NYT: Slanting the News and a Bizarre Comey Connection

Project Veritas has released a video of the New York Times video gatekeeper Nicholas Dudich, who was caught on hidden-camera boasting of his lack of journalistic ethics. Dudich, who serves as Audience Strategy Editor, displays a lack of integrity throughout the video, manages videos which go "on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram" for the Times.

While talking about being objective at the Times, Dudich replies candidly, "No I'm not, that's why I'm here."

Dudich considers himself an important player at the New York Times, telling the Project Veritas Journalist "my voice is on... my imprint is on every video we do."

Dudich goes on to explain what he might do to target President Trump:

"I'd target his businesses, his dumb fuck of a son, Donald Jr., and Eric...

"Target that. Get people to boycott going to his hotels. Boycott... So a lot of the Trump brands, if you can ruin the Trump brand and you put pressure on his business and you start investigating his business and you start shutting it down, or they're hacking or other things. He cares about his business more than he cares about being President. He would resign. Or he'd lash out and do something incredibly illegal, which he would have to."

When the undercover journalist asks Dudich if he could make sure that the anti-Trump stories make it to the front, he replied, "Oh, we always do."

As stated in the NYT Ethical Handbook, the goal of the New York Times is to "cover the news as impartially as possible." It continues in Section 62:

"Journalists have no place on the playing field of politics. Staff members are entitled to vote, but they must do nothing that might raise questions about their professional neutrality or that of The Times."

Before working at the Times, Dudich worked on the political campaigns of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

In 2016, he was recruited to work for the Clinton campaign:

"So I have that background, so when Clinton in 2016... they needed a volunteer strategist to do video... well, they needed someone to help them do video, and how to make it heartfelt, for Clinton."

He even had to quit his job in journalism in order to work for the Clinton campaign: "I had to leave my job at Fusion ABC to then take a job at Upworthy where I wasn't deemed a journalist anymore to be able to work for the Clinton campaign."

Dudich explains how his activism motivated him to re-engage in the news business: "Like, after the Clinton campaign, I'm like, no I need to get back into news and keep doing shit because, like, this isn't going to change."

Nicholas Dudich also told the undercover journalist bizarre stories about his personal connection to the FBI and his previous excitement as part of Anti-Fa.

"Yeah, I used to be an Anti-Fa punk once upon a time." he told the undercover journalist. "So, I had fun. They'd start s**t, I'm like, I get to hit you. I'm so excited."

He also claims that James Comey, former Director of the FBI, asked him to join Anti-Fa: "I joined that stuff for them [the FBI]. I was an asset... So it was intelligence gathering, seeing if they were [sic], what their agenda was, whether they're a threat or not."

"How'd you meet Comey?" asked the Project Veritas journalist. "He's my godfather," Dudich explained. "My dad and mom knew him and his wife for a really long time."

"Well the Comey hearing, I should have recused myself, but I'm not ever telling anybody there [at the Times] that I have a tie with that or else I don't know if they can keep me on."
According to the NYT Ethical Handbook, Section 107:

"Staff members may not write about people to whom they are related by blood or marriage or with whom they have close personal relationships, or edit material about such people or make news judgements about them."

His father claims that the family does not know Comey. "Yeah, he's embellishing. I don't know why he would say that... Yeah, I don't know why... he's not James Comey's godson. I don't even know James Comey."

When told that his father said he doesn't know Comey, Dudich changes his story:

Dudich: "He's not my Godfather."

Undercover Journalist: "Then why did you say that?"

Dudich: "Eh, I don't know... It's a good story."

"The fact remains that Nick Dudich lies and he's a gatekeeper at the New York Times." says Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe, "And that fact should be worrisome to the bosses at the paper of record. Who else are they letting spread misinformation in their name?

This is a continuation of Project Veritas's American Pravda series, which began with a three-part expose on CNN in June.

SOURCE

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Response to Vegas Attacks Shows the Heart and Mind of the Left

In response to the senseless violence in Las Vegas, several on the Left have brazenly indicated what they truly think about middle America–folks that go to work, worship on Sundays, listen to country music, drive pick ups, and simply try to build an honest life with family.

Hayley Geftman-Gold, one of CBS’s top lawyers, went on Facebook and offered her honest assessment of the shooting:

 If they wouldn’t do anything when children were murdered [likely a reference to Sandy Hook] I have no hope that Repugs will ever do the right thing, I’m actually not even sympathetic bc country music fans often are Republican gun toters.

Red-State America is repugnant (“Repugs”), a collection of “deplorables” as Hillary Clinton described them before the 2016 election, and deserve to be gunned down by a madman. Of course, the Ivy-educated lawyer and NYC resident quickly apologized once the heat was on, but can anyone doubt that her initial opinions represent that of a substantial number of people living in the “bubble”? Look at the first post right below her original one and see the affirmation from her bubble friends.

