Some content creators are concerned about the direction platforms are taking after recent policy change announcements. Will free speech be allowed on social media? YouTube’s Vice President and Global Head of Trust & Safety Matt Halprin released a blog on Wednesday, Dec. 11, titled “An update to our harassment policy.” Halprin proclaimed in the blog that YouTube would be taking a harder stance on “malicious insults,” “veiled threats” via simulated violence and “hate speech.” Content creators ranging from gamers like PewDiePie to…
With the possibility of former Vice President Joe Biden earning the 2020 nomination now inching ever closer to reality, key progressive legislators are floating the idea of an “alternative” Democratic ticket that embodies a fully far-left platform, possibly pitting the two extremes of the Democratic Party against each other.
The New York Times claims, Monday, that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are each others’ worst enemy and that, despite their “non-agression” pact, if one were to be hounded out of the race, the other would pose a clear threat to the “Establishment” Democrats’ pick, Biden.
“Since the presidential primary race began, the two senators — who have been friends since Ms. Warren was elected to the Senate in 2012 — have abided by a de facto nonaggression pact, rarely criticizing one another and frequently acting as something of a populist tag team on the debate stage,” the NYT claims. “Yet with Mr. Sanders enjoying a revival after his heart attack in October and Ms. Warren receding from her summer surge but wielding a formidable political organization in the first nominating states, it’s increasingly clear that their biggest obstacle to winning the Democratic nomination is each other.”
The easy solution would be for one or the other to drop out, presumably Sanders, whose health is now in question, despite his ability to consistently draw large crowds on the campaign trail. But that’s not a perfect scenario, as the NYT is quick to point out: Warren isn’t a “pure” progressive, and those that back Sanders, especially at the behest of “Democratic socialists,” aren’t satisfied with Warren’s mixed track record, which includes defending corporations in court, making money off flipping houses, lying about Native American heritage, and defending school choice.
So, perhaps the time has come for another idea, some progressive legislators say: a Sanders/Warren ticket. Or a Warren/Sanders ticket.
“The two of them could usher in a progressive era for the next decade,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA). Khanna even compared the pair to another all star team, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, who consolidated the mushy middle back in the early 1990s by appealing to middle-of-the-road Democrats together, rather than splitting what was then the core of the party. “They doubled down on a bet for a centrist vision of the party. This would be a bet on a progressive vision for the party.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) also told the NYT that she was thrilled with the idea.
“I think that would just be the dream of all progressives,” she told reporters. “When you’re going into a battlefield, you want your best players to be on the field starting. And they are our best.”
It sounds fabulous, but there’s a big problem: Warren and Sanders can’t agree on minutae, like whether its acceptable to raise taxes on the middle class in pursuit of a wider government safety net. Warren has long denied that her government expansions, including a “Medicare for All” system, a student loan bailout, and a universal public education system that starts with preschool, can’t be paid for by her catchall “wealth tax.” Sanders, on the other hand, is clear that the benefits of universal health care, a universal jobs program, and a “Green New Deal” are worth the extra cash the working class will have to fork over every April 15th.
There’s also the teensy-weensy problem of splitting the Democratic vote. Biden is neck-and-neck with Trump in battleground states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada, and Florida, and the addition of a “third party” — even an officially sanctioned third party — would be disasterous to Democratic hopes.
Of course, that doesn’t seem to bother Omar or others, who are convinced, as the Labour Party was in the UK, that socialists make up a “silent majority” of voters, and they’ll accept any outcome — and any socialist leader — in order to widen the government’s reach. It might be a hard lesson, but it doesn’t seem Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party leader, is learning it.
With reports of increasingly “nervous” Democrats amid rising opposition to impeachment, a growing number of Democrats and their supporters on the left have begun to seriously push a new strategy: vote on the two articles of impeachment against the president in the House but then refuse to send the articles to the Senate, where they’re destined to die a quick death.
In a piece for his website, The Bulwark Editor-in-Chief Charles Sykes spells out the strategy that more Democrats and their supporters are beginning to embrace: Accuse Republicans of intending to “violate their impeachment-trial oaths” and refuse to send over the articles so the Democrats can maintain some “leverage” over Republicans.
With Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham having already made clear that there’s “no chance the president will be removed from office,” Sykes accuses the Republican leaders of having “literally said that they intend to violate their oath as judges/jurors.” House Democrats, he urges, should play up McConnell and Graham’s public assertions.
“House Democrats should treat these comments as game changers,” Sykes states. Noting that there is “no requirement that the House immediately send the articles of impeachment to the Senate,” Sykes recommends that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi play her “final card” (formatting adjusted):
So here is a modest proposal: the House should (1) vote to impeach on Wednesday, and (2) withhold sending any articles which pass to the Senate unless and until a majority of senators commit to holding an open and fair trial in accordance with the Constitution.
