George Carlin on the media…
Tag: mainstream media
US mulls using Guantanamo to host Haiti migrants – CNN
The US could use the notorious Guantanamo Bay military facility in Cuba to process migrants fleeing the violence in Haiti, CNN has reported, citing an unnamed American official.
Washington is bracing for mass migration from the island nation, according to the news broadcaster. Haiti, which is just over 300km from the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, has seen mounting violence in recent months.
Its capital, Port-au-Prince, has been overrun by armed criminal gangs, leading to the resignation of Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry on Tuesday.
The Guantanamo Bay facility is home to a US military prison for terror suspects that was opened by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. There have been numerous reports and testimonies of the abuse of prisoners, while Amnesty International has described the camp as “a symbol of torture, rendition and indefinite detention without charge or trial”.
The naval base also has a Migrant Operations Center that houses migrants picked up by the Coast Guard in the Caribbean. The facility is not part of the prison.
The administration of President Joe Biden is weighing up plans to extend the capacity of the migrant center in view of a possible migrant wave from Haiti, CNN has reported.
Trans Ideologues Would Rather Revolt Against Reality Than Admit They Were Wrong
Gender ideology has a reality problem. Just look at the latest cover story for New York Magazine, in which the trans-identified writer Andrea Long Chu denounced reality itself, writing that “the belief that we have a moral duty to accept reality just because it is real is, I think, a fine definition of nihilism.”
Well, that is a … novel philosophical assertion.
It is tempting to dismiss Chu’s denunciation of reality as an insane gambit by a flailing ideology, but declaring war against reality might just be crazy enough to work. This approach provides the collapsing gender ideology movement a way out of myriad difficulties — instead of relying on shoddy science to support medical “transition,” including for children, gender ideologues can instead appeal to a supposed right to physical self-determination and modification, even for children. Liberals like the idea of liberating mankind from the limits of our humanity, and so even as Chu retreats from the usual arguments of gender ideology, he invites the left to join in this more radical vision.
This effort to find a better justification for gender ideology pushes Chu to argue that it was a mistake for the left to hang “trans rights on the thin peg of gender identity.” This approach won some victories, but it “failed to form a coherent moral account of why someone’s gender identity should justify the actual biological interventions that make up gender-affirming care.”
The radical bodily alterations of “gender-affirming care” have been justified by elevating “gender identity” to the status of a person’s essence, deeper and more real than the body itself. But people are realizing that a “gender identity” is metaphysical conjecture, not medicine or biology. Thus, Chu sees reliance on gender identity as a trap for transgender advocates. It is superstitious to imagine that there is something like gendered souls that sometimes, somehow, get stuck in the wrong bodies.
He also sees that searching for reasons and explanations for transgenderism may prove deadly to the cause of gender ideology. By making the case for “transition” (again, especially for children) contingent on generating favorable evidence (medical, sociological, psychological) for it, the transgender movement has become more vulnerable as that evidence has failed to materialize. Furthermore, requiring reasons for transition tends to establish some form of gatekeeping, in which transition is doled out only to those determined to be truly transgender.
Chu fears that subjecting the transgender movement, and especially its medical wing, to rational, evidence-based scrutiny will restrict and ultimately destroy it. Instead, he wants transgender activists and their allies to:
[S]top relying on the increasingly metaphysical concept of gender identity to justify sex-changing care, as if such care were only permissible when one’s biological sex does not match the serial number engraved on one’s soul. … [W]e must rid ourselves of the idea that any necessary relationship exists between sex and gender; this prepares us to claim that the freedom to bring sex and gender into whatever relation one chooses is a basic human right.
He thereby makes explicit what has always been the position of gender ideologues, which is that there should be medical transition on demand for everyone. He writes, “We must be prepared to defend the idea that, in principle, everyone should have access to sex-changing medical care, regardless of age, gender identity, social environment, or psychiatric history.” This is not about medical need, but about a subjective desire to flee from the reality of one’s embodied self.
NBC’s Main Concern About Cannibal Gangs in Haiti is Conservatives Saying There Are Cannibal Gangs in Haiti
NBC News published a report about cannibal gangs in Haiti by condemning conservatives on X who said there were cannibal gangs in Haiti, and that some members could be making their way to the U.S.
Yes, really.
Following their takeover of the country last week, reports emerged of some gang members eating the flesh of their dead victims as an intimidation tactic.
Both the Pentagon and U.S. Border Patrol is now warning of a fresh wave of Haitian migrants attempting to enter the United States, meaning some of those gang members will inevitably end up in America.
However, merely pointing that fact out is racist, according to NBC News, which wrote an entire article demonizing Elon Musk and others for pointing it out.
Just like they denounced anyone who previously said Haiti was a shithole (it is), the media is now trying to imply that the existence of cannibal gangs is a racist hoax.
