Category Archives: History

Journalism – Denver Post 2024

4 January 2025 By in History, Journalism, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

I’ve been running a weekly post on the shortcomings and biases within the news media complex since April of 2024, starting with Walter Duranty of the New York Times covering for Stalin’s forced collectivization of Ukrainian farms in 1929. Duranty claimed in 1933 that no Ukrainian’s died of starvation even though estimates stated that up to 5 million did die from severe ‘food shortage’ in Timesman’s words.

I’ve attempted to cover just the most egregious and mendacious examples of media malpractice over the last 9 months amounting to about 30 posts spanning about 95 years of print and broadcast journalism. One thing that has become clear over that time is reporting hasn’t improved; fabrications, prevarications, and deceptions still appear to be the currency of the realm. Objective and factual journalism only appears when there are no winners or losers, a rare occurrence indeed.

So, let’s start off the new year with the Denver Post’s initial headline documenting the attempt on Trump’s life at his Butler rally on 13 July 2024: “Gunman Dies in Attack.” A major candidate for the presidency is almost killed and the paper’s concern is for the assassin.

After taking considerable flak for that headline the Post scrubbed the headline from their website and replaced it with “Trump is injured but ‘fine’…”

Graphic: Front Page Denver Post, via Charlie Kirk, 14 July 2024, X.

Journalism – Hunter Biden’s Laptop and the FBI 2019-2020:

28 December 2024 By in History, Journalism, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In October 2020, a few weeks before the election, the New York Post reported on the existence and contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Media sources other than the Post did not report on the laptop, supposedly due to concerns about the authenticity of the computer and its contents. Below is a partial timeline of FBI’s involvement in the laptop.

  • Summer 2019: John Paul Mac Isaac, owner of the computer repair shop, attempted to notify the FBI through his father that he had a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden. The FBI turned Isaac away.
  • October 2019: The FBI contacted Isaac’s father and eventually Isaac to discuss the laptop, which occurred during the impeachment of President Trump. That same month, Hunter Biden’s attorney contacted Isaac about the laptop, but nothing came of that interaction.
  • November 2019: The FBI authenticated the laptop as belonging to Hunter Biden and determined it was not part of any foreign disinformation campaign. The FBI authenticated the laptop, in part, by matching communications contained on the computer with intercepted 2017 communications from China. The FBI kept the authentication confidential, supposedly due to concerns over foreign disinformation.
  • December 2019: The FBI seized the laptop from Isaac under a subpoena issued by a Wilmington Grand Jury. The grand jury had been investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign financial dealings. The IRS was also notified that the laptop likely contained evidence of tax crimes.
  • Run-up to the 2020 Election: The FBI warned social media companies about potential foreign disinformation related to the laptop, which caused the story to be suppressed on Twitter and Facebook.
  • Post-2020 Election: The FBI continued to remain silent about the authenticity and contents of the laptop, citing concerns over foreign disinformation and ongoing criminal cases.

Sources: Morris and Fonrouge, NY Post, 2020. John Solomon, Just the News, 2020. Kerr and Simonson, Free Beacon, 2023. Oliver, Washington Examiner, 2023. Sperry, NY Post, 2023. Graphic: President Biden and his son Hunter, AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu).

Sarcasm Slightly Cold

26 December 2024 By in Biography, History Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Stacy Schiff, biographer of Cleopatra VII and history of Egypt and Rome during her reign as Egypt’s queen is an entertaining writer with a sardonic sense of humor.

Wit of Schiff I: Cleopatra and Mark Anthony, after a three-year separation, reunited in 37 BC in Antioch. They rekindle their relationship, Cleopatra becomes pregnant, and they part again in early 36 BC, he for a military campaign in Parthia and she to go south to meet with Herod in Jerusalem.

“In the course of the visit she met Herod’s fractious extended family…Herod had the misfortune to share an address with several implacable enemies, first among them his contemptuous, highborn mother-in-law, Alexandra…his insinuating mother; a grievance-loving, overly loyal sister; and Mariamme, the cool, exceptionally beautiful wife…who to his frustration, somehow could never get past the fact that Herod had murdered half her family.”

