On Monday’s Mark Levin Show, General Colin Powell has passed away. He was National Security Advisor to President Reagan and has always had a respected and mixed political record in Washington. Secretary Powell was an honorable man and loved his country but he did have a mixed record. Then, so-called journalists in the media seem to be preparing to tarnish any potential future Trump candidacy, treating former President Trump as if he’s a disease in remission but not quite cured. Criticizing and pressuring their colleagues to not question Biden’s inadequacies as president. A biased media is a true threat to the success and future of this republic. Later, Twitter and Facebook are the enemy and they are damaging our country. They believe in promoting lies and banning, then-sitting president of the United States, Donald Trump. Similarly, China is developing new and stronger weapons to further advance their global position. Afterward, the Democrats and Nancy Pelosi’s politburo now want to usurp executive privilege to get information from President Trump’s then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and other White House staffers with the hopes of uncovering embarrassing information to ridicule Trump. Congress’ subpoena power has never existed for the political benefit of one’s political opposition.
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Why journalists are failing the public with ‘both-siderism’ in political coverage
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Rumble
Todd to Buttigieg: You Were Under Bizarre Attack By Loud Mouths For Taking Paid Family Leave
Newsbusters
Andrea Mitchell Falsely Claims GOP ‘Booed’ Powell at 2000 Convention
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Image used with permission of Getty Images / Paul Morigi
Rough transcript of Hour 1
Hour 1 Segment 1
Well, as you well know, General Powell passed this morning. He had blood cancer. He had Parkinson’s. And in the family indicated that was worsened by the coronavirus and he passed away this morning. It’s interesting because on 9/11, I remember him at the event in Washington that he always attended watching that on TV. So he passed fairly quickly the form of cancer that he had. He can linger for a long time, but unfortunately, there was no cure for that. Watching TV, you would have thought that General Powell first reached into the White House and became known under the Bush administration, Bush 41. But that’s not correct, because actually Caspar Weinberger, secretary of defense, and Ronald Reagan, who brought brought General Powell really into the White House. And General Powell was a man who loved his country, but he had a mixed record, excellent record in many regards, but a mixed record in other regards, a highly respected throughout Washington, D.C., as you can see, highly respected in the media. He had a deputy over there when he was secretary of state by the name of Richard Armitage and. Well, Armitage didn’t come out and indicate that he was the one that had provided information to the press and Scooter Libby, who served under Dick Cheney, then the vice president took all the heat for it and wound up being prosecuted. So I don’t think that’s particularly honorable on the part, Armitage. I never knew if Colin Powell knew about that or not his boss and close friend. And I understand that Colin Powell thought that the Iraq situation was the worst blot on his resume. I don’t think it was he was told what he was told by intelligence agencies. Same thing that was told to members of Congress. And he was a. He was very loyal in that regard to George W. Bush and went to the U.N. and made the case as the case was provided to him and of course, that’s being raised as well. It’s like any other life. Nobody’s perfect. They’re not perfect in their personal lives and they’re not perfect in their professional lives, even though you try to live a moral, patriotic life. And I think he did those things. I never quite understood why he didn’t endorse John McCain for president. They had been friends for a very, very long time. McCain was his kind of Republican. And he backed Barack Obama a second time around with Romney, again, his type of Republican, he backed. Obama again. Then, of course, he he hated Donald Trump, as so much of the establishment in Washington does and did from the Bushes to the Chinese to the never Trump and all the rest. So even back to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Because he said the Republican Party had moved too far, right? Which he clearly did not. So mixed political record as well. But I would argue a very honorable man, patriotic man who loved his country. And. Was very strong in many respects. When it came to fighting in Iraq, when it came to Panama, Noriega and some other issues, some other cases. But I just want to remind people, because there aren’t enough Reagan people around, that Powell got his start at a senior level. Crossing over sort of from military to civilian, but still in military, providing advice on the civilian side in the Reagan administration, not Bush 41 and Bush 43. And he was