AP vs. Epoch Times - Compare and Contrast

 The raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago home by the FBI is reported by two news organizations. What I found fascinating is that the AP report is not nearly as informative as the Epoch Times report.  I have published both articles [AP] and [Epoch Times]to allow you to compare. 

The AP article by Eric Tucker implies without evidence that Trump secretly stole dozens of government secrets because empty covers were seized with nothing in them.  According to the AP, there is no hint that the FBI took anything except government secrets that Trump had no right to have.  

If you read the Epoch Times article by Zachary Stieber you will find that 

FBI agents seized over 11,000 documents and photographs without classified markings from the home of former President Donald Trump, according to an inventory released on Sept. 2.

The Epoch Times  presents a much more informative view of what the FBI actually hauled away from Trump's home, including items of clothing and gifts:

The more detailed receipt also shows that the government seized 1,673 magazines/newspapers/press articles and other printed media, some dating back to 2008; 48 empty folders with classified banners; 42 empty folders labeled “return to staff secretary/military aide”; 19 articles of clothing/gift items; and 33 books

It's just another example that the Virginian Pilot, which printed the AP article verbatim, misinforms its readers.  It's also the reason that the readers that still get the Virginian Pilot and depend on it for their news are terribly misinformed; explaining why the letters section of this awful paper.   

How to Mislead the Public, by Katie King, staff writer of the Virginian Pilot

 Katie King has written a front-page article blaming Governor Glenn Younkin for politicizing the closure of Virginia's public schools during the Covid epidemic.  

She admits that closing schools to in-person teaching hurt student grades.  She then quotes Younkin critics who say that everybody agrees with that.  But that's not true.  At the time, what was called "remote learning" was touted as a great substitute.  Here's an article from the Virginian Pilot that presents the "close the schools" approach to dealing with Covid.  The teacher's union was adamant that in-person teaching was not an option.  

That was then, this is now and we have to deal with the impact of school closings and lost educational opportunities that have put students behind for the rest of their lives.  What have we learned?  Katie King simply ignores the issue and uses the article to slime Younkin.

Here's the big thing that's missing from her article.  Nowhere in her article does Katie King cite actual studies that prove that closing schools had no measurable impact on spreading Covid or reducing deaths.  She refers to a CDC statistic that's totally irrelevant to the issue.  She glides over the fact that there is evidence that closing schools to in-person education only had negative effects and no measurable positive effects.  

The real reason for Katie King's article is that it's another in a long list of attacks but the Virginian Pilot on Governor Younkin and his policies.  

Finally, she quotes an academic - a member of Big Academia - to blame Younkin for a teacher shortage.  In Virginia, as in many other states, parents are taking their children out of public schools and enrolling them in private schools or homeschooling.  One of the reasons for Younkin's election was the fact that so many Virginia school districts actually put their students at risk, including the risk of rape, as well as introducing racism into schools via Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Parents, having seen what their children are being taught, are rejecting the public schools and educating their children in private schools that reflect their values and do a better job of teaching them how to think rather than what to think.

Media learning that bias doesn't sell

 Even CNN is toning down its more blatant bias.  Reporting and opinion are blended in the media.

Actually, much of the problem is that there is remarkably little objective news reported by anyone.

For example, take Trump’s claims of election fraud.

Now, please find me a mainstream media source that doesn’t refer to his comments as lies. That’s a problem for me because I know there is election fraud in every state in the nation. What we disagree about is the scale.

Plus, saying it’s a lie not just places a value judgment, but it dismisses the argument as well.

It calls Trump himself a liar, often without any evidence, and tells you that anything you see elsewhere suggesting there were problems with the 2020 election is also a lie.

And it’s not necessary. You can simply refer to them as “Trump’s claims” or something like that and leave it there.

But they don’t.

People are getting sick of it and now the news agencies are starting to recognize that no, in fact, people don’t want to be told what to think. Instead, they want to hear the facts and be permitted to make up their minds themselves.

The Rick Moran problem.

The country has a Rick Moran problem.

Rick Moran has a column in PJ Media, generally considered a right-leaning source. He recently wrote about Stephen Miller’s appearance with Chris Wallace. Moran called the interview “contentious” and accused Miller of seeking to “alter the media narrative” about the call President Trump made to Ukrainian President Zelenski. 

