Pravda became an official publication, or “organ”, of the ruling Soviet Communist Party. Pravda became the conduit for announcing official policy and policy changes and would remain so until 1991.
— Wikipedia

Throw out the First Amendment’s protection for journalists who were tasked with being government watchdogs. They’re now mostly utilized as lapdogs eagerly drooling to stay part of the privileged in-crowd and benefit from the generous salaries that come with such exposure. We’ve seen them often commit the worse of journalism violations (bias-by-omission) and they’re expected to do it yet again.

Normally, these kind of Democrat courtesy requests aren’t made public….

“It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies,” Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office, wrote in the letter, according to a draft copy obtained by CNN.

The letter, which said an impeachment inquiry with no supporting evidence should “set off alarm bells for news organizations,” will be sent to executives helming the nation’s largest news organizations, including CNN, The New York Times, Fox News, the Associated Press, CBS News, and others, a White House official familiar with the matter said.
— CNN, 9/12/23

Now THIS is quite the dossier of cut-and-pastable talking points.

We all know today’s media needs to be spoon-fed with tips other than what they find, sitting on their asses, from social media or other news sites.

The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.
— Ben Rhodes, Obama deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, 5/8/16

That said, many of the usual suspects are dutifully obeying in lockstep.

Since gaining the House majority in January, House Republicans have aggressively investigated Biden and his son, claiming without evidence that they engaged in an influence-peddling scheme. The allegations echo those that former President Donald Trump has made for years against Biden and his family.
— Associated Press, 9/12/23

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins and New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman repeatedly noted there’s “no evidence” to support claims made by ex-President Donald Trump and Republicans to justify impeaching President Joe Biden.
— Mediaite, 9/13/23

Republicans claim they have unearthed evidence of wrongdoing by the president and his family that could rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. In fact, there’s little to back up their allegations.
— New York Times, 9/12/23

Months of Republican allegations and investigations into President Biden have led to the GOP-controlled House of Representatives launching an impeachment inquiry. Republicans have lobbed unsubstantiated allegations against Biden since taking over the House, but have turned up no evidence of wrongdoing so far.
— PBS, 9/12/23

‘Hi, this is Kevin McCarthy and you have reached the House Republicans. We can’t come to the phone right now because we’ve launched an evidence-free impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden!’
— USA Today, 9/12/23

The House has voted to impeach just three Presidents: Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump, who was impeached twice. But even the launch of an impeachment inquiry against a President has only happened a handful of times. Two impeachment experts tell TIME that there is less evidence implicating Biden of wrongdoing than in any of those previous inquiries.
— TIME, 9/12/23

Republicans, who now narrowly control the House, have accused Biden of profiting while he served as vice president from 2009 to 2017 from his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business ventures. But a 2020 Senate investigation and several months of digging by House Republicans this year have failed to turn up evidence of wrongdoing by Biden.
— Reuters, 9/12/23

Thanks in part to official revelations from the Durham Report, most of the informed electorate knows many of the allegations that dogged President Donald Trump were fictitious, malevolent, and the media dutifully repeated those allegations despite a lack of direct evidence that Trump and those in his orbit did anything wrong, let alone anything treasonous. But the media did the job and a large portion of Americans still believe Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the 2020 election from Hillary Clinton just because Jake Tapper and Rachel Maddow said so. To this day, millions of Americans still don’t know what was on Hunter Biden’s laptop and believe it’s irrelevant because mostly “right-wing” media is talking about it.

This appears to be the strategy of White House warroomers like Sams who want those who watch the Today Show and The View to get from any impeachment inquiries.

It will be an interesting exercise in human behavior to watch if those who are told to do something will actually obey and if there are those who’ll behave like petulant teenagers who do the opposite of what they’re told because that’s how the wiring works….

Just before the 2020 election, Joe Biden and his campaign said his son Hunter hadn’t made money from China — and that Biden hadn’t met one of Hunter’s Ukrainian business associates while he was vice president, except for maybe a brief hello.

Both of those claims were false, according to recent sworn testimony by Hunter Biden and his business partner, Devon Archer.
— Axios, 9/13/23

It’s not clear if Sam’s memo is in reaction to this Axios piece, but if the media has finally grown tired of lying for the Biden administration, it could make for some interesting viewing once the inquiry starts rolling. The media may have to explain to their consumers why they didn’t report on these facts years ago and why the “there’s no evidence” excuse will be regarded, going forward, as the bullshit lie it always was.

