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Carl Bernstein: “Cold Civil War” Has Taken Over Media; “Fact-Based Debate Is Becoming Impossible”

Carl Bernstein: “Cold Civil War” Has Taken Over Media; “Fact-Based Debate Is Becoming Impossible”

To say that the U.S. media has a developed a bit of a credibility issue of late would be an understatement.  Mass hysteria over Trump’s victory in November has clearly resulted in a staggering deterioration in reporting standards as dropping the latest “bombshell” and inflicting the latest wound on the Trump administration has been prioritized over truthful, fact-based reporting.  All of which, as we’ve noted frequently of late, has resulted in a number of embarrassing corrections from several major media outlets who have been forced to admit their reporting was just outright “fake news.”

And, in case you missed it, Carl Bernstein, who is best known for his investigative reporting for the Washington Post that shed light on the Watergate scandal, appeared on CNN, of all places, this weekend to discuss the media’s credibility issue which he argued has largely developed in the “cable news era” as media outlets have become increasingly politicized in their race for ratings.

Among other things, Bernstein said that media outlets in this country are engaged in a “cold civil war” and that, as a result, “fact-based debate is becoming impossible.”

“The difference between Watergate and now is that we are in the midst of a cold civil war in this country.  A political and cultural civil war and all of our reporting is taking place in the context of that cold civil war.  And nothing quite like existed at the time of Watergate.”

“And part of the cold civil war itself is the configuration of media with Fox News, with CNN, being perceived by different sets of viewers as representing different truths.  When, in fact, Fox has changed American politics as perhaps no institution has since its invention in 1996.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Bull: Fake Economy, and Fake News

Peak Bull: Fake Economy, and Fake News

[Urgent Note: David Stockman warns that the nation’s economy and a massive debt ceiling hangs in the balance as Wall Street’s peak bull stocks carry on. The economist is on a mission to send his new book TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… and How to Bring It Back out to every American who responds, absolutely free. Click here for more details.]

The American economy has been mangled by decades of assault on capitalist prosperity.

Growth is now dying because the Federal Reserve’s hit on corporate America that has strip-mined its balance sheets to feed the halls of Wall Street. Trillions of dollars have been thrown into financial engineering (stock buybacks, M&A deals and leveraged recaps) while neglecting real investment and productivity in Flyover America.

Financialization of the US economy since Greenspan

The single most important thing that speculators and bulls on Wall Street should be looking at now is where we came from. If Wall Street understood this, they wouldn’t continue to expect the “born again” Reagan stimulus that has been imagined since Trump’s inauguration.

The extent of what actually happened during the Reagan era is also important to examine. In the eight years after Reagan’s tax bill got handed out, the national debt and defense budget exploded. We had more red ink during in that eight year period than during the first 190 years of the Republic – in fact it doubled.

Federal Debt as GDP

The national debt, which you can see starting in 1980 went from around $800-900 billion to well over $3 trillion. The share of GDP soared during that period.

This is how the Reagan defense and tax cuts were funded. The move left the nation’s fiscal accounts in a dramatically different condition than when it started. Even Ronald Reagan, with his best of intentions, went in believing he was going to end up with less national debt and balanced budgets – though he ended up adding $1.8 trillion.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The “News” Is Content-Free

The “News” Is Content-Free

We’re “your” trustworthy news source, even though we’re all owned by six corporations or billionaires with political agendas.
The “news” has loomed large in The News–a classic self-referential loop in which the media itself becomes its own content. While the controversy over what constitutes “fake news” and “real news” has itself become “the news,” the cold reality is all “news,” “real” or otherwise, is content-free.
The “news” is so devoid of content that a simple software program could assemble a semi-random daily selection of headlines, scrolling banners, and radio/TV “news” reports from a pool of typical “news” stories and insert a bit of context (local highways that are congested, rough neighborhoods where shootings occur, names of local authorities, etc.), and the consumer of “news” would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the randomly generated “news” and the “real news.”
Here’s a taste of the Random Content-Free News Generator Application that would produce “news” that was virtually indistinguishable from the “real” news.
Traffic is backed up near the (insert the usual congestion point) on the I-XX (local Interstate/highway). (TV/video: show randomly selected video clip of slow-moving traffic).
A serious accident occurred on I-XX (TV newscasters look somber if the wreck resulted in fatalities.)
Local Authorities held a news conference to Say What People Want to Hear about (insert hot-button topic): this concern is being addressed by authorities. We’ve got top people working on this–top people. (Newscasters look serious.)
A horrific terrorist attack occurred somewhere in the world–insert semi-randomly selected city, with preference given to Mideast and Central Asian war zones and Western capitals.
Bad weather of some kind is threatening us, or could threaten us shortly. (Insert video clip of flooding, heavy rain, or scorching heat in desert climes, etc.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Most Dangerous Fake News of All is Peddled by the Corporate Media