There is no question that Moran is right. Because the media narrative is a lie.  And making a desire to correct the media narrative an accusation is to make the implicit assumption that the media narrative is the correct one.  That's the Rick Moran problem. 

Here's the essential Moran problem, pre-emptive surrender. Putting up a white flag before a shot is fired; classic Cuckdom.  It is emblematic of the losing Republican position.  The media sets the narrative and Republicans bleat "I'm not .... whatever the Democrats accuse me of."  The classic loser posture of cowering in the face of the people who hate you and want you slinking away in fear.

Moran writes: To my mind, it isn't a question whether Trump was putting pressure on Ukraine to get dirt on Joe Biden and his son. He was.

In the Wallace interview Miller directly refutes Moran’s point. “Digging up dirt” implies a nefarious motive. Is it uncovering the facts or a quest for the truth? Is a detective investigating a murder suspect “digging up dirt?” Is trying to find out why the son of the Vice President got paid several million dollars for a no-show job a not-so-subtle bribe of a high government official?

Here's more of the Rick Moran problem.  From Moran's perspective, Trump is presumed guilty of whatever crime his enemies accuse him.  From Moran's perspective, he's not trying to drain the swamp.  He's not the chief law enforcement officer seeking to root out corruption at the highest level; he's a sleazy politician "digging up dirt" on a political opponent.   In Moran's mind it's not even a question; it's his default position and I doubt if there are any facts that will shake that position.

This is why Washington DC is a hot mess of corruption.  Why politicians of modest means arrive in this cesspool of corruption  and leave wealthy.  It's why Hillary knew she could get away with soliciting bribes to her foundation and erasing the evidence on her computer.  It's why the Bidens were able to get Ukrainians to pay millions and the Chinese to make billion-dollar deals with barely a fig leaf to cover up their play-for-pay scam.  Republicans and their few "friends" in the media are really not interested in changing things.  They want to get in on the action.  Offer Rick Moran a column in the NY Times or the Washington Post and he will write column after column denouncing Trump and the people who voted him into office.  If you doubt this you have only to read the "conservative" columnists like Max Boot or Jennifer Rubin in either paper.

Let’s say that instead of Hunter and Joe Biden, we have Jimmy and James Smith. Jimmy gets a no-show job working for a Ukrainian company while James Smith is a Senator who can steer a lot of aid to Ukraine. Does that sound like there is a huge conflict of interest and that the Smith family is being bribed in a pay-to-play scheme? Other than the Biden name what did Burisma receive for the millions it paid Hunter Biden?  What US Government policy was affected?

And keep in mind that the Biden corruption issue was not the first thing that President Trump talked about when he asked for a favor: it was Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election that held Trump's primary interest.  That’s an issue that the Left wants no one to investigate.

I prefaced my remarks by referring to the Rick Moran problem. The problem is the fence-sitters. The problem is those who want to cut the baby in half. The problem is that there are too many people who are comfortable enough with the Deep State that they will echo their talking points. In every period in history the majority will always try their best to get on with their lives. They want no trouble.  These are often referred to as the "good Germans." It’s almost always safer to stay out of the line of fire, especially if you don’t know who’s going to win. And keep in mind the forces arrayed against Trump have a long, long record of winning.

It’s also the reason that there are so many Rick Morans.

From the Wayback machine

Sandy "Red" Cortez Whines About Being Fact-Checked, and Suddenly the Leftwing Media Rushes to Agree, "Yes, Fact-Checking is Biased and Ideologically Motivated"

Biased fact checking is only bad when its victims are conservative.

Media’s Anti-White Bias Makes Houston Drive-By Shooting National News

Her murder was a national story




When the mother identified the killer as white.

But here are the actual killers.

 

Larry Woodruffe, 24, was the shooter, and was riding with Eric Black Jr., 20, according to the police, when Woodruffe spotted the vehicle that Jazmine’s mother was driving and, apparently, mistook it for the vehicle of one of their drug-gang rivals. Woodruffe opened fire with a 9mm pistol and he and Black didn’t realize they had targeted an innocent family until they saw news reports the next day. So the “white killer” angle that made this story a subject of “nationwide attention” was false, and now the media that exploited the death of Jazmine Barnes to gin up a firestorm of racial fear will now drop the story entirely.