Asked about the conflicting accounts of Biden’s comments in 2020, an aide said: “As the president said at the time when he was defending himself against Donald Trump’s torrent of lies — and as he’s said since — he didn’t discuss Hunter’s business dealings with him and wasn’t in business with his son.”
— CNN, 9/12/23

Again, the Durham Report mostly concluded that almost everyone involved with election interference and subsequent cover-up have gone unpunished, “intelligence officials” certified lies to protect Biden in 2020, and the media near-effectively censored information that kept a good portion of the nation from casting an informed vote.

A vote that has had severe repercussions financially and security-wise for the nation.

In its letter Wednesday, the White House will ask news organizations to be more clear-eyed in their coverage of the impeachment inquiry, and not to fall prey to the traps of false equivalency in reporting.

“Covering impeachment as a process story – Republicans say X, but the White House says Y – is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable,” Sams wrote.

“And in the modern media environment, where every day liars and hucksters peddle disinformation and lies everywhere from Facebook to Fox, process stories that fail to unpack the illegitimacy of the claims on which House Republicans are basing all their actions only serve to generate confusion, put false premises in people’s feeds, and obscure the truth,” Sams added.
— CNN, 9/12/23

Rush Limbaugh often aired montages of media people using the same words and/or “action lines” after clearly coordinated directives coming from a Democrat West Wing were heeded. Sams’ directives are nothing really earthshattering or new. But after years of being told “the border is secure” or “inflation is transitory” or Biden’s staff has a hard time keeping up with him, it will be a tall task to expect all of the media to obey and look the other way.

Stating the obvious, impeachment is serious shit and millions of people will start to pay attention. When they do, some will begin to see what’s been hidden from them because the Democrats and their media believed them to be stupid enough to fall for the spin. Liberals can tend to turn when what little intelligence they do have is insulted.

There are still the ol’ reliables.

The Republican House-led investigations into Biden have yet to provide any direct evidence that the president financially benefited from Hunter Biden’s career overseas.
— CNN, 9/12/23

CNN ended with that little “Okay, massah. I’z do what I’z told”.

That “direct evidence” caveat was gleefully blown off when it came to “Russian Collusion” or the “improper phone call” based on hearsay regarding Ukraine, or even now when states are trying to remove Donald Trump from state ballots because they claim he violated the 25th Amendment for staging an insurrection while NOT ONE of the charges against him is for… wait for it… insurrection.

Trump’s not been charged with insurrection because all who’ve seen the unedited portion of his January 6 rally speech know he never suggested violence or insurrection. And now the Biden White House is obviously worried that Biden’s constant string of lies will be revealed to the world over the coming weeks and months at the same time partisan district attorneys will be trying Donald Trump during the heat of the campaign season.

Even should Joe Biden not be the 2024 Democrat standard bearer, his successor will have to answer for whatever aid and comfort he or she gave those lies; ignorance will be a lame excuse and should be a disqualifier.

Unfortunately for the media, Americans do understand enough about basic business to know in order to receive payment for goods, you have to have goods to sell. Aside from the “brand”, the Bidens haven’t done much to have millions sent to their multiple “businesses” and bank accounts, and it’s even laughable for even a loyal Chris Hayes viewer to assume all that money came in and “The Big Guy” didn’t get a taste.

The pushback will be well-deserved and brutal.

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., called out U.K. Channel 4 Washington correspondent Siobhan Kennedy on Tuesday for claiming that Americans “can’t see” evidence that President Biden has committed wrongdoing worthy of impeachment.
— Fox News, 9/12/23

The desperation from the Biden administration comes from an obvious reaction of guilt. We’ll see how further down the media’s credibility will sink to cover for a corrupt president and his family of leeches.

Donald Trump indicted on more than 30 counts related to business fraud
Donald Trump indicted in hush money probe
Donald Trump indicted; expected to surrender early next week
Trump Likely to Be Arraigned on Tuesday
Trump is indicted in N.Y. Here’s what it means and what happens next.
Trump to face criminal charges, sending US into uncharted waters
Trump indicted, becoming first ex-president charged with a crime
Trump ‘won’t take plea deal’ as he heads to NY to be booked on 30+ counts
After indictment, Trump will play the victim – and the tactic will work for many Republicans

There was also some of the standard raw stupidity on display…

According to uscourts.gov, a cardinal principal of the justice system in the United States is that any person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
— Fox News, 3/31/23

In 2009, I observed the following example of political irony….

