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Biden’s Broken Promises, Lefties Targeting Moderates, Bernie’s ‘White Supremacist’ Mittens

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Listen to “Biden’s Broken Promises, Lefties Targeting Moderates, Bernie’s ‘White Supremacist’ Mittens” on Spreaker.

Join Jim and Greg as they credit National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar for documenting how President Biden has started far more to the left than he promised during the campaign. They also get a kick out of AOC allies targeting a a new Super PAC at defeating Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema after they refused to kill the legislative filibuster in the Senate. And they have fun with a column from a far left San Francisco teacher, who claims Bernie Sanders demonstrated white privilege with the coat and mittens he wore to the inauguration.

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‘The Media Are Being So Hypocritical’

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Mainstream media are blasting Sinclair Broadcast Group for having anchors at its affiliates all record the same promotional video but a conservative media watchdog says there’s nothing nefarious about the message and the bigger outlets are exposing their hostility for any sources that are not blatantly liberal.

The controversy began when the liberal sports site Deadspin edited a mashup of all the affiliates stating the same commitment to check facts before going on the air with any news stories.

Comedian and HBO host John Oliver said the video showed Sinclair and its affiliates to be a “brainwashed cult.”  CNN and MSNBC spent considerable air time denouncing the supposed group think, as did some of the broadcast networks.  That’s a decision that has Media Research Center Vice President for Culture and Business Dan Gainor fuming.

“This is a story that particularly annoys me because the media are being so hypocritical.

“These are, in many cases, journalists representing syndicated outlets: ABC, CBS, and NBC syndicate every day three to four hours of morning news, a half hour of evening news and several hours of entertainment coverage every day to their member stations,” said Gainor.

He says the mainstream reporters are getting bent out of shape over a very minor difference from their own operations.

“The only difference between that content appearing in one location or another and what Sinclar did is that Sinclair had it read by multiple people using the same script.  The broadcast networks just use the same show,” said Gainor.

So if the common promo is not worthy of such outrage, why are the big media outlets turning their guns against Sinclair?

“The broadcast networks and the lefty cable networks all think that Sinclair must be stopped.  They’re out to stop Sinclair from buying Tribune.  This is a blatant political play on behalf of the allegedly neutral journalists,” said Gainor.

Gainor also says Sinclair has a reputation for being in the tank for President Trump because it won’t cover him the way the liberal outlets do.

“Sinclair doesn’t lean as far to the left as they do.  Sinclair has been accused of being pro-Trump, but in the land of liberal media…not attacking Trump every second of the day is to the networks, by comparison, pro-Trump,” said Gainor.

Gainor says the bias in the mainstream media is obvious.  He points to CBS morning host Gayle King chiding Sinclair even though she has given “tens of thousands of dollars” to Democratic organizations.  He also says the most virulent anti-Trump reporters get rewarded, including lesser known figures like April Ryan and Brian Karem.

“No one ever heard of them prior to (anti-Trump statements in the White House Briefing Room), then as soon as that happened, they were hired by CNN,” said Gainor.

He says it’s nothing new, pointing out that 50 years ago CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite declared the Vietnam War unwinnable and even media icons like Edward R. Murrow were “huge, die hard liberals.”

Gainor says independent journalism is facing rough waters right now.

“It’s very tough.  Journalism in general hasn’t been doing well financially for many years,” said Gainor.

He says the industry took a big hit when the dot com bubble burst and suffered badly in the wake of the 2008 economic downturn.  He says that crisis also deepened the bias.

“The 2008-2009 stock market collapse caused a nationwide recession.  In journalism it caused a nationwide depression.  Journalists lost their jobs by the thousands and they haven’t really come back.  So the journalists all want to save their jobs and attack anyone who disagrees with them,” said Gainor.

Gainor says it is vital to our nation and our politics for independent and conservative media to have a place in the arena.  He says there are two key ways for that to happen.

“We need top donors to get involved to fund more conservative outlets.  There’s new outlets opening up all the time.  That’s an opportunity.  But outlets are only as good as the people who staff them.  So I strongly encourage young conservatives to go into journalism,” said Gainor.

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The College President Who Fights Back

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Across the country, loud and sometime violent campus protesters are often met by administrators who ultimately give into the demands related to perceived slights on issues ranging from race to gender and sexuality to alleged to hate speech, but one college president is fighting back and says the pursuit of truth – not unanimous political ideology ought to be the goal of higher education.

Oklahoma Wesleyan University President Dr. Everett Piper burst on to the scene in late 2015, when he wrote an open letter to his students and famously explained their campus was not a day care but a university.  He is also the author of the forthcoming book, “Not A Day Care:  A Coddled Nation is a Crippled Nation.”

