Remember the Secret Storm? That was a good soap opera–but anyway, it only occurred to us because it would make a really good name for this article…except it already has a pretty good name. Like, what if they gave a scandal, and nobody came? Well, honored readers, that’s a lot like what happened on May 10, 2023.
The Watergate Committee got constant live coverage–but of course, burglary is important stuff.
When this man was a kid, this was a free country.
If you are ancient of days, as are several of us in the WOOF cave, you may recall the time when each major network’s news cameras went “live,” shoulder to shoulder with several attending newspaper services, during the Watergate committee’s dogged inquest into whether Richard Nixon ordered (or had guilty knowledge of) the Watergate break-in. Convicted Watergate burglar (American patriot, lawyer, FBI agent, talk show host, author, and actor), G. Gordon Liddy died on 31 March, 2021, or he surely would have permitted himself a callous chuckle at the spectacle of a congressional committee proving President Joseph Robinette Biden the recipient of millions of Red-Chinese dollars paid to him surreptitiously for unspecified purposes. The committee’s findings made a powerful case for labeling Biden an unregistered agent of influence for Red China, a traitor, and a shamelessly profligate international money launderer.
Meanwhile, the silence of our domestic media was deafening. No major American news network broadcast anything live, nor tweeted a syllable. Rather, our lions of the fourth estate focused that morning on such nihil ad rem concerns as the indictment of Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y, for lying to congress, and the oddly serendipitous verdict of a New York jury that found Donald Trump “not guilty” of raping a woman who couldn’t prove she’d even met him, but which directed him to pay a small fortune in damages anyway.
Trump accuser: Damaged, but not raped.
The Trump distraction…
Liberals were meanwhile wondering why on earth CNN scheduled 90 minutes of air time that same Wednesday for a Townhall featuring Donald Trump. Why give Trump free air time to carry his dreadful message to a live audience of Americans? But this was mere shortsightedness; the tactical juxtaposition should have been apparent to even the densest CNN fan.
“I’m ready for my repeated body-slammings, Mr. DeMille!“
Obviously CNN’s view of the upcoming Trump program was that it presented an opportunity to grab some desperately needed ratings while mopping the floor with the despicable Orange Ogre. Also, it constituted a kind of BOGO bargain by ensuring a circus event bound to distract the public from the Comer Committee’s evidence. This was the driving notion, but it was only half right. The TV production proved a field day for Trump. The CNN live audience loved him, exasperatingly enough, and the floor got mopped with the endlessly bellicose and unbearably interruptive Kaitlan Collins. In fact, Collins performed so badly that even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted “she lost total control” (by which we assume AOC meant to say Collins lost control totally). WOOF knows that the event was cut short when CNN producers caught Collins between pummelings and advised her that she was being “body slammed” and should “quit while [she] was behind.”
An obvious surprise..?
Trump’s prime-time romp was incontestable, though oddly unanticipated by CNN executives itching to finesse an ambush. Nevertheless, the resultant commotion served the Left by distracting from the Comer Committee’s exposure of the nefarious Biden Bunch.
NEWS ITEM: After Trump’s appearance on CNN, Anderson Cooper of CNN appeared on CNN to apologize to viewers of CNN for his network’s exposing them (plus about 2.5 million additional viewers), to Donald Trump’s de-fanging of CNN’s Kaitlin Collins, which event Cooper obviously considered inappropriate.
The inexhaustibly embarrassing George Santos.
The New York Times was even then poised to defocus readers on the George Santos indictment (cunningly scheduled to coincide with the issuance of the Committee’s findings). Thus, on the same day that President Joe Biden was outed as a Chinese-communist beneficiary, an international money launderer, and, synoptically put, a kind of profiteer for all seasons, the Times was virtually silent on the matter. Instead, it headlined Santos’s Long-Island indictment with feigned shock and editorial drum thumping better suited to a disgraced head of state, or at least a scandal-beset tycoon. Instead, everyone’s attention was directed to a not-guilty plea from a risibly mendacious (and virtually unknown) congressman from New York’s 3rd district, accused of–um–money laundering. Santos, in other words, may not have been president, but at least he was a Republican!
The Gray Lady praises the White Suit!
We get it. “Lies, lies, lies!” would’ve made a crummy slogan.
New York Times TV critics in conference…
In a flagrant effort to eat their cake and have it, Times opinionists (momentarily disguised as TV critics) recast Trump’s Townhall coups as a colossal failure. In the Times version, the hero of that evening turned out to be the beleaguered “Kathleen [sic] Collins, in a white suit,[who] took on Trump!” Clearly, the Gray Lady’s account would have benefited from outreach to at least one informed source, say, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez… but the use of sources, except of the unnamed variety, is not currently in vogue at the Times. Like several other standards of journalism, sourcing one’s reportage has been moribund for years. In this instance, the Times was even scooped by Deadline ,which growled,”Donald Trump Steamrolls Through CNN Town Hall!” (They weren’t happy at Deadline, but at least they were honest.)
The committee and its critics…
But just as the myriad troughs of liberal media proceeded to call Trump’s Townhall success a disgraceful flop (except that at CNN, only Anderson Cooper actually apologized for the ratings boost), so the coverage of the Oversight Committee’s multiple Biden bombshells was skewed to portray the report as a nothingburger. In this category, the award for most baldfacedly flouting reality surely goes to Yahoo! News, which exclaimed: “Republicans try to distract from the Trump and Santos debacle [sic] with a Biden nothingburger.” Really? But in defence of the author, MSNBC writer Eric Garcia, it must be said that he was hardly unique in missing the bulk of the evidence against the Biden crime family. It is almost as though the “nothingburger” scenario were agreed upon at the highest levels of corporate uni-journalism well before the committee ever said a mumbling word.
