25 thoughts on “News/Politics 6-1-19”

  1. I must say, this is a surprising turn of events. But are they cleaning up their act, or just putting on a show because their new TV news show is about to debut so they’re looking to keep those reporters “in house”? Time will tell I suppose.

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    https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/05/new-york-times-reportedly-doesnt-want-its-reporters-on-partisan-cable-shows/#more-284814

    “Vanity Fair reported that The New York Times, often criticized for leftist leanings, told its newsroom that reporters cannot appear on partisan news shows.

    The news came out after the newspaper made finance editor David Enrich cancel an appearance on Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC.

    From Vanity Fair:

    The Times was wary of how viewers might perceive a down-the-middle journalist like Enrich talking politics with a mega-ideological host like Maddow. The producer, who was informed that the Times asks members of the newsroom not to appear on opinionated shows to discuss political subjects, was miffed about the cancellation, sources said. Enrich declined to comment.

    The ban reaches farther than MSNBC:

    The Times has come to “prefer,” as sources put it, that its reporters steer clear of any cable-news shows that the masthead perceives as too partisan, and managers have lately been advising people not to go on what they see as highly opinionated programs. It’s not clear how many shows fall under that umbrella in the eyes of Times brass, but two others that definitely do are Lawrence O’Donnell’s and Don Lemon’s, according to people familiar with management’s thinking. Hannity’s or Tucker Carlson’s shows would likewise make the cut, but it’s not like Times reporters ever do those anyway. I’m told that over the past couple of months, executive editor Dean Baquet has felt that opinionated cable-news show are getting, well, even more opinionated. Baquet and other managers have become increasingly concerned that if a Times reporter were to go on one of these shows, his or her appearance could be perceived as being aligned with that show’s political leanings. “He thinks it’s a real issue,” one of my Times sources said. “Their view,” said another, “is that, intentionally or not, it affiliates the Times reporter with a bias.”

    However, this is not a new policy. The Ethical Journalism handbook from the Times states: “In deciding whether to make a radio, television or Internet appearance, a staff member should consider its probable tone and content to make sure they are consistent with Times standards. Staff members should avoid strident, theatrical forums that emphasize punditry and reckless opinion-mongering.”

    Vanity Fair asked The Washington Post for its stance on partisan cable shows. A spokeswoman said the newspaper views “all broadcast programs as opportunities to expose our journalism to different audiences” while urging the “reporters to speak objectively about the news topics they cover or share fact-based analysis with the goal of giving viewers a better understanding of a story.”

    Critics laughed at the idea of the Times wanting to stray away from partisan shows due to the fact that many view the newspaper as leftist.”

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  2. More,

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/47879/too-partisan-new-york-times-bans-reporters-certain-ryan-saavedra

    “The decision by The Times comes a few weeks after Special Counsel Robert Mueller released the report from his Russia investigation, which largely contradicted much of Maddow’s programming from the last two years.

    Maddow, in particular, saw a massive decline in ratings, losing “half-a-million viewers in just one week after special counsel Robert Mueller’s report indicated that he did not find enough evidence to support collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia,” The Daily Caller reported.

    CNN’s ratings were so devastated following Attorney General William Barr’s letter to Congress that Fox News host Tucker Carlson beat CNN’s entire prime time lineup combined by more than 1,000,000 viewers.

    Maddow faced widespread criticism over many of the salacious and unverified claims she pushed on her show during Mueller’s investigation.

    Reporter Aaron Maté documented dozens of Maddow’s wild claims following the release of Barr’s letter to Congress:

    “1/ If YouTube were to recommend your show, it’d be recommending the leading purveyor of now debunked Trump-Russia conspiracy theories, falsehoods & innuendo of the last 2+ years. Here’s a sample:””

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  3. I’d love to believe they turned a corner, but I just don’t trust that they have. Because there’s still plenty of evidence they haven’t.

    —————–

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  4. Like I said……..

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  5. Interesting….. that we need a lawsuit by a Russian to expose the truth about the underhanded acts of our NSA, CIA, FBI, and DoJ, as well as the last fraud in the WH, Obama, their media enablers, and some of our so-called allies. A bit of karma, and a lot of irony there.

    https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/31/lawsuit-exposes-media-deep-state-hatched-russiagate-hoax/

    “Lawsuit Exposes How The Media And Deep State Hatched The Russiagate Hoax

    Svetlana Lokhova’s lawsuit exposed the outline intelligence operatives used to spread the Russia collusion fiction. It also revealed the United Kingdom assisted in the plot development.”

