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And so he should.
All week long, the media have told us all about the Far Right people in Charlottesville, but nothing about the violent Alt-Left who were there. I wrote about Antifa and others yesterday.
To recap, this Charlottesville thing was a set-up designed to bring President Donald Trump down. The Far Right and the Far Left were actors and pawns used — and paid — by powerful Trump enemies. I explained why earlier in the week.
President Donald Trump made a statement on Saturday, August 12, 2017 rightly condemning both sides — while the melée was still going on. Big Media weren’t happy because he said the Left as well as the Right were involved in the violence. He made another statement on Monday, August 14, focussing on the Right. No one was happy, including his supporters. On Tuesday, August 15 at Trump Tower — because the White House is being renovated — he took the gloves off.
The interruptions from reporters were epic and uncalled for. A black Trump-supporting talk show host rightly pointed out:
Apparently …
One can imagine the president was well and truly fed up.
How many statements does he need to make about this?
So, he asked the media, ‘What about the Alt-Left?’ That occurs about halfway through this video, which is only part of the press conference, which was supposed to be about his new infrastructure policies, which is why Trump was flanked by newly married treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and transportation secretary Elaine Chao. Instead, it was mostly about Charlottesville. Watch the body language and note the welcome absence of a teleprompter:
Elaine Chao looks on in admiration. She’s married to do-nothing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky).
This is the next part, which is about violent activists pulling down Confederate statues. Trump asks where it will stop and if Washington and Jefferson are next:
Asking how far these unhinged radicals will go led to a confrontation between Trump and the always complaining, ever-interrupting Jim Acosta from CNN, who, as I said yesterday, needs his press pass pulled — permanently. In fact, CNN should be suspended indefinitely from press briefings:
The White House issued a summary of talking points about the press conference. Particularly enjoyable is the bullet point that reads (emphases mine below):
The media reacted with hysteria to the notion that counter-protesters showed up with clubs spoiling for a fight, a fact that reporters on the ground have repeatedly stated.
Hilarious — and so true.
The Daily Wire, not necessarily a pro-Trump site, enjoyed it. It was vintage Trump — the man so many voted for — for sure. Excerpts follow from ‘Trump’s Epic Presser Clarifies Three Truths That Have Driven The MSM Insane’ (emphases of numbered items in the original):
During a fiery question and answer session with the leftwing media Tuesday afternoon, President Trump arrived loaded for bear. The presser was vintage Trump. Combative, oftentimes hilarious, and filled with deeply satisfying moments that sometimes happen when Trump is at his best, moments when stark truths are finally said out loud, and by the President of the United States, no less.
… Trump appeared to enjoy every moment of the hostile back and forth. Moreover, he had three truths he wanted to communicate to the American people, and so that is exactly what he did and we are now a better country for it.
1. “Not all of those people were neo-Nazis.”
Trump again blasted the white supremacists in Charlottesville, and he also tore into the man charged with driving his car into a group of Antifa counter-protesters as a “disgrace to his family and country … a murderer.”
However, Trump also pointed out that not everyone who protested that day against the removal of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s statue is a racist …
The media’s response to this truth has been unhinged. They are claiming Trump believes there are good people in the white supremacist movement. This despite the fact he made clear — without being asked — that this is exactly what he did not mean:
I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers.
2. “Are we going to take down statues to George Washington?”
Although Trump made clear that he believes, and appropriately so, that the decision to remove statues should be left to local governments, he also made another clarifying point: Where does this madness end? …
Acosta kept saying, ‘No, sir. No, sir,’ but I’ve seen this many times before in my lifetime: mission creep — smoking bans being a primary example.
Back to the article, which also suggests mission creep:
Quite hilariously the disingenuous is pretending Trump is insane for lumping together Lee with Jefferson and Washington, even though the calls from the Left to memory-hole our slave-owning Founding Fathers, to remove their statues and tributes, have been floated for more than a decade.
Where will it end?
Lincoln was serious about freeing the slaves and shipping them back to Africa. West Virginia is lousy with tributes to Klansman (and Democrat) Robert Byrd. Ulysses Grant owned slaves. Franklin Roosevelt interned the Japanese.
The media can pretend the Left’s Taliban-ish crusade for historical purity is not real, but it is, and Americans know it.
3. “There was violence on both sides.”
This is, without question, the most important point the president made, and he made it repeatedly.
Post-Charlottesville, the MSM’s shameless propaganda push, their audacious and coordinated attempt to write the culpability of Antifa out of Saturday’s riot is not only Orwellian, it is (and this is by design) dangerous. The media obviously wants Antifa motivated and out there, wants their own personal army of Brownshirts fanning out across the country to break heads, not just of Nazis but of everyday Trump supporters, of anyone on the Right who dares hold an unacceptable opinion.
Trump was having none of it:
What I’m saying is this. You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and it was horrible. And it was a horrible thing to watch.
But there is another side. There was a group on this side, you can call them the Left. You’ve just called them the Left — that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is. …
I think there’s blame on both sides. … I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say [so].
The article concludes:
Today, he dragged the media’s favorite leftwing supremacists out into the spotlight.
Trump’s taking hell for it, but he is doing the only moral thing — telling the truth.
Indeed, and Trump supporters are most grateful. I hope this happens more often. I really do. Chief of Staff General John F Kelly was also there standing to Steven Mnuchin’s left, and it is unclear whether he disapproved of Trump’s truth telling or if he was annoyed with the media. He looked out, he looked down, but was enigmatic. By contrast, Mnuchin was trying to suppress a grin every now and then.
Whatever the case with the lying media:
From the Christian Post article:
While some, like Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer, have claimed that there is a “direct line” between the events in Charlottesville and the choices Trump made in his 2016 presidential campaign, conservative African-American clergy members, scholars and political activists decried such an argument in a Monday press conference at the National Press Club.
Organized by The Center of Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit think tank founded by conservative political commentator and activist Star Parker, the press conference was originally scheduled for the purpose of praising the Trump administration’s plan to revitalize inner cities. But given the events of last weekend — where clashes between white supremacists and counter-protesters became deadly — Charlottesville and the related issue of racial conflict dominated much of the talk in the news conference …
The Rev. Derek McCoy, CURE’s executive vice president who also directs the CURE National Clergy Network, was the first to respond to the question.
