CNN is working hard to build hype for its new digital streaming service CNN+, which is set to debut before the end of March. But internal scandals keep usurping the spotlight, with CNN chief Jeff Zucker’s sex scandal becoming the latest bombshell to short-circuit the network’s publicity blitz.
In an unexpected announcement, Jeff Zucker resigned in disgrace Wednesday after it was revealed he has been in a sexual relationship with a subordinate, CNN’s chief marketing officer Allison Gollust, who used to work for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).
Zucker’s ignominious departure was the result of an internal CNN investigation into another recent network scandal — former host Chris Cuomo’s attempts to help his governor brother beat sexual harassment accusations.
CNN’s never-ending PR nightmare has put the ratings-challenged network in a precarious state in the crucial few weeks before CNN+ greets the public. Zucker was a key force behind the conception of the streaming service and served as its biggest public cheerleader, saying it would signal the start of a new era for the company.
“We will offer consumers a streaming product that grows the reach and scope of the CNN brand in a way that no one else is doing. Nothing like this exists,” he said last year.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Zucker said CNN+ will go beyond traditional news and commentary, offering a lighter touch in the form of lifestyle and sports content. “We do want a service that has a wider aperture and is broader than just today’s bleak news.”
Andrew Morse, CNN’s chief digital officer. told the newspaper that CNN+ will occupy a central place in the network’s operations. “What we’re building at CNN+ is not a side hustle.”
CNN is believed to be spending vast resources to launch the service, lining up new talent that includes former Fox News host Chris Wallace, NPR veteran Audie Cornish, and Hollywood actress Eva Longoria. The streamer will also feature familiar CNN personalities, including Don Lemon.
Morse said CNN is budgeting for 500 additional employees, including producers, reporters, engineers, and programmers.
But with the network’s ratings in the toilet, questions abound as to whether CNN can persuade its shrinking audience to shell out a monthly subscription fee for the streamer on top of their cable bills. CNN hasn’t announced how much the streamer will cost but one unverified report put it at $5.99 a month.
As former President Donald Trump predicted, CNN has seen its ratings collapse since he left office in January, regularly coming in at a distant third place behind Fox News and MSNBC. The network’s Trump bump has vanished as viewers flee in droves, with the network averaging a mere 585,000 total viewers in primetime during one week in December, putting CNN in 17th place among all basic cable networks.
CNN’s biggest stars, including Brian Stelter, sometimes come in behind reruns of favorite sitcoms like The Golden Girls on TV Land, or kids shows like Paw Patrol and Spongebob on Nick Jr.
Many blamed Zucker for the network’s hard-left turn during the Trump years and thee subsequent ratings plummet.
Other scandals that have consumed CNN in recent weeks include the shocking news that two high-ranking network producers have resigned following scandals that both involved pedophilia.
Rick Saleeby, who was a senior producer for CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” is under criminal investigation following a Project Veritas investigation alleging Saleeby solicited sexually explicit photos of an underage girl. John Griffin, who worked as a senior producer on Chris Cuomo’s show, was arrested in December on child sex trafficking charges. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include allegations that he used Kik and Google Hangout to “persuade parents to allow him to train their daughters to be sexually submissive.”
A fast-growing Facebook group called “Convoy to DC 2022” is calling upon American truckers to amass a convoy to head to Washington, DC to protest Joe Biden’s restrictive COVID measures.
Inspired by the massive 50,000-strong convoy of Canadian truckers surrounding Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the U.S. Freedom Convoy group, which has over 131,000 members as of writing, will reportedly start in California and traverse all the way to the nation’s capital.
“We are part of many large groups who believe in our founding fathers. We believe everyone has a voice. We support our freedom. Help us spread the word about this group and together we all can make it a better place. God Bless America,” the group states.
Brian Von D., the organizer of the Convoy to DC 2022 group, declared on Facebook last Thursday that “America is next” to experience a trucker-led revolution against COVID tyranny.
“We’re done with the mandates, we’re done with the government telling us what to do, we will continue, and we will follow just like the rest of the world on these trucker protests, and they will be 100 percent legal, they will abide by the law,” Von D. said.
“America, it’s your turn. It’s your turn to step up and show what you’re made of,” Von D. continued, adding that “America has a lot more trucks” than Canada.
