Books book review A Gothic Spiderweb: The Silence Factory by Bridget Collins A review of Bridget Collins’s new gothic novel By Alexis Ong | Published on October 8, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share There is always gratifying schadenfreude in a well-told postcolonial parable, and I love the jaunty, measured confidence of a neat, polished story about naive 19th century English people about to do regretful things with all the self-awareness of a boiled potato. More often than not, when we first meet these characters, the sun is shining down on them, and the world is bright and beautiful and kind, and they have no clue of the hurricane of slow, creeping misery about to happen to them over the next 200-odd pages. The Silence Factory by Bridget Collins is one of these novels, and I devoured it like a hungry orphan in two days. It has, on the outset, all the right ingredients for period-drama messiness: an orangery, a terrible marriage, a guileless himbo, a screwed-up town, and all the arrogance and condescension that white civilized Britannia can spare toward the unknown. There are strange spiders, bad family legacies, and all the right period-appropriate lashings of tired resentment, nauseating sexism, and drawn-out homoeroticism one could hope for. Collins (perhaps augmented by her training as an actor) has a real gift for theatrical charm and pacing that shines through on the page. The Silence Factory is a meticulously-planned tour through twin narratives of colonial sins and can-do English entrepreneurialism (which goes hand-in-hand with wretched English hubris), led by a lively (at times, gleefully unforgiving) conductor with the timing and precision of a surgeon.  Things aren’t perfect for Henry Latimer, recently widowed and working a dead-end job for his father-in-law who makes intricate hearing aids. After meeting the wealthy, eccentric owner of a little-known spider silk factory, Henry’s future starts to feel bright and rosy, and on his journey Collins mercilessly imbues him with an intoxicating strain of ambition that constantly feels on the verge of disaster. Originally trained as a poet, Henry is finally given the opportunity to indulge in his penchant for romanticism and sentimentality; what his new employer-benefactor gives him isn’t just independence from grief and mundanity, but a passionate new cause. The language here has fantastic sense of momentum drawn from Henry’s swelling pride, small tastes of success, approval and acceptance—things Collins deeply understands are integral to building a sense of giddy, impossible hope, which, in turn, necessitates a brutally sober return to the reality of living in such a debilitatingly divided society.  Buy the Book The Silence Factory Bridget Collins Buy Book The Silence Factory Bridget Collins Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget We only know the other protagonist, Sophia Ashmore, through her old journal from the 1820s; Sophia’s husband, James, dragged her to a remote Greek island in search of a rare spider meant to have fantastical properties. Again, Collins leans on the sensibilities of tightly-laced upper class tradition and English cultural solipsism to contextualize Sophia, who struggles to support James in his Very Important Work. At times these characters (quite necessarily) veer into heady caricature—Sophia as a repressed, dutiful wife, and James as a sweaty, amazingly unhinged villain. Collins here indulges a bit with Sophia’s voice—often exuberant, anguished, desperate in the privacy of her diary entries—to craft a moody, borderline maudlin portrait of an Englishwoman who almost escaped the bonds of Englishness.  Together, Henry and Sophia make an exceedingly well-structured, extremely readable train wreck—really, two parallel train wrecks practically vibrating off their respective tracks—that hinges on each protagonist’s inherent drive toward qualities like determination and goodness and perseverance. In the context of the English identity at the time, so consumed with duty and maintenance and anglochristian-dictated hierarchy. Is it not English to want to be all these things? Don’t these principles distinguish the English from the inscrutable pagans on that cursed Greek island? Sophia’s enchantment and enthrallment with this prospective other life—a life of social and sexual liberation away from James—isn’t a new exploration of a new phenomenon by any means. What Collins shines at here is embodying the babbling rationalization and re-rationalization of a sheltered woman finally reckoning with the smallness of her designated place in the world: turbulent and rife with emotion and regression. Henry, also trapped within the confines of his proper station, has a lot going on. But he is my favorite, and the real neurotic icon in the story, because Collins has molded him from all the familiar failures and base thoughts and innocuous greedy little ideas that have been part of society forever. And when it’s much too late—when Henry finally realizes with glacial denseness that he has made some incredibly bad decisions—all of that giddy joy and excitement that he’s been coasting on suddenly melts away to leave behind the cold, sharp edges of reality. Whomst among us hasn’t been there, and whomst among us doesn’t take some delight from seeing all of this unfold for a character so clearly careening toward the private hell of public humiliation?  