Biden Nominee’s Extremism Hidden by NPR/AP Wordplay, Media Malpractice

• NPR/AP Article refers to a vote as ‘partisan’ when, instead, it was ‘bipartisan’
• When left-wing reporters don’t like a political result, they call it partisan. When they like the result, it’s bipartisan.
• Biden’s extremist nominees lost support among Democrats, by blaming Republicans the media misses the story

OUR RATING: Sloppy and Error-Filled. Your typical Friday night at Fox News, sloppy work.

Indicted Outlet: Associated Press | National Public Radio | Link | Archive | 5/10/22

Biden’s nominees can be passed as a recess nomination, or by the blunt force of all Democrats staying together and voting against the Republicans. The Republicans in the Senate are a political minority with the tie-breaking vote of Kamala Harris. Yet the radical nominees by the Biden administration have been unable to get full support from Democrat Senators.

Yet the media, in this situation, refers to the nomination being withdrawn for lack of support as ‘partisan’ even though members from both parties are publicly saying they are voting against the nomination. The main Biden nominee to the federal reserve [16] who was forced to withdraw has been Sarah Bloom Raskin.

Major Violations:

• Missing Context
• Misrepresentation
• Misusing a Word
• Blaming the Powerless

Here’s the key excerpt from the article:

Cook is only the second of Biden’s five nominees for the Fed to win Senate confirmation. His Fed choices have faced an unusual level of partisan opposition, given the Fed’s history as an independent agency that seeks to remain above politics.

Have Biden’s nominees faced an ‘unusual’ level of partisan opposition? Or even an ‘unusual’ amount of opposition in recent years? This is a misrepresentation and misusing a word.

Comparing the record of the previous administration illustrates that the AP/NPR claim is fundamentally false.

Trump nominated Marvin Goodfriend to the federal reserve board in November 2017, [1] who was forced to withdraw. [2]

Trump nominated Nellie Liang to the federal reserve board in September 2018, [3] who was forced to withdraw. [4]

Trump nominated Steve Moore to the federal reserve board in March 2019 [5] and the media reaction was apoplectic. [6]

Trump nominated Herman Cain to the federal reserve board in April 2019 [7] and then withdrew the nomination. [8]

Trump nominated Judy Shelton to the federal reserve board in July 2019 [9] and the media reaction was predictably irrationally opposed. [10]

Biden’s failed nominee for the Federal Reserve Board is Sarah Bloom Raskin.

Raskin is the wife of Congressman Jamie Raskin. [11]

By reducing arguments against Raskin to just partisan politics, it sidelines any substantive complaints. It’s serious missing context. It makes it impossible for the reader to understand why a nomination lost.

Some expressed concerns that Raskin would abuse the enormous financial powers of the Federal Reserve to pursue climate change policy. [12]

Raskin has publicly said she wanted to use the pandemic to pick winners and losers in the energy markets, another reason people opposed her nomination. [13]

Raskin personally profited from a sweetheart deal she engineered to give a company she had a stake in, premium access to the federal reserve. She then reported this transaction over 100 days late, though she blamed the late filing on the suicide of her adult son. [14]

Senators expressed concern that Raskin would politically ‘weaponize’ the federal reserve’s enormous financial powers. [15]

By reducing all opposition to Raskin to simply ‘partisan’ politics, it ignores any substance to the reporting.

Yet the ‘partisan’ label isn’t even accurate. Democrat Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is the key person sinking the Raskin nomination. By definition, if both Republicans and Democrats are opposing something, it’s bipartisan, meaning that members of both parties are on one side. If anything, the only support for Raskin is partisan, because it only represents elected Democrats and includes no Republicans. This is yet again misusing a word.

In this case it seems clear the misuse is so that they can present the opposition to Raskin as merely ‘partisan’ and the support for Raskin is somehow different and non-partisan, bi-partisan, or perhaps trans-partisan. It’s the ‘better’ type of partisan unlike the opponents who are merely pursuing their party’s base interests.

More left-wing thought magazines blame the Raskin nomination failing on ‘special interests.’ [17] What they mean is the big evil coal companies. [18] It’s the same kind of low-quality reporting and argumentation to reduce opponents to their base financial motives rather than any substantive difference of policy.

It’s silly wordplay by left-wing reporters, notable because it’s the exact opposite of reality.

OUR RATING: Sloppy and Error-Filled. Your typical Friday night at Fox News, sloppy work.

Bibliography:
1 ] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-goodfriend-idUKKBN1DT3K1
2 ] https://thehill.com/policy/finance/483003-republicans-expect-trump-to-withdraw-controversial-fed-nominee/?userid=142524
3 ] https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-nominate-former-fed-economist-nellie-liang-for-board-seat-1537392151
4 ] https://www.regreport.info/2019/01/08/fed-nominee-withdraws-name-from-further-consideration-for-post/
5 ] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-to-nominate-conservative-economist-stephen-moore-to-federal-reserve-board/
6 ] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/how-did-stephen-moore-get-picked-federal-reserve/588502/
7 ] https://moneyandmarkets.com/trump-recommends-herman-cain-for-fed-board/
8 ] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/22/herman-cain-withdraws-from-consideration-for-fed-board-trump-says.html
9 ] https://www.congress.gov/nomination/116th-congress/1422
10 ] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/11/17/21569992/judy-shelton-federal-reserve-trump-nominee
11 ] https://heavy.com/news/sarah-bloom-jamie-raskin-wife/
12 ] https://www.wsj.com/articles/sarah-bloom-raskin-fed-federal-reserve-nominee-climate-blinder-11646667688
13 ] https://www.wsj.com/articles/sarah-bloom-raskin-in-her-own-words-11642199669
14 ] https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/confirm-biden-fed-nominee-sarah-bloom-raskin-chuck-devore
15 ] https://video.foxbusiness.com/v/6295192129001#sp=show-clips
16 ] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/14/president-biden-nominates-sarah-bloom-raskin-to-serve-as-vice-chair-for-supervision-of-the-federal-reserve-and-lisa-cook-and-philip-jefferson-to-serve-as-governors/
17 ] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/sarah-bloom-raskin-withdraws-her-nomination-to-the-federal-reserve-board
18 ] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/15/sarah-bloom-raskin-withdraws-her-candidacy-for-federal-reserve-board-reports-say.html

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