Although I’ve written (FAIR.org, 9/15/20) about US media’s refusal to forthrightly report that President Donald Trump is trying to steal the 2020 election—despite giving every indication that he intends to do so—it’s still surreal to watch journalists continue to engage in euphemism and indirection as Trump tries to execute a soft coup in real-time.
At the time, I noted:
While FAIR (9/27/19, 11/22/19) has often criticized the false objectivity of news coverage in the Trump era, the division between the news and opinion sections still remains a valuable distinction because of the implication that straight news coverage deals with delivering factual information, which leaves less room for disagreement. When the media are unable to present as fact that Trump is trying to steal the 2020 election, they are implying that there is room for debate about what his intentions are, simply because he hasn’t explicitly stated: “I am trying to steal the election.”
While I admittedly didn’t expect corporate media performance to be any better after the polls were closed, it’s still difficult to write this article without being infuriated by the timid refusal of the establishment press to condemn Trump’s ongoing election-theft efforts:
- NBC News (11/4/20): “With 8 States Still Counting Millions of Votes, Trump Falsely Claims He Won”
- CBS News (11/4/20): “Trump Falsely Claims He Won Election as Millions of Votes Remain Uncounted”
- Yahoo! News (11/4/20): “Trump Says He’s Already Won the Election. Why He Hasn’t.”
- Newsweek (11/4/20): “Donald Trump Says He Has Already Won Election, Taking Case to Supreme Court”
- LA Times (11/4/20): “Trump Falsely Claims ‘We Have Already Won’ Election and Threatens to Go to the Supreme Court”
- Washington Post (11/4/20): “Trump Falsely Asserts Election Fraud, Claims a Victory”
- New York Times (11/4/20): “As America Awaits a Winner, Trump Falsely Claims He Prevailed”
These headlines convey that it’s not true when Trump says that he “already won.” What they don’t say is that Trump is trying to overturn the results of the election by blocking legal votes. It’s turning an imminent threat to democracy into a factchecking “gotcha.”
Donald Trump: “We want all voting to stop.”
It is of vital importance to name and denounce Trump’s strategy of throwing out votes against him in the name of fighting “fraud,” as he laid out in remarks at the White House on election night:
Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it….
This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. So our goal now is to ensure the integrity—for the good of this nation, this is a very big moment—this is a major fraud on our nation.
We want the law to be used in a proper manner, so we’ll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at four o’clock in the morning and add them to the list. OK? It’s a very sad moment.
We will win this, and as far as I’m concerned we already have won it.
Since media know—and are reporting—that Trump has not won the election, and there is no “major fraud,” Trump’s statement amounts to a declaration that he will overturn the results of the election to keep himself president—“for the good of this nation,” of course. In the face of this assault on democracy, corporate media appear content to offer factual corrections of the sort that Trump and his base will simply ignore, as they have done for the past four years regarding countless other lies he has told.
Indeed, corporate media cannot even straightforwardly report that Trump is lying about winning the 2020 election, instead employing flaccid euphemisms like “falsely asserts” and stating things “without evidence,” which have by now become mere comical and impotent phrases to describe presidential deceit (FAIR.org, 11/16/17, 11/24/20).
This failure to report an ongoing coup attempt is even more incredible when we recall that Trump had already telegraphed his attempt to steal the election by prematurely declaring victory on Election Day (Axios, 11/1/20). Yet we are not seeing many headlines in corporate media like Mother Jones’ “The Trump Campaign Is Openly Trying to Steal the Election” (11/4/20) that would more accurately convey the gravity of the situation.
As some have already pointed out, Trump’s claim that counting all the mail-in ballots is a “fraud” resembles the bogus argument that the Organization of American States and US media made to delegitimize Bolivia’s October 2019 election (FAIR.org, 11/11/19, 3/5/20), when they accused President Evo Morales of election fraud by citing a “drastic hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results.” The Center for Economic and Policy Research immediately put out a statement (10/22/19) explaining that the alleged “irregularities” can be explained by the first precincts to report being different from later ones, with the latter heavily favoring Morales.
Similarly, since Democrats were more likely to favor mail-in voting due to greater concerns about the pandemic—the reason Trump tried to sabotage the Post Office as part of his election theft efforts—reports prepared us to expect a “red mirage” when polls first closed and a “blue shift” as mail-in ballots were slowly counted.
Yet we are still getting fatuous “both sides” journalism from outlets like CNBC, which ran the irresponsible headline “Biden and Trump Campaigns Both Claim to Be Winning the Election” (11/4/20). Apparently Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon saying that Biden is “on track to win this election”—an accurate summary of electoral observers’ assessments—can be equated to Trump’s statement claiming that he “already won.” It’s clear that for CNBC, simply ignoring Trump’s earlier remarks while citing his campaign manager Bill Stepien’s more toned-down statements, like “We feel like the president is in a very, very, very good position this morning,” is enough for a story based on false equivalence.