very young at the time to. But it’s very sad. No question about it. He was 84 years old. That’s not that old. And may he rest in peace and we wish his family all the best. I’m sure it’s extremely difficult. Like I said, on 9/11, he was this anniversary, he was celebrating, but not celebrating, he was remembering the events of that day in Washington, D.C. He was on television. I watched it. He was a lot damn better than Mellie, I can tell you that. I don’t think General Powell left American citizens in enemy territory. In Afghanistan, I don’t think General Powell would have left. Patriotic Afghans who fought side by side with us in enemy territory, and I don’t think he would have withdrawn from Afghanistan the way Austen and Millie and the rest of them did. No way. Neither would a Secretary of Defense Weinberger and President Reagan. And neither would a President Trump, no way. All right, I read something that kind of proves the point was interesting to me. It’s a column that I caught at the Blaze media site, a column I caught by Jackie Calmes, KLM. Yes, maybe it’s Kam’s whatever. She was a news person and now she’s a columnist. You see this all the time. Like Ruth Marcus is now the deputy editor of the op ed page of The Washington Post. She used to be a reporter. I know she was a reporter because she was a liberal hack at The Washington Post way back when in the Reagan administration. But they moved between reporting and giving their opinions, although I don’t know why, because there really doesn’t seem to be any line of demarcation today between so-called reporters and individuals who give their opinions. So she writes a piece. About internal white journalists are failing the public with both both boty dash, acidy RASM, both said terrorisms in political coverage. And I want to give you a feel for what she writes here, and we’ll take a break, then we’ll circle back. American politics, she writes, has changed dramatically since my post. Watergate generation of journalists began covering the story. Political journalism hasn’t kept up for years. It was easier to cover both sides, Republicans and Democrats, as equally worthy and blame worthy partners in democracy. Now, I might say, as long as I’ve been alive, that’s never happened. So that is a bogus point to begin with. While we reporters have come of age as witnesses to the unprecedented resignation of a Republican president who tried to corrupt the institutions of government to affect an election, I would have thought that was John Kennedy. But apparently not. Imagine what remained. Was a Republican Party still capable of a creditable role and a healthy two party system. After all, Richard Nixon was forced to resign when congressional leaders of his party began abandoning him again. Imagine that. Kevin McCarthy. See where this is going now. When reporters or pundits use the words both sides in regard to some political problem. I stop reading or listening. I started to chafe at false equivalence a quarter century ago as a congressional reporter amid Newt Gingrich’s Republican revolution. One party his was demonstrably more responsible for the nasty divisiveness, government gridlock and norm busting. Yet journalistic pressure to produce seemingly balanced stories. Pressure both ingrained and imposed by editors, prevented reporters from sufficiently reflecting the truth. The truth. You understand the truth. The left. By 2012, as President Obama dealt with the willful obstructionist conspiracists and racists of an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, political scientists are long respected. Washington watchers Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein put the onus for the dysfunction squarely on the GOP in their provocative book. And even it’s even worse than it looks. Significantly, they implicated journalists, quote, A balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon is a distortion of reality and a disservice to your customers. The ascension of Donald Trump four years later should not have been such a surprise with his continued hold on the Republican Party in the Biden era. Man And Einstein’s admonition is truer than ever. These are two old. Washington, the hangers on have been spewing their idiocy for decades. Yes, it’s critical of political journalists to remain fair and balanced in contrasts with the right wing network that cynically co-opted those objectives. And yes, variations on the word lie justifiably made it into the media. Sometimes I never thought I’d see, let alone write, to describe what comes out of Trump’s mouth whenever his lips move. Sadly, that was progress. You know, the Trump is no longer president, in his words, no longer can fire senior officials, move troops or launch bombs, his unhinged utterances go largely uncovered, for better or worse, better for everyone’s mental health. Worse, because he’s the favorite to be Republicans, 20 for a nominee and perhaps president again and still commands his party enabled by sycophants in Congress, state capitols and thousands of local public offices. Attention must be paid. All right. You can see what