    “Reading the defamation complaint Svetlana Lokhova filed last Thursday against Stefan Halper and three media giants felt like paging through a Nicholas Sparks novel. But instead of finding a formulistic young love tragedy turned epic romance, Lokhova’s lawsuit exposed the outline the intelligence community used to spread the Russia collusion fiction. It also revealed that the United Kingdom held a prominent role in the plot development.

    Other than a blip of notoriety in 2015 when she won a £3.1 million award in a harassment case against her former employer, the Russian bank Sberbank CIB, Lokhova resided in obscurity at Cambridge University. At Cambridge, Lokhova focused on completing her PhD in Soviet Intelligence Studies under the tutelage of Professor Christopher Andrew.

    According to Lokhova’s complaint, all that changed on February 19, 2017, when her long-time mentor penned an article for the U.K.’s Sunday Times, painting her as a Russian spy and possible paramour-in-waiting for Michael Flynn. These are the allegedly false and defamatory claims that formed the basis for her lawsuit.

    In her lawsuit, Lokhova detailed the backdrop to Andrew’s article then laid out its aftermath, before blaming not just Andrew, but FBI informant Stefan Halper and three media powerhouses with embroiling “an innocent woman in a conspiracy to undo the 2016 Presidential election and topple the President of the United States of America.” But in sharing her story of how the intelligence community and press sucked her into the Spygate scandal, Lokhova also laid bare the formula used to fake the Russia collusion narrative and convince the public that President Trump conspired with the Kremlin.

    The isolated nature of Lokhova’s supposed involvement in the purported Russia collusion provides the perfect opportunity for outlining the formula used for more than three years to peddle the hoax. Here’s the template.”

    —————————-

    They needed to remove Flynn, because he knows everything they’ve done, and where the bodies are buried, as they say… That’s the real reason they set him up.

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  6. The elephant in the room…..

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/noticing-the-elephant-in-the-special-counsels-office

    “Now that special counsel Robert Mueller has quit the Department of Justice, many Republicans give him a pass for the way he conducted his investigation. This is because his report into the Russia collusion hoax found that neither President Trump nor any other American worked with Moscow to fix the 2016 election. The logic is, “No harm, no foul,” so people avoid shedding their decadeslong admiration for Mueller as a straight arrow.

    But there’s an elephant in the room that no cloud of bromide can conceal. It’s that Mueller conducted his investigation and wrote his report with an animus against the president and a reflex to defend his own colleagues in the intelligence community. Byron York provides a lucid retrospective on the whole Russia conspiracy theory, which has plagued our politics and hobbled the federal government for more than two years.”

    ———————

    “No, the worst of Mueller was not what he did but what he failed to do. To identify that, ask yourself whether you really know the extent of Russian interference in our democracy? Mueller didn’t lay out the probity or abuses of intelligence officials who set his investigation in motion. Have you actually got your mind around what they did? No, you have not. For Mueller didn’t bother to look into the origins of the dossier, which was the seed of the scandal and is legitimately suspected to be Russian disinformation. He didn’t investigate how it fell into the hands of media organizations who used it against Trump. He cast no light on whether his old pal, James Comey, or other intelligence bigwigs such as John Brennan and James Clapper, were duped (and by whom) into believing the claptrap it contained.

    The central point — I’ve made it here before — is that falsehood doesn’t spring into being from thin air. It has to be invented. The dossier and the collusion narrative were false. So who made them up? Who were they working for? And why? Mueller has dropped the mic and walked away into private life without attempting to find out.

    So no, sadly, he is not a consummate professional. He has failed. Let us hope that Barr succeeds.”

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  7. This is so big I don’t know why I haven’t seen it anywhere else.
    But I saw on a link that Mexico is retaliating on the tariffs by increasing the spicy content of it’s food exports to US by 50%.
    That’ll show them gringos!

