Tag: media

CNN Caught Editing RFK Jr Speech To Mislead Viewers

When he appeared on CNN last week, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was confronted with a video from one of his speeches — a video CNN clipped to convey a false impression that he had compared Covid restrictions to conditions in Nazi Germany. 

The dishonest ambush came on Dec. 15 as Kennedy was interviewed by former MSNBC anchor Kasie Hunt. Hunt showed a video of Kennedy speaking at a January 2022 rally in Washington, which includes a passage in which he said…

“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.

Today, the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run and none of us can hide.”  

Hunt had framed the clip to suggest Kennedy was specifically comparing Covid mandates to Hitler’s Germany.

As we’ll soon show, that was false.

In the passage from which the above excerpt was drawn, Kennedy was broadly addressing the rise of technology that threatens to enable a “turnkey totalitarianism” that would wildly surpass the capabilities of Hitler’s Nazi regime.   

To spice things up, Hunt next displayed a tweet from Kennedy’s own wife, Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines, which came a few days after the speech. 

At the time, Hines had been repeatedly nagged by NBC News reporter Ben Collins and others on social media asking if she stood by Kennedy’s remarks. She eventually folded and posted a tweet in which she threw her own husband under the bus, embracing the ridiculous, politically-correct notion — propped up by the likes of the Anti-Defamation League — that nobody’s allowed to compare anything to the Holocaust.

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US Media Suppressed Their Government’s Role in Ousting Brazil’s Government

In a new peer-reviewed academic article in Latin American Perspectives (11/19/23), “Anticorruption and Imperialist Blind Spots: The Role of the United States in Brazil’s Long Coup,” Sean T. Mitchell, Rafael Ioris, Kathy Swart, Bryan Pitts and I prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the US Department of Justice was a key actor in what we call Brazil’s “long coup.” This was the period from 2014, beginning with the lead up to the illegitimate 2016 impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, to the November 2019 release of then-former, now-current President Lula da Silva from political imprisonment.

“For over half a century, intervening against democratically elected governments has been only half the story,” we wrote; “the second half involves justifying, minimizing or denying US involvement.” The article criticized US scholars on Latin America for ignoring a significant body of evidence of this involvement. It called on Latin Americanists to return to the anti-imperialist tradition that established their field as a leading source of informed criticism of US foreign policy.

In this article, I will make the same call to US journalists who lived in Brazil during this period who remained silent about their government’s role in removing Brazil’s front-running presidential candidate in the 2018 elections, opening the door for the right-wing extremist No. 2 candidate, Jair Bolsonaro.

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Narrative vs. Reality

As the march towards election day 2024 approaches, the narratives that define the election season take shape now. The current battle is over the economic narrative. Journalists and pundits are disturbed that Americans do not realize how things are better today than they were in January of 2021. Why can the plebeians not see the contorted statistical truth? This is part of the failed return to normalcy narrative that was the sales pitch in 2020, but it is one that the managerial class is not a monolith on and this makes the most loyal regime elements upset. This gap between message and reality on the ground is an issue and will be a growing issue as the regime is desperate for legitimacy.

In the complex tapestry of political regimes, the manipulation of economic statistics stands as a formidable tool for those seeking to maintain a facade of stability and control. China’s statistics have been mocked for years as detached from reality or unreliable in an effort to sell to Chinese citizens and potential foreign clients that everything is growing fast. The CCP has delivered to millions, but maybe not as fantastic as they proclaim. We can see the intricate interplay between questionable legitimacy and the strategic concealment of recessions, unraveling the motives behind such actions and their profound implications for both governance and the governed.

At the heart of this deceptive play lies the inherent connection between economic performance and political legitimacy. A regime faced with doubts about its mandate to govern may resort to fabricating economic indicators to project an image of prosperity. By doing so, it seeks to bolster public confidence, portraying itself as a capable steward of the nation’s well-being. At this point in American history with the gulf between the ideology of the governing class and nearly half of its internal subjects, delivering on prosperity is a major support for their continued rule.

One primary motive for such manipulation is the fear of unrest and dissent. A government with questionable legitimacy understands that economic downturns can serve as potent catalysts for public discontent. A recession brings with it rising unemployment, falling incomes, and a general sense of insecurity. By concealing the true extent of economic challenges, the regime attempts to maintain a semblance of normalcy, suppressing the potential for mass protests or calls for political change. Americans know the federal government will jail those who walk around the Capitol during a riot, but could they throw thousands more into jail for basic protests.

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Marc Crispin Miller Exposes The “Rolling Thunder Global Propaganda” Campaign

Dr. Miller says from infection to injection, Covid 19 was a global “propaganda masterpiece.”

Propaganda on this level has never happened before in human history. Dr. Miller explains,

“The media has been crucial to this entire operation, and I would take that a little further. I would say since the beginning of 2020, we have been subjected to a ‘Rolling Thunder of Propaganda’ drives one after another. 

First, there was the (CV19) virus panic.

Then, there was the George Floyd moment. Now, there is a new documentary that shows George Floyd was not actually murdered… It’s called ‘The Fall of Minneapolis.’…

There was the 2020 Election. There was the so-called ‘insurrection.’ That was a wave of crackpot hysteria… because it was not an insurrection…or coup attempt.

