The Media Are Absolutely Freaking Terrified of Ron DeSantis, and They Are Showing It

(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

Red State

By Bonchie

I’ll be honest, as much as I like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, I didn’t expect to be writing on him half-a-dozen times in the past several days. Yet, the media continue to make him a story. As I wrote yesterday, there was a major freak-out involving his non-mask usage while sealed in a glass bubble at the Super Bowl. DeSantis managed the perfect response to that, essentially telling the hand-wringing reporters to go jump in a lake (see Legendary: Ron DeSantis Has the Perfect Response for the Mask Karens). Media outlets also lost it the day before over people being outside without masks in anticipation for the big game.

This morning, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough took to the airwaves to launch yet another attack on Florida’s chief executive, and I think it says a lot more about the media than DeSantis himself.

Ryan has this pegged right, and it’s a point I made as recently as yesterday in an article, but we’ll get to that in a second.

Objectively, everything said in the above clip is false. DeSantis has not fouled anything up. His state is in the bottom half of the country in COVID death rates. He didn’t keep his state locked down, nor did he continue to impose pointless mask mandates. Because of that, Florida’s economy has boomed while places like California wither on the vine with worse results all the way around despite their oppressive mitigation strategies. In short, Scarborough is simply lying when he claims that DeSantis has done anything other than one of the best jobs in the country at handling the virus, especially when you consider all factors such as causing unrelated deaths and the economy.

Yet, Scarborough made this intellectual vapid attack anyway. The reason why is incredibly simple, yet also incredibly cynical. These people are terrified of Ron DeSantis because he represents all the positives of Trump without the negatives that drove away much of the squishy middle. He’s a true bridge candidate that takes doesn’t take crap from anyone, including the media, while also being just disciplined enough to always have the upper hand. Further, he’s not in Washington, which means he’s actually getting things done along the way to build his record. MSNBC doesn’t want someone like DeSantis to gain steam.

Ironically, their continual lying about him leads to right-wing media writing on DeSantis more and more, though, which only brightens his star further. In short, their attempts to destroy him are only making him stronger.

Castro Makes Fools of Obama & Co.

And the media stays faithfully silent.

 

Frontpage mag

Humberto Fontova

 

“Cuba and the United States  signed an agreement to cooperate in the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and other international criminal activities on the eve of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.” (Reuters, Jan. 2017)

“Cuban security officials toured Key West drug-war center—A delegation of Cuban government national security officials recently toured the Pentagon’s counter-drug center in Key West (in May, 2016)— a first, signaling a nascent effort in U.S.-Cuban security cooperation..They got a briefing on the work that has been described as Southcom’s command center in the war on drugs.”

“Cuba has kept drug trafficking, in check— the U.S. State Department’s (under Obama) annual narcotics control report found that (Cuba) is not a major consumer, producer or transit point for illegal narcotics.” (Miami Herald, March 2017.)

In brief, a Republican’s word under oath is an obvious subterfuge. But the word of KGB-mentored apparatchiks who’ve run a Russian satrapy for over half a century is good as gold. So seem to reason the Obama team and their Fake News Media auxiliaries. And to demonstrate their fidelity to the Russian satrap’s word, the Obama team put our national security where Castro’s mouth is, by giving his top defense and secret police apparatchiks a guided tour of some of our most vital defense facilities!

In brief, unlike in the case with Republicans, no villainy linked to “Russian collusion” is attributed by Democrats to the apparatchiks who have run a terror-sponsoring Russian satrapy on our doorstep for upwards of 60 years!….Now back to some late-breaking news:

“Panamanian authorities on Saturday (May, 18, 2019) intercepted 46 suitcases containing an estimated $90 million in illegal drugs on a cargo ship that arrived from a Cuban port and was en route to Istanbul, Turkey. The suitcases contained 1,517 packages of drugs hidden in a container declared as containing charcoal.”

Needless to add: no mainstream U.S. media portal (not even FOX!) has reported on this blockbuster embarrassment to the Obama team.

But this wasn’t the first egg on the faces of the Obama team, especially the architects of the partnership with Castro such as Pajama Boy Ben Rhodes and CIA chief John Brennan, who secretly met with Raul Castro’s son Alejandro. Instead:

“Panamanian authorities have intercepted over 401 kilos of cocaine in a shipment from Cuba en route to Belgium. The cocaine was found in a (Cuban) container camouflaged by (Cuban) molasses tanks.” (April, 14, 2017.)

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) attributes half the world’s cocaine supply to the Colombian Terror group FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), who are intimately linked with the people who nowadays run next door Venezuela—who are Cuban-guarded and manipulated puppets.

