Pres. Donald Trump

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(Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

Apparently, it’s not just enough to attack President Trump any more.

The mainstream media is doing its level best to attack anyone defending Trump, too. They’ve got venom to burn and nowhere was it more obvious than on the Sunday talk shows.

As leftists and anti-Trumpsters glide right through interviews with zero probing, Trump defenders, in contrast, are getting the third degree.

Just look at how bad it was over the weekend – here’s a list.

• Start with 60 Minutes, which featured two anti-Trump Democrats and one pro-Trump Republican, stacking the airtime for the left. “I always said, we will follow the facts where they take us,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed, in dramatic, grave, rehearsed, tones to 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley, claiming she wanted the whole impeachment show to be “a unifying experience” despite doing the exact opposite. Video here. Pelley didn’t do any probing on that colossal phoniness, despite House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pointing out very accurately later (around the 6:16 point in the video) that Pelosi started her impeachment inquiry well before she had President Trump’s transcript in her hands. Nor was Pelosi (nor was House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff who also got interviewed) asked about the weird little rules change about whistleblowers not needing any firsthand knowledge to file politically motivated complaints, which occurred just days before the whistleblower report came out (almost as if the rules change were planned that way) and whether that might mean a setup. She also wasn’t asked about the problem of Joe Biden’s sale of public office in the $50,000 a month payout from a foreign energy company for the ‘services’ of his drug-addled and otherwise unemployable son. “No evidence Hunter did anything illegal,” Pelley noted, delicately explaining it as a mere “appearance of conflict of interest” if that. Nor was Pelosi asked about what Trump really meant in attempting to get to the bottom of Biden’s own collusion with foreigners which was tied to the 2016 Russia collusion investigation. Pelosi also should have been asked about House Democrats’ letters asking the Ukrainians investigate Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and how that might be any different from Trump asking the Ukrainians to throw some sunlight on Biden’s dealings. Softball? Off easy? Double standard? You decide.
• By contrast, McCarthy got the third degree from Pelley, and to be fair, McCarthy did seem to keep begging Pelley’s questions and he made a minor error on the transcript, which didn’t help his case. However, the interview was choppy. That suggests there may have been some editing done, big editing, taking out all the parts where McCarthy could have been effectively defending Trump. Bottom line: He got mauled.
• That wasn’t the only instance of bias in the press. 
• CBS’s Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan gave Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, about the same treatment in this video here, starting with the ‘debunked server’ issue. Graham argues well that people need to vote Trump out if they think Trump did something wrong, something Brennan knew wasn’t part of the narrative so she changed the subject. “Do you think it’s ethical to bring up Joe Biden?” she asked. Graham answered a fierce yes, saying there was a corruption scandal that needed to get the bottom of. “It smells to high heaven,” said Graham, calling the whole thing “a political setup” and a “sham,” wanting to know about the whistleblower’s bias, the sudden rules change on whistleblowers, and other problems. Brennan changed the subject and said the transcript and whistleblower complaint “matched” and added ”I think this thing stinks.” Graham was very effective, and every time he made a good point, the subject got changed.  
• Meanwhile, NeverTrump Fox News host Chris Wallace mauled White House senior advisor Stephen Miller in savage beast mode. Video here and here. Miller tried to point out the backstory of Joe Biden’s underlying corruption — using public office to line his son’s pockets and doing some real quid pro quo of politically muscling Ukraine to fire its investigator of the Biden sweetheart deal as reason for Trump attempting to get the Ukrainians to investigate the matter. Instead of listen to that, Wallace got hostile, wanting to know about the utterly irrelevant Rudy Giuliani angle from Miller, saying: “I asked you a specific question and want a specific answer,” and as Miller tried to answer, Wallace interrupted, sharply shouting ‘answer my question!’ while poor low-key Miller couldn’t get a word in edgewise. A particularly nasty mauling. So much for ‘civility.’
• Then there was CNN’s Jake Tapper and GOP House ranking member of the Oversight Committee, Jim Jordan. (Video here). Tapper spent time arguing with Jordan about whether the whistleblower was partisan, a fact that was pretty well right there in the Attorney General’s report. Tapper wanted to fight about that instead of learn anything new. Jordan did manage to smack Tapper back pretty well, and Tapper tried to point out that Republicans were hypocrites about this, changing the subject. He pleaded for Tapper to look at the transcript, but to no avail. Tapper then wanted to argue about the rules change on firsthand knowledge from the whistleblower. Jordan tried to also argue that the firsthand sources contradicted the whistleblower’s report, including statements from the president of Ukraine. Jordan also talked of leaks of presidential conversations as reason for placing the transcripts on the secure server “I recognize you don’t want the facts coming out” Tapper replied. Jordan got ignored – and mauled. 
• Lastly, there was Rudy Giuliani. He made a string of interviews and complained about the double standards of pro- and anti-Trump guests to George Stephanopoulos. He also complained about interruptions, which have been pretty pervasive across the scale. Much ink has been spilled on how Giuliani’s wild Trumpian-style defenses of President Trump (must be a New York thang) wasn’t helping Trump’s case, and he ought to be off the air. The Joe Biden team, however, is now lobbying the press to keep Giuliani off the air, which rather suggests he thinks Giuliani is helping Trump. Guess who the media intends to listen to?

