Trump himself was told by his officials that the theory was “completely debunked” long before the president pressed Ukraine to investigate it anyway, according to Tom Bossert, Trump’s first homeland security adviser. In testimony at the closed-door hearings that preceded Wednesday’s public session, Fiona Hill, a former special assistant to Trump on the National Security Council, said it was bogus.
“It is a fiction that the Ukrainian government was launching an effort to upend our election,” Hill testified. “I’m extremely concerned that this is a rabbit hole that we’re all going to go down in between now and the 2020 election, and it will be to all of our detriment.”
Broadly, the theory contends that a hack of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 was a setup designed to cast blame on Russia but actually was cooked up by or with the help of Ukrainians. The evidence points conclusively to Russia, not Ukraine.
Still, it’s an undeniable fact that Ukraine worked to help Democrats oppose Trump in 2016. A Ukrainian court has ruled that its government “meddled” illegally in the American election, among other things by providing information about payments made to former Trump campaign manager Manafort.Ken Vogel's story from 2017:
This was after a veteran Democratic operative named Andrea Chalupa traveled to Ukraine in search of Trump oppo, which, not that anyone cares, is a similar story to Ukrainegate, the difference being that Chalupa was not president of the United States when she asked a foreign government for dirt about a presidential candidate. Even making the simple factual observation that the Chalupa/Ukraine transaction took place, however, has become an impossibility in the current media landscape.
The Chalupa story was originally broken by Politico reporter Ken Vogel in 2017 (“Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire”). But Politico now describes Trump being committed to “unsubstantiated allegations… a conspiracy theory that Ukraine aided Democrats in the 2016 election.”
Politico originally reported that conspiracy theory!
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia’s alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.
Sworn statements from two Ukrainian officials admitting that their agency tried to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton. The effort included leaking an alleged ledger showing payments to then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort;
Contacts between Democratic figures in Washington and Ukrainian officials that involved passing along dirt on Donald Trump;
Financial records showing a Ukrainian natural gas company routed more than $3 million to American accounts tied to Hunter Biden, younger son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, who managed U.S.-Ukraine relations for the Obama administration. Biden’s son served on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings;
Records that Vice President Biden pressured Ukrainian officials in March 2016 to fire the prosecutor who oversaw an investigation of Burisma Holdings and who planned to interview Hunter Biden about the financial transfers;
Correspondence showing members of the State Department and U.S. Embassy in Kiev interfered or applied pressure in criminal cases on Ukrainian soil;
Disbursements of as much as $7 billion in Ukrainian funds that prosecutors believe may have been misappropriated or taken out of the country, including to the United States.
Last week, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced the schedule of 2020 presidential debates. President Trump should quickly dismiss that schedule as unacceptable and announce that if any debates will be held at all in 2020, it will be only after extensive, direct negotiations between him and the eventual nominee of the Democratic Party and their respective designated representatives. And those negotiations should begin from a premise that the Republicans will no longer play by the biased rules of a deeply unbalanced Manhattan-Beltway media elite. Explicitly articulating this declaration of intent now, along with the possibility that, as in 1968 and 1972, there won’t be any debates, would do both the public and the elite media a great service.He is absolutely right. President Trump cannot allow the Democrats and the media dictate the terrain on which the 2020 battle for the White House will be fought. Trump is the incumbent. He is the home team and the defending naational champion, if you want to use a sports analogy. He occupies conquered territory and he should defend it on terms in which he has at least equal input.
According to a recent Gallup survey, 13 percent of Americans “have a great deal of trust” in the mass media and 28 percent “a fair amount,” with “69% of Democrats [saying] they have trust and confidence in it, while 15% of Republicans and 36% of independents agree.” So more than half the country distrusts the media, and that suspicion is overwhelming among those on the center-right. And why shouldn’t they be suspicious, given incidents such as moderator Candy Crowley’s infamous intervention in the second debate in 2012?
...
