Book Review: Fake News Follies of 2017

Legal Insurrection

"West Virginia’s prognosticating pundit Don Surber offers the first in what is likely to be his 8-edition series!"

. . . "Surber, a recovering journalist with over 30 years of experience, has been cataloging the #FakeNews that has been regularly offered as serious analysis of President Donald Trump’s actions, policies, and opinions. He has brought his enormous collection together in the longest, most serious book he has yet written: Fake News Follies 2017.

"Surber’s detailed look at the continuing media meltdown over Trump’s victory begins with the definition of “Fake News”.

In 2017, the media and Democratic Party officials defined Fake News as websites that look like news sites but disseminate information that is false or misleading. They included satirical sites.

President Trump and his supporters defined Fake News as news organizations that deliberately disseminated false stories. They did not include satirical sites. I define Fake News as the fog of war.

In 2017, much of the political media chose to go to war with Donald John Trump. They did not choose wisely.

"Surber’s clarity and wit make the study of the media’s blatant misrepresentations engaging and informative. He hits many #FakeNews gems that have been nearly forgotten the the avalanche of more recent, specious coverage of the memo release and immigration battle.

"Some chestnuts that he dusted off include:

• The spate of hate-crime hoaxes staged to smear Trump.
• The wild speculation passed of as in-the-know analysis of Trump’s likely cabinet picks (e.g. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D) as Energy Secretary.
• The wacky theories about whether Melania Trump would actually be the acting First Lady.
• The fraudulent “fact-checkers”, Snopes  and PolitiFact.
• A prescient chapter on the real “wire-tapping” of Donald Trump, true news that the media ignores of obfuscates.

"One, particularly fascinating aspect of Fake News Follies 2017 is the background of Jeff Zucker, the President of CNN. Surber deftly details why Zucker has had his team focus the destruction of President Trump…when they aren’t wondering about black holes.

"I suspect CNN will remain a leading source of Surber’s upcoming editions of Fake News Follies.

"In conclusion: If you like a great, informative read that offers hard data blended in with crisp analysis, Surber’s book is a must-have. For those of us who follow the American press, it will be a wonderful reference to own.

"I can’t believe how much #FakeNews I had already forgotten!"

Plus these gems from a previous post in the Tunnel Wall:  The Media; always speaking nonsense to power

Democrats and the SOTU

Chris Matthews: Republicans Attack Nancy Pelosi Because She’s An ‘Ethnic Sort Of Person’

American Lookout  "Is Nancy Pelosi an ethnic person? MSNBC’s Chris Matthews seems to think so. He recently claimed on the air that this is the reason why Republicans attack her. Does Matthews know something the rest of us don’t?

"Truth Revolt reports:

"Chris Matthews: GOP Picking on Nancy Pelosi Because She’s an ‘Ethnic Person’

"Matthews and his panel were discussing the pushback from the GOP and President Trump against the California Democrat for having such a sour face during the State of the Union as well as her jabs at the tax reform bill. Instead of brushing it off as politics as usual, Matthews one-upped even himself by finding a far more nefarious reason Pelosi is being attacked:“ 'Picking on somebody from one of the coasts, usually ethnic, and making them the poster person of the Democratic Party is old business for the Republicans. They did it with — way back — to some guy from the Bronx back in the 40s; they did it with Bella Abzug from the west side of New York City; they did it to Tip O’Neil; they did it to Teddy… Kennedy, and now they do it after Nancy Pelosi. They love to get an ethnic sort of person from one of the coasts and make them the bad person.' ”

Bible Thumping Pro-life Fundamentalists

Mike Adams  "Last week, I ran a column urging pastors to do more than simply tell their congregants to be bold in their faith. I also urged pastors to be specific by taking a stand themselves on specific issues. The example I gave was defending the unborn. In the process, I suggested that pastors needed to teach congregants how to defend the unborn from a scientific and philosophical perspective. This provoked several angry emails from Christian readers who insisted that we need to defend the unborn solely from scripture. I write today in response to those misguided critics.

