All The (Fake) News Fit To Print — Here Are The Year’s Worst Cases Of Journalistic Malpractice

Hat tip: Weasel Zip

Daily Caller

"As 2018 comes to a close, it’s time to review the year’s worst cases of media misquotes, misleading narratives, major corrections and straight-up fake news.

"While last year’s fake reporting largely occurred during the media’s relentless pursuit to prove Russian collusion, this year’s list is much more varied. However, some themes emerged: stories about then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the U.S. border were routinely flagged for misinformation.

"Without further ado, here is the list of 2018’s worst examples of fake news:" . . .

Related: About Face... Spin!  By Clarice Feldman

"It’s always amusing to watch the pundits and spinners turn on a dime. It used to be harder before the internet made it easy to retrieve what they said in the past. This week, with a tsunami of developments, the spinning is at full force.

Spinning

"Let’s start with the spinning of the news and how media poisons the well in favor of their loved ones.

"A. In 2014 CNN honored a Der Spiegel writer, Claus Relotius as “Journalist of the Year”. He could be reliably counted on to flatter the readers' anti-American biases, so he was a natural winner for the network. Unfortunately for him, he ran up against some Americans in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, who cared about the truth. They scoured his report on the town, interviewed the people he said he had and exposed him as an utter fraud. That persuaded his bosses to take a second look at the nonsense he had been peddling and they fired him for fabricating his accounts." . . .

Heathen Michael Moore Mocks Christmas – Puts Ruth Bader Ginsburg Doll as Tree Topper

Jim Hoft
"With each passing year the American left escalates their attacks our the country’s Christian roots and symbols."

"Socialist Michael Moore posted photos of his Christmas tree this year with a Ruth Bader Ginsburg doll on top.

Moore wrote: “My Christmas Tree Topper this year. Better than an angel or the star over Bethlehem. A nation of millions stand with you…”

From the comments to this post:

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  Mike Morgan •

  
  

  Ruth is about to meet God. So are all of us. In terms of eternity, 70, 80, 90, or even 120 years is a blink of the eyes.We all need to be ready. If you don't already know who Jesus Christ is and why He showed up in Bethlehem, why we celebrate His life, and why we look forward to His return, ask a Christian.And read the Bible. It's all about Him and His great love for us, as imperfect as we are.

Did the Media Care When Obama Fired General Mattis?

One contrast between the last two presidents vis-a-vis General Mattis: all the years we watched ISIS conquer the region, Obama micromanaged the war there, going so far as to approve or disapprove specific targets - sometimes for environmental impact reasons. President Trump let the General be in charge and this area is being cleansed of ISIS; sadly too late for so many victims. TD

Daniel John Sobieski  "Defense secretaries come and go.  President Obama had four of them in eight years, who had some unkind things to say about his leadership or lack of it.  There was no talk of chaos or of the only adult in the room leaving.

"Suddenly, the media are in a meltdown after "Mad Dog" Mattis announced his departure from the Cabinet after President Trump announced our departure from Syria:

Foreign Policy Pentagon reporter Lara Seligman wrote the press corp [sic] is contemplating suicide over Mattis' resignation, "I think I speak for all national security reporters tonight when I say I'm about ready to jump off a cliff. But at least I already wrote the "who will replace Mattis" story two months (only two months?????) ago[."]

"Democrats who won't defend our southern border and who slept as Obama drew red lines with vanishing ink worry about an ISIS Obama created by a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq regaining strength and reforming in Syria and Iraq.  The general Obama fired is suddenly a man of principle whose leadership was indispensable:

House Speaker-designate Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she was "shaken and "concerned". "General Mattis was a comfort to many who were concerned about the path the Trump Admin would choose to take. His resignation letter is defined by statements of principle – principles that drove him to leave the Administration. All of us should be concerned at this time."

"There was no such concern when Obama relieved Mattis as commander of CENTCOM without so much as a phone call, a factoid typical of Obama's disdain for the military, its missions, and its heroes.

Where was the DC establishment ‘panic’ when OBAMA fired Gen. Mattis without even calling him?

These people don’t have any credibility a) because they’ve never had any respect or love for the president; and b) they didn’t whimper and whine and predict doom and gloom when President Obama unceremoniously fired then-Gen. Mattis without so much as a phone call.

