Our Corrupt Media

They are currently at step 2.

The Coronation (part 2)

I did in fact get up at 2 a.m. to watch King Charles' coronation, and as expected, the British didn't disappoint with ceremony and pageantry.  I was struck by 3 words that were repeated throughout the service:  law, justice, and mercy.

Those few times Charles himself spoke, I noticed that he pronounced "serve" as "sehrve", just as Mrs. Hughes did on Downton Abbey.  :-)

After the coronation itself there was a large parade of UK and commonwealth soldiers, sailors, and airmen.  The news people kept repeating the phrase "4000 troops" as if to emphasize how big this parade was.  Clearly they've never been to West Point, where a parade of the Corps of Cadets has about 4000 troops and happens all the time!

Speaking of news people, perhaps for the next coronation they'll shut up for a bit.  Gawd, they just kept talking and talking, let us watch the ceremony and hear what the participants are doing.  I don't need to know each piece of trivia.  When one would start talking I'd switch to a different network, and would stay there until their talking heads started talking, at which time I'd switch to another.  I was tuned in to watch the ceremony, not to listen to them.

One of the things I enjoy about the pageantry is the uniforms.  Being a former soldier I love the uniforms, and there were so many different types on display today!  But the best-dressed person there wasn't wearing a uniform.  OK, I just have to say it.  I don't usually care what types of suits and dresses people wear, but the Princess of Wales looked awesome in her Britannia-themed attire.  Sure, Princes William and Andrew and Princess Anne looked resplendent in their robes and uniforms, but that red, white, and blue outfit of Princess Catherine's was darned impressive.

OK, it's almost 7 a.m. and I've been up for 5 hours.  I'm going to go get a couple hours more sleep now....

"Designated Experts" on "Climate Crisis" Proven Wrong Again

If I made such extreme "predictions", and were wrong 100% of the time, no one would listen to a word I say.  But people like Grumpy Greta can be wrong all day long, day in and day out, and the media would still grant them credibility.  This a a serious problem with the press.

Lefties Gotta Leftie

And that means violence, graffiti, destruction, and lies:

About 100 protesters at the University of California, Davis, surrounded a venue attempting to disrupt an event Tuesday evening headlined by conservative personality and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. The event was organized by the school’s Turning Point chapter.

The protesters, who were mostly wearing black, clashed with law enforcement officers and other students, including attendees of the event, as they smashed windows, hurled eggs, used pepper spray and blocked people from entering the University Credit Union Center, where the event was held.

There were at least two arrests.

"Not a peaceful protest at all," Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted after photos and videos of the protest surfaced on social media.

The major Sacramento rag repeated some blood libel that they eventually had to retract:

An op-ed with the Sacramento Bee posted ahead of the event called for its cancelation (sic), alleging Kirk to have called for the "lynching" of trans people.

"Charlie Kirk has called for the lynching of trans people, a comment that should warrant the cancelation of his speaking engagement at UC Davis," the outlet said in a since-deleted tweet.

The op-ed also called Kirk a "fascist speaker."

Kirk denied ever calling for such action and threatened to sue the outlet, which deleted the op-ed. 

UC Davis, which I've long referred to as Berkeley-lite, clearly sided with the rioters while pretending to support the First Amendment:

As a public university, we must uphold the right to free speech, as guaranteed under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, even when that speech may be hateful, offensive or abusive," the school said.

How do you descend into totalitarianism and tyranny?  Slowly at first, and then suddenly.

Update, 3/16/23:  This doesn't surprise me at all:

Hours before a Turning Point USA event that turned violent thanks to Antifa agitators who smashed windows and tried to storm into the event, the chancellor of University of California Davis condemned Charlie Kirk as a purveyor of “hate” and “misinformation.”

While he accused Kirk of spreading “misinformation,” the chancellor himself made false claims about the conservative group leader....

Lefties couldn't tell the truth if they tried.

Unlawful Trespass

I never considered the January 6, 2021 incursion into the Capitol to be an "insurrection".  (Usually when people intend to overthrow their government, they do so when armed.)  To me, rather than an "insurrection", at most the people were guilty of unlawful trespass.  That so many have been sentenced to years in prison, well, I never thought I'd live to see the day that we'd have political prisoners in the United States.

I have nothing to add to this:

ROGER KIMBALL: Tucker Carlson bulldozes the January 6 ‘insurrection’ narrative.