Trump is the incumbent who can restore presidential debates to serious exercises in exploring the crucial differences between the two major-party candidates, but he has to begin by taking a wrecking ball to the perceived entitlement of a system begun before cellphones and the Internet and built on the thoroughly debunked belief in media “objectivity.” So start over. There are plenty of alternatives, and the best would involve open access and genuinely smart, diverse questioners who are not rehearsed to seek conflict, headlines or ratings. A lesser dose of media celebrity is a higher dose of fairness to the voters. (And please, no more idiotic “town halls.”)
BREAKING: #ExposeCNN PART 2 - Network Picks Winners and Losers on Eve of Debate.— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 15, 2019
Full video uploading now. pic.twitter.com/aGvxWJEwHK
BREAKING: @CNN Senior Justice Correspondent @evanperez says '@JoeBiden has a problem because of his son's(#HunterBiden) foreign business dealings; "IT LOOKS BAD. IT SMELLS BAD."#ExposeCNN pic.twitter.com/UlgzsHOOnh
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 15, 2019
Get some popcorn, folks. It's gonna be a very entertaining week.This week, a CNN insider will blow the whistle and through Project Veritas will release dozens of recordings made of officials at the highest levels of CNN, revealing a political agenda, bias and misconduct hidden from public view.This series of tapes — which we think will be the biggest story of the year for Project Veritas — blends two extraordinary series of events; a brave insider secretly recording at work. This is a hard-hitting piece of hidden camera muckraking into one of the supposed “most trusted names in news.”
By the time staffers in the Situation Room got the president of Ukraine on the phone at 9:03 a.m., Trump had just finished firing off tweets claiming complete vindication from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony the day before about the Russia investigation. On the call, Trump was first to speak. He showered the 41-year-old Ukrainian, a novice politician and former comedian, with praise following his party’s victory in parliamentary elections. Zelenskiy chatted about how he wanted to “drain the swamp” in Kyiv and how he wished the European Union would provide more financial support. He told Trump that Ukraine was ready to buy more Javelin anti-tank missiles from the United States.This is a blatantly false characterization of the content and context of this conversation. Here is the relevant exchange as provided in the official, undisputed transcript of the call:
The next 10 words that came out of Trump’s mouth — “I would like you to do us a favor, though” — are what triggered the House impeachment inquiry that has imperiled his presidency.
Trump asked Zelenskiy to work with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr to look into Biden and his son, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
President Zelenskyy: Yes you are absolutely right. Not only 100%, but actually 1000% and I can tell you the following; I did talk to Angela Merkel and I did meet with her I also met and talked with Macron and I told them that they are not doing quite as much as they need to be doing on the issues with the sanctions. They are not enforcing the sanctions. They are not working as much as they should work for Ukraine. It turns out that even though logically, the European Union should be our biggest partner but technically the United States is a much bigger partner than the European Union and I'm very grateful to you for that because the United States is doing quite a lot for Ukraine. Much more than the European Union especially when we are talking about sanctions against the Russian Federation. I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost. ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.The AP story will run in newspapers and on news websites around the world, and ordinary folks who have neither the time nor the interest nor the energy to find out what was actually said will read this. They will come away from this article thinking that President Zelensky asked for Javelin anti-tank missiles and President Trump said "I need a favor; go get Joe Biden for me. You can have your missiles."
The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.
President Zelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I can assure you.
This is a story that any serious journalist covering it should have gotten right. It wasn’t really a breaking story, and the need to make deadline shouldn’t have resulted in a failure to check basic facts and make sure that what was published was truthful and accurate.
It was a glaring example of a disturbing trend in media coverage, and a serious breach of journalistic ethics and responsibility.
In our own Blogger Code of Ethics—featured prominently at the top of every page at IBCR—we commit to the following:
Why would they abandon a code of professionalism and ethics that was drilled into their heads from the opening lectures in Journalism 101? The answer is simple: The media believed Te’o’s story because they wanted it to be true. It was enticing, dramatic and plausible. It was a story of almost Shakespearean tragedy involving star-crossed lovers. But most disturbingly, it fit the narrative they wanted to go with.
Factual accuracy be damned.