What are we looking at with this mass media effort to silence not just Trump but Trump’s defenders? It’s astonishing how strong the double standards are, and some of the maulings were quite egregious. 

In short, a ‘narrative’ is being created, with conservatives silenced and muzzled, and leftists skating. This is how we get ‘narratives,’ and it’s pretty clear the classic Obama-era narrative-making is now in action. Any questions as to why at least half the public despises the mainstream media? Democratic operatives with bylines means pro-Trump Republicans have almost as many obstacles to being heard as President Trump does. To repeat what Graham says: ‘It stinks.’

Image credit: CNN / Twitter screen shot

Apparently, it’s not just enough to attack President Trump any more.

The mainstream media is doing its level best to attack anyone defending Trump, too. They’ve got venom to burn and nowhere was it more obvious than on the Sunday talk shows.

As leftists and anti-Trumpsters glide right through interviews with zero probing, Trump defenders, in contrast, are getting the third degree.

Just look at how bad it was over the weekend – here’s a list.

• Start with 60 Minutes, which featured two anti-Trump Democrats and one pro-Trump Republican, stacking the airtime for the left. “I always said, we will follow the facts where they take us,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed, in dramatic, grave, rehearsed, tones to 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley, claiming she wanted the whole impeachment show to be “a unifying experience” despite doing the exact opposite. Video here. Pelley didn’t do any probing on that colossal phoniness, despite House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pointing out very accurately later (around the 6:16 point in the video) that Pelosi started her impeachment inquiry well before she had President Trump’s transcript in her hands. Nor was Pelosi (nor was House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff who also got interviewed) asked about the weird little rules change about whistleblowers not needing any firsthand knowledge to file politically motivated complaints, which occurred just days before the whistleblower report came out (almost as if the rules change were planned that way) and whether that might mean a setup. She also wasn’t asked about the problem of Joe Biden’s sale of public office in the $50,000 a month payout from a foreign energy company for the ‘services’ of his drug-addled and otherwise unemployable son. “No evidence Hunter did anything illegal,” Pelley noted, delicately explaining it as a mere “appearance of conflict of interest” if that. Nor was Pelosi asked about what Trump really meant in attempting to get to the bottom of Biden’s own collusion with foreigners which was tied to the 2016 Russia collusion investigation. Pelosi also should have been asked about House Democrats’ letters asking the Ukrainians investigate Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and how that might be any different from Trump asking the Ukrainians to throw some sunlight on Biden’s dealings. Softball? Off easy? Double standard? You decide.
• By contrast, McCarthy got the third degree from Pelley, and to be fair, McCarthy did seem to keep begging Pelley’s questions and he made a minor error on the transcript, which didn’t help his case. However, the interview was choppy. That suggests there may have been some editing done, big editing, taking out all the parts where McCarthy could have been effectively defending Trump. Bottom line: He got mauled.
• That wasn’t the only instance of bias in the press. 
