Cheryl, journalists, by nature (for whatever reason, the work just attracts liberals more than it does conservatives) tilt left.
But in this election, the other thing that seems to be going on is that Trump has been deemed so over-the-top crazy that it has become a moral mission for some to go after him relentlessly, to shed the usual efforts to be objective.
If you actually see Trump as a potential Hitler, I suppose it makes sense — but journalists are still called to cover stories fairly.
Like everything else, it’s the culmination of a long period of things unraveling in this country.
There are good journalists not doing this, however — including some at CNN (Jake Trapper, etc.)
With the explosion of news sites via the Internet (including many conservative sites, of course), it seems that some of the major news outlets are letting the goal of objectivity slip. Everyone’s got an edge, an opinion, a point of view in reporting the news nowadays, so why not joint them?
The media’s legions of Trump-bashers are finally acknowledging the obvious.
And trying their best to justify it.
But there’s one problem: Tilting against one candidate in a presidential election can’t be justified.
This is not a defense of Donald Trump, who has been at war with much of the press since he got in the race. Too many people think if you criticize the way the billionaire is being covered, you are somehow backing Trump.
And it’s not about the commentators, on the right as well as the left, who are savaging Trump, since they are paid for their opinions.
This is about the mainstream media’s reporters, editors and producers, whose credo is supposed to be fairness.
And now some of them are flat-out making the case for unfairness—an unprecedented approach for an unprecedented campaign.
… there is an assumption among many journalists and pundits that of course Hillary Clinton is qualified, she’s been around forever, she just doesn’t need the relentless reporting that Trump requires. And so critical stories about Clinton—even when she said she “short-circuited” in that Chris Wallace interview on the email mess—are overshadowed by the endless piling on Trump.
Many of the reporters who feel compelled to stop Trump are undoubtedly comfortable because all their friends feel the same way.
But they are deluding themselves if they think that going after one candidate in a two-candidate race is what journalism is about.
_________________________________
The problem is that just keeping kids out of public schools is not enough. TV, movies, books, and music. The message of Organized Perversion is everywhere in the US.
This leaves several options:
1. Rod Dreher’s Benedictine Option
2. Emigration
3. Secession, except that when Southern Republicans voted for Trump they told me they had lost too much intelligence and character to survive as an independent people.
Donna, it was years ago now, I don’t remember the source, but I remember this.
There was a survey of college majors in “Journalism and Media”. Why did you choose this field. The most frequent answer was, “I want to make a difference……”
Chas, and I don’t think that’s a bad goal to have. We all want that when we’re young and starting out, right? It’s a time of idealism and wanting to make a mark on the world.
For many journalists, liberalism is an unconscious bias. I can’t tell you how many colleagues I’ve had that discussion with and they will, in all good faith, deny that the underlying liberal tilt of journalists shows up in the way stories are covered — and in what stories are or are not covere.d
They really insist it’s a myth, a made-up thing by right-wing folks.
It’s been discouraging as I would rather hope it would be taken more seriously and addressed. But today’s media climate makes that even more impossible, I’m afraid.
And remember, the media is a bunch of disparate parts, it’s not a monolith. There are conservative journalists (and more than ever now, conservative news outlets). So painting with a broad brush can be also problematic.
To the laments about what’s become of our schools and our culture, we can take courage & be ENcouraged that the church often flourishes most in just these kinds of climates. 🙂 Keep the faith.
Re Trump, he’s made a bunch of blunders that have brought the media down on him. Wisdom is not his strong suit. So I’d say there’s plenty of blame to go around when it comes to the media spending SO much time going after him (time that could have been spent on Hillary’s mess).
I’ve often taken complaints of a left wing media with a grain of salt. Five years ago, my conservative friends moaned and groaned about Canada’s leftist press despite the fact every daily in Canada (with one exception) endorsed the Conservative party. Even in the last election, the largest chain still endorsed the Conservative party. In the US, the press is a corporate press endorsing persons and policies which continue the corporatist agenda — which both parties align with in some degree. The left is hugely critical of the America media citing its lack of criticism for corporate friendly policies and a hawkish foreign policy.
