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Worthless Media
WELCOME TO WORTHLESS MEDIA WHERE THE FAILURE OF REAL JOURNALISM IS
EXPOSED
the white-wing media
OCT 27, 2020
“The media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them. The representatives of these interests have important agendas and principles that they want to advance, and they are well positioned to shape and constrain media policy.”
–Chomsky
Media lo-lites
(source: crooks & liars, raw story, alternet, newshounds)
*Fox News floats conspiracy theory that Biden is using listening devices at Tuesday’s debate
FACEBOOK SUED OVER KENOSHA KILLINGS
“If Facebook won’t change their M.O., then a judge needs to tell them to enforce their own standards.”
Theodore Hamm - THE INTERCEPT
September 23 2020, 6:14 a.m.
WHEN 17-YEAR-OLD Kyle Rittenhouse killed two Black Lives Matter protesters (and wounded a third) in late August in Kenosha, Wisconsin, he instantly became a hero among white nationalist circles, in which the Second Amendment is sacrosanct.
On Wednesday, Rittenhouse and the members of the armed militias that supported him, including the Kenosha Guard and Boogaloo Bois, were named in a federal lawsuit brought under the post-Civil War Reconstruction amendments that aimed to establish Black equality.
The suit also names what it alleges was the militia groups’s most prominent enabler: Facebook. All of the parties, the complaint contends, helped deprive Kenosha Black Lives Matter protesters of their First Amendment right to assemble, thus violating the Black Lives Matter activists’ 14th Amendment right to equal protection.
Attorneys Jason Flores-Williams and Jennifer Sirrine filed the case in the Eastern District Court of Wisconsin, which covers Kenosha. Along with a handful of protesters harassed by the militia groups, the plaintiffs include Hannah Giddings, the life partner of 26-year-old Anthony Huber, who was gunned down by Rittenhouse while trying to disarm the teenager.
According to the complaint, the Kenosha Guard, Boogaloo Bois, and Facebook all partook in a conspiracy that resulted in Huber’s death (thus causing harm to Giddings) and deprived the other plaintiffs of their ability to peacefully protest.
Both the First and 13th amendment stipulations were key to Griffin v. Breckenridge, a U.S. Supreme Court case that was decided in 1971 and is cited in the complaint. That case concerned the right to travel, which is also an issue in the Kenosha protests. Some of the plaintiffs had their tires slashed and were otherwise impeded.
The 14th Amendment provided the constitutional basis for federal statutes §1985 and §1986, which prohibit interference by private groups with other’s exercise of their rights. Established under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, the statutes were recently applied in the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacist protest in 2017.
In order to recruit foot soldiers for the August 25 protest, the Kenosha Guard created an event page on its Facebook account. Titled “Armed Citizens to Protect Our Lives and Property,” the posting summoned “patriots willing to take up arms … and defend our City from the evil thugs.”
Over 450 Facebook users alerted the platform’s moderators that the Guard’s violent rhetoric violated the company’s policies. According to BuzzFeed News, four Facebook moderators deemed the Guard’s posts “non-threatening.”
In Flores-Williams’s view, Facebook’s actions subsequent to the event — shutting down the Guard’s account and admitting to what CEO Mark Zuckerberg called an “operational mistake” in not heeding the 450 warnings — amounted to a recognition it behaved with negligence.
“Facebook’s negligence enabled the conspiracy here,” said Flores-Williams. He maintains that “this is not a First Amendment issue. It’s a matter of responsibility on the part of Facebook.”
“I would love to see Facebook change their moderation policies and for them to take accountability. One way to do that would be for them to make the moderators work directly for the company instead of outsourcing them,” added Sirrine.
Citing the likelihood of voter intimidation by armed militias on Election Day, and the possibility that those same groups may try to keep Donald Trump in the White House should he lose in November, Flores-Williams hopes that the action in federal court will send the company a message.
“If Facebook won’t change their M.O.,” he said, “then a judge needs to tell them to enforce their own standards and stop allowing violent groups to use their site as a recruiting station.”
A Facebook spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Wednesday, Rittenhouse and the members of the armed militias that supported him, including the Kenosha Guard and Boogaloo Bois, were named in a federal lawsuit brought under the post-Civil War Reconstruction amendments that aimed to establish Black equality.
The suit also names what it alleges was the militia groups’s most prominent enabler: Facebook. All of the parties, the complaint contends, helped deprive Kenosha Black Lives Matter protesters of their First Amendment right to assemble, thus violating the Black Lives Matter activists’ 14th Amendment right to equal protection.
Attorneys Jason Flores-Williams and Jennifer Sirrine filed the case in the Eastern District Court of Wisconsin, which covers Kenosha. Along with a handful of protesters harassed by the militia groups, the plaintiffs include Hannah Giddings, the life partner of 26-year-old Anthony Huber, who was gunned down by Rittenhouse while trying to disarm the teenager.
According to the complaint, the Kenosha Guard, Boogaloo Bois, and Facebook all partook in a conspiracy that resulted in Huber’s death (thus causing harm to Giddings) and deprived the other plaintiffs of their ability to peacefully protest.
Both the First and 13th amendment stipulations were key to Griffin v. Breckenridge, a U.S. Supreme Court case that was decided in 1971 and is cited in the complaint. That case concerned the right to travel, which is also an issue in the Kenosha protests. Some of the plaintiffs had their tires slashed and were otherwise impeded.
The 14th Amendment provided the constitutional basis for federal statutes §1985 and §1986, which prohibit interference by private groups with other’s exercise of their rights. Established under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, the statutes were recently applied in the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacist protest in 2017.
In order to recruit foot soldiers for the August 25 protest, the Kenosha Guard created an event page on its Facebook account. Titled “Armed Citizens to Protect Our Lives and Property,” the posting summoned “patriots willing to take up arms … and defend our City from the evil thugs.”
Over 450 Facebook users alerted the platform’s moderators that the Guard’s violent rhetoric violated the company’s policies. According to BuzzFeed News, four Facebook moderators deemed the Guard’s posts “non-threatening.”
In Flores-Williams’s view, Facebook’s actions subsequent to the event — shutting down the Guard’s account and admitting to what CEO Mark Zuckerberg called an “operational mistake” in not heeding the 450 warnings — amounted to a recognition it behaved with negligence.
“Facebook’s negligence enabled the conspiracy here,” said Flores-Williams. He maintains that “this is not a First Amendment issue. It’s a matter of responsibility on the part of Facebook.”
“I would love to see Facebook change their moderation policies and for them to take accountability. One way to do that would be for them to make the moderators work directly for the company instead of outsourcing them,” added Sirrine.
Citing the likelihood of voter intimidation by armed militias on Election Day, and the possibility that those same groups may try to keep Donald Trump in the White House should he lose in November, Flores-Williams hopes that the action in federal court will send the company a message.
“If Facebook won’t change their M.O.,” he said, “then a judge needs to tell them to enforce their own standards and stop allowing violent groups to use their site as a recruiting station.”
A Facebook spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News Pundits Compare BLM Protesters To Serial Killer Ted Bundy
No really. Who knew civil rights protests are equal to Ted Bundy raping and murdering innocent young girls in their dorm rooms?
By John Amato crooks & liars
9/18/2020
During Thursday's segment on Fox News' Outnumbered, two of their right-wing panel agreed that using Ted Bundy as the bellwether for violence in the BLM protests was a great thing.
The Fox News program was discussing a report that 93% of the Black Lives Matter-inspired protests were peaceful
But for Fox News that was fodder to promote Trump's "law and order" message and claim the country is in flames while claiming "Joe Biden's America" means the suburbs will burn down.
Host Melissa Francis commented on the violence and riots that have occurred at BLM protests. "#Oneluckyguy" Juan Williams frustrated her by saying he had no basis to compare anything to that except his own experience of being involved in a peaceful protest.
This enraged the right wingers on the panel.
Kennedy, the "libertarian," went off the rails and used serial killer Ted Bundy, who raped and mass-murdered scores of women, as her barometer against the civil unrest in the country.
Kennedy said, "And the harm that has been done, that's like saying 95% of it was peaceful."
She continued, "That's like saying 95% of the sorority girls that Ted Bundy met he didn't kill."
Melissa Francis was in complete agreement with her and said that was a "great analogy."
So now Fox News is comparing civil unrest, peaceful protesters and the small percentage of them that have gotten out of control, to the most heinous murderer and serial killer of young women in history of our country.
Got it. There is no bar so low they won't go below it.
The Fox News program was discussing a report that 93% of the Black Lives Matter-inspired protests were peaceful
But for Fox News that was fodder to promote Trump's "law and order" message and claim the country is in flames while claiming "Joe Biden's America" means the suburbs will burn down.
Host Melissa Francis commented on the violence and riots that have occurred at BLM protests. "#Oneluckyguy" Juan Williams frustrated her by saying he had no basis to compare anything to that except his own experience of being involved in a peaceful protest.
This enraged the right wingers on the panel.
Kennedy, the "libertarian," went off the rails and used serial killer Ted Bundy, who raped and mass-murdered scores of women, as her barometer against the civil unrest in the country.
Kennedy said, "And the harm that has been done, that's like saying 95% of it was peaceful."
She continued, "That's like saying 95% of the sorority girls that Ted Bundy met he didn't kill."
Melissa Francis was in complete agreement with her and said that was a "great analogy."
So now Fox News is comparing civil unrest, peaceful protesters and the small percentage of them that have gotten out of control, to the most heinous murderer and serial killer of young women in history of our country.
Got it. There is no bar so low they won't go below it.
Miami Herald apologizes for anti-Semitic insert that compared Black Lives Matter to Nazis
BY DOMINICK MASTRANGELO - the hill
09/16/20 09:56 AM EDT
Editors of the sister paper of the Miami Herald apologized this week after the publication ran an insert that included a column comparing supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement to Nazis.
The column also included anti-Semitic material, at one point asking "what kind of people are these Jews?" and mocking Jewish people for "always talking about the Holocaust."
The paper is investigating how the "LIBRE" insert in the Nuevo Herald, a Spanish-language publication owned by the Miami Herald Company, ended up being run. Management of the paper also said they would never run LIBRE again.
"We are deeply sorry that inflammatory, racist and anti-Semitic commentary reached our el Nuevo Herald subscribers through LIBRE, a Spanish-language publication that paid our company to have the product printed and inserted into our print edition as a weekly supplement," Aminda Marqués González, the Herald and el Nuevo Herald's executive editor and publisher, and el Nuevo Herald managing editor Nancy San Martín wrote in a letter to readers.
The letter said no one in the paper's leadership had read the insert before it was run.
"The fact that no one in leadership, beginning with us, had previously read this advertising insert until this issue was surfaced by a reader is distressing. It is one of a series of internal failures that we are investigating in order to prevent this from ever recurring," the two wrote.
The column by Roberto Luque Escalona included offense remarks about Jewish people and argued that the Black Lives Matter movement, like Nazis, "only destroyed."
“What kind of people are these Jews? They’re always talking about the Holocaust, but have they already forgotten Kristallnacht, when Nazi thugs rampaged through Jewish shops all over Germany? So do the BLM and antifa, only the Nazis didn’t steal; they only destroyed,” Escalona wrote.
The insert met with a furious blowback from Herald readers, some of whom questioned how it was possible it got through editorial controls.
The Herald's leadership said it was in the process of investigating its business relationship with LIBRE. The open letter to readers said they only learned of the offensive column after a reader pointed it out.
"In addition, we are reviewing all inserts and our processes for these paid supplements that the company has printed and distributed with our news product. Our initial investigation has found that we do not have a content review process for LIBRE and other similar supplements that are curated by paid customers," the two editors wrote.
"In the interest of transparency in our community, we will share our findings of the LIBRE review in a story that will be published in both Spanish and English by the end of the week."
The column also included anti-Semitic material, at one point asking "what kind of people are these Jews?" and mocking Jewish people for "always talking about the Holocaust."
The paper is investigating how the "LIBRE" insert in the Nuevo Herald, a Spanish-language publication owned by the Miami Herald Company, ended up being run. Management of the paper also said they would never run LIBRE again.
"We are deeply sorry that inflammatory, racist and anti-Semitic commentary reached our el Nuevo Herald subscribers through LIBRE, a Spanish-language publication that paid our company to have the product printed and inserted into our print edition as a weekly supplement," Aminda Marqués González, the Herald and el Nuevo Herald's executive editor and publisher, and el Nuevo Herald managing editor Nancy San Martín wrote in a letter to readers.
The letter said no one in the paper's leadership had read the insert before it was run.
"The fact that no one in leadership, beginning with us, had previously read this advertising insert until this issue was surfaced by a reader is distressing. It is one of a series of internal failures that we are investigating in order to prevent this from ever recurring," the two wrote.
The column by Roberto Luque Escalona included offense remarks about Jewish people and argued that the Black Lives Matter movement, like Nazis, "only destroyed."
“What kind of people are these Jews? They’re always talking about the Holocaust, but have they already forgotten Kristallnacht, when Nazi thugs rampaged through Jewish shops all over Germany? So do the BLM and antifa, only the Nazis didn’t steal; they only destroyed,” Escalona wrote.
The insert met with a furious blowback from Herald readers, some of whom questioned how it was possible it got through editorial controls.
The Herald's leadership said it was in the process of investigating its business relationship with LIBRE. The open letter to readers said they only learned of the offensive column after a reader pointed it out.
"In addition, we are reviewing all inserts and our processes for these paid supplements that the company has printed and distributed with our news product. Our initial investigation has found that we do not have a content review process for LIBRE and other similar supplements that are curated by paid customers," the two editors wrote.
"In the interest of transparency in our community, we will share our findings of the LIBRE review in a story that will be published in both Spanish and English by the end of the week."
Facebook Has Begun Purging Accounts Tied to Anti-Fascist Groups
BY Spencer Sunshine, Truthout
PUBLISHED August 21, 2020
On Wednesday a number of anarchist Facebook accounts, some of which were associated with the antifascist movement, were removed without warning. These included It’s Going Down — a widely followed news and media platform publishing original content and reprinted analyses about “anarchist, anti-fascist, autonomous anti-capitalist and anti-colonial movements” — and the longstanding anarchist group CrimethInc, which describes itself as “a decentralized network pledged to anonymous collective action.” The removal of these anarchist accounts was part of a general purge, which also included many far right accounts, including those associated with paramilitaries and conspiracy theories that have inspired violence.
