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President-elect Donald Trump is clearly antagonistic toward the mainstream media. That attitude is unlikely to change after Inauguration Day. His disdain for journalists and reluctance to release details about his finances and business ventures may force journalists to rely increasingly on anonymous sources, a strategy that reputable news organizations have long frowned upon.
So in the age of Trump, how should a reader approach coverage that relies primarily on anonymous sources?
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-- Elvis Costello
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday January 09 2017, @02:35PM
I object to that phrasing of it, because of one word: "progressive".
According to the mainstream fake news, Bernie Sanders didn't exist during much of the Democratic primaries, or at the very least wasn't newsworthy. And they worked hand-in-hand with the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee to try to discredit Sanders, Jill Stein, and other forces far more progressive than Hillary Clinton ever has been.
Another good example of how not-liberally-biased the press really is: The supposed bastion of liberalism known as the New York Times held off on publishing Chelsea Manning's leaked information about US activities in Iraq, including the video of a US helicopter gunning down a CNN journalist for over a year, which just happened to include the entirety of the 2004 election cycle, just because the Bush administration asked them to. If they'd really been part of some kind of liberal conspiracy to discredit Republicans whenever they could, they would never have held onto that information for that long.
The mainstream news bias isn't "progressive", "conservative", "left", or "right". Its real bias is a love of the powerful and the rich.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by jmorris on Monday January 09 2017, @04:06PM
Get over it. The MSM are part of the Democratic Party's Org Chart, not some amorphous Progressive Movement. Bernie was NOT a Democrat, by his own admission, so hadn't spent years building up staff inside the Party like the Clintons. Second, the Democratic Party is not a protest movement, it expects to rule; there was no realistic chance for Bernie to win in a General Election and everybody sensible, and it was obvious that included Senator Sanders himself, understood that. Bernie was recruited as a foil for Hillary to run against, a stalking horse, nothing more. He was intended to rouse the whacky left of the Democratic Party, a task he accomplished and was well compensated for. Hillary failed in HER job of being charismatic enough to being you guys into her camp once the primary was over.
It should go without saying the MSM didn't give two shits for Jill Stein because she wasn't even pretending to be a Democrat. They don't work for her, they don't get paid by her, there is no revolving door between the press and the Green Party, they aren't on the same Org Chart.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday January 09 2017, @08:21PM
My point is that you are confusing 2 things: The Democratic Party, and "progressive" as a label for political philosophy. The Democratic Party not only isn't a progressive party right now, they are actually quite hostile to people who would generally describe themselves as progressive, or the policy ideas they come up with. If the Democratic Party were actually progressive, then the following would have happened a little over 7 years ago:
- Marijuana would be legal under federal law.
- Universal, government-run health care would be the law of the land.
- No US troops would be in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc.
- The capital gains tax would be much higher than it is now, and in particular might match the tax rates for income taxes.
- FICA taxes would have no cap on the maximum income subject to them.
- Police officers who gunned down unarmed black people would face far more consequences for doing so than they actually do.
(None of this is debating the relative merits of any of these policies, just to contrast what most progressives want from what the Democratic Party does.)
Progressives are in roughly the same position relative to the Democratic Party as the people now known as the Tea Party once were to the Republican Party.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Monday January 09 2017, @09:32PM
The Democratic Party is as Progressive as they think they can win elections as. But I think you have some misconceptions about what Progressive is.
Marijuana would be legal under federal law.
Progressives are not Libertarians. One of the first victories of the Progressive Era was passage of the 18th Amendment.
Universal, government-run health care would be the law of the land.
What do you think Obamacare was? It wasn't a failure because it was designed incompetently, the failure was the design. Had HRC won she would have completed the project.
No US troops would be in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc.
Progressives aren't pacifists, they are imperialists. See Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Clinton. They fight for different things, but they fight and seek to bring the world under one government, by force if persuasion fails.
The capital gains tax would be much higher than it is now, and in particular might match the tax rates for income taxes.
Mr. Obama agrees with you, he is on record as agreeing with you even if doing so resulted in less revenue to the treasury. He spent his first two years pushing Porkulus and Obamacare and lost the majorities in Congress that would have been required to implement such an idiotic policy.
