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Watching news outlets go out of their way to hide a potentially huge Democratic scandal is almost funny. So-called journalists are too busy covering presidential tweets to report on a topic that might embarrass their friends.

Welcome to theImran Awan-Debbie Wasserman Schultz scandal or Compugrab, as I like to call it.

Awan was the top IT aide to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The FBI reportedly seized smashed computer hard drives from hishome. He was arrested trying to flee to Pakistan after wiring almost $300,000 to the country, according toThe Daily Caller,which has owned the story because it does actual news reporting.

Heres an amazing paragraph from the Caller: Awan and members of his family received $4 million from the Democratic congressmen they were working for since 2010. Wasserman Schultz has been especially uncooperative with the probe into her staffers and eventhreatened the Capitol Police chief for gathering evidence. She refused to fire Awan until after he was arrested, even though Capitol Police had already revoked Awans access to the congressional IT system in February in relation to a major security breach. ($4 million, and you wonder where your tax dollars go.)

This is why so many Americans no longer trust the traditional media. Its because we cant. Theyd rather write snarky stories about the presidents Twitter comments than do actual reporting.

The traditional media has barely even acknowledged this story exists. In the 24 hours after his arrest, only CBSThis Morningreported on it for 37 seconds. And co-host Gayle King made a point of ending the story with the claim by Awans attorney that charges are due to anti-Muslim bigotry.

Newspapershave been almost as bad.The Washington Postwasnt just slow to the party. Legal reporter Spencer Hsu didnt mention Awan's ties to Hill Democrats until the seventh paragraph. Imagine the Postwriting like that about Hill Republicans. A headline on an Associated Press story was especially entertaining: Florida lawmaker fires IT staffer; Anti-Muslim bigotry is cause of client's arrest, lawyer says.

This is why so many Americans no longer trust the traditional media. Its because we cant. Theyd rather write snarky stories about the presidents Twitter comments than do actual reporting. Hats off to The Daily Caller News Foundations Luke Rosiak for remembering what journalism really means.

2. Summertime For Hitler:President Trumps speech to the Boy Scouts caused journalists and lefty media to have a Goebbels moment and envision the entire event as aHitler Youth Rally.The alt-left marched in goose step comparing American boys to Nazis. Director Michael Moore, soap opera star Nancy Lee Grahn and other liberals pretended that chanting U.S.A. and cheering Trump made them equal to the people who supported Hitler.

While The Viewdidnt Sieg heil like many on the left, it did bash Trump and put pressure on the Scouts. Among The Views Things Not to Say When Giving A Speech to 40,000 Boy Scouts was this horrifying statement: You will be saying Merry Christmas again when you go shopping.

Theres nothing more offensive to secular media liberals than faith. Hard to tell if it terrifies them more in the here-and-now or if they are looking toward the hereafter.

That media pressure, andattacksby the Late Show host Stephen Colbert,Trevor Noah of The Daily Show, and CNNsChris Cillizzaintimidated the Boy Scouts into distancing themselves from Trump. Based on the cheering Trump received, there was no such distance between the president and the Scouts who heard him speak.

3. Those Hateful Conservatives, Oops!:Weve watched six months of demented hate from the lefty media against White House Press SecretarySean Spicer.Hes gone, so now well get demented hate from the media against new White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Ira Madison III, who writes about culture for The Daily Beast and GQ, welcomed Sanders with a cruel critique of her looks. Madisontweeted: Butch queen first time in drags at the ball, next to a picture of Sanders.

Conservatives were outraged but liberals barely noticed. The War on Women only applies to liberal women, after all. White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci called it reprehensible and asked for anapology. Madison gave a half-hearted one for his ill-judged joke.

While working at MTV News earlier this year, Madison embarrassed himself by bashing then-Sen. Jeff Sessions. He accused Sessions of using an Asian-American girl as aprop during a hearing. Sessions, sir, kindly return this Asian baby to the Toys 'R' Us you stole her from, he wrote on Twitter. The girl was actually Sessions granddaughter. Madison deleted the comment.

Never forget that the left believes inNO H8TE.Or, in the words of Madisons bosses atThe Daily Beast,they value an inclusive culture, committed to the public good.

