Merry Christmas
The Front Page Cover
The Events of the Week -- Featuring:
Trump’s Carrier Coup and a Lesson From JFK
by Peggy Noonan
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Fake News Exposes Real Hypocrisy 
Arnold Ahlert: The American Left's determination to blame virtually anything other than their alienation of millions of working-class Americans for the defeat of liar-Hillary Clinton is finally coalescing around a prevailing idea: "stupid" voters were conned by "fake news."
If one likes a good fake news story, the high-profile Washington Post screed about the Russian-generated fake news propaganda campaign that ostensibly put Trump in the White House goes right to the top of the list. How fake? After its publication, the paper's editor added a "clarifier" at the top of the story, disavowing a group of anonymous "experts" calling themselves PropOrNot, who had named several fake news sources in the original article. The Post's editor subsequently decided the paper could no longer "vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's findings."
Why? The New Yorker's Adrian Chen reveals PropOrNot's methodology for determining fake news was so flawed it "could include ... nearly every news outlet in the world, including the Post itself."
In short the Post's story about fake news ... was fake news. Yet the leftist beat goes on, even as they remain immune to the breathtaking hypocrisy that animates it. liar-Hillary Clinton led the way during an appearance at an event celebrating retiring Sen. Harry dinky-Reid's (D-NV) career. She spoke about the "epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year," and the "real world consequences" that attended it. "This isn't about politics or partisanship," she insisted. "Lives are at risk."
At risk? Lives were lost in Benghazi. And to maintain liar-nObama administration credibility toward the end of the 2012 presidential campaign, liar-Clinton and Barack liar-nObama perpetrated the most despicable fake news story of the decade, blaming the deaths of four Americans on an offensive video. Perhaps the hand wringers at the Times and the Post might ask themselves which is more egregious: an unproven fake news campaign disseminated by the Russians, or a thoroughly documented one disseminated by the liar-nObama administration.
And then there's dinky-Reid himself who penned a New York Times piece insisting "the responsibility for separating what is real and what is fake will fall on Democrats." One is left to wonder if such Democrats include dinky-Reid himself, who not only used the floor of the Senate to make an unsubstantiated claim about Mitt Romney's failure to pay taxes for 10 years, but subsequently bragged that his lying helped to defeat Romney.
As for Democrats tasked with separating "what is real and what is fake," what could be phonier than celebrating the career of perhaps the most ethically challenged person to ever sit in the Senate?
Former NBC anchor Brian Williams gets in on the action as well, declaring that "fake news played a role in the election and continues to find a wide audience." That's the same Brian Williams given a six month suspension by NBC for perpetrating fake news stories, especially the whopper about being nearly shot down during a helicopter flight over Iraq. Ironically, Williams won the 2009 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism and was praised by Cronkite, who called Williams a "fastidious newsman." That's the same "Uncle Walter" Cronkite never held sufficiently accountable for his lie about America losing the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. A lie that prolonged a conflict ultimately costing 54,000 Americans their lives.
"Fake news is hardly a new phenomenon," Greta Von Susteren aptly asserts. "For decades, Americans have had an appetite for fringe stories, from grassy knoll conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination to the alien secrets of Area 51 and the baseless notion that 9/11 was an inside job."
Von Susteren lays the blame for fake news squarely where it belongs. "Part of the reason fake news is so easy to believe is that fringe stories no longer read or sound all that different from too many of the real stories. Too often, both have little or no sourcing; they lack context and they get disseminated with almost no fact-checking."
Maybe that's because the Left's determination to embrace the moral and cultural relativism that appeals to emotion in lieu of objectivity — makes fact-checking subservient.
Subservient to what? The Narrative, in all its "hands up don't shoot" reality-twisting, divisiveness-inducing and ratings-generating glory.
Add calculated errors of omission to the mix, along with the fact these major media players have a reach that dwarfs that of the fake news purveyors they rail about, and it becomes clear who the most egregious disseminators of fake news are — and whose agenda they are determined to serve, at the price of journalistic integrity.
"Recall that the Times and its co-conspirators created a fictional Trump held aloft by goose-stepping brownshirts and toothless bigots rising from the swamps," columnist Michael Goodwin explains. "They aimed to scare the country into supporting liar-Clinton by turning their front pages into editorial pages, where 'straight news' became an oxymoron."
