Don's Tuesday Column

               THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   9/23/2019

      Undermining court; Biden, Ukraine

Last week’s column concluded: “The New York Times broke an incredible story about then-college freshman Bret Kavanaugh exposing himself at a party. In ‘The New York Times Anti-Kavanaugh Bombshell Is Actually a Dud,’ by John McCormack, we read that—much like accusers that smeared Kavanaugh at his Supreme Court hearing—she doesn’t even remember the incident cited by former Hillary lawyer, Max Stier. The Times and the networks left out what you just read…”

That was a “hot take,” a quick reaction to a breaking story. I have generally waited a week for charges, counter-charges and “the rest of the story.” However, after 3 years of watching the news cycles and patterns of Trump-related coverage—and how conservative, Trump-friendly reporting has discovered what the news media leaves out—the new accusations were quickly debunked.

“The so-called “Big Three” TV networks predictably jumped on new allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh in recent days but conveniently left out a key detail that all but ruined the already-flimsy claim.” (Steve Jordahl, OneNewsNow.com, “Big Three jump on Kavanaugh claims, ignore correction”) Jordahl used a Media Research Center tally of the time devoted to the “new allegations,” quoted by a Hillary Clinton lawyer and Kavanaugh classmate. After devoting a combined 32 minutes to the “accusations,” ABC, CBS and NBC simply dropped the story without providing viewers the fact that the woman supposedly victimized was on the record stating she had no recollection of the incident.

It’s another media rush to accuse and judge while slowly, if at all, reporting the refutation of the charges, much like the Kavanaugh hearings. Christine Blasey Ford’s friend, Leland Keyser, told the authors of the new book and the Times piece that she doubts that the original bombshell accusation by Ford against Kavanaugh ever happened. That got a total of 36 seconds of coverage. Even less for her statements that she was threatened to keep quiet during the hearings or face revenge for “helping Kavanaugh.”

The bigger, uglier reality is that the left in general, and Democrats in Congress, don’t care if there’s nothing to outrageous accusations, even disproved ones. If it helps them frame Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh into a narrative that allows them and their media allies to delegitimize unfavorable court decisions, they can put an asterisk next to those decisions. That’s the logical modus of partisans so radicalized that judicial rulings, just like legitimate laws or valid, legal elections—that undermine the progressive agenda—cannot be accepted, and must be slimed and resisted.

I watched network reporting on the kerfuffle/impeachment-fodder where a so-called “whistleblower” claims President Trump pressured the new Ukrainian leader, Zelensky, to reopen the Biden investigation. I didn’t need to wait a week to see how it all sorted out. My “hot take,” rapidly proving true, is that the “whistleblower” was no such thing, but rather just another “deep state,” Obama holdover in the permanent Democrat base of federal employees, who never overheard the phone call. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Prystaiko: there was no pressure from Trump (Reuters).

He or she knows that things can be made up—the more corrupt and dastardly the better for media and Congressional consumption—and sent up the scandal-mongering chain to an “Inspector General,” even if the law doesn’t cover the President. Since there was an actual phone call with a foreign head of state, heretofore considered confidential—that no one in the media/political Trump-deranged world will have heard—no one but Trump (and F.M. Prystaiko) can refute the charge.

It will be added to the smoke of perfidy, while partisan media/political “resisters” work together to add yet another piece of rotten wood to a “defeat Trump 2020” fire. For their purposes, it’s the seriousness of the accusations that count, not the facts. The truth of Biden’s Ukrainian dealings needs airing.

Candidate Joe Biden blithely makes a blanket denial: he “never” discussed his son’s foreign business dealings (which include both Chinese and Ukrainian sources of Hunter Biden’s wealth). The Washington Post’s fact-checker Glenn Kessler rated that a flat-out lie.

From The New Yorker, 2 months ago: As Hunter recalled, his father discussed Burisma (the Ukraine energy company employing Hunter) with him just once: “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’” What qualifications did Hunter have for his reported $50,000 per month salary as a board member, with a total compensation approaching $3 million. That’s easy—none.

Then-V.P. Biden, with President Barack Obama’s approval, threatened to yank a billion-dollar loan guarantee from Ukraine if they didn’t fire a federal prosecutor looking into, among other things, corruption in Burisma involving Biden’s son, Hunter.

Here are Joe Biden’s own words from a Council on Foreign Relations appearance, January, 2018: “Well I…I…it just happened to be that was the assignment I got…and so I got Ukraine and uh I remember going over convincing our team (undecipherable) that we should be providing loan guarantees. Now I went over I guess the 12^th or 13^th time to Kiev and uh I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee and I’d gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor and they didn’t. So…they’re walking out to a press conference (and) I said nah we’re not gonna give you the billion dollars.

“They said you have no authority, you’re not the president, the president said…I said ‘call him,’ I said I’m tellin’ you you’re not gettin’ the billion dollars; I said you’re not gettin’ it and I’m leaving here I think it was six hours and if the prosecutor’s not fired you’re not gettin’ the money. Well, son-of-a-(bleep), he got fired.” Translation: On Obama’s authority, you stop the investigation of my son, Hunter, or kiss a billion dollars good bye.