Ben Domenech

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Ben Domenech
Domenech in February 2018
Born
Benjamin Domenech

(1982-01-01) January 1, 1982 (age 42)
Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.
EducationCollege of William & Mary (attended)
OccupationPolitical commentator
Spouses
  • Caroline Seato Powell (m. 2003; div. ?)
    Christine Barton (m. 2010; div. ?)
​
(m. 2017)​
Children2
Parent(s)Douglas Domenech
Jeanne Schram
RelativesJohn McCain (father-in-law)
Cindy McCain (mother-in-law)

Benjamin Domenech (born January 1, 1982)[1] is the Editor at Large of The Spectator World. He is also a television commentator, radio host, and publisher of The Transom, a daily subscription newsletter for political insiders. In 2013, he co-founded The Federalist, where he served as publisher and hosted The Federalist Radio Hour. He also co-founded the RedState group blog. He joined Fox News as a commentator in 2021.[2]

He is the former

The City. He created and hosted a daily free market podcast, Coffee and Markets, until 2014.[3]

Early life

Domenech was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and raised in Charleston, South Carolina.[4] He is the son of Douglas Domenech, who served as the United States Department of the Interior's White House Liaison and the Secretary of the Interior's Deputy Chief of Staff during the George H.W. Bush administration,[5] and as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Insular and International Affairs during the Trump administration.[5]

Domenech's career in punditry began as a teenager when he began a column, "Any Given Sunday", for

Reason magazine, the American Conservative and The Washington Post". Even though Domenech was only 18 at the time, the Post assessed, "Domenech is a sharp writer with an obvious command of his national politics beat.'[7]

Domenech attended the College of William & Mary from 1999 until 2002, leaving school before his senior year, whereupon he went to work for the United States Department of Health and Human Services.[citation needed]

Career

Domenech's NRO column recapped political talk shows on television.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson
.

Domenech subsequently worked as a

National Review Online, followed by two years as chief speechwriter for United States Senator John Cornyn (R-TX). He was also an editor at Regnery Publishing, where he edited books by Michelle Malkin, Ramesh Ponnuru, and Hugh Hewitt.[8]

In March 2006, Domenech was named as a blogger for The Washington Post, hired to contribute to the newspaper's opinion pages from a

Secretary of State John Kerry, as an "oddly shaped egotistical ketchup-colored muppet"; and called Pat Robertson a "senile, crazy old fool". The Post, however, vowed to stand by Domenech.[9]

On March 21, 2006, only three days into his appointment, Domenech resigned his position after evidence surfaced showing that he had earlier plagiarized the earlier works of others that had originally appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, the National Review, and several other publications. The Post said it had not known about his plagiarism when the newspaper hired him, and had editors known, they would never have offered him the job in the first place, they said. Jim Brady, the-then executive editor of washingtonpost.com, said he would have fired Domenech had he not first offered to quit because the allegations of plagiarism made it necessary to "sever the relationship".[10]

During the 2008 election, Domenech wrote numerous columns for both

2012 election, Domenech commented extensively on social and economic issues related to the Occupy Wall Street movement. for the Heritage Foundation.[16]

Domenech was the managing editor of health care policy at

Obamacare", and defending Republican alternatives.[17] The Heartland Institute itself, during this time, was funded in part by Philip Morris and other tobacco companies, which at the time were working behind the scenes to defeat Obamacare.[18][19] On February 7, 2013, Domenech appeared on a Heartland podcast, during which he spoke about how, in his view, smokers were being singled out for rate hikes, and other unfair treatment under Obamacare, a position long held by Philip Morris and other tobacco companies. Domenech argued on the podcast that smokers are more likely to die earlier than other people, and thus are less costly to insurance companies and the government.[20][21]

In September 2013, Domenech, along with Luke Sherman and Sean Davis, co-founded The Federalist; senior editors include David Harsanyi and Mollie Hemingway.

