THE GASLIGHT ELECTION

 

[Published on Newsmax]

2020 is the single most important election since 1860.

This is not hyperbole.  The future of America’s representative democracy is at stake.

The Left plans to change fundamental policies that will cripple earnings and economic vitality.  More ominous, the Left is planning to change the rules that have governed America since 1789.  Their sole purpose is to achieve permanent power.

More frightening is that these threats are being successfully hidden from the electorate.

America’s news media took a sharp left turn in the 1960s.  During the 21^st Century, what is considered the “Mainstream Media” (MSM) dropped all pretense of being professional journalism.  They are overtly the Left’s propaganda arm.  “News anchors” and talk show moderators are no longer selected from working reporters, but from career political operatives.  The result is an echo chamber of anti-Americanism, and now anti-Trump.

This Leftist echo chamber now dominates over 95 percent of television, radio, print, and digital “news”. Except for a handful of conservative radio personalities, Fox Cable news shows, and blogs, the Left’s echo chamber shapes an alternate reality that may propel the Democrats into the White House and a Senate Majority.

The classic 1944 movie “Gaslight” is about a diabolical villain who creates an alternative reality to drive his victim insane to reap riches.  The term “Gaslighting” is based on this process of creating a fraudulent reality so the victim makes wrong decisions to their detriment.

That is what 2020 is about.  It is the Gaslight Election.

Since the Summer of 2016, the Left’s echo chamber has created a narrative, fueled by the bogus Steele Dossier, that Russian leaders are puppeteers controlling Trump and his inner circle.  Wild assertions went unchallenged.  A fake whistle blower, coached by Congressional Democrats and shaped by secretly backdated regulations, launched a reckless Impeachment. 

While the entire scheme of lashing Trump to Russia, and then Ukraine, was exposed as a fraud, the Left’s echo chamber barely reports it.  In fact, most of the echo chamber reprises Russia, unchallenged, whenever it can.  Tragically, Judicial Watch has had to sue Trump agencies to force the release of exculpatory information.  Career bureaucrats have successfully delayed these facts from entering the public domain.

At the same time, former Vice President Biden is on video bragging about doing exactly what was the basis of Trump’s Impeachment to laughter and applause by the Washington, DC elite.  Efforts to hold Biden accountable have been thwarted by FBI and intelligence officials for years.  The Lefts’ echo chamber remains silent.  It is just as important to not report something.

The Lefts’ echo chamber also set the ultimate trap for Trump’s re-election.  COVID-19 remains Trump’s Achilles Heel because scary and highly inaccurate models generated by the Imperial College on March 16, 2020 forced America’s economic suicide.  The Left’s echo chamber demanded that Trump shut down his booming economy to prevent millions of deaths.  The model turned out to be fundamentally flawed.  Now the Left’s echo chamber blames Trump for this year’s economic downturn. Leftist Governors use their independence under Federalism to enforce draconian lockdown measures not based on current science.  This slows the economic recovery through election day.

Biden, Harris, and their media allies, wear masks every time they are on camera.  They wear masks when they are outdoors and over thirty feet from others.  No science or health organization recommends this.  It serves as a symbol for COVID-19 remaining a dire threat and Trump is to blame.  The Lefts’ echo chamber makes no effort to question this shameless propaganda ploy.  Instead it promotes it.

The Left creates visual equivalency by providing only tight shots of Biden and Harris at their podiums, ignoring the fact that less than ten people are in the audience.  Trump’s 20,000+ rallies are either not covered at all or show only tight podium shots.  Biden’s countless lies about his attending Black churches and colleges, his groundless assertions, and his fiction about awarding medals, remain unchallenged.  His radical agenda for the Green New Deal, tax increases, and aggressive gun control goes unreported.  Alternatively, debunked accusations, like Trump hating the armed forces, dominate news cycles.

The Left over-samples registered Democrats, sometimes over 50% to only 38% or less for Republicans, to generate polls showing Biden trouncing Trump.

The Left’s Gaslight Election may succeed because over 50 million have early voted, just as facts about the Biden family’s foreign influence peddling is slowly seeping out.  Congressional Republicans’ glacial investigative pace enables the Left’s reality.

 A Democrat sweep in November will be tragic for everyone except the liberal elite. Trump’s tax cuts will be erased, and new taxes added.  Four years of regulatory relief will evaporate.  All of Trump’s government reform Executive Orders will be voided within hours of the Inauguration.  Gun control will rapidly expand. The 1619 anti-American indoctrination curriculum will be forced into every classroom. Illegal aliens will be granted wholesale amnesty and added to the voter rolls.  American energy independence will vanish, and Americans will suffer from the absurd policies that have made California the land of rolling blackouts.  Hollywood and Sports celebrities will roar back into prominence, virtue signaling Americans about race relations and carbon footprints.  

Worse, all investigations of Biden, Obama, Clinton, and the Deep State will end within hours of a Biden/Democrat victory, extinguishing any hope that truth will prevail.

PLACE YOUR BETS!

 

[Guest Contributor - Donald G. Mutersbaugh Sr.] 

Well, it’s official: I can’t take it any longer! Ever since Hiden’ Biden has come out of his basement bunker and hit the road, the lies have become more egregious and frequent. Being a true blue American and trying to adapt to this new environment of falsehood has been excruciatingly painful.

I keep seeing these false news reports and polls and can only think one of two things. Either the Main Street media has completely underestimated the intellectual capacity of the American people or the American people have completely lost their collective minds. I see one poll that is completely contradictory to the rational man’s intellect – and I think okay, I’ll give them that one. Then on the next one I see another pole that is also completely upside down to reality, and I think – what in the world? So, you can imagine my angst when I see a whole page of completely irrational and completely incorrect conclusions about who is ahead of whom!