Collins may not have set out with moral instruction in mind, but at the end of the book, there’s nevertheless that familiar urge to gently pat Henry on the shoulder and tell him, ah, dear man, it was all a hard lesson learned. Naturally, these elements of regret, remorse, recompense, and shame have much wider meaning for modern reader—at least one who chooses to dig into the absolute shitshow of postcolonial literary analyses and metaphors and subtext connected to this genre. But for Henry, painfully humbled and unable to undo his sins, and for Sophia, living in service of a tyrannical buffoon, their failures aren’t meta-self-owns—they’re deep, personal blemishes that one must find a dignified way to live with. This is the famous stiff upper lip that colonial thinking is built on, which continues to define mainstream English culture today, and is an especially fine lens through which to pore over The Silence Factory while curled up with a cup of tea. Is that not the English way? [end-mark] The Silence Factory is published by William Morrow. The post A Gothic Spiderweb: <i>The Silence Factory</i> by Bridget Collins appeared first on Reactor.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The Federal Emergency Management Agency in May 2023 launched a $12 million grant program designed to increase “equity” in disaster responses by making greater investments in communities with high concentrations of racial and sexual minorities, documents show. FEMA’s 2023 Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program sought to disburse multimillion-dollar grants designed to bolster disaster preparedness “equity” for what it called “underserved communities,” a label later defined in grant documents as “populations sharing a particular characteristic, as well as geographic communities, who have been systematically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social and civic life.” Examples of these groups cited in the FEMA documents include African Americans, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, LGBTQ+ people, and people living in rural areas, among others. “LGBTQIA people, and people who have been disadvantaged, already are struggling,” FEMA emergency management specialist Tyler Atkins said in a leaked Zoom recording that surfaced on Sunday. “They already have their own things to deal with. So, you add a disaster on top of that, it’s just compounding on itself.”  Maggie Jarry, an emergency management specialist at the Department of Health and Human Services, responded to Atkins by stressing that emergency management is moving away from providing “the greatest good to the greatest amount of people” and working toward “disaster equity.” Black and gay people disproportionately live in areas where the effects of climate change, alongside poor infrastructure and a lack of resources, make natural disasters more dangerous, according to the FEMA documents. The agency used this position to argue that investments in these communities are needed to “effectively address equity in emergency management.” FEMA instructed entities applying for grant funding under the program to use the Biden-Harris administration’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool to identify disadvantaged communities where they would spend their federal grant dollars. The screening tool provides users with a map of every county the federal government considers “underserved” for the purposes of federal grantmaking. Many of the counties hit hardest by Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina and Northern Georgia were made ineligible for funding through this program as a result of the screening tool’s designations. Hurricane Helene had left 227 people dead as of Saturday and damages caused by the storm could reach as high as $35 billion, according to estimates from the reinsurance company Gallagher Re. North Carolinians have received $27 million in individual assistance approved by FEMA, The Associated Press reported. Entities that requested FEMA grant funding had their applications evaluated based on whether or not they selected communities labeled as “underserved” by the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool as well as the degree to which they centered equity in their proposal. “To advance considerations of equity in awarding RCPGP grant funding, FEMA will add additional points to the scores of projects that will benefit disadvantaged communities,” the grant document reads. “We are expecting another hurricane hitting,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Wednesday. “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.” FEMA’s shortfall in funding comes after the agency spent nearly $1 billion on migrant assistance programs in the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years. Hurricane Milton is a Category 5 storm on track to hit the Florida Gulf Coast on Wednesday, CNN reported. Florida is still recovering from Helene. FEMA did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post FEMA Doled Out Millions Pushing ‘Equity,’ Prioritizing ‘Underserved Communities’ Leading Up to Hurricane Season appeared first on The Daily Signal.

