Posts Tagged ‘Dana Milbank’

The Hoax Hoax

Saturday, February 29th, 2020

It’s 2020. By now you should recognize the characteristics of media fraud. There are various incarnations, endlessly redeployed:

  • There’s the “sources say” fraud, AKA “Just trust me, bro.”
  • There’s the “Even Republican X says,” where “Republican X” is some #NeverTrump fossil that’s been openly calling for the destruction of the Republican Party for years for daring to ignore their vast inside-the-beltway wisdom.
  • There’s the “ignore the forest to focus on one tiny tree” play, like ignore record job numbers to spend endless hours talking about a porn star lawsuit.
  • Etc. This is far from an exhaustive list.
  • Then there’s the classic “out of context quote” that Democrats and media operatives (but I repeat myself) use to say “Look, Trump just said something stupid!” The difficulty here is that sometimes Trump does sometimes say something stupid, a side-effect of his shit-talking/persuasion bracketing style of speech. (Once again, see Scott Adams’ extensive discussion of Trumps’ persuasive techniques, as well as “seriously not literally.”) But nine times out of ten, it’s because the Democratic Media Complex has twisted something he said or omitted something from the quote. (Remember the whole “Trump called all illegal aliens rapists” controversy when it was clear that he was talking about MS-13?)

    The example de jure from the most recent media spin cycle is the “calling coronavirus a hoax” hoax:

    We’ll use Dana Milbank as the example here, just because he’s the first one I saw using it this morning.

    Today Ann Althouse has a nice dissection of the deception:

    Trump is clearly not calling the virus a hoax. What he’s calling a hoax is the political talking point that Trump has been failing to protect the country from the virus!

    Now, Politico is pushing a hoax hoax — it’s putting out a false story about what Trump called a hoax.

    Trump is certainly not “rall[ying] his base to treat coronavirus as a ‘hoax.'” Trump is rallying his base to believe that he’s doing an excellent job of handling the problem and to see the criticism of his work as a hoax. He’s not saying they should “treat” the virus as a hoax!

    AND: Here’s my transcription, with boldface for what Politico left out:

    Now, the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say: ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They’re going: ‘Oh, nothing, nothing.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa. The can’t even count. No, they can’t. They can’t count their votes. One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over. They’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning. They lost. It’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax. But you know, we did something that’s been pretty amazing. There’s 15 people in this massive country, and because of the fact that we went early. We went early. We could’ve had a lot more than that. We’re doing great. Our country is doing so great. We are so unified. We are so unified. The Republican Party has never been more unified than it is now.

    So once again, we have a “bombshell” manufactured to hurt President Trump that turns out to be a giant dud. You would think they would get tired of repeatedly punching themselves in the dick, but they never seem to…

    LinkSwarm for February 27, 2015

    Friday, February 27th, 2015

    Welcome to the Friday LinkSwarm, where two themes are jihadis enjoying the benefits of the welfare state, and Hillary Clinton enjoying treating campaign finance laws as “optional suggestions.”

  • 96% of Australian jihadis who joined the Islamic State were on welfare.
  • Sweden’s national job agency fires its entire network of “immigrant resettlement assistants” because they were finding them jobs with the Islamic State.
  • And the hits keep coming: Swedish expert on “Islamophobia” now fighting for the Islamic State.
  • Another day, another 24 people murdered by jihad in Nigeria. (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)
  • “If it bleeds, it leads”? Not when it comes to gang rapes in Muslim countries.
  • What the hell? Terrorism trials come to a halt after the Obama Administration orders military judges to move to Guantanamo Bay until the trail is finished.
  • How one Nebraska woman lost her health care three times thanks to ObamaCare.
  • Dana Milbank is very, very upset that Scott Walker isn’t biting on liberal gotcha questions. Oddly enough, I don’t think this concern extends to Hillary Clinton ducking Benghazi questions…
  • Speaking of Hillary, blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng says that, despite her boasts to the contrary, Hillary didn’t do squat to help him. (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
  • The Clinton Foundation took millions of dollars in donations from foreign donors while Hillary was Secretary of State. Maybe Hillary thinks every 3 AM call is a chance to ask for more money… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Related tweet:

