Fake news was originally a Leftist term

As I recollect it, the term first arose in response to a story (put about by Russians, no doubt) that Hillary was running some sort of racket out of a NYC pizza joint.  It WAS a false story and Democrat operatives immediately dubbed it "fake news".  The concept really caught on after that

In a Tedx Talk at the University of Nevada a couple of weeks ago (watch the video below) investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson revealed the origins of the "fake news" narrative that was aggressively pushed by the liberal media and Democrat politicians during the 2016 election, and how it was later flipped by President Donald Trump.

Attkisson pointed out that "fake news" in the form of tabloid journalism and false media narratives has always been around under different names.

But she noticed that in 2016, there seemed to be a concerted effort by the MSM to focus America's attention on the idea of "fake news" in conservative media. That looked like a propaganda effort to Attkisson, so she did a little digging and traced the new spin to a little non-profit called "First Draft," which, she said, "appears to be the about the first to use 'fake news' in its modern context."

"On September 13, 2016, First Draft announced a partnership to tackle malicious hoaxes and fake news reports," Attkisson explained. "The goal was supposedly to separate wheat from chaff, to prevent unproven conspiracy talk from figuring prominently in internet searches. To relegate today's version of the alien baby story to a special internet oblivion."

She noted that a month later, then-President Obama chimed in.

"He insisted in a speech that he too thought somebody needed to step in and curate information of this wild, wild West media environment," she said, pointing out that "nobody in the public had been clamoring for any such thing."

Yet suddenly the subject of fake news was dominating headlines all over America as if the media had received "its marching orders," she recounted. "Fake news, they insisted, was an imminent threat to American democracy."

Attkisson, who has studied the manipulative moneyed interests behind the media industry, said that "few themes arise in our environment organically." She noted that she always found it helpful to "follow the money."

"What if the whole anti-fake news campaign was an effort on somebody's part to keep us from seeing or believing certain websites and stories by controversializing them or labeling them as fake news?" Attkisson posited.

Digging deeper, she discovered that Google was one of the big donors behind First Draft's "fake news" messaging. Google's parent company, Alphabet, was run by Eric Schmidt, who happened to be a huge Hillary Clinton supporter.

Schmidt "offered himself up as a campaign adviser and became a top multi-million donor to it. His company funded First Draft around the start of the election cycle," Attkisson said. "Not surprisingly, Hillary was soon to jump aboard the anti-fake news train and her surrogate David Brock of Media Matters privately told donors he was the one who convinced Facebook to join the effort."

Attkisson declared that "the whole thing smacked of the roll-out of a propaganda campaign." Attkisson added, "But something happened that nobody expected. The anti-fake news campaign backfired. Each time advocates cried fake news, Donald Trump called them 'fake news' until he'd co-opted the term so completely that even those who [were] originally promoting it started running from it -- including the Washington Post," which she noted later backed away from using the term.

Attkisson called Trump's accomplishment a "hostile takeover" of the term

SOURCE

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Trump Turns Obama Quote Against Him

In their typically psychopathic way, Leftists will say anything that suits them at the time, regardless of facts or evidence.  Very often, however, their airy assertions come back to haunt them. Below would seem to be an example of that

President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to point out that just weeks before Election Day in 2016, then-President Barack Obama suggested it would be close to impossible to “rig” a presidential election.

Trump’s tweets came in response to claims that his campaign colluded with Russia to defeat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and win the presidency.

But during an October 2016 news conference with then-Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, it was Obama who told Trump to “stop whining” about election rigging.

“There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America’s elections, in part because they’re so decentralized and the numbers of votes involved,” Obama said at the time, according to Politico.

“There’s no evidence that that has happened in the past or that there are instances in which that will happen this time,” he added. “And so, I‘d advise Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.”

On Tuesday, Trump used Obama’s words against him to argue that following the election, Democrats changed their tune.

“When I easily won the Electoral College, the whole game changed and the Russian excuse became the narrative of the Dems,” Trump wrote

Muller’s report included what Republicans are calling even more vindication for the Trump campaign team. In addition to finding that no American was knowingly involved and that Russian activities did not ultimately sway the presidential election, the exhaustive report also determined that the Russian operation began as early as 2014, long before Trump launched his campaign, and that they sought to boost Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign during the Democrat primaries.

Trump later said on Tuesday that he has been “much tougher on Russia than Obama.”

SOURCE

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School shootings CAN be prevented:  Israel shows how

I’m a small government guy, however, it’s sadly apparent that the United States of America is paralyzed with political indecision over something the State of Israel figured out more than 40 years ago: all schools should have mandated security features and active shooter protocols.

The horrific scene in Parkland, and the upsetting videos broadcast from the school during the shooting, should be the final straw.  The kids should not have been hiding and screaming, they should have been in the midst of a pre-determined security protocol.

President Trump, if the Department of Education can force Americans to deal with the disaster of Common Core, it can certainly issue a federal mandate regarding school security. The time is now. 

My personal manifesto is that government should never get involved in an issue unless an ongoing clear and present danger exists to large numbers of people, and that any regulation or legislation has a sunset provision.

Here we are.

In 1974, Israel endured the Ma’alot Massacre in which “Palestinian” terrorists took 115 people hostage at Netiv Meir Elementary School.  Twenty-two children and three others were killed and 68 injured.  Israel now requires schools with 100 or more students to have a guard posted. The civilian police force handles the entire security system of all schools from kindergarten through college.  The Ministry of Education funds shelters and fences, reinforces school buses, and hires and trains guards.

Guards don’t just stand around.  They check everyone entering, and engage threats.

And yeah, they’ve got guns.The lawful purposes for carrying guns are very clear: protect school personnel and students, create a sense of security, deter the ill-intentioned, and provide self-defense.

Common sense.   Except to the illogical dullards who claim that “adding guns to schools won’t fix anything” and are fixated on the NRA and the ridiculous notions that gun laws magically stop criminals and crazy people from obtaining one of the 300 million guns in our country.

But more to the point, Israel’s Police Community & Civil Guard Department have a preventative care program that encourages safe behavior and offers violence protection strategies in normal situations.  Yet students are also trained in how to respond to an active shooter situation.

Ben Goldstein, an American who made aliyah to Israel, and now serves as volunteer security and supporter of IDF soldiers, says America is behind the curve.  Nevertheless, he says, it doesn’t take much for students and teachers to protect themselves.

“Barricade, barricade. Are desks movable?  Is the teacher’s desk movable?  Can they barricade inside of 20 seconds? If the shooter gets in, the kids should take whatever they’ve got and attack.  They can’t just sit there frozen or they will die.  America does earthquake drills, why not active shooter drills?   More kids have been killed by shooters than earthquakes.”

Barricading works, says Goldstein. In an active shooter situation, where a gunman is roaming a campus, five minutes is a lifetime, enough time for law enforcement to get to the scene.  “In those five minutes, the shooter will have to move from class to class, reload, clear malfunctions, all that stuff takes time.  And during gunfire lulls, kids must be taught to do something.  Don’t freeze.Moving once gets you out of that deer-in-headlights space.  Take command of the classroom.”

There is no other way, says Goldstein, and “sometimes children must take matters into their own hands.If the school has no proper security – two guards in case one gets shot, and no active shooter protocol, and no doors to withstand an attack – then the child needs to run as fast as they can AWAY from the shooter.”

Because right now, America is the deer-in-headlights.  Gun control debates are a distraction and impractical, and criminals ignore laws anyway.Crazy people are obviously not being dealt with properly – students at Parkland even predicted this would happen.

The only solution is for America to toughen up.  We have a pugilist for a president, and that is long overdue.  Now its time for President Trump to fight for our children by wielding government power in the proper manner, to do something that any reasoned American would agree with. 

Instead of handing out participation trophies, let’s make our kids into the self-reliant, pro-active defenders of themselves and others.

Mr. President, the time is now.

SOURCE

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Scapegoating the NRA

The FBI failed to investigate warnings about the Florida school shooter, but never mind that. And the National Rifle Association has no control over school shootings, but never mind that, either.

Two newly minted gun control activists from Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida are defending the FBI, while demanding that NRA "child murderers" dismantle and disband. And they have declined an invitation to discuss their concerns with President Donald Trump, whom they call "disgusting."

But on the Sunday talk shows, the students said their upcoming "March for Our Lives" in Washington is not political.

"So what do you say to the NRA?" CNN's Alisyn Camerota asked student activists Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg on Monday morning.

"Um, disband. Dismantle," Gonzalez replied.

"And don't make another organization under a different name," David Hogg said.

"Yeah, don't make another organization under a different name," Gonzalez agreed. "Don't you dare come back here. The fact that you were in power for so long and that you had so much influence for so long in America just goes to show how much time and effort we have to spend on fixing our country. And gun control is just the first thing right now, the first thing that we are mainly focusing on."

Alisyn Camerota urged the students on: "Look, I don't have to tell you guys, they give millions of dollars to politicians. They have a very powerful tool, so I mean, how do you expect politicians who need money to keep running for office to say no to the NRA?"

"Because we keep telling them, that if they accept this blood money, they are against the children," Gonzalez replied. "They are against the people who are dying. And there's no other way to put it at this point. You are either funding the killers or you are standing with the children. The children who have no money. We don't have jobs. So we can't pay for your campaign. We would hope that you have the decent morality to support us at this point."

"And not take money from people that want to keep lessening gun legislation and making it even easier for these horrifying people to get guns," Hogg interjected. "Because if you can't get elected without taking money from child murderers, why are you running?"

Camerota read one of President Trump's tweets sent over the weekend: "Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign -- there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!" Trump wrote.

Camerota asked the students to react to that tweet:

"I think it's disgusting, personally," Hogg said. "My father's a retired FBI agent, and the FBI are some of the hardest working individuals I've ever seen in my life. They work every day, 24-7, to ensure the lives of every single American in this country, and it's wrong that the president is blaming them for this. After all, he is in charge of the FBI -- he can't put that off on them. He is in charge of them, and these people, what they love to do is push this off on the bureaucracy and say it's not them. He is in charge of the FBI..."

Gonzalez noted FBI agents were among the first responders who helped students get to safety; and "the fact that he wants to discredit them in any way and that he's trying to shift our focus onto them is -- it's not acceptable."

"Disgusting," Hogg agreed.

Both Hogg and Gonzalez said they have been invited to a listening session to share their concerns with President Trump, but neither of them are going. They're blowing off Trump for CNN's Jake Tapper, who is hosting what they called a previously scheduled town hall on CNN.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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