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March 25, 2018
CNN Defames Geller to Embarrass John Bolton
By Pamela Geller, American ThinkerIs there no limit to how low CNN will sink? CNN’s Don Lemon hosted a panel Thursday night featuring leftist turncoat Peter Beinart and “conservative” commentator Ben Ferguson, to discuss incoming National Security Adviser John Bolton’s supposed “anti-Muslim ties.” Beinart was on the warpath, attempting to smear Bolton by association with me, because he wrote the foreword to my 2010 book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America, (written with Robert Spencer) and spoke at several of my rallies.
Beinart couldn’t tell the truth, which is that in The Post-American Presidency I accurately exposed Obama’s hatred for Israel, post-American internationalism, opposition to the freedom of speech, and much more — long before they became obvious to the world. So instead, Beinart, calling me “the most notorious anti-Muslim bigot,” lied repeatedly, claiming that in the book I said that Barack Obama was trying to impose Sharia law in the United States, and that Obama was a Muslim.
Neither of those claims is true. I wrote, accurately, that Obama was enabling the spread of Sharia in the U.S. by strong-arming communities into accepting mega-mosques in residential areas and using his Justice Department to fight for special privileges in workplaces and schools. He blamed the First Amendment for what he knew to be an al-Qaeda attack on our consulate in Benghazi, by falsely claiming it was a reaction to a YouTube video criticizing Muhammad. And his FBI had an undercover agent at the free speech event my organization organized in Garland, Texas in 2015, but no team there to stop the jihadis from attacking. (It was local police who stopped a potential massacre.)
In the book, I also detailed the fact that his father and stepfather were both Muslims (and in Islamic law, if your father is Muslim, you are, too), and that he clearly has an affinity for the Islamic faith. But that was all. Beinart had to distort and exaggerate what I said beyond recognition — all in his desperation to smear Bolton by association with me.
Did anyone on that panel actually read my book? Almost certainly not. After Beinart lied brazenly about what the book said, the “conservative” panelist Ben Ferguson said that he would not have advised Bolton to write the foreword. Why not? Why is Ferguson sanctioning and validating the smear job of the kind that the left has carried out on every effective voice for freedom and individual rights this country? That book was prescient. I was right about everything I wrote — the book was an unheeded warning.
Ferguson should have done his homework and have been ready to tell Beinart and the CNN audience what my book actually said, and how leftist smear organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have for years been spreading the lies that Beinart repeated Thursday night. Ferguson could have mentioned how the SPLC is trying to destroy legitimate conservative organizations by lumping them in with the KKK and neo-Nazis as “hate groups,” and that it refuses to classify the violent leftists of Antifa as a “hate group.” But don’t expect a CNN house conservative to know how to fight back hard with the truth in the face of the endless barrage of lies.
The last panelist, Keith Boykin, was even worse, asking why we should highlight Muslim extremism, and why should we even talk about it, since “we have horrible relations with Muslim countries.”
The CNN segment bordered on the comical when Beinart, with his record of anti-Israel polemic, said, “I’m saying this as a Jew” — and of course this, too, went unchallenged.
Beinart called my rallies against the Ground Zero Mosque — a project which 70% of Americans opposed — an “anti-mosque rally,” and acted as if they were some egregious offense. Another lie from Beinart was that I posted vile videos of Muslims having sex with animals. I never posted any such videos. And he also claimed that I “repeatedly called Muslims savages.” This was another outright lie. Most likely this smear merchant was referring to an ad that my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, won free speech court battles several years ago to display in the New York subway system and on buses in New York City and elsewhere. The ad read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”
The savages referred to in the ad, as I explained repeatedly when the ad first appeared, are clearly the Palestinian jihadis who murder Israelis on buses and in restaurants, and while enjoying a Shabbat dinner in their homes — and the other Palestinians in Gaza who pass out candies to celebrate these slaughters. If someone thinks that I was referring to all Muslims, they must think that all Muslims support this savage behavior — in which case, it is they who are “Islamophobic,” not I.
Beinart likened me to KKK leader David Duke, saying I was the “equivalent of David Duke for Muslims.” Why is that? Why wouldn’t the equivalent of David Duke for Muslims be Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? Why are those who shine a light on Islamic texts and teachings that incite Muslim to wage jihad the enemy? We work with Muslims who wish to live free — how is that like David Duke?
Of course, CNN would never have dreamed of actually having me on to defend myself against these charges.
I demand a retraction. Don Lemon allowed a libelist to defame me repeatedly on his show. Has CNN departed so completely from any sense of fairness and accuracy that they not only air these libels without any effective opposition, but will allow them to stand unchallenged? President Trump was absolutely right when he labeled CNN “fake news,” and their lying about me and the positions I have taken in order to smear John Bolton is just the latest example among many of CNN’s cavalier attitudes toward the truth and eagerness to disseminate the wildest falsehoods in pursuit of its leftist agenda.
At this point, CNN has about as much credibility as Weekly World News, the supermarket tabloid that claims, among other things, that numerous Congressmen and Senators are space aliens.
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of The Geller Report and author of the bestselling book, FATWA: Hunted in America, as well as The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.
New York Times “journalism” — emotional, fact-free propaganda.
Geller: New York Times Asks, ‘Can Islamic and European Civilizations Coexist?’ or ‘The West is Wrong to Resist’
By Pamela Geller, Breitbart News, April 1, 2018:
The New York Times published a piece Thursday, “Can Islamic and European Civilizations Coexist?” and it is incredible (as in beyond belief, hard to believe, far-fetched, implausible).
The headline leads you to believe that, finally, maybe there might be a discussion of this existential question with a (sadly) obvious answer, but that would be delusional. In reality, the Times is not asking the question. It mocks you into thinking the question is a legitimate one. The real title should be: “Muslim Grievances, Why We Are Right to Whine After Jihadis Attack.”
The piece is not written by a legitimate, reasoned, and brilliant scholar of Islam like, say, Ibn Waraq, Bat Ye’or, or Robert Spencer. No, this absurd propaganda is by one of the Times’ resident shills for Islam, Atossa Araxia Abrahmian, coming in form of a review of Journey Into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity, the latest installment in Islamic studies professor Akbar Ahmed’s series on Muslims around the world.
The finger-pointing at the infidel for the violence and holy wars of devout Muslims is at its apex in this indictment of Western compassion and open borders. And Muslims, of course, are the real victims:
The bulk of Ahmed’s research comes from a listening tour he embarked on with a team of researchers between 2013 and 2017. They interviewed imams, community leaders, activists and ordinary people across the continent about the challenges European Muslims face today. Their findings are predictably grim. Across the board, interviewees reported feeling marginalized, stereotyped and prevented from professional advancement because of their background. Despite their multitude of experiences, they ended up lumped into the crude categories that conflate terrorists, Muslims and refugees; Arabs, Persians and Africans; recent immigrants with no facility in the local language and second-generation doctoral students fluent at the highest level.
“Many patterns of discrimination,” Ahmed notes, “are rooted in colonial legacies that vary by country[.]”
Ah, yes colonial legacies – nothing about Islamic imperialism and annihilationism. Nothing about the centuries of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilations, and enslavements. Robert Spencer’s much anticipated tome on Islamic history, The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS, details this very thing and should be part of every school curriculum in the country.
This whole piece is an extraordinary lie, and the Left’s relentless promotion of the big lies have rendered us ill-prepared for what’s coming.
