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When Reality Meets the Babylon Bee

When Reality Meets the Babylon Bee 1

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When Reality Meets the Babylon Bee 2

Ever since the Babylon Bee was founded in 2016, something uncanny has happened: the world has become even more absurd than the imaginings of its writers. 

As with The Simpsons, if something appears in the imagination of Bee writers, it soon shows up in our newsfeeds as a real thing. 

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For example:

“Safely collect sexual orientation and gender identity” of cancer patients? Really?

How about try this: ask the patient if you need to know. There really is no need for millions of dollars in research funding from the federal government to tell you that if a question is medically relevant then a medical practitioner should ask it and note the answer. 

But of course, we know the truth: the money was being pushed out the door not for scientific reasons but to check a genderqueer alphabet research funding box. Bureaucrats up the chain wanted to fund things in this space so somebody invented a “study” to fit the criteria, and the money flowed. 

This wasn’t cancer research. “Cancer” was the funding hook.

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Federal science spending is filled with similar grifts, with somewhere around 25% of US science funding going to DEI-related “studies.” It got so bad that scientists were looking for ways to shoehorn in gender or sexuality into everything, including astronomy. 

Alphabet ideology and “critical studies” are where the money went, and where the money goes, so do the researchers. 97% of all researchers agree with the people who pay them to say things, and over the past few years, the market has been not in cancer cures but in alphabet ideology and NetZero research. 

The irony is that when these people go out to protest, they unintentionally sound funny or pathetic. Imagine the average person hearing this entitled twit complaining that she is no longer getting paid to make nonbinary people feel safe talking about their gender. 

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Most of us would think that the cancer-ridden trans person is more worried about their cancer than anything else, but what do I know?

I am a big believer that investments in scientific research are important, but we can’t keep throwing money out the door to conduct ideological BS research to produce propaganda that makes life worse for everyone. 

When I hear somebody is doing “cancer research,” I want the research to be about CANCER, not gender identity BS. Until it is I will support cut after cut after cut. 

Posted in Republican News

Trump’s Hoisting AP By Its Own Petard

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So says Matt Taibbi, who scoffs — as I did yesterday — at the idea that the White House owes the Associated Press a seat on Air Force One or in the briefing room. Jim Acosta wants a media boycott over the “unconstitutional restrictions” Donald Trump placed on the AP over the Gulf of Mexico spat. I responded as what my pal Adam Baldwin calls a ‘ritual benediction‘ of sorts before getting to the meat of the matter:

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Is the Gulf of America née Mexico fight with the AP petty? Yes. Is it provocative? Sure. Is it stupid? I wouldn’t go that far, but of all the issues on my priority list, the “Gulf of America” ranks around 14,383rd, its estimated top depth. (That’s from the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which wisely uses both names in its listing. Maybe they can take the AP seat on the plane!) 

That misses the point, Taibbi argued in an excellent essay earlier today. The Associated Press has long engaged in this very kind of petty language policing, often in deliberately provocative and political ways. And the outcomes of such language policing have usually been stupid, too:

“Telling the public and the press what words to use.” Right.

People are claiming the White House is bullying the AP and repeating this saw that Trump is telling them “what words to use.” If you don’t see the irony, you’ve never used the AP stylebook[.] …

Lately, it morphed into more of a “reference” book that resembled the old NIH style guides on “person-first destigmatizing language” (which AP endorses) that instructed you to write things like person with cancer instead of cancer patient. The NIH guides were infurating because almost they quickly became more about authority than usage, often encouraging use of terms (e.g. vulnerable or marginalized community) only to tell you a year later that Groups that have been socially marginalized is now preferable. The AP has been doing the same thing for years.

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Decades, actually, and so has the progressive clique in Academia and the media. Americans who fall one step behind on the constant terminology changes for “sensitivity” get shredded for being revanchists, bigots, misogynists, or Nazifasciststinkybottomists — basically the “ist” du jour. And the Associated Press plays a very large role in policing media and newsmakers over a constant rotation of acceptable terms. 

Taibbi provides examples of this in his thoroughly enjoyable essay, which is mainly behind a firewall, and so I am loath to excerpt much more of it. However, Taibbi does link to a Poynter article last year that cheered on the AP for its efforts to completely rewrite ‘acceptable’ terminology relating to criminal justice reporting. By requiring member media orgs to adhere to their new standards, Kelly McBride assured readers that the AP would force news outlets to “replac[e] cheap stories about shootings and stabbings with data-rich narratives that educate communities and hold cops accountable.”

What powerful changes would accomplish this? Er …

  • Eliminate all forms of the word “slay” and “slain” when it comes to covering murder and homicide. Only journalists use those words to reference killing people.
  • Avoid using “juvenile” and “minor” because they are bureaucratic language that dehumanizes people. Instead, just say “child” or “teenager.”
  • Put the person in front of the condition. So instead of calling someone a “felon” or a “convict” or a “murderer,” use the condition as a dependent clause, as in, “John Doe, who has been convicted of a felony.” (This now includes references to former President Donald Trump.)
  • It is now OK to use the term “assault rifle” or “assault weapon” on first reference, but reporters are encouraged to be more specific as well.

