VIDEO: Why you should KEEP ALL your physical media

Richard John "Rick" Beato is an American YouTuber, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, and educator. Since the early 1980s, he has worked variously as a musician, songwriter, audio engineer, and record producer; he has also lectured on music at universities. Beato owns and operates Black Dog Sound Studios in Stone Mountain GA. (Don't miss the Confederate Memorial Carving while you're there!)

Mr Beato is afraid that the media in which our history and culture is recorded is in danger of being loss, consigned to the "memory hole" envisioned by George Orwell in 1984. He argues that if the written, audio and visual works are not destroyed completely -- digital records being destroyed by a solar flare, for instance -- they may survive only in forms "corrected" according to the politics of the day. 

In this video, titled "Another Reason I F*cking Hate AI", Mr Beato describes how this "AI apocalypse" could happen. Indeed, he says, it's happening already!

Walt believe what Mr Beato is saying. Full disclosure: We don't use AI here, largely because we don't know how. But Ed. has been known to "revise" text in order to correct or otherwise "improve" it. The version you're reading may be V 2.0... or not!

Any book you've ever read, even the Holy Bible, can be changed using AI. If you don't preserve the original hard copy, how would you know? These days, when you see something on YouTube, you should assume that it's been created or edited... or censored, by AI. Don't believe me? Go to some of the episodes of Family Guy or South Park you can find on NetFlix or wherever. Do you find yourself saying, "Hey, that's not how it was when it was on TV!"? 

The lessons: Keep all your books, DVDs, CDs, tapes and vinyl. And back your stuff up. Make .pdf files of the printed material. (We recommend an 11 x 17 scanner) Digitise4 the video and audio tapes. Make copies of the CDs and DVDs. Get a large (4 TB or bigger) external hard drive. And remember, even a hard drive can be destroyed and/or will eventually fail. Govern yourselves accordingly!

The National Post and the rise and fall of Lord Black of Cross Harbour

As promised in our previous post (scroll down to footnote), here's the story of how Canada's National Post got its name... and how its founder got his comeuppance. 

Back in the 1980s, a Canadian business tycoon by the name of Conrad Black decided he wanted to be a media mogul -- a sort of latter-day Lord Beaverbrook -- if only to see his turgid op-ed pieces in print. 

First he bought some lesser-known newspapers, including the Jerusalem Post, which he acquired in 1990 through his company, Hollinger Inc., for a mere $17 million. Under his ownership, the paper underwent an editorial shift to the right. It was eventually sold in 2004 following Mr Black's departure from Hollinger, which Walt will explain momentarily below. 

But the Jerusalem Post was just a beginning. Wanting a national, conservative-leaning voice in Canada to challenge the Groan & Wail, Mr Black acquired the Southam newspaper chain, including its flagship Financial Post, a weekly which was to be relaunched as a daily. 

But what should the new rag be called? Disrespectful hacks suggested that in view of Mr Black's circumferential challenge, a good name would be Daily Tubby. 

For some reason, Mr Black chose instead to launch the "new" paper on 27 October 1998 as the National Post. (Here at WWW, we usually refer to it as the Notional Pest.) The "new" newspaper was soon losing money briskly, with an estimated $190 million lost during its first three years. 

Conrad Black went from strength to strength (as he tells it, anyway) and his greatness was eventually recognized by Queen Elizabeth II, who granted him a life peerage in 2001, giving him the title of Baron Black of Cross Harbour. He had to renounce his Canadian citizenship to accept the title, since Canadian citizens are prohibited by law from accepting British honours. 

Just months before his elevation, Lord Black sold 50% of his stake in the National Post to CanWest Global Communications Corp., then owned by the loathsome Izzy Asper, a prominent member of Canada's Jewish community and great friend of the Zionist Entity. A few months later, CanWest bought the remaining 50% from Lord Black, who, after all, had all those fancy robes to buy and very high-maintenance wife to support.

Seated at his right hand in the photo is Lady Black, née Barbara Amiel, whom Walt met, just once, in the offices of a student newspaper somewhere. Conrad Black (as he then was) was her fourth husband. 

Things started to go south for M'lord and M'lady in 2003, when the tax and securities boys in the US of A started to look at the books of Hollinger Inc., including some which were in the hands of Lord Black when he had his collar felt. Caught black-and-white-handed, he was.

It took some time for the wheels of justice to grind Lord Black down, but in 2007 he was convicted of felony fraud and obstruction of justice for a scheme that involved stealing roughly $6.1 million from Hollinger International investors. He served over three years in an American prison, but was fully pardoned by President Trump in 2019. To this day, Lord Black's gratitude is expressed regularly in his columns in the NP.

As for his peerage,  Conrad Black was removed from the British House of Lords in July 2024 for non-attendance, losing his seat as a working peer. But he got to keep his title. In 2023, the Canadian government of Prime Minister Blackie McBlackface decided that Mr Black's renunciation of his citizenship had been only "temporary". His title is effectively meaningless, as was that of Officer of the Order of Canada which was stripped from him in 2014.

Yes, all is forgiven, and Tubby's relentless pro-Israel, pro-Trump and pro-America propanda can be read in the National Post regularly... too much so for our liking.

Are you up to the challenge of a career in mainstream journalism?

There’s no more noble aspiration than that of one day becoming a professional journalist, but many may feel intimidated or unequipped to pursue such an impressive career. Do you think you have what it takes? Here, from our friends at the Babylon Bee, are nine qualifications needed for a career as a professional journalist. 

