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MEDIA

When the American Dream is a ‘dog whistle’Oliver Wiseman

https://spectatorworld.com/newsletter/american-dream-dog-whistle-dc-diary-08-22-22/?utm_source=

When the American Dream is a ‘dog whistle’

High on the list of reasons why American politics feels so bad-blooded, chaotic and dysfunctional is the determination of many members of the media to paint the normal and harmless as unprecedented and dangerous.

For the latest example of this pathology, look no further than the front page of yesterday’s New York Times, where prime real estate was afforded to an article explaining that “In US politics, even the phrase ‘The American Dream’ divides.”

The starting point for the story, by national politics reporter Jazmine Ulloa, is the large number of unorthodox Republican candidates for office this cycle, many of them Latinos and many of them, as the story puts it, with “powerful come-from-behind stories.”

As you might expect, the likes of Juan Ciscomani, a Republican running for Congress in Arizona who “washed cars to help his Mexican immigrant father pay the bills”, and Winsome Earle-Sears, the Jamaican-born former Marine who was elected lieutenant governor of Virginia last year, are fond of invoking the American Dream. An entirely benign development, you might think. Not according to the Times, which reports that “historians and other scholars warn that some Republicans are distorting a defining American idea and turning it into an exclusionary political message.” The story then approvingly quotes a Fordham University professor’s claim that the American Dream is being used by Republicans as a “dog whistle.”

Twitter Fritters Away Its Credibility Henry I. Miller

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/16/twitter-fritters-away-its-credibility/

I participate relatively little on social media. I am on Twitter, mainly to boost exposure of my articles, which focus primarily on scientific or medical subjects.  Recently, I tweeted about an exciting new approach to creating coronavirus vaccines to protect against, among other viruses, new variants of SARS-CoV-2 (which cause COVID-19).  As explained below, that’s when my bizarre clash with Twitter began.

The experimental vaccine, created in the Caltech lab of professor Pamela Bjorkman, works by presenting the immune system with pieces of the spike proteins from SARS-CoV-2 and seven other SARS-like coronaviruses, all attached to a protein nanoparticle structure. When injected into mice or monkeys, they induce the production of a broad spectrum of antibodies – immune system proteins that recognize and fight off specific pathogens – as well as cellular immune responses involving various white blood cells.

Notably, when vaccinated with this so-called “mosaic nanoparticle,” mice and nonhuman primates were protected from an additional coronavirus, SARS-CoV, that was not one of the eight represented in the nanoparticle vaccine. This extended protection is important because of the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to mutate and evade immune protection from vaccines or previous infection – which, of course, is what we’re seeing with Omicron subvariant BA.5. Professor Bjorkman and her colleagues plan soon to evaluate their vaccine in humans in a Phase 1 clinical trial.

This work is important because with the numbers of COVID-19 infections continuing at a high level in the U.S. and elsewhere, epidemiologists and virologists expect that it’s only a matter of time until new subvariants proliferate and predominate. The Caltech research offers hope that its vaccine will be effective against them.

A Tale Of Two TV Hosts It was the best of ratings, it was the worst of ratings. Derek Hunter

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/tale-two-tv-hosts-derek-hunter/

It was the best of ratings, it was the worst of ratings…

That the establishment media is left-wing is beyond debate. Hilariously, every once in a while there is some progressive “journalist” who’ll tweet something about how unfairly Joe Biden is being treated or how the New York Times is secretly a conservative outlet. It’s beyond stupid and likely done just to poke the social media bear. The reality is there is no conservative who gets an honest, fair shake from the left-wing media and we need to stop pretending there is.

This week, Vanity Fair took up residence in Rachel Maddow’s colon, running another in an endless string of profiles about the MSNBC personality (they call her a journalist, which is a testament to just how devoid of meaning that word has become), complete with photos by Annie Leibovitz. She was given such a wet kiss you’d think she were leading Ukraine in a war against Russia. 