4. The Media Climate Isnt Changing:Liberals whine about global warming, but the media climate is just the same as it was 11 years ago whenthe film An Inconvenient Truthcame out. Who cares if climate guru Al Gore warned then that Earth had only 10 years before Mother Earth turned crispier and reached apoint of no return? That didnt stop him from going Hollywood and producing a sequel.

The news and entertainment media loved Gore then and love him now. His sillyInconvenient Sequel: Truth to Powerhits national theaters Aug. 4. To ensure the propaganda (Oops, documentary) is successful, Viacom is deploying 10 of its TV outlets to push the film. Viacom, whichhasapproximately 700 million global subscribers, is harassing viewers on MTV, VH1, LOGO, Comedy Central, Spike, BET, CMT, TV Land, Nick@Nite and Teen Nick.

MTV will actually air a town hallwhere,Gore will be joined by rapper and Miami resident Fat Joe, as well as 17-year-old activist Delaney Reynolds; DJ and fellow Miami-born artist Steve Aoki will act as a correspondent. Apparently, no sports mascots were also available.

Dan Gainor is the Media Research Center's Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.

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Liberal news outlets work overtime to hide a huge Democratic scandal and more crazy media misses this week - Fox News

A day after Christy Clark announced she is resigning as BC Liberal leader, one of the partys MLAs says he is considering a run to replace her.

Prominent former TV reporter Jas Johal, first elected to the BC legislature in the spring election that set off events that have ousted the Liberals from power, says he is thinking about a leadership run but has not made any final decisions.

I think this is a great time to focus on renewal and we need a substantial policy discussion. I am looking forward to that whether I run or not, Mr. Johal said in an interview on Saturday. He is the first of the partys MLAs to announce that he may go for the leadership now that the job is open.

Among the challenges for the BC Liberals, he said, is better connecting with millennial and GenX voters.

He said he is thinking about whether he has the time and energy to completely commit himself to leading the BC Liberals, who have had two leaders Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark since they began their 16-year run in government that recently ended.

Ms. Clark led the party into a spring election her second as premier which reduced the party to a minority. Last month, the Liberals were defeated on a confidence vote, the Lieutenant-Governor then asked the NDP to form the government and Premier John Horgan was sworn in earlier this month.

Mr. Johal, 47, who is married and has an eight-year-old son also said he is considering the impact on his family.

Theres a lot to think about, he said. He was a journalist for 23 years, working for Global Television in BC, Beijing and New Delhi. Before seeking and winning the riding of Richmond-Queensborough in the May election, he was a communications director at the BC LNG Alliance.

Mr. Johal said he was surprised at Ms. Clark's decision to leave.

He also said he did not think his relative lack of elected political experience would be a liability in what is expected to be a crowded race. When you look at voting here and internationally, people want something new," he said.

People dont want professional politicians. I am proud to be an outsider. I bring a different experience.

After six years as premier and saying she would serve in opposition, Ms. Clark told her caucus Friday that she would quit as party leader on Aug.4. She also will quit her Kelowna-area seat. In announcing her decision to the media in a statement, Ms. Clark gave no specific reason for leaving now. She is expected to hold a news conference early next week.

Liberal caucus members praised Ms. Clark on Friday, but the party will now face the necessity of picking a new leader to face the BC NDP government. Caucus prospects were avoiding discussion about leadership runs in the hours after Ms. Clarks announcement.

The BC Liberal party executive plans to meet within 28 days to come up with details on the leadership race. After Gordon Campbell announced his exit in 2010, it took about four months for the leadership convention that saw Ms. Clark become leader. The BC legislature is expected to resume sitting in September.

Follow Ian Bailey on Twitter: @ianabailey

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Former television reporter Jas Johal considers running for BC Liberal leadership - The Globe and Mail

During the West Australian state election campaign Labor styled a specific message to fans of fight phenomenon UFC.

By using social media and targeting only the fans the then-opposition was able to tell them the party would consider bringing a UFC fight event to Perth.

It was just one of hundreds of micro campaigns Labor and its third-party supporters - such trade unions and special interest advocacy groups - are using to talk directly to voters and over the heads of mainstream media.

It's a trend worrying the federal Liberal Party which traditionally has relied on one or two big campaign messages to sway voters.

