We often discuss media coverage and accuracy on developing legal and political controversies. Much of this discussion recently has focused on the bias shown by the media in the last four years. I have worked for the media as a legal analyst and columnist for years, but I have never before seen this raw and open bias in major media. At the same time, academics are rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy.
This morning, Fox News called out all of the networks for zero coverage of the bombshell story from Axios that Rep. Eric Swalwell may have had a close relationship with a suspected Chinese spy who fled to China a few years ago. Many of us were struck by the lack of coverage, particularly given the position of Swalwell on the House Intelligence Committee and his former bid for the presidency. It was particularly striking when the media is now reluctantly covering the Hunter Biden story after a long blackout before the election. Yet, the most stark comparison is with the exhaustive coverage given the highly analogous story involving an alleged spy, Maria Butina, who had an affair with a high-ranking figure in the National Rifle Association.
Swalwell is alleged to have had a close relationship with Chinese national, Fang Fang or Christine Fang, who not only raised money for him but placed at least one intern in Swalwell’s congressional office, according to Axios. Bizarrely, Swalwell has refused to confirm or deny that he had an intimate relationship with his office claiming that such an answer could compromise classified information. Even that ridiculous comment did not prompt ABC, NBC, or CBS to cover the story. Obviously, Fang and the Chinese already know if she had a sexual relationship with Swalwell. The only people in the dark are the voters.
Swalwell himself explained why this is news. The congressman was one of the most vocal voices calling out a June 2016 meeting that President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., with Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was accused of being an asset for the Russian government.
Swalwell declared on MSNBC in January 2019: “Stated plainly, the President’s son met with a Russian spy. We now have the best evidence of that in our minority report the Democrats put out that Ms. Veselnitskaya was going all over the world and bumping into Dana Rohrabacher, which is a sign of a spy, someone who tries to create a coincidence encounter, and now we know that she was working at the behest of the Russian government.”
Not even the utter hypocrisy of Swalwell’s position or the lunacy of his classification claim was enough to generate minimal coverage. There is also no interest in Swalwell remaining on the intelligence committee given his ill-considered relationship.
Swalwell says that he cooperated with the FBI and cut off ties with Fang, who fled to China years ago. There is no indication that he compromised classified information, but such assets are used to often influence powerful leaders or acquire useful background information on other leaders.
MSNBC and other news outlets could not get enough of that story about Trump Jr. but has an effective blackout on the same allegation of Swalwell not just “bumping” into a spy but carrying on a long relationship and even allowing her to raise money for him and help put an intern in his congressional office.
Yet, the greatest contrast is with the NRA story which was endlessly covered. Even when NRA moved to address the relationship between Butina and 57-year-old Republican activist named Paul Erickson. Hundreds of stories ran on every deal and media explored whether a Russian activist influenced powerful figures or shared information.
The FBI Director just gave a public speech on the extensive and growing espionage efforts of China. Yet, the success of planting an agent with Swalwell and a couple of other politicians is a story given virtual Hunter Biden treatment. While the coverage was never ending, I viewed the stories on the Trump tower meeting and the NRA scandal to be legitimate matters for public concern and discussion. It is the contrast that is disturbing with the Swalwell story. There was a host of legal experts calling for charges for treason and other crimes against Trump Jr., but there is nothing but crickets when a liberal Democratic member is accused of far more extensive contacts with a Chinese spy. Why?
Swalwell: “a sign of a spy, someone who tries to create a coincidence encounter”
As opposed to, say, a tongue-down-your-throat encounter?
Fox’s Carlson Releases Video Proof Of Communist China’s Collusion With America’s Elites
On Nov. 28, Di Dongsheng, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing, appeared on a Chinese television show about Wall Street and international trade. Like so many in academia in China, Di is a servant of his country’s government. This video was deleted from Chinese social media soon after being uploaded, and here’s why:
Here is opening………
DI DONSHENG (translation): The Trump administration is in a trade war with us, so why can’t we fix the Trump administration? Why, between 1992 and 2016, did China and the U.S., use to be able to settle all kinds of issues? No mater what kind of crises we encountered … things were solved in no time … We fixed everything in two months. What is the reason? I’m going to throw out something maybe a little bit explosive here. It’s just because we have people at the top. At the top of America’s core inner circle of power and influence, we have our old friends.
Continues at link. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-elites-china-collusion-di-dongsheng
He made comments about many things including Wall Street and Hunter Biden.
