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Election Over, Associated Press Still Campaigns for the Left

November 20, 2016

Election Over, Associated Press Still Campaigns for the Left, Power Line,  John Hinderaker, November 19, 2016

At the end of 2008, I worried that the Obama administration would do great damage to America–correctly, as it turned out. But no one considered my misgivings to be newsworthy.

The case is different with respect to the incipient Trump administration. Criticisms by his opponents–the ones who just lost the election–dominate the news. The Associated Press, once a respected news organization, headlines: “Trump’s staff picks alarm minorities: ‘Injustice to America.’”

Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for leadership posts threaten national unity and promise to turn back the clock on progress for racial, religious and sexual minorities, civil rights leaders and others said Friday after his nomination of Alabama U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general.

That’s a remarkable beginning for a purported news story!

Sessions, a Republican, was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 after hearings in which he was accused of making racially charged remarks as a U.S. attorney. According to transcripts, Sessions was accused, among other things, of joking that he thought the Ku Klux Klan “was OK” until he learned its members smoked marijuana and of calling a black assistant U.S. attorney “boy.” During the hearing, Sessions denied making some of the comments and said others were jokes taken out of context.

Is it too much to expect them to come up with something within the last 30 years? Apparently so.

Black Lives Matter activist and Campaign Zero co-founder DeRay Mckesson said Sessions’ “documented racism and previous ineligibility for public office make him unfit to be the standard-bearer for the nation’s justice system.”

The AP cites one extreme left-wing source after another, as though they were reputable experts whose judgments are worthy of credence. In addition to the Black Lives Matter activist, the AP turns to unindicted terrorist co-conspirator CAIR for comment:

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said, “Unfortunately, these very important picks in his administration send a troubling message indicating that the bigotry we saw expressed in the campaign will continue.”

The Associated Press deems representatives of a pro-terrorist group and a violent, racist movement to be mainstream commentators, while Jeff Sessions–former U.S. Attorney, Attorney General of Alabama and Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, a Senator so respected that when he ran for re-election in 2014, the Democrats did not field a candidate against him–is portrayed as an outlier, a marginal, suspect figure. That gives you a good idea where the Associated Press lies on the ideological spectrum.

The AP retails the usual nonsense against Trump adviser Steve Bannon:

Bannon led the Breitbart website, which has been widely condemned as racist, sexist and anti-Semitic.

Really? By whom? Why? This is the lowest form of smear.

The AP goes on to quote someone named Daniela Lapidous, as though her views were particularly noteworthy:

Daniela Lapidous, a 22-year-old Jewish woman who works to fight climate change…

I am sure the humor is unintended.

…called Bannon a “misogynist and anti-Semite and an anti-climate extremist.” She said she never before felt the need to fight anti-Semitism but now thinks that she must.

“I’ve been somewhat convinced that anti-Semitism isn’t a thing in the United States anymore, but this past year, with Trump and Bannon, it’s made me scared about that for the first time in my life,” said Lapidous, who lives in San Francisco.

Why does the AP inform many hundreds of thousands of readers about Ms. Lapidous’s opinion of Steve Bannon? Has Lapidous ever met Mr. Bannon? Not as far as we know. Does she cite any basis for her opinion that Bannon is an anti-Semite? No. In fact, while Bannon likely does disagree with Ms. Lapidous about global warming–I certainly hope so!–the assertion that he is anti-Semitic is disgusting. Andrew Breitbart was strongly pro-Israel; our own Scott Johnson once toured Israel with him. Breitbart News, under Bannon’s leadership, has continued to be enthusiastically pro-Israel.

This is not hard to understand: a person who is anti-Israel is not necessarily an anti-Semite, although a great many are. But no anti-Semites are strongly pro-Israel. That combination simply doesn’t exist. Which means that Ms. Lapidous is ignorant, and raises the question: why is the Associated Press sharing with us the uninformed opinion of a foolish left-wing ideologue who is all of six months removed from college? Has the AP called you lately to ask for your opinion about prominent Democrats? Probably not.

I could go on for a long time; this AP story is a target-rich environment. Instead, let’s add just one more observation. The AP pretends that it would be a terrible thing to have a racist Attorney General. Jeff Sessions, of course, would be no such thing. But we have had a racist Attorney General, just recently: Eric Holder. Holder made it the policy of the Department of Justice to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws in favor of some ethnic groups, but not others. That is textbook racism. Did the Associated Press protest? Of course not. Holder was of their party, and shared their agenda.

