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Media Bias Tag

As we blogged Sunday, there's a whole sect out there attempting to blame fake news sites for Hillary's electoral failure. Facebook responded to complaints about fake news sites, as did Google. In an attempt to distinguish fake or misleading news sites from legit sources, Melissa Zimdars, Assistant Professor of Communication at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, created a list of, "false, misleading, clickbait-y and satirical 'news' sources." The LA Times published the list.

A new Media Research Center (MRC) and YouGov poll shows that the majority of voters recognized media bias during the presidential election, but chose to reject it: https://twitter.com/BrentBozell/status/798600042831454209

Remember when, at the beginning of his administration, President Obama made Valerie Jarrett his closest advisor, and how CNN went on the attack because of her far-left roots? Neither do I. But now that President-elect Trump has named Steve Bannon as a senior advisor, CNN is in full inquisition mode. Chris Cuomo and Poppy Harlow, co-hosts on today's New Day, cross-examined Trump spox and former Sen. Tom Coburn, respectively. References to the alt-right, anti-Semitism, etc. flew as the CNNers combatively questioned their guests.

Apparently the NY Times is reeling from its abysmal, over-the-top, foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Trump "news" coverage. Mark Halperin of Bloomberg News and Joe Scarborough noted the bias regarding election results coverage:
MARK HALPERIN: Look at the headline of this story. [Featured Image] Look at the headline of this story. This is the day after a surprising underdog sweeping victory and their headline is not “disaffected Americans have a champion going to the White House” or “the country votes for fundamental change.” The headline is about how disappointed the friends of the people who run the New York Times are about what’s happened. It’s amazing. It’s amazing to me that this is the headline of the New York Times. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Look at this. Look at this. This is staggering. It really is, Mark. I’m glad you brought this up.

Rush Limbaugh refers to CNN as the Clinton News Network. The emails obtained (hacked?) from the DNC and Podesta email accounts demonstrate how true that is. The DNC, which was supposed to be neutral in the Democratic primary, was all in for Hillary, as previously reported. Also, CNN commentator Donna Brazile, who was DNC vice chair at the time (now interim Chair), also fed town hall and debate questions to the Hillary campaign. That latter issue should be an enormous campaign focus -- has there EVER before been a proven case of presidential debate cheating? Yet the mainstream media ignores it - I haven't seen a single question to Hillary or the campaign about it in any news coverage. CNN for its part, acted *shocked, shocked I tell you* to discover that one of its commenters was helping a campaign under the table. The latest revelation, however, cements CNN's tattered reputation. Wikileaks released emails obtained from the DNC, and those show CNN actively soliciting questions from the DNC for interviews of Trump, Cruz and Fiorina.

In one of the more absurd statements of this absurd political season, Michelle Bernard, a guest on Joy Reid's MSNBC show this morning, said it was "hubris" for Donald Trump to imagine that he was "akin" to American leaders who have been the target of assassination attempts such as Lincoln, MLK, JFK, RFK and Reagan. How illogical can Bernard be? Whether or not Trump belongs in the political pantheon she described, can she actually believe that he could not possibly be the target of a madman? And what of others she didn't name who were the object of assassination attempts, such as McKinley, Garfield and Gerald Ford? Would it also have been "hubris" for them to have been concerned?

Every once in a while a headline catches my eye because it is so profoundly misleading that it can only be purposeful.  This is one of those times. A Huffington Post article entitled "A Guy In A Trump Shirt Carried A Gun Outside Of A Virginia Polling Place. Authorities Say That's Fine" has the strange non sequitur subtitle: "The incident happened in the wealthiest county in America."  Its url also contains, for no apparent reason, the term "voter intimidation." Here's the story:
A man wearing a Donald Trump shirt and carrying a weapon stood outside a voting location in Loudoun County, Virginia, on Friday. Authorities in the nation’s richest county are apparently OK with that. Erika Cotti encountered the man when she went to vote at the county’s registrar’s office, she told The Huffington Post. Virginia doesn’t have early voting per se, but voters can cast in-person absentee ballots for a host of reasons, like if they’re going to be out of the county or city on Election Day.

In case you missed it, the liberal media is really upset that the people they have been pissing on for years are pissing back. But it shouldn't be a surprise. There are countless stories of liberal media enemies-of-the-week, innocent citizens who make one errant comment or tweet and are the subject of a swarm of media bees. Remember how just recently the liberal media built up Ken Bone, who asked a question at a presidential town hall, because he said he had been for Trump but was considering Hillary after the event? It was a useful narrative, so Ken Bone became media hero. But when Bone appeared to go back to Trump support and commented that the Trayvon Martin verdict was correct, the media singled him out and took him down as quickly as they built him up, Ken Bone told the truth about Trayvon Martin, and for that media must destroy him.

On yesterday evening's Hardball, an overwrought Andrew Sullivan stopped just short of chewing the scenery, while repeatedly referring to Donald Trump and Ann Coulter as fascists. But precisely because of Trump's supposed fascist fear-mongering, Sullivan predicted that "Trump is going to win this election." Former New Republic editor Sullivan claimed that we are in a "fascist moment" because white Americans are reacting to the country becoming majority-minority. Calling Ann Coulter "the other fascist" along with Trump, Sullivan cited Ann's book "Adios, America" as epitomizing the fear of the foreigner driving Trump's support.

Less than a week before Election Day and Project Veritas released yet another undercover video showing yet another high ranking Democrat behaving badly. Though I'd argue this one crosses into "sick" territory. At a fundraiser for Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate, Deborah Ross, fundraiser Benjamin Barber was captured on tape disparaging the African American community that refuses to vote Democrat. Not only did Barber say that blacks who "helped the other side are seriously f***ed in the head," he compared them Jews who aided Nazis.

Hillary Clinton had the private email system. Hillary used her private email system to send and receive classified information. Hillary had the email server installed at her house. Yet the big three networks have attacked FBI Director James Comey over Hillary's email scandal instead of the presidential candidate. https://twitter.com/RichNoyes/status/793180399207849984

Frank Drebin would be so proud of his namesake . . . It was one of those classic "nothing to see here, move along" moments. On today's Morning Joe, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, saying that there was no new terrain broached in FBI Director James Comey's letter of this past Friday, claimed "it won't move people away from" voting for Hillary Clinton. Bruni also praised the "incredibly rapid and thorough mobilization of the Clinton campaign and their allies" in getting headlines to mention Comey as much as Clinton, and to question whether the FBI Director did the right thing. Lost on Bruni was the irony that chief among those Clinton campaign "allies" are members of the liberal media who write the headlines. You know: allies such as . . . Frank Bruni.

There have been numerous developments today in the reopening of the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton, most notably the declaration of war by Clinton World on James Comey. The war started after almost 24 hours of shock and awe resulting from the Friday afternoon announcement left Team Hillary and the rest of Clinton World attempting to hold back the onslaught of news coverage. Clinton World first tried to buy itself time by arguing over what the meaning of "reopen" was. It was comical, but arguing over definitions is what the Clintons do to buy themselves time until they can counter attack:

The recent batch of Wikileaks email featuring the wit and wisdom of John Podesta may not be as dramatic or entertaining as those featuring pleas to sober Hillary Clinton up after an afternoon drinking session. However, they do reveal what life will be like for climate science skeptics under her regime administration. Take the case of Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., who is on the faculty of the University of Colorado as a professor in the Environmental Studies Program. He used to write often about global warming issues. While Pielke is no skeptic of man-made warming, he did challenge a cherished climate alarmist talking point that global warming was making extreme weather more severe.