The Search For Truth

If you are trying to find real news, I suggest that you explore One America News and NewsMax. The mainstream media has forgotten how to tell the truth. The Washington Examiner posted an article today titled, “Four major journalistic errors in just 10 hours.”

The article reports:

1. The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman, for example, tweeted the following falsehood at around 5:30 p.m. Monday evening: “Republican voter registration in NH is down roughly 20k voters from 2016 to now. It’s a reminder that Trump’s increased GOP popularity is in part because in some places, the GOP registration rolls have shrunk.”

This is not only false, but it has been debunked several times. At some point, repeating the lie becomes a choice.

2. “When I ask people if they’re voting for Donald Trump, I hear about their 401(k)s a lot,” she (MSNBC’s Katy Tur) said during a live broadcast from New Hampshire, “but there are those out there who don’t have a 401(k), and there are those out there who this economy is not really working for them.”

Tur added, “They might have a job, but it’s not a job that pays their bills. They can get a car, but it’s a loan that will take 30 years.”

I have no idea what she is talking about. I don’t think even she knows. (What else is new?) Car loans can take anywhere between 12 and 84 months to pay off. Who are these people agreeing to 30-year car loans? (Follow up question: Are they looking to finance a new car? No reason.)

3. Earlier that morning, CNN’s Cristina Alesci warned viewers to be wary of recently surfaced audio of 2020 Democratic candidate Mike Bloomberg proudly promoting the stop-and-frisk policies he championed as mayor of New York City. After all, the CNN reporter claimed, as we don’t have the full audio of the former mayor’s remarks, we don’t have the full context. But this is not true. The full audio of Bloomberg’s comments has been available online since 2015.

“So, here’s the thing, important context here,” she said. “We don’t have the full tape.”

Alesci, who, by the way, is an alumna of the Bloomberg News empire, continued, “So, this is obviously snippets that have been released, the podcaster and the writer that released this sound is clearly a Bernie supporter, if you look at his twitter feed, he’s very anti-Bloomberg. He’s promoting a hashtag ‘#BloombergIsARacist.'”

A simple Google search brings up the full audio, which was posted shortly after Bloomberg delivered his address in 2015 at the Aspen Institute. Also, all that stuff about the alleged political affiliations of the person who posted the audio online Monday evening is irrelevant to the content of the surging 2020 candidate’s past remarks.

4. Lastly, and relatedly, there is NBC News’s Heidi Przybyla. She shared a conspiracy theory at around 7:30 a.m. alleging that the Kremlin is responsible for making the hashtag “#BloombergIsRacist” a top-trending news topic on social media. The hashtag, which is definitely organic, cropped up Tuesday morning following the release of the Bloomberg audio. Przybyla later deleted her tweet promoting the conspiracy theory, which she had not even bothered to double-check before sharing with her 145,000 Twitter followers.

All of that misinformation occurred within a 10-hour span. If you are depending on those sources for accurate information, you might want to reconsider.

This Could Get Very Interesting

The U.K. Telegraph reported on Wednesday that MI6 chiefs are secretly battling Donald Trump to stop him publishing classified information linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. 

The article reports:

The UK is warning that the US president would undermine intelligence gathering if he releases pages of an FBI application to wiretap one of his former campaign advisers.

However Trump allies are fighting back, demanding transparency and asking why Britain would oppose the move unless it had something to hide.

It forces the spotlight on whether the UK played a role in the FBI’s investigation launched before the 2016 presidential election into Trump campaign ties to the Kremlin.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article on Wednesday that reminds us of some of the possible reasons for the problem:

In 2016 candidate Trump supported Brexit; the professional political class in the U.K. were vehemently against it. Additionally, candidate Trump was openly challenging the structure of NATO and demanding changes to the alliance. This was antithetical to the interests of the U.K. government and likely sent shockwaves through their collectivist system when candidate Trump won the GOP nomination. The Brits had a strong motive to see Trump destroyed and aligned with weaponized U.S. intelligence toward that end.