If anything, the word “hypocrite” should be part of the proposed legislation’s name.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Wednesday he would support changing state law to allow him to appoint an interim successor to Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat while a special election is held. The succession law was changed in 2004, when Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., became his party’s presidential nominee and Republican Mitt Romney was the state’s governor. Before the change, the governor would have appointed a replacement to serve until the next general election.

Guess who was behind that…?

What Mr. Kennedy doesn’t volunteer is that he orchestrated the 2004 succession law revision that now requires a special election, and for similarly partisan reasons. John Kerry, the other Senator from the state, was running for President in 2004, and Mr. Kennedy wanted the law changed so the Republican Governor at the time, Mitt Romney, could not name Mr. Kerry’s replacement.

“Prodded by a personal appeal from Senator Edward M. Kennedy,” reported the Boston Globe in 2004, “Democratic legislative leaders have agreed to take up a stalled bill creating a special election process to replace U.S. Senator John F. Kerry if he wins the presidency.”

Now that the state has a Democratic Governor, Mr. Kennedy wants to revert to gubernatorial appointments.

Democrats have that chronic bad habit of being blinded by hate and so-wanting to damage Republicans today, they fail to see how it could come back and bite them tomorrow.

Mary Trump Celebrates Her Uncle’s Indictment: ‘Pop Those Corks’
Joy, vindication and anxiety: Democrats absorb a consequential moment.
‘Restoration Of Faith’: Liberals Celebrate News Of Trump Indictment
Stormy Daniels Pops Champagne to Celebrate Trump Indictment
New Yorkers celebrate Trump indictment: ‘We should be popping champagne’
Jimmy Kimmel Celebrates Trump Indictment: ‘Melania Is Smiling’
‘A great day in American history’: New Yorkers react to Trump indictment with celebration and relief
Trump’s Hollywood critics cheer his indictment: ‘Finally!’
Democrats giddy at Trump indictment
‘Not Above the Law’ Rally Planned at Mass. State House in Response to Trump Indictment
Former FBI Director James Comey reacts to Trump indictment: ‘It’s been a good day’

The indictment of former President Donald Trump has created that potential again.

Justice Department ‘is irritated by Manhattan DA’s indictment of Donald Trump because they believe hush money charges are weak and could damage more serious Georgia electoral fraud and January 6 probes’

Unlike charges against Trump that were rejected by more level-headed investigators while also falling well after appropriate Statue of Limitations, Joe Biden’s financial gains via his son Hunter’s shady business dealings come with real, current receipts.

Joe Biden is listed as an ‘accomplice’ in six alleged white collar crimes in an explosive 634-page report on the contents of Hunter’s laptop by a right wing transparency organization, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com. The incendiary report by nonprofit Marco Polo, a right-wing transparency group, details accusations of 459 crimes allegedly committed by Hunter including prostitution offenses, distribution and possession of drugs, defrauding government agencies, illegal foreign lobbying and money laundering.

The report – published by founder Garrett Ziegler, a 26-year-old former Trump White House aide – claims that Joe is complicit in tax evasion, violations of the Presidential Records Act and the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and using nonpublic information from a government job for financial gain. The six incidents involving Joe listed in the report span from June 2010 to December 2016.
— Daily Mail, 10/24/22

And that doesn’t even include the numerous violations regarding mishandling of classified documents that keep being found here and there.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the Democratic chairman of the Intelligence Committee, chided the Biden administration Wednesday for the lack of information being shared about classified documents that were found at the homes of current and former presidents.

“This is where the Biden administration gets an absolute failing grade,” Warner said on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” “Their position is outrageous.”
— NBC News, 3/29/23

The only thing stalling investigations to date is the current United States Attorney General Merrick Garland, who’ll run cover for the Bidens until Joe’s term is up. Once he’s out of the Oval Office, there are numerous city and attorney generals who will have a very easy time putting together a strong case for indictment.

Biden White House mum on Trump indictment
‘No. I’m not going to talk about the Trump indictment’: Biden refuses to comment on hush money case

Of course, the left will be whining about how petty and vindictive Republicans would be to indict a former president. For the first time ever, Democrats opened that door and we’ll see who decides to walk on in….

Every local prosecutor in the country will now feel that he or she has free rein to criminally investigate and prosecute presidents after they leave office. Democrats currently cheering the charges against Mr. Trump may feel differently if — or when — a Democrat, perhaps even President Biden, ends up on the receiving end of a similar effort by any of the thousands of prosecutors elected to local office, eager to make a name for themselves by prosecuting a former president of the United States.
— NY Times, 4/1/23

Yes, it is second grade to point and say “They did it first!” But they did and when it comes to being petty and vindictive, Democrats keep rewriting the book Republicans now have bookmarked.