For example, somehow the Main Street media presents a “poll” that shows the people prefer Biden over Trump when it comes to law enforcement and nobody questions whether this flies in the face of reason. All of the cities that are burning and being destroyed are controlled by Democrat mayors and governors – doing nothing but defunding the police apparatus and reallocating the funds to other social endeavors – such as bailing out rioters. And need I mention that over 855,000 members of various police departments, sheriff departments, and the National Association of Police Organizations have endorsed President Donald Trump because they know he has their backs?

If you look at the various Main Street media polling websites, Biden almost is invariably ahead of everything except economics – they haven’t figured out how to credibly lie about that one yet! And recently – and reluctantly – these entities have had to concede that the race is tightening. I would submit that it was never as bad as they presented. Sure, Joe Biden could have been ahead in various issues at one time or another. But to somehow suggest that President Trump (e.g.) has not handled the coronavirus pandemic as best as any human could have done given what we knew and when – and even more ridiculously then submit that somehow Biden could have done better – puts all logic and understanding on its head! If that were true, then the Democrat party should get hammered on two points: first, what could they have done (give me something) that would have ameliorated the circumstances faced with this rogue virus from China? Second, if they really did have a better solution, time phased, according to what we knew and when – for them to withhold solutions that might’ve been better is treasonous in my mind because thousands of people have died needlessly. This has been a media driven story together with its perceived failure.

So, let’s take a look at the polling process. The polling organizations apparently refuse to update their models to reflect all kinds of changes in the way things are predicted. They apparently have never heard of such statistical concepts that validate data such as confidence intervals, correlations, and standard error. The data just doesn’t make sense. I’ve said in previous blogs that there have been several paradigm shifts in the electorate; I don’t really see any of these new variables incorporated in the results they produce. Even more worrisome is the way they choose their statistical sample; these supposedly random samples they use have allegedly been skewed by some of their sampling techniques. For example, several polls have been taken where the population sampled consisted of (e.g.) 25% Republican and 75% Democrat; how can you not get a skewed answer? (“Of course, the important question for pollsters who want to accurately reflect the partisan composition of the country is not “Are there more Democrats than Republicans?” but rather “What is the correct ratio of Democrats to Republicans?” The answer to this question depends, in part, on whether we are talking about the general public, the smaller subset who are registered to vote, or the even smaller group of people who are likely to vote in a given election (“likely voters”). Evidence suggests that the Democratic advantage is somewhat narrower among registered voters than the general public – and often even narrower among likely or actual voters.” https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/25/why-public-opinion-polls-dont-include-the-same-number-of-republicans-and-democrats/)

Then there is margin of error. Consider, “The concept of polling rests on the assumption that the opinions of the people sampled in the poll accurately represent the distribution of opinions across the entire population, which can never be completely true. The “margin of error” describes the uncertainty that comes from having such a small sample size relative to the size of the population. In general, the more people are surveyed, the smaller the margin of error. But this doesn’t take into account another key source of error called “biased sampling”. The fact that a poll samples a lot of people does not mean that it does so in the truly random fashion that would be needed to extrapolate results to the larger population. Unfortunately, many polls fall victim to a number of biases that significantly skew their results despite their small margin of error. The most common bias, known as convenience sampling, occurs when pollsters select people to survey using a convenient, but not entirely random, strategy.

“Another possible source of polling error is known as volunteer bias, wherein the people who volunteer their opinions to a poll do not represent the distribution of the entire population….

“Another tactic is for a pollster to copy off its neighbors…. The cheap polls may “herd” off stronger polls, tweaking their results to match them. This can make them superficially more accurate, but they add little value. Where there are better polls available, the cheap poll duplicates the results already in hand. Where there aren’t, the cheap poll may stray far from an accurate and representative sample of the race. Then there are the companies that have cheated in a much more explicit way: by fabricating data. There is strong evidence … there are more firms out there like them.” https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/where-are-the-real-errors-in-political-polls/

Trust me when I say the more you understand about the way these polls are conducted, the more you would be willing throw them in the trash – because that’s all they’re worth. Granted, as we draw closer to the actual election day, the polls will probably be more accurate. There are obvious reasons for that, but I’ll leave it to the reader to discern for themselves the overall topic of polling.

I needed to provide this background to get to the bottom line: what if you had to wager a substantial sum of money on who is going to win based on these polls? Would you do it? I know I wouldn’t! Instead, I would go to my favorite bookie and see what the odds were on each candidate! So, let’s look at that data over a comparable timeframe.

There are several websites that facilitate online wagering on election outcomes. The thing that is interesting to follow are the odds (over time) for each outcome – specifically, who is going to win the race for presidency? I looked at several websites, and several predicted that President Trump would win. Some said that he would lose to Biden, and in others the odds were even. One thing that was true for most of them was that the odds had switched from Biden winning to Trump winning and in all cases the odds were narrowing. One website even predicted that Trump would lose the popular vote, but the Republicans would win the election. Wouldn’t it be great if Trump lost the popular vote in two consecutive elections, but won the presidency in both cases (Electoral College outcome – there are odds on this, too!)? 

One other note on this is: “What does this mean for Donald Trump in 2020? As mentioned earlier, Donald Trump [sic] is no longer the bookmakers favorite to win the 2020 election. However, in 2020 Donald Trump has accounted for 53% of all bets placed in the US election betting market. In the last month, his dominance of the betting market has increased to 59%. Therefore, if the recent trend of political betting events were to continue, we’d expect Donald Trump to win the 2020 US Election despite the odds suggesting otherwise.” https://www.oddschecker.com/us/insight/specials/politics/20200813-2020-us-presidential-election-odds-betting-history-suggests-donald-trump-will-beat-joe-biden

All of my life I have been advised that whenever I wanted to know the answer to something, always follow the money. Which do you think is going to be more reliable: fake news that generates pats on the back and an at-a-boy in the newsroom or somebody who actually has to be right in order to put food on the table? My final advice is: when you see a headline that says “Biden ahead by six points” is throw the paper in the trash and go look at a couple of gambling websites – see what the odds are and in which direction they are trending. You may even want to place a bet while you’re there!

