Fake News running editorials saying they're not fake news

This is the week of collusion. The week when newspapers across the country band together to write scathing editorials about President Trump while acting as though they’re not colluding to bring his presidency down. This is all done under the “fake news” banner that Trump is attacking them and, by extension, the First Amendment. It’s an ironic confirmation that his accusation of fake news is actually true.

Let’s peel away the layers of this feigned outrage. The president says the fake news media are the “enemies of the people.” The outlets printing and broadcasting fake news about him know exactly who they are. And they know they’re doing exactly what he’s accusing them of, yet they pretend that he’s talking about all journalists. He’s not. Obviously. If that were the case he wouldn’t go out of his way to call on Fox News and ignore CNN, which clearly has an agenda to ruin his presidency.

I’ve often said that media bias isn’t so much what they tell you, it’s what they don’t. Many outlets will tell you only part of the story, leaving out the part that paints the real picture. The fake news outlets do this all the time. How many news outlets have reported that black and Hispanic unemployment are at record lows? How many ever reported that Antifa is a violent and historically marxist organization instead of one that’s just fighting white supremacy? Things look different when you know the whole story.

Then there are the stories that are just plain made up. Like the one from Roll Call’s senior political reporter, Emily Singer. She took to Twitter with a “scoop” that she’d found red-headed Russian spy Maria Butina in an Oval Office photo with Trump. Turned out it was an NSC staffer. That fire didn’t get put out until half the media had breathlessly reported evidence of Russian collusion right there in the White House.

How about Brian Ross from ABC News? He reported that Michael Flynn had been instructed during the campaign to negotiate with the Russians. Turned out the instruction came after Trump was elected president, when presidents-elect normally begin negotiations with foreign powers.

And the little girl from Honduras who became the face of family separation at the border. Turns out the mother and daughter were never separated and were being held in a family detention center in Texas. The mom had broken into the country at least once before.

Who can forget the photo of the little boy whose crying face inside a cage went viral. That picture is still being posted by the open borders crowd. In reality, the photo was taken at a protest on a plaza in Dallas. The little boy ran inside the cage to find his brother. He looked up and saw his mother outside the cage and got scared. That’s when the photo was snapped. That’s the source of the “Trump’s putting kids in cages” narrative, and it’s completely fake.

Shall I go on? I think you get the point. Too many so-called journalists are hiding behind the First Amendment in order to spread something that doesn’t even resemble journalism. It’s propaganda.

If you ever get a chance to ask a journalist why they got into the profession and they say it was to change the world then you know you’re talking to a provocateur of fake news. A journalist’s job is not to change the world. It’s to report the world. If they’re out to change it then they’re adding their own opinions. And that is the very definition of fake news.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The real story of Trump and Putin in Helsinki

The news media went hysterical over President Trump’s comments at a press conference in Helsinki after meeting with Russian President Putin. It’s instructive to first examine what it is the president actually said.

What got the media stirred was this answer to a question about Russian meddling in the election. Trump said, “All I can do is ask the question—my people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it would be but I really want to see the server but, I have confidence in both parties.”

The Trump haters seized on that line of “both parties” and spun it that Trump was trashing our intelligence services. Keep in mind this is while Congress is investigating the possibility that several FBI agents were involved in a plot to first block his election to the presidency and then bring him down once he won. It’s important at this point to break the issue of Russian interference down into two distinct categories.

First, there’s no doubt that the Russians have been buying ads on platforms like Facebook to sow discontent in the country. What is not widely reported is they bought ads both pro-Trump and anti-Trump. They bought ads both pro-Hillary and anti-Hillary. They play both sides of the Black Lives Matters issue as well as Texas and California secession movements. In other words, the Russians take the opportunity to drive the wedge deeper on any issue that divides us. Why? Nobody really has a good answer. There could be a geopolitical strategy to topple us as the world’s superpower. It could be as simple as Putin’s hatred for America. Whatever it is, they’re certainly active on every side of the issues.

In the indictment of the twelve Russians unsealed recently by Robert Mueller’s team they contend that the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency set up shop to interfere with the U.S. presidential election in the spring of 2014. That was over a year before Donald Trump jumped into the race. It is inconceivable that such an operation was devised to get Trump elected president.

