Media Can’t Recognize Conservative Women

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More Fake News from CNN

This is all over conservative outlets, but we’ll repeat it here in order to keep a complete trail of fake news from the anti-Trump mainstream media. From Greenwald in The Intercept:

CNN, Credibly Accused of Lying to its Audience About a Key Claim in its Blockbuster Cohen Story, Refuses to Comment

Photo: YouTube/CNN CNN’S BLOCKBUSTER July 26 story – that Michael Cohen intended to tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller that he was present when Donald Trump was told in advance about his son’s Trump Tower meeting with various Russians – includes a key statement about its sourcing that credible reporting now suggests was designed to have misled its audience. Yet CNN simply refuses to address the serious ethical and journalistic questions raised about its conduct.

The substance of the CNN story itself regarding Cohen – which made headline news all over all the world and which CNN hyped as a “bombshell” – has now been retracted by other news outlets that originally purported to “confirm” CNN’s story. That’s because the anonymous source for this confirmation, Cohen lawyer Lanny Davis, now admits that, in essence, his “confirmation” was false. As a result, both the Washington Post and the NY Post outed Davis as their anonymous source and then effectively retracted their stories “confirming” parts of CNN’s report.

CNN, however, has retracted nothing. All inquiries to the network are directed to a corporate spokesperson, who simply says: “We stand by our story, and are confident in our reporting of it.” A newsletter sent Sunday night from CNN’s two media reporters, Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy, contained the same corporate language, but addressed none of the questions raised about CNN’s report.

It’s certainly possible that CNN had other sources for this story besides Davis, who now repudiates it. It’s hard to see how CNN’s story could be true given that Davis, Cohen’s own lawyer, explicitly says that Cohen has no information that Trump had prior knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting, that Cohen cannot and will not tell Mueller that this happened, and that Davis’ prior claims about Cohen’s knowledge and intentions are false.

But that’s not the part that indicates CNN’s dishonesty.

But there’s an entirely separate, and more significant, question about CNN’s behavior here; namely, the very specific claim they made about their sourcing for that blockbuster story. Last night, BuzzFeed reported that Davis explicitly confessed that he was one of the anonymous sources for CNN’s July 26 story, just as he was for the stories from the Washington Post and the New York Post. Last week, CNN put Davis on the air with Anderson Cooper to deny that he was the source for that CNN story – a denial Cooper did not contest – but Davis now admits he was one of CNN’s sources, if not their main source.

Yet remarkably, CNN, in its July 26 story, specificaly claimed that Davis refused to talk to CNN about the story or provide any comment whatsoever.

Only one of two things can be true here, and either is extremely significant: (1) CNN deliberately lied to its audience about Davis refusing to comment on the story when, in fact, Davis was one of the anonymous sources on which the CNN report depended, and CNN claimed Davis refused to comment in order to hide Davis’ identity as one of their anonymous sources; or (2) Davis is lying now to BuzzFeed when he confessed to having been one of CNN’s sources for the story.

How can CNN possibly justify refusing to address these questions, and refrain from informing the public about these critical matters on a story that they themselves hyped for days as a “blockbuster,” one of the most significant stories yet in the Trump/Russia saga?

The media have long had a liberal bias. But the bias against Donald Trump exceeds anything in modern history. Trump himself eggs it on by his attacks on the media, which have the effect of causing them to abandon journalists standards. Which in turn plays into Trump’s hand.

More Fake News

We have chronicled the massive parade of bogus anti-Trump stories in multiple blog posts.

More Fake News About Donald Trump: A Compliation

From the blog of Sharyl Attkisson, a post titled “52 Media Mistakes in the Trump Era: The Definitive List.” A “mistake” might imply normal human fallibility, but the overwhelming majority of the mistakes are in an anti-Trump direction. They are not random incompetence. They are the result of a pervasive bias against Donald Trump.

We can’t repeat them all here (please read the entire list), but we can mention a few of the most serious ones.

1. Aug. 2016-Nov. 2016:
The New York Post published modeling photos of Trump’s wife Melania and reported they were taken in 1995. Various news outlets relied on that date to imply that Melania—an immigrant—had violated her visa status. But the media got the date wrong. Politico was among the news agencies that later issued a photo date correction.

7. Jan. 20, 2017:
Zeke Miller of TIME reported that President Trump had removed the bust statue of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. The news went viral. It was false.

8. Jan. 26, 2017:
Josh Rogin of the Washington Post reported that the State Department’s “entire senior administrative team” had resigned in protest of Trump. A number of media outlets ranging from politically left to right, including liberal-leaning Vox, stated that claim was misleading or wrong.

12. Feb. 2, 2017:
AP reported that Trump had threatened the president of Mexico with invasion to get rid of “bad hombres.” Numerous publications followed suit. The White House said it wasn’t true and the Washington Post removed the AP info that “could not be independently confirmed.”

14. Feb. 14, 2017:
The New York Times’ Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo reported about supposed contacts between Trump campaign staff and “senior Russian intelligence officials.” Comey later testified “In the main, [the article] was not true.”

15. Feb. 22, 2017:
ProPublica’s Raymond Bonner reported CIA official Gina Haspel—Trump’s later pick for CIA Director—was in charge of a secret CIA prison where Islamic extremist terrorist Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in one month, and that she mocked the prisoner’s suffering. More than a year later, ProPublica retracted the claim, stating that “Neither of these assertions is correct…Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended.”

17. May 10, 2017:
Multiple outlets including Politico, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, AP, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported the same leaked information: that Trump fired FBI Director James Comey shortly after Comey requested additional resources to investigate Russian interference in the election. [. . .] The Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said the media reports were untrue and McCabe added that the FBI’s Russia investigation was “adequately resourced.”

18. June 4, 2017:
NBC News reported in a Tweet that Russian President Vladimir Putin told TV host Megan Kelly that he had compromising information about Trump. Actually, Putin said the opposite: that he did not have compromising information on Trump.

22. June 22, 2017:
CNN’s Thomas Frank reported that Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials.” The report was later retracted. Frank and two other CNN employees resigned in the fallout.

