A Fair and Balanced Look at the Left

 

An article at Breitbart by Dr. Susan Berry exposes the shadowy DC-based “opposition research” firm that created both the fake Trump/Russian dossier and the bogus narrative of video editing that was alleged of the undercover videos that exposed Planned Parenthood’s evil profiteering on selling the organs of aborted babies.

This group is called Fusion GPS. “Its co-founder and partner Peter R. Fritsch contributed at least $1,000 to the Hillary Victory Fund and the Hillary For America campaign, Federal Election Commission data show.” His wife also donated money to Hillary’s campaign. From the article:

In the summer of 2015, Center for Medical Progress (CMP) began releasing its undercover videos exposing alleged profiteering on the part of Planned Parenthood and its partners in the biomedical fetal tissue procurement industry. The shocking videos forced America’s largest abortion provider into rapid defense mode, and smearing undercover journalist David Daleiden and his group became a top priority of Planned Parenthood.

The group hired Fusion GPS to perform a forensic evaluation on CMP’s videos, the results of which were reported at Politico in August of 2015 with the headline, “Report for Planned Parenthood Finds Sting Videos Manipulated.”

Democrat operatives, in concert with the national media, have taken what Richard Nixon once called “dirty tricks” into an entirely different stratosphere. What once was mere opposition research has now morphed into fake news with the full cooperation and coordination with the fake journalists at ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN/NYT/WaPo/etc. During the 0bama administration, the cohabitation and incestual relations between his administration staff and the media reached epidemic proportions.

Not only did this entire national media repeat the lies formed by Fusion GPS for Planned Parenthood to falsely disparage the courageous video undercovering of criminal activity, it also joined in the attacks on the true whistleblowers at the Center for Medical Progress.

And this fake news and lying lies manufactured by Fusion GPS, and repeated ad nauseum by the national media echo, is reminiscent of another Obama administration official — Ben Rhodes, brother of CBS President David Rhodes. Ben Rhodes was the original manufacturer of the fabricated story regarding the deaths of four Americans (including our ambassador) in Benghazi. He made up the story that it was due to a “spontaneous protest” due to some obscure video on the internet. Rhodes was also the manufacturer of the fake story behind the Iran deal that Obama unconstitutionally forced upon America. In fact, in Jonathan Gruber fashion, he bragged about it … on the pages of the New York Times no less!

Ben Rhodes Openly Brags About Lying To Public, Media Yawns

Rhodes goes on at length about his failed attempt to become a novelist, and how he sees his work at the White House as essentially the same kind of storytelling and narrative-weaving. And when crafting his non-fictional storylines involved selling the American people fiction, well, Rhodes was more than up to the task.

No need for shadowy “plumbers” when you have the press in your very pocket.

Focus GPS and Ben Rhodes are but two examples of how the Left obviously manufactures lies. And worst of all, it is the national media that are the willing purveyors of this lying propaganda. No need for a propaganda division. Leni Riefenstahl would blush.

This incomprehensible corruption makes it easy for this voter to support President Trump. Covfefe.

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  1. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    A link to a larger version of the “Keeping It In The Family” chart above.

    • #1
  2. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Columbo: This incomprehensible corruption makes it easy for this voter to support President Trump. Covfefe.

    No kidding.

    The absolute silence on the imprisonment of the benghazi video creator has me aghasyt at what our media has become. Of all things, here was, front and center, power manipulating laws to punish a scapegoat for speech. It was such a baldfaced violation of constitutional rights and the media buried it.

    Speaking truth to power my ass.

    • #2
  3. Jimmy Carter Member
    Jimmy Carter
    @JimmyCarter

    Instead of “fake news,” We should call it “disinformation.”

    Disinformation is false information spread deliberately to deceive. The English word disinformation is a translation of the Russian dezinformatsiya, derived from the title of a KGB black propaganda department. The book Disinformation documents that Joseph Stalin coined the term, giving it a French-sounding name to falsely claim it had a Western origin.