Trump calling on the Supreme Court to “stop a major fraud in our nation” by halting the vote count, and Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh signaling his willingness to aid Trump’s election-theft efforts by citing Bush v. Gore—when Republican justices stole the election for George W. Bush in 2000—is only further evidence of Trump trying to subvert the election. Since Trump has already refused to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power, let alone concede defeat in the event of a loss, it is imperative that the media inform the country of Trump’s soft coup attempt, so that the people can mobilize to prevent an anti-democratic takeover of government.
Actually, right now, after Trump made his latest television appearance, the cable news media are saying it. Finally. The word is that Trump is sure he’ll win if only the votes for him are counted. :)
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, November 4, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Following reports of enormous “batches” of votes being tallied for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in Wisconsin, more are being reported in Pennsylvania.
FiveThirtyEight, which identifies itself as providing “Data-driven news and analysis,” has reported on its Twitter feed a statistically problematic 23,277 votes from Philadelphia being tallied in a “batch” “all for Biden.”
The same tweet reports “about 5,300 votes” coming in from “Luzerne County,” with “nearly 4,000” of them going “for Biden.”
“With 83% of the expected vote in, Trump’s lead in PA is now just below 6 points,” the post concludes.
A LifeSiteNews screenshot of the tweet can be accessed here.
Election authorities have yet to provide a transparent explanation as to the origin of at least the first “batch” and how it is that apparently a local population of 23,000 voters could be statistically expected to cast each of their votes for just one candidate.
The arrival of these “batches” for Biden follows claims of voter fraud in Wisconsin, Michigan, and elsewhere, favoring Biden over President Donald Trump. It also comes as Americans and conservatives in particular lose confidence in the fairness of the election process.
And in the fairness of this Joshua Cho! Omitting the evidence of the never ending coup by the Deep State powers behind the “Democratic party” against the elected president since his very first day in the Oval, makes it easier to commit nonsense about the past elections…
The manipulation by the MSM is horrific! Where do they find the right to censure the president while speaking to the Nation!???
Yeah… The oldest coup tactic in the book: getting more votes than the other guy.
Fucking cultists, the lot of ya.
There is nobody as eloquent as a leftist.
After 4 years of kissing the fat ass that brought us such gems as “covefe”, “hamberders”, and “I’m a stable genius,” you want eloquence? Fuck off.
And I’m not a leftist.
After 4 years of kissing the fat ass that brought us such gems as “covefe”, “hamberders,” and “I’m a stable genius”, you want eloquence? Fuck off. You get the eloquence you deserve.
And I’m not a leftist.
“Election authorities have yet to provide a transparent explanation as to the origin of at least the first “batch” and how it is that apparently a local population of 23,000 voters could be statistically expected to cast each of their votes for just one candidate.”
Yes, they did. You just don’t wanna believe the explanation that all ballots weren’t cast at the same time and that Trump is MASSIVELY unpopular in Philadelphia. It’s that fucking simple.
Your guy is losing. Get over it.
John, watch how many stores will be looted or burned by Trump supporters should he lose. Watch how we won’t accuse Biden of being a Russian operative. We will accuse him of having only 2/3rds of his faculty – because it’s probably true. We won’t try to remove him. We also know that Kamala will be far more ruinous as would Nancy.
Yeah, right… So what about that plot to kidnap the MI governor or the plot to attack the Philly convention center? Just gonna hand-wave that away, huh?
You’re right, that wasn’t good. That’s one. Let’s count all of the riots on your side.
There is good evidence that much of the rioting and looting was in fact sparked off by right wing agitators and infiltrators. The people who fired on police and police stations in Oakland and Minneapolis, respectively, were so-called Boogaloo Boys. The Umbrella Man in Minneaopolis, who committed the first documented act of looting (smashing Autozone windows) while the BLM protestors around him told him to stop was later found to be a white supremacist intent on instigating violence.
Further, in most cases where violence and looting did occur, it was in response to police brutality against peaceful demonstrators. So your whole argument that “the left” or Joe Biden or the Democrats are on “the side” of those who are burning stores or instigating violence.
Finally, it has been analyzed and the conclusion is that 93% of protests during 2020 were peaceful.
https://www.courthousenews.com/in-summer-of-political-vitriol-93-of-protests-were-peaceful/
But now you go and bring up Russia. Yes, the Democrats and MSM spent a good 3 years screaming RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA – FALSELY. So can we expect your “side” to spend the next 3 years screaming FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD – FALSELY? Something tells me the answer to that is “no.” We’re going to be hearing it for the next TEN years.
Grow up.
You are painting disparate groups that have nothing to do with Biden or Democrats with a very broad brush – like anyone who has participated in a demonstration – or become violent – is definitely a leftist, Democrat who even votes…
And, I fear that you have more faith in your fellow Trump’eters than perhaps you should. Some of them, as Trump chuckled about openly, tried to kidnap a Governor – and Trump would not speak against them, or even take such a thing seriously… just as he could not bring himself to criticize racists during the debate.
I think you underestimate how fanatical some of his “supporters” are. He’s giving the not-quite-passive “green-light” for people to misbehave – as he attempts to engineer this B.S. coup while “inciting the mob” with baseless aspersions about the vote – after actually calling for them to “stop the counting” – something that had everyone, Republicans, the GOP alike – saying “What!?” … “Stop… counting?”. This isn’t North Korea, Donald.
