After The Damage Has Been Done…

On Wednesday, Breitbart reported the following:

The UK state broadcaster issued an apology on Wednesday after incorrectly reporting Israeli soldiers were targeting “medical teams as well as Arab speakers” while clearing Hamas terrorists out of a Gaza hospital.

The BBC said its report on the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) taking on Hamas terrorists inside a hospital “fell below our usual editorial standards” after the newsreader stated attacks were targeting medics and Arabic speakers.

According to the Guardian:

Hiram Johnson (1866-1945) – a Progressive Republican senator in California. His actual quote, ‘The first casualty, when war comes, is truth’, was said during World War 1. He died on Aug. 6, 1945, the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

The Breitbart article continues:

The Board of Deputies said they were “absolutely appalled” that the BBC had misreported that the IDF was taking medical teams and Arabic speakers into the hospital to help patients there so catastrophically. “At best”, they said, the misreading of the situation showed a “staggering lack of care” which made a mockery of the BBC’s “oft-stated dedication to professionalism and impartiality”, behind which the Corporation has hidden in the past month to justify not calling the Hamas attack on Israel a terrorist act. The BBC was also criticised for the error by the Israeli Embassy in London.

…The broadcaster issued an apology on Wednesday, and said on air:

And now, an apology from the BBC. BBC News as it covered initial reports that Israeli forces had entered Gaza’s main hospital, we said that medical teams and Arab speakers were being targeted. This was incorrect and misquoted a Reuters report. We should have said IDF forces included medical teams and Arabic speakers for this operation. So we apologise for this error, which fell below our usual editorial standards. The correct version of events was broadcast minutes later.

How many of the people who heard the initial report will hear the apology? This is the sort of sloppy (or biased) reporting that helps terrorists justify their actions (yes, I know there is no justification for terrorism, but in their own minds, the terrorists regard what they are doing as their ticket to paradise).

In general, the media has forgotten the horrors of October 7th and replaced them with criticism of Israel defending its people.

When Money Controls The News

‘Store-bought’ news is not only a problem in America, it is also a problem in Britain.

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

The BBC is defending its decision to create propaganda content for the Chinese state media and commercials for Huawei, according to a Deadline investigation published Monday.

The BBC’s Executive Vice President Sean O’Hara said that the tax-payer funded broadcast service depends on Chinese contracts for funding international journalism, Deadline reported after a detailed investigation into the contracts.

“The commercial income generated from advertising provides vital investment in BBC News, ensuring that we are able to sustain our global network of journalists and continue to bring independent and impartial news to the UK and beyond. I’d like to assure you that it has no influence on our editorial output,” O’Hara said in a memo to British lawmaker Lord David Alton, according to the outlet.

Am I honestly supposed to believe that the fact that China is funding major portions of advertising on the BBC has no impact on their content? That illustrates one of the many reasons this site does not have ads–I don’t ever want to have to choose between someone who buys and ad and an article I want to print.

The article also notes:

Sources at the BBC are “uncomfortable with these relationships” with China. BBC StoryWorks has partnered with at least 18 different Chinese clients, nine of which were affiliated with the CCP.

Journalists have questioned the thought processes behind working with Chinese propaganda companies, such as CGTN, who have previously been accused of creating “perilous” working conditions for British reporters.

The New York Times and The Washington Post have also reaped profits from relationships with Chinese state media and the Communist Party. In one instance, The Washington Post touted China’s Communist Party as a means of bettering the lives of citizens, but made no mention of China’s oppression and genocide against the Uyghur population.

Mainstream media news needs to be viewed skeptically. Even if they report the story, they will leave out the parts that do not fit the desired narrative.

Sometimes Warnings Are There For A Reason

Common sense is not a flower that grows in everyone’s garden. When someone warns you about something, they may actually know something you do not.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about bloggers Jolie King and Mark Firkin. They announced in 2017 that they would be going on an international trip to “try to break the stigma around travelling to countries which get a bad rap in the media.” What could possibly go wrong?

Last Thursday, the BBC reported:

Two Australian citizens detained in Iran have been identified as Jolie King and Mark Firkin.

Ms King, who also holds a UK passport, and Mr Firkin were blogging their travels in Asia and the Middle East.

They were reportedly arrested 10 weeks ago near Tehran but news of the arrest, and that of another British-Australian woman, came to light on Wednesday.

Australia said it had repeatedly raised their cases with Tehran, including in a meeting between officials last week.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said she had lobbied on their behalf in a meeting with her Iranian counterpart.

She described the detentions as “a matter of deep concern” on Thursday, and confirmed that assistance had been offered to the families of the three detainees.

“[We] hope to see Mark and Jolie safely home as soon as possible,” their families said on Thursday.

The situation comes amid growing tensions between the West and Iran.