This should sound eerily familiar, because in the run-up to the 2008 Presidential Election, numerous news outlets were shown to have either ignored basic facts or simply made them up in order to advance an agenda. In that disgusting foray into advocacy journalism, the media’s agenda was to paint then Senator Barack Obama as the historic, transformative messianic figure they all wanted him to be.
In the Te’o story, the agenda was to paint the Notre Dame linebacker as an inspirational figure who had overcome much personal tragedy to be at the absolute top of the game. The agenda was to get this young man as much personal attention as possible; to hype him, build him up and possibly win him a Heisman Trophy.
While the consequences for this country couldn’t be more different between these two stories, the root cause of both is still the same—journalists failed to do their jobs and America was sold a bill of goods.
There is an old saying in journalism—if your mother tells you that she loves you, it’s Ok to believe her but you’d better check it out. No one checked it out.
Beginning with Jeremy Schaap’s late night, off-camera interview with Te’o, the media is going to do everything it can to protect their six o’clock. The narrative now will be that since Te’o was the victim of a hoax, they were too. Since Te’o believed the Kekua death story, they were Ok in believing it and they’re not really at fault for allowing the public to be duped.
Who’s accountable?
Accountability isn’t about finding someone to blame. It’s about making sure that everything that needs to be done actually gets done, and that someone or some process exists to ensure that it does get done. If “Accountability” means finding a head to roll after something didn’t get done—like basic fact checking—then there is no accountability.
That’s a serious problem, sports fans. And it’s a problem that doesn’t seem to be getting much better.
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Photo credit: Reuters
Ladies and gentlemen, if you wondered whether you could no longer trust major media outlets to practice responsible journalism in reporting the news, ABC’s atrocious coverage of the theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado should close the deal for you.
By now, you’ve likely heard that a 24-year old white male named James Holmes walked into a crowded movie theater in Aurora armed to the teeth and started shooting.
Victims ranged from a three month old infant to adults, including active duty members of the military.
Just as with the Times Square bomber, the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and the Alabama-Huntsville shooting, the media instantly thought “this must be the action of some deranged Tea Party member upset over Obamacare” and sought to find evidence of same.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and Brian Ross thought they had it:
Stephanopoulos: I'm going to go to Brian Ross. You've been investigating the background of Jim Holmes here. You found something that might be significant.
Ross: There's a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don't know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it's Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.
Stephanopoulos: Okay, we'll keep looking at that. Brian Ross, thanks very much.
As it turns out, the name “James Holmes” is pretty damned common in Aurora, Colorado and the shooter James Holmes is not Tea Partier James Holmes, who happens to be a 50-something Hispanic conservative.
By any standard, this is unacceptable. ABC later retracted the connection and issued an apology for “disseminating that information before it was properly vetted,” but the bell cannot be unrung.
Falsely connecting the shooting to a political activist should be enough to have Stephanopoulos and Ross removed from the air, along with their producers, directors and anyone else responsible for maintaining standards of professional journalism. But there is an aggravating factor at work that should completely end any debate over the matter: ABC News’ first instinct in learning the shooter’s name was to find evidence—however flimsy—that James Holmes was a crazy, angry white male activist in that awful, violent and racist Tea Party movement.
UPDATE: A reader emails this observation: “Another aggravating factor is that ABC could have put the older James Holmes in considerable personal danger. There are a lot of angry people out there who wouldn’t think twice of a little vigilante justice.” Well said.
ABC News was never interested in learning or communicating the truth about Holmes’ background. They were only interested in telling the viewing audience that these are the kinds of people opposed to the Obama Regime and its statist agenda. Their message: These people are so deranged, so obsessed with this regime that they start shooting in crowded theaters and blowing up tourist attractions.
You are reading a website with more credibility than any of the three major over-the-air broadcast news networks.
This website practices a code of ethics that has been trampled upon by a horribly biased, grossly incompetent and wholly apathetic media apparatus.
Let that sink in, for a moment.
If ABC doesn’t fire these two, then you can.
Turn them off.
Exit Question: Do you think CBS or NBC crews wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing if they had been the ones to find a James Holmes listed on the Colorado Tea Party website? Their only sin was allowing Ross and ABC to report it first.
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Maybe Mike Florio’s mocking was a bit over the top. That’s for you to decide. But Doyel needs to check his own site’s performance in not only using player Wonderlic scores in news articles and blog postings, but also its heavy reliance on the test score in its draft analyses. In a number of these entries, the analysis notes that low Wonderlic scores could affect the prospects’ abilities to perform.
For a news organization that uses purportedly confidential information in hundreds of entries ranging as far back as the 2000 NFL draft class, having one of its senior writers go off on the use of such confidential information is duplicitous.
To suggest that a news organization like NBC should be ashamed of publishing potentially embarrassing inside information is laughable. Does anyone honestly believe that if a CBS Sports reporter was fed information about data that could affect where a potential first-round draft pick might end up, they wouldn’t publish it?
Does anyone believe they haven’t done it before?
An abnormally low Wonderlic score for a player considered a lock for a first-round pick is News. Whether there are factors that would contribute to the low score isn’t the issue, here. Whether the score represents an accurate measure of a player’s ability to perform in the NFL isn’t the issue here, either.
The issue here is that one news organization is bitching about another news organization publishing the news, and the fact that the bitcher’s organization is just as guilty as the bitchee’s in publishing and using the same information makes this episode even more hilarious.
The real belly laugh begins once you understand that it’s not just any CBS writer going after an NBC writer. It’s Gregg Doyel. The same guy who—with no basis in fact—used a 2008 column to accuse Nick Saban of “running off” players to make room for an incoming signing class. The same guy who—again with no basis in fact—accused Urban Meyer of being complicit in the leak of Cam Newton’s academic status when the latter was enrolled at Florida. The same guy who ignored medical fact and proclaimed that then Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was “one hit away from paralysis.”
Publishing confidential information—occasionally even when prohibited by law—is routinely done by news organizations, and not just in sports media. Mocking the subject of the news item may carry some baggage, but deliberate distortion is never permissible. Florio didn’t distort a thing. He reported the facts. Doyel has a demonstrable pattern of distortion.
Don’t bother calling, writing or tweeting to Doyel about his struggles with honesty. He’ll do the equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and going “lalala I CAN’T HEAR YOU” – He’ll block you.
Georgia’s Mark Richt has his eyes on Alabama’s top football recruit for 2013.
The coach of the SEC East champions recently hosted linebacker Reuben Foster of Troup County and let him know that he’s a priority for the Bulldogs.
The 6-foot-1, 240-pound Foster has been committed to Alabama since last summer, before the start of his junior year.
"I chose Alabama because of the tradition they have and it is like family there," Foster told Scout.com. "They have a lot of national championships and that is what I want to play for. I also like how they put a lot of linebackers in the NFL because that is where I want to play."
"I know playing for a coach like Nick Saban that I will be taken care of. Coach Saban not only teaches football, but he teaches his players about life. My family wants me to play for a man like that."
While Foster remains firm in his pledge to Alabama, he has visited Georgia often, including a trip in December that he called “awesome.”
Foster told OnlineAthens.com that he enjoyed his trip and that UGA was coming on strong.
“Georgia is coming strong and very hard at me,” Foster said. “I like Georgia — I always have — but Alabama is still No. 1. Georgia is up there now, and they are higher than they have been. It was awesome at Georgia, and I loved everything about the visit. I know we will be talking again soon.”
Richt is aware that Foster is firmly committed to Alabama, but he isn’t fazed. In fact, Georgia had Foster back in Athens again just a couple of weeks ago.
It’s easy to troll homers who, under a banner of objectivity, pump sunshine and do their best to protect the backside of the home team. The harder that backside gets kicked on the recruiting trail, the harder the homers pump and the easier it is to spot’em.
Over here at IBCR, we are just as biased as the AJC. The difference is we don’t try to hide it and in fact, we embrace it. It’s called being honest with readers, and as long as you’re honest, you’re trusted.
Shawn Payton—not to be confused with Saints head coach Sean Payton—is an Auburn fan and a Detroit Lions fan who didn’t care about the fact that the Saints were beating the Lions in the wildcard playoff game at the Mercedes Benz Superdome.
So, he decided to make a phone call:
A few minutes after tight end Jimmy Graham caught a Drew Brees touchdown pass to extend the Saints lead to 24-14 in the third quarter, the Superdome's Gate F reception desk received a threatening call at 9:12 p.m., according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court Wednesday.
"I will blow up your building," a man said after confirming that he had reached the Superdome, which was jammed with a capacity crowd of more than 73,000.
As the Saints continued lighting up the scoreboard, a second threatening call came in at 10:03 p.m., with a message intended for Saints coach Sean Payton, according to the affidavit by FBI agent Dawn Hofmann, a member of the agency's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
"Hi, I want you to relay a message to the sideline. If your stupid Southern team keeps winning, there will be reper...severe consequences. OK?" a man said after a failed Lions onside kick set the Saints up for a short touchdown drive that would ice the game.
Updyke’s alleged poisoning of the Toomer’s Corner trees will likely be tried as a felony, due largely to the righteous indignation of the media. Downing’s alleged sexual assault has also been characterized as a felony.
Payton? Traveling to Detroit to face a misdemeanor charge.
Poison trees and call a radio show to brag about it? Off to prison you go.
Do a stupid, inexcusable frat house prank and have it make YouTube? Off to prison you go.
Threaten to blow up a stadium with 75,000 people inside—more than a decade after 9/11—and the absolute worst you face is a year in jail. I guess terrorist threats don’t weigh as much as they used to.
When does the Superdome management and City of New Orleans apologize to this guy?
Where is the raging news media clamoring for this guy’s head?
Helmet tap to Throw the Flag.
We are Bama fans here. Everyone knows that. It’s a bias that we do not hide even as we seek to provide facts and reasoned opinions based on them. You know where we’re coming from and we’re all fine with that here.
To be or do otherwise would be disingenuous and such insincerity would be a scar on our integrity. If you can’t trust us to tell the truth about who we are and what we stand for, then we’re just another bunch of hacks with hidden agendas.
Why hide?
Kirk Herbstreit makes no excuse for being an Ohio State fan. Rece Davis makes no excuses for his degree from Alabama. We see no reason why any member of the media should ever pretend to be something they’re not.
When you get that “thrill up your leg,” be honest about it.
Just sayin.
Helmet tap to @HeatherDThomas1 for the image find.
“I had an awesome 17 months with CBSSports.com. I'm sorry to everyone, most importantly the Paterno family, for how it ended. In the end, CBS had to let me go for the Paterno story going out the way it did, and I understand completely. Thanks, everyone, for reading.”
On the evening of Saturday January 21, Jacobi, citing the Penn State student newspaper Onward State, reported that the coach had passed away. Jacobi’s report identified the source of the report as a tweet from the publication. However, that publication later issued a retraction, apologized for the error and the managing editor resigned.
That led to CBS issuing its own retraction and pulling the original story from its website.
The blowback against the news organization was intense (and this blogger threw plenty of flammables their way during that affair), but the vitriol was rightly aimed at the news organization. It was not aimed at the blogger who did what bloggers do—cite a reliable source in reporting what he thought to be an accurate story.
If CBSSports.com wants to be “blog forward,” then the organization needs to accept the accountability that comes with participating in such a fast-moving environment. Ironically, as blogs are striving to become more like professional news organizations, those organizations are striving to become more like blogs. What was CBSSports.com thinking when it hired several widely read bloggers from different sports and fansites? Did they think they’d be able to speed up news delivery and not increase the risk that in the zeal to get it first, someone might get a big one wrong?
Meanwhile, “senior writers” like Dennis Dodd, Gregg Doyel and Brett McMurphy are free to make stuff up as they go along. Need a quote to provide background and texture to a hit piece on Les Miles? Make one up and stick it in there, crediting an anonymous source. Need to twist a fact or two to drive home a point or further an agenda? No problem—jump to a bogus conclusion without any factual basis and get it in there.