How’s that working for ya?

It’s almost at the point when the media demands we must accept what they tell us as truth, the polar opposite should rightfully be prioritized. Not just because those proclamations erroneously influenced popular opinion (including federal elections), but because those who are overpaid to distribute “news” can’t justify their pay if they have to admit to their employers and millions of people they were very wrong.

So they won’t.

Here are some blatant examples of important stories they got wrong and have yet to formally apologize to the public and the aggrieved….

PolitiFact: 2017 Lie of the Year: Russian election interference is a ‘made-up story’
USA Today: Hillary Clinton says Trump associates helped Russia meddle in the 2016 election
NY Times: Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence
Washington Post: Hillary Clinton just accused Trump associates of collusion with Russia
Politico: Schiff: There is now ‘more than circumstantial evidence’ of Trump-Russia collusion
MSNBC: Team Trump sees imaginary ‘evidence’ of Clinton, Russia collusion

And some even received formerly-prestigious awards for what they got very wrong.

Reuters: Washington Post, NY Times win Pulitzers for work on Trump, Putin

Almost every news outlet provided near 24-7 coverage of “Trump collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election” for close to five years.

CNN: Hillary Clinton personally approved plan to share Trump-Russia allegation with the press in 2016, campaign manager says
Bloomberg: Hillary Clinton Approved Trump-Russia Leak to Media, Her Campaign Manager Says

Confirmation to all those “conspiracy theorists” who insisted the whole Steele dossier was a Clinton campaign-DNC hit job was essentially a one day story and no apologies should be expected.

Media-imposed censorship took a precedent-setting turn during the 2020 election.

Variety: Twitter Still Blocking a NY Post Story Based on Alleged Hunter Biden Emails, Newspaper’s Account Remains Frozen
Politico: Insisting that the Hunter Biden laptop is fake is a trap. So is insisting that it’s real.
Rolling Stone: Twitter, Facebook Allow Pizzagate-Esque Conspiracy Theories to Spread About Hunter Biden
Fortune: Facebook moves to limit spread of dubious Biden laptop story
PolitiFact: Fact-checking unproven claims about Hunter Biden and child pornography

The media’s declarations have been so blatant that they’ve begun to, literally, pay the price for the harm caused.

CNN: The Washington Post settles lawsuit with Nick Sandmann after viral March for Life controversy
Law & Crime: Covington Catholic’s Nick Sandmann Settles $275 Million NBC Lawsuit for ‘Confidential’ Amount
Reuters: CNN settles defamation lawsuit with Kentucky teen in Lincoln Memorial case

There are numerous stories that the media insisted we blow off as “conspiracy theories” that have turned out to be true, and controversies arise that make no sense until common sense is deployed.

Add it all up and you’ll understand why CNN+ crashed and burned so quickly. Fewer accept what the media tells us as worthy of their time, let alone having their intelligence constantly insulted.

Cision’s annual State of the Media report, which looks at the key challenges journalists face today, is drawn from responses from over 3,800 journalists across 17 global markets. The number one challenge journalists cited? Maintaining credibility.

According to the report, 32% of those surveyed said that they struggle to combat accusations of fake news and remain a trusted news source; and 57% feel that the public has lost trust in the media over the past year.
— PR Week, 5/24/22

So when the media insists you believe there was no “widespread vote fraud” during the 2020 election, don’t expect any mea culpas as this script flips.

2020

FactCheck.org: Baseless Conspiracy Theory Targets Another Election Technology Company

2022

CBS news: U.S. finds no evidence flaws in Dominion voting machines were ever exploited
Uncover DC: CISA Advisory Report Admits Voting Machine Vulnerabilities: Denies Exploitation

The media will blatantly lie to your face because for some reason, once someone is granted employment in the entertainment industry, he or she is now about 60 I.Q. points higher than the American population average. These people have unbridled disdain for their viewers and if you have any doubts, look at the dumbed-down nature of their broadcast programming. If they consider you a moron in their primetime divisions, the newsrooms really think you’re stupid, thus their insistence you take their word for it.

“If Biden got in, you’d be paying $7, $8, $9,” Trump said the day before Election Day at a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich. “Then they’d say, ‘Get rid of your car.’”
— Washington Post, 11/12/20

So, make it easy. Whatever the media declares fact you must accept and believe, think the opposite and you’ll sleep easier.

