budget. European countries combined have contributed around $30 billion.

The article notes:

American taxpayers are financing more than just weapons. We discovered the U.S. government’s buying seeds and fertilizer for Ukrainian farmers… and covering the salaries of Ukraine’s first responders – all 57,000 of them.

That includes the team that trains this rescue dog – named Joy – to comb through the wreckage of Russian strikes looking for survivors.

And the U.S. also funds the divers who we saw clearing unexploded ammunition from the country’s rivers – to make them safe again for swimming and fishing.

These are worthwhile causes, but I am not sure it’s American taxpayers’ responsibility to fund them.

Also included in the expenditures:

Russia’s invasion shrank Ukraine’s economy by about a third. We were surprised to find that to keep it afloat the U.S. government is subsidizing small businesses…

…like Tatiana Abramova’s knitwear company.

Holly Williams: These are Ukrainian towns – that’s Kyiv I recognize.

Tatiana Abramova: Yes, yah! It’s Kyiv.

Tatiana Abramova: Especially in the condition of war, we have to work. We have to pay taxes, we have to pay wage– salary to our employees. We have to work, don’t stop.

Holly Williams: Why does that help Ukraine win the war?

Tatiana Abramova: Because economy is the foundation of everything.

American officials from USAID – the agency in charge of international development – helped Abramova find new customers overseas. In the midst of war, her company is supporting over 70 families.

Please follow the link to read further details. The interesting thing about this information is that it was shown on “60 Minutes,” generally a left-wing news source that supports the Ukrainian War. I wonder if this is an indication that the mainstream media is reading the tea leaves and giving up on convincing Americans that funding Ukraine is a good use of our tax dollars.

Equal Justice Under The Law?

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CBS News reported the following on Wednesday:

Jussie Smollett walked out of a Chicago prison on Wednesday night. An appeals court earlier cleared the way for his release, ordering the actor be released from jail after posting a personal recognizance bond of $150,000, and pending the appeal of his conviction for lying to police about a racist and homophobic attack.

…Smollett’s attorneys had argued that he would have completed the sentence by the time the appeal process was completed and that Smollett could be in danger of physical harm if he remained in jail.

…He (Smollett defense attorney Nenye Uche) criticized the special prosecutor’s decision to charge Smollett again after the initial charges were dropped by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and he paid a fine. He also called Judge James Linn’s sentence excessive for a low-level felony, adding that the appellate court doesn’t “play politics.”

“The real question is: Should Black men be walked into jail for a class 4 felony? Shame on you if you think they should,” Uche said.

The office of the special prosecutor called the claim that Smollett’s health and safety were at risk “factually incorrect,” in a response to his motion, noting that Smollett was being held in protective custody at the jail.

I hate to be difficult (but I am good at it), but what difference does it make that Jussie Smollett is black? What is the normal sentence for a class 4 felony? The color of the person who committed the crime should have absolutely no bearing on the sentence!

Now let’s contrast this event with another recent event.

On March 7th, Red State reported the following:

You don’t see this very often in federal court, but one of the January 6 (J6) Defendants, Lucas Denney, is being held illegally. He was arrested in Texas on December 13, 2021, and brought before a federal magistrate, who ordered him detained without bond on a criminal Complaint. It then took six weeks to transfer him to DC, where he is currently being held. He has not appeared before a federal judge in DC since his arrival, although that will change Monday afternoon as a result of his lawyer seeking his release.

The article at Red State concludes:

And Denney’s case shows that apparently no one at DOJ, either at the U.S. Attorneys’ Office in D.C., at Main Justice, or in the U.S. Marshal’s Service, is paying attention to (or better yet tracking) these outside-of-D.C. pre-trial detention cases to ensure that the detainees are receiving all of the due process protections to which they are entitled and that the constitutional and statutory deadlines are met. Since it is the DOJ J6 prosecution team that is ordering arrests (instead of voluntary surrenders) and demanding detentions and transfers (instead of seeking reasonable conditions for pre-trial release), the failure to comply with the Constitution, the criminal code, and the Rules of Criminal Procedure rests entirely at the feet of the DOJ.

The operative principles and rules for these early proceedings in criminal cases are not obscure, complex, or ambiguous. Competent prosecutors have no excuse for not knowing that Rule 5 requires that the Preliminary Hearing take place in the district where the Initial Appearance occurs, that it must be held within 14 days of that Initial Appearance, that there is no such thing as two “Initial Appearances,” and that the Speedy Trial Act requires an indictment to be filed within 30 days of arrest.

The entire episode is an unmitigated disgrace.

We have become a banana republic.

