Tag: media

CNN+ Goes Down in Flames

The mainstream media is discovering that it’s not so easy to succeed when you can’t simply pretend that people are watching you.

CNN+, the streaming service that was hyped as one of the most significant developments in the history of CNN, will shut down on April 30, just one month after it launched.

CNN+ customers “will receive prorated refunds of subscription fees,” the company said. The decision was made by new management after CNN’s former parent company, WarnerMedia, merged with Discovery to form Warner Bros. Discovery earlier this month. The prior management team’s vision for CNN+ runs counter to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s plan to house all of the company’s brands under one streaming service. Some CNN+ programming may eventually live on through that service. Other programming will shift to CNN’s main television network…

The decision to shut down CNN+ just weeks after it launched marked a stunning end to the streaming news service. Executives had touted the application as the most significant launch since Ted Turner founded CNN in 1980.

CNN had poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the new streaming app and lured top talent from other networks for it, including Kasie Hunt from NBC and Chris Wallace from Fox News. The streaming service featured hours of daily live programming and weekly shows.

WarnerMedia also owns DC Comics, and it will not be at all surprising if the comics operation is shut down later this year, with a focus on exploiting the IP replacing the publication of any new comics that will threaten the value of the historical IP.

Fewer than 10,000 people are using CNN+ on a daily basis two weeks into its existence, according to people familiar with the matter.

More people read this blog than were using CNN+. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that UATV has more subscribers than CNN+ ever did.

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US Military Expertise

Contemplate the significance of the two subsequent statements:

Former US commanding general of the United States Army Europe, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges said on Monday that Russians are about 10 days away from reaching the “culminating point” . Once they reach there, the US commander said, the Russian troops will be “forced to stop their assault on Ukraine due to a lack of resources”. According to Lt Gen Hodges, “Russians are about 10 days away from what is called the culminating point, when they just no longer have the ammunition nor the manpower to keep up their assault.”

Russia has shown no signs of halting its assault on Ukraine despite the sanctions being imposed on it by the Western countries. However, experts are of the opinion that Russian forces will soon run out of resources.

15 March 2022

It’s now 34 days later, more than three weeks after the Russians ran out of ammunition and manpower, according to the US military experts.

While there are not official confirmations (that I know of) from the Russian military, it appears that Lavrov is the first, and so far only, Russian official who declared that the 2nd phase of the operation has begun. Truth be told, pretty much everybody else thinks likewise. Considering the intensity of Russian bombings and artillery strikes overnight, which were reported by numerous sources, it certainly appears reasonable to me to conclude that this 2nd phase has indeeed begun. For example, the Russian defense ministry reported on Tuesday morning that its troops had delivered artillery strikes at 1,260 Ukrainian military targets overnight, including 1,214 locations where Ukrainian troops amassed their forces.

How long this phase of the war will last is anybody’s guess. Optimists think a week, pessimists a month, but in reality nobody really knows because the outcome will be determined not by maneuver like during the first phase, but by logistics, specifically fuel and ammunition, in other words by mobility and firepower.

19 April 2022

So, it appears the Russians just might have some ammunition and manpower left, considering that they’re only now beginning the second phase of the Operation Z. So this raises the obvious question: is there any reason to suspect that the NATO forces might be projecting a shortage of ammunition and manpower onto their enemies?

Never, ever, listen to anyone the media anoints as an “expert”. Their expertise, such as it is, usually consists of their ability to repeat the media’s narrative with a straight face, no matter how obviously absurd it is.

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Russia is Well On Its Way

Strategic Culture interviews former USMC intelligence officer Scott Ritter about the Russian military operation in Ukraine:

Question: Do you think that Russia has a just cause in launching its “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24?

Scott Ritter: I believe Russia has articulated a cognizable claim of preemptive collective self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The threat posed by NATO expansion, and Ukraine’s eight-year bombardment of the civilians of the Donbass fall under this umbrella.