Turning straight news into an oxymoron is an integral part of a progressive ideology and their "never let a crisis go to waste," "win by any means necessary" worldview. The worldview animated by the disciples of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" who include our current president and liar-Hillary Clinton. Fortunately, their Alinsky-advocated vision to "fundamentally transform the United States of America" just got steamrolled by a trash-talking, Twitter-posting political neophyte whose own bona fides — or lack thereof — have yet to be established.
Regardless, Donald Trump has already done the nation an enormous favor: In the course of winning the election, he exposed millions of self-professed "tolerant" leftists as the hateful hysterics they truly are. Better still, it is an "emperor has no clothes" revelation that cannot be walked back in the foreseeable future — all the fake news in the world notwithstanding. ~The Patriot Post
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liar-Clinton/liar-nObama/Ryano/McCon-nell “Pulling
A Comey” Ahead Of Electoral Vote
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ As some are warning Donald Trump that Vladimir Putin can’t be trusted and not to be fooled by his friendly overtures, the same warnings should be observed and are likely even more pertinent for the top Congressional leaders... While Mitch McCon-nell has been a little less obvious in his treachery over the past year, he’s still an establishment stiff. McCon-nell’s loyalties, if he’s capable of possessing such characteristics, lie with his puppeteers. There’s no doubt about Paul Ryano; a blind man can see he’s a snake, a weasel, a rat, a swamp creature of the most vile kind. On Monday, rather than supporting the President-elect as he wrestles to put down the insurgency of the establishment Democrats, both McCon-nell and Ryano joined with their fellow political harlot-RINOs, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, in supporting the idea of hearings into the “Russia situation.” McCon-nell promised both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee will conduct bipartisan reviews. Ryano and McCon-nell were their usual cutthroat selves, serving up the highest praise for the intelligence agencies. Beyond empty words neither one offered an explanation as to why, if there was a traceable hack, no evidence had been provided to substantiate their claims. That’s a strong indicator that the breach was an internal leak, not a hack but to admit that they’d have to be divorced from their political masters. That’s not going to happen...
.Still – Can’t Trust CIA Russia Claims Under
Compromised Director Brennan
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Bill Still reports on John Brennan, the CIA Director and why we shouldn’t trust that information produced by an agency run by him is either objective or accurate... He cites an article in WND which highlights eleven reasons why Brennan and the CIA can’t be trusted. Farah opens with a quote from Ambassador John Bolton that urges caution when dealing with Brennan. Bolton says, “I believe intelligence has been politicized in the liar-nObama administration to a very significant degree.” Still says, “Brennan is a bad actor and has been for some time. When he was sworn in as DCIA, not with his hand on a Bible but on a copy of the original draft of the US Constitution, without the Bill of Rights. In other words, without the restrictions on the federal government preventing a citizen’s rights to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and the right to keep and bear arms.” Still continues, “In his 1980 graduate thesis at the University of Texas at Austin, Brennan argued against freedom of the press and for the federal government to be able to censor out inflammatory articles that could evoke rebellion. He wrote, ‘I am in favor of some degree of government censorship. Inflammatory articles can provoke mass opposition and possible violence, especially in developing political systems.'”... http://rickwells.us/still-trust-cia-russia-claims-compromised-director-brennan/
.The jihadi threat: ISIS, al Qaeda, and beyond
by Katherine Zimmerman
{aei.org} ~ The West failed to predict the emergence of al-Qaeda in new forms across the Middle East and North Africa. It was blindsided by the ISIS sweep across Syria and Iraq, which at least temporarily changed the map of the Middle East... Both movements have skillfully continued to evolve and proliferate — and surprise. What's next? Twenty experts from think tanks and universities across the United States explore the world's deadliest moments, their strategies, the future scenarios, and policy considerations. This report reflects their analysis and diverse views... http://www.aei.org/spotlight/the-jihadi-threat/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=121316
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'Why on earth did Netanyahu offer
Trump a Palestinian state?'
by Ido Ben Porat
{israelnationalnews.com} ~ Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan blasted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over his comments in a 60 Minutes interview broadcast on Sunday, in which the Prime Minister called for President-elect Donald Trump’s help in achieving a two-state solution... In a letter to the Prime Minister on Monday, Dagan slammed what he described as Netanyahu’s capitulation to demands not made by an administration not yet even sworn into office. On Sunday, Netanyahu told 60 Minutes that he remained committed to the two-state solution, and hoped the Trump administration would assist in achieving it...