In a vaguely worded statement, Facebook said it was removing “accounts tied to offline anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests, US-based militia organizations and QAnon.” The purge is part of a new policy change that targets what Facebook describes as “growing movements that, while not directly organizing violence, have celebrated violent acts, shown that they have weapons and suggest they will use them, or have individual followers with patterns of violent behavior.” Facebook states the action will include those “that have demonstrated significant risks to public safety but do not meet the rigorous criteria to be designated as a dangerous organization.”
Facebook said it removed almost 800 groups and 100 pages connected to QAnon, a popular far right conspiracy theory that has been linked to many acts of violence, including murder, arson and kidnapping. Additionally, “For militia organizations and those encouraging riots, including some who may identify as Antifa,” almost 1,000 groups and over 500 pages were removed. A larger number of accounts and hashtags in all three categories also had restrictions placed on them.
This is the first time a coordinated removal of multiple U.S. anarchist and antifascist accounts has happened on Facebook. In addition to It’s Going Down (IGD) and the CrimethInc Ex-Workers Collective, banned accounts include the Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front, which has organized some of the recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Portland, Oregon; Enough is Enough, a German anarchist news platform; various chapters of the John Brown Gun Club, an armed left-wing community defense group; a number of members of the anarchist think tank Center for a Stateless Society; and accounts for the radical musicians Sole, Time, and Calm (the latter two belong to freelance writer Chris Steele, who has been published in Truthout). News about more may emerge later.
Condemnation swiftly followed.
Some have questioned whether the purged anarchist and antifascist accounts were sacrificial lambs thrown to conservatives in order to stymie claims that Facebook is discriminating against them. The Rhode Island John Brown Gun Club said, “Facebook has deleted our page as part of this ridiculous ‘both sides purge.’” (Far right accounts that were banned included armed groups like the Oath Keepers, New Mexico Civil Guard and 3% Security Force.) Others, however, analyzed the situation differently.
In a joint statement, CrimethInc and It’s Going Down claimed, “This has nothing to do with stopping violence and everything to do with cracking down on social movements and everyday people getting organized in their communities.”
They drew attention to how Facebook’s language mirrored recent statements from Donald Trump, saying the president has “demanded this crackdown in a series of social media posts explicitly blaming anarchists and anti-fascists for the countrywide wave of protests precipitated by persistent police violence in the United States.”
The joint statement from CrimethInc and It’s Going Down also accuses Attorney General William Barr of attempting to “muddy the issue” by “lumping anarchists and anti-fascists together with far-right militias who explicitly support the state and especially the current administration.” This enables the Justice Department “to demand resources with which to crack down on those who are on the front lines of defending communities” being attacked by those same militias and conspiracy theorists, the two groups argued.
Indeed, Facebook’s statement alternately refers to “Antifa” and “anarchist” groups; but while there is overlap between these movements, the two are not synonymous. Trump, however, has referred to them interchangeably in recent statements. (The situation was not helped when in late July, Democratic candidate Joe Biden also called for “anarchists to be prosecuted.” In the United States, you can not be prosecuted based on political ideology.)
Cooper Brinson, an attorney at the Civil Liberties Defense Center, told me that “Equivocating collectives like IGD and CrimethInc with violent fascists and white supremacists is ridiculous. The far right has killed hundreds of people in the last few decades and nearly 40 people just in 2019. Anarchists and antifascists, on the other hand, have not been linked to a single murder in at least the last 25 years.”
David Neiwert, a long-time far right monitor, wrote “This is outrageous. Equating antifa with QAnon betrays how Facebook fundamentally doesn’t grasp the issue. The far right thrives by spreading disinformation. One of the underrated aspects of Antifa is that [it] spreads accurate information about the bad actors on the far right.”
It’s Going Down pointed out that it is “a news platform — not a group — we cover, interview, and publish reports about contemporary autonomous social movements. Violence is coming from the State and the far-right — we don’t ‘aspire’ for more of it, we’d like to see it end.”
Writer Kit O’Connell tweeted, “Great to see Facebook is finally cracking down on the scourge of… *checks notes* rappers that are into permaculture.” (In a video, the rapper Sole says he is an anarchist who supports Black Lives Matter, but “I haven’t broken any laws, I haven’t called for any acts of violence.”)
NYC Antifa claimed, “Facebook doesn’t care about ‘violence’ or its role in spreading bigotry and literal genocide,” noting the platform recently refused to hand over documents to the United Nations about its role in facilitating the 2016 Rohingya genocide in Myanmar.
Elsewhere, Facebook has been condemned as a vector of misinformation about COVID-19 in addition to numerous other conspiracy theories.
Facebook is not a favored platform for antifascists in general, and there have been a number of calls over the years to move antifascist accounts off the platform to more secure ones, but many have nevertheless relied on it.
Brinson said, “it was bad form to organize on these platforms in the first place. While Facebook may be an effective medium for some types of organizing, it has also been one of the State’s biggest tools to identify, track, and target anarchists and leftists. If this is the moment liberation movements resign Facebook to the collective dustbin, we may all be better off for it.”
Whether this initial purge is the harbinger of larger things to come remains to be seen. But Mark Zuckerberg’s repeated pandering to Trump does not bode well — especially if the president ramps up his election rhetoric against antifa and anarchists. And if a second Trump term comes, it is likely to unleash not just more bans from platforms eager to curry favor with the administration but also increased attention from Justice Department and local prosecutors intent on repressing progressive social movements.
In a vaguely worded statement, Facebook said it was removing “accounts tied to offline anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests, US-based militia organizations and QAnon.” The purge is part of a new policy change that targets what Facebook describes as “growing movements that, while not directly organizing violence, have celebrated violent acts, shown that they have weapons and suggest they will use them, or have individual followers with patterns of violent behavior.” Facebook states the action will include those “that have demonstrated significant risks to public safety but do not meet the rigorous criteria to be designated as a dangerous organization.”
Facebook said it removed almost 800 groups and 100 pages connected to QAnon, a popular far right conspiracy theory that has been linked to many acts of violence, including murder, arson and kidnapping. Additionally, “For militia organizations and those encouraging riots, including some who may identify as Antifa,” almost 1,000 groups and over 500 pages were removed. A larger number of accounts and hashtags in all three categories also had restrictions placed on them.
This is the first time a coordinated removal of multiple U.S. anarchist and antifascist accounts has happened on Facebook. In addition to It’s Going Down (IGD) and the CrimethInc Ex-Workers Collective, banned accounts include the Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front, which has organized some of the recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Portland, Oregon; Enough is Enough, a German anarchist news platform; various chapters of the John Brown Gun Club, an armed left-wing community defense group; a number of members of the anarchist think tank Center for a Stateless Society; and accounts for the radical musicians Sole, Time, and Calm (the latter two belong to freelance writer Chris Steele, who has been published in Truthout). News about more may emerge later.
Condemnation swiftly followed.
Some have questioned whether the purged anarchist and antifascist accounts were sacrificial lambs thrown to conservatives in order to stymie claims that Facebook is discriminating against them. The Rhode Island John Brown Gun Club said, “Facebook has deleted our page as part of this ridiculous ‘both sides purge.’” (Far right accounts that were banned included armed groups like the Oath Keepers, New Mexico Civil Guard and 3% Security Force.) Others, however, analyzed the situation differently.
In a joint statement, CrimethInc and It’s Going Down claimed, “This has nothing to do with stopping violence and everything to do with cracking down on social movements and everyday people getting organized in their communities.”
They drew attention to how Facebook’s language mirrored recent statements from Donald Trump, saying the president has “demanded this crackdown in a series of social media posts explicitly blaming anarchists and anti-fascists for the countrywide wave of protests precipitated by persistent police violence in the United States.”
The joint statement from CrimethInc and It’s Going Down also accuses Attorney General William Barr of attempting to “muddy the issue” by “lumping anarchists and anti-fascists together with far-right militias who explicitly support the state and especially the current administration.” This enables the Justice Department “to demand resources with which to crack down on those who are on the front lines of defending communities” being attacked by those same militias and conspiracy theorists, the two groups argued.
Indeed, Facebook’s statement alternately refers to “Antifa” and “anarchist” groups; but while there is overlap between these movements, the two are not synonymous. Trump, however, has referred to them interchangeably in recent statements. (The situation was not helped when in late July, Democratic candidate Joe Biden also called for “anarchists to be prosecuted.” In the United States, you can not be prosecuted based on political ideology.)
Cooper Brinson, an attorney at the Civil Liberties Defense Center, told me that “Equivocating collectives like IGD and CrimethInc with violent fascists and white supremacists is ridiculous. The far right has killed hundreds of people in the last few decades and nearly 40 people just in 2019. Anarchists and antifascists, on the other hand, have not been linked to a single murder in at least the last 25 years.”
David Neiwert, a long-time far right monitor, wrote “This is outrageous. Equating antifa with QAnon betrays how Facebook fundamentally doesn’t grasp the issue. The far right thrives by spreading disinformation. One of the underrated aspects of Antifa is that [it] spreads accurate information about the bad actors on the far right.”
It’s Going Down pointed out that it is “a news platform — not a group — we cover, interview, and publish reports about contemporary autonomous social movements. Violence is coming from the State and the far-right — we don’t ‘aspire’ for more of it, we’d like to see it end.”
Writer Kit O’Connell tweeted, “Great to see Facebook is finally cracking down on the scourge of… *checks notes* rappers that are into permaculture.” (In a video, the rapper Sole says he is an anarchist who supports Black Lives Matter, but “I haven’t broken any laws, I haven’t called for any acts of violence.”)
NYC Antifa claimed, “Facebook doesn’t care about ‘violence’ or its role in spreading bigotry and literal genocide,” noting the platform recently refused to hand over documents to the United Nations about its role in facilitating the 2016 Rohingya genocide in Myanmar.
Elsewhere, Facebook has been condemned as a vector of misinformation about COVID-19 in addition to numerous other conspiracy theories.
Facebook is not a favored platform for antifascists in general, and there have been a number of calls over the years to move antifascist accounts off the platform to more secure ones, but many have nevertheless relied on it.
Brinson said, “it was bad form to organize on these platforms in the first place. While Facebook may be an effective medium for some types of organizing, it has also been one of the State’s biggest tools to identify, track, and target anarchists and leftists. If this is the moment liberation movements resign Facebook to the collective dustbin, we may all be better off for it.”
Whether this initial purge is the harbinger of larger things to come remains to be seen. But Mark Zuckerberg’s repeated pandering to Trump does not bode well — especially if the president ramps up his election rhetoric against antifa and anarchists. And if a second Trump term comes, it is likely to unleash not just more bans from platforms eager to curry favor with the administration but also increased attention from Justice Department and local prosecutors intent on repressing progressive social movements.
Holocaust
Facebook algorithm found to 'actively promote' Holocaust denial
Similar content is also readily accessible across Twitter, YouTube and Reddit, says UK-based counter-extremist group
Mark Townsend
the guardian
Sun 16 Aug 2020 02.59 EDT
Facebook’s algorithm “actively promotes” Holocaust denial content according to an analysis that will increase pressure on the social media giant to remove antisemitic content relating to the Nazi genocide.
An investigation by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a UK-based counter-extremist organisation, found that typing “holocaust” in the Facebook search function brought up suggestions for denial pages, which in turn recommended links to publishers which sell revisionist and denial literature, as well as pages dedicated to the notorious British Holocaust denier David Irving.
The findings coincide with mounting international demands from Holocaust survivors to Facebook’s boss, Mark Zuckerberg, to remove such material from the site.
Last Wednesday Facebook announced it was banning conspiracy theories about Jewish people “controlling the world”. However, it has been unwilling to categorise Holocaust denial as a form of hate speech, a stance that ISD describe as a “conceptual blind spot”.
The ISD also discovered at least 36 Facebook groups with a combined 366,068 followers which are specifically dedicated to Holocaust denial or which host such content. Researchers found that when they followed public Facebook pages containing Holocaust denial content, Facebook recommended further similar content.
Jacob Davey, ISD’s senior research manager, said: “Facebook’s decision to allow Holocaust denial content to remain on its platform is framed under the guise of protecting legitimate historical debate, but this misses the reason why people engage in Holocaust denial in the first place.
“Denial of the Holocaust is a deliberate tool used to delegitimise the suffering of the Jewish people and perpetuate long-standing antisemitic tropes, and when people explicitly do this it should be seen as an act of hatred,” he added.
Researchers also found that Holocaust denial content is readily accessible across Twitter, Reddit and YouTube. They identified 2,300 pieces of content mentioning “holohoax” – a term often used by deniers – on Reddit, 19,000 pieces on Twitter and 9,500 pieces of content on YouTube, all created in the past two years.
In the top 20 most retweeted messages on Twitter that used the phrase “holohoax”, 14 contained explicit Holocaust denial.
This week a coalition of UK faith leaders will call on the government to get tougher with social media companies, arguing they are still too weak on tackling racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic and anti-Hindu hate online. However, ISD said that tackling the issue was straightforward, pointing to a sharp reduction in mentions of “holohoax” on YouTube since spring 2019, when the video-sharing platform banned Holocaust denial content.
On Reddit, researchers noted how concerns from other users were effective in hiding and discrediting Holocaust denial content. Other factors limiting the visibility on Reddit included the banning of groups dedicated to Holocaust denial and moderators deleting comments.
Jakob Guhl, ISD research coordinator, said: “Our findings show that the actions taken by platforms can effectively reduce the volume and visibility of this type of antisemitic content. These companies therefore need to ask themselves what type of platform they would like to be: one that earns money by allowing Holocaust denial to flourish, or one that takes a principled stand against it.” A significant amount of denial content is couched in careful language, codes and tropes, and thus this analysis probably does not show the true extent of the spread of such content on social media.
A Facebook company spokesperson said: “We take down any post that celebrates, defends, or attempts to justify the Holocaust. The same goes for any content that mocks Holocaust victims, accuses victims of lying, spews hate, or advocates for violence against Jewish people in any way.
“We also remove groups and pages that discuss Holocaust denial from recommendations and references to it in search predictions. While we do not take down content simply for being untruthful, many posts that deny the Holocaust often violate our policies against hate speech and are removed.