Tucker Carlson showed how the anti-Trump battalions had lied about January 6. Liz Cheney and her Kangaroo Court lied about what happened. So did Nancy Pelosi and the regime media.

Jacob Chansley, the behorned and painted veteran who became the face of the protest because of his outlandish getup, was not a violent insurrectionist. He was a mannerly protestor who prayed publicly in the Capitol and was politely escorted through its halls by several Capitol police officers. Why, many people will wonder, has he been sentenced to five years in jail? Schumer and the media charged that Carlson “sanitized” what happened that day by “cherry-picking” the video. But it was clear to anyone who watched Carlson’s presentation that it was the J6 Committee that did the cherry-picking.

Back in September 2021, I gave a talk on what I called “the January 6 insurrection hoax.” The anti-Trump lobby did not like what I had to say. It is delicious to be vindicated so publicly.

A hurt dog barks. I expect to be surrounded by a lot of howling as the public digests what Carlson aired. It’s going to be an effervescent election season.

As a result of Chuck Schumer’s meltdown, last night, “Fox News had more total and 25 to 54 year old demo viewers than MSNBC, CNN, Newsmax & NewsNation combined.”

Yeah, what he said.

Here's Another One Where The Title Doesn't Match The Story

Why do relatively fewer black Americans earn university degrees?  CNN has the story:

Black students are less likely to attain college degrees because of discrimination and external responsibilities, study finds

Except, that's not quite what the study finds, as evidenced by the first two paragraphs of the CNN story: 

Black college students have lower six-year completion rates for any type of degree or certificate program than any other racial or ethnic group because of racial discrimination, the high cost of higher education and a multitude of external responsibilities, according to a new Lumina Foundation-Gallup 2023 State of Higher Education study.

The study, released on Thursday, found that Black students in less racially diverse programs are more likely to feel discriminated against, physically and psychologically unsafe, and disrespected, leading them to abandon their higher education goals. (boldface and italics mine--Darren)

Nowhere in the article was there any evidence of discrimination.  I have a hard time believing that there's a lot of discrimination against black Americans in academia.  Crazy, I know, but I don't buy it.  I'll be blunt, those reasons given above sound like excuses to me.  You don't have to justify feeeeeeling discriminated against, or feeeeeeeeling psychologically unsafe, or feeeeeeeeling disrespected.  And there's no way any person or organization could defend themselves from such accusations and prove a negative.  It's very easy to give those excuses.

Why do fewer black Americans earn university degrees?  I'd say that, given their K-12 performance as a group, many are not properly prepared for college.  The "external responsibilities" in the CNN title, explained in the article, could also play a role.  But racial discrimination?  I just don't buy it absent evidence.

(And for those of you who will want to scream "racism!" about this post, first, screw you.  Second, I didn't talk why white Americans aren't prepared for university-level work because that wasn't what the CNN story was about, and this post is about the CNN story.)

The Media Aren't Fickle--They're Always On The Same Side

The media will like you as long as you spout the leftist creed.  Dare depart from it, though, and they'll turn on you on a dime.

Take Elon Musk, for instance:

The media used to love Elon Musk. They adored his “eco-conscious” business ventures because it fit their Green agenda. Musk, being a manufacturer of electric cars powered by the highly flammable pollutant lithium and a seller of worthless pieces of paper called carbon credits, made him the media’s golden boy. But now, everything has changed….

Now, Musk is hated by the media and other Democrats as much as Donald Trump, and they are seeking to destroy him. Why? Well, because Musk bought Twitter and he’s been on a rampage of transparency and truth, exposing the massive corruption and collusion of the media and government officials to silence dissenting opinions and to interfere in elections. Musk is doing the job they should be doing...

Thank goodness Musk is showing the public the dangers of a government colluding with the media. Sadly, most media outlets are burying that story just like they continue to bury the truth about the massive corruption of the Biden family, and sadly, the media will never forgive Musk for doing their job as they seek to pull out every stop to discredit him now he’s their enemy.

Here's An Example of Media Bias

Is it ok for a politician to go on vacation during a storm, or not?

link

What Is News?

This morning when I woke up I checked the news on my phone.  Two of the sites I went to were CNN and Fox.  Given CNN's political slant, it's not surprising that the top 3 stories (and several related "sub-stories") on their (mobile) web site all related to politics--the Georgia Senate run-off, President Trump, and a Supreme Court case.  This is to be expected.

