Why DNC blew it in barring a Fox debate after New Yorker piece

Some of Fox News’ liberal rivals have been cheering the Democratic National Committee’s decision to exclude the network from the party’s primary debates.
In fact, Jane Mayer, author of the New Yorker article cited as the reason for the decision, posted a celebratory tweet:
“Boom! DNC Chair says Fox can't sponsor 2020 Dem Primary Debate.”
But a number of prominent journalists have sharply criticized the move by committee chairman Tom Perez.
NBC reporter Jonathan Allen: “There are plenty of quality journalists at Fox, some of whom have been excellent questioners at past presidential debates.”
Politico’s Jack Shafer: “The idea that the New Yorker story could have alerted Perez to some previously hidden right-wing, anti-Democratic Party tendencies at Fox is hilarious…Any politician who can’t hold his own against a journalist from the other team should be disqualified from running.”
New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman: “Whether it’s the case or not, it sends a message of being afraid of something. Which is what Trump feeds off in opponents.”
While Perez said Fox “is not in a position to hold a fair and neutral debate,” Fox Senior Vice President Bill Sammon said he hoped the DNC would reconsider, since its moderators—Bret Baier, Chris Wallace and Martha MacCallum—“embody the ultimate journalistic integrity and professionalism.”
DNC BARS FOX NEWS FROM HOSTING PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY DEBATES 
And that points up what was missing from the more than 11,000-word New Yorker story: an acknowledgement that Fox has a news division.
There were a couple of mentions of Wallace asking tough questions or Shepard Smith fact-checking the administration, but no exploration of the separation between the news side—anchors, reporters and editors—and the opinion side best known for prime-time hosts Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson.
It’s hardly breaking news that they and other commentators, such as the hosts of “Fox & Friends,” generally support President Trump—although several harshly criticized him for a temporary retreat on the border wall that preceded the 35-day government shutdown. Hannity, in particular, speaks regularly to the president, and drew criticism from me and many others for accepting Trump’s invitation to come on stage, and praising him, at a November rally.
Trump does watch an awful lot of Fox and is influenced by what some hosts and guests say, as his Twitter feed makes clear. A number of people who had roles at Fox, most notably former co-president Bill Shine, have joined the administration. (By the way, two dozen journalists, such as Time’s Jay Carney, went into the Obama administration.)
I don’t want to cast any aspersions on Mayer, who I’ve known for decades, but she is well known for taking on such conservative targets as Trump, Mike Pence, Brett Kavanaugh, and the Koch brothers (her latest book is about “the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right”). The New Yorker has run a series of covers mocking Trump, and its longtime editor, David Remnick, has called the president a “master demagogue” and “unceasing generator of toxic gas.”
Fox News has been controversial since Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, a former Republican operative, founded it in 1996. It is an even bigger target now, as the nation’s dominant cable news network, in the Trump era.
Let’s look at some of the article’s findings:
--While the New Yorker largely ignored the news division, except for the quick mentions of Chris Wallace and Shep Smith, Fox had provided the magazine with far more material.
MacCallum, for instance, drew widespread media praise for her grilling of Kavanaugh when she obtained the only interview with him during his Supreme Court nomination fight.
Fox news anchor Neil Cavuto has occasionally chastised Trump, saying last year: “You are right to say that some are out to get you. But oftentimes, Mr. President, the problem is you.”
Fox chief legal analyst Andrew Napolitano said Trump faces “at least four potential felonies” if Michael Cohen’s testimony is true.
The Mueller probe, the Cohen hearings and the hush-money investigation have all received ample coverage on Fox’s news shows.
What’s more, Baier complained on the air about not being able to secure an interview with Trump, and didn’t get one for nearly a year and a half until he traveled to Singapore. Wallace didn’t land a Trump sitdown for “Fox News Sunday” until last November.
--Baier and Megyn Kelly opened the first GOP debate in 2015 with tough questions aimed at Trump. The New Yorker says three unnamed sources “believe that Ailes informed the Trump campaign about Kelly’s question” in advance. Kelly has said she doesn’t believe that, and Ailes is deceased.
But a Fox executive who was with Ailes the next day said he was furious that he hadn’t been informed of the questions by the journalists doing the debate prep in Cleveland. Also left unmentioned: Trump then went to war with Fox and Kelly and boycotted the network’s next debate.
--The website decided against running a story by Diana Falzone, then a Foxnews.com entertainment reporter, about the alleged affair with Stormy Daniels and a proposed cash settlement. Despite quotes from the executive who then ran the website that the story wasn’t sufficiently corroborated—other outlets in pursuit also declined to publish—the New Yorker quotes an unnamed source as saying Falzone was told the reason was that Murdoch wanted Trump to win.
But the Wall Street Journal—also owned by Murdoch—published a story on Stormy Daniels and Trump days before the election.
--The New Yorker accurately recounts how Ailes was fired as chairman in 2016 after numerous allegations of sexual harassment, and that the ouster came quickly following an outside investigation. That remains an embarrassing episode in the network’s history. But there is only the briefest mention of his successor, Suzanne Scott, the only woman running a major network, and nothing on the workplace reforms she has instituted.
--The magazine quotes Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, who despises Trump, as saying she would never appear on Fox despite having done so in the past. There is no mention that she is an MSNBC contributor.
--Two Media Matters executives are quoted in the story. The liberal advocacy group has been openly crusading against Fox for years.
--The piece concludes that “Fox has a financial incentive to make Trump look good.” Even if that were true—the audience is not a monolith--one could just as easily argue that CNN and MSNBC (as well as the New York Times, as former executive editor Jill Abramson has said) have a financial incentive to make Trump look bad.
But there is no mention of the consistently anti-Trump tone on those two networks, whose opinion hosts have repeatedly assailed the president as unhinged, mentally deficient, racist, misogynist and dangerous; that is deemed normal.
Shouldn’t the DNC, by its own standard, consider those voices as well in weighing the fairness of network debates?
The president tweeted after the DNC excluded Fox that “I think I’ll do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats in the General Election debates!” That was not particularly helpful to Fox News at a time the network is being criticized for excessive coziness with Trump.
Perhaps this was inevitable, as Fox didn’t get a Democratic debate in 2016 either. But the record of Fox’s debate moderators, none of them in the opinion business, makes clear even to critics that any such event would be handled fairly.

