I Like Radio Sputnik But I Love Me Some TruNews

kansascitymag |  Radio Sputnik doesn’t really lean left or right, though. It leans hard both ways. Another show, “By Any Means Necessary,” features interviews with the likes of Noam Chomsky, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Black Lives Matter activists. The notion that Democrats are cheating Bernie Sanders out of votes was in heavy rotation on that one.

At first glance, having a program that denounces social justice warriors (SJWs) and another that hosts Chomsky seems wildly inconsistent. Today’s Russian propaganda, however, doesn’t promote any particular political perspective. The point is simply to sow division, according to reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee.

For example, in 2016, two Russian-controlled Facebook pages organized rallies in Houston. One group, called Heart of Texas but controlled by Russia, held a rally to “Stop Islamification of Texas.” Another Russian-sponsored page, United Muslims of America, organized a “Save Islamic Knowledge” counter-rally.

Sputnik feels a lot like that. If there’s a fault-line in our society (guns, abortion, Meghan Markle) then Russia wants to exploit it. That’s the dark reality too few Americans across the political spectrum seem willing to acknowledge.

If you are looking for a takeaway, though, the real “fault lies not in our stars” moment came when I first tuned into KCXL on a random Tuesday and found myself listening to speculation that Chief Justice John Roberts had been blackmailed by Jeffery Epstein. The show turned out to be TruNews, hosted by Rick Wiles. Texas-based Wiles, purportedly a pastor, has publicly claimed, among other things, that Queen Elizabeth II is a satanist and Bill Clinton is a cannibal. You might also recognize Wiles as the guy who called impeachment proceedings a “Jew coup” and was later given press credentials by the White House.

Yet you’ll notice nobody protests TruNews. It doesn’t make national news for broadcasting in a new city. Nobody at the Star writes an editorial denouncing Wiles.

KCXL Put the Useful Idiot Grifter On When Nobody Else Would!!!

NYTimes |  Sputnik argues that the station is not trying to sow distrust or to undermine public confidence, but rather is seeking to express opinions that cannot be heard in other venues. “They know perfectly well that they are not going to be allowed to say that on CNN or Fox or MSNBC,” said Mindia Gavasheli, a veteran Russian television journalist who runs Sputnik’s Washington bureau.

Sputnik produces eight hours of daily material in Washington, filling the rest with feeds from its bureau in Edinburgh, from RT broadcasts and from shows that highlight aspects of Russia, like traveling to the Caspian Sea. In Kansas City, Sputnik airs six hours every day, during commuting times in the morning and evening as well as on weekends.

There are no immediate plans to expand elsewhere, Mr. Gavasheli said, although what he described as the “brouhaha” over Kansas City had prompted inquiries from other markets in the United States.

 The Sputnik hosts seemed to revel in having a new audience. The morning show did a couple of segments on Kansas City barbecue and tried to make light of Russian influence by joking that Mr. Putin had ordered that the Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl. (That was before the game, which the Chiefs won.)

Sputnik shares its Kansas City stations with a cast of far-right conspiracy theorists, evangelical pastors and anti-Semites. The host of one program, TruNews, recently described the impeachment of Mr. Trump as a “Jew coup.”

“He calls things the way that he sees them,” Mr. Schartel said of Rick Wiles, who made the remark. “I feel that he has got a right to say what he is saying.”

“We’ve always put on voices and people that wouldn’t be able to get on anyplace else,” said Mr. Schartel, who has owned the station for 26 years.

A mission statement on KCXL’s website says the United States has become a different country that now looks down on traditional values. “We tell you the things that the liberal media” will not, it said.

A BitchMade Snowflake Got Me Suspended From Nextdoor For A Week For Liking KCXL

Told you about this station a couple weeks ago, and the McCarthy-ite mess being stirred up locally by the MSM to censure and censor its programming. Anyway, not only is the station a broadcaster non grata, anyone with the audacity to listen to it and like it may be subject to persona non grata status on these interwebs with a quickness. This cancel culture is desperately in need of some rough disciplining.

kcur |  The man responsible for broadcasting Russian state programming in the Kansas City area says he always dreamed of owning a radio station.

Today he owns two, plus a small fleet of radio transmitters across the Kansas City metro.

But money remains tight, he laid off his staff years ago and the stations sell airtime to local residents and religious organizations at cut-rate prices. He hasn’t given himself a paycheck in months. 

So Pete Schartel’s ears perked up a while back when he heard that Radio Sputnik pays $30,000 a month to broadcast its programming in Washington, D.C.

“I’m going, ‘Oh my Lord, that’s twice what my whole budget is,’” he told KCUR in a two-hour interview at his flagship station, KCXL, last week. “They must have some money. Let’s investigate this.”