Now the story goes away.

Democrats really do love Republicans — when they’re dead

Michael Goodwin

He was a patriot, a hero, a ­genial gentleman and a great American. You can’t pick up a newspaper or go near a television without hearing leftists gush with praise for the late President George H.W. Bush. Who knew they felt this way?.....

The heydays of press hatred for Bush and McCain came during their presidential campaigns. Long before they were saluted for their late-in-life stances against Trump, Bush 41 and McCain were declared unfit to be president.

The New York Times, which last endorsed a Republican for president in 1956, backed the hapless Michael Dukakis over Bush in 1988, and Bush went on to win in a landslide, picking up more than 53 percent of the popular vote and 426 electoral votes.

Four years later, the paper supported Bill Clinton, ripping Bush’s economic management as “exasperating” and his positions on individual rights as “infuriating.” It accused him of stoking racial resentment, of going to “radical ­extremes” in supporting right-to-life measures, and said his “capacity to govern has collapsed.”

When Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991, he and Thomas got the same kind of character smearing that Trump and Brett Kavanaugh got this year.

Now, in his coffin, Bush is a model of American greatness.

After Trump is dead and Barron Trump is President, The Donald with be known as the Good Trump.

Despite overhelming evidence, the MSM insists that Facebook, Google and Twitter are not biased

Evergreen line from my story last week: “With his tweet...Trump has signaled that he and his Republican allies would continue to paint tech giants like Facebook and Twitter as villains in a longstanding culture war used to excite the conservative base.” https://t.co/iAKwBt2tdd https://t.co/1QKeFKNPRJ

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) August 28, 2018

CNN's Oliver Darcy was responding to this tweet in his article attacking Trump for painting "tech giants like Facebook and Twitter as villains in a longstanding culture war used to excite the conservative base." Tellingly, his article did not once mention Facebook silencing conservative articles based on the premise they "look like spam," which took place the day before Trump's tweet.

CNN rushed to "debunk" the claims of Google's bias against conservatives, without mentioning the many lawsuits against Google! James Damore, the former senior software engineer who was fired after spreading a document asking questions about the tech gender gap, is suing Google for discrimination against conservatives. Prager University is suing Google and YouTube for discrimination against conservative content. YouTube continues to restrict access to PragerU videos.

Facebook recently "shadow banned" PragerU, preventing at least nine PragerU Facebook posts from reaching any of their 3 million followers. For good measure, Facebook also deleted some of their videos.

A survey early this year found that conservative employees in Silicon Valley tech companies live in fear that their political beliefs would be found out. James Damore said conservatives at Google are "in the closet" and that Google executives are digging through a secret mailing list in order to out them.

Tech companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Twitter have relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a far-left smear factory that brands conservative and Christian organizations "hate groups," listing them along with the Ku Klux Klan. In June, the SPLC had to pay $3.375 million to settle a defamation lawsuit against a Muslim reformer. About 60 organizations are considering separate defamation lawsuits against the group.

Amazon.com has excluded SPLC-designated "hate groups" from its charity program, Amazon Smile. The company exiled D. James Kennedy Ministries and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian legal nonprofit that has won 9 Supreme Court cases in seven years. D. James Kennedy Ministries is suing Amazon and the SPLC over this action.

More recently, the SPLC-designated "hate group" Jihad Watch and its founder Robert Spencer were de-platformed by Patreon, and then the crowdfunding site GoFundMe effectively stole thousands from Spencer.

Oftentimes, social media companies like Facebook and Twitter will temporarily ban conservatives for "hate speech," when the posts in question did not violate their safety standards. Christian scholar Robert Gagnon has been repeatedly suspended on Facebook, and in April the social media platform suspended a German history professor for saying that "Islam is not a part of German history."

Like the SPLC's "hate group" labels, these "hate speech" bans target conservatives, not liberals. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has "fully" admitted that "our bias is more left-leaning." Is it really that much of a conspiracy theory — considering the lawsuits, the partnership with the SPLC, and the many isolated instances of conservatives finding themselves singled out — to suggest that tech companies have systematically targeted conservatives?

