Scroll down to read this post.

 

Readers!

 

The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Our utterly bankrupt “mainstream” press

Lies from CNN
Lies from CNN

Lies from MSNBC
Lies from MSNBC

The so-called bombing of a hospital in the Gaza strip yesterday has revealed better than anything the utter bankruptcy of our modern press.

Without any confirmation mainstream sources like CNN and MSNBC accepted without question the claims by Hamas that the bombing was an “Israeli strike” and that 200 to 500+ people were killed. The graphic to the right illustrates CNN’s dishonesty. The report itself seemed eager to accept the Hamas claims, without any checking, while simultaneously treating the Israeli reports (that evidence showed that the impact was caused by a misfired Hamas rocket) with great skepticism and doubt requiring double and maybe triple verification.

MSNBC immediately reported the claims of Hamas, without any verification, while also exaggerating the damage incredibly, as shown by the second graphic to the right. The reporter first claims “the images coming out of Gaza are absolutely harrowing,” then notes that the known damage was in “the courtyard area of this hospital,” even as the video being shown during his report shows no damage, just ambulances arriving at a hospital with a variety of patients.

The irony is that not only have video and audio evidence confirmed without question now that the rocket was from Hamas (including audio of Hamas’ agents admitting to this fact), the impact itself didn’t appear to hit the hospital itself, just that courtyard/parking lot. As noted at the tweet, “How did 500 people die in a parking lot?”

In fact, the death toll remains very unclear indeed. It could very well be that very few were killed, though determining that fact will not be easy.

Both of these reports follow the standard operation procedures of all the mainstream press, not just CNN and MSNBC. Hamas’ claims are always accepted without question. Israeli actions are always described in the worst possible terms. And the spin is always shaped against Israel and in favor of these terrorists.

Even after the evidence made it entirely clear that the initial propaganda from Hamas was a lie, mainstream reporters continued to use that initial propaganda to challenge Israeli spokesmen. For example, in one CNN interview the reporter used as evidence an already removed post by a “reservist” and “social media influencer” that claimed the bombing was by Israel, and then challenged the Israeli spokeswoman to defend herself. In another CNN interview the interviewer still seems skeptical of the Israeli evidence, and demands again and again that the Israeli military spokesman defend himself. When he dared to note her bias, she got very indignant, and cut him off.

Defenders of CNN would say that these later interviews were really intended to allow Israel an opportunity to debunk Hamas’s claims, but the tone and history says otherwise. This bankrupt press repeatedly treats claims by these terrorists with utter faith, while doubting everything said by a democratic and law-based country like Israel. This bankrupt press also goes out of its way to spin these terrorists as innocent defenders of their homeland, while making Israel look like a brutal murderer trying to kill innocent civilians.

In other words, this bankrupt press turns the truth on its head.

Nor is this bias and bankruptcy really news. It has been this way for decades, and getting worse all the time, with the decline going nova at the beginning the Trump administration. This bankrupt mainstream press has been reporting lies routinely, from spreading the hoax that Trump colluded with Russia to lying about police actions against Michael Brown in Ferguson in 2014 and George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 to claiming falsely that the protesters on January 6th were “insurrectionists” who must all be imprisoned. Worse, these media outlets never retract any of their false claims. Instead, they simply issue new ones, with their goal always to push a radical leftist agenda that in many ways also appears anti-Semitic, anti-American, and even anti-White.

Times are a changin’ however. Though there continues to be no effort by any of these mainsteam news outlets to reform themselves, they no longer have a monopoly on the news. In fact, this entire Gaza war has revealed their lack of control most heartily. Once, their bias would have been clear, but documenting it would have been difficult. Now, it is very easy for alternative outlets to get good information past these liars and to the general public. This very essay is proof of this.

In the end, this refusal to fix their biases is going to kill them. The public, in its search for information, is going to go where it is reported correctly. Since these mainstream outlets won’t do that, the public has been going elsewhere, so that increasingly the term “mainstream” describes these news outlets less and less.