They added: “In countries where it is illegal, such as Germany, France and Poland, this content is not allowed in accordance with the law. Striking the right balance between keeping people safe and allowing free speech is difficult and we know many people strongly disagree with our position. We are constantly developing and reviewing our policies and consulting with organisations around the world to ensure we’re getting it right.”
Twitter was also contacted for comment.
An investigation by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a UK-based counter-extremist organisation, found that typing “holocaust” in the Facebook search function brought up suggestions for denial pages, which in turn recommended links to publishers which sell revisionist and denial literature, as well as pages dedicated to the notorious British Holocaust denier David Irving.
The findings coincide with mounting international demands from Holocaust survivors to Facebook’s boss, Mark Zuckerberg, to remove such material from the site.
Last Wednesday Facebook announced it was banning conspiracy theories about Jewish people “controlling the world”. However, it has been unwilling to categorise Holocaust denial as a form of hate speech, a stance that ISD describe as a “conceptual blind spot”.
The ISD also discovered at least 36 Facebook groups with a combined 366,068 followers which are specifically dedicated to Holocaust denial or which host such content. Researchers found that when they followed public Facebook pages containing Holocaust denial content, Facebook recommended further similar content.
Jacob Davey, ISD’s senior research manager, said: “Facebook’s decision to allow Holocaust denial content to remain on its platform is framed under the guise of protecting legitimate historical debate, but this misses the reason why people engage in Holocaust denial in the first place.
“Denial of the Holocaust is a deliberate tool used to delegitimise the suffering of the Jewish people and perpetuate long-standing antisemitic tropes, and when people explicitly do this it should be seen as an act of hatred,” he added.
Researchers also found that Holocaust denial content is readily accessible across Twitter, Reddit and YouTube. They identified 2,300 pieces of content mentioning “holohoax” – a term often used by deniers – on Reddit, 19,000 pieces on Twitter and 9,500 pieces of content on YouTube, all created in the past two years.
In the top 20 most retweeted messages on Twitter that used the phrase “holohoax”, 14 contained explicit Holocaust denial.
This week a coalition of UK faith leaders will call on the government to get tougher with social media companies, arguing they are still too weak on tackling racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic and anti-Hindu hate online. However, ISD said that tackling the issue was straightforward, pointing to a sharp reduction in mentions of “holohoax” on YouTube since spring 2019, when the video-sharing platform banned Holocaust denial content.
On Reddit, researchers noted how concerns from other users were effective in hiding and discrediting Holocaust denial content. Other factors limiting the visibility on Reddit included the banning of groups dedicated to Holocaust denial and moderators deleting comments.
Jakob Guhl, ISD research coordinator, said: “Our findings show that the actions taken by platforms can effectively reduce the volume and visibility of this type of antisemitic content. These companies therefore need to ask themselves what type of platform they would like to be: one that earns money by allowing Holocaust denial to flourish, or one that takes a principled stand against it.” A significant amount of denial content is couched in careful language, codes and tropes, and thus this analysis probably does not show the true extent of the spread of such content on social media.
A Facebook company spokesperson said: “We take down any post that celebrates, defends, or attempts to justify the Holocaust. The same goes for any content that mocks Holocaust victims, accuses victims of lying, spews hate, or advocates for violence against Jewish people in any way.
“We also remove groups and pages that discuss Holocaust denial from recommendations and references to it in search predictions. While we do not take down content simply for being untruthful, many posts that deny the Holocaust often violate our policies against hate speech and are removed.
They added: “In countries where it is illegal, such as Germany, France and Poland, this content is not allowed in accordance with the law. Striking the right balance between keeping people safe and allowing free speech is difficult and we know many people strongly disagree with our position. We are constantly developing and reviewing our policies and consulting with organisations around the world to ensure we’re getting it right.”
Twitter was also contacted for comment.
Are we witnessing the final collapse of "objective" political reporting? Let's hope so
Elite newsroom rationales for phony objectivity began to crumble long before Trump. But now there's no excuse
DAN FROOMKIN - salon
AUGUST 3, 2020 11:00AM (UTC)
There are two main reasons why the leaders of America's elite newsrooms are so devoted to the journalistic practice commonly referred to as "objectivity," which precludes reporters from "taking sides" in their political coverage — even when one side is an obvious lie, or an affront to core journalistic values like pluralism and democracy.
The official reason is that they sincerely believe that press neutrality leads to a more informed electorate. They argue that voters will trust their news sources more if those sources are "unbiased," and that accurate information is more likely to be accepted as the truth if readers come to their own conclusions rather than being told what to think. A news organization perceived as objective, they say, has an increased power to persuade.
The unofficial reason, which New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen pithily calls "refuge seeking," is that the "objective" approach protects editors and reporters from criticism – specifically, from accusations of bias. It also allows them to feel superior to partisans and activists, because they remain "above the fray."
OK, let's review. Our leading journalistic institutions engage in "objectivity" to achieve two major goals:
So, here's my question to New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet, Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron, Associated Press executive editor Sally Buzbee and the other proclaimed and self-proclaimed guardians of our biggest, finest news organizations:
How's that working out for you?
Not so great, huh?
The obvious answer is that "objectivity" has failed miserably to achieve either goal — and is more likely having the opposite effect.
Informed electorate? Some four out of 10 Americans currently believe all sorts of things that aren't remotely true, like that the Black Lives Matter protests have been mostly violent, or that voter fraud is a problem and that mail-in voting makes it worse, or — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — that Trump is doing a good job. Nearly three in 10 believe COVID-19 was made in a lab and that Bill Gates wants to use vaccination to implant trackable microchips in people.
Immune from accusations of bias? Those misinformed voters believe these things because they heard them from Fox News or some other right-wing super-spreader of conspiracy theories, after having decided that the "mainstream press" is, as their president tells them, so biased that it has become "fake news" and the "enemy of the people."
And before you simply blame social media and filter bubbles — which of course are factors here — ask yourself this: Could it be that the "objective" approach to covering major political issues is simply too anodyne to convince anyone who's on the fence?
What if the mainstream, reality-based media armed its audience with facts as emphatically and effectively as Fox News arms its audience with misinformation? What if the New York Times aggressively advocated for the truth, rather than just putting it out there for the record?
A large fraction of America has tuned out the elite media, treating it like so much white noise. What if the Washington Post more assertively said in its news stories: "Here's what we believe are the facts, and why"? What if they said: "Here's where we're coming from"? What if they said: "Here's our best explanation of why all this crazy stuff is happening and why you're so screwed"?
And what if the mainstream media provided its audience with a true, overarching narrative in which to situate the day-to-day stories — true, evidence-based narratives as compelling as the false ones that Fox and OAN and others are selling — rather than throwing their hands up in the air and saying "you decide"?
The only thing hard about this would be overcoming decades of self-censorship.
Reality-based reporters know the truth: Economic stories exist within a narrative of grotesque inequality sustained by the people who benefit from it; the earth is in grave danger from climate change but fossil-fuel interests have blocked necessary action; law enforcement is only one of many institutions that devalue Black lives; and Donald Trump doesn't fix problems, he exploits them.
People hunger for compelling, explanatory narratives — that's why they respond so strongly to people like George Conway and books like those by Mary Trump and Michael Wolff.
---
Moral clarity in news journalism isn't partisan or polemic.
Journalists shouldn't pretend they know the answers. We should just stop pretending we don't know what the problems are.
Heck, maybe "moral clarity" just means having an occasional open discussion in diverse newsrooms about how to do the work, rather than just doing it the way it's always been done.
"What I argue for is a more deliberate process that acknowledges that there are morals and ethics at all," Lowery told newsletter journalist Luke O'Neil in early July. "All these folks get off on saying 'We don't make any decisions ever. This is what it's always been' as a way of shielding the fact that they are constantly making decisions, and those decisions are subject to their biases."[...]
The official reason is that they sincerely believe that press neutrality leads to a more informed electorate. They argue that voters will trust their news sources more if those sources are "unbiased," and that accurate information is more likely to be accepted as the truth if readers come to their own conclusions rather than being told what to think. A news organization perceived as objective, they say, has an increased power to persuade.
The unofficial reason, which New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen pithily calls "refuge seeking," is that the "objective" approach protects editors and reporters from criticism – specifically, from accusations of bias. It also allows them to feel superior to partisans and activists, because they remain "above the fray."
OK, let's review. Our leading journalistic institutions engage in "objectivity" to achieve two major goals:
- An informed electorate
- Immunity from accusations of bias
So, here's my question to New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet, Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron, Associated Press executive editor Sally Buzbee and the other proclaimed and self-proclaimed guardians of our biggest, finest news organizations:
How's that working out for you?
Not so great, huh?
The obvious answer is that "objectivity" has failed miserably to achieve either goal — and is more likely having the opposite effect.
Informed electorate? Some four out of 10 Americans currently believe all sorts of things that aren't remotely true, like that the Black Lives Matter protests have been mostly violent, or that voter fraud is a problem and that mail-in voting makes it worse, or — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — that Trump is doing a good job. Nearly three in 10 believe COVID-19 was made in a lab and that Bill Gates wants to use vaccination to implant trackable microchips in people.
Immune from accusations of bias? Those misinformed voters believe these things because they heard them from Fox News or some other right-wing super-spreader of conspiracy theories, after having decided that the "mainstream press" is, as their president tells them, so biased that it has become "fake news" and the "enemy of the people."
And before you simply blame social media and filter bubbles — which of course are factors here — ask yourself this: Could it be that the "objective" approach to covering major political issues is simply too anodyne to convince anyone who's on the fence?
What if the mainstream, reality-based media armed its audience with facts as emphatically and effectively as Fox News arms its audience with misinformation? What if the New York Times aggressively advocated for the truth, rather than just putting it out there for the record?
A large fraction of America has tuned out the elite media, treating it like so much white noise. What if the Washington Post more assertively said in its news stories: "Here's what we believe are the facts, and why"? What if they said: "Here's where we're coming from"? What if they said: "Here's our best explanation of why all this crazy stuff is happening and why you're so screwed"?
And what if the mainstream media provided its audience with a true, overarching narrative in which to situate the day-to-day stories — true, evidence-based narratives as compelling as the false ones that Fox and OAN and others are selling — rather than throwing their hands up in the air and saying "you decide"?
The only thing hard about this would be overcoming decades of self-censorship.
Reality-based reporters know the truth: Economic stories exist within a narrative of grotesque inequality sustained by the people who benefit from it; the earth is in grave danger from climate change but fossil-fuel interests have blocked necessary action; law enforcement is only one of many institutions that devalue Black lives; and Donald Trump doesn't fix problems, he exploits them.
People hunger for compelling, explanatory narratives — that's why they respond so strongly to people like George Conway and books like those by Mary Trump and Michael Wolff.
---
Moral clarity in news journalism isn't partisan or polemic.
Journalists shouldn't pretend they know the answers. We should just stop pretending we don't know what the problems are.
Heck, maybe "moral clarity" just means having an occasional open discussion in diverse newsrooms about how to do the work, rather than just doing it the way it's always been done.
"What I argue for is a more deliberate process that acknowledges that there are morals and ethics at all," Lowery told newsletter journalist Luke O'Neil in early July. "All these folks get off on saying 'We don't make any decisions ever. This is what it's always been' as a way of shielding the fact that they are constantly making decisions, and those decisions are subject to their biases."[...]
Washington Post stopped Bob Woodward from outing Brett Kavanaugh as lying anonymous source: report
Woodward was set to reveal that Kavanaugh publicly lied about what he privately told him before The Post intervened
IGOR DERYSH - salon
JUNE 29, 2020 7:20PM (UTC)
The Washington Post stopped veteran journalist Bob Woodward from outing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as one of the sources for his 1999 book, according to New York Times media critic Ben Smith.
Woodward was set to expose Kavanaugh as an anonymous source for his book, "Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate," which was written when Kavanaugh served as a member of independent counsel Ken Starr's team during its investigation into former President Bill Clinton. But Martin Baron, the executive editor of The Post, stopped him from doing so, sources at the outlet told Smith.
The revelation was discovered when journalists at The Post dug into Kavanaugh's history in the outlet's publishing system during his 2018 Supreme Court confirmation process.
The journalists found an article in which Woodward, who protected the identity of the Watergate source "Deep Throat" for three decades, "was going to unmask" Kavanaugh as one of the sources quoted in the book.
"Mr. Woodward was planning to expose Mr. Kavanaugh, because the judge had publicly denied — in a huffy letter in 1999 to The Post — an account about Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Bill Clinton that he had himself, confidentially, provided to Mr. Woodward for his book," Smith wrote. "The article, described by two Post journalists who read it, would have been explosive, arriving as the nominee battled a decades-old sexual assault allegation and was fighting to prove his integrity."
The article was "nearly ready" when Baron urged Woodward not to breach his arrangement with Kavanaugh to protect his identity, according to Smith. Baron and other editors "persuaded Mr. Woodward that it would be bad for The Post and 'bad for Bob' to disclose a source."
The story never ran as a result.
Smith wrote on Twitter that most of his sources at The Post agreed that Baron was right to protect the source but some journalists disagreed.
"If an anonymous source publicly disputes information they provided, journalists have absolutely no obligation to uphold a deal that's already been broken," Slate's Ashley Feinberg wrote.
"The Washington Post should explain what its policy is regarding unnamed sources," The Intercept's Jon Schwarz tweeted. "Do they grant anonymity on the condition that the sources are telling them the truth? Or do they grant anonymity that's irrevocable even if a source lies to them and they publish the lie?"
"Bob Woodward was sitting on clear evidence that seems to show Brett Kavanaugh had a history of brazen, shameless public lying—and the Post never ran the story," Reuters reporter Avi Ascher-Schapiro said.
It remains unclear how much the story would have influenced Kavanaugh's confirmation. The judge faced decades-old allegations of sexual assault and questions about his impartiality during the confirmation process. He was confirmed by a 50-48 in a mostly party-line vote.
Woodward was set to expose Kavanaugh as an anonymous source for his book, "Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate," which was written when Kavanaugh served as a member of independent counsel Ken Starr's team during its investigation into former President Bill Clinton. But Martin Baron, the executive editor of The Post, stopped him from doing so, sources at the outlet told Smith.
The revelation was discovered when journalists at The Post dug into Kavanaugh's history in the outlet's publishing system during his 2018 Supreme Court confirmation process.
The journalists found an article in which Woodward, who protected the identity of the Watergate source "Deep Throat" for three decades, "was going to unmask" Kavanaugh as one of the sources quoted in the book.
