53percenter's Blog

Back in December, as the media congratulated itself for standing up to anything Donald Trump-related while steeling itself against the possibility that there might be another side to the issue, CNN’s Dana Bash made it clear how hurtful the words “fake news” were and how they tried their hardest to get to the bottom of every story.

“The attacks on the media work. And it breaks my heart,” Bash said, according to The Hill.

“Are reporters humans who get things wrong? Of course. But we wake up every morning trying to get things right. By demonizing reporters and calling our work ‘Fake News,’ it is chipping away at a critical pillar of American democracy.”

A critical pillar of American democracy that works so hard to get things right that it rescinded an invitation for a local television station to partner with them on a story after they realized it wouldn’t support their narrative.

As part of their coverage of the border fence debate, CNN decided to reach out to San Diego’s KUSI-TV to ask what locals think about the barrier separating their little chunk of America from Mexico.

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The end result was this 40-second segment posted Thursday detailing exactly what happened.

“A sign of the times in this debate on the shutdown,” anchor Anna Laurel says. “CNN asked if KUSI would provide a reporter to offer our local view of the debate, especially to learn if the wall works in San Diego.”

KUSI is an independent local news station in California. CNN probably expected someone to come on and tell them how the wall was a crime against humanity and it was a waste of money.

They weren’t going to get that.

“KUSI offered our own Dan Plante, who’s reported many times that the wall is not an issue here,” anchor Sandra Maas said.

Thursday morning, @CNN called the KUSI Newsroom asking if a reporter could give them a local view of the debate surrounding the border wall and government shutdown. After we informed them about our past reports, they declined to hear from us.

More info: https://t.co/RX4mB6EdNE pic.twitter.com/r0SAvWxFIm

— KUSI News (@KUSINews) January 11, 2019

“In fact, most officials believe that it is effective. The issue we face is the migrants and the debate over their treatment.”

This would have been an interesting segment — Plante, certainly not offering a take that CNN wasn’t used to, spurring some conversation on a network that’s not necessarily known to view the wall with any great kindness.

RELATED: Jim Acosta Has To Be Furious After Watching What Happened During His Report on the Border Wall

I say, of course, “would have been.” It didn’t happen for reasons that aren’t going to shock you.

“Now, knowing this, CNN declined to have us on our programs,” Laurel says, “which often present the wall as not required in other places like the stretch of the Texas border that the president visited earlier today.

“They didn’t like what they heard from us,” Laurel concludes.

“Just some background for you,” Maas says.

Well, imagine that. And imagine what would have happened if this would have been Fox News. There would have been gnashing of teeth and rending of Balmain T-shirts from every celebrity on Twitter. The silence on this one couldn’t be more deafening.

However, one outlet that wasn’t staying silent was KUSI. They were willing to speak out about how blatant this all was. If there was any sign that conservatives are winning, it’s that.

Thankfully, CNN managed to spoil its own carefully crafted narrative without any help from KUSI:

I found some steel slats down on the border. But I don’t see anything resembling a national emergency situation.. at least not in the McAllen TX area of the border where Trump will be today. pic.twitter.com/KRoLdszLUu

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 10, 2019

Nice wall there, Jim.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

The first public thing Mitt Romney did in the year 2019–on Jan. 1–was publish an attack on President Trump in The Washington Post, which, as we know, has not lacked for attacks on Trump.

He did not even wait until being sworn in, two days later.

I campaigned for Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, when he ran for president, including a closed-door meeting with him to raise funds among wealthy Los Angeles Republicans. As it turns out, I worked to elect a somewhat foolish man with few identifiable convictions. (For the record, I would do so again, since just about any Republican president will do less damage to the country than any leftist–and Democratic politicians are now all leftists.)

Life is filled with disappointments, and I will survive this one. But I should explain why this Romney column is so disappointing.

First the foolish part. What did Romney seek to achieve by publishing an attack on his own party’s president? Did he think he would persuade one supporter of the president to stop supporting him? If he did, he failed, not because none of us can be persuaded to change our minds but because the piece was so intellectually and morally shallow.

So, why did he write it?

And why did he publish it in The Washington Post, a Trump-hating newspaper?

Does he share The Washington Post’s political, social, and moral values?

Did he think he would enlighten Washington Post readers, the vast majority of whom already loathe the president, the Republican Party, and the half of the country that voted for Donald Trump?

Of course not.

Does he believe attacking Trump is more important than addressing whether the United States has borders secure enough to prevent millions of people from coming into America illegally?

Does he believe attacking Trump is more important than the left’s suppression of free speech at virtually every American university and the left’s suppression of free speech on the internet?

