Kimberley Strassel: Insubordination and Bias at FBI
Posted: June 17, 2018 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, U.S. News | Tags: Bias, Bill Clinton, FBI, Hillary Clinton, Investigation, James Comey, Kimberley Strassel, Loretta Lynch, Michael Horowitz Leave a comment
The inspector general report is careful in its conclusions, but damning on the facts.
Kimberley A. Strassel Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 500-page report covers plenty, but it can be distilled to two words he uses to describe the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the 2016 election: insubordination and bias. Two terms that are chilling in connection with such a powerful agency.That won’t be the message from Democrats and most of the press, who will focus on a few episodes they will claim cost Hillary Clinton an election. Watch for them to blame former FBI Director James Comey, whom the report faults for “a serious error of judgment,” for having “concealed information” from superiors, and for “violation of or disregard for” departmental and bureau policies.
True, the report is damning about the man who lectures Americans on “higher loyalty.” It describes how an “insubordinate” Mr. Comey was, as early as April 2016, considering how to cut his Justice Department bosses from a public statement exonerating Hillary Clinton. He hid this scheme for fear “they would instruct him not to do it”—and therefore was able to “avoid supervision.” He then “violated long-standing Department practice and protocol” by using his July 5 press conference for “criticizing Clinton’s uncharged conduct.” In October, he made public that the FBI had reopened the investigation, even though the Justice Department recommended he not do so. Mr. Comey went rogue, and President Trump had plenty of justification in firing him in May 2017.
Yet it is the report’s findings on the wider culture of the FBI and Justice Department that are most alarming. The report depicts agencies that operate outside the rules to which they hold everybody else, and that showed extraordinary bias while investigating two presidential candidates.
There’s Loretta Lynch, who felt it perfectly fine to have a long catch-up with her friend Bill Clinton on a Phoenix tarmac and whom the inspector general slams for an “error in judgment.” Read the rest of this entry »
NYT Plays Defense For Iranian Mullahs: Demonstrators ‘Ignored Calls For Calm,’ Defied ‘Moderate’ Iranian Leadership
Posted: January 2, 2018 Filed under: Breaking News, Censorship, Crime & Corruption, History, Mediasphere, Terrorism | Tags: Anti-Israel Bias, Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Bias, Erdbrink, Hamas, Iran, journalism, media, New York Times, President Rouhani 1 Comment
Ben Shapiro writes: On Monday, The New York Times ran the latest in a series of despicable pieces dedicated to making excuses for the tyrannical Islamist Iranian despotism. Here’s their tweet on the regime’s killing of dissidents:
Yes, it’s the fault of the demonstrators, who have somehow merely refused to heed the decent calls for calm from the Iranian mullahs. Oddly, The New York Times never has such words for Palestinian rioters who throw rocks at Israeli troops at the behest of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. When that happens, it’s Trump’s fault or the Jews’ fault. Somebody else’s fault, anyway.
But when it’s democracy-seeking Iranians, then they’re the problem.
The piece itself, by Thomas Erdbrink, is a disaster area. It contains lines like this one:
Despite Mr. Rouhani’s diplomatic language, it was clear the demonstrators would be given no leeway…Mr. Rouhani has urged demonstrators to avoid violence but defended their right to protest. He did so again on Monday on Twitter.
Rouhani is a tool of the regime, of course, and a radical Islamist to boot, as well as a Holocaust denier. But according to the Times, he’s a moderate:
This time, it is the failure of President Rouhani, a moderate, to deliver greater political changes and economic opportunity, despite the lifting of some of the sanctions against Iran as part of the nuclear deal. Young people are especially angry. The average age of those arrested is under 25, one official said.
And the protests are about economics, not about the repressive regime. Of course, the regime has spent billions of dollars on terrorism abroad, including the maximization of its bloodshed in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. But it’s just that the Iranian government hasn’t redistributed the oil wealth enough. The Iranians probably just need Bernie Sanders or something. Read the rest of this entry »
NYT Only Finds the FBI Texts Newsworthy in that Republicans are ‘Seizing’ On Them
Posted: December 15, 2017 Filed under: Censorship, Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: 2016 Presidential Campaign, Bias, Democrats, Department of Justice, DOJ, FBI, GOP Pounce Story, Hillary Clinton, media, New York Times, Peter Strzok Leave a comment
The New York Times has already moved on to the ‘Republicans pounce’ portion of the news cycle.
