Tag: media

A National Asset in Troubled Times

When he was running for president in 2024, Donald Trump promised that he would shut down the Ukraine war shortly after taking office, if not before he moved into the White House. He also promised that he would not start any more wars and would markedly improve U.S. relations with Russia. Very importantly, he engineered a ceasefire in Gaza on January 19, 2025, the day before he was sworn in again as president, which provided hope that the Gaza genocide might come to an end.

But after that auspicious start, President Trump has failed to deliver on his promises. The Ukraine war and the Gaza genocide rage on. Trump, like President Biden before him, is fully complicit in a genocide. On top of that, the United States directly attacked Iran on June 22, 2025, a move Biden had the good sense to avoid. Most observers think it is only a matter of time before Trump and Israel attack Iran again. Relations between Moscow and Washington have improved a bit, but remain antagonistic at their core, while U.S.-India relations, which had improved greatly over the past twenty-five years, have recently turned poisonous. Finally, there is an ever-present possibility in East Asia that China and the United States could get into a shooting match.

All of this is to say we live in not just troubled times, but dangerous times. Remember that we live in a nuclear world. Sadly, there is no easy way to fix the many problems facing us. But we can minimize the chances of making bad situations worse, and maybe even make major inroads in solving some of the key problems we face. Additionally, we can maximize our chances of creating further disasters.

The best way to make progress of this sort is to openly debate foreign policy issues, so that critics of the conventional wisdom or government policy can have their say. Media institutions are hugely important in fostering this kind of debate, which is why freedom of the press is so important in the United States. It allows critics to make their views known to large numbers of people and it provides legitimacy. Critics of existing policy are not always right, but sometimes they speak truth to power and help us avoid or correct big mistakes.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States have become much less effective since the Cold War ended. It has become increasingly difficult for dissenters to get a platform in prominent media outlets, and mainstream media outlets often seem to speak with one voice on the big foreign policy issues of the day. This situation is not healthy, and it helps explains why America’s standing in the world has declined over the past three decades.

Thankfully, alternative media outlets have proliferated in recent years, making it possible for critics of US foreign policy to make their voices heard. Indeed, growing numbers of concerned citizens and policy analysts pay as much attention, if not more, to alternative media sites than the mainstream media.

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The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists

There are two types of war correspondents. The first type does not attend press conferences. They do not beg generals and politicians for interviews. They take risks to report from combat zones. They send back to their viewers or readers what they see, which is almost always diametrically opposed to official narratives. This first type, in every war, is a tiny minority.

Then there is the second type, the inchoate blob of self-identified war correspondents who play at war. Despite what they tell editors and the public, they have no intention of putting themselves in danger. They are pleased with the Israeli ban on foreign reporters into Gaza. They plead with officials for background briefings and press conferences. They collaborate with their government minders who impose restrictions and rules that keep them out of combat. They slavishly disseminate whatever they are fed by officials, much of which is a lie, and pretend it is news. They join little jaunts arranged by the military — dog and pony shows — where they get to dress up and play soldier and visit outposts where everything is controlled and choreographed.

The mortal enemy of these poseurs are the real war reporters, in this case, Palestinian journalists in Gaza. These reporters expose them as toadies and sycophants, discrediting nearly everything they disseminate. For this reason, the poseurs never pass up a chance to question the veracity and motives of those in the field. I watched these snakes do this repeatedly to my colleague Robert Fisk.

When war reporter Ben Anderson arrived at the hotel where journalists covering the war in Liberia were encamped — in his words getting “drunk” at bars “on expenses,” having affairs and exchanging “information rather than actually going out and getting information” — his image of war reporters took a huge hit.

“I thought, finally, I’m amongst my heroes,” Anderson recalls. “This is where I’ve wanted to be for years. And then me and the cameraman I was with — who knew the rebels very well — he took us out for about three weeks with the rebels. We came back to Monrovia. The guys in the hotel bar said, ‘Where have you been? We thought you’d gone home.’ We said, ‘We went out to cover the war. Isn’t that our job? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?’”

“The romantic view I had of foreign correspondents was suddenly destroyed in Liberia,” he went on. “I thought, actually, a lot of these guys are full of shit. They’re not even willing to leave the hotel, let alone leave the safety of the capital and actually do some reporting.”

You can see an interview I did with Anderson here.

