Besides the Tory conference, there are two current topics of interest to this blog. One is the Christine Blasey Ford / Brett Kavanaugh affair.
There is so much material online about the credibility of both individuals concerned that it's hard for anyone, especially me, to add anything helpful. So I'll just ramble a bit.
I immediately took a dislike to he good Doctor Ford when I first heard her testify in that scratchy, vocal-fry, so-called “valley girl” voice. The more times you hear it the more farcical it sounds. Can that really be her voice? Is she having us on? Can she be a college lecturer with that voice?
Vocal fry aside, how much credibility could there be in the utterances of a 50-year-old woman pretending to be a baby? Numerous analyses of her body language, her alleged psychological problems and the supposed lies and holes in her testimony are available online. It’s easy to forget that she wasn’t raped.
But on the other hand, various statements are appearing all over the www - from former class-mates and uni-buddies of the good judge, accusing him of all sorts of drunkenness and debauchery and falling over each other to cast the first stone.
From the unique vantage point of an ignorant keyboard warrior, I’m inclined to dismiss the whole thing as ‘plague on both their houses’ until further notice, or unless something relevant comes up.
I guess it all boils down to who you prefer to back? Trump, or everyone else.. Here’s an interesting take on Trump by Theodore Dalrymple, which I present for your consideration.
As for the aptly named. senator Flake, oy vey.
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The other topic is the Tommy Robinson / Jason Farrell debacle. I’ve seen numerous bits and pieces about that online, too. There’s the video, filmed “on the way to the interview’ where TR correctly predicts an imminent stitch-up. I think it’s available on one of Biased-BBC’s open threads. He knows what they’re likely to get up to, and true to form, they do.
Sky’s malicious edit must be potentially litigious (suitable to become the subject of a lawsuit). Jason Farrell and whoever colluded with him in manipulating the footage must be properly reprimanded, surely.
I saw yet another video, recorded some time ago by his cousin Kevin I think, also involving Sky News, in which another manipulative interviewer tries to trick TR into taking responsibility for Darren Osbourne’s crime. Sky’s general idea is that TR’s warnings about the dangers (associated with Islam) are more inflammatory than the dangers themselves. (systematic sexual grooming, terrorism, etc) The premise is that if everyone agrees to keep quiet, the nasty things will go away.
There’s an online article, penned by Jason Farrell, promoting his interview here. It may or may not have been amended in response to Tommy Robinson’s exposé, which ‘went viral’.
Incidentally, Gabriel Gatehouse seemed to think it was a good interview. Will he back-track now the trickery has been revealed, I wonder?
The article even uses the misreported quote as a headline:
’Tommy Robinson: I don't care if I incite fear of Muslims’
We now know that he didn’t say that at all. The article looks like a “how-to” lesson in biased reporting. The strapline includes the obligatory label: “The far-right activist‘ The rest of the copy sets off with a whopper; in bold.
Tommy Robinson has told Sky News he does not care whether his message "incites fear" of Muslims as long as it "prevents children from getting raped”.
Not “his message”, though, eh? The message in question occurred within a public information / educational film - intended as a warning to potential victims. In Holland.
Another label follows: “The English Defence League founder‘ and, for the third time, the misquote reappears, with “I” suddenly amended to “it”.
Challenged over whether he (!) was attempting to demonise the Muslim community, he said: (referring to the Dutch educational film) ”To be honest with you, I don't care if it incites fear as long as it educates the children and prevents them from being raped.”
Rob Burley didn’t do himself any favours with his unpleasantly snobbish sneer at the very idea that the BBC would be ‘interested’ in anything Tommy Robinson might have to say, as noted by Craig here.
I wonder if the BBC will be equally uninterested when and if the TR team succeed in prosecuting Sky for their malicious conduct.
Practice and ethics of the press? Leveson inquiry all forgotten already?
Isn't it time that the BBC's Anthony Zurcher was called out for his leftist propagnda? Shouldn't this latest piece by him be protested the Al Beeb? I have noticed that the BBC is getting ever more bold in its overt leftist propaganda, emulating the atrocious record of Australia's ABC.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45722404
Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America correspondent
The president has come to the defence of young (presumably white, presumably privileged) men, innocent or guilty, who suddenly find their reputations and livelihood threatened a year after the #MeToo whirlwind first swept on to the scene.
In a nation where young black men are incarcerated at a rate five times those of their white counterparts, the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" in criminal proceedings may ring hollow. For the rest of the nation, however - particularly the wealthy and well-connected - it has been central to the American concept of justice and due process.
Those guarantees are proving to be scant protection now, however, when it's the court of public opinion, the court of the mass media, the court of American culture at large that are rendering their verdicts....
Those are vile presumptions by Zurcher and in what way does it relate to the incarceration rate of young black men?
DeleteHis 'analysis' certainly reads as 'At last we have got rid of white men's justice and replaced it by the lynch mob!'
"Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Zurcher, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!" [Adapted from 'A Man For All Seasons]
Appalling bias from Zurcher - extremely dangerous bias. He fails to mention that the incarceration of young black men really rocketed under the Clinton administration - as part of his strategy to cling to office. Trump is creating jobs for young black men - that will do more to keep them out of prison than anything SJW nutjob Zurcher preaches about.
DeleteSorry for the typos - I meant "to Al Beeb". Just stewing with anger! Read the entire report to appreciate how Zurcher has twisted things.
ReplyDeleteIt was always on the cards. People keep comparing current times to '1984', but it's more that we have entered The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe.
ReplyDeleteThere's no resistance other than between the ears, in discussions on tiny blogs (for the time being), and with like minded spouses, one of which I keep in the cubboard.
So, strike up the loudest band in the history of the universe, sit back with a Pangalactic Gargleblaster and watch the stars explode.
We will be carried where it ends up. No-one is in charge.
I started off as a Trump sceptic. I read his character and personality much as Dalrymple did...but he has certainly earned my respect since he became President.
ReplyDeleteSince his campaign began, we have learnt a huge amount about the globalist elite and their left-liberal allies in the political sphere: there is really nothing they won't do to interfere with the democratic process. Foul becomes fair. Wrong becomes right. Traditional policies orientated to family, marriage, nation, border security, law and free speech are now labelled "fascist".
So, although I would much rather politics was conducted at a lower temperature, I can see why Trump doubles down all the time - it really is the only way to deal with the people he is up against, the entrenched elites who control the media, academia, the civil service and much of the political machine.
If you don't take the Trump line, if instead you follow the McCain path, what do you end up with? Simply a milk pudding version of soggy leftism. In order to be allowed to keep or attain power by the elites you have to adopt their policies: global free trade, a low wage economy for most of your people, free movement and unending mass immigration, the culture of political correctness, race-based and gender-based quotas and the abolition of free speech.
So, for all his character flaws, I applaud Trump's iron determination to face down the elites and the left and pursue his democratic mandate.
There's another point about Farrell's interview that I noticed. He brought Muslims into it - he used the words 'the Muslim community'. Had Robinson actually mentioned Muslims?
ReplyDeleteThen it was quoted, as in the quotes in the blog post above, as 'Muslims', in the phrase 'incite fear in Muslims'.
So I don't know, it's possible, though, that the interviewer introduced Muslims, which is a vastly broader class than say, Pakistani British men. Of course, he also introduced the subject of fear and incitement.