Becket Adams writes: Special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation is facing a brewing scandal involving hyper-partisan texts written by his former team members, and the New York Times has already moved on to the “Republicans pounce” portion of the news cycle.
Because that’s often the modus operandi for these sorts of things.
Peter Strzok, who specializes in Russian counterintelligence, was removed from Mueller’s team this July. The decision to take Strzok off the Russia investigation came after the Justice Department’s inspector general discovered he had sent and received dozens of anti-Trump texts between August 2015 and 2016 from Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer with whom Strzok was having an affair. Page was also on Mueller’s team, but only briefly. She returned to the FBI before the special counsel was made aware of the texts.
There’s really no getting around it: The texts are extremely partisan.
“I can not believe Donald Trump is likely to be an actual, serious candidate for president,” Page wrote in one note.
Strzok wrote in another note, “God Hillary should win. 100,000,000-0.”
“And maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace,” Page wrote in another text. “I can protect our country at many levels, not sure if that helps.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Senior Homepage Editor Reveals Biased Political Agenda at New York Times
Posted: October 18, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Censorship, Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Anti-Christian sentiment, Bias, Democratic Party (United States), Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., journalism, Malpractice, Mike Pence, President of the United States, propaganda, The New York Times, The Washington Post Leave a commentBeing a Journalist is Hard!
- New York Times Senior Home Page Editor, Des Shoe, Admits Company Culture of Blatant Bias at NYT is “widely understood to be liberal-leaning…”
- NYT Journalists: “if we write about him [Trump], and how insanely crazy he is…maybe people will read it and be like…we shouldn’t vote for him.”
- Calls Trump an “oblivious idiot” and Pence “f***ing horrible” Because of Religious Views
- Admits New York Times Report on “what the readers want”
- “They call it the Trump bump” Says Shoe, Regarding the Influx of Subscribers Since Trump’s Presidency Began
- Des Shoe: “The main objective is to grab subscribers. You do that any way that you can.”
(NEW YORK) – Project Veritas has released a video of the New York Times Homepage Editor Des Shoe, who was caught on hidden-camera admitting that the Times has a liberal bias and attacking President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. This is part three of their American Pravda NYT investigation.
When confronted with the notion that during the election, The Times‘ front page, for which she is responsible, was completely focused around Trump. She tells the undercover journalist that NYT reporters tried to influence the election with their reporting:
“I think one of the things that maybe journalists were thinking about is like…Oh, if we write about him, about how insanely crazy he is and how ludicrous his policies are, then maybe people will read it and be like, oh wow, we shouldn’t vote for him.”
She admits that the New York Times has a clearly defined liberal-leaning bias: “The New York Times is not…I mean, it’s widely understood to be liberal-leaning. But, American newspapers are not supposed to claim a bias, they’re supposed to be objective.”
“So the…ahh, but the New York Times is not left?” the Project Veritas journalist asked. Shoe clarified, “I’m not saying that they’re not. I’m saying it’s widely, widely understood to be left-leaning.”
She also tells the undercover journalist that reporting objectively is simply too difficult for the Times: “Our main stories are supposed to be objective. It’s very difficult in this day and age to do that.”
Shoe blames the business model for the New York Times‘ lack of fact-based reporting:
“This is what I was trying to say is like the last couple years it’s changed for the bad…
“I think the business model itself is just… there’s so much panic about what to do that, you know, what else is a company supposed to do?
“That’s the conundrum…is that a business model, in this time is built on what the readers want.”
The New York Times senior homepage editor goes on to explain the positive effect of Trump’s victory: “Since the election, like you know…Speaking on, you know, for The New York Times, our subscriptions have sky-rocketed since…I mean, they call it the Trump bump.”
This sentiment was echoed by Nick Dudich, who was featured in American Pravda Part 1 and Part 2. He explains, “I mean honestly, Trump has driven us more business than anybody else. Anytime he says failing, we add a boost of subscribers.”
The New York Times responded to Part I in a statement, calling Dudich “a recent hire in a junior position.” Later, Executive Editor of the NYT Dean Baquet described Dudich as “a kid…who just started his career in journalism.” The same cannot be said for Ms. Shoe, a senior-level employee who has been with The Times since January of 2009.
