Preface. As longtime readers of MHProNews know, this platform has for over a decade cited sources across the left-right media and organizational divides. There are common sense reasons for using this method, including the fact that sometimes the left presents information that the right doesn’t and vice versa. Additionally, MHProNews’ has cited remarks from individuals and organizations that we may disagree with editorially, or from those we might even find repugnant on some issues. That is part of the territory of authentic journalism to give accurate voice to an array of viewpoints. Among the reasons to do so is that a proven way of debunking a claim is to examine it from the perspective of those who are asserting it. If someone read the New York Times or Washington Post exclusively, but maintained a questioning and truth seeking mind, it would become hard to believe in the notion that big government can solve human problems. The larger government has become in the U.S. for over the past century, some problems have demonstrably gotten worse. That said, there are often small t ‘truth’s found every business day from sources that span the left-right divide. For that reason, every day that the major U.S. stock markets are open, MHProNews provides a left-right headlines recap. Initially, that featured CNN Business (left-leaning) and Fox Business (right leaning). As concerns about the direction at Fox News among conservatives increased that centered on the notion that their network was drifting toward the left rose with their reporting of the 2020 elections, MHProNews began to feature Newsmax headlines instead of Fox Business in our Daily Business News snapshots. We may editorially or personally disagree with a source’s headline or some of the presentation of a given report. Nevertheless, those views are presented to manufactured housing industry readers typically 5 days a week, so that everyone that reads them can see what ‘each side’ has to say. That segment of our Daily Business News on MHProNews report, which also features graphical content from left-leaning Yahoo’s financial news, have been an insightful ‘at a glance’ summary of the issues that often motivate stock traders to act.
All of that is useful information for savvy manufactured housing industry pros who want or ‘need to know’ facts and claims they routinely will not find anywhere else in manufactured housing trade media. In an era when information is often described as ‘weaponized,’ ‘agenda driven,’ or may even be paltering and posturing that has been labeled as “deception and misinformation,” over time, thinking and truth-seeking readers will increasingly ‘get it.’ You can’t have just one side of a story to hope to get the truth. There are simply too many agendas that are being pushed. Note that sources on the left or right may have absolutely ‘straight news’ but at other times, paltering and posturing are mixed in with the news in order to press a given agenda.
This method of curating information and content on our pro-manufactured housing platforms from sources that span the left-center-right divide has proven to be of enduring popularity with MHProNews readers. That remark is based on the most important metrics. Those metrics would be traffic and reader engagement. As reports linked below and therein state, MHProNews in 2022 experienced about 3 times the pageviews per visitor than giant CNN, and more than double that of another big news site, Fox News. Their sites are obviously far larger than ours. They have more content and far bigger staffs. There is no comparison in their revenues versus our humble yet significant informational beacon of light for a nation and industry that is all too often fed darkness and half-truths rather than reality.
With that backdrop, the headline featured report below is from the WND News Center, which provides content to MHProNews by agreement. WND has also thoughtfully carried periodic op-eds by our co-founder and multiple award-winner, L.A. “Tony” Kovach. The Sunday weekly headlines recap for the week in review will follow this report.
Part I
WND identified as target of leftists based on false claims of ‘disinformation’
Microsoft subsidiary blocked ad dollars from dozens of sites
By Bob Unruh Published February 10, 2023 at 7:39pm
A new report from the Washington Examiner has identified WND, a precedent-setter among online news sites that was founded back in 1997, is one among dozens of “conservative” news sites from which ad revenue is being blocked by a Microsoft subsidiary.
Among the false claims made against the sites is that they were peddling alleged “disinformation.”
The Examiner also reported that Xandr, which Microsoft bought in 2021 for $1 billion, “has targeted disfavored speech and blocked conservative websites from reaping key ad dollars.”
“Xandr’s use of politically motivated flags on this blacklist stands outside of the norm in advertising,” a senior executive at an ad company told the Examiner. He noted the real purpose of blacklisting should be to protect brands from advertising ‘on content that is illegal, fraudulent, [or] low-quality.'”
The executive, given anonymity, said, “In this case, Xandr prevented us from talking to our voters in the critical days leading up to Election Day. Our audience reads the Examiner, Daily Wire, Townhall, etc. Voters go to these news & opinion sites [to] inform their decisions. And if Microsoft is using their technology to block us from showing ads on these websites, they’re actively preventing us from talking to voters on the public squares where their decisions are being informed.”
