It’s So Much More Than Just the Biden Coverup

By now you are (or should be) aware of the fact that the press conveniently ignored and suppressed the Hunter Biden investigation until after the election.  Now, when the result is fairly certain, they begin to report it, though generally with the best spin possible. 

We should all be appalled about their coverup, but the concern goes or should go far beyond that.  Anyone who does not believe their vote this election was at least in part manipulated by the media is dreaming.  But, beyond vote manipulation, we should all be concerned about the way that more generally our thinking is being manipulated.    

        The Hunter Biden Affair
First, a quick recap of the Hunter Biden affair. If you are not inclined to research the actual documents, two current opinion pieces present the key facts fairly objectively and I will quote from them in this summary. They are from the Wall Street Journal LINK-HERE  and The Hill LINK-HERE 

If you only read the mainstream Left media or get your news from social media, you probably don’t remember when the Biden story broke last October.  The New York Post published an exclusive story about Hunter Biden being under investigation.  There was a laptop and incriminating email from and to Hunter including about arranging a meeting between his father Joe and executives of the Ukrainian oil company with which his father may have used his influence when he was Vice President.  There are texts and witness statements from people close to Biden. 

The story’s sources were verified.  Here is what happened to that story:  It and any reference to it was banned from Twitter and accounts were locked down; other media outlets and all Democrats simply and immediately dismissed it as either Russian disinformation or a smear campaign by Trump and the Republicans. 

Here is what some of the more popular “news” outlets said:

Politico: “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”;
CNN: “The anatomy of the New York Post's dubious Hunter Biden story.”;
Washington Post: “The truth behind the Hunter Biden non-scandal”;
New York Times: “Trump Had One Last Story to Sell. The Wall Street Journal Wouldn’t Buy It: Inside the White House’s secret, last-ditch effort to change the narrative, and the election — and the return of the media gatekeepers.”;
Taxpayer-funded NPR: "We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories. And we don't want to waste the listeners' and readers' time on stories that are just pure distractions."

Leslie Stahl interviewed President Trump for 60 minutes and here is a portion of that interview relating to the Biden story:

Stahl (response when Trump brought up the topic): “This is the most important issue in the country right now?” 
Trump: “It’s a very important issue to find out whether a man’s corrupt who’s running for president, who’s accepted money from China, and Ukraine, and from Russia. . . .Take a look at what’s going on, Leslie, and you say that shouldn’t be discussed? I think it’s one of the biggest scandals I’ve ever seen, and you don’t cover it.”
Stahl: “Well, because it can’t be verified.  I’m telling you —”
Trump: “Of course it can be verified.  Excuse me, Leslie, they found a laptop…”
Stahl: “It can’t be verified.”

As the Hill article notes, “Well, it's difficult to verify anything when you don't bother to check under the hood in the first place, right? Because that's exactly what happened here, except that the cake was baked with a condemnation of the few who decided to pursue the story.”

None of these responses should surprise us.  Before the NY Post Story, there were earlier reports that Hunter’s position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Bursima was tied to improper influence by his then Vice President father Joe.  The media chose to ignore this along with Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley, the chairmen of investigating Senate committees who in September released a joint report detailing some of Hunter’s million-dollar dealings with politically connected foreigners. The report said they raised “serious counterintelligence and extortion concerns relating to Hunter Biden and his family.” And as the WSJ states, the press merely “yawned.”

But now, the election is over, Hunter admitted that he is under investigation, and the story can no longer be ignored (although, the press is putting the best spin possible on it to make it as innocuous as possible for presumptive president-elect Biden).

            Omission Bias
There was widespread omission bias by the media and big tech.  Omission bias is “when an outlet or publication purposely suppresses or outright ignores a newsworthy story that is carried by others.”  In this case the story carrier was the NY Post and the suppressing (actually outright banning) outlets were the rest of the media.      

