The Jihad-Adjacent Journalists
We’ve grown used to the media’s joining with the Democrats to attack every move by the President, but it is still something to watch the lies and distortions about the war in Iran.
We’ve grown used to the media’s joining with the Democrats to attack every move by the President, but it is still something to watch the lies and distortions about the war in Iran, where the press smears the troops in the middle of battle. Using the latest technology and working closely with the IDF and IAF, our military has achieved remarkable, unforeseen results in a matter of days. On the other hand, most major media coverage denigrates this accomplishment and regrettably advocates for our enemies.
The week began with reports that the Department of War wasted money buying lobsters and rib steaks for the troops. Actually, SNAP recipients spend much more money on those foods:
SNAP Shock: Far many more millions in Food Aid Spent on King Crab, Lobster & Steaks than the Department of War From an official government research study of $6.58 billion dollars in SNAP expenditures, $1.9 million dollars were spent on king crab, $2.2 million dollars were spent on lobster and $28.4 million on select beef loins. Federal SNAP spending in 2024 was $99.8 billion. Scaled up, that means SNAP recipients spent $28.8 million dollars on king crab, $33.36 million dollars on lobster, and $430.75 million on steaks. DoW spent $2 million on Alaskan king crab, $6.9 million on lobster tail, $15.1 million on ribeye steak. Ask any journalist pushing the "Hegseth is spending money on lobster" propaganda if they're willing to cut out those categories for SNAP recipients. They will not be.
These DoW expenditures were normal and not extravagant, as anyone who was pushing the anti-Hegseth story could have determined with a simple check: Don Surber took time to check:
In the final month of the fiscal year -- when federal agencies drain the remains of their budget allotments -- the military spent $6.1 million on lobster, $16.6 million on rib-eyes, $6.8 million on Alaska king crabs and salmon, and $117,787 on donuts.
That was part of a $79.4 billion final spending spree for the month.
That happened in 2024, under Lloyd Austin, Biden’s occasionally AWOL secretary of defense. [snip] Iowa Senator Joni Ernst tweeted, “Maintaining our national security is the highest priority, but we must ensure that defense dollars are spent on just that, defense.
“We need a full audit of the Pentagon and to declare war on waste by ending the use-it-or-lose-it model that encourages defenseless spending.”
Ernst also tweeted, “Who needs a 5-star restaurant when you can dine at Bistro Le Taxpayer Department of Defense.”
She knows better because she served for 23 years in the Iowa Army National Guard, retiring as a lieutenant colonel.
When in session, members of Congress receive $79 for meals per day -- or up to $15,000 a year.
The Pentagon spends $18-$20 a day to feed each serviceman. [snip] We have a commander-in-chief (that would be President Trump) whose war consigliere, Pete Hegseth, has supervised missions that closed the Mexican border, ended Iran’s nuclear program, cleaned up the crime and grime in DC, obliterated drug smugglers in the Caribbean, arrested Maduro and is ending a 47-year war with the Death-to-America regime in Iran.
I say a lobster in every pot and a rib-eye on the grill for these heroes because have done a decade’s worth of work in a little over a year. [snip] The same media that dismisses as Islamophobic anger against Somalians for ripping off $9 billion from taxpayers for fake daycare centers is self-righteously complaining about feeding our troops fancy food occasionally. The amount is but 0.2% of the Somalian fraud in Minnesota alone.
The surf-and-turf nonsense was just the starting shot and continued all week. Professor William Jacobson nails it:” We are watching an info op in real time from the mainstream media, not just influencers. A complete demoralization campaign fighting strawman arguments based on anonymous sources. CNN, the Guardian, and the New York Times, they are all singing one tune. It’s the Russia collusion hoax all over again.”
The most extreme example was the media treatment of what the Iranian regime claims was an attack on a girls’ school in Minab. The regime has made it difficult for Iranians to transmit information outside by threats, jamming, and harsh censorship. (With difficulty and delays, using roundabouts and skylink terminals, for example, they get through the barriers to post real-time information and videos on X, but the regime still has an advantage of easier access to U.S. media and is using it.)
From a video of the strike, it appears that the school was struck by an Iranian misfire. The DoW is investigating the matter, but much of the press has precipitously blamed the U.S. for it, relying on regime accounts and ignoring salient facts. Jeff Childers once again does an outstanding jobthis week, analyzing in depth the New York Times coverage of the incident, an account I can only briefly summarize and hope you will be tempted to read it all.
Without revealing the source of these images, the Times posted photos and videos of “grave digging, the burials, the grieving parents…from a variety of angles and 
compositions that would make a team of professional wedding photographers jealous…” The Times published ten stories about the school, “plus a full episode of its flagship ‘The daily’ podcast” all carrying the message of the regime that it was the U.S. military’s fault.
