Peak Prosperity Publishing Note: This is the Media section of Dave Collum’s Year in Review (exactly as it appears in the full review). We are posting this as a means to have a conversation in the comments on this portion of Dave’s Year in Review. We will post one section per day for the holiday week, each with it’s own comment section.
The full Year in Review can be found HERE.
Media
The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.~ William Colby, Former CIA Director
The CIA is the world’s biggest sponsor of "journalism”.1
~ Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The mass media is largely worthless now—stenographers to power. When the great journalists—Seymour Hersh, Matt Taibbi, and Glenn Greenwald—are publishing on Substack, it is time to refocus from the New York Times to Substack and other alternative media. Facebook, a former conduit of news stories, has been busted rigging the news in ways that would make the Rooskies cringe. Biden’s laptop? Nope. Can’t post that. Anti-vaccine stories. Nope. YouTube used to post videos made by you. If there is hot footage, searching will afford corporate news stories about the hot footage. I also used to find great interviews simply by going to YouTube’s home page: they had figured out my tastes. Now it appears to be competing with TikTok. Taibbi refers to all this as the “information cartel.”
Facebook’s President of Global Affairs: Can someone quickly remind me why we were removing—rather than demoting/labeling—claims that Covid is man-made?Facebook’s vice president in charge of content policy: We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more. We shouldn’t have done it.2
Censorship is not just about authoritarian control; it is also about taking out your competitor. It is a big industry.3 It is about rewriting history.4 I’ve written about the fundamental rights granted to the media by the Constitution and its fundamental role in a functioning democracy. I have written about the disintegration of the media standards, which I place first on the list of symptoms of a collapsing empire. (Number two is the weaponization of the Department of Justice.) I am unsure how the mainstream media retrieve their credibility any more than prostitutes can regain their virginity. The deed is done. I was probably living in a delusional world my whole life. They were probably never free of the gravitational pull of wealth and power, but it went wild when the internet appeared and the scramble for dominance and control began.
Disturbing Poll Reveals 26% Of Americans Still Trust The Media~ The Babylon Bee Headline
The Firing of Tucker Carlson. At one time I detested the bow-tied Tucker Carlson, but he found his voice, I became more tolerant of his idiosyncrasies, and maybe I have developed my own. Unlike his less thoughtful brethren at Fox, he reaches across the aisle to debate those holding the opposing view. I’ve wondered out loud, however, if he is what is called a “limited hangout” or “controlled opposition”, in which his role is to make those on the right perceive they have an advocate. Some have questioned possible Deep-State ties.5 Nevertheless, he was Fox’s biggest draw, and they slaughtered the sacred cash cow: why? The simple answer may be the correct one: profits are secondary to guiding the preferred narrative to its destination.
This moment is too inherently ridiculous to continue, so it won’t.~ Tucker Carlson, rephrasing Stein’s Law two days after being fired
In the months preceding his departure, Tucker recklessly touched third rails with sensitive body parts. These incidents included:
- He called out the CIA for whacking JFK6,7 and even took on MKUltra for putting a mind meld on Jack Ruby to whack Oswald.8 He claimed that a witness to the remaining Warren Report under lock-and-key confirmed the CIA’s role.9 Tucker called the botched Watergate break-in a psyop (psychological operation) designed to take down Nixon with the help of CIA asset Bob Woodward.10 Calling ex-CIA head Brennan “one of the most sinister and dishonest figures in American life” while tarring Pompeo with a similar brush.11 He seemed like he was taunting the Deep State for Schumer’s “six ways from Sunday” response.
- His open disdain for the Covid and vaccine narrative12,13,14 must have pissed off Pfizer, which has rained pain and retribution on those who challenge this kingpin of the biomedical crime syndicate.
- Relentlessly bucking the Ukraine War narrative15,16 is pissing on the legs of the industrial-military and banking-military complexes simultaneously. Wailing on ESG is to undermine one of the bigger scams of Blackrock, who happen to be a 15% owner of Fox.17
- Joining the 9/11 Truth Movement and questioning the collapse of Building 718 is most definitely not cooperating with Operation Mockingbird, the CIA’s program to control access of all public media.19 (I am a full-blown Truther myself.20 The official 9/11 narrative fails at many levels.21,22,23)
- Challenging the January 6th narrative undermines the efforts of both parties to block The Donald from re-entering the Halls of Power. That Speaker MacCarthy handed Tucker 14,000 hours24 (or is it 41,000 hours25?) of the January 6th tapes was handing Tucker a weapon to self-destruct. Tucker released only a few minutes, which proved enough to get the most legendary protester, QAnon Shaman, sprung from a four-year prison term. This, in turn, foreshadowed how the tapes would reveal the J6 trials to be treasonous by depriving victims of their Constitutional rights. Those videos remain largely inaccessible despite (or perhaps because of) their profound importance to fair trials for the accused. With gritted teeth, I hammered the weaponization of the DOJ and following J6 in my 2020 YIR.26 Staffing the courts with defacto brownshirts is what rising authoritarian states do, which I return to in Part 3.
