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Establishment Media Reams Ivanka Over Kindness to Jacksonville Victims

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Ivanka Trump led with her heart Sunday and wound up once again being the target of abuse on social media.

“As we await further details, our hearts are with Jacksonville and all those affected by today’s tragic mass shooting,” the first daughter — a mother of three — tweeted even as most of America was waiting for details to emerge about the shooting that took place in Florida, the New York Post reported.

That call for humanity ignited more than 3,000 comments, many directed against President Donald Trump for his position on gun rights, CBS reported.

In the incident, David Katz, 24, of Baltimore, Maryland, shot 12 people, killing two, before killing himself, CNN reported. The guns were legally purchased in Maryland.

The criticism Ivanka Trump received for her tweet was covered by multiple major media outlets, such as Newsweek, which headlined its report, “Ivanka Trump Slammed for Jacksonville Shooting Tweet: ‘Vapid Heartless Nonsense.’”

Some voices fired back.

One commentator noted that the hatred directed at both Ivanka Trump and first lady Melania Trump misses the point that both routinely disagree with the president both privately and publicly.

“Unfortunately, because of the polarizing nature of political discourse, and because both women openly support Trump in other areas, their individual moments of dissent are not widely appreciated,” wrote Kimberly Ross in an Op-Ed posted by the Washington Examiner. “Those who feel that standing against the president should occur more often within his inner circle are sure to be disappointed. While I routinely differ from Ivanka Trump’s personal and professional political stances, I admire this stand of hers.”

Ross pointed to Ivanka Trump’s difference of opinion with her father about the media as evidence that they do not think in lockstep.

“The hatred that a fair amount of individuals on the left have for these two women is palpable. Neither is an elected official and both are quite limited in how much influence they have on this administration. By publicly objecting to certain attitudes within the Trump White House, and doing so with a measure of grace, they show that civil discourse is possible,” Ross wrote. (For more from the author of “Establishment Media Reams Ivanka Over Kindness to Jacksonville Victims” please click HERE)

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Trump Unloads on ‘Rigged’ Google, Threatens Action

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President Donald Trump was awake early Tuesday morning and once again took aim at the perceived bias of Silicon Valley with a pair of tweets aimed at Google.

The search-engine giant had been the subject of an investigation by one conservative website that found a majority of news results related to Trump were from “liberal” media sites.

That designation was itself lifted from a “media bias chart” compiled by journalist Sharyl Attkisson. Major media properties including CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post appear on the left-leaning side of that chart.

Apparently referencing that PJ Media report, the president began by tweeting that Google’s behavior could be against the law.

Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2018

….results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2018

He claimed the tech giant had “RIGGED” the system against him and his supporters while artificially amplifying the voices of his detractors in the media.

“Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media,” he wrote. “In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD.”

While keeping the focus on Google, Trump denounced “Fake CNN” as a “prominent” news outlet within the search engine’s results.

“Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out,” he wrote. “Illegal?”

As his statement ran into a second tweet, Trump hinted that his administration could take action against the company, though he did not elaborate on what crime he believes Google might have committed.

“96% of…….results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous,” the president tweeted at about 5:30 a.m. Eastern time. “Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good.”

Trump concluded by insinuating that Google’s influence is so great that it can effectively silence some voices on the internet.

“They are controlling what we can & cannot see,” he wrote. “This is a very serious situation — will be addressed!”

In a statement later Tuesday morning, the president’s economic adviser confirmed his team would be determining whether the government should step in to regulate what users find when they search for content online using Google.

“We’ll let you know,” Larry Kudlow said. “We’re taking a look at it.”

Earlier this month, Trump tweeted similar criticism of the nation’s leading social media firms, which have been accused of exhibiting political bias in removing or restricting access to certain content.

“If you are weeding out Fake News, there is nothing so Fake as CNN & MSNBC, & yet I do not ask that their sick behavior be removed,” Trump wrote. (For more from the author of “Trump Unloads on ‘Rigged’ Google, Threatens Action” HERE)

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Revealed: Big Majority of Americans Side With Trump, Not the Media, on Security Clearances

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Americans are backing President Donald Trump’s decision to revoke the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan.

