"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - George Washington
FOX NEWS TURNS ON JOHN BOLTON 1/28/2020John Bolton's bombshell about President Trump's Ukraine scandal prompts Fox News to switch from hailing him as a great American to denouncing him as a tool for the deep state.
Notice the pattern of behavior... First Fox News sold John Bolton like the hottest item in the world:
Now they are trying to make it appear that because he wrote a book his views don't matter cause its just a money thing (is that what they think of Trump's books? He just wrote them for money and they are not valuable or even truthful?);
Lau Dobbs has an interesting pattern. Notice he was one of John Bolton's biggest supporters and endorsers:
Now he calls John Bolton a "tool for the radical dems and the deep state":
The New York Times, long referred to as the “newspaper of record,” has failed multiple times in 2019 in the way it covered President Donald Trump, the 2020 presidential race, and other issue areas in its headlines and tweets. Media critics, experienced journalists, and other experts called out some of the Times’ headlines and tweets for pushing misinformation, framing the story in line with right-wing talking points, or using euphemisms in place of accurate descriptions.
The New York Times helped Trump spread misinformation about the Russia probe
On March 24, the Times posted a tweet repeating Trump’s lies verbatim that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election “was an illegal takedown that failed” and Mueller’s report was “a complete and total exoneration.” A Times article headline from the same day also misleadingly claimed that Mueller’s investigation found no Trump-Russia conspiracy.
In April, the Times helped spread right-wing falsehoods by credulously repeating a claim by Attorney General Bill Barr during a congressional hearing, which he later walked back, that “spying did occur” on the Trump campaign. On July 25, the Times published a piece on the special counsel’s congressional testimony titled “Lack of Electricity in Mueller Testimony Short-Circuits Impeachment.” The headline was criticized by The American Independent’s Oliver Willis for treating the hearing like it was entertainment.
The Times pushed GOP lies on abortion and deceptively made Trump’s rhetoric appear moderate
A February 5 tweet reporting on Trump’s comments on abortion during his State of the Union address quoted a benign-sounding line from him: “Let us work to build a culture that cherishes innocent life.” The tweet failed to address Trump’s smears and lies about Democratic politicians and their support for abortion rights legislation, such as his deranged claim that a Democratic bill in Virginia would allow medical providers to “execute a baby after birth.”
In mid-May, the Times wrote a tweet highlighting Republicans’ “grisly claims that Democrats promote ‘birth day abortions’ and are ‘the party of death.’” Media critic Jamison Foser told the Times that it was spreading Republicans’ lies. The Times later deleted the tweet, saying the tweet did not clarify that “some of the Republicans’ claims” were “false or misleading,” an error Foser said the Times should not have made in the first place.
During an interview with Trump defense team adviser Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), CNN anchor Jake Tapper pushed back on Johnson’s claim that House Democrats conducted the impeachment investigation in “super secret hearings” by using a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), which he said had prevented himself and other House Republicans from reviewing “all of this evidence, so-called, that had been gathered in the basement.”
Tapper pointed out that the 48 House Republicans from three committees who were allowed in the SCIF “is not nothing” and also pressed Johnson as to whether it bothered him that President Donald Trump’s legal team had made a similar false claim on the Senate floor during their arguments -- questions which Johnson deflected.
The interaction was newsworthy in itself and should have been the focus of the interview.
And yet, shortly after the segment aired, CNN instead chose to highlight a different portion of the segment in a tweet which quoted Johnson asserting that former national security adviser John Bolton’s account of Trump withholding military aid to Ukraine “doesn’t make any difference at the end of the day. ... Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are not impeachable offenses.”
CNN’s tweet did not provide any clarification of Johnson’s false claim, despite the fact that Tapper attempted to correct him in the same video CNN attached to the tweet.
On Sunday evening, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) presidential campaign released more than 30 years of financial information related to her work as a corporate lawyer and consultant. These new documents come in addition to the 11 years of tax returns released earlier this year.
At first glance, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about the new information. The new documents detail more than 50 cases Warren worked on during her time as a law professor, dating back to 1985. In total, Warren made more than $1.9 million between the first case listed and the final one in 2009, or around $80,000 per year.
A number of mainstream media outlets adopted the most sensational possible framing of this story.
The Washington Post, Politico, and ABC News were among the outlets that ran headlines referencing the total amount of money Warren brought in through these cases without providing any clues to the timespan.
Others, like CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and even Fox News highlighted that the $1.9 million was earned over three decades.