• CBS’s Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan gave Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, about the same treatment in this video here, starting with the ‘debunked server’ issue. Graham argues well that people need to vote Trump out if they think Trump did something wrong, something Brennan knew wasn’t part of the narrative so she changed the subject. “Do you think it’s ethical to bring up Joe Biden?” she asked. Graham answered a fierce yes, saying there was a corruption scandal that needed to get the bottom of. “It smells to high heaven,” said Graham, calling the whole thing “a political setup” and a “sham,” wanting to know about the whistleblower’s bias, the sudden rules change on whistleblowers, and other problems. Brennan changed the subject and said the transcript and whistleblower complaint “matched” and added ”I think this thing stinks.” Graham was very effective, and every time he made a good point, the subject got changed.  
• Meanwhile, NeverTrump Fox News host Chris Wallace mauled White House senior advisor Stephen Miller in savage beast mode. Video here and here. Miller tried to point out the backstory of Joe Biden’s underlying corruption — using public office to line his son’s pockets and doing some real quid pro quo of politically muscling Ukraine to fire its investigator of the Biden sweetheart deal as reason for Trump attempting to get the Ukrainians to investigate the matter. Instead of listen to that, Wallace got hostile, wanting to know about the utterly irrelevant Rudy Giuliani angle from Miller, saying: “I asked you a specific question and want a specific answer,” and as Miller tried to answer, Wallace interrupted, sharply shouting ‘answer my question!’ while poor low-key Miller couldn’t get a word in edgewise. A particularly nasty mauling. So much for ‘civility.’
• Then there was CNN’s Jake Tapper and GOP House ranking member of the Oversight Committee, Jim Jordan. (Video here). Tapper spent time arguing with Jordan about whether the whistleblower was partisan, a fact that was pretty well right there in the Attorney General’s report. Tapper wanted to fight about that instead of learn anything new. Jordan did manage to smack Tapper back pretty well, and Tapper tried to point out that Republicans were hypocrites about this, changing the subject. He pleaded for Tapper to look at the transcript, but to no avail. Tapper then wanted to argue about the rules change on firsthand knowledge from the whistleblower. Jordan tried to also argue that the firsthand sources contradicted the whistleblower’s report, including statements from the president of Ukraine. Jordan also talked of leaks of presidential conversations as reason for placing the transcripts on the secure server “I recognize you don’t want the facts coming out” Tapper replied. Jordan got ignored – and mauled. 
• Lastly, there was Rudy Giuliani. He made a string of interviews and complained about the double standards of pro- and anti-Trump guests to George Stephanopoulos. He also complained about interruptions, which have been pretty pervasive across the scale. Much ink has been spilled on how Giuliani’s wild Trumpian-style defenses of President Trump (must be a New York thang) wasn’t helping Trump’s case, and he ought to be off the air. The Joe Biden team, however, is now lobbying the press to keep Giuliani off the air, which rather suggests he thinks Giuliani is helping Trump. Guess who the media intends to listen to?

What are we looking at with this mass media effort to silence not just Trump but Trump’s defenders? It’s astonishing how strong the double standards are, and some of the maulings were quite egregious. 

In short, a ‘narrative’ is being created, with conservatives silenced and muzzled, and leftists skating. This is how we get ‘narratives,’ and it’s pretty clear the classic Obama-era narrative-making is now in action. Any questions as to why at least half the public despises the mainstream media? Democratic operatives with bylines means pro-Trump Republicans have almost as many obstacles to being heard as President Trump does. To repeat what Graham says: ‘It stinks.’