Donald G. Mutersbaugh, Sr. earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland and his Master of Business Administration degree from Mary Washington College. He is the former Associate Administrator of Information Resources for the U.S House of Representatives under Speaker Newt 

RINOgator UNBOUND

#TRUMPING  #RINOgator #DEEPSWAMP

Congressional Republicans are compiling an historic record of failure. Even though they control the Legislative Branch, they have not passed anything meaningful, cannot confirm Trump’s appointments, and refuse to reopen investigations into the last eight years of Democrat corruption and collusion with America’s enemies.  They remain stupefied and inert while Democrats and their media allies create fake scandals designed to disembowel Trump and his inner circle.

A growing number of Americans are asking, “Do these Republicans want Trump to fail?” Congressional Republicans do not comprehend the danger facing them.  If things continue as they are, Americans in 2018 will toss out Congressional Republicans for gross incompetence. 

If they lose power, Republicans will have difficulty convincing the voters that they ever deserve a return to power.

It is time to reacquaint ourselves with the denizens of the Deep Swamp who are undermining President Trump and America from both ends of Pennsylvanian Avenue…

A very dangerous species is loose in Washington, DC.  If it’s not eradicated it will bring ruin to Trump’s Administration and the nation.

RINOgator is a subspecies of fake Republicans (as in Republican In Name Only) that lives in the Swamp of our nation’s Capital.   The Swamp is its natural habitat, filled with conflicts of interest, incestuous relationships, avoidance of accountability, hiding documents and information from the public; waste, fraud, and abuse. 

RINOgators’ role in life is to expand the Swamp and to destroy anyone who tries to drain it. Any reduction in the Swamp reduces their numbers and threatens the species.

RINOgators eat tax dollars and absorb energy from reform minded humans. They have insatiable appetites and are never full.  There is always one more meal to eat.

RINOgators are highly territorial.  They relentlessly defend their turf among Congressional Committees and special interests. It is far more important to maintain their turf than for anything to be accomplished.

RINOgators live in close-knit family units.  One generation promotes the next through education, internships, sinecures, and contracts.  There is constant intermingling and intermarriage with other RINOgator family units. 

RINOgators can also be highly incestuous. They will give awards, place media stories, hire, and promote family members at every opportunity.  Multi-generational RINOgator family units hold more territory and become impervious to elections.

RINOgators may migrate to corporate, academic, and media positions, to promote the Swamp, but will always return to their native Swamp.

RINOgators are pernicious.  They use their knowledge of the Swamp to convince their prey that they are necessary.  Their prey willingly appoints them to office, listens to their advice, and invites them into their inner circles. Like cowbirds, RINOgators lay their eggs in the nests of reformers, setting the stage for their young to devour the souls of competing species.

RINOgators have a distinct call, which is heard on cable news, in policy forums, and reported in the mainstream media.  Its call is for maintaining the status quo, no matter what.  Lesser calls are for “further study”, new programs, new legislation, and more funding.  Squawks of alarm are heard whenever reformers call for accountability, transparency, “running government like a business”, “doing more with less”, privatization, and cutbacks.  Squawks are usually accompanied by assertions of “we are unique”, “it cannot be done”, and various lies about how THE PROCESS “actually” works.

RINOgators have an array of formidable defenses.  Their most effective is delay. Their other defense mechanisms include the ability to erase memory, dismiss facts, and divert attention so reformers pursue only irrelevant or tactical issues.

RINOgators are chameleons.  They adopt the rhetoric of their enemies to better blend in until the right moment to strike. 

The Trump era has become a major threat to the RINOgators and their Swamp.  The RINOgators did not see Trump as a threat until he had entered their territory. 

That is why the RINOgators have forged elaborate family groupings, nesting on Capitol Hill, to thwart Trump initiatives.  RINOgators chose not to attack the past foibles of Obama and Hillary.  They think it is better having Democrats on the offense against Trump instead of on the defense.

RINOgators have the innate ability to rebound after being stunned.  That is why, after being surprised by Trump winning the nomination, they insinuated themselves into Trump’s transition planning, transition team, and Administration.  Legions of RINOgators wrote Trump Transition briefing books and developed personnel “vetting” processes that slowed the staffing of Trump’s Administration to a crawl. They adjusted selection criteria to favor Swamp preservationists and surrounded incoming Trump Executives with them, instead of Swamp drainers.

RINOgator eradication efforts have been sporadic and only partially successful.  The main barrier to eradication is convincing people RINOgators exist. Their chameleon defenses allow them to avoid detection.  RINOgators and their allies have the unique talent of reflecting problems and disappointments back onto Trump.  This reflective surface is a key part of the RINOgator’s outer armor.

Thankfully, RINOgators have weaknesses.  They are susceptible to sunshine when light is shown on their true selves.  They are too smug, leading them to make wrong assumptions about the American people.

The RINOgator eradication program must begin with Americans unmasking the species and ripping away its reflective surfaces.  RINOgators are especially vulnerable during primaries. 

Trump and the nation must track down and wipe-out the RINOgator, before it is too late. 

This is critical to draining the Swamp.

[Scot Faulkner helps global corporations flatten their organizations; achieving dramatic and sustainable cost reductions while improving operational and service excellence. He served as the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives.  During the Reagan Administration he served on the White House Staff, and in Executive Appointments.]

UNCIVIL WAR

Published in NEWSMAX.  #TRUMPING   #RINOgator

Republicans are now in charge of everything, but control nothing.

