Thursday, March 14 – Hour 3
Sen. Lyndsey Graham vows FISA hearings
Beto announces presidential bid and I play a funny mashup of it
Nick Sandmann announces $275 million lawsuit against CNN
Report: Jussie Smollett to Face Grand Jury over Hate Crime Hoax
This hoax had all the hallmarks of the standard and commonplace fake hate hoax we’ve become accustomed to. So on today’s show, I’ll again do the obligatory ‘at some point the media and public have to start being skeptical of these cases, right?’ segment.
On Saturday, Chicago police revealed that the focus of the investigation had “shifted.” CNN crime and justice reporter Shimon Prokupecz reported that authorities now believe that Smollett actually paid two men to fake the attack, both of whom were now cooperating with law enforcement.
According to law enforcement officials who spoke with TMZ, a grand jury will hear the case next week to examine its credibility. The police sources also provided details on why Smollett’s claims seemingly lacked credibility.
“The sources say there were red flags from the get-go,” TMZ reported. “Cops were extremely suspicious when Jussie took them out to the area where he said he was attacked and pointed to an obscure camera saying how happy he was that the attack was on video. Turns out the camera was pointing in the wrong direction. Cops thought it was weird he knew the location of that camera.”
Source: Report: Jussie Smollett to Face Grand Jury over Hate Crime Hoax
White Antifa Punks Used Racist Slurs While Attacking Hispanic Marines
Antifa is what they claim to oppose. They are violent, fascist bigots.
Both marines testified that Keenan, Massey, and approximately ten other people — men and women, some masked and some unmasked — then began attacking them with mace, punches, and kicks, and calling them “nazis” and “white supremacists.”
On the stand, Godinez said that he was “bewildered” by being called a white supremacist and immediately cried out, “I’m Mexican!” After that, as the attack continued, both men said that members of the group, including Keenan, repeatedly used ethnic slurs, including “spic” and “wetback,” against the marines. (There was no testimony that Massey used any such language).
Source: Marines describe violence, racial slurs used by Antifa mob in Philadelphia
Of course, media coverage of this is scant at best. John Sexton nails this point.
Why isn’t this story big news? So far as I can tell, CNN hasn’t devoted a single word to this story about actual violence by Antifa members since it happened nearly a month ago. I guess Don Lemon and Brooke Baldwin were too busy with other things. Domestic political violence was all-the-rage last month, now it’s just old hat.
To be clear, I don’t blame CNN for violence by Antifa goons, but I do think CNN’s hosts ought to be accountable for defending those goons long after it should have been clear they were violent bullies.
CNN’s Jim Acosta Says He Didn’t Touch White House Staffer, Video Proves Otherwise
I’m frankly surprised (though not really) that in the era of #MeToo we have CNN’s Jim Acosta saying he didn’t lay a hand on a White House staffer during a tense exchange with President Trump this week. Even more unsettling is that so many verified ‘journalist’s’ social media accounts are saying he never laid a hand on her.
Well this is not complicated. @PressSec has patently misrepresented what happened here. White House aide aggressively tries to take the mic from @Acosta and he never lays a hand on her. The truth still matters. https://t.co/MsWwlTGTd2
— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) November 8, 2018
Oh really?
Barbaro works for the New York Times by the way.
For Barbaro’s claim to be evaluated we need two things.
First, we need the dictionary definition of ‘palm.’
palm noun (2)
1 : the somewhat concave part of the human hand (emphasis mine) between the bases of the fingers and the wrist or the corresponding part of the forefoot of a lower mammal
So, according to the English language and basic biology, the palm is a part of the human hand. I know this was confusing for some of you. I’m glad to have cleared that up. After all, biology is not biology anymore.
Second, we need the video of the incident. The incident happens at 1:30 of the video.
I shared the direct video from C-SPAN’s own YouTube channel because there’s a conspiracy theory that this video is doctored, or that a third party has made the video more ‘violent’ than it actually was. C-SPAN has not altered any video of the event that I’m aware of. So their video is not in dispute.
Let’s look at Jim Acosta’s Judo chop (Karate chop, knife hand strike, hurray pop culture reference) to the woman’s arm in a loop:
You can clearly see Acosta Judo chop her arm with his palm. We’ve already established that the palm is a part of the human hand. Therefore, Acosta laid a hand on this woman and used some force in doing so. Something the video clearly shows. It’s undeniable. Yet, is being shamefully denied by members of the media. One might call that denial FAKE NEWS!
Barbaro actually shared a link with the video that proved his claim wrong for crying out loud.
Remember when Trump aide Corey Lewindowski was charged with ‘unwanted touching’ for grabbing reporter Michelle Fields? Remember how she lied about what happened and the media crucified him? She wasn’t injured either and he used similar force to Acosta.
Wouldn’t this qualify for ‘unwanted touching?’
Shouldn’t the media come down on Acosta like they did Lewindowski? Acosta violated the rules, refused to give up the microphone, rebuffed several passive attempts she made to get the microphone back, and finally, Judo chopped her arm when she attempted to forcefully get the mic from someone refusing to obey the rules. She was just doing her job and he, in fact, laid a hand on her.