This Is What Desperation Looks Like

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Remember when you were a child or were raising children and anything bad that was done in the house was done by “not me”? It seems as if the Biden administration learned that lesson well. They are desperately trying to avoid responsibility for the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Afghanistan.

Yesterday Breitbart reported that CBS News is claiming that climate change is responsible for strengthening the Taliban. Really? President Jefferson was dealing with the Barbary Pirates during his term as President. Did climate change strengthen them?

The article at Breitbart reports:

CBS News has blamed “climate change” for abetting the Taliban in their rise to power in Afghanistan, insisting that global warming has forced farmers into debt and into the arms of the Taliban.

In a risible report that has been compared to spoofs in the Babylon Bee and the Onion, CBS News asserted last week that Afghan farmers struggle to maintain productive crops and thus have to borrow funds to survive.

“When Afghans can’t pay off lenders, the Taliban often steps in to sow government resentment,” CBS News declared in its airtight “gotcha” report.

“If you’ve lost your crop and land or the Afghan government hasn’t paid enough attention then of course, the Taliban can come and exploit it,” the article states, citing Kamal Alam, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center.

CBS News does not bother explaining how “drought” and “flood-ravaged soil,” which have been a constant in Afghanistan for ages, are suddenly the result of “climate change.” They seem to assume that any weather-related phenomenon, no matter how commonplace, must somehow be related to global warming.

The article concludes:

In 2014, Charles B. Strozier, professor of history at the City University of New York, asserted that “environmental stressors and political violence are connected in surprising ways” and suggested driving hybrid cars as a way to thwart the Taliban’s war on girls.

“If more Americans knew how glacial melt contributes to catastrophic weather in Afghanistan — potentially strengthening the Taliban and imperiling Afghan girls who want to attend school — would we drive more hybrids and use millions fewer plastic bags?” Strozier asked rhetorically. “How would elections and legislation be influenced?”

I hate to disagree with the learned professor, but Islam has been waging war on women long before the automobile was invented. Sharia Law is the basis for the Taliban’s war on girls. Sharia Law goes back to the founding of Islam. While limiting our carbon footprint is an admirable goal, it will not improve the lives of the women left behind in Afghanistan.

China And The Paris

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On April 2nd, The New York Post reported:

Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed in the 2016 Paris accords to bring his country’s climate-warming greenhouse-gas emissions to a peak before 2030 and make China “carbon-neutral” by 2060, but reality tells the opposite story.

A new study shows that the People’s Republic generated over half of the world’s coal-fired power in 2020, up nine points (to 53 percent) from 2015 — the year before Xi made his pledge.

And China actually opened more coal plants in 2020 than it had in the prior three years combined — three times as many new coal plants as the entire rest of the world.

On February 19th, CBS News reported:

When the U.S. signed the agreement in 2016, its first NDC target was to get “in the range” of an economy-wide 17% drop below 2005 greenhouse gas levels by 2020. It also aimed to achieve a subsequent decrease of 9-11% of 2005 levels by 2025, meaning the U.S. would reduce greenhouse emissions by 26%-28% in the first ten years of the Paris Agreement.

So China gets to increase greenhouse gases until 2030 while we have to drop our greenhouse gas levels by 2025. Has anyone thought through the economic implications of this for each country?

Yesterday the U.K. Daily Mail reported that China released a greater volume of greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere in 2019 than all of the world’s developed nations put together.

The article reports:

The analysis considered six greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride. 

Global emissions have risen 11.4 per cent in the last decade to reach 52 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019, with China responsible for 27 per cent of this.

The second-worst emitter was the US — accounting for 11 per cent of the total — with India edging out the EU for the first time to come in third at 6.6 per cent.

The article at the U.K. Daily Mail paints a sympathetic picture of China’s increase in greenhouse emissions, stating that since greenhouse gases linger, other civilized nations have been contributing to the total for many more years than China. That still does not change the fact that the Paris climate accord ties the hands of the United States economy while giving China a free ride.

Editing The News To Promote The Narrative

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There are two very dangerous narratives making the rounds right now. The first is that policemen are racially-motivated killers and the second is that gun control will end mass shootings. Both are false, but both are parroted endlessly by the major media. Recently a video was edited to add to the narrative (and change the entire scenario of the video).

Yesterday Townhall posted an article about CBS’s airing of the video of the shooting death of Adam Toledo in Chicago. Adam Toledo was a thirteen-year-old young man shot by a policeman at 2 am. The entire video of the shooting shows Adam Toledo with a gun as the policeman is pursuing him. Somehow CBS edited out the frame of the video that shows the gun when they aired the video on television.