Well, when you get beaten fair the you move on to cheat. Oh by the way you do know that trump actually had supporters on his rallies instead of invisible cars honking on Biden’s? And do you also know Biden told tons of people that he don’t care if they vote for him or not? He seemed to be too certain of a win then? The planted corona on Trump and they still can’t beat him..
Total fucking bullshit.
Seems that the AP, and even the REPUBLICAN Fox News — disagree with you. They have all – ALL – disavowed all of these bogus, falsified allegations.
THEY have declared TRUMP as the loser — and have urged him to stop with the “Coup talk” and threats of Dictatorial takeover.. We VOTED HIM OUT— with MORE VOTES than he squeaked-by with in 2016. His OWN Network has called for him to GIVE IT UP.
Nah brother, you are spreading a rumor that was later clarified by 538 on Twitter.
Here is what they wrote to clear up the confusion that Fox analysts seemed to be spinning as evidence of fraud:
“This one batch of votes in Philadelphia has been picked up by some people, including a commentator on Fox News, as possible evidence of fraud. It’s not.
According to Edison Research, which aggregates vote data for ABC News and other networks (and is the source of the data in question), sometimes election officials and vote aggregators unintentionally enter vote updates one candidate at a time, rather than entering all candidates together. Other candidates’ votes are then included in a subsequent ‘batch’.
That appears to be what happened here, and in the next update from Philadelphia, Trump got about double the share of votes that he was getting in the other updates from there during that stretch of time.”
Yup. The Magical votes. FYI Joe Frazier voted also.
There’s more than one Joe Frazier on the planet, you fucking dipshit.
If Trump loses and then steps down in January, will Josh Cho write an article apologizing for his Chicken Little article? I’ll be impressed if he has the courage to admit he is wrong. I will openly admit that I was wrong about Josh if he is correct. I know he reads these comments, so he cannot feign ignorance of being called out
Tim, answer me this:
Can you name one single law, executive order, Supreme Court decision, or a single GOP plank that has helped the population, the average person, or even working people?
Don’t spin this with the straw-man argument about the Dems having done nothing either. I’m asking about the GOP, I want to know what they did that improved the country?
From where I stand, I see a party that was (soon-to-be) formerly in power, that you have constantly been apologetic for, aiming your hubris against authors who post to this site, who are simply trying to point out the systemic problems of our broken media, that clearly exist.
What can you claim the GOP did in the last four years, that made things “better” for the average person?
Looks to me that the ousting of Donald was 1000% warranted….your man was in office for four years with a plurality of power, meaning he had the backing of other branches of government, and did diddly squat for average people. In fact things have only gotten worse for the population since Trump took office, you’d have to be willfully ignorant to argue otherwise.
If you can change my mind about this I’ll post an apology to you “Tim”. Again, you cannot blame the Dems, they were not the party in control of things, the GOP was.
How anyone can argue we are better off than four years ago, feels almost blasphemous. Look at us, we are way less united, we are way poorer, and we are way sicker. All of this went down on Donald’s watch, bro.
Manufacturing jobs increased. Obama said those jobs aren’t coming back. That helped all Americans. You asked for one, that is one item.
We were equally not united during Obama’s time. We Republican’s just don’t loot when we’re mad. Obama drove a wedge between us. Trump drove a wedge between us. You didn’t see it because you liked what Obama did. I hated the individual mandate. I will always hate a reduction in liberties. Republicans do it too, but not at the same rate as Democrats.
I was hoping you’d say ‘manufacturing’ that is a lie, and a demonstrable one at that.
However, unlike you, I will post something tangible to give you a leg up:
“The Trump administration has taken credit for ‘reshoring’ manufacturing jobs, but the data show that isn’t true. Nearly 1,800 factories have disappeared under Trump between 2016 and 2018,” said Scott. “Additionally, the U.S. trade deficit in manufactured goods rose significantly between 2016 and 2019. In fact, the real U.S. trade deficit has increased in every year since 2016, reducing GDP growth by roughly 0.25% annually over the past three years. Compounded with the devastation left by the coronavirus pandemic, the blue collar manufacturing workers need serious help from policymakers.”
The quote is from Robert E. Scott, Director of Trade and Manufacturing Research
I can’t wait until you look back and realize the scam you bought into. How so many hard working, good hearted people, took the bait, hook-line-and-sinker, from a known New York City conman, is sad if it weren’t so damn tragic.
Believe me, you need to come draw that line in the sand you keep trying to do, around me too brother, because I’d bet dollars to donuts you and I have a lot more in common than not.
You placing so much ‘faith’ in either of our two feuding wings of the one-party-duopoly is sad to watch. I grew up in the seventies, when Union work was to be had everywhere. Back then a person pumping gas had enough money left over at the end of the week to jump on their XL and ride 100 miles round trip to go see Uriah Heep. They could get back and fill the fridge with food and still have enough left over to pay bills.
We need to stop worshipping our politicians and revert back to the culture of holding them to account, being constantly vigilant of their lies, grift and superficial transparent campaigns of dividing us.
I don’t know where you got the idea that a site like this is partisan, or that “I like Obama”, but you are incorrect on both counts.
