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MEDIA

BOOKS, MEDIA Comments turned off

The Most Worshipful Michelle Obama Review Ever? Another New York Times production. by Tim Graham

By on November 23rd, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-most-worshipful-michelle-obama-review-ever/

Ben Shapiro was blunt on Twitter. He had discovered “the most sycophantic book review ever written.” The book was the second come from multimillionaire author and advice guru Michelle Obama. The review appeared in The New York Times, from the paper’s “Help Desk” columnist Judith Newman. She’s “the help,” all right.

Ed Morrissey tweeted back to Shapiro: “The secret to success in life: Find someone who loves you as unconditionally and fiercely as the mainstream media loves the Obamas.”

Except they’re not “mainstream” at all. These “objective newspapers” are blatantly leftist partisan rags, as they demonstrate daily.

Shapiro quoted this saccharine passage about the Blessed Michelle: “She is on a journey. Through her stories, experiences, and thoughts, we’re finding the light with her. Lucky us.” Obama’s publishers tweeted out this quote, and then Newman retweeted the publisher like they’re all in the business of selling Michelle Obama.

So the people buying (and paying) Obama are lucky, and so are her pals. Newman added, “The fact that she loves ‘lowbrow TV’ and counts the hilarious but racy Ali Wong among her favorite comedians says the world about who Obama is when she gets together with those friends. Lucky them.”

The first line of Newman’s glittery bootlicking review is, “It’s not easy being Michelle Obama. Fabulous, yes. Easy, no.”

Later, she decries the “explosion of divisiveness” under former President Donald Trump, typically ignoring any introspection about the left-wing media endlessly and divisively smearing conservatives.

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Did Sam Bankman-Fried’s Millions Buy the Media’s Loyalty? The mainstream coverage of SBF and FTX is more than a little blasé. Robby Soave

By on November 23rd, 2022

https://reason.com/2022/11/21/sam-bankman-fried-journalism-funding-crypto-fraud-media/

The public is only beginning to understand the full extent of alleged crimes committed by Sam Bankman-Fried (better known as SBF), a cryptocurrency entrepreneur who lost billions of dollars after his exchange, FTX, was revealed to be little better than a Ponzi scheme. SBF’s net worth plunged from $10 billion to effectively nothing in the course of a few days. He has declared bankruptcy and was recently questioned by the police of the Bahamas, where he resides.

John Ray III, who was brought in to manage Enron following that company’s self-destruction in 2001, is now the CEO of FTX. In a court filing last week, he said he has never seen such “a complete failure of corporate control,” including at Enron.

“From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented,” he said in a court filing.

SBF engaged in extreme levels of deception to trick people into thinking FTX was worth more than it was. He effectively paid investors, employees, and vendors shares of the company—his token, FTT—and loaned out money to his quantitative investment firm, Alameda Research. It was an elaborate house of cards that apparently fooled investors, celebrity sponsors, and politicians: SBF interviewed former President Bill Clinton and and former Prime Minister Tony Blair at a crypto conference he hosted back in April.

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SHOCKER! WaPo Update About Mar-A-Lago Raid Doesn’t Fit the Narrative By Kevin Downey Jr.

By on November 18th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2022/11/16/shocker-wapo-sheepishly-admits-the-fbi-found-no-nuclear-secrets-or-anything-else-in-mar-a-lago-raid-n1646445

There is nothing funnier than watching leftist Punchinellos beclown themselves over the latest “We’ve got Trump NOW!” hijinks.

Remember when the FBI raided Trump’s home supposedly looking for “nuclear secrets” a few months back? Guess how that turned out?

I’ll let the quislings at the Washinton Post spell it out:

Federal agents and prosecutors have come to believe former president Donald Trump’s motive for allegedly taking and keeping classified documents was largely his ego and a desire to hold on to the materials as trophies or mementos, according to people familiar with the matter.

In other words, Trump was keeping souvenirs, as everyone else does.