But it’s the second part of this equation that Trump is questioning. The part about the Russians hacking the DNC servers, or as the left-wing media like to say it, “hacking the election.” There’s no evidence at all that the Russians or anybody else “hacked the election.” Whatever the Russians did had no bearing on the outcome of the election. That’s one of the reasons why Trump is so defensive. The left is trying to convince the American people that his presidency is illegitimate because the Russians got him elected. That is utter bovine scatology. 

The real issue is the DNC server itself. This is the point Trump was making when he said, “I really want to see the server.” Something most Americans don’t even know is the FBI has never examined the DNC server that was supposedly hacked. How incredible is that? The whole investigation hinges on testimony from a company, CrowdStrike, hired by the DNC to say the server was hacked. Until our intelligence agencies have actually examined the server themselves how on Earth can they definitely say who hacked it, or if it was hacked at all?

That is the point Trump was making in Helsinki, and the left-wing media chose to ignore the real story in favor of flogging the dead mule of Trump-Russia collusion.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Mr. Trump, beware the Mueller trap

The news media are abuzz with speculation as to who leaked the questions Robert Mueller is going to ask President Trump, if he ever gets the chance. At least one CNN legal analyst thinks Trump is the source of the leak. Michael Zeldin points to improper grammar as the smoking gun. He didn’t elaborate.

The general consensus is these questions were compiled by Trump’s lawyers during negotiations with Mueller’s people over a Trump interview. Then who leaked them? It’s difficult to tell. The bigger question is who stands to gain anything by the leak? The media say Trump does. I’m not so sure. He tweeted there were no questions about collusion, but at least one question asks what he knew about Paul Manafort reaching out to Russia. Another question refers to “any meeting with Mr. Putin.” Another asks what Trump may know about Jared Kushner trying to set up a back channel to Russia.

None of this would’ve been illegal nor improper. Trump was already elected president and setting up communications with Putin and/or Russia would be no more extraordinary than setting up communications with any other country. It’s just that Russia has been so vilified since the “witch hunt” began.

Remember when Hillary was hitting that reset button? There was nothing at all sinister about dealing with Russia then. It was only after the DNC claimed they were hacked by the Russians that anything Russian became suspect. By the way, we still have never seen the DNC servers to determine if they were hacked by the Russians or anyone else. The irony is the lawsuit filed by the DNC against Trump, Russia, and others may force the DNC to produce those servers. We may yet learn definitively that no hacking occurred.

But back to the leaked questions. If these really are questions Mueller wants to ask Trump then it’s troubling for the Trump legal team. Mueller isn’t going to ask any question he doesn’t already know the answer to. That means he has proof of the answer, either by wiretaps or other witnesses. If President Trump slips up on one tiny detail he could be facing a perjury charge, which is most definitely an impeachable offense. It’s what Bill Clinton was impeached over. He wasn’t convicted, of course, but this is a far different climate. There are plenty of Republican Never-Trumpers in the Senate who would jump at the chance to take this man down.

Then there are the people who claim Trump will be compelled to talk if he doesn’t agree to meet with Mueller. I would assume the same laws against forced self-incrimination apply to a deposition as they would in a court of law. That’s probably why Mueller and his team keep insisting that Trump isn’t the target of any criminal investigation. If you’re not the target then it’s more difficult to argue the self-incrimination angle. 

Whether they’re openly targeting Trump, make no mistake, he’s the ultimate goal. Manafort, Flynn, Papadopoulos, et al. are small fish. If that’s all Mueller has at the end of the day then this whole investigation was for naught. And knowing that Mueller already knows the answers to all the questions put to Trump only solidifies the fact that he is, in fact, the target. When you’re the target you don’t talk to the people targeting you.

President Trump is so eager to clear his name it’s almost a given that he’ll sit down with Mueller and his people at some point. He’ll be walking into a minefield. He has to be very careful where he steps.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

What to do about Mueller

How’s this for a theory? Robert Mueller is setting himself up as a kamikaze. He has nothing on Trump and is going to antagonize him until he fires him. Then the Democrats and the Never-Trumpers in Congress can cry “obstruction of justice” and they impeach and convict him.