The truth is that our media has gotten so out of whack, and trended right for so long, that apparently even a passing observation like the one written about in the article above, is considered left wing now, pathetic.
Man, if you consider FAIR to be left-wing, then maybe you’ve gone so far to the right, you are actually off the bird, just a thought…
Hopefully you aren’t one of those wackos who view everything to the left of Stormfront and Breitbert, as left-wing or something eh?
Here here. All the straw-manning is seriously – very very sad.
If you see the man for who and what he really is – and heard him, in decades past – on Stern and etc.. – laugh and admit to his cheating, double-dealing and proudly misogynistic sel… oh.. sorry man. A bit off-topic there.
It’s just that – I woke up on a Nov. morning in 2016 and found that I was in the 1-in-a-billion worlds in the multi-verse in which Donald Trump could become President. That is a metaphor – not a wacko argument from a particle physicist or the like (not that the quantum evidence disagrees… but it can never be proven lol).
I half-expected that, perhaps, Ronald McDonald – in full costume – might become POTUS this time out… so admittedly the winner wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it might be. out…
Well, no that isn’t true, Trump and the GOP did not create manufacturing jobs. They also did not sign a Bill for workers, or advocate on behalf of workers in front of the SCOTUS, to increase manufacturing jobs. This is a demonstrable myth that simply is not true:
“The Trump administration has taken credit for ‘reshoring’ manufacturing jobs but the data show that isn’t true. Nearly 1,800 factories have disappeared under Trump between 2016 and 2018,” said Scott.
“Additionally, the U.S. trade deficit in manufacturing goods rose significantly between 2016 and 2019. In fact, the real U.S. trade deficit has increased in every year since 2016, reducing GDP growth by roughly 0.25% annually over the past three years. Compounded with the devastation left by the coronavirus pandemic, the blue collar manufacturing workers need serious help from policymakers.” -Robert E. Scott (Director of Trade and Manufacturing Research)
Now, I lifted that quote from an article by the Economic Policy Institute, which has been rated by mediabiasfactcheck as “left of center”, but they are rated as a trustworthy source for information because their numbers and data have been deemed “highly factual” from clean fact-checked sources.
So take it or leave it, there are no Trump caused manufacturing jobs, this is just a specious claim (I noticed how you didn’t give an actual source. Maybe you echoed something you thought was true….that’s okay, now you have the facts, and hopefully will learn to be more critical of claims about politicians like Trump or the GOP having created these mythical non-existent manufacturing jobs)
I also don’t know what made you think that I “like Obama” and/or why you think everyone who confronts you on these comment boards are “left wing”.
FAIR is a non-partisan media bias and accuracy commentary site, one of a few, which according to you sits on the left, I disagree. The fact that our print and televised media has moved to the right in is indisputable, the proof may even be people like you mistaking non-partisanship for liberal. This is just sad.
A clever reader may notice that the dates given in my quote are overlapping, and start with “2016”, the reason for this is to show the period when the data applied. That everything was starting to trend downward at the end of Obama’s tenure was a clear sign of the roller coaster ride of our capitalist boom and bust economy. That the figures continued to dive even after Trump took office, is all the proof we need to see that he has done diddly squat for workers.
I rest my case.
Trump’s withdrawal from the TPP and his improvements to NAFTA alone refute your argument.
On the foreign policy front, the fact that he didn’t start any wars guarantees him a spot on the list of the least bad presidents of the past half century. (Of course it also guaranteed him the enmity of neo-conservatives and intelligence agencies.)
And don’t try to respond, as you already rested your weak case.
No, manufacturing jobs did NOT increase.
Even before COVID the net change in manufacturing jobs under Trump was NEGATIVE.
The majority of those jobs indeed are never coming back; not unless there is a great reset, i.e., world war or major disaster. The masters of the financial universe have converted the USA into a financial services oriented economy and with the cost to produce things being so low overseas in developing nations, it is simply too expensive for the tax cut loving owners and majority shareholders that largely vote for……REPUBLICANS and TRUMP.
Try again.
You likely only see what you want to. Trump won. You can’t have more votes than voters. Ie, PA massive amount of votes that make no sense. why not allow a forensic audit to put aside any doubts? I don’t see how biden can win in half the counties as Obama and get 15 more million votes than Obama. Using brain power tell you how/why. You probably want Biden to win, so that’s why you are upset…
I don’t see how biden can win in half the counties as Obama and get 15 more million votes than Obama.
________________________________________________________
Even if your numbers are accurate– they’re not, by the way– in case you missed it: both the population of those areas and voter turnout of those areas has increased since 2012. Things like that happen in 8 years, genius.
Your talking points are total BS and spouting them got people killed, hurt, and arrested yesterday. Go fuck yourself.
Dude, he doesn’t have to follow through with his bluster to do serious damage to the country. How do you not understand that?
He’s doing serious damage _right now_.
How do YOU not understand _that_?