American elites really have become a toxic, ideological class apart—even if they don’t want to admit it. A recent survey by Scott Rasmussen called “Elite 1%,” which was a project of the polling firm Napolitan Institute, reveals that there’s a stark divide between the viewpoints of ruling elites and the rest of the American people on a wide range of questions. The report, released Friday, not only found wide differences in opinion between the American people and the elites, it also concluded that the gap in ideology and power between the groups may be leading to America’s fraught political situation. The research categorized Americans into several groups, but focused on the gap between a small subset of elites and the rest of the country, which it defined as “Main Street Americans” who represent “70-75% of the U.S. population” and have none of the attributes of those categorized into the “elite” groups.  “They do NOT have postgraduate degrees, do NOT live in densely populated urban areas, and earn LESS than $150,000 annually” is how the survey defined so-called Main Street Americans. The findings on the differences between the elites and the rest of America clearly represent an unmistakable political split between institutional insiders versus outsiders. According to the report, “members of the Elite 1% have very favorable opinions of university professors, lawyers, union leaders, journalists, and members of Congress.” While the elites leaned strongly toward the Democratic Party, those who were Republicans tended to be much more similar to their partisan counterparts rather than to Main Street Americans. The elite insiders are typically more socially liberal, less likely to trust citizens to govern themselves, and—perhaps unsurprisingly—tend to be far more trusting in institutions to make the right decisions for the country (without much or any input from people outside their class).  They are also far more comfortable with censorship and regulating the lives of ordinary people. On social issues, the poll found that there’s an enormous gap between most Americans and the elite on the issue of transgenderism and whether biological males should be allowed to participate in female sports. “If a biological male identifies as a woman, just 17% of Main Street voters believe that person should be allowed to compete in women’s sports,” the research found. “Among the Elite 1%, 29% believe such athletes should be allowed to compete in women’s sports.” It’s not just women’s sports on which there’s such a wide gap in opinion on the transgender issue. “Only 9% of voters favor a regulation being developed by the Biden administration that would make misgendering a co-worker a fireable offense,” the study found. “Seventy-five percent (75%) of voters are opposed.” The elites are also far more likely to announce their pronouns when introducing themselves. “Only 10% of voters have introduced themselves by expressing their preferred pronouns,” the polling found. “Among the Elite 1%, more than 4 out of 10 have done so. Among the Politically Active Elites, 61% have introduced themselves by expressing their preferred pronouns.” The elites are suspicious of the Second Amendment and even the First Amendment. Those amendments to the Bill of Rights protect the right to bear arms and the freedom of speech and assembly, respectively. The polling divide between elites and average Americans on speech is stark: Voters, by a 59% to 34% margin, believe that letting the government decide what counts as misinformation is more dangerous than the disinformation itself. Among the Elite 1%, the numbers are reversed: by a 57% to 39% margin, they see letting the government decide as the lesser problem. The elites don’t just want to censor speech, they want to disarm Americans, according to the polling data. “Seventy-two percent (72%) of the Elite 1% would prefer to live in communities where guns are outlawed,” the report found. “Most voters (51%) take the opposite view and would prefer to live in communities where guns are allowed.” The research found that 77% of the elites polled want to ban the private ownership of firearms. On the concept of self-government, elites were far more likely to not only make arbitrary decisions for society, but also to be OK with rigging the system to ensure they stay in power. “If their campaign team thought they could get away with cheating to win, 7% of voters would want their team to cheat,” the polling found. “Among the Elite 1%, the support for cheating rose to 35%. And, among the Politically Active Elites, 69% would want their team to cheat, rather than accept voters’ decisions.” Perhaps most surprisingly, the