No, the FCC can't shut down TV stations just because Donald Trump is mad at the news The head of America's telly watchdog, the FCC, said he cannot follow up on Donald Trump's threat to revoke the broadcast licenses of TV networks that run unflattering news coverage of the US president. Speaking at a public policy conference at George Mason University, Virginia, FCC chairman Ajit Pai said the authority of the …
"Ah yes, the birth certificate meme that was started by Hillary's campaign before it was swallowed by the right."
Do you have a source for this to counteract the Wikipedia claim it originated before then in 2004 by this Illinois Republican: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Martin
Which is fake?
"You are seriously going to use Wikipedia, the "encyclopedia" that anyone with an axe can grind can edit, as a source on anything political or controversial?"
Only as a source of sources to question the assertion that birtherism originated from the Clinton campaign. Check those sources - the NYT (lDemocrat leaning) & FreeRepublic (Conservative leaning) and the dates of their archive.
They could be forged of course. But the onus is surely on the person who makes the claim to source it. If they cannot do that then the probability of which is fake swings one way. Which way do think that is?
Absolutely agree. The news media in the US is quite a joke. They all slant things in any way possible to fit their agenda. Whether left or right, better to take it with a grain of salt. But it isn't really due to a political stand! It is all about sensationalizing whatever they deem will garner the most views (or likes?) from their targeted clientele. Neither care too much about the topic of a news report, but rather the ratings that are intricately tied to the advertising dollars. Is it fake news? For the most part, yes, from both camps. I don't trust any news that has even the slightest political underpinnings. On the other hand, the weather seems to be fairly reported, for the most part.
Fox and NBC have been generally regarded as biased in a partisan way for years. Depending on personal political party preference it is quite likely that one will see one as culpably dishonest propaganda mill and the other as a paragon of probing and insightful journalistic virtue.
Hitler references are a bit old don't you think?
Rabble rousing populist with ludicrous hair, unexpectedly elected on a vague platform of making Germany America great again, overturning the political establishment, deeply suspicion of an Abrahamic religion, demonizing foreigners in general, berating the media, choosing lackeys on the basis of loyalty rather than competence and floating the idea of subverting the constitution by an Enabling Act Executive Order?
I see your point. No resemblance whatsoever.
deeply suspicion of an Abrahamic religion,
Really? Have you ever given a thought of exact role of his "Settlers relations" officer? Also known as Ivanka Trump? Or where does his lawyer, now ambassador to Israel sit in that? Or said lawyer relationship with settler organizations?
While Trump itself has strong ties with some financial groups in New York (the Clinton as well, both have daughters who married the son of a crook to have an entry in such groups...) - because his business needs someone else's money to stay afloat, many of his supporters are not so keen on the religion of such financial groups... if I were part of those groups I would be very careful to support Trump.
"Rabble rousing populist with ludicrous hair, unexpectedly elected on a vague platform of making Germany America great again, overturning the political establishment, deeply suspicion of an Abrahamic religion, demonizing foreigners in general, berating the media, choosing lackeys on the basis of loyalty rather than competence and floating the idea of subverting the constitution by an Enabling Act Executive Order?
I see your point. No resemblance whatsoever."
Sure. But enough about Obama, there's a new boy in the Whitehouse now.
As William Russell said to Lord Lucan, of his conduct of the Crimean War: "If you don't want me to report all the damned silly things you are doing, my lord, my advice to you is not to do them!"
(Misquoted from memory, but the spirit is accurate.)
Ah, for those days when journalists had a bit of spirit...
It's not them reporting what he doing on twitter, it's them not saying he's done great things with the economy, is building the wall, and they will not even touch a story on Hillary like how she, the FBI, and Obama made it possible for the Russians to buy 20% of the countries uranium and the Clinton foundation received 145 million and I'm sure Obama received payment and is probably the reason he can afford that fancy mansion among other things. CNN and MSNBC and the NY Times, and Washington Post and Huffington and Shareblue and BBC are all pushing fake news. Hell the worst are the Colleges pushing the crap socialism, communism, feminism, and racism crap basically brainwashing kids that are not smart enough to figure out logical reasoning.