Mark Steyn: Ocasio-Cortez 'strangely unwoke' on recycling plastic bags

Conservative commentator Mark Steyn called freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., "strangely unwoke" Thursday after she admitted in an interview that she threw away some of her plastic bags.
"Obviously in a certain sense this is a boutique issue.  We will be arguing about plastic bags at the time Kim Jong Un decides to drop the big one on Cleveland and we will look ridiculous," Steyn said on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." "What's oddly revealing about this is I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez comes across as strangely unwoke in this soundbite."
"I can be upset that I get 10 plastic bags at the grocery store and then have to toss out my plastic bags, because the recycling program in the area is tough. And that's okay," Ocasio-Cortez told Spectrum News NY1.  "All of these are not reasons to stop fighting, all of these are reasons to keep fighting."
Ocasio-Cortez's push for the Green New Deal, a much-debated resolution that addresses climate change and renewable energy among other issues, has opened up the congresswoman to scrutiny from the media and critics.
The New York Post reported earlier this week that Ocasio-Cortez elected to take a minivan back to her Queens office Sunday instead of the subway, which was less than four blocks away.
OCASIO-CORTEZ HIT WITH NEW ETHICS COMPLAINT OVER BOYFRIEND'S EMAIL ACCOUNT
"Living in the world as it is isn’t an argument against working towards a better future,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response to the Post's story.
Steyn criticized the congresswoman for not using reusable bags instead of taking the plastic ones.

"I can be upset that I get 10 plastic bags at the grocery store and then have to toss out my plastic bags, because the recycling program in the area is tough. And that's okay."
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

"They take out the NPR tote bag and they have all the groceries in it and they don't have to have the plastic bags," Steyn told Tucker Carlson. "There's no reason for this problem."
"She sounds weirdly 'unwoke,'" Steyn reiterated. "Where is Alexandria's Charlie Rose tote bag? That's what we want to know."

Omar retweets post blasting Meghan McCain for 'faux outrage' in response to Omar's remarks on Israel

Taste of your own medicine?