 Flashback: Media Silence After Obama Fires General Mattis Without Even a Call  (Originally posted to The Gateway Pundit by Jim Hoft)
. . . "Foreign Policy Pentagon reporter Lara Seligman wrote the press corp is contemplating suicide over Mattis’ resignation, “I think I speak for all national security reporters tonight when I say I’m about ready to jump off a cliff. But at least I already wrote the “who will replace Mattis” story two months (only two months?????) ago @ForeignPolicy' “ . . .

Of course, this same cabal said next to nothing when Barack Obama FIRED GENERAL MATTIS in 2013.

"Obama didn’t even call Mattis!" . . .

Having posted all this, I must admit to trusting General Mattis regarding the Syria pullout. Who is the counsel advising the president on this and can we trust them more than General Mattis?

Anti-Trump dossier author was hired to help Hillary challenge 2016 election results

Washington Times

"British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who wrote the Democrat-financed anti-Trump dossier, said in a court case that he was hired by a Democratic law firm in preparation for Hillary Clinton challenging the results of the 2016 presidential election.

"He said the law firm Perkins Coie wanted to be in a position to contest the results based on evidence he unearthed on the Trump campaign conspiring with Moscow on election interference.

"His scenario is contained in a sealed Aug. 2 declaration in a defamation law suit brought by three Russian bankers in London. The trio’s American attorneys filed his answers Tuesday in a libel lawsuit in Washington against the investigative firm Fusion GPS, which handled the former British intelligence officer." . . .

That failing......

H.R. 695: Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019

Govtrack  

Publius

"This bill is the vehicle for passage for government funding to avert a partial government shutdown on Friday, December 21, 2018. On December 19, the Senate passed this bill with provisions to fund the government through February 8, 2019. Subsequently, on December 20, the House added $5 billion in funding for a border wall, sending the bill back to the Senate.

"Although most government agencies were already funded for fiscal year 2019, this bill would fund the remaining agencies for about seven weeks. According to the Senate appropriations committee, the bill would fund for that time:

• USDA, FDA
• Departments of Commerce, Justice, Homeland Security, Interior, Environment, State, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development
• Programs related to science, financial services, and other agencies
• The National Flood Insurance Program
• The Violence Against Women Act
• The Pesticide Registration Improvement Act
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
• Immigration extensions (EB-5, E-Verify, Conrad 30 program for international medical school graduates, Special Immigrant Religious Workers program, and H2B returning worker authority for DHS)
• The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Act
• Two expiring provisions of the Pandemic All-Hazards Preparedness Act
• Medicaid Money-Follows-the-Person and Spousal Impoverishment, through March 31

Retired Marine speaks out in support of Maj. Matt Golsteyn, charged in Afghanistan killing: 'He is not a murderer!'

NY Daily News

Mike Ramirez

"A retired U.S. Marine who worked with former Green Beret Mathew Golsteyn — who’s charged with murdering a suspected Afghan bomb maker — recalls the once-decorated hero as extremely respectful and unlikely to slay in cold blood.

"Emir Hadzic‏, a retired infantry gunnery sergeant who has served in Afghanistan and Iraq, worked briefly with Golsteyn at the 29 Palms training camp in the Mojave Desert in California.

“ 'He chose to take time away from his family to train my Marines in Unconventional Warfare, in prep for our Afghan deployment,” Hadzic tweeted in a message of support Sunday. “His love for fellow servicemen and tremendous respect for Afghans was crystal clear. He is not a murderer!”

"Hadzic told the New York Daily News on Monday what it’s like to serve in Afghanistan — including what could have happened if the alleged bomb maker was let go. He said a murder charge does not make sense, even if Golsteyn did kill the man, as he has admitted.

“ 'If he violated anything, it would be rules of engagement,” Hadzic said. “I think that he knew that this person that he killed was a bad actor.' ” . . .

The shutdown is as fake as most of the news Official Washington reports.

Don Surber

. . . "But everyone knows that is BS. Some government offices will close, some government employees will stay home, and Congress will make sure they get back pay. Anywhere else that is called a vacation.
"This means the Post's precious advertisers will stay in business.
"The shutdown is as fake as most of the news Official Washington reports.
"President Trump's plan is simple. Shut the government down when the holidays have closed the offices anyway. Only 6 of the first 15 days of the shutdown are workdays.
"Besides, not much of the government gets shut down.
"NPR reported, "Three-quarters of the government will not be affected, because budget bills funding those operations had already been approved. But the remaining 25 percent subject to the shutdown includes Homeland Security, Justice, Commerce, Interior, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation departments.
" 'Even among those affected, some personnel are deemed essential and will be expected to report to work without pay, for now. That includes FBI officers, Border Patrol agents and Transportation Security Administration agents — during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. In the past, however, Congress has approved back pay for furloughed federal workers.' " . . .