This US election, however, its easy to see a bias not for the Democratic party nor its platform but for civility and sanity. With Trump as its nominee, the Republicans have had difficulty presenting any form of civility and sanity. In addition, Trump’s desire to dominate the news cycle, good or bad, often lets Clinton off the hook. To counter the current narrative, Trump needs to go mute so the press can focus on Clinton. If Kaisch or even Rubio was the candidate, there would be more reporting of Clinton’s weaknesses and faults. On the other hand, Clinton is a known entity for the last 25 years who really hasn’t changed much — hence there’s not much to add to the narrative.
Ricky — people tend to hyperventilate over new health and sexuality policies in public school. However, they are rarely implementing in the way fear mongers seem to think. This year, a parent was concerned I would teach the children how to masturbate — apparently a well known evangelical speaker had told her it was in the new curriculum. I search through the document and finally found a mention of masturbation in parentheses as an example of a possible student inquiry and teacher response. Essentially, the proper response was to say it was a private matter that some enjoyed while others may have cultural or religious objections — consult your parents (and only if a student asked). I think something similar is going on here with Matt Walsh and questions of gender identify. People imagine their worst case scenario. Besides, parents should get to know their child’s teacher — then they would know how health and sexuality curriculum would be implemented at the school level.
You also have to consider that a lot of people get their news and opinions from Samantha Bee, the Nightly Show, the Daily Show, Bill Mahar, and John Oliver…I don’t think any of them went to college to become journalists.
HRW, I agree that this year’s bias is for sanity and civility over incompetence and corruption. However, there is generally a liberal bias, if for no other reason than the vast majority of national journalists (and their friends) are liberal.
If the contest was between a rude liberal nut (the Democrat) and a Republican who had received millions of dollars of apparent bribes from foreign governments and megabanks, and through gross negligence endangered national security, do we really think the press would favor the Republican?
Kim, I had to read your post twice. I thought for a minute that you were casting doubt on the credibility of the Babylon Bee.
HRW, I appreciate the fact that parents (or I) may sometimes be over-concerned. However, the indoctrination of the young by Organized Perversion is real. I have seen the results … even in Texas, which is one of the founding members of the Axis of Heterosexuality. The proof is that 50% of last year’s freshman class at Harvard said they were not exclusively heterosexual.
“I began looking into how strong the bias and censorship runs in these forums after I did an interview on the pro-Trump podcast, MAGAPod. The show’s host, Mark Hammond, was disappointed Apple wouldn’t run his show without an “explicit” warning. Hammond’s podcast didn’t contain content that would be deemed explicit under Apple’s policy, and most other shows in the News & Politics category aren’t labeled as such.
On June 18, Hammond talked to Sandra, a representative from Apple. She explained that, since the description of his show is pro-Trump, his show is explicit in nature—because the subject matter is Donald Trump. So, an Apple employee concluded the Republican presidential candidate is explicit.
iTunes has dozens of podcasts discussing Osama Bin Laden and Adolf Hitler—none of which is marked explicit. I encouraged Hammond to contact Apple again, via email to their podcast support team. Within 48 hours he received a response from “Tim,” who informed Hammond that his podcast would be updated to “clean” within 24 hours.
Further digging on Apple revealed more evidence that the computer giant is feeding users pro-Hillary and anti-Trump propaganda.
Over the past year, Apple twice refused to publish a satirical Clinton Emailgate game, “Capitol HillAwry,” claiming it was “offensive” and “mean spirited” even though the game’s developer, John Matze, cited in communications with Apple that the game fits the standards of Apple’s own satire policy. Apple has, however, approved dozens of games poking fun at Donald Trump—including a game called “Dump Trump,” which depicts the GOP nominee as a giant turd.
On July 25, Breitbart exposed this blatant double standard and favoritism toward Clinton. A few days after the article was released, Apple caved and published Capitol HillAwry, 15 months after Matze’s first attempt to go live.
While it’s commendable that Apple resolved both situations, Trump supporters and conservative users should never have faced such biased treatment in the first place.