Cho is right about the “false objectivity of the media.” Indeed, it is evident that – while pretending to be objective – the media has done everything possible to undermine Trump for the past four years. The media’s coverage regarding the legitimacy of presidential elections is a case in point
Here’s one obvious example. As Cho points out, CBS News stated a few days ago: “The President has falsely claimed victory in the election.” Yet, when Pelosi declared Biden the winner three days ago, CBS meekly noted: “CBS News has not yet projected a winner in the race…”
Further, in spite of the media’s hand-wringing over Trump’s refusal to concede, they rarely remind the public that Hillary Clinton joined in efforts by the Green Party in 2016 to obtain recounts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on the ground, for example, that fraudulent absentee ballots had been counted. Many progressives also urged Kerry to challenge the Ohio election count in 2004.
Of course the media largely endorsed efforts by neo-conservatives, the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, and intelligence agencies to claim that Trump prevailed in 2016 only because he’s a Russian stooge and because the evil Russians managed to dupe the American public. Not only was this the worst McCarthyism in recent memory, but it was incredibly dangerous given the thousands of nuclear weapons the two countries are brandishing. (RIP, Stephen Cohen.)
“Hillary Clinton joined in efforts by the Green Party in 2016 to obtain recounts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on the ground, for example, that fraudulent absentee ballots had been counted. Many progressives also urged Kerry to challenge the Ohio election count in 2004.”
Thanks for bringing that up!
Re: Hillary and Jill Stein asking for (and paying for!) recounts in those places, it was AFTER she conceded the race to Trump. And while the recounts were going on, neither Hillary or Stein were screaming at the top of their lungs that the counts were fraudulent without evidence like Trump is doing now. They never questioned the integrity of the vote counting like Trump is doing. Granted, a few months later the Russia Russia Russia excuse making began, and Bernie Sanders supporters were of course blamed (and Jill Stein’s), but that kind of excuse making after the fact isn’t what Trump is doing here. Nor did Stein/Clinton take to the airwaves and cry fraud – no – they patiently waited for the results. Trump has ZERO evidence to present with his cries of cheating while counting and recounting is still going on.
Re: Kerry in Ohio 2004, there was GOOD reason to challenge the vote count because the GOP had many conflicts of interest in that state including the fact that their high level operatives owned and/or were employed by various firms that were directly involved in both recording and tabulating of votes. Here’s a refresher: https://www.electiondefense.org/how-to-part-ten
We also know, after the fact, that if the partisan SCOTUS hadn’t acted unethically along party lines in 2000 and stopped the recounts in Florida, that Al Gore would have won the election. But again, did Gore run to the press and cry foul and try to throw the validity of our electoral process into deep doubt like Trump is doing now? Not even close. So you have absolutely no points other than the implicit one which is that Trump should SHUT UP and let the legal and recount processes play out without claiming fraud before any evidence has emerged.
Finally you make a valid point re: Russiagate. Yes, it was shameful. Hillary and the DNC blamed Russia, Bernie, Jill Stein, and everything they could for her defeat at the polls. But this began AFTER the election had been conceded. If you think that what happened constituted neo-McCarthyism, maybe you also need a refresher on exactly what happened during McCarthy and Hoover’s witch hunts. Combined with Nixon’s war on blacks and hippies (aka war on drugs) that came later, McCarthy forever crushed the real left and workers rights in the United States.
I agree that the Russia baiting was highly irresponsible and dangerous and that the media and prominent Democrats engaged in behaviors that APPROACHED the rhetoric of Joseph McCarthy, it never rose to the level of rounding up Americans and interrogating them, ruining their lives or careers with smears of “commie” or “red.”
So, I guess what you’re really saying is that just like the sore loser Hillary DNC did with Russia excuse making, we can expect you and your side to spend the next 4+ years screaming vote fraud with zero evidence. Why don’t you try to be the bigger person/people instead?
From the article I linked re: Ohio, 2004:
In this key swing state, election monitors were besieged by complaints of GOP-orchestrated voter suppression, intimidation, and fraud. Myriad voting-machine anomalies were reported, including “glitches” that flipped votes from Kerry to Bush.
A phony terror alert in Republican Warren County (the FBI later denied issuing any such warning) allowed officials to move ballots illegally to an auxiliary building and count them out of public view. Presiding over the election was the Republican secretary of state, J. Kenneth Blackwell, a fiercely partisan fundamentalist Christian who also served as co-chair of Ohio’s Committee to Re-Elect George W. Bush.
The exhaustive evidence of voting irregularities in Ohio was documented in a 2005 report commissioned by Representative John Conyers, “Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio.” At the time of that report, however, a major piece of the puzzle was still missing: the role of GOP computer guru Michael Connell.
Connell was the Bush campaign’s chief IT strategist. He was also a zealous anti-abortion activist whose two Ohio-based companies built websites and email systems for the Republican National Committee, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and many of the most powerful figures in the GOP, including Karl Rove, Jeb Bush, and Jack Abramoff. It was one of Connell’s websites that reported the surprising (many say unbelievable) surge of votes in Ohio that handed George W. Bush the White House for the second time.
In 2004, Connell was hired by Blackwell to design a website that would post Ohio election results to the public. Connell’s contract also required that he create a “mirror site” that would kick in to display the vote totals if the official Ohio servers were overwhelmed by Election Day traffic.