This dividing line, which occurred in every war I covered, defines the reporting on the genocide in Gaza. It is not a divide of professionalism or culture. Palestinian reporters expose Israeli atrocities and implode Israeli lies. The rest of the press does not.

Palestinian journalists, targeted and assassinated by Israel, pay — as many great war correspondents do — with their lives, although in far greater numbers. Israel has murdered 245 journalists in Gaza by one count and more than 273 by another. The goal is to shroud the genocide in darkness. No war I covered comes close to these numbers of dead. Since Oct. 7, Israel has killed more journalists “than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined.” Journalists in Palestine leave wills and recorded videos to be read or played at their death.

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Politico Is Doing Insurance Companies’ Bidding, And It’s Obvious Why

n February, I analyzed how Politico functions as a glorified patronage racket, whereby “reporters serve as a publicity rag for K Street and get paid handsomely for doing so.” Six months later, another such article serves as Example No. 8,579 (or thereabouts) of this swamp machine in action.

In this particular case, Politico published an advertisement — I mean, article — about a potential extension of Obamacare’s enhanced insurance subsidies, which expire at the end of the year. That story ignored sizable evidence of fraud associated with the subsidies, while including not a single quote from a critic or skeptic of such an extension. It looks like a not-too-subtle attempt from Politico to cheerlead for the insurance industry — i.e., its corporate subscribers.

Big Signs of Fraud

The article focused largely on Florida and highlighted that state’s sizable enrollment in Exchange coverage, particularly for households claiming very low incomes, which qualify for the biggest subsidies: 

Florida is one of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid, so it’s more difficult for some low-income residents to qualify for the government health insurance program. The enhanced subsidies ensure that people who would be eligible under an expansion — those making just above the federal poverty level, with incomes between about $15,600 and $21,600 — can get Obamacare coverage, typically with no premiums. Two-thirds of the 4.6 million Floridians on Obamacare plans are in this gap…

But there’s one big fact Politico omitted: According to one study, while there are nearly 3.1 million Obamacare enrollees claiming income just above poverty in Florida, estimates derived from the Census Bureau suggest that only about 630,000 households actually have incomes in that range. (Disclosure: While I have done work for the Paragon Health Institute, which published the study in question, I had no involvement with this particular report and am writing this article on my own behalf.)

In other words, by one organization’s estimate, more than 2.4 million enrollees — over half of Florida’s total Exchange enrollment — are potentially fraudulent. These individuals may have overstated their income because households with income below the poverty level don’t qualify for subsidies at all, or conversely, they may have understated their income if they make two or three times the poverty level, so they can qualify for bigger subsidies. Alternatively, people could have been enrolled in “free” coverage without their knowledge by insurance brokers seeking commissions, an offense one Florida-based insurance executive pleaded guilty to this April.

Yet Politico mentioned none of this. It advertised the total enrollment in the Florida Exchange, and the billions of dollars in enhanced subsidies that went to Florida, without noting either the significant questions about enrollment discrepancies in Florida’s Exchange population or the fraud — totaling $133.9 million, according to the Justice Department — that one Florida-based individual has already admitted to.

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Liberal media accused of covering up Ukrainian girl’s brutal murder in Dem-led city as video explodes online 

Horrific footage of a career criminal stabbing a Ukrainian refugee from behind on a North Carolina train has prompted a national uproar – but you won’t find it on any liberal media websites. 

Recently surfaced surveillance footage shows the suspect, whom police have named as Decarlos Brown Jr., 35, killing Iryna Zarutska, 23, on board a South End light rail train in Charlotte on August 22. 

The crazed attacker can be seen lunging at Zarutska from behind, before the footage skips the graphic slaughter to show him carrying a knife dripping with blood as he walked through the train carriage and another passenger sprinted away.

Zarutska came to the US for safety after fleeing Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s ongoing invasion of her home country, and the shocking video of her final moments exploded online. 

People took to social media to share their sadness that she was not protected by the state of North Carolina or the liberal city of Charlotte, where Brown had allegedly been arrested more than 14 times previously but remained on the streets. 

However, the shocking story is notably absent from US liberal media sites, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and CNN. 

The Daily Mail has contacted the outlets for clarification on the reasoning behind their editorial judgment. 

Democrat Mayor of Charlotte Vi Lyles suggested that some publishers chose not to share the footage ‘out of respect for Iryna’s family’ – but the police force she is in charge of made the video public first of all. 

