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July 5, 2017 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
22:35
#CNNBlackmail： Donald Trump vs The Liberal Elite
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When it comes to the press, Donald Trump has always had a particularly adversarial relationship with them.
But recent events have really kicked this into overdrive.
Ever since he became the frontrunner for the Republicans, the press has been merciless towards him.
And so when he won the presidency, he was merciless towards them.
And as someone who personally has had problems with the press in the past, I can say that I relished him calling BuzzFeed a pile of garbage and calling CNN fake news, among others.
Of course, the press didn't take this lying down.
In fact, they stepped up their campaign against him.
CNN in this case declining to air the White House press conferences live.
So Trump upped the ante and banned many prominent news networks from his White House press briefings.
And so naturally, the press did the one thing that they had left.
Latch onto a conspiracy theory to try and discredit the president.
Yes, this is an article categorically stating that Russian hackers tried altering US election data from CNN.
This is a lie.
But don't take my word for it.
Take James Comey's word for it.
So you have no intelligence that suggests or evidence suggests any votes were changed?
I have nothing generated by the National Security Agency, sir.
Director Comey, do you have any evidence at the FBI that any votes were changed in the states that I mentioned to Admiral Rogers?
No.
More reputable news outlets have been saying it for months.
The Russians did not hack the election.
Repeat, the Russians did not hack the election.
There is no evidence of Russia-Trump collusion.
But did we hear the end of it?
Did we?
Hell!
The left-wing media establishment fostered an echo chamber among the liberal elite, the press, celebrities, and democratic politicians, to the point that they are convinced beyond reason that Vladimir Putin is the one who installed Donald Trump into the presidency and not the people who voted for him.
Not his landslide electoral college victory or anything of the sort.
No, no.
He is in fact a Russian agent.
And therefore they should be moving to impeach him over his Russian ties.
But given how there's no proof of this, you might wonder, well, why are they still talking about it?
And the answer is because they can.
The question is, do they know that they are lying?
Really?
Well, I guess that's case closed then, isn't it?
Thanks, Van Jones, for being caught behind the scenes admitting that there is simply nothing to the Trump-Russia story.
It's nice to finally put that to bed.
But let's be honest, there's probably another incentive besides simply wanting to save face.
I mean, if you were trying to save face, maybe you would be a little more contrite in the fact that you are a bunch of notorious liars and that is the public perception of your network.
But you know what?
You and I both know that there is another secondary reason why they're drumming up all of this controversy out of nothing.
And I know what you're thinking, well, I just can't think.
And you're going to kick yourself.
You're really going to kick yourself when you find out.
Honestly, you'd think the whole Russia shit is just like bullshit.
Could be bullshit.
I mean, it's mostly bullshit right now.
Like, we don't have any big giant proof.
I just feel like they don't really have it, but they want to keep digging.
And so I think the president is probably right to say, like, look, you are witch hunting bees.
So you believe the Russia thing is a little crazy, right?
Even if Russia was trying to swing an election, we try to swing their elections.
We're in RCIA and doing shit all the time.
Like, we're out there trying to manipulate governments.
Like, you win because You know the game and you play it right.
She didn't play it right.
The more I see that constantly like Russia this, Russia that.
Because it's ratings.
Because it's ratings.
Our ratings are incredible right now.
I mean, I understand.
It's all ratings, right?
It's a business.
It's a business.
People are like, the media has like an ethical rating.
But all the nice cutesy little ethics that used to get talked about in journalism school, you're just like, that's adorable.
That's adorable.
Yeah, this is a business.
It's not even like NBC News, it's, I mean, NBC News still, it's 20 million viewers a night.
Cable news is getting a million.
So.
Like, they gotta do what they gotta do to make their money, I think.
And so I love the news business, but I find it so very cynical about it.
At the same time, so are most of my colleagues.
All those cutesy little ethics are adorable.
I guess ethics are for people in the alternative media now.
I guess they're for people like me.
Because I certainly would never turn around and say, you know, ethics aren't very important.
My ethical code for this channel is what makes this channel successful.
If I were a liar, if I were anything like these people, I would have nothing, and I know it.
Of course, once you've publicly spun a narrative that is effectively, the US president is a Russian agent to millions of people and you've been doing it for months, it's really hard to just walk that back when a bit of candid footage starts doing the rounds on the internet.