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Hot sauce ‘story’ was satire:

    “The measure is designed to get back at Trump for his trade war by burning the mouths of all the white people in the US. The country gets much of its salsa and hot sauce from Mexico, but a previous trade agreement had limited the spiciness of the hot sauce to a level that white people could bear. Mexico is no longer abiding by this agreement, threatening the health and safety of ‘the gringos.’ “

    Liked by 2 people

  15. High tech American business men, particularly those with military backgrounds, are being told to not go to China–too many have been jailed.

    Businesses are now evaluating their exit strategy from China because of the draconian conditions being inflicted by the Chinese government. Americans are being demonized and Cold War propaganda films being shown on television.

    Let’s pray for the Chinese people–the Christian crackdown also continues. 😦

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Oh my…..

    More proof that’s it’s just been a lie-filled witch hunt. Are you starting to understand why they keep putting off Flynn’s sentencing yet?

    Say it with me now…… prosecutorial misconduct.

    I knew you could. 🙂

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/47927/mueller-report-edited-conversation-between-trump-ashe-schow

    “The final report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller contains an edited transcript from a voicemail left by an attorney for President Donald Trump to an attorney for former national security adviser Lieutenant Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.).”
    ———-

    “In Mueller’s report, this voicemail is selectively edited to give the impression that Trump’s attorney was asking Flynn’s attorney for information that might hurt the president while reminding the attorney about what Trump has said about Flynn:

    —————-

    “This makes it seem like the president’s counsel was trying to obstruct justice, or at the very least, hide something damaging to Trump.

    “The actual transcript of this voicemail has now been released, and shows what Mueller left out:

    Hey, Rob, uhm, this is John again. Uh, maybe, I-I-I-‘m-I’m sympathetic; I understand your situation, but let me see if I can’t … state it in … starker terms. If you have … and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve gone on to make a deal with, and, uh, work with the government, uh … I understand that you can’t join the joint defense; so that’s one thing. If, on the other hand, we have, there’s information that … implicates the President, then we’ve got a national security issue, or maybe a national security issue, I don’t know … some issue, we got to-we got to deal with, not only for the President, but for the country. So … uh … you know, then-then, you know, we need some kind of heads up. Um, just for the sake of … protecting all our interests, if we can, without you having to give up any … confidential information. So, uhm, and if it’s the former, then, you know, remember what we’ve always said about the President and his feelings toward Flynn and, that still remains, but — Well, in any event, uhm, let me know, and, uh, I appreciate your listening and taking the time. Thanks, Pal.

    The Mueller report left out the part where the Trump’s attorney specifically asked for information that was not confidential. Mueller’s report strings along sections of the voicemail to give one impression.

    This is the second example of selective editing in the Mueller report that we know about so far. The Daily Wire previously reported that important context was left out of a text-message exchange between former Trump attorney Michael Cohen and a Georgian-American businessman. The businessman, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr demanding a footnote be retracted from the Mueller report misrepresenting his conversation.”

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  19. This should add to the fun next week as LA releases its new (higher) homeless numbers:

    https://www.foxnews.com/health/dr-drew-says-third-world-countries-would-be-insulted-to-be-compared-with-los-angeles

    I didn’t know who Dr. Drew was, a ‘celeb’ doctor, I see now — but wow. A pretty scathing assessment. I know the one deputy city atty who contacted typhus last year (she believes) at city hall

    __________________________

    Dr. Drew says LA public health in ‘complete breakdown’: ‘No city on Earth tolerates this’

    The public health situation in the nation’s second-largest city is in “a complete breakdown,” Dr. Drew Pinsky said Thursday night on “The Ingraham Angle.”

    “We have a complete breakdown of the basic needs of civilization in Los Angeles right now,” Pinsky told host Laura Ingraham. “We have the three prongs of airborne disease, tuberculosis is exploding, (and) rodent-borne. We are one of the only cities in the country that doesn’t have a rodent control program, and sanitation has broken down.” …
    ___________________________

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  20. Amen.

    https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/31/no-god-doesnt-love-abortion-say-youre-not-real-pastor/

    “No, God Doesn’t Love Abortion, And If You Say So You’re Not A Real Pastor”

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    “The left has been on a frantic jag the last few weeks to get us all to remember just how wonderful and important abortion is. One of the most despicably desperate efforts was a recent New York Times editorial by a particularly infamous late-term abortionist explaining (and this is not a typo) “Pregnancy kills. Abortion saves lives.”