23. December 2, 2017:
ABC News’ Brian Ross reported that former Trump official Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was going to testify that candidate Trump had directed him to contact “the Russians.” Even though such contact would not be in of itself a violation of law, the news was treated as an explosive indictment of Trump in the Russia collusion narrative, and the stock market fell on the news. ABC later corrected the report to reflect that Trump had already been elected when he reportedly asked Flynn to contact the Russians about working together to fight ISIS and other issues. Ross was suspended.

27. Sept. 5, 2017:
CNN’s Chris Cillizza and other news outlets declared Trump “lied” when he stated that Trump Tower had been wiretapped, although there’s no way any reporter independently knew the truth of the matter—only what intel officials claimed. It later turned out there were numerous wiretaps involving Trump Tower, including a meeting of Trump officials with a foreign dignitary. At least two Trump associates who had offices in or frequented Trump Tower were also wiretapped.

29. Nov. 6, 2017:
CNN’s Daniel Shane edited excerpts from a Trump event to make it seem as though Trump didn’t realize Japan builds cars in the U.S. However, Trump’s entire statement made clear that he does.

35. Dec. 8, 2017:
CNN’s Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb reported that Donald Trump Jr. conspired with WikiLeaks in advance of the publication of damaging Democrat party and Clinton campaign emails. Many other publications followed suit. They had the date wrong: WikiLeaks and Trump Junior were in contact after the emails were published.

40. March 8, 2018:
The New York Times’ Jan Rosen reported on a hypothetical family whose tax bill would rise nearly $4,000 under Trump’s tax plan. It turns out the calculations were off: the couple’s taxes would go actually go down $43; not up $4,000.

44. April 30, 2018:
AP reported that the NRA had banned guns during Trump and Pence speeches at the NRA’s annual meeting. AP later corrected the information because the ban had been put in place by Secret Service.

46. May 7, 2018:
CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger reported that Trump’s personal lawyer, Cohen, paid $1 million in fines related to unauthorized cars in his taxi business, had been barred from managing taxi medallions, had transferred $60 million offshore to avoid paying debts, and is awaiting trial on charges of failing to pay millions in taxes. A later correction stated that none of that was true.

47. May 16, 2018:
The New York Times’ Julie Hirschfeld Davis, AP, CNN’s Oliver Darcy and others excerpted a Trump comment as if he had referred to immigrants or illegal immigrants generally as “animals.” Most outlets corrected their reports later to note that Trump had specifically referred to members of the murderous criminal gang MS-13.

48. May 28, 2018
The New York Times’ Magazine editor-in-chief Jake Silverstein and CNN’s Hadas Gold shared a story with photos of immigrant children in cages as if they were new photos taken under the Trump administration. The article and photos were actually taken in 2014 under the Obama administration.

49. May 29, 2018
The New York Times’ Julie Davis reported the estimated size of a Trump rally to be 1,000 people. There were actually 5,500 people or more in attendance.

51. June 21, 2018
Time magazine and others used a photo of a crying Honduran child to illustrate a supposed Trump administration policy separating illegal immigrant parents and children. The child’s father later reported that agents had never separated her from her mother; the mother had taken her to the US without his knowledge and separated herself from her other children, whom she left behind.

Conclusion

A few of the items on Attkisson’s list are fairly trivial, such as 16. (“An article bylined by the New York Times’ graphic editors Karen Yourish and Troy Griggs referred to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, as Trump’s wife.”)

One or two others represent honest assessments that turned out to be wrong, for example 3. (“In a Washington Post piece not labelled opinion or analysis, Stuart Rothenberg reported that Trump’s path to an electoral college victory was ‘nonexistent.’”). Rothenberg, a relatively sober analyst, was probably fairly describing the data he had at the time.

But the vast majority of examples Attkisson cites are not random errors, the result of the fact that journalists are fallible. They are evidence of a mainstream media keen to find, and disinclined to check out, anything that reflects badly on Donald Trump.

Fake News About Donald Trump: A Compliation

Donald Trump says outrageous things, and attacks the media. That might seem to be a hugely dysfunctional presidential style. But in fact he has driven the media bonkers, causing them to publish a flurry of badly sourced and easily debunked stories about Trump, thus validating his attacks. If Trump were intentionally trying to trap them, this would be a brilliant strategy. He’s not, or course. He’s just being Donald Trump.

First, from The Federalist:

13 More Major Fake News Stories In Just Five Months Of Trump’s Presidency

You can read all the details here, but this is the list.

• January 22: The Trump-Comey Bromance
• February 1: Neil Gorsuch’s ‘Fascism Forever’ Club
• February 17: The Mobilization of the National Guard
• February 25: Kuwait’s Pay-to-Play at Trump Hotel
• April 11: The Jeff Sessions ‘Filth’ Scandal
• May 1: Ghosts of Billboards Past
• May 3: The DOJ Prosecutes a Woman for Laughing
• May 4: The Nonexistent Beer Party
• May 4: ‘Rape Is a Preexisting Condition’
• May 4: The Football Analogy Fiasco
• May 10: The Fake Rosenstein Resignation Scandal
• May 10: Comey’s Russian Probe Resource Request
• May 20: The ‘Ivanka Charity’ Insanity

This article in The Federalist is a follow-up to an earlier one titled “16 Fake News Stories Reporters Have Run Since Trump Won.” That’s right: getting called out on a whole bunch of earlier bogus stories has not seemed to engender any journalistic integrity in the media.

Yet More Fake News

One might think that the above list of thirteen bogus stories (added to the earlier sixteen reported by The Federalist) would pretty much exhaust the universe of such blunders by major “mainstream” outlets. Alas, this is what fighter pilots call a “target rich environment,” and the Daily Caller had no trouble coming up with “7 Times CNN Botched The News In 2017.” That’s right: just CNN.

• Comey Testimony
• CNN Smears Scaramucci
• CNN Spreads Fake News…About Fake News!
• Republican Donor Did (Not) Fund The Dossier
• Fake (Fish) News
• Trump Is (Not) Ignorant Of Japanese Cars
• CNN Botches Another ‘Bombshell’

The “bombshell” was from this last Friday.