Des Shoe claims that the New York Times has to chase clicks in the current media environment, “The Washington Post, people who have paywalls up…The main objective is to grab subscribers. You do that any way that you can.”
When told the New York Times seems more like a ‘click-paper’, Shoe replies:
“I mean, you’re not wrong. Like, I would love to be able to speak my mind completely about…If I ever leave the Times I’ll go back to you guys and tell you exactly what I think. But, I mean, there’s stuff like…And this is what I was trying to say is like the last couple years it’s changed for the bad.”
Shoe finally goes on to explain her personal biases against President Trump, “I feel like Trump is…is just a…is sort of an idiot in a lot of ways. Just an oblivious idiot.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] CNN’s Dan Rather Moment?
Posted: January 11, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Bias, CNN, Dan Rather, fake news, Fox Business, media, Media malpractice, news, propaganda, video Leave a comment
Jeff Sessions Confirmation Hearings Highlights
Posted: January 10, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Attorney general, Bias, Confirmation Hearings, Congress, Jeff Sessions, journalism, Parody, propaganda, Racism, satire, Smear, The Senate Leave a comment
Heterodox Academy Combats Academic Uniformity, Leftist Bias
Posted: May 8, 2016 Filed under: Education, Think Tank | Tags: Barack Obama, Bias, Conservative, Feminism, Heterodox University, Jonathan Haidt, Leftist, Liberal, Marxism, New York University, Research, Rutgers University, Scholar, Socialism, The College Fix, The New York Times Leave a comment
Fed Up with Peers’ Blind Devotion to Leftist Tenets, Freethinking Professors Launch their Own Website.
Kate Hardiman writes: In January, a mere five months after the launch of Heterodox Academy, the scholarly blog was cited by professor and columnist Paul Krugman in the New York Times as an example of educators who are “conservative” and “outraged” at “what they see as a sharp leftward movement in the academy.”
“Krugman is wrong—we are neither conservative nor outraged. We are concerned about the loss of viewpoint diversity in the academy because it means that we lose ‘institutionalized disconfirmation.’”
— Jonathan Haidt
But Krugman – like so many of his left-leaning peers – appeared blind to the truth.
“The quality of research produced by politically orthodox disciplines deteriorates. We are working within the academy to try to improve it.”
“Krugman is wrong—we are neither conservative nor outraged,” responded Jonathan Haidt, a professor of business ethics at New York University and co-founder of the website. “We are concerned about the loss of viewpoint diversity in the academy because it means that we lose ‘institutionalized disconfirmation.’”
…speakers and writers are often vilified for presenting contrary opinions to the common narrative. Here’s some of what can get scholars in trouble:
“Suggest some or many aspects of modern feminism are misguided.”
“Claim that affirmative action is dysfunctional.”
“Argue that some psychological and behavioral differences between some groups might have derived from the different evolutionary adaptation pressures on different continents.
“Present evidence that many stereotypes are accurate.”
“Present evidence that children of gay or lesbian parents are not necessarily as psychologically well adjusted as parents of heterosexual parents.”
“Criticize Islam, as a religion and/or set of cultural values and/or political ideology.”
“The quality of research produced by politically orthodox disciplines deteriorates. We are working within the academy to try to improve it.”
[Read the full story here, at The College Fix]
Heterodox Academy was founded in September 2015 by eleven professors of liberal, conservative, libertarian and centrist bents who hail from various disciplines and universities and who have taken up the mission to combat the lack of “viewpoint diversity” in academia, with a special focus on the social sciences. Read the rest of this entry »
Ted Cruz, Cartoonist
Posted: December 23, 2015 Filed under: Comics, Crime & Corruption, Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Bias, Cartoons, Hillary Clinton, journalism, media, New York Times, news, Republican Party (United States), Ted Cruz, Washington Post Leave a comment
“Seems like a better idea for a cartoon: Hillary and her lapdogs.”