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Slay, kween! Oops!

The problem with these new demands is that the replaced words are the correct legal terms for crime stories. The legal status for children and most teenagers is “juveniles.” Statutes relating to criminal status refer to felons and convicts, not “dudes with a felony conviction.” Slay and slain may not be legal terms, but they are perfectly clear in meaning and universally understood. And why would these terms be less offensive than murder and homicide, or ‘kill’ and ‘killed’?

Meanwhile, the AP approves the term “assault weapon,” while conceding in the same breath that it doesn’t have an actual definition. 

In fact, one of the most outrageous examples of this is the phrase “illegal alien.” A couple of decades ago, the AP began pushing people to use “illegal immigrant,” and when that sounded too judgmental, it changed to “undocumented immigrant” and then “undocumented worker.” Taibbi also notes that the AP also revised that to “immigrants lacking permanent legal status,” and now allows “illegal immigration” but not “illegal immigrant.” 

Meanwhile, the proper term in US statutes is … “illegal alien.” 

There are endless examples of this constant term-shifting at the AP and elsewhere. That’s been true of racial and demographic classifications over the last several decades, but especially the last few years. You can no longer write black but must use Black, and Hispanic has been discouraged in favor of Latinx. Homeless people should now be unhoused persons, lest the social-misery condition be addressed in terms that might sound negative. And so on. 

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All of this would be hilarious if it weren’t so insidious, thanks to the leverage the AP uses to enforce it. That enforcement is the reason McBride saluted changes to criminal justice terminology, because she assumed it would change news coverage and reporting through such enforcement. The AP exists as a network of media orgs that contribute to AP’s publication platform, and then share whatever the AP will push out over “the wire,” to use an old term. The AP can choose not to publish material that doesn’t adhere to its style “guide,” which means that its members have a big financial incentive to comply with the AP’s demands. 

And that’s why Taibbi scoffs at the Associated Press’ complaints about the Trump White House enforcing its own terminology usage. The AP and the Left have been doing the exact same thing for decades in pursuit of blatantly partisan and ideological outcomes. Trump has hoisted them by their own petard — and it turns out they don’t like it much. 

Posted in Republican News

Pipeline of Propaganda: How Parts of Reddit Became a Pro-Terror, pro-Marxist Cesspit

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An interesting investigative story was published today by Pirate Wires. The author uncovers how propaganda being sent out by dozens of designated terrorist groups including Hamas and Hezbollah have their messages pushed onto Reddit by a group that has worked behind the scenes to take over a number of subreddit forums, including some that are ostensibly not about politics at all.

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The pipeline of propaganda starts with terror groups who publish material which gets picked up by a Telegram channel called the Resistance News Network.

Screenshots I obtained seem to indicate that RNN pulls content from a color-coded list of Telegram channels run by US-designated foreign terror organizations headquartered across the Middle East. Many of these channels aren’t available in the US due to restrictions on terror-related content, so RNN’s translation and re-posting of the content represents an effective — if illegal — workaround of US terror law.

While not the sole distributor of content produced by foreign terror groups, RNN is the main one. It aggregates and distributes content from US-designated groups in Israel-Palestine, including Hamas…Palestinian Islamic Jihad…Martyr Abu Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)…and many more. In Iraq, RNN pulls from around a dozen channels, including Kataeb Hezbollah, which has engaged in a sustained campaign of rocket and drone attacks against US bases and assets in the region, and Scream of Al-Quds Brigades, which is part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. In Yemen, RNN aggregates at least six channels of major terror groups, including the Houthis.

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So these posts, memes, etc. get sent out by terror groups and picked up and translated by RNN. But the last step is delivering those messages into Reddit forums. This is done by a group dubbed the r/Palestine network which operates behind the scenes to take over moderation of certain Reddit forums, including some popular ones that originally had no connection to Middle East politics.

The backbone of the r/Palestine network is a group of moderators who control dozens of overlapping subreddits, with r/Palestine as the central hub. These users co-moderate the core group of ideological subreddits, like r/IsraelCrimes, r/palestinenews, and r/ApartheidIsrael, where the content is dedicated to intensive and sustained anti-Israel messaging…

Much of the network’s influence lies in popular subreddits that, nominally, have nothing to do with Israel. For example, u/Sabbah, the highly influential member of the network mentioned previously, moderates topically relevant subreddits like r/Palestine, r/IsraelCrimes, r/Palestinians, r/palestinenews, r/ApartheidIsrael, and r/Panarab. However, Sabbah also moderates r/Documentaries, r/therewasanattempt, r/PublicFreakout, r/IRLEasterEggs, r/ToiletPaperUSA, r/Thatsactuallyverycool and r/boringdystopia — a cluster of unrelated, large subreddits that have been captured by the network…

r/therewasanattempt, a subreddit originally meant for funny ‘fail’ content, and which has over 7 million members, features as its main banner an archery target in the colors of the Palestinian flag with the words “Free Palestine” ringed around it and Israel in the bull’s eye. (The subreddit’s icon is this same target with the Israel bull’s eye.) The main banner previously featured the phrase “From the River to the sea, Palestine will be Free.”