“The government overreach is coming to an end, and this is how we do it,” he added.
Another organizer of the U.S. convoy claimed that the trucker movement is not about any one country, but about “a movement across the globe to stand up to” the COVID tyranny imposed by world governments.
Rumors among the group are circulating that the White House is in “full panic” over emerging reports American truckers are preparing to descend upon DC.
The date for when the U.S. convoy will set off to DC has not yet been announced.
Given Facebook’s past efforts to censor truly grassroots movements that defy the official narrative, it’s likely the social media giant will try to suppress the spread of the group on its platform.
Rather than create a projected 200,000 jobs in January, companies actually cut over 300,000 jobs across America, citing the spread of the Omicron variant, according to ADP’s payroll report.
Private payrolls fell by 301,000 for the month, far below the Dow Jones growth estimate of 200,000 jobs — a differential of half a million jobs.
“The labor market recovery took a step back at the start of 2022 due to the effect of the omicron variant and its significant, though likely temporary, impact to job growth,” ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, said.
Predictably, half the decline came from the leisure and hospitality industry, with a drop of 154,000 jobs.
But major losses were recorded across most job sectors, including manufacturing, trade, transportation, utilities, education, health services, goods production, and other service-providing industries.
Breaking News ADP Jobs Report Disaster Makes Friday even more intriguing but don’t worry the unemployment rate won’t change. pic.twitter.com/FXwxMcOvKX
This devastating report may explain why Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki tried to blame the upcoming disappointing January jobs numbers on the mild Omicron variant of COVID.
“Because Omicron was so transmissible, nearly 9 million people called in sick in early January when the jobs data was being collected,” Psaki said, adding that the report “may show job losses” as a result.
In preparation for job numbers to be released, Psaki makes it clear that 9 million people called out sick because of omicron at the time data was taken. pic.twitter.com/j1fsJGwWfK
Likewise, Biden’s economic adviser Brian Deese warned Tuesday that the January jobs report would impacted by Omicron.
“We never put too much weight on any individual month, this will particularly be true in this month because of the likely effect of the short-term absences from Omicron,” Deese claimed.
What excuse will the Biden administration come up with next when the disappointing jobs numbers continue into February and beyond thanks to restrictive COVID policies and Great Reset initiatives?
Here we go again. Since the original Gulf War in 1991, a certain pattern has emerged.
Every few years, the regime in Washington attempts to whip the American people into a frenzy so that they will support the latest American invasion “necessary” for regime change, “spreading democracy,” or some other agenda item.
It worked with Iraq in 1991, with Serbia in the late 1990s, and with Iraq again in 2003. It worked in Libya in 2011. They tried it again in 2013, but Americans showed so little interest in the floated Syria invasion that the move was eventually rejected by the White House. The American regime was forced to resort to small-scale under-the-radar miniwars designed to keep the military spending going while avoiding any large-scale mobilizations.
But they keep on trying. This time, with conflict ongoing between Russia and Ukraine, the enemy is Russia. The latter has increasingly been a bogeyman for American neoconservatives and paranoid anti-Trump neo-McCarthyites for a growing number of years. Yet war with Russia is hardly a crusade of righteousness, and it brings with it the risk of catastrophe. Calls for an American military “response” to the Ukraine-Russia conflict must be fully rejected.
The Usual Suspects Push for War
All the usual suspects are making all the usual claims. For example, Melinda Haring of the Atlantic Council insists that the US must now fight a new war to prevent future wars. After all, she claims, further unanswered action by Russia “could inspire China to take aggressive military action in the South China Sea or across the Taiwan Strait.” It’s basically a variation on the old domino theory.
If you don’t fight the bad guys in country A, you’ll end of fighting them in countries B, C, and D also. This is only one step removed, of course, from the Iraq-era and Vietnam-era slogan of “We have to fight them over there or we’ll be fighting them in Kansas City!” (The US lost both of those wars, and we’re still not fighting “them” in America’s streets.)
