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Our Correction
Yesterday, we covered how Politico was receiving a significant amount from the federal government on an annual basis for Politico Pro subscriptions. At the time, it was being reported these ledger examples were showing payments to the news outlet through USAID. With more research now into the matter, we correct that to now indicate these were contractual payments through the departments and agencies, with only a small amount being USAID subscriptions for that agency.
We have parsed out the payment structure better today at RedState, and show that this is still a significant and bothersome financial relationship with the government entities the press is charged with holding accountable. In short, while it is not USAID funds involved, it is still problematic. A fuller explanation is made here.
Let's Untangle the Inappropriate Financial Deals Between the Federal Gov't., Politico, and Other Outletshttps://t.co/fsneWomuzj
— RedState (@RedState) February 6, 2025
Stealth Story Evolution -- CBS NEWS
Oh, so that’s why you hid this for so long.
At the urging of the FCC, CBS News finally had its program “60 Minutes” delivering its full unedited video of the Kamala Harris interview, and the transcript. After all of this time, the production claims it was not hiding anything (as it has this full reveal) and it states the full video shows there was no subterfuge (then why resist releasing it to clear your character?).
As we stated earlier when the controversy erupted, the claims from the producers explaining away the edits as being done for time purposes made no sense because what exposed them was the two-minute long teaser released on the Sunday morning news program, which had more responses from Harris than full primetime episode.
What the full tape being released shows is that Kamala’s answers are not contextually different, but what the edits achieved was making her sound less ridiculous, as they trimmed her meandering, word-salad answers so she might appear more cogent. Most surprising was the portion where they edited a question from the interviewer, Bill Whitaker, in order to reframe one of the answers from Harris. This does show they heavily manipulated this broadcast — and it shows the country dodged a bullet by her not winning the election.
THE FULL VIDEO
As discussed today on The Reckoning @RealTalk933FM — FULL unedited Kamala Harris CBS interview + transcript now available, thanks to the FCC.
— Ryan Hite (@BasedRyanHite) February 5, 2025
It's a doozy folks, and a great reminder why we dodged a major bullet.
Transcript AND FCC comment document in the replies. pic.twitter.com/b5STacaup5
News Avoidance Syndrome – CNN
See, there’s no story, the accused party said they didn’t do nothin’!
As Politico came out with a statement today to explain its financials with the government, it detailed the news outlet is not receiving grants, which is accurate. But we do contest another point. The memo say, “The value of Politico subscriptions is validated in the marketplace.” That is rather fractured when so much of that marketplace consists of federal agencies paying out large sums for bulk orders of an expensive subscription that runs into the thousands of dollars a year. In many cases, as indicated in the RedState coverage above, the agencies do not seek competitive deals, and Politico has consistently raised the cost each year by hundreds of dollars per account, leading to hundreds of thousands of dollars of increases.
Brian Stelter looked at this statement from the outlet and simply grinned, shrugged, and essentially said that solves the problem. No other questions or curiosity from the media expert on the issue.
Here's the complete memo separating fact from fiction about Politico. Yes, government agencies subscribe to its pro service, just like corporations do. "The value of this journalism is clear, as evidenced by our subscription re-enlistment rates." More here: pic.twitter.com/hQ7RDWlEDb
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 5, 2025
DNC PR FIRM – POLITICO
There’s that unbiased coverage the millions of dollars in government spending buys them.
As a sign of the type of coverage this financial deal may generate, just look at this story from Politico concerning the ongoing controversy surrounding Elon Musk from the left. The news outlet that launched the letter from the intelligence community that called the Hunter Biden laptop Russian disinformation, and that we reported here recently had two former reporters attesting the site killed off Hunter Biden stories, is dutifully showing that Elon Musk is very unpopular – based on a poll conducted by the party that is currently enraged over the man.
Democratic polling finds Elon Musk is unpopular https://t.co/FjcF29CnQW
— POLITICO (@politico) February 6, 2025
Anti-Social Media – THE BBC
“We have nothing to do with the network we are named after.”
On the list of entities seeing its funding cutoff by the current demise of USAID is the BBC Media Action charity. This is an outfit that works globally to aid in underserved areas with sparse media coverage. They are upset to learn that the money from this country was about 8% of its budget. Why we were funding a British media entity to this amount, and why its own nation cannot undertake the difference, is never really addressed.
The BBC isn't happy. pic.twitter.com/69igyoZwO0
— Carl Benjamin (@Sargon_of_Akkad) February 6, 2025
Presentation Paradox – NOTUS
Do you not see how that is the very same thing?
In an example of some of the imbalanced thinking in the press in reaction to the desire to cut out wasteful spending, the gang at Notus arrives to tell us one of the bigger examples seen this week is completely false. The funding of a transgender opera in Colombia has been a preferred talking point, but Katherine Schwartz is here to tell us this is completely false – USAID was not funding this at all. Ah, so the administration lied about this!
Er…not exactly. There are what some would call mitigating details to this story:
USAID didn’t fund the production. The opera Leavitt pointed to was instead funded through the Department of State in 2021.
Thennnnn…it was still wasteful taxpayer money going to fund a program that had no bearing on our national interests.
NEW: While highlighting waste and fraud in USAID, the WH and Republicans have pointed to a “transgender opera” in Colombia.
— Katherine Swartz (@kv_swartz) February 5, 2025
The only issue: that opera didn’t receive a dime from USAID. https://t.co/ROyJTFcbjN