a hack this woman is and you can also see that they’re getting ready. The double down on what they did to Trump, should he run for president again, I believe he will. I don’t have insider information. So she’s gearing them up to the extent then that journalists and pundits focus critically on President Biden and Democrats and gave short shrift to Republicans, obstruction says if the cancer was in remission, if not cured. That indeed distorts reality and disturbs readers, listeners and viewers. Yeah, that Joe Biden’s had a tough time. Has OneAmerica. No demands for his medical records or the list of his prescriptions. No, no, no, no. They really followed up on that Tyree’s story, didn’t they? No, no, no. They really followed up on his background, his history of segregation, didn’t they? No. And now as he as he shuffles away after giving a few comments. Like a man who’s hungry for his oatmeal. Amanda doesn’t hold press conferences, Amanda’s done 10 one on one interviews, she’s concerned about the way the press treat by now. This is very, very important. And so I’m going to take a break now, just bookmark in your mind where we are that this long time reporter now opinion writer for The L.A. Times. Is trashing. Just solely the Republicans. Warning her fellow so-called journalists and pundit friends that they’re doing the wrong thing in raising questions about the Democrats, whether they be in the Capitol Hill or whether they be in the White House. And that they got they’ve got to gear up to fight the ideology of conservatism, they have to gear up, they get ready for Trump and Trump owns the party. We can’t put up with that. We journalists and we pundits. So that’s where we’re leaving off, but there’s more I’ll be right back.
Hour 1 Segment 2
White journalists are telling the public that both sides are resuming political cover. Such a hard piece, but it reveals a lot. Democracy is literally at stake as Republicans block federal voting rights legislation. Those in red states continue to challenge the 2020 votes for Biden, but not their own pass laws to suppress future votes and ways disinvest advantageous to Democrats, gerrymander legislative districts and replace nonpartisan election observers with partisan ones. Listen to this. In Congress, the Democrats disarray, to use a favorite alliterative phrase of journalists, is real and merits dissection. But it must be said that it owes much to the fact that Democrats, with their minimal House and Senate majorities, can’t count on a single Republican vote for most legislation, while one Republican senator can routinely block action with a filibuster. Meanwhile, the scraping between liberals and such as Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema over potentially transformative domestic spending proposals reflects the normal debate process. Really. Numerous news reports suggest Biden’s politically liable for the persistence of COBA 19. Yet many are silent on Republicans opposition to his efforts promoting vaccines and masks and the not coincidental fact that the rates of hospitalizations and deaths are highest in red states. Actually, they’re not. Trumpet’s on social media seem to gloat over a high case numbers. See where this is coming from. She’s a nut. This is a Republican Party that’s not serious about governing or addressing the nation’s actual problems as opposed to for ones like critical race theory. And it goes on. She is, of course, a hack. But here’s the thing. Always went back and took a look at social media and some of the responses by reporters. New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer, who was always a hack tweet a good point from long time reporter Jackie Calmes, missing from much political coverage is the only one party is even trying to govern. New York Times magazine writer Nicole Hannah Jones remember her 1619 project? She loved it. Every political journalist should read this. And the book, How Democracies Die. Former vice president and NPR Bill Buzenberg tweeted, great op ed, important message for every journalist. NPR, PBS, this includes you. Please don’t balance the truth with an outright calculated lie and call it objective reporting or interviewing. Jay Rosen, another one. American politics has changed dramatically since my post Watergate generation. He retreats that he says, I’ve been waiting for this column by a former political reporter for a very long time, John Harwood, another jackass outstanding from at Jackie Calmes. Howard Fineman. You remember that lightweight says white journalists are failing in political coverage. He says she’s spot on. I know her well and her name implies she’s a calm, rational reporter, but she’s rightly pissed that we give psycho Trump lykins both sides coverage. Now, when we come back, we’re going to analyze this. This actually is not new. This column is just the latest in numerous columns and numerous assertions. By fraud, propagated by fraud, journalists who are propagandists who have no intention of reporting the news and they are making it abundantly clear that they’re getting ready for the next round. I’ll be right back.
