Sharyl Attkisson Pulls Back the Curtain

American Thinker  "Sharyl Attkisson’s The Smear gives insight to how news is made today. It goes a long way in convincing readers that they should believe only a small portion of what is released by the government and reported by the press. This leads to a very cynical view of the news and confirms Otto von Bismarck’s claim that "Nothing is proven until it is officially denied." Attkinsson gives an account of how massive the smear industry is. My only criticism of the book is her contention that, “the organized political smear entered the contemporary marketplace circe 1987.”  Some of these smear techniques can probably be found in a study of politics in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur. The “scientific" smear might be traced back to George Creel’s World War I Committee on Public Information or Edward Bernays 1920s book Propaganda. She also appears to attribute the advice “Admit nothing” to the CIA. This is a classic Communist technique. Dozens of Communist spies had denied their connection to the Communist party and have been believed by the gullible for decades. She mentions the “infamous senator Joseph McCarthy.” who was the victim of an extremely effective smear campaign. She might benefit from reading M. Stanton Evans’ Blacklisted by History. Few people could survive the scrutiny and smear campaign Senator McCarthy was subjected to.

"Her account of Larry Flynt’s reward for information on Congressional extramarital affairs was revealing." . . .

Sharyl Attkisson is an American author and host of the weekly Sunday public affairs program Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson, which airs on television stations operated by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. She was formerly an investigative correspondent in the Washington bureau for CBS News. She had also substituted as anchor for the CBS Evening News. She resigned from CBS News on March 10, 2014, after 21 years with the network. 

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing). He has a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations from St. Mary’s University. He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

A New Front in the War on Free Speech

Bernard Goldberg

"Call me a bad person, but it's fun to watch the left devour its own."

"Hothouse flowers threw another hissy fit on a college campus recently. But this time it was different. This time the target in their progressive crosshairs wasn't some conservative bogeyman whose views were deemed unacceptable and so had to be shouted down.

"This time left-wing students, at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, went after the ACLU, an organization that champions all sorts of liberal causes and no one is calling right-wing.

"'Call me a bad person, but it's fun to watch the left devour its own. And here's something else to giggle about: The ACLU speaker who was silenced by the progressive mob was on campus to speak about ... free speech on campus.

 'You can't make this stuff up.

 'This time the speech police were students affiliated with Black Lives Matter and were angry with the ACLU for defending white supremacist rights to rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. So instead of letting the woman from the ACLU speak, they chanted things like, "liberalism is white supremacy" and "Your free speech hides beneath white sheets" -- reportedly for a full hour.

"It was bound to happen. Why would left-wing students be content with simply shouting down conservatives? Why wouldn't they shout down any views they don't like? That's what authoritarians do. Stalinists aren't happy until everybody thinks the way they do, until all unacceptable ideas are crushed." . . .

The Method to Trump’s ‘Madness’

Victor Davis Hanson

"The Democratic Party, as it did after Hubert Humphrey’s close loss in 1968, seems still to be misdiagnosing its 2016 defeat.

"Democrats see too little identity politics rather than too much as their trouble, and thus are redoubling on what has been slowly shrinking the party into coastal enclaves.Promoting Black Lives Matter and open borders, promising free tuition and tax hikes, opposing fracking and pipeline construction, pushing single-payer health care and an ever-expanding transgender agenda as well as abortion—these are not majority positions. Neither will embracing Hollywood, the media, or the NFL protests win over voters. Thinking (or hoping) that President Trump will implode, quit, be jailed, sicken, die, or be impeached is not an agenda.

"Trump Compared to What?"When Trump promises to restore Christmas nomenclature, to build a border wall, or to bark back against the NFL, he bets that 51 percent of the voting public is likely on his side. Trump’s tweets may be cul de sacs. And they may diminish the traditional stature of the presidency, but they are rarely on the wrong side of public opinion.

"The same holds true when in suicidal fashion he alienates those of his own party, many of them seemingly essential to his legislative agenda. Yet what is the logic of temporizing Republican senators who recently got reelected by blasting the Iran Deal, open borders, and Obamacare—apparently on the premise that their posturing votes would never really matter, given the likelihood of a liberal vetoing president? So far a Bob Corker, Jeff Flake or John McCain has not proven that he is more popular in his own state than is Donald Trump." . . .

