Better in their words…

Bonus Post: Media’s deportation spin collapses; judge arrests flop; Trump targets NGO status; Hegseth nukes Pentagon boards; CNN’s Jennings torches unions; Schiff panics over Dem brand.

Source: MEDIA BRAVELY FLED ☙ Sunday, April 27, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 

WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY

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Corporate media has already begun tiptoeing backwards out of the narrative landslide it created yesterday on news of the twin judicial arrests. Behold this morning’s bland, almost boring headline from the New York Times: “Wisconsin Judge Arrest: What We Know.” That’s it! Not, Trump Escalates War With Judicial Branch, or even Experts: Trump Arrests Cause Constitutional Crisis. Just “what we know,” like it’s too soon to draw any conclusions.

The Times was backpedaling wildly, like a crab with a windup windmill strapped to its back. The article is a hilarious study in narrative reverse-gear. Let’s use it to learn more media manipulation tactics! We’ll start with the story’s three opening paragraphs:

Can you see the psychological inversion? The first paragraph offers a neutral description of what happened, with nearly no slant (except “undocumented,” but that’s an NYT style guide requirement). More importantly, it plainly admitted what the judge did— “directing (him) out of her courtroom through a side door.”

Then the second paragraph —the bridge— primed readers to transition away from yesterday’s NYT narrative of outrage! It was the shortest of the three paragraphs, mentioning “condemnation” and “protests” but did not quote anybody or even say what the problem was.

See how easy it is to hide the stale narrative salami? You just oil across it without getting in the weeds.

By the third paragraph, the Times was ready, even eager, to throw in the towel. It did quote someone, the Attorney General, and placed in skeptical quotation marks the very same words it had just quoted as fact in the first paragraph (“escorting (him) out a back door”). It was not accidental that those critical narrative-framing paragraphs were bookended with the same repetitive statements of fact.

There were just enough differences between the two to give cover for journalistic neutrality. What Bondi called “escorting,” the Times corrected to “directing.” What Bondi labeled “a back door,” the Times primly revised to “a side door.” And of course, Bondi properly called him a “criminal defendant,” which the Times laundered down to “undocumented immigrant.” (That one was especially annoying, since the whole reason Flores-Ruiz was there was on account of his criminal case and not for any immigration matter. But never mind.)

Anyway, by the time the reader finished the third paragraph, everyone understood what the judge did, as an uncontroversial truth, as though it were not a hotly debated fact about ten minutes ago. Whatever— having wrapped that failed narrative in chains and sunk it in the Hudson River, now the Times could get down to putting out the flames its pyromaniacal reporters started yesterday.

🔥 The next paragraph, below an ad, quoted FBI Director Kash Patel’s tweet that “no one is above the law.” So —don’t miss this— the Times published the Administration’s complete position before quoting anybody else on the other side. It could be the first time this has ever happened. That’s how bad their error was yesterday, and they obviously know it.

The next seven paragraphs —still without quoting a single opponent— described what happened on the day Judge Dugan sealed her fate. Astonishingly, the Times described it straight. While the paper took pains to minimize what the judge did (she only “directed him out a side door”), it also reported helpful facts, like how the Clerk of Court had already told the arrest team it was okay to do it in the hallway outside Judge Dugan’s courtroom.

Following that was about twenty paragraphs divided into two sections. The first section was headed “Who is Judge Dugan?”, and the second (naturally) was titled “Who is Flores-Ruiz?” Twenty more paragraphs later, there was still not a single peep from anyone protesting the arrest. The persistent reader, having made it thus far, enjoyed no hint whatsoever as to what the controversy was all about.

The article described Ruiz’s criminal charges clinically and minimally, but honestly. “Mr. Flores-Ruiz got into a fight with his roommate,” the Times explained, “who had asked him to turn down the music he was playing. The roommate said Mr. Flores-Ruiz struck him about 30 times and also hit the roommate’s girlfriend and her cousin.”

Sounds like a delightful individual.

The article also mentioned —drily, but it was there— Ruiz’s previous 2013 deportation and his illegal re-entry to Milwaukee, where he’s lived off the books for twelve years. By this point, any reader who wasn’t an all-out open borders fanatic would pretty much side with the INS. Flores-Ruiz should be on the next plane to El Salvador.

And still not a single word from the Times about what is the controversy?

🔥 Finally, at long last, we reached the concluding section, blandly but thoughtfully titled, “What are some potential implications of the arrests?” Don’t skim by the word “potential” too fast. That’s a psychological nugget designed to stealthily hollow out any worries about dictatorships or autocracies springing up in the White House rose garden. In other words, right now, what we know is that the dangers remain “potential.”

