Tag: CNN

Need to Know 8/6/18

While CNN’s Jim Acosta continues to suffer PTSD from being yelled at at a Trump rally, Carlos Bayon was just arrested in New York for threatening the families of Republican Representatives Steve Scalise and Cathy McMorris Rogers.  Bayon was apparently responding to the fake news reports detailing Obama’s era of putting illegal immigrant kids in cages as Trump era policy.  Bayon said in his threatening phonecalls that he would “feed them lead” referring to Scalise and McMorris Rogers’ families.  “Ojo por ojo, diente por diente. [“An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.”] That is our law and we are the majority. Have a good day.”  This comes as CNN commentators continue to fear that Trump calling fake media reports fake news will lead to violence against the press.

The threats from the anti-immigration enforcement terrorist come just over a year after Steve Scalise was shot at a Congressional soft ball game practice.  And only weeks after the Left led by Maxine Waters and Ocasio-Cortez began calling for ICE to be abolished.

Leftist terrorist threatens families of Republican lawmakers over immigration 

David Hogg was at it again.  Hogg showed up at the NRA headquarters to protest, among other things, America.  One one side he had Therese Okuomo, who he calls one of his biggest inspirations.  Okuomo is known for getting protesters together and chanting about America being fascist and horrible.  On the other side, Hogg ironically had armed guards.

David Hogg inspiration calls America a fascist KKK nation.

Twitter is in hot water after suspending the account of Candace Owens, a conservative commentator with Turning Point USA.  Owens crime was taking one of New York Times editorial writer Sarah Jeong’s many violent, racist tweets and replacing the word “white” with “Jew” and “black”.  While Jeong was left alone by Twitter when her attacks were towards white people, Owens was blocked despite the rest of the verbiage of the tweet being the same.  Twitter has since unblocked her account after the uproar and apologized.

Twitter thinks Sarah Jeong’s tweets were racist.  But only when someone else says it.

Need to Know 8/4/18

CNN has stepped up it’s nasty rhetoric towards American voters.  Jim Acosta, who was verbally assaulted by elderly Trump supporters at a rally, said things about those voters he would never say about Antifa crowds throwing urine and rocks at police officers.  David Gergen stated that if something happens to someone in the media the blood will be on Trump’s hands.  That’s interesting, I suppose he’s sort of admitting that Steve Scalise’s blood is on CNN’s hands.  It took until August 17, 2018 before a mainstream media outlet would actually call out Antifa as a violent group, even though they constantly physically confronted media members at their mob rallies.

Jim Acosta still crying about being insulted at a Trump rally

Speaking of media “whipping up violence”, the NYT’s new editorial board member Sarah Jeong had quite the opinion about cops.  In addition to calling for killing all men, Jeong also said equality and fairness would require homeless people to be able to murder cops with no repercussions.  In fact, Jeong didn’t just fantasize about violence against cops, but actually called for it on a couple occasions too.  I wonder if Jim Acosta has ever met Sarah Jeong?  I wonder if that would change his thoughts about how it’s conservative media ginning up violence because they occasionally use the phrase “fake news”?

New York Times editorial board member calls for killing all men and violence against cops

Another liberal judge, DC District Court Judge John Bates, has ruled that Obama’s DACA executive order cannot be repealed.  While he granted the administration time to come up with alternatives, this sets a very dangerous precedent.  The idea that executive orders could be made the eternal law of the land through judicial fiat removes the constitutional form of government that the United States was built on.  People who are afraid of Trump being a tyrant or dictator should have more fear of the precedent set here.  What protects us from tyranny is laws being written in Congress.  If Congress doesn’t want to replace the DACA executive order with a real law, the courts cannot just step in and make the DACA executive order the irreversible law of the land.   Both sides of the aisle should be upset about this ruling.  Or at least anyone who opposes tyranny and supports our constitutional form of government.

