Sleepless in Midland

It's time for moderate Democrats to speak out against the radicals

Donald Trump is probably getting more popular among the people who already supported him. And he has probably gained some supporters since the election. Part of it is the potential for a decent economy which has a lot of people exited. But it's also because the left seems to be going insane.

Many of us wish moderate Muslims would rein in the extremists. But the moderates are probably burdened with a mix of fear of the extremists and sympathy with the extreme position. Could that be happening among Democrats these days?

Seems that most if not all of the people in the main stream media have removed their blindfolds and are on the attack against Trump. Of if they aren't on attack, they sympathize with the movement, or the "resistance," as some prefer to call it.

Check this out this call for violence: John Lewis encourages 'necessary trouble' against injustice in America.

And this sounds ominous: The American Left Is Talking Itself Into Violence --

Something is wrong with the American Left. The recent spate of violent protests on college campuses has been well-documented, but the violence and intolerance championed by left-wing student activists is beginning to creep off campus and into mainstream public life.

Most of us stopped watching the late night variety shows when Letterman started using his show to further his politics. But note this: How Late-Night Comedy Fueled the Rise of Trump in which Caitlin Flanagan says this:

This combination of sentiments—the excoriating, profanity-strewn, ad hominem tirade against the president (and by extension against anyone who might agree, in any small measure, with his actions), and the saintly appeal for reaching out to the other side—dominates the political discussion inside the blue bubble these days. The excoriating outweighs the reaching-out at a ratio of about 20 to 1, but the earnestly expressed desire for a more humane form of discourse is enduring.

At least she seems to be calling out to the moderates. And at least one other forum has given her a voice. Nice to know, but it's not likely to rein in the lefty mobs.

The nation needs more Democrat moderates who can shame the radicals among them as much as they try to shame conservatives.

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1:15 PM 5/14/2017

Lost to the left -- late night comedy shows

Late night comedy's latest outrage is Stephen Colbert's crude suggestion about Donald Trump performing oral sex on Vlad Putin. Most of us can't really picture that, but Colbert's audience loved it. It's his audience, he knows them, and he gives them what they want. It's that simple.

Aside from Greg Gutfeld, there aren't any prominent conservative comedians. And late night shows are are another genre the right never had but if definitely lost to them now.

David French makes that clear in Don’t Fire Colbert — Fire His Crowd:

If you want an explanation for why the Colberts of the world say the things they do, there it is in the adulation of the audience. He is their voice. He’s speaking out their rage. He’s not leading them; he’s riding their wave of progressive scorn, anger, and hate. If he fell, another would rise to take his place. Angry progressives demand cathartic mockery, and they shall have it one way or another.

He makes an analogy to AM talk radio's conservative voices and notes that they and the comedians are following their audience, not leading them, by simply telling them what they want to hear. Good point.

Then this:

The problem is that this silent majority is largely irrelevant to the prevailing discourse. Our political and cultural agenda is typically dictated by those who care the most, and right now those who care the most also tend to hate their opponents on the other side with a fiery, reflexive passion. ...

In short, the people who truly care move this country, and the people who truly care are truly angry. Their anger is so all-consuming that it often forecloses the possibility of a debate about ideas. One of the more remarkable things about the 2016 election was that it was simultaneously the most vitriolic of my adult lifetime and the least ideological.

Hmm -- "Silent majority." Shades of the 60s. In any event, the tone is set. And odds are it will get worse before it gets better. But it will get better.

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10:04 AM 5/4/2017

Will Bret Stephens survive the ire of New York Times readers?

Perhaps the New York Times was trying to show some balance. They're generally so unabashedly Democrat that conservatives have written them off as the masthead of the liberal media. However, for some reason they hired Bret Stephens away from the Wall Street Journal. But it seems to have backfired on them.

Stephens wrote a column questioning the global warming mantra typically trumpeted by Democrats, and the excrement hit the fan. See People are furiously canceling their New York Times subscriptions after an op-ed disputing climate change was published:

In his column, Stephens compared the "certitude" with which Hillary Clinton's advisers believed she would win the 2016 election to climate scientists' repeated warnings about climate change risks. As evidence, Stephens said that inaccurate polling data during the 2016 campaign proves that science can miss the mark in other fields as well.