“One thing you need to understand — you are saying that the president is the instigator and I think that is absolutely wrong. No, it is not disingenuous,” McCoy asserted. “The president made his comments and we are not standing up here to say that we are best friends with everything the president does but he is in an office that we all respect. … If we are looking about how we can move our country forward, we are trying to make sure that we do that collectively together.”
Corrogan Vaughn, a political activist who ran against Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland in the 2016 election, argued that those in the media who blame Trump for the racial tension in the United States are trying to turn Trump into a “villain.”
“Don’t make our commander in chief a villain when in actuality it is more the villainess of the media in terms of making something where nothing is,” Vaughn stated.
Well said.
Who are more credible, these good people or the lying media?
This week in America with regard to matters domestic was nothing short of demonic.
It showed that a spiritual battle is going on of epic proportions. As horrible as it was, we are seeing only the surface. Things will get worse before they get better.
We know about the far right, so let’s look at the far left, since the media won’t.
The Far Left
After Charlottesville, the Far Left continued their rampage by tearing down a Confederate statue in Durham, North Carolina:
On Tuesday, August 15, the local ABC affiliate WTVD reported (emphases mine below):
Durham County sheriff’s deputies arrested a woman who said she took part in toppling the Confederate statue in downtown Durham. More arrests are expected.
Takiyah Thompson, 22, was taken into custody shortly after protesters held a news conference Tuesday afternoon at North Carolina Central University. Thompson climbed a ladder to the top of the statue to tie a rope around its neck before the crowd tore it down.
Thompson is charged with:
-
- disorderly conduct by injury to a statue (Class II Misdemeanor)
- damage to real property (statue as a fixture (Class I Misdemeanor)
- participation in a riot with property damage in excess of $1,500 (Class H Felony)
- inciting others to riot where there is property damage in excess of $1,500 (Class F Felony)
The protesters who took part in toppling Confederate statue in Durham on Monday held the news conference Tuesday to call for the dropping of any charges related to the incident.
Thompson was given a $10,000 unsecured bond. She bonded out at 5:48 p.m. The World Worker’s Party Durham chapter has set up a legal defense fund to help fight her case in court.
Deputies said Tuesday night that investigators continue to search for other suspects in the removal of the statue.
“The people decided to take matters into our own hands and remove the statue,” said Thompson, a member of the Communist-platform Workers World Party and a student at N.C. Central University. “We are tired of waiting on politicians who could have voted to remove the white supremacist statues years ago, but they failed to act. So we acted” …
At a news conference, Durham County manager Wendell Davis called pulling the statue down “unlawful and inappropriate”.
Wendell Davis is black. So are other Durham County officials.
The New York Post had details about the jail sentences accompanying the felony charges:
Takiya Thompson, 22, has been charged with disorderly conduct by injury to a statue, damage to real property, participation in a riot with property damage in excess of $1,500 — and inciting others to riot where there is property damage in excess of $1,500, according to the Durham County Sheriff’s Office.
The last two offenses are Class H and Class F felonies, with each carrying a sentence of up to 25 months and 41 months behind bars, respectively.
Interestingly, the left-of-centre and anti-Trump magazine The Atlantic recently published an article, ‘The Rise of the Violent Left’.
The author, Peter Beinart, posits:
Antifa’s activists say they’re battling burgeoning authoritarianism on the American right. Are they fueling it instead?
Yes, they are.
Beinart catalogues the various events that Antifa’s violence have cancelled in recent months. The Far Left group does not want any conservatives, Republicans or Trump supporters (not every Trump supporter identifies with either of those two groups) to hold or participate in any public gatherings.
Antifa and similar groups get a degree of ideological support from Democrats. Beinart explains:
For progressives, Donald Trump is not just another Republican president. Seventy-six percent of Democrats, according to a Suffolk poll from last September, consider him a racist. Last March, according to a YouGov survey, 71 percent of Democrats agreed that his campaign contained “fascist undertones.”
He’s anything but. Check YouTube for old videos of him helping the black community in New York. Here’s one for starters. I think it’s his Alpha masculinity that the Left — including Democrats — finds triggering.
Beinart goes into the history of Antifa:
“antifa,” which is short for antifascist or Anti-Fascist Action. The movement’s secrecy makes definitively cataloging its activities difficult, but this much is certain: Antifa’s power is growing. And how the rest of the activist left responds will help define its moral character in the Trump age.
Antifa traces its roots to the 1920s and ’30s, when militant leftists battled fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain. When fascism withered after World War II, antifa did too. But in the ’70s and ’80s, neo-Nazi skinheads began to infiltrate Britain’s punk scene. After the Berlin Wall fell, neo-Nazism also gained prominence in Germany. In response, a cadre of young leftists, including many anarchists and punk fans, revived the tradition of street-level antifascism.
In the late ’80s, left-wing punk fans in the United States began following suit, though they initially called their groups Anti-Racist Action, on the theory that Americans would be more familiar with fighting racism than fascism. According to Mark Bray, the author of the forthcoming Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, these activists toured with popular alternative bands in the ’90s, trying to ensure that neo-Nazis did not recruit their fans. In 2002, they disrupted a speech by the head of the World Church of the Creator, a white-supremacist group in Pennsylvania; 25 people were arrested in the resulting brawl.
Then things went quiet. Beinart says that these activists focussed on anti-capitalist activities.
He says that Antifa re-emerged from the time Trump ran in the Republican primaries in 2016. The activists garnered support from the mainstream Left:
An article in The Nation argued that “to call Trumpism fascist” is to realize that it is “not well combated or contained by standard liberal appeals to reason.” The radical left, it said, offers “practical and serious responses in this political moment.”
That includes violence.
Some Democrat-dominated cities, such as Portland, Oregon, have become defined by Antifa. Portland had days of violent protests after Trump won the presidential election on November 8, 2016. Other protests have taken place since then.
This sets a worrying precedent, because Antifa don’t like the police or local government, either, even when those officials are Democrats:
What’s eroding in Portland is the quality Max Weber considered essential to a functioning state: a monopoly on legitimate violence. As members of a largely anarchist movement, antifascists don’t want the government to stop white supremacists from gathering. They want to do so themselves, rendering the government impotent. With help from other left-wing activists, they’re already having some success at disrupting government. Demonstrators have interrupted so many city-council meetings that in February, the council met behind locked doors.