Question: Do you think Russia has legitimate concerns about the Pentagon sponsoring biological weapons programs in laboratories in Ukraine?

Scott Ritter: The Pentagon denies any biological weapons program, but admits biological research programs on Ukrainian soil. Documents captured by Russia have allegedly uncovered the existence of programs the components of which could be construed as having offensive biological warfare applications. The U.S. should be required to explain the purpose of these programs.

Question: What do you make of allegations in Western media that Russian troops committed war crimes in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities? It is claimed that Russian forces summarily executed civilians.

Scott Ritter: All claims of war crimes must be thoroughly investigated, including Ukrainian allegations that Russia killed Ukrainian civilians in Bucha. However, the data available about the Bucha incident does not sustain the Ukrainian claims, and as such, the media should refrain from echoing these claims as fact until a proper investigation of the evidence is conducted, either by the media, or unbiased authorities.

Question: Do you think the alleged Russian bombing of a hospital and an art theater in Mariupol were false-flag provocations?

Scott Ritter: Both locations are available for detailed forensic examination that would either confirm or refute Ukrainian allegations that these locations were struck by Russian aerial bombs. Other data, such as the existence of any NATO radar data that would put Russian aircraft over these two locations at the time of the alleged attack, should be collected. A detailed forensic examination of each site would go a long way in proving or disproving the Ukrainian claims through the collection of weapons fragments and the evaluation of environmental samples which would show the chemical composition of any explosive used, thereby allowing a better idea of what weapon or explosive was used to destroy the sites.

Question: The Western media are reporting that the Russian military operation in Ukraine is floundering because it has not over-run Ukraine entirely. As a military expert, how do you see the Russian operation proceeding?

Scott Ritter: Russia is fighting a very difficult campaign hampered by its own constraint designed to limit civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure and the fact that Ukraine possesses a very well-trained military that is well led and equipped. Russia deployed some 200,000 troops in support of this operation. They are facing some 600,000 Ukrainian forces. The first phase of the Russian operation was designed to shape the battlefield to Russia’s advantage while diminishing the size and capacity of the Ukrainian ability to wage large-scale conflict. The second phase is focused on destroying the main Ukrainian force concentration in eastern Ukraine. Russia is well on its way to accomplishing this task.

The complete failure of pattern recognition by the media is not a surprise, as the media is entirely corrupt. The failure of those who consume media to recognize the intrinsic unreliability of the media is also not a surprise, but only because we now seen people accept obvious absurdities at face value for the last two years. It is, however, disappointing.

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They’re More Likely in London

When everything is fake and gay, and everything the media reports is untrue, your safest bet is to assume the opposite:

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has travelled to Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky in an unannounced visit. A picture shared by the Embassy of Ukraine to the UK on Twitter showed the pair sitting across a table in the country’s capital, with their respective flags in the room. In the image caption, the embassy simply wrote: ‘Surprise’ with a winking emoji. Last month, it was reported that the Prime Minister had asked officials to examine the practicality and value of the trip to the Ukrainian capital for talks with his Ukrainian counterpart. At the time, security officials were said to be ‘having kittens’ at the prospect of Mr Johnson travelling to a war zone.

I notice you can’t see any outlets in the picture. I’m just waiting for 4chan to dig up a picture of this room that proves it was taken somewhere in London. There is no way the British Prime Minister flew into a war zone and we already know that the “train visit” of the three Eastern European prime ministers was faked.

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Exposing the False Flag

As I mentioned on last night’s Darkstream, I knew “the massacre at Bucha” was a false flag the moment I read the first headline about it. It is not necessary to know anything at all about what the globalist media claims happened in Bucha to know, beyond any shadow of a reasonable doubt, that the official media narrative is both deceptive and false. This is because every time – every single time – there is a military conflict in which the globalists strongly support one side over the other, the media dutifully publishes false reports of nonexistent atrocities.

