Friday, February 21, 2020
Headlines for Feb. 21, 2020
Worst, Most Misleading & Funniest Headlines for Feb.21, 2020
*Billionaire criticizes billionaire in new ad
Steyer goes after Bloomberg on stop and frisk.
*Russia Backs Trump’s Re-election, and He Fears Democrats Will Exploit Its Support
Now changed to: Lawmakers Are Warned That Russia Is Meddling to Re-elect Trump
“last week’s briefing included what appeared to be new information: that Russia intended to interfere with the 2020 Democratic primaries as well as the general election.”
An unsupported assertion is not “information”. But the NYT accepts it as such.
“They have made more creative use of Facebook and other social media. Rather than impersonating Americans as they did in 2016, Russian operatives are working to get Americans to repeat disinformation, the officials said.”
Important: “Both Republicans & Democrats asked the intelligence agencies to hand over the underlying material that prompted their conclusion that Russia again is favoring Mr. Trump’s election,” ie, Congress as well as us are just being told to “trust us”.
*Compromised encryption machines gave CIA window into major human rights abuses in South America
The CIA didn’t just not expose the “human rights abuses” (a rather mild description of torture & murder) of Operation Condor, it was completely complicit in them, if not, in fact, actually directing them.
*Frank Anderson, Former Spy Who Supplied Afghan Insurgents, Dies at 78
“Among his missions was, as head of the C.I.A.’s Afghan task force in the late 1980s, to supply weapons to the mujahedeen, the anti-Communist Muslim fighters who resisted the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.”
Europe is watching the U.S. presidential campaign — and holding its breath about Trump and Sanders
Most of the article is about Trump, no surprise. As far as Sanders, this is the sum total of the “breath holding” alleged in the headline: “Another senior European diplomat said, “I wouldn’t say that we would all be cheering a Democratic victory. It depends on the Democrat.” The diplomat, who cited nervousness about Sanders’s attitudes toward the U.S. military presence in Europe, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid being seen as meddling in U.S. domestic politics.”
At fiery Democratic debate, a sour welcome for Bloomberg and criticism for Sanders
In fact, everyone was criticizing everyone else, but you’d never know it from the headline and the vast majority of the article, which singles out just Bloomberg and Sanders. The biggest fight of the night might have been between Klobuchar and Buttigieg; she even refused to shake his hand after the debate. But
US War Criminal Elliott Abrams Goes After teleSUR As Part of Regime Change Plot
Abrams says TeleSUR is “not actually a news source”. The irony is that his statement has been reported *only* by TeleSUR. “Real” news sources like NYT, WaPo, CNN etc. are silent. What Abrams really means is that TeleSUR is a source for news he doesn’t want us to know.
It’s time to give the elites a bigger say in choosing the president
Latest headline: It’s time to switch to preference primaries
Author says her headline was: A nomination contest is not a general election
Monkey menace at Taj Mahal could spoil Donald Trump's trip
The “feel good” headline of the week…unless Trump sends Don Jr. ahead to shoot them.
Donald Trump 'offered Julian Assange a pardon if he denied Russia link to hack’
The article itself completely contradicts the headline.
Trump's 'Deep State' conspiracy theory just took a big hit
President Donald Trump is deeply invested in the idea that there is a "Deep State" embedded within the government bureaucracy -- and centered in the Department of Justice -- which actively worked to defeat him in 2016 and then sought to undermine him once he won the presidency. That conspiracy theory, which has never had much merit, suffered a near-fatal blow Friday afternoon when the Department of Justice declined to pursue criminal charges against former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.
Monday, February 17, 2020
Headlines for Feb. 14, 2020
Worst, Most Misleading & Funniest Headlines for Feb. 14, 2020
*Playing on Kansas City Radio: Russian Propaganda
“Russians” are perfectly fine people. “Propaganda” is, when properly used, a perfectly fine word simply meaning speech or writing meant to persuade — an op-ed, for example. But “Russian propaganda” is meant to mean something entirely different — disinformation. But that’s a lie. What they really object to is that we dare “sow doubt about Western governments and institutions.” And we say things like the US should get out of Iraq. “We’ve always put on voices and people that wouldn’t be able to get on anyplace else,” said Mr. Schartel, who has owned the station for 26 years.
This all reminds me very much of the Hillary Clinton emails from 2016. When they were released, things like her well-paid speeches to Wall St. executives, the Clinton camp was all over TV telling people not to read them, they were fake. But that was a lie. The reason they didn’t want us to read them wasn’t because they were fake, but because they were real.
By the way, much of the article makes a big deal about how these broadcasts interfere in some parts of Kansas City with a low-power Black jazz station. But this station has been in operation for 26 years, broadcasting right-wing talk radio, so the problem with interference has nothing to do with Sputnik.
*McClatchy, Major Local News Publisher, Files for Bankruptcy
Just a reminder that in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, McClatchy and in particular its reporters Jonathan Landay and Warren Stroebel, were the lone source in mainstream media of doubts about the “evidence” for WMD in Iraq. Today the same reporting by independent journalists like Aaron Maté is called Russian propaganda.