Juxtapose that to how any piece is ever written about Tucker Carlson. He is a monster and responsible for anything everyone who can be remotely connected to anything he’s ever said, even if that person confesses to having left-wing authoritarian politics. Meanwhile, miraculously, Maddow isn’t responsible at all when a super fan tries to murder as many Republicans as possible on a baseball field based on left-wing lies about health care. Weird how that works, isn’t it?

Carlson gets a long written series about how dangerous he is to the country, Maddow gets tonsil-hockey every couple of months from the same people. 

Morning Joe Enlists Peter Strzok to Defend the FBI’s Integrity By Isaac Schorr

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/morning-joe-enlists-peter-strzok-to-defend-the-fbis-integrity/

Ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok — who was let go by the bureau after it was revealed that he told a colleague that they would “stop” Donald Trump from becoming president — appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday, where he assured viewers that Americans should “absolutely… trust what the FBI is doing” in regards to its continued investigation of Trump, which led to the execution of a search warrant at Trump’s residence in Florida.

“It’s not that the FBI is targeting any one side or the other, what you see is the FBI going out on the day-in, day-out basis of objectively investigating allegations of law,” said Strzok, who charged the “right-wing ecosphere” with hypocrisy for their “silence” during the investigation into former secretary of state and Democratic nominee for president Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information.

The bureau’s investigation into Clinton found her guilty of being “grossly negligent,” but then-Director James Comey said that she should not be charged by the Department of Justice in an unorthodox public recommendation.

‘Where Is the Media?’: Persecution of Christians, June 2022 by Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18771/persecution-of-christians-june

The Christians of Nigeria are, in fact, being purged in a genocide, according to several NGOs Every two hours, one Christian there is killed. — Nigeria.

“Heavily armed bandits, many of whom are said to be ethnic Fulanis, are waging their own form of Jihad; killing, abducting and terrorizing worship centers and educational institutions owned by churches as well as impoverished communities in the North and Middle Belt regions.” — Vanguardngr.com. June 19, 2022, Nigeria.

The Biden administration’s response to the jihadist onslaught against Christians in Nigeria…has been to remove Nigeria from the State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern: nations that engage in, or tolerate, violations of religious freedom. — Nigeria.

“The landlocked Sahel state [Burkina Faso], one of the world’s poorest countries, is in the grip of a nearly seven-year-old jihadist insurgency. Thousands of people have died and nearly two million have been driven from their homes.” — Guardian.ng, June 28, 2022, Burkina Faso.

“Amoti came to our home very early in the morning and needed to know more of Issa [Jesus], whom she had seen in a dream…. she willingly accepted Jesus for the salvation of her soul….. then together we went to church in Nansana.” When she arrived home, her father “…ordered his sons to seize and beat her, then took a sharp knife and pierced her eyes,” one of her brothers who had tried to defend her later said. “I want to remove these eyes so that you stop seeing churches forever—even if you die, we are not going to bury you,” her Muslim father said. — Morning Star News, June 14, 2022, Uganda.

“After Bashir was ousted from 30 years of power in April 2019, the transitional civilian-military government… outlawed the labeling of any religious group “infidels” and thus effectively rescinded apostasy laws that made leaving Islam punishable by death. With the Oct. 25 [2021] coup, Christians in Sudan fear the return of the most repressive and harsh aspects of Islamic law.” — Morning Star News, June 20 2022, Sudan.

On June 6, a 15-year-old Christian girl told a court how she was kidnapped and raped by a Muslim accused of abducting and forcibly converting her to Islam and marrying her. — Morning Star News, June 7, 2022, Pakistan.