Photo added by TD

Satanic Looking Drag Queen with Horns Reads to Little Kids at Michelle Obama Public Library in Long Beach

Gateway Pundit  "The Michelle Obama Public Library in Long Beach, California hosted a satanic looking drag queen on Saturday who read books to young children as part of the library’s celebration LGBTQ History Month.

"The shocking photo of a man dressed as a female demon with giant horns on his head reading to little children at a public library was posted to Twitter and Facebook by the Long Beach Library but taken down after a huge outpouring of critical replies, including from GOP Congressional candidate Omar Navarro. It also got the approval of the Church of Satan." . . .

College Magazine Creates ‘Is Your Costume Racist’ Flowchart, Overlooks Major Problem

Daily Wire  "The flowchart asks students about their Halloween costumes, and attempts to guide them away from "racist" choices. "Is it from 4Chan or Reddit?" the guide asks. Answer "Yes," and it further queries: "Does this meme validate white supremacists?"

"Another question: "Does it humanize inhumane people?" If your answer is "Yes," the guide asks that you "reconsider your costume idea."

"Of course, if the costume makes fun of Donald Trump, the guide says to "do it!" One wonders if the chart would similarly promote the mockery of Hillary Clinton or any other Democratic figure. Probably not; they know their audience.

"The flowchart has garnered attention from Fox News, Campus Reform, and other outlets. 1870 Magazine, seemingly pleased with the attention, wrote the following in response to a negative tweet about the flowchart: "I guess we now know who the sensitive ones REALLY are.' " . . .

Alleged Traitor Hailed As American Hero By Obama Administration Pleads Guilty To Desertion (Cartoon update)

Daily Wire  "In May 2014, President Obama, looking desperately for a foreign policy victory, traded five terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to the Taliban in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, a sergeant suspected of desertion. Bergdahl’s alleged desertion necessitated the use of American troops to search for him; six were killed during that process.

"President Obama welcomed Bergdahl himself to the Rose Garden, along with his parents, where he lauded their “courage” and the media cast Bergdahl in the role of hero; National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who made a habit of fibbing to the American public on national television during her tenure in the job, told Americans that Bergdahl’s service was “honorable” and added that he served with “honor and distinction.” Obama defended his decision by stating, “I make absolutely no apologies for making sure that we get back a young man to his parents and that the American people understand that this is somebody’s child and that we don’t condition whether or not we make the effort to try to get them back.”

"On Monday, Bergdahl pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Bergdahl apologized — too late for his dead comrades — and stated, “At the time, I had no intention of causing search and recovery operations….It’s very inexcusable.' ” . . .

Doctor told not to sing national anthem during flight carrying remains of fallen Green Beret

WISTV.com, Ch 10  "A Savannah doctor was told not to sing the national anthem during a Delta flight that was carrying home the remains of a fallen Green Beret from Toombs County, Georgia. 

"When Pamela Gaudry learned that former Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright was on her flight, she and other passengers made an agreement to sing the national anthem as they waited for soldiers to unload his casket. 

"Gaudry said a flight attendant put a stop to the plans.

" 'I said, 'it's the national anthem' and she said 'it is against company policy to do that and so we are going to land and everbody is going to stay in their seats and be quiet,'" Gaudry said. 

"In a video that has since gone viral on social media, Gaudry said she wished she had the courage to sing despite the flight staff's remarks. 

" 'I'm humiliated by my lack of courage to sing the national anthem in my own country on American soil with a deceased soldier on the plane. I just sat there with tears rolling down my face," she said. "Hundreds of thousands of people now know that Dustin Wright died for our country and there were a lot of people on that plane that wanted to honor him. Hundreds of thousands of people are praying for this family now that weren't."

"Gaudry said she was contacted by Delta after the incident and told that the airline has no such policy in place. 

" 'Delta has contacted me – no money or free tickets (I promise, and I would not have taken them) – and this is not their policy," she wrote on Facebook. "Evidently, they had a flight attendant that made some bad decisions in trying to make this situation go away."

"Delta provided WTOC with the following statement Monday afternoon:" . . .

“Our employees worldwide take great pride in Delta’s longstanding support of the military. The respectful ceremony of the Delta Honor Guard is one symbol of Delta’s pledge to the men and women of the armed forces, and it represents our broad commitment to our veterans and active-duty service members. Delta does not have a policy regarding the national anthem. We have reached out to the customer and are looking into this situation.”

Guess Which Group Refuses to Give Back Harvey Weinstein's Donations

Leah Barkoukis

"While a number of Democratic lawmakers who received donations from Harvey Weinstein have pledged to give the money back or donate it to charitable causes, not surprisingly, the Clinton Foundation said it will not return as much as $250,000 in contributions from the Hollywood producer.

