Archive for the ‘Media Bias’ Category

It’s clear that CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin can’t take being humiliated any longer. Toobin’s ongoing humiliation triggered this eruption:

Our constitutional system never contemplated a President like Donald Trump. The Framers anticipated friction among the three branches of government, which has been a constant throughout our history, but the Trump White House has now established a complete blockade against the legislative branch, thwarting any meaningful oversight. The system, it appears, may simply be incapable of responding to this kind of challenge.

The President has been candid about his plans for responding to investigations from the House of Representatives, which has been controlled by the Democrats since January. “We’re fighting all the subpoenas,” Trump said, last month, and the pace of his defiant actions has since quickened. The President and his Administration have defied congressional inquiries about security clearances, access to the full Mueller report, the President’s bank records, his tax returns, and the continuing investigation of his campaign’s ties to Russia.

First, let’s talk about Congress’s request for “access to the full Mueller report.” The minute this fight reaches the Supreme Court, it will be unanimously defeated. Congress isn’t entitled to information that’s been put off-limits by … Congress. Let’s not stop there, though. Let’s talk about why grand jury testimony shouldn’t be public information.

In a grand jury investigation, the accuser isn’t allowed to be cross-examined by the defense attorney. Further, the witnesses are questioned only by prosecutors. What part of that procedure sounds like the accused person’s due process rights were followed? If a person’s due process rights are violated, then that testimony should be off-limits with only a few exceptions.

Next, let’s talk about Toobin’s supposed “meaningful oversight.” President Trump has been in office for 27-28 months. Why does the House Ways & Means Committee need 6 years of President Trump’s tax returns? Congressional oversight isn’t meant for private citizens. It’s meant for legislative purposes. Let’s throw that intellectually feeble argument into the garbage where it belongs. This is the Democrats’ attempt to harass President Trump. This doesn’t have anything to do with providing with proper oversight.

Finally, congressional oversight is about finding out new facts about government operations. Why would any person with a functioning brain think that a bunch of publicity-seeking politicians will find anything that 50 FBI agents and 20 trained attorneys couldn’t find?

So, after nearly two and a half centuries, Trump will create a new constitutional norm—in which the executive can defy the legislature without consequence. The only likely remedy, therefore, will lie with the voters, next year.

Actually, Obama did that. Actually, Obama and Holder did that. When AG Holder sent guns to south-of-the-border drug cartels without having a plan in place to track them, he was showing he wasn’t ready for a heavyweight job like Attorney General. When he refused to cooperate with a legitimate oversight investigation, he showed that he was a corrupt AG who wasn’t ready for primetime. When he and other Democrats acted like refusing to actively participate in a legitimate investigation, they blazed a path that’d never been blazed before.

Any trash-talking from lightweights like Toobin might confuse some but not all. The truth is that he isn’t a convincing spinmeister or history re-writer. That’s why he’s employed by CNN. That’s why he’s a Democrat.

This morning, Attorney General William Barr will testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Lindsey Graham. Less than 12 hours before Barr testifies, a supposed bombshell letter was leaked to the Washington Post.

The headline for the article was “Mueller complained that Barr’s letter did not capture ‘context’ of Trump probe.” As usual, the headline isn’t what’s important. That’s the clickbait portion of the article. The important portion of the article is where it says “A day after the letter was sent, Barr and Mueller spoke by phone for about 15 minutes, according to law enforcement officials. In that call, Mueller said he was concerned that news coverage of the obstruction investigation was misguided and creating public misunderstandings about the office’s work, according to Justice Department officials. When Barr pressed him whether he thought Barr’s letter was inaccurate, Mueller said he did not, but felt that the media coverage of the letter was misinterpreting the investigation, officials said.”

To be clear, there were some professional disagreements between Barr and Mueller, starting with this:

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III wrote a letter in late March complaining to Attorney General William P. Barr that a four-page memo to Congress describing the principal conclusions of the investigation into President Trump “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s work, according to a copy of the letter reviewed Tuesday by The Washington Post.

As with most supposed bombshells, this article is more dud than bombshell. Still, it’s sure to cause Senate Democrats to rattle their sabers this morning.

James Freeman’s WSJ article has a wonderful tongue-in-cheek quality to it.

Freeman’s article starts by saying “What would we do without experts? As U.S. workers continue to enjoy a vibrant job market, they should spare a thought for laborers in one category of professional services who remain mired in a multi-year slump. Established manufacturers of Keynesian economic forecasts have entered a prolonged period of secular stagnation. Some may even wonder if they can ever break out of a ‘new normal’ of declining prestige.”