‘Vox’Gets Caught Colluding With Communist China To Influence American Elections
For the record, none of this is new information. We’ve known major US media outlets publish Chinese propaganda for years. Their hypocrisy on the subject of election influence by foreign powers is absolutely hysterical though.
Explanatory media website Vox has been receiving money from a Chinese communist government-backed front organization.
A recent Vox blog post by foreign editor Yochi Dreazen titled, “The big winner of the Trump-Kim summit? China” discloses at the bottom of the piece that the reporting was subsidized by the China-United States Exchange Foundation.
“This reporting was supported by the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), a privately funded nonprofit organization based in Hong Kong that is dedicated to ‘facilitating open and constructive exchange among policy-makers, business leaders, academics, think-tanks, cultural figures, and educators from the United States and China,’” the post states in a note at the bottom.
CUSEF, as first noted by Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, is a front organization backed by the Chinese government and established to spread the party’s propaganda.
A publication that screeches about Trump/Russia collusion and Russian meddling in our elections via Facebook ads should probably steer clear of doing what they decry. Vox, however, like the Washington Post, doesn’t seem to care if they do it.
Vox’s ties to CUSEF are receiving increased scrutiny in light of efforts to lawmakers to counter China’s promotion of propaganda in the U.S. media.
The Chinese government doesn’t just pay to have their propaganda published in American media, but they fund a LOT of that Washington DC think tank data the American media publishes to sway American public opinion.
Chinese Communist Party Funds Washington Think Tanks
The influence operations are conducted by the United Front Work Department, a Central Committee organ that employs tens of thousands of operatives who seek to use both overt and covert operations to promote Communist Party policies.
The Party’s United Front strategy includes paying several Washington think tanks with the goal influencing their actions and adopting positions that support Beijing’s policies.
“The [Chinese Communist Party] has sought to influence academic discourse on China and in certain instances has infringed upon—and potentially criminally violated—rights to freedoms of speech and association that are guaranteed to Americans and those protected by U.S. laws,” the report says.
All bought and paid for by the Chinese government.
Official Chinese Propaganda: Now Online from the WaPo!
As I never tire of saying, China Daily is my favorite newspaper in the world.
But it’s conceivable that not every visitor to the Washington Post’s web site would know the reason for my fondness and loyalty. China Daily is the state-controlled English-language voice of the Chinese government to the outside world. Sometimes this makes it a useful source of intel about the line the government wants to push.
WASHINGTON POST CRITICAL OF CHINESE INFLUENCE CAMPAIGN WHILE SPREADING CHINESE PROPAGANDA
The Washington Post has written two pieces in the past week drawing attention to the dangers of China’s foreign influence campaign, yet the newspaper appears to be complicit in advancing Chinese interests.
“The foreign influence campaign is part and parcel of China’s larger campaign for global power,” a Post opinion writer wrote Sunday, “Beijing’s strategy is first to cut off critical discussion of China’s government, then to co-opt American influencers in order to promote China’s narrative.”
“By influencing the influencers, China gets Americans to carry its message to other Americans,” the editorial explained, citing Glenn Tiffert, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.
The Washington Post, an unquestionably influential publication, regularly features Chinese propaganda. The Post’s China Watch insert is written and paid for by the state-run China Daily. While the prominent newspaper acknowledges that China Watch is an “advertising supplement” prepared by the Communist Party’s English-language mouthpiece and the People’s Republic of China in its print edition, the China Watch website lacks any clear indication that the information is of Chinese origin.
Democracy Dies in Communism: Washington Post runs Chinese propaganda
Under the proud motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” the Washington Post’s editors have run a Communist authoritarian defending his party’s attack on democracy and subjugation of the state to the Communist Party.
On Monday, the Post published Chinese venture capitalist, Eric X. Li’s endorsement of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent eradication of term limits for his office.
And by goodness is it an endorsement.
Chinese propaganda in The Post
It’s distressing to see The Post become a channel for state propaganda from the People’s Republic of China. Yet that’s what’s happening with the lengthy advertorials from the China Daily that are distributed with your newspaper.
The Sept. 30 “Chinawatch” insert was especially objectionable. Four of the six pages were filled with happy, seemingly fact-filled reports about the latest developments with Taiwan, all masquerading as “news.” But they were missing crucial context for understanding the fraught relations across the Taiwan Strait. There was no mention of controversies within democratic Taiwan about the new policies and their effects, nor any observations contrary to China’s deceptive strategies. All was harmony and light.
The Chinese government is spending generously worldwide to promote its view. But your accepting its advertising dollars is no mere commercial transaction. These “news reports” are from a state-controlled arm of the Chinese propaganda establishment.
Trump is right that China uses its media to influence foreign opinion, but so does Washington
Hong Kong (CNN)US President Donald Trump went off topic in characteristic style at the United Nations Security Council this week, accusing China of using state media to meddle in the upcoming midterm elections.
While he provided no evidence for his remarks, which derailed a meeting that was supposed to focus on issues of nonproliferation, he later accused China on Twitter of “placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news.”
Gotta love CNN’s ‘he provided no evidence’ comment considering everyone knows the Chinese government does this and it’s been widely reported for at least a decade.