During a one-on-one meeting at the June 2019 Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi complained to Trump about China critics in the United States. But Bolton writes in a book scheduled to be released next week that “Trump immediately assumed Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility among the Democrats.
“He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes. “He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump’s exact words but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise.”……
At the opening dinner of the Osaka G-20 meeting in June 2019, with only interpreters present, Xi had explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang. According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do. The National Security Council’s top Asia staffer, Matthew Pottinger, told me that Trump said something very similar during his November 2017 trip to China.
Once again, Democrats have never been particularly concerned about human life from conception to human rights violations to genocide.
Glenn Greenwald:
The Hunter Biden Criminal Probe Bolsters a Chinese Scholar’s Claim About Beijing’s Influence With the Biden Administration
Professor Di Dongsheng says China’s close ties to Wall Street and its dealings with Hunter both enable it to exert more power now than it could under Trump.
Referring to the Trump-era trade war between the two countries, Di posed this question: “Why did China and the U.S. use to be able to settle all kinds of issues between 1992 [when Clinton became President] and 2016 [when Obama’s left office]?” He then provided this answer:
“No matter what kind of crises we encountered — be it the Yinhe incident [when the U.S. interdicted a Chinese ship in the mistaken belief it carried chemical weapons for Iran], the bombing of the embassy [the 1992 bombing by the U.S. of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade], or the crashing of the plane [the 2001 crashing of a U.S. military spy plane into a Chinese fighter jet] — things were all solved in no time, like a couple do with their quarrels starting at the bedhead but ending at the bed end. We fixed everything in two months. What is the reason? I’m going to throw out something maybe a little bit explosive here.
It’s just because we have people at the top. We have our old friends who are at the top of America’s core inner circle of power and influence”.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-hunter-biden-criminal-probe-bolsters
Chilling. Biden is a tool, a product of a rigged election by Democrats sleeping with the Chinese
….
Chinese professor boasts about Beijing’s influence in ‘America’s core inner circle’
https://dailysunexpress.com/chinese-professor-boasts-about-beijings-influence-in-americas-core-inner-circle/
A Chinese Communist Party expert has been filmed boasting about Beijing’s influence “at the top of America’s core inner circle” and welcoming Joe Biden’s election win as a return to power for the “traditional political elite”.
Professor Di Dongsheng, Vice Dean of the School of International Relations at Renmin University, made the comments in a November 28 lecture, where he suggested that the CCP had been unable to control Donald Trump through its influence on Wall Street, which unsuccessfully “tried to help” Beijing during the President’s trade war.
Speaking to a large crowd at the event in Shanghai, the political expert from the Beijing university – a key training ground for new CCP cadres – described how the 2016 election disrupted the relationship between the two countries.
“We know that the Trump administration is in a trade war with us, so why can’t we fix the Trump administration?” he said.
“Why did China and the US used to be able to settle all kinds of issues between 1992 and 2016? We fixed everything in two months. What is the reason? I’m going to throw out something maybe a little bit explosive here. It’s just because we have people at the top.
“We have our old friends who are at the top of America’s core inner circle of power and influence.”
Amazing, this is the guy who stood next to his mentor and parroted they had proof positive of Russia Russia Russia. Meanwhile he’s giving a Chinese Spy his egg roll. So I guess this is a smear campaign against him coming from the Kremlin? If we had a legitimate press this could be an American Profumo Affair only Christine Wheeler was not a spy.
The problem is not bias in the media. That is supposed to be present. That is actually one of the main purposes of the media. The problem is that half the media has swallowed the other half, and that now all of it has the same bias and is advocating with the same point of view.
When I grew up, every town had at least two newspapers and larger cities had three or more. They usually had morning and after noon delivery. There were radio stations with individual ownership and every citizen had access to widely differing narratives. All of them, every single one of them, was biased, but as no two had common ownership, no two of them had the same point of view and the public was exposed to a variety of opinions. That created an informed public, who could choose between candidates for public office based on public discussion from all points of view.
Then the corporate media started buying up newspapers, radio and television, and so now even when a city has two newspapers they have a common ownership and are written and printed in the same office. The public is no longer informed because it is presented with only the single biased view presented by the monopoly ownership of the media.
Bill Heffner, your words tell more than a little truth.
dennis hanna
This comment by Heffner is accurate and important. I grew up in a small town that had a newspaper called The Ferguson Town Talk. If it still existed when the Michael Brown spCray surfaced in the general media there could have been some pushback and correct facts perhaps published elsewhere.