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The same group of mods has also taken over the r/Documentaries subreddit which has 20 million members. The mods post and upvote a steady stream of anti-Israel content along with the other documentaries featured in the space. In all, a network of about 30 moderators control about 110 subreddits of various size. All of their activity is organized on a Discord which is constantly looking for new places to place terrorist propaganda.

The central locus of the network is a 270,000-member subreddit called r/Palestine. A Discord server with the same name functions as command-and-control for the r/Palestine network, and is promoted prominently on the subreddit. On the Discord — whose new members must undergo an ideological purity test consisting of questions about their views on Israel, Zionism and October 7 — a “Reddit task force” channel coordinates posting to Reddit, identifying “comments sections that need more pro Palestinian commentary,” mass upvoting of anti-Israel posts, and downvoting of pro-Israel posts (a practice known as “vote brigading”). The Discord has separate task forces for Quora, TikTok, Instagram, X, and Wikipedia.

So if you were wondering how Hamas suddenly became a favorite topic of every left-wing college student and a focus of social media discussion, this is probably part of the answer. Reddit has been made aware of what this group of politically motivate moderators is doing on the site but their trust and safety team has brushed it off and refused to take any action. Terrorist propaganda is just fine with Reddit it seems.

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Posted in Republican News

Kash Patel JustThisClose to Confirmation

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Oh, my heart was in my throat last night when I saw Senator Markwayne Mullin’s Xweet.

Kash Patel was up for a cloture vote at about 5:30 EST last night – would there be a last-minute Democratic or Rino-tic wrench thrown in the works?

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Steady….steady…Lutnick’s confirmation came in…steady…and DONE.

Patel was officially on the confirmation countdown clock; Sen Mullin is predicting a vote on Thursday and is feeling strongly that Patel has bested the Democrats’ worst efforts.

I hope he’s not overconfident, but some truly sad little weasel faces give me hope that he’s right. That Patel will be our next FBI director by tomorrow night.

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WAAH, WAAH

It was also cheering this morning to see a relatively complimentary article about Patel in the Washington Post, of all liberal rags. I mean, knock me over with a feather.

Has Hell frozen over?

Although it could be purely self-interested CYA, as the paper is surely aware that Patel will start crawling up butts over the torrent of anti-Trump classified and privileged information leaks to the press during the past two administrations.

Oh, golly. Let’s just shelve our cynical sides for a second and bathe in the momentary and transitory psuedo-magnanimity, shall we?

Kash Patel, a fierce critic of the FBI, is on the verge of being confirmed as the bureau’s next director, with a full Senate vote expected Thursday.

If approved, he would take over the agency amid turmoil unlike anything in its 116-year history, while facing allegations that he played a role in purges of at least eight top officials while his nomination was pending.

Some of those forced out had been vilified for years by a group of former agents who have previously been accused of misconduct and suspended, a Washington Post examination has found.

The ex-agents, who deny wrongdoing, have forged bonds with Patel, in some cases accepting financial help from his nonprofit foundation, and have been in contact with him since his nomination, one member of the group said in an interview. They testified on Capitol Hill about the need to clean house at the FBI, including at a hearing organized by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in 2023.

…Conservative critics of the FBI see President Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Patel — an ex-federal prosecutor, former assistant public defender and conservative commentator — as a welcome development for a law enforcement agency they argue has become politicized and out of control.

And perhaps no group is happier than the coterie of suspended or former agents Patel has connected with in recent years.

They call themselves “The Suspendables”: victims of what they deride as the FBI’s weaponization against conservatives, and say they were punished for political differences and whistleblowing. They’ve built an online following through podcast appearances, social media and conservative news outlets where they’ve trumpeted their complaints.

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Aw. Waffley warm fuzzies from the WaPo – whoda thunk?

These are some of the former agents they are talking about.

And there are FBI whistleblowers who have courageously stepped forward only to be ruthlessly crushed by the Obama-Biden regimes. They deserve their moment of reckoning, too.

Should the Senate confirm Kash Patel as FBI director, it will have clinched the second of perhaps the two most vital nominations President Donald Trump will make, alongside Tulsi Gabbard. These are the two individuals after Trump with the near-singular ability to prevent us from devolving into a total police state of the kind that has already targeted them.

President Trump was elected in no small part as a rebuke to a national security apparatus and intelligence agencies that have been weaponized and politicized against dissenters from ruling-class orthodoxy. From Russiagate and the fostering of the Censorship-Industrial Complex, to the first Trump impeachment and the Jan. 6 inquisition, to the targeting of all from faithful Christians to pro-life activists and parents concerned about their kids being indoctrinated in Marxism in school, increasingly our deep state has operated like our political foes’ secret police.