"Mr. Woodward was planning to expose Mr. Kavanaugh, because the judge had publicly denied — in a huffy letter in 1999 to The Post — an account about Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Bill Clinton that he had himself, confidentially, provided to Mr. Woodward for his book," Smith wrote. "The article, described by two Post journalists who read it, would have been explosive, arriving as the nominee battled a decades-old sexual assault allegation and was fighting to prove his integrity."
The article was "nearly ready" when Baron urged Woodward not to breach his arrangement with Kavanaugh to protect his identity, according to Smith. Baron and other editors "persuaded Mr. Woodward that it would be bad for The Post and 'bad for Bob' to disclose a source."
The story never ran as a result.
Smith wrote on Twitter that most of his sources at The Post agreed that Baron was right to protect the source but some journalists disagreed.
"If an anonymous source publicly disputes information they provided, journalists have absolutely no obligation to uphold a deal that's already been broken," Slate's Ashley Feinberg wrote.
"The Washington Post should explain what its policy is regarding unnamed sources," The Intercept's Jon Schwarz tweeted. "Do they grant anonymity on the condition that the sources are telling them the truth? Or do they grant anonymity that's irrevocable even if a source lies to them and they publish the lie?"
"Bob Woodward was sitting on clear evidence that seems to show Brett Kavanaugh had a history of brazen, shameless public lying—and the Post never ran the story," Reuters reporter Avi Ascher-Schapiro said.
It remains unclear how much the story would have influenced Kavanaugh's confirmation. The judge faced decades-old allegations of sexual assault and questions about his impartiality during the confirmation process. He was confirmed by a 50-48 in a mostly party-line vote.
Fox News lawyer tells judge that Tucker Carlson's audience doesn't expect him to report the facts
"It's not the front page of the New York Times," a network attorney says in court. "It's 'Tucker Carlson Tonight'"
ROGER SOLLENBERGER - salon
JUNE 18, 2020 8:46PM (UTC)
An attorney for Fox News told a New York federal judge at a preliminary hearing that Tucker Carlson's audience does not expect him to report the facts — even when Carlson tells his audience that he is doing so.
And the attorney further argued that Carlson has no duty to look into whether his statements are truthful.
"What we're talking about here, it's not the front page of the New York Times," Erin Murphy, the attorney, said. "It's 'Tucker Carlson Tonight,' which is a commentary show."
The statements come amid a slander lawsuit brought against the right-leaning network by Karen McDougal, the former Playmate model who was paid $150,000 by the National Enquirer in a "catch-and-kill" sting to silence her allegations about an affair with then-candidate Donald Trump, who at the time of the alleged incident was a reality TV competition host.
McDougal claims that Carlson defamed her on a December 2018 edition of his primetime show, at which time the host accused McDougal and Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) of "extorting" Trump.
"Remember the facts of the story: These are undisputed," Carlson said in the segment. "Two women approached Donald Trump and threatened to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn't give them money."
"Now, that sounds like a classic case of extortion," Carlson continued. "Yet, for whatever reason, Trump caves to it, and he directs Michael Cohen to pay the ransom. Now, more than two years later, Trump is a felon for doing this. It doesn't seem to make any sense."
"Oh, but you're not a federal prosecutor on a political mission," Carlson added. "If you were a federal prosecutor on a political mission, you would construe those extortion payments as campaign contributions."
The network wants the court to throw out the case on the argument that Carlson cannot defame anyone on his show, because his viewers do not expect him to state and verify facts. That would hinder McDougal's ability to prove that Carlson acted "with malice," which is the high bar of proof she must meet as a public figure.
Murphy, the Fox attorney, told the court that Carlson simply stirs the pot on his show — and a reasonable viewer would be able to discern between his "provocative things that will help me think harder" and straight news. The network airing Carlson's show also broadcasts news programming — and the word "news" is even in its name.
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil asked Murphy, "Does somebody in Mr. Carlson's position have the duty of inquiry?" (In other words: Would it be grossly negligent for a primetime host on a news network to accuse someone of a felony on his program without looking into whether facts support such an allegation?)
"Not as to an actual malice standard," Murphy answered. "The Supreme Court could not be clearer."
Negligence is not malice, and Carlson's mere "failure to investigate" does not cut it, she argued.
McDougal's lawyer, Eric Bernstein, pointed out that Carlson prefaced the false accusation by literally telling viewers it was a fact: "Remember the facts of the story: These are undisputed."
Even if you concede the point that Carlson's audience knows not to take him seriously as a source for information on which to reliably base decisions impacting the course of our democracy, his declaration in that moment sent a clear message, Bernstein argued.
"It's a beat change, if you're an actor," he said. "You can even see it on his face. He gets serious. He's not being dramatic."
In contrast to Murphy's argument — "What we're talking about here, it's not the front page of The New York Times" — Bernstein pointed out that Carlson had told viewers he was delivering the "gist" of a New York Times news report earlier in the segment.
Carlson added that he would assume — "for the sake of argument" — that Trump's former "fixer" Michael Cohen had told the truth. However, he cautioned that it was not a good idea to make such an assumption.
Carlson then said the "undisputed" facts were that McDougal had committed the crime of extortion.
Though the judge ultimately accepted the case, the jury is still out on whether Fox News primetime hosts are journalists, even among themselves.
"We have to give some credit to the American people that they are somewhat intelligent and that they know the difference between an opinion show and a news show," Sean Hannity once said.
When asked about possible professional conflicts from his friendship with Trump in 2016, Hannity told the told the New York Times: "I never claimed to be a journalist,"
"I'm not a journalist," Hannity tweeted that same year. "I'm a talk host."
The FBI did not consider Hannity a journalist for the purposes of the Mueller investigation, writing in one memo: "During the campaign, Hannity tailored his shows to the agenda Manafort suggested. Hannity called himself a 'pundit,' not a journalist."
But in a 2017 NYT interview, Hannity said: "I'm a journalist, but I'm an advocacy journalist, or an opinion journalist."
Former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith told Time magazine in 2018 that the opinion side of the network doesn't "really have rules" and exists "strictly to be entertaining."
"We serve different masters," he said. "We work for different reporting chains. We have different rules. They don't really have rules on the opinion side. They can say whatever they want — if it's their opinion."
Hannity then called Smith "clueless about what we do every day." Laura Ingraham weighed in to claim that her show reports things.
And in another shot at Smith, Hannity tweeted: "Hannity breaks news daily. Warrant on a Trump assoc, the unmasking scandal, leaking intel, Fisa abuse, HRC lawbreaking, dossier and more REAL NEWS!"
Tucker Carlson revealed last week that he sold off his stake in The Daily Caller — the news site he co-founded — last year. Salon exclusively reported Wednesday that The Daily Caller appears to have operated in violation of tax law, according to a complaint filed Tuesday with the IRS by a public transparency watchdog.
And the attorney further argued that Carlson has no duty to look into whether his statements are truthful.
"What we're talking about here, it's not the front page of the New York Times," Erin Murphy, the attorney, said. "It's 'Tucker Carlson Tonight,' which is a commentary show."
The statements come amid a slander lawsuit brought against the right-leaning network by Karen McDougal, the former Playmate model who was paid $150,000 by the National Enquirer in a "catch-and-kill" sting to silence her allegations about an affair with then-candidate Donald Trump, who at the time of the alleged incident was a reality TV competition host.
McDougal claims that Carlson defamed her on a December 2018 edition of his primetime show, at which time the host accused McDougal and Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) of "extorting" Trump.
"Remember the facts of the story: These are undisputed," Carlson said in the segment. "Two women approached Donald Trump and threatened to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn't give them money."
"Now, that sounds like a classic case of extortion," Carlson continued. "Yet, for whatever reason, Trump caves to it, and he directs Michael Cohen to pay the ransom. Now, more than two years later, Trump is a felon for doing this. It doesn't seem to make any sense."
"Oh, but you're not a federal prosecutor on a political mission," Carlson added. "If you were a federal prosecutor on a political mission, you would construe those extortion payments as campaign contributions."
The network wants the court to throw out the case on the argument that Carlson cannot defame anyone on his show, because his viewers do not expect him to state and verify facts. That would hinder McDougal's ability to prove that Carlson acted "with malice," which is the high bar of proof she must meet as a public figure.
Murphy, the Fox attorney, told the court that Carlson simply stirs the pot on his show — and a reasonable viewer would be able to discern between his "provocative things that will help me think harder" and straight news. The network airing Carlson's show also broadcasts news programming — and the word "news" is even in its name.
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil asked Murphy, "Does somebody in Mr. Carlson's position have the duty of inquiry?" (In other words: Would it be grossly negligent for a primetime host on a news network to accuse someone of a felony on his program without looking into whether facts support such an allegation?)
"Not as to an actual malice standard," Murphy answered. "The Supreme Court could not be clearer."
Negligence is not malice, and Carlson's mere "failure to investigate" does not cut it, she argued.
McDougal's lawyer, Eric Bernstein, pointed out that Carlson prefaced the false accusation by literally telling viewers it was a fact: "Remember the facts of the story: These are undisputed."
Even if you concede the point that Carlson's audience knows not to take him seriously as a source for information on which to reliably base decisions impacting the course of our democracy, his declaration in that moment sent a clear message, Bernstein argued.
"It's a beat change, if you're an actor," he said. "You can even see it on his face. He gets serious. He's not being dramatic."
In contrast to Murphy's argument — "What we're talking about here, it's not the front page of The New York Times" — Bernstein pointed out that Carlson had told viewers he was delivering the "gist" of a New York Times news report earlier in the segment.
Carlson added that he would assume — "for the sake of argument" — that Trump's former "fixer" Michael Cohen had told the truth. However, he cautioned that it was not a good idea to make such an assumption.
Carlson then said the "undisputed" facts were that McDougal had committed the crime of extortion.
Though the judge ultimately accepted the case, the jury is still out on whether Fox News primetime hosts are journalists, even among themselves.
"We have to give some credit to the American people that they are somewhat intelligent and that they know the difference between an opinion show and a news show," Sean Hannity once said.
When asked about possible professional conflicts from his friendship with Trump in 2016, Hannity told the told the New York Times: "I never claimed to be a journalist,"
"I'm not a journalist," Hannity tweeted that same year. "I'm a talk host."
The FBI did not consider Hannity a journalist for the purposes of the Mueller investigation, writing in one memo: "During the campaign, Hannity tailored his shows to the agenda Manafort suggested. Hannity called himself a 'pundit,' not a journalist."
But in a 2017 NYT interview, Hannity said: "I'm a journalist, but I'm an advocacy journalist, or an opinion journalist."
Former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith told Time magazine in 2018 that the opinion side of the network doesn't "really have rules" and exists "strictly to be entertaining."
"We serve different masters," he said. "We work for different reporting chains. We have different rules. They don't really have rules on the opinion side. They can say whatever they want — if it's their opinion."
Hannity then called Smith "clueless about what we do every day." Laura Ingraham weighed in to claim that her show reports things.
And in another shot at Smith, Hannity tweeted: "Hannity breaks news daily. Warrant on a Trump assoc, the unmasking scandal, leaking intel, Fisa abuse, HRC lawbreaking, dossier and more REAL NEWS!"
Tucker Carlson revealed last week that he sold off his stake in The Daily Caller — the news site he co-founded — last year. Salon exclusively reported Wednesday that The Daily Caller appears to have operated in violation of tax law, according to a complaint filed Tuesday with the IRS by a public transparency watchdog.
Corporate media is focusing on racism at last — but ducking economic injustice
Black people in America are subjected to grinding economic cruelty. We can't understand racism without facing that
NORMAN SOLOMON - salon
JUNE 13, 2020 10:00AM (UTC)
Grassroots outrage and nationwide protests after Minneapolis cops murdered George Floyd have pushed much of U.S. corporate media into focusing on deadly police mistreatment of black people. The coverage is far from comprehensive on the subject of racism in the "criminal justice" system — we're still hearing very little about the routine violations of basic rights in courtrooms and behind bars — yet there's no doubt that a breakthrough has occurred. The last two weeks have opened up a lot more media space for illuminating racial cruelty.
But what about economic cruelty?
Media outlets routinely detour around reasons why African Americans and other people of color are so disproportionately poor — and, as a result of poverty, are dying much younger than white people. The media ruts bypass confronting how the wealthy gain more wealth and large corporations reap more profits at the expense of poor and middle-income people.
The statistics are grim. For every black person killed by police, vastly more are dying because of a threadbare safety net, a lack of adequate employment and scant access to health care or social services.
Readily available numbers are indictments of systemic racism. At the same time, numbers tell us virtually nothing about the human essence of widespread, tragic and fully preventable suffering that, in the words of Marvin Gaye's brilliant song "Inner City Blues," make me wanna holler.
News media habitually tiptoe around deadly realities of economic oppression that are hidden in plain sight — so normalized that they're apt to seem perversely natural. Meanwhile, government is routinely portrayed as inherently hamstrung, lacking in funds and unable to cope. But from city halls and state legislatures to corridors of power in Washington, the priorities that hold sway are largely imposed by leverage from big corporations and the wealthy who want their financial interests protected.
"When we say #DefundPolice," Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., tweeted days ago, "what we mean is people are dying and we need to invest in people's livelihoods instead. Example: Detroit spent $294 million on police last year, and $9 million on health. This is systemic oppression in numbers."
The official city bar chart that accompanied Tlaib's tweet amounts to a smoking gun of ceaseless class war raging across the United States and far beyond. Huge numbers of people whose names we'll never know are casualties of that profit-driven war.
From from the slavery era onward, vicious economic exploitation has been central to the oppression of African Americans. In spite of that reality — and because of it — the prevailing power structure and its dominant media arms are eager to separate racial justice from economic justice.
Yet the separation is absurd and disingenuous. "A close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities," the Brookings Institution reported this year. The latest figures show that "the net worth of a typical white family is nearly 10 times greater than that of a black family." Those wealth gaps "reveal the effects of accumulated inequality and discrimination, as well as differences in power and opportunity that can be traced back to this nation's inception."
It's symbolic that while we've often heard that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I have a dream" speech at the historic march on Washington in 1963, the fact that it was called the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom" isn't often mentioned. Five years later, King was murdered while in Memphis to support a union struggle by exploited sanitation workers as he was immersed in planning the next stages of the Poor People's Campaign.
