RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/559347-maria-bartiromo-defends-reporting-keep-trashing-me-ill-keep-telling-the-truth

Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday defended her reporting on a number of topics, telling critics “keep trashing me, I’ll keep telling the truth.”

Bartiromo, during an interview with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on “Sunday Morning Futures,” presented a list of what she called “the biggest lies of all”, which she said included the “Russia hoax based on a made-up dossier to try to take down Trump” and the impeachment of former President Trump “with absolutely no crimes attached to it.”

The list also included a number of allegations involving Hunter Biden, the son of President Biden; accusations about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic; and questions about whether the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol qualified as an “armed insurrection.”

Bartiromo said she is “so incredibly proud” of her team for “telling every story.”

“We’ve been on the right side of it for seven years going. I’ve been trashed every day along the way. Keep trashing me, I’ll keep telling the truth,” Bartiromo said at the end of the interview.

Bartiromo’s comments reflect a number of common GOP talking points, which aim to downplay the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and Trump’s attacks on the integrity of the 2020 election, while attempting to turn the public’s attention to Hunter Biden’s previous business ties and the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in China.

Bartiromo, earlier in the interview, asked Johnson “armed insurrection is what Nancy Pelosi keeps calling January 6. Senator, how many guns were actually taken up on that day, since she says it was armed?”

“I asked the FBI witness, not one, not one gun was recovered either in the capitol or on the Capitol grounds according to that FBI witness so that’s just one of the latest big lies,” Johnson responded, referring to previous testimony from Jill Sanborn, assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, who said the FBI did not confiscate any guns in the Capitol or on its ground on Jan. 6.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/06/16/australian-media-mocks-cnns-glowing-coverage-of-bumbling-joe-biden-n1455097

As you know, if you’re looking for some honest reporting on Joe Biden, don’t look to the American mainstream media.

We’ve been saying this for years now, but there’s something quite disturbing when foreign news networks are literally mocking American media for their absurdly glowing coverage of Joe Biden, particularly in light of his embarrassing performance at the G7.

Below is a video from “Kenny on Media” from Australia’s Sky News earlier this week, where the panel, hosted by Jack Houghton, literally mocks the way the media, particularly CNN, covered Joe Biden at the G7 Summit, especially compared to how negative the media was about Trump.

“They drive to give the illusion that [Biden] doesn’t have any disputes with any of these international leaders,” Houghton said.

Related: Here’s What the Foreign Press Is Saying About Presidentish Biden

“I just think Joe Biden is a lucky person,” said Sophie Elsworth of The Australian. “He has got all the media on his side—or most of the media on his side—particularly CNN. Completely at odds with what they did to Trump. So his popularity surely can only win from this because he’s getting so much positive PR through the journalists who are massive fans of him. It’s quite appalling to watch. And what happened to straight news reporting, which doesn’t seem to be existent there?”

Nick Cater of the Menzies Research Centre joked, “Give Biden his due, he got to the top of the Air Force One steps without tripping over his shoelaces.”

“The reality is if you talk to … anybody who knows about foreign affairs there are considerable question marks over Biden’s foreign affairs policy—it’s not proven yet—whereas it was the one area, in fact, in which Trump did very well,” he said, noting Trump’s policy towards China and the Abraham Accords as examples.

For over 175 years the magazine Scientific American has bragged that it covers

the advances in research and discovery that are changing our understanding of the world and shaping our lives.  (snip) Authoritative, engaging features, news, opinion and multimedia stories from journalists and expert authors — including more than 200 Nobel Prize winners — provide need-to-know coverage, insights and illumination of the most important developments at the intersection of science and society.

However, around six years ago the American segment of the publication changed as it was purchased by a private German-British conglomerate, Springer Nature, which has affiliates and publications worldwide.  And international controversies to go along with its international nature such as highly credible accusations of succumbing to demands for censorship from Communist China against research from scientists in Tibet and independent Taiwan.   