“I don’t think I’d even call (Venezuela) a regime, “ said Navy Adm. Craig Faller, head of U.S. Southern Command just this week, “ it’s a mafia. It’s an illicit business that he’s (Maduro) running with his 2,000 corrupt generals. It’s ruining the country…Illicit narco trafficking through Venezuela is up some 40 percent.”

So the dots shouldn’t be overly difficult to connect.

In fact, The FARC itself, once gave credit where credit is due, attributing their rollicking success to the Castro regime:

“Thanks to Castro” boasted late FARC commander Tiro-Fijo in an interview, “we are now a powerful army, not a hit and run band.”

Given the hefty piece of the action which the Castro-Family-Crime-Syndicate (mislabeled “Cuba” by the media) undoubtedly gets from FARC it’s only proper that FARC kingpins have the run of the Castro Family Fiefdom. In fact, some of these distinguished gentlemen were seated just a few rows from Obama himself when he attended that baseball game in Havana during his famous visit in March 2016.

Not that the Cuban regime’s drug-running started recently. Not by a long-shot:

“The case we have against Raul Castro right now (for drug-trafficking) is much stronger than the one we had against Manuel Noriega in 1988.” (U.S. prosecutors in Florida to the Miami Herald, July 1996.)

“Federal prosecutors in Miami were prepared to indict Raul Castro as the head of a major cocaine smuggling conspiracy in 1993, but the Clinton Administration Justice Department overruled them, current and former Justice Department officials tell ABC News…”It was a major investigation involving numerous witnesses that was killed at the highest levels in Washington,” said a former Justice Department official with direct knowledge of the case.”

I would be remiss in my reportorial responsibilities if I didn’t mention that the Castro regime emphatically and categorically denies any involvement with the drugs found aboard the ship that left its port last week, insisting the drugs were snuck onto the containers in Panama itself and that the regime has always enforced a “zero–tolerance” policy towards drug consumption and smuggling.

I would be equally remiss in my reportorial responsibilities by not pointing out other historic and emphatic denials by the Castro regime. To maximize the effect on American pundits and policymakers one of the most historic was made to — among other influential American opinion-shapers of the time — Ed Sullivan.

Try not to snort while viewing it, especially while picturing the guffaws from the denier’s KGB handlers of the time. After all, along with the mainstream media of the time, both the U.S. State Department and John Brennan’s predecessors at the CIA believed every word of the denial.

Things the Media Ignored in the Mueller Report

American Thinker

By Clarice Feldman

Despite the oceans of pixels, buckets of ink, and hours of  TV and radio coverage respecting the Mueller report, there are two important things underplayed or ignored: the ubiquitous nature of Russian interference from 2014 on, which Obama ignored, and the real target of the witch hunt — General Michael Flynn (and why). To get there, let’s  first quickly review the pre- and post- report major media coverage.

The Ridiculous Press Propagation of the Hoax and Response to the Report

There are countless examples of the media beclowning itself when the left’s dream of a slam-dunk against the president failed. It was like the election night follies all over again.

To quote the satirical Babylon Bee: “CNN: ‘God Allowed the Mueller Report to Test Our Unshakable Faith in Collusion’”

Here are some examples.

Who’s more honest?

Image via Right Bias

U.S. Government Media Network Fires Journalists Over Report Critical of Soros

Judicial Watch

At the request of a scandal-plagued Democratic senator tried for bribery and corruption, the head of the government’s international media networks is abusing his office to punish employees behind a broadcast critical of leftwing billionaire George Soros. U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) Chief John F. Lansing, an Obama appointee, is utilizing Stalinist techniques to retaliate against the journalists and producers involved in the Spanish-language segment which aired in May 2018 on Television Martí and was available for months online. Eight reporters and editors at the taxpayer-funded media outlet have been fired and Lansing has ordered a review of all content to address “patterns of unethical, unprofessional, biased, or sub-standard journalism.”

An employee at the Miami, Florida-based Martí headquarters said in a local newspaper report “the environment that has been created by the upper hierarchy of the Agency for Global Media is repressive. People write with fear. Adjectives are no longer used.”

Television Martí—and its radio counterpart—operate under the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) and comprise one of the USAGM’s five international multimedia networks. The others are Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting. The media outlets get about $685 million a year from American taxpayers and reportedly reach 345 million people worldwide in 59 languages. The global media agency was created to counter disinformation spread by oppressive regimes abroad. The USAGM website states that its mission is “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.” Television and Radio Martí were created to promote freedom and democracy by providing the people of Cuba with objective news and information programming.

