Understanding The History And Purpose Of Fox News You’d think a thing like FOX couldn’t happen in the United States. Although they’re free to be crazy and free to support the Republican Party, you’d think Americans would be too smart to fall for the made-up outrages, dishonest reporting and relentless appeal to our meaner nature. Unfortunately, many Americans are not as smart as we used to assume: a huge swath of Americans (especially elderly white Southerners) believe FOX is just another news media outlet. They aren’t. What is FOX? Pensitore Review pulled no punches in answering that question back in 2009. FOX News is indisputably the most popular cable news channel. Whew! Nixon White House aide Roger Ailes in the 1970’s created fake news stories that favored President Nixon. FOX is a “relentless agenda-driven 24 hour news opinion propaganda delivery system” ~Jon Stewart“They’re a Republican brand. Fox changes words, meanings, facts, and even actual news footage. The more you watch FOX, the less you know.
Trump and Brexit: how can the US and UK media tackle a culture of lies? This is a story of two media cultures struggling to cope with the political rise of brazen liars. The BBC’s Emily Maitlis distilled the challenge when she demolished Sean Spicer, the hapless former White House press secretary, with a simple description of the simpleton’s record, starting with his whoppers about the crowds on the mall at Donald Trump’s inauguration. “You joked about it when you presented the Emmy awards. But it wasn’t a joke,” said Maitlis. Spicer claimed the media had started all this lying stuff by being mean with its reporting about the quality of the Trump campaign’s data operations. Also, Spicer argued, his lies were just a response to the evil media screwing up a single story about Trump moving the bust of Martin Luther King out of the Oval Office. But who really cares about the facts? As Maitlis points out, this isn’t a joke. They should boycott one of the many manufactured events this White House stages. Why does the right to ask questions matter so much?
Trump lies and what to call them, explained Donald Trump is a liar. Not just in the sense that we are all fallible human beings who probably say things that aren’t true sometimes — he has made flagrant disregard for the truth a hallmark of his approach to business and politics. He wrote about his strategic use of dishonesty in The Art of The Deal. He admitted to routinely lying about important matters in a sworn deposition. And of course it’s obvious to anyone who’s followed his political career that he has continued to exhibit a flagrant disregard for the truth as he pivoted from real estate developer to celebrity brand licenser to president. A core belief of his is that lying is a good way to get ahead, which is why he lies so much. In addition to being a liar, Trump is unusually ill-informed about public policy for a president, so he plausibly says some things that aren't true out of genuine lack of knowledge. The good news is that euphemisms are not nearly so harmful as their critics fear. That’s a big mistake.
Putin's Pants-on-Fire claim about $400 million donation to Clinton from Bill Browder partners Russian President Vladimir Putin offered a novel idea to advance the Russia investigation during a joint news conference with President Donald Trump in Helsinki. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team could come to his country, Putin said, if Russian investigators were allowed to go the United States to dig into alleged tax evasion by American-born financier Bill Browder and his associates. "Business associates of Mr. Browder have earned over 1.5 billion dollars in Russia," Putin said through a translator. "They never paid any taxes." Putin continued. "They sent a huge amount of money, over 400 million, as a contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton," he said. Did Browder's associates send $400 million to Hillary Clinton's campaign? No. A little background The Russians say that Browder and his partners at Ziff Brothers Investments, a New York venture capital firm, illegally syphoned billions of rubles out of the country. Follow the money The center listed the firm’s top recipients:
Sean Hannity cites misleading Obama quote in coverage of Russian election meddling Moments before airing his interview with President Donald Trump in Helsinki, Fox News host Sean Hannity slammed former President Barack Obama for his pre-election rhetoric on Russia. But Hannity’s remarks were misleading, and the words he attributed to Obama were taken out of context. "We all know that Russian election meddling is not new at all," Hannity said in his opening monologue on July 16. "And despite this, in 2016, when Hillary Clinton appeared to have a firm lead in the polls — oh, just before the election — it was President Obama who laughed off any notion that American elections could possibly be tampered with." Hannity pointed to Obama’s remarks at a press conference on Oct. 18, 2016, a day after a stump speech in which Trump announced what he believed was evidence in support of his repeated claims about voter fraud in the 2016 election. Hannity quoted Obama as saying: "There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America's elections.