Domenech said at the time that The Federalist was inspired by the mission and worldview of the original

populist respect for the middle class reader outside of New York and Washington."[22]

The Federalist is owned by a private company and thus has not been required to disclose the identities of its financial backers. Domenech and the other founders of the conservative website have refused to do so. BuzzFeed News has reported that the website's funding has prompted "a considerable amount of speculation in the political media world". BuzzFeed further pointed out that "the Federalist has been resolutely opaque about its finances. The site is owned by a private company and doesn't have to disclose its ownership or funding structure; its parent company, FDRLST Media, was incorporated as a limited liability company in Delaware in 2016."[23]

In Politico, Reid Cherlin wrote in 2014 that The Federalist deserved praise for "seek[ing] to go deep on the issues and sway the conversation in Washington".[24] Matt K. Lewis wrote in The Week that conservative online media was sharply divided between "staid, august publications" and "a new generation of irreverent sites", and that "[s]ites like The Federalist try to bridge the gap by providing serious commentary that is typically written by young, pop culture–savvy writers."[25]

In

Dave Weigel favorably noted that The Federalist frequently criticizes left-leaning publications, but was also founded with the intention of being "a source of original interviews and real-time arguments between conservatives and libertarians".[26]

In May 2018, Damon Linker of The Week described The Federalist as "a leading disseminator of pro-Trump conspiracies and up-is-down, funhouse-mirror distortions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling and potential Trump involvement".[27] Further commenting on The Federalist, Linker wrote: "It is only since the election that rabid Republican partisans in the administration, in Congress, and in the media have actively dispensed with such old-fashioned norms of public life like concerns for propriety, professionalism, and fair-mindedness — all in the effort to protect a thoroughly compromised president from having to face the legal scrutiny his personal behavior and business transactions rightly prompt. In this respect at least, The Federalist is a website at the vanguard of a thoroughly Trumpified Republican Party."[27]

In August 2020,

retweets and affirmation for their scathing criticism of Democrats and the news media, whom she accuses of lying about just about everything when it comes to the president. Recently she claimed that journalists had fabricated reports about tear gas and the excessive use of force against protesters outside the White House (law enforcement, in fact, has acknowledged shooting a pepper-based irritant into the crowd)." Domenech, Hemingway, and other staff for The Federalist "offer an outlet for outrage against those the president has declared his enemies, often by reducing them to a culture war caricature of liberalism."[28]

Controversies

Plagiarism

In early 2006, Domenech was hired by The Washington Post's online arm to write a blog providing "a daily mix of commentary, analysis and cultural criticism".[29] Media Matters for America criticized the choice, claiming that "[t]here [were], however, no progressive bloggers—and no one left of center with the credentials of a political operative—on washingtonpost.com to provide balance to Domenech."[30] Instapundit founder Glenn Reynolds surmised in an interview The New York Times that Domenech's appointment had attracted anger among liberals "because he was a conservative and he was given real estate at The Washington Post" which in turn spurred bloggers to find "something they could use to get rid of him", referring to the disclosures of Domenech's extensive plagiarism only days after his appointment.[10]

Domenech launched a new website, Red America, on March 21, 2006, but resigned three days later after having written only six posts, after his fellow bloggers posted evidence online that Domenech had plagiarized the work of other journalists from The Washington Post,

The National Review confirmed on its blog The Corner[31]
that Domenech appeared to have plagiarized for at least one article he had written for that publication.

Subsequently, Washington Post online editor Jim Brady announced Domenech's resignation saying "[a]n investigation into these allegations [of plagiarism] was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately."[32]

Payments for Malaysian opinion pieces

In 2013, Domenech was implicated in a journalism scandal that resulted in the removal of his work from

Joshua Trevino, a conservative pundit and lobbyist, in exchange for writing favorable opinion pieces about the government of Malaysia without disclosing the financial relationship. The payments only came to light when Trevino registered as a foreign agent of the Malaysian government, and disclosed that Domenech was one of several young conservative writers he paid to write articles favorable to the Malaysian regime to bolster its image in conservative media.[33][34][35]

After disclosure of the payments, The Washington Examiner and

The San Francisco Examiner removed several of Domenech's posts from their respective websites and replaced them with an editors' note saying that "the author of this item presented content for which, unbeknownst to us, and in violation of our standards, had received payment from a third party mentioned therein—a payment which he also failed to disclose." The Washington Examiner owned The San Francisco Examiner at the time and thus shared content.[33]

Salt mine tweet

In 2019, following staff of other American media companies unionizing, co-founder Domenech

NLRB judge ruled: "In viewing the totality of the circumstances surrounding the tweet, this tweet had no other purpose except to threaten ... Federalist employees with unspecified reprisal, as the underlying meaning of 'salt mine' so signifies."[37]

The

libertarian nonprofit dedicated to fighting what it regards as an excessive administrative state, and which had been representing The Federalist pro bono, announced that they would appeal. Reason and National Review published articles arguing against the judge's decision.[38][39]