The article reports:

It’s horrible to watch, but Toledo was armed. It’s clear in the footage, but if you were to watch CBS News’ clip—that frame is omitted. It would seem the hatchet crew at the network went to work to construct yet another false narrative. They went after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over a non-existent pay-to-play scheme involving Publix, the state’s largest grocery chain who contributed to his campaign, and a vaccine distribution deal. We’ve seen the full exchange between DeSantis and the reporter who tried to lob this grenade. It blew up in CBS’ face, but they’ve doubled down because they’re all terrible people. This instance is no different…

The article concludes:

Now is not the time to be playing games or trying to manufacture fake ‘woke’ narratives about policing. I know you good people already know this, but for some—like those in the liberal media—never let a crisis go to waste, even if it means fomenting a situation where a whole city is set ablaze over a lie.

It truly is time to back up and look at the big picture–a thirteen-year-old gang member is out with another gang member at 2am on a school night. I don’t know the child’s home situation, but it is probably a safe bet he does not come from an intact two-parent family. What is his school like? What sort of education is he getting? Why did he feel the need to be part of a gang? Are those the issues we need to begin to address rather than vilifying a policeman for shooting an armed suspect fleeing arrest? The death of Adam Toledo is tragic, but more tragic is the fact that the root causes behind that death are not being looked at and corrected.

This Is Not Going To End Well

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CBS News is reporting today that Oregon is the first state to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of street drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

The article reports:

The Oregon drug initiative will allow people arrested with small amounts of hard drugs to avoid going to trial, and possible jail time, by paying a $100 fine and attending an addiction recovery program. The treatment centers will be funded by revenues from legalized marijuana, which was approved in Oregon several years ago.

“Today’s victory is a landmark declaration that the time has come to stop criminalizing people for drug use,” said Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which backed the measure.

…Voters in New Jersey and Arizona approved measures legalizing marijuana for adults age 21 and older. In New Jersey, the Legislature now will have to pass another measure setting up the new marijuana marketplace. The Arizona measure also allows people convicted of certain marijuana crimes to seek expungement of their records. The passage of the measure signaled a change of attitudes, after Arizona voters narrowly defeated a legal pot proposal in 2016.

South Dakota on Tuesday became the first state where voters authorized both recreational marijuana and medical marijuana via two separate initiatives in the same election. The legalization of recreational marijuana was approved by voters in Montana, and medical marijuana won approval in Mississippi.

I am not in favor of the legalization of marijuana. There are no guarantees that legal marijuana will be limited to those over 21–how many people under the age of 21 smoke cigarettes illegally? I am not convinced we understand the effect of marijuana on the brain of people under the age of 25. Legalizing marijuana does not improve our society–it simply reduces the productive impact of one sector of that society. Marijuana and other drugs have never been a positive force in any society.

A Test Of Mail-In Voting

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PJ Media posted an article yesterday about a test CBS News did to determine how successful voting by mail would be this November. Please follow the link to read the entire article. I am simply going to post the test results here.

The article reports:

The parameters of the test were simple and straightforward. CBS mailed 100 ballots to locations across Philadelphia in an experiment to see how long it took the ballots to arrive. A post office box was set up to receive the returned ballots.

A few days later, another 100 ballots were mailed to another 100 locations in the city. The results should frighten Democrats who claim they are all about “every vote being counted.”

A week after initial ballots were sent, most ballots appeared to be missing from the P.O. box.

“I don’t see anything back there for you,” a postal worker told Dokoupil when he received the mail. “That’s all I have back there right now.”

After asking for a manager and explaining the situation to them, the votes were found.

“They had them somewhere else,” the postal worker said.

…Out of the initial batch mailed a week earlier, 97 out of 100 votes had arrived. Three simulated persons, or 3% of voters, were effectively disenfranchised by mail by giving their ballots a week to arrive. In a close election, 3% could be pivotal.

Four days after mailing the second batch of mock ballots, 21% of the votes hadn’t arrived.

According to Postal Service recommendations, “voters should mail their return ballots at least one week prior to the due date.”

However, nearly half of all states still allow voters to request ballots less than a week before the election.

Democrats who are pushing this notion that a mail-in election won’t be any different from an in-person election should listen to the voters who are far more grounded in reality.

“I’m scared that it might get lost in the mail,” potential voter Kim Tucker said. “I just want to make sure that my vote is submitted, like, I see that it’s submitted, that it actually counts.”

The November election is shaping up to be the mother of all clusterfarks. At every level — federal, state, and local — election officials are sounding the alarm. The system was not built to handle 120 million mailed ballots. Processing and protecting those ballots is beyond the abilities of almost every state.