Funny how WaPo sat on that story until after the midterms, right?

But wait, there’s more!

That review has not found any apparent business advantage to the types of classified information in Trump’s possession, these people said. FBI interviews with witnesses so far, they said, also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property, these people said.

The WaPo also found no evidence that Trump was looking to “leverage, sell or use the government secrets.”

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ANTI-SEMITISM, MEDIA Comments turned off

Fake News: What’s with Tucker Carlson, Kanye West, Harley Pasternak and Jew hatred? Diane Bederman

By on November 17th, 2022

https://dianebederman.com/fake-news-whats-with-tucker-carlson-kanye-west-harley-pasternak-and-jew-hatred/

I have been a fan of Tucker for many years. He often shared a collage of main stream media bites that were exactly the same; as if someone had sent out a news release earlier in the day with “what to say.” He was the go-to-guy for the other side; sharing missing facts. He attacked Fake News.  He ends his broadcast with:

“The show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink.”

And then came his interview with Kanye West, who has 32 million followers. Tucker described him as a “kind of Christian Evangelist.” He asked, “Is Kanye West crazy? You be the judge.” Ok. But you asked me to judge without telling me the interview was edited to make Kanye look good. Carlson says that the media isn’t in the business of ignoring remarkable things. Yet, that is exactly what he did. It has been proven that Tucker committed the sin he always said he fought – the sin of omission in order to promote a narrative. He edited out portions of the interview that portrayed Kanye in a negative way. Tucker Carlson removed all of Kanye’s nasty Jew hating comments and tropes. He also removed responses that shone a dark light on Kanye’s mental state despite the fact that West “has spoken frequently about living with bipolar disorder and experiencing manic episodes. In 2019, he discussed how he experiences these with David Letterman, telling him:

“When you’re in this state, you’re hyper-paranoid about everything, everyone. This is my experience, other people have different experiences. Everyone now is an actor. Everything’s a conspiracy.”

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ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

Tom Friedman – mistaken or disingenuous? Yoram Ettinger

By on November 17th, 2022

https://bit.ly/3AlEbTL

On November 4, 2022, the New York Times’ Tom Friedman, who reflects the worldview of the State Department’s establishment, lamented that “The Israel we knew is gone.”

Should one rely on T.F.’s assessments concerning the Middle East?

*In September 1993, T.F. welcomed Arafat as a peace-seeking statesman.  He established (an immoral) moral equivalence between a role-model of terrorism, Arafat, and a role-model of counterterrorism, Prime Minister Rabin: “Two hands that had written the battle orders for so many young men, two fists that had been raised in anger at one another so many times in the past, locked together for a fleeting moment of reconciliation.”  T.F. was trapped by Arafat’s strategy of dissimulation (“Taqiyya”), highlighting Arafat’s peaceful English talk, ignoring Arafat’s violent Arabic talk, and playing down Arafat’s unprecedented terroristic walk since the 1993 Oslo Accord.

*In July, 2000, T.F. posed the question: “Who is Arafat? Is he Nelson Mandela or Willie Nelson?” A more realistic question would be: “Who is Arafat? Is he Jack the Ripper or the Boston Strangler?”

*T.F.’s pro-Palestinian stance dates back to his active involvement, while at Brandeis University, in the pro-Arafat radical-Left “Middle East Peace Group” and “Breira’” organizations.  It intensified during his role as the Associated Press’ and New York Times’ reporter in Lebanon. There he played down Arafat’s and Mahmoud Abbas’ rape and plunder of Lebanon, and their collaboration with Latin American, European, African and Asian terrorists, while expressing his appreciation of the PLO’s protection of foreign journalists in Beirut (who responded in kind…).   