So of course Van Jones says, oh no, no, no, no, no, that tape where I'm saying the Russia thing is a nothing burger, oh, it's a hoax.
It's not true.
If you take any one line of my argument out of context and use it to pull off a hoax, that's what O'Keefe's minions did.
You know what Van Jones?
I'm willing to believe you if you want to actually provide the context, but I do love this next bit.
The notion that I think Trump is innocent of all wrongdoing in RussiaGate is ludicrous, but perhaps people on the Trump team can afford to live in a fantasy world.
The brass balls on this man.
I can't even.
I mean, you've just been caught lying to people, your pants around your ankles, and you're turning around and telling everyone, no, no, no, no, no, he's the liar.
Don't worry about this video evidence.
These people are lying.
And naturally, when three CNN journalists were forced to resign over another false Russia story, Trump enjoyed this victory as well he should.
CNN on Monday accepted the resignations of three journalists involved in a story about a supposed investigation into a pre-inaugural meeting between an associate of Donald Trump and the head of a Russian investment fund.
Why is that?
Oh right, because it was complete nonsense and CNN were threatened with a $100 million lawsuit for libel.
Just another black mark on an otherwise heavily stained reputation, isn't it, CNN?
But don't worry, it's not like it's just CNN that's doing this.
I mean, the New York Times were forced to retract a long-standing lie about Russian hacking.
17 intelligence agencies, if you've been following the maniacal Trump-Russia coverage to any extent, you've heard the phrase used uncritically time and time again, regardless of your ideological loyalties.
Pundits, papers, and the rank-and-file establishment loyalists have been unquestioningly regurgitating the nonsensical line that 17 intelligence agencies confirmed Russian interference in the US elections ever since Hillary Clinton made that baseless assertion back in a debate in October.
And this is their quote-unquote correction from the 29th of June.
And when they say correction, they mean direct and complete retraction.
Where they say the assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.
Why did you ever print that in the first place?
Is it because the New York Times is circling the drain and is being forced to lay off half of their editorial staff?
Which in turn is not only pissing off your journalists, but probably making them afraid for their jobs too.
And why wouldn't they be?
Given in the last 15 years, American newspapers have cut their staffs by more than half, from 412,000 employees to 174,000 last year.
Everyone can see the writing on the wall for these outlets, and it looks like the media war against Trump is the death throes of the old guard.
Because we are talking about the left wing as a class.
The liberal media, the democratic establishment, the celebrities, they are all on the same side.
They have the same converging interests, they have the same beliefs, and they need each other for support.
So when Donald Trump is tearing it up with his Twitter account, this is what they think.
Exactly.
That's exactly what I hear.
What Yamish just said, is what I hear from all the Trump supporters that I talk to who were Trump voters and are still Trump supporters.
It's like, oh, yeah, you guys are going crazy.
He's doing, what are you so surprised about?
He's doing exactly what he said he's going to do.
Well, and I think that the dangerous edges here are that he's trying to undermine the media, trying to make up his own facts.
And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think.
And that is our job.
Controlling what you think is what they think their job is.
And they hate the fact that Donald Trump's Twitter feed and social media in general, the internet, the alternative media, is totally undermining them.
And it is drawing them all together for mutual protection.
So it should come as no surprise that half-informed celebrities trapped in the LA bubble are completely on side with the idea that the Russians definitely hacked the election, that Trump is totally illegitimate, and that he is the worst man on earth, despite the fact that he represents about half the country.
And it's not like these people have ever had an independent thought of their own.
These celebrities are sounding off on Twitter about Russia's reported involvement.
This is news.
I know we're all sick of feeling bad, but we need to deal with this.
I know it's Saturday and we're all exhausted, but the election's going to car ka-cu-ku in real time.
Should be trending, but it's like the plot of a really bad movie where the actors don't seem to know how bad it is.
Never forget, when shown substantial evidence that Russia hacked the election, some senator chose party over country.
Hypocritical snake.
What are they talking about?
Do they know something that James Comey doesn't know?
And when you're trapped in an echo chamber, you end up normalizing all sorts of thoughts and behaviors that on the outside you would never even contemplate.
At the Oscars, Hollywood celebrities attack Donald Trump 15 times from the podium to riotous applause, of course, because they're all convinced he is a fascist who has taken over America with Russian backing.