Meanwhile, Trump supporters are frustrated. They see Democrats buckling to Antifa demands:
Joey Gibson, a Trump supporter who organized the June 4 Portland rally, told me that his “biggest pet peeve is when mayors have police stand down … They don’t want conservatives to be coming together and speaking.”
Meeting with violence is another concern of Trump supporters and Republicans:
To provide security at the rally, Gibson brought in a far-right militia called the Oath Keepers. In late June, James Buchal, the chair of the Multnomah County Republican Party, announced that it too would use militia members for security, because “volunteers don’t feel safe on the streets of Portland.”
Beinart concludes:
Revulsion, fear, and rage are understandable. But one thing is clear. The people preventing Republicans from safely assembling on the streets of Portland may consider themselves fierce opponents of the authoritarianism growing on the American right. In truth, however, they are its unlikeliest allies.
The media
Because the media are almost universally Democrats, they will defend Far Left groups and even deny their existence. After all, someone has to protest Trump and his supporters. If they have to use violence, so be it.
And, it is interesting to see who the Left defines as ‘far right’, for instance, this multiracial group of readers and contributors to /pol/4chan. It’s difficult to describe /pol/ fans other than to say that they are young people who oppose political correctness and enjoy making fun of the Left. For that, they get branded as a hate group. I’m not necessarily defending them, but activists can take things way too far.
Returning to — and closing with — the media, watch for the Charlottesville story to run and run, while other incidents past and present are conveniently swept under the rug.
The media are shameful.
Trump will have to direct his communications office to begin revoking press passes, starting with CNN’s Jim Acosta, who has been belligerent from the beginning and known for interrupting Trump. He did so again the other day. More on that tomorrow.
Last week, a media frenzy ensued over President Donald Trump’s words about North Korea.
Here is MSNBC’s Brian Williams on the subject. From August 9, 2017:
He actually does say at the beginning of that segment:
Our job, actually, tonight, Malcolm, is to scare people to death.
For those who do not know, Williams has told some whopping lies in the past. In fact, they were so outrageous that he was suspended from his job as NBC news anchor in 2015. Before his suspension, he was the 23rd most trusted person in America. Afterwards, he plummeted to the 835th spot.
Unfortunately, he was given his own show on sister channel MSNBC, The 11th Hour. (The video above is from that programme.) In February 2017, Williams had the gall to devote an entire segment on his show to President Trump’s ‘lying’. Amazing.
I’m writing this post on Tuesday, August 15. This is what has happened recently between the US, North Korea and China. China holds much control over North Korea, particularly in terms of trade and labour.
It’s also worth noting that the Korean War never came to an official end (emphases mine below):
The United States has remained technically at war with North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. The past six decades have been punctuated by periodic rises in antagonism and rhetoric that have always stopped short of a resumption of active hostilities.
On August 8, CNBC News reported that China would pay a heavy price for abiding by UN sanctions against North Korea:
China will pay the biggest price from the new United Nations sanctions against North Korea because of its close economic relationship with the country, but will always enforce the resolutions, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.
The United Nations Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Saturday that could slash its $3 billion annual export revenue by a third …
China has repeatedly said it is committed to enforcing increasingly tough U.N. resolutions on North Korea, though it has also said what it terms “normal” trade and ordinary North Koreans should not be affected.
The latest U.N. resolution bans North Korean exports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood. It also prohibits countries from increasing the numbers of North Korean laborers currently working abroad, bans new joint ventures with North Korea and any new investment in current joint ventures …
China appreciated comments earlier this month by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the United States does not seek to topple the North Korean government and would like dialogue with Pyongyang at some point, Wang added.
The United States does not seek regime change, the collapse of the regime, an accelerated reunification of the peninsula or an excuse to send the U.S. military into North Korea, Tillerson said.
That same day, North Korea threatened to launch missiles at Guam, a strategic US territory. CNBC News reported:
North Korea said on Wednesday it is “carefully examining” a plan to strike the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam with missiles, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump told the North that any threat to the United States would be met with “fire and fury”.
A spokesman for the Korean People’s Army, in a statement carried by the North’s state-run KCNA news agency, said the strike plan will be “put into practice in a multi-current and consecutive way any moment” once leader Kim Jong Un makes a decision.
In another statement citing a different military spokesman, North Korea also said it could carry out a pre-emptive operation if the United States showed signs of provocation …
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” Trump told reporters at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
On Sunday, August 13, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson posted an op-ed, ‘We’re Holding Pyongyang to Account’, lucidly explaining what the US is doing and why. An excerpt follows:
The object of our peaceful pressure campaign is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. has no interest in regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea. We do not seek an excuse to garrison U.S. troops north of the Demilitarized Zone. We have no desire to inflict harm on the long-suffering North Korean people, who are distinct from the hostile regime in Pyongyang.
Our diplomatic approach is shared by many nations supporting our goals, including China, which has dominant economic leverage over Pyongyang. China is North Korea’s neighbor, sole treaty ally and main commercial partner. Chinese entities are, in one way or another, involved with roughly 90% of North Korean trade. This affords China an unparalleled opportunity to assert its influence with the regime. Recent statements by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as other regional and global voices, have made clear the international community holds one view regarding North Korea’s provocative and dangerous actions: They must stop. Pyongyang must stand down on those actions.
China has a strong incentive to pursue the same goals as the U.S. The North Korean regime’s actions and the prospect of nuclear proliferation or conflict threaten the economic, political and military security China has worked to build over decades. North Korea’s behavior further threatens China’s long-term interest in regional peace and stability. If China wishes to play a more active role in securing regional peace and stability—from which all of us, especially China, derive such great benefit—it must make the decision to exercise its decisive diplomatic and economic leverage over North Korea …
This 2017 Brookings Institution paper written by Fu Ying, a Chinese lady who has been part of China’s government for many years, namely in foreign affairs and ambassadorships, backs up Tillerson’s words about China’s desire to secure regional peace and stability.
On Monday, August 14, President Trump took action on trade with China to level the playing field for the United States.
The first of the three actions relates to intellectual property rights:
The People’s Republic of China has implemented laws, policies, and practices and has taken actions related to intellectual property, innovation, and technology that encourage the transfer of American technology and intellectual property to enterprises in China and otherwise affect American economic interests. This restricts U.S. exports, deprives U.S. citizens of the right to fair remuneration for their innovation, contributes to our trade deficit with respect to China, and undermines efforts to strengthen American manufacturing, services, and innovation.