Freeman’s article continues, saying “At the New York Times recently, economist Paul Krugman valiantly attempted to overcome his history of underrating American potential by making another call on tax policy and the macroeconomy. On April 8, Mr. Krugman wrote about one of President Trump’s signature policy achievements: ‘…his one major legislative success, the 2017 tax cut — which he predicted would be ‘rocket fuel’ for the economy, has turned out to be a big fizzle, economically and, especially, politically. It’s true that U.S. economic growth got a bump for two quarters last year, and Trumpists are still pretending to believe that we’ll have great growth for a decade. But at this point last year’s growth is looking like a brief and rapidly fading sugar high.”

On the old show Hee-Haw, one of their famous skits showed 4 men singing:

The famous line was “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” I’d say that’s pretty fitting for the ‘slump’ that Mr. Krugman is in. He once was a world-renowned economist. These days, he’s just a partisan hack for the NYTimes. It isn’t limited to Krugman, though:

A former Clinton and Obama economic adviser, Mr. Summers wrote in May of 2017 in the Washington Post:
Details of President Trump’s first budget have now been released. Much can and will be said about the dire social consequences of what is in it and the ludicrously optimistic economic assumptions it embodies. My observation is that there appears to be a logical error of the kind that would justify failing a student in an introductory economics course.

Apparently, the budget forecasts that U.S. economic growth will rise to 3.0 percent because of the administration’s policies, largely its tax cuts and perhaps also its regulatory policies. Fair enough if you believe in tooth fairies and ludicrous supply-side economics.

These days, Summers and Krugman are nothing more than elitist economic snobs sneering down their noses at the notion that supply-side economics is the stuff that only tooth fairies peddled. Forgive me if I ignore their snobbishness.

Finally, there’s this:

Harriet Torry reports in the Journal on the optimism among corporate executives, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon:

“People are going back to the workforce. Companies have plenty of capital,” he said, adding that “business confidence and consumer confidence are both rather high…it could go on for years. There’s no law that says it has to stop,” he said.

At some point, it will stop. It’s just that there’s no guarantee it’ll be anytime soon.

I’m normally a fan of HotAir’s Allahpundit. This isn’t one of those times. After reading this post, I can’t help but object to some of AP’s statements.

For instance, I must object when AP says “Here’s my question for Kushner, though: What would he have had Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller do? Granted, the Russiagate probe was bitterly divisive and contributed to Trump’s delegitimization among his critics. But given all the contacts between Trump officials and Russians during the campaign, given Trump’s weird apologetics for Putin and Wikileaks, given the fact that his campaign did benefit to some negligible degree from Russian interference, how could the DOJ not look into it?”

The answer is simple. The DOJ shouldn’t have named a special counsel since it hadn’t identified a crime that was committed. So what if Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats whine all day long? Who cares if Adam Schiff and other Democrats lie about having seen evidence of Trump-Russia collusion? I don’t care if these Democrats stomped their feet and held their breath until they were blue in the face.

The special counsel law is pretty precise. If Shepard Smith wants to throw a hissy fit, that’s his problem. When his contract expires, here’s hoping he isn’t rehired and that they replace him with Trace Gallagher or Ed Henry. They’d be miles ahead if they did that. Listen to Smith’s temper tantrum:

Why is anyone surprised that Putin tried contacting both campaigns or that Putin tried interfering in our election? That’s as surprising as finding out that Bill Gates is rich.

Here’s a question for lefty Smith: why isn’t he interested in the Clinton campaign’s using Russian sources for the infamous discredited dossier? It isn’t news that both parties compile an opposition research file. What is news is that the Clinton campaign, then the FBI, relied on the dossier to trash a man with unverified information. Why isn’t Shepard Smith upset about that? Why aren’t other Democrats upset, too?

It’s time for that no-talent hack (Smith) to get fired.

This video is why I don’t watch Fox News Sunday:

Chris Wallace’s interrogation of Rudy Giuliani was disgraceful. Wallace asked multiple multi-faceted questions of Giuliani, then cut Giuliani off before Giuliani could answer. At one point, Giuliani asks “Are you going to let me answer this one?” Wallace replies “I’m trying to ask you some questions”, to which Giuliani replies “But you aren’t letting me answer. That isn’t fair.”

At one point, Wallace exposed his agenda:

GIULIANI: These things — well, wait a second. These things are being done by an innocent man.
WALLACE: This is called an interview. It’s not your closing argument. You got to give me the opportunity —
GIULIANI: No, I’m here to defend the president.
WALLACE: I understand that and I’m here to ask you some questions.
GIULIANI: It gives distorted arguments made by prosecutor who had people who hated him.

It’s exceptionally apparent that Wallace’s agenda was to create controversy that increased ratings. The goal wasn’t to let Mr. Giuliani answer the questions.

Wallace’s questions were about obstruction. The case on obstruction essentially starts with Mueller’s premise that he has the constitutional authority to exonerate. That’s more than a little absurd since the definition of exonerate is “to clear, as of an accusation; free from guilt or blame; exculpate”.