Sanders v. Acosta

This is a great bit of video.  Jim Acosta, butt hurt from getting booed at a Trump rally, asked Sarah Sanders to make a statement that the press is not the enemy of the people.  Well, he asked, pestered, interrupted, and talked over her but eventually got the question out.  This was in response to Ivanka Trump saying the press is not the enemy of the people, and President Trump agreeing, tweeting that the media is not the enemy of the people.

Perhaps Acosta thinks all of the media is fake news and that’s where he’s getting confused?

Anyway, Sanders didn’t give Acosta what he wanted, but rather reminded him of the many times the media has personally attacked her and that she is the first press secretary to require secret service protection.  Acosta got up and stormed out when she was done.  Here’s the clip of her response:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoX7zbltB6Y

Need to Know 7/26/18

There’s a double standard in how the media is treating Democrats versus how they treat Republicans.  I know, you’re in shock.  The latest example is Georgia candidate Stacey Abrams.  In Time Magazine’s “The South is Still Racist” edition, Abrams is pictured as the next rising star of the Democrat party; if only Georgians can overcome their racism and vote for her.  One thing that I found interesting was the coverage of her debt situation.  Abrams is $220,000 in debt.  It’s not mortgage debt.  Abrams owes the IRS about $50,000 and has student loan and credit card debt of about $170,000.  CNN Money excuses this as something everyone has.  In fact, her debt troubles prove she’s a charitable person and helped her develop her economic plans.

Contrast this with Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh.  Financial disclosures revealed that at one point he had over $60,000 in debt, maybe even as high as $200,000.  He has since paid it off.  CNBC’s article on his debt, which some have suggested disqualifies him from the Supreme Court, said “Don’t be like Brett”.  They chided him for how much money he wasted on interest payments.  Of course, Supreme Court justices don’t control state budgets.  Governors do.

MSM: Everyone has debt, just like Democrat Stacey Abrams.  It’s OK!

Also MSM: Don’t rack up debt like Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The war between Trump and CNN is heating up again.  After CNN aired secret taped conversations between Trump and his attorney, Trump banned a CNN reporter from covering White House events for the day.  Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen is now working with former Clinton attorney Lanny Davis.  Davis provided the secret tapes to CNN and CNN aired them.  The banned reporter tried to ask about the recordings and refused to leave after the press conference was over.  CNN was not banned, but that specific reporter who refused to leave was.

Trump bans CNN reporter after CNN airs secret conversations

Speaking of the Cohen tapes: Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis has promised there are more tapes to come.  But none of them feature Trump.  The Trump legal team made the decision to waive any sort of right to block the release of the tapes because Trump is only in the ones that have already been aired and no crimes were committed by Trump.  Sure, it’s embarrassing to Trump to have tapes out there discussing his private, immoral sex life.  But Trump isn’t going to make the mistake of covering it up, or worse, lying under oath about it.  That was it; it’s all out in the open.  The media may milk it for another week or two, but viewers will be as disappointed as they were when Rachel Maddow found and way over-hyped a page of Trump’s New York income tax return.  The Cohen tapes were a flash in the pan.

Cohen tapes turn out to be a whole lot of nothing for Trump

Need to Know 7/25/18

They can dish it out… Days after Sacha Baron Cohen’s “gotcha” show started airing, Democrats are up in arms over a video poking fun at Ocasio-Cortez.  Cohen’s show puts mostly GOP former politicians in a bad light through trickery, fake IDs, and playing on those individuals tendencies.  For example, to trick Sarah Palin into a gotcha moment, Cohen impersonated a disabled vet.

Allie Stuckey of CRTV figured turnabout was fair play.  Stuckey is known for using humor and satire in her videos.  She made a video of a satirical interview with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, using actual footage from Ocasio-Cortez’s disastrous real interviews where she fumbled on questions about Israel and unemployment.  Dems are not happy.  For example, the Independent complained that Stuckey’s video had gone viral and reached 1.5 million viewers before the Facebook police labeled it as satire.  Others have dubbed the satirical video “fake news”.  Cohen’s show debut only got 700,000 views.

Maybe they are jealous?