WND’s longtime vice president and managing editor, David Kupelian, is not surprised at all, revealing more of the back story: “In late 2020, three major international online ad companies that had long served ads on WND – our main source of revenue and sustenance – all suddenly decided, at almost the exact same time, to cancel WND in the run-up to the most important presidential election of our lifetimes. The ad companies blacklisting WND – namely Xandr, TripleLift and Teads – all cited vague breaches of their terms of service, including, and I quote, ‘any content that is illegal or otherwise contrary to any applicable law, regulation, directive, guideline or order, including without limitation any misleading, unethical, obscene, defamatory, deceptive, gambling-related or hateful content,’ etc. So it has nothing to do with ‘disinformation.’ If they don’t like your politics, you’re cancelled.”
Other websites targeted included the Epoch Times, Hannity, Washington Times, Lifezette, Bill O’Reilly, Daily Signal, Judicial Watch, Chicks on the Right, Mike Huckabee, OANN, RSB Network, Charlie Kirk, Glenn Beck, American Thinker, Townhall, Newsbusters, Wayne Dupree, Louder with Crowder, CNS, Twitchy, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Free Republic, Law Enforcement Today and Drudge.
Xandr announced just last year it was adopting GDI standards for trying to hurt voices with which it disagrees.
“Domains or apps that GDI has classified as a disinformation site will be added to Xandr’s global blocklist, preventing spend to those domains or apps,” an email on the issue confirmed.
“What we see going on is not new,” Dan Schneider, vice president for the Media Research Center’s Free Speech Alliance group, told the Examiner.
“We saw redlining efforts to prevent blacks from buying homes in certain communities. We saw blacklists in Hollywood to prevent people with different political beliefs from appearing in movies and getting writing contracts.”
The Examiner also has revealed that the State Department has given $330,000 to GDI for its efforts to suppress dialogue. ##
This writer for MHProNews brought several of these elements up weeks before in the op-ed linked below.
Much of what passes as ‘fake news’ is more aptly described as agenda driven news that uses paltering, posturing, spin and various methods of propaganda.
To be properly informed today includes the ability to deftly sift out the proverbial wheat from the chaff. Neither media nor people should simply swallow whatever is spoon fed to them.
Don’t Miss today’s postscript.
With no further adieu, here are the MHVille (manufactured home industry) related headlines and topics for the week that was from 2.5 to 2.12.2023.
What’s News on MHLivingNews
What’s New from Washington, D.C. based MHARR
The Latest on the Masthead
The Latest on the Words of Wisdom
What’s New on the Daily Business News on MHProNews
Saturday 2.11.2023
Friday 2.10.2023
Thursday 2.9.2023
Wednesday 2.8.2023
Tuesday 2.7.2023
Monday 2.6.2023
Sunday 2.5.2023
Postscript – Lies, Deception, and Misdirection Public Officials, Nonprofits, and Corporate Leaders Told Us
Some topics are timely and others can appear to be nearly timeless. “It can’t happen here? It is happening here!” was the headline for a play on words of Sinclair Lewis’ famous theme that “It Can’t Happen Here.”
Untold numbers of ‘revolutions’ in world history began not with the truth, but with lies, deception, misdirection, and the good old fashion ‘bait and switch.’ One thing is promised, another is delivered. A case in point is this new post by author Patrice Lewis (today must be Lewis day on MHProNews…).
Part of the beauty of writing is that similar- to identical-topics can be described in an array of ways. The content of the left-leaning producers of the docu-drama movie, Planet of the Humans made several similar points as Patrice Lewis does in the following article. It will be followed by additional information and a commentary in brief.
From the WND News Center to MHProNews is the following op-ed is by a self-described “environmentalist at heart,” columnist Patrice Lewis.
REAL AMERICA
The deadly reality of eliminating fossil fuels
Exclusive: Patrice Lewis compares the capability of a team of horses to a diesel-powered tractor
By Patrice Lewis
Published February 10, 2023 at 6:38pm
It’s been interesting to watch the increasing obsession with pushing green energy and the corresponding push-back against fossil fuels. Anyone with a brain knows this is a recipe for disaster, but the world is hurtling down that path anyway.
The strange thing is the left doesn’t want to wait until the infrastructure is in place to support a smooth transition. No, they want this transition done NOW, the peasants be damned.