The Soros broadcast focused on his efforts to cripple sovereign governments in Latin America. Judicial Watch was cited as a source because it investigated State Department funding of Soros groups in Colombia and published a report on Soros’ initiatives to advance a radical globalist agenda in Guatemala. Judicial Watch also released a special report documenting the financial and staffing nexus between Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) and the U.S. government. In that document, Judicial Watch connects the dots between U.S.-funded entities and OSF affiliates to further the Hungarian-born philanthropist’s agenda seeking to destabilize legitimate governments, erase national borders, target conservative politicians, finance civil unrest, subvert institutions of higher education, and orchestrate refugee crises for political gain. A few years ago Judicial Watch exposed a scheme in which the U.S. government spent millions of dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia by colluding with Soros’ OSF.

More than five months after the Spanish-language Soros broadcast aired on Television Martí, the segment caught the eye of disgraced New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez. In an October 31, 2018 letter to Lansing, the senator orders an immediate investigation into the Soros broadcast as well as an audit “on patterns of unethical and unprofessional reporting” at OCB. Menendez also smears Judicial Watch, stating that the Soros segment had “no credible sourcing” and “occasionally cites only a fringe website.” Lansing uses similar language in a mainstream newspaper article about the recent Martí firings over the Soros video. “The person developing the Soros story was using Judicial Watch as a source as I understand it — the story was not only poorly sourced, it relied heavily on one less-than-credible source,” Lansing says in the article, which states that “Soros has emerged as a leading boogeyman on the right.”

 

Menendez, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee despite his sordid history, blocked President Trump’s nomination last year to replace Lansing as USAGM chief. A few years ago, Menendez was charged with federal bribery and corruption stemming from his relationship with a crooked south Florida eye doctor that lavished him with cash, gifts and trips in exchange for political favors. The eye doctor, Salomon Melgen, got convicted of stealing $73 million from Medicare and was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Menendez got off because jurors were unable to reach a verdict and his trial ended in mistrial. His colleagues on the Senate Ethics Committee determined that the veteran lawmaker not only violated senate rules, but also federal law and applicable standards of conduct. In a public letter of admonition, the committee writes that over a six-year period Menendez knowingly and repeatedly accepted gifts of significant value from Melgen in violation of senate rules and federal law. “Additionally, while accepting these gifts, you used your position as a Member of the Senate to advance Dr. Melgen’s personal and business interests,” the committee writes.

Menendez has been embroiled in other corruption schemes throughout his political career and Judicial Watch has served as a credible source in uncovering them. As far back as 2007, Menendez was investigated by a federal grand jury for illegally steering lobbying business to his former chief of staff Kay LiCausi, with whom he was also romantically linked. In just a few years, her firm reported $1.3 million in business with nearly $300,000 coming from a New Jersey medical center that was later awarded government funding thanks to a push from her former boss and lover. In 2010, Menendez and his colleague in corruption, New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg, allocated $8 million for a public walkway and park space adjacent to upscale, waterfront condos built by a developer whose executives donated generously to their political campaigns. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the developer’s Washington D.C. lobbyist was a longtime senior aide to Menendez. The senator was also embroiled in a hooker scandal in the Dominican Republic with his incarcerated eye doctor pal and he hired an illegal immigrant sex offender to work in his senate office.

Democrats and Their Media Pretend Muslim Terrorism Is Manufactured

American Thinker

By Rich Logis

Ask your friends, family, and neighbors if they’re aware that the FBI recently thwarted a Muslim terrorist who allegedly wanted to blow up and shoot up the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and a synagogue.

Chances are, they haven’t heard about Hasher Jallal Taheb, a 21-year-old native-born American from the Atlanta, Ga. metropolitan area who was arrested after a months-long undercover investigation.  If those you inquire with heard about Taheb, ask them if they know he was a jihadist who changed his name and believed that jihad is an obligation and pathway to martyrdom.

You want to talk about a national emergency?  How about the frequency with which so many Democrats, as well as the DMIC (Democrat Media Industrial Complex), cover up radical Islamic terrorism?

Democrat-Defined Terrorism

To paraphrase Orwell’s Animal Farm, all terrorists are created equal, but some are created more equal than others.  Over the last few years, with the unfortunate rise in white supremacy-related violence and murders, Democrats and the DMIC have moved the goal posts on who’s a terrorist and who isn’t.  Actually, I don’t mind their expansion of the term, as I can now claim as terrorists some members of Black Lives Matter, protesters who block active-duty ambulances, and pro-fascists who identify themselves as “Antifa.”

