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Peter Smith Exploding Brains and Toolboxes

By on September 23rd, 2016

A bomb detonates in New York and reporters fall over themselves to ignore the most likely culprits while suggesting ludicrously improbable alternatives. As here in Australia, the newsroom narrative insists on overlooking the Religion of Peace, but 49% of the population is nowhere near so stupid
Donald Trump had the temerity to call the pressure cooker device, similar to those used in the Boston bombing, which exploded in New York injuring people with flying shrapnel, a bomb. The man is unhinged.

I switched to CNN to find out the ‘true facts’ in the aftermath of what New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, had perceptively described as “an intentional act.” First, I was reassured by a ‘terrorism expert’ that the incident was most unlikely to have been a terrorist act, otherwise de Blasio would not have said at his news conference that there was no evidence of it. Seems logical, I thought dimwittedly. But, at the same time as being reassured on the one hand, I was alarmed by the suggestion, repeated on my count on six or seven occasions, that a toolbox near the scene could have been responsible; presumably by spontaneously exploding.

I have two toolboxes. You can image my feelings of trepidation at ever again visiting my storeroom, where they are kept. However, I took my courage in my hands and posted a notice on the door. “Beware!”, it says, “Approach with caution, potentially-explosive toolboxes inside.”

You think I am making this up. I am not imaginative enough to make it up. I kid you not — CNN did indeed proffer the suggestion, again and again, that a toolbox was the potential culprit. Most of the media, in the greatest nation the world has ever seen, is now so hopelessly biased in favour of the Religion of Peace™ that reporters act like blithering idiots without a hint of intelligent self-reflection or embarrassment. Donald Trump stands alone, a giant, against the crumbling of our civilisation for which the US media is a standardbearer.

The media here in Australia tries to match its US counterpart in the race to the bottom but still has a way to go. Don’t worry, they will get there. In the meantime, the lack of objectivity when it comes to anything Islamic is evident enough. This brings me to Pauline Hanson’s maiden Senate speech. After reading about this so-called ‘bigoted’ speech in the media I thought I would read it myself.

A first thing to say, with due respect to Ms Hanson, is that she is undoubtedly employing a good speech writer. It is a very well put together speech. “Of course, I don’t agree with all of it.” This isn’t me folks. It is the obligatory weasel line of those conservatives who ‘defend to the death’ her right to speak her mind; and to hell with 18C. For example, Tim Wilson was at it in The Australian (22 September). “There are certainly sections of her speech that legitimately raised eyebrows.” Which sections, Tim?

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The New York Times’s Fact-Free Smear Job on Scott Walker Multiple courts ruled in Walker’s favor, but the Times ignores the law to resurrect the case against Walker. By Christian Schneider

By on September 21st, 2016

In college, I had a buddy whose entire worldview was circumscribed by whatever happened to be in front of his face at that very moment. We would drive down the street and he’d read off the signs as we passed by them in the car. Instead of engaging in deep philosophical conversations about Camus or the Green Bay Packers, he’d rattle off phrases such as “Oooh, Arby’s,” or “Same-day Martinizing!” (We often joked that he always thought whatever direction he was facing was north.)

A recent myopic editorial by the New York Times, however, makes my friend look like Ben Franklin for his scope of knowledge. In opining about a recent document dump stemming from a previously secret “John Doe” investigation into Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and his allies, the Times peddles a wildly misleading argument completely devoid of context.

Last week, the Guardian, a British left-wing paper, released nearly 1,500 pages from the investigation into whether Walker “illegally” coordinated with third-party groups such as the Club for Growth during his 2012 recall election campaign. The Times asserts that these groups “are not allowed to work with a campaign to urge voters to vote for a candidate, because that would essentially allow donors to funnel money toward these groups to get around contribution limits that apply to campaign committees.”

Yet this assertion is flatly false. A Wisconsin state judge, two Milwaukee-based federal judges, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and the federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago have all ruled that relevant portions of Wisconsin state law are unconstitutional, which is why not a single person investigated in this aspect of the probe has ever been charged with anything.

The argument basically comes down to whether state laws apply to “issue” advocacy (ads that don’t expressly urge voting for or against a specific candidate) in the same way they apply to “express” advocacy (ads that explicitly direct the viewer to “vote for” or “vote against” a candidate).