In this “book review,” Abrahamian tells us that the author was invited to speak at a mosque in Athens.
What he saw there took him aback. The facility was less a house of God than an underground parking lot “of a particularly sinister aspect[.]”
“These men had nothing to lose, and I could imagine the most desperate among them prepared to lash out in an unpredictable and even murderous manner,” Ahmed writes in Journey Into Europe. “This, I felt, was Europe’s ticking time bomb.”
Oh yes, because the mosque in Athens, Greece — a country whose suffering at the hands of Muslim invaders is incalculable and little spoken of (like the Armenians) — is not pretty, it only makes sense that the Muslims destroy Europe. Are we to believe that if the Greeks built shrines to their executioners, all would be well?
So the jihad in Europe is the Greeks’ fault, but Christians in Muslim countries who can’t pray and whose houses of worship are systematically destroyed have no recourse, no voice, no New York Times article that speaks the truth of their oppression and destruction. On the contrary, in the view of the New York Times, the Christians are the problem.
The complaining and the whining continues. Ahmed, in this book, says:
Pakistanis in Britain are better integrated than, say, French citizens of Algerian and Moroccan descent. But even absent empire, many of the Muslims he speaks to find it hard, if not impossible, to fit in. “In Denmark they strangle you slowly, slowly,” one interviewee proclaims.
Pakistanis in the UK are better integrated? Thousands of English girls are groomed by Muslim rape gangs which the police never pursued for fear of being perceived as “islamophobic.” Daily acts of jihad written off as some generic form of extremism. This passes for integration?
Ahmed “hopes Europeans can form new, hybrid identities that broaden the criteria for who belongs.” Where have Muslim societies ever allowed a hybrid of identity? What he is saying is, he hopes that Europeans will go quietly into the cold Islamic night.
Using Islamic historic lies, Abrahmian bolsters his argument:
Europe happens to have a homegrown example of this philosophy in medieval Andalusia, when people of multiple faiths in parts of modern-day Portugal and Spain enjoyed convivencia, a state of relative pluralism, peace and prosperity under Muslim rule. “The answer to the violence and tensions between religions in Europe today and the sense of alienation and confusion in Muslim youth is to revive and strengthen the Andalusian model as an alternative to that of a monolithic tribal society,” Ahmed writes.
Andalusia was hardly golden for the Christians and Jews living under Islamic rule:
Islamic Spain was far from being a paradise. Cordoba was no “ornament of the world.” Maimonides had to flee the city because of the persecution of the Almohads, but even before the Alhomads the treatment of non-Muslims was dismal. When the Jewish viziers Samuel ibn Naghrela and his son Joseph were both murdered, and then the entire Jewish community of Grenada was massacred as well – yes, in Grenada, home of the “Alhambra” of which Washington Irving sung — it was not something without deep Islamic roots. (more here)
Abrahmian closes with this pearl:
The fundamental message of “Journey Into Europe” is that throughout history, Islamic and European civilizations have often been not just compatible, but complementary. It’s crucial to acknowledge their shared past to reject today’s resurgent tribalism. The stakes, as Ahmed puts it, are “Andalusia or dystopia.”
Intellectually, his conclusion is hard to argue with. But since 9/11, popular perceptions of Islam in the West have been informed by emotion, not facts or reason.
That’s true. And this New York Times article is more of that emotional, fact-free propaganda.
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of The Geller Report and author of the bestselling book, FATWA: Hunted in America, as well as The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America, and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.
March 25, 2018
CNN Defames Geller to Embarrass John Bolton
By Pamela Geller, American ThinkerIs there no limit to how low CNN will sink? CNN’s Don Lemon hosted a panel Thursday night featuring leftist turncoat Peter Beinart and “conservative” commentator Ben Ferguson, to discuss incoming National Security Adviser John Bolton’s supposed “anti-Muslim ties.” Beinart was on the warpath, attempting to smear Bolton by association with me, because he wrote the foreword to my 2010 book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America, (written with Robert Spencer) and spoke at several of my rallies.
Beinart couldn’t tell the truth, which is that in The Post-American Presidency I accurately exposed Obama’s hatred for Israel, post-American internationalism, opposition to the freedom of speech, and much more — long before they became obvious to the world. So instead, Beinart, calling me “the most notorious anti-Muslim bigot,” lied repeatedly, claiming that in the book I said that Barack Obama was trying to impose Sharia law in the United States, and that Obama was a Muslim.
Neither of those claims is true. I wrote, accurately, that Obama was enabling the spread of Sharia in the U.S. by strong-arming communities into accepting mega-mosques in residential areas and using his Justice Department to fight for special privileges in workplaces and schools. He blamed the First Amendment for what he knew to be an al-Qaeda attack on our consulate in Benghazi, by falsely claiming it was a reaction to a YouTube video criticizing Muhammad. And his FBI had an undercover agent at the free speech event my organization organized in Garland, Texas in 2015, but no team there to stop the jihadis from attacking. (It was local police who stopped a potential massacre.)
Did anyone on that panel actually read my book? Almost certainly not. After Beinart lied brazenly about what the book said, the “conservative” panelist Ben Ferguson said that he would not have advised Bolton to write the foreword. Why not? Why is Ferguson sanctioning and validating the smear job of the kind that the left has carried out on every effective voice for freedom and individual rights this country? That book was prescient. I was right about everything I wrote — the book was an unheeded warning.
Ferguson should have done his homework and have been ready to tell Beinart and the CNN audience what my book actually said, and how leftist smear organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have for years been spreading the lies that Beinart repeated Thursday night. Ferguson could have mentioned how the SPLC is trying to destroy legitimate conservative organizations by lumping them in with the KKK and neo-Nazis as “hate groups,” and that it refuses to classify the violent leftists of Antifa as a “hate group.” But don’t expect a CNN house conservative to know how to fight back hard with the truth in the face of the endless barrage of lies.
The last panelist, Keith Boykin, was even worse, asking why we should highlight Muslim extremism, and why should we even talk about it, since “we have horrible relations with Muslim countries.”
The CNN segment bordered on the comical when Beinart, with his record of anti-Israel polemic, said, “I’m saying this as a Jew” — and of course this, too, went unchallenged.
Beinart called my rallies against the Ground Zero Mosque — a project which 70% of Americans opposed — an “anti-mosque rally,” and acted as if they were some egregious offense. Another lie from Beinart was that I posted vile videos of Muslims having sex with animals. I never posted any such videos. And he also claimed that I “repeatedly called Muslims savages.” This was another outright lie. Most likely this smear merchant was referring to an ad that my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, won free speech court battles several years ago to display in the New York subway system and on buses in New York City and elsewhere. The ad read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”
The savages referred to in the ad, as I explained repeatedly when the ad first appeared, are clearly the Palestinian jihadis who murder Israelis on buses and in restaurants, and while enjoying a Shabbat dinner in their homes — and the other Palestinians in Gaza who pass out candies to celebrate these slaughters. If someone thinks that I was referring to all Muslims, they must think that all Muslims support this savage behavior — in which case, it is they who are “Islamophobic,” not I.
Beinart likened me to KKK leader David Duke, saying I was the “equivalent of David Duke for Muslims.” Why is that? Why wouldn’t the equivalent of David Duke for Muslims be Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? Why are those who shine a light on Islamic texts and teachings that incite Muslim to wage jihad the enemy? We work with Muslims who wish to live free — how is that like David Duke?
Of course, CNN would never have dreamed of actually having me on to defend myself against these charges.