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was apparently unmoved Thursday by Meghan McCain's tearful remarks about her on "The View."
McCain had become emotional during the ABC talk show, discussing Omar's recent criticisms of Israel and its supporters. She said Omar's remarks were hurtful to many of her Jewish friends.
“It is very dangerous, very dangerous," McCain added, "and I think we collectively as Americans on both sides, what Ilhan Omar is saying is very scary to me. It’s very scary to a lot of people and I don’t think you have to be Jewish to recognize that.”
OMAR, ANTI-SEMITISM DEBATE IN THE HOUSE ENDS WITH A LAUNDRY LIST RESOLUTION -- WHAT A SHAME
But instead of responding directly to McCain, Omar retweeted a post that criticized McCain for "faux outrage" and referred to past statements attributed to McCain's late father, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who died last August at age 81.
“Meghan’s late father literally sang ‘bomb bomb bomb Iran’ and insisted on referring to his Vietnamese captors as ‘g--ks'," read the post by Medhi Hasan, an "Intercept" columnist and Al Jazeera host. "He also, lest we forget, gave the world Sarah Palin. So a little less faux outrage over a former-refugee-turned-freshman-representative pls.”
Omar's retweet was praised by many of her followers as a sign that the freshman congresswoman was "standing up to the establishment." But the retweet also attracted more negative attention to the Somali-born lawmaker, just hours after the U.S. House voted in favor of an anti-hate resolution that was initially inspired by the Minnesota Democrat.
Omar has resisted calls for her to apologize for blasting those who pledge “allegiance to a foreign country,” referring to Israel, in what has been decried as an anti-Semitic trope.
The Associated Press contributed to this report 

House Democrats Cartoons

Calif. demands more federal dollars for high-speed rail, refuses to pay back grants

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 1:10 PM PT — Wednesday, March 6, 2019

California is refusing to repay the federal grants it took for its failed high speed rail project, and is demanding more federal dollars to complete what critics are now calling “a train to nowhere.”
The head of California’s high speed rail authority — Brian Kelly — sent two letters to the Federal Railroad Administration this week. In the letters he denied the state violated its federal contract, which gave California $3.5 billion to build high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
Under the terms of the contract, California is required to repay the money if it does not complete the project by a certain deadline.
Earlier this year, Governor Gavin Newsom slammed the brakes on the project due to cost overruns. He also cut the route by more than half.
“The current project as planned would cost too much and respectfully take too long, and there’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency,” stated the California lawmaker.
Kelly said since the governor is not totally abandoning the project, the state is not in violation of its agreement. He blasted the Trump administration for halting an additional $930 million pledged for the project, calling the move illegal and wasteful.
However, President Trump disagrees and has demanded the state to repay $2.5 billion dollars.

Trump calls Apple CEO Tim Cook ‘Tim Apple’ at White House meeting, social media erupts

President Donald Trump talks to Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook during the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board's first meeting in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 6, 2019. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Trump suffered a slip of the tongue Wednesday when he called Apple CEO Tim Cook “Tim Apple” during a meeting at the White House.
Cook sat next to Trump during the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board meeting in the State Dining Room, where officials discussed the importance of technology in education. Trump praised the CEO for his “big investment” in the U.S., but when it came time to thank Cook by name, not even a conspicuously placed name tag could help.
“People like Tim, you’re expanding all over and doing things that I really wanted you to do right from the beginning. I used to say, ‘Tim, you gotta start doing it here,’ and you really have you’ve really put a big investment in our country. We really appreciate it very much, Tim Apple,” Trump said.
It didn’t take long for Trump’s flub to go viral on social media.
The president’s previous public name mix-ups included mistakenly calling Lockheed Martin's CEO Marillyn Hewson "Marillyn Lockheed," according to USA Today.

Investigative avalanche: Are House Democrats overplaying their hand?