Today, the humongous gaps between wealth and poverty — and the lethal consequences of those gaps — are rarely in the mass media's focus. Empathy for low-income people might be fine in MediaLand, but they're commonly portrayed as victims of bad luck or personal failings, rather than the prey of victimizers who profit from immiseration.
As a practical matter, the economic ladder that keeps some people trapped on the lowest rungs is central to the health vulnerabilities of so many African Americans. Economic injustice is vital to the entire U.S. power structure. While many people of all races suffer as a result, people of color are at much greater risk.
In effect, corporate capitalism has proven itself to be fully capable of methodical sadism in the pursuit of maximizing profits. That ongoing reality, 24/7/365, is so routine — and so powerfully entrenched that even U.S. news outlets doing decent coverage of police violence can rarely supply clarity about the "free enterprise" economic violence that is taking countless lives.
But what about economic cruelty?
Media outlets routinely detour around reasons why African Americans and other people of color are so disproportionately poor — and, as a result of poverty, are dying much younger than white people. The media ruts bypass confronting how the wealthy gain more wealth and large corporations reap more profits at the expense of poor and middle-income people.
The statistics are grim. For every black person killed by police, vastly more are dying because of a threadbare safety net, a lack of adequate employment and scant access to health care or social services.
Readily available numbers are indictments of systemic racism. At the same time, numbers tell us virtually nothing about the human essence of widespread, tragic and fully preventable suffering that, in the words of Marvin Gaye's brilliant song "Inner City Blues," make me wanna holler.
News media habitually tiptoe around deadly realities of economic oppression that are hidden in plain sight — so normalized that they're apt to seem perversely natural. Meanwhile, government is routinely portrayed as inherently hamstrung, lacking in funds and unable to cope. But from city halls and state legislatures to corridors of power in Washington, the priorities that hold sway are largely imposed by leverage from big corporations and the wealthy who want their financial interests protected.
"When we say #DefundPolice," Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., tweeted days ago, "what we mean is people are dying and we need to invest in people's livelihoods instead. Example: Detroit spent $294 million on police last year, and $9 million on health. This is systemic oppression in numbers."
The official city bar chart that accompanied Tlaib's tweet amounts to a smoking gun of ceaseless class war raging across the United States and far beyond. Huge numbers of people whose names we'll never know are casualties of that profit-driven war.
From from the slavery era onward, vicious economic exploitation has been central to the oppression of African Americans. In spite of that reality — and because of it — the prevailing power structure and its dominant media arms are eager to separate racial justice from economic justice.
Yet the separation is absurd and disingenuous. "A close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities," the Brookings Institution reported this year. The latest figures show that "the net worth of a typical white family is nearly 10 times greater than that of a black family." Those wealth gaps "reveal the effects of accumulated inequality and discrimination, as well as differences in power and opportunity that can be traced back to this nation's inception."
It's symbolic that while we've often heard that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I have a dream" speech at the historic march on Washington in 1963, the fact that it was called the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom" isn't often mentioned. Five years later, King was murdered while in Memphis to support a union struggle by exploited sanitation workers as he was immersed in planning the next stages of the Poor People's Campaign.
Today, the humongous gaps between wealth and poverty — and the lethal consequences of those gaps — are rarely in the mass media's focus. Empathy for low-income people might be fine in MediaLand, but they're commonly portrayed as victims of bad luck or personal failings, rather than the prey of victimizers who profit from immiseration.
As a practical matter, the economic ladder that keeps some people trapped on the lowest rungs is central to the health vulnerabilities of so many African Americans. Economic injustice is vital to the entire U.S. power structure. While many people of all races suffer as a result, people of color are at much greater risk.
In effect, corporate capitalism has proven itself to be fully capable of methodical sadism in the pursuit of maximizing profits. That ongoing reality, 24/7/365, is so routine — and so powerfully entrenched that even U.S. news outlets doing decent coverage of police violence can rarely supply clarity about the "free enterprise" economic violence that is taking countless lives.
The Cesspool That Spat Out Trump’s New Conspiracy About Cops
A TREE GROWS IN TRUMPLAND
Here is how Trump got the idea that a 75-year-old protester who was pushed to the ground and bled out of his head may have been antifa. It’s as crazy as you can imagine.
Adam Rawnsley, Will Sommer - daily beast
Updated Jun. 09, 2020 5:04PM ET
Out of all the blogs on the pro-Trump internet, The Conservative Treehouse might be the strangest and most underappreciated in terms of its influence.
Its fans describe the comment section as “branches,” where they hang out to discuss the latest twist in the “Russiagate” saga or speculate feverishly about Donald Trump’s critics. The site’s owner, who has previously been identified as Florida resident Mark Bradman, rose to prominence during the George Zimmerman trial, outing an anonymous witness and declaring that Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager Zimmerman shot, was an “undisciplined punk thug, drug dealing, thief and wannabe gangsta.”
Since then, the site has been Patient Zero for a number of hoaxes that have percolated through right-wing media ecosystem, claiming that Puerto Rican truck drivers were withholding hurricane relief, or that a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was “weaponizing” the coronavirus to hurt Trump. Despite those hoaxes being quickly debunked, however, The Conservative Treehouse now ranks at roughly the 4,000th most-visited website in the United States, according to Alexa analytics.
Its zeal for the conspiratorial is so pronounced that even some of Donald Trump’s staunchest allies in right-wing media find the site’s devoted commenters and its pseudonymous operator, “Sundance,” bizarre. Talk radio host Mark Levin has called it a “kook site.” Former Breitbart reporter Lee Stranahan dubbed the site’s owner an “egocentric lunatic” with “cult-like followers.”
And yet, despite its reputation (or, perhaps, because of it) The Conservative Treehouse has the president’s ear.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted a conspiracy theory that originated on the site about Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old New York man who bled from his head after he was shoved down by Buffalo police officers while attending a protest. Trump claimed that Gugino, who remains in the hospital in serious but stable condition, wasn’t the peaceful protester he appeared to be but rather a potential “antifa provocateur” trying to “scan police communications in order to black out the equipment.”
“I watched, he fell harder than was pushed,” Trump tweeted. “Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”
The tweet was sparked by a segment on the Trump-fawning cable news network OAN, which was based on a blog post from The Conservative Treehouse. And it represented yet another instance of how the president’s penchant for uncritically amplifying those willing to flatter or absolve his views has vaulted the dregs of the Internet’s conspiracy theorists into national prominence.
The OAN segment was reported by Kristian Rouz, a Russian journalist who pulled double duty working for the Russian state propaganda channel Sputnik as well as OAN. In it, Rouz claimed Gugino was using “common antifa tactics” and that the incident was "a false flag provocation by far-left group antifa." He cited The Conservative Treehouse as evidence that Gugino was using a “police tracker” on his phone during the encounter.
The Conservative Treehouse post had, indeed, falsely claimed that Gugino used a sophisticated communications device to “scan the mic” of one policeman. “Once the frequency is captured (ie cloned) you can track the device, duplicate the signal and/or listen to a transmission,” the post reads.
And a Twitter thread preceding the article, The Conservative Treehouse’s Twitter account, @TheLastRefuge2, warned its nearly 180,000 followers that the same technology is used by “trackers” who use it to “electronically rob you without ever going in your house.”
There are plenty of holes in the theory that Gugino was committing high-tech espionage for antifa. For one thing, Gugino is not a member of antifa, but rather a longtime activist with the Catholic Worker movement and other community-based social justice activist groups. And the supposed “scanning” he is accused of conducting is technological gibberish, unsupported by evidence.
That context, naturally, never made it into The Conservative Treehouse post. And Trump’s amplification of their claims only underscored the payoff that can come with the spreading of disinformation aimed at undermining liberals and firing up the right. The website and Bradman, its purported owner, didn’t return requests for comment.
The Conservative Treehouse gained prominence during the Tea Party movement and the Zimmerman trial, with Zimmerman’s father praising its commenters’ research as “astonishing.” During the racially-charged trial, The Conservative Treehouse owner “Sundance” went by “Sundance Cracker,” an alias he later dropped.
During the Zimmerman trial, The Conservative Treehouse’s unusually intense commenting community, which drives much of the narratives eventually featured on the site, began to emerge. The amateur-sleuth commenters had such an outsized influence that Zimmerman’s defense attorney corresponded with one of the commenters, who referred to themselves as a member of the “the treehouse think tank.”
Since the trial, The Conservative Treehouse has embraced a wide variety of right-wing causes, including Republican investigations in the 2012 attack on an American compound in Benghazi, Libya, and the Bundy family’s Malheur wildlife refuge takeover in Oregon. In the Trump era, The Conservative Treehouse became a hub for the conspiracy theory that the Russia investigation was cooked up to undermine Trump by nefarious members of the deep-state, with Sundance and his commenters weaving elaborate stories about then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller or, later, the Ukraine impeachment.
The Conservative Treehouse has long been a fan of Trump and the president has returned the favor, dating back to Trump’s days as a Republican presidential hopeful in 2015.
As Trump’s campaign moved from sideshow to frontrunner status, The Conservative Treehouse’s Twitter account trumpeted poll after poll showing the former real estate mogul besting the other candidates in the race for the nomination—earning retweets and shoutouts from the candidate himself. Trump took particular pleasure in citing the author’s attacks on his rivals in Florida: former Governor Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio.
The Conservative Treehouse’s operator and loyal audience have frequently clashed with other conservative personalities. Stranahan has tweeted that Breitbart founder Andrew Breitbart would have hated the site’s pseudonymous operator, “Sundance,” even though the late conservative provocateur’s image tops The Conservative Treehouse’s website banner.
The site has also been slammed by Levin, the conservative talk radio host. After The Conservative Treehouse published stories suggesting the talk radio host was in the tank for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) during the 2016 Republican primary, Levin taunted Bradman, a former Publix supermarket employee, calling him a “disgruntled former grocery clerk” in Facebook posts.
“The more we learn about Bradman and his ‘Conservative Treehouse’ site, the more you wonder what this kook is up to,” Levin wrote.
Despite the opposition, though, The Conservative Treehouse has made inroads into more mainstream right-wing media outlets. It’s been praised on-air by Fox Business Network anchor Lou Dobbs, who urged his viewers to check out the site’s blog posts about the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia.
"I want to give a shout-out to TheConservativeTreehouse.com,” Dobbs said. “They have done an amazing job of chronicling, cataloguing the content — just a terrific job."
Its fans describe the comment section as “branches,” where they hang out to discuss the latest twist in the “Russiagate” saga or speculate feverishly about Donald Trump’s critics. The site’s owner, who has previously been identified as Florida resident Mark Bradman, rose to prominence during the George Zimmerman trial, outing an anonymous witness and declaring that Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager Zimmerman shot, was an “undisciplined punk thug, drug dealing, thief and wannabe gangsta.”
Since then, the site has been Patient Zero for a number of hoaxes that have percolated through right-wing media ecosystem, claiming that Puerto Rican truck drivers were withholding hurricane relief, or that a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was “weaponizing” the coronavirus to hurt Trump. Despite those hoaxes being quickly debunked, however, The Conservative Treehouse now ranks at roughly the 4,000th most-visited website in the United States, according to Alexa analytics.
Its zeal for the conspiratorial is so pronounced that even some of Donald Trump’s staunchest allies in right-wing media find the site’s devoted commenters and its pseudonymous operator, “Sundance,” bizarre. Talk radio host Mark Levin has called it a “kook site.” Former Breitbart reporter Lee Stranahan dubbed the site’s owner an “egocentric lunatic” with “cult-like followers.”
And yet, despite its reputation (or, perhaps, because of it) The Conservative Treehouse has the president’s ear.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted a conspiracy theory that originated on the site about Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old New York man who bled from his head after he was shoved down by Buffalo police officers while attending a protest. Trump claimed that Gugino, who remains in the hospital in serious but stable condition, wasn’t the peaceful protester he appeared to be but rather a potential “antifa provocateur” trying to “scan police communications in order to black out the equipment.”
“I watched, he fell harder than was pushed,” Trump tweeted. “Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”
The tweet was sparked by a segment on the Trump-fawning cable news network OAN, which was based on a blog post from The Conservative Treehouse. And it represented yet another instance of how the president’s penchant for uncritically amplifying those willing to flatter or absolve his views has vaulted the dregs of the Internet’s conspiracy theorists into national prominence.
The OAN segment was reported by Kristian Rouz, a Russian journalist who pulled double duty working for the Russian state propaganda channel Sputnik as well as OAN. In it, Rouz claimed Gugino was using “common antifa tactics” and that the incident was "a false flag provocation by far-left group antifa." He cited The Conservative Treehouse as evidence that Gugino was using a “police tracker” on his phone during the encounter.
The Conservative Treehouse post had, indeed, falsely claimed that Gugino used a sophisticated communications device to “scan the mic” of one policeman. “Once the frequency is captured (ie cloned) you can track the device, duplicate the signal and/or listen to a transmission,” the post reads.
And a Twitter thread preceding the article, The Conservative Treehouse’s Twitter account, @TheLastRefuge2, warned its nearly 180,000 followers that the same technology is used by “trackers” who use it to “electronically rob you without ever going in your house.”
There are plenty of holes in the theory that Gugino was committing high-tech espionage for antifa. For one thing, Gugino is not a member of antifa, but rather a longtime activist with the Catholic Worker movement and other community-based social justice activist groups. And the supposed “scanning” he is accused of conducting is technological gibberish, unsupported by evidence.
That context, naturally, never made it into The Conservative Treehouse post. And Trump’s amplification of their claims only underscored the payoff that can come with the spreading of disinformation aimed at undermining liberals and firing up the right. The website and Bradman, its purported owner, didn’t return requests for comment.
The Conservative Treehouse gained prominence during the Tea Party movement and the Zimmerman trial, with Zimmerman’s father praising its commenters’ research as “astonishing.” During the racially-charged trial, The Conservative Treehouse owner “Sundance” went by “Sundance Cracker,” an alias he later dropped.
During the Zimmerman trial, The Conservative Treehouse’s unusually intense commenting community, which drives much of the narratives eventually featured on the site, began to emerge. The amateur-sleuth commenters had such an outsized influence that Zimmerman’s defense attorney corresponded with one of the commenters, who referred to themselves as a member of the “the treehouse think tank.”
