“Washington is enthralled with lying. Deception is breaking news. The media and political establishment are fascinated by lies, as if they had never encountered them. Lies are a discovery in Washington, much like an alien life form, information that looks and sounds like the truth but never before seen by man.
The establishment’s shock is understandable. These new lies are different from the ones with which Washington is familiar, the lies they have spent decades practicing. They have jolted Washington with their crudity. They are evident and unembarrassed. These deceits have been marched, bare of pretense, raw and muscular, to parade in the public sun, without apology or shame.
These lies are being told by the President of the United States, the outsider who threatens the establishment’s culture of deception. Trump’s lies are unforgivable, Washington tells us: His lies might expose theirs.
Donald Trump, the media reports, has told 4,229 lies in 558 days. It is a record, the media intends to say, as if Trump had broken their mark, reaching a milestone worthy of envy. Unfortunately for the President, his record hasn’t held up. In scope and scale, if not volume, Washington’s old standards of fabrication may still be safe.
We have learned the news media embellished Trump’s exaggerations. Trump’s record of mendacity did not survive a modest fact check. Counted among his most repeated lies, for example, is the claim he passed the largest tax cut in history, which he did by dollars saved, though not as a percentage of the economy. That’s false enough for the Washington Post. Where but Washington would the news media lie about liars and their lying? It is no surprise that 66% of Americans report that their news sources cannot adequately separate fact from opinion and 77% say the news media reports fake news.
Trump is a stranger to truth, of course. He is interested, not in what is true, but in what serves him. But this President was not sent to Washington to make the establishment honest. He was elected to destroy it, using their own weapons if required, subversion and deceit if necessary.”
“The recent firing of FBI Agent Peter Strzok for bias and corrupt behavior marks the first viable step in the long road ahead to restore the credibility of the FBI. However there is much more that needs to be done.
Former FBI Director James Comey and Agent Strzok—along with former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and top official Lisa Page—have destroyed the FBI’s long-revered standing with the American public with their harmful rhetoric and political ideology that is not conducive to a fair and just trial. From text messages, to recordings, to book tours, it is abundantly clear that the only collusion occurring has been between Hillary Clinton and Russia.
As the former top white-collar securities fraud investigator in the state of Indiana, I know firsthand that any appearance of impropriety and bias can cause a lack of confidence among the public. This type of behavior creates irrevocable harm and distrust to any investigation. Under our leaders at the FBI, we have gone through months of misguided and corrupt investigations buffered by inappropriate behavior by Strzok that could have been avoided if the FBI did not tolerate any appearance of impropriety. The firing of Strzok sends a loud clear message to the liberal elite and the Deep State who bends to this kind of behavior: political bias at the cost of justice should not ever be tolerated.
If the current FBI leadership is serious in restoring its integrity, they should take steps to re-align themselves with their mission statement: protecting and defending the United States against terrorists and foreign intelligence threats. We need the FBI that broke up organized crime, battled foreign intelligence agencies during the Cold War, and provided valuable assistance to state and local law enforcement, without bias and free of corruption. One of the ways for the FBI to show the American people that they are not influenced by any political bias is to implement a policy that prohibits its investigators from making donations to political candidates or parties. If the FBI refuses to do so, Congress has the duty to take action to protect the integrity of the FBI.”
“Another day, another federal judge demanding that Trump continue an unlawful, discretionary policy of the Obama administration. Yesterday, South Carolina District Judge David Norton, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the Trump administration didn’t offer proper notice when it countermanded Obama’s “Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule.” Consequently, he is mandating that the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers continue regulating private property that contains streams, pools, and drainage ditches as commercial waters, in contravention of law.
Regulate your drainage ditch?
The Clean Water Act granted the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers power to regulate navigable waters, which, to anyone who understands English, means large bodies of water that are used for transport by ships. In June 2015, as part of a series of lawless abuses of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, President Obama unilaterally expanded the definition of “navigable waters” to include any seasonal stream of water that might run through private property as part of federal jurisdiction subject to water regulations.
Commercial ships and barges do not use streams and drainage ditches in farmland, yet with the stroke of a pen, Obama subjected them to cumbersome federal regulations that increased the burden for permitting needed for land development and even hurt existing landowners with threats of fines for what they do with their drainage on their own land. Under the rule, any low-lying area that could collect seasonal water could be subject to water regulations preventing farmers, ranchers, and foresters from operating certain equipment or bringing dirt, gravel, pesticides, and fertilizer into the area.
Amid the clamor by the political class for “criminal justice reform,” aka jailbreak for violent drug traffickers, gun felons, and even murderers, it is regulatory crimes like this that need real reform. To that end, last June, Trump’s EPA decided to countermand Obama’s WOTUS rule and revert back to the commonsense definition of navigable waters that had been in place since 1980. The suspension rule was published in the Federal Register on February 6, 2018, but was subject to an immediate lawsuit by the professional litigator class.
According to judges, Trump is bound by Obama, not the law and the Constitution
A president can always countermand a regulation or program optionally implemented by a previous president, most certainly ones that violate existing statute or federal authority, such as the WOTUS rule and Obama’s executive amnesty.
But now, a Bush judge, at the behest of several liberal state governments and environmental defense groups, is saying Trump must continue this nonsense. Judge Norton once again applied his rule universally nationwide, outside his jurisdiction. As they have been doing with every Obama policy concerning the environment, labor, or immigration that Trump merely revokes, random plaintiffs are able to get standing and simply say that Trump violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The APA requires public notice for any changes to regulations and to articulate the reasoning behind the change.
Ironically, the APA was designed to prevent lawless administrative procedures and lawmaking by fiat, but it is now being used against Trump when he simply reinstates the policies that were in place for decades before Obama unilaterally changed them. By definition, liberals will disagree with the substance of his policies and always say they were not well thought out, thereby rendering them “arbitrary and capricious.” And the courts are codifying that political argument as a legal mandate to say that everything Obama did – no matter how lawless – was automatically thoughtfully implemented and when Trump merely reverses those policies, he is always being arbitrary and capricious.
In reality, the fact that a president makes up a policy that supersedes his power is enough of a reason to discontinue it. Garbage in? Take the garbage out. In fact, in this case, a Georgia district court issued an injunction in June the other way and ruled that the WOTUS rule itself violated law. Thus, we now have conflicting judges, which in itself demonstrates the absurdity of judges deciding politics.”
“Back in June Paul and I both noted the view of economist Irwin Stelzer, who is no fan of Trump, that Trump might in fact win a trade war with China, because Trump has the better poker hand. And I concluded, “File this one away for further reference.”
Well lookie here, on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today:
U.S., China Plot Road Map to Resolve Trade Dispute by November
Chinese and U.S. negotiators are mapping out talks to try to end their trade standoff ahead of planned meetings between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at multilateral summits in November, said officials in both nations.
The planning represents an effort on both sides to keep a deepening trade dispute—which already has involved tariffs on billions of dollars of goods and could target hundreds of billions of dollars more—from torpedoing the U.S.-China relationship and shaking global markets.
Scheduled midlevel talks in Washington next week, which both sides announced on Thursday, will pave the way for November.
Of course, talks alone don’t assure a deal can be reached. But it does seem to me that China has blinked first.
Moreover, turns out some folks on the left think so, too. Robert Kuttner, editor of the lefty journal The American Prospect, wrote yesterday to his email list:
Trump as China Diplomat: Suppose His Shock Diplomacy Works? Trump started a tariff war with Beijing. China vowed to retaliate in kind. But Beijing was more vulnerable because China has more to lose—it exports far more than it imports and China indeed violates trade norms of fair pricing and fair access.
A number of commentators, me included, faulted Trump for the incoherence of his moves. But Trump’s blunderbuss approach seems to be harming the Chinese economy and catching the leadership off guard. Whether by luck or design, Trump picked a moment when China’s economy was precarious, due to its heavy reliance on debt, the instability of many of its money-losing enterprises, and its inflated stock market.
Now Chinese President Xi Jinping, who seemed to have consolidated power, is facing criticism for bungling the trade conflict to China’s detriment. With the value of China’s currency falling, some observers are even comparing China to Turkey.”
“For those of us who still love getting our news from newspapers, those inky, crinkly, thin sheets of wood pulp you hold in your hands and read, these indeed are sad times. Print newspapers, thanks in large part to the meteoric rise of smartphones and online and social media, are in serious decline.
That decline is even more dramatic in places where they are are needed most – the villages, towns and smaller cities across America where print newspapers have long been a key link to the community.
In the short four-year period between 2012 and 2016, the number of daily newspapers in the United States fell from 1,425 in 2012 to 1,286 in 2016.
And the print decimation continues. In late June, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a long explanation of why it is cutting the weekly number of days it prints from seven to five. The stated reason in a letter to union employees, those most-hurt by the cutback: “We have decided that becoming a digital newspaper is our future.”
This week Post-Gazette Editor David Shribman explained to readers that the cutback is a “… dramatic step into the digital future of news, transforming itself from a medium steeped in print into a fresh new profile committed to all the potential of the new communications world.”