In addition, the Biden administration has promised to impose a “severe cost” if the Russians take “aggressive action.” Joe Biden even allegedly has been more alarmist on the matter than even the Ukrainians themselves, supposedly telling the Ukrainian head of state that Kyiv would be “sacked.“
The organs of so-called Conservatism Inc., meanwhile, have also been pushing for similar belligerence. The Washington Examiner has repeatedly pushed for more military intervention in Ukraine. In a Friday column, Examiner writer Jamie McIntyre wants the US to ship more weapons to Ukraine on the model of arming the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Meanwhile, Examiner writer Tom Rogan has penned an article in the Wall Street Journal attacking the German government for being insufficiently bellicose toward Russia. Those who remember the Iraq War of 2003 will recall this old strategy of badmouthing any American ally who is unenthusiastic about starting new wars. Back then, it was France and Germany, who were denounced by Donald Rumsfeld in 2003—in a fit of sour grapes—as “old Europe.” GOP politician Kenneth Timmerman then penned an extended anti-French diatribe in his 2004 book The French Betrayal of America
Today, having been proven right by the American debacle in Iraq, it’s once again Paris and Berlin who are trying to defuse the potential for a wider war. In response, Rogan says Germany is “putting Russian interests before those of the West” and that Germany is “no longer a credible ally to us [the US].” Germany’s sin, it seems, has been to purchase natural gas from Russia and to resist calls for facilitating weapons transfers to Ukraine.
As is so often the case, the American hawks are trying to present the conflict as an easy case of evil Russians versus blameless Americans and their allies. This has long been the common tactic, since every new target of US foreign policy—whether Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic or Bashar al-Assad—is the next Hitler bent on world domination. The real situation, of course, isn’t that simple.
Pushing NATO Eastward
Political factions in Ukraine have long fought over whether or not the regime would lean toward favoring “the West” or favoring rapprochement with Russia. The US regime, of course, has long been more than happy to intervene where it can to “encourage” the Ukrainian regime to move into the US’s orbit.
Politically, however, this move toward the US is not a slam dunk in Ukraine. Ethnic Russians likely compose 20 percent to 40 percent of the population of several eastern provinces, and this ethnic Russian minority has long feared anti-Russian legislation out of Kyiv. This has often limited just how much the regime in Kyiv can be seen favoring alignment with the West. After anti-Russian factions installed a new government in 2014, the fears of many ethnic Russians were confirmed: the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation outlawing the use of Russian as a second language. (The executive branch eventually vetoed the effort, but many reasonably feared this wasn’t the last bit of anti-Russian legislation.)
This, in part, has led to de facto separatism in some areas of eastern Ukraine, and to the ongoing war in Donbas between pro-Russia separatists—supplied largely by Russia—and the Ukrainian state.
The US, for its part, has never shied away from meddling in Ukrainian affairs to “encourage” a turn toward the West. One key tactic in this regard has been to repeatedly hold out the idea of North American Treaty Organization (NATO) membership to Ukraine. This has long enticed the Ukrainian regime with the promise of military defense paid by American taxpayers.
But this also alarms the Russians. After all, the gradual movement of NATO membership eastward has placed NATO, what has become a de facto anti-Russian organization, on Russia’s doorstep. The Russians view potential Ukraine membership in NATO as a real threat to Russian sovereignty. Consider, for example, how the US would react if the Mexicans signed a mutual defense pact with China. Thus, the NATO game has made the Ukraine’s orientation toward the West a high-stakes situation.
This has been a long-simmering problem with Russia as NATO has expanded eastward over time. The Russians view this expansion as particularly treacherous, since they claim that the US had promised in 1990 to not expand NATO even “one inch eastward.” The US denies this promise ever occurred, but Joshua Shifrinson has shown this did, in fact, occur. He notes in the Los Angeles Times in 2014 that
hundreds of memos, meeting minutes and transcripts from U.S. archives indicate otherwise. Although what the documents reveal isn’t enough to make Putin a saint, it suggests that the diagnosis of Russian predation isn’t entirely fair. Europe’s stability may depend just as much on the West’s willingness to reassure Russia about NATO’s limits as on deterring Moscow’s adventurism.
This latter point is as true today as it was in 2014. In recent talks, Russia has reiterated its demand that Ukraine not be eligible for NATO membership. Yet, even though NATO’s raison d’être ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US continues to seek NATO’s expansion as a means of augmenting the US’s ability to carry out a growing list of military interventions, such as the bombing of Libya in 2011 and the 1998–99 wars against Serbia.
So, rather than embrace what could have helped defuse tense relations with a nuclear-armed power, the US has stuck to continued antagonism in the form of NATO expansion.