  • Hillary-linked firm: Campaign finance laws are for the little people.
  • “Barack Obama has a great, big, heaping dose of Holden Caulfield in him.” So he’s an annoying, whiny loser…
  • “Every Obama speech has a villain, and that villain is often other Americans who disagree with the president.”
  • So Turkey isn’t willing to lift a finger to save Kurds or Yazidis, but they’re willing to invade Syria to protect an Ottoman tomb.
  • Mike Rowe defends minimum wage jobs and says why there’s no such thing as a “bad job.” “Work is never the enemy, regardless of the wage. Because somewhere between the job and the paycheck, there’s still a thing called opportunity, and that’s what people need to pursue.”
  • The PLO and the Palestinian Authority have been found liable in terrorism jury trial. Does this mean funds can be garnished directly at the UN? (Hat tip: Legal Insurection.)
  • Did you know that there was a prison riot at a Texas illegal alien holding facility?
  • Allah: The worst communicator ever:

  • Liberals are shocked that college “study centers” designed to attack Republicans are being closed by Republican legislators. “Mr. Nichol said the center’s only agenda was to raise the profile of poverty in the state through research, teaching and advocacy.” One of these things is not like the others. Research and teaching are fine. Do your “advocacy” on your own time and dime, not the taxpayers.
  • Given the (obvious) news that the Justice Department wouldn’t be indicting George Zimmerman, Legal Insurrection took it upon themselves to review all the myths around the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial.
  • Chicago has it’s own secret black site prison. It’s almost like it’s a corrupt one-party police state…
  • Wikipedia: “Alexis Tsipras is a Greek politician who is the 186th Prime Minister of Greece since 26 January 2015.” By my calculations, that works out to about 5 Prime ministers a day…
  • UCLA strives to make its council Juden Frei.
  • Anti-antisemitism amidst the yobs:

  • Got to admit: That’s one hell of an effective personals photo:

  • LinkSwarm for November 8, 2013

    Friday, November 8th, 2013

    Time for another LinkSwarm, still top-heavy with ObamaCare failure news:

  • Have insurance through your employer? Don’t worry, ObamaCare will screw you as well.
  • “Can the Obama-loving media really bring itself to report that their Beloved is simply lying about every single aspect of his signature program?” Beyond a few iconoclasts like Sheryl Atkinson or Chris Wallace, I think we all know the answer to that one.
  • ObamaCare was bad enough to start out, but the Obama White House intentionally made it worse.
  • Short and no doubt woefully incomplete list of businesses that have already cut back hours and hiring due to ObamaCare.
  • ObamaCare demonstrates “timeless demonstration of the failure of central planning, government regulations, and the entitlement state. It is a failure so total, so comprehensive, and so multifaceted that it will be studied by schoolchildren 50 years from now when their teachers explain to them why the giant welfare and regulatory state built up in the second half of the 20th century collapsed in the first half of the 21st.”
  • Krauthammer on ObamaCare’s continued unpopularity: “And unless they stop the avalanche here, the Democrats are going to get buried in this.”
  • And now the ObamaCare website is dishing out gibberish?
  • A quarter million Coloradans have their health insurance ObamaCared.
  • I’m shocked, SHOCKED to find Chicago’s Democratic machine abusing bonds to paper over deficits.
  • Having Dana Milbank say that Obaama lives in a reality bubble is like the guy who just mugged you saying “Man, this is really a high crime neighborhood! You should watch out!”
  • Philadelphia man adds two more to the dead goblin count.
  • If you’re the son of the most famous Fascist* in British history, maybe it’s best not to participate in Nazi-themed S&M sex orgies.
  • Voters in Amarillo and Houston rejected spending money for sports complexes.
  • Another hammer drops on Prenda Law.
  • Things to make you furious: Cops killing puppies.
  • And speaking of dogs, I missed this from a week ago: Giant George, RIP.
  • Heh.

  • *Real Fascist, not just in the liberal name-calling sense.