Good Morning!
1 President Trump stunned the political world and particularly the left’s “I hate him” news media by crossing party lines and cutting a debt deal with Democratic leaders in defiance of his own hyper-partisan party. One reason they were stunned is because this is what competent Presidents do and are supposed to do in order to govern, and we have just finished eight years with a previous President who was unwilling and incapable of doing it.
This single episode doesn’t make Trump a competent President, but it does show that he is competent in at least one aspect of democratic leadership (Obama was competent at exactly two: appearing Presidential and speaking coherently), and has some guts. The demonstrated ability to negotiate and the willingness to act in the teeth of furious opposition were two characteristics that the advocates of his candidacy cited as justification for electing him.
It is also dawning on some that the structure of the DACA executive order may well be to fashion the measure as a bargaining chip to be cashed in later. This is also the kind of thing competent leaders do.
2. There is a new website called Verrit, which appears to be an openly, proudly, left-biased news source which purports to “verify” news stories, obviously based on its own progressive world view. Verrit founder and CEO Peter Daou told the news media,
“We’re in a time now where you just no longer trust anything that you’re reading,” Daou said. “Facts are now in question. Reality is now in question. So we want to do something where we rigorously vet these facts and we actually stand by our research and put an authentication code on every fact that we put up.”
And what qualifies Verrit as a fair and objective “authenticator”? Apparently it is the virtue of being hard-progressive and anti-conservative to the bone. Here is a recent Verrit collection of its “cards”:
I just checked: among the “verified” bits of fact and reality on the current home page are “The Republican Party is harmful to America’s children” and “Hillary Democrats are the heart and soul of America.” ( From Hillary’s twitter feed: I’m excited to sign up for @Verrit, a media platform for the 65.8 million! Will you join me and sign up too?”)
I heard a commentator on NPR yesterday echoing Daou’s same disingenuous claim about “reality” yesterday. Obviously a memo has gone out. To challenge facts and reality means having the audacity and bad character to challenge the Left’s spin and ideological presentation of facts and reality. This theory translates nicely into an attack on free speech.
Is this funny, frightening or sad? It immediately reminded me of a hilarious moment in my 8th grade history class when our pompous, Goldwater Conservative teacher “Dr.Arthur”—he made us call him doctor because he had a PhD—proclaimed, “You will never hear opinions in this class! History is about facts! Here is a fact: THE UNITED NATIONS IS A DEBATING SOCIETY!”
3. Speaking of Hillary, another page from “What Happened” has surfaced, again on the topic of how mean old Bernie Sanders sabotaged her candidacy:
It’s called “campaigning,” Mrs. Clinton. Your party cleared the decks of credible opponents to ensure that you had a stress-free cake-walk to the Presidency, leaving you to overcome only the weak challenges of iconoclast conservative Jim Webb, charisma-challenged me-too progressive Martin O’Malley, addled party-flipper Lincoln Chafee (whose big issue was adopting the Metric System) and Bernie, who wasn’t even a Democrat, as you say. The last patsy standing was Sanders, and he was still too tough for you.
It’s as if Hillary wants to bolster the last ditch argument of Trump supporters, who say, “At least he’s not Hillary Clinton.”
4. I wonder if it’s possible to make a more despicable, ethically backwards, unpatriotic statement than open-borders shill Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), who said of White House chief of staff John Kelly this week, as part of his attack on the President’s DACA decision:
“General Kelly is a hypocrite who is a disgrace to the uniform he used to wear. He has no honor and should be drummed out of the White House along with the white supremacists and those enabling the President’s actions by ‘just following orders.”
A responsible party would discipline a member who spoke like that, particularly with the Nazi reference, about a former general and current White House Chief of Staff. General Kelly is serving his country selflessly and well by accepting the daunting challenge of managing the clown show that has been White House operations so far, restraining a President without self-restraint, guiding a leader with terrible leadership instincts and tools, and hopefully saving the country from disasters, botches, fiascos and a Constitutional crisis. Democrats like Gutiérrez want the president to fail—after 8 years of excoriating a conservative radio talk show host for saying that he wanted President Obama to fail–and now this hyper-partisan ass is calling a distinguished military professional a villain for coming to the aid of the President of the United States when he calls…as every single citizen should and has a duty to do regardless of their party loyalties.
5. As of yesterday, neither ABC nor NBC had informed their viewers about the now ongoing the bribery trial of Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. Well, you know, he’s a Democrat and Hispanic, so it’s bad manners to point out that he may also be a crook. (Verrit doesn’t think the trial exists either, I bet.) For those who make the excuse that there were bigger stories than the first sitting U.S. Senator to stand trial for bribery since Senator Harrison Williams was convicted in 1981 after being caught in the Abscam stings—Hurricanes!—Good Morning America devoted 22 minutes yesterday to promoting the first season of “Dancing with the Stars.”
Nah, there’s no partisan news media bias!
Ethics Alarms 
There’s this headline, on the NBC news site from yesterday.
Prosecutors: Sen. Menendez ‘Sold His Office’ for Ritzy Trips
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/menendez-says-not-once-have-i-dishonored-senate-office-bribery-n799136
How is that showing liberal bias?
I’d answer this way: NBC is a broadcast news organization. Isolating important news stories to the web is like the Times putting the trial on page 20, Section F. This gives the network plausible deniability….and you’re plausibly denying the accusation of bias.
I read all of my news online.
It is buried online too. It’s not on the front page of NBC news, you have to go to a sub-section to find it.
Jesse Watters did a little bit yesterday where he noted how often the press identified identified in their coverage the party of a politician involved in various similar scandals… Almost 100% if it the pol were a Republican, about 20% if democrat.