There isn’t a prosecutor in this nation that’s tasked with ultimately deciding guilt or innocence. That’s a jury’s responsibility.

That Wallace went hard after Adam Schiff isn’t proof that Wallace is tough on both sides, though that’s likely how pundits will spin it. It simply means he’s a jackass. Not letting the person answer isn’t helpful in gathering information, which is the moderator’s chief responsibility. On that responsibility, Chris Wallace failed.

This SCTimes Our View editorial would be right at home on CNN’s Reliable Sources.

A couple paragraphs in, the editorial states “America’s voters have a couple of options. They certainly can directly engage their members of Congress. Demand to know their positions not about the border wall, but about what it would take to reach a deal that reopens government and crafts a more effective border-security solution than a wall many security experts say would be ineffective.”

I’ve read dozens of articles about border security. I’ve heard tons of quotes saying that ‘security experts say the wall would be ineffective.’ None of those articles name the security experts. Here’s my question to the SC Times: do these security experts exist? Here’s another question I might ask: are they real or are they as fictional as the ‘sources’ in Buzzfeed’s article claiming that President Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress?

If the Times’ editorial was sold in a bookstore, it’d be best placed with fantasies. Here’s why:

President Trump and the White House are best positioned to end the impasse quickly. Of course, that would mean the president would have to compromise — something he’s seldom done since being elected, especially with Democrats.

Democrats in Congress need to keep pushing proposals that end the shutdown and seek to bolster border security.

What planet are these idiots living on? What proposals have Democrats proposed that contained anything faintly resembling a compromise? To the best of my knowledge, the Democrats’ next proposal that includes a compromise will be their first compromise.

Further, President Trump has offered 2 compromise proposals, including this one yesterday:

Then there’s this:

Common-sense congressional Republicans can publicly embrace them, which just might be enough of an opening to allow this president to claim a symbolic victory — one not worth even close to $5.7 billion but certainly money well spent to reopen the government.

How about the Times actually doing its research? Better yet, how about the Democrats doing the right thing for once? Who am I kidding? That’s as likely to happen as Cormier’s and Leopold’s anonymous sources coming forward.

If we needed additional proof that Democrats hate President Trump, Democrats supplied that proof today. Trump said “I am here today to break the logjam and provide congress with a pathway forward to end the government shutdown.” It didn’t take long for Democrats to reject President Trump’s plan:

But the approach had already been rejected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats who said it largely repackaged a proposal that had failed earlier. Pelosi called the idea a “non-starter,” and Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also panned the proposal as a way to reopen the government, even though Trump’s plan cribbed from Durbin’s own legislation.

Simply put, Democrats hate President Trump more than they like this country. Democrats don’t care if our nation is overrun with illegal aliens. Democrats don’t care if our border is secure. What Democrats want most of all is to politically demolish President Trump.

Obviously, the plan is to make Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and freshman House Democrats look unreasonable. That isn’t difficult since Democrats are totally unreasonable. Say goodbye to that Speaker’s gavel, Nancy. Many of those freshmen that were elected in 2018 won’t be returning thanks to your intransigence. Now that we know that Ms. Pelosi isn’t returning to the negotiating table, it’s time to go nuclear. The thing Republicans need to understand is that Democrats aren’t interested in bipartisanship. They’re interested in demolishing President Trump’s presidency. Period.

The Agenda Media won’t report on this fairly either. They’re part of the open borders crowd. They don’t care about protecting Americans. That’s why it’s impossible to pressure Democrats. It’d be different if we had an honest press. We don’t. (Think Buzzfeed.) President Trump should drop the hammer the minute that Senate Democrats filibuster President Trump’s offer:

Here’s what I’d write if I was President Trump’s chief speechwriter:

Democrats in the House and Senate have left me no alternatives. While more caravans head toward the border, Democrats and their allies in the Agenda Media insist that this is a “manufactured crisis.” How dare they say that. I dare them to tell that to the Angel families that I’ve met, the Angel families that tried meeting with Speaker Pelosi but were told she wasn’t there.

Democrats insist that they’re for border security. That’s a lie. If they’re for true border security, they wouldn’t have voted to filibuster the bill just presented for Senate consideration. They wouldn’t have issued a letter saying that it was dead on arrival in the House.

In both instances, Democrats said that they’d only allow a vote if the government opened first. When I asked Speaker Pelosi if she’d fund the wall if I re-opened the government, she said “No.” I’ve been willing to negotiate throughout. Unfortunately, Democrats have rejected my offers to even meet. I can’t negotiate with myself.