Democrats upset about being the butt of political satire

Trump is now the target of an incredible political attack from former Clinton attorney Lanny Davis.  Davis has secret tapes that Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen made discussing how they would pay a Playboy model for her story of an affair with Trump.  Cohen is working with US prosecutors in an investigation that has quickly turned into a Kenneth Starr type hunt into Trump’s past sex life.  Lanny Davis is representing Cohen and delivered the tapes of their private privileged conversations to CNN to air publicly.

New York is a one-party consent state, making the recordings legal.  Trump also waived his attorney-client privilege in the matter because paying off someone for a non-disclosure agreement is not illegal.  Cohen is being investigated for fraud, and Trump apparently didn’t want any shadow of that investigation hanging over him.  So far, Trump has not actually been the target of any of the investigations surrounding his campaign, Russian connections, or Cohen’s potential fraud.

Clinton lawyer gives secret Cohen/Trump tapes to CNN

ICE protesters have a race problem.  It turns out the people who showed up to protest ICE in Portland might be advocating for illegal immigrants, but they hate African Americans and citizen Hispanics.  Emails received by The Oregonian detail conversations between officers on site and their supervisors.  The protesters, according to the emails, barraged the African American officers with hateful language and slurs including the N-word.  Another officer, a Hispanic woman, was called a “weak female” and “traitor”.  “I was berated for so long I can’t even remember everything that was told to me.”

ICE protesters use racism and hate speech in Portland

Why Democrats Want Mueller Fired

There have been some interesting theories about why Special Investigator Robert Mueller was hired, why he has put together a legal team of Clinton donors, how fair he actually is, etc. I’d like to look at another theory, why Democrats want Mueller fired. While no Democrats have called for Mueller to be fired directly, it seems a little odd to me how the chips have fallen.

Consider this, on July 19 Trump gives an interview where he suggests that if Mueller starts investigating items outside of Russia that would be grounds for firing.  July 20 headline? Mueller expands probe to Trump business transactions. Citing unnamed officials, Bloomberg says Mueller is doing exactly what Trump said would get him fired. That’s a little too convenient for me.

Special prosecutors have a history of stepping out of bounds. Patrick Fitzgerald, already knowing it was Richard Armitage who leaked Valerie Plame’s name, put Scooter Libby in jail on trumped up obstruction charges so he could try to get to Dick Cheney. Kenneth Starr turned an investigation into a shady land deal into an impeachment trial for lying under oath about sex with an intern.  It’s very likely Democrats are hoping the Russia probe will turn into something similar. Or at least a back ally way to get their  white whale: Trump’s tax returns.

There is a lot of pressure on a special prosecutor to find something to justify their paycheck. Mueller’s team of Clinton donors also may have some incentive to find something. But getting fired could be just as good.

Mueller getting fired would still be a win for Democrats. I’m sure we can all imagine the headlines. Trump fired Comey on the recommendations of his Department of Justice. Comey had screwed up a couple investigations, based findings on the phony Russia dossier, been unclear about Trump not being under investigation, and after being fired Comey released classified info to the media to get Mueller hired in the first place.  But that didn’t stop the media from speculating about Comey’s firing being obstruction of justice.

Can you imagine the media field day if Trump fires Mueller? Every tin foil hat conspiracy theory cooked up by CNN and MSNBC over the last six months will be permanently believable even if never verified. Firing Mueller will permanently create the specter of the Nixonian President who got away with it.

For Democrats, that would be a much better result than if Mueller concluded his investigation empty handed.

The Left is out of Reasons

I didn’t vote for Trump.  There are many things, including his hands off approach to healthcare reform, that I don’t like about him.  But I’m not blinded by hatred for Trump. As Hamburg burns outside of the G-20 summit, back home the Left is slowly devolving in their arguments against Trump.  What started as a juvenile exercise in aimless hate for Trump’s appearance, mixed with legitimate hate for his equal level of childishness and bad behavior, has now turned into a fake news gotcha fest.  Each “story” is more ridiculous and irrelevant than the last.

