Donald Trump and US politics

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Breitbart is really dishonest? That'd be news to me. I scan the site regularly enough, and I think I remember catching a sum total of one outright falsehood.

Now, the Breitbart comment sections, well, that's something else. That's not moderated and it's... well, it's interesting.

I dunno if Breitbart is the best example of outright lies, perhaps I should have chosen The Daily Signal or American Thinker or Infowars or any number of countless others. They do, however, choose their subjects and headlines quite carefully. For example, can you guess the difference between these two headlines:





Notice anything... Odd there? How one directly alludes to the race and sexuality of the perpetrator, and the other just... doesn't? Jeez, I wonder what race they decided not to bring up. And why.

Or how about their headline that there were a hundred hate crime hoaxes in the last decade. Sounds damning, and the article plays it up as though it was this huge crisis of legitimacy, that we should call hate crimes in general into question... Until you remember that we face hundreds of thousands of hate crimes each year, and that 100 in a decade is virtually nothing. To be fair, that's not a flat-out lie. That's just manipulating the data in such a way that the reader comes away with a completely false conclusion. Which is worse.

There's a lot more, obviously. Cracked has a good article on some of it here.


But really, this just distracts from the larger point. In the great marketplace of ideas without "censors", the new media has succeeded only if its goals are not at all related to the question of "inform the public". It's also more biased, opinionated, and selective in which stories it runs and how it frames them. Any sins found in the mainstream media, you will find in spades in the alternative media, with the added bonus that in the alternative media, you can't generally rely on people not overtly lying to your face. Although I suppose the same can be said about several FOX News talking heads, so hey, alternative media is only a little worse than the absolute worst mainstream cable network. Hooray!

It's like saying that Steam is better now that it's not "censoring" its products and just allowing anything popular enough on Greenlight onto its services. The marketplace of ideas! Anyone can offer any game! Except that it isn't. It really, really isn't. It's utter shit and everyone knows it.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Check out Sane Progressive on YouTube sometime. <...> or H.A. Goodman

I used to watch every upload and live stream she did, for a long time.

Ironically, she seemed to get less sane over time. Then she went totally bat shit crazy. Right about the time she went live and repeated the start of her monologue like 20 times, sometimes getting a few mins in, sometimes just a few secs, then all of a sudden 'why is this live?'. It was funny, but she's too fucking crazy for me, now. Same with HA, he seemed to just go full clickbait and then prattle on about himself and nothing new.


This forum playing up with saves/edits for anyone else?

Trump Tower Wiretapping Confirmed; Mark Levin Drops The Hammer on Fox News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRprgx6hnPc

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Head_Less wrote:

Trump Tower Wiretapping Confirmed; Mark Levin Drops The Hammer on Fox News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRprgx6hnPc

Yeah, confirmed in a completely not confirmed way.

Thing is, if there was tapping of Trump tower it wouldn't surprise me, hell, I expect it, there should have been, that's exactly what the intel agencies are supposed to be doing. There has been a lot of shady shit going on with Trump, associates and Russians, for a long time.

Nothing on that FOX tube proved it, anyway.


But let's not detract from the Trump claims, 'Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower' that's some very serious, un-presidential, unfounded, childish claim.

You follow the word 'confirmed' with Mark Levin and FOX News then link to a rando youtuber, do you have any idea how absurd that is already?

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Head_Less wrote:

Trump Tower Wiretapping Confirmed; Mark Levin Drops The Hammer on Fox News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRprgx6hnPc

"Confirmed". Uh huh. I love how you link to a 17-minute youtube video by some rando, rather than, say, an actual news report.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the FBI asked the Justice Department to refute the claim. The New York Times and Washington Post also confirm this.

"""sources""" """claim"""

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Xavderion wrote:

"""sources""" """claim"""

Yeah. Turns out that people sharing information from within the government to the press often don't wish to be publicly named, otherwise they might lose their jobs. Go figure.

Seriously, this is childish. Are you denying that we can claim that any of the three aforementioned news sources did due diligence in assuring that that person was a source worth trusting? We're talking about the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN. Two newspapers with a long, impressive record of reporting, and a news network which is not great but still doesn't tend to just make shit up (and let's be clear, that is what you seem to be alleging). Would you care if we did know who shared this information? I mean, it's not like we found out who "Deep Throat" was until decades after the fact. That didn't stop his information from being vital in uncovering the Watergate break-in.

This is the value of constant accusations of "fake news". If Trump can stop people from trusting mainstream and reliable news organizations, then one of the most valuable sources of intel we have on any presidency (but most of all that of a would-be autocrat), leaks from people who prefer to keep a low profile, becomes effectively useless. You are falling for his game. Stop it.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

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Xavderion wrote:

"""sources""" """claim"""

Yeah. Turns out that people sharing information from within the government to the press often don't wish to be publicly named, otherwise they might lose their jobs. Go figure.

Seriously, this is childish. Are you denying that we can claim that any of the three aforementioned news sources did due diligence in assuring that that person was a source worth trusting? We're talking about the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN. Two newspapers with a long, impressive record of reporting, and a news network which is not great but still doesn't tend to just make shit up (and let's be clear, that is what you seem to be alleging). Would you care if we did know who shared this information? I mean, it's not like we found out who "Deep Throat" was until decades after the fact. That didn't stop his information from being vital in uncovering the Watergate break-in.

This is the value of constant accusations of "fake news". If Trump can stop people from trusting mainstream and reliable news organizations, then one of the most valuable sources of intel we have on any presidency (but most of all that of a would-be autocrat), leaks from people who prefer to keep a low profile, becomes effectively useless. You are falling for his game. Stop it.

My point is that """sources""" leak stuff to push their agenda, why else would they talk to the press? That's why they're not trustworthy to me.

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Xavderion wrote:

My point is that """sources""" leak stuff to push their agenda, why else would they talk to the press? That's why they're not trustworthy to me.

"Agenda"? Like, say, combatting a corrupt president who has broken the law? I'm curious what agenda you think Mark Felt was following when he revealed the information that led the Washington Post to watergate. Not saying that Trump broke the law, but there's a reason we're seeing so many leaks out of the Trump administration - it's an absolute mess. At least, according to the leakers. There needs to be oversight and accountability which congressional republicans are not eager to offer. There are good reasons other than partisanship to leak information to the press.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

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Xavderion wrote:

My point is that """sources""" leak stuff to push their agenda, why else would they talk to the press? That's why they're not trustworthy to me.

"Agenda"? Like, say, combatting a corrupt president who has broken the law? I'm curious what agenda you think Mark Felt was following when he revealed the information that led the Washington Post to watergate. Not saying that Trump broke the law, but there's a reason we're seeing so many leaks out of the Trump administration - it's an absolute mess. At least, according to the leakers. There needs to be oversight and accountability which congressional republicans are not eager to offer. There are good reasons other than partisanship to leak information to the press.

That's now the second time you bring up Mark Felt, but it's a logical fallacy. Just because he was trustworthy it doesn't mean every leaker is trustworthy. I'm sure the leakers believe Trump is literally Hitler, that doesn't make it less of an agenda tho.