From the incubators of Kuwait to the White Helmets of Syria to the bloody streets of Bucha, all of these narratives are false, all of the atrocities reported are fake, and to the extent there is anything that actually happened there, the events are false flags, with the actions of the parties actually responsible attributed to innocent parties. Every. Single. Time.

Which, of course, is why most readers here have been waiting to see what the inevitable false flag would be. Some guessed something to do with Chernobyl, others are still anticipating a “Russian” bioweapons attack on Ukranians or possibly somewhere in the West. This one is, frankly, as underwhelming as it is unconvincing.

That being said, the observable facts of the matter also prove that “the massacre at Bucha” is a fake and a false flag, which further supports the mounting evidence that Vladimir Zelensky is a fraud and an actor, as he has been filmed publicly crying while decrying this nonexistent Russian massacre. Vassily Nebenzia, the Permanent Russian Representative to the UN, addressed the attempted false flag in a press briefing today after the UK prevented the subject from being raised in front of the UN Security Council, which tends to imply that the West may have even been actively involved somehow in staging the false flag.

I would like to present to you the real facts about Bucha.

During the time that the town has been under the control of the Russian armed forces, not a single local resident has suffered from any violent action.

For as long as the town was under the control of the Russian armed forces locals were moving freely around the town and using cellular phones. So they could post on social media any photo and video footage of any theoretical “harassment” if this were the case. However, that did not happen.

Let me address the developments in chronological order.

On March 30, following another round of talks in Ankara, Russian Ministry of Defense announced the withdrawal of forces from a number of regions, including Bucha.

That fact was confirmed the next day by the mayor of Bucha. In his video of March 31 Anatoly Fedoruk presented the withdrawal of Russian forces as a victory of Ukrainian Army. Interestingly, he had not mentioned any mass atrocities, dead bodies, killings, graves or anything like that. It is hard to imagine that a city mayor can “forget” to address such a devastating scenario.

Let me show you the video posted by Mr. Fedoruk. As you will see, he looks happy and smiling. It is hard to imagine that he is acting like this against the backdrop of “massacre” in the streets. That’s in Ukrainian, but as I said, he is very happy that Russian troops withdrew, which he regards as a great victory of the Ukrainian army. He makes no mentioning of any atrocities in the city.

This video was posted on “Ukraine 24” channel on the 1st of April. I would like to stress – nothing about “atrocities” was revealed on April 1st.

Let me also show a photo of Zhan Belenyuk, a deputy of the Ukrainian parliament, who, according to his reports in social media, visited Bucha after regaining control by the Ukrainian government. As you can see, he is also smiling. He is joyful. In his reports he mentions no dead bodies. Not a single reference to “atrocities”.

On April 2nd the National Guard of Ukraine posted on official resources a video from Bucha. Let me show you the footage. The video captures members of Ukrainian armed forces entering Bucha. The footage shows no dead bodies in the streets. The Ukrainian military interviewed several people in different locations across the town. None of them said a word about any “massacre” or mass killings. Camera also captures background behind these people, with no dead bodies in sight.

To sum it up, there are no reports of atrocities which are accredited to the Russian military in Bucha, which happened before the Ukrainian army took control of the town. Four days after the Russian military left the city of Bucha there was not a single sign of any “atrocities”. I repeat – not a single reference to it, anywhere.

The infamous video depicting bodies on the city roads only appeared on April 3rd. It is full of discrepancies and blatant lies. According to its authors, the bodies were lying on the streets for at least 4 days by the time the video was filmed. However, the bodies are not stiffened. How is that possible? It is against the law of biology. The bodies do not have signs of decomposition known to forensic experts, including cadaver stains. The wounds contain no blood.

Another point illustrating that this video is fake.