The Most Dangerous Fake News of All is Peddled by the Corporate Media

This is not the sort of thing you see in a confident, brave, and civilized nation, it’s the sort of stuff you’d expect to see toward the end. It’s the stuff of craven war-mongers, of dishonest cowards, of a totally deranged and very dangerous media. The signs are everywhere; imperial decline is set to accelerate rapidly in the coming years.

– From the April post: Prepare for Impact – This is the Beginning of the End for U.S. Empire

Fake news, propaganda and garbage information is everywhere and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. That being said, the key thing to understand is fake news from obscure websites you’ve never heard of is not what represents the real, global danger of rampant dishonest information. The real danger of fake news is the stuff that’s consistently being vomited onto the pages of “respectable,” billionaire-owned corporate media.

Obscure blogs and independent thinkers such as myself aren’t influencing foreign policy, domestic policy or anything that really matters (look around you). While alternative media did indeed play a monumental role in the election of Donald Trump, how much really changed when it comes to the true power centers?

Not much, not much at all. Goldman Sachs and Wall Street are more in control than ever before, and neocons and other assorted interventionists seem to be running foreign policy.

All of this reminds me of the famous saying, “if voting made any difference, they’d make it illegal.” Indeed, the time has come for all of us to own up to the very real and present danger of corporate media, which seemingly exists to provide public relations for oligarchs and the foreign policy establishment.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Shhhh! It’s TOP Secret: Fake News For Your Eyes Only

Shhhh! It’s TOP Secret: Fake News For Your Eyes Only

The absurd hysteria over Russia continues today from yours and my favorite Russia-hysteria promotion site: the Washington Post.

Fake News For Your Eyes Only

Today’s joke of the day is an “exclusive” fake-news story from WaPo regarding Obama’s Secret Struggle to Punish Russia for Putin’s Election Assault.

Early last August, an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides.

Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.

But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.

The material was so sensitive that CIA Director John Brennan kept it out of the President’s Daily Brief, concerned that even that restricted report’s distribution was too broad. The CIA package came with instructions that it be returned immediately after it was read. To guard against leaks, subsequent meetings in the Situation Room followed the same protocols as planning sessions for the Osama bin Laden raid.

Obama told Putin that “we knew what he was doing and [he] better stop or else,” according to a senior aide who subsequently spoke with Obama. Putin responded by demanding proof and accusing the United States of interfering in Russia’s internal affairs.

The Washington Post is withholding some details of the intelligence at the request of the U.S. government.

Detailed Timeline of Allegations

In its “exclusive” fake news article, WaPo provided a detailed timeline of every allegation. It provided zero proof of anything.

WaPo even mocked Wikileaks for demanding proof.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

CNN Caught Faking News Again: Qatar Says News Agency Hacking Linked To Middle East, Not Russia

CNN Caught Faking News Again: Qatar Says News Agency Hacking Linked To Middle East, Not Russia

A couple of weeks ago we expressed some level of ‘amazement’ at just how sophisticated, efficient and pervasive the ‘Russian hacking’ community had become after CNN reported that they had managed to hack into a Qatari News Agency and post a ‘fake’ news story all in an apparent attempt to drive a wedge between the U.S., Qatar and some of it’s Gulf Arab neighbors.

Think about that for a minute.  Set aside, if you will, the hacking event itself for just a moment and imagine how good the Russians had to be to know exactly what news story needed to be planted inside the Qatari news agency to provoke an immediate severing of diplomatic ties by numerous Arab neighboring states…it truly is mind boggling how it all played out exactly the way the Russians planned…these ‘Russian hackers’ are certainly not a bunch of amateurs.

