That was quick: News cycle for assassination attempt against Republican congressmen over
NY Times and WaPo successfully redirected the national conversation to Sarah Palin and Donald Trump.
Well that was quick.
I can’t recall as substantial an assassination attempt against one political party as took place Wednesday morning, June 14, 2017. Certainly there have been individual assassinations and shots fired, such as by Puerto Rican nationalists in 1954, but this was a well planned attempt at mass murder directed against one party.
Our prayers are with all the victims, particularly Steve Scalise, who remains in critical condition. But for the chance that Capitol Police officers were assigned to protect Scalise because of his House leadership position, we might be burying dozens of people.
Are we having a “national conversation” yet? Are we in the weeks-long news cycle that would have accompanied the shooting if the political roles were reversed?
The conversation the NY Times wanted to have was about Sarah Palin and Gabby Giffords. The Times Editorial Board regurgitated the false claim that Palin’s electoral map inspired Jared Loughner to shoot Congresswoman Giffords in 2011. I addressed that at the time — there is zero truth to the accusation. Yet it was what the Times Editorial Board saw fit to inject in what was left of the attempted assassination news cycle.
The Times was forced to retract that claim by a near-universal uproar, but only after the Times successfully had distracted from the real story: A progressive Bernie fan steeped in standard anti-Trump talking points found every day in the NY Times opinion pages decided to try to take out a substantial number of Republican Congressmen.
The Washington Post did its part in changing the conversation through leaks from anonymous sources.
The night after the morning assassination attempt WaPo rolled out the report that Trump likely was under investigation for obstruction of justice – but we knew that already from James Comey’s testimony when he said he was sure Robert Muller would consider it. It was on the basis of that testimony by Comey that I wrote on June 11, Robert Mueller should step aside: Friends shouldn’t be investigating friends.
Yesterday WaPo rolled out the second anonymous report, that financial records were being examined, including potentially for Jared Kushner. That’s also not new, everyone assumed that financial records would be examined and everyone knew, from prior anonymous reports, that information would be sought from Kushner.
It’s part of the plan to have a permanent news cycle of the Trump administration under siege — there doesn’t seem to be a stretch of even 3 or 4 days without such phony blockbusters. As one news cycle ends, another is rolled out.
Trump obliges by tweeting in reaction to NYT and WaPo stories in an attempt to vindicate himself in the public eye. But to a great extent that just feeds the news cycle beast and plays into the plan to make it difficult for the duly-elected president to govern.
So it doesn’t look like we’re going to have that national conversation. By their ability to drive news cycles, the NY Times and WaPo successfully redirected the national conversation to Sarah Palin and Donald Trump.
You may now resume your Trump Derangement Syndrome.
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I saw this in an article on Gateway Pundit.
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“A review of the Ben Rhodes’ Twitter feed shows that the former Obama adviser is yet to condemn the attempted assassination of Republicans. He instead spent the day tweeting about Cuba and attacking the president and his family.”
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Serious question: has Obama condemned the attempted assassination of Republicans?
Since Rhodes’ brother runs CBS News, that gives you an idea as to their mindset.
Obama always condemns what he does not like (ergo: no condemnation means Obama liked seeing Republicans getting shot.)
Rhodes is a traitorous pile of feces who gleefully bragged about lying to the American people in order to foist Obama’s Iran “deal” on us. Scum like him should be in prison with their teeth knocked out.
Rhodes is a common man of average intelligence. There is nothing remarkable about him. Barack Obama did not select remarkable people. He selected evil people well versed in corruption and manipulating the system– you know them. Of these some were brilliant. Eric Holder. A brilliant legal mind some say. But what is more evil than the top law enforcement official of the land using the country’s laws and foundation to destroy it.
He also hired easily initmidated, easily corrupted people like Koskinen. He hired unscrupulous arrogant people like Jeh Johnson. He hired people whose first allegiances other than to Obama are questionable.
But he also had a whole bunch of Ben Rhodes type people. A failed romance writer with no accomplishments who had a powerful brother with a big and powerful media voice. And since Obama thought there was no one more brilliant than himself, he let Rhodes tag along and do the grunt work and take the hard knocks. A useful idiot as Lenin has forever tagged them.