*Pete Buttigieg Stakes Out a Unique Space in the Democratic Field
Subhead: Revolutionary profile in a conventional package makes his standing tough to predict
The “revolutionary” claim seems to be that he’s gay & his entire political experience is that of a small-town mayor. His election would be no more revolutionary than was that of Margaret Thatcher, the first female PM of the UK. Groundbreaking, yes. Revolutionary? Definitely not.
*Not Even Socialists Believe in Socialism Anymore
Is this a leftist arguing that Sanders isn't a "real" socialist? Not at all. No, it's an article about how Venezuela "is quietly surrendering control [of its oil industry] to foreign companies in a desperate bid to keep the economy afloat." A word missing from the article? "Sanctions".
*Irish Voters Cast Off Relic of Entrenched 2-Party System
Imagine the NYT referring to the “Relic of Entrenched 2-Party System” in the US. You’ll have to imagine it, because it’ll never happen. The lede in that article is so relevant to voter turnout in the US: “In a century-old political system controlled by two seemingly indistinguishable center-right parties in Ireland, Jamie Clarke did what seemed sensible to him: He never voted in a general election.”
*How Months of Miscalculation Led the U.S. and Iran to the Brink of War
More like “years of US aggression”.
Centrist Democrats Want to Stop Sanders. They’re Not Sure Who Can.
Quoting Ted Rall: “The NYT would NEVER run a headline like “Leftist Democrats Want to Stop Hillary. They’re Not Sure Who Can.””
AP: Some Dems fear fallout from Sanders atop the ticket
*Why Bill Barr’s DOJ replaced Catholic Charities with Hookers for Jesus
Yes, this is a real headline, yes, it’s real, and no, as Dave Barry would say, I (or actually Dana Milbank) am not making this up. Why? Well, it turns out the head of the Catholic Charities affiliate had been active with Democrats and Hookers for Jesus is run by a Christian conservative.
Friday, February 07, 2020
Headlines for Feb. 7, 2020
Click here (I'm the final two minutes of the one-hour show!) to listen to this week's segment on Loud & Clear Radio.
Worst, Most Misleading & Funniest Headlines for Feb. 7, 2020
Trump meets with Venezuelan opposition leader Guaidó at White House
Even Fox News won’t go along with calling Guaidó “President”, even though he was called “the true and legitimate President of Venezuela” during the SOTU and given a standing ovation as such by Dems & GOP alike, and the next day called the “Interim President” by Pelosi.
Current headline: How Pete Beat Joe
Original headline: How Pete Won
Oops. Written at a time when just 70% of the vote had been counted. Apparently the author didn’t watch the Super Bowl.
Caucus Results: Pete Buttigieg wins most national delegates in Iowa
Lead paragraph: The margin between Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders in the Iowa Democratic caucuses was small, but with 100% of precincts reporting, as of Thursday night, Buttigieg ends up with the most delegates.
Next paragraph: According to The Associated Press delegate count, Buttigieg and Sanders have each won at least 11 national delegates, with a handful of delegates still to be awarded.
Today’s AP headline: AP: Buttigieg, Sanders to win most national delegates in Iowa
Bernie Sanders wanted outright victory in Iowa. But he will have to settle for this
Written Wednesday afternoon, at a time it was still quite possible Sanders did win outright victory in Iowa.
The Iowa caucuses disaster was democratic socialism in action
Like Iowa? You will love Medicare for All (Mercury News)
A ludicrous headline, made especially ironic by the fact that the app was a product of Clinton staffers and Buttigieg’s money. The ridiculous “logic” of the right-wing. First, the caucus system has been working fine for years. Second, the disastrous app was designed by Dems *opposed* to Medicare for All. And third, it’s our current system of health “care” that’s “complicated and unmanageable”, not M4A.
*The Lessons of 2016
“When we learn important things, to not publish is a political act,” said Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times. That statement is the perfect encapsulation of #FakeNewsByOmission — the choices the NYT and the rest of the corporate media make about what not to cover are deliberate, political choices. Whether it’s the OPCW whistleblower story, or the general strike in France, or Tulsi Gabbard being denied a NH Town Hall by CNN, none of those absences are just accidental, or caused by the lack of good footage, or any other such excuse.
FBI director warns of ongoing Russian ‘information warfare’
Wray says Russia is running a “covert social media campaign aimed at dividing American public opinion and sowing discord” based on “disinformation” and “fake news”. There is not a single example or even a concrete allegation in this article. That Russia is using “disinformation” and trying to “divide” Americans and spread “discord” are just to be taken on faith. I guess they were behind impeachment, the latest thing to divide Americans?
“They identify an issue that they know that the American people feel passionately about on both sides and then they take both sides and spin them up so they pit us against each other,” Wray said. “And then they combine that with an effort to weaken our confidence in our elections and our democratic institutions which has been a pernicious and asymmetric way of engaging in affect information warfare.” Particularly ironic in light of the Iowa debacle, or the fact that the current President was elected with three million fewer votes than his opponent.
NATO Eyes Troop Reductions in Afghanistan as U.S. Draws Down
The US is talking about drawing down, if only from 12,000 to 8,500, but they also talked about drawing down in Syria. We’ll believe it when and if it happens.