What I could not find anywhere on the front page of their site was this story:

https://www.foxnews.com/us/loudoun-county-superintendent-scott-ziegler-fired-after-grand-jury-report-handling-sexual-assaults

How is this not news?  I guess they don't consider it so if it doesn't support their viewpoint. 

Those of us on the left and right live in two different worlds, watch two different movies.

Update, 12/10/22:  link didn't work before, fixed now! 

Update, 12/13/22:  Merrick Garland, who clearly doesn't have the temperament to sit on the Supreme Court, referred to these parents as domestic terrorists. 

The BBC Knows Not What It Writes About

They totally don't get it. Our governmental system is designed to ensure that passions are moderated, not enshrined into law:

It's notoriously hard to get new laws passed in the US and few believe the looming election reshaping Congress will solve that. Could the Swiss "people power" model help?

The US political system seems designed to create gridlock. The two chambers of Congress are frequently controlled by different parties.

The Senate has longstanding procedures that allow the minority party there to block most major legislation that doesn't have the support of at least 60 of the 100 senators.

And anything passed by Congress can be vetoed by a president (overriding that requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate).

All this means that the political stars have to align for the federal government to get things done - even overwhelmingly popular laws will wither on the congressional vine.

Policies like raising the minimum wage, enacting gun control legislation or immigration reform have substantial support but go nowhere in Washington.

Leave it to the BBC to suggest that minimum wage laws and gun control have substantial public support in this country.  They don't.

One wonders if they, like the NYT or MSNBC, even recognize what a leftie outlet they are.

Let the Swiss have their system, if they like it.  I prefer ours, thankyouverymuch.

A Difference In Treatment

Remember how the press reacted when candidate Todd Akin said that women who had been raped couldn't get pregnant?  Yes, of course it was a stupid comment, and they were right to lambast him for it.

Why don't they do the same when Stacey Abrams says something equally stupid?  Is it because she's black, because she's a woman, or because she's a Democrat?

MSNBC opinion columnist Dr. Esther Choo defended Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ recent claims that there is "no such thing" as a fetal heartbeat six weeks into pregnancy, arguing the heartbeat at six weeks is "a social construct that has more to do with the anticipation of future outcomes and little to do with what is actually present."

On Thursday, a clip of Abrams denying that an unborn baby’s heartbeat is present at six weeks went viral on Twitter, shocking pro-lifers. In it, Abrams said, "There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman's body."

The ultrasound machine manufactures the sound?  

The bias in the press is stunningly obvious.

Update, 9/25/22:  You want more?  Here's more:

We’ve seen 41-year-old Shannon Brandt, who purposely struck and killed 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson. Brandt claimed he thought Ellingson was a “Republican extremist” and admitted to murdering the teenager over a political dispute. Still, a brief search of the websites of CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS yielded no returns for the name “Shannon Brandt,” and save for conservative media, the story has evaded coverage by national outlets.

The next incident involved the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German. German had been investigating abuse allegations against Public Administrator Robert Telles. Telles had lashed out at German’s reporting several times on Twitter. Shortly after German’s murder, he was arrested and charged with the killing. Yelles, a Democrat, was also an enthusiast for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), attending her CNN town hall during the 2020 election.

Again, however, Telles’s party identification has all but been erased from national news stories. The media have settled on simply describing Telles as an elected official. In a detailed write-up of the crime and the charges Telles faces, the Associated Press completely omitted his party identification. Top line: Members of the national media are going out of their way to protect a person charged with the murder of one of their own colleagues. It’s a level of professional shamelessness rarely seen for an industry already well known for protecting Democrats.

Still, these are two specific and exceptionally serious incidents that occurred after the sitting president called for a full-frontal press against his political opponents — opponents, it should be noted, whom he openly described as unpatriotic extremists. But neither Biden nor his administration has been made to answer for this dark rhetoric. Either targeted political rhetoric leads to violence and even death, as our media dutifully warned for years, or it doesn’t. But it cannot be both.

If it weren't for double standards they'd have no standards at all.

Why We On The Right Might Be A Little Suspicious of Political Motives Behind The Raid on Donald Trump's House

I was asked by a snarky anonymous commenter about my thoughts on the raid on Donald Trump's house.  I don't have any fixed opinions on it yet; rather, I'm waiting for more information to be released by both sides.  Any new information, though, will be filtered through the lens of the following information:

It's difficult to trust the news, and even previously respected agencies like the FBI, given their involvement in the hoaxes above.

Want more?  Watch the video here (and be prepared to laugh--the creator did a great job!).