The Daily Mail has contacted Lyles’s office for more information. 

In her statement, she said: ‘The video of the heartbreaking attack that took Iryna Zarutska’s life is now public. 

‘I want to thank our media partners and community members who have chosen not to repost or share the footage out of respect for Iryna’s family. 

‘This was a senseless and tragic loss. My prayers remain with her loved ones as they continue to grieve through an unimaginable time. 

‘Like so many of you, I’m heartbroken — and I’ve been thinking hard about what safety really looks like in our city. 

‘I remain committed to doing all we can to protect our residents and ensure Charlotte is a place where everyone feels safe.’

But people on social media lambasted the liberal media for the lack of coverage, with many speculating that the outlets did not want to write about the killing for racial reasons. 

Elon Musk highlighted the lack of coverage by re-sharing one post counting how many articles each outlet had written about the stabbing, with the comment: ‘Zero’.  

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More Coverage of Gaza Starvation Did Not Necessarily Mean Deeper Coverage

International human rights organizations have pleaded with governments to oppose Israel’s blockade of aid into Gaza for the better part of the past year. But it wasn’t until late July, when dramatic images of emaciated children circulated widely, that corporate media and establishment politicians finally took notice. After 21 months of relentless bombing and even more decades of occupation, the news cycle gave extended attention to Palestinian starvation (FAIR.org, 7/29/25).

Quantity, however, does not always equal quality. To see if the content of reporting on the engineered Gaza famine matches the seriousness of the situation, FAIR surveyed coverage from nine different news outlets (New York Times, ABC, NBC, CNN, PBS, BBC, NPR, Time and Politico) during the week after the initial proliferation of reportage (7/24–31/25) to assess how or whether they discussed the full scope of the crisis.

Apart from the acute, potentially fatal consequences of starvation, malnutrition comes with permanent, long-term side effects that could affect the population for generations. Though increased coverage pushed the immediate issue into the limelight, we found that media did not consistently report on the stakes and long-lasting impacts of starvation on Palestinians’ health.

The New York Times’ infamous addition of an “editor’s note,” explaining that a Gazan child depicted in a report as facing starvation should be re-interpreted as suffering from “pre-existing” conditions, highlighted the need for honest journalistic assessments of starvation’s impacts, as well as its causes.

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DHS Wrecks NYT for Puff Piece on Deported Murderer: ‘When Will They Finally Shed Light on Their Victims?’

The Department of Homeland Security criticized The New York Times this week for writing a “sob story” about the plight of a deported murderer, and asked when the newspaper would start covering the victims of such horrendous crimes.

“The New York Times ran a sob story of Orville Etoria, an illegal alien from Jamaica and a convicted MURDERER,” the DHS news release began. “In addition to murder, this serial criminal’s rap sheet includes criminal possession of a weapon, armed robbery, and forcible theft with a deadly weapon.”

“Following his criminal convictions, Etoria’s green card was revoked,” the statement continued. “Etoria was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in 2009. Sixteen years later, this dangerous individual is finally off our streets and out of the country thanks to President Trump and Secretary Noem. On July 17, he was deported.”

A DHS representative quoted in the release asked, “Why does the New York Times continue to peddle sob stories of criminal illegal aliens? When will they finally shed light on their victims?”

“Every single day President Trump and Secretary Noem fight for justice for American victims of illegal alien crime and nearly every single day the media ignores these victims and their families.”

The Times article published Tuesday, co-authored by reporters in Washington and South Africa, tried to paint Etoria as a model citizen who’d turned his life around. It claimed he pursued academic degrees while in prison and got a job at a shelter after being granted parole.

While serving a 25-year sentence for murder, Etoria was ordered deported by an immigration judge, the article reported. However, after his release in 2021, he was allowed to stay in the United States by the illegal immigrant-friendly Biden administration.

The article claimed Etoria had become a “target” of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The authors lamented how he wasn’t given access to an attorney after being deported to the southern African nation of Eswatini (a landlocked country formerly known as Swaziland).

It quoted Etoria’s aunt speaking about how “inhumane” his treatment was. Yet there were no quotes from the families of his victims. Why not?

The newspaper couldn’t completely ignore Etoria’s violent past, however, and was forced to finally list his litany of violent behavior. But most of it discussed was near the end of the piece.

