Month: July 2020

It turns out the news media can’t even report bad news without making it worse. Multiple outlets pushed a false statistic that U.S. GDP fell 32.9 percent in the second quarter.
Fact: It fell 9.5 percent. Not 32.9 percent. The 32.9 percent figure is more than three times higher than what actually happened. The 32.9% figure is the “annual rate” of decline in GDP. But just don’t expect that to be reported properly by CNN, some of the breaking news headlines, or journalists and news outlets firing off wild tweets on Twitter.
The “annual” rate was less than the reported “34.7” percent decline economists were expecting.
Addressing misreporting by CNBC specifically, former NewsBusters contributing editor Thomas Blumer broke down on Facebook how the idea that U.S. GDP contracted by more than one-third is fake news. He wrote: “Second-quarter GDP did NOT ‘plunge by 32.9 percent.’ The government’s tables, excerpted below, tell us that annualized GDP fell from $19.0 trillion to $17.2 trillion. That’s a very serious decline, but it works out to -9.5% (most analysts effectively expected 10% or more), NOT -32.9%.”
Other outlets and journalists were guilty of the same offense.
CNN Newsroom anchors Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto repeatedly ran a slide pushing fake news that GDP shrank 32.9 percent in the second quarter. That segment lasted for 264 seconds without any clarification that the figure represented the annualized rate. In fact, the factual 9.5 percent decrease wasn’t even mentioned in the segment.
 
CNN political correspondent Abby D. Phillip also pushed the fake news on Twitter. She tweeted: “BREAKING: America’s economy just had its worst quarter on record. The US economy contracted by 32.9% between April and June, its worst drop on record, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Thursday.”
CNBC’s story on the news was headlined, “Second-quarter GDP plunged by worst-ever 32.9% amid virus-induced shutdown.” The first bullet-point reiterated the false statistic that “the U.S. economy suffered its worst period ever in the second quarter, with GDP falling a historic 32.9%.” It’s not until the second paragraph that CNBC gives the context that “[g]ross domestic product from April to June plunged 32.9% on an annualized basis.” [Emphasis added.]
CNBC’s breaking news account @CNBCNow tweeted the fake news: “BREAKING: U.S. second-quarter GDP plunged by a record 32.9%, vs 34.7% expected.”
Fortune magazine was guilty of the same act of journalist malfeasance in its reporting. The headline read, “U.S. GDP falls by a historic 32.9% as the pandemic ravages businesses and forces millions out of work.” [Emphasis added.] The Fortune report said “the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced that second quarter real GDP—from April to June—declined by 32.9% from the same period a year ago. It’s the largest single quarterly decline on record for data going back to 1947 and represents more than $1 trillion in economic output wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic.” 
This again is a misleading way of saying that the “32.9%” figure is the annualized rate without saying directly that it was the annualized rate. In fact, Fortune doesn’t even mention in its reporting that the actual GDP decline was 9.5 percent, and made it appear that the actual “quarterly decline” was 32.9 percent. The graph it uses for illustration is even headlined, “U.S. GDP falls by a historic 32.9% in the second quarter.”
Associate data editor Lance Lambert, who wrote the Fortune story, also pushed the fake news on Twitter. He said, “Q2 GDP declined by 32.9%.”
NBC News spread that false statistic on Twitter, saying “BREAKING: US GDP falls by a record 32.9% in 2nd quarter[.]”
The NBC News headline on the report was just as misleading: “Economy in reverse: Initial jobless claims rise for second week, GDP falls by record 33 percent.” You wouldn’t know the “33 percent” figure was the “annualized” rate of decline until the second paragraph. 
NBC News managing editor of politics Dafna Linzer thought she got in a zinger at President Donald Trump by pushing the same false statistic on Twitter.
Share this story on social media and demand that media outlets report economic news truthfully!
 