In a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, 59 percent of registered voters think Brennan should have lost his security clearance. Another 64 percent said that former FBI Director James Comey and others at the FBI who were fired or demoted for their actions should lose their clearances, The Hill reports.

On the broad question of whether former national security officials who become consultants and TV pundits should keep their security clearances, 60 percent of registered voters said they should lose them.

“An overwhelming majority of the public thinks that former officials should lose their security clearance, and believe that former officials like Brennan and Coney should no longer have any clearance,” said Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll co-director Mark Penn.

“There would definitely be support for a wholesale policy revoking their clearances,” he added.

President Trump was viciously attacked in the media as a “dictator” who was attacking free speech after he pulled Brennan’s security clearance. This new poll confirms that most Americans don’t listen to and don’t care about the liberal media echo chamber. (For more from the author of “Revealed: Big Majority of Americans Side With Trump, Not the Media, on Security Clearances” please click HERE)

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Corey Lewandowski Reveals Important Warning He Gave to Trump Campaign

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President Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said on “Fox News Sunday” that Michael Cohen didn’t play a role in the 2016 campaign, warning that he was “going to become a problem.”

“I didn’t like to work with Michael, I didn’t like to interact with Michael, and that’s why he had no role in the campaign, even when he wanted one,” he said. “I was very clear when I was in charge of the campaign, Michael was not somebody who we wanted at the campaign. He would go out and make statements that we had to walk back afterwards because he would say things which were factually untrue. I warned everybody at the organization that Michael was going to become a problem.”

Last week Cohen pleaded guilty to federal crimes, including bank fraud and tax evasion. . .

“There have been reports that you privately tried to get the president to back away from [Cohen],” said Fox News host Sandra Smith.

“You were warning [Trump] that [Cohen] was a loose cannon. But the president said at that time, at one point in time, that he was a good lawyer and he trusted him for a long time, now he’s calling him a flipper. So why did the president trust Michael Cohen as long as he did?” she asked. (Read more from “Corey Lewandowski Reveals Important Warning He Gave to Trump Campaign” HERE)

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N.Y. State Authorities Probe Trump Organization Payments to Michael Cohen

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Earlier today, we posted my column about yesterday’s revelation that federal prosecutors in Manhattan granted immunity to two American Media Inc. executives, including CEO David Pecker, a longtime friend and collaborator of President Trump’s. As I detail in the column, while news of the immunity grants just broke yesterday, the grants almost certainly happened many weeks ago — likely just after the April search warrants executed at Michael Cohen’s office and residences. The point, it appears, was to shore up the case against Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer. The immunity grants are not a new development signaling sudden momentum in an investigation of President Trump. Of course, if there is such an investigation, they would be relevant.

In the column’s penultimate paragraph, I note that in the eight-count criminal information to which Cohen pled guilty on Tuesday, prosecutors suggested that fraud may have been committed by Cohen and the Trump Organization (President Trump’s real-estate conglomerate). At issue is the manner in which Cohen was reimbursed for the $130,000 hush-money payment to Stephanie Clifford (the porn star better known as Stormy Daniels). Specifically, there are peculiarities in the way Cohen’s reimbursement was totaled up, invoiced, and processed for payment.

Right about the time I submitted the column to my tireless editors late last night, the New York Times broke the news that the Manhattan district attorney’s office is considering criminal charges against the Trump Organization over these payments.

The Times’ William K. Rashbaum reports that this state probe is in its infancy. This, no doubt, is because it was triggered by the aforementioned criminal information the feds filed against Cohen — to be precise, the part of the Cohen case outlined in the last four paragraphs of the “Campaign Finance Violations” section of the press release issued by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). . .

First, the president has indicated that he personally reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 Stormy Daniels pay-off. As noted in my aforementioned column, this is important because, under campaign-finance law, there is no dollar limit on what a candidate may spend on his own campaign (while other donors have a $2,700 ceiling, which is why Cohen was charged). One question that federal prosecutors have certainly looked into is whether the president himself paid Cohen, as opposed to reimbursing him through a Trump business entity. (Read more from “N.Y. State Authorities Probe Trump Organization Payments to Michael Cohen” HERE)

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The Left Doesn’t Suffer From Trump Derangement Syndrome or Bush Derangement Syndrome. They’ve Got a Terminal Case of Republican Derangement Syndrome.

