Displaying posts categorized under

MEDIA

MEDIA Comments turned off

The Coordinated ‘War of Words’ Against Trump The latest surge of fake news from the establishment media axis. Lloyd Billingsley

By on August 14th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271026/coordinated-war-words-against-trump-lloyd-billingsley

The goal was 100 but at this writing 70 news organizations, including major dailies such as the Miami Herald, Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Denver Post, have agreed to “produce independent opinion pieces about Trump’s attacks on the media.” Leading the campaign is Marjorie Pritchard, deputy editorial page editor of the Boston Globe.

“We are not the enemy of the people,” Pritchard told reporters, and as she tweeted, “This is not about being a Democrat. And this is not about being a Republican. This is about the importance of a free press, enshrined in the Constitution, something we should all get behind.” Even so, readers had cause to wonder if the “coordinated editorial campaign” was something of a non-event.

Coverage of President Trump in the establishment media remains approximately 90 percent negative, so the campaign would hardly signal a new direction. Readers might also wonder about the rallying cry.

President Trump has not tampered with the First Amendment and never said the media was the enemy of the people. He did tweet “It is the FAKE NEWS, which is a large percentage of the media, that is the enemy of the people!” Readers might take the coordinated campaign as another example.

Continue reading →
MEDIA Comments turned off

USA Today Runs Editorial Calling for Abolishing the Presidency Daniel Greenfield

By on August 13th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/271019/usa-today-runs-editorial-calling-abolishing-daniel-greenfield

Trump Derangement Syndrome has no natural stopping point. One grandiose act of vandalism is soon exceeded by another. The true resistance is in topping all previous acts of resistance.

#AbolishICE? Nah. Abolish the presidency.

Donald Trump is proof that the U.S. presidency is broken and democracy is in peril. It’s time to amend the Constitution and abolish the presidency.

Well that escalated quickly.

But if you guys abolish the presidency, how are you going to unilaterally nationalize health care, open the borders and claim control over all the water in the country in the name of the EPA?

And I have other bad news. The remedy in our Constitution for a treasonous turncoat who got into the White House on a technicality is impeachment. But guess what? Impeachment has never gotten rid of a bad president in this country. Not ever. Bill Clinton finished his term after being impeached. The threat of impeachment got Nixon to step down, but impeachment as a whole has failed. It’s never lived up to its promise.

Continue reading →
MEDIA, POLITICS Comments turned off

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) Perjury Evidence Blacked Out by Minnesota Media By David Steinberg

By on August 13th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/davidsteinberg/rep-ilhan-omar-d-mn-perjury-evidence-blacked-out-by-minnesota-media/

According to CNN, 100 or more newspapers will publish editorials attacking President Trump on August 16.

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s largest newspapers — along with every other mainstream outlet in the country — just whiffed on covering this: Signed, notarized court documents and time-stamped photos showing the Democratic frontrunner for Minnesota’s highest-profile House seat appearing to commit perjury.

The common newsroom explanation, often valid, for having passed on a particular story — “we couldn’t independently verify it” — simply does not apply here. The evidence, reposted below, against Minnesota state Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-60B) consists of nothing but certified court filings and archived social media posts.

These court records are publicly available: Anyone can enter the Hennepin County District Court Records Center, sit at a self-service terminal, and retrieve them. The social media posts (which have since been deleted from Ilhan Omar’s and her ex-husband’s Instagram accounts) are easily verifiable by a novice, let alone a modern digital news outlet.

These court records do not describe decades-old college misdemeanors. They are from 2017.

This story was never obscure; the 2016 coverage of Rep. Omar’s marriage — which presumably motivated her filing for default divorce just a few months later — was global. Frankly, these court records may depict the most (only?) high-profile default divorce in U.S. political history.

If forced to provide an excuse, I expect most mainstream outlets will claim to have avoided the story because of its related salacious aspect: That Omar married her own brother to assist him in committing immigration fraud or some other crime. Yet even without regard for the (objectively convincing) evidence of that allegation, that excuse would be the most easily dismissed. We’ve seen how the nation’s mainstream newsrooms responded to an unverified “pee tape.”

Most importantly, however, the perjury evidence is entirely separate from the more sensational charge.

Continue reading →
MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Media covering (up) Dianne Feinstein’s major spy scandal By Thomas Lifson

By on August 12th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/media_covering_up_dianne_feinsteins_major_spy_scandal_.html

The mainstream media desperately want to deflect attention away from a huge spy scandal involving the ranking Democrat senator on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. For two decades, Senator Dianne Feinstein employed a Chinese spy on her staff. And when it was discovered, she was notified, the spy was fired (but not prosecuted), and the entire matter was kept secret from the public.

