MATT MARGOLIS: Washington Post Outs the Source Behind the Fake Trump Quotes.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Note that the Post is now saying that the quotes were fake but the story was accurate. We’ve heard that defense before.

MICHAEL WALSH: American Media and Old Soviet Media Are Now Peas in a Pod.

This correction in the “news” pages of The Washington Post a few days ago is simply stunning—and tells you all you need to know about the state of the mainstream media today:

“Two months after publication of this story, the Georgia secretary of state released an audio recording of President Donald Trump’s December phone call with the state’s top elections investigator. The recording revealed that The Post misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. Trump did not tell the investigator to ‘find the fraud’ or say she would be ‘a national hero’ if she did so.

“Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find ‘dishonesty’ there. He also told her that she had ‘the most important job in the country right now…’ The headline and text of this story have been corrected to remove quotes misattributed to Trump.”

The story, part of the Post’s scorched-earth coverage of the former president’s activities in the aftermath of the disputed 2020 election, sought to depict Trump in the worst possible light, while relying entirely on anonymous “sources” who had a vested interest in destroying the Trump presidency. It begins:

“President Trump urged Georgia’s lead elections investigator to identify wrongdoing in the state’s vote in a December phone call, saying the official would be praised for doing so, according to an individual briefed on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the conversation… The president’s attempts to intervene in an ongoing investigation could amount to obstruction of justice or other criminal violations, legal experts said, though they cautioned a case could be difficult to prove.”

(This “corrected” story is not to be confused with this one from Jan. 3, which charged Trump with “flagrant abuse of power and a potential criminal act” in a conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, which was based on a leaked recording of their private conversation.)

A better headline for the Post’s “correction,” of course, would be “Washington Post irresponsibly publishes false story based on malicious hearsay,” but that would be a bridge too far for the Democratic operatives currently masquerading as journalists at newspapers such as the Post and The New York Times. In the interest of pursuing their shared political and social objectives, the major media have aligned their fortunes with the Democrats’, and now no longer even pay lip service to the industry’s former ideals of impartiality and fairness.

Earlier: Matt Taibbi on The Sovietization of the American Press.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Did Joe Biden Just Fake Taking a Question from the Press?

Insanity Wrap needs to know: Is Presidentish Joe Biden capable of bending time and space, or are we just losing our minds?

Answer: Embrace the healing power of “and.”

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• More insurrection video — from the real one in Portland, not from that fake one in Washington
• CNN tries to put the brakes on Gov. Ron DeSantis, steps on rakes instead
• Joe’s mouth says No but his EOs say Yes

Bonus Sanity: California looks like it’s really going to dump Gavin Newsom.

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

THE WAR ON NORMALS: California Bill Proposes Removing Cops Who Express Religious Or Conservative Beliefs.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Media’s Entire Georgia Narrative Is Fraudulent, Not Just The Fabricated Trump Quotes.

According to the media narrative, the Georgia presidential election was as perfectly run as any election in history, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. To push that narrative, the media steadfastly downplayed, ignored, or prejudiciously dismissed legitimate concerns with how Georgia had run its November 2020 election and complaints about it.

That posture was the complete opposite of how they were reporting on Georgia elections prior to Democrats performing well in them. In the months prior to November, some media sounded a bit like Lin Wood when they wrote about Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, Dominion Voting Systems, legal challenges in the state, and Georgia election integrity in general.

That’s different, because shut up.

Also, right up to the day before election day, the mainstream press was running articles like this one: Will your ballot be safe? Computer experts sound warnings on America’s voting machines.

The day after the election, anyone who raised those concerns was a paranoid seditionist.

Think of the press as proud members of the Democrats’ messaging apparat and you won’t go far wrong.

YOUR FEELGOOD STORY OF THE DAY: GoFundMe to pay off Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s mortgage goes bust.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE. MOVE ALONG. The government’s lawyers saw a Google monopoly coming. Their bosses refused to sue. “FTC memos suggest Obama-era regulators passed on an opportunity to rein in Google when the company still had viable competitors.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): How many of those “bosses” wound up in cushy tech jobs?

MAKE THEM PAY: First Amendment groups ask SCOTUS to block immunity for Arkansas State officials who censored student.

SO BASICALLY A SLEAZIER VERSION OF ‘THE GODFATHER’: ‘Gosnell’ Movie Creators Working on Hunter Biden Movie To Expose ‘Crimes of the Biden Family.’

STANDING UP FOR FREEDOM: Canada joins Britain, France in combatting cancel culture ‘coming from the United States’.