Several dual nationals have been detained in Iran in recent years, including the British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Relations between the UK and Iran have also been strained in recent months by a row over the seizure of oil tankers in the Gulf.

I guess maybe the media discourages people from traveling to certain places for a reason. We need to remember that not every country in the world plays by the same rules.

 

It Wasn’t A Unilateral Decision

This article is based on two sources–an article posted at Lifezette today and an article from the BBC, also dated today.

The article at Lifezette reminds us that until President Trump fired FBI Director Comey, the Democrats wanted Director Comey fired.

The article reports:

Comey, being Comey, closed the new investigation in record time, ending the investigation two days before Election Day and enraging Republicans by publicly declaring he still would not recommend charges against Clinton.

Schumer indicated Comey’s handling of the matter was a deal-breaker.

“I do not have confidence in him any longer,” Schumer said of Comey on Nov. 2.

Schumer called Comey’s letter to Congress “appalling.”

Schumer is far from the only Democrat who has questioned Comey’s judgement or called for his firing.

…”This is not fake news. Intelligence officials are hiding connections to the Russian government. There is no question,” then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said in a Dec. 10 interview on MSNBC. “Comey knew and deliberately kept this info a secret,” he said.

The MSNBC host asked Reid if Comey should resign. “Of course, yes,” Reid replied.

 Comey’s decision to publicly reopen the Clinton investigation drove Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) to also demand the FBI director resign.

“I called on FBI Director James Comey to resign his position after his recent communication with members of Congress regarding the bureau’s review of emails potentially related to Hillary Clinton’s personal email server,” Cohen wrote in a Nov. 3 op-ed published in The Hill.

It gets better.

The BBC posted a copy of the letter written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommending that Director Comey be fired. Follow the link above to read the entire letter.

Director Comey made some unusual decisions during the run-up to the November 2016 election. There are some valid questions as to whether or not the FBI was politicized under President Obama. It is very obvious that the Justice Department was compromised, but the jury is still out on the FBI.

I don’t know whether or not this is part of draining the swamp. I do know that draining the swamp is going to be a long term, ongoing operation, and I wish President Trump all the best in doing that.

The Religion Of Peace Slaughters More Innocent Civilians

PJ Media reported yesterday on a Boko Haram massacre in the town of Baga in Borno State, Nigeria.

The BBC is quoted in the article:

Nigeria’s militant Islamists have carried out a second attack on the key north-eastern town of Baga, an official has told the BBC.

Boko Haram fighters burnt down almost the entire town on Wednesday, after over-running a military base on Saturday, Musa Alhaji Bukar said.

Bodies lay strewn on Baga’s streets, amid fears that some 2,000 people had been killed in the raids, he added.

Boko Haram launched a military campaign in 2009 to create an Islamic state.

It has taken control of many towns and villages in north-eastern Nigeria in the last year.

The conflict has displaced at least 1.5 million people, while more than 2,000 were killed last year.

Boko Haram would like to turn Nigeria into a Muslim state under Sharia Law. Obviously, they are not interested in accomplishing this through peaceful means.

All Muslims are not violent terrorists, but there are groups of violent terrorists who justify their actions by claiming to be following the Koran. Unfortunately, there are numerous verses in the Koran that call for the killing of infidels and creating and expanding a caliphate. Until peaceful Muslims begin to police their religion, we will continue to see violence done in the name of Islam.

 

Whoops!

Wattsupwiththat is reporting today that glaciers are appearing in Scotland.

The article quotes the BBC:

“Hazards common in arctic and alpine areas but described as “extremely unusual” in the UK during the summer have been found on Ben Nevis.

A team of climbers and scientists investigating the mountain’s North Face said snowfields remained in many gullies and upper scree slopes.

On these fields, they have come across compacted, dense, ice hard snow call neve.

Neve is the first stage in the formation of glaciers, the team said.”

The team has also encountered sheets of snow weighing hundreds of tonnes and tunnels and fissures known as bergschrunds.

This is how ice ages start–the snow does not melt in the summer, and the growing ice sheet reflects more sunlight back into space instead of absorbing it. As the cycle continues, the earth gets colder. So much for global warming.

Who Was Running The Show On This Decision?

BBC News reported yesterday the during the shooting at the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard, Capitol Police who wanted to come to the aid of the municipal officers were told by a supervisor to stand down. The Capitol Police department will be reviewing the sequence of events.

The article reports:

Multiple sources in the Capitol Police department have told the BBC that its highly trained and heavily armed four-man Containment and Emergency Response Team (Cert) was near the Navy Yard when the initial report of an active shooter came in about 8:20 local time.

The officers, wearing full tactical gear and armed with HK-416 assault weapons, arrived outside Building 197 a few minutes later, an official with knowledge of the incident told the BBC.

