Tag: news

Democrats Slam “Biased Press” For Hurting Hillary As She ‘Collapses’ In First Post-Pneumonia Polls

Liberals surrounding Hillary are getting desperate as she is seemingly dropping like a rock in the first “post-‘pneumonia'” polls.  As we pointed out earlier this morning, the most recent polling numbers show that Trump has opened up a 5 point lead in both Ohio and national polls after Hillary’s “medical episode” this weekend. (see “Trump Soars In Latest Polls: Sees 5 Point Lead In Ohio And Latest LA Times National Poll“). 

With every weapon in the liberal arsenal being utilized at its full capacity to slow the rise of Trump, the Hillary campaign is finding that traditional attacks, like painting Republicans as a bunch of “racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic” hillbillies, or “basket of deplorables” if you prefer, are not working this election cycle.  But rather than look internally for what may be causing voters to reject Hillary, the campaign has instead decided to lash out at the media which they claim is not performing well against its explicitly stated goals of destroying any and all republican candidates at any cost. 

But one network, MSNBC, has remained loyal to Clinton throughout while pointing out that the rest of the “political news media lost its mind.”  Per The Hill, apparently Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC thinks health is “low on the list of voter concerns.”

“This is the day historians will see as the most important day of 2016 because it’s the day the political news media lost its mind,” liberal MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell said Monday night, a day after a wobbly Clinton was filmed receiving help to get into her van.

 

He then launched into a 16-minute-long diatribe about how a candidate’s health is low on the list of voter concerns.

While we appreciate the enthusiasm from O’Donnell, empirical evidence, to which we tend to lend “slightly” more credence than the opinion of political commentators, from recent polls seem to suggest he’s wrong in his assessment of voter concerns. 

Meanwhile the Clinton camp is also calling out the “fanatical attitude” of the press in their coverage of Hillary’s “medical episode” on Sunday…something they say “most politicians” would “get a pass on.”

“There’s a near fanatical attitude amongst the press over anything having to do with Hillary Clinton that most politicians get a pass on,” one Clinton ally told The Hill.

“Some of this is because their bosses are desperate to create a 50-50 race because that drives more clicks, and some are terrified of right-wing accusations of bias. This is where false equivalency comes from and it’s helping to keep Trump in
the race.”

Just so we’re clear, Hillary staffers are suggesting that Donald Trump would get a pass if he were recorded collapsing in public while being dragged nearly unconscious into a van?  Respectfully, we’re not sure that’s an entirely accurate assessment. 

 

Still others have attempted to paint the “unfair” coverage of Hillary’s health issue as a reflection of the undercurrent of rampant sexism plaguing America. 

And some see sexism in how Clinton’s health has been covered, arguing that Trump is older, eats a lot of junk food, and has only released an over-the-top note praising his perfect health from a doctor of questionable standing.

“Can’t a girl have a sick day or two?,” reporter Christiane Amanpour lamented Monday on CNN. “Don’t get me started, because when it comes to overqualified women having to try 100 times harder than under-qualified men to get a break, well we know that story.”

“I hope you drill into [Trump’s health disclosures] with the same detail as you’re drilling in with ours,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said Monday under tough questioning from MSNBC anchor Kate Snow about Clinton’s health.

Yes, we’re sure that the disproportionate coverage of Hillary’s “medical episode” has everything to do with the media’s desire to protect Trump’s love of “eating a lot of junk food” and nothing to do with the fact that he has never been dragged unconscious into a getaway van at a public event.

But if the media is engaging in a coordinated effort to avoid discussing Trump’s health then someone should spread the word to CNN ASAP:

 

Finally, we would note that while the Clinton campaign struggles to point out a pro-Trump bias in the media (as laughable as that may be) the only factual evidence we have of a political party attempting to “collude” with the media comes from the DNC’s own emails.  A fact which we previously pointed out in a post entitled “Leaked DNC Emails Confirm Democrats Rigged Primary, Reveal Extensive Media Collusion.”

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Governing The Deplorables

Submitted by Ron Dreher via TheAmericanConservative.com,

On the day she is said to have been diagnosed with “pneumonia,” Mrs. Clinton delivered a notorious speech in which she denounced “xenophobes,” among others, as fit for a “basket of deplorables.” People who are for open borders and globalism have a habit of dismissing their opponents as xenophobes — that is, people who fear (and therefore loathe) foreigners.