Around the same time I was a guest on MAGAPod, a friend complained to me about how biased his Apple News feed is against Trump. I set up an Apple News account on my iPhone.
First step: select an outlet. Fox News. Conservative. But my news feed? Liberal.”
Then again, it would be helpful if Trump wasn’t able to find spokespersons who are even more ignorant than himself. I heard this little exchange live on the trip back from Galveston this morning:
So Trump’s latest delusion is that he’ll only lose if there is cheating. Another thing to blame other than his uncontrollable mouth. Mr Trump- Open your ears and listen to yourself. Then, change what you are saying and go after Hilary, not everyone else.
The corporate world has decided that Trump is dangerous for the bottom line and a Trump win will usher in a long period of instability thus he’s undesirable. Clinton on the other hand is a know person, fairly stable, very pro-corporate, hawkish on foreign policy, etc. As one Bill Mahar pointed out, she’s the perfect Republican (and corporate) candidate.
Trump’s proclamation that the election is rigged and he will lose because Hilary will cheat is dangerous. It delegitimizes the political process to such an extent that a large minority may refuse to accept the results. In the past, both sides have pointed out issues of cheating, long lines, gerrymandering, etc but neither side has sought to delegitimize the whole process — this is a dangerous attack on American democracy.
The Trump spokesperson has essentially merged 8 years of talking points into one incoherent mess and then doesn’t understand why no-one understands her….
Notice in Ricky’s link, Goldberg mentions he was planning to write about Clinton and corruption but he got distracted by Trump and Hannity. This is the National Review, not the “liberal” media and even they focus on Trump at the expense of criticizing Clinton.
HRW, In a two ring circus, it is so hard to stay focused on a lady boringly taking bribes when the guy in the other ring is setting himself on fire every five minutes.
I was flipping through a book at the bookstore today that looks good. “It’s Dangerous to Believe.”
Sad to say, I didn’t buy it as I looked it up right there in the store and saw it was so much cheaper on Amazon, both in hardcover and on kindle. Why bookstores are dying …
“All of this is about control and dominion, the erosion of personal freedoms, and the move toward totalitarian suppression of all liberties and complete monitoring over any and all activities of the average citizen.
All of these agencies have exceeded the authority granted to them under normal banking rules and regulations. Rather than taking care of the individual depositor and the business, they are forcing the paradigm of the administration’s platform and squelching individual liberties. It is an unbridled, unchecked abuse of Executive power, operating completely outside of the rule of law and answering only to the President.”
Historically, the candidate’s wife is also a veteran of many campaigns and is the one who tells the candidate he needs to change his personal behavior, length of speeches, etc. as aides are often intimidated. When the wife is a former mistress and a third wife with no political experience and a marginal mastery of the English language, a certain vacuum exists.
It would be interesting to read this sort of article about what is going on inside the Clinton campaign. We did when she was running against Obama, but not this year.
As I was in the ‘current events’ section of the Barnes and Noble bookstore yesterday, I could almost envision the sheer, massive volume of books that will rush out in a flood after this election is over, all offering analysis of what the heck just happened to us.
DJ, I can’t wait to read the books. As Williamson said, Trump’s media enablers will get a lot of blame. However, ultimately Trump’s nomination is just living proof that not all stupid people vote in the Democratic primaries.
Thinking back to the Tea Party movement and what has been the general unrest within the GOP for years now, I suspect a vacuum was just waiting to be filled. How big and dark a vacuum none of us perhaps realized — until it was filled, surprise, surprise, by … Donald Trump!??!
Oy.
smh
Hannity deserved everything he got (and probably more) from Goldberg in that column linked here earlier.
… the sort of thing that makes hearts go pitter-patter out in derka-derka talk-radio land doesn’t necessarily fly in the rest of the country and may in fact even come off as creepy and weird, which is why three times as many people watch The Middle — a show I’d never heard of — as watch Sean Hannity’s nightly Trump-fest on Fox News. There’s more to America than your Uncle Bob’s right-wing Facebook circle, and Trump isn’t very well prepared for that.
