Tag: mainstream media

AP Admits Noncitizens Vote In U.S. Elections While Insisting It’s No Big Deal

In a hit piece skeptical of the Republican-led Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote, the Associated Press (AP) acknowledged that foreign nationals have been caught “illegally registering and even casting ballots.” But that fact doesn’t stop Democrats and their media allies from opposing safeguards like the SAVE Act that threaten the advantages Democrats gain from loose election laws.

“The specter of immigrants voting illegally in the U.S. has erupted into a leading election-year talking point for Republicans. They argue that legislation is necessary to protect the sanctity of the vote as the country faces unprecedented levels of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border,” the AP’s Ali Swenson wrote.

“Voting by people who are not U.S. citizens already is illegal in federal elections and there is no indication it’s happening anywhere in significant numbers,” Swenson insisted. But nine paragraphs later, she conceded that “there have been cases over the years of noncitizens illegally registering and even casting ballots.”

Swenson suggested these instances aren’t a big deal because “states have mechanisms to catch” such illegal voting. But in fact, the federal government has prevented states from requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.

Federal voter registration forms do not require documentary proof of citizenship. Instead, each individual who registers to vote must simply check a box affirming he is a U.S. citizen. In other words, our elections hinge on the honor system.

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Media spreads false claim that Tucker Carlson launched a show on Russian TV

Multiple media outlets have been criticized after they spread a false claim that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson had launched a new show on Russian television. 

In response to a Newsweek article published on the topic, originally claiming that Carlson was working with Rossiya 24 on a show, Tucker Carlson Network investor Neil Patel wrote, “The Tucker Carlson Network has not done any deals with state media in any country.  Whoever is currently pretending to be the old Newsweek brand would know that if they had checked with us before printing like news companies are supposed to do.” 

The “show” in question is state-owned Rossiya 24 pulling footage from Carlson’s YouTube page and airing that on television translated to Russian. 

Newsweek originally wrote that a Russian paper “said that the show is part of a joint project with Carlson TV, in which he will interview figures and politicians who have “alternative views to the mainstream.”

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“Act of madness”: Israeli officials seize AP equipment, cut live feed of Gaza

Israeli officials seized broadcasting equipment belonging to the Associated Press on Tuesday, arguing it was used to provide images to Al Jazeera, whose Jerusalem bureau was shuttered earlier this month following the passage of a new foreign broadcast law.

Why it matters: Press advocates have warned that the law creates a dangerous precedent for censoring independent news outlets in the region amid the ongoing war with Hamas.

  • Israeli lawmakers passed the measure last month, empowering the country’s communications minister to take action against any foreign media network that it can prove poses a national security risk.
  • Tuesday’s seizure has already garnered sharp criticism, with Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid calling it “an act of madness.”

Driving the news: Officials seized AP’s equipment in the southern town of Sderot on Tuesday afternoon, arguing the global news agency had violated the new law by providing a live feed of northern Gaza to Qatar-based Al Jazeera, AP reported.

  • According to the Israeli Ministry of Communications, the confiscated equipment includes a camera, tripod, live modem and two microphones.

AP reported that it “complies with Israel’s military censorship rules, which prohibit broadcasts of details like troops movements that could endanger soldiers.”

  • “The live shot has generally shown smoke rising over the territory,” it reported.
  • “The Qatari satellite channel is among thousands of clients that receive live video feeds from the AP and other news organizations,” it added.
  • The seizure of the equipment followed a refusal by AP to adhere to an order from Israeli officials last week to cut the live feed.

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When Israel Bombed AP’s Gaza Office

On May 15, 2021, as part of its “Operation Guardian of the Walls” military campaign in Gaza, Israel bombed the Associated Press offices’ building, based on the still evidence-free claim that the AP headquarters “housed Hamas”. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the week prior, IDF bombed two other office buildings that “housed more than a dozen international and local media outlets.”

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) gave the tenants of the al-Jalaa Building in Gaza—which included AP, other news agencies including Al-Jazeera, and residential homes—a stern warning. IDF informed them they had one hour to evacuate their homes before the building would be bombed by Israeli missiles. Sixty minutes and three Israeli missiles later, the 12-story building was leveled to the ground.

The IDF posted a short vague statement that provided no evidence for their claim the building was being used by terrorists but made sure to repeat the term “Hamas terror organization” four times, in just four sentences—five times if you count “Hamas military intelligence” in the headline.

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Mrs. Alito and the Bad Flag

The New York Times apoplectic over basically nothing: “At Justice Alito’s House, a ‘Stop the Steal’ Symbol on Display,” reads a New York Times headline from yesterday.

According to the Times, an upside-down American flag was flown at Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s house for a few days in January 2021—between the January 6 Capitol riot and President Joe Biden’s inauguration. The nation’s esteemed paper of record suggests this action indicates that Alito thinks the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

There is very little evidence available to make this case. People fly upside-down flags for all kinds of reasons; it typically signals “SOS” or a sense that the country is horribly off course. People have historically flown flags in this manner out of protest for the Vietnam War, out of protest for the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, to contest election results (believing the election was stolen or that voter fraud was rampant), or—and don’t get the two confused—to signal displeasure with the election results.

Alito reports that his wife was the one who flew the flag in this manner and that it concerned a dispute with a neighbor who posted an anti-Trump sign in their yard, following the election, that used expletives. Mrs. Alito was reportedly angered by this, and flew her flag upside-down in response. It is very hard to tell what intentions were behind one single gesture, reportedly not even done by the justice himself, and no account from neighbors or friends of the Alito family has bolstered the idea that Mrs. Alito is a “Stop the Steal” type.