Though both groups of headlines are true, the second set of headlines is a more accurate representation of the truth. Another truthful framing would be to break it down by a yearly average -- which comes out to be just under $56,000 if you’re counting from 1985 and 2019, or roughly $80,000 per year if you’re looking at this from the perspective of the years between her first (1985) and final (2009) listed case.
How journalists represent data can affect what audiences take away from their work.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) a rambling, unhinged, six-page screed in his own defense prior to the House’s Wednesday impeachment vote. The letter was riddled with factual errors ranging from misstating the number of votes he received in the electoral college to falsely stating that the whistleblower’s call was a “false report,” a claim that Politifact has declared its 2019 Lie of the Year.
Less a coherent work and more of a lengthy and lightly copyedited Twitter thread, the letter included bizarre lines such as “You dare to invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification scheme?” “It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!” and “More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.”
The letter was an exercise in abject paranoia, and it was exactly the type of letter that would have roiled previous administrations and have people questioning the president’s fitness for office. It was delusional, it was self-aggrandizing, and sadly, it was typical.
Mainstream media outlets did more than just treat the letter as typical; they treated it as normal.
Several early headlines treated the letter like any other piece of communication released by the president. NPR and CNN both described the letter as simply a statement of protest. The Hill wrote that the letter was “objecting to the impeachment process.”
Trump Brags About Obstructing Congress By Withholding Ukraine Evidence -Speaking to reporters in Davos, President Trump projected confidence that he won't be convicted in his impeachment trial because the White House has been successful in keeping "all the material" out of Congress's hands. #Colbert #Monologue #Impeachment
It is unknown who has the previous record of lies, but Trump is the guy who holds the current world record for number of public lies in the history of the United States Presidency, period. A record he may keep forever. Jimmy Kimmel Live: Trump Has Lied 16,241 Times - Trump celebrated three years in office by paying tribute to himself and somehow brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into it, Trump has officially lied more than 16,241 times, put together an all-star defense team for his impeachment trial, and despite everyone in Trump's circle claiming they don't know Lev Parnas there seem to be a lot of photos of him with all of them. Meanwhile, the champagne drama continues on ABC's 'The Bachelor,' and we remember the highlights of the first three years under Donald Trump.
Three years after taking the oath of office, President Trump has made more than 16,200 false or misleading claims — a milestone that would have been unthinkable when we first created the Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement he has uttered.
We started this project as part of our coverage of the president’s first 100 days, largely because we could not possibly keep up with the pace and volume of the president’s misstatements. We recorded 492 claims — an average of just under five a day — and readers demanded that we keep it going for the rest of Trump’s presidency.
Little did we know what that would mean. Read more.
CNN has been on a civility kick. A transcript search shows that variations of the words were said over a hundred times on June 25 alone. One good example is the network’s June 25 highlight reel of allegedly incivil things that have recently been said by various people. As my colleague noted, the video conflated examples of liberals being mean with conservatives being racist:
Hang this in the Louvre. CNN's "both sides" montage perfectly encapsulating the fallacy of mainstream media equivalence: all the conservatives examples are bald racism and all the liberal examples are...being rude
CNN then brought on longtime centrist commentator David Gergen and pro-Trump whisperer Salena Zito to discuss the supposed decline in civility. Apparently no progressive voices were available.
Later in the day, when discussing Trump’s separation and detention of immigrant families with immigration lawyer David Leopold, CNN anchor Kate Bolduan interrupted Leopold and chided him for calling White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller a white nationalist, asking, “Where is the fact on that?”
Calling Miller a white nationalist is not some gratuitous insult. It is a simple, straight-forward analysis of his ideology. Splinter News’ Clio Chang aptly noted the evidence:
There is plenty of evidence that Stephen Miller, the architect of Donald Trump’s hard-line racist immigration policies, is a white nationalist. He crafted Trump’s Muslim ban. His thumbprint is smeared all over the administration’s family separation policy, the point of which is to tear immigrant families apart and deter others from entering the country. Miller reportedly laughed during a meeting when Trump made up names for immigrants and described imaginary crimes they might have committed. He has pushed for some of the harshest overhauls of our immigration system, including cutting legal immigration by half over the next decade. A White House aide recently told Vanity Fair Miller “actually enjoys” seeing pictures of children detained at the border: “He’s Waffen-SS,” the person said.
As journalist Chris Hooks also noted, Miller and white nationalist Richard Spencer worked together at Duke University to bring in white nationalist Peter Brimelow to speak about immigration. Spencer even toldMother Jones that he was glad no one was reporting on this connection:
“It’s funny no one’s picked up on the Stephen Miller connection,” Spencer says. “I knew him very well when I was at Duke. But I am kind of glad no one’s talked about this because I don’t want to harm Trump.”
