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MEDIA

The Free Beacon Did Not ‘Correct’ My Record Carter Page, not the Beacon, is the victim. To portray it any other way only adds to the outrage. Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/19/the-free-beacon-did-not-correct-my-record/

On Tuesday, Rush Limbaugh shared with his listeners a portion of my article detailing the way the Washington Free Beacon helped launch the character assassination of Carter Page. Citing information originating with the Free Beacon itself and new revelations contained in the book authored by the owners of Fusion GPS, here’s the gist: Glenn Simpson contacted a “longtime Republican politico” in August 2015 to pitch his anti-Trump project. According to Simpson’s book (p. 15), the next month, that politico informed Simpson that the Washington Free Beacon would hire Fusion for $50,000 per month to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. (Simpson also confirmed in his congressional testimony that Fusion’s “flat fee” for that type of work.)

That relationship lasted until January 2017—a fact that the Free Beacon originally attempted to conceal—and the Beacon posted the first known hit piece on Carter Page on March 23, 2016. The Free Beacon, according to widespread reporting, is backed by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who opposed Trump’s candidacy in 2016.

Let me back up here: My readers know that I have been a big defender of Carter Page. I have interviewed him several times and wrote a piece in June 2018 referring to Page as the biggest victim of the collusion hoax. Now that Page has been cleared and the American public knows how Barack Obama’s FBI spied on him for a year, anyone who participated in the character assassination of Page should apologize. Further, as I argue in my article, any “conservative” outlet that published hit pieces on Page should retract their attacks and apologize to him. We now know that the lies told about Page originated with Fusion GPS and were part of an anti-Trump propaganda campaign.

But the Free Beacon, instead of doing the right thing, is continuing to defend themselves. In an email to Rush, Michael Goldfarb, the Free Beacon’s founding chairman, attempted to refute my article. Rush read Goldfarb’s full response on-air Wednesday; it is posted on Rush’s website.

Countering Bill Whitaker’s ’60-Minutes’ Rawabi Story How about the Israelis living across the hill? Joseph Puder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/countering-bill-whitakers-60-minutes-rawabi-story-joseph-puder/

Bill Whitaker’s (December 8, 2019) CBS-TV 60-Minutes segment called: “Rawabi: Man’s Vision For a Palestinian Future” is a biased journalistic piece and ignorant of historical facts and Middle East realities. While extolling the featured “hero” of the story – Palestinian builder Bashar Masri, Whitaker failed to mention a critical fact in his story – Palestinian terrorism.  Nor has he bothered to get the other side of the story – Israelis living across from Rawabi in a nearby hillside community of Samaria.

Whitaker mentions that the “Arab-Palestinians have been yearning for a state since 1948.”  The fact is that the Arab Palestinians could have had their state in 1947, and even earlier, in 1937 (Peel Commission recommendation). In November, 1947, the United Nations voted for the Partition of Palestine. The UN vote called for the creation of both a Jewish (Israeli) State as well as an Arab-Palestinian state. The Jews of Israel accepted a shrunken Jewish State. The Arab Palestinians rejected the partition plan (and the previous Peel Commission plan for statehood) and chose to wage a war of extermination against the Jewish state. The Arab Palestinians, along with 5 Arab states, including Egypt, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, sent forces to destroy the nascent Jewish state with the aim of “throwing the Jews into the sea.”

In stating “The West Bank, where the Palestinians hoped to establish their state…,” Whitaker implied that someone denied the Palestinians their hopes to establishing their state. In fact, the Palestinians have said “NO” to every offer of peace extended to them by Israel. In July 2000, President Bill Clinton convened a summit at Camp David. Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak were invited to the secluded Camp David to resolve once and for all the 100-year-old conflict between Arabs and Jews. Encouraged by President Clinton, Barak offered far reaching concessions to the Palestinians, including 91% of the West Bank, all of the Gaza Strip, and Israeli territory in exchange for Jewish Settlements in Judea and Samaria. In addition, Barak agreed to the Palestinians establishing their capital in East Jerusalem. Significantly, Barak also agreed to extend a humanitarian gesture such as allowing 100,000 Palestinian refugees to settle in Israel. Arafat rejected the offer to establish a Palestinian state, he refused to commit to “ending the conflict”, and chose instead to launch the bloody Second Intifada, which cost the lives of over 1,000 Israeli civilians, victims of Palestinian terror.