Sound crazy?

The folks on MSNBC are already salivating over the dream scenario of Trump defying a Mueller subpoena to be interviewed and wondering out loud what happens when the U.S. Marshals show up at the White House gate.

In other words, there are plenty of folks in this country who would welcome even a constitutional crisis if it meant getting rid of Donald Trump. They hate him that bad. Let me tell you just how bad they hate him. They hate him so bad that they would rather have a conservative evangelical who opposes abortion and gay marriage in the Oval Office instead. For the left, that’s deep hatred.

Why?

There are myriad reasons, but his personality is the primary driver. He’s egotistical. He’s bombastic. He’s unapologetic. All of these traits play well in the celebrity world, but when you couple them with common sense conservative policy they become intolerable.

Donald Trump is no rock-rib conservative. What he is is a practitioner of common sense. That tends to lend itself to conservatism. You see an invasion of illegal aliens and you want to build a wall to stop it. Common sense. You see businesses being driven out of the country so you propose cutting taxes to bring them back. Common sense. The fact that he was for gay marriage before either Hillary or Obama is inconsequential. It’s these other issues that make him dangerous to the left.

They’ve been constantly disappointed for the last 18 months. First it was the shocking loss by Hillary Clinton. Then they pinned their hopes on a recount. Didn’t happen. Then it was the Electoral College not seating him. Didn’t happen. All they have left is impeachment. Robert Mueller was supposed to be the conduit through which all their dreams flowed, but after a year of fishing expeditions he’s got nothing.

Their only hope now is that Trump gets mad enough to fire Mueller. He has every reason to. By most accounts, he has the authority to. That doesn’t mean he has to. He would be much better served to ignore Mueller, but I’m sure that’s nearly impossible. Eventually one would think he’d blow. That might be underestimating Donald Trump.

So many people think he’s a loose canon, a guy who flies by the seat of his pants (or any other cliché you can think of). I happen to believe that every tweet, every off-the-cuff remark, every flaming response to an attack is carefully planned. One need only go back to his Twitter feed to see that much of what was lampooned in the press has come to fruition. Anybody forget his “Trump tower has been wiretapped” tweet? Me either. After months of ridicule, it turns out he was exactly right. And what must be extremely frustrating is there’s no special counsel looking into who was responsible. But they’re raiding Trump’s lawyer’s office looking for Stormy Daniels dirt.

It’s like People Magazine is calling the shots.

I think it’s safe to say there was never any Trump-Russia collusion. Despite the lack of evidence the anti-Trump forces want him out at an any cost. They’ve carefully set the perjury trap. They’ve even enticed him with the juicy lure of Robert Mueller’s head.

I just hope he doesn’t take the bait.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Face it, there was no collusion

The House Intelligence Committee has concluded its investigation into Trump/Russia collusion during the 2016. They found there was none. They concluded that the Russians did try to meddle with the election process through propaganda ads and disinformation campaigns, but the 14-month long probe found no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

All it turned out to be was an extension of Hillary’s book tour of What Happened in which she tries to relive 2016 as if doing so will change the outcome. She was recently on a book tour in India where she stumbled down some stairs and essentially had to be carried to the bottom, emblematic of her whole campaign.

Reuters reported the Intel committee’s decision in frustration, citing the fact that the Mueller investigation seems to be heating up. They point to Paul Manafort pleading guilty as evidence. Manafort pled guilty to charges totally unrelated to not only Trump but to Russia. They also pinned their hopes on a grand jury questioning former Trump aide Sam Nunberg. Nunberg made the now-famous drunken round on the cable news shows climaxing when CNN’s Erin Burnett said she smelled alcohol on his breath. He seemed to have a permanent seat in CNN’s green room because he held bitter animosity toward the president. Despite his hatred of the man, once Nunberg sobered up he admitted after being questioned by the grand jury that, “I don’t believe it leads to the president.”

Oh, well.

Congressman Adam Schiff and other Democrats wanted to keep the investigation going even though there’s no evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians. Schiff said there were all sorts of questions left unanswered regarding such things as Russian money laundering. I’m sure there are, but none of this has anything to do with the fundamental issue the Democrats were pressing. They insisted Donald Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians to steal the election. There’s just not a shred of evidence to back that up.