Perhaps the most jarring error in the CNN report is the date on which members of the Trump Organization, including Donald Trump and Trump Jr., were sent the email. The network reported that a person named Mike Erickson sent the email on Sept. 4, 2016, with a link to Wikileaks documents as well as a decryption key to access them.

Yes! Collusion!

Except that the actual date on the e-mail was September 14, after WikiLeaks had publicly announced the availability of the documents, and published the decryption key. In short, somebody simply e-mailed Trump, Jr. with publicly available information. Some scandal.

CNN still has the story online, with a weaselly “correction.”

CNN originally reported the email was released September 4 — 10 days earlier — based on accounts from two sources who had seen the email. The new details appear to show that the sender was relying on publicly available information. The new information indicates that the communication is less significant than CNN initially reported.

No, not “less significant.” Utterly meaningless.

Three in One Week

Yes, Axios reports three media screw-ups in one week, only one of which duplicates something above:

• Flynn’s testimony: Last Friday, ABC News reported that former national security advisor Michael Flynn was prepared to testify that President Trump, while still a candidate, directed him to contact Russian officials. But later in the day, the network issued a “clarification” that the direction came when Trump was president-elect. That changed the impact of the story entirely as it’s a common occurrence for presidential transition teams to reach out to foreign governments.
• Deutsche Bank subpoena: Reuters and Bloomberg both reported on Tuesday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation had subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for information on accounts relating to President Trump and his family members — seemingly confirming that Mueller had expanded his probe to investigate the president’s financial dealings. The WSJ defused that bombshell in a follow-up report stating that the subpoenas actually dealt with “people or entities close to Mr. Trump.”
• WikiLeaks emails: CNN reported this morning that senior Trump campaign officials, including Trump himself, received an email from an unknown sender on September 4, 2016 that linked them to what could have been unreleased WikiLeaks documents. WaPo issued their own report later in the afternoon that the email was actually sent on September 14 — and linked to a trove of documents that WikiLeaks had publicly released a day earlier.

Conclusion

As Peggy Noonan has noted “Trump Has Been Lucky in His Enemies.” The subhead reads: “Cursing pols, screeching students and intolerant abortion advocates have become the face of the left.” Mainstream media types may be a bit less strident (on average), but they have also made themselves into enemies Trump is lucky to have.

Sociologists are Scared to Study Asian-Americans

From Heterodox Academy, a podcast from a Professor of Sociology was studies Asian-Americans. That’s not a great career choice for an aspiring young sociologist, since that subject is a matter of intense embarrassment to the leftists in the profession. Some excerpts.

I’ve heard of debates about why sociology is so liberal and there’s some say it’s selectivity—liberals are the people interested in going into sociology…. My perception has been that within the field of sociology, the rewards for people who don’t conform to the conventional wisdom are slim, and I’ve known good sociologists doing good research who did not get tenure because their work didn’t fit into the paradigm very well.

I’ll be frank with you—I’ve been submitting to the American Sociological Review on Asian Americans for the past 25 years and apparently there’s no data good enough for the ASR [American Sociological Review]to convince the reviewers that Asian Americans have reached parity with respect to Whites. Every single one gets rejected. What happens is when the paper doesn’t conform to the conventional wisdom, the methodological standards are raised. But when you argue that there’s discrimination against Asians, the methodological standards are relaxed.

A lot of courses don’t seriously talk about Asian Americans systematically so you’re not provided with evidence or consistent data to test this paradigm for Asians. For example, Erik Olin Wright, former president of the American Sociological Association, has an intro textbook “How America Really Works.” And in the whole chapter on race there’s not a single datum on Asian Americans. And that’s “How America Works” is the name. It’s not uncommon for these data to be deleted, and they’ll talk about this or that particular instance of racism…. They’ll talk about instances of discrimination but they won’t go over systematic statistics which suggest that Asians are actually less likely to be murdered than other groups.

The reason for this is rather obvious, and is bluntly stated by a commenter:

I live in a community that is plurality Asian. I have worked alongside Asians all of my life and have many Asian friends, including my business partner. In my experience, they get married, stay married, and have children in wedlock. The ones I know are excellent parents and grandparents. Their work ethic is off the wall. Asian-Americans I know endorse “bourgeois values” more strongly than nearly every other ethnic group. Their endorsement of bourgeois values also threatens those who call those values racist.

Asian-American success is proof that the Melting Pot works. The hard left can’t stand that.

Even the “heterodox” people at Heterodox Academy shy away from bluntly saying why this is: the contrast between the success of Asians and the failure of blacks is stunning. And if we leave aside a fringe who attribute this to black racial inferiority, we have to face the ugly truth that culture matters. The culture of the inner city ghetto, with the vast majority of kids born out of wedlock, and absurdly high crime rates, condemns black people to inferior status.

Culture matters.

But the leftist hostility to “bourgeois values” goes beyond that. Bourgeois values create strong institutions (family, church, voluntary associations) that are a source of social capital and which rival the state. Leftists (the New Class) have a class interest in the expansion of state power, since the expansion of state power is the expansion of New Class power.

Thus, for the New Class, the role of “marginalized groups” in society is to fail, to articulate grievances, and to demand government benefits. To behave otherwise is to commit treason.

Marquette Law School Hassles Student Group About Conservative Speaker

It’s not unusual for campus bureaucrats to be hostile to the idea that conservatives might speak on a college campus (as the speech at Marquette by Ben Shapiro shows), but this is the first time we have heard it happening at the Law School.

When the student Federalist Society proposed bringing gun rights advocate John Lott to campus, Anna Fodor, Director of Student Affairs, objected that the proposed discussion of the Second Amendment was “incendiary and controversial” and strongly suggested (virtually demanded) that a speaker on the other side be included.

And indeed, the program as initially announced included both Lott and liberal Marquette professor Ed Fallone.

In principle, there is nothing wrong with having Ed Fallone present a liberal viewpoint on the Second Amendment, but (1.) when only conservative viewpoints are required to be “balanced” that biases the discourse, and (2.) such a requirement imposes an extra burden on conservative speech and the organizations that seek to espouse conservative ideas on campus.