Speaker Pelosi could highlight Trump’s continued cover up and obstruction, while also noting that his abuse of power is a crime in progress. She could also explicitly link the referral to Chuck Schumer’s demands for key documents and the testimony of senior White House officials, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; Mulvaney’s senior adviser Robert Blair; and former national security adviser John Bolton.
Sykes even goes so far as to provide Pelosi with a script for how to frame this delay tactic as a “constitutional moment.”
But the “hold the impeachment articles” ploy is not just a theory by a left-wing editor, it’s already being pushed by some Democrats, as The Hill highlights (formatting adjusted):
Senate Democrats are quietly talking about asking SpeakerNancy Pelosi(D-Calif.) to hold articles of impeachment in the House until Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agrees to a fair rules package for a Senate trial. Democratic senators are concerned by talk among Senate Republicans of holding a speedy trial without witnesses, which would set up a shorter time frame than when the Senate considered President Clinton’s 1999 impeachment. They want to hear from Trump’s advisers and worry that if they don’t use their leverage now, they’ll have little say over how a Senate trial is run.
“If we don’t agree on a set of rules before the articles arrive over here, I think we’re cooked. I think McConnell has his people totally in line. It will be a procedural thing,” said one concerned Democratic senator. The senator said there’s growing alarm in the Democratic Conference that McConnell will pass a resolution that would prevent witness testimony or the displaying of posters or playing of videos on the Senate floor. Videos and posters were both a part of the televised committee hearings in the House.
“They’ll pass whatever rules they want, and so we need to determine for a fair trial what witnesses we want, what documents we want. Are we going to allow videos? Are you going to allow boards that go up with votes so you explain things to the audience that is watching out there in a really powerful way?” the lawmaker added. “I think our maximum leverage of getting what we want is now, before the articles come over.”
In a letter sent to McConnell on Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer laid out a series of demands for this “fair” trial in the Senate, though Schumer doesn’t specify what Democrats will do if those demands are not met.
“In the trial of President Clinton, the House Managers were permitted to call witnesses, and it is clear that the Senate should hear testimony of witnesses in this trial as well,” Schumer states in the three-page letter sent Sunday (below). “I propose, pursuant to our rules, that the Chief Justice on behalf of the Senate issue subpoenas for testimony by the following witnesses with direct knowledge of Administration decisions regarding the delay in security assistance funds to the government of Ukraine and the requests for certain investigations to be announced by the government of Ukraine: Robert Blair, Senior Advisor to the Acting White House Chief of Staff; Mick Mulvaney, Acting White House Chief of Staff; John Bolton, former National Security Advisor; and Michael Duffey, Associate Director for National Security, Office of Management and Budget.”
“We would of course be open to hearing the testimony of additional witnesses having direct knowledge of the administration’s decisions regarding the delay in security assistance funds to the government of Ukraine and the requests for certain investigations to be announced by the government of Ukraine, if the president’s counsel or House Managers identify such witnesses,” Schumer adds.
While the “withhold the articles” strategy gains momentum, the Democrats have announced another impeachment gambit: continue investigations into Trump after they vote on impeachment this week and regardless of the outcome in the Senate.
“In a filing to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, House General Counsel Douglas Letter argued that the House’s demands for grand jury materials connected to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were still urgent because such evidence might become relevant to the Senate’s expected impeachment trial next month,” Politico reported Monday. “But Letter went further to note that even apart from the Senate trial, the House Judiciary Committee intends to continue its impeachment investigation arising from the Mueller probe on its own merit.”
I’ve always considered journalism to be a noble profession. A career spent digging through false leads and trivia in order to get to the truth of a story must be pretty harrowing at times. In some countries, this actually puts journalists in mortal danger. But, in the end, it’s worth it, because they’re helping to get the word out about important stories. Indeed, it is a noble and vital profession.
This is not to suggest, however, that those who would go into this profession are inherently noble. Like anybody else, journalists often fall prey to the temptations of laziness, bias, and sometimes outright lies. These particular journalists are the reason that the mainstream media has become less and less trustworthy through the decades, as old-fashioned reporting has taken a backseat to political activism and narrative-pushing in the guise of journalistic respectability.
With Clint Eastwood’s new film Richard Jewell, the iconic director dramatizes an historical instance in which the media — for reasons of convenience and sensationalism — got the story horrendously wrong. During the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, a security guard named Richard Jewell found a bomb planted at Centennial Park and quickly alerted the authorities and helped save hundreds of lives. He was hailed as a hero, but was quickly targeted — first by the FBI and subsequently by the media itself — as the prime suspect. The single, overweight Jewell lived with his mother and was quickly labeled a loser; a wannabe cop who was looking for an opportunity to be a hero. Jewell fit a specific type, and the media ran with the story. The problem, of course, was the that story wasn’t true, and Jewell actually was the hero he was initially made out to be.
Eastwood’s decision to put out a movie about this egregious example of an overeager media has been met with resistance from people who see the film as a piece of propaganda for the Trump administration, which regularly calls out the media as “fake news.” And while the timing of the release may well be politically motivated (what movie isn’t these days?), the film is simply the latest in a long line of movies that are willing to grapple with the potential dishonesty and sensationalism of the media.
