Category Archives: Mainstream Media

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Daily Broadside | Our Garbage Media Values “Sensational” Over Murderous Rampage

Circling back to the unfolding war in Israel—we learned yesterday that Gaza-based photojournalists working for CNN, the Associated Press, Reuters, and The New York Times were embedded with Hamas during the October 7 slaughter.

You may ask yourself: how did the photojournalists know to meet the attackers early that morning as they accompanied them over the border into Israel? Did they know their assignment was to document a surprise raid on innocent Israelis? Did they let anyone know? If not, why not?

Here’s the scoop from Honest Reporting.

On October 7, Hamas terrorists were not the only ones who documented the war crimes they had committed during their deadly rampage across southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies whose early morning presence at the breached border area raises serious ethical questions.

What were they doing there so early on what would ordinarily have been a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas? Did the respectable wire services, which published their photos, approve of their presence inside enemy territory, together with the terrorist infiltrators? Did the photojournalists who freelance for other media, like CNN and The New York Times, notify these outlets? Judging from the pictures of lynching, kidnapping and storming of an Israeli kibbutz, it seems like the border has been breached not only physically, but also journalistically.

Four names appear on AP’s photo credits from the Israel-Gaza border area on October 7: Hassan Eslaiah, Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud, and Hatem Ali.

Eslaiah, a freelancer who also works for CNN, crossed into Israel, took photos of a burning Israeli tank, and then captured infiltrators entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza.

[…]

Reuters has published pictures from two photojournalists who also happened to be at the border just in time for Hamas’ infiltration: Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa and Yasser Qudih.

They both took pictures of a burning Israeli tank on the Israeli side of the border, but Abu Mustafa went further: He took photos of a lynch mob brutalizing the body of an Israeli soldier who was dragged out of the tank.

Reuters was kind enough to add a graphic warning to the photo caption, but it didn’t prevent editors from shamelessly labeling it as one of the “Images of the Day” on their editorial database.

It seems that the photojournalists knew the attack was coming and participated in it—and then the mainstream media bought the photos.

As if to underscore how closely aligned these “photojournalists” are with the enemy, here’s one of them literally embracing Hamas.

You can’t trust the mainstream media. They’re part of the Left and the mouthpiece of the Democrats. They no longer function as a check on government. They function as an extension of government.

What else do you suppose that they photographed?

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Daily Broadside | White House Delivers Marching Orders to Regime Media, Who Dutifully Report It

Freedom of the press is supposed to protect the press from government control. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote: “The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.” Like everything else the Democrats touch, the press is now a corrupted institution that protects the government from the governed.

The Biden White House sent a letter to its media allies Wednesday, directing them to intensify their “scrutiny” of House Republicans after Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced an impeachment inquiry into the Biden family’s influence-peddling operation.

“It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies. Impeachment is grave, rare, and historic. The Constitution requires ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office, wrote in the letter to top U.S. news executives, according to CNN. “After nearly 9 months of investigating, House Republicans haven’t been able to turn up any evidence of the President doing anything wrong,” Sams added inaccurately.

If we had a truly free press, they’d tell the White House to go pound sand. But the White House knows who their allies are and isn’t afraid to use them. The MSM is simply a mouthpiece for the regime. As Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit often says, “Just think of the media as Democratic party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.”

CNN astonishingly not only reported on the directive from the administration, but then went on to actually do what the White House asked.

The White House sent a letter to top US news executives on Wednesday, urging them to intensify their scrutiny of House Republicans after Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, despite having found no evidence of a crime.

“It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies,” Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office, wrote in the letter, which was first obtained by CNN.

The letter, which said an impeachment inquiry with no supporting evidence should “set off alarm bells for news organizations,” was sent to executives helming the nation’s largest news organizations, including CNN, The New York Times, Fox News, the Associated Press, CBS News, and others, a White House official familiar with the matter said.

So far, so good. But then, in the very next paragraphs,

The correspondence comes one day after McCarthy announced that he had directed three House committees to begin an impeachment inquiry into Biden. House Republicans, most of whom have denied that disgraced former President Donald Trump committed any wrongdoing, have long sought to baselessly portray Biden as a corrupt, crime-ridden politician engaged in sinister activities.

While news organizations have published innumerable fact checks on the matter, they have also often failed to robustly call out the mis- and disinformation peddled by Republicans in their coverage, frustrating officials in the Biden White House who believe that the news media should be doing more to dispel lies that saturate the public discourse, CNN wrote without evidence.

Just kidding. I added that last part.