Now that Hillary’s not getting in the race—she was never running, despite hints from her keep-hope-alive surrogates—the spotlight has fallen squarely on the House Democrats.
And at the moment they’re defining themselves as the party of investigation.
They have other problems, to be sure, from allowing their most left-wing members to give them a socialist image to struggling with a resolution condemning anti-Semitism after slurs by one of their freshmen.
But what will dominate the headlines in the coming weeks and months is their wide-ranging demands for information from 81 Trump World targets. These include current and former administration officials, family members, and people in his private businesses and foundations.
This kitchen-sink approach, in my view, is a tactical error by the Democrats that plays into President Trump’s hands.
Had Jerry Nadler, the House Judiciary chairman who ordered the requests, spaced them out over a period of time, it wouldn’t have looked like he wanted to spend the next two years tying the president in legal knots—at least not for awhile.
Instead, he’s given the president a fat target to charge that he and other committee heads “have gone stone cold CRAZY. 81 letter[s] sent to innocent people to harass them.”
Trump said the blizzard of requests were “a disgrace to our country,” and his son Eric Trump said “we’re going to fight the hell out of it” in an interview with Fox News radio. “And we’ll fight where we need and we’ll cooperate where we need, but the desperation shows.”
I’ve been covering these battles since the Reagan administration. Congress demands documents or testimony, usually from an administration controlled by the other party, and the White House delays, refuses or invokes executive privilege.
Then the Hill has to decide whether to pass a contempt-of-Congress citation and ask a court to enforce it.
Congressional Republicans demanded tens of thousands of pages from the Obama administration, got cooperation on some of the requests and resistance on others. And how many hearings did the GOP Congress hold on Benghazi?
But the road map is clear. Trump will resist many of the requests, claim presidential harassment, and force House Democrats to take the next step—especially on his tax returns. The battles will stretch on endlessly and most people will tune out, writing the whole thing off as politics as usual.
Putting the hypocrisy aside, Congress has a responsibility to conduct oversight of the executive branch. But if the House Democrats overreach, and don’t pass any bipartisan legislation (assuming the Republicans would play ball), it becomes easier for Trump to paint them as overzealous partisans.
Here’s a look at how two of the major papers handled the initial announcement.
The New York Times said the “flurry of demands…detailed the breadth and ambition of a new investigation into possible obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power by President Trump and his administration.”
The paper said Nadler had “opened perhaps the most perilous front to date for Mr. Trump — an inquiry that takes aim at the heart of his norm-bending presidency and could conceivably form the basis of a future impeachment proceeding.”
It was not until the 15th paragraph that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was quoted as calling the probe a “disgraceful and abusive…fishing expedition.”
The Washington Post said the “far-reaching” request “cast a spotlight on the ambitious strategy of the committee with the authority to impeach a president.”
The request was “broad” rather than “targeted,” and “the extensive scope could bolster claims by Trump and Republicans that congressional Democrats are seeking to undermine the president and cripple his 2020 reelection effort rather than conduct a disciplined, fact-finding inquiry.”
As part of the more balanced piece, Sanders was quoted in the sixth paragraph.
With Bob Mueller’s probe all but finished, the Democrats want to keep the investigative machinery humming. But are they likely to find more than Mueller, who has far greater resources?
It’s a long-range battle that may play out in all three branches, but ultimately will be decided in the court of public opinion.

Rank-and-file Dems revolt against Pelosi over resolution to condemn anti-Semitism

This is what the Democrats have elected to the American Government.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is "taken aback" by the growing dissent and anger among rank-and-file Democrats over a possible resolution to formally condemn anti-Semitism, a Democratic source told Fox News on Wednesday -- highlighting Pelosi's tenuous grip on control over the House and underscoring the growing power of the party's nascent far-left progressive wing.
Pelosi even reportedly walked out of a meeting Wednesday with Democrat House members, setting down her microphone and telling attendees, “Well if you're not going to listen to me, I’m done talking."
The stalled resolution originated after freshman Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, for at least the second time in recent months, ignited an uproar for echoing tropes critics have deemed anti-Semitic. In February, she suggested on Twitter that supporters of Israel have been bought. The congresswoman then accused American supporters of Israel of pushing people to have “allegiance to a foreign country.”
Omar -- who also tweeted in 2012 that "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel" -- refused to address questions on Wednesday about accusations that she’s anti-Semitic.
Meanwhile, debate over how to address her latest remarks has overtaken House Democrats in recent days.
A frustrated senior House Democratic aide told Fox News on Tuesday: "Here we are again, fighting with ourselves. I've spent another week dealing with this and not on policy."
ON THE STREETS IN OMAR'S DISTRICT: SOMALI GANGS, LITTLE COMMUNICATING WITH COPS
A vote on the resolution, which was originally planned for earlier this week, did not appear on the House's official docket for Thursday.
President Trump, turning to Twitter on Wednesday, highlighted Democrats' troubles getting the resolution passed. He wrote that their failure to "take a stronger stand" against anti-Semitism was "shameful."
Fox News has been told that the Democratic caucus is trying to get the language of the proposed anti-Semitism language “right," and that there is concern about mentioning Omar by name -- a non-starter for many members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Two knowledgable sources said such a scenario could increase security threats against Omar, who is a Muslim.
Republicans did not specifically name Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, in a bipartisan disapproval measure that followed comments that seemingly defended white nationalism earlier this year. But GOP leaders stripped King of his committee assignments as punishment -- while Omar remains on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Democrats say they have no plans to oust her.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., departs after talking with reporters during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill on Feb. 7. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