And while that may sound like a joke, it is, quite unfortunately, not…at least it wasn’t at CNN anyway.  Here are the details, as they were previously reported by CNN:

The FBI recently sent a team of investigators to Doha to help the Qatari government investigate the alleged hacking incident, Qatari and US government officials say.

Intelligence gathered by the US security agencies indicates that Russian hackers were behind the intrusion first reported by the Qatari government two weeks ago, US officials say. Qatar hosts one of the largest US military bases in the region.

The alleged involvement of Russian hackers intensifies concerns by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies that Russia continues to try some of the same cyber-hacking measures on US allies that intelligence agencies believe it used to meddle in the 2016 elections.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Centralized “Truth” – 13 Ways To Fight Fake News (And The Big Problem With All Of Them)

Centralized “Truth” – 13 Ways To Fight Fake News (And The Big Problem With All Of Them)

Will humans or computer algorithms be the future arbiters of “truth”?

The following infographic from Futurism sums up the ideas that academics, technologists, and other experts are proposing that we implement to stop the spread of fake news.

Below the infographic, Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins raises concerns about each of these methods.

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

While fake news is certainly problematic, the solutions proposed to penalize articles deemed to be “untrue” are just as scary.

By centralizing fact checking, a system is created that is inherently fragile, biased, and prone for abuse. Furthermore, the idea of axing websites that are deemed to be “untrue” is an initiative that limits independent thought and discourse, while allowing legacy media to remain entrenched.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Facebook Deletes Tens Of Thousands Of Accounts Ahead Of UK General Election

Facebook Deletes Tens Of Thousands Of Accounts Ahead Of UK General Election

Ahead of the British general election on June 8, Facebook has deleted tens of thousands of accounts in Britain in its ongoing battle with “fake news” the AP reports. The campaign is part of Facebook’s evolving response to accusations the group was responsible for influencing the US presidential election, through the spread of fake news stories and “filter bubbles”.

“People want to see accurate information on Facebook and so do we. That is why we are doing everything we can to tackle the problem of false news,” said Simon Milner, Facebook’s director of policy for the UK. “To help people spot false news, we are showing tips to everyone . . . on how to identify if something they see is false.”

Simon Milner, the tech firm’s U.K. director of policy, says the platform wants to get to the “root of the problem” and is working with outside organizations to fact check and analyze content around the election. Milner added that Facebook is “doing everything we can to tackle the problem of false news.”

Additionally, on Monday, the social announced a national print advertising campaign in the UK to “educate the British public” about fake news, as part of a concerted global effort to crack down on the false information epidemic it has seen on its platform. The ads suggest that readers should be “skeptical of headlines,” and to “look closely at the URL.” The company says it has made improvements to help them detect fake news accounts more effectively.

The social network’s full-page print ads will appear in four UK newspapers on Monday, including the Telegraph, Times, Metro and Guardian, reproducing the same 10 tips to spot fake news that it launched on Facebook itself last month the FT adds. The UK campaign follows similar newspaper ads in Germany and France last month ahead of their elections, in newspapers including Bild, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Le Monde and Les Échos.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Horror! The Horror! (Part Two)

THE HORROR! THE HORROR! (PART TWO)

In Part One of this article I detailed how propaganda has been utilized by the Deep State for decades to control the minds of the masses and allow those in control to reap the benefits of never ending war. In Part Two I will discuss recent events, false flags, and propaganda campaigns utilized by the Deep State to push the world to the brink of war.

“We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness”Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

The use of graphic images, electronically transmitted across the world in an instant, along with a consistent false narrative promoted by the captured corporate media, is the preferred means of appealing to the emotions of those who want to believe atrocity propaganda. Instigating a march to war through the use of unfounded fear, misinformation, staged photo ops, and appealing to passions and prejudices was as revolting to Albert Einstein  in the 1930s as it is today to normal thinking individuals.

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.” – Albert Einstein

It seems the level and intensity of the propaganda campaigns has ratcheted up dramatically in the last half dozen years and appears to be reaching a crescendo as we speak.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fake News From the Fed

Fake News From the Fed

Fake News From the FedWhat you see in the media is mostly “fake news.”

