Archive for the ‘media’ Category

I had to laugh when I saw this piece at the Hill where John Podesta was so worried about this answer to a Town Hall question by Bernie Sanders:

“But I hope he’s not thinking about going there, because, again, I think what Trump has done to go in the gutter is reprehensible,” the Clinton campaign chairman added.

Sanders fielded a question late Friday at a town hall in Iowa about Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

“Hillary Clinton is not Bill Clinton. What Bill Clinton did, I think we can all acknowledge was totally, totally, totally disgraceful and unacceptable. But I am running against Hillary Clinton. I am not running against Bill Clinton,” Sanders told the questioner, according to The Washington Post.

Podesta’s warnings to Sanders are laughable as he has as much chance of costing Bernie his seat in VT as I have of being named Secretary of Time Travel in a Ted Cruz administration but more importantly it combined with these little Riffs on Morning Joe crystallizes the problem for a certain group of Democrats and media folks of a particular age.

During the Clinton impeachment hearings Democrat pols and the media that serves them knew what Bill Clinton was and what he had done, they had a choice:  They could back him up, despite the facts OR they could pressure him to resign and be replaced by Al Gore.

They choose the former.

Perhaps because the rest of their caucus couldn’t stand the scrutiny (think Ted Kennedy).  Perhaps because they thought it would lead to a GOP victory a la 1976 or perhaps they decided they didn’t want to risk emboldening a GOP that had only just won the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.

But whatever the reason they not only stuck with Bill Clinton  defending him en masse but for 15 years afterwards proceeded to pretend that nothing had happened acting as if, at worst Bill Clinton was the victim of a partisan witch hunt.

Thanks to Donald Trump and Bill Cosby that position is no longer tenable so plan B has become to acknowledge that what Bill Clinton did was wrong (How many times can Harold Ford say “I’m not defending” ) while maintaining that bringing it up in the context of Hillary is beyond the pale.

In other words: talking about what Bill Clinton did to women is,  in his and people like Donna Brazile’s eyes,  far worse than what he actually did to women.

This reaction is of course completely understandable because if one does not have this reaction it begs the question that nobody in the MSM wants to ask or be asked:

If what Bill Clinton did to women was “disgraceful” and “unacceptable” then why did the media elites and Democrat pols not only defend him at the time but spend that last 15 years treating the ex president as if he had never done a wrong thing?

I submit and suggest that people from Podesta, to Andrea Mitchell to Harold Ford and many others all know the answer to that question, which is why they can’t bear to have it asked.

Father Merrin: Especially important is the warning to avoid conversations with the demon. We may ask what is relevant but anything beyond that is dangerous. He is a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien, and powerful. So don’t listen to him. Remember that – do not listen.

The Exorcist 1972

They‘ll [the left] always tell us who they fear

Rush Limbaugh

One of the things we’ve talked about here at DaTechguy blog concerning Pope Francis has been how the media has tended to ignore stories that don’t fit the narrative they’ve constructed of him.

So I was really surprised to see the Washington Post decide that this aspect of Francis message warranted their attention

After his little more than a year atop the Throne of St. Peter, Francis’s teachings on Satan are already regarded as the most old school of any pope since at least Paul VI, whose papacy in the 1960s and 1970s fully embraced the notion of hellish forces plotting to deliver mankind unto damnation.

Largely under the radar, theologians and Vatican insiders say, Francis has not only dwelled far more on Satan in sermons and speeches than his recent predecessors have, but also sought to rekindle the Devil’s image as a supernatural entity with the forces­ of evil at his beck and call.

We’ve noticed the Pope’s willingness to bluntly talk about the devil before but apparently in this Harvard Black Mass world this seems to have gotten some people hackles up

by focusing on old-school interpretations of the Devil, some progressive theologians complain, the pope is undermining his reputation as a leader who in so many other ways appears to be more in step with modern society than his predecessor.

“He is opening the door to superstition,” said Vito Mancuso, a Catholic theologian and writer.

The complaints of progressive “catholic theologians” concerning “superstition” are as amusing as the Baptist minister who has no problem with Joshua stopping the sun, Jonah in the Whale, Christ feeding 5000 or Peter healing the cripple but calls the Eucharist a “magic trick”.  If you claim to be a Catholic theologian and say “the Devil is superstition” then you’re doing it wrong.

