The death of conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh this week spawned a predictable flurry of news coverage about him that touched on all the big chapters of his three-decade career. He was a fire-breathing right-wing provocateur, we were reminded; a bigot; a smash-mouth; a GOP standard-bearer; an avatar of traditional conservatism who morphed into a champion of Donald Trump’s burn-it-all-down brand of politics; a peddler of disinformation and half-truths; a horrible human being; a loving husband; he was all that, and more, the news coverage told us.

What much of the reportage failed to spend much time on, however, is the mistrust of traditional, mainstream media that helped grease the skids of Limbaugh’s career in the first place. Which is why it must be noted, even as the man who led a talk radio revolution is now gone — his death happens to coincide with a moment when fewer people than ever trust traditional media, according to the results of a new survey.

For the first time, Edelman’s annual trust barometer, which it shared with Axios, revealed that fewer than half of all Americans acknowledge any kind of trust in the mainstream media. Fifty-six percent of Americans, for example, said they agreed with the following statement: “Journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.”

The results go on to show that 59% of Americans said they agree with this statement: That “most news organizations are more concerned with supporting an ideology or political position than with informing the public.” And 61% of Americans think that “The media is not doing well at being objective and non-partisan.”

“El Rushbo” built his entire career out of an understanding of that reality. It’s hard not to read those new statistics and flashback to some of the highlights of his career, like the time in 2013 where he blasted journalists as “dangerous to the republic.” And in response to one particular news article that set him off during a radio broadcast, he railed against journalists thus: “We might want to start considering, at least talking about registering journalists, just like we have to register guns. Background checks and all of that. Because this is mental illness. This is bordering on delusion, this piece. It really is incredible… We ought to register these journalists.”

The deeper you look at this issue, though, you start to see the same pattern on both sides of the political divide. Too many news consumers start out with a worldview, and either acquire or dismiss facts depending on whether or not they snap together like missing puzzle pieces in a jigsaw of the mind. Liberals railed at The New York Times NYT +2.8%’ Washington correspondent Maggie Haberman for pretty much the entirety of the Trump presidency if she had a piece that dutifully reported some action he’d taken that didn’t find a way to also suggest that he was the devil incarnate.

Similarly, there’s a tendency among many right-leaning consumers of news to regard any updated story, containing new facts or a fuller picture emerging in the wake of an initial piece of breaking news, to be evidence of some kind of conspiratorial back-tracking. Example: The New York Times in recent days quietly updated the story it published more than a month ago now that included details about the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who it was originally reported was killed during the January 6 riots after being struck by a fire extinguisher.

His death quickly became one of many symbols that news outlets and prominent Democrats fixated on by why of (correctly) speaking out about how awful the insurrectionists’ actions were. Only … the original narrative surrounding his death may not actually told the correct story of how Sicknick died.

“New information has emerged regarding the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that questions the initial cause of his death provided by officials close to the Capitol Police,” reads an update posted at the top of the Times’ original story. In a separate story from earlier this month, the Times reported: “One Capitol Police officer, Brian D. Sicknick, was killed, and investigators are increasingly focused on whether chemical irritants were a factor in his death, according to a senior law enforcement official.”

This is the kind of thing that sends conservatives into a rage, when original narratives get changed — because of the very prosaic, commonplace reason that new information emerges — which leaves them believing that reporters are somehow in cahoots with Democrats, grasping for whatever narrative will do harm to the other side.

Where does all this philosophical tribalism end, when it begins to impact sources of news that are supposed to be honest brokers of information? Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan has written that “our goal should go beyond merely putting truthful information in front of the public. We should also do our best to make sure it’s widely accepted.” New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, has talked about the need to, in the wake of the January 6 riots that were facilitated by some media outlets peddling misinformation, “figure out how we rein in our media environment, so you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation. AOC made those comments during an Instagram Live, adding that media literacy and the lack thereof “is a part of what happened here.”

Edelman’s trust barometer, meanwhile, also revealed the following: 61% of Trump voters acknowledged trusting the CEO of their employer. Less than half of that number said they trust government leaders (28%).

Coming in even lower, with the trust of just 21% of these respondents? Journalists.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andymeek/2021/02/20/fewer-americans-than-ever-before-trust-the-mainstream-media/?sh=27c318e1282a

The post Fewer Americans Than Ever Before Trust The Mainstream Media first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The bill is before Congress right now and has been for almost two months. And yet so far it has been essentially ignored by the country’s major media outlets, which are either too embarrassed of it or too ignorant to cover it. That’s a disservice to you because it’s nearly impossible to describe just how radical this bill is.

If it becomes law, the bill would remake our immigration system for the expressed purpose of helping foreign-born criminals live in the United States. The bill would allow people who have committed serious felonies in other countries to move here legally. It would make it nearly impossible for federal immigration officials to detain immigrants, no matter how potentially dangerous they are.