For example, U.S. companies can be required to enter into joint ventures with Chinese companies if they want to do business in China, resulting in Chinese companies forcibly acquiring U.S. intellectual property. Americans are the world’s most prolific innovators, creating the greatest technologies, products, and companies. They should not be forced or coerced to turn over the fruits of their labor.
The President is also standing strong against the theft of American IP, including defense-related technologies. The costs of intellectual property theft alone to the U.S. economy are estimated to be as high as $600 billion a year. Such thefts not only damage American companies, they also threaten our national security.
Consequences of China’s reported actions may include: lost or reduced U.S. sales, exports, and jobs in key technology sectors; loss of intellectual property or proprietary technology to Chinese companies; loss of competitive position in the marketplace or in business negotiations; and network security costs, legal fees, and other costs.
The president then issued a memorandum for the US trade representative. This is Section 2, allowing him to authorise an investigation into China’s practices with regard to US trade:
The United States Trade Representative shall determine, consistent with section 302(b) of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2412(b)), whether to investigate any of China’s laws, policies, practices, or actions that may be unreasonable or discriminatory and that may be harming American intellectual property rights, innovation, or technology development.
The third action was the issuance of a fact sheet with regard to American intellectual property and China. This fact is worth noting:
According to the IP Commission Report, China is estimated to be responsible for between 50 percent and 80 percent of all IP theft costs that harm the United States economy.
These actions met with praise by a variety of people — retired military officers, heads of defence companies, think tank experts and others. One of them, Professor Stefan Halper of the University of Cambridge, stated:
Since China joined the WTO in 2001, 2.4 million U.S. jobs have been lost and 60,000 U.S. manufacturing firms have been forced out of business. Entire regions of the country have been hollowed out. Intellectual property theft–70% by China–now costs the U.S. some $600 billion a year. A thorough review of this problem, and a rebalancing of the trade relationship, is urgent. The Administration is to be commended for initiating that today.
Later that day, North Korea backed down for now on the threats to launch missiles. Surprisingly, CNBC News was effusive:
After a weekend filled with a series of conciliatory statements from China, some of them downright surprising, the situation with North Korea seems to be less tense right now, which could be construed as a major win for the Trump team …
While these developments do not fully constitute a real solution to the potential threats North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs pose to the region and the world, everyone’s nervous meter seems to have gone down several notches …
Now if these sanctions hold and North Korea simply halts its ICBM launch tests, what many saw as some kind of massive fumble by the Trump team could easily turn into the administration’s biggest triumph of the year.
It will be a very easy narrative for President Trump and his aides to pursue if they make the point that the president’s tougher talk—that so many of his domestic critics condemned—seems to have moved China to finally do something meaningful to rein in North Korea.
By replacing President Trump’s threatening rhetoric with the more conciliatory and reasoned statements of Mattis and Tillerson, the U.S. has given up nothing. But those words may have forced China’s hand at long last.
All of this stems from a classic miscalculation by both Beijing and Pyongyang …
And Big Media, who fuelled the fire.
When will they learn?
You can’t stump the Trump!
On Friday, August 11, 2017 I reviewed President Donald Trump’s highly successful first 200 days in office.
I wrote then that I had more to cover on the topic.
Then events in Charlottesville, Virginia unfolded.
So, today, I am returning to Trump’s amazing success despite all the odds — and obstacles.
I was surprised to see a reporter at The Atlantic, an anti-Trump publication, come out on August 2 and actually say the US president is getting things done.
Although David A Graham must hold the magazine’s negative line towards him, the first half of ‘Trump Has Quietly Accomplished More Than It Appears’ is well worth reading. Excerpts follow, emphases mine:
Imagine, if you will, that there is a shadow government.
The actual government, the administration of Donald Trump, is coming off the worst week of his presidency, although there haven’t been any smooth weeks …
Things are going considerably better for the shadow government. With the Trump administration’s chaos sucking up all the attention, it’s been able to move forward on a range of its priorities, which tend to be more focused on regulatory matters anyway. It is remaking the justice system, rewriting environmental rules, overhauling public-lands administration, and greenlighting major infrastructure projects. It is appointing figures who will guarantee the triumph of its ideological vision for decades to come.
The trick here is that the administration and this shadow government are one and the same. Even as the public government sputters, other elements of the Trump administration are quietly remaking the nation’s regulatory landscape, especially on the environment and criminal justice.
There is so much attention paid to the chaos in the executive branch that it’s easy to come to believe that Trump is getting nothing whatsoever accomplished. Even for people who don’t support the president’s agenda—especially for them, in fact—it is useful to step back occasionally and take stock of what this presidency is doing to work toward its goals.
Trump’s complaints that the press is ignoring his victories in favor of covering controversies ring hollow. You can’t very well go around setting things on fire and then asking why the press keeps covering the fires. But warnings that the Trump administration is doing X to distract from Y seem misguided for a couple of reasons—one being that they ascribe a greater organization that the White House evinces in any other sphere, and another being that the supposedly distracting stories are often just as catastrophic. But the large-scale disasters do keep attention focused away from what smaller agencies are doing, as Ben Carson acknowledged recently.
“Let me put it this way,” the secretary of housing and urban development told the Washington Examiner. “I’m glad that Trump is drawing all the fire so I can get stuff done.”
Again, you won’t hear this from Big Media and their acolytes.
This is a short, instructive segment from MSNBC’s Morning Joe with former Republican (a weak one, at that) Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski (daughter of the late Johnson then Carter adviser and globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski). This is from February 2017:
The discussion is about how Trump will be able to take over the media narrative and ‘control exactly what people think’.
Mika firmly says:
That’s our job.
Trump has not yet won the media war, but he is regularly calling them out for the deceivers they are.
The US president and his cabinet are doing much to positively transform policy, and he’s only been in the job less than eight months. Some members of his cabinet have been in for far less time.
This is why, for the first time in decades (Bush I, to be precise), I echo this sentiment:
MAGA!
At the weekend, another new — and bad — media narrative appeared: Charlottesville.
Charlottesville is in Virginia and should not be confused with Charlotte, North Carolina.
By now, everyone reading this will have seen video footage and commentary on the violence.
Although no one will entertain talking about it in Big Media, this was likely to have been a false flag driven by powerful opponents to President Donald Trump and executed by extremist and disturbed minions on the left as well as the right.