THIS IS WHAT CIVIL RIGHTS REGRESSION LOOKS LIKE: Faithwire reports that Columbia University will segregate graduation ceremony by race, income and, of course, sexual orientation.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: 5 Other Totally Bogus Stories Designed To Hurt Trump The Media Got Away With.

I THINK IT’S PRETTY CLEAR AT THIS POINT: More reason to think Beijing’s to blame for the pandemic. “All of which fits with Beijing’s all-out efforts to prevent any independent investigations in Wuhan, including muscling the World Health Organization into repeatedly trying to ‘debunk’ the world’s suspicions without doing any actual investigating. The truth may never come out, but the CCP’s behavior sure makes it look guilty.”

BECAUSE FAIRNESS OR SOMETHING: Elliot/Ellen Page Weaponizes Transgender Identity to Gut Women’s Sports.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Teachers Compile List Of Parents Who Question Racial Curriculum, Plot War On Them: “Infiltrate… shut down their websites… expose these people publicly.” “What follows is the story of the wealthiest county in America descending into a moral panic as a group of suburban white women egged each other to extremes against perceived ‘evil,’ while a school system seemed to slide from serving taxpayers to targeting them.”

Not only is it parental malpractice to send your kids to public schools at this point, you should be lobbying to defund them. As the teachers’ unions have admitted during the pandemic, they’re nonessential employees.

NEW MEXICO VOTED FOR BIDEN AND NOW THEY’RE GETTING IT GOOD AND HARD: Dallas Fed: Biden regulations impact New Mexico worse than Texas in Permian Basin. “On the New Mexico side, half of the oil and gas produced in the Permian Basin occurs on federal land. On average, even during the state’s shutdown in 2020, the state produced 1 million barrels of oil per day. On the Texas side, roughly 3 million barrels of oil were produced daily, but on private and state-owned land. . . . The analysis estimates that between 3,500 and 6,600 drilling and completions workers would lose their jobs in New Mexico from now through 2025. Texas would gain, or need, an additional 5,400 and 7,400 workers.”

THE NEW ATLANTIS: The Cop-Out of “Follow the Science:” How feckless Covid leadership turned us against each other.

YEAH, YOU NEED TO WORK A LITTLE HARDER ON THAT, SKIPPY: Guam National Guard Chief: Our Soldiers Are “Non-Partisan” Despite Marching In Protest On Republican Rep’s Office.

Their CO needs to be cashiered. Do we even know his name?

This was a massive own-goal by the military, especially coming after the massive self-beclowning of the Tucker Carlson response. I don’t think the folks in charge realize how much they hurt themselves. Or, perhaps worse, maybe they just don’t care what the public thinks of them anymore.

EMBARRASSING: North Korea gives Biden’s US diplomatic cold shoulder. “The White House said it had not received any response to repeated efforts to reach out to Pyongyang. The news comes as Joe Biden has sent his top diplomatic and military representatives to Asia.”

ALL THE LEFT’S BIG IDEAS COME FROM THE 19TH CENTURY: Michael Barone: Pete Buttigieg’s 19th century technology: High-speed rail.

YES, IT SHOULD: A politicized US military should horrify all Americans.

Even those less skeptical of US military adventurism than this columnist would agree, I hope, that our boys — excuse me, our brave men and women — should not be intervening in journalism of all places. Boots on the ground in Ethiopia? Maybe, maybe not. In a cable news studio? Phew.

The behavior of these “woke generals,” as Carlson called them, should horrify Americans, regardless of their views on, say, women in combat. The fact that the II Marine Expeditionary Force later issued an apology doesn’t change the reality that dressing down a journalist undermines the basic principle of civilian control of the military.

It also convinces the segment of the population that has traditionally been most supportive of the military that the military has turned into just another garbage woke institution. That’s not smart.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: President Puppet Finally Schedules a Press Conference. “There is something deliciously Biden-esque about the announcement coming so many days before the event. It’s like they are basically admitting that he needs a lot of prep time to take a few softball questions. We’re not really going to believe that the press corps is going to grill Biden with serious questions, are we? Maybe they’ll go the Obama route and ask him what he’s found most enchanting about the presidency so far.”

Flashback: With a handful of days until the election, press asks Biden, ‘What flavor milkshake did you get?’

AS WE ALL SHOULD:  Today’s blacklisted Americans: In Iowa the oppressed fight back.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Court Sanctions Star Democrat Election Lawyer for ‘Misleading’ Filings.

CURVE, BENT. RULE OF LAW, BUSTED. Happy Anniversary America! It’s One Year After 15-Days To Slow The Spread.