Our friend Hugh Hewitt found this out the hard way. The talk-radio host was trying to help the Republican nominee explain away his absurd and surreal claim that Barack Obama is the founder of the Islamic State. “I know what you meant,” Hewitt said. “You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.” But Trump refused to take Hewitt’s good counsel: “No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS,” Trump insisted. “I do.” Hewitt pointed out that President Obama does, from time to time, invest a fair amount of time and energy in killing Islamic State operatives. Trump: “I don’t care.”
Many Americans’ only metaphysical experience in this life will have been seeing, with the mind’s eye, Hugh Hewitt wincing through the radio….
_______________________
While I shudder to think of 4 years under Hillary, the best thing for the GOP is if Trump loses so conservatives can take back and rebuild a real and viable political party.
If Trump wins, he’s the titular head of the party — in which case there would be a need for conservatives to launch a new party but that also would leave everyone right of center split (and probably out of power) for the foreseeable future.
Amazingly, the Times almost stumbles across the way the Obama Administration has gamed cost-benefit analysis to claim yuuuge benefits from its new regulations: it double- and triple-counts the health benefits from reducing particulates, which are falling fast anyway and already regulated by several Clean Air Act programs, meaning the new regulations are redundant. (And never mind that the epidemiology of the particulate health effects is obsolete and dubious to begin with. Some other day.) ….
(from the NYTimes) “We live in an era of presidential administration,” Elena Kagan, a Harvard law professor since appointed by Mr. Obama to the Supreme Court, wrote in a 2001 paper that reviewed the expansion of the regulatory state. Both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump would most likely face significant congressional opposition to their major campaign promises. To sidestep Congress, they now have the legacy of Mr. Obama.
Power line: Here’s one of the best arguments for Trump. Maybe liberals will rediscover the importance of limiting executive power and the reach of the administrative state.
_____________________
Except that Trump craves acceptance by the liberal elite. This is why he tried to invite himself to Chelsea’s wedding, At Ivanka’s urging he would push for liberal regulations just like Obama and Hillary. Liberals would be thrilled.
Like the villains in a James Bond novel, the Clintons lead an international criminal organization. Trump is more like the villain in an Austin Powers movie.
Over 8 years ago, Democrats warned Republicans not to accept the expansion of the executive under Bush/Cheney …. part of the warning was to point out they wouldn’t like it the other way around….
When you feel sadistic, there is no better entertainment than going on Twitter to observe Kevin D. Williamson obliterate Trumpkins using nothing but his wit.
Wandering Views 
My husband sent me this link: the media helping Clinton: http://www.bizpacreview.com/2016/08/12/cnns-cuomo-comes-right-admits-couldnt-help-hillary-377744
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No surprise there.
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Cheryl, journalists, by nature (for whatever reason, the work just attracts liberals more than it does conservatives) tilt left.
But in this election, the other thing that seems to be going on is that Trump has been deemed so over-the-top crazy that it has become a moral mission for some to go after him relentlessly, to shed the usual efforts to be objective.
If you actually see Trump as a potential Hitler, I suppose it makes sense — but journalists are still called to cover stories fairly.
Like everything else, it’s the culmination of a long period of things unraveling in this country.
LikeLike
There are good journalists not doing this, however — including some at CNN (Jake Trapper, etc.)
With the explosion of news sites via the Internet (including many conservative sites, of course), it seems that some of the major news outlets are letting the goal of objectivity slip. Everyone’s got an edge, an opinion, a point of view in reporting the news nowadays, so why not joint them?
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Howard Kurtz had what I thought was an on-target assessment of what’s going on in this particular presidential election:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/09/media-justify-anti-trump-bias-claim-hes-too-dangerous-for-normal-rules.html
_______________________________
The media’s legions of Trump-bashers are finally acknowledging the obvious.
And trying their best to justify it.
But there’s one problem: Tilting against one candidate in a presidential election can’t be justified.
This is not a defense of Donald Trump, who has been at war with much of the press since he got in the race. Too many people think if you criticize the way the billionaire is being covered, you are somehow backing Trump.