The program, as it actually came off, did not involve Fallone, but rather Lott only. And he did not talk about “a Federally mandated national concealed carry reciprocity right” (as originally announced) but rather what people wanted to hear discussed: mass shootings, in the wake of the Las Vegas tragedy.

Lott, using hard data, showed that mass shooting are not peculiar to the U.S., and indeed advanced industrial nations with strict gun control laws have them, and in some cases have higher per capita casualty rates than the U.S.

Past Experience

In the past, the student Federalist Society has hosted multiple conservative speakers, but pretty much only those with less national prominence than Lott, talking about issues less “hot-button” than guns, such as Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices Bradley and Ziegler.

But when they proposed inviting outspoken and controversial Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, Fodor and Amy Rogan-Metha (Associate Dean for Student Development) objected, and insisted there had to be an opposing voice at the event. It turned out that Clarke could not come, so the issue became moot.

Other Campuses

Not surprisingly, other campus Federalist Societies have run up against liberal intolerance. A recent example involved Texas Southern University, where the organization had invited had invited state representative Briscoe Cain. Cain’s apparent sin was that he was for denying funds for gender reassignment surgery for inmates. Protesters shouted him down, and TSU President Dr. Austin Lane closed down the event, apparently in response to the bullying of the protesters.

Bullied Evergreen State Student Speaks Out

Exposing the American Association of University Professors: Politicized Guild

From Campus Reform, an article that deals with our legal battle with Marquette, but also with similar cases nationwide.

A key point: the AAUP is less than forthcoming when the academic freedom of conservative professors is attacked. Some key passages:

“In the aftermath of [Trump’s] election, it has become evident that his election poses a grave threat to the principles that lie at the very heart of the AAUP: academic freedom, shared governance, and economic security for those engaged in teaching and research in higher education,” AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum declared at his organization’s 2017 annual meeting.

So the simple election of a president you don’t like is a threat to academia freedom? Thanks, AAUP, for making your political biases clear.

The article goes on to mention cases where the AAUP defended extreme and inflammatory statements from leftist professors, and notes the lack of support for conservative academics. And further:

The same goes for more politically-neutral professors who simply challenge campus orthodoxy, like the Christakis’s and, even more recently, Evergreen State College Professor Bret Weinstein, who was forced to hold classes off-campus after campus police were unable to protect him from a mob of students who had angrily confronted him for questioning the legitimacy of an event in which white people were requested to leave campus for a day.

The AAUP did not release a single statement in support of Weinstein’s “academic freedom,” even after the student protesters held the school’s president hostage in his own office to demand, among other things, that Weinstein be summarily suspended without pay.

“My thoughts regarding the AAUP are much like my thoughts about the ACLU,” said George Leef, director of research for the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. “It avoids battles where it doesn’t like one of the combatants, principle be damned.”

David Randall, director of communication for the National Association of Scholars (NAS), expressed similar sentiments, acknowledging that while the AAUP did play an instrumental role in [conservative Mike] Adams’ lawsuit, “it is easy to find cases in which conservatives on campus have suffered significant infringements of their academic freedom in which the AAUP has been mute.”

The author (Anthony Gockowski) devotes considerable attention to our case. While the AAUP objected to our suspension in December, 2014, it had no problem with Marquette’s attempt to fire us, and with the punishment imposed by a faculty panel.

An AAUP official informed us that we had received “due process” from the faculty panel.

“Their position was that I had received ‘due process’ from the Faculty Hearing Committee, and that was all I deserved,” McAdams told Campus Reform. “They seem to view ‘academic freedom’ as a collective right the faculty have, not a right that each faculty member has. Thus, views unpopular with the faculty generally will get little support from the AAUP.”

. . . McAdams noted that due process—especially on a “contemporary campus”—offers “scant protection to views unpopular among the faculty,” pointing out that “in addition to ideological bias, there is the fact that campus bureaucrats can load committees with people who are keen on currying favor with the administration.”

Worse, however, was the fact that there were several gross violations of due process on Marquette’s part. As we told AAUP official Greg Scholtz:

1. I was suspended in violation of Marquette’s own rules. You have already taken notice of this.
2. The Faculty Hearing Committee was supposed to issue a report within 90 days of the end of the hearings, but failed to meet that deadline by almost a month, finally delivering a report on January 19, when the deadline was December 23.
3. One member of the Faculty Hearing Committee had signed a statement attacking me for my blog posts, but declined to recuse herself.
4. Marquette refused to provide my legal team with evidence, possibly relevant to the case, that my legal team requested.
5. President Lovell, while claiming to follow the recommendation of the Faculty Hearing Committee, in fact added a proviso that I had to apologize for the blog post, and provide a loyalty oath pledging allegiance to vaguely defined “Marquette Guiding values” and “Marquette’s Mission.”
6. Marquette could point to no rule that I had violated, but the Faculty Hearing Committee engaged in what [my attorney] called a “multi-part balancing test” to come to the conclusion that I should be disciplined (but not fired). Restrictions on academic freedom (like all restrictions on speech) should be based on “bright line” prohibitions, and not vaguely defined and subjective “balancing tests.”

Scholtz blandly replied that he “never encountered a dismissal process that all parties agreed was entirely free of irregularities.”

Free Speech to Criticize Professors

But going beyond merely defending the right of leftist professors to say extreme and inflammatory things, the AAUP has condemned those media outlets that publicize those extreme and inflammatory things. For the organization, “academic freedom” means a lack of free speech when that speech criticizes leftist professors.

As David Randall suggested, the AAUP has to be viewed as a “politicized guild, and not as disinterested partisans of academic freedom.”