Not very scientific.  

Further veering from science, the magazine entered the political realm for the first time in the November, 2020 election, endorsing Joe Biden for president because well, he is so scientific.  Or something.  And Donald J.  Trump is not.  Or something.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/yet-another-media-tale-trump-tear?token=

For more than a year, it has been consecrated media fact that former President Donald Trump and his White House, on June 1 of last year, directed the U.S. Park Police to use tear gas against peaceful Lafayette Park protesters, all to enable a Trump photo-op in front of St. John’s Church. That this happened was never presented as a possibility or likelihood but as indisputable truth. And it provoked weeks of unmitigated media outrage, presented as one of the most egregious assaults on the democratic order in decades.

This tale was so pervasive in the media landscape that it would be impossible for any one article to compile all the examples. “Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op,” read the NPR headline on June 1. The New York Times ran with: “Protesters Dispersed With Tear Gas So Trump Could Pose at Church.” CNN devoted multiple segments to venting indignation while the on-screen graphic declared: “Peaceful Protesters Near White House Tear-Gassed, Shot With Rubber Bullets So Trump Can Have Church Photo Op.”

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos “reported” that “the administration asked police to clear peaceful protesters from the park across the White House so that the President could stage a photo op.” The Intercept published an article stating that “federal police used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear protesters from Lafayette Square in front of the White House,” all to feature a video where the first interviewee said: “to me, the way our military and police have behaved toward the protesters at the instruction of President Trump has almost been Nazi-like.”Nazi-like. This was repeated by virtually every major corporate outlet:

The New York Times @nytimes
This was the scene outside of the White House on Monday as police used tear gas and flash grenades to clear out peaceful protesters so President Trump could visit the nearby St. John’s Church, where there was a parish house basement fire Sunday night nyti.ms/2MhSGOQ

June 2nd 2020

7,044 Retweets12,539 Likes

At a June 2 Press Conference, then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) proclaimed with anger: “last night I watched as President Trump, having gassed peaceful protesters just so he could do this photo op, then he went on to teargas priests who were helping protesters in Lafayette Park.” Speaking on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi exclaimed: “What is this, a banana republic?,” when asked about NBC News’ report that “security forces used tear gas and flash-bangs against a crowd of peaceful demonstrators to clear the area for the president.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/06/11/media-caught-in-yet-another-massive-anti-trump-lie-will-election-fraud-be-next/

More than a year after the events at Lafayette Square happened, and after endless media claims that President Donald Trump had peaceful protesters forcibly cleared for a photo op, we finally know the truth. Trump was right. The media were lying. And anyone who trusted the news accounts was a fool.

It’s enough to make us start to wonder why anyone should trust the media’s insistence that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Yesterday, the Interior Department’s inspector general released a report about what actually happened in Lafayette Square on June 1, 2020. As a refresher, here’s how the media reported it:

“Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo Op”
“Protesters Dispersed With Tear Gas So Trump Could Pose at Church”
“Tear gas, flash-bangs used to clear protesters from Lafayette Square before surprise President Trump photo op”
“Republicans chastise Trump for ousting protesters, church photo op”
“Tear Gas Clears Way for Trump Moment at Church Damaged in Unrest”

Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats repeatedly trotted this story out during the presidential campaign to besmirch Trump

It was all a lie.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/big_tech_takes_a_giant_step_towards_totalitarianism.html

Twitter has banned former President Trump for life, while Facebook has settled for a two-year suspension.  How proud these mammoth-valued censorious outfits must feel.  Well, the late Associate Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., is likely to be rather disappointed.  As for Framers of the Constitution, they must wonder why they bothered to enact the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee.

Justice Brennan, of course, in the 1964 case, New York Times v Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 took note of some precedents underscoring our tradition of free speech, and then summed up our “profound” free speech tradition.   The justice’s sources included this observation from Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, quoted at 376 U.S.  269 of his Sullivan opinion:

“[I]t is a prized American privilege to speak one’s mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions.”