1. Burning desire to seek the truth: And if the truth you discover isn’t what you were hoping, just come up with something else. 

2. Have an IQ no higher than 45: Any more than that, and CNN won’t even consider you. 

3. Be OK working for peanuts: That’s not a metaphor, media companies are struggling so much they can’t compensate you with money. 

4. Possess an undying desire to rid the world of the evil that is the United States: You can’t just allow freedom and democracy to keep running roughshod over the world. 

5. Ability to pass a lie detector test while lying: It’s a skill possessed by the greatest reporters. 

6. Willingness to be verbally abused by Donald Trump: Even though most of it is probably true. 

7. Be a hot blonde woman in a tight dress: This tip is specifically for people wanting to work at Fox News. 

8. No actual training in reporting facts: You don’t want actual news to get in the way of telling your predetermined story. 

9. Be a registered Democrat: This is the most important one. 

If you check all the boxes listed above, you too could be on your way to being part of the greatest threat to America.

The Bee is Walt's favourite source of Christian satire. If you subscribe, please tell `em Walt sent ya!

VIDEO: Bill Burr tells the media to grow some balls!

And he never once used the f-word. How about that! 

I don't care what they say about Bill being a cuckservative. (Could it be beause he's married to a girl of the darker persuasion?) IMHO, he's one of the few -- Dave Chappelle being another -- who has the courage to laugh at what I've long called "the sorry state of the world"... the real world.

Thanks to Agent 34 for fillin in in Walt's hour of need.

2024 Wally Awards: Biggest Lie of the Year - VIDEO

Rather than do a lengthy yearend review of stuff you already know and will read about elsewhere, we've decided to just hand out the coveted Wallies, without further ado. This is the big finale, the Wally Award for Biggest Lie of the Year, also Most Egregious Lie of the Year, Most Obvious Lie of the Year, etc etc. 

The contest this year wasn't even close. The winner was nominated by CBS News talking head Jan Crawford, on "Face the Nation", and seconded by Hugh Hewitt, is an American conservative political commentator, radio talk show host with the Salem Radio Network, attorney, academic, and writer on law, society, politics, and media bias. Heeeeere's Hugh!

Indeed, the Biggest Lie is the lickspittle media's denial of what Ms Crawford calls President Biden's "obvious cognitive decline: -- the most underreported story of 2024.

Ms Crawford asserts that Senile Joe's declining mental acuity appeared obvious to all but members of the corporate media -- including her own network! -- whose very job it was to cover the White House and its occupant. She says the nature of the entire 2024 election could have been reshaped if Mr Biden’s mental fitness had been addressed by the lickspittle Washington press corps and the liberal elites earlier in the campaign.

Yesterday morning, in response to a question from FTN moderator Major Garrett, Ms Crawford said, "Undercovered and underreported, that would be, to me, Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline that became undeniable in the televised debate." She noted recent reporting by the Wall Street Journal and Breitbart News revealed how White House aides covered up Senile Joe's mental decline  by forming a tight circle around the octagenarian to limit his in-person interactions.

Staffers kept meetings short and controlled access, top advisers acted as go-betweens and public interactions became more scripted, she said, "And yet he insisted that he could still run for president. We should have much more forcefully questioned whether he was fit for office for another four years, which could have led to a primary for the Democrats."

In spite of these recent revelations, Democrats and White House reporters continue, even now, to insist that Senile Joe could have won the 2024 election had he not been pushed into the ditch by the Obama-Clinton cabal. The very same liars have yet to name those who were -- and still are -- actually running the country as Mr Biden’s "obvious cognitive decline" became more evident.

Footnote and WOW from Ed.: Walt started this blog about six months into the first presidensity of Barack Hussein Obama, because someone needed to say that America (not to mention the rest of the "free world") was headed in the wrong direction... off the rails, into the rocks, down the toilet, all of the above. Now the ship of state has been turned to starboard, Walt is considering the possibility that his work here is done. Stay tuned.

Good morning, America!

President Donald J. Trump has been re-elected. Thanks be to God.

This is soooo sweet. I had five TVs going, so I could watch talking heads on all five of the mainstream networks (which are not mainstream, in the sense of in tune with the majority of Americans) backing and filling to deny what was apparent as early as 2100 FMT (Fort Mudge Time).

The handwriting appeared on the wall -- in red paint on the so-called Blue Wall -- at 2045 when Georgia's Secretary of State announced that, with 97% of the vote counted, and DJT with a six-figure lead, there was no mathematical way for the Cackler to win his state. It took the lickspittle media at least 45 minutes to project a Trump win, and some of them never did paint Georgia red until President Trump made his victory speech.

Like him or loathe him, you have to give President Trump credit for the most amazing comeback since Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President. He (Trump) took on and whupped: the Dark State, the liberal elites of the coasts, the Hollywood "celebrities", the Feminazis, the super-wokesters, the academia nuts, the tree-huggers, the weaponized DOJ, the fake pollsters, and the lickspittle media.

President Trump's victory means no less than the beginning of the end of the tyranny of the liberal establishment. Now it's up to him to follow through and lead America back to greatness. Congratulations, Donald! We're counting on ya!

VIDEO: "Funny... he doesn't look like a Muslim..."

