Tag: #fakenews

CNN reports that CNN doesn’t lie

CNN had continued to ignore questions about their suspect reporting until Trump called them out on Twitter last night.  CNN was recently busted for using Lanny Davis as an anonymous source for a story he later admitted he made up.  Additionally, When Davis fed CNN the anti-Trump story, CNN wrote that they reached out to him for comment and he declined.  This was a blatant lie.  As media outlets began to question CNN’s story implicating Trump in the infamous Trump Tower meeting, it quickly became apparent that either the story was bunk or Michael Cohen had committed perjury in his earlier congressional testimony.  Lanny Davis, who represents Cohen, then admitted that the story was fake news and that he was CNN’s anonymous source.

CNN refused to back away from the story and even now supports it in true Dan Rather style.  Last night, Trump called them out for lying.  That was when CNN responded on Twitter with the amazing statement that “CNN does not lie”.  Apparently they will do whatever it takes to protect the author, Carl Bernstein.  Bernstein of course is a journalist of Watergate fame who wrote the Trump Tower story.  I feel like I’ve heard this somewhere before: the coverup is worse than the crime.  CNN needs to come clean.

CNN doubles down on fakenews

Democrats are taking their #abolishICEdon’tactuallyabolishICE movement to a whole new level.  Arizona Democrat Ruben Gallego is now saying that Democrats will go back and punish ICE agents for actions they take during the Trump administration.  The latest uproar about ICE is that they are denying passports and detaining individuals who have come here illegally with fake birth certificates.  Birth attendants have admitted that for a 40 year period they and their colleagues were issuing US birth certificates to Mexican babies born near the border.  Denial of passports to these individuals here fraudulently started during the Bush era and continued into the Obama era.  Trump has stepped up efforts as part of his zero tolerance policy.

Democrat Representative threatens ICE agents

Chuck Todd is suggesting that Mueller will come out with a big announcement on Friday.  But he doesn’t have any actual knowledge of an announcement.  Todd is speculating that Mueller won’t make any announcements between Labor Day and the election because it could affect the election.  That would effectively leave Friday for any big movement.  There has been a lot of speculation over what Mueller might and might not do, but most of it has turned out to be wrong.  Unnamed supposed inside sources have also been incredibly unreliable.  As of now, the predicted indictments of Don Jr and Jared Kushner have not appeared, despite the wishful thinking.

Media members suggest Mueller might make announcement soon

Gun control advocates predictably wrong again

The scene was barely a few minutes old in Jacksonville, Florida before David Hogg was making statements about politicians and the NRA.  Another activist took to Twitter to list all the lax gun laws in Florida.  But none of it ended up being relevant.  The Florida shooter was actually a Maryland shooter who was down for the weekend.  He bought his guns in Maryland, which is the 7th strictest state regarding gun laws.  Additionally, he had been admitted for mental issues twice, which would have prevented him from buying his guns if Maryland’s background check system had caught it.  The shooter made several violent tweets before heading to the video game tournament, and those were forwarded to the FBI.  The shooting took place in a gun free zone, which is where 98% of mass shootings happen.  Once again, the facts make fools of gun control advocates.

Gun control activists hope for smoking gun, get same old story instead

Lanny Davis has now admitted that he was the unnamed source in the CNN story about Trump knowing ahead of time of the Trump Tower meeting.  This has been an embarrassing episode of fake news for CNN akin to the Dan Rather memogate scandal.  Davis, as an anonymous source, told CNN that his client Michael Cohen had knowledge that Trump knew about the infamous but not illegal Trump Tower meeting.  CNN ran with the story in July based on the anonymous tip.  Davis later made the claim publicly, before recanting and denying it publicly on CNN.  However, CNN ignored their own story and continued to run with the claim based on their anonymous source.  Now we know that source was Lanny Davis himself.

Lanny Davis admits he was anonymous source for his own fake news

Americans don’t support impeachment.  This is according to a new poll reported by left leaning Axios.  According to the poll, 64% believe Michael Cohen when he says he paid off Stormy Daniels.  But only 44% believe impeachment proceedings should begin.  In our opinion though, this is a stupid poll.  Trump said back in May that Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels and was reimbursed through his legal retainer, not out of campaign funds.  There is nothing there to impeach Trump for.  If anything, it shows that half of Americans are not keeping up with this mess.

Americans still against impeachment

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is back in hot water after her tweet that #abolishICE didn’t really mean #abolishICE.  She admitted she actually supports deportations.  It turns out “abolish” is simply the new “occupy” or “punch a nazi”.  It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a dog whistle to her crazy supporters to show up armed and masked and destroy private property.

But perhaps even worse, Ocasio-Cortez said that #abolishICE meant we need ICE to stop “sexually assaulting women with impunity”.  I would love to see her meet with all 20,000 ICE employees in front of their families and say that to their faces.