If I tried to pull crap like that here, my colleagues in the blogosphere would rip me to shreds. Dodd, Doyel, McMurphy? They all pat each other on the back, retweet links to each other’s stories and offer patronizing condolences to the Adam Jacobi’s who do a better job of news reporting than they do. Oh, and let’s not forget how important it is to chum it up and get schmoozy with sports information directors at schools under NCAA scrutiny.
“Am I sick? Are we all sick?”
Yes sir, you are. Jacobi made a mistake and got a story wrong. Your sins with the truth are premeditated and intentional.
Samantha Steele is a sports reporter for Fox Sports. Joakim Noah was fined $50,000 by NBA Commissioner David Stern for uttering the word “faggot” at a fan during Sunday night’s conference finals game between the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat. This follows a $100,000 fine imposed on Kobe Bryant of Los Angeles Lakers, who had used the same term when at an official.
Yesterday, Steele asked a simple question via Twitter:
“Can someone please clarify these Kobe/J Noah fines.. What is the rule? You can't say anything offensive? Offensive to whom?”
The reaction from a politically correct NBC Sports blog—which I will not link to—was as swift as it was predictable. The blogger mocked Steele, accused her of bigotry, twisted the context of her question and suggested that her upbringing and religious beliefs were to blame for her alleged intolerance. The blog post reeks of the hypocrisy normally seen on Daily Kooks diaries.
First of all, in none of her writings or Fox Sports broadcast segments has Steele ever cast herself as a political or social conservative. However, her bio indicates that in all likelihood, she’s pretty right of center in how she views the world. Secondly, she’s getting the same treatment other attractive, successful conservative women get. Good looking female conservatives are a favorite target of a breathtakingly misogynistic left. They think absolutely nothing of attacking them by twisting their words, taking them out of context and accusing them of holding absurdly extreme points of view.
Ms. Steele, welcome to a world inhabited by Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Dana Loesch. The left simply can’t get past the fact that these women are successful and conservative. They are viewed as a threat and rather than engage in honest discourse, the left—like the hypocrite blogger who slandered Steele—gets personal.
Steele’s question is a valid one and members of the media should be allowed to ask these types of questions without idiots from MSNBC trying to shout them down. Discussing the matter raised by her question means discussing the poisonous environment of political correctness the left is trying to maintain. Lefties want no part of that, because the racism, sexism and homophobia cards are the most valuable cards in their hand. Get rid of them, and they no longer have control over the dialogue. See how that works?
If no one lets the F-word or the N-word offend them anymore, then the left can’t accuse their targets of racism or homophobia.
Was Stern right to fine Bryant and Noah for their inability to control their anger? Probably so, but I think the severity of the fines are backwards. A referee expects a certain amount of verbal abuse. That’s why he makes the big bucks. Fans are customers and you just don’t treat customers that way.
The paragraph above is just one good answer to Steele’s question. There are sure to be others. But attacking her for asking the question is not.
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MSNBC has decided that Keith Olbermann has suffered enough, bless his little heart. The sentence was commuted after two shows. A total of 120 minutes, or 40 minutes per campaign contribution.
Cheap publicity stunt?
Keith Olbermann will be allowed to resume his nightly program on MSNBC on Tuesday, the channel’s president said Sunday night, after he was suspended for donating money to three Democratic candidates.
The policy at MSNBC’s parent, NBC News, says journalists cannot make political contributions without permission from the head of the news division. “After several days of deliberation and discussion, I have determined that suspending Keith through and including Monday night’s program is an appropriate punishment for his violation of our policy,” the MSNBC president, Phil Griffin, said in a statement. “We look forward to having him back on the air Tuesday night.”
It’s certain to boost ratings for his triumphant return Tuesday night, one week after his beloved left got hammered by the Republican Tsunami last week. But will it last, or will MSNBC continue its slide into ratings irrelevancy?
The “professional left” blogosphere took Olby’s suspension as a cause celebre, generating petitions and using terabytes of bandwidth hammering MSNBC. Even some members of the professional right got into the fray.
Personally, I think Olbermann should have had his contract terminated. What’s good for Juan Williams and NPR should be good for MSNBC and Keith Olbermann, no?