Death of a Nation: more angry nonsense from Trump's favorite film-maker | Film Here’s a typical Dinesh D’Souza argument. In Death of a Nation – the far-right commentator, film-maker and recently pardoned ex-con’s fourth political documentary – he tries to make the case that Hitler was a lefty. That’s a tall order, and here’s the best D’Souza can muster: he says Adolf wasn’t a homophobe. Most historians think he was, and will cite as proof the 100,000 arrested for violating Nazi anti-homosexuality laws and the 15,000 murdered in camps. And yet here’s D’Souza claiming there were known gay men peppered about the Nazi top brass. Let’s think this through; D’Souza certainly didn’t. Then again, watching Death of a Nation (a film that tries to compare Donald Trump to Abraham Lincoln), you might not get a chance to think anything through. D’Souza has never had the fame and notoriety of an Ann Coulter (whom he once dated) or even a Laura Ingraham (ditto), but that’s not for lack of trying. D’Souza didn’t calm down as he got older. The problem with D’Souza’s race-baiting?
I wrote The Art of the Deal with Trump. He's still a scared child | Tony Schwartz “I alone can do it.” These five extraordinary words kept coming back to me as I reflected on Donald Trump’s first year as president of the US. He made this claim during his speech accepting the Republican nomination in July 2016. At the time, it struck me simply as a delusional expression of his grandiosity. There are two Trumps. “That’s why I’m so screwed up, because I had a father who pushed me so hard,” Trump acknowledged in 2007, in a brief and rare moment of self-awareness. Trump’s temperament and his habits have hardened with age. This is the narrative I’ve been advancing for the past 18 months. Fear is the hidden through-line in Trump’s life – fear of weakness, of inadequacy, of failure, of criticism and of insignificance. In his first year in office, Trump has lambasted any facts he dislikes as “fake news”, while making nearly 2,000 false or misleading claims of his own – more than five a day. Trump has made fear the dominant emotion of our times. We, together, can do it.
UN human rights chief: Trump's attacks on press 'close to incitement of violence' Donald Trump’s anti-press rhetoric is “very close to incitement to violence” that would lead to journalists censoring themselves or being attacked, the outgoing UN human rights commissioner has said. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, a Jordanian prince and diplomat, is stepping down this month as UN high commissioner for human rights after deciding not to stand for a second four-year term, in the face of a waning commitment among world powers to fighting abuses. Zeid said the Trump administration’s lack of concern about human rights marked a distinct break with previous administrations, and that Trump’s own rhetoric aimed at minorities and at the press was redolent of two of the worst eras of the 20th century, the run-up to the two world wars. In an interview with the Guardian, he singled out the US president’s repeated designation of the press as “the enemy of the people”. Zeid said he never understood the machinations behind the vote, but said it reflected a broader trend.
Donald Trump's 'missing' server comments get all of the details wrong Standing beside Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump answered reporters' questions about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and if he believed Putin’s denials over his own intelligence community’s findings. Instead of answering the question directly, Trump began discussing servers. "You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server -- haven't they taken the server. "With that being said, all I can do is ask the question. Moments later, Trump added, "What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the DNC? Trump's rhetorical question gets the details wrong. You could take Trump's words to mean a DNC server has gone missing, but that's not true. The DNC server On July 13, the Justice Department charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Hillary Clinton campaign staffers. Imran Awan Awan will be sentenced Aug. 21. Our ruling
Audiences love the anger: Alex Jones, or someone like him, will be back Confrontational characters spouting conspiracy theories and promoting fringe ideas have been with us since the invention of American broadcasting. First on radio, then on television, the American audience has consistently proven eager to consume the rants of angry and bitter men. Before Alex Jones and InfoWars, there was Glenn Beck. A decade ago, Beck was hawking his conspiracy theories on HLN and Fox News. And before Morton Downey Jr., there was Joe Pyne, the war hero who eventually ended up railing against “hippies, homosexuals and feminists” on the airwaves in the 1960s. Before Pyne, there was Father Coughlin, “the radio priest.” You get the idea. Public airwaves in private hands Earlier this week, Jones’ InfoWars content was banned by Apple, Facebook, YouTube, Spotify and other web content distributors. Traditionally, it’s not been state censorship that’s cleansed American public debate. The web is governed by different protocols than broadcast media. It’s the American way.
