WHERE IS THE CORPORATE MEDIA THAT WAS SO ANXIOUS TO GENUFLECT
& REPORT DISINFORMATION ABOUT PRESIDENT BIDEN?
DON'T TRUST CORPORATE MEDIA OR FOX NEWS = FAKE NEWS LIRS!
TRUMP THREATENS THOM TILLIS....BRAIN DEAD LARA TRUMP LIVES IN FLORIDA?
OMG! ANOTHER BRAIN DEAD BLEACH BLOND!
THIS EVIL BILL WILL DESTROY HEALTH CARE, INCREASE POVERTY &
UNEMPLOYMENT....
LOOK AT THE THRIVING ECONOMY TRUMP INHERITED FROM PRESIDENT
BIDEN THAT TRUMP HAS DESTROYED IN RECORD TIME!
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on MAGA Republican Senator Thom Tillis from North Carolina announcing he would not seek reelection after voting against Trump’s disastrous budget bill and then delivering a scorching attacking on the bill on live tv from the Senator Floor, all while Trump threatened and harassed him.
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Canadian MP Strikes Back After Latest Trump Threats
Canadian Member of Parliament Charlie Angus joins the MeidasTouch Network to discuss the latest news
Ben Meiselas and MeidasTouch Network
Mar 1
By Ben Meiselas
Donald Trump just made another big mistake. In one of his typically unhinged cabinet meetings, he declared that Canada "doesn’t subsist as a nation" without the United States. Seriously.
So, I decided to talk with someone who knows a thing or two about Canada—Charlie Angus, a longtime Member of Parliament who isn’t afraid to call things as they are. Charlie has been one of my favorite recurring guests on the MeidasTouch Network and I am proud of our coverage of Canada, which continues to expand thanks to you.
Trump’s constant jabs at Canada have not only irritated our neighbors to the north—they've ignited a full-blown backlash. “The more he pushes, the more determined we are to push back,” Charlie told me. Canada is fed up with Trump’s antics, and so are many conservatives in Canada. The so-called “Maple MAGA” movement—led by Pierre Poilievre, the wannabe Trump of the north—is in free fall. And Charlie credits Trump himself for accelerating its demise.
This isn’t just about Trump’s bluster. Canadians are watching his authoritarian agenda unfold—the same disinformation, the same rage-fueled chaos, the same billionaires propping him up. And they’re saying: No thanks. They’re looking at Project 2025, his open love letters to Putin and North Korea, and his economic destruction, and they want nothing to do with it.
And let’s talk about Elon Musk. Canadians aren’t exactly rolling out the red carpet for the guy who pals around with neo-Nazis and tells the world that Canada isn’t a real country. A petition to revoke his Canadian citizenship—which, by the way, he never actually had—has become one of the most widely signed in Canadian history. "Ordinary Canadians get it," Charlie said. "We're in a fight for democracy, for our values, and against tyranny."
Then there’s Wayne Gretzky. Yeah, that Wayne Gretzky. The former Great One decided to go full MAGA, cozying up to Trump and even flirting with the idea of turning Canada into America’s 51st state. And Canadians didn’t forget. They boo him at games now. They’ve turned their backs on him just like they have on Poilievre. And now Trump is out here embarrassing Gretzky further, calling him a “free agent” in some bizarre attempt to salvage his reputation.
Let’s be clear: Canada is not Trump’s puppet state. They aren’t going to bend the knee to his threats. When Trump talks about tariffs, Canada is ready. When he tries to divide them, they unite.
Charlie put it best: “If Trump thinks Canada is going to break, he’s in for a big shock.”
And here’s the bigger message for us here in the U.S.: If Canadians can fight back against Trumpism, we sure as hell can too. They aren’t waiting for permission to stand up for democracy, and neither should we.
The stakes are too high to sit on the sidelines. It’s an honor to be in this fight with you. Consider joining now as a paid subscriber to keep us going.
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Welcome to Stop the Presses, a weekly newsletter about how right-wing extremism has exploited the weaknesses in American journalism and what we can do about it.
CNN is flailing between facts and fascism
Sucking up to right-wing disinformation is a foolish strategy.
Mark Jacob
Feb 3
CNN is in a tough position in cable TV news. MSNBC holds the left, and Fox News holds the right. So CNN is trying to find middle ground in an America where the middle ground has largely disappeared.
If CNN didn’t have to worry about making a profit, it could forget about market positioning and just work on telling the truth. But it wants to lure viewers from Fox, and Fox’s current audience enjoys being lied to. Those viewers have stuck with Fox even though it paid three-quarters of a billion dollars for spreading lies about the 2020 election.