TUCKER CARLSON: CRIMINALS WOULD BE PROTECTED FROM DEPORTATION UNDER BILL AOC AND OTHER HOUSE DEMOCRATS BACK

And perhaps most infuriatingly and remarkably, the legislation would require taxpayers to transport deported criminals back into the United States. In other words, you break our laws, you hurt our people, we will send you a plane ticket. We will pay for you to come back.

It’s utter and total insanity, and yet it’s very popular in the Democratic Party. So far, this bill has 44 Democratic co-sponsors. Some of these people you’ve heard of before: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. They are celebrities, but some co-sponsors are obscure.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, for example, has represented Oregon for decades. Before this, he is may have been known for running the congressional bicycle caucus. And yet, all of a sudden out of nowhere, Blumenauer has decided to wreck the country.

Now we’d like to talk to Earl Blumenauer on this show. We’d like to hear why he supports this bill. We’d like to talk to any of the people who’ve co-sponsored it. We reached out to many of them to come on and defend their views, but not one of them agreed to come.

Why? Because they’re cowards. And yet we think you want to know what they’re doing. The bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Jesus Garcia of Illinois, said after introducing the bill: “This is not a radical project. We are simply asking for a fair shot at the opportunity for immigrants to stay in the country they call home. And New Way Forward does just that.”

Garcia added that the bill “would end mandatory immigration detention and the automatic pipeline to deportation through the criminal justice system. It would end deportation for people who have had contact with the criminal legal system. It would end the practices of local police engaging in immigration enforcement and the increased … policing of communities of color. It would decriminalize immigration.”

Garcia said “this is not a radical project.” But of course, the opposite is true. The bill is completely radical. It would transform America into a place you don’t recognize.

Many of the sponsors of this bill come from the fringes of the Democratic Party, as you would expect, but not all of them do. Consider Rep. Andy Levin. Levin represents the suburbs north of Detroit. Levin’s district leans blue, but it’s still essentially bipartisan. Voters there went for Hillary Clinton, for example, by just eight points.

So there’s no chance a majority of Andy Levin’s voters want to send plane tickets to armed robbers in Guatemala so they can move next door. And in fact, nobody wants that, no matter what they claim on Twitter.

Yet, Levin is trying to do that right now, and that’s what’s scary about this bill. It’s happening in the dark. No one is talking about it. Those who dismiss it say it is unlikely to become law – that it will never happen. That’s a mistake. Things change fast in modern America.

On issue after issue, from ending the Second Amendment to banning biological gender, to the open and aggressive racism of identity politics, yesterday’s extremism has become today’s Democratic Party platform. That’s how it works now.

Four years ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., mounted his first campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Vox.com pressed him on why he didn’t back open borders for the world.

Sanders responded by saying: “No, that’s a Koch brothers proposal, which says essentially, there is no United States. It would make everybody in America poorer.”

Of course, Sanders was entirely right, and for that crime, he was savaged by Vox and all the other angry children in wokedom. Resisting the abolition of the United States was – in their view – needless to say, proof that Sanders was a hardened bigot, a racist.

Four years later, Sanders has become obedient. His new platform contains all the usual open-borders rhetoric, ending all deportations, abolishing ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), giving a blanket amnesty to all illegal aliens in the country.

A New Hampshire voter recently asked Sanders why his views had changed so radically. The man who once called lax immigration enforcement a Koch brothers conspiracy, just four years ago, suddenly sounded very much like a Koch brother himself.

Sanders said: “We have 11 million undocumented here. Many of those workers, by the way, are being exploited right now. You know, Trump wants to throw everybody out of the country. If he threw out people out of the country, the price of food in this country would skyrocket. Who do you think is picking the crops and planting all over this country?”

Who’s picking the crops? Actually, machines are picking most of the crops in this country now and planting them, too. Bernie is almost 80 years old, and apparently nobody told him that, but either way, it is still shocking to hear that explanation from a self- described socialist.

So yes, workers are being exploited, but think what avocadoes would cost if citizens had to pick them. It’s nauseating.

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Now Sanders isn’t stupid. He has to know his party’s position on immigration hurts workers and the country, but he desperately wants to be president of the United States. So he goes along with it.

You’re seeing quite a bit of this, by the way. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is supposedly the most moderate man in politics, old Uncle Joe, now is pushing for illegal aliens to get off on drunk driving charges.

Biden, who is competing against Sanders and others for the Democratic presidential nomination this year, said: “You only arrest for the purpose of dealing with a felony that’s committed and I don’t count drunk driving as a felony.”

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The confused ravings of a fading old man? No, hardly. They all think that way now. If Democrats win the 2020 election, some version of the New Way Forward Act will likely become law.

Once again, keep this in mind. Things move fast in this country.

Adapted from Tucker Carlson’s monologue on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Feb. 7, 2020.

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Source: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-democrats-radical-immigration-legislation-would-help-foreign-criminals-move-to-us

The post Tucker Carlson: Democrats’ radical immigration legislation would help foreign criminals move to US first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.