FICA taxes would have no cap on the maximum income subject to them.
Obama wanted this policy. Didn't have the votes.
Police officers who gunned down unarmed black people would face far more consequences for doing so than they actually do.
Name an actual example of this. This is a myth. You will not believe me until you go looking for examples and fail. Progressives created this myth to serve their purposes.
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Monday January 09 2017, @11:28PM
I think you're exactly missing the point and are still conflating the term "progressive" as the Sanders supporters are calling themselves, and a Democrat. The things that Thexalon outlined are exactly what the "progressives" want. Those of us that are trying to push some of these ideas in the Democratic Party are getting a lot of static and abuse, because there is very little progressivism in the Democratic party at this point. It's still definitely a party full of Clinton style democrats, defined as: Cozy with Corporate, Interventionism in Foreign Policy, socially liberal.
These new-wave progressives, are absolutely for Pot legalization, and then for vacating sentences for those impacted by overly harsh drug laws. Progressives and libertarians do have quite a bit of common ground on social issues, though most are too blinded by ideology to see it.
Obamacare was little more than a hand-out to Insurance companies -- probably Obama's biggest big-business friendly deal.
Clinton as progressive? Between his crime bill, the telecommunications act and repeal of Glass-Stegal, I don't see how anyone could label that fool a progressive. Regardless there is VERY strong Anti-war streak in the new-progressive movement.
I take no issue with the rest of your points at this time, though I may come back to challenge the police/racial violence thing when I have more time.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:04AM
Dunno about his supporters, but Senator Sanders is quite open that HE is a Socialist. You get static from the Democratic Party because they want to actually win political power and hold it, not just virtue signal. So yes, occasionally thay have to smash a Holiness spiral to stop the activists from getting carried away. Apparently they have in fact been a bit lax in that lately and now find themselves a marginalized coastal party. And your solution is more cowbell. Interesting that you can't understand the problem here.
Regardless there is VERY strong Anti-war streak in the new-progressive movement.
So Obama isn't a "true" Progressive either. Kinda getting close to "No True Scottsman" fallacy here. Isn't it better and more accurate to simply say Moldbug is right? The "anti-war" stance of the Left is nothing more, and nothing less, than a manifestation of the ongoing Civil War between the State Dept (Team Blue) and the Defense Dept (Team Red) and the plan is to grind home the reality there is no victory on the battlefield the American War Machine can win for Team Red that the Team Blue won't turn to ash with a pen, through ginning up protests to undermine public support, whatever it takes. But the Progs have zero moral objection to killing to advance their goals. Obama (who won a Nobel Peace Prize btw) certainly had no problem killing lots of folks. Fellow Alinsky Disciple and expected successor HRC was especially hellbent on killing lots of people.
Obamacare was little more than a hand-out to Insurance companies -- probably Obama's biggest big-business friendly deal.
Obama bribed them. They were stupid enough to not see the trap. Once you realize the people who designed Obamacare admit it was designed to fail it all makes sense. They didn't have the votes for single payer. So Obamacare, it was built to fail slowly enough that by the time their media wing couldn't cover it up anymore it would be too late to just unwind it and besides they could hurl the "we can't turn back the clock" card, that one is almost as evergreen as the race card. So if we "can't go back", the current situation is unbearable and quickly growing worse the only solution would be "Forward!" Hmm... somebody used that as a campaign motto.
And they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for that Trump fellow.
Clinton as progressive?
Were you politically aware back then? I was. Liberal was a dirty word so Clinton did what he does naturally, lie. Once elected he instantly went hard left, raising taxes, putting his evil bitch in charge of an overhaul of the medical industry (spoiler: single payer was the plan) and got promptly mauled at the ballot box, giving the GOP the House for the first time in about forty years. Newt Gingrich, you might have heard of him, became his nemesis. So he moderated and got reelected. He still managed to slide a lot of Prog agenda items through. Then it was all about getting Hillary ready to run and complete the project. Remember? The talk about running Hillary started for the '04 cycle until they chickened out, figuring Bush would beat her.
