The 2016 US General Election

[GVChamp]

JAD,

I agree Fake News is pretty much a travesty even worse than the MSM, but the MSM is still crappy. So crappy as to be almost unusable. Right now I am having an argument about the Dakota Access Pipeline on my Facebook feed, which is jumping into pipeline monitoring technologies and the global LNG market. There is nothing useful on any MSM source about any of this. You have to dive directly into government reports to get any useful information.

These are really the only sort of things that should show up when I search on Google. I certainly don't want the garbage that CNN or the NY Times produces, because that's all it is: garbage.

[JAD_333]

JAD,

I agree Fake News is pretty much a travesty even worse than the MSM, but the MSM is still crappy. So crappy as to be almost unusable. Right now I am having an argument about the Dakota Access Pipeline on my Facebook feed, which is jumping into pipeline monitoring technologies and the global LNG market. There is nothing useful on any MSM source about any of this. You have to dive directly into government reports to get any useful information.

These are really the only sort of things that should show up when I search on Google. I certainly don't want the garbage that CNN or the NY Times produces, because that's all it is: garbage.

Agreed, MSM offers little insight on slow-developing, highly technical issues. I usually browse for industry specific sites, e.g. Petroleum Institute for oil-related issues, when I want to get into the weeds on issues such as mentioned.

I have a rather different view of the NY Time than you. It's domestic and international reporting is generally accurate. I subscribe to its digital issue. What annoys me, however, are the commentaries, which all tend to be one-sided. Trump is its favorite punching bag at the moment, and they will spare no effort to look under every rock for something to bellyache about. Still, it's a good counterpoint to conservative media, both of which I follow. Regardless of one's political leanings, it is useful to know what both sides are saying.

The LNG market is a big deal where I live--Corpus Christi--and there are no shortage of local execs with solid knowledge of what's happening.

[tbm3fan]

So it seems Trump will still continue to produce his TV show The Apprentice in his spare time according to Conway. Spare time???

To recap we have an Education Secretary who doesn't like public schools.
We have a HUD appointee who doesn't like public housing.
We have a billionaire Treasury appointee who is of the big banks can't be allowed to fail school.
We have an EPA appointee who doesn't like the environment.
We have a billionaire Labor appointee who doesn't like labor.
We have a HHS appointee who doesn't like health insurance.
Last, we have a National Security advisor who says that there were Arabic signs along the Mexican Border telling terrorists where to cross. Why does that guy remind me of this guy?

[drhuy]

So it seems Trump will still continue to produce his TV show The Apprentice in his spare time according to Conway. Spare time???

To recap we have an Education Secretary who doesn't like public schools.
We have a HUD appointee who doesn't like public housing.
We have a billionaire Treasury appointee who is of the big banks can't be allowed to fail school.
We have an EPA appointee who doesn't like the environment.
We have a billionaire Labor appointee who doesn't like labor.
We have a HHS appointee who doesn't like health insurance.
Last, we have a National Security advisor who says that there were Arabic signs along the Mexican Border telling terrorists where to cross. Why does that guy remind me of this guy?

what difference, at this point, does this make?

[YellowFever]

I have a rather different view of the NY Time than you. It's domestic and international reporting is generally accurate. I subscribe to its digital issue. What annoys me, however, are the commentaries, which all tend to be one-sided. Trump is its favorite punching bag at the moment, and they will spare no effort to look under every rock for something to bellyache about. Still, it's a good counterpoint to conservative media, both of which I follow. Regardless of one's political leanings, it is useful to know what both sides are saying.

The problem with the MSM is not that they report falsehoods but rather they report what they deem "newsworthy", therefore controlling the news.

I have no problems with the Sean Hannitys or Chris Mathews of the world because they are not journalists but I do have one hell of a problem with news being slanted the way their editors believe.

We saw this with the NYT and CNN (among others) and they know it too (if not, why the stupid letter from the NYT shortly after Trump won?).

Maybe I'll watch the so called MSM once they get their acts together.

You know you as a news station have a problem when some You Tube "news" channel get more viewers than you do.

It is what it is.

[YellowFever]

now there's a nice thriving Macedonian/Albanian factory for fake conservative news.

I read about this sometime back.

My first reaction was "I hope DoK is getting a piece of the action." :)

[YellowFever]

Here is a story about fake news by Brian " I got shot down jn a helicopter in Iraq and got sick in New Orleans during Katrina" Williams.

What makes it funny is he tries to crush Trump and his appointments, not to mention "fake news" by using a Buzz feed story.

LoL.

Oh the irony...

[Parihaka]

Gavin McInnes at Takimag

In a flailing attempt to scare voters away from a Trump presidency, the perpetually childless Ezra Klein sat down and warned America, “Tonight was a scary moment in American politics.” It was Oct. 9 and the fact that Trump said, “You’d be in jail” meant he was going to imprison all his opponents the same way Stalin and Pol Pot and Mao did. It was a ridiculous premonition and it’s part of the reason they lost.