For those who might be ideologically sympathetic to Eastwood’s goals with the film, here is a list of previously released films that took the press to task.
Shattered Glass (2003) — Written and directed by Billy Ray, the screenwriter of Richard Jewell, this film tells the story of Stephen Glass, the entertaining wunderkind of The New Republic whose popular human interest stories were soon revealed to be completely fabricated. As the newly minted editor at The New Republic conducts an internal investigation, the film explores not only why Glass would so brazenly lie to his bosses, co-workers, and the public at large, but also the environment in which he could get away with it for so long. Featuring solid performances from Hayden Christiansen and Peter Sarsgard, this film tells another true story of media sensationalism winning out over journalistic integrity.
Network (1976) — Conceived by the endearingly acidic Paddy Chayefsky, this over-the-top satire tells the story of an anchorman slowly losing his mind and the executives and producers who see ratings potential in his meltdown. As the executives justify their actions by claiming to be “tapping into the popular rage” of a post-Watergate culture, Network predicted much of the modern hysteria that we find whenever we turn on the news, from the cynical executives to the self-righteous talent to the viewers that allow themselves to be so thoroughly manipulated. A cautionary tale that proved to be unnervingly prescient.
Absence of Malice (1981) — Directed with the straightforward tone that would become his hallmark, Sydney Pollack tells the story of a legitimate businessman whose life is put through the ringer when an overeager Miami reporter writes a story implicating the businessman in the murder of a union official. The investigation that follows is a labyrinthine exercise in corruption, extortion, and politics, all couched in a surprisingly poignant debate about the First Amendment. The film suggests that the media — sometimes knowing, sometimes not — can be used as an effective weapon by those in power, requiring caution by those journalists and editors whose pursuit of a good story can blind them to their own exploitation.
Ace in the Hole (1951) — Having made one of the quintessential Hollywood takedowns the year before, director Billy Wilder decided to turn his sights on the world of journalism, represented here by a smug, smirking Kirk Douglas. A down-on-his-luck reporter sees the opportunity to get back on top when a small town resident is trapped in a nearby cave. The reporter manipulates the local authorities into drawing out the rescue operation while simultaneously getting close to the trapped man, effectively giving himself exclusive access to the unfolding story. Like Network, Ace in the Hole foretold later developments in the media, whose 24-hour news cycle operates best when propped up by an ongoing story, and suggested that some journalists are more comfortable making the news than simply reporting it.
Inherit the Wind (1960) — It may seem counterintuitive — especially to more religious readers — to recommend Stanley Kramer’s fictionalized retelling of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, but it is a well-written, brilliantly acted film, starring Spencer Tracy and the always-reliable Fredric March. Despite those heavy-hitters, it is the Gene Kelly role of haughty reporter E.K. Hornbeck that really stands out to me. While the film is none too kind to the creationism-supporting Matthew Harrison Brady (March), its real scorn is reserved for Hornbeck, who demonstrates a flagrant bias in reporting the story. The readiness with which Hornbeck editorializes and shows real contempt for more traditional-minded Americans slowly alienates everybody in the film, including those that would seemingly be on his side. The image of “journalist as self-important, narcissistic, would-be kingmaker” is one of the more damning portraits of the media in film.
Of course, there are plenty of examples of films that would seek to canonize journalists — rightly in films like All the President’s Men and wrongly in the Dan Rather apologia Truth — but there is something extremely satisfying about a movie that is willing to take a hard look at the potential pitfalls of journalism. And in the current climate — with a media that is so averse to introspection — it can also be pretty refreshing.
Lawyers for House Democrats admitted in federal court on Monday that Stalinist lawmakers will continue their impeachment probe even after the House votes on articles of impeachment later this week.
This is what election interference looks like.
House General Counsel Douglas Letter argued in a DC filing that the House needs the grand jury material in Mueller’s report because the evidence may be relevant and used against Trump in the Senate impeachment trial next month.
But Douglas Letter didn’t stop there.
Mr. Letter stated that regardless of the outcome in the Senate impeachment trial, the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee chaired by Jerrold Nadler intends to continue its impeachment probe based on ‘evidence’ from the Mueller report.
“The committee has continued and will continue [its impeachment] investigations consistent with its own prior statements respecting their importance and purposes,” Letter wrote in a filing Monday
In a filing to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, House General Counsel Douglas Letter argued that the House’s demands for grand jury materials connected to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were still urgent because such evidence might become relevant to the Senate’s expected impeachment trial next month.
But Letter went further to note that even apart from the Senate trial, the House Judiciary Committee intends to continue its impeachment investigation arising from the Mueller probe on its own merit. That investigation began earlier this year.
Democrats had strongly considered charging Trump with obstruction of justice based on Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Monday’s filing indicates that Democrats are keeping that option available even after the House’s impeachment process concludes this week.