A reader has sent in an essay by Georgetown professor Jason Brennan, in which he argues that we can avoid stupid decisions like the Brexit vote if we institute an “epistocracy,” system through which smart people who know things rule. Excerpt:

In an epistocracy, political power is to some degree apportioned according to knowledge. An epistocracy might retain the major institutions we see in republican democracy, such as parties, mass elections, constitutional review, and the like. But in an epistocracy, not everyone has equal basic political power. An epistocracy might grant some people additional voting power, or might restrict the right to vote only to those that could pass a very basic test of political knowledge.

A literacy test as a requirement of holding the franchise? How could that possibly go wrong? More:

Any such system will be subject to abuse, and will suffer from significant government failures. But that’s true of democracy too. The interesting question is whether epistocracy, warts and all, would perform better than democracy, warts and all.

 

All across the West, we’re seeing the rise of angry, resentful, nationalist, xenophobic and racist movements, movements made up mostly of low-information voters. Perhaps it’s time to put aside the childish and magical theory that democracy is intrinsically just, and start asking the serious question of whether there are better alternatives. The stakes are high.

During the Cold War, some of the smartest people in the West believed the most monstrous things. In 1982, the leftist intellectual Susan Sontag said this at a gathering of the left in New York City to show support for the Solidarity trade union:

Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader’s Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or the New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?

Any reader of Tolkien understands that simple Sam Gamgee is more important to the good of the world than the brilliant Saruman — and why. Knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing.

Jason Brennan further articulated his epistocratic views in a Chronicle of Higher Education essay that’s paywalled. Here’s an excerpt:

Voters are dumb because democracy makes them dumb. Democracy spreads power among a vast number of people; everyone gets an equal but tiny share — expressed through our vote — so small that none of us have an incentive to use our power wisely. The chance that an individual vote will make any difference in a national election is on par with the odds of winning Powerball. Voters have every incentive to remain ignorant about politics and to indulge their worst biases.

 

We cannot “fix” democratic ignorance, because we cannot change the incentives built into democracy. But perhaps we can mitigate the problem by changing our political system. What if instead of trying to make voters better informed and more reasonable, we tried to screen out the least reasonable and most misinformed voters? What if instead of a democracy, we had an epistocracy?

Brennan is not wrong to criticize the flaws in democracy. Giving people the vote is no guarantee that they will use it wisely. But restricting the vote to the cognitive elite is no solution. I would rather be ruled by the first thousand people through the gates at the Daytona 500 than the people in that room Friday night with Hillary Clinton and Barbra Streisand. Guess who holds more power already in our society? That’s right: the cognitive elite. That’s how it works in a meritocracy. Prof. Brennan’s epistocracy would only give them more — for our own good.

Anybody stupid enough to think that rule by experts, by “the best and the brightest,” would make America a better place ought to be compelled to watch Errol Morris’s great 2003 documentary The Fog Of War: Eleven Lessons From The Life Of Robert S. McNamara. And it’s less impressive but still interesting sequel, of sorts, The Unknown Known, about Donald Rumsfeld and the Iraq War. McNamara was tragic; Rumsfeld is simply smug. Neither man was stupid, nor were the people they surrounded themselves with, who took the nation, and people far less intelligent than they, into two foolish and unwinnable wars.

The reader who sent me the link to the Brennan essay is a professor at a major university. He writes:

Sad that an academic would trot out this tired old elitist b.s. at a time when we ought to be demonstrating some sort of ecumenical concern for our society rather than further distancing ourselves from any and all who don’t share our “enlightened” views. But I guess I’m not surprised.

I am no fan of racism, sexism, and the litany of deplorable thoughtcrimes that Mrs. Clinton mentioned on Friday. But I am genuinely frightened of powerful people like those gathered in that room who get to define what constitutes racism and all the rest, and use that as a way to destroy heretics who deviate from their puritanical gospel.

The denunciation of “xenophobia” by globalist elites is part of the broader project of what Roger Scruton calls “oikophobia,” or fear of the familiar. Rusty Reno elaborates on that point:

Today’s emphasis on multiculturalism and “diversity” participates in this vision of the future, one in which differences are overcome and borders are irrelevant. It’s species of utopianism, to be sure, but it has a powerful grip on the moral imagination of the West.

