CNN

“You Know I Can’t Hear You With All Those Ethics Alarms Ringing”: Hillary Clinton’s CNN Interview

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

Hillary_Clinton_2016

The frightening thing—it should frighten Democrats more than anyone, but if they have let Hillary get this far, they may be beyond frightening—is that Hillary Clinton had a long time to prep for this interview—her first substantive one since announcing her candidacy, about five or six scandals ago—had a hand-picked, friendly interviewer, was not pressed to clarify any of her non-answers, obfuscations or incomprehensible blather, and she still came off looking defensive, evasive, and basically like Tommy Flanagan in drag.

Ethics Alarms were ringing so loudly that the interview was almost inaudible. My observations in bold….

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT:  Secretary Clinton, thank you so much for talking to us today.  You’re here in Iowa for a couple of events.  You’re the front-runner in this state but we’re also seeing Bernie Sanders attract a lot of attention.  He has had big crowds here, 10,000 people in Wisconsin last week, 7,500 people in Maine last night. Why is it, do you think, that someone who is a self-described Democratic socialist is really attracting this organic interest that your campaign seems to be struggling a little bit with?

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE:  Well, first of all, I always thought this would be a competitive race.  So I am happy to have a chance to get out and run my campaign as I see fit and let other candidates do exactly the same.

Non-responsive. Also a lie: Clinton has always assumed she could get the nomination by just showing up.

I feel very good about where we are in Iowa.  We are signing up thousands of volunteers, people committed to caucus for us.  We have a committed supporter in every one of the 1,600 precincts.  And one of the things that I learned last time is it’s organize, organize, organize.  And you’ve got to get people committed.  And then they will follow through and then you bring more people.

Non-responsive.

So I feel very good about where my campaign is.  It’ll be three months and a few days that we’ve been at this.  I think I’ve learned a lot from listening to people in Iowa.  And it’s actually affected what I say and what I talk about on the campaign trail.

Non-responsive.

So I couldn’t be happier about my campaign.

Non-responsive. Pretending to open yourself to a candid question and answer session and then refusing to answer the very first question while pretending you did: Dishonest. Disrespectful.

KEILAR:  Senator Sanders  has talked about how, if he’s president, he would raise taxes.  In fact, he said to CNN’s Jake Tapper, he would raise them substantially higher than they are today, on big corporations, on wealthy Americans. Would you?

CLINTON:  I will be laying out my own economic policies.  Again, everybody has to run his or her own campaign.  And I’m going to be telling the American people what propose and how I think it will work and then we’ll let voters make up their minds.

“I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might incriminate myself actually let voters know what I stand for. After all, I’m a vagina. That’s what really matters.”

KEILAR:  Is raising taxes on the table?

CLINTON:  I’m going to put out my policies and I’ll other people speak to their policies because I think we have to both grow the economy faster and fairer so we have to do what will actually work in the short term, the medium term and the long term.  I will be making a speech about my economic proposals on Monday.  And then I look forward to the debate about them.

If Clinton made a speech Monday (July 7) about specific economic proposals, she did it in her closet, because all anyone actually heard was this.

KEILAR:  I’m wondering if you can address a vulnerability that we’ve seen you dealing with recently.  We see in our recent poll that nearly six in 10 Americans say they don’t believe that you’re honest and trustworthy. Do you understand why they feel that way?

CLINTON:  Well, I think when you are subjected to the kind of constant barrage of attacks that are largely fomented by and coming from the Right and –

The vast right wing conspiracy again! Ironic, because one very good reason people shouldn’t, and  many sane people actually do not, trust Hillary is when she made teh same accusation on the Today Show to Matt Lauer, claiming that the Monica Lewinsky scandal had been “largely fomented by and coming from the Right,” when in fact she knew otherwise and was lying for her husband.

KEILAR:  But do you bear any responsibility for that?