And, they aren’t even dangers. They’re just implications. Implied stuff.

As the paper finally moved into the merits, it discovered a rare equanimity and balance that almost never appears in its pages. I defy you to find another example of the Times being this even-handed. Behold:

It then tossed around a few quick ideas about how this could affect other judges, and then, finally, at long last, the “condemnations” teased in the article’s second paragraph appeared —forty paragraphs after its debut.

Ready? It quoted only two concerned citizens, and no “Democratic leaders.” One of the quotes was not even a full sentence. It must have been humiliating for the Times, and thus is so delicious for we observers.

The first quote was from Ann Jacobs, a random Milwaukee lawyer, a local barrister whose only qualification was that she’d appeared before Judge Dugan once. According to the Times, Ann said, get ready, that Judge Dugan’s arrest was so “profound and unheard-of” it was difficult to foresee how it might affect judges’ behavior “and the court system at large.”

In other words, nobody knows yet. That’s hardly controversial.

The next and final quote was, confusingly, another Ann. This one was Ann Rohrer, 62, who is a health care worker from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Wauwatosa Ann joined a handful of elderly protestors defending Judge Dugan outside the courtroom on Friday. Why? The Times said Ann worries that “our democracy, our country is under attack.”

And that’s it. That’s the whole “controversy.”

🔥 There were no quotes from oleaginous Adam Schiff. No quotes from the cackling congressional coven of Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, and AOC. No quotes from ‘legal experts.’

Most telling of all— there were no quotes from any judges.

It’s like an indefinable controversy sprouted thin roots in the story’s second paragraph, but then dissolved back in melting Milwaukee snow by the time readers reached the Spring thaw of the article’s conclusion fifty paragraphs later.

And there you have it. This is how the malevolent media tries to frantically reel back a failed narrative when it realizes it’s leaned too far out over its skis. They bury it in confusion and “potential” problems, and hint that “we don’t know everything yet,” showing a kind of prudent reserve that, like a rare flower, only appears in its storied pages once in a decade.

The next step is to memory-hole this story. It’s about to disappear entirely. Mark my words.

They can make the Judge Dugan and Judge Cano stories go away, but they can’t resurrect their now-dead deportation narrative. Not to say they’ll try, of course, but two arrested judges later, everything is different.

Apart from that lone “What We Know” story, guess what was completely missing from the Times’ website? Any headlines or op-eds about deportations. Just like that, in three days, Trump squashed the narrative.

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Yesterday, the Washington Post ran a terrific story headlined, “U.S. attorney for D.C. accuses Wikipedia of ‘propaganda,’ threatens nonprofit status.” The sub-headline explained, “Trump appointee Ed Martin accuses the online encyclopedia of ‘allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public.’”

In an April 24th letter that somehow quickly made its way to the media, US Attorney Ed Martin wrote the Wikimedia Foundation demanding documents to support its apolitical nonprofit status. In the letter, he criticized the website, basically for rampant retconning. “Wikipedia is permitting information manipulation on its platform,” Ed wrote, “including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States.”

He added, “Masking propaganda that influences public opinion under the guise of providing informational material is antithetical to Wikimedia’s ‘educational’ mission.”

In other words, Ed was saying that, to us, Wikipedia looks a lot less like a charity and more like an influence operation. It looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and so it’s yet another Marxist NGO wearing a Daffy costume.

Is this a signal of how the Trump Administration plans to chop the NGO beast off at the roots? Tightening up the requirements to prove each group’s charitable, non-political purpose would be a great start. Right now, all you have to do is submit some pretty simple paperwork to the IRS. Practically everybody has a nonprofit or two laying around these days.

Here’s how the scam works: The Democrats invent a ridiculous issue, like transgender rights, that they know conservatives will never support. Then, they direct billions of your tax dollars from government coffers, giving generous grants to brand-new, democrat-controlled NGOs that “support transgender rights.” The NGOs enrich themselves and also donate money to politicians who “support transgender rights,” which is another way of saying Democrats.

It explains so much. Principally, we’ve now learned why there is always another “civil rights crusade” coming right behind the last one. Minority rights, women’s rights, gay rights, trans rights. The engine of new crusades is designed to keep the NGO gravy train moving and getting longer all the time.

Everyone gets the “rights” —i.e., the cash— except you. You get neither rights nor cash. Especially not “white, Christian, cisgender males.”

Anyway, the article quoted a bunch of folks who think Wikimedia is the best thing that ever happened, that Trump hates Wikipedia because he can’t control it, and that US Attorney Ed Martin loves Putin. Yawn. But it also included one unintentionally humorous one bon mot, intended to provoke outrage but which actually provoked LOLs: “In October 2023, Elon Musk, the owner of X, offered to donate $1 billion to the Wikimedia Foundation on the condition that it change the site’s name to ‘Dickipedia.’”

You must admit Elon has a way with words.

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Yesterday, United Press International ran a quiet but very encouraging story headlined, “Hegseth dismisses Pentagon advisory committees.” It was wonderful news. Susan Rice —yes, that Susan Rice— was hit hardest.

CLIP: Susan Rice whines about getting fired from cushy patronage job at DoD (1:09).

The DoD’s “Advisory Committees” are civilian panels that provide “independent advice” to the Department of Defense on “policy, strategy, technology, personnel, and operations.” They were authorized under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) of 1972, which supposedly ensures transparency (spoiler: it doesn’t) and regulates how advisory groups interact with the government.

You never saw a cronier crony-network. It’s packed with friends of DoD and military contractors, in a grotesque “you rub my back, I’ll rub yours” feedback cycle. Generals used “Advisory Committee opinions” to justify the things they want to do, and military industrial firms got lucrative contracts to build fantastic but practically useless high-tech weapons.

Technically, advisory committee members are “volunteers.” (Hang on a moment till I stop laughing.) They get travel reimbursements (first class, if you know how to fill out the form), daily stipends, and honorary titles that translate into very lucrative MIC gigs. Sit on the Defense Policy Board, for example, like Susan Rice did, and suddenly Raytheon or Booz Allen Hamilton is offering you a $400K “consulting” gig for five hours of “advising” a year.

In the clip above, you can see mega-entitled Susan Rice seething with righteous indignation over losing her patriotic “volunteer” position on the Defense Policy Board— one of the cushiest and most prestigious positions in Washington.

Over the years, DoD Advisory Committees multiplied in the dark like basement fungus. They are a swampy blob that promiscuously overlaps and intermingles. I couldn’t find any source listing the actual totals, maybe nobodyknows. But when Pete Hegseth ordered the blanket dismissal of all advisory committee members across the entire Department of Defense, it cancelled the terms of hundreds of advisors and dozens (30-40?) of major committees, plus even more ‘working groups’ and ‘subcommittees.’

Purges of the committees aren’t unprecedented. Trump 1.0 deleted some Obama/Biden holdovers. And Biden axed Trump’s appointees. But Hegseth completely cleaned the Pentagon’s advisory Deep State house, firing all of them in a historic “burn it down and start over” strategy.

Secretary Hegseth says the advisory committees will be re-staffed with people focused on winning wars, military merit, and supply-chain security, rather than patronage, equity, diversity, and keeping the war machine humming efficiently.

No wonder they want to get rid of him so badly.

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Finally, two clips for your Sunday enjoyment. First, here’s CNN’s lone token conservative anchor Scott Jennings took teacher’s union bigwig Randy Weingarten to school, excoriating her and delivering a lesson about how we all really feel about what she did to kids during the pandemic.

CLIP: CNN’s Scott Jennings unloads on teachers’ union president Weingarten (1:03).

Jennings lectured Weingarten like a principal scolding a high-school miscreant. “You have no right to gaslight us now about how you were the savior of America’s children,” he said, adding, “the damage to kids across this country, your union did that.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

🔥 Next, enjoy this clip of Senator Adam Schiff (D-Ca.) telling Bill Maher about his epiphany over the Democrats’ difficult image problem.

CLIP: Senator Schiff drops truth bombs about crime on Bill Maher (1:48).

In the clip, Schiff tells Maher about how, two years ago, his luggage was stolen out of his car at the San Francisco airport. So he had to make a late-night run to Target to buy necessities and toiletries. (Sam Brinton was not available for comment.) The first sign of trouble appeared when hard-to-locate Target staff had to open the locked-up shelf so Schiff could get shampoo. But the worst came while checking out, when the cashier —obviously not recognizing him— sympathized with his chain of disasters and said, “yeah, democrats are assholes.”

Schiff is still thinking about it. “If the cashier in South San Francisco at 10 at night believes that Democrats are assholes because the shampoo is locked up and my stuff got stolen out of the trunk,” Schiff said, “then we have a problem.”

Indeed. It’s been two years since then, and he’s still thinking about that night. If anything, the Democrat brand has become even more tarnished. Democrats control the entire state government in California. Blaming everything on Trump isn’t working anymore.

Have a beautiful and blessed Sunday! Thank you, profoundly, for your continuing loyal support. The mission is more important now than ever. Finally, return here tomorrow morning to kick of another terrific week of encouraging and essential news and snarky commentary.

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