Tag: Media

The Russian Judges

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I used to believe that journalists were like baseball umpires.  They called them like they saw them, playing it straight down the middle.  They gave both sides of a story even if they slanted it one way or another.  I have now come to the conclusion that they are more like the Russian judge in figure skating: they know the rules, but they only apply them to the other guys.  Their side (liberals) don’t do anything wrong.

Now, there are a few exceptions.  Most of the folks at Fox are pretty good (Shepard Smith excluded).  Sara Carter and several other independent journalists are likewise pretty good.  But by and large the media covering DC are so entrenched on the Democrat gravy train that they cannot report the truth because they don’t believe it.

You may think that’s unfair.  You may be thinking, well, surely when its news and not politics they play down the middle!  Really?  Consider these examples:

  • It has been several months since the Las Vegas shooting and we still know nothing about what really happened.  The FBI and the Las Vegas MPD have simply clammed up, not saying a word about who, what, or why.  If this had been an assignation with a stripper involving a Republican, they’d have reporters on it 24/7.  But, other than the deaths that the left can use to push an anti-gun agenda, no one reporting the news cares that the FBI has buried this like the bastard son of a 12th century king.
  • Wall to wall coverage of the Parkland shooting, with tearful students and their supposed “grass roots” organization, yet no coverage of the students that didn’t take that position.
  • No outrage or coverage of the multiple Broward Sheriff Department failures.
  • No outrage or coverage of the failure to institutionalize Cruz.
  • No outrage and only minimal coverage of the FBI’s multiple sequential failure to prevent a known potential serial killer from going off.
  • Media were all over the Maryland high school shooting until it was learned that a good guy with a gun, an armed school resource officer, stopped the killing.  With a gun.  He used a gun.  Therefore the media cannot report it, or make a big deal over it.
  • Countless deaths in Chicago from gang-on-gang violence with firearms, but no mention that it has the most draconian gun laws in the country but that these laws fail to stop the killing.

In effect, the media covers and highlights only what it wants to cover, and only what furthers the agenda of the Democratic party.  They fail to cover the hundreds of thousands of crimes by illegal aliens (preferring to euphemize them as “undocumented immigrants” — as if their only crime was not have documents).  But let ICE pull one off the street and send them packing, and you’ll hear about it for weeks: ICE Destroys Family Unit!  No, ICE did not destroy that family unit, the knucklehead who came here and broke the law did; but they’ll never tell that side of the story.

It is well past the time when we, as gun owners, should start asking questions of our local reporters and national media: when will you cover the real stories.

For me, that time needs to come sooner rather than later.

Syria — Not a Mistake…yet

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Bombs Away

There is a popular coffee cup that suggests you shouldn’t mistake your Google search for my law degree. The fact is, with appropriate research, most legal questions can be answered without a lawyer, but that assumes you do the right research, and consider the right facts, all without bias. That rarely happens.

Doctors are smart people. But when they do their own research, like Rand Paul, they often reach the wrong conclusions. Rand was quoted as saying that in order for President Trump to act on Syria, he needed congressional approval. Of course, he was referring to the War Powers Act, a statute that no president has ever acknowledge placed a lawful or binding restriction on the president’s war powers. A reaction to the Vietnam War (the “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution” not withstanding), the purpose was to prevent the US from being drug into another long-term police action like Korea and Vietnam. It hasn’t worked. We still got mired in Afghanistan and Iraq, we just did it with Congressional approval.

There is a huge difference between a declaration of war – a statement by both political houses of the national legislature that a state of conflict exists between the US and another nation – and a police action taken in defense of liberty or in this case, in defense of humanity. Nothing – absolutely nothing – says that self-defense or hostilities have to wait for Congressional approbation. Consider this ridiculous scenario:

 

Dec. 7, 1941

Cloyd: Hey, Earl, lookie there, them Jap planes are bombing these here ships.

Earl:    By golly Cloyd, you’re right. We need to shoot at them little bastards!

Cloyd: (shocked look) Oh my goodness no, Earl, we can’t do that!

Earl:    (dodging bullets) Why the F^&* not?

Cloyd: (pointing cluelessly at the sky) Why, that might make Congress mad. We haven’t declared no war on them boys yet. Rand Paul would be upset! (yeah, I know)

Earl:    (diving into a bunker) Are you F%^&* crazy?

 

And, of course, that’s the question. Imagine if Mr. Trump had gone to Congress. All the Democrats that now say “good job” would have been sticking their fingers in the air, measuring wind speed and direction, and deciding whether to do anything based on polling data, party direction, and their astrologer’s forecast. CNN would have been dispatching Wolf “Baghdad” Blitzer to downtown Damascus, and some damned fool would be lying in the weeds near Knob Noster, Missouri, to reveal the time that the B-2 bombers flew out of Whiteman AFB. In short, the Syrians and the Russians would have been prepared and ready to inflict harm on the US, putting men and materials in danger. No, please, don’t embarrass yourself Mr. Paul, do a little thinking before emoting.

Our National Interest?

Now, that’s not to say that I believe Trump acting was either in our national interest or the best thing we could have done. Sometimes the urge to do “something” winds up having us do the wrong thing. But if we have to spend some effort in defense of humanity (and that’s what this gas attack was, an outrage against humanity), then cruise missiles would be the least offensive option.

Why?  Because it didn’t put aircraft in the air in a way that could get them shot down.  It did not put ground troops in danger.  It was largely symbolic: a statement that if you mess with the bull you get the horns.  It was, in fact, a punch in this bully’s nose.  I can live with that.

