Friday, November 09, 2018
Headlines for Nov. 9, 2018
Click here to listen to this week's segment on Loud & Clear Radio.
Headlines with an * are the ones we managed to fit in in our allotted 11 minutes.
Worst, Most Misleading & Funniest Headlines (WMMFH) for Nov. 9, 2018
CANDIDATES FOR “WORST”/”MOST DISGUSTING”:
*New York's governor jokes he'll change his name to 'Amazon Cuomo' to win the HQ2 bid, and it reveals just how desperate states are to land Amazon's second headquarters
*Cuomo ready to rename a Long Island City creek the Amazon River to woo Amazon into opening its second headquarters in NYC
Peak capitalism. And, incidentally, both headlines serving the purpose of distracting readers from the real way cities are trying to lure Amazon, which isn't by renaming creeks, but with millions of dollars in "incentives".
*Ex-Green Party candidate earns more votes than difference between Sinema, McSally
Why is this even an article? Of course the premise is she shouldn’t have run, and that those votes “belonged” to the Democrats. In fact, the Green Party candidate dropped out a week in advance and endorsed Sinema. And either her voters voted in advance, which highlights one of the flaws of the emphasis on mail-in voting, or they were showing there was no way they were willing to support either Democrat or Republican, and just wouldn’t have voted if their candidate wasn’t on the ballot. Also this has now become ironic since Sinema is now leading. Ironically the Post has actually editorialized in favor of ranked choice voting.
This set of two headlines courtesy of Max Blumenthal:
*‘Warning Lights Are Blinking Red,’ Top Intelligence Officer Says of Russian Attacks
*Mystery of the Midterm Elections: Where Are the Russians?
*Forget the Russians. On this Election Day, it’s Americans peddling disinformation and hate speech.
"a rampant online spread of misleading reports and images about the migrant caravan in Mexico, for example — and especially the demonstrably false allegations that billionaire George Soros is funding a violent “invasion” of the United States." Yeah, that NEVER happened before, and never would have happened without whatever Russia did in 2016. Right. "Accounts controlled by Russians probably helped amplify such misleading narratives, experts say, but the evidence so far is that they started with American political activists who are increasingly adept at online manipulation techniques but enjoy broad free-speech protections that tech companies have been reluctant to challenge." But according to the source in the referenced article, the “misleading images of the caravan” were amplified NOT by “accounts controlled by Russians” but by “accounts known to echo Kremlin propaganda”.
By the way, that was *Trump* pushing the story of the “invasion” funded by Democrats (don’t think he mentioned Soros). And amplified by every media outlet, not by “accounts controlled by Russians”.
*Federal judge blocks Keystone XL pipeline, dealing a major blow to Trump
Why is the headline not, "in a major victory for environmentalists"?
CANDIDATES FOR “MOST MISLEADING”:
Half of us are informants, say Russian expats in UK
Half of 150,000 Russians living in London are spies, says report
Here is the actual "study":
Putin Sees and Hears it all: How Russia’s Intelligence Agencies Menace The UK
[Actual full report here: https://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/HJS-Putin-Sees-and-Hears-It-All-Report-web.pdf ]
Henry Jackson Society is a British neocon think tank.
Among the claims: "There are up to five times the number of Russian case officers in the UK as there were in 2010. These 200 ‘case officers’ are handling up to 500 agents." [But from the report, "Russia’s embassy in Kensington currently maintains a staff of 56 diplomats". Where are the rest?] Also in 2013, a Russian double-agent said the number was 51, not 200!
"Out of an estimated population of 150,000 Russian ex-pats living in London, up to half are said to be FSB, GRU, or SVR informants – potentially, some 75,000 assets." That's based on what the Russians he interviewed, no doubt all anti-Putin, told him, but actually not even that: "interviewees and interlocutors suggested that anywhere between a quarter and a half of Russian expats were, or have been, informants. Oh, and from Wikipedia " The Office for National Statistics estimates that 66,000 people born in Russia were resident in the UK in 2016."
CANDIDATES FOR “FUNNIEST”:
Nothing this week. But some of the one above are funny in their own way.