And so you get people like Snoop Dogg who shoots a clown who resembles Trump in his latest music video.
Or a performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar with Donald Trump as Caesar.
To Johnny Depp making jokes about killing Donald Trump at a Glastonbury appearance for some reason.
To Madonna saying that she thought about blowing up the White House.
This is how insane these people are getting.
And they're doing it to themselves because they walk in closed circles.
They speak to people who agree with them all the time.
They never read media outside of their bubble.
They all believe this.
And they are radicalizing themselves.
And this collective train of thought resulted in Kathy Griffin recording a video that was functionally identical to an ISIS recruitment video.
An excellent meme there by Harmful Opinions because that's practically what it was.
What do you think you look like, Kathy?
Where is the self-awareness?
Outside of your Hollywood bubble, you have no idea how awful you look to people.
Dead-eyed and holding a bloody head of the president.
Jesus Christ.
So after all of this, is it any wonder that Donald Trump uses his Twitter feed to punch back at them?
Donald Trump decided to tweet out this meme of him when he was playing along with WE and someone had superimposed CNN over it.
I think you would be hard-pressed to find anyone outside of the media class who didn't think that was a joke.
But let's go to a CNN commentator for the hottest take.
I'm a CNN commentator.
I think that is unacceptable.
I think that is the president of the United States taking things way too far.
It is an incitement to violence.
He is going to get somebody killed in the media.
Maybe that will stop him.
I am disappointed beyond belief by the answer that the Homeland Security Advisor just gave.
What a wuss.
What a wuss.
You could see that he is seeding his principles.
You are the Homeland Security Advisor and you can't stand here and say the difference between right and wrong.
That's what's part of the problem.
He is surrounded by enablers that do nothing but shake their heads and nod their heads in agreement with everything that he says.
They have got to stop.
They have got to stand for democracy, for freedom of the press.
This is just going way too far.
The president of the United States is inciting violence against the free press.
And America, we cannot stand for it.
By her logic, the media already has blood on its hands.
Let's not forget that there have been two attempted assassination attempts on Donald Trump, one of which resulted in the killing of a UPS driver.
And GOP house whip Steve Scalaz was shot at a baseball practice by a radical leftist.
Who has he been radicalized by?
You!
By your own logic!
So for anyone from the media to come out with these croctile tears and then complain that it's Trump that's going to get someone killed is not only highly ironic, but fucking disingenuous.
And of course the empty-headed celebrities had to virtue signal their way into the picture.
I just want you all to remember, this is a tweet from the president.
Yes, yes it is.
Oh, how the fuck are you a president, Donald Trump?
Because of people like you, Lauren.
That's how.
He didn't become president because he's a great, clever man.
He became president because you're fucking insufferable.
I'm guessing that CNN had no idea what to do after Trump had tweeted out a meme at their expense.
And so they did the worst possible thing that they could think of, which was go after the person who had created the meme itself.
To be clear, this meme was not made for Donald Trump for the express purpose of tweeting it out to piss off CNN.
This meme was made by some guy somewhere, just a private citizen who was just having fun on a message board.
So why CNN would think it the best move to go and find the person who made the meme and then try to bully them into apologizing is beyond me.
All it appears to be to me is a display of power.
The Reddit user who initially claimed credit for President Donald Trump's tweet that showed Trump tackling CNN issued an apology Tuesday for the video and other offensive content he had posted, one day after CNN identified the man behind the account and attempted to make contact with him.
Now the user is apologising, writing a lengthy post on Reddit that he does not advocate violence against the press and expressing remorse and therein in an interview with CNN for other posts he made that were racist and anti-Semitic.
The apology came after CNN's K-file identified the man behind Han Arshol Solo using identifying information that Han Arshol Solo had posted on Reddit.
K-File was able to determine key biographical details, define the man's name using Facebook search, and ultimately corroborate details he had made available on Reddit.
Right, so you Facebook stalked him like a creepy ex.
If stalking out a guy who made a meme that offended them wasn't bad enough, this is worse.
After posting his apology, Han Arshole Solo called CNN's K-File and confirmed his identity.
In the interview, he sounded nervous about his identity being revealed and asked not to be named out of fear of his personal safety and for the public embarrassment it would bring to him and his family.