Only 5 years later did the news appear in public to almost no fanfare, bured deep in a Politico story on other matters.

The reason is obvious. The contrast with the treatment received by the Trump campaign when a Russian spy was merely suspected (on the basis of what appear to be ginned-up concerns over Carter Page, an FBI informant) is so stark as to raise serious question as to the integrity of the FBI counterintelligence operation. The NSA’s ability to monitor every form of electronic communications except ham radio[i] was mobilized to spy on the presidential campaign of the opposition party to the Obama administration. No notification to the campaign was offered, unlike Feinstein’s treatment.

The entire incident is being presented to the public as no big deal. That is a classic example of the fake news of which President Trump so vocally complains. Fortunately, Mark Thiessen checked out the real dimensions of the spy operation:

Continue reading →
MEDIA Comments turned off

In the News Business, All Stories Now Lead to Trump By Michael Walsh

By on August 11th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/in-the-news-business-all-stories-now-lead-to-trump/

Don’t get enough Trump-bashing in your daily political news feed? Miss him when he’s not in a sports story, an entertainment story, or a weather story? Have no fear: NBC News is here to assuage your longing:

Add this to the challenges facing California wildfire victims: Tariffs. The import tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump are adding thousands of dollars to the cost of building homes. That especially squeezes homeowners who seek to rebuild quickly after losing their houses to natural disasters, such as the wildfires scorching parts of California.

The Trump administration’s tariffs have raised the cost of imported lumber, drywall, nails and other key construction materials. One building association official said the tariffs could raise the price of a typical new home in California by up to $20,000, and it could be more for individual homes being custom-built on short order. That could be enough to keep some people with inadequate homeowners insurance from rebuilding or force them to consider a smaller house.

That darn Trump. Is there no limit to his malevolence?

Other factors also are making home construction more expensive, including a shortage of workers and increased demand that has pushed up the price of materials produced in the U.S. The difference with the tariff-related cost increase: It’s a direct result of a governmental policy change.

“This comes at a bad time if you’ve just had your neighborhood swept up in a firestorm,” said Jock O’Connell, an international trade adviser at Beacon Economics in California.

In a country of 340 million or so, how many have had their neighborhood swept up in a firestorm lately? But hey — Trump. Because, Trump.

Continue reading →
MEDIA Comments turned off

Will the media ever call out Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ignorance? by Eddie Scarry

By on August 11th, 2018

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/will-the-media-ever-call-out-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-ignorance

I know it’s racist to call LeBron James dumb, but what about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

The New York Democratic congressional candidate got at least some real questions during an interview this week on CNN. If weren’t for Ocasio-Cortez being an attractive minority, the rest of the media would be calling her the next Sarah Palin.

Democrats, if they’re ethnic and look good on TV, typically get one question from the press: “Are you running for president?”

It’s the sole reason Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey are considered “top contenders” for the 2020 Democratic nomination.

Continue reading →
MEDIA Comments turned off

New York Times Columnist Can’t Figure Out If Racist Tweets Are A Fireable Offense Or Not Bret Stephens praised ABC when it fired Roseanne for a single tweet, yet he defends the racist tweets of Sarah Jeong.By Sean Davis

By on August 11th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/10/new-york-times-columnist-cant-figure-out-if-racist-tweets-are-a-fireable-offense-or-not/

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, an outspoken NeverTrump activist, effusively praised ABC when it fired Roseanne Barr for a single tweet, but when it comes to a mountain of racist tweets over nine years, he says his new colleague Sarah Jeong deserves a whole lot of grace and a second chance. What could possibly explain this blatant double standard?

To recap: Roseanne Barr, creator and star of the hit sitcom bearing her name, was swiftly fired by ABC in May after she posted a tweet comparing former Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, who is black, to a terrorist ape. Shortly after her firing created a social media firestorm, Stephens used his column at the New York Times to praise ABC and its executives who fired Barr, while declaring that she deserved to be fired not because of a single tweet, but because she is simply a bad person unworthy of having any public platform.

“Barr’s tweet about Jarrett, in other words, wasn’t the odd needle in the haystack,” Stephens wrote. “It was the last straw.”

“This is not a ‘one bad tweet’ issue,” Stephens claimed, before endorsing the characterization of Barr as a “boor,” a “notorious believer and propagator of conspiracy theories related to 9/11,” and “a MIRVed ICBM ready to go off in all directions at any time.”

Continue reading →
MEDIA Comments turned off

Yahoo News Interviews#WalkAway’s Brandon Straka (Not a Russian Bot) By Debra Heine

By on August 10th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/video/yahoo-news-interviews-walkaways-brandon-straka-not-a-russian-bot/

Yahoo News has done the unthinkable. Not only did its reporters take the time to interview #WalkAway Campaign founder Brandon Straka, they wrote a fair piece about him and his movement (which the panicked left calls a phony Russian bot operation).

