Tag: mainstream media

The “Crazy, Right-Wing Shooter” Myth

If you only read the New York Times editorials, you’d believe that political violence in America is a “right-wing” problem. The Times has been warning of violence from the right for years, but on Nov. 19 and 26, they wrote two long editorials making these claims. The violence stems from the lies “enthusiastically spread” by Republican politicians. Democrats’ only complicity was their $53 million in spending on “far-right fringe candidates in the primaries.” The fringe candidates, it was hoped, would be easier to beat in the general election. 

Both editorials mention the mass murderer in Buffalo, New York, as a political right-winger. But they have been doing that all year. In May, the Times claimed he was of the right because he was racist and listened to a video on a “site known for hosting right-wing extremism.” 

The headline in the Times announced:

“Replacement theory, espoused by the suspect in the Buffalo massacre, has been embraced by some right-wing politicians and commentators.”

You wouldn’t know it from reading the Times, but the Buffalo killer was yet another mass murderer motivated by environmentalism. 

In his manifesto, the Buffalo mass murderer self-identifies as an “eco-fascist national socialist” and a member of the “mild-moderate authoritarian left.” He expresses concern that minority immigrants have too many children and will damage the environment. “The invaders are the ones overpopulating the world,” he writes. “Kill the invaders, kill the overpopulation and by doing so save the environment.”

The murderer argues that capitalists are destroying the environment, and are at the root of much of the problem.

“The trade of goods is to be discouraged at all costs,” he insists.

Overpopulation and the environment are hardly signature conservative issues.

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The Guardian Could Help Assange By Retracting All The Lies It Published About Him

The Guardian has joined The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País in signing a letter from the five papers which collaborated with WikiLeaks twelve years ago in the publication of the Chelsea Manning leaks to call for the Biden administration to drop all charges against Julian Assange. This sudden jolt of mainstream support comes as news breaks that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been personally pushing the US government to bring the Assange case to a close.

The Guardian’s participation in this letter is particularly noteworthy, given the leading role that publication has played in manufacturing public support for his persecution in the first place.

If The Guardian really wants to help end the persecution of the heroic WikiLeaks founder, the best way to do that would be to retract those many smears, spin jobs and outright lies, and to formally apologize for publishing them.

This is after all the same Guardian which published the transparently ridiculous and completely invalidated 2018 report that Trump lackey Paul Manafort had met secretly with Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy, not once but multiple times.

Not one shred of evidence has ever been produced to substantiate this claim despite the embassy being one of the most heavily surveilled buildings on the planet at the time, and the Robert Mueller investigation, whose expansive scope would obviously have included such meetings, reported absolutely nothing to corroborate it. It was a bogus story which all accused parties have forcefully denied and no serious person believes is true, yet to this day it still sits on The Guardian’s website without retraction of any kind.

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NYT Has Found New Neo-Nazi Troops to Lionize in Ukraine

The New York Times has found another neo-Nazi militia to fawn over in Ukraine. The Bratstvo battalion “gave access to the New York Times to report on two recent riverine operations,” which culminated in a piece (11/21/22) headlined “On the River at Night, Ambushing Russians.”

Since the US-backed Maidan coup in 2014, establishment media have either minimized the far-right ideology that guides many Ukrainian nationalist detachments or ignored it  completely.

Anti-war outlets, including FAIR (1/28/22, 3/22/22), have repeatedly highlighted this dynamic—particularly regarding corporate media’s lionization of the Azov battalion, once widely recognized by Western media as a fascist militia, now sold to the public as a reformed far-right group that gallantly defends the sovereignty of a democratic Ukraine (New York Times, 10/4/22; FAIR.org,  10/6/22).

That is when Azov’s political orientation is discussed at all, which has become less and less common since Russia launched its invasion in February.

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Sam Bankman-Fried Reveals Massive ‘Dark Money’ Donations To Republicans

Former crypto billionaire and Democratic Party megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried revealed he gave large sums of “dark” money to Republicans in a Nov. 29 interview.

He told crypto YouTuber Tiffany Fong that “all my Republican donations were dark” because “reporters freak the fuck out if you donate to a Republican” and that he “didn’t want to have that fight” with “super liberal” journalists. He claimed he was the third largest Republican donor and gave “about the same” to both parties. He did not specify how much he donated to Republicans or which GOP politicians he supported.

Campaign finance watchdog group OpenSecrets reported that Bankman-Fried donated over $36 million to Democrats and over $39 million in total, making him the sixth largest donor of the 2022 midterm election cycle. He was Democrats’ second-largest donor behind George Soros, who contributed over $128 million to Democrats this cycle.

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NY Times Claims Balenciaga Pedo Scandal Is QAnon Conspiracy Theory

In the wake of the ongoing Balenciaga pedophilia propaganda scandal, the New York Times produced a piece Tuesday that essentially claimed the entire thing is some sort of QAnon conspiracy theory.

In the report, the Times suggests that only the likes of QAnon, Tucker Carlson, The New York Post, and Fox News are spreading the idea that the luxury fashion brand condones child exploitation.

