Huffington Post and Fox News disputes with Donald Trump - Arianna Huffington is no Roger Ailes

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A long festering feud of sorts has offered an interesting sidelight to the media coverage of the presidential campaign.  It all started when Arianna Huffington's Huffington Post news media manufacturing shop decided Donald Trump was not worthy of being covered as news.

Here was what her minions said about it.

A Note About Our Coverage Of Donald Trump's 'Campaign'

Ryan Grim Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post

Danny Shea Editorial Director, The Huffington Post

After watching and listening to Donald Trump since he announced his candidacy for president we decided we won't report on Trump's campaign as part of The Huffington Post's political coverage. Instead, we will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section. Our reason is simple: Trump's campaign is a sideshow. We won't take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you'll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.

Huffington Post Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim also dismissed Trump as a "clownshow" in an interview about the decision with Business Insider.

In his interview with Business Insider, Grim said Trump is only performing well in the polls "because of the big field" in the Republican primary.

Of course, the Donald responded in typical Trump fashion, take no prisoners.

Donald Trump's campaign dismissed the Huffington Post as a "glorified blog" in a statement on Friday evening.

"The only clown show in this scenario is the Huffington Post pretending to be a legitimate news source," the Trump campaign statement said. 

Though the statement was titled "Donald J. Trump Response To Huffington Post," a Trump spokeswoman said it was attributable to his campaign. The statement pointed to the fact Trump has previously criticized the Huffington Post on Twitter.

"If you read previously written Tweets, Mr. Trump has never been a fan of Arianna Huffington or the money-losing Huffington Post," the statement said.

Indeed, in one 2012 tweet, Trump launched a series of personal attacks on the site's cofounder and editor in chief, Arianna Huffington, that referenced her 1997 divorce from a former congressman who later announced he was gay.

Trump tweeted, "@ariannahuff is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man - he made a good decision."

For the record, Arianna and Michael Huffington split in 1997 ... and a year later, the former congressman revealed that he's bisexual. Michael is now a gay rights activist.

Trump has been ripping the Huffington Post ever since the website ran a story on August 16, which attempted to uncover why Donald has been so "crabby" recently.

After the article ran, Trump called the Post a "loser" that will "die like AOL is dying."

The Trump campaign's statement also touted his positioning in a series of polls and vowed he would win the first two presidential primaries. 

"Mr. Trump is number one in the unimportant Huffington Post poll, along with all other recently released polls including Reuters, FOX, USA Today/Suffolk University, and The Economist. Mr. Trump is in first place in Nevada, where he is also number one, by a wide margin, with Hispanics. He is number one in North Carolina and expects to win Iowa and New Hampshire," the statement said.

Arianna long has been a fixture in the NYC and California elite social circles.

She began The Huffington Post on May 10, 2005, as a liberal/left commentary outlet and alternative to news aggregators such as the Drudge Report.

AOL acquired the mass market Huffington Post for $315 million on February 7, 2011, making Arianna Huffington editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group.

Though inspired by Drudge, Fox News is the real enemy to all progressive, leftist, liberal bastions like the Huffer.  Perhaps Arianna is trying to become the equal to Fox News President Roger Ailes.

Ironically, both Roger Ailes (Fox) and Arianna Huffington (Huffington Post) have had recent public disputes with Donald Trump but the different way they responded explains why Arianna is no Roger Ailes.

When Trump complained that Fox News was too tough on him in the first debate, Ailes talked to him directly and worked out an arrangement to make sure he received full and fair news coverage from Fox.

When Arianna got upset with Trump, she ordered her supposedly professional reporters to treat him as entertainment, not news, and like a clown, not viable candidate for office.  I suppose such is the reaction one might expect considering the diametrically opposed political philosophies of the two although prejudging the news is rather rare in journalism.

As Trump climbed to the top of the polls and the Huffer continued to ignore him they lost out on a massive opportunity to make money off the Donald.  No other liberal media outlet took such bizarre action and then sent out mouthpieces to dish the Trump campaign as clownish, not even The New York Times or Washington Post.

Perhaps such different reactions by Ailes and Huffington, explains why Fox News continues to dominate the cable airways.

Arianna Huffington created her news service in 2005.  After 10 years in business, Arianna had sold the Huffington Post in 2011 for $315 million when she was a minority stockholder, and received $18 million for the company she started.  She reportedly receives a salary of $4 million per year.

Roger Ailes was named the founding CEO of Fox News when it was started by Rupert Murdock in 1996.  During his twenty year reign Fox News totally dominated cable news, and he built the value of the network to the #48 most valuable brand in America, at $13.3 billion in revenue with a value of $11.3 billion according to Forbes Magazine.  Roger receives over $20 million a year as Chairman and CEO.

There is a reason Roger Ailes is rated one of the most powerful people in the news media.  He learned the business from the inside out and along the way was a crucial media advisor to Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and made many media personalities famous like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Megyn Kelly.

Perhaps Arianna should learn from the Master Roger Ailes and treat Trump as a viable presidential candidate instead of playing juvenile games that demean the news business in America.