Time Mag Chooses School-Skipping Brat Over Millions Fighting Oppression in Iran, Venezuela, and Hong Kong Wed Dec 11, 2019 Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2019/12/time-mag-chooses-school-skipping-brat-over-daniel-greenfield/

Time Mag’s ‘Lefty Cause of the Year” came down to a race between endorsing the removal of President Trump from office or endorsing the destruction of civilization through radical environmentalism. 

In the choice between the particular, the ‘whistleblower’, and the general, environmentalism, Eric Ciaramella lost out to Greta Thunberg.

The moral of the story here is that if you skip school, you cut ahead in line of the guy with an actual career.

Meanwhile the millions of people in Iran, Venezuela, and Hong Kong, fighting for freedom were ignored by the same media that once glamorized Arab Spring Islamist protesters. Christians fighting Communism, starving Venezuelans fighting Socialism, and Persians fighting Shiite theocracy, are not the media’s idea of the kinds of causes it wants to promote.

And so, while sidelining the people risking their lives to fight for freedom, Time decided to honor an obnoxious brat who became an international celebrity for skipping school until civilization is destroyed.

Everyone has their priorities. Especially the media. 

Trump’s great economy can’t be hidden By Peter Skurkiss

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/trumps_great_economy_cant_be_hidden_.html

The wonders that President Trump is doing with the economy is getting impossible to hide or to ignore. November’s job report has been so good that even those poor souls encased in the liberal media’s bubble are learning about it. This is evidenced by a front page, above the fold, article in the New York Times titled “U.S. Job Growth Stays On Streak, Soothing Jitters.” 

The Times leads off this piece by informing its liberal reader base the following:

American’s job engine has again defied jittery stock traders, bearish forecasters, and blue-ribbon economists to deliver eye-catching gains and power an exceptionally resilient economy.
November’s outstanding employment report, released Friday by the Labor Department, featured payroll increases of 266,000 and offered a counterpoint to recent anxieties about an escalating trade war and weakening global economy.
“I think this report is a real blockbuster,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at the career site Glassdoor. “Payrolls smashed expectations.”

You have to savor the wording used here — “eye-catching,” “exceptionally resilient,” “blockbuster,” and “smashed expectations” — and pinch yourself to remember it is coming from the New York Times. The editors of the NYT would have loved to have written such words about the Obama economy, but that would have been too far a leap even for them. Instead, they tried to spin the Obama’s lackluster years as ‘the new normal.” That has now been shown to be more fake news.

Red Yellow Journalism When it comes to covering Jeremy Corbyn and anti-Semitism, mainstream outlets are having a hard time telling the truth By James Kirchick

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/295247/red-yellow-journalism

According to a report published earlier this month, 84% of British Jews feel that Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is a “threat specifically to Jews.” Two-thirds of Labour supporters hold at least one anti-Semitic view, the frequent, public expression of which since Corbyn’s ascension four years ago has caused the party to come under investigation by Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission (making Labour the only political party, after the avowedly racist British National Party, to face such an inquiry). Most chilling is a pollcommissioned by the Jewish News finding that half of British Jews would “seriously consider” leaving the country if Corbyn becomes prime minister after next week’s general election. In the words of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism’s Gideon Falter, “British Jews are considering leaving the country on a scale unprecedented since medieval times.” This is a very disturbing moment for British Jewry, but it is also, I might argue, an even more threatening moment for Britain itself.

Which is why I am baffled that The New York Times, which prides itself on fearlessly reporting the truth, would in this case overtly and obviously obfuscate it.