Recession

Are we in one, or not?

Does it matter?  

Here's all you need to know about recessions and the current press coverage of our not-a-recession-no-matter-what-we've-said-in-the-past:

Press and Tech People Are Flipping Out

Lefties.  I hope Elon Musk buys Twitter just so their heads will explode:

“Democracy Dies in Darkness” is the motto of the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post. It may sound like a warning, but more and more it seems like a summary of the left’s aspirations to control debate and shut down any opposition.

A recent example of those aspirations appeared in a column by former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s big buy of Twitter stock. The original headline — changed after widespread mockery — was this: “Elon Musk’s vision for the Internet is dangerous nonsense: Musk has long advocated a libertarian vision of an ‘uncontrolled’ internet. That’s also the dream of every dictator, strongman and demagogue.”

Yeah.  Stalin, Mao, Xi, Castro, Kim--they all have supported the free exchange of ideas, right.  Reich is an idiot. 

In George Orwell’s “1984,” war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength. To these Orwellian inversions, Reich would add another: Censorship is free speech. But it’s not, and claiming otherwise won’t make it so.

Sadly, though, Reich isn’t just one lone wacko writing in The Guardian. He is instead, as usual, parroting the establishment’s line.

The establishment doesn’t want free speech because if Americans can talk honestly about what elites are doing, people will understand just how rotten the establishment has become and will want to do something about it.

What he said.

Update, 4/16/22:

These Are The People Who Think They're Smart Enough To Tell Us What And How To Think

What else does this reporter know that isn't correct?

Sen. Bob Casey announced he has contracted COVID-19, becoming the latest U.S. congressman to fall sick to the pandemic.

He must have slept through Civics class.

It's been this way for hours, but in case someone ever fixes the story, here's a screenshot:

The Press Outright Lied. And So Did Intelligence Officials.

It was clearly a legitimate story, but the "democratic operatives with bylines" had to trash it to get Dementia Joe elected:

The New York Times last week confirmed the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s missing laptop, a story which was originally dismissed as Russian disinformation by many liberal media outlets leading up to the 2020 presidential election. 

Television hosts, guests and journalists quickly took to the airwaves in October 2020, reassuring viewers that the laptop was "unverifiable," likely tied to the Kremlin, and the product of a smear campaign orchestrated by former President Trump and his allies...

Politico also ran an October 2020 headlined, "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say," which highlighted a letter signed by "more than 50 former senior intelligence officials" who asserted that the emails from the laptop had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." 

The letter, which was parroted by much of the media, suggested, without evidence, that the emails were hacked and could have been tampered with by the Kremlin in order to make its contents look incriminating. Signatories of that letter included former high-ranking intelligence officials and outspoken Trump critics like former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, and Jeremy Bash, many of whom work as analysts on MSNBC and CNN and supported Biden's candidacy.

Information on the laptop implicated Hunter Biden and his father in criminal dealings, including dealings with the Russians.  Notice how the Democrats always blame the Republicans for the very "Russian collusion" that they themselves engage in?  I notice it, too. 

Update, 3/22/22:   

IT’S NOT JUST HUNTER’S LAPTOP AT ISSUE: Now that the New York Times got around to “verifying” it’s authenticity, according to Margot Cleveland in The Federalist, the controversy over the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop is mainly about the eight scandals indicated therein that directly involve the senior citizen occupying the Oval Office:

“Merely admitting the laptop is legitimate is not enough. Rather, by concurring in the authenticity of the laptop and the emails, the supposed standard-bearers of journalism have also implicitly acknowledged the validity of the scandals spawn by the porn-filled MacBook.

“And notwithstanding the salacious source of the documentary evidence of the scandals, the scandals are not about Hunter Biden: They are about now-President Biden,” Cleveland writes. Another Cleveland must-read.  link

Move Over, Univision

There will soon be a Spanish-language conservative channel on SiriusXM, and will expand to streaming TV later this summer.  You can tell the lefties are afraid of its influence by the language they use to describe it:

First U.S. Spanish-language conservative network launches, opening a new front in the political information wars targeting Latinos.

As one commenter says:

Notice the language NBC chooses here. Conservatives are opening a “front” that is part of a “war” that “targets” Latinos. You won’t find this type of verbal hostility when the outreach is done by Progressives. Guaranteed.

Heh.