The June 14 shooting of Republicans at their softball practice is a harbinger of worse things to come.  The “kill Trump”, “hunt Republicans” drumbeats emanating from the media and Hollywood created a hateful environment that triggered one warped mind to take violent action. Liberals, who were so quick to blame conservative rhetoric after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords, just as quickly dismiss their role in the current poisoning of civil discourse.

America is more divided now than at any time since the Vietnam War.  Back in the 1960s, the radical anti-American elements were considered fringe.  The war being waged against Trump, the Republican Party, and America has expanded into the mainstream.  On a daily basis, Americans experience fake news reports, witness obstruction to the point of sedition, and view mounting evidence of radical liberals waging an unrestricted war on our civic culture and institutions.

It is tragic that public discourse and the functions of government are sinking into uncivil war.  More tragically, Republicans, especially the “RINOgators” who defend Washington’s swamp, refuse to fight back.

Republicans prevail when they do fight, but this is only being done in isolated and fragmented ways.  Most remain clueless to the unrelenting foe, while others clearly want the other side to prevail.

Trump’s win shocked the Democrats, but they immediately recovered.  Democrats relentlessly assailed the credibility of the election, mounted concern over Russia (after spending the Cold War dismissing Russian threats), and obstructed everything from Trump’s appointments to even nonpartisan public forums.

Trump’s win also shocked most Republicans.  They have not recovered.  Republicans, especially in Congress, have been negligent in taking advantage of their November 2016 victory.  Instead of launching 24-7 investigations of the last eight years under Obama, Republicans immediately broke ranks on healthcare, taxes, immigration, and the budget.  They remain mostly silent about the border wall and needed infrastructure.

Congressional Republicans only met for eight days in April, twelve in May, and will vanish for five weeks of vacation at the end of July.  Major legislation continues to be pushed off deeper into the year.  Worse, Republican lethargy allowed the Democrats to regroup and control the news during most of 2017. 

Prior to the 2016 election, pro-Hillary forces ignored laws to dismiss charges.  Since the 2016 elections, anti-Trump forces have made-up laws to create charges.  Trump, and his team, are playing defense when they should be playing offense.

Republicans are only now looking into potential obstruction of justice by Loretta Lynch, Obama’s Attorney General.  They have remained inert on revisiting scandals at the FEC, IRS, EPA’s over reach, Fast & Furious, the Clinton Foundation, and countless other Democrat shenanigans. 

Congressional Republicans had seven years to prepare for repealing and replacing Obamacare. They did nothing and it shows.  Republicans rail against big government in fundraising letters, but are balking at Trump’s cuts, and are woefully behind on passing any spending bills.  Inevitably, a Continuing Resolution will be needed to fund the government after September, unleashing all sorts of mischief and brinksmanship.

Republicans’ main argument since 2009 is that if Americans gave them the House, then the Senate, and then the White House, everything would change.  It hasn’t.

President Trump has been ill-served at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Congressional Republicans defer to Senator Schumer like he is in control.  Until they fight, he is.  Trump’s own inner circle allowed a ridiculously slow transition, opening the door for Obama holdovers, Obama career loyalists, and the “deep state” resistors to rule the Executive Branch.  Leaks have diverted Trump’s attention.  Lack of appointees has crippled Trump’s ability to implement substantive change.  

Trump’s White House and Agency teams are only now sporadically clearing out the entrenched Obama networks.  Such house cleaning usually takes place within weeks of the Inaugural, not five months later.  Trump’s political takeover of the Executive Branch remains minimal as 70 percent of his policy positions remain unfilled.  Obama loyalists serve in acting capacities.  Even the White House Correspondence Office, a key interface with Americans, remains staffed by Obama holdovers and Democrat volunteers.

The slowest transition in modern times has created a “Trump-centric” Presidency.  Executive Orders are issued, speeches are given, briefings are held, but these are all from the White House.  When Trump appointees go on the road, Obama careerists still mind the store.  Trump has no “band width” to move forward when he is diverted by fake news or fratricidal Republicans.

Republican mistakes have caused substantive damage to their cause.  They need a real awakening to the threat, a real resolve to counter it, and a real strategy to defeat it.

Americans voted for a real revolution.  Their patience is wearing thin.

[Scot Faulkner helps private corporations and governments save billions of dollars by flattening organizations; achieving dramatic and sustainable cost reductions while improving operational and service excellence. He served as the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives.  He also served on the White House Staff, and in Executive Appointments, during the Reagan Administration.]

When Is a Narrow Victory a Victory?

[Guest Contributor - Donald G. Mutersbaugh Sr.]

I want to open this article by saying I’m very proud to be an American! I am not so comfortable with many of my fellow Americans who just don’t get it: there is one nation (under God); one flag; one national anthem; and one President. News flash: Trump won; Hillary lost; get over it.

I have to say that this post electoral period has been the most politically venomous time in my life that I have had the misfortune to experience. It has been hateful and destructive to the nation. I cannot believe the “seemingly” large number of people who would rather destroy our country than accept the results of the election. President Trump, his family, his supporters – basically anybody who is not a liberal – have been and continue to be treated terribly by the media. To the MSM there just doesn’t seem to be anything about this administration to report in a positive fashion – it’s as if they can do no good even though Mr. Trump has many, positive post inaugural accomplishments.

I get why the Democrats are in this crowd. I get why the main street media is in this crowd. But it is like they are living in a little bubble world of their own, oblivious to what’s going on outside. The media is becoming irrelevant; in fact, I believe that there is no media anymore. Fake news is everywhere, but it is being presented as news. The MSM are using gaslighting (“…a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets [i.e., the electorate] question their own memory, perception, and sanity. 

Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the target and delegitimize the target's belief”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting). They use muckraking to try to influence public opinion. Let me expand a little bit on this term: “In British English the term muckraker is more likely to mean a journalist (often on a tabloid newspaper) who specialises [sic] in scandal and malicious gossip about celebrities or well-known personalities and is generally used in a derogatory sense. The term is a reference to a character in John Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress, ‘the Man with the Muck-rake’, who rejected salvation to focus on filth. It became popular after President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the character in a 1906 speech; Roosevelt acknowledged that ‘the men with the muck rakes are often indispensable to the well being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck...’" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckraker The last sentence (my italics) of this quote pretty much says it all!

I believe several things are true about the American people. For one thing they are tired of this hysterical, biased reporting. I believe that most people still watch and listen to the news, but they tune out or change the channel when political news, campaign ads, etc. come on because voters do not trust nor like the media. It is because we realize that these people are not journalists; they are not news people: they are opinion writers and entertainers who are competing for ratings, not accuracy and journalistic integrity. When all of their articles say: "If…"; “According to unnamed sources …”; “Supposedly...”; “Allegedly…"; “Insiders tell us…”; “Our understanding...”: how are you to believe anything is true?  Overall, there is this fact: “Americans' confidence in the media has slowly eroded from a high of 55% in 1998 and 1999 [to 40% in 2015]. Since 2007, the majority of Americans have had little or no trust in the mass media. http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/americans-trust-media-remains-historical-low.aspx

I want to close with a couple of examples of biased reporting. Does anybody remember Montana’s special election – before the election and how important it was to the Democrats? Funny,  after the election, this is what they had to say: “Republican Greg Gianforte claimed a narrow victory [he won by roughly 7 points] in Montana’s closely watched special election for the state’s at-large congressional seat, defeating Democrat Rob Quist in a race that is likely to be mined for clues about how the voting electorate feels about the political turbulence of Donald Trump’s young presidency heading into next year’s midterm elections…. Though their candidate lost, Democrats still tried to claim a moral victory in the race… [even though there was a misdemeanor assault charge pending against Gianforte!]” https://www.yahoo.com/news/gianforte-wins-montana-special-house-election-despite-charged-assault-044756860.html 

“Republican Ron Estes defeated his Democratic rival in a high-profile special congressional election in Kansas Tuesday that had been seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump. But the narrower-than-expected outcome [Democrat James Thompson finished behind Estes by 7 points]  may worry Republicans across the country as they try to decipher how much Trump's low approval ratings might hurt his party's candidates.” http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/democrats-vs-trump/republican-wins-kansas-election-seen-trump-test-n745396

How about the upcoming special election in GA? “Ossoff [the Democratic House candidate] “…focused his campaign on a promise to ‘Make Trump Furious.’” How is that for a politician who is going to represent you? Trump’s tweet: “With eleven Republican candidates running in Georgia (on Tuesday) for Congress, a runoff will be a win [the result was a runoff]. Vote ‘R’ for lower taxes & safety!”  “http://www.euronews.com/2017/04/19/georgia-democrat-puts-donald-trump-s-popularity-to-the-test-in-congress-vote

Bottom line: I hope the MSM and Democrats continue this strategy! They continue to poke the bear (i.e., the American people) to challenge our intellect: they think we are unable to understand the media bias and misdirection – and that makes us angry! They will continue to lose national elections because of this; in fact they have only won a handful of state and local elections since the inauguration. However, they have lost two congressional elections and they are about to lose a couple more (GA and SC). I hope that all Americans continue to realize how dishonest the media is being in trying to unduly and inappropriately influence our elections instead of providing information to help us select the best candidate to represent us.

Donald G. Mutersbaugh, Sr. earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland and his Master of Business Administration degree from Mary Washington College. He is the former Associate Administrator of Information Resources for the U.S House of Representatives under Speaker Newt Gingrich.

TRUMPING THE MEDIA

#TRUMPING

Published at http://www.newsmax.com/ScotFaulkner/facebook-media-social-twitter/2017/01/12/id/768303/

Trump’s first news conference since the November election vividly displayed how he has turned the media world upside down.  His unprecedented campaign and transition points to an Administration committed to solidifying a media revolution that began decades ago.

The media, especially the 95 percent liberals within the media, are in free fall in audience and credibility.  A recent Associated Press survey reported that 96 percent of Americans no longer trust the “mainstream media”.  The media elite are still in denial that their world of unaccountable privilege and bias has vanished. 

How the media elite respond will determine whether anyone listens to them ever again.  The latest Buzzfeed/CNN promotion of false Trump trash is further evidence that the elite are on a different planet from the real world.

American media was “middle of the road” and patriotic until the mid-1960s.  At that time the older generation of media moguls retired or died, ushering in activist liberals.  Media liberalism became radical with the Vietnam War and Watergate.

Accuracy in Media (AIM) was founded in 1969 by Reed Irvine to expose this new liberal media bias.  AIM’s documentation remained within conservative circles until Vice President Spiro Agnew used their research in boldly partisan speeches during the 1970 elections.

Americans were held captive by three broadcast networks and Public Broadcasting until CSPAN cable television entered the scene in 1979.  Conservative Members in the House of Representatives used CSPAN to conduct guerrilla theater.  Using large photos, graphs, and models of Soviet Airplanes, House conservatives began to directly educate the public about big government and the Soviet threat.  It was the first breech of the liberal media filters.

In April 1980, two senior news editors, Arnaud De Borchgrave and Robert Moss, published “The Spike” a novel exposing communist influence within the American media.  As importantly, they exposed how the liberal media perverts reality as much by what they don’t cover as what they do - “spiking” stories.

The media revolution really began in 1987 when the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) eliminated the “Fairness Doctrine”.  For the first time since 1949 radio stations could feature editorial content in their normal programming.  On August 1, 1988, Rush Limbaugh launched his radio show.  Now all Americans had access to non-liberal perspectives. 

