Just trying out a new series called The Propaganda Report: Your Mainstream Media Companion...I read the WSJ to keep up with the official narrative–if we know what they’re trying to feed us, we might be able to figure out why. I have concluded that nothing in The Wall Street Journal, which I consider to be the “conservative” newspaper of record, is put there simply to inform. It is to misinform in order to serve an agenda or to spin real information that cannot be ignored. With that said, I thought I would take a few articles from The Journal (and occasionally elsewhere) every day and try to start a conversation. The format: article title in bold, subtitle in italics followed by a link and excerpts from the article as block quotes, then my take. Here’s my first cut…
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
- Obama Picks Merrick Garland for Supreme Court, Setting Off High-Stakes Fight With Senate
Lawmakers reiterate promises not to hold hearings or votes until after elections
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-picks-garland-for-supreme-court-setting-off-high-stakes-fight-with-senate-1458177165
Judge Garland, 63 years old, choked up during his remarks and said his 19 years a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had demonstrated his commitment to “follow the law, not make it.”
“Fidelity to the Constitution and the law has been the cornerstone of my professional life.”…
“For those of us who are concerned about the direction of the court and wanting at least a more centrist figure—between him and somebody that President Clinton might nominate, I think the choice is clear,” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.). Mr. Flake said he would want to confirm Judge Garland in a lame-duck session of Congress if Mrs. Clinton is elected.
Obama’s nomination of Garland immediately set off red flags for me, particularly when I learned of his involvement in the highly suspect McVeigh and Kaczynski cases. Based on his history and contrary to his claims, the last thing I would expect from a Supreme Court Justice Garland would be for him to follow the law above all. As I pointed out when Justice Scalia died, the Republicans have demonstrated their contempt for the Constitution many times, but they can’t admit it because their base demands they at least pay lip service to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the GOP confirms Garland under cover of Flake’s “Hillary’s pick would be worse.”
Another article in today’s Journal offers more potential foreshadowing….
- GOP Senate Plots Its Path on Merrick Garland Supreme Court Nomination
A win by Hillary Clinton in November may soften Republican resistance before she takes office
http://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-plots-its-path-on-merrick-garland-supreme-court-nomination-1458169679
“If Donald Trump is their nominee, then the Republican Party is going to have a big ‘unreasonable’ stamp all over their candidates,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.), adding that remaining unmoved against Judge Garland would give Republicans “two political stones around their neck.”…
The GOP strategy to block any Obama court pick—laid out by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) shortly after the February death of Justice Antonin Scalia—is aimed at handing no further ammunition to conservative activists and voters already deeply suspicious of the Washington political establishment….
“I’m not going to meet with somebody I know I’m not going to vote for or have a hearing for,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), a member of the Judiciary Committee.
Saying stuff like “we won’t even vote on him if Obama picked him” makes the GOP look irrational. Either this will be used against them to get Hillary elected and more wins for Democrats in the Senate, or it will be used by “reasonable” conservatives to say, “hey, we have to prove this isn’t personal or partisan,” which could lead to a Garland confirmation.
And here’s The Journal‘s pitch for Garland…
- For Supreme Court Nominee Merrick Garland, Law Prevails Over Ideology
President Obama’s choice is viewed widely as a middle-of-the road judge who has avoided strong ideological opinions
http://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-garland-had-been-considered-for-seat-on-high-court-before-1458138973
Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court, has served nearly 20 years on the federal bench and is viewed widely as a middle-of-the road judge who has avoided strong ideological opinions….
In 1989, Judge Garland quit his partnership at the law firm Arnold & Porter to become a prosecutor for the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia. By the mid-1990s, he was a senior official at the Justice Department, where he oversaw the prosecution of shocking crimes of domestic terrorism: those of Theodore Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, and Timothy McVeigh, an antigovernment extremist who in 1995 blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
Donna Bucella, a federal prosecutor who joined Judge Garland on the scene in Oklahoma City, said he managed complicated legal issues and the competing concerns of victims, the local community and the broader public. “He’s got such a quick mind I’m not sure I followed him as fast as he was thinking,” Ms. Bucella said.
