Matt Taibbi challenges Scarborough to debate after MSNBC host hints Russia hoax critics are on Putin ‘payroll’By Joseph A. Wulfsohn |

https://www.foxnews.com/media/matt-taibbi-msnbc-joe-scarborough-russia-hoax

Taibbi accuses MSNBC of ‘suckage’ that ‘was visible from space during the key years of Russiagate’

Journalist Matt Taibbi took MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to task Monday after the “Morning Joe” host suggested that critics of the mainstream media’s Russian collusion narrative are on Vladimir Putin’s “payroll.” 

On Monday, Scarborough panned a statement sent out late Friday by former President Donald Trump that asked “Where’s Durham?” in reference to the ongoing into the origings of the Russia investigation by former Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham.

Scarborough then took aim at those who were critical of the media’s coverage of the unsubstantiated narrative, which was heavily led by MSNBC.

“I’m amused by so-called reporters who are- I don’t know if they’re useful idiots for Russia or if they’re on Russia’s payroll,” Scarborough began. “I don’t know and I don’t really care, but there are some gifted writers who spend all night and day trying to dig through, looking for instances of where the press screwed up on Russia stories, pushing this ‘Russian hoax’ fallacy.”

“It’s just- it’s a joke because if you look at the totality of it, if you look at the totality of everything that happened, the media screwed up at some points and sometimes they screwed up badly, but more often than not they got it right and they get most of it right,” the MSNBC host continued. 

Taibbi, a vocal critic of the media’s Russia coverage during the Trump years, fired back in a piece published on his Substack in which he challenged Scarborough to invite him on “Morning Joe” for a debate.

“Implying that anyone who didn’t buy into the moral panic on Russia was a traitor was a fairly constant theme in media and politics in the last four years, with NBC’s smear of Tulsi Gabbard as a ‘favorite’ of ‘Russia’s propaganda machine’ being one of the ethical low points of the era. Why should Joe Scarborough be above the same tactics?” Taibbi asked before invoking other journalists critical of the media, including Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Mate, and Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple. 

American Elites Do Not Hate America, They Just Profit by Destroying It By Philip Carl Salzman

https://pjmedia.com/columns/philip-carl-salzman/2021/03/29/american-elites-do-not-hate-america-they-just-profit-by-destroying-it-n1435955

“It’s the fate of the nation and related matters that worries me.” Ivan C. Karp, Doobie Doo

American elites are not destroying America because they hate it, but because they profit from it. It is not that they hate America, the Constitution, or the American people, it is just that they do not care about them. What they care about above all is power and money. Their entire focus is on what brings them more power and money.

Who are these elites? They are the coastal and urban political elites, the security services, the big tech dictators, the industrial elite, Wall Street, the “heritage” mainstream media, and the academic elite, all almost entirely Democrat and increasingly far left in political commitment. Together these elites, through cooperation and collusion, form the American oligarchy that determines the state of the nation. As Lind puts it, “oligarchy’s essence is precisely the blurring and blending of public and private power in a partisan manner.”

One way that the elite gains power is through the breakdown of civil society. The Democrats have encouraged that breakdown through advocating racial, gender, other identity divisions among the population. Drawing on university-propounded academic theories of “critical racism” they have proclaimed the awful lie that America is blighted by “systemic racism.” On the basis of that lie, they demand that every child in school must learn that “whiteness” is evil and people of color are all helpless victims of evil whites and police. In other words, university professors and administrators, and Democrat politicians, applauded by the mainstream media, engage in race bating against American whites, who form the supermajority of the population. There could not be a clearer case of reverse racism. Advancing racial and gender hatred and fear among the population is the Democrat formula for drawing people to the Democrat government for protection. 

BIDEN AND GEORGIA ELECTION LAW: RICH LOWRY

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/oh-the-horrors/

I wrote today about the dishonest attacks on the Georgia election law, and a Biden claim that has, appropriately, gotten four Pinocchio’s from the Washington Post.

If you delve even a little into this law, it is beyond belief how distorted it’s getting. Here’s a good rundown, from which I’ll pull some notable items.

Hours for early voting will be extended in many places:

One of the biggest changes in the bill would expand early voting access for most counties, adding an additional mandatory Saturday and formally codifying Sunday voting hours as optional. Counties can have early voting open as long as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., or 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at minimum. If you live in a larger metropolitan county, you might not notice a change. For most other counties, you will have an extra weekend day, and your weekday early voting hours will likely be longer.

The deadline for requesting an absentee ballot is moved up to avoid completed ballots not getting delivered on time:

Instead of returning an application by the Friday before election day, SB 202 now backs it up to two Fridays before. Republican sponsors of the bill and local elections officials say this will cut down on the number of ballots rejected for coming in late because of the tight turnaround.

