Yikes! This Sounds Like a Recent Convo I've Had Here

[abbey1227]

Living in the liberal media’s ‘Twilight Zone’
Nothing is as is seems
By Robert Knight - - Saturday, August 21, 2021

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

We’re so far beyond media bias that we’ve entered the Twilight Zone, where nothing is as it seems.

Imagine, if you will, a secure border. You can because the media are blacking out the reality. Hundreds of thousands of illegals are streaming into the United States and are being bused around the country. Despite the extreme severity of the crisis and its implications for America’s future, TV network coverage of the border has plummeted 96 percent since March, according to the Media Research Center.

There’s nothing to see here, folks. Let’s run another story on the Jan. 6 “armed insurrection,” the “worst threat to democracy” since George Washington misplaced his false teeth.

According to the overwhelmed Border Patrol, the Illegal alien surge includes drug smugglers and hardened criminals, plus people from many countries, not just Central America or Mexico. As many as 20 percent of illegal immigrants have COVID-19. Under Mr. Biden, the border has evaporated while he and the media blame Donald Trump, who had it under control.

Meanwhile, as we watch shocking footage of the Taliban’s sweet revenge, especially on women, we might recall Joe Biden’s words on July 8: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
Derrick Wilburn speech before school board goes viral

As Obama’s vice president, this is the guy who opposed the mission taking out Osama bin Laden.

On August 13, as the Taliban neared victory and U.S. personnel fled, State Department spokesman Ned Price actually claimed: “This is not abandonment. This is not an evacuation. What this is, is a reduction in the size of our civilian footprint.”

Two days later, Taliban warriors occupied the presidential palace as U.S. helicopters and planes re-enacted horrifying scenes comparable to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

To her credit, at least one reporter (who I hope is still employed) defied the usual sycophantic press posture toward Biden spokespeople. Christina Ruffini of CBS said to Mr. Price, “There is no way you can sit there and say that the people of Afghanistan watching the Taliban take over provinces, watching their country crumble, are now going to watch American diplomats get on military planes and leave the country that [this] sends a signal that the U.S. is with them in the long haul diplomatically.”

Unfazed by the facts, like Martin Short’s squirrely “Saturday Night Live” tobacco company lawyer Nathan Thurm,    Mr. Price continued his bizarre dodge, citing the massive U.S. investment.

Much of media bias is committed via omission or misdirection. Instead of focusing on America’s actual enemies, Hollywood and media elites set up evangelical Christians and devout Catholics as dangerous theocrats.

“Star Trek: Voyager” star Tim Russ on Aug. 16 tweeted: “The Taliban are as fanatical about their beliefs and culture as the millions of people right here in the U.S. who believe in religion, conspiracy theories, and alternate reality.”

On August 14, MSNBC host Joy Reid also directly compared to the Taliban, tweeting that “our own far religious right” is “dreaming of a theocracy that would impose a particular brand of Christianity” on America.

Does she have the slightest clue about what the Taliban does to women caught without a burka or trying to get an education? She went on to accuse Christians of wanting to “drive women from the workforce and solely into childbirth, and control all politics.”

“What a plainly stupid remark,” commented Catholic League President Bill Donahue. “Perhaps she can explain why a record number of Republican women—35 of them—were recently elected to the Congress. They are all Christians.”

Last Wednesday, MSNBC’s lead website story by Dean Obeidallah criticized Republicans for opposing abortion and opposing more taxpayer-funded pork for leftwing feminists. After disingenuously claiming that “nobody is saying the GOP and the Taliban are equally bad,” he did his best to make that case, concluding that Republicans are plotting to make their “religious beliefs into the law of the land.”

But wait, there’s more. In addition to the “white nationalists” pegged by Joe Biden as the nation’s biggest terror threat, the Department of Homeland Security has identified more potential terrorists, with help from NBC to narrow it down.

On Aug. 13, NBC anchor Lester Holt summarized a Department of Homeland Security terror advisory with a colorful graphic sporting the Department seal. Titled “Potential Terror Threats,” it included “Opposition to Covid measures; “Claims of election fraud, belief Trump can be reinstated,” and “9/11 anniversary and religious holidays.”

So, if you question the government’s evolving COVID-19 narrative, believe the 2020 election had inexplicable anomalies (like loser Trump winning all bellwether states and 18 of 19 bellwether counties), or are excited about Christmas or Hanukkah, you might just fit DHS’s terrorist profile. You fit the one concocted by NBC. Here’s how the segment went: Mr. Holt: “A new terror alert has been issued by the Department of Homeland Security. Peter Williams is here. Pete, what do we know about this?

Mr. Williams: “Well, DHS says this new terrorism advisory is not based on any actual threats or plots (italics added), but it says there’s a rise in anti-government rhetoric. Some of it is opposition to COVID-19 public health rules like mask and vaccine measures; some calls for violent action are based on claims of election fraud (Wait. Didn’t DHS say there were no actual threats?) or a belief that Donald Trump can be reinstated.

“And DHS says the coming 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and religious holidays later this year could be catalysts for violence…. domestic extremism remains a threat priority, Lester.”

One thing for sure is that Democrat administrations are fond of singling out Americans they regard as political opponents. DHS under Obama targeted combat veterans and pro-life activists as top potential terror threats. The IRS went after the tea parties. And the media are all in on the Left’s defunding the police.