Maybe Democrats are also tired of Obamacare. Rather than filling up twitter with defenses of Obamacare, as it slowly churns towards repeal, Democrats are more concerned about trivial fake news.

Take for example the Poland handshake snub imagined around the world.  The Left was gleeful as the wife of Poland President Andrzej Duda initially didn’t shake Trump’s hand.  She shook Melania’s.  Not shown in CNN’s edited video of the event was Mrs. Duda shaking Trump’s hand twice.  President Duda himself took to twitter to mock CNN for their phony reporting.

Then there was the content of Trump’s speech in Poland.  Trump praised Poland for time and time again defeating Communism, Fascism, and terrorism.  He talked extensively about how the Nazis tried to wipe out Western civilization and Polish culture, but Poland resisted. The Left hated him for it. Vox posted an op-ed about how Trump’s speech was an “alt-right manifesto”.

The only problem was, it wasn’t.  Funny enough, his speech was anti-fascism. Apparently the leftist Antifa movement is also pro-fascism.

What alt-left Antifa fail to realize is that “western civilization” does not equal British descendants. Both the alt-left and alt-right misunderstand that term. When Trump talks about western civilization, he is talking about democracy, freedom, melting pot, all the things that Communism, Fascism, and terrorist religious extremism are not. When Trump talks about America being great, only the Left and the far Right (Ann Coulter types) think he is talking about white men.  America isn’t great because it makes white men great. America is great because everyone here at some time in their family history came from somewhere to America to be Americans.

Today, the Left struck again. The target this time was Ivanka Trump, part of the American delegation to the G-20, who sat in for President Trump briefly one time. Immediately there were calls for Trump to be removed, attacks on Ivanka for being completely unqualified to sit in his chair, and charges of unprofessionalism.  But the only people who actually care are former Obama officials and Trump critics. When asked about it, German PM Merkel said it was common for delegates to have someone from their delegation sit in if they are called out briefly. Nothing to see here.

Meanwhile, fakenews site Leftscoop.com went so far as to say Trump skipped “many of his G20 meetings today”. Of course, this isn’t true.  Even CNN said he briefly stepped out of one meeting.  Leftscoop suggested that the only reason we would even know this is because Russian media were able to sneak a shot of it.  Also not true.  But the fake story has stoked anger on the Left.

Maybe it’s just the Left being the Left. They are the most anti-women group in the country when it comes to a conservative woman holding any sort of power. But I suspect it’s something even deeper.  The Left is so ready to jump, protest, and lose their minds about even the most irrelevant fake news, it could just be that they are out of real things to be upset about. Maybe they’ll prove me wrong and find an real issue that is still worth their time and effort.

Forget Russia, Let’s Talk About Germany

After Comey’s testimony, the Russia Trump collusion story has been downgraded to Birther level controversy.  Comey vindicated Trump, saying in fact that Trump was never even under investigation.  Comey has also said that Russia did not alter a single vote in the US election.  On the administration side, it seems as though the biggest issue is General Mike Flynn’s work with Russia and failure to disclose the payments he received. Yes Trump asked Comey to go easy on Flynn, but Trump also fired Flynn.

What did Russia do then?  Russia did not collude with the administration.  Russia did not change the votes.  They did not hack the electronic voting machines. Apparently it’s possible that Russia released Podesta’s emails, but the incriminating statements there came directly from Podesta and other DNC staffers.  At this point, it appears that Russia’s biggest sin was printing negative press and sometimes fake news about Hillary Clinton.

Russia did not print negative news about Hillary Clinton in order to elect Trump.  Unlike the Clinton’s campaign work to influence the GOP primary and make sure Trump won, Russia simply didn’t like Hillary Clinton.

Russia’s actions have been called an act of war.  Even some on the GOP side have called Russia’s actions an attempt to destroy our constitutional process and democracy.  Is this a valid accusation?  Does foreign media printing negative stories equate to election hacking?  Should we be sanctioning Russia because they printed negative stories about Hillary Clinton?