Categories: 2016 elections, Associated Press, Media and Democrats, Media and Donald Trump, President Elect Trump
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Hypocrisy Watch: Networks Pound Bannon, But Ignore Democrat Ellison’s Radicalism

November 17, 2016

Hypocrisy Watch: Networks Pound Bannon, But Ignore Democrat Ellison’s Radicalism, MRC News Busters, November 16, 2016

bannonbacklash

Since Sunday evening, ABC, CBS and NBC (along with a host of other establishment media outlets) have been engaged in a feeding frenzy over Donald Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon, with reporters relentlessly employing phrases such as “white nationalist,” “white supremacist,” “extremist,” “racist” and “anti-Semitic” to solidify the image of Bannon as a dangerous pick for a top White House position.

But since Friday, those same networks have been blind to the controversies surrounding the top candidate for Democratic National Committee Chairman, Rep. Keith Ellison. Ellison has been accused of ties to the radical Nation of Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, and once suggested the 9/11 terrorist attacks were akin to the infamous Reichstag fire used to propel Hitler’s Nazi party into absolute power in 1933 Germany.

From Sunday night through Wednesday morning, MRC analysts found the Big Three had already churned out 41 minutes, 46 seconds of coverage devoted to Bannon’s appointment. An analysis finds that nearly three-fourths (74%) of all references to Bannon were negative; the only positive comments viewers heard came from interviews or soundbites with other Trump campaign officials or Republican officeholders.

Reporters threw everything at Bannon, including the kitchen sink. On ABC’s World News Tonight on Monday, correspondent Tom Llamas labeled him “a champion of the alt-right, a conservative movement many say is fueled by racism, sexism and anti-Semitism.” NBC anchor Lester Holt said Trump was “lifting a man with ties to white nationalists into the heart of the White House.”

On the CBS Evening News, reporter Chip Reid told viewers about long-dropped charges of “domestic violence,” and unsubstantiated accusations from Bannon’s ex-wife that he didn’t want his children “going to school with Jews.”

The coverage has been so ridiculously excessive, The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro — who dislikes Bannon — said it was evidence the media had “gone nuts” over the appointment:

They claim that he’s personally anti-Semitic and racist and a white nationalist and anti-Israel, without evidence. This is ridiculous. And all it does is provoke defense from the right. For God’s sake, I’m now defending Steve Bannon! The media can’t stop their overreach, because everybody on the right is Hitler to the media, which means that Bannon must be Super-Duper-Hitler. [italics in original.]

Contrast that with news coverage of a Democrat accused of radicalism. Since he was first mentioned as a potential candidate on Friday, Rep. Ellison’s bid to take over the DNC has received only two minutes, nine seconds of network airtime, and none of it has focused on his controversial comments or associations.

The only spin network viewers heard was positive. On NBC’s Today show on Sunday, MSNBC’s Joy Reid was brought on to sing his praises: “Keith Ellison as a young legislator, as a Muslim, as an African-American, he really feels like sort of an ideal candidate.”

hypocrisy2016

Ellison has been endorsed by incoming Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer, a move which has led to protests against the New York Senator. While CBS has not mentioned those protests, their New York affiliate has done the reporting:

On a trip to Israel last summer, Ellison posted a photo of a sign in Hebron declaring Israel to be an apartheid state. He also proudly defended Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan against accusations of being anti-Semitic.

“(H)is vile beliefs… ought to disqualify him outright,” said Joel Mowbray, a consultant to Jewish groups. “If Chuck Schumer actually did his due diligence and is supporting Ellison anyway, that’s shameful.”

FoxNews.com explained that “in 2007, Ellison made a comparison between Bush and 9/11 to Hitler and the 1933 Reichstag fire.”

“‘9/11 is the juggernaut in American history and it allows… it’s almost like, you know, the Reichstag fire,’ Ellison said, according to a Daily Telegraph report at the time. ‘After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader of that country [Hitler] in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted.’”

Longtime terrorism expert Steve Emerson in 2010 documented that Ellison had financial “donors with a history of Muslim Brotherhood connections.” And in  March 2010, according to Emerson, “Ellison attended a private fundraiser at the northern Virginia home of a man who led a group tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Add it all up, and Ellison sounds at least as controversial as Bannon. So, if charges of extremism against a potential Republican White House aide are worth massive network coverage, where is the similar coverage of the radical ties of a Congressman who hopes to lead the Democratic Party?