The NLRB upheld the judge's ruling in November 2020. The NLRB ordered The Federalist to "direct Domenech to delete the statement from his personal Twitter account, and to take appropriate steps to ensure Domenech complies with the directive." The Federalist said it would appeal.[40]

In May 2022, however, a three judge panel of the Third Circuit largely absolved Domenech of any wrongdoing, when it unanimously overturned the NLRB, concluding that "a reasonable employee would [not] interpret Domenech's tweet as a veiled threat".[41]

Other controversies

A June 20, 2002, a Spinsanity.org entry demonstrated that Domenech made up a quote he attributed to Tim Russert in order to defend President George W. Bush.[42][43]

In a 2010 post written for CBS, Domenech wrongly described Supreme Court Justice nominee

closeted—odd, because her female partner is rather well known in Harvard circles."[45] In fact, however, numerous reports confirmed that Kagan was not gay, forcing Domenech to issue a public apology to Kagan "if she is offended at all by my repetition of a Harvard rumor in a speculative blog post."[46]

In November 2017, The Federalist, the publication of which Domenech was a co-founder and publisher, came under criticism from both conservatives and liberals for publishing an opinion piece by Tully Borland, an Ouachita Baptist University philosopher, defending Roy Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court justice, and then Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, for dating teenagers, some as young as 14 years old, while Moore himself was in his late 30s. Borland argued that such behavior was "not without some merit if one wants to raise a large family". In the subtitle of the article, Borland said that he himself had "a 14-year old daughter", and if he "caught [Roy Moore] doing what was alleged" to his own daughter, he would physically harm him. "That said", Borland continued, "I don't think it's wrong to vote for Moore."[47]

Dick Uihlein, a "Midwestern packing supply magnate and Trump donor" who has also financed Moore's Senate campaign.[28]

In July 2018, on the day that the Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election indicted 12 Russian agents, Domenech disseminated information from a hoax version of the indictment documents. Domenech falsely reported that "much of it [the indictment] is taken up by the numbers of times that people were posting memes on the internet", citing the fake indictment, which claimed that the 12 Russians charged had only engaged in insignificant "shitposting" and the use of memes.[49][50]

In May 2019, Domenech's wife Meghan McCain appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers, where she and host Seth Meyers discussed McCain's assertion that Rep. Ilhan Omar was anti-Semitic. Shortly thereafter, Domenech posted a number of crude tweets targeting Meyers, calling Meyers an "untalented piece of shit" and "monumental asshole" who "only has his job because he regularly gargled Lorne Michaels' balls". The Daily Beast described Domenech's behavior as him having gone "on an unhinged rant against the late-night host ... that was at times homophobic". Domenech later deleted his tweets and apologized for "rage tweeting".[51][52]

During the

Democratic Party and the media. The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis wrote that Democrats were intentionally trying to "destroy the economy" as a "last-ditch 2020 play" because "all they care about is power. And if they have to destroy your life and business to get power back, they will."[54][55]

Domenech also published a piece, entitled "How Medical 'Chickenpox Parties' Could Turn The Tide Of The Wuhan Virus", by an individual identified as a physician in Oregon who recommended that people hold "chickenpox"-style parties for the coronavirus to build herd immunity, recommendations contrary to those of virtually all mainstream public health experts. "Given the recent example of spring break 2020 for college students in Florida, one could imagine such gatherings even becoming a social activity", the author, Doug Perednia wrote. Perednia, a former dermatologist, had been a businessman for the past 25 years, during which time he had not practiced medicine, and had also allowed his medical license to lapse.[54][56][57][58] The Federalist was subsequently temporarily suspended from Twitter because the website, Twitter said, had used its platform to promote fringe ideas that contradicted public health experts and were harmful to public health.[57]

In June 2020, Google Ads warned The Federalist that it was considering demonetizing the website because of racism in its comment section; The Federalist removed the comments Google objected to, and Google announced that "no action will be taken".[59][60] In response, Domenech said: "We are really learning the degree to which Big Tech can be weaponized by woke mobs, or woke journalists in this case, to try to shut down places who disagree with their leftist agenda."[61]

Personal life

Domenech married Meghan McCain, the daughter of US Senator John McCain, on November 21, 2017.[62]