The article concludes:

The concern is not only over the integrity of the ballot. The avalanche of legal challenges to the results will almost certainly run for years and may even delay state and local legislatures from sitting.

Democrats will bring all of this on themselves. It’s a shame that the rest of us are going to suffer for their stupidity.

Stay tuned.

Distorting A Quote To Fit An Agenda

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It’s no secret that the mainstream media does not like President Trump. It is no secret that they were hoping to celebrate the election of Hillary Clinton as President. Okay. They’re biased–but that is no excuse for totally distorting the truth to create the narrative that President Trump is a dictator controlling the Justice Department (his predecessor pretty much did that with the IRS, the New Black Panthers, the Russian Hoax, etc.). There is no evidence that President Trump has spied on political opponents or newsmen (James Rosen) or done any of the things the media has routinely accused him of. So why am I surprised when they take a quote totally out of context to make President Trump look bad? This is the story in an article posted at Just The News yesterday.

The article reports:

Meet the Press,” the signature news show hosted by Chuck Todd, apologized Sunday and admitted it had deceptively edited a video clip of Attorney General William Barr after the Justice Department cried foul.

I guess we should be grateful that they apologized.

The article explains:

The episode began when Todd aired a clip of CBS News’ Catherine Herridge asking how history would judge the DOJ’s decision to dismiss the Michael Flynn criminal case. The clip showed Barr initially laughing before saying,” History is written by the winners, so it largely depends on who’s writing the history.”

Todd immediately comments that he was “struck by the cynicism of the answer — it’s a correct answer, but he’s the attorney general. He didn’t make the case that he was upholding the rule of law. He was almost admitting that, yeah, this was a political job.”

But Barr did says in the CBS interview he felt the Flynn decision upheld the rule of law, which “Meet the Press” failed to air.

“I think a fair history would say it was a good decision because it upheld the rule of law,” Barr said. “It upheld the standards of the Department of Justice, and it undid what was an injustice.”

A short while later, Barr’s spokeswoman went to Twitter to sharply criticize the NBC show.

Fortunately we currently have a Department of Justice that calls out fake news.

The article notes:

A short while later, Barr’s spokeswoman went to Twitter to sharply criticize the NBC show.

“Very disappointed by the deceptive editing/commentary by @ChuckTodd and @MeetThePress on AG Barr’s CBS interview,” Kerri Kupec tweeted. “Compare the two transcripts below. Not only did the AG make the case in the VERY answer Chuck says he didn’t, he also did so multiple times throughout the interview.”

A short while later, the official “Meet the Press” Twitter account posted an apology.

“You’re correct. Earlier today, we inadvertently and inaccurately cut short a video clip of an interview with AG Barr before offering commentary and analysis,” the tweet said. “The remaining clip included important remarks from the attorney general that we missed, and we regret the error.”

Excuse my cynicism, but they don’t regret the error–they regret being publicly called out for the error. Errors like that–because many people will not see the apology–are one of many reasons the country is divided.

Good News About Life Expectancy In America

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CBS News posted an article today stating that the average life expectancy in the United States has increased for the first time in four years.

The article reports:

Life expectancy in the United States is up for the first time in four years.

The increase is small — just a month — but marks at least a temporary halt to a downward trend. The rise is due to lower death rates for cancer and drug overdoses.

“Let’s just hope it continues,” said Robert Anderson, who oversees the report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The article notes:

Cancer is the nation’s No. 2 killer, blamed for about 600,000 deaths a year, so even slight changes in the cancer death rate can have a big impact. The rate fell more than 2%, matching the drop in 2017.

“I’m a little surprised that rapid pace is continuing,” said Rebecca Siegel, a researcher for the American Cancer Society.

Most of the improvement is in lung cancer because of fewer smokers and better treatments, she said.

Also striking was the drop in drug overdose deaths that had skyrocketed through 2017. The death rate fell 4% in 2018 and the number of deaths dropped to about 67,400.

Deaths from heroin and prescription painkillers went down. However, deaths from other drugs — fentanyl, cocaine and meth — continued to go up. And preliminary data for the first half of 2019 suggest the overall decline in overdose deaths is already slowing down.

It’s still a crisis, said Katherine Keyes, a Columbia University researcher. “But the fact that we have seen the first year where there’s not an additional increase is encouraging.”

The article concludes:

Nationally, for all causes of death, more than 2.8 million Americans died in 2018. That’s about 26,000 more than the year before, the CDC report found. The number went up even as the death rate went down, because the population is growing and a large group consists of retirement age baby boomers.

Hopefully we can find a way to stem the plague of illegal drugs in America.

Sometimes It Takes A While For The Truth To Come Out

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Newsbusters posted an article today confirming something President Trump has been asserting for quite some time.