    • #3
  4. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    Okay, so you need to be skeptical of things like the above chart and similar lists that get passed around.  Sometimes the information in them is exaggerated or outdated.  Snopes pulled apart a similar list and found several of the claims outdated.  I see a few of those claimed repeated on that chart.

    • #4
  5. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Rush has been commenting for years on all the incestuous relationships among members of the “press” (aka hostile opposition) and the Obama administration.

    • #5
  6. Robert McReynolds Member
    Robert McReynolds
    @

    Fred Cole (View Comment):
    Okay, so you need to be skeptical of things like the above chart and similar lists that get passed around. Sometimes the information in them is exaggerated or outdated. Snopes pulled apart a similar list and found several of the claims outdated. I see a few of those claimed repeated on that chart.

    Hahaha you look to snopes?! Here’s what your link had to say about what was “not true”:

    Some of the familial links no longer exist and besides there is no indication this means bias.

    I would hardly call that “pull[ing] apart” the validity of the chart.

    • #6
  7. Robert McReynolds Member
    Robert McReynolds
    @

    Wow did you even read your “debunking” article?

    • #7
  8. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):
    Wow did you even read your “debunking” article?

    If there was anything like an authentic Libertarian card, it would  be revoked. Summarily.

    • #8
  9. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):
    Rush has been commenting for years on all the incestuous relationships among members of the “press” (aka hostile opposition) and the Obama administration.

    Yeah.  There’s a lot of overlap between the worlds of politics, media, and finance.  It’s not just Democrats and progressives, it’s Republicans and conservatives.

    Rich, powerful, and well connected people hang out with other rich, powerful, and well connected people.  They travel in the same circles.  They go to the same schools.  They hang out together.  They marry each other.  They go to each other’s weddings.

    Here is a prime example:

    • #9
  10. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):
    Hahaha you look to snopes?! Here’s what your link had to say about what was “not true”:

    Some of the familial links no longer exist and besides there is no indication this means bias.

    Don’t paraphrase please.  You’re bad at it.  This is what they said:

    Some of the familial links documented in this list no longer exist, and such links don’t in themselves demonstrate bias in news reporting.

    That’s true.

    • #10
  11. JcTPatriot Member
    JcTPatriot
    @

    Columbo: This incomprehensible corruption makes it easy for this voter to support President Trump. Covfefe.

    Covfefe, Mofo. Fantastic post.

    I don’t know about you, but I’m ignoring the peanut gallery. It seems some people are here on Ricochet to try their best to cast doubt on the truth. You know, like CNN does every day.

    • #11
  12. Mike LaRoche Inactive
    Mike LaRoche
    @MikeLaRoche

    Excellent work!

    • #12
  13. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    Fred Cole (View Comment):
    This is what they said:

    Some of the familial links documented in this list no longer exist, and such links don’t in themselves demonstrate bias in news reporting.

    That’s true.

    Quite right.

    It’s terribly suggestive, though. And in any context where ethics was important such links would be repeatedly noted. Indeed, it is likely that having to note such links so often and so prominently would be a practical barrier to someone with such familial ties operating in an ethical profession.

    Journalism and politics, on the other hand, no problem.

    By the way, I thought the paraphrase was perfectly fine.

    • #13
  14. Vectorman Inactive
    Vectorman
    @Vectorman

    genferei (View Comment):
    By the way, I thought the paraphrase was perfectly fine.

    • #14
  15. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    genferei (View Comment):
    Indeed, it is likely that having to note such links so often and so prominently would be a practical barrier to someone with such familial ties operating in an ethical profession.

    Do you have an example?

    • #15
  16. Jager Coolidge
    Jager
    @Jager

    Fred Cole (View Comment):

    genferei (View Comment):
    Indeed, it is likely that having to note such links so often and so prominently would be a practical barrier to someone with such familial ties operating in an ethical profession.

    Do you have an example?

    I think you are asking for examples of familial ties having a barrier to operating in an ethical profession.

