Tag: mainstream media

Why did the BBC call Charlie Kirk ‘far right’?

‘Mr Kirk built a huge and devoted following for his far-right views’, said the BBC’s North America editor Sarah Smith on Sunday. The statement came during the BBC’s coverage of Charlie Kirk’s memorial in Arizona, which was attended by tens of thousands of mourners and was addressed by US president Donald Trump.

Smith’s statement is nothing short of astonishing. It would be one thing for blue-haired keyboard warriors on Bluesky to be referring to dead conservatives as fascists. But it is quite another for the UK’s state broadcaster to toe that same line. The BBC pays Smith more than £200,000 a year to report impartially on American affairs. We would hope someone in her esteemed position might pause for thought before smearing a man who was killed for his beliefs.

The BBC isn’t alone in painting Kirk as ‘far right’. In the days following his murder, mainstream media rushed to portray him and his views as beyond the pale. The Guardian, like the BBC, described Kirk as ‘far right’, as well as a man who ‘stood for the darker themes of… US nativism’. The New York Times accused Kirk of leading a ‘hard-right youth movement’. It was also forced to make a correction after falsely attributing an anti-Semitic quote to him.

Needless to say, this is all pretty grotesque. Kirk has just been murdered – seemingly by a genuine extremist. Wittingly or not, smearing him as a fascist, dehumanising him in death, comes dangerously close to justifying or at least sanitising his killing.

In truth, none of Kirk’s political stances could be seen as ‘far right’ in any other time except the strange epoch we live in. Defending the US First Amendment, opposing abortion, being in favour of meritocracy and insisting that men cannot become women are not unusual stances for Christian conservatives or US Republicans. You do not have to agree with these positions to recognise they do not make someone far right.

Keep reading

Trump’s Vision of Broadcast Regulation Is a Threat to Conservatives

“When 97 percent of the stories are bad,” President Donald Trump declared on Friday, “it’s no longer free speech.” When TV networks “take a great story” and “make it bad,” he added, “I think that’s really illegal.”

Trump was wrong on both points. And in groping toward a justification for the regulatory threats that preceded Jimmy Kimmel’s expulsion from his late-night slot on ABC, Trump embraced a principle that historically was bad for conservatives—one they are apt to regret reviving.

“You have a network and you have evening shows, and all they do is hit Trump,” the president complained. “They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”

Trump made similar noises during his first administration, saying “network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked.” But Ajit Pai, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), rejected that suggestion in no uncertain terms.

“I believe in the First Amendment,” Pai said. “The FCC under my leadership will stand for the First Amendment, and under the law the FCC does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast.”

The difference this time around is that the FCC’s current chairman, Brendan Carr, clearly has no such constitutional compunctions. When Carr said broadcasters could face “fines or license revocation” if they continued to air Kimmel’s talk show, he preposterously invoked the FCC’s policy regarding “broadcast news distortion.”

That policy applies to a “broadcast news report” that was “deliberately intended to mislead viewers or listeners” about “a significant event.” Whatever you think of Kimmel’s intent when he erroneously suggested that the man accused of murdering conservative activist Charlie Kirk was part of the MAGA movement, a comedian’s monologue is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a “broadcast news report.”

Carr and Trump also alluded to broadcasters’ vague duty to operate in “the public interest.” Because broadcasters are “getting free airwaves from the United States government,” Trump thinks, they have a legal obligation to be fair and balanced.

That notion is reminiscent of the FCC’s defunct Fairness Doctrine, which required that broadcasters present contrasting views when they covered controversial issues. The FCC repudiated that policy during the Reagan administration, precisely because it impinged on First Amendment rights.

The Kennedy administration, for example, had deployed the Fairness Doctrine against the president’s political opponents. “Our massive strategy,” former Assistant Secretary of Commerce William Ruder acknowledged a decade later, “was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue.”

Nixing the Fairness Doctrine allowed an efflorescence of political speech on talk radio, enabling the rise of influential conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh. Exhuming and extending that policy, as Carr and Trump seem to favor, would be short-sighted as well as constitutionally dubious.

Keep reading

Leavitt Torpedoes CBS Reporter’s Autism ‘Confusion’ Attack

In a sharp exchange during today’s White House briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismantled CBS News senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe’s attempt to frame President Trump’s upcoming autism announcement as potentially misleading for pregnant women.