Hour 1 Segment 3
But that opinion columnists is writing is not news and it’s just the latest exposition of the media mindset, the corrupt media mindset, the propaganda organizations in this country, they are Suffa granddaughters, they are narcissists, and they are justifying among themselves the turn that they have taken in destroying a free press and the turn that they have taken in advancing the cause of one party in America, Marxism as an ideology. This has been actually going on in journalism schools and throughout newsrooms, so-called for decades. And just like with colleges and universities generally and they and the society generally, it’s reached its pinnacle now. And so they describe the people with whom they disagree in the most negative, poisonous terms, either describe the people with whom they agree. As righteous people with some faults, but those righteous people with some faults reflect their own ideology. Jim Rutenberg, a Times news correspondent, turned columnist. In 2016, he’s even more blunt, he asserts that if you are a journalist who despises Trump, this is on on freedom of the press, as so many of the Democratic Party press do, and consider him some kind of a threat to the nation. You can hardly be expected to report objectively about him on August seven, 2016. Five years ago, Bloomberg explained the mindset at the newspaper and the media at large, writing, If you were a working journalist and you believe that Donald Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racists and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover? If you believe all those things, you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you’ve never approached anything in your career. If you view a Trump presidency is something that’s potentially dangerous than your reporting is going to reflect that you have moved closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream non opinion journalist I’ve ever known and by normal standards, untenable. But the question that everyone is grappling with is do normal standards applying? If they don’t, what should take their place? It may not always seem fair to Mr. Trump or his supporters, but journalism shouldn’t measure itself against anyone. Campaign’s definition of fairness. It is journalism’s job to be true to the readers and viewers and true to the facts in a way that will stand up to history. Judgment to do anything less would be untenable. Seems to me this guy may have a claim against this, this other columnist five years later. No Mr. Producer saying damn near the same thing. So the abandonment of objective truth and worse, the rejection of the principles and values of America’s early press. It’s not new for The New York Times or The Washington Post. But they are letting you know they intend to double, triple, quadruple down on this. They’re utterly corrupt as the rest of the book and Freedom of the Press points out, they’re overwhelmingly members of the Democrat Party. They’re overwhelmingly share a hard left ideology and agenda. They live in a bubble mostly on each coast, the east and the east coast and the western coast. They socialize with each other. And they give awards to each other. Many of them move in and out of Democrat administrations or move in and out of Democrat congressional offices up on Capitol Hill. This is who they are. And there are no voices small, almost none. Very few voices that I’m aware of. That Pritch. Objectivity or at least the pursuit of objectivity and impartiality. And they know and this, as I say, has been going on for some time. There was a gentleman I’d like to introduce you to people. There was a gentleman, a professor of English at University of Chicago’s name was Richard Weaver is a brilliant man. And he noticed this almost a half century ago. But again, it’s reached its pinnacle now and. He wrote a book in called Ideas of Consequences, and he wrote that the modern press is actually a highly negative force in our society. He was not opposed to a free press, but he was repelled by what it had become. He said for Plato, truth was a living thing, never wholly captured by men, even in animated discourse and in its purest form, certainly never brought to paper. In our day, it would seem that a contrary presumption has grown up the more firmly an utterance, a stereotype, the more likely it is to win credit. It is assumed that engines as expensive and as powerful as the modern printing press will naturally be placed in the hands of men of knowledge. Faith in the printed word is race journalism to the rank of oracles. Yet how could there be a better description of them than this line from Federalists? They will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing. They will be tiresome having the reputation of knowledge without the reality. We said. If the realization of truth is the product of a meeting of the minds, we may be skeptical of the physical ability of the mechanism to propagate it. As long