Category: Media

Washington Post’s Rubin Misrepresents Emoluments Ruling In Latest Trump-Fueled Gaffe

jenrubinWashington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin is being ridiculed for a column in which she claims that the “walls are closing in” on President Donald Trump.  Critics have noted that in May 2017 Rubin declared the “walls are closing in” on Trump due to his firing of FBI Director James Comey. Then last October, she declared the “walls are closing in” due to impeachment.  Now the walls are back as if this is one long struggle of transferred claustrophobic anxiety.

The more important aspect however is not the fear of moving walls but the misrepresentation of the recent ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.  We previously discussed how some have misrepresented the ruling, but Rubin, again, appears entirely untethered by any editorial (or ethical) requirements of accuracy. Rubin’s column is based on another misrepresentation of the underlying facts.

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Hungary Shows How Fake News Is The Rallying Cry Of A New Generation Of Censors

Coat_of_arms_of_Hungary.svgI recently criticized the calls of Democratic leaders like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff for greater censorship of the Internet and social media. Such calls have been growing for years but leaders like Schiff are citing the pandemic as a basis for speech monitoring and censorship.  That opportunity has not been missed by countries like China which has used “fake news” on the pandemic to arrest dissident scientists trying to share suppressed information. Most recently, Hungary has started jailing people for up to five years, which political dissidents say is targeting political critics.

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Polling Angst: CNN Poll Shows Trump Rising Battleground States But CNN Warns Viewers Against Trusting Its Own Poll

This-is-cnn-New polling shows President Donald Trump rising in battleground states.  The polling has frustrated some, particularly at CNN where viewers were told not to put much stake in its own polling. CNN conducted a poll that showed that Trump had a seven-point lead over Joe Biden in some battleground states with 52 percent over 45 percent for Biden.  On “CNN Newsroom” John King cautioned viewers not to “overinvest” in CNN’s own polling.  The polls do not fit the narrative of a president who is tanking due to his mishandling of the pandemic.  Other polls are showing Trump rising and even leading in states like Ohio.  I actually agree with King that we should be leery of all polls as demonstrated by 2016. It is just the caution on this poll that seems a tad out of the norm.

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“Please Stop Trying To Gaslight Us”: MSNBC Host Dismisses Biden “Unmasking” Story

Blessed_effects_of_gas_lights_(1814)In a tweet that reflects a common spin in the media, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell yesterday dismissed the importance of the disclosure that former Vice President Joe Biden requested the “unmasking” of former national security advisor Michael Flynn. Mitchell called Biden’s action “routine” and the story “gaslighting.”  What is striking about this spin is that ignores the fact that Biden, only the day before, denied any involvement in the Flynn investigation or more than passing knowledge of its existence. It also adopts a misleading statistic on the occurrence of such unmasking requests. (I had to share this cartoon entitled “The Blessed Effects of Gas Lights” from London in 1813 on the perceived dangers of gaslighting. It appears the danger remains much the same in the 21st Century).

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“We Were In A Headless-Chicken Phase”: New York Times Reporter Rebuked By Paper For Anti-Trump Tirade on CNN

No, James Comey Did Not Commit Treason

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“I Am Being Serious Here”: Yale Professor Denounces Trump For “Genocide” In Response To The Pandemic

200px-Yale_University_Shield_1.svgIn the last three years, various experts have made what they called dispositive cases for crimes by President Donald Trump ranging from hate crimes to treason to inciting violence.  Now Yale University Professor of Epidemiology Dr. Gregg Gonsalves is adding genocide.  Gonsalves is upset with what he views as the “delayed” response by the Trump Administration to the pandemic. That is certainly a legitimate viewpoint that is shared by many and people of good faith can disagree on when the Administration should have acted.  However Gonsalves insists that such a failure to respond a couple weeks earlier is “awfully close to genocide.”  It is is neither genocide nor close to genocide, but Gonsalves later doubled down to make sure that people understood that this is not just hyperbole but he was “being serious here.” He further suggests that this genocidal strategy could be tied to killing minority voters before the election. Gonsalves has appeared widely as an expert in coverage by CNN, NBC, Politico, Foreign Policy magazine, The Washington Post, and other media outlets.

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Logan Act Is The Last Refuge For The American Prosecutorial Scoundrel

440px-Michael_T_FlynnBelow is my column in The Hill on a largely overlooked part of the recent material to be released in the Flynn case as well as the testimony released by the House Intelligence Committee: the focus on the Logan Act as the way to charge former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.  Indeed, I recently disagreed with former President Barack Obama on clearly false legal statements made about the Flynn case.  However, within those false statements was a crushing irony.  Obama is mentioned in the documents as discussing the use of the Logan Act against Flynn.  While Obama decried (falsely) the lack of precedent for the dismissal of the Flynn case, he previously discussed the use of a clearly unconstitutional statute against Flynn that has never been used successfully to convict a single person since the start of the Republic.

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“I Didn’t Know Anything”: Former Obama Official Criticized After Classified Testimony Contradicts Her Public Statements

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The long-delayed release of testimony from the House Intelligence Committee has proved embarrassing for a variety of former Obama officials who have been extensively quoted on the allegedly strong evidence of collusion by the Trump campaign and the Russians.  Figures like James Clapper, who is a CNN expert, long indicated hat the evidence from the Obama Administration was strong and alarming.  However, in testimony, Clapper denied seeing any such evidence.  One of the most embarrassing is the testimony of  Evelyn Farkas, a former Obama Administration official who was widely quoted in her plea to Congress to gather the evidence that she knew was found in by the Obama Administration. In her testimony under oath Farkas repeatedly stated that she knew of no such evidence of collusion.

