The campaign just got even more heated with questions again raised over the media’s balance in reporting. First, David Brock is back in the news. Brock has been widely attacked for what critics view as sleazy and vicious work on behalf of Hillary Clinton. You may recall Bernie Sanders denounced Clinton for her continued alliance with Brock and use of his controversial PAC organizations. Clinton has refused to denounced Brock or to discourage Democrats from working with or contributing to his PACs. Now, Brock has offered money to anyone who produces damaging video or audio tapes against Trump. In the meantime, Sidney Blumenthal is back in the news. Blumenthal has long been denounced as an “attack dog” for Clinton and something of a rumor spreader. He was so radioactive that the Obama Administration took the rare step to blocking Clinton’s effort to bring Blumenthal into the State Department. Blumenthal earned the nickname “Sid Vicious” for what critics call his lethal targeting of anyone who is a political threat to Clinton. However, Clinton has refused to separate herself from Blumenthal and he continues to be a close confidant. Now, after virtually all of the media from CNN to the New York Times insisted that Trump had lied about Clinton playing the birther card before Trump, reporters have stated that indeed it was not just a couple of Clinton campaign workers (who either resigned or were later fired) but Blumenthal who spread that claim in 2008. Blumenthal denies the story, but the journalist insists that Blumenthal personally pressured him to pursue the story and told him that Obama was born in Kenya. The most recent controversies again raise questions of the Clinton camps use of such people and the media’s reporting.
The man who Sanders called “the scum of the Earth” continues to run the huge PACs pushing for Clinton’s election. Now, the founder of Media Matters and key figure behind the Correct the Record super PAC, has posted a call for tapes on Trump called “TrumpLeaks.” The posting expressly states “TrumpLeaks can provide some compensation to those who have usable, undoctored video or audio that has been legally obtained or is legally accessible.” It is a call that strikes many as cash for trash, a move that NBC News would “cross a new line.”
The controversy rekindles the view of the Clinton camp as maintaining a shadowy army of PAC and attack forces. However, Brock’s long work on behalf of Clinton has received little mainstream attention even after the repeated objections of Bernie Sanders.
In the meantime, the Blumenthal story has reinforced questions over the use of surrogates to spread rumors. The Clinton camp immediately denounced Trump for saying that it was the Clinton camp that first raised the birther issue and that he simply “ended it” by forcing the release of the birth certificate. The Clinton campaign called out Trump as a liar and the media immediately followed suit with anchors assuring viewers that there was no truth to it. The Clinton camp admits that a couple of campaign volunteers did push the story in 2008 but were fired or resigned. Blumenthal however has continued to be one of Clinton’s closest advisors.
Former McClatchy Washington Bureau Chief James Asher insisted on Twitter that it was Blumenthal who raised the issue of President Barack Obama’s birthplace with him in 2008 and pushed him to pursue the birther story. Blumenthal is not just any advisor. He has long been one of her closest advisors and she has for years refused to denounce him or separate herself from him. Indeed, many of the Clinton emails are from Blumenthal giving Clinton continual advise on different matters. He was also repeatedly accused of spreading rumors against opponents during prior campaigns.
CNN Jake Tapper did raise Blumenthal’s involvement with Vice Presidential candidate Tom Kaine on Sunday.
Tapper: “There’s no doubt that it is offensive and it is a lie. But I’m asking you about Sidney Blumenthal, who was banned from joining the Obama administration by the Obama White House precisely because he trafficked in a lot of questionable information about Barack Obama. If it’s true, if there’s evidence that Sidney Blumenthal did push the lie, should Hillary Clinton disassociate herself from Blumenthal, and should she pledge he will not work in her administration?”
Kaine: “I have no reason to believe that’s true, Jake. None. But again, Sidney Blumenthal isn’t running for president.”
In the meantime, Politifact has called Trump a liar though it did not delve into the Blumenthal angle. Instead, it notes that it is clear that Clinton people did spread the rumor but focuses on the narrow question if they were “first” or “started” the birther controversy as opposed to being before Trump’s raising of the issue.
With the battleground states now in what appears a statistical tie, the fear is that this is only going to get worse before (if ever) it gets better.
Video,…
I didn’t see your post before I replied to Paul Schulte.
Sounds like Painter is a good replacement for David Brock, as far as sharing some of Brock’s objectives.
If Brock had stayed on and worked with Painter, I think they would have made a lovely couple.