The Hill piece notes “There are two kinds of bias in the media. First there is the kind we regularly see from many – not all – outlets in broad daylight, which includes openly rooting for one political party while echoing rapid-response opposition research against another. And then there is the more invisible, insidious variety — the bias of omission.”

Clearly, the Hunter problem is a clear example of this insidious bias.  But it is not in any way the only example.  For four years we have had the worst spin possible put on anything that President Trump did while any achievements were either downplayed or ignored.  Ask those who get their news from the mainstream or social media or late-night TV.  They never heard about Trump’s criminal justice reform, about his peace accords in the Middle East, about his work to improve the economic status of minorities or to preserve funding for Black colleges.  They don’t know the positive effects that his re-negotiated trade agreements had for American businesses.  And the positives that they have heard about are couched in such things as:  the previous administration set up the ability for him to do this or that; despite a litany of negatives, he did one small thing; etc.  They still believe that the Obama border cages did not exist before Trump took office. 

The political bias is clear and it is indeed a bias of omission rather than just spin.  That is dangerous because without facts, with a preconceived narrative presented to us, we are bound within the facts of the particular narrative being presented.  Our views are being bent to fit within someone else’s narrative.

That should anger us.  And not just because the press is not doing its job of presenting us with fair and unbiased facts.  It should anger us because it means that they are trying to change, create, and determine the way that we think about issues or people.

That the press creates a narrative for us means that they are attempting to manipulate and mold our thinking, and that should be of deep concern to every American.

               The Manipulation goes beyond Political Viewpoint
Not just the news, but everywhere around us our freedom of thought is being interfered with if not obstructed. The Academy Awards now require certain identity qualifications for actors and staff.  Try to get a grant in any of the arts without having a “social justice” aspect to your work.  LeBron James was awarded Time’s athlete of the year because of his activism (I don’t deny that he is a great athlete, but that goes unmentioned in this “athletic” award). 

The political correctness and thought control goes beyond popular entertainments.  People are fired for speaking their mind if it is not in agreement with the appropriate political correctness.  A doctor had his license revoked after giving a view of COVID precautions that was not that of the mainstream.  A medical professor at Harvard expressed the more widespread danger of this sort of action to science generally:  science requires that people question; when questioning is silenced, when people become afraid to speak out, then science cannot progress.  Nor can anything else.

In Russia following the revolution the Communists created a series of 5-year plans to lead the country more and more toward socialism.  Contrary to popular belief, these plans were not just industrial or manufacturing goals.  They also governed things like the arts, media, and most every aspect of life.  The goal was to create a new type of human being, to turn the individual into a communist, a communal being that was little more than an automaton for the State.  The individual voice was no longer welcome and everything the people did, read, watched, or interacted with was designed to display the (often false) positivity and beauty of communism and the proper behavior of the communist.

So, when the media commits acts of omission and when it presents clear positive bias for its narrative and negative bias against those who disagree, when the arts present only one view of life as that which should be lived and strived for, when athletics become about how good an activist (for the right cause) rather than athlete you are, when you cease questioning either because you are afraid to or simply not allowed to, when these things happen, remember this:  media can change your thinking, remold who you are.  The Soviets tried it, and it worked for 75 years. But those 75 years were far from the utopia that the people were told it was.

We live in dangerous times.  This is a post-truth America.  I’d like to think that those whose votes were manipulated this election cycle will wake up when they see the bait and switch that occurred.  I doubt they will because the media will continue to hide what is inconvenient to its narrative.  More dangerous is the media, film, music, entertainment generally that is with us 24/7.  That and the social shunning of those who question or disagree. 

We are definitely being manipulated and the danger is that we end up losing ourselves.  Stay alert.  Keep questioning.  And most importantly, think for yourself.

 

Don’t Fall for It, Part 3

“Russian Collusion” didn’t work.  “He’s a Racist” isn’t working.  So, now the media, spokes-machine for the anti-Trumpers and the Left, is pushing a “coming recession” as a way to keep President Trump from being re-elected.  Don’t fall for it.

