Media
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Media: Thomas Friedman’s Perverse Love Affair With ISIS
For the second time in as many years, Thomas Friedman has explicitly advocated that the United States use the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as a proxy force against Syria, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. The New York Times foreign affairs columnist made this suggestion in his Wednesday column, “Why Is Trump Fighting ISIS… Continue reading
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Media: Out of 46 Major Editorials on Trump’s Syria Strikes, Only One Opposed
Of the top 100 US newspapers, 47 ran editorials on President Donald Trump’s Syria airstrikes last week: 39 in favor, seven ambiguous and only one opposed to the military attack. In other words, 83 percent of editorials on the Syria attack supported Trump’s bombing, 15 percent took an ambivalent position and 2 percent said the… Continue reading
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North Korea: ‘The Only Sensible Path at This Point is Dialogue’
Janine Jackson: The Washington Post suggests that people in Seattle and San Francisco “should be worried” about being hit by a ballistic missile from North Korea, citing an analyst who described such an event, a bit cryptically, as “a looming threat but not a current threat.” If the concern is that the saber-rattling between Kim… Continue reading
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The Essential Pundit Take: ‘Trump Became President’ by Bombing Syria
8 April 2017 — FAIR Fareed Zakaria: Presidents “don’t need to go to a pesky Congress every time they want military force.” “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States” last night, CNN host Fareed Zakaria said when asked about the significance of Trump’s airstrikes on Syria (New Day, 4/7/17). “I think this… Continue reading
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Bloomberg’s Hit Job on Venezuela – and Me By Michael Hudson
I just had a disastrous and embarrassing interaction with Bloomberg, and feel that I was ambushed and sandbagged by having my comments taken out of context in a hit piece Bloomberg’s journalists wrote on Venezuela – evidently trying to distort my own views in a two-for-one job. Continue reading
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Conspiracy Theorists Welcome in Corporate Media–if They Have the Right Targets
Former British Conservative MP Louise Mensch has become something of a celebrity of late in anti-Trump media. In the past two weeks, Mensch has been touted by former head of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile and prominent Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, and appeared on MSNBC (3/11/17), the New York Times op-ed page (3/17/17)… Continue reading
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Media: NYT Says Congress Has 'Duty' to Make War–Rather Than the Right to Reject It
As reports come in detailing the degree to which Donald Trump has escalated the “War on ISIS”—and killed hundreds more civilians in the process—this would seem like a good time for the country to sit back and examine the United States’ approach to fighting “terrorism” and its recent iteration, the so-called Islamic State. Continue reading
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Right-Wing Foundation, Scary Nuke Maps Drive Narrative on North Korea ‘Threat’
Tensions between the United States and North Korea are making their way back into the news after a series of missile tests and presidential Twitter threats. Meanwhile, a conservative think tank—previously thought all but dead—has seen a resurgence in relevancy, thanks to its alignment with Donald Trump. The result is that the Heritage Foundation has… Continue reading
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Pie in the Sky?
This is huge. You – along with thousands of other people – have helped throw a major spanner into Rupert Murdoch’s plans to take full control of Sky. Karen Bradley, the Culture Secretary, just announced an investigation into the takeover. Continue reading
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Media Fawn Over Trump’s Success at Saying Words in Semi-Coherent Fashion
What came to be known as the “expectations game” during the George W. Bush years was wielded with notorious cynicism. The assumption behind this game in those days was that Bush was a bumbling doofus who could hardly string together a coherent sentence, so if he got to the level of a high school debate,… Continue reading
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Shotgun Pointed at Black Children Trivialized as ‘Confederate Flag Incident’
1 March 2017 — FAIR With a loaded shotgun, actually. As FAIR has noted before (4/1/15, 3/8/16), how a story is framed is as important—if not more so—than the content of an article. Sixty percent of Americans don’t read past the headline and 60 percent of Americans share articles on social media without reading them.… Continue reading
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Media: Downplaying US Contribution to Potential Yemen Famine
For almost two years, the United States has backed—with weapons, logistics and political support—a Saudi-led war in Yemen that has left over 10,000 dead, 40,000 wounded, 2.5 million internally displaced, 2.2 million children suffering from malnutrition and over 90 percent of civilians in need of humanitarian aid. Continue reading
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‘Ajit Pai Wants to Shut Down the Way We Communicate and Organize’
Regulators who don’t much believe in regulation are looking like a hallmark of the Trump administration. What does that mean for the access to communication and information that’s critical to our daily lives? The newly appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, doesn’t want to actually eliminate the agency, as far as we… Continue reading
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Media: Mizue Aizeki on Criminalizing Immigrants
Early morning deportation raids are stoking fear in immigrant communities, pulling parents from children and shipping people who’ve lived in the US for decades to places they don’t remember. Donald Trump talks about rounding up “drug lords” and murderers, but not only is that not who is being targeted, recently released executive orders expand the… Continue reading
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Media: Jessica Gonzalez on FCC Chair Ajit Pai
“T-Mobile Very Pleased with Direction of Change under Trump Administration, CEO Says.” That headline tells you pretty much what you need to know about Ajit Pai, Trump’s choice of chair for the FCC—the entity charged with representing the public interest in the communications industry. The phone company exec is pleased, he says, because Pai’s appointment… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Paul Mason And The Grand Propaganda Narratives
Where once a handful of dissidents was allowed to challenge the Grand Propaganda Narratives (GPN) of the day, modern leftists are tolerated only if they accept these narratives even as they talk radical change. A Guardian regular who stands out in this regard is Paul Mason, formerly BBC Newsnight Business Editor and Channel 4 News… Continue reading
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Media: Trump Supporters Support Trump: To Maintain ‘Balance,’ Media Resort to Tautology
The policy’s sloppy language, bungled roll-out and punitive real-world impact on innocents have rightly been prominently reported by journalists. Much of the coverage has focused on the widespread backlash to the ban, which has manifested itself in numerous legal challenges and a nationwide series of rapid-response airport protests. Coupled with the new president’s record-low approval… Continue reading
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Media: ‘It Is Not at All Typical to Stifle Basic Scientific Information’
It may not get the same sort of headlines, but the White House’s war on science could well yield casualties as great as other violent acts more traditionally defined. Continue reading
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Media: ‘This Is a Country That’s in a Tremendous Crisis’
Janine Jackson: “Women Killed in Yemen Raid Were Qaeda Fighters, Pentagon Says” was the headline on a January 30 New York Times story on the recent commando raid in central Yemen, the first on Donald Trump’s watch. The Times says the Pentagon first denied any civilian casualties, then backtracked as evidence came in of such… Continue reading
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NYT: Unlike Russian Wars, US Wars ‘Promote Freedom and Democracy’
The New York Times, in its recent rebuff of comments President Donald Trump made about Russia, seems not to have evolved its understanding of US geopolitics past an 8th grade level. Trump had been asked by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly (2/5/17) why he wouldn’t condemn Vladimir Putin, whom O’Reilly called a “killer.” Continue reading
The New Dark Age 