Categories: 2016 elections, Keith Ellison, Media and Democrats, Media and Donald Trump, President Elect Trump, Steven K. Bannon, Trump appointments
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The Press and Pollsters Are Putting Too Much Cornstarch in the Cherry Pie

August 7, 2016

The Press and Pollsters Are Putting Too Much Cornstarch in the Cherry Pie, American Thinker, Clarice Feldman, August 7, 2016

That’s the short take of my friend Thomas Lipscomb and I have to agree with him

Contrary to most of the media-sponsored polls (The LA Times stands alone now calling the race a tie at last view), I agree with this one: Trump will draw in millions of voters who didn’t show up to the polls before and he will beat Hillary Clinton.

I don’t pretend to be a polling expert but note others who claim to be have said much the same thing using different statistical methodologies, including Yale Professor Ray Fair (economic models) and Emory University President Alan Abramowitz (presidential approval ratings), Politik.com predicts a landslide, noting in recent years the number of people voting for Democrats has dipped while the number of those voting for Republicans has risen.

Conservative Treehouse has argued along the same lines and notes that the NYT buried its own key finding that American voters are whiter than “historic leftist presentations”.

It projects that 73,272,595 Republicans will vote this fall in the general election.

That jaw-dropping number, 7.2 million more potential votes than Barack Obama carried in 2008 and almost 13 million more than Mitt Romney carried in 2012, is the least result achievable when you turn out THE MONSTER VOTE.

[snip]

What the New York Times is statistically beginning to quantify is the existence of The Monster Vote. If you look closely at the data behind their newly discovered 10 million potential/predictable voters, you’ll notice the additional votes carry to exactly what we predicted in February.

Even if Republican projection turnout was off by 5 million votes, Trump still wins in a landslide. Heck, even if the projection turnout was off by a staggering 10 million votes, the republican nominee (Trump) would still get more votes than President Obama did in 2012 and it is highly doubtful Hillary could turn out that level of support.

♦ Even the fact the NYT would write such an article tells you there are interests (financial interests, globalists) who are looking closely and trying to quantify the challenge they have in front of them.

♦ Remember, even in honest scientific polling — the poll methodologies are based on “assumptions”, or inputs into the collected poll samples in order to make them representative of the anticipated turnout.

♦ Thanks to Donald Trump, historic turnout trends are obsolete. Additionally, historic demographics and party affiliations are also obsolete; And, more importantly, as a consequence…

…any poll data that is relying on obsolete sample methodology is going to be significantly inaccurate.

I don’t know about the methodologies or baselines used by nationally recognized polling companies this year, but I note that Democratic pollster Pat Caddell recently said Reuters midstream shift in its tracking polls comes as close as I have ever seen to cooking the results.”

There are methods for projecting and allocating undecided voters based on complex attitude structures, based on many questions that tell the pollster that this person is in movement to support someone, he said. “Sometimes, they are hiding. That happens. Particularly in the past, or in racially-sensitive cases.”

Caddell cited two examples to Breitbart News.

“On July 25, they originally reported: Trump 40.3 percent and Clinton 37.2 percent, which was a Trump margin of 2.8,” he said. “They have recalculated that now — which I have never heard of — they changed that data, to be: Clinton 40.9 and Trump 38.4, which is a 2.5 margin for Clinton.”

The July 25 Reuters poll now shows a result that reflects a 5.3 percentage point flip from the previously published results, he said.

“Now look at July 26,” he said. “On July 26 they had Trump at 41.5 percent and Hillary at 36.3. That was a 5.2 Trump margin. Then, in the new calculation, they claim that Clinton was 41.1 percent, Trump was 37.5, and the margin was 3.6 for Clinton. Same poll. Two different results. Recalculated, after you’ve announced the other results.”

“What you get is an 8.8 percentage point margin change, almost nine points swinging from one candidate, based on some phony, some bizarre allocation theory that you claim you know where these people are or you are just leaving them out,” he said. “I actually believe they are allocating them because they are claiming they are really Clinton voters and they are using something to move them to Clinton.”

As Mickey Kaus has long noted, many polls are “hamburger helper polls”, that is designed to advance a point of view of the press organs which engage the pollsters so they can promote as fact what is merely their opinion.

In any event, the recent coverage of the election by the major media suggest to me that they are panicking and throwing in as much as they can to make Hillary look as if she were a far better candidate — or at least Trump a far weaker one — than is the case. Obama’s unpresidential and unprecedented attack on Trump, the low turnout at her rallies (and cancellation of some of her appearances), the huge turnout everywhere for Trump, the promoting of the Khan phony baloney story, the Reuters polling change, the  daily press sleight of hand  all suggest to me panic  there is on the left.