— Senator Ted Cruz
UPDATE: San Bernardino Shooting 0.3 Miles from First Presbyterian Church @business
Posted: December 2, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Religion, U.S. News | Tags: Bias, Bloomberg Business, Church, media, news, Planned Parenthood, Presbyterianism, propaganda, San Bernardino, Twitter Leave a comment
San Bernadino shooting happened less than 10 blocks from a First Presbyterian Church
Previous Update: Bloomberg Business tweets nonexistent connection between Inland Regional Center shooting and Planned Parenthood Health Center
(note San Bernardino is misspelled)
San Bernadino shooting happened less than two miles from a Planned Parenthood health clinic https://t.co/eNzSBzW6d7pic.twitter.com/B9vJ5zkhHj
— Bloomberg Business (@business) December 2, 2015
New York Daily News: Racist White Shooter vs. Racist Black Shooter
Posted: August 27, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Censorship, Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Bias, media, Media bias, New York City, New York Daily News, news, Newspapers, propaganda, Race in America, Racism, Tabloid, Virginia Shooting 1 Comment
@redsteeze @AceofSpadesHQ Racist white shooter vs. racist black shooter. pic.twitter.com/6urj3wGkhC
— The Real Bepo (D) (@TheRealBepo) August 27, 2015
Here’s How ‘Serious’ Journalists Tried to Smear the Koch Brothers Seminar
Posted: August 6, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Bias, Charles G. Koch, Civil rights movement, Fact checker, media, news, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, United States, Women's suffrage Leave a comment
The Washington Post’s blunder is not as bad as that of TIME. The magazine published an article with the hysterical headline ‘Charles Koch says U.S. can bomb its way to $100K salaries’. They later changed the headline.
Casey Given writes: Last weekend, the Koch Brothers opened up their exclusive fundraising seminars to the media for the very first time. After years of speculating about what goes on behind the closed doors of the Kochs’ extensive political network, the press could finally see for themselves.
One would think that a decent journalist would repay this tremendous sign of good will with fair reporting on the Kochs’ words and intentions, but good journalism apparently doesn’t sell anymore. While it’s no surprise that the liberal blogosphere and Twitterverse erupted in outrage about the Koch seminars (as they always do), what’s shocking is how prestigious news outlets covered the event.
First, the Washington Post published an article with the headline “Charles Koch compares the work of his network to the civil right movement” — the perfect fodder to get the far left outraged at the supposedly out-of-touch “conservative” billionaire. But what did Koch actually say? From the article’s body:
“History demonstrates that when the American people get motivated by an issue of justice that they believe is just, extraordinary things can be accomplished,” Koch told 450 wealthy conservatives assembled in the ballroom of a lavish oceanfront resort here.
“Look at the American revolution, the anti-slavery movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the civil rights movement,” he said. “All of these struck a moral chord with the American people. They all sought to overcome an injustice. And we, too, are seeking to right injustices that are holding our country back.”
Koch made no such comment comparing the magnitude of his political agenda to the civil rights movement. Rather, he simply cited the civil rights movement (among others) as an inspiration to fight injustice. Considering their work promoting school choice for poor minority children and criminal justice reform for prisoners convicted of nonviolent crimes, the Kochs are clearly fighting injustice. But Koch would have to be an egomaniac to claim that his politics are more important than the American Revolution — which is why he said no such thing. Read the rest of this entry »
Starbucks: Race Discrimination to Come?
Posted: July 13, 2015 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Bias, Black, CBS Seattle, CEO, Coffee, Employment Discrimination, Hiring, Howard Schultz, Latino, Minority, National Review, Progressivism, propaganda, Race Discrimination, Race Together, Roger Glegg, Seattle, Starbucks, Wall Street Journal, White 2 Comments
By Roger Clegg National Review
Both Were Drunk. Jake Could Consent? How?