As I recently reported at RealClearInvestigations, the evidence shows that at least at the FBI, whistleblowers exposing this misconduct have had their careers and lives destroyed. Those defending them have faced retaliation too.

The turning of America’s cops and spies on the American people is the death knell of the republic, not to mention ultimately a boon to our adversaries. After all, from their perspective, what could be better than seeing the U.S. destroy itself from within by eviscerating liberty and justice in targeting domestic wrongthinkers? We effectively run information operations on ourselves via politicizing intelligence, while diverting precious resources from pursuing our actual foreign enemies. 

Simply put, police states cannot be free states.

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Won’t it be nice to have advocates for the American people in those positions at last?

And to know that they want answers. Maybe even heads. At the very least, Patel will demand some sort of accountability for all of the sins committed by the FBI and intelligence agencies against innocent citizens.

There’s also been quite a bit of nerve-induced housecleaning going on among former FBI types.

Can’t imagine why. They were such a cute couple.

As far as other ‘news’ outlets reporting on Patel’s advance to the last round, like, say, Politico – sheesh. 

That rag must still be butthurt over the canceled USAID subscriptions, judging by their take on his passing the cloture threshold. It’s more like a dramatic reading.

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Kash Patel, the controversial nominee to lead the FBI, cleared another key procedural hurdle Tuesday.

The Senate voted 48-45 to move forward with Patel’s nomination, setting up his confirmation vote in the coming days to helm the agency for a 10-year term.

Patel, if confirmed, is set to be a central figure in President Donald Trump’s efforts to leverage his powers against perceived enemies. A former House staffer who worked to discredit the congressional inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Patel has promised to go after Trump’s adversaries and shut down the FBI’s Washington headquarters on Day 1 of his tenure to create “a museum” of the “deep state.”

Reuters was having a moment, too. 

I can’t wait to see how they write about it tomorrow, when and if he, at long last, becomes Director Patel.

Should be riveting reading.

LFG and git ‘er done.

Posted in Republican News

LA Mayor: I’m Investigating Why I Was ‘Allowed’ to Go AWOL

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Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you … progressive ‘leadership’ in a nutshell. Said nutshell provided by Southern California’s leading progressive nut, in fact. 

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Elex Michaelson, a reporter for Fox’s Los Angeles affiliate, sat down with Mayor Karen Bass to discuss the many failures around the devastating wildfires that left thousands homeless. Bass insists that she is investigating all of the failures, including why she was “allowed” to go to Ghana as weather services and the LA Fire Department sent out warnings of potential disaster:

Michaelson asked specifically about her decision to leave for Ghana, even with warnings about the dangerous situation developing. Bear in mind that Bass had pledged during the 2022 campaign never to leave the state during her time in office, let alone the country. She broke that pledge while receiving warnings about the potential for disaster, which Bass acknowledges while attempting to downplay it.

So why did she leave? Apparently, Bass won’t answer that herself, but claims to be investigating why she was ‘allowed’ to do so:

Bass: That level of preparation really didn’t happen. So it didn’t reach that level to me. No one said you shouldn’t have gone on a trip.

Reporter: Why didn’t it happen?

Bass: I don’t know. That’s what we are investigating.

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Investigating what? Bass is the mayor and she made that decision. Doesn’t the buck stop there? This sounds like Bass is “investigating” how she can shift the blame for deciding to go on a White House-paid junket while warnings arose over the risks of the Santa Ana windstorms that were coming. And let us also not forget that Bass left the city in potential emergency conditions while the deputy mayor she appointed had been suspended for allegedly making terroristic threats:

As for not being sufficiently warned — the basis on which Bass hopes to shift the blame for the Ghana junket — that’s utter nonsense. The Los Angeles Times reported six weeks ago that Bass got plenty of warning about the danger from the National Weather Service about “extreme fire conditions” before she stepped onto the flight to Ghana:

The National Weather Service began warning of potentially strong winds — amid “extreme fire conditions” — on Thursday, two days before Bass left for Ghana. Those warnings intensified over the subsequent days. By Monday, officials were bracing for a potentially life-threatening and destructive windstorm.

Eric Spiegelman, a Los Feliz resident who served for several years on the city’s Board of Taxicab Commissioners, said Bass should have booked an earlier flight home no later than Sunday, after the National Weather Service issued a fire weather watch for L.A. and Ventura counties. That bulletin warned of “strong and damaging winds” and “critical fire conditions.”

“She should have been here on Tuesday, full stop,” Spiegelman said. “They kept upgrading the danger level.”

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Bass never should have left at all. She split as danger approached without anyone in clear charge of emergency responses in her absence, and then never bothered to keep abreast of the situation while overseas. Bass made that decision because she prefers to advance herself rather than provide leadership and proper services to Los Angeles residents and constituents. Bass never did see this job as anything other than a stepping stone to the governor’s office, and her dereliction of duty during the wildfires is damning evidence of it.