The House Judiciary Committee released a 169-page report in the dead of the night Monday alleging President Trump committed criminal acts including bribery and wire fraud.
The report will accompany the two very broad articles of impeachment that will be voted on this week, likely on Wednesday — but the charges of criminal conduct were left out of the actual articles of impeachment.
The Democrats are adding charges to their committee proposal to smear Trump in the public square.
If the House votes to impeach President Trump, the impeachment gets bounced over to the Senate where two-thirds majority must vote to convict President Trump in order to remove him from office.
There are currently 47 Democrats, including two Independents who caucus with Democrats in the Senate, and 53 Republicans.
Assuming there would be no Democrat defectors, it would take 20 Republican Senators to flip on Trump to get to 67 votes in order to convict him and remove him from the White House, which is highly unlikely.
It was recently reported that McConnell will move to immediately acquit President Trump and clear him of all charges — but it doesn’t matter, because as long as Dems have control of the House, it’s a permanent impeachment party!
Permanent Impeachment Party!
? “Lawyers for the House told a federal court on Mon. that lawmakers will continue their impeach. investigation even after the House votes later this week”?
In 2016, large swathes of voters who previously went for Obama switched to Trump. It was one of the keys to Trump’s victory. Many of those voters have now moved firmly into the Trump camp. This is a nightmare for Democrats.
Focus group: These Obama/Trump voters are just Trump voters now
Some swing voters here who voted for Barack Obama and then Donald Trump are firmly in Trump’s camp now — and they’re sick of impeachment.
Why it matters: The two-plus hour conversation revealed major warning signs for the Democratic Party in a crucial swing county that will be a pivotal area to win in 2020.
This was the biggest takeaway from our Engagious/FPG focus group last week, which included 10 voters who flipped from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016.
While a focus group is not a statistically significant sample like a poll, these responses show how some voters are thinking and talking about the 2020 election in crucial counties.
Why Saginaw matters: Trump won Saginaw County by just over 1% in 2016, and Obama won by nearly 12% in 2012.
The big picture:
These voters hate the fact that House Democrats are moving toward impeaching the president. They call it a distraction from the issues that would actually improve their lives, like preserving Social Security, cracking down on illegal immigration, and keeping jobs in the U.S.
The Trump economy is undoubtedly a driving factor here. See the findings from a new Quinnipiac poll below:
Attorneys representing House Democrats have told a federal court that House Democrats intend to continue impeachment investigations against President Donald Trump after they vote on impeachment this week, regardless of the eventual outcome of the Senate’s impeachment trial.
“In a filing to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, House General Counsel Douglas Letter argued that the House’s demands for grand jury materials connected to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were still urgent because such evidence might become relevant to the Senate’s expected impeachment trial next month,” Politico reported. “But Letter went further to note that even apart from the Senate trial, the House Judiciary Committee intends to continue its impeachment investigation arising from the Mueller probe on its own merit.”
In the court filing, Democrats accused the Department of Justice (DOJ) of essentially engaging in a cover-up to protect Trump, claiming that the DOJ took an “extraordinary position in” the Democrats’ impeachment investigations by not “disclosing grand-jury material needed for the House’s impeachment of President Trump and the Senate’s trial to remove him from office.”
Democrats’ insistence at continuing to investigate the findings of the Mueller probe comes after Attorney General William Barr said last week in an NBC News interview that “there was and never has been any evidence of collusion.”
House Democrats have said in recent days that there is no limit to the number of times that they can impeach the president.
“A president can be impeached more than once,” Rep. Al Green (D-TX) said earlier this month. “So, we can do this, we can move forward with what we have on the table currently, we can take this before the Senate and we can still investigate other issues and when the president has committed additional offenses, and my suspicion is that he will, we can take those before the Senate.”
“There is no limit on the number of times the Senate can vote to convict or not a president, no limit to the number of times the House can vote to impeach or not a president,” Green continued. “So, my belief is that the speaker will probably say we’re going to move forward with what we have now, but we’re not going to end investigations and that there may be possible opportunities to do other things at a later time.”
Permanent Impeachment Party!
? “Lawyers for the House told a federal court on Mon. that lawmakers will continue their impeach. investigation even after the House votes later this week”?
Neal Katyal, an acting solicitor general under former Democrat President Barack Obama, made remarks along the same lines earlier this month.
Katyal tweeted: “[Important] note on future: If the Senate doesn’t vote to convict Trump, or tries to monkey w his trial, he could of course be retried in the new Senate should he win re-election. Double jeopardy protections do not apply. And Senators voting on impeachment in the next months know this.”
Impt note on future: If the Senate doesn’t vote to convict Trump, or tries to monkey w his trial, he could of course be retried in the new Senate should he win re-election. Double jeopardy protections do not apply. And Senators voting on impeachment in the next months know this.
Accuracy in Media recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Founded in 1969 by Reed Irvine to combat liberal media bias, the organization has a new leader. Adam Guillette spoke to The Daily Signal about his plans for Accuracy in Media, the threat of “fake news,” and the media’s relentless attacks on President Donald Trump. Listen to the podcast or read a lightly edited transcript below.