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Would You Hide a Nazi From a Jew? By Marilyn Penn

By on September 19th, 2016

In his ongoing blindness towards the reasons for reluctance to allow mass immigration of Muslim refugees to the U.S., Nicholas Kristof inverts them in his article titled “Would You Hide A Jew From the Nazis?” (NYT 9/18/16) During the thirties, Jews were victims of increasingly harsh and restrictive laws imposed on them in Nazi Germany and once the war began, they became dead men walking throughout Europe until 6 million of them were finally exterminated. The comparison of this unique genocide with the situation of Syrian refugees is preposterous. Despite the epidemic of Muslim terrorism throughout the world, the current refugees have been accepted into many countries in Europe as well as the U.S. There are numerous refugee camps that have been created for them in Turkey as well as neighboring Arab countries which share their language, religion and culture. The outcome of this generous in-gathering as well as previous welcoming immigration, has proved profoundly problematic and tragic for European countries where the incidence of rape, assault, murder and massacre has altered the lives of all these populations. In post 9/11 America, we are experiencing similar outbreaks of terrorism and wholesale murder by stabbing, shooting and bombing innocent men, women and children. Today’s news reports several bombings in the tri-state area as well as serial stabbings in Minnesota; the bombs were similar to those used in the Boston Marathon.

It has frequently been argued that not all Germans were Nazis – estimates of how many actually were vary but hover around less than 10%. That low number didn’t prevent the killings of over 60 million people in WW II, the deadliest war in history. So the fact that their numbers were “tiny” didn’t impede Nazis from fomenting mass destruction, just as the “tiny” fraction of Muslims dedicated to the idea of dominion over a world caliphate is meaningless as protection against their determined war of aggression. They are most specifically intent on harming and killing Jews, despite the fact that Muslim Arabs live side by side with Jews in Israel, vote, serve in the Knesset and work as teachers, doctors, lawyers and judges at a higher compensation level than in any Muslim country. Similarly, in the United States, contrary to charges of our Islamophobia, we have a thriving Muslim population that enjoys exactly the same benefits as any American of any other religion.

So the issue is not lack of compassion for Muslim casualties of civil- war but whether it is in the best interest of our national security to invite tens of thousands of people who cannot be properly vetted with the unlikely hope of weeding out that “tiny” fraction who are radical Islamists. Do these refugees have other options? Absolutely. They are not fleeing to avoid death as the Jews were attempting immediately prior to and during World War II. Syrians have several other options for sanctuary though admission to the U.S. may be the most comfortable. In that respect, they are no different from illegal immigrants from Mexico or Central America, some of the other millions of people who would prefer to live freely here than in their own despotic countries. But Nicholas Kristof isn’t suggesting that failure to expand our quotas for legal admission to our country is the same as failure to hide a Jew from a Nazi.

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A New York Times Editorial Calls for Cutting US Aid to Israeli Military : Ira Stoll

By on September 19th, 2016

Just how far out of the American political mainstream is the anti-Israel editorial position of the New York Times?

The latest outrage from the newspaper is an unsigned staff editorial criticizing as excessive the 10-year, $38 billion aid agreement signed last week between Israel and the United States. That deal was approved by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry, and praised by Hillary Clinton. Congressional Republicans, if anything, want to make it bigger.

Standing outside that bipartisan consensus, the Times editorial, representing the paper’s official, institutional opinion, asserts, “It is worth asking whether the ever-increasing aid levels make sense, especially in the face of America’s other pressing domestic and overseas obligations.” The editorial even goes beyond that, not just “asking” but answering in the negative: “In truth, the aid package is already too big.”

One sign of the anti-Israel bias of the Times is that it uses a different standard to measure military aid to Israel than it uses to measure spending on other things. The Times’ characterization of the aid as “ever-increasing” fails to take into account inflation. The White House fact sheet on the deal states that the money, covering 2019 to 2028, “will be disbursed in equal increments of $3.3 billion in FMF and $500 million in missile defense funding each year for the duration of the understanding.”

When congressional Republicans try to constrain the growth of welfare or entitlement spending programs like food stamps or Medicare by holding spending growth to less than the inflation rate, let alone level in nominal terms, the Times editorialists and columnists work themselves into a furor denouncing “cuts.” Yet when it comes to Israel’s aid, somehow only nominal dollar figures get mentioned, with no adjustment or understanding of the idea that $3 billion in 2007, when the last memorandum of understanding was signed, is worth something different than $3.3 billion in 2028, which will be the final year of aid covered under the new memorandum.