O’Keefe pressed: “There are reams of scientific research that suggest there’s no clear link between autism and acetaminophen usage… [this] has the potential to confuse women, especially pregnant women, about what to do.”

Leavitt fired back without missing a beat: “I think women, for many years, in fact, for decades, Ed, have been confused by the rapid increase in autism in this country, in the childhood epidemic, that chronic epidemic, disease epidemic that is plaguing America’s youth.”

“Women are confused about that and they want answers to that,” Leavitt added, further noting “I would encourage everyone in this room to… listen to what the president and his team of outsiders have to say about this.”

The back-and-forth comes ahead of Trump’s 4 p.m. ET remarks, where he’s expected to highlight a potential link between prenatal acetaminophen use (the active ingredient in Tylenol) and rising autism rates—a claim already drawing fire from medical experts and the drug’s manufacturer, who cite large-scale studies showing no causal connection.

Leavitt’s pivot refocused the narrative on the administration’s push for answers to what she called a “chronic disease epidemic,” urging reporters to approach the announcement with “critical thinking skills and open ears.”

Spot-on clapback—Leavitt turned a gotcha question into a masterclass in redirecting to the bigger picture.

Tylenol’s parent company earlier commented on the upcoming announcement, stating “We believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism. We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned with the health risk that this poses for expecting mothers.”

Keep reading

FAIL: The Left’s Supposed ‘Bribery Scandal’ About Tom Homan Has Already Flamed Out

Liberal media and leftists on social media have been pushing a ‘bribery scandal’ about Tom Homan for the last few days and the story has already flamed out.

Lots of people knew this was nothing more than another hit piece on a Trump ally and completely dismissed it. Megyn Kelly’s response was particularly epic.

The problem for the left is that this is all so old, people can see a manufactured hit job like this coming from a mile away.

Townhall reports:

The Media’s Hit Piece on Tom Homan Evaporated Quickly. Here’s Why.

What the hell is even that? There were other reasons why this hit piece was drowned out, not least because no one cares about what MSNBC says. It’s another example of the legacy media dying—everyone is tired of their fake news and ‘scoops’ that are nothing burgers. Take this ‘big scoop’ the anti-Trump outlet had about Border Czar Tom Homan, who allegedly accepted $50,000 in bribes from undercover FBI agents, but Trump’s DOJ shut down that investigation.

The copy for the social media push seemed damning, but it’s another fake news circus. Also, this investigation wasn’t a Trump DOJ safari. It was a fishing expedition under Biden’s Justice Department goons.

Townhall points to MSNBC’s own reporting:

The FBI and the Justice Department planned to wait to see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise once he became the nation’s top immigration official. But the case indefinitely stalled soon after Donald Trump became president again in January, according to six sources familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, Trump appointees officially closed the investigation, after FBI Director Kash Patel requested a status update on the case, two of the people said…

In a statement provided to MSNBC, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “This matter originated under the previous administration and was subjected to a full review by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing. The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations. As a result, the investigation has been closed.”

Rest assured, the left will invent a new scandal about another one of Trump’s people next week, and then another. This is what they do. They are bankrupt of ideas, so they just attack again and again.

Keep reading

Harris: Trump Is a ‘Tyrant’ Killing Capitalism to Stroke His ‘Fragile Ego’

Monday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” former Vice President Kamala Harris called President Donald Trump a “tyrant” for demanding concessions from law firms, universities and entertainment companies.

She claimed that destroys capitalism.

Harris said, “I am a lifelong public servant, and but I’ve worked closely with the private sector over many years, and I always believed that if push came to shove, those titans of industry would be guardrails for our democracy, for the importance of sustaining democratic institutions. One by one by one, they have been silent. They have been, you know, yes, I use the word feckless. They’re it’s not like they’re going to lose their yacht or their house in the Hamptons. And here’s the thing. democracy sustains capitalism. Capitalism thrives in a democracy and right now we are dealing with, as I called him at my speech on the ellipse, a tyrant. We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That’s what we’re dealing with right now in Donald Trump.”

She continued, “These titans of industry are not speaking up. Perhaps it is because his threats and the way he has used the weight of the federal government to take out vengeance on his critics is something that they fear.”