Trump and Russia: Chasing Your Tail

Trump, Fake News and the Mainstream Media

From Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept: a rundown of bogus stories that mainstream media outlets have run about Donald Trump. Those include:

• A CNN story about a supposed Congressional investigation of a link between Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci and a Russian investment fund.
• Another CNN story claiming that James Comey, in testimony before Congress, was going to contradict Trump’s claim that Comey assured the President he was not being investigated by the FBI.
• A Washington Post story, based on anonymous sources, that Russian hackers had hacked into the “U.S. electricity grid,” supposedly through a Vermont utility.
• Another Washington Post article about a supposed 213 million times that stories emanating from a Russian “disinformation campaign” had been viewed by American readers. The source was a shadowy group of self-appointed experts who had compiled a McCarthyite blacklist of sites that supposedly published Russian propaganda. The story had to be retracted.
• Liberal website Slate published an article claiming the discovery of a secret server used by the Trump Organization to communicate with a Russian bank.
• C-SPAN made a splash when it claimed that “RT programming” had interrupted its broadcasts. Since RT is owned by the Russian government, this played into the Russian narrative, but it was untrue.
• The leftist Guardian published a story asserting that WikiLeaks, and WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, had “long had a close relationship with the Putin regime.”
• A bogus claim from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike that Russian Military Intelligence had hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers was hyped by multiple outlets.

Greenwald notes:

WHAT IS MOST notable about these episodes is that they all go in the same direction: hyping and exaggerating the threat posed by the Kremlin. All media outlets will make mistakes; that is to be expected. But when all of the “mistakes” are devoted to the same rhetorical theme, and when they all end up advancing the same narrative goal, it seems clear that they are not the byproduct of mere garden-variety journalistic mistakes.

Greenwald goes on to discuss business incentives to hype Russia, which are most certainly real.

What he does not give sufficient attention is ideological bias.

Donald Trump and Fake News

That the media have a bias against Trump is blatantly obvious. What is less commented on is that Trump’s attacks on the “lying media” may be self-fulfilling assertions.

The media, chafing under those charges, appear to be itching to get back at Trump by implicating him in some nefarious conspiracy with Russia. Journalistic standards go by the board.

There is a lot wrong with Donald Trump as president, but he has one huge political asset: he drives his political adversaries utterly bonkers. He has gone far in discrediting his mainstream media enemies. And not because people simply believe Trump when he calls them liars, but because during Trump’s presidency they have published a lot of lies.

Angela Davis Speaks, Marquette Pounded on Social Media

Click on the image to see reaction on Twitter. You don’t have to click to see her described by Marquette as a “Scholar, activist and renowned speaker” who “will deliver a distinguished lecture.” Some of the tweets provide information about her background not generally known.

Scholar, activist and renowned speaker Dr. Angela Davis will deliver a distinguished lecture today at 7p.m. https://t.co/klTSOhEEYZ pic.twitter.com/szmyhyeIdH

— Marquette Today (@MarquetteToday) March 29, 2017

An earlier tweet from Marquette was just as bad:

Marquette is honored to host the brilliant political activist Angela Davis tomorrow at 7 pm at the Al McGuire Center.

— Marquette Today (@MarquetteToday) March 28, 2017

Taking Provost Myers to Task: Young Americans for Freedom

From The New Guard: An essay about Marquette Provost Dan Myers, whose bureaucrats have arranged an absurdly biased program of speakers on racial issues, and then hypocritically wrote an op-ed opposing the one conservative speaker who has been on campus this year:

Last week, the Young Americans for Freedom at Marquette held a wildly successful talk featuring Ben Shapiro. Two lecture halls were filled beyond capacity, even as Marquette staff attempted to sabotage the event behind the scenes.

The first time any Marquette administrator publicly addressed students about the Shapiro talk was in an editorial in the campus newspaper on February 14. Provost Dan Myers —who once carried a sign that labeled conservatives as homophobic, transphobic & biphobic—penned an op-ed pleading for “critical thinking” when considering conservative speakers like Shapiro.

His message was simple: the conservatives who came to hear from Ben Shapiro failed to think critically.

According to Myers, Shapiro’s visit “produced some controversy.” In reality, it was university staff that ginned up the controversy. Myers argues that campuses “should not avoid controversy.” Instead, he wants the campus to challenge “controversial” views. Myers, as the second in command at Marquette, has made it his duty to challenge exclusively conservative views the few times they are allowed to be heard on campus.

Interestingly, Myers did not even attend Shapiro’s lecture, but this did not prevent Myers from responding (presumably, he watched the video provided by YAF).

In his contradictions of Shapiro’s assertions, Myers leans heavily on fallacies. When Shapiro remarked that “institutional racism” is no longer the norm, Myers wrote that targeting “legacy” students is racist. He continued, asking whether the legacy advantage “replicate[s] that racism in the next generation.” That is, Myers believes recruiting students who are more likely to attend Marquette because of a prior family connection is racist. Surprisingly, Myers never mentions Marquette’s expressed desire to slant the admissions process in favor of Hispanic students, despite the fact that he himself supports a policy which would require Marquette’s racial demographic to reach at least 25% of all enrollments.

A quick recap of Myers logic reveals a troubling conclusion:

To recruit legacy students, those whose parent or sibling attended Marquette University before them (regardless of race), is institutional racism. But to set a goal of creating a Marquette where 25% of the population is Hispanic (potentially at the expense of other qualified minority students) in order to seek federal funds is not institutional racism.

That’s right Marquette alumni: The provost of your alma mater does not want to recruit your kid, younger sibling, or grandkid in the name of some warped version of Jesuit social justice.

Marquette’s desire to welcome more Hispanics is laudable – but not through this scheme. Skewing numbers to fleece the feds and pander to progressive pieties will throw off other diversity metrics, including socioeconomic status, religion, sex, and many more. Note that intellectual diversity is never part of any initiative promoting inclusion on the campus of Marquette University.

Doubling down on his accusations, Myers argues that Ben’s promotion of the Brookings Institution’s Three Simple Rules to Join the Middle Class is also racist: Graduate from high school, avoid early pregnancy, and get a job. Myers says not all races have equal opportunities to finish high school, get into college, or, evidently, avoid unwanted pregnancies.

Myers offers no solutions to address this broad institutional charge of racism. For decades, conservatives have advocated school choice that would benefit minority students. Yet progressives dramatically opposed Betsy DeVos for the Department of Education, despite her plan to expand to expand choice for impoverished children.