CNN is not publishing his name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts and because he is not going to repeat this ugly behaviour on social media again.
In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example of others not to do the same.
CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.
This is utterly beyond the pale, CNN.
This is you acting like the mafia, holding him hostage to ensure that he says nothing that goes against you or else you will take action against him.
These are the tactics of a bully.
You know it, we know it, and you must know that we know it.
You must know that we know this is an intimidation tactic against other people who would create silly memes against you.
People we wouldn't otherwise call shit posters.
You are displaying for all the world that you can pluck one of them out and threaten them with the damage to their livelihood, damage to their reputation, and online harassment generated by you.
If we don't all comply.
Well I have some bad news for you, CNN.
I really don't think the internet is going to comply with your demands.
I think you may find yourself in fact the target of a sustained meme campaign at your expense.
And I don't think your reputation is going to survive this.
While I'm on the subject, there are rumours that Han Arsol Solo is a 15-year-old kid.
I don't believe that these are accurate.
He posted on Reddit several months ago that he was a teenager in 1990, so he's probably in his 40s at this point.
Honestly, though, that makes his anonymity all the more important because he's probably married with a family.
If CNN decide to dox him, and then the progressive hate mob get onto his employer and try and get him fired, it may well have knock-on effects to the people that he might well support.
CNN's investigation was headed by one Andrew Kaczynski, and he says, CNN specifically chose not to reveal this guy's identity, and to say we threatened anyone is a total lie.
No, it's not, Andrew.
We have your threat in print in your article that you wrote.
And if you want to see a total lie, we can see you going, Han Arshol Solo posted his apology before we ever spoke to him.
He called us afterwards to apologise further.
The apology came after CNN identified and reached out to him.
Story an interview with him posting soon.
Seems to be a bit of a contradiction, Andy.
And if it's not, it's a distinction without a difference, because you know, he knows, that you're bullying him into silence.
And if you think there is anyone who thinks that this apology wasn't given under duress, you've got another think coming.
And just for completeness' sake, Julian Assange believes you may well have actually committed a crime in the state of New York.
I unfortunately don't know anything about this, so I'm not going to comment, but I would feel remiss if I didn't present this information for you.
And for anyone who doesn't know who Andrew Krasinski is, which I'm sure many people didn't before now, he is apparently the Oppenheimer of political videos.
What this means is that Krasinski specializes in doing archival video research and essentially just making smear pieces out of old footage.
That's basically what he does.
That appears to be his entire career, something to be very, very proud of.
But do you know what's really amusing about the year-long jihad that the media have been waging against Donald Trump?
It's that they're losing.
In May, Harvard University produced a study in which they found that 80% of media coverage on Trump was negative.
They say Trump's coverage during his first 100 days was negative even by the standards of today's hypercritical press.
80% of the news coverage in Trump's first 100 days was negative.
In no week did the coverage drop below 70% negative, and it reached 90% negative at its peak.
Even with this persistent and overwhelming campaign against Donald Trump, the media is still less popular than Donald Trump.
At the beginning of March, polls showed that most Americans still trust the media more than Trump.
But by the end of March, that had turned around, and more people now trusted Trump than the media.
Around 37% of people trusted the White House versus 29% who favoured the political media in a morning consult survey.
Pollsters found that nearly half believe the national political media is harder on Trump than past administrations.
Only half of people believe that.
But more importantly, the media's continual lies and smears against Donald Trump have eroded public trust in the institution of the media.
I'm not an American and even I know that people do not trust Congress and the media are matching their numbers with Donald Trump sneaking slightly ahead.
It's a race to the bottom and the media have won.
You are the worst thing in American public life right now.
Everyone hates you.
The only significant group of people who have any trust left in the media are hardcore Democratic partisans.
Overall, only 8% of the entire country has a great deal of trust in the media, with another 22% saying, well, they've got a good amount.
The remaining 70% of your country do not trust you.
And that includes a huge number of independents.
The media has made their own bed and now they're going to have to lie in it.
And doing this to Donald Trump or a guy who's making a meme is not going to help your case.
In fact, I have a funny feeling that you have sparked Gamergates 2.0, where the internet at large is just set against the media establishment.
I suspect they'll have the alternative media behind them.
I suspect they will go on campaigns against your advertisers, to get you defunded, to get you shut down.
Not that that's not happening already.
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