"There’s a lesson here. We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude begets hubris," Stephens wrote.

Stephens' column evoked a swift and angry response from many of the paper's subscribers, who promptly canceled their subscriptions and bashed the Times' decision to hire Stephens as a writer.

I believe there is such a thing as the religion gene which predisposes people to believe in some power that can't be proved. Furthermore, it seems that many Democrats have redirected that predisposition of religious fervor toward politics, the progressive agenda, global warming, and things such as that. If he didn't know it already, Mr. Stephens is learning that to enter a church and disparage the beliefs that brought the congregation together will get a reaction.

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1:49 PM 4/30/2017

Theory of Belief Echoes explains why anti-Trump forces are so quick to spread fake news

The most recent publication of "fake news" was debunked so quickly it was all over before many of us had heard the first account. This particular fake news involved alleged sleazy behavior on behalf of Donald Trump. See Hours Before Trump's Press Conference CNN And BuzzFeed Hit 'Fake News' Bottom and Buzzfeed’s Trump report takes ‘fake news’ to a new level for rebuttals.

If Buzzfeed editors knew it was fake, or at least questionable, why did they publish it?

Here's a possible explanation -- they knew and took advantage of the theory of "Belief Echoes." The theory is described in Belief echoes: The persistent effects of corrected misinformation. Here's an excerpt from the abstract:

However, through a series of experiments, I find that exposure to a piece of negative political information persists in shaping attitudes even after the information has been successfully discredited. A correction—even when it is fully believed—does not eliminate the effects of misinformation on attitudes. These lingering attitudinal effects, which I call "belief echoes," are created even when the misinformation is corrected immediately, arguably the gold standard of journalistic fact-checking.

In other words, fake news can shape attitudes even after it's been proven fake. No wonder some partisans are so eager to publish it.

Trump's refusal to release tax returns is very important, at least to the NPR audience

I was listening to liberal talk radio (NPR) Friday morning, and the host and a guest were appalled at the fact that Donald Trump is the only presidential candidate in modern history who didn't release his tax returns. Is that really an issue?

I would have liked to ask them, "If Trump released his tax returns, would you then vote for him?" HA HA! We know they wouldn't. It would be merely the first of many steps he would have to take for them to accept him as a human being.

But with all that has and is coming out about Hillary Clinton, it's interesting to hear just what arguments they use these days to try to drag down Trump. To get him down to her level is going to take some doing.

Furthermore, it's hard to imagine anything in his tax returns that would embarrass him. If so, it would have leaked already.

Anyway, let them have their fun. We'll know soon enough who will be our next president.

When entertainment is propaganda

Special interest groups have been influencing the U.S. entertainment industry for a long time, and more recently foreign governments have insisted on changes to movies that make them look good. China is probably the most notable example as the Chinese government has direct control over which American made movies get shown there.

But this could be worse. With the ownership of AMC theaters and Legendary Entertainment, the Chinese company, Dalian Wanda, now wants Carmike Cinemas. The theaters can show Chinese movies all day long if they like, or they can exert influence on film makers to get what they want into or out of American made movies. For background, see Hollywood, Chinese-style, which contains this glimmer of suspicion:

Fortunately, Congress is aware of China’s subtle power play. The promised GAO review came in response to a request from 18 bipartisan members of Congress to investigate Mr. Wang’s dealmaking and the effects of Chinese propagandizing through state-supported companies. Rep. John Culberson, Texas Republican, also asked the Department of Justice to launch a review of the Foreign Agents Registration Act to see if the “foreign propaganda influence over American media” was being sufficiently addressed. Wang Jainlin, the Wanda CEO, will be in Hollywood this week on a public relations tour promoting his government’s offer to subsidize American film making in China.

Television probably takes a passive view of the Chinese as the networks are currently so obsessed with Donald Trump, having gotten him the nomination and now hoping to tear him down. E.g., Count of Trump-Lampooning TV Shows Nears 30.*

Fortunately, Americans have a healthy skepticism when they view main stream media and their products. Right? Right? Well, I can dream, can't I?

