The biggest example of media malfeasance in 2020 is...

[Auburn85 432]

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/532280-the-biggest-example-of-media-malfeasance-in-2020-is

 

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The top example of media malfeasance in 2020 is not about how a story was covered but about how it wasn't. And it's downright chilling. 

In November – and only after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election – it was revealed by the Biden camp that Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, had been under grand jury investigation for "tax affairs" by the U.S. attorney's office in Delaware. For the nation's oldest newspaper and its fourth largest, the New York Post, this was total vindication for the way it was demeaned by traditional and social media for reporting on the story when it mattered: Before the Nov. 3 election in October. 

To review, the Post appeared to have the goods: Emails from a laptop provided by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani allegedly belonging to Hunter showing, among other things, a meeting he had arranged between his father and a top executive at a Ukrainian energy company, where Hunter was making a cool $50,000 a month to sit on its board despite never having worked at any energy company. The emails were given to Giuliani off a copy of a hard drive by the owner of a computer repair shop in Delaware, who said the laptop was dropped off and never picked up months earlier. 

"Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email from Vadym Pozharskyi reads in 2014 at a time when Joe Biden was vice president. 

Hold the phone: Joe Biden swore he had "never spoken" to his son "about his overseas business dealings." Here's an email suggesting he did.

One year later, the VP pressured Ukrainian government officials to fire a prosecutor who was investigating the company at the time. 

So, is that a story worth pursuing? Rhetorical question. 

Except much of the U.S. media decided this wasn't worthy of coverage, and anyone who did pursue it was a right-wing conspiracy nut looking to land a Hail Mary in an attempt to damage Biden going into the election. 

The headlines at the time were telling, with the fallback of "Russian Disinformation" being the common thread. 

New York Times: "Trump Said to Be Warned That Giuliani Was Conveying Russian Disinformation"

CNN: “The anatomy of the New York Post's dubious Hunter Biden story" 

Washington Post: “The truth behind the Hunter Biden non-scandal”  

Politico also first reported that more than 50 former senior intelligence officials had signed on to a letter all stating they believed the laptop allegedly being the property of Hunter Biden had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” 

Signatories included anti-Trump former intelligence officials John Brennan(former CIA director, current MSNBC analyst), James Clapper (former director of national intelligence, current CNN analyst) and Jeremy Bash (former CIA chief of staff, current MSNBC analyst).

But the gold medal for hubris goes to taxpayer-funded NPR, which issued this statement explaining why it wasn't even attempting to verify the story. 

“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” NPR managing editor Terence Samuel said in an October interview. “And quite frankly, that’s where we ended up, this was . . . a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way.”  

For his part, President Trump urged "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl to broach the story during an Oct. 23 interview with him. 

“This is the most important issue in the country right now?” Stahl asked Trump when he brought up the topic.

“It’s a very important issue to find out whether a man’s corrupt who’s running for president, who’s accepted money from China, and Ukraine, and from Russia,” Trump replied. “Take a look at what’s going on, Lesley, and you say that shouldn’t be discussed? I think it’s one of the biggest scandals I’ve ever seen, and you don’t cover it.”

“Well, because it can’t be verified,” Stahl shot back. “I’m telling you —”

“Of course it can be verified,” Trump retorted. “Excuse me, Lesley, they found a laptop —” 

“It can’t be verified,” Stahl repeated.

Pro-tip: It's difficult to verify anything when not bothering to verify it in the first place, right?  

No matter: The New York Post was thrown in social media jail for having the audacity to report something potentially damaging on the Democratic nominee. The paper's Twitter account was locked for two weeks as a result, something downright Orwellian for any company to do in a country that's supposed to respect the rights of a free and fair press. 

 

But it got worse: Anyone sharing the Post's Hunter Biden story was also locked out of their accounts, including White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and the Trump campaign itself.

"They essentially have me at gunpoint and said unless you delete this story, a news story by the New York Post, I cannot regain access to my account," McEnany told Fox News on Oct. 15.

"This was a news story with emails, pictures of the emails," McEnany said before later adding, "Even the Biden campaign does not dispute the authenticity of the emails."

And the Biden camp still doesn't dispute their authenticity.  

For his part, President-elect Biden stunningly is still claiming Russian disinformation is behind the smear campaign against his son. No follow-up questions are permitted by his communications staff on the rare occasion a yelled question by Fox's Peter Doocy is answered. 

"Mr. President-elect, do you still think that the stories from the fall about your son Hunter were Russian disinformation and smear campaign, like you said?" Doocy asked.

"Yes, yes, yes. God love you, man. You’re a one-horse pony,” Biden responded. “I tell you. Thank you. Thank you."

For a media that allowed Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) to claim without any real pushback that Trump colluded with Russia as an agent of Vladimir Putin, that allowed Hillary Clinton to repeatedly declare President Trump was illegitimate because of the Russians, the collective dismissal and suppression of a story with actual teeth of a future president being potentially compromised is hypocrisy for the country to see in broad daylight. 

The cotton candy questions for Biden can only last so long after Trump is gone. It will be interesting to see in 2021 if the coddling of the 46th president will continue. Or if those claiming to exist in this business to hold the powerful accountable actually do so.  

If 2020 is any indication, don't hold your breath on that one. 

 

 

[Grumps 3,704]

The lack of a legitimate media in this country is a bigger threat to our democracy than is Russia and China combined.

[TexasTiger 12,848]

13 minutes ago, Grumps said:

The lack of a legitimate media in this country is a bigger threat to our democracy than is Russia and China combined.

A major political party that doesn’t give a damn about democracy is the biggest threat.