The answer to yesterday's hypothetical seems to be (d). I trust those who accuse Walt of always looking for the Mohammedan connection will notice that, this time, we refrained from jumping to the usual conclusion.

The person who attempted to assassinate President Trump at yesterday's rally in Butler County PA has been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, age 20, from a nearby town.

Little is known about the late Mr Crooks, who was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper within seconds of having fires a hail of bullets towards the once and future POTUS.

The New York Times reports that an online recording of his graduation ceremony shows him walking the stage to minimal applause and briefly posing with a school official. A search by Fox News Digital revealed that he would have turned 21 years old this September. He had no reported criminal or traffic citations and no reported bankruptcies, liens or foreclosures. 

Mr Crooks was a registered Republican, according to voting records, but he only participated in the 2022 state elections, having been too young previously. Records show he made a $15 donation to Progressive Turnout Project, a Chicago-based political action committee that supports Democrat candidates for public office and claims to advocate for "key Democratic constituencies: young people, minorities and low-income people."

What we don't know, and will likely never know, is why Mr Crooks did it. Was it  his own bunny-brained idea, or did someone put him up to it? Where did he get the assault rifle? Was he stoned or crazy or both? Walt guesses the Democratic government and their lickspittle media will tell us to conclude that he was just a "deranged lone wolf". QED.

Worth watching: Alex Stein tells Sky News Australia you won't get the truth  about this attempted assassination from US meeja.

 

Moral of the story? Bookmark Walt Whiteman's World!

How the liberal media deals with stories about black crime

The Eclipse Day celebrations of Mother Earth, the climate crisis and suchlike nonsense were eclipsed [Geddit? Ed.] in the Florida panhandle by a news story about someone who was so moonstruck or sunstruck or whatever that she decided to go on a shooting spree. Here's a photo of a car which was damaged in the incident.

That's the photo chosen by Canada's Global TV to illustrate the report on their website's landing page. And here (below) is the first three paragraphs of their report.

"A 22-year-old woman from Georgia was arrested for allegedly going on a shooting spree on the day of the solar eclipse and telling people that God told her to do it. Taylon Nichelle Celestine faces charges of attempted murder and aggravated battery for the Monday shootings. 

"She is accused of injuring two people after opening fire on vehicles travelling Interstate 10 through northern Florida. One victim was shot in the neck and is currently in the hospital receiving treatment. The other was grazed on the arm by a bullet. 

"Before the incident, Celestine allegedly checked out of a local hotel and told staff there that she was 'going on a shooting spree, directed by "God" in relation to the solar eclipse,' Florida Highway Patrol wrote in a statement. No other details about motives were provided in the statement."

Based on that information, a lot of readers might have jumped to the conclusion that Ms Celestine is a crazy black woman, but of course the liberal mainstream media wouldn't want to confirm any such suspicion. 

That is likely why they refrained from publishing the mug shot at the left, which found its way into the not-very-liberal New York Post.

Why wouldn't they show us what the accused looks like? For the same reason that the lickspittle media don't (unless forced), identify criminals with "black names", e.g. Velveeeta Taneesha Jones.

What really burns my ring, though, is when the story gives a description of a wanted person like "Female, 5", 150 lbs, with dreadlocks" -- omitting any reference to colour -- and then concludes, "Anyone with further information about the identity or whereabouts of the suspect is asked to call the Police or Crimestoppers." LMAO.

Further to yesterday's post

VIDEO: Recommended for Canadians, a great independent newspaper

"A paper by the people, for the people!" What a novel idea, especially in Canada where the "legacy media" is overwhelmingly controlled by the Laurentian elites who in turn are controlled by the WEF and part of the New World Order.

If you've had enough of the Groan & Wail, the Toronto Red Star, and (sad to say -- see footnote), the Notional Pest, there is an alternative, a real newspaper that you can hold in your hands to read the news and information that the mainstream media won't give you. It's called Druthers. Check this out!

 

For more intformation, click here to go to the Druthers website. If you decide to donate or (even better) subscribe, tell `em Walt sent ya!

Footnote: The newspapers named (you know the ones I mean) are funded by millions of tax dollars paid by the Canadian sheeple to their federal government (J. Trudeau, prop.), yet claim to be "independent". Remember the old adage: He who pays the piper calls the tune. 

In spite of the subsidies received from Blackie McBlackface, they are losing money hand over fist, particularly the Red Star, which is now the print/digital version of the CBC. The Star is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Since the Gliberals can't be seen to own the alleged newspaper directly, its owners are now in talks with Postmedia to merge with the National Post. 

The Canadian Press* calls the plan a "Hail Mary pass". If it comes off, the editorial policies of either the Star or the Post will have to be "adjusted" so as not to flatly contradict each other, as they sometimes do now. Guess which one will have to change? If I were Conrad Black, John Ivison, Terry Glavin or Rex Murphy, I'd learn the lyrics to that fine old gospel song, "I Don't Wanna Get Adjusted".

* Torstar (an owner of the Toronto Star) holds an investment in The Canadian Press as part of a joint agreement with subsidiaries of The Globe and Mail and Montréal’s La Presse. See what I mean?

Everything happened at once, Part 3

21 years ago today

Yes, I am well aware that this is the 21st anniversary of 9/11. And I know the topic of who dunnit and what happened after that has been done to death. But I think it's worth revisiting as Americans ask themselves which is the right party to entrust with national security in these ever more troubled times.