For the latter portion of the job, he turned to SmarTech, a little-known company headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee. SmarTech was as partisan as Connell himself, and the company’s servers hosted hundreds of high-profile Republican websites (and, later on, an assortment of anti-Obama websites).
One of the most pernicious features of the media’s false objectivity is so-called “fact-checking.” Premised on the technocratic notion that ideological differences will dissolve if people just accept the facts disseminated by experts, fact-checking devolved during the last four years into naked propaganda designed to indict Trump.
The worst offender was the Washington Post, which breathlessly advised the public that Trump has lied over 22,000 times. Yet even a superficial scrutiny reveals that the Post is simply attempting to impose its own neo-liberal, anti-Trump agenda.
For example, the Post claims that Trump has lied hundreds of times by stating that NAFTA is a disaster. Of course establishment economists argue that NAFTA was not as bad as it’s made out to be, but progressives clearly have the better argument on this issue, and it’s patently absurd to call Trump’s assertion a lie.
Yeah “Will” thanks bro, but I’m over arguing about Trump….you can have him.
See you later, See You Later. It will be nice to no longer read any of your comments about Trump. You and Josh have TDS. Let’s see if Josh is man enough to write an article on how he was wrong about Trump stepping down.
Not sure, maybe you consider this “TDS”?
I wrote a pretty long letter to Trump right after he got elected. I wanted him to know what his victory looked like from the perspective of someone who didn’t vote for him, yet was willing to give him a chance.
The gist of my letter was this: “Dear sir you are sitting on a political goldmine. If while in office you could just get even one of the following widely popular reforms accomplished while in office, you will go down as the most wildly popular President during my lifetime.”
Then I listed three measly programs that would of been scraps compared to the ginormous military budget Trump signed off on and spent time hocking around the world:
1) A basic bare bones catastrophic medical plan for everyone in the U.S.
2) Free State college or Trade Schools, Vocational Technical education.
3) A back-to-work program rebuilding America’s dilapidated infrastructure.
But I guess that’s TDS, funny how phonetically that sounds like “tedious”.
Oh well. I wish you well bud, take care of yourself and stay frosty.
Contrary to Cho’s thesis, here is more evidence of the media’s bias against Trump.
NBC posted this story on-line on November 7: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-says-election-far-over-he-vows-fight-results-n1246934?icid=election_results
To begin with, note that the sub-headline refers to “baseless accusations of voter fraud.” This is simply a lie, given that there’s abundant evidence of voter fraud. The story could have referred to “unproven” accusations of voter fraud, but apparently the author didn’t know the difference between evidence and proof.
But it gets more ridiculous. In the first paragraph of the body of the article, the phrase “unfounded claims” is highlighted. If you go into the highlighted text, you end up in another article (“November 7 highlights…”). It has the same highlighted phrase. If you go into the highlighted text, you end up in the same article. In other words, and ironically, there is no foundation provided for the article’s claim that Trump is making “unfounded claims.”
However, FAIR will not pursue this species of bias, as it functions as a left-wing propaganda organ and not as an objective media watchdog.
“This is simply a lie, given that there’s abundant evidence of voter fraud.”
Fucking bullshit.
Trump did not lie but it’s very clear he was being cheated with the elections. Why you fools can’t stop lying? Pennsylvania ahead with close two 900k votes and in 2 days it magically became even and a day after Biden leads? Do you people think we are stupid? It simply defeats mathematics no matter what you do and count there no way Biden won Pennsylvania without cheating. There is proof and evidence of cheating and people filling ballots. Magical ballots coming in and machines flipping counts.. so stop trying to fool us for “We The People” will not fall for it. We could move aside if the elections were fair.. But they were know and you do know it.
The new GOP, joining Trump in casting aside the image and decency (what’s left) of the Republican party.
Well-stated truths from leading D.C. authorities.
“- Level sweeping allegations without evidence.
– Use the phrases “late ballots” and “illegal votes” often and interchangeably.
– Point to “oddities and irregularities”, no matter how minuscule, as proof of a broader (nebulous) conspiracy.
– Then, despite those individual claims being THOROUGHLY debunked, stand by them.
If this playbook sounds familiar, it’s because the party has taken on the identity of its leader.”
The GOP has completely imploded due to the recklessness of a deluded man who is willing to incite violence and worse while throwing our whole proven democratic process under the bus – because he simply cannot stand to lose by legitimate votes cast legally by a majority of mail-in voters who do not want him in the White House any longer, despite all legitimate media, across all party-leanings (FOX), conceding his loss.
Mail-in voting has gone on since the 1800s… these numbers are large, historically so, because there is a man who is willing to DO THIS to our Country in the White House. The man is worse than simply “scary” – he is a threat – to our Country, to all of us. He spouts untruths habitually – completely unfounded and unsubstantiated assertions and accusations, almost every single day, and has done for four years – while ignoring experts across a wide array of disciplines all along the way.
Now – he is attempting a coup through totally deceptive and blatantly fraudulent casting of aspersions upon the best political system on the planet.
And – most of his party (notably – mostly those in office) are going down with him – joining him, with some few brave exceptions, in this blatant and disturbing attempt to thwart our legal and political processes.