So how does CNN attract those viewers? By trying to push popular anchor Jim Acosta into the graveyard shift to punish him for sharply confronting Republican lies. Acosta declined CNN’s demotion and left the network last week.
CNN also sucks up to the right by platforming “both sides” – even if one of those sides is lying. Fascist disinformation goes by the name of Scott Jennings these days. He’s paid by CNN to represent Trumpism, no matter how fact-averse it is.
I could spend this whole newsletter going through Jennings’ terrible takes, but here are some samples: He accused Jimmy Carter of “dabbling in antisemitism.” Heblamed the devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires on diversity hiring policies in the fire department. He said Sen. Tim Kaine“sounded like a sex pervert”in his questioning of Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth. And after years of hammering Joe Biden for supposedly weaponizing the Justice Department, Jennings now says it’s OK for the president – Trump – to weaponize the Justice Department.
Jennings is the latest in a long line of dodgy right-wingers who have been paid by CNN to represent that spin. Others include:
Paris Dennard, who left CNN in 2018 after the Washington Post revealed that Arizona State University had fired him for sexual harassment. In an incident with an employee, Dennard “pretended to unzip his pants in her presence, tried to get her to sit on his lap, and made masturbatory gestures,” according to an ASU report.
Rick Santorum, who “parted ways” with CNN in 2021 after saying "we birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. … I mean, yes, we have Native Americans. But candidly, that — there isn't much Native American culture in American culture."
The problem is that CNN thinks it appears more fair if it hires people to defend the indefensible. But who is that fair to? Right-wing authoritarians? Because it’s certainly not fair to the general public.
I understand the quest for fairness on issues like abortion, deficit spending, and health care. A variety of opinions should be welcome in a mainstream news report. But giving equal time to MAGA lies and hate speech is an entirely different matter.
“... Under the ownership of the David Zaslav-led Warner Bros. Discovery, which took over as the network’s corporate parent in 2022, CNN has noticeably softened its coverage of Trump. Gone are the days when CNN’ers like Acosta delivered stinging reports on the MAGA leader that went viral across the internet. CNN in 2025 is far more toned down and sympathetic to Trumpism. The network even pays a handful of Trump loyalists to appear on panels where they regularly mislead the public on key issues.”
But while CNN wants to be taken seriously as a news outlet, it’s increasingly undercutting its credibility to stay out of Trump’s crosshairs.
Anchor Jake Tapper is an example of CNN’s contradictory approach. Last week, Tapper took a baseball bat to the lies of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But a week earlier during inauguration coverage, he said, “It's important to point out that the Trump/Vance campaign in 2024 was a very disciplined campaign” that presented Trump as “somebody who was within the realm of normalcy.”Disciplined? Normalcy? Really? Trump and Vance falsely accused immigrants of eating dogs and cats. Trump told a rally crowd that golfer Arnold Palmer had a large penis. I guess the word “normalcy” has a different meaning now. Or no meaning at all.
CNN’s ratings are dwarfed by Fox’s. In January, Fox averaged 2.8 million viewers in primetime vs. 734,000 for MSNBC and 522,000 for CNN. But the really frightening metrics for people who treasure fact-based journalism are the trendlines: Fox’s number was up 40% from a year earlier, while MSNBC’s was down 33% and CNN’s was off 14%.
Beyond cable TV, CNN is trying to build its digital revenue by charging heavy users of its website $3.99 per month. The verdict is still out on how much that will help. But CNN clearly needs to find ways to shore up its finances. Just two weeks ago, it announced it waslaying off 6% of its staff, about 210 employees.
To me, it’s clear that Trump-friendly coverage of the MAGA’s assault on democracy is neither a smart marketing tactic nor a legitimate journalistic approach. It’s a recipe for disaster for both CNN and our country.
Indeed, the shoddy treatment of Jim Acosta tells us that CNN is failing.
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THANK YOU, BEN for working to define the MAGA LIES! MAGA MAGGOTS lie about everything.....& they gather around shoulder to shoulder to foster those LIES!
ELISE STEFANIK, JAMES COMER, GYM JORDAN, CHUCK GRASSLEY....
NOTICE CHUCK GRASSLEY MADE CLAIMS THAT 'WHISTLEBLOWER' HAS RECORDINGS - NOT RECORDINGS! GRASSLEY LIED!
MAGA MORONS STOOD SHOULDER TO SHOULDER & SUPPORTED LIES!
ALEXANDER SMIRNOV WAS A PAID LIAR!
WITCH HUNTS?
MAGA MORONS FAILED THE NATION & MADE FALSE CLAIMS!
