#Brad Slager

[themfp1]

Year End Journalism Mayhem Recognition: The Townhall Heckler Awards – Media Industry Division

By:      Brad Slager As we flip the calendar, it is customary to look back at the prior year before wadding it up and properly tossing it into the non-recyclables bin (because there is so much we do not want circulating once again). Here at “Riffed From The Headlines,” it has been a year of compiling the worst and misbegotten in the media landscape – and, wow – has it been a truckload of…

[bllsbailey]

The Media Is Lying to You About Their Government Funding

Earlier this week, a scandal hit the political-journalism complex that was on par with the way the "payola" scandal rocked the popular music world in the 1950s; see NEW: Massive Press Scandal As USAID Funding for 'Politico' Revealed, and It Gets Worse From There. Analysis of open-source federal documents showed that many news organizations had received obscene amounts of money from the federal government in the guise of "subscriptions."

President Trump reacted quickly to the news that the federal government was spending tens of millions of dollars each year to support media outlets. This kind of support is wrong in a free society, and it is even more wrong when the outlets are basically hostile to the administration. 

The immediate defense from the various outlets was, "Move along, nothing to see here." This is how Politico hand-waved the allegations:

“POLITICO has been the subject of debate on X this week. Some of it has been misinformed, and some of it has been flat-out false. Let’s set the record straight,” the outlet wrote as part of a memo published on its website. “POLITICO is a privately owned company. We have never received any government funding — no subsidies, no grants, no handouts. Not one dime, ever, in 18 years.” The note comes in response to social media posts and public statements from Trump, billionaire Elon Musk and others who have expressed outrage that a large number of government agencies and federal employees subscribe to Politico’s expensive “Pro” news content. The expenditures were revealed this week as part of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency work to reform major federal departments including USAID. It is common for federal agencies to allow employees to expense subscriptions to newspapers, wire services and other media outlets as a function of their jobs, while subscriptions to niche content in a specific policy area can cost thousands of dollars a year. Most Politico Pro subscribers are in the private sector, the company said Thursday, and come from across the ideological spectrum, with a renewal rate of around 90 percent every year “because they rely on our reporting, data, and insights.” “Government agencies that subscribe do so through standard public procurement processes— just like any other tool they buy to work smarter and be more efficient. This is not funding. It is a transaction — just as the government buys research, equipment, software, and industry reports. Some online voices are deliberately spreading falsehoods,” the outlet said. “Let’s be clear: POLITICO has no financial dependence on the government and no hidden agenda. We cover politics and policy — that’s our job.”

If our government depends upon the insights and analysis of the midwits at Politico, then we are more thoroughly rogered than any of us ever imagined. My colleague, Brad Slager, looked at this defense and found it wanting; see Let's Untangle the Inappropriate Financial Deals Between the Federal Gov't., Politico, and Other Outlets – RedState.

In fact, we've had statements from former reporters indicating that they were told to spike or suppress stories harmful to Joe Biden: see Former Politico Reporters Drop Bombshell Alleging Suppression of Hunter Biden Stories – RedState.

I have no doubt that the media outlets involved can produce invoices showing they provided "premium" subscriptions to the various agencies. But just like auditing a money laundering operation, you are not obligated to take what they say at face value. In fact, the government contracting documents indicate there is something else going on.

Politico Subscriptions. Source.

New York Times Subscriptions. Source.

Associated Press Subscriptions. Source.

No matter the intent, it is an unassailable fact that in these three instances involving Politico, the New York Times, and the AP, the massive increase in their subscription business with the US government coincides with Joe Biden's election and is really obvious by February 2021, Biden's first full month in office. There is no such volume of subscriptions in either the Obama or Trump administrations.

The government does not need to purchase this number of subscriptions to premium media services. While the government may have bought them because the "venture Marxists" at the upper reaches of government like to imagine themselves as "captains of industry" and brilliant executives, and the subscriptions served as an outward symbol of their importance, the media outlets could not but have pulled their punches when weighing negative stories about Joe Biden, his dementia, his criminal family, etc., against potentially millions of dollars in lost revenue.

The excuse that the government always buys these services is patent nonsense and insulting. Given their history, we know Politico, for instance, can tell much more skillful lies than the one they offered us.

Trump needs to order an investigation into this unseemly financial connection between the Biden administration and the media that covered it and give America a full accounting of what they find.