In theory, of course, wind and solar power sound terrific. What could be better than harvesting energy from free, never-ending, eternal sources? In this fantasy world, fairies and elves manufacture smart phones and iPads out of cobwebs and blossoms, and stock grocery stores through magic.
The reality is green energy is anything but “green.” No one wants to discuss the brutal conditions under which cobalt and other rare minerals are extracted to build solar panels and EV batteries, or that electric vehicles need up to six times more minerals than conventional cars. And let’s not even discuss the untold thousands of birds literally incinerated by solar facilities.
Wind is no better. Turbine blades must be replaced every 10 to 20 years, and since there’s currently no way to recycle them, they’re simply buried in a landfill like a mass grave. These monsters also have a devastating impact on wildlife; off-shore wind farms are killings whales, and endless birds – especially hawks and eagles – are butchered by land-mounted turbines. Real environmentally friendly, right?
And this doesn’t even consider the irony that many wind turbines are hooked up to diesel generators, which in turn leak thousands of gallons of hydraulic oil into the countryside.
Nor is wind or solar power cheaper than fossil fuels. Right now, the industry is being massively subsidized by governments. Remove those subsidies and see how much consumers are willing to pay for their green energy.
The misconception (or deliberate misinformation, take your pick) by the leftists is that fossil fuels can simply be replaced interchangeably with green alternatives such as solar and wind. They cannot. But that isn’t stopping the push toward so-called “renewable” energy.
From sociopolitical commentary to romance writing! Patrice Lewis branches into the world of Amish inspirational fiction. These clean romances are wholesome enough for Grandma to read. Check out Patrice’s available titles.
What enthusiasts don’t realize (or won’t admit) is how different life would be without the ease and convenience of fossil fuels. Right now, federal policies are targeting 80% renewable power by 2030, and 100% by 2035 – goals that are being termed “suicidal” for America’s power grid.
The inevitable result of this push against fossil fuels will be a drastic drop in living standards for first-world and third-world nations alike. While the more hard-core green-energy enthusiasts may applaud, these people have no concept of what life without energy would be like.
Dr. Wallace Manheimer, who holds a physics Ph.D. from MIT and has had a 50-year career in nuclear research, points out that before fossil fuel became widely used, energy was provided by people and animals. Because so little energy was produced, “civilization was a thin veneer atop a vast mountain of human squalor and misery, a veneer maintained by such institutions as slavery, colonialism and tyranny.”
This is why so many rich virtue-signaling celebrities are all for banning fossil fuels. What do they care? The peasants will supply their needs.
I live near the vast swaths of the Palouse, a farming region heavily cultivated in wheat and other vital crops. I can’t even begin to estimate how many people are fed by those wheat fields. Every summer, million-dollar combines march slowly across the landscape, vacuuming up the monocultures of wheat with eerie precision and efficiency. Not a grain is lost or wasted. In this manner, people all over the nation are able to purchase affordable bread. And that’s just one crop.
How was the Palouse (or any other agricultural region) cultivated before modern farm equipment? Simple: through horse (or mule) power. Animals dragged plows or cultivators through the soil. During harvest, teams of as many as 40 or 50 mules pulled mechanical combines across the field. It was backbreaking work for man and beast. Remember, “civilization was a thin veneer atop a vast mountain of human squalor and misery.”
In the old days before diesel tractors, oxen could plow perhaps an acre a day. A team of six horses could plow as much as five acres a day. Folks, that won’t feed the world’s current population, not by a long shot.
Without the force-multiplying powers of fossil fuels and modern machinery, that proverbial loaf of bread would become so expensive as to be unaffordable to the vast majority of people. The farmer’s own labors would, of necessity, have to shrink to provide just his own family and immediate community.
This is one of the problems with an increasingly urbanized society full of leftist do-gooders: People forget things don’t magically appear in their local grocery store thanks to fairies and elves. The wind and sun can’t power agriculture on the scale necessary to feed the nation, let alone the world. It takes a crucial and balanced dance of diesel producers, tractor manufacturers, farmers, harvesters, truckers, packagers, etc. working seamlessly to get grocery stores stocked.
And that’s just for food. What about water? What about sanitation? What about medical care? What about manufacturing? Everything – but everything – in modern society requires fossil fuels. None of it can be done on green energy.