Translation: Print newspapers are not our top priority anymore. It is much cheaper to place news stories onto a website with the click of a button than to print them on paper. Newspapers require buying newsprint by the ton, ink by the barrel, hugely expensive printing presses and trucks to distribute them, not to mention paying the many carriers needed to deliver them to your home.
Newspapers feeling the financial strain have already made deep cuts where it is easiest: in newsroom reporters and editors. The Pew Research Center recently reported that due to declining readership and advertising sales, employment of news personnel since 2007 – a time when smartphones and social media burst onto the scene – dropped by nearly half: 74,000 to 39,000.
Many media analysts believe it won’t be long before print newspapers disappear. If it happens, they in large part will be devoured by a voracious horde of online and social media, many of which have little respect for the notion that the first function of news reporting is to present good, honest, factual and relevant information about the community it serves.”
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Good, honest, factual, and relevant news isn’t what most newsrooms produce anymore.
“Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Sunday that he thinks former CIA Director John Brennan’s rhetoric is becoming an issue “in and of itself.”
“John and his rhetoric have become an issue in and of itself,” Clapper said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “John is subtle like a freight train and he’s gonna say what’s on his mind.”
Clapper’s comments came in response to an op-ed penned by Brennan in The New York Times this week, in which he wrote that President Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
Clapper said he empathized with Brennan, but voiced concerns for Brennan’s fiery rhetoric toward Trump and his administration.
“I think that the common denominator among all of us [in the intelligence community] that have been speaking up … is genuine concern about the jeopardy and threats to our institutions,” Clapper said.”
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Really? Because I think it’s CYA and your genuine concern is only for your own butt and the rest of the Obama gang involved in this hoax.
“Former CIA Director John Brennan reacted with predictable anger after the Trump White House revoked his security clearances earlier this week. Brennan denounced the action in a tweet, writing that President Trump’s move was part of “a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics.” He later added, writing in the New York Times: “Mr. Trump clearly has become more desperate to protect himself and those close to him, which is why he made the politically motivated decision to revoke my security clearance in an attempt to scare into silence others who might dare to challenge him.”
Brennan is almost certainly right. The decision to revoke his clearances was petty and vindictive. The motivation for it was, indeed, political, as Trump effectively conceded in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. And it may well be the case that Trump hopes the move will obscure the truth about the controversy currently unsettling the White House.
Trump’s motives may not be a mystery. But his tactics are ones Brennan might recognize more quickly than others. He’s used them.
Six months after the attacks on US personnel in Benghazi, Libya, several of the survivors flew to Washington, D.C., to attend a memorial service for those who died there. They expected to see old colleagues, to reminisce about their shared experiences, to mourn the passing of their friends. They did not expect to be handed new, legally unnecessary nondisclosure agreements.”
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“Remarkably, in a letter to congressional oversight committees four months later, Brennan denied even presenting the Benghazi survivors with NDAs to sign. “Has any officer, either staff of contractor, been required to sign any non-disclosure agreement because of their presence at Benghazi or their participation in any activity related to the Benghazi attacks?”
Brennan’s unqualified response? “No.”
Brennan and his defenders changed their story each time their previous claims proved difficult to defend:
First, the claim was that there had been no effort whatsoever to keep anyone from talking, that no one was asked to sign an additional non-disclosure agreement, and that anyone suggesting otherwise was lying. When presented with evidence that some CIA officers involved in Benghazi were asked to sign additional NDAs, the story changed. Okay, maybe some officers were asked to sign additional NDAs, but those NDAs were standard operating procedure. When presented with claims that some of the NDAs were legally unnecessary, the story changed again. Okay, it’s possible some of the NDAs were redundant, but they had nothing to do with Benghazi. But when presented with evidence that some Benghazi officers were asked to sign NDAs at the memorial service honoring CIA officers killed in Benghazi, the story changed once more. Okay, but the NDAs didn’t actually mention Benghazi, and they were necessary in order to process payments for the officers to attend the memorial service.
This kind of mendacity in the service of politics was the rule for Brennan, not the exception. Brennan was one of the chief architects of President Obama’s “strategy” for fighting terrorism. That strategy hinged on the idea that the jihadists’ territorial ambitions didn’t really matter. Remember Obama’s remark that the predecessor to ISIS and other al Qaeda-affiliated groups were the “jayvee” of terrorism? Brennan laid the groundwork for that view. During a speech on June 29, 2011, Brennan claimed that al Qaeda’s “grandiose vision” of an “Islamic caliphate” is an “absurd” and “feckless delusion that is never going to happen.” Three years later to the day, on June 29, 2014, ISIS declared itself to be a caliphate, ruling over a large part of Iraq and Syria. ISIS didn’t invent the idea of a jihadist caliphate out of thin air. Bin Laden and his men had preached it for years, including when the ISIS’ forerunner was part of al Qaeda’s global network.”
“Anyone who’s ever worked on a jigsaw puzzle knows that the process is tedious in the beginning. First, we place all the similar colored pieces in small groups, try various configurations and then we see how two groups might fit together and so on. At a certain point, the progress becomes faster until finally, a picture starts to emerge.
Thanks to the painstaking efforts of lawmakers such as Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the release of the DOJ Inspector General’s report in June and the tireless pursuit of documents by Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, a picture of unimaginable deception of breathtaking proportions is emerging before the eyes of an astonished electorate.
The once slow headway in the search for the truth has gained momentum. Democratic lawmakers, officials and most of the mainstream media are still in denial and don’t seem to realize yet that too much of the truth has already been revealed for them to go back to their original narrative. The truth has become too big to hide.
A comparison of the carnage at the very highest levels of the FBI and the DOJ to the complete lack of evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump following over two years of investigations should tell Robert Mueller that it’s time to extricate himself, as gracefully as possible, from this fraud. He needs to admit defeat in his attempt to undo the results of a fair election.
Seamus Bruner of The Epoch Times has just put together a list of 25 DOJ and FBI officials who have resigned in the last year. Some of them, Rachel Brand for example, have left to take positions in the private sector. Mike Kortan has said he was planning to retire anyway. But many on this list have been fired, or forced out (largely in disgrace) or demoted, because of the Trump/Russia investigation.”
—————
“As I look at this list, I know it includes only a fraction of those who have risked their careers and their reputations because they simply couldn’t bear to see Donald Trump in the White House.
Before this is over, others will be added to the list. Perhaps even Rod Rosenstein. And there will likely be former top-level Obama officials caught in the net as well. Perjurers John Brennan and James Clapper come to mind.
In addition to the men and women who have been working against Trump in the DOJ and the FBI, there were/are employees in the State Department and the CIA, holdovers from the Obama administration, who are complicit.
The mainstream media has played a huge role in perpetuating this hoax. They have breathlessly distorted events to influence public opinion. Instead of reporting the news, they have worked overtime to shape it.
For an example of how the mainstream media has aided and abetted the left’s attempt to impeach Trump, we need to look no further than their outrage over the revocation of John Brennan’s security clearance.”
“Yesterday, ICE arrested an illegal alien who was in the process of driving his pregnant wife to the hospital; ICE later stated that the man was picked up on an outstanding warrant for murder in his native Mexico.
The media ran with the story, focusing on the “outrage” of arresting him while his wife was left to drive herself to the hospital.
Daniel Dale, an intrepid journalist for the Toronto Star, appears to have broken the story of the reason behind the arrest and is facing pushback for his efforts to tell the whole story.”
ICE arrested a California man on Wednesday when he stopped for gas while driving his wife to the hospital for her C-section. She ended up driving herself the rest of the way, giving birth alone. https://t.co/T7MHsWvGVS
Important update: ICE said today that this man was arrested because of a homicide warrant for him in Mexico. ICE didn’t mention this in its comments to media yesterday. His lawyer says he denies that there are such Mexico charges; no details from ICE yet. https://t.co/AnIfv8DapM
And now a word from the President. He must have been hanging around Al Sharpton as there has been a spelling relapse.
Disgraced and discredited Bob Mueller and his whole group of Angry Democrat Thugs spent over 30 hours with the White House Councel, only with my approval, for purposes of transparency. Anybody needing that much time when they know there is no Russian Collusion is just someone….
Bob Woodward’s book is going to come out in three weeks. We should start hearing juicy excerpts soon. Of course it will be devastating and will dominate the news through September. We should probably start a pool to try to predict how Trump will try to change the subject once the book is released.
I see that some of the news outlets are requesting the names of the Mani fort Trial jurors
There is no reason at all that they should have those names.
It is evil just to request them. The judge is correct in this.
DO NOT RELEASE THE NAMES..
Nobody’s business, but to intimidate.
Technology and $, or lack thereof from digital ad revenue = decline of newspapers
Bias? That’s a whole different issue (that needs to be internally addressed), but it is not the cause of the print decline. Not related. Not really.
It’s the broken business model.
The real story (from one who has lived it): As print ad revenue (which was the business model that supported newspapers, most especially in ads such as classifieds, began to go by the wayside, what, maybe 20 years ago. It was a fast slide and all newspapers jumped on the website bandwagon.
The thinking was that, eventually, as print revenue continued to plummet (Craig’s List and other Internet sites, anyone?), the rising field of digital ad revenue would at some point “cross over” on its trajectory going up and simply replace print ad revenue. We just had to hang in there until that happened.