    The AMA Code to Ethics says that while a physician can treat an immediate family member, they really shouldn’t because their professional objectivity can be compromised.

    In most states a Public Notary cannot Notarize the signature of a family member. They are not a neutral third party.

    Police Officers are generally not allowed  to investigate their own families. They can compromise the investigation or at least create doubt that the investigation was fair.

     

    • #16
  17. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    Jager (View Comment):
    I think you are asking for examples of familial ties having a barrier to operating in an ethical profession.

    More prompted by Jager’s examples than Fred’s question, but where a member of an audit team has an immediate family member with significant influence over the preparation of accounts:

    the threats to independence can only be reduced to an acceptable level by removing the individual from the audit team. The closeness of the relationship is such that no other safeguards could reduce the threat to an acceptable level. Accordingly, no individual who has such a relationship shall be a member of the audit team.

    (to take a representative set of audit rules).

    • #17
  18. Robert McReynolds Member
    Robert McReynolds
    @

    And suddenly Snopes has been “pulled apart.”

    • #18
  19. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    A note about the title and the now removed epigraph that was in the original conversation.

    The primary point of the conversation for me was to illustrate the pattern and height, breadth and depth of the intentionally manufactured lies that are part and parcel of the democrat Political/Media Industrial Complex. And when I hear the word ‘lies’, I think ‘Al Franken’.

    The title of this thread, and the since removed epigraph, was a reverse of his forgettable book published in 2003 … Lies: And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them … A Fair And Balanced Look At The Right.

    A central piece of the Alinsky Left’s playbook is to accuse your opponent of your greatest fault. Lying. They have perfected it and yet accuse everyone else of it. Advanced by and in collaboration with the DNC-run media. Sad. Covfefe.

    • #19
  20. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    Jager (View Comment):
    The AMA Code to Ethics says that while a physician can treat an immediate family member, they really shouldn’t because their professional objectivity can be compromised.

    In most states a Public Notary cannot Notarize the signature of a family member. They are not a neutral third party.

    Police Officers are generally not allowed to investigate their own families. They can compromise the investigation or at least create doubt that the investigation was fair.

    Okay.  These are all excellent examples.

    An example along the lines of yours would be not having CNN’s Chris Cuomo interview his brother Andrew.  The one time they did that (it was about a train accident, not anything political), Chris Cuomo took heat for it.

    However, I believe you’re using them incorrectly in this case.  In each of your examples, it is professional dealing directly and professionally with another family member.

    Wrt to the chart in the OP, that’s not what’s being alleged.  The chart uses innuendo to suggest that the mere presence of a family member in an adjacent profession indicates bias.

    As Snopes put it:

    [S]uch links don’t in themselves demonstrate bias in news reporting.

    • #20
  21. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Fred Cole (View Comment):

    Jager (View Comment):
    The AMA Code to Ethics says that while a physician can treat an immediate family member, they really shouldn’t because their professional objectivity can be compromised.

    In most states a Public Notary cannot Notarize the signature of a family member. They are not a neutral third party.

    Police Officers are generally not allowed to investigate their own families. They can compromise the investigation or at least create doubt that the investigation was fair.

    Okay. These are all excellent examples.

    An example along the lines of yours would be not having CNN’s Chris Cuomo interview his brother Andrew. The one time they did that (it was about a train accident, not anything political), Chris Cuomo took heat for it.

    However, I believe you’re using them incorrectly in this case. In each of your examples, it is professional dealing directly and professionally with another family member.

    Wrt to the chart in the OP, that’s not what’s being alleged. The chart uses innuendo to suggest that the mere presence of a family member in an adjacent profession indicates bias.

    As Snopes put it:

    [S]uch links don’t in themselves demonstrate bias in news reporting.

    You seem stuck on the chart, which is a throwaway device to the primary conversation. Combined with the work of James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas (strikes again), and the other examples and links in the body of the thread, I’d suggest that the bias has more than adequately been demonstrated.

    Perhaps it just this … if you believe in bias, the evidence of it is all around you. But if you do not believe, no evidence can ever be enough.