"The foundation’s decision comes after dozens of women came forward to accuse the movie mogul of rape, sexual assault, and harassment.

"Weinstein’s donations, which ranged between $100,000-$250,000, were already spent on charitable causes, the foundation told The Daily Mail.

The spokesman said the foundation already spent the money on its programs, such as lowering the cost of HIV medication and supporting women and girls in developing countries.
The foundation said it supports commitments to combat human trafficking, and runs the No Ceilings Project ‘which aims to advance the full participation of girls and women around the world’ through ‘data-driven analysis on gender inequality, an in-depth conversation series,
innovative partnerships, and CGI commitments.’ (Daily Mail)

"The Clinton Foundation is not the only organization to refuse to return Weinstein’s donations, however. Last week Rutgers University said it would not be returning a $100,000 donation from Weinstein to help support the school’s Gloria Steinem Chair in Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies." . . .

A brief NFL reminder

Bloviating Zeppelin

"Tim Tebow kneeling before God in 2011. Tebow bad. Kaepernick good. End of story."

"Eric Reid of the San Francisco 49ers states that there is “systemic oppression” in the United States and the NFL. He stated this because Vice President Mike Pence, whilst attending the Colts and 49ers game last Sunday the 8th, left the stadium when 23 San Francisco players took a knee during the national anthem. Eric Reid said:

“This is what systemic oppression looks like,” he said. “A man with power comes to the game, tweets a couple of things out and leaves the game with an attempt to thwart our efforts. Based on the information I have, that’s the assumption I’ve made.”

"In response, Vice President Pence said:

“I left today’s Colts game because President Trump and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem.”

"How quickly people forget some of these aspects.

"2011: Tim Tebow “took a knee” for God whilst quarterbacking for the Denver Broncos and it was heresy, heresy I tell you. Tebow is a Caucasoid.

"2013: Football coach Joseph Kennedy lost his job for kneeling at the 50-yard line after games. Perhaps he should have knelt during the national anthem. Is the difference simply a matter of timing?" . . .

Jimmy Kimmel’s hint of regret

Thomas Lifson  "Jimmy Kimmel’s angry political rants have painted him into a corner. He understands that he has lost a chunk of his audience, but now has a social media claque eager for more that would turn on him for any failure to live up to their expectations.

"Kimmel also is starting to realize that this political commentary stuff is harder than just making middlebrow jokes.  People take him seriously, and suddenly there are new expectations the former co-host of The Man Show – that seemed to be aimed at adolescent male beer-drinkers – realizes he has no chance of fulfilling: “I’m nobody’s moral arbiter," he told Tracy Smith on CBS Sunday Morning, which did a segment on him." . . .

. . . "He wouldn’t want to have a conversation with people who disagree with him. While this is a common attitude, for a person who has taken the role of public commentator, it is akin to declaration of tribal identity or religious belief, not subject to further questioning.

"And he realizes this is 15% of his audience, roughly, that he is losing." . . .

Obama's "rules of engagement" and the death of SEAL Team six

Today Political News

“Ridiculous rules of engagement that basically state that you can’t shoot until being shot upon.  A weapon has to be pointed, and essentially fired at you, in order for you to shoot and you have the proper clearance so that you don’t, you know, go to jail, that you’re charged with a war crime,” said Marquez, who had reached out to Congress, and some of the victims’ families.

“ 'I had the sensor operators immediately shift to the eight insurgents the helicopters had taken out,” Marquez told Circa. “Two were still alive.”

"But what should’ve been a routine mission to take out the terrorists never happened because Obama’s generals would not give the gunship permission to fire. She relayed the scene to the ground force commander but was denied permission to neutralize the threat.

“ 'We had seen two of them (insurgents) moving, crawling away from the area, as to not really make a whole lot of scene. You have two enemy forces that are still alive,” she said. “Permission to engage.”

"Marquez went on to say that the ground commander’s refusal to allow her crew to take out the two terrorists with their weapons would then seal the fate of those involved in Extortion 17.

“If we would’ve been allowed to engage that night, we would’ve taken out those two men immediately,” Marquez said. She believes with her whole heart that had her team been given permission to take out the terrorists, 38 warriors would still be alive today.

. . . 