Excellent summation.
Can you imagine how many times 0bama would use “I” and “me” in his statement (if it ever occurs)?
Yet if any one on the right even says something derogatory, or over the line, every Republican is expected to immediately condemn that remark and the person that made it.
Double standards aren’t even hidden anymore.
You would think that the casual disregard for the assassination attempt on Republicans would rally them. Might even enrage them. Ok, Republicans don’t get enraged. But at the least, cause them to cast a critical eye at the media and perhaps speak up. But no.
So, this is what the Republicans get for being delicate little flowers. They get the media kissing off an attempt on the life of a man who is in the Presidential line of succession. No national discussion.
No, the Republicans deserved it — self inflicted I believe Scott Pelley said because of you know who.
And they darned sure aren’t going to do anything to support the removal of Rosenstein, and Mueller. Or even asked what happened to those Comey memos that were sent to his buddy in NY and leaked to the NYT. Mysteriously disappeared like the stuff on Hillary’s server.
The Republican Party won’t stand up in the media even when a Democrats shoots at Republicans. And when the President does they are all so embarrassed. What a mess.
Members of both parties in Congress are coming together to destroy the outsider.
(Oops – gave you a thumbs down in error.)
This is Darwinism: that is, the GOPe getting itself literally killed-off.
Being the GOPe has no base, only the likes of ryan, mcconnell and mccain will miss them.
The GOPe has all the Chamber of Commerce donors, including Soros.
They are totally submissive to the Democrats. They are intimidated. They hate Trump and his supporters, so will not defend them, and they know now that the Democrats will kill them if they do not submit. They are sucking up to the Democrats as hard as they can.
This was literal political terrorism. For a year the Democrats and the GOPe have been calling for violence against Trump and his supporters. Democrat street thugs have been attacking Trump’s supporters in the streets and Democrat local governments have ordered the police to stand down and let them be attacked. Republicans have kept a studied silence as what are supposed to be their people are attacked.
Now we are at the first deliberate political assassination attempt, and there is not a peep about looking at those who have been calling for violence. It will not be the last. And eventually, people are going to start retaliating.
I suspect that somewhere between June 14 and the end of July is where historians are going to mark the beginning of the Second American Civil War. In the absence of the rule of law and with no institutions standing for it, there is no other course. If elections are shown to not count if the wrong people win, there is no reason for electoral politics.
“This was literal political terrorism.”
This is nothing new, the Democrats have a long tradition of political terrorism, starting with the KKK. I’m a bit shocked how even many on our own side overlooks the fact that the Democrats are the largest terrorist umbrella organization in the world today, ran by congressional dems, with BLM, Antifa, unions, and a large number of terrorist operators. They have captured the media as their PR wing, they have big businesses and Soros and Steyer to fund their operations. They have all of academia and foundations to strategize endlessly.
I don’t want to sound too gloomy, but these really are dark times. I remain optimistic however, all of these groups and people do not understand America, and all the recent evidence suggests that Americans are awaking.
However, before we can even begin to push back the marxists, we need to correctly identify them. That local school board member, the one pushing for more federal money? He’s a marxist. He represents a grave threat to your children’s future. He needs to be identified as such, and dealt with. His marxist philosophy is incompatible with a Constitutional Republic as ours is. That’s a single example, but at all levels of our government, the marxist are a significant majority. They’re drawn to the bureaucracy like moths are to a candle.
This is what my congresscritter said: “Maybe it’s a wake-up call for what we can do as politicians for less partisanship, and more bipartisanship.”
This is what I posted on his facebook page in response: “Should be a wake up call for you that your democrat colleagues are encouraging people to kill you.”
Politically tone deaf, stupid and afraid – the wonderful (R) party. These clowns need to be replaced en masse.
They WILL be replaced, when the Democrats kill them.
I can not put into words the cowards the Republicans are. If ever we needed a third party, if we keep our Republic that is, the time is now.
I do not want the American people to take the coup lightly, we must start screaming, marching, in mass…we can not let them impeach Trump…hell, clearly they will try to eliminate him by any means necessary.
I don’t know what the hell Sessions is doing but we need at least 20 investigations into Hillary, obama, holder, lynch, Jarrett etc.