Ah, but if you are a president, or former president, loathed by privately owned media outlets, with an enormous impact on the free flow of information, you will find a wall as iron as that which surrounded the former Soviet Union, a wall that blocks your ability to speak one’s mind freely, even “not always with perfect good taste.”

Justice Brennan, at 376 U.S. 270, then quoted at length from the incisive “classic” statement on free speech that Justice Brandeis included in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357:   The Framers

https://reason.com/2021/06/04/lab-leak-misinformation-media-fauci-covid-19/

Facebook made a quiet but dramatic reversal last week: It no longer forbids users from touting the theory that COVID-19 came from a laboratory.

“In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps,” the social media platform declared in a statement.

This change in policy comes in the midst of heated debate about how to respond to the perception that social media is amplifying the spread of false information. For the last several years, journalists and politicians have pushed to police so-called misinformation through various means. Major news organizations have hired mis- or disinformation reporters. Lawmakers such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) have urged social media sites to prohibit speech deemed wrong or dangerous—and have sometimes suggested that this should be required by law. More recently, various groups have asked President Joe Biden to establish a federal initiative to combat online misinformation.

But Facebook’s concession that the lab leak story it once viewed as demonstrably false is actually possibly true should put to rest the idea that banning or regulating misinformation should be a chief public policy goal.

It’s one thing to discuss, debate, and correct wrong ideas, and both tech companies and media have roles to play in fostering healthy public dialogue. But Team Blue’s recent obsession with rendering unsayable anything that clashes with its preferred narrative is the height of hubris. The conversation should not be closed by the government and its yes-men in journalism, in tech, or even in public health.

From False Claim to Live Possibility

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-withdrawal-syndrome-11622839108?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

Professional media folk couldn’t live with former President Donald Trump’s policies. Now they can’t seem to live without him as a foil. Just as the press and the public health establishment are begrudgingly admitting that Mr. Trump’s controversial theory that Covid-19 might have originated in a lab is plausible, a giant Silicon Valley publisher is formalizing a ban on contributions from the 45th president. The Journal’s Paul Ziobro and Jeff Horwitz report:

Facebook Inc. said it is suspending Donald Trump’s accounts for two years, formalizing a long-term penalty for the former U.S. president after its independent Oversight Board said the company was wrong to keep the ban open-ended.
Facebook said it would revisit the suspension two years from the date of its initial move to suspend him on Jan. 7, the day after the riot at the U.S. Capitol. Assuming he is then reinstated, Mr. Trump will face a “strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions” if he commits further violations, including permanent removal of his pages and accounts, the company said.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously expressed a desire to run an open platform enabling free speech. So much for that. This latest decision to attempt to edit U.S. political speech means many more editing decisions await. The Journal reporters note:

In responding to the board’s criticism, Facebook also opens the door for more, as the company will now be required to make more subjective decisions on whether posts from political figures violate its rules surrounding misinformation, hate speech and other issues that are hotly debated. Those judgment calls are likely to escalate partisan complaints around whether the company is being fair in how it applies the rules.

Will Facebook now ban Dr. Anthony Fauci and other scientists who dismissed the idea of a laboratory origin for Covid-19 in 2020?

As for the former President, Mr. Trump responds to the Facebook ban with an emailed statement:

Next time I’m in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It will be all business!

Meanwhile in the business of cable news, the absence of Mr. Trump has led to smaller audiences both before and after dinner. Ted Johnson at Deadline reports:

Fox News topped the ratings in key categories during the month of May, but cable news overall saw significant declines from the same period a year earlier…
In primetime, Fox News averaged 2.17 million viewers, down 37% from the same period a year earlier; MSNBC posted 1.49 million, down 22%; and CNN drew 913,000, down 45%. In the 25-54 demo, Fox News had 345,000, down 38%, followed by CNN with 218,000, down 53%, and MSNBC with 199,000, falling 32%…