The paper ignores that the school is part of a military complex, “the headquarters of the ASIF Brigade of the IRGC Navy. It was “a building that was literally inside an IRGC Naval headquarters compound until about 10 years ago, on property that the IRGC built, next door to an active naval brigade HQ in the most sensitive province in Iraq.” It apparently never questioned why Iran was running a school on a naval base.
Nor did the paper question why this school was operating when all the other schools in the country had been closed.
Worse, while the paper drumbeats this story, it ignores Iran’s deliberate targeting of civilians -- “bombing hotels, airports, oil refineries, water treatment plants, Amazon data centers and cargo ships” [not to speak of cluster bombs and missiles on Israeli neighborhoods]. In fact, the paper praised these attacks as a means to make the war more costly and “outlast Trump.”
The Times approvingly quoted analysts calling Iran’s targeting of civilians as a clever plan to “spread the pain.” One expert enthused that Iran was “enlarging the battlefield.” Another called it a “test of wills and stamina.” One more would have described it as “mostly peaceful protesting.” [snip] Nobody -- not even the Times’s own sources -- has accused the U.S. of hitting that school on purpose. But the paper’s Magoo-like myopia apparently prevents it from seeing the exact same alleged war crimes being committed daily by Iran against other countries in the same war. Iran’s propaganda team couldn’t possibly do it any better.
The NYT is but one example of the media working for the enemy. The practice is so widespread that even “The View’s” Whoopi Goldberg offered her take: The war is “to distract” from Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance. Laughable, but as solid as the NYT’s analysis.
Just as much of the media has behaved like shills for the Iranian regime, it has focused on justifying the conduct of the Moslem thugs who instituted four attacks in this country this week:
- New York: Two adult children of recent Middle Eastern immigrants stood outside the Gracie Mansion tossing IEDs (originally called “smoke bombs” by some press) at people protesting Mamdani.
- West Bloomfield, Michigan: A Lebanese immigrant, the brother of two Hezb’allah members now deceased via the IDF, loaded his car with explosives and drove it into a synagogue preschool (140 kids), only to be stopped by armed security guards.
- Austin, Texas: A gunman, an immigrant from Senegal who wore clothing that said “Property of Allah” and bore an Iranian flag, killed at least two people and injured 14 outside a bar.
- Norfolk, Virginia: A convicted ISIS supporter, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, opened fire in an ROTC classroom, killing one person and injuring two others. ROTC students subdued and killed him.
Blame this country for an incident where the source of the strike was far from clear, intent to do harm was nonexistent, and the outcome was certainly propagandized by the enemy, which involved suspicious timing, “evidence,” and circumstances. At the same time, do everything in your power to build sympathy for domestic jihadis and cast blame on their victims. In this case, the examples focus not only on the NYT but also on CNN -- which is about to change hands and, with it, one hopes, direction.
In the most widely reported incident, two jihadis set off IEDs in front of Mayor Mamdani’s Gracie Mansion. The shrapnel from these devices could have killed or injured many in the crowd, most of whom were supportive of the offensive against Iran. Real news stories are supposed to tell you who, what, where, when, and sometimes why. They are not supposed to be narratives of the kind of sympathy-inducing drivel you expect to see in teen girl mags. The NYT header, however, breached this tradition “At 13, He Was Selling Sneakers. At 18, He’s Facing Terror Charges.” (Tom Wolfe used to skewer stuff like this: in news accounts, every illiterate murderous teenager was described as a gentle honor student.)
CNN’s performance was so amateurishly bad that the satire site the Babylon Bee wrote “To Save Time, CNN Will Now Run Retractions Simultaneously With News Stories.” Fox documented what may well be the last hurrah of the CNN goofballs.
Two CNN reporters posted about the NY incident:
“Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather. But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home. Here’s what we know so far.”
After a lot of derisive comments about this framing. CNN deleted it, but in a manner that was still dishonest, as it left the false impression that the terror attack was directed at Mamdani, not his opponents. Still stumbling about, the network’s Abby Phillip claimed the terror attack was against Mamdani: “Two Republicans say Muslims don’t belong here after an attempted terror attack against New York’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the House speaker, Mike Johnson, says nothing, really, to condemn those comments,” Piling on falsehood after falsehood, Ana Navarro repeated the claim adding that Mamdani “was raised Moslem.” The next day (Wednesday), Philip offered an apology.
Gosh, with all this going on, you might imagine congressional Democrats would end the shutdown and fund DHS at a time when homeland security is being put seriously at risk. You’d be wrong. Even after news of the Michigan attempt to kill kids was known, 46 of the 47 Senate Democrats voted to keep the department closed.
While the press lies and manipulates and congressional Democrats play unconscionable political games with our security, more serious people in the administration just brought Cuba’s communists to cry uncle, or more accurately, “Tio.” Cuban dictator Miguel Diaz-Canel announced that they are officially in negotiations with the administration. They’ve begun releasing political prisoners. Within days, Cubans should be free after decades of tyranny and economic disaster.
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