Are you listening Sessions? Get er done !!!!
Trump IS that 3rd party. The question is which of the two Democrat parties are going to be eliminated.
Maybe Trump eggs them on because in the end it is what’s needed to prove what they are doing so they are rejected in form and substance.
What we are seeing is the long term, results of political gerrymandering. In the blue states, the members of Congress from them do not have to appeal to a wide variety of constituents. In fact the meaner they speak the better their majority voters like it. The red states are not much different. Insults are no longer considered undignified or low class by their Senator or Representative and inflammatory rhetoric is welcome. This has nowhere to go but down. The answer is term limits and normal elections once again.
This isn’t about term limits. Sorry, but this is incitement and sedition. Political violence. We talk the talk about the peaceful transfer of power that the USA has… well.. no. One side has decided they are beholden to the old-fashioned notion.. nah… if they’re not in control, they will incite violence. Think about it. In the last 5 months, we’ve crossed into the surreal. Our nation is at stake. Crazy.
If the people back home did not approve of this “Sedition and incitement” then the Congressmen/women would not do it because they value their jobs in DC too much. Think of the days when a Senator, especially, had to court all the voters of a state or not win an election. Now they target 52 to 55% and the rest can go to he11. In other words, our pols are no longer representing the center of their constituents. They are representing the small majority from either end that controls the election. We also have the msm totally behind all violence and mischief as long as it supports the left’s agenda.
I have two questions concerning this affair.
1) What type of rifle was used? Since my eardrums are still intact I have to assume it was not an M16 or AK47 clone. The screaming of ASSAULT GUN whold have been heard clear to China.
2) How in God’s name did he get it into the stadium? I would assume that with that many congress critters running about, something like security would have been in place.
1) I have not read anywhere a description of the weapon.
2) It is my understanding no security was in place except for two guards assigned to Scalise.
M4 (Sorry about the thumbs down).
A suicidal murderer can simply alter any firearm, knife, machete, acid/gasoline/etc container without fear of getting him or herself into legal trouble. Then again, the would-be killer could have also rented a pickup truck, drove through the fence surrounding this or any other ball field or stadium and proceed to mow everyone down.
Firearms in the hands of honest citizens and prosecution of seditionists are the answers.
It has been reported as an SKS. A semi-auto precursor to the AK-47
As a practice field it would not have been in a stadium.
http://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2017/06/15/journalism-ex-nyt-reporter-jim-roberts-called-out-for-erroneous-gun-tweet-defends-it-anyway/
It was an ‘SKS’ (AKA SKS-45)
“Trump obliges by tweeting…”
I disagree. Trump fights back by tweeting…
Trumps tweets have nothing to do with the crooked commie cabal of democrats, GOPe’s, and the media out to get the president.
“Trumps tweets have nothing to do with the crooked commie cabal of democrats, GOPe’s, and the media out to get the president.”
I agree. Trump tweets to us, his supporters, since he has no other way of communicating with us, the media will just mangle his message.
I appreciate immensely that he is doing so.
The mainstream media is an alien influence.
It would appear the the mainstream media has deemed Scalise, or at least the story of his attempted abortion, not viable. And the other people, they are colorful clumps of cells, interchangeable and disposable. The mainstream media is fanatically Pro-Choice.
But for Trump’s tweets, we would have no idea there was another side to the NYT/WaPo story. We only know about Trump’s side because the media complains about his tweets. The tweets are the only hope we have of getting out the story. Unless, of course, you believe Ryan, McConnell, et al will push to support Trump. (Fat chance.)
Left wing Bernie supporter, does not fit the narrative.
ABORT! ABORT!
I’m not sure WaPo and NYT are actively colluding. They are competitors. It’s illegal for competitors to collude. At least as it relates to setting prices. Maybe they can collude by deciding which stories each will cover and timing their publication. I don’t know. If they were true competitors they’d be trying to out-scoop each other.
That said, the subdued interest about a seemingly premeditated plot to assassinate en masse enough Republicans to field a baseball team is remarkable. If the gunman had succeeded, it would have been the biggest act of domestic political terrorism since the ’60s and the political response would have been to permanently change the country. Seems worth exploring. Yet to the extent they have wanted to cover it so far is to roboticaly promote gun control.