THE ARTICLE BELOW IS FROM THE GUARDIAN, AN INDEPENDENT MEDIA SOURCE THAT ALWAYS DOES GREAT INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING....PLEASE SUBSCRIBE & SUPPORT! THERE ARE A LOT OF ADDITIONAL ARTICLES ABOUT THIS MURKY STORY!
MAGA HOUSE GOP FAILED TO SCRUTINIZE THEIR WITNESSES IN THEIR HASTE TO PROMOTE LIES!
US firm that paid indicted FBI informant tied to Trump associates, records reveal
An American company that paid the now indicted FBI informant Alexander Smirnov in 2020 is connected to a UK company owned by Trump business associates in Dubai, according to business filings and court documents.
Smirnov is now accused of lying to the FBI about Hunter Biden and his father, President Joe Biden, alleging that they engaged in a bribery scheme with executives at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Smirnov’s accounts to the FBI, beginning in 2020, that federal prosecutors now say are fabrications, served as a major justification of the House impeachment investigation into the Bidens.
Republican lawmakers have repeatedly touted Smirnov as a reliable informant, and the chairman of the House oversight committee, James Comer, even threatened to hold the FBI director, Christopher Wray, in contempt unless he “handed over” a June 2020 FBI form with Smirnov’s claims to the committee.
Back in 2020, Smirnov was paid $600,000 by a company called Economic Transformation Technologies (ETT), prosecutors said. That same year, Smirnov began lying to the FBI about the Bidens, according to the indictment. There is no suggestion the payment was linked to Smirnov’s alleged fabrications.
ETT’s CEO is the American Christopher Condon, who was also one of three shareholders in ETT Investment Holding Limited in London. Other shareholders in the UK company, now dissolved, included the Pakistani American investor Shahal Khan and Farooq Arjomand, a former chairman and current board member of Damac Properties in Dubai who is also listed as an adviser on ETT’s American website.
Last month, Smirnov was charged with lying to the FBI, and is being held without bail. Prosecutors argued he posed a flight risk because of his contacts with Russian officials in the Middle East and access to millions of dollars.
Smirnov’s indictment alleged that the assertions in a document, known as a 1023, and other statements made to his FBI handler beginning in 2020 and continuing until December 2023, were factually impossible.
The exact business model of Texas-based ETT is murky. Its mission statement reads in part: “ETT set up the chess board to bring in top notch executives from those sectors to help implement its vision of love and social impact to improve the quality of human existence through the application of ‘new age’ technologies.”
The current CEO, Condon, is a California man who has been involved in several civil lawsuits, including a civil Rico case in 2010 that he won on appeal. Condon’s official biography says he is “a former professional tennis player, financial advisor, and currently is an entrepreneur focused on social-impact projects, public-private partnerships, and creating smart communities that benefit both individuals and governments”.
Condon, Arjomand and Khan registered ETT Investment Holding Limited in the UK on 6 March 2020. Khan, an investor who purchased the Plaza hotel in 2018, and Arjomand have ties to Donald Trump through Trump associates and Damac, a major Middle East developer that has partnered with Trump for a decade. Arjomand, Khan and Condon owned 34%, 33% and 33% of ETT Investment Holding Limited respectively, according to UK business filings. No other information on the UK company is readily available.
The former Damac chairman Hussain Sajwani is also close to Trump and has been described as his friend in multiple news reports. Trump has called the billionaire a “friend” and a “great man”, and his family “the most beautiful people”.
Hussain Sajwani, far right, with Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in February 2017. Photograph: AP
Sajwani attended Trump’s 2016 inauguration, and Trump’s sons Donald Jr and Eric Trump attended the 2017 ribbon-cutting of the Trump International golf club in Dubai, licensed by Damac in 2014. Sajwani and his family also attended a party in 2017 at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s sons would go on to attend Sajwani’s daughter’s wedding in 2018.
In 2017 FEC filings, Trump disclosed making up to $5m from the Damac licensing deal, but said he would no longer do personal business deals when he became president. The two continued at least talking business into his presidency, however, according to multiple reports.
“Hussein, Damac, a friend of mine, a great guy. I was offered $2bn to do a deal in Dubai, a number of deals, and I turned it down,” Trump said in 2017.
Arjomand was the vice-chairman of Damac when the Trump International golf club, along with adjoining Trump-branded luxury homes, opened, and he replaced Sajwani as chair in 2021 when Sajwani stepped down to privatize the company.
Khan, who owns Dubai-based Trinity White City Ventures, is a New York native who partnered with New York City developer Kamran Hakim to buy the Plaza hotel in 2018 for $600m. He was a board member of ETT from 2019 to June 2020, according to his LinkedIn page, appearing in event photographs with Condon in Miami that year.