Let’s talk about Germany.  Harvard recently performed a study on various news outlets to see whether Trump was getting fair coverage.  The result is that Trump is getting more negative coverage than any of his predecessors.  Remember, negative press from foreign sources equals an act of war and destruction of our constitutional process.  So we should probably be concerned about Germany’s ARD news network’s 98% negative reporting rate on Trump.

Britain is another hacking nation that has declared war on the US through their media outlets.  Financial Times was negative about Trump 84% of the time, BBC 74% of the time.  When it comes to using media to influence US opinion, both Britain and Germany are just as guilty as Russia.

There’s one other problem worth mentioning.  The assault on the US and our constitutional processes is not being led by Russia or Germany.  It’s being led by the US. If unbalanced coverage and fake news equals everything the left and John McCain say it does, then we should be more concerned about CNN and NBC reporting negatively about Trump 93% of the time.  CBS was 91%, New York Times 87%, Washington Post 83%. Comey’s testimony discredited all of these US news outlets, forcing them to print retractions of fake news they had recently reported.

If the whole Russia thing boils down to their state media operations, I hope we can find a way to laugh at ourselves and move on with our lives. And to think, Obama kicked the Russian ambassadors out of our country over this.

The Russian Fiction

Obama complained for months about the Russians tampering with the US election to get Trump elected.  Apparently for all of Trump’s lack of political experience and his apparent intention to start World War III the first time he loses his temper, he is also somehow irresistible to the Russians.  It has nothing to do with Trump’s desire to sell the American uranium industry to the Russians, Hillary already did that.

For some unexplainable reason, Russia is willing to start a cyber war to install Trump.  So much so that they “hacked the election”.  They literally caused you to vote for Trump. The Russians worked intentionally to aide Trump.  I’m not even sure if we can call this America anymore or if we are just a puppet of Russia.  And of course, if Trump doesn’t denounce Russia and concede this sham election, he should be hung for treason, right?

Back to reality.

What does the media mean when they say Russia hacked the election?  Russia did not tamper with voting machines.  Russia did not funnel fake news to the mainstream media who then dutifully reported it.  In fact, the last major example we have of that was when the CIA told the President who told the media that Iraq had stockpiles of WMDs.  Russia did not get into your computer and use subliminal messages to make you feel like voting for Trump.  None of that happened.

In fact, it’s not clear that this was a Russian national effort.  Apparently the CIA has identified some Russian officials (unnamed) who might be involved.  But there’s another wrinkle.  The CIA might not even know what they are talking about.

The “hack” of the election wasn’t a hack of the election at all.  It was a hack of the DNC servers.  To be clear, no one invented the Podesta emails.  No one modified them.  Whoever the hackers are, whether Wikileaks who took responsibility for it or Russian officials according to the CIA, all they did was publish real, actual emails written by real, actual Democrat staffers.

According to the CIA, the hackers hit the GOP and DNC, but only released the DNC emails. The FBI disputes that, saying the GOP servers were never hacked.  If the GOP servers were never breached, that eliminates the CIA argument that the Russians were trying to hurt just the DNC.  In fact, the argument was flimsy to begin with.  It’s possible they hacked the GOP and just didn’t find anything incriminating.

So did Trump really win simply because Russia hacked the DNC?  Did people walk into the voting booth thinking to themselves “Gosh, I just can’t vote for a party that let’s their servers get hacked by the Russians”.  It seems like Hillary Clinton’s loss had a little bit more to do with what was on those emails.  Contained in the Podesta emails was evidence of media manipulation, CNN sending debate questions to Hillary ahead of time, racism within the party, Hillary’s health issues, and of all things proof that Team Hillary not only rigged the DNC primary, but also promoted Trump in the GOP primary because they thought they could beat him.

Just to make sure the reader caught that: Hillary Clinton and her team rigged both party’s primaries in 2016.