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Tuesday January 10 2017, @04:58AM
Dunno about his supporters, but Senator Sanders is quite open that HE is a Socialist. You get static from the Democratic Party because they want to actually win political power and hold it, not just virtue signal. So yes, occasionally thay have to smash a Holiness spiral to stop the activists from getting carried away. Apparently they have in fact been a bit lax in that lately and now find themselves a marginalized coastal party. And your solution is more cowbell. Interesting that you can't understand the problem here.
And they've done a bang up job in the 9 years losing hundreds of seats across the country. Regardless of if you feel the Dems have gone too far right, or too far left, or whatever, they are absolutely having an identity crisis right now and are having a come-to-jesus moment with the far left wing of the party, much the way Republicans did with the Tea Party years ago. As local and state Democratic Party reorganizations are going on right now, we'll have to wait and see what things look like over the next year to see where that's going.
So Obama isn't a "true" Progressive either. Kinda getting close to "No True Scottsman" fallacy here. Isn't it better and more accurate to simply say Moldbug is right? The "anti-war" stance of the Left is nothing more, and nothing less, than a manifestation of the ongoing Civil War between the State Dept (Team Blue) and the Defense Dept (Team Red) and the plan is to grind home the reality there is no victory on the battlefield the American War Machine can win for Team Red that the Team Blue won't turn to ash with a pen, through ginning up protests to undermine public support, whatever it takes. But the Progs have zero moral objection to killing to advance their goals. Obama (who won a Nobel Peace Prize btw) certainly had no problem killing lots of folks. Fellow Alinsky Disciple and expected successor HRC was especially hellbent on killing lots of people.
Look, I'm not trying to be the arbiter of progressivm, only pointing out what the new-progressive movement in looking for, how "Mainstream" Democrats don't go for it, and a few areas where I think Obama went the wrong way. In general though, I agree there are no true Scottsmen -- as soon as you start getting to the business of making things work and hammering out legislation, suddenly purity tests are all but meaningless. I'm not sure that I buy into the Team Red vs Team Blue idea -- I see the Defense Dept as the enforcement branch of the State Dept, all working towards securing profits for the M-I Complex. I fully accept that neither State nor Defense would agree this is what's going on. And yes, Obama's Peace prize -- Hundreds of thousands bombs dropped ( is the body count up to a million in our middle east conflicts yet?), unilateral droning of an American Citizen, real peaceful. If you remember, "Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, close Gitmo", were all HUGE when he was campaigning and yet, 8 yrs later....
Obama bribed them. They were stupid enough to not see the trap. Once you realize the people who designed Obamacare admit it was designed to fail it all makes sense. They didn't have the votes for single payer. So Obamacare, it was built to fail slowly enough that by the time their media wing couldn't cover it up anymore it would be too late to just unwind it and besides they could hurl the "we can't turn back the clock" card, that one is almost as evergreen as the race card. So if we "can't go back", the current situation is unbearable and quickly growing worse the only solution would be "Forward!" Hmm... somebody used that as a campaign motto. And they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for that Trump fellow.
I think we're just going to have to disagree on this. Big Ins had a ton of influence in how the legislation was written, essentially guaranteeing their profits -- that the big guys have posted record profits every year kinda of bears this out. I'm not the biggest Obamacare fan, I don't know what would work better -- I think the Obamacare stuff is kinda the perfect example of the shit we get when we can't agree on a direction but know that "Something must be done!" Sure, more people are covered now with very expensive insurance. It's a win for some, sure, not for everyone as it's done very little to actually curb premium increases, which seem to still be outpacing inflation. I'd actually like to see the entire healthcare system crash and burn, and something more affordable and equitable rise from the ashes.
Were you politically aware back then? I was. Liberal was a dirty word so Clinton did what he does naturally, lie. Once elected he instantly went hard left, raising taxes, putting his evil bitch in charge of an overhaul of the medical industry (spoiler: single payer was the plan) and got promptly mauled at the ballot box, giving the GOP the House for the first time in about forty years. Newt Gingrich, you might have heard of him, became his nemesis. So he moderated and got reelected. He still managed to slide a lot of Prog agenda items through. Then it was all about getting Hillary ready to run and complete the project. Remember? The talk about running Hillary started for the '04 cycle until they chickened out, figuring Bush would beat her.