Absentee ballots will be more secure:

The actual absentee ballot and envelopes will look different, as well. SB 202 requires absentee ballots to be printed on special security paper, and your precinct name will now be included along with precinct ID printed at the top. Once you fill out your choices by filling in the circles for your choices, you will place it in an envelope that will have your name, signature, driver’s license or state ID number (or last four digits of your Social Security number) and date of birth. The envelope will be designed so that sensitive personal information will be hidden once it is sealed.

Virginia Universities’ Unholy Alliance With China By Ken Cuccinelli & Pete Snyder

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/03/30/virginia_universities_unholy_alliance_with_china.html

The Chinese Communist Party is using Virginia universities to spread its malign influence, and it is both wrong and unconstitutional. 

It is well understood the CCP is America’s greatest long-term threat, so we must defend against China’s broad-scale aggression against America. The challenge ahead is for every American – and every state government – to play a role in fighting back, especially in Virginia. 

For several decades, China has waged a non-violent war against the United States. The tactics don’t reflect war as it is understood traditionally, but the CCP is committed to infiltrating the West by any means necessary. The most infamous aspect of this effort is China’s centrally planned and executed stealing of massive amounts of American intellectual property. Even FBI Director Christopher Wray has repeatedly noted China’s theft has been “on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history.” 

They have also established major influence in corporations, Hollywood, and sports leagues — all of which have capitulated to China’s communist regime. 

Disney faced backlash for filming a movie in the Xinjiang region, where China has enslaved an entire ethnic group. When one NBA team owner had the temerity to publicly support the peaceful protesters in Hong Kong, the league was confronted by its largest revenue source: China. Pathetically, the NBA folded to the tyrants rather than standing for freedom. Instead of expressing support for those seeking freedom in Hong Kong, the NBA caved to the communist regime.  

Biden’s Weakness On The World Stage Is Dangerous The new administration should take Mike Pompeo’s advice: Strength deters bad actors and weakness begets war. By Mollie Hemingway

https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/30/bidens-weakness-on-the-world-stage-is-dangerous/

A series of embarrassing incidents in recent days shows that while the left may control the media narrative, it’s not fooling Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin into thinking President Joe Biden is strong.

Biden had a beyond-friendly interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, former press secretary to President Bill Clinton, on March 16 in which he allowed Stephanopoulos to lure him into calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “killer” with “no soul.” It would be one thing if there were some purpose behind Biden’s hostile utterance about his Russian counterpart, but it didn’t appear tied to any strategic foreign policy goal.

Other than some largely symbolic sanctions on Moscow for the poisoning and wrongful imprisonment of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, Biden’s response to the January resumption of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany, which the United States had succeeded in halting under the Trump administration, has been “half-hearted.” The Biden team says it just wants to move cautiously, but observers say if they wait any longer to act against Berlin and Moscow, it will be too late.

Putin took full advantage of the blunder. After vintage philosophical musings about how Biden may be projecting his own inadequacies, he said the United States has a dark history. He quickly challenged Biden to a public debate. He condescendingly said the sooner it could be done, the better, even if Biden needed a bit of rest and time to prepare. The White House declined the offer for such a public conversation, as Putin surely knew they would.

Russia also recalled its ambassador, the first time such a move had been necessary in decades.

MORE HEADLINES MARCH 30, 2021

Muslim Rape and Willful Blindness Raymond Ibrahim The “woke” establishment tends to see European women accusing Muslim men of raping them through a skeptical light. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/muslim_rape_and_willful_blindness.html

POLL: Majority of Americans See Cancel Culture as Threat to Freedom By Brittany Bernstein

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/poll-majority-of-americans-see-cancel-culture-as-threat-to-freedom/

A majority of Americans see cancel culture as a threat to their freedom and are “concerned” that if they expressed their opinions online they would be banned or fired, according to a new poll.

A new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll shows 64 percent of respondents believe that there is a “growing cancel culture” threatening their freedom, according to The Hill. Thirty-six percent said they did not view it as a threat to their freedom.

Thirty-six percent of Americans said cancel culture is a “big problem,” the poll shows, while 32 percent said it was a “moderate problem,” 20 percent deemed it a “small problem,” and 13 percent said it is “not a problem.”

Additionally, 54 percent of respondents said they were “concerned” that sharing their opinions online could get them banned or fired, while 46 percent said they were not concerned. 

“It is a chilling finding that most people in the country now are afraid they would be fired if they expressed their real views on social media,” said Mark Penn, the director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey.

“The public generally gives negative ratings to social media companies and sees the movement as more about censorship rather than trying to correct wrongs. It is growing as a national issue,” he said. 

The survey was conducted from March 24 to 25 among 1,945 registered voters.