The Democrats Are in Bed with China, Literally
Please specify which Democrats are actually in a physical bed with China and how can the country of China fit in this bed?
https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/literally-vs-figuratively
Yesterday the GOP – that’s the party Turley is constantly running interference for – moved to take away the votes of millions of Americans in 4 states so the lying p..ck who was their candidates could stage a coup … and Turley writes about You Tube and Swalwell.
Who is this guy?
Richard Grenell to Jake Tapper…..wow
https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/1336829322917601280
Richard Grenell
@RichardGrenell
This story broke in October.
You didn’t do it then.
Were you instructed to ignore it until after the election?
Jake Tapper
@jaketapper
· 16h
Federal criminal investigation into Hunter Biden focuses on his business dealings in China, from @PamelaBrownCNN and @evanperez Dec 9, 2020
How is it “classified” to answer if the congressman was sleeping with the spy? How can he get away with that idiotic response?
Two questions:
When and why did the horrid congressman decide to get on the INTELLIGENCE Committee?
Why did Pelosi allow him to remain on the committee after it was discovered that he was having an affair with a spy?
OK, third question: Why does the same media that ran with Swalwell and RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA get away with NOT covering this fool and China?
I find it amusing that “responsible” news outlets are always quick to add the caveat to allegation against the pre-existing status quo that it is “without evidence”, yet were happy to run the whole Trump is a Russian agent saga as verified truth. (yes I do know Trump is a Russian agent and he got to Muller, sarc.)
The left, having won the presidency, has decided to cement its position of power – by fair or foul means.
The question is”How will ordinary Americans react?” (and I don’t mean the rabid whiners who post on this site).
Many Americans tune out the MSM because of their mendacity.
Most posters read the offerings of the left on Turley’s site (Anonymous, Joe Friday, Natasha, et al) and either laugh or just shake their heads at the stupidity laid out for the world to see (no surprise that they hide their identities; nobody would willingly be associated with such drivel). But more than stupidity, they display anger, bad manners and childishness.
One characteristic that is surprising is the extreme discourtesy shown by the left – Perhaps not surprising given their general childishness). Mendacity and being wrong is not enough – posters here have to display their bad manners. Makes it easy to spot the left – just look for loutish writing.
For goodness sakes, JT, if you’d just Googled Swalwell’s name this morning before writing your column, you’d have seen it reported all over.
Wrong!
Too lazy to check?
Examples –
cnn.com/2020/12/09/politics/swalwell-targeted-china-spy/index.html
politico.com/news/2020/12/08/swalwell-trump-criticism-spy-story-443845
axios.com/china-spy-california-politicians-9d2dfb99-f839-4e00-8bd8-59dec0daf589.html
thehill.com/homenews/house/529410-swalwell-suggests-white-house-leaked-chinese-spy-story-in-retaliation-for
nationalreview.com/news/swalwell-says-his-ties-to-chinese-spy-were-leaked-because-of-trump-criticism/
news.yahoo.com/chinese-spy-worked-fundraiser-eric-171041793.html
thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-honey-trap-spy-was-close-to-democrat-on-intelligence-committee-eric-swalwell-krqxhk9rd
businessinsider.com/eric-swalwell-christine-fang-suspected-chinese-spy-2020-12
nypost.com/2020/12/09/eric-swalwell-a-chinese-honeytrap-and-fbi-double-standards/
sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/12/09/chinese-spy-caper-targeting-swalwell-khanna-said-to-be-common-practice/
nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/china-sex-spy-scandal-is-reminder-dont-govern-while-horny.html
Was she the woman who got into the party at Mar a Lago and took pictures at the party?
Elvis Bug
“Why?”……for crying out loud…..let’s argue the obvious shall we? The Media, which has become the propaganda outlet for the Democrat Party is not going to print squat that is negative to the Democrats or in any way paints a Democrat in a bad light.
When it becomes impossible not to ignore such scandals….the Media shall give it the best spin possible and bury the stories behind the local grocery store specials back on page umpteen.
Now…if it is a Republican….well….we know it doesn’t even have to contain one bit of truth or credible source to become a National Story that shows more activity than a shark feeding frenzy.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned so far is that Rep. Swalwell’s district is home to two (!!!) nuclear weapons laboratories; Sandia and Livermore.
Well, that’s terrifying! It answers the question of why she chose Swalwell. It is beyond my comprehension why ONE ‘mainstream’ news outlet doesn’t go all in on attempted objectivity and truth.