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*Going against the grain was the recent decision by NBC to pull a Donald Trump themed episode. Maybe they made a hero out of the Billy Bush character, and the suits couldn't have that incongruity.

If Ted Cruz or Ben Carson had gotten the Republican nomination, would the MSM be hauling out old embarrassing videos about them?

We recently learned from the released emails that Team Hillary, aided and abetted by the msm, targeted Donald Trump as their preferred winner of the Republican nomination for president, because they thought he would be the easiest to defeat in the national election.

With the msm releases of video of Trump's offensive language and new sexual assault complaints, independents and wavering Dems are supposed to be ready to abandon Trump in favor of Clinton. If it happens, then Team Hillary bet on a winning strategy, however underhanded it might seem to those of us at whom it was aimed.

But there were two others on Hillary's wish list: Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. What if one of those other two had won the primary? Democrats probably have already dug up the dirt on them, but we may not learn their worst secrets unless/until either of them runs for president again, and then not until Democrats and the msm decide disclosing them will do the most damage.

As for Trump, conservatives who fear Clinton don't have much choice but to vote for him now that Ms. Clinton herself has facilitated his primary election. But it's hard to forgive Trump for self sabotage like this: Trump Said to Block Campaign’s Requests to Do Self-Opposition Research. Presumably, he had an inkling of what might come out, but he was so confident in his own power of persuasion that he didn't want any help. After all, he's going to make America great again, right?

Don't get mad at Dallas Morning News for endorsing Hillary, thank them for their honesty

Dailycaller.com is telling us that The Dallas Morning News Is Paying Dearly For Endorsing Hillary Clinton. Readers left angry comments and threatened to cancel their subscriptions.

The thing DMN did that is different than most other newspapers is actually coming out and saying it. Most newspapers try to pretend that they are neutral in politics. However, researchers have shown that a high percentage of the people in the msm are Democrats.

They try to hide it, but it's obvious to most conservatives, because it comes out in the news coverage. More specifically, it comes out in what the outlet elects to exclude from coverage. As the oft quoted Iowahawk says, "Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving."

With so many online sources available these days, the typical conservative is very well informed. So when their local daily omits a topic, that's a dead giveaway. It's nice that DMN actually came clean. Their readers should appreciate the honesty.

Aside: For those of us who are one-issue-voters -- concerned about the future Supreme Court appointees -- Hillary is the wrong choice. She has not tried to hide her ambition to try to limit the freedoms guaranteed in the 1st and 2nd amendments. DMN needn't worry, though. They don't care much for the 2nd amendment anyway, and as to the 1st, Clinton will surely make an exception in her executive order protecting her favorite news outlets. But DMN should remember that last line from Martin Niemoeller's famous quote, "... And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”

AP struggles to find ways to frame headlines showing Republicans as reactionary

A prominent blogger recently pointed out how the msm does this. The headlines, instead of noting what some Democrat has done, are framed to highlight Republicans' reactions. Once one becomes aware of the practice, it seems to appear everywhere.

This example from AP was in the local morning paper on Monday: Trump supporters struggle to sideline 'birther' issue.

Notice how the headline says it's Trump's supporter who are struggling. There's just a tiny bit of misdirection going on there. The struggle is by Clinton's supporters to keep the issue alive. Trump and his supporters are past it. Clinton and her msm supporters are hanging onto the issue as if it were a branch in a tidal wave.

Many observers are probably tempted to wish that the election was over with. Not me. This is the most exiting election since Ike vs. Adlai. (Flashback: That one may not have been all that exiting, but to a kid exposed to TV for the first time, it was better than a circus.)

Conservative newcomer discovers liberal msm -- better late than never, Donald Trump

I'm so dumb it took a long time for me to realize that Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, Huntley - Brinkley, Dan Rather, Bob Schieffer, et al, were die hard Democrats. But I was a Democrat back then too, and it wasn't obvious. As Andrew Malcolm said:

At times I’ve described media bias to intelligent liberal friends. They don’t see it. They can’t see it. It’s like asking a fish what water tastes like. That environment is all it’s ever known.

When you're riding a bike or jogging with the wind at your back you don't notice it until you turn against it. That's what it's like when you become conservative. All of a sudden the liberal media is a strong wind in your face.

Apparently, Donald Trump has the wind in his face and the sand blowing in his eyes now. He didn't notice it when he was a Democrat. Now that he's a Republican he is experiencing first hand what conservatives have seen for years.

All his predecessors who earned the Republican nomination tried to get along with the msm. However, we are learning that Trump is attempting to go to war with the media. He's unlikely to change their minds, but that's not the point. Whether his is a good or bad strategy is something we'll learn in the next few months.

Fiercely Conservative -- how Associated Press sees Texas

In the morning paper --
An AP article about the recent court decision invalidating Texas' voter ID law described Texas voters as "fiercely conservative." AP'a true color came through on that one (hint: Blue).

It's hard to imagine them describing some of the hard core Democrat states as "fiercely liberal." Perhaps it's because Democrats are less inclined to act for themselves than they are to rely on the government for everything. But that's mere speculation. Because they sure did demonstrate some ferocity in Minnesota when Scott Walker took away some of their government goodies.

Neither President Trump nor Clinton seem too inclined to tackle the entitlement issue, so we probably aren't likely to see much emotion from anyone other than the special interest groups who might get snared in one or more of those candidates' campaign promises.

In any event, I like it. "Fiercely conservative," as in, "Don't mess with Texas." The question on many of our minds is, "Will it last?" At least one famous commentator thinks it won't. See Will Texas become another brick in the Democrats’ blue wall? by George Will.

As for the Texas voter ID law, it's a tough law. Most of us have a photo ID and don't think much about it. However, I know first hand how difficult it is to secure a photo ID for someone who doesn't have one. More on that in the future.

Another language quirk progressives use -- gun lovers instead of gun owners

There are a few articles out on the net that purport to distinguish political ideologues by the usage of certain words and phrases. Here's one they may have missed. See how this headline describes gun owners: House passes bill to open federal lands for gun lovers.

It's an insult both to lovers and gun owners. But it's a sure fire political tell.

Let's stop begrudging court rulings that favor taxpayers over tax collectors

Apparently oil companies have been paying a Texas sales tax on certain items which they claim should be exempt. Sounds like a legitimate enough issue for the courts and an appropriate issue for a newspaper article. See Midland driller’s lawsuit could cost Texas billions in tax refunds which is a reproduction of a New York Times' partner, Texas Tribune, article a day earlier.

My issue is with the treatment given by the reporter. He calls the potential taxpayer refund a "cost," and that seems to mischaracterize the transaction.

If a business collected money for a product that was never delivered and then had to return the money, is that a "cost" to that business? There is probably a word for it, but "cost" doesn't seem consistent with ordinary meaning.

"Cost" is the word one uses when one is a fan of the notion that property and money really belong to the government -- whatever you get to keep is at the pleasure of the government. And if the the taxpayer dutifully paid the government through a misinterpretation of the statute, and the government is forced by a court to return it -- God forbid! -- that's not a cost. That is merely returning money to the rightful owner. That's justice.

Way back when SNL had a skit featuring a young Chelsea Clinton character there was hell to pay

This happened during the Clinton administration. It was a Saturday Night Live skit featuring Madonna as herself serenading the Clinton family, and in particular, there were some seductive gestures toward the child, Chelsea, played by Mike Meyers, if I recall.

Anyway, there was hell to pay. Lorne Michaels and everyone else involved apologized profusely and vowed never to involve Chelsea in a skit again.

Aw, those were the good old days when ridiculing politicians' children was considered off limits. Now, not so much as WaPo cartoonists feel free to mock Ted Cruz' precious little girls. Will the blistering criticism change their ways? Of course it will, but only until a conservative target becomes irresistible.

Silence of the lambs -- those who blamed Pamela Geller for the attempted terrorist attack on her went silent after the attack on Planned Parenthood

With the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood killer reported to have made a remark about baby parts, it's reasonable to presume he was influenced by the videos of the PP agents haggling and joshing about removing and selling organs of aborted babies.