We would LOVE to ditch the print edition. Seriously. It’s a pain in the butt at this stage, requiring multiple deadlines, editing, etc. But we can’t just yet as there is still enough print ad revenue coming in to keep us (barely) afloat.
That digital ad revenue? Nada. It slowed and sputtered, largely taken over by Google and other platforms, robbing us of any additional replacement income.
Now we are learning to diversify our revenue out of necessity by stressing subscriptions to the digital product (which is 98% of our focus and has been for more than a decade; print is an aside, an afterthought, something we have to keep putting out but would rather not be bothered).
Pay walls are hard sells after all of us have been accustomed to “free” access via the Internet. We’ve been giving it away essentially (stupid, yes, but based on that earlier premise about digital ad revenue rising). We’ve all become spoiled (we used to pay for local news, after all — either via subscription or rack sales).
I know it’s popular for people to say, oh, no wonder they’re failing, they’re biased. But that simply has nothing to do with why thousands of newspapers throughout this country are struggling to stay afloat.
Pretty soon you won’t have a clue what’s going on with your City Council, School Board, crime or county governments. Guess who covers that? Guess who sits though those hideously boring but important meetings on your behalf? Yeah, us. And we’re shrinking down to nothing.
Good luck with that.
By the way, those corrupt local politicians are the ones who rise to higher levels if they’re not watched by anyone.
The decline of newspapers is not a good thing for democracy. It just isn’t.
But no one yet knows how to fix that.
It’s no one’s fault — it’s a confluence of technology, rapidly changing business models in advertising, and the rise of monopoly-style sites like Google.
“Newspapers” being only a generic term anymore for local news outlets & organizations which are now primarily digital in their mission and have been for many years now (TV doesn’t count as they get virtually all their stories from local “newspapers”). Oy.
I’m amazed by some people who still will ask me, “Has your paper considered a website?”
Yes, been up since around 2002 I believe. The vast majority of our readers now (and we have way more readers now than before, just not the ad revenue to go with it) visit us online. The only “paper” subscriptions are for mostly older residents who either don’t have computers or can’t give up the routine of the actual paper-paper in the to read while they have their morning coffee.
Ricky you’re missing the best news from the Sunday talk shows;
From the man who said there was no collision, then they only planned to collude to yes they colluded nut its not a crime, comes the new revelation; truth isn’t truth
The trump administration needs to follow rules like anyone else and they wouldn’t have their EOs thrown out. There’s no deep state conspiracy here, just an inept administration.
I’m glad you appreciate the Toronto Star. Its about the only left wing paper in North America. The reality is the press ran with the info they had. In an era where news is expected to be instantly delivered, they have no choice. ICE on the other hand is usually slow to release information. They need to work on their PR dept
“Bias? That’s a whole different issue (that needs to be internally addressed), but it is not the cause of the print decline. Not related. Not really.”
Yeah see, here’s the thing. I personally cancelled my own subscription to our local paper. The only reason for it was their blindly partisan and biased treatment of GW Bush. No other reason. And I know dozens who’ve done the same. So yeah, it is related.
And sometimes bias is in the eye of the reader. Hey, I’ve been accused of being left-wing which is laughable. People “decide” oh, the paper is “biased,” and then everything they read fits into their assumptions. Seriously, I’ve seen this happen over and over again.
I’m just sayin, it’s the money and the technology and the resulting disappearance of ad revenue that’s been the downfall of the news industry in this country.
I’ve sat through meeting after meeting with charts showing ad revenue plummeting due to free Internet alternatives (accompanied by hopeful charts saying digital ad revenue will soon ‘cross over’ and we’ll be fine).
In the last 5 years even the chart-makers realize that isn’t going to happen, thanks to Google and Fb and all the others that have gobbled up the online ad revenue.
Subscriptions to old-style newspapers? They were never the core of the financial support for us. We get readers, we lose ’em. So be it. It was always all about the ads.
Now that’s not to say it hasn’t affected their website model as well, because it has. I won’t pay for the NYT or WaPo because they are so biased. Regardless of the delivery method, it’s the quality of the product that’s diminished on all front.
Like here for example….
Can you ever see the WaPo siding with Barry over an Islamists? Of course not, because they’d never do so. But Trump……
“The Washington Post, in a seeming effort to undermine President Trump, published a story on Sunday night in which Trump’s efforts to get Turkey to release a detained American pastor were referred to as “strong-arming,” while Turkish Islamist President Recip Erdogan’s resistance was limned as heroically “unbowed.”
The Post wrote Trump initiated “market-rattling economic sanctions and humiliating public rebukes” but “Erdogan, for the moment, appears unbowed.”
The Post opines that Erdogan has used Trump’s aggressive posture to rally domestic support to his side, thus vitiating the anger against him for Turkey’s failing economy. The Post delightedly quotes Erdogan huffing that Turkey “will not surrender to those who act like a strategic partner but make us a strategic target.”
Meanwhile, the Turkish lira has plunged to record lows against the dollar.
No matter, the Post has Erdogan’s back: “But Erdogan’s ability to benefit from the crisis has raised questions about whether Trump underestimated the Turkish leader, a ‘nimble tactician’ who is convinced that Western powers are bent on crippling Turkey because of its status as a strong Muslim nation, said Lisel Hintz, a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.””
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I guess “nimble tactician” is leftist speak for brutal dictator who murders and jails his citizens and opposition. You know, like they accuse Trump of being despite no evidence or actions to justify it. But he’s cool with them, as long as he’s anti-Trump too.
The first thing the press needs to do when it finds itself in a hole like at present, is to stop digging.
“Subscriptions to old-style newspapers? They were never the core of the financial support for us. We get readers, we lose ’em. So be it. It was always all about the ads.
So cancel away. That’s not what’s hurting us.”
But why would an advertiser ever pay to advertise in a paper no one is subscribing too. Without them you have no advertisers. And a lack of readers certainly isn’t helping you get new advertisers when old ones are lost.
When it comes to national political coverage, I’d say that the rise of the Internet (and actually the success of Fox News, ironically), in general, has led to a much more biased environment. (Brit Hume once said it was hoped that Fox would help level the playing field and lead back to a stronger commitment to more objective journalism; instead, he said, it seemed to loosen the restraints on everyone to express their ‘opinions’).
But the problems faced by regional and local media are not about that. They’re about the changing technology and the vanishing of ad revenue. Our readership levels have never been higher (well, now that the pay wall has been put in we’ve seen some issues; we resisted a pay wall for years so it’s been a rude awakening for many of our readers). I personally don’t like them, but I also am sorry newspapers didn’t all decide to institute them from the beginning.
he uses Trump’s words to shore up domestic support…..so did Kim, Putin and even Trudeau. Its not bias its a fact. Using Trump to shore up domestic support is something all major leaders are doing. Sometimes its deliberate but usually Trump gives it for free.
Erdogan is a nimble tactian…that’s a fact. He out manipulated his opposition and the powerful Turkish military. He managed to stay in NATO while working with Russia in Syria. Besides the nimble tactician comment comes from a quoted expert not the paper.
And yes Trump’s use of sanctions and tariffs is sledgehammer like not scalpel like.
Ah, but our readership was (and is) good, better now than it ever has been (and I suspect most news sites would say the same of their experiences). Advertisers have found more efficient and cheaper ways to reach targeted audiences.
All the extra eyes on our copy doesn’t help the bottom line in the Internet era. No one’s figured out how to link the two beyond charging readers (which readers hate now because they’ve been used to reading for free for so long, I’m no exception).
There are new models for that being experimented with, such as micro payments (where you can pay to read something without subscribing). But none of that will match what traditional newspapers once made in regular advertising. The classifieds alone brought in probably more than 50% of our revenue. Now you can buy and sell for free on the Internet. Poof. That was a whole lot of money just … gone.
We’re not the only industry impacted by the Internet but we’ve been one of the hardest hit, I’d say. Not in terms of readership, certainly, but in terms of revenue that is needed to stay in business.
There’s also the difference between the more nationally recognized papers, such as the Washington Post, which cover a lot of national political news, and our local papers which report on the events happening in the area, as DJ mentioned somewhere up above. Another friend, who reads a variety of sources, has pointed out that often the bias is evident, one way or the other, on the editorial pages, but the hard news is pretty much straight reporting. (Although, yes, we need to watch out for wording that can be evidence of bias.)
Speaking of seeing bias when expecting bias – Recently I commented this, here on the news thread:
Poor World magazine. They just can’t please everybody.
Just finished reading the letters to the editor in the August 4 issue (I’m behind a bit). One reader complained that World is always “harping about our president’s shortcomings”, while another reader complains that although World took a stance against Trump before the election, now they “can’t seem to summon the slightest criticism of his administration.” 😀
“The trump administration needs to follow rules like anyone else and they wouldn’t have their EOs thrown out. There’s no deep state conspiracy here, just an inept administration.”
That’s garbage, and you’d know this if you read the article. It’s not just about Trump’s EO’s. It’s about the fact that Obama’s EO are being treated as laws that can’t be overturned by EO from the next president. This is unprecedented and legal hogwash.. Ricky who liked your comment knows this too, but it’s Trump, so he could care less about precedent.