Ms Mace joins a swath…many seem incredulous!
Rep. Nancy Mace: Under-educated but smarter than Eric Garcia.
MSNBC columnist Garcia seemed particularly peeved at committee member Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina). She is, in his opinion, undereducated. He also remarks rather unsympathetically on her identity as a victim of sexual assault. Worse, “Ms [sic]Mace joined a swath [sic] of Republicans who alleged without any hard evidence that President Joe Biden had committed multiple federal crimes.” Weirdly, Garcia asserted that Comer’s committee “failed to produce any hard evidence during the press conference, and many reporters seemed incredulous that the chairman would waste time with such flimsy evidence.”
Journalist Eric Garcia as represented on his MSNBC page.
Admittedly, WOOF may be “undereducated,” but we fail to ken by what journalistic measure Eric Garcia determined how many reporters attending the conference seemed incredulous, or whether he was in the room at all– but if he was, he was clearly distracted by his psycho-kinesic analyses.
FILE PHOTO: the Murdoch family of FOX News, Inc.
Fox News Network, the devolution of which WOOF has discussed elsewhere, seemed to join the mainstream nothingburger contingent when Steve Doocy (on Fox and Friends) informed committee chair, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), that his “material was weak.” Hardly an eviscerating dagger thrust, yet Rolling Stone leapt to agree with Doocy’s interpretation, crowing that “Even Fox Isn’t Buying GOP’s Claims About Biden’s Foreign Business Dealings.” Notwithstanding Doocy’s objections, Fox’s actual treatment of the report in an article on its home page, correctly stated “the Biden family received millions from foreign nationals, [and] tried to conceal the source of funds…” which seems a trifle substantive.
Steve Doocy: When good people make dumb remarks…
Hard evidence…
Oops! Wrong nothingburger! This one must be from the Durham Report!
Like obituaries of celebrities prepared well in advance of the celebrities’ actual deaths, the chorus of stage yawns from mainstream media jabberers seemed too readily at hand and too weirdly calculated to be natural. Moreover, in the wake of the Comer Committee’s revelations, Biden held a press conference (sort of) and the indefatigably evasive Karine Jean-Pierre convened a “press update.” But during neither event did even a single newshound venture so much as a single question about data from the Oversight Committee–it was as though the report never existed.
NEWS ITEM: The Washington Press Corps assembles to learn Comer Committee findings.
Anatomy of a nothingburger…a sampler:
The Oversight Committee presented thousands of pages of financial records revealing the Biden family and associates’ complicated network of “companies” set up during Joe Biden’s vice presidency. These records are further complicated by the fact that none of the cutout Biden companies was an actual businesses. The Bidens do not operate any business, and never have. The millions the Bidens received from international sources appear as complicated transactions structured to hide payments received by the Bidens from foreign nationals, chiefly the Chinese Communists. The Committee report links many of these otherwise illogical “payments” to CCP-linked associates, and points to clearly identifiable instances of corresponding influence peddling during Vice President Biden’s tenure, as well as during his presidency.
“The structuring and layering of the funds exchanged indicate the Bidens intentionally sought to hide, confuse, and conceal the transactions.” Despite these efforts, bank records prove the Bidens made millions from foreign nationals. The Biden family set up over a dozen ‘companies’ when Joe was vice president, none of which produced any known product; but all of which turned astounding profits.
All that rice wine, and now the guy won’t even return a phone call!
Per the Committee report, “The Bidens’ foreign entanglements are breathtaking and raise serious questions about why foreign actors targeted the Biden family, what they expected in return, and whether our national security is threatened…”
We ask you: Is this the face of an abject grifter?
“Chinese Nationals and companies with significant ties to Chinese intelligence and the Chinese Communist Party hid the source of the funds paid out to the Bidens. Multiple Biden family members received money from the Chinese,” again, without the performance of a single identifiable service in return. But not all the Biden family’s benefactors were foreign despots or oligarchs.
Enter the FBI!
FBI Director Freeh–just look at those shifty eyes!
Remember Louis Freeh, former Director of the FBI? In April of 2016 he donated $100,000 to a trust for two of President Biden’s grandchildren. His explanation was that he “sought to pursue some very good and profitable matters” with his new friend, Hunter Biden. The chain of emails between “Louis” and his adopted business partner surfaced last Thursday, indicating considerable monies donated by Freeh to funds managed by Hallie Biden, Beau Biden’s widow and subsequently Hunter’s girlfriend–(isn’t that in the Bible?) Additionally, the emails contain offers from the former FBI Directer to “help” with IRS audits.
Meanwhile, in Romania…
Meanwhile, the Bidens were busy in Romania, where Biden Family activities indicate additional influence peddling. “The Biden family and associates’ activities in Romania bear clear indications of a scheme to peddle influence from 2015 to 2017. In other words, while Joe Biden lectured Romania on corruption and ethics, the Bidens received over a million dollars from a company controlled by a Romanian named Gabriel Popoviciu. Popoviciu is currently accused of corruption in Romania, but his payments to the Bidens were completed via “a Biden family associate.”
Watchdogs of Our Freedom 