And it’s not about the commentators, on the right as well as the left, who are savaging Trump, since they are paid for their opinions.
This is about the mainstream media’s reporters, editors and producers, whose credo is supposed to be fairness.
And now some of them are flat-out making the case for unfairness—an unprecedented approach for an unprecedented campaign.
… there is an assumption among many journalists and pundits that of course Hillary Clinton is qualified, she’s been around forever, she just doesn’t need the relentless reporting that Trump requires. And so critical stories about Clinton—even when she said she “short-circuited” in that Chris Wallace interview on the email mess—are overshadowed by the endless piling on Trump.
Many of the reporters who feel compelled to stop Trump are undoubtedly comfortable because all their friends feel the same way.
But they are deluding themselves if they think that going after one candidate in a two-candidate race is what journalism is about.
_________________________________
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Matt Walsh on public schools and the most powerful cult in America.
http://themattwalshblog.com/2016/08/12/kids-right-free-lgbt-brainwashing/
The problem is that just keeping kids out of public schools is not enough. TV, movies, books, and music. The message of Organized Perversion is everywhere in the US.
This leaves several options:
1. Rod Dreher’s Benedictine Option
2. Emigration
3. Secession, except that when Southern Republicans voted for Trump they told me they had lost too much intelligence and character to survive as an independent people.
Singapore, anyone?
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No place to go Ricky.
Nowhere!
Donna, it was years ago now, I don’t remember the source, but I remember this.
There was a survey of college majors in “Journalism and Media”. Why did you choose this field. The most frequent answer was, “I want to make a difference……”
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Chas, and I don’t think that’s a bad goal to have. We all want that when we’re young and starting out, right? It’s a time of idealism and wanting to make a mark on the world.
For many journalists, liberalism is an unconscious bias. I can’t tell you how many colleagues I’ve had that discussion with and they will, in all good faith, deny that the underlying liberal tilt of journalists shows up in the way stories are covered — and in what stories are or are not covere.d
They really insist it’s a myth, a made-up thing by right-wing folks.
It’s been discouraging as I would rather hope it would be taken more seriously and addressed. But today’s media climate makes that even more impossible, I’m afraid.
And remember, the media is a bunch of disparate parts, it’s not a monolith. There are conservative journalists (and more than ever now, conservative news outlets). So painting with a broad brush can be also problematic.
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To the laments about what’s become of our schools and our culture, we can take courage & be ENcouraged that the church often flourishes most in just these kinds of climates. 🙂 Keep the faith.
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Re Trump, he’s made a bunch of blunders that have brought the media down on him. Wisdom is not his strong suit. So I’d say there’s plenty of blame to go around when it comes to the media spending SO much time going after him (time that could have been spent on Hillary’s mess).
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It’s also been noted that journalists of a more conservative bent leave the field when they realize the pay is what it is. 🙂
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I’ve often taken complaints of a left wing media with a grain of salt. Five years ago, my conservative friends moaned and groaned about Canada’s leftist press despite the fact every daily in Canada (with one exception) endorsed the Conservative party. Even in the last election, the largest chain still endorsed the Conservative party. In the US, the press is a corporate press endorsing persons and policies which continue the corporatist agenda — which both parties align with in some degree. The left is hugely critical of the America media citing its lack of criticism for corporate friendly policies and a hawkish foreign policy.
This US election, however, its easy to see a bias not for the Democratic party nor its platform but for civility and sanity. With Trump as its nominee, the Republicans have had difficulty presenting any form of civility and sanity. In addition, Trump’s desire to dominate the news cycle, good or bad, often lets Clinton off the hook. To counter the current narrative, Trump needs to go mute so the press can focus on Clinton. If Kaisch or even Rubio was the candidate, there would be more reporting of Clinton’s weaknesses and faults. On the other hand, Clinton is a known entity for the last 25 years who really hasn’t changed much — hence there’s not much to add to the narrative.