Posted: July 11, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Education, Law & Justice, Mediasphere | Tags: Alcohol, Bias, Civil Rights, college, Consent, Due Process, equality, Feminism, Hooking Up, Intoxication, propaganda, Rape, Sexism, University Leave a comment
Salon: Having it Both Ways
Posted: June 20, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Bias, Charleston, Christianity, Church Massacre, Demagogue, Hypocrisy, Jihadism, Left Wing Racism, media, news, race, Salon, Salon.com, Tsamaevs, Twitter Leave a comment
CBS Deploys the “Critics Say” Headline
Posted: May 1, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Bias, CBS, Clinton Foundation, Democratic Operatives, Hillary Clinton, media, news, propaganda Leave a comment
CBS deploys the “critics say” headline to laughable effect http://t.co/aFqbvTdj0j pic.twitter.com/eYYS3z1JmJ
— Morgen (@morgenr) May 1, 2015
Rolling Stone: Revealing Tweet of the Week
Posted: April 30, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Bias, corruption, Journalist, Left Wing, Marxism, media, news, Populism, Progressivism, propaganda, Reporter, Rolling Stone, The Press 1 Comment
‘More Objective Than They Get Credit For’: State Judges Are Far Less Biased Than Law School Students, New Study Says
Posted: April 10, 2015 Filed under: Law & Justice, Politics | Tags: Abortion, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, Barack Obama, Bias, Courts, District Attorney, Harvard University, Ivy League, Jacob Gershman, Judges, Law Students, The Wall Street Journal, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Yale University Leave a comment
The judges, lawyers and law students were instructed to assess legal problems designed to gauge their political bias
Jacob Gershman reports: You often hear from liberals and conservatives that judges are too political, that, instead of calling balls and strikes, they allow their own ideological, political or religious views to steer legal opinions.
A new study says judges, at least ones sitting on state benches, are more objective than they get credit for. The report, forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, says judges by and large are able to exercise professional judgement and reach consensus on disputes that polarize the general public.
“The experimental results furnished evidence strongly at odds with the conclusion that judges are influenced by political predispositions when they engage in legal reasoning.”
The study, which took more than two years to conduct, included about 1,500 subjects: 253 judges, 225 lawyers, 250 law students (from five schools including Harvard and Yale), and 800 adults members of the general public.
“Judges of diverse cultural outlooks—ones polarized on their views of the risks of marijuana legalization, climate change, and other contested issues—converged on results in cases that strongly divided comparably diverse members of the public.”
The judges, lawyers and law students were instructed to assess legal problems designed to gauge their political bias.
One sample scenario involved a police officer accused of violating a disclosure law that makes it a crime for a government official to intentionally leak confidential investigatory information about a private citizen.
There were two versions of that scenario — “prochoice” and “prolife” — and subjects were randomly presented one of them.
In the first, the officer supplied information to a ‘family planning’ abortion facility about a job applicant who secretly belonged to an anti-abortion group. In the “prolife” version, the officer leaked information to an anti-abortion family planning center about a job applicant who secretly belonged to a prochoice group. Read the rest of this entry »
Media Pile on Rand Paul After Aggressive Response to NBC’s Savannah Guthrie
Posted: April 9, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Ad hominem, Bias, CNBC, Democratic Party Operatives with Bylines, Hillary Clinton, Kelly Evans, Kentucky, media, NBC, NBC News, news, propaganda, Rand Paul, Republican Party (United States), Savannah Guthrie, Today (U.S. TV program) Leave a comment
T. Beckett Adams writes: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., became the target of media criticism Wednesday after he accused NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie during an interview of “editorializing” her questions.
“Rand Paul on NBC sounding like that drunk dude in a bar.”
— Business Insider U.K.‘s manner’s consultant Jim Edward
“That Rand Paul sure is a charmer,” tweeted Business Insider’s Nicholas Carson, after Paul said Today Show co-anchor Guthrie was phrasing her questions as declaratives rather than interrogatives during an interview with the newly declared 2016 presidential candidate.
“Rand Paul thinks he knows how to be a journalist better than you do.”
— Talking Points Memo‘s finger-wagger Caitlin MacNeal
Politico’s Ben White tweeted, “Politicians mansplaining to female journos how to conduct an interview is just, well, it’s just very bad.”
“Why don’t you let me explain instead of talking over me, OK?”
— Candidate Rand Paul
Guthrie began the exchange by noting that Paul has in the past taken foreign policy positions that departed from current GOP orthodoxy. She then said the Kentucky lawmaker, who announced Tuesday that he will compete in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, has switched positions on several key issues.
“Politicians mansplaining to female journos how to conduct an interview is just, well, it’s just very bad.”
— Politico‘s resident expert on gender issues and media etiquette, Ben White
“You once said Iran was not a threat, now you say it is. You once proposed ending foreign aid to Israel, now you support it, at least for the time being, and you once offered to drastically cut…defense spending and now you want to increase it 16 percent,” she started.
This did not sit well with Paul, who accused her eventually of “editorializing.”
“Before we go. Before we go. Before we go through — Before we go through a litany of — Before we go through a litany of,” Paul said over crosstalk from the Peacock Network Washington reporter. “Why don’t you let me explain instead of talking over me, OK?”