Milwaukee Public Schools (serving the residents who live around Marquette) have been run into the ground by progressive unions for decades. Perhaps left wing unions are the example of institutional racism Myers was seeking?

Myers writes, “Healthy skepticism is at the very foundation of active learning.” If Myers is genuinely interested in interaction with active learning, perhaps the Young Americans for Freedom might bring Shapiro back for a debate.

In fact, Young America’s Foundation has a strong reputation of supporting dialogue on Marquette’s campus. The Foundation has sponsored Attorney General John Ashcroft, Speaker Newt Gingrich, John Stossel, Michelle Malkin, S.E. Cupp, Allen West, Steve Forbes, Herman Cain, Christopher Horner, and many more.

Additionally, the Foundation has sponsored two debates at Marquette. Marquette’s own liberal theologian Dan Maguire backed out of a debate on pro-life issues with conservative Mike Adams.

The Foundation also paid for Liz Cheney to debate Howard Dean prior to the 2012 election. Marquette was one of only a handful of campuses to host such a debate. The Foundation paid for both speakers.

Non-progressives are left to wonder if Myers is planning to write a similarly scathing op-ed after Shaun King appeared on campus this week, or well-known domestic terrorist Angela Davis appears next month. We won’t hold our breath. As Myers pointed out in his op-ed, a “variety of speakers” were on campus last week. Myers singled out the conservative.

What does it say that, on the Marquette campus, it is usually conservatives who arrange debates, but the Marquette administration arranges only one-sided programs? It must mean that, deep down, the people running Marquette sense that they would be at a disadvantage in an open, balanced debate.

If they were confident of their views, they would welcome having those views be shown to be superior in head-to-head competition.

No doubt they are confident of their moral righteousness. But somewhere deep down they know that there are things they don’t want aired, else people start having doubts about the “social justice” agenda.

[Update from YAF]

YAF-Marquette chairman and adviser reached out to Provost Myers for a meeting. Through his chief of staff, Myers denied the request because he was too busy. Myers’ office said they could direct the YAF chapter to another person on campus. At this point, Myers is unwilling to defend his actions directly to conservative students.

We can’t imagine Myers refusing to meet with representatives of any politically correct victim group. But he refuses dialogue with conservative students. That’s the Marquette version of “inclusion.”

Marquette Provost Touts “Critical Thinking,” Then Repeats Politically Correct Clichés

That Marquette’s administration is dominated by politically correct leftists is shown by the fact that Provost Dan Myers took to the Marquette Tribune to argue against conservative speaker Ben Shapiro, who appeared on campus last week.

Myers claims to be making a plea for “critical thinking,” but in fact simply demands that people not critically examine politically correct shibboleths. He focusses on the notion of “institutional racism,” a notion that Shapiro challenged.

There is a lot to address there, but let’s focus on three critical questions before we express agreement. First, has the institutionalized racism of yesteryear really disappeared? Take one instance in our own world of higher education. It is widely accepted that back in the bad ol’ days, universities had racist recruitment and admissions practices that severely disadvantaged African Americans. That disadvantage is gone in our new enlightened era, Shapiro says.

But is it? Consider this: Almost all universities have long had recruitment and admissions practices that target legacy students (the children and relatives of its alumni). If the parents or grandparents were admitted using a racist standard, then doesn’t the legacy advantage replicate that racism in the next generation? Haven’t these legacy practices built racism into the access to higher education? Maybe it’s possible that racial advantages still exist more than we think.

Does Marquette target legacy students? If so, Dan Myers, you are the Provost, why don’t you stop it?

But of course, targeting legacy students is not racial discrimination, even if it has a differential racial impact. Universities target good athletes too, and (at least in “revenue sports”) this benefits blacks. But that’s not racial discrimination either.

Then there is the huge advantage racial minorities have with affirmative action. It typically is (as Shapiro reported) in the range of 250 SAT points (Verbal plus Quantitative).

School Choir

Myers then offers an example of a bad person: a choir director who systematically excluded black students from a highly desirable program.

Myers seems not to understand that this simply isn’t “institutional racism.” There was nothing about the “institution” of the choir that discriminated against blacks, but rather one bad person who did.

And Myers admits he is now dead. So much for this as any sort of example of contemporary racism, institutional or otherwise.

Individual Agency

Myers continues:

By denying institutional racism, Shapiro can boil racial differences down to individual agency: if Black people just tried harder and made better choices, they’d do just as well as Whites. Simply finish high school, avoid early pregnancy and get a job. If you do, you’ll be OK. Seems reasonable, but let’s pause again. Does everyone (regardless of race, income, where they live and family circumstances) have the same chance to finish high school? Does every high school produce the same results (learning, skills and chances of getting into college)? Does everyone have the same chance of getting a job? If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” we must rethink whether individual agency is the only thing that matters.

Myers is oblivious to the fact that he is demeaning black people. They are, he seems to be saying, so beaten down that they are unable to make good decisions. For example, today about 72% of all black kids are born out of wedlock. Poor beaten down black folks can’t make good decisions about sex, birth control and marriage, according to Myers.

But in 1955, only 20% of black babies were born out of wedlock. Why could blacks make good decisions in the 1950s, before the civil rights legislation of the 60s, but can’t now? The generation of blacks that had kids in wedlock in the 50s was the generation that marched with Martin Luther King. What has happened in the black community? It hasn’t been the rise of “institutional racism.”

That blacks are, on average, in poorer schools than whites is certainly true. But it is leftists like Myers that are the staunch defenders of poorly performing public school monopolies in central cities, and the opponents of charter schools and vouchers schools.

It is, in other words, the people who whine about “institutional racism” who are defenders of the clearest form of institutional racism that harms black kids: the inner city public school monopoly.

Unemployment

Myers goes on to talk about unemployment, and claims that if the “jobs were there” black people would take them. He points to the fact that the black unemployment rate is consistently higher than the white unemployment rate.

But is this “institutional racism?”

In the first place, because blacks tend to have less human capital than whites (because of poorer education), they are at a disadvantage.

Secondly, because blacks tend to have less human capital, they are more likely to be lured into dependency on government programs, which compete too well with actual employment. (The same thing happens with poorly educated whites, but it is less noticed.)