Once again, freedom and competition is winning, though the war will be long, hard, and difficult. Freedom and competition no longer controls the playing field, and so it must fight desperately for every inch.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

34 comments

  • David Eastman

    The EU commission that has been threatening X and Elon Musk with all sorts of fines and even jail time for hosting disinformation will be right on this, I’m sure!

    Seriously, these people are suffering from rectal cranial impaction so severe that they don’t even realize what they are doing. They immediately publish inflammatory propaganda which sparks violent protests across Europe and the middle east, and then when it turns out to be 100% false and they are called on it, they say “well, we did say in the 10th paragraph that these were unverified claims, so it’s perfectly OK and an example of rigorous journalistic standards.” And there will be no consequences at all, none.

  • alton

    Well many U Tub channels are now dark because they are being controlled for miss-information ?content?

    One I watched was Salty Cunuck…..

    Gone Dark .

  • alton: I wonder if you have checked to see if Salty Cunuck is now on Rumble, X, or other alternatives. Most of those that Google/Youtube have censored simply moved to those outlets.

  • pzatchok

    Modern reporters are simply lazy.

    Most are under educated in any subjects they are tasked with covering and very few have any real education about anything scientific.

  • It pains me to say that for the last decade-plus, I’ve gotten more reliable information on US events from the foreign press. Sure, there is the objectivity of distance, but also a diminished investment in American Progressivism. There was a time in living memory when American newscasts were considered the Voice of Truth (or, Voice of America), and beamed across borders to oppressed peoples. Huh.

  • John C

    I would sooner put my trust in Dr Fauchi before I would trust the Palestinian Health Ministry.

  • Max

    Thank goodness for alternative sites for information like this one. If the elite get their way, the only information we will receive is what they spoon feed us through the government sponsored propaganda machines.

    Freedom of speech is a weapon of war?
    https://twitter.com/iluminatibot/status/1704150599632314711/mediaviewer
    Or
    https://jonathanturley.org/2023/09/20/harvards-jacinda-ardean-calls-on-the-united-nations-to-crack-down-on-free-speech-as-a-weapon-of-war/

  • James Street

    I stand with Biden

    “Arriving in Israel, Biden Says Hospital Blast ‘Appears’ to Have Been Caused by Palestinians”
    https://www.nationalreview.com/news/arriving-in-israel-biden-says-deadly-hospital-blast-appears-to-have-been-committed-by-palestinians/

  • Concerned

    The “mainstream media” is worse than bankrupt. They are complicit in the dismantling of our country and are actively working in close coordination with an unelected oligarchy to cement their power and to continue a psychological war against We the People and our God-given sovereignty. Prime example: not a peep about the political jailing of Douglas Mackey for making a meme in 2016 based on a 150 year old law meant to protect blacks from being prevented from voting by the KKK.

  • Jeff Wright

    All very sad

  • Questioner

    James Street: The facts speak for themselves. Biden is and always has been a liar! (which is nothing new).

    Weeb Union: “In Depth Analysis On The Al Ahli Hospital Bombings”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rII2CwIOrDM&t=17s

  • DJ

    It appears that not many of the Middle East States are “into” Biden. If he said the correct thing it was because he had the subject polled first and then written by an Obama appointed handler. They just blew him off big time on cancelling a “sit-down” over there to discuss the situation. And this “We stand with Israel” sounds good, but it comes from an empty shirt (or note cards). Now with China backing Russia to the hilt, and Saudi Arabia talking to Iran, it seems that the US is on the outskirts looking in. A leader would say that Israel should do what is necessary in its own defence. And that there would be scorched earth if anyone even thinks of interfering. But this is Biden. He will have Yellen print money and give it to Iran who will make sure it is put to good use somewhere. Also don’t forget, Hamas knows that a US hostage in Biden’s America is worth a cool Billion dollars. So there we are. A sad situation that could easily get global if we do not watch out.

  • Questioner

    Mr. Zimmerman:

    Your statement in your article about what hit the hospital is wrong. The video created by Weeb Union that I linked above proves that it was not a misguided Hamas rocket that hit the hospital. Please look at the facts.