 

In this view, national interest is an impediment to progress. Concerns about identity are, by definition, forms of ethnocentrism bordering on xenophobia. This is why the upsurge of populist concern about immigration—which I take to be a synecdoche for wide-ranging anxieties about the long-term significance of many social changes—are so vigorously denounced by mainstream politicians, journalists, and political commentators. It’s also why Hillary Clinton doesn’t isolate Trump by employing a more moderate and sensible nationalist rhetoric. The same goes from Angela Merkel. She is almost certain to persevere, in order to remain true to what she believes will best serve the common good, not just of Germany, but of the whole world.

 

Globalization has a unifying dimension, which we rightly applaud. At the same time, though, globalization is associated with economic and cultural changes that are dissolving inherited forms of solidarity—the nation foremost, but local communities, as well, and even the family. This dissolution encourages an atomistic individualism, which in turn makes all of us more vulnerable to domination and control.

 

By my reading of the signs of the times, the dangers of dissolved solidarity in the West are far more dire than our present upsurges of ethnocentrism and nationalism. It is atomized societies that are susceptible to demagogues—not societies that enjoy strong social bonds and organic communal solidarity. Islamic extremism thrives where traditional Muslim societies are disintegrated by the pressures of globalization.

And so does Trumpism. As distasteful and even as dangerous as I find Trump, Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” comment to her Manhattan contributors reminds me that she is in some ways even more distasteful and dangerous, because she speaks for the Establishment, and all its collective power. If you are any kind of social or cultural conservative, or immigration restrictionist, and you think Hillary was not talking about you, but only the rough people, you had better think twice. She speaks for those who like to think of themselves as epistocrats, but who are really cognitive-elite oligarchs.

 

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Homeland Security Chair Claims He “Misspoke” – ‘Russians’ Did Not Hack RNC

Update: Rep. McCaul "misspoke"…

  • *MCCAUL SAYS HE `MISSPOKE' AND RNC WASN'T HACKED CNN
  • *MCCAUL SAYS SOME REPUBLICAN OPERATIVES WERE HACKED: CNN

As we detailed earlier, it's not just Democrats that are running scared of what truth-bombs "Russian hackers" will drop next. According to Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, and House Homeland Security Chairman, "Russian hackers" have also penetrated the computer systems of the RNC.

 

 

As Politico reports, House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul said Wednesday that Russian hackers have penetrated the computer systems of the Republican National Committee.

"It’s important to note, Wolf, that they have hacked not only hacked into the DNC but also into the RNC,” McCaul (R-Texas) said in an appearance on CNN.

 

“So they are not discriminating one party against the others. The Russians have basically hacked into both parties at the national level and that gives us all concern about what their motivations are.”

So, it appears, we have equal opportunity 'Russian hackers' – that might break the Trump/Putin narrative… but probably not.

We have to say, given the collapse in productivity around the world, these 'Russian hackers' are very 'productive' (and seem very good at their 'jobs')

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This Is What The Democrats Did Immediately After Realizing They Were Hacked

Having been 'compromised' – by sophisticated Russian hackers (likely working in cahoots with Trump) according to the mainstream media's spoonfed narrative – the Democratic National Committee decdided the smart thing would be to send the new password for their system, via email, to all regional press… Brilliant!

As Brent Teichman (‏@BrentTeichman) succinctly tweeted:

LOL – The geniuses at DNC realized their emails were hacked, then EMAILED new passwords to everyone…

We suspect the next 'hack' will not be via some dark Russian character who has not seen daylight in 5 years; but by a 5 year old girl who can read and has full use of her fingers!

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“The Fed Is Planning For The Next Crisis,” Ron Paul Warns Welfare-Warfare State Collapse Looms

Submitted by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

In her recent address at the Jackson Hole monetary policy conference, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen suggested that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates by the end of the year. Markets reacted favorably to Yellen’s suggested rate increase. This is surprising, as, except for one small increase last year, the Federal Reserve has not followed through on the numerous suggestions of rate increases that Yellen and other Fed officials have made over the past several years.

Much more significant than Yellen’s latest suggestion of a rate increase was her call for the Fed to think outside the box in developing responses to the next financial crisis. One of the outside the box ideas suggested by Yellen is increasing the Fed’s ability to intervene in markets by purchasing assets of private companies. Yellen also mentioned that the Fed could modify its inflation target.

Increasing the Federal Reserve's ability to purchase private assets will negatively impact economic growth and consumers’ well-being. This is because the Fed will use this power to keep failing companies alive, thus preventing the companies’ assets from being used to produce a good or service more highly valued by consumers.