Recommended reading: The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina, by New York Times columnist Frank Rich, Penguin Press, 2006. As you would expect, considering who Mr Rich worked for, the book is an attack on President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the Republican Party. 

But... in revealing how the American people were suckered into supporting an unprovoked war on Iraq (and later Afghanistan), Mr Rich reveals how Deep State, which is non-partisan, co-opted his newspaper and the rest of the lickspittle media. 21 years later, the same mass media are conspiring, at the behest of Deep State and the WTF giants who fund them, to gull you into believing that you should overlook the disastrous failures of the Biden administration and leave them in control of Congress. "Don't worry folks, everything's gonna be OK. Trust us (again)!"

When the Islamic extremists -- the jihadis -- attacked the US of A on 9/11, Americans almost unanimously rallied behind its new, untested president. The papers, notably but not only the NYT and WAPO, and the TV networks, particularly CNN, organized the cheerleading, which went on 24/7 until years after the resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq had been passed.

That there was no basis whatever for the claims that the Iraqis had, or were about to have weapons of mass destruction (WMD), or that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Al-Qaeda, was ignored or suppressed, just as all those stories about the nefarious dealings of Son Hunter are being suppressed today. 

One is reminded of the story of the famous American painter, Frederic Remington, who was sent by William Randolph Hearst, the master of yellow journalism, to cover the incipient Spanish-American war. When he reported from Havana that there was nothing going on, Mr Hearst allegedly replied, "You furnish the pictures. I'll furnish the war."

So it was after 9/11. The priority of the Deep State behind Dubya was not to vanquish Al-Qaeda but to consolidate its own power at any cost. It was a mission that could be accomplished only by a propaganda presidency in which reality was steadily replaced by a scenario of the White House's own invention. Thus it was that America was led for a second time to intervene in the Muslim civil wars, and attack a small and impotent country which had never attacked it.

The Republicans and the lickspittle media intimidated the Democrats into incoherence and impotence, and turned the presidential election of 2004 into an irrelevant referendum on macho imagery and same-sex marriage. Mr Rich's book shows, with a day-by-day timeline, how the institutions that should have exposed these fictions -- the mainstream news media -- were too often left powerless by the administration's relentless attack machine and their own unquestioning political correctness. 

Nothing has changed. If anything, the situation has worsened. The Biden administration controls the media. Deep State controls the administration. Are Americans going to be fooled again?!

One final thought. Among the political leaders who rallied behind the Bush War effor was none other than Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.  During the run-up to the last election campaign, Demented Joe claimed that despite voting to authorize military force against Iraq in 2002, he opposed the Iraq war from "the moment" it began. That's a lie. Read "Biden's Record on Iraq War", FactCheck.org (a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center), 10/9/19. What follows are excerpted from the article.

Biden never outright opposed military action in Iraq in the immediate days after the start of the invasion, as he claimed. He now admits his recent comments went too far. During the second Democratic primary debate on July 31, Biden said his “bad judgment” in voting to authorize President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq in 2002 was “trusting the president saying he was only doing this to get inspectors in and get the U.N. to agree to put inspectors in.” 

In a speech days before the 2002 vote, Bush did say approving the resolution “does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable,” but he also laid out in detail why military action “may” be needed. And on the day the war broke out, Biden acknowledged, “We voted to give him the authority to wage that war. We should step back and be supportive.” 

It wasn’t until Nov. 27, 2005, that Biden acknowledged on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that his 2002 vote authorizing force in Iraq was “a mistake.” “It was a mistake,” Biden said. “It was a mistake to assume the president would use the authority we gave him properly. … We gave the president the authority to unite the world to isolate Saddam. And the fact of the matter is, we went too soon. We went without sufficient force. And we went without a plan.”

Right now, the Democrats and their propaganda machine are manufacturing -- just as in 2001 -- "threats to national security", which they are trying to lay at the feet of President Trump. Don't listen to them. Listen to me! The greatest threat to the safety, security and well-being of America and Americans does not come from within Mar-a-Lago, but from within the White House. Keep that in mind when you vote in November.

VIDEO: Victor Davis Hanson and Rex Murphy talk about how the MSM are destroying the idea of America

Last month we reposted a podcast in which Victor Davis Hanson talked about "the causes of Civil War v. 2.0". Dr. Hanson, an award-winning and nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services, is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.

Today we're sharing an interview he gave to our old friend Rex Murphy, who's been a victim of the cancel culture in the Canadian media, with the exception of the National Post. They talk about the once-objective mass media have become mere propaganda organs for the liberal elites. This is the theme of Dr Hanson's next book, The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America, to be published this coming October.

 

Dr Hanson and Mr Murphy agree that a day of reckoning is coming, but it will only happen (in Walt's opinion) if thoughtful citizens keep calling out the lickspittle media for their anti-Western campaign of deceptions and outright lies. Dear readers, rise up! Please keep sharing links to videos like this and sites like WWW, where you will find the truth that the MSM will not... dare not tell you.

VIDEO: Jordan Peterson predicts the imminent death of MSM

Earlier this week Walt listed the Top 5 American sources of fake news, and gave you some alternatives outside of the "legacy media" (aka controlled media), which I call now the lickspittle media.

The good news is that the mainstream media can also be called the moribund media. They're dieing, even as we watch [and laugh. Ed.]. Readership and viewership are down, right across the board. Newspapers are folding [geddit? Ed.] or at least closing their print editions. People no longer watch network news while they eat their TV dinners. [What's TV? Ed.] Even Fox News has lost millions of viewers since their betrayal of President Trump.