    Pregnancy: Very bad. Abortion: Very good. But of course, 100 percent of everyone who has ever existed does so because a pregnancy did what it naturally does and an abortion didn’t. The craziness of this editorial is a dramatic demonstration of just how paralyzed with fear these folks are about losing their cherished right to be free of children.

    The Atlantic recently published a less dramatic, but equally desperate, article entitled “A Pastor’s Case for the Morality of Abortion.” Three trigger words here are supposed to create a confused dissonance: Pastor. Morality. Abortion. A case for the morality of abortion by a pastor. We imagine The Atlantic’s headline writers envisioned so many of us concluding abortion might not be so bad if a pastor thinks it’s moral. There is no other reason for the story. It’s certainly not newsworthy.

    This pastor, Jes Kast, is not well-known. She is extremely fringe and not particularly influential. She didn’t recently change her position on the issue through dramatic soul-searching. And she’s a United Church of Christ pastor, a denomination that never saw an abortion it couldn’t celebrate. She also describes herself as a femme queer lesbian who wants us to “queer this sh-t” we call our lives.

    She serves on Planned Parenthood’s national Clergy Advocacy Board and talks endlessly about the need to protect “reproductive rights,” as if she’s pro-fertility. She’s not. She’s a woman who’s proudly political even in her choice of lipstick.”

    ————-

    “The Jesus Who Allows Whatever I Want

    So what is Kast’s theological case?

    Most anyone would agree she’s quite creative with scripture. In her rationale, she quotes Jesus saying, “I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.” It’s a wonderful statement from the savior, but you should sit down for her commentary on how this makes abortion moral.

    What Jesus means here, she explains, is that “God’s plan for our lives is to actually have a meaningful life with loving contentment and satisfaction.” She continues, “Because of that—because I value life, and I believe Jesus values life—I value the choices that give us the type of life we need.” Claiming that access to abortion is a part of why Jesus came and the abundant life he offers is abhorrent and blasphemous. Has she no shame?

    But she’s not done; “When people talk about, ‘Our body is a temple of God, and holy,’ I see that as, I have the right to choices over my body, and the freedom to make the decisions that are right for me.” Apparently she thinks this is compelling. That is the fullness of her case for the morality of abortion. Basically, she is giving the precise rationale for abortion that prosperity preachers give for why God wants you rich.”

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  22. Warren says she grew up believing she had Native American heritage. Falsely believing that is pretty common among white families. My mom’s family had the same legend, and my cousin was so disappointed when his DNA test did not turn up anything of that sort.

    I’m not a fan of Warren’s, but I think she really believed she had that heritage. Why would she volunteer to have her DNA tested and made public if she didn’t?

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  23. Kizzie,

    That’s a rather gracious reading of Warren’s history on your part.

    But the big issue is, and always has been, that she lied about it for years and used it for political and personal gain. The questions of her heritage could have been answered and addressed immediately, but she didn’t do so.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/elizabeth-warrens-dna-test-shows-she-isnt-native-american-makes-her-the-butt-of-jokes-once-again

    “What do those fractions actually mean? Well, geneticists estimate that the average European-American has genes that are 98.6 percent European, .19 percent African, and .18 Native American. By comparison, Warren’s genes might be just 0.09 percent Native American. On average, if you have a European background, she’s probably less Native American than you or I.

    Warren has just guaranteed that the 2020 presidential election will become an agonizing genealogy project. She regularly bragged about her heritage and listed herself as a minority in the Association of American Law School’s directory while a Harvard Law School professor and even contributing a recipe to a Native American cookbook called Pow Wow Chow. Harvard’s law school bragged about her as a Native American hire.

    Until the recent analysis, there was no absolute proof that Warren is not Native American. Now there is. As the Washington Post reported, the government defines heritage as “having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America” and “maintain cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition.”

    Warren has never had such an affiliation, and the DNA test raised the possibility that she is whiter than the average white person despite all her bragging.”

    —————–

    She’s about as American Indian as Mahatma Gandhi is.

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  24. If she actually knew that what she’d been told in her family was wrong, then she would have been lying to claim it. But if she knew the truth, why would she have taken the DNA test and let the results be known publicly? That’s what makes me think she actually believed the story. But yeah, it still makes her look foolish.

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