The Democrats and their handmaiden the mainstream media love to float theories about President Trump and his administration that have no, or at best very weak, factual support.  They repeat their subversive allegations and accusations over and over, both directly (“Trump is a racist”) and more subtly in a way that presents as a fact that supports their message something that has not yet been proven  (for example, “Trump’s racist statement”  when there is no evidence other than the media’s biased interpretation that the statement being referred to is indeed racist).  The Left seems to subscribe to the theory that if you repeat something enough times, then the people will believe that it is true.

This repetition of an unproven and often false narrative is a key tool of propaganda as well as useful in brainwashing.  The media selectively presents facts in a way that make them sound as if they are proof of the narrative they are promoting.  They love to characterize opinion as fact and then use that “fact” to condemn the President. 

This is really not that different from what conspiracy theorists do.  “A conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful actors, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.”  One seeking a conspiracy, or simply a narrative that condemns the President, will re-interpret objective evidence in a way that omits any fact or rational interpretation that counters the proposed narrative.  When there is no actual evidence to support the conspiracy or the narrative, what does exist will be re-interpreted as evidence of the truth of the narrative so that the conspiracy or the narrative “becomes a matter of faith rather than proof.”

And isn’t that just what we see happening among the Democrats and the media.  They have a narrative that the President is some sort of Russian agent, a racist, etc. and they will continue to ignore actual facts and instead continue to repeat their narrative.   They don't give up their belief in Russian collusion despite a thorough investigation to the contrary.  It has become a matter of faith rather than fact.

Similarly, the Left continues to put forth the now clearly debunked narrative that after Charlottesville the President said the Nazis were good people even though the actual tape of his statement shows that while he did indicate that there were good people on both sides who were there simply to protest about the Robert E. Lee statue, he then continued with the following words that persist in being completely omitted from the Left’s narrative:  “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”

But more insidious even than such outright omissions that fully change the reality of a situation is the Left’s use of basic persuasive and propaganda techniques to subtly present as true fact something for which there is no evidence or no proof.  How many times do we hear a statement about Trump begin “Trump’s racist words…” or “Trump’s offensive statement…” or “Trump’s disruptive act…”, etc.  The speaker is stating as facts that words or statements or actions are as negatively labeled.  Yet, that is nothing more than the speaker’s opinion, it is not a proven fact. 

Likewise, we hear over and over that the President’s purpose in enforcing immigration laws and putting an end to illegal immigration is one of promoting white supremacy.  There is no actual proof of that; it is simply the assumption of those whose hateful narrative about the President includes labeling him as a white supremacist. Yet, if the negative labels are repeated often enough it is likely that they become accepted as the fact that is necessary to prove the speaker’s narrative.

Now, I do not know if there will be some sort of economic collapse if the President is re-elected.  Actually, I believe it is much more likely that our booming economy will go bust if a Democrat becomes president.  But, that is my opinion, just as the Left’s new economic anti-Trump rhetoric is nothing more than their latest theory – their new narrative in their war on Trump. 

Like other conspiracy theorists, the Left’s narrative is more a matter of faith than of proof.  You do not have to join their cult.  Demand proof.  Listen carefully to their words.  Ask questions.  Find the full story – the full, complete, and actual narrative, not the fictional presentation of those who have their own agenda.  Do not simply fall for what they tell you, no matter how many times they repeat it.

The Mueller Report and the Barr Summary

This is an example for America.  This is how the rule of law, not the rule of political angst or mob rule work.  This is the culmination of a very thorough investigation with decisions based on law, not emotion.  And now, for those who are bemoaning that the objective law did not satisfy their grief, it is time to grow up.

Here are some further thoughts.