In this short (<10 minutes) video, Dr Jordan Peterson discusses why the mainstream media is losing support, why CNN, The New York Times, ABC, BBC and more are so dead to millennials that their death hasn't even been noticed.

What's taking their place? Is the podcast platform going to continue to grow? Will TikTok take over? What is Jordan Peterson's prediction for politicians going on podcasts? Listen and think...

  

Matt Taibbi: the Sovietization of the American Press (link)

Sometimes Walt finds it difficult to follow the numerous commentators on matters political, religious [and hockey! Poor Len] who I ought to read regularly. One such is Matt Taibbi, sometime writer for Rolling Stone, and creator of his own Substack blog, TK News.

I've been waiting to read Mr Taibbi's analysis of 2020's stolen election, but if it has appeared, or is in the works, I haven't heard about it. I should keep up with Mr T, and have now resolved -- my Saint Patrick's Day resoluytion -- so to do.

Thanks to Agent 3 for giving me the wake-up call [e-mail actually. Ed.]. What prompted him to do so was  Mr Taibbi's March 12th column, headed

 "The Sovietization of the American Press".

The subhead is: The transformation from phony "objectivity" to open one-party orthodoxy hasn't been an improvement. This photo pretty much sums up the content.

Lack of space [and lack of permission! Ed.] constrains us from reposting the entire piece, or even excerpts. Suffice it to say that Walt recommends strongly that you click on the link above and read the article for yourself. 

You'll find it isn't just your imagination. The lamestream press really has become the lickspittle press. Mr Taibbi concludes thus: "What is this all going to look like in four years?"

Anus horribilis 2020: Noted in passing (media)

Ed. here. 2020 is almost over, thank God, truly an Annus Horribilis if ever there was one. (I know my Latin but Walt insists on leaving the headline as he wrote it.) Here is the second segment of our yearend review, saying ave atque vale to some people who in some way made this world a better place, and who will be missed. 

Walt wanted to do "sports and music" second, but I'm going with journalists today because only two who died in 2020 rate a fond farewell, so this will be a short piece for a Monday morning.

Maybe not. What Ed. just wrote might get me started on the sad state of the Fourth Estate in the quasi-free world, particularly the broadcast media, particularly in the Excited States of America and its branch plant in the Great No-longer-white North. [He means Canada. Ed.] We don't call them the lamestream media for nothing. 

Reporters? Journalists? Ha! Just a bunch of typists and cut-and-pasters turning out  mediocre liberal propaganda sweetened with a veneer of "celebrity" and entertainment "news" to convince the (North) American sheeple that everything is just fine -- especially now that Sleepy Joe Biden has been pushed into the White House under cover of night -- when in reality our society is disintegrating before our very eyes. You can see it (if you open your eyes!) but they can't... or won't.

Now that I've got that off my chest, let's note the passing of two journalists of the old school -- both of them Canadian -- who will no longer be letting the air out of the tires of the liberal establishment.

One such was columnist and author Allan Fotheringham -- aka "Dr Foth" -- known for his biting satirical commentaries aimed at the rich and the powerful, who died in Toronto on 19 August 2020. 

For 27 years, you weren't considered a member of the Canuck establishment unless you had been pilloried in Dr Foth's column on the last page of Maclean’s magazine. Such was his genius that he got invited to all the best parties and, some would say, became himself a member of said establishment. 

Allan Fotheringham was born on 31 August 1932 in the middle of nowhere -- Hearne SK -- just down the road from Lilac. His career began with a regular column at the University of British Columbia's student newspaper, the Ubyssey. (The incomparable historian cum storyteller Pierre Berton also wrote for the Ubyssey at about the same time.) Fresh from university, he was hired as a reporter and columnist by the Vancouver Sun. 

He began writing his weekly Maclean’s column in 1975, and is credited with making Maclean's the only magazine customarily read from back to front. He was known for his cutting sense of humour, often aimed at prime ministers and lesser mortals. His more memorable political nicknames include "the jaw that walks like a man" for PM Lyin' Brian Mulroney, "Natural Governing Party" for the Canadian Liberal Party, and the "Holy Mother Corporation" for the Canadian Broadcorping Castration (as I call it).

Mr Fotheringham was a regular panelist on the CBC TV programme Front Page Challenge. Like Christie Blatchford (see below), he became more conservative in his later years, and wrote columns for the Toronto Sun until 2000. In 2001, when his column was moved to an inside page of Maclean's, he left in a huff to become a columnist for the Globe & Mail. His syndicated column appeared in 20 newspapers until his retirement in 2007.

Many of his columns were collected into a series of books, beginning with Collected and Bound (1972), then Malice in Blunderland, or, How the Grits stole Christmas (1983); Look Ma — no hands : an affectionate look at our wonderful Tories (1986); Capitol offences : Dr. Foth meets Uncle Sam (1989); Birds of a Feather: The Press and the Politicians (1999); and Last Page First (2001). 

Allan Fotheringham's last book was an autobiography, Boy From Nowhere - A Life in Ninety-One Countries (Dundurn Press, 2011), which Walt recommends. Maclean's marked his passing with a column filled with some of his memorable jibes under the headline: "Allan Fotheringham was loved, revered and loathed but never ignored." That's exactly why I find him an inspiration as I continue with WWW.