Bannon was absolutely right when he call the media the opposition party.
Competing? Subscriptions have cratered for both and neither cares anymore. WaPo is Jeff Bezos’ personal sound box and just like NYT is Carlos Slims’. They don’t care about journalism so they can operate on a skeleton staff. Just stick to the narrative and they get to stay in business.
That is what “big journalism” has sunk to. Masters of the Universe propaganda loudspeakers.
WaPo, the NYT, and all the MSM are colluding. They are deciding what will and will not be covered. Remember Journo-List and Journo-List 2.0? It still exists.
There is a very good reason that to get political news that is semi-detailed and kinda sorta even handed you have to go to the British media. No, they don’t like or love us. They actually kinda detest us. But that means they have no problem with reporting bad things on everybody. The American media reports what they are told to by the Left.
Of course they buried the story. More proof, if you needed any, that the media is so in the liberal tank that they have ceased to function as the sentinels of the republic. The Fourth Estate has become a Fifth Column.
Obama’s banana republic in action.
They never were a “fourth estate”. Can you name the first three? We don’t have different estates here, and reporters have never had any constitutional role. “Sentinels of the Republic” indeed. That was never anything but self-promotion, along with their pretense that the first amendment singles them out for special protection, which it absolutely doesn’t.
I don’t expect Trump will every stop tweeting. But he is feeding the beast.
Tweet less but make what is tweeted sting more. Just reacting to every attack is over-reacting IMO.
But then I don’t tweet and consider it a silly thing for adults to do. JMO and it makes me less than popular nearly everywhere I comment.
Very good point, Mr. Jacobson.
Why isn’t this being treated by the government, and covered by the press, as an assassination by an Islamic terrorist would be?
For example, was Hodgkinson a “lone wolf”? Or was he part of a terrorist cell? Who funded him? How did he come up with his list of names? Or, to pick the MSM’s favorite meme, was he a Russian agent?
Of course, it would be embarrassing, to say the least, if Soros’s fingerprints/money was implicated. But why not invent nameless sources to reveal such — whether fake news or not — to the public?
Also, why haven’t we heard any laments about Republican-phobia?
Trump obliges by tweeting in reaction to NYT and WaPo stories in an attempt to vindicate himself in the public eye.
Consider the normal course of events—
1. The Dems or their propaganda arm make an outrageous accusation.
2. Some people believe that this unsupported accusation has substance. This is inept and illogical, but too many do it anyway.
3. If the accusation is NOT denied, even more people will eventually end up believing it. This is also inept and illogical; the denial generally has no more factual basis than the original accusation. But too many do it anyway. And a person who believes a fact-free and unsupported accusation may also believe a fact-free and unsupported denial. Not all will; but a rhetorical tactic doesn’t have to be 100% successful to be useful.
The denial seems pointless to people with functional reasoning capabilities; but that population isn’t sufficient to elect anybody. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people has to accommodate the intellectual inadequacies of the people. And one of the things the people demand (although they may not be consciously aware of it) is a denial of a lie or slander.
So I don’t think the tweets are optional. Trump gains more with the tweets than he loses.
Maybe.
“Trump obliges by tweeting in reaction to NYT and WaPo stories in an attempt to vindicate himself in the public eye. But to a great extent that just feeds the news cycle beast and plays into the plan to make it difficult for the duly-elected president to govern.”
You people who just throw out this Bush-era idea that if you respond to the fake news you make it worse need to make your case that it has a negative effect that you claim. We all watched Bush and Rove after 2005 decide they could ignore it and it gets better in some magical way. The public assumes guilty people don’t fight allegations that is just a fact. He keeps his followers engaged on Twitter and he doesn’t “help” enrage the perpetually outraged any more than they already are. Sorry he would be a fool to get off Twitter and disconnect his thoughts from his supporters.
Speaking of news cycles, do you all remember “Hands up- don’t shoot” and sweet “Little” Trayvon Martin? How long did those cycles last? a year? Maybe more and yet here is the Whip of the House almost assassinated and it last three days! The Orland massacre two months? The Republicans get three days.