This determined ignorance of the Trump team’s white nationalism is particularly galling since CNN has been profiting off of Trump’s team for years now. The network has hired a parade of pro-Trump analysts who, like the children at Willy Wonka’s factory, have been inevitably dropped as they become too toxic.
The hirings started during the 2016 campaign when Trumptold CNN executives to hire Jeffrey Lord. Soon after, CNN programming was inundated with Lord, Corey Lewandowski, Kayleigh McEnany, and Scottie Nell Hughes. These hirings frequently raised ethical questions. Current Vox correspondent Carlos Maza examined the problem for Media Matters before the election:
As Maza noted, the presence of pro-Trump voices turned discussions into screaming matches more suited to reality television than to a news network. And like reality television, the names rotated in and out with the content staying the same.
Lewandowski resigned from CNN following the election (CNN refused to fire him even after reporting revealed the Trump campaign was still paying him). McEnany moved on to become the spokesperson of the Republican National Committee. Hughes left CNN before the inauguration. And most notably, CNN eventually fired Lord after he issued a Nazi salute on Twitter.
In their stead, CNN rolled in new pro-Trump voices. One of the first was former Trump senior communications adviser Jason Miller. By mid 2017, the channel’s paid Trump shills were flooding the network:
Media Matters’ senior fellow Matt Gertz noted in October 2017 how the network continued to flood its airwaves with bullshit:
[Ben] Ferguson, for example, has repeatedly been called out by his CNN colleagues this month for offering nonsensical diversions in discussions of Trump’s attacks on NFL players who protest racial inequality during the National Anthem. And [Stephen] Moore -- who typically appears on the network to lie about Trump-backed health care proposals -- on Monday derailed a CNN panel discussion about then-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly paying a hefty sexual harassment settlement by saying that the real solution is for powerful men to never be alone in a room alone with a woman. [Jack] Kingston, for his part, last night attempted to make excuses for Trump’s unprecedented falsehoods, saying that “the American perception is that politicians lie” and Trump is no worse than other presidents; the rest of the panel denounced him, with anchor Don Lemon scolding him for “condoning bad behavior.”
When major stories break, such as Trump’s string of indefensible responses to the lethal white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA, Trump’s CNN supporters blanket the network’s coverage. That result was a trainwreck, with the president’s shills sidelining discussions with praise for Trump’s response and dismissals of the importance of the rally.
In September 2017, CNN hired Ed Martin, president of the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, ostensibly as Lord’s replacement. CNN was either ignorant or tolerant of the fact that Martin had previously called CNN “fake news” and had made flatly racist statements. In 2016, Martin told a crowd at a right-wing rally: “You're not racist if you don't like Mexicans. They're from a nation. If you don't think Muslims are vetted enough, because they blow things up, that's not racist.”
Martin predictably used his appearances to turn CNN into a trainwreck, while using his radio show to rail against the network:
Martin called on the air for a total end to immigration, saying, “Stop all immigration right now.” (11/2/17)
Martin argued that Leigh Corfman, the woman who reported that former Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore molested her as a child, should not be believed, saying, “What is this woman? She’s got multiple bankruptcies." (11/11/17)
Martin endorsed Moore and tried to get him elected even as CNN was doing great reporting on him. (11/7/17)
Martin said that Trump’s racist remarks about LaVar Ball, father of one of the basketball players arrested in China, could not be a “racial thing” because Trump also attacked Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). (11/20/17)
Martin defended Trump’s racist “Pocahontas” comment to World War II Navajo code talkers as “100 percent” appropriate. (11/27/17)
Martin contended that Trump’s racist anti-Muslim tweets were actually helpful because they were “starting a conversation.” (11/30/17)
After Roy Moore said that America was at its best during slavery, Martin argued that Jewish slaves had families: “When the Jews were in bondage for years, they still loved each other.” (12/11/17)
Martin called fellow CNN employees and co-panelists “black racists.” (12/14/17)
Martin praised Trump for ordering CNN’s chief White House correspondent out of the Oval Office, saying it was “amazing to see” and “really funny.” (1/18/18)
Martin gave an award to disgraced conservative operative James O’Keefe, who had on numerous occasions run deceitful stings against CNN. O’Keefe once attempted to lure then-CNN correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat full of sex paraphernalia. (1/12/18)
Martin stopped appearing on CNN after December 14 when Media Matters posted audio of Martin complaining about appearing on a panel with CNN commentators “who were just rabid feminists, actually racial, racists -- two of the women were racists, they were just were racists, black racists.” CNN eventually confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter on January 18 that Martin no longer worked for the network.