All this context and more gives important weight to Trump's claims that Google is biased against conservatives. Rather than address the mainstream conservatives attacked in these isolated incidents, however, mainstream media reporters continue to cite the bans on InfoWars as if they were the main issue.

Cunningly, Darcy ignored the de-platforming of Jihad Watch and the silencing of conservative articles as "spam." He wrote, "It was unclear what precisely the President's Friday tweet was referencing, but it came just weeks after Facebook, YouTube, and Apple removed content from far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his fringe media organization InfoWars from their platforms."

Neither Trump's tweet last week nor his tweets Tuesday morning were about InfoWars. By mentioning InfoWars, however, Darcy associated the "conspiracy theory" of tech anti-conservative bias with a truly conspiratorial website.

PragerU, James Damore, Salena Zito, Jihad Watch, D. James Kennedy Ministries, and Alliance Defending Freedom are not InfoWars. Their experiences are real, and pending litigation against Google cannot be ignored in the discussion of whether or not Trump's tweets support a "conspiracy theory."

Laura Ingraham: "Who's really dividng America?"

This is CNN

FL Shooting Survivor Colton Haab: CNN Told Me I Needed To "Stick To The Script"; Entire Town Hall Scripted

FL Shooting Survivor Ariana Klein: Networks Don't Want Us To Give Our Real Opinions, "Want Us To Further Their Agendas"

Shooting Survivor: CNN Gave Me "Scripted Question" After Denying Question About Armed Guards

CNN is the Putin Network

CNN’s Tapper Sits Back as Student Equates Rubio to School Shooter

This is CNN. No objectivity. Just a naked ratings grab and gun ban push.

Hey, it's CNN, the Putin Network.  What do you expect?

Pew: US media bias ranks worst in the world

More than in any other country, Americans on both sides of the political aisle believe the media does does a poor job covering political issues fairly, according to a blockbuster new survey of media consumption in 38 nations.

The U.S. media is working overtime to destroy it's own reputation.

TWO MEN CHARGED IN MURDER OF LESBIAN COUPLE, TWO CHILDREN

From Robert Stacy McCain

This is how media bias operates. The chief interest of news editors in regard to crime stories is whether they can be exploited to advance the Democrat Party narrative. Thus, the 2012 shooting of Treyvon Martin was 24/7 on CNN, whereas the more than 500 murders in Chicago that same year?

Crickets chirping.

It was the same way with coverage of the 1998 Matthew Shepard murder, which was exploited to dramatize the evils of homophobia in the same way the Treyvon Martin case was used to dramatize racism. Subsequent reporting, after the Shepard case had stopped making headlines, showed that homophobia wasn't really the motive. Bu what mattered was that the story fit the Democrat narrative about "hate," and this was the only reason the Shepard murder was publicized so heavily, in a nation where there were nearly 17,000 murders that year.

Or consider Rolling Stone's infamous 2014 University of Virginia gang-rape hoax. This story was intended to dramatize the claims of activists that there was an "epidemic" of sexual assault on campus. This was a central agenda item for the feminist movement at a time when Hillary Clinton was preparing her campaign to become the first woman president. The fact that the story was a hoax -- that an emotionally disturbed UVA student had literally invented a fictional rapist named "Haven Monahan" -- demonstrated the willingness of many people in the media to publish anything that would advance the Democrat Party's agenda.

Here we are, three years later, and you have a case that would seem tailor-made for the liberal media -- two black lesbians murdered in cold blood, along with two children -- but is this being discussed 24/7 on CNN? No. Why not? Because the suspects in this heinous murder are black, and therefore the story doesn't fit the agenda.

Pay attention to this and learn how the media manipulates you.

ProPublica is a fraud. If the people who work there are “journalists,” I’m an NBA first-round draft pick.

ProPublica is a fraud. If the people who work there are “journalists,” I’m an NBA first-round draft pick. ProPublica is run by a charlatan who exemplifies everything that’s bad about his supposed profession. It’s a foul enterprise run by foul people.

