From The “Is The News Media Trying To Destroy Any Credibility It Has Left, Or Is It Just Too Biased And Stupid To Help Itself?” Files: The New York Times’ “Fact Check”

Ethics Alarms

. . . "Notice how the Times uses “claimed” to imply that Trump was making stuff up.  But he wasn’t making stuff up. The Times was making stuff up by “claiming” in this fact-check that Trump was misstated the facts, when he did not.  He wouldn’t have even been wrong, as Eugene Volokh points out, if he had been comparing 2016 to 2014, the year he was comparing 2015 to in July. The homicide rate in D.C. rose by  28 percent from 2014 to 2016.

‘Trump falsely stated that crime rose in Washington D.C.’ is a lie. It is fake news.

"Writes the law professor, using far more restraint than I would (or will):

. . . 

"But setting out to be an unprincipled partisan adversary that will mislead the public to protect Democratic narratives and malign the President is not the news media’s job in a functioning democracy, though our journalists  see it that way."

Undoing Obama's Latest Legacy as UN Abstainer-in-Chief

THE ROSETT REPORT

"To President Obama's legacy of foreign policy debacles, we can now add his landmark betrayal of Israel, carried out Dec. 23rd at the United Nations. By declining to wield the U.S. veto at the Security Council, by choosing instead to abstain -- by Vanishing-from-Behind -- Obama allowed the passage, by a vote of 14 in favor, 1 abstaining, of Resolution 2334. In the guise of condemning Israeli settlements, this resolution is configured to delegitimize and imperil Israel itself, America's longtime ally and the only democracy in the Middle East.

"With that signal abstention, Obama abandoned decades of U.S. practice of defending Israel against the bigots and thug governments that routinely sit on the Security Council, including permanent members Russia and China, and their rotating sidekicks, such as Venezuela. As a Wall Street Journal editorial accurately put it, referring to the U.S. abstention: "What it reveals clearly is the Obama administration's animus against the state of Israel itself. No longer needing Jewish votes, Mr. Obama was free, finally, to punish the Jewish state in a way no previous president has done.' " .  . .

Reich and Moore promoting the 100 days of obstruction:

Althouse

"Hey, Reich is a pretty good cartoonist. He's especially good at making all his characters look p------d off. Did he really draw what it looks like he's drawing? I'm not trying to generate skepticism about possibly feigned, marginal drawing talent. I'm really just commenting on how dispiritingly ugly those people he wants us to be are. Maybe he does do his own drawings. This makes it look as though he does. Good for him. 

"Here's Michael Moore promoting the 100 days of obstruction:"

People of the Hollywood Bubble vs. the Deplorables

Thomas Lifson: Trump Derangement Syndrome derails the Golden Globes

Self-pity is not an audience-builder, Ms. Streep.  Coming in the midst of an event full of people wearing clothing costing thousands of dollars, drinking fancy wine, and eating fancy food, it is downright repulsive.Ms. Streep is intelligent enough to know that Donald Trump does not vilify foreigners.  Quite the contrary – he has married two of them.  He does not want people to come here illegally, but the left dishonestly conflates illegals with the honorable people who follow our laws and come here with the blessing of the law. 

. . . "Empathy does not extend to the Carrier workers who were laid off, only to be kept in their jobs thanks to Donald Trump.  Empathy does not extend to the family of Kate Steinle, murdered by a sanctuary city policy." . . . 

Meryl Streep’s Speech Was An Unfunny Joke But Her Fawning Over The Press Is Hilarious  . . . "Streep called on the press to be hard on Trump and people are cheering but have they all been asleep the last eight years?

"Think about the IRS scandal for a moment. The media did all they could to forget that story. Imagine if the IRS under President Trump was targeting liberal groups and making it almost impossible to get their tax-exempt status? If people found out veterans died waiting for care in a Trump administration, the press would go out of their freaking minds. For Barack Obama, it was barely a blip on the radar. Nobody was fired. Nobody was held to account. Nothing.

"The media yawned." . . .

But the White House loved it.

It didn't take long for President-Elect Trump to hit back With this amen from Terresa Monroe-Hamilton:  . . . "Americans are exceedingly fed up with Hollywood and these actors. You don’t speak for us and we do not admire, look up to or follow you. Trump will be inaugurated in a few days and they will really start screaming then. Good. You people don’t live in the real world and you don’t put food on our tables. You are nothing more than entertainment. " . . .

De Niro on Trump last October

Robert De Niro appears to soften tone on Trump  "The “Raging Bull” actor’s comments appear to be a complete turnaround from the disparaging remarks he made about the real estate mogul in October.

"Of Trump, De Niro said "he's a punk, he's a dog, he's a pig, he's a con, a bulls--- artist, a mutt who doesn't know what he's talking about.' "

Did you watch the Golden Globes last night and hear what the entertainment industry people had to say about Trump?
" . . .last Saturday, the most elite and celebrated people celebrated the last of The Presidency called Obama with waffles in the White House.
"And then they jetted back to L.A. to dress in even prettier clothes to celebrate themselves with awards — golden globular awards — and to take shots from their La La Land* at the new celebrity President, the one whose opponent they all backed, and somehow they think we could care what nastiness they lobbed at Trump."