 
 
 
 

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It takes a special kind of chutzpah to tell the Israeli parliament that calls for Israel’s destruction are more acceptable than Trump’s tweets. 
“A Twitter spokeswoman has defended the company’s decision to block and restrict tweets from President Trump but not those of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei which call for genocide of the Israeli people,” The New York Post reported July 29. International Human Rights Lawyer and political analyst Arsen Ostrovsky tweeted a video of a Knesset (or Israeli parliament) hearing on anti-Semitism, where a Twitter representative was roasted for restricting President Donald Trump’s tweets while allowing Iran’s Supreme Leader Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei to call for Israel’s violent destruction. 
Ostrovsky, who was himself present at this meeting observed: “You have recently started flagging the tweets of President Trump,” but then inquired, “Why have you not flagged the tweets of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has literally called for the genocide of Israel and the Jewish people?”
The Twitter representative claimed that “foreign policy saber-rattling” and “commentary on political issues of the day” are “generally not in violation” of Twitter’s rules. Trump’s condemnation of rioters, however, “was violating [Twitter’s] policies regarding the glorification of violence” and “could “possibly inspire harm.”
Knesset member Michal Cotler-Wunsh interjected: “Calling for genocide is OK, but commenting on politics is not? Just so we understand.” Cotler-Wunsh then reiterated her question: “Calling for genocide on Twitter is OK, but commenting on political situations in certain countries is not OK?”
The Twitter spokeswoman explained:
“[The Trump] tweet was violating our policies regarding the glorification of violence based on the historical context of the last line of that tweet and the risk that it could possibly inspire harm and similar actions.”
In a May 21 tweet, Khamenei wrote, "The only remedy until the removal of the Zionist regime is firm, armed resistance." The next day he followed up by infamously calling Israel a “deadly, cancerous growth” that “will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed.” Neither of these tweets has an interstitial, or filter. 
In late May, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) sent an open letter to the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury to call for a criminal investigation into Twitter for violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and Executive Order 13876.
Cruz quoted the wording of Executive Order 13876 “which prohibits ‘the making of any contribution or provision of… goods[] or services’ to persons designated pursuant to that order,” including Iranian leadership.
The May 29 letter explained that Cruz had previously sent a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey informing him “that Twitter and its principals face criminal liability and sanctions exposure for providing social media accounts” to Iranian leaders.

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A Twitter spokeswoman told a member of the Israeli parliament that censoring the tweets of President Trump is all well and good but censoring the tweets of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has called for the genocide of the Israeli people, is not.

The Twitter spokesperson argued that Twitter had not flagged Khameini’s tweets as they did Trump’s because “foreign policy saber-rattling on military and economic issues are generally not in violation of our Twitter rules,” but flagging Trump’s tweet was fine because it amounted to “violating our policies regarding the glorification of violence” and “could possibly inspire harm.”

“Iran’s leader has repeatedly shared tweets calling Israel a ‘deadly, cancerous growth’ to be ‘uprooted and destroyed’ — all going unchecked by Twitter. ‘The long-lasting virus of Zionism will be uprooted thanks to the determination and faith of the youth,’ Khamenei wrote as recently as May, The New York Post reported, adding, “In May, Twitter placed a ‘public interest notice’ on the president’s tweet amid violence in Minneapolis which read: ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts,’ leading to accusations of censorship and political bias.”

Arsen Ostrovsky, a human rights lawyer and executive director of the Israeli-Jewish Congress, asked, “I have a simple question: You have recently started flagging the tweets of President Trump. Why have you not flagged the tweets of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has literally called for the genocide of Israel and the Jewish people?”

The Twitter spokesperson answered, “So we have an approach to world leaders that presently say that direct interactions with fellow public figures, comments on political issues of the day, or foreign policy saber-rattling on military and economic issues are generally not in violation of our Twitter rules.”

Legislator Michal Cotler-Wunsh interjected, “So calling for genocide is okay, but commenting on politics is not? Just so we understand. I just want to fine-tune the question. Calling for genocide on Twitter is okay, but commenting on political situations on a certain country is not okay?”

Spokesperson: “So if a world leader violates our rules, but it is a clear interest in keeping that up on the service, we may place it behind a notice that provides some more context about the violation and allows people to click through if they wish to see that type of content. And that is what happened for the Trump tweet; that tweet was violating our policies regarding the glorification of violence based on the historical context of the last line of that tweet and the risk that it could possibly inspire harm and similar actions.”

“As it was in the interest of the public to keep it on the platform we decided to keep it up, place it behind a notice, put a label on it as you might say, to limit the interaction with it because it is of importance to have it remain so that the citizens can see what their political figures are commenting and hold them accountable for what they’re saying online,” she added.