Wit of Schiff II: Mark Anthony after conquering Armenia, which included parts of modern Turkey and Azerbaijan, in 34 BC, “returned to Alexandria in triumph, taking with him not only the collected treasure of Armenia, but its King, his wife, their children, and the provincial governors. Out of deference to their rank, he bound the royal family in chains of gold.”

Trivia: No good, confirmed likenesses of either Cleopatra or Herod exist. Recently a bust from the Egyptian Taposiris Magna temple near Alexandria has been recovered which the archaeologist, Kathleen Martinez claims is a likeness of Cleopatra. Other experts disagree.

Source: Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Shiff, 2010. Marble Bust Found, Gadgets 360, 2024.

Friends

22 December 2024 By in Art, History Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

On a fine, lazy summer day along the banks of the Seine in 1880, possibly 1881, Pierre-Auguste Renoir began sketching and painting his most celebrated structured composition, “Luncheon of the Boating Party”.

The luncheon party takes place on the balcony of the Maison Fournaise restaurant and includes 14 friends and acquaintances of the painter, 13 of whom have been identified.

The Phillips Collection, where the painting resides, comments that, Renoir has immortalized his friends to such a degree that the image is “not anectdotal [sic] but monumental.” …Renoir’s magnus opus is a very tightly composed work, uniting within one image the time-honored compositional traditions of figure painting, still life, and landscape.

Edward G. Robinson, American actor and art collector, in “All My Yesterdays: An Autobiography” amusingly remarks, “For over thirty years I made periodic visits to Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party in a Washington museum, and stood before that magnificent masterpiece hour after hour, day after day, plotting ways to steal it.”

Source: The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. All My Yesterdays by Robinson. Graphic: Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881. Public Domain.

Journalism–BuzzFeed 2017

16 November 2024 By in History, Journalism Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

On January 10, 2017, ten days before Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the United States, BuzzFeed News published an unverified, salacious dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, suggesting that Russia had compromising evidence on the future President.

The dossier’s claims, laughable and fictional to any objective reporter, included graphic instances of abhorrent sexual behavior and treasonous activity. BuzzFeed supposedly attempted to verify or falsify any of the claims but was unable to do so. They published the dossier anyway.

On January 5, 2017, U.S. Intelligence, including James Comey, John Brennan, Mike Rogers, and James Clapper, briefed Obama on the contents of the dossier. The next day, likely on Obama’s orders, the same intelligence chiefs briefed Trump in New York. Trump later claimed that he thought the intelligence chiefs, mainly Comey, were trying to blackmail him. Comey knew at the time that the Democrats had funded the dossier but felt that information was immaterial to the discussion with Trump.

After much gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes concerning Trump’s alleged misdeeds by the mainstream media, it eventually came out that the Steele dossier was a complete fiction, although Steele to this day maintains its accuracy. It was bought and paid for by the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The dossier funding was brokered by the Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, who at the time was working for the Clinton campaign, through the law firm Perkins Coie. This firm then hired Fusion GPS, which in turn hired Christopher Steele to compile the dossier.

After the BuzzFeed publication, Trump responded a few hours later on X as shown in the attached graphic, calling it nothing but fake news.

Trivia: In May 2024, Vivek Ramaswamy paid $3.3 million for a small interest in BuzzFeed, attempting to steer its content to the right. His interest is too small to affect any change.

Source: These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties to Russia by Bensinger, Elder, and Schoofs, 10 January 2017, BuzzFeed. Graphic: X Response from Trump, 2017.

FDR Wins 4th Term

7 November 2024 By in History, Politics, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

On Tuesday, 7 November 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt won his fourth term as President of the United States, defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey of New York.

Few states in the 1944 election had a primary system in place to vote for party nominees, instead choosing delegates to the national nominating convention through party caucuses or state conventions. The real job of selecting the party’s nominees occurred at the national conventions with little to no input from the voting public.

Democrats, concerned that Roosevelt might not live to complete his term, replaced the sitting left-wing and economically illiterate Vice President Henry A. Wallace with the Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman.

Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945, less than three months into his new term, with Truman assuming the presidency that same day.

Truman ordered the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, less than six months into his presidency, proving that holding the highest office in the land is fraught with uncertainty and requires unimaginable determination and strength.

Graphic: Electoral College Results for the 1944 Presidential Election.