Rob Bluey: Your organization has been around from the start of the conservative movement, and you are doing some really transformational things. So I want to delve into a couple of those. But before we begin, share with us the mission of Accuracy in Media and what it is you do.
Adam Guillette: Reed Irvine founded our organization in 1969 because that was a time where you had Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, lying to Americans about what was happening in the Vietnam War. So he set out to use a combination of citizen activism and investigative journalism to create a healthy skepticism of the media. And when he passed away just over a decade ago, The New York Times credited, or blamed, depending on how you view it, blamed him with creating skepticism toward the media today.
Bluey: And of course, it was also just five years after Barry Goldwater had made his run for president, so pre-Ronald Reagan and a lot of the figures that modern conservatives really identify with. You were at the vanguard back then to do the type of work that you were doing.
Guillette: That’s exactly right. They were doing investigative journalism before it was cool. They were the hipsters of investigative journalism. They were taking on media bias using citizen activism before the internet. Before you could send out an action alert and get all of your followers to email this person or email this congressman, they would mail postcards to their supporters and say, “Fill this out, send it to the address on there, and tell them what you think about that article in the paper.”
They were doing brilliant stuff at a much more difficult time when there was no real precedent for how to do it or how do you go about exposing media bias. They were making it up as they went along and they did it very well.
Bluey: So you just celebrated this 50th anniversary in Washington. You’re new to the organization as its leader. Tell us about where you want to see and take the organization in the future.
Guillette: I want to bring back our great history of investigative journalism. I think moral outrage is the most powerful force in all of politics and nothing elicits moral outrage better than hidden camera, undercover investigative journalism.
And it is a target-rich environment. There are so many folks in the media and outside the media that should be exposed. There are some incredibly powerful targets in the media that nobody really talks about. People complain about Rachel Maddow or they complain about The New York Times. Most of the people watching MSNBC already are of that political persuasion.
I’m more worried about the influence from sites like Now This and BuzzFeed. People signed up for Now This on Facebook because of puppy videos. Who doesn’t like puppy videos? Fast forward a couple of years, they have 10 million followers and they start putting out news that’s so biased that CNN calls them out for it, and they’re reaching easily influenced young people who signed up for puppy videos and sharing propaganda with them on a daily basis. That’s dangerous.
Bluey: It’s really remarkable to see the growth of some of these sites. If you’re a parent or somebody who doesn’t necessarily keep tabs on what the millennial generation or Gen Z is following, that’s how they are consuming their news. They’re not getting it through the evening newscast or the newspaper. They are turning to sites and platforms like Snapchat and Twitter to consume that news and information.
I want to go back to the investigative reporting piece of it, because you previously were at Project Veritas, so you obviously have some knowledge and experience doing those undercover investigations. Talk to us about how that experience shaped your view and why you think that it’s so important to pursue at Accuracy in Media.
Guillette: I’ve really come to the conclusion that politics is so much more determined by emotion than by fact and logic, for better and for worse. We would argue for worse.
And we can either sit around and bemoan the fact that political voters don’t make their decisions logically and largely make them emotionally, or we can embrace the fact that human beings are creatures of emotion. They make decisions emotionally and then search for logic and facts to back them up.
The most effective method of persuasion is leading with emotion and backing it up with facts. The left, they’re masters at emotion. We resign ourselves to facts and statistics and put people to sleep.
Say we’re debating Obamacare. We’ll stack up all the facts and statistics and prove that it’s a bad idea. And someone might say, “OK, I kind of agree.” The left comes in and says, “Well, what about that single mother over there?” And just like that the battle has been lost.
So one thing I learned at Veritas and previously at the Moving Picture Institute is that when you use emotional arguments to draw people in, that gets them to understand how much you care and that gets them to care, and then you can use your facts and logic and statistics to back up your argument and say, “This isn’t anecdotal. In fact, X, Y, and Z.”
I think it’s a great one-two punch that our entire movement could be utilizing. It’s a much better way to get people to pay attention to policy papers and graphs and statistics and so forth when you lead with the emotional arguments that investigative journalism can bring forth.
Bluey: Adam, I wholeheartedly agree. I hear it often from our president at The Heritage Foundation, Kay Coles James. It’s one of the reasons we started The Daily Signal five years ago was to do a better job of exactly what you’re describing.
It is challenging for conservatives because we too often want to resort right to the facts and the data and the numbers, but those stories are so powerful and can be incredibly helpful in terms of convincing people and persuading them that our solutions really are going to lead to a better life for all Americans.
Guillette: That’s right, and that we’re not just calculated pencil pushers, obsessed with numbers, that we actually care about individuals, that we actually care about you and so forth, and the kind of stuff you’re talking about is what most effectively accomplishes that.
Bluey: Tell us how somebody could go about finding the work that you’re doing as you’re producing this investigative reporting. Where do they go to find it?