Now Bass wants to pretend that she was “allowed” to go to Ghana, and that it was someone else’s fault. Bass is still derelict, still abdicating, and counting on the progressive establishment in LA and California to rescue her from responsibility. 

Posted in Republican News

CNN: January Had a Record Low Number of Airplane Accidents

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It may feel like we’ve had a lot of air accidents lately and some on the left are doing their best to blame every accident on President Trump.

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The White House responded to that yesterday, calling Schumer “incredibly irresponsible.”

It’s worth noting that Schumer is hardly alone. Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan deleted a dumb tweet he posted earlier this week.

Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan deleted a social media post about recent aviation accidents after claiming to receive backlash from “MAGA and Islamophobic folks.” 

In the now-deleted post uploaded on Sunday, Feb. 16, Hasan, 45 wrote, “Make American Plane Crash Again.” His five-word response was in response to another post about two people who were killed in a plane crash at Georgia’s Covington Airport in Atlanta on Saturday, Feb. 15.

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There were plenty of people making this same argument this week. But CNN takes a look at the numbers and finds January was actually a very safe month for air travel overall.

…sometimes feelings can be deceiving. A look at the statistics suggests that the skies are about as friendly as they’ve ever been…

It appears that last month there was a record low number of airplane accidents nationwide, when combining private and commercial airline flights. Most of the 62 total airplane accidents were on private flights, and that total number was 18 less than the 80 recorded in January 2024.

In fact, if the preliminary numbers hold, January 2025 will surpass the previous record for the lowest number of total accidents, with eight fewer than the prior record low of 70 from January 2012.

Ten of the accidents in January 2025 were, unfortunately, fatal, and one of those fatal incidents involved a commercial airliner. Obviously, any number above zero is too many, but 10 overall is an incredibly low number, historically speaking.

So the number of accidents was really low but unfortunately one of those accidents, the one in Washington, DC, was very deadly. That’s cause for taking a close look at how helicopters and airliners operate around that particular airport, but it’s not an indictment of the system as a whole, much less proof that Trump is making air travel unsafe.

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But that’s not the impression you get from listening to Democrats who literally see the blood in the water as an opportunity to attack their opponents and spread fear.

Posted in Republican News

About That ‘Independent’ Media…

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I linked to this story in my previous article on elections in Ukraine, but I think it deserves a full post all by itself. 

The Free Press has a piece on Internews and its influence on the coverage of the war in Ukraine that really deserves attention, going into deeper depth on USAID’s control of the flow of information both within Ukraine and from Ukraine to the United States. 

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I have written a few times about Internews, which has sucked up about half a billion dollars in USAID money to fund “independent” journalism around the world, making that journalism as “independent” as a PR flack at a White House podium. It is good to see that The Free Press did a deeper dive into how the US government has been shaping the propaganda coming out of the war. 

Americans have a reverence for the idea of a free press, and with good reason. Free and independent media–hopefully many sources with a wide variety of opinions driving them–give us the best hope for piecing together a reasonably accurate view of the world, the actors in it, and what they are doing. Never trust a single source, even if they are committed to being honest. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to most “news” stories these days, especially on issues of importance, there are fewer “news” sources than you think. The Associated Press filters most news, with most of the stories on any one topic or another actually being rewrites of an AP story. 

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Everything you read or see coming out of Gaza was likely reported to you either by an Israeli military outfit or by Hamas. “Independent” journalists embedded in Gaza are simply Hamas shills. The Associated Press shared offices with Hamas in Gaza for years. Seriously. 

And Ukraine? If you are reading it, Internews likely provided the news, and Internews is USAID, or at least was. 

Rather, according to Oksana Romaniuk, director of the Institute of Mass Information, a press freedom group, nine out of 10 media outlets in Ukraine “survive thanks to grants” from the West.

The primary funder of these outlets is an NGO called Internews. In 2024, they provided “comprehensive support” for 536 media outlets in Ukraine, per their annual report, and trained over 5,000 journalists. Some Ukrainian publications rely on Internews for 80 percent of their funding.

And where does Internews get its money? Until last week, when the spigot was turned off, it came primarily from USAID, to the tune of $473 million since 2008.

Internews says that its mission is to “train journalists, advance internet freedom, and help media outlets become financially sustainable—so that everyone has trustworthy information to make informed decisions and hold power to account.” As of 2023, it claims to have “trained” over 9,000 journalists, aided 4,291 media outlets, and reached 778 million people around the world with its broadcasts. Its ties to USAID go beyond grants: Its CEO Jeanne Bourgault spent six years at USAID and is married to a USAID adviser, Ray S. Jennings. (Internews did not respond to a request for an interview.)

