Tag: media

The $96 Billion Lie: How Liberal Economists Manipulate Immigration Statistics to Hide the Truth About America’s Job Crisis

An economic analysis reveals how selective statistics are used to portray illegal immigration as beneficial while obscuring its true impact on American workers.

For years, liberal advocacy groups and complicit media outlets have pushed a narrative that sounds almost too good to be true: illegal immigrants are contributing $96 billion annually in taxes while maintaining higher employment rates than native-born Americans. Like most things that sound too good to be true, this claim crumbles under basic economic scrutiny.

The recent surge in claims about immigrant “tax contributions” and “employment rates” represents a sophisticated misinformation campaign. The cornerstone of pro-illegal immigration propaganda is the claim that undocumented immigrants pay $96 billion in taxes annually. This figure, popularized by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and parroted by countless media outlets, is a masterpiece of statistical deception.

The $96 billion figure lumps together sales taxes paid by everyone, excise taxes on gasoline and utilities, property taxes supposedly “indirectly paid through rent”, which is an economic fallacy, and a small fraction of actual income taxes.

Advocates then present this mix as if undocumented immigrants are dutifully filing tax returns and contributing to Social Security like law-abiding citizens.

They are not.

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Watch Rachel Maddow LIE to Her Audience About the Florida Sheriff Who Warned Would-Be Rioters Ahead of ‘No Kings’ Protests

Ahead of the ‘No Kings’ protests by the left last weekend, a sheriff in Brevard County in Florida issued a stern warning to potential rioters that if they threw explosives at a law enforcement officer or pointed a gun at one of them, that they would be killed.

It was a harsh, but very fair and direct warning, and it worked. There were no riots in Florida during the protests.

On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow flat-out LIED to her audience this week, while talking about the sheriff. She said that he would kill people for protesting and then acted like she and the left were rubbing it in his face by protesting anyway.

It was a complete misrepresentation of the sheriff’s warning and Rachel knows this.

Transcript via NewsBusters:

RACHEL MADDOW: You might have seen headlines last week about the Brevard County, Florida, sheriff last week who called a press conference to threaten that he would sic dogs on people and his officers would not just put people in jail, they would put people in the hospital.

He literally got up at a press conference and said, “We will kill you”, talking about violence he expected at any anti-Trump protests in Brevard county, Florida. After that bizarre show of intimidation from that sheriff in Brevard County, Florida, turns out people in Brevard County, Florida were not at all intimidated by what he said.

As you can see from local headlines like this one, quote: “‘ No Kings’ anti-Trump protests draw thousands”, in Brevard County and Cocoa and Palm Bay. I mean, the sheriff gets out there and says, we will kill you and Brevard County, Florida is like, “You know what? We’ve got a right to protest. We have a right to make protest signs of any kind, including ones that show Donald Trump in a big wig made up like Marie Antoinette, saying, let them eat cake and you are not going to stop us from doing it. We are Americans, we have the right to do this, we will protest.”

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Tehran denies western media reports about ‘seeking mediation’ to end war

Iran has categorically denied requesting that regional countries pressure Washington for an end to Israel’s war against the country, as some recent reports in western media have said. 

Sources close to the Iranian Foreign Ministry confirmed to The Cradle on 17 June that no such contacts have been made with any country. 

Lebanese journalist Radwan Mortada also reported on Tuesday that “Iran has not requested any mediation to halt the Israeli war against it.”

“All claims circulating among journalists or foreign reports about its mediation with Arab or foreign countries to halt the war are pure fabrication. All Iranian officials involved in this matter have categorically denied these claims,” Mortada said. 

“This systematic campaign aims to portray Iran as begging for a ceasefire, when in reality, Iran is escalating its attacks more violently by the day. Tehran has made it clear that Israel started the war, but it certainly won’t decide when it ends,” he added. 

On 16 June, Reutersreported that Iran has asked Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Oman to pressure US President Donald Trump to “use his influence” to get Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

The report, which cites two Iranian and three regional sources, also said “Iran is willing to be flexible in the nuclear talks if a ceasefire is reached.”

One of the sources told the outlet that Gulf states are “deeply concerned the conflict will spin out of control,” and have “all appealed to Washington to press Israel to agree to a ceasefire and to resume talks with Tehran towards a nuclear deal.”

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How NYT Magazine Threw Away Journalistic Ethics on Suicide

The New York Times Magazine recently published a cover story (6/1/25) that gave in-depth representation to the challenges faced by a chronically sick, disabled woman named Paula Ritchie, age 52. Ritchie dealt with underdiagnosed illnesses and pain, as well as challenges in supporting herself and managing her mental health.