The article reports:

President Donald Trump’s strategic silence on Puerto Rico’s earthquakes, while greenlighting billions of dollars in aid and a new major disaster declaration for the stricken U.S. territory, is forcing the liberal media into a most uncomfortable place…acknowledging that he was right all along.

Earlier this week, The Washington Post attempted to redeploy ye olde Hurricane Maria playbook, in order to commoditize human suffering for Democrat political gain. This ham-fisted close to their editorial gave the game away:

Still, it is worth remembering that many Puerto Ricans were forced to leave the island after Maria and are now living — and will be able to vote — in swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania. Presumably many of them will remember how the island has been treated.

It is important to recall that the national media was asleep at the switch during the initial aftermath of Hurricane Maria –devoting coverage instead to the president’s tweets regarding the NFL. In fact, the liberal media didn’t begin to cover Maria’s terrible aftermath until there was a clear anti-Trump angle as embodied by the radical, separatist mayor of San Juan, who rode her post-Maria notoriety all the way to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign — where she now serves as national co-chair.

The article concludes:

Additionally, the island was roiled by news that much-needed relief supplies sat in a warehouse as earthquake victims suffered- which only serves to bolster the president’s charge (one with which many Puerto Ricans agree, by the way) that the island’s government is corrupt and incompetent. Per CBS News:

Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced fired the island’s emergency management director on Saturday, after a video showing aid sitting unused in a warehouse went viral on social media. Some of the aid has allegedly been sitting in the warehouse since Hurricane Maria struck in 2017.

“There are thousands of people who have made sacrifices to help those in the south, and it is unforgivable that resources were kept in the warehouse,” Vázquez said in a statement. 

With no obvious anti-Trump angle to chase, the liberal media (with the continued exception of CBS’s David Begnaud) is forced to cover the issue itself, to wit: the earthquakes that have rattled Puerto Rico, and the local government’s continued inability to adequately respond to an emergency due to institutionalized corruption and incompetence. Trump was right after all.

The start of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is four and a half months away.

This is typical of countries where corruption reigns–many of the famine problems around the world have more to do with the distribution of food rather than a shortage of food. Dictators around the world have often used food as a weapon to keep their populations under control. In this case, the corruption in Puerto Rico was such that the aid never reached the people who needed it–it remained in warehouses. Meanwhile, the Mayor of San Juan has moved forward to work on the Bernie Sanders campaign.

The Thin Line Of Censorship

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A friend of mine who is in radio advertising tells me that radio stations do not have the ability to refuse political ads. During an election season, a station must air all ads that a political campaign pays for. Evidently this is the result of the fact that radio stations are controlled by the Federal Communications Commission. Unfortunately the new media is very loosely controlled by anything. This is a very mixed blessing. I don’t want the government telling me that I have to accept political ads on my blog whether or not I agree with the ads. However, the censorship of conservative speech that is going on at YouTube, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc., is not acceptable.

Breitbart is reporting today that according to a report by 60 minutes more than 300 of President Donald Trump’s political ads have taken down by Google and its video platform YouTube, mostly over the summer.

The article reports:

The CBS reporters were unable to find specific reasons for the mass takedowns of Trump ads, a common problem with social media companies, which are often reluctant to explain precisely why a ban or other act of censorship has happened. “We found very little transparency in the transparency report,” concluded 60 Minutes.

The article includes the following quote from CBS News:

60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Wojcicki, “Have you taken down any of President Trump’s ads at all?” YouTube’s CEO responded, “There are ads of President Trump that were not approved to run on Google or YouTube.” When pressed for an example, Wojcicki added, “Well, they’re available in our transparency report.”

In response to concerns raised after the 2016 election cycle, Google and YouTube, like Facebook, keep a searchable archive of political ads that have run on the site.

60 Minutes reviewed the archive to learn more about President Trump’s problematic political ads. We found that over 300 video ads were taken down by Google and YouTube, mostly over the summer, for violating company policy. But the archive doesn’t detail what policy was violated. Was it copyright violation? A lie or extreme inaccuracy? Faulty grammar? Bad punctuation? It’s unclear. The ads determined to be offending are not available to be screened. We found very little transparency in the transparency report. 

We are coming into a very important election season. American voters need to hear both sides of every campaign. We already know that the mainstream media is extremely biased. How are people supposed to get information when free speech is being suppressed?

I Know This Is Simply An Incredible Coincidence, But…

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CBS News is breathlessly reporting today that Congress Justin Amash is the first Republican Congressman to call for the impeachment of President Trump. Wow. That’s really amazing. Well, maybe not. Let’s take a look at Congressman Amash and some of his financial interests. Congressman Amash represents Michigan’s Third District.