…According to a Capitol Police source, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Washington DC’s main municipal force, told the Capitol Cert officers they were the only police on the site equipped with long guns and requested their help stopping the gunman.

When the Capitol Police team radioed their superiors, they were told by a watch commander to leave the scene, the BBC was told.

It seems as if this administration has a problem with ‘stand down’ orders.

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Separating The Facts From The Propaganda

Scott Johnson posted an article at Power Line today about the death of Omar al-Masharawi, the 11-month-old son of BBC stringer Jihad al-Masharawi. The baby was killed in Gaza City during fighting in the Hamas-ruled territory last November. Admittedly, it is tragic when an innocent child is killed in a war, but it is also tragic when the death of that child is exploited with little regard to the facts.

On November 23, Patrick Pexton, the ombudsman for the Washington Post, posted an article about the death of Masharawi.

The article at the Washington Post states:

That the man is Palestinian — not a terrorist but a journalist — and that the bomb was dropped by Israelis, to my mind, is almost beside the point. This photo depicted loss and pain, the horrific cost to innocents on both sides of the violence in the Middle East.

Yes, the photo does show the horrific cost to innocents on both sides of the Middle East. However, the ombudsman seems to have jumped to a conclusion that has since been proven false.

On March 11, the Washington Post reported:

A U.N. report indicates an errant Palestinian rocket, not an Israeli airstrike, likely killed the baby of a BBC reporter during fighting in the Hamas-ruled territory last November.

The death of Omar al-Masharawi, the 11-month-old son of BBC stringer Jihad al-Masharawi, became a symbol of what Palestinians see as Israeli aggression during eight days of fighting that killed more than 160 Palestinians and six Israelis. A woman was killed alongside the baby.

In a way it really doesn’t matter to the child’s family which side is responsible for the death of the child–they have still lost a child, but it is disturbing that the initial reports along with the heart-wrenching picture blamed Israel before the facts were known. It is also unfortunate that the Washington Post ombudsman immediately assumed that the reports blaming Israel were accurate.

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Some Negative Consequences Of The Arab Spring

As much as many people would like to see democracy come to Egypt, it doesn’t seem as if the situation is headed in that direction. Aside from the political tension in Egypt between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, there is another aspect of the impact of the revolution in Egypt.

The BBC is reporting today that there has been a deadly attack in Israel on the border with Egypt that has killed on construction worker and injured another. The construction workers were building a fence along the Israeli Egyptian border.

The article reports:

Israeli officials said at least three gunmen had opened fire at the convoy of vehicles and also detonated an explosive device.

“A terrorist squad opened gunfire and possibly also fired an anti-tank rocket at an area where [Israel] is constructing the border fence,” Israeli military spokesman Yoav Mordechai told army radio.

“Soldiers arrived on the scene and killed one terrorist.”

They said that a second militant had been killed when the explosive device he was carrying detonated and the body of a third was found at the scene.

He said that those targeted were workers completing the border fence.

The workman who died was an Arab citizen of Israel, according to Reuters news agency.

The entire border area, including a major road near the coastal resort town of Eilat, was closed for a few hours after the attack and roadblocks were set up.

Military officials said they believed other militants involved in the attack had escaped back across the border into Egypt.

During Mubarak’s time, the border between Israel and Egypt was kept relatively secure. There were tunnels, but generally the border was not a staging area for terrorist activity in Israel. Since the fall of Mubarak, the border has been used for a number of terrorist attacks against Israel. The so-called Arab Spring will not bring either peace, democracy, or freedom to the Middle East.

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The Arab Spring Strikes Again

Today’s Jerusalem Post is reporting that Egypt has terminated its supply of natural gas to Israel. The article reports that a senior Egyptian military official has stated that the deal is not cancelled, but halted because of a business disagreement over the transfer of payments.

A BBC story on the shutoff reported that Egypt supplies around 40 percent of Israel’s natural gas. Israel uses natural gas to generate electricity.

The article at the Jerusalem Posts reports:

“We have no information that the contract has been nullified,” one Foreign Ministry official said.

The official added that if the report was indeed true it would be a “grave development” with ramifications on the normalization of ties between the two countries under the 1979 peace treaty. But, the official added, this was not an agreement between governments, but rather between private companies and the Egyptian government.

Steinitz said he viewed with “deep concern the unilateral Egyptian announcement over terminating the gas deal with Israel, both because of its diplomatic and economic aspects. This is a dangerous precedent that diminishes the peace treaty” between the neighboring countries.

On March 23 the Los Angeles Times reported:

The Obama administration announced Friday that it intends to deliver all $1.3 billion in promised aid to Egypt’s military this year, despite calls from lawmakers and rights advocates to hold back money because of limits on political rights in the North African nation.

It seems to me that if Egypt cuts off the supply of natural gas to Israel, America should immediately cut off all aid to Egypt.

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