If you want to talk scary, how about this “fake news” controversy? It started with some eccentric assistant professor’s musings and is now being treated like some kind of reputable blacklist that shows exactly what news sources are a threat to America. Their idea of a threat to America, of course, is anyone who threatens the narrative. The same way Jill Stein’s crusade only investigates states where Trump won, these people define “fake” as “not liberal enough.” Fake news sites such as The Onion, The Daily Show, and my favorite, The Hard Times, didn’t make the cut. Her list included real news sources such as Breitbart and InfoWars, and the scariest part is how much credence it’s being given. Social media is taking it very seriously, and this is likely because social media is mad at itself for handing Trump the election. Of course, social media didn’t win the election for Trump, information did. Social media was just the vessel, and if your entire foundation is built on lies, information is your enemy. The phony capitalists at Bloomberg had hoped the free market might correct this horrible problem but now realize “There might be a need for the state to step in.” The president himself has claimed we need a “curating function” to handle this “wild-wild-west-of-information flow.” Later he complained to Rolling Stone that we are getting information from “completely different sources.” That’s right. The least competent president in history is telling rape hoax central the merits of the DNC handling all the information from here on out. Barack is ultimately calling for the abolition of facts and suggesting America take up some kind of state-run media the way Britain and Canada have.
I’ve lived in both those countries. The scariest thing about state-run propaganda is how well it works. Talk to a Brit from the media class. They are stunned Brexit happened. They honestly believe a bunch of soccer hooligans took over the voting booths and separated Britain from the ray of perpetual hope that is the EU. In Canada they are consistently bludgeoned by the “Canadian Human Rights Commission,” yet rarely complain. They had two soldiers killed in one week, but the prime minister bursts into tears when an Arab immigrant says he likes it there. State-run media is very good at promoting the state.

So the left in America wants to get in on the action and it’s being done under the auspices of preventing fake news. What the hell is fake news? Madison, Wis., is replete with bumper stickers calling Fox “Faux News,” but as far as a literal definition, I assume it’s those cheap-looking WordPress sites where you can tell it was made by a mentally ill divorced man who hates the world. When Trump lost the popular vote I was searching for a site that said otherwise. There was one (it’s long since gone) that claimed he won it. Any normal person who cared could tell that this site, awash in Google ads and no comments, was not real. We know what’s fake. This is exactly why Wikipedia works. It uses the authority inherent in numbers and lets the free market of ideas weed out the bullshit. It’s also why the internet works overall. It’s about freedom, and freedom works.

If you’re looking for fake news, you might want to check in on the people trying to shut it down. This is always the case with the left. They say we need to cut out fascists and censorship and bigotry and they get people fired, shut down talks, and embrace Islamists in the process. Any parameters you set to ban fake news would mean the MSM would be the first to go. CBS insisted that George W. Bush was nothing more than a pampered rich kid during his time in the National Guard and that he didn’t fulfill his obligations. This was based on forged documents Dan Rather provided. MSNBC told us Obama’s victory sends a thrill up their leg like it was some kind of objective analysis. During Obama’s Reverend Wright controversy, CNN declared themselves a “Reverend-Wright-free zone,” and when he won, reporters discussed how they successfully “won over” voters. Most recently they used their own cameraman as an example of an outraged Hillary supporter.
Comedy Central’s The Daily Show proudly calls itself “fake news.” When Sean Hannity insisted spring break had changed and was now basically girls on Oxy getting gangbanged by a lineup of drunk males, Jon Stewart scoffed and called Sean “America’s oldest hall monitor.” As the fake news made these jokes, teenagers were being raped and murdered. Is that scary enough, Ezra? Panama City Beach changed its laws after the reports because they were real, and rape and murder aren’t funny. It was the MSM who told us Mike Brown was unarmed and “fleeing with hands up,” as Sally Kohn put it. How many deaths did that lie lead to? During the Ferguson riots, Zemir Begic was murdered for being white. He was killed by fake news and I’m guessing Ezra Klein wasn’t even aware of that story.
Meanwhile, “fake news” sites such as Project Veritas continued to bust open story after story during the election. James O’Keefe exposed one major controversy per day in the two weeks before the election, including the DNC promoting violence and bussing in fake voters. InfoWars helped showcase WikiLeaks, which became a seemingly infinite number of emails exposing everything from collusion with the mainstream media to the Democratic primary being rigged. This has always been the case with citizen journalists. Matt Drudge is the one who told us about Monica Lewinsky. Nobody else had the balls. It was a plucky Anthony Cumia who exposed Anthony Weiner’s exhibitionism. We need people like this when the dinosaurs get too stuck in their ways.

Watching 60 Minutes these days is like hanging out in a nursing home. It’s geriatric producers pushing tropes from half a century ago. They are so naive they sent a blond woman into a mob of angry Arabs, twice! If we relied on them, we’d all be dead. It was self-employed journalist Tommy Robinson who exposed the Muslim rape gangs in Rotherham. Ann Coulter works for no one and she’s responsible for telling America about its open-border problem. Adios, America is the reason Trump made immigration the thrust of his campaign and it’s a big part of why he won. Few had any idea how many disgruntled Bernie supporters were infiltrating Hillary rallies until Mike Cernovich went there and Periscoped it himself.