The Ukrainian forces use either blue or yellow armlets or stripes. Because members of Ukrainian militia do not always wear military uniforms, local civilians in Bucha wore white stripes on their upper arms when the Russian forces were stationed in Bucha. That was done to prevent misidentification of civilians from members of militia. When the Ukrainian forces entered the town, they fired at the people with white stripes, killing the civilians. There is a video showing a conversation between members of Ukrainian units. It was published in social media by the so-called “territorial defense” – a radical nationalist fighting group. One of the radicals asks if he can shoot at the people without blue stripes. The other confirms that this is permissible.

Russian speakers know that, but let me translate for the rest of you:

Question behind the scene – «There are folks without blue bands, can I shoot them?»

Answer: «Of course».

I hope the evidence we demonstrated today leaves you with no illusion that the video circulated by the Kiev regime is a crude forgery. It does not stand any scrutiny.

Of course, the fact that every other narrative that has come out of Ukraine has rapidly been proven to be false should have been everyone’s second clue that “the massacre at Bucha” would fall apart just as quickly.

UPDATE: “YouTube bans any open discussion about the Bucha false flag.”

So, you know it’s confirmed to be fake.

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The Ticket is No Guarantee

Eventually, the wicked tire of paying the price to pretend their servants are successful:

Investors at BuzzFeed are reportedly pressuring CEO Jonah Peretti to close down its entire money-losing news operation as senior journalists announced their resignations on Tuesday.

Mark Schoffs, the editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, and two of his top deputies quit in the latest sign of turmoil at the cash-strapped company.

Schoffs informed staffers at the online publication that he would be stepping down on Tuesday, according to The Information. Tom Namako, Schoffs’ deputy news editor, and Ariel Kaminer, the executive editor of investigations, also announced that they planned on leaving their posts, according to the report.

Journalists working for the site have been told that more job cuts are in the offing, The Information reported. Fewer than 30 journalists in the 100-person newsroom have already been offered buyouts, according to CNBC. The reporters who were offered exit packages cover investigations, inequality, politics, and science. Many of them have worked for BuzzFeed for more than a year.

The news operation at BuzzFeed loses around $10 million per year, CNBC reported. BuzzFeed is expected to lose between $15 million and $20 million in the first quarter of this year.

Imagine how much content we could produce if we were willing to burn $80 million per year. And keep in mind, this is what supposed “success” looks like. Who needs it? Who even wants it?

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Why the Narrative Changed

Three days ago, I noticed that the globalist media narrative had suddenly changed. Reports of Russian complete military failures and Putin’s inevitable fall didn’t vanish entirely, but were severely reduced as the focus shifted to other news. Some test balloons were even floated about the possibility that the anti-Russian narrative might be incorrect, and perhaps this unconfirmed report of the results of the recent missile strike on the base near Yavoriv is why.

$400 million worth of Western supplied weaponry destroyed in a single russian strike on the military base near Lvov — radio intercepted comms suggest that 267 foreign mercenaries have been killed in the strike. 50 year old Peter from Austria who fought alongside the “international legion of Ukraine” said that 800 to 1000 foreign mercenaries were present during the strike. Around 400 mercenaries were evacuated to Poland, many of whom have suffered severe burns & torn limbs from the Kalibr strike. There’s a high number of missing individuals still under the rubble which includes a high number of Americans, Poles and Romanians. Former NATO officers are Amongst the dead.

The number of fatalities sounds absurdly high, to be honest, but even if the number of casualties is closer to the “at least 169 dead and wounded” reported by the Ukrainians, the possibility that NATO officers have already died in Ukraine will likely have installed a new sense of caution in the media’s paymasters. Especially since the airstrikes continue to target military bases in western Ukraine.

Russia again today used hypersonic Kinzhal missiles on ‘military targets’ in Ukraine, according to the defence ministry in Moscow. ‘A Kinzhal attack on a fuel and lubricants base from which fuel for Ukrainian armoured vehicles was supplied was launched from the airspace over Crimea,’ said a statement. High-precision airborne missiles also struck a training centre for ‘foreign mercenaries’ near the village of Ovruch, in Zhytomyr Region, claimed the Russians. The type of missile strike was not specified. ‘More than 100 servicemen of [Ukraine’s] special operations forces and foreign mercenaries were killed.’