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Since the news is filtered through Internews, things like this happen:

The camera was rolling when chaos erupted. It was January 21, 2024, and an independent Ukrainian journalist named Ostap Stakhiv was livestreaming a call with Vasyl Pleskach, a man claiming he was being illegally detained by Ukraine’s infamous military conscription unit, the TCC. The agency has been accused of kidnapping men from the street and forcing them to the front lines. Those who resist have sometimes been tortured—and in several well-documented cases—killed.

In the middle of the interview, Stakhiv called the police to see if they would free Pleskach from the clutches of the TCC. Just then, with the police still on the line, a burly figure entered Vasyl’s frame, walked over to Pleskach, and struck him hard in the face. His phone tumbled to the ground, landing sideways, but still recording. “They’re beating him right now,” Stakhiv told the police, as Vasyl’s picture went haywire. “People are watching it live. They’re beating him as we speak. Go to my YouTube channel and see it for yourself.” Off-screen, Pleskach’s screams were audible for another minute before the line was disconnected.

None of Ukraine’s media outlets covered the beating, but about a month later, a Ukrainian media outlet, Babel, ran an article about Stakhiv. Its headline? “Ostap Stakhiv—a Failed Politician and Antivaxxer—Created a Vast Anti-Conscription Network.” It accused the journalist of obstructing Ukraine’s mobilization efforts, pushing Kremlin narratives, and undermining trust in the military. (Babel did not respond to a request for an interview from The Free Press.)

Other Ukrainian outlets, including Detector Media and Bihus Info, chimed in with similar stories—some even containing identical phrasing. “Whole paragraphs were copied word for word,” Jean Novoseltsev, another independent journalist in Ukraine, told The Free Press. “You can tell they were sent the same memo.” (Detector Media and Bithus Info did not respond to an email requesting an interview.)

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Sooo…A non-USAID-funded journalist is reporting about kidnap and torture squads, gets kidnapped and beaten himself, ultimately gets arrested for talking about kidnappings, beatings, and torturing, and USAID-funded journalists coordinate to smear him. 

That, my friends, is what your tax dollars have been funding as “independent” journalism. 

Some USAID-funded publications, now pleading for donations after the Trump administration suspended the Internews/USAID grants they had relied on, insist they operated independently. Yet, the experience of Astra, an independent outlet in Russia, where Internews also hands out media grants, suggests otherwise.

When Astra applied for Internews funding, it was told the grant required an “Internews-appointed editor.” Astra’s editor-in-chief, Anastasia Chumakova, was stunned.

“Why on earth would foundations edit texts, and why do independent media agree to it? Are you sure the word ‘independent’ goes with this?” she wrote on Telegram.

There is nothing wrong, in principle, with taking the Realpolitik view that the US and Russia are in a Great Power conflict and that Ukraine is just one battlefield among many. If you want to argue that the world is zero-sum and if we didn’t own Ukraine, then Russia would, and hence supporting all this skull duggery is necessary, be my guest. 

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But if you buy the propaganda that Internews is selling you that Zelenskyy represents Truth, Justice, and the American way and Putin is Hitler, you have been sold a bill of goods. Putin is indeed a horrible guy, but he presents as much danger to Germany or the UK as Mynamar does. Short of using nukes, their vulnerability to him is entirely based on their need for his oil, not a fear of his tanks. Paris will not be overrun by aging T-62s. Putin can’t even get air superiority over Ukraine, which is remarkable. 

Putin is a very bad guy. Zelenskyy is simply an American satrap, and Ukraine is an American money-laundering operation. It saddens me that this is so, but it pretty obviously is. USAID has been funding a propaganda campaign aimed not just at Ukrainians but at the entire world to prop it up. 

Democratic countries don’t hire goon squads to kidnap, torture, and murder people and shanghai people to become cannon fodder. So USAID/Internews calls “fake news” on what really happens in Ukraine in order to keep support for the war high. 

That may be Realpolitik, but it isn’t “independent journalism.”

Posted in Republican News

Anti-Israel Protesters Meet Betar in New York City

Anti-Israel Protesters Meet Betar in New York City 15

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Anti-Israel Protesters Meet Betar in New York City 16

There was a wild scene in the largely Jewish enclave of Borough Park last night. A group called PAL-AWDA organized a protest at what they clamed was a real estate event to sell stolen Palestinian land.

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Across the US and Canada realtors continue to sell stolen PALESTINIAN property on settlements that are illegal under International law…

🔻As the genocide on Palestinians continues, we call for a complete end to the settler-colonial project of israel and its goal of expansion.

In the face of Trump’s outrageous plans to force Palestinians out of the Gaza strip and in the wake of the displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank in the past month, it is more important than ever that we show up in the masses to oppose the sale of stolen land, especially when it is happening in our own backyards!

Of course this group claims the protest was not anti-Semitic but in practice they believe in the same “from the river to the sea” removal of Jews that Hamas does.

During the protest that was reportedly endorsed by around 30 other groups, activists proclaimed that from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, “Palestine is Arab.”

