One of the themes that’s been used to stir controversy and fear in the body politic is the prospect of a political dynasty. I encountered that some years back over the candidacy of George W. Bush for the presidency. His father had been a Congressman, CIA director, and president for a single term. His …
Category: media
Feb 27 2025
Politics Is Everything To Them…
…therefore, everything must be politicized: Washington Post opinion editor David Shipley resigned Tuesday after the paper’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced that, going forward, on the opinion pages, “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” […] Of …
Feb 25 2025
You Can’t Make This Stuff Up Dept.
CNN has crossed many lines, but this one deserves special mention: [O]n the CIA’s 7th floor — home to top leadership — some officers are also quietly discussing how mass firings and the buyouts already offered to staff risk creating a group of disgruntled former employees who might be motivated to take what …
Feb 22 2025
A Critical Case Of Entitlement
The attitude that one is owed by a particular institution, that one’s status trumps the prerogatives of the institution and the claims of others, can be as damaging to a long-established news outlet as to any other kind of organization. Such a lawsuit can produce either a healthful clarification of the law or legal …
Feb 01 2025
Protecting The Bastions
A field army that finds itself thrown onto the defensive will usually react in one of two ways. One is to employ a substantial part of its forces for a counterattack, somewhere removed from the main theater of action, while the rest of its forces continue to retreat. The other is to fall back …
Jan 24 2025
Just In Case You Were Wondering…
…the “gentlemen of the press” – a phrase that’s always had a sarcastic undertone – have not run up a white flag. Indeed, places where one might expect a more conservative stance are among the best indicators. Consider this Wall Street Journal article: Trump’s sweeping pardons mark a dramatic turnaround for the far-right …
Jan 23 2025
Another school shooting that the media will ignore
The legacy media, also known as the Democrat-Media Complex, loves them a school shooting that they can use to attack the right. If it’s white people shooting up kids or people of color, the calls for gun control will ring from the Left before the bodies have even cooled. However, I’m guessing that this particular …
Jan 20 2025
POTUS 47: Donald J. Trump
Well, that’s that for the Bidenites. Donald Trump has been re-inaugurated as the President of the United States. Now we’ll see what he can do to correct for the past four disastrous years… but what I’m most curious about is whether we’ll be seeing any of this from the media: Or this: …
Jan 17 2025
“We’ve Seen The Light! You Can Trust Us Now!”
A quick summary from 90 Miles From Tyranny says it all: Among the persistent problems the nation will face during the second Trump Administration is a sort of cognitive inertia: the tendency to go on believing that some information sources are inherently trustworthy, even though they’ve been spewing provably false statements for four …
Jan 15 2025
It’s Time To Level The Nominations Playing Field
The brutal, irrelevant, completely graceless interrogations Democrat Senators are inflicting upon various Trump nominees were only to be expected. The Democrats have no honor. They have no convictions they would uphold about courtesy, civility, or decency. Democrat Senators can abuse Republican nominees because the media is on their side. The media will stand behind …
Jan 10 2025
Crisis And Opportunity
For more than a century, the Democrats have used crises – real or imaginary, organic or contrived – to expand American governments and intrude upon the freedom of American citizens. The outline of that strategy has been clear for many decades, but it wasn’t until Rahm Emanuel stated it clearly and openly that most …
Dec 29 2024
The Fabrication Of Unworth
Yes, yes, your Curmudgeon knows perfectly well it should be “unworthiness.” But essay titles are special around here. We use them to draw attention, to stimulate thought, and – on occasion – to elicit a laugh or two. Especially on those occasions when we’re striving not to be “stuffed shirts.” Say, how long …
Dec 17 2024
The Enemy Of The People
John Hinderaker has a piercing column up about media “fears” of the incoming Trump Administration. It’s worth reading in its entirety – the wealth of ripostes is quite valuable – but I’ll pull-quote just a wee bit to whet your appetites: Let me spell it out: the liberal press is dishonest. It is …
Dec 11 2024
The Black-Is-White Chronicles
Just a quick thought, as the day promises to be a difficult one. The acquittal of Daniel Penny by a New York City jury has the Left’s pet talking heads in a fury unmatched since the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse… which had those selfsame persons in a fury unmatched since the acquittal of …
Nov 05 2024
Just In Case You’ve Forgotten
Gentle Readers in the Right: the “gentlemen of the press” hate you. They will do anything to smear you, the politicians, you support, and the ideals you uphold. But woe to anyone who dares to say anything to wound their enormous egos! Apparently, yesterday at President Trump’s campaign rally in Lancaster PA, he …
Oct 28 2024
To Serve The Public Interest
“Who is the public? What does it hold as its good?” — From an obscure novel of the Fifties. All the way back to the Federal Radio Act at the beginning of the last century, licenses to use a part of the electromagnetic spectrum for broadcasting have been granted under a stipulation: that …
Sep 22 2024
“No Private Life For You, Sports Star!”
For a long time now, one of the Left’s revered mantras is that “The personal is political.” This attempt to invalidate the idea of a private, personal life in which one’s affairs are wholly one’s own is seldom properly eviscerated by commentators and analysts in the Right. Yet it’s expressed in virtually everything Leftist …
Sep 12 2024
The Media Are Partisans
You knew that already, didn’t you, Gentle Reader? But perhaps you didn’t know just how maliciously partisan they’ve become: CNN just confronted @JDVance on the migrant pet-eating controversy. They were not prepared for his response 🔥pic.twitter.com/waszq3wMJJ — Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) September 11, 2024 The “journalist” takes the statements of Springfield, Ohio officials at …
Aug 22 2024
The Credibility Is No Longer There
Via AoSHQ, we have this from the Washington Post: In retrospect, Mr. Biden should not have sought reelection. The June 27 debate was worse than just a bad night, as the president maintained afterward. The 81-year-old had shown signs of slipping for a long time, but his inner circle worked to conceal his …
Aug 07 2024
Caretakers
There isn’t much news in the news just now. It’s mainly the presidential campaign, the Olympics, and whoever commits a particularly gory crime. But even the newslessness of the news can be a newsworthy subject here at Liberty’s Torch. Got to work with what you’ve got, don’t y’know. The goal of the media …
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