THE OUTRAGE – AT 12:48 P.M. ET:  The Florida vote count continues, but one thing largely unnoticed is the disgraceful role of much of the press in openly rooting for the Democrats, Andrew Gillum for governor and Bill Nelson for the Senate, to pull from behind and win.   From Mollie Hemingway at the Federalist: 

Florida voters elected Republican Ron DeSantis as governor and Republican Rick Scott as senator on election night. Both were announced as winners and their opponents conceded defeat. But then Democratic lawyer Marc Elias announced that Democrats would be going for a recount and would win the Senate seat.

A few days after the 2018 election was held, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sounded the alarm about serious irregularities in the counting of ballots in two Democratic stronghold counties in Florida:

To make sure that votes aren’t being invented or destroyed to effect an outcome, one of the first priorities of any election supervisor is to announce how many ballots are in possession and how many remain to be counted. To fail to do this, as the Broward County and Palm Beach County Supervisors had, is to open themselves up to the accusation of massive vote fraud.

Citizens can not have confidence that ballots are not being destroyed, or created, when supervisors fail to immediately announce how many ballots are on hand.

And...

Despite these stunning violations of law, and Rubio’s cry to stop the madness in these counties that have a history of election problems, media seemed largely uninterested in what was happening in Florida.

Rubio reminded Americans that Broward County’s supervisor had a history of election problems, including illegally destroying ballots, secretly opening mail-in ballots, sending voters too many ballot pages, and leaving a constitutional question off the ballot.

Mollie then goes on to quote news outlet after outlet declaring that there was "no evidence" of voter fraud.  In fact, the evidence, of course, was in the history and the refusal of voting authorities to follow state law.  But when you're rooting for one side, you don't notice,.

To be clear, these are not the stories and social media accounts of official Democratic partisans, but the accounts and stories of a media that is desperate to not be thought of as “fake news.” A media that is desperate to make the case that they are something other than partisan hacks who care about elevating Democrats and harming Republicans above all other journalistic concerns. If you see even an ounce of daylight between these narrative constructions and those of Democrats, please share. Because to the naked eye, this is nothing but pure gaslighting about the obvious efforts of two of the most historically scandal-ridden counties in the country when it comes to elections and voting.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's the best article I've seen about the vote count in Florida and the reaction of the bought press.

Journalism is destroying itself, and it doesn't seem to care.  Journalists have gone from the standard of reporting the news without fear or favor to "making a difference."  And it's the difference they want to make that's especially frightening.

November 10,  2018