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Christianity Today

Well, it took 18 hours, but Christian leaders are now beginning to decry Mark Galli, the editorial writer for Christianity Today who so strongly wrote the article saying that Donald Trump needs to be removed from office. Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, the founder of Christianity Today, says that his father would not have agreed with that editorial. Other Christian Evangelical leaders have now echoed somethng similar, rallying to their president and decrying one of their own.

They would rather believe their lying president than a truth-teller among their own ranks.

But for 12 to 18 wonderful hours, it was good to see the Radical Right so gloriously bitch-slapped by the truth.

The impeachment vote from the House of Representatives last Wednesday did not sting Trump all that much. Trump knows Mitch McConnell will do whatever he says, regardless of moral code, regardless of Constitutional duty. Just ask Merrick Garland. But the editorial from Christianity Today certainly stung. Trump knows where his power base lies. He knows the radical Christians are his strongest supporters. He also knows that as long as he appoints hyper-conservative judges who are dedicated to putting prayer back in public schools, putting crosses back on public land, and overturning Roe v. Wade, he is utterly safe from any, and I mean ANY, wrongdoing.

But sometimes, even his strongest supporters balk. It's that bad. In the case of Christianity Today, the editor cited the lessons learned during the Clinton impeachment, when conservatives said over and over again that moral integrity matters, and that it was important to stand for ethical behavior. Christianity Today's editors, or at least one of them, have decided that it is wrong to side with an immoral person to achieve moral ends.

In other words, the ends do not justify the means anymore.

My take on all this? It was worth it. The impeachment shenanagins (and by shenanagins I mean those on the Republican side), the lies (again, one-sided on the Right), the grandstanding by professional conservatives on repeating long-since debunked falsehoods, they were all worth the seemingly endless toil just to have this one, small editorial that so deeply stung the president, and forced the FoxNews zombies to look at reality - for fucking once.


Even if it were all fake, it would have been worth it.

But, of course, it wasn't.


Eric

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Poll Dancing

Two weeks ago, Fox News and every other conservative news outlet was doing a victory dance regarding a Rasmussen poll which showed approval for Trump skyrocketing to 35% among African Americans. There was zero hesitation in pronouncing that this foretold of doom for Democrats in 2020, and that liberals had to seriously re-think their strategies. CNN commentators immediately decried the poll as inaccurate. Anna Navarro Cardenas, a Republican commentator on CNN, notably said, "Zero chance this is accurate." Her comment was immediately decried by Fox, One America News, and other outlets as "typical liberal media bias." Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity could barely contain their excitement.

Rasmussen is often cited by right-wing news because it skews results in favor of Republican candidates. Thus, when other polls typically show an approval rating among African Americans for Donald Trump to be around 10%, Rasmussen shows it typically around 25%. So a report that shows approval among black Americans at 35% should have indicated a spike in approval rating in general. But was this accurate, or merely an outlier? Another poll by Emerson University seemed to show similar results, and Fox took this as gospel. Now, a "fair and balanced" news organization such as the one Fox News claims to be, would have reported these as a potential outliers, and advised that further results need to be obtained before any conclusions could be drawn. They might also have pointed out that, even if real, this could be only a temporary spike in approval among African Americans, spurred in large part by Trump's comments about the horrible state of the inner city. Naturally, they did not say either of these things, instead reporting that Trump was definitely gaining support among the black American voting population.

Well, surprise, surprise, reality has brought this biased reporting back down to a crash-landing on planet Earth. A YouGov poll released yesterday shows African Americans who strongly approve of Donald Trump to be merely 5%, and those that somewhat approve of Trump to be 8%, giving Trump a whopping 13%. Slightly higher than the usual 10%, but not by much. Rasmussen's poll crashed back down to its usual mid-25% range. And to top it off, a new poll, released by none other than Fox News itself, confirms this with 24%. Even Fox couldn't get the results higher than Rasmussen's 25% range.

To add insult to injury, the same poll shows increased support for Trump's impeachment, with 50% of respondents saying that Trump should be impeached and removed from office, and only 41% saying he should not be impeached at all.

So, will Fox News, One America, The Epoch Times, Newsday, Limbaugh or Hannity apologize for getting things so obviously wrong?