To make sure this in context, I strongly disagree with fascist sentiments, whatever they are dressed up as. Left, right, nationlistic, ethnic whatever. If you are advocating might is right and some other group is to blame for all the ills of the world, then it's very clear down what path things will go.
Trump used his wealth and influence (well, Daddy's wealth and influence) to avoid the draft five times. He then pisses on the people in service whenever it suits him (ie when they aren't sucking up to him). Hitler was awarded the Iron Cross TWICE, and after being wounded went back to the front rather than fully recuperate.
They aren't even on the same page as far as character goes.
Hitler's actions where still horrific.
Luckily Trump is pretty incompetent at running the country. If he had any real ability to move his agenda forward, it would be dangerous. Pence is genuinely scary, since he actually understands the leavers of power. The First Lady probably has a better understanding of how the branches of government function, along with minor details like hand on heart during anthem, that sort of thing.
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"FCC licensing can be challenged. With some of the "great reporting" by the alleged networks recently those challenges may be interesting."
That's interesting, and it would be about time too. Fox "News" shouldn't be allowed to get away with their constant lies.
The spectrum goes something like this:
truth -> inaccuracies -> propoganda -> lies -> Fox.
About time the "fairness doctrine" was brought back. No, America, "free speech" doesn't mean you can present lies as facts on news programmes (even if you try to wing it as "commentary"), unless you support Kim Jons version of free speech.
From the IMDB trivia page
"Upon its initial release, writers Mike Judge and Etan Cohen insisted that they did not intend for the film to be a satire of modern life. However, the writers changed their tune over a decade later. Due to a particularly contentious and unpopular presidential campaign season in 2016 and social developments in the United States, Judge and Cohen admitted on social media that they fear that portions of their film are coming to fruition."
That film gets far too much credit if you ask me.
After the wonderful opening scene about hard working educated people not having time to have kids , and morons having them constantly, it pretty much descends into a series of "American Pie" style dick and fart jokes.
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Well...
Seeing that Pai is obviously in the pocket of large corporations, and broadcasters fit in that category, he would never shut them down because of anything that is not blatant criminal activity (and maybe not even then).
His first loyalty is to the back-handers and future "consultancy fees", his second is to his supposed boss. I think the American Consumer comes in on the loyalty list somewhere just above moldy radishes.
President Trump (peace be upon him) doesn't actually think he can shut down TV stations, nor does he even want to. It's just hyperbole, and part of his style.
And not even needed, either. The anti-Trump hysteria coming from the Hitler-equivalent left and their left wing TV stations are making their ratings sink by themselves. Between the rape factory called Hollywood, the America-hate factory called the NFL, and all the other left wing enemies of civilization self destructing, it's no wonder the ratings are going down the toilet.
Millions of Americans have already "cut the cord" and more are going to.
Thank God for President Trump, finally a leader who represents the people and not special interests.
Exactly, the swamp and their minions hate him because he's killing their gravy train. Hell Chelsea Clintons best friends business got a DOD contract and they don't have a security clearance, kind of like the Pakistani Awan brothers being the house IT staff for the democrats, so stupid and the liberals just let the enemy walk right in the front door and then paid them to spy on them and transfer terabytes of house info right to Pakistan and some is sure to be top secret. Yeah the liberals are retarded and don't even realize it.
From George Carlin: Political Correctness is just Fascism pretending to be manners.
"The anti-Trump hysteria coming from the Hitler-equivalent left"
Obviously there's a lot of fake news since even Fox isn't reporting the hordes of brown-shirted armed supporters of Chomsky marching through the street, smashing the windows of Jewish shops and screaming "Ein Hillary! Ein Reich!"
Impossible that a Trump supporter could be guilty of lies and massive hyperbole.