CLINTON:  – well, I – you know, I can only tell you that I was elected twice in New York against the same kind of onslaught.

“I got away with it before, didn’t I?” Continue reading →

CNN Brings Us The Anti-American Cheap Shot Of The Year In Response to The South Carolina Massacre

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Roof

Seconds ago, I just heard a guest on CNN—I didn’t notice his name, and I don’t want to know his name—tell Carol Costello that not only was church shooter Dylann Roof (above, and now in custody) sick, but that there was a great “sickness in a country that could produce a Dylann Roof,” who could pray with a congregation and then slaughter the people he just prayed with.

Carol Costello, true to her shameless, unthinking, knee-jerk jerkish soul, just nodded in agreement. Heaven forbid that she might contradict a solemn African-American race-baiting hack who had just impugned an entire nation based on the conduct of a single deranged man among 319 million.

Why stop with judging the nation by this act? Surely it proves the vile attitudes of the white race, the toxic values of males, and the inherent evil of gun owners. It proves that churchgoers are hypocrites, and that 21 year-old males are the violent, potential rapists that college campuses are now being urged to so treat them.

This CNN guest was succeeded by Costello favorite Michaela Angela Davis, daughter of the infamous Berkeley Sixties radical (and criminal) Angela Davis, who proclaimed that Roof was typical, that before this administration such crimes went unnoticed—gee, I wonder how many church massacres were covered up by those racists in the Bush Administration?— and that the attack was definitely racist terrorism, particularly because this Charleston church was important in civil rights history, and the oldest African American church still standing in the South.

Again, Costello uncritically went along with these ideological leaps.

How did Davis know that Roof chose that church for its historical significance, or was even aware of its significance? She didn’t; nobody did. Do we know that he was only interested in shooting blacks, or that when he reportedly stated that he wanted to kill blacks, he wasn’t planning on visiting other churches to announce, “I want to kill Hispanics/Asians/Catholics/Jews/ Whites”? No, we don’t.

Airing such inflammatory, premature, evidence-free assumptions is incompetent and irresponsible journalism. Endorsing an unconscionable anti-U.S. culture, history and values cheap shot like that of Costello’s previous guest is a breach of citizenship as well.

To be fair, though, CNN is getting faster at inflaming public opinion following race-related tragedies.

Practice makes perfect.

 UPDATE: CNN’s John Berman just interviewed an African-American pastor in Charleston who said, “If you can’t be safe being black in a church, where can anyone be black in the country?”

What the hell does that mean? Berman’s awkward response:

“Good point.”

No, John, it is an emotional, incoherent, inflammatory, fear-mongering point.

The Unethical Job Of Hillary’s Paid Public Deceiver

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

liarWe were definitively introduced to Karen Finney when she delivered a vile concoction of deceit, misrepresentations, rationalizations and double-talk as Hillary Clinton’s surrogate to respond to the then emerging State Department e-mail scandal. Prepare to see and hear a lot of her, and since everything about Hillary involves deception, pretense and sleight-of-word, prepare to bang your head on the floor…that is, prepare if you care about ethics and transparency, or if you are not gullible, ignorant, or already a victim of Clinton Corruption.

Yesterday, CNN’s Jake Tapper tried to ask her a direct question regarding her position on the Pacific Partnership bill, a reasonable question since Congress just delivered a blow to its prospects of passage by voting down President Obama’s bid for fast track authority to negotiate its terms.

JAKE TAPPER: First I want to ask you about this breaking news in Washington D.C. today and about Secretary Clinton’s position on the President’s trade bill. In a 2012 speech in Australia, Clinton who was a big proponent of the Pacific Partnership bill said quote, “It sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free transparent fair trade. The kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field.” It sounds to me like she is a big supporter of it but as a candidate she said nothing about it.