Or what about Associate Professor George Ciccariello-Maher of Drexel University? His response to the tragedy was to proclaim that “Trumpism” and “white victimization” motivated the shooter. He further opined that “white people and men” engage is this type of conduct “when they don’t get what they want.” Tenure and academic freedom have saved him from having to back peddle like Geftman-Gold. After all, this is the same guy who said that all he wanted for Christmas was a “white genocide.” Lovely. But this is the kind of nonsense that passes for academic scholarship today and is being poured into the minds of young people.

The shooting in Las Vegas was a terrible event. The ugly response of the Leftist mind should give us pause as we see how they view a large segment of fellow citizens.

SOURCE

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Yes, US tax cuts will mainly benefit those who … pay the most taxes

A popular Facebook and Twitter game asks friends to post an unpopular opinion. Here is an unpopular fact: Tax reformers cannot deeply cut income taxes for lower-income families, because they already pay no collective income tax.

Tax reform is intended to bring simplification and economic growth. Yet many commentators seem interested in only redistribution.

This explains the teeth-gnashing over the Tax Policy Center estimate that the Republican tax blueprint would save the median family $420, but a family in the top income quintile $10,610.

While that sounds unfair, consider this: The top-earning 20 percent of households currently pay 88 percent of all federal income taxes. So even a proportional income tax cut will save them the most money.

In 2013 (the latest data year available), the top 20 percent of households paid $1.2 trillion in income taxes. The next 20 percent paid just $175 billion. The bottom 60 percent collectively paid $0. Actually, the IRS paid them $17 billion, thanks to refundable tax credits.

Put another way: Household income tax bills averaged $47,000 for the top income quintile, $7,000 for the next quintile and negative $200 for the bottom 60 percent.

How are tax reformers supposed to target most income tax savings to those with no income tax burden?

Obviously, some wealthy families escape taxes and some poorer families face painful tax burdens — which should be addressed. However, the aggregate tax savings will align with the aggregate tax burden.

By the way: In anticipation of knee-jerk dismissals of “right-wing lies and propaganda,” all this data is publicly available from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (the same group cited as gospel in the recent health coverage debates). The Obama Treasury produced similar data, which no serious economist has challenged. It cannot be wished away simply because it conflicts with populist narratives.

Nor can this extreme progressivity in our tax code be dismissed as the inevitable result of the rich earning all the income. We can adjust for income inequality by comparing the ratio of taxes paid to income earned.

The richest 1 percent pays 38 percent of all income taxes while earning 15 percent of all pre-tax income. Thus, their share of the income taxes is 2.6 times their share of the income earned. For the top 1 percent and top 20 percent of earners, this ratio has grown steadily since the 1980s — meaning their share of the income taxes has grown significantly faster than their share of the income earned (surprisingly, the top 1 percent’s share of the income remains at 1998 levels).

In fact, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2008 showed that the United States had the most progressive tax code of all 24 countries measured. And that doesn’t even count America’s 2013 upper-income tax hikes, or Europe’s steep value-added taxes, which each widen America’s progressivity lead over Europe.

European governments tax the rich more heavily than America does — yet Europe’s tax burden is flatter because it also slams the non-rich with a VAT and high income (and payroll) taxes. By contrast, America has steeply cut taxes for the non-rich.

Actual tax returns show that the top 1 percent and the top 20 percent pay average effective income tax rates of 23 percent and 16 percent, respectively — nearly the same as in 1979. Yet the average rate paid by the bottom 80 percent of families has fallen from 5.4 percent to 0.1 percent. Millions of low-income families were removed from the income-tax rolls by the expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, refundable child credit and reduced, 10 percent bracket (thank you, George W. Bush).

Yes, families pay payroll taxes — often exceeding their income tax burden. But payroll taxes finance the Social Security and Medicare systems, which these families will benefit from later (and cutting payroll taxes means fewer benefits at retirement). Should the entire rest of the federal government be funded by only 20 percent of families? Ten percent?

Adding all federal taxes together, the top-earning 20 percent fund 69 percent of all federal revenues.

The point is not that progressivity is harmful or should be reversed. Rather, it mathematically limits the low-income taxes left to cut.

It’s easy for politicians, populists and panderers to pretend that the middle class pays all the taxes, and thus deserves the largest tax savings. But the first assertion is demonstrably false, which makes the second mathematically impossible. Champions of progressive income taxation have won. The bottom 60 percent have seen their collective income tax reduced to zero. In tax reform, there are no more winnings left for them to claim.

SOURCE

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