#AbolishICE redefined as “Keep deporting, stop raping women”

Did Trump say flipping should be illegal?

CNBC is reporting that Trump wants to make “flipping” illegal.  Flipping is the term generally used to describe when someone is in hot water and flips on their associates in crime to work out a deal with Justice.  So did Trump really say he wants to make flipping illegal?  Or is this fake news?

As usual, there is nuance in what Trump is saying.  You can see a portion of the interview here.  Trump spoke about flipping in the context of Cohen “making stuff up”.  In fact, he reiterates several times that he’s talking about when someone gets themselves in deep trouble and makes stuff up to get a lower prison sentence.  Trump says this kind of flipping should be “almost illegal”.

Trump mentioned the curious case of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s IT guy Imran Awan, who was arrested under suspicion that he had possibly been involved in the DNC server hack and may have stolen from the DNC.  Awan struck a deal in July and was convicted for lying on a loan application.  The charges against his wife were dropped.  The case has led to plenty of conspiracy theories and there has been zero media interest as to what Awan might have given up in his plea deal.

In the interview, Trump also pointed out that Cohen’s accusations about Trump campaign violations are wrong.  Trump said that the payments to reimburse Cohen came out of his retainer paid from his businesses to Cohen.  As the John Edwards case showed, that is not a crime.  In fact, in Edwards case it was campaign donors who paid off his mistress, not his personal attorney in the process of creating an NDA.  That would make what Trump did even more innocent than what Edwards did.

Trump did in fact tweet about the payments back in May.  So Cohen’s revelation is hardly news to anyone who is interested.  Trump tweeted that he reimbursed Cohen through his legal retainer and not from campaign funds.  At the time Trump also claimed that there was no affair, that Daniels was attempting to extort him, and that they would pursue action against her based on the arbitration provisions in the NDA.  Perhaps this is why Cohen still has no cooperation agreement despite his claims of dirt on Trump.

I wonder if the question will ever come up if Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, is making these claims to affect the outcome of an election?  Davis is a Clinton ally and has been speaking on Cohen’s behalf.  He is a liberal Democrat who hates Trump and wants Republicans to lose in November.  There doesn’t appear to be any evidence at this point to support some of his outlandish claims.  But those claims being repeated over and over in the media will certainly affect the election in November.  Maybe some forms of “flipping” should be “almost illegal”.

Narratives crumble on eventful Tuesday

First let’s talk about media censorship.  As we’ve documented, reporters like CNN’s Jim Acosta went crazy when Trump suggested Fake News was the enemy of the people.  Over 200 newspapers wrote coordinated editorials attacking Trump based on the narrative that he was anti-Press.  But in West Virginia, Trump shot down that narrative by going after social media censors.  “I would rather have fake news than have anybody — including liberals, socialists, anything –than have anybody stopped and censored,” Trump said.  He added warnings about the dangers of censoring opposing viewpoints.

Trump makes statement opposing censorship of any viewpoints, including liberals

The Left is frothing at the mouth over convictions of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.  But there’s very little chance it will amount to anything.  The media also seems to be confused into thinking that paying people for non-disclosure agreements of affairs is somehow illegal.  What was illegal was Cohen submitting the payoff to one of Trump’s companies as some sort of expense reimbursement.  For investigators to even begin to think they have a crime to charge Trump with, they have to get evidence beyond Cohen’s unreliable testimony.  But beyond that, Trump can’t be indicted.  He can only be impeached if evidence of criminal activity can be proven.  An impeachment vote won’t pass with the current House makeup and even after November there is no way the Senate will have 75 yes votes on impeachment.

But more importantly, the Russian collusion narrative is once again proven to be dead.  Manafort’s convictions are all for pre-Trump campaign financial crimes that have nothing to do with Trump.  Despite Cohen’s willingness to sing like a bird to Mueller, he had nothing to offer when it comes to Russia.  These two were literally the best hope Mueller had of ever having anything on Trump when it comes to Russia.  Both flipped.  Neither one had anything to offer.  There was no Russian collusion with Trump.

Trump could be in political trouble, but won’t be impeached

In another Russia related story that the media is dutifully ignoring, Rick Scott announced Tuesday that the Department of Homeland Security and FBI informed him that there is no evidence that Russia has infiltrated the Florida election system.  This was a wild and baseless claim made by his opponent Sen. Bill Nelson.  Nelson provided no evidence for the claims, but seemed to be indicating that it was classified.  After being called out on his claim by even the Washington Post, Nelson got quiet but hasn’t apologized for lying.

DHS and FBI confirm Bill Nelson lied about Russian meddling in Florida

8/15/18: What’s going on in Turkey

Tensions have continued to rise between the US and Turkey.  At the center of the dispute is a US pastor who was arrested as part of retaliation for a failed coup in Turkey in 2016.  Andrew Brunson is being held under house arrest and charged with espionage, but the US denies all charges.  To get Brunson back, Trump has used tariffs as more than just economic retaliation for another country’s tariffs, but is now using them for diplomatic pressure as well.  Turkey’s court of appeals refused to release Brunson this week.