[justiceheartwatcher]

The Party of Science:

A Morning Consult poll found that over one-third of Democrats believe the shooting of President Trump might have been staged, despite it resulting in two serious injuries and a fatality. One claimed those bullets were real, but the one that hit Trump was fake. As Brad Slager of Redstate.com notes, it’s a miracle these people can eat without sticking a fork in their eye.

https://redstate.com/bradslager/2024/07/19/new-poll-shows-democrat-voters-are-spiraling-with-the-media-as-the-number-of-blue-anon-believers-swells-n2177105

Related: I saw that some leftists were attacking J.D. Vance for reportedly saying that Alex Jones was as reliable a source as Rachel Maddow. I don’t know if the quote is real, but I think that’s pretty unarguable. That’s not a defense of Jones, whose claims about the school shooting I found reprehensible. It’s just an obvious observation about Maddow, who is paid millions by MSNBC to play a “journalist” (I guess it’s the glasses) despite the fact that she pushes anti-Trump conspiracy theories like the Russia hoax so hard, I expect her to start Scotch-taping newspaper clippings to the wall and connecting them with strings.

Speaking of unhinged leftists, our award for craziest comment of the week goes to MSNBC’s Joy Reid (we should just call this “The Reid Award.”) Reid claimed that in terms of proving vitality and fitness for office, Biden surviving COVID at his age is “exactly the same” as Trump surviving a would-be assassin’s bullet.

https://redstate.com/bradslager/2024/07/19/new-poll-shows-democrat-voters-are-spiraling-with-the-media-as-the-number-of-blue-anon-believers-swells-n2177105

As long as we’re hailing Biden for overcoming every potential deadly threat, then every time he survives walking up a flight of stairs, it’s the same as surviving an assassin’s bullet.

[arcticdementor]

Hot on the heels of the toxic masculinity razor commercial debacle another corporate political decision has reared up. After Gillette insulted an entire gender, and a significant of its customer base, one liquor brand has stepped up to say, “Hold my Scotch!”

Johnnie Walker has come out in support of The Women’s March, and it is not going well. The scotch brand has been an enthusiastic backer of the movement, seemingly oblivious to the various groups that have disavowed the March due to anti-semitic leadership. To date the NOW, NAACP, Greenpeace, Emily’s List, and the Southern Poverty Law Center are just a few who marched off. Things have become so toxic even the Democratic National Committee has cut ties.

[youthkenworld]

Biden State Dept. refuses Americans at Kabul airport

By Mike Huckabee

Of all the disturbing and heartbreaking stories coming out of Afghanistan this weekend, this might be the most infuriating of all.

Two highly trusted sources, investigative reporter Lara Logan and Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye in an IED explosion in Afghanistan, are independently reporting that over the past few days, Americans have been turned away from entering the Kabul airport. Logan tweeted this on Saturday: “Most Americans don’t understand what’s happening in Kabul – been on this all night with no end. US citizens are fighting through enemy lines to get to the airport. When they show their blue passport to 82nd [Airborne] soldiers at the gate, many are turned away and sent back to the Taliban.”

Later, she tweeted, “All that stands between these Americans and safety/home is the US govt and military.”

President Biden had supposedly sent the 82nd Airborne to Kabul to facilitate the mass evacuation. What in blazes is going on there?

Dan Crenshaw tweeted, “America, all you need to know is this: Biden is not letting US citizens through the airport gates. It has been impossible to get anyone through for the past 24 hours. This administration has been lying about their intent to save Americans. Unforgivable.”

Also unexplainable, in a sane world with a sane Commander-in-Chief. But that’s not what we have.

Weirdly, the Biden White House is also trying to say that ISIS-K is the enemy, not so much the Taliban. One Green Beret and others in a position to know report that they’re really one and the same. I was on the same track a few days ago when I called this “a distinction without a difference.”

Bryan Preston at PJ MEDIA wrote at greater length about this.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/08/29/dan-crenshaw-lara-logan-bring-the-most-disturbing-reports-out-of-the-kabul-airport-yet-n1473930

We don’t know how many Americans are stranded in Afghanistan. Some reports have said 350, but it could be thousands more. The Biden administration says it’s evacuated “thousands,” but it never says how many of these are Americans.

The State Department, officially in charge of the evacuation effort, apparently is not helping. If soldiers are turning away Americans, it is on their order, not the Pentagon’s. Texas Rep. Ronny Johnson tweeted this on Saturday: “I am furious!! My team has been on the phone all day trying to get AMERICAN CITIZENS out. They have been just outside the airport numerous times, but the State Department WILL NOT help them.”

Congress won’t be looking into this anytime soon. Speaker Pelosi has adjourned them.