Khan is involved in a range of business from AI to mining to cybersecurity, according to his official biographies. In 2019, he was one of a dozen Pakistani American business owners invited to meet the then Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, the day before Imran met with Trump and Mike Pompeo, then the secretary of state, in Washington DC. The group was there to discuss the expansion of business in Pakistan.
In 2017, Khan reportedly approached Brad Zackson, dubbed Paul Manafort’s “real-estate fixer”, to help him broker a deal to buy the Roosevelt hotel in Manhattan, owned by the Pakistani government via its national airline, for $500m, according to the Real Deal. When the real-estate publication asked Khan about the reports, he denied that Zackson and Manafort, a former Trump campaign chairman, were involved. Khan purchased the Pakistani embassy building in DC in 2022 for $6.8m.
Khan is also CEO of BurTech Acquisition Group, a “blank check company”, or public shell company. Patrick Orlando, listed as a “special adviser” and shareholder of BurTech in 2021, was the CEO and chair of Digital World, another blank check company, from September 2021 to March 2023. When it began a merger with Trump Media & Technology Group in 2021, it was held up by an SEC investigation until given the green light last month.
The finalization of the merger may garner Trump as much as $4bn in shares, and help bolster his finances after his recent civil litigation losses. Orlando has known Trump since at least 2021, according to news reports.
Arjomand and Khan’s relationship is unclear. Arjomand, a former HSBC banker from the United Arab Emirates, also invests in hospitality businesses, including the celebrity Wahlberg brothers’ restaurant chain Wahlburgers, and owns a coffee company called Reborn Coffee.
ETT Investment Holding Limited was dissolved in 2021. Condon and Arjomand also registered a company called Atlas UK Group Limited the same day they registered the UK ETT, now dissolved.
The American ETT, then called Pandora Venture Capital Corp, was first registered in Florida in 2014 by a Wisconsin resident, Boris Nayflish, according to Florida business filings. Ukrainian American Nayflish is the ex-husband of Smirnov’s current partner, according to a Wall Street Journal report, which also claimed Nayflish stayed close to his ex, Diana Lavrenyuk, and Smirnov after the divorce.
Smirnov, born in Ukraine, lived in Israel before coming to the US in 2006.
Pandora changed its name to Skylab in 2017, then in 2018 Skylab seemed to split from what is now ETT, according to a lawsuit, when Condon first registered ETT websites and appeared on ETT’s Florida filings.
An unnamed former business associate told the Wall Street Journal that the $600,000 payment from ETT to Smirnov was “in exchange for a stake in an Israel-based crypto trading platform, called Bitoftrade, [that] Smirnov was working on launching”.
Calls and emails to Condon, Arjomand, Sajwani and Smirnov’s lawyer, and to Trump’s team, were not returned.
Khan told the Guardian: “I was on the board for a very short period, [and] there was no connection on my part.”
ETT responded after publication saying the company had “no involvement with Alexander Smirnov” and that “his association with ETT was a direct result of a merger with another company, making him a shareholder”.
“His introduction to ETT was strictly professional,” the company said, “and any money sent to a corporation called Avalon Group Inc., a Delaware corporation, related to ETT’s investment in a cryptocurrency platform, Bitoftrade”.
“This investment, like all ETT’s investments, was made following standard due diligence processes” and was “a straightforward business investment in the technology sector and had no connections to any political figures ... ETT has never had any ties to President Biden or President Trump or their associates, or any political campaigns,” it said, adding that Christopher Condon has never met Biden or Trump or members of their families.
Smirnov is scheduled for a jury trial in April, according to court filings.
It’s not surprising, but it is now clear: this November’s election will be Donald Trump v Joe Biden – again.
The media will play a critical role in shaping the outcome of this election – and this time, journalists must get it right. There are two important ways the Guardian differs from many organizations in the US media bubble:
• First, we are unafraid to say plainly that American democracy is facing a unique historic threat. Instead of obsessing about who’s up and who’s down, our journalists are acutely focused on the real stakes – the fact that fundamental human rights, our democracy and the fate of the planet are all on the line.
• Second, we are keenly aware of how the media can be manipulated to promote political agendas. Our election coverage is, in many ways, defined by what we choose not to cover: false scandals drummed up by opposition researchers, lies and misinformation, and “he said-she said” stories without adequate context.
The reason we are different is simple: we are an independent global news organization with no billionaire owner or shareholders to please. We are not being pushed by anyone to amp up false scandals for clicks, or cover the election like a reality TV contest. Our reporters are committed to journalistic rigor, factual accuracy and uncovering the truth. The majority of our funding comes from readers like you.
Without democracy, there can be no free press – and without a free press, there is no democracy. You can help safeguard both by supporting the Guardian as we prepare to cover this consequential election. It’s quick and any amount helps. Thank you,
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