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“According to judges, Trump is bound by Obama, not the law and the Constitution
A president can always countermand a regulation or program optionally implemented by a previous president, most certainly ones that violate existing statute or federal authority, such as the WOTUS rule and Obama’s executive amnesty.
But now, a Bush judge, at the behest of several liberal state governments and environmental defense groups, is saying Trump must continue this nonsense. Judge Norton once again applied his rule universally nationwide, outside his jurisdiction. As they have been doing with every Obama policy concerning the environment, labor, or immigration that Trump merely revokes, random plaintiffs are able to get standing and simply say that Trump violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The APA requires public notice for any changes to regulations and to articulate the reasoning behind the change.
Ironically, the APA was designed to prevent lawless administrative procedures and lawmaking by fiat, but it is now being used against Trump when he simply reinstates the policies that were in place for decades before Obama unilaterally changed them. By definition, liberals will disagree with the substance of his policies and always say they were not well thought out, thereby rendering them “arbitrary and capricious.” And the courts are codifying that political argument as a legal mandate to say that everything Obama did – no matter how lawless – was automatically thoughtfully implemented and when Trump merely reverses those policies, he is always being arbitrary and capricious.
In reality, the fact that a president makes up a policy that supersedes his power is enough of a reason to discontinue it. Garbage in? Take the garbage out. In fact, in this case, a Georgia district court issued an injunction in June the other way and ruled that the WOTUS rule itself violated law. Thus, we now have conflicting judges, which in itself demonstrates the absurdity of judges deciding politics.””
HRW @ 11:25 Within my group of Never-Trumpers, we have been forced to specialize. A couple of the ladies keep us updated on misogyny issues. Two of the guys focus on Trump’s abuses of power and obstruction of justice. Another guy deals with protectionism and other examples of economic illiteracy. Another lady informs us daily about Trump’s latest lies. I am free to target random acts of ignorance.
We are all staying busy and entertained. Most of us are conservative, but we have a pair of liberal siblings, including that rarest of all persons: a white heterosexual male liberal from West Texas who is over the age of 60.
I read the article. It clearly states a Republican judge threw out the EO because the Trump administration did not follow the rules and procedures of the APA. This isn’t the first time the Trump admin has been told to follow the rules. To say Obama’s EOs are garbage and therefore Trump doesn’t need to follow procedure is political. A judge telling the admin to follow procedure is not political, its simply the application of rule of law not rule by law.
Apply the golden rule, would Trump supporters like the next admin to rescind his EOs without following the APA. I’m sure FOX would blow up if the next president did this.
And finally for all the talk of Obama’s dictatorial EOs, he must have followed the rules and procedures set out in the APA. Or I’m sure a Republican judge would have rescinded them.
I have paid digital subscriptions to the WSJ and LA Times — Didn’t like doing it, but it’s becoming more and more of a hard line position for most publications. And it’s only fair, I think.
We should read everything with a critical eye. Bias is ingrained in all of us, right? Journalists have been trained (theoretically and in reality for many of us) to be very aware of our own biases when we cover stories.
World Magazine, in fact, states that it’s purpose is to cover the news from the premise of a Christian world view. I like that as a Christian reader, but it also is coming from a specific point of view (one I happen to agree with, of course). At least they are up front in acknowledging that.
I’ve been openly critical about my profession, I think we’ve made some serious missteps in being so resistant toward self-examination in the face of criticism. But that said, throwing us (or them) all over the cliff in a temper-tantrum huff isn’t fair either.
An all-or-nothing position just isn’t a good or honest way to approach the issue. We need a dependable source of news in our nation and communities and that’s being lost mostly due to a huge financial disruption that means a significant loss of trained journalists.
Instead, we end up with all kinds of “stuff” flying around based on people’s (yes) own biases.
I’ve actually seen people argue that we don’t need the media since we now have Facebook. Uh, right.
@6:41 am: One of the ways for the FBI to show the American people that they are not influenced by any political bias is to implement a policy that prohibits its investigators from making donations to political candidates or parties.
Does this really make sense? Certainly you don’t want an investigator to take a donation (that is, a bribe). But prohibiting him from making a donation doesn’t change whether or not he has an opinion or whether that opinion will bias his investigation.
(Sorry if this has been discussed already – I’m not sure I’ll get to read the whole thread.)
“SEOUL, South Korea — The 92-year-old South Korean woman wept and stroked the wrinkled cheeks of her 71-year-old North Korean son on Monday, their first meeting since they were driven apart during the turmoil of the 1950-53 Korean War.
“How many children do you have? Do you have a son?” Lee Keum-seom asked her son Ri Sang Chol during their long-awaited encounter at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort.
The emotional reunion came after dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea to meet with their relatives. The weeklong event, the first of its kind in nearly three years, was arranged as the rival Koreas boost reconciliation efforts amid a diplomatic push to resolve a standoff over North Korea’s drive for a nuclear weapons program.
Hugging the woman he’d last seen as a child, Ri showed his mother a photo of her late husband, who had stayed behind in the North with him as a boy.
Most of the participants in the reunions are in their 70s or older and are eager to see their loved ones once more before they die. Most have had no word on whether their relatives are still alive because they are not allowed to visit each other across the border or even exchange letters, phone calls or email.”
Our news company (as do most) forbids us to make any contributions (volunteer or monetary) to politicians, candidates, etc.; we also cannot sign petitions or put partisan bumper stickers on our cars. We’re admonished to keep our political views off social media.
So I did a story about a South Korean vet today and received these emails from 2 readers:
1/ Thank you for your article regarding the return of Rodger Gonzales. It’s deserving of Front Page News but also an opportunity to thank President Trump for his successful efforts in allowing this to take place. An opportunity to accentuate the positive with a fair report was missed by you.
2/ I am elated that the remains of Roger Gonzales as well as hundreds of the other fallen solders of the Korean war era, 1950-1953, are being returned home to the US and interred in the family’s burial site.
Yes I agree that with the advance technology work of the defense POW/MIA accounting agencies deserve much credit! However, there is no mention of President Trumps’ diligent negotiations with the North Korean Kim Jong-un to dis-arm and have all the US solders who were killed during that conflict being returned.
God Bless America and our veterans of all the wars who fought and have given their lives for our freedom………..
____________________________________
I answered both, thanking them for their points and explaining that the remains of this particular vet, the sole focus of our story, had been buried with other ‘unknowns’ in Hawaii since 1954 (and thus was not part of the current Trump/North Korea discussions).
Both were very gracious in replying:
1/ Thank you for that clarification Donna. I apologize for not seeing that point within your article and I’m so appreciative for your return response. I have never received a response from anything I have sent to a member the Press and obviously am one of those desperate for fair news that brings calm to all Americans.
2/ Thank you so much Donna!! I obviously missed that section of the story segment that US soldier’s remains were in Hawaii since 1954. All the best to you,
Here is an example of a Reuters reporter doing his job and Trump using “imprecise” language, though maybe not as imprecise as that posted at 8:30 a.m.
Exclusive: @realDonaldTrump tells @Reuters he has chosen not to be involved in Mueller probe but is "totally allowed" to be if he wanted to. "I've decided to stay out. Now, I don't have to stay out, as you know. I can go in and I could… do whatever, I could run it if I want."
The number of EOs by president isn’t interesting at all, *by itself,* when one considers the Presidential Memoranda issued by regulatory- and freedom-hating (and advocate for born alive baby-killing, if we’re counting) Barack Obama.
Wandering Views 
Washington’s culture of corruption.
https://www.alexcast.online/blog/2018/8/16/xafp2wok5f5ox1s1oq71mu2ml8gf7s
“Washington is enthralled with lying. Deception is breaking news. The media and political establishment are fascinated by lies, as if they had never encountered them. Lies are a discovery in Washington, much like an alien life form, information that looks and sounds like the truth but never before seen by man.
The establishment’s shock is understandable. These new lies are different from the ones with which Washington is familiar, the lies they have spent decades practicing. They have jolted Washington with their crudity. They are evident and unembarrassed. These deceits have been marched, bare of pretense, raw and muscular, to parade in the public sun, without apology or shame.
These lies are being told by the President of the United States, the outsider who threatens the establishment’s culture of deception. Trump’s lies are unforgivable, Washington tells us: His lies might expose theirs.
Donald Trump, the media reports, has told 4,229 lies in 558 days. It is a record, the media intends to say, as if Trump had broken their mark, reaching a milestone worthy of envy. Unfortunately for the President, his record hasn’t held up. In scope and scale, if not volume, Washington’s old standards of fabrication may still be safe.
We have learned the news media embellished Trump’s exaggerations. Trump’s record of mendacity did not survive a modest fact check. Counted among his most repeated lies, for example, is the claim he passed the largest tax cut in history, which he did by dollars saved, though not as a percentage of the economy. That’s false enough for the Washington Post. Where but Washington would the news media lie about liars and their lying? It is no surprise that 66% of Americans report that their news sources cannot adequately separate fact from opinion and 77% say the news media reports fake news.
