Feb 23, 2017: Oscars So Liberal | Poll Picking | Planetary Spin
1. Town Halls: The Real Story Is the Press Is Making It Up
On Laura Ingraham’s radio program yesterday, the Virginia congressman Dave Brat said he didn’t mind sparring with so-called “organized liberal hecklers” at his own recent town meeting, but he did object to the press coverage: “Politico — I fell off my chair. They did a great job of reporting on what actually happened,” Brat told Ingraham. “But The Washington Post, on the other hand, is just fake news. Oh, my word.”
Rush Limbaugh also went with the theme that the anger at town halls was made up. “Many of these protests, people are being bussed in, they’re being paid to go, they are in some cases -- they’re even pretending to be angry Republicans,” he said on yesterday’s radio show.
But Rush took it a step further to say it won’t help the Democrats at the polls:
“They somehow think that it will cause them to win a midterm landslide like the Tea Party did. They haven’t the slightest idea what the Tea Party was even now. This demonstrates they have no idea what the Tea Party was. They think they’ve just gotta show up in numbers like they think the Tea Party did and harass Republican members of Congress and — voila! — they are going to win the midterms.”
Meanwhile, Free Beacon elaborated on the widely-held theory on the Right that opposition voices at these meetings are actually protesters paid by the billionaire George Soros:
“A group serving as a central hub of information for congressional town halls was founded by a former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer and its parent company is located at the same address as an organization funded by liberal billionaire George Soros."
2. Oscars So Liberal
With the Oscars coming up, the Red Media went to town with a Hollywood Reporter poll showing Republican voters don’t like it when stars talk politics on awards shows. Here was The Daily Caller’s take:
“According to a new poll conducted by the Hollywood Reporter, 66 percent of Trump voters said they have stopped watching an awards show because a celebrity started talking about politics while accepting an award, while only 19 percent of Hillary Clinton’s supporters have done so.
That same poll — which surveyed an estimated 800 people who were split down the middle between Trump and Clinton ahead of the Academy Awards this Sunday — found that 69 percent of Trump voters don’t like political speeches at awards shows. (RELATED: Donald Trump Did Not Watch ‘Hillary Lover’ Meryl Streep’s Speech)
Nearly 80 percent of Trump voters said Hollywood does not represent their core values.”
What We’re Watching:
The threat to the show’s airer, NBC, is implicitly there. Go after The Donald and ratings suffer. But do stars care if they persuade or do they just want to pontificate?
3. The Takedown of Maxine Waters: Three Times Is the Charm
The Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters of California was applauded by the Left for calling Trump’s cabinet a “bunch of scumbags,” in an interview with Chris Hayes on MSNBC on Tuesday. The Right was quick to react. First, The Blaze published a sensational article, which was corrected twice for sloppiness. Version one stated that Waters was accused of corruption by the House Ethics committee related to a charity scandal, but was cleared of all charges. (It wasn’t a charity scandal.) Then the corrected story stated that the scandal was related to using Federal aid for a bank her husband owned. (Her husband didn’t own the bank.) And then, the final, correct version read that her husband just held a financial stake in the bank. Oops. (Here’s Politico’s take on the investigation by the Ethics Committee.)
Meanwhile, another takedown of Waters came yesterday with a letter, circulated by the Fox Business contributor John Cordillo, that he said showed “Waters advocated for an escaped cop-killer to evade prosecution.” The letter rehashes an already well-known story (that was even covered by Breitbart back in 2011) on Waters’ defense of a member of the Black Liberation Army, Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, who is viewed by many as a hero. Still, while it is old news, as of this morning Cordillo’s tweet received 2.8K retweets and 2K likes after it was posted 7:45 A.M yesterday and the story continues to gain traction on the Right.
.@MaxineWaters helped an escaped cop killer on the @FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists List evade prosecution with this letter: pic.twitter.com/GJpTPCVRXu
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) February 22, 2017
Right Into Impeachment promoter DEM Maxine Waters is plagued with embezzling scandals & supports cop killer https://t.co/BrPTzie6dN
— Jai 🇺🇸 (@jacindahopelee) February 4, 2017
4. CNN Sting?
Heads up to a certain cable news network, the one that President Trump dislikes so much. The Red Media is abuzz with the threat made by the conservative activist James O’Keefe of Project Veritas on Sean Hannity’s radio show: He has some blockbuster footage targeted at the media. Here’s how the The Washington Examiner described it:
“Professional hidden camera stinger James O'Keefe revealed Tuesday that he is on the cusp of releasing "hundreds of hours" of footage from "one corporation, multiple newsrooms." O'Keefe let slip a telling hint about which corporation is the target of his sting operation despite declining to mention it by name. It is the one President Trump has been discussing recently ….. It's the one he's always targeting.”
Ann Coulter added this thought on Twitter and got 14k likes and 6.5 retweets:
Project Veritas releasing 100's of hours of video sent by employees inside MSM. Now we'll see just how much the media loves whistleblowers!
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 22, 2017
5. Undoing Transgender Protections? No, Reversing Regulations
On his show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh went to great lengths to explain President Trump’s rollback yesterday of the Obama era policy that allowed transgender students to use school bathrooms that match their gender identities.:
“Obama introduced regulations, but they’re now being called “protections.” Folks, do not fall for this. This is a word game trick, and the purpose is very clear. It’s to make it look like Trump is endangering people that Obama previously “protected.”
Yeah, Obama had this cloak of protection put over all these groups! Now Trump’s coming in and he’s gonna reverse these protections. Make a note. I’m gonna be reminding you of this frequently. This is the latest Democrat trick with the language and with the lexicon to convince people to oppose the relaxation of burdensome regulations, which in many cases have been placed on individuals and businesses without having been passed as laws.”
Meanwhile, Paul Joseph Watson, @PrisonPlanet, got 4.3k likes and 1.6k retweets for this thought:
While jihadists are being smuggled into the west to carry out attacks, everyone is bickering over transgender bathrooms.
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) February 22, 2017
Why We're Watching:
Transgender bathrooms are just the kind of culture-dividing topics that propelled Trump to power. The left frequently finds itself outmaneuvered and sounding like the unreasonable ones.
6. Poll Picking: Trump’s Base Got His Back
There were a lot of new polls out on Donald Trump this week. What most of the mainstream media emphasized was the bad news. The Quinnipiac poll out yesterday found that his approval ratings had sunk to a new low of 38 percent, whereas his disapproval ratings were 55 percent.
In general, however, The Red Media preferred to link to a recent Rasmussen Poll that showed a 50 percent approval rate. One important aspect of even the mainstream polls: Trump’s support is unshaken among his Republican base. Despite mishaps and missteps, he has approval rates in the 80s.
What We’re Watching:
Will Trump’s deep unpopularity with Independents and Democrats cause the White House to moderate a bit? Or will he continue to play just to the base that elected him?
7. NASA Discovers 7 New Habitable Planets: Trump Supporters Take Credit
The Twittersphere can make anything political -- and silly. While liberals were cracking jokes about Trump having to build seven new space walls, conservatives weren’t above taking credit. “Trump's NASA is doing pretty impressive work,” tweeted Brent Schur of the FreeBeacon.
Trump's NASA is doing pretty impressive work
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) February 22, 2017