03.19.24
Reporting on the Mirror – XITTER
It has been a gloriously short run for Don Lemon on Xitter. After announcing his new show on the platform, it took all of one show for him to become fired by Elon Musk. Actually, less than one show – at about the halfway point of Lemon interviewing Musk, we can actually see when Elon realizes what a flagrant mistake he made in hiring the former CNN pundit. This interview was such a ferociously bad look for Lemon that it is surprising that he went ahead and posted it on YouTube.
Here are some of the high(low)lights:
He questioned Musk about his prescription medication use.
Amusingly, they discussed Tesla vehicles, after we learned Lemon demanded he be given a Tesla Cybertruck.
Don had an untethered approach to The Great Replacement Theory.
Musk tells him no one should care what journalists think of them.
Lemon is incapable of understanding that Musk says they only take down illegal content on his platform.
Musk tells Lemon outright that he wants censorship, "so bad you can taste it."
By the end, everyone watching is feeling uncomfortable, and you can sense that Lemon's career on Xitter was over before the interview itself was over.
News Avoidance Syndrome – AXIOS
Que paso con that previous mandate we all had been lectured about?
Full Disclosure: Unlike the CVs of most at The Lincoln Project, we here at RFTH are not political consultants with a history of election work.
That said, if the Democrats and the Biden campaign are worried about appealing to Hispanic voters, maybe this should have been an undertaking begun – let's say – a lot earlier?! We learn now that the campaign went to a Mexican restaurant to make their appeal, and we happened to notice something:
President Biden will use a stop at a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix today to announce a national program to reach Latino voters — "Latinos con Biden-Harris" — as his campaign rushes to reverse gains that former President Trump appears to be making with Hispanic voters.
We could not help but notice a notable word usage in there – "Latinos." What happened to the previously-lectured-upon new "inclusive" non-gendered term, "Latinx"? This administration previously had been attached to the Latinx term, but it seems to have evaporated, now that desperation is setting in with this group of voters.
The Biden-Harris campaign will announce a national program today to reach Latino voters as they look to reverse gains that Trump appears to be making. https://t.co/7qNcSXVpA3
— Axios (@axios) March 19, 2024
Low-Octane Gaslighting – MSNBC
One of our favorite histrionics seen in the press the past few years has been the barnacle-like attachment they have had to the concept that conservatives want a "Handmaid's Tale" society of kept women reduced to baby-factory status. This has been a fever-dream dystopian fantasy cooked up in the minds of the left, all while claiming it is what the right wants.
Symone Sanders went there again, claiming if Donald Trump is elected, this is going to come to fruition. She may have a point, in one backhanded fashion. The last time Trump was president there was an outbreak of women in the red robes and white bonnets garb; these were liberal women VOLUNTARILY putting on these garments to protest against…their desire to not have to wear the outfit.
We swear…liberals…
WATCH: MSNBC Goes Full Clown World, Warns Women Will Dress Like in 'Handmaid's Tale' If Trump Winshttps://t.co/955LQgwo6D
— RedState (@RedState) March 18, 2024
Presentation Paradox – THE NEW YORK TIMES
In a matter of days, we have a reporter now complaining because conservatives are a raunchy lot who leer at women. At The Times, Lori Perkins went on a long rant about the raunchy evangelicals she sees (because anyone on the right is automatically an evangelical, for this to work). Her primary focus was that un-woke beer calendar that was released months ago, featuring prominent conservative women in suggestive attire, like knee-length skirts, kitchen aprons, and Dana Loesch toting guns. Yes, there was a bikini shot of Riley Gaines – a swimmer wearing – gasp – a swimsuit.
So, not only do we have a reporter filing a complaint about conservatives, it is 180 degrees in contradiction of the other reporters complaining about conservatives; so, they either want to shame women in robes, or they want to shame them in spaghetti strap bikinis. The best is the claim from Perkins that no one in progressive circles was bothered by that calendar – in her long rant about how the calendar bothered her:
The calendar was clearly meant to provoke liberals. But when photos of it began circulating online in December, progressives did not pay much attention.
Piety and Profanity: The Raunchy Christians Are Here https://t.co/JWJMLGs56S
— Lori Perkins (@LoriPerkinsRAB) March 17, 2024
Race to the Bottom – WASHINGTON POST
There just has to be something racist here, I know it!
It says plenty about the news industry when they have people covering specific areas of interest while exhibiting a very limited scope of knowledge about the topic, and then showing little actual interest in research. At WaPo, Emily Yahr is the Entertainment Reporter, but when it comes to some areas of entertainment, she shows herself to be both naive and incurious.
Last summer, she penned a screed about the uncomfortable racial feelings of Luke Combs rising up the charts with his version of Tracey Chapman's "Fast Car." Yahr displayed obliviousness to Chapman's accomplishments, as well as the fact she benefited tremendously from the royalties of Combs' cover version – an effort Chapman had endorsed fully. The pair recently were a highlight of the Grammy Awards when they performed the song together.
Now, it is Beyoncé releasing a country song, and Yahr was just convinced this would lead to fans of the genre handling this reality. She points to a lone example of a radio station saying it would not play Beyoncé by request – it turned out the station said as a country station, it does not play her music, unaware she had a country song because Sony had yet to announce to stations it was about to release her single.
Unraveling most of Yahr's pre-written screeds is that Beyoncé's song has been entrenched in the #1 position on the country charts for weeks.
"If we have these superstars saying country is cool, we need to be really careful and not try to shut that out.” Lots of talk at CRS about Beyoncé and "Texas Hold 'Em," still No. 1 on the Hot Country chart while climbing toward the Top 40 on country radio: https://t.co/u6AvTOwryG
— Emily Yahr (@EmilyYahr) March 18, 2024
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"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature covering the nation's deeply flawed aspects of journalism, where Brad Slager looks to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media.