Cable News Viewers Still Turn To Fox First

Rasmussen Reports  "Most voters turn to cable news for political coverage, and Fox News remains the top channel for these viewers. But voters still remain dubious of much of the political news they are getting.
"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that, in a typical week, 75% of Likely U.S. Voters say they watch cable news networks for their political news at least occasionally. That includes 21% who say they do so several times a week and 25% who watch every day. Twenty four percent (24%) say they rarely or never watch cable news networks for politics. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

"These findings are similar to those measured last July.

"Among those who tune in to cable news networks at least occasionally, 42% say Fox News is the channel they generally watch, compared to 35% who turn to CNN and 19% who prefer MSNBC. These findings, too, are little changed from last year.

"Among cable news network viewers who watch Fox News most often, 50% say they trust the political news they are getting. That compares to 43% of MSNBC viewers and just 33% who tune in mostly to CNN. " . . .
Via Laura Ingraham

The Selective Empathy of Meryl Streep

American Thinker  "Empathy – feeling what other people are feeling during dramatic moments – is part of an actor’s toolbox. And as an acclaimed actor, Streep no doubt prides herself on her capacity for empathy.

"But there are plenty of people whose feelings don’t show up on Streep’s screen. She didn't publicly care as far as I know:

giangchaunews

"When Planned Parenthood (PP) personnel crushed and crunched babies while being careful to save valuable body parts.  If Streep and others weren’t sickened when they saw these women talking calmly about crushing and crunching babies they don’t have a heart. PP, with the supporting cast of Hollywood, Democrats, the media and the Obama Justice Department, deserve a Golden Globe for a fictional screenplay by saying that PP did not break the law and did not sell the body parts for a profit when the tapes clearly show otherwise. Paraphrasing Meryl Streep’s words,  PP used their power and privilege to kill human beings that had no ability to fight back.  Clearly these babies that were killed were human beings or their human body parts would not have been valuable. The media, Hollywood and Democrats  are all big admirers of Margaret Sanger who wanted abortion to build a cleaner race," . . .

Julian Assange may be a conservative hero right now, but let's not forget all he has done.

He is no friend of the US

The treachery of Julian Assange

The WikiLeaks founder, far from being a champion of freedom, is an active danger to the real seekers of truth

"You did not have to listen for too long to Julian Assange's half-educated condemnations of the American "military-industrial complex" to know that he was aching to betray better and braver people than he could ever be.

"As soon as WikiLeaks received the State Department cables, Assange announced that the opponents of dictatorial regimes and movements were fair game. That the targets of the Taliban, for instance, were fighting a clerical-fascist force, which threatened every good liberal value, did not concern him. They had spoken to US diplomats. They had collaborated with the great Satan. Their safety was not his concern. 

. . . 

"A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." A silence fell on the table as the reporters realised that the man the gullible hailed as the pioneer of a new age of transparency was willing to hand death lists to psychopaths. They persuaded Assange to remove names before publishing the State Department Afghanistan cables. But Assange's disillusioned associates suggest that the failure to expose "informants" niggled in his mind." . . .

Under the cover of holding power to account, Assange can revel in the power the web gives to put lives in danger and ensure he can be what he always wanted: the centre of attention.

Remember Assange and Bradley Manning?  . . . "Manning passed 250,000 State Department cables and 470,000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield logs to WikiLeaks, as well as files pertaining to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, and video of a 2007 attack by a US helicopter gunship in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters journalists." . . .

Obama’s Unforced Errors on Foreign Policy

 

In Syria and Libya, human nature has proven to Obama that ‘history’ does not have a mind of its own.

George Will  . . . "Obama seemed to doubt that America has much to teach the world, beyond post-Iraq modesty — herewith his Wilsonian dimension — and the power of diplomacy’s soft power to tame the world. Although neither the English nor the American nor the Russian nor the Spanish nor the Chinese civil war was ended by negotiations, Obama thought the especially vicious and complex civil war in Syrian’s sectarian and tribal society could be ended diplomatically. Russian president Vladimir Putin picked a side and helped it win." . . .

. . .
"Obama’s foreign policy presumed the existence of “the community of nations.” But that phrase is worse than hackneyed and sentimental, it is oxymoronic: Different nations affirm different notions of justice; a community consists of people made cohesive by a consensus about the nature of justice." . . .

CBS radio report created the impression Chicago torture victim was a black man assaulted by white Trump supporters

Thomas Lifson  "This may be the single most despicable act of media bias I have ever encountered.  It took a lot of effort and art for CBS Radio to put together an early report on the Chicago torture incident that was strictly factual, yet created the impression on listeners that a group of white Trump supporters had attacked a helpless mentally challenged black man.  Mediaite provides a transcript of what was reported last Thursday morning by a top-of-the hour broadcst distributed to radio stations across the country." . . .