Investors may seek out companies whose assets have been purchased by the Federal Reserve, since it is likely that Congress and federal regulators would treat these companies as “too big to fail.” Federal Reserve ownership of private companies could also strengthen the movement to force businesses to base their decisions on political, rather than economic, considerations.

Yellen’s suggestion of modifying the Fed’s inflation target means that the Fed would increase the inflation tax just when Americans are trying to cope with a major recession or even a depression. The inflation tax is the most insidious of all taxes because it is both hidden and regressive.

The failure of the Federal Reserve’s eight-year spree of money creation via quantitative easing and historically low interest rates to reflate the bubble economy suggests that the fiat currency system may soon be coming to an end. Yellen’s outside the box proposals will only hasten that collapse.

The collapse of the fiat system will not only cause a major economic crisis, but also the collapse of the welfare-warfare state. Yet, Congress not only refuses to consider meaningful spending cuts, it will not even pass legislation to audit the Fed.

Passing Audit the Fed would allow the American people to know the full truth about the Federal Reserve’s conduct of monetary policy, including the complete details of the Fed’s plans to respond to the next economic crash. An audit will also likely uncover some very interesting details regarding the Federal Reserve’s dealings with foreign central banks.

The large number of Americans embracing authoritarianism – whether of the left or right wing variety – is a sign of mass discontent with the current system.

There is a great danger that, as the economic situation worsens, there will be an increase in violence and growing restrictions on liberty. However, public discontent also presents a great opportunity for those who understand free-market economics to show our fellow citizens that our problems are not caused by immigrants, imports, or the one percent, but by the Federal Reserve.

Politicians will never restore sound money or limited government unless forced to do so by either an economic crisis or a shift in public option. It is up to us who know the truth to make sure the welfare-warfare state and the system of fiat money ends because the people have demanded it, not because a crisis left Congress with no other choice.

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Hillbama Administration Plans To Admit At Least 110,000 Refugees In 2017

According to the Washington Post, a source close to Secretary of State Kerry revealed plans by the Obama administration to increase the number of refugees admitted into the U.S. to 110,000 in 2017, representing a 30% increase over the 2016 target and a 57% increase from 2015. 

Kerry briefed lawmakers Tuesday on the new goal, which is an increase from 85,000 in fiscal 2016 and 70,000 in the previous three years. It represents a 57 percent increase in refugee arrivals since 2015, as ongoing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere have spurred an exodus of migrants seeking asylum in Europe, Canada and other regions.

 

A senior administration official, who asked for anonymity because the policy has not yet been officially announced, said the target “is consistent with our belief that all countries should do more to help the world’s most vulnerable people.”

 

The official added that Kerry told lawmakers “that if it is possible to do more” in terms of accepting refugees, “we would.”

Hillary has confirmed her support for increasing refugee targets calling for the admittance of 65,000 refugees from Syria alone versus only 10,000 in 2016. 

Of course, Trump’s position on the issue has been controversial, to say the least, from the start.  Trump originally called for a ban on all Muslm immigrants and then modified his stance to call for the U.S. to “suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies.“

 

Meanwhile, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) warns that the U.S. must balance its desire to be “compassionate” with a “common sense” approach that considers the “impact on local communities.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) criticized the decision, saying policymakers should focus on reforming the nation’s system for admitting refugees rather than having the White House set goals.

 

“For generations, the United States has been a safe haven for people fleeing persecution. We must remain compassionate toward refugees but we also need to make sure that we use common sense,” Goodlatte said in a statement. “Unfortunately, President Obama unilaterally increases the number of refugees resettled in the United States each year and gives little thought as to how it will impact local communities. The president also continues to ignore warnings from his own national security officials and plans to bring in even more Syrian refugees over the next year.”

Frankly, were not sure why this is a big deal.  Everyone in Europe seems to be handling the influx of refugees pretty well.  A fact we recently noted here.

French farmers, truckers and police have all united in a major protest in Calais, France calling on President Hollande to announce specific plans for the demolition of the “Jungle” camp which houses around 7,000-9,000 refugees primarily from Northern Africa and the Middle East.  Farmers and truckers have parked their trucks and tractors on major freeways effectively creating a blockade of the Calais port.

