Media

Shady Grove, Act III

Featured image The Star Tribune represents the mainstream media at work in Minnesota. It is the dominant voice of conventional wisdom that relentlessly peddles the left-wing line on its news pages and in its editorial positions. It is, moreover, a profitable business owned by a billionaire. Glen Taylor bought it in 2014 for $100 million. He may have assumed some of the paper’s debt in the process. It reportedly makes a substantial »

Illegal or undocumented?

Featured image 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 »

Oh, yeah: The Samizdat Prize

Featured image 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 »

Feel Good Story of the Day

Featured image Some things even the Babylon Bee can’t make up: MSNBC staffers scatter after bed bugs found at Manhattan HQ ahead of Super Tuesday coverage: ‘They’re scrambling 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 — »

The Cronkite Network

Featured image 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 »

This Is CNN

Featured image 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 »

A “massacre” update

Featured image 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 »

What’s wrong with this picture?

Featured image 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 »

CBS.GOV.CON

Featured image 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 »

Clarence Thomas, Racist?

Featured image 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 »

Bibi faces the talking points

Featured image 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. »

The Hamas way

Featured image 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 Evolution of Electoral Fraud

Featured image In 1962, there was a Senate race in South Dakota between Republican Joseph Bottum and Democrat George McGovern. The seat was open due to the death of Republican Francis Case. I was just a kid, but I remember that election well. Bottum was the favorite, but in the closing days of the race the Democrats spread a rumor that he was an alcoholic. That ploy may have been crude, but »

From glib to stupid

Featured image As part of his celebration of life in Putin’s Russia, Tucker Carlson took a side trip to the grocery store during his visit to Moscow. Like the political pilgrims of old, he was impressed. It somehow “radicalized” him — “against American leaders.” Drawing on NRO, Ed Driscoll has more here. What’s wrong with this picture? Tucker Carlson bragging that Russia is better than America because groceries are cheaper in the »

Bill Ackman Learns the Hard Way

Featured image One of the most valuable lessons I learned from M. Stanton Evans about the modern media is that the predominant method should be understood as “ventriloquist journalism,” that is, prestige reporters at the premier outlets like the NY Times, Washington Post, and the TV network news bureaus don’t really report at all. For every issue or event that occurs, the media already know what they think is the narrative of »

In Re: Tucker v. Putin

Featured image Geez, from the way the left is reacting, you’d think Tucker Carlson was doing an imitation of the New York Times‘ Walter Duranty,  and slobbering over a Russian dictator and whitewashing the scene. Oh, wait. . . It’s pretty clear that the mainstream media is angry at Carlson because he didn’t get their permission to interview Putin, and moreover won’t agree to stick with the approved narrative. I haven’t had »

John Hinderaker reports

Featured image Doing the job that the mainstream media natives would prefer not to do, John Hinderaker reports on the likely arson that damaged the office of Center of the American Experiment and two other conservative organizations at the suburban office building that houses them (video below). One can reasonably infer that the organizations were targeted on political grounds. Arson won't slow us down. New footage and update from our President John »