No matter who started it Trump pushed the birther meme for 8 years non stop. Now he and his white nationalist movement are close in the polls so he felt the urge to say it was no longer true. Problem is nobody believes he means it.
Kate – regardless, Obama admitted he was from Kenya, so being a birther is pushing for the truth. That goes for both Hillary and Donald.
Paul, he was born in Honolulu. No clue where this ‘he admitted’ meme got started.
Teaching Spastics to Dance – the Kenyan meme came both from a speech (on video on this blog) and on his book jacket.
You are a birther.
Dave – Obama lies like a rug. I am just laying out facts.
Obama did not say he was from Kenya. Photo of birth certificate included in this article. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/podcasts/is-lying-trumps-strategy.html
Kate – Obama is on video saying he is from Kenya and his book’s bio says he was from Kenya. From 3 hours ago.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/joe-arpaio-obama-birth-certificate-forged/2016/09/21/id/749437/
Surely, you are joking. 🙂
Kate – I am not joking.
And the hits just keep coming! More evidence that Sidney Blumenthal pushed the Birther story for Hillary!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Well, here is a wonderful article about Mr. David Brock!
Tyger:
Hillary Clinton would never pass a background check to be a records clerk in an office having confidential documents. Yet, she can become president.
I seldom tell who I vote for in public, but in this election it absolutely will not be Hillary Clinton. I have fought too many cases against corrupt officials, seen the damage it causes, had too many sleepless nights, been threatened too many times, and have suffered retaliation most of the time in one way or another in each of these. So when I see someone who is about as corrupt as one can get having a strong possibility of becoming our president, it not only makes my sick to my stomach but it is also greatly frustrating and angering on a personal level. If people went through what me and my wife endured maybe you wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss or even support malfeasances by dirty candidates. In fact, most of you would fight these charlatans at every opportunity. For those who have seen what I have and still cling to the notion that a corrupt candidate is the best candidate, don’t expect any respect from me.
What happened, Darren? Are you able to share the story with us? I’m sorry if you and your wife suffered retaliation.
If Obama is a Kenyan (by his own words) then both Clinton and Trump were right to be ‘brithers’ and wrong to believe the fake birth certificate.
Paul, there was no ‘fake birth certificate’. His birth certificate is a period long-form anyone born in Hawaii in that era received.
Honestly, he’s the son of two people enrolled at the University of Hawaii. He was born at a time when international travel was time-consuming and expensive given people’s incomes. BO Sr. was living on foundation stipends. Ann Dunham was the daughter of a furniture salesman. What would be the purpose of traveling to Kenya at that point? To show off Ann Dunham to his wife? To receive the latest in obstetric care?
In addition to his birth certificate, there’s the announcement in the Honolulu papers. The sources of these announcements would not necessarily be uniform. The last hospital whose operations I knew anything about sent them directly from their internal registry to the local newspapers.
And, of course, people from the social circle of BO Sr. and Ann Dunham are still alive, among them Neil Abercrombie. BO relented and released the long-form when Gov. Abercrombie admonished him publicly about it.
Teaching Spastics to Dance – a team of volunteer sheriff’s posse deputies from Maricopa County, AZ took the birth certificate apart and found a number of holes in it. If you are interested you can Google or Bing it.
FYI Folks: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/19/digging-deep-on-the-latest-clintonworld-birtherism-story/
If people stop voting for corrupt politicians then maybe their parties will stop fielding those who are. The corruption endemic and I would say essential in Hillary Clinton is obvious. If another candidate, in the Democrat mind, was a Republican and engaged in the same sleaze as the Clintons they would want that candidate’s head on a platter and would be shocked and outraged. Yet, many democrats support her knowing all that has happened and make either excuses or say her opposition is worse. They are in measure complicit with the Clintons maintaining their malfeasances in such a manner they openly are dismissive and defiant because not enough people will put an end to this.
Some have said that Bernie Sanders had a better chance to win the presidency than Clinton. I cannot say if or if not this is true but certainly plausible. But, the Democratic Political Machine sabotaged Sanders having any momentum or chance of success. Instead, they anointed a handpicked candidate in Clinton.
So if an opposition candidate as viscerally hated by liberals and Democrats as Mr. Trump somehow wins the presidency, the Democrats National Committee and many Democrats themselves deserve him. Again, they deserve to lose because their own arrogance blinded them to the fact that polls show a vast majority of Americans loathe the banana republic for which our government stands. One of these days, they might just be tossed out on their backsides when the public is finally able to vote for candidates they truly want.
