Sharyl Attkison:
The following is a news media analysis and commentary
Regardless of who is your chosen – or least favorite – presidential candidate, independent minds should be concerned about the latest revelations in the news media’s unseemly relationships with government and political actors. While there are many responsible journalists working today, inside documents and leaks have exposed serious lapses constituting the most far-reaching scandal our industry has known. It’s our very own Newsgate.
Compromised reporting has always existed as a result of covert collaborations between reporters and political officials—Democrats and Republicans alike. For example, in my new book out next year, The Smear, I’ll report on instances of improper collusion that surfaced during the Bush administration. The most recent available evidence is heavy on Democrat-ties due to the nature of the available documents and leaks.
It can be argued that some individual accounts can be rationalized and are not serious breaches of ethics. But taken as a whole, it’s easy to see how we as journalists have done a poor job protecting ourselves from being co-opted by organized interests, often ones that are paid and politically-motivated. Whether we realize it or not, they’ve figured out how to exploit the media and use us to publish their propaganda. It implies a broad and growing trend that has seriously undermined the credibility of the news industry.
Opinion reporters and those who work for obviously ideological news groups are entitled to publish party propaganda. It’s one matter to provide viewpoint journalism. But it’s quite another for us to act as a tool of any interest, publishing narratives or talking points upon suggestion or demand, without disclosing we’ve done just that.You can click on the link above to read the rest of it, but what she reveals, when brought together like she has done, reveals a conspiracy that makes Watergate look almost innocent. Consider the Media outlets involved: Associated Press, The Atlantic, CNBC, CNN, Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, New York Times, Politico, Salon, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post. And this is what we KNOW. This conspiracy could be broader, if you can imagine that.
For the sake of honesty, Fox News has been accused of carrying the Republican's water for some time, and it is a reasonable accusation. But that doesn't make bias right, nor does it justify the MSM serving as a propaganda tool for the Democrats in general, and Hillary Clinton in particular.
On a personal note to my readers: If I perform any service here, it is to cut through the bias. Truth is the name of this blog, as well as its goal. If I fail in that, feel free to call me on it. I am not above criticism. While I try to leave my own personal biases at the door, I don't always succeed, so I do try to remain open-minded to my own failures.
But enough about me...
If you want to understand the danger of Newsgate, consider the groper allegations against Donald Trump from last week's October surprise:
Gateway Pundit:
While the link above has the full story of the debunking, there is a valid point inside:
The Democrat-media complex carpet bombed Donald Trump with several alleged groping stories this week from several women.
The media clearly did not fact check these stories. They ran the stories no matter how farfetched they were. It is clear from the number of stories dropped in the last week that this was a coordinated effort, probably from inside the Hillary Clinton campaign. The goal was not to present facts to the public. Their goal was to destroy Donald Trump.This is also known as "sloppy reporting". When an editor has no bias, they will typically send a reporter back to get more details to support a story, or to verify the facts in the story. "He said/she said" stories are for tabloids, not MSM. At least they weren't before. Thanks to Newsgate, anything goes.
As I said last week when the groper allegations first hit, the fact they were all coming out at once was the "tell" (to use poker terminology). This was a coordinated effort, not some innocent women who got molested/raped/etc. Frankly, Trump's "locker room" tape was telling: Trump has never had trouble getting any woman he wanted. Why would he bother molesting unwilling women? He wouldn't.
Sure, Trump is rich and conceited. But that doesn't make him a molester.
In other Hillary news analysis...
The Hill:
Hillary Clinton seems to have a problem with religious liberty when it conflicts with her progressive goals.
During an April 2015 speech to the Women in the World Conference she said, “Deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” for the sake of giving women access to “reproductive health care and safe childbirth.”
Translated, that means that Clinton, who believes that reproductive rights are a “fundamental human right”, would, through repeal of the Hyde Amendment, force all taxpayers to fund all abortions, even partial birth, that is, “day of birth” abortions regardless of our religious convictions.
Clinton is also willing to impose federal penalties, including denying tax-exempt status, in order to, as Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “stamp out every vestige of dissent” to a far-left agenda.
There is a deliberate and comprehensive anti-Christian plan being promoted by Hillary Clinton and funded by George Soros because they believe that Christian principles are an impediment to the implementation of their progressive policies.
In her now infamous “basket of deplorables” speech at a September 9th New York City Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) fundraiser, Clinton said, “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic - you name it.”