References

  1. ^ Domench, Ben. "About". Facebook. Retrieved November 22, 2017. Born on 1 January 1982
  2. ^ "Fox News Signs Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech as a Contributor". February 3, 2021.
  3. ^ Jackson, Brad (June 13, 2017). "Apple's Spaceship Campus and the Importance of Leadership". Coffee and Markets. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  4. ^ Domenech, Ben [@bdomenech] (August 13, 2017). "Oh I dunno I was born in Jackson grew up in Charleston and lived my entire life in the South. I know what that iconoclasm does" (Tweet). Retrieved November 22, 2017 – via Twitter.
  5. ^ a b c "Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas". U.S. Department of the Interior. Archived from the original on April 2, 2020. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  6. ^ "About Ben Domenech". BenDomenech.com. Retrieved February 11, 2018.
  7. ^ a b "An Early Eye for Political Punditry". The Washington Post. August 30, 2000.
  8. ^ "Red America blog bio on Domenech". The Washington Post. March 21, 2006. Archived from the original on March 22, 2006. Retrieved July 4, 2019. After 9/11, he abandoned the journalism field for a taxpayer-funded life and was sworn in as a political appointee of President George W. Bush
  9. ^ Kurtz, Howard (March 24, 2006). "Some Readers See Red Over Post.com's New Blogger". The Washington Post.
  10. ^ a b c d Bosman, Julie (March 25, 2006). "Washington Post Blogger Quits After Plagiarism Accusations". The New York Times. Retrieved July 4, 2019. 'I wouldn't want to swear in a court of law that I never met the guy', Mr. O'Rourke said of Mr. Domenech, 'but I didn't give him permission to use my words under his byline, no.'
  11. ^ "Ben Domenech archive". Human Events. Archived from the original on May 24, 2011.
  12. ^ Domenech, Ben (December 25, 2008). "Domenech: Sacrificing for freedom". The Washington Times. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  13. ^ Domenech, Ben (June 8, 2008). "Editorial: Conservative seeds of destruction". The Washington Times. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  14. ^ Domenech, Ben (June 13, 2008). "Opinion: Conservatives to Obamacons". The Washington Times. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  15. ^ Domenech, Ben (June 30, 2008). "Op-Ed: America's evolving standards". The Washington Times. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  16. ^ Domenech, Ben (May 3, 2012). "Occupy Wall Street: Why Conservatives Shouldn't Ignore the Persuadables". Heritage.org. Retrieved April 2, 2013.
  17. ^ Domenech, Ben (July 12, 2012). "The Media's "Republicans Have No Obamacare Replacement Myth"". Ricochet. Archived from the original on November 9, 2013. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
  18. ^ Caldwell, Patrick (October 17, 2018). "Big Tobacco Is Spending Millions to Defeat Obamacare at the Ballot Box". Mother Jones.
  19. ^ Caldwell, Patrick (October 24, 2018). "Big Tobacco Is Spending an Insane Amount of Money to Fight Obamacare". Mother Jones.
  20. ^ Domenech, Benjamin (February 7, 2013). "Smokers under Obamacare". Heartland podcast.
  21. ^ "Big Tobacco, anti-smoking advocates agree Obamacare's smoker surcharge must go". Bangor Daily News. February 19, 2013.
  22. ^ "Introducing The Federalist". The Federalist. September 18, 2013. Retrieved December 26, 2016.
  23. ^ Gray, Rosie (August 28, 2019). "The Weekly Standard's Corporate Owner Considered Buying The Federalist". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved March 26, 2020.
  24. ^ Cherlin, Reid (January 7, 2014). "The HuffPo-ization of the Right". Politico. Archived from the original on November 22, 2018. Retrieved October 3, 2014.
  25. ^ Lewis, Matt K. (May 19, 2014). "The state of conservative media". The Week. Retrieved November 27, 2016.
  26. ^ Weigel, David (December 1, 2014). "The Torch Is Being Passed to A New Generation of Right-Wing Media". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on December 17, 2014. Retrieved December 17, 2014.
  27. ^ a b Linker, Damon (May 18, 2018). "The irredeemable irresponsibility of The Federalist". The Week. Retrieved May 19, 2018.
  28. ^ a b Peters, Jeremy (August 3, 2020). "These Conservatives Have a Laser Focus: 'Owning the Libs'". The New York Times.
  29. ^ Straus, Hal (March 21, 2006). "New Blog: Red America". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on March 24, 2006. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  30. Media Matters
    . Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  31. ^ The Editors (March 24, 2006). "A Message to Our Readers". National Review. Archived from the original on November 2, 2013. Retrieved July 4, 2019. {{cite magazine}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  32. ^ Brady, Jim (March 24, 2006). "Ben Domenech Resigns". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 23, 2011. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
  33. ^ a b Gray, Rosie (March 1, 2013). "Covert Malaysian Campaign Touched A Wide Range Of American Media". BuzzFeed. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
  34. ^ Domenech, Ben (March 1, 2013). "Editor's Note – The search for moderate Muslims". The Washington Examiner. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
  35. ^ Weinger, Mackenzie (March 1, 2013). "Joshua Trevino's Malay payday". Politico. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
  36. ^ @bdomenech (June 7, 2019). "FYI @fdrlst first one of you tries to unionize I swear I'll send you back to the salt mine" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  37. ^ a b Kanu, Hassan A. (April 22, 2020). "The Federalist Publisher's Tweet Was Unlawful: NLRB Judge (2)". Bloomberg Law. Retrieved April 24, 2020.
  38. ^ Soave, Robby (April 29, 2020). "The National Labor Relations Board Wants To Punish a Conservative Publisher for a Joke About Unions". Reason.com.
  39. ^ McLaughlin, Dan (April 27, 2020). "Send the NLRB Back to the Salt Mine". National Review.
  40. ^ Bowden, John (November 24, 2020). "Federal agency says Federalist publisher's tweet violated labor law". The Hill. Retrieved December 16, 2020.
  41. ^ "NLRB's 'Salt Mine' Tweet Decision Overturned by Third Circuit". news.bloomberglaw.com.
  42. ^ Brock, David (March 23, 2006). "Media Matters to Wash. Post brass: Fire bigoted blogger". Media Matters for America. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
  43. ^ Nyhan, Brendan (June 20, 2002). "Blogger defenses of "trifecta" don't make the cut [archived]". Spinsanity.org. Archived from the original on August 2, 2002. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
  44. ^ Kurtz, Howard (April 16, 2010). "White House complains about CBS News blog post saying that possible Supreme Court nominee is gay". The Washington Post.
  45. ^ Lat, David (May 12, 2010). "It's Official: Elena Kagan Is Straight!". Above the Law. Retrieved September 26, 2018.
  46. Huffington Post
    . June 16, 2010. Retrieved September 26, 2018.
  47. ^ a b Sommer, Will (November 30, 2017). "Conservative site gets major blowback after defending Moore dating teens 'to raise a large family'". The Hill. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  48. ^ "Opinion | The worst Roy Moore take ever has arrived". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  49. ^ Sung, Morgan (July 14, 2018). "People are falling for a fake Mueller indictment citing the 'international meme community'". Mashable. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  50. ^ "Week In Politics: 12 Russian Cyberspies Charged With Attack On 2016 Election". NPR. July 13, 2018. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  51. ^ Wilstein, Matt (May 8, 2019). "Meghan McCain's Husband Goes on Unhinged Homophobic Rant Against 'Cuck' Seth Meyers". The Daily Beast. Retrieved May 10, 2019.
  52. ^ Butler, Bethonie (May 8, 2019). "Meghan McCain and Seth Meyers sparred over Rep. Ilhan Omar. Then McCain's husband weighed in". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  53. ^ Bethea, Charles (April 12, 2020). "The Federalist as 'Medical Journal' in the Time of the Coronavirus". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 24, 2020.
  54. ^
    Media Matters
    . Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  55. ^ Drezner, Daniel W. (March 31, 2020). "The state of the conservative intelligentsia is weird". The Washington Post.
  56. ^ Wagner, Laura (March 25, 2020). "Unlicensed Dermatologist Suggests People Throw Coronavirus Parties". Vice. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  57. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  58. ^ Robertson, Adi (March 25, 2020). "Twitter locks account encouraging coronavirus 'chickenpox parties'". The Verge. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  59. ^ Iyengar, Rishi (June 16, 2020). "Google kicked ZeroHedge off its ad platform and warned the Federalist". CNN Business.
  60. ^ Robertson, Adi (June 16, 2020). "Google Ads bans Zero Hedge for racist content, but reverses decision on The Federalist". The Verge.
  61. ^ Kaplan, Talia (June 17, 2020). "Federalist's Ben Domenech: We're seeing how 'Big Tech can be weaponized by woke mobs'". Fox News.
  62. ^ Triggs, Charlotte (November 23, 2017). "Meghan McCain and Ben Domenech Are Married". People. Retrieved November 23, 2017.

External links

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