New polling from Gallup released today suggests that Americans' trust in the media is at its second lowest of all time:

Just 7% of Americans have "a great deal" of trust and confidence in the media, and 27% have "a fair amount." Meanwhile, 28% of U.S. adults say they do not have very much confidence and 38% have none at all in newspapers, TV and radio. Notably, this is the first time that the percentage of Americans with no trust at all in the media is higher than the percentage with a great deal or a fair amount combined. . .

The liberal mainstream media is using the opening of the Supreme Court’s term this year as an excuse to attack its conservative members in an attempt to undermine its legitimacy.  As Mark Paoletta writes in the Wall Street Journal:

The ascendant originalist approach at the court is more faithful to the Constitution, but it is less welcoming to the liberal policy-making many have come to expect from the court since the Warren era. Expect to see many more baseless attacks on the court’s conservative members in the future.

As Peter Roff points out this effort has been somewhat successful in swaying surface level public opinion polls of the Court.

The undermining of the court’s legitimacy is part of the political process, not the legal and certainly not the democratic one. Everything from the references to its poll numbers to the way the current majority is described – conservative, far-right, hard right – rather than originalist, constitutionalist or even as justices favoring a narrow interpretation of the Constitution’s meaning rather than an expansive one – are all notes in the same song. Progressives want to restore the court’s position as the final word on liberal causes it’s been since FDR and are not especially concerned about how they do it. They reject the idea it should function as the referee in disputes between the branches of the federal government, the states and, on occasion, the people.

On March 25, Tara Reade publicly came forward stating that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993. The Biden campaign has denied the allegations.

The blatant media bias in handling the accusations of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Vice President Biden shows an extremely disturbing double-standard in due process. Apparently, the Left does not hold their own candidates to their own standards.

We don’t want to celebrate someone being found guilty of extortion.  That said, it is worth remembering that Michael Avenatti was talked about as a Democratic Presidential candidate and a serious lawyer who appeared 121 times on CNN and 108 on MSNBC criticizing the President.  He was fired by adult film actress Stormy Daniels but his worst political effort may have been his false attacks on Justice Brett Kavanaugh regarding Julie Swetnick’s “rape train” allegations.

CNN Business today reported that CNN had settled with Covington High School student and MAGA-hat-wearing Nick Sandmann for its false reporting of an incident on the National Mall last year:

CNN has settled a lawsuit with a Kentucky high school student who was at the center of a viral video controversy, a spokesperson for the news network confirmed Tuesday.

No other details were immediately available.

Yesterday, a judge on the Eastern District of Kentucky allowed limited discovery in the lawsuit of Covington Catholic high school student Nicholas Sandmann against the Washington Post for defamation over its reporting of events during last year's March for Life in Washington, DC.  The judge had dismissed the case a few months ago but issued the new order on response to a motion for reconsideration:

It does not take a deep dive into the facts to determine that the Democrats' partisan impeachment case is on very shaky ground.  Actually, looking at the facts objectively from what we know from the Ukrainian perspective seems to show that former Vice President Biden, not President Trump, is the one whose activities should be receiving further scrutiny.

According to Webster’s a quid pro quo is "something given or received for something else."  Democrats allege Trump wanted dirt on Biden in return for foreign aid.  However, according to the New York Times reporter Ken Vogel: “The Ukrainians weren't made aware that the assistance was being delayed/reviewed until more than one month after the call."

The fallout from the Kavanaugh smear continues with some on the left doubling down on the smears regarding Justice Kavanaugh drugging and organizing rape trains of teenagers and with others backing off.  This is all a result of Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley’s 29 page letter referring Trump-hater lawyer Michael Avenatti and his “witness” Julie Swetnick to the FBI for criminal investigation for providing false statements, obstructing investigations, and conspiracy during Kavanaugh’s confirmation. 

Yesterday, NBC did a mea culpa claiming that they had been deceived by Avenatti:

Was this an intentional attempt to mislead our reporters? Evidence points that way... https://t.co/MOxE8WiGK4

— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) October 26, 2018