as the propagation is limited to the printing and distribution of stories which give one unvarying answer, quote unquote in this circumstance springs at once the question of the intention of the rulers of the press. There’s much to indicate that modern publication wishes to minimise discussion, despite many artful pretensions to the contrary, does not want an exchange of views, say perhaps on academic matters. Instead, it encourages men to read in the hope that they will absorb, in other words, propaganda. And this weaver is condemning the Natron media’s organized propaganda involving individuals who are not particularly bright or knowledgeable about the matters on which they write or speak, but are propagandists for particular viewpoints. Weaver argued that there’s another circumstance which raises grave doubts about the contribution of journalism to the public. While newspapers and all media today are under strong pressure to distort in the interest of holding attention, it is an inescapable fact that newspapers thrive on friction and conflict. It is an inescapable fact. One has only to survey the headlines of some popular journal often presented symbolically and read to note the kind of thing which is considered news behind the big story, there nearly always lies a battle of some sort. Conflict is the essence of drama. Then he says, in reviewing the persistent tendency of the newspapers to corrupt officials, cite a passage from author James Fenimore Cooper. Though Cooper lived before the advent of yellow journalism, he seems to have stated the essential situation with a truth and eloquence and possible unproven when he said in The American Democrat, a newspaper quote, As the press of this country now exists, it would seem to be expressly devised by the great agent of mischief to depress and destroy all that is good and to elevate in advance all that is evil in the nation. The little truth that is urged is usually urged, coarsely weakened and rendered vicious by personalities, while those who live by falsehoods, fallacies and Mitty’s partiality and the schemes of the designing fine the press, the very instrument that the devils would invent to affect their designs. It’s true, isn’t it? Weaver and Cooper are highlighting what would become the media’s use of targeted personal attacks on individuals and subjects, they defy or resist the trajectory of events and movements for which journalists have become committed and open advocates. This is seen every day with, for example, the relentless polemical characterizations of individuals and groups as climate change deniers trump deplorable white supremacists, etc., etc.. Etc., etc. excuse me, the media have and are doing enormous damage to this country, enormous damage to this country. They were happy with a George W. Bush, even though they trashed the hell out of him. They knew he wasn’t a threat to the establishment order. They were happy with George H.W. Bush. Even though they trashed him, they knew he wasn’t a threat to the established order. They tried to destroy Ronald Reagan, they wanted him to be impeached. They went after his staffers. Because they knew he was not part of the entrenched establishment in Washington or part of the republics, and of course, they’ve gone after Donald Trump like no president in American history. And what the Republicans will never understand is that no Republican will send. They want the rollover Republicans. The auroras, the rollover Republicans, that’s what they want. They promised them they would be attacked, but not attacked like Trump, but they have to go along ultimately with the trajectory. Of the American Marxist movement. Trump would have none of that. And so that’s why they treat him as if he’s Adolf Hitler, although I might say for The New York Times, they treated Adolf Hitler pretty well, quite frankly. Oh, they certainly did. But this is how they view you. They think they’re smarter than you, and actually most of them are pretty stupid. They haven’t achieve very much. They haven’t improved this nation. And then, of course, just like Solinsky, after they personally attack you or a movement excuse me, with which they don’t agree, then they accuse that individual in the movement of being divisive if you fight back to the worst kind of divisive leader or public official. That’s the way they think it’s important to spend time on this today. So you understand what in your gut you already knew, but understand from a cerebral position, which is. That they are gearing up and they’re gearing up. To try and destroy Trump. Which is why they embraced this January six group, which are throwing subpoenas at individuals who have. No connection to January six and are going on a fishing expedition to try and embarrass them. Just like the NFL leaked Jon Gruden emails but didn’t leak anybody else’s, they have 650,000 emails, but apparently only Jon Gruden emails were worth leaking to The New York Times. I’ll be right back.