Then, there was Ukraine, and the entire back story of Russia’s invasion was completely missing from all the coverage…

This is all the result of the media doing the opposite of what it is supposed to do. The ‘Framers’ (of the Constitution) realized the absolute necessity of having a free press…

This was before the corporate media cartels, which is what we have now… The Framers knew… to offer a counterforce to federal power, we absolutely had to have a free press…

The reason why the press has First Amendment protections is it… tells truths the federal authorities does not want us to know.

To say the press has failed abysmally is actually giving them too much credit.

They have been instrumental throughout this nightmare, whose aim is radical depopulation and destruction of democracy… if you just tell the other side of the story, you are public enemy #1.”

With more than 700 million mRNA CV19 bioweapon injections in the US alone and more than 13 billion CV19 injections globally, the implications of this depopulation agenda is the biggest story ever short of a global thermal nuclear exchange.

This, too, was part of the “Rolling Thunder Global Propaganda” campaign.

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NY Times Targets Pro-Trump Memes, Equates Them with Deepfakes and Advocates for Regulation

It’s that time of the US election cycle again: what were formerly known as “newspapers of record” attempting to, for political reasons, promote odd ideas like regulating jokes.

It’s the New York Times this time, looking like it’s terrified that Donald Trump might be successful in his new presidential bid, and so going guns blazing after what it calls his “troll army.”

And “troll” here means – meme creators. As for the memes themselves, the NYT either pretends not to or doesn’t get the joke – namely, that they are jokes, and basically treats them as sinister tools for peddling misinformation and deepfakes.

To add insult to the paper’s injury, the memes not only support the Trump campaign, but Trump also enjoys them, and takes time to communicate with the meme creators.

The article claims that there is a large number of “sexist and racist tropes” being repeated in these memes, but singles out a video collection of some of President Biden’s many gaffes.

Trump apparently liked the original and used it during his rallies, but the gaffes are truly so many, that he thought a few more could be added to the video, which the creator was happy to do.

This, the NYT treats as a very serious matter, referring to the creator as “effectively” being no less than a member of “a shadow online ad agency” for Trump – even though he does not work for him.

What happened to the right to back a presidential candidate, express it in a humorous way, and not be treated with suspicion and described in over-the-top dramatic tone, such as that these creators with the memes, “brutally denigrate” Biden, and show “unrelenting cruelty of internet trolls” who resort to “vulgar invectives”?

But it’s the suggested “solutions” that are the most bizarre part of the article.

One is the implication that memes should be treated as ads that run on TV and radio, meaning, regulated for “accuracy, fairness and transparency.”

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Viral footage showed protesters chanting ‘gas the Jews’. Nobody can verify it

The original source of videos appearing to show pro-Palestine protesters chanting “gas the Jews” has refused to provide unedited footage as police and independent fact-checkers have been unable to verify whether the chants happened.

On October 9, pro-Palestine protesters gathered in front of the Sydney Opera House as it was lit in blue in solidarity with Israel after the October 7 Hamas attack. At least two men were arrested after allegedly clashing with police at the rally, where some members of the crowd shouted anti-Semitic chants such as “fuck the Jews”, according to multiple reports. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong condemned the protests.

Other videos shared by conservative Jewish group the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) taken during the protest purports to show some attendees also chanting “gas the Jews”. This account is significant as the “gas the Jews” chant is likely to meet the criminal threshold for threatening or inciting violence (unlike the other anti-Semitic slogans that were chanted) and because the viral footage has become totemic of the rising wave of anti-Semitism in Australia and around the world.The Israel-Hamas war confirms the erosion of the right to protest in AustraliaRead More

The morning after the protest, the AJA shared two videos to X, formerly known as Twitter, both consisting of multiple shots of the protest cut together along with captioned audio saying “gas the Jews”. The first is a 25-second video shared with the text “Sydney, 2023 Muslim mob of 100s chant ‘Gas the Jews’ ”. The second is a 59-second video with the description “UNCUT VERSION — SHOCKING ‘Gas The Jews’ on the steps of the Sydney Opera House”, and has been viewed more than 6 million times.

Based on these videos, news outlets around the world published reports of the “gas the Jews” chants, including Reuters (which noted that the video was “unverified”), the New York Post and Fox News. 

In the aftermath of the protest, NSW Police rejected an application for a subsequent pro-Palestine protest. Premier Chris Minns declared that activists would not be allowed to “commandeer our streets” — although future protests were approved and have taken place — and his government introduced legislation to “strengthen” hate speech laws by making it easier to prosecute people who threaten or incite violence against protected groups. 

But despite the enormous amount of attention and considerable response to the reports, third parties have been unable to verify the “gas the Jews” claim, and further footage corroborating the chants has failed to emerge. Crikey has reviewed other footage from the protest captured by other attendees but has been unable to find any corroborating the AJA’s claim.

NSW Police told Crikey that no charges hade been laid relating to the alleged chant more than two months after assistant commissioner Tony Cooke told a press conference it was reviewing footage of the protest.

