#Brad Slager

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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…

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New: The Little-Noticed Moment From the VP Debate Mic Cutting Debacle That Makes CBS News Look Even Worse

One of the most talked-about moments from Tuesday night's vice presidential debate was when Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) corrected CBS News debate co-moderator Margaret Brennan, who falsely "fact-checked" Vance on the "legal" status of the Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio.

As RedState reported, after Vance used the term "illegal immigrants," Brennan rushed to state they were technically here "legally." Vance then proceeded to explain the "technical" reason for why they had that status. Brennan and co-moderator Norah O'Donnell tried to shush him so they could move on to the next question but he continued speaking. 

"The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check, and since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on," Vance stated before attempting to make his point. After some crosstalk that included Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, O'Donnell cut Vance's mic.

For those who missed it, watch:

READ MORE:JD Vance Just Flattens Smug 'Fact Checking' CBS News Mods in Epic Fashion on Springfield Topic

As if that wasn't bad enough, there was one little-noticed moment from that exchange that actually made it all even worse.

If you watch it closely, it's not until moments after Walz lies about the CBP One app and Vance tries to respond to his whopper that O'Donnell finally hits the button. 

She had her finger on it but then waited until Vance was addressing Walz's remarks to push it. After that, you could barely hear what Vance was trying to say:

And not just making a good point but correcting one of the moderators and Walz in the process.

That's why his mic had to get cut.

Relatedly, CBS News is also being criticized for a ridiculous post-debate "fact-check" of Vance's comments on Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris being Joe Biden's border czar. Astonishingly, they claimed Harris was never the border czar. But as my RedState colleague Brad Slager documented here and below, that is at odds with the facts as reported by CBS News themselves in 2021:

Sigh. Some things just never change.

In any event, despite yet another three-on-one debate, Vance more than held his own and commanded the evening from start to finish, leading to some sour faces and unhinged reactions on cable news outlets, which is exactly how you know that they know he won it, bless their hearts.

RELATED:The Girl Squad Moderators for the Vance-Walz VP Debate Fixated on Childcare, Totally Skipped Over Crime

[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.

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As arguments were about to be heard between lawyers from Vid Angel and the Disney-led counsel, a hot mic picked up one justice leaning to another to declare, “I think this one’s a lot easier.” [link] Once the video of that interlude began to spread over social media the public feed for the Ninth Circuit was taken down. A few days later the feed was brought back, with the audio of that exchange removed. This carries deep irony, since the court was ruling against filtering services while filtering its own content.

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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

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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

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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

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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]

Elon Musk Savages Woke 'Star Wars' Producer Kathleen Kennedy—'She’s More Deadly Than the Death Star!'

It’s always fun to check out the social media posts of Elon Musk, the billionaire Twitter/X owner and CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, because you never know what he‘s going to say next, and—even though he has not declared that is a Republican or a conservative—he’s likely these days to send the woke crowd into paroxysms of whining. 

His latest target is Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy,

who has turned the once-beloved "Star Wars" franchise into a series of poorly-performing streaming shows and films that emphasize gender politics over, you know, plot and interesting storylines. As we’ve been reporting at RedState, the latest disastrous output—"The Acolyte"—features lesbian witches who procreate by using the Force. I know “Star Wars” is a fantasy, but I’m betting that’s not a thing in any universe.

Musk weighed in with his usual savage humor, liking a post that ripped Kennedy and adding, “She’s more deadly than the Death Star!”

He wasn’t done, however, and on Saturday, he was at it again:

"Kathleen Kennedy is super bigoted against men." Oof. The truth hurts.

Brandon Morse, Brad Slager, and other RedState writers have written extensively on just how bad “The Acolyte” is; here’s a sample:

Think I'll skip this one:

Creator of Disney's 'The Acolyte' Tries Denying the Woke Content That Was Originally Celebrated

'Non-Binary' Star of 'The Acolyte' Has Total Meltdown, Writes Woke 'Diss Track' of Star Wars Fans

Star Wars Is Now Lesbian Space Witches...I'm Not Kidding

Kennedy, however, is unapologetic:

Kennedy — who has been president of Lucasfilm since Disney bought the film and production company founded by “Star Wars” creator George Lucas in 2012 — has defended her decision to name Leslye Headland to direct “The Acolyte,” which is currently streaming on Disney+… Headland, the first woman to create a TV series for the franchise, has sought to make “The Acolyte” more diverse by casting minority actors including Amandla Stenberg, who identified as nonbinary and gay, and Korean star Lee Jung-jae. The narrative in “The Acolyte” that has raised hackles implies that powerful witches belonging to an all-female coven — led by Mother Aniseya, played by actress Jodie Turner-Smith — used the force to generate female offspring that star as the twin main characters, played by Amandla Stenberg.

Yeah, that sounds like a promising storyline. Not.

Artists should be able to make films about what moves them, and nobody is arguing that LGTBQ topics should be banned; if people want to see such fare, there’s a place for that. Where Kennedy—and Disney as a whole—has failed is by injecting controversial gender theories in almost everything they put out these days. Of course the original “Star Wars” movies had a heavily male fanbase—it had lightsabers, pretty women, dastardly villains, and spaceships; what’s not to like? The problem with the new Disney and Kathleen Kennedy approach is that they imply through their words and actions that there is something wrong with that. 

But there’s not. There is plenty of content out there that draws more female viewers than males—I don’t spend any of my time watching Hallmark movies or “Real Housewives of Whatever”; that fare doesn’t interest me in the slightest, and that’s fine. But imagine if they started a WWE storyline in the latest “Little Women" adaptation (sure to be staring Keira Knightley), that wouldn’t make sense, right? Cut from lovely ladies in their finery discussing their emotions to sweaty men fighting in a cage? I’m guessing that would not be a box-office winner.

Once again, Musk is able to sum up a topic with just a few words. He must be doing something right—he has 188 million followers. It’s posts like these that show the reason why.

Twitter/X under Musk has freed itself from the shackles of its former censorship regime—but that’s not true of all the Big Tech Thought Police. They routinely try to demonetize us, censor us, or shadow-ban our content.

One way we fight this relentless onslaught is through our VIP program.

Consider becoming a member today; you'll not only be supporting independent journalism, but you'll also get access to VIP stories, videos, and content not available to non-members—and most importantly IMHO, you'll get to participate in our raucous discussion boards.

Remember that a Gold-level account gets you access to all of our sister sites in Townhall Media: PJ Media, Twitchy, Hot Air, Bearing Arms, and Townhall.com.

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Use code SAVEAMERICA for a mighty 50% discount. Thank you for participating in the fight for truth at this crucial time!

[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​