By the same token, Fox is told Democrats are also concerned about making “a martyr” out of Omar if they don’t address some of her controversial comments.

"I've spent another week dealing with this and not on policy."
— Frustrated House Democratic aide

Pelosi, for her part, was stunned by criticism among some Democratic members who complained they weren’t informed in detail about the resolution; freshman Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., for example, asserted the Democratic leadership team failed in its duty to inform members about the resolution's details.
But senior leadership sources scofffed at that assertion, saying Pelosi spoke with multiple lawmakers all weekend long about the measure.
Fox News was also told one senior House Democratic lawmaker expressed concern about the influence pro-Israel interest groups have over the Democratic caucus, prompting debate about a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism in the first place. Their complaints came in contrast to the push by a trio of Jewish lawmakers who have pushed hardest for the resolution: House Ethics Committee Chairman Ted Deutch, D-Fla., House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.
One senior House Democrat even suggested the rift in the caucus was emblematic of age-old tensions between Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
“He’s more AIPAC,” said the Democrat. “She’s more J Street. The caucus is more J Street these days.” That’s a reference to two major, pro-Israel lobbying organizations in Washington.
The apparent tension comes as freshman Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib -- who herself has been accused of recent anti-Semitic comments -- also clashed with party leadership on Wednesday, after joining protesters to say she'd introduce a resolution this month urging the Judiciary Committee to move forward with impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Pelosi has consistently resisted calls to impeach Trump, saying such an effort would be premature.
A senior House Democratic leadership aide, however, disputed the divide between Pelosi and Hoyer.
Lawmakers are also buzzing about if they should even address the comments by Omar at all. There’s a concern about precedent.
“Should the House condemn [House Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., for what he said about George Soros?” asked one lawmaker who requested to not be identified. In 2018, McCarthy tweeted: “We cannot allow Soros, Steyer and Bloomberg to BUY this election! Get out and vote Republican November 6th. #MAGA." (Soros, Steyer and Bloomberg all are of Jewish heritage.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib joined protesters with CREDO Action and By the People, a new advocacy group pushing for the impeachment of President Trump. Together they urged members of Congress to begin impeachment proceedings. (Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib)

McCarthy has since deleted the tweet.
One source questioned if House Democrats ever attempted to rebuke former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., who was known for questioning if President George W. Bush knew of the 9/11 attacks ahead of time. She also questioned U.S. support for Israel and demanded a more balanced approach when dealing with the Palestinians.
The prolonged delay in passing an anti-Semitism resolution -- which threatens to become a public-relations headache for Democrats with each passing day -- spilled over into the 2020 presidential race as well on Wednesday, as White House contender Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, defended Omar in a statement.
“Anti-Semitism is a hateful and dangerous ideology which must be vigorously opposed in the United States and around the world," Sanders wrote. "We must not, however, equate anti-Semitism with legitimate criticism of the right-wing, Netanyahu government in Israel. Rather, we must develop an even-handed Middle East policy which brings Israelis and Palestinians together for a lasting peace. What I fear is going on in the House now is an effort to target Congresswoman Omar as a way of stifling that debate. That's wrong.”
Added Elizabeth Warren: "Branding criticism of Israel as automatically anti-Semitic has had a chilling effect on our public discourse and makes it harder to achieve a peaceful solution between Israelis and Palestinians."
Fox News' Chad Pergram and Alex Pappas contributed to this report.