US government shutdown appears set to continue until Thursday as fight over Trump's border wall stalls spending talks

CNBC

• Parts of the U.S. government shut down early Saturday as Congress missed a deadline to pass spending bills.
• A disagreement over whether to fund President Donald Trump's border wall stalled efforts to keep the government running.
• Lawmakers will try to come to an agreement to reopen the government over the weekend.

A senior Trump administration official offered no signs of compromise. He told reporters on Saturday, "We continue to articulate our expectations of $5 billion for border security and physical barriers."  A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said his boss would be meeting with Vice President Mike Pence. He said Schumer "intends to remind the Vice President that any proposal with funding for the wall cannot pass the Senate."

"President Donald Trump threatened a government shutdown for weeks. He got one when the clock turned to Saturday.

"Congress missed a Friday midnight deadline to fund nine departments, or about a quarter of the government, and the Senate adjourned for Christmas without voting on a deal to bridge the impasse. Parts of the government closed after lawmakers failed to strike an agreement on seven spending bills.

"Lawmakers failed to reach a funding agreement as Trump demanded $5 billion for his proposed wall along the border with Mexico. Democrats refused. Then House Republicans dug in, declining to pass a bill to keep the government running into February after the president threatened to veto it Thursday.

"Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning, threatening a "long stay" if he does not get the "Border Security" he's demanding." . . .

Feds spend more in food stamps in ONE month than POTUS wants for entire YEAR of wall funding

. . . “In October, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement, the federal government spent $5,892,000,000 on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is also known as the food stamp program,” Bannister writes.“In November, according to the statement for that month, the federal government spent another $5,428,000,000 on the food stamp program, bringing the total so far for fiscal 2019 (after only two months) to $11,320,000,000—or an average of $5,660,000,000 per month,” he added. . . .

When Democrats mention "green", hold onto your wallet. They want their power and your money

Daily Caller  "As they assume control of the House, Democrats are pushing a carbon tax as part of a “Green New Deal.” A carbon tax means new hard power for the federal government. It means more taxpayer money flowing to Washington. It means everything will cost more.

"This will turn off voters, and that’s why Democrats will pull out all the stops to get Republican fingerprints on a carbon tax in 2019. "Democrats will work with a compliant media to kick up a dust cloud labeled “bipartisanship” in the hopes voters won’t know who to blame.

All Republicans should steer clear.

"A carbon tax is both bad policy and bad politics. As a simultaneous tax and spending hike, carbon taxes raise the cost of living and hit lower-income workers and small businesses hard. They give the government more control over private decisions.

"It’s no wonder all but six House Republicans voted for a resolution noting a carbon tax is detrimental to the U.S. economy. "Only seven Democrats supported the resolution.

"There is a clear contrast between the two parties, and voters favor the Republican position." . . .

California transformed its justice system. But now crime is up, and critics want rollbacks

LA Times

Stolen objects are displayed while Capt. Lillian Carranza, second from left, commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department's Commercial Crimes Division, shares details about arrests made in connection with recent burglaries at the homes of celebrities.

"Over the last decade, California has led the nation in reducing its prison population.
"The state has shortened sentences and diverted some offenders to the counties for incarceration and supervision, transforming California’s criminal justice system into what supporters hope will become a humane model around the country.
"But amid the changes, crime has increased in recent years, sparking debate about the causes and giving ammunition to those leading a new effort to roll back some of the reforms. 
"An analysis by the Marshall Project and the Los Angeles Times found that California’s crime rates remain near historic lows, but overall crime spiked in both 2012 and 2015, the years that immediately followed two major statewide measures aimed at decreasing the number of people in prison. Those jumps were mainly driven by increases in property crimes, particularly thefts from motor vehicles.

The California Experiment  This is one of an occasional series examining the impact of recent justice measures aimed at reducing incarceration. It is a collaboration between the Los Angeles Times and the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news outlet.

"After decades of mirroring national downward trends in violent crime, California saw a 12% increase from 2014 to 2017, while the violent crime rate in the other 49 states together increased only 3%, the analysis showed. In 2014, California voters approved a ballot measure that reduced sentences for many low-level drug and property crimes."