The Democrats Show Their True Colors

Two years ago the Democrats were not able to face the fact that they lost the election.  Rather than try to understand what it was about Donald Trump and his policies that appeals to much of America, rather than examine their own policies to see what they were lacking, the Democrats simply chose to assume they were right, that they should have won, and that the only way they could have lost was if the other side had cheated.  (No space here to go into the psychological concepts about seeing others through one’s own eyes, assuming they behave like you, and how the Democrats generally and Hillary in particular seemed to approach rules and law as something to get around and perhaps even cheat against)

So, rather than accept defeat and work with the new president for the good of the country, the Democrats spent their time focused on finding ways to remove President Trump from office: fake dossier, lies to FISA court, lies to the public, and 25 million of tax payer money on an investigation that realistically all knew would not find collusion and without collusion could not find obstruction.  (That is, all who were not completely deluded by jealousy or hate or what has come to be know as Trump Derangement Syndrome)

The Democrats have shown us that they care not at all for our country or our laws or our constitution or our people.  They have made it perfectly clear with their monomaniacal focus on destroying Trump that all they care about is themselves and their own power.

Beyond that, their followers have shown us how ignorant they are of the law and how our country works.  They have been content to scream for what they want without evidence but with the passion of a mob.  The main stream media has joined in as each anti-Trump network and reporter sought to outdo the others with excessive opinion couched in the guise of reportable news.

And the Democrats are still angry.  Any American should be overjoyed that the duly elected president did not collude with a foreign power to sway the election.  They should understand that under the law the Attorney General properly made a decision about obstruction.  Yet, many Democrats are voicing their anger that our president was not found guilty.  And so, the report that they have touted as thorough and objective they now dismiss as incomplete or biased.  They will continue their hate parade as they claw and grasp at anything they can in the hopes of destroying this president, a subject that is far more important to them than the country and people that they allegedly serve.

Yet Think What Could and Should Have Been

Just imagine if all these Trump haters had, instead of pursuing their own angst, decided to be Americans who care about their country.  We have some of the lowest unemployment figures ever.  We have made progress towards peace on the international stage.  The economy is growing.  Our country is thriving again, and all this despite the fact that the President and his administration has been under constant attack every hour of every day since he was elected.   Imagine the even greater accomplishments if the Democrats had not been focused on trying to prohibit any accomplishment for America and Americans that the current administration put forth.

Imagine if instead of constant focus on a bogus allegation brought forth based on partisan lies, that the media had chosen to focus on the many other important stories and had chosen to present them without the ever-present anti-Trump bias.  Imagine, for example, if we saw objective reporting about the border crisis and if the Democrats had realistically sought to address the problem, if not with a wall then with some other form of security that would protect the daily invasion of hundreds of illegals into our country. 

Imagine if the Democrats and their media had chosen to include in their news feeds many of this administration’s accomplishments, instead of focusing attacks daily on Trump’s character.  Imagine if they had chosen to present anything about Trump without at the same time throwing shade on even achievements that did nothing but good for our country.

Imagine if the Democrats had taken the time to listen and hear voices from the other side of the political debate instead of simply trying to condemn and silence them at every turn.  If, instead of spreading hatred and its cohort identity politics, that the Democrats, instead of trying to divide us at every turn, had chosen to follow the words of another President, Bill Clinton: “For any one of us to succeed, we must succeed as ONE America.”

In America, we follow rules.  We have elections.  When our candidate loses, we must face our defeat with joy that the system works, and we must all support those who have been elected by our fellow Americans.  The phrase “loyal opposition” includes two, not one word; with the opposition to a policy or position comes also the understanding and responsibility of loyalty to our country and its elected leaders, even those for whom we as individuals did not vote. 

Had the Democrats understood how this, our Democracy works, we would have had 2 years of even more good news for our country both domestically and abroad.  We would have had less anger and less hate.

What Next?

So now the Democrats can grow up and show us that they have finally learned how to maturely handle adversity, or they can continue in their childish quest to destroy the man who hurt them by winning an election. 