  • Col Beausabre

    Sorry, Questioner, but he IS looking at the facts.

  • Questioner

    Democracy Now!:

    “Divide and Rule”: How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjrvEJ3IdeY

  • Questioner: So I guess Israel wanted 1,400 or so of its people slaughtered, including women and children and babies, as well has having many women, children, and babies taken as hostages to act as human shields to defend Hamas. Anything to prevent a Palestinian state!

    The illogic of this video can only be explained if one realizes its underpinning is anti-Semitic. It is alright to kill Jews, and if they act to defend themselves it is all right to condemn them for doing so.

    We learn more about your own bigotry by your acceptance of this crap then we learn by how it fails to teach us about what is happening in the Middle East.

  • Cotour

    “DEMOCRACY” now!

    “Democracy” all depends on who’s ox is being gored.

    Israel needs to remove / eliminate Hamas from being an existential threat. And who ever formulated it I do not know, but I do know that the conditions for that elimination has been formulated, is locked in loaded and it is underway.

    In such conditions there is no morality, there are just innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    Women? Children? Israel is taking care of business no matter who or how they get there.

    The Democracy Now woman ooozes Noame Chomsky like reporting each and every day.

    Q: Why was no household in that part of Israel armed? So close to the border and no one apparently had a weapon?

    Israel has “the best” intelligence regarding such things as terrorists, especially in Gaza? But Hamas was able to fly moto paragliders into a music festival soooo close to the border with Gaza, and no one even thought that an attack of some sort might happen?

    Sometimes things happen when they need to happen.

    The lesson? Never be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if you are, run fast.

    And if you do find yourself in such a high threat area, make sure you are well armed, especially if you are at a party near border of Gaza and Israel. There was no serious security there? I find that very remarkable.

    Trust none of them. Why? Because sometimes Strategy becomes paramount over Morality.

    And I do not like that just as much as you don’t like that. But there it is all the same.

  • Edward_2

    Democracy Now?

    How dishonest.

    It”s in fact “Socialism Now”, “Jihad Now”, “Fascism Now” – and they all need to be obliterated, just as al qada, isis were.

  • Questioner

    Mr. Zimmerman: Sometimes the monster that someone has created becomes uncontrollable and turns against the creator himself. This happened with ISIS and this also happened with Hamas.

    The fact is that the only way to solve the problem is to establish a genuine Palestinian state on par with Israel. Biden should be working toward this goal, but he is completely failing. There is virtually no US diplomacy and the Arab states are so angry with Biden that a planned meeting was canceled.

    I too condemn Hamas’ violence, just as I condemn all violence, especially against civilians. I mourn for the innocent Israeli humans.

    The Palestinians are also pawns and victims of many interests. She would have been better advised to take the path of non-violent resistance to the Israeli conquest of her land. A path like that shown by M. Gandhi. Overall, since Israel was founded on Palestinian ground, far more Palestinians have died violently in the conflict than Israelis.

  • wayne

    Questioner–
    “Democracy Now,” and Amy Goodman–omg my ‘friend,’ total communists & America haters, and have been so for quite a long (long) time.

    The Gat brothers, Arye & Gil
    Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”
    Zion Square, Jerusalem (2013)
    https://youtu.be/rirDOIttODM
    (3:25)

  • Cotour

    How ever the Israel’s arrived at where they currently are, they are there.

    What will more than likely happen as a result of their arrival is that all and every young man from 16 to 40 will be killed and or arrested (?) if they have a record of or appear to be associated with Hamas. And any identified leadership figures will be hunted down over years and killed. Joining and being a part of Hamas or similar must be disincentivized.

    Israel now has the LEGAL justification, for a while anyway, to take care of their existential business, no matter what the U.N. or anyone else has to say about it.

    And all the caterwauling in the U.S. will only further reveal who the enemies are within in America and who will be in the streets along with the likes of BLM and the rest of the “enlightened”, “progressive”, Communist, “Democrat Socialists” are who will become very violent and massively disruptive within America should a Republican be elected president and dare dash their “more better” Utopian dreams.