Since the trial, The Conservative Treehouse has embraced a wide variety of right-wing causes, including Republican investigations in the 2012 attack on an American compound in Benghazi, Libya, and the Bundy family’s Malheur wildlife refuge takeover in Oregon. In the Trump era, The Conservative Treehouse became a hub for the conspiracy theory that the Russia investigation was cooked up to undermine Trump by nefarious members of the deep-state, with Sundance and his commenters weaving elaborate stories about then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller or, later, the Ukraine impeachment.
The Conservative Treehouse has long been a fan of Trump and the president has returned the favor, dating back to Trump’s days as a Republican presidential hopeful in 2015.
As Trump’s campaign moved from sideshow to frontrunner status, The Conservative Treehouse’s Twitter account trumpeted poll after poll showing the former real estate mogul besting the other candidates in the race for the nomination—earning retweets and shoutouts from the candidate himself. Trump took particular pleasure in citing the author’s attacks on his rivals in Florida: former Governor Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio.
The Conservative Treehouse’s operator and loyal audience have frequently clashed with other conservative personalities. Stranahan has tweeted that Breitbart founder Andrew Breitbart would have hated the site’s pseudonymous operator, “Sundance,” even though the late conservative provocateur’s image tops The Conservative Treehouse’s website banner.
The site has also been slammed by Levin, the conservative talk radio host. After The Conservative Treehouse published stories suggesting the talk radio host was in the tank for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) during the 2016 Republican primary, Levin taunted Bradman, a former Publix supermarket employee, calling him a “disgruntled former grocery clerk” in Facebook posts.
“The more we learn about Bradman and his ‘Conservative Treehouse’ site, the more you wonder what this kook is up to,” Levin wrote.
Despite the opposition, though, The Conservative Treehouse has made inroads into more mainstream right-wing media outlets. It’s been praised on-air by Fox Business Network anchor Lou Dobbs, who urged his viewers to check out the site’s blog posts about the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia.
"I want to give a shout-out to TheConservativeTreehouse.com,” Dobbs said. “They have done an amazing job of chronicling, cataloguing the content — just a terrific job."
BUSTED: Key Trump aide caught pushing racist vigilantism on social media
June 6, 2020
By Bob Brigham - raw story
Video of a chainsaw-wielding Texas man threatening protesters while shouting the n-word went viral on Friday.
While many people were shocked by the video, one of President Donald Trump’s top advisors supported the racism and vigilantism in documented in the video, according to a new report.
“President Donald Trump and his allies for years have amplified racist messages on Twitter while simultaneously reaching out to black and Hispanic voters, a dissonant balancing act that’s now rocking the GOP amid nationwide racial-justice protests,” Politico reported Saturday. “The two competing forces collided Saturday on the Twitter feed of Trump campaign senior adviser Mercedes Schlapp, when she boosted a tweet that lauded a man in Texas in a viral video as he yelled the n-word and wielded a chainsaw to chase away anti-racism demonstrators.”
Apparently Schlapp thought her post wouldn’t be as offensive if the n-word were edited out.
“After POLITICO reached out to her and the campaign, Schlapp then retweeted another account that posted a version of the video that muted the racist slur,” Politico noted. It appears both posts have subsequently been scrubbed from her Twitter account.
“Beyond Trump’s inner circle, Republicans have been under fire over racist social-media posts in Texas, where the chainsaw incident happened, triggering strife within GOP circles,” Politico explained. “Against this backdrop, Schlapp‘s retweet highlighted how the Trump campaign operates in contradictory worlds of its own making. On one hand, Schlapp favorably promoted a man spewing anti-black racism and on the other she urged black people to vote for Trump just three days prior in an online campaign discussion on race.”
While many people were shocked by the video, one of President Donald Trump’s top advisors supported the racism and vigilantism in documented in the video, according to a new report.
“President Donald Trump and his allies for years have amplified racist messages on Twitter while simultaneously reaching out to black and Hispanic voters, a dissonant balancing act that’s now rocking the GOP amid nationwide racial-justice protests,” Politico reported Saturday. “The two competing forces collided Saturday on the Twitter feed of Trump campaign senior adviser Mercedes Schlapp, when she boosted a tweet that lauded a man in Texas in a viral video as he yelled the n-word and wielded a chainsaw to chase away anti-racism demonstrators.”
Apparently Schlapp thought her post wouldn’t be as offensive if the n-word were edited out.
“After POLITICO reached out to her and the campaign, Schlapp then retweeted another account that posted a version of the video that muted the racist slur,” Politico noted. It appears both posts have subsequently been scrubbed from her Twitter account.
“Beyond Trump’s inner circle, Republicans have been under fire over racist social-media posts in Texas, where the chainsaw incident happened, triggering strife within GOP circles,” Politico explained. “Against this backdrop, Schlapp‘s retweet highlighted how the Trump campaign operates in contradictory worlds of its own making. On one hand, Schlapp favorably promoted a man spewing anti-black racism and on the other she urged black people to vote for Trump just three days prior in an online campaign discussion on race.”
Fox News Lies In Support Of Trump: 'Tear Gas Was Not Used' In DC
Fox news reporters primary job is to lie and lie and lie for Trump. The gas used in Lafayette Square was actually teargas according to CDC definitions.
By John Amato - crooks & liars
6/03/20 10:17am
The Trump administration is so chaotic that their attempts to pretend what you actually saw did not happen, sometimes works to divert the national conversation.
Gaslighting is the norm for Trump and his sycophants.
On Tuesday's Fox and Friends, reporter Griff Jenkins did not refute Steve Doocy or any of the reports saying teargas, flash bangs and rubber bullets were used against peaceful protesters. Instead, he justified the use of force against civilians by the fact that Trump is the leader of the free world and they should've moved out of the way.
"So, there's criticism on the force that should have perhaps been used but when you're talking about the leader of the free world in the president of the United States -- you don't want to be in the way and disobey their efforts to clear this area. I understand this criticism coming but this is (as he pointed behind him) a very secure area right now it is locked down."
Fast forward to today and now he's singing a different song.
Forget about what all our eyes saw, because if Trump says it didn't happen, well then.
Fox and Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked Jenkins if teargas was actually used since now the White House is claiming they did not use it against peaceful protesters.
"Is that accurate?" she asked.
Here comes Griff to the rescue, all in on the newest lie from the White house.
Jenkins replied, "There is clarity on that point. And, no, tear gas was not used. The park police issuing a statement saying they did not use tear gas. They used the pepper spray that they use, far less lethal. And we also know, Ainsley, that Attorney General Bill Barr now saying that he ordered that park be cleared after projectiles were thrown, not only yesterday but in previous days.
After defending the use of force against the protesters, he said, "And so we are learning more about it. But the park police very much wanting to say that the accusations of tear gas not accurate."
And the CDC is calling what law enforcement used on the peaceful protestors, teargas.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Riot control agents (sometimes referred to as “tear gas”) are chemical compounds that temporarily make people unable to function by causing irritation to the eyes, mouth, throat, lungs, and skin.”And, according to the CDC, “several different compounds” fall under this definition, and are employed by security forces, including military and police, in riot control situations.Among others, they include chloroacetophenone (CN), more commonly referred to as “mace,” or pepper sprays — in other words, the compound that was deployed in Lafayette Square — and chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile (CS), “one of the most commonly used tear gases in the world,” according to an article in the British Medical Journal.
Gaslighting is the norm for Trump and his sycophants.
On Tuesday's Fox and Friends, reporter Griff Jenkins did not refute Steve Doocy or any of the reports saying teargas, flash bangs and rubber bullets were used against peaceful protesters. Instead, he justified the use of force against civilians by the fact that Trump is the leader of the free world and they should've moved out of the way.
"So, there's criticism on the force that should have perhaps been used but when you're talking about the leader of the free world in the president of the United States -- you don't want to be in the way and disobey their efforts to clear this area. I understand this criticism coming but this is (as he pointed behind him) a very secure area right now it is locked down."
Fast forward to today and now he's singing a different song.
Forget about what all our eyes saw, because if Trump says it didn't happen, well then.
Fox and Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked Jenkins if teargas was actually used since now the White House is claiming they did not use it against peaceful protesters.
"Is that accurate?" she asked.
Here comes Griff to the rescue, all in on the newest lie from the White house.
Jenkins replied, "There is clarity on that point. And, no, tear gas was not used. The park police issuing a statement saying they did not use tear gas. They used the pepper spray that they use, far less lethal. And we also know, Ainsley, that Attorney General Bill Barr now saying that he ordered that park be cleared after projectiles were thrown, not only yesterday but in previous days.
After defending the use of force against the protesters, he said, "And so we are learning more about it. But the park police very much wanting to say that the accusations of tear gas not accurate."
And the CDC is calling what law enforcement used on the peaceful protestors, teargas.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Riot control agents (sometimes referred to as “tear gas”) are chemical compounds that temporarily make people unable to function by causing irritation to the eyes, mouth, throat, lungs, and skin.”And, according to the CDC, “several different compounds” fall under this definition, and are employed by security forces, including military and police, in riot control situations.Among others, they include chloroacetophenone (CN), more commonly referred to as “mace,” or pepper sprays — in other words, the compound that was deployed in Lafayette Square — and chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile (CS), “one of the most commonly used tear gases in the world,” according to an article in the British Medical Journal.
greedy fools never understand!!!
Black leader ‘stunned’ after phone call with Facebook’s Zuckerberg: He ‘lacks the ability to understand’ race issues
June 2, 2020
By Tom Boggioni - raw story
According to a report from Bloomberg, Black civil rights leaders who participated in a conference call with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg walked away afterward “disappointed and stunned” at the tech billionaire’s seeming inability to understand issues that impact African-Americans.
The report notes that part of the discussion involved Zuckerberg’s decision to ignore and dismiss comments made by Donald Trump about police brutality protesters — with one Black leader calling the exec’s explanation “incomprehensible.”
According to Bloomberg’s Jeff Green, “Mark Zuckerberg hosted a nearly hour-long video call with U.S. civil rights leaders to discuss ongoing issues around his company’s policies as they relate to race, elections and other topics,” before adding it didn’t go well based on comments from Color of Change President Rashad Robinson.
In an interview, Robinson lamented, “… the problem with my ongoing conversations with Mark, is that I feel like I spent a lot of time, and my colleagues spent a lot of time, explaining to him why these things are a problem, and I think he just very much lacks the ability to understand it.”
Pointing out that Zuckerberg’s hands-off approach when it comes to Trump is baffling in light of the president’s threat that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” with regard to George Floyd protesters, Robinson noted that the Facebook executive is bucking his own employees who are furious with him.
“His employees are outraged,” explained Robinson. “I’ve got outreach from some of them. Saying Black Lives Matter, saying I’m going to give money, but having your policies actually hurt black people, people will know the difference.”
While a spokesperson for Facebook praised the get-together by issuing a statement saying the tech giant is “… grateful that leaders in the civil rights community took the time to share candid, honest feedback,” Robinson differed with their appraisal of how it went with the company’s founder.
“He continues to do things and make decisions that hurt communities and put people in harm’s way and is not accountable for it,” explained Robinson.
You can read more here (subscription required).
The report notes that part of the discussion involved Zuckerberg’s decision to ignore and dismiss comments made by Donald Trump about police brutality protesters — with one Black leader calling the exec’s explanation “incomprehensible.”
According to Bloomberg’s Jeff Green, “Mark Zuckerberg hosted a nearly hour-long video call with U.S. civil rights leaders to discuss ongoing issues around his company’s policies as they relate to race, elections and other topics,” before adding it didn’t go well based on comments from Color of Change President Rashad Robinson.
In an interview, Robinson lamented, “… the problem with my ongoing conversations with Mark, is that I feel like I spent a lot of time, and my colleagues spent a lot of time, explaining to him why these things are a problem, and I think he just very much lacks the ability to understand it.”
Pointing out that Zuckerberg’s hands-off approach when it comes to Trump is baffling in light of the president’s threat that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” with regard to George Floyd protesters, Robinson noted that the Facebook executive is bucking his own employees who are furious with him.
“His employees are outraged,” explained Robinson. “I’ve got outreach from some of them. Saying Black Lives Matter, saying I’m going to give money, but having your policies actually hurt black people, people will know the difference.”
While a spokesperson for Facebook praised the get-together by issuing a statement saying the tech giant is “… grateful that leaders in the civil rights community took the time to share candid, honest feedback,” Robinson differed with their appraisal of how it went with the company’s founder.
“He continues to do things and make decisions that hurt communities and put people in harm’s way and is not accountable for it,” explained Robinson.
You can read more here (subscription required).
Facebook pulled ‘thriving’ white supremacist accounts after being called out in new report
May 23, 2020
By Bob Brigham - raw story
Facebook took down dozens of white supremacist pages after being contacted by the Huffington Post.
“A new study reported that white supremacist groups are “thriving” on Facebook, despite repeated assurances from the company that it doesn’t allow extremists on its platform,” Huffington Post reported. “The watchdog group Tech Transparency Project released a study Thursday that found more than 100 white supremacist groups had a presence on Facebook.”
The report is titled “White Supremacist Groups Are Thriving on Facebook” (PDF).
“Dozens of white supremacist groups are operating freely on Facebook, allowing them to spread their message and recruit new members, according to a Tech Transparency Project (TTP) investigation, which found the activity is continuing despite years of promises by the social network that it bans hate organizations,” the report explained. “TTP recently documented how online extremists, including many with white supremacist views, are using Facebook to plan for a militant uprising dubbed the ‘boogaloo,’ as they stoke fears that coronavirus lockdowns are a sign of rising government repression. But TTP’s latest investigation reveals Facebook’s broader problems with white supremacist groups, which are using the social network’s unmatched reach to build their movement.”
The report explained that TTP “conducted searches on Facebook for the names of 221 white supremacist organizations that have been designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), two leading anti-hate organizations.”
“Of the 221 designated white supremacist organizations, more than half—51%, or 113 groups—had a presence on Facebook,” the report noted. “Those organizations are associated with a total of 153 Facebook Pages and four Facebook Groups. Roughly one third of the organizations (34) had two or more Pages or Groups on Facebook. Some had Pages that have been active on the platform for a decade.”
Some of those pages have since been removed from the social networking platform.