The piece states “they ignited a firestorm that traveled from the internet to Fox News, fueled by allegations that Balenciaga condoned child exploitation. The controversy has become one of the most explicit collisions of internet culture, politics, fashion and conspiracy theories to date.”

It further posits that “As online criticism of the campaigns spread, the story was picked up across right-leaning media outlets, including The New York Post and the prime time Fox News show Tucker Carlson Tonight. The show has helped to publicize and mainstream QAnon, the internet conspiracy theory that ‘a group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media.’”

The report adds “Here you have a major international retail brand promoting kiddie porn and sex with children,” Mr. Carlson told viewers on Nov. 22, “and not promoting it subtly but right out in the open.”

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Gay Huffington Post contributor arrested for making threats against Atlanta LGBTQ nightclub

Atlanta police have arrested a suspect who is alleged to have made terroristic threats against local gay nightclub The Heretic. That man is Chase Staub, who is a contributor for Huffington Post, and a college admissions consultant with The Ivy Dean. 

Staub was brought to the attention of police posting a “threatening social media post,” in which he wielded a pepper spray gun, reports Fox News. He was apprehended at his home, and “faces charges of terroristic threats and acts and disorderly conduct.”

Those posts show Staub’s bedroom, in which he is pointing a gun at his bed, posing in a mirror that appears to have writing on it reading “I will judge.” The videos circulated around Atlanta’s gay community prior to the club’s call to police. Employees at the club told police that “they observed threatening remarks made towards their establishment on social media.” 

Staub posted a series of videos, including ones where he had multi-colored post-its laid out with writing on them, saying “Don’t give me something to shoot about,” and noting that Georgia is an open-carry state.

In another video, Staub shares a text message he apparently received, saying “People are calling us saying you bought a gun and are showing it online and they are fearing for their lives. What’s going on? They are getting ready to call police. They are saying you are threatening to kill them. Answer.”

After initial reports of a threat to The Heretic, which followed quickly after a shooting that claimed the lives of 5 people at Club Q in Colorado Springs, many assumed the worst, believing that The Heretic had been targeted because it was an LGBTQ nightclub. No motive has been established for the Club Q shooting, and the suspect’s lawyers have said that the suspect identifies as “non-binary.“

Many posted their concerns that the club was targeted for anti-LGBTQ sentiment. These include “Self-identified historian Thomas Lecaque/@tlecaque
called for immediate censorship against rhetoric he dislikes in reaction to the arrest of a gay leftist man who allegedly made terroristic threats against a gay club in Atlanta,” Andy Ngo reported.

“This is not an accident,” Lecaque wrote, “the rhetoric that pushed the Club Q shooting has been amped up even more since that terrorist attach (it was an act of stochastic terrorism), with the goal of pushing more such attacks. Something has to be done to shut down the rhetoric immediately.”

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BBC journalist was beaten up and arrested ‘for his own good to stop him catching Covid’ while covering protests that have rocked China, local cops claim: Reporter is seen screaming for help after locals tried to stop police attacking him

A BBC journalist covering historic protests against President Xi Jinping‘s lockdown rules in China was arrested and beaten by police officers, with Chinese officials later making the bizarre claim that he was detained for his ‘own good’ in case he caught Covid from the crowd.

Shocking footage from the anti-government protests in Shanghai shows Edward Lawrence, a camera operator for the BBC’s China Bureau, being dragged away by Xi’s officers as he screams ‘call the consulate now’ to a friend.

Mr Lawrence was beaten and kicked by the police officers and held in custody for ‘several hours’ before being released, as Chinese officials sought to crack down on the media and protesters in the city.

The British journalist said today that at least one local was arrested after they tried to stop the police from beating him during his arrest.

Shanghai police officers tried to dismiss the arrest as being for Mr Lawrence’s ‘own good’, claiming that he was arrested ‘in case he caught Covid from the crowd’. The BBC dismissed the farfetched explanation as implausible.

The UK’s Business Secretary Grant Shapps today denounced the officers’ actions as ‘unacceptable’ and ‘concerning’. He told LBC radio: ‘Whatever else happens, freedom of the press should be sacrosanct.’ 

Dr Alan Mendoza, executive director of the human rights group the Henry Jackson Society in London, told the Mail: ‘This latest outrage shows the true face of the Chinese Communist Party’s regime in attacking all the values the West hold dear. 

‘Media freedom is essential to our system and the Chinese crackdown against it needs the strongest of refutations from the UK Prime Minister. This is no time for him to go wobbly.’ 

China is facing its largest anti-government demonstrations since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, with protests erupting in at least seven cities over the country’s strict zero-Covid rules. 

The catalyst for the protests was an apartment fire last week in the western city of Urumqi in which ten people died. Many speculated that Covid curbs in the city, parts of which had been under lockdown for 100 days, had hindered rescue and escape, which city officials denied. 

The largest of the demonstrations has taken place in Shanghai – home to 26million residents – with many also boldly demanding that President Xi resign. 

China’s foreign ministry today insisted the government’s ‘fight against Covid-19 will be successful’.

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