Blaming the victim is never a good practice. And it wasn't a good practice when members of the msm did it to Pam Geller following that attempted Islamic terrorist attack against her.

What we have here is a dog-that-didn't-bark situation. Silence-of-the-lambs to pile on the metaphors.

There has been no effort by the msm to put any blame on Planned Parenthood. Very telling.

It makes one suspect partisan politics is always a silent partner in the news coverage, analysis, and commentary.

Rubio nailed it -- mainstream media is Democrats' ultimate super PAC

It's so true. Conservatives have known about the MSM bias for a long time. And it was refreshing to hear it said on a national stage from a major candidate.

This occurred at the third Republican candidates' debate broadcast on CNBC featuring a panel of Democrats questioning Republicans. See washingtonexaminer.com:

"The Democrats have the ultimate super PAC. they're called the mainstream media," Rubio said before ripping them for praising Clinton's performance in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi last Thursday.

The MSM were already aware of their bias, and nothing is likely to change. But it was refreshing to see them squirm as it was thrown in their faces at such a public event.

Democrats' race problem -- fear of black men who disagree with them

Democrats like to put demeaning labels on fears -- homophobia and Islamophobia, to name a couple. So what should we call their fear of black men?

For it seems that they do fear black men who don't hue to their own party line. Case in point: Ben Carson. See for example, Why Carson Scares the Media by David Catron.

The answer is in the latest polls of registered voters. It’s not just that Carson has closed the gap on Donald Trump in the race for the GOP nomination. What really scares the media is that, in hypothetical general election match-ups, Carson consistently beats the probable Democrat nominee—Hillary Clinton. According to Real Clear Politics, most surveys of registered voters conducted since the beginning of September show Clinton losing to Carson in the general election. One shows Carson winning by 7 points. The opposite is true for Trump. Most polls covering the same time period show Clinton beating “the Donald” with ease.

Sure, it's partisan politics. But there's more to it than that. Democrats need black people to know their place as loyal subjects. And if a black man gets too far away from that, then they do what they can to get him back in line. Ben Carson's own words.

“They’re actually playing right into the narrative that I have predicted for them,” Carson told host Matt Boyle on Breitbart News Sunday. “Because they can’t stand the thought of a black person who is a conservative, who hasn’t had to make it on their handout and be at their beck and call and doing the things that they want them to do. It just infuriates them.”

Feminists (and other Democrats) have their knives out for Carly Fiorina

Democrats think they have a lock on certain demographic voting blocs, and someone in that demo who doesn't parrot the Democrat party line gets attacked, viciously. There are a bunch: Clarence Thomas, Alberto Gonzales and Sarah Palin to name a few.

So it shouldn't be surprising that Carly Fiorina is the new target of an attempt to drag a conservative down. Media watchdog Howard Kurtz describes some of it in Carly’s caustic coverage: Why feminists are throwing her off the bus:

When Hillary Clinton first ran for president eight years ago, much of the coverage reflected the excitement surrounding a woman trying to shatter the ultimate glass ceiling.

Now that Carly Fiorina is getting traction in the Republican race, the media’s reaction is, shall we say, more muted.

The New York Times weighed in with a piece that essentially asked, how can many women support Fiorina when she is (gasp) a conservative? ...

And there you have it. If you’re a female politician who is not pro-choice on abortion, you are not just in the back of the bus—you are ejected from the bus, as that vehicle is defined by the left. You can’t claim to be for equal rights for women based on that one issue, as if there are no pro-life women out there. You have the Times reporting that “liberal women across the web are expressing conflicted feelings about her candidacy. At times, there is gratification at watching a woman forcefully take on Mr. Trump; at other times, horror at Mrs. Fiorina’s conservative policy positions, which these women see as anathema to the feminist cause.”

The knives are out. I'm betting Fiorina can handle it on her own, she needn't be too worried, because people who follow the news have come to expect this from the left.

Pamela Geller speaks out on Ben Carson's Muslim president remark

When Ben Carson made remarks recently about his opposition to a devout Muslim running this country, the media piled on. Recall that a police officer dispatched two terrorists at a conference in Garland that Pamela Geller organized, and the left leaning media piled on trying to put the blame on her.