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse reported:

Michigan Republican Congressman Justin Amash made headlines Saturday by declaring on Twitter that President Trump deserved impeachment.  The media was quick to promote his position and advance an anti-Trump narrative.  However, a review of Amash’s financial interests quickly reveals a very personal business motive.  His family tool business is heavily invested in Chinese manufacturing.

In his 2017 financial disclosure forms (pdf here), Representative Amash reports income of between $100,000 to $1,000,000/yr. for his ownership stake in Michigan Industrial Tools.  Michigan Industrial Tools is the parent company, manufacturing in China, that produces Tekton Tools, Justin Amash’s Michigan family business.

…It is demonstrably a fact (as above) that “Michigan Industrial Tools” operates as a manufacturer in China, and the product they produced is Tekton Tools which is Amash’s family company (as admitted in the interview).

Obviously President Trump’s tariff and trade position against China is adverse to the financial interests of Justin Amash.

So Congressman Amash’s motives might not be entirely pure. China has had a trade war going on with America for many years. They have manipulated their currency to give themselves and unfair advantage and the have stolen intellectual property. It is wonderful that we finally have a President who is willing to stand up against these unfair trade practices. Unfortunately those Americans who have benefited because of these unfair trade practices are not going to meet the attempts to level the playing field with enthusiasm.

It is truly sad when a Congressman puts his own personal financial interests above the interests of the people he is supposed to be serving. The answer to Congressman Amash’s financial problem is not the removal of President Trump–it is a change in the trading practices of China to create a  more equitable balance of trade.

Israel Is Going To The Moon

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CBS News reported yesterday that on Thursday night Israel launched a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral. The rocket launched an Indonesian communications satellite into orbit and carried a small Israeli spaceship that is scheduled to land on the moon in April. The mission is privately-funded.

The article reports:

If successful, the $100 million mission will put Israel in an exclusive club, joining the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia and China as only the fourth nation in space history to pull off a powered landing on the moon.

“This is going to be the first private interplanetary mission that’s going to go to the moon. This is a big milestone,” said Yonatan Winetraub, co-founder of SpaceIL, the non-profit that is promoting the mission to boost STEM education initiatives across Israel.

“This is going to be the first time that it’s not going to be a superpower that’s going to go to the moon. This is a huge step for Israel.”

The article describes the Israeli spaceship and its mission:

Landing on the moon’s Mare Serenitatis is targeted for April 11. During the final descent to the surface, a magnetometer will measure the local magnetic field before the main engine shuts down at an altitude of about 16 feet. From there, the spacecraft will free fall to the surface.

Beresheet is equipped with a high-resolution camera to capture panoramic views of the landing site to help scientists better understand the area. The spacecraft also carries a small “time capsule” loaded with cultural artifacts, including a copy of the Bible engraved on a coin-size disk.

“We have a vision to show off Israel’s best qualities to the entire world,” said Sylvan Adams, a Canadian-Israeli businessman and philanthropist who contributed to the SpaceIL project and is an enthusiastic, if unofficial, “ambassador.”

Payloads aside, the Falcon 9 launching was of vital importance to NASA, helping clear the way for the March 2 launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon astronaut ferry ship on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station. NASA plans to hold a flight readiness review Friday.

Space exploration is moving to the private sector.

Why Isn’t News Just News?

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This blog is an opinion blog. The name of the blog tells you what to expect. I don’t claim to be objective news, but I try to report things that I believe the mainstream media might have missed. The problem in news occurs when a news source claims to be objective, but is only giving you one side of the story. Unfortunately, there is a lot of that going on.

CNS News posted a story on Friday about the news coverage of President Trump.

The article reports:

There may be fake news, but there’s no making up the media’s loathing of Donald Trump. The press has been unrelenting toward this president since day one – and Media Research Center’s data proves it. Even the 89 percent negativity from his early months almost seem benevolent now, with numbers in the 91-93 percent range (the latter, according to Harvard).

“Our latest numbers show that coverage of Trump on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts in September, October and November was more than 90 percent negative (our methodology counts only explicitly evaluative statements from reporters or non-partisan sources)” MRC explains. “In September, there were just 31 pro-Trump statements on the Big Three vs. 359 negative. In October, the number of positive statements grew to 41, while the negative statements swelled to 435.”

That is really sad. What we are witnessing now by the Democratic Party, the Washington establishment and the mainstream media is an attempted coup of a duly-elected President. Make no mistake, this group is well aware that the economic policies of the Trump Administration will be beneficial to all Americans. They are not stupid. They understand that a successful Trump presidency would illustrate that sometimes the answers to our nation’s problems are found outside the ‘club’ that has been in power for so long. Smart Americans will understand this media bias and find alternative sources of information.