    • #21
  22. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Power Line linked to this.

    • #22
  23. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    Columbo (View Comment):
    You seem stuck on the chart, which is a throwaway device to the primary conversation.

    Your entire point was to complain about how “the cohabitation and incestual relations between his administration staff and the media reached epidemic proportions.”  And that is a problem because it damages their impartiality.  And by extension, we cannot trust them in their coverage.

    I’m not “stuck on the chart,” I’m addressing it your claims.  My point is that your claims are overblown and hyperbolic.

    • #23
  24. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Fred Cole (View Comment):

    Columbo (View Comment):
    You seem stuck on the chart, which is a throwaway device to the primary conversation.

    Your entire point was to complain about how “the cohabitation and incestual relations between his administration staff and the media reached epidemic proportions.” And that is a problem because it damages their impartiality. And by extension, we cannot trust them in their coverage.

    I’m not “stuck on the chart,” I’m addressing it your claims. My point is that your claims are overblown and hyperbolic.

    Au contraire! It is rather the tactics of the Left and their DNC-run media that are overblown and hyperbolic.

    • #24
  25. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    Columbo (View Comment):
    It is rather the tactics of the Left and their DNC-run media

    Okay, just to clarify:

    What media organizations does the DNC run?

    What makes you think the Left is synonymous with the DNC?

    Do you believe these tactics are exclusive to the Left?

    • #25
  26. Larry Koler Inactive
    Larry Koler
    @LarryKoler

    Jager (View Comment):

    Fred Cole (View Comment):

    genferei (View Comment):
    Indeed, it is likely that having to note such links so often and so prominently would be a practical barrier to someone with such familial ties operating in an ethical profession.

    Do you have an example?

    I think you are asking for examples of familial ties having a barrier to operating in an ethical profession.

    The AMA Code to Ethics says that while a physician can treat an immediate family member, they really shouldn’t because their professional objectivity can be compromised.

    In most states a Public Notary cannot Notarize the signature of a family member. They are not a neutral third party.

    Police Officers are generally not allowed to investigate their own families. They can compromise the investigation or at least create doubt that the investigation was fair.

    People who report on financial news have to be very forthright in admitting their own involvement in the company that is under their review in a news piece. Hugh Hewitt has always rightly insisted that we should expect no less from news media — that they tell us their involvement with whom they are reporting on and their antipathy (reflected in their voting, for example) towards those whom they are attacking.

    Hugh Hewitt routinely asks during his interviews with journalists who they voted for in the last few elections. Almost all the left leaning ones strike poses pretending that the question need not be asked of people in their priesthood — after all, they are professional journalists. Also, the reason they don’t do this is because they would have to recuse themselves for all the juicy stories that they really really want to report on: like puff pieces for their friends and hit pieces on their enemies.

    The problem is: we don’t have many professionals in the MSM.

    • #26
  27. Larry Koler Inactive
    Larry Koler
    @LarryKoler

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    Power Line linked to this.

    Yes. Congrats, Columbo — this whole thing needs to be aired as widely as possible and to top this off Fred is the perfect foil in this. Thanks, Fred! You make so many things clearer.

    • #27
  28. profdlp Inactive
    profdlp
    @profdlp

    Fred, you’ve convinced me once again.  I’m going to go back to watching the ballgame.  And I’m sure that none of the wives of the Cleveland Indians players hope that the team we’re playing tonight doesn’t do well.

    • #28
  29. BD1 Member
    BD1
    @

    “John McCain: I gave Russia blackmail dossier on TRump to FBI.”

    • #29
  30. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    profdlp (View Comment):
    Fred, you’ve convinced me once again. I’m going to go back to watching the ballgame. And I’m sure that none of the wives of the Cleveland Indians players hope that the team we’re playing tonight doesn’t do well.

    Fred’s commentary on this makes one think he is joined with the Left in the belief that the family and such relationships are meaningless cultural constructs.

    • #30
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