We do not know all of the facts yet, therefore, further speculation is premature.
This was the president’s statement in full. In it, he said that many groups were responsible:
A professor who is an expert on nationalism concurred:
Fox News has a summary of those on the left and the right who complained about Trump’s statement. Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said:
“Donald Trump, I thought, was very explicitly clear in condemning what happened,” he said on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.” “He will never satisfy those who hate his every word.”
The Washington Examiner reported that Huckabee also said:
some people “cannot get over the fact he is president”.
A Department of Justice and FBI investigation is currently underway.
One hopes the investigators will find out exactly who issued the order for the police to stand down. The police are there to protect protesters who have a permit to demonstrate. Both left and right had permission to be there on Saturday, August 12. The left said they would be peaceful, but they came with the weapons, not the others. The police left defenceless people unable to fend off their aggressors. Then there was the guy in the car. You can see the footage here; also note the broken windscreens, front and rear.
The city — and the state — are governed by Democrats.
Trump supporters are highly suspicious of what took place. One says the events in Charlottesville look just like the Soros-engineered ones in Ukraine in 2014. Virginia declared a state of emergency and, as no one is talking about the violent left-wing groups, it would not be unreasonable to assume there could be calls for martial law in various states.
There are further indications that this could have been a false flag: a) a Soros-backed organisation was preparing to go days before Trump supporters (who, incidentally, did not go) learned of the event and b) the Charlottesville mayor worked with Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta at the Center for American Progress as well as on Obama’s transition team.
There was also a man whom MSNBC and the New York Times interviewed who happened to be at the protests in Charlottesville on Saturday. He worked for the State Department and managed a Democrat Virginia gubernatorial campaign. (Mirror link of the images is here, in case the other link is removed.)
Hmm. Never think the Deep State couldn’t be involved in this.
By the way, August 12 just happened to be Soros’s birthday.
All of this was designed to make Trump and his supporters look evil.
But, who is decrying the violent leftists there that day? No one in the media. Telling, isn’t it?
Condolences to the families of the lady and two state police officers who, sadly, lost their lives that day. I hope that those who were injured recover fully and soon.
On July 24, I wrote about the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect coined by the late Michael Crichton about our misplaced trust in Big Media.
There is a psychological condition that appears to affect some journalists in Big Media. It is called the Dunning-Kruger effect, which can be boiled down to this:
‘Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments’
Psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger were intrigued by a crime report about a man who:
robbed two banks after covering his face with lemon juice in the mistaken belief that, because lemon juice is usable as invisible ink, it would prevent his face from being recorded on surveillance cameras.[3] The authors noted that earlier studies suggested that ignorance of standards of performance lies behind a great deal of incorrect self-assessment of competence.
In 1999, they performed a series of experiments with the participation of Cornell University students as their subjects. The students performed a variety of tasks and were asked to assess their predicted and actual performance:
This pattern of over-estimating competence was seen in studies of skills as diverse as reading comprehension, practicing medicine, operating a motor vehicle, and playing games such as chess or tennis. Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:[4]
- fail to recognize their own lack of skill
- fail to recognize the extent of their inadequacy
- fail to accurately gauge skill in others
- recognize and acknowledge their own lack of skill only after they are exposed to training for that skill
Ultimately:
“If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent.… [T]he skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.”[5]
The Dunning-Kruger effect was in play at the White House press briefing on Wednesday, August 2, 2017.
Before I go into the story, the only person in the White House I trust 100% — other than President Donald Trump — is his senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, born to Democrats in California. He saw the truth about leftism as a high school student and became a conservative. He worked for then-Senator (now Attorney General) Jeff Sessions for several years prior to Sessions joining Trump’s campaign team, at which point Miller joined his boss to develop policy for Trump’s campaign. Miller appeared at several Trump rallies in 2016 and also writes the president’s speeches. I know a Miller speech when I hear it. They are factual and rousing, a difficult combination to achieve.
On August 2, Miller explained to the media the Trump administration’s latest endeavour, the RAISE Act, which is Green Card reform. Miller helped to produce it.
The following excerpts come from the White House transcript of the press briefing. Miller stated (emphases mine):
Every year we issue a million green cards to foreign nationals from all the countries of the world, but we do so without regard to whether that applicant has demonstrated the skill that can add to the U.S. economy, whether they can pay their own way or be reliant on welfare, or whether they’ll displace or take a job from an American worker.
And as a result of this policy, in place now for many years, we’ve seen significant reductions in wages for blue collar workers, massive displacement of African American and Hispanic workers, as well as the displacement of immigrant workers from previous years who oftentimes compete directly against new arrivals who are being paid even less.
So it’s a policy that’s actually exacerbated wealth inequality in the country in a pretty significant way. So you’ve seen over time, as a result of this historic flow of unskilled immigration, a shift in wealth from the working class to wealthier corporations and businesses. And it’s been very unfair for American workers, but especially for immigrant workers, African American workers, and Hispanic workers, and blue collar workers in general across the country.
At the same time, it has cost taxpayers enormously because roughly half of immigrant head of households in the United States receive some type of welfare benefit — which I know is a fact that many people might consider astonishing, but it’s not surprising when you have an immigration system that doesn’t look at questions like skill level or self-sufficiency.
And so this proposal has several major historic changes. First, it eliminates so-called chain migration. So right now, what does chain migration mean? It means that if you come into the United States on a green card — and just so we’re all clear, a green card gives the recipient lifetime work authorization, the ability to bring in their family members. It gives them a fast track to U.S. citizenship and, with that, all the benefits that come with being an American citizen.
And so the individuals right now who are receiving green cards, they can bring in, say, an elderly relative who could immediately go on to public assistance if they become unable to support themselves financially. And then that person can bring in a relative who can bring in a relative who can bring in a relative, and that’s why they call it chain migration. And over years, that has massively de-skilled the migrant flow into America and produced all of those effects I’m talking about.
So we’re proposing to limit family-based migration to spouses and minor children. Additionally, we’re establishing a new entry system that’s points-based. Australia has a points-based system, Canada has a points-based system. And what will this system look at? It will look at: Does the applicant speak English? Can they support themselves and their families financially? Do they have a skill that will add to the U.S. economy? Are they being paid a high wage? …
And so that’s a major historic change to U.S. immigration policy. The effect of this, switching to a skills-based system and ending unfettered chain migration, would be, over time, you would cut net migration in half, which polling shows is supported overwhelmingly by the American people in very large numbers.