American citizens aren’t the only ones being turned away at the airport gates. As reported in THE NEW YORK TIMES, students and alumni from the American University of Afghanistan were, too. This came after about 600 of them had gathered at a safe house and boarded buses to take them, they thought, to freedom. After waiting for several hours, they were told that evacuations had been called off. An email told them to return home. (“Home”?) Because the U.S. troop deadline for evacuation is August 31, it said, the U.S. military was turning from evacuating civilians to getting its own personnel out.

Think that’s bad? Oh, it’s much worse. They're terrified for their lives now, as they also also learned the U.S. military, “following protocol,” had shared a list of their names and passport information with the Taliban who were guarding the airport checkpoints. Their identities are now known, and there's no way to evacuate.

The Taliban have already taken over the American University campus. The staff got out in time and are now safely in Doha. The president of the school says they’re committed to “ensuring all students would finish their degrees remotely.”

Well, isn’t that nice. And how are these students going to be receiving their degrees? Posthumously?

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/29/world/afghanistan-live-news-updates#american-university-of-kabul-students-and-alumni-trying-to-flee-were-sent-home

Brad Slager at RedState.com has an excellent commentary on the total incompetence surrounding the withdrawal.

https://redstate.com/bradslager/2021/08/29/no-aspect-of-bidens-afghanistan-fiasco-was-handled-with-competence-n434910

Reading this, though, I have to wonder: Is this level of incompetence due to Biden’s lack of cognitive faculties, leading him to be fatally singleminded and stubborn about his arbitrary pull-out date, or is he actually an all-out traitor to his country? If he were the latter, what would he be doing differently? The one other possibility is that he is so monumentally stupid that...well, I have to wonder if even Joe Biden is THAT monumentally stupid.

It gets even crazier: As Nick Arama at RedState reports, at a time when military aircraft are at such a premium that commercial jets are being called into service, President Biden approved the use of a military plane by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to fly last Monday to a nonessential diplomatic summit in Ukraine. Why the frivolous waste of a military craft when it was so badly needed for the evacuation? This makes about as much sense as anything else going on right now.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/29/biden-diverted-military-jet-away-for-outrageous-reason-in-middle-of-kabul-evacuation-n434949

[th3handtellst0ri3s]

Air Ball! Things Become Worse as NBA Ratings for the Finals Are Lowest Ever

Posted at 2:00 pm on October 05, 2020 by Brad Slager

https://www.redstate.com/bradslager/2020/10/05/air-ball-things-become-worse-as-nba-ratings-for-the-finals-are-lowest-ever/amp​

[watchman-today]

VIP Gold Chat: With Guests Jennifer O’Connell and Brad Slager http://dlvr.it/SXx9KF

[alterannews]

VIP Gold Chat: With Guests Jennifer O'Connell and Brad Slager

VIP Gold Chat: With Guests Jennifer O’Connell and Brad Slager

(more…)

[asthegirlturns]

Brad Slager is @townhallmedia's hardest working man, because he writes for almost all of the properties! #Respect. His podcast partner Liesel (aka "Aggie") is exceptionally fun, intelligent, and absolutely adores me, as I do her. We all got to spend more quality face time together than last year, so it added to the banner #CPAC experience. #cpacflorida #CPAC2022 #TeamRedState #TeamTownhall #Dipsology #Barflies (at Rosen Shingle Creek) https://www.instagram.com/p/CagZEPqu6yy/?utm_medium=tumblr

[themfp1]

Public Opinion Has Swung In Support of Israel; the US Media PLO PR-team Hardest Hit

By: Brad Slager Since the horrific attack on Israel this past Saturday by terrorist insurgents from Hamas, the general public has been focused intently on the aftermath. And one of the things that has been noticed has been the rather obvious side being taken by a large amount of out news industry. Whether in the form of support, or simply taking a balanced look and applying equivalency, the…

[bllsbailey]

Hollywood Has a Wild PR Nightmare on Its Hands After Nominating a Male for 'Best Actress' Oscar

Have we got a massive tinsel town plot twist to share with you! 

As you may know, Hollywood was recently full of self-congratulations when they nominated a biological male in the Best Actress category of the upcoming Academy Awards. The actor's name is Karla Sofia Gascón, and he starred in the Spanish-language film "Emila Pérez,” which aired on Netflix. Gascón was the belle of the ball as the movie racked up 13 nominations and the actor was lauded for being the first trans person to be nominated for an Oscar. 