Trump is a stranger to truth, of course. He is interested, not in what is true, but in what serves him. But this President was not sent to Washington to make the establishment honest. He was elected to destroy it, using their own weapons if required, subversion and deceit if necessary.”
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A necessary step.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/402395-strzok-firing-an-excellent-beginning-to-restoring-credibility
“The recent firing of FBI Agent Peter Strzok for bias and corrupt behavior marks the first viable step in the long road ahead to restore the credibility of the FBI. However there is much more that needs to be done.
Former FBI Director James Comey and Agent Strzok—along with former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and top official Lisa Page—have destroyed the FBI’s long-revered standing with the American public with their harmful rhetoric and political ideology that is not conducive to a fair and just trial. From text messages, to recordings, to book tours, it is abundantly clear that the only collusion occurring has been between Hillary Clinton and Russia.
As the former top white-collar securities fraud investigator in the state of Indiana, I know firsthand that any appearance of impropriety and bias can cause a lack of confidence among the public. This type of behavior creates irrevocable harm and distrust to any investigation. Under our leaders at the FBI, we have gone through months of misguided and corrupt investigations buffered by inappropriate behavior by Strzok that could have been avoided if the FBI did not tolerate any appearance of impropriety. The firing of Strzok sends a loud clear message to the liberal elite and the Deep State who bends to this kind of behavior: political bias at the cost of justice should not ever be tolerated.
If the current FBI leadership is serious in restoring its integrity, they should take steps to re-align themselves with their mission statement: protecting and defending the United States against terrorists and foreign intelligence threats. We need the FBI that broke up organized crime, battled foreign intelligence agencies during the Cold War, and provided valuable assistance to state and local law enforcement, without bias and free of corruption. One of the ways for the FBI to show the American people that they are not influenced by any political bias is to implement a policy that prohibits its investigators from making donations to political candidates or parties. If the FBI refuses to do so, Congress has the duty to take action to protect the integrity of the FBI.”
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According to judges, Trump is bound by Obama, not the law and the Constitution.
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/according-to-judges-trump-is-bound-by-obama-not-the-law-and-the-constitution/
“Another day, another federal judge demanding that Trump continue an unlawful, discretionary policy of the Obama administration. Yesterday, South Carolina District Judge David Norton, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the Trump administration didn’t offer proper notice when it countermanded Obama’s “Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule.” Consequently, he is mandating that the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers continue regulating private property that contains streams, pools, and drainage ditches as commercial waters, in contravention of law.
Regulate your drainage ditch?
The Clean Water Act granted the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers power to regulate navigable waters, which, to anyone who understands English, means large bodies of water that are used for transport by ships. In June 2015, as part of a series of lawless abuses of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, President Obama unilaterally expanded the definition of “navigable waters” to include any seasonal stream of water that might run through private property as part of federal jurisdiction subject to water regulations.
Commercial ships and barges do not use streams and drainage ditches in farmland, yet with the stroke of a pen, Obama subjected them to cumbersome federal regulations that increased the burden for permitting needed for land development and even hurt existing landowners with threats of fines for what they do with their drainage on their own land. Under the rule, any low-lying area that could collect seasonal water could be subject to water regulations preventing farmers, ranchers, and foresters from operating certain equipment or bringing dirt, gravel, pesticides, and fertilizer into the area.
Amid the clamor by the political class for “criminal justice reform,” aka jailbreak for violent drug traffickers, gun felons, and even murderers, it is regulatory crimes like this that need real reform. To that end, last June, Trump’s EPA decided to countermand Obama’s WOTUS rule and revert back to the commonsense definition of navigable waters that had been in place since 1980. The suspension rule was published in the Federal Register on February 6, 2018, but was subject to an immediate lawsuit by the professional litigator class.
According to judges, Trump is bound by Obama, not the law and the Constitution
A president can always countermand a regulation or program optionally implemented by a previous president, most certainly ones that violate existing statute or federal authority, such as the WOTUS rule and Obama’s executive amnesty.
But now, a Bush judge, at the behest of several liberal state governments and environmental defense groups, is saying Trump must continue this nonsense. Judge Norton once again applied his rule universally nationwide, outside his jurisdiction. As they have been doing with every Obama policy concerning the environment, labor, or immigration that Trump merely revokes, random plaintiffs are able to get standing and simply say that Trump violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The APA requires public notice for any changes to regulations and to articulate the reasoning behind the change.
Ironically, the APA was designed to prevent lawless administrative procedures and lawmaking by fiat, but it is now being used against Trump when he simply reinstates the policies that were in place for decades before Obama unilaterally changed them. By definition, liberals will disagree with the substance of his policies and always say they were not well thought out, thereby rendering them “arbitrary and capricious.” And the courts are codifying that political argument as a legal mandate to say that everything Obama did – no matter how lawless – was automatically thoughtfully implemented and when Trump merely reverses those policies, he is always being arbitrary and capricious.
In reality, the fact that a president makes up a policy that supersedes his power is enough of a reason to discontinue it. Garbage in? Take the garbage out. In fact, in this case, a Georgia district court issued an injunction in June the other way and ruled that the WOTUS rule itself violated law. Thus, we now have conflicting judges, which in itself demonstrates the absurdity of judges deciding politics.”
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Winning.
Again.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/08/is-trump-winning-again.php
“Back in June Paul and I both noted the view of economist Irwin Stelzer, who is no fan of Trump, that Trump might in fact win a trade war with China, because Trump has the better poker hand. And I concluded, “File this one away for further reference.”
Well lookie here, on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today:
U.S., China Plot Road Map to Resolve Trade Dispute by November
Chinese and U.S. negotiators are mapping out talks to try to end their trade standoff ahead of planned meetings between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at multilateral summits in November, said officials in both nations.
The planning represents an effort on both sides to keep a deepening trade dispute—which already has involved tariffs on billions of dollars of goods and could target hundreds of billions of dollars more—from torpedoing the U.S.-China relationship and shaking global markets.
Scheduled midlevel talks in Washington next week, which both sides announced on Thursday, will pave the way for November.
Of course, talks alone don’t assure a deal can be reached. But it does seem to me that China has blinked first.
Moreover, turns out some folks on the left think so, too. Robert Kuttner, editor of the lefty journal The American Prospect, wrote yesterday to his email list:
Trump as China Diplomat: Suppose His Shock Diplomacy Works? Trump started a tariff war with Beijing. China vowed to retaliate in kind. But Beijing was more vulnerable because China has more to lose—it exports far more than it imports and China indeed violates trade norms of fair pricing and fair access.
A number of commentators, me included, faulted Trump for the incoherence of his moves. But Trump’s blunderbuss approach seems to be harming the Chinese economy and catching the leadership off guard. Whether by luck or design, Trump picked a moment when China’s economy was precarious, due to its heavy reliance on debt, the instability of many of its money-losing enterprises, and its inflated stock market.
Now Chinese President Xi Jinping, who seemed to have consolidated power, is facing criticism for bungling the trade conflict to China’s detriment. With the value of China’s currency falling, some observers are even comparing China to Turkey.”
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I would have more sympathy if it wasn’t self inflicted.
http://thehill.com/opinion/technology/402382-demise-of-print-newspapers-may-have-far-reaching-consequences-for
“For those of us who still love getting our news from newspapers, those inky, crinkly, thin sheets of wood pulp you hold in your hands and read, these indeed are sad times. Print newspapers, thanks in large part to the meteoric rise of smartphones and online and social media, are in serious decline.
That decline is even more dramatic in places where they are are needed most – the villages, towns and smaller cities across America where print newspapers have long been a key link to the community.
In the short four-year period between 2012 and 2016, the number of daily newspapers in the United States fell from 1,425 in 2012 to 1,286 in 2016.
And the print decimation continues. In late June, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a long explanation of why it is cutting the weekly number of days it prints from seven to five. The stated reason in a letter to union employees, those most-hurt by the cutback: “We have decided that becoming a digital newspaper is our future.”
This week Post-Gazette Editor David Shribman explained to readers that the cutback is a “… dramatic step into the digital future of news, transforming itself from a medium steeped in print into a fresh new profile committed to all the potential of the new communications world.”
Translation: Print newspapers are not our top priority anymore. It is much cheaper to place news stories onto a website with the click of a button than to print them on paper. Newspapers require buying newsprint by the ton, ink by the barrel, hugely expensive printing presses and trucks to distribute them, not to mention paying the many carriers needed to deliver them to your home.
Newspapers feeling the financial strain have already made deep cuts where it is easiest: in newsroom reporters and editors. The Pew Research Center recently reported that due to declining readership and advertising sales, employment of news personnel since 2007 – a time when smartphones and social media burst onto the scene – dropped by nearly half: 74,000 to 39,000.
Many media analysts believe it won’t be long before print newspapers disappear. If it happens, they in large part will be devoured by a voracious horde of online and social media, many of which have little respect for the notion that the first function of news reporting is to present good, honest, factual and relevant information about the community it serves.”
————————-
Good, honest, factual, and relevant news isn’t what most newsrooms produce anymore.