If the Times editorial writers have trouble understanding this point, let them perform a thought experiment with keeping their own salaries constant every year for 10 years straight, without any increase for inflation. Do you think they’d describe that as “ever-increasing”? Or let them imagine a federal budget for college financial aid, or for health care for the poor, or some other favored Times cause, that featured an amount locked in at a constant number for 10 years straight, with no increase or adjustment for inflation from year to year. Why, the Times’ own single-copy newsstand price in New York City has skyrocketed to $2.50 today from the 60 cents it cost in 1999. Home-delivery prices have also steadily climbed. Would the Times commit to a decade-long subscription price freeze?

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Minneapolis Star Tribune Blames ‘Anti-Muslim Tensions’ for St. Cloud Mass Stabbing by ‘Soldier of the Islamic State’ By Patrick Poole

By on September 19th, 2016

Just hours after a young Somali immigrant stabbed nine people at a shopping mall in St. Cloud, a mid-sized town in central Minnesota, the far-Left Minneapolis Star Tribune published an article hinting that the suspect may have been inspired by “anti-Muslim tensions.” The article was later scrubbed and replaced with a new article that directly raised the question of whether the attack by Dahir Adan was motivated by previous anti-Muslim incidents in the city.

Last night I reported here at PJ Media on the stabbing attack and the reports from local St. Cloud police that the suspect, who at that time hadn’t been named, had made references to “Allah” and asked at least one victim whether they were Muslim.

Earlier today, family members named Dahir Adan, a local Somali man who came to the United States 15 years ago and was a junior at St. Cloud State University, as the attacker.

But at 2:42 p.m. today, Pat Pheifer of the Star Tribune published an article, now removed and replaced on the newspaper’s website, titled “Anti-Muslim Tension Isn’t New in St. Cloud.”

I screen captured the article before it was scrubbed and replaced.

In the opening paragraphs, Pheifer writes so ambiguously that one could easily conclude that someone motivated by anti-Muslim beliefs was responsible for the attack:

A cloud of anti-Muslim sentiment and tension has hung over St. Cloud for the past seven years, with incidents ranging from bullying Somali and other East African immigrants at St. Cloud Technical High School, to women being screamed at in grocery stores, pig intestines wrapped around the door handles of a halal grocery store, and offensive billboards and license plates.

The most physically injurious incident came Saturday evening when a man stabbed nine people at the city’s Crossroads Center before the attacker was killed inside the mall by an off-duty police officer. No one but the attacker was killed.

Authorities said the man reportedly asked at least one victim whether they were Muslim before assaulting them and referred to Allah during the attacks.

So after a recitation of previous anti-Muslim incidents, Pheifer introduces “the most physically injurious incident” — the mass stabbing at Crossroads Center. A reader could understandably think that this new incident was similar in nature to those just recounted.

And the ambiguous description of the incident might lead one to conclude that it was anti-Muslim in nature.

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Western Publishers Submit to Islam by Giulio Meotti

By on September 11th, 2016

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8907/islam-publishers-censorship

For criticizing Islam, Hamed Abdel-Samad lives under police protection in Germany and, as with Rushdie, a fatwa hangs over him. After the fatwa come the insults: being censored by a free publishing house. This is what the Soviets did to destroy writers: destroy their books.

At a time when dozens of novelists, journalists and scholars are facing Islamists’ threats, it is unforgivable that Western publishers not only agree to bow down, but are often the first to capitulate.

A Paris court convicted Renaud Camus for “Islamophobia” (a fine of 4,000 euros) for a speech he gave in 2010, in which he spoke of the replacement of the French people under the Trojan horse of multiculturalism. Another writer, Richard Millet, was fired last March by Gallimard publishing house for his ideas on multiculturalism.

Not only did Rushdie’s publishers capitulate; other publishers also decided to break rank and return to do business with Tehran. Oxford University Press decided to take part in the Tehran Book Fair along with two American publishers, McGraw-Hill and John Wiley. Those publishers chose to respond to murderous censorship with surrender.

It is as if at the time of the Nazis’ book-burnings, Western publishers had not only stood silent, but had also invited a German delegation to Paris and New York.

When Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses came out in 1989, Viking Penguin, the British and American publisher of the novel, was subjected to daily Islamist harassment. As Daniel Pipes wrote, the London office resembled “an armed camp,” with police protection, metal detectors and escorts for visitors. In Viking’s New York offices, dogs sniffed packages and the place was designated a “sensitive location”. Many bookshops were attacked and many even refused to sell the book. Viking spent about $3 million on security measures in 1989, the fatal year for Western freedom of expression.

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Thornton: We Citizens Have to Guard the Media ‘Guardians’ Mainstream media journalists rationalize their war on Trump. Bruce Thornton

By on September 2nd, 2016

The mainstream media’s lopsided coverage of the presidential campaign has gotten so blatantly anti-Trump and pro-Hillary that even some progressives are starting to notice. The New York Times’ media reporter Jim Rutenberg last month had a front-page column slyly justifying the bias by a clever use of rhetorical questions: “If you’re a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him?”

Rutenberg’s dubious implication is that Trump is so outrageously unprecedented and dangerous a candidate in American history that he can’t be covered objectively. “If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional.” But Rutenberg says he rues this development, for it compromises “that idealistic form of journalism with a capital ‘J’ we’ve been trained to always strive for.”

Say what? Was it an “idealistic form of journalism” when the media carried on its “slobbering love affair,” as Bernie Goldberg put it, with Barack Obama in 2008? Where were the intrepid “guardians” of the public weal when the media ignored the gaps in Obama’s history, his fabrications in his memoirs, and his associations with the racist pastor Jeremiah Wright and the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayres? Or when Journolist, an online discussion group of journalists and activists, colluded to downplay these unpleasant facts and coordinate negative coverage of the Republicans?

Or how about CNN Political Correspondent Candy Crowley in the 2012 presidential debate, violating every canon of professional objectivity when she intruded herself into the debate in Obama’s favor by backing up his false claim that he had called the Benghazi attacks an act of terror? And don’t forget Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, who recently wrote in Time magazine, “Like it or not, this election is a plebiscite on the most divisive, polarizing and disrupting figure in American politics in decades. And neutrality is not an option.” Or CNN calling “false,” without any evidence, AP’s story that more than half of Hillary’s non-governmental meetings while Secretary of State were with donors to her foundation. Are these examples of “idealistic” journalism?

Despite all this contrary evidence, Rutenberg recycles one of the progressive media’s most cherished self-justifying myths, that there really is an “objective” journalism they supposedly practice. Such a notion has seldom existed in American history, and has especially been scarce since the 1960s, when activist journalism came out of the closet with its ideological coverage of Vietnam and then Watergate, all perfumed with the spurious claim to journalistic integrity and public service.

The truth is, journalism has been a form of political activism long before Jim Rutenberg noticed. Orville Schell, dean of the prestigious UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism from 1996-2006, was not shy about embracing this role for journalism: “In a democracy,” Schell wrote over a decade ago, “indeed in any intelligent society, the media and politicians have to lead. The media should be introducing us to new things, interesting things, things we don’t already know about; helping us change our minds or make up our minds, not just pandering to lowest-denominator wisdom.”

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New depth plumbed in how far the media go to stop Trump By Thomas Lifson

By on September 2nd, 2016

Headline News, the sister network of CNN, is willing to make itself look ridiculous in order to avoid broadcasting anything that reflects well on Donald Trump. We have seen sophisticates like Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times rationalize anti-Trump bias and make himself look ridiculous, too, but in order to appreciate the humor, one has to actually read and comprehend an article that has numbers of multi-syllabic words.

But thanks to HLN, we have a dramatic graphic representation of extreme media bias, and as a bonus, it is laugh-out-loud funny. Big Fur Hat of iOTWReport spotted the obsessive lengths to which HLN will go:

Clinton Network News affiliate HLN interviewed a man who saved a baby from a hot car.

HLN wouldn’t allow the man’s Trump shirt to get on the air.

Donald Trump has a huge opportunity to make the media’s bias against him an asset. He should have a blowup of the screen grab made and have someone bring it out and ridicule the blurring of his name. Most people hate and distrust the media. The criticism of him can be turned back against the critics, who continually makes asses of themselves over Trump.

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The Media’s Dirty Clinton Ties, Buys and Lies The media is scalping its own for Hillary Clinton. Daniel Greenfield

By on September 1st, 2016

Where does media bias come from?