Did Obama Pay Journos For Positive Coverage And To Attack Trump? Why yes, yes he did…

DC Whispers

It was called the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act signed into law in 2016 by then-President Obama (and allowed by Establishment Republicans like Paul Ryan) that took effect in 2017 and allocated a whopping $160 MILLION taxpayer dollars over two years to pay for government-sponsored propaganda. The money is now gone and guess what? About 1000 journalists are suddenly being laid off.

Coincidence? Hah! This was classic Obama, reaching into the bottomless trough of taxpayer dollars to push his self-promoting agenda. He did it with green energy, America-last trade agreements, and his post-2016 coverage to help ensure he remained relevant in order to quickly accumulate tens of millions of dollars worth of book deals, Netflix deals, and speaking fees. 

It’s enough to make even the Clintons blush. 

image: https://preview.redd.it/tm0zumfzgzd21.png?width=1024&auto=webp&s=dc30ea3e142ba81f067c311638c19e1e2037afb7

image: https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/594d432ad9f2557072bf3816/master/pass/obamavacationbali.jpg

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Read more at http://dcwhispers.com/did-obama-pay-journos-for-positive-coverage-and-to-attack-trump-why-yes-yes-he-did/#ougB6ygscoYOW81l.99

U.S. Treasury Employee Arrested Charged with Leaking to Media

Founders Code

by Denise Simon

 

The official 18 page indictment is here.

US Treasury employee arrested, accused of leaking media secret information about suspicious financial transactions related to Paul Manafort, Russians

• A U.S. Treasury employee has been arrested and charged with leaking to a BuzzFeed News reporter multiple secret reports about suspicious financial transactions.
• The documents relate to former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, Trump campaign official Richard Gates, accused Russian agent Maria Butina, the Russian Embassy and suspected Russian money launderer Prevezon Alexander.
• The accused employee, Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards will face criminal charges in New York.

A U.S. Treasury employee has been arrested on charges that she leaked to BuzzFeed News multiple reports about suspicious financial transactions involving ex-Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, law-enforcement officials said.

The highly confidential documents allegedly leaked by the employee also were related to former Trump campaign official Richard Gates, accused Russian agent Maria Butina, a suspected Russian money launderering entity and the Russian Embassy in Washington, according to a criminal complaint.

Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a 40-year-old senior advisor in Treasury’s financial crimes enforcement network who was arrested Tuesday, will face federal criminal charges in New York, officials said.

She is charged with unlawfully disclosing so-called suspicious activity reports, or SARS, and conspiracy to do the same. Both felony counts carry a maxmium potential sentence of five years in prison.

A Quinton, Virginia, resident, Edwards was released on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond after her presentment Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Under the conditions of her release, Edwards is barred from contacting reporters or handling documents belonging to her Treasury division without approval.

A lawyer for Edwards did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

SARS are used to alert Treasury officials and other authorities about financial transactions that may be related to criminal conduct, such as money laundering. Treasury’s FinCEN division, for which Edwards works, manages the collection of SARS. It is illegal for a government employee to disclose a SAR or its contents outside of the scope of their work.

The complaint against Edwards says that she started leaking “numerous SARS in October 2017” to an unidentified reporter, and continued doing so until this month.

She had “hundreds of electronic communications” with the reporter, “many via an encrypted application,” the complaint said.

After Edwards began leaking SARS, the journalist wrote about a dozen articles which mentioned the details of those reports, according to the complaint.

Articles cited in the complaint carry the bylines of Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier, two BuzzFeed reporters, as well as other journalists at that media outlet.

The articles cited documents transactions pertaining to Manafort and Gates, both of whom have since pleaded guilty to financial crimes related to their consulting work for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine.

They also related to Butina, who is currently being held without bond on charges of being a Russian agent, the accused money launderering real-estate entity Prevezon Alexander, and the Russian Embassy in Washington.

At the time of Edwards’ arrest, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, she “was in possession of a flash drive” that appeared to be the same device “on which she saved the unlawfully disclosed” SARS.

Also in her possession was “a cellphone containing numerous communications over an encrypted application in which she transmitted [SARS] and other sensitive government information” illegally, prosecutors said.

“When questioned by law enforcement officials [Tuesday], Edwards confessed she has provided [SARS] to [the reporter] via an encrypted application, through falsely denied knowing that [the reporter] intended to or did publish that information” through a news organization, the complaint said.

BuzzFeed News declined to comment. Leopold and Cormier did not immediately return requests for comment.