And if Russia can strike so effectively past NATO’s air defenses at will without even using its hypersonic missiles, there is nowhere in Europe where the globalist warmongers can consider themselves safe from targeted missile strikes. And now that the attempts to split China from Russia have obviously, and publicly, failed, it is safe to conclude that more countries will be openly taking sides against the globalist imperialists.

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Cracks in the Narrative

The globalist media begins to prepare the great mass of NPCs that the Ukrainians are not winning the war, Putin is not going to be overthrown, and jaw-jaw does not trump war-war. While globohomo clearly won the information war, Russia is winning the actual boots-on-the-ground war.

As Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine grinds on into its fourth week, the physical war rages in the cities and countryside, while an information war is waged over the airwaves and on the internet and social media.

On the actual battlefield, the Russian offensive has undoubtedly slowed over the past week. But what is being described as a ‘stalled’ takeover may be the result of the Russians taking time to reorganize their forces and improve their logistics.

On the Western side of the information war, we were told from the opening days of the conflict that the Russian military would break due to high casualties and defections, loss of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and aircraft, and domestic opposition.

Videos of Russian battlefield setbacks abound in the media, and strangely there is little reporting on Ukrainian losses.

And yet, over three weeks into the war, Vladimir Putin remains president and the Russian war machine has not collapsed but in fact continues its plodding, imperfect, and messy advance.

Ukraine certainly has won the war on social media and in the press. This gives the average Western viewer the impression of a lopsided victory in favor of Ukraine.

Additionally, the Pentagon has taken the unprecedented step of conducting daily briefings on the war, even though the U.S. is not at war.

The Pentagon assessments often track closely with assessments given by the Ukrainian government.

The Russian military has used a mix of maneuver and siege warfare in an effort to achieve its goal of breaking the Ukrainian military and government and conquering vast regions of the country.

This is not a condemnation of the West’s use of information and disinformation.

These tactics play a role in the management of conflicts. But the West should not delude itself into believing that the Ukrainians will be saved by wishful thinking.

Optics are not everything. Propaganda is not power. And no amount of wishing and wordspelling is sufficient to defeat air, sea, and ground superiority combined with the will to complete the mission.

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The Official Story is Always False

The purported meeting of the three Eastern European ministers with Zelensky in Kiev made no sense to me, given the proximity of the Russian troops and the ease with which a train could be destroyed from the air. I even wondered if the globalists were setting up a sacrifice of their minor servitors in order to provide NATO a casus belli to directly enter the war.

But, as it turns out, the meeting was just more fakery to serve the Narrative. The three prime ministers never entered Ukraine. Zelensky isn’t in Kiev either, but in Poland.

The summit meeting of East European leaders, hosted in Kiev by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on March 15 was fabricated by the Polish government, with Polish secret service agents playing the part of journalists, and fake photographs of the meeting, press briefing, and train journey prepared by Zelensky’s press office.

The operation was designed by the Poles to promote their role in support of the Ukraine, the Ukrainian refugees, and in defence of Europe against Russia, and seek new European, American, and NATO alliance funds and military equipment.

According to the Ukrainian publicity, the operation was designed to promote the appearance that Zelensky’s regime is in control of Kiev, and to accelerate their application for admission to the European Union (EU).

The Anglo-American media have reported the meeting, as announced by Petr Fiala, the Czech prime minister, with “the aim…to express the European Union’s unequivocal support for Ukraine and its freedom and independence,”

The result of the summit meeting, according to the Financial Times in London, was “a show of European solidarity even as Russian shelling continued on residential neighbourhoods in the Ukrainian capital. The trip by the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia is the most high-profile visit to Kyiv since Russia invaded the country on February 24.”