A “journalistic institution” funded by Democrat billionaires tried to shutter a publishing house (one that even some of its harshest critics agree is beneficial). This would be big news if the world of American journalism were populated by actual investigative reporters, rather than sock puppets dancing at the end of the strings that accompany their big fat welfare checks.

The attack by Silicon Valley on anyone who disagrees is getting into high gear.

CHARLIE ROSE IS A DEMOCRAT OPERATIVE WITH A LAVALIER

Like many conservative Catholics, I so look forward to Rose pressuring Catholic Democrats on their abortion-on-demand policies in a similar way. In fact, isn’t it fair to ask why this kind of questioning hasn’t already taken place between the numerous exchanges between Rose and the California Democrat? Strangely, I can’t seem to find it. In the transcript of an interview in 2010, abortion is only raised by Pelosi while talking about backlash on Obamacare. No follow-up from Rose.

Does the media merely approve of poisoning public opinion against the One True Evil Race?

Ace of Spades:

Charleston Shooting Ends With One Dead, Millions of Progressives So Disappointed They Just Can't Even

Here were the Twitter Progz expecting -- and hoping -- that the shooter would be a White Man. I would say "Evil White Man," but that seems redundant in 2017.

 Follow

Chet Cannon 

✔@Chet_Cannon

Took all of 5 seconds for leftists to decide #Charlestonshooter was white conservative

But wait...

A) Shooter is black
B) What are facts?

2:05 PM - Aug 24, 2017

•  7878 Replies
 
•  860860 Retweets
 
•  1,1011,101 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Well, it turns out he was a black guy.

CNN follows its stylebook here, which demands that all white perps be identified as such, and that nonwhite perps not be described in any detail.

Remember, the media stopped reporting on crime almost altogether -- and carefully omitting racial attributes of minority perps where it was forced to report on it -- when minority activists objected, arguing -- plausibly -- that showing daily a parade of minority criminals would influence the public that minorities are criminals.

That's plausible. I'm not sure I can agree that the trade-off -- embargoing news -- is worth it, but the rational is plausible.

In which case I have to ask:

Why does the media make sure that all white perps involved in crimes, especially racial or political ones, are relentlessly reported on and their whiteness made central to the story?

Does the media not think the same rule applies, that is, constantly featuring criminals of a certain race will poison public opinion against that race?

Or do they merely approve of poisoning public opinion against the One True Evil Race?

Trump Adviser Stephen Miller Spars With CNN’s Acosta Over Immigration

Fox News Radio correspondent confronts Gateway Pundit reporter in White House briefing room

Politico

As reporters were getting settled ahead of Friday’s briefing, the Fox correspondent Jon Decker pointed out that a reporter from Gateway Pundit, Lucian Wintrich, was in the room and that they “hate blacks, Jews, Hispanics,” according to BuzzFeed White House correspondent Adrian Carrasquillo, who tweeted about the incident.

Decker also sent an email to the entire White House reporter email listserv, noting that the White House "has admitted Gateway Pundit into today's White House Press Briefing."

While some in the White House briefing room say the White House should be open to any and all outlets, others have expressed concern with certain outlets being legitimized via their White House credentials.

Fox News confirmed Decker was reacting to previous tweets Wintrich had posted. According to a White House Correspondent in the room, several reporters shook Decker’s hands as he walked back to the Fox News radio booth.

When the entire media - news and infotainment - is guilty of false "reporting," selective editing, spiking stories because they don't advance the narrative, alternative media spring up. 

The establishment fights back, not by getting better, but by demonizing the interlopers. 

The attempt to monopolize the views that the American people get has failed. The old media has lost its power to create the national mood. That's why Hillary lost despite the backing of the establishment press. Her entire campaign was based on demonizing Trump and the press was her megaphone. They failed. 

Using muscle in the White House Press Room isn’t going to fix the problem. It’s the modern version of book burning. As the well-known hero of Progressives, Chairman Mao, once said “let a thousand flowers bloom.” 

Gateway Pundit has a long way to go before it has printed as many lies as the NY Times. They still haven’t returned the Pulitzer Prize for Walter Durante’s whitewashing Stalin’s. And don’t get me started on the rest of the legacy media.

Here's a link to Gateway Pundit.