I demand a retraction. Don Lemon allowed a libelist to defame me repeatedly on his show. Has CNN departed so completely from any sense of fairness and accuracy that they not only air these libels without any effective opposition, but will allow them to stand unchallenged? President Trump was absolutely right when he labeled CNN “fake news,” and their lying about me and the positions I have taken in order to smear John Bolton is just the latest example among many of CNN’s cavalier attitudes toward the truth and eagerness to disseminate the wildest falsehoods in pursuit of its leftist agenda.
At this point, CNN has about as much credibility as Weekly World News, the supermarket tabloid that claims, among other things, that numerous Congressmen and Senators are space aliens.
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of The Geller Report and author of the bestselling book, FATWA: Hunted in America, as well as The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.
New York Times “journalism” — emotional, fact-free propaganda.
Geller: New York Times Asks, ‘Can Islamic and European Civilizations Coexist?’ or ‘The West is Wrong to Resist’
By Pamela Geller, Breitbart News, April 1, 2018:
The New York Times published a piece Thursday, “Can Islamic and European Civilizations Coexist?” and it is incredible (as in beyond belief, hard to believe, far-fetched, implausible).
The headline leads you to believe that, finally, maybe there might be a discussion of this existential question with a (sadly) obvious answer, but that would be delusional. In reality, the Times is not asking the question. It mocks you into thinking the question is a legitimate one. The real title should be: “Muslim Grievances, Why We Are Right to Whine After Jihadis Attack.”
The piece is not written by a legitimate, reasoned, and brilliant scholar of Islam like, say, Ibn Waraq, Bat Ye’or, or Robert Spencer. No, this absurd propaganda is by one of the Times’ resident shills for Islam, Atossa Araxia Abrahmian, coming in form of a review of Journey Into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity, the latest installment in Islamic studies professor Akbar Ahmed’s series on Muslims around the world.
The finger-pointing at the infidel for the violence and holy wars of devout Muslims is at its apex in this indictment of Western compassion and open borders. And Muslims, of course, are the real victims:
The bulk of Ahmed’s research comes from a listening tour he embarked on with a team of researchers between 2013 and 2017. They interviewed imams, community leaders, activists and ordinary people across the continent about the challenges European Muslims face today. Their findings are predictably grim. Across the board, interviewees reported feeling marginalized, stereotyped and prevented from professional advancement because of their background. Despite their multitude of experiences, they ended up lumped into the crude categories that conflate terrorists, Muslims and refugees; Arabs, Persians and Africans; recent immigrants with no facility in the local language and second-generation doctoral students fluent at the highest level.
“Many patterns of discrimination,” Ahmed notes, “are rooted in colonial legacies that vary by country[.]”
Ah, yes colonial legacies – nothing about Islamic imperialism and annihilationism. Nothing about the centuries of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilations, and enslavements. Robert Spencer’s much anticipated tome on Islamic history, The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS, details this very thing and should be part of every school curriculum in the country.
This whole piece is an extraordinary lie, and the Left’s relentless promotion of the big lies have rendered us ill-prepared for what’s coming.
In this “book review,” Abrahamian tells us that the author was invited to speak at a mosque in Athens.
What he saw there took him aback. The facility was less a house of God than an underground parking lot “of a particularly sinister aspect[.]”
“These men had nothing to lose, and I could imagine the most desperate among them prepared to lash out in an unpredictable and even murderous manner,” Ahmed writes in Journey Into Europe. “This, I felt, was Europe’s ticking time bomb.”
Oh yes, because the mosque in Athens, Greece — a country whose suffering at the hands of Muslim invaders is incalculable and little spoken of (like the Armenians) — is not pretty, it only makes sense that the Muslims destroy Europe. Are we to believe that if the Greeks built shrines to their executioners, all would be well?
So the jihad in Europe is the Greeks’ fault, but Christians in Muslim countries who can’t pray and whose houses of worship are systematically destroyed have no recourse, no voice, no New York Times article that speaks the truth of their oppression and destruction. On the contrary, in the view of the New York Times, the Christians are the problem.
The complaining and the whining continues. Ahmed, in this book, says:
Pakistanis in Britain are better integrated than, say, French citizens of Algerian and Moroccan descent. But even absent empire, many of the Muslims he speaks to find it hard, if not impossible, to fit in. “In Denmark they strangle you slowly, slowly,” one interviewee proclaims.
Pakistanis in the UK are better integrated? Thousands of English girls are groomed by Muslim rape gangs which the police never pursued for fear of being perceived as “islamophobic.” Daily acts of jihad written off as some generic form of extremism. This passes for integration?
Ahmed “hopes Europeans can form new, hybrid identities that broaden the criteria for who belongs.” Where have Muslim societies ever allowed a hybrid of identity? What he is saying is, he hopes that Europeans will go quietly into the cold Islamic night.
Using Islamic historic lies, Abrahmian bolsters his argument:
Europe happens to have a homegrown example of this philosophy in medieval Andalusia, when people of multiple faiths in parts of modern-day Portugal and Spain enjoyed convivencia, a state of relative pluralism, peace and prosperity under Muslim rule. “The answer to the violence and tensions between religions in Europe today and the sense of alienation and confusion in Muslim youth is to revive and strengthen the Andalusian model as an alternative to that of a monolithic tribal society,” Ahmed writes.
Andalusia was hardly golden for the Christians and Jews living under Islamic rule:
Islamic Spain was far from being a paradise. Cordoba was no “ornament of the world.” Maimonides had to flee the city because of the persecution of the Almohads, but even before the Alhomads the treatment of non-Muslims was dismal. When the Jewish viziers Samuel ibn Naghrela and his son Joseph were both murdered, and then the entire Jewish community of Grenada was massacred as well – yes, in Grenada, home of the “Alhambra” of which Washington Irving sung — it was not something without deep Islamic roots. (more here)
Abrahmian closes with this pearl:
The fundamental message of “Journey Into Europe” is that throughout history, Islamic and European civilizations have often been not just compatible, but complementary. It’s crucial to acknowledge their shared past to reject today’s resurgent tribalism. The stakes, as Ahmed puts it, are “Andalusia or dystopia.”
Intellectually, his conclusion is hard to argue with. But since 9/11, popular perceptions of Islam in the West have been informed by emotion, not facts or reason.
That’s true. And this New York Times article is more of that emotional, fact-free propaganda.
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of The Geller Report and author of the bestselling book, FATWA: Hunted in America, as well as The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America, and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.
Dan Senor’s most recent Call Me Back podcast features Matti Friedman. Among many other things, Friedman is a former AP Jerusalem bureau staffer. It is his AP experience that prompted him to think through the wide world of sickness that we see in the reaction of the outside world to Israel’s current life-and-death struggle with Hamas. Senor asks good questions and lets the incredibly articulate Friedman speak.
Senor has posted the podcast with this introduction:
Every day we see news accounts “reported” by reputable journalists. There is typically one frame in the post-10/07 War: “Gazan Palestinians are the victims of Israel.” How does this happen? How do journalists actually operate in Gaza and around the world? And is this a window into what had Hamas figured out long before 10/07 — that the forces of barbarism could manipulate the intentional press reaction to their massacre of 10/07? That is why we wanted to sit down with Matti Friedman, who is one of the most thoughtful writers when it comes to all matters related to Israel, the broader Middle East, and also trends in the world of journalism.
