Kicking the Can: Today's News for May 1st

In an effort to promote objective news reporting here at TRUTH, I plan to show multiple news sources on the biggest news story of the day, regardless of whether they conflict. This should help to filter out subtle biases from the news writers and editors. Of course, it is up to you, the reader, to be responsible for the final determination.

Without further ado, our lede story today is about the new budget deal reached by Congress:

CNN:

Congressional negotiators reach deal on government funding through September

Bipartisan congressional negotiators reached a critical agreement late Sunday on a massive spending bill that if approved by the House and Senate would fund the government through the end of September, senior aides from both parties told CNN.

The plan would add billions for the Pentagon and border security but would not provide any money for President Donald Trump's promised border wall with Mexico,

Votes in both chambers are expected by the end of the week.  

That doesn't seem too biased, until you look at the Fox News story:

Fox News:

Spending bill language omits border wall funding, sanctuary cities crackdown

Republican and Democratic lawmakers forged a $1.07 trillion spending package that would fund the government through the end of September, but does not include some of President Trump’s cornerstone promises including funding for a border wall or funding cuts to sanctuary cities.

The proposed legislation has no funding for Trump’s oft-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but does set aside $1.5 billion for border security measures such as additional detention beds. It does give Trump a $12.5 billion down payment on his request to strengthen the military, a figure which could rise to $15 billion should Trump present Congress with a plan for fighting the Islamic State terror group. The proposed $15 billion amounts to half of Trump's original $30 billion request. 

In summary, for Left-leaning CNN, the big news story is the government is funded until the end of September. For Right-leaning Fox, the big news story is the rejection of President Trump's priorities.

Even more revealing: Each story's first quote is from Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, yet both use different quotes.

CNN:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement Sunday evening saying the agreement is consistent with his party's principles.

"This agreement is a good agreement for the American people, and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table," the New York Democrat said in a statement.

Fox:

With language about the border wall omitted, Democratic leaders praised the effort.

"The bill ensures taxpayer dollars aren't used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders, and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement.

In summary, the priority for the Left is the government won't be shut down, since the existence and functioning of government is the most important thing, regardless of who is in charge. The priority for the Right is their president won't be getting his priorities funded.

In other news...

CNN:

NYT subscribers dropping paper over climate column

A new columnist at The New York Times and his views on climate change have prompted some readers to cancel their subscriptions in protest.

In his first column for the Times, Bret Stephens said advocates for climate policy can take a lesson from Hillary Clinton's failed presidential campaign and her reliance on data to predict the election.

"We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude begets hubris," Stephens wrote. "Claiming total certainty about the science traduces the spirit of science and creates openings for doubt whenever a climate claim proves wrong."

The narrow-minded Left-leaning New York Times readers proceeded to prove Stephens' point:

New York Post:

Times columnist blasted by ‘nasty left’ for climate change piece

As a noted “never Trumper” and climate skeptic, he has seen his fair share of hate mail and Twitter trolls over the past year-and-a-half — but nothing like what he’s endured since his article was posted, he says.

“After 20 months of being harangued by bullying Trump supporters, I’m reminded that the nasty left is no different. Perhaps worse,” Stephens tweeted Friday afternoon, as the hateful messages kept rolling in.

“Go eat dog d—s,” fumed one Twitter user.

“When is the Times going to get rid of you?” another asked.

Stephens even managed to tick off fellow journalists.

“You’re a s–thead. a crybaby lil f–kin weenie. a massive twat too,” tweeted Libby Watson, staff writer at Gizmodo.

“I’m gonna lose my mind,” seethed Eve Peyser, politics writer at Vice.

“The ideas ppl like @BretStephensNYT espouse are violently hateful & should not be given a platform by @NYTimes,” she said.

In the column, Stephens never states that he believes climate change is a farce. He simply asserts that people should look at claims from both supporters and deniers, in the attempt to get all the facts.

“Anyone who has read the 2014 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change knows that, while the modest (0.85 degrees Celsius, or about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warming of the Northern Hemisphere since 1880 is indisputable, as is the human influence on that warming, much else that passes as accepted fact is really a matter of probabilities,” he writes.

Actually, the cause of the warming is very much in dispute, since the Earth has warmed by far greater amounts long before humans ever existed. It just isn't in dispute inside the Church of Anthropomorphic Climate Change. It is amazing that science can look at an ecosystem the size of the Earth and narrow down the cause of climate change to one species living there, when there are at least trillions of inputs affecting the temperature of the planet, most of which have nothing to do with that species, and not the least of which is one big hot star which "settled science" does agree actually warms the planet.

All that said, cancelling a subscription because you don't agree with an opinion piece in a newspaper is a time-honored means of protest. But is it also a means by which people try to avoid ideas they don't like, regardless of the TRUTH?