June 14 report tells the story of Rehmat Masih, a Christian man who, despite there being no evidence, “has been in prison for five months in a new fabricated blasphemy case. He is accused of profaning and desecrating the pages of the Koran, but in reality he allegedly simply refused an offer to change religion…. on January 3, “police arrested Rehmat Masih, accusing him of committing blasphemy and tortured him severely” in an effort to make him admit to desecrating the Koran, an offence punishable by life imprisonment under Section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code. On January 19, 2022, a bail application was filed for the defendant, but the judge rejected it. Rehmat has been in prison since, awaiting his trial. — asanews.it, June 14, 2022, Pakistan.

The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of June 2022:

The FBI and its media allies scramble to justify the Mar-a-Lago FBI raid By Rajan Laad

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/08/the_fbi_and_its_media_allies_scramble_to_justify_the_maralago_fbi_raid.html

After considerable public pressure, missing-in-action U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland finally addressed the media yesterday, saying he “personally approved the decision” for the FBI to execute a search warrant at President Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago. Garland declined to provide details about the investigation, such what the documents retrieved by the FBI were.

Reading from his text Garland piously intoned:

“Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy. Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly without fear or favor. Under my watch, that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing.”

Following claims of honor, morality, and legal egalitarianism, Garland’s FBI then leaked information to the Washington Post, a notorious Democrat mouthpiece, proving in itself that the agency had been politized and compromised, and not for the first time.

The WaPo reported that the FBI was looking for classified documents related to nuclear weapons during their raid. The sources were obviously anonymous. It’s unclear what type of documents the FBI claimed to be seeking or if they pertained to nuclear weapons belonging to the U.S. or other countries.

The FBI also claims that their agents killed a shooter in Ohio on Thursday who allegedly tried to force his way into the bureau’s Cincinnati office.

The WaPo is claiming that the Ohio shooter, a man named Ricky Shiffer, had “possible ties to extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, whose leaders are accused of helping launch the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.” They also claimed Shiffer told his followers on Truth Social that he was “ready for combat” after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago. They are even claiming the shooter called upon his followers to “kill the F.B.I. on sight.”

The Washington Post however could not confirm whether the account actually belonged to Shiffer.

Garland defended FBI agents as “dedicated, patriotic public servants” and said he would not “stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked….They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves.”

So clearly, the spin will be two tier.

The first is that Trump stole nuclear weapons-related documents.

The second is Trump supporters are domestic terrorists preventing the FBI from doing its job.

Why Are Media Ignoring This Muslim Mayor’s Racism And Alleged Election Fraud In Michigan? By: Benjamin Baird

https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/08/why-is-the-media-turning-a-blind-eye-to-this-muslim-mayors-racism-and-alleged-election-fraud/

The media blackout of this Michigan mayor’s racist and supremacist views is part of a larger societal trend.

The mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, Ameer Haiderah Ghalib, was recently exposed for mocking black political demonstrations and endorsing comments that referred to African Americans as “animal” and “inhuman.” He also accused Arab world leaders of being secret Jews and “liked” a Facebook post calling Jews “monkeys” who tax “the air we breathe.”

Ghalib, the first Muslim mayor in Hamtramck’s 100-year history, even admitted to committing a potential case of voter fraud by filling out absentee ballots for about 20 families during the 2020 presidential primary. Both the FBI and the Michigan secretary of state’s office have looked into the allegation.

Yet, in the era of “cancel culture,” when activist reporters have all but abandoned investigative reporting in favor of opinionated call-outs, not a column inch has been devoted to documenting the misdeeds of an internationally known public official. Black political activists have failed to march a single city block in opposition to Ghalib’s anti-black racism, and Jewish rights organizations are silent in the face of antisemitic dog whistles.