In addition to “fatally shooting a man in the head in Brooklyn in 1996” and being convicted of murder, the article reported, Etoria “has a history of drug abuse, which he has blamed in part on head injuries he suffered as a child. He was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. Doctors noted that he has exhibited violent outbursts, hallucinations and paranoia, according to court records.”

If that wasn’t enough, he was reportedly “arrested in 1981 on charges of attempted murder, robbery and kidnapping,” according to the report.

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ICYMI: Video Of RFK Jr. Pile-Driving Bill Maher Over Vax on His Own Show – Left Audience Applauding for Kennedy

Sometimes, one needs reminding that the public debate over the efficacy of COVID vaccines has always pitted faith against reason.

No one, of course — certainly no one who reads The Western Journal — should denigrate faith in general. But the object matters. Faith in what exactly?

In April 2024 — four months before he allied with now-President Donald Trump — now-Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was running as an independent presidential candidate.

He appeared on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” and delivered what any reasonable person would regard as a knockout blow to the host’s pro-vaccine argument.

Maher, however, would not concede defeat. After all, as a liberal, his faith in science — particularly COVID vaccine science — amounts to a kind of religion.

Clips of the exchange began circulating again this week on the social media platform X. It became even more relevant on Monday, when Trump used his social media platform Truth Social to demand that “Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs.”

Moreover, last week, the Trump administration fired Director Susan Monarez from the Centers for Disease Control. This prompted resignations from four other CDC officials.

In short, the debate over COVID vaccines has taken center stage once again. And this time, there isn’t a Biden administration around to censor it.

Thus, the Kennedy-Maher exchange reminds us of why this debate remains so maddening to skeptics of coronavirus vaccinations.

In a clip posted to YouTube, Maher began by asking about Kennedy’s vice-presidential running mate, Nicole Shanahan. The host noted that Shanahan wanted to recall the Moderna vaccine, which Maher happened to have gotten.

Kennedy responded by citing polls on the subject.

“There’s 25 percent of Americans who believe that they know somebody who was killed by a COVID vaccine,” Kennedy stated.

“Killed?” Maher queried.

“Killed — 25 percent. Fifty-two percent of Americans believe the vaccines are causing injuries, including death,” Kennedy continued. If nothing else, that amounts to a significant public-perception problem for the drug companies.

Kennedy also mentioned clinical trial studies of the Pfizer vaccine.

“People who got the vaccine had a 23 percent higher death rate from all causes at the end of that study,” he said.

Then came the remarkable exchange that ignited huge applause.

“But that could not be the disease itself?” Maher asked.

“If it is, then the vaccine doesn’t work, does it?” Kennedy replied.

The laughter and applause from the crowd practically drowned out the host’s protests.

“Well, no, no that’s … not true at all,” Maher insisted, appearing annoyed at his own audience.

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…And The Legacy Media Wonders Why Nobody Trusts Them

Last year when I was asked to write a chapter for a US book on the incredible inroads and attacks on our civil liberties during the thuggish Covid lockdown years I decided, in part, to rank the worst offending groups. The lawyerly and doctorly castes were bad. They were woeful in fact. But the politicians as a class, the ones who ultimately made the calls, were worse – and there were very few exceptions to that generalised claim, as any Australian knows who looks for politicians who, say, resigned from Cabinet on principle (nada, zero) or who spoke up publicly and loudly against the massive authoritarian over-reach and aping of the policies of the Chinese Communist Politburo (a mere handful at most). 

So I gave the silver medal for thuggish lockdown commitment and stalwart thuggery to the political class. However, in terms of letting all of us citizens down I reserved the gold medal for the journalists of the legacy media. As a class they exhibited no scepticism. No thinking for themselves. They were fearmongers and PR agents for the modellers, public health gurus, ‘nudge’ manipulators and politicos. Yes, there were some brave exceptions. But very few. What we got from the legacy media was a sort of attempt to play the type of media you’d see in George Orwell’s 1984, dealing in Big Brother doublethink. And all of that is on top of the verifiably huge drift towards the political Left of the legacy media over the last few decades.

Well, if you were hoping things would get noticeably better after the lockdowns ended, they haven’t. 