The liberal media fought back.  Talk radio hosts and news reporters were denied press credentials to cover Congress until the Republicans took over the House in January 1995.  Even credentialed, talk radio was shunned.  The liberal media elite branded it unprofessional and trafficking in conspiracy theories.

Starting in May 1995 (Netscape), the Internet devastated the liberal media citadels.  Website news began to supplant broadcast and print media.  Social media, along with internet access on mobile devices in 2004, ignited an historic information revolution. 

Conservative voices were unleashed by these upheavals.  Liberal media elites could no longer “spike” stories or present their bias unchallenged.  Even their own audience favored getting their news from social media and shows on Comedy Central.  The media establishment sped its own demise by succumbing to fake news from its reporters like Jayson Blair, and trafficking in false news like “hands-up don’t shoot’ and “a video caused the Benghazi attack”.

All the elements of a liberal media cataclysm were in place.  Trump’s blunt talk and his supporters’ contempt for the media brought the status quo crashing down.

Trump understands, more than any other politician today, that he can render the media irrelevant.    Pew Research and other studies show that 62% of Americans get all or part of their news from social media.  Facebook posts 510,000 comments and 136,000 photos per minute. 2.4 million emails are sent every second.  Fifty percent of Millennials check out Facebook when they first wake-up.

Trump does not need to have his message filtered and interpreted by Democrat operatives posing as journalists.  Chris Matthews and George Stephanopoulos were Democrat flacks long before they took on the trapping of journalists.  Dozens of reporters and “on air talent” are married to Obama Administration officials.  Trump’s response is to go over and around them.

Trump currently has over 50 million Facebook and Twitter followers.  Millions of Trump supporters repost or retweet his quotes on countless social media pages.  128 million Americans posted or liked Trump content on Facebook during the campaign.  No one has ever been so pervasive in communicating and mobilizing.

Trump is the master of this new media reality.  He understands that 140 characters on Twitter or a pithy comment or compelling image on Facebook shapes the media cycle.  This is all before he becomes President, with all its additional resources and reach.

Liberal media in the Trump era is fast becoming as credible and relevant as horoscopes. 

TRUMPING THE POLLS

Also published at: http://www.newsmax.com/ScotFaulkner/gore-quiniipiac-nbc-realclear/2016/10/24/id/754994/ #TRUMPING #therealgame #draintheswamp

Objective evidence is pointing to Trump winning on November 8. This may come as a big surprise to those already jockeying for Hillary Inaugural tickets.

There are major disconnects between the evidence and the polls.  Are polling companies accurate, biased, or clueless?

Most major news outlets feature national and state polls with Clinton maintaining a five point lead that is slowly shrinking.  However, the Investor’s Business Daily, Rasmussen, and LA Times tracking polls are showing Trump pulling ahead. 

All liberal, and many “Never Trump”, pundits have used these polls to declare Hillary the winner.  On its Saturday morning show, National Public Radio shifted to discussing how a Hillary White House would operate.  The media is hailing Hillary as the embodiment of 2016 as a “change” election.  Of course, the media means changing the sex of the Oval Office, not the policies.

What is real?  What is fantasy?

Polling is supposed to be a scientific sampling to achieve accurate insights predicting future results.

2016 seems to be more about fabricating samples and insights to shape future results.  Not since the Harris Poll secretly inflated Humphrey’s support to show him leading Nixon by three points just before the 1968 election has polling been this partisan.

It is all about weighting turnout.  How many registered Republicans and Democrats will vote in 2016?  Most pollsters are assuming 2016 will have the same voter turnout ratio as 2008 and 2012.  They are asserting that November 8 will witness participation by 45 percent Democrats and 36 percent Republicans, just like the two highest Democrat turnouts in recent history.  Quinnipac, Fox, Bloomberg, NBC-Wall Street Journal, and the RealClearPolitics average, all embrace this assumed Democrat dominance.

This assertion automatically gives Hillary an Obama-sized victory.  This is promoted by the “mainstream media” as their narrative is that Americans are just as enthusiastic about electing the first woman as President as they were electing the first African-American.

The facts invalidate this narrative.  This year’s primary battle saw a 35 percent increase in Republican participation, while Democrats fell by 26 percent. 

Votes are generated as much from enthusiasm as inclination.  The “fervor factor” for voter turnout manifests itself in crowds, yard signs, and social media following. 

The media is hiding the great enthusiasm gap in the way they are covering, or covering-up, the candidate rallies. Trump’s crowds have totaled 342,955 as of a week ago.  Hillary’s rallies have attracted only 13,970 during the same period. 

This is where fantasy takes flight.  The media creates the impression of equal enthusiasm with tight shots of both candidates surrounded by supporters.  The reality is that Hillary’s crowds, even for special events with former Vice President Al Gore, are counted in the 100s. Other Clinton rallies have been cancelled for lack of turnout. Trump’s crowds are counted in the tens of thousands. A keen eye sees the Clinton banner peeking-out beyond just four rows of supporters.  A sharp ear knows Clinton’s applause and shouting sound like a small crowd.  Clinton is not using the sound amplifiers that faked enthusiasm at her convention.  The media rarely pulls back to show Trump filling stadiums and field houses with zealous fans.

Clinton enthusiasm, outside of the media, is nonexistent.  One observer recently mused “how can Hillary charge $250,000 for a speech, when no one turns out for her free ones?” 

Contrast the microscopic Clinton crowds to the 100,000 people who turned out to hear Obama on October 18, 2008 in St. Louis, Missouri.  There is a definite disconnect.  If Clinton is so far ahead, where are the Obama-sized crowds?    