Does he believe attacking Trump is more important than the left’s ongoing attempt to abolish male and female identities among children?

Does he believe attacking Trump is more important than attacking the left’s goal of weakening the American military?

Does he believe attacking Trump is more important than attacking the gargantuan size of the federal government, which undermines the unique American ideal of limited government?

Does he believe attacking Trump is more important than attacking the left for essentially destroying the Boy Scouts, from which his own Latter-day Saints church has now withdrawn support?

Does he believe attacking Trump is more important than the dramatic decline of religion in American life? He is, after all, a religious man.

Does he believe attacking Trump is more important than preventing the left from dominating the country’s federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court?

If he does, he may be more than a fool. And that something more may involve character defects.

I try to avoid directing comments at the character of those I differ with, but since Mitt Romney deems it of national significance to publicly attack the character of the president of the United States, and given that he considers character more important than policies that affect the nation and the world, he has invited consideration of his character.

Given his attack on the president, rather than on the nation–and civilization-destroying policies of the left and the Democratic Party, character issues may explain his Washington Post column.

While we have every reason to assume Mitt Romney is personally honest and faithful in marriage, a public figure’s character is far more than his or her personal honesty and marital fidelity. Plenty of honest men and women and plenty of faithful husbands and wives have helped ruin societies. And in those more important areas of character, Mitt Romney is apparently quite lacking.

One character issue is lack of courage. In today’s environment, it takes no courage to attack Donald Trump, especially in The Washington Post. Romney is now the darling of the elites of this country. He will be showered with praise by the elite newspapers and all the news networks (except Fox). He will be invited to give talks at universities throughout the country. He will be feted in Europe. And no one will scream obscenities at him when he dines in Washington, D.C., restaurants.

Another character issue is pettiness. It now seems very hard to deny that Romney resents Trump for doing what he failed to do: win the presidency.

A third character problem is a lack of conviction. Does anyone reading this column know what Mitt Romney stands for aside from winning elections? Can one reader name one strong conviction Mitt Romney holds?

I can’t.

He appears to be essentially conviction- and ideology-free. The New Republic wrote in 2012, the year Romney ran for president, “In his various incarnations as a candidate, he has campaigned as a progressive, a conservative, a technocrat, and a populist, suggesting his deepest attachment is to winning.”

When Donald Trump sought the Republican presidential nomination, I was convinced he had no ideology. And I could not identify any convictions. I therefore opposed his nomination. But I vigorously supported his campaign for president and hoped my original assessment was wrong.

Lo and behold, Trump turns out to have the most solid conservative convictions of almost any Republican politician since Ronald Reagan–and an almost preternatural amount of courage to put them into practice.

In 2012, The Wall Street Journal wrote of Romney’s campaign director, Matt Rhoades, “People who know him say he isn’t inspired by ideology …” And Fox News host Chris Wallace described Romney’s chief campaign strategist, Stuart Stevens, as “not big on ideology.”

Just like their boss.

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Few people deserve to be excoriated more than Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Few people are better at excoriating leftist nonsense than conservative actor and producer James Woods.

It’s a perfect match.

As she is wont to do, Pelosi opted to grandstand publicly in an interview last week about why President Donald Trump’s border wall is, in her mind, such a horrific idea.

Nancy Pelosi: “The fact is, a wall is an immorality. It’s not who we are as a nation.” https://t.co/l6dDLDRRf0 pic.twitter.com/tq3DDjG0Gp

— ABC News (@ABC) January 4, 2019

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“The fact is, a wall is an immorality,” Pelosi said shortly after being sworn in on Thursday. “It’s not who we are as a nation.”

An immorality? I’m sorry, but it completely eludes me as to how and why wanting to secure the borders of a sovereign nation is “immoral.”

Worse than not making sense, Pelosi’s remarks are the utter height of hypocrisy. It only took Woods seven words to nail her on it.

Well, then, why do you have one? https://t.co/3hTIvJWbMu

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 6, 2019

“Well, then, why do you have one?” Woods sharply retorted.

It’s a question many leftists would struggle to answer. If security and protection are so immoral, why have any at all surrounding their homes?

Woods’ remark echoes a tweet Trump sent in late December skewering former President Barack Obama for a wall around his Washington property.

President and Mrs. Obama built/has a ten foot Wall around their D.C. mansion/compound. I agree, totally necessary for their safety and security. The U.S. needs the same thing, slightly larger version!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2018

And just to be clear, this isn’t some nutty right-wing conspiracy theory. Even the left-leaning fact-checkers at Snopes admitted that there was at least some truth about these walls leftists had around their homes.