Oh, how they all celebrated themselves for being so generous and open-minded! There were a few problems, however, including the fact that apparently no one liked the film. First off, the plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Zoe Saldaña stars as gifted but underpaid lawyer Rita Mora Castro. She receives a mysterious job offer that promises her unimaginable wealth if she works for a seedy client. Rita accepts and discovers the client is infamous cartel kingpin Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón). Del Monte wishes to pay Rita to create a new identity and life for himself and (separately) his wife (Selena Gomez) and children. Del Monte will undergo gender-affirming surgery and live as a woman, Emilia Pérez. However, years after the surgery, Del Monte regrets abandoning her family and hires Rita to reunite them under the guise that Emilia is a cousin of Del Monte.

Oh, and it's a musical. 

Then, the gay community slammed the film as a "step backward" for "trans representation" in Hollywood. Brad Slager, one of RedState's most dogged culture vultures, had all the details.

“‘Emilia Pérez’ is a step backward for trans representation,” GLAAD explained in November in a breakdown of its release compiled from a number of critics from the community. The group cites representations that are considered tropes in Hollywood’s portrayals of the trans community. Some of the main complaints served up concerns that while it was hyped coming out of Cannes, most of the reviews praising the film were not from members of the LGBTπ community, and so as the movie was building cultural and critical steam, it was driving away the very community it was depicting. Among the other critiques have been that the transitioning in the storyline is used as an act of redemption, where a murderous drug lord is heralded after the transition.

And, now, in a major plot twist, it seems that the Best Actress nominee has a history of posting politically-charged commentary on social media.

In a now-deleted social media post in Spanish, Gascón said Islam was “becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured.” In 2020, she called George Floyd a “drug addict swindler.”  In another post, she took aim at the 2021 Oscars, saying, “More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”

Sounds kind of based, right? 

Joe Biden Signed With a Hollywood Talent Agency? Let's Brainstorm Some Possible Roles.

Trump Names Three Movie Stars As Special Envoys to Tinseltown—Predicts the 'Golden Age of Hollywood!'

Despite decrying his own posts publicly, stating he is "not racist," Hollywood has turned its collective back on Gascón, and you won't be seeing the nominee at any of the pre-Oscars events in the build-up to the March 3rd ceremony. This includes sitting out the AFI Awards, the Critics’ Choice Awards, and the Producers Guild Awards. In short, Netflix doesn't want the actor anywhere near Hollywood for the sin of having an opinion that's not in lockstep with the town's elite. 

Hollywood was eager to celebrate its so-called progress—until it became inconvenient. They're really hoping no one will notice.

[politicalbombshow]

Lincoln Project Co-Founder John Weaver Accused by Multiple Young Men of Grooming for Sex

Lincoln Project Co-Founder John Weaver Accused by Multiple Young Men of Grooming for Sex

My RedState colleague Brad Slager reported Saturday on how Forbes Magazine was joining the Enemies List brigade by proclaiming to “the business world” that “Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie” and will respond accordingly if any of those businesses hire any former “Trump fabulists” like the ones they had listed in their article (Kayleigh McEnany, Sarah…

[republicmatters]

Ratings for 2020 NFL Kickoff Are In; Media Drops the Ball on Why Viewership Is Down

Ratings for 2020 NFL Kickoff Are In; Media Drops the Ball on Why Viewership Is Down

Houston Texans wide receiver Will Fuller (15) pulls in a pass from quarterback Deshaun Watson for a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game against the Miami Dolphins, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018, in Houston. (AP Photo/Eric Christian Smith)

On Thursday, my colleague Brad Slager dropped a piece on reports of some very bad numbers for the sports world that have nothing to do with how…

[globsnark]

Jorge Ramos Gets An Education

My colleague, Brad Slager, wrote an excellent post describing Univision Anchor Jorge Ramos’ detention in Venezuela over the weekend. via Pocket from bitly http://bit.ly/2H5pJ7p via IFTTT

[th3handtellst0ri3s]

In the UK They Are Issuing Warnings with the New Covid Vaccine By Brad Slager Dec 09, 2020 2:31 PM ET

https://redstate.com/bradslager/2020/12/09/291685-n291685/amp​

[oldguardaudio]

The Ivanka Trump ‘SCOOP’ from the Washington Post was reported last year

The Ivanka Trump ‘SCOOP’ from the Washington Post was reported last year

The big Washington Post “SCOOP” on Ivanka Trump’s email use that you’re reading about is old news:

Didn’t already hear about this a year ago? https://t.co/bNRNffhYyS

— Brad Slager – Caveat Elector 🍸 🥃🎬💻 (@MartiniShark) November 20, 2018

Answer: YES:

Yes. https://t.co/QON0dsywCl

— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) November 20, 2018

And as we told you last night, for those trying to claim that Ivanka and…