“It is here, in war-torn Kyiv, that history is being made,” the Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced. “It is here that freedom fights against the world of tyranny. It is here that the future of us all hangs in the balance.”

Morawiecki and the western press were lying – there was no meeting in Kiev. Instead, the meeting was staged at the Polish rail junction town of Przemysl, 95 kilometres west of Lvov (Lviv), and 20 kms inside the Polish frontier with the Ukraine.

In a report published by the Associated Press (AP) bureau in Warsaw, “the long journey over land from Poland to Kyiv by Morawiecki, Poland’s deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Prime Ministers Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic and Janez Jansa of Slovenia sent the message that most of Ukraine still remains in Ukrainian hands.”

The evidence gathered from sources in Warsaw and from analysis of the videos and photographs published on the meeting proves there was no “long journey”; no meeting in Kiev or in Lvov, the Galician region capital, which is the operating headquarters of the Ukrainian government. From the evidence provided by the Poles and also by Zelensky’s publicity staff, it is now clear that only a small part of western Ukraine remains in Ukrainian hands. Zelensky himself is now in Polish hands…

The Czech and Slovenian officials flew into Rzeszow Jasionka, the nearest airport to Przemysl; the airfield is also a NATO logistics and security base. They then drove to Przemysl. There the Ukrainians had despatched one of the luxury versions of the regular train service between Przemysl, Lvov, and Kiev. This had been fitted up for fabricated photographs of the Polish, Czech and Slovenian officials meeting as they purportedly travelled towards Zelensky in Kiev. The press which has published these pictures knows them to have been faked and has assisted in concealing the real location.

Look at the pictures. This is quite literally fake news. Now ask yourself what else is being passed off as real by the imperial media?

In not-unrelated news, the Italians have discovered munitions being hidden in “humanitarian” flights to Ukraine:

Nelle scorse ore è emerso che dal Cargo Village sito presso l’aeroporto civile di Pisa sarebbe dovuto partire un volo contenente casse di armi, munizioni ed esplosivi, in contrasto con lo scopo stesso del viaggio, data la sua natura umanitaria. Infatti, il volo avrebbe dovuto fornire cibo, medicinali, e altri prodotti utili alla popolazione ucraina, in difficoltà a causa dei combattimenti delle ultime settimane.

Ai lavoratori dell’aeroporto “Galileo Galilei” di Pisa era stato chiesto di caricare degli aiuti umanitari destinati all’Ucraina. Quando si sono ritrovati però di fronte a casse contenenti materiale bellico hanno deciso di non eseguire l’ordine.

Pisa, armi al posto di aiuti umanitari: gli aeroportuali bloccano volo per l’Ucraina, 15 Marzo 2022

As Karl Denninger notes, this echoes how the USA arranged its entry into WWI, a war which the American people had clearly and unequivocally indicated they had no wish to fight.

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10 to 14 Days

And then it will be all over because the Russian military is exhausted. That’s the current globalist media narrative, anyway.

‘Ukraine has Russia on the run’

Russian forces may only be able to sustain full fighting capacity for another ‘ten to 14’ days, senior UK defence sources indicated last night. By that time they may struggle to make any significant progress – while finding it difficult to hold ground, according to the latest intelligence.

Despite another day in which bombs rained down on Ukrainian cities including Kyiv and Kharkiv, resistance to the onslaught has seen the invasion fall behind schedule, allies of Vladimir Putin admitted for the first time on Monday. And American officials said the ground advance, now in its third week, had largely stalled.

A senior UK source said last night: ‘Ukraine has Russia on the run. It is running out of manpower and running out of energy. As long as we keep pressing they’ve got ten to 14 days before reaching their culminating point. That’s when the strength of Ukraine’s resistance should become greater than Russia’s attacking force.’

Time will tell. I am extremely dubious, so I’m mostly posting this here for the record. We’ll revisit this professional military analysis on March 24 to see how it looks then. I’m anticipating it will look rather similar to the old “14 days to flatten the curve” approach.

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