“After HuffPost emailed a Facebook spokesperson about TTP’s report this week, project researchers noticed the company had removed pages for 55 white supremacist groups identified in its report,” the site noted. “Still, many white supremacist organizations identified in TTP’s report remain on Facebook. One user-created page for Arktos Media — the fascist European publishing house with close ties to American white supremacist Richard Spencer — is still active. More than 42,000 people have liked the page. A page for the hate group Fight White Genocide, which has more than 1,000 likes, is still active. A trio of years-old pages or groups called Right Wing Death Squad are also still online.”
“A new study reported that white supremacist groups are “thriving” on Facebook, despite repeated assurances from the company that it doesn’t allow extremists on its platform,” Huffington Post reported. “The watchdog group Tech Transparency Project released a study Thursday that found more than 100 white supremacist groups had a presence on Facebook.”
The report is titled “White Supremacist Groups Are Thriving on Facebook” (PDF).
“Dozens of white supremacist groups are operating freely on Facebook, allowing them to spread their message and recruit new members, according to a Tech Transparency Project (TTP) investigation, which found the activity is continuing despite years of promises by the social network that it bans hate organizations,” the report explained. “TTP recently documented how online extremists, including many with white supremacist views, are using Facebook to plan for a militant uprising dubbed the ‘boogaloo,’ as they stoke fears that coronavirus lockdowns are a sign of rising government repression. But TTP’s latest investigation reveals Facebook’s broader problems with white supremacist groups, which are using the social network’s unmatched reach to build their movement.”
The report explained that TTP “conducted searches on Facebook for the names of 221 white supremacist organizations that have been designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), two leading anti-hate organizations.”
“Of the 221 designated white supremacist organizations, more than half—51%, or 113 groups—had a presence on Facebook,” the report noted. “Those organizations are associated with a total of 153 Facebook Pages and four Facebook Groups. Roughly one third of the organizations (34) had two or more Pages or Groups on Facebook. Some had Pages that have been active on the platform for a decade.”
Some of those pages have since been removed from the social networking platform.
“After HuffPost emailed a Facebook spokesperson about TTP’s report this week, project researchers noticed the company had removed pages for 55 white supremacist groups identified in its report,” the site noted. “Still, many white supremacist organizations identified in TTP’s report remain on Facebook. One user-created page for Arktos Media — the fascist European publishing house with close ties to American white supremacist Richard Spencer — is still active. More than 42,000 people have liked the page. A page for the hate group Fight White Genocide, which has more than 1,000 likes, is still active. A trio of years-old pages or groups called Right Wing Death Squad are also still online.”
Fox And Friends Urges New Yorkers To Disobey COVID19 Lock Down
They said while being safely sequestered in their homes and other isolated locations. Hypocrites!
By John Amato - crooks & liars
5/21/20 9:17am
Fox News and many other Trumpian outlets, worried about Trump's reelection prospects, have been demanding that the public defy all stay-at-home orders.
Everyone should go "back to normal," except those recommending it are definitely not.
This morning Fox News went ballistic over an OpEd in the New York Post because the writer wants NY's stay-at-home orders to end NOW NOW NOW!!!
Andrew Napolitano did a great job during the Trump impeachment, but he is a civil libertarian who hates the government "interfering with our personal lives." His voice against stay-at-home orders agreed with the three-headed sycophants at Fox and Friends.
Co-host Ainsley Earhardt read a portion of the idiotic New York Post OpEd to him.
"‘The Big Apple is dying. Its streets are empty, tens of thousands have been plunged into poverty. Our leaders have no plans, no answers, New Yorkers have already learned to socially distance, businesses can adjust, the elderly and infirm can continue to be isolated.’ And then in bold letters, ‘It needs to end now!'”
Judge Napolitano agreed. "Enough is enough, " he said.
They seem to believe that every person in the United States will be 100% compliant with the CDC guidelines of wearing masks and social distancing in the pandemic.
Oh, yeah, we're in the midst of a pandemic, a**holes.
They attacked Mayor De Blasio and Gov Cuomo (familiar targets for them) as if all they want is to drink the blood of New York City. It's ridiculous.
Brian Kilmeade was ecstatic, “Judge, you’re 100% right." He attacked the NYC mayor again for trying to stop the spread of the virus.
"It nuts what's going on here," he screeched.
Kilmeade was furious that New Yorkers are complying with the stay-at-home order, and said the Post article is "calling for people just to massively open up their businesses throughout the city. They can’t stop everyone.”
But the en masse screaming by Fox News to have all city residents ( except for the sick and elderly because their job is to die already to help the economy) refuse to comply with state and city stay-at-home laws is outrageous and will end up getting more Americans infected -- as we've already seen in the states that have reopened.
An as Tommy Christopher noted, "The denizens of Fox & Friends urged New York businesses to reopen en masse despite lockdown orders and a still-deadly coronavirus pandemic, but they did so from the safety of their own homes and secure locations.
Why aren't Doocy, Kilmeade and Earhardt doing their show with a full audience in their studio?
It's okay for YOU to die for Trump, but not them.
A reminder:
Ted
@trom771
Fox "news" has been downplaying the effects of a virus that's now killing thousands of Americans every day. They just sent a memo to all their employees telling them they should work from home until at least June 15th. Because of the virus.
9:45 AM - May 14, 2020
Everyone should go "back to normal," except those recommending it are definitely not.
This morning Fox News went ballistic over an OpEd in the New York Post because the writer wants NY's stay-at-home orders to end NOW NOW NOW!!!
Andrew Napolitano did a great job during the Trump impeachment, but he is a civil libertarian who hates the government "interfering with our personal lives." His voice against stay-at-home orders agreed with the three-headed sycophants at Fox and Friends.
Co-host Ainsley Earhardt read a portion of the idiotic New York Post OpEd to him.
"‘The Big Apple is dying. Its streets are empty, tens of thousands have been plunged into poverty. Our leaders have no plans, no answers, New Yorkers have already learned to socially distance, businesses can adjust, the elderly and infirm can continue to be isolated.’ And then in bold letters, ‘It needs to end now!'”
Judge Napolitano agreed. "Enough is enough, " he said.
They seem to believe that every person in the United States will be 100% compliant with the CDC guidelines of wearing masks and social distancing in the pandemic.
Oh, yeah, we're in the midst of a pandemic, a**holes.
They attacked Mayor De Blasio and Gov Cuomo (familiar targets for them) as if all they want is to drink the blood of New York City. It's ridiculous.
Brian Kilmeade was ecstatic, “Judge, you’re 100% right." He attacked the NYC mayor again for trying to stop the spread of the virus.
"It nuts what's going on here," he screeched.
Kilmeade was furious that New Yorkers are complying with the stay-at-home order, and said the Post article is "calling for people just to massively open up their businesses throughout the city. They can’t stop everyone.”
But the en masse screaming by Fox News to have all city residents ( except for the sick and elderly because their job is to die already to help the economy) refuse to comply with state and city stay-at-home laws is outrageous and will end up getting more Americans infected -- as we've already seen in the states that have reopened.
An as Tommy Christopher noted, "The denizens of Fox & Friends urged New York businesses to reopen en masse despite lockdown orders and a still-deadly coronavirus pandemic, but they did so from the safety of their own homes and secure locations.
Why aren't Doocy, Kilmeade and Earhardt doing their show with a full audience in their studio?
It's okay for YOU to die for Trump, but not them.
A reminder:
Ted
@trom771
Fox "news" has been downplaying the effects of a virus that's now killing thousands of Americans every day. They just sent a memo to all their employees telling them they should work from home until at least June 15th. Because of the virus.
9:45 AM - May 14, 2020
Fox News Has Been Lying Its Aging Viewers Into Early Graves
BY William Rivers Pitt, Truthout
PUBLISHED April 2, 2020
That moment when you step back from yourself and realize every cell and fiber in your body is a gusting scream of fury and fear so encompassing that you are thrumming on a subharmonic level, yet simultaneously you are so quiescent that the purring cat asleep on your chest has no idea of your condition — that is my personal resting face today.
There are cruise ships stacked up off the coast of Florida filled with sick people and corpses: 808 guests and 583 crew on the good ship Rotterdam, 442 guests and 603 crew on the Zaandam. Neither Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, nor the Republican president of the United States, Donald Trump, seem to know what to do about it.
“Trump on Tuesday night said he had planned to discuss the situation with DeSantis,” reported CNN. “‘People are dying on the ship, or at least very sick, but they are dying on the ship,’ Trump said. ‘So, I’m going to do what is right.’” As of this morning, those ships remain outside U.S. waters, waiting for the word.
Those ships, and those trapped people, are a metaphor for what the entire state of Florida — indeed, whole swaths of “Red State America” — are on the verge of experiencing, thanks entirely to an expeditious virus and the Republican hucksters who helped it spread. Thus far, COVID-19 has spent its wrath in places like New York, Seattle and Detroit. The storm is now coming to the farther reaches, to Fox News, to the doorstep of Trump’s most devout adherents, and it will be a horror when it happens.
“A review of hundreds of hours of programming and social media traffic from Jan. 1 through mid-March, when the White House started urging people to stay home and limit their exposure to others — shows that doubt, cynicism and misinformation about the virus took root among many of Mr. Trump’s boosters in the right-wing media as the number of confirmed cases in the United States grew,” reports The New York Times.
Here is the present truth: A doctor can go on Fox News, speak basic and elemental facts about the coronavirus pandemic and become an immediate folk hero not for what he said, but for where he said it. Rishi Desai went on the mothership of right-wing folderol — live, no less — and lit into the Trump administration’s ongoing failure to get COVID-19 testing up and running on a national level. It was a moment of pure astonishment, a shard of light cracking the clouds.
Meanwhile, the core personality of that pestiferous network — Sean Hannity — can almost simultaneously spend an entire broadcast melting down at critics who correctly point out that he and his co-workers have been lying their own loyal viewers into early graves because protecting Trump is more important than protecting people in Florida, or anywhere else.
I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, of course, but if I don’t say it out loud, my head will become a pillar of fire and that purring cat will run screaming. Never in history have two organizations — Fox and the GOP — been more utterly devoted to destroying their own foundations, and it is a dismal thing to encompass.
Fox News and the Republican Party exist today because of older white people who live in rural and suburban places. If you had sat down last December and hatched a plan specifically calculated to damage that sector of the populace, you could not have done better than Fox and the GOP have through their defense of Trump and their simple greedy negligence. COVID-19 is almost perfectly designed to attack older Americans, and still the Republican governor of Florida balks at protecting his aged population, because doing so might make Trump look bad.
We are told by the minute and the hour that ours is a divided nation, that conservatives hate liberals and vice versa, and that nary the twain shall meet unless it is at the point of bayonets. Yet my shoulders today are so tense you could use them as a whetstone because — just as I am terrified for older and immunosuppressed people everywhere — I am terrified for Florida, for “Red State America,” for the millions of people who are going to suffer and die because they trusted this president.
My heart is shattered at the thought of what is to come. I wish most devoutly that it was going to be different than it is, but that is futility. All of us — Red States and Blue States — are on the verge of bearing witness to a bloodletting that will leave us on our knees. It did not have to be this way, and I can’t stop weeping.
There are cruise ships stacked up off the coast of Florida filled with sick people and corpses: 808 guests and 583 crew on the good ship Rotterdam, 442 guests and 603 crew on the Zaandam. Neither Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, nor the Republican president of the United States, Donald Trump, seem to know what to do about it.
“Trump on Tuesday night said he had planned to discuss the situation with DeSantis,” reported CNN. “‘People are dying on the ship, or at least very sick, but they are dying on the ship,’ Trump said. ‘So, I’m going to do what is right.’” As of this morning, those ships remain outside U.S. waters, waiting for the word.
Those ships, and those trapped people, are a metaphor for what the entire state of Florida — indeed, whole swaths of “Red State America” — are on the verge of experiencing, thanks entirely to an expeditious virus and the Republican hucksters who helped it spread. Thus far, COVID-19 has spent its wrath in places like New York, Seattle and Detroit. The storm is now coming to the farther reaches, to Fox News, to the doorstep of Trump’s most devout adherents, and it will be a horror when it happens.
“A review of hundreds of hours of programming and social media traffic from Jan. 1 through mid-March, when the White House started urging people to stay home and limit their exposure to others — shows that doubt, cynicism and misinformation about the virus took root among many of Mr. Trump’s boosters in the right-wing media as the number of confirmed cases in the United States grew,” reports The New York Times.
Here is the present truth: A doctor can go on Fox News, speak basic and elemental facts about the coronavirus pandemic and become an immediate folk hero not for what he said, but for where he said it. Rishi Desai went on the mothership of right-wing folderol — live, no less — and lit into the Trump administration’s ongoing failure to get COVID-19 testing up and running on a national level. It was a moment of pure astonishment, a shard of light cracking the clouds.
Meanwhile, the core personality of that pestiferous network — Sean Hannity — can almost simultaneously spend an entire broadcast melting down at critics who correctly point out that he and his co-workers have been lying their own loyal viewers into early graves because protecting Trump is more important than protecting people in Florida, or anywhere else.
I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, of course, but if I don’t say it out loud, my head will become a pillar of fire and that purring cat will run screaming. Never in history have two organizations — Fox and the GOP — been more utterly devoted to destroying their own foundations, and it is a dismal thing to encompass.
Fox News and the Republican Party exist today because of older white people who live in rural and suburban places. If you had sat down last December and hatched a plan specifically calculated to damage that sector of the populace, you could not have done better than Fox and the GOP have through their defense of Trump and their simple greedy negligence. COVID-19 is almost perfectly designed to attack older Americans, and still the Republican governor of Florida balks at protecting his aged population, because doing so might make Trump look bad.
We are told by the minute and the hour that ours is a divided nation, that conservatives hate liberals and vice versa, and that nary the twain shall meet unless it is at the point of bayonets. Yet my shoulders today are so tense you could use them as a whetstone because — just as I am terrified for older and immunosuppressed people everywhere — I am terrified for Florida, for “Red State America,” for the millions of people who are going to suffer and die because they trusted this president.
My heart is shattered at the thought of what is to come. I wish most devoutly that it was going to be different than it is, but that is futility. All of us — Red States and Blue States — are on the verge of bearing witness to a bloodletting that will leave us on our knees. It did not have to be this way, and I can’t stop weeping.