Who better to defend Ben Carson? Here she is in Ben Carson Zooms to Top of Media’s Kill List:

Ben Carson was speaking of a devout Muslim, a sharia-compliant Muslim, becoming President. The idea that we have to talk about “peaceful Muslims” every time jihad and sharia come up is a straw man argument. We don’t have to pat on the back every Muslim who doesn’t want to kill us. We expect that. That’s our bar. But the media insists. We don’t talk about “peaceful Buddhists,” “peaceful Sikhs,” “peaceful Christians,” etc. — so why must Muslims be treated like a special needs case? It’s the soft bigotry of low expectations. ...

This is a battle for the American agenda. The media monsters mean to dictate what we can and cannot talk about. It is an attack on freedom of thought and freedom of speech. We must fight this battle with every cell of our being. ...

ISIS has a kill list, and so does the media. Carson is on the top of that hit list now. This is a defining moment in the 2016 presidential campaign.

If anyone has street cred in the fight against lefties in the media in the battle against radical Islam, it's Geller.

Since when is it an obligation of a political candidate to correct misapprehensions about opposition?

Donald Trump is catching heat from the msm because he didn't correct a questioner who made a remark about Obama being a Muslim. See, for example, Trump Refuses to Deny Accusation that Obama Is Foreign Muslim in NH Q&A.

If politicians followed a rule like that we might have a President Romney right about now.

Deal for data strengthens NBC's goal of helping Democrats

Washington Examiner tells us about a new agreement between NBC and TargetSmart, a data mining company which was hired by the DNC in 2014 to help elect Democrats. See NBC partners with Dem political firm for 2016.

What does TargetSmart do? They're data miners. A Politico.com article calls it one of the most powerful engines of the Democratic Party’s data operation.

Here's TargetSmart's mission statement about their voter data base:

VoterBase is the nation’s market-leading national voter file, containing accurate contact information and voting information on over 191 million voters, and 58 million unregistered voting age consumers. Thousands of campaigns each year rely on VoterBase data to power their fundraising, research, and voter contact programs. And now, through VoterBase Digital, you can leverage the same powerful political data online and through addressable TV and reach voters in a truly integrated campaign across multiple mediums, consolidating online, offline, and addressable television advertising platforms.

That's about 250 million people in their data base. It might be interesting to see how NBC uses this information to manipulate voters. But that would require actually watching NBC.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is probably taking advantage of the service. So whenever we see her changing tack in her campaign we could guess that TargetSmart pulled up some info about her base that she should be addressing.

Jay Nordlinger is right -- journalists should broadcast their political positions not try to hide them

It didn't come as any surprise to conservatives that Gwen Ifill succumbed to her affection for Obama. But the animosity toward Benjamin Netanyahu she displayed with her "Take that, Bibi" tweet went a little bit farther. She basically admitted that in a political controversy, she's on Obama's side.

Well yes, the PBS ombudsman criticized her for it. But if it changes anything, journalists will simply try a little harder to conceal their loyalties to Democrats.

Jay Nordlinger gets it right in About Gwen Ifill wherein he encouraged news figures to be open about their partisanship.

We should all know where they stand. They aren't fooling anyone, but when they try to hide it they are really hurting the true non-partisans among them, if there are any, because the default position among conservatives is to think they are all in the tank for today's progressives.

Someone made a suggestions years ago which I think is apt. Require all news people to donate $1,000 each year to a political party. Then publicize the information with a TV crawl under their faces or a footnote at the end of their articles so we all know where they are coming from.

No one likes a pretender.

How a politician looks in newspaper photos influences poll numbers

I was just rereading an article from about a year ago titled Is a Picture Worth 1,000 Polls? In it Virginia Postrel tells us that positive images of politicians precede good poll numbers.

Researchers showed volunteers numerous photos of the same person and had them pick the images that conveyed competence. Here's an excerpt:

Using this information, the researchers created a mathematical model mapping the relationship between the photos' syntactical attributes and their inferred intents. "One can say, for example," they write, "perception of competence arises from combination of facial displays (smile), gestures (hand wave, hand shake), and scene context (large-crowd)." With that information, they could give the computer a new photo of a politician to analyze, looking only at its syntactical attributes, and rank for its likely effect.