This despite the fact that they admit in their own report that one of the armed gangs is literally called the “Cannibal Army”.
The country is also now being led by a warlord called Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, who is infamous for incinerating his victims.
The NBC report accepts Cherizier’s claim that his nickname was given to him by his mother because she was a street vendor who sold fried chicken.
Because who wouldn’t trust the word of a man who has been implicated in literally massacring entire villages? Seems totally trustworthy to me.
NYT’s Morning Newsletter Blames Everyone but Israel for Israeli Crimes
With over 17 million subscribers, the Morning, the New York Times’ flagship newsletter, is by far the most popular newsletter in the English-speaking world. (It has almost three times as many subscribers as the next most popular newsletter.)
Since October 7, as Israel has waged an unprecedented war on Palestinian children, journalists, hospitals and schools, the New York Times’ highly influential newsletter has bent over backwards to blame everyone but Israel for the carnage.
Waging a legitimate war
According to the Morning—led by head writer David Leonhardt—Israel’s war on Gaza is a targeted operation designed to eliminate Hamas. The Morning propagates this narrative despite well-documented declarations of collective punishment and even genocidal intent by high-ranking Israeli officials—a tendency that South Africa has forcefully documented in their case before the ICJ (UN, 12/29/23). Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s comments on October 12, 2023, are typical: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved.”
This sentiment has been echoed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, multiple cabinet-level ministers and senior military officials. Speaking from a devastated northern Gaza, one top Israeli army official said (UN, 12/29/23): “Whoever returns here, if they return here after, will find scorched earth. No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no future.”
Fact Check: George Stephanopoulos Lies About Trump and ‘Rape’
CLAIM: ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos claimed that former President Donald was “found liable for rape by a jury.”
VERDICT: FALSE. A jury in New York found that Trump was not liable for rape in a lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll.
Stephanopoulos repeatedly claimed, as he interviewed Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), that Trump had been found “liable” for “rape.” In fact, he was found not to be liable; he was found liable for “sexual abuse” and, later for defamation. There are problems with both of those verdicts, but even if Trump were liable (in a civil sense, not a criminal one, as Mace noted), the fact is that he was never found liable for rape. And it borders on defamation for Stephanopoulos to claim otherwise.
As Breitbart News reported last May:
A jury in New York found former President Donald Trump liable Tuesday for sexual abuse and battery of writer E. Jean Carroll three decades ago, though not liable for rape, and awarded $5 million in civil damages against him.
The jury also found Trump defamed Ms. Carroll in his reactions to her lawsuit, which was encouraged by anti-Trump lawyer George Conway and backed by Democrat mega-donor Reid Hoffman, an associate of the late convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
It is true that Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in the case said that Trump was found to have “raped” Carroll in the colloquial sense. But the judge’s claim was the subject of widespread criticism, and the jury specifically found Trump not liable.
It was Stephanopoulos who used the word “jury,” which makes his statement 100% false, not even defensible as a colloquial use of the term “rape” (as an apparent substitute for “sexual abuse”).
Blatant propaganda: Green billionaires are paying scriptwriters to promote CLIMATE ALARMISM in TV shows and movies
Green billionaires appear to be bankrolling Hollywood writers to push climate alarmism in film and television scripts.
According to Watts Up With That, these green billionaires are using the Los Angeles-based Good Energy for this climate brainwashing. The group has reportedly told writers that showing anger, depression, grief or other emotion in relation to the climate crisis, “can only make characters more relatable.” To further push this climate alarmism to the media-consuming masses, it has published a so-called playbook to incorporate these narratives into movies and TV shows.
Good Energy’s efforts to push climate alarmism in Hollywood wouldn’t be possible without billionaire backing. The article aptly named these backers – Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Sierra Club, and the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF). The CEF incidentally bankrolls activists from Just Stop Oil, who have gained notoriety for defacing artworks with orange paint and blocking roads.
While Good Energy was founded in 2019, its influence seems to be growing within the West Coast’s film industry – with Rolling Stone magazine publishing a feature on the group. According to the magazine, the group is “dedicated” to ensuring that 50 percent of contemporary TV shows and films acknowledges “climate change” within three years.
One of its “standout” projects was the “Extrapolations” series on Apple TV+, which was directed by Scott Z. Burns and starred Meryl Streep. The show, which was said to be the first mainstream show centered entirely around climate, explored how the planet’s “changing climate” will affect family, work, faith and survival.
US Media and Factcheckers Fail to Note Israel’s Refutation of ‘Beheaded Babies’ Stories
In late November, the Washington Post (11/22/23) factchecked President Joe Biden’s repeated claims that babies had been beheaded during Hamas’s October 7 attack in Israel.
Biden’s remarks during a November 15 news conference triggered the factcheck:
Hamas has already said publicly that they plan on attacking Israel again, like they did before, to where they were cutting babies’ heads off to burning women and children alive.