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The Palestinian Jihads against Israel
by Khaled Abu Toameh
by Khaled Abu Toameh
{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~ The Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas, which is currently celebrating the 29th anniversary of its founding, misses no opportunity to broadcast its stated reason for being: to wage jihad (holy war) in order to achieve its goal of destroying Israel... Those who allege that Hamas is moving toward pragmatism and moderation might take note. Last week, tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of the Gaza Strip to participate in rallies marking the anniversary of the founding of Hamas. As in previous years, the rallies were held under the motto of jihad and "armed resistance" until the liberation of all Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Another message that emerged loud and clear from the rallies: Hamas will never recognize Israel's right to exist... https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9548/palestinian-jihads
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Trump’s Carrier Coup and a Lesson From JFK
by Peggy Noonan
{peggynoonan.com} ~ What happened with the Carrier air conditioner company and its decision to keep its Indiana factory open is a very good thing. A thousand Americans who would have lost jobs will keep them. The New York Post captured reaction when it quoted the Facebook post of an employee named Paul Roell: “Thank you, Donald Trump, for saving my job.”
The exact contours of the deal are not entirely clear, but Carrier, in its announcement, said the decision was possible “because the incoming Trump-Pence administration has emphasized to us its commitment to support the business community and create an improved, more competitive U.S. business climate.”
The New York Times semi-complimented Mr. Trump by calling him, in a news report, “a different kind of Republican, willing to take on big business, at least in individual cases.”
Also encouraging is what Mr. Trump himself told the Times last week about his recent phone conversation with Tim Cook, CEO of Apple: “I said ‘Tim, you know one of the things that will be a real achievement for me is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States.’ ”
This is called economic nationalism but whatever its name it suggests a Republicanism in new accord with the needs of the moment, and a conservatism that sees a shrinking manufacturing landscape and, rather than quoting Adam Smith and wringing invisible hands says, “Hey, I know—let’s start conserving something!”
It’s had me all week thinking of another moment involving government and its interplay with business. It was also a collision, one with some unexpected consequences. It’s the story of JFK and the steel companies.
It was 1961 and the new president, John F. Kennedy, had been trying to signal to big business that they could trust him, that, in the words of Arthur Schlesinger in “A Thousand Days,” “the ideological fights of the thirties” were over. His impulses were those of a moderate of his era: show budgetary constraint, keep costs and prices down, prevent inflation. On the latter, the role of the steel industry was key: in an industrial economy, increases in steel prices reverberated.
That September Kennedy asked the industry to forgo a price increase. He asked the steelworkers union for wage demands “within the limit of advances in productivity.” Early in 1962 his labor secretary, Arthur Goldberg, put together a deal. In the spring the union and the steel companies accepted it. Everyone understood the industry would not raise prices.
A few days later Roger Blough, chairman of the board of mighty U.S. Steel, asked to see the president. He handed him a four-page mimeographed statement announcing his company would raise steel prices $6 a ton. At that moment U.S. Steel was issuing its press release.
Blough later claimed to be surprised by the president’s reaction, which was angry and involved the word “double-cross.”
Here, a short detour on how Kennedy felt about businessmen. He’d never worked in the private sector and had no experience with business. His wealthy father had been a banker, then a bit of a swashbuckling investor in Hollywood studios, real estate, stocks. He made the money and when his children needed it they called “the office.” But Joe Kennedy was not a maker of things, not an industrialist producing tractors or steel, but a brilliant spotter of profit opportunities. He respected the art of the deal.
JFK, raised to be a Brahmin, not a businessman, had only the most detached knowledge of how most people lived. “He was forever asking workmen or drivers how much they were paid or how much rent they paid, how much refrigerators cost.” That’s from Richard Reeves’s book, “President Kennedy.” The only paychecks he’d ever received were from the U.S. government and turned over, untouched, to charity.
Schlesinger again: Still, Kennedy felt that the “experience of businessmen gave them clues to the operations of the American economy which his intellectuals, for all their facile theories, did not possess.” Well, yes!