Reuters had this story recently:

Most Federal Reserve policymakers think the central bank should take steps to begin trimming its $4.5 trillion balance sheet later this year as long as the economic data holds up, minutes from their last meeting showed…

Provided that the economy continued to perform about as expected, most participants anticipated that gradual increases in the federal funds rate would continue and judged that a change to the Committee’s reinvestment policy would likely be appropriate later this year,” the Fed said in its minutes.

This is the public spectacle – where tiny and often trivial bits of real news are conflated with vast myths and illusions.

The Fed fiddles with short-term interest rates… President Trump tweets a threat to the Freedom Caucus… the GOP proposes a new health-care plan…

You can’t know what any of these “facts” mean without reference to a huge body of non-facts – beliefs, ideas, and prejudices, many of them absurd.

Remember, a “myth” is not necessarily untrue; it just can’t be tested or disproven.

And since reality is infinitely complex, and a myth can only reflect a small trace of it… no matter how attractive or “true” it is, the myth always leaves out more truth than it describes.

Critical Narrative

We make no pretense of ever knowing the “truth.”

That would be impossible. All we can do is try to identify the most ridiculous myths… and find the most useful one, the one we can believe without getting kicked in the pants.

Imagine you were a Jew in Germany in the 1930s… or a stock market investor in the US in 1929… or a merchant in Mosul, Iraq, in 2003.

In each case, there were plenty of ways to understand what was going on. But the critical narrative was: Time to get out of town.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Populism In Our Time – “The Status Quo Is The Fundamental Problem”

Populism In Our Time – “The Status Quo Is The Fundamental Problem”

“Be even more suspicious…of all those who employ the term we or us without your permission. This is another form of surreptitious conscription, designed to suggest that we are all agreed on our interests and identity.”
– Christopher Hitchens

Merriam-Webster defines populist as “a believer in the rights, wisdom and virtues of the common people”, and when the word is capitalized: “a member of a U.S. political party formed in 1891 primarily to represent agrarian interests and to advocate the free coinage of silver and government control of monopolies”. The first definition seems to be the very point of representative government; the latter what happens when representative government is no longer representative.

The use of the word “populist” among professional politicos implies an off-the-run candidate or leader with ill-intent – an irreverent voice deigning to challenge established institutions by speaking directly to the deplorable rabble, bypassing the narrative perpetuated by vast political and media infrastructures. Those inclined towards transitive logic might infer that governments and the Fourth Estate propose, but are not structured and do not work, to serve the rights, wisdom and virtues of commoners.

We won’t get idealistic about democracy or the gaping separation between political rhetoric and execution. In non-revolutionary times (about 99.9% on a timeline) governments serve the privileged. It is what they do. Political leaders throw bones to commoners, providing bread, circuses and welfare – distractions eminently better than brioches chucked at them by Marie Antoinette, but decidedly worse than most people’s conception that their government abides by the principle of equal access for all.

Liberal democracies are like major medical insurance policies. They will, in the end, protect freedom and most liberties, but they do not provide preventative health care. (Indeed, as their promotion of systemic debt shows, they are not above distributing the fiscal equivalent of cigarettes to their citizens.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Don’t You Hate Spammy, Sensationalist Click-Bait Like this?

Don’t You Hate Spammy, Sensationalist Click-Bait Like this?

So what’s the difference between “fake news,” spammy sensationalist click-bait and so-called “mainstream news” that serves the interests of the corporate-state? It’s getting hard to tell.
We’re inundated with spammy sensationalist click-bait. You know what I mean–the little boxes containing eye-candy photos and headlines such as “you won’t believe how badly these stars have aged,” “7 tricks to losing weight during Thanksgiving,” “These children of celebs are so good looking your jaw will drop,” “9 surprising signs of dementia” and outre classics such as “Hitler’s shocking final words.”
The “news” is “shocking,” “secrets are revealed,” and “surprising facts” are promised. Authorities are always cited as unimpeachable sources, and the headlines are quasi-plausible. (Why wouldn’t good-looking celebs have good-looking offspring?)
But the “authorities,” “facts” and “secrets” are all dubious. The spammy click-bait is self-serving to those promoting the sensationalist content, and to the media sites that promote the spammy content.
According to The New York Times, unidentified sources in the spammy sensationalist click-bait industry report that “We have been told from major, major publishers that we have become their No. 1 revenue provider.”
So the spammy sensationalist click-bait content serves the interests of those originating the bogus spam and the media that publishes it. Talk about a two-fer; no wonder this junk is everywhere in the Corporate Media.
Though the Corporate Media denies it, of course, the lines between propaganda, paid content and actual reporting have blurred. The C.I.A. has played a major role in the Corporate Media for decades. If you doubt this, please study the following:
The CIA and the Media by Carl Bernstein
The CIA and the Media: 50 Facts the World Needs to Know This article by Professor James Tracy first published in August 2015 is of particular relevance in relation to the “fake news” campaign directed against the alternative media.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman to CNN: ‘Stop Spreading Lies and Fake News’

