Trump swallows fake news, barfs it back up.

Image: twitter.com

This is what happens when an undiscerning person watches conservative media. The newbie, twit, or whatever term you want to use hears/sees something, and stupidly thinks it's true. Maybe it's reporting that a pizza restaurant in DC is a front for a child sex ring. Maybe it's about a secret planet behind the sun. Maybe it's that Obama ordered wiretaps on Trump during the campaign.

So Trump hears this story from a fake news source that he doesn't realize is fake news. Why doesn't he realize? I don't know. Maybe he's actually incredibly stupid. Maybe he forgot how to question authority decades ago, and had enough money so that he didn't get his ass kicked. Maybe most people are that stupid, and it's just a matter of what propaganda captures them first. Whatever.

So Trump blasts out some tweets about how terrible it is that he was wiretapped. Trump doesn't wait for evidence, an investigation with various findings of facts. No, out it goes on Twitter. Trump has now accused the prior president of extreme malfeasance.

Is Trump going to walk this back? Is he going to explain, like he did with the 'attacks in Sweden,' that he misunderstood, but it still was important and real? Frankly, it's going to be fun seeing how this plays out. Supposedly James Comey, head of the FBI, has already said it's not true, but he has to wait for someone high enough in the Justice Department to approve and receive a statement to that effect.

So where did this fake news come from? Mark Levin. A name I already know because he's blatantly lied before. The guy is such scum.

Now Mark Levin will be partially responsible for millions of people believing until their dying day that Obama tapped Trump during the election. (Only partially responsible because the idiots deserve part of the blame too.) This is going to be birtherism all over again. MARK MY WORDS. Well, I hope not, but it certainly could turn out that way.


Extra. Maybe this is the real story behind the wild exaggerations and lies of Mark Levin. Strange activity by a server in Trump Tower--yes, I had heard of that.

Update 3/6/17. Trey Gowdy, a House Republican, doesn't believe Obama ordered such wiretaps and asks Trump to have the Department of Justice to release evidence of it.
3/7/17. Devin Nunes doesn't believe it either. Allahpundit tries to explain it to HotAir readers, to no avail.
3/14/17. Two more reports on surveillance on and round Trump and his advisers. Nothing that is both big and new, and nothing that corroborates Trump's claims. He hasn't repeated his claims, and is uncharacteristically quiet as he waits for the investigation to drag out and people to stop caring about that particular blather of his.
3/31/17. Fox News seems to be repeating what Devin Nunes claims and labels it as news. So stilted. A never-Trump conservative tries to explain all the threads of the investigation. I find Devin Nunes comical. It's amazing the lengths he's going to in order to shore up Trump's tantrum tweet. This opinion writer agrees.

Anti-Trump conservatives

I've been neglecting this story for too long. Some conservatives, and not the usual suspects, have been clearly against Trump. Eric Erickson of RedState makes an impassioned argument against Trump as a wicked person lacking morals. Another writer at RedState blasts Jerry Falwell Jr for supporting Trump. Glenn Beck is also making a moral argument against Trump.

Image: theinsurgent.com

Related Extras. Erickson tells of Trump supporters harassing him, and the deeply difficult decision not to support Trump at a time of great stress in his family. This article lists several prominent conservatives who are against Trump. However, I will never give Mark Levin credit for his stand because I've never known him to do something for the right reason. He's one of the biggest liars I ever seen, including doctoring evidence.

Unrelated Extras. Unbelievable theory that the Trump video was a fake. Why Trump's charges of voter fraud are unbelievable. A prediction that the GOP will continue on a white nationalist course. Former conservative Andrew Sullivan argues that Trump is a fascist.

Short: The continuing slide of Sarah Palin

I try hard to stay positive even in criticism. Maybe that's why I don't write too often about the latest outrage. I certainly try not to crow over someone's fall. But the latest story about Sarah Palin has been a while in the making.

Sarah Palin will no longer be a Fox News contributor. I've watched a few of her appearances, and I was surprised by how Fox treated her. They would start the interview, she would prattle on mostly about tactical issues, then Fox would cut to some real news and leave her waiting for 20 minutes or more. It's not that she deserves any better. I've never heard her say anything new and insightful. Her speeches and observations always been a chewed-up mess of pre-digested talk radio rhetoric.

So Fox News gives Sarah Palin the heave-ho by way of an insulting contract offer. She says contradictory things in her brief interview published online: conservatives must widen their audience, but then she praises Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, and Breitbart.com. These are not commentators who are broadening the audience for conservative ideas. Mark Levin and Breitbart.com are proven conservative fabricators who will lie endlessly if they perceive political advantage. Of course they supply conservative spinners like Sarah Palin with a lot of material, so she better be grateful.

For Fox News, it's reasonable to flush out the stable, but I doubt the replacements are better. I'll have to watch to see.

Image: perezhilton.com

P.S. I wish Fox News would flush Juan Williams too as another commentator who spits out only warmed-over analysis. I haven't missed him on NPR in the least.

Scoop: Possible media bias in action

A commenter in the Washington Post put me onto this:

MEDIA TIES ROMNEY TO TRUMP, IGNORES OBAMA-SHARPTON CONNECTION

...But as is always the case, the media's double standard is a glaring one. After all, Al Sharpton is a proud and open Obama supporter, Obama has met with Sharpton, and Obama hasn't distanced himself from the MSNBC' racial demagogue -- who just this weekend made headlines with this: Republicans Want To 'Wipe Out Innocent People' Like 'Hitler's Germany'.

That accusation is very specific, so I looked it up. At that time, only conservative outlets were carrying the story. Here's a fairly complete, well-sourced article quoting Mark Levin. Unless Mark Levin did some nasty editing (as Breitbart did to Shirley Sherrod), Al Sharpton said something pretty inflammatory.

Uh, false alarm. I just listened to the whole exchange on Mediaite, and Sharpton is saying that some Republicans condemn some genocides (like Jews in WWII) but ignore others. Looks like tricky editing to provide red meat to the base... and Mark Levin sounded so calm and persuasive, I fell for it. Oh dear. Thank God I checked a little more before I hit the "Publish" button. And I thought I was going to nail the liberal media on something.

If you're interested, follow the story for a few days. How big does this trumped-up story get? We shall see.

 Before digital made fraud easy.

Photo: soundonsound.com

Update 6/1/12. This story has died. That's good, but as a lie and falsification, it never should have been a story at all. Still, I'll remember it as a lesson in the difference between the standards that mainstream media is held to and the standards of someone like Levin. By the way, if some of the links don't work, the story became an embarrassment.

Reflections 6/12/12.  To the conservative media, this was going to be a story about the MSM being biased for liberals. Instead, it was really a story about the creation of lies for hungry conservative media outlets, their lack of professionalism in the simple act of checking sources, and their lack of accountability. So far, only Mediaite has corrected the story. None of the conservative sites I reviewed contain a correction. Ah, to be so in the right that nothing you do is wrong. The MSM didn't catch this story to show the machinations of the conservative media either. God, I've learned a lot about media bias from this incident.

Update 6/4/15. Another example of editing a story dishonestly.