Harris added, “Perhaps it is because they want to please him and nominate him for a Nobel prize. Perhaps it’s because they want a merger approved, or they want to avoid an investigation. But at some point, they’ve got to stand up for the sake of the people who rely on all of these institutions to have integrity and at some point be the guardrails against a tyrant who is using the federal government to execute his whim and fancy because of a fragile ego.”

Keep reading

ABC Hack Jon Karl Angers Americans With a Remark Dismissing the Political Connection Surrounding Charlie Kirk’s Assassination

The corporate media is not happy after learning that a radical leftist with a transgender boyfriend assassinated conservative legend Charlie Kirk and is desperate to hide the truth.

While speaking about the Charlie Kirk murder on Sunday morning, ABC hack Jon Karl tried to ensure the audience would not know a radical leftist took out the conservative icon.

“The murder of Charlie Kirk was not a political act,” he said.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, Utah authorities last Tuesday released the text exchange between Tyler Robinson and his transgender lover, Lance Twiggs, sent shortly after Kirk’s assassination.

In the text messages, Robinson revealed why he murdered Kirk, saying, “he had had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.” In other words, a radical, pro-trans leftist killed Kirk because he told the truth.

Americans not only called out Karl for his falsehood, but made sure to point out the rhetoric from both Democrats and the corporate media contributed to Kirk’s murder.

Keep reading

Jasmine Crockett Answers Bash On Cooling Down Rhetoric — By Trashing Kirk And Painting Trump As Hitler

After CNN anchor Dana Bash on Sunday played clips of Rep. Jasmine Crockett calling President Donald Trump an “enemy to the United States” and comparing him to Hitler, the Texas Democrat doubled down.

Even after Trump faced two assassination attempts, Crockett called the president a “wannabe Hitler” during a July interview on MSNBC. Bash asked Crockett on “State of the Union” if she had “a responsibility” to cool down her rhetoric, but she said she did not and that the president was using Hitler’s “playbook.”

“I think that my responsibility is to be transparent and to be honest. And the reality is that we are living in a time in which this administration and this regime is not interested in making sure that people understand history,” Crockett said. “We need to understand why they are so problematic.”

“So I am using that language because it is accurate language,” she continued, saying Trump’s policies are “a playbook out of Hitler and I won’t deny it! Like, these are the facts.”

Crockett also insisted Trump has repeatedly “called specifically for violence” before turning her ire on slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, not for the first time in the interview — which took place while his memorial was getting underway in Arizona.

“We know that Charlie Kirk was saying things about who should live and who should die. I have never said those kinds of things,” she claimed without evidence.

Crockett continued to rant in a heated manner for over two minutes without Bash interrupting once.

Shortly after Kirk’s Sept. 10 assassination, Crockett similarly justified calling Trump a “wannabe Hitler” on “The Breakfast Club” in an interview published Sept. 12.

“Me disagreeing with you, me calling you a wannabe Hitler, all those things are like not necessarily saying ‘Go out and hurt somebody.’ But when you’re literally telling people at rallies, ‘Yeah, beat him up’ and that kind of stuff, like you are promoting like a culture of violence,” Crockett said.

Keep reading

How a conspiracy theory about Charlie Kirk’s killer being ‘MAGA’ spread online to Kimmel and beyond

An evidence-free conspiracy theory claiming that the left-wing assassin who shot and killed Charlie Kirk was actually right-wing quickly spread among the left since the murder, moving from online social media sites to Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show and beyond.

Authorities announced last week that they had arrested 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, a resident of western Utah, in connection to the killing of Kirk, a popular conservative influencer and ally of President Donald Trump.

Robinson is accused of gunning down Kirk on earlier this month at Utah Valley University during a question-and-answer session at the Turning Point USA event. Although all of the evidence that has emerged has pointed to the shooter having leftist motives and ideology, many on the left spread the claim that the killer was far right.

Kimmel, the host of the ABC late night show Jimmy Kimmel Live!, said on the September 15 episode of his show that “we hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” The baseless implication about the shooter being MAGA had made its way from viral tweets to millions of TV viewers.