For just one instance, let me take you to the murders of two young children and the wounding of at least 17 others in Minneapolis, Minnesota last week. It took place at a Catholic school with the murderer shooting at random through a stained-glass window during the first school mass of the academic year. The legacy media embarrassed itself reporting on this because it went against all the progressive class’s and legacy media’s (but I repeat myself) deeply held shibboleths and Left-wing bromides. You see the murderer was a man, Robert Westman, who back in 2020 had changed his first name to Robin and come out as transgender. He said he was now a female. And he hated Donald Trump. And he left behind a sort of manifesto that oozed antisemitism along with other bits of nastiness.

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Gates-Funded Study Confirms 27% Higher Risk of Heart Injury in Influenza-Vaccinated Compared to Unvaccinated: ‘The Lancet’

A massive new study funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and published last week in The Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine provides evidence that seniors vaccinated for influenza experienced more heart injuries, not fewer.

The findings come after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cut American funding to Bill Gates’ vaccine syndicate Gavi, citing a 2017 study showing the DTP shot “may kill more children from other causes than it saves” from diphtheria, tetanus, or pertussis.

The new influenza vaccine study analyzed over 8.1 million Chinese adults aged 65 and older between 2020 and 2022.

Out of those, just 170,011 received an influenza vaccine, while more than 8 million remained unvaccinated.

Researchers then tracked the rate of major cardiovascular events in each group.

The Raw Data Tell the Story

The most striking finding comes from the crude numbers.

When researchers looked at acute coronary syndromes (ACS)—a category that includes heart attacks, unstable angina, and other sudden cardiac events—the results were blunt:

  • Vaccinated: 26.4 events per 1,000 person-years
  • Unvaccinated: 26.3 events per 1,000 person-years
  • Crude incidence rate ratio (IRR): 1.27 (95% CI: 1.24–1.31)

That figure means vaccinated seniors had a 27% higher risk of heart injury compared to the unvaccinated.

This is the kind of red-flag signal that would normally demand urgent investigation. Instead, the authors buried it under layers of statistical adjustments.

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Stupiditywatch: The confederacy of dunces on the left who wish Trump dead

Beyond words pathetic!  

It’s so pathetic that when some moonbat wishfully speculated on social media that Trump was dead because he had not been on T.V. for ten minutes, they all jumped on board.   

Millions of these dimwits gleefully accepted this bit of nonsense, believing it was true despite there being absolutely not a shred of evidence.  

They said he was incommunicado, but he was holding a four-hour cabinet meeting, which was being streamed. He golfed with his granddaughter.  He is hardly off of Truth Social for more than a few minutes.  

And yet they fell for it.  They are the most willing dupes on the planet.  They want him dead so badly.  

All their attempts at destroying the man failed. Their wholly unconstitutional lawfare failed; their plan to ruin him financially failed. The assassination attempts, the ease with which they occurred, suggest that the skids were greased; some very evil people wanted those assassins to succeed. Why was CNN present only at that Butler rally?  Someone knew there was a plan. How many were in on it?  That is the question of the day.

Since the past weekend, we’ve been treated to all manner of imbecility from the left.  

The despicably clownish governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, waxed rhapsodic about the possibility of Trump’s death.  

He thinks he’s funny, but he is ghoulish.  To think this man might have been vice president gives one serious pause, just as the thought of Kamala Harris as president is well and truly frightening.  

Then there is Jen Psaki, who is in the gutter of anti-Trumpism with mendacious Joy Reid, the always blindingly partisan Chuck Todd, Jake Tapper, and every reptile on MSNBC and CNN, etc.  

That so many members of our mind-numbed media fell for the suggestion that Trump was dead or ill shows just how unqualified they are to read their fabricated news to us.  

They broadcast their wishful thinking without a shred of evidence to support “theories” made up out of whole cloth.  

Here is a partial list of columns addressing this farce curated by the always reliable Issues and Insights:

Tim Walz Appears to Fantasize About President Trump’s Demise: ‘There Will Be News Sometime’ – Breitbart

After Days of Claiming Trump was Dead, Leftists Get a Nasty Shock – PJ Media

President Trump is alive and well after bizarre, false online speculation suggested he died – NY Post

Anti-Trump Judge James Boasberg Releases Woman Arrested for Threatening to ‘Sacrificially Kill This POTUS’ – Breitbart

#TrumpIsDead, #TrumpIsDeadParty Go Viral on X As Leftist Ghouls Engage In Wishful Thinking – X

What an embarrassment!  

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