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The Establishments war on Donald Trump Title: What Is Breitbart News? Donald J. Trump has hired a top executive from Breitbart News, Stephen Bannon, as his campaigns chief executive. The Breitbart News Network, usually just called Breitbart, is a conservative-leaning news website. It was founded in 2007 by Andrew Breitbart, a former liberal from Los Angeles who became a conservative standard-bearer until his death from heart failure at 43 in 2012. The site that bears his name comprises about a dozen different verticals that feature original reporting and commentary, including three of its most prominent sites: Big Government, Big Journalism and Big Hollywood. A fourth Big site, BigPeace.com, now redirects to Breitbarts National Security section. Mr. Breitbart was adopted by white-collar parents from Brentwood, Calif., and raised as a Jew. As a blogger in the early 2000s, he was taken under the wing of Matt Drudge before setting out on his own. In a column after Mr. Breitbarts death, titled The Provocateur, David Carr of The New York Times wrote that he understood in a fundamental way how discourse could be profoundly shaped by the pixels generated far outside the mainstream media he held in such low regard. Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator who was 17 when he met Mr. Breitbart and who became the editor-at-large of Breitbart.com in 2012 about three weeks before Mr. Breitbart died, said in an interview Wednesday that Mr. Breitbart was not ideologically driven. Andrews whole animating focus was I dont like bullies in the political sphere and Ill fight the bullies, he said. Mr. Bannon, a Navy veteran who has a background in finance and used to work at Goldman Sachs, was an adviser to Sarah Palin and has been a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump. He became the executive chairman of Breitbart in 2012, after Mr. Breitbarts death, and helped adapt the anti-Clinton book Clinton Cash into a film. Not all of Mr. Breitbarts friends are happy with the direction in which Mr. Bannon took the site. As I said when I left Breitbart, Mr. Shapiro said, I am absolutely appalled by what Breitbarts become. I think Bannon has perverted Breitbarts legacy. Under the supervision of its founder, Breitbart gained prominence by breaking news about a series of scandals involving liberal politicians, bureaucrats and organizations, and by relentlessly pushing those stories. Is the site divisive? As a Breitbart favorite, Sarah Palin, might put it: You betcha! The website is loathed by many liberals, moderates and establishment Republicans who say it stokes a partisan atmosphere and misleads readers in order to escalate what they see as nonissues. But it has been beloved by many on the right as an answer to mainstream media organizations, including The Times, that are viewed as liberal in outlook. In 2009, on his site Big Government, Mr. Breitbart released videos of workers for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (better known as Acorn) that appeared to show employees of the community organization advising clients on criminal activities. The videos, filmed by conservative activists, led contributions to Acorn to plummet, and the organization announced in 2010 that it was closing all its offices. Liberal media watchdog groups, including FAIR, criticized the mainstream media, including The Times, for much of its reporting on the Acorn story. The Timess public editor at the time, Clark Hoyt, wrote about how conservatives and liberals viewed the story differently, exemplifying the effect that outlets like Breitbart had on the public conversation. To conservatives, Acorn is virtually a criminal organization that was guilty of extensive voter registration fraud in 2008, Mr. Hoyt wrote. To its supporters, Acorn is a community service organization that has helped millions of disadvantaged Americans by organizing to confront powerful institutions like banks and developers. In 2010, Breitbart published a video of an Agriculture Department Official, Shirley Sherrod, in which she seemed to make prejudiced remarks about a white man. The video was edited in a misleading manner to disguise the message of Ms. Sherrods speech, which was about her own personal growth. Ms. Sherrod was fired after the clip was published but was later offered a new job, which she declined to take. In 2011, a tipster sent Mr. Breitbart the sexually explicit photos and text messages the New York congressman and rising Democrat star Anthony D. Weiner had sent to women online. The story, broken by the website, soon caused Mr. Weiner to resign. During the 2016 presidential campaign, including the Republican primaries, the site has offered exceedingly favorable coverage to the campaign of Donald J. Trump, often to the dismay of mainstream conservatives and the Republican Party establishment. The site was criticized for courting Mr. Trumps most extreme followers on the far right while criticizing anti-Trump Republicans and conservatives like Bill Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard. It drew particular fire for a headline that read Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew that many viewed as anti-Semitic. The site drew renewed attention in March, when Michelle Fields, a reporter for Breitbart News, accused Corey Lewandowski, then the campaign manager for Mr. Trump, of assaulting her after a news conference in Jupiter, Fla. Mr. Lewandowski was charged by the police with a count of misdemeanor battery, but the charge was dropped in April. The incident caused an uproar within Breitbart, as several staff members, including Mr. Shapiro, left the organization, outraged that Mr. Bannon and the site did not support Ms. Fields. Instead, it appeared to be defending the campaign and Mr. Lewandowski. I said at the time that Bannon had used Breitbart as basically a steppingstone for him to get in close with the Trump campaign, Mr. Shapiro said. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Willie Green (#0)
What Shapiro says about Bannon: www.dailywire.com/news/84...-steve-bannon-ben-shapiro A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them. his he thread what he evil wish love If you ... don't use exclamation points --- you should't be typeing ! Commas - semicolons - question marks are for girlie boys !
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