- Days before getting fired, Tucker expressed disdain for the media. His biggest regret was supporting the Iraq War.27
Tucker seemed to be on the cusp of blowing up the J6 stories with all those tapes and a soon-to-be-buried interview of the chief of the Capitol Police describing the role of Federal agents in the crowd whipping up trouble: "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that crowd was filled with federal agents”.28 That Tucker was bearing down on the J6 psyop may have had the authoritarians on edge. I will be returning to J6 in Part 3. As articulated by Glenn Greenwald, both parties needed Tucker’s career in journalism summarily executed.29 They tried a few lurid accusations of Tucker’s bad behavior in the workplace,30 but released audio tapes revealed a B+ potty mouth.
Atrocities like, “I can never assess my appearance. I wait for my postmenopausal fans to weigh in on that" aren’t exactly a “grab the pussy” moment. Whistleblower Abby Grossberg claimed that employees were bullied and subjected to sexist comments, but her lawyer later confessed that she never met Tucker.31 CNN tried to undermine his credibility, but it came off as a compendium of their lies.32 The FBI and DOJ tried to reconstruct Federal agent Ray Epps’ story so he could sue Tucker,33 but Ray’s role as an embedded instigator at J6 got so embarrassing that the authorities had to fake indicting him on trivial charges.34 Ray will not be put in solitary confinement, tortured, go years without a trial, or get a ginormous jail sentence because Ray is a Fed. Attorneys General Merrick Garland denies this,35 but he is diabolical and morally bankrupt.
Tucker has been nearly alone in smoking out the big issues of our time with a unique breadth, edge and consistency that neither Republican shills like Sean Hannity nor DNC conduits like Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow could hope to approach.36~ David Stockman
An ex-Army psyop expert suggested that Tucker needed to go to maintain an “uninformed semi-lobotomized quasi retarded population.”37 It’s catchy and simple but may miss the point that historically important events in the planning stages might have made gagging Tucker imperative.
Along comes a $1.7 billion-dollar Alex-Jones-scale defamation lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion (Smartmatic), the maker of the voting machines used to ensure that the 2020 election was the cleanest election in history…or something like that. The CEO of Dominion was ostensibly run by a Biden transition team member, but Dominion’s real owner traces through a series of shell companies to Beijing.39 (It was later reported by a Georgia district court that Dominion’s machines do indeed suck.40) In any previous era, Fox would have been in the Supreme Court squealing about Constitutional protections of the press, and the Dominion suit would have gone away. In this case, however, Fox settled out-of-court for $787 million without a whimper.41 The (in)famous Alan Dershowitz said the Dominion-Fox settlement made no sense and that he hadn’t seen anything like that in 60 years.42 Even a neophyte knew something was up noting the convenience of the lawsuit the day Tucker got fired.
I wandered over to Yahoo Finance to find out what the huge win did to Dominion’s share price only to find that they had been taken private in 2018. Nice way to hide the details of the 2020 election behind a paywall. Dominion’s annual revenues were $17–18 million along with some redacted parts that always make me suspicious.43,44 The absurdity is that $787 million represents 45 times revenue, which means the settlement for damages was ten times the value of the company. That’s a lot of damages.
To Democrats, "journalist" means "one who mindlessly and loyally endorses DNC talking points."~ Glenn Greenwald
Here is my take: Fox needed a big headline to justify firing Tucker, and Dominion need him gagged to pull off a 2024 election fraud. I suspect no money changed hands. The headline was the story.
Of all the distortions and paranoia that Tucker Carlson promoted on his since-canceled Fox News program, one looms large: a conspiracy theory that an Arizona man working as a covert government agent incited the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol to sabotage and discredit former President Donald J. Trump and his political movement. What’s known about the man—a two-time Trump voter named Ray Epps—is that he took part in demonstrations in Washington that day and the night before.45~ New York Times, lying their worthless asses off
Tucker was soon marinating in new opportunities including a $25 million offer from One America News46 and $100 million five-year deal with Valuetainments.47 I’m not a lawyer, but I suspect that Fox kept Tucker on his $25 million annualized pay to retain a non-compete clause. But Tucker, not needing even more money, took his road show to Elon Musk’s Twitter for free and crushed it. By firing Tucker, Fox unleashed the Kraken. NBC host Tom Costello, whimpering like a little bitch lapdog, suggested that it was bad that nobody will be able to “police him” as he spread “misinformation, disinformation, all out lies” on Elon Musk’s Twitter.