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It’s true that there have been some debunked memes about a wall surrounding Pelosi’s home that turned out to be false, because it was not actually her residence. But a different Snopes fact check noted that Pelosi owned property “along the banks of the Napa River on Zinfandel Lane in Northern California” that did have some sort of fencing or gates around the enclosure.

Snopes noted that the shorter walls likely provide no additional security, but at the very least Pelosi wanted to make it clear exactly where the rest of the world ends and her own land begins.

And anyone crossing that border without permission would be trespassing — and could be dealt with accordingly.

Gee, why does that sound so familiar?

Oh that’s right. It’s because that basic idea is one of the many reasons Trump has been touting border security in the face of hypocrites like Pelosi for the last several years.

Pelosi and her ilk, of course, deny that.

“And this is not a wall between Mexico and the United States that the president is creating here,” Pelosi also said in the ABC News clip. “It’s a wall between reality and his constituents, his supporters.”

Pelosi, as classy as ever, also had time the throw in a jab at the president.

“He’s a master of diversion,” she added.

Here’s the thing, Mrs. Pelosi. President Trump is not the one diverting attention from a problem here. He is the one facing the reality of a major problem, as the recent, tragic death of a policeman in California showed.

And he’s striving to protect the country in the process.

That’s far more preferable than a hypocritical hack who’d rather not get anything done.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

I’d like to joke that this might be the worst case of senioritis in history, but it’s no laughing matter when police officers are being killed.

California Gov. Jerry Brown, mockingly referred to as “Moonbeam” for decades now, had to have been utterly checked out, knowing that his term would be over on Monday.

How else can you possibly explain Brown’s butt-covering interview with KXTV last week when he had just days left on the job?

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of the utterly tragic story of Newman, California, police Cpl. Ronil Singh, who was shot and killed during a traffic stop in the early morning hours of the day after Christmas.

He is survived by his widow, Anamika Chand-Singh, and the couple’s 5-month-old son.

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As Fox News notes, the alleged killer, identified as Gustavo Perez Arriaga, is an illegal alien who had multiple DUIs and suspected gang ties.

So to recap, Singh, a legal immigrant, was allegedly shot and killed by an illegal immigrant within a “sanctuary state” that helps illegal immigrants hide from the proper authorities.

But Gov. Moonbeam thinks that SB54, the “sanctuary state” law, had “nothing to do” with Singh’s death.

Here’s his interview. The “sanctuary” part occurs in the first few minutes.

Brown was asked if he thought bad people could slip through the cracks of such a lenient set of laws.

” I don’t think so,” he responded. “I think people now are looking to blame somebody because of the terrible things that happened. But it had nothing to do with the law of California.”

Are you kidding me?

Brown does have a point in that it’s not fair to blame SB54 for Singh’s death. The law prevents local authorities from sharing information with the federal government if an illegal alien is arrested for an unrelated crime.

Gustavo Perez Arriaga’s previous DUI arrests took place before the bill became law in 2017, so it didn’t apply.

RELATED: ‘Progressive’ Cali Took 9 Years To Make Fire Risk Map

However, for Brown or any other politician to say the permissive atmosphere that gave birth to SB54, and the one that continues to be fostered by California liberals today, had “nothing to do” with Singh’s death is simply a lie, and a slap in the face to Singh’s widow and infant child.

Whatever laws were on the books three years ago, whatever law was on the books when Cpl. Singh was shot to death, it’s indisputable that California and its municipalities have bent the law in recent years to favor the presence of illegal aliens in the Golden State.

And if they had not been doing so, it’s a very good chance that the illegal alien charged with Singh’s death might not have been in the country at all.

The technicalities of Brown’s argument don’t change the fact that he presided over an era in California when the very idea of “law” became warped in favor of a group of people who are only in this country because of their defiance of the law.

One of those people was Gustavo Perez Arriaga. That’s the reality, and every thinking person knows it.

Good riddance, Moonbeam. Something tells me you won’t be all that missed.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

In the aftermath of the shocking 2016 presidential election, countless elected Democrats, liberal media outlets and leftists in general indignantly decried alleged Russian interference in the election via the deliberate spread of disinformation and “fake news” on social media with an intent to manipulate voters and undermine the integrity of American democratic processes.