Using precisely fabricated, baseless rhetoric and repetetive aspersions – he is attempting to invalidate the legal and timely votes cast by thousands of Americans across multiple states – most of which were delivered days or weeks before November 3rd.
If he says the same lie over and over and over again, loudly and angrily, he’s betting that his complete lack of corroborating evidence will cease to matter. It’s a dangerous, “incite the mob” mentality – and it’s going to destroy the Republican party’s credibility for a long time to come.
Total fucking bullshit.
There is absolutely nothing mathematically impossible– or even unlikely– in a state where almost 7million votes were cast for a 900K lead to change.
You fucking morons wanna the game to stop when your team is ahead at halftime. Cultists, the lot of ya.
Seriously.
What is this 900k B.S.?? They were in a dead heat by late afternoon – before the polls even closed. Where the HELL are you getting these absurd and unfounded numbers? They refused to open mail-in ballots ahead of time. Trump knew they were statistically not in his favor – so he started casting complete BS aspersions and screamed “STOP COUNTING”… On Tuesday NIGHT. They never finish counting that quickly – not EVER. and he was barely ahead at that time. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT- You cannot fabricate this stuff – it is a MATTER OF RECORD that they were within tenths-of-a-percent – not 900k… Go smoke another one man. Pffff.
Get fucked u communist fucks. Scummy liberals. Disgusting.
Yup, them damn “liberals”, can’t live with them and without them there’d be no 5 day work week, no minimum wage, no overtime pay, no labor movement, no trade unions whatsoever, no Social Security benefits, no unemployment benefits, no paid sick leave, nor holiday pay, no maternity leave, no time-and-a-half hourly rate of pay, no laws against usury, no bankruptcy protections for average citizens, no Union Pay Scale, no social safety net, no child labor laws, no Freedom Of Information Act, no Voting Rights Act, no equal opportunity laws,
Without “liberals” there would be no environmental protection laws, no clean air and clean water standards…you probably get the picture by now…by all means help me out here if you want, there are all kinds of other laws that came out of the progressive left and liberal movement….the G.I. Bill and Sailors and Soldiers Act…
“Since media know—and are reporting—that Trump has not won the election, and there is no “major fraud,”
How, exactly, do the media know there’s no major fraud if they don’t bother to look? Or are you using “major fraud” to split hairs? Are we just supposed to go with the Democrat line that “voter fraud doesn’t exist!”, which they frequently used at the same time Democrats have been arrested for voter fraud?
Also isn’t it slightly curious to you that the media will stamp their feet when Trump says he won while millions of votes are still to be counted, but it’s no big deal when they orgasmically proclaim Biden the winner…while millions of votes are still to be counted?
Also also I’m still not seeing your evidence that Trump is trying to steal the election. I thought this site was for “Challenging media bias”. Seems to me that you’re just the same song, different verse.
Wrong MrPurple, Donald Trump was losing by wide margins in the states where votes were still being counted, when news media outlets announced Biden to be the projected winner.
There was nowhere near “millions of votes left to count” or whatever it is you are trying to say. Every state in the union was at 99% reporting except for one —Nevada, which Biden was leading at the time by more than 40,000 votes—when Biden was announced as the projected winner. Key to note is that Biden never said he won before all ballots were counted, Trump did though…go back and rewatch the tapes (you probably think those are fake too).
Don’t take my word for it, this election and vote count process was the most meticulously scrutinized in history. Anyone can go take a look for themselves. There are several sites that kept the data by-the-hour, of voter ballot tallies in real time. Five-Thirty-Eight, Pew-Research, Reuters, Associated Press etc, and probably dozens of others.
Your tired claim of “voter fraud” has been put to bed, it isn’t just that Democrats are denying it either, it’s Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security that has stated: this was the most safely executed and secure election in U.S. history. If you want to keep squawking about voter fraud, take it up with DHS.
Trump is a known conman who is going to have to answer for his bullshit sooner or later. The man never truly believed there was “voter fraud”, this was just another one of his scams. As per his usual, he flooded the system with shite to see what would stick, and thank goodness our legal system swatted his shit-lordery down.
The truth is starting to come to light, like a one-trick-pony the man faked a bunch of rage to boost ratings for his new Political Action Committee and Voter Fraud Defense Fund…he did this all regardless of the harm it has caused America’s democracy, all to pay off his legal debt.
Trump is a nihilist, cynic and thinks the U.S. is chock full of suckers, so he lines his pockets with money from scams that are hard to see at first. It doesn’t matter, just like in a cult, you Branch Trumpidian victims will be turning out your pockets for his con….regardless of what I or empirical reality has to say about the matter.
Trump reminds me of the late night Televangelist, the one who preys on the religiously battered and spiritually brittle poor souls of this great country. It is criminal to do this, and you all will eventually look back and regret how you took the bait (of this I am 99% sure, just look at how most of us view GW Bush, like the Mark-Ass-Buster he was).
Bottom line, when Biden was announced by the “media” as the projected winner, there were not “millions of votes left to count”, there were probably less than a few hundred thousand ballots left to count in all of the U.S. In the few states that had the most left to count, Biden was winning at the time, and had more than a few percentage points of a leaden Trumpty Trump. Yes, Georgia is doing a hand recount of over 5 million ballots, and Biden doesn’t even need the state to still come out on top.