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They’re starting to turn on each other. 🙂
They want Brennan to shut up before he outs them all.
http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/402521-clapper-brennans-rhetoric-is-becoming-an-issue-in-and-of-itself
“Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Sunday that he thinks former CIA Director John Brennan’s rhetoric is becoming an issue “in and of itself.”
“John and his rhetoric have become an issue in and of itself,” Clapper said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “John is subtle like a freight train and he’s gonna say what’s on his mind.”
Clapper’s comments came in response to an op-ed penned by Brennan in The New York Times this week, in which he wrote that President Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
Clapper said he empathized with Brennan, but voiced concerns for Brennan’s fiery rhetoric toward Trump and his administration.
“I think that the common denominator among all of us [in the intelligence community] that have been speaking up … is genuine concern about the jeopardy and threats to our institutions,” Clapper said.”
————————-
Really? Because I think it’s CYA and your genuine concern is only for your own butt and the rest of the Obama gang involved in this hoax.
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Hack.
https://www.weeklystandard.com/stephen-f-hayes/former-cia-director-john-brennan-used-non-disclosure-agreements-ndas-for-benghazi
“Former CIA Director John Brennan reacted with predictable anger after the Trump White House revoked his security clearances earlier this week. Brennan denounced the action in a tweet, writing that President Trump’s move was part of “a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics.” He later added, writing in the New York Times: “Mr. Trump clearly has become more desperate to protect himself and those close to him, which is why he made the politically motivated decision to revoke my security clearance in an attempt to scare into silence others who might dare to challenge him.”
Brennan is almost certainly right. The decision to revoke his clearances was petty and vindictive. The motivation for it was, indeed, political, as Trump effectively conceded in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. And it may well be the case that Trump hopes the move will obscure the truth about the controversy currently unsettling the White House.
Trump’s motives may not be a mystery. But his tactics are ones Brennan might recognize more quickly than others. He’s used them.
Six months after the attacks on US personnel in Benghazi, Libya, several of the survivors flew to Washington, D.C., to attend a memorial service for those who died there. They expected to see old colleagues, to reminisce about their shared experiences, to mourn the passing of their friends. They did not expect to be handed new, legally unnecessary nondisclosure agreements.”
———
“Remarkably, in a letter to congressional oversight committees four months later, Brennan denied even presenting the Benghazi survivors with NDAs to sign. “Has any officer, either staff of contractor, been required to sign any non-disclosure agreement because of their presence at Benghazi or their participation in any activity related to the Benghazi attacks?”
Brennan’s unqualified response? “No.”
Brennan and his defenders changed their story each time their previous claims proved difficult to defend:
First, the claim was that there had been no effort whatsoever to keep anyone from talking, that no one was asked to sign an additional non-disclosure agreement, and that anyone suggesting otherwise was lying. When presented with evidence that some CIA officers involved in Benghazi were asked to sign additional NDAs, the story changed. Okay, maybe some officers were asked to sign additional NDAs, but those NDAs were standard operating procedure. When presented with claims that some of the NDAs were legally unnecessary, the story changed again. Okay, it’s possible some of the NDAs were redundant, but they had nothing to do with Benghazi. But when presented with evidence that some Benghazi officers were asked to sign NDAs at the memorial service honoring CIA officers killed in Benghazi, the story changed once more. Okay, but the NDAs didn’t actually mention Benghazi, and they were necessary in order to process payments for the officers to attend the memorial service.
This kind of mendacity in the service of politics was the rule for Brennan, not the exception. Brennan was one of the chief architects of President Obama’s “strategy” for fighting terrorism. That strategy hinged on the idea that the jihadists’ territorial ambitions didn’t really matter. Remember Obama’s remark that the predecessor to ISIS and other al Qaeda-affiliated groups were the “jayvee” of terrorism? Brennan laid the groundwork for that view. During a speech on June 29, 2011, Brennan claimed that al Qaeda’s “grandiose vision” of an “Islamic caliphate” is an “absurd” and “feckless delusion that is never going to happen.” Three years later to the day, on June 29, 2014, ISIS declared itself to be a caliphate, ruling over a large part of Iraq and Syria. ISIS didn’t invent the idea of a jihadist caliphate out of thin air. Bin Laden and his men had preached it for years, including when the ISIS’ forerunner was part of al Qaeda’s global network.”
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The jig is up the news is out….
https://www.redstate.com/diary/ElizabethVaughn/2018/08/19/you%E2%80%99re-surrounded-mr.-mueller-give-truth-becoming-big-hide
“Anyone who’s ever worked on a jigsaw puzzle knows that the process is tedious in the beginning. First, we place all the similar colored pieces in small groups, try various configurations and then we see how two groups might fit together and so on. At a certain point, the progress becomes faster until finally, a picture starts to emerge.
Thanks to the painstaking efforts of lawmakers such as Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the release of the DOJ Inspector General’s report in June and the tireless pursuit of documents by Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, a picture of unimaginable deception of breathtaking proportions is emerging before the eyes of an astonished electorate.
The once slow headway in the search for the truth has gained momentum. Democratic lawmakers, officials and most of the mainstream media are still in denial and don’t seem to realize yet that too much of the truth has already been revealed for them to go back to their original narrative. The truth has become too big to hide.
A comparison of the carnage at the very highest levels of the FBI and the DOJ to the complete lack of evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump following over two years of investigations should tell Robert Mueller that it’s time to extricate himself, as gracefully as possible, from this fraud. He needs to admit defeat in his attempt to undo the results of a fair election.
Seamus Bruner of The Epoch Times has just put together a list of 25 DOJ and FBI officials who have resigned in the last year. Some of them, Rachel Brand for example, have left to take positions in the private sector. Mike Kortan has said he was planning to retire anyway. But many on this list have been fired, or forced out (largely in disgrace) or demoted, because of the Trump/Russia investigation.”
—————
“As I look at this list, I know it includes only a fraction of those who have risked their careers and their reputations because they simply couldn’t bear to see Donald Trump in the White House.
Before this is over, others will be added to the list. Perhaps even Rod Rosenstein. And there will likely be former top-level Obama officials caught in the net as well. Perjurers John Brennan and James Clapper come to mind.
In addition to the men and women who have been working against Trump in the DOJ and the FBI, there were/are employees in the State Department and the CIA, holdovers from the Obama administration, who are complicit.
The mainstream media has played a huge role in perpetuating this hoax. They have breathlessly distorted events to influence public opinion. Instead of reporting the news, they have worked overtime to shape it.
For an example of how the mainstream media has aided and abetted the left’s attempt to impeach Trump, we need to look no further than their outrage over the revocation of John Brennan’s security clearance.”
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This is yet another reason why I said….
“Good, honest, factual, and relevant news isn’t what most newsrooms produce anymore.”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/08/media-beclowns-itself-pouncing-on-ice-arrest-with-emotion-not-facts/
“Yesterday, ICE arrested an illegal alien who was in the process of driving his pregnant wife to the hospital; ICE later stated that the man was picked up on an outstanding warrant for murder in his native Mexico.
The media ran with the story, focusing on the “outrage” of arresting him while his wife was left to drive herself to the hospital.
Daniel Dale, an intrepid journalist for the Toronto Star, appears to have broken the story of the reason behind the arrest and is facing pushback for his efforts to tell the whole story.”
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Beclowning themselves seems a favorite pastime.
As always, links galore to prove the point.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/08/media-and-resistance-week-at-legal-insurrection/
“This week, a large portion of the liberal media decided to prove Trump’s point about them.
-Boston Globe Rallies Newspapers for ‘Coordinated Response’ to Trump Press Criticism
-LA Times, Wall Street Journal, SF Chronicle Don’t Participate in Organized Effort to Denounce Trump’s Press Attacks
It’s almost like they’ve chosen a side. Almost.
-De Blasio Allows Security to Remove Reporter Hours After He Declared Love for Free Press
-NBC Reporter, Police Officer attacked at Antifa Charlottesville protest, media mostly silent
-Media Darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Banned Press From Local Town Hall”
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Looks like several Dems want in on the clown act.
Shove ’em in the car with the rest.
—————-
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And now a word from the President. He must have been hanging around Al Sharpton as there has been a spelling relapse.
Bob Woodward’s book is going to come out in three weeks. We should start hearing juicy excerpts soon. Of course it will be devastating and will dominate the news through September. We should probably start a pool to try to predict how Trump will try to change the subject once the book is released.
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On the other hand, the Tweets are much more coherent than the speeches:
I actually think I agree with the points Trump was trying to make, though I would prefer a spokesman who speaks English.
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Do I need to point out how many of my Navy wife friends gave birth without their husband’s home?
Why would they pick him up at a gas station? Were they following him?
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I see that some of the news outlets are requesting the names of the Mani fort Trial jurors
There is no reason at all that they should have those names.
It is evil just to request them. The judge is correct in this.
DO NOT RELEASE THE NAMES..
Nobody’s business, but to intimidate.
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Technology and $, or lack thereof from digital ad revenue = decline of newspapers
Bias? That’s a whole different issue (that needs to be internally addressed), but it is not the cause of the print decline. Not related. Not really.
It’s the broken business model.