KAREN FINNEY: Well, but what you just read, that was from 2012 and we are now in 2015 and this deal has gone back and forth between the House and the Senate and then it sounds like we are going back and forth again another couple of times so that is part of why as you played earlier on your show, Hillary has made it very clear that she has her two kind of standards. Any trade deal has to meet those two tests and she has voted for trade agreements that she thought were good and she has voted against those that she thought were bad.

TAPPER: Okay so she opposes this one?

FINNEY: Well, no, that is why she has said that though that she really believes what’s really important from a policy perspective, not the political conversation, she really believes that the final language is really what is important. Because we can talk about currency manipulation but how do we get there? How do we accomplish that?

TAPPER: But Karen I am talking about policy because Democrats in the House and Senate have now voted on this. This is an issue that every single Democrat who has announced that they are running for the presidency has taken a position on except for the one who helped push it and did she even help write it? I believe she helped write it.

FINNEY: I can’t speak to that because I wasn’t at the State Department. But again I just go back to the bigger picture and that is what she has really been focused on. And I hear what you are saying and I know that there are people who, you know, they have things that they want her to say about this but she and, you know, you played her own words. This is how she has laid out her position on this issue in terms of does it protect American workers, does it keep America safe, what is the final language? I mean again you have seen the ping-pong back and forth…

TAPPER: But Obama says it does. Pelosi says it doesn’t. I don’t think. I’m not asking her about her personal life…

FINNEY: Do you really think we are at final language at this point? I don’t think we’re done at this point given the game.

TAPPER: Karen, isn’t this exactly what people hate about politicians? That they won’t take a position because as soon as they take a position they are so fearful what the response is going to be from voters? Like she was part of this administration. This administration supports this trade bill. Okay, what I don’t understand is why you just won’t say we oppose it now in its current form. We oppose it. We don’t support it anymore.

FINNEY: You know what Jake, I hear you. And again my point is I think when she has talked to voters what they have wanted to talk to her about is the economy and jobs and college affordability so…

TAPPER: This IS about the economy and jobs! This is the little switcheroo people do sometimes. Like as if I am asking about her hair or her clothes. I’m not. I’m asking about a trade deal.

FINNEY: I didn’t say that you were saying that. My point is she has made it very clear where she is broadly on ths deal. I don’t think we are at the final language…

TAPPER: So generally speaking she supports it?

FINNEY: Generally speaking any trade deal has to meet her two tests and that is where she is at.

TAPPER: I can see I am getting nowhere..

Continue reading →

Now We Know: Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady Is A Fick*

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Yechhh.

Watch, if you can, this smirking, wink-wink-nudge-nudge exhibition by Tom Brady yesterday in front of his drooling, cheering, bleating, sheep-brained and ethically corrupt fans, as he mocks, in every expression, tone of voice and gesture, the idea that he should be even slightly ashamed of  the NFL’s finding that he cheated to ease his team’s path to the Super Bowl, and that finding’s implication that Brady lied about it, blatantly and repeatedly:

If, after this intentional poke in the eye to anyone who believes sports contests should be played with fairness, honor and integrity,  the NFL doesn’t give Brady a major suspension, and nothing less than half a season will qualify as major, fine the Patriots, fine Coach Belichick, and take some action to permanently label the team’s division and league championship as rotten, then we should declare pro-football a dangerous cultural menace, promoting cheating, lying and rule-breaking rather than sportsmanship to our youth. Continue reading →

No, Carol Costello, You Contemptible Fool, Cheating Isn’t Funny

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
Now here's a cute story about how a team cheated to get to the Super Bowl!

Now here’s a cute story about how a team cheated to get to the Super Bowl!