Two reporters demonstrated the Dunning-Krueger effect: Glenn Thrush of the New York Times and Jim Acosta of CNN.
Glenn Thrush
Most people, Americans included, have no idea who Glenn Thrush is.
In 2015, Thrush was working for Politico, at which time he was fawning all over Hillary Clinton’s campaign supremo John Podesta. Thanks to the Podesta WikiLeaks, we have proof in email 12681, which shows that Thrush willingly showed his copy in advance to Podesta:
On Apr 30, 2015 3:00 PM, “Glenn Thrush” <gthrush@politico.com> wrote:
No worries
Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains
to u
Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this
Tell me if I f[–]ked up anything
Thrush asked Miller two questions. The first doubted that immigration affected jobs for workers already in the United States and the second doubted that immigration was more important than infrastructure, another area that Trump wants to reform.
Miller refuted that immigration was more important and then went on to name the immigration studies the administration has looked at, from the Cuban Mariel boatlift in the 1970s to the present day. He then said:
But let’s also use common sense here, folks. At the end of the day, why do special interests want to bring in more low-skilled workers? And why historically —
The following exchange ensued. Miller put Thrush in his place:
Q Stephen, I’m not asking for common sense. I’m asking for specific statistical data.
MR. MILLER: Well, I think it’s very clear, Glenn, that you’re not asking for common sense, but if I could just answer your question.
Q No, no, not common sense. Common sense is fungible. Statistics are not.
MR. MILLER: I named the studies, Glenn.
Q Let me just finish the question. Tell me the specific —
MR. MILLER: Glenn, Glenn, Glenn — I named the studies. I named the studies.
Q I asked you for a statistic. Can you tell me how many —
MR. MILLER: Glenn, maybe we’ll make a carve-out in the bill that says the New York Times can hire all the low-skilled, less-paid workers they want from other countries, and see how you feel then about low-wage substitution. This is a reality that’s happening in our country.
Q (Inaudible.)
MR. MILLER: Maybe it’s time we had compassion, Glenn, for American workers. President Trump has met with American workers who have been replaced by foreign workers.
Q Oh, I understand. I’m not questioning any of that. I’m asking for —
MR. MILLER: And ask them — ask them how this has affected their lives.
Q I’m not asking them. I’m asking you for a number.
MR. MILLER: Look at — I just told you.
Q Give me the number of low-skilled jobs that Americans might otherwise have —
MR. MILLER: If you look at — first of all, if you look at the premise, Glenn, of bringing in low-skilled labor, it’s based on the idea that there’s a labor shortage for lower-skilled jobs. There isn’t. The number of people living in the United States in the working ages who aren’t working today is at a record high.
One in four Americans — or almost one in four Americans between the ages of 25 and 54 aren’t even employed. For African American workers, their labor force participation rate who don’t have a high school diploma — I guess, African American males without a high school diploma has plummeted some 40 percentage points since the mass wave of unskilled migration began.
The reality is that, if you just use common sense — and, yes, I will use common sense — the reason why some companies want to bring in more unskilled labor is because they know that it drives down wages and reduces labor costs.
Our question as a government is, to whom is our duty? Our duty is to U.S. citizens and U.S. workers to promote rising wages for them. If low-skilled immigration was an unalloyed good for the economy, then why have we been growing at 1.5 percent for the last 17 years at a time of unprecedented new low-wage arrivals? The facts speak for themselves. At some point, we’re accountable to reality.
On the other hand, like I said, you have ultra-high-skilled workers who are at the back of the line, which makes no sense in the year 2017.
I put the figures in there to show that Miller answered Thrush’s question in full — and to provide anti-Trumpers with the rationale behind the RAISE Act.
I doubt Thrush got what Miller was saying to him about low-wage substitution. (I’d be thrilled if that happened to these reporters as it has with sub-editors.) In fact, Thrush probably thinks he won that round.
Jim Acosta
Thrush is a media minnow compared to the mighty Jim Acosta of CNN.
He was upset when Sean Spicer, who has been relieved of his White House duties, no longer televised the press briefings.
Acosta often reminds everyone that he is the child of Cuban immigrants. Yes, he and millions of others are, but why continue to put so much emphasis on it? My Cuban immigrant friends from university days never did. They emphasised being American over being Cuban.
This was the exchange between Miller and Acosta. Acosta deliberately conflated the Statue of Liberty poem, the proposed wall between the US and Mexico and his father’s own emigration from Cuba:
… since the last question is not on the subject at hand, I will take one actual last question on the subject at hand.
Yes.
Q What you’re proposing, or what the President is proposing here does not sound like it’s in keeping with American tradition when it comes to immigration. The Statue of Liberty says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It doesn’t say anything about speaking English or being able to be a computer programmer.
Aren’t you trying to change what it means to be an immigrant coming into this country if you’re telling them you have to speak English? Can’t people learn how to speak English when they get here?
MR. MILLER: Well, first of all, right now it’s a requirement that to be naturalized you have to speak English. So the notion that speaking English wouldn’t be a part of our immigration system would be actually very ahistorical.
Secondly, I don’t want to get off into a whole thing about history here, but the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of liberty and lighting the world. It’s a symbol of American liberty lighting the world. The poem that you’re referring to, that was added later, is not actually a part of the original Statue of Liberty.
But more fundamentally, the history —
Q You’re saying that that does not represent what the country —
MR. MILLER: I’m saying that the notion —
Q — has always thought of as immigration coming into this country?
MR. MILLER: I’m saying the notion —
Q Stephen, I’m sorry, but that sounds like some —
MR. MILLER: Jim, let me ask you a question.
Q That sounds like some National Park revisionism. (Laughter.)
MR. MILLER: No. What I’m asking you is —
Q The Statue of Liberty has always been a beacon of hope to the world for people to send their people to this country —
MR. MILLER: Jim — Jim, do you believe —
Q — and they’re not always going to speak English, Stephen. They’re not always going to be highly skilled. They’re not always going to be somebody who can go to work at Silicon Valley right away.
MR. MILLER: Jim, I appreciate your speech. So let’s talk about this.
Q It was a modest and incremental speech.