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Ricky — people tend to hyperventilate over new health and sexuality policies in public school. However, they are rarely implementing in the way fear mongers seem to think. This year, a parent was concerned I would teach the children how to masturbate — apparently a well known evangelical speaker had told her it was in the new curriculum. I search through the document and finally found a mention of masturbation in parentheses as an example of a possible student inquiry and teacher response. Essentially, the proper response was to say it was a private matter that some enjoyed while others may have cultural or religious objections — consult your parents (and only if a student asked). I think something similar is going on here with Matt Walsh and questions of gender identify. People imagine their worst case scenario. Besides, parents should get to know their child’s teacher — then they would know how health and sexuality curriculum would be implemented at the school level.
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You also have to consider that a lot of people get their news and opinions from Samantha Bee, the Nightly Show, the Daily Show, Bill Mahar, and John Oliver…I don’t think any of them went to college to become journalists.
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HRW, I agree that this year’s bias is for sanity and civility over incompetence and corruption. However, there is generally a liberal bias, if for no other reason than the vast majority of national journalists (and their friends) are liberal.
If the contest was between a rude liberal nut (the Democrat) and a Republican who had received millions of dollars of apparent bribes from foreign governments and megabanks, and through gross negligence endangered national security, do we really think the press would favor the Republican?
Kim, I had to read your post twice. I thought for a minute that you were casting doubt on the credibility of the Babylon Bee.
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HRW, I appreciate the fact that parents (or I) may sometimes be over-concerned. However, the indoctrination of the young by Organized Perversion is real. I have seen the results … even in Texas, which is one of the founding members of the Axis of Heterosexuality. The proof is that 50% of last year’s freshman class at Harvard said they were not exclusively heterosexual.
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Have you noticed that the most common retort of liberals is “So’s your old man?”
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The media is biased against Trump?
I hadn’t noticed….. 😉
“I began looking into how strong the bias and censorship runs in these forums after I did an interview on the pro-Trump podcast, MAGAPod. The show’s host, Mark Hammond, was disappointed Apple wouldn’t run his show without an “explicit” warning. Hammond’s podcast didn’t contain content that would be deemed explicit under Apple’s policy, and most other shows in the News & Politics category aren’t labeled as such.
On June 18, Hammond talked to Sandra, a representative from Apple. She explained that, since the description of his show is pro-Trump, his show is explicit in nature—because the subject matter is Donald Trump. So, an Apple employee concluded the Republican presidential candidate is explicit.
iTunes has dozens of podcasts discussing Osama Bin Laden and Adolf Hitler—none of which is marked explicit. I encouraged Hammond to contact Apple again, via email to their podcast support team. Within 48 hours he received a response from “Tim,” who informed Hammond that his podcast would be updated to “clean” within 24 hours.
Further digging on Apple revealed more evidence that the computer giant is feeding users pro-Hillary and anti-Trump propaganda.
Over the past year, Apple twice refused to publish a satirical Clinton Emailgate game, “Capitol HillAwry,” claiming it was “offensive” and “mean spirited” even though the game’s developer, John Matze, cited in communications with Apple that the game fits the standards of Apple’s own satire policy. Apple has, however, approved dozens of games poking fun at Donald Trump—including a game called “Dump Trump,” which depicts the GOP nominee as a giant turd.
On July 25, Breitbart exposed this blatant double standard and favoritism toward Clinton. A few days after the article was released, Apple caved and published Capitol HillAwry, 15 months after Matze’s first attempt to go live.
While it’s commendable that Apple resolved both situations, Trump supporters and conservative users should never have faced such biased treatment in the first place.
Around the same time I was a guest on MAGAPod, a friend complained to me about how biased his Apple News feed is against Trump. I set up an Apple News account on my iPhone.
First step: select an outlet. Fox News. Conservative. But my news feed? Liberal.”
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Then again, it would be helpful if Trump wasn’t able to find spokespersons who are even more ignorant than himself. I heard this little exchange live on the trip back from Galveston this morning:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-spox-katrina-pierson-we-werent-in-afghanistan-until-obama-decided-to-go-in/
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In the end the GOP thought they were getting a Sonny and ended up with a Fredo. But you need a Michael if you actually intend to win.