Schartel found Arnold Ferolito, the broker who negotiated the 2017 deal to broadcast Russian programming 24 hours a day in Washington, and made his pitch: “We’re right in the middle of the country. This would be a good test market.”

Ferolito agreed. Late last year, Schartel began broadcasting Radio Sputnik for a couple of hours each morning on KCXL, an AM radio station based in Liberty, Missouri. 

The English-language broadcast is produced by the U.S.-based branch of Rossiya Segodnya (“Russia Today”), an organization created in 2013 by Russian President Vladimir Putin to promote Russian interests abroad.

Schartel’s listeners — accustomed to eclectic programming that ranges from music to Bible study to far-right conspiracy theorist and talk show host Alex Jones — seemed to react positively. 

“And I’m going, ‘Hmm, I think we’ve got something that some people like here,’” he said. “And if they’ll pay me for it, that’s even better.”

In January, Schartel and his wife, Jonne, agreed to broadcast Radio Sputnik for six hours a day for three years on three frequencies: 1140 AM, 102.9 FM and 104.7 FM.

Meanwhile, McClatchy Started Some McCarthy-ite Isht With My Favorite Local Radio Station...,

kansascity |  A Kansas City area radio station can broadcast Russian state-owned media programming, the type that U.S. intelligence called a “propaganda machine,” for six hours a day through a lease agreement struck by a local radio operator.

RM Broadcasting LLC, a Florida-based company that has agreements to broadcast the Russian state media program Radio Sputnik, reached a deal on Jan. 1 to lease air time through Alpine Broadcasting Corp. in Liberty. Alpine Broadcasting Corp. broadcasts on three frequencies in the Kansas City area: KCXL 1140 AM, 102.9 FM and 104.7 FM. 

The lease agreement lets RM Broadcasting air its programming from 6 to 9 a.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. seven days a week. KCXL’s website, which says that it’s the radio station that will “tell you the things that the liberal media wont (sic) tell you,” lists Radio Sputnik in its morning programming.

A 2017 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that evaluated Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election described Sputnik as “another government-funded outlet producing pro-Kremlin radio and online content in a variety of languages for international audiences.”

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article239359868.html#storylink=cpy

 

 

Sputnik, along with Russian television outlet RT — formerly Russia Today — “contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences,” the DNI intelligence assessment said. 

Those descriptions were part of a larger set of findings by the Director of National Intelligence that said Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign during the 2016 elections that sought to undermine public faith in the U.S. election process, denigrate Hillary Clinton and promote Donald Trump.

RM Broadcasting is run in Florida by a man named Arnold Ferolito. He disputed the government’s assessment of Radio Sputnik.

“Ninety percent of the programming is generated right here in the United States,” Ferolito told The Star in an interview.

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article239359868.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article239359868.html#storylink=cpy

KCXL THEE MOST NMFTG Radio OF ALL TIME!!!

kansascity  |  West again asked to speak about issues related to the job of a state representative. When asked about Jewish people in Missouri, he said, “Well, maybe they shouldn’t vote for me.”

At no point did West apologize for or retract his comments. He asked that The Star link to his website within the story and expressed hope that readers would listen to his remarks in full to make up their own minds.

Although West’s most overtly bigoted and offensive statements were sent anonymously to a reporter on Thursday, he had enough “dog whistles” before the election that voters should have known better than to support him, Aroesty said. She said her opinion is coming from a place of principle over politics because the Anti-Defamation League is an apolitical organization.

A dog whistle, she said, is when someone hints at extremist beliefs in such a way that others who hold those beliefs will know, but they retain plausible deniability.

Some example of dog whistles from West’s statements before the election include him saying things like “Islam is a problem for America. ... It is a political movement masquerading as religion and should not receive the benefits we provide religious institutions as well as access to our prisons” and “ Many parents and students don’t want to have to deal with alternative sex ed, and the LGBT clubs and staff at all the public high schools today.”

“It’s a subtle form of hatred,” Aroesty said. “Not open, but it should be watched, in some ways, more carefully than if someone was openly extreme.”

The Anti-Defamation League has been seeing extremist candidates pop up all around the country, Aroesty said.

“There is a level of political rhetoric and anger out in the world today that is providing people with more extremist views a comfort to come forward and share those extremist views,” she said. “I’d like to say he is unusual this year … but there are a whole variety of folks.”

The internet gives so many people a voice, she said, that it’s easy to think that people with extreme, hateful beliefs are everywhere. They’re not, she said — the ones who are out there are just making a lot of noise.

“The fact that Mr. West won the primary should highlight to people — did they really know what they were voting for?” Aroesty said. “One thing I’ve said for years about extremists is that they’re out on the fringe and we should keep them there.”

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article216387050.html#storylink=cpy