 

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Send Around This XKCD Climate Change Web Cartoon, But Really Look at It First

XKCDclimateCartoonXKCD has a web cartoon making the rounds that nicely summarizes 22,000 years of climate and human history. One important point, as the last ice age ended and temperatures heated up, humans did better and civilizations advanced. Vox invites readers to consider its implications and send it along to those folks who serenely opine, “That climate always changes.” From Vox:

Randall Munroe, the author of the webcomic XKCD, has a habit of making wonderfully lucid infographics on otherwise difficult scientific topics. Everyone should check out today’s edition on global warming. It’s a stunning graphic showing Earth’s recent climate history. Take some time with it. Stroll through the events like the domestication of dogs and the construction of Stonehenge. And then ponder the upshot here….

But Munroe’s comic below hits at the “why worry.” What’s most relevant to us humans, living in the present day, is that the climate has been remarkably stable for the past 12,000 years. That period encompasses all of human civilization — from the pyramids to the Industrial Revolution to Facebook and beyond. We’ve benefited greatly from that stability. It’s allowed us to build farms and coastal cities and thrive without worrying about overly wild fluctuations in the climate.

And now we’re losing that stable climate.

During the last ice age global temperatures averaged about 4 to 5 degrees Celsius lower than the Holocene average. As one scrolls down the trendlines in the graphic, one notes that about 9,000 to 7,000 years ago global average temperatures were higher than currently. In the cartoon, Munroe says that temperatures “start to level out slightly above the 1961-1990 average” around 8,000 BCE.

Of course, determining what temperatures were thousands of years ago is a fraught exercise, but it is generally thought that during the Holocene Optimum global average temperatures were 1 to 2 degrees Celsius higher than they are now. (Yes, I know it’s a link to Wikipedia, but I checked a bunch of different studies and it turns out that Wikipedia pretty much cited and linked to the most relevant of them, so click the links if you’ve got doubts.)

At the end of the XKCD cartoon, it shows current average temperature (which is around where it was 9,000 years ago), and then appends the steeply rising projections of various climate models. Since most doubters are contesting the model projections – not the actual temperature trends – I expect that sending the graphic along to them will do little to change their minds. It will, however, nicely feed into the confirmation biases of those who are fully on-board with those projections. I do note that the cartoon mentions that the Northwest Passage has recently opened. About 9,000 years ago, it was at least as warm in that region as it is now.

In any case, go check out the XKCD cartoon and learn some interesting history.

Just a reminder: I do think that man-made global warming could likely become a significant problem for humanity by the end of the century.

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Johnson/Weld to Debate Commission: Let Down Your 15% Threshold Just This Once

||| Johnson/Weld campaignLibertarian Party presidential nominees Gary Johnson and William Weld took out a full-page ad in today’s New York Times, addressing an open letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), the bipartisan if technically nonpartisan outfit that is scheduled to announce the Sept. 26 debate participants as soon as tomorrow (though likely a few days after). In the ad, the Libertarians point out that solid majorities of Americans want them up there on stage, that they are polling at 15 percent in 15 states, and that “The conditions of the presidential election of 2016 are extraordinary and without precedent.”

(As if to underscore that last point, a new Sept. 8-13 Quinnipiac poll, which shows Johnson with a record-tying level of 13 percent support, also found that less than one-third of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump voters are doing so because they “like” their own candidate.)

The Johnson/Weld letter ends with this flourish:

Allow us to make our case to the American people. If, in the polls that follow, we fail to meet that 15% standard, we’ll make no further efforts for inclusion in the subsequent debates.

Your board was empaneled to ensure fairness in the political process. This is an unparalleled moment in our nation’s history and the eyes of the world are upon us all. We invite you to be on the right side of that history.

The CPD last month said it would announce the Sept. 26 finalists in “mid-September,” which technically occurs midnight tomorrow. However, two of the five survey the commission selected to determine average polling numbers—CBS News/New York Times and NBC News/Wall Street Journal—haven’t produced results in more than six weeks. Almost certainly, the debate commission will wait until those two polls come in. As mentioned here previously, Johnson would have to average 25 percent across both to meet the 15.0% threshold.

With the minutes to D-Day ticking down, and after nearly four months (including today at the Detroit Economic Club) of repeating that “To win we have to be in the presidential debates,” Johnson and his campaign are lunging desperately for any available stick.