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So Trump’s latest delusion is that he’ll only lose if there is cheating. Another thing to blame other than his uncontrollable mouth. Mr Trump- Open your ears and listen to yourself. Then, change what you are saying and go after Hilary, not everyone else.
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Speaking of which, good candidates have honest advisers. Bad candidates have enablers. Really bad candidates have Sean Hannity.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438949/donald-trump-sean-hannity-does-hannity-want-hillary-clinton-win
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The corporate world has decided that Trump is dangerous for the bottom line and a Trump win will usher in a long period of instability thus he’s undesirable. Clinton on the other hand is a know person, fairly stable, very pro-corporate, hawkish on foreign policy, etc. As one Bill Mahar pointed out, she’s the perfect Republican (and corporate) candidate.
Trump’s proclamation that the election is rigged and he will lose because Hilary will cheat is dangerous. It delegitimizes the political process to such an extent that a large minority may refuse to accept the results. In the past, both sides have pointed out issues of cheating, long lines, gerrymandering, etc but neither side has sought to delegitimize the whole process — this is a dangerous attack on American democracy.
The Trump spokesperson has essentially merged 8 years of talking points into one incoherent mess and then doesn’t understand why no-one understands her….
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Notice in Ricky’s link, Goldberg mentions he was planning to write about Clinton and corruption but he got distracted by Trump and Hannity. This is the National Review, not the “liberal” media and even they focus on Trump at the expense of criticizing Clinton.
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HRW, In a two ring circus, it is so hard to stay focused on a lady boringly taking bribes when the guy in the other ring is setting himself on fire every five minutes.
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This is an interesting column by Ross Douthat about the different influences from the Sixties that drive Hillary and Trump:
Christians don’t have a dog in the fight.
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I was flipping through a book at the bookstore today that looks good. “It’s Dangerous to Believe.”
Sad to say, I didn’t buy it as I looked it up right there in the store and saw it was so much cheaper on Amazon, both in hardcover and on kindle. Why bookstores are dying …
My guilt is real.
https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062454010/its-dangerous-to-believe
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On cue, the NYT offers Clinton as the perfect GOP nominee
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-12/obamas-operation-choke-point-unbridled-abuse-executive-power-completely-outside-rule
“All of this is about control and dominion, the erosion of personal freedoms, and the move toward totalitarian suppression of all liberties and complete monitoring over any and all activities of the average citizen.
All of these agencies have exceeded the authority granted to them under normal banking rules and regulations. Rather than taking care of the individual depositor and the business, they are forcing the paradigm of the administration’s platform and squelching individual liberties. It is an unbridled, unchecked abuse of Executive power, operating completely outside of the rule of law and answering only to the President.”
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Historically, the candidate’s wife is also a veteran of many campaigns and is the one who tells the candidate he needs to change his personal behavior, length of speeches, etc. as aides are often intimidated. When the wife is a former mistress and a third wife with no political experience and a marginal mastery of the English language, a certain vacuum exists.
It would be interesting to read this sort of article about what is going on inside the Clinton campaign. We did when she was running against Obama, but not this year.
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There are some reporters out there:
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/08/robin_hood_in_reverse_the_clinton_foundation_under_fed_scrutiny.html
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As I was in the ‘current events’ section of the Barnes and Noble bookstore yesterday, I could almost envision the sheer, massive volume of books that will rush out in a flood after this election is over, all offering analysis of what the heck just happened to us.
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Kevin D. Williamson on yesterday’s topic:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438962/donald-trump-media-supporters-loss
DJ, I can’t wait to read the books. As Williamson said, Trump’s media enablers will get a lot of blame. However, ultimately Trump’s nomination is just living proof that not all stupid people vote in the Democratic primaries.
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Thinking back to the Tea Party movement and what has been the general unrest within the GOP for years now, I suspect a vacuum was just waiting to be filled. How big and dark a vacuum none of us perhaps realized — until it was filled, surprise, surprise, by … Donald Trump!??!
Oy.
smh
Hannity deserved everything he got (and probably more) from Goldberg in that column linked here earlier.