Things Could Spin Out of Control
To make matters worse, the US continues to keep indirect military action on the table. Even if the US avoids direct confrontation, however, indirect measures could still lead to disaster. As Lyle Goldstein points out,
U.S. military intervention, whether direct or indirect, in a Russia-Ukraine war would have deleterious and even catastrophic consequences. An indirect U.S. military role, such as offering weapons and military trainers, may sound appealing. Yet, such activities would further cement the “New Cold War,” might prolong the war and the killing, would strain the NATO alliance, and could encourage Russian horizontal escalation, whether in Syria or even Venezuela.
Putting additional troops near Ukraine—as the administration is now threatening to do—does indeed raise the risks of US personnel becoming casualties. William Hartung notes,
Perhaps the biggest risk is posed by the likely deployment of additional U.S. troops and contractors to help to train Ukrainian forces on using U.S.-origin systems. If any U.S. personnel end up on the front lines and are killed in the event of a Russian invasion, the stakes—and the prospects for escalation—will rise dramatically.
Yet the usual war hawks continue to show interest in accelerating US involvement in the Ukraine conflict, which is likely to end up putting US soldiers in harm’s way and may potentially ratchet up the chances of a real and catastrophic military conflict with a nuclear power.
Fortunately, many Americans seem to not be falling for the latest calls for ever-greater levels of foreign adventurism. Few candidates of either party this fall appear to be making war against Russia a plank for their fall campaigns. It could be that, when it comes to foreign policy, many voters have actually learned something from the past thirty years.
Given that 84 percent of Americans don’t know where Ukraine is, it’s unlikely many Americans understand the political ambiguities underlying the Ukraine conflict, but perhaps many also know enough to know when they’re being played.
A large convoy of truckers on Monday blockaded a US-Canada border crossing outside Alberta leading to the capital of Ottawa.
The massive blockade began as a trucker protest at the Coutts, Alberta-Sweet Grass, Montana border crossing in support of the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa over the weekend.
Current scene at the Coutts / Sweet Grass border crossing, closed both ways. Truckers are demanding an end to government mandates, and say they won't budge until that happens.
Facing fines of $10,000 for a first offense or $25,000, as well as jail time for a second, the blockade organizers prayed over their difficult decision to disperse or remain.
The truckers turn to God, surrounded and cornered in by Kenneys government.
One trucker explained that the authorities initially “didn’t want to negotiate”, but now that they opened up a lane, their blockade no longer violates the Alberta Traffic Safety Act.
“We’re going to open the northbound lane and let the guys come out of the U.S., we’re going to let them go, but they have to open up a lane on their end to let our guys leave, because we’re actually boxed in right now,” he said.
UPDATE: truckers speak after decision to stand their ground.
I know this pandemic is frustrating. It’s frustrating that, after two years, we’re not done fighting COVID-19. But over the past few days, Canadians have been shocked – and, frankly, disgusted – by the behaviour displayed by some people protesting in our nation’s capital.
An armed good Samaritan intervened by shooting a man who was allegedly stabbing a woman at a gas station near Waco, Texas, on Friday.
KWTX reports that the good Samaritan “witnessed a domestic violence incident” about 7:40 p.m., wherein a man was allegedly stabbing the woman.
The Waco Tribune noted that the attacker was allegedly “chasing the woman into the store” when onlookers called 911.
Officer Officer Garen Bynum said that officers were responding to the scene when they learned a “separate third-party individual had intervened in an attempt to defend the female victim by shooting the suspect with a handgun.”
The alleged attacker and the stabbing victim were taken to the hospital with “severe injuries.”
In a Waco Police press release Officer Bynum also noted that the good Samaritan remained on scene to talk to police officers:
The third-party individual remained on-scene and is cooperating with the investigation. That individual was released from the scene after speaking with officers and has not been charged with any crime. The original suspect who was transported to the hospital is in custody and will remain in the custody of Waco Police officers while he continues to receive medical care for his injuries.