The Empty Piety of the American Press
Chris Hedges - truthdig
3/12/18
The press, giddy with its newfound sense of mission and purpose, is carrying out a moral crusade against Donald Trump. The airwaves and print have shed their traditional claims of “impartiality” and “objectivity.” They fulminate against Trump, charging—falsely—that he was elected because of Russian interference and calling him a liar, ignorant and incompetent. They give airtime to his bitterest critics and bizarre associates, such as Omarosa Manigault-Newman, a onetime star of “The Apprentice” and now a fired White House aide, and Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who says she had a sexual relationship with Trump. It is great entertainment. It is great for ratings. It is great for profits. But it is not moral, and it is not journalism.
The empty piety is a mask for self-interest. It is accompanied by the veneration of the establishment politicians, generals, intelligence chiefs, corporate heads and hired apologists who carried out the corporate coup d’état that created our system of “inverted totalitarianism.” The corporate structures that have a stranglehold on the country and have overseen deindustrialization and the evisceration of democratic institutions, plunging over half the country into chronic poverty and misery, are unassailable. They are portrayed as forces of progress. The criminals on Wall Street, including the heads of financial firms such as Goldman Sachs, are treated with reverence. Free trade is equated with freedom. Democratic politicians such as Barack Obama—who assaulted civil liberties, transferred trillions of dollars upward to reigning oligarchs, expanded the drone wars to include targeted assassinations of American citizens, and used the Espionage Act to silence investigative journalism—are hailed as champions of democracy. Deference is paid to democratic processes, liberties, electoral politics and rights enshrined in our Constitution, from due process to privacy, that no longer exist. It is a vast game of deception under the cover of a vacuous morality.
Those cast aside by corporate capitalism—Noam Chomsky calls them “unpeople”—are rendered invisible and reviled at the same time. The “experts” whose opinions are amplified on every issue, from economics to empire and politics, are drawn from corporate-funded think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, or are former military and intelligence officials or politicians who are responsible for the failure of our democracy and usually in the employ of corporations. Cable news also has the incestuous habit of interviewing its own news celebrities. Former CIA Director John Brennan, one of many former officials now on the airwaves, has morphed into a senior national security and intelligence analyst for NBC and MSNBC. Brennan was the architect of the disastrous attempt to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to arm “moderate” rebels in Syria, oversaw the huge expansion of our drone wars and instigated the canard that Russia stole the last U.S. presidential election. The most astute critics of empire, including Andrew Bacevich, are banished, as are critics of corporate power, including Ralph Nader and Chomsky. Those who decry the waste within the military, such as MIT Professor Emeritus Ted Postol, who has exposed the useless $13 billion anti-ballistic missile program, are unheard. Advocates of universal health care, such as Dr. Margaret Flowers, are locked out of national health care debates. There is a long list of the censored. The acceptable range of opinion is so narrow it is almost nonexistent.
Where is the flood of stories about families being evicted or losing their homes because of foreclosures and bank repossessions? Where are the stories about the banks and lending agencies that prey on recent college graduates burdened with crippling loans and unable to find work? Where are the stories about families going into bankruptcy because they cannot pay medical bills and the soaring premiums of for-profit health care? Where are the stories about the despair that drives middle-aged white men to suicide and millions of Americans into the deadly embrace of opioid addiction? Where are the stories on the cruelty of mass incarceration, the collapse of our court system and the reign of terror by police in marginal communities? Where are the investigative pieces on the fraud and the tax boycott that have been legalized for Wall Street, the poisoning of the ecosystem by the fossil fuel and animal agriculture industries? Why is climate change a forbidden subject, even as extreme weather devastates the nation and much of the rest of the planet? Why are the atrocities we commit or abet in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen ignored? Why are the war crimes carried out by Israel against the Palestinians erased from news coverage?
The relentless pillorying of Trump is news-as-reality-television. Trump fills in for Richard Hatch of the old “Survivor” show. Trump’s imbecility, dishonesty, narcissism and incompetence are at once revolting and riveting. The press, ostensibly seeking a more polished brand to improve the public presentation of empire and corporate capitalism, is in fact further empowering the lunatics who will dominate the political landscape.
“America is ceasing to be a nation,” reporter and author Matt Taibbi writes in his book “Insane Clown President: Dispatches From the 2016 Circus,” “and turning into a giant television show.”
The stunts pulled during the last presidential election—Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wearing goggles as he chain-sawed the tax code in half, Trump inviting women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault to a presidential debate and Ben Carson having to defend himself against allegations he lied when he wrote that as a child he attempted to stab another boy—will become staples of political campaigning. Voters, stripped of all meaningful power or control over their own destiny, used only as stage props in rallies and at party conventions, are permitted to vote only for a system they hate. And the winners are those who can give the best and most entertaining expression of that hatred. “Trump found the flaw in the American Death Star,” Taibbi writes. “It doesn’t know how to turn the cameras off, even when it’s filming its own demise.”
If the press sided with citizens and exposed the corporate systems of power that hold them captive, its advertising income would dwindle and it would be treated as an enemy of the state. Since corporations own the airwaves and declining city newspapers, this will not happen. Journalism will remain burlesque. The Public Broadcasting System, along with National Public Radio dependent on corporate money, including the Koch brothers, is as loath to take on the corporate establishment as its for-profit competitors. Dissenters and critics exist only on the margins of the internet, and the abolition of net neutrality will see them silenced.
CNN’s Jake Tapper, one of the high priests in the Trump Inquisition, was quite open about the narrowness of the assault. Being interviewed on “The Axe Files” podcast, hosted by former Obama White House aide David Axelrod, Tapper addressed charges that he opposes Trump’s policies by saying, “Whenever anybody says that to me, I say, you can’t find any evidence about what I think about his tax plan or repealing Obamacare or DACA or immigration or trade or any of these issues—terrorism or ISIS or Syria. I’m agnostic on that. I want to have full and interesting and provocative debates and call balls and strikes. But I’m not putting out there an immigration proposal.”
The corporate airwaves have a depressing habit of taking political hacks like Axelrod or the former Clinton strategist George Stephanopoulos and transforming them into journalists. Even Chelsea Clinton got a shot at journalism, being paid $600,000 a year to do fluff pieces for NBC. The fusion of news and celebrity, with figures like Tapper appearing on late night talk shows, fits with the reality-television presidency the corporate press empowers.
The press, like the Democratic Party, is playing a very dangerous game. It is banking, as Hillary Clinton did, on Trump being so repugnant he and those who support him will be replaced with Democrats. It relies on polls to guide its tactics and strategy, forgetting that every national poll offered assurance that Trump would lose in 2016. This gamble may work. But it may not. Policy issues accounted for only 10 percent of the media coverage during the 2016 presidential race. News reports concentrated on the latest polls, scandals, publicity stunts, campaign tactics and strategy as well as Trump’s bombastic remarks, according to a report issued by the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University. In short, there was little substance to the coverage. This will only get worse. The gossip, trivia and invective masquerading as news are not only irrelevant to most of the electorate but reinforce the image of liberal elites being out of touch with the pain and rage rippling across the nation.
Corporations that own the press look at news as a revenue stream. The news division competes against other revenue streams. If news does not produce comparable profits, its managers are replaced and its content is altered and distorted to draw in more viewers. Journalism is irrelevant. The disease of celebrity and greed, which warps and deforms the personality of Trump, warps and deforms celebrities in the media. They share Trump’s most distasteful characteristics. The consequences are ominous. An ignored, impoverished and frustrated underclass will turn to increasingly bizarre politicians and more outlandish con artists and purveyors of hate. Trump is only the beginning. The grotesque mutations to come, ones that will make Trump look reasonable, are being spawned in newsrooms across the country.
The empty piety is a mask for self-interest. It is accompanied by the veneration of the establishment politicians, generals, intelligence chiefs, corporate heads and hired apologists who carried out the corporate coup d’état that created our system of “inverted totalitarianism.” The corporate structures that have a stranglehold on the country and have overseen deindustrialization and the evisceration of democratic institutions, plunging over half the country into chronic poverty and misery, are unassailable. They are portrayed as forces of progress. The criminals on Wall Street, including the heads of financial firms such as Goldman Sachs, are treated with reverence. Free trade is equated with freedom. Democratic politicians such as Barack Obama—who assaulted civil liberties, transferred trillions of dollars upward to reigning oligarchs, expanded the drone wars to include targeted assassinations of American citizens, and used the Espionage Act to silence investigative journalism—are hailed as champions of democracy. Deference is paid to democratic processes, liberties, electoral politics and rights enshrined in our Constitution, from due process to privacy, that no longer exist. It is a vast game of deception under the cover of a vacuous morality.
Those cast aside by corporate capitalism—Noam Chomsky calls them “unpeople”—are rendered invisible and reviled at the same time. The “experts” whose opinions are amplified on every issue, from economics to empire and politics, are drawn from corporate-funded think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, or are former military and intelligence officials or politicians who are responsible for the failure of our democracy and usually in the employ of corporations. Cable news also has the incestuous habit of interviewing its own news celebrities. Former CIA Director John Brennan, one of many former officials now on the airwaves, has morphed into a senior national security and intelligence analyst for NBC and MSNBC. Brennan was the architect of the disastrous attempt to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to arm “moderate” rebels in Syria, oversaw the huge expansion of our drone wars and instigated the canard that Russia stole the last U.S. presidential election. The most astute critics of empire, including Andrew Bacevich, are banished, as are critics of corporate power, including Ralph Nader and Chomsky. Those who decry the waste within the military, such as MIT Professor Emeritus Ted Postol, who has exposed the useless $13 billion anti-ballistic missile program, are unheard. Advocates of universal health care, such as Dr. Margaret Flowers, are locked out of national health care debates. There is a long list of the censored. The acceptable range of opinion is so narrow it is almost nonexistent.
Where is the flood of stories about families being evicted or losing their homes because of foreclosures and bank repossessions? Where are the stories about the banks and lending agencies that prey on recent college graduates burdened with crippling loans and unable to find work? Where are the stories about families going into bankruptcy because they cannot pay medical bills and the soaring premiums of for-profit health care? Where are the stories about the despair that drives middle-aged white men to suicide and millions of Americans into the deadly embrace of opioid addiction? Where are the stories on the cruelty of mass incarceration, the collapse of our court system and the reign of terror by police in marginal communities? Where are the investigative pieces on the fraud and the tax boycott that have been legalized for Wall Street, the poisoning of the ecosystem by the fossil fuel and animal agriculture industries? Why is climate change a forbidden subject, even as extreme weather devastates the nation and much of the rest of the planet? Why are the atrocities we commit or abet in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen ignored? Why are the war crimes carried out by Israel against the Palestinians erased from news coverage?
The relentless pillorying of Trump is news-as-reality-television. Trump fills in for Richard Hatch of the old “Survivor” show. Trump’s imbecility, dishonesty, narcissism and incompetence are at once revolting and riveting. The press, ostensibly seeking a more polished brand to improve the public presentation of empire and corporate capitalism, is in fact further empowering the lunatics who will dominate the political landscape.
“America is ceasing to be a nation,” reporter and author Matt Taibbi writes in his book “Insane Clown President: Dispatches From the 2016 Circus,” “and turning into a giant television show.”
The stunts pulled during the last presidential election—Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wearing goggles as he chain-sawed the tax code in half, Trump inviting women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault to a presidential debate and Ben Carson having to defend himself against allegations he lied when he wrote that as a child he attempted to stab another boy—will become staples of political campaigning. Voters, stripped of all meaningful power or control over their own destiny, used only as stage props in rallies and at party conventions, are permitted to vote only for a system they hate. And the winners are those who can give the best and most entertaining expression of that hatred. “Trump found the flaw in the American Death Star,” Taibbi writes. “It doesn’t know how to turn the cameras off, even when it’s filming its own demise.”
If the press sided with citizens and exposed the corporate systems of power that hold them captive, its advertising income would dwindle and it would be treated as an enemy of the state. Since corporations own the airwaves and declining city newspapers, this will not happen. Journalism will remain burlesque. The Public Broadcasting System, along with National Public Radio dependent on corporate money, including the Koch brothers, is as loath to take on the corporate establishment as its for-profit competitors. Dissenters and critics exist only on the margins of the internet, and the abolition of net neutrality will see them silenced.
CNN’s Jake Tapper, one of the high priests in the Trump Inquisition, was quite open about the narrowness of the assault. Being interviewed on “The Axe Files” podcast, hosted by former Obama White House aide David Axelrod, Tapper addressed charges that he opposes Trump’s policies by saying, “Whenever anybody says that to me, I say, you can’t find any evidence about what I think about his tax plan or repealing Obamacare or DACA or immigration or trade or any of these issues—terrorism or ISIS or Syria. I’m agnostic on that. I want to have full and interesting and provocative debates and call balls and strikes. But I’m not putting out there an immigration proposal.”
The corporate airwaves have a depressing habit of taking political hacks like Axelrod or the former Clinton strategist George Stephanopoulos and transforming them into journalists. Even Chelsea Clinton got a shot at journalism, being paid $600,000 a year to do fluff pieces for NBC. The fusion of news and celebrity, with figures like Tapper appearing on late night talk shows, fits with the reality-television presidency the corporate press empowers.
The press, like the Democratic Party, is playing a very dangerous game. It is banking, as Hillary Clinton did, on Trump being so repugnant he and those who support him will be replaced with Democrats. It relies on polls to guide its tactics and strategy, forgetting that every national poll offered assurance that Trump would lose in 2016. This gamble may work. But it may not. Policy issues accounted for only 10 percent of the media coverage during the 2016 presidential race. News reports concentrated on the latest polls, scandals, publicity stunts, campaign tactics and strategy as well as Trump’s bombastic remarks, according to a report issued by the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University. In short, there was little substance to the coverage. This will only get worse. The gossip, trivia and invective masquerading as news are not only irrelevant to most of the electorate but reinforce the image of liberal elites being out of touch with the pain and rage rippling across the nation.
Corporations that own the press look at news as a revenue stream. The news division competes against other revenue streams. If news does not produce comparable profits, its managers are replaced and its content is altered and distorted to draw in more viewers. Journalism is irrelevant. The disease of celebrity and greed, which warps and deforms the personality of Trump, warps and deforms celebrities in the media. They share Trump’s most distasteful characteristics. The consequences are ominous. An ignored, impoverished and frustrated underclass will turn to increasingly bizarre politicians and more outlandish con artists and purveyors of hate. Trump is only the beginning. The grotesque mutations to come, ones that will make Trump look reasonable, are being spawned in newsrooms across the country.
worthless media funnies
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https://teespring.com/fox-news-toilet-2#pid=369&cid=6513&sid=front
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