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Ricky (10:24), best part of that column:
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… the sort of thing that makes hearts go pitter-patter out in derka-derka talk-radio land doesn’t necessarily fly in the rest of the country and may in fact even come off as creepy and weird, which is why three times as many people watch The Middle — a show I’d never heard of — as watch Sean Hannity’s nightly Trump-fest on Fox News. There’s more to America than your Uncle Bob’s right-wing Facebook circle, and Trump isn’t very well prepared for that.
Our friend Hugh Hewitt found this out the hard way. The talk-radio host was trying to help the Republican nominee explain away his absurd and surreal claim that Barack Obama is the founder of the Islamic State. “I know what you meant,” Hewitt said. “You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.” But Trump refused to take Hewitt’s good counsel: “No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS,” Trump insisted. “I do.” Hewitt pointed out that President Obama does, from time to time, invest a fair amount of time and energy in killing Islamic State operatives. Trump: “I don’t care.”
Many Americans’ only metaphysical experience in this life will have been seeing, with the mind’s eye, Hugh Hewitt wincing through the radio….
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Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438962/donald-trump-media-supporters-loss
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It’s difficult. It really is.
I suspect that Trump is up to no good.
But the Clintons, both, are evil people. Just evil.
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Chas, Trump is just as evil, but it doesn’t seem that way because he is dumber.
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Just as evil, but dumber, more obnoxious and much, much funnier:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/291401-trump-tried-to-invite-himself-to-chelsea-clinton-wedding
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While I shudder to think of 4 years under Hillary, the best thing for the GOP is if Trump loses so conservatives can take back and rebuild a real and viable political party.
If Trump wins, he’s the titular head of the party — in which case there would be a need for conservatives to launch a new party but that also would leave everyone right of center split (and probably out of power) for the foreseeable future.
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On the other hand …. powerline on obama’s executive tyranny (which can end none too soon)
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/08/ny-times-blasts-obamas-executive-tyranny.php
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Amazingly, the Times almost stumbles across the way the Obama Administration has gamed cost-benefit analysis to claim yuuuge benefits from its new regulations: it double- and triple-counts the health benefits from reducing particulates, which are falling fast anyway and already regulated by several Clean Air Act programs, meaning the new regulations are redundant. (And never mind that the epidemiology of the particulate health effects is obsolete and dubious to begin with. Some other day.) ….
(from the NYTimes) “We live in an era of presidential administration,” Elena Kagan, a Harvard law professor since appointed by Mr. Obama to the Supreme Court, wrote in a 2001 paper that reviewed the expansion of the regulatory state. Both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump would most likely face significant congressional opposition to their major campaign promises. To sidestep Congress, they now have the legacy of Mr. Obama.
Power line: Here’s one of the best arguments for Trump. Maybe liberals will rediscover the importance of limiting executive power and the reach of the administrative state.
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Except that Trump craves acceptance by the liberal elite. This is why he tried to invite himself to Chelsea’s wedding, At Ivanka’s urging he would push for liberal regulations just like Obama and Hillary. Liberals would be thrilled.
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I think this is what Chas was getting at earlier.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/08/robin_hood_in_reverse_the_clinton_foundation_under_fed_scrutiny.html
Like the villains in a James Bond novel, the Clintons lead an international criminal organization. Trump is more like the villain in an Austin Powers movie.
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If Hillary gets elected, America will become a kleptocracy.
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Chas, it already is a kleptocracy.
Over 8 years ago, Democrats warned Republicans not to accept the expansion of the executive under Bush/Cheney …. part of the warning was to point out they wouldn’t like it the other way around….
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Kleptocracy or Idiocracy? That is the choice. But I prefer a Canineocracy, and am still voting for my son’s dog.
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When you feel sadistic, there is no better entertainment than going on Twitter to observe Kevin D. Williamson obliterate Trumpkins using nothing but his wit.
https://twitter.com/kevinnr/status/764956021265620992
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The rise of executive power has been going on for decades and in both parties – Obama has taken it to its next level
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The pro-Putin ex-Ukrainian gov’t made kleptocracy look easy with a little help from Trump’s current campaign manager Paul Manafort
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