This reminds me of when media outlets and the Anti-Defamation League claimed the “OK” symbol was actually a white supremacist gesture. If you look hard enough, you can find disturbing symbols anywhere you look, but you must sometimes suspend logic and reason in order to do so. This does not seem like a situation where a sitting Supreme Court justice is supporting overthrowing election results; it looks like a situation where The New York Times is straining to make that the narrative.

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NBC Animal Documentary Claims “This is a Queer Planet”

A documentary set to be broadcast by NBC asserts that we live on a “queer planet,” in which homosexuality is widespread in the animal kingdom and there are more than two genders.

Yes, really.

The documentary, set to be aired on June 6, features one “expert” stating, “Everything you were taught as a kid is wrong.”

“Gay penguins, bisexual lions, sex changing clown fish,” the narration, voiced by gay actor Andrew Rannells, claims are all evidence that “this is a queer planet.”

The trailer then shows two women, one with blue hair, asserting that “Queerness has always existed” and that “It’s only in humans that we have such a stigma about it.”

Apparently, this “stigma” revolves around having it shoved in your face 24/7 on television, TV commercials, within the education system, and publicly shaming or even arresting and prosecuting anyone who doesn’t embrace it.

“The idea of just having two fixed sexes is clearly out of style,” the narration continues, with another short haired woman with tattoos claiming, “Mother nature is pretty open minded.”

Nature is apparently “full of queer surprises,” according to the documentary.

I’m not sure that aspiring to behave like animals is quite the win that LGBT activists think it is.

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Stephanopoulos: ‘Deep State Is Packed with Patriots’

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos said Tuesday on “The View” that he believed the so-called deep state was “packed with patriots.”

Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said, “The book is so good. My favorite thing is you interviewed Situation Room staff. I have always said it’s White House staff whose names you’ll never know are the writers of history. They will tell us so many details.”

Stephanopoulos said, “That was my favorite part about doing the book. I interviewed about a hundred duty officers from the White House and these are people who come, they are relatively young people who come from all over the government, the CIA, the DIA, the Defense Department, military.”

He continued, “Some people like to call those people the deep state. Well, the big thing I learned doing this book is that the deep state is packed with patriots, people who go to work every single day and are on the frontlines of the most intense crises the country faces and do it to serve their country and to serve the presidency, not the president. They don’t care about political parties. They’re there to serve the presidency and the institution.”

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Jen Psaki Claims Biden Never Looked At Watch, Suggests Gold Star Parents Lied

You know it’s bad when Axios is calling out Jen Psaki for lying about President Biden checking his watch during a ceremony for soldiers killed during the botched 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal.

In her new book, “Say More,” the former White House press secretary claims that Biden looked at his watch only after the ceremony had ended, contradicting fact-checks (even Snopes) and on-the-record statements from Gold Star families who were there.

Psaki says Biden critics were engaged in “misinformation” and used the image to make “him appear insensitive, concerned only about how much time had passed.”

The Associated Press photographer on the tarmac snapped two photos of Biden looking at his watch twice and 10 minutes apart, as fact-checkers at USA Today and Snopes noted soon afterward. –Axios

Psaki also ‘mistakenly cited’ a passage from the Washington Post to reinforce her lie – when what she quoted was actually from USA Today‘s fact check article, not the post. The fact check noted that Biden looked at his watch at the end of the ceremony, but also concluded that “photos and video show [Biden] also checked his watch during the ceremony.”

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Border Reporter Schools NGO Director Who Claims Chinese Migrants Are ‘Asylum Seekers’

After reporter Bill Melugin noted that record numbers of Chinese nationals continue to be encountered crossing the southern US border, an immigration NGO director claimed that they are merely asylum seekers, and was immediately proven wrong.

Melugin shared the latest CBP stats showing that over a thousand Chinese illegals were apprehended in just the last week.

Cue one Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a policy director at the ‘American Immigration Council’ who claimed that Melugin was reviving xenophobic “yellow peril” propaganda and that the migrants are just “trying to seek freedom.”

Melugin quickly exposed this outright lie by posting one of many interviews he personally conducted with a Chinese man who admitted to flying to Mexico from Turkey and entering the US purely for economic reasons.

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Chris Cuomo Admits Taking “Regular” Doses Of Ivermectin After Previously Saying Those Who Took It Should Be “Shamed”

After once claiming on air that people taking ivermectin should be “shamed”, Chris Cuomo has done an about face on the drug, admitting on the PBD Podcast this week that he is taking a regular dose of it to deal with long Covid. 

In January, Cuomo revealed he’s dealing with “long COVID,” the lasting effects of a previous infection. On the PBD Podcast hosted by Patrick Bet-David, the NewsNation host said he’s using antiviral medication to combat inflammation and “brain fog.”

He said: “I’ll tell you something else that’s gonna get you a lot of hits. I am taking … a regular dose of Ivermectin. Ivermectin was a boogeyman during COVID. That was wrong. We were given bad information about Ivermectin. The real question is, why?”

Why, Chris? Perhaps its because you and Don Lemon were on-air daily providing a constant stream of misinformation about the drug?

He continued: “Everyone’s going to say ‘Joe Rogan was right. No, Joe Rogan was saying – yeah, he was right – that’s not what matters. What matters is, the entire medical community knew that Ivermectin couldn’t hurt you. They knew it … I know they knew it.”

“How do I know? Because now I’m doing nothing but talking to these clinicians, who at the time were overwhelmed by COVID, and they weren’t saying anything!”

But back during the pandemic, Cuomo took to the air to widely discredit ivermectin, despite it appears on the WHO’s List of Essential Medicines and having been dosed for humans millions of times. 

Cuomo said during the pandemic:  “What person – you know you talk about cancel culture and who to shame – Ivermectin? A de-wormer? Really? … they need to be shamed. They need to be called out and shamed, brother.”

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