On 12 February 2020, Canada lost a thorn in the paws of the smug and a powerful voice for ordinary people when Christie Blatchfor lost a short but fierce battle with cancer. Born on 20 May 1951 in Rouyn QC, Ms Blatchford was one of Canada’s most prominent writers, having been a leading journalist all four of Toronto's daily papers (including two that believe they are "national newspapers").

She started at the Globe and Mail in 1973, as Canada’s first female sports columnist. (I mean she was a female who wrote about sports, not a columnist who wrote about female sports.) She moved to the Toronto Star in 1977 as a features and news writer. They say a conservative is a liberal who just got mugged. Perhaps Ms Blatchford got mugged at the Red Star, for she moved to the right(ish) Toronto Sun in 1982, and finally to the newly launched National Post in 1998.

Over the years, Ms Blatchford's award-winning work covered sports, war, the courts, crime and much more. In recent years she focused more heavily on political commentary. She wrote columns and appeared in videos that displayed both her conservative views and her hard-nosed attitude.  In her last column in the Post, published on 22 October 2019, she expressed her bewilderment that Justin Trudeau was re-elected Prime Minister of Canada.

For her sins of political incorrectness, she was much maligned by the PC police and social commentariat, but readers loved her -- 1000s sent cards and best-wishes when her cancer diagnosis was revealed -- and her vox populi is missed, not least by her colleague Rex Murphy. See "Christie Blatchford was hard as a rock, soft as a teddy bear and Canadians will miss her", in the National Post, 12/2/20. Sub-head: "She was instinctively kind, had an alert and well-exercised radar for the plight of the underdog, the 'little guy,' the person or group never near the head tables of life."

Further reading: Agent 3, who knows a thing or two about what happens when you get caught in the "justice system" [Is dis a system? Mr Natural] recommends Christie Blatchford's Life Sentence - Stories from four decades of court reporting -- or, how I fell out of love with the Canadian justice system (especially judges) (Doubleday Canada 2016).

Footnote: The estimable Rex Murphy is younger than I am, but still old enough and conservative enough to be considered a curmudgeon -- one of trhe last of a dying breed. Last June, some of his younger and more liberal "colleagues" at the Notional Pest  attempted to get him fired for having the temerity to deny the existence of systemic racism in Canada. In spite of the baying of the PC hounds, the NP's editor still gives Mr Murphy his space. Walt says: Don't let `em get to ya, Rex. I don't want to be writing your obituary next year!

Anus horribilis 2020: Walt's Newsmaker of the Year

Ed. here. 2020 is almost over, thank God, truly an Annus Horribilis if ever there was one. (I know my Latin but Walt insists on leaving the headline as he wrote it.) Sorry for the interruption yestereday evening. We return now to our yearend review, to present the coveted Wally Award to the Newsmaker of the Year. May I have the envelope please? ... And the winner is...

   

Well who did you expect? Sleepy Joe Biden, the all-but-invisible "President-elect"? Do an analysis of the amount of time and space given by the meeja to the contestants in the fraudulent election for the Presidensity between Hallowe'en and Christmas, and you'll see that Still-President Donald J. Trump is the winner, leaving Old Joe waaaay up the track.

The lamestream media has been preoccupied with The Donald for at least five years. First there was speculation over whether or not he would throw his hat in the ring. Then there was the great debate over whether to take his campaign for the Republican nomination seriously. Should they put it in the political news or the entertainment news. Still news, right?

Then Mr Trump was nominated, and the controlled media had to start taking him seriously... although not respectfully. The minute his candidacy for othe Highest Office in the Land became official, the anti-Trump campaign began. Suddenly America's media were filled with rumours, speculation, disinformation and outright lies. (Hello, Russian conspiracy!)

But the media storm of scorn didn't matter. In an election which was a model of fairness and honesty compared with V.2020, the American people chose as their leader a man after their own collective heart.

If you search YouTube, you can still find dozens of videos of the astonishment and humiliation of all those "exports", "analysts", pollsters and other pundits -- not forgetting "celebrities" -- who had to eat generous helpings of crow, live and on the air, when it became apparent that the horrible, politically incorrect "Orange Man" was going to become the 45th President of the United States. But that was only the beginning!

   

The sun hadn't even risen (out here at least) on The Morning After, when the "Resistance" began. How many times have you seen this iconic photo, or read the slogan "Not my president!" since then? 

The anti-Trumpers went... and remain... stark staring bonkers in their refusal to accept the fact that Donald Trump won the 2016 election, became President... and still is President. 

Our own Agent 17 offered to bet that President Trump wouldn't finish his term. And the Swamp -- the Democrats and the Washington establishment -- did their damndest to make it so. Remember the impeachment farce?

That didn't work either, so here we are, with just over three weeks of the Trump presidency remaining, and the same fake news media -- for that's what they are -- less concerned with predicting the shape and direction of a Biden administration than with guessing how President Trump might contrive to remain in office. 

Will Old Joe's inauguration be forestalled by another appeal to SCOTUS? A declaration of martial law? A military coup? Or some kind of divine intervention? (Remember what happened to Pope John Paul I!) Check the fake news outlets -- CNN, MSNBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, CBC, any of them! -- today and see if that's not what they're talking about. That, dear reader, is why Still-President Donald J. Trump is Walt's Newsmaker of the Year!