That's how they found the relation between news photos and poll results. They crawled news articles that mentioned Obama between January 2008 through September 2013 in the four sources -- two domestic and two British -- and collected about 50,000 photos of him. They then analyzed the photos for their syntactical attributes and the implied "favorable" effect and compared the patterns against aggregate poll results.

So a photo in the New York Times or Washington Post of a politician in the right pose can bump up their poll numbers. I'm sure we all remember the photos of Obama from the campaign seasons which showed him in the most favorable light. The one with the halo around his head probably really left an impression on the low information voter.

Fast forward to today, and let's see what images they're showing these days.

These are from the Washington Post. The one on the left shows a rather dejected looking Obama after a speech about the Iran deal. The one on the right shows a poster of Obama with a "$5.00 off any sweatshirt" sticker on it. Neither photo is particularly flattering. According to the theory, these photos may portend low poll numbers.

Contrast those with this one of Hillary Clinton. Oh my, how confident she looks. She was polling at about 51% unfavorable as of a couple of weeks ago. So maybe she's about to get a boost.

In any event, the look of a politician in a newspaper photo tells us a lot about what the newspaper people want us to think.

Obama diverted media attention away from lousy Iran deal with comment on Bill Cosby -- he's that good

Howard Kurtz nailed it down in So much for Iran: Why Obama’s Cosby comments rocked the media landscape:

The president said he wasn’t going to comment. And then he did.

At which point he could kiss the Iran headlines goodbye. Yes, his Iran remarks were front-page news for the likes of the Washington Post and New York Times, though he didn’t say much that was new. But for endless cable news segments and online pieces and social media, Cosby was king.

Bill Cosby's lady problem is what many of us would call "tabloid news," but it's gotten more coverage than John Edwards' lady problem.

So Barack Obama remarks about it, and the news that he just entered into a deal with Iran that could start a new nuclear arms race gets consigned to the time slots between the public service announcements. Obama is that good. Of course with a compliant media he really doesn't have to be that good.

Bill Maher does his part to keep reporters in line when questioning Obama

By now everyone has heard about Major Garrett's tough question to President Obama about Obama's neglect of hostages currently being held by Iran. Conservative observers agree that it's about time a reporter conducted the type questioning Republicans routinely encounter from the press.

Democrats experience it so rarely they don't know how to react. As a result we see Obama get petulant with Major Garrett for one tough question.

Then along comes Bill Maher to join in the attack on Garrett, utilizing no fewer than three of Saul Alinsky's rules for radicals:

RULE 5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon."

RULE 8: "Keep the pressure on. Never let up."

RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

For you see, if Garrett gets away with it, then other reporters might try it, too. They've got to keep the press compliant.

P.S. According to Breitbart:

Maher, who has his own share of critics, currently hosts a comedy show on HBO, the same channel getting exclusive access today to the president for a documentary of his visit to a federal prison.

They earned it. Sucking up pays off.

This is how white people riot

After the deaths of Travon Martin, Michael Brown, and Freddy Gray we saw countless videos of people rioting and looting. Seemingly rational explanations for each of those deaths didn't seem to matter to the rioters. They were hell bent on rioting, presumably to vent their frustrations against a system they thought was against them.

President Obama even got in on the action by egging on the rioters and proclaiming that everyone else should be searching their souls for a way to calm the angry beast.

Ironically, Obama went mute when Kathryn Steinle was murdered.

The phrase silent majority cropped up decades ago to identify all those people who chose not to speak up and subject themselves to harassment from the left. And the phrase is particularly apt these days when social media can whip up a mob in no time flat.

So when someone like Donald Trump comes along and articulates the ways that the system is against them, he gets their attention. The msm love ridiculing him. And Trump is eating it up.

Trump obviously hit a nerve with his talk about illegal immigrants. The noisy mobs spew their vitriol. But the silent majority is grateful someone is articulating their concerns. Maybe this is that national conversation the lefty politicos kept saying they want while trying to shut up the opposition.