Martin’s role was soon taken by pro-Trump commentator Steve Cortes, who has said that he went to CNN “partly at the suggestion of the White House itself and the president himself.” Like Martin, Cortes also had previously called CNN “fake news.” During his time as a contributor at Fox News, Cortes had compared undocumented immigrants to violent thieves. And on CNN, Cortes has not only made similar statements, he’s also made laughably false and ridiculous claims. Michelle Wolf called out CNN’s charade with Cortes:
MICHELLE WOLF (HOST): Aw man, as a fan I just love this kind of TV magic. Watching the host act like the guest forced his way into the studio is so compelling, you almost forget that he was invited on and paid! Good job, Don, you knew full well Steve was going to lie and you gave a fun clip to share, and that's exactly why you invite him back all the time.
Here’s a brief history of things that paid CNN commentators have said on-air since the inauguration:
Stephen Moore made a completely false claim about coal jobs that an actual economist immediately corrected. (3/29/17)
Jason Miller made sexist remarks about Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), calling her “hysterical.” (6/13/17)
After Trump encouraged police brutality, Jeffrey Lord dismissed it as a “New Yorker sense of humor.” (7/31/17)
Lord called Trump “the Martin Luther King of health care.” CNN then talked about it for an entire day. (4/13/17)
Lord compared the Congressional Black Caucus to the KKK. (2/16/17)
Ben Ferguson criticized civil rights icon John Lewis for not educating Trump about civil rights. (12/8/17)
Rick Santorum said that Parkland school shooting survivors aren't taking personal responsibility and should learn CPR instead of engaging in activism. (3/25/18)
Kayleigh McEnany attacked Barack Obama for golfing in 2002 when George W. Bush was president. (3/28/17)
Ken Cuccinelli told panelist Symone Sanders to shut up while discussing white supremacists in Charlottesville. (8/14/17)
Paris Dennard posited that Trump was better than Obama at calling out white supremacists. (8/14/17)
Kayleigh McEnany defended Trump’s sexist remarks to an Irish reporter: “The press should be applauding the fact that he's bringing reporters into the Oval Office, calling them out and including them.” (6/28/17)
Rick Santorum attacked reporters for asking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for details about North Korea and nuclear weapons. (6/14/18)
Miller dismissed reports that Trump had an affair with adult actor Stormy Daniels and paid her hush money because, according to him, the alleged payoff was nothing to a billionaire. (3/7/18)
Santorum accused Obama of exacerbating racism in America. (6/3/18)
After a suicide bombing killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert, Lord said that it would be fair for Trump to criticize Grande for not providing enough security. (6/5/17)
Lord used a Nazi analogy to attack London Mayor Sadiq Khan. (6/5/17)
Stephen Moore repeatedly lied about the Affordable Care Act, often without CNN fact-checking him. (7/17/17)
After Roy Moore was accused of child molestation, Stephen Moore argued that his opponent was “no saint either” because he supported abortion. (11/20/17)
Jack Kingston pushed a conspiracy theory that shadowy forces were behind the rally against gun violence organized by Parkland survivors. (2/20/18)
While discussing sexual harassment, Stephen Moore said that he would never take a one-on-one meeting with a woman. (10/23/17)
Jack Kingston said that Bill O'Reilly's racist remarks about Waters' hair were just like liberals calling Trump “orange.” (3/29/17)
Bryan Lanza argued that discussing sexual assault allegations against Trump “seems like a waste of time.” (12/20/17)
And it’s not only the paid commentators who are a part of CNN's “false equivalency” problem. Just last week, after Lewandowski mocked a 10-year-old with Down syndrome who was separated from her mother at the U.S. border, CNN invited him on to talk more about his remark.
At the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Michelle Wolf called out this sycophantic relationship between the media and those in power. Wolf later told Vulture (emphasis original): “It was gross! Like, I saw [CNN President] Jeff Zucker hugging Kellyanne Conway, and it was just like, Oh! You’re all in this together! People are really getting hurt, and you guys are just celebrating your money. It’s all a game, nothing more than ‘How will we best profit off of this?’ It was icky.” Nevertheless, a CNN panel criticized Wolf’s jokes, with a CNN host saying that some of her jokes were “way too personal.”
America is not enduring a crisis of civility. America is enduring a crisis of facts, brought on largely by the rise of the filter bubble, with specious liars given credibility by feckless media and tech companies. It’d be nice if they were all at least a bit more self-aware about it.
