~ Featuring ~
How MSM Impeachment 'Pollaganda'
Shapes Public Opinion
Mark Alexander
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Wednesday Top News Executive SummaryMedia Editors: Above the Fold
commie-BERNIE SANDERS HOSPITALIZED: “‘During a campaign event yesterday evening, Sen. commie-Sanders experienced some chest discomfort. Following medical evaluation and testing he was found to have a blockage in one artery and two stents were successfully inserted,’ said commie-Sanders’ senior adviser Jeff Weaver on Wednesday in a statement. ‘Sen. commie-Sanders is conversing and in good spirits. He will be resting up over the next few days,’ Weaver said. ‘We are canceling his events and appearances until further notice, and we will continue to provide appropriate updates.’” (ABC News)
HARVARD’S MEDIOCRITY UPHELD: “A federal judge Tuesday cleared Harvard University of discriminating against Asian American applicants in a ruling that was seen as a major victory for supporters of affirmative action in college admissions across the U.S.,” according to the Associated Press. Around this time last year, our own Arnold Ahlert explained how Harvard’s admission policies do a grave disservice to meritocracy and an educated electorate — to the Left’s delight.
Government & Politics
TAX-RETURN LAW BLOCKED: “A U.S. judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked a California law aimed at forcing President Donald Trump to release his personal income tax returns in order to appear on the 2020 primary ballot. U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. issued a written opinion saying the law likely violates the U.S. Constitution.” (Associated Press)
DEATH AND TAXES: “Americans on average spent more on taxes in 2018 than they did on the basic necessities of food, clothing and health care combined, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey. … The $14,758.11 that the average American consumer unit paid for food, clothing and health care was $3,859.82 less than the $18,617.93 it paid in federal, state and local income taxes, property taxes, Social Security taxes and ‘other taxes.’” (Terence Jeffrey)
NET-NEUTRALITY REPEAL UPHELD: “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that the Federal Communications Commission was mostly lawful in its rollback of scumbag/liar-nObama-era ‘net neutrality’ guidelines, while offering a glimmer of hope to proponents of the guidelines. In a 2–1 ruling, the court said the FCC had acted lawfully in its decision to stop regulating broadband like a utility or a ‘common carrier’ such as a phone service. But it said the FCC had exceeded its authority in attempting to block states from passing their own rules in contradiction of the net-neutrality repeal, as California did in 2018.” (National Review)
TANTAMOUNT TO A dinky-WARREN ENDORSEMENT: “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in July that an Elizabeth dinky-Warren presidency would pose an ‘existential’ threat to the company, according to over two hours of leaked audio published by The Verge.” (National Review)
Culture & Heartland
ANTI-NRA U-TURN: “Remember last month when San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed a resolution declaring the National Rifle Association a domestic terrorist organization and ordered city employees to ‘take every reasonable step to limit’ business interactions with the NRA and its supporters?” asks Jim Geraghty of National Review. “… The NRA sued, and lo and behold, San Francisco is backing down, before the suit even went to court.” The mayor in a new memo states, “No [municipal] department will take steps to restrict any contractor from doing business with the NRA or to restrict City contracting opportunities for any business that has any relationship with the NRA.” Meanwhile, says Geraghty, “The NRA is challenging a similar law passed by the Los Angeles city council that requiring city contractors to disclose any ties they have to the gun-rights group.”
PRO-LIFE SETBACK: “A federal judge handed an early win to abortion rights activists Tuesday by blocking Georgia’s restrictive law from going into effect — but it is only the first step as a lawsuit makes its way through the court system. District Judge Steve C. Jones’ ruling stops House Bill 481 from taking effect Jan. 1 while the case plays out. Anti-abortion activists are hoping the case winds up in the U.S. Supreme Court.” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
MURDERS DECLINE: “Murder is on the decline in America, according to a new FBI report. The nation’s top federal law enforcement agency found that homicides fell by 6 percent in 2018. The decline in homicides is part of a 3 percent drop in the violent crime rate, according to the Uniform Crime Report, the FBI’s annual tally of crimes reported to local police departments. The 2018 decline follows several years of slight increases in homicide and violent crime, driven largely by spikes in major cities such as Chicago and Washington, D.C.” (The Washington Free Beacon)
FAIRFAX FOLLY: The Daily Caller reports: “A county police department in Virginia announced Tuesday that one of their officers was suspended for turning an illegal alien over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after determining the individual had dodged a deportation hearing. Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. said the officer in question had a ‘lapse in judgment’ when he called ICE about the illegal alien. … Fairfax County has a policy that limits the police department’s cooperation with ICE.” The “lapse in judgment” here is being directed at the wrong person.
OPIOID SETTLEMENT: “Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) said on Tuesday it will pay $20.4 million to settle claims by two Ohio counties, allowing the U.S. healthcare giant to avoid an upcoming federal trial seeking to hold the industry responsible for the nation’s opioid epidemic. J&J became the fourth drugmaker to settle claims ahead of the Federal Court trial against multiple manufacturers and distributors in Cleveland scheduled for later this month. The case is considered a bellwether for more than 2,600 lawsuits by state and local governments that are pending nationally.” (Reuters)
Closing Arguments
POLICY: Impeachment or not, the intelligence community is the real loser (Washington Examiner)
POLICY: We won’t restrict investment in China, but we should (American Enterprise Institute)
HUMOR: Nation’s Civil War reenactors have been preparing for this moment their entire lives (The Babylon Bee)
~The Patriot Post https://patriotpost.us/articles/65847?mailing_id=4564&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4564&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body .
Ken Starr on impeachment debacle
‘Utterly doomed to fail’
by Zachary Leeman
{ bizpacreview.com } ~ Former United States Solicitor General Ken Starr tore apart Democrats’ current impeachment efforts during a Monday appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”... “We got on the wrong street,” Starr, now a Fox News contributor, said. “We got on impeachment street, impeachment alley, and we should be on oversight street. There’s a legitimate reason for oversight.” Starr says based on the facts presented so far — which includes the transcript of a phone call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president, as well as the whistleblower complaint about the phone call — “there is no evidence, as I see, of treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors.” Starr added that House Speaker liar-Nancy Pelosi and Democrats have “terribly jumped the gun” in their impeachment inquiry announcement. “This is, given what we know, and I think what we can reasonably expect, utterly doomed to fail,” Starr said. “And that’s a terrible thing for the country. Leave politics aside. We should not as a Constitutional Republic be put through this kind of ordeal.”Starr described the whistleblower complaint as being filled with “hearsay comments” since the whistleblower was never a direct witness to the call they were complaining about. Starr also said the transcript that the president released of the call — which disproves allegations that he pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate loose lips liar-Joe Biden — is “the best evidence that’s admissible.” “Impeachment is absolutely doomed,” Starr added, saying without Republican support in both the House and the Senate, Democrats are simply grandstanding...
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2019/09/30/ken-starr-on-impeachment-debacle-utterly-doomed-to-fail-832708?utm_campaign=bizpac&utm_content=Newsletter&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_source=Get+Response&utm_term=EMAIL .