polls found that most elites had no idea that their ideas were so different from those of the mainstream. The report found that “two-thirds (65%) of the Elite 1%—and 82% of Politically Active Elites—think most voters agree with them on important issues. As has been documented throughout this report, that is far from an accurate assessment.” The creators of the project noted that while there is nothing wrong with there being large gaps in opinions on serious questions in a society, the Elite 1% “hold tremendous institutional and media power that amplifies their voices at the expense of the American people.” This power is enhanced, they wrote, by the alliance between the elites “and the unelected managers of the federal government.” They concluded that the views and overwhelming influence of out-of-touch elites “may be the root cause of the political toxicity in our nation today” and that their “underlying attitudes reflect an implicit rejection of the founding ideal that governments derive their only just authority from the consent of the governed.” The post Ruling Elites vs. Main Street: Poll Reveals Wide Ideological, Cultural Divides appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Democrats Unleash Their 2024 Election Censorship Playbook appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Chinese Authorities Beat Up and Robbed Vietnamese Fishermen, Then They Lied About It

At long last, after decades of calls to launch Spanish-language content, it is finally happening: Fox News is launching original Spanish-language news programming, and a Spanish-language version of its website. Per Axios: Fox News Media will launch a daily Spanish-language news show called "Fox Noticias" that will air on Fox Corp.'s Spanish-language sports cable network Fox Deportes, executives told Axios. Ahead of the debut next week, Fox News will also unveil a Spanish-language version of its website. Why it matters: 50% of the increase in new eligible voters over the past four years has been Hispanic, representing one of the fastest-growing voting blocks in the country, per Pew. But traditional television and newspaper outlets catering to that group have experienced declines. To be clear, the traditional TV outlets experiencing declines are Univision and Telemundo. It’s been that way for decades. And where, you may ask yourself, are those audiences going? Per Fox’s press release heralding the launch: FOX News ranks as the top destination in cable news among Hispanic viewers with the most politically diverse audience in cable news, according to Nielsen Media Research. Notably, FOX News was the number one cable network with Hispanic viewers on a total day 24-hour basis as well as during primetime during the third quarter of 2024. Overall, the network delivers 36% of the Hispanic cable news total viewing share and 45% of the 25-54 demographic. The network also showed the most growth in Hispanic viewership for the most recent quarter, up 65% in total day viewers and 114% in the demographic.   In making the announcement, Sylvester said, “As the leading cable news provider among Hispanic viewers with one of the most diverse audiences in cable news, we are proud to deliver new headline-driven content that focuses on the issues impacting the Hispanic community.” With the numbers being what they are, it seemed to be a no-brainer for Fox to launch Noticias. Rather than take a “build it and they will come” approach, Fox looked at historic data and determined “Because they came, we will build it.”  The launch is modest and scalable, starting with a Spanish-language version of the Fox News website and an afternoon newscast, hosted by Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy, which will air on Fox Deportes and across the network’s digital properties as well as on its social media. To be clear, Fox Noticias is the network’s first full foray into Spanish-language programming. What about MundoFox, you might ask? That doesn’t count. MundoFox, a joint venture between NewsCorp and Colombia’s RCN, positioned itself as a full broadcast network with entertainment, soap operas, and a newscast that was indistinguishable from what you might see on Univision or Telemundo, and quickly faded away. Like Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, MundoFox is absolutely non-canon. If you had a nickel for every time I ended one of my MRC Latino items with “the market cries out for an alternative”, you’d have a lot of nickels. After years of asking Fox News to step up into the Spanish-language marketplace, they’ve finally done so. Expect the left, which feels entitled to control the flow of Spanish-language information, to explode.