Despite acknowledging a lack of confirmation of such atrocities, the Post stopped short of branding Biden’s statements false, and declined to dole out any of its iconic Pinocchios.
“It’s too soon in the Israel/Gaza war to make a definitive assessment,” Post Factchecker Glenn Kessler wrote, noting that even the most basic facts weren’t yet known.
“The Israeli prime minister’s office has said about 1,200 people were killed on October 7, down from an initial estimate of 1,400,” he said, “but it’s unclear how many were civilians or soldiers.”
That statement isn’t true. While the exact number killed amid the extreme violence and chaos of October 7 may never be finalized, an authoritative count of civilian deaths—as well as data that definitively refutes claims babies were beheaded—was available to anyone with access to the internet little more than a month after the attack.
That’s when Bituah Leumi, or National Insurance Institute, Israel’s social security agency, posted a Hebrew-language website (11/9/23) with the name, gender and age of every identified civilian victim and where each had been attacked.
Two days later Bituah Leumi (also transliterated as Bituach Leumi) posted an English-language news release (11/11/23) publicizing the website as a memorial to the civilian victims of the “Iron Swords” war—Israel’s name for Hamas’s attack and Israel Defense Forces’ response. (The news release refers to “695 identified war casualties,” but there are no wounded; all the victims are listed as “killed.”)
The journalistic importance of the memorial website was shown less than a month later, when Haaretz (12/4/23), Israel’s oldest newspaper, used the social security agency’s data to debunk some of the most sensational atrocities blamed on Hamas.
Western media concocts ‘evidence’ UN report on Oct 7 sex crimes failed to deliver
Western media promoted a UN report as proof Hamas sexually assaulted Israelis. Yet the report’s authors admitted they couldn’t locate a single victim, suggested Israeli officials staged a rape scene, and denounced “inaccurate forensic interpretations.”
On March 4, the United Nations released a report into sexual violence which has supposedly taken place amid the Israeli war on Gaza. The report was immediately celebrated in mainstream media outlets as proof of what scores of Israel lobbyists and journalists under their sway have insisted for months (despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary): that Hamas forces engaged in a systematic campaign of rape during their attack on Israel on October 7.
There was just one problem. The report’s authors flatly contradicted the idea that any evidence existed to prove a campaign of rape by Hamas.
Many legacy media outlets papered over this inconvenient fact with a few clever tweaks of language. The Associated Press, for example, repackaged claims of rape at Kibbutz Be’eri — which the UN report dismissed as “unfounded” — as “allegations of rape that could not yet be verified.”
The AP wasn’t the only outlet to indulge in such creative writing. A March 5 New York Times headline insisted the UN report had uncovered the sought-after “Evidence of Sexual Assault in Hamas-Led Attack on Israel.”
But following a social media post by The Grayzone’s editor-in-chief, Max Blumenthal, the Times quietly amended its headline to read: “UN Team Finds Grounds to Support Reports of Sexual Violence in Hamas Attack.”
Media Claims “Right Wing Activists” Got Doritos’ Trans Brand Ambassador Fired
Oily GMO tortilla chip brand Doritos has fired a non-binary transgender ‘brand ambassador’ who previously posted horrible tweets, some of which seemed to express a desire to carry out sexual abuse on children, prompting some legacy media outlets to claim that “right wing activists” were behind the backlash.
As we highlighted last week, the ‘transgender artist’ Samantha Hudson, formally known as Iván González Ranedo, was given the role for Doritos in Spain and featured in sponsored programming.
It quickly emerged that Hudson holds some vile views in general, including apparent hatred for female victims of sexual abuse, and also previously posted crazy statements to social media wishing to anally rape a 12-year-old girl.
Following obvious backlash, Doritos terminated the agreement with the person, noting in a statement to NBC News “We [Doritos Spain] recently created a content series with Samantha Hudson, a local influencer. After the campaign started, we were made aware of Samantha’s deleted Tweets from around 2015.”
“We have ended the relationship and stopped all related campaign activity due to the comments,” the statement continues.
While the pedophilic tweets were not specifically mentioned, the statement also said “We strongly condemn words or actions that promote violence or sexism of any kind.”
Hudson claimed Wednesday that the tweets were all jokes and that they were taken out of context.
The posts had previously surfaced in 2021, and Hudson claimed “I didn’t even remember having written such atrocities. At that time At that time I dedicated myself to saying stupid things, the heavier the better, because I believed that ‘dark humor’ was fun. Logically, I don’t think that way anymore.”
‘Joke’ or not, this person saying they wish to sexually abuse children is certainly not a good look for Doritos or its parent company PepsiCo.
Reporting on the development, however, some news outlets including NBC News and the BBC have claimed that the backlash against Hudson and Doritos was “led by right wing activists.”
Hellbound and Down 
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