Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 09 2017, @06:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-call-me-Harriet dept.

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?

Read the news like a spy.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:04AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:04AM (#451795)

    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.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (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.