"My pro-life Christian critics understand why human life has value. The fact that we are made in the image of God makes us all valuable from the point of conception. There is simply no need to explain this to someone who is truly seeing the world through the lens of a Christian worldview. But Christians sometimes need help understanding how pro-abortion choice advocates view the world. I can help to do that because I work with such people daily.

"Put simply, the pro-abortion choice advocate is usually a secularist who believes that human beings are the ones charged with assigning value to other humans. In other words, they think our rights come from man rather than God. This position creates a necessary tension with one of the secularist’s other professed values. Christians need to know what those values are before they engage important issues with these secular opponents." . . .     Full article...

Judge rejects demand that baker make 'gay' wedding cake; At issue: 'Sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage'

WND

"A California judge has refused to advance a social agenda in his state that targets Christians who refuse to endorse homosexuality through their work.

"In this case it was baker Cathy Miller of Tastries Bakery who was put in a state bull’s-eye because she refused to use her artistic talents to promote the “wedding” of two lesbians.

"The state asked Superior Court Judge David Lampe to issue a preliminary injunction ordering Miller either to create wedding cakes for same-sex duos or be barred from serving anyone.

"But Lampe recognized that the issue is not about discrimination against same-sex couples.

“ 'The state is not petitioning the court to order defendants to sell a cake. The state asks this court to compel Miller to use her talents to design and create a cake she has not yet conceived with the knowledge that her work will be displayed in celebration of a marital union her religion forbids. For this court to force such compliance would do violence to the essentials of Free Speech guaranteed under the First Amendment,” he wrote.

"The same issue is before the U.S. Supreme Court in a case brought by Colorado against Masterpiece Cakeshop baker Jack Phillips, who refused to make a wedding cake for two homosexuals at a time when same-sex marriage was illegal in the state.

"The Supreme Court is expected to announce a verdict within the next few months." . . .

Some Activists Want to Turn ‘LGBT’ Into ‘LGBTQQICAPF2K+’ for Inclusion

"Adding ‘kink’ renders it meaningless."

National Review  "According to an article in The Gay UK, some people want to use “LGBTQQICAPF2K+” instead of “LGBT” — adding a “K” to represent “kink.” 

“There is now a K to add to the ever-growing LGBT+ acronym – and apparently, it stands for ‘kink,’” states the piece, which defines all of the letters in “LGBTQQICAPF2K+” in the following way: 

L – lesbian
G   gay 
B – bisexual 
T – transgender 
Q – queer Q – questioning 
I – intersex 
C – curious 
A – asexual 
A – agender
A – ally
P – pansexual
F – friends and family 
2 – two-spirit 
K – kink 
. . .

This is the left - Democrat voters- in America. Why would anyone want these people to govern our nation?

Jemele Hill: Trump’s Defense of National Anthem Is “Racial Pornography”…

"Hill goes on to claim protesting the national anthem is the “most patriotic thing that you could do.' ”

Thomas Lifson: #BLM protestors shut down light rail line in Minneapolis to protest a game in which black millionaires predominate

. . . "Think Progress reports:

The protesters explained their rationale in a statement:

Activists are using this moment to stand with athletes who have protested throughout the past two football seasons calling attention to the murder of Black people by police and to the City of Minneapolis’ banning city residents from using public transit without a Super Bowl ticket.

Dems go despicable as the Russia Collusion plot to impeach Trump explodes in their faces  Video    . . . "Note that Deutsch lately has taken to using dehumanizing language to describe Republicans, calling them “cockroaches” – creatures that ought to be exterminated. It echoes the slogan of the Symbionese Liberation Army: “Death to the fascist insect.' ” . . .

Yet Again Clinton Blames Election Loss On Misogyny And Sexism…
Another video. Will she never tire?  Then at the same session, she spreads more blame:  Hillary Clinton Says Global Warming Is Sexist, “Women Will Bear The Brunt Of The Burdens Of Climate Change…  
"I’m shocked this woman wasn’t elected president… no, not really."

Kaepernick raises $20K in celebrity donations for group honoring convicted cop-killer    "Assata’s Daughters named for FBI most-wanted terrorist Assata Shakur"

Students hate Trump SOTU quotes, but they're Obama’s  . . . "Campus Reform headed to John Jay College in NYC to talk to students who disapproved of the speech by asking them to react to a few select quotations. Almost unanimously, the students found each of the quotes to be “warmongering”, “aggressive,” and “immature.”