. . . Three years later, California voters approved Proposition 47, which turned drug use and most theft convictions from felonies to misdemeanors. In 2016, voters overhauled the state parole system by backing Proposition 57, which gave thousands of inmates the chance to earn an earlier release from prison.The undeniable result of all these measures is that people are on the street today who would have been locked up in previous years.

. . .
Speaking of California voters:  Bienvenidos a Mexico: California's ballot-harvesting, sure enough, is borrowed from Mexico

Most congressional elections there showed Republican candidates in the lead on election night in the last midterm, but all of them flipped to Democrats as the Democrat-led ballot-harvesting brought in votes and votes and votes from supposed precincts, harvested by their political operatives, until the result went the other way.  

. . . 

When is a girl a boy?

During a saner time in our history, those so-called "parents" would have been charged with child abuse or tossed into a rubber room for psychiatric counseling.  When did the human race become so twisted in its reasoning?  And when did the logical members of society become so frightened that they won't dare stand up against this perversion of our culture?

American Thinker  "Every time I think I've heard the most outrageous example of cultural decline I can imagine, another one emerges to fracture any connection to commonsense reasoning.  The latest illustration of how distorted our educational institutions have become is the news that a West Point Virginia high school has fired a teacher because he refused to refer to a girl as a boy.  The girl, in this increasingly dysfunctional society, has decided "she" is a "he."  In the current vocabulary, which seems to be evolving into Twilight Zone territory, she is now a person of "transgender," the definition of which is "a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with his birth sex."

"Therefore, if you wake up one day and decide you're not what you were born as, you can simply force the rest of the world to be as frivolous in its thinking as you are in yours.  The West Point school district voted unanimously (which tells you how scared they are to be politically incorrect) to terminate Peter Vlaming, a veteran French teacher who is adored by his other students.  Accusing him of (here comes another bizarre addition to our vocabulary) "misgendering" a student, the board said he was creating a hostile environment by such "discrimination."  Incidentally, the teacher happens to be a devout Christian who feels that his religious rights are being violated.  Even if he were an atheist, he shouldn't be forced to reject thousands of years of historical precedent regarding the two sexes." . . .

From 2016: Overpriced University Tells Students To Use Fake “Gender Inclusive” Pronouns  . . . "The pronoun posters instruct students and professors to start introducing themselves with their “name and pronouns — even to familiar colleagues and students.”

"For example, the posters advise that you might say — maybe at a football game or a sorority mixer: “I’m Steve and I use he/him/his pronouns. What should I call you?”

It’s ok, the posters tell us, if you make a mistake the first time. All you have to do is apologize and promise to do better next time:

"For example, the posters advise that you might say — maybe at a football game or a sorority mixer: “I’m Steve and I use he/him/his pronouns. What should I call you?”

“ 'Thank you for reminding me,” Vanderbilt students are now supposed to say. “I apologize and will use the correct pronoun for you in the future.' ” . . .

The war on Christmas, and Thanksgiving, and Columbus Day, and...

Apolo Villalobos

Regardless, leftists are not going to be very successful in abolishing Thanksgiving Day.  Or Halloween.  Or Valentine's Day.  Or Christmas.  Or the National Anthem.  Not even in California. But they will try.  In the meantime, pass the gravy.

"Columbus Day has been attacked every year because Christopher Columbus supposedly personally carried out genocide, a complete fabrication by Marxists who are famous for falsifying history for ideological purposes.  For those students who are not obsessed with Columbus's "crimes," their ignorance of his achievement is cringe-worthy.  While Indigenous Peoples Day started innocently enough in 1989, leftists now want to put it in place of Columbus Day, thereby tarnishing both holidays.

"Halloween is becoming less and less fun as liberals either cry out "cultural appropriation!" or claim that certain ethnic costumes (Polynesian, Mexican, Arabic, Oriental, etc.) will put someone in a coma.  For some unstated reason, even the name "Halloween" is objected to in favor of ..."Orange and Black Day" (doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, now does it?).

"Valentine's Day is under attack in India and in Muslim countries and here as well from liberals.  Campus Reform had a mock petition for outlawing Valentine's Day that the mindless cattle – that is, the college students – signed.  Jamie Glazov gives a detailed analysis of the parallels between the pathological hatred of Muslims and leftists for Valentine's Day, a day of love." . . .