Guthrie fell silent. Read the rest of this entry »
Washington Post: ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ Did Not Happen in Ferguson
Posted: March 22, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Bias, Brown University, Congressional Black Caucus, Debunked, Execution-style murder, Hysteria, Investigative journalism, Iran, Jonathan Capehart, Mythology, Pinocchio, Police, propaganda, St. Louis Rams, The Washington Post, United States Department of Justice Leave a comment
Michelle Ye Hee Lee reports: This phrase became a rallying cry for Ferguson residents, who took to the streets to protest the fatal shooting of a black 18-year-old by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. Witness accounts spread after the shooting that Brown had his hands raised in surrender, mouthing the words “Don’t shoot” as his last words before being shot execution-style. The gesture of raised hands became a symbol of outrage over mistreatment of unarmed black youth by police.
That narrative was called into question when a St. Louis County grand jury could not confirm those testimonies. And a recently released Department of Justice investigative report concluded the same.
Yet the gesture continues to be used today. So we wanted to set the record straight on the DOJ’s findings, especially after The Washington Post’s opinion writer Jonathan Capehart wrote that it was “built on a lie.” From time to time, we retroactively check statements as new information becomes available. In this case, the Justice Department has concluded that Wilson acted out of self-defense, and was justified in killing Brown.
Does “Hands up, don’t shoot” capture the facts of Brown’s shooting? What has it come to symbolize now?
The Facts
“Hands up, don’t shoot” links directly to Brown’s death, and it went viral. After the shooting, St. Louis Rams players raised their hands as a symbolic gesture entering the field before a football game. Protesters chanted “Hands up, don’t shoot” during rallies after a grand jury in the state’s case against Wilson decided not to indict Wilson in Brown’s killing. The phrase and gesture were on signs, T-shirts, hashtags, memes and magazine covers. It even has its own Wikipedia page.
In November 2014, a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson after finding that witness reports did not match up with evidence. Other witnesses recanted their original accounts or changed them, calling their veracity into question. In particular, the grand jury could not confirm the “Hands up, don’t shoot” narrative the way it was told after the shooting. By then, however, the phrase had taken on a message of its own.
On Dec. 1, 2014, four members of the Congressional Black Caucus repeated the gesture while delivering speeches on the House Floor titled, “Black in America: What Ferguson Says About Where We Are and Where We Need to Go.” Each of the members held up their hands, and the image spread widely online.
Yet the Department of Justice’s March 4, 2015, investigative report on the shooting of Michael Brown found federal investigators could not confirm witness accounts that Brown signaled surrender before being killed execution-style. The department’s descriptions of about 40 witness testimonies show the original claims that Brown had his hands up were not accurate.
Some witnesses who claimed they saw Brown’s hands raised had testimonies that were inconsistent with physical and forensic evidence. Some admitted to federal investigators they felt pressured to retell the narrative that was being spread after Brown’s shooting. Read the rest of this entry »
Mollie Hemingway: Anatomy Of A Smear: The Media Vs. Republican Senators On Iran Letter
Posted: March 11, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank, U.S. News | Tags: Bias, Daily Beast, Democrats, GOP, Iran, Jonah Goldberg, media, Mollie Hemingway, Nancy Pelosi, Narrative, Negotiations, news, Republicans, Senate, Soviets, Ted Kennedy, Tom Cotton, Twitter Leave a comment
The claims in the Daily Beast story are completely 100% unsubstantiated
Mollie Hemingway writes: This week, a group of Republican senators led by Tom Cotton of Arkansas (pictured above, with a kitten, in Iraq) issued a very brief open letter to the leaders of Iran explaining the differences between mere executive agreements and international treaties ratified by the Senate. It’s a fairly basic letter that includes reminders about the Constitutional system under which we operate. I couldn’t begin to speculate why, but the media lost their collective minds over this letter. Along with other Democrats and progressive activists. You can read the breathless, outraged, totally-over-the-top headlines if you’d like to see this melt-down in action.
