Townhall has a great offer for VIP subscriptions with a big 40% one-time discount this week only. As a sample of the content you can get, we are making the VIP column "Riffed From the Headlines" available to all readers this week. To receive this offer use promo code 2022 at this sign-up link – Townhall VIP offer.
"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature with coverage on the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation. We'll look to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media.
11.11.21
Prose & Contradiction – CNN
- Jeffrey Toobin lacks not only a webcam filter but also any mirrors.
We kick off a Rittenhouse-intensive column with CNN's perpetual embarrassment, their shame-free legal expert, Jeffrey Toobin. The man will – and should – be forever lambasted for his masturbatory Zoom meeting fiasco, and CNN should be scorched for allowing him to remain on the air.
Thus, it becomes compulsory to highlight any time he makes a verbal gaffe that is particularly revelatory when juxtaposed with his exposed past, such as his attempted critique of Kyle Rittenhouse.
Glass house: @CNN's Zoom masturbator @JeffreyToobin: #KyleRittenhouse is lucky it isn't 'illegal to be an idiot' https://t.co/KRf1X7p4FF
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) November 10, 2021
Low Octane Gas Lighting – CNN
- Don't read the news yourself, take their word what is being reported.
Laura Coates was on a daytime panel to discuss the Rittenhouse trial when she was given a relatively sane question – considering the decision to have the accused, Kyle Rittenhouse, be cross-examined, would she have made the decision to have him take the stand? Coates gave a relatively insane answer.
- "If I was Defense, I would have put him on the stand, because of course, remember, the publicity surrounding this trial – there was a lot of sympathetic media toward him. People who thought about him as sort of a martyr."
A CNN guest claims that Kyle Rittenhouse was a beneficiary of "a lot of sympathetic media towards him." pic.twitter.com/Csgrha5UgX
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) November 10, 2021
Coates may be considered a legal analyst by the CNN producers, but she is in no way a media expert, because how can she say the press has taken Kyle's side, given the slanted coverage on display all week?
A sample of the press which is supposedly in the tank for Rittenhouse: pic.twitter.com/SI7UevuHXs
— Brad Slager - Incontinent On Another Continent (@MartiniShark) November 11, 2021
Blue-anon – MORE PERFECT UNION
- Believe the claims of racism, just don't ask them for evidence to support the claims.
One of the odd developments of the trial is the insistence that racism and white supremacy are on display. In a way of becoming the most hysterical on this subject, Max Berger arrives to make the most declarative of declarations.
The right-wing defense of Kyle Rittenhouse is an extremely dark portent for our democracy.
— Max Berger (@maxberger) November 10, 2021
He's like an evil John Brown -- willing to use violence to defend the racial hierarchy against the rising tide of multiracial democracy. Defending him is an endorsement of apartheid.
Now, amidst the wave of race-based critiques of Rittenhouse, the one question that always goes unanswered is when there is a white shooter and white aggressors and a white judge and white prosecutors and white defense lawyers, where is the racism, exactly?
Artisanal-Crafted Narratives – RYAN GRIM
- If they insist on it enough it may become a reality.
Ryan Grim wanted to distinguish himself in the flood of stupid takes, but with so many already focused on the non-existent racial aspects, he decided to go in another direction to be noticed. Ryan decided to go with the guns-and-violence angle, believing he hit upon a novel angle on the matter.
What people could do with anger about the Rittenhouse trial is advocate for a law that says that if you bring a weapon to a public place where you know violence is basically guaranteed, you lose any self defense grounds
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 10, 2021
This follows another theorem in the press that Rittenhouse had no business coming to Kenosha and that he instigated the violence with his arrival. This, of course, requires, ignoring the fact that what drew him to the city was the days of violence that had already been playing out, but for some reason does not count.
Stealth Story Evolution – CBS NEWS
- The "Guilty Until Proven Innocent" vibe is strong with this network.
It has become a telling detail in the press that they routinely use the term "allegedly" when it concerns individuals of a political position. Note how so many of the January 6 rioters are declared insurrectionists in the press, despite the fact that not only have they yet to go to trial but none of them are even being charged with insurrection or treason.
CBS exposed themselves in this fashion. Here is the synopsis currently on display from their morning show.
Kyle Rittenhouse testified in his murder trial yesterday, breaking down in tears as he told the jury he killed two men at a Black Lives Matter protest last year in self-defense. pic.twitter.com/ImQTlBbYM6
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) November 11, 2021
While not completely objectionable, it differs slightly from their original posting, which was in fact completely objectionable.
Interesting rewrite here https://t.co/dwhydSyYFi pic.twitter.com/s9DefSuAwK
— Dawn (@aurora_g96) November 11, 2021
Presentation Paradox – MEDIAITE
The media is bad enough, but when a site charged with covering the media messes things up it is even worse. And, even funnier, Mediaite columnist Tommy Christopher is consistently a paradox, to the extent you could say he is not the brightest crayon against the wall in the knife drawer.
In a reflexive defense of Joe Biden, Christopher boldly disputes that the president referred to the great baseball pitcher Satchel Paige as a "Negro," contradicting the reports from outlets such as our own.
No, Joe Biden Did Not Refer to Satchel Paige as a 'Negro' During Veterans Day Speech https://t.co/N0wU4nsWqK
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) November 11, 2021
Then Tommy does the less-than-brilliant thing – he posted the transcript of Biden's speech, where he definitively did refer to Paige as a "Negro."
Do not believe your lying ears, Mr. Christopher is here to set the record wrong.
You literally have the transcript in the article - you can say he didn’t mean it or he slipped up but it’s right there. pic.twitter.com/HD3yZZZh5x
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) November 11, 2021
Join the conversation as a VIP Member