As President, Mr. Trump, has held true to his campaign promises and forced the British -and the EU writ large- to be more responsible for their own military security. President Trump has challenged the post-WW2 NATO structures and forced the EU to pay more for their defense. Many member nations are vocally unhappy with this shifted landscape because it means less money for liberal/socialist causes. [Note: Including Canada]

Lastly, the U.K. and E.U. (mostly German anxiety) are facing a much tougher trade objective as outlined by President Trump. The trade conflict is costing them billions in addition to their increased need to spend on their own defense via NATO to keep Trump off their back. He might be just one man, but President Trump has them surrounded.

President Trump is not allowing the same one-way benefits within the U.S. trade relationship with the EU; and as he highlighted with the use of tariffs, he is not hesitant to smash the EU economy (mostly Germany) with crippling auto-tariffs if needed.

Trump is leveraging access to the U.S. markets as pressure on the Europeans to comply with U.S. demands. The Europeans, including the British, are not used to this level of confrontation from the U.S. Their economic frames of reference surround acquiescence from prior American presidents. They are increasingly unnerved and the horrible President Trump simply doesn’t care.

And then there’s the newly emphasized Iran sanctions… the economic MOAB that threatens any/all European interests who might dare to get caught doing business with the Iranian regime. President Trump has shown he is not the least bit hesitant to pull the trigger on Treasury penalties against any nation or multinational interest who would defy the sanctions.

Simply put, the Brits did not like the idea of an American President who put America first. The question remains as to what they actually did about it.

Priorities Please

Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an article by Senator John McCain about President Obama’s recent visit to Alaska. During that visit, the President focused his attention on the cataclysmic threat of climate change. (For accurate information on climate change, see wattsupwiththat. It is the world’s most viewed website on climate change)

Senator McCain reports:

Some of my Senate colleagues and I recently returned from the Arctic, and while we saw the challenges of melting polar ice, we also saw a greater and more immediate threat. It is a menace that many assumed was relegated to the past: an aggressive, militarily capable Russian state that is ruled by an anti-American autocrat, hostile to our interests, dismissive of our values, and seeking to challenge the international order that U.S. leaders of both parties have maintained for seven decades.

Vladimir Putin’s neo-imperial ambitions are clear enough in his attempt to dominate Russia’s neighbors, Ukraine most of all. But his ambitions increasingly extend to the Arctic and Europe’s northern flank. That is where I and my colleagues met with leaders and security officials from Norway, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Is President Obama ignoring this threat or is this part of his promise to ‘be more flexible’ in dealing with Russia in his second term?

On Tuesday, CBN News reported:

The president says the science about climate change gets clearer every day and proves it’s no longer a distant threat.

And he’s right that Alaska’s climate is changing. Summer snow is forecast for this Friday amidst a cooling period. Alaska’s climate has been changing for a long time.

The poster child for climate change in Alaska, the Mendenall glacier, which is melting, was already melting in the 1700s and, according to scientists, had retreated one mile by the 1900s.

Some scientists say Alaska has been warming because of a reversal in the Pacific decadal oscillation, a 60-year cycle that sends warmer air to Alaska.

I am the least scientific person I know, but even I know that there are such things are natural climate cycles. Those cycles are what has enabled The Farmer’s Almanac to be one of the most accurate forecasters of weather on the planet. They have been using the same formula to predict weather that was used before computer forecasting came into vogue. Oddly enough, The Farmer’s Almanac predictions have proved to be more accurate than the computer models scientists have created. The climate is changing. The climate is always changing. The question is how much man is responsible for the changes. There was a long period of global warming during the Middle Ages, but somehow I cannot picture it being caused by the Lord of the Manor running around in his SUV.

Global warming is not the greatest threat America faces as a country. The greatest threat we face as a country is the increasing boldness of people who wish to do us harm that are spurred on by the fact that we have a weak President. That is our greatest threat.