No argument from on the lie front. I was just becoming aware then, so I admit my analysis is somewhat historical. I will maintain though that the biggest pieces of legislation that came out of the Clinton administration were hardly "progressive". Healthcare got worse for middle class families, Lots of people see NAFTA as the first major sell out of American Labor (I realize this was largely negotiated under Bush -- I did get a kick out of Perot and his charts), plus the other things I mentioned above.
I grew up in a very conservative republican household. I'm not sure if my political journey has brought me steadily towards the left over the last 20-25 years or if the entire political spectrum has marched steadily to the right under me -- honestly its probably a combination. I do try to stay open minded about it all though.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday January 09 2017, @11:37PM
True, progressives are not libertarians, but they generally agree with libertarians on social issues such as drug laws. Also, prior to the 18th Amendment, the progressives pushed through the 16th Amendment (income tax), and 17th Amendment (direct election of senators).
Obamacare was, in essence, a proposal designed by the Heritage Foundation and implemented by Republican Mitt Romney in Massachusetts as an alternative to universal, government-run health care. The goal was something approximately like universal health care, but privately run. The progressive position on health care looks a lot more like the British or Canadian NHS, which is very very different from Obamacare.
I agree progressives aren't absolutely pacifist, but right now they generally oppose the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, because they are stupid wars. Generally speaking, progressives prefer democracy in foreign countries, and that's what Wilson and FDR at least claimed they were fighting for. Lyndon Johnson gave up running for another term in part because the people that would be now described as "progressive" opposed his war in Vietnam. And I'm not sure what precisely you're referring to with "Clinton", but progressives don't generally have a lot of use for either Bill or Hillary Clinton.
Then why didn't the Democrats do either of these things? The Democrats had a chance to enact whatever policy they wanted to in late 2009 without any support from anybody else, and they didn't do what they said they supported.
Sure, how about John Crawford III: A guy with no criminal record picks up a BB gun off the shelf in a Walmart, the cops come in and according to witnesses and videotape immediately open fire, giving Crawford neither a command to drop his weapon nor time to react. In Ohio, where this happened, openly carrying a rifle is legal, so it's not like Crawford would have been committing a crime even if it had been a real gun. The only consequences: one officer given desk duty.
This isn't even a new phenomenon: Amadou Diallo was unarmed and shot 41 times back in 1999, and again nobody went to jail. Don Myrick, Grammy-award winning saxaphonist for Earth Wind and Fire, was shot and killed when a cop decided the lighter in his hand was a gun in 1993, nobody went to jail, nobody fired. Philip Pannell, shot in the back while his hands were raised in 1990, and again nobody went to jail. I can keep going if you like.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:48AM
As usual, somebody is always dumb enough to bring the talking points. Watch this folks, and remember this is how the Left always works, there just isn't always somebody around to fisk every TV journalist.
So lets Google each of these names and see what we can find out, shall we?
Sure, how about John Crawford III
First page of results gets me a local news account [daytondailynews.com] related to this one. So the 911 caller had given a very scary report so the responding officer was already spun up, but did give an order to drop the weapon although that is a disputed fact. So you are already probably wrong. Watched the video, inconclusive since it doesn't include audio. What it does show is all the talk about open carry is bunk, the guy was clearly 'brandishing' it, not just carrying it to the counter, it wasn't in a shopping cart (he doesn't have one) and it isn't in retail packaging. Bottom line is the grand jury didn't indict and Obama's politicized DoJ hasn't either. The Wikipedia page is fairly obvious that it was written by a BLM supporter.
Amadou Diallo
One counterfactual narrative [city-journal.org]
. This one sounds like a clusterfsck. But like most of these, when the cops say stop and you stop, things usually turn out good. Try to get away and it only takes a small accident to turn into a fiasco. Cop tripped and went down, everybody else thought he was shot and it was unload the magazine time. And again the Wikipedia entry is pure propaganda.
Don Myrick
No easy links on Google other than Wikipedia, and already seen they are propaganda.