Losing Touch

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It is no surprise to anyone living outside the bubble of Washington, D.C., California, or the Northeast that the mainstream media has totally lost touch with average Americans. There are a few general traits of average Americans that the media has forgotten. America was originally founded by people who were fleeing persecution and looking for religious freedom. There are still a number of us who consider religion an important part of our lives. Generally speaking, members of the mainstream media do not fall into that category. Many of the original British settlers to America were the second sons of their family. Under British law, they would receive no inheritance, so they set out to start from scratch in a new land. They understood the risks, but were willing to settle the new land. Personal responsibility and the risks included in that were part of our growth as a nation. The other trait that permeates our culture is cheering on the underdog. When someone is under constant attack or being bullied, Americans seem to rally to their side. That is something the mainstream media has overlooked in their frenzied attacks on President Trump. A recent article in The Conservative Treehouse illustrates that point.

The article states:

If you were to review how CNN and corporate mainstream media talk politics, well, according to their echo-chambered versions of President Trump, each week that passes is the worst week ever in presidential history.  Seriously, no joke. President Trump has been in office for 30 weeks, and 20 of those weeks have been called “the worst” by media.

However, if you actually engage with people living their lives and not focused on who the media blame for the latest round of horrid offenses; well, then you might recognize the scope of how over-emphasized and out-of-touch the media perspective really is.

CBS and The Associated Press each found themselves picking their corporate media jaws off the floor when they actually did ask people.  You know, ordinary people.  Folks like you and me.  The media didn’t anticipate the power of common sense to see through their BS.

There is also the analogy of the boy who cried wolf. Twenty of the thirty weeks President Trump has been in office have been described by the mainstream media as “the worst.” The seems more than a little over the top.

I am sure that the comments made in the video included in the article were a bit of a shock to the media. Here is the video:

The video is from CBS News. I am somewhat amazed that they were willing to release it.

Did CBS Report The News Or Manipulate The News?

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President Obama was re-elected in 2012. He won. The Republican Candidate was portrayed as an out-of-touch rich man who caused people to die of cancer. When he warned of the dangers of Russian aggression, Mitt Romney was told, “The 80’s called, they want their foreign policy back.” It was a big joke. And when Mitt Romney pointed out that it took President Obama 14 days to admit the Benghazi attack was terrorism President Obama balked, saying he did it that day.

Well, CBS News edited out part of a ‘60 Minutes‘ interview with President Obama on the day after the Benghazi attacks. During the interview, the President stated, “Well, it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved. but, obviously, it was an attack on Americans.” 

Yesterday, Breitbart.com posted an article about the incident. The article reports:

(Investigative Journalist Sharyl) Attkisson said, “Let me say that that exchange should have been pulled out immediately after the debate, which would have been very newsy at the time. It was exclusive to CBS. It would have to me proven Romney’s point against Obama. But that clip was kept secret.”

“I was covering Benghazi, nobody told me we had it and directed me from the ‘Evening News’ to a different clip of the same interview to give the impression that the president had done the opposite. And it was only right before the election that somebody kind of leaked out the transcript to others of us as CBS and we were really shocked. We saw that was something very unethical done to have kept that up.”

She added, “The ‘Evening News’ people who had access to that transcript, according to the emails that I saw when it was sent from ’60 Minutes’ to ‘Evening News’ the very day it was taken, they, in my view, skipped over it, passed it up, kept it secret. And I think that was because they were trying to defend the president and they thought that would be harmful to him.”

I don’t know whether airing that exchange would have changed any votes. I don’t know how well-informed the people who voted for President Obama were. I do know, however, that it was unethical to edit that exchange out of the interview. It prevented the American voters from getting a true picture of the events at Benghazi and the President’s reaction to those events.

 

Sharyl Attkisson Continues Her Work As A Good Reporter

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I have previously posted articles about the work of Sharyl Attkisson, who left the Washington bureau of CBS News after realizing that they were not interested in actual investigative reporting on the Obama Administration. She is continuing her work as an independent reporter, using the tools often used by Judicial Watch to get information from a less-than-transparent Obama Administration.

The Daily Signal is reporting today that Sharyl Attkisson has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services to obtain information about the rollout of ObamaCare last year.

The article reports:

The former CBS News reporter and Emmy award-winning journalist won’t be going alone; the legal group Judicial Watch will represent her in court.

The lawsuit follows four unsuccessful Freedom of Information Act requests. In October 2013 and again in June of this year, Attkisson requested information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) concerning the efficiency and security of the HealthCare.gov website.