Image credit: CNN / Twitter screen shot

Mattel released the world’s first gender-neutral doll on Wednesday in what it says is an attempt to promote inclusivity.

“Through research, we heard that kids don’t want their toys dictated by gender norms,” the company said in a statement.

“This line allows all kids to express themselves freely which is why it resonates so strongly with them.”

The new line of dolls, called “Creative World,” is designed as a series of “kits” that include a variety of customization options such as wigs and different articles of clothing, The Washington Post reported.

Kits cost $30 each and are available for purchase on Mattel’s website.

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In our world, dolls are as limitless as the kids who play with them. Introducing #CreatableWorld, a doll line designed to keep labels out and invite everyone in. #AllWelcome

Shop now: https://t.co/UyaYXb0BYf pic.twitter.com/k2tnPDCCiM

— MATTEL (@Mattel) September 25, 2019

Monica Dreger, Mattel’s head of consumer insights, sees the new line as a move toward realism and a departure from the company’s famous Barbie and Ken dolls.

“It’s not aspirational, it’s a way [children] can imagine themselves,” Dreger said. “A slightly cooler version of themselves.”

Dreger also said that the new dolls would be ideal for “gender-creative” kids left unsatisfied by the binary choice of “masculine” and “feminine” toys, according to Time.

Unlike Barbie and Ken, the Creative World dolls break from traditional “stereotypes” associated with boys and girls.

“Toys are a reflection of culture and as the world continues to celebrate the positive impact of inclusivity, we felt it was time to create a doll line free of labels,” Mattel executive Kim Culmone said in the company’s statement.

Another feature of the new line is the dolls’ “age.” While Barbie and Ken are supposed to be adults, Creative World dolls are “designed specifically to have a youthful gender-neutral appearance,” Culmone said.

After conducting extensive research, Dreger and Culmone are confident the new product line will be a hit with children across America.

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“We never talked to a kid who didn’t flip from joy when they saw the doll,” Dreger said, according to The Post.

“One of the things [the kids] pushed back on a lot was labeling. It was this big, huge force, almost like, if you’re constricting them, they really pushed away.

“When you take away the labels, it becomes for everybody.”

Mattel representatives spoke with 25o families around the country, according to The New York Times.

“We talked to them about what they had in dolls currently and what they were looking for,” Culmone said.

“The kids didn’t want to be told that boys had to play with cars and girls had to play with dolls.”

While Mattel’s new dolls are unlikely to be popular with all Americans, the company may have social science data on its side.

According to the Pew Research Center, 76 percent of the American public thinks it is “a somewhat or very good thing for parents to steer girls toward boy-oriented toys and activities.”

Likewise, 64 percent think parents should “encourage boys to play with toys and participate in activities usually associated with girls.”

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So, we’ve been told by the establishment media that the only reason President Donald Trump wanted to investigate the strange and sordid history of Ukrainian corruption is because he wanted dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.

Radio host Rush Limbaugh has another theory, though — he thinks the president is looking for the genesis of the Mueller investigation.

Confused? Well, according to the conservative talk icon, the giveaway is the fact that Trump mentioned a company called CrowdStrike during the call.

CrowdStrike, for those of you who have forgotten the Democratic National Committee email hack, was the private cybersecurity firm that the DNC brought in to evaluate its servers after the hack. They’re the ones who determined that the hack came from Russia.

During the call, Trump spent a fair chunk of time talking about the firm.

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“I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike … I guess you have one of your wealthy people … The server, they say Ukraine has it,” Trump said, according to the transcript.

“I would like to have the attorney general call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine.”

That, to Rush, was a tipoff that Trump’s talk with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wasn’t necessarily Biden-centric. As he pointed out, when it came to the DNC hack, “everybody has just assumed that the Russians were the guilty party only because the firm hired by the Democrats [CrowdStrike] said so.”

“But CrowdStrike is alleged to have gotten something big wrong about Ukraine,” the radio host said on his show Wednesday, according to t0 a transcript on RushLimbaugh.com.