That’s it exactly!
Our political parties need to have a little more respect for voters. Right now, the DNC has the attitude that “you will vote for whomever we tell you to vote for. And the media will back us up.” And minorities had BETTER vote for whom the DNC chooses, or else be subject to racist taunts.
Anyone who opposes the DNC candidate is stupid/racist/bigoted/and a Bad Person. It’s like a Mad Lib, where you can fill in the blank with a list of the typical Lib responses, without ever having to address a single fact or position.
Every four years, the politicians promise things will be different, no matter which of the two major parties they are with (and the minor parties can’t get enough votes to make a difference, so it doesn’t matter what they say). And after every election, regardless of which party wins, it’s all just business as usual in Washington. Nothing changes. The politicians don’t really want change.
And this is one of the major reasons Trump is so popular with the number of people he is. He is not a politician. He acts and talks differently from the politicians because he IS different from them. Maybe he can make some changes in Washington, DC, or maybe he can’t. He certainly sounds like he is going to try, and it won’t be by doing the same old stuff that hasn’t worked before. The people who like him don’t want another PC-compliant politician who gets nothing done, and they SURE don’t want a politician who constantly lies to them before she ever gets elected. When faced with a choice between a man who seems to say whatever he feels and believes, no matter if he upsets a few people along the way, and a woman who has proven she is a liar and will say anything she thinks will get her elected (so never mind her promises, they are just empty lies), it’s clear a lot of folks believe they have nothing to lose by voting for him. He just might accomplish a lot of what he says he will do, or even just a little bit of it, but they know everyone will lose if they vote for her and she actually gets elected. She would be as bad as putting the head of a Mafia family into the office of President. A lot of people will die (and have already died) because of the cLIEntons, if that becomes reality again.
Tyger,
“When faced with a choice between a man who seems to say whatever he feels and believes, no matter if he upsets a few people along the way”
I agree with your sentiments regarding the problems with a PC culture. That said, I think this is more a salesmanship tactic than honest expression.
Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
I see that some folks have NO problem with Trump having the KKK as campaign advisers and endorsement. As for the idiot reporters who are so stupid that they cannot read a birth certificate and go to Hawaii, that says everything about THEM and not Clinton. I guess that any rumor will be accepted that defies logic and common LEGAL sense. Incredible!
Of course they don’t. People should just shrug off the talk of gas chambers and assassinations of opponents. Klan support of the Trump ticket is encouraged. Even those on the far far left with the exception of Chomsky are ignoring the amount of Klan influence in the Trump campaign It goes all the way back to Fred Trump.
ignoring the amount of Klan influence in the Trump campaign It goes all the way back to Fred Trump.
Simon, the various and sundry klanlets have a total membership of about 2,000, depending on whether or not you count the FBI informants. It has no influence. Over anyone of note. Anywhere.
As for Fred Trump, he was arrested in 1927 at the site of a Klan action in a confused situation where it’s quite believable he just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He had no history of political involvements in the 72 years which ensued between then and his death.
If this Klan bilge helps you feel better, I suppose it’s harmless, but you could have the courtesy to not pester normal people with it.
Hahaha! Yes, just a TOTAL coincidence that he was at the Klan rally, and went on to refuse housing to blacks for decades and that the Justice Department filed a civil rights case against the Trumps in 1973. The Trumps ended up agreeing to rent to everyone in exchange for one of those “no admission” deals the government likes to give big corporations.
The KKK is still very active in multiple states. You obviously are getting your information wrong.
You guys crack me up.
The Trump campaign has shown how alive and well the Aryan nation is. They have crawled out of the woodwork with their the vicious tweets aimed at Jewish reporters.
Simon, you don’t need to be talking to me. You do need to be asking yourself where these delusions are coming from.
The KKK is still very active in multiple states.
The $PLC actually engineered a wrongful death suit against the United Klans of America (at one time the 3d largest klanlet) over a 1981 homicide by several of their number. They won the entire pool of assets held by the United Klans of America for their client. It consisted of a quonset hut worth (at that time) $51,000.
If these fictions help you feel better, I don’t suppose anyone would complain, if you did not insist on peppering minimally informed human beings with them.
There are between 5,000 and 8,000 members of the KKK currently. Is that not enough for you?
SPLC lists 190 active chapters. Is that not enough for you?