Guillette: The website is AIM.org. We’re also on all the social media channels and we literally just relaunched a couple of weeks ago, and we’re working right now to hire investigative journalists and to build a small cadre or small army of them out there working on a variety of fronts in a variety of states.
I can’t specifically name too many of our targets right now, but it is an incredibly target-rich environment that we face. Our movement could use umpteen organizations doing investigative journalism to bring our ideas to light, to expose morally outrageous behavior, and I’m excited for what we’re going to accomplish next year.
Bluey: Prior to The Daily Signal launching, we had an investigative reporting team here at The Heritage Foundation, so that was a precursor to what eventually became The Daily Signal. I admire you. It’s hard work. It’s not easy. It takes time and a lot of effort on the part of journalists who are pursuing investigative reporting. But I give you credit for doing it.
You mentioned social media just a moment ago. It is increasingly difficult for conservatives, it seems, to get their message out using the social media platforms. We have heard all sorts of debates recently about whether or not companies are going to ban political advertising and whether or not algorithms are biased against conservatives. I wanted to give you an opportunity to weigh in on what you think the current state of affairs is with some of these social media platforms.
Guillette: Now, we’re certainly dealing with tremendous difficulties with sites like Twitter and Facebook. Twitter was caught shadow banning. They said they were trying to block Russian bots from taking over their site. When asked what terms they use to flag a Russian bot, they said, “Well, people are tweeting about God, guns, American flag emoji. Then you know it’s a bot.”
These are the people that we’re dealing with, people who think that if you’ve got an American flag emoji, you’re obviously a Russian bot because somebody living in Silicon Valley never confronted anyone in their life who would use an American flag emoji in a non-ironic sense. So that absolutely is a challenge.
I would say we’ve got a lot of self-inflicted wounds with social media as well. We’re very often happy to be in our own echo chamber and share stuff that’s really only of interest to people who share our beliefs. We’ll endlessly virtue signal about pro-life causes as if we’re going to save one baby with every like and five babies with every share, ignoring the fact that everyone in my social network [is] already pro-life. I think that’s a big problem with it.
Other times organizations within our movement create content that really are only appealing to our echo chamber, only appealing to our supporters and aren’t necessarily of interest to the easily persuadable 19-year-olds.
It’s a challenge, because if you’ve got to pitch something to a financial supporter of your organization, it’s got to appeal to them, but obviously what’s going to appeal to a 65-year-old may not be as appealing to a 19-year-old. And I think we can more better balance that and make sure that the content we create in social is going after that actual audience.
Bluey: You’ve had experience doing it even before coming to Accuracy in Media at Project Veritas and the Moving Picture Institute. What advice do you have for people who might be active on social media? How can they do a better job of breaking out of those echo chambers?
Guillette: It’s just like if you’re giving a speech to an audience. The thing is know your audience. Who are you going after? Speaking their language. If your audience only spoke French, you would at the very least have subtitles. But so frequently we’ll create content that really is only appealing to our group, and it’s understandable because it’s so rare to see content for us.
There’s you guys, there’s some others out there, but if I turn on TV, odds are it’s going to be a left-wing point of view offering comedy. If I turn on a network show, odds are it’s going to be a left-wing storyline subtly being put through.
So I can understand why people are so excited to make content that’s specifically for us. But if we seek to persuade, if we don’t just seek to motivate the base, the goal should be knowing your audience and trying to actually persuade them and speaking in a language that they speak in.
A lot of times, we’ll see videos created that are incredibly long on our side and incredibly fact-based. Well, if you have a 12-minute video and consistently people are clicking away on YouTube after two minutes, YouTube is going to down-rank your video like crazy and you’ll sit there and say, “Well, those jerks are biased against conservatives. Those jerks.”
Well, no, it’s because YouTube wants you to watch videos for the rest of your life. They’d like you to watch one video until it ends, then another, then another, and if people are clicking away two minutes into your video, they don’t want people to see your video. It’s your own darn fault. Our side needs to embrace more effective tactics on YouTube and on Facebook and Twitter.
Bluey: That’s so true. I had an opportunity earlier this year to attend the Social Media Summit that President [Donald] Trump hosted at the White House, and I believe he either was asked or he referenced the fact that some people say, “You wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for social media.” He says he would be president regardless.
I have my own doubts. Social media definitely gave him a direct line of communication to the American people. He’s still using it, obviously, with Instagram and Twitter and Facebook on a daily basis. I think it’s so important that conservatives leverage that opportunity.
For years we complained about the media serving as a filter and not letting through the information that we were trying to get out there to more and more Americans. I think that’s one of the reasons you do hear concerns about some of the social media companies today is that they don’t want to see information restricted or limited, but you have to create effective content that people want to consume as well.
Guillette: That’s exactly right. Certainly there’s bias against conservatives. Certainly the power they have is incredibly dangerous.