"From there, things just got even worse. The Chinook was eventually shot down by the terrorists and crashed to the ground. Marquez watched from her infared monitor as one of the Navy SEALS was then ejected from the burning Chinook helicopter. She watched his heat signature fade from red to blue, knowing that she was watching as his life literally slipped away from his body.

“ 'We had to sit and watch that, and I think that was one of the hardest things that I had to do,” she said. “That man was, you know, dying on the ground.” Marquez says the pain of living with what happened has taken its toll and she was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and is in therapy.

"Her account of that fateful day has been corroborated by the Defense Department inspector general in a previously sealed top-secret report. Her own commander also has verified the story as true." . . .

Retired Air Force Captain, Joni Marquez, after six years of silence, has finally opened up about the events of that fateful night and shown the world who was ultimately responsible for those needless deaths of heroes: President Barack Obama.

Pamela Geller from 2014:  Before Benghazi, There Was Extortion 17  . . . "The first part centers on Billy Vaughn as he tries to find out -- against immense obstacles -- what really caused the tragic death of his son. Obama's bureaucrats put up heavy resistance, but Billy Vaughn was determined. Then in the second part of the book, Major General Vallely analyzes the mission of Extortion 17, using his decades of military experience to point out the many errors and mistakes of this mission -- all due to Obama's impossible Rules of Engagement for American troops in Afghanistan.
Blaming both Bush and Obama, Geller continues: . . . "Our troops in Afghanistan are so restricted in ways that they're not even allowed to fire on the enemy without permission -- which means that the Taliban and al Qaeda can shoot at our soldiers at will and then disappear while our forces are trying to get permission to return fire. And that isn't even the worst of all. The COIN doctrine forbids us to try to vet Afghans who want to work with the military." . . .

Perhaps the leftists will at least morn the death of the K-9 Bart.

Extortion 17, Obama’s Sacrificial Lamb  . . . "During the ramp ceremony, a Muslim Imam prayed over the bodies of the Americans, once translated it seemed to have damned their souls to hell. " . . . I wonder if the imam was part of Obama's space program. How'd that all work out, by the way?

Book: Call Sign Extortion 17: The Shoot-Down of SEAL Team Six . . . "On April 18, 2017, Brown's claims on the rule-of-engagement were apparently corroborated when Air Force Captain Joni Marquez, who was the firing officer on an AC-130 gunship which accompanied Extortion 17 on the final flight, claimed that the gunship was denied permission to engage Taliban on the ground. Captain Marquez contends that had the AC-130 been allowed to fire on enemy insurgents on the ground, that Extortion 17 would not have been shot down. "

Jimmy Kimmel No Longer the ‘Moral Conscience of America’...including GOP voters especially

Legal Insurrection

"Jimmy Kimmel is pulling the same old trick Jon Stewart used for years. When discussing a topic like healthcare or gun control, he’s a serious policy wonk. When something comes up that’s inconvenient or embarrassing to Democrats, hey – he’s just a TV host.

"That’s basically how Kimmel defended his lack of interest in the Harvey Weinstein scandal during an interview with Good Morning America.

Matt Wilstein writes at the Daily Beast:

Jimmy Kimmel Defends Lack of Harvey Weinstein Jokes: I’m Not the ‘Moral Conscience of America’

After he spoke out so forcefully on both health care and gun control over the past month, many late-night viewers might have expected Jimmy Kimmel do the same about the sexual harassment and assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein. When he didn’t, Kimmel’s right-wing critics — including Donald Trump Jr. — were quick to accuse him of liberal bias. Was he protecting the Democratic donor and his fellow “Hollywood elite” in a way he would never do for Donald Trump?

Kimmel pushed back hard on those assertions on Friday during an interview with Good Morning America’s Amy Robach to promote his upcoming week of Brooklyn tapings, during which he also welcomed the idea of having President Trump on his show. “Maybe this is crazy, but I feel like I could turn him around on a couple of things,” he said…

“First of all, the Harvey Weinstein thing, people like this false equivalence of that’s somehow equivalent to what happened in Las Vegas,” Kimmel added, arguing that the alleged assault of dozens of women does not deserve the same reaction as the killing of nearly 60 people. He said that Weinstein is “not a friend of mine,” adding, “I’m not in the movie business.” As a once and future Oscar host who is friends with many of the movie stars in Weinstein’s orbit, that claim is a hard one to buy. . . .

 Kimmel Not Concerned About Losing GOP Viewers: Probably Wouldn’t Want To Have Conversation With Them Anyway’
"Your wish is our command…"