Here are the data on dependency on means-tested programs, by race.

Here are the data on dependency and family structure. Married couple families are quite unlikely to be dependent on government programs.

One of the many things that politically correct types won’t talk about is the fact that the black/white gap in unemployment was, in an era where “institutional racism” was undeniable, nonexistent. This chart, from the linked article, tells the story:

Hypocrisy on Critical Thinking

But the most blatant, bizarre thing about Myers and his bureaucrats is that, instead of promoting critical thinking, they have promoted one-sided political correctness.

Critical thinking involves confronting diverse, often conflicting ideas. But the programming coming out of Myers office (and offices under his control) this year has consisted of nothing but leftist indoctrination.

And Myers, uncomfortable with Shapiro challenging his one-sided programming, goes to the Tribune to try to debunk Shapiro.

Marquette’s Stunning Hypocrisy on “Hard to Hear” Opinions

From an article by Jerry Bader in Media Trackers:

The Winter Edition of Marquette University’s “Marquette Magazine” includes what appears to be a self-congratulatory piece where open expression on campus is concerned, through its yearlong Marquette Forum series. The column chronicles the university’s fall semester efforts to generate discourse on the topic of racial justice and inequality:

During the fall semester the university seized the moment when issues of racial justice and inequality were central in the national and local consciousnesses to launch a conversation format designed to inspire thinking — together. Those efforts included hosting a conversation with Sam Pollard about his film Two Trains Runnin’, which was featured at the Milwaukee Film Festival and a panel discussion “Segregation in Milwaukee: A Conversation with Leaders on the Near West Side.”

The sub-headline for the article was:

This is about talking and listening even when opinions may be hard to hear. This is about being a university.

The irony of that sentiment was not lost on suspended MU professor John McAdams. McAdams, you may recall, was suspended for a blog post about an instructor who wouldn’t allow debate over same sex marriage in her philosophy class. In January, McAdams received a letter telling him his suspension would continue until he apologized. Media Trackers asked McAdams for his opinion on the Marquette Magazine piece:

It’s absurdly ironic, since Marquette only wants to hear opinions from the hard left.

There are plenty of voices who would dissent from the uniform leftist slant of these programs. One thinks of Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell. On criminal justice issues, there is Heather McDonald. I could name a dozen more. But nobody who at all dissents from the notion of blacks as entirely innocent victims of white oppression is allowed to speak.

The notion that any of these issues should be debated seems never to have crossed the minds of the Marquette bureaucrats. There is only one “social justice” position, and every person of good will agrees on it, and only evil people refuse to sign on.

This is radically at odds with what discourse at any university should be, but it’s all too typical of academia today. There is no “engagement” with diverse ideas, but only one-sided indoctrination.

The only saving grace is that few people who don’t already think this way will attend. That is unless their instructors bribe students with extra credit or require attendance.

It is not “hard to hear” opinions you agree with. Marquette is happy to serve up ideas “hard to hear” for conservatives (typically “hard to hear” because they are absurd) but unwilling to allow anything that the politically correct liberals would find “hard to hear.”

In fact, the whole year of Marquette-sponsored programs has been entirely devoid of anything but standard leftist indoctrination.

Infrastructure of Indoctrination

Consider, for example, a faculty program “Faculty Conversations on Learning: Sparking Curiosity in our Students.” The point, as we have noted, was not at all to spark curiosity, but rather to encourage faculty to indoctrinate students into the standard politically correct view of racial issues.

Then there is the Center for Intercultural Engagement. How politically correct are they? Each staff member lists his or her “preferred pronoun” on the assumption that some “transgender” or “gender queer” or such person might dislike “he” or “she.” One of the staff (Enrique Tejada III) wants to be referred to as “they,” even though there is only one of him.

Not surprisingly, the list of events sponsored or supported by this office is a smorgasbord of politically-correct identity politics, with lots of gay and lesbian events, “dreamers” (read: young illegals) events, and a “Dining in Drag” event.

Catholic teaching on homosexuality is nowhere to be found. Why? That opinion is “hard to hear.” So is the opinion that we should control the border and stop illegal immigration. Those opinions aren’t allowed at Marquette, at least so long as campus bureaucrats are controlling the discourse.

Mission Week

Marquette’s Mission week is merely more of the same. Titled “Black, White and the Call of the Church,” there is not the slightest mention of the problems that most afflict the black community: illegitimacy, a high crime rate, drug use and poor urban schools.

Rather, it’s all about white racism. The video about the event gives the full flavor:

Angela Davis

And of course, Marquette is bringing Angela Davis to campus. Of course, having extremist speakers (and Davis is a communist) as part of a diverse menu of provocative and even extremist opinions is perfectly fine at any university. But there is no diversity in the events Marquette has scheduled. It’s all about leftist indoctrination, with Davis merely being the most extreme of a uniform slate of leftists.

Hypocrisy: Is it OK to Want the President to Fail?

From MRC NewsBusters:

The Democratic Left is trying to pretend that Donald Trump wasn’t really elected President last year, with an unprecedented 67 U.S. Representatives boycotting Trump’s Inauguration after Congressman John Lewis told NBC that Trump was not “a legitimate President.”

But instead of scolding this divisive and unhelpful repudiation of a new President, the news media are enabling the sore-loser Left.

After Lewis announced his rejection of Trump, NBC’s Chuck Todd prodded him for more extreme action: “You believe this President is not legitimate. What would you tell young folks, young activists to do?”

And even though Trump hadn’t yet been inaugurated, Todd also pressed Lewis about impeachment: “Are you one of those that believe the impeachment process should begin?”

Contrast that with the news media’s hysterical reaction eight years ago when Rush Limbaugh said of incoming President Barack Obama and his ardently liberal agenda: “I hope he fails.”

It was a sentiment Limbaugh repeated a month later when he spoke at the annual CPAC conference: “What is so strange about being honest and saying, ‘I want Barack Obama to fail,’ if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed?”