Sandia Lab is in NM. That, I believe, is the HQ. It is near Albuquerque.
Why? Because with the assistance of the media, the United States is rapidly losing its rights and privileges, and it’s ability to be a democratic nation. Very soon, and the pace is accelerating, America will turn into George Orwell’s 1984. You had a good run, it was almost 250 years, but it’s almost over.
In addition to my previous comment… Two things are going to save America. The first is that the GOP stands up and grows a spine and a very large pair of testicles. Not just brass ones, but titanium. If that doesn’t happen, then average everyday Americans are going to have to take matters into their own hands, and deal with it. That will not be a pretty ending, but it may be the only way America can save herself. I believe that one of your founders commented that the tree of liberty sometimes needs watering…That time is now here.
@Canuck Sailor: “I believe that one of your founders commented that the tree of liberty sometimes needs watering…That time is now here.”
It sounds like you are advocating violent insurrection. Are you really advocating that ordinary citizens take up arms and overthrow the lawful government? Seriously?
@ Reasonable solution… I am not advocating it, but I am suggesting that is one of the alternatives we could see, at least if supposedly wiser and cooler heads do not prevail
“…
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
…”
In a 1787 letter to William Stephens Smith, the son-in-law of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson used the phrase “tree of liberty”:
I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a Chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: and what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion.(1) The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted.(2)
1.
This sentence has possibly been misquoted as “every generation needs a new revolution.”
2.
Jefferson to Smith, November 13, 1787, in PTJ, 12:355-57. Transcription available at Founders Online.
Perhaps, some benefit, if not knowledge, may be gained from reading starting with the book Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden; watching the movie: A Good American, a documentary film, William Edward Binney; researching Thomas Andrew Drake the N.S.A. executive who had also contacted Department of Defense, its inspector general, but anonymously with confidentiality assured. The Assistant Inspector General, John Crane, in charge of the Whistleblower Program, suspecting his superiors provided confidential information to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), challenged them, was eventually forced from his position, and subsequently himself became a public whistleblower. The punitive treatment of Binney, Drake, and the other whistleblowers also led Edward Snowden to go public with his revelations rather than report through the internal whistleblower program.; and, not last, but first research Mark Klein: In 2006, former AT&T technician Mark Klein told the Electronic Frontier Foundation about what he believed was NSA surveillance taking place inside one of the company’s San Francisco buildings. As he stated in 2006, through his work at AT&T, he learned that the NSA had installed surveillance devices in AT&T facilities in other cities on the West Coast, like Los Angeles and Seattle, just as the Intercept confirmed.
Empires collapse from within, not from external threats, enemies or force.
The American Empire embodies no exception, and possesses no Exceptionalism.
dennis hanna
Canuck, you stupid f…, your party is the one that is right now trying to have millions of votes from 4 states thrown out, and you want to talk about a “democratic nation”. Go back to Canada, but they’re not buying coups either.
Joe you ignorant slut….When you are on your keyboard the meter is running
😉
@ Anonymous… Well played, very well played
Biden “won” by less than 45,000 votes in three states: GA, AZ, and WI.
In GA, 5 million people voted. The GA election has been certified with Biden supposedly “winning” by 12,000 votes. Except the certification is not legitimate. Several tens of thousands of votes are unlawful or questionable.
Plaintiffs in a suit filed Dec 4 in GA claim to have identified enough illegal votes to potentially change the outcome. They claim:
i) 66,247 people under the age of 18 years old illegally voted;
ii) 2560 felons illegally voted;
iii) 2423 people not registered illegally voted;
iv) 4926 people voted in GA after they’d registered to vote in another state;
v) 395 people voted in GA and in another state;
vi) 15,700 people voted in GA despite having filed a change of address with the postal service prior to November 3.
If those claims can be substantiated with evidence, then Biden did not “win” GA. Not legally. It is the Trump voters who will have been disenfranchised.
These types of illegal votes and irregularities are not unique to GA.
If Biden is inaugurated he will be a fake president.
Yup
@Joe Friday… We can always count on you for two things… One is that you won’t keep it classy, and two is that you’ll come up with some stupid mindless, ill-informed and generally idiotic response. Thank you for your consistency. It’s nice to know there are some things we can count on in this world.
Joe:
For a person who comes on here to debate – as you have claimed several times – you are pretty foul mouthed.
Not much wit, not much debate.
I suspect that you come here just to express your venom.