Fake News, The DNC's New Chairman, Disrupting Democracy

Monday, February 27, 2017

Fake News

I hope you are sharing these reports with friends and family members. If they only get their news from the "mainstream media," they really are getting fake news. Here are two examples.

Friday, the New York Times did a report on President Trump's CPAC speech. Consider this excerpt:
 

"Speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, Mr. Trump launched what was easily the most blistering attack on the media and corporate elites of his already bellicose and eventful presidency. His speech also included a promise to throw undocumented immigrants 'the hell out of the country' and a recitation of his law-and-order campaign promises."

Now, here is President Trump's full quote about the immigrants he plans to throw out of the country:
 

"We are also going to save countless American lives. As we speak today, immigration offers are finding the gang members, the drug dealers and the criminal aliens and throwing them the hell out of our country."

Is it really the position of the New York Times that illegal immigrant gang members, drug dealers and criminals should be allowed to stay in the country? Is that a position the left wants to defend? According to one recent poll, nearly 70% of voters support the deportation of criminal aliens.

Here's another example of fake news. Today's Wall Street Journal has a story headlined, "Trump's Approval At Historical Low." According to the Journal's latest poll, the president's approval rating is 44% to 48%. In fairness, the story notes that Trump is the first post-World War II era president to have a negative approval rating at this stage of his presidency. (By the way, the poll was among adults, and not even voters.)

However, that didn't have to be the story. The headline could have easily been, "Trump Hits Record High Rating." A separate question finds his personal favorability rating is at 43% positive -- a record high -- and up from just 28% one year ago.

The DNC's New Chairman

Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez won a hotly contested race Saturday to become the new chairman of the Democrat National Committee. What made the race so interesting is that Perez was pitted against Rep. Keith Ellison, who has made headlines for some of the positions he has taken (here and here). Ellison has also associated with radical, anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Ellison had the support of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and much of the party's progressive wing. But in the end, Perez, who is by no means a moderate, prevailed on a vote of 235-to-200.

And what was the first thing that Chairman Perez did to celebrate his victory? He immediately nominated Keith Ellison to serve as deputy chairman. Yesterday Perez said that he wanted to make Ellison "the face of the Democratic Party."

By the way, the election was not without some controversy and a lot of irony. Interim chairman Donna Brazile switched the voting process at the last minute from an electronic ballot to paper ballots, supposedly due to concerns about weak WiFi signals. But Brazile also insisted that she wanted to be able to "verify every name and signature."

If a conservative governor demanded such standards in an election, Brazile would be leading the charge against him, complaining about racism and voter suppression.

Disrupting Democracy

Town hall forums offer an excellent opportunity for voters to interact with their elected representatives in Congress. They are democracy in action. Unfortunately, many left-wing demonstrators are less interested in a fair exchange of ideas and simply want to disrupt the process. They want to create chaos so they can generate a false narrative to confuse voters.

Just consider the protests that erupted at Sen. Bill Cassidy's town hall forum Wednesday night. Left-wing protestors repeatedly interrupted a prayer by Louisiana State chaplain Dr. Michael Sprague. Among other things, they yelled, "Prayer? Prayer?" and "Separation of church and state." And if that wasn't enough, many of the leftists in the room refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

None of this made it into "mainstream media" reports. The "news" outlets want you to think that conservative members of Congress are having a very rough time at their town hall events and are increasingly unpopular. But the media won't show you the real news -- the left's disrespect for faith and our country.

By the way, none of this is spontaneous. A local Louisiana radio station got ahold of an audio recording in which the left-wing organizers plotted their strategy to dominate another Cassidy town hall event later in the week. They even laughed at the idea that the "poor people of Breaux Bridge," where the town hall event was held, might not get in because "Game plan number one" was to take up as many seats as possible.

Another Jewish Cemetery Vandalized

Five hundred grave stones were knocked over and broken at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia over the weekend. This comes just one week after a Jewish cemetery in Missouri was vandalized.

The desecration of any gravesite is a vile act of hate. In Jewish history it takes on an even darker meaning. All too often those who refuse to allow even dead Jews to rest in peace soon set out to kill living Jews to fill more graves.

When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it not only evacuated all living Israelis, but it also evacuated the graves of Israeli Jews. The Israeli government took that dramatic step because it knew the remains would be desecrated.

When East Jerusalem was in the hands of Muslim Arabs from 1948 to 1967, 38,000 Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives were vandalized and grave stones were used to pave streets.

Anti-Semitism is the hatred that will not die. All people of goodwill must aggressively confront it.