Bill Weld has been warning all month that the debate commission could “lose their tax exempt status” if they don’t let the Libertarians in, a threat that Campaign Manager Ron Nielson slyly alludes to near the close of his let-them-debate op-Ed in today’s L.A. Times: “The CPD, a private tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, has the opportunity to do the right thing.” (Keep in mind that the Libertarians were plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the commission as recently as last month.) CPD co-chair Mike McCurry, meanwhile, shot back a week ago that changing the “pre-established criteria” at this late date could put the commission in legal jeopardy, though it’s hard to imagine exactly who would sue. Johnson did score some nice points, however, by snagging a debate-inclusion endorsement by an actual commission member, former Indiana governor and current Purdue University President Mitch Daniels. (Daniels was also quite generous in holding a public Q&A with Johnson last night at Purdue, attended by around 1,000 people, about which more stay tuned to this space.)

The campaign is also trying to work the refs—using argumentation of dubious quality—when it comes to the way the polls themselves are being conducted and received. Nielson in his piece today complained that the CPD’s Big Five polls “often restrict themselves to head-to-head match-ups between Trump and Clinton,” which just flat-out isn’t true. Johnson in Detroit today complained at some length that his name has never been listed as the first option on a national poll, and that this has skewed results. PolitiFact looked at this claim in late August, and judged it “false,” finding that:

Eleven of the [25] polls we looked at—close to half—included Johnson in their first or only question about the presidential horse-race. None of these polls vaulted Gary Johnson to 20 percent. In fact, he did slightly worse, on average, when he was included in the first horse-race question.

The debate-desperation is beginning to seep over into the pro-Johnson SuperPAC world as well:

If all these Hail Marys fail to deliver victory from the jaws of defeat, the campaign has been preparing the way for counter-programming outside the debates. That would depend on stoking outrage among the press and the public over the system being so obviously rigged. To that extent, Nielson makes perhaps the best argument of the lot:

There is also precedent to consider. In 1992, H. Ross Perot polled well through early summer when matched up against then-President George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. After he temporarily dropped out of the race, his numbers plummeted, and by the time he got back in he was only at 7 to 9% in national polls. (That’s lower than Johnson by most accounts.) Nevertheless, he was invited to participate in the debates, and he went on to win 18.7% of the popular vote. If voters had not been given the opportunity to see him go head to head with the standard bearers of the obsolete two-party system, he would never have gone so far.

Shouldn’t Johnson get the same chance?

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Americans’ Trust In Mass Media Plunges To Record Low

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

In yesterday’s post, The Death of Mainstream Media, I noted:

At the end of the day, I have concluded that my focus on Hillary as of late (vs. Trump) has as much to with my disgust for the mainstream media as anything else. To see these organs, which have destroyed this country by keeping the people uninformed for decades, now rally around a sickly, corrupt, oligarch coddling politician as the empire enters the collapse stage is simply too much to stomach…

 

The only positive thing to happen during this election season is the death of mainstream media. With their insufferable propaganda fully exposed, there is no coming back. 

Then today, we learned the following from Gallup:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage points from last year.

Here’s a chart.

screen-shot-2016-09-14-at-2-05-51-pm

If that’s not a trend, I don’t know what is.

Gallup began asking this question in 1972, and on a yearly basis since 1997. Over the history of the entire trend, Americans’ trust and confidence hit its highest point in 1976, at 72%, in the wake of widely lauded examples of investigative journalism regarding Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. After staying in the low to mid-50s through the late 1990s and into the early years of the new century, Americans’ trust in the media has fallen slowly and steadily. It has consistently been below a majority level since 2007.

 

While it is clear Americans’ trust in the media has been eroding over time, the election campaign may be the reason that it has fallen so sharply this year. With many Republican leaders and conservative pundits saying Hillary Clinton has received overly positive media attention, while Donald Trump has been receiving unfair or negative attention, this may be the prime reason their relatively low trust in the media has evaporated even more. It is also possible that Republicans think less of the media as a result of Trump’s sharp criticisms of the press. Republicans who say they have trust in the media has plummeted to 14% from 32% a year ago. This is easily the lowest confidence among Republicans in 20 years.

Meanwhile, if there is any hope for the future, it can be found here.

Older Americans are more likely than younger Americans to say they trust the media, but trust has declined among both age groups this year. Currently, 26% of those aged 18 to 49 (down from 36% last year) and 38% of those aged 50 and older (down from 45%) say they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media.