On social media Trump’s 10,951,235 Facebook “likes” bury Hillary’s 6,597,785.  On Youtube, Trump’s videos attract 90.8 Million to 24.9 Million views for Clinton.

Drive anywhere in non-urban America and you see thousands of Trump signs.  Many of these are in parts of states not known for Republican sympathies.  Many others are in locations that have never displayed Presidential preference - until now. 

Something very special is happening in our nation.  November 8 could shame many pundits and pollsters. 

Unfortunately, they have no shame.

TRUMPING THE DEBATES

Published at http://www.newsmax.com/Insiders/ScotFaulkner/id-376/   #trumping #therealgame

Donald Trump is the disruptor Americans have been seeking since the Reagan Era.  He is the Establishment’s worst nightmare. 

The second Presidential Debate displayed all the elements of the epic struggle between Trump and his movement versus the Clinton-Liberal-Media forces arrayed against him.

Starting in 2008, Presidential Debates have been ritualized slaughter of the Republican nominee.  Think of a Bull Fight.  The Republicans, McCain, Romney, Trump, are the bull.  The Democrats, Obama, Clinton, are the Matadors.  The ultimate destruction of the Republican is never in doubt.  Opportunities are given for the Republican/bull to charge around the arena.  This provides the audience with some suspense and builds the reputation of the Democrat/Matador as a brave fighter.

The media moderators are the Picadores.  They are mounted on their dais/horse with dazzling finery.  Their elaborate maneuvers are designed to distract the Republican/bull.  They are armed with questions/lances to wound the Republican/bull.

Once in each debate cycle there is a “town meeting format”.  This is where supposedly undecided voters ask unscripted questions of the candidates.  In fact, these forums bring in Banderilleros who plunge sharped barbed sticks into the Republican/bull to prepare for the Democrat’s/Matador’s final assault. 

The second Presidential Debate was a classic display of Banderilleros.  You had the sympathetic sounding female Muslim asking about tolerance.  You had the sympathetic sounding African-American female asking about unity.  You had the white guy asking about how to balance energy needs with the environment.  All were designed to place Trump/the bull into awkward positions while giving Hillary/the Matador maximum opportunity to pander within her comfort zone.

Trump is not your ordinary Republican/bull.  In the first debate, he fell victim to the Matador and Picadores.  He stormed and charged the Matador’s cape and was wounded by the Picadores questions.  Only because Trump was stronger than previous “bulls” did he survive to fight another day.

Unlike previous “bulls”, Trump adjusted his game plan.  He was not going to play the “Bull Fight” game under the Establishment’s rules. The second “Bull Fight” had Hillary, the Matador, conducting a preemptive wounding with the “leak” of Trump’s off-putting “hot mic” audiotape.  The Establishment’s goal was that Republicans would do what they do best, flee from the fray.  Trump was supposed to spend the forty eight hours prior to the debate in disarray with falling polls, pundit assaults, and everyone abandoning him, including his running mate and campaign team.

Trump outwitted his assailants.  The day of the debate, he called a news conference, not to withdraw, but to open his own barrage against the Clintons. For the first time in decades, a Republican unmasked the Establishment’s hypocrisy.  The media has protected Democrats, and championed counter culture, since the 1960s.  Trump embracing the women who were abused by the Clintons was a game changer.  How can the media and Hillary say every abused women should be heard, when they were the ones who silenced these women?  How could the media feign indignation over Trump’s “hot mic” comments when they defended Bill Clinton’s affairs by asserting people should  look at the public record not the private one?

Then came the debate itself.  Trump wisely did not try to shake Hillary’s hand.  He assumed she had a well-rehearsed moment of ostracism coordinated with the moderators.  Then Trump did the equivalent of the bull pulling out an Uzi and opening fire on the Bullfighters.  For most of the ninety minute debate, Trump indicted Hillary, Bill, the moderators, and the Establishment.  Trump tore off their masks.  Liberal lies and misdeeds of the last twenty years spilled into the public record.

No Republican Presidential nominee has ever assaulted the Democrats and the media with such a sustained onslaught.  Years of passivity vanished.  The bull was not going to slaughter without first taking out the Matador, the Picadores, and their fans. Chaos ensued.

Whether Trump’s high stakes gamble changes the campaign enough to win the Presidency remains to be seen.  Trump exposed the game.  Trump eviscerated the gamesmen.  For at least one amazing moment the bull won. Trump changed the game.

HOW HILLARY MAY WIN

[Also published on http://www.newsmax.com/ScotFaulkner/conventions-establishment/2016/08/10/id/742929/ ]

Is our choice really between a crook and a madman?

The media is doing everything to deny and deflect issues surrounding Hillary’s sociopathic lying.  At the same time the media and the Republican Establishment are doing everything to portray Trump as a psycho itching to start World War III.

Evidence mounts that Clinton is not only corrupt, but is an inept and mediocre campaigner.  She also contorts over the internal contradiction of being Obama’s third term, while calling for change.

Why is Hillary winning?

First and foremost, she is being carried across the finish line by 95% of the national media.  The liberal media is pushing applications of hypocrisy into fantastical territory. Anything Hillary or Obama does outside the immediate news cycle is deemed “old news”.  Anything Trump did since puberty is deemed relevant. 

This hypocrisy was on full display during the National Conventions.  Grieving Republican mother Patricia Smith, whose son’s death can be linked to Hillary, was dismissed and ignored.  Grieving Democrat father Khizr Khan, whose son’s death happened twelve years ago and had nothing to do with Trump, became a media star and the main evidence for declaring Trump unfit to be President. Khan’s links to the Clintons are still drowned out by the media.