He writes regularly for The Free Press and is a regular contributor to The Atlantic. His newest book is called Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai. Before that he published Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, and before that Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War.
Matti’s army service included tours in Lebanon. His work as a reporter has taken him from Israel to Lebanon, Morocco, Moscow, the Caucasus, and Washington, DC. He is a former Associated Press correspondent and essayist for the New York Times opinion section. But it was his time covering Hamas’s takeover of Gaza that led him to study with great detail how Hamas manipulates the media, NGOs and the international community, and how they are working from the same playbook right now, perhaps quite masterfully.
I urge interested readers to check out the podcast below.
Here are the show notes citing Friedman’s work discussed in the podcast (I especially commend Friedman’s 2014 Tablet column linked below):
“The Wisdom of Hamas” — The Free Press.
“What if the Real War in Israel Hasn’t Even Started?” — The Free Press.
“There Is No ‘Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'” — The New York Times.
“An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth” — Tablet Magazine.
“What The Media Gets Wrong About Israel” — The Atlantic.
Caroline Glick recommends Margaret Brennan’s interview with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning on Face the Nation as “very important.” In it he faces the Biden administration talking points argued by Sullivan. She does not ask a single question that reflects sympathy with Israel’s ordeal, yet the Jew haters are having their say in the comments at YouTube. I infer that Netanyahu was able to make his own points effectively. CBS has posted the transcript of the interview here.
One of the big stories in the New York Times today is another Clarence Thomas smear, but with a twist: “Justice Thomas Hires Law Clerk Accused of Sending Racist Text Messages.”
The story is about Crystal Clanton, who graduated from the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University in 2022. She is coming off a clerkship with Judge William Pryor of the 11th Circuit, who calls her “an outstanding law clerk.” Justice Thomas has now hired her to clerk on the Supreme Court.
For the last seven years, Crystal Clanton has been dogged by reports of an email that she allegedly wrote, in which she supposedly said, “I hate black people.” The Times story admits that they have not seen any such message, and are relying on reporting by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, perhaps the least trustworthy source in America.
In 2017, Clanton was running field operations for Turning Point USA. Mayer did a hit piece on Turning Point that included a variety of allegations, including the one against Clanton. Mayer claimed to have seen a screen shot of the text. The story has dogged Clanton ever since. When she was offered a clerkship on the 11th Circuit by Judge Pryor, seven left-wing members of Congress lodged an ethics complaint against Pryor, based on Clanton’s alleged text. That complaint was investigated by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which found the complaint to be without merit and dismissed it.
This January 2022 story has the details. Clanton left Turning Point after the claim against her was first made, but the Second Circuit found it to be false:
The Turning Point executive “had determined that the source of the allegations against (Clanton) was a group of former employees,” [Second Circuit Chief Judge Debra] Livingston wrote. “One of these employees was fired after the organization learned that this person had created fake text messages to be used against co-workers, to make it appear that those co-workers had engaged in misconduct when they had not.”
Pryor and Maze knew about the allegations against Clanton when they interviewed and hired her. And both determined the allegations of racist behavior by Clanton were untrue and found she was highly qualified to serve as a clerk for them, Livingston wrote.
“There is nothing in the record to dispute any of this,” she noted.
Charlie Kirk is also quoted in that story:
“The media has alleged that Crystal said and did things that are simply untrue,” Kirk wrote. “I have first-hand knowledge of the situations reported on and I can assure that the media has made serious errors and omissions. The sources of these reports are a group of former employees that have a well-documented desire to malign Crystal’s reputation.”
The employee who was fired had “created fake text messages to be used against other employees,” Kirk wrote.
Crystal Clanton got to know Ginny Thomas when she worked at Turning Point, and she was evidently so distraught about her departure from that group that she lived with the Thomases for nearly a year. So Thomas knows her well. He wrote a letter in connection with the Second Circuit investigation:
“I know Crystal Clanton and I know bigotry,” Thomas wrote. “Bigotry is antithetical to her nature and character.”
Clanton didn’t respond to the Times’s request for comment in the story they published today, but back in 2017 she told The New Yorker that “I have no recollection of these messages and they do not reflect what I believe or who I am, and the same was true when I was a teenager.”
So there the matter rests. The moral of the story, I suppose, is that the Left never forgets. No matter that she was cleared by an investigation by one of the nation’s courts of appeals; once the Left gets its hands on a smear it never lets go. It will never stop trying to destroy your life. And of course, The New Yorker and the New York Times are two of the worst offenders.
Also, what makes this old story worthy of the Times’s A section? Only the fact that Justice Thomas is involved. The Times doesn’t care about a law clerk of whom few people have heard, but it cares deeply about smearing the country’s top conservative African-American. But what, exactly, are we supposed to infer from the Times story? That Clarence Thomas is weirdly favorable to those who hate black people?
A final irony: Supreme Court justices have no doubt hired any number of clerks who have written and spoken favorably about DEI, which actually is racist. But there is no controversy there: on the contrary, endorsing that form of racism is a badge of honor.
CBS has fired Catherine Herridge, an investigative reporter who was “pursuing stories that were unwelcomed by the Biden White House and many Democratic powerhouses, including the Hur report on Joe Biden’s diminished mental capacity, the Biden corruption scandal, and the Hunter Biden laptop.” After dumping Herridge, “CBS officials took the unusual step of seizing her files, computers and records, including information on privileged sources.” These files, “likely contain confidential material from both her stints at Fox and CBS” and are now “presumptively the property of CBS News.”
Joseph Klein traces these issues to Dan Rather, but they really go back to CBS “anchorman” Walter Cronkite, once billed as the most trusted man in America. As Douglas Brinkley showed in Cronkite, many of Cronkite’s dispatches during WWII “were propagandistic.” Cronkite coached John F. Kennedy about “getting across” on television, and long before Watergate, Cronkite “orchestrated the secret tape recording of the Republicans’ credentials committee meeting.” This was conducted, “under the shady rationale that the covert act was good for democracy.” According to Brinkley, “it was a real black eye to Cronkite,” who said of Jimmy Carter, “He’s got one of the best brains of anybody I’ve known.”
Cronkite wrapped his regular broadcast with “that’s the way it is,” but as one wag put it, when you watched Walter Cronkite you not only saw CBS, you heard it too. That was also true of Dan Rather, who in 1986 made news his own self. A man confronted Rather demanding “Kenneth what’s the frequency?” and duly beat the fertilizer out of the CBS anchorman. The network put it off to mistaken identity, which could be true in one sense.
Government and establishment media are Siamese twins, joined at the mouth. As Catherine Herridge confirms, cross the government and you’re a goner, with your documents confiscated. Consider also former CBS investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, author of Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington, published in 2014.
Readers learn that CBS News president David Rhodes is the brother of Ben Rhodes, advisor to Obama and up to his eyeballs in the Benghazi scandal. Joel Molinoff came to CBS after serving the Obama White House as director of the Intelligence Advisory Board, and before that worked for the NSA. CBS also hired Mike Morell, formerly a deputy director of the CIA. So as Attkisson explained, CBS stories on Benghazi, Obamacare and so forth might as well have been written by the White House.
Attkisson’s computer was infiltrated with spyware proprietary to government agencies such as the CIA, FBI, and NSA. The intruders planted classified information, adding “the possible threat of criminal prosecution.” Ten years later, those who expose the scandals of the Biden Junta can be sure that Big Brother is watching.