The real story (from one who has lived it): As print ad revenue (which was the business model that supported newspapers, most especially in ads such as classifieds, began to go by the wayside, what, maybe 20 years ago. It was a fast slide and all newspapers jumped on the website bandwagon.
The thinking was that, eventually, as print revenue continued to plummet (Craig’s List and other Internet sites, anyone?), the rising field of digital ad revenue would at some point “cross over” on its trajectory going up and simply replace print ad revenue. We just had to hang in there until that happened.
We would LOVE to ditch the print edition. Seriously. It’s a pain in the butt at this stage, requiring multiple deadlines, editing, etc. But we can’t just yet as there is still enough print ad revenue coming in to keep us (barely) afloat.
That digital ad revenue? Nada. It slowed and sputtered, largely taken over by Google and other platforms, robbing us of any additional replacement income.
Now we are learning to diversify our revenue out of necessity by stressing subscriptions to the digital product (which is 98% of our focus and has been for more than a decade; print is an aside, an afterthought, something we have to keep putting out but would rather not be bothered).
Pay walls are hard sells after all of us have been accustomed to “free” access via the Internet. We’ve been giving it away essentially (stupid, yes, but based on that earlier premise about digital ad revenue rising). We’ve all become spoiled (we used to pay for local news, after all — either via subscription or rack sales).
I know it’s popular for people to say, oh, no wonder they’re failing, they’re biased. But that simply has nothing to do with why thousands of newspapers throughout this country are struggling to stay afloat.
Pretty soon you won’t have a clue what’s going on with your City Council, School Board, crime or county governments. Guess who covers that? Guess who sits though those hideously boring but important meetings on your behalf? Yeah, us. And we’re shrinking down to nothing.
Good luck with that.
By the way, those corrupt local politicians are the ones who rise to higher levels if they’re not watched by anyone.
The decline of newspapers is not a good thing for democracy. It just isn’t.
But no one yet knows how to fix that.
It’s no one’s fault — it’s a confluence of technology, rapidly changing business models in advertising, and the rise of monopoly-style sites like Google.
Just wanted to clear that up.
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“Newspapers” being only a generic term anymore for local news outlets & organizations which are now primarily digital in their mission and have been for many years now (TV doesn’t count as they get virtually all their stories from local “newspapers”). Oy.
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I’m amazed by some people who still will ask me, “Has your paper considered a website?”
Yes, been up since around 2002 I believe. The vast majority of our readers now (and we have way more readers now than before, just not the ad revenue to go with it) visit us online. The only “paper” subscriptions are for mostly older residents who either don’t have computers or can’t give up the routine of the actual paper-paper in the to read while they have their morning coffee.
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Ricky you’re missing the best news from the Sunday talk shows;
From the man who said there was no collision, then they only planned to collude to yes they colluded nut its not a crime, comes the new revelation; truth isn’t truth
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The trump administration needs to follow rules like anyone else and they wouldn’t have their EOs thrown out. There’s no deep state conspiracy here, just an inept administration.
I’m glad you appreciate the Toronto Star. Its about the only left wing paper in North America. The reality is the press ran with the info they had. In an era where news is expected to be instantly delivered, they have no choice. ICE on the other hand is usually slow to release information. They need to work on their PR dept
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People like to complain about protesters, radicals or those who show some hate, but they may be right to do so.
I think the pope, Joe Pesci, and a few others owe Sinead O’Connor an apology.
https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/we-owe-sinead-o-connor-an-apology-for-speaking-the-truth-about-church-child-abuse?utm_campaign=Best+of+IrishCentral+-+2018-08-19&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Mailjet
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“Bias? That’s a whole different issue (that needs to be internally addressed), but it is not the cause of the print decline. Not related. Not really.”
Yeah see, here’s the thing. I personally cancelled my own subscription to our local paper. The only reason for it was their blindly partisan and biased treatment of GW Bush. No other reason. And I know dozens who’ve done the same. So yeah, it is related.
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“Good, honest, factual, and relevant news isn’t what most newsrooms produce anymore.”
In many, many cases, yes it was.
Now, with staff cuts, much of what news outlets once covered simply isn’t getting covered anymore. At all.
Now, it’s the wild west with the hyper-partisan internet sites spoon feeding those who “agree” with them stuff that goes beyond “bias” on both sides.
And we wonder why we can’t even talk to each other in this country anymore.
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And sometimes bias is in the eye of the reader. Hey, I’ve been accused of being left-wing which is laughable. People “decide” oh, the paper is “biased,” and then everything they read fits into their assumptions. Seriously, I’ve seen this happen over and over again.
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I’m just sayin, it’s the money and the technology and the resulting disappearance of ad revenue that’s been the downfall of the news industry in this country.
I’ve sat through meeting after meeting with charts showing ad revenue plummeting due to free Internet alternatives (accompanied by hopeful charts saying digital ad revenue will soon ‘cross over’ and we’ll be fine).
In the last 5 years even the chart-makers realize that isn’t going to happen, thanks to Google and Fb and all the others that have gobbled up the online ad revenue.
Subscriptions to old-style newspapers? They were never the core of the financial support for us. We get readers, we lose ’em. So be it. It was always all about the ads.
So cancel away. That’s not what’s hurting us.
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Now that’s not to say it hasn’t affected their website model as well, because it has. I won’t pay for the NYT or WaPo because they are so biased. Regardless of the delivery method, it’s the quality of the product that’s diminished on all front.
Like here for example….
Can you ever see the WaPo siding with Barry over an Islamists? Of course not, because they’d never do so. But Trump……
https://www.dailywire.com/news/34718/wapo-says-trump-strong-arming-turkish-islamist-hank-berrien
“The Washington Post, in a seeming effort to undermine President Trump, published a story on Sunday night in which Trump’s efforts to get Turkey to release a detained American pastor were referred to as “strong-arming,” while Turkish Islamist President Recip Erdogan’s resistance was limned as heroically “unbowed.”
The Post wrote Trump initiated “market-rattling economic sanctions and humiliating public rebukes” but “Erdogan, for the moment, appears unbowed.”
The Post opines that Erdogan has used Trump’s aggressive posture to rally domestic support to his side, thus vitiating the anger against him for Turkey’s failing economy. The Post delightedly quotes Erdogan huffing that Turkey “will not surrender to those who act like a strategic partner but make us a strategic target.”
Meanwhile, the Turkish lira has plunged to record lows against the dollar.
No matter, the Post has Erdogan’s back: “But Erdogan’s ability to benefit from the crisis has raised questions about whether Trump underestimated the Turkish leader, a ‘nimble tactician’ who is convinced that Western powers are bent on crippling Turkey because of its status as a strong Muslim nation, said Lisel Hintz, a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.””
——————-
I guess “nimble tactician” is leftist speak for brutal dictator who murders and jails his citizens and opposition. You know, like they accuse Trump of being despite no evidence or actions to justify it. But he’s cool with them, as long as he’s anti-Trump too.
The first thing the press needs to do when it finds itself in a hole like at present, is to stop digging.
But they’re not.
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Donna,
“Subscriptions to old-style newspapers? They were never the core of the financial support for us. We get readers, we lose ’em. So be it. It was always all about the ads.
So cancel away. That’s not what’s hurting us.”
But why would an advertiser ever pay to advertise in a paper no one is subscribing too. Without them you have no advertisers. And a lack of readers certainly isn’t helping you get new advertisers when old ones are lost.
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When it comes to national political coverage, I’d say that the rise of the Internet (and actually the success of Fox News, ironically), in general, has led to a much more biased environment. (Brit Hume once said it was hoped that Fox would help level the playing field and lead back to a stronger commitment to more objective journalism; instead, he said, it seemed to loosen the restraints on everyone to express their ‘opinions’).
But the problems faced by regional and local media are not about that. They’re about the changing technology and the vanishing of ad revenue. Our readership levels have never been higher (well, now that the pay wall has been put in we’ve seen some issues; we resisted a pay wall for years so it’s been a rude awakening for many of our readers). I personally don’t like them, but I also am sorry newspapers didn’t all decide to institute them from the beginning.
Hindsight …
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The Post isnt biased the dailywire is;
unbowed is a neutral term
he uses Trump’s words to shore up domestic support…..so did Kim, Putin and even Trudeau. Its not bias its a fact. Using Trump to shore up domestic support is something all major leaders are doing. Sometimes its deliberate but usually Trump gives it for free.
Erdogan is a nimble tactian…that’s a fact. He out manipulated his opposition and the powerful Turkish military. He managed to stay in NATO while working with Russia in Syria. Besides the nimble tactician comment comes from a quoted expert not the paper.
And yes Trump’s use of sanctions and tariffs is sledgehammer like not scalpel like.
Again you see bias where it doesnt exist
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Ah, but our readership was (and is) good, better now than it ever has been (and I suspect most news sites would say the same of their experiences). Advertisers have found more efficient and cheaper ways to reach targeted audiences.
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Leaving news sites unable to pay sufficient staff.
it’s a business model problem.
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All the extra eyes on our copy doesn’t help the bottom line in the Internet era. No one’s figured out how to link the two beyond charging readers (which readers hate now because they’ve been used to reading for free for so long, I’m no exception).