All four requests went unanswered.

The government’s GSA website explains the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA):

The 1966 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) permits any person to request access to federal agency records or information. Federal agencies are required to disclose records upon receipt of a written request, except for records that are protected from disclosure by nine exemptions or three exclusions in the Act.

Another government website lists the exceptions:

1) classified national defense and foreign relations information,

(2) internal agency rules and practices,

(3) information that is prohibited from disclosure by another law,

(4) trade secrets and other confidential business information,

(5) inter-agency or intra-agency communications that are protected by legal privileges,

(6) information involving matters of personal privacy,

(7) certain information compiled for law enforcement purposes,

(8) information relating to the supervision of financial institutions, and

(9) geological information on wells.

The article in The Daily Signal reports:

Attkisson admits that her lawsuit can never produce these lost documents “out of thin air,” but she said a court might help “get to the bottom of what occurred.”

Unfazed and optimistic, Attkisson wrote on her website that “It doesn’t hurt to try.”

We need more Sharyl Attkissons!

A Perspective From A Good Reporter Who Continues To Be A Good Reporter

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Sharyl Attkisson was part of the Washington bureau for CBS News. She resigned earlier this year when after investigating the Fast and Furious scandal and the Benghazi scandal, she realized that the network was not interested in reporting the stories she was investigating. The major networks have a political agenda, and they do not deviate from that political agenda regardless of how important a scandal is.

The video below is found on YouTube. It is Sharyl Attkisson on ABC This Week explaining how Watergate would be handled today:

More information on Sharyl Attkisson’s reporting can be found on her website.

Asking The Right Questions

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Sharyl Attkisson has done an amazing amount of good investigative reporting on the scandals in the Obama Administration. That reporting resulted in her being fired from CBS News, but she is still doing excellent work. On Saturday, June 14th, she posted an article at her website about the emails that were requested by the House Ways and Means Committee that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claims it has lost. Anyone who has any experience with computers understands that even in computer crashes, data can generally be recovered. This excuse for not complying with a request from a Congressional oversight committee does not hold water.

Ms. Attkisson has suggested a number of questions that should be asked of the IRS.

She suggests a number of questions, but this is the question that would probably get the most interesting results:

I would also ask for those who discovered and reported the crash to testify under oath, as well as any officials who reported the materials as having been irretrievably lost.

A friend of mine who blogs at datechguyblog.com put it this way:

That question suggests that not only political operatives and career bureaucrats would come under oath, but IT guys, computer techs, database and data recovery specialists.

It’s not unusual for a political operative to take a fall in order to be a “good soldier” under the theory that it is easier to get hired by a campaign or put in a government job or a friendly think tank after committing an ethical lapse than to be hired by a campaign or being employed by a friendly think tank after reporting on an ethical lapse.

This however doesn’t apply to the IT department, these guys can often find better work at a better wage outside of government and their expertese and ability to get job is not tied to

It’s one thing to get a political hack to lie under oath or to take a fall to keep himself viable in that world, it’s quite another to get the non political people who have no real skin in the game to be willing to perjure themselves before congress in an attempt to claim incompetence.

These guys simply aren’t going to take the fall for a bunch of political hacks.

The clock is ticking, as soon as the IT guys are under oath the IRS scandal is going to explode and that blast is going to take a lot of people with them.

It is going to be an interesting summer.

The Information On Benghazi Continues To Drip Out

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Sharyl Attkisson continues to investigate the Benghazi cover-up and report on her findings. She is doing the job that CBS News should have been doing when she worked for them. Yesterday she posted an article at sharylattkisson.com with a link to a Department of State email showing that the State Department knew almost immediately that the attack at Benghazi was the work of Islamic militia terrorist group Ansar al Sharia.

This is the link to the email. The email is from Beth E. Jones, then-Assistant Secretary of State to Hillary Clinton.

This is the main part of the email:

BenghaziEmailSharyl Attkisson reports:

There is no uncertainty assigned to the assessment, which does not mention a video or a protest. The State Department provided the email to Congress in Aug. of 2013 under special conditions that it not be publicly released at that time. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sought and received permission to release it Thursday.

Why is this information coming out now? Because enough people have realized that there has been a cover-up of what actually happened at Benghazi, and many officials (as well as the American people) are tired of being lied to. The Obama Administration has successfully withheld documents and information about the Benghazi attack and the death of Christopher Stevens from Congress and the American people until very recently. It is because the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and those organizations such as Judicial Watch that we are becoming aware of the truth. Hopefully, when you vote in November, you will remember who helped with the cover-up and who helped reveal the truth.

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