“CrowdStrike accused Russia of hacking a Ukrainian artillery app resulting in heavy losses, even though Ukraine has no incentive to help Russia, which is attacking them. Ukraine said it never happened. And yet CrowdStrike was asserting that Russia hacked a Ukrainian artillery app.”

Limbaugh cited National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy on the matter: “CrowdStrike widely believed to have been wrong in a controversial 2016 judgment, when it claimed that Russian operatives hacked a Ukrainian artillery app, resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in combat against separatists used by Moscow,” McCarthy wrote in “Ball of Collusion.”

“CrowdStrike withdrew its report and admitted that it was wrong,” Limbaugh said of the Ukrainian artillery app hack.

“Now, this, whether it sounds like it or not, don’t doubt me, this is highly relevant to this entire Russian collusion story, which is why Trump was asking about it and why the Democrats don’t want the Ukrainians to reinvestigate it.”

“That’s a pretty big thing to be wrong about, and the only reason to point it out is, OK, if they’re wrong about that, what if the Democrat National Committee server was not hacked?” Limbaugh asked.

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“Do you realize how convenient it was for them to be able to say that Russia hacked their server and then link Trump to Russia? The FBI never assumed that because they never got to investigate it. So the presence of CrowdStrike, Trump asking the president of Ukraine to look into CrowdStrike as well as Biden and his son.”

Limbaugh also noted that there’d been almost no coverage of the CrowdStrike mention in the media — and that the Democrats were staying quiet about it, as well.

“I haven’t seen a single report focus on CrowdStrike in this transcript,” Limbaugh said.

“Now, I know why the Democrats are ignoring it. The Democrats are bent out of shape that Trump even knows about CrowdStrike. They think Trump’s an idiot. With Trump specifically zeroing in on CrowdStrike the Democrats have learned today, after reading that transcript, what Trump is really doing here.”

He would go on to say that Trump’s discussion of the firm, “mark my words, is momentous in this transcript today.”

“I know damn well the whistleblower didn’t tell the Democrats about that or they would have a different strategy laid out for this. Because another thing — don’t doubt me on this — what this really means, folks, is that Trump — he was asking for assistance on Biden, but it’s all related. What Trump actually was asking the president of Ukraine to do was to help the attorney general.”

“There’s no question in my mind now what this is. Trump is gonna get to the bottom of the origins of the Mueller investigation. He’s gonna get to the bottom of the origins of this coup that was run against him come hell or high water and he was asking the president of Ukraine for assistance today, and part of that is illustrating and proving the vile corruption of Joe Biden, which is monumental.”

Is this about getting to the bottom of the genesis of the Mueller report?

It’s certainly a jump. However, Limbaugh isn’t inaccurate when he points out how silent the media’s been on the issue of CrowdStrike. Given the fact that Trump mentioned it, there’s likely more to come from that direction, too.

Stay tuned.

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

Sometimes, the best statement of the obvious comes from the most unexpected corner.

So with the impeachment frenzy, who should step in and state how this all looks to ordinary schmoes but lefty grandstanding commentator Geraldo Rivera himself?

According to the transcript (emphasis mine) on RealClearPolitics – and this Fox News video here:

GERALDO RIVERA (FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT): After listening to the Democrats, they believe that they have it now.

That everything else, Russia collusion, Stormy Daniels, taxes, making money on hotels, and all that. They are going to put everything away and they are going to laser focus on this. This is gonna be what the impeachment is all about, maybe one or two little other things fall in.

So it’s going to be the president of the United States in a conversation that was intercepted by a rotten snitch — I’d love to wap him, but that’s another story.

Imagine this poor president, his whole tenure in office has been marked by snitches, and rats, and backstabbers, it’s amazing how he functions at all.

Even if Rivera is left-wing, that’s a classic working class way of reading what people must be thinking, noting how the president is constantly surrounded by a nest of snakes, people who are otherwise known as the swamp. From Omarosa Manigault to this new deep state whistleblower, the snakes hiss from all sides.

