The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Staff Reports
Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2018 11:20 AM
Dems, Liberal Media Hiding Rule Collusion Story Of Wasserman Shultz's Former IT Aide
Welcome to the Imran Awan-Debbie Wasserman Schultz scandal or Compugrab, as I like to call it.
Awan was the top IT aide to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The FBI reportedly “seized smashed computer hard drives” from his home. He was “arrested trying to flee to Pakistan after wiring almost $300,000 to the country,” according to The Daily Caller, which has owned the story because it does actual news reporting.
Here’s an amazing paragraph from the Caller: “Awan and members of his family received $4 million from the Democratic congressmen they were working for since 2010. Wasserman Schultz has been especially uncooperative with the probe into her staffers and even threatened the Capitol Police chief for gathering evidence. She refused to fire Awan until after he was arrested, even though Capitol Police had already revoked Awans’ access to the congressional IT system in February in relation to a major security breach.” ($4 million, and you wonder where your tax dollars go.)
This is why so many Americans no longer trust the traditional media. It’s because we can’t. They’d rather write snarky stories about the president’s Twitter comments than do actual reporting.
The traditional media has barely even acknowledged this story exists. In the 24 hours after his arrest, only “CBS This Morning” reported on it – for 37 seconds. And co-host Gayle King made a point of ending the story with the claim by Awan’s attorney that charges are due to “anti-Muslim bigotry.”
Newspapers have been almost as bad. The Washington Post wasn’t just slow to the party. Legal reporter Spencer Hsu didn’t mention Awan's ties to Hill Democrats until the seventh paragraph. Imagine the Post writing like that about Hill Republicans. A headline on an Associated Press story was especially entertaining: “Florida lawmaker fires IT staffer; Anti-Muslim bigotry is cause of client's arrest, lawyer says.”
This is why so many Americans no longer trust the traditional media. It’s because we can’t. They’d rather write snarky stories about the president’s Twitter comments than do actual reporting. Hats off to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Luke Rosiak for remembering what journalism really means.
2. Summertime For Hitler: President Trump’s speech to the Boy Scouts caused journalists and lefty media to have a Goebbels moment and envision the entire event as a Hitler Youth Rally. The alt-left marched in goose step comparing American boys to Nazis. Director Michael Moore, soap opera star Nancy Lee Grahn and other liberals pretended that chanting “U.S.A.” and cheering Trump made them equal to the people who supported Hitler.
While “The View” didn’t “Sieg heil” like many on the left, it did bash Trump and put pressure on the Scouts. Among “The View’s” “Things Not to Say When Giving A Speech to 40,000 Boy Scouts” was this horrifying statement: “You will be saying Merry Christmas again when you go shopping.”
There’s nothing more offensive to secular media liberals than faith. Hard to tell if it terrifies them more in the here-and-now or if they are looking toward the hereafter.
That media pressure, and attacks by the “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah of “The Daily Show,” and CNN’s Chris Cillizza intimidated the Boy Scouts into distancing themselves from Trump. Based on the cheering Trump received, there was no such distance between the president and the Scouts who heard him speak.
3. Those Hateful Conservatives, Oops!: We’ve watched six months of demented hate from the lefty media against White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. He’s gone, so now we’ll get demented hate from the media against new White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Ira Madison III, who writes about culture for The Daily Beast and GQ, welcomed Sanders with a cruel critique of her looks. Madison tweeted: “Butch queen first time in drags at the ball,” next to a picture of Sanders.
Conservatives were outraged but liberals barely noticed. The War on Women only applies to liberal women, after all. White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci called it “reprehensible” and asked for an apology. Madison gave a half-hearted one for his “ill-judged joke.”
While working at MTV News earlier this year, Madison embarrassed himself by bashing then-Sen. Jeff Sessions. He accused Sessions of using an Asian-American girl as a “prop” during a hearing. “Sessions, sir, kindly return this Asian baby to the Toys 'R' Us you stole her from,” he wrote on Twitter. The girl was actually Sessions’ granddaughter. Madison deleted the comment.
Never forget that the left believes in “NO H8TE.” Or, in the words of Madison’s bosses at The Daily Beast, they value “an inclusive culture, committed to the public good.”
4. The Media Climate Isn’t Changing: Liberals whine about global warming, but the media climate is just the same as it was 11 years ago when the film “An Inconvenient Truth” came out. Who cares if climate guru Al Gore warned then that Earth had only 10 years before Mother Earth turned crispier and reached a “point of no return?” That didn’t stop him from going Hollywood and producing a sequel.
The news and entertainment media loved Gore then and love him now. His silly “Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” hits national theaters Aug. 4. To ensure the propaganda (Oops, documentary) is successful, Viacom is deploying 10 of its TV outlets to push the film. Viacom, which has “approximately 700 million global subscribers,” is harassing viewers on MTV, VH1, LOGO, Comedy Central, Spike, BET, CMT, TV Land, Nick@Nite and Teen Nick.
MTV will actually air a town hall where, “Gore will be joined by rapper and Miami resident Fat Joe, as well as 17-year-old activist Delaney Reynolds; DJ and fellow Miami-born artist Steve Aoki will act as a correspondent.” Apparently, no sports mascots were also available.
Dan Gainor is the Media Research Center's Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.