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ELECTIONS, MEDIA Comments turned off

Kimmel vs. Laxalt: Jimmy Kimmel’s uninformed ad shows he’s just a partisan Democrat willing to get ugly. By Ramesh Ponnuru

By on November 5th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/kimmel-vs-laxalt/

Jimmy Kimmel’s ad attacking Adam Laxalt, the Republican running for Senate in Nevada, is based on the idea that Laxalt is so “unbalanced” that even “his family” is opposing him. “Why? Because they know him.”

Fourteen Laxalt relatives endorsed the incumbent Democrat, Catherine Cortez Masto.

The opposition from some of his relatives isn’t new. In Laxalt’s 2018 race for governor, twelve relatives wrote an op-ed denouncing him. In that op-ed, the twelve said that they hardly knew Laxalt, a fact they tried to spin against him (saying he doesn’t count as a real Nevadan). They noted that they disagreed with him on abortion, same-sex marriage, and federal education funding.

At the time, 22 other relatives wrote an op-ed calling the initial one “vicious and entirely baseless.”

This year’s letter skipped the attacks on Laxalt and instead praised Cortez Masto.

I don’t think dueling op-eds from candidates’ relatives is something that we should encourage. But I’d note that Kimmel is wrong to say Laxalt’s “family” opposes him, to say the opposition is based on knowing him, and to insinuate that its opposition has something to do with the candidate’s being “unbalanced.” I doubt Kimmel has done enough homework to know that he is telling untruths. He’s just a partisan Democrat who’s willing to get ugly.

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ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

CNN Refers to ‘Palestine’ as if it Existed When an “error” is gravely serious. by Hugh Fitzgerald

By on November 3rd, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/cnn-refers-to-palestine-as-if-it-existed/

CNN has a little nomenclatorial problem when it comes to “Palestine.” A report on its latest error, and how the network was shamed into making a correction, can be found here: “CNN Takes Down ‘Palestine’ Reference Following Watchdog Action,” by Akiva Van Koningsveld, Algemeiner, October 27, 2022:

While Palestinian Authority (PA) chief Mahmoud Abbas might call himself the president of “Palestine,” most mainstream media outlets have rightfully refrained from recognizing Ramallah’s claim of independence. After all, the territory under Abbas’ control currently does not meet the formal criteria for statehood, as outlined in international law. formal criteria for statehood, as outlined in international law.

“Palestine” has no fixed, agreed-upon borders. The Palestinians answer to two separate Arab regimes – Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the P.A.-held parts of the West Bank, neither of which exerts full sovereignty. In the West Bank the Palestinians are not independent, but only exercise varying degrees of autonomy, based on whether they live in Areas A, B, or C, as defined by the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority has a police force, but no military. At the U.N., “Palestine” has only non-voting “observer” status.

Statehood requires, as set out in the 1933 Montevideo Convention: “a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) a sovereign government; and d) the capacity to enter into relations with the other states.” These qualifications have been used as the basis for statehood by the international community. “Palestine” argues that it has met these requirements and therefore has achieved de facto statehood. However, to be considered a state an entity must function independently of any other authority.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

The Press Has Officially Lost Its Grip On Reality

By on November 1st, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/01/the-press-has-officially-lost-its-grip-on-reality/

Journalists these days bemoan the adherence to “both sides” reporting. Too often, they say, it misleads readers into thinking there are two legitimate sides.

“I’m convinced that journalists — specifically those who cover politics — must keep a sharp focus on truth-seeking, not old-style performative neutrality,” wrote former Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan.

Because, you see, democracy is at stake.

Sullivan didn’t need to preach this sermon, because the press has already been living by this credo.

The problem is that dumping “old-style neutrality” hasn’t made news coverage more accurate, it’s just led the news media even further into the swamp of hysterical partisanship.

It’s left them prone to hoaxes and forced them to issue countless retractions and corrections. Any story that makes Republicans look bad gets paraded around before lifting a fact-checking finger — from Russia collusion to Jussie Smollet to the supposedly racist Catholic schoolboys.