Donald Trump returning to Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday clearly upset PBS News Hour anchor Geoff Bennett on Monday, especially when multiple speakers argued harsh Democrat rhetoric about Trump -- he's Hitler, a threat to Democracy -- inspired assassins. Bennett didn't object when Jim Acosta and other journalists said Trump's criticism of the "Fake News" media would get them killed. In the weekly political panel with Amy Walter and NPR's Tamara Keith, Bennett explained: "Donald Trump returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the first assassination attempt. And he and some members of his family suggested that Democrats are somehow behind these attempts on his life." Then he played video of Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and most passionately Eric Trump blaming the Democrats for inflaming the shooters.   He huffed to Walter: "So claims without regard for evidence or propriety. I mean, what are your — what are your takeaways?" Walter gave a conventional answer about how the shooting in Butler didn't moderate Trump's tone. Neither of them would mention that the second assassination attempt came from a guy who called Trump a "threat to democracy," just like the Democrats do.  From there, Bennett turned to Keith and said "there's one last topic I want to get to. It's The New York Times putting a focus on Donald Trump's age and mental cognition. Our friend Peter Baker and his colleagues over there write that: "Donald Trump's speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane, and increasingly fixated on the past." There is this question of, where's the outrage and the criticism that Joe Biden saw when the question was focused on his age and mental capacity? Keith said the age issue is now "fair game," since Biden was forced out. "He is now the oldest candidate in the race, and he has never released a fulsome health report. He has said he's aced his cognitive exams, but he hasn't ever released non-superlative medical reports." Earlier, Bennett introduced a clip of Kamala Harris doing the "Call Her Daddy" sex podcast (and he bungled the title), but he had to drag in objectionable Republicans:  BENNETT: She was asked about Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' criticism that somehow Kamala Harris didn't have anyone to keep her humble because she doesn't have biological children. Here's how she responded. HARRIS: I don't think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble. [SCREEN WIPE] Family comes in many forms, and I think that increasingly all of us understand that this is not the 1950s anymore. Bennett then asked Keith to explain Kamala's interview strategy, which you could ask Team Kamala (if Keith isn't unofficially on it).  PBS felt they had to edit out Kamala rambling about women having love in their life and family in their life and children in their life....PBS just seems to line up their beefs with unfair Republican snark against Democrats.  Earlier this year, Clay Waters reported that PBS News Hour completely miscontrued Trump's remarks about an economic "bloodbath" if Biden was reelected. That was dangerously violent rhetoric. How perfectly partisan. 

If journalism professor and PolitiFact founder Bill Adair meant to increase faith in the fact-checking industry with his appearance on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, he failed miserably. Adair told host Jon Stewart on Monday that the reason why Republicans get fact-checked more is because “lying... has just become a culture” in conservative circles. Holding up a copy of Adair’s book, Stewart declared, “You’ve taken criticism because you fact-check more people on the right, or you say they lie more... I mean, it’s in here; there’s a statistical analysis.”     Adair replied, “What I did for the book was look at fact-checks by PolitiFact and by the Washington Post fact-checker and then talk to -- I think the most revealing thing was when I talked to Republican politicians and said, ‘Why does your party lie more?’ And it was really revealing.” Stewart then interrupted because he found the premise to be humorous, “Wait, you just said, ‘Why do you guys lie more?’ And they’re like, ‘Good question, Bill. There’s something deeply wrong with us.’” Adair was then forced to admit he didn’t really talk to Republicans, “Yeah, well, these are, for the most part, people who have left the Republican Party and who will acknowledge this truth, but, you know, they have a partisan media that not only looks the other way when they lie, but echoes their lies, and often has a business model built upon their lies, and so, you begin with that. Then, you have a culture in the Republican Party that many people told me goes back to—many people put it with Newt Gingrich as sort of the turning point.” According to Adair, Gingrich “changed the culture of the Republican Party and changed it into sort of an anything goes. ‘Hey, if we’re going to win, let's, you know, you can change the facts.’” Stewart suggested that it was more likely caused by Richard Nixon and Roger Ailes, and Adair didn’t disagree, “And, you know, combine all those things, and you have a recipe for lying and support for lying that has just become a culture.” That’s a funny thing to say after the VP debate where PolitiFact hacked up a JD Vance quote to rate him mostly false when the rest of his quote said what PolitiFact’s rebuttal claimed he omitted while refusing to give Tim Walz a false rating for his Tiananmen Square tall tale. Earlier in the interview, Adair claimed, “The whole idea is to answer people's curiosity... If you hear a politician make a statement, and you wonder, ‘Is that true?’ Those are the things that PolitiFact checks. I mean, and ultimately, that's what journalism is all about. To answer people's curiosity. If they are wondering what is true and what's not, that is what PolitiFact fact-checks.”     Really? Are people really wondering if Donald Trump is dead? Still, Adair later chimed in on the fact-checkers relationship with big tech companies, “I think humans will be needed to create fact-checks. We hear what is wrong, we need to research it. We need to respond to it. But yes, AI can be used to spread it more efficiently, to broader audiences.” He hyped, “Two things we have done with our team at Duke is to, we work with a tech company to create a standard so that fact-checkers could label their fact checks. It's called ‘claim review,’ and it allows them, when they publish something, to put this tag on so that tech companies, search engines, social media platforms can find—“ Stewart interrupted to clarify, “Like a good housekeeping seal, to some extent of—” to which Adair argued, “it is really like a street sign that says, 'This is a fact-check on person, on this claim.' And claim review helps find that fact-check, if you're Google, so, Google can then say, “Oh, here's a fact-check” and could use it in powerful ways. So, that's one way.” Seeing possibilities, Stewart hoped, “And keeps the information from being, let's say, laundered throughout the internet, which is often times what happens. People lose attribution.” Adair hedged, “Potentially. I can't speak for Google, but that is something they could do.” But what is a Googler to do when they see a fact-check label that itself isn’t true? Here is a transcript for the October 7 show: COMEDY CENTRAL The Daily Show 10/7/2024 11:20 PM ET JON STEWART: And the idea is, it's sort of a repository of fact-checkers for political speech. How did you decide what would be included in what you would decide to check? BILL ADAIR: Sure. So, the whole idea is to answer people's curiosity.  STEWART: Right. ADAIR: If you hear a politician make a statement, and you wonder, "Is that true?" Those are the things that PolitiFact checks. I mean, and ultimately, that's what journalism is all about. To answer people's curiosity. If they are wondering what is true and what's not, that is what PolitiFact fact-checks. … 11:24 PM ET   ADAIR: I think humans will be needed to create fact-checks. We hear what is wrong, we need to research it. STEWART: Right. ADAIR: We need to respond to it. But yes, AI can be used to spread it more efficiently, to broader audiences. STEWART: And to be more responsive. ADAIR: So, two ways that we've done that at Duke. We worked – STEWART: Duke? ADAIR: Duke University? STEWART: I have heard it's a safety school. I have heard very, very poor things. ADAIR: [Laughs] So, two things we have done with our team at Duke is to, we work with a tech company to create a standard so that fact-checkers could label their fact checks. It's called “claim review,” and it allows them, when they publish something, to put this tag on so that tech companies, search engines, social media platforms can find – STEWART: Like a good housekeeping seal, to some extent of— ADAIR: It is really like a street sign that says, "This is a fact-check on person, on this claim." And claim review helps find that fact-check, if you're Google— STEWART: I see. ADAIR: So, Google can then say, “Oh, here's a fact-check” and could use it in powerful ways. So, that's one way. STEWART: And keeps the information from being, let's say, laundered throughout the internet, which is often times what happens. People lose attribution. ADAIR: Potentially. I can't speak for Google, but that is something they could do. … 11:35 PM ET STEWART: You’ve taken criticism because you fact-check more people on the right, or you say they lie more. ADAIR: Yes. STEWART: And better. ADAIR: Right. They're very good at it. STEWART: Yes, but you’ve done it, I mean, it’s in here; there’s a statistical analysis. ADAIR: Yes. What I did for the book was look at fact-checks by PolitiFact and by the Washington Post fact-checker and then talk to — I think the most revealing thing was when I talked to Republican politicians and said, “Why does your party lie more?” And it was really revealing. STEWART: Wait, you just said, “Why do you guys lie more?” And they’re like, “Good question, Bill. There’s something deeply wrong with us.” ADAIR: Yeah, well, these are, for the most part, people who have left the Republican Party and who will acknowledge this truth, but, you know, they have a partisan media that not only looks the other way when they lie, but echoes their lies, and often has a business model built upon their lies, and so, you begin with that. Then, you have a culture in the Republican Party that many people told me goes back to — many people put it with Newt Gingrich as sort of the turning point. STEWART: Really? ADAIR: That Newt Gingrich, sort of, changed the culture of the Republican Party and changed it into sort of an anything goes. “Hey, if we’re going to win, let's, you know, you can change the facts.” STEWART: By any means necessary. ADAIR: Yes.  