The liberal media also threw body blocks to protect Hillary and Democrats.  Imagine what the media would have done had the Republican Chairman resigned the day before the GOP Convention; Republican emails disclosed unseemly cynicism, derisive name calling of minorities, and a conspiracy to rig the system against candidates; and four top Party officials were forced to resign.  Standard operating procedure is for the media to divert attention from these real issues to fairy tales of a treasonous liaison between Trump and Russian President Putin.

The small community of conservative oriented media has tried to counter this bias.  However, they, like their Establishment Republican colleagues, have forgotten how to fight.  Friends in the conservative media privately shared stories on how the Democrats fabricated everything at the Philadelphia convention.  They documented the Democrats’ scramble for American flags, stripping hotels from thirty miles away and having to tape scraps of paper to the bases to keep track of their ownership.  They chronicled the walk out of over a thousand Sander’s supporters, the hiring of movie extras to fill seats, the thuggery and intimidation of convention security, the trashing of the small American flags after the performance, and the installation of sound generators to create enthusiasm that was not really there.  Little of this made the news.  There was little interest in probing below the surface of Hillary’s artfully crafted fraud.

As August unfolds, the media shows tightly framed shots of both Hillary and Trump rallies.  This creates a false equivalency when other photos of these same events show Hillary speaking to near empty halls and Trump attracting overflow crowds. 

The Republican Establishment has traditionally been ineffective in countering liberals.  Republicans break ranks at the first sign of trouble while Democrats lock arms to the bitter end.  If Republicans defended Nixon like the Democrats defend the Clintons, Nixon would have finished his second term.  If Democrats defended Clinton like Republicans defended Nixon, the Clinton era would have ended at the 1992 New Hampshire Primary or during any of scandals that plagued his White House tenure. 

Republican disarray is on full view this election cycle.  Their Washington-based elite are apoplectic that Trump might actually end crony capitalism and shut down their lucrative scams.  They are willing to risk Hillary packing the Supreme Court for generations to preserve their revenue stream.

Trump appeals to a spectrum of voters who are seething at the incestuous corruption permeating America’s governing elite.  The media is doing all it can to divert attention from this fundamental upheaval in the body politic.  For every Republican who defends Trump there are others conducting outright political treason.  Years of shadow boxing with Obama, and killing the Republican cause, have stripped the “Never Trumpers” of any right to invoke ideological purity.  Unfortunately, the other reason Trump’s message is being disrupted is Trump himself. 

Donald Trump built his empire and reputation in the rough and tumble world of New York City real estate development.  Trump mastered sparring with NYC tabloids. He now needs to realize that a larger audience requires different ways to promote his cause. Trump needs to ignore side issues and focus on two things: indicting Hillary/Obama and shaping a more detailed and relatable vision for “Trumpism”.

This election is ultimately about “message discipline”.  Hillary and her media allies have woven a tapestry made of “whole cloth”, which will unravel the moment anyone actually examines it.  Trump remains a scattergram tapping into deep concerns held by a majority of Americans. For Trump to overcome media bias and Republican dysfunction/disloyalty he needs to fixate on his goal – toppling the corrupt establishment. 

Trump needs to heed the words of Civil War Admiral Farragut, who seized Mobile Bay by ignoring Confederate diversionary tactics:  “Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead!”

 

TRUE COLORS

Published in http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/true-colors/article/2556003

It is time to reclaim America from liberal elites.  The first step is to right a recent wrong.

During the 2000 Presidential election recount battle, long time Democrat turned pundit Tim Russert took the unilateral act of swapping out the long standing political colors for Republicans and Democrats.  His liberal media colleagues jumped at the chance to rebrand Democrats away from their 20^th Century left wing affiliations. 

Unfortunately, Fox News and conservatives also embraced this swap.  As a result, a two hundred year global tradition of blue meaning conservative and red meaning liberal ended in America. Along with swapping colors, media pundits and political scientists began using “red state; blue state” to simplify and “dumb down” their analysis of America’s richly nuanced civic culture.

Republicans and conservatives should be deeply offended at the liberal media’s unilateral and unofficial propaganda act.  Realizing the history of these colors should cause an outpouring of conservatives to demand at least their media friends at Fox and Talk Radio take a stand and return to the GOP’s noble blue color.

Colors have meaning. Uniforms and banners on the battlefield have identified friend and foe since the beginning of human history.  Most of history linked colors to nations and dynasties.  The most famous was England’s 15^th Century dynastic war symbolized between the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster. 

In the late 18^th Century, blue became the first modern political color.  It was worn as boutonnières by British parliamentary candidates supporting Pitt the Younger (the leader who helped William Wilberforce end slavery).

Blue evolved into the permanent color of the Conservative Party of England and of center-right movements around the world, including the Republican Party in America.  

Radicals and pre-communist activists did not have their own color until the French Revolution.

On August 9, 1792, antimonarchist provocateur, Jean-Paul Marat, called upon the people of Paris to rise up and overthrow King Louis XVI.  This was a reaction to recent French reversals on the battlefield and a rising concern by Robespierre over some Legislative Assembly delegates seeking national unity through reconciliation with the powerless King. 

The next morning, mobs swarmed the Tuileries, where the royal family was under house arrest.  The King allowed the mob into the complex and ordered his Swiss Guard not to fire.  Previous incursions had ended peacefully as moderate voices prevailed. Not this time. The mob slaughtered the surrendering Swiss Guards and then sought out servants and kitchen staff to tear apart – limb from limb.  One observer called it a “mad festival of blood”.  The King and his family were imprisoned in a fortified monastery with the guillotine looming ahead of them.

The mob stripped the blood soaked red uniforms from the Swiss Guards and paraded the shards on long pikes as revolutionary banners.  Thus red became the color of the most radical factions of the French Revolution and of left wing movements to this day. 

Remember that the next time a conservative uses “Red State” to describe Republicans and conservatives.

Scot Faulkner served as Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives and as Director of Personnel to Ronald Reagan.