Claret to Bordeaux

5 November 2024 By in History, Red Wine, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Claret is an English term for Bordeaux wines that traces its origins back to 16th century. The name derives from the French word “clairet,” which described a lighter, more rosé-like style from the Bordeaux region.

Originally, the grapes used to make this wine were Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc, similar to today’s right-bank Bordeaux. The left bank added Malbec, Petit Verdot, and Carménère to the mix.

By the 17th and 18th centuries, clarets evolved, through better maceration, aging, and blending techniques, into a darker, full-bodied wine we would recognize today as a Bordeaux. It became a major export to England and the world.

Trivia: Charles Dickens in ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’, ‘The Pickwick Papers’, and ‘Great Expectations’; Wilkie Collins in ‘The Moonstone’; Anthony Trollope in ‘The Belton Estate’; William Thackeray in ‘Vanity Fair’; and George Eliot in ‘Middlemarch’ all mention the drinking of claret, usually at their dinners.

In these novels the claret was diluted with water to reduce the alcohol content, making it more palatable and easier to drink over long meals or gatherings and to stretch the supply.

Source: Wine Spectator. Decanter. Graphic: Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881. Public Domain.

Journalism—CNN’s Sycophants for Saddam Hussein 2003

2 November 2024 By in History, Journalism Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

CNN’s news chief in 2003, Eason Jordan, admitted that the network ignored and suppressed Saddam Hussein’s mass killings of his citizens and other crimes against humanity, to keep their access to the Iraqi thug. Jordan said that telling the truth likely would have meant closing their Baghdad bureau. Franklin Foer of the New Republic wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “CNN could have abandoned Baghdad. Not only would they have stopped recycling lies, they could have focused more intently on obtaining the truth about Saddam.”

CNN lied; Iraqis died.

Human Rights Watch has estimated that 250,000 to 290,000 Iraqis were presumed killed under Saddam.

Eason Jordan resigned from CNN in 2005. It wasn’t possible to discover why he wasn’t fired in 2003 for his efforts to aid Saddam Hussein.

Source: The Washington Post. HRW 2003. Franklin Foer, Wall Street Journal 2003.   Graphic: Iraqi Victims Found in a Mass Grave killed under Saddam’s Rule, GWB Whitehouse Archives, 2003.

Rights of the Free

20 October 2024 By in History, Philosophy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Thomas Paine, American Founding Father, philosopher, and inventor authored some of the most influential and inspirational works supporting the American Revolution: The American Crisis and Common Sense. He also wrote a rousing defense of the 1789 French Revolution: The Rights of Man.

Paine’s thesis in “The Rights of Man” is that human rights are natural rights, inalienable, and not subject to the caprices of the governing class. They cannot be repealed. He asserts that men are born free and equal, and the government’s purpose is to preserve these natural rights, chiefly: liberty, security, property, and resistance to oppression.

Paine, like Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, believed that citizens must stand firm against tyranny to uphold the principles of justice and liberty. Jefferson’s eloquence is unparalleled when he wrote in the Declaration: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”

Source: Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, 1791. Graphic: Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix 1830. Public Domain.

Matt Taibbi—First Amendment Absolutist:

3 October 2024 By in History, Journalism, Politics, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Taibbi delivered a righteous and necessary speech on the need to preserve the First Amendment to the Constitution, in particular the right to free speech at a ‘Recue the Republic’ gathering in Washington D.C. on 29 September 2024.

Taibbi makes the pertinent point that the current government efforts to eliminate dis-or-misinformation from the public discourse is not the real goal but that “The endgame is getting us to forget we ever had anything to say.”

He continues that the writers of the constitution’s Bill of Rights were absolutist in how the First Amendment could be interpreted, stating: “[James] Madison [author of the First Amendment] famously eschewed the word toleration or tolerance when it came to religion and insisted on the words freedom or liberty instead. This became the basis for the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which in turn became the basis for the Bill of Rights. That’s why we don’t have “toleration of religion” or “toleration of speech.” We have freedom of speech.”

Read the entire speech, link below. It’s a quick read and entertaining to boot.

Source: My Speech in Washington: “Rescue the Republic” (racket.news). Graphic: First Amendment, Melissa Randall, LibreTexts.