Immediately after the attack on Paul-Pelosi, the press jumped to the conclusion that his attacker was some sort of MAGA nutjob. He’s hardly that.

Just as bad, the non-neutral, truth-seeking press does its level best to keep the public in the dark about any scandals (Hunter Biden, anyone?) and crises that make Democrats look bad — a challenge that gets harder by the day.

Truth, it turns out, now matters far less to the “truth-seeking” press than ever.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, MEDIA Comments turned off

A Nuclear Meltdown At The New York Times Henry I. Miller and Andrew I. Fillat

By on October 27th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/10/27/a-nuclear-meltdown-at-the-new-york-times/

Even for a news outlet whose analyses of cutting-edge technologies are often flawed, a recent New York Times article by Farhad Manjoo, one of the paper’s in-house columnists, was exceptionally misguided. Titled “Nuclear Power Still Doesn’t Make Sense,” it is, in fact, the article itself that doesn’t make sense.

Manjoo does recognize that nuclear power is important now, citing the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: “Germany, which shut down many of its nuclear plants in the past decade while building natural gas pipelines to Russia, now faces a deep energy crunch. It has had to burn more coal to keep the lights on,” which is also true of other European countries.

But his article’s basic thesis is that renewables have made continuing reliance on nuclear energy unnecessary, given its costs, lead times, and safety issues. That assertion is wrong on two counts: Intermittent sources of energy (wind and solar) cannot adequately provide continuous generation; and nuclear is only too costly and cumbersome because for 50 years, public opinion and policy have essentially shut down all but relatively meager private research and development in the field.

By analogy, if the Food and Drug Administration had decided decades ago to stop approving new drugs, how much would pharmaceutical companies have invested since then? And if the FDA were to resume approvals now, would we say it’s too late, and people who are ill should just get by with herbs and acupuncture?

Let’s consider Manjoo’s misapprehensions one by one.

First, wind and solar are not zero-emission technologies or resource efficient, nor do they offer reliable, continuous generation of power. A single wind turbine needs about 1.5 acres of area and its components require the mining and production of thousands of tons of materials, including some of the elements in short supply due to their use in batteries.

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Special Counsel John Durham Discredits the Press The way back to sanity for America is for the media to rediscover its interest in truth. Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

By on October 26th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/durham-discredits-the-press-fbi-investigation-media-lying-trump-falsified-evidence-collusion-leak-illegal-informant-11666729641?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

“The collapse in societal trust that some perceive is, first and last, a collapse in trust in the media that creates the environment in which elites either get away with their lies or don’t. This has been a hell of a moment for our major press institutions to be overrun by epistemological chaos, to be tangled up in a foolish quest for “post-objectivity” that predictably (as with Trumpism) delivers the opposite of the desired result precisely because it discredits the media. It’s a hell of a time, while almost everybody worth reading heads to Substack, for our remaining news-reporting elites to be hiding behind “without fear or favor” when it’s the opposite of how they do business.”

Only John Durham can say why he proceeded as he did. The 45-year veteran prosecutor was assigned to examine the FBI’s decisions related to the Trump collusion investigation. Aside from an early guilty plea from an FBI lawyer who falsified evidence, he pursued only two outside informants for allegedly lying to the agency.

Some on the right blame him for not going after FBI officials directly, though it’s not clear what these officials might be charged with. Incompetence is not a crime. Illegal leaks are a crime but notoriously hard to prove in court.

The dumbest journalism, though, reasons (without saying so) that Mr. Durham is a colossal failure because he was somehow assigned, or assigned himself, to fulfill the fantasies of Donald Trump. An adjective-overloaded piece by Margaret Carlson in the Washington Monthly dissolves into nothingness when you realize how completely she relies on this premise without betraying any awareness that she’s relying on it.

My own guess is Mr. Durham viewed his informant indictments as merited but orthogonal to his larger purpose. He was counting on civil society, i.e., the press, to lead a necessary conversation about the FBI’s role in 2016 and after.

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