JFK spoke to Schlesinger of a “paradox” he’d observed in his dealings with business and labor. Labor leaders individually were often mediocre and selfish, and yet they and their unions tended to take responsible positions on the great issues. Businessmen as individuals were often bright and enlightened, but collectively clueless on public policy.
Back to the meeting with Blough. It was after that meeting that Kennedy made, to his aides, one of his most famous off-the-cuff remarks: “My father always told me that all businessmen were sons-of-bitches, but I never believed it till now.” It spread throughout Washington. Asked about it in a news conference he said actually his father just meant steel men.
Soon Bethlehem Steel raised its prices. Other companies followed.
Now Kennedy was enraged. Accepting Blough’s decision would undo all his wage-price guideposts. It would also constitute a blow to the prestige of the presidency. And labor would never trust him again.
So he went to war. At a news conference the next day he called the steel companies’ actions “a wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance of the public interest” by “a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility.” He implied they were unpatriotic in a time of national peril. Reeves quotes the poet Robert Frost on hearing the news conference: “Oh didn’t he do a good one! Didn’t he show the Irish, all right?”
Kennedy ordered the Defense Department to shift its steel purchases from U.S. Steel to companies that hadn’t raised prices. The Justice Department under Attorney General Robert Kennedy launched an antitrust investigation, summoned a federal grand jury, and sent FBI agents to the homes and offices of steel executives. There were rumors of threats of IRS investigations of expense accounts and hotel bills.
Bethlehem Steel was the first to back down. A week after informing the president of the price increase, Roger Blough returned to the White House to surrender.
That night, Schlesinger writes, he asked the president how the conversation had gone. “I told him that his men could keep their horses for the spring plowing,” Kennedy replied.
It was a big win for Kennedy but it was a bloody affair, and on some level he knew it. His relations with business never quite recovered. The administration’s brutality left a stain. Robert Kennedy’s ruthlessness inspired the anti-nepotism law that is said, these days, to bedevil the Trump family. A nascent, national conservative movement was embittered and emboldened: Barry Goldwater said JFK was trying to “socialize the business of the country,” and decided soon after to run against him.
The lesson, to Schlesinger? Kennedy triumphed against the odds, even though he “had . . . no direct authority available against the steel companies. Instead, he mobilized every fragment of quasi-authority he could find and, by a bravura public performance, converted weakness into strength.”
Well, no, not quite. JFK’s performance was bravura, but presidents shouldn’t abuse their power—and he did. They especially can’t do it to shore up their own political position, and he did that, too. But it’s also true he thought he was right on the policy and that the policy would benefit the American people.
And the American people could tell. His approval ratings, high then, stayed high. People appreciate energy in the executive when they suspect it’s being harnessed for the national good. The key is to wield it wisely and with restraint.
The exact contours of the deal are not entirely clear, but Carrier, in its announcement, said the decision was possible “because the incoming Trump-Pence administration has emphasized to us its commitment to support the business community and create an improved, more competitive U.S. business climate.”
The New York Times semi-complimented Mr. Trump by calling him, in a news report, “a different kind of Republican, willing to take on big business, at least in individual cases.”
Also encouraging is what Mr. Trump himself told the Times last week about his recent phone conversation with Tim Cook, CEO of Apple: “I said ‘Tim, you know one of the things that will be a real achievement for me is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States.’ ”
This is called economic nationalism but whatever its name it suggests a Republicanism in new accord with the needs of the moment, and a conservatism that sees a shrinking manufacturing landscape and, rather than quoting Adam Smith and wringing invisible hands says, “Hey, I know—let’s start conserving something!”
It’s had me all week thinking of another moment involving government and its interplay with business. It was also a collision, one with some unexpected consequences. It’s the story of JFK and the steel companies.
It was 1961 and the new president, John F. Kennedy, had been trying to signal to big business that they could trust him, that, in the words of Arthur Schlesinger in “A Thousand Days,” “the ideological fights of the thirties” were over. His impulses were those of a moderate of his era: show budgetary constraint, keep costs and prices down, prevent inflation. On the latter, the role of the steel industry was key: in an industrial economy, increases in steel prices reverberated.