Rivera knows Trump from his reality TV days, and probably doesn’t see Trump as a monster the way the left does, he probably sees an actual person, which might explain his statement.

What’s more, in the boroughs of New York City, which Rivera seems to be in tune with, it can’t help but go unnoticed that one sneaky pete after another comes up with a new stunt to take down Trump, always through some kind of outrageous betrayal that wouldn’t be tolerated in some place like Howard Beach.

Rivera commiserates, as any normal person would, his first thought to imagine what it would be like if everyone around you was a smiling, perfumed, pompadoured two-faced creep out to destroy you. 

It’s disgusting. It’s inhuman. And yes, it’s what Trump has to deal with.

People are going to relate to that Geraldo picture, because he’s states what a lot of people are secretly thinking — and that might just bring some of them otherwise caught up in the feeding frenzy reading impeachment news back to earth.

The facts on the ground are that President Trump is sitting there in a snake pit for us and taking the most incredible venomous attacks, even as he serves as the greatest president of our lifetime. No other president has had to deal with working conditions that appalling from a determined an embittered group of spiraling-crazy haters.

One hopes Rivera gets his chance to deck one of them one of these days as he hopes he does. Woikin’ class people don’t like sleazy snitches. Plenty of Americans in that set and well beyond would applaud.

Image credit: RealClearPolitics / Fox News screen shot

Sometimes, the best statement of the obvious comes from the most unexpected corner.

So with the impeachment frenzy, who should step in and state how this all looks to ordinary schmoes but lefty grandstanding commentator Geraldo Rivera himself?

According to the transcript (emphasis mine) on RealClearPolitics – and this Fox News video here:

GERALDO RIVERA (FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT): After listening to the Democrats, they believe that they have it now.

That everything else, Russia collusion, Stormy Daniels, taxes, making money on hotels, and all that. They are going to put everything away and they are going to laser focus on this. This is gonna be what the impeachment is all about, maybe one or two little other things fall in.

So it’s going to be the president of the United States in a conversation that was intercepted by a rotten snitch — I’d love to wap him, but that’s another story.

Imagine this poor president, his whole tenure in office has been marked by snitches, and rats, and backstabbers, it’s amazing how he functions at all.

Even if Rivera is left-wing, that’s a classic working class way of reading what people must be thinking, noting how the president is constantly surrounded by a nest of snakes, people who are otherwise known as the swamp. From Omarosa Manigault to this new deep state whistleblower, the snakes hiss from all sides.

Rivera knows Trump from his reality TV days, and probably doesn’t see Trump as a monster the way the left does, he probably sees an actual person, which might explain his statement.

What’s more, in the boroughs of New York City, which Rivera seems to be in tune with, it can’t help but go unnoticed that one sneaky pete after another comes up with a new stunt to take down Trump, always through some kind of outrageous betrayal that wouldn’t be tolerated in some place like Howard Beach.

Rivera commiserates, as any normal person would, his first thought to imagine what it would be like if everyone around you was a smiling, perfumed, pompadoured two-faced creep out to destroy you. 

It’s disgusting. It’s inhuman. And yes, it’s what Trump has to deal with.

People are going to relate to that Geraldo picture, because he’s states what a lot of people are secretly thinking — and that might just bring some of them otherwise caught up in the feeding frenzy reading impeachment news back to earth.

The facts on the ground are that President Trump is sitting there in a snake pit for us and taking the most incredible venomous attacks, even as he serves as the greatest president of our lifetime. No other president has had to deal with working conditions that appalling from a determined an embittered group of spiraling-crazy haters.

One hopes Rivera gets his chance to deck one of them one of these days as he hopes he does. Woikin’ class people don’t like sleazy snitches. Plenty of Americans in that set and well beyond would applaud.

Image credit: RealClearPolitics / Fox News screen shot