I have more important things to write about today than again exposing that blight on the already thoroughly blighted field of broadcast journalism, CNN’s Carol Costello, I know. I also know I shouldn’t watch her, or CNN for that matter, in the morning. But my options are limited to that or centerfold sunburst Robin Meade over at HLM, who causes me to question my motives. Fox I am boycotting entirely until Roger Ailes sends Bill O’Reilly to keep Brian Williams company; The Today Show and Good Morning America are no longer news sources, just cretinous fluff, rock songs and cooking segments with occasional left-biased interviews, whatever CBS is doing in the morning has been unwatchable since 1981, and MSNBC is a disgrace in every way, and I mean every way. Lately the embarrassment has been that a disturbing number of its “tax the rich into oblivion and turn the US into Sweden” talking heads haven’t been paying their income taxes. I can respect people who at least display personal integrity regarding the irresponsible policies they advocate, but MSNBC is crawling with hypocrites as well as Angry Left demagogues.

That leaves CNN, which in one respect is unfair: since I can’t stand watching the others and only catch their worst moments when they are flagged by Mediaite or a tipster, CNN gets a disproportional criticism here. It is almost impossible, however, to be unfair to Carol Costello. Continue reading →

CNN’s Chris Cuomo Gets An Ethics Dunce Hat Trick: Law, Journalism And Civics

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

dunce capBad day at CNN. First John Berman turns the morning news into frat boy jokes about “big stones” —a testicles reference! HAR!–and then CNN’s AM Big Kahuna Chris Cuomo humiliates himself and everyone associated with him by tweeting,

“Hate speech is excluded from protection. Don’t just say you love the Constitution…read it.”

Wow. Not only is Cuomo spectacularly wrong, but he was smug and arrogant about it. Much as censorious fake liberals who want to impose speech and thought codes on us all would like it to be the case, “hate speech” has no special status in the Constitution at all, other than its status as “speech.” Reason, in a rebuke to Cuomo that drips with appropriate but still somehow inadequate contempt, points out:

Okay, let’s take Cuomo’s challenge. Let’s read the speech part of the Constitution. (I hope this doesn’t take too long; I hate reading.) Oh, good, the speech stuff is right there at the beginning of the “things you can do” section:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. My copy of the Constitution seems to be missing this fabled “except hate speech, none of that” clause.

Well, then, it must be an exception found by the Supreme Court, right? Uh, no…Reason continues its schooling: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: CNN Morning Anchor John Berman

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments
When to you break out the dick jokes, John?

When to you break out the dick jokes, John?

There is apparently no way to stop the trend of supposed professionals polluting our discourse, and the airwaves by inflicting gratuitous vulgarity on us, apparently in the mistaken belief that doing so is clever and cute. It isn’t. It’s unprofessional, juvenile and embarrassing.

CNN anchor John Berman is the latest to join the smut brigade. Announcing a promotion for CNN’s evening entertainment show, “Somebody’s Gotta Do It” starring Mike Rowe, in which Rowe will be doing something—I really don’t care—involving boulders—Berman smirkingly began, “Mike Rowe shows us big stones!” Nice. And stupid. Kate Bolduan, sitting next to him, seemed visibly annoyed, and when he repeated the “joke” after the break, said, curtly, “Please stop.” Continue reading →

Another TV Doctor, Another Breach: Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s Heroic And Self-serving Ethics Blindness

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Are TV doctors entertainers, journalists or doctors? In a way the question doesn’t matter: if they are doctors, then they are obligated to follow medical ethics and the standards of their profession at all times, no matter what else they may be taking compensation for. This is why “Dr. Oz” is ducking the issue when he tries to avoid accountability for pushing quack remedies on his TV show (if it ducks like a quack…) by arguing that he isn’t practicing medicine, but engaging in entertainment. He’s still a doctor, every second of his life, once he takes that oath.

CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta has largely steered clear of ethical issues in his tenure as the network’s medical expert. Not entirely, however; for example, in 2009, he was prominently mentioned as a possible Surgeon General, and was in discussions with the White House while continuing his reporting on the air, raising real and potential conflict of interest concerns. The most recent controversy is more serious. Continue reading →

CNN Asks, “Why do we ignore Mayweather’s domestic abuse?” Here’s Why…

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments
Floyd uses the pink gloves on his girl friends...