That September Kennedy asked the industry to forgo a price increase. He asked the steelworkers union for wage demands “within the limit of advances in productivity.” Early in 1962 his labor secretary, Arthur Goldberg, put together a deal. In the spring the union and the steel companies accepted it. Everyone understood the industry would not raise prices.
A few days later Roger Blough, chairman of the board of mighty U.S. Steel, asked to see the president. He handed him a four-page mimeographed statement announcing his company would raise steel prices $6 a ton. At that moment U.S. Steel was issuing its press release.
Blough later claimed to be surprised by the president’s reaction, which was angry and involved the word “double-cross.”
Here, a short detour on how Kennedy felt about businessmen. He’d never worked in the private sector and had no experience with business. His wealthy father had been a banker, then a bit of a swashbuckling investor in Hollywood studios, real estate, stocks. He made the money and when his children needed it they called “the office.” But Joe Kennedy was not a maker of things, not an industrialist producing tractors or steel, but a brilliant spotter of profit opportunities. He respected the art of the deal.
JFK, raised to be a Brahmin, not a businessman, had only the most detached knowledge of how most people lived. “He was forever asking workmen or drivers how much they were paid or how much rent they paid, how much refrigerators cost.” That’s from Richard Reeves’s book, “President Kennedy.” The only paychecks he’d ever received were from the U.S. government and turned over, untouched, to charity.
Schlesinger again: Still, Kennedy felt that the “experience of businessmen gave them clues to the operations of the American economy which his intellectuals, for all their facile theories, did not possess.” Well, yes!
JFK spoke to Schlesinger of a “paradox” he’d observed in his dealings with business and labor. Labor leaders individually were often mediocre and selfish, and yet they and their unions tended to take responsible positions on the great issues. Businessmen as individuals were often bright and enlightened, but collectively clueless on public policy.
Back to the meeting with Blough. It was after that meeting that Kennedy made, to his aides, one of his most famous off-the-cuff remarks: “My father always told me that all businessmen were sons-of-bitches, but I never believed it till now.” It spread throughout Washington. Asked about it in a news conference he said actually his father just meant steel men.
Soon Bethlehem Steel raised its prices. Other companies followed.
Now Kennedy was enraged. Accepting Blough’s decision would undo all his wage-price guideposts. It would also constitute a blow to the prestige of the presidency. And labor would never trust him again.
So he went to war. At a news conference the next day he called the steel companies’ actions “a wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance of the public interest” by “a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility.” He implied they were unpatriotic in a time of national peril. Reeves quotes the poet Robert Frost on hearing the news conference: “Oh didn’t he do a good one! Didn’t he show the Irish, all right?”
Kennedy ordered the Defense Department to shift its steel purchases from U.S. Steel to companies that hadn’t raised prices. The Justice Department under Attorney General Robert Kennedy launched an antitrust investigation, summoned a federal grand jury, and sent FBI agents to the homes and offices of steel executives. There were rumors of threats of IRS investigations of expense accounts and hotel bills.
Bethlehem Steel was the first to back down. A week after informing the president of the price increase, Roger Blough returned to the White House to surrender.
That night, Schlesinger writes, he asked the president how the conversation had gone. “I told him that his men could keep their horses for the spring plowing,” Kennedy replied.
It was a big win for Kennedy but it was a bloody affair, and on some level he knew it. His relations with business never quite recovered. The administration’s brutality left a stain. Robert Kennedy’s ruthlessness inspired the anti-nepotism law that is said, these days, to bedevil the Trump family. A nascent, national conservative movement was embittered and emboldened: Barry Goldwater said JFK was trying to “socialize the business of the country,” and decided soon after to run against him.
The lesson, to Schlesinger? Kennedy triumphed against the odds, even though he “had . . . no direct authority available against the steel companies. Instead, he mobilized every fragment of quasi-authority he could find and, by a bravura public performance, converted weakness into strength.”
Well, no, not quite. JFK’s performance was bravura, but presidents shouldn’t abuse their power—and he did. They especially can’t do it to shore up their own political position, and he did that, too. But it’s also true he thought he was right on the policy and that the policy would benefit the American people.
And the American people could tell. His approval ratings, high then, stayed high. People appreciate energy in the executive when they suspect it’s being harnessed for the national good. The key is to wield it wisely and with restraint.
But yes, a little muscle judiciously applied can be a unifying thing.
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