    I do not know that a serious Republican, even a mild RINO Republican, will be allowed in America anymore the way things are going.

    And if that serious Republican president happens to be Mr. Trump you can bet on that violence and disruption becoming nonstop and existential right here in America.

    There are lines being drawn not only in Israel and the Gaza strip but right here in America and the lines are between the average everyday tax paying, rational, pay my mortgage, love their traditional families and their country, patriotic Americans, and radical “progressive” Socialists and Communists that seek to destroy the country as it was founded.

    And so let this Israeli situation be a lesson to all.

    The Globalists I.E the “progressive” radical Democrat party machine seek and even need the destruction of America as founded and are actively working towards that CCP authoritarian Utopian dream, which they clearly tell the world of. And how do you know they are serious? They are spending their time, efforts and their considerable amounts of BILLIONS of dollars backing up and incrementally installing.

    This existential battle either in the Gaza strip or unfolding right here in America has barely begun IMO. It appears that Gaza and Hamas are the lines being drawn between the radical Left and the Right in Israel AND America.

    While the radical Left bogs down everyone with their morality in courts before Liberal Leftist judges and in international conferences who define “Who we are”, the Right is castrated and made impotent. All tide up in morality.

    And how is that political ideological hostage situation broken?

    Existential out of the ordinary events where moral convention is able to be temporarily set aside and “Things that need to get done, get done”.

    Someone is in the future going to have to take care of business.

    It just remains to be seen, who’s business will be taken care of.

    *IT* in my opinion is all related.

  • Cotour

    Side note: This cracked me up, I laughed out loud.

    “Dems Praise Biden’s ‘Cognizant’ Israel Response: ‘This Is A Man That Does Not Seem Demented”

    Biden does not SEEM demented. OY.

    Joe Biden will NOT be the Democrat party candidate president, not in a rational thinking world anyway.

    But then again, we are not in a rational thinking world.

  • Cotour

    A little more:

    These are the kinds of “civilized” and “highly educated” people who are now teaching (what exactly are they teaching?) within America and no longer have no in expressing their feelings about what their business is all about.

    Fear in its proper place is a good thing.

    https://x.com/JasonBedrick/status/1715036789730431299?s=20

    If this woman is in America on a visa and is not an American citizen, she needs to be removed to wherever she came from.

    America, we have a problem.

  • Cotour

    And while I am at it:

    Ayn Rand speaks her / the raw existential truth about Israel and the middle east to Phil Donahue and his audience: https://youtu.be/2uHSv1asFvU?si=kKJPifJ9qHOQZ2Jt

    And guess what, Donahue the oh so very compassionate Liberal, oh so moral Democrat don’t like it.

    Ayn Rand wrote “Atlas Shrugged”, relevant then, and relevant now, a commentary on Socialism.

    And what did Donahue accomplish?

    What is his contribution to humanity?

    He hosted a BS Liberal / Leftist Hollywood talk show.

    I suspect that she has bigger balls then he.

  • Questioner

    Cotour: Please explain to me, why should the United States even care about Israel in the first place? What does Israel matter to America anyway?

  • America is civilized, and so is Israel, if you want to boil it down to its simplest components.

    https://youtu.be/2uHSv1asFvU?si=kKJPifJ9qHOQZ2Jt

    (America is founded on the Judeo / Christian perspective of existence as is Israel.)

    What don’t you understand?

    At some point in life a choice must sometimes be made, America has made its choice.

    What is your choice, Questioner? And why?

    When religion and or religious zealotry and manipulative politics no longer exists, this will no longer be true, and man can live as one big happy family: https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/god-spirituality-v-politics-law-and-justice-commerce-religion

    But until that day arrives choices will have to be made and lived with. Now choose.

  • pzatchok

    Israel is our closest and strongest ally in the middle east followed by Saudi Arabia.
    They provide us a safe port for our navy and airbases just in case we need then.

    Its pretty much the very same reasons we have bases all over the world. Just in case.