No Tom: that’s NBC’s job.48 Social media network Tribel banned Carlson claiming he is “a proven liar, racist, and insurrectionist who spreads Russian propaganda that threatens our democracy. Banning him is necessary to protect our users.”49 This was devastating news to the 100 people who post on Tribel. FOX sent Tucker a cease-and-desist order, but, in the absence of payment, his 80-million-click truth bombs on Twitter merely constitute free speech.50 Tucker fought the Balrog and won.
AOC…demanded the Government ban Tucker from being allowed on TV. Dems like AOC are utter authoritarians who crave state censorship. Independent platforms are immune from that.~ Glen Greenwald the day Carlson got the boot
Nuggets. After diplomatic correspondent’ Michael Crowley published a fabrication-rich hit piece on Snowden that was called out by Glenn Greenwald, the New York Times quietly started editing the record without so much as an apology.51 Veterans say if you go back and read the primary articles in the media on important events of yore, you find that we rewrote history going forward.52,53 In the new era, the media writes their variant of history while the real variant is being made. Historians in the future will never figure out what actually happened.
Here are a few random media nuggets that caught my eye and strengthened my support of free speech and unlimited vaccines for Big-Media journalists until we get a desirable effect:
- Pfizer is said to have bribed CNN with a $12 million to keep Anderson Cooper on the vaccine narrative, which is a two-year nightmare of journalistic fraud.54 The claim is that there is a direct pipeline of 80% of Cooper’s salary from Pfizer. Since 75% of mainstream media’s ad revenue comes from pharma,55 this is about the right number with or without the direct pipeline.
- Don Lemon of CNN proclaimed that, "Nikki Haley isn't in her prime, sorry. A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s."56 That is only true if your goal is to bang her lights out, Don. CNN realized they had squeezed everything they could out of that Lemon, demoting him to buck private.
- It is sobering to watch this montage of Nicole Wallace getting hammered for relentless lying given that, on casual inspection, she has a credible aura provided you have the TV on mute.57
- Project Veritas and its founder James O’Keefe are infamous for sending hot throbbing chicks into bars near offices of major companies and recording sex-starved mid-range executives dropping truth bombs in the hopes of making it to second base. It was shits and giggles for Veritas until they duped a Pfizer guy. I didn’t think it was that bad, but you do not mess with Pfizer. Project Veritas was forced to fire O’Keefe,58 which is like Tesla firing Elon Musk. Of course, there were rumors that he was cruel to his staff, had choked some chickens, and was a dickweed.59 Soon thereafter Veritas went through a Chapter 7 liquidation. You do not Pfuck with Pfizer.
- Pfizer wasn’t done. When Russell Brand went on Bill Maher and “brought some facts” about the vaccine in an epic rant,60 he woke up to multiple accusations of sexual assault from decades ago and by anonymous Get the fuck out of here. Really? Anonymous? Rose McGowen, the heroine who founded the MeToo movement, came to Russell’s defense.61 He got deplatformed from anything and everything with a platform.62 Britain's Parliament, admitting there was no evidence, tried to squeeze Rumble into booting Brand and were told to “fook off” by the CEO: “We regard it as deeply inappropriate and dangerous that the UK Parliament would attempt to control who is allowed to speak on our platform or to earn a living from doing so [you sheep shaggin’ punk-ass bitches.]”63 Nobody believes Brand is guilty of anything nefarious beyond being a chronic drug user and lover of many women in his youth, which he admits with shocking pride. The message was still clear: don’t Pfuck with Pfizer.
- Matt Taibbi testified to Congress about the Twitter files and the FBI’s role in censoring awkward political narratives and was referred to as a “so-called journalist” by a so-called Congresswoman from the Virgin Islands,64 At exactly that moment, an IRS agent showed up at his house to harass his wife.65 What an amazing coincidence. The Biden administration’s wanton disregard for the most fundamental principles laid out by our founding fathers is breathtaking. They should all be vaccinated 20–30 times: a GoFundMe campaign would raise the necessary funds.