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“A Contradiction In Terms”: Chuck Todd’s “Inadvertent” Journalism

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Yesterday, I was critical of a segment by NBC News’ Chuck Todd that addressed the motion to dismiss the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, including the use of a statement by President Obama without noting that he was wrong on the underlying charge and wrong on the absence of precedent (including a high-profile case from his own Administration).  I previously called for the motion that was filed and criticized those who have ignored the clear evidence of prosecutorial abuse, including possible violations of Brady and standing court orders.   It is always unnerving when Todd starts a discussion about the Trump Administration with “it is not partisan to say . . .” During Todd’s questioning of the panel on NBC’s Meet the Press, he used a clearly deceptive clip of a statement by Attorney General Bill Barr to suggest that Barr simply justified his decision as an exercise of raw power.  Both the question and carefully clipped soundbite belie the later statement from Todd’s staff that the misrepresentation of Barr’s words as “inadvertently and inaccurately” edited. However, Todd has not issued an apology and NBC has only issued this brief statement.  Such expectations seem quant relics in this age of rage and echo journalism. Many in the media seem to have embraced Hunter Thompson’s rejection of  “objective journalism” as “a pompous contradiction in terms.” What is a contradiction in terms is this type of inadvertent journalism. (For full disclosure, I testified in favor of Barr’s confirmation before the Senate Judiciary Committee).

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Andrew McCabe’s Bizarre CNN Interview

McCabeMany in the media have struggled mightily to ignore the highly disturbing evidence that has been released in the Flynn case and to paint the decision to dismiss the case as a raw political act by Attorney General Bill Barr.  CNN this morning even called former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe who proceeded to make statements about the record that were utterly absurd and untrue. Not only was McCabe not challenged on the statements, it was never mentioned that he was fired after being found by career investigators to have lied to them (the very charge against Flynn). Despite the fact that his false statements were related to this very case, it was not deemed relevant to raise by CNN with CNN’s senior analyst. McCabe however displayed the very bias and maliciousness documented by career investigators before he was fired. The interview reminds one of the recently released text of FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok to Lisa Page, the Special Counsel to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, remarking that “our utter incompetence actually helps us.”

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Linda Hirschman: Yes, Biden Is A Rapist But He Should Be The Next President

220px-Biden_2013Yesterday, we discussed the astonishing tweet from Lisa Bloom that she believes that Joe Biden is a rapist and continues to lie about raping a former staffer, but she still will endorse him for President.  Now Linda Hirshman in the New York Times has run an opinion piece entitled “I Believe Tara Reade. I’m Voting for Joe Biden Anyway.”  It is a chilling example of how feminist writers are retaining their “women must be believed” position from Kavanaugh and simply declaring that they will support someone they believe to be a rapist. Imagine if a Republican senator said he believed Dr. Ford that Kavanaugh was clearly a rapist but we need a reliable conservative on the Court.

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Supreme Court Unanimously Throws Out Bridgegate Convictions — And Rejects Prior Legal Arguments Against Trump

Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court today unanimously threw out the convictions of  Bridget Kelly, a former aide to Christie, and Bill Baroni, a former Port Authority official, for their role in  “Bridgegate.” The dispute involved  the controversial closing of lanes on the George Washington Bridge to create traffic problems for the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., who had refused to endorse Christie.  Notably, the Court rejected the very arguments raised by some experts against Trump and relied on some of the same analysis that I raised in my testimony in the Trump impeachment against such claims. Continue reading “Supreme Court Unanimously Throws Out Bridgegate Convictions — And Rejects Prior Legal Arguments Against Trump”

Federal Court: New York Democrats Violated The Constitution By Cancelling The Presidential Primary

downloadDemocratic politicians like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) have been railing against what they view as an undemocratic effort to suppress votes.  Former Vice President Joe Biden has even peddled a conspiracy theory that President Donald Trump was certain to halt the November election.  However, a New York judge has ruled that it is the Democratic party that violated the Constitution in cancelling the June 23rd presidential primary to effectively anoint Biden as the party nominee. What was particularly striking was the highly dubious argument presented in court by the Democratic Party.

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Did The Mueller Team Violate Brady and Flynn Orders?

With the release of the new material from the case of Michael Flynn, an array of experts came forward to assure the public that it was all standard procedure for investigators to conclude that there was no criminal conduct uncovered and then prosecutors creating a crime (including the use of a clearly unconstitutional law never used to convict anyone since the start of the Republic). Many of these same experts who have been espousing untethered (and ultimately rejected) theories for criminal and impeachment charges for years. Yet, what was most striking is how many also rejected any claim that the undisclosed evidence, at a minimum, violated Brady, the case requiring the government to turn over exculpatory information. Indeed, Ben Wittes, a staunch defender of James Comey, assured readers “while you might not know much about federal law enforcement,” this is all “standard practices.” In fact, this is a clear and flagrant violation of the both Brady and the orders of Judge Emmet Sullivan. The fact that such violations are also dismissed by mainstream media and experts reflects how rage has distorted legal analysis in this Administration.

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Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks