Alicia Colon on political hysteria

 (Jake Fuller's cartoon appeared with the article at Jewish World Review)

Alicia Colon’s column on the occasion of President Trump’s birthday is, as usual, thoughtful. Her title is “When Losing an Election Makes You Lose Your Mind” – and it will probably resonate with Cleveland Tea Party people. Here are a few extracts:

The presidential election of 2016 was an entirely different ball game because the man who won was a completely different animal.

A billionaire nonpolitician was elected who was also very dangerous to the settled bureaucratic elite in both parties because he is uncontrollable by the special interests that rule Congress. The wrath and derangement that spilled forth after the election and continues still is unprecedented yet not completely surprising.

Although it made absolutely no sense, the hype for a Hillary Clinton presidency was relentless and overpoweringly waged in all sources, including the media, the Internet and social networks.

There were very few critics asking the important question --- why this woman?

She carried more baggage than an airport porter yet only one candidate (Trump) chose to call her a criminal.

. . .

It is clear that the Democrat Party has become the amoral party of progressives aka Marxists and not the one my family grew up with. There are no Zell Millers or like-minded thinkers left here.

. . .

If you're a conservative who voted for Donald Trump even though he wasn't your first choice, you may have ended up ostracized by the Democrats in your family or have ended up writing off a number of friends who've expressed contempt for your choice. It's a very wise policy not to discuss politics or religion but hard to do when your career is about politics.

I've been called a moron, a deplorable, unhinged, and worse by those whom I once believed were reasonable but have now lost their minds. I choose not to return that vitriol for those I care for and hope that one day they will come to their senses and realize the sky is not falling and our POTUS may succeed in making America great again.

He will do this in spite of all the mainstream media, leftwing pundits, social media, the entire Democrat Party, RINOs, Hollywood celebrities and Soros minions spending his billions waging phony protests against him.

I will continue to pray for President Trump's success and I encourage the rest of the deplorables to wish him well.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

Read the rest here.

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Anti-Trump Media Bias chart

ZeroHedge has a report (via Heat Street) on the Harvard University study of media bias with respect to the Trump administration. Here’s one of the three charts from the report:

Click here for the chart comparing the media's current tone to that of the three previous administrations.  The report concludes:

Trump has repeatedly claimed that his treatment by the media is unprecedented in its hostility.

This study suggests that, at least when it comes to recent history, he’s right.

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Legislation Without Representation (at the Treehouse)

art credit: britannica.com

Many people I know think everything in America today is just hunky-dory; they just shake their heads if I bring up any of the critical issues involved in this election (see e.g., The Flight 93 Election blog here). Many people I know who plan to vote for Hillary don’t see anything wrong with anything she does, even when her actions clearly violate the law. Hard to know where to go sometimes. 

It’s especially discouraging to have to try to counter the corrupt mainstream media narratives, day in day out, especially on television. Media bias, media malpractice, propaganda – whatever you call it, the corrupt media is carrying water for the corrupt political class. 

Sundance/Conservative Treehouse is one of my daily stops online. His essay today on “Legislation Without Representation” is a sobering sanity check. Here’s a short extract:

There are many who use a frame of reference about ‘saving a constitutional republic‘; while I do not mean to be dismissive of this benevolent sensibility — in case you have not been paying attention, we’ve long since passed the threshold of that possibility.

The architecture of our own U.S. government is now operating independent of the electorate (Obamacare, Omnibus, etc.).  Congress is consistently passing legislation without appropriate representation (PR [Puerto Rico] Bailout, Omnibus, Corker/Cardin [link added] amendment, Fast-Track Trade Authorization, etc.), and the various operational constructs, divisions, and agencies within the DC UniParty are now fully weaponized against us (IRS targeting, FBI Comey/email non-finding, etc.).

Whether we like to admit it or not, just like the futuristic Skynet, our government has become self-aware, risk adverse and is intent on sustaining its UniParty agenda against any threat, risk or voice that might rise in opposition.

Read the whole thing here. It's not as pessimistic as you might think.

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More on media bias

art credit: kwizoo.com

If your neighbor or relative relies on, say, the New York Times or ABC news or local TV news for his/her information, you can be 100% sure they are NOT getting the news. I’ve had a tiny bit of success in persuading family and friends to expand their sources of news, as that approach is less confrontational than criticizing particular news sources. 

I always start by suggesting the online aggregators. The Drudge Report is an obvious place to start. Next on my recommended list is RealClearPolitics, not because it is at the top of my own list, but because it posts news and analysis from the far left to the far right, and everything in between. It’s user friendly. The site itself doesn’t provide for reader comments, so it as close to neutral as possible. (I also suggest conservative talk radio - any conservative talk radio -- for those who don't want to go the internet route.)

A voter who begins to realize that the reports they are relying on are incomplete, heavily edited, selective, etc. will perhaps go to the next step and further expand their sources of news. A few people I know have had the ultimate Epiphany when they realized to their shock and horror that The Plain Dealer, The New York Times, CNN [or fill in the blank] are not fair and balanced. (For what it is worth, I don’t rely on Fox much, either.) But if you have any relatives or friends who will tolerate a conversation on the media and news, maybe they’ll consider a suggestion that they try expanding their sources of news, at least for a few days just to see what they find.

Steve Feinstein at American Thinker posted an article (“Pre-Empting the Liberal Media”) on media bias and its role in shaping public opinion. Here are some extracts:

Liberal mainstream media bias for Hillary Clinton is the single biggest factor so far in this election season contributing to her lead in the polls. The nightly news on NBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, the NY Times, Washington Post, the morning and late-night TV shows, CNN, MSNBC, and all the websites associated with these sources are strongly and openly behind Hillary and her “first woman” status. Many so-called journalists have dropped any pretense of objectivity and are quite unashamedly and openly supportive of Clinton, while they derisively dismiss Trump as an unserious nonentity. 

Ostensibly, it is Trump’s presence in this year’s race that has caused liberal bias to be so prominent, but no rational observer could possibly think that the media would show any less favoritism towards First-Woman Hillary if her Republican opponent were Cruz, Rubio, or Kasich.

Hillary has many well-known vulnerabilities and character flaws: her role in Benghazi debacle and the subsequent rewriting of history in order to avoid accountability and blame, her non-accomplishments in every major foreign affairs arena where she played a role as Secretary of State, her private e-mail server and her continual distortions and parsing in an attempt to deflect scrutiny and shift responsibility (“Colin Powell told me to do it!”), and of course, the widening-by-the-day Clinton Foundation corruption controversy.

These factors are completely independent of who her opponent happens to be. . . .

. . . The "circular firing squad" that Republicans have created this year because of Trump -- who won the primaries fair and square, regardless of anyone's personal feelings about him -- is truly idiotic and inexplicable.

The Republicans need to remember who their real opponent is in 2016 -- it’s not the “untraditional Republican” Donald Trump, it’s the liberal media propping up an astonishingly deficient Hillary Clinton.  . . .

The entire article is here.

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Pastor Darrell Scott on media bias and Trump

And speaking of media bias and coverage of Donald J. Trump, here is Cleveland Heights' Pastor Darrell Scott on Fox yesterday:

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Lyin’ media

Art credit: bnp.org.uk

Media bias is everywhere. And this morning, when reading about the misdemeanor charge of assault against Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, in Florida (an incident involving Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields on March 8 -- over a couple of weeks ago -- that was shown to be a nothing-burger), and then looking at the video that shows that nothing happened to warrant the charge, you just knew it was going to be bad for Trump.

Did we expect non-stop crawls on CNN and Fox, keeping viewer attention on the charge of assault? Turned on the TV to flip between the two stations. Yup. Wall-to-wall crawls. The report in the crawl was technically correct -  a charge WAS filed against Trump’s campaign manager. And that’s all that was needed to get the lyin’ media coverage. Never mind that the charge is baseless.

And here is what will probably happen, if they run true to form. The lyin’ media will run the headline as long as they can (and they've been including shots of the stop-action video that would make it APPEAR that there was some basis in fact for the charge, when in fact, there is no “there” there, as Gertrude Stein would have said). And maybe in a few days, or in a week or two, the charge will be quietly dropped, and if the lyin’ media covers it at all, they will bury it. 

And that’s the technique. Burn that impression into the viewer’s mind for a few days, and you’ve done the job. No matter whether it’s false, retracted, or withdrawn. Damage is done.

The tactic today got the lyin’ media a twofer: it shoved the Ted Cruz "Cuban Mistress Crisis" off to the side, and it threw mud at the Trump campaign.

Video is at Gateway Pundit, among other places.

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Sonnie Johnson at Occupy The Truth

Sonnie Johnson wowed the crowd at the Occupy The Truth rally on Aug. 18.

Dana Loesch Pumps up "Occupy The Truth Rally"

Video streaming by Ustream

Video streaming by Ustream

In case you missed it on Aug. 18 - or want to get pumped up again.

Dana Loesch to speak at Occupy The Truth

This just in from Gateway Pundit:

“Occupy the Truth” Tea Party Organizers Announce Addition of Conservative Rock Star DANA LOESCH to All-Star Lineup

Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, August 13, 2012, 12:09 AM

(Cleveland, Ohio August 13, 2012) / — Filmmaker Andrew Marcus, Director of the upcoming documentary Hating Breitbart and Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit announce that conservative rock star Dana Loesch will join us along with media powerhouse Michelle Malkin at “Occupy the Truth”. This Tea Party protest will shine the light on the dishonest coverage of the media of the attempted violent bombing planned by members of Occupy Cleveland. The event will be held at Willard Park / Free Stamp Plaza in Cleveland, Ohio (near the site of one of the planned bombings) on Sat. August 18th from 11am to 1pm (EDT).

Make your plans now to attend this historic rally where conservatives come together and say “Enough is Enough!” to the corrupt and biased American media outlets.

Please join us on August 18th in Cleveland, Ohio.

Register / RSVP (free) here.

Occupy Cleveland #FAIL : Patriots "Occupy The Truth"!

This short video from the Mansfield Tea Party is scary - a frightening "what-if" -- what if law enforcement had not prevented the Occupy Cleveland anarchists from blowing up several targets, including the Cuyahoga Valley Bridge. Yet the media continue to blame conservatives for acts of violence and attempted bombings. More from Malkin here.