However, it has now been revealed that some cynical liberals adapted the exact same tactics and techniques attributed to the Russians for their own purposes in the 2017 special Senate election in Alabama, which resulted in Democrat Doug Jones narrowly defeating Republican Roy Moore to fill the seat vacated by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

It had been previously reported that a liberal-aligned cybersecurity research firm — with financial backing from a power player in Silicon Valley — had deceptively engaged in a secretive social media campaign against Moore, one that sought to drive a wedge among his supporters with false stories about alleged Russian support for the candidate and purposeful leaks to the media designed to sow discord and depress turnout among Moore supporters.

Now, The New York Times — which broke the initial story of the first deceptive scheme to defeat Moore — has dropped another surprising bombshell that is quite similar in nature, with a story Monday that revealed a second social media scheme purposefully designed to suppress support for the Republican candidate.

The second deceptive scheme sprang up in the final weeks of the special election in Alabama and involved the use of a fake Facebook page and Twitter account known as “Dry Alabama,” which was purported to be managed by Moore-supporting Baptist prohibitionists who wanted to ban the sale of alcohol across the entirety of the state.

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The intent of the scheme was to drive a wedge between the more moderate and business-friendly Republicans who supported Moore and were favorable to alcohol sales, as opposed to the more socially-conservative Republican supporters of the candidate who generally look disfavorably upon alcohol sales and consumption.

A progressive activist, consultant and writer in Alabama named Matt Osborne admitted to The Times that he had been involved in the “Dry Alabama” fakery, but sought to excuse the underhanded and deceptive manipulation by accusing Republicans — without evidence — of doing similar things online.

“If you don’t do it, you’re fighting with one hand tied behind your back,” said Osborne. “You have a moral imperative to do this — to do whatever it takes.”

While the first scheme to manipulate and depress Moore supporters was funded by billionaire LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, the second scheme was funded by two anonymous individuals in Virginia.

Both of the projects received $100,000 each, coincidentally funneled to the leftist operatives through a progressive financial support group known as Investing In Us.

That group is managed by a man named Dmitri Mehlhorn, who declined to comment to The Times on the operations, but said in a separate Medium post that he held “concern that our tactics might cause us to become like those we are fighting,” and had declared that “some tactics are beyond the pale” in a renunciation of disinformation schemes.

Other participants in the “Dry Alabama” project were named, but also declined to share any specific insight into the operation. One woman involved, identified as Beth Becker, cited a non-disclosure agreement to explain the silence surrounding the project, but did tell The Times, “I don’t think anything this group did crossed any lines.”

Technically, with respect to federal and state laws and regulations, Becker is probably correct that no lines were crossed.

However, as was the case with the first scheme — which resulted in the suspension of five associated Facebook users after it was exposed — the scheme quite likely violated the social media platform’s terms of service, which expressly prohibit “misrepresentation” and coordinated efforts to “mislead people about the origin of content.” That, of course, is precisely what both of the anti-Moore operations did.

RELATED: Dirty Tech: Microsoft Board Member Caught Funding Dems’ Anti-Roy Moore Operation

The Times hinted toward there being at least two other deceptive social media operations designed to support Jones’ campaign that were separate from the first two, but declined to provide much in the way of specifics … though perhaps those will be exposed in future articles.

In the end, Jones defeated Moore by the slim margin of just 22,000 votes out of nearly 1.5 million cast. While it is impossible to quantify the impact of the subversive and deceptive social media campaigns on Moore’s supporters, it is likewise impossible to dismiss them as having no effect in terms of depressing Moore voters from turning out on Election Day while encouraging Jones voters to do exactly that.

The left screamed bloody murder in 2016 when liberals hought Russians had tampered with the U.S. election by way of deceptive and manipulative social media practices, but liberals had no problem quietly adopting those same tactics as their own when they thought it would be politically useful.

That’s pretty much the height of liberal hypocrisy.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

In 1948, the Jewish people secured sovereignty over their ancestral homeland for the first time in nearly 2,000 years. Once again, they could thrive—religiously, economically, culturally—in the home their ancestors were forced to flee.

But more than 70 years after the rebirth of the Jewish nation, enemies of her very existence are using boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) to economically harm and morally impugn one of our closest allies. Unfortunately, several newly elected members of Congress are vocal advocates of BDS—particularly Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

Following her election victory, Tlaib said, “Americans should not be aiding any country that doesn’t support human rights. I’ve been very clear. I will not support racist countries that pick and choose who gets access to justice.” She further claims that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pursuing “apartheid policies.”

During Israel’s 2012 war against Hamas (an entity designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization), Omar claimed, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” She has also claimed that Israel is an “apartheid … regime.” Following her election victory in November 2018, her campaign said she “believes in and supports the BDS movement.”

These peddlers of hate hurl false allegations against Israel of apartheid and minority oppression in an attempt to generate public support for BDS.