The Times then told the story of Ritchie ending her own life out of despair over her situation. The journalist, Katie Engelhart, observed and documented her suicide, up until the last breath left her body. “I was with Ritchie until the very end,” she posted on X (6/1/25). Engelhart gave lengthy justifications for Ritchie’s choice to end her life, and described several people who supported her in that decision.

Articles like this aren’t common in the media. Suicide prevention is typically regarded as both a social good and an ethical responsibility. In the US and Canada (where the article takes place), suicidal people are involuntarily detained to prevent their deaths. It has long been illegal in Canada (and many US states) to assist or even “counsel” a person to commit suicide.

There are also ethical standards that guide media outlets in reporting on suicide, in order to minimize the risk of glamorizing or idealizing it. These guidelines are based on research showing that the media has an outsized influence when it comes to suicide. Graphic, detailed and sensationalized coverage has been shown to increase the “risk of contagion,” according to one guide. AP News specifically tries to avoid detailing the “methods used” in stories that reference suicide, based on this research.

The Times violated almost all of the published guidelines by personalizing, detailing, dramatizing, justifying and sentimentalizing Ritchie’s suicide, as well as by making it a cover story. The story featured close-up images of the method of Ritchie’s death and what appears to be her post-mortem body.

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Social media now main source of news in US, research suggests

Social media and video networks have become the main source of news in the US, overtaking traditional TV channels and news websites, research suggests.

More than half (54%) of people get news from networks like Facebook, X and YouTube – overtaking TV (50%) and news sites and apps (48%), according to the Reuters Institute.

“The rise of social media and personality-based news is not unique to the United States, but changes seem to be happening faster – and with more impact – than in other countries,” a report found.

Podcaster Joe Rogan was the most widely-seen personality, with almost a quarter (22%) of the population saying they had come across news or commentary from him in the previous week.

The report’s author Nic Newman said the rise of social video and personality-driven news “represents another significant challenge for traditional publishers”.

The institute also highlighted a trend for some politicians to give their time to sympathetic online hosts rather than mainstream interviewers.

It said populist politicians around the world are “increasingly able to bypass traditional journalism in favour of friendly partisan media, ‘personalities’, and ‘influencers’ who often get special access but rarely ask difficult questions, with many implicated in spreading false narratives or worse”.

Despite their popularity, online influencers and personalities were named as a major source of false or misleading information by almost half of people worldwide (47%) – putting them level with politicians.

The report also stated that usage of X for news is “stable or increasing across many markets”, with the biggest uplift in the US.

It added that since Elon Musk took over the network in 2022, “many more right-leaning people, notably young men, have flocked to the network, while some progressive audiences have left or are using it less frequently”.

In the US, the proportion that self-identified as being on the right tripled after Musk’s takeover.

In the UK, right-wing X audiences have almost doubled.

Rival networks like Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon are “making little impact globally, with reach of 2% or less for news”, it stated.

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ABC forced to delete story as it’s revealed reporter received $16,000 from a weapons company for travel costs

The ABC is investigating one of its reporters after it was revealed he received $16,000 in travel costs from a weapons company he covered in one of his stories. 

Andrew Greene travelled from Sydney to Germany on business class flights worth about $16,000, and was put up in hotels in Hamburg and Kiel to attend a press event for the German weapons company TKMS. The company paid for his trip.

The senior defence correspondent for the ABC later filed a segment for The World Today about TKMS including quotes from its CEO Oliver Burkhard. After revelations of Greene’s junket came to light, the story was removed from the ABC website.

‘We know what we’re doing,’ Mr Burkhard told Greene in the report.

‘I know our competitors, they never have been exported in the past.’

Greene did not disclose the trip to either his ABC audience or his bosses, according to Media Watch. 

As far as the ABC knew, he was on personal leave and had obtained audio of Mr Burkhard’s press conference by email, rather than travelling to Germany in person.

Media Watch host Linton Besser was highly critical of the veteran reporter, saying that ‘while Andrew Greene might have a long history as a news breaker, he’s now been brought undone by weakness before temptation’.

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‘Not Illegal to Be Undocumented’: Watch Sunny Hostin Flip Out Over ‘Misinformation’

On Monday, co-hosts from “The View” criticized President Donald Trump for sending the National Guard to Los Angeles in order to help quell the rioting.