Of course the always unpredictable Trump will test the patience of anyone over and over. Just tonight, August 25, he again took a shot at Megyn Kelly for no particular reason and this time Roger Ailes has demanded Trump apologize to the Golden Girl of the Fox News network.  Stay tuned for the latest update. 

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Obamaville - September 29 - Latest Poll Results

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Thank goodness the politicians in Washington, DC have set a fine example and we are no longer required to tell the truth about anything because otherwise the latest polls would make little sense. However, the die is cast and the truth is lost and we only have about 5 more weeks of nonsense before the elections so here are the latest poll results as I see them.

Obama has slipped so low in the polls 2/3 of all Americans now want him to be Prime Minister of England or Australia.

The leftist liberals are held in such low regard by most Americans that the only TV ratings now recorded for MSNBC and CNN, America's answers to socialist Europe, are the staff of the two networks watching each other.

Of course liberals aren't the only ones having problems as the same poll shows all Republicans and Democrats over 65 and Newt Gingrich no matter what his age need to be sent out to pasture.

At the same time the people also believe the voting age must be raised to 28 years of age since the dumb kids got us into this mess electing Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to lead us out of the darkness and into the night.

Speaking of Nancy Pelosi, 80% of all people refuse to believe she is the leader of the majority party as even Democrats can't be that stupid.

Voting for the person the public most wants to see on Dancing with the Stars next season was tied with over 90% wanting Barack Obama and Sarah Palin for the next two seasons, 2011 and 2012, so both will be too busy to run for president.

In terms of education issues, over 70% of the public says the Obama's could not have attended the exclusive Ivy League schools of Columbia and Harvard for Barack, and Princeton and Harvard for Michelle, and still claim to be plain old American middle class folks.

An astounding 100% of the people want to see only one debate in this fall's election, and a team debate at that. They want the team of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck for the right wing against Arianna Huffington and former VP Al Gore for the socialists with the winners decided by whichever team can figure out what the hell the other team is saying first.

The Supreme Court decision to not allow election ballots to offer the choice, "none of the above", which was rejected by the Supreme Court on grounds the public has no right to so directly influence an election, was opposed by 83% of the public.

67% of the public say VP Joe Biden was inconsistent when he admonished fellow Democrats to stop whining the same day Barack Obama was again whining about the endless curses George Bush left him over the past eight years even though George Bush left office nearly two years ago.

Oh yes, and 91% of the public believes we are much safer and the economy will recover only if congress and the Obama's stay on vacation all the time.
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Barack Obama and Roger Ailes - Great Political Peacemakers

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In a stunning turn of events Roger Ailes, the genius behind Fox News network and the Godfather of the conservative movement in America journeyed to the ABC This Week news round table Sunday, a program hosted by Barbara Walters of The View fame and keeper of the faith for liberals in America.



As you may recall, President Obama journeyed to the Lion's den just last week to meet with Republican lawmakers without Nancy Pelosi or the White House gang and his appearance caused quite a stir. We ran a story on the meeting last week.

This time it was Ailes who journeyed to the bowels of liberaldom to confront the enemies of reality, the masters of deception, the pyramids of the pariah and the fountain of negativity and nitpicking. Well, maybe that gives Barbara Wawa a bit too much credit since she seems to be shying away from awful controversy she began hosting the View with the wall of liberal defenders.



Still, she was able to draw the Big Bear Ailes from his mountaintop, she describes him as a friend, one of her millions I guess, and it was still a memorable experience. It was the Sunday after the President's State of the Union and the Ailes interview dominated the media Sunday which is just what Roger expects Fox to do. I'm sure the White House staff were disappointed that Ailes knocked the president out of the lead stories but Fox seems to make a habit of doing that.



Waiting for him at the table was The Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington, a more worthy protector of the liberal line could not be found. A few fireworks began to ignite when she interrogated Ailes but his legendary wit and brutal honesty were no match for the leftists.



She challenged him on having an extremist like Glenn Beck on Fox and Roger simply responded we are after the ratings and we are number one.



When she asked how he could possibly have someone like, ugh, Sarah Palin as a network news commentator he replied I was the only network to have the only Democratic VP candidate, Geraldine Ferraro, on TV for ten years and now I am the only network to have the only Republican VP candidate on the air. We are Fair and Balanced.



Huffington huffed a few times but got none of the adoration she gets from all the liberal shows where she normally appears and the series of exchanges finally gave us a break from all the politicians polluting the airways.

I must say when she was challenging the Fox efforts to polarize the public Ailes calmly mentioned that her very own blog has used equally inflammatory language about him, she promptly claimed it was a comment from a reader, but a fact check showed it was in a Huffington story. Chalk another one up to Roger. Perhaps that is why Fox buries the liberal media in popularity.



Now if these peacekeeping efforts by Obama meeting the Republicans and Ailes meeting the liberals are a sign of things to come then there is an outside chance civility may return to the political scene. However, it is not something I would count on as it takes more than words to mend fences.



Besides, we have a long ways to go before we have thrown out all the rascals in politics and since they have no guilt over stretching the truth to defend their horrid records then tough talk may be the only way to get them out of office where they belong.

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