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There’s a lot of talk these days about Trump Derangement Syndrome — the media’s incessant inability to talk about anything but Trump, their determination to paint every action Trump takes as simultaneously idiotic and malevolent, their utter unwillingness to report on anything remotely resembling positive news for Trump. But the truth is that the media and the Left don’t suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome — they merely suffer from Republican Derangement Syndrome. That’s the broader classification under which Bush Derangement Syndrome and Trump Derangement Syndrome fall. It’s not just Trump they hate — it’s Republicans generally.

That’s perfectly obvious from the treatment of Vice President Mike Pence by the Left. Pence has been castigated as a theocratic madman, a “holy terror,” in the words of New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, who asked, “Are you sure you want to get rid of Donald Trump?” Then there are authors Michael D’Antonio and Peter Eisner, who argue in their new book The Shadow President that Pence is “the most successful Christian supremacist in American history.” It’s become a meme on the Left that should Pence accede to the presidency, he would immediately impose The Handmaid’s Tale.

And that should be unsurprising. The same Left castigated John McCain as a radical, Mitt Romney as a racist, sexist, bigot homophobe. No matter which Republican follows Trump, we can be sure that the Left will dishonestly look back to the glory days of Trump, when Republicans were “truly moderate.”

All of which is why Trump is president in the first place. Republicans looked at Joe Biden suggesting Mitt Romney — Mitt Freaking Romney! — wanted to put black people back in chains, and figured that no matter who they nominated, they’d be castigated as the worst people on earth. They figured they might as well nominate a guy who wouldn’t take such attacks sitting down — they might as well get behind a counterpuncher. And nobody was better at counterpunching during the campaign — above and below the belt — than Trump. (Read more from “The Left Doesn’t Suffer From Trump Derangement Syndrome or Bush Derangement Syndrome. They’ve Got a Terminal Case of Republican Derangement Syndrome.” HERE)

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Army General: Trump’s Complete Reversal of Obama’s Strategy Is Working

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The outgoing commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan told reporters at a news conference Wednesday that the South Asia Strategy put in place a year ago by President Donald Trump is not only working, it’s bringing the 17-year war to its closest reconciliation point yet.

“The strategy is working,” Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of NATO’s Resolute Support mission, told reporters. “Reconciliation progress is significant, and ultimately, wars end with a political settlement. So the progress toward reconciliation is key.”

As part of Trump’s strategy, the U.S. has increased its troop presence from 8,400 in the final months of President Barack Obama’s term to about 16,000 today, according to congressional statistics cited by Military Times.

By nearly doubling the number of U.S. troops in the region, the Taliban knows it will not be able to overwhelm Afghan forces and now must consider a negotiated peace.

“We were on a glide path to reduce our forces, and eventually to close down the mission,” said Nicholson, who was appointed by Obama. “At that time, the enemy had no incentive to negotiate, because we were leaving … the enemy believed we had lost our will to win. And all they needed to do was wait us out.”

“We have an unprecedented opportunity for peace now,” Nicholson added.

As further evidence of the success of Trump’s new strategy, Nicholson said there were two peace offerings proposed within six months of the South Asia Strategy being implemented. Within 10 months, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani offered a three-day ceasefire that produced striking images of Taliban fighters taking selfies with Afghan civilians.

According to Defense One, the U.S. and the Taliban have also reportedly opened a bilateral channel with the Ghani’s blessing.

“We’re seeing progress toward reconciliation,” Nicholson said. “What I would say is focus on the talking part of this…given that the traditional metrics of fighting are not explaining why the Taliban are willing to talk now.”

Not everything in Afghanistan suggests the Taliban is backing down. A recent four-day assault on Ghazni resulted in hundreds of deaths, including a number of civilians.

Nicholson said the Taliban is still capable of launching deadly attacks, but not necessarily capable of taking control of key areas of the country.

“This was not a military victory by any stretch. They were driven out of the city, and it was done in about four days,” he said. “Can they launch an attack for four days? Yes. Do those attacks succeed in gaining and holding ground? No.”