The prez actually can do a lot. He can declare an emergency of sorts and shut them down, he can sic some security forces on them and have everyone detained for interminably long periods whenever they try to travel by plane, he can make the execs disappear off the face of the planet if he wants to - the list goes on and on as to what he can do if he really wants to be nasty.
For a recent example, O'l Barack fired the CEO of GM and he shook down BP for a billion Dollars after a big oil spill - legally, he had no power to do that, but he did anyway.
As the old UK PM Harold Wilson said about the press:
"If you can't squash them, square them, and if you can't square them, squash them."
For a recent example, O'l Barack fired the CEO of GM and he shook down BP for a billion Dollars after a big oil spill - legally, he had no power to do that, but he did anyway.
The White House asked Rick Waggoner to resign in 2009, and he agreed to, after GM had received $26bn in federal subsidies (mostly from Bush, but the latest $5bn from Obama). Waggoner was widely seen as being most responsible for GM's problems, and had to carry the can.
The DoJ sued BP for offences under the Clean Water Act and BP eventually agreed to settle, paying $1.4bn in fines and civil penalties. To date BP have lost almost all of the litigation brought against them, by states and by class actions, settling for a total of something like $28bn. That's not a presidential shakedown, that's the courts delivering justice.
But you believe otherwise, so let's have some evidence for your claims. Evidence which doesn't come from InfoWars.
The memory of Wilson goes back a long time to when I was a child. However, Lloyd George was documented to have said something similar of the press a 100 years before: "What you can't squash you square and what you can't square, you squash", so it is not impossible that Harold improved on him.
Hell you want fake. Reddit not only has been adjusting the algorithms for post so The Donald doesn't make the front page or just resetting them altogether. They also made it appear that there is only just over 1/2 million subscribers, but someone went and read the source and found a developer faked that and there are actually over 26 million users. Might be because the head of Reddit is a big liberal cuck and does whatever it takes to make Trump look not as popular as he actually is and there are a lot of black, gay, and latino pedes and we love them all. If the queen knew what the hell was actually going on in her country she'd jail the entire government starting with the London Mayor and then the house of commons.
I particularly like the bit where shornofhissenses claimed that Reddit deliberately under-report their user base so they appear to have half a million users when actually they have 26 million. That's so plausible.
Reddit can appeal to advertisers by saying "Yeah, we only have half a million users, but their click-through rate is 50 times higher than for other platforms. Just think how good we'll be when we grow a bit."
All the wannabes who want to hang out with the kewl krowd will obviously go for the platform with the least number of users, so Reddit is guaranteeing rapid growth (which will stunf the rapid growth once it becomes more popular, so they'll have to tell even bigger lies about the number of users).
I suspect Shorn writes the scripts for Alex Jones.
"Maybe the Kremlin's paying by the word now"
Why the Kremlin? There's enough pictures from the US of Trump supporters, so some of them must have the ability to work a keyboard and Internet access. And they do actually say that sort of thing. I see no evidence that Breitbart is Kremlin funded (if it was, it might be a bit more subtle, for one thing).
Apparently the rule has been officially excused!
"A leading psychiatry group has told its members they should not feel bound by a longstanding rule against commenting publicly on the mental state of public figures — even the president." - https://www.statnews.com/2017/07/25/psychiatry-goldwater-rule-trump/
Weirdly since this whole debacle with Trump started , nobody his taken the piss about his white panda eyes where he presumably scrunches his face up while getting getting an orange paint top up.
I noticed this in the short period he was on tv the other day before i felt i had to change channel.
Of cause they where faked, its WELL KNOWN that Crimewatch gets over ten BILLION viewers daily that being half of the UK population. WAKE UP SHEEPLE your country is being overrun and the population figures are SYSTEMATICALLY under reported in order to feed the CORBIN LOVING BBC.
humm, I'm not sure about this, did I get the right amount of bile and vitriol.
"did I get the right amount of bile and vitriol."