I understood from the Star Tribune headline over the AP story yesterday that the IDF had massacred some 100 Gazans seeking food and water. As of this morning, the AP is sticking with the story with a Rafah dateline. It leads with this observation: “Israeli troops fired on a crowd of Palestinians racing to pull food off an aid convoy in Gaza City on Thursday, witnesses said.”
I’m not sure about the massacre. Deep into the story we hear from the ever reliable “Gaza Health Ministry.” The AP reports: “At least 112 people were killed, Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said. The ministry described it as a ‘massacre’ and said more than 700 others were injured.” The AP raises no warning about the record of the “Gaza Health Ministry” on such matters.
The IDF spokesmen have a better record than the AP on these IDF alleged massacres. I take it that the IDF denies that’s what happened, although it is investigating. [See update below.] The Times of Israel reports, per the IDF, that troops opened fire on several Gazans who moved toward soldiers and a tank at an IDF checkpoint, endangering soldiers, after they had rushed the last truck in the convoy further south. The Times of Israel story quotes IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari:
This morning, the IDF coordinated a convoy of 38 trucks to provide additional humanitarian assistance to the residents of northern Gaza. This humanitarian aid came from Egypt, went through a security screening at the Kerem Shalom humanitarian crossing in Israel, and then entered Gaza, for distribution by private contractors. As these vital humanitarian supplies made their way toward Gazans in need, thousands of Gazans [rushed] the trucks, some began violently pushing and trampling other Gazans to death, looting the humanitarian supplies.
Here are the facts: At 4:40 a.m., the first aid truck in the humanitarian convoy started making its way through the humanitarian corridor that we were securing. Our tanks were there to secure the humanitarian corridor for the aid convoy. Our UAVs were there in the air to give our forces a clear picture from above. At 4:45 a.m., a mob ambushed the aid trucks, bringing the convoy to a halt.
Hagari also showed a new video of the incident that is included in the Times of Israel story. Hagari’s statement continues:
In this video, the tanks that were there to secure the convoy saw the Gazans being trampled and cautiously tried to disperse the mob with a few warning shots. When the hundreds became thousands and things got out of hand, the tank commander decided to retreat to avoid harm to the thousands of Gazans that were there.
You can see how cautious they were when they were backing up. They were backing up securely, risking their own lives, not shooting at the mob.” he continued…No IDF strike was conducted toward the aid convoy. On the contrary, the IDF was there carrying out a humanitarian aid operation, to secure the humanitarian corridor, and allow the aid convoy to reach its distribution point, so that the humanitarian aid could reach Gazan civilians in the north who are in need.
The IDF posted Hagari’s statement below on X. Video is included with his statement.
“We recognize the suffering of the innocent people of Gaza. This is why we are seeking ways to expand our humanitarian efforts.”
Watch the full statement by IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari on the incident regarding the humanitarian aid convoy the IDF facilitated. pic.twitter.com/m6Pve3Odqw
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) February 29, 2024
“And yet the lie will be repeated as fact over and over and over by those who are ignorant, and those who are not ignorant but are evil, and those who are Susan Sarandon,” comments Cliff Asness. Add the detestable Senator Elizabeth Warren to the list. Query into which category the AP falls.
Netanyahu & his right-wing government have created a catastrophe in Gaza. Today Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinians desperate for aid.
The U.S. must push for a cease-fire, hostage releases, & condition military support on pursuing a two-state solution for a lasting peace. pic.twitter.com/igeEpeFRC8
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 29, 2024
I can’t wait for the United States Air Force to show us how it’s to be done. If this goes down as advertised, we can resupply Hamas directly.
The U.S. Air Force is reportedly preparing for an Operation beginning next week that will see the Mass Airdropping of Humanitarian Aid including Food, Water, and Medicine into the Gaza Strip, with Flights utilizing C-130 and C-17 Transport Aircraft being launched from Airbases in… pic.twitter.com/ZH7Es0vvoj
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 1, 2024
UPDATE: The Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff includes this account in today’s edition.
After posting the adjacent item on the alleged IDF “massacre” of more than 100 Gazans yesterday, I received the Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff newsletter with this account of the events:
More than 100 people were killed when a crowd converged on an aid convoy in the Gaza Strip on Thursday and in a nearby confrontation between IDF soldiers and Palestinian men, in what an Israeli official with knowledge of the incidents described as a “completely unprecedented” set of events. “We’ve seen big groups of people running toward aid convoys, but nothing on this scale,” the official told Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss.
The convoy that came under the swarm of people was, the official described, “a very properly coordinated aid convoy with local contacts.” As the convoy passed through Gaza City early Thursday morning, thousands of people began to converge on the convoy.
“They literally physically trampled each other and ran over each other and beat each other,” the official continued. “And then Hamas started shooting at them.” The terror group aims to resell some of the convoy’s goods at a high markup, the official said.
“We did not fire at the humanitarian convoy, we secured it,” IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari emphasized in a briefing yesterday evening. “The tanks that were there to secure the convoy saw the Gazans being trampled and cautiously tried to disperse the mob with a few warning shots,” Hagari said. “You can see [in a video released by the IDF] how cautious they were when they were backing up. They were backing up securely, risking their own lives, not shooting at the mob.”
Nearby, a group of IDF soldiers guarding the convoy opened fire on a group of men approaching the battalion. First, the official said, the IDF troops fired in the air to warn the men off, but the men continued running toward the battalion.
An estimated 10 Palestinians were killed in the confrontation with Israeli troops, according to the IDF, and the rest of the casualties were caused by the stampede and confrontation near the convoy.
JI’s Daily Kickoff site is here. This account is included in this morning’s edition (with links).
UPDATE: Times of Israel editor David Horovitz considers the ensuing complications in this column.
As in Christian Nationalism Nonsense, and the always insightful Mark Tapson explains it for you:
The label “Christian nationalism” is the new Progressive dog-whistle for “scary American patriots.” It signals to Progressives that Americans who love God and country – which used to be the norm before our descent into a post-Christian, post-patriotism culture – are a subversive danger to democracy. Christianity, after all, imposes a moral code that chafes Progressive libertines, and nationalism, with its emphasis on state sovereignty and secure borders, frustrates their globalist ambitions.
Whenever Christians wave the Stars and Stripes, wear a MAGA hat, or pray that God blesses our country, the Left hyperventilates over the specter of a fundamentalist theocracy on the rise. They envision America becoming a Handmaid’s Tale dystopia in which white male Christian mullahs hang homosexuals and imprison women for seeking abortions. The Left’s vision of the separation of church and state, therefore, is one in which Christian patriots and their values are best excluded from the halls of government power entirely.
And so on, with Heidi Przybyla of Politico terrified that these Christian nationalists, “believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court. They come from God.” So much for the self-evident truth that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” from the Declaration of Independence. The woke leftists, in effect, now issue a declaration of war.
Add Christian nationalist to “white supremacists,” “MAGA Republicans,” “semi-fascists,” and those 2016 loser Hillary Clinton smeared as “deplorables.” These all signify that the speaker doesn’t like you, but there’s more to it. Pronouncing people enemies of the state is to justify violence against them. This comes at a time when the Biden Junta (“Our Democracy”) has a domestic Nazi-Soviet Pact working, and sees the greatest threat from those citizens who want the nation to be great. So all those deplorable Christian nationalist and MAGA types could wind up excluded from more than the halls of government. Don’t say it can’t happen here.