As noted by Hanna Panreck with Fox News, one co-host, Sara Haines, suggested that President Trump intentionally amplified the rioting to bolster his approval ratings, which she said are “ … dropping like rocks.”

Haines continued, saying, “But there’s one catch here, current support right now, though, is that 66 percent of the American public actually thinks it’s crime enough to be undocumented and therefore deported.”

Co-host Sunny Hostin questioned Haines, asking, “That it’s criminal to be undocumented?”

Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin responded, “Even if it’s a civil offense.”

Referring back to Trump and the LA riots, Haines continued, “So what I’m saying is, a massive amount of this country actually agrees with, not how he’s doing it, but with what he’s doing.”

This prompted further discussion, with one co-host remarking, “So there’s misinformation out there.”

Haines said of President Trump, “I think the strategy here is, he’s leaning into a scene right now, creating a bigger thing, because it is the one thing that he remains supported in.”

This exchange visibly agitated co-host Sunny Hostin, who stuttered, “Well let’s, let’s let’s fix that right now, because it is not illegal to be undocumented.”

Turning to speak directly to the camera, Hostin said, “It is not a crime to be undocumented. People are not illegal … We need to put that information out there.”

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Joe Rogan Reveals Two Former U.S. Presidents Pressured Spotify to Censor His Views on COVID

Joe Rogan has revealed that two former U.S. presidents pressured Spotify to censor his views on COVID.

In his most recent episode with Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, a Houston-based otolaryngologist who wrote a book about her battle to push back against the mainstream narratives about the pandemic, Rogan detailed how aggressively people in powerful places had come after him.

“Spotify got calls from two former presidents,”

Spotify responded by flagging podcasts discussing COVID-19, however, although Rogan insists the effects were overwhelmingly positive.

“I grew by two million subscribers in a month,” he said.

“People started listening, and they started listening, like, ‘Oh, he’s really reasonable and pretty humble about all this stuff and just asking questions.’”

Rogan also criticized media outlets that mocked his use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19, accusing them of deliberately misleading the public by calling it a horse dewormer.

“I’m, like, ‘Why aren’t you guys concentrating on the fact that a 55-year-old man is fine three days later during the worst strain?’

“It was during the Delta where everybody’s freaking out. ‘This one’s going to kill us all,’” he continued.

“And I was fine in three days.”

The 57-year-old added that he no longer respects mainstream media after they disgraced themselves countless times.

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Over a Hundred More Christians Massacred by Islamists in Nigeria in Ongoing Genocide Campaign — Where is the Media Coverage?

Fulani Islamic militants have unleashed another round of unspeakable violence on the village of Yelewata in Nigeria’s Benue State.

Over the weekend, attackers stormed homes, locked families inside, and set them ablaze — killing over 100 civilians, including women and children.

The attack, which began late Friday and stretched into the early hours of Saturday, left dozens missing and hundreds injured. With no access to medical aid, survivors watched their communities reduced to ash.

Benue is located in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt,” an important where the Muslim North meets the Christian South.

Foreign-funded jihadist groups and radicalized Fulani herdsmen are pushing southward in deadly waves, slaughtering Christian farming communities under the banner of conquest.

The Yelewata massacre is not an isolated event, but rather a systematic campaign of genocide and extermination.

Just days prior, in coordinated assaults across Benue and Plateau States, Fulani jihadists murdered over 130 Christians in cold blood.

Between May 24th and June 2nd, villages like Gwer West, Apa, and Munga Dasso were turned into charnel houses.

Victims were butchered, burned, or executed as militants moved with total impunity.

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Media Critics Call on CNN to Fire Brian Stelter Over Reckless Tweet Following Minnesota Shooting

Two media critics are calling on CNN to fire ‘media reporter’ Brian Stelter over a reckless tweet in which he clearly tried to politicize the recent shooting of two Democrats in Minnesota by an appointee of Governor Tim Walz.

Before all of the facts were even known about the shooting, CNN correspondent Edward-Isaac Dovere tweeted:

“In the last week, Marines were deployed in an American city,the president has called for a gov to be arrested &the speaker of the House has called for that gov to be tarred & feathered, a senator has been pinned & handcuffed, and 2 state legislators have been shot in their homes.”

Brian Stelter then quote tweeted that message, saying:

“And it all points in the same direction.”

Stephen L. Miller, who hosts a media criticism podcast on Substack named ‘Versus Media’ called for Stelter’s firing over this.

Miller made the point that this was actually worse than a reckless tweet that just got reporter Terry Moran fired from ABC News.

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