Here’s what I can’t live with.  Putting American lives in jeopardy in a civil war that has about 10 different sides and that no one thinks can be won.  There simply are no good options.  So let’s stop while we’re ahead.  Pay attention @POTUS, because your voters are.

Inside Baseball (or Politics)

Now, about 90% of the inside spin in DC is bullshit. So when we see Bannon is at Kushner’s throat, or McMaster is driving McFarland out of the Whitehouse, most of this is just one person trying to be thought of as prescient by reading tea leaves when they can’t even see the damned cup.  It’s pure crap.  These pundits don’t know shit from apple butter (so be careful if you’re invited for breakfast and they serve biscuits).

But one thing is clear. Mr. Trump needs to consider what he said to his voters about America First. As awful as what happened in Syria was, and it was awful, it does not affect America’s vital national interests. There’s no oil there, there’s only warring islamists and frankly I’d rather let one group of miscreants kill another group of miscreants as force our boys to do it. If ISIS wins, we nuke the joint. If Assad wins, we bide our time and one of these days he meets with an accident. Stuff happens. The world’s an unsafe place.

For the record, Mr. Trump should listen to Ann Coulter. She’s got a handle on this. She knows what she’s talking about, and she’s good at it. If he just paid more attention to her and less to the “OMG It’s AWFUL” crowd, he’d insure his own victory in 2018 and 2020.  So @POTUS, follow @AnnCounter on Twitter.

The Media Simply Cannot Help Itself

thewellarmedattorneyLeave a comment

 

Don’t hate me.

When I was in high school I took a journalism class. It was a great class for a writer to take, and I learned a great deal. We were schooled in the history of journalism, on how “yellow journalism” made newspapers no more than entertainment, and how it took years for solid institutions like the Pulitzer papers to recover from the hit they took on their credibility. We were told that newspapers report the facts, and when possible, report the facts on both sides. That’s right, one sides facts, and the “alternative facts” from the other side of the controversy. We were taught that an “angle” on a story was the point of view, and that the slant of the story was the thematic message. We were told that slant was a matter of degree, and that too much of a slant on news effectively made it editorializing.

Recently on Twitter I commented that fact checking was, as it was being done, no more than editorializing. The hue and cry from the leftists was deafening because to them it should be just fine if a newspaper printed their facts and call the alternative facts “lies.”

As a lawyer I am familiar with a process we have called “summary judgment.” Essentially summary judgment says that if we can agree on what the facts are, we can determine the winner of a controversy without need of a trial. In the context of a traffic accident, if all the witnesses agree that the eastbound light was red, and the northbound light was green, we know that the car entering the intersection from the eastbound lanes is at fault. But, I’m still waiting for that case.

In every trial I have ever seen, on the key issues of liability, one side says green, the other says red. When the facts are disputed then summary judgment can’t be used, and the case must go to trial. So we have facts, alternative facts, and we leave it to a jury to decide who is right and who is wrong. It’s amazing how often 12 people get it exactly right.

If the news media in this country would simply engage in that same level of reporting, the mainstream media wouldn’t be judged so harshly as the purveyors of fake news slanted to enhance Democratic talking points. But the fact is that the story the media tells is almost never what really happened.

Case in point: Scott Pelley from CBS tonight said that it was a “chaotic first week” for “Mr. Trump.” He then said that “Mr. Trump insulted the president of Mexico with a tweet.” At no time did he call him President Trump, and at no time did he backtrack and say what the supposed tweet that insulted the Mexican president was. Going back and looking at the tweets reveals these:

screen-shot-2017-01-26-at-8-33-07-pm

Nothing in these tweets should insult the Mexican president. Yet, when you look online, you find nothing about the Mexican president being insulted by any particular tweet. So in essence, Mr. Pelley lied about the issue of the insult.  A quick Google search on “Mexican President Insulted” displayed results for words the Mexican president used to insult America.  And Google knows everything!

Then there is the issue of the “chaotic first week.” This, again, is editorializing. It is characterizing the first week as though no one was in control. And of course this was buttressed by the use of the words “Mr. Trump” instead of the correct title: President Trump.

At every turn CBS and other mainstream media are attempting to say, in words and in deeds, that President Trump is not, in fact, a legitimate president. They are editorializing and not reporting.  It’s wrong.  It’s frequent.  And the media just can’t help itself.  They hate the fact that he has made them irrelevant.

Had Mr. Pelley quoted the tweets and then said that the Mexican President had decided not to come to Washington, readers could have decided if that was because of some perceived insult, or because he knew he’d been bested and outclassed by President Trump. But Mr. Pelley instead decided to tell you, the viewer, what to think. By making this the lead of the newscast, and by emphasizing it so directly in his delivery, Mr. Pelley deliberately attempted to undermine the President of the United States.  If CBS had any ethical standards, he would be disciplined.  Don’t look for that to happen.

This is why the public does not trust the mainstream media any longer. It’s why people like Mr. Pelley are losing clout in Washington. It is precisely why millions votred for Mr. Trump based on rallies (where there was one-to-one communication) and on his tweets (where they could get his views straight and unvarnished).

It might be a good time to go back and refresh the media’s recollection of what yellow journalism did to the way the public looked at the news media in the 19th century, and start learning from their mistakes. Mr. Bannon’s sage advice to shut up and listen for a while is really pretty sound.