Now, that’s fine. That’s their business. To be completely honest, and not that you care, I’m not the biggest fan of such letters myself. I mean, they’re not as bad as Nancy Pelosi going to Syria to undermine Bush’s foreign policy, Jimmy Carter helping North Korea get nuclear weapons, Ted Kennedy secretly asking the Soviets to interfere in the 1984 election or any of the many other interjections we’ve seen, but I think it’s generally a good idea to yield to the president on foreign negotiations, even if it’s a really bad president who couldn’t negotiate his way out of a paper bag if the stakes involved, oh I don’t know, going ahead with Iran as a nuclear power.
“What he sure as MOTHERFREAKING FREAK doesn’t say is that he’s a senator, that he thought it was a dumb idea to sign the letter, that he signed it and then realized it was a bad call or that he represents the ‘some’ in the headline.”
But let’s look a little deeper at just one part of this media campaign against Republican senators. It comes from Tim Mak of the Daily Beast and it looks like he’s got an explosive story:
Whoa. Check that out. Republicans now “admit” that the letter was “a dumb idea”! That’s huge. And “some Republicans who signed on” are now “realizing” it was a bad call? I can’t wait to read this story — taglined “HINDSIGHT” for extra flair — can you?
“Other than this low-level staff aide who didn’t even say he thought the letter was a bad idea, much less a dumb one, we have two Republican Senators who always opposed the letter and then also a Democratic Senator who didn’t like the letter…”
What are their names? Which of the senators are changing their minds and “admitting” and “realizing” that the media were right after all? Who are they?
[read the full text here, at The Federalist]
Oh dear. That’s … weird. Very weird.
“So, in other words, we have a story that in no way supports the headline. Not even close…”
Hunh. Tim Mak’s story doesn’t even claim a single senator changed his mind. Not even close. Yikes.
Um. So it turns out that the only people quoted in the story against the letter are people who always opposed the letter. There’s also a quote from an unnamed, completely anonymous “Senate Republican aide” who doesn’t in any way say anything even remotely close to the claims made in the headline or anywhere else in the piece. Read the rest of this entry »
‘American Sniper’ Blamed for Chapel Hill Shooting Incident
Posted: February 11, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, War Room | Tags: American Sniper, Bias, Chris Kyle, Ignorance, Intolerance, Left Wing, media, Michelle Malkin, Muslim, news, Progressivism, propaganda, Race Hustling, Twitchy, Twitter Leave a comment
[VIDEO] SHOCK: TV Advertising That Doesn’t Demean, Mock, Diminish, and Insult Dads
Posted: January 31, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Food & Drink, Mediasphere | Tags: Advertising, Bias, Breakfast Cereal, Cheerios, Dads, Dreams from My Father, Family, Fatherhood, Feminism, Sexism, Television, TV Commercial, YouTube 2 Comments[VIDEO] Say What? NBC Reporter: Chris Kyle Went on Racist ‘Killing Sprees’ in Iraq
Posted: January 29, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere, War Room | Tags: American Sniper, Ayman Mohyeldin, Bias, Chris Kyle, corruption, Iraq, Low Ratings, Meet the Press, Morning Joe, MSNBC, Muslim, NBC 1 Comment“Chris Kyle was going on killing sprees?”
— Host Joe Scarborough
Brendan Bordelon writes: As American Sniper achieves enormous box-office success, NBC reporter Ayman Mohyeldin accused Navy sniper Chris Kyle of perpetrating racially-motivated “killing sprees” during his tours of duty in Iraq.
[More – ‘American Sniper’ is the Most Widely Screened R-Rated Movie in History]
[Also see – Why the Left Hates American Sniper]
The Egyptian-American reporter told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday that if audiences “don’t know anything about Chris Kyle — don’t know if it was a true story — this is a great movie.”
[Ayman Mohyeldin (Arabic: أيمن محيى الدين) is an Egyptian-American journalist based in Los Angeles for NBC News. He previously worked for Al Jazeera and CNN. You can send a message to compliment his fine reporting and insightful analysis @AymanM]
[More – Bill Maher Calls Real-Life American Sniper ‘Psychopathic Patriot’]
But, Mohyeldin argued, the heroic way Chris Kyle is portrayed in the film is “very far from reality.”
“A lot of his own personal opinions about what he was doing in Iraq,” he explained. “How he viewed Iraqis. Some of what people described as his racist tendencies towards Iraqis and Muslims as he was going on some these killing sprees in Iraq.”