The difference is if a Republican senator were on trial for such crimes, not only would it be front page news, but other Republicans would be lining up to denounce them before the trial even began. Democrats don’t think it really merits talking about, and can’t be bothered to condemn such things.
And this, from the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/dem-congressman-convicted-federal-corruption-charges
NBC, as in the Peacock, and ABC. Broadcast. As of Yesterday. All others are irrelevant. There is no excuse for any news outlet skipping this story, but only one plausible explanation.
Jack this was a mistaken link by me – neither about Menendez, nor yesterday. Bad link mistake by me, mea culpa.
Ahah! Reading the link I thought Roberto had been demoted to being representative and then convicted. All in one day!
This link does show a clip from MSNBC talking about the Menendez trial.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/07/msnbc-host-case-against-menendez-doesnt-look-close-it-looks-overwhelming/
Jack is correct that this doesn’t change his point about broadcast news not covering this important story. I just thought it was interesting that an explicitly partisan and left-leaning news network did cover the story, and portrayed the Democrat in a very unflattering light.
MSNBC is getting better, and Maddow was always pretty fair even within her own biases.
2) And another Verrit ‘fact’: “Study: Mainstream Media Acted as Trump’s Mouthpiece, Clinton’s Foe”
Who knew?
Did this make your head explode?
It sure did.
it seems as relying on Verrit for the truth about politics is like relying on the Institute for Historical Review for the truth about the Holocaust.
Perhaps they mean that by repeating things Clinton said, that hurt Clinton’s campaign? Ha.
No one is having the wool pulled over there eyes here, Daou has created a website with a mission statement including being Hillary Clinton’s fluffer. He might cannibalize some attention away from other left leaning media, but that’s about it.
But I think we’re going to hear more about Verrit, because aside from the site being facially ridiculous, Daou is also a slathering progressive, who doesn’t understand the internet but wants to function there, and has a very short fuse.
Take, for instance, the name, Verrit. Daou said that the word was a portmanteau (which is the second time I’ve seen the word used in about a year) of verify and ferret. They’re going to ferret out the truth! Well. The internet is designed to mock.
So Rob Dobi tweets an idea at Daou: The Verrit Ferret! “i made a mascot for verrit if you want, stayed up all night sewing it” he says… Problem is that it’s a fursuit with a Verrit logo pasted on the front of it. So what does Daou do? Does he verify the image?
Naw. Why not just y’know… Take the internet at it’s word and rely on the goodwill of others? Fucking furries. I love this.
Some of these are just golden.
I think I’ve found a new favorite thing. Anyway… Remember that short fuse I mentioned? After taking in some criticism, both from trolls and people pointing out in more measured tones why Daou is being an idiot, he thought he’d make everything better by sending out a (now deleted) tweet in capital letters, so we’d know he was srs, guys:
“PEOPLE ARE STILL TERRIFIED OF HILLARY. PEOPLE STILL WANT TO DESTROY HILLARY. PEOPLE WANT TO SILENCE ANYONE WHO SUPPORTS HER.”
Oh, honeycake… You let the internet see that it got to you. Hide under a rock for a week,
When most popular parody sites have a generally left leaning bias, it’s always good when a self-style serious site ends up being its own self-parody. Like Salon.
So incompetent that the parody sites look like items the serious site would generate. Like when Salon’s parody site got banned and was allowed to come back when it had to make its parody more obvious.
NOW the beatings will begin in earnest!
I am always intrigued by those who have never used the Internet that believe they can move in and deftly control the conversation. Like the New York Times./snark
Those are funny. I’ve mostly seen mockery of Veritt from liberals I follow, as well.
Jack is right; a website cannot ethically claim to be both a fact-checking site and wear its bias so proudly. Veritt is ridiculous.
1) how awesome would it be for Trump’s true ideological colors to fly (slightly and barely left of center) and he realize he can make himself look way better cooperating with Dems and ultimately switches horses midstream and runs as a Dem in 2020?
I would love nothing more than watching Leftists soiling themselves as they about face and go into full support mode.
hahahaha
Not going to happen. The left is too deeply insane on the mere spelling of his name.
I think that’s an absurd prediction, Tex, and says more about your bias than about the bias of leftists.
It wasn’t a prediction.
And my guess is, based on the boot-licking sycophancy I’ve observed, I don’t think it would be an inaccurate characterization if it happened.
An absurd hypothetical, then.
And my guess is, based on the boot-licking sycophancy I’ve observed, I don’t think it would be an inaccurate characterization if it happened.
Of course it wouldn’t be an inaccurate characterization if it happened. But it won’t happen, obviously.
Surprisingly, a Verrit search does not bring back anything for “Pied Piper.”
…or coughing.
Daou: “Verrit’s purpose is… to provide them (and anyone like-minded) sanctuary…”
So, an online safe space for leftist snowflakes.
Ever go to the dicussions in a left-leaning website where a few people are posting contrary comments? Invariably, you see “regulars” complaining not just about the content of the other posts, but the fact that those with other opinions are even there, and bemoaning the loss of their ‘”community”.
Sure you see the typical arguments and insults between opposing factions on right-leaning sites as well as left (often more vulgar on the left), but I’ve never seen “conservative” posters doing the same sort of whining for their own “safe space”.
Another item to discuss.
http://reason.com/blog/2017/09/07/betsy-devos-rape-ocr-title-ix-campus
Another link on this issue.
http://reason.com/blog/2017/09/06/lawyer-in-campus-rape-disputes-the-accus