The News You Didn’t Hear This Week

Image via electclifton.wordpress.com

 

 

Powerline

by Steven Hayward

So, President Trump had a terrible week. CNN, and the rest of the prestige press, told us so. It’s only a matter of time before Trump is brought down. A crisis of the regime is imminent. You can tell things are serious because the stock market . . . hit a record high! Strange how, aside from the Cheerleaders of the Tape at CNBC, we heard so little about this during the Week of Trump’s Doom. What does the market know that the media don’t? Well, of course the answer to that “well, duh” question is—a lot.

Actually the strength of the stock market may not tell us much at all except that the animal spirits of capitalism, which rallied despite Obama’s best attempt to depress the markets, are bigger than our political circus, which is a reassuring thought. Actually a close look—and the data back this up—shows that what is really holding the market back from even bigger gains at the moment is the fear and uncertainty about how the trade tensions Trump has unleashed will play out. The market always rallies hard on news that trade tensions may be resolved, and slumps when tensions ratchet up again. I am reliably informed that this has been brought directly to Trump’s attention, to which he responds, “Just think how big the stock market will boom when we win the trade war.” Gotta like that kind of confidence and moxey. Even if tariffs are stupid.

But markets should be heeded, and the strength of the market is perhaps a leading indicator of why the Trump Impeachment Processional is unlikely to succeed. As I said yesterday, it seems like we’re doing a re-enactment of the Clinton scandals of the 1990s, which also had its high quotient of bimbos, perjury, and media frenzy. And I can clearly recall that with every new revelation of Clinton perfidy—Whitewater, travelgate, Vince Foster, Rose Law Firm billing records, Kathleen Willey, the MacDougals, Juanita Brodderick, Paula Jones, ad nauseum, ad infinitum—we Clinton haters on the right were sure that this is it!—surely this scandal will prove the tipping point that will get him at last. But by the time Monica Lewinski flashed her thong, Clinton scandal fatigue had set in with the American people. Oh, and don’t forget: the economy was ripping along with robust growth and record highs in the stock market. Sort of like today. Hmmm.  I wonder if any Democrats have pondered this. Historical literacy is not their strong suit.

Meanwhile, did you hear anywhere that Australia’s ruling Liberal Party (which, remember, is the conservative party, because they still have the old-fashioned understanding of “liberal” in place, God bless them), has ousted their prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and replaced him with Scott Morrison, who is best known as being the cabinet minister who was the architect of Australia’s tough immigration policy. But lost in most of the media coverage was that a key issue in the ouster of Turnbull was climate policy. Turnbull was committed to the usual theology of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and this generated a backlash in the party.

Only the Wall Street Journal seems to have noted this aspect of the story:

With the resource-rich nation facing spiraling power bills and unreliable supply, Mr. Turnbull’s government last year proposed a policy that aimed to deliver affordable electricity while reducing emissions in line with a target set by the Paris climate agreement.

Some conservative lawmakers wanted to abandon Australia’s commitment to cut emissions by at least 26% below 2005 levels by 2030, and to provide more support for the coal industry.

Mr. Turnbull attempted a compromise to secure support from his own party, including dropping plans to legislate the emissions target in favor of regulating it. On Monday, the prime minister acknowledged those efforts had failed. “We aren’t going to present a bill into the House of Representatives until we believe it will be carried,” he told reporters. . .

Climate policy has proved a hot-button issue in Australia, where exports of coal and other commodities have underpinned 27 years of economic expansion. Some of the most closely contested electoral districts are in coal-rich regions. Coal is the source of 63% of Australia’s power, down from roughly 80% at the turn of the century.

Media Should Fear Muslims and Leftists, Not Trump

FrontPage

Daniel Greenfield

Media Should Fear Muslims and Leftists, Not Trump The media ought to be thanking Trump for protecting it from its allies. August 10, 2018 Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

Trump’s criticism of the media “is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence,” claims Artie Sulzberger, the latest scion of the New York Times dynasty.

Artie, who got the chairman job because of his last name, earns $5 million a year. The only threat to him came from a shameless bootlicking Washington Post article praising his journalistic humility.

“Yeah, we get it, you don’t like us. Fine. But do you have to put our lives in danger?” MSNBC’s Katy Tur whined. “He wants to endanger the lives of journalists,” columnist Connie Smith wailed at Trump.

How endangered is the modern media hack?

Reporters, pundits and other fake news media gobbers have been claiming that Trump is endangering them for a while now.

“How long before someone is seriously hurt, or worse?” New York Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg demanded last August.

How long? It’s been over a year now.

“Someone is going to do something awful to a journalist,” Jeffrey Toobin claimed on CNN. And they have. They’ve mocked, ridiculed and humiliated the media for its hysterical fake news nonsense.