This is a real change for the press compared to his predecessor

“Had Pope Benedict done this, the media would have clobbered him.”

Mind you this is a rather mild critique yet the media giving air to any complaints at all to the first Latin American Pope is unusual.   I find it fascinating and telling that of all the things the Pope has done it is this that begins the attack upon him.

Why?

I suspect it’s because belief in the existence of the Devil runs counter to  the two pillars of the secular left: Moral relativism & consequence free action.  How can one promote hedonism and moral relativism without worry if there are not only absolute standards of good and evil but eternal consequences for the wrong choice?

Some ideas are just too dangerous to let stand and for the media this is the signal to turn.

They might have let a lot of things go but once you start acknowledging the Devil’s existence, that’s a bridge too far.

Update: It took a full week after the fact for Maureen Down to cry foul over the Vatican insisting Catholic nuns believe in Christ

I submit & suggest that if the Pope isn’t hitting the devil this pushback doesn’t come.

Update: Linked by the Anchoress Thanks, meanwhile Captain Ed Morrissey noting the Harvard black Mass BS from Harvard’s President explains why the Pope is talking so much about the devil

Perhaps it’s because it’s becoming more necessary.

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Doctor Who, A Christmas Carol 2010

It’s axiomatic that sex sells so when you combine the words: “Private Island”, “Lawsuit” & “Orgies” you have a story that normally is guaranteed viral:

Tales of orgies and young girls being shipped to the island, called Little St. James, have been revealed as part of an ongoing lawsuit between Epstein and his former lawyers Scott Rothstein and Bradley Edwards.

Young girls shipped to a private island for sex that’s gotta be worth headlines.

It is unclear what the basis of the suit is, but they go on to call witness testimony from some of the frequent guests at Epstein’s island to talk about the wild parties that were held there in the early 2000s.

The woman went on to say how orgies were a regular occurrence and she recalled two young girls from New York who were always seen around the five-house compound but their personal backstories were never revealed.

Given that kind of stuff one might wonder why this story involving Jeffrey Epstein, who was already jailed once for sex crimes got no traction last month? It’s just the type of thing to draw eyeballs. What could possibly cause the mainstream to give this story a pass?

A new lawsuit has revealed the extent of former President Clinton’s friendship with a fundraiser who was later jailed for having sex with an underage prostitute. Bill Clinton’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who served time in 2008 for his illegal sexual partners, included up multiple trips to the onetime billionaire’s private island in the Caribbean where underage girls were allegedly kept as sex slaves. . . .

Did someone say Bill Clinton?

Flight logs pinpoint Clinton’s trips on Epstein’s jet between the years 2002 and 2005, while he was working on his philanthropic post-presidential career and while his wife Hillary was a Senator for their adopted state of New York.  ‘I remember asking Jeffrey what’s Bill Clinton doing here kind fo thing, and he laughed it off and said well he owes me a favor,’ one unidentified woman said in the lawsuit, which was filed in Palm Beach Circuit Court.

Oh that explains why the only place I saw it was at Stacy McCain site last month.

If there is one thing the media that loves to play the War on Women® card doesn’t want to touch it’s a story about people using their own private island to get laid that involves Bill Clinton.

What could the media do if this story involving the former father of the year? They would call it old news, not relevant, dirty tricks from a salacious lawsuit that doesn’t even involve him and an attack on Hillary that crosses the line. In fact the left will deploy a plethora of adjectives to discourage further discussion of this story from antiquated to zany, but there is one adjective that could not come out of their mouth to dismiss this story:

Unbelievable

The last few years have proven that the left can convince a low information voter of a lot of things, but even the full power of the mainstream media and the strongest zealots from the War on Women® brigade would not be able to convince the American public that Bill Clinton would have no interest or business on a private island where orgies took place.

That’s why you didn’t see this story in the news last month and why as the case moves forward you’ll not see it covered period.

Yesterday Carlos Henriquez made the front page of the Boston Herald:

Inmate lawmaker Rep. Carlos Henriquez is doing his Beacon Hill business from his Billerica jail cell, thumbing through bills and budget proposals, and speaking to staff by phone “at least once a day,”

according to the disgraced Dorchester Democrat’s legislative aide.