Therefore, I’m left with just one option. Today, I’m invoking the Emergencies Act to protect the United States from mass illegal immigration, drug trafficking and human trafficking. While Democrats insist that I’m manufacturing this crisis, people from California to Texas to Staten Island have felt the pain of these criminals. If that doesn’t constitute a national emergency, nothing does.

My highest priority as president is to protect human lives. Because Democrats won’t join with me in protecting American lives, I’m taking action to protect those lives.

It isn’t news that the MSM has double standards in covering Republicans and Democrats. That’s as old as the Hatfields and McCoys. Still, it’s fun from time-to-time to look at the coverage. This article does a nice job of highlighting the MSM’s hypocrisy:

The mainstream media widely praised House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she requested that President Trump delay his annual State of the Union address, but Trump’s move to stop a Pelosi-led overseas trip amid the government shutdown was mostly frowned upon – showcasing the media’s double standard.

But on Thursday, Trump abruptly denied military aircraft for a Democrat-delegation foreign trip just minutes before Pelosi and the congressional delegation was set to depart. One White House official claimed the aircraft decision was not a “response” to Pelosi’s letter – but the same media that praised the House Speaker’s genius condemned the president’s decision.

Trump actually supplied a legitimate reason for postponing Pelosi’s trip. Pelosi’s reason was actually a bald-faced lie. Trump wanted Pelosi in town to negotiate the end of the shutdown, though that’s unlikely because Pelosi insists that walls don’t work. Pelosi told Trump that the Secret Service couldn’t secure the event. That’s despite the fact that the Speaker’s office never contacted the Secret Service.

Simply put, Pelosi doesn’t care about the furloughed government workers. She isn’t interested in re-opening the government, either. She’s just a cold-hearted bitch playing politics.

By comparison, President Trump is trying to fix a crisis. Despite the Democrats’ claims to the contrary, walls work. Just ask Israel. For that matter, ask Steny Hoyer:

The Agenda Media’s double standard is sickening.

It’s been quite the week for CNN’s correspondents and commentators. Let’s start with Jim Acosta, everyone’s least favorite White House correspondent. Acosta tried proving that there wasn’t a crisis on the US-Mexico border:

Acosta visited an area where steel slats had been built. Here’s what Acosta reported:

I found some steel slats down on the border. But I don’t see anything resembling a national emergency situation.. at least not in the McAllen TX area of the border where Trump will be today.

President Trump reportedly sent Acosta a thank you note after that tweet because it proved President Trump’s point. Apparently, it didn’t occur to Acosta that the area was tranquil because of the barrier. That video proved CNN’s stupidity.

Chris Cabrera, the National Border Patrol Council spokesman for agents in the Rio Grande Valley, issued a challenge to Acosta:

Chris Cabrera, National Border Patrol Council spokesman for agents in the Rio Grande Valley, dared the Washington-based reporter to stick around when the Secret Service leaves town.

“What he fails to realize is he’s out there with cameras during the day. Everything is pretty nice and calm during the day,” Cabrera told Ingraham. “If he sees it as so safe out there, why doesn’t he just pitch a tent by the river and hang of the for a couple of days and get back to us on how safe he feels?”

That won’t happen. Ana Navarro provided CNN’s snottiness during this segment:

Navarro is what a bitch looks like. The video dripped with arrogance. It’s a shame that CNN hasn’t figured it out that she’s a snotty little bitch yet. It isn’t like she hasn’t been with CNN long enough. Then again, CNN’s been stupid enough to keep Acosta around since 2007.

This isn’t a secret but A.B. Stoddard, who pretends to be unbiased politically, is actually a partisan hack. Yesterday on Special Report’s All-Star Panel, Stoddard ripped off the mask when she said “A congressman, who is close to leadership and knows what’s going on, told me … that they don’t know what’s going on, they weren’t certain that they’d have the votes, and they were hoping that even if it failed, the president would come to his senses. There wasn’t a Senate plan, there was a ‘President Trump comes to his senses’ plan. I think the nation’s fourth-graders know this is no way to run a lemonade stand. This is completely irresponsible. The markets are rattling on the prospect of a shutdown that’s turning on Ann Coulter’s tweets.”

Later, she criticized Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows for urging President Trump to stick to his insistence of getting border wall funding, saying that their advice amounted to “political malpractice.”

Let’s be clear about something. Securing the border is the right thing to do. Building a wall to help accomplish that is essential. That’s immaterial to Stoddard, who apparently isn’t interested in good policy. She’s apparently only interested in whether the process is orderly.

Further, it’s disrespectful to say that there’s a need for a ‘president comes to his senses deal’. He’s the only one making sense in all this. It’s impossible to secure the border without building the wall. The statistics bear that out. Democrats who oppose the wall, aka Chuck and Nancy, are the people who need help. They’re putting the Democrats’ special interest allies’ wish list ahead of America’s needs. How sad.