We often talk about Eisenhower’s farewell address and how he warned about the military-industrial complex. In that same speech, he warned about the dangers of a technological elite that could take over our nation without us even realizing it. That danger exists with Google and with Facebook and with Twitter. Google can redefine words like they did with fascism without you even realizing it.
Three years ago, Google, to fight fascism, left-wing ideology, which it is, as soon as Trump started getting called a fascist, they redefined the term as a right-wing ideology. What a dangerous power.
Similarly, Facebook, they know your political inclinations. They can make it so on Election Day if you’re of a political inclination they like, they’ve got banners on the top saying, “Vote today, vote today, vote today,” and if they disagree with your beliefs, those banners ain’t there. That’s a tremendous power they’ve got.
But the first thing we need to focus on, no self-inflicted wounds. Let’s at least use them as effectively as we can.
Bluey: [Facebook founder and CEO] Mark Zuckerberg gave a big speech here in Washington, D.C., at Georgetown University where he talked about the benefits of free speech and why he wanted to keep Facebook as open to different points of view as possible.
He came under some fire for that from those on the left, which, it seems that they don’t necessarily agree with that instinct that we should have a freedom to speak our minds.
Do you think that he’s sincere in those remarks? Do you think Facebook is trying to position itself differently from some of those other social media platforms? Or is this just lip service?
Guillette: Even if he’s fully sincere—let’s assume that—he doesn’t have control over every bit of his organization every day, as Project Veritas exposed. There were folks inside the organization who were demonetizing and down-ranking people endlessly, just as we saw on Twitter. So it’s more to the company than Mark Zuckerberg. He’s not the only one there.
And what we need to do is first use these platforms properly, and second, if we find legitimate instances that we can prove of them being biased, let’s expose that again and again and again and create that outrage amongst the American people as a whole that will cause them to reform their ways.
They’re always going to have a cranky, loud leftist majority that they probably go to cocktail hours with every Thursday afternoon that is going to have their ear telling them that they should be blocking hate speech and we’ve got to be aware of that and we have to counterbalance it with a majority in America of people who think that it should be a platform for all viewpoints and those folks putting pressure on Facebook from the other side.
Bluey: And I might be remiss if I didn’t ask you about President Trump, who we’ve talked about, and somebody who has used the term “fake news.” He’s constantly criticizing the media as being biased against him despite the tremendous economic success he’s had in this country leading it as the president. What are your thoughts on the traditional media, the national news media’s coverage of him, particularly as we head into an election year?
Guillette: As we’ve even seen that The New York Times, Project Veritas exposed, they’re all chasing the Trump bump. It’s an era of declining clicks, declining subscribership, and so forth. So they’ve given up objective journalism and instead are writing any kind of anti-Trump content they can because they know there’s a rabid base of people who want to read that content and it’ll sell.
It’s almost as if they’re writing fan fiction in their newspapers and on their websites because that’s of interest to that base of subscribers. That’s morally outrageous. Don’t pretend to be a journalist. The greatest threat to real news is fake news. These folks say that attacking the news is a threat to our democracy. Their fake news is a threat to our republic. It’s morally outrageous.
Bluey: Adam, the other thing that I associate with that are polls indicating the trust in media and journalists appears to be at record lows. Increasingly, it seems that the American people are looking for alternative sources, probably places like Accuracy in Media and The Daily Signal, because they have lost trust in other media platforms.
What is it that you’re going to do at Accuracy in Media to make sure that you are on the same level and breaking through and having success as a New York Times or Washington Post or a big TV network?
Guillette: We’re going to confirm suspicions. We are going to expose bias. We’re going to catch people engaged in morally outrageous behavior and maintain a healthy skepticism. And I think when these folks get exposed again and again and again, it’ll cause some people to reform their ways.
We’ve got a profession now where it’s much like contractors or trial lawyers or politicians. The few remaining good journalists are going to want to be in a position where they say, “These folks have given me a bad name,” and they’ll start to speak out against the fake news going on out there.
Bluey: Adam, as we wrap up here, anything else you’d like our audience to know about the work you’re doing at Accuracy in Media and your new leadership of the organization?
Guillette: Sure. Follow us on all of our social media platforms at @AccuracyInMedia. One thing we’re launching in the beginning of next year is we’re going to be working with conservative social media influencers to expose influencers and celebrities and reporters sharing fake news online.
I think there are so many celebrities out there who are far more influential with news than any journalist that we would talk about because if you’re a young person, you’re not following Rachel Maddow and Twitter unless you’re a leftist, but you might be following Jaden Smith or Justin Bieber and they’ll be incredibly influential when they share fake news.
We’re building an army of folks who will activate as soon as we see that sort of thing being shared and respond to it, not in a tribal, divisive manner saying, “You blankety blank, sharing fake news.” But rather when George Takei shared the photos of kids in cages on the border, [of] immigrant children, and said, “Darn you Trump for doing this,” people responded and said, “Appreciate your concern about kids on the border. That photo’s from the Obama administration.” And to his credit, Takei corrected the record and apologized.