Floyd uses the pink gloves on his girl friends…

CNN’s Paul A Reyes writes,

“The wait is over,” proclaims the copy on Showtime TV’s website. The cable channel is heavily promoting Saturday night’s boxing match in Las Vegas between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. The cable network is going all-out to raise interest to a fever pitch for what it is billing as “one of the most anticipated fights in boxing history.” There is something missing here: Amid all this hoopla, as corporations and promoters line up for their big pay-per-view payday, there is a resounding silence on Mayweather’s documented history of domestic violence — no mention of any accountability or responsibility….That Mayweather is a serial batterer of women cannot be disputed. According to the sports website Deadspin, Mayweather has had at least seven assaults against five women that resulted in arrest or citations in addition to other episodes in which the police were called but no charges filed. …Questioned by CNN reporter Rachel Nichols last year about his abusive behavior, Mayweather showed little remorse. He noted that there were “no pictures … just hearsay and allegations.” He has previously said he should not be compared to O.J. Simpson or Chris Brown because there are no pictures of the women he has allegedly abused — as if the lack of video or photographic evidence is equal to exoneration. In fact, Mayweather spent several months in jail in 2012 after pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault charges….Mayweather, whom Forbes has named the highest-paid sportsman in the world, is set to take home $180 million for the fight.

Such collective indifference by the public of Mayweather’s domestic abuse is curious considering other incidents involving football players. After video surfaced of Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée (now wife) in an Atlantic City, New Jersey, elevator, he was temporarily suspended by the NFL and later dropped by the Baltimore Ravens. Adrian Peterson was likewise suspended by the Minnesota Vikings for harshly disciplining his son. These punishments occurred amid widespread outrage among fans and the public over what was deemed unacceptable behavior by athletes. Such outrage seems to be absent when it comes to Mayweather.

CNN (and ESPN, and other commentators) are perplexed and amazed by this. Let me explain it to them. It’s not hard.

1. This is boxing, in which two men, and sometimes women, try to beat each other into unconsciousness, sometimes permanently injuring the other. It is a thoroughly discredited, completely unethical sport, whose biggest celebrity, most honored figure and most admired practitioner, Mohammud Ali, is a brain damaged shell as a direct result of his participation in it. The most famous recent champion, Mike Tyson, is a self-confessed vicious brute, a rapist, and a domestic abuser who in his last championship fight bit off a piece of his opponent’s ear. Continue reading →

Rationalization #30 (“It’s a bad law/stupid rule”) Chronicles: Vijay Chokalingam’s Affirmative Action Fraud

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Affirmative Action

Actress Mindy Kaling, whom you might know from the sitcom she created and now stars in called “The Mindy Project,” has a brother who has exploited both his relationship to his famous sister and an ethically indefensible fraud to gain some momentary fame and perhaps a book deal. Vijay Chokalingam has revealed that 17 years ago he gained acceptance to St. Louis University’s School of Medicine by falsely representing himself as an African-American.

On his new website, Almost Black, Chokalingam explains,

In my junior year of college, I realized that I didn’t have the grades or test scores to get into medical school, at least not as an Indian-American. Still, I was determined to become a doctor and I knew that admission standards for certain minorities under affirmative action were, let’s say… less stringent? So, I shaved my head, trimmed my long Indian eyelashes, and applied to medical school as a black man. My change in appearance was so startling that my own fraternity brothers didn’t recognize me at first. I even joined the Organization of Black Students and started using my embarrassing middle name that I had hidden from all of my friends since I was a 9 years old.

Vijay the Indian-American frat boy become Jojo the African American Affirmative Action applicant to medical school….I became a serious contender at some of the greatest medical schools in America, including Harvard, Wash U, UPenn, Case Western, and Columbia. In all, I interviewed at eleven prestigious medical schools in 9 major cities across America, while posing a black man.

Continue reading →