The Khan Con

The media fairytale is that Trump dissed a Gold Star family. In fact, it was the other way around. The Democrats used the father of a military hero who died at the hands of Muslim enemies to argue that Trump was wrong in wanting us to suspend immigration from terrorist countries until we had better means to vet them.

How far overboard on this did the media go? This week a number of press and photographers just happened to show up at the same time as two families showed up to pay their respects, the Washington Post even had a shot of one wiping a dry eye. Thomas Sowell long pegged such people as the Khans as “mascots of the anointed”. My friend Janet Shagam has documented the coverage by press which thinks we are dumb enough not to realize this was a staged performance:

* Muslim Soldier’s Grave at Arlington National Cemetery Attracts Visitors After Trump’s Remarks About Parents

NBC Washington 4 —

* Humayun Khan’s grave becomes a shrine in the wake of his father’s speech

Washington Post —

* Strangers visit grave of Muslim US Army Capt. Khan at Arlington National Cemetery

ABC 7 News —

from the WaPo link – “Sally Schwartz, 65, and her mother, Harriet Schwartz, 85, stood before the grave. Harriet leaned on a black cane.

“We thought we’d pay our respects,” Sally Schwartz said as the women walked away. ”

From the NBC link – “D.C. resident Sally Schwartz visited Khan’s grave on Monday with her mother.”

The local ABC coverage — The story doesn’t quote Sally Schwartz but she is pictured in the video.

As for the Benghazi soldiers’ survivors there has been scant coverage — even though we know our government not only left them to die but also compounded the crime by lying to them about the motivations of their killers. In the words of another online friend “Iggy”, they were merely “unpeople from Jesusland”.

The same was true of Mary Ann Mendoza, Sabine Durden, and Jamiel Shaw, whose children were killed by illegal aliens, Spanish speakers watching Univision and Telemundo heard they were “anti-immigrant” and gave them only 55 seconds of air time.

Covering for Congenital Liar Hillary is Getting Harder and Harder

Hillary keeps lying about Comey’s report, which said clearly she lied about her private email server. While a number of papers challenged her on this the NYT steadfastly stuck by her story. It was so blatant even the Public Editor of that paper, Liz Spayd, called her newsroom out for covering up for Hillary. As Tom Maguire observes quoting the Spayd:

Waddya expect? The conventions are over and we are at the top of the backstretch, bracing to head for home.

“The Washington Post, NPR, USA Today and PolitiFact all challenged Clinton’s claims, saying they appeared to be based on a selective and misleading interpretation of Comey’s remarks. The Post awarded her ‘Four Pinocchios,’ the worst truth-telling rating it gives, for statements it classifies as ‘Whoppers.’ “

Yeah, whatever. The Times has suspended criticism of Hillary until after the election, due to the national emergency caused by Trump.

Topping off the week and indicative of the media panic is the news that the administration illegally transported $400 million in cash on pallets in an unmarked plane to Iran where it is being used to finance terrorists. The administration dissembled to Congress about the transaction.

The deal had to be kept secret because neither the voters nor the Congress would ever have approved it and it surely sent the wrong message — taking Americans hostage is a money-making proposition, Two more, in fact, have been taken hostage since that covert exchange took place.

It’s a deal (The Iran scam as a whole, not the ransom deal?– DM) so bad that the administration lied and said Israel approved it — prompting the foreign minister to bitterly reject that claim and respond the deal is so bad it is like Chamberlain’s capitulation at Munich.

Trump criticized the hush hush deal and said correctly that Iran had made a video of the pallets of cash coming off the unmarked plane to further embarrass the U.S. This sent the partisan kiddos at the Washington Post into a tizzy, denying there was any such video, when in fact it was easily available to be viewed on YouTube, the BBC, or Memri.

In the meantime — as crowds pour into Trump rallies throughout the country, waiting in long lines for a chance to hear and cheer him, Hillary made a rare appearance before unquestioning Hispanic and Black news reporters where she looked a wreck, almost called Trump her “husb–” and then said her earlier interview lies about Comey’s report were the result of a “short circuit.” It’s a long time between now and the election. Her staff cannot continue to keep her bottled up and appearing only before small, sympathetic audiences and interviewers and I expect so much “short circuiting” from her even the low information voters will have to take notice.

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Media and Democrats, Media and Donald Trump, Media and Hillary Clinton, Polls
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