Anyone who really wanted to know had that question answered when much of the media took a break from attacking Trump to attack the Associated Press. What does the AP have in common with Trump? Both were hurting Hillary Clinton’s chances to score payoffs from dictators, arms dealers and tycoons with terrorist ties for the next four to eight years.

The Associated Press got in trouble with the rest of the media for digging up dirt on the Clinton Foundation. Instead of just repeating the usual Clinton denials, it actually ran the numbers and noted that more than half the “ordinary folks” who got meetings with her had donated to her Foundation.

Instead of reporting on the AP story, the media went to war on its own. It wasn’t just the usual suspects like Vox and Slate who have a reputation for attacking any actual reporters who stray off the reservation and actually do their jobs. This time all the big boys were on the job.

CNN called in AP’s Kathleen Carroll to barrage her with classic ‘Have you stopped beating your wife’ loaded questions like, “Did you feel the pressure to publish something even though so many critics have said it didn’t amount to much?” A better question might be why CNN didn’t inform viewers that its parent company was a Clinton Foundation donor. But that would be practicing journalism.

Instead CNN offers gems like, “AP’s ‘Big Story’ on Clinton Foundation is big failure”. A high school paper could have come up with a cleverer putdown, but in this brave new world in which media companies donate to front groups for presidential campaigns and then denounce stories exposing their corruption there are no more new ideas, just organized spin sessions.

If you didn’t like the AP headline, try Vox’s “The AP’s big exposé on Hillary meeting with Clinton Foundation donors is a mess.”

Yes, they are all reading from the same script.

The New York Times initially blacklisted the story. Then it came out with a call for Hillary Clinton to cut ties with the Clinton Foundation. That’s like asking Al Capone to cut ties with the mob.

But the Times might have started out by cutting its own ties to the Clinton Foundation.

Carlos Slim, the Mexican-Lebanese billionaire who keeps the lights burning at the New York Times HQ, gave the Clinton Foundation anywhere from 2 to 10 million dollars. Then there’s the six figure sum that Hillary picked up for delivering one of her comatose speeches about something or other in a robotic monotone.

It wouldn’t do for his Manhattan investment property to undermine his Washington D.C. investment property.

The Times tremulously urged Hillary to cut ties with the organization she had used to fuel her political ambitions, worrying that, “If Mrs. Clinton wins, it could prove a target for her political adversaries.”

Could prove? If the New York Times occasionally bothered to report the news, it would have noticed that it already had. But the Times isn’t worried about ethics, legality or national security. Instead it, incredibly, asks Hillary to act to protect her agenda and reputation from her own crimes.

That’s like asking an embezzler to quickly burn his second set of books before the cops catch him.

The New York Times doesn’t give a damn if foreign interests buy the White House. Its only concern is to protect Hillary from Republican attacks. And this overt bias is actually downright moderate.

It’s almost noble compared to the Washington Post, another Clinton Foundation donor, which fired off one attack after another. There was this cheerfully breezy masterpiece which read like North Korean propaganda written by a Portland hipster, “AP chief on patently false Clinton tweet: No regrets!”

The Post’s fact check, which is just the paper’s editorial position plus 5 minutes on Wikipedia, panned the AP story. Or rather it panned the tweet which promoted the story. If you can’t argue the facts, you can always pound the table. Or complain about the wording that the intern used to tweet the table.

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American journalism is collapsing before our eyes By Michael Goodwin

By on August 22nd, 2016

Donald Trump may or may not fix his campaign, and Hillary Clinton may or may not become the first female president. But something else happening before our eyes is almost as important: the complete collapse of American journalism as we know it.

The frenzy to bury Trump is not limited to the Clinton campaign and the Obama White House. They are working hand-in-hand with what was considered the cream of the nation’s news organizations.

The shameful display of naked partisanship by the elite media is unlike anything seen in modern America.

The largest broadcast networks — CBS, NBC and ABC — and major newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post have jettisoned all pretense of fair play. Their fierce determination to keep Trump out of the Oval Office has no precedent.

Indeed, no foreign enemy, no terror group, no native criminal gang, suffers the daily beating that Trump does. The mad mullahs of Iran, who call America the Great Satan and vow to wipe Israel off the map, are treated gently by comparison.

By torching its remaining credibility in service of Clinton, the mainstream media’s reputations will likely never recover, nor will the standards. No future producer, editor, reporter or anchor can be expected to meet a test of fairness when that standard has been trashed in such willful and blatant fashion.

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