"If America is serious about correcting the pervasive bias in mainstream media, stripping CBS of its broadcast licenses for radio and television stations would send a memorable signal to others that false reporting aimed at inflaming racial tensions is not in the public interest. It would no doubt require millions of dollars and years to proceed with a formal challenge to CBS’s broadcast licenses.  But for conservatives who are sick and tired of media lies, this might be an opportunity to bring about change." . . .

Media on a quest to downplay race in Chicago kidnapping and torture

"Ableism"? Good grief.

. . . "The media has been forced to confront the reality that racism is not simply "prejudice with power," an institutional structure whose effects flow in only one direction.  As major networks desperately attempt to minimize the racial motivations behind this terrible crime, they continue to maximize the failure of their already deficient credibility."

Four Facebook Torturers Face Judge: Bail Denied

“Where is your sense of decency?”

Should “hate” be a separate category of crime?  

. . . "The maximum sentence for a hate crime in the state of Illinois is a $25,000 fine and 3 years in prison. The maximum sentence for kidnapping is $25,000 and 7 years in prison.

     "If the perpetrators are found guilty of a hate crime and kidnapping, and if the prosecutors were to successfully have these charges served consecutively (not concurrently) then they could serve up to 10 years in prison.

     "But since the man has a mental disability, then the alleged crime in question could be considered an aggravated kidnapping, which has a maximum punishment of a $25,000 fine and 30 years of prison." . . .

Obama Calls Chicago Torture Case 'Terrible'

. . . " 'We've seen over the last several years, when it comes to tensions between police and communities, the Internet, horrific hate crimes of the sort that we appear to have seen on Facebook today," Obama said in an interview with ABC Chicago affiliate WLS." . . .

House Rebukes Obama, U.N. on Israel

Lifezette

"Largely symbolic resolution in support of key U.S. ally passes with strong bipartisan support"

"Members of Congress, enraged over the Obama administration’s failure to block an anti-Israel resolution ^[1] in the United Nations, overwhelmingly passed a resolution Thursday supporting the U.S. ally.

"The 342-80 vote calls on the United Nations to repeal the Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem a violation of international law. The Obama administration refused to veto the resolution and allowed it to pass with an abstention from the United States.

“ 'Today we put Congress on record objecting to the recent U.N. Security Council resolution that hurt our ally, that hurt Israel, and I believe that puts an enduring peace … out of reach.' ” . . .

 " 'It is shameful that we abandoned our ally and emboldened the Palestinians, passively letting an anti-Israeli resolution pass the U.N. Security Council," he said in a statement. "We cannot continue to denigrate our Israeli friends and the only true democracy in the Middle East."

"While offering moral support to a longtime ally, the House vote has little practical effect, even if the Senate passes its own resolution as expected in the coming days. The U.N. resolution — itself nonbinding — cannot be overturned by Congress. And U.N. member states, stocked with Israel-haters, are unlikely to be swayed by the views of American politicians." . . .

Democrats Side with Trump, Slam Obama Rebuke of Israel  But some Democrats see the resolution as hurting a two-state solution.

BBC Gradually Discovers Terror Truck Had Actual Driver Behind the Wheel

From the pro-Israel Honest Reporting  "The BBC has a habit of attributing terror attacks to inanimate objects or vehicles. And so it was the case with an appalling truck ramming terror attack that took place in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood of Jerusalem that has, so far, claimed the lives of four Israelis and injured many more.

"The BBC broke the news with the following:"

 

. . . 

"The BBC appears to be confused as to who or what carried out the attack. Having removed scare quotes from the headline, did a lorry really attack the soldiers? That seems rather strange given that, according to the opening paragraph of the story, a “suspected terrorist” was responsible.

"So which is it BBC? A lorry or a terrorist?

"Eventually, the BBC appears to have acknowledged that there was actually a driver behind the wheel of the vehicle." . . .

Celebrities give Obama emotional farewell in video (Updated)

The Hill

"Celebrities, activists and others gave an emotional goodbye to President Obama in a new video by the White House titled “Yes We Can: Your Most Memorable Moments from the Obama Presidency.”

"The video features figures including Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen DeGeneres, all sharing some of their favorite moments with the president.

“ 'I never cried before, from an election result,” singer John Legend says in the video.

" 'When I was at the U.N. and I heard our president say that climate change is the most important issue facing, not only this generation but also future generations, it was inspiring,” DiCaprio said.

“ 'The CVS experience with Michelle (Obama) was pretty cool and dancing with Barack at his birthday party. And he’s a good dancer. He should not get any flack for that — you’re a good dancer,” DeGeneres said." . . .

These kids and parents will miss Obama as well

Obama Ignores Ft Lauderdale, Does THIS Instead   . . . "How very ‘Presidential’. With the nation still reeling from a bloodbath in a major airport, Obama has higher priorities.

"First the Hollywood glitz. (It’s full of celebs. We can’t disappoint the ‘pretty people’, can we?)

"Then he flew to Florida.

"Was it to comfort the victims? Hell no! He didn’t rush to visit Louisiana, why visit Ft Lauderdale?

"He had a wedding to attend, just down the road." . . .