Dr. Piper is also speaking up after the latest round of campus unrest, specifically the saga over Ann Coulter’s scheduled appearance at the University of California-Berkeley, an which ultimately never happened.  In his column for The Christian Post, Piper unloads on what he sees as an assault on free speech and an abdication of role played by higher education.

“The liberal arts institution was founded some 1,000 years ago, let’s say at Oxford, for what?  To educate a free man and a free woman, to educate culture and what it means to enjoy liberty, and liberation, thus the word liberal,” said Piper, in a follow-up interview to his column.

He says that original purpose is now almost recognizable at most schools.

“The classical liberal is someone who stands for freedom, for liberty, and for liberation.  What we see today within the American academy is the shutting down of ideas.  We see ideological fascism rather than academic freedom,” said Piper.

“The conservative voice is actually more classically liberal because we’re arguing for an open, robust exchange of ideas.  Why?  Because we can trust truth to judge the debate rather than politics or power,” said Piper.

Piper says the problem has been brewing for many decades, when ideology became more important than truth.

“We’ve taught lousy ideas for decades in the academy and we’re seeing lousy behavior on the campus green and in the campus quad today.  These student rebellions, these snowflake rebellions, trigger warnings, microaggressions, and safe spaces are being called for because we’ve taught these kids this intellectual mush and this ideological narcissism and nihilism,” said Piper.

“We hear people say things like, ‘I hate these hateful people.  I’m sure that nothing’s sure.  I’m absolutely confident there are no absolutes, and I can’t tolerate your intolerance.’  It’s self-refuting at every turn.  The reason we see this is because we started teaching this type of nihilism and intellectual relativism and intellectual mush some three, four, five decades ago,” said Piper.

“When you teach good ideas, you get good culture, good kids, good community, good government, good church, etc.  When you teach bad ideas, you get the opposite,” he said.

So why aren’t more administrators pushing back?

“I’ll be very blunt here: lack of spine, lack of courage, lack of conviction.  They’re more interested in capitulation and compromise.  We’re more interested in a conversation than we are in demonstrating conviction and purpose and principle.  We don’t seem to have the heart and the soul to engage in the things that are right and just and true,” said Piper.

And he says the administrators are often ideologically in sync with the protesters.

“We call for justice but deny that there is a Judge.  We argue that we want tolerance but then act intolerable to anybody we can’t tolerate.  Our administrators and our presidents and our professors parrot this pablum.  They don’t have the conviction and the spine,” said Piper.

Piper also pushes back hard against the notion that free speech somehow began at Berkeley in the 1960’s.  He says the people who believe that are about 2,000 years behind.

“Free speech was not born at Berkeley.  It was born at Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago, because without the truth you shall never be set free,” said Piper.

Piper says history shows that removing God and His word from a society never results in freedom because man’s rules then intervene to fill the vacuum.  He says true freedom is like playing music or sports in that one has great freedom within certain boundaries.

“You are only set free with the context of truth, judging the activity you want to be free to engage in. When we abandon the concept of truth, you don’t get freedom, you get tyranny.  And that’s what you see in the snowflake rebellion in the streets of Berkeley,” said Piper.

He says the very notion of safe spaces misses the point of education.

“Safety is not what good education is about.  Goodness is what good education should pursue, but you’ve got to have a measuring rod outside of those things being measured or you can do no measuring, according to C.S. Lewis,” said Piper.

“You have to have the measuring rod of Truth with a capital T, and goodness and justice, and mercy.  Those things all come from the Judeo-Christian ethic that our country was founded upon.  If we don’t have that ethic any longer, we’re going to see fascism and tyranny and power prevail, rather than live by principles that give us freedom,” said Piper.

His immediate advice is for families to refuse to send their children to colleges that don’t embrace truth.

“Moms and dads, stop sending your kids to these institutions that teach this pablum and send them to places that teach what’s actually objectively right and real and true and good,” said Piper.

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‘There’s Really Nothing to This Story’

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A former Justice Department official says the liberal outrage over Attorney General Jeff Sessions having contact with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 campaign is much ado about nothing and that Democrats are doing whatever they can to thwart the Trump agenda.

He also says reports of a slush fund at the Justice Department created during the Obama years and funneled money to liberal activist groups are a big deal and further evidence that Democrats turned a blind eye to the Justice Department when far more serious things were happening.

It’s the Sessions story that has the media in a frenzy Thursday after Wednesday reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions misled senators during his confirmation hearings in January.

At that hearing, Sen. Al Franken cited CNN reports that officials in the Trump campaign discussed the election on multiple occasions with agents of the Russian government.  When asked by Franken what he would do if the reports were proven true, Sessions indicated he was unaware of such activity.