Last month, in a piece titled, “At Odds With Labour, Britain’s Jews Are Feeling Politically Homeless,” Times London correspondent Benjamin Mueller portrayed a community torn equally between the party that has long been its traditional political home (Labour) and one that represents a “little England” nationalism historically inimical to progressive Jewish values (the Conservatives). “Online and over Shabbat dinners, arguments about the election have grown bitter,” Mueller reports. “Those grudgingly planning to vote for Labour have been called traitors to the community and self-hating Jews. Anti-Corbyn die-hards, on the other hand, have been branded the handmaidens of a hard Brexit.”

There is no such division within the Jewish community: 94% of British Jews will vote for any party but Labour next Thursday. For those Jews who cannot stomach a vote for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s pro-Brexit Tories, the Liberal Democrats offer the option of unambiguous support for continued European Union membership without the rank stench of anti-Semitism. Last year, the country’s three Jewish newspapers—each representing different political and communal traditions and constituencies—all published the same, front-page editorial warning that a Corbyn-led government would present an “existential” threat to British Jewry. The old joke about two Jews, three synagogues really does not have any pertinence when it comes to the matter of how the British Jewish community sees Jeremy Corbyn.

Why Are Taxpayers Subsidizing Get-Trump Propaganda? Adam Mill

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/03/why-are-taxpayers-subsidizing-get-trump-propaganda/

A recent NPR segment is a microcosm of the whole thing: an echo chamber of Trump derangement through which reality cannot penetrate.

The name “All Things Considered” would suggest a wide-ranging survey of viewpoints on today’s issues. That’s the name of the taxpayer-subsidized nightly evening show that National Public Radio broadcasts to a national audience. So it is particularly maddening when NPR broadcasts yet another segment featuring a discussion among three anti-Trump pundits who seem unable to consider anything that doesn’t help NPR’s quest to take down the president.

Before turning to impeachment, the segment began with NPR host Ari Shapiro, New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Vox writer Matthew Yglesias finding something nasty to say about the president visiting the troops in Afghanistan for Thanksgiving. (A heartwarming video of the event can be seen here.)

It was a perfect little echo chamber.

“President Trump is back in the U.S. after just a few hours on the ground in Afghanistan, and the trip was not the only surprise,” Shapiro said. “He also unexpectedly announced that peace talks are back on between the U.S. and the Taliban.”

Schiff obtained journalist John Solomon’s phone records, and nobody in the media seems to care Rob Eno

https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/schiff-obtained-journalist-john-solomons-phone-records-and-nobody-in-the-media-seems-to-care?

WTF MSM!? is a newsletter that puts a dose of sunlight on the mainstream media and exposes how the media twist facts, selectively report, and outright lie to advance their left-wing agenda. You can sign up for the WTF MSM!? newsletter here.

We have been told over and over and over again by the media that source relationships are the key to journalism. That the relationship between source and journalist is so sacrosanct that reporters are willing to go to jail to protect it. Enter the impeachment of President Donald Trump, and those same reporters aren’t screaming about Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) obtaining records of calls between investigative reporter John Solomon and his sources regarding corruption in Ukraine.

CNN reported, “The phone records, which are labeled in the report’s endnotes as coming from AT&T, show a web of communications between Solomon, Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Ukrainian American businessman Lev Parnas, Nunes and the White House’s budget office.”

Get that? Not only did Schiff obtain a journalist’s call records, he obtained the call records of the ranking member of his committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). Which is particularly rich coming from Schiff, who is alleged to be a serial leaker.

Journalists Against Free Speech A strange new world. John Tierney

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/journalists-against-free-speech-john-tierney/

Reprinted from City Journal.

Suppose you’re the editorial-page editor of a college newspaper, contemplating the big news on campus: protesters have silenced an invited speaker and gone on a violent rampage. Should you, as a journalist whose profession depends on the First Amendment, write an editorial reaffirming the right to free speech?