Liberal reporters freaked out. CNN political analyst Bill Schneider said Limbaugh’s CPAC speech had “sinister” tones and had “crossed a line.” During a CNBC interview, host Mark Haines lectured Limbaugh that it was a “stupid and mean spirited thing to say,” an exchange that so tickled MSNBC host Keith Olbermann that he re-played it that night on his Countdown program.

Republican politicians were pressed to denounce Limbaugh. ABC’s Diane Sawyer asked John McCain to say he was “offended” by the remark (McCain demurred), while then-MSNBC anchor Norah O’Donnell scolded then-Indiana Representative Mike Pence: “Why don’t you feel like you could denounce something like that?”

On MSNBC in 2009, the failure to appreciate Obama was seen as treasonous, as Hardball host Chris Matthews asked viewers: “Does Rush Limbaugh hate this country?”

But last week, before Trump was sworn in, Matthews pressed Democratic Representative Maxine Waters if she would consider impeaching the not-yet-President. During Friday’s inauguration coverage, Matthews described Trump’s speech as “Hitlerian” and suggested Trump could use “Mussolini” tactics if he wanted to jettison his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a White House advisor.

And over the next few days, ABC, CBS and NBC all provided heavy and positive coverage of an anti-Trump protest march that included speakers like Madonna seeming to suggest assassination: “I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.”

The news media are obviously not demanding a consistent respect for the office of the U.S. Presidency. The most obvious explanation is that eight years ago most in the so-called “news” media wanted Barack Obama’s left-wing policies to succeed and were appalled by dissent.

Now, the media see themselves as part of the opposition to President Trump and his agenda to roll back Obama’s policies — and they hope he fails.

Of course, the two most common elements in Washington (and this includes the Washington press corps) are hydrogen and hypocrisy. So none of this is a surprise.

As we write this, the media are in a frenzy about Trump’s criticism of a Washington state judge who put a hold on his immigration pause. But attacking conservative Supreme Court judges over Citizens United or Heller or Hobby Lobby is just fine.

It’s not that only liberals are hypocritical, but in any subculture that is overwhelmingly dominated by liberals it is liberal hypocrisy that is going to run riot. And the people in that subculture, being so entirely surrounded by people who think the same way, can’t see it.

It’s much like academia, where one of our colleagues in Marquette’s Political Science Department told us he did not know what “political correctness” means.

Fish don’t know they are wet.

Fake News: Marquette Tribune Recycles Discredited Rumor about Scott Walker and Marquette

From a story on Marquette Wire, on a speech by Governor Scott Walker on the Marquette campus:

Walker was once a student activist himself, and attended Marquette University for a time in the late 80s. There are disagreements as to why the future governor left the university shy of graduation, but one thing is clear: his time here was spent climbing the ranks of MUSG and building a political platform for himself.

What the story refers to is a claim, by leftists, that Walker was expelled from Marquette because of fraud in a student government election.

This, in fact, was debunked long ago. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel investigated the claims, made by partisan Democrats, that Walker “either dropped out or was forced out” of Marquette because of some scandal. Marquette, citing student privacy laws, refused to comment without Walker’s permission. Walker gave that permission to Marquette, and the paper reported:

“Gov. Scott Walker was a student at Marquette from fall of 1986 until spring 1990 and was a senior in good standing when he voluntarily withdrew from Marquette,” the university said in a statement.

That means that no conduct issues, academic or otherwise, blocked Walker from continuing in school at the time of his departure, MU spokesman Brian Dorrington told us in early December 2013.

When we asked Dorrington whether any conduct issues were on Walker’s earlier school record, he said Walker would have to permit release of that information. Walker did so in response to our request.

“Governor Walker was in good standing each term while he was enrolled at Marquette University and when he left Marquette University,” Associate Vice Provost Anne Deahl said in a letter. “Governor Walker was not expelled or suspended from the university at any time.”

Thus the implication that Walker might have been expelled or forced out of Marquette because of some scandal is bogus, and the claim was debunked back in 2013.

The Marquette Tribune has thus engaged in irresponsible journalism, probably as the result of a liberal bias.

Will they issue a correction? We shall see. The default position of the mainstream media (the folks Tribune staff are in training to join) is to stonewall.

Social Media Censorship in Europe

Yes, the social media giants have promised to ban “hate speech” on their platforms in Europe. The obvious problem: any politically incorrect opinion is labelled “hate speech” by the authoritarian left.

Anti-Social Media

Confronting Anti-Israel Prejudice

A fellow named Jordan Holmer has the courage (or perhaps merely the chutzpah) to challenge the Palestinian lobby on campus. On Twitter, he has taken exception to a fake wall (called an “Apartheid Wall”) erected on campus by Students for Justice in Palestine. His tweets are included below:

Why @MarquetteU allows anti-Semites to demonstrate in center of campus is beyond me pic.twitter.com/fGiuhRMTpr

— Jordan Holmer (@kybldmstr) April 14, 2016

I feel for every Jewish student on campus today #SJPisHate

— Jordan Holmer (@kybldmstr) April 14, 2016

I bet if it was an image of a KKK cross burning Marquette would jump into action pretty fast

— Jordan Holmer (@kybldmstr) April 14, 2016

It is long past time that somebody challenged the Palestinian lobby on campus. Their motto, shown on the wall, is “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free.” Although they deny it, the slogan calls for the end of the State of Israel. The graphic below shows it: the map does not show a two state solution. It shows a single state, which would be dominated by Palestinians. Jews, if allowed to remain, would be a persecuted minority.


Palestinians don’t like the wall Israel has built because it has ended suicide bomber attacks. Again, they won’t admit that.

The Palestinian lobby on campus has been pandered to and petted by campus bureaucrats and leftist faculty. Firmly on their side have been the Center for Gender and Sexualities Studies and the organizations that sponsored “Israeli Apartheid Week,” including the Office of International Studies, Campus Ministry, and the Office of Intercultural Engagement. So it is good to see some opposition.

This is not to say we agree with Holmer on everything. He believes the wall should not have been allowed by Marquette. We think that if Students for Justice in Palestine got the proper approval from Student Affairs, they have a right to their demonstration.

What we would like to see is a counter demonstration. But some push back on Twitter is a start.