STEWART: Right. ADAIR: And that culture took hold. Now, some people dated earlier. STEWART: I’d go to Nixon on that and Roger Ailes. ADAIR: I was just going say, and Roger Ailes. STEWART: And maybe money isn't even the point. Roger Ailes, the founder of Fox News, very famously said during Watergate, “I’m going to create an apparatus so that what the left did to Nixon,” they viewed any sort of press as the left, what they did to Nixon, “you can never again do to another Republican candidate or president,” and quite frankly, I think has been successful. ADAIR: And, you know, combine all those things — STEWART: Yeah. ADAIR: — and you have a recipe for lying and support for lying that has just become a culture.

Por fin, después de décadas de llamados para lanzar contenido en español, finalmente está sucediendo: Fox News está lanzando programación de noticias original en español, además de una versión en español de su sitio web. Según Axios: Fox News Media lanzará un noticiero diario en  español programa de noticias llamado "Fox Noticias" que se transmitirá por Fox Deportes, la red de cable deportivo en español de Fox Corp., dijeron ejecutivos a Axios. Antes del debut la próxima semana, Fox News también presentará una versión en español de su sitio web. Por qué es importante: el 50% del aumento de nuevos votantes elegibles en los últimos cuatro años ha sido hispano, lo que representa uno de los bloques de votantes de más rápido crecimiento en el país, por Pew Research. Pero los medios tradicionales de televisión y periódicos que atienden a ese grupo han experimentado disminuciones (en audiencia). Que conste: los canales de televisión tradicionales que experimentan caídas son Univisión y Telemundo. Ha sido así durante décadas. ¿Y hacia dónde, te preguntarás, van esas audiencias? Según el comunicado de prensa de Fox News que anuncia el lanzamiento: FOX News se ubica como el principal destino de noticias por cable entre los televidentes hispanos con la audiencia más diversa políticamente en noticias por cable, según Nielsen Media Research. En particular, FOX News fue la cadena de cable número uno con espectadores hispanos en un total de 24 horas del día, así como durante el horario de máxima audiencia, durante el tercer trimestre de 2024. En general, la cadena ofrece el 36% de la participación total de visualización de noticias por cable hispanas y el 45% del grupo demográfico de 25 a 54 años. La cadena también mostró el mayor crecimiento en audiencia hispana durante el trimestre más reciente, un aumento del 65% en el total de espectadores diurnos y del 114 % en el segmento demográfico.   Al hacer el anuncio, Sylvester dijo: “Como proveedor líder de noticias por cable entre los televidentes hispanos con una de las audiencias más diversas en noticias por cable, estamos orgullosos de ofrecer nuevo contenido basado en titulares que se centra en los problemas que afectan a la comunidad hispana”. Siendo los números los que son, parecía una obviedad para Fox lanzar Noticias. En lugar de adoptar un enfoque de “constrúyelo y ellos vendrán”, Fox analizó datos históricos y determinó “Por cuanto ellos vinieron, nosotros lo construiremos”.  El lanzamiento es modesto y escalable, comenzando con una versión en español del sitio web de Fox News y un noticiero vespertino, presentado por la copresentadora de Fox & Friends Weekend, Rachel Campos-Duffy, que se transmitirá por Fox Deportes y en todas las propiedades digitales de la cadena, así como en sus redes sociales. Fox Noticias es la primera incursión completa de la cadena en la programación en español. ¿Y donde queda MundoFox, podrías preguntarte? Eso no cuenta. MundoFox, una empresa conjunta entre NewsCorp y la RCN de Colombia, se posicionó como una cadena de transmisión completa con entretenimiento, telenovelas y un noticiero que era indistinguible de lo que se podía ver en Univisión o Telemundo, y rápidamente se desvaneció. Como el Joker de Joaquin Phoenix, MundoFox es absolutamente no canónico. Si tuvieras una moneda por cada vez que terminé uno de mis artículos de MRC Latino con “el mercado clama por una alternativa”, tendrías muchas monedas. Después de años de pedirle a Fox News que entrara al mercado en español, finalmente lo hicieron. Es de esperarse que la izquierda, que se siente con derecho a controlar el flujo de información en español, caiga en brote.  