A Hungarian-American financier George Soros looks on during a session entitled "Redesigning the International Monetary System: A Davos Debate" at the World Economic Forum annual meeting on January 27, 2011 in Davos. AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINI (Photo credit should read FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)
With President Biden’s approval rating in the gutter and Democrats increasingly concerned about their chances of holding on to Congress (as evidenced by Justice Breyer’s decision to retire), the Democratic Party is turning once again to one of its most reliable megadonors for a massive influx of campaign cash, which it will need if it wants to stave off massive Congressional losses in November, not to mention at the state level.
Politico reports that the nonagenerian billionaire is committing $125 million – an enormous and unprecedented (even for Soros) sum – to help Democrats win as many Congressional races of possible in November, and beyond.
It appears Soros’s top issue is voting rights, which also happens to be near the top of President Biden’s agenda as he and his Congressional allies struggle to pass a new voting rights bill.
The group, Democracy PAC, has served as Soros’ campaign spending vehicle since 2019, channeling more than $80 million to other Democratic groups and candidates during the 2020 election cycle.
The new, nine-figure investment from Soros is aimed at supporting pro-democracy “causes and candidates, regardless of political party” who are invested in “strengthening the infrastructure of American democracy: voting rights and civic participation, civil rights and liberties, and the rule of law,” Soros said in a statement shared first with POLITICO.
Soros added that the donation to the super PAC is a “long-term investment,” intended to support political work beyond this year.
Democracy PAC, the PAC tasked with doling out Soros’s millions, will be led by his son, Alexander Soros.
The donation places Soros among only a handful of donors who have managed to hit the 9-figure level. Already, his PAC has cut two large checks: one for $2.5 million to Senate Majority PAC, and the other for $1 million to House Majority PAC.
Of course, news of Soros’ involvement always has the chance of becoming a political liability for Democrats. Take for instance the fact that the newly elected Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, has essentially ordered his prosecutors to stop seeking prison sentences for most low level felonies, including armed robberies and drug dealing.
And let’s not forget about San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin, who has become downright infamous as nary a week goes by without some new viral video portraying some egregious example of legalized shoplifting in the City by the Bay.
And Soros’s political interests aren’t ending at the federal level. He has also donated $1 million to the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, a group dedicated to electing Democrats to be the chief official in charge of elections in a state. As Politico adds, once “little-known”, posts like these are drawing increasingly more attention from donors. We’ll let you, dear reader, take a guess as to why.
Everyone in politics is thrilled by the prospect of failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s political comeback, a CNN op-ed author, Michael D’Antonio, claimed Tuesday.
While Donald Trump defeated Hillary by a sweeping 77 electoral college votes, CNN published an op-ed that alleged “everyone in the political world,” including Democrats and Republicans, are “excited by the prospect” of Hillary returning to politics:
While the mere mention of the Clintons in the context of another presidential campaign offends some and inspires others, everyone in the political world has a reason to be excited by the prospect.
Among her supporters, there must be millions who have recovered from the heartbreak of 2016 and are ready to back her again. Among those who oppose her, the chance to resume battle against the woman they love to hate must surely send hearts racing.
D’Antonio projected that if Hillary were to run in 2024, her ambition would grant her the ascendancy of other politicians like “Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, the first president Bush — who lost either primary or general elections and came back to win the White House.”
D’Antonio also stated Hillary would be the most qualified candidate in 2024, even more than President Joe Biden, who remained on the sidelines in 2016 and let Hillary skate to the nomination.
“Given her experience as First Lady, a United States senator, and Secretary of State, Hillary is one of the most qualified potential presidents in the land,” the article read.
The story accused right-wing media of framing Hillary as a “monster” instead of a “leader,” a narrative that could be rectified if she decides to run in 2024.
But Hillary lost badly in 2016, forcing her to recover “at her home in Chappaqua and only recently began returning to public life,” D’Antonio continued. “It is this resilience that energizes her critics and her supporters at the mere mention of a comeback.”
CNN’s op-ed follows a Wall Street Journal op-ed from last week that trumpeted Hillary as a potential 2024 front-runner.
Written by two Democrat insiders, the op-ed alleged Hillary is an “experienced national figure who is younger than Mr. Biden and can offer a different approach from the disorganized and unpopular one the party is currently taking.”
The Journal’s opinion piece dismissed Vice President Kamala Harris and Biden as legitimate 2024 contenders. Biden’s approval rating is pegged at 33 percent, while Harris’s approval rating in August was marked at the lowest for a VP since the 1970s.