No, you're far too restrained, and you can spell and punctuate. Epic fail. You want something like this:
Off CAUSEthey where FAKED!!!1!!, its WELL KNOWN that Crimewatch gets over TEN BILLION!!! viewers EVRY DAY thats being HALF!!! of the UK poplation. WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!!1!!!! you're country is being OVERUN and the pooplation figures are SYSTEMATICALLY UNDERreported in order to feed the CORBIN LOVING BBC.(Brish Brexti CON-Poration)!! FACT. WAKE UP AN SMEL THE COVFEFE!!!
The people writing trash about Trump should have their license revoked since they are making up complete and utter bollocks about him and then calling it News. They usually have no sources, they fake a context, fake headlines, and quite frankly they are a disgrace.
I don't think for one moment Trump is against free speech, but if you are selling yourself as a news network and then make up the News itself well it's quite right you get your license revoked.
So what you don't like Trump, but the only people trying to shut down democracy and freedom using any means necessary seems to be the losing side. Keep it up, but there will be a decisive victory for Trump next time around simply because the fake shit trash media has been revealed already, people can smell the disgusting tactics of the bought "media" outlets from miles away and they don't want it. So the vote next time will simply reflect it.
Don't naively believe all the trash we are instructed to believe by the tinfoil hat brigade. Your criteria for belief seems to be it just has to be a) anti-establishment, b) in line with your own preconceptions and c) something you like. If you want to be the sheep, blindly believing all you are told to believe in, well bully for you. Just go away and do it some place else.
Or, thinking about it: stick around and give us something to laugh about.
The problem is that from the other side of the Atlantic from the US, it is not always possible to directly experience what is going on there. We have to get our information by proxy, and the most immediate ones are the news outlets, particularly TV and social media.
From my perspective, social media is by it's very nature an unreliable source of information. It's very immediacy means that posts are almost always coloured by the posters own beliefs. There is no fact checking, and it is so easy to post partial or incorrect information, and have it go viral. Once information is in the social networks, it's almost impossible to counter. That's not to say it's all wrong, but you cannot use it as a trusted source.
In the UK, I believe we have been lucky to have the BBC, which I would say has been more trustworthy than most. The way I look at it, if the Left are complaining that the BBC is biased to the right, and the Right are claiming that it is biased to the left, then it's probably about in the right place. But even the BBC is prone to sensationalist headlines, and the quality (fact checking, grammar etc.) has declined over time. And they are increasingly relying on other news sources without having the resource to do their own checking.
We do get a view of some of the American TV news outlets here, but Fox News (which I neither liked nor trusted) has dropped off of satellite TV, and I don't really watch either CBS news or CNN. Of other news outlets, Al Jazerra can make interesting watching, but I would not base my world-view on what they say, and frankly, RT is worth watching just to see how bad news coverage can be. The published newspapers appear more commentary rather than news nowadays.
Although we can't really throw stones (being inside the glass house ourselves), US politics appears broken. It appears to be able to be 'bought' by deep pockets, and both the Democrats and the Republicans care too little for the people they represent.
The reason I personally don't trust President Trump is, quite frankly, he is using social media to push his own view of the US, without apparently realizing that many people don't trust the delivery channel. Many of his policies appear misguided or unachievable, and there is a distrust of someone who has clearly come from a radical capitalist background, who suddenly claims to be working for the people.
Some of his policies, like bringing manufacturing back to the US (supposedly to bring quality jobs back), will either increase prices, only deliver low-paid jobs, or just deliver higher automation and no additional jobs, or a combination of all of them. And the policy on The Wall just looked nonsensical. He is trying to turn the clock back on healthcare such that the poorest people will effectively have to rely on charity again. How is that working for 'all the people'. It will help lower-middle class people and above, but not the most needy.
I admit his policies are radical, and certainly don't match previous political thinking, but are they credible? Also, he may be trying to 'drain the swamp' but from here, it looks like he is trying to fill it again with his own Kool Aid cronies.
I guess time will tell whether he is good or bad for the US. One way or another, he will certainly go down in the history books. It's just a shame that the current perceptions of what is happening appear so conflicted at a fundamental level.
Just a general observation.
Why is it acceptable when the current POTUS is criticized for the way they are running things, for their defenders to use "whatabout Clinton? Eh Eh EH?" as defence?
Trump's been in power for nearly a year. Other than handing out cabinet positions to billionaires and generals (who needs civilian control of the military? Wall Street should administer Wall Street!) and reprinting previously successful executive orders what has he done? Has he successfully followed up on any of his campaign policies? Or has he made a risible effort ("turns out healthcare is complex, who knew?") made some excuses then moved on?
Yeah, Clinton was part of the establishment, and I'm sure we'd all be in FEMA camps facing death panels with all our guns taken away from us if she'd been elected, but she's not enough of a bogeyman to justify the crap that this administration is pulling.
Our favourite Nurse Ratched doesn't want to do anything as innocuous as close down TV stations, but jail people for up to 15 years for persistently viewing "far right propaganda," whatever that means. Since UKIP, or people who simply oppose current levels of mass immigration, have been called "far right," this can mean views we want to suppress.
Amber Rudd: I want to make sure those who view despicable terrorist content online, including jihadi websites, far-right propaganda and bomb-making instructions, face the full force of the law,” said Rudd. “There is currently a gap in the law around material [that] is viewed or streamed from the internet without being permanently downloaded.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/amber-rudd-viewers-of-online-terrorist-material-face-15-years-in-jail
Unlike the Americans, we don't have a written constitution or a first amendment to protect us.
>far-right propaganda
There are many I know that would argue the Conservative manifesto is far-right propaganda - or at least it is further right than any mainstream party anywhere else in Europe with the exception of Belarus - and I'm not entirely sure they have elections or manifestos in Belarus. Where exactly is the line between centre-right, right-wing and far-right?
Hans 1: If you don't like immigration, fine, but stand to it and go back to West Africa!
Because as we all know, the problems that we now face with a world population of 7.6 billion, and diametrically opposed cultures with vast numbers of adherents, are exactly the same as those that faced Early Man on the savannas of Africa 100 000 years ago.
diametrically opposed cultures
Us two seem to have diametrically opposed cultures, so it seems, so what ? The more you differ from me, the more you can enrich me, has worked for me for over 40 years ... judging people by their culture, belief (e.g. religion), ethnic group, country of birth, Bohr knows what, is plain infantile .... Where does algebra, alcohol, algorithm come from, for example ? [since the Muslims are currently scapegoats worldwide]
There is a reason why we have the notion of "politically correct", it has to do with burning books and then people - in the history of the world, they always start burning books, then slaughter people. It always starts with: But, they differ from us, I beg you, don't fall for that!
Go watch Pokahiontas, Sagan's Pale Blue Dot (on youtube, free!), or I dunno, read some books ... All humans share but this planet, we have but one, our kids must be able to live in a world without silly wars (we can do it), for that, we need to teach our kids to learn to respect people from all cultures.
Anybody should be entitled to live where they choose to live.
DISCLAIMER: I am a Brit, have spent over 90% of my life in different countries ... I am lucky, I am white, from the UK, so I can somewhat freely choose where I live ... why me and not everybody else ? Because I happened to be born in the UK ? Ok, but Feynman, what does that change ?
@technoise though I doubt we agree on much I will always defend your right to argue in favour of those opposing positions.
What I won't defend, and the law will prosecute, is those using or threatening acts of terrorism to further their agenda. Doesn't matter if you're left or right, violence is not the answer.
Godwin's law is an Internet adage that asserts that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1" That being said, it really is difficult not to see the the parallels between our fearless leader and the fascist leader.
The Electoral College is supposed to protect us if we vote in a moron for President. In that event, they are supposed to oppose the majority. They failed.