There are new models for that being experimented with, such as micro payments (where you can pay to read something without subscribing). But none of that will match what traditional newspapers once made in regular advertising. The classifieds alone brought in probably more than 50% of our revenue. Now you can buy and sell for free on the Internet. Poof. That was a whole lot of money just … gone.
We’re not the only industry impacted by the Internet but we’ve been one of the hardest hit, I’d say. Not in terms of readership, certainly, but in terms of revenue that is needed to stay in business.
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There’s also the difference between the more nationally recognized papers, such as the Washington Post, which cover a lot of national political news, and our local papers which report on the events happening in the area, as DJ mentioned somewhere up above. Another friend, who reads a variety of sources, has pointed out that often the bias is evident, one way or the other, on the editorial pages, but the hard news is pretty much straight reporting. (Although, yes, we need to watch out for wording that can be evidence of bias.)
Speaking of seeing bias when expecting bias – Recently I commented this, here on the news thread:
Poor World magazine. They just can’t please everybody.
Just finished reading the letters to the editor in the August 4 issue (I’m behind a bit). One reader complained that World is always “harping about our president’s shortcomings”, while another reader complains that although World took a stance against Trump before the election, now they “can’t seem to summon the slightest criticism of his administration.” 😀
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HRW,
“The trump administration needs to follow rules like anyone else and they wouldn’t have their EOs thrown out. There’s no deep state conspiracy here, just an inept administration.”
That’s garbage, and you’d know this if you read the article. It’s not just about Trump’s EO’s. It’s about the fact that Obama’s EO are being treated as laws that can’t be overturned by EO from the next president. This is unprecedented and legal hogwash.. Ricky who liked your comment knows this too, but it’s Trump, so he could care less about precedent.
—————————-
“According to judges, Trump is bound by Obama, not the law and the Constitution
A president can always countermand a regulation or program optionally implemented by a previous president, most certainly ones that violate existing statute or federal authority, such as the WOTUS rule and Obama’s executive amnesty.
But now, a Bush judge, at the behest of several liberal state governments and environmental defense groups, is saying Trump must continue this nonsense. Judge Norton once again applied his rule universally nationwide, outside his jurisdiction. As they have been doing with every Obama policy concerning the environment, labor, or immigration that Trump merely revokes, random plaintiffs are able to get standing and simply say that Trump violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The APA requires public notice for any changes to regulations and to articulate the reasoning behind the change.
Ironically, the APA was designed to prevent lawless administrative procedures and lawmaking by fiat, but it is now being used against Trump when he simply reinstates the policies that were in place for decades before Obama unilaterally changed them. By definition, liberals will disagree with the substance of his policies and always say they were not well thought out, thereby rendering them “arbitrary and capricious.” And the courts are codifying that political argument as a legal mandate to say that everything Obama did – no matter how lawless – was automatically thoughtfully implemented and when Trump merely reverses those policies, he is always being arbitrary and capricious.
In reality, the fact that a president makes up a policy that supersedes his power is enough of a reason to discontinue it. Garbage in? Take the garbage out. In fact, in this case, a Georgia district court issued an injunction in June the other way and ruled that the WOTUS rule itself violated law. Thus, we now have conflicting judges, which in itself demonstrates the absurdity of judges deciding politics.””
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HRW @ 11:25 Within my group of Never-Trumpers, we have been forced to specialize. A couple of the ladies keep us updated on misogyny issues. Two of the guys focus on Trump’s abuses of power and obstruction of justice. Another guy deals with protectionism and other examples of economic illiteracy. Another lady informs us daily about Trump’s latest lies. I am free to target random acts of ignorance.
We are all staying busy and entertained. Most of us are conservative, but we have a pair of liberal siblings, including that rarest of all persons: a white heterosexual male liberal from West Texas who is over the age of 60.
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I read the article. It clearly states a Republican judge threw out the EO because the Trump administration did not follow the rules and procedures of the APA. This isn’t the first time the Trump admin has been told to follow the rules. To say Obama’s EOs are garbage and therefore Trump doesn’t need to follow procedure is political. A judge telling the admin to follow procedure is not political, its simply the application of rule of law not rule by law.
Apply the golden rule, would Trump supporters like the next admin to rescind his EOs without following the APA. I’m sure FOX would blow up if the next president did this.
And finally for all the talk of Obama’s dictatorial EOs, he must have followed the rules and procedures set out in the APA. Or I’m sure a Republican judge would have rescinded them.
The number of EOs by president is also interesting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_executive_orders
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I have paid digital subscriptions to the WSJ and LA Times — Didn’t like doing it, but it’s becoming more and more of a hard line position for most publications. And it’s only fair, I think.
We should read everything with a critical eye. Bias is ingrained in all of us, right? Journalists have been trained (theoretically and in reality for many of us) to be very aware of our own biases when we cover stories.
World Magazine, in fact, states that it’s purpose is to cover the news from the premise of a Christian world view. I like that as a Christian reader, but it also is coming from a specific point of view (one I happen to agree with, of course). At least they are up front in acknowledging that.
I’ve been openly critical about my profession, I think we’ve made some serious missteps in being so resistant toward self-examination in the face of criticism. But that said, throwing us (or them) all over the cliff in a temper-tantrum huff isn’t fair either.
An all-or-nothing position just isn’t a good or honest way to approach the issue. We need a dependable source of news in our nation and communities and that’s being lost mostly due to a huge financial disruption that means a significant loss of trained journalists.
Instead, we end up with all kinds of “stuff” flying around based on people’s (yes) own biases.
I’ve actually seen people argue that we don’t need the media since we now have Facebook. Uh, right.
And therein lies a (big) problem, folks.
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@6:41 am: One of the ways for the FBI to show the American people that they are not influenced by any political bias is to implement a policy that prohibits its investigators from making donations to political candidates or parties.
Does this really make sense? Certainly you don’t want an investigator to take a donation (that is, a bribe). But prohibiting him from making a donation doesn’t change whether or not he has an opinion or whether that opinion will bias his investigation.
(Sorry if this has been discussed already – I’m not sure I’ll get to read the whole thread.)
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Some good news.
Again, thanks to the Trump admin’s diplomatic efforts.:)
https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/brief-korean-reunions-bring-tears-for-separated-families-1.543360
“SEOUL, South Korea — The 92-year-old South Korean woman wept and stroked the wrinkled cheeks of her 71-year-old North Korean son on Monday, their first meeting since they were driven apart during the turmoil of the 1950-53 Korean War.
“How many children do you have? Do you have a son?” Lee Keum-seom asked her son Ri Sang Chol during their long-awaited encounter at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort.
The emotional reunion came after dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea to meet with their relatives. The weeklong event, the first of its kind in nearly three years, was arranged as the rival Koreas boost reconciliation efforts amid a diplomatic push to resolve a standoff over North Korea’s drive for a nuclear weapons program.
Hugging the woman he’d last seen as a child, Ri showed his mother a photo of her late husband, who had stayed behind in the North with him as a boy.
Most of the participants in the reunions are in their 70s or older and are eager to see their loved ones once more before they die. Most have had no word on whether their relatives are still alive because they are not allowed to visit each other across the border or even exchange letters, phone calls or email.”
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Our news company (as do most) forbids us to make any contributions (volunteer or monetary) to politicians, candidates, etc.; we also cannot sign petitions or put partisan bumper stickers on our cars. We’re admonished to keep our political views off social media.
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So I did a story about a South Korean vet today and received these emails from 2 readers:
1/ Thank you for your article regarding the return of Rodger Gonzales. It’s deserving of Front Page News but also an opportunity to thank President Trump for his successful efforts in allowing this to take place. An opportunity to accentuate the positive with a fair report was missed by you.
2/ I am elated that the remains of Roger Gonzales as well as hundreds of the other fallen solders of the Korean war era, 1950-1953, are being returned home to the US and interred in the family’s burial site.
Yes I agree that with the advance technology work of the defense POW/MIA accounting agencies deserve much credit! However, there is no mention of President Trumps’ diligent negotiations with the North Korean Kim Jong-un to dis-arm and have all the US solders who were killed during that conflict being returned.
God Bless America and our veterans of all the wars who fought and have given their lives for our freedom………..
____________________________________
I answered both, thanking them for their points and explaining that the remains of this particular vet, the sole focus of our story, had been buried with other ‘unknowns’ in Hawaii since 1954 (and thus was not part of the current Trump/North Korea discussions).
Both were very gracious in replying:
1/ Thank you for that clarification Donna. I apologize for not seeing that point within your article and I’m so appreciative for your return response. I have never received a response from anything I have sent to a member the Press and obviously am one of those desperate for fair news that brings calm to all Americans.
2/ Thank you so much Donna!! I obviously missed that section of the story segment that US soldier’s remains were in Hawaii since 1954. All the best to you,
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Here is an example of a Reuters reporter doing his job and Trump using “imprecise” language, though maybe not as imprecise as that posted at 8:30 a.m.
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The number of EOs by president isn’t interesting at all, *by itself,* when one considers the Presidential Memoranda issued by regulatory- and freedom-hating (and advocate for born alive baby-killing, if we’re counting) Barack Obama.
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