The report ends with this:

The Republican House-led investigations into Biden have yet to provide any direct evidence that the president financially benefited from Hunter Biden’s career overseas.

Just like the regime directed!

Yes, the White House is panicking, but they only have themselves to blame. As Victor Davis Hanson writes,

The Left is now suddenly voicing warnings that those who recently undermined the system could be targeted by their own legacies.

So, for example, now we read why impeachment is suddenly a dangerous gambit.

True, the Founders did not envision impeaching a first-term president the moment he lost his House majority. Nor did they imagine impeaching a president twice. And they certainly did not anticipate trying an ex-president in the Senate as a private citizen.

In modern times, the nation has not rushed to impeach a president without a special counsel investigation to determine whether the chief executive was guilty of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

But thanks to the Democrats, recent impeachments now have destroyed all those guardrails. After all, Trump was impeached the first time on the fumes of an exhaustive but fruitless 22-month, $40 million special counsel investigation—one designed to find him guilty of Russian “collusion” and thus to be removed from office but found no actionable offenses at all.

Instead, dejected Democrats moved immediately for a second try. In September 2019 a few weeks after Trump had announced his 2020 reelection bid, the Democratic House began to impeach the president on the new grounds that he had talked to the President Zelensky of Ukraine and said he might delay offensive arms shipments—unless the Ukrainians could demonstrate that they had ended corruption and, in particular, were no longer influenced by the Biden family quid pro quo shakedowns.

Trump was proven right: the Biden family is not just corrupt, but, in particular, Joe Biden as head of the family and Vice President had intervened in the internal politics of an aid recipient, by threatening not to delay but rather to cancel outright all U.S. aid to Ukraine—unless it fired Viktor Shokin, a Ukrainian prosecutor.

They’re circling the wagons, including the ones carrying CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, The Washington Post, the New York Times, and all the other leftist mouthpieces.

“Freedom of the press” indeed.

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Daily Broadside | Economy Implodes While Old Man Mumbles About How Great It Is

Daily Verse | Job 10:18-19
“Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me. If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!”

Friday’s Reading: Job 11-14
Saturday’s Reading: Job 15-17

It’s Friday and the completion of another trip around the drain here in the Land of Brandon. Things are not looking good, my friends, as we stare a global food shortage in the face and it’s likely millions will die, especially in third-world countries where people are living on less than a dollar a day. We’ll face some shortages and inflated prices here in the U.S, but most of us will be able to navigate the financial tsunami even while the government takes its pound of flesh while doing nothing to alleviate the pain.

Equity and all that, prol.

As many predicted, Q1 GDP is worse than thought, down 1.5 percent.

First-quarter gross domestic product declined at a 1.5% annual pace, according to the second estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That was worse than the 1.3% Dow Jones estimate and a write-down from the initially reported 1.4%.

Downward revisions for both private inventory and residential investment offset an upward change in consumer spending. A swelling trade deficit also subtracted from the GDP total.

The pullback in GDP represented the worst quarter since the pandemic-scarred Q2 of 2020 in which the U.S. fell into a recession spurred by a government-imposed economic shutdown to battle Covid-19. GDP plummeted 31.2% in that quarter.

I’m old enough to remember when we were assured that inflation was just a passing phase and recession wasn’t a thing to worry about.

One factor helping to propel growth is a resilient consumer fighting through inflation that accelerated 8.3% from a year ago in April.

“Fighting through inflation” by … spending? How long do you think that will last as Americans blow through their paychecks faster on things like, say, gasoline? Not much discretionary cash left over for remodeling the house or buying the new transgender Barbie doll.

Plus, consumer confidence is tanking.

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment for the US fell to 59.1 in May of 2022, the lowest since August of 2011, from 65.2 in April and below market forecasts of 64, as Americans remained concerned over the inflation. The current economic conditions index fell to 63.6, the lowest in 13 years while the expectations gauge sank to 56.2 from 62.5. The median expected year-ahead inflation rate was 5.4%, remaining near a four-decade high for the last three months. To make things even worst, the index of buying conditions for durable goods, such as household appliances, fell to the lowest level since the survey began in 1978.

The adults are back in charge, baby!

Although Americans aren’t all that impressed with the adults. Sixty percent of Americans disapprove of the current Resident. Okay, really, it’s 59 percent, but what’s a point here or there?

U.S. President Joe Biden’s public approval rating fell this week to 36%, the lowest level of his presidency, as Americans suffered from rising inflation, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll completed on Tuesday.

The two-day national poll found that 59% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s job performance. His overall approval was down six percentage points from 42% last week.