"They're probably gone," outgoing acting federal director Andrew Bragg told Sky News on Sunday.

Old-style campaigning was being replaced by daily messaging based on rich data mined from social media activity.

In the case of the UFC campaign, Labor could message fans directly without letting the rest of the community know what it was promising to do.

Mr Bragg believes it is also time for business to look how it campaigns in support of coalition policies, and take on third-party groups.

"It's not to barrack for the Liberal Party," he said.

It was about explaining directly to voters how, for instance, a cut in corporate taxes, less regulation and free trade would benefit families "sitting around the kitchen table".

Mr Bragg said environmental groups were spending $80 million a year opposing coalition policies while receiving a $20 million taxpayer benefit because of their non-profit status.

Trade unions benefited from a whole range of "fuzzy payments" from industry superannuation funds which they then used to campaign against the coalition.

"There are parts of the playing field that are not level," Mr Bragg said.

Excerpt from:
Micro messaging challenge for Liberals - SBS

The U.S. Senate rejected a Republican measure to repeal portions of former President Obama's health care reform law. Republicans John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins joined the Democrats in voting down the measure, 49-51. (July 28) AP

Each week, USA TODAY's OnPolitics blog takes a look at how media from the left and the right reacted to a political news story, giving liberals and conservatives a peek into the other's media bubble.

This week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., managed to upset both liberals and conservatives with his dramatic return to the Capitol from cancer treatment in order to vote on legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act. McCain initially drew praise from conservatives when he arrived Tuesday and voted in favor of a motion to proceed on debating legislation. That vote enraged liberals, who said McCain had returned to rob health care from millions. He then infuriated the right-wing by casting the deciding vote against a "skinny repeal" early Friday. That vote failed to win over liberals, however, who thoughtRepublican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins were the real heroes.

Last week:Health care fail has conservatives calling for McConnell's head

Liberal commentators began hurling venom at McCain Tuesday after he votedfor the motion to proceed. They assailed him as a fraud and hypocrite.

"McCain, that rascally maverick, flew into the upper chamber to vote on a motion to allow debate on his partys health care nightmare, despite being diagnosed with brain cancer only a few days ago," Sarah Jones wrote for the New Republic after Tuesday's vote. "He then had the gall to crown this reckless, horrible moveone that upends years of precedent in the Senatewith some Sorkin-esque pablum condemning the Senate for turning its back on the democratic process and calling for a return to regular order."

McCain has performed this gross two-step throughout his recent career, taking the high road in his rhetoric while going along with his party on whatever depraved route they take.He is not a maverick; he is a conventional Republican through and through.

Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes directed his ire for the failed healthcarevote directly at McCain.

"The only reason he flew back to Washington, D.C., was to stick it to the American people," Starnes said. "You see, I always knew this guy was a closet Democrat. Last night, John McCain came out of the political closet."

Sen.MCainhas built a reputation over the years for insulting his opponents. He gets pretty nasty sometimes. Just the other day, he called talk radio hosts bombasticloudmouths. He once called his conservative colleagues like Ted Cruz "wacko birds." He even went after Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and Evangelical leaders. He called them agents of intolerance. Well, if it's all the same to you, ladies and gentlemen, I'd rather be a bombastic, intolerantwacko bird than a backstabbing liar.

Several progressive pundits and commentators were annoyed that McCain was getting the lion's share of credit in the news media for the failure of the Republican repeal effort. They felt Murkowski and Collins were the ones who deserved praise for killing the bill.

Jezebel's Prachi Gupta said there would not have been a vote at all on the repeal if McCain had voted with Murkowski and Collins to block Tuesday's motion to proceed.

"Thanks to his vote in support of this atrocious measure, Congress spent a week playing Russian Roulette with millions of peoples access to healthcare," Gupta wrote.

"It is also frustrating to see McCain reap the adoration when both Murkowski and Collins have been consistently bullied by their own party throughout this process," she said.

Former Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly said it was "deeply surprising" that McCain "cast the deciding vote to kill health care reform."

"So, Obamacare lives on in full thanks to John McCain, and the Democratic Party wins a major victory," O'Reilly wrote in a column. "I have known Senator McCain for decades and respect him. But on a bill that would have diminished the failure of Obamacare, he let his country down."