I think if we can replicate that again and again and again and say to these celebrities and to these influencers, “Listen, I appreciate your concern in X issue, but what you shared was wrong,” people will either be more hesitant to share fake news because they don’t want to get called out and look like a fool or they’ll start actually checking the facts before they get out there and they’ll apologize when they screw it up.
Bluey: And we can certainly hope that this is successful because I can tell you that I still hear repeated to this day the claim about President Trump and cages.
You can even have an apology, but because of the cultural influence and the way that news spreads, sometimes that message doesn’t ever filter back to the people who saw the original post. So it’s really important that you’re doing this project.
I’d also say culture, as Andrew Breitbart always said, is upstream from politics. These cultural figures and celebrities are oftentimes the ones at the forefront and the politicians are the ones lagging behind.
Guillette: Politicians are followers, not leaders. They follow the polls, they follow the celebrities, they follow the money. These folks in the culture have a much greater influence over our nation than a Rachel Maddow or even a Sean Hannity does. Although those people have tremendous value for what they do, they’re not as much reaching undecided folks and easily persuaded young people as these celebrities are.
Bluey: Adam Guillette, thanks so much for joining The Daily Signal. Congratulations on your new role at Accuracy in Media. We wish you the best.
It’s been two years this month since Congress passed and President
Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, providing the first major tax
reform since 1986.
The tax cuts lowered our federal corporate income tax rate, which was hurting American job creators’ ability to compete on a global stage. Previously at 35%, the U.S. rate was one of the highest in the developed world.
Now at 21%, it is closer to the average corporate income tax rate among developed countries, which allows U.S. companies to compete on a more level playing field.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act also created innovative Opportunity Zones to provide tax incentives to boost long-term investment in historically distressed, underserved communities across our country.
Change doesn’t happen overnight, but this is an important part of a long-term effort to strengthen America’s economy and afford greater economic opportunities to all of our citizens in the decades to come.
In addition to bolstering our national economy as a whole, tax reform provided real relief for American families on a personal level. This came in the form of an increased standard deduction, as well as doubling the Child Tax Credit and expanding eligibility so more families can participate.
It also included strengthening 529 savings plans, which are one of
the most commonly utilized tools for planning and saving for education
expenses.
Under the old rules, families could only apply their 529 savings
plans toward eligible colleges or universities. Now, thanks to tax reform, the
money invested in your 529 savings plan can be used to cover qualifying
expenses for private, public, or religious schools from kindergarten all the
way through 12th grade.
Each of these reforms is playing a part in reenergizing our
economy, one family at a time.
Consumers are highly optimistic. Richard Curtin, the chief
economist at the Surveys of Consumers Attitudes, recently said consumer
sentiment has been at 95 or higher in 30 of the past 35 months, according to CNBC. That’s a 20-year high.
Curtin also noted that, despite political uncertainties, “Personal spending will be
energized by record favorable evaluations by consumers of their personal
financial situation, with gains expected across the entire income distribution
… .”
Our tax code will always be a work in progress, but this overhaul was an important step forward in updating our antiquated and overly complicated system. It also serves as a powerful reminder of what can be accomplished when we are directing our energy toward fixing real problems for the American people.
Moving forward, we must ensure these tax relief provisions are
made permanent and continue our efforts to simplify and streamline the tax
code.
Congressional leaders should be focusing on innovative solutions
to make the system work better for American small business owners who are
trying to create jobs, middle-class families trying to provide a better future
for their children, and underserved communities trying to break out of
generational poverty. After all, that’s what our constituents elected us to
come here and do.
Unfortunately, however, under Democratic leadership, this Congress
has only turned about 70 bills and resolutions into law, according to Congress.gov. In comparison, the last divided Congress, when Harry Reid
controlled the Senate, was able to pass nearly 300 bills and resolutions into
law between 2013 and 2014.
This is the opportunity cost of Democrats’ endless investigations and impeachment trials. It is not just about the cost of valuable time and taxpayer dollars being expended, but also about the loss of what we could otherwise be accomplishing to address real problems facing our country.
The two-year anniversary of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act doesn’t just
commemorate an important piece of legislation; it is also a call to Congress to
get to work.
The American people hired us to be problems solvers, not circus
performers. Let’s put an end to endless investigations to justify a
predetermined push to impeach and focus on working to improve the lives of the
people who put us here in the first place.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 proved that we can tackle an
enormous challenge that had been festering for decades—and deliver real
results. Now, we need to harness that energy toward the opportunities that
remain to continue improving our tax code, modernizing our trade deals with
agreements like the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and addressing the challenges
that impact underserved communities, families, and individuals across our
country on a daily basis.
On Monday, the network morning shows seized on laughable Democratic spin accusing Senate Republicans of “failing to be impartial jurors” in the upcoming impeachment trial of President Trump. This from the same media that hasn’t expressed any concern over Democratic senators running for president while presiding over the impeachment of the Republican incumbent they’re vying to replace.