Such was the case when MSNBC’s Ari Melber expressed concern that Elon Musk and his acquisition of Twitter can now have profound affects on, among other things, future elections….

Not much commentary is required on this seeing how we’ve all seen how Twitter was used, especially during the 2020 presidential election, to silence one candidate over another, silence a major news publication whose reporting would have been influential in giving voters vital information about a candidate, silenced anyone who attempted to share pertinent information, and to this day silences those who share posts that influences how parents are informed about what their children are being taught behind their backs. All this by rich people who already own social media platforms, like rich brat Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

For Melber to now be concerned that Musk’s Twitter can be used to silence opposition or squelch information that may sway an election is laughable seeing how he and many others in the legacy media cheered Jack Dorsey’s Twitter for doing exactly that when it benefited Joe Biden over Donald Trump.

And as far as trusting Elon Musk, he hasn’t come close to lying to the American people as much as Democrats and their media have. No where close.

The media was very wrong on both counts and the ramifications were significant. A presidential candidate and later president spent valuable time fending off media attacks, a lengthy special counsel investigation, and two failed impeachments which we now officially know was a smear operation by the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee. Despite widespread social media censorship and legacy media derision, it turns out the Hunter Biden laptop (and all of the incriminating data within) story was true after all.

Seeing how multi-million dollar salaries depend on the public having trust in those who deliver news, it comes as no surprise that the media is being reluctant to admit they were wrong again. They’re going to dig the credibility hole deeper by today acting like they knew the media should have taken the 2020 October Surprise seriously instead of flailing their arms in crazed opposition disgust.

The problem is, they are and they did.

What’s most annoying is “How stupid you think Americans are.”

The media today will LIE to our faces, claiming they really, really wanted to know more about the Hunter Biden-laptop story when it broke in October 2020, despite their very public shaming of Americans who did want to know more and were punished on social media for sharing it with others.

It’s a forgone conclusion that the squelching of the existence and contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop was one component that swung the presidential election for Joe Biden as millions now admit had they heard about it, may have either voted for Donald Trump or stayed home on Election Day. Now, they’ll be trying to decide, on the fly, whether they should hope Hunter takes a fall to save Joe or let the shady finances documented on the laptop take out failing “the big guy” before the 2022 midterms.

We expect the media to choose sides. We expect the media to play to their audience. We expect the media to report or omit to suit their political narrative. Insulting the intelligence of the media’s viewers is a bridge crossed because their videos don’t lie even though the overpaid commenters do.

Maybe that’s the problem: politicians are considered temporary, federal employees are lifers and they’re perfectly comfortable reminding the elected of their place. The phrase “I don’t know” has been replaced by employees routinely telling oversight congressmen what they won’t do.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) got into a heated spat over the whereabouts of Hunter Biden’s laptop during a House Judiciary hearing on oversight of the FBI’s Cyber Division on Tuesday.  The Republican firebrand used his allotted time to grill the division’s assistant director Bryan Vorndran, who repeatedly told Gaetz he didn’t have any information on where the hard drive belonging to President Joe Biden’s son is currently located.

‘Sir, I’m not here to talk about the laptop. I’m here to talk about the FBI’s cyber program,’ Vorndran told Gaetz after the lawmaker asked where it was.
— Daily Mail, 3/29/22

People who are well-paid, if not overpaid, with dollars taxpayers should cough up documents formally requested within a reasonable amount of time and if they’re summoned to appear at a hearing, should be prepared to truthfully answer any question posed to them. If they can’t (or won’t), they should have to clear out their desk and find a job in the real world where the rules are very different.

§192. Refusal of witness to testify or produce papers
Every person who having been summoned as a witness by the authority of either House of Congress to give testimony or to produce papers upon any matter under inquiry before either House, or any joint committee established by a joint or concurrent resolution of the two Houses of Congress, or any committee of either House of Congress, willfully makes default, or who, having appeared, refuses to answer any question pertinent to the question under inquiry, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000 nor less than $100 and imprisonment in a common jail for not less than one month nor more than twelve months.

Seeing how the average federal employee salary is $90,510, these fines are pretty low. Hopefully a future Congress will one day make it hurt a lot more if they publicly say “no” to the boss. That could do a lot to assure the public that those whom they keep well fed will not only do their jobs but also can be truly held responsible for their performance.