“I’m not aware of any of those activities.  I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.  And I’m unable to comment on it,” said Sessions during the confirmation hearing.

New revelations show that Sessions was at an event that included Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the Republican National Convention in July 2016.  They also crossed paths later in the year.

Democrats are now accusing Sessions of perjury for that answer and for not clarifying the statement in writing after the hearing.

On Thursday, Sessions did try to clarify.

“I have not met with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaign,” he told NBC News.

So is Sessions in real political or legal trouble for his testimony under oath or are his critics deliberately blurring the line between communication about the campaign and communication for other purposes?

Former Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky says this controversy is way overblown.

“Those calls for his resignation are all overblown and there’s no reason for him to resign,” said von Spakovsky, who now runs the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation.  “There’s really nothing to this story.”

He says the Democrats are still in shock over losing the elections and are lashing out in every possible direction.

“They did not want Jeff Sessions to become attorney general because he’s a conservative, rule of law type of guy.  They’re seizing on this, even though there’s nothing really to it when you dig down into it, because they want to oppose anything the attorney general might do, such as actually start enforcing our immigration laws.  That’s the real goal here,” said von Spakovsky.

But why is there nothing to the story?  Von Spakovsky says you have to understand Sen. Franken’s question in its proper context.

“It’s clear Sen. Franken is asking about communications between the Trump campaign and Russian intermediaries or agents about the election.  Sen. Sessions had no such meetings with the Russians over the elections as a surrogate of the campaign,” said von Spakovsky.

He also says the meetings in question hardly qualify as election collusion.

“One of them was a conference at which there was a hundred people, ambassadors and their staff.  They had been invited to observe the RNC convention by the State Department.  The Heritage Foundation, a number of other organizations and the U.S. State Department had this conference at which Jeff Sessions was the keynote speaker,” said von Spakovsky.

“The idea that he engaged in some hush-hush conspiracy talk with the Russian ambassador in a conference with a hundred folks where he’s giving the keynote speech is just ridiculous,” said von Spakovsky.

“The only other meeting was a meeting when he was a member of the (Senate) Armed Services Committee and he had a meeting with the Russian ambassador last year in which they talked about relations between the countries, no discussion of the election,” said von Spakovsky, noting Sessions met with roughly two dozen ambassadors in 2016.

Several Republicans are joining Democrats in demanding Sessions recuse himself from the federal investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 elections and any collusion it had with the Trump campaign.  Von Spakovsky says there’s nothing for Sessions to recuse himself from.

“That’s premature because at the moment there’s nothing in front of the attorney general.  The FBI has not sent over any kind of investigative file  for him to look at,” said von Spakovsky.

While Sessions stands in the media and political cross hairs, the Obama Justice Department is under fire for operating a slush fund to give a boost to liberal activist groups.  Instead of sending money won through legal cases to the U.S. Treasury, the Justice Department instead sent billions to activist groups, including the National Council of La Raza, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and the National Urban League.

Von Spakovsky and co-author John Fund exposed this slush fund in their book, “Obama’s Enforcer,” which details the legacy of former Attorney General Eric Holder.  Von Spakovsky says this activity is unique to the Obama Justice Department.

“This has been an open secret in Washington for years, but nothing has been done about it.  I would hope the new attorney general would this down and, frankly, go in and try to get these funds back if that can possibly happen,” said von Spakovsky.

He admits the action is most likely no illegal but he says it should never be done.

“I do think it was unethical.  I think any funds recovered by the federal government in a lawsuit should go to the U.S. Treasury because they belong to the American taxpayer.  Those funds should not be given to third party advocacy organizations, certainly not political organizations like La Raza,” said von Spakovsky.

Von Spakovsky says Holder politicized the Justice Department far more than any of his predecessors and adds that Loretta Lynch was no better.  He notes the federal judges scolded DOJ attorneys for their unethical conduct and Holder was the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt of Congress for withholding documents related to the ill-fated and deadly “Fast and Furious” gun-running operation.

He says the people now venting over Sessions had no problems with the Justice Department from 2009-2017.

“We never heard any complaints whatsoever from Chuck Schumer or any other Democrats about that behavior,” said von Spakovsky.

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Three Martini Lunch 2/1/17

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer President Trump’s nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch for the U.S. Supreme Court.  They also get a kick out of flailing liberals showing up to protest the Supreme Court nomination with fill-in-the-blank signs so they could protest anyone who was chosen.  And they fully support the push from Vox to cancel the Oscars, although their reasons are somewhat different than those offered by Vox.

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