Further reading: "CNN: 'Our Ratings Are Only Tanking Because Trump Is Killing Off Viewers By The Millions'", Babylon Bee, 26/8/19. Satire from the pre-Covid daze!

VIDEO: Believe it or not, Canada has a conservativ(ish) news channel!

In North America, TV news and information programming -- on cable/satellite and over-the-air -- is pretty much the domain of the lamestream media. In the Excited States of America, if you want to listen to the news, you're pretty much in the thrall of the Big Three: NBC, CBS and ABC. On cable you get the additional "choices" of CNN (the Clinton News Network) and MSNBC (even worse). 

All of them, all of them broadcast "news" and opinions ranging across the political spectrum from left(ish) to far left to Rachel Maddow. We can include as well the talk shows populated by sufferers from TDS like The View's Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg.

If you're an American of a conservative mind or political bent, and think the lamestream news outlets are full of shit, and would like an alternative, your only choice is Fox, but you'll have to wait until The Simpsons and Family Guy are over.

If you're one of the 30 million or so Canadians who live within 100 miles of the World's Longest Undefended Border (TM), you might be able to pull in some US stations over the air, and you can watch all of them on cable/satellite. But you won't find any Canadian news there unless someone makes an attempt on Hair Boy's life. [Would the lamestream media notice? Ed.]

If you can't or won't watch American TV, you still have the Canadian Broadcorping Castration (CBC), owned and operated by the Canadian Ministry of Truth. There are two other major networks -- CTV and Global -- which generally toe the Liberal party line. But wait! Suddenly a new news outlet has appeared in the ether, and... can you believe it... they seem to be at least somewhat conservative! Here's the trailer for The News Forum "where all voices matter".  

Yes, they're new and (mostly) not broadcast professionals. Some of them still don't know which camera to look at. There are some, like Tony "Gazebo" Clement, Joe Oliver and their ole boss, Lyin' Brian Mulroney, who will be instantly disliked by Canadians who know their back stories. But then there's Tanya Granic Allen, for whom Agent 3 (who sent us the link to this video) has all the time in the world. Walt agrees and commends The News Forum to you, but not without reservation. See "Warning from Agent 3", below.

Ed. here. On reading V.1 of this post, Agent 3 called to warn us to restrain our enthusiasm for The News Forum. He says: Don't kid yourself (he adds) that you're going to see and hear truly conservative opinions there. The new medium is dominated by former and present Members of the Canadian Parliament who were elected as Conservatives, or, in the case of former Prime Minister Mulroney, Progressive Conservatives. Lyin' Brian actually appears in a promo spot saying that Canuckistan needs more immigrants! 

What you're going to hear on The News Forum is the centre-right (more centre than right) Conservative Party line, as enunciated by new leader Erin O'Tool, and MPs Pierre Poilievre and Dean Allison... but not Derek Sloan, the "Conservative Without Apology" who finished last in the CPC's recent leadership contest. 

And don't expect appearances by Maxime Bernier, Ezra Levant, Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson, Gavin McInnes, Mark Steyn or Mike from Simcoe-Grey County-Clearview Township. As "Mad Max" said a few weeks ago in "Is there any hope for conservatives in Canada?", his People's Party of Canada is the only truly conservative party in the Great Not-so-white North.

VIDEO: Previewing "The Plot Against the President"

A couple of days ago, Agent 17 asked me what I thought about QAnon and the theory that there is a Deep State plot to get rid of Still-President Trump. No such conspiracy exists, according to (for instance) WaPo. It's actually the QAnon people who are the conspirators, they say: "QAnon, the Conspiracy Theory Creeping Into U.S. Politics", 23/8/20. It's all the work of the QAnon "wack-jobs", so they say.

But (I asked 17), do you really believe that the Lefties, Antifa, the (((controlled media))), the never-Trumpers, the RINOs and the Dumbocrats, are not pulling out all the stops to ensure that Mr Trump is not re-elected? Do they not say so themselves? About the only thing that I haven't heard people like Crazy Maxine Waters advocate is the actual use of deadly force. On the other hand, the Dems haven't rushed to the microphones to denounce the anti-government, anti-police, anti-everything riots in (for instance) Portland either.

"The Plot Against the President" sounds like the title of a novel, a work of pure fiction, doesn't it? Who (except for QAnon) could think of such a thing in America, the bastion of democracy? In America, presidents are not assassinated... Oh, wait... But that was in the past. Nowadays the best the "antis" can hope for is impeachment. But what does it take to get a President impeached? Something like a conspiracy to manufacture evidence of something like collusion with a foreign power... Russia, for instance.

Which brings us to The Plot Against the President, which turns out to be the title of a real book, a bestseller written by investigative journalist Lee Smith in 2019. The subtitle is Revelations on the Deep State from the House Intelligence Committee. Please note, not QAnon but "the House Intelligence Committee".

Mr Smith's book tells how Congressman Devin Nunes uncovered the operation to bring down the Commander-in-Chief. The allegations, since totally discredited, that Russia subverted democratic processes during the 2016 elections, was actually part of a slow-moving coup engineered by a coterie of the American elite, the "deep state," targeting not only the president, but also the rest of the country.

The good news (?) is that you don't have to read The Plot Against the President. The movie, directed by Amanda Milius, daughter of legendary screenwriter-director John Milius and a State Department alum, is coming out on October 1st! Here's the trailer.