None of these people comply with the kind of parameters set by assistant professors, and their information is much more “real” than the MSM sources exempt from persecution.

There is some good news, however. When real news site Naked Capitalism noticed that fake news site The Washington Post had published the list, they got lawyers involved. The finance blog that has been going since 2006 just threatened to sue the Post for “ridicule, emotional distress, loss of reputation, and risk to future career advancement.” This is how we operate in 2016. We fight back. They can act as scary as they want. We’re not going to take it sitting down.

[YellowFever]

[JAD_333]

The news media has been the subject of bitching by people since forever. It either fails to report something people think should have been reported or reports something they think shouldn't have been. It sprinkles its reports with words intended to convey a negative or positive slant, as the case may be. It designs headlines to attract readers; it favors reports about accidents (TV new editor's maxim: "If it bleeds, it leads").

There is an inescapable reality about news organizations in the US; they are owned by people who have opinions. The owners tend to hire people who share their opinions, and use their news outlet to make their opinions known (editorial pages). Another inescapable reality is that news organizations must make money or close down. The principal way to make money is to sell advertising, and ad revenue is based on readership numbers. How do you build readership? A completely unethical news outlet will design the most provocative headlines possible and write stories designed to shock, outrage, and move people, and even invent stories.

News outlets are also controlled in part by the sources they depend on to get stories. Statesmen will not grant an interview to the National Inquirer. So, people who want to run a reputable news organizations will win access to important people by operating under reasonable ethical standards and practice good journalism.

It seems to me, we have to accept these realities, and defend the freedom of the press to piss us off.

Another thing worth considering is that we, the consumer of news, would know nothing of events outside our little world were it not for the news media. After all, we are not there to witness these events or listen to the interviews, and we have no way to be absolutely certain they happened as reported. On a side note, if we do actually witness an event, we are likely to be surprised how much the media gets wrong about it. But I accept this, because without the media, warts and all, I would know nothing of what is happening around the world. It is this dependency that makes fake news so dangerous. If we cannot rely on the overall accuracy of the news, we can be misled into making bad choices on, for example, election day.

[JAD_333]

To recap we have an Education Secretary who doesn't like public schools.
We have a HUD appointee who doesn't like public housing.
We have a billionaire Treasury appointee who is of the big banks can't be allowed to fail school.
We have an EPA appointee who doesn't like the environment.
We have a billionaire Labor appointee who doesn't like labor.
We have a HHS appointee who doesn't like health insurance.

In the interest of looking at these appointments objectively, as opposed to agreeing or disagreeing with them, let's suppose that each of these administrative areas have legitimate problems which might benefit from leadership in favor of wholly different approaches.

Public high schools might better function without federal involvement, since years of such involvement have not produced the hoped for results, such as, a significant increase in the number of students better prepared to enter college or enough students motivated to pursue studies that are sorely needed in today's economy.

Does public housing actually impede economic improvement and attract crime as some say? Would it benefit from a new approach?

Does being a billionaire disqualify someone from being an effective Secretary of Treasury? Many who have held that office were very rich and connected with banking interests, but did an excellent job. Is it better to have someone in that job who understands finance in that job or someone with no ties to banking?

The EPA has strayed beyond its original mandate. Perhaps that is a good thing; perhaps not. Who better to look at it with a critical eye than a critic of it?

How effective is labor policy? Can it be improved?

Can we do better in providing health care to lower income groups? Better being improved quality of care, lower cost, and less red tape. Perhaps Obamacare needs tweaking.

It is hard to judge at this point how Trump's appointments will perform in these jobs. I do know from my own experience that coming from the private sector and entering into government service changes one's entire perspective toward everything. Like you, I don't think all these people are the best choices. But, we'll see.

[drhuy]

of course when your side lost, the cabinet will NOT be your picks. Its not rocket science, why people still have to whine about it is mind-boggling. After all, election has consequences.

[snapper]

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.b2d9ee104631

What next from the CIA? The Arctic may be cold?

[Mihais]

Wait for actions and facts.Forget the "officials".Whatever the case,fact is the morons in charge should have shut up,establish contacts with both sides and work from there.Is not our job to be cheerleaders for US parties.

This "Trump is a Russian agent" rhetoric sounds like the beggining of an excuse for negotiations with the Russkies.

[snapper]

Wait for actions and facts.Forget the "officials".Whatever the case,fact is the morons in charge should have shut up,establish contacts with both sides and work from there.Is not our job to be cheerleaders for US parties.

This "Trump is a Russian agent" rhetoric sounds like the beggining of an excuse for negotiations with the Russkies.

No it is the sound of the war ongoing: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ge...-idUSKBN13B14O