"What the students didn’t know was that all the quotes given to them were taken from President Obama’s State of the Union addresses.  ' . . .

Democratic Congressman Claims Anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan Is An ‘Outstanding Human Being’  "Democratic Illinois Rep. Danny Davis defended Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as an “outstanding human being” on Monday.

"Farrakhan is known for embracing radically anti-Semitic and anti-white views, as even the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center has acknowledged. Farrakhan’s history of racially extreme comments includes blaming Jews for the September 11 attacks, saying white people “deserve to die” and praising Adolf Hitler as a “very great man.' ” . . .

The photo that never saw the light of day: Obama 
with Farrakhan in 2005

Obama wasn't the only Democrat liking Farrakhan:

Elected Democrats Show Up On Stage At Nation Of Islam Convention

. . . "Farrakhan said in his speech on Sunday. “But I am here to announce today the end of his world and the beginning of a brand new reality that all human beings will enjoy peace, freedom justice and equality under the rule of Allah.”"Farrakhan also said, “I want to disabuse the Jews today of the false claim that you are the chosen of God — that Israel or Palestine belongs to you.”"Farrakhan has a long history of spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories." . . .

This should be enough for today. The Tunnel Dweller

The FISA-Gate Boomerangs

Victor Davis Hanson

"Many questions remain, but Democrats, including Obama, are probably not going to look good when we get the answers."

 "Some things still do not add up about the so-called Steele dossier, FISA warrants, the Nunes memo, and the hysterical Democratic reaction to it. 

A Big Deal or a Nothing Deal? 

1) Progressives and Democrats warned on the eve of the memo’s release that it would cause havoc throughout the intelligence agencies, by exposing classified means and processes. 

"When no serious intelligence expert claimed that the released memo had done such damage, the official response to the memo was suddenly recalibrated by progressives. It went from being radioactive to a “nothingburger.”

" The obvious conclusion is cynical: Cry Armageddon to prevent its release, then, after the release, resort to yawns to downplay its significance. An even more cynical interpretation is that Rod Rosenstein, James Comey, and other officials stridently objected to the release of the memo because they are named in it. Comey incoherently mocked the memo’s purported unimportance even while listing all its deleterious effects and the crises that would ensue.
. . . 

"What seems clear is that the present hysteria about the Trump administration was already deeply seeded in the federal government throughout the 2016 campaign and the 2016–17 transition. A number of powerful Obama officials thought they had both moral right and the administrative means to nullify Trump. And they were not shy in breaking the law to exercise them."

The Usual Idiots that Gave Us the FISA Mess

Adan Avelar

Christopher Chantrill  "Okay, so now the Nunes FISA Memo is out and it shows that the Justice Department and the FBI were used to wiretap the Trump campaign on behalf of the Democratic Party.

"I doubt that this game of using the FBI and the DOJ and the FISA court to assist the Democratic Party in its vital national work of spying on the opposition started with the 2016 election and the Trump campaign. I’ll bet you a nickel that “they” have been doing this for a while. That’s because the facts as they have come out do not suggest at all that the opposition surveillance team was doing it for the first time, or worrying that “we could do this, but it would be wrong.' " . . .

. . . 

"We know this about the Obama political operation: that, going back to Obama’s senate campaigns, Obama’s operation has used illegal methods to dig up dirt on the opposing candidate and win elections. They made their bones getting information about the opposing candidates’ sealed divorce records. Somehow the campaign used its local “deep state” contacts to unseal sealed and confidential court records. Hey, why stop now?

"A campaign with people willing to break the letter and the spirit of the law will inevitably staff its administration with similar folk.

"And then Shakespeare kicks in with “oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” That’s what happens when you have an administration headed by an idiot who got there by cheating. Once you start cheating you find that you can’t stop.

"I am coming to believe that the best way to understand politics and war is to assume that the principals are idiots. Let’s apply the principle to U.S. presidents since World War II." . . .

Chantrill then gives his assessment of each president from Truman to Obama and why he grades them thus. It appears he consider the jury still out on President Trump, once referred to in 2012 by Britt Hume as "zany".