“There will be ups and downs,” Nicholson said of the fight against the Taliban. “There will be leaps ahead; there will be frustration; there will be two steps forward, one step back from time to time. But the process has started and it wouldn’t have happened without the South Asia Strategy.”

Nicholson admitted that despite the progress, “We certainly wanted to see this war be over many years ago.”

But with nearly two dozen terrorist groups based in the country, Nicholson believes the presence of U.S. and NATO forces would “prevent the emergence of some new threat to the homeland.”

“Our presence here does protect the homeland and prevent another 9/11,” he said. “I firmly believe that.”

Lt. Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller is slated to succeed Nicholson and take command in the fall. (For more from the author of “Army General: Trump’s Complete Reversal of Obama’s Strategy Is Working” please click HERE)

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Trump Hits Mueller for Multiple Conflicts of Interest in Overseeing Russia Investigation

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President Donald Trump listed multiple reasons Thursday why Robert Mueller should not be serving as special counsel in the Russia investigation.

“When you see Mueller with the conflicts, he is so conflicted,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt.

“Comey’s his best friend,” Trump added, referring to former FBI Director James Comey. “He had a really nasty business transaction with me, which he never reported. I’ve been talking about, he never reports it.”

“He wanted the FBI job that Christopher Wray has,” Trump added.

Comey and Mueller served together in the Justice Department during the administration of George W. Bush.

According to Politico, “While (then-FBI director) Mueller technically reported to Comey as deputy attorney general, Comey, two decades his junior, treated Mueller as a close friend and almost mentor.”

The two had known each other for years prior, as they rose through the ranks as prosecutors in the DOJ.

Trump told Reuters earlier this week that he is concerned the two men could be setting a perjury trap for him if he were to agree to be interviewed by special counsel prosecutors.

“So if I say something and he (Comey) says something, and it’s my word against his, and he’s best friends with Mueller, so Mueller might say: ‘Well, I believe Comey,’ and even if I’m telling the truth, that makes me a liar. That’s no good.”

One avenue of inquiry Mueller has reportedly been pursuing is whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey in May 2017.

The president’s reference to a “nasty business transaction” involved club dues at Trump’s golf course in northern Virginia of which Mueller was a member.

The dispute prompted the then-FBI director to end his membership, The New York Times reported.

Finally, Trump pointed to his decision not to hire Mueller as FBI director as another conflict of interest.

According to CNN, Trump interviewed Mueller to potentially replace Comey, but decided against him. A day later, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named Mueller as special counsel.

The president has repeatedly characterized the team Mueller has chosen as “angry” Democrats.

Earlier this week he tweeted, “Disgraced and discredited Bob Mueller and his whole group of Angry Democrat Thugs spent over 30 hours with the White House Councel, only with my approval, for purposes of transparency. Anybody needing that much time when they know there is no Russian Collusion is just someone looking for trouble.”

He continued, “They are enjoying ruining people’s lives and REFUSE to look at the real corruption on the Democrat side – the lies, the firings, the deleted Emails and soooo much more! Mueller’s Angry Dems are looking to impact the election. They are a National Disgrace!”

In a May tweet, Trump questioned why the Mueller’s “13 Angry and heavily conflicted Democrats” are not investigating Hillary Clinton.

Politifact confirmed in March that at least 13 of the 17 lawyers on Mueller’s team are Democrats, six of whom contributed to Clinton.

Of the four remaining attorneys, the fact checker could not determine their party affiliation.

According to The Wall Street Journal one prosecutor — Andrew Weissmann — attended Clinton’s election night party in November 2016. (For more from the author of “Trump Hits Mueller for Multiple Conflicts of Interest in Overseeing Russia Investigation” please click HERE)

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The Dossier: Is This the Right Plan to Win the Long War in Afghanistan?

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Trump reportedly considering new Afghanistan plan

President Trump has never been particularly happy with the Afghanistan war plan, so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that he is reportedly entertaining various options on how to reduce U.S. troops’ footprint in the war-torn country.

According to NBC News, Trump has shown “renewed interest” in a plan drafted by Erik Prince, which calls for some private assets to replace American soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan. Prince, a former Navy SEAL and founder of the private military contracting giant Blackwater, has also acted as an unofficial adviser to Mr. Trump. Prince claims his plan, which calls for hiring private military contractors, would significantly reduce costs.