Major Sacramento Newspaper Editorial Board Members Clutch Pearls About Ending Mask Mandates In Schools

It doesn't matter that the vast majority of the country has ended mask mandates.  It doesn't matter that most (all?) of California has ended mask mandates.  No, the major Sacramento newspaper editorial board thinks California's students should continue to breathe their exhaled breath for months to come:

Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s insistence that “the latest data and science” continue to guide his COVID policy, his administration’s abandonment of school mask requirements this week amounted to a bare-faced concession to strident voices and shortsighted politics. In the name of defusing the governor’s loudest critics and appeasing those insisting on convenience over caution, the decision will leave teachers and schools vulnerable to the vagaries of the virus and students susceptible to still more educational deprivation...

Two weeks after the state’s broader indoor mask mandate expired, Newsom nevertheless announced this week that he would drop the requirement for schools and child care centers as of March 12. The administration’s position is a departure from that of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which advises Americans to wear masks in schools and other indoor locations in places with high coronavirus transmission, including a majority of California counties.

Despite the vocal minority disrupting school board meetings across the state, the administration is also at odds with most Californians. According to a recent poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, nearly two-thirds of the state’s voters support requiring masks in schools, with even greater support among Black and Latino Californians, who have been disproportionately sickened and killed by the virus.

Even the governor appeared to be having an argument with his own policy. Although the administration will no longer require masks in classrooms, it continues to “strongly recommend” them — a regrettable attempt to have it both ways and let others sort out the mess.

I can think of 3 times the governor has been known to flout his own mask mandates, the first being the French Laundry episode.  He clearly doesn't fear the 'rona, and neither do I, and I resent having to wear a face diaper just so that he can demonstrate his authority and others can demonstrate their ideological purity.

Too many Americans have been misled into mistaking minor public health precautions for an affront to their liberty and misconstruing selfishness as a fight for freedom. Our leaders should resist the urge to pander to such impulses and summon the courage to stand up for the well-being of the public and particularly the most vulnerable among us.

When freedom is a problem, that is a problem.  There are two types of people in the world:  those who want to tell others what to do, and those of us who just want to be left alone to live our lives.  We clearly see what type of people sit on this particular editorial board.

Layers and Layers of Fact-checkers

If CNN gets something like this wrong, what else are they getting wrong?  

Travelers going to Hawaii won't need boosters to be considered fully vaccinated, and the Caribbean islands of Aruba and Bermuda are making entry easier.

Bermuda is not in the Caribbean, as shown by this Google Earth screenshot:

When A Reporter Asks "What Do You Mean By Freedom?", You Know There's Trouble Afoot

Isn't it funny how people who have actually lived under communism don't mince words about it, or about what's happening in the once-free West these days?  You've gotta love this lady Gina, who isn't having any of the reporter's crap:

Let's not forget that the Prime Minister has made up wild claims about the truckers and their motives:

In a transparent attempt to delegitimize the popular protest, Trudeau seized on media reports of two problematic flags that were seen over the weekend near the Freedom Convoy—a Nazi flag, and a Confederate Flag—and the alleged vandalism of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The flags were carried by suspected infiltrators who were not welcome at the event.

In his comments, Trudeau used the isolated incidents to smear the thousands of decent, law-abiding Canadians at the protest.

“I know you’re wondering about what we saw in our Capital city this weekend,” Trudeau intoned. “As my friend Irwin Cotler said on Saturday, freedom of expression, assembly, and association are cornerstones of of democracy; but Nazi symbolism, racist imagery, and desecration of war memorials are not. It is an insult to memory and truth,'” he continued.

“Over the past few days Canadians were shocked and frankly disgusted by the behavior displayed by some people protesting in our nation’s capital,” Trudeau added. “I want to be clear, we are not intimidated by those who hurl insult and abuse at small business workers and steal food from the homeless. We won’t give in to those who fly racist flags. We won’t cave to those who engage in vandalism or dishonor the memory of our veterans.”

While slamming the Freedom Convoy as something he would never go near, Trudeau pointed out that he is not against all demonstrations. He said he has attended  Black Lives Matter protests in the past because he agreed with “their concerns and their issues.”

Then Brave Sir Justin bravely ran away:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family have left their home in Ottawa for a secret location, the CBC reports, amid security concerns as thousands pour into the Canadian capital on Saturday in trucker convoys to protest vaccine mandates.

The man is a gutless turd, who would otherwise be a nobody were it not for daddy.  Gina has more bravery, more decency, and more sense than does the national so-called leader.