This is how white people riot. The Tea Parties were silenced, and the majority became the silent majority. The riot manifests itself at the ballot box.

Poll -- only 24% think media try to report the news without bias

Washingtonexaminer.com reports it this way: Poll: 70 percent of Americans believe news media is intentionally biased which skews it just a tad. But it conveys the same message.

The poll results were written up in a document titled The 2015 State of the First Amendment. And here's the relevant passage:

Only 24% now think that the news media try to report on news without bias. This represents a 17 - point drop from last year and a 22 - point drop from 2013. In fact, the 24% who now say the media try to report news without bias is the lowest since we began asking this question in 2004.

They're trying to blame it on Brian Williams and George Stephanopoulos, but anyone who reads a morning newspaper get a regular dose from the wire services. Furthermore, those of us who sympathize with the side against whom the bias is displayed have long memories. And the wounds opened by Candy Crowley's conduct during the Romney/Obama debate have gone untreated.

Ted Cruz summed up what a lot of people think when he said the following:

"They are not going to like us, they hate us. I'll tell you a funny story, a staffer in my office was commenting about a particular reporter. 'Oh she's really really nice.' And I said, 'Stop.'

"And I said 'You know what? She wants to destroy you. Nothing would make her happier than to take your life and filet you on the front page. And don't think because she smiles and is friendly that it's anything else ...'"

Many in the media are trying to woo millennials. But you know what? "Notably, only 7% of 18 - 29 year olds agree that the media try to report without bias..."

NYT double standard on Catholicism and Islam -- it's so much fun watching them try to explain it

Progressives today are so open minded that they can tolerate their own contradictions.

Every conservative has probably had liberal friends or acquaintances who were so smart they could convince themselves of anything. It's fun watching them tie themselves in knots trying to explain it. Problem is, there's usually no umpire around who can call fouls or declare a winner.

Thank goodness we still have a free press in the U.S. so we can watch some of these things play out in public.

The matter that brings this topic to light today is the New York Time's double standard on display when they produce a photo of an art piece depicting the pope made of condoms. It's just a tad distasteful. But then we are reminded that the same NYT declined to reproduce the Charlie Hebdo cartoons that had the radical Islamists so worked up they went on a killing spree.

Charles C. W. Cooke provides the short version of NYT's twisted excuse in On the New York Times’s Hilarious Charlie Hebdo Double-Standard, as follows:

The answer: For the same reason that the Times is happy to print one and not the other — to wit, because one is insulting to Catholics and the other is insulting to Muslims. If you honestly believe that this is a question of artistic merit or the psychic state of the artist — “ooh, look at the brushstrokes!” — then I have a Greek investment opportunity to put to you.

Succinct, funny, and true. He gets bonus points for tying it in with that stunning exemplar of socialism, Greece.

Reporters give Hillary Clinton a standing ovation

Apparently, they made no secret of their loyalty. According to Breitbart.com, msm reporters who attended Hillary Clinton's speech saying she was going to have no more secrets from the media gave her a standing ovation. See Reports: MSM Reporters Give Hillary Clinton Standing Ovation after She Takes No Questions, Jokes about Email Scandal.

Do they love her? Probably not. More likely they just feel protective of her because of all the sexism and hostility they expect from Republicans. Now if you put Elizabeth Warren in her place, then we would see some real love.

Why does the msm take the hate group Southern Poverty Law Center seriously?

Could it be that the main stream media and the Southern Poverty Law Center think alike? I'm guessing "yes."

It wasn't the msm that exposed SPLC over its ridiculous listing of Dr. Ben Carson on their extremist list, it was a blogger. See Legal Insurrection gets results: Ben Carson taken off SPLC “Extremist” List.

SPLC gave an anemic apology for it. And Thomas Lifson administered a proper Fisking to them in Southern Poverty Law Center issues totally unconvincing apology to Dr. Ben Carson.

Meanwhile, SPLC is still getting attention from the msm. For example, see the JPG below.

Ripped from the other day's morning paper, it's an AP hit piece on opponents of gay marriage which throws in SPLC for a supporting argument. I suppose they'll keep doing it as long as they think it works.