Al-Awda claimed that the protests were to stop what they claimed was the sale of “stolen” land. The expo website didn’t offer holdings in disputed territories, but Getter does seek out real estate on behalf of its clients depending on their requests, which could include in settlements.

The protesters did show up but they were easily outnumbered by Jewish residents and counter-protesters.

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The Jewish counter-protesters in this case were a group called Betar which makes a point of saying they will not be victims and will resist anti-Semitism with force.

The result of this was some street fighting and chaos with the NYPD trying to keep the two sides apart.

Borough Park is a heavily haredi Orthodox neighborhood, and politicians had warned of unrest ahead of the protest. Betar US, a right-wing pro-Israel group that urges its followers to “fight back” against anti-Israel protesters, counterprotested at the event. “We cannot guarantee the safety of those who threaten Jewish synagogues,” it posted on social media following the event…

At first the groups were separated into two areas. The pro-Palestinian protesters chanted, “Settlers, settlers go back home, Palestine is ours alone,” as well as “Zionists go to hell,” according to the Times of Israel. The Jerusalem Post reported that Betar members called the pro-Palestinian activists “terrorists.”

Violent clashes broke out between the two sides. Footage on social media shows people fighting in the street as police try to separate the brawlers.

Video of some of the fighting.

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There were claims of an attempted stabbing.

And also claims someone tried to run people down with a car. One person was arrested.

However, Fox News reports that person was not arrested for an incident with a car but for assaulting an older Jewish man. Also, they say there’s no evidence anyone was attacked with a knife.

One arrest was made with Anthony Frausto, 42, of Brooklyn, taken into custody and charged with assault after he allegedly punched a 61-year-old man in the face, police told Fox News Digital. The victim was treated by EMS at the scene. 

Footage also shows a large knife on the ground. Police said they were not aware of the knife being used in any attack.

PAL-AWDA posted their own version of events on Instagram claiming they were the victims of an angry mob. Betar seemed okay with that since their main aim is to make the point that Jews are not victims and are prepared to fight back.

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Hakeem Jeffries condemned the pro-Palestinian protest today.

So did Rep. Ritchie Torres.

That’s all I have for now. But it sounds like “pro-Palestinian” protesters aren’t going to be allowed to push their pro-Hamas agenda without a response in some parts of the city anymore.

Posted in Republican News

Yet Another Case Demonstrating Hypocrisy of Gun Control

Yet Another Case Demonstrating Hypocrisy of Gun Control 17

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Yet Another Case Demonstrating Hypocrisy of Gun Control 18

“I can’t even with these people,” my friend Salena Zito replied to me while discussing this case from Westmoreland County. By the end, I promise that you’ll have even stronger responses.

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A year ago, two men used a stolen pickup truck to smash into a gun store and steal more than two dozen weapons. It didn’t take long for police to find them; master criminals they aren’t, although they keep practicing at it. KDKA in Pittsburgh reported that one of the two perps got sentenced yesterday, and you won’t believe what he got:

A 27-year-old man has been sentenced to 20 months in prison and three years of supervised release after he was found guilty of stealing two dozen firearms in Westmoreland County early last year. 

According to the Department of Justice, Michael Guin was sentenced on Tuesday after his involvement with a gun store break-in earlier this year [sic] in New Kensington. 

Guin crashed a pickup truck through the main door of RC Firearms around 3:30 a.m. on January 22, 2024. Investigators said Steyn Sarduy then ran inside and smashed the front door, and Guin went in after him. 

 Twenty months for burglary, grand theft auto, and burglary and possession of stolen firearms? The damage from the robbery was so significant that the owner had to relocate his business, according to KDKA’s video report at the link. Also according to the video report, police have only ever recovered three of the stolen firearms; the others remain missing, and the perps have apparently misled investigators as to their location. 

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By the way, this isn’t Guin’s first dance with law enforcement, either. Guess what his firearm-ownership status was before this idiotic burglary?

Guin is also a previously convicted felon and that prohibits him from possessing a firearm. 

His partner in the crime had an active warrant out for a probation violation, too. Surprised?

At any rate, this amply demonstrates the futility of passing new restrictions on law-abiding citizens for keeping and bearing arms. The state isn’t penalizing these two idiots for possessing the firearms they stole; arguably, they’re not even giving them a punishment commensurate for stealing the truck. Twenty months would be a light sentence for the burglary alone for a first-time offender, let alone a previously convicted felon that stole two dozen firearms and only returned three of them. 

Guin should be serving twenty years, not months. Pennsylvania law sets the penalties for felons “caught possessing, transporting, controlling, or otherwise having a firearm” under any circumstances at 5-20 years and a fine up to $25,000. Guin committed burglary and grand theft auto to steal 24 firearms with his partner, both of which are listed in Section 6105’s statute as aggravating circumstances. Guin ended up with a sentence less than a month per firearm. 

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Why bother passing more restrictions on otherwise law-abiding citizens when prosecutors won’t enforce firearms-prohibiting laws on the books against previously convicted felons?