When you watch Walter Cronkite, my recent piece should have read, “you not only CBS but hear it too.” That was certainly true, particularly of Cronkite’s Vietnam coverage, but as Douglas Brinkley explained in the 819-page Cronkite, there’s more that people should know.
Cronkite had worked with Sidney Lumet to adapt the radio show “You Are There” for television. Lumet directed Network, which Cronkite saw in a private screening. As Brinkley notes, the film “hit close to home,” as “much about TV newsgathering was a sham.” As anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) explained:
Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We’re in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth. Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that’s the only place you’re ever going to find any real truth.
But, man, you’re never going to get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell. We’ll tell you that Kojak always gets the killer, or that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker’s house, and no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don’t worry, just look at your watch; at the end of the hour he’s going to win. We’ll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in illusions, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We’re all you know. You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you! You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God’s name, you people are the real thing! We are the illusion! So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I’m speaking to you now! TURN THEM OFF!
Network also cast Walter Cronkite’s daughter Cathy as Mary Ann Gifford, an heiress kidnapped by the Ecumenical Liberation Army. In the style of Patricia Hearst, kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, Gifford joins the Ecumenicals in bank robberies, which they record on film. When the Communist Laureen Hobbs (Marlene Warfield) uses the footage in her “Mao Tse-Tung Hour” show, Gifford calls her out.
“You f—— fascist! Did you see the film we made of the San Marino jail breakout, demonstrating the rising up of the seminal prisoner class infrastructure?” Hobbs tells Gifford to “blow the seminal prisoner class infrastructure out your ass!”
Network bagged four Oscars, and for cinéma vérité about television it’s hard to beat. On March 10, if anybody watched Network instead of the Academy Awards it would be hard to blame them.
Some things even the Babylon Bee can’t make up:
Bed bugs found at MSNBC’s Manhattan headquarters caused staffers to scatter ahead of the left-leaning network’s Super Tuesday coverage, The Post has learned.
According to a memo obtained by The Post, an “unidentified insect” was spotted Sunday in the recently revamped studio 3A — home to special election coverage and “The Rachel Maddow Show” — at 30 Rock in Midtown.
Additional studios on the third floor were also shuttered “out of an abundance of caution.”
Now I know what you’re thinking. How can you tell the difference between a bed bug and an MSNBC news person? They are both repellant parasites. You’d think professional courtesy would make MSNBC welcome bed bugs.
RealClearFoundation president David DesRosiers has announced the inaugural winners of of its Samizdat Prize. Tonight’s the night. The Samizdat Prize is intended to honor the most important users of the First Amendment in the United States. The prize aspires to confer the honor that various of the Pulitzer Prizes bestow and should replace them in the mind of right-thinking men and women. In the words of DesRosiers, the award that is given by Real Clear to journalists, scholars, and public figures who have fought censorship and stood for truth, whatever the cost.
The first three recipients of the Samizdat Prize could not be more worthy: Miranda Devine (for her work on the Biden family business), Jay Bhattacharya (the anti-Fauci), and Matt Taibbi (for his work on the Twitter Files). I have written about all three many times on Power Line. DesRosiers talked about the prize with Buck Sexton here in a discussion posted at RCP.
Dr. Bhattacharya received the prize this past September. His remarks are posted here at RCP. Matt Taibbi has just posted “America enters the samizadat era” at his Racket News site. He looks back on his career in acknowledging the honor he receives tonight. Thanks to John Hinderaker, I met Matt last year. Politics aside, we have cheered him on and sought to follow his path in our own way.
Miranda Devine wrote in her New York Post Devine Online newsletter this morning:
I am thrilled to be in Palm Beach tonight to receive the inaugural Samizdat award from RealClearPolitics, alongside pandemic refusenik Dr Jay Battacharya and Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi.
It’s an honor to be part of this grassroots movement to reclaim honest journalism in an era of lies.
“Samizdat” was the name of the underground press resisting the tyranny of the former Soviet Union.
It means ‘We publish ourselves” and was the inspiration for David DesRosiers, publisher and president of RealClear Foundation, to set up a rival journalism award to the Pulitzers.
Bravo to RealClear for bucking the establishment.
I couldn’t agree more. I would only add our congratulations to the inaugural recipients of the Samizdat Prize.
Referring to an illegal alien as “illegal” in unscripted remarks during his State of the Union Address this past Thursday, President Biden inadvertently offended a core Democratic constituency (i.e., illegal aliens). That could not stand and it didn’t. As John notes nearby, Biden recanted and apologized within 48 hours.
Illegal or undocumented — which is the correct term. As a matter of fact, “Illegal alien” is the correct term.
When we got married, my wife was an illegal alien. Having graduated from law school and been hired by Hennepin County District Judge Robert Bowen as a law clerk, she applied for a work visa. In response she received a letter from the INS apprising her that her student visa had expired and that she was out of status. She applied for legal residency.
We went down to the local INS office for an interview. We had been advised that we would be asked a few questions to establish that our marriage was bona fide — not a fraudulent exercise undertaken solely to allow an illegal immigrant to escape deportation. As it turned out, we appeared to be the only bona fide couple of the four or five with us in the waiting room. And this was early in the Reagan years.
In the course of the interview, the INS officer asked me what toothpaste “the alien” used. It seemed funny because “the alien” was sitting next to me at the time, but we took no offense. We thought it was funny and I was happy to ace the quiz.
Today a question in that form would probably get the guy fired. Today the prescribed term is “undocumented.” Today that is the term on which the Democrats insist. Today it is the term that every mainstream media outlet (including Fox News) uses. What’s happening here?
What’s happening is the blessing of illegal immigration and the destruction of citizenship. The left seeks to break down our resistance to illegal immigration by means of a mandated euphemism. It’s an Orwellian device. The phenomenon of illegal immigration is not even to be described with tolerable accuracy. The underlying distinction is to be rendered meaningless.
As I say, illegal aliens have become a core constituency of the Democrats. To illegal aliens the left requires that the knee must be bent. I’m not sure why Fox News is compliant. It is frankly disgusting.
Here I speak for my wife and me. We support enforcement of the law. We oppose illegal immigration. We do not seek to accommodate it. We do not respect it. We desire the return of illegal immigrants to their home country or deportation to some other place. We do not want to support them with our tax dollars. We are sickened by the invasion of illegal aliens promoted by Biden and the Biden administration. The abuse of the English language that accompanies it is the least of it, but it deserves at least to be noted.
According to his Martin Kulldorff bio, Ph.D., Dr.h.c., is an epidemiologist, a biostatistician, and a founding fellow at Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom. He was a Professor of Medicine at Harvard University for thirteen years. Dr. Kulldorff’s research centers on developing and applying new disease surveillance methods for post-market drug and vaccine safety surveillance and for the early detection and monitoring of infectious disease outbreaks. In October 2020, he co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, advocating for a pandemic strategy of focused protection instead of lockdowns.
City Journal has just published Professor Kulldorff’s account of the censorship of his work and his involuntary departure from Harvard. It was something (many things) he thought and said — crimes against the groupthink of the Covid regime. His account runs to 2,500 words and is titled “Harvard tramples the truth.” It’s straight outta Cambridge. It’s straight outta D.C. It’s straight outta Orwell.
It opens: “I am no longer a professor of medicine at Harvard. The Harvard motto is Veritas, Latin for truth. But, as I discovered, truth can get you fired. This is my story—a story of a Harvard biostatistician and infectious-disease epidemiologist, clinging to the truth as the world lost its way during the Covid pandemic.” Read every word here.