Trump hits Turkey with tariffs, Turkey responds in kind over detained pastor

In an update to a story we brought you a few days ago, there are now over 200 papers in the US set to write anti-Trump editorials to supposedly prove that they are unbiased and don’t deserve to ever be called out for fake news.  Media outlets led by CNN’s cry baby Jim Acosta and the Boston Globe have feared that the “fake news” label on news that isn’t true is going to cause violence against the media.

Meanwhile, as we reported on our Facebook page yesterday, CNN’s Chris Cuomo made a feeble attempt to ask Antifa to cool it when it comes to actually physically assaulting members of the media.  Cuomo’s rambling charge against Antifa seemed to suggest that they were ok to be violent as long as it was against bigots, but that they really ought to leave the press and the cops alone.  He ignored their attacks on non-white supremacist Trump supporters who happened to be in the area and were assaulted.

200+ Media outlets set to attack Trump to show they aren’t biased

Twitter has joined the ranks of social media platforms in banning Alex Jones, but only for a short period of time after he violated one of their rules with a video he linked to.  Twitter had stated that they would not ban him unless he violated one of their rules.  The current restriction is temporary.  Jones has gotten a lot of mileage out of the bans on other social media platforms.  Alex Jones’ site, Infowars, tends to be a cesspool of conspiracy theory and Jones’ lawyer admitted in a recent court battle that he is “playing a character” in his role as a media personality.

At Political Brief, we don’t follow Alex Jones.  We support his right to free speech and expression, but we also support the right of private businesses to make the economic decision to discriminate when it comes to hosting private individuals.  Consumers will need to decide for themselves if blocking Alex Jones is enough to get them to leave those social media platforms.  It also is a good caution to consumers to remember that political commentators have an agenda.  Be sure to double check sources and treat any political story with skepticism, whether it’s Alex Jones or Jim Acosta.  Also, know that Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and other platforms are privately run and push content to you.  The best way to navigate politics online is to do your research and find people you trust.

Twitter restricts Alex Jones after video violation

8/11/18: Press coordinates attack on Trump to prove they aren’t biased

Trump has stated that the press is not the enemy of the people.  He said fake news is the enemy of the people.  Trump has maintained this stance and repeats it when the media lies about him or produces fake news.  The media, only all too happy to prove him right, has taken the phrase “enemy of the people” very personally.  Media outlets have continuously charged that Trump was calling all news the enemy of the people.  I suppose that’s their mea culpa.

Trump’s charge that the media is biased stems from their coverage of the Russian collusion fake story.  While Trump has never been the target of a Russian collusion investigation, and while Hillary Clinton is the candidate who demonstrably colluded with Russia, you can ask any friend on the left and they will tell you Trump colluded with Russia.  It’s a fake narrative created by the media.  Trump has good reason to criticize the media for bias.

The media isn’t helping themselves.  On Friday, Marjorie Pritchard of the Boston Globe called on media outlets throughout the country to write coordinated editorial attacks against Trump.  70 media outlets have agreed to the coordinated attack on Trump to prove they aren’t biased.

70 papers agree to coordinated attack on Trump to prove they aren’t biased fake news

The US Navy is back in the South China sea to enforce sanctions against North Korea.  North Korea has taken some symbolic steps towards peace and the end to their nuclear program, but continues to develop ballistic missiles.  The Trump administration had stated that sanctions would remain in place until Kim completely and verifiably eliminates their weapons of mass destruction program.

US sanctions on North Korea continue

Republicans and Conservatives are taking full advantage of the Ocasio-Cortez gaff machine.  And we are enjoying every bit of it.

 

 

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.

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:

Fake News Alert 8/1/18

Trump is in trouble for suggesting that people need to show ID when they shop for groceries.  He made the comments at a rally in Tampa, FL.  The Florida Times Union began their coverage with the comment “President Donald Trump wrongly claimed that shoppers need to show photo identification to buy groceries and accused Democrats of obstructing his agenda and his Supreme Court nominee during a raucous rally aimed at bolstering two Florida Republicans ahead of the state’s primary.”

Here’s the problem.  In many stores, it is store policy that individuals paying with a personal check show a photo ID.  This includes Wal Mart, among others.

Of course, there is a long standing tradition of Liberals attempting to paint Republicans as out of touch with basic plebeian tasks like grocery shopping.  For example, in President George H.W. Bush’s failed 1992 re-election, the New York Times made up a story about Bush seeing a check out scanner for the first time and being amazed.

I wouldn’t expect a billionaire turned President to be at the grocery store shopping on a regular basis.  But when the media gives an unqualified judgment that Trump is wrong about not showing ID at the grocery store, perhaps they are the ones out of touch with an older generation who still carries a checkbook.

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.