[DKW 86 7,419]

22 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

A major political party that doesn’t give a damn about democracy is the biggest threat.

Glad you agreed with him...

[Grumps 3,704]

1 hour ago, TexasTiger said:

TWO major political parties that don’t give a damn about democracy are then same threat they have been for decades.

Fixed it for you!

[TexasTiger 12,848]

48 minutes ago, Grumps said:

Fixed it for you!

Keep fooling yourself that there’s no difference. One has to be delusional to still not see it.

[SaltyTiger 7,795]

1 minute ago, TexasTiger said:

Keep fooling yourself that there’s no difference. One has to be delusional to still not see it.

Guess you are losing interest in the game to Tex.....

[TexasTiger 12,848]

4 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

Guess you are losing interest in the game to Tex.....

Multitasking 

 

[Grumps 3,704]

1 hour ago, TexasTiger said:

Keep fooling yourself that there’s no difference. One has to be delusional to still not see it.

I never said that there was no difference, did I? Do you really think that the democrat party cares significantly about democracy? Does your party care more about democracy than about getting re-elected?

[TexasTiger 12,848]

1 minute ago, Grumps said:

I never said that there was no difference, did I? Do you really think that the democrat party cares significantly about democracy? Does your party care more about democracy than about getting re-elected?

Not my party, but they aren’t the party willing to dump election results they don’t like.

[DKW 86 7,419]

 

47 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

Not my party, but they aren’t the party willing to dump election results they don’t like.

No, they just wasted four years in office over an election that didnt like.

*If an emoji could get me sexually excited, it would be a facepalm or a thumbsdown...REALLY*

[homersapien 11,370]

21 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

A major political party that doesn’t give a damn about democracy is the biggest threat.

Correct!.

Interesting that all these MAGAs are getting their panties in a wad about Hunter Biden when the most corrupt president in our history - their own Dear Leader - is doing this:

Fourteen days that will test our democracy

Over a span of 14 days this month, our nation’s capital will bear witness to three events that will tell us much about the state of American democracy: a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, where electoral votes cast in December will be read and counted aloud; protests in downtown Washington scheduled for the same day; and the Jan. 20 inauguration of the president of the United States.

How will our country look after all this is over?

Under normal times, Wednesday would be just another day. Congressional certification of the electoral college winner is nothing new. Neither is a presidential oath-taking. Both are ceremonial formalities that memorialize politically settled events. Likewise, political protests on any given day and time are hardly novel in Washington.

This year, however, all three are fraught with uncertainty because President Trump, a buffoonish one-term wannabe autocrat, will not accept his election loss. Weeks after his rejection at the polls, Trump continues to falsely portray the outcome as fraudulent. And in the waning days of his presidency, when he should have one foot out the door, Trump is desperately scheming to find new ways to alter the outcome.

By all accepted standards of political morality and decency, what Trump and his allies are up to is obscene.

In the face of more than 90 state and federal judges who have rejected challenges to the election by Trump’s campaign and his allies, and despite claims of fraud that have failed because there is no evidence to support them, Trump is engineering a scheme to contest the electoral college votes on Wednesday.

He has scraped together a cult of House Republicans and a Senate publicity hound to lodge formal objections to electoral votes in swing states where those unfounded fraud claims were raised. They plan to interrupt congressional certification, and force House and Senate members to retire to their chambers to debate and vote on the objections.

Wednesday will be a day of acrimony, probably to Trump’s delight, because, at the very least, the disruption will cast a cloud over the incoming president, Joe Biden.

It could, however, be worse than that.

Trump is actively inciting supporters to amass in Washington to pressure Congress to not approve the 2020 elections results. “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” tweeted Trump. He followed that up with a Wednesday tweet to supporters, “JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!”

And Trump’s forces are coming.

Four rallies are planned for the day. The Post reports that “threats of violence, ploys to smuggle guns into the District and calls to set up an ‘armed encampment’ on the Mall have proliferated in online chats about the Jan. 6 day of protest. The Proud Boys, members of armed right-wing groups, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists have pledged to attend.”

The Proud Boys turned out the last time right-wing protesters were here, on Dec 12. As dark approached that night, The Post reported, Proud Boys were observed putting on Kevlar helmets, bulletproof vests, protective forearm coverings and rucksacks. Some carrying long poles, long-handled black flashlights, collapsible batons or even cases of beer, they left a downtown D.C. hotel and began marching around in groups, chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” The Trump-loving Proud Boys were spoiling for fights. Four churches in downtown D.C. had Black Lives Matters signs removed and damaged.

Imagine Congress assembling to count electoral college votes in the midst of Trump-encouraged chaos.

Are D.C. residents, local law enforcement and America up to the challenge?

Nothing would please Trump diehards more than the eruption of an all-out conflagration around Capitol Hill. (Trump: “Be there, will be wild!”) Obstructions that throw congressional proceedings in disarray. A breakdown in order that would give Trump an excuse to call out military force in response, citing the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to send troops when “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” prevents enforcement of state laws in a manner that deprives residents of that state of their federal constitutional rights.

And get this: There is no intrinsic limit on how long he can employ troops to enforce federal law, reports University of Texas School of Law professor Steve Vladeck.

Trump isn’t calling his followers to Washington for sport. Or to make lawmakers nervous. Or to dominate the news cycle.

Trump wants to overturn the 2020 election and take the presidential oath on Jan. 20.

This is our current state. How will democracy look on Inauguration Day?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fourteen-days-that-will-test-our-democracy/2020/12/31/7a59d6d6-4b96-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html