Despite the evidence all pointing to Kirk’s killer being on the left wing of the ideological spectrum, the conspiracy theory about a right-wing shooter was pushed by a host of Democratic members of Congress, high-profile left-wing activists, liberal social media influencers, and more.

The most common evidence-free claim on the left has been that the shooter was a follower of far right influencer Nick Fuentes.

The Hitler-admiring online streamer began a speech at one rally by saying that “I love you, and I love Hitler.” At least one segment of Fuentes’s online show featured Holocaust denial, with Fuentes questioning whether 6 million Jews were really murdered by the Nazi regime and laughing as he compared the burning of human bodies to baking cookies in an oven, which he has since said was just a joke.

Fuentes, a frequent critic of Kirk, refers to his followers as the “Groyper Army” — and his “Groyper War” sought to interrupt Turning Point USA events. There was and is zero evidence that the shooter was connected to Fuentes in any way nor that he identified as a Groyper.

Fuentes accurately lamented on X last week that “my followers and I are currently being framed for the murder of Charlie Kirk by the mainstream media based on literally zero evidence.”

Keep reading

The FCC’s Involvement in Canceling Jimmy Kimmel Was ‘Unbelievably Dangerous,’ Ted Cruz Says

Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) is happy that ABC decided to indefinitely suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show. But like Fox News political analyst Brit Hume, Cruz is not happy about the role that Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), played in that decision. By threatening TV stations that carried Jimmy Kimmel Live! with fines and license revocation, Cruz warned in his podcast on Friday, Carr set a dangerous precedent that could invite similar treatment of conservative speech under a future administration.

“I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said,” Cruz declared, referring to the September 15 monologue in which the late-night comedian erroneously suggested that Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old man accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a college in Utah five days earlier, was part of the MAGA movement. “I am thrilled that he was fired. But let me tell you: If the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said; we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives.”

In an interview with right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson on Wednesday, Carr warned that there are “actions we can take on licensed broadcasters” that dared to air Kimmel’s show, including “fines or license revocations.” He added that “we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Either “these companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel,” he said, “or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Hours later, Nexstar, which owns 32 ABC affiliate stations, announced that it would preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! “for the foreseeable future beginning with tonight’s show.” Sinclair, which owns 38 ABC affiliates, likewise said it would “indefinitely preempt” Jimmy Kimmel Live! beginning that night. ABC, which produces the programming aired by those affiliates and owns eight of the network’s stations, fell in line the same night, saying it would “indefinitely” suspend the show.

Cruz likened Carr to a mafioso. “He says, ‘We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way,'” the senator noted. “And I got to say, that’s right out of Goodfellas. That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar [and] going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.'”

Keep reading

There’s a Simple Reason You Won’t Hear Much About This Gruesome Murder of Two Women in Washington

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller highlighted yet another example of an atrocity that will be swept under the rug by the mainstream media because it was committed by an illegal immigrant in a sanctuary state. 

Marvin Ortiz-Montecinos, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, is accused of killing his girlfriend Victoria Aparicio Cruz, and their roommate, Yaneth Gomez-Hernandez in Burien, Washington, earlier this month.  

The 29-year-old suspect, who has a wife and children in Guatemala, stabbed the two women dozens of times in the gruesome attack. 

Marvin Ortiz-Montecinos was charged Friday, Sept. 12, with two counts of first-degree murder with deadly weapon enhancements in connection with the deaths of Victoria Aparicio Cruz and Yaneth Gomez-Hernandez.

According to charging documents obtained by PEOPLE, Ortiz-Montecinos is accused of using a filet knife to stab his girlfriend Cruz, “slicing through her neck, slicing her hands in multiple places as she tried to defend herself, and stabbing her multiple times in the back even after she was clearly unresponsive and deceased.”

Prosecutors allege that an hour before the attack, Ortiz-Montecinos “complained about Victoria breaking up with him,” per the documents.

Gomez-Hernandez, who was roommates with the couple, was found naked with a towel covering part of her leg, per the documents. “It appears victim Yaneth Gomez-Hernandez, the defendant’s roommate, was violently and cruelly murdered simply for trying to intervene,” according to the documents.

Gomez-Hernandez suffered 43 stab wounds.

The documents states that “both women received neck wounds so large and deep it appears clear that the defendant was attempting to slice and saw at his victims, and not simply stab them.” (People)

Keep reading