Derschowitz Just Gave The Game Away

Alan Derschowitz is a brilliant lawyer. He's made a career out of defending the worst of the worst his entire career, and takes it as a matter of pride that he's the "Devil's advocate" (which is the title of one of his autobiographical books, as a matter of fact). He's fresh off the defense of Jeffrey Epstein, no less.

So it is axiomatic that whomever Derschowitz defends is probably guilty as fuck.

But that's not the argument I wish to make. Instead, I'll point out something else. Because Derschowitz, while normally a brilliant lawyer, just gave the entire game away. His defense for Trump openly admits that the president is guilty of what he is accused of!

His "defense" is this: abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. Therefore, Trump shouldn't be impeached.

Think about that for a minute, and it should sink in what Derschowitz just did. He admitted Trump abused his power! But he's trying to argue it's not a big deal because this is power the president is allowed to abuse!

Oh, come on, really?

This argument didn't fly when Richard Nixon was in the White House. He tried to argue, famously, that "if the president does it, then it's not illegal." Well, the American people cried, "bullshit!" Nixon had to resign rather than face certain impeachment.

My, how times have changed.

Of course abuse of power is an impeachable offense! It's strange that Derschowitz, ordinarily so brilliant, could have made such a colossal blunder as to admit the president's guilt - as a defense! Then again, it might just be brilliant in the extreme. By taking this line of defense, he's admitting the president is guilty and thus planting a poisoned pill in the whole thing.

In the meantime, this is my new line of attack. Even Derschowitz admitted Trump did it!

So stick that in your pipe and smoke it!


Eric

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Latest Cartoon

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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"I Want Nothing!" Oh, But You Did!

By now, you've probably heard Trump's defense that the conservative media has grasped onto. Gordon Sondland dropped a bombshell on the White House last Wednesday, testifying that, in no uncertain terms, Trump did offer a quid pro quo to Ukraine. And furthermore, said Sondland, everybody knew it.

Now, Sondland has been a major Trump supporter, both in terms of money and vocal support. He is the ambassador to the European Union, which has an official partnership with Ukraine (even though Ukraine is not an E.U. member). He was right in the middle of the scandal, and therefore had first-hand knowledge of everything that was going on.

In other words, once and for all, this is not a "hoax," nor is this a "witch hunt." Let's put that one to bed once and for all.

The first thing conservatives did was ask for written proof. Sondland had lots of documents in the form of his own personal emails, but did not have the State Department documents to back him up. Those, interestingly, are sealed. So when Sondland was questioned by Steve Castor as to whether or not he had any proof, Sondland could only provide his own recollections, and admitted presumptions about what Trump and Rudy Giuliani wanted.

Republicans have seized upon this as proof that there's no "there" there. But let's look at that more closely: If what Sondland was saying was wrong, and his testimony was incorrect, then logically that would mean that he was doing his job incorrectly based on an incorrect presumption. For months, nobody said anything about it, and no Republicans voiced any objections until the day Sondland testified. That's incompetence on a grand scale, not only by Trump, but by ALL his State Department underlings! It would be cause to fire not only Trump, but everyone in the State Department!

OR, Trump is guilty. That's it. Those are your only two logical choices.

Now, the so-called "liberal media" has not reported this. But let's continue, because there's more.

Following Trump's eccentric lead, they are arguing that Trump outright told Gordon Sondland that he "wanted nothing from Ukraine," in a phone call on September 9th.

But wait, September 9th? Isn't that the SAME DAY that the whistleblower complaint was delivered to the House Intelligence Committee? Indeed it was! You can confirm that on the timeline provided by factcheck.org.

So that means Trump told Sondland he wanted nothing from Ukraine after the fact! Trump was walking it back at that point because he knew he'd been caught!

And his statement that he "wanted nothing" does not exonerate him. Rather, it proves he's guilty!

Has the "liberal media" reported this? Well, once in the New York Times, but that seems to be about it. For the sake of journalistic integrity, all news sources, left and right, should be reporting the living hell out of this. But they're not.

Fox News handled this the way Fox News typically handles things: by reporting what the president said, and then leaving it at that. Then they kicked it over to the sycophant commetators who parrot Trump's position without question. Only Justice Napolitano pointed out the truth, but by now Fox News viewers have written him off.

Under-reporting the news is the same as reporting biased news. Because Fox knows you, the viewer, will come to the conclusion they set up for you when they only tell half the story - the half they prefer to tell.

Eric

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Hannity Blows It Again

Sometimes, they make it too easy.

Last Wednesday, ahead of the impeachment inquiry hearings, Sean Hannity tried to take Democrats down a peg or two by saying that they have done nothing for America except go after Donald Trump.

This is so empirically false, it's amusing. They passed the renewal of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund. The Senate passed it as well, and the president signed it, but only after Jon Stewart brow-beat Republicans into doing so. Then there's the 'For the People Act of 2019, H.R. 1, Equality Act, H.R. 5, H.R.7: Paycheck Fairness Act, H.R. 8: Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, H.R. 9: Climate Action Now Act, (Relating to a national emergency declared by the President on February 15, 2019) (H.J.Res. 46, Vetoed March 15, 2019), Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal, H.Res. 109, H.R. 150: Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency Act of 2019 (GREAT Act), H.Res.411: No More Presidential Wars Act, H.R. 662: REACH Act, H.R. 899: To terminate the Department of Education (interesting, perhaps better no Department than one run by Betsy DeVos?), H.R. 1585: Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019, SAFE Banking Act of 2019, H.R. 1595, H.R. 1644: Save the Internet Act of 2019, Taxpayer First Act of 2019, H.R. 1957, H.R. 2107: Affordable College Textbook Act, Well-Informed, Scientific, & Efficient Government Act (WISE Government Act)...

And all that simply cut and pasted from Wikipedia. It was that simple to find.

I mean, Jesus, Hannity! Can you even do an Internet search on Google?


Eric

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