If it really isn’t, they also list:
Neo-Nazi groups: 94
White Nationalist groups: 95
Racist Skinhead groups: 95
Christian Identity groups: 19
Neo-Confederate groups: 35
There now. Is that enough for you? That oughta do it.
phillyT – the SPLC is a racist Leftwing activist group that should be shut-down.
Donald Jr. Is really getting into this white supremacist thing. He is tweeting away.
“Watch” organizations have a history of inflating Klan membership, including the Anti-Defamation League, which was once upon a time an ethical organization, which Morris Dees’ skeezy direct mail mill never has been. A case in point was the bankruptcy proceedings re Bill Wilkinson’s organization, which the ADL had reported had 3,000 members. They were revealed to have 1,800 members.
The commercial interest in such inflation is obvious for Dees. The organization does little actual work. It hoovers up donations from dupe liberals, which then go to enhancing Mrs. Morris Dees’ collection of expensive knick-knacks. The earlier exposes of Dees organization (including the seven digit sums raised to sue the United Klans, of which the plaintiff saw that $50,000 sum) was published in Harper’s 16 years ago. The (corrupt) media continue to quote the $PLC as if they were a bona fide public interest firm.
Woody Guthrie witnessed and chronicled Fred Trump’s shameful racism and exploitation of veterans while living at the profiteering developer’s housing project, Beach Haven.
I’m sure Communist Party hack Woody Guthrie was scrupulously fair in his judgments.
I see that some folks have NO problem with Trump having the KKK as campaign advisers and endorsement.
I see you have no problem with peddling blatant lies. (Something you share two or three other regulars here).
Teaching, Their heroine is a sociopath liar, so they are just following her lead. And, as she falls behind in battleground states, despite spending hundreds of millions, you can smell the flop sweat. Enjoy their frantic hyperbole, it shows even they are coming to realize they hitched their wagon to a born loser. She wouldn’t have beaten Bernie if she didn’t rig the system.
randyjet – why do you say that the KKK is Trump’s campaign advisor? Because of the connection with Breitbart? The town of Breitbart has certainly changed since the death of the founder, but connecting all employees with the KKK?
He’s hired minorities into the upper management of his companies for decades. You cannot control who votes for you or who supports you, and the Klan has supported Bill and Hillary in the past, for which I do not blame them. They have no control over it. Trump repudiated David Duke many times. There was one interview where he seemed to have drawn a blank on his name and said he knew nothing about it. He sure never said, get me a sheet! He kept saying he didn’t know what he was talking about with the white supremacists. But he has repeatedly disavowed Duke and the KKK. Back in 2000 he said Klansmen were not company he would wish to keep. What more do people want? Somewhere, some KKK person might admire a phrase that you’ve posted on this blog. Does that make you liable?
If the KKK believes we should enforce our immigration laws, does that mean that we should not? Can you, just possibly, want all immigration to be legal and NOT support the KKK?
Too bad the Clintons don’t have the good guys like Roger Ailes working for them.
At the 2007 Daily Kos Netroots conference, Clinton said she helped start Media Matters and the Center for American Progress (at the 2:30 mark in the video). Brock ran Media Matters and the Chairman of her campaign, Jon Podesta, ran CAP. She’s been down in the mud with vile characters a LONG time: Web Hubbell, the McDougals, Jim Guy Tucker.
You’re mixing two sets of villains. Tucker, the McDougals, and Hubbell were all part of nexus of Arkansas associates of the Clintons and all too tainted to be publicly associated with her anymore. CAP and Media Matters are parts of the sorosphere working for Clinton.
It’s simple you either are part of the pandered to that might help with your self esteem issues or you realize you are part of the nothing to lose crowd that has taken it up the wazoo dry by bending over to promises that “Trust us this is going to help you, just bend over and give us your vote” again and again and again.
Guess whose time it is to bend over folks?
Ha, Ha, Ha, “[…] with questions again raised over the media’s balance in reporting.”
The understatement is thick as cream on strawberries as always. If a mile wide meteorite were to hit the earth, it would be: “troubling“. All out thermo-nuclear war would: raise concerns. The Yellowstone caldera (supervolcano) blowing it’s almighty top would be:cause for alarm and so it goes….
Don’t get me wrong; the observation is more envious than critical. Understatement always leaves room for a second helping even if the first is occasionally a bit obviously wanting.
Terrific article, BTW! (or should I say, “Satisfactory.” )
I wonder who it was that leaked this obviously fake video:
Barack Obama Admits he was born in Kenya Speech
https://youtu.be/cQcd41RO25k