I'm betting not.


Eric

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The Formula

Ever notice how very little news on conservative news outlets is actually news? I mean, today's headlines on Foxnews.com features the following line items on its politics tab:

Trump attending Army Navy game in Pasadena - tertiary.
Trump attacks Schumer after Schumer says that the U.S. sold out on China trade deal - reporting on someone else's opinions.
Illegal immigrants to get drivers' licenses after court case loss - interesting choice of emphasis.
Trump supporter grabs spotlight at Sanders rally by protesting - again, odd choice of emphasis.
Eric Trump's daughter makes debut on Fox News - big deal.
Eric Trump says impeachment is a hail mary - opinion.
Rep. McCarthy says imeachment puts 55 Democrats in vulnerable spot - opinion.
Candace Owens and Corey Lewandowski lend their perspective - opinion.
Kellyanne Conway on impeachment - opinion.
Anti-impeachment Rep. Jeff Drew met with Trump to discuss party switch. - Emphasis.
Eric Shawn on whether or not impeachment will hurt or help Trump - opinion.

Basically, half of all the "news" stories reported on Fox News are all opinion pieces. The other half are unimportant items or strange choices to emphasize. Carolina Trump, being the president's newest granddaughter, making a TV debut as a baby while her daddy makes commentary is an interesting tidbit, but hardly important. Reporting Trump's attacks is reporting the news, but how is over-emphasizing Trump's tweets a responsible thing anymore? And the Trump supporter at the Sanders rally? Honestly, who cares?

But this is the formula for Fox News: Don't actually report the news. Instead, report the opinion. If it's not a news piece featuring someone else's opinion, it's a news piece that reports the story, and then kicks it over to a panel of talking heads, all of whom give their opinion. Not a one of these is anything other than a Trump sycophant, and so the news gets broken down in the most biased manner possible.

Shit, it's amazing how little news in on Fox News!

But the formula is clear: Report as little news as possible. When news must be reported, emphasize the stories that favor your side. When the stories don't favor your side (or even if they do) kick the story over to a panel which will discuss it in the most conservative light possible.

And this formula WORKS when it comes to deceiving people! Fox News knows perfectly well that people are too busy to really get into the weeds on technical details. People are busy with jobs, with kids, with a hundred other things, and they don't have time to really research. So, to feel informed, they watch what the pundits are saying. If they see all three pundits saying that the impeachment of Donald Trump is a big hoax, they assume that it must be a hoax! After all, nobody is dissenting, right?

This is part of why we need a return to the Fairness Doctrine like we need oxygen! The news being presented in one-sided format has gone on long enough!

Oh, there's bias on the other side, too. Today's viewing of CNN.com has a lineup of much more substantive headlines. Like reporting how thousands of troops will be recalled from Afghanistan. Or how the Supreme Court will be taking up the case regarding Trump's tax returns.Here, at least, you get a lot more of the information you NEED to know. But it also emphasizes comments by Lindsey Graham saying that he's not even trying to be fair when it comes to Trump's impeachment. That's a fair bit of reporting, but it's no mystery why it got top billing on the website. It also features a story about Melania Trump ignoring how her husband has been bullying Greta Thornburg, after Melania made anti-bullying her First-Lady pet-project. Okay, the hypocrisy is stark, but so also is the emphasis.

Meanwhile, MSNBC doesn't even bother having a staff putting news stories in print form on its website. It emphasized the videos, and many of them criticize Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham for so bluntly admitting that they will not even bother trying to be objective regardint Trump's impeachment trial. Again, a fair bit of reporting, but no mystery as to why it was pushed to the front page.

The Left may be slanted, but the Right has gotten outright blatant in its lies, pushing conspiracy theories and outright bullshit. For example, Judge Jeanine cannot even say the word "impeachment" without sounding as though she's putting the word in quotes, as I just did. And when one compares the number of substantive political news stories on CNN with those on Fox News, one can't help but notice how CNN has so much more information that Fox has.

So what does Fox have that's so popular? It has confirmation bias.

I'll be documenting plenty more examples of this as I continue to find them...

But it's disquieting how I don't need to look very hard.


Eric

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