If that seems like a no-brainer, you’re behind the times. The question stumped the staff of the Middlebury Campus after protesters silenced conservative social thinker Charles Murray and injured the professor who’d invited him. The prospect of taking a stand on the First Amendment was so daunting that the paper dispensed with its usual weekly editorial, devoting the space instead to a range of opinions from others—most of whom defended the protesters. When a larger and more violent mob at the University of California at Berkeley prevented Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking on campus, students at the Daily Californian did write a forceful editorial—but not in favor of his right to speak. Instead, they reviled Yiannopoulos and denounced those who “invited chaos” by offering a platform to “someone who never belonged here.”

Free speech is no longer sacred among young journalists who have absorbed the campus lessons about “hate speech”—defined more and more broadly—and they’re breaking long-standing taboos as they bring “cancel culture” into professional newsrooms. They’re not yet in charge, but many of their editors are reacting like beleaguered college presidents, terrified of seeming insufficiently “woke.” Most professional journalists, young and old, still pay lip service to the First Amendment, and they certainly believe that it protects their work, but they’re increasingly eager for others to be “de-platformed” or “no-platformed,” as today’s censors like to put it—effectively silenced.

These mostly younger progressive journalists lead campaigns to get conservative journalists fired, banned from Twitter, and “de-monetized” on YouTube. They don’t burn books, but they’ve successfully pressured Amazon to stop selling titles that they deem offensive. They encourage advertising boycotts designed to put ideological rivals out of business. They’re loath to report forthrightly on left-wing censorship and violence, even when fellow journalists get attacked. They equate conservatives’ speech with violence and rationalize leftists’ actual violence as . . . speech.

Catherine Herridge, now at CBS, devastates ‘Whistleblower’s’ legitimacy By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/catherine_herridge_now_at_cbs_devastates_whistleblowers_legitimacy.html

Moving from Fox News to CBS has not diminished the immense value of Catherine Herridge’s work.  If anything, the move has increased the number of Americans gaining access to insightful work that questions the MSM’s phony and biased narratives.  Nick Arama of RedState calls our attention to a tweet of hers yesterday that “highlights the fundamental problem with [the] whistleblower’s story with just one pic”:

In the CBS article linked in the tweet, she notes that long after filing a whistleblower complaint that failed to disclose prior contacts with the staff of Adam Schiff — probably a matter of lying in a sworn statement, and therefore criminal conduct — the still unnamed (in the MSM but widely believed to be Eric Ciaramella) whistleblower:

… reached out to the intelligence community watchdog on October 8 to clarify the nature of his or her contact with Democratic majority staff of the House Intelligence Committee before the complaint was filed.

The whistleblower acknowledged reaching out to the committee, but claimed that nothing substantial was discussed and that the staff member directed them to go through official channels, according to the “Memorandum of Investigative Activity,” provided to House and Senate Intelligence Committee leadership by intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) Michael Atkinson. The form is dated October 18 and documents the October 8 outreach by the whistleblower.

New York Times Says Trump Accusing It Of Fake News is Hitlerian Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2019/12/new-york-times-says-trump-accusing-it-fake-news-daniel-greenfield/

I might say that the New York Times ought to be ashamed, but the paper clearly doesn’t even understand the concept. After launching a defense of Jeremy Corbyn by attacking the UK’s Chief Rabbi who called the radical leftist out for anti-Semitism, the Times, which covered up the Holocaust while it was going on to provide cover for FDR’s inaction, accuses Trump of having adopted ‘fake news’ from Hitler.

Literally. No shame.

As the historian Timothy Snyder has written in The Times, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came up with the slogan “Lügenpresse” — translated as “lying press” — in order to discredit independent journalism. Now the tactic has been laundered through an American president, Donald Trump, who adopted the term “fake news” as a candidate and has used it hundreds of times in office.

Accusing the press of lying did not originate with Hitler. Trump was not studying Nazi slogans. (Though there are alt-righters who use “lugenpresse” because they’re Nazi fans.) Plenty of American politicians have accused the media of being deceptive and dishonest.

David Brock, the Clinton lapdog, made a specialty of it. He even accused the New York Times of being right-wing.

The New York Times knows it’s spouting obscene nonsense. And it doesn’t care.