When we started this site, exposing mainstream media bias was a big part of our mission. Using the then-new internet, we and many others held liberal outlets (i.e., virtually all of them) accountable in a way that hadn’t happened before. The effect of that effort was not that the liberal press became more accurate or more objective. Rather, they came out of the closet. For the most part, they no longer make any serious pretense of neutrality. Whether that is an improvement or not is debatable.
But, in any event, it no longer makes sense to criticize, say, the New York Times or the Washington Post for being biased. That would be like, if you were a soldier in World War II and a Panzer division was approaching, you were to say, “Those Germans are biased against us!” It isn’t a question of bias. They are just the enemy.
Donald Trump was perhaps the first major Republican politician to abandon the effort to curry favor with the press establishment. He famously denounced the fake news press (sometimes abbreviated to the press in general) as enemies of the people. The good news is, most Americans agree with him.
Rasmussen finds that Trump’s characterization is the majority view:
60% of Likely U.S. Voters agree that the media are “truly the enemy of the people,” as Trump said in 2019, including 30% who Strongly Agree. Thirty-six percent (36%) disagree, including 21% who Strongly Disagree.
That is an extraordinary finding. Respondents were asked this question:
Do you agree or disagree with this statement: The media are “truly the enemy of the people”?
And a clear majority said that they agree. The press has utterly squandered whatever respect it once enjoyed.
The Rasmussen survey also asked about the Democrats’ “bloodbath” hoax:
Former President Donald Trump recently said that it would be a “bloodbath” if he didn’t win in November. Which is more likely, that he was talking about auto workers losing jobs or that he was talking about widespread political violence by his supporters?
The result:
Forty-nine percent (49%) of voters believe Trump was talking about auto workers losing jobs when he warned of a “bloodbath,” while 40% think Trump was talking about widespread political violence by his supporters if he did not win the election. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.
Basically, Democrats follow the Democratic Party press and swallow the Democrats’ talking points:
Among voters who Strongly Approve of Biden’s job performance as president, 78% believe Trump’s “bloodbath” comment was about widespread political violence by his supporters if he did not win the election. By contrast, among voters who Strongly Disapprove of Biden’s performance, 84% think Trump was referring to auto workers losing jobs.
But again, returning to good news, most voters believe that the media’s coverage is driven by the Biden administration’s talking points:
Among all Likely Voters, 63% believe it is likely that the major news media’s political coverage is dictated by talking points from the Biden campaign, including 42% who say it’s Very Likely. Twenty-nine percent (29%) don’t think it’s likely media coverage is dictated by the Biden campaign, including 11% who say it’s Not At All Likely.
Majorities of every political category – 78% of Republicans, 50% of Democrats and 61% of unaffiliated voters – believe it’s at least somewhat likely that the major news media’s political coverage is dictated by talking points from the Biden campaign.
So even half of Democrats admit that the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Associated Press are servants of the Democratic Party. The bottom line is that the liberal press serves certain functions on behalf of the Democratic Party: it reinforces Democrats’ talking points and keeps Democratic voters riled up. Those are valuable contributions, to be sure. But the days when the liberal media could actually drive public opinion are long gone.
Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute. He took issue with the December 2 Washington Post story “Israel’s assault forced a nurse to leave babies behind. They were found decomposing.” Satloff deconstructed the Post story in the 5,000-word critique “Once Again, a ‘Palestinian Babies Story Merits a Washington Post Apology.”
Satloff’s critique elicited a response from Post executive editor Sally Buzbee. She stands by the Post’s story and demands that Satloff clean up his critique. Satloff publishes Buzbee’s response in his disappointed postscript “Sadly, WaPost Admits No Error in Story Filled with Them.”
This episode had me thinking back to my own examination of the Post’s reporting in this vein on Israel’s 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense. Mr. Satloff, I see your 5,000 words and raise you 5,000 words. I wrote several posts and well over 5,000 words on the story featuring the aptly named Jihad Masharawi. Forgive me for saying that those posts have stood the test of time! As the song goes, “same as it ever was.” I have retrieved this March 11, 2013 post from our archives.
* * * * *
I wrote about the photograph of BBC Arabic editor Jihad Masharawi holding the shrouded body of his 11-month-old son, Omar, in posts here, here, here and here. The photograph depicted Masharawi outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City early in Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense. The young Masharawi’s death was attributed to an Israeli airstrike.
The photograph went viral on the second day of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, being featured on the Web and in newspapers around the world. One such among many was the Washington Post, which ran it at the top of page one. The photo is below.
Washington Post ombdudsman Patrick Pexton devoted a column to complaints about the photograph. Paul Mirengoff explicated the manifest animus in Pexton’s column.
Everything Pexton asserted directly or indirectly as a matter of fact was wrong. When a major newspaper ombudsman is this utterly clueless, who ya gonna call? Not Ghostbusters. Power Line, I guess.
Paul Danahar is the BBC Middle East Bureau Chief and Masharawi’s colleague. He spent much of the day at Masharawi’s house on the day on the day Masharawi’s son was killed, tweeting a photo of the hole in the roof of Masharawi’s house. The house wasn’t bombed, Pexton to the contrary notwithstanding. Danahar described the munition that did the damage as a “shell.”
I tweeted Danahar to ask him on what basis he identified the munition as Israeli. I wrote at the time on Power Line that I doubted it was. I thought it was more likely to have been a Hamas rocket that failed to hit its intended target in Israel. (As I recall, something like 10 percent of the Hamas rockets landed in Gaza.) Danahar failed to respond to my tweet, although he relentlessly propagated the line that Israeli forces had killed Masharawi’s son.
Everything about the photograph looked phony to me. Was Masharawi sobbing? His face doesn’t even look like he has shed tears. Masharawi looks like he’s enacting grief. I understand that Masharawi in fact lost his son as a result of the munition that hit his house, but I found the photo odd (as I did the other photos in the series of Masharawi parading around for the cameras).
I thought that Masharawi was engaging in an opportunistic bit of Terrorist Theater, the kind I wrote about in the Weekly Standard article “He didn’t give at the office.” The article demonstrates how news service stringers in Gaza work as an arm of the terrorist authorities on whom they purport to report. By the way, the staged photos of Arafat that I wrote about in the Standard article were the work of an AP stringer. The photo of Masharawi that the Post ran was credited to the AP.
Terrorist Theater is a function of the sinister authority wielded by terrorist forces in the areas where they hold sway. Gaza is of course under the thumb of Hamas, one such terrorist power.
We held that the death of Masharawi’s son was a tragedy and offered our condolences to Masharawi on the loss of his son. We acknowledged that we didn’t know to a certainty what had happened or who is responsible for the death, and therefore asked readers to keep an open mind.
I hope you will forgive me for rehearsing what must seem like ancient history, but it really is necessary to put this report in context, as they say: “UN clears Israel of charge it killed baby in Gaza.” The Times of Israel has the story, based on this UN report:
United Nations report cleared Israel in the death of the infant son of a BBC employee during Operation Pillar of Defense in November, instead fingering a misfired Palestinian rocket for the tragedy.
The November 14 strike left 11-month-old Omar Jihad al-Mishrawi and Hiba Aadel Fadel al-Mishrawi, 19, dead. The death of Omar, the son of BBC Arabic journalist Jihad al-Mishrawi, garnered more than usual media attention and focused anger for the death on Israel, which was initially blamed for the death.