Problem emails didn’t just come from Wikileaks.  Team Hillary also got in trouble with the emails released by the FBI from her illegal server, and the undercover video of Scott Foval and others by Project Veritas.  Those two sources showed how the DNC bussed people across state lines to vote illegally, and even paid homeless people to go into Trump rallies and cause violence.  One would think the CIA might be interested in that.  At least one might think that had more to do with Hillary’s loss.

Calling on the Russians to hack and rig an election is nothing shockingly new.  Ted Kennedy did it in 1984 to try to get rid of Reagan. But the Russians didn’t decide the US election in 2016. If they are truly involved, all they did was shed light on the treacherous, terrible, racist, and illegal things the DNC was already doing to hack the election.

Maybe we should send them a thank you card.

Trump vs. The Media

On October 10 before a national debate with Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump pulled off the prank of the century on the media.  Dogged by an old video of Trump saying horrible, demeaning things about women, he invited the press to a meeting to discuss it and apologize.

When they arrived, Trump had a panel set up.  He was there with four women from the Clintons’ past.  Juanita Broaddrick was a woman Bill Clinton had raped, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones were two women Clinton had sexually harassed and assaulted, and Kathy Shelton was a lawyer who had represented a child rape victim in a case Hillary Clinton cheated to win for the defendant.  The war between Trump and the media was on, and Trump was up 1-0.

In a recent Washington Post article, they recognized Trump’s constant victories over the media and lamented how they really don’t know what to do about it.  Obama went as far as to blame Trump’s victory on bars and restaurants that play Fox News.  In fact, their recent attempt to marginalize competing news sources by labeling them as “fake” has become a parody itself as more information is released by Wikileaks showing how the mainstream media sent the Clinton campaign debate questions ahead of time, let them edit articles, and apologized if they thought an article was too harsh on her.

voting-boothWhile the Washington Post was calling out the “fake” right wing media for making claims that 3 million illegal aliens hacked the election by voting illegally, the New York Times was claiming that Putin and the Russians hacked the election by distributing fake news, hacking DNC emails, and possibly even interfering with the voting booths themselves. You can now identify which way a fake news source leans just by looking at who they think stole 2016.  This works for everyone from CNN and NYT to Fox News and Breitbart.

How do the mainstreams fix this and get back on the path to being trusted and having political influence?  It might help if they sought a truce.  The media has a very adversarial relationship with Trump.  On July 23, the Huffington Post put out a piece about how to defeat Trump. Disgraced, yet highly respected journalist Dan Rather said the media must do what he did to Bush and be more biased to beat Trump. The media that ignored Joe Biden for 8 years now has 24 hour surveillance on Trump’s Twitter account just waiting for a gaffe to jump on.

When Trump saved 1,000 jobs at Carrier, the media congratulated themselves for finding a silver lining in something Trump had done.  Then of course they predictably changed their minds on the deal labeling it an empty PR stunt that encourages crony capitalism.  It’s funny how Obama hasn’t even left office yet and suddenly stimulus, crony capitalism, and picking winners and losers is a bad thing again.

For the mainstream media to win again, it would help if they weren’t so obviously biased. They have become so predictable that we almost wonder if Trump says some of the more crazy things he says on purpose.  A prime example came this past week when Trump tweeted that flag burners should maybe get a year in jail.  Predictably, the media went crazy.  Typically blind NPR went running back to the 1980s to criticize Trump for making the same unconstitutional error that George HW Bush made.  In the process they skipped 2005 when Hillary Clinton co-sponsored a bill to put flag burners in jail for a year.  This of course has us all curious if Trump knew about Clinton’s bill, or if he just got extremely lucky.

If the media wants to beat Trump, they need to stop trying.  They need to go back to what they learned in journalism school and seek fact rather than substantiation of their truth. They need to ask questions again. Skepticism is a lost art.  A little balance wouldn’t hurt either.  CNN may be making a game changing move in their attempts to bring Megyn Kelly on board.

If they keep trying to be the propaganda wing of the Democrat party, Trump is going to keep beating them.