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman to CNN: ‘Stop Spreading Lies and Fake News’

She stated the American media had “cross(ed) the line far beyond the professional ethics and their competence. They accuse and judge by simply fabricating false information.”

“I have a question: is it rock bottom, which the US media has reached, or is there an even greater depth for them to dive?” Zakharova said.

“The things that the US media affords itself to report are just an attempt at… a total disinformation of the public in America and worldwide,” Zakharova explained, adding the US audience is, of course, the main target.

During the exchange, which was caught on camera and posted below, she laid into CNN — asking them to ‘stop spreading lies and fake news.’

‘Stop spreading fake news’, cuckburgers.

Watch.

Faking It

FAKING IT

Thanks to the election of President Trump and his uncompromising attitude to the establishment media, much hot air is being expended on the subject of ‘fake news’. Those being so exercised seem unable to stop and wonder when such news has NOT been, shall we say, ‘nuanced’. In Napoleon’s day, a well-worn figure of speech was ‘to lie like a bulletin’ while there was always much rather at hollow hilarity in the West over the fact that one of the Soviet Union’s main organs of the press was call ‘Pravda’ or, in English, ‘The Truth’.

What we should, of course, be getting worked up about is ‘fake economics’, for this is a much more pervasive evil, as well as a much more persistent one.

One such idea, currently doing the rounds is that automation is about to throw everyone out of work and so we should tax the ‘robots’ and distribute the proceeds as a ‘universal income’ to the poor souls who can no longer find work in industrial drudgery.

Ironically, Bill Gates is the latest to add his voice to this half-reasoned, Broken Window call – a man whose entrepreneurial genius has spared us non-specialists more labour and meanwhile reduced the employment opportunities of more accountants, typists, publishers, graphic designers, and photographers than anyone in history!

Would you mind just writing us all a cheque now, Bill, for all that lost income and we’ll call it square?

What none of those raising such a clamour seem to realize is that the ‘robots’ – and how conveniently sinister THAT term seems, with its echoes of every piece of dystopian science fiction from Frankenstein to Terminator and beyond – will only be installed if they allow more or better goods to be made at lower cost and that for their installers to enjoy a return, those goods have to be able to be sold at a price the masses – including the robotically-displaced masses – can afford to pay!

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Unbelievable How Mainstream Media Has Become Just Liars

Video Player

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times demonstrates why mainstream media is just becoming so bought and paid for. You have to wonder if they should not be in prison for attempting to overthrow the government and start a revolution. Here he is still ranting about how Russia hacked the election and asserting that this is somehow a Pearl Harbor and 911 event. I suppose this is implying we should start world war III because Hillary lost.

The Homeland Security and the FBI both said that Russia’s hack of the DNC did not involve altering the vote. In fact, it was his own paper that reported on November 25, 2016: “The Obama administration said on Friday that despite Russian attempts to undermine the presidential election, it has concluded that the results “accurately reflect the will of the American people.”

PulitzerHearstWarYellowKids

Spaniards_search_women_1898The constant lies and manipulations seem intent upon creating war exactly as took place with the Spanish American War. We have returned to yellow journalism which is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration. Pulitzer and Hearst went head to head. I remember grade school history class blaming the Spanish American War on fake news. There is one such story that male Spanish officials were strip searching American woman tourists in Cuba looking for claimed messages from rebels. This was the front page of Hearst’s newspaper showing what has become known as “yellow journalism” whereby the illustration was by Frederic Remington published in the New York Journal, February 12th, 1897.

Hearst’s New York Journal was called out for this fake news by its rival Joseph Pulitzer’s, New York World,  reporting that this story was erroneous and its graphically illustrated strip-search of a woman aboard U.S. passenger steamer was fake.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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