Ignore all evidence of voting errors over the past 40 years, Ignore the hundreds of legal affidavits that are bound by the laws of purgery if false, ignore that a democratic candidate that had less support from his own party than either Hillary or Obama managed to obtain significantly more votes in areas that are split. Ignore that by majority of physical states (not electoral nor popular votes) Trump won in a landslide. Had there not been such questionable activities in the current 5 (possibly 6) states sure Biden would have won he wouldn’t have gotten the unquestionably fake landslide but he would’ve won without there being actual grounds for further investigation.
I am democrat, I chose not to vote Biden because I do not agree with a candidate who makes George Bush look like a real democrat in comparison, I refused to vote for a man who even our local democratic populous thought was unfit to even still be involved in politics let alone in the Oval office. For the first time our collective voted against the party we’ve followed for almost 100 years (organization history)
I am fine having the braindead muppet as president over the annoying orange but as a proud American who plans on raising my family and eventual grandchildren in America I believe it is important to our very foundation that our votes can be trusted to be accurately counted, that the deceased aren’t voted on behalf of, that some guy cant slip a poll attendant a $20 and get their vote counted a couple thousand times. That the media wont be so politically biased that they make countless errors calling states early discouraging people who weren’t allowed to vote because of technical issues arising during initial days.
Any delusional dipshit can write an affidavit, genius.
There is absolutely NO credible evidence of a stolen election and spouting that BS for months on end is what got us here. Hope you’re fucking happy, asshole.
Your upside down assessment of what constitutes “stealing” isn’t altogether unexpected. A Chinese operative “writer” with a CCP stamp on his forehead is not expected to support anything American. Your stench of communism wafts high, as your keyboard ticks out your anti-American propagandized crap. Your Operation Mockingbird / CIA benefactors are getting your words out, but you fail. You fail because unlike the “good little commies” of the CCP, you do not understand how freed people think or feel. Bang. You lose.
Sounds one sided to me with no mention of what happened in the five states with made up votes, some counted three times and the blocked viewing to the votes that magically were all for biden regime.
None of that happened. You’re full of shit. And spouting this stuff got people killed, injured, and arrested yesterday. Go fuck yourself.
That is pure Chinese government poop. Everybody knows who has a brain that President Trump did win the election. The steel was by the fraudulent Democrats. Biden could only draw about 20 people to a rally. President Trump drew 20 or 30 thousand or more. Pack your a Chinese crap and go home.
Yeah… Rally attendance always means votes and victory. Fucking moron.
It sickens me as American citizen that all the media that’s owned by the liberals proclaim the false election from President Trump. The majority of the American voters know that President Trump won the election Tuesday night before the big shutdown. I want my vote to count like millions of other American citizens. I don’t want the presidency to be stolen by lies corruption theft by the Democratic Party. This should be stopped now.
Bullshit. The game ain’t over at halftime just because you want it to be.
Spouting this BS got people killed, injured, and arrested yesterday. Go fuck yourself.
You sound like CNN
This site is a joke
This bum literally said he had no hand in the COVID-19 vaccine, it’s warp speed not operation bury my head in the sand. Trump played a big role in the vaccine and he exposed the fraud in the Democratic Party. Great hearing in Michigan the lady who was the Secretary of State assistant tore that democrat guy up. He said why don’t you make any laws while you were working in that office, she said we have laws you don’t enforce the ones we have what makes you think you going to listen to the new ones. The corruption in democratic areas (Philadelphia Detroit & many others) don’t listen or follow the law. These places are not held accountable for the corruption they allow every election. The people should be ashamed of themselves for how racist they are against republicans. Real racism is here we call them BLM, more commonly know as a terrorist group of the Democratic Party.
155 million voters in 2020, compared to 130 million just 4 years ago, I smell a rat, never in the history of a election that we have 25 million more voters than 4 years prior
Get your sense of smell check, Paul. The population of all but 10 states increased since 2016. Voter turnout increased in every state across the board.
Better yet, realize that maybe your gut feeling about voter data and population trends counts for jack shit. Spewing this BS got people killed, injured, and arrested yesterday. Go fuck yourself.
You call this real news. Democrats are the ones stealing the election. And I’ve been here and Democrats safe for 4 years now not my president. What about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s corrupt negotiations overseas haven’t heard a thing from regular news on that. You guys can go fuck yourself call yourselves a real news station.
Go get your animal headdress-wearing dipshit poster boy and stage another coup, fuckface. Maybe you’ll get more people killed this time.
Enough is fucking enough. Your guy lost. Your feelings that it was a stolen election are BS. There is absolutely no evidence of any widespread fraud and what evidence there is of any kinda fraud is miles from credible. You’ve been conned into joining a cult led by a fat-assed narcissist and now you can’t admit it. He doesn’t give a shit about you, about the country, about anything but himself. Where was he when his mob invaded the Capitol? He was sitting on his fat ass in safety and security watching his pawns do his dumb-ass bidding.