Watch the MSM go from "You're going to kill grandma" to "We must re-open schools - for the children"

When you're driving the narrative-mobile at 70mph and you suddenly hit reverse. https://t.co/avtuTSAIo1

— jon gabriel (@exjon) August 7, 2020

How the MSM became Joseph Goebbels

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Joseph Goebbels: On the "Big Lie"

The Press is Promoting Violence Against Conservatives

Robert Spencer is opposed to radical Islam.  For this he was poisoned.

Robert Spencer Poisoned After Giving Anti-Jihad Speech in Iceland

The political atmosphere in Iceland is poisonous if you are on the Right. It's an atmosphere created by the news media which enforces the dominant narrative. It's much like that in the U.S. where Conservatives are attacked by mobs who fear no push-back by either the media of local politicians and law enforcement.

After I spoke last Thursday in the beautiful nation of Iceland, a Leftist in Reykjavik poisoned me.

Perhaps I should have seen it coming. The international Left has rejected free speech, and has embraced violence as a suitable response to speech contradicting its narrative.

My visit triggered a firestorm of abuse in the Icelandic press, all of which was based on American Leftist talking points. Every story about my visit used the same elements. For example, that the Southern Poverty Law Center claims I purvey “hate speech,” which is a subjective judgment used to shut down dissent from the establishment line. Or the fact that I am banned from Britain, with no mention of the key detail: I was banned for saying that Islam has doctrines of violence. (Ironically, Britain has no problem allowing foreign Muslim dignitaries who happen to agree with me to enter.)

Of course, local media also pilloried me for the “crime” of supporting Israel.

Perhaps most absurd of all, Icelandic media published the false claim that I incited the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik to kill. (Sigh. In a world of logical thinking, I’m as responsible for Breivik as the Beatles are for Charles Manson.) After the event, one article even featured a large photo of Breivik, yet it quoted nary a thing I said that evening.

Not one Icelandic media outlet contacted me for comment, much less for rebuttal to the charges they made against me....

Of course, the Icelandic media gave the 50 protesters outside far more extensive and respectful coverage than was given to anything that happened inside. One station aired an interview with me in which the interviewer refused to believe that I did not feel responsible for the Breivik murders, asking me about them again and again. Articles after the event included quotes from the protesters, but none included even a single quotation or description of anything we had actually said.

Clearly, jihad is a subject that Icelandic politicians and opinion-makers do not want Icelanders to discuss.

And that’s all the more reason why it must be discussed.

After the event, my security chief, the organizers of the event, Ms. Williams, and I went to a local restaurant to celebrate its success. But I was quickly recognized: a young Icelander called me by name, shook my hand, and said he was a big fan. Shortly after that, another citizen of that famously courteous land likewise called me by my name, shook my hand, and said “f*** you.”

What likely happened is that this young man, or whoever drugged me, heard that a notorious “racist” was coming to Reykjavik, happened to see me in the bar, and decided to teach me a lesson with some of the drugs that are as plentiful in Reykjavik as they are anywhere else.

I learned my lesson. And the lesson I learned was that media demonization of those who dissent from the Leftist line is direct incitement to violence. By portraying me and others who raise legitimate questions about jihad terror and Sharia oppression as racist, bigoted “Islamophobes” without allowing us a fair hearing, they paint a huge target on the backs of those who dare to dissent.

Those who paint the targets, and those who shoot at them, think they’re doing something great. Not only does the Left fill those whom it brainwashes with hate, but it does so while portraying its enemies as the hatemongers, such that violent Leftists such as the young man who drugged me feel righteous as they victimize and brutalize for the crime of disagreement.

I have no doubt whatsoever that whoever poisoned me in Iceland went away feeling happy over what he had done. If he told anyone what he did, I’m sure he was hailed as a hero. I’m also aware that many who read this will crow and exult in knowing that someone who hates my opposition to jihad terror and Sharia oppression made me seriously ill. This is how degenerate and evil the Left has become.

The people who now run the media - the Gods of the the Culture -  are evil.

CORPORATE MEDIA RETREATS TO HOLLYWOOD AS NEW 'TRUTH' MEDIA DESTROYING FALSE NARRATIVES IN REAL TIME

Truth.  the MSM would not recognize it if it kneed them in the groin.

Mainstream corporate media outlets in America have been suffering from a slow bleeding loss of viewership for years. A critical mass of their audience is leaving in search for integrity and truth. The exodus away from news outlets who have traditionally lied by omission and purposely abused their viewers with a variety of manipulation techniques appears to be hitting a crescendo on many fronts....

Listening solely to mainstream media, the public would be made to believe that Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was the epitome of health. News outlets and independent sources that said otherwise were continually discredited. As Clinton continued to have numerous health episodes on camera, corporate media still attempted to cover for her by doctoring videos and gas lighting their audience in realtime. The new ‘truth’ media used the cavernous gap in mainstream coverage regarding Hillary’s true health issues to surge forward by simultaneously converging to expose the reality of the gravely ill candidate. ...

At the present moment, mainstream corporate media outlets appear to be left as placeholders while their dishonest spirit makes the jump to the false realities and fictional stories of Hollywood. After being exposed for her unfair coverage on the presidential campaign, Julien Assange and the murder of Seth Rich, Fox News reporter Megyn Kelly will now be producing a new scripted series following a presidential campaign trail and the embedded journalists who cover it...

The proper view of the liberal media

Via Stacy McCain:

Whenever I see the liberal media jumping to a particular conclusion, my instinct is that the opposite must be true. Whenever I see the liberal media ignoring a story, I figure that story must be very important. Is it possible that the liberal media sometimes might be correct about one of these “social justice” narratives? Hypothetically, I suppose, but you’re seldom going to lose money betting against them.

That "5% GDP Growth" number is misleading.

The MSM are gleefully reporting that the economy grew by 5% in the third quarter.  This must be the economic boom that Obama has been promising since 2008?

Well, no.

It appears that most of the 5% growth last quarter was achieved by an increase in consumer spending on higher health insurance premiums. In other words, spending more on insurance premiums for ObamaCare is supposed to be good for the economy.

Does that make you feel richer already? No?

Well take a look at how Team Obama managed to create that 5% figure.

It seems that they "revised" (i.e.cooked the books) spending on health care services by taking it out of the 1st quarter and putting it back in later, in this case, the 3rd quarter.

Here's how they took it out:

Here's where they put it back in:




Here's a little secret: the government gets to revise the numbers for months and quarters in the past under the assumption that given more time they get more and better data. I found this out years ago when I hears a talk by a very smart - and witty - Wall Street analyst who made great fun of government economic statistics by quoting numerous revisions for GDP numbers for the same period.  It was eye-opening, and I have never viewed government statistics in quite the same way.

Revising economic data as better information is gathered sounds plausible, but it also gives the government the opportunity for political mischief.   Thanks to the "polar vortex" of early 2014 that slowed the economy, the government statisticians figured that the 1st quarter was so bad that they may as well use it as a "kitchen sink" quarter. Via Zero Hedge:

Back in June, when we were looking at the final Q1 GDP print, we discovered something very surprising: after the BEA had first reported that absent for Obamacare, Q1 GDP would have been negative in its first Q1 GDP report, subsequent GDP prints imploded as a result of what is now believed to be the polar vortex. But the real surprise was that the Obamacare boost was, in the final print, revised massively lower to actually reduce GDP! ... Because the brilliant propaganda minds at the Dept of Commerce figured out something banks also realized with the stub "kitchen sink" quarter in November 2008. Namely, since Q1 is a total loss in GDP terms, let's just remove Obamacare spending as a contributor to Q1 GDP and just shove it in [a later quarter].

.....

In short, two-thirds of the "boost" to final Q3 personal consumption came from, ... the same Obamacare which initially was supposed to boost Q1 GDP until the "polar vortex" crashed the number so badly, the BEA decided to pull it completely and leave this "growth dry powder" for another quarter. That quarter was Q3.

And that, my friends is how the MSM is now able to giddily report that the Obama economy is rolling in high gear.  

H/T Bud Norman at Central Standard Time 

ObamaCare sticker shock. State run media beginning to notice.

Who could have seen this coming?

Michael Yount of Charlotte, N.C., is one such unhappy customer. He and his wife, retired and in their late 50s, have been buying their own health insurance from Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) in North Carolina, paying about $380 a month with an $11,000 deductible. BCBS is offering them a new plan for three times the cost, $1,124.50 a month, still with an $11,000 deductible.

Want your top political issues explained? Get customized DC Decoder updates.

“We are an insurance company’s dream,” Mr. Yount tells the Monitor. “We pay our bills, we hardly ever get sick, no prescription drugs. And now this.”

Reluctantly, he says, they plan to drop out of formal health insurance, pay the penalty, and “self-insure.”

“No question, there’s risk there,” Yount says. “The question is, how much are you willing to pay someone else to mitigate that risk?”

He also understands that the law is meant to help those who have not been able to buy insurance because of preexisting conditions. But he objects to how it’s being done.

“If the only way to get it to them is forcibly taking it from everybody else, how is that any better?” Yount says. “I’m struggling with what is the greater evil and injustice. I don’t think it’s any more right to take it from one person forcibly. It’s coercion.”

