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MS NOW Complains About Fake News Using AI Fakery, and Lawrence O'Donnell Says City Work Is Socialism

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Jan 27, 2026
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Prose & Contradiction – MS NOW

  • When complaining about misinformation, maybe posting a fraudulent photo is not the way to go?

On MS NOW, afternoon hostess Nicolle Wallace delivered a deeply dysfunctional dose of media malpractice. She was covering the issue of the recently killed Minnesota protester Alex Pretti, and this being Wallace who we are covering, it was sure to go awry.

Nicky was belly-aching about supposed deceptions by the Trump administration, saying he wants us to deny what we see with our eyes. At this very moment, a widely circulated photo of Pretti went up on screen, and it was very clear that the network manipulated the image with AI. Pretti acquired a suntan, had a bigger smile, and gained some weight as well as other features being enhanced. All of this was on display as Nicolle complained about others delivering misinformation.

Presentation Paradox – ABC NEWS

  • This violence is simply terrible — here is how to continue it.

At ABC News, Trevor Ault was on the streets of Minneapolis covering the violence, and his approach was not just one-sided; it appears to have encouraged more conflict. While decrying what has already played out in these streets, he added, “They feel like they have a right to continue pushing back and they feel like it has been working, but they're especially upset because they feel like ICE has been everywhere.”

He said this while detailing how he had been told not to rent a dark SUV, out of fear of reprisals from rioters, as well as reporting earlier how a “crowd” had been attacking hotels.

Yet, ICE is said to be the problem.

News Avoidance Syndrome – THE BULWARK

  • Your lack of exploratory thinking on the matter is showing, Bill

The ever-adrift William Kristol weighed in on ICE activity in Minneapolis, and it was a lightweight concept.

What should be obvious to Billy is that ICE had been in town without conflict, but things erupted in the wake of the taxpaying fraud scandal emerging. Also missed by the unelevated thinker is how ICE operates in almost every state without this level of conflict, or that Texas has about one quarter of all detentions, with nary an outbreak of violence. One might suggest that organized opposition could be a key factor here, Bill.

Legalized Press-titution – MS NOW

  • That thing that has been taking place forever? Well now it is something else!

Sometimes you just have to marvel when a journalist openly displays their willingness to pimp for a politician. Lawrence O’Donnell is a vibrant cheerleader for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and he does not care who notices!

With the massive snowfall in the city, we were treated to loving coverage of the new mayor struggling to use a snow shovel. Larry took things to another level. He was praising Mamdani for city workers successfully clearing streets (three cheers for the man doing his expected job), and then he went on to declare that this municipal function — literally taking place for generations — has suddenly become transformed: Snow plows are a form of “pure socialism.”

Pathological Media Amnesia – TIME MAGAZINE

  • Someone get her a password for the magazine’s archives.

With a “snowmegheddon” currently impacting about 80 percent of the country, President Trump made a Truth Social post asking, what happened to the past claims of global warming? Well, this show of his daring to question climate orthodoxy set off Chantelle Lee.

Calling his comments grossly misleading, Ms. Lee leaned into the “scientific consensus” trope, and then promptly delivered the questionable science. She quoted a college professor who sounded a tad unsettled in pushing the “settled” science:

Some experts have hypothesized that climate change may be making winter storms more intense as well, though there’s still a ‘genuine scientific debate’ on that.

Also throwing a curveball in Chantelle’s definitive science: Her own magazine has infamously in the past sold on its front cover the promise of the world being cast into an ice age.

Reporting on the Mirror – WASHINGTON POST

  • More doom for the capital paper.

Paul Farhi is reporting that he has heard that the Washington Post is on the verge of another round of layoffs, and they could be significant in size. Many journalists are set to be affected, and it could gut the sports department, if not eliminated entirely.