They can try to change the election process and eliminate the electoral college so that they will perhaps have their way next time (and will most certainly have an unfair mob rule rather than the representative government that makes our country great).  They can try to stack the Supreme Court with 15 or more justices hoping that someone will rule in their favor.  They can continue to challenge and demean every action and word of the President and his followers, they can block even those actions and words that would benefit America.  They can continue their investigatory witch hunts costing the country millions of dollars as well as essentially destroying our system of government and law. They can refuse to accept Mueller’s conclusions and that the Attorney General was fulfilling his obligation under the law in reviewing the report and concluding that the evidence did not support obstruction charges. That is, they can continue to act like jealous and spiteful children, not giving up when they get news they don’t like, then changing the goal posts and trying to find some other way to get what they want.

Or, the Democrats can just buck up and face reality.  They lost the election.  They had a man they respected until yesterday do a thorough prosecutorial investigation and find nothing supportive of the charges they sought.  They do not like the President.  He is the President.  He has done many good things for the country and for the people of the country.  Many people support his policies.  The Democrats can seek to temper some of what they don’t like by listening to the people of this country and by reaching across the aisle achieving something that used to be fairly common in the halls of Congress – compromise.

The media can and should take a time out from their anti-Trump reporting and do some self-examination.  They need to ask themselves if they are fulfilling their important role of informing the people of this democratic republic, or have they abandoned that important task to become entertainers and purveyors of propaganda?

Republicans must be careful not to gloat.  It is easy, having been under attack for two years while stating the obvious – that the investigation was a witch hunt – to gloat when proven right.  But, if the Democrats should finally stop their infantile behavior and investigations and decide to do the work of the country that they were elected to do, then the Republicans must reach out with open arms to accept this.  On the other hand, if the Democrats have learned nothing from these 2 years, if they seek to continue their campaign of hate, then every Republican should stand in opposition to what is nothing less than assaults upon our very democracy itself.

I hope that the Mueller report brings an ugly 2 years to a close and we can now move forward to other stories and issues that are far more important.  I hope that the Mueller report reminds people that in the end we are a country of laws and that if we expect to preserve all the wonders and benefits that this country has to offer that we must support that rule of law and live by it rather than emotion and political hate.  

Each and every one of us has the personal responsibility to support all that this great nation stands for.  We have allowed the disgruntled left to act out their angst for 2 years.  Now, all of us who truly care about America must say “It is time to move on, to move forward, to work always to make America great” and we must demand that our elected officials put their country and constituents before themselves and their own power.  With this commitment American will flourish.

The Hate Continues (and a Plea to End It)

According to Axios, the Democrats are readying at least 85 subpoenas against Trump for when they take office in January.   Click here for Article  Is this really what those who voted for them want them to do?  Is this country so filled with hate and so driven by revenge that they would rather see their elected officials act out on their animosity for the man who beat their candidate in the presidential election than work on the needs of the people who elected them?  Apparently so, because it was no secret that was the Democrat’s intent; their agenda is focused on one thing only:  get Trump by any means necessary.

I have never seen such hatred for such an extended period of time.  While the Democrats would have us believe that somehow Trump is destroying our country, the reality is that it is they, the Democrats, who are doing so.   If one goes beyond the anti-Trump propaganda one will see that our economy is booming, that unemployment is at its lowest in years (and the lowest ever for some specific groups), they will see successes in international relations including return of enormous numbers of political prisoners, renegotiation of NAFTA in a way then benefits our country, and overall a more positive and hopeful situation than America has seen in years.

Yet all these successes for this country that at least some of us still hold dear are dismissed by the anti-Trump fervor of the Left.  And their actions post the mid-term elections show that they will do anything to stop anything Trump does, including many actions that are good for America and its people.

Are the Democrats really so distressed simply by the fact that they were beaten in 2016 by someone who was a bit rough around the edges and not an erudite phony as are many of them?  President Trump is a real person who sees the real needs of this country and its people.  He doesn’t play the identity politics games that the Left finds so endearing.  He doesn’t pretend to be perfect or to be everyone’s moral superior.  He simply (and sometimes awkwardly) tries to do what is best for this country.  But is that a reason to hate someone so?  To go beyond mere dislike of policy and try to actually and completely destroy a man?