Just keep repeating: "law of the land."

"Racist" Terms

Glenn Reynolds links to an article about the reason that fried chicken is now a racist term.

WHO DOESN’T LIKE FRIED CHICKEN? Why remarks about race and fried chicken elicit such raw feelings.

The article Culinary Racism gives various explanations going back to slavery.

The most obvious explanation derives from the historical fact that fried chicken dishes were popular in slave homes on Southern plantations. In many cases, chickens were the only livestock animals that slaves were permitted to raise on their own, and—given that Scots founded much of the American South—there’s speculation that African-Americans tweaked and perfected their masters’ imported tradition of frying birds.

But there's a problem with this because lots of people like fried chicken: A lot of it is regional: people in the South are perceived to like friend chicken more than their northern counterparts. The South is poorer than the North and chicken is less expensive than beef so the fondness for chicken could be explained by relative wealth. I'm a Dutch immigrant and I love fried chicken; does that make me Black? Should I avoid serving friend chicken at any gathering where Blacks are present? If my Black friends serve friend chicken are they self-hating?

Let me propose an alternative explanation. The fried chicken=racist equation was created by the very powerful Race Industry. As an illustration of how these associations are created we need only refer to some of the Liberal race hustlers of today who tell us that:

• Lazy=racists
• Colored=racist (ever since the RI invented other terms)
• Negro=racist  (ever since the RI invented other terms)
• Niggardly=racist (out of ignorance a perfectly good word was outlawed)
• Boy=racist
• Cotton pickin’=racist
• Urban=racist  (this really is a euphemism when used by the "good people")
• “shuck and jive”=racist (except when Chris Matthews or Andrew Coumo uses it)
• “this president”=racist
• Chicago=racist
• References to golf (if played by Obama)=racist
• Whitewash=racist
• Limbaugh=racist (just because)

Before this list gets too long, let’s just go with the Chris Matthews definition of racist to include any criticism of Barack Obama. In fact, it is fair to broaden that to include any criticism of Blacks (can I say that; is that still the accepted term?) as racist. That’s why I was so shocked to see the Miami police department preparing for an "Urban Beach Weekend" without being accused of blatant racism. Now that it’s been pointed out, expect the “Justice Brothers” to hop on a plane and lead the demonstrations.

The Obama “Jokes” that Aren’t

Glenn Reynolds linked to an article in the Wall Street Journal Tax Audits Are No Laughing Matter; the subhead is “A president shouldn't even joke about abusing IRS power.”

Reynolds commented:

Remember, Obama joked about auditing his enemies in 2009. At the time, I warned about the damage to the “trust and voluntary cooperation of citizens upon which this democracy depends,” but Obama didn’t get much pushback elsewhere. Now, however, people need to be fired, and most likely prosecuted, to drive home the appropriate lesson. And Obama himself needs to be taken to task. The Post editorial is just a start.

Here’s what I have noticed about Obama’s “jokes.” They are a way of disarming the opposition by mocking them. If you joke about sending the IRS after your opponents, it makes it much harder for people the IRS is going after to get other to pay attention. They are going to be laughed at and ridiculed as conspiracy theorists. One of the Tea Party groups that had trouble getting a tax exempt status is in Richmond, Virginia. They complained but got no help from anyone in the press or in government.

Obama has several times joked that he is a Muslim and a Socialist. He did so most recently at the White House Correspondents’ dinner.

“Look I get it,” Obama joked. “These days I look in the mirror, and I have to admit I’m not the strapping, young, Muslim socialist that I used to be.”

It was a laugh line and the Washington Press dutifully laughed. I have no idea whether he is actually religious or not. I believe that his membership in Jeremiah Wright’s black liberation, America damning church was designed to advance his political career rather than his salvation. I also believe, based on his family background and the testimony of friends from his college days, that he is Leftist and believes that the State should be the center of decision making in a society. If that’s the case he is - at best - a socialist. If he actually is either a Muslim or a Socialist making a joke about it is much more effective way of deflecting the accusation than either ignoring it or denying it.

This technique is the flip side of Obama’s straw man argument, his favorite technique. Karl Rove gives several examples in this article in the Wall Street Journal.  Here's one:

On Tuesday night, Mr. Obama told Congress and the nation, "I reject the view that . . . says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity." Who exactly has that view? Certainly not congressional Republicans, who believe that through reasonable tax cuts, fiscal restraint, and prudent monetary policies government contributes to prosperity.