Border official: 861 criminal migrants, including 92 sex offenders, apprehended in Rio Grande Valley by Jake Dima,

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/border-patrol-boss-brian-hastings-861-criminal-illegal-immigrants-arrested-sex-offenders-gang-members

A top border official on Saturday said over 800 criminal migrants, including dozens of sex offenders, were apprehended within the Rio Grande Valley in Texas so far in fiscal year 2021.

Brian Hastings, who oversees Border Patrol operations for the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, said his agency, in recent months, has arrested 861 illegal immigrants who were later found to have other criminal offenses, of whom 92 were sex offenders, and 63 had gang ties, he wrote in a tweet. The law enforcement official included a photograph of a Salvadoran man who was taken into custody with a prior conviction for murder.In a subsequent post, Hastings said his agency recently encountered five large groups of illegal immigrants in the Rio Grande Valley, wrangling a total of 539 individuals into custody. Ninety-three of the apprehended individuals were unaccompanied children, and Hastings added that 18,000 solo minors have been apprehended since the beginning of the fiscal year. 

Big Media and Big Tech Collude to Control Thought Programming AI to eliminate unapproved information. Joseph Hippolito

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/big-media-and-big-tech-collude-control-thought-joseph-hippolito/

Nothing exemplifies the corporate collusion to control thought better than an article in the New York Times’ opinion section.

Charlie Warzel, one of the Times’ opinion writers, argues that conventional critical-thinking skills become useless when confronting the massive amount of information available online. Instead, Warzel advocates simplifying the process by limiting internet browsing to one or two trusted sources — such as Google or Wikipedia — to evaluate quickly whether a subject warrants further research.

But FrontPage Magazine reported in “What if the ‘Conspiracy’ is Real?” that Google and Wikipedia manipulate information that contradicts their political agendas. Both did that to Mike Lindell, the founder of MyPillow who produced a documentary showing in detail how President Donald Trump’s opponents stole last year’s election on Joe Biden’s behalf.

Warzel describes an idea devised by Michael Caulfield, a professor whom Warzel interviewed. Caulfield distilled the findings of two other professors, Stanford’s Sam Wineburg and the University of Maryland’s Sarah McGrew, into a process he calls SIFT: Stop, Investigate (the source), Find (better coverage) and Trace (claims to their original context).

“The four steps are based on the premise that you often make a better decision with less information than you do with more,” Warzel wrote. “Also, spending 15 minutes to determine a single fact in order to decipher a tweet or a piece of news coming from a source you’ve never seen before will often leave you more confused than you were before.”

While Warzel discourages professional researchers from using SIFT, he believes it provides an essential advantage for the average information consumer, who can be overwhelmed when evaluating online claims from various parties.

“What is potentially revolutionary about SIFT is that it focuses on making quick judgments,” Warzel wrote. “A SIFT fact check can and should take just 30, 60, 90 seconds to evaluate a piece of content.”

Media Fawns as Fauci Promotes Child Abuse Anthony Fauci needs to be stopped. He’s done enough damage. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/29/media-fawns-as-fauci-promotes-child-abuse/

Exactly one year ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci joined President Trump in the Rose Garden to announce plans to extend the COVID-related lockdowns for another 30 days. Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx then presented doomsday models predicting more than 2 million Americans would die of COVID-19 in a matter of months, and urged the president to keep the country shut down until the end of April. Trump, persuaded by the data, agreed.

“We feel that the mitigation we’re doing right now is having an effect,” Fauci said on March 29, 2020, referring to the initial “15 Days to Slow the Spread” initiative the White House announced on March 16. “But the decision to prolong . . . this mitigation process until the end of April, I think, was a wise and prudent decision.” Fauci bragged that he and Birx pored over the data with the president and explained why they believed it was the best course of action. “The president accepted it.”

At that moment, Donald Trump officially handed over the reins of his once-booming economy and his political future to two heartless, clueless incompetents who unfortunately remain in the spotlight to this day. The economic, educational, physical, and mental damage Fauci and Birx inflicted on the country will never be fully calculated, yet neither shows a hint of remorse for what they’ve done. And yet the virus is still here—in fact, in some areas, such as New York and New Jersey, cases are again starting to rise despite more than a year of shutdowns, masking, and social distancing.

So it’s fitting that Fauci’s year-long reign of terror culminated in his suggesting a form of child abuse disguised as more “mitigation strategies” to fight the virus.

“When we talk about what you can do when you’re vaccinated, you can certainly have members of a family if the adults are vaccinated and you’re in the home with your child, you don’t need to wear a mask and you can have physical contact,” Fauci told “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan on Sunday. “When the children go out into the community, you want them to continue to wear masks when they’re interacting with groups from multiple households.”