Trump’s Lies vs. Your Brain click 2x All presidents lie. Richard Nixon said he was not a crook, yet he orchestrated the most shamelessly crooked act in the modern presidency. Ronald Reagan said he wasn’t aware of the Iran-Contra deal; there’s evidence he was. But Donald Trump is in a different category. Story Continued Below Those who have followed Trump’s career say his lying isn’t just a tactic, but an ingrained habit. On January 20, Trump’s truthful hyperboles will no longer be relegated to the world of dealmaking or campaigning. What does this mean for the country—and for the Americans on the receiving end of Trump’s constantly twisting version of reality? When we are overwhelmed with false, or potentially false, statements, our brains pretty quickly become so overworked that we stop trying to sift through everything. But Trump goes a step further. In politics, false information has a special power. It’s easy enough to correct minor false facts if they aren’t crucial to your sense of self.
Fact-checking an immigration meme that's been circulating for more than a decade A viral image on social media -- one that’s critical of illegal immigration -- has been circulating for years. The list of claims first circulated in the form of a chain email in 2006, according to Snopes.com. Six years later, we checked several of the claims ourselves. With immigration in the headlines today, these claims are popular again. All told, the list is heavy with claims that are unsupported, misleading, or simply wrong. "43% of all FOOD Stamps are Given to Illegals" This is a bogus number that doesn’t check out mathematically; we rated it Pants on Fire back in 2012. That month, about 40 million people participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as the food stamp program. If 43 percent of that assistance went to immigrants in the country illegally, that would mean that 17.2 million of them benefitted from the program. Viral image on the Internet social media postings – Tuesday, July 3, 2018 The most recent complete data we found was from 2011.
Manufacturer Confirms Installing Remote-Access Software on U.S. Voting Machines CHANGING ITS STORY. Election hacking is at the top of everyone’s mind right now, thanks to the controversy surrounding the 2016 Presidential election. But a new report by Motherboard suggests the issue is far from new. On Tuesday, the outlet published an article in which it claims it obtained a letter sent by Election Systems and Software (ES&S) (the company responsible for manufacturing the majority of voting machines used in the U.S.) to Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April. In the letter, ES&S reportedly admits that it sold election-management systems (EMSs) equipped with pcAnywhere, a software program typically used by system administrators as a way to access computers remotely, to “a small number of customers” between 2000 and 2006. In a report published by the New York Times in February, the company denied any knowledge of selling machines containing this software. DIRECT ACCESS. BETTER OFFLINE. More on election fraud: A Bipartisan Group of U.S.
I’ve Been Reporting on MS-13 for a Year. Here Are the 5 There’s one thing everyone can agree with President Donald Trump on about the street gang MS-13: The group specializes in spectacular violence. Its members attack in groups, in the woods, at night, luring teens to their deaths with the promise of girls or weed. One Long Island boy told me he doesn’t go to parties anymore because he worries any invitation could be a trap. A victim’s father showed me a death certificate that said his son’s head had been bashed in, then lowered his voice and added that the boy’s bones had been marked by machete slashes, but he didn’t want the mother to know that. A teenager who has left the gang told me he considers himself dead already, and is just trying to make sure MS-13 doesn’t kill his family. I’m spending the year reporting on MS-13 members and their associates. 1. Trump often talks about how MS-13 has carried out a string of murders in the suburbs outside New York City. 2. And some MS-13 members are born right here. 3. 4. 5. So What?