Rather, the report suggests, a 19-year-old woman and a baby were hit by shrapnel from a rocket fired by Palestinians that was aimed at Israel, but missed its mark.
Omar is dead, and Hamas killed him, but both Jihad and jihad live, and the BBC and the Washington Post among others are their willing tools.
During radical anti-Israel demonstrations in the heart of New York City, a pro-Palestinian protester waved a burning American flag as fellow activists
The post Pro-Palestinian Protest in New York City Sees American Flags in Flames Again appeared first on Breitbart.
NPR senior Editor Uri Berliner is reportedly facing consequences after publicly criticizing the outlet's progressive leanings.
The post Report: NPR Punishes Senior Editor Who Blasted Network’s Leftist Mindset and ‘Angered’ Colleagues appeared first on Breitbart.
According to the corporate media, Climate Change has slowed the Earth’s rotation — no wait! — the Earth is spinning faster than ever before.
The post Nolte: Earth Rotation Faster or Slower? Corporate Media Can’t Get Fear Porn Straight appeared first on Breitbart.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said Monday on CNN's "The Source" that former President Donald Trump gave her a "pretty specific stare" in court after she reported that the former president fell asleep during his New York trial.
The post Haberman: Trump ‘Made a Pretty Specific Stare’ After Report he Dozed Off During Trial appeared first on Breitbart.
Former CBS ”Evening News" anchor Katie Couric said Sunday on comedian Bill Maher’s podcast "Club Random" that many of former President Donald Trump’s voters were driven by anti-intellectualism.
The post Katie Couric: Many Trump Voters Motivated by ‘Anti-Intellectualism’ appeared first on Breitbart.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Tuesday on his show "Morning Joe" that Fox News and former President Donald Trump were "obsessed with trashing America."
The post MSNBC’s Scarborough: Trump, Fox News ‘Are Obsessed with Trashing America’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Princeton professor Eddie Glaude Jr. said Tuesday on MSNBC's "Deadline" that if former President Donald Trump wins the November election, it will end "democracy."
The post Eddie Glaude: ‘If Trump Wins, I Think Democracy Is a Wrap’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Veteran National Public Radio (NPR) editor and reporter Uri Berliner resigned from the broadcaster Wednesday after being suspended without pay for publishing a lengthy essay calling out the networks' innate left-wing bias.
The post Veteran NPR Editor Uri Berliner Resigns After Calling out Network’s Left-Wing Bias appeared first on Breitbart.
ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith blasted liberals for trying to destroy Donald Trump by launching an avalanche of nuisance lawsuits
The post Stephen A. Smith Blasts Liberals for ‘Lawfare’ Against Trump: ‘Scared You Can’t Beat Him’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had kind words for far-left CNN host Jake Tapper Wednesday after the cameras appeared to turn dark.
The post Mike Johnson Praises CNN’s Jake Tapper Off-Air: ‘You’re Always Fair’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is pushing to defund NPR's budget, which taxpayers subsidize by nearly 11 percent.
The post Marsha Blackburn Pushes to Defund Taxpayer-Funded NPR appeared first on Breitbart.
MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace told lawyer George Conway Wednesday on her show "Deadline" that his tweets drove former President Donald Trump "batshit crazy."
The post MSNBC’s Wallace to George Conway: Your Tweets Drove Trump ‘Batsh*t Crazy’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Former CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Wednesday on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" that former President Donald Trump has likely violated a gag order with a social media post.
The post Toobin: Trump Violated Gag Order, He Is Attempting to ‘Intimidate Jurors’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Whoopi Goldberg told her co-hosts Wednesday on ABC's "The View" that Republicans are afraid of information and history, so they are "snowflakes."
The post Whoopi Goldberg: Republicans Are Afraid — They ‘Are the Snowflakes’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Katherine Maher, NPR's newly appointed CEO, is facing criticism over her past tweets as a veteran editor accuses the organization of leftist bias. But along the way, another interesting line of investigation has opened — how Maher wrecked Wikipedia by turning away from "free and open" discussions on the "online wikipedia" because that goal represents a "white male westernized construct."
The post NPR CEO Katherine Maher Reveals How She Ruined Wikipedia appeared first on Breitbart.
Israel is “fighting for America too” and Iran’s declarations of its ambitions to destroy the U.S. should be taken seriously, according to Israeli lawmaker Ohad Tal, who vowed that Israel will act to protect its citizens and combat the Islamic Republic of Iran regardless of U.S. support, while lamenting that Israel has become “too dependent” on America.
The post Exclusive: Knesset Member Vows Israel Will Strike Back at Iran With or Without U.S. Support appeared first on Breitbart.
Breitbart Editor-in-Chief and New York Times bestselling Breaking Biden author Alex Marlow said Thursday on Fox Business Network's "Kudlow" that the New York business records trial of former President Donald Trump is "third world stuff."
The post Marlow on ‘Kudlow’: NYC Trump Trial Is Insane ‘Third World Stuff’ appeared first on Breitbart.
MSNBC published an editorial claiming that MLB's black representation serves as a "warning about the war on DEI."
The post Joy Reid’s Blog Roasted for Post About Diversity in MLB appeared first on Breitbart.
The streaming giant Netflix has said it will stop reporting quarterly subscriber numbers with its 2025 earnings, instead focusing on other metrics.
The post Netflix Will Stop Reporting Quarterly Subscriber Numbers appeared first on Breitbart.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav just got a whole lot richer, receiving a nearly 27 percent pay raise last year while overseeing mass layoffs at the media conglomerate.
The post Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav Gets Huge Pay Raise Following Mass Layoffs appeared first on Breitbart.
MSNBC contributor Claire McCaskill said Friday on "Morning Joe" that former President Donald Trump does not know what the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) or the Affordable Care Act dubbed Obamacare were.
The post McCaskill: Trump Doesn’t Know What FISA or Obamacare Are appeared first on Breitbart.
As President Joe Biden and his Democratic colleagues continue to undermine the U.S.’ longtime strategic alliance with Israel, a recent event saw top faith leaders, Republican lawmakers, and conservatives gather to underscore a unified stance against the failed two-state solution, while promoting the idea of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) as integral to Israel, grounded in a religious and political opposition to Palestinian statehood.
The post Top Faith Leaders, Conservatives Gather to Reject Biden’s Failed Two-State ‘Solution’ for Israel appeared first on Breitbart.
Paste has published scathing review of Taylor Swift's new album, The Tortured Poets Department, without a byline to protect its author from the pop star's obsessive fans.
The post Magazine Pans Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets’ Album Anonymously to Protect Author from Feral Swifties appeared first on Breitbart.
David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer, is reportedly set to be the first to testify in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial.
The post Former National Enquirer Publisher David Pecker Reportedly First to Testify in Trump Trial appeared first on Breitbart.
Both journalists and AI are being assisted by a constellation of quasi-journalistic “centers” for combating disinformation, most of them foundation-funded non-profits, often connected to a college or university. Together, all that tech and all that money are building a wall of progressive orthodoxy to control what’s “true.”
The post Pinkerton: The Proliferation of ‘Disinformation’ Media and AI Puts More Bricks in the Wall appeared first on Breitbart.
NBC and MSNBC correspondent Antonia Hylton claimed Sunday that the anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, which are so extreme that a campus rabbi told Jewish students to leave for their own safety, were actually "peaceful."
The post NBC Reporter: Anti-Israel Protests at Columbia Are Actually ‘Peaceful’ appeared first on Breitbart.
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