The phrasing was no accident. Those “grossly generalistic” accusations are the basis of every leftist diatribe meant to demonize any individual or group that stands in opposition to their extremist policies.Please read the rest of the news analysis, which makes an intriguing argument about how Clinton and Soros are trying to push their Leftist agenda. Considering how far Clinton has been willing to go to push her agenda, not even God Himself is safe from her.
Snark aside, Christianity does have its "-ist" elements, subgroups who take the worst elements of the Bible and elevate them far beyond what Christ himself ever said or intended. However, that doesn't mean the good elements of Christianity should get pushed aside so the secular Leftists should get what they want.
For example, there will come a day when technology allows a fetus to be viable from day 1. When that happens, all the arguments about abortion go away (except possibly danger to the mother's life, although that one will probably be statistically insignificant), and abortion will be recognized for the human genocide that it is. When you hear the Leftists promoting their "social justice warrior" credibility, remind them of how they also promote the deaths of millions of innocents. One doesn't justify the other.
In yet more Hillary news...
Fox News:
FBI interview summaries and notes, provided late Friday to the House Government Oversight and Intelligence Committees, contain allegations of a "quid pro quo" between a senior State Department executive and FBI agents during the Hillary Clinton email investigation, two congressional sources told Fox News.
"This is a flashing red light of potential criminality," Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who has been briefed on the FBI interviews, told Fox News.
He said "there was an alleged quid pro quo” involving Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy and the FBI “over at least one classified email.”
As Fox News previously reported, interviews released earlier this month, known as 302s, reveal the serious allegation that Kennedy applied pressure to subordinates to change classified email codes so they would be shielded from Congress and the public. Fox News was told as far back as August 2015 that Kennedy was running interference on Capitol Hill. But Kennedy, in his FBI interview on Dec. 21, 2015, “categorically rejected” allegations of classified code tampering.There are several factors that make this believable.
First, Hillary Clinton has shown a pattern of criminal behavior in the past which is consistent with encouraging something like this to happen.
Second, in their political zeal, Democrats have no qualms about breaking laws in order to further their political ends. We saw that not only in Hillary's email scandal, but also in the IRS's Tea Party scandal.
Having said that, it doesn't mean the story is accurate. The wild card in it is Patrick Kennedy. Until you can prove he had motive, this story kind of lays there. He is a lifetime government bureaucrat/diplomat, who has been appointed to various positions by the last three presidents.
Finally, did you know the U.S. is currently at war in Somalia?
New York Times:
The Obama administration has intensified a clandestine war in Somalia over the past year, using Special Operations troops, airstrikes, private contractors and African allies in an escalating campaign against Islamist militants in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.
Hundreds of American troops now rotate through makeshift bases in Somalia, the largest military presence since the United States pulled out of the country after the “Black Hawk Down” battle in 1993.
The Somalia campaign, as it is described by American and African officials and international monitors of the Somali conflict, is partly designed to avoid repeating that debacle, which led to the deaths of 18 American soldiers. But it carries enormous risks — including more American casualties, botched airstrikes that kill civilians and the potential for the United States to be drawn even more deeply into a troubled country that so far has stymied all efforts to fix it.
The Somalia campaign is a blueprint for warfare that President Obama has embraced and will pass along to his successor. It is a model the United States now employs across the Middle East and North Africa — from Syria to Libya — despite the president’s stated aversion to American “boots on the ground” in the world’s war zones. This year alone, the United States has carried out airstrikes in seven countries and conducted Special Operations missions in many more.The only "clandestine" aspect of this war and others is how the MSM seems to ignore it, or only lightly covers it.
Consider this:
In its public announcements, the Pentagon sometimes characterizes the operations as “self-defense strikes,” though some analysts have said this rationale has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is only because American forces are now being deployed on the front lines in Somalia that they face imminent threats from the Shabab.These are American troops promoting some kind of agenda in a foreign country. As best I can tell, it looks like they are trying to kill terrorists. But considering they seem to keep finding more, this agenda looks like a failure. These guys haven't just been hiding in Somalia. These terrorists are new, encouraged by American incursions in Muslim nations.
We need a new plan, not the one developed by George W. Bush and evolved by Barack Obama, and currently advocated by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. But I guess we need to have a lot more American soldiers killed before the politically binary Americans will do anything different. Just keep honoring the soldiers as we send more of them to their pointless deaths.
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