In reality, Israel is the Mideast’s only true democracy—one in which minority rights are protected. The right to vote, access to public health care, public education, freedom of speech, and protection of legal rights are enjoyed by all citizens, regardless of race and irrespective of religion.

As testament to this, in 2015—the most recent general election—voters elected 17 Arabs to serve in the 120-member Knesset. Arabs also comprise a growing proportion—more than 16 percent—of undergraduate students, a long-term goal of the Israeli government. In fact, the number of Arab university students soared more than 78 percent in just seven years. And many Arabs serve in the Israeli Defense Forces.

The Israeli government also protects the freedom of religion. Across Jerusalem—the capital of Israel—Muslims, Christians, and Jews (and others) are free to practice their faith. Mosques, churches, and synagogues operate within yards of each other. From the Western Wall bordering the holiest site of the Jewish faith, the Muslim call to prayer can be heard throughout the day.

For nearly 700 years, Jewish people were denied entry to the burial place in Hebron of Abraham, their patriarch. Now, under Israeli control, both Muslims and Jews pray at this site. Across the nation, the Israeli government ensures these three great monotheistic faiths can be practiced more freely than at any other time in history.

Contrary to Tlaib’s “apartheid” claim, the Israeli government does not impose ethnic segregation on communities. Arab and Jewish Israelis are free to buy and sell homes and land within areas that fall under Israeli administration.

On the other hand, Jews are precluded from living in zones controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which manages Palestinian civil affairs. In fact, a fatwa—a ruling under Islamic law—forbids Arabs from selling real estate to Jews in those areas, under penalty of death. A top judge of the Palestinian Authority warned that acting contrary to this order qualifies as “high treason.”

The charter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization—technically considered the “sole official representative of the Palestinian people”—continues to call for the violent destruction of Israel. Schools and television stations operated by the Palestinian Authority poison residents with an endless diet of anti-Semitism. The Palestinian Authority government routinely names streets, public buildings, and parks in honor of terrorists. Even worse, it bestows millions of dollars annually as compensation to families of these same terrorists.

In past years, the political leadership in both U.S. political parties recognized and spoke out against the bigotry inherent in attempting to destroy the Middle East’s only bastion of liberty. It is time once again for these leaders to boldly condemn the bigotry of these newly elected BDS advocates.

Indeed, the BDS movement exemplifies contemporary anti-Semitism. How disappointing and appalling that a growing number of U.S. members of Congress join in the chorus of Israel’s enemies under the guise of human rights concerns.

Ed Buck is a Democratic donor who has given money to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Kyrsten Sinema, Ted Lieu, and others. Yesterday a man was found dead of an apparent drug overdose in Buck’s West Hollywood home. That would be news in itself but what’s really shocking is that this is the second time a man has been found dead in Buck’s home in two years. From CNN:

It’s the second death of an adult male at Buck’s home in the last couple years. In July 2017 a man identified as Gemmel Moore was determined to have fatally overdosed at the same location, authorities said. Buck, 64, was present at the time of both incidents…

CNN has reached out to Buck’s attorney, Seymour Amster, for comment.

Amster told CNN affiliate KCAL/KCBS that the man who died was one of Buck’s longtime friends and that Buck was sober and did not give the victim any drugs.

“This is not a situation where Mr. Buck has caused a death. This is a situation where Mr. Buck has longtime friends who unfortunately do not handle their life well,” Amster said.

The CNN story mentions that the death of Gemmel Moore was determined to be an accidental overdose, but it leaves out all the gory details. Here, from the Advocate, is a story published last July noting what Gemmel Moore wrote in his diary before he died:

Since Moore’s death was classified as an accidental methamphetamine overdose, numerous young black gay men have alleged that Buck has a fetish for shooting drugs into youthful black men he picks up off the street or on hookup sites. Moore had written about Buck injecting him with dangerous drugs before his death.

“I’ve become addicted to drugs and the worst one at that,” Moore wrote in his journal in December 2016. “Ed Buck is the one to thank. He gave me my first injection of crystal meth.”

“I ended up back at Buck [sic] house again and got munipulated [sic] into slamming again. I even went to the point where I was forced to doing 4 within a 2day [sic] period. This man is crazy and its [sic] sad. Will I ever get help?” he continued.

So this man, Buck, who allegedly has a fetish for drugging black men has now had a second black man die at his home from drugs. His explanation is, once again, that he had nothing to do with it. It’s just a complete coincidence that this keeps happening to him. I wonder if the LA County District Attorney’s office will agree…again?