If they want to further investigate that Russia tried to involve themselves in our election process then they better be prepared for an endless investigation. The Russians aren’t the only ones. The Chinese routinely do exactly what the Russians have done and worse. And while we’re at it we may as well investigate how the United States tries to influence elections abroad. Anybody remember Obama’s efforts to defeat Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel?

If you want to talk about evidence of collusion then let’s look into Hillary and the Uranium One deal. Christopher Steele, the author of the now-infamous Trump dossier, admitted he was on a mission to keep Trump from getting elected president and we know he colluded with the Russians to spread lies about Trump before the election. Hillary also paid him for this smear campaign which is against the law. Does Adam Schiff want to go there? Not on your life.

Trump got his tax cuts and now Americans are seeing more money in their paychecks. Companies are hiring and giving bonuses. Jobless claims in the U.S. are at a 50-year low. Black and Hispanic unemployment are at all-time lows. The economy is going like gangbusters. The stock market keeps hitting all-time highs. The left-wing media keep trying to tell us it has nothing to do with Trump but we instinctively know better.

That’s why the Democrats are desperately clinging to Russian collusion. November is their last hope. If they don’t seize control of Congress then it may never happen again. It’s all they have. This I can tell you.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The real story of Fusion GPS is beginning to emerge

I’ve never bought this notion that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. To me, the story carries about as much weight as the Trump dossier. As we dig deeper into this bizarre story, we find the two are indubitably intertwined. 

The now-debunked dossier accuses Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev of hacking into the DNC computers. Gubarev is suing BuzzFeed News for publishing the dossier. In such a lawsuit, the defense is allowed to provide documentation to defend itself. Surely Gubarev wouldn’t be suing if the civil lawsuit risked exposing him to criminal charges.

Fusion GPS, the company Hillary Clinton hired to compile the dossier, is suing to try and stop a subpoena from Gubarev’s lawyers seeking everything they have related to the dossier. Think about this for a moment. If the dossier were really legit there’s no way Fusion would be suing to stop documentation that would confirm its legitimacy. Quite the contrary. They would be providing all the evidence they have to the press to make their case against Trump.

The most powerful argument against the veracity of the Russian hacking story is the fact that no U.S. intelligence agency has ever inspected the DNC servers. Is that not incredible? James Comey said they were taking the word of a company called CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike is company that protects clients from data breaches. The mission statement on their website states, “We don’t have a mission statement—we are on a mission to protect our customers from breaches.” Their most high-profile client was the DNC. It’s unlikely they would be bragging that their only mission is to stop data breaches when they couldn’t stop the data breach at the DNC. In fact, it’s unlikely they would still be in business if that were really the case.

I believe the whole Russia hacking story was a cover-up for the real story that this was an inside job from a disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporter. The fact that the dossier that supposedly uncovered the Russian breach has now been largely discredited adds credence to that theory. In fact, there’s no evidence at all that the Russians hacked the DNC other than what we’re being told by CrowdStrike, a company founded and run by Hillary supporters.

What’s even scarier is the FBI may have used the Trump dossier to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page, a man described as a Trump advisor. If the dossier is what FBI agent Peter Strzok described as an “insurance policy” in case Trump got elected president, we have a disturbing conspiracy that goes way beyond campaign dirty tricks.

And if the Russians didn’t really hack into the DNC servers is there even a Trump/Russian collusion story to investigate? No. The breached servers is the pretense used by the FBI and now the Mueller team to investigate Russian collusion. Otherwise, they have nothing. That means that the entire affair is predicated on information taken from a piece of paid-for campaign propaganda from Hillary Clinton that is demonstrably false.

Strzok was the point man on the Trump dossier at the FBI. He was also the guy who facilitated Hillary being let off the hook for the illegal computer server scandal. And he was the man who entrapped Michael Flynn. He’s also a fierce political partisan who had such animus against Donald Trump that he just might do anything to bring him down. And he conveniently found himself in a position on the Mueller team to do just that. But only if we take the basic premise of hacking as fact. Which we can’t.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.