On the first anniversary of the horrific Hamas Oct. 7 terror attack against Israel in 2023, a prominent leftist philosopher decried the creation of the Israeli state in a George Soros-funded outlet. In an op-ed published in the Soros-funded publication Project Syndicate, Slavoj Žižek, a Slovenian Marxist philosopher and director at the University of London’s Birkbeck Institute, insinuated the destruction of the Israeli state would result in peace in the Middle East.  Žižek had the temerity to invoke biblical language by bafflingly referring to the Israeli state as Europe’s “original sin” following World War II that sparked much of the conflict around that region seen today and as a “symbol of European oppression and colonialization.” An estimated $2,914,890 was funneled into Project Syndicate by Soros, who has a sordid history of peddling anti-Israel sentiments and financing anti-Semitic groups that celebrated the Oct. 7 massacre. In a resurfaced op-ed from early 2007, Soros demanded America and Israel “open the door to Hamas.”  Žižek, in effect, fits himself right in with the Soros brand.  Žižek buried his true intent at the bottom of a hill of ludicrous equivalencies between the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war. In Žižek’s view, Israel is not that dissimilar from Russia, and Ukraine has parallels with “Palestine.” “If Russia occupies part of Ukraine and proclaims it part of Russia, can it then claim self-defense when it crushes those who resist,” he absurdly stated in comparison to Israel. FLASHBACK: Answers, Please! Why Did George Soros Fund a Radical Pro-Hamas Group? The Holy Land, long dominated and conquered by numerous empires over the centuries, is known to be the ancient land of the Jewish people. This fact, however, seems to be lost on Žižek, who claimed the establishment and movement of Jewish people to Israel was the result of European guilt following the Holocaust post-World War II. As long as that “sin” is not atoned for, spewed Žižek, there won’t be peace in the Middle East.   “Europeans gave the survivors of that genocide land that other people had inhabited for centuries. It is that original sin which, unexpiated, is once again preventing peace and quiet in the Middle East.” Žižek wrote disturbingly. Dan Schneider, Vice President of Free Speech America blasted Žižek in a statement, saying, “Žižek is a shining example of how really smart people can also be really dumb. First, he is very deceptive about how he describes the creation of the modern state of Israel. Jews have been continuously living on that land for thousands of years, more than twice as long as Islam has even existed as a religion. Jews were ‘given’ nothing they didn’t already have a right to.” Schneider continued, “And the so-called ‘sin’ of which Žižek writes allowed for the creation of the only country in the Middle East that honors the rule of law, individual rights, and pluralism. Try being a Muslim of the wrong sect in Egypt, Jordan, Iran, or any other Islamic country. The two safest places on the planet for Muslims are the US and Israel. The Marxist dogma remains strong in Žižek to this day.”  ICYMI: MRC’s Bozell, Schneider Blast Soros Empire for Funding Radical Pro-Hamas GroupsConservatives are under attack. Contact ABC News (818) 460-7477, CBS News (212) 975-3247 and NBC News (212) 664-6192 and demand they report on Žižek’s outrageous anti-Israel comments.