Truman and Eisenhower: not idiots. . . . Lyndon Johnson: idiot.  . . .Richard Nixon: half idiot. . . . Jimmy Carter: idiot.  . . .Ronald Reagan: not idiot. . . . George H.W. Bush: idiot. . . . Bill Clinton: half idiot. . . . George W. Bush: idiot. . . .*Barack Obama: idiot. . . . 

* Blames Bush for the housing bubble, but I contend it was Barney Frank and liberals who forced foolish home loans on people who could not measure up financially. President Bush warned Frank but the Democrats blew him off and continued the policy until the market blew up. TD 

The Nunes Memo and the Death of American Journalism

"Remember when reporters spent their time digging for answers rather than advancing their favored political narratives?"

The American Conservative

"Charlie Savage is a clever guy. The New York Times reporter managed to get a full-fledged editorial into the news section of his paper when the controversial Nunes memo was released on Friday. He did it through a journalistic device that is likely to be more widely used in the future as standards of objectivity and fairness continue to wither: an “annotated” version of the original document.

"The memo, three and a half pages long and compiled by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, documents what the Wall Street Journal calls “disturbing facts about how the FBI and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court appear to have been used to influence the 2016 election and its aftermath.” The Journal adds, “You don’t have to be a civil libertarian to be shocked by the details.”

"Savage clearly isn’t shocked. But he shouldn’t be, at least not outwardly—not in his reporting on the document. His job is to be dispassionate. On the other hand, neither should he reveal his own stark bias through deft selections on what precisely he wishes to annotate and how he wishes to do so.

"Charlie Savage is not alone. The country’s liberal establishment has joined ranks in dismissing the memo. It has attacked its veracity, portraying it as a conscious effort to mislead the American people on FBI and Justice Department efforts to get a surveillance order on a U.S. citizen connected to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. This intense spin was on full display even before the memo was released, and then reached full flower afterward." 

"This was not surprising. The hysteria reflects a recent development in American politics whereby disturbing facts and suspicions, if they contradict the embraced narrative, are simply ignored or dismissed as combatants hammer away from their usual scripts. This isn’t confined to liberals; you can see it at a high pitch every night on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program.". . .

Emphasis mine, TD

Texts and emails pave the road to oblivion

Rich Terrell

Hillary Clinton unconsciously satirizes herself in Georgetown speech

Thomas Lifson   "The joke is on Hillary, perhaps the least self-aware person ever to be a major party presidential candidate (with the possible exception of John Kerry). Kathryn Blackhurst reports for Lifezette:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton predicted Monday during a human rights event at Georgetown University that climate change will force women to “bear the brunt of looking for the food, looking for the firewood, looking for the place to migrate to …”

Such migration won’t be led by men, she maintained, but rather by women “when all of the grass is finally gone as the desertification moves south and you have to keep moving your livestock or your crops are no longer growing.”

"For a former secretary of state, she is amazingly out of touch with the demographic makeup of the wave of refugees that has overwhelmed Europe: overwhelmingly males, most of military service age. But hey, she's never let facts get in the way of her demagoguery before.

"Obviously, she’s never heard the old joke about newspaper headlines on the day the world ends.

God decided He was finally fed up with the human race and decided to end it for good. He called up a reporter at the New York Times to tell him the news: The world would end the day after tomorrow.

The reporter tried to talk God out of it, but God was firm and wouldn't be swayed. The reporter then asked if he had an exclusive. God said that He was going to call three other newspapers.

Headlines the next day:

The New York Times: "God says world to end tomorrow; story and analysis on page B11."

The Wall Street Journal: "God says world to end tomorrow; market to close early"

USA Today: "IT'S OVER!"

The Washington Post: "God says world to end tomorrow; women and minorities hardest hit."

"But the biggest joke of all is the name of the ceremony at which she delivered her craziness:

...the annual Hillary Rodham Clinton awards ceremony hosted by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security in Washington, D.C.

 Hillary Clinton Desperately Tries to Distract From FISA Memo Media Firestorm – Fails Miserably
Lucianne asks, "How long, oh, Lord how long,will Hillary be with us?"

US Backlash