MR. MILLER: Jim, let’s talk about this. In 1970, when we let in 300,000 people a year, was that violating or not violating the Statue of Liberty law of the land? In the 1990s, when it was half-a-million a year, was it violating or not violating the Statue of Liberty law of the land?
Q Was it violating the Statue of Liberty and the —
MR. MILLER: No, tell me what years — tell me what years —
Q (Inaudible) call for a deportation force?
MR. MILLER: Tell me what years meet Jim Acosta’s definition of the Statue of Liberty poem law of the land. So you’re saying a million a year is the Statue of Liberty number? 900,000 violates it? 800,000 violates it?
Q You’re sort of bringing a “press one for English” philosophy here to immigration, and that’s never been what the United States has been about, Stephen. I mean, that’s just the case —
Mr. MILLER: But your statement is also shockingly ahistorical in another respect, too — which is, if you look at the history of immigration, it’s actually ebbed and flowed. You’ve had periods of very large waves, followed by periods of less immigration and more immigration. And during the —
Q We’re in a low period of immigration right now. The President wants to build a wall and you want to bring about a sweeping change to the immigration system.
MR. MILLER: Surely, Jim, you don’t actually think that a wall affects Green Card policy. You couldn’t possibly believe that, or do you? Actually, the notion that you actually think immigration is at a historic lull — the foreign-born population in the United States today —
Q The President was just with the new Chief of Staff on Monday talking about how border crossings were way down.
MR. MILLER: I want to be serious, Jim. Do you really at CNN not know the difference between Green Card policy and illegal immigration? You really don’t know the —
Q Sir, my father was a Cuban immigrant. He came to this country in 1962 right before the Cuban Missile Crisis and obtained a Green Card.
Yes, people who immigrate to this country can eventually — people who immigrate to this country not through Ellis Island, as your family may have, but in other ways, do obtain a Green Card at some point. They do it through a lot of hard work. And, yes, they may learn English as a second language later on in life. But this whole notion of “well, they have to learn English before they get to the United States,” are we just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?
MR. MILLER: Jim, it’s actually — I have to honestly say I am shocked at your statement that you think that only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English. It’s actually — it reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree that in your mind —
Q Sir, it’s not a cosmopolitan —
MR. MILLER: No, this is an amazing moment. This an amazing moment. That you think only people from Great Britain or Australia would speak English is so insulting to millions of hardworking immigrants who do speak English from all over the world.
Q My father came to this country not speaking any English.
MR. MILLER: Jim, have you honestly never met an immigrant from another country who speaks English outside of Great Britain and Australia? Is that your personal experience?
Q Of course, there are people who come into this country from other parts of the world.
MR. MILLER: But that’s not what you said, and it shows your cosmopolitan bias. And I just want to say —
Q It just sounds like you’re trying to engineer the racial and ethnic flow of people into this country through this policy.
MR. MILLER: Jim, that is one of the most outrageous, insulting, ignorant, and foolish things you’ve ever said, and for you that’s still a really — the notion that you think that this is a racist bill is so wrong and so insulting.
Q I didn’t say it was a racist bill.
MR. MILLER: Jim, the reality is, is that the foreign-born population into our country has quadrupled since 1970. That’s a fact. It’s been mostly driven by Green Card policy. Now, this bill allows for immediate nuclear family members to come into the country, much as they would today, and it adds an additional points-based system. The people who have been hurt the most —
Q You’re saying that people have to be English speaking when they’re naturalized. What is this English-speaking component that you’ve inserted into this? I don’t understand.
MR. MILLER: The people who have been hurt the most by the policy you’re advocating are —
Q What policy am I advocating?
MR. MILLER: Apparently, just unfettered, uncontrolled migration. The people who have been hurt the most by the policy —
Q (Inaudible) is for open borders. That’s the same tired thing that —
MR. MILLER: The people who have been hurt the most by the policy you’re advocating are immigrant workers and minority workers and African American workers and Hispanic workers.
No doubt Acosta thinks he won that round. And, of course, he was on television!
Disgruntled CNN viewers can always give their views via the online feedback form.
Conclusion
I reckon this particular press briefing’s ratings — and replays online — were through the roof.
You can see the full video here (Thrush comes in around the 10:00 mark and Acosta at 26:00):
Both Thrush and Acosta have an overly inflated sense of their personal competency. They cannot — or wilfully refuse to — see when they are in the wrong: the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Tomorrow’s post will look at what the Statue of Liberty and its associated poem are really about.
This post has recent news — real and fake — about President Donald Trump and American children as well as a first-person story.
Little boy wears suit on hot Sunday
On Sunday, July 30, 2017 a one-off Reddit contributor posted a photo of his son in a suit getting ready for Mass.
The Catholic father wrote in to The_Donald to say that his son insisted on wearing a suit in 83-degree (F) weather:
because he wants to look like President Trump.
Understandably, the father has since deleted the photo, but the boy, probably 9 years old, was all smiles posing for the camera. He hadn’t yet put on his socks and shoes.
The man said that his son watched the Republican debates in 2016 and did not like any of the candidates at that point because they did not raise their hands to speak. He was appalled that they talked over each other so much of the time.
It’s amazing how switched on children can be.
Someone else commented:
My little guy 6 years old LOVES DJT!
The father described his and his wife’s parenting method:
We found written reminders of good behavior to be really motivating at this age. It’s good reading practice and we’ve also found that saying “you are so good at staying quiet in Church” works better than “No talking in church”. Reinforcing good behaviour is more effective (and more fun) than punishing misbehavior.
I’m looking forward to this new generation of boys growing into men. Democrats, beware!
JK Rowling misleading people
On Monday, July 24, President Trump met with families adversely affected by Obamacare.
The White House issued a statement about their various plights, which are nothing short of nightmarish:
These victims of Obamacare shared stories of skyrocketing premiums, denied access, restrictions, and low reimbursement rates due to Obamacare’s failing infrastructure.
Among them was another adorable little boy wearing a suit. His name is Monty and he’s just turned three. This is his story:
Members of the Weer family from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina voiced concerns over the stability of the current healthcare system. Their three-year-old son Monty was diagnosed with Spina Bifida. Since his birth, he has been with two different insurance companies and healthcare plans which has made continuity difficult. Because Blue Cross Blue Shield is the only insurance company available in their area, the family is continually negotiating with clinics or traveling outside of the state.