[Also see – ‘Seeing ‘American Sniper‘ Made the State of the Union Speech Pretty Unbearable’]
[More – American Sniper Backlash Exposes ‘Bush Derangement’ Syndrome: Hasn’t Gone into Remission]
Host Joe Scarborough was stunned. “Chris Kyle was going on killing sprees?” he asked….(read more)
National Review Online – via Washington Free Beacon
Leaked Newsroom Emails Reveal Al Jazeera Fury over Global Support for Charlie Hebdo
Posted: January 9, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Global, Mediasphere, War Room | Tags: Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, Appellate court, Australia, BBC, Bias, Cairo, Egypt, Egyptian Canadian, Islamism, Jihadism, Journalist, London, Muslim Brotherhood, New trial, Peter Greste, Terrorism, Terrorist Sympathizers 1 Comment
Brendan Bordelon reports: As journalists worldwide reacted with universal revulsion at the massacre of some of their owxn by Islamic jihadists in Paris, Al Jazeera English editor and executive producer Salah-Aldeen Khadr sent out a staff-wide email.
“Please accept this note in the spirit it is intended — to make our coverage the best it can be,” the London-based Khadr wrote Thursday, in the first of a series of internal emails leaked to National Review Online. “We are Al Jazeera!”
“I guess if you insult 1.5 billion people chances are one or two of them will kill you.”
— Mohamed Vall Salem
Below was a list of “suggestions” for how anchors and correspondents at the Qatar-based news outlet should cover Wednesday’s slaughter at the Charlie Hebdo office (the full emails can be found at here at NRO).
“Defending freedom of expression in the face of oppression is one thing; insisting on the right to be obnoxious and offensive just because you can is infantile,” Khadr wrote. “Baiting extremists isn’t bravely defiant when your manner of doing so is more significant in offending millions of moderate people as well.”
— Salah-Aldeen Khadr
Khadr urged his employees to ask if this was “really an attack on ‘free speech,’” discuss whether “I am Charlie” is an “alienating slogan,” caution viewers against “making this a free speech aka ‘European Values’ under attack binary [sic],” and portray the attack as “a clash of extremist fringes.”
“What Charlie Hebdo did was not free speech it was an abuse of free speech in my opinion, go back to the cartoons and have a look at them!” Salem later wrote. “It’ snot [sic] about what the drawing said, it was about how they said it. I condemn those heinous killings, but I’M NOT CHARLIE.”
— Mohamed Vall Salem
“Defending freedom of expression in the face of oppression is one thing; insisting on the right to be obnoxious and offensive just because you can is infantile,” Khadr wrote. “Baiting extremists isn’t bravely defiant when your manner of doing so is more significant in offending millions of moderate people as well. And within a climate where violent response—however illegitimate [sic]—is a real risk, taking a goading stand on a principle virtually no one contests is worse than pointless: it’s pointlessly all about you.”
His denunciation of Charlie Hebdo’s publication of cartoons mocking the prophet Mohammed didn’t sit well with some Al Jazeera English employees.
Hours later, U.S.-based correspondent Tom Ackerman sent an email quoting a paragraph from a New York Times’ January 7 column by Ross Douthat. The op-ed argued that cartoons like the ones that drove the radical Islamists to murder must be published, “because the murderers cannot be allowed for a single moment to think that their strategy can succeed.”
That precipitated an angry backlash from the network’s Qatar-based correspondents, revealing in the process a deep cultural rift at a network once accused of overt anti-Western bias. Read the rest of this entry »
Dept. of Double Standards: Why does Google Image Search List Greta Van Sustren as a ‘TV Personality’ and Megyn Kelly as a ‘Television Actor’?
Posted: July 16, 2014 Filed under: Entertainment, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: ABC, Andrea Mitchell, Barack Obama, Bias, broadcast news, CBS, Christiana Amanpour, Diane Sawyer, Fox, Fox News, Fox News Channel, Jon Stewart, Megyn Kelly, MSNBC, NBC, Women in Journalism 1 CommentA Law Degree and a Cup of Coffee…
@DianeSawyer @camanpour Why does Google search show @gretawire and as a ‘TV Personality’& @megynkelly as an ‘Actor’? pic.twitter.com/TdjXItYYiA
— Pundit Planet (@punditfap) July 16, 2014
Extra Credit: Internet Movie Database‘s list of Acting appearances featuring ‘Television Actor’ Megyn Kelly – Zero