"If you want to laud Senator John McCain for his military service, or for his occasional high-profile stabs at bipartisanship, feel free," wrote The Nation's Joshua Holland. "But it didnt take a lick of courage to vote against an ACA repeal bill that was supported by fewer than 20 percent of the electorate, and which would have killed off some unknown number of his constituents if it passed."

It isnt mavericky to fly into the capital on Tuesday to offer the deciding vote to take up a series of bills that would have stripped insurance coverage from between 16 and 23 million people, only to grab the spotlight with anovote two nights later during the final, decidedly operatic act.

Breitbart editor Joel Pollak took issue with McCain's claim that his vote against the "skinny repeal" of Obamacare was a vote for bipartisanship.

"In fact, it was the opposite, rewarding Democrats for passing Obamacare without working with Republicans in the first place, allowing them to establish a beachhead for government-runhealth care, which they will now be able to protect," wrote Pollak.

Pollak also disagreed with McCain's feeling that Democrats were left out of the process.

"Throughout the past seven months, Democrats had every opportunity to propose improvements to Obamacare," Pollak wrote. "They had the same opportunity for the past seven years."

Read more:

John McCain will begin treatment for brain tumor Monday

John McCain sinks skinny repeal. Way to represent, senator

John McCain's cancer: What is glioblastoma?

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2vf6X8j

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The Bubble: McCain no hero, conservatives and liberals say - USA TODAY

Story Highlights

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup's annual measurement of how Americans describe their views on social issues finds social liberals nearly tying with social conservatives for the fifth straight year. This is a change from 2001 through 2012 when social conservatives had the clear lead, including by 17-percentage-point margins in 2009 and 2010.

In Gallup's latest update, conducted May 3-7, 34% of Americans describe their views as conservative or very conservative while 30% identify as liberal or very liberal. Another 34% call themselves moderate and 2% are unsure. Gallup measures Americans' ideology on social issues annually as part of its Values and Beliefs survey, conducted each May.

Democrats' Fueling Rise in Social Liberalism

The increase in social liberalism has not been universal, but has occurred mainly among Democrats. The percentage of Democrats describing themselves as socially liberal increased fairly steadily from 36% in 2001 to 53% 2015 where it has since held.

By contrast, Republicans' propensity to identify as socially liberal has hardly changed, consistently registering around 10%.

In order to see whether the liberal shift in Democrats' social views is universal within the Democratic ranks, or limited to certain subgroups, Gallup has grouped its annual data into four time periods, allowing for larger sample sizes to evaluate the trends in Democratic subgroups. The earliest time period is from 2001 through 2005 when an average 37% of Democrats identified as socially liberal. The most recent period is from 2015 to 2017 when the figure held at 53%.

As shown in the accompanying table, social liberalism has risen among all major demographic subgroups of Democrats, as well as in the four main regions of the country. However, there are some notable differences:

Democrats' Views on Social Issues -- % Liberal

Implications

The increase in social liberalism in the U.S. seen since the early 2000s is the result of increasing liberalism among Democrats, and particularly among white, more-educated and older Democrats. The changes by age mean that various age groups of Democrats are now in greater political alignment. However, the changes by education and race have widened the divide on social issues between Democrats with and without college degrees, as well as between white and black Democrats.

This doesn't necessarily mean Democrats are at odds with each other. Indeed, despite the widening gaps along race and education lines, 89% of Democrats supported the Democratic Party's nominee for president in 2016. However, as Democratic leaders debate how to redefine the party post-President Barack Obama these data suggest that moving any further to the left on social issues could risk alienating Democrats with lower levels of education.

Those are the kinds of voters President Donald Trump might try to attract in a second-term bid, particularly if his GOP base is faltering. On the other hand, with most of these lesser-educated Democrats describing themselves as moderate on social issues rather than conservative, that would be a hard sell.

Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.

The latest national results are based on telephone interviews conducted May 3-7, 2017, with a random sample of 1,011 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Result based on combined years have larger sample sizes

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 70% cellphone respondents and 30% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

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Social Liberals Nearly Tie Social Conservatives in U.S. | Gallup - Gallup