Godwin's law
Yes, indeed, however, the law described what was happening years ago, during the various ego wars, discoursing on subjects that had nothing or only very little to do with politics.
You must admit that in recent years, we are more and more confronted with people trying to push social Darwinism, discrimination, scapegoating or more generally populist agendas ... you have the president of the United States calling neo nazis "decent people" ... things have changed ever so much.
Funnily enough, it is usually the neo nazi nutters who mutter the Godwin law in a discussion ... it is their only defense because, in the mindset of most decent people, neo nazis are scumbags.
Putinbots, putinbots surfing on the net,
putinbots, putinbots, Putin's band of men,
they type from a script,
and lie quite a lot,
putinbots, putinbots...
Infesting forums with Kremlin propaganda since... - well, well before Putin's murderous war against Ukraine in 2014.
While Himself can't shut down the "news media" without *some* legal justification, there are certainly legal grounds to withdraw a broadcast license, both south of and north of the 52nd. That (P)ocket (A)djunct of broadcast (I)ndustry happens to breathe the "free speech" line means nothing, the industry standards are law in the US, and they do state grounds for loosing a license.
Himself has all sorts of Greatest Wonderfullest Ideas for the USofA and would desperately like to make his fairytales come true, however, he seems to have misunderstood the playbook. Perhaps because he's never settled much below the 35th floor of wallstreet. Since the money up there is all over the place, he just kinda figures it works that way for *everyone* in the US. Thus as far as himself is concerned, all those boys and girls cavorting the wallstreet money pools *have* to know what they're doing. So they should be running the government too.
That the Regan era lie of the century is a lie just has not made it to their ears, just because the money *does* trickle down to them. That it doesn't go any farther doesn't seem to register.
That the media have become effectively the publishing arm of one corner of the other of wallstreet does not bother the crew running the show in the least. That sensationalism is the only thing getting attention in fact makes that lot absolutely ecstatic. Thus the real news of the day, the boring mundane stuff doesn't get reported and the ants down below the 5th floor end up screaming and raging at one another fighting tooth and nail over the crumbs that make it to the ground, hating one another for using labels stamped on them by media hysteria, and engendering more hate from another herd in a different corner by tossing out yet another label.
And the swamp, now draining is revealing the slime covered reptiles that have lurked below the water line for ages, and shown that they are not only ugly and vile, but now that they are about, show just how quickly they can consume a new arrival.
Keep in mind, please, that the arms industry is still rocking along in a country that spends more on it's military than the next twenty-three countries combined. Just where do you think those swamp creatures and wallstreet denizens came from?
And in the meantime on the other two swamps, we have a fellow who has made no bones about owning the country he runs, and if you don't sell it to him, he'll arrange to have you arrested, tried, convicted and denuded of your assets, or the other alternative, where effectively the mafia have been running the country since the mid '50s under the guise of a political party with no opponents, and have wisely acquired most of the debt of the other two swamps.
Old chinese proverb/curse:
May you live in interesting times.
I love that a UK liberals are so much against Trump when Corbyn is literally aligned with the likes of Hitler like Hamas and has hitleresque policy of anti-Semitism ... worry about your backyard ... last I checked BBC is pro-sharia, pro-jihad and god forbid you insult your Islamic majority ... your mayor condones terror attacks, while police puts people in jail who eat bacon in front of jihadists ... STFU
Actually Lord E, I'd be inclined to suggest that the last free country in the world is very likely one of those little islands in the south pacific that has no oil, no gold, no coal, no gems or uranium. Probably mostly sand, a few trees and a canoe or two. Since its not likely to be monetised by someone, it will be (relatively) free. Kurdistan likely has coal and uranium.
Fair point Alistair. I was looking for a country with parallels to the US - tinpot dictator with delusions of grandeur, rule of law long since superseded by gestapo policing, more firearms than people, 99% of the wealth concentrated in 0,03% of the population, and so on.
But a Pacific island is good too - until the US decides they want it for nukular testing or somesuch...
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