Biden’s approval rating has been below 50% since August, raising alarms that his Democratic Party is on track to lose control of at least one chamber of Congress in the Nov. 8 midterm election.

In a sign of weakening enthusiasm among Democrats, Biden’s approval rating within his own party fell to 72% from 76% the prior week. Only 10% of Republicans approve of his job in office.

Behold, 81 kA-ziLLiOn VoTEs!

As low as Biden’s overall approval rating is, it remains higher than the lows of his predecessor, Donald Trump, whose approval rating bottomed out at 33% in December 2017.

At least he’s more popular than Trump! And best of all — NO MoAR MeeN TwEEtS!

And besides, totally not his fault, says the totally not biased fairly unbalanced Reuters staff writers.

This year, Biden has been dogged by a surge in U.S. consumer prices, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine helping drive fuel prices higher and global supply chains still hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He’s been HOUNDED, I tell you. Hounded by that totally autonomous “surge” in those evil right-wing conspiratorial “consumer prices” and them evil Ruskies whose invasion has increased the cost of gas and … oh, wait. They forgot to mention that Brandon shut down the Keystone Pipeline on Day One and has banned drilling on federal land and killed fracking and is letting drilling permits off the coast of Alaska expire even though we have as much oil as we need literally beneath our feet because … climate change!

But this is a good thing. You guys just don’t understand.

“[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over,” [Brandon] said during a press conference in Japan following his meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

“God willing.”

The [R]esident then insisted that his administration’s actions, rather than increasing the price of gas, had actually been able to “keep it from getting worse — and it’s bad.”

He’s a hero, you understand. Like in the Marvel universe.

I just can’t understand why his numbers are down.

I just can’t.

Have a good weekend.

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You Have to Talk to Thomas

Fact from Fiction

Apart from first hand knowledge, everything we know about the world is based on what we’ve been told.

Provided your resources are credible, you’re on solid ground in the way you formulate your convictions.

But when there’s more than one perspective being circulated and it all seems to be based on something authoritative, what might otherwise be a consensus is now a disparate group of passionate voices all convinced that they’re right and everyone else is just trying to catch up.

In such a situation, it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction and what’s true becomes defined more by one’s philosophical preferences than actual events and whole conversations.

In the end, the truth is going to be defined by evaluating all the facts. That, as opposed to scenarios where the commentator is manipulating just some of the facts.

Take, for example, the Resurrection of Christ.

Personality vs Platform

You could talk to Pilate and get one perspective. You could talk with John and get something entirely different. If those two individuals are your only sources of information, in the absence of something undeniable, you will be drawn to the personality championing the platform more so than the platform itself.

But at some point, you have to talk to Thomas.

Pilate sentenced Jesus to death, John saw Him die but it was Thomas who refused to believe anything as nonsensical as Jesus having come back to life unless…

…unless he was able to physically touch where the spikes had gone through His wrists and put his hand into the wound created by the spear that had punctured His side.

The NIV Text Note for this particular verses says, “Hardheaded skepticism can scarcely go further than this.”1

Unless you talk to Thomas, or at least objectively consider his experience, your take on Jesus having conquered death is going to be based more on what you want to believe than what’s actually the case.

You have to talk to Thomas.

Whether it’s COVID-19 or Donald Trump

And the same thing applies to similar situations where you have a variety of viewpoints. Whether it’s COVID-19 or Donald Trump, you have to consider all of the players involved and give extra consideration to the one that represents, not just an eyewitness, but someone whose testimony makes no sense apart from it being absolutely true.

And when you encounter a differing viewpoint who would accuse you of being biased in an effort to make their perspective appear more credible, figure out who the “Thomas” is, make sure you’re familiar with what “Thomas” said, and then say to your opponent…

You have to talk to Thomas.

1. NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1985, p1637

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Morning Links | 17 Apr 20

Happy Friday! Your links today include a noble task for some wounded warriors, a seditious leading prompt by an MSNBC host, a rant about our whimpering subservience to bureaucrats and big tech, a thoughtful piece by Douglas Groothuis on how a Christian should respond to the pandemic, and how Mike Singletary is dealing with the pandemic. And finally … your first installment of Friday Funnies!

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Morning Links | 16 Apr 20

Good Thursday morning. Today’s links include an investigation into who “Anonymous” is, a call for Britain to help defund the WHO, a question about who the real editors are at the NYT, an announcement as Willow Creek Community Church turns the page, a long-overdue take-down of Zinn’s propaganda, and an eerie “coincidence” involving multiple local news outlets.

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