After Vice President Mike Pence spoke, President Trump entered the room. Who did he give a special greeting to first, but young Monty (2:22 mark):
I don’t know what video JK Rowling was watching, but she created fake news that lasted all weekend. See her first three tweets here, here and here. The fourth and fifth are below:
JK Rowling also missed First Lady Melania Trump spending time with Monty and reading to him:
Chelsea Clinton believed the author until she found out the truth:
On Sunday, July 30, Monty’s mother posted a Facebook message. She is tactful but none too happy:
Uummmmm……If someone can please get a message to JK Rowling: Trump didn’t snub my son & Monty wasn’t even trying to shake his hand (1. He’s 3 and hand shaking is not his thing, 2. he was showing off his newly acquired secret service patch). Thanks.
I know plenty of people online and off who will say that JK Rowling is more credible than Donald Trump. To those people, I have a spot of advice: the next time fake news comes out about Trump, check the White House site.
UPDATE — July 31:
Rowling apologised on Twitter:
Trump donates salary to Department of Education
On July 26, President Trump donated his quarterly salary to the Department of Education, specifically to fund a STEM camp.
He is pictured with education secretary Betsy De Vos:
Excerpts from the White House statement follow:
… The funds will be used to host a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)-focused camp for students. This announcement is the latest step that President Trump has taken in order to inspire interest in the STEM related areas of study and ensure that Americans are being trained for the jobs of the future.
Earlier in the year, President Trump signed the INSPIRE Act which encourages NASA to have women and girls participate in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and to pursue careers in aerospace. He also signed the Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act which aims to enable the National Science Foundation to support women in the sciences …
Since taking office, President Trump has been donating his quarterly salary to initiatives of national significance. In Quarter 1, President Trump donated his salary to the Department of Interior, and the funds went to the National Park Service to aid in its goal of preserving our country’s national security.
Trump meets with American Legion youth
I’ve never seen so many Americans at the White House as I have with President Trump, and so often I learn something from their visits.
It is really great that he opens the nation’s house to so many of her people.
On Wednesday, July 26, Trump welcomed a group I had not known about, the American Legion Boys & Girls Nation. The gathering was held in the Rose Garden:
He spoke about working hard, teamwork and uniting as Americans for the good of the nation — something, he said, they all have in common.
They are a diverse group. The video is worth watching.
Boy Scouts of America — Trump versus Obama
On August 9, 2010 Obama addressed the Boy Scouts of America at their national jamboree. The scouts booed him.
I found the video on July 25, 2017. Today, July 30, I see that — after seven years — CNN has taken the video down. It was on their own YouTube channel. CNN does not want you to know the truth.
Trump spoke to the scouts at their 2017 jamboree on Tuesday, July 25. Wow, what a difference a president makes!
The Gateway Pundit‘s headline about the event was in uppercase:
TRUMP ON FIRE! 40,000 BOY SCOUTS CHEER PRESIDENT TRUMP AT JAMBOREE! (VIDEO)
Trump was joined by some of his cabinet members. Earlier in the day, anticipation of the event created excitement at the White House. I realise that non-Americans will find that hokey, but there was a time when nothing represented solid American boyhood more than the Scouts. That is now changing.
Jim Hoft’s article begins (emphases in the original):
THIS WAS AMAZING!
There were THOUSANDS of Scouts at the president’s speech today in West Virginia.
The crowd was enormous – nearly 40,000 people!
The president spoke about believing in one’s dreams and working at what one loves doing:
Instead of reporting about the greater, inspirational content of his speech, an NBC reporter tweeted:
Other coverage of the event was equally slanted:
Like other presidents, Trump was supposed to avoid discussing politics, but when he briefly mentioned last year’s election victory, the scouts loved it. Someone at The_Donald received two text messages from a scout at the event, who couldn’t rein in his excitement. One of the messages you’ll have to look at yourself. The other reads:
Also I yelled “lock her up” when he was talking about the election and he paused his speech.
Again, I’m thrilled to read about this generation of boys. America, great days lie ahead.
Well, the kids loved it. As is so often the case in matters intergenerational, several adults did not and complained on the Boy Scouts of America Facebook page, which caused the organisation to issue a statement. Washington DC’s Fox5 has a summary:
According to the statement, the Boy Scouts of America is “wholly non-partisan”, and does not promote any one political position, candidate, or philosophy. The statement went on to say that an inviting the sitting U.S. President to speak at the National Jamboree is a long-standing tradition, dating back to the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937.
The statement ends with officials saying they will “continue to be respectful of the wide variety of viewpoints in this country“.
Again, the boys loved it — and that’s all that matters. Trump was speaking to them, not the adults.
Conclusion
This is not child-related, however, there are two things to keep in mind.
The first is that there was a time when Obama admired Trump. Trump’s campaign director for minority relations, Chicago attorney Brunell Donald-Kyei, tweeted this reminder. Obama was not being ironic, either:
The second, and perhaps more pertinent, is that fake news abounds, whether from JK Rowling or other sources:
Click on the image to enlarge. The Democrats’ techniques for Hillary’s 2016 campaign are there, including the emotion and messaging for online discourse by her CTR (Correct The Record) team.
Be aware of these techniques, because Big Media use them all the time.
Most of you are no doubt familiar with the late Michael Crichton, best known for his books — especially, The Andromeda Strain — although he also wrote screenplays and was a film director.
He was a man of amazing intellect, particularly in matters scientific. In the quote below, he refers to another man of immense intelligence, the physicist Murray Gell-Mann, with whom he discussed news coverage.
In 2002, Crichton (pron. ‘cryton’) wrote an essay called ‘Why Speculate?’ It featured this warning about Big Media (emphases mine below):
Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect …
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
The complete essay is here.
Crichton pointed out that if you heard inaccuracies from someone first-hand, you would tend to discredit them.
So, why don’t we discredit Big Media based on the inaccuracies they are telling us?
Even more important are the omissions. On holiday in Cannes, I watched CNBC Europe by default (British channels were not coming in well) to get Prime Minister Theresa May’s post-election statement on Friday, June 9, 2017. Whilst waiting for two hours, I heard only two news stories repeated over and over! More was going on in the world that day. Why not cover it?
These channels — and other media outlets, such as the press — are highly economic with the truth, including the traditional television news and newspapers. We now know that because we have a raft of websites giving us more news items — and better analysis.
Why do we persist in giving Big Media our time and money? It’s time we stopped trusting them!