US: The New Real Hoaxes? by Pete Hoekstra

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18778/us-real-hoaxes

The investigative reporting by these two organizations [the New York Times and the Washington Post] was so thorough and groundbreaking it turned up things that were not even there.
For having refused to rescind these awards, the Pulitzer Committee should receive its own Pulitzer — for fraud.
The real hoax appears to have been the CCP’s ostensible good behavior and the now-hugely-discredited initial reporting on the virus.
Or how about the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up? Once again, On October 14, 2020, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, a critical story of possible extensive influence-peddling with senior intelligence officers in the CCP, Russia and Ukraine by the son of a presidential candidate. The contents of the laptop raised questions that the candidate at the time, Vice President Joe Biden, could be compromised. The entire subject was decisively pushed aside, along with the potential threat to national security that such an eventuality might entail.
Also not allowed during the January 6th hearings have been any witnesses for the defense, any cross-examination, or any exculpatory evidence.
One wonders, for instance if the January 6th Committee will consider the July 29, 2022 tweet by General Keith Kellogg, that on January 3, 2021, Trump, in front of witnesses, did indeed ask for “troops needed” for January 6. Kellogg wrote: “I was in the room.”
The January 6th Committee has also not released any information about government informants or FBI undercover law enforcement officers who might have been in the crowd, and Pelosi is also said to be blocking access to a massive quantity of documents. Finally, according to attorney Mark Levin, under the Constitution’s separation of powers, Congress, has no legitimacy even to hold a criminal investigation: that power belongs to the Judiciary. The entire proceeding is illegitimate and a usurpation of power.
Is it surprising that after the Pulitzer decision, the Russia collusion hoax, the Whitmer kidnapping hoax, the Covid origin hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop hoax, and now the January 6th Committee hoax, that many Americans believe there is something wrong with the system?

Recently former US President Donald Trump challenged the award of Pulitzer Prizes to the New York Times and the Washington Post for their investigative reporting on alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

Gaslighting: How the Mainstream Media Tries to Drive You to the Left By Chris Queen

https://pjmedia.com/columns/chris-queen/2022/08/06/gaslighting-how-the-mains

It’s no secret that the mainstream media has abandoned objective reporting for a long time. The left-leaning — and often more than leaning — narratives from the press are hard to miss.

But there’s more at play than just reporting the news from one particular viewpoint. The mainstream media, along with social media and cultural tastemakers, attempt to lead the public to question anything that doesn’t hew to a far-left narrative. The end result, in the hopeful minds of the media, is that everyone who consumes their media will move to the left politically and culturally.

It’s a form of what we’ve come to know as gaslighting. For the uninitiated, gaslighting is “intentionally distorting reality to make you feel like what you’re seeing or feeling isn’t real,” according to Forbes. The term came from the 1944 film Gaslight, in which Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) manipulates his wife (Ingrid Bergman, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her role) into thinking that she’s insane.

Instead of making you think you’re crazy, the media wants you to think that your conservative, libertarian, or even non-woke liberal beliefs are insane. And it’s masterful manipulation.

The Decline and Fall of Newspapers By Charles Lipson

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/08/04/the_decline_and_fall_of_newspapers_147991.html

A few years ago, you would have unfolded your newspaper and read opinion and analysis like this. Those days are gone. Today, most of us get our news and commentary online, perhaps supplemented by network or cable television, although TV viewership is far smaller than in the days of  “The Big Three.” Buried alongside those iconic broadcasters is the public’s confidence in news from all sources. Only 16% of Americans say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers, only 11% in TV news. Those numbers keep sinking. Today, if Walter Cronkite ended his broadcast, “And that’s the way it is,” most people would just smirk.

How dramatic is this change in the way we get our news? What’s driving it? What have we gained and lost? And how do these changes affect our deeply divided nation?

The most important point is the most obvious: The changes are huge – and irreversible. One recent study shows that in our country of 332 million people, no newspaper has a print circulation of more than 1 million. Only nine have more than 100,000 subscribers. Among the 25 largest papers, only one showed an increase in circulation, and it serves a retirement community. It’s shocking, really, that a paper with less than 50,000 subscribers is among the nation’s largest.

The decline is relentless. Print papers are losing one out of eight subscribers every year. Their daily circulation, over 63 million at its peak in the 1980s, is now about one-third that size. Over 25% of all American newspapers have died in the past 15 years.