Many have taken to social media to criticize the plan. However, it’s also important to note that the U.S. is now 17 years into the Afghanistan war and the status quo is a complete stalemate, or worse, a slow decline. There is no end to the war in sight, and American soldiers continue to die on a regular basis, fighting to protect what’s left of a highly corrupt foreign government. Moreover, there isn’t much evidence that any of the jihadi groups currently operating in Afghanistan pose much of a threat to the American homeland. There is seemingly no grand strategy to win the war or exit the country in a timely manner.

It’s easy to slam Prince’s plan as radical, unproductive, or morally inappropriate. But at least he has presented a plan to move on from the never-ending, resource-draining, American soldier-killing war in Afghanistan.

South Africa begins seizing white-owned farms

In a deeply troubling development, the South African government has approved the first seizures of white-owned farmland.

Representatives from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) reportedly offered white farmers only ten percent of their land’s value prior to the unilateral seizure. The ANC has endorsed and fanned the flames of a climate of extreme hostility against the nation’s white Afrikaner minority.

Drive-by shooting targeting U.S. embassy in Turkey

At around 5 a.m. local time Monday, a drive-by shooting targeted the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Turkey. The suspects fired several shots before taking off. No one was hurt in the incident.

Tensions continue to increase between the United States and Turkey. The Trump administration and the Erdogan regime are sparring over the imprisonment of U.S. Pastor Andrew Brunson. The United States government claims he is unfairly detained, while Ankara has claimed, without evidence, that he is a spy. It is believed that Turkey is using the pastor as a negotiating chip in seeking the extradition of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Manafort jury continues deliberations

Now into its third day of deliberations, a jury is currently deciding whether to convict former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort on charges related to tax evasion and bank fraud.

Although the legacy media is covering the case as if it’s the trial of the century, the charges against Manafort have nothing to do with his time on the Trump campaign or matters related supposed Russian collusion. (For more from the author of “The Dossier: Is This the Right Plan to Win the Long War in Afghanistan?” please click HERE)

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These Papers Wouldn’t Join in on the Anti-Trump Editorial ‘Collusion’

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“Encourage that kind of conspiracy”… Yesterday over 300 newspapers took part in a coordinated effort started by the Boston Globe to attack President Trump for his antagonistic attitude towards the press. The usual subjects in the blue-check mafia like CNN media critic/cheerleader Brian Stelter, Jim Acosta, et al. loved the coordinated effort. Some in the media – including some surprises – thought the effort would hurt, not help their standing with the public.

Geez, ya think?

Two left-wing California newspapers, the L.A. Times and the San Fransisco Chronicle, both decided against participating in the effort. Not because they support President Trump, but because they cherish a free and independent press.

Here’s what the L.A. Times had to say:

The Los Angeles Times editorial board does not speak for the New York Times or for the Boston Globe or the Chicago Tribune or the Denver Post. We share certain opinions with those newspapers; we disagree on other things. Even when we do agree with another editorial page — on the death penalty or climate change or war in Afghanistan, say — we reach our own decisions and positions after careful consultation and deliberation among ourselves, and then we write our own editorials. We would not want to leave the impression that we take our lead from others, or that we engage in groupthink.

The president himself already treats the media as a cabal — “enemies of the people,” he has called us, suggesting over and over that we’re in cahoots to do damage to the country. The idea of joining together to protest him seems almost to encourage that kind of conspiracy thinking by the president and his loyalists. Why give them ammunition to scream about “collusion”?

We mean no disrespect to those who have decided to write on this important subject today. But we will continue to write about the issue on our own schedule.

The San Francisco Chronicle echoed similar themes.

These two newspapers and the others who didn’t join the “groupthink,” as the Times called it, did more for their integrity and to increase the public trust in their outlets than the hundreds of papers who decided to take collective action against the president.

These outlets hit it right on the head. To a large number of Americans, the action taken by these newspapers smelled of collusion, looked like collusion, and was in fact collusion. The way to fight the perception that your industry is one big “cabal” is not to act like one big “cabal.” (For more from the author of “These Papers Wouldn’t Join in on the Anti-Trump Editorial ‘Collusion’” please click HERE)

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