The original promise of the Internet was that it might democratize the exchange of information globally. A free internet would overwhelm all attempts to control information flow, its very existence a threat to anti-democratic forms of government everywhere. What we found in the [Twitter] Files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise, and use machine learning and other tools to turn the internet into an instrument of censorship and social control. Unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role. It’s not possible to instantly arrive at truth. It is, however, becoming technologically possible to instantly define and enforce a political consensus online, which I believe is what we’re looking at.66~ Matt Taibbi, testifying to Congress about the Twitter Files
- UK Technology and Science Secretary Michelle Donelan plans to jail social media executives who fail to censor “all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred” content on their websites. What is harmful will be up to the government, but it will include transgenderism and calling your girlfriend “a leprechaun.”67
- Several years ago baseball player Trevor Bauer was falsely accused by Lindsey Hill of sexually assaulting her. Texts surfaced of her saying she would set him up to get some of his money and showed her taking a selfie in the sack with Trevor sleeping, winking at the camera. Exoneration is little consolation.68 She should do years in prison. Years.
Elon Musk and Twitter. As many must now know, Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022. With surprising support from the Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, Elon released “The Twitter Files”, internal emails showing the geopolitical corruption within the rank and file. Twitter had become part of the machinery of the Deep State but with an 80-degree cant to the left. Faux libertarians can arguue that, as a private company, Twitter had the right to do anything it wanted, but it had become both the town square and a monopoly. To boot a sitting president from the Town Square was the beginning of the end of an era.
They knew the Russian collusion story was garbage69 but played along with Stalinist-style censorship of “bad actors”, which was anybody to the right of Stalin. Twitter seems more open with Elon at the helm, but his newly appointed CEO seems like a complete Deep State Dipshit. New boss same as the old boss.70 Twitter still steps on accounts that are out of favor. Dr. Drew Pinsky was very popular but then left the reservation by questioning narratives du jour like the vaccine. For a guy with 2.6 million followers it is unimaginable that his Tweets could get so few likes:
Changes began almost immediately under Musk’s command. Renaming it “X” is not sticking at all. There were some good moves. He fired vast swaths of employees who were, at best, sucking up oxygen and bringing activist-left politics to the workplace. Blue checkmark formerly identifying prominent tweeters (as opposed to fakes) was turned into a pay-to-play checkmark for anybody who wants to fork up $8 per month. (This is getting like Dr. Seuss’s Sneeches and the Star-on/Star-off machine.) I miss the old checkmark but understand the push for revenue. I have a cash-cow idea for Elon: Offer a rainbow checkmark on Twitter and watch the left forking up big bucks to avoid being called a phobe. He added an annoying AI-driven reader-based fact check:
If you are one of the poor souls who concluded that Tesla is a scam and tried to short it to your utter destruction, you may be correct and probably will never forgive him. Yet, Elon has become vocal in his support of ideas that those on the real political right might like, drawing the praise of Senator Rand Paul. Elon ate this guy’s lunch about hate speech71 and posted the classic “this is extremely dangerous to our democracy” montage.72 Elon takes 13-minute flights on his jet (basically across town) to piss off the climate change crowd. Not really: his time is that valuable (kinda like Climate Czar John Kerry.)
This tees us up nicely to end this chapter by letting Elon speak for himself.
Oh you mean the “Election Integrity” Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.73~ Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on some of his firings
Almost sent me to the hospital….Public debate over efficacy should not be shut down... the cure cannot be potentially worse than the disease.~ Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on the vaccine
If @AlexanderSoros is serious about freedom of speech, then we have common ground. But destroying public safety by electing DAs who won’t prosecute violent criminals needs to stop.~ Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on Team Soros
If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill. No limit. Please let us know… And we won’t just sue, it will be extremely loud and we will go after the boards of directors of the companies too.74~ Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on forced vaccination
Didn’t the story come from Bellingcat, which literally specializes in psychological operations? I don’t want to hurt their feelings, but this is either the weirdest story ever or a very bad psyop!75~ Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on the assertion the Texas Mall Shooter was a neo-Nazi and echoing Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov’s 2016 view of Bellingcat.76
Free speech used to be a left or liberal value, and yet we see from the quote 'left' a desire to actually censor, and that seems crazy. I think we should be extremely concerned about anything that undermines the First Amendment.77~ Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on free speech
My concern with Twitter was that it is somewhat of the digital town square, and it's important that there be both the reality and perception of trust for a wide range of viewpoints.~ Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti-meritocratic and anything that results in the suppression of free speech. So, those are two of the aspects of the woke mind virus that I think are very dangerous, is that it’s often very anti-meritocratic, and you can’t question things. Even the questioning is bad. I was trying to figure out where it’s coming from. I think it’s actually been a long time brewing, in that it’s been going on for a while, and the amount of indoctrination that’s happening in schools and universities is, I think, far beyond what parents realize.78~ Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on cancel culture
US Border Patrol just reported the highest number of recorded illegal immigrants in history at over 260,000 this month. The full number, including unrecorded, may be over half a million per month, which is the population of Wyoming.79~ Elon Musk
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://peakprosperity.com/dave-collums-year-in-review-media/