    As for the US giving them cash. I bet we have and maintain ammo stockpiles there and I bet we keep some ground equipment hidden there. Tanks and APC’s more than likely.

    Plus thanks to the terrorists that keep firing rockets into Israel all of NATO gets to test anti missile technology there in real situations.

    Their Iron Dome system is essentially a smaller version of our Patriot system and I bet they integrate seamlessly. I know for a fact that when the Patriot was first deployed it integrated with our missile systems all the way back to the old Hawk systems. A patriot battery could fire a Hawk missile from anyplace in the combat theater.
    I bet we will be fielding the Iron Dome system with our US troops soon.

    As for the creation of Israel that was a British plan that the US just finished. We could not leave the Jews in Europe after the war. If they did not move to Russia they had no place to go. And even Russia was not entirely safe or a real ally.

  • Cotour

    Questioner, how timely:

    To my point: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12636503/American-missionary-John-Allen-Chau-killed-tribe-documentary.html

    A choice was made and unfortunately a high price was paid.

    There are some belief systems, as civilized as they may be, that should never attempt to sell or mix their belief system with other belief systems.

    “The group subscribes to the belief that spreading the word of God to ‘all nations’ will cause the second coming of Jesus and works to speedily meet that goal.”

    And I seem to remember when Obama was selling the concept that Islam was a fundamental part of America, from its founding.

    And as I remember it, he was correct. Right from the beginning years of Americas founding Islam was at the top of the list for the founders.

    https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,994562,00.html

    Islams contribution to the founding of America: “Within days of his March 1801 inauguration as the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson ordered a naval and military expedition to North Africa, without the authorization of Congress, to put down regimes involved in slavery and piracy. The war was the first in which the U.S. flag was carried and planted overseas; it saw the baptism by fire of the U.S. Marine Corps–whose anthem boasts of action on “the shores of Tripoli”–and it prefigured later struggles with both terrorism and jihad.”

  • Questioner

    Colonel Douglas Macgregor Straight Calls – Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world.

    Col Douglas Macgregor: This Is The End Of NATO

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMSQtiqRr-4

  • Cotour

    And when you think that your reality cannot get any weirder and ridiculous, there is this:

    https://nypost.com/2023/10/21/louis-farrakhan-adl-falsely-accused-me-of-antisemitism/

    In my wildest, craziest, walking naked in Times Square dreams I never would have come up with this.

  • Angrymike

    Why anyone with a lick of common sense would believe ANYTHING put out by America’s main stream media is beyond me, most of it distorts or completely lies about anything that challenges their world view. It’s also beyond me how everyone back in the day swallowed the msm distortions as fact everyday of their lives !

  • David

    The problems and challenges with news media are real and of true concern. The biggest issue imo is the willingness of news media to cater to specific topics targeting segments of the U.S. population without upholding the overriding principle of journalism. Which is accurate reporting.

    Zimmerman can take issue with the main stream media all he wants. And he raises real concerns. That said, if he is unwilling to examine the truth that the failures of modern journalism extend just as much into the newer alternative forms of reporting including the “conservative” media and social media of which he is a part, than I suggest he’s just shouting at the wind. And thus is a part of the problem and not a part of the solution.

  • David: Your accusation that I am “unwilling to examine the truth that the failures of modern journalism extend just as much into the newer alternative forms of reporting including the ‘conservative’ media and social media of which he is a part” is false and unfair. See for example this comment, where I take to task the conservative press (and one Republican Senator) for misconstruing — either by mistake or intentionally — the testimony of one Biden official.

    I don’t like bad reporting, by anyone. However, almost all of the bad reporting these days comes from decidedly leftwing mainstream sources, which last week demonstrated its almost evil incompetence by literally issuing a lie about Israel that was the equivalent of the blood libels against the Jews in Europe (“Jews use the blood of Christian children to bake matzoh”) that justified pogroms.

    That you appear to want to make believe there is some kind of symmetry between the leftist press and the new alternative news sources simply illustrates your own partisan bias.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *