08/1/15

Donald Trump’s Greatest Hits

Donald Trump has gotten popular, in part, by challenging the media. But he has praised journalists on occasion. His 2011 book, Time to Get Tough, said David Gregory was “doing a fine job filling some awfully big shoes over at Meet the Press.” It was a reference to legendary and highly respected host Tim Russert, who had passed away.

So-called “Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd,” who replaced Gregory, is a favorite Trump target. “The thing I find most offensive about Chuck Todd is the fact that he pretends to be an objective journalist,” Trump writes, “when in reality the guy is a partisan hack.”

In many ways, as Trump said, David Gregory was doing a fine job. Some of the criticism of Gregory’s performance as “Meet the Press” host missed the mark, such as when he interviewed Edward Snowden collaborator Glenn Greenwald. As we noted at the time, some in the media were aghast that Gregory asked Greenwald a perfectly reasonable question on “Meet the Press:” “To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?”

Snowden, the NSA leaker, has been charged with espionage and still resides in Russia.

In his book, Trump takes on Jon Stewart, the host of “The Daily Show” on the Comedy Central network who is quitting after years of service to President Obama and the liberal-left. Stewart’s strategy is spewing curse words and invective toward conservatives and Republicans.

Trump recognized Stewart as Obama’s tool before it was recently revealed that Stewart was secretly meeting with people in the Obama White House, including President Obama, in efforts “by the president and his communications team to tap into Mr. Stewart’s influence with younger voters,” as The New York Times put it.

“I actually enjoy the guy,” Trump’s book says of Stewart, “but when he did a segment mocking presidential candidate Herman Cain, and used a very racist and degrading tone that was insulting to the African American community, did he get booted off the air like Don Imus? No. Where was the Reverend Jesse Jackson? Where was the Reverend Al Sharpton? Where was Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd to provide hard-hitting journalistic ‘analysis?’ Nowhere. Stewart should have lost his job—at least temporarily. But he didn’t and he won’t because liberals in the media always get a free pass, no matter how bad their behavior.”

Cain himself had noted that Stewart had mocked him using the racially-charged “Amos & Andy” dialect. He concluded that Stewart has a problem with black conservatives.

In other comments in his book, Trump discussed the journalists “who are obsessed with protecting Obama,” noting that ABC’s George Stephanopoulos is among the “big Obama fans.” He added that “it was incredible to see how overprotective reporters got toward Obama when I simply said what everyone in America was thinking: ‘Where’s the birth certificate?’”

While he praises Fox News and Roger Ailes, the executive behind the popular channel, Trump faults the “disappointing behavior by people in the press” which “occurs on both sides of the aisle,” and singles out Charles Krauthammer of Fox News for special criticism. Trump said Krauthammer had attacked him on the air as a joke candidate, and that he was not given any rebuttal time.

Discussing a speech he gave to Republicans, during which he had used “strong language,” Trump admits, “I’m not a big curser but it did take place” and the controversial remarks were reported by the media. But Trump counters: “Of course, Joe Biden dropped the f-word in front of the entire media on a stage with the president. But Biden gets a pass because he’s with Obama, and as we all know, Obama can do no wrong in the media’s eyes.”

Other quotable comments from his book include the observation that The New York Times is Obama’s “favorite newspaper,” and that “The press constantly maligns, ridicules, and mocks the Tea Party folks.”

During the current campaign, Trump has not shied away from putting reporters on the spot.

Asked a question by Telemundo anchor José Díaz-Balart, who distorted his position on illegal immigration, Trump fired back, “You know what, that’s a typical case. Wait. That’s a typical case of the press with misinterpretation. They take a half a sentence, then they take a quarter of a sentence, they put it all together. It’s a typical thing. And you’re with Telemundo, and Telemundo should be ashamed.”

In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, he said, “Anderson, you are not a baby, okay. You are not a baby.”

Asked by NBC’s Katy Tur if he had a gun and used it, he responded, “It is none of your business, it is really none of your business. I have a license to have a gun.”

After The Wall Street Journal attacked Trump and his conservative supporters in the media, the businessman responded by saying the paper had a “dwindling” readership and “is worth about one-tenth of what it was purchased for…”

After Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard said he was “finished” with Trump, he responded, “Bill, your small and slightly failing magazine will be a giant success when you finally back Trump.”

Fox News media reporter Howard Kurtz notes, “Look, Trump thrives on being attacked. He’s a great counterpuncher. He particularly relishes doing battle with the media. And this latest story hands him a big fat gift to do just that.”

That “latest story” was in The Daily Beast and concerned some allegations about alleged marital rape from Trump’s divorce proceedings. Trump’s ex-wife Ivana responded, “I have recently read some comments attributed to me from nearly 30 years ago at a time of very high tension during my divorce from Donald. The story is totally without merit.”

She added, “Donald and I are the best of friends and together have raised three children that we love and are very proud of. I have nothing but fondness for Donald and wish him the best of luck on his campaign.”

Since then, a story has surfaced about Trump criticizing an opposing attorney who wanted to breast-pump in front of him. Trump told CNN he may have said to her that it was “disgusting.” He added, “Bottom line. I beat her.” He said the judge had even awarded him legal fees.

For turning the tables on the media, Trump deserves the praise of those who are sick and tired of the liberal media setting the national agenda and demonizing conservatives.

I have a feeling that the Donald Trump hit parade will continue.

04/30/15

Black Mom Changes Leftist Narrative on Violence

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The reaction among responsible black and white law-abiding citizens to the black thugs rioting in Baltimore was captured by Toya Graham, the black mother who smacked her son around when she found him on the streets joining the attacks on police. Even liberals in the major media applauded her efforts.

“I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray,” she told CBS News, referring to her son and the black youth who died under mysterious circumstances while in police custody.

CBS reported, “Graham, a single mom with six children, denounced the vandalism and violence against police officers. She said rioting in Baltimore is no way to go about getting justice for Freddie Gray and that she doesn’t want that life for her son.”

Graham then appeared on the CBS This Morning Show to discuss the incident and the struggle to raise her children.

The important teaching moment represented by this dramatic incident, a brief moment of sanity in the media, undercut the left-wing effort to somehow blame the police for the riots. As a result, the “progressives” had to go on the attack against the black mother.

Over at Think Progress, the blog of the pro-Obama Center for American Progress, Graham was attacked as a “misguided” mother who exercised bad judgment in holding her son accountable. Writer Kira Lerner said the issue was alleged police violence, not rioting in the streets by black youth.

She quoted a woman with a group opposed to “police brutality” as saying that “While she doesn’t condone the looting that was highlighted by the media in Baltimore Monday night, she said she understands where the violent protesters are coming from.”

Meanwhile, over at Hot Air, a piece by Noah Rothman ran under the headline, “Don’t let urban unrest derail conservative criminal justice reform.” While the riots were underway, he insisted that “a consensus opinion” had emerged on both the left and the right in favor of getting soft on criminals and letting more of them out of prison.

In the wake of what has happened in Baltimore and Ferguson, the Republican primary electorate might be tempted to embrace a “tough on crime” candidate, but “That would be a mistake,” Rothman informed Hot Air readers.

What’s more, he lectured them, the war on drugs has “failed” and there is no alternative to letting “non-violent offenders” out of prison.

In fact, the war on drugs did not fail. David Evans, a special advisor to the Drug Free America Foundation, notes that marijuana use went down among young people by 25 percent from the advent of the Reagan administration’s “Just Say No” campaign to the inauguration of President Obama. “If we had had a reduction in any other health problem in the U.S. of 25 percent, we would consider it an outstanding success,” he said.

Being “tough on crime” is precisely what many observers, including that courageous Baltimore mom, have concluded needs to be done in the inner cities.

Going soft was precisely what the Baltimore mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, had done, accounting for the weak police response to the riots. Former police officer Michael Tremoglie points out that the Baltimore police knew that the mayor had said she wanted “protesters” protected and room furnished for them to “destroy,” and that “They knew that the DOJ [Department of Justice] was ‘monitoring’ what was occurring during the riots.”

Before he came to Hot Air, a site owned by Salem Communications, a Christian firm, Rothman had sung the praises of the pro-marijuana voices in the media such as MSNBC’s Touré. On another occasion, he had highlighted how comedian Kevin Hart and rapper Ice Cube had attacked commentator Nancy Grace’s anti-marijuana comments.

Hot Air, which claims to be the most heavily-trafficked conservative blog on the Internet, has emerged as a forum for pro-marijuana and soft-on-crime viewpoints, most of them articulated by Rothman, a former libertarian writer for Mediaite.

It is certainly true that the Rothman perspective on “criminal justice reform” has been embraced on the left.

As Accuracy in Media noted recently, in an article about a “criminal justice reform” conference held in Washington, D.C., there is a White House-directed effort to enlist conservatives to join with various progressive organizations to weaken laws against a series of violent and non-violent crimes.

Hillary Clinton joined the campaign on Wednesday, saying that “It’s time to end the era of mass incarceration.”

Some readers at Hot Air were astounded by the advice given by Rothman, who cited the Obama Justice Department as a reliable source of information on criminal justice issues, including alleged police violence.

One said, “Isn’t it great when we can come to Hot Air to read some halfwit ‘conservative’ columnist agree with Eric Holder about root causes?”

Another said, “I don’t think this is a very timely post. At least not whilst the animals are burning, looting, robbing, raping, killing each other and forming alliances with opposing gang bangers to destabilize the structure of society.”

Still another called attention to Heather MacDonald’s piece in the New York Post, “The Perilous New Push to Excuse Lawlessness,” as being “a hundred times better than Noah’s.” The writer said, “She’s an actual conservative who lived through the times when ‘law and order’ were questionable values, and conservatives had to fight hard to implement them.”

MacDonald had referred to “a wide-ranging movement [which] is already under way to transform the criminal justice system in order to avoid a disparate impact on blacks.” But since blacks commit a disproportionate amount of the crime, she said that fulfilling this promise “would require gutting murder statutes, and most other criminal laws,” and that the country’s two-decade-long crime drop would be in jeopardy.

Despite cities like Ferguson and Baltimore going up in flames and the rare story of a mother like Toya Graham making a plea for law-and-order, the liberal media are going to make sure that the movement for criminals’ rights that now operates under the goal of achieving “criminal justice reform” will get the lion’s share of the publicity.

Indeed, Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” just ran a favorable story about the “Coalition for Public Safety,” which is trying to make the ACLU sound like a reasonable organization conservatives can work with. Based on what was reported, it looks like some conservative groups are taking the bait.