New Evidence Suggests Prosecutors
Pressured Michael Flynn To Lie
By Margot Cleveland
{ thefederalist.com } ~ The evidence of prosecutorial misconduct in the Michael Flynn case continues to grow. And with each new court filing by Flynn’s new criminal defense attorney, Sidney Powell... the public learns more about the events leading up to Flynn’s guilty plea and the government’s manipulation of Trump’s former national security advisor. The latest development came on September 30, when Powell filed a supplement status report summarizing the outcome of the criminal case against Flynn’s former Flynn Intel Group (FIG) partner, Bijan Rafiekian. Presiding Judge Emmett Sullivan had requested the parties provide the court a statement concerning the impact of the government’s decision not to call Flynn as a witness in that case. That provided Powell an opening to inform Judge Sullivan that the prosecution’s case against Rafiekian had been tossed. “On September 24, 2019, Judge Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia granted Mr. Rafiekian’s motion for acquittal in its entirety,” Powell wrote. Then, while attaching Judge Trenga’s detailed opinion to her filing, Powell highlighted the key take-aways: “The Government had not presented sufficient evidence for a rational jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Rafiekian conspired with co-defendant Alptekin or anyone else” to act as an unregistered agent of Turkey. Additionally, “there was no evidence of discussion or suggestions, let alone an agreement, express or implied, to either avoid filing under FARA or to cause the filing of a false FARA registration statement,” Judge Trenga explained in dismissing the charges. Powell also took the opportunity to remind Judge Sullivan that Flynn had cooperated substantially in the Rafiekian case, but that when Flynn refused to falsely testify that he had knowingly filed a false FARA statement, the government changed its tack and branded Flynn a co-conspirator. Here, she pointed to the opinion in the Rafiekian case, where the court stressed the government’s in-court admission that Flynn “was not a member of the charged conspiracy.” Then things got really good. Powell posited that prosecutor Brandon “Van Grack was determined that Mr. Flynn would testify in the Rafiekian case that he had knowingly signed a false FARA registration, even though Mr. Van Grack knew that was not true and Mr. Flynn had not agreed to that in the course of his plea agreement.” Yet, in a heated exchange, Powell wrote, Van Grack “claimed Mr. Flynn had agreed to plead to a knowing and intentional false FARA filing.”...
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GOP Leaders Raise Important Questions
on Impeachment Process, But
Democrats Aren’t Answering
by Stacey Matthews
{ legalinsurrection.com } ~ After House Speaker liar-Nancy Pelosi gave her public blessing last week for House Democrats to launch a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump... members of the GOP House leadership read her the riot act. Not only did she announce her support of an inquiry before reading the transcript of the Trump/Zelensky call which hadn’t even been released at the time, but she also didn’t name the specific alleged impeachable offense Trump committed. Furthermore, she sidestepped having the House vote on a formal impeachment inquiry, which has been the process the three times this issue has come up before for Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and scumbag/liar-Bill Clinton. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise has become one of the more vocal members of the GOP leadership on this issue. He made the rounds over the weekend on the cable news networks asking questions Democrats either aren’t answering or aren’t answering honestly. On Fox and Friends Saturday, Scalise brought up House Intelligence Committee Chair scumbag-Adam Schiff’s “parody” reading of the Ukraine call in which he made up a conversation that did not happen. Scalise also pointed out that in spite of the impeachment fever that has consumed Democrats, House Democrats did not cancel a two-week recess. He found it odd that the House has not had an actual vote on an impeachment inquiry (transcribed): Oh, by the way, if they were so serious, why did scumbag-Adam Schiff have to start his committee hearing with a parody, a joke, trying to make fun of this and actually lying about what really happened and trying to make up a conversation between the president and Ukraine President Zelensky? Why, by the way, if it’s so serious, and think about this, liar-Nancy Pelosi is saying she wants to start impeachment proceedings against a president of the United States. She didn’t even require a House floor vote, which has always been the case to start impeachment. But, if she really thought he should be removed, why did she then leave town for two weeks? The next two weeks, Congress will not be in session...
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/09/gop-leaders-raise-important-questions-on-impeachment-process-but-democrats-arent-answering/ .
Left Tries To Wave Away IG Changes Allowing Whistleblowers To Weaponize Hearsay
By Matt Beebe
{ thefederalist.com } ~ After Federalist reporting unearthed the Intelligence Community Inspector General’s (ICIG’s) material changes to its whistleblower complaint intake procedures... a battle has ensued over whether the changes matter. This discovery continues to captivate elected representatives, Capitol insiders, and political talking heads across the nation. President Trump tweeted Monday morning, asking emphatically “WHO CHANGED THE LONG STANDING WHISTLEBLOWER RULES JUST BEFORE SUBMITTAL OF THE FAKE WHISTLEBLOWER REPORT? DRAIN THE SWAMP!” The president’s tweet appears to have prompted the impeachment cheerleaders at The Daily Beast to claim “Trump had joined an army of conservative commentators in pushing a false story” and smearing his own ICIG, Michael Atkinson. Other outlets and commentators piled on. But is the story false? The detractors are right about one thing: the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) statute doesn’t actually prohibit a purported whistleblower from initiating a complaint based on hearsay. But the clear language of the previous ICIG guidance never stated that it did. As Sean Davis reported in The Federalist Friday, quoting from the original documents: A previous version of the whistleblower complaint document, which the ICIG and DNI until recently provided to potential whistleblowers, declared that any complaint must contain only first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoing and that complaints that provide only hearsay, rumor, or gossip would be rejected. ‘The Intelligence Community Inspector General cannot transmit information via the ICPWA based on an employee’s second-hand knowledge of wrongdoing,’ the previous form stated under the bolded heading ‘FIRST-HAND INFORMATION REQUIRED.’ ‘This includes information received from another person, such as when an employee informs you that he/she witnessed some type of wrongdoing.’ ‘If you think that wrongdoing took place, but can provide nothing more than second-hand or unsubstantiated assertions, the Intelligence Community Inspector General will not be able to process the complaint or information for submission as an ICWPA.’ The documents clearly show the process was changed, and the previously explicit regulatory requirements for first-hand information were suddenly eliminated. It is undisputed that the instructions for the form have changed...
https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/01/left-tries-to-wave-away-ig-changes-allowing-whistleblowers-to-weaponize-hearsay/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=62e8f19ba8-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-62e8f19ba8-83771801 .
Intel IG Admits It Secretly Erased ‘First-Hand Information’ Requirement In August
By Chrissy Clark
{ thefederalist.com } ~ The Intelligence Community Inspector General released a statement admitting the office changed its forms for whistleblowers between May 2018 and August 2019, as The Federalist first reported... As The Federalist’s Sean Davis noted, “The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.” The timing of the change is important, as it bookends the period when an anonymous person filed a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump for a phone call with the president of Ukraine. In the call, the president asked the Ukrainians to continue investigating political corruption that may implicate loose lip-s liar-Joe Biden and his son, Hunter loose lips liar-Biden.In a statement on processing whistleblower complaints, the IG admitted they changed the forms: In June 2019, the newly hired Director for the Center for Protected Disclosures entered on duty. Thus, the Center for Protected Disclosures has been reviewing the forms provided to whistleblowers who wish to report information with respect to an urgent concern to the congressional intelligence committees. In the process of reviewing and clarifying those forms, and in response to recent press inquiries regarding the instant whistleblower complaint, the ICIG understood that certain language in those forms and, more specifically, the informational materials accompanying the forms, could be read – incorrectly – as suggesting that whistleblowers must possess first-hand information in order to file an urgent concern complaint with the congressional intelligence committees. The ICIG’s Center for Protected Disclosures has developed three new forms entitled, ‘Report of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse UNCLASSIFIED Intake Form’; ‘Disclosure of Urgent Concern Form-UNCLASSIFIED’; and ‘External Review Panel (ERP) Request Form – UNCLASSIFIED.’ These three new forms are now available on the ICIG’s open website and are in the process of being added to the ICIG’s classified system. The ICIG will continue to update and clarify its forms and its websites to ensure its guidance to whistleblowers is clear and strictly complies with statutory requirements. Consistent with the law, the new forms do not require whistleblowers to possess first-hand information in order to file a complaint or information with respect to an urgent concern” While law does not require those who file whistleblower claims to offer first-hand information of an urgent concern, federal regulations laid out in the “Background Information on ICWPA Process” state the ICIG must possess reliable, first-hand information in order to find the whistleblower credible. Despite the form changes and the requirement for possession of first-hand information, the ICIG statement admits the Ukraine whistleblower filed an outdated report and checked that he or she had first-hand knowledge of the experience, which the complaint itself contradicts. “The Complainant on the form he or she submitted on August 12, 2019 in fact checked two relevant boxes: The first box stated that, ‘I have personal and/or direct knowledge of events or records involved’; and the second box stated that, ‘Other employees have told me about events or records involved,'” the statement read.