And the story gets even better, as my co-host and pal Cam Edwards points out today. The reason why Pennsylvania law may not apply is because the perps got tried in federal court. It was the Biden Department of Justice — the same administration that constantly pushed for more gun control — that offered both perps the deal of a lifetime:

So why did he get a slap on the wrist, and who was responsible for his light punishment? U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer was the one who sentenced Guin, but the U.S. Attorneys who prosecuted the case are the ones who offered Guin one helluva plea deal. …

When multiple defendants are charged with a crime, it’s not unusual for one of them to be offered a deal in exchange for testifying against their compatriot. In this case, however, both Guin and Sarduy were given the opportunity to plead to lesser charges, so it’s not like the Biden DOJ was trying to play one against the other. 

Got that? The Biden administration wanted more and more restrictions on people who don’t commit crimes while letting actual felons off the hook for violating laws already on the books. And then Joe Biden himself made the hypocrisy blatant by pardoning his son Hunter from facing the consequences of violating a law that Biden himself pushed to pass. And why was this in federal court anyway? It looks like the DoJ deliberately intervened to let these two off the hook for firearms violations while the Biden administration pushed gun control for everyone else.

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Cam and I will be discussing this at length less than an hour from now in our VIP Gold live chat. If you have not yet signed up as a VIP Gold member, or haven’t upgraded your existing account to VIP Gold or VIP Platinum, now’s a great time to do so and join us at 1:30 pm ET to discuss this — and anything else on your mind. Become a HotAir VIP member or upgrade today and use the code GOLDBARS for 50% off and get the media deal of a lifetime!

Posted in Republican News

Yes, Newsweek Really DID Say That Out Loud…

Yes, Newsweek Really DID Say That Out Loud... 19

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Yes, Newsweek Really DID Say That Out Loud... 20

Did you take the red pill or the blue pill?

If you took the red pill, you would be forced to live in the real world where things are messy, the truth is hard to swallow, and you are condemned to live in freedom with all its pains and pleasures. 

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If you take the blue pill, you can live in blissful ignorance of the fact that you are a slave totally manipulated by people indifferent to your well-being and your fate. 

Newsweek chose the blue pill.

Ukraine is Schrödinger’s democracy. As long as we don’t measure whether Zelenskyy is democratically supported by his population, we can pretend that he is the legitimately elected leader of a democratic regime. 

Zelenskyy was legitimately elected, but his term was to have expired last year. He is currently empowered by martial law to remain in power, and implicitly by the fact that the US government pays all Ukraine’s bills, including the salaries of the government, the budget for the military, the pensions, the media, the…everything. Zelenskyy is an American satrap. 

I am not saying that to insult Zelenskyy. It is simply a fact. You may even think it is a good thing, and I certainly think that the current situation is at least better than having Putin own the whole damn country. 

But this is not “democracy.” Any argument that it is is a joke. 

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Now, I don’t know whether Vladimir Zelenskyy would win an election in Ukraine if it were held today, and neither does anybody else. I wouldn’t rule it out, although as the Free Press article linked above shows, the news we are getting out of the country is paid propaganda funded by USAID. None of it is real.

Zelenskyy has goon squads kidnapping and torturing people to make them go to the front. He is arresting and beating reporters for telling people this. Using our tax dollars. Our tax dollars are being used to suppress that fact because the transnational elite wants that war to go on seemingly forever. 

It is within the realm of possibility that some people in Ukraine might object to that and want a different leader or even want the killing to stop. An election might give us insight into this question, you might think. 

But, as Newsweek points out, “there are concerns that the Ukrainian president might be voted out of office if the country holds an election.”

So I guess that the best path forward to preserve democracy there shouldn’t be an election. 

If you took the blue pill, this makes perfect sense. The only way to preserve democracy is to ensure that the technocrats who know better get to decide everything and the proles be told what to do. 

If you take the red pill, you are forced to deal with reality. Putin is a bad guy. Zelenskyy is an American puppet. Ukraine is a money laundering operation for the transnational elite. Nobody’s hands are clean. 

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I don’t hate Zelenskyy. He is what he is, and if I had to choose between him and Putin, I would choose him. But really, if we are going to debate how best to resolve the Ukraine war, let’s put all the cards on the table. This is not a war for democracy. Ukraine is not some pristine example of a free people fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. 

This is a proxy war between empires, and over a million people have died for basically nothing. Putin lost in the first weeks of the war when he failed to take Kyiv. Everything since has been mindless bloodletting. 

Crimea is gone and has been for a decade. The eastern provinces will not be retaken. $300 billion has flowed into Ukraine, and the frontlines have barely budged. Nobody has a plan to win, and I am pretty sure that’s just fine with the people pushing for forever war. 

Newsweek and our elites are “concerned” that people might have a say in their future. That they might vote to end the dying and destruction. 

I am concerned that they don’t have a say right now. 

Posted in Republican News
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