There is something more, something terribly nefarious going on here.  The Left’s present agenda seems to simply be to destroy Trump, to thwart him at every turn by any means necessary.  Those means include attacking his every word, fomenting anger and violence against him, his staff and supporters, demeaning anyone who does not take their view, using false and misleading statements to attack and destroy his appointees, and, now, attacking the very core of our democracy – our vote. 

Yes, there seems to be a playbook for close elections:  when they seem to turn to the Republican, have the Democrat candidate refuse to concede, claim every vote counts, then suddenly produce some previously unseen absentee or other ballots that amazingly go overwhelmingly for the Democrat.  (See for example New Mexico, Florida, Arizona and perhaps others as well).  This scenario may be in part due to incompetence, but the pattern seems more than a coincidence and the use of all the big-gun lawyers of the Left to further the legitimacy of questionable ballots supports the argument that the Left, when it says “count every vote” wants more than just legitimate votes counted.   These attacks on our vote are far worse than any dirty campaign trick, yes, worse than Watergate or other spying attempts, worse than making up lies about your opponent.  This is our vote and it must be honest or we will no longer have a democracy. 

So what is it that the Democrats want?  What drives them into such a frenzy of anger and hatred that they are willing to destroy the very essence of our country?  Is it simply power or is it more?  I suggest that it is a wish for the power to destroy what this country has been for over 200 years, a wish for the power to entirely remake this country into something else.   Whether that something else is a socialist state, or a country without borders (which by very definition is no country at all), or simply some unknown, I suggest that the ultimate result will not be pleasant for the majority of the people.

What do these Democrats who are so filled with hatred envision?  These are the people who are totally incapable of tolerance for views that do not match their own.  These are the people who scorn bible owners, gun owners, pot-luck participants, people of color who are conservative (don’t fit the identity label the Left has given them), women who are anti-abortion, people who want the laws enforced equally, including immigration laws, people who believe in the concept of innocence until proven guilty, indeed, anyone who does not hold and support the views of the Left.  Such intolerance is not America.

These are the Democrats who foment mobs to harass and intimidate until they get their way.  That is not America.  These are the people who excuse violence if it furthers their cause but condemn the most innocent slight if it is by someone who is not one of them.  These are the people who use false accusation to condemn a man as a rapist because he holds views they do not like, but who elect men against whom there is evidence of sexual assault or abuse when that man holds views like their own. This is hypocrisy, this is not fair, this is not America.

These are the Democrats who create identity groups, then pit them against one another not for the good of any group but only as a means to further the hatred that they believe will ultimately lead the Left to power.  If anyone thinks that they truly care about any of these people they are using then you are living in a fantasy world.  It is all about hate and that hate is all about a means of achieving power, power not for the people but for the benefit only of those who would ultimately hold it.   This, a country based on hate, is not America.

The Left is clever.   They have co-opted the media to serve as their propaganda machine.  They have co-opted social media to push their agenda while suppressing any opposition.  Like the best snake-oil salesman they make what they are selling sound like the cure for all that ails individuals, groups, and the country itself.  But in reality that snake oil is toxic.  And if we continue to imbibe then the sickness we now have will become terminal.  America as we know it will die.

Perhaps many who voted for the Left believed that with their election the hate that we see in this country would come to an end.  Wrong!  It is about to get much worse.  The Left is becoming bolder and bolder with their hatred.  The Democrat power structure is out to destroy.  Period.  That seems to be all they know how to do.  Destroy the President.  Destroy his supporters.  Destroy his dreams for a better America.  Destroy America itself. 

The only way to stop this is to stop listening to their propaganda.  To look at what is truly going on and not what they tell you and would have you believe is going on.    Close your ears to their siren songs and open your eyes to reality.  Think beyond today and see the tomorrow to which they would take us.  The Left has no intention of stopping the hate; it serves them too well.  Only we the people can stop the hate and it is well past time that we do so.