Hour 1 Segment 4
Now, when you look at the past, when you look at people like Chuck Todd or George Stephanopoulos and so forth, this proves the point. I want you to listen to this. This is Chuck Todd with Pete Buttigieg on Meet the Press. And remember, this guy’s in charge of transportation issues, which supply chain issues, and he takes two months off and nobody knows and they don’t even have a deputy secretary of transportation. Cut to go, I know you’ve been under some bizarre attack for taking paid leave by some some loudmouths in our political system. Let’s stop right there. Does that sound like a real journalist to you, Mr. Producer? I know you’ve been under some bizarre attack for taking paid leave by some loudmouths in our political system, see, Chuck Todd is unaffected by inflation. He’s unaffected by food prices. He can just look at the guy until he’s unaffected by the price increases on gasoline. He’s unaffected by all of it. None of the media is affected by any of this. Any of it? Period. And so this is how they view you. Here’s a guy who takes two months off. For family leave. Let me ask you something, Mr. Producer, when’s the last time I talked to Munzar? I’ve never taken two months off when I had a bad heart attack, I didn’t take two months off. In fact, I came back too fast, but all that said, you know, when you’re the cabinet secretary, even though you may be able to take off two months or whatever as a matter of regulation or law, what have you, you don’t do it. Because you have things to do for the country, but anyway, go ahead about paid family leave in general, because apparently may not be in the final part of build back better, you took it. The federal government offers it to federal government employees. What does it say if the president can’t get paid family leave into his agenda? Now, is this is this the kind of question that a real journalist would ask? In other words, asking a guy who just took federal paid family leave because he’s a federal employee? What if the president can’t get it into his agenda? He doesn’t ask questions like who’s going to pay for this or what’s the cap on this or what’s the effect? On businesses and the job market, no, no, no. What does it say that the president can’t get it back into his agenda because Chuck Todd is rooting? Because he’s a fraud, he’s a Democrat, and so’s his wife, a Democrat consultant, go ahead. Well, it’s on the president’s agenda. It’s in the build back better plan. And I’m proud to work for an administration, but it may not last the walk on family, but it may not last and it may not last. What do you what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Go ahead. It may not last. I tell you, it is in the president’s vision. And we’ll see what the legislative process is going to bring. But the president’s been very clear on what he’s calling for and marinating interview. Isn’t it monotonous? It’s why most of the Sunday shows nobody watches them. They’re monotonous. They’re predictable. This is a Democrat operative talking to a Democrat. April one is dressed up as a journalist and one is dressed up as a cabinet secretary. Now, you can be assured if the shoe were on the other foot. Any Republican cabinet secretary for any Republican administration at the Transportation Department had taken two months off for family leave. And we had this enormous economic crisis with the supply chain. That he wouldn’t get asked the question, why do you think of these idiots, these loudmouths questioning you? You know, I can’t believe you’d think he’d get that from this jerk. I really miss Tim Russert, you know, Tim Russert was a Democrat on Capitol Hill, but the guy was mostly fair. He was tough. He was smart. And he was he he was one of the few that managed the transition from working on Capitol Hill to a real journalist, he really was. Again, I didn’t always agree with him, but he always asked about spending and balanced budgets. He would all ask them, which was never on the Democratic side. Anybody would ask Republicans to. You’ll never get a question like that. From schmuck, that won’t happen. He’s loudmouths in on political people, these loudmouths questioning you for taking a family leave, you know. What’s that all about? I don’t know when Ted Cruz flew his two daughters to an event and then flew back, nobody defended him on family leave. Did they miss it? I don’t think so. No, they trashed the hell out of them. I do have a proposal, though, Chuck Todd, why don’t you take your full three months of family leave? I don’t know if NBC offers it, but you do the nation a great service. I’ll be right back.