Nice article. This is just the kind of thing Journal readers are likely to respond favorably to, though anyone who gets information elsewhere than the mainstream media will know that both the McVeigh and Kaczynski cases involved government cover-ups….Scratching the surface, it appears that Garland could not be the innocuous, law-abiding man of integrity he is being made out to be. (For more on that, click here.)
So how do you like The Propaganda Report? Would you be interesting in seeing something like this on a daily basis? OR WOULD YOU RATHER IT IN A PODCAST? Please comment either way below.
YES Monica! 23 year old in Helen GA, I too read the WSJ everyday and would LOVE your help and dissecting it and spotting fallacies!
Awesome! I spend so much darn time writing notes in the margin, I thought it might make sense to share them…would you rather it in podcast form?
Podcast would be nice, speaking of that is there anyway to get your SHOW in a digital file format? I do not have good 4G coverage, so I can not stream from your site. I would love to put your show on my Zune and take it with me.
i am SO bad at technology of any kind but you can find other formats for my show on itunes and at wsbradio.com http://www.wsbradio.com/list/news/national-govt-politics/monica-perez-podcast/eRS/ and https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/monica-perez/id638842984?mt=2 that help??
I think you should try it. I think it would be interesting in written or podcast form. A youtube show would be awesomely awesome IMHO.
how long of an episode for youtube? also–do you have any idea how long it takes to put on make-up every day?!!!! Shaving ain’t nothin’!
The best youtube stuff is 5-10 minutes because attention spans online can be low. Did you see Ron Paul’s new 5 in 5 show? It’s pretty cool too. The youtube thing could be a weekly round up sort of thing. I would watch it.
Oh boy… You don’t get anywhere near the DC court system or DC law enforcement without being a 110% controlled abject yes man completely subservient to your handlers (and this even applies to the DC Park Police – they were the ones called in to cover up the Foster murder).
This guy is bad, bad news. But, as always, the conservatives will eat him up just as they did Scalia because authoritarianism is a redeeming quality to them.
That would explain what happened to Miriam Carey (https://monicaperezshow.com/2013/10/22/miriam-who-the-real-facts-about-the-woman-gunned-down-in-dc/) and Aaron Alexis (https://monicaperezshow.com/the-case-for-conspiracy-at-the-navy-yard-podcast-of-september-21-2013-show/)! But do you think Scalia was authoritarian–I felt that he was a “textualist” as they like to call him–maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention!
Well, for one I think he was an authoritarian and I think he was a reliable globalist (not a garden variety authoritarian liberal, but there’s a difference between globalists and modern liberals). There are several pieces of evidence to support this: 1) Scalia was very much involved in engineering the Blackwater cover up and the subsequent attempts by the executive to squash the Freedom of Information Act while assistant attorney general to Nixon and Ford; 2) Scalia once lobbied David Axelrod to push Obama to nominate the liberal globalist Elena Kegan for the supreme court, 3) Scalia engineered the 2000 Supreme Court ruling which halted the counting of votes in contested Florida counties during the 2000 presidential election, handing the presidency to Bush; 4) Scalia has on numerous occasions during adjudication concocted absurd excuses for police overreach and abuse of power as well as argued against the existence of Miranda rights and other fundamental protections from law enforcement; 5) Scalia was educated at two premier globalist schools – Georgetown and Harvard; 6) Scalia at one point worked for the CIA funded American Enterprise Institute; and finally 7) Scalia has consistently ruled in almost every major decision in favor of increasing the executive branch’s power, which has been a major boon for globalists. I think when it came to key rulings and decisions his controlled nature became apparent.
updated my Scalia post with a link to your comment https://monicaperezshow.com/2016/02/15/the-death-of-justice-scalia-a-turning-point-for-america/
I like it! I think you could try both depending on the story, or your prerogative:)
Monica,
While seeing you in a podcast is very pleasing to the eye, a written commentary is perhaps more effective to ponder on and share with others. But I’m certainly OK either way.
I really enjoy reading your perspective. I have sent this on to other interested parties.