The movie -- a documentary, not a work of fiction -- turns leftist conspiracy theories on the head, and shows who the real conspirators are. (Spoiler alert: Does the phrase "Deep State" mean anything to you?) Expect scathing reviews and heaps of "fact-checking" from the WaPo and the rest of the (((controlled media))) when it appears. Walt's suggestion: go see The Plot Against the President (if it gets into a cinema near you) and judge for yourself. When should you do that? On or before Tuesday, November 3rd!

Noam Chomsky on the "Crisis of Democracy" + VIDEO

Here is an excerpt from Matt Taibbi's interview with (((Noam Chomsky))), "Appendix B" to Hate Inc., which I reviewed last the weekend.

The Crisis of Democracy, which came out in 1975 [was] the first publication of the Trilateral Commission, which is a group of liberal internationalists from Europe, United States, and Japan, three main centers of capitalist democracy.

...The "Crisis of Democracy" is that in the 1960s, all kinds of sectors of the population that are supposed to be passive and apathetic begin to try to enter the political arena to press for their own interest and concerns, and that imposes too much of a burden on the state, which becomes ungovernable. So, what we need is "more moderation in democracy." That's their phrase. People should go back into their corners and leave it to us.

In fact, the American rapporteur Samuel Huntington looked back kind of nostalgically to the Truman years. He says Truman was able to govern the country politically with the aid of just a few Wall Street bankers.

Then we had democracy. But he goes after the media. he says the media have bcome too adversarial, too independent. We may even have to institute government controls to try to contain them, because of what they're doing.

That's the liberal position. The Trilateral Commission also went after what they called the de-legitimation of the universities. They said that the institutions -- and this is their phrase -- these institutions responsible for the "indoctrination of the young" -- are being de-legitimized.

We've got to have more indoctrination. Remember, that's the liberal end of the spectrum. Over to the right wing, you get much harsher things... but that's the intellectual background. We've got to stop "too much democracy," "too much freedom."

The 1960s were always called the "Time of Troubles". That was a time when all this started.

The emphasis is mine. I've been saying as much since the hippy-dippy `60s, which I remember well. Just because Prof. Chomsky is a leftie peacenik doesn't make him wrong. I'm putting Manufacturing Consent, recommended by Matt Taibbi, on my reading list. Oh... wait...



You can stop listening at 8:35 when the speaker starts talking about the Iowa primary (although it's a good example of the media manipulation under consideration.) What precedes that part pretty well sums up what both Noam Chomsky and Matt Taibbi are saying. It all has to do with money. Surprised?

Michael Matt VIDEO: Only America stands against the New World Order

We've been reposting videos by Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant newspaper, regularly, lately, because he's one of the very few talking sense about the paroxysm of fear and anger that has been sweeping the Paranoid States of America (and spilling over into other Western countries) for nearly four months now. More importantly, for us traditional Catholics, he relates the Dempanic, the race riots, and the breakdown of law and order to the crisis in the Roman Catholic Church, which started over half a century ago, with the Second Vatican Council.

In this video, Mr Matt tackles the question of rising racial tension in America and its impact on the 2020 presidential election. And, in the wake of the brutal murder of George Floyd*, Michael takes a closer look at police brutality, race relations now and in the past, and suggests that our "leaders'" war on God and Christian morality needs to be reconsidered immediately! He calls on all Americans -- black and white -- to stand together against those who would manipulate us into turning against each other and tearing our country apart.



But wait... there's more! Mr Matt asks what part the revolution in the Catholic Church plays in the loss of America's moral compass? Where is Pope Francis in all of this? Why is the Church no longer part of the solution for a society in turmoil? Where have all the Catholics gone? Why are the priests and bishops so terribly silent? All very good questions... Now is the time, Mr Matt says, for all Americans to come to the aid of our "one nation under God." The biggest question of all is: Do we have the courage to do it?!

*Footnote: At the time Michael Matt recorded this video, news had not yet broken of the shooting, in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old black man. Mr Brooks had apparently fallen asleep behind the wheel of a car at a Wendy's drive-thru. A call to the local constabulary resulted in a lengthy confrontation during which Mr Brooks was fatally shot after he resisted arrest and stole an officer's Taser. The officer in question was... wait for it... white. In response, "protesters" torched the restaurant and shut down an interstate highway in both directions. Police arrested at least 36 "protesters".

Further reading: Speaking of Matts... let me recommend most highly a piece published on Friday by Matt [geddit? Ed.] Taibbi. Mr Taibbi suffers mightily from TDS, but he's still, IMHO, the best writer on American politics since the late Dr Hunter S. Thompson. Here's an excerpt from "The American Press Is Destroying Itself".

Each passing day sees more scenes that recall something closer to cult religion than politics. White protesters in Floyd’s Houston hometown kneeling and praying to black residents for “forgiveness… for years and years of racism” are one thing, but what are we to make of white police in Cary, North Carolina, kneeling and washing the feet of Black pastors? What about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer kneeling while dressed in “African kente cloth scarves”?

There is symbolism here that goes beyond frustration with police or even with racism: these are orgiastic, quasi-religious, and most of all, deeply weird scenes, and the press is too paralyzed to wonder at it. In a business where the first job requirement was once the willingness to ask tough questions, we’ve become afraid to ask obvious ones.

Click here to read the whole thing. Even if you're a big fan of Still-President Trump, you'll find yourself doing a fist-pump and yelling "Right on!"