Philip Pannell
You say shot in the back with hands up, This [northjersey.com]disagrees as did the jury. Everybody agrees the kid a) had a serious rap sheet, b) had a gun, c) ran from the police officer who KNEW HE HAD A GUN because the idiot ran when the officer was frisking him and found it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @04:51PM
And they worked hand-in-hand with the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee to try to discredit Sanders, Jill Stein, and other forces far more progressive than Hillary Clinton ever has been.
And then afterwards they worked hand in hand with wikileaks and trump to discredit Clinton by going all in on stupid email tricks
Anyone who claims the media was in the bag for Clinton missed the entire election cycle. For every actual story of Trump corruption they had to exaggerate something about Clinton beyond recognition. Trump uses his foundation to illegally pay off the florida attorney general [washingtonpost.com] to forget about prosecuting trump university, well clinton had some meetings with a nobel laureate who donated to her foundation [washingtonmonthly.com] so they are both corrupt!
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday January 09 2017, @07:13PM
They are both corrupt.
Trump is definitely corrupt: In addition to buying off Pam Bondi, as you mention, he has engaged in all sorts of other shady dealings, and almost definitely has mob ties.
Clinton's corruption extends far past a single meeting in exchange for Clinton Foundation donations, though: From the speeches to Goldman Sachs to the Correct the Record superPAC to her time on the Walmart board to protecting people who broke the rules but are loyal to her like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, she definitely had a lot of dirt on her, and it was only those stuck in the pro-Clinton news bubble that didn't notice. About the only defense her supporters offered to her many of her activities was "Everybody else does that! If Clinton had been a man, nobody would have even commented on it!", which is of course conveniently ignoring the idea of "everybody else does that too" is part of the problem rather than an excuse.
Hillary Clinton lost for a lot of reasons, but media bias was not one of them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @07:57PM
> Correct the Record superPAC
Please cite one example of CTR acting nefariously.
Seriously. This is the kind of exaggeration I'm talking about.
A superpac dedicated to literally correcting false information is now proof of horrible corruption.
WTF?
The worst I can find on CTR is that they used the colbert/stewart loophole of coordinating through the media and lawyers with dual jobs. [huffingtonpost.com] Clinton also funneled donors to CTR and arranged for CTR to coordinate with other pro-clinton superpacs. All legal. Stupidly legal, but legal.
> Everybody else does that!
Politics is a knife fight. If everybody else is doing it, then holding her to a higher standard than legality is also requiring that she fight with one hand tied behind her back.
Clinton was a flawed candidate. But they are all flawed. When you choose a candidate you choose the flaws you are willing to live with. But exaggerating the flaws to make false equivalencies is dishonest.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:15AM
SuperPACs are not legally allowed to coordinate with the campaign of a candidate, but Correct the Record openly did. See this FEC complaint [campaignlegalcenter.org] for details. Its very existence, therefor, qualifies as "acting nefariously".
Their primary activities were paying for people to post pro-Clinton comments on websites, and suppress anti-Clinton comments on websites, regardless of how true or false said comments were. In one case, several thousand of them falsely reported a pro-Sanders group on Facebook for child porn, for example. Over on Reddit, they would consistently downvote comments that cited DNC emails. In one particular notable instance, they tried to claim that Sanders was part of some sort of grand international socialist conspiracy which included Sanders, UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro. The idea that they were in any way correcting anything is simply silly.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:05AM
> but Correct the Record openly did. See this FEC complaint for details.
That's pretty empty. Did you read the complaint?
Because I just did. And the complaint is that they used public blogs to coordinate and that despite current FEC rules permitting exactly that, its somehow not permitted because they don't primarily use internet publications for all of their work. And to support the claim that they would have to primarily use the internet for all their activity the complainant provides ... nothing. They couldn't even be bothered to cite whatever ruling they think the FEC made that support's their interpretation? You know why, right? Because there isn't one.
Not only that, they don't even bother to provide one single example of the blog-based coordination. All they do cite are a bunch of examples of CTR doing pro-hillary work. Duh!
Ya got one more shot, lets see something with real heft, ok? Not an amauter FEC nuisance complaint.