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Washington Post Op-Ed Argues That Colleges Should ‘Restrict’ Speech To Fight Antisemitism

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, college campuses around the country have been embroiled in intense anti-Israel protests. Elite college campuses have seen particularly aggressive demonstrations that have frequently included outright support for Hamas.

On December 5th, the college presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) appeared at a Congressional hearing, where they were grilled on their schools’ response to allegations of campus anti-Semitism. During the hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), asked all three if “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate their school’s policies. 

“It is a context-dependent situation,” University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill responded. “If the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment,”

Outrage over Magill’s answer—both from those who wished to see her commit to banning legal but offensive anti-Semitic speech and from those who pointed out Penn’s consistent record of punishing professors for much less offensive expression—culminated in her resignation on Saturday.

While First Amendment advocates have expressed hope that these recent controversies would show just how easily abused anti “hate speech” rules on college campuses are, many administrators seem to be taking the opposite position, advocating for more censorship, not less.

On Sunday, Claire O. Finkelstein, who is a member of Penn’s Open Expression Committee and chairs the law school’s committee on academic freedom, took to the pages of The Washington Post in an article titled “To fight antisemitism on campuses, we must restrict speech.”

In it, Finkelstein farcically argued that “the value of free speech has been elevated to a near-sacred level on university campuses,” adding that, “as a result, universities have had to tolerate hate speech.”

The idea that free speech is treated as “near-sacred” on college campuses is beyond absurd. Far from being treated as sacrosanct, free speech and free expression are constantly under fire at American college campuses, elite colleges most of all. 

As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) CEO Greg Lukianoff points out, over the past decade, “we know of more than 1,000 campaigns to get professors punished for their free speech or academic freedom. Of those, about two-thirds succeeded in getting the professor punished.” 

The most disturbing detail? Lukianoff says that almost 200 of these professors were fired, “nearly twice the number estimated for the Red Scare.”

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WEF Likens “Misinformation” To A Cybersecurity Issue In Calls For More Action

According to a recent study by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and allied organizations, cybersecurity concerns are taking on new dimensions. Misinformation and disinformation disseminated via the internet are now being framed as key challenges in ensuring “cybersecurity.” The troubling report was launched on December 5 and designated as “Cybersecurity Futures 2030: New Foundations.”

The study postulates the future of cybersecurity lies rather in safeguarding the integrity and source of data. This introduces a novel perspective on the significance of locating and quashing fabricated information, cynically tagged as “mis”- or “dis-information” held in the cybersecurity domain.

Various international conferences, both virtual and geo-located, were instrumental in shaping the insights of the study. Sessions held across the world, in conjunction with an online gathering inviting participants across Europe, were supposedly catalysts in outlining the futuristic, hypothetical scenarios catapulting cybersecurity to 2030.

The WEF report pushes digital security “literacy training” as quintessential to warding off the threats posed by misinformation and disinformation, referring to them as the “core of cyber concerns.” This is similar to controversial proposals for “media literacy” that are taking place across some governments, most recently California.

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Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey Launches Official Investigation Into Media Matters

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has launched an investigation into Media Matters for America (“Media Matters”), a pro-censorship media monitoring organization, citing allegations of potentially unlawful business practices. The focus of the probe revolves around Media Matters’ strategies in targeting advertisers on social media platforms and their approach to content aimed at impacting various businesses and organizations.

Key areas of the investigation include the preservation of internal communications related to strategies for targeting advertisers on X (formerly known as Twitter), interactions with major corporations like IBM, Lionsgate Entertainment, Apple, Disney, Warner Brothers Discovery, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Sony, Ubisoft, and Walmart, and communications with third parties about these subjects. The Attorney General’s office is also scrutinizing Media Matters’ internal policies and operations concerning the generation of content intended to “cancel,” “deplatform,” “demonetize,” or interfere with Missouri-based businesses or those utilized by Missouri residents.

The letter states: “As you are no doubt aware, a federal lawsuit has been filed against Media Matters, raising serious allegations that your firm falsely and deceptively manipulated the algorithm on X (formerly known as Twitter) through coordinated, inauthentic behavior and that you did so in an attempt to defame the organization and cause advertisers to pull their support from the platform, thus harming free speech.”

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Al Gore Says People Having Access to Non-Mainstream Information ‘Threatens Democracy’

Al Gore says that people having access to information outside of mainstream media sources is a threat to “democracy” and that social media algorithms “ought to be banned.”

Yes, really.

Gore made the comments during an appearance at the Cop28 climate change hysteria conference in Dubai.

Gore whined that social media had “disrupted the balances that used to exist that made representative democracy work much better.”

The former Vice President said that functioning democracy relied on a “shared base of knowledge that serves as a basis for reasoning together collectively” but that “social media that is dominated by algorithms” upsets this balance.

According to Gore, people are being pulled down “rabbit holes” by algorithms that are “the digital equivalent of AR-15s – they ought to be banned, they really ought to be banned!”

Gore claimed, “It’s an abuse of the public forum” and that people were being sucked into echo chambers.

“If you spend too much time in the echo chamber, what’s weaponized is another form of AI, not artificial intelligence, artificial insanity! I’m serious!” he added.

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