The use of these rhetorical devices is designed to mislead, much like a magician uses misdirection while he does his tricks. In a politician it's the technique of the rogue, the demagogue. The role of the press should be to expose this kind of deception. It doesn’t even require investigate skills, simply knowledge of the language and awareness of how words can be used to deceive. That’s Journalism 101 and one of the pre-eminent practitioners is James Taranto who writes Best of the Web. Too bad that most of the rest of the press are, as Glenn Reynolds says, "Democrat operatives with bylines."

Journalist could be imprisoned for revealing how the system failed in Colorado.

That's not the actual headline in Jake Tapper's story. This is what he used: Journalist could be imprisoned for protecting source. But he goes on to point out in no uncertain terms what this is about.

Whole Obama and the rest of the Liberals who control the press are busy trying to take away the American people's 2nd Amendment rights, the reality of why a dozen people were killed and 58 injured in the Aurora shooting is totally different. The killer was a homicidal maniac, and the authorities knew it because his psychiatrist told them.

In July 2012, anonymous law enforcement sources told Winter that before he went on a shooting spree, Aurora movie theater shooter James Holmes gave his psychiatrist a notebook detailing how he planned to "kill people."

This was a huge scoop, and clearly of public interest. It raised key questions: did the system fail the victims of the Aurora shooting? What exactly happened? Winter's scoop helped provide a check on those in power who do not always like to talk about ways in which the system - and they - failed.

In fact, last Thursday, court documents revealed that more than a month before the attack, the same psychiatrist had told campus police that Holmes was homicidal. Yet instead of a focus on how the system failed, we're talking about whether Winter should go to jail for reporting on Holmes's journal, which was found in a mail room after the attack.

 

We are now being told that universal background checks will prevent the next James Holmes from committing mass murder.  Conveniently omitted from that fake solution is the fact that Holmes purchased his guns after passing a background check. 

 

It's becoming more apparent each day that the mass killers all had mental problems that were open and apparent to the people around them and the doctors who treated them.  But instead of doing something that could prevent the next mas murder, the Left reaches reflexively for its one solitary answer when there is a shooting: take away every one's guns but theirs.

About those unemployed (Burying the Lead)

 

Yeah, we also notice that there was very little news in the Virginian Pilot about the abysmal jobs report. Most of the people who noticed were on Wall Street, not main street because the numbers were so little noted by the non-financial press. 

 

 It’s hard to keep cheer-leading for an administration that has spent so many trillions claiming to have focused like a laser beam on jobs and has gotten so little for it. Even the obligatory “it could have been worse” is sounding even lamer than usual. So the Democrats in the media are just turning their backs on the unemployed and the poor and turning instead to gay marriage, gun control or trying to destroy the next Republican to run for public office with Democrat press releases disguised as news stories.

Bud Norman reminds us that this was not always the case.

The press will keep trying to blame heartless Republican parsimoniousness, wedded as it is to the idea that catastrophe will surely ensue if the government doesn’t keep growing at a steady 6 percent or so every year, but explaining this convoluted theory apparently requires more effort than the ink-stained wretches can currently muster.

No other explanation comes to mind for the lack of attention being to the economy, given the old media’s usual giddy enthusiasm for the suffering of the common man. We can recall times of 5 percent unemployment during our newspaper days when the editors were adamant that we find a suitably sympathetic fellow who was out of work and demanding some government action, but now the press seems far less concerned with his plight and perhaps a bit worried that all the trillions of dollars of government action that are already going on might be the reason that a much larger number of equally sympathetic fellows are out of work. If it’s not an ideological bias on the part of the press, perhaps all that down-sizing at America’s newspapers has made it difficult to find any unemployed people other than former colleagues.

The past week also brought the news that America’s poverty rate has reached a level not seen since the ‘60s, but only the most were likely to have seen it. Back in the ‘60s the poverty rate was such a huge story that a “War on Poverty” broke out, with bureaucrats funneling billions of dollars into rural backwaters and urban ghettos, but this time around the few desultory press accounts seem intent only on preserving the status quo.

I can hardly wait for a new Republican administration when the “Democrat operatives with by-lines” can begin reporting on the old, the poor, the sick and the unemployed again and blaming it on government policies.

The Virginian Pilot and State Run Media

The Virginian Pilot delivered its editorial opinion on the sequester and it's devastating. 

The way forward: off another cliff

It quotes experts who predict economic calamity and lays the blame squarely at the feet of Congress.  The editorial names John Boehner twice and no other politician by name.  Conspicuously absent from any discussion of this problem is the name of the man who proposed the sequester in the first place: Barack Obama. 

The press likes to tell us how brave and independent they are.  "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" and "speaking truth to power." 

The press denies it's adopted role as the State Run Media.  If that's true, I have a question: can anyone tell the difference between this editorial and an Obama administration press release?