Rather than attempt to discredit Straka, they gave him a fair hearing.

“You’ve got thousands of people who are walking away from the Democratic Party, saying this is the reason why,” Straka explains at the beginning of Yahoo’s “Unfiltered,” a news interview series.

He adds, “If the Democratic Party and the people on the left had a single functioning brain cell in their head,” they would check out the #WalkAway Facebook page and view “the video testimonials of people telling them exactly where the Democratic Party has gone wrong.”

Straka likened his project to a focus group for Democrats, saying, “This could actually be an incredibly useful tool for the Democratic Party.”

But he said he was doubtful that the left would take the opportunity. “Are they going to use it?” he asked. “No! They’re going to close their eyes and close their ears and say this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening.” He added, “Well, it is happening. It’s still happening, it’s going to continue to happen until you change your party.”

The WalkAway movement has caught fire across the country, spooking Democrats, who (projecting as usual) accused it of being an astroturf campaign.

Yahoo asked Straka about that.

Continue reading →
HOMELAND SECURITY, MEDIA Comments turned off

Why Is the Mainstream Media Ignoring the New Mexico Compound/Islam Story? By Nicole Russell

By on August 10th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/why-is-the-mainstream-media-ignoring-the-new-mexico-compound-islam-story/

News broke this week that a deranged man, Siraj Wahhaj, was arrested for training a group of starving children at a filthy New Mexico compound how to carry out school shootings. Still, despite the newsworthy aspects of the story, including a Muslim ringleader, children, and the potential for deadly school shootings, mainstream news outlets have covered it only briefly, if at all.

The story, which involved minors, has a particularly ideological angle that outlets seem uncomfortable lingering over for too long. Not only were Siraj Wahhaj and his adult companions “heavily armed,” but CBS reported, “Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe previously said adults at the compound were ‘considered extremist of the Muslim belief.’ He did not elaborate, saying it was part of the investigation.”

In addition, Wahhaj’s father, also Siraj Wahhaj, is the imam of the Masjid At-Taqwa mosque in Brooklyn, New York, which has attracted speakers over the years who have been described as radical. It was actually pleas for food for the imam from family members that led to authorities finding the compound.

A quick search of “CNN + Trump + Stormy Daniels” revealed almost 15 million hits. A search of “CNN + New Mexico kids + Siraj Wahhaj” revealed only 147,000 hits. Grant it, the Stormy Daniels story is absurd and needs to be covered and has been percolating longer, but the story of Siraj Wahhaj attempting to train 11 kids to execute 11 school shootings seems far more important than a juicy story about the president’s immoral choices.

Muslim extremists have been infiltrating the United States for years and while there has not been another attack like the one on September 11, 2001—thank God—it’s clear that jihadism is alive and well, even here. It’s a relief to see that authorities in New Mexico laid aside all notions of political correctness and instead, tracked down the children for their safety and the safety of others. But it’s disconcerting to see the mainstream media, who possess so much power to inform and sway public opinion, pass over the story so quickly. I would imagine they’re only doing so out of political correctness and fear they will be accused of “Islamophobia” (a true phenomenon). CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
MEDIA, POLITICS Comments turned off

GOP’s Special Election Wins Counter Media Spin By Adele Malpass

By on August 9th, 2018

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/08/08/gops_special_election_wins_counter_media_spin_137760.html

The media narrative from Tuesday night’s special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District is that even a loss is good news for Democrats. What’s been under-reported is that Republicans won the vast majority of the 11 special elections for U.S. House and Senate seats held since the 2016 election.

One of the races, in California’s 34th Congressional District, was won by a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Democratic district. In the remaining 10 special elections, where Republicans were defending seats, eight were won by Republicans.

The media narrative is that Democrats’ “success” in making some of these races close has broader implications for the November midterms. Not so. Only in Alabama, where Doug Jones beat flawed candidate Roy Moore, and in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, where Conor Lamb beat Rick Saccone, can Democrats claim true victories.

Special elections are a minority party’s dream come true. They are all about turnout, which poses a challenge given that they are held at off-cycle times, and involve open seats. Incumbents usually have enormous advantages of money, name identification and organization. However, since the 2016 election, the advantage was negated in five of the 11 special elections. These were held to replace Cabinet appointees in the Trump administration, all of whom had strong support in their home states and districts: Jeff Sessions, Mick Mulvaney, Tom Price, Mike Pompeo and Ryan Zinke.

Continue reading →