If you live in the media’s Twilight Zone, you can’t help but think America is wicked and systemically racist. You believe cops are bad, illegal aliens are good, Christians and veterans are scary, and that anyone questioning mask or vaccine mandates is an enemy of the state – and now, a potential terrorist.

• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/21/living-in-the-liberal-medias-twilight-zone/?fbclid=IwAR3jP-cFqg-Yq-l9zG26Ouv0_QX9-b9BHvtIPkerYHoj92UfJ1PvDfL1zLE

[abbey1227]

And another Bill Maher piece to add to this thread........

Bill Maher, Andrew Sullivan pan newsrooms for caving to 'woke' mobs: 'They don't have the b---s to say no'
The 'Out on a Limb' writer suggested the 'woke agenda' leaped from universities to media companies
By Joseph A. Wulfsohn | Fox News

Gutfeld: Wokeism has replaced common sense

'Gutfeld!' panel reacts to video of student claiming America is not a great place

"Real Time" host Bill Maher and "The Weekly Dish" Substack writer Andrew Sullivan torched what they viewed as the inability of newsroom editors to stand up against "woke" mobs.

"You were at New York magazine, but you kinda quit them because newsrooms right now have become a place where you used to be fired by the editor or the owner," Maher began the exchange. "Now you're fired because of the ‘woke’ in the newsroom, right? You have to conform to the one true opinion or they don't even want you in the building."

"It's a complicated thing because actually I was fired. I was given four days' notice. I was nominated for a Pulitzer one year. The next year, fired," Sullivan responded. "Not for anything I wrote but because I wasn't going to go along with their woke agenda.

"They knew that. … I don't why it's so terrible to have someone in a magazine or in a complete mix of things, to have someone -- a dissenter in a magazine. It's fun, right? I mean, that's the whole point! I grew up wanting to debate, wanting to argue. … What was the problem? Afterward, we got together, we'd have a nice drink, we're totally cool about it!"

"And it's not like you're very conservative!" Maher chuckled.

Sullivan, a former columnist for New York magazine and author of "Out on a Limb," explained that newsroom editors are "responding to social media" and how Twitter "creates these online mobs" to pressure editors to fire writers "even if the editors are fine with the writer."

"The real problem with this is not so much the woke and online media -- because they are awful and they should be ignored but they aren't -- it's the point of the people running these institutions," Sullivan told Maher. "Liberal institutions, universities, magazines, newspapers, they don't have the b---s to say no! 'We do believe in the plurality of views, we are going to defend unpopular writers.' Free speech means nothing!"

"Liberal institutions … don't have the b---s to say no! 'We do believe in the plurality of views, we are going to defend unpopular writers.' Free speech means nothing!" — Andrew Sullivan

The writer then took aim at universities for urging students to be identified "not as individuals but as members of a race and gender" and how various news organizations hired young people "straight out of these colleges" in an effort to save money while sacrificing principles like "due process," "finding out if something is true or not before you condemn somebody" and "taking a person's whole body of work into account instead of one single thing you're going to get damned for forever."

"And that's why I did this book. I wanted to say, 'Look, you're making me out to be like some crazy-ass right-winger. Look at my work! Look at it! It's much more complicated than that and you might find you agree with lots of it,'" Sullivan exclaimed.

AUTHOR ANDREW SULLIVAN SAYS HE'S FED UP WITH BEING ‘WOKE-CHECKED’

"They used to agree with it," Maher reacted. "I know you've written a lot about how we seem to be giving up on the idea of a colorblind society, which used to be the goal. It's like we didn't change, you changed. I still think that should be the goal."

"It is the goal, it must be the goal," Sullivan agreed. "Our humanity matters more than the part of humanity we're from. In America, of all places, the most multi-racial, multi-cultural society on Earth, will not survive if we're constantly in warfare between groups or genders."

"America … will not survive if we're constantly in warfare between groups or genders." — Andrew Sullivan


Sullivan went on to argue that while "we absolutely should acknowledge that this country has a racist history that needs to be confronted directly," the solution is not defining racial oppression as the "single meaning of America," nor setting "1619" as the real founding year of the nation instead of 1776.

"We are also about so much else. We're about religious freedom, we're about freedom of speech, we're about the empowerment of minorities," Sullivan said.

"And things have changed greatly since 1619. And 1919," Maher responded.

"You go anywhere in the world … do you think the Chinese are less racist than we are? Do you think the Russians are? It's a miracle what we do in this country!" Sullivan exclaimed.

Sullivan exited from New York magazine in 2020 after a "critical mass of the staff and management" at the magazine and its parent company Vox Media "no longer want to associate with me."

"They seem to believe, and this is increasingly the orthodoxy in mainstream media, that any writer not actively committed to critical theory in questions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity is actively, physically harming co-workers merely by existing in the same virtual space," Sullivan wrote last year. "Actually attacking, and even mocking, critical theory’s ideas and methods, as I have done continually in this space, is therefore out of sync with the values of Vox Media. That, to the best of my understanding, is why I’m out of here."

www.foxnews.com/entertainment/bill-maher-andrew-sullivan-woke-mobs?fbclid=IwAR2_psEo8zK9EaOMtJIxBasVI_UeveD0ItNotOQDWF9dCL_X0zxy8i4ZJa4