The thing about all this green-energy madness is I’m an environmentalist at heart. I’m just as interested in saving the planet as your average lib – except I like to think I see things more clearly, at least clearly enough to see past all the greenwashed nonsense. And what I’m seeing is the world does not yet have the infrastructure – not even close – to support the green energy agenda the left so desperately wants, especially since they refuse to open their eyes to the damage they’re causing, from mining rare earth minerals to killing wildlife in droves.
To those who want to eliminate fossil fuels, I challenge you to live without them. And I mean totally without them, up to and including not using any products or using any services that involve fossil fuels at any point. (Here’s an article of one man who tried for one day and failed miserably.) Is this task impossible? Yes. That’s the point.
If the left gets its way and scraps fossil fuels for green energy, eventually they’ll realize it was absolutely the wrong thing to do (at least without sufficient build-up of infrastructure in advance). Tragically, for millions or perhaps billions of people, that realization will come too late to save them. Which is, for all I know, the ultimate goal. ##
Additional Information with More MHProNews Analysis and Commentary in Brief
On a field trip to a museum with our then much younger son we watched and listened to a woman who pointed to a chart that showed the change of sea levels in Florida over the millennia. That woman appeared to believe in climate change, yet she was ironically presenting information that clearly contradicted some of the core tenants of climate change. To be polite, she was not thinking critically or objectively.
The Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) refuses to go to the heart of the climate change agenda to question what hundreds of scientists around the world question, dispute, or actively have refuted. When information is disputed, as it often is, thoughtful individuals should be willing to look at ‘both sides’ of the argument.
MHProNews and our MHLivingNews sister site have long challenged the flawed thinking behind so-called man-made climate change. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lifelong Democrat, could be an 80 percent friend to millions of conservatives.
The puppet masters of America do not have absolute control. They do have enormous influence and significant economic and political power. To break that power, some of their core claims must be repeatedly challenged and debunked, and the thinking behind their agendas should be exposed.
Patrice Lewis made the point that climate change is questionable. She is a self-described conservative. There is objective evidence that she is correct. Then why are some pushing this climate agenda? For those who follow the money trail, it could be summed up as money, control, and power.
Sabotage monopoly tactics are not just being deployed against the independents that operate in the manufactured home industry. Sabotage monopoly tactics are used in a range of industries and professions. The result of sabotaging others through regulations and legislation is that it makes bigger brands more able to survive (or even thrive), while smaller brands may get crushed and their owners either seller out for less or fail.
Say one thing, mean and/or do another. It is an old trick. MHPros, and every American, must become savvy at questioning and rejecting the repeated lies and propaganda of our era.
There are crooks and crony capitalist assets and allies across the array of political parties. Hillary Clinton (D) is not alone in that, but happens to be the subject of the Ben Garrison political cartoon below. Garrison has hit GOP Senator Mitch McConnell (KY-R) and former Presidents or high level officials like G.W. Bush (R) and McCain (R) in a similar way as he has hit Clinton (D), Obama (D), or Biden (D).
Notice: the graphic below can be expanded to a larger size.
See instructions below graphic or click and follow the prompts.
Garrison obviously ‘gets it’ that billionaires, including their corporate and nonprofit interests, are often the puppet masters acting behind the scenes.
This class warfare Buffett has described takes on many forms. It is aided and abetted in many instances by big tech, big media, and key people in big government working in concert, even if they may not openly say so. But sometimes, they speak directly.
MHProNews won’t pretend to try to cover all the news all the time. It isn’t possible for a firm of our size. But what we can do is inform our readers of the broad brush that impacts our democratically elected constitutional republican form of government. So long as we stick to the facts, evidence, and logically apply commentary that discerns the true from agenda-driven fables, we can do our detail-minded readers the most good. All great religious belief systems believe in the importance of truth. There are good reasons for doing so. Our articles are not normally short and pithy. The may be useful for narrative driven journalism but is not the best way to get to the truth of an issue. Faith-inspired business consultant Matthew Kelly said it well.
We left brief and superficial articles behind years ago. We publish fewer articles, evidence together, and paint a picture that thinking people can wrap their heads around and then make up their own minds on. By seeking what is true, by exposing an array of evidence, the truth can be found.
Our industry rests upon a great tradition of American independence and freedom. But if independence and freedom are under assault, so too is the truth. Jesus is right. Only the truth – understood and then lived – can set us and keep us free. ###
Again, our thanks to free email subscribers and all readers like you, our tipsters/sources, sponsors and God for making and keeping us the runaway number one source for authentic “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) (See Related Reports, further below. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)
By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position, and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
Related References:
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