RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/andrew-sullivan-ny-times-abandons-liberalism-for-activism.html

EXCERPT:

The New York Times, by its executive editor’s own admission, is increasingly engaged in a project of reporting everything through the prism of white supremacy and critical race theory, in order to “teach” its readers to think in these crudely reductionist and racial terms. That’s why this issue wasn’t called, say, “special issue”, but a “project”. It’s as much activism as journalism. And that’s the reason I’m dwelling on this a few weeks later. I’m constantly told that critical race theory is secluded on college campuses, and has no impact outside of them … and yet the newspaper of record, in a dizzyingly short space of time, is now captive to it. Its magazine covers the legacy of slavery not with a variety of scholars, or a diversity of views, but with critical race theory, espoused almost exclusively by black writers, as its sole interpretative mechanism.

Don’t get me wrong. I think that view deserves to be heard. The idea that the core truth of human society is that it is composed of invisible systems of oppression based on race (sex, gender, etc.), and that liberal democracy is merely a mask to conceal this core truth, and that a liberal society must therefore be dismantled in order to secure racial/social justice is a legitimate worldview. (That view that “systems” determine human history and that the individual is a mere cog in those systems is what makes it neo-Marxist and anti-liberal.) But I sure don’t think it deserves to be incarnated as the only way to understand our collective history, let alone be presented as the authoritative truth, in a newspaper people rely on for some gesture toward objectivity.

This is therefore, in its over-reach, ideology masquerading as neutral scholarship. Take a simple claim: no aspect of our society is unaffected by the legacy of slavery. Sure. Absolutely. Of course. But, when you consider this statement a little more, you realize this is either banal or meaningless. The complexity of history in a country of such size and diversity means that everything we do now has roots in many, many things that came before us. You could say the same thing about the English common law, for example, or the use of the English language: no aspect of American life is untouched by it. You could say that about the Enlightenment. Or the climate. You could say that America’s unique existence as a frontier country bordered by lawlessness is felt even today in every mass shooting. You could cite the death of countless millions of Native Americans — by violence and disease — as something that defines all of us in America today. And in a way it does. But that would be to engage in a liberal inquiry into our past, teasing out the nuances, and the balance of various forces throughout history, weighing each against each other along with the thoughts and actions of remarkable individuals — in the manner of, say, the excellent new history of the U.S., These Truths by Jill Lepore.

But the NYT chose a neo-Marxist rather than liberal path to make a very specific claim: that slavery is not one of many things that describe America’s founding and culture, it is the definitive one. Arguing that the “true founding” was the arrival of African slaves on the continent, period, is a bitter rebuke to the actual founders and Lincoln. America is not a messy, evolving, multicultural, religiously infused, Enlightenment-based, racist, liberating, wealth-generating kaleidoscope of a society. It’s white supremacy, which started in 1619, and that’s the key to understand all of it. America’s only virtue, in this telling, belongs to those who have attempted and still attempt to end this malign manifestation of white supremacy.

I don’t believe most African-Americans believe this, outside the elites. They’re much less doctrinaire than elite white leftists on a whole range of subjects. I don’t buy it either — alongside, I suspect, most immigrants, including most immigrants of color. Who would ever want to immigrate to such a vile and oppressive place? But it is extremely telling that this is not merely aired in the paper of record (as it should be), but that it is aggressively presented as objective reality. That’s propaganda, directed, as we now know, from the very top — and now being marched through the entire educational system to achieve a specific end. To present a truth as the truth is, in fact, a deception. And it is hard to trust a paper engaged in trying to deceive its readers in order for its radical reporters and weak editors to transform the world.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/12/the-intelligence-community-works-for-the-president/

It’s simply hard to know where to begin to respond to the staggering chutzpah of Jennifer Rubin’s recent Washington Post opinion column accusing the president of undermining our intelligence community.

Rubin used the recent leak regarding the exfiltration (a fancy word for “removal”) of an undercover “asset” in Russia as a hook to make the case that the president is somehow responsible for outing this source and therefore harming U.S. interests. Her column is an example of the backward view elite leftists have towards democracy and the Constitution. These elites, in desperate need of a remedial civics class, have convinced themselves that our elected president must learn to take orders from the intelligence community.

Here is a partial inventory of what is demonstrably wrong with Rubin’s piece:

President Trump is not responsible for outing the secret CIA mole.

Rubin relied on this badly sourced story from CNN, which reported, “The removal [of the mole] happened at a time of wide concern in the intelligence community about mishandling of intelligence by Trump and his administration. Those concerns were described to CNN by five sources who served in the Trump administration, intelligence agencies and Congress.”

When you read CNN is using a former intelligence official as a source, there’s a good chance it’s using one of its own paid get-Trump contributors.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/impartiality-is-the-source-of-a-newspapers-credibility-11568109602https://www.wsj.com/articles/impartiality-is-the-source-of-a-newspapers-credibility-11568109602

Mr. Hussman is publisher of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

America has a vital interest in good journalism. But journalism confronts serious challenges. The advertising-based business model that supported it for more than a century has been disrupted. More than 1,800 U.S. newspapers have closed in the past 15 years—mostly weeklies, but also 75 dailies. Many surviving midsize metropolitan newspapers are shadows of what they once were. They have significantly reduced their news staffs and pages.

Yet journalism faces another serious challenge: a loss of public trust. A recent Gallup poll shows that of 15 American institutions, newspapers and television news are both near the bottom in the public’s confidence. While news organizations claim they are fair and objective, and many try hard to be, Americans perceive widespread bias in news reporting.

Two years ago I heard a prominent journalist say she doesn’t believe in the “false equivalency” of presenting both sides, and that she sees her job as determining the truth, then sharing it with her audience. That’s not what I learned in journalism school in the 1960s.

I decided then that I needed to let our readers know that we didn’t agree with those statements. I also needed to let them know what journalistic principles we do endorse. So I drafted a statement of core values. For the past two years, every day we publish this statement on page 2 of all 10 daily newspapers our company publishes, including the flagship Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

amgreatness.com/2019/09/09/the-press-jackals-promulgating-sharpiegate/

Have you heard of “Sharpiegate?”

Hurricane Dorian recently pulverized portions of the Bahamas. The loss in property and human life has not yet been tabulated but is sure to be historic. On September 1, President Trump tweeted: “In addition to Florida – South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already category 5. BE CAREFUL! GOD BLESS EVERYONE!” You know, like the racist monster he is. 

Then the National Weather Service in Birmingham tweeted a correction, “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.” 

If President Obama had made the same mistake, nobody would have thought a thing about it. For whatever reason, the president found it necessary to explain why he made the mistake by holding up a weather map he says he saw before making the warning about Alabama. Somebody added a line extending the projected path of the hurricane to demonstrate why he thought, at one point, that Alabama might be in the path of Dorian. 

Given that it was President Trump who made the mistake, the legacy media decided to abandon its coverage of the deadly storm threatening Americans to focus on something far more important: How can this mistake be used to get rid of Donald Trump?

Sharpiegate is a perfect reflection of the missing morality on the in the souls of the elite get-Trump forces.  They have no fear of condemnation for their callous indulgence of their get-Trump opiate in the face of an unfolding natural disaster that threatens their fellow Americans.

The Washington Post supplied a ready answer reminiscent of so many efforts to criminalize anything the president says or does: Trump committed a crime by drawing on a weather map. 

Say what now? 

amgreatness.com/2019/09/09/one-america-news-network-files-10-million-defamation-lawsuit-against-msnbcs-rachel-maddow/

One America News Network (OANN) filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit Monday against MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, alleging that the host “maliciously and recklessly” suggested on the air that the conservative news channel is a paid Russian state propaganda outlet.

In addition to Maddow, OANN is suing MSNBC, Comcast Corporation and NBC Universal for defamation.

Maddow based her claims on a Daily Beast report alleging that OANN’s Kristian Rouz is a “Russian national on the payroll of the Kremlin’s official propaganda outlet, Sputnik.”

After pointing out that President Trump has promoted OANN because he likes it better than Fox News, Maddow exclaimed, “we literally learned today that the outlet that the president is promoting shares staff with the Kremlin!”

She added that it’s easy in the Trump era to accuse pro-Trump media of being Russian propaganda, “but in this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right-wing news outlet in America, really, literally is paid Russian propaganda!” Maddow breathlessly told her MSNBC audience. “Their on-air U.S. politics reporter is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/09/max_boot_reaches_peak_narcissism_.html

Writing from his gilded perch at the Washington Post, Max Boot reflected on frustrations of being a #NeverTrump columnist:

“I love what I do and realize I am supremely lucky to be able to make my living by writing and speaking about the news of the day. I find contentment in the craft of writing and fulfillment in self-expression. But I do sometimes wonder what I am actually accomplishing. Much of my journalism for the past four years has been devoted to critiquing President Trump and opposing the spread of Trumpism. But no matter how many columns or sound bites I produce, he remains in office, acting… more erratically than ever. Sure, he’s not terribly popular — but he could still be reelected. I am left to ask if all my work has made any difference.”

This utter lack of self-awareness drew a response from National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke, who tweeted that “Max Boot is genuinely beyond parody.”

From the confines of the bubble, Boot keeps churning out the same column over and over and yet Trump has not been driven from office. How unfair!

https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/06/left-wing-website-think-progress-to-shut-down/

ThinkProgress, a once influential left-wing news site, is reportedly shutting down after being in operation for nearly 15 years.

The outlet was a “project” of  the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF), a “sister advocacy organization” of the Center for American Progress (CAP).

The Center for American Progress is a 501(c)(3) organization that receives approximately $25 million per year in funding from a variety of sources, including individuals, foundations, and corporations, according to Sourcewatch.

From 2003 to 2007, the center received about $15 million in grants from 58 foundations. Major individual donors include George Soros, Peter Lewis, Steve Bing, and Herbert M. Sandler. The Center receives undisclosed sums from corporate donors.

Wal-Mart is a major funder of the Center for American Progress, having given at least half a million dollars to the organization. Wal-Mart has been a major backer of Pres Obama’s health care legislation, which critics contend would disproportionately drive up costs for Wal-Mart’s smaller competitors.

According to the Daily Beast, ThinkProgress ran on deficits for years and “will stop current operations on Friday and be converted into a site where CAP scholars can post.”

CAP officials had been searching for a buyer to take over website and were reportedly some interested parties, but ultimately, the site was unable to secure a patron.

amgreatness.com/2019/09/05/only-the-press-could-get-away-with-this/

Let’s say you are a salesman for a major company and while attending an industry conference, you begin screaming, cursing and threatening one of the hosts—in public.

Or, let’s say you are a manager for a major company and you make up a story about how a competitor secured a bank loan and you spread that baseless rumor throughout the industry.

Or, let’s say you are a secretary for a major company and you scour the social media page of a rival in the secretarial pool, edited one of her dated posts to make it sound much worse than it actually was, and email-blasted it to the entire company in an effort to get her fired.

Or, let’s say you are the chairman of the board of a major company and you direct your underlings to lie to customers and shareholders for three years about something that never happened.

See where this is going?

In any other professional sector outside of the news media, those kinds of activities would amount to fireable offenses. No constitutional protections would apply; no activist groups would rally to your defense; no C-Suite executive would issue a statement in support of your bad behavior; no colleagues would plead your case; no judge would demand that your job be reinstated.

You would be standing in the unemployment line. Justifiably.

A Mountain of Distortions and Transgressions

Of course, those are just a few examples in an embarrassingly long list of malfeasance committed by the national media in the Trump era: At the top of the rap sheet is the way nearly every reporter, editor, columnist and talking head either fell for the manufactured Trump-Russia collusion tale or peddled what they knew all along was a lie. A close second is the attempted political assassination of a nominee for the Supreme Court. Not far behind is an orchestrated hit on pro-life teenagers wearing MAGA hat in the nation’s capital.