“We’ve been in regular contact with him, and at this point he’s concerned with the issues of the district,” aide Jessica DaSilva told the Herald.

Prison is a pretty boring place so Henriquez is lucky to have all this legislative and constituent business to keep his day full.

DaSilva said Henriquez’s office is fielding four or five constituent calls a day, mostly from people concerned about cuts to unemployment benefits. She said Henriquez also has been reviewing budget amendments, though she would not say which.

If nothing else it means the voters know where he is 24/7 and he has time to read the bills if he so chooses.

Now to me A lawmaker convicted of assaulting a women who refused him sex and had to escape his car in the wee hours of the morning is, in the era of the “war on woman” a national story, that same lawmaker refusing to resign is even more so but that lawmaker on the front page of a state newspaper doing legislative work from in prison while refusing to resign? How does that not lead?

For the same reason as this story out of Lunenburg will get very little press:

There is not enough evidence to charge the prime suspect in a racist graffiti case that rocked Lunenburg late last year, Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early, Jr. said Wednesday.

No charges?

“We have notified the Lunenburg Police Department that the evidence presented to us fails to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime has been committed by a particular person,” wrote Early in an email his office has been sending to Lunenburg residents who have inquired about the case.

But this story was big news, it even appeared on national TV shows,

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How can this be? The base story appeared in papers as far away as Atlanta Ga & London England, it made SI.

Yet the DA’s office has suddenly decided that the reasonable doubt standard that used to apply to juries in the case replaces the “ham sandwich” standard that normally applies to indictments.

Now it could be that the DA decided that it would be a waste of taxpayer money, and that a conviction is unlikely but given the reach of the story such a decision would naturally generate press around the world, and stories full of outrage, a DA would normally be worried about that kind of thing and be prepared to answer a lot of tough question from reporters around the world.

I suspect he is not.

You see the primary suspect in this story is no longer the largely white football team in a small town but the mother of the supposed target of the racist graffiti. It is no longer a story about racism, it is about yet another race hoax. If the team had still been the suspect and racism been the theme and the DA a republican the decision to not press charges would be a source of national outrage and coverage but remember the rule we stated yesterday.

I submit & suggest it’s because all of these stories involve Democrats and their national memes and Democrats understand that when it comes to such stories MSM immediately recognizes them as unnewsworthy.

So like the Democrat combatant in the war on women currently doing his legislative work behind bars, the race hoaxer who turned her community upside down with a phony race card and the Democrat’s DA decision not to prosecute are simply not newsworthy.

Meanwhile my question from last month still stands:

Where does the town of Lunenburg go to get their reputation back, where does the football team go to get their Thanksgiving game back and who pays for all the police, local state and federal that were used in the attempt to sell this BS?

nothing to see here, move along.

Exit question: While one can argue that the family in the small town is now marked and suffered enough what sort of incentive is created for the next race hoaxer who wants to destroy a person or a town’s reputation for personal or political reasons when they know they are unlikely to face any legal consequence?

Update: The Parents of some of the boys who were initially implicated are none too happy

“I said it before and I’ll say it again, the people that are responsible for this are cowards,” Szabady said. “You know, to do something like this and blame it on kids and just sit back and watch? You’re a coward. And the law will eventually catch up to you.”

Or perhaps not.

By an odd coincidence the AG of Massachusetts is running for governor. I wonder if such a case, if prosecuted might be problematic during the campaign? Then again maybe there is hope

The Lunenburg Police Chief tells WBZ-TV that federal charges could be filed.

Yeah I’m sure Eric Holder will get right on that one.

Meanwhile Stacy McCain has discovered another perp that doesn’t fit the media’s template.

Update 2: Glenn Reynolds linked to the Boston Herald Story above. Does that mean national republicans will finally use this as a weapon in the war on women BS? If they do and it gets repeated on any national show I predict pressure from national democrats will have Henriquez out of office so fast it will make your head swim.

Update 3: Why is Henriquez not resigning after assaulting a women who refused him sex? Maybe we should ask his mom Sandra Henriquez Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing for the Obama administration.