Disinformation, Inc.

It’s pretty much beyond doubt that the country’s news media, particularly at the national level, either aren’t interested in—or just aren’t any good at—keeping the public informed on issues of both great and lesser importance.  A good example is the coverage, if you can call it that, of the widespread power outages that struck Texas last week, as a freak cold snap engulfed the entire state and literally froze natural gas lines and wind turbines.  Many news outlets, always eager to push some Democrat talking point or the other, blamed climate change for the weather event and the incompetence of state government officials—all Republican, of course—for allowing Texas to fall into darkness and despair, all while Senator Ted Cruz took off for a vacation in Cancun and Attorney General Ken Paxton packed the family up and headed to Utah for some winter frolicking.

Beyond piling on a couple of guys they already hated for their roles in challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election, however, it became quite clear that reporters didn’t understand the first thing about how power gets generated or how the market for electricity works—so instead of honest coverage that would keep people informed about what really happened and perhaps spur responsible officials to fix the problems that led to the outages, what we got was one long, useless political jeremiad.

An ill wind indeed, if there ever was one.

So why do I bring this up?  Well, it just so happens that there is more Congressional buffoonery afoot, at a time when there is no shortage of such things to be found in our nation’s capital, and it goes right back to the very same news media who are supposed to be vanguards of our democracy, but can’t seem to rouse themselves to do more than read the latest DNC press release.  Here’s the kicker, though:  It doesn’t involve the corporate blob media whose pseudo-woke parent companies seem more interested in placating China’s sensibilities than serving the American public, but rather the small faction of independent outlets that the Democrat Party doesn’t control:

Before a hearing set for Wednesday, Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee asked cable companies what they did to combat “the spread of misinformation.”

In advance of the Wednesday hearing, called “Fanning the Flames: Disinformation and Extremism in the Media,” members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter on Monday to Comcast, AT&T, Spectrum, Dish, Verizon, Cox and Altice, asking about their role in “the spread of dangerous misinformation.”

“To our knowledge, the cable, satellite and over-the-top companies that disseminate these media outlets to American viewers have done nothing in response to the misinformation aired by these outlets,” two Democratic representatives from California, Anna G. Eshoo and Jerry McNerney, wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times…

“Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, OANN and Newsmax on your platform both now and beyond the renewal date?” the letter continues. “If so, why?”

Yes, you read that correctly.  A committee of the United States Congress just threatened television providers with a heavy-handed letter that singled out specific news outlets for running stories that they don’t favor, slapping a designation of DANGEROUS MISINFORMATION on them—as if they had the authority under the Constitution to make that judgment in the first place.  And just what were these stories that the Congress has declared unfit for public consumption?

Blair Levin, who served as the F.C.C.’s chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, said a hearing could be a first step toward meaningful action.

“You have to establish a factual record that on both the election and Covid, tens of millions of Americans believe things that are just factually not true, and then try to figure out: What are the appropriate roles for the government in changing that dynamic?” Mr. Levin said.

In other words, unless you toe the line on endless lockdowns and the absolute purity of Joe Biden’s “victory” over Donald Trump last November, you’re a direct threat to Our Democracy and must be STOPPED AT ALL COSTS.

Of course, nowhere does Congress accuse the likes of CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC or ABC of spreading the even-deadlier-than-COVID virus of misinformation—but that’s only because Democrats really don’t mind riling up the public with stuff that isn’t true so long as the lies, and the outlets that disseminate them, serve their interests.  Need an example?  Look no further than this little gem I picked up on today:

…cross-tabs shared with me by the researcher) pic.twitter.com/tFI80FHF2z

— Zach Goldberg (@ZachG932) February 23, 2021

The actual figure according to the Mapping Police Violence database: 27.

What struck me most about this story is not just the wildly inaccurate figures that so many people accepted as fact, but that even 20% of conservatives believed that cops were gunning down unarmed African-Americans by the thousands—every year!  When a large swath of the public believes in something that simply isn’t true—and not even close to being true—you have to wonder, how is it that they came to have that perception?  The simple answer is that they’ve been grossly misinformed by a news media that portrays every officer-involved shooting that involves a member of a minority group as commonplace, systemic, and always motivated by racism, no matter the facts of how things actually went down.

And it’s not as if this sort of misinformation is harmless.  Not only is it corrosive to society, it actually destroys livelihoods and gets people killed—as the massive riots that tore the country apart last summer showed.  It doesn’t take a genius to see the brazen double standard at work here—for even as Congress is in the process of gutting the First Amendment in order to “protect” us from those they label insurrectionists, they turn a blind eye to a deliberate campaign of disinformation that led to far more destruction than the ignomious attack on the Capitol.

Make no mistake:  Congress has zero business dictating to the news media how they conduct themselves in any case.  I would never support any act of government that mandates what “honest” coverage is, because our rights as Americans to free speech make that none of government’s business.  But to witness this kind of broad assault on the First Amendment—and to see our so-called mainstream media outlets seemingly cheering it on—leads me to believe, more than ever, that individual states will eventually have to declare themselves Constitutional sanctuaries.

By now, it’s beyond obvious that our ruling elite have established one set of rules for us and an entirely different set for themselves.  Unless we want to live as second-class citizens in our own country, we have to draw the line here.

COVID-19 lockdowns are taking down an independent news outlet

Nobody said running a media site would be easy. We could use some help keeping this site afloat.

Colleagues have called me the worst fundraiser ever. My skills are squarely rooted on the journalistic side of running a news outlet. Paying the bills has never been my forte, but we’ve survived. We have ads on the site that help, but since the site’s inception this has been a labor of love that otherwise doesn’t bring in the level of revenue necessary to justify it.

When I left a nice, corporate career in 2017, I did so knowing I wouldn’t make nearly as much money. But what we do at NOQ Report to deliver the truth and fight the progressive mainstream media narrative that has plagued this nation is too important for me to sacrifice it for the sake of wealth. We know we’ll never make a ton of money this way, and we’re okay with that.

Things have become harder with the coronavirus lockdowns. Both ad money and donations that have kept us afloat for a while have dropped dramatically. We thought we could weather the storm, but the resurgence of lockdowns that mainstream media and Democrats are pushing has put our prospects in jeopardy. In short, we are now in desperate need of financial assistance.

The best way NOQ Report readers can help is to donate. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well. We need approximately $17,300 to stay afloat through March when we hope the economy will be more open, but more would be wonderful and any amount that brings us closer to our goal is greatly appreciated.

The second way to help is to become a partner. We’ve strongly considered seeking angel investors in the past but because we were paying the bills, it didn’t seem necessary. Now, we’re struggling to pay the bills. This shouldn’t be the case as our traffic the last year has been going up dramatically. June, 2018, we had 11,678 visitors. A year later in June, 2019, we were up to 116,194. In June, 2020, we had 614,192. In November, 2020, we hit 1.2 million visitors.

We’re heading in the right direction and we believe we’re ready talk to patriotic investors who want to not only “get in on the action” but more importantly who want to help America hear the truth. Interested investors should contact me directly with the contact button above.

As the world spirals towards radical progressivism, the need for truthful journalism has never been greater. But in these times, we need as many conservative media voices as possible. Please help keep NOQ Report going.

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