 

In 2001, younger Americans (55%) were more likely than older Americans (50%) to express trust and confidence in mass media. This gap emerged again in 2005 when 53% of 18- to 49-year-olds had trust and 45% of those 50 and older expressed the same sentiment. Yet in the past decade, older Americans have mostly had more confidence than younger Americans, and this year, the gap between these age groups is 12 points. And 2016 marks the first time that confidence among older Americans has dropped below 40% in polling since 2001.

screen-shot-2016-09-14-at-2-03-21-pm

Before 2004, it was common for a majority of Americans to profess at least some trust in the mass media, but since then, less than half of Americans feel that way. Now, only about a third of the U.S. has any trust in the Fourth Estate, a stunning development for an institution designed to inform the public.

For related articles, see:

The Death of Mainstream Media

A Detailed Look at The New York Times’ Embarrassing, Deceitful and Illogical Endorsement of Hillary Clinton

First Brian Williams, Now George Stephanopoulos Has Lost All Credibility in Latest Mainstream Media Scandal

20-Year CBS News Veteran, Sharyl Attkisson, Details Massive Censorship and Propaganda in Mainstream Media

Hillary Clinton Enters the Media Wars

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Hillary’s Doctor Releases Her Latest “Medical Records”

"Fit to serve," are the three little words that Dr. Lisa Bardack chose to sum up Hillary Clinton's post-collapse, post-pneumonia, post-coughing fit medical test. Bardack concluded that "the remainder of her complete physical exam was normal and she is in excellent mental condition." Of course, the big question is, will Hillary be healthy enough that Bardack does not need to walk arm in arm with her in public during Hillary's next appearance, while checking to make sure her pulse is still there.

As Bloomberg reports, Clinton’s medical history included deep vein thrombosis in 1998 and 2009, an elbow fracture in 2009, and a blood clot and a concussion in 2012, Bardack said last year.

At that time, Clinton regularly took Armour Thyroid, antihistamines, Vitamin B12 and Coumadin, an anticoagulant. She’s still taking all the same medications, Bardack said, with more specificity about the antihistamine the candidate is taking. It is Clarinex.

 

Clinton last released information about her health in July 2015, when Bardack provided a letter that concluded the candidate “is in excellent physical condition and fit to serve as President of the United States.”

And today, as CNN reports, Hillary Clinton's campaign released additional medical information Wednesday after questions about her health intensified in the wake of her pneumonia diagnosis late last week.

She was diagnosed with mild, non-contagious bacterial pneumonia, her doctor said, a step the campaign took after the candidate had to take three days off the campaign trail after nearly collapsing at an event on Sunday.

 

Dr. Lisa Bardack, Clinton's personal doctor and the chair of Internal Medicine at CareMount Medical in Mount Kisco, New York, said she evaluated Clinton multiple times in the last week — including Wednesday — and found that the Democratic nominee had a small right middle-lobe pneumonia.

 

According to Bardack, "The remainder of her complete physical exam was normal and she is in excellent mental condition."

 

Bardack added that Clinton "is recovering well with antibiotics," including Levaquin, which she was told to take for 10 days.

Remember when Hillary's Cleveland coughing fit was blamed entirely on pollem? Well…

I evaluated Mrs. Clinton for a 24 – hour history of a low grade fever, congestion and fatigue.

 

On examination, she was noted to have a temperature of 99.4; her vital signs were otherwise normal as was her physical exam. She was advised to rest, put on a short course of antibiotics and continued on her allergy medications for an upper respiratory tract infection in the setting of her seasonal allergies.

 

Over the next several days as she traveled, her congestion worsened and she developed a cough. She was advised to see me when she returned from her travels for further testing.

And finally, we have a simple question – is it routine to get a CT scan of your brain for an ear infection?

This evaluation confirmed a sinus and ear infection, with increased fluid in her left ear. To help alleviate her symptoms, a myringotomy tube was placed in her left ear in January of 2016. After the tube was placed, Mrs. Clinton had significant improvement in her symptoms.

 

Further follow-up evaluation with a CT scan of her brain and sinuses was done in March of 2016. This scan showed no abnormalities of the brain and mild chronic sinusitis. Her symptoms resolved and she continued symptom-free for the next six months.

The release of Clinton’s medical information was a bit of political gamesmanship, coming just hours after Republican Donald Trump revealed some of his health history at a taping of the “Dr. Oz Show” Wednesday in New York.

Full Medical Statement below.

HRC Physician Letter

via http://ift.tt/2c9mwjY Tyler Durden