Cotler-Wunsh replied, “So that’s important. I think what’s coming up again and again, through different examples, is a sense of double standards. And I would implore Twitter and other online platforms, to ensure, I think that’s your responsibility and that you have to be held to account for that, that there is no double standard …”

This should be something the US media reports. Wow. https://t.co/y5iCNwx7yZ

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) July 29, 2020

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49 Chicago police officers were injured by rocks, pipes, and fireworks while trying to defend the statue of Christopher Columbus in Grant Park. Despite their valiant defense of the man who discovered America, Mayor Lori Lightfoot sided with the BLM mob and had the statue removed anyway.

3 law enforcement personnel with the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service may face permanent eye injuries after having lasers shined in their eyes by Black Lives Matter rioters.

12 police officers were injured in Seattle by attackers throwing rocks, bottles, and fireworks.

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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) funneled an additional $606,000 to her husband’s firm in the first three weeks of July alone, according to new campaign filings.

Federal Election Commission records released Thursday show that over the first three weeks of July, Omar’s campaign sent $606,000 to the E Street Group, a D.C.-based consulting firm run by Tim Mynett, Omar’s husband. The money accounted for 77 percent of the campaign’s disbursements during that time.

Omar has sent massive sums to her husband’s firm even as her Democratic opponent, Antone Melton-Meaux, significantly outraised her ahead of the primary. The challenger drew national attention with a $3.2 million fundraising haul over the past quarter, six times the amount Omar’s campaign pulled in over the same period despite paying Mynett’s firm large sums for fundraising assistance. Melton-Meaux is also drastically outraising the incumbent in Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District, signaling he may pose a challenge to the "Squad" member in the August 11 primary.

Mynett’s firm is Omar’s biggest campaign vendor. The campaign had already doled out $1 million to the firm this cycle before July. The $1.6 million in total payments accounts for nearly half of Omar’s $3.4 million in net operating expenditures this cycle.

Omar’s new campaign filings also show that the congresswoman raised $407,000 over the first three weeks of July, nearly equal to the $471,000 she pulled in over the previous three months. Omar now has $732,000 in cash on hand. Melton-Meaux, meanwhile, finished the last quarter with $2 million at his disposal. His campaign’s pre-primary report was not submitted at the time of this writing.

Omar’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the payments.

The post Ilhan Omar Paid Her Husband’s Firm $600,000 in Three Weeks appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

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Barack Obama delivered the eulogy at Congressman John Lewis’s funeral on Thursday in Atlanta, Georgia.

Classless Obama used John Lewis’s funeral for political purposes, attacked Trump and pushed mail-in voting.

Barack Obama lashed out at President Trump for speaking out against mail-in voting.

The Democrat-media complex is using the Coronavirus as a vehicle to rig the election with mail-in voting.

President Trump has been pushing back on mail-in ballots because there is no voter ID and no chain of custody.

Obama turned the eulogy into a political rally and said it’s too dangerous to vote in person in November.

After Obama said this, the camera panned out to people applauding him — no social distancing, the pews were packed with people standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

WATCH:

Obama just used the funeral of a dead Congressman to insult Trump & make the case for mail-in voting!! He has NO SHAME & neither do the people giving him a standing ovation for it!! They’re all going to HELL!! pic.twitter.com/fekzeZv9ab

— 6.0 (@TrumpRulzz) July 30, 2020

The post Classless Obama Uses John Lewis’s Funeral For Political Purposes, Attacks Trump, Pushes Mail-in Voting (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Sad news came Thursday morning of the passing of Herman Cain. In 2007, Cain presented “funny clips” at the Media Research Center’s 20th anniversary gala featuring the “DisHonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2006.”
To remember him in a light-hearted moment, check out the video below to see his humorous side, as the business leader, presidential candidate, radio talk show host and inspiration to many conservatives, cued up funny clips at the MRC event. Enjoy as he laughs along and ad-libs his takes on the clips.
 
 
Master of Ceremonies Cal Thomas introduced “the great Herman Cain” on Thursday, March 29, 2007 at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Washington, D.C.:
“In 1977, Herman Cain joined the Pillsbury corporation. Within three years, at the age of 34, he’d risen to the position of Vice President of corporate systems and services. But he resigned this position to follow another career path, this time in the restaurant industry. By 1994, he’d been elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Restaurant Association. All of that, without the help of the Democratic party, ladies and gentlemen. It’s just an amazing, amazing story.”

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