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Top Lawmakers Tell Intel Community Inspector General: Come Clean On Secret Changes
To Whistleblower Rules
By Sean Davis
{ thefederalist.com } ~ Republican lawmakers in both the Senate and House on Monday demanded answers from the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) about secret revisions to the office’s guidance on “urgent concern” whistleblower complaints.... The Federalist first reported last week that between May 2018 and August 2019, the ICIG secretly eliminated its requirement that potential whistleblowers provide only first-hand evidence of alleged wrongdoing. In their letter to Michael Atkinson, the ICIG, Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) noted that the anti-Trump complainant offered no direct, first-hand evidence of alleged wrongdoing against President Donald Trump. Instead, the complaint is littered with gossip, hearsay, and rumor. The lawmakers specifically asked the ICIG to explain when the whistleblower guidance was revised, by whom, and for what reason. “Based on the language on [the May 24, 2018] form, it appears that the requirement for first-hand information has been an ICIG policy regardless of how a whistleblower makes an urgent concern report,” they wrote. “Curiously the urgent disclosure form that now appears on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence website has recently changed and no longer contains this explicit first-hand information requirement.” “The timing of the removal of the first-hand information requirement raises questions about potential connections to this whistleblower’s complaint,” the lawmakers continued. “This timing, along with numerous apparent leaks of classified information about the contents of this complaint, also raise questions about potential criminality in the handling of these matters.” The letter informs the ICIG that he must provide answers to their questions about the timing and rationale of the secret changes to the whistleblower guidance by noon on Thursday, October 3. The lawmakers told the ICIG to treat the letter as a formal demand to preserve all evidence related to the changes to the internal ICIG whistleblower rules. Of particular note on the letter is the signature of McCarthy, the top Republican in the U.S. House. Nunes is the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Jordan is the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee...
https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/30/top-lawmakers-tell-intel-community-inspector-general-come-clean-on-secret-changes-to-whistleblower-rules/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=62e8f19ba8-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-62e8f19ba8-83771801 .
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How MSM Impeachment 'Pollaganda' Shapes Public OpinionMark Alexander: Now that House Speaker liar-Nancy Pelosi has green-lighted the Demos’ Obstruction 2.0 charade — an “impeachment inquiry,” but without an actual House vote on this political theater — impeachment speculation churn has saturated every news-cycle loop. And that means (SHOCK) that when media outlets then poll public opinion on what they have been telling them 24/7, opinions will shift.
Recently, I pulled a top-of-the-fold headline from The Washington Post to demonstrate how the news cycle serves, in effect, as a mass “push poll,” or what we coined years ago as “Pollaganda” — “mainstream media saturation of news-cycle loops with a particular narrative bias, then polling media consumers for their perspective as shaped by that narrative or bias.” It is an incestuous cycle of media deception.
Consequently, public opinion is shifting on impeachment of Donald Trump.
After the Democrats’ Obstruction 1.0 charade was exposed for the fraud it was in the final Mueller report, poll numbers supporting impeachment dropped significantly.
However, Democrats and their Leftmedia propagandists have now re-fired their base with their latest ruse, and accordingly, polling in support of impeachment has climbed. In July, a Quinnipac poll reported that 32% of Americans supported impeachment. In August, a Monmouth poll reported 35% support for impeachment. By the end of September, the Politico/Morning Consult poll reported 43% support for impeachment.
Completing the impeachment Pollaganda cycle comes this headline from The Hill: “Public opinion polls show shift toward impeaching Trump.” Now that the full force of the media is trumping up impeachment, Hill-HarrisX reports that impeachment support is 47% and CAPS-Harris reports it’s now split 50-50. And that is exactly the calculus of the Pollaganda cycle.
This polling propaganda cycle is akin to the “lemming effect,” where collective actions compel individuals to comport with their group, with undesirable or even tragic results. It is an insidious and fallacious deception, and media organizations pushing such poll results without the Pollaganda disclaimer (that would be every news organization but The Patriot Post) has forfeited the last shreds of any journalistic integrity they may have once possessed.
Finally, regarding the question of the effect the Democrats’ impeachment charade will have on the 2020 presidential election, political observer David Thornton notes, “If public opinion is swinging rapidly based on the new revelations then it drastically changes the political calculus of impeachment. Where